Wei Ji the Learner's page

I think I would like to see half-human heritage.

From main folks of setting... Maybe some type of half-giants or other similar conception?

That gets EXCEPTIONALLY problematic because of the racist connotations IRL.

It is why they stepped to Aiuvarin (mixed elf ancestry) and Dromarr (mixed orc ancestry)

Putting 'Half' on something implies 'lesser' rather than 'better', and there's a whole section of society that leans into it.

Waiting to see what it entails, and what sort of 'load' it takes to play one.

Hopefully the Versatile allows things like eventual flight or other goodies.

I'm curious to read this and see how well paizo is handling giving information quickly without the alignments since the gm core settlement examples seemed confusing to me. Though it might just be matter of having to get used to different style of trpg writing again

If nothing else, its at least nice to get rid of "we can assume they are evil, right?"

And in shocking news, detaching arbitrary morality judgements allows for more flexible writing with opponents that may or may not be wrong, just looking at the world through a different lens.

I'm hopeful that in this arc (and others) that the flexibility gained allows for more options and outcomes beyond 'They all fight to the death because they are (alignment)'.

keftiu wrote:

I'm selfishly hoping this Bloodrager can use Sorcerer bloodlines, because a few of my 1e favorites (hello, Nanite Sorcerers!) never crossed over.

Given that Nanite Sorcerers relied pretty heavily on the High Technology rules to be really that unique, it might be more accurate to say it hasn't been brought over yet. The technology guide wasn't published until 2015, which was a lot longer after PF1E than right now is after PF2E...

In addition, the game is a lot more 'flexible' to adjust to such in PF2 (I would submit even moreso after ReMaster) than it was in PF1.

There have already been androids as an Ancestry published, along with their Feats which should help lay a roadmap.

As long as things remain on schedule.

Given a choice between transforming warriors of power and racially-charged stereotypes of fighter and rogue, I'll take transforming warriors of power, please.

And now I'm thinking 'Intern of the Apocalypse', some poor unpaid soul that has to get Szuriel coffee every morning..

Evan Tarlton wrote:

I'm thinking that there will be representation from the Pathfinder Society and the Knights of Lastwall, and possibly the Magaambya. The Firebrands and Hellknights wouldn't be too much of a surprise. For nations, Oprak and New Eurythnia are basically guaranteed, and I think that a surprise emissary from Highhelm might also show up. Said emissary might be carrying a most unusual message from a king long dead...

That would be from Dongun Hold more likely, wouldn't it?

Also the Matanji from the Mwangi Expanse, come to think of it.

It would be a neat and efficient way to step 'away' from 'Dragon Disciple' (which is probably OGL on some level) plus hearken back to Legacy of Dragons (from PF1)

Is that PF2 Lore Warden (less heavy nerfing)?

Quote:

foreign organizations who answered Ardax’s call

Whomst?

(Question's rhetorical, obviously this will be revealed in the Player's Guide.)

In addition, the Pathfinder Society more than likely. The organization has a relationship with the orcs in the region dating back at least to Season 8 of PFS(1).

And the deity aspect was put in place specifically to prevent folks from going "Oh, we murdered Pharasma in one round so we're all immortal now" and trying to make the claim that it covered everyone (or inspire other tables to do the same).

By not giving the deities statblocks, if memory serves, it becomes solely up to the GM if that's the story they want to tell -- and it will only hold for that table.

So really curious to see how that is maintained while things are going down.

Aenigma wrote:

I still have no idea when and how Arazni has become a deity. In Tyrant's Grasp, Arazni was not even a demigod, just a powerful mythic character. Now, Tar-Baphon is still a mortal (albeit very powerful), yet Arazni has become a full-fledged deity? Did she touch the Starstone?

Arazni was Iomedae's goddess and Aroden's herald until she died.

And also punked hard by Iomedae's crew to get her to 'dying'.

'By accident', of course.

But it looks like she got some beach time and is recharged and in-charge.

I wonder if this will take the narrative space of 'Skald' and bring it more in-line with 'could be any culture' versus 'seems to be Scandinavian'.

All I want is a reason not to use a shield.

I hear this thing about Monks and Shields and yet none of my monks have used them to date and their AC was best at table.

Am I missing something?

Pronate11 wrote:

I'm just going to say, they revealed a living sword deity, and it looks oddly close to Gorum's sword....

Gorum: (dies)

Gorum's Sword: (ascends to godhood from long association and godsblood)
Gorum's Sword: Revenge!
Arazni: Oh, hi there. Aren't you a cutie?

