dinketry's page

I think at this moment the obvious gaps in coverage are fey ancestries and aquatic ancestries, so those are what I'd like to see more of (possibly at the same time). For fey we have all kinds of classics. Dryad, nymph, satyr, I guess nixie, leprechaun, satyr... Maybe redcap, or satyr... Uh... Satyr...

Faun - as in a non-genderlocked satyr, is the primary thing that has me going back to the daggerheart order website and hovering over the button every few days.

When that hits I'll almost surely have to drop one night of my 2 nights of pathfinder in order to go play a Faun in something. :)

Ever since I read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in primary school in the 70s that's been my favorite fantasy creature. Before I even knew the genre existed.

How many actions does it take for a Toxicologist Alchemist to use Quick Alchemy to make a consumable injury poison (not field vial, but a formula, example: Giant Centipede Venom) out of a Versatile Vial and shoot someone with a blowgun to injure them with that poison?

I get conflicting answers on this and it makes me realize the wording goes all over the place between the different things, leading to confusion.

So a Toxicologist can use quick alchemy to craft a consumable. Which expires at the start of their next turn.
A blowgun has a reload of 1 and uses blowgun dart ammo.

So if they want to use a versatile vial to create an injury poison consumable and shoot someone with a blowgun to deliver that poison... what occurs?

4 actions: reload, craft poison, apply poison, shoot
3 actions: craft and apply poison to ammo, load weapon with dart, shoot
3 actions: craft/apply poison, load weapon with that poison, shoot
2 action: craft and apply poison, shoot

Impossible - because you need to apply before you reload, and so your 4th action takes place after it expires.

When I've asked this I've gotten theories that are all over the place.

It seems to mostly split 3 ways:

1. 4 actions as I noted above.
2. Impossible as I noted above.

3. A weird new idea: Once you apply to the ammo, it has 10 minutes to be shot - this is because the 'item' was used before your next turn, but the effect is now on the ammo for the next 10 minutes.

It seems like RAW the correct answer is 'Impossible'. But this needs clarity.

We don't have faith in a setting like Pathfinder.

I'm not sure what's there even qualifies as religion.

If you 'worship' your neighbor because he has a big gun - that isn't faith. He's standing in the yard with a big gun. It's just fact.

If you form a doctrine for how to venerate the neighbor with the big gun, and what to give him to keep him from shooting up your yard and instead shooting your other neighbor's yard - that's not a religion, that's paying off a mob's as a part of a protection racket.

Faith systems are about believing something about the unknowable. Religions are about organizing that into social / political systems for various reasons / goals.

What you have in Golarian is a team of super heroes and a team of super villains and regular people pick sides and try to pay them off for protection, and some of those regular people get minor super powers as a result.

It's a fundamental flaw of many tRPG settings - they were written by people who didn't understand polytheism, let alone even faith.

I would be very hesitant to try and apply an lessons for your real life from it. It's a game mechanic system that, at a fundamental level, just doesn't work for actual human psychology, faith, and religion.

Best to just hand wave away the 'sense of disbelief' on it.

I prefer them either standalone or indirect.

After doing a 1-10, I suspect people are burnt out on the current setup and want to try something new.

Personally I have never seen a group even manage to finish a 1-10. They almost always shatter 5-7 levels in.

So I'd be in support of not only them not being sequels, but of having less APs and more adventures. However I suspect people like to purchases APs more even if they routinely fail at running or playing them...

The newest adventure that is actually 3 mini-adventures for different groups of PCs but to one overall story - that's how I'd recommend APs be. Each book made for a different set of PCs, but all tied together loosely.

You could then have a 1-3, a 9-11, and an 18-20 all in one 3-book 'AP' that is really 3 adventures across time and location that deal with one story beat.

Safest and most promising...

Ok, new idea.

Sitting on the Starstone.

Not next to it, not almost there, not in the room, not touching it for the first time.

Just sitting on the thing, enjoying having made it there.

It's over - you've won your trial. And it's pretty rare for someone at your new power level to get attacked outright. They need to publish a whole slew of books if that happens.

So for the moment, in that spot - you're really safe and full of promising potential.

Time to light up some flayleaf and enjoy the moment.

Now just... don't go anywhere. ;)

When D&D 4E was announced and we saw that it wasn't D&D anymore but a wholly new tRPG that just had D&D slapped on the front cover.

It was a great game. I still think it's a better tRPG than any edition of D&D. But it was just named wrong so there was brand confusion and folks started looking for the exits.

Bunch of folk from Dungeon Magazine decided to reprint the D&D 3.5 rules. At this point in time I'd already first moved on to Mutants and Masterminds and then mostly left the hobby because MMOs were picking up and there were way too many racists in the D&D scene back in those days.

But I grabbed the playtest of the new D&D 3.75 - named Pathfinder, and sat on it. Bought books as I saw them over the years and sat on them.

In the middle of Covid lockdown I was musing around on Amazon and it popped up 'Mwangi Expanse' as a recommendation so I looked it over. All sorts of glowing reviews and comments about it being a well done 'fantasy Africa' treatment.

Not that I believed that. I'd been in this hobby since 1980 and I'd never once seen a non-Eurocentric sourcebook that wasn't full of "problems". Even half the Eurocentric ones were bad stereotypes. I'd already been playing almost 20 years of WoW and rolling my eyes at the ethnic stereotype used for Dwarves - which is notably some mix between Scottish and Irish.

So I sat on that recommendation for a few months and keep looking back at it, and reading detailed reviews.

Finally on a whim I bought it, fully expecting the worst. Tarzan and Lora Croft meets 'Maguma the porter', voodoo, and all that usual nonsense.

Ok... it does have a gorilla king. So it didn't get off scott free. And they did still have some legacy stuff from the PF1E days. Vidrian may be there but that the place had been colonized before hand never should have been in this history. Something that that later repeats in Tian Xia.

