magnuskn's page

Okay, gotta ask this, but is this "in continuity" or "out of continuity" for those characters? By this, I mean are we getting some sort of canon story which will affect them and be remembered by them in the future (as far as their personality and character growth goes... of course Amiri is going to have to deal with the death of her god) or is this just as much of a "okay, we set this particular set of iconics in this situation, next time we use them they won't remember that this happened and will be across the world in a different story" thing, like with adventure paths? By this I mean, is this the Star Trek: The Next Generation or Star Trek: Deep Space Nine approach?

Both approaches have their advantages and disadvantages, but since the iconics are, well, the iconics, of course it has more meaning to me if they experience permanent character growth or remain in their character stasis they've been in for the last decade and a half.

Cole Deschain wrote:

Errenor wrote:

Huh? Which fallen angel though?

Tabris

This one- https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Tabris

Ah, that one. And there among 'his' books is some creation myth?

Yep. Or better said, the story of Ihys and Asmodeus, which includes Saranrae as a servitor of Ihys. Pages 264 - 265 of the hardcover Book of the Damned.

Sarenrae starting as an angel was from Asmodeus. The Windsong Testaments have her as one of the first nine gods. https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6sgzu

Gotta wonder if we are dealing with contradictory mythology here or just the fallen angel dude being an unreliable narrator.

WWHsmackdown wrote:

I'm guessing it's a free archetype-like tack that gives 10 extra feats that you spend exclusively in you're mythic destiny

That would be the most intuitive and straightforward way to do it, for sure. That's where I'm leaning too, though I keep envisioning a progression of fewer feats, say five, that are each chunkier and grant more benefits for the tier you have. They might even grant bonuses to your core numbers, allowing you to punch above your weight class level-wise.

I'm assuming that last bit because the devs said these rules wuldn't bring you above 20th level, if I remember right. Giving you a way to pump your numbers while staying in the normal twenty level progression would mean that you could eventually take on 25+ threats, which feels suitably mythic. It's also just something I want. I want it very very much. I love reading those 25+ statblocks even when I know there's almost no chance of getting that high.

Edit: Oh, oopse. Quoted you before you were totally finished, sorry.

I hope we at least get a proper mythic statblock for Sorshen out of it. :p

I've been kicking around the idea that ALL gods are former mortals of one stripe or another. Maybe combined of one or more mortal souls. It is only over time that they become more alien and detached.

This is baseless speculation for funsies.

Saranrae was an angel created by Ihys before she became a full-fledged goddess (at least according to the Book of the Damned excerpt from 1E), so according to that piece of lore, you're wrong at least about her.

Twiggies wrote:

I am not looking forward to experiencing that again. :x

You won't.

One hopes.

The Travel Guide is awesome. Probably one of my favorite 2E books so far. Then again, I'm a huge nerd for the lore of settings.

My lord in iron......I WITNESS YOU!!!

MEDIOCRE!

Okay, huge relief that it wasn't Saranrae. I had pretty much convinced myself that it would be her. Phew.

As for Gorum... well, I hope he is replaced with a more interesting war god one day. I assume nobody is taking his portfolio for a while, unless Szuriel is stepping up immediately. Which... wouldn't be good, since she is no joke in terms of her, erm, how do we call alignment now?

As for the two new classes, agnostic about them so far. Both sound like interesting concepts, although I kinda wonder what the new Guardian will be about, since the Champion already exists.

Stoked for the novel and the AP's, though.

Khorne got tired of the pretender. :p

Interesting premise. :) A lot of bangers lately with the AP themes.

Finally doing something with your iconics (aside from the comics). :) Yeah, I'm gonna get this.

Jonathan Morgantini wrote:

I'm VERY excited for you all to eventually see the mythic rules Creative has come up with.

Deeply curious at what shape they are going to take.

Yep, same here. In a game which prices itself on being balanced all the way from level 1 to 20, I hope this was a priority for mythic rules as well. This time around.

Do we get more info on Sun Wukong?

Also... for all the higher level Adventure Paths I'm working on (which are three—Curtain Call, plus two more that aren't announced yet in the future), I'm going to be including in the Player's Guide more robust advice for how to tie those adventures in to previously published lower-level 2nd edition 3 part Adventure Paths.

