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Here's my read of it:

For the Blizzard, once they get 7 'Path Points' the overhang provides the minimum amount of cover to fully ride out the storm. They can choose to hunker down there and will stop taking the hourly damage and exposure penalties. However the night's rest for them will only heal half of the damage they've already taken for the next day, any conditions they accrued will be only partially reduced, and they'll likely be fatigued whihc can be rough given that they then will be going into the infiltration mission and fights

If they choose to instead keep searching for better shelter, they'd take the damage and possible worsening Conditions for each hour they try to get more Path Points, but could end up with a place to rest that will actually get them a full rest and not enter the last day as penalized.

Then why is the Goddess named progenitor of the goblins and orcs and other monstrous races an objectively evil goddess?

Well first off, she isn’t their progenitor.

Orcs are even less connected specifically to Lamashtu and as best I can find have no specific origin story in Golarion despite originating underground.

What about Lamashtu's edicts is evil? What about her domains is evil?

She's kind of the epitome of what I was talking about. We have her as the mother of monsters, the mother of the oppressed. Orcs driven from their homeland by the Dwarven Quest for Sky, Goblins constantly treated as sub-sapient. Everything she represents is GOOD.... but for some reason she is evil? Why can her followers not sanctify holy?

I mean let’s look at her Edicts (which already are softer/less ‘evil’ than in 1e):

Bring power to the outcasts and downtrodden - so far so good. However, important context is that Lamashtu generally values going power to outcasts for the sake of it rather than caring as much about justice. When this is granting power to oppressed and subjugated Goblins or Orcs, it can be ‘Good’. But she is also just as happy to grant power to say a pugwumpi who’s outcast because they regularly and maliciously try to harm communities. Lamasthu enjoys flipping power dynamic status quos regardless of why those status quos exist. As a result, this edit can be used for ‘Good’ or ‘Evil’
for contrast, Cayden Cailean has the edict ‘aid the oppressed’. The differences in the specific words used are instructive

Indoctrinate others into Lamashtu’s teachings - While it’s notable that proselytizing is explicitly an edict instead of just an implicit part of belief, this is fairly ‘Neutral’ imo leaning a bit ‘Evil’ due to the choice of ‘indoctrinate’ implying more forcible conversion

Make the beautiful monstrous - I struggle to see how this can be ‘Good’. Depending on your (and Lamashtu’s followers’) interpretation of this it could range from protesting conformist aesthetic standards to deliberately marring and scarring the things and people who are part of the mainstream.

Reveal the corruption and flaws in all things - Much like her first edict, this depends on how you use it. Unveiling hypocrisy in corrupt or biased institutions could be beneficial. Exposing weaknesses in communities just to tear groups apart, less so. And both are generally fine and promoted by Lamashtu - again she cares far more about the actions of disruption and societal change than whether the results of that are any better

Dragonchess Player wrote:

Regarding Asmodeus, one of the justifications for worshiping him is that he promotes ORDER. Even if it may be a harsh order (especially for those lower in status); frankly, the evil aspects are considered less important to the higher-ups than maintaining control (and their place in the social hierarchy).

Add in some propaganda (both from the state and Asmodeus' priests) and a place like Cheliax can keep things together for a while.

Asmodeus is often referred to as "The Prince of Law" in Cheliax, for example, rather than the more widespread "Prince of Darkness" or "Prince of Lies."

For Cheliax specifically, it's important to remember that they had a different patron god for centuries. And then he died on them. At exactly the moment he was supposed to bring them to a new age.

Much if not most of Asmodean worship in Cheliax is because House Thrune promotes it - in part a quid pro quo for that House winning the civil war to take over the country in the first place. But I could see some citizens deciding that stability of Asmodeus - one of the single oldest beings in creation - could be a comforting hedge in their minds to having their savior deity fail them yet again.

Speaking of Zutha, what happenned to him? From what I heard, one third of his soul cage grimoire got destroyed in return of the runelords, and this somehow destroyed his soul, but what of the two other third, were they also destroyed?

Per Paizo 'main' canon

However, given the previous AP had Xanderghul

Having had a few reviews go through, in both cases it took a few hours/a day or so before my review went up, even after confirming through the emailed link. So far it seems to be a very manual process?

Both reviews for scenarios i owned prior to the Store swap

Thanks so much for running!

Noticing there are actual specific pregens for this, I'll go with Chk Chk then :)

Dotting in!

I can grab Obozaya if no one objects. I’ll fix up my profile and post in after work tonight

Finally: the Pathfinder Society (and perhaps the Starfinders as well???) are noticing they are one of the most powerful paramilitaries in the setting, and that playing at pretend 'neutrality' in military conflicts is foolish and disingenuous.

