Sounds like the team needs a union and fast. One of many in the creative industry, and one of many that will be markedly improved by having people who's sole job is to fight managerial overstepping and assure that more positive and effective management is required in order to succeed.
Feel you my dude. I grew up and continue to interact with a large POC group, and it always kills me that every time I look over one of my favorite books from 1st it has that big stupid stain in it, especially considering both what it says through its mechanics, and how phren is effectively mechanically redundant once you look at read aura which doesn't have the same baggage. It screamed to me that their either wasn't any diversity in the room or that training & empathy to spot it, or that management didn't listen when they spoke up, and it has soured me for a long time. Happy to see I'm not the only one who felt it was gross and off. Thanks for the pipe up.
This is a problem I have worried about for a long time, since phrenology was somehow added as an occult skill back in 1st and no one seemed to think that needed the axe, and continued through the firings and departures of some of the strongest talent in their offices. It is horrifying to hear what I was worried about for so long was true, and a cold relief that I hadn't bought 1st party stuff since the flip to 2nd. I feel this hurting like others do, and hope that something is done soon to correct this and begin the process of repair needed to make this better, something that will take a long time and a lot of work, but will be worth it if they plan to attract talent and foster real positive growth.
I'm confused because the target isn't limited. Agreed. The wording in the text makes it sound like the damage is selective, but the crunchy text seems does not specify. I feel like their might have been some content either cut from the text, or that it was written when the occult classes were still under development and something changed about them while the spell wasn't updated. Like, by the wording, it sounds like the spell can target a medium spirit or a phantom even though the former isn't really targettable and the latter is the same if it's inhabiting the user. Second, it sounds like a spell that could purge a medium of their spirit somehow, as it also effects haunts. So the whole thing sounds, to me, like it was meant to cast out ghosts, haunts, and other spirits by way of throwing them in the spirit paper shredder, but all the mechanics aren't there to do that with some of these (like the medium's spirit). It also calls out directly that it targets spirits, and the description sounds as if it tears apart soulstuff, so it sounds like it wouldn't work on constructs or other creatures that might lack spirits. So, what I think it means is that, it works on anything with a spirit, and potentially that you can use it to target spiritual creatures even when they are not usually targetable, so like you can target a ghost or demon possessing someone and have it only harm them or a phantom hiding in its spiritualist. That's at least the way I'd play it until I hear from the dev team. Hopefully this 6 years late discourse helps lol.
lol I just want to see the writeup for Phlegyas, Consoler of Athiests and Saloc, Minder of Immortals. I pray for a Phlegyas who is just a psychologist with glasses who spends most of eternity bent over a desk, his brow knitted as he rubs his temples beside a massive couch, where the newest soul lays as he tries to explain that the afterlife is real and so are the gods for the eighteen trillion, nine billion, four hundred and twelve million, six hundred twenty seven thousand, and eight time this month. Give me the exasperated followers of the conselor.
I'd be down with Orcs and Kobolds making it into the core assumption, at the very least Orcs. It seems weird that we have half-elves and elves and half-orcs but not true orcs as an option. Maybe it'd convince them to add more to the ancestry as a whole and make them a more interesting choice mechanically. I'd also be down to see lizardfolk become playable in 2e. I've been in 3.5/PF for over a decade now and the fact that we still don't really have a 0-HD lizardfolk choice continues to sadden me. We got the Vesk in SF, gimme that but with high fantasy and cool lizardy powers like talking to dinosaurs, limb regeneration, or super disease resistance. Seriously, I just want to play a croxigor something fierce or a skink priest lol. Also, dope Orcs.
That still doesn't really solve it, as the feat is essentially "Passing" as a pickup. I get the want to remove the gender portion, but the racial connotations are still there, and if we're looking to remove the whole complicated and nasty problem that is the cultural currency of "passing as an ethnicity, sex, etc. you weren't "born" as" from the mechanics list, they should probably remove the whole thing save in the most fantastical or pseudo absurd instances. In other words, a feat that says you "pass" as a cis woman or a Spaniard more easily is not going to look good if you want to attract people who are ya know, people of color who have to deal with needing to pass to survive or trans people who are quite tired of the comparison. Feats like childlike, that lets halflings pass as a human child though, that might work. Maybe make the feat something like "Nondescript" or "Doppelganger descended" and just expand it. Say something like, "Your features are so androgynous and/or nondescript that you have far greater ease disguising yourself as others." then just give the bonus to all other ones in the same size category. So like, a human with the feat could be really good at making themselves look convincingly male, female, orc, elf, maybe dwarf when they squat, black, SE Asian... Basically change it from the "Passing" feat, to the "he's basically play dough, he can look like whoever". Makes it more fantastical, more interesting, helps decouple from both problems.
I actually like the volley trait on the longbow. As it stands the vast majority of players use the longbow because it not only has name recognition but is just flat out better than EVERY OTHER RANGED OPTION IN THE GAME. Giving it a bit of a nerf helps make it less of an all around, anytime superior option and gives it more of a specialized niche, allowing other weapons the room necessary to start filling those roles and not have to have every ranged weapon play the game of "but is it a better longbow?" Maybe we'll get lucky and even things like javelins, guns, and CROSSBOWS might become good enough that they don't just feel like punishment choices for new players and a 3 week excursion into the depths of the splat to find a way to make work XD.
To expand on this, just adding an expansion of rules options in an unchained line doesn't change the core rules assumption. Players & GMs can still ignore rules overhauls that you do in an Unchained because they aren't core and new players won't be exposed to them and therefore will be unlikely to add them in in the future. This gets worse when you factor in things like modules & aps where devs have to figure out which to use or deal with customers who suddenly discover that all their rules are potentially years out of date and no one said anything. I do agree on doing an incremental increase rather than a total overhaul similar to what Chaosium just did with the new CoC edition, but any major rules changes need to be added to a Core Rulebook and made part of the core assumption that comes with the next printing. Update the PDFs and give buyers the option to download old versions if they like from the purchase but make those new assumptions core to the products going forward. This also has the business benefit of allowing them to reprint old modules into the new core assumption after enough time has passed like RotRL or CotCT and resell them again like new, or more reasons to get those old APs when they repackage them as 1 hardback. And while you're doing that, customers might just be like, "ehh, guess I should grab up the new printing of the CRB. It's been like 4-5 years, and its changed enough I want the new physical to go with my updated digital." Spending $40 every few years to reup my CRB copy because we had a nice update and keep parity with my digital sounds fine and with a bit of a slowdown on new products so I'm not breaking the bank to buy paizo's new hotness every 4 months would still make it cheaper than feeding my pseudo dormant videogame habit.
So, my answers got a little long, and in order to make them both easier to follow and sort through and avoid TLDR I've put them behind some spoiler tags. Enjoy, and I hope they help answer your question man. 1.) Do you currently like pathfinder 1e? (I know it sounds loaded, but please bare with me.):
Yes, but see 2. 2. Did you once like pathfinder 1e but now find it troublesome? (feel free to give details.):
Though I still love 1e, I do have things I look at as troublesome or problematic. There are still a lot of things left over from 3.5 that now after 10 years feel archatic like the design of clerics (who are powerful but don't feel like a left hand of god), the overbloat of power that druids have compared to nearly all other classes, the underpowered nature of the rogue even after changes that leaves them kind of unable to do the things new and old players think a rogue should do, or the skills system not always scaling into the late game.