For Curtain Call, this is (as mentioned in my previous post) a big part built right in to the campaign. It's not so much built in to the others I'm working on, so those ties will need to be in the Player's Guides. I'll have to figure out a way to present that information in a non-spoiler way for the GM to work with, but I can do that.

Thank you, this is exactly what I was hoping for.

Your point is interesting but...

"Feedback so far from all sorts of angles (financials, customer feedback, internal process, ease of compilation, ease of licensing issues, etc.) has been pretty universally great for this switch."

Financials, customer feedback you're trying to disagree with, financials, financials, financials etc.

James is awesome, but he's telling you why things are the way they are. Those are the things you need to change if you want change.

Just to be clear... I didn't mean my comment to be critical or snarky. Just literal. Sometimes tone doesn't translate well.

No problems with the tone. Anyway, I can't personally change six-parters to be more successful, since I am a unit of one person who is buying those things and the rulebooks for the nine players I play with to consume. But I can still make a honest criticism that doing experimental stuff makes the 1 - 20 experience even harder on the GM's. Not impossible, of course and with the amount of work I had converting Return of the Runelords to 2E even with a conversion guide, I probably am overselling the problem in the first place.

Also, as an aside, I think that Seasons of Ghosts is by any account a fantastic AP, therefore hasvery good word of mouth on the forum and Reddit, and Seven Dooms for Sandpoint is module 200 and has a hardcover edition, which could skew the numbers on the commercial success a bit.

Interesting reference to the super-dangerous Rova-Spawn. Wonder if this is the same creature that hunted Erastil in his prophecy.

Multiple creatures, actually, according to the false prophecy.

I wonder if these are new ones we haven't heard about or ones we already know. Although I don't think Paizo can come up with a name more metal than "Volnagur the End-Singer", anyway. ^^

Well, then. One more week to see if Saranrae is going to be the one. :-/

Alright, I'll see what I'll do when the time comes. In four years or so, when I'm done with Return of the Runelords, which I haven't even started yet, because someone else is running Strange Aeons.

What, I'm just big on planning ahead. ^^

Anyway, that doesn't change the point I made some posts ago that more experimental AP formats make getting characters from 1 to 20 harder for GM's, who already have a lot of work on their plate.

magnuskn wrote:

If I want to run Fists of the Ruby Phoenix after running Season of Ghosts and keep the same characters, I suddenly have to account for Season of Ghosts ending at level 13 and Fists of the Ruby Phoenix starting at level 11. Its much easier to rework encounters in 2E than in 1E, but it's still a lot of work to prepare an AP in the first place, which you guys just made harder. Not to mention that it'd be quite difficult to explain to players why their characters won't level for almost a full module full of combat.

Or, as I mentioned last month, you can just simplify/streamline the "qualifying round" to reduce the number of encounters on Danger Island before the start of day 3. Probably concentrate on fighting the other teams and skip all/most of the combats against the "native" creatures.

Yeah, I really would want to not run the AP to run the AP. Thanks, but no thanks.

As long as you guys don't skip on the high-level stuff, like Starfinder did for most of its run, this is okay. I still miss the connective tissue of a six-part adventure path, though, since many players I know want to run their characters all the way from level 1 to 20.

That you now also do 4-parters or other kinds of more experimental formats, is actually even more of a hindrance to this than doing two three parters consecutively, since that means that there is less space to connect one low-level AP to a high-level AP. If I want to run Fists of the Ruby Phoenix after running Season of Ghosts and keep the same characters, I suddenly have to account for Season of Ghosts ending at level 13 and Fists of the Ruby Phoenix starting at level 11. Its much easier to rework encounters in 2E than in 1E, but it's still a lot of work to prepare an AP in the first place, which you guys just made harder. Not to mention that it'd be quite difficult to explain to players why their characters won't level for almost a full module full of combat.

Whether or not Medusa is more well known, probably? I would hazard a guess gorgon is actually commonly known because of the myth being taught in middle schools. I have no idea how the metal/robot dog got the name gorgon though in d&d. Just bizarre

As far as I've observed in my entire life, the Medusa is far more known and the Gorgons themselves are the afternote in most people's knowledge.

I believe the spells being alluded to here are the spells like protection from Small celestial badgers, but only on Tuedays or dispel divine paralysis that a devil of level 5 or lower cast within the past eight rounds.