Unleash the hounds of war! Dare to have an actual political stance!

I think broadly its a design choice to distinguish how the tactical 'feel' of fighting them is different

Demons generally have more hit points than daemons or devils of similar Levels. But if you know and can exploit their weakness this balances that out - it encourages characters exploiting their knowledge of the foes and taking clever actions. Similar at its core to zombies vs skeletons - zombies are buckets of health but have a glaring Weakness; Skeletons are more fragile but Resist a lot more.

While you could certainly argue as to why demons specifically were chosen for this approach over the other two main fiend types my guess is because the designers find exploiting a Sin has more interesting and creative options than exploiting say a 'cause of death', I think there's value in having one family of monsters treated differently this way.

I mean it happens. It's important that if you're running a given AP your players are willing to buy into its overall premise (ex: don't be playing Extinction Curse if your group is going to go 'why is this massive danger being left to a circus troupe to handle') but PCs will come up with clever ideas (or hard-swerve ideas they think are clever) all the time and adjusting around it can be part of the fun.

Major example from the group I ran Age of Ashes for:

It was certainly different than expected, but it worked well enough and it kept the player's sense of agency and excitement about their choices intact. And that's just part of both the challenge and the joy of GMing

I can totally understand why people who want the occult spell list are voicing their opinions, but why would anyone try to shut down others from having the option to choose between the two lists? If you don't like divine spells, then just choose to play occult.

Another factor is that Paizo seems to view 'pick from multiple spell lists' as a factor in the 'power budget' of a class. Which would mean that if the Necromancer got a choice between multiple lists the classes other abilities would likely be more conservatively powered to compensate.

We already went through this with the Witch, which resulted in one of the lowest-powered casters in the game (I've heard the remaster helped give it many improved features, but that was only after years of disappointment.

I've thought a lot about it, and I think it's about time Pathfinder did an AP about the one of the oldest traditions of RPG characters and fantasy protagonists as a whole: committing tax evasion. (Yes, I follow Dave Prokopetz on Tumblr, why do you ask?)

Hey now, Tax Evasion can be brought into plenty of existing APs on its own :)

In terms of new AP ideas: I'd really like an AP that dealt with and took place significantly in the First World. We've had some fey subthemes before (most prominently in Kingmaker), but an adventure that really leaned fully into the somewhat-alien logic of the fey would be great.

I think skill challenges for this conversation referring to the specific 'Subsystems' involving skills can be good and in many cases have been used well in XFS. But there are plenty of other times where their execution has been spotty and several instances have run so many rounds and asked for so many checks that the 'encounter' tends to get drawn out, sapping the energy of the table.

For the two most common systems - Chases and Influence - my two biggest bugbears (and suggestions for improvement) are:

Chases: So many chases end up having far too many obstacles, especially when each obstacle has the same needed number of 'Chase Points' to overcome and there's no decisions involved in how to handle them.

Suggestion/more enjoyable chase possibilities: I am a big fan of the 'Fail forward with consequence' type of chases we've seen in SFS and occasionally in PFS2 where you face a new Obstacle each round regardless, but if the party did not get the needed successes they suffer a penalty (condition, damage, higher DCs for the next obstacle, etc). This keeps things moving without risking the PCs getting stuck in a 'rut' of bad rolls or lack or the right skills.
I also appreciate the sadly rare times a chase 'branches' giving the party choices as to which obstacles to face. It adds more player agency and choices to the game.

Influence: As a 'structured' RP system to sway or get info out of NPCs this can work occasionally, or in specific in-game contexts. But when the influence is done in simple rounds back-to-back with nothing in between it can feel like the PCs are just spamming their best skill over and over until they get the right amount of thumbs up. There also is a fine art to having the right number of NPCs involved. Too many and the party can spread themselves to thin to succeed (though this is a bit of a strategy vs character RP issue), while too few (2-07 imo) means IC the characters are just saying the same things to a person 5 times in a row

Suggestion: Influence encounters spread out over time, or with other events going on that could create different ways to approach the influence as the PCs react to the changes are ideal. 1e's Bid for Alabastrine is the gold standard for this, but in 2E 5-16's Influence encounter was an excellent example too.
I also feel that in so many of the 2e Influence situations so far the PCs are being assigned by the Society that they need to sway certain targets...but the breifers decline to give any help or suggestions about these (mostly) very well known personalities. Allowing some Influence skills to be delivered in advance (either in the mission briefings themselves, or via possible Recall Knowledge/Gather Info checks acting as 'free' Discovery rolls for well-known NPCs) would both help with the 'Discovery v Influence' action economy crunch and make more sense immersion-wise within the world.

