nephandys's page

Wow this is worse all around. I remember when I said:

Is anyone else getting a bad feeling about the upcoming changes to the loyalty program? The way it’s been described so far - lots of vague “coming soon” language and talk of a “better experience” - just screams corpo-speak for we’re cutting benefits, but trying to make it sound like a good thing.

Let’s be honest: when companies say they’re “enhancing” or “evolving” a program to “better serve us,” it usually translates to more restrictions, fewer rewards, or a new tier system that’s harder to climb. They frame it as a win for the customer, but it almost always serves their bottom line, not ours.

Until they drop actual details, there’s no way to know for sure, but the language so far feels like a red flag. If the changes were genuinely beneficial, they probably wouldn’t be so cagey or need to spin it this hard. They'd be shouting them from the rooftops instead of deferring them for a future blog.

Would love to be wrong on this, but right now it feels like we’re being softened up for a downgrade.

Just goes to show no matter the image or sense of community Paizo projects, it’s all about extracting as much money as possible.

Is anyone else getting a bad feeling about the upcoming changes to the loyalty program? The way it’s been described so far - lots of vague “coming soon” language and talk of a “better experience” - just screams corpo-speak for we’re cutting benefits, but trying to make it sound like a good thing.

Let’s be honest: when companies say they’re “enhancing” or “evolving” a program to “better serve us,” it usually translates to more restrictions, fewer rewards, or a new tier system that’s harder to climb. They frame it as a win for the customer, but it almost always serves their bottom line, not ours.

Until they drop actual details, there’s no way to know for sure, but the language so far feels like a red flag. If the changes were genuinely beneficial, they probably wouldn’t be so cagey or need to spin it this hard. They'd be shouting them from the rooftops instead of deferring them for a future blog.

Would love to be wrong on this, but right now it feels like we’re being softened up for a downgrade.

I find this weird.

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

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

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

Couldn't say this better myself. While I appreciate the effort that goes into a remaster I think I'd rather just have an errata. Then that effort can go into brand new material and I don't have to keep buying books I already own.

If the remaster was a wild success and a vast improvement over the original I don't think I'd feel this way. In my opinion it's been a necessary evil due to OGL and ended up being net neutral verging on negative. So, buying more remastered material does not excite me.

Lord Viator wrote:

The only thing that kinda annoys me is that it's difficult to read these as a changelog with the new and old errata being smashed into one entry since we've moved away from printing-based errata for the newer rounds. I think it'd be helpful if maybe there was some dating or something so that a person only interesting in seeing the most recent changes from last time could distinguish them easily.

This is high on our list of desired functionality improvements but will likely need to wait until after the website updates are complete before we can start moving forward with implementation.

One thing that could be done without a new website would be changing the color of the text for the most recent errata to be different than the standard. I play a lot of warhammer and that's how the most recent vs older errata's are differentiated. It's not as nice and detailed as one might like but it gets the job done.

So since I’ve recently come off of watching Arcane and reading through Outlaws of Alkenstar (still holding out for a Numeria based campaign in 2e), I’d like to discuss the Alkenstar of 2e, since Outlaws of Alkenstar was our first firsthand view of the place in this edition since like one module in 1e.

To be honest, it’s really disappointing to see that they decided to emphasize the “”Bronze Dead Redemption/cowboys with flintlocks”” thing, instead of really focusing on the steampunk/ pulp-weird tech elements.

Maybe this is just a case of a tremendously good portrayal of something being compared to a merely ok portrayal of something, but every time I look at the worldbuilding and ambience of Piltover/Zaun in Arcane and compare it to Skyside/Smokeside of Alkenstar the latter winds up looking like a poor imitation.

Having said that, I believe a great deal of things could be fixed by giving up the weird obsession with flintlock muzzle-loaders that Pathfinder seems to have and replacing them with simple mechanical revolvers and rifles, and more exotic things like maybe the Golarion/Mana Wastes version of thasteron-powered guns (would add subplots for mining that stuff as well).

A new dedicated clockwork automaton ancestry like Golarion’s version of the warforged would help the flavor as well. Lean into the mad science subplot opportunities (possible interplanetary/interplanar adventures might happen here). And depending on personal preference, maybe replace some of the dusty streets with neon lights?