GS: "Sorry, dear, you're not my type. Unless you want to spec over to greatswords?"

Saloc, The Minder of Immortals, is the psychopomp usher that handles dead gods and their cases in Pharasma's court.

Saloc is about to be VERY busy.

Saloc: "Ah, this is a pretty cushy gig, might get someone every couple of centuries, maybe a false alarm and... WTF!!!"

Now, another option that'd be totally on-brand is Gorum feeling his essence being 'sucked out' by whatever thing is going on and going "You know what? I choose a different strategy. You Lose."

And then self-shanking hard enough to break the ritual and send parts of himself everywhere.

Humor aside, my big hope is that he goes out like a champ, not a chump. Like, giving as good as he got or better.

"CATMONKEY!"

...oh no...

I suggested weapon training be build into stances.

If you go into a stance you also turn on proficiency with all weapons that stance is meant to use just like it also provides use of a special unarmed attack. They could do it by weapon group or by individual weapons but by weapon group allows new weapons to be added later without errata.

This would be 'proficiency all the time', the Stance training just grants it, right?

Because otherwise I could see it being an issue if there are effects that cause folks to drop out of their Stances semi-consistently.

That would make such a proficiency pretty useless -- how would they even TRAIN if every ten minutes they forget which side of the stick is pointy?

I am appreciative of the emphasis placed on 'GM table rules apply'.

I am now very worried for my problematic tengu god (Hei Feng), though.

And his estranged wife Lady Jingxi. :>

Why do you think ganking Iomedae will do anything about the player behavior you're obviously extremely angry about?

Evangelist crusaders will just go with Erastil or someone else that they can vaguely identify with their group politics. You underestimate the ability of people wanting to play "smite the unbeliever" to figure out a deity who plays into their biases.

Last time I checked, Erastil wasn't party to summoning in a superior and forcing them via binding to 'get to work'.

Now granted, that take is a bit from the hip, but that one in particular was just a pure WTF moment for me.

EDIT: Saranrae going all bliblical is the sort of thing expected from angelic zero-sum sorts.

However, i will grant that my concerns and thoughts are based in personal bias -- but a lot of the other deities not on my 'goodbye' list have a bit more focus away from concerns of mine.

I like how the scaly person in purple and yellow *could* be a kobold.. could be a nagaji, and looks a bit peturbed at the situation, but the more 'nagaji' sort has an almost prideful look (to the left).

Revised:

I'm hoping for Abadar (goodbye capitalist god), Iomedae(goodbye evangelist crusaders), or Gorum (goodbye deity of murderhobos).

Dreading Shelyn (THE Pride deity), Lamashtu (Honest about monstrosity), Calistria (Honest about payback and lust positivity).

Not super-worried about Gozreh(Climate Change is a thing), Norgorber (Dirty political tricks), or Torag (Genocidal dirtbag who has a lot to answer for even if the stance has 'softened'.).

Alchemist has most changes? In player core 2?

Oracle needs a very big rework of the curse with the new Refocus rules or they are screwed.

Buddy of mine and I were comparing healing and class options and basically determined through our back-of-napkin math that right now there's no mechanical reason to want to play an oracle, and thematically a lot of the beats an Oracle would 'hit' could be covered with GM fiat.

So Oracle definitely needs a rework, because being unable to play most of an adventure is not helpful to the large majority of groups out there.

It merits noting that this was brought up during the Playtest as a possible issue and it was somewhat mitigated.

Hopefully folks were paying attention to that.

The Raven Black wrote:

Sarenrae : one third of the Prismatic Ray = unlikely

To be fair, I can imagine Sarenrae dying. Her death may actually bring about some change. Now, for example, the Padishah Empire is in a state of some prosperity and calm, which is why creating products based on it can be somewhat boring. Of course, it's always nice to live in an era of prosperity and peace. But, in my opinion, times of devastation and chaos are most suitable for adventure. And what better way to wreak havoc on an empire than the death of their main deity?

It is a bit problematic, though, from a RL analogue issue.

Bear with me here.

For years during PF1, Sarenrae was posited as 'the' deity of the Padishah Empire.

Characters was written sometimes with exceptionally problematic takes ((Cult of the Dawnflower, anyone?)) along with a bit of a regional stereotype that got carried over by RL players.

So eliminating a deity from that area could be viewed from a deeper perspective of "Folks from 'that region' shouldn't get nice things" which can almost immediately lead to an incredible level of toxicity.