I also have issues with a lot of problematic parsing that comes up in the way certain plot points or narrative pieces are written for Pathfinder in particular their regards to race and narrative about native peoples or as the books often refer to them "primitive". Both of these make it difficult for me to recommend these products to friends of mine of color or certain other disenfranchised ethnic groups, since we run into issues where their cultural history has been co-opted but they, their ethnicity has been replaced. The halfling underground railroad is often my go to example of the latter, and often leads to uncomfortable and long discussions about how awkward it is that for me to write a Django Unchained, Nat Turner, or Hatian Revolution narrative in Golarion for that audience when the game makes that piece of history something that is told with someone who's more often represented by Elijah Wood than Jamie Fox. And though Garund exists, that does not represent their experiences or their history, and having it co-opted is something that many in those communities often take umbrage with and with good reason. This also appears in things like the bestiaries in more abbreviated forms like how the Blights call out "primitive peoples" as being more easily duped into believing they are gods than "civilized" folk, but the same colonialist sentiment is there, and it makes looking at some of this problematic in ways I'm not a fan of and difficult to share with the more diverse audience I often surround myself with. 3. Do you like 4th or 5th edition D&D? (Also sounds loaded but again no judgments):
Was not a fan of 4e since it kind of boiled all the classes down into very samy mechanically with what felt like a thin veneer of narrative to try and conceal it. I have not played or looked into 5e much, but I do like some of the mechanics I've seen pop up. Weapons just having finesse and dumping the feat makes a stronger game, I like how dragons of sufficient age warp the terrain they live in, and I like advantage/disadvantage as it is easily implemented and intuitive to players new and old. 4. Which are you looking for class balance, smoother high level play, more options, or even all of those things? (Small edit: these weren't meant to be mutually excursive, I just want the gist of what you're looking for, feel free to add additional thoughts/desires as well.):
Class balance I think is a misnomer, so to be clear there, I'd rather see more dynamic and interesting classes who each do something unique with the mechanics of the game or unique with the narrative. I want rogues who can actually split from the party and drop explosive sneaks when they sneak, I want clerics who feel like they work for a god and wield his power (with great hesitation) rather than are just "the buffer", I want fighters who feel like a pit where the enemies hopes of martial victory go to die when played right and like a 20th level fighter is the guy who will have military schools for generations popping up teaching his style (like, your combat feat chain is literally thought of as "Insert PCs name here"). Right now, the system doesn't really do that for every class, and some, like those above, really get the short end of the stick.
I do want higher level play to actually work, but that's an issue for if/when any of my home games ever reach that state and since few do, I'd be fine with light fixes there or even maybe removing some of it altogether, but I do see that it needs a fix for any of it to really work. I do love more options, but right now I want tighter focus an tune up on what's already here to improve the feeling of play for both new players and old. The CRB is in desperate need of a layout overhaul and NEEDS to have whole chapters restructured to make information that is KEY to the game where it is easily findable and sorted with like terms and ideas to cut the amount of time EVERYONE has to do looking around for anything. I shouldn't have a Core Rulebook where I have to search 3 different parts of the book over 400 pages to find out how low-light vision interacts with dim light, and that interaction should be consistent across the whole book. This also goes for things like feats & spells, which both need more trimming and focus. We have too many of both that are just not flavorful, interesting, or rewarding and as such they get buried and make it harder to find interesting stuff we like or balance the game. Cut spells that cause bottlenecks, combine like spells to give more utility (which buff spont casters), dump feats that don't add anything and/or incorporate them into the core mechanics. Like, make the vigilante talent Nothing Can Stop Me should be something anyone can do, not just something batman can pull off. 5. How do you feel about making the game more accessible in general?:
I love accessibility, adding more of it, both in mechanical cleanliness, inclusive narrative, and better layout of rules are at the heart of most of my complaints. Make my clerics feel more like they wield the great and terrible power of god but are always flirting with disaster as they try to please them, give me a campaign setting where African Americans can play out their own power fantasy where they can fight the chattel slavery of Cheliax and take over like I can take over and rewrite the history of the french revolution insert in Galt, and give me a rules system and a CRB that doesn't feel like it takes 4 years of study to start finally understanding that has a single unified design theory that helps prevent every gaming group from having a fundamentally different understanding of the rules and by extension the design and balance of the game. 6. Are you willing to give up on accessibility if you can still gain all of the benefits listed in question 4?:
Not really. I feel like a lot of the accessibility issues in 1e come from the nature of it's initial birth, as an expansion/revision of a previous system, and that there were always multiple writers/developers involved but not necessarily working collaboratively to make it. Some of the rules were already 5 years old from 3.5 and written by people that were never on Paizo's staff when PF came out and with the limited window to put it out a lot of stuff feels like it's "in the CRB" but not necessarily in the place it's supposed to be. This, is where a lot of the issues with 1e in my experience tend to start with new players, and with Paizo's system of replies and interactions with players the problems only compound. From here, rules get found to be problematic but once they are in a bound book they are rarely changed, just worked around, and then those work arounds don't get shared with all the dev team and the system starts to buckle under the strain.
Make book layout a priority and think about the way we as players will read it both when we are starting and when we have logged hundreds of hours and design the book for that, and accessibility will increase. Be willing to change the rules, even core ones that have been out for years, if a much better solution comes along and MODIFY THE PDFS WHEN YOU DROP THE CHANGES, and keep older versions of the pdfs on file so we can cycle back if we want to and we will have a more cohesive game. Take a page out of games like DotA or LoL and think of the game as something that has new things added but also cleans up and refines the old as time goes on. Note, that large fundamental changes are not something I want all the time, but if its a choice between continuing to use rules that no one likes for 10 years until 3rd comes along or rewriting them to give all of us clarity now, I'd take the latter. Just let me have access to older versions of the pdfs too when I buy it lol. 7. Would you be willing to play an alternative rules system then what we have been presented? (A different version of pathfinder 2nd edition if you will).:
Yes! 5e Starfinder feels too much like a beast chasing trends rather than making them. I LOVE the new weapon rules, I think the 3 action economy is compelling, and I love the idea of ancestries having stuff that is gathered over time but good god, all of it feels like it's buried in moves that are steps back. Everything is called a feat and that waters down the uniqueness of each category and hides in each option and overwhelms new players with a big list that is actually a bunch of tiny lists they will have to pick through with a shared name. Ancestries feel like they are giant nerfs to old options and punish a lot of racial choices (particularly half-orcs). Backgrounds feel so much like 5e that it makes me wonder what's the difference and the whole no point buy/background thing feels like it's rife for exploits that will lead to just 4-5 choices being used and the rest just being page filler like how PFS sees a TON of PCs who are either Reactionary or Bullied as their traits.