What are your thoughts on this?

ps: the fact that the main plot character of OoA seems to disappear after book 1 and how the overarching plot about “”pyronite”” simply doesn’t seem to be enough of a high stakes enough plot (and that any mention of the stuff vanishes completely after the AP ends) doesn’t help anything

Personally I think the theme of mad science is a bit more Ustalav than it is Alkenstar.

TBH, in lore, Pharasma is rarely depicted as actively hunting undead. Hating them doesn't mean she goes out of her way to destroy them. She's patient, and know that ultimely, most will still die.

One of her Edicts is literally "Destroy undead."

Definitely steering clear of this one. Maybe take a look at launch. Current reviews are just as bad as expected, likely only getting worse, and no shocker cite some of the same points posters here predicted would be issues. Pick better partners Paizo. There is pretty clear evidence of demand for a PF2e CRPG, both in and outside the PF2e ttrpg community, but we get a vampire survivors cash grab and an ARPG with the most generic looking environments and enemies around.

I guess the PFS scenarios themselves provide the description of the skills and DCs needed for identification and those needed for disabling.

It doesn't normally provide a description of skills or DCs needed for identification outside of the standard perception check. There's no additional information in a PFS Haunt stat block than in any other. I'm sure there's an exception in a Haunt stat block out there but it would be the exception.

I'd like to back this, but won't while I am still waiting for fulfillment of the previous Kickstarter project.

While I did back it I have to admit this was my first thought. Why would I back another Battlezoo Kickstarter when I still haven't received any of the physical contents of the first two? What changed my mind is the fact that delivery of this one appears to be within months. However, I do think it's worth considering the public perception of starting a new project, asking for more money, and not having fully delivered either of the two previous projects.

Honest opinion if you didn't tell someone this game was associated with Pathfinder they would have no idea. This looks like a generic reskin of an existing game in an effort to cash in on its popularity. The characters and visuals are bland and the effects look anemic. The characters are named things like 'The Rogue' or 'The Wizard' if they'd at least used the iconics or something idk. This is another swing and a miss from BKOM for me.

Wow spoilers on the Kickstarter page.

Some changes have me really excited while others have been extremely disappointing. Overall I'm feeling pretty meh about the whole thing. I'll wait until it's out to make up my mind.

I was really hoping to see Paizo's updated take on the Drow. Maybe bioluminescent fungus worshipers with ties to the outer gods or who knows what else. This is honestly the worst of both worlds - removing Drow and leaving nothing or nonsensical oops all snake people in their place. Cavern elves aren't even close to a substitute especially if they're going to be heroes of the darklands. I'm sure I'll get over it but I don't think I could be more disappointed than this.

Since this got brought up, yes. I'm on the panel and will be talking about some adjustments that will be made to the Darklands—this area, more than pretty much any other region in Golarion, is significantly impacted by the fact that so many of the things that live there have deep ties to the OGL and D&D. It's a region we haven't really done much significant with since the pre-Pathfinder RPG softcover book that panel is named after, "Into the Darklands" (we NEVER did a big book about this location for the actual Pathfinder RPG, other than something like Darklands Revisited, which is less about the region so it doesn't really count for what I'm talking about here).

I fully expect what we've got planned for the Darklands to disappoint some people and excite other people, but again... more than any other location on Golarion, this is a part of our setting that needs an update.

There's plenty new we've brought to the underground, like serpentfolk and seugathis and urdefhans and munavris, and some stuff from public domain like gugs and morlocks, but there's a LOT going on down there that, as a result of it being developed when we were using D&D as our rulebook, remains very D&D if that makes sense.

The "Into the Darklands" panel will be a lot more about our upcoming Sky King's Tomb Adventure Path and the Highhelm book (both of which represent the closest and biggest thing we've done in a long while to playing in the Darklands), but the time to recontextualize is near. Some things will stay the same. Some things are going to significantly change. I'm actually pretty nervous about how everyone's gonna react to some of it... but it HAS TO HAPPEN.

We'll have more to reveal in a few...