One other issue I have noticed with skill challenges: they tend to have a disproportionate amount of Hero Points being used, since they involve everyone rolling a lot of d20 rolls (and have party-punishing crit-failure penalties) in a very compressed amount of time.

The party I played at also bypassed that complication with telepathy - which isn't especially uncommon for many PCs

Is the entodemonologist Who doesn't have a name listed? supposed to explicitly namedrop Helsa Embersplitter, or keep it coy?

The explicitly "quoted" examples of his dialogue all make reference to 'her' or 'my lady' but then as the conversatino ends it says: He laughs and adds that Hesla would be displeased with him for oversharing. Notably that sentence is not framed as quoted dialogue from him.

I certainly don't expect it to actually remain any sort of secret that Hesla is up to bad things for longer than Gencon and Season 6's launch - plenty of people assumed as much even from its announcement - but curious exactly how much reveals on the player side were intended to be experienced here.

Looking at his stats, as many above have mentioned Treerazor's biggest hole in his defense is his lacked of ranged attacks, which means he needs to move up to and reach your in order to murder your with his axe. Thus, spreading out and 'kiting' tactics jump to mind in the air flying ideally, as the demon's tangling creepers and wall of thorns are going to be used to interfere with doing the same on the ground.

Of course Treerazor being who and where he is, you'll probably end up fighting him in a forest environment, which might limit your ability to easily fly around. Given all the trees - it's in the name after all

Of course even then his sheer numbers are rough. Definitely worth a thought: the party I ran for who defeated the final boss in Age of Ashes was a Fighter/Bard/Sorcerer/Rogue if that helps, but Treerazor seems a tougher cookie on a few levels (and not just literally by 1 Level).

I think its come up exactly twice:

Every time I see the title of this thread, I start to worry for the safety of Alex and the rest of campaign leadership. :/ I also wonder why, specifically, three was chosen as the number to eliminate.

I assure you I was thinking in-universe only. No Alexs were harmed in the making of this post!

As for why three...

Running this this weekend in what will likely be low-tier on the high end of CP adjustments. So for anyone who's done that:

How do replacing the Thunderclaps with Living Waterfalls work?

Swapping an air elemental with a water one means that there's barely space to awkwardly shove them on the map (given a good third of it is an open air void and the Waterfalls can't fly), the few places the Large creatures can stand would block off much of the paths that would let the PCs actually move, and on top of everything the Waterfalls are constantly Slowed 1 because again there's no water there.

I'm not sure I've ever seen a scale-up possibly downgrade the enemies before, but I'm trying to see if I'm missing something.

The harmless sniper shot is responded to by...a harmless laser shot. In the process of her firing however the enemy sniper is struck hard by the strange shadow harassing her.

Initiative

Green figure 32 damage
Blue figure 6 damage, 5 of 'them'
Ombonth 48/60 SP, 2 EP
Speaker for the Dead
George 09-23, invisible, casting
Red figure 39 damage, staggered
5am
Celly

I typically measure it as 'the angle on the side they're on'. So if for example they're in a hallway with sloped walls like this:

\__/

I'd count that 'angle' as ~110 degrees or whatever. Main point is its definitively greater than 90

I also don't consider in the middle of a relatively flat floor to be 'adjacent' to any angle. The hounds like to hug walls, corners, be next to masts jutting straight out of the deck, etc.

1) How do I make the PCs sympathetic to these thieves? I understand that they are Robin Hood type characters, but in the scenario they seem rather unlikeable on first impression.

On a personal level, I'd argue they are unlikeable, and I as a player and GM for this campaign would rather we not let them go and stop tolerating their illegal antics on our property.

In addition to being vague on exactly 'how' their thefts benefit others in their prior appearance and in the background they're implied to be Robin Hood types but how much that's really true or why they stole from Shurrizih specifically beyond 'he's rich' is given no elaboration when the PCs finally do meet Shurrizih even if they talk him down from attacking you still need to also convince the theives to hand back what they stole. This rubs me entirely the wrong way: it implies the thieves ideal scenarios go:

A) The PCs solve the problem they caused and talk the aggrieved party into not caring about his stolen property.
B) If not that, the PCs might be able to kill the person they stole from so he can't retaliate against them
C) ...fine, I guess we'll give the thing back

THAT SAID: While the above could be argued to be framing things in an overly unsympathetic light, if you want to present them more neutrally and let the PCs react how they choose you could make it clear the thieves did not intend to affect the maze or cause any harm to it. Also, regardless of whether the PCs love or hate them, the disruption to the Maze still needs to be solved regardless so their attitudes towards the thieves only really comes up at the beginning and end of the scenario.