At this point in their mutual histories it is more likely Goka or some other power in Tian Xia would colonize the heck out of Cheliax.

BUT... They clearly worked hard to 'write forward' and fix PF1E stuff without 'wiping the slate' with a 'DC Comics' style reboot.

I have mixed feeling on that.

However that they did such a good job of 'writing forward' and making a great sourcebook that explored the people of that area got me interested.

Not just in Pathfinder, but in the hobby as well.

Clearly something had changed for this to happen, and maybe the racism had died down or been pushed back some. So I decided to give things a try.

There's a very nasty rpghorrorstory of mine on reddit and I didn't want that kind of experience again so I was very hesitant. And that rpghorrorstory is only a fraction of things as it only dealt with my attempts at playing a female character, and didn't cover what happened anytime my characters had a 'bit of shade' to their tone or groups found out I did.

Took almost another year to finally get to finding a group to join just a month or so before the OGL scandal hit.

And yeah. The hobby's changed.

You folks that are here after the 5E / Critical Role / Stranger Things era have no idea what it used to be like.

There are still some oddballs. They get thrown at me in my YouTube recommendations all the time. But they get lectured now, rather than being the ones dictating to everyone like it used to be.

And Pathfinder 2E?

It seems to be in the lead on this in the right ways. D&D 2024 is also going forward - but I have some issues there as I'm mixed-race and that can be discussed ELSEWHERE.

But Pathfinder 2E keeps giving me hope.

And it turned out to be a good game system too. Not just good lore.

Though it seems to be based on some mix between old d20 and that game WotC called 4E that, as I said, I feel was a great game with the wrong name.

So... The lore and ability to do a wide array of cultures well is what got me to 2E. In a roundabout way.

I'd think Goka over in Tian Xia.

Big metropolitan city. But not under threat all the time.

That or the highland kingdom of the Samsaran. Bunch of reincarnation hippies up there. ;)

Why is your Eidolon always taking less hits than your Summoner? I don't expect the Summoner to take 50% of the damage of the couple, the Eidolon takes most of the damage. 4 hits is the minimum you should consider.

Unless the Eidolon is grappling and has reactive strike, an aura, or something - I expect it to take almost no hits, and for the summoner to be the main target of any intelligent enemies. I expect most Eidolons to play a role more like a rogue or swashbuckler, or flanking for whoever does have reactive strikes, grapples, auras, and/or champion reactions.

The eidolon needs to find an excuse to force enemies to attack it, and it usually lacks these.

Often if the Eidolon is a target - it will be a target of 'Tumble Through' or 'Reposition'. More often 'Tumble Through' as while Reposition is superior for making someone susceptible to a very bad situation; in an indoor fight there's often nowhere to move someone to.

Relevant Tangent:
I had the experience two months ago of filling for a missing player at my brother's table. Final battles of the dungeon they were in - I took over a Monk with a +0 in Dex and all Str. I stood in a doorway and everything could just tumble through me to the backline, while I couldn't tumble past the enemy I was fighting. It was a badly made PC by a new player. I swapped his stance for Mountain - but it didn't solve the issue. This tangent is where I realized that you can't tank without either a reaction or the ability to block a spot - the low Dex on that monk meant every enemy just tumbled through me into the backline.

A Brutal Eidolon can just be tumbled through on the way to the Summoner.
A Fleet Eidolon has better odds of stopping that.
Both are pretty good at avoiding being repositioned.
However the Brutal is still what you want to be able to grapple or trip and thus lock enemies in place.

arcady wrote:

Summoner ...

It's also oddly a class much easier to play in person than on a VTT because the VTTs just get all the permissions and automation wrong for it, and I play online so I keep seeing how messy that can get when the player is also trying to learn the controls in a new VTT.

One of the things holding me back from using a more advanced VTT is we I don't play the conventional way. Never have, never will since it is a tactically poor way to engage.

Most of the time over the years, I've seen groups kind of let the DM go, "Door is open, there are some orcs there or monster, roll initiative."

I don't enjoy this type of play in a game with this much variation and ability. Why wouldn't I use stealth to scout ahead if I can build a really strong stealth character? Why wouldn't I decide where to engage the enemy? Why wouldn't I want to hit them at a distance first forcing them to use move actions while I'm using damaging attack actions at range to leave them already hurt with lower hit points once they hit the frontline?

Most VTTs cannot handle this type of play yet. Hopefully it will get better because I'm not changing how I play for some visual bells and whistles.

Your playstyle in a post just prior to this describes how I like to handle things as a player, being a veteran. But I've never get the chance to play with others who have even a single tactical brain cell in them. ;)

Check doors, have heavies open, try to draw things out, etc.
You only rush in when doing so has you at an advantage - you've created chaos in their ranks and reduced their visibility but not your own, or something like that.

VTTs can work just great for this. The deciding factor on a tactical playstyle if groups coordinating and ensuring you didn't invite Leeroy Jenkins to the table.

In fact I find a VTT helps more tuned in players better see the tactical choices and coordinate what they do.

arcady wrote:

Shouldn't the summoner's second highest stat be Dex given that they have no armor proficiencies?

No, it's Con. You share your hit points with your Eidolon so you benefit a lot from high Con. Also, getting an Armor is trivial in PF2, if you really miss the few points of AC.

My Summoner has 18 Cha, 16 Con and 12 Dex, and I don't miss the Dex (but the Con saved me a few times, you don't want to drop as a Summoner).

I just don't see that.

No amount of HPs makes up for being crit. In play I've seen Barbarian as having the worst survivability of any class I've seen people try for this very reason. Especially pre-remaster.

Also, Summoner doesn't even have light armor proficiency.

I suppose if you want to be the party tank with your eidolon - which then entails keeping your caster out of range of enemies rather than near that eidolon. I keep seeing players try to be the party tank with things like the plant eidolon - and in fact that's what a player is doing in the game I'm in. But I'm starting to feel it's not that viable a position to go for because he's got no AC and is too easy to crit because... he keeps his caster too close. Enemies just melee hit his caster instead of the eidolon.