Can't wait to see what you all have in store! I'm sure we won't be disappointed.

James Jacobs wrote:

It's a region we haven't really done much significant with since the pre-Pathfinder RPG softcover book that panel is named after, "Into the Darklands" (we NEVER did a big book about this location for the actual Pathfinder RPG, other than something like Darklands Revisited, which is less about the region so it doesn't really count for what I'm talking about here).

I should have expected this was the case. Drow in particular seem like a footnote in the setting. Something I would easily forget was ever there if it disappeared

They feature heavily in at least two of 2e's APs, one of which is probably the most popular, I wouldn't describe that as a footnote. In 2e splats/rules so far sure, but they have featured plenty in the narrative.

IMO (and some will disagree) but Cavern Elves adequately fill the space Drow took up with none of the egregious baggage.

Drow are not totally normal elves that fled Golarion during Earthfall, came back, and took up residence in caves, which then influenced their biology resulting in Darkvision. Most of the people interested in having a Drow Ancestry would not be even slightly satisfied by that outcome just like they haven't been since 2e's launch. There's no reason Drow can't be just as amazing and different as Ekujae, Mualijae, Vourinoi, etc.

On the subject of Protean villains there's a PFS plot thread that features one. You can see it prominently in

That sounds like a console thing, it's difficult to imagine for a PC game. And it sounds even worse to me than playing over the internet.

There are literally a ton of PC games with this feature. My wife and I play this way all of the time.

Golurkcanfly wrote:

The Fighter's only class features besides it's increased proficiencies are better Initiative, better Will saves vs fear, AoO, and Combat Flexibility. The only one of these that is remotely unique is Combat Flexibility, and it's just more feats. It emphasizes the Fighter's nature as the "Build a Bear" class.

Monk's core feature, on the other hand, is Flurry of Blows. It's a rather plain feature with no bells or whistles attached that signposts that Monk is an action efficiency class. There's not too many ways to tweak it compared to more complex mechanics, and it already has fantastic feat support for that.

Meanwhile, something like a Cleric's deity or a Witch's patron is central to each class's concept as a whole. In addition, both impact the classes' core feature of spellcasting via domains and changing your tradition, respectively.

The only subclasses that don't really do this at all...

Perhaps it's more useful to think about what "build a bear" doesn't build. Soldiers - I cannot build a convincing soldier, unless I select the Hobgoblin ancestry. However, my expectation is that out of the box, a fighter can easily be used to build a soldier. However, if you sub all of those bells and whistles around combat flexibility, then you can do something interesting in that space. Moreover, I see an issue with the "build a bear" approach. All fighters in PF2 are bears but not all fighter concepts are. And so there is a delta here where the supposed flexibility fails.

Now we could argue that we could use archetypes here but, as any semi-optimizer is going to tell you, either you want to multi-class as a caster for those tasty spells or you just straight up want a fighter feat, because many of them are very good. So in practice, you don't use archetypes to turn fighters into soldiers. Just selecting feats doesn't get the job done.

Regarding the monk, it has at least four core features, one of which is flurry. The other three are: 1) stances, 2) unarmored defense...

How are you not able to build a convincing soldier with the Fighter chassis? I feel like a lot of people playing this game have surely done that before.

3-Body Problem wrote:

Before I say anything else, I am shocked at how many of you tolerate such terrible inflexible GMing. Go find an actually good GM or start a group among your friends. You don't need to deal with terrible PuGs and power-tripping online GMs.

Secondly, I don't think Cackle is the right choice to build the Witch around. I'd much rather see patrons and their teachings take a more central role and things like cackling, familiars, and even hexes become active choices you make when figuring out what powers your patron has granted you.

Unfortunately for a lot of us, finding a different GM or even playing PF2e in person and not online isn’t an option. (Btw what does PuGs mean?). Not to mention PFS by its very nature is very inflexible and wouldn’t let someone use cackle without having their character actually cackle.