And if you are looking to skew towards presenting them in a brighter light, you could describe the item they stole unnamed in the scenario, maybe it has a interesting pedigree or useful abilities to help others, have the thieves bring up their past thefts and what they did with the spoils, or have Shurrizih be exceptionally haughty and dismissive of arguments for mercy or moderation when they appear.

Even in the context of Magic the Gathering, I find the "Timmy/Johnny/Spike" categories fairly flawed. Mark Rosewater - who invented the terms in this context - has changed the definitions of what he means by them over time so that even in a MTG context there's not always agreement as to what 'counts' as what, and ported onto an entirely different game system makes it further muddled.

Plus the whole theoretical premise that divide is based on is 'Psychographics', which is explicitly about how to market something to people rather than who they actually are

That said, if I had to, I'd point out that the broad and least derogatory description of Timmies is that they are there for the big experience. That means to me options that'd appeal to them are big 'number goes up' aspects, or 'big swing with high reward if it works' options. Meaning Barbarians and fighters, blaster mages, wild-shpae druids I'm a bear now! Rawwwr!. Swashbucklers with their panache seem a good thematic fit too.

Roughly, I'd also say Johnnies are more 'self-expression' so would take whatever option would fit their specific envisioned character regardless of its optimality, Spikes would min-max though not inherently for overall power (they could decide to take options to make them the best possible Leaper for example even if the rest of their combat or skill viability suffered), Vorthoes would focus on the flavor of their character in relation to the setting (very fine line between them and Johnnies in this context - again, these terms don't really map onto TRPGS), and Melvin-ism doesn't even at all apply to the playing of Pathfinder as they're just analyzing feat and design interactions.

Zoken just beat me to the punch, but I fully agree I think a key expectation failure was having Investogator be seen as a regualr class and not an Uncommon/Rare one that is designed mostly for specific styles of campaigns.

Now, even then I think there’s some issues with the execution (feats like Red Herring and That’s Odd feel simultaneously a bit too strong if you’re in an intrigue campaign and too weak if your in any other type) but their ‘class niche’ to separate them from a regualr rogue just seems too narrow to matter in the majority of the style of adventures Paizo actually makes.

So the Pathfinder Society has a lot of leadership NPCs. We have:

* 10 members of the Decemvirate
* 3 Masters (of the Swords, Spells, and Scrolls 'schools')
* Zarta Dralneen (Head archivist)
* The 6 heads of the current factions

That's already twenty right there before we even get to all of the individual Venture Captains that run the various lodges (some of whom, like Ambrus Valsin, pop up constantly) or other recurring NPCs.

When it comes to getting players - new or old - to understand how all of these connect to how the Pathfinder Society organization works, much less to get invested into these characters' possible plotlines, I feel the sheer 'org-chart bloat' at the Society's top works against itself. A player’s ability to care about any specific one of these leading NPCs gets spread too thin for any of their fates to have much of an impact.

In contrast, Starfinder has had ongoing storylines about multiple faction leaders that work in part because the number of faction heads are kept low and focused enough for players to get to see them and their personalities more.

I'm curious what other people think about this. Do you think the Society could use a trimming/consolidation? Or if not, what ways could the large cast of leaders be juggled to have them make an impact?

NOTE: whether of not the Decimverate should be masked and anonymous leaders is likely a separate topic. I'm curious about people's thoughts on the leadership's numbers, not their IDs (though if you want to argue the Ten should be revealed to just so happen to be existing faction heads to drop the numbers down, feel free :p)

Pfft, youngins. It should be called Elder Dragon Highlander :P

I see your point with 'Commander' sounding more CHA-based while 'Tactician' can come across more as INT, but I also think 'Commander' sounds both more 'dynamic' and 'exciting'. Especially as "Warlord" and "Marshall" are already taken.

To me what struck me as a bit strange or out of place was that it is the player characters who are called on to be the ones called to treat with her. I mean from a gameplay perspective, of course: the PCs are the movers and shakers.

But at this point the PCs are also random adventurers who might not even be from Sandpoint at all. They are not official representatives of Sandpoint and could easily have less claim to 'speak for the town' than the dozens of Sandpoint locals who approach to argue against the ritual. Aurahani - a cleric of a faith dedicated to helping lost souls - and Abstalar - a figure who both represents the institution that failed her and regrets it and a man who clearly knows her story deeply - narratively seem to make much more sense as the people delivering said apology and forgiveness.

That handout looks great! My only note (and the scenario itself is guilty of this so I think it's just from copying text over) is

Irori won't die, but neither will he be marked 'safe' in advance.