I am of course referring to such as gems as remove paralysis, stone to flesh and remove curse, which if you didn't learn them and get paralyzed/petrified/cursed you're just screwed, and which have been folded into clear mind/sound body/sure footing in the remaster because getting that specific is absurd.

The problem was apocalyptically bad in PF 1e, coming as it was from 3.x (which in turn came from the nightmarish hodge podge of AD&D 2e). The spells I listed above ( protection from Small celestial badgers) basically existed in PF 1e. Things like antiplant shell or hide from undead were insanely niche, basically never used, and could be...

The relevant question here is, of course, if you are screwed if you encounter a small celestial badger on Tuesdays.

This made me a bit more hopeful that it won't be Saranrae, because I had firmly expected them to make Iomedae or Torag (two other prime candidates for getting murked) safe and instead they chose Mr. Boring.

It's been a moment since I checked in on this thread and there's a lot of updates, so quick vibe check: How do people feel about Sarenrae's odds? Amongst my friend group we're all terrified it will be her (or one of the other Prismatic Baes, but feel like Sarenrae has had the most death flags) and I swg I'm gonna cry if it is. Every time a new Godsrain Prophecy comes out we all talk about the remaining gods' chances trying to find a reason for it not to be Sarenrae. But maybe I'm in a bubble over here and there's very compelling arguments being made for the others' demises.

I fear I'm on the same page as you, I'm also pretty convinced by now it will be her and she's my favorite deity of the setting, basically the emblematic one for Pathfinder, IMO. It'll be pretty devastating for my enjoyment of the setting it I turn out to be right. Which I still hope to be not.

I would be quite happy if Norgorber kacks it and gets replaced with a less all-over-the-place deity. Or several of them. Also we would maybe finally be rid of those useless killer clowns with large razors. Seriously, they never managed to be a threat in 1E and always came off as an idiotic nuisance who felt completely out of place in the setting. At least the Red Mantis looked cool (while also never being a real threat at the level they appeared).

Hurk. Saranrae getting more certain to be the one gets killed off every week. :-/ I don't know how to deal with that, if it really happens.

Huh, why would they not reprint the Oni? Aren't those Paizo monsters?

I don't think grease works on elementals, either.

It definitely does in the game, that's how I've beaten the Water Elemental optional encounter early in the game multiple times.

magnuskn wrote:

Since Rage of Elements already was made under the ORC license, I'd heavily doubt that the next hardcover out will still be under OGL, even if it is in the partner line of setting books.

Small correction here. Rage of Elements is published under the OGL license, as can be seen by checking the license agreement in the back of the book and it not having the green trade dress of the ORC books.

The only indicator I see that the Character Guide might be OGL is that the cover art still uses the old trade dress (parchment PF2 logo, not green), which could just be a sign that they haven't updated the cover art on the store page.

The rules were actively called out as being made with the remastered rules on page 3, though.

Since Rage of Elements already was made under the ORC license, I'd heavily doubt that the next hardcover out will still be under OGL, even if it is in the partner line of setting books.

Damn, and just when Frieren made the Mimic more popular than ever.

Kurai yo!
Kowai yo!

:p

magnuskn wrote:

Grease surprisingly helps against vrocks. At least it did when I played the game a year and something ago.

I think they corrected that so it doesn't do much against winged foes. Or he made the save. Regardless, I reloaded, hit him with the sleep hex, and went to town with coup de grace.

Still feel like the ever-vigilant, "Enemies are everywhere, EVERYWHERE I TELL YOU" inquisitor should have noticed the vrock murdering people right next to him. I guess everyone has their off days...

He probably was day dreaming about killing Desna worshippers or burning elf girls who look at him funny.

Might be that I also used the Sleep hex from Ember and not Grease. I did use Grease very successfully against that pesky Water Elemental, though!

Grease surprisingly helps against vrocks. At least it did when I played the game a year and something ago.

magnuskn wrote:

I enjoy Saranrae as a goddess more than basically any other fictional god I've read about in any fantasy setting, since I find her focus on redemption (with swift retribution against the unredeemable) to be fascinating. I associate the Pathfinder setting very strongly with her. Hence, her loss would make me very unhappy. Also since I personally find Arazni to be a pretty naff replacement (it should have been Nocticula!), if it turns out to be Saranrae who has to go.

