Yolande d'Bar's page

I still play PF1, but I enjoy lots of the new abilities given to classic monsters in PF2 and have been porting them back to my current game.

However, I don't think I understand where the DC numbers are coming from in PF2.

Example: the 2e owlbear's bloodcurdling scream has a DC20 Will save.

Is there a formula that determined that number? or is from a table? or was it simply chosen by the designer?

How am I to interpret that number? It seems like a hard save for 4th lvl characters to make (it would be in PF1), but I'm unsure what the PF2 standards for difficulty are.

I'm trying to get an idea of how to understand PF2 DC numbers and adjust them when I port them back to PF1.

thanks!

I've been trying to port back some of the new PF2 monster abilities onto their PF1 equivalents, but I don't think I understand where the DC numbers are coming from in PF2 and how to replicate that in PF1.

Example: the 2e owlbear's bloodcurdling scream has a DC20 Will save. If I treat that as a supernatural ability in 1e, and assume that Charisma is the relevant stat, I get a DC 12 (10+1/2HD+mod) which is considerably less impressive and most or all of the party is liable to save.

So obviously that's pretty lame. But I don't really understand what I should be doing to get a better number.

Can anyone offer me some advice to converting monster abilities backwards? There don't seem to be formulae for PCs in 2e, so was the DC20 just chosen out of the air or what is going on?

I would love some help or advice in general on this topic.

thanks!

For the finale of my campaign (set in Greyhawk), the adventurers are going to explore the dreamscape of the sleeping snow elf god of mountains and rivers, Tarsellis Meunniduin.

I'd be interested to hear any suggestions as I design this area . . . What would an adventure in a god's mind be like?

Are there any Pathfinder modules involving dreamscapes? What about dreamscape modules for other systems?

Any suggestions are welcome!

Usually there's a link at the bottom of the Paizo forums to Archive, where all of the old posts for Dungeon magazine live. I reference the wonderful Age of Worms forum there a LOT, so I hope this isn't a permanent deletion or preview of deletion to come.

It looks like I can still access the Age of Worms, Savage Tide, Maure Castle forums by doing searches for those topics and wading through pages of posts until I see something posted in the subforum. So it's all still there, but without an Archive link really hard to find.

Please bring back the Archive link!

I'm in the process of adapting the wacky 5e adventure Mortzengersturm: The Mad Manticore of the Prismatic Peak to PF1 and am looking for some help converting the many hybrid-freak monsters the titular manticore wizard has created.

My suspicion is I can get away with using sort-of kind-of similar stat blocks that already exist in the six Bestiaries. I don't want to have to create all new stat blocks for any of these--I just want to reskin what already exists.

I'm betting there are a lot of folks on this board who are more familiar with existing monsters than me.

The party will be 6th lvl, but don't worry about monster power, as I can easily scale up or down anything as needed. I'm more concerned just finding existing stats that I could reskin for these:

Ant-Lion: large magical beast, lion-size ant with lion’s head
Biter Bomber: construct (not undead), skeleton with extra-big ribcage full of skulls that it throws at opponents (skulls then bite)
Bumblebear: tiny magical beast, six mutton-drumstick size bees with heads, legs, & claws of bears
Chimerical Chimera: medium magical beast? (shapechanger) swirling cloud of protoplasm contantly changing shape & gains physical attacks of current form
Fey Ray: medium magical beast, floating fuzzy manta ray with fins like butterfly wings
Gruebird: large magical beast, large bird attacks with beak, talons and expels an ink cloud of total darkness
Ink Dog: medium magical beast, monster like living sketch of fox that can enter opponent’s space, its bite leaves tattoos
Iron Shrike: medium magical beast, eagle-size bird made of metal, attacks with beak and talons
Jam: large ooze, engulfs medium or smaller creatures, delicious-tasting
Mocka: large magical beast, naga with clown head, frightening gaze attack
Moonster: large magical beast, floating glowing moon-shape sphere with face on it that won’t shut up, no attacks besides nonstop insulting commentary
Parrotbear: large magical beast, basically owlbear that mimics phrases
Skelepedes: construct (not undead), 8 skeleton arms with scimitars attached to spinal column that crawl around really fast
Spider From Nowhere: magical beast or outsider, sort of a phase spider with poison bite and swift action shift back and forth to ethereal plane
Tigerpillar: large magical beast, tiger head with caterpillar body and six pairs of legs, attacks with bite & claws, can pounce
Whiplasher: construct (not undead), skeletons with elongated spines with extra vertebrae that sway like cobras and attack with whips made of spines

Thanks in advance for any help!