This is because his death would be so uninteresting it would be a stretch to even come up with a good 'What If?' story for it.

Re: combining encounters

I have combined encounters many times before in my 2e games, in response to the PCs’ actions and behavior. However, it is the case this can go against the typical assumptions of 2e design and thus when GMs do so it’s important to consider when/if to do so and how that will affect things.

In general, I try to keep encounter areas separate enough to minimize the chance of spillover, or to establish good reasons why group B wouldn’t go to help out group A. Sometimes in written adventures the placement of enemies can stretch disbelief in this happening (there are more guards just on the other side of that door, how could they not hear a fight?). In those cases, I find it better to adjust the encounters/adventures to move around the enemies - have them be further away from each other, or remix the two sets into a single combined encounter.

But I also believe that PC choices and approaches should have consequences in the world. If they are especially reckless and flashy in an enemy-filled area, or barge ahead noisily, the world may react accordingly. What is important to do however is to make sure the PCs are aware of the situation and area in such cases though, so they can potentially adjust their approach.

A well-known example: in Age of Ashes there is a very prominent location in Book 3 where if the PCs rush straight in they could risk triggering an overwhelming amount of enemies down on them there’s another one in book 2 to a slightly lesser extent. But before the PCs even get their they are aware it’s an enemy stronghold, with likely large numbers of forces there, and even cursory scouting can reveal the main areas are exposed and likely to draw attention from elsewhere. So my party was able to (for a while) tackle the encounters a bit more subtly, being careful to try to end fights quickly, prevent enemies from escaping to raise alarms, and stealth-scout as they went. And then when at the end they did in the middle of one encounter ‘break cover’ in a way that alerted others it was something they did understanding the risks and something they did to try and address a complication they caused in the discrete fight

I read a lot about Heightened Fear, is it only good to cast at high levels if someone has an ability specifically that can exploit the Frightened condition? Or is it good even if you don't? We have the ability to cast ninth level spells now and I seldom ever find a time to cast 3rd level Fear. I find myself casting Heightened Slow, Synaptic Pulse and other spells 5th level and above.

I mean most parties can take advantage of Frightened enemies - it reduces their saves and ACs while also protecting you by their attacks and DCs. But like most spells it’s a matter of how and when you use it. Since Frightened naturally goes away, casting Fear right away only for the rest of the party to spend the following turn bugging or moving, or when the ememy’s turn is directly after you (and so it’s condition will be better by the time any of you can act) isn’t making good use of the debuff. But you could hold off the spell until your Allie’s are in the thick of it, or even Delay to cast it right after a group of enemies go to get a full ‘rounds-worth’ of the higher Frightened condition.

It’s a good spell, but like most control spells in 2e knowing when to use which tool is key. Slow (regular or heightened) is usually best as an opener, Synethesia (which is already one of the more overturned spells) is most effective when the whole party’s set up for one big turn on the boss. More awareness of the current tactical situation is required compared to the plethora of 1e control spells that were ‘save or lose’

It’s also normal that higher rank spells are better and more desireable to use in more situations than lower rank ones. But there are cases where you might either be out of those or not want to use them on a more moderate encounter when you know there’s more to come: then lower-rank control spells like Fear can still maintain their usefulness (often much more than lower-rank blasting magic)

I don't understand the rebuild boon.

I have an alchemist who could benefit from a rebuild. Ideally, they would be rebuilt when Player Core 2 comes out. Am I correct in understanding that there will be no rebuild boon for Player Core 2, so I either rebuild them by 12/31 (before the alchemist becomes remastered), or I need to buy a rebuild boon after Core 2 comes out?

The 'free rebuild for every existing/reported character' has a deadline of 12/31/2024, which is the end of next year. So your alchemist can wait until Core 2 is released next summer and still have 6 months to decide if they want to rebuild to incorporate those changes.

It's a very far out deadline, with the caveat each character can only take advantage of it once. So if you for whatever reason do want to rebuild your alchemist right now you can do so, but if after Core 2 comes out and you want to rebuild with all of those cool new tricks then you would need to buy an ACP rebuild boon.

A huge thanks to you for wrangling this biggrin, and all who also helped put this together and keep it going on all sides of the screen

And apologies for being one of the (possibly the?) last to report. Blame the overgrown eels :p

Running this in PbP at the moment, and while not there yet, checking Encounter D's conditions I noticed this:

Round 4: The smoke grows thicker, causing anyone who breathes it to become sickened 1, creatures can hold their breath to avoid being sickened. Geir intercedes for his commanders and uses one of his magical developments in Ghasterhall to grant the undead fire resist 5 to help reduce the effects of the forest fire. The undead must still contend with the smoke’s sickening effects.