And a few extra HP is not going to help when you become a crit sponge.

This isn't a problem for experienced players because they'll know what to build around. But compare to something like Fighter which is much more newbie friendly because unless you do...

That's been my point.

I keep seeing players who are completely new to Pathfinder try it. I suspect because when I got the new DND 2024 PHB, I didn't see an entry for Alchemist, Gunslinger, or Summoner. And so yeah - guess what I keep seeing over and over again from new players to Pathfinder. While I think there's an addon book that makes a gun character of some kind, and I didn't list Inventor because DnDers keep telling me they have something for that (arcanist, machinist, I dunno and my FFXIV references are taking over)...

So yeah complete newbies are attracted to Alchemists and Summoners like flies to honey and it just so happens these are probably the two hardest classes to play. Number 3 on the popularity list has been Gunslinger and I've seen new players just ghost games mid session because of that one - yet as a player myself the best DPS I've ever had was with Gunslinger because I knew what to do with my options.

So...

I see new players on Summoner trip up over Act Together, over having two sheets yet one HP pool, over where to stand, over what to do with the caster, and some unique Foundry issues caused by the class not really being added to Foundry all that well.

Popular mistakes:

My caster is a melee DPS.
My Eidolon should move in BEHIND my caster so it's safe.
My Eidolon will protect the back line, my caster will flank the reactive-striking melee boss.
My Caster shoots phase bolt, now my Eidolon bites - why can't it hit? (forgetting about MAP).
My Caster will flank for my Eidolon against this melee boss.
I can't find my Eidolon's actions on my sheet (looking at caster sheet).
I can't find my spells on my sheet (looking at Eidolon sheet).
I clicked to apply the damage I took and nothing happened (Foundry issue)
I can't move my Eidolon token (GM not setting up pet right / Foundry issue)
I can't put my Eidolon on the map (GM not setting up pet right / Foundry issue)
Wait, My Eidolon can't use my skill feat?

And then there's all the situations where they forget to declare Act Together, mis count actions, and so on. A GM just presuming you're always using Act Together avoid half of these - but even with that you still get some confusion.

I've always wanted to try a summoner as my first PF2e character

I'd advise caution here.

Summoner is a complex class to build out, and majorly complex class to play.

I've had the odd luck of only seeing it played by players completely new to Pathfinder 2E every single time I have seen someone play it, four times now. And every one of those players has struggled.

I've seen three of them give up. One of those give up on Pathfinder 2E itself as a result. Granted for one of those players it was just a single session full of expletives shared between him and the GM before he tossed his sheet out and the GM banned the class from that table. The others were a slow burn of a player losing interest in showing up for sessions.

The fourth is in an ongoing game and every time it comes around to his turn, if we're in combat; something goes wrong. I try to cut in and help him sometimes during his turns, but I'm also often trying to talk over other people making annoyed noises when I do so.

I don't know if the player is suffering, but he sure sounds miserable.

I highly recommend getting as much system mastery as you can before playing a summoner. Specifically master actions and both taking and dishing out conditions.

You really want to know, more than any other class, what action you can do. You've got to split them between your trainer and your pokemon... and its messy when you're still trying to learn how things work and what adds up to what where.

I've been playing PF2E since the end of 2022, and I'm thinking I'm just maybe about ready to be able to not mess up the flow of my actions on a summoner. Or at least be aware of it and not get frustrated over making constant mistakes.

In Pathfinder 2E, I strongly advise new players to avoid both summoner and alchemist. Before the remaster I would have also said Oracle.

I know people can master alchemist and make it fun and quick to play if they know how the mechanics work, because it's what I'm playing in one game, and I've seen another player breeze through it.

I assume that if I ever see a player who's already experienced with pathfinder play summoner, I'd see someone play it with fun and no confusion. Everything that makes it confusing is something people naturally pick up with time playing the game - but thrown at you all at once out of the gate with summoner. But so far I've only seen newbies play it.

What I want and what sells well are very likely not in perfect sync.

I want more Lost Omens and short 2-3 level long adventures, and less adventures and adventure paths.

I want then to fill out the missing parts of the world map of Golarian.

I want the lands south of Geb for an 'East Africa vibe', I want the lands south of Taldor for a Persia / South Asia vibe, and I want the lands to the west of the Inner Seas for a Maya / Inca / Amazon / Lakota / and all my other cousins vibe.

I worry about more rules because eventually a game gets bloated. Too many classes means things start to break down - if not in balance, then in clarity of/or purpose.

I think we have enough adventure paths. They're super popular but they keep getting poor reviews because they're team efforts and clashing writing styles or writers not quite meeting up right leaves them disjointed. I'd rather have those writers write a lot of short adventures for use here and there. But even just selling the very people I game with on why I think adventures are better than adventure paths has been a tough sell.

So yeah... not expecting what I want. But that's what it is.

That said, anyone whose takeaway from World War I is limited to its inciting incident (and who makes that inciting incident the assassination of Franz and Sophie rather than the German blank check to Austria and the subsequent Austrian ultimatum to Serbia!) is Doing It Wrong.

This is the problem with history. The 'inciting incident' of WWI could easily be said to the last King of France convening the 3 estates to discuss tax reform.

You can trace things back continuously without even making many logic gaps or time leaps. Most directly though - there's a period right before German unification where a post Napoleonic France tries to recapture the glory days by slaughtering millions in the German countryside. Itself a revenge for things done to them that were a revenge for things they did to others that were... etc.

The first break in the chain seems to be the failed royal treasury of France. But that probably also has causes beyond the simple.

The problem tRPGs often have is a short-line form of history where events happen in isolation. Or a super long history where people take action based on something thousands of years ago.

I love Golarian but... it has both problems.

Imagine the real world if we were still fighting grudge matches today over ancient Babylonian succession disputes, yet also couldn't draw a line even as direct as between 9/11 and Afghanistan.

but with less dungeon-crawling.

