Zioalca's page

1. How experienced are you with PFS2/2e/pbp so far (I'm mostly just curious but try and include at least 1 new player in all my low level pbps)
I've done a few pbp for PF1e as well as a few for 2e. I've run most of PFS Year of the Open Road scenarios for my home group along with running the first book for Extinction Curse and currently running Agents of Edgewatch. All that to say I'm extremely familiar with PF2e.

2. Something awesome about yourself.
I'm a very relaxed person. I like the foucs to be on having fun when I GM and try to create a bit of fun for others when I play. Take for instance my Halfling Barbarian from PF1e who had a focus on intimidating with his lucerne hammer. I can also be very analytical when I need to be.

3. I like recruiting players rather than characters but I would like bit of info on the character you're most interested in bringing. A brief bit of description/background/mechanics is plenty.
I tend to focus in on a particular aspect of play when I make a character. Currently I have been interested in characters with a focus on buffing and benefitting others. I have two NPCs like this in my Edgewatch game that fill in the group when I'm down to three players for the night. For this game I would like to continue that foucs on buffing others by making Bard or a Cleric. I currently have a PFS bard I could switch over to Abomination Vaults here: Ra'Sta Fa'Rian. I'd most likely change his background to a bibliophile and work on his story from there.

Hi, I would like to cancel my subscriptions for
Pathfinder Adventure Path
Pathfinder Adventure

I'm in FoundryVTT. It has all of the conditions and applies them correctly to the tokens. The only one I have to hand do is persistent damage. I am able to put a marker for it on the token affected but it really only lets me adjust a solid number, not set a die to the damage. I've just been putting it in the notes for the token. Just not near as good as having the condition card out, which my desk is a bit to crowded to do when I'm running a game in VTT. Otherwise it has been a wonderful upgrade from Roll20.

Oh, it absolutely is. I love the condition deck for face to face and greatly miss it in VTT. It's really hard to account for persistent damage that is of a die type as opposed to a solid number.

Ah, good to know

I had a similar conclusion with one of my players. If everyone just delayed their turn so they could all go in order, it would play out very similar to popcorn. The real meta of it is that my players have to deal with not letting the enemies get the last turn on the round. Enemies attacking back to back is just as strong as players choosing when they get to go. Since hazards have initiative as well, they can be popped just like anything else and players still make death saves if they are down.

Anyway, a separate question. What is the consensus on using the critical hit and critical fumble decks in society play? I'll also be picking up the hero point deck when that comes out.

Um... I honestly just wanted someone to point me to a specific resource so I could further clarify it to my group when it comes up. I was in no way trying to defend it.

I will say my group prefers popcorn because it forces people to pay closer attention to the game and get more into character along with understanding what others can do. Is it abusable? Absolutely. Just wanted to have a better idea on it and table variation rules as I work towards getting more into society game play. I would personally like to volunteer at conventions when that becomes a thing again. So, there you go. Thank you everyone who chipped in and I hope those of you who discovered popcorn initiative here give it a try and see if it works for you group in an unstructured setting

So, popcorn would fall under House Ruling. Can some one point me to something on the Organized Play Foundation website that covers this kind of thing?

Friendly

"This condition reflects a creature's disposition toward a particular character, and only supernatural effects (like a spell) can impose this condition on a PC."

Charm is a spell. It can apply the Friendly condition to player characters.

Crud. I was setting up my game in FoundryVTT and their condition info for Friendly specifically says it doesn't work on Player Characters. Now I know I need to double check questionable stuff like that with AoE before coming here.

Thanks everyone for the replies!

So, I've encountered this a few times where a monster specifically is supposed to cast charm on the PCs. The problem with this is that the conditions that this places on the characters specifically says they do not affect player characters. How should I handle this? It honestly feels like this spell just shouldn't ever be listed on a monster because it doesn't affect Players.

I was reading through the Game Master Basics on the Organized Play Foundation page and had a question on Table Variation. My group specifically likes to use popcorn initiative. I was wondering if that would be affected by this point

No alteration of mechanics of player characters,

Technically my players still roll for initiative at the start of the first round and we go popcorn from there. Would popcorn initiative be accepted in a Convention setting?

What do you actually get with the digital version of this product?

Changing the name and widening what the class can do would be good. Perhaps Dragoon?

Ah, that I can get behind

Overall, I want to see more melee oriented feats for builds that might not use guns or crossbows at all.

I mean, it's a gunslinger class. The name kind of dictates that you picked this class so you can use a gun or other ranged weapon. Why would Paizo make feats for a class that don't in some way utilize their namesake weapon. It just doesn't make sense to do that. You have four other classes that specialize in fighting with melee weapons or unarmed. There are also an abundant number of Archetypes that give you access to those classes feats. You'd be better off just picking up one of those.