I'm also not digging how skills are essentially the d100 system from Call of Cthulhu but with all the ease of use and understanding pulled out. Weapons have a ton of cool new abilities but the lack of high crits, crit ranges, and some clarity on how some of the abilities work (like, if a weapon has Charge and does a d8, do I add +1 or +1d8) really kills them. Also, having the Starfinder layout of all melee together and all ranged together is also a pain since if I'm running a character who say, only has simple proficiency, I'm going to be flipping all over the book. Keep it sorted by how the classes naturally sort them, rather than devising a whole new organization method from the way I as a player am taught to sort them in my mind. Along with this, the two tier system of monsters and PCs being built in mutually exclusive ways feels like something that will inevitably lead to problems with design, as monsters feel more like mobs and PCs more like powered up super gods. Like, I'm still confused on how PC vs. evil NPC design is supposed to work, and though I get some of the conceits here, I think that the disconnect that will happen when say I use a weapon and do X dmg but a bandit with the same gear and similar strength does Y "because reasons" will cause problems. Also, I hope that the new better design of stat block does not mean we will get the cramped, headache inducing bunch of math we currently have in the playtest bestiary. 8. And if you said yes to the above question what would you like to see in that theoretical game? (Most of you will see what I'm doing here, I'm finding common ground): Ohh lord, so much. Beyond the things I mentioned as liking above (with rewrites for things like ancestry feats) I'd love to see tighter and more severe combat. As it stands, combat can drag on in 1e and even more so at higher levels because it's basically just two bags of hp hitting each other until one of them hits -1+ with nothing really changing over that time. What's worse is it that problem plays into all the gameplay, to the point that you learn quick it's better to just dmg a guy than do anything else (dmg in this instance includes summoning things to kill them or magic to say drop them down a hole. Other benefits might happen, but they are ancillary to the dmg). Give me more things that happen along side dmg that make them as valuable if not sometimes better so that I don't have to just bash everything to pulp in combat to be useful.
2nd, make turning people to pulp in combat easier. I know this seems counter intuitive, but hear me out. Making combat deadlier allows it to move more quickly and shortens or removes the amount of time we as players and particularly as martials, spend just hitting each other waiting for something to drop and the game state to change. By making combat more deadly, we also make it both less optimal a decision or response to problems we face in game and as such encourage more interesting gameplay like stealth, intrigue, or subterfuge, while simultaneously rewarding those who do get it down. When done well and with intent this is how games like Dark Souls or Call of Cthulhu work, where you feel really smart for solving a problem without having to draw your swords (which makes classes like Bard or Rogue more valuable and more fun to play) and makes combat more fun when you feel like you really had to think out a fight to solve it. In my home games I have been using rules that model this from Skirmisher's excellent insults & injuries book for bone breaking and I have to say it has done this, and I'd love to see Paizo take a similar route. It feels too good to be able to play a fighter and be able to stop a wizard by breaking his wrist with a baseball bat and then capturing him or watching players think twice about just picking a fight with the giant cause he's mean and instead actually tricking him or outsmarting him to gain an advantage to not be a good thing. 3rd MORE DICE. One of my biggest complaints mechanically about 3.5 and PF is that, after a certain point, the dice really stop mattering. If you're a martial character by 3-5 you usually have more damage coming off of your mods than the dice you roll, which removes a lot of the fun that comes from the actual game and makes it feel more like accounting. Players roll a d8 and somehow do 35 dmg and everyone just kind of stares. The first few times it's fun, but without any sort of visual or sensory feedback it makes a disconnect to the audience and blunts the appeal of that big hit. And, it means that you are constantly running the risk of having to back check a ton of math because of how incredulous that "roll 1d8, do 86 dmg" incident feels. Like, we all know one of the funnest feelings in this game is that moment when you throw a fireball and have that handful of d6's or when you see the rogue crit with a pick, or the terror of the GM saying, "The dragon unleashes his breath weapon" and you see him pick up so many dice he needs two hands. The game needs that, and I feel like their are places we can put more of that in. Let every class use more dice more often and I think we can all have some serious fun. Those are the starts, I have more and more details, but those are things I'd rather not discuss here and this post has already gotten a little long. Hope that helps!
Why is a level 20 Formula or a Level 9 spell a part of peasant economy, but a level 1 alchemical item (such as tanglefoot) or a level 1 snare (such as a caltrop snare) not? This. To a long term player, this distinction and the exchange rate will be easy, but to new players it will be a massive turn off. 1st time players will look at this and get confused about which currency you are talking about and we'll get money flubbing problems and new GM's will get annoyed trying to remember and cross reference the currency in the very first game meeting when their players are building things. Standardize the writing to 1 option and move from there. I like the Silver option since it puts things in a more normal person perspective in the world and helps keep everyone constantly aware of both what a gp means to the bulk of the world and the PCs usual place of economic privilege to everyone else.
I was going to mention this myself. I think it would be better to call ancestral and background feats, traits. And call class feats, talents. I would prefer that "feats" be reserved for non-class specific options, like in 3.x and PF1. Currently it feels very cumbersome and confusing when you are using feats as a blanket term for at least 4 different things. Agreed. I can see people being annoyed with using the old system but switching from a dozen different terms to 1 specific term maintains the same problem of overwhelming the player. It just means now you have to get to the feats section and then remember what each separate subheading means. I'm down for classes having "talents", ancestries having "lineages", and feats being "feats" or "training" or whatever they want to call it. Just for the love of god, don't stick us with a book with a feat section as big as the spell section and then having to explain the difference to every new player while trying to also convince them, "No, this is not as complicated as it sounds". It's super complicated, because it front loads a bunch of nuanced distinction behind a giant umbrella term.
So, I've been moving my way through the playtest and though I have things I both like and dislike about this book, one of the things I really want to see changed is the over reliance on the distinction of "feat" for everything. As it stands now you have feats, class feats, ancestry feats, heritage feats... it feels like the list goes on and on and is a chore for long term players like myself to keep straight. For new players, this level of overuse is more likely to be overwhelming than it is to be helpful, and I know that handing players a core rulebook with 3-4+ sections of options called "feats" that's nearly as big as the old spell section is likely to turn them off from the game through sheer concussive force of selection than it is to get them to join in. I suggest 2nd ed goes back to what was used in the previous system. Call Alchemist feats discoveries, rogue feats talents, Oracle revelations, etc. I know they are essentially balanced like feats and that many of us figure that out eventually, but keeping them discrete and separated as such helps new players keep them separate in their mind and doesn't run the risk of overwhelming them as much when they go to look up "class feats" or "ancestry feats" for the first few times. Keep the naming separate and lessen the risk of losing new players to a raised skill floor of memorization and learned distinction. And help long term players avoid having to pick through ever expanding "feat" chapters looking for that one ancestry feat that could just be separated into it's own space with ancestral options or alchemist class feat we could just stick in the section with all the other alchemist options like we currently have in 1st ed.
For half-elves and half-orcs, we have a similar problem if, for example, we decide that a half-elf has a parent who is a drow or a Varisian human. Forget about gaining something from both parents -- you currently have to wait until 5th level to get anything from the distinctive culture of either parent. At 1st level, you are just a generic half-elf/half-human.Another big slice of my problem. My personal character is, essentially, a tattooed sorcerer. When a Varisian Tattoo feat rolls around, she won't be able to get it (without Ancestral Paragon) because of the half-elf blood price. Hell you think that's bad, a Half-Orc can't get darkvision till 5th at the earliest and god forbid you're trying to grab up some proficiencies too. I'm still gobsmacked that if I want to make a Half-Orc Barbarian with an orc double axe & darkvision that they are going to have to be 9th! Seriously, why the hell can't I just get darkvision at 1st with the trait? Dwarves get it, Goblins get it, just give it to the half-orcs as one of the options.
If enough of the player base both want and don't want mutagen in the alchemist class it seems like a good argument for making it modular (and if it falls on the same line for people who do and don't want bombs that's even better). It doesn't seem like a good argument for delaying it to level 5. Agreed. What could be cool is getting to choose at 1st when you make the character whether you want bombs or mutagens, and then it scales out accordingly and you can get the other option when you hit 5th. That way you can have the Hulk/Mr.Hyde characters at 1st alongside the Mad Bombers and they can both just get the other option later.
