WatersLethe's page

Definitely an unfortunate gap in the rules.

If I was a bandit fighting the PCs, and I got grappled by a Nagaji with their arms, I know I'd be disappointed.

Bandit, being grabbed: "Oh... "

Nagaji: "Wait, what's with that reaction?"

Bandit: "It's nothing. Nevermind."

Nagaji: "....."

Bandit, struggling half-heartedly: "I mean, it's a totally fine grapple, no complaints, but..." *glances meaningfully at the tail*

Nagaji, snapping the bandit's neck: "Why do they always have to make it weird?"

Luis Loza on Reddit: "The panabas is actually something I have my eye on. We don't ever want to invalidate other weapons, so we'll probably have to revisit it and tweak it a bit to allow scimitars and falchions to maintain their niche."

The Panabas has been noted for errata already.

Nothing stops you from putting Returning on the bandolier to enable having two 1 bulk thrown items, right?

I'm really excited about this one!

Thanks for the clarifications!

This seems like a good spell to have on a wand or scroll.

Uh, not really no. For one, cantrips aren't really good on those, and for another the action cost of retrieving a wand or scroll would make it absolutely worthless.

Praying for a surprise Starfinder 2 announcement with full on PF2 chassis compatibility!

I would be very interested in a wave caster chassis with actually good hexes instead of martial capability.

Based on my understanding of Paizo's financials, they are not even remotely close to having the funds to set that up now. They have a bunch of looming issues, not least of which is catching up with cost of living increases.

Setting up an overseas hub would be a major lift, and introduce scaling hurdles at every turn. I wouldn't expect them to even seriously contemplate it unless the OGL-driven sales increases from January continue for the next 5+ months, and even then only if there's hard data about EU demand.

Yup, you just move twice at +5 base speed with the same two actions required to cast the spell. If you use your third action in the round to move as well, you will have gotten a total of +15 feet of distance.

Very handy little spell to have, in my opinion, for anyone dipping for non-offensive cantrips. A rogue might find themselves moving twice quite often to safely get into a flanking position.

It's neat

if you support yourself on your tail like a kangaroo, its a flying butt buttress

A kangaroo leaning back on its flying butt buttress admiring the butte in the distance

WatersLethe wrote:

Ravingdork wrote:

pauljathome wrote:

In PF1 you could build sufficiently broken characters that they could play in a seriously sub par way (abandon team mates, play commoners, use bad items, etc) and the group would still be viable.

I still remember the commoner farmer that used their vast starting funds exclusively on cattle, then stampeded elder demigods to death.

*shudders*

Yeah yeah, cattlegeddon, we've all seen it

I'd have gone with Apocowlypse, myself, but it'd be a boring ol' world if we were all the same.

Dangit. That's good.

pauljathome wrote:

In PF1 you could build sufficiently broken characters that they could play in a seriously sub par way (abandon team mates, play commoners, use bad items, etc) and the group would still be viable.

I still remember the commoner farmer that used their vast starting funds exclusively on cattle, then stampeded elder demigods to death.

*shudders*

Yeah yeah, cattlegeddon, we've all seen it

I love PF2E buttes

That basically means the DM is writing the game rules and experimenting during play just to try to find a challenging scenario for the players.

Or experimenting outside of play. I can't count the number of times I've had to run mock battles against myself to test out if I had hit the mark with an encounter I designed in PF1.

It was so much work to make the game satisfying.

Honestly, the thing I miss the most from pathfinder 1e as a GM is monsters with player level. Taking a troll, who's scary at low level but a chump at higher level, and giving him some fighter level was a great way to have "exceptionnal" foes from all kind of sentient species that get outclassed quickly. It was especially good to make them "unique", in a way a simple advanced template just can't do.

I've only been a player in 2e so far, but from what I've learn there is no way of customizing monsters like that, appart from building a new one altogether.

Familiarity with the system will allow you to do that pretty easily. You wouldn't believe how much can change by adding a class ability to a monster. Giving an attack of opportunity to a creature that the party "knows" doesn't have it can be a shock, and implies a whole lot going on behind the scenes. Where did this guy get the martial training? Why is it a cut above the others?

The "easy" way to do this sort of thing is to give the Elite adjustment and something along the lines of AoO, spells, sneak attack, devise a stratagem, or inspire courage.

The "hard" way is to start with a PC build and add the most important species features on top.