I think the assumption is that Kess is going to be petrified first round and Lashweather probably is of high enough level that the enemies really won't harm him in any meaningful way.

One thing I desperately want to ask is, why was the ritual circle not marked in detail? I have no clue which constellation is supposed to be which. Going to end up just saying the outer four are the summon ones.

I once thought, "why doesn't Paizo emphasise the keywords"?

Then I wrote some homebrew rules and emphasised the keywords, and every other word was highlighted, and it looked like it had been written by a crazy person.

I totally considered that myself. That's why I think the tag might be the way to go.

That would have definitely helped

While you are correct, if I had to look this up mid-game I would have been kind of stuck on what to do. Both the CRB and Archives of Nethys list the spell the exact same way and in the middle of running a game I'm much more likely to try and look this up on AoN where I would have been just as stuck and confused. Not to say it is in any way a fault on AoN, they simply list these things as they are in the books. I just wanted to voice my opinion that bringing attention to a keyword in a spell or really anything from item to spell to feat would be beneficial for all. I think you agree with that.

So, I had a question about how Remove Disease works and was about to post it in the rules section but managed to find my answer in a round-a-bout manner. The rule books could really do a better job of highlighting words that are something in the book. For reference, here is why I had trouble with and was going to ask a question about the spell Remove Disease. The spell description states:

Healing magic purges disease from a creature’s body. You attempt to counteract one disease afflicting the target.

Taking a few glances at that as well as the multiple diseases afflicting one of my players, I was trying to figure out what to do with it. Finally I found that the keyword that was counteract. I really wish they would do something to make it obvious that counteract is a thing you can find else where in the rule book. If the above read as:

Healing magic purges disease from a creature’s body. You attempt to counteract one disease afflicting the target.

I would have known that counteract wasn't just a choice wording there but an actual thing in the rule book. I've come across multiple items like this that could use something to better catch your attention.

In total agreement with all thee above. Darksword Minis are great for shoony miniatures although it will be a bit hard to cover every class. Unfortunately I don't think we will see any minis of shoonys from Paizo anytime soon since the race is only covered in the Extinction Curse Vol 3 right now. I believe they will be making it into the Advanced Race Guide coming out sometime next year though.

I have had a much easier time GMing with PF2e. One note that has tripped me up for a while is spell saves. There is a definition of a basic save some where in the core rule book. You need to pay close attention to the wording on the spell because if it says basic save then that spell has all 4 degrees of success with it, as listed under basic save. If it doesn't say basic save then you only follow what is listed under the spell. I forgot about this some where along the way in my Society Sessions and had a player recently do some digging and bring it back up.

Zioalca wrote:

I don't believe it actually is. The wording you are referring to doesn't really have anything to do with the feat and should probably be moved under Eidolon entry.

It's mentioned in both the feat and the 'Riding Independent Creatures' part: "If you have the Hulking Evolution feat, you’re able to ride on your eidolon without this drawback' seems to imply that without the feat, you take the drawback.

Yup, I see what you are talking about. That is definitely gonna need some rule clarification. The wording in Hulking Evolution states that "Because of the special link you share, you can ride your eidolon without getting in each other’s way (see the Riding Independent Creatures sidebar)." Considering the special link is there from level 1, it makes it seem like riding your eidolon should not be a problem. That Riding Independent Creatures sidebar really muddies the waters.

Maybe my understanding is incorrect but increasing in size actually would increase the range of space you can hit. A large creature takes up 10ftx10ft of space giving you a 20ftx20ft perimeter that you can actually hit. Huge goes even higher with 15ftx15ft space and a 35ftx35ft perimeter that you can hit. I do understand the counter arguments to this being "Well, you still have to move just as close to hit something." or "You have more area to get surrounded and beat on, which you don't want since you don't have good AC." but I think with a better feats for tanking, this would be quite good for you and your Eidolon.

I'd hate to see the return of the OP Eidolon from 1st edition, which is why I think feats like this one seem a little under powered. If we were provided with other feats that had better synergy with this one though, it could be really good.

I want to know why riding is attached to a size increase feat... Does this feat mean my gnome takes a penalty for riding a medium Eidolon but is fine with one 2 sizes bigger? Seems weird and unneeded. What if I want to keep a medium Eidolon so I'm not taking up a larger area in confined areas? I have to pick either a penalty or super-sizing it?

I don't believe it actually is. The wording you are referring to doesn't really have anything to do with the feat and should probably be moved under Eidolon entry. Atleast, that is how I'll be treating it for the playtest

I think my players kind of glossed over the connection. I'm running a group of 6 and all but one are not new to my games and I gotta tell ya, they got whipped by the cockatrice and the rust monster. Plus, one of them knows that there is an owl bear in the grocer so I can't wait to see how they handle that plus that bastard.