So... What exactly do you get level to level beyond either damage increases or the ability to qualify for more feats? As it stands it sounds more and more like a lot of the options that used to be features of the class you'd take as part of your leveling progression are just becoming feats you take instead when you qualify. Now, don't get me wrong, it's an.. "interesting"? idea, but it feels like it's falling back into the dead level trap of 3.5, with more levels that are just devoid of anything save BAB & Save increases. Those were crap back then, and I'd hate to have another game where we've got levels where nothing unique is happening at that level. Also, if a lot of these powers are being moved to feats, what are archetypes going to be modifying?
Damn, google ate my post. Anyways, this. I love the idea but I don't love it enough to let the mechanics run my fingers through the meat grinder to try and make it just "run". What's worse is that it sets a bad precedent as it makes customers doubt the quality we should expect of classes worked on in a void, and sets the stage for a schism as a lot of players never touch the class, those that are left start to build fixes, and everyone begins to rally around the ones they like. Once that happens Paizo's basically lost the ability to fix it, as even just taking 1 of the options that's doing the best turns off everyone else that doesn't like it, and the longer they wait the more likely this is to occur. Dogma gets set, schisms occur, and we end up with 5 different versions of this and the original that never gets fixed because in the meantime the hype train for it died and the sales of UW tank. Which is a shame, cause there is A LOT of really great stuff in here besides that, it's just that when the flagship of the title and the literal first thing in the book is all off kilter no one usually turns many more of the pages to see that stuff.
All I can think of is it getting the same or similar damage as a druid with a little higher to hit bonus.With self buffs like bloody claws, strong jaw, magic fang, ect I doubt the druid will have less to hit or damage and natural attacks don't care about actual BAB so... I can jump in on that last one, as I am one of those weird people who likes the class. Before I go further though I want to state that though I "like" the class, I also think it is terribly designed to do what it's trying to do, like square wheels on a cart meant to be pulled up hill bad in some places. So, with that out of the way, here we go... My Thoughts, The Good:
I like the class thematically, a druidic answer to the paladin but mechanically more like a monk is an interesting approach and sets up a "good" thematic foundation for design. Constructing a class about wildshaping around a design philosophy that wants minimum armor and other weapons in exchange for a lot of that power being returned in the class kit is a smart idea on how to give the player that feeling of "I'M A BEAR MOTHAF%@$A!" without worrying about it becoming, "I'M A BEAR WITH A SWORD THAT SLICES PEOPLE UP AND NEVER TURNS INTO A BEAR I'M JUST A GUY!" Using all the pro's of a martial class while ignoring the actual theme it's going for.
I dig the idea of a martial class that gets steeped in druidism. The whole idea has long gone undefined and has been a problem since 3.5 and getting these guys who also get druidic, the poster child of secret languages helps grow the mystique and our understanding of both that language and the druidic traditions as Pathfinder wants to define them by adding these guys to the mix. We now have a thematically clear example of what druidism sees as an acceptable martial non-fullcaster, and that's cool to have, it presents and hints at options to how the hierarchies of nature magic focused groups might work now. I also really like the idea of fewer forms BUT more power. Having a class that gets straight up more shifts, for more time, with the same range sets you in a bind as a designer since you would have to balance the challenge of any event/encounter against the possiblities of ANY possible form they could wildshape into, and since that already sucks with spellcasting and Wildshaping IS supposed to be the core of the Shifter I can see why you would go to smaller list of forms for them rather than ALL possible forms being on the table at any given time. This also gives you as a designer the freedom to really dig into every option and buff them up, giving players certain abilities earlier than Beast Shape might normally give them, offering abilities those spells might not usually give, or a host of other options. I'm personally down for getting to be a great white shark if my Great White is a mean ass bastard 3x what the druid is getting from his wildshape power at my level. I also like the idea of a specialized weapon list. Cutting it down to a specialized theme takes away a lot of easy options that come with just giving simple, martial, etc. but it also allows you to pad the list with more weird options that now might see more play than they would in another list where they might not stand out or might require a feat like say repeating crossbow proficiency with the inquisitor or rapiers on a rogue. The former needs too many feats for a lot of people to invest and the rapier isn't that great on it's own, but when you give my class free proficiencies and then incentivize them with build options like feats & class abilities, I'm more likely to want to play with them. Finally, the potential to take this skeleton and reskinning the theme around other creatures/creature types is just too good once you stew on it. Like, imagine shifters designed around turning into magical beasts, undead (the necrophile), aberrations, or even just nightmares. Like I've already started to concept the idea of dragon worshipping shifters who turn into dragons they praise! That's f*&$in' cool, and something I'd kill to get legalized at say a PFS event or have in a book that I can just show my players or my GM and just play. Now, all that said... My Other Thoughts, The Troubles: The Shifter falls apart in execution and I know it. Every single ability is either poorly worded, trapped in vague language, inconsistently worded when compared to other entries, or some combination of the above making it effectively impossible to even find a single "good" entry in a writeup and then use its structure to infer the intent of the broken others. It's like the thing came out the gate, lodged its foot in a whole, and then twisted it off.
And all of that is before you get into certain parts of its design philosophy, like how the want to constantly shift and swap your forms to really get utility and freedom of expression through play is directly at odds with the mechanic it's based on, which wants you to as others have pointed out hoard your shifts as much as possible just in case you need all of them. This mechanics dissonance is a compounding influence as it's counterintuitive design makes utility, niche, and/or specialized options basically unusable traps as any of those qualifiers is anthema to the design and WILL PUNISH YOU FOR TRYING TO HAVE FUN WITH THEM IN THIS GAME. Now, in another game where there is minimal combat, way more limited magic, and maybe a focus on what is more often associated with skills in this game this build might work, but in a world where things like the druid already exist this design ain't cuttin' it. This leads to the one thing I hate the most, house ruling it. Don't get me wrong, houserules are not bad in their own right, but having to do it to even make the class work is bad game design on so many levels. It makes consistency of play experience as unlikely as possible, as players have to worry about the fixes from table to table being so radically different that having any idea of how to build the thing is impossible. It sets bad precedent to the consumer as it says that I as the consumer, am expected to pay full price for this thing that doesn't work, and then fix it for them in my own time, and then only get to use that in what games I either run or can convince the GM to let me use, and then pray that any errata that gets released doesn't completely upend whatever stuff I make and potentially have been using for months if not years since it was released. And that last point is particularly bad, as once we all start fixing it, everyone starts to get crystallizing opinions on "what" that fix is supposed to look like, and the longer Paizo waits, the more likely it is that people are not going to accept their fixes, as people begin to become so accustomed to their own repairs and invest their own time into fixing it and making it work that they are likely now a bigger expert on their own class than Paizo is and potentially on the base shifter itself. And all that just leads to what is essentially Schism Conflict that Paizo would be ceding their authority for every day that passes and they don't post a fix. It's basically how you start an edition war over a class.
