ekaczmarek's page

So I just read through my pdf last night, and I have a question that's been bugging me about the final part of the adventure. If/When the party kills Lady's Whisper (which I imagine some will do on sight), do all the doors in the Temple become unlocked and opened?

It feels like the pacing and flow of the Temple Level really depend on the party just kind of waltzing into a temple of an unambiguously evil god and going along with the servant of evil directing them. Add in the fact that at that point a level 10 cleric would have about a +21 (+5 from Wis, +10 from level, +6 from master proficiency) to sense motive, which is a 75% chance that cleric figures out she is trying to kill them.

My off the cuff solution is have her innate spells altered so she can hide off in one of the hallways and cast a 2nd level illusory disguise before the party sees her to disguise herself as a Morrigna, guiding the party towards their fate of defeating a powerful servant of one of Pharasma's enemies.

ekaczmarek wrote:

Knighttrap wrote:

So I got my PDF copy yesterday. While skimming over it(I'm not planning to run it for a while while my players are doing a different AV) I am confused on one of the enemies. There is an enemy called Soul Feeders near the end of the adventure. The stat block reads Elite Dread Wisps (Pathfinder Bestiary 6 page 81). I've done searches for this monster online and can't find the stats anywhere. Am I missing something easy?

Dread Wisps are in the bestiary in the back of the book

Like I said something easy. Why in the world is it Bestiary 6 then?

Thanks for the help.

The rules for elite monsters are in the regular ol' Bestiary on page 6, hence the "Bestiary 6". I think almost everyone has been confused by that one at least once. I hope they start formatting it as like "Bestiary 1 p.6" going forward.

Benjamin Tait wrote:

For those with a digital copy, what's in the toolbox? New archetypes and monsters?

** spoiler omitted **

Also a new cleric domain with new focus spells in the articles

I'm not sure if that spoiler is too "spoilery", but I tried to keep it vague enough.

So I got my PDF copy yesterday. While skimming over it(I'm not planning to run it for a while while my players are doing a different AV) I am confused on one of the enemies. There is an enemy called Soul Feeders near the end of the adventure. The stat block reads Elite Dread Wisps (Pathfinder Bestiary 6 page 81). I've done searches for this monster online and can't find the stats anywhere. Am I missing something easy?

Dread Wisps are in the bestiary in the back of the book

Ah my mistake I thought the Glorious Reclamation showed up in Hell's Rebels.

If you want to continue along with the Iomedae influence on Golarion, Hell's Rebels I believe has her involvement as well. And in that one you are fighting devils, the lawful counterpart to demons.

Iron Gods and Kingmaker both take place in regions adjacent to the Sarkoris Scar as well.

While I am unaware of anything about Tian Xia specifically, I'd like for them to take the opportunity to really expand on the Oni creature type.

A battle oracle plus Marshall is what I've been looking at recently. Steel Yourself! plus having Heal as a signature spell makes for a fun frontline support.

I mean if I'm a player in a published campaign, I don't think it's that much of a stretch to realize that unique items could present spoilers. If you get spoiled expecting the GM to change major parts of the AP they weren't planning on modifying is a bit much. Also I'm pretty sure easy.tool has spoiler tags on all of their stuff.

It seems to be mostly the general cop stuff. Nothing stood out as particularly objectionable, it's a pretty standard fare of fighting evil.

Was just thinking of a "Drunken Assassin" Style Monk.

lvl1 - Stumbling Stance
lvl2 - Assassin Dedication
lvl4 - Expert Backstabber
lvl6 - Stumbling Feint
lvl8 - Sneak Attacker
lvl10 - Prevailing Position
lvl12 - Assassinate

Stumbling stance works well due to the free feint from Stumbling Feint to try and get the most out of sneak attacker and the improved Backstabber traits.

Thought about doing it with Cobra Style for added poison-ness and you end up with 1d4, Deadly d12, backstabber attacks so that's kinda fun.

I've literally been tossing this around in my head the past few days. Seems like a lot of fun both mechanically and RP wise.