First, I don't think it's over- or under-powered. This is a cool ability, worded well.

I have two distinct issues:

1) This ability breaks immersion. I don't understand what's happening IN THE GAME WORLD. Why could my fighter do something yesterday and today I can't do that anymore but have suddenly learned a different trick that I won't be able to do tomorrow?

This is my same objection to the PF1 Hunter's ability to change their teamwork feat as a standard action, or the Brawler's martial flexibility. What is happening?

Fixing this would be pretty easy. We simply need some flavor text to justify the ability so the GM can narrate this plausibly.

2) This ability requires rules-mastery to use well. If there's any class that shouldn't require a player to know every single feat, it's the fighter. Because this is a required ability baked into every single fighter, a player's going to feel like he isn't playing his character up to potential unless he knows every single fighter feat in the game. That might be easy enough to do when the only source is Core, but in a couple years, every fighter player will be like the hunter & brawler players of PF1 where you need to bring a spreadsheet of all possible feats to every game to feel like you're playing your character well.

This is also the kind of ability that tempts every optimizer at the table to start suggesting possible feats for your character to take that day, a helpful but slippery slope that often ends with other people making your character's decisions.

I don't think this ability or any feat-swapping ability like it should be a baked-in ability of any class.

As long as there's some game world explanation for what's actually happening here, I think it would be a fine ability for, say, a class-specific archetype (if such things ever return). I really think abilities like this should be reserved for players who enjoy that flexibility. There are players who prefer to take passive bonuses only, so not to have to toggle and brainstorm during play.

Don't force every single fighter player into rules mastery!

• I think the spirit of the new death & dying rules has been good from the start, fixing the problems with PF1 dying
• I think the execution of death & dying so far has been needlessly difficult; if a flowchart is required for such a common rule, something is wrong
• I think the 1.3 revision to death and dying is the best so far, and it's almost a system I want to use
• As a GM, I want to apply the exact same dying rules to PCs & NPCs & monsters alike. No preferential treatment for PCs. That means the rules need to be simple enough I can apply them to monsters without ever having to stop the game to look anything up, most especially on tedious Table 10-2.
• The most fun part of PF1's dying rules--Staggered--hasn't really been incorporated into the new rules

The dying rules remain exactly as stated in the latest update (including Wounded condition, Treat Wounds, etc.) with two tweaks.

TWEAK #1: No one cares who or what delivered the death blow. No one wants to look at Table 10-2 in the middle of the battle.

Recovery Saving Throws
When you're dying, at the start of each of your turns you attempt a CON check DC15 to see if you get better or worse; this is called a Recovery Saving Throw. The effects of the save are as follows

Natural 20: Your dying value is reduced by 2
Success Your dying value is reduced by 1
Failure Your dying value increases by 1
Natural 1: Your dying value increases by 2

TWEAK #2: It would actually be epic and fun if no one went unconscious at Dying 1.

DYING 1: You remain conscious. You have the Slowed 2 condition and can only take 1 action on your turn.

(Note: This doesn't impinge on Orc Ferocity, because with that you still retain all of your actions and 1 hp and don't gain the dying condition.)

Those are rules I could run by the seat-of-my-pants as a GM and I could easily apply them to a whole horde of goblins mobbing the PCs. It would be fun watching the good guys and bad guys at Dying 1 hobbling toward safety; or (round 1) getting out a healing potion, hoping they'll still be around Round 2 to drink it.

Or, better yet, taking one last swing as they drop.

I may be crazy but I distinctly remember an interview with Jason Bulmahn in the last few years where he made the observation that Wild Empathy never works the way it's supposed to because of the dumb rule, going all the way back to 3.0, that you have to have a whole minute to change an animal's attitude.

So now, for some reason, in PF2 Playtest Wild Empathy still takes one whole minute to attempt to change an animal's reaction. This is presumably because this is how diplomacy works.

