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When investigating a purchase of the SF2E GM Screen I happened on this disparity: I discovered that the counteract table on Demiplane's SF2E Player Core had the "critical success" and "success" table headers backwards, and that the PDF version of the SF2E Player Core I downloaded in August from the Paizo website the same issue was present, and that in looking at the Paizo FAQ/Errata for SF2E Player Core up to now, this issue has not been addressed (?).

The reason I was looking this up is that I heard the GM Screen for SF2E includes the counteract table (as well as the SF2E specific conditions I presume) and so would make a good stand in for my PF2E revised Core Edition GM Screen even when I mostly run PF2E rather than Starfinder, because in addition to all the PF2E GM screen information, it would include an updated/expanded creature type identification table, SF specific conditions in addition to the PF ones, as well as the counteract table.

Can someone confirm for me whether the SF2E GM Screen has the success/critical success column headers in the correct order rather than the mistaken order in the Player Core? If it turns out the SF2E GM Screen has the counteract table correctly printed and is in all other ways a direct upgrade to the PF2E GM Screen, I'll be sending out my order immediately. A physical GM screen has been an invaluable reference, even when I run completely online games

As a mega fan, with all pf2e, sf2e and many other content unlocked to the tune of thousands of dollars, I just would like to take a moment to mourn the state of release timings… I preordered the full sf2e set via demiplane months ago. The GM Core is listed on the release schedule page as being in August. On its individual page it had said scheduled for September 3. Being in Japan time zones work against me but even still at 10pm September 3 in Japan, 6am Seattle time, demiplane hasn’t released so the book I ordered months ago hasn’t been added to digital downloads, and this is for a book marked as an August release. If the release so I can access the book I preordered months ago is actually early September, just mark it as such rather than falsely promise a release date that is not met. This has happened almost every month for me for the last year for adventure paths, rule books and standalone adventures… preordered content marked for a months release doesn’t actually become available until the second week of the following month. Rather than post an early timing, I’d prefer you just mark when I can actually get it and not have false expectations.

Would (haha) like to get some clarification on the intent of this spell...

Can Shape Wood expand a twig into up to 20 cubic feet or shrink 20 cubic feet of wood into a twig? (expand or shrink)

Can Shape Wood entrap an unwilling NPC in some way in a wall of wood or like wrap a branch around someone's legs or arms?

Can Shape Wood create a metal gear solid box/basket for concealment? Or how about a cutting line of sight to prevent casting a spell against a target?

Can Shape Wood be used with a stick with the tip pushed into a lock to expand and pop a lock (brute application of pressure)? Or like slipped under a portcullis and used like a jack to lift something...

Could a bundle of sticks be used rather than a single piece? How well grafted do they need to be to contribute to the piece of wood

Does cactus/succulent plant flesh count as wood? Leaves? Flowers? Could wood be used to convert to a wall of leafy vines? Are rose bushes wood? Could shape wood be used to create difficult terrain? across how many squares?

Is a coconut wood? Could a tree trunk be shaped into multiple coconuts?

Can wood be shaped into edible roots like lotus root? Can it be shaped into poisonous woods like arsenic? Can it be shaped into medicinal woods like willow bark (pain killer)?

It says no intricate parts or fine details, but how much text could be formed to leave a message with a casting of this spell before it becomes intricate?

It says no moving parts, but wood is flexible... could I form a bow minus the drawstring?

Some guidance please. There are so many possible shenanigans in this spell...

As a general note, the scales on all the maps in this adventure should be adjusted and/or the maps should be replaced with ones that better reflect the scale in the text of the adventure.

Also, this is a darklands adventure so there should be plenty of time to enjoy darklands. In the travel sequences use the following rules:
TRAVEL: I describe some basic elements of the environment they are traveling through and a "mood" and then allow the players to give the LoTR travel scene directors cut description of the scene to earn a Hero Point.
CAMPING: Watches are done in pairs so two players at a time do some social bonding around the camp.
We do about two or three scenes of travel and one scene of camping per day of travel...