Personally, I'm a fan of the Pit of Gormuz, Nidal, Azlant, and the crown of the world. Oh and Basrakal would be a nice place to visit.

thejeff wrote:

I don't know. I was responding only to the idea that it wouldn't matter because Japan, China and (South) Korea are major industrial powers, not marginalized.

If Asian-Americans aren't bothered by it, then that's cool. Paizo did a good job.

Are you operating on the basis that "not being offensive to USAns descended from people from (X)" is significantly more important than "not being offensive to people who currently live in (X)" ?

While I don't have any hard data to back this up at the moment, I think Paizo's primary audience is America, followed by Canada and Western Europe. Which means for Paizo (and importantly their bottom line), not being offensive to people who live in America is more important than people who live in China and Japan.

While I appreciate the effort to make this the "circus performer" AP, all my favorite parts of this AP were kind of circus agnostic. If I were to run this I would find a way to drop the running the circus aspect after book 2 (but probably still find a way to make the performer recruitment work). Books 3 and 4 are some of my favorite adventures I've read from Paizo, with the sandbox nature of exploring the swardlands in 3 and the somewhat open ended mission of defending the town and harrying the xulgaths in 4 what I would look forward to the most.

Even the more circus oriented parts of the first 2 volumes I found enjoyable to read and envision playing, though that probably is affected by how your players approach it. Mistress Dusklight, if acted right, could make for a great recurring villain. Evil Bards are fun for me.

Speaking frankly, I get 0 "are we the baddies" vibes from this, seeing how by the time you run into xulgaths they are teaming up with murderous demons, and the second time you find them they have murdered multiple provided kidnap victims. Like whatever xulgaths you're dealing with they are clearly evil, and the fact that there are good aligned xulgaths that exist somewhere maybe doesn't make these guys not evil.

So what should GM's do if the heroes fail to stop Sarvel and want to do agents of Edgewatch? Wouldn't that AP be ruined or how long does each plague take to happen?

What would you do if your players failed at Ruins of Azlant or Tyrant's Grasp and then want to do another AP in Avistan? I can't think of an AP where the effects of failing are particularly localized. Just say that that version of Golarion ended in ruin and then Agents of Edgewatch is a soft reboot.

I'd really like to see a 100% underwater AP. Make the PCs natives of underwater communities and set the game in and around the communities.

Traditionally the reason for not doing something like this is that "the rules for being underwater are kind of cumbersome." But we've got a new edition so that's an opportunity to make them fun and easy.

In my experience the biggest issue with underwater adventures is that trying to represent a 3D combat space with swimming up and down, left and right, forward and back is a logistical problem. (But I still love Ruins of Azlant though)

ekaczmarek wrote:

Every adventure I have seen has had vigilante-ism as a portion of it. The most popular genre of movie for the past decade have been vigilante super heroes. Being a vigilante looks like it's the preferred method of escapism. This is the wrong hobby for being morally opposed to taking matters into your own hands.

Yes, I know. I'm not opposed to vigilantism as escapism at all, I rather enjoy it.

I'm asking you to tell me why it's ok to use vigilantism as escapism, but not using being a police officer as escapism, when both have been involved in morally repugnant activities in the real world for a very, very long time (vigilantism for more than police, since it's existed for way longer.)

If I had money to bet it's because vigilantism is more entrenched in the genre (not that I think that's a bad thing), while Police Officer/investigator/Private Eye Adventure is more of a novelty in the hobby. Also the realities of what it means to be a police officer are more known than the realities of a vigilante, so there's more room for filling in the blanks with what you want as a vigilante.

Gotta say; “we dismissed peoples’ concerns” and then locking the comments on the post is a little bit of mixed messaging.