Here's the fantasy of most people who want to play druids: The party meets a dangerous animal in the wilderness. The animal snarls and threatens, defending its young or its territory. The party druid cautiously approaches, offering food and soothing words, and slowly, slowly, the animal calms down and allows the party to pass on to their destination.

Everyone wants this to happen. It never ever happens because every encounter like this goes immediately into initiative and even if somehow the druid wins initiative, using Wild Empathy takes 10 whole rounds.

I propose Wild Empathy become its own thing, divorced from Diplomacy, so it can have the effect that druid players really want. The check is made IMMEDIATELY, as soon as the druid initiates it, and the druid must commit to at least a minute more, if it is successful, to truly soothe the animal. Make it a hard check, and if it fails, the animal's attitude drops one level, usually meaning it attacks at once. So all or nothing.

That would be a dramatic, fun thing that could happen at the table as part of Exploration mode instead of the immediate jump into initiative and combat that is basically every dangerous animal encounter ever.

I have a lot of issues with this game as it stands, and the +1/level thing will probably keep me from playing in the end; but I love Pathfinder and, despite our differences, I want the game to succeed and Paizo to prosper. With a lot of other long time fans either sticking with PF1 or going elsewhere, PF2 is going to have to attract a lot of new players to be successful.

In its current form, I don't think any new player could really just pick up this book and start playing, without someone experienced helping them or watching a ton of youtube to figure out what to do. (You'd never know the same folks who wrote this awkward rulebook wrote the amazing Pathfinder Beginner Box.)

So I was trying to think what I would do to make this game attractive and accessible to a brand new player.

1) Write prose that actually makes the game seem an exciting narrative. The book does this in a few places, for instance at the beginning of each class chapter, with the bulleted lists of "if you're a fighter" & "how others view you". These sorts of things really help develop concepts. But everything needs that same dedication to flavor. Spell descriptions, feats, class abilities, all need an evocative phrase, perhaps in italics, that demonstrates what this cool ability really looks like, sounds like, when it gets used. I'm thinking of the little spell descriptions in the 3.5 Spell Compendium, or the italics monster descriptions in all the Bestiaries. These are tremendously helpful for GMs too, in describing the world.

2) If we're going to use all these traits, every page needs a sidebar listing the traits mentioned on that page, with, at the minimum a pg. # of where to go to understand what each means. Or perhaps each trait mentioned always has a pg# attached to it in parantheses.

3) But the best idea I had tries to deal with what a new player is certain to view as an overwhelming menu of options, with no particular way to choose among them, to build toward a final concept. This is most difficult in the class chapter, but also an issue in the race chapter, and elsewhere.

I suggest that each class chapter contains the exact build of the corresponding iconic. For instance, the fighter chapter, after the initial flavor of what a fighter is, lays out a statblock for Valeros himself. It shows the new player exactly which feats, which skills, what equipment was chosen to create the exact same Valeros pictured in the illustration.

The choices (of which there are many!) all have a footnote or asterisk or something next to them, referencing, say, the first level fighter feats or the skill feat chart or whatever. So the player sees, by making these choices from this menu, this is how Valeros was created. And if the player just wants to be playing, they can play Valeros, right out of the box; or rename him Valerie, swap out three feats, trade the sword for an axe, and go.

Each build should show what feats, ability boosts, skills, etc. Valeros would take as he levels. This is the very useful sort of the thing the old 3.5D&D Players Handbook II did in its appendix, quickly listing the typical feats for a shield fighter or a blaster wizard or a healbot cleric. For classes with spells, a standard prepared selection is listed out.

The Valeros section would feature a statblock of Valeros at several levels, say 1, 4, 7, 10 or such.
The stat blocks would allow a new player to just pick up a character straight out of the box and start playing with him, immediately. Or these could be replacement characters who could jump in when your character dies mid-session.

Even better, from a GM standpoint, you've got a basic, no-nonsense NPC statblock that can be used whenever an NPC of that level is required, because what's being represented is your typical adventuring fighter of lvl 7, for instance. A mini NPC Codex right there in the Corebook. Plug and play.