Hell, I think you just solved the whole Ghoul Problem. *begins Hermes impersonation*
I think they didn't change Wild Shape for Druid's because well, they didn't need to be any better than they already are. But for the Shifter it's a must, without anything else in their kit that those other classes have and a focus on transforming into animals, the TURNS INTO ANIMAL ability needs to be easy to understand, use, and play with from the gate and the class doesn't do that. In fact, with the design as it is now it basically makes certain animal aspects completely unplayable as they fill a design niche that is mechanically too expense to waste the finite resources of shifting on. Like, why would you EVER take the mouse save in the most specific of games and builds? Turning into a mouse to spy on a secret council meeting for 10 mins means that I have to either accept turning back and killing my only shift for the day or be a mouse for 4+ hours and be completely useless for anything that isn't specifically designed to be accomplishable by a character who can lift like 2 lbs tops. As it stands I'm giving up turning into a tiger, falcon, deinonychus, or even the wolverine for potentially 6 hours to do that, and that's assuming I am 6th and have 2 aspects. God I can only imagine how much it would suck to be a mouse shifter from 4th-5th when your Wild Shape is basically an arcane eye spell and your minor form is an evasion for 4 mins a day that I have to turn on BEFORE the evasion event happens. Like imagine that, a mouse player stuck in a room with a bomb, has to FIGURE OUT THAT HE IS STUCK IN A BOMB ROOM THEN TIME HIS SHIFT TO ACTIVATE LESS THAN A MINUTE BEFORE IT GOES OFF TO ACTUALLY GET TO USE HIS ABILITY. And that's an easy one. You're basically never going to get to use it vs. traps unless you know EXACTLY where they are and when all of them are going to spring, and you'll somehow have to know the evasion based ambush of fireballs is happening before they happen so as to kick it on. That is a design problem.
Why not more natural weapon options too like acid spit and barbed quills that launch from your body. Ha! They make it so that the Snake Aspect, which turns into a King Cobra, doesn't get his venom UNTIL 15TH and ONLY ON ATTACKS OF OPPORTUNITY! I think that the dev's are already too afraid of op'ing the class that they'll nerf the fun out of it. Hell, what'd be really cool is if you got magical beast aspect options a la Beast Shape III that had level requirements like Alchemist Discoveries or Rogue Talents. Wouldn't it be awesome to actually get to turn into say, a hydra, chimera, or owlbear at like 5th or 7th but you need like the snake (hydra); snake, lion/tiger, bull (chimera); or bear & owl (owlbear) to get it? And you got like, cool powers that sync with them, like fast healing/limited regen with the hydra or a breath weapon & flight with the chimera, or something totally new and b@*~#@% with the owlbear (seriously, they don't get much but they are tabletop history so you could do something funny and cool like yank some limited mythic powers for them and let yourself be like the 1st owlbear and it'd be cool)? Like, wouldn't that be amazing?
I Think that probably sums up the biggest problem with the shifter. The duration of shifting. How much is enough and how much is to much? I think currently most of them are not enough. (that and it needs a special shifter belt item to put in that slot... and yes I am going to keep pushing that.) I think it isn't the duration so much as the uses. Having it broken up into uses per day that last hours per level is both counter productive to a class that completely pivots on the ability and nothing else (unlike say druids, alchemists, or hunters) and actually rings of needless old edition (like 3.5 edition) complications. Why not just simplify like they did with barbarian's rage from 3.5 to Pathfinder? Drop the uses per day and just make it X hours per level with hour min uses? Then you get the ability to shift way more, but still have to be careful about overuse. I talked about this a few pages back and have been following that ethos throughout some rebuilds/hotfixes I've been fiddling with. Seems much stronger and surprisingly easier to track.
Aside: Anyone else notice how many like, glaring theme appropriate weapons options are missing from these guys? Like, I have no problem with the no bows thing, a short ranged thrown weapon thing can be pretty cool actually, but why the hell can't they use atlatls, or even javelins?! Like, how does a sharp pointy stick designed for throwing and a piece of wood to extend your throw NOT work with the whole primitive druid, no metallurgy thing they are doing? And that's just basic gear. Like, if you're going to have a specialized list like this why didn't the devs pull even more of the esoteric stuff up on their proficiencies and let the Shifter be a place to shine a light on them? I mean, wouldn't it be awesome to have like bolas, nets, boomerangs, and the harpoon as free starter weapons? Or like handaxes, throwing axes, and the terbutjes & tepoztopilli? S@*+, at least give them freakin Greatclubs. They aren't great, but how the hell does the freakin' Shifter, the class that uses natural weapons, not know how to use a big stick that does d10 but does know how to use it when it's a d6 double weapon?
This and the bolded part in particular. It's pretty f@!+ed up when you have a class all about shifting that is pressed to shift as little as possible. You are basically punished by the inner workings to actually play the class as little as possible.
Wait they don't have intimidate?! *Goes to look* Holy crap they don't! Yeah I agree with that change. Further Shifter discussion below:
As for the aspects, the problem is if you turn those buffs into size buffs they don't stack with any other bonuses you might get from your wild shape, as any stat buffs there are also size. Besides, I don't have a problem with them being enhancement and therefore not stacking with items, it just means that the class can save money and buy stuff somewhere else but more importantly that you can sink more power into other parts of the kit. The Deinonychus is a pretty good example of this, as he gives A TON of buffs that are not only good but complement most melee builds on their own and kind of push it over the top with initiative steroids, 5 natural attacks, and pounce by like 8th. That's what all of these need to feel like, they need to be Deinonychus good in their niche. The Bat needs to be like, the sensor guy with blindsense super early and the ability to just smash in the dark, the owl needs to be stealthy death on the wind, and be the choice for when you want to swoop down and snatch goblins one after the other from the back of the line with their buddies leading the pack never knowing. The Cobra, if we are stuck with that and no anaconda option (it should let you choose) needs to have poison THE MINUTE YOU GET WILD SHAPE, and maybe the ability to do it with your claws when you are off the shift. Those are the few easy ones I got to there are likely more.
As for the claws, I don't mind them and I think in formula structure they are fine, the problem is their damage is too low. An alchemist with feral mutagen gets better, and without spellcasting and the claws being part of the opening pitch for the whole class (you get it at 1st and the iconic is literally featured as using them as her main weapon) they shouldn't be effectively 2 daggers that you are duel wielding. Put it at d6 each for medium and d4 for smalls and go up from there and you've got something with a bit more power. Again, I don't mind defensive instinct, your a martial character with bad Will and Perception so putting a 12-14 in Wis is likely to happen and getting a free buff for it works out well. I just think the bonus shouldn't be halved if you are using shields. They are one of the oldest pieces of wargear we know of next to the spear,
I don't mind Timeless Body mechanically but thematically I like the idea of Shifters growing old like normal people and beasts,
Either way, those are a few of my quick thoughts. I'll hit up more once I've gotten more time with the rest of the book, which is much better so far, but when the big selling point has a bunch of flaws like this it's kind of like buying a new ferrari and finding out the it's got no engine. The interior is nice, and the sound system is banging, but I bought the thing primarily to drive ya know?