Unfortunately these GMs are the best we can settle on, so having rules be more flexible with flavor so GMs or maybe even other players can’t use it as a weapon against our character’s flavor through rules lawyering, is for the best

In an ideal world, people would be more flexible and the goal would be to make sure everyone has fun and that we can reflavor to our heart’s content, where rule 1 was indeed the make important rule to all GMs and players, where there wouldn’t be any rules lawyers jumping in and telling us that our witch has to actually cackle and can’t sing a haunting hymn or angelic singing because any other sound than “cackle” isn’t “RAW”, or them jumping in and saying our tiefling can only be red colored and can’t be purple or green, etc. In an ideal world, we can just lead a table and easily find a new table with a different GM but a lot of us can’t because this isn’t an ideal world. I have yet to find a pbp text campaign or a westmarch server that allows battlezoo despite me really wanting to use those books for my characters

I doubt it was Paizo’s intention to limit characters flavor but seeing that it’s caused issues Paizo should try to...

I've played and run a lot of society. I'm trying to picture a society GM saying "uh actually you didn't state your character made an auditory expression of a number of positive emotional states, such as joy, mirth, happiness, or relief and therefore you can't use Cackle" and I just can't. Society isn't a mythical boogeyman waiting to catch you in a rules straitjacket.

I really don't think they'd care about the Prestidigitation thing either.

I am happy to see folks run it however works best at their table, but this is my understanding. I see the indicator in the Trigger for Shield Block - "...you would take damage from a physical attack." How do you know you would take damage from a physical attack? Only by completing Steps 1-3 of the damage calculation process. That means that Hardness has to be applied in Step 4 after immunities, resistances, weaknesses, etc have all been calculated. So Hardness is applied only once to the total damage left over.

Would also be cool if scenarios could be bundled with their respective maps.

Thanks! That makes more sense. Does it relate to party level somehow?

Guntermench wrote:

It's the creature/hazard/encounter level. Encounters also have Trivial/Low/Moderate/Severe/Extreme to denote the danger level of the encounter.

So that's a Low threat level 1 encounter with 4x level -1 creatures and a level 2 hazard.

The level numbers are specific to the hazard/enemy/etc. So the 4 creatures in this encounter will always be Level -1 even when the party is level 20. The threat rating (Low/Moderate/Sever/etc) and xp values are determined by comparing to the party's level and would vary over time.

Guntermench wrote:

That Razing trait going to bring up the "But Strike says you can only attack creatures!" nonsense again.

Again? It never left... It does specifically mention hazards, shields, vehicles and animated objects, all things that actually have ways to attack them in the rules.

Maybe we'll get lucky and here's a sidebar somewhere in there about attacking normal objects.

PS: On runes, coating is a good rune for toxicologists and witches[holds 10 poisons or magic oils and can apply it hands free without an Interact] flurrying lets a monk no waste it's second flurry attack if the enemy dies on the first.

Isn't this all covered by the rules on Item Damage and the Material Statistics table? The item damage rules seem to pretty clearly call out you can attack (Strike) any object you want: "An item can be broken or destroyed if it takes enough damage.... Normally an item takes damage only when a creature is directly attacking it—commonly targeted items include doors and traps."

Verzen wrote:

Perpdepog wrote:

I'm mildly concerned that we haven't heard any news of elemental eidolons yet; they seem like something that would have been talked about already. The book is still over half a year out though, so I have hope.

There was a goofy water elemental that my party named Squidicus that I'd love to graduate from recurring joke to full character.

Look what I just found...

https://twitter.com/paizo/status/1563640057885765634?lang=en

Yeah... that's explicitly the marketing department saying that they don't know, and trying to build a bit of hype.

Do we have any confirmation (or even strong implication) on the elemental barbs at all, or is that just a "some people really want it"?

I mean, I admit, I'm one of the people who want it. It's just that I'd largely given up on it, and I wanted to know if there was reason to think that was premature.

Elemental Barbs comes from an interview with Paizo posted on a website. Can't remember the name at the moment Wargaming? maybe. That's where the iron druid thing came from too.

I believe the Cayden's Keg discord has 'play by post' offerings as well. They're a welcoming group of people.

Storm Dragon wrote:

Eh, at the point you're a millionaire, any further engagement beyond soaking up your passive income is purely by choice, not necessity. The choice he makes to keep working with Wizards will be just that: a choice.