More experienced or hardcore players would ignore this, of course, but it still might save them some time if their build idea was a variation on something standard.

That's an approach to menu-driven character-building that I think would be really helpful to new players; and having a mini NPC Codex right in the class description would be super-helpful to DMs.

I am no fan of the +1/level, except, possibly, for saving throws. The worst ramifications are for skills and armor class, IMO.

There's been a lot of talk about the game mechanics and balance and blah blah blah, but none of that is what worries me.

What I've never heard a coherent explanation for yet is what exactly this represents in the game world.

What does the +1/level to attack represent? It can't be skill at fighting, because that's covered by your level of proficiency. So what is it about the 10th level wizard that makes her so very much better at fighting than the 1st level fighter?

What does the +1/level to AC represent, really? It can't be dodging ability, because that's covered by dexterity. There's no condition in the game that removes it, which means it still applies when you're paralyzed, unconscious, hell, even DEAD, so that means your +1/level to AC can't be something you're actually doing.

I'm thinking of Bob the 4th level Rogue who has tied up, restrained, and immobilized both Richard the 1st level Wizard and David the 18th level Wizard. Bob the Evil goes to kill them with his dagger, and in a few rounds of bloody work, Richard the 1st Level is dying dying dying dead.

But no matter what Bob the Rogue strikes at David the 18th level Wizard, he just, keeps, missing, because of David's +18 AC which applies always.

Is it luck?

The only explanation I can think of to make sense of this is that it's some kind of supernatural intervention of the divine. Which, okay, sure, it's a magical world.

But think about that a little deeper: If this +1/level is a god-given ability, it's being given not on the basis of dogma, alignment, faithfulness, it's just being given on the basis of raw power (i.e. level advancement).

In other words, the metaphysics of this new Golarion seem to be dictated by a being who rewards mortals through a predictable hierarchy that only respects raw power.

I don't know about you, but that being sounds to me like Asmodeus.

Asmodeus now controls the physics of Golarion. Only power is rewarded. The weak shall perish.

I am only sort of kind of kidding.

Someone made a character sheet that actually has room for your character's abilities.

It's pay what you want, and she seems to have earned the $1.99 she asks.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/250469/The-Improved-Pathfinder-Playtes t-Character-Sheet?test_epoch=0&manufacturers_id=12359

http://www.5mwd.com/archives/comic/ostog-the-untenured

As has been mentioned by many, many people on these boards, adding +1/level to everything creates some weirdness and some serious problems.

I looked forward to this playtest for five months, and often defended it against the dubious, but unless it changes substantially on a structural level, I'm not even sure I can house rule it into something I want to play.

But I did think of a houserule I could live with to solve the +1 to everything treadmill, and I'd love to hear critique or suggestions from anyone.

One popular solution seems to be just stripping +1/lvl off everything, monsters and PCs, and just using proficiency bonuses. I think this is too 5e for my tastes, which are closer to PF1/3.5.

So here's my proposal.

The +1/level bonus is granted and capped by your proficiency level, as follows:

UNTRAINED
No penalty but no +1/level either.

TRAINED
+1/level (MAXIMUM +5)

EXPERT
+1/level (MAXIMUM +10) +1

MASTER
+1/level (MAXIMUM +15) +2

LEGENDARY
+1/level (no maximum) +3

The above would apply to skills, armor proficiency (including unarmed defense, but only monks & barbarians would be trained in that), weapons, perception, spell rolls. (I'm tempted to leave saving throws as is, but they might also use the same rules as everything else.)

You would still be granted, for free, all of the skill boosts and proficiencies of your class; but there would be a new type of feat, the Cross-class Feats, which anyone can take but require you to use a class feat on them (not a skill or general).

These feats would include all of the armor and weapon proficiencies (trained, expert, master, legendary, individually, with prerequisites for the higher ones), as well as skill proficiencies, perception, and maybe even saving throws. The price for this is you're using your precious class feats for this stuff so, yeah, your wizard can become legendary in dagger but at the price of all the cool spell feats.

The multi-class feats would have to be adjusted, given that they'd no longer be the sole way to get extra weapon proficiencies, say.