I did not think wights needed to breathe at all generally (nor most undead). Is this incorrect, an exception for the scenario to help balance out the complex encounter, or something that might have been missed by the developers?

In 1st edition they were distinct species with unique stats and abilities.

It is definitely implied in 1e possibly outright stated, its been a while so I forget) that the two likely shared a common ancestor but the creatures that became 'syrinx' and those that became 'strix' were separated long ago.

In 2e I could potentially see Syrinx perhaps being a Heritage option for Strixes, but without a ruling to that effect I would assume they are unique Ancestries. Similar to Dwarves and Hryngar.

Our table 'Alter'ed it to create a door in the wall. It's pure Dream logic, but the GM also mentioned he wasn't sure how else we were supposed to get past it.

Irori and Gorum are both generic and forgettable enough to easily be replaced with a more interesting Deity, but that also makes getting rid of them not an especially compelling story.

Asmodeus dying would cause absolute chaos, not only in Hell (since while i don't think its vital the ruler of Hell is a capital 'G' God, devils are going to have a specific person eventually at the top of the chain of command), but in Cheliax too. The question is is Paizo ready to do another Cheliax civil war plot so soon again (my bet is no).

My own gut reaction guess: it'll be one of either Sarenrae, Urgathoa, or Desna

Sarenrae: there have been at least two bits in recent adventures I'm aware of that could be interpreted as possible hints her time is number admittedly one hints at it while still leaving a big 'but why tho' about it. Also with alignment going away its less important to have a single poster-child Good deity like her (there's her associations with redemption and the sun too, but sun gods are a dime a dozen and redemption can be associated with many different other gods - each of whom have interesting different ways of interpreting what exactly that means

Urgathoa: a God of Undeath is setting useful but Golarion is filled with extremely powerful necromancers (quite possibly the most heavily represented 'school' of big setting-level-threat mages). I could see her being put down by an usurper.

Desna: Desna's a weird God who has a crazy-high representation in adventures and setting. Taking her out would thus be a 'Big Deal', while actually causing not that much immediate disruption to a specific part of the world (her clergy is most geo-politically active in what, Nidal? Plus, the Black Butterfly is still flapping in the wings as Desna-lite.

Currently mid-ish way through this AP as a player party's a ways into book 2

To echo but elaborate a bit on the above: the AP can be quite fun but the player's guide for it I found to be a bit rougher than most. The 'Recommended Skills' section I know was called out at the time and the Devs' response was Medicine was on the 'Not Recommended' list because there was nothing/little in the three adventures where it came up. While that may be true that there may be almost no 'Medicine Check' bits in the AP, the skill itself is just as useful for an adventuring party to heal as ever. I would definitely have just left it off entirely if that was their thought process - 'Not Recommended' makes it seem like the skill should be actively discouraged (which it absolutely should not be unless you have plenty of other healing methods) not merely 'no special uses here'

Regarding the classes, as Bag of Marbles says they are listed much more in a 'theme/setting commonality' way than 'use in an adventuring party. Take the Wizard - it's lumped into 'Appropriate' because narratively magic is super unreliable in Alkenstar and so there's little reason for wizard schools to be set up there. note the 'recommended' magic classes are all sorc and oracle (spontaneous casters where thematically their control of magic is already more fluid and less playing by normal rules), bard (whose non-spell abilities and general face-skills and lore-gathering is always found in a city) and clerics (every city has priests). But Mechanically the AP sort of handwaves all that and says magic's assumed to function reliably for the players. While it doesn't make any sense for a party full of druids and wizards to join up in alkenstar, the AP itself would work just fine with them.

I will say the alchmeist isn't quite as bad as its reputation after a progressive series of buffs and new releases since the edition launched we have one in our party and he's very much a good addition. Inventors too are fine well, some imo; construct inventors are similar to other pet classes and armor has some interesting tricks. Weapon still is underwhelming in my experience - they're not a 'top tier' but in general APs aren't meant to require higher-end optimization to work. That said, both classes are on the more complicated side to build/play enjoyably, so they might not be the best for brand new players to the system.

One question OP: if this is some of your player's first experience with PF at all, have you considered running an Adventure module instead? An AP could be a long commitment if they're not sure if they'll even like playing Pathfinder yet (or even if they do like the game, they may quickly realize they don't love the first class they tried). Especially if the most obvious low-level AP is out (AV), a module like Crown of the Kobold King might be a middle ground.

A Starship boon that would allow a PC to install a Training Interface Module into their starship for a scenario.