Saying "well, isn't her legacy enough for you?" sounds a bit clinically detached and uninvolved, no offense intended.

It has been mentioned a few times that Arazni won't take the mantle of whoever bites it.

I'm well aware of that. I mean that I don't think (just my opinion, no need to get upset) that Arazni is a particularly interesting nor deserving option for a top 20 spot. There are numerous deities (Nocticula, Besmara, Kurgess, Milani) who I think would have a made a much more interesting choice than her.

I mean, I can completely understand that perspective, but isn't the story and how it helps the setting evolve going to end up being much more important than which specific god/goddess dies in the end? It is not like stories of that god or goddess are going to go away, or that they are going to be forgotten from the setting. I feel like Aroden is more present in Adventure Paths and Golarion Lore than most other gods and goddesses specifically because he did die, so it is possible that being the deity to die is only going make Sarenrae stories and lore even richer and more interesting. That is definitely why I think it is going to be her and am looking forward to it, even if I love her as a deity in the game far more than many others. I would much rather get to explore all the places in the world where her death will be meaningfully felt and lead to changes than Zon Kuthon, Gorum, Iori, or even Desna.

I enjoy Saranrae as a goddess more than basically any other fictional god I've read about in any fantasy setting, since I find her focus on redemption (with swift retribution against the unredeemable) to be fascinating. I associate the Pathfinder setting very strongly with her. Hence, her loss would make me very unhappy. Also since I personally find Arazni to be a pretty naff replacement (it should have been Nocticula!), if it turns out to be Saranrae who has to go.

Saying "well, isn't her legacy enough for you?" sounds a bit clinically detached and uninvolved, no offense intended.

The slowly building dread that it really is going to be Saranrae ain't that much fun, I can tell you...

Also Morgan would have to change his profile pic to a Corgi.

I love the concept of the AP. Not that thrilled to have killer clowns with giant razors in it, which seems inevitable if the Skinsaw cult is involved. ^^

Very nice, that sounds like a great idea. :)

Given that most other teams in the tournament are adventurers who are famous for other things, I'm a little befuddled by this complaint about Fists of the Ruby Phoenix in particular. There are teams there from most other continents on the planet - your successful heroes should be able to make it to Tian Xia if the competition interests them.

Stolen Fate likewise staples onto the end of other APs well, as it just wants heroes who can be swept up into a grand prophecy-touched adventure, and Curtain Call seems to explicitly be built for characters who cleared a lower-level AP.

I took Fists of the Ruby Phoenix as an example, because it is the one AP I really, really want to run one day, but the same goes for Stolen Fate and any other high-level AP which is gonna be released in the future ("Curtain Call" certainly sounds interesting... anybody has info what it will be about?).

And, yeah, I actually am planning on running Season of Ghosts before it and either just slowing down the XP gain a bit in it or just have the PC's start at higher level and slowing down their XP gain in FotRP until they've reached an appropiate level. Seemed like a better lead-in than bringing people over from Abomination Vaults or Gatewalkers. But I had to stretch a bit in my imagination to get there.

The point I'm trying to make is that we, as GM's, have to do the legwork a lot to get player characters to the start line for high-level AP's and a bit more help from Paizo for a good lead-in or better connective tissue between their low-level AP's and their high-level AP's would be very appreciated, since full 1 - 20 AP's seem to be out of the question by now.

As for why its not six books. We posted a while ago that six book APs were going away for the foreseeable future. They eat up a LOT of resources, the middle books usually do not sell as well as the beginning, and if the plot/themes didnt interest someone, thats a full six months they would need to wait before there was something new coming out.

While I can well understand the reasons you just listed, it still feels unsatisfying to not have proper lead-ins for the AP's which start at higher level. It's a huge strain on players to have to create level 10 or 11 characters with all the possibilities of feats/equipment/spells which already exist in PF2E (and I imagine it will get even more so as the edition progresses with more releases, as it is wont to).

I would just wish that there would be a.) better lead-ins to the high-level adventure paths, like with the Seven Dooms For Sandpoint player guide or b.) better connections between the low-level adventure paths and the high-level ones. I know that would take up some creative juice and some human ressources to do either one of those things, but since you guys decided to just not do six-parters anymore, I think the onus is then on you to make the higher-level ones more appealing to get into for players (not GM's, since I really want to run, for example, Fists of the Ruby Phoenix some day, but I desperately am looking for some way to get the players there without them having to create level 11 characters from scratch).