I've done both, with more confidence than I had in PF1, due to the math being more transparent.

I could nitpick this thread to death (some of the OP's premises are plain wrong and others are personal preference) but I'll instead summarize it like this:

PF1 was a fun game but its math was absolutely broken, and the only reason it worked for us was because of herculean effort on my (the GM) part. Lamenting things that "worked" there not working in PF2 almost always boils down to missing overpowered options and fundamentally busted system math that let you get away with more, while ignoring all the negatives of that paradigm including the new players who had to deal with just plain sucking because they didn't have system mastery.

PF2's math is highly functional, and has allowed me to drop new players in with very little effort or guidance. It has been a joy to GM and play, and many of the character concepts some people complain "don't work" actually work just fine, but not in the same broken manner as PF1.

That's an absolutely fair observation.

Let me know if you have any questions!

Are you going to get Jason Bulmahn to contribute to the Minotaur ancestry?

Very cool. I imagine how fun would play being a slime, intelligent weapon or a mimic! kkkkkk

Now I can make an Intelligent Sword summoner being used by a cat girl as Eidolon! kkkkkk

You can play an intelligent weapon that has a cat girl wielder even before you factor in a class. Then go Magus to get closer!

I still can't get over how funny it is that all the dungeon pictures look like backgrounds for a character that is conspicuously missing from the foreground.

I'm personally incredibly excited for Intelligent Weapons, Dungeons Revisited, Nymphs, and Mimics!

Best: Setting. I had a blast exploring the Pact Worlds and the Drift.

Worst: Really hard to pick just one, but nonfunctional multiclassing might take the cake. I feel VERY constrained in my character concepts in Starfinder.

Starfinder stuff

I'm quite curious about sales data and system utilization metrics, because from my experience after PF2 came out SF's online presence appeared to fall off a cliff. The SF forum became a ghost town, the subreddit activity dwindled, my own 3 Starfinder games all fizzled out, and Hero Lab has all but abandoned it. My gut says SF isn't doing all that well because it's surviving on players aligned with PF1, which is also a dwindling breed. This is all compounded by the fact that sci-fi is a smaller market for TTRPGs anyway.

For me, an updated SF would bring it back from the dead.

As for your other questions, I've asked myself them a lot. I don't know how Paizo will handle any of them, but I kept coming back to the reality that I could easily see myself playing PF2 with a Starfinder coat of paint.

[MASSIVE PERSONAL OPINION ALERT]
The classes from Starfinder are too narrow thematically, trying to go for specific niches that don't actually give you nearly as much freedom as PF2 classes do. Most SF class flavors could live comfortably as class paths, archetypes, or feat trees inside PF2 classes.

The de-emphasis of magic was a bit of a waste, since every group I was in had someone who wanted to play a full on Space Wizard but really couldn't to their satisfaction, so bringing back PF2 style magic would be a boon. Fully embracing the PF2 caster-martial balance allows tech and magic to fit together gracefully without magic taking an overly back-seat position as it felt in SF. Also, the long level gaps between new spells in SF was the pits.

Zero of the people I played with enjoyed the equipment of SF, finding it fiddly, overwhelming, treadmilly, and tedious. I had to prepare so many shortlists of options for my groups because they didn't know how to tackle the massive lists, even with search functions. So, wholesale borrowing the PF2 equipment system, and putting the word "Futuristic" in front of every item would be preferable.

Since that particular comment isn't really worth engaging in, I'd like to point out for those who don't know already: Due to the OGL situation many of Paizo's priorities have become more fluid, and one thing they're discussing internally is moving up the schedule for updating Starfinder to both scoop out OGL1.0a content and install "killer apps" (Erik Mona's phrasing) from PF2. They aren't ready to announce anything yet, and who knows, it might go nowhere, but I'm looking forward to a Starfinder that's much more compatible with PF2.

That would allow poaching much more easily.

I can highly recommend taking the Rogue multiclass archetype for additional skills.

Additional Lore is another great source of skill bonuses.

Other archetypes like Pathfinder Agent can also net you some extra skill increases.

Personally, I would lean toward going Fighter + Rogue.

Dear esteemed colleague,

Please forgive my late response, I have been quite busy tracking down these bags over the last several weeks. You will be pleased to know that I have secured eight bags that have been confirmed to predate the estimated 2750 AR cut-off you had proposed, and another two which may also have been contemporary. You will find them individually sealed in the satchel I pray accompanies this letter. Of those, fully five of them display the phenomenon!