I just read through the player's guide and noticed it mentions every class!...except one. Where are monks in the guide? Do they not fit in in Absalom or the guard?

I had to go look it up after you mentioned it but you are right. They don't mention monks. They should make decent guards or detectives I guess. I already have a player planning to be one so I guess we will see.

They are a much higher quality. I still needed to use Map Align to get them to match the grid in Foundry but they do look good.

Well, here are my list of agents so far:

Gnome Dhampir Witch
Catfolk Monk
Shoony Bard
Tengu Investigator

and two potentials, one of which is eyeing playing a champion. I'll report back when they are finalized.

You can also set up your Foundry on AWS. There is a guide for it on the wiki. It will guide you through everything you need to get started and if you haven't made an account with AWS before, the cost should be 0 for the first year and under a dollar going forward based on how much data you store in S3.

Hi, I have a level one Dwarf Monk looking for a society mission. Anyone have an open spot?

Thanks for the input row66. I'm planning on running this AP on a regular schedule for my group and we all have the same feelings that you do on the subject of this being Paizo's take on a fantasy guard type of setting. I can understand all of the real world implications others have been talking about but, quite honestly, my group and I play Pathfinder to get away from that and to have fun. Many situations can become weird or even goofy with my group at the wheel and I expect this AP to be no different. My main hope is that they learn how to better handle situations in the others games I run for them based on what they pick up from this AP.

Zioalca wrote:

Shandyan wrote:

Foundry has integration with Dungeondraft, and there's also a module that will take your (legal!) Paizo adventure pdf and populate most of the maps and other specifics for you. All the AP creatures are in the basic PF2 foundry.

Yup, and there is an importer that allows you to directly copy the stat blocks from official paizo pdfs and make an NPC out of them. It works without any editing about 90% of the time. The other 10% just requires a little tweaking because a comma or newline are in the wrong place and make for an easy fix.

Do you guys have the names of these modules? These sound wonderful.

The stat block importer is found here

The other is Pdf to Foundry which will take an official paizo pdf and set up the whole thing in foundry for you. That one only has so many things done in it so far by the creator is constantly working on it and adding new content. I think they are close to having all of age of ashes done.

Foundry has integration with Dungeondraft, and there's also a module that will take your (legal!) Paizo adventure pdf and populate most of the maps and other specifics for you. All the AP creatures are in the basic PF2 foundry.

Yup, and there is an importer that allows you to directly copy the stat blocks from official paizo pdfs and make an NPC out of them. It works without any editing about 90% of the time. The other 10% just requires a little tweaking because a comma or newline are in the wrong place and make for an easy fix.

I've tried multiple VTTs and Foundry is by far the best one I have used. It's amazing for PF2e and is constantly improving. All of my players have said that it is a much better experience than Roll20 with a much more intuitive UI. The main issue I've had with it is putting maps in it directly from the PDF for society missions but the Discord group for PF2e on the Foundry discord server directed me to a great tool called Map Align.

There is a module that will directly integrate Discord into Foundry but I have yet to try it out since my group was already using Discord over the build in audio/video of Roll20 anyway.

Wish I could play in this one but I'll definitely be GMing for my group. I can't wait to see what crazy characters they come up with. Unfortunately one of them is already playing in my Extinction Curse run with his friend as a pair of halflings named Starsky and Hutch.

I guess I'm not sure what you are looking for. Isn't the chronicle sheet at the end of each society mission? That is what I have been using.

I really identify with how Critical Failures portrays the familiar. The familiar is essentially a part of ones self. The empathic link between the familiar and it's master isn't one that can be ignored. Both feel what the other does on a deeper level than you could ever get via any other means of portraying a feeling to some one. This connection gets to the point that it actively influences you. One of the main characters has a Raven as his familiar. The Raven still acts and feels as a Raven would but with an added aspect of it's master. Since the Raven is a carrion eater, the master actually feels the feeling of hunger from the Raven as well as the satisfaction the Raven has when it does eat it's meal. Other characters exhibit these feelings as well. You can also attempt to ignore these feelings from your familiar just like you can attempt to ignore your own feelings but they are still there.

So, is a familiar a slave? Yes and No. It is an animal that you have essentially forced your will over but the benefits for it far out way the cons. Since you both share yourselves over this empathic link and the familiar is an extension of yourself, it does its best to do what you ask because in a sense you are asking yourself to do this task. These feelings across the empathic link apply to all the feelings you can possibly feel to. If your familiar is hurt, you feel its pain and its distress just as it feels your pain and distress.