So, I'm still working my way through all of this but I can answer some of these. The feats from the table and the ones I've read are a mash up of pretty good, really cool, and/or this is pretty awesome I just wish this was part of the favored terraion feature. About the worst there have been either the standard feat that only gives you a flat +2 and nothing else of which there are few that are that flat and ANIMAL CALL, which is one of those feats that turns a good idea for something you should just be able to do as a skill into something I now have to take a feat for for no good reason. Standouts though are things like the Wildling feat chain, which lets you be basically raised by wolves and get a bunch of different buffs based on the feats you pick up. The base one gives you Wild Empathy for free or a buff if you get it from your class and then the others do everything from letting you take Int dmg to reroll a Will save to flat +10 movement speed, to having free unarmed strikes that get bigger dmg dice and ostensibly stack with the monk, allowing you to build wild Tarzanesque LN Monks who were like raised by wolves and used their time in the wild to hone their fists to great punchy battering rams of doom. The other big one is the Flinging Charge, which lets you throw a thrown weapon as part of your charge, get your charge buff on it, then draw your melee weapon, and attack with it at the end of the charge. I totally want to use this thing on like a Str built Barbarian or Warpriest and in homegames like mine where you have access to things like Fat Goblin Games Javelins book you can take this thing and just do some amazing berzerker charges with preemptive softening. Ohh, Also, there's Thrill of the Hunt which lets you mark enemies as your designated kill, which gives you a rush to hunt them down. That rush makes it easier to track them and gives you bonuses to hurt them, and if you take them down (either killing them or rendering them helpless) the buff explodes out to all of your attack rolls, saves, and skill checks for a limited but EXTREMELY long duration against ANY TARGETS. So, you can use them to chase down the boss of the bandits, or chase down his one mook you hated, merc him, and then be so juiced on kicking his ass you get a buff to basically all your d20 checks for the next 8 hours. Also, the animal companions have so far been a combination of awesome and adorable. Eohippus is in this thing, and small cavaliers can take Capybaras as mounts. The idea of a gnome or a halfling on a capybara in full plate rearing to fight off the evils of the world is a little too adorable for words. All that said, it sucks that medium Cavaliers can't ride Yaks but Paladins can but somehow both can ride Zebras.
If you have a funnel. Or you could use an oil. Or, if you wanna get REALLY cheeky, this book introduces the ability to grow magical plants that have various effects. Though I haven't reached them yet, I can only assume that you can get at least a few that heal. Here's hoping that you can get decapitated and then wander over and rub magical fruit juice on your neck or just sit your head on your neck stump and just chug magic wine till your esophagus seals back up, skeleton in the Last Unicorn Style.
I know Shifter is getting grilled and all...but what about the Green Knight archetype?!!Please help him, he's losing his head over this! Ask and ye shall receive. To start, the art for it is probably some of the best in the book. It's an axe wielding elf in like, wooden living plant full plate that kind of looks like the plant member of your team from Breath of Fire II. Double Thumbs up. Basically they are cavaliers/knight who protect nature itself or the fey courts rather than mortal men. Now, for the larger more mechanics based discussion: You get essentially better wild empathy instead of tactician, You get Diehard & Endurance instead of a mount, Your order has to be order of the Green (though I feel like that should be expanded to include Order of the Blossom from Legacy of the 1st World but ehh...), you lose your charge powers to be better at not going down, making it so being below 0 doesn't stagger you and eventually making it so you don't lose health when doing things while below 0, you give up banner and expert trainer for woodland stride, you lose greater tactician for stalwart, you get oaken vitality which protects you from poisons, diseases, and infestations in exchange for greater banner & mighty charge, you lose master tactician to treat ANY slashing weapon you have as Vorpal; and at 20th you lose supreme charge to get a MASSIVE CON bonus, immunity to death effects and any effect that doesn't kill you by putting you below 0 hp, and if you are hit with a decapitation effect you can continue fighting without your head AND HAVE IT PUT BACK ON BY ANY MAGIC THAT RESTORES HIT POINTS. You can literally have the local adept put it back on for you.
1. But why does it do that for the owl and not for the falcon, another option that uses stats that are specifically listed in this book as well but has all of that math ported over? Agreed, but it is Paizo's job to catch this s~&$ during their dev process or the editing pass. This is the first class they've done in over a year and is the reason a lot of customers are looking into picking this up, and for a lot of players the only reason. Having your flagship piece of content have all these kind of copy paste errors is bs to say the least, and is what kills consumer trust in content going forward. It's like Ultimate Magic up in here with this stuff, and that's before we get into the host of other questions that come up from the vague ways a lot of this is written. Like, does my claw dmg increase with the size of my shape and if so, what is the damage die for large, since it isn't listed and over half the aspect choices shape to large? At 5th when you get your second aspect, can you use the minor aspect of one form and the major of another? Why the hell does the snake option only get to be a poisonous snake, that doesn't get it's poison till 15th, and then can only use it on AoOs? And that's just the few I've got right here, and I hate that this has to be the conversation that surrounds this thing, but we've got the first class that Paizo did without a public beta and trusted them to get it done, and what we are seeing is a class that feels like it needs like 2 more editing passes to handle essential elements to the class. God, all I want to talk about is that if I pick snake and manifest claws, does that mean I get snake heads for hands? But instead, we have to talk about enough major class questions that it looks like the shifter will need a patch before it even hits the street. Hate this s~*$.
Like for example, how the Owl shifters cannot fly because they do not get a fly speed, and as the class lists it your shifter abilities supersede any powers given by the base spell Beast Shape II it's pulling from save size, so with the owl lacking a fly speed you CANNOT FLY WITH IT.Incorrect. The major form lists the medium owl statistics on page 181, which include the fly speed. So rather than being unplayable, it requires referencing a second location in the book. (Not much better, but there it is.) 1. But why does it do that for the owl and not for the falcon, another option that uses stats that are specifically listed in this book as well but has all of that math ported over? 2. The other problem is the Shifter clearly states in its Wild Shape write up that, "Each major form details the abilities the shifter gains with that major form and at what level; she gains these instead of the form abilities from beast shape II, but she still gains beast shape II abilities that are size dependent." That sets the precedent that you only things you get from the from Beast Shape II is the size buff, and considering that every other flying choice has their fly speed written into their write up and both matches whatever the base creature has and then often increases in distance and maneuverability this looks more like a typo than a changing of intent (which, if the latter is the case, seems needlessly confusing and is literally vacillating structure from entry to entry).
Woot! Finally got my copy! Still going over things with the Shifter but I've got to say a lot of the criticism seems to be in place. You have a class that in a lot of ways is a bunch of recycled abilities from other classes that somehow focuses on them more exclusively than their parents but is somehow still inferior to them. There are a lot of things I want to hit on here but I think I'll save it for the review, but the biggest thing is the rather shocking amount of editing mistakes that make certain things unplayable. Like for example, how the Owl shifters cannot fly because they do not get a fly speed, and as the class lists it your shifter abilities supersede any powers given by the base spell Beast Shape II it's pulling from save size, so with the owl lacking a fly speed you CANNOT FLY WITH IT. To make matters worse, all the buffs you get from it as you level ALL COORDINATE AROUND IT'S ABILITY TO FLY. So you end up with things like Flyby Attack and Snatch but no ability to use them without some other outside source giving you a fly speed. This is compounded with many of the other aspects that say don't have natural attacks (bat, bear, mouse, monkey, snake, wolf, and wolverine) which is problematic as the wording of the Shifter's wildshape makes it pretty clear that the only effects you get from the spell are those related to the size entries therein. This is even more problematic as though you could make the argument that the claws replace that damage, the class states that it only replaces listed attack options, so without having those listed you cannot use your shifter claw damage in the first place and what's more you are stuck with that damage even if the base form like say a large tiger, does more than your dmg output at the time. It's basically the warpriest's weapon buff but its mandatory to use even if it makes the weapon worse. Further clouding the issue is the fact that many if not all of the other entries on your options list either have their dmg bonuses listed in their writeup or at least refer to them (the frog is the latter and the only one that does this) and considering that every one of these has damage identical to the form they are drawn from it seems pretty clear that the natural attacks are something that has to be included in order to get. Hell, the deinonychus literally withholds some of its natural attacks as rewards for later levels from your wildshaping. So, what the hell is going on? Do the Devs want to chime in on this?This seems like a serious issue with even playing this class and if it plays like it looks it will prevent 8 of the 15 total options presented from even being playable in their current state. Seriously, I want to be wrong here, but the rest of the writeup makes me worry I'm right in an Ian Malcolm kind of way.