That.

That's what I want.

I'm running Abomination Vaults right now and I've come to despise it. I've been super close to cancelling my campaign multiple times and the ONLY thing keeping me going is that when I was a player in it I had 3 GMs give up and cancel it on us. A 4th I left for schedule reasons and in following their discord - they abandoned it also.

Because dungeon crawls just get in the way of roleplay.

Monster in room 1, then 2, then 3 ... repeat to N.

No matter how much logic you put into that, players can and will just roll through and slaughter things. It hyper trains them to think they're entitled to bust down the door of people's homes and kill everyone inside.
- That's been a theme everytime, and in running it I've come to realize that half the early battles we were in, we were technically the bad guys.

The door was there, the treasure was there, the thing inside looked like a monster or couldn't explain itself fast enough, or somebody heard a rumor from 30 years ago, or I got tongue tied, or it was unclear in defending it's right to exist, so the PCs killed it (which just reads back extremely badly in light of things that happen all too often in the modern world).

As a GM I can see plot and story here and there - and if the PCs go from 1 to 2 to 3 they get the plot. But if they go from 3 to 1 to 4 to 2 they don't.

I'm just so over dungeon crawls because every excuse to make them make sense is way too thin and can be skipped through no fault of anyone leading to just a 'murder-hobo slog'.

I want stories with plots, and locations that unfold as the story does. I want tools to bake in why a villain is the villain, or NPCs players will encounter that they don't have 'baked in logic' to presume 'this guy is in room F23a, so we kill him.'

AV has plot and story, but it's all 'on the side' and players nature can steamroll right past it. And it's just so insanely long that it gets tiring trying over and over again to get the story back in there rather than 'there's a door, bust it down'.

So...

NO MORE DUNGEON CRAWLS.

Hamitup wrote:

Llez wrote:

Same; my quick check was going to p.17 and looking at otherworldly protection (both are identical, listing alignments rather than spirit).

My quick check was the back and both list the OGL as the license.

Edit to add: I tried from a different browser and it downloaded the new one. I wonder if the system isn't pointing to the new version if you downloaded recently.

The downloads can get a bit finicky sometimes, so it might take a refresh or cache clear to get things displaying correctly.

Tried 3 different browsers, and repersonalizing.

Remaster is in the 'file per chapter' option but not in the 'single file' one.

Switched from phone to PC and Firefox to Chrome, in incognito mode. Still the old version. If it's caching, it's not doing it on my end.

Same here.

Have also tried the 'problems with this' button to have it re-personalize.

I can get the remaster in file per chapter, but not in single file

zergtitan wrote:

If we already got the previous pre-remaster version via subscription, will we be getting the remaster PDF update? or is this a completely different book?

If you already have the Guns & Gears PDF, you'll get the remaster version of the download automatically just like you would when we release a new printing with errata.

I see the GnG PDf is now available. But it's not yet in our downloads for people who'd previously bought it.

Is there meant to be a process for that?

EDIT: Seeing the notes above will. Will check again in a few hours.

Red Griffyn wrote:

[...]

The alchemical bomb feat on gunslinger was also updated to 4+half level of advanced alchemy of at level bombs or ammunition.

[...]

Alchemists lost any ability that links -number- of items to level.

Gunslingers for 1 feat, gains 4 + 1/2 level of a limited subset.

I mean, it's great that Gunslinger got a genuinely good feat out of the remaster like that, but holy hell, why does Paizo appear to hate/fear Alchemists so much.

Quick Alchemy being infinite and Versatile Vials coming back at 2 per 10 minutes is more than enough to make up for any X + half level PER DAY.

If anything, Gunslinger is getting the short end of this stick.

Especially if that's in batches of 4. You spend it all on level 0 bullets, and risk running out before the day ends if in multiple encounters.

The way I see it, this is potentially a massive nerf to gunslingers, to go from batches of 10 to batches of 4. Possibly crippling the ability to use them in dungeons. The class might be 'limited' to campaigns with few daily encounters now.

Any particular class options people are really hoping to see in the future?

Class options...

I want to see more for Kineticist. More impulses.

I'd like to see a whole new set of 'gate' options that are NOT elements, and with some; if taken prevent you from taking element gates.
- To expand that game design into other ideas.

But Paizo's already said they're 'shy' about non-Vancian options.

---------

More Thaumaturge Implements. Thaumaturge is the only Cha based non-vancian class in the game. So I'd like to see more from it. I'd like to see some way for a non-weapon Thaum to be able to use a shortbow at proficiency.

---------

More alchemist options for weapon proficiency. It'd be nice for the class to be able to use a non-reload based ranged weapon.

It'd be nice to have some AoE bombs to it can target a save (reflex for explosions, fort for poison gas).

---------

Back to kineticist...

Give it some ability to get an elemental animal companion. That should not be a druid only thing.

---------

Those are my ideas at the moment based on recent characters I've been playing with.

Fabios wrote:

sadly in an extreme encounter i think that a gunslinger would never ever find space, and that everyone would prefer a cleric or a bard over a wizard or a psychic

I played a level 6 gunslinger into a level 10 encounter in Outlaws and contributed tons, but clearly that's not possible, so I must exist in an alternate universe.

Most lethal results in a PC I've ever played was a pistolero gunslinger using two dueling pistols. Not the same model as yours, but another one of those 'things that apparently don't exist despite my experience of imagining that I remember playing it.' :)

She was also my second most "out of combat potent" PC. Behind only the Thaumaturge I just started playing - so this is just a guess that my Thaumaturge will outshine what I was able to do with my Slinger. With my Slinger I was basically both a dynamic 'face' and 'detective' because I dipped into an archetype that gave skills that synergized well with where I'd put my stats.

I will concede to the anti-slinger faction that Gunslinger has some 'trap options'. But that doesn't mean the class isn't viable. Just means you need to avoid the trap options and then 'learn to play' the build you do go with - as a team.