I really just want the Magus to be an archetype with the prereq that you have spell slot spell casting. I think it could give you martial weapon proficiency if you didn't have it and it could give feats to buff up your weapon proficiency and your spell casting proficiency so that you can work up either path. Other feats I would want to see would be to better apply your spell strikes and not lose them on a miss or critical miss.

Using this method you either start as a full caster and gain some weapon proficiency or you multiclass into a caster and gain some spell casting proficiency.

Gaining armor proficiency is debatable because you really only gain that through multiclass feats or general feats but one of the new archetypes is supposed to get around that so maybe this archetype could too.

You can find all the resources you need for rules, character creation, and monsters at Archives of Nethys and here at Paizo. You can get a download here for all of the Iconics pregen character sheets. Nethys will have many of the monsters with stats as well as rules direct from the core rule book. Free RPG day is coming up soon and that will have a free adventure for 2e with it's own pregen characters you can use.

The 2e beginner box is right around the corner and is more fleshed out as far as beginner boxes go. I'd honestly recommend going with 2e because so many things are streamlined. Honestly, you could probably just hand them the 2e Iconic pregen characters and replace all the monsters in the 1e beginners box with their 2e version except for the dragon. I think the dragons bane sword would also give you a little bit of trouble converting. You could always pick up a pathfinder society mission to run in place of the beginner box adventure if you want a good 4 hour adventure and don't have to do any conversions. For a dungeon crawl Scenario 1-11 Flames of Rebellion is pretty good.

Would love to see Summoner and definitely agree that guns can be moved to archetype.

Can't wait! Awesome move Paizo and I look forward to seeing how these digital version come out!

My group has been doing Roll20 but I have tried Astral Tabletop and it is very good. Astral is trying to fill in the graphical niche that other VTTs require you to pay for. The only initial issue I had with them is there dice roller isn't quite up to par but there are so many ways around that.

Just wondering, how did everyone else handle the rafts? I had to do a fair bit of research on AoN to figure out how they could move and then found that the map given to us for that part was incredibly small. My thoughts are kind of divided.

Are the rafts not supposed to move? We aren't given a vehicle stat block for them. Instead we just have the material stats. With that in mind I would think they aren't supposed to move but then I wonder how the shards are supposed to come into play? Sure a player could jump into the water and potentially run into one while fighting but they don't really have much reason to unless they are fighting the tier 3-4 creature. I ended up borrowing the stats for a rowboat vehicle for my game but would like to know what the creator had in mind.

Thanks for chiming in. The PCs are going to be on flat water like a lake so the only way they will move is under their own power. One of the enemies does have the ability to attack characters on the raft directly but others don't really have that option without getting onto the raft, which there probably isn't room.

I will be running a society mission tomorrow and as part of the mission, the PCs can build rafts and use them to get to a ship waiting for them. In true Pathfinder fashion, enemies lay in wait to attack. The stats for the raft are barely given though. I'm given the following to work with
HP 20
BT 10
Hardness 5
Immunities: Critical Hits, object immunities, precision damage

These are essentially the stats for an item made out of wood. Looking around AoN, I found this page on Defenses. So, using that I interpreted the AC of the raft to be between 19 and 13 based on the stats on that table for level 1 defenses. The critical piece of information I still don't have is what is the speed of the vessel? The best I could find was this page on Vehicles but I still have no idea how fast the thing should move. These rafts can support between 4 and 6 people each. I was thinking 20ft per piloting action would be reasonable with 10ft of continued propulsion the following round. The water is stated to be calm and about 40ft deep.

Anyone care to chip in on this, maybe point me to some slightly clearer resources?

Edit: I do see an entry for a rowboat on AoN. Still would like some input though.

There are a lot of variables that determine how long you need to rest. Things to look at are:
10 min per person needing healing with an hour back off time in case one medicine check doesn't do it. (can be altered by feats)
10 min to refocus
10 min to fully examine a room
Full rest into the next day to recover spell slots
Travel time back to nearest restock point for items

So far my group in extinction curse hasn't stopped too often for healing thanks to the group cleric and one of the monks being trained in medicine. They also do burst heals if they didn't roll well for the medicine check. Most of my players are also fairly new to Pen and Paper RPGs as well so they don't always think to stop and rest before moving on. Thankfully they haven't died yet due to luck and a little GM magic in the form of me playing one of their characters when a player is late or misses a session.

5th - Can he flurry Wolf Jaw attacks and "normal" unarmed attacks in the same round?

Just to add some extra information here, the stance says whether you can do this or not. Wolf stance allows for it but Mountain stance actually says

Just something to watch out for.

Thanks for the answers! Much appreciated.

Is anyone else seeing the Pathfinder 2e Bestiary 2 showing up as both the book and the pdf in their subscriptions? Did I miss something about the pdf no longer being free with the subscription?