I don't think this would change the game much at low-levels, and probably not much at mid-levels either. By high levels, though, there would be some serious disparities in the abilities between characters. You would not have situations where the wizard outfights the fighter, or the barbarian tutors the cleric on religion. The naked unequipped wizard would not have a monk-like ability to avoid harm.

As written, this would make high-level adventures a lot more difficult--which I like--or the high level monsters would need to toned to accommodate the character specialization. Or the monsters could be rewritten so as to be explicit what exactly they're trained in.

This would be a way I think I could live with the +1/level.

I play a lot of different RPGs at conventions and there's a well-meaning type of GM I often encounter that I think of as the Helicopter Parent.

This GM doesn't view himself as a neutral arbiter of rules. This GM wants, more than anything, to be your friend and for you to like him. This GM mistakenly thinks this makes the game fun.

The Helicopter Parent never lets a character die in his game; no matter what happens, there's always something that prevents the death from occurring, the failed death save is really just you're knocked out. Or a deus ex machina group of allies appears to turn the tide of your losing battle, always.

Should the party not be figuring out the mystery, the GM will remind you of the clues you've forgotten.

If there's a trap, this GM will say, Does anyone want to search for traps?

Games with a Helicopter Parent GM are impossible not to win, because the GM thinks this is the only thing players find fun. I love to play board games with my Grandma, who cannot help but let me win, but that's because I love my Grandma, not because I feel the need to always win.

What the Helicopter Parent GM doesn't understand is that the fun in an RPG can also come from the freedom of exploration and choice, even if the consequences of one's choice are sometimes lethal.

I sometimes get so bored in games run by Helicopter GMs that my new goal becomes to see if, by making the worst possible choices, I can actually have anything bad happen to my character. Often, the answer is no.

Yes, this applies to many PFS GMs. And, as for Adventurer League, which is much much worse, I shall report that in my two years of playing there, off and on, I have never seen a single character die.

Right now Pathinder Second Edition really really reminds me of the Helicopter Parent GM.

• Not even a tiny advantage for dumpstatting anything (no a 10 is not a low score, in my opinion), and in fact we're kind of warned against having any low scores at all--despite the fact that exploring the world with a 4 STR or 7 INT character is actually a fun role-playing challenge

• PCs and NPCs use different dying rules; the revised rules apparently make PC death almost impossible, since a monster can repeatedly stab a dying PC in the face without advancing his dying condition in any meaningful way. What is actually happening in the world? I can't possibly imagine the reality of the situation.

• coup-de-grace has been removed because someone decided that wasn't fun so now it's impossible in the game world

• Sundering has been removed because someone decided that wasn't fun so now it's impossible in the game world. Except shields. No equipment can ever be damaged except those 12 shields you're carrying around. They will last about 12 seconds each.

• +1/level (the worst part of this game, IMO) makes it impossible for your character not to be able to do everything. Nope, your character has to know how to swim, how to play the lute, has researched enough arcana that they can identify some monsters. Oh, and that skinny old coughing wizard? Not really any worse at fighting than the barbarian. HELICOPTER GM says YOU WILL SUCCEED IN MY GAME

• Paralysis doesn't really make you all that vulnerable in any way, because apparently somebody decided that wouldn't be fun either

• Energy drain, not that scary anymore

• Wizard grappled by a kraken? more of an inconvenience really

• Hero Points. I loved the first edition system, because they were hard to come by and precious. In my home game, they directly represent slight divine intervention on your character's behalf. They really meant something when they were used.

But the new system? Just one point to remove the dying condition? And everyone gets that point just for showing up as a breathing body at the table?

Oh, and don't forget the GM can award another point for doing favors. At all of the playtest games I've played in, we've had never-ending sycophancy while players race to look up something for the GM first, to get a Hero Point, or share M&Ms with the GM, to get a Hero Point. Order food, to get a Hero Point, tell the GM they like his pants, to get a Hero Point, etc. etc. etc.

Who thought this was a good idea?

The reason I don't trust this game is that I feel like everything I mentioned above was a deliberate choice by the designers to prevent me from failing. It feels like this game has been designed by Helicopter Parent GMs.