I think the term for this is 'high skill floor' - meaning it takes to player skill to get to competent with the class. This isn't a problem. It just means it's a class beginners should avoid. Beginners will be frustrated with bad results.

I feel it also has a 'high skill ceiling'. Meaning that an advanced skill player can go very far with it and get extremely effective results. So a player with a lot of PF2E expertise can thrive on gunslinger.

To the OPs thought.

You might be able to get a community consensus around the idea that:

Damage isn't everything. A greater chance of "Success" takes multiple factors.

The 'stop focusing on damage' seems to come as a 'snipe' at people coming in from other tRPGs where there are not as many options to do things other than damage.

It is less people saying:
'damage is not important'

and more people saying:
'look at the wider picture in Pathfinder 2E, because you're going to win a lot easier is your team does multiple things; some of which are not straightforward damage.'

As a big fan of how well Mwangi handled fantasy-African cultures, how well Tian-Xia handled fantasy-Asian cultures, and how well Highhelm handled a non-human culture; I am very excited here. The Mwangi book was what drew me to Pathfinder 2E, before I even saw the second edition rules.

In recent Years Paizo has dramatically raised the bar on regional deep dives into cultures. Historically the hobby has stereotyped fantasy-Europe just as much as it has other regions. A lot of gamers not noticing this as much due to assumed familiarity, but it's led to looking at tRPGs written in Europe showing just how much has been left out or incorrectly presumed.

I am hopeful experts on specific aspects of European history that most closely resemble the inspirations of these 6 nations are brought on board to give this the kind of high quality treatment we've now grown used to from Paizo.

As someone who doesn't have a Euro-centric background, but is also a history fanatic with a lot of 'specific moments in time' context; I could really use a book for these places that helps me 'cover the gaps' and am very excited to see Paizo's level of quality on this.

Ryangwy wrote:

snip

This is why PF2E is less simulationist. It just doesn't try as hard as PF1E to match its mechanics to the narrative of what's happening. Other games try harder than either, but I think it's clear PF2E emphasized game design and balance over making mechanics and diegetics align.

It's a lesson learned from online group based game formats like MMOs.

You need the game part to work.

15 years ago MMOs like WoW and Everquest 1 were perfectly happy having massive amounts of imbalance in groups. Characters that had no purpose but to cast one buff, characters that did extreme damage, characters that could heal and do nothing else. And so on. Ancestries, classes, and builds that were purposefully better than others.

This made gameplay very problematic - people only wanted the good options in their groups, people would give up if they learned the option they picked was not 'viable' enough, the game would be very hard to play if you didn't bring 'the right comp', and so on.

About 10 years ago Blizzard put out the slogan of 'bring the player, not the class' (or something like that) - and since that point has tried to balance things. Other games have their own similar stories.

Pathfinder 2E recognizes that we're not 'the local drama club' where it's perfectly fine that one guy gets to be Hamlet. We're playing a group game. Everyone wants to be relevant at the table.

Game comes first. At least from the POV of the game designer. If you want story or simulation to come first do that on your end.

But they want the game to work first.

So tight balance. And like Blizzard tried a decade ago with it's game - make as many options as possible as close to equally good to play as possible - so you can 'bring the player' and let them play what they want, rather than 'bring the build' and force a player to use it.

That's why I say PF2E allows for more build diversity.

The downside of a tightly balanced system focused on combat is a lack of the build creativity available in other systems.

I have a nearly exactly opposite opinion on that.

It's the tight math that allows for build creativity and diverse options in play.

The tight math works to ensure all the choices are balanced, and thus remain valid options.

That's maybe starting to break down in newer books - but for most of PF2E's history it's held and has as a result allowed for more and more different options to be in play without game disruption.

When you lack tight math leading to balanced options, everyone is just on a quest to find the 'meta' and play it. You can see this in some video games where everyone seeks out 'the one true way' to play the game. MMOs where there might be a thousand choices but everyone brings the same build, solo games like Skyrim where you can play anything as long as it's a wood elf stamina based stealth archer... etc.

People who play games rooted in the 3.x era of D&D all know there builds you bring to the game session and builds you don't and the difference is worth a pile of levels.

I'm hesitant over the new exemplar for PF2E - but that's over what's a minor imbalance compared to past systems.

For now I've made a ruling that the contents of WoI are banned from my table.

If Pathfinder 2E has hit the stage in an edition lifecycle where 'DLC book = power creep' then that will become my off-ramp for rulebooks. But we'll see how this shapes up.

Have we just backdoor turned kineticist into a variant class by locking it out of the mythic rules?

Or is the panic I keep seeing passed around groups and chats I'm in unfounded and the class actually does work with the mythic system?

I'd worried when Rage of Elements came out that this would be a 'one and done' book and Paizo would thereafter act like the class never existed. It does get mention in newer APs on the 'what class is appropriate or not appropriate' for this or that adventure. But if that's the extent to which it ever get mentioned again, is it essentially 'done' and not actually part of the 'game canon' anymore?

Do we need errata, or just someone to re-read the mythic rules and explain how it wasn't actually left out?

Well now that it's out, the character guide has zero mention of orcs or dromaar.

arcady wrote:

I find this weird.

Secrets of Magic needs a remaster. Guns and Gears doesn't.

They need to reprint it anyway. Why not brush up on some things and include an encompassing remaster errata?

Calling something a remaster vs calling it a reprint are very different things.

One is "new edition that's not being called a new edition, but everyone should rebuy the book."

The other is "you don't need to rebuy this every time we do another print run."

I find this weird.

Secrets of Magic needs a remaster. Guns and Gears doesn't.

This feels like it's being done just because people will buy it, which is the first time in this whole remaster I've felt that way.

We gave them grace because WotC forced this remaster on them. The assumption was that things would return to normal afterwards. But has it instead led to a new business model?