Okay let's get to fixing the adventure:

Prelude:

Choose a different starting point: In my case, all the characters were on the road traveling to Highhelm to respond to the invitation to the festival. As an introductory adventure, we have them sitting around a campfire and getting to know each other and then the camp is attacked by forces foreshadowing future events... the campsite was accidentally located right by the exit of a smuggling tunnel: Blacknoon weapons smugglers with clan a Molgrade weapons shipment pop out of the cave and surprise watchers.. in their loot there is PO indicating these will be sold to a buyer named Cadji)... the tunnel has been collapsed internally by the Blacknoon when the smugglers fail to return in case players investigate the tunnel

Book 1

Chapter 1... add content from the Highhelm book. We expanded on the basilisk game and the adolescent cloud dragon MJ's pranks quite a bit. I also added an underlying plot by low level agents of the Ash Engineer.... ALSO... make sure to highlight the tension between the religious establishment in Highhelm and the small community of Rivethunn. Foreshadowing this and building on this tension is the underlying theme of the whole adventure.

Chapter 2... expand the travel montages and camping scenes through the darkands! This adventure will hinge on you adding extra underdark exploration... this is another good place to highlight the lasting impact of the quest for sky, the tension between dwarven pantheon and rivethun, and darklands denizens receiving a call to join the bloodbane coalition ... also, point out if possible that the hryngar are resentful to dwarves that completed the quest for sky through the environment (this lays the foundation for BBEG's motivation) as you travel in the direction of Hagegraff for a bit before turning off to Guldrige

Chapter 3... can be mostly run as written

Book 2

Chapter 1 Expand and fill in the darklands exploration... use the environment to show the lasting influence of the quest for sky on the darklands and begin hinting at the bloodbane coalition being gathered. Show the major story beats of the quest for sky through battle sites in the timeline at the start of book 1, etc. and also reveal the rivethunn heritage of the dwarves with relevant spiritual sites ...

The court of ether encounters can be played for the most part as is, but the ritual and cult infiltration needs to be fleshed out more since it's almost the whole reason to come here... like the fulcrum this chapter turns on is the least described part... this is a heads-up to GM's running it... get yourself a cultist compound map and build out a bigger infiltration/dungeon crawl here ...

The journey back should also be expanded on with more darklands travel and environmental story telling but stronger hints about the bloodbane coalition being gathered while also outlining with environment/neutral wandering NPCs telling how hryngar chose to not complete quest for sky and how this dispute split the dwarven community ... as well as the abandoned ruins of an ancient abandoned orc settlements with that have been converted to dwarven pantheon related structures

Reaching highhelm should result in another homebrew adventure here as well... more mid-level Ash Engineer goons this time connecting the Ash Engineer to Hagegraff and Narseigus ...

In the victory, clan matron or other NPC holds a shindig to celebrate these heroes and then takes them aside. She introduces them to Bronwyll, who has come secretly to highhelm to recruit adventurers to help her bring down Narseigus. She's jealous because he took a promotion meant for her and she wants the help of outsiders to Hagegraff to get in the penthouse and find incriminating evidence of his diversion of Ministry of Magic resources for his plot with the Bloodbane Coalition. The clan matron/other NPC is convinced that the party should also find some information that could help them defeat the sorcerer that threatens all the Five Kings Mountains. Bronwyll provides a list of contacts in Hagegraff that should enable them to gain access to the penthouse... (the PCs they're going to meet in Hagegraff in the next chapter)

After that, the Hagegraff story pretty much plays out as expected, but Bronwyll's actual plot at the end is to catch the heroes raiding the penthouse to arrest them and that's how she plans to get ahead in the political scene of the city. In the penthouse they find a journal with information that if players look closely should help them understand that they can break Narseigus' spell holding Zogototaru in the third book by reminding the worm of his connection to Taargick.The penthouse should be a massive enough map to allow for multiple troops on each side to do combat while players try to get out of dodge.

Book 3

At the start of book 3 we take a short montage and I explain the gap as like going from Empire Strikes Back to Return of the Jedi... the clan matron/other NPC has used their contacts and devised a plan (not unlike the battle of endor) where the situation is described: the korr well is situated at the heart of the five kings mountains, the fortress above it is key to security for the region. below it forces are gathering at the cavern waiting for even deeper down where narseigus will gain control of the worm and together undo the seals and then attack the whole of the five kings mountains.... the plan is to send a small strike force onto the moon, cough, into the cavern to disrupt the bloodbane coalition and then turn off the shield generator, cough , open the seals while chaos reigns to allow the combined fleet, cough, a larger legion to descend and fight them while the characters board the death star and fight the emperor, cough, descend to the depths and defeat narseigus... hopefully when the dwarven legion arrives the seals will not be operational .... and montage complete we open book 3 at the cavern skipping the negotiation scene in this chapter.

the rest can play as written until the after fight with Narseigus. Rather than having another dungeon after the BBEG... it's time to land this thing. Present a closing choice instead:

The outer tomb has carvings depicting Taargick as leader and proud defender of dwarven legacy, and Stoneriver awaits in this chamber like the grail knight in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade... This encounter can play out as a social encounter: he poses a sphinx-like riddle that is designed to test if the players have internalized the broad messages of the campaign

Consider carefully the way you go
Which path will forge dwarven morrow
Two doors, one fore, one behind
The way of progress is yours to find
Stay the course with Toragg's pantheon
Or return for Felgunn and rivethunn

basically, should the party choose to allow dwarvish society to retain stability in the white-washed version of the pantheon of Torag, or follow the truth, uncover ancient traditions, reopen the origin lands of the dwarves, but unleash possible widespread confusion as dwarves are forced to reconsider Taargick's legacy and the quest for sky... the choice is in the player's hands...will they choose, wisely?

If they advance forwards, Stoneriver announces that it seems Taargick's secrets shall remain sealed until others come bearing Skysunder and a teleportation circle activates, retuning the party to Highhelm... roll credits with a montage of the heroes defeating the forces of the Ash Engineer focused on Highhelm

If they go back towards the door they entered by, Stoneriver nods solemnly and tells the party that his time watching the tomb has come to an end, and he returns to Toragg's side with a dimension door.

The second room is a corridor with friezes depicting the hard moral choices that Taargick made during the Quest for Sky summarizing the content of the four visions and the original Stoneriver questions

the voices of opposition to return or to stop halfway
the sacrifices of the people, young and old
the choice of mercy for even fearsome foes

The third chamber is vast and empty and engraved with the directions back to Felgunn in a pattern that can only be completed by inserting Skysunder into a backlit slot so the light shines through the gem in the pommel to get a map to the planet luke has been hiding on all these years, cough... Felgunn ... roll credits with a montage of journeys through the Darklands ending at an opening of a cave giving us a teasing peak of Felgunn

We finished the Drootorca Cavern and are doing the Kor Well puzzles now... and I'm looking at the last chapter and trying to figure out how to cut and paste the last bits all together. I don't think it makes sense for there to be a dungeon after the final BBEG fight so I think I'm going to strip the tomb sequence down to maybe three rooms:

The outer tomb has carvings depicting Taargick as leader and proud defender of dwarven legacy, and Stoneriver awaits in this chamber like the grail knight in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade... This encounter can play out as a social encounter: he poses a sphinx-like riddle that is designed to test if the players have internalized the broad messages of the campaign

Consider carefully the way you go
Which path will forge dwarven morrow
Two doors, one fore, one behind
The way of progress is yours to find
Stay the course with Toragg's pantheon
Or return for Felgunn and rivethunn

If they advance forwards, Stoneriver announces that it seems Taargick's secrets shall remain sealed until others come bearing Skysunder and a teleportation circle activates, retuning the party to Highhelm... roll credits with a montage of the heroes defeating the forces of the Ash Engineer (who was another antagonist throughout my playthrough)

If they go back towards the door they entered by, Stoneriver nods solemnly and tells the party that his time watching the tomb has come to an end, and he returns to Toragg's side with a dimension door.

The second room is a corridor with friezes depicting the hard moral choices that Taargick made during the Quest for Sky summarizing the content of the four visions and the original Stoneriver questions

the voices of opposition to return or to stop halfway
the sacrifices of the people, young and old
the choice of mercy for even fearsome foes

The third chamber is vast and empty and engraved with the directions back to Felgunn in a pattern that can only be completed by inserting Skysunder into a backlit slot so the light shines through the gem in the pommel. ... roll credits with a montage of journeys through the Darklands ending at an opening of a cave giving us a teasing peak of Felgunn

With all the talk around the houserule consolidation and myself also considering what I'd like to do with the rules, I decided to pick up the Legendary Games supplements sold on Paizo's website here:

https://paizo.com/products/btq02epd?Ultimate-Rulership

and here:

https://paizo.com/products/btq02ew3?Ultimate-Cities

I'm surprised that in the recent threads no one has mentioned these because they're pretty cheap in PDF form, and address a lot of the same issues that people are houseruling around. I love the streamlined kingdom turn (no commerce phase) and I'm definitely going to incorporate many of their extra feats, activities, etc. Experience gains are faster and their reconnoiter activity (Send Surveyors) is more generous than the patched version.

On the other hand, I don't like the RP being split between attributes so I'll probably keep them as is and there are some of the city rules that I don't feel are very thematic to this campaign :)

I'm not sure yet about the new negotiation and trade systems, but I feel they feed more into the fiction of nations interacting than the original rules so I think my players will enjoy it more at the table.