And I'm well aware and very sympathetic to the folks upset on the other side--that the new rules make success too difficult and prevent any optimization. This is true as well. It seems that the game we've been given is one in which we can almost certainly never fail, and never die, but will have to try and try and try to actually hit something or succeed at a skill, but thanks to Hero Points, and the new Kindergarten Playground Physics of Golarion, nobody's really going to ever get that hurt in the end. You will succeed! There will be a happy ending! Fun! right?

If you're paralyzed, you can't act, sure, fine, that makes sense.

And you suffer at -2 to AC for being flat-footed.

That's it. You're not helpless. You still get your DEX to AC. You can't be coup-de-graced.

So, for instance, a naked, paralyzed 20th level wizard with no magic items is basically impossible for any normal soldier to even scratch with his, thanks to the +1/level, paralyzed AC of 28. An army strikes at this immobile, naked old man all day long and . . .

just . . .
keep . . .
missing . . .

Words cannot express how much I dislike this.

What in the heck does that +1/level even represent to AC? It certainly can't be anything the wizard is doing, since he can't take any actions. The only way it makes any sort of sense is if the gods really really like high-level people more than low-level people.

And why does your DEX still factor into AC?

This feels like it was just changed because somebody was inconsolable after his character was killed by a ghoul.

What else could paralyzed possibly mean besides, you know, paralyzed?

I'd really like to build a fighter who concentrates on sundering, but . . . are sunder rules all gone? I can't find them.

I get that a shield can block a blow and take a dent, but there seems to be no way for me to specifically target the shield--I can only hit it unintentionally.

What am I missing here?

I get the mechanical differences, but in terms of flavor, what determines whether something is a background or something is an archetype?

Gray Maiden, a prestige archetype, is obvious: You need to aspire and be taught to become a Gray Maiden.

Pirate is less obvious why it's not a background instead. What would the background version be--sailor?

Are archetypes always going to be profession requiring a class level and training? Is that what distinguishes them from backgrounds?

I noticed in the Event Schedule that all the events are in one of four locations:

Cascade
Evergreen
Grand Ballroom
Olympic

A gamer friend of mine is hard-of-hearing and finds it especially difficult to play in crowded locations with a lot of ambient noise.

Could someone who's attended PaizoCon in the past let me know if any of the locations are quieter than the others?

Any suggestions most welcome!
Thanks

As someone who wasn't around for the first Pathfinder playtest, back in 2008 or 2009, I'm really curious to hear some stories from those who were there.

Specifically, I've heard there were more ambitious changes in the original playtest that were dialed back for publication. Could anyone describe some of those changes that didn't make the final cut?

Or any other interesting anecdotes . . .

This quote by Quandary in another thread caught by eye, because I've been thinking along similar lines myself:

"The blog tone is just un-necessarily cutesy. And for what? There doesn't seem like any fundamental change to these races. Nobody needs or wants to read a Preview Blog to learn "OMG I can play Frodo!" "OMG I can play Rainbow Sprite!". The people reading it are doing so because they're interested in rules developments. OK, maybe there isn't enough crunch there re: these races, and maybe you're working on some heavy developments re: Playtest rules themselves and/or next Rules Preview. Just mentioning this in hope future Blog Previews deliver the goods."

Paizo's style for the blog has been pretty much the same for a long time, and this sort of breathless corporate enthusiasm actually works well in, for instance, the minis preview blog ("why, yes, as a matter of fact, I do need to own that hydra . . . ") The style works there because what's being introduced is totally new, because I never had a hydra or ki-rin mini before.

But the audience for the preview blogs is nearly 100% people who are already playing Pathfinder, almost all of whom know the system really well. Just giving us a list of decontextualized abilities that sound cool doesn't sell it.

The preview blogs seem to be talking to us like we aren't already playing or don't know about alchemists or halflings or fighters, for instance. The blogs try to sell us on how cool it would be to play an alchemist, for instance, when, in my case, I played one all the way through Runelords.

So, yeah, we all know what the classes and races used to do, but what the blogs breathlessly try to sell on us what these classes and races will be able to do, which, in the case of the alchemist, seems to be less than they used to be able to do . . . . Now I don't really believe that's the case and I'm sure the new class is balanced and probably even more fun than the old one . . . but we're not in a position to judge so it's hard to react with more than . . . okay? Still halflings in the game, check. Still rogues in the game, check.