Build every caster on a hybrid of the kineticist plus X chassis.

Essentially make them all 'half as much' as a kineticist'. Half the impulses, lose the blast.

Add in features specific to that class.

Summoner: You summon demons and control them with diplomacy, intimidation, and recall knowledge. Yo have a pool of something you can use to force the control. Your "impulses" are demons you have permanently bound to yourself in a process which alters you - tattoos, scars, deformities, smells, or whatever.

Wizard: You research magic and have a 'focus pool' you can use to cast spells you have learned. You can do rituals that take time for great power. Your 'impulses' are spells that you have made a core part of yourself. Your class feature lets you swap around 'int mod' of these per day. Essentially for every spell you can either put it into the impulse for a slightly limited version, or cast it with a focus point which lets you modify some traits on the fly, or spend an hour in a ritual to cast an amped up version.

Witch: Your familiar has a focus pool that casts spells with the traits modified according to the nature of your pact. Your 'impulses' are hexes - you can place any spell your familiar knows into this, swap 'pact relevant stat mod' of them out per day, and their traits are 'fixed' once in the slot. You can use a cauldron (even just a cup or bowl) to do rituals for amped up versions.

Psion: Flip the ritual thing. Your focus pool is where you amp up the spells of your impulses. Your impulses are normal power and can swap out 'relevant stat mod' of them per day. You can meditate for an hour to do something...

Sorcerer:
- basically a kineticist. Even the blast. But the effect / theme is relevant to your 'sorcerer origin' rather than an element. Remove the 'bloodline' and replace it with a 'magical origin'. Things like "smoked herbs with an elder dragon and became magical", or "looked at the stars and saw cosmic secrets", etc... this is basically "fantasy themed super hero origins".

etc...

Refine, balance, make it able to have both tightly themed and generalists.

Let me start with a zinger. The secret to team optimization is having fun.

Building a good team from scratch is beyond the capabilities of most human beings. Sure, the GM could hold a Session Zero in which the players plan their characters together, but designing four PCs has too many variables to take into account in a few hours of planning together.

People do it hundreds of thousands of times per day around the world when playing team comp video games and even physical sports.

WoW / FFXIV: We need a tank, healer, and 2-3 DPS. Go.
Elder Scrolls Online: Mostly the above, but tank is also a buff-bot, and people pick abilities to stack specific buffs.
Guild Wars 2: We need a Healer and 4 DPS. 1 of you runs this buff, one runs that buff, Healer is also tank. And everyone needs a CC/Forced Movement ability.
American Football: We need a QB, some people to run around, some people to stop people from running around.

- Team comps are NOT that hard.

What are my goals? How many people do I have? Split the goals up by the number of people. Everybody pick one package and make your character. Everyone also take some synergy abilities.

PF2E:

Out of combat healing.
In combat healing (can be relegated to potions in a lower challenge game).
Social skills (cover this in at least 1-2 PCs)
Survival for any non-urban or 'not near town' game.
The magical understand skill - at least one of Nature, Occult, Arcana, Religion. Ideally 2+ across the group not on the same character.

Everyone pick one of:
Main defender - front liner, damage soak / mitigation.
Flanker
Ranged
- Note how that's 3 items but you'll usually have 4 people. So one of these can get picked twice.

Go through the above until everything's sorted and nothing's left out.

It's not that hard.

It can get more complex if you start looking at it from a specific bonuses angle like you would in Guild Wars or Elder Scrolls:

Now you add in:
- Forced movement / Restricted movement
- Deception / Demoralization / AC reducing abilities
- Attack roll buffing / enemy save reduction
- Damage mitigation (usually lacking but note it if it's not)

Figure out if you're covering this in melee, ranged, or both, and then who's got what. And in a 4-person comp it's likely one PC is covering more than one of these and some are covering none of them.

Adjust the above if you want to theme the party for some specific angle (like the 'party of free handers', or for a specific adventure (in this one we're all fighting undead, in that one we're all undead).

People often spend their session 0 angling for their own moment of attention and wanting to talk about some wild backstory about their mom's boyfriend's second cousin's lost pet dragon that no one is going to care about until and unless it comes up in play. Instead spend it building a team comp.

If you're just NOT a 'develop in play' sort and need a backstory ahead of time then try to keep it simple and remember team comp comes first. Your backstory should just be "how did I get from being a commoner to here in the adventure as someone who actively wants to be a team player in a dangerous situation?" And if you don't have "wants to be a team player" in there, delete the character and start over because this ain't a solo game.

A kineticist's impulses (particularly including Elemental Blast and Extract Element) are treated as spells in some situations:

Rage of Elements wrote:

Abilities that restrict you from casting spells (such as being polymorphed into a battle form) or protect against spells (such as a spell that protects against other spells or a creature’s bonus to saves against spells) also apply to impulses.

Will o' wisps, of course, are immune to almost all spells.

Monster Core wrote:

Magic Immunity A will-o’-wisp is immune to all spells except force barrage, quandary, and revealing light.

Does this mean my kineticist player is just basically helpless against a will o' wisp? Do I need to get one of the other players to casually recommend that the poor guy carry a spear or something, despite the fact that he's essentially useless with it?

** spoiler omitted **

A compound complication in this discussion is that extract elements has specific wording to undo immunity.

If you 'extract' air, the wording is that a creature you have done that to that was immune to your impulses is now no longer immune.

This ability is 100% useless if it can't be used on something immune to your impulses - as it's use is to make something that was immune to you, no longer immune.

So... either extract elements is useless, or there's wording that needs to be cleaned up.

I’m not sure how I’d “value” darkvision in a party that doesn’t all have it,

It's a "force multiplier" on "stupid" in a party where only some have it.

Invariably causing party splits or people who rush into things without bring a lightsource for their allies, leading to half the group being able to see and other half being in darkness and if a situation could go worse as a result, it goes even more severely worse.