And please do not take this as an ask or even opportunity to stop doing high-level adventure paths. These are the reason I am suscribed at all.

Also fixed, although that didn't change the shipping costs at all. We'll see if the final price for that will stay the same when they ship it.

Ah, same problem as Cintra here. I hope CS gets back to me soon as well. I fired off my e-mail as soon as I found their order spawning e-mail in my inbox and noticed the problem.

BTW, in Strange Aeons my crazy elf bomberman Alchemist Doctor Ogol is back and alive, since we'd been playing the disease rules wrong ( and too harshly). Hopefully this time he'll stay around. I'll be cautious. We decided that muscular Half-Orc who was to be my replacement character was a collective fever dream the others had. ^^

magnuskn wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Rise of the Runelords update and Wrath of the Righteous with playable mythic rules would get my money.

Emphasis on "playable". ^^

You inflict Tired on Creative Director. It's Super-Effective! ;-P

Didn't expect a Kaguya-sama reference here. :)

For what its worth, I'm much more confident that you'll do it right this time, given that 2E has turned out so well balanced.

Rise of the Runelords update and Wrath of the Righteous with playable mythic rules would get my money.

Emphasis on "playable". ^^

magnuskn wrote:

Great, now I'm more worried about Saranrae again, now that two of the three people on that cover art we saw were eliminated straight away from consideration and she was not.

Well, pharasma was published first as a birthday present to one of the writers. I would not take her being published first as any sort of sign of things to come. I treat this as if we have 2 data points, Asmodeus and Cailean. You usually need 3 data points to make a trend

Errr, not what I meant. Some weeks ago we were shown a cover to a new book coming out, where Asmodeus, Pharasma and Saranrae were on the cover. Hence me hoping that Saranrae would be eliminated as a death candidate right away, as Asmodeus and Pharasma were. And the reason why now I'm more being nervous about her actually being the one to be killed off, again.

Great, now I'm more worried about Saranrae again, now that two of the three people on that cover art we saw were eliminated straight away from consideration and she was not.

magnuskn wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

magnuskn wrote:

So, I really wonder how Sorshen's kingdom of New Thassilon works, just geographically? Xin-Shalast is kind of inaccessible to normal people, so either the artists and outcasts who immigrate need to be somewhat high level or there are villages/small towns in more accessible areas. Also, economically, I wonder what Sorshen's part of New Thassilon produces to run their economy.

Also, is Sorshen keeping the fuzzy-wuzzy Hallowed Lynx' around, despite them having an evil alignment for some reason? Well, not that it's much of a problem anymore, due to alignment very recently having been removed. But still, they probably have some edict for coughing up furballs containing Shining Children on passerbies, or something like that. Asking the important questions here, because those very powerful fuzzballs are just too cute to not be part of her petting zoo.

One of these days I hope we'll have the chance to explore New Thassilon in more details, but until then those details will have to wait.

Dangit, I knew Hallowed Lynx' were cool, but I didn't know that they fall under the current state secrets Paizo is keeping in their treasure vault. :p

They don't. They're in the category of "There's a lot to talk about New Thassilon and the things that live there and more that we haven't had a chance to do much with since, so far, the only thing we've published that's focused on New Thassilon in a significant way is Rusthenge."

Not a secret, but just not yet on our announced production schedule.

Well, that you put "not yet (...) announced production" in that last sentence gives me hope that in two years or so we'll get more New Thassilon content. :)

The Raven Black wrote:

Jürgen Hubert wrote:

Has there been any indication what sorcerer bloodlines will be included?

The Draconic is a pretty sure bet.

Draconic might change a lot, depending on how they do it... It *might* become a "tradition wildcard" bloodline, where the specific type of dragon would decide your tradition, as new "main" Dragons are not only "arcane" anymore, but split across the 4 traditions.

It might even be split into 4 bloodlines!

If anything has really quirked me about the new Sorcerer, it's that your bloodline fixes the type of magic you can use. I'd rather have it be a player choice to have the flavor of a specific bloodline with whatever magic list you want to use.