Because we don't work for them, we could literally be anybody who made an account for any purpose and for the most part aren't involved in their creative process, unlike their employees.

ekaczmarek wrote:

TheFinish wrote:

I think what Kasoh was getting at (and I may be wrong, so take it with a grain of salt) is that:

- If we assume the cops are going to be doing questionable things
- And them doing these questionable things will be presented as "good"
- And this is a problem.*

Then why is it not a problem if the only thing we change is that it's no longer cops, but third party vigilantes? How exactly is presenting mercenaries doing questionable things as "good" any better than doing it with cops?

*Note: I base this on this line from Thebazilly's original post:

"It's not the concept of doing bad things, it's the concept of doing bad things while you're supposed to be protecting the people you're harming. It's that stacked on top of these issues existing right now and for far too long in our society. It's that playing a good cop is feeding into the copaganda problem."

I would argue that mercenaries, unlike cops, aren't assumed to be held to the same duties and responsibilities cops are. If society tells us cops are supposed to protect us, and then they betray that, that's doubly bad. If a "mercenary" does something bad, then they haven't broken a general social understanding to do so. It doesn't make what the mercenary does any less wrong, but in an absolute value sense it is less wrong than if a cop did it. Additionally, the hot button issue that started this all is cops doing bad things, to oversimplify. If it's no longer cops doing bad things, and instead the local crazy wizard, then it's less relevant to current topics and also less relevant to what is currently the issue in America (and other countries) and also becomes not copaganda.

Mercenaries as a whole aren't, but we're talking about mercenaries acting in place of a police force (which is what they would be in this case), in which case they should be held to the same standards you expect from the position. They're filling the same role, giving them a pass, or implying it's...

Every adventure I have seen has had vigilante-ism as a portion of it. The most popular genre of movie for the past decade have been vigilante super heroes. Being a vigilante looks like it's the preferred method of escapism. This is the wrong hobby for being morally opposed to taking matters into your own hands.

ekaczmarek wrote:

Kasoh wrote:

Thebazilly wrote:

The idea of swapping out the player characters' role to private investigators makes the AP a lot less distasteful to me.

Because its so much better as a society when we outsource our state sanctioned violence to outside parties. Then their racist and classist behavior is just the fault of individuals that society bears no responsibility for.

I mean, do you plan on your players being classist and racist? Most adventures kind of hinge on your characters being outside parties to begin with.

I think what Kasoh was getting at (and I may be wrong, so take it with a grain of salt) is that:

- If we assume the cops are going to be doing questionable things
- And them doing these questionable things will be presented as "good"
- And this is a problem.*

Then why is it not a problem if the only thing we change is that it's no longer cops, but third party vigilantes? How exactly is presenting mercenaries doing questionable things as "good" any better than doing it with cops?

*Note: I base this on this line from Thebazilly's original post:

"It's not the concept of doing bad things, it's the concept of doing bad things while you're supposed to be protecting the people you're harming. It's that stacked on top of these issues existing right now and for far too long in our society. It's that playing a good cop is feeding into the copaganda problem."

I would argue that mercenaries, unlike cops, aren't assumed to be held to the same duties and responsibilities cops are. If society tells us cops are supposed to protect us, and then they betray that, that's doubly bad. If a "mercenary" does something bad, then they haven't broken a general social understanding to do so. It doesn't make what the mercenary does any less wrong, but in an absolute value sense it is less wrong than if a cop did it. Additionally, the hot button issue that started this all is cops doing bad things, to oversimplify. If it's no longer cops doing bad things, and instead the local crazy wizard, then it's less relevant to current topics and also less relevant to what is currently the issue in America (and other countries) and also becomes not copaganda.

ekaczmarek wrote:

I mean, do you plan on your players being classist and racist?

Setting aside that "classist" is a non-term, yes.

If that's the case then I don't think it matters what adventure you run or what adventures paizo publishes.

There's a paragraph on the circle of stones in the continuing the adventure that says there will be more info on the circle in the Absalom setting book coming out later. In other words, its up to the GM.

Thebazilly wrote:

The idea of swapping out the player characters' role to private investigators makes the AP a lot less distasteful to me.