You also need a forge to make a scimitar.The fact that there rally can’t be? You need a forge to make metal armor. Agreed man. I'd actually like to see the greatclub just moved from the martial category into the simple and be done with it. It actually makes it a much stronger choice then, benefits more classes, and in general feels more thematically appropriate. What I've done in my home games and I gotta tell ya, rogues with greatclubs and druids with baseball bats is pretty fun when you don't have to dump a feat for it ^-^.
I have similar thoughts man, in particular about the Hunter, who not only recieved some of the most extensive updates and overhauls during the playtest processs but who actually benefited the most from the whole experience. In it's original form it couldn't even give its animal focus to its animal companion, only had the druid list, and didn't treat as a druid and ranger for feats and abilities just to name a few, and in the playtest helped bring those changes about. This I think is the biggest issue with not having the playtest, as both of those classes benefited from the public testing that went into them before their release and it feels like the Shifter would have benefited as well. At the very least it could have acclimated people to the idea they were going for, this weird druid/monk hybrid, rather than an actual wildshaper.
I think its hard to balance making something a better shifter than the druid without making them a better fighter than the fighter.I don't think that should be much of a concern. While the Shifter and Fighter are both melee combatants, Fighter's "thing" is using weapons. Either lots of different kinds or being really good at a specialized few. Shifters, presumably, only use natural weapons. Even if Shifter does more DPR than a Fighter (which isn't the only thing that matters, of course), people will still play/favor Fighter because they want to use cool weapons/dislike nature-themed classes/prefer being a humanoid/etc. Besides, looking strictly at tiers, Fighter is pretty bottom of the barrel so I would hope the Shifter ranks higher than that. No offense, Fighters. I think the balance here should be something closer to what we get with the kineticist, where the shifter's combat potential visa vi wild shaping is hopefully tempered by the diverse utility that comes with the diversity of shapes, lack of spells, and maybe some limitations on how many forms you can have. Like, how turning into a hawk allows you to fly and scout other areas, or turning into a cat gets you scent and an inconspicuous form in urban settings, or turning into a rat to sneak into places and then crack the place open. Giving them like a d8-d10 hp and a 3/4th's BAB and making it so you have to be more strategic with your forms than, "turn into biggest thing and hit them" that we often see with the druid wild shaping. Give them a limited pool of different options to turn into with some varying options that they might get to use so you can maybe do stealthy burst, tank sustain, or maybe other utility and make them or mechanically encourage them to invest in this stuff. That way it can take up the role of the tank or fighter in the roster but not absolutely replace them which I think is what a lot of people worry about when it's more of a fighter but better rather than a better wildshaper.
It sounds like you are a story driven GM in a group of murderhobos. Have you ever asked them what they think constitutes "winning"? Figuring that out specifically might help you bring them around to your way of playing. I've dealt with a lot of players who come to the table thinking there's some kind of "win" state that they can look for like chess or cuphead and tend to not understand that the reality is way more complicated than that. They don't tend to think about how the way you win might be as if not more important than the win itself and that for each PC & GM winning might be different. For example, I usually think of a winning session as one where my players get through the bulk of what I prepared that night, they explored the map I made, and we get closer to the big shift that will come at the end of the season that is drawing ever closer and getting to foreshadow it with dreams and mysterious clues to get them trying to parse out what's to come. Along with that, I want to have at least one of them make me laugh once, and I want to see them find a challenge that makes them sweat and cooperate. Meanwhile, the changeling witch player wants to try to study more arcane stuff and keeps looking for excuses to dive in at it, the warpriest player wants to test his might and try to help his NPC friend find the faith, and the medium players wants to do more stuff that will get her elevated within her faction. And because I know all of these goals I can choose which to apply pressure and attention to and when, and on top of that, I can put some of those goals and odds with each other, like having a massive storm of arcane power that could teach the players new spells, but is considered a fiendish and taboo thing by the medium's faction. Now they have to debate and discuss what to do, and that forces them to rp their characters. You might want to ask them individually what each of them wants to get out of their characters, both in the short term and the long term. Maybe give them resources to read or watch to get their creative juices flowing if they are having trouble and ask for some inspiration.
What I really want for a vermin companion is one that undergoes full metamorphosis instead of jut increasing size. Yes! Giant flies that start as maggots and switch over later, grubs that turn into stag beetle nymphs then full on stag giants, man eating caterpillars that turn into beautiful butterflies. Man, why the hell didn't I think of that? It would be awesome and really make them both distinct from vanilla companions and potentially make their level ups matter more by letting you stay the course or let them completely shift functions. I want this now. Paizo needs to make it happen.
I know I'm weird, but I'm most excited about (hopefully) new and better weather rules! Agreed. My Sunday game relies heavily on caravan travel and exploration and as such weather plays heavily into the day to day affairs. Unfortunately the base rules for determining weather and temperature ranges are... limited at best, especially when it comes to stuff like warm temperatures in the summer. The best compromise I've found is the weather tables from Frog God Games' Fields of Blood and their other Desert supplement. Those have whole chapters devoted to weather and tables for figuring out what the weather can be like on say, a spring day in the great plains. Very cool option if you are looking for something to give you more weather stuff and looking for stuff for plains and desert terrain. Hopefully though, Paizo will improve and update things with UW to cover the whole spectrum of environments rather than just leaving the system as it is now.
I understand that your work and that of your co-workers reflects the decisions and mindset of the company and the individuals that work there and the political climate being what it is I completely understand the decision to not do that now. But doesn't not covering it, even as a hypothetical in the far flung future also help gloss over the chance to explore a lot of the issues that come from the experiences of those who are in those positions as trans individuals in our world now? Like using Hell as a space to talk about the s+%~ty things that people in trans community have to deal with just socially by exploring the sociocultural structure of say Dis is potentially powerful opportunity that with the right team could be as powerful as any other story of injustice in the same way that The chattel slavery of halflings in Cheliax and the commiserate Bellflower Network work as a way for us to explore, discuss, and grow our empathy for those who suffered under the horror that is/was the chattel slavery of the American South. Or doesn't it run the risk of creating a setup where by not having villains or fiends that can be trans/intersex or otherwise we put them on a pedestal or other unforeseen fridge horror like say, the idea that Hell grinds those groups out in the reshaping process? Now, realize I'm not saying someone write a fiend that is evil because they are trans or what have you, but that by not allowing even the opportunity for us to have say, a grand pit fiend villain at the end of a campaign who is just also a Trans woman or using Hell's role as a literal reflection of the worst aspects of humanity as a way to talk about say, how this trans man executioner devil defected from Dis after being unable to find acceptance and then forming like a mercenary company of other similarly disaffected devils or even stumbling into Arshea (or even the PCs) and finding an accepting voice for who they identify as and then rising to redemption just as dangerous through erasure? Like, I don't think you'll have all the answers to these questions and I don't think they are simple to enough that any of us can just blurt them out here on a message-board but they feel like important things to ask now before they get shouted later ya know? Now as for the Folca thing, sorry to give that impression I wasn't intending to make ANY association between the depredations of Folca and the plights of the trans community and for what it's worth I am truly sorry. I was just trying to say that, Paizo, to me, has always seemed willing to present the tools/content for their developers and GMs explore A LOT of the complex, beautiful, and sometimes horrifying aspects of the world we live in and understands the powerful positive effect having those things in an interactive medium as tools and options can bring to our understanding of those groups and their struggles as they give us the ability to walk in their shoes in ways that passive media like film or books can only dream of and through that potentially grow our empathy. With that in mind, it felt odd to me that your statement seemed to imply that somehow approaching the discussion of the plights of that community or the complex relationship that has developed therein, even as an option for just personal games was a bridge too far, but having stuff like Folca floating around was just fine felt really off. The existence of Folca but that potential wall to the aforementioned content was me trying to illustrate that point and again I apologize if anyone felt I was mixing one with the other and I apologize to you personally that my words came off that way.