Given the frequency and extent of this behavior, I took the liberty of contracting a capable group of Pathfinders to investigate the danger it might pose to other unsuspecting owners of likewise affected bags (I have attached an invoice to the academy for their fee, and you have my apology and thanks as always). You will find their full report delivered in due time, but, in short, the demiplane to which all five bags are now linked is temperate, comfortable, and devoid of apparent threat. In all respects, it appears to be a facsimile of a pleasant, grassy plain. My concern, however, is the sheer, unprecedented size of the space. It will take a team (and budget) much larger than mine to even begin mapping it.

I have no knowledge of a wizard with the wherewithal or desire to create such an enormous demiplane, least of all one who would crash it into such a well documented astral web. The absurdity of the idea lends credence to your speculation about the coincidental formation of an astral bubble, however if that were the case why would it be so ordinary? I am baffled, and hope that your inspection of the bags’ dweomers will shed some light on the issue.

In the meantime, I will continue searching for more such bags, and providing counsel to their owners. I fear that the phenomenon is temporary, and some foolhardy youth might find themselves stuck in here when the link is broken.

Yours,
Octor

P.S. I am writing this upon a particularly high knoll within the demiplane, a thread tied at my ankle leading back to my entrance some ways off. It is a beautiful night here, a faint sweetness on the breeze, the rushing of the grass is akin to the sound of the sea lapping at the shore. Looking at the stars glittering overhead, I must admit: if this place was made by a foolish wizard I think I would dearly like to meet them.

I'm takin' notes!

David knott 242 wrote:

Actually, I am rooting for WotC to fold so fast that the ORC license goes from "necessary to save 3pp publishers from WotC's lawyers" to "nice to have in case they threaten to pull this crap again".

From what we have seen so far, I feel it is highly unlikely.

And no-one in the 3pp sector will trust WotC again for a long long time.

Yup. Hasbro and WotC executives have ventured too far out onto this branch, and their egos are too big to admit a bunch of lowly nerds got them to do anything.

They would much, MUCH rather burn the whole franchise down and escape on a golden parachute, than admit fault.

odd.

No one has suggested a t-shirt saying "ORC me. ORC me now!"

Why?

I'm dum is this a reference to something?

If they can do AI-GMs well, I don't really have a problem with the idea. The execution is critical, otherwise it becomes essentially just a theater of the mind CRPG.

The holy grail would be an AI that would allow a team of top-tier roleplayers like Critical Role to dive into a world with all the creative problem solving, roleplay, and compelling story arcs that you see from the best GMs. I am HIGHLY skeptical that they'll be able to do anything remotely approaching that within the next decade or two. Until it reaches that point, it will be a novelty game mode for when the GM needs a break, or for groups who just want beer and pretzels fun.

My concept for a procedurally generated dwarf mine game mode would work pretty well for such an implementation.

In any case, it's far better than AI-art-theft on an industrial scale.

I can't stand 5e, but I don't yuck other peoples' yum. Pretty simple.

It's just like poo-talking other people's orders at restaurants. Do it enough and people stop inviting you out.

I want a trapper keeper with three moons howling at an orc

I was kind of just hoping for the word ORC printed on a cheap mug, but I wouldn't mind a battlescarred orc woman standing resolute at the parapets

I think Paizo should launch a line of merch (T-shirts, pins, stickers, mugs; essentially as generic merch as you like) that anyone could buy, even if they're not PF or SF fans, that would contribute to the legal fund for the development and maintenance of ORC, as well as potential future legal battles against OGL1.1 (or OGL2.0 if that's what they're going with).

Paizo has put their flag down and are prepared to foot the bill for legal costs, and buying Paizo products can indirectly help with that, but it'd be nice to buy something that says "I am specifically making the purchase to help out", and such an option may be more attractive for people who maybe aren't that interested in Paizo itself.

I don't know, I just worry about the Paizo staff not getting raises because Wizards is costing them an arm an a leg in legal fees.

Also, I've already bought pretty much everything Paizo has to offer from their regular catalog.

$10 huh... *scratches chin*

I also have a dex based dagger champion character. They primarily melee, but throw daggers during emergencies. The dex helps out with the thievery checks for disabling traps.