Because its so much better as a society when we outsource our state sanctioned violence to outside parties. Then their racist and classist behavior is just the fault of individuals that society bears no responsibility for.

I mean, do you plan on your players being classist and racist? Most adventures kind of hinge on your characters being outside parties to begin with.

Personally I'm a bigger fan of the capstone feats over backgrounds, as my playgroup is not likely to want to build and play characters related to a previous campaign. I can almost guarantee that some of my players will take these capstones, while I can say that it's unlikely at best my players will ever use legacy backgrounds.

Anyone feeling generous enough to share some info on whatever the new Sorcerer capstone is :)

You can extend the duration of your bloodline's blood magic effect

I’m awful curious to hear what non-lethal weapons people are so insistent these cops will use. You’re gonna tell your Fighter they can’t have a sword? A Ranger with no bow?

Yes? There are by my count 8 weapons with the nonlethal trait to choose from (including unarmed attacks), and you can make a nonlethal attack with any weapon at -2. So the fighter can just use a sword at -2 if they so choose; 1st edition had merciful magic weapons, and I would expect a similar effect to appear in 2e, or be easily homebrewed that weapons have a "nonlethal" rune. That's honestly a non-issue.

I would like the bloodrager back in some focused manner. My first 1e character was a bloodrager and I'm rather fond of him so I'd like to see what he is like in 2e.

Rage Prophet was a prestige class in 1e that I was always interested in but never made work. If there was a Rage Prophet archetype I would appreciate that.

The Stonelord Paladin archetype was also a flavorful build I enjoyed, and if I'm able to recreate that in some fashion in 2e I would be very happy.

I see. The new consensus is that a person about to be arrested by citizens screaming "Help me! These people are trying to kill me!" - without even exercising physical means of self-defense or trying to flee her home -is unlawfully resisting arrest and deserves to get killed.

With that kind of readership response, Edgewatch's plot lines should not pose any problems whatsoever.

Dude, those lines that she says are clearly, to both the GM with prior knowledge and to the party, are a disingenuous attempt to manipulate her emotionally abused bodyguard/boyfriend into attacking the party. She has a boss statblock, with battle tactics presented. And this is after she has set up multiple deadly traps and encounters before you even reach her, one of which involves a corrupt cop!

CyberMephit wrote:

I am wondering, what is it about the game (as opposed to the players, or the legacy games that came before) that prevents nonviolent solutions from being viable? Also, what's to say that the Toolbox section of the AP won't have tools to improve them?

The vast majority of the rules deal with combat, and your characters all are primarily focused on increasing their combat effectiveness. You are rewarded with experience points for killing using the base rules as written.

If you’re playing by the rules if you don’t kill monsters and take their stuff your character will not be strong enough to even take on skill challenges as the story continues because you won’t have the high skills, spells and abilities the game expects at higher levels.

I don't get this mindset that you have to kill for XP. I hand out XP for nonlethally dealing with encounters. You get XP for various story achievements outside of killing. So many times in an AP I have seen some variation on the phrase "if you dealt with the encounter nonlethally award xp as if you had defeated them."

Is now a good time for it? No. Is it ever a good time? I would say yes, in a vacuum there is a time and place where this is acceptable. Should they delay this, in light of recent events? Hard to say. Presumably a lot of work went into this and with Covid-19 I assume it is an incredibly tough pill to swallow to cancel half a year's worth of Adventure Paths.

The thing is, if I were to ever run this, I would encourage (or enforce) nonlethal force, and avoiding combat (outside like demons invading the city or something). My roommate pointed out to me when I told him all of this is that in a fantasy world we are creating in our game, we have the magic wand of GM fiat to magically make all city watchmen/cops be perfectly reasonable, sane, noncorrupt people.

AnimatedPaper wrote:

Did they say these would all be available at level 2? It seems to be stated as a fact, so I’m wondering if this was in the AMAs or something.

Every single archetype released so far, multiclass or otherwise, has their Dedication starting feat at at least Level 2. So it's probably safe to say most future archetypes will be the same.