Even if the list of allowed options were curated, it could go a long way to making a PC feel like their character build and choices matter to starship combats beyond just their skill ranks.

If we need a nation run by a God/'god' and his clergy with an iron fist, with a population who mostly believes in their leader's divinity and rightness while revolutionaries need to be very very careful, Walknea now exists.

If we need a nation where obedience to dark forces and rigid social codes are the cost for stability and it is a genuine stability for all of its cons Nidal is there.

If we need the PCs to deal with a cult - sham or otherwise - running a community, well there are dozens of places that could be (and a bunch of already published adventures showing all sort of variations of it). For a single adventure the difference between the place where you're constantly under watch and need to be on guard amongst a whole populace of 'true believers' and secret police being a town, a city, or a whole nation doesn't really matter. And an entire campaign of just that would get repetitive.

I think Razmir/Razmiran was a solid world-building idea but for me I don't think there's much more meat on the bone that would be both new and make for a good adventure to play that couldn't instead be done somewhere more unique or less already-explored.

IANAL, but my understanding on what they've said is that the legal reasons involved are that essentially they cannot have Drow in any ORC game of theirs (without expending so much work and changes to the drow that they'd be barely recongizable anyway).

As Starfinder is still staying an OGL license game, they could still use drow in it.

Now, the fact Starfinder and Pathfinder share large chunks of setting makes this complicated if they are setting-wise not existing in one anymore. And the whole reason ORC exists is that any OGL-based games right now are forever in a precarious position. But unless I missed an announcement they have not yet said they are being forced to remove drow from Starfinder (though any future Remaster or edition-change would be under ORC and thus would necessitate their removal at that point.

All that said, the PF and SF link makes the narrative continuation of drow in SF while not PF more questionable. They may choose to remove/sunset Drow from Apostae in the near future too, but its not as imminent a legal neccessity.

As far as specific PFS1e scenarios that could work to fill out a Shackles Campaign, what level is your party right now?

Some I recall that may be of interest to you are:

The Gloomspires series - 4 linked scenarios about searching for a famous pirate's lost treasure...whihc he hid in an infamously mysterious location that is only intermittently accessible. These are 4 missions across a variety of level ranges, so could be something you explore and clear at different points over the campaign
(6-06 "Hall of the Flesheaters", 7-19 "The Labyrinth of Hungry Ghosts", 8-15 "Hrenthar's Throne", and 10-17 "On Sevenfinger's Sails")

6-09 "By Way of Bloodcove" has you trying to move about the port city of Bloodcove to get information and sabotage a rival's efforts while avoiding notice in a city they control. (Aspis here, though could be modified to another port ruled by a rival Pirate Lord)

9-15 "The Bloodcove Blockade" Simialr to the above, making trouble in a port city to thwart the efforts of a rival faction.

9-24 "Beneath Unbroken Waves" rwach and explore a lost underwater temple. The reasons a pirate crew would go there will be very different, but perhaps a good treasure is said to be found there (and you can still use the same mechanical framework of the scenario)

8-20 "Torrent's Last Will" - the setup/circumstances around the mission are very tied up in the Pathfinder Society plot (and the scenario takes place on the Plane of Water), but could be ported to the Shackles and the adventure itself has you explore a very unique underwater 'dungeon'.

Hello!

Below is a description of 1e PFS scenarios. 2e uses a slightly different and more nuanced balancing system
So the 'Tiers' of a PFS scenario are the level ranges in which they can be played. For example, PFS Scenario 9-24 "Beneath Unbroken Waves" is Tier 5-9 and thus designed to be played by characters levels 5, 6, 7, 8 or 8.

Now, that's a pretty wide range of levels for a possible party. So while the plot and structure of the scenario remains the same for all levels, each scenario is also divided into two 'subtiers' of 'low' or 'high'. Depending on the average level of the characters involved the encounters they face will be adjusted to potentially have more of different enemies/monsters, higher DCs, or other tweaks to balance the challenge. In the above example, if the party's average level is 5 or 6, they would use the 'Low Tier' enemy stats and encounters in "Beneath Unbroken Waves", while a party levels 8 or 9 would use the high tier ones. And if they're right in the midpoint? Well...

For the party size, starting with Season 6(?) the scenarios are designed for and balanced around a 6-person party. However, there are listed adjustments to make to encounters for a smaller/4-person party in the scenario (removing some monsters, adjusting numbers of successes needed, etc). If a party is at the midpoint of a scenario's level range (like a level 7 party for a Tier 5-9 scenario), then a larger party would use the high-tier stats but with the 4-player adjustment, while a 4-person party right between subtiers would use the lower subtier's stats but without and party size adjustment.