Using tools like Foundry can further magnify this as the player's who's PCs can see do not see that the other's cannot see. In years past in 'theater of the mind' games I found that in any group were some lacked darkvision the GM would default to describing everything based on those lacking enhanced vision and the players with it would have to keep asking "do I see anything more?"

Now with Foundry the paradigm has flipped. The dark and low-light vision players just run off ahead and get into trouble and never think that some of the others can't see the map.
- That's more fitting to reality, if we were a pack of commoners pulled out of the local pub and told to go storm Bin Laden's compound at 3am then armed with spoons. Which is how most players act, when they ought to be acting like a well organized tactical team. But they never do.

Thus... "Force multiplier on stupid". :)

I honestly have no idea why Paizo decided to make minotaurs a PC race. I mean, they are mostly evil. They are the minions of Baphomet. If minotaurs can be a PC race, I guess ogres and trolls can too, but surprisingly Paizo has no intention to make them PC races at all though. Also, I'm still not sure whether making a large race into a PC race is desirable or not.

That was not stated in Monster Core. Monster Core has a little more text to it than the Bestiary did. The above was also not stated in the Bestiary. I believe it comes from 1E and from reading the statements of the attack on Absalom in the 2E Absalom book as indicative of the entire ancestry rather than just those attackers.

The Minotaurs on Kortos are descendants of mercenaries are apparently outliers t the norms of Minotaur society. Unless they too were retconned in 2E.

In Howls of the Wild they're much more general in tone and their usual deities tend to be Irori or Nethys.

They haven't quite been given the 'Noble Tauren' treatment, but it's close. They're even mostly vegetarian - meat reserved for one monthly communal meal if a 'monster hunter' ordeal returns triumphant).

(That makes a good segue to something that does pop up: a Centaur dressed in 'Plains Indian' inspired style dress and hair. A possible hint that they want to do that next continent?)

PF1 was also published at an unsustainable rate. A player handbook every month, a setting book every other... It wasn't a surprise when they had to slow down.

PF2E is getting dangerously close to that issue as well.

Hopefully the pace will slow down a bit after Player Core 2.

Remember, they're large. Large creatures threaten more squares without reach, due to their size. Medium creatures threaten 9 normally or 25 with reach, whereas Large creatures threatens 16 normally or 32 with reach.

It's not reach for minotaurs. It's reach+.

Somewhat. Large PCs don't get any more reach than medium PCs. They only 'reach' to the squares touching them. That's 12 squares (I think your 16 is counting the squares they're in which would require special circumstances for an enemy to be in their square with them), versus the 8 of a medium creature.

They can also be attacked, flanked, etc from all of those locations.

But you've still got to walk right up to an enemy - close enough that they can hit back.

This is very much a disadvantage. You don't gain extra actions so you're still targeting 1-3 people around you. But a potential 12 could surround you and all attack. NOT a realistic scenario.

However in a group fight, PCs can usually coordinate to keep one from being surrounded (unless it's my GM who always goes for casters regardless of damage output or NPC sentience - even when they're asleep or hidden in a tent having not acted or shown any signs of being present while the entire rest of the group is outside in battle...)

...

But yeah. When it's medium sized people you can form lines and otherwise keep enemies from getting all around a single target. But a large creature opens up so many more angles of attack - and just getting into melee with the rest of your team might force many enemies to be around you and possibly flanking you.

Wei Ji the Learner wrote:

Kavlor wrote:

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

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

That gets EXCEPTIONALLY problematic because of the racist connotations IRL.

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

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

Every mixed race person* I know has been rather offended by the direction some gaming companies have been taking with their "half" races.

At least "half" implies that you exist at all.

** spoiler omitted **

As a mixed person - 4 different quarters actually - I found the way WotC addressed the issue deeply offensive. A sort of "you don't matter" policy.

But the way Paizo addressed it in the remaster was perfect.

At first I didn't much care for the terms mixed-Orcs and mixed-Elves got. But now I look at it the same way I see the terms I'd often use in "real life" to describe myself: Mulatto or Mestizo.

That said, I'm not a boomer like Cher. So the term 'half-breed' is one I wear with pride, even if technically I'm a 'quarter-breed'.

Recently, my friends and I played a new adventure called "March of the Dead." As the GM, I gave the players two level 8 magical items and two level 5 magical items, and even then, the damage caused by the players was barely enough to defeat the enemies.

Is player damage too low?

No. Even by 4th level my group has players that get damage in the 40s on a regular basis.

Instead of 'giving them specific magic items' give them the gold they should have by a given level, and let them get any common magic items of their level or less, and GM approval for uncommons. Hold off on rares until you've done a campaign or two and know lore and such.
- Then make sure martials take weapon boosting enchantments, and kineticists take their accuracy boosting magic (gate attenuator - you need one for each element you have).

Players then need to start using tactics to boost their chance of a critical and reduce the enemy's chance of a critical.

That noted, we're getting scores in the 20s-30s without crits simply from things like a swashbuckler ensuring they have panache, a barbarian being in rage, a monk using flurry of blows, and so on.

Sanityfaerie wrote:

Okay. I could use some clarification here, because I think my imagined usage of Scrap Barricade would be rather different than your experience.

Like, for starters, there's a good chance that I wouldn't sustain the thing at all... and if I did, it would be because it was effectively eating the entire turn of one or more enemies. Basically, it means that Scrap Barricade is you trading one of your turns to eat up the turns of some of your opponents - and possibly deal some damage, if they bust through the thing. At that point, "those monsters over there are unable to meaningfully do damage" is well worth the time spent on sustains, even if it hobbles you... and once it's no longer worth it, you just stop sustaining.

...though it *is* going to be very campaign-dependent, and at least somewhat GM-dependent. The whole thing is predicated on being able to use the wall to cut off some of the enemy while letting your friends engage the rest. If the encounters you run into don't lend themselves to that (like, say, if you're mostly doing wilderness adventures, and there's plenty of space to move around in and initially very long engagement distances) then it's obviously not worth it.