Doesn't mean you can't do something like the optional free archetype variant rule in the GMG.

The Golem Grafter archetype from Extinction Curse has it's dedication feat at level 8, and its prereq's can't be met by nonrogues until level 7. It's definitely not a guaranteed thing that they will be at level 2, and if they were it would be somewhat limiting in terms of what prereqs could be.

16. Mastermind Dhampir Goblin Rogue with Witch Multiclass, leading a small band of occult thieves and criminals.

17. Loremaster Lore Oracle, for maximum knowledge

18. Tengu Wit Swashbuckler Linguist, for a character who is able to banter anywhere he goes!

As a follow up, I'd also like a Velstrac (previously Kyton) centered AP. Thing is, that is also a roundabout way of asking for a Nidal AP since I'm unaware of anywhere else on Golarion where such an adventure could be held. Maybe the adventure starts off in Cheliax and transitions into Nidal?

I would just like a qlippoth themed AP, maybe not to the degree that giant slayer goes all in on giants, but an AP where the BBEG is some powerful almost a qlippoth lord.

I know Age of Ashes does this but I don't exactly how, but a defend the fortress campaign where the whole campaign has a home base that you have to defend occasionally is something I'd like, though maybe only as a 3 book campaign.

An "Around the World in 80 Days" AP where each book is a different leg of the journey. Can give a lot of variety in locale and enemies, and visit a lot of fan favorite locations.

So just looking over what new archetypes could go with the new classes, I came up with the idea of a party that is a research team going out on an expedition: an Archaeologist Investigator, a Medic Oracle, a Linguist Swashbuckler, and a Loremaster Witch. Which all sound like a blast to play to me.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

For my money the "martial arts tournament" as a dramatic setting is not a western trope, but an eastern one that has found considerable purchase in the west.

Citing "Mortal Kombat" and "Kung Fu Hustle" as inspirations was probably a function of "those were on the tip of the tongue. There would be, after all, no Mortal Kombat without Street Fighter 2 and there would be no Kung Fu Hustle without several decades of Hong Kong action films made for Hong Kong Audiences (many of which were about tournaments.)

In context I believe the Kung Fu Hustle mention was specifically indicating that you could run the adventure as comedic, if that's what you want. The number of Hong Kong action comedies that the average westerner is familiar with is probably just that and maybe Shaolin Soccer (Sammo Hung's hopping vampire comedies are tragically underappreciated.)

I am intrigued by the indication that this can easily be made comedic. That is not something that can really be said about many 1E APs

But with this, Agents (which I assume can be played in the style of B99, Police Academy, Hot Fuzz) and Extinction (Circus easily has scope for comedy) - there is more flexibility in 2E APs for a variety of playstyles

Given the people I usually play with, all adventures I play in quickly become comedic, whether I want it to or not.

ekaczmarek wrote:

Kung Fu Hustle (which I think was made in China)

But produced and distributed by Columbia Pictures.

Directed by a Chinese director, starred numerous Hong Kong actors, and produced by Beijing Film Studio and Hong Kong's Star Overseas. It is a film made by Asian people about a part of Asian culture.

How are martial arts tournaments not part of a diverse influence that makes up Tian Xia? Also, they're not just trying to do Mortal Kombat, there's also Dragon Ball (which was made in Japan) and Kung Fu Hustle (which I think was made in China); Like clearly these type of things are part of real world Asian culture, and makes for a type of adventure that they haven't touched on yet. Hell, the tournament arc is a common trope of shonen anime.

ekaczmarek wrote:

keftiu wrote:

How is this? Very curious about Darklands stuff and anytime Pathfinder feels weirder than standard fantasy.

Personally I really enjoyed this book. In terms of the adventure you spend most of the adventure in the underground desert, which if that isn't considered an exotic locale I'm not sure what else would be. Plus having to play pragmatically nice to some drow is interesting to my brain. The article on Shraen makes me want to extend the party's stay in the city just explore it some more if/when I gm this.

How peacefully can you interact with the drow and the Urdefhan?