Anyway, for anyone thinking through trying to have foreground kingdom development, these supplements are worth a look.

So my group has been playing Season of Ghosts, in Japan, matching story beats to IRL calendar for almost one year now. We started on the summer solstice last year with the Reenactment Festival, managed to line up the events so that we started book two on the autumn equinox, completed the monastery and began book three on winter solstice, and are almost certainly about to end book 4 one week before summer solstice, so we will have a five years later recap session on the summer solstice. This adventure tapped in so hard to our local environment, customs and presented us with deeply thematic horror and moving moments as Willowshore became our home. I have had to do very little to no work as a GM to bridge inconsistencies or bring the events to life, we've skipped almost none of the content (players skipped a few rooms in the bigger "dungeon crawls") and I've almost never felt compelled to add content, although there was of course some adaptation due to the players' backgrounds and actions interacting with the story. All that to say... BRAVO! There are no words to describe how awesome this adventure was for us and our group... except for the closing chapter.

So... here's my take on the closing chapter of this adventure:

Kugaptee's Willowshore is as described in the book but empty... deadly silent except for the occasional fluttering of the crimson moths of Kugaptee. A trail (made by the killer of chapter 2) leads the party to the home of one of our party's characters... there's a cave leading under the hill of the Great Willow and this allows the player to reveal a secret to their background that they've been hiding before we finish out the campaign, but also, the cave walls have been defaced since what that character knows they should be... deep under the hill, a fog surrounds and they emerge...

Final fight 1: Summer... Gurglegut was far less interesting of a fight than Zoudou, so she's there at the altar about to sacrifice... not a child but the chained spirit of Kazuma Oono (who was murdered in our play of chapter 2, but in our case is also the grandson of one of our players...) All of the stats were buffed to current level by adding 13 to all of her d20 target rolls and giving appropriately scaled up spells (minions had her stats -2)... at the end of each round the big stomping sound beyond the wall of ghosts pounds against it and actually an arm of kugaptee smashes through the wall of ghosts every other round (Basic Reflex DC 39 6d12+33 << the hazard damage/DC taken from GM Core) after defeating Zoudou the claw of Kugapteee retreats, they can try to help Kazuma to remember, and an opening is there in the wall of ghosts

Final fight 2: Autumn... mystery tree is not an option... we push through the wall of ghosts into the root chamber below the Tan Sugi Monastery and face off against Xin Yue, stats buffed to present... in the fight another Kugaptee claw hazard from below. Rather than help from Zhi Hui, it is a manifestation of Tan Sui-jin that assists them. Held prisoner for sacrifice here is You So-jin (also murdered in chapter 2, since they were able to guard Elizeth very well) ... the opposite side from where they enter this root chamber has a gate to the Karahai garden...

Final fight 3: Winter... the Karahai central garden, stripped bare of trees... lined by exorcists converted to follow the Kugaptee cult. standing center waiting the party is Fenfang (who our party uncovered as the Kugaptee agent, they also made peace with Mago Kai rather than fight so the Mago Kai as written didn't work at all) ... when challenged her body twists, throat slits, head falls off and we have the original adventure's showdown against the Argyrzei fiend but with the addition of a Kugaptee Claw hazard... in this space they rescue the emaciated form of Ol' Matsuki, who was exorcised and disappeared from the mindscape during the winter months of our game. Exiting the opposite gate to the garden, they find...

Final fight 4: Spring.... we didn't fight the path maidens... actually it works to just go straight to the governor's mansion as described with eyes, etc., but have them enter the central courtyard to find it full of bodies. Faces familiar and yet different, like the grandchildren of the willlowshore population they know, seeming to have committed a mass suicide. The shisagishins are there as written, and the encounter with Heh and the aftermath are as written.