I also have to admit that I'm probably being led by my biases, here, atlast a bit. I *enjoy* playing games with terrain control, and Scrap Barricade is some shiny terrain control for the level it's at.

As far as aura being active... yes? I had been making that assumption. If the DM does *not* allow you to walk around with your aura active, then I'll agree that it's basically not worth it.

My imagined usage was more like yours until I used it. Overflow impulses are extremely difficult to use unless you set them up nearly perfectly.

If you're not built around stances then it becomes a lesser issue.

I can reliably spam an overflow and a blast on the same turn most turns. Sacrificing that only if I need movement.

If I add in 'safe elements' - my need to move goes down BUT we then get the complexity you're speaking of because declaring who's safe is an action and not something you can do out of gate activation - so now we have a 4 action rotation, we need 2 filler actions as this is now going to be 'every other turn'.

1: declare safety
2-3: area overflow

4: (next turn). Flip on gate: EB someone or flip on aura if built around auras.
5-6: non-overflow impulse like flame arrow or whatever.

- repeat

On a turn needing movement we can switch to 'move and 2-action impulse' or 'flip on gate, EB, move, and then... raise a shield or something.'

This is also allowed:

1-2: whatever.
3: safe elements declaration

4-5: next turn: drop area overflow
6: activate gate and either EB or aura.
- The risk being if the situation changes so much between turns that your next turn can't start with an area impulse, you wasted 1 action. But you can usually gauge this one.

Ideally if you position such that your allies are not standing on you... you can use many overflow areas without needing to declare safe targets, and then your rotation gets really simple:

1-2: overflow
3: activate gate and EB.
repeat.

SuperBidi wrote:

Putting in the game an ability that is mostly a trap leads to players getting trapped.

But it isn't mostly a trap. It's doing comparable damage to the other low-level options.

While I would normally never use a 2-action blast we've just had an example a few posts up where I would: facing an enemy immune to my main element, I'd switch to blasts with "versatile blast" to get to a different trait. At that point the 2-action blast becomes very appealing.

So it literally gives you a way to remain at "decent" throughput when you main trick has been circumvented. That's not a trap at all - that's a backdoor back into the fray with relevancy.

Mentioning my witch reminded me of another thing about Kineticist...

The Witch was being used in Abomination Vaults - a level by level going down dungeon crawl with a new combat encounter behind every door. You can easily have a dozen combats per daily rest.

You run out of spell slots really fast. So I started to over rely on my cantrips and save my spell slots for where I guessed a mini-boss might be.

A Kineticist would be better than a slot based caster in a dungeon crawl. Unlimited uses of abilities that are just slightly below power of a spell slot spell.

My Kineticist though, is in Kingmaker. For most of this adventure we have 1 encounter a day at most. A few spots are mini-dungeons or chain encounters (the adventure has one early on, and so far it was the most action filled moment of the campaign).
- A slot based caster is superior here because you can more safely burn all your big hitters on ever encounter.

It's kind of why you see the mages of MMOs built more like Kineticist. Vancian casting just doesn't work well in environments where you're spamming combats between even 10 minute rest (at best).

But when you come to a single battle every so often, and have prep time for it, that wide list of limited use spells pulls ahead.

I'm sort of befuddled by this idea that they're just dead weight at low levels.

I think that's a rare opinion though.

You can easily feel like you're carrying your entire party for the first few levels. My damage output was unmatched until we hit level 3, and I'm built for healing.

I still pull heavy weight now because while yes; I am built for healing - I can "face tank" and I have potent AoEs I can drop all over the map with unlimited uses, and a toolkit of attacks. My only weakpoint is that am either going against attack rolls or reflex. A slot-caster likely has access to will or fort as well - even in their cantrips.

And my stuff scales better than those cantrips.

We have a psychic in our group and for a few turns per day they hit really hard, then they're largely sitting out the fight. I on the other hand am an "Energizer Bunny". I deliver a consistent mid-range result throughout, which if I can force good positioning becomes heavy hitting.

And that pattern started at level 1.

I have a hard time seeing myself every playing one of the other caster classes after playing a Kineticist.

It is just fun, and has the right level of versatility for what I seek.

I like that I can build for my desired purpose and can keep playing my character without artificial gatekeeping in daily rests.

Having spent the last 20 years in MMOs; the Energy of Particles in Motion class is just how I see 'Magic User / Mage'. If only it was named fittingly...

I'm playing one right now that is Fire / Water in a free archetype game where she is also a Bard. That does bring out one class flaw for me. If we did not have Free Archetype my character might not be dynamic enough 'outside of combat' as every last class feat goes towards impulses and the number of skills I had was not as ideal. But I'm not yet sold on this - I need to play in a game without Free Archetype and compare.

Another "problem" is poor synergy with other classes. You're main stat is Con and you have your thing and it's oil to everyone else's water. In a Free Archetype game there is very little to 'gain' from any choice. At least in terms of combat.
- This is just as easily a boon. I felt zero pressure to make a pick to power up my character as I do with any other class. So I just went 100% roleplay in my choice. She's a Bard because her roots are as an entertainer (she's a Hurdy Gurdy musician). And I took Bard abilities based on social aspects. My spells of the archetype limited to summoning an instrument and boosting the results of performances.

That said... I just hit level 4 and have my first "meta pick" of the free archetype in Hymn of Healing. I can now spam 2 different heals. At level 6 I will be spamming a third heal. And at level 8 I plan to pick up Blessed One (though I won't need it) for a fourth heal just to stay on theme.

(I might instead take summoner just to have the merge feature so that she can be "The Elven Torch". It's an off meta pick that is actually weak in combat - but it fits me in theme.)

With most characters I wouldn't be thinking of quirky roleplay choices for the free archetype, I'd be thinking "well, if I took this I can maximize by ability to do that in combat."

The poor synergy weirdly frees up my choices.

Everything about the class is fun for me.

So, major win.