That Sarenrae is ALSO a member of a poly crew doesn't help, because doing anything there will immediately raise the hackles of an entire community.

From a purely 'meta' perspective, Paizo has been trying to learn lessons from products they release.

((Agents of Edgewatch had HORRIFIC timing with concerns about the conduct of law enforcement, and then some of the tropes the AP covered did not make it any better for most folks as one example.))

So it's not a rough ocean that is trying to be charted, it's a figurative minefield with some hidden devices that won't go off UNLESS someone blunders onto one.

The OTHER prospect is that the 'removal' of a deity may not spark war, but instead chaos and confusion (no, not the alignment thing).

Particularly as the 'rules' of the game have changed rather dramatically and anyone can be the better deity (or worse as so befits them).

The artificial shackles that held the faith construct in place are no longer valid.

Golarion would be improved (in some ways) with removal of stern enforcement of wealth accumulation.

For those who missed Luis hint this week. The next safe deity is a member of the Godclaw (not Aprils Fools)

Still leaves Torag, Abadar, Irori, Iomedae.

Two of them are on a line that doesn't have two 'Safe' spots. (Iomedae, Torag)

Only one is in a column with that doesn't have two 'Safe' spots (Irori).

Speculation:

From a 'narrative weight' the thought raised further up-thread of someone 'leaving' instead of 'dying' might be an interesting tale to weave.

We already had a form of this with Z-K quitting his job.

It would not be hard to see Irori feeling that the Inner Sea was 'wasting his time' and he needed to focus more on Vudra, Garund, Casmaron, Arcadia, or Tian Xia...

More importantly, is it part of the Starfinder Subscription since there's a... Gap in publications? ;>

The Raven Black wrote:

CorvusMask wrote:

Waaait, why did Horsemen of Apocalypse get renamed to Apocalypse Riders?

HorseMEN.

It also helps differentiate them from male centaurs.

Hey you can't say that jackal or woman can't be a horseman!

But seriously, I only accept this change from mythological name if they don't ride horses anymore :p Give one of them a dragon mount

(riders of apocalypse is cooler than apocalypse rider anyway. Latter sounds like some dude on road with cheesy american car in some sort of post apocalyptic road trip movie)

How about infernal combustion engine hogs (motorcycles) so they can ride in style?

Now the important question:

Was it Rye, pumpernickel, hardtack, or some dried out ol' loaf someone had been keeping in their extradimensional storage space for years?

I’m not exactly sure “distracting” Rovagug is the same as “going toe-to-toe”, which tends to imply combat. I guess they could have been doing the gothic twostep while facing each other? No disrespect to Calistria intended - her role was clearly integrally hers and instrumental in the plan…

She'd have to be able to pull off an enticing dance to lure Rovie in, so I could see a deific equivalent of that...?

The other way to go at it, is if there's NOT a feat for it, make a raging person immune to crits while raging.

That'd convey the 'OMG, we HIT HIM AS HARD AS WE COULD and... it did nothing!" sort of toughness associated with Barbarians and beserker sorts.

It'd still provide 'nickel and dime' damage which would take down someone, but it'd mitigate the flaws of a reduced AC, at least.

The ally also gave the PCs some powerful poison and suggested they try to use that on food or drink in the party to give them an edge. I'm curious to see what they wind up doing in that regard and I suspect the Sarenrite will not be comfortable with it at all.

'Not being comfortable with it' is about the spot a follower of Sarenrae would be at, I suspect?

In addition, the 'set-up' is... mildly suspicious to say the least.

So there should be warning bells going off all over the place for genre-savvy players.

I'd build out what 'used' to be called 'mimics' as some sort of shapeshifters who spent too long shapeshifted into an inanimate form and lost much of their mental bandwidth, instead becoming barely sentient predators -- the original ancestry could then be introduced as an ultimate shapechanger that can assume the form of inorganic items at a cost of mobility.

Not sure what kind of name I'd put on them, but imagine a whole fallen civilization because of that.

Kittyburger wrote:

magnuskn wrote:

Hurk. Saranrae getting more certain to be the one gets killed off every week. :-/ I don't know how to deal with that, if it really happens.

I'm thinking Sarenrae and Iomedae are PROBABLY safe, because they have the advantage of being deities associated with the two most significant religious Iconic characters, Kyra (Cleric of Sarenrae) and Seoni (Champion (Paladin) of Iomedae).

When and how did Seoni become a Champion? Last I heard, she's a Sorceress.

Well, with the reworks on Dragons and Sorcerer, who knows?

Maybe one of the Sorcery bloodlines is Draconic Champion?