Last Monday, for instance, the third-party interview with Stephen on the alchemist was vastly more informative than Stephen's actual blog post because it delved into the thought process behind the new edition. Having talked to Stephen a couple times at Garycon, I know how smart, well-spoken, and BS-free he is, so I can only conclude he must be hampered in how he can express himself by the house-style itself. Change it!

A much more interesting preview blog, one that doesn't seem to be trying to talk to people who aren't reading it, would begin by analyzing the class/race as it exists in PF1, identifying problems that needed fixing, and then taking us through the development of the current design to fix those problems to where they currently stand.

The thought process, the development, the current problems and fixes would engage all of us who are following these previews. Everyone on this Playtest Forum wants to engage the new information on that level, the level of thought.

And, for the record, I'm in the camp full of optimism and best wishes for the new edition. I think it's going to be great. But the previews blogs are not doing their job.

We need to understand the thought behind the changes.

I'm looking for 1st to 4th lvl spells a druid could use to guard or ward or set up alarms his lair. He's a deep gnome whose home is a cave system that opens onto the surface. He casts at 11th level but doesn't have access to any spells over 4th level.

What spells have long enough durations to last all day or all night that would be useful for this?

It is a pity that alarm isn't on the druid list.

I'm adapting the Lamentations of the Flame Princess adventure Tales of the Scarecrow into Pathfinder, and I'm wondering if any of the Bestiaries or other monster sources already has an underground dwelling carnivore that shoots tentacles up to eat creatures on the surface.

Or some monster I could easily retrofit to do just that.

Because of laziness and so much prep to do, I'd much rather use something already created than start from scratch.

The point of this encounter is more, This is overwhelming and terrifying and let's run before we're eaten! instead of Let's just stand here and battle this level-appropriate encounter.

I'm curious how other GMs deal with this situation.

Party fights some monsters. A few run away. Party gets XP for defeating all of them.

Later . . .

The monsters that ran away attack the party again. Party defeats them. Does the party gain XP again?

So the obvious answer is yes.

What I'm wondering about is the "Later . . . " part. Does it matter how much time lapses between the encounters? It's seems obvious the PCs get XP for defeating the same monsters again if the second encounter happens the following day, for instance.

But what about if the second encounter is only an hour later? two minutes later?

What if the fleeing monsters, keep attacking, are chased away, and then attack again and are chased away? etc. etc. etc.

Is there any circumstance in which I shouldn't award XP for all of these defeated creatures?

I have a character in my campaign using the old 9th lvl spell Summon Elemental Monolith, so these guys are showing up quite a bit in my campaign.

I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions for toys that could be glued/nailed/set on a base and would make good gargantuan elementals.

I want to use the Arena flip-mat for some gladiatorial games coming up in my campaign, but I need some floorplans/maps for the area underneath the arena. The PCs (correctly) suspect the Arena owner is keeping monsters there (a hydra, an owl bear, etc.) and so I'm expecting they're going to be investigating that soon.

Rather than take the time to create this myself, I'm hoping to just steal what I need from an existing product or adventure. I don't want to use the floorplans from the gladiatorial Age of Worms adventure (from Dungeon) because I still would like to run that someday.

Are there any other good arena or coliseum maps out there?

My theory, based on absolutely nothing but my intuition, is that Starfinder is Paizo's way of dipping a toe into the water of a Pathfinder 2nd edition.

One advantage of not doing any open playtest for this system, and of releasing this as a stand-alone game (as opposed to a supplement for PF), is that the designers can make every change to PF rules they might be contemplating in a 2nd edition, and then sit back and see how the Paizo fanbase reacts to each one. If with outrage and fury, no harm done to PF itself and lesson learned; but if embraced, the new rule or improvement will be sure to show up in the first PF 2.0 beta playtest.

If I'm right, I think it's a canny solution to the problem about potentially splitting the fan-base by changing the ruleset too drastically. With Starfinder, they can change anything they wish to, create exactly the kind of system the designers think best, and then see what the reaction is.

Maybe Starfinder is a huge hit and embraced by all: wonderful for everyone! But if it tanks, Pathfinder itself is still alive and well, with some valuable lessons of what not to do, mechanically, with a 2nd edition.