Is he officially a millionaire at this point? Damn, I always forget just how much money CR is printing.

Regardless, I'm definitely not out to defend CR. Between the cultivation and maintenance of some very unhealthy parasocial relationships with their audience and the fumbling a bunch of (rich) white nerds keep doing around issues of race, there's plenty to criticize there. It's just worth understanding the difference between the material and legal conditions of Critical Role the company and the material and legal conditions of Matt Mercer the individual.

The man's not even CEO of the company.

Per the Twitch leaks a couple of years back they were one of if not the highest earning streamers on the platform at over 9 million dollars over 1-2 years. That's only counting donations not sponsorships, merch, or anything else.

nephandys wrote:

For what it's worth I do some work in this field. We're already running studies on providing mental health treatment via machine learning.

Now that's just terrifying.

It is sort of like the problem I have with self-driving cars. Sure it works great when it works. But when it doesn't work, who is at fault? Do we just assume that if an AI car and a human driven car get into an accident, that it must be the human driver's fault because the AI wouldn't make any mistakes?

How about if a mentally ill patient has problems with their therapy? Do all mentally ill patients have the capacity to complain to an actual person if they are having problems? Who is watching over the AI therapist? Do they actually have time to watch over all of the AI therapy sessions? If so, why do we even have AI therapy in the first place?

Test oracle problem: If the human watcher has the time and knowledge to actually verify the work of the AI, why do we need the AI? Just have the human do it and save ourselves the cost of AI development. And if the human watcher doesn't have the time or knowledge to verify the work of the AI, then how do we know that the AI didn't muck things up?

AI as assistants sounds great. AI as replacements for humans doesn't.

I totally agree with you and that's always been our hypothesis. However, there are groups that would say it could increase access, supply, decrease disparity, increase revenue, etc. I find all of those arguments wanting for different reasons but they're hard to refute without data. I don't want to derail the thread. I just wanted to point out that the capability is significantly more sophisticated than you might expect and the stakes are significantly lower for a Game Master than a therapist.

For what it's worth I do some work in this field. We're already running studies on providing mental health treatment via machine learning. Subjects are almost always unaware it's an AI unless given that information. I think some are underestimating what these algorithms are capable of when it comes to running a game.

I don't see folks mention it much, but I was thinking about it the other day. There is a pretty major tonal shift towards horror when entering into AV from BB and/or Troubles. That's the sort of thing my group is into, but it might not be everyone's cup of tea. I could even see Chapter 3 of Troubles crossing into that realm too.

Probably a dumb question. But why is FAQ split by printings anyway? Why not a single list of errata that starts from page 1 and goes to the end of the CRB in order regardless of printing? These aren't patch notes so I'm not sure why they're being organized as if they were. I play Warhammer and there are errata/FAQs all the time and they're organized by things like page number, not the date they decided to clarify.

I'm sure someone will be curious about which changes happened when but you could use a superscript number at the end of each change indicating the printing or something.

Love the new option for free/free since it opens up a ton of options. I do agree with others that I'd like to see future ancestries +/+/free/- rather than fixed/free. Fixed/free is sort of a headscratcher on why even call this out when free/free is an option. It doesn't seem meaningful at all.

Please correct me if I'm wrong but having a Swim Speed lets you Swim without making Athletics checks and there are no physiology requirements for obtaining a swim speed. RAW if you have a swim speed regardless of your physiology you can swim. Is that a correct understanding of the rules?

While I don't have a strong preference for alignment one way or another my wife really likes it. It helps her to conceptualize her character and to decide on their actions in-game. I know that alignment is not meant to determine your actions but it really helps her and adds to her enjoyment. The same goes for alignments and gods it helps her creativity a lot because sometimes it makes her consider a character concept she hadn't before. I think for some people rules and restrictions, like alignment, can help focus their creative process but for others that could feel like a weight holding them down.

That said, these adventures also have some unique challenges, from ensuring the pregenerated characters' abilities and the adventure's obstacles align well to providing material that's narratively deep and sufficiently complex without being difficult to pick up and play in one sitting.