And obviously the balancing still might not be perfect (since these adventures needed to be designed for a potential broad level range and party types) so you can always take these as a start and tweak for your specific party.

Remember (your 4 Free Boosts)

You did add them, right? Check again. Yup, just as I thought. Well, go add them now.

This discussion has made me realize that I too would like to know whether the Paizo designers think the Rare trait is indicative of a mechanical issue or of an in-world demographic issue.

I've been using PFS constraints to decide whether to allow PCs to have particular items/backgrounds/ancestries, but that's simply offloading the evaluation to someone else.

I'd appreciate a better way to differentiate.

Not a Paizo deisgner obviously, but for fun let's look at all the RARE spells in 2e. Per Nethys, there are 33 of them printed so far. Trying to break down why they were likely evaluated as RARE:

Gameplay 'Disruption' reasons
Antimagic Field - an iconicly very powerful spell. I suspect rare in large part due to the fact that turning off all magic item's magicness suddenly requires a significant amount of math recalculation from every characters and enemy affected, and as the tight math of the game really assumes PCs are using runes and other magic item bonuses to keep pace this could radically throw off encounter math.

Catch Your Name and Compel Your Name - deal with True Names, an optional mechanic not part of the rule baselines

Dinosaur Fort - makes an enormous day-long fortress with predators thrown in. I think its not too bad, but Paizo generally treats Structure-making items and effects as at least uncommon due to how being able to quickly plop down buildings places can make things go off the rails.

Divinity Leech - real *%&* you to divine casters specifically likely also rarity upshifted by AP-material extra-caution[/oc]

Prismatic Shield - Likely Rare due to AP-material caution, but it may also provide a bit too much defense for a single-action spell [ooc]compare to Indestructibility, which is a 10th level spell and is two-actions

Forgotten Lines - Very powerful 'mystery' solver spell that is also incredibly niche and means GMs would need to likely backtrack on what documents would have said.

Undertaker? - Because it can turn the enemy into a wild undead if it kills them? Probably just due to AP-caution, but that's the only other thing I can see

Lore reasons
All is One, One is All and Halcyon Infusion - They are called out as being personal spells of Old Man Jatembe

Aromatic Lure and Rebounding Barrier - Ancient lost spells whose knowledge is held by the Runelords. They're noted to teach them as occasional rewards or lessons, but not often.

Detect Creator - rare magic known to certain Knights of Lastwall though they can cast it for others or teach it, usually with a quest involved note that all of the uncommon Knights of Lastwall spells mention members of that organization have access to them - a great example of the rarity tag being malleable for different groups

Hypnopompic Terrors and Lure Dream - Magic associated with one specific unique creature a continent away from the main setting locations.

Internal Insurrection - Magic associated with a specific haunting force (I think).

Return to Essence - A spell developed by

Summon Kaiju, Summon Ancient Fleshforged, and Summon Irrii - magics related to and attuned to very sparse and in-world super rare creatures.

'We'rebeing cautious about this AP option that hasn't gone through the same level of balance playtesting' reasons

Temporal Ward - only thing I see mechanically iffy is GMs/players needing to mark/recall exactly where a creature was at the start of their turn, but iirc there are other time-spells that include similar elements that are Uncommon

Worm's Repast - here's one that number's wise probably is right on the line of being a bit too powerful. Which still shouldn't be a good reason to 'print but just make Rare' but its a good example of how that precaution can be helpful.

Every Rare spell from Kingmaker - My guess. The few I looked through didn't seem that out there but there are so many...

{Wyvaran demand again}

This thread is talking about rarity as it current exists and is implemented. Let's please try to keep to that topic rather than derailing it by bringing up (again) an off-topic ask about a non-existant ancestry that you already have several other threads made to specifically discuss.

Now: the rarity system. I also think its trying to do a few too many things all together, but aren't sure of a better way to better split it at this point. One real pro is that it is way easier for a GM to 'allow' a normally restricted option than to 'ban' one.

My main two frustrations are:
* Rarity tag on Focus spells and other abilites that you only get as a result of taking a prior pre-req. If the only way to get something is through another thing (such as the spell reinforce eidolon by taking the 'Reinforce Eidolon' feat) doubling up the rarity tags is a bit confusing, especially for new players.
* All the AP material tending to default to 'Uncommon+'. In some cases this makes sense under the 'campaign/local-specific' logic, particularly many items. But when another stated reason by the Devs is that those options get less development time and so they use higher rarity as a safety valve in case something's OP, it undercuts the stated Core argument that rarity isn't supposed to line up with power level.