The fact that it's been mentioned as "backwards compatible" sort of implies some kind of progression in the ruleset.

So Pathfinder now has a bunch of very similar subsystems:

ordinary Diplomacy, Bluff, Intimidation, Sense Motive checks
Influence (UI)
Contacts (UC)
Relationships (UC & Ultimate Relationships from Legendary)
Social Combat Deck
Verbal Duels

I like the implementation of all these, but I'm really unclear how they interact with one another and what kind of encounter is appropriate for one subsystem over another, esp. how to decide between Influence & Contacts & Relationships (& the Social Combat Deck too, for that matter).

Here are some inchoate thoughts on how these might be differentiated:

ordinary skill checks: when a character acts alone, esp. in combat situations

Influence: used for groups during social occasions esp. w/ casual acquaintances (feasts, parties, funerals e.g. Blakros Matrimony, Hellknight's Feast, Merchant's Wake PFS adventures)

Contacts: used for an individual character deliberately cultivating a relationship with a business associate, political official i.e. networking

Relationships: used for individual interactions based on blood, love, friendship etc.

Social Combat Deck: not sure; it's certainly for group situations, where multiple characters attempt to persuade a single target: how can this be distinguished from Influence?

Verbal Duels: PC vs. NPC debates in front of an audience

I'm interested in how other DMs are implementing these, especially if they're using more than one.

Looking over the new options in Ultimate Intrigue, I started wondering if there were good examples of either adventures predominately social/interactive (over combat, exploration, etc.) & of heists (specially where you're not expected to kill everyone).

For social adventures, I came up with--

Prince of Redhand (Age of Worms)
Dance of the Damned (Hell's Rebels)

For heists, I came up with--

nothing so far

I'd be interested to learn of other examples, whether for Pathfinder, D&D, or other Fantasy RPGs.

(I'm DMing a group of Barons who are about to spend a week hobnobbing with nobles at Court, and am hungry for stuff to steal from.)

Since I don't expect Rob Kuntz to publish this anytime soon, I wondered what the Greyhawk community has divined or speculated about this place. I've read a few reports online of people who've adventured there when Kuntz ran the adventure at GaryCon, but all the revealed details mainly concern environmental hazards (differences in time and gravity, overwhelming numbers of unspecified opponents, Kuntz open-form GM style).

What I'd really like to know, or hear speculation concerning, is

--who are the elders?
—why does this place exist?
—what happens there?
—what does Eli Tomorast hope to gain by returning there?
—why would PCs want to collect the pieces of the Octych and go there, other than for pure exploration?
etc.

These are all details that could potentially make any Greyhawk game more interesting, even if the PCs never adventure there.

I'm running a 3.5 campaign and am eager to use the Maure Castle adventure from Dungeon #112. The problem is the party level. The adventure is for 4 12th-level characters, who apparently are to make forays in and out of the dungeons, ending up at about 16th level.

In my campaign, we have 3 16th-level PCs. What I want to avoid, if I can help it, is going through and having to beef every single encounter in either numbers or level of antagonists to challenge them. Doing all that will take forever. It seems like a very deadly adventure, just as written, and I'm wondering if I can present a dangerous adventure without having to sit down and scale everything up.

What if the characters entered Maure Castle with Dalt's key, but discovered, once they were in, that they were trapped in the dungeons until they destroyed the ID Core on the Statuary level (albeit temporarily, since it regenerates in a day). Until that time, they can't teleport outside of the dungeon itself, can't escape through the planes, the key doesn't get them back out through the Unopenable Doors, and thus must try to hole up in random rooms (besieged by wandering monsters) to even recover their spells and heal.

The only other way in or out besides destruction of the ID Core would be persuading/forcing Eli Tomorast to use his demonic hands to open the doors for him. (The explanation for the presence of Seekers, gnolls, etc. is that Eli is able to shepherd his allies in and out as he desires, either through use of the Tome or his demonic hands.)

For those of you who have run this, do you think this will work in presenting a decent challenge? I can harry the party mercilessly once they're in the dungeon; even if the opponents aren't "level appropriate" all the time, resources will be constantly diminishing. . . .

Interested in any observations or advice from those who've run this!