Happily left a review. I wonder if now that one-shots could be disentangled from first-time players/streamers if that would remove some of those concerns. They could be a product for more rather than less experienced players. You could still have lower-level one-shots that are welcoming to new players too. I know this is wishful thinking since the line has been sunsetted but maybe it could make a return in the future. Honestly, I'd be happy even if it wasn't even a dedicated line but every once in a while Paizo was like hey we did this cool one-shot don't know if there are more in the future but we thought you'd enjoy.

NECR0G1ANT wrote:

I think the line is discontinued.

Ah, okay then. Bummer. I really dug them. I wonder why they were discontinued? Just not good sales?

I think they said something along the lines of the one-shot line being redundant due to the VTT products they're releasing now. The original goal for the one-shots line was for streamers to have a prepackaged product to perform on streams and that doesn't seem as necessary now with the high-production/quality VTT products.

What I thought made the one-shots line unique was they could experiment with any theme, area of the world, subfaction, etc. without requiring you to invest the time into an entire book or books worth of content. They also got better and better with each release. Mark of the Mantis was phenomnenal. I'm super bummed they won't be back.

As a DRG player and backer of the board game Kickstarter I think this is super cool. However, like the decision you've already arrived at, I'd strongly prefer it entirely divorced from the DRG Universe and fully embedded in Golarion. Randomly generating dungeons has been a concept for a while but I like the way you've put the pieces together and arrived at a board game feel. I have friends that I don't think would be interested in Pathfinder but they'll play Descent and similar games so would probably love your idea. In the same vein I don't think any of the current PF board game products capture the flavor of an actual PF game so that may be a gap in the market. Not sure any of this is helpful but I think your idea is awesome and look forward to seeing more.

Unicore wrote:

The thing is, they clearly are an expected part of designed adventures because AP writers keep writing dungeons where encounters are expected to roll into one another.

What do you mean here though? Encounters where there are written mentions and conditions for enemies to go and attack PCs themselves or just relatively close groups of enemies which could be logically assumed by a GM to be very aware and active? Because if it's the latter, I wouldn't agree with your statement. GMs making dungeons more reactive because they like it and AP writers expecting that are two different things.

Going along with this, from those I've read, I've seen more APs and Adventures where they provide explicit, sometimes quite contrived, reasons why the rooms wouldn't collapse on each other rather than providing instructions on how they alert/collapse/etc. A lot of times when an alert does happen it's just 'they're ready and waiting for you' instead of '-2 initiative because they were arguing over a card game' or 'have to spend a round/action arming themselves.'

Squiggit wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Resources should be saved for those fights as blowing off your Amped Imaginary Weapon against redshirt guard number 3 makes your amped up powers seem like they are there for casual use

I mean they kind of are. That's why they recharge so fast. Because they're designed to be used fairly frequently.

... NGL though I'm a little skeptical of the idea that using electric arc 20 times in a row because the GM doesn't want me using focus points too "casually" (whatever that means) somehow makes for a better story.

10 minutes isn't fast. Standard encounter fights take about 3 to 4 rounds. You can move between rooms in about the same. You could chain quite a few encounters without a 10 minute rest.

Now I can either look at this as incredibly bad design or I can look at it as designed appropriate so that a player could call on a little extra power with a focus power during a series of fights during a day.

I see the design as the latter. It's extra power throughout the day, but not necessary to make a class work or play well.

You want to use them often, you don't need to use them. Powers that should be used often have far faster recharge times like rage with a 1 minute or unleash psyche with a couple of rounds.

10 minute recharge times are far more like on demand powers to provide an extra boost when needed maybe every 3 to 4 encounters.

The fact that there are entire classes and 'subclasses' designed around using focus points regularly suggests otherwise.

I know that there was an AMA in reddit yesterday, but sadly I joined the party a little bit late. If someone here also has the book, would you mind answering a few questions I've got?

- How do the Student of Perfection new feats look like? Are they many or just a few?
- What is the new archetype main deal?
- I know there are some rules for the mana wastes. Do they seem easy to use in a different setting other than Golarion?

Thanks in advance.