Could someone maybe give a few hints as to what Nameless the Sahkil Tormentor is like? Been interested in whatever its supposed to be since I saw its name in Bestiary 5. Think the paranoid voice in the back of your head with a pulse. It hides in your head and whispers just enough to make you think you heard something but not enough for you to be sure, he's the blur on the edge of your vision that makes you think that your door just creaked open and someone snuck in, she's the thing that makes the phrase "You look tired" from Dr. Who crush kings. In a word, Dope. That said, it suffers from one of the most annoying editing decisions amidst all the freaking smaller quasi/demideities in its section.
I would rather give one hundred characters free rebuilds based on a shaky premise than leave one character worse off due to changes adversely affecting the character. This. That said, I think the other important thing to recognize from the OP's original post is the role those of us here play in all this and our relation to both the tables and the dev teams. Those of us who have to carry this news to the players bare the brunt of this disaffection and resentment and are usually looked at as the bad guys for our role in it and are faced with the uncomfortable choice of shouldering that burden and potentially other consequences (including stopping a game to help them rebuild the thing right there to mend fences) or doing nothing and kicking the can on to whoever is unfortunate enough to have to deal with it later (up to and including potentially having to have them bounce from a table at a convention or run a pregen at a big event like the Gencon Specials rather than the character they spent all year prepping for it). Being treated as some sort of annoying minority that can be dismissed or should be ignored without recognizing our important contextual role in disseminating their changes is a dangerous position to take, as it leads to more negative feedback in the form of many of us potentially leaving the organizations for greener pastures after having to watch the 30th new kid have to get her cool idea snapped in half and nerfed to hell or told she can't play it because this strangers says she did it wrong even if she followed the rules in the Core Rulebook. And when people like us who devote the time to learning this stuff are removed from that environment Paizo loses one of the most effective mechanisms that Paizo has for delivering their changes to their players.
That said, I don't think it's really appropriate for Antipaladins, but after reading through this I would love to see an archetype for an ex-antipaladin. Like an antipaladin to one of the demon lords or to a CN faith that is down for the power but can't bring themselves to go as far as an Antipaladin needs to go to keep those powers. Would totally be down to see an fallen antipaladin who basically feels weak because he's too merciful or, ya know, human, to keep to his vows. S+#@ that's just the opener man. An Ex-Antipaladin of Rovagug from an area plagued by colonialism who can't bring himself to apocalyptic fervor because he loves his family and can't stand the idea of ending the world and sacrificing them but knows its what his oppressors "deserve" An Ex-Antipaladin of Socothbenoth noble from an oppressive regime who turns from his perversions after a horrible experience shocks him into the realization of the atrocities of his actions and now leans into the protection of various minority groups who are often exploited in his area due to their status and the fetishization of the taboo of it all. Maybe the catalyst also puts them into said minority as part of the process and informs on why he might not have fully let go of all of the ideals that made him an antipaladin. He's a victim using his victimhood to perpetuate the atrocity but hasn't quiet awoken to the ideas that these people are well, people like himself and that his endless vengeance might not be too narrow minded to really fix things (i.e. his violence might cause reprisals against the very people he's trying to protect and as such maintain or escalate the conflict rather than protect and change things for the better) Ex-Antipaladin of Shax who becomes a pacifist after slaying his own guardian angel and with its dying actions convinces him of the vile depths of his own actions and triggers a change. A violent psychopath trying to reign in his murderous impulses cause he just realized that they were the thing keeping him from the real social connections he wanted to achieve and his indiscriminate killing was just the dark temptations an b~$!*+%* he told himself to justify the behavior. But he can't totally control his urges and they are an essential part of him, so he kills in the name of whatever cause he thinks is good enough morally to get his skills, and maybe open enough to save his soul. Your plot is the struggle as a character lacking that moral compass of figuring out how to tell the difference between what is good and helpful and what is just fun and disturbing. Ex-Antipaladin of Areshkagal who realized their obsession with riddles was an elitist way to justify oppressing and abusing those who she felt were too stupid to be worth equal treatment and now tries to use her immense analytical mind to solve unsolvable problems to help people while trying to curb their own elitism. Maybe even trying to solve the 23 riddles to then use the answers to best her. The possibilities are endless and would be fun as hell to explore.
Question: is the Executioner Devil supposed to be coded as trans or hermaphroditic? The write up uses female pronouns and they are heavily associated with Eiseth but the art feels very coded masculine or potentially tran female. I've been mulling this over for a bit now and though I think the art is awesome and potentially raises some interesting questions about gender dynamics in the fires of the Pit I want to pick the brain of the art department and see if this was their intent or was something unintentional.
sorry if I missed it, but what's the corruption like? and the ex-paladin archetype and if it'd work with antipaladin (with or without minor tweaks) Can't really tell you much about the corruption but the ex-paladin (the Vindictive Bastard) is freakin hilarious. Basically you are not restrained/civil enough with people to actually hold to the codes and tend to solve problems that annoy you by punching them in the face rather than, ya know not hitting the paper boy who just said you smell funny. Basically you trade a lot of your holy powers for abilities beat the ever loving snot out of people who annoy you or hit you (whether or not your pissy attitude caused them to hit you though is another story) like getting a smite that works on anyone who's attacked you or your friends rather than just people who are evil, the ability to find your friends easily rather than detect evil, and learn how to gang up on people and potentially commit dirty tricks with teamwork feats (sans your allies having the feats) rather than gaining mercies. That said, I don't think it's really appropriate for Antipaladins, but after reading through this I would love to see an archetype for an ex-antipaladin. Like an antipaladin to one of the demon lords or to a CN faith that is down for the power but can't bring themselves to go as far as an Antipaladin needs to go to keep those powers. Would totally be down to see an fallen antipaladin who basically feels weak because he's too merciful or, ya know, human, to keep to his vows.
Taking the modified system of leveling I was talking about earlier in this thread and finally implementing it in game. Been having a lot of positive results with at least one player actively gaining incremental pieces of their next level up about once a game. Makes all the nat 20's that show up even more exciting when they have a chance to grab a new rank up in a skill or make another step towards pulling their BAB up. Really happy it's working thus far.
Maybe your entothrope might look a little like the addiction devil from Wayfinder #13, although it's based on a damselfly instead of a dragonfly (and minus the horns, hooves, and fungal buds)? Thanks for the reference! I can't believe I forgot about this thing, it was one of my favorites from that bestiary.
|