Conclusion: they leave the manor through the door in the governor's quarters, drawn on by the sound of a flute... they are in the Tan Sugi Monestery by the great cedar. The flute is being played by Zhi Hui (one that has never met the characters) but more interesting is the scene around the Tan Sugi cedar. An axe embedded in its side leaking black tarry sap. The yard containing four or five bodies of Mago Kai loggers that have been left unburied for close to a year, and the broken body of Ugly Cute, roughly hewn by loggers... fireflies gently carried on the wind coalesce into Tan Sui-jin... she bows to the party, smiles wordlessly, an looks at the axe embedded in the tree before another breeze causes her form to revert to the fireflies... scene fades to black with the haunting sound of Zhi Hui on the flute... and then we pick up at the summer solstice festival in Willowshore five years later... players tell us what they've been doing, and help me narrate the changes to Willowshore, and especially the new way the festival is held in Willowshore

Hi there. Starting an SF2e run through Abomination Vaults and planning to start in July with about one session per month. Unfortunately that probably means our first session will be before the release of the the Player Core. Curious how extensive the updates will be to the level 1 experience (since we'll only have one session before the Player Core comes out). Is it reasonable to assume that most of the basic mechanics for first level were pretty solid at the time of the playtest, or will there be so many changes that it just makes more sense to wait until August to start playing to avoid confusion at the table? Curious to hear what people think

I'm planning to start a Kingmaker campaign this summer... I'm wondering about a few things...

1) Battlecry! is coming out and says it will come with mass combat rules. I wonder if the Battlecry! rules will make a good replacement for the Kingmaker AP mass combat rules.

2) Is there possibly also going to be an update for Kingdom Management say in the upcoming releases around the events of the "Hellbreakers" AP / LO:Shining Kingdoms or another near future release?

I'm planning to start a Kingmaker campaign this summer... I'm wondering about a few things...

1) Battlecry! is coming out and says it will come with mass combat rules. I wonder if the Battlecry! rules will make a good replacement for the Kingmaker AP mass combat rules.

2) Is there possibly also going to be an update for Kingdom Management say in the upcoming releases around the events of the "Hellbreakers" AP / LO:Shining Kingdoms or another near future release?

The map image has a 100 mile scale on it (which would make the cavern more than 600 miles in length) but the text says it's 2 miles wide and 4 miles long. Like the other maps in this AP, it feels like there wasn't enough review.

I'm currently running Season of Ghosts Sundays and Sky King's Tomb Thursdays and both campaigns are closing in on their end points. For my next campaign I'm thinking to run Kingmaker (possibly with the Sunday Knights and Thursday Knights running on the same map in parallel ... ) but I had an idea for giving players more options for their characters and thought I'd like to hear some other more experienced GMs chime in with their thoughts with these systems:

During character creation, a player can choose 0, 1 or 2 of the following:
A. Mythic rules (10 extra feats by 20 and mythic points instead of hero points)
B. Free-archetype (10 extra feats by 20)
C. Relics (2 relics from 1-20, unlocking a gift every 2 levels for essentially 10 extra "feats" by 20)

Players that choose:
I. 0 options advance using fast XP track (800/level)
II. 1 option advance using standard XP track (1000/level)
III. 2 options advance using slow XP track (1200/level)

The one player I asked about this said he'd just take 0 options, fast XP every time to unlock spell ranks quickly and get extra bonuses across all his rolls rather than explore the other options, which defeats the purpose of having players explore different builds and options. After a little talk with him I thought, maybe I'd just say that each player can choose one option and every stays on the standard XP track...

So basically my questions to the community here are:

1. Would you also **always** choose 0 options to get fast track XP and ignore the options? Does any combination of extra feats balance slower XP progression?
2. How well balanced are these three options against each other?

I’m in Japan and currently running two weekly games, Sky Kings Tomb and Season of Ghosts, on Thursdays and Sundays respectively and both are reaching their midpoints so I’m considering follow-up campaigns to start in the middle of next year. One thing I’m considering is a Kingmaker campaign where both the “Thursday Knights” and “Sunday Knights” set out to play Kingmaker in parallel using the same Stolen Lands map and build competing kingdoms…

I would really love to have a hard copy of the Kingmaker AP, especially the special edition to do this, but can’t find hard copies, special or normal, anywhere online. It seems they’ve all sold out from Paizo as well. I’d be willing to pay even double list price and an extra half for shipping but can’t find a single hard copy anywhere. For such a popular AP, is there any chance of a reprint?

/Please ignore the following…/

|| And since I’m here wishing… perhaps one updated for 2e revised with no drow, no alignment and with updated community suggestion rules for kingdom and warfare?… In mine, they will reach the hex between Restov and Nivakta’s Crossing and while camping experience the godsrain, so maybe bump bosses to mythic too… ooh ooh… maybe it’s actually starfinder 2e and we’re settling a new star system… ||

In the glossary: Tian-Min An ethnic group local to northwestern Tian Xia, primarily Minkai and the Forest of Spirits. Known for occasionally having unusual eye colors.

Should read northeastern instead of northwestern.