1. There are 5 feats. You get monastic weaponry and resistance to damage/ki spells dependent on the trait of your school of perfection. fire, water, etc. There are 12 Focus spells.

2. You're a member of the shield marshals. It's obviously got a steampunk/western upholder of the law feel to it. The final feat specifically requires a firearm but the rest could apply to any character.

3. There are environmental hazards and a chance for wild magic. Seem easy to plug and play into any setting.

In no particular order...

- Additional support for existing classes.
- A Darklands book.
- Large ancestries such as centaurs.
- Rules check and errata on longstanding problems.

Don't know how I forgot this on my list but Darklands book is a must for me. One of my favorite parts of the setting.

- Inquisitor
- Wrath of the Righteous updated for 2E
- More feats/options for existing ancestries and classes
- Would love some Lost Omens books that revisit Avistan areas. I really love Nidal, Qadira, Taldor, Varisia, Numeria, River Kingdoms, Sarkoris, etc. I know these all had 1e material but given the high quality of 2e material, I'd love to see those areas get that treatment.

Really sad to see this go. IMO the line's not redundant just because they're branching into other VTT options. None of the one-shots would've ever made it as a bounty/scenario and AP's turned VTT are 10x the length. They were able to be thematically cool and experimental in ways none of the other product lines are. I don't expect them to reconsider but super disappointed.

The current model does make subscriptions more attractive considering you get the PDF for free and that discounts the Foundry module as well. I would assume this is intentional with their business model.

Fumarole wrote:

I feel the same. They are the perfect solution when one of my five players cannot attend a session that it is critical their character be at.

I concur. Do you concur?

I’ve done this twice for my group. Sundered Waves was excellent, but there is no way Lionlodge is a 1-session adventure.

Still planning on trying the other two though.

Yeah Lionlodge took my group like 1.5 sessions.

Would love to see more of these. Each one has been progressively better than the last. The last one with Red Mantis was phenomenal.

There are some that have an ability that lets them make multiple attacks for only 2 actions, but says that each attack has to be against a different target. Why? Did they just think it would be too powerful if they could all attack the same person?

The first one that sprang to mind is the Gug and their ability doesn't increase MAP until all four attacks are completed. So 4 Strikes at 0 MAP against one person. Seems like it would be pretty rough.

So far I've been enjoying our run of Age of Ashes. We're also in a five person group so the rougher combats haven't been quite as rough as I suspect most get. We're currently on book three and just hitting a tough patch where we're suddenly under a perceived time crunch and having to deal with lots of difficult encounters but we're hoping it eases up a little after we're done with that portion.

Also, a tad off-topic but are you meant to get lots of downtime in AoA? I haven't gotten that impression from the AP so far, but that could be our GM not noticing that section more than anything.

For the most part, you can spend as much downtime as you want between books because there is no pressing danger at that time. Sure as heroes you want to save the world and resolve the conflict but there's no time pressure. There are also some points during books where there isn't necessarily a time crunch - book 1 after you resolve the initial conflict, most of book 2, book 3 is tighter on time, and book 4 has the option for downtime. I haven't played through books 5 or 6 but I have read them but I think time is a little tighter in those.

Probably why it's PFS Restricted.

That just leaves it to homegame GMs to allow.

The nice thing about the Uncommon/Rare tag is that it would serve the same purpose as PFS Restricted for home games. You don't have to look much further than Hellknight Plate to see a similar concept with a better implementation. It has both the Uncommon Trait and an Access requirement. Not only that I seem to remember the additional benefits of the Armor only apply if you're a Hellknight, but I don't have the chance to check right now so I might be misremembering.

I noticed the Gray Maiden Plate Armor in Shadows at Sundown. It's Full Plate with only 16 Str requirement, 3 Bulk, and costs 35 gp. So -2 Str req and -1 Bulk from Full Plate and it only costs 5 gp more. It's not listed as Uncommon or Rare and has no Access requirement. This seems out of bounds power-wise to me and at a minimum it should have either the Uncommon/Rare tag or need to be a Gray Maiden to Access. It's always possible I'm missing something in my reading. Did anyone else notice this and what do you think?

Gray Maiden Plate