This sounds like a whole lot of fun!

hmmm, maybe shoony beastkin champion of apsu for the 1d6 jaws

If you don't care about the ability to actually bite people, a poppet with the quadruped feat could probably pass quite well as a dog, especially if traveling with alongside another character. Some stuffed animals look very realistic indeed.

Hmm

!!

A wished-alive toy dog!

I bet a Hand of the Mage would come in >handy<.

Or do you want an actually 4 legged "normal" dog?

An actual, honest-to-goodness, 4 legged dog that is lassie levels of smart in order to actually function as a PC. Reflavoring Shoony was my first thought, but I was wondering if there was another good idea.

This is a character I would play in a less serious campaign or one-shot, so presumably the GM would be flexible about it. So far, it seems like a dog running around with a "Fanged" stick seems pretty passable. I don't think a GM would like to homebrew a whole custom animal progression for me, so I think I'll leave the NPC and animal companion suggestions aside.

Now I'm wondering about just how bad an Earthly Winds Kitsune in Fox (but let's call it Dog) Form piloting a melded-into Eidolon would be.

WatersLethe wrote:

I really, really want a one handed reach spear as the baseline "one handed reach weapon" that all others should be compared against.

Ignoring real-life practicality for a moment, this really seems like a no-brainer from a fantasy perspective. The "short spear and shield" combo wins hard on looks alone.

Bringing back the real-world practicality, Spear and Shield has been a staple of human combat and warfare for thousands and thousands of years, and the spear in those combos most certainly had a reach advantage.

One nice video on the subject is by Lindybeige.

Thanks for the comments! I guess it'd be a good idea to note outcomes from the first playtest (which was super short).

1. I thought it'd be good to generate as much as possible right at the start, so that gameplay could be smooth between rooms, but what that ended up doing was having us elect the GM then wait around twiddling our thumbs for 10-15 minutes, then we died in the first room so all the prep was wasted. Definitely going to change it to generate more on a room by room basis.

2. I thought having a starting room with no encounters in it would be a good staging area, but it ended up just being a little boring. Strongly considering adding an "appetizer" encounter in the starting room to get the juices flowing instead of being slightly awkward as-is.

3. I tilted the game toward having more extreme encounters in the deck at the start because the outcomes of failure are low, and it can be exciting to actually have to run from fights or have PCs drop. However, there needs to be firmer guidance on when a fight is extreme and what that means. Our team of two drew the first encounter at extreme, were told it was extreme, and decided "what the heck" and dove in. Died quickly because it was a 50:50 chance of death. If we had really thought it through we would have gone back to the first room, utilized the trap there, or got clever with the tunnel bottleneck. It would also benefit from tweaking encounter table at lower levels where our options were limited.

4. New GM was surprisingly comfortable after describing the first room and moving onto the next, but was worried about how to describe the later rooms that had more complex geometry. I think an example to reference would be helpful to calibrate their expecations.

5. The new GM was easily able to reference the stats for the enemies in the booklet I printed, despite having never used a statblock before. They ran the encounter just fine, using scratch paper to track initiative and HP.

6. The flavor, as expected, does facilitate getting into the swing of it quickly. Despite having just explored one room, and tunneling to the next, we were already getting into character which contributed to our bravado in attacking the Extreme encounter.

I really, really want a one handed reach spear as the baseline "one handed reach weapon" that all others should be compared against.

Paizo is the only company I actually want to buy and wear merch from because I like their products, staff, and the cut of their jib. No place is perfect, of course, but I like Paizo's integrity and passion.

Let's say I want to join a party as a helpful, pretty smart, lovable dog. Everyone in the world is okay with just letting it slide that a dog is in every important scene in this adventure, wagging its tail and just generally being a good boi.

Yet another instance of idiotic suits demonstrating to the world that they're utterly incompetent but somehow still getting paid more than the rest of us. This whole move is going to be catastrophically bad for D&D's long term profit, while simultaneously dragging their already beleaguered public image through a landfill and putting literally thousands of their best community advocates out of business.

To even consider making this move speaks volumes about just how unintelligent corporate "leaders" are, and how morally bankrupt they're okay with appearing.

I love that even 15+ years on, the smurf filter still works on the forums. Thanks, Postmonster!

If it ever stops working, we riot

I suppose someone must stop by once a fortnight to chase out the goblins.