Still stewing on this, I think I will need to take a look once PC2 releases because both ancestry options I'd use would be in it, and I want to see how they ReMaster.

Norgorber dying and his death releasing a dangerous secret that sparks a war--like, "the Starstone weapon is still armed and dangerous"--is one of my favorite little pet fringe theories.

"The Starstone has the power to kill divinity but mortals who approach it at randomly appropriate points may be able to siphon off enough power to transcend at the cost of their mortality".

It would change the whole 'Test of the Starstone' to something far more alien, random, uncaring... much like the algholthu Veiled Masters were trying to erase divinity when they sent the mass it was part of careening towards Golarion.

Almost like they were testing the properties of deific natures to better eliminate them.

I only played one barbarian in PF(S) 1.

He was Guarded Stance (where his AC went *up* when he was raging) with a few add-on Feats to make it hard for things like incorporeal and the like to hit him.

It felt 'better' to not be a 'glass cannon' dependent on the charity of (relative) strangers at a random table, and it made him a pretty awesome tank, to boot.

So far, I haven't seen anything in PF2 that comes close to replicating that.

If I want a 'glass cannon', wizards can do that just fine.

Okay, here we go...

Abadar and Cayden Cailean would not seem to be anywhere near each other on the relationship map -- Abadar is often 'The Man' keeping others 'down' and Cayden is the 'Drunken Hero' fighting for freedom.

However, they both have the idea of watching out for civilization. They may even see each other's paths as 'their choices'.

And while Abadar may be ace or demi, Cayden can see that dedication and even the softening of previously problematic issues (like the outright condoning of slavery, selling divine favor for a profit, etc).

Sure, it'd be rough at first, because neither one of them wants to give any ground to the other (for understandable reasons).

However, Abadar can see that civilized people are happier when they aren't grinding their souls away and Cayden can see that there might be a need for some rules to make sure good things keep happening.

Not enough to dramatically change them deifically, but enough to make them both grow and respect each other -- and handle the things that the other can't due to their nature.

Thank you very much for continuing the online format, it reduces a number of stressors!

Deities that are exceptionally problematic based on tables I've played at:

Iomedae (folks seem to dig her 'Crusader in the medieval style' vibe)
Gorum (folks use this as a license to murderhobo)
Sarenrae (See Iomedae)
Torag (See Iomedae, but add in a spin of racism)
Abadar (folks use this as an excuse to be greedy jerks and milk every last copper)

Out of the remainder, I've seen incredible portrayal of followers of:

Calistria (folks carefully measuring vengeance and keeping the 'lust' thing low key)
Irori (folks helping others learn more about themselves)
Desna (folks helping out travelers in need with no ask for reward)
Shelyn (folks recognizing beauty is not in the eye of the beholder, but in everything)

Ones I haven't seen (or the players were really careful to keep them under wraps/not-obvious):

Norgorber
Gozreh
Lamashtu

I would not lament the loss of the first group because of the problematic issues. It'd feel awful to lose any of the second group, the only one I could really dig and be 'okay' with would be Irori. Third group I really don't have an opinion on.

Two more days until .pdf....

I haven't heard anything about a pocket edition sub, but I have heard that the intent is that pocket editions will come out three months after the full size book release. So if they did attach a free pdf to a pocket edition sub, you wouldn't get it when the big book releases, but three months later when your pocket sub ships. Unless, of course, they change that policy, which seems unlikely.

I'm running out of room for books myself. I've been thinking about cancelling all my book subs (or maybe all my subs) and just buying whatever pdfs are available on the first of each month. I don't really want to do it though; I like having a book in my hand.

I'm in a similar boat, but having the material via .pdf is very difficult for me to read and I can't afford to print out the entire .pdf in terms of space, time, or finances. The pocket edition is much easier to read and carry.

I appreciate the Online version more and more as finances shrink while personal health/safety/travel concerns grow.

Thank you for keeping this a viable option!

Has there been any talk of a Pocket Edition Subscription?

Due to space and transport issues larger volumes are gradually being weeded out of my collection.

I would be willing to pay for a Pocket Edition Subscription if it meant getting the .pdf when the 'full size' book released.

If I wasn't already interested in purchasing this as funds permit, this story and others so far have helped cement that desire.

It's an AMAZING IDEA!

I love it!

Looks like it's Online for me, unfortunately.

Most of the states I could get to are not an option for me at the moment due to safety/health issues, and the rest would be way out of my price range.

Not a 'placeholder' but I am still cogitating on this concept.