Options are given for ignoring or fighting urdefhan, but more page space is devoted to playing nice to get what you want. It's basically stated outright you have to play by Drow rules on their turf, though none of them are actively working to kill or enslave the party. After all, it's a small adventuring party versus an unfamiliar city full of undead drow. The party isn't forced into doing evil however; put on a circus show in the local amphitheater and trade some magic items to stimulate the local economy are the two big options.

How is this? Very curious about Darklands stuff and anytime Pathfinder feels weirder than standard fantasy.

Personally I really enjoyed this book. In terms of the adventure you spend most of the adventure in the underground desert, which if that isn't considered an exotic locale I'm not sure what else would be. Plus having to play pragmatically nice to some drow is interesting to my brain. The article on Shraen makes me want to extend the party's stay in the city just explore it some more if/when I gm this.

I personally would like to see Permanency and Contingency back, presumably as rituals. I love playing the ever prepared wizard, and those two spells really help sell and play that.

So I just noticed that the review mentions a Gnome option called Razzle Dazzle and I don't know what it does but I'm already excited about it. I kinda want to make a nerdy gnome wizard with the performer background but a low charisma, who became a wizard after his showbiz dreams fizzled out. Still calls himself the Raz Dazzler from time to time though.

I love seeing a Gravity Falls reference in the wild

Personally, I'm hoping for the permanence spell to make a return. It's a favorite spell of mine, though I don't have anything in mind for it yet. I have similar feelings towards the contingency spell too.

I just got my copy in last week and have since been thumbing through it. This question made me go back and reread that spell, and I have a question. What does this spell looks like? I imagine it looks like the artwork on the previous page, but the spell description doesn't elaborate. Because an invisible 10 foot square of damage that lasts for 24 hours seems powerful.

For what it's worth, I think it's easier for AP writers to design combat around an unknown party rather than investigations or Role play. Combat (I would assume) works the same way and is approached similarly by every party, but investigations and role play are a little dicey because those are where a group's approach will start to wildly differ more often. Also I assume they have done some sort of market research or have some sort of feedback that indicates combat is why people come to Pathfinder.

It would work in a different setting, but I had something in mind where we had all those different aasimar and tiefling heritages in 1st edition, or also now a handful of differing plant types for Leshy heritages. But replace plant type with reptile type.

I recognize the baggage (though I feel like that's not the correct word in this instance) of trying to fulfill ancestries from 1e coming into 2e. In a starting from scratch type situation, I would think a good solution would be to have a general reptile ancestry that then has a snake person heritage, a more naga focused heritage, etc. So you could have 1 ancestry that then covers nagaji, serpentfolk, vishkanya type characters.

For my not asked for 2 cents on an "always evil" race discussion, I recognize the value of having games where you are forced to question whether your enemies are actually evil and if they truly deserve death; but I do this hobby to unwind with my friends on the weekend, and my idea of a relaxing time is not having a philosophical discussion about the nature of good and evil. Sometimes I just want to fight a bunch of mooks and beat an unambiguously evil group of villains. So for that purpose of making the gm's life easier, their needs to be a certain amount of always evil, or at least confrontational, enemies. And there needs to be a wide varieties of enemies at that. Serpentfolk are just some more of those types of enemies.

Since at this point I'm just throwing together a few of my favorite things, I think I'm going to get a Goblin Dhampir Witch with a Rogue Mastermind Dedication to work. Backstory being they (haven't settled on gender yet) are a manipulative witch doctor style leader of a goblin tribe. I also have an Aberrant Bloodline Bloodrager character from 1e that I'm always on the lookout to "port" more accurately to 2nd edition.

I mean, the goblin part feels like it's not the real problem, it's the type of character goblin players tend to be. So when you say "no goblins", there's a real possibility that the player just rolls up a human/gnome/halfling, plays the same personality, and then you're both unhappy.

I think they are supposed to grab Golem Grafter from the room with the dwarf ghosts, or at the very least from interacting with that tower.