pauljathome's page

"a creature from a suitably warlike culture" Does the chronicle also waive that line? Or else, how do I determine which races are warlike enough?

We had a discussion on that as well. So, definitely unclear.

I think that "Pathfinder Society" is a sufficiently warlike culture to count :-). Slightly less facetiously, yes I think the chronicle sheet overrides the usual wording and everybody can use it. Its not as if its overpowered (especially at level 7+). Its quite good value for money, mind, just not overpowered

which means data might not be coming because some players are averse to testing the issue.

I've played a few games with an animal companion and it has been reasonably durable. Mostly because it is so ineffective that it really isn't worth killing :-(. It goes down in 1 or 2 blows if the bad guy decides its worth its time (or if there is some incidental damage).

Not sure how that factors into the data.

Note, it was explicitly sent in as a sacrifice against a certain snake in one scenario and against a dragon in another to buy time for buffs. Not sure those really count either

As for the detail on the whole "keep scaring over and over"

it isn't like you're peeing your pants scared

With a properly maxed out character Crits are pretty easy to get. When the same supposedly tough enemy runs away several times in a fight it does start to get really silly.

Note - That isn't theory crafting. Happened in Part 3 of Doomsday Dawn. One character kept spamming Intimidate checks EVERY round (not blaming him, it was a very effective tactic). Rolled slightly higher than expected but not absurdly so. In the final fight the Big Bad ran away at least 4 times (I know he ran out of Mirror Images. Don't remember if there was another run away or not).

I'm relying to a huge extent on my players to catch me making mistakes.

Sometimes I'll explictly just ask "Uh, in Starfinder does this provoke?".

It was particularly bad when I came back to Starfinder after a 6 week or so hiatus :-(.

Fortunately most of my tables has somebody a little less confused than I am :-). And pretty much EVERYBODY has various books open on various electronic devices so finding an answer to a question is usually pretty quick.

But yeah, it is tiring.

Btw - I hope the Real Life Stuff isn't anything too bad. If appropriate, keep in mind the one True Commandment of Gaming - Real Life Takes Precedence. Always :-)

I now largely agree with you. I'd add a couple of additional issues

Size limitations: The more powerful combat forms are large or larger. So, even when they're still at a level where heighten makes them effective, they often can't be used due to limitations in where the combat is happening

Wild shaping removes ALL your options except melee combat - Until one gets Dragon Form, at any rate. You can't cast spells, use items, etc. So, you spend 2 actions to turn into a combat form that is then only slightly stronger than you would be with weapons and armor. Or, in fact, slightly WEAKER. And in exchange for that you lose all the flexibility you had in human form.

As you Heighten, the form matters less and less - Lets take the basic Animal Forms spell. When you first get it you have interesting options (frog for a ranged attack, puddy cat for agile claws, etc). But when you are heightening it the reach is just set by the level. As written, the Huge Frog and the Huge Cat have identical reach.

I found wild shaping quite effective in combat up to level 7 and far less so at level 9+.

Druid is actually pretty strong whereas the wizard and sorcerer are weak.

It's just that polymorphing is awkward because of these reasons.

I haven't seen and wizards or sorcerers in high ish level play so I have no informed opinion on the matter.

In the combat heavy scenarios we're getting, I think wild shaping druids and animal companion druids are weak compared to the martials and, of course, clerics (EVERYTHING is weak compared to a cleric. At the moment the optimal group is pretty much always going to be Team Cleric (perhaps with a few Martials multiclassed into Team Paladin on the side)

Edit: The sheer fact that I'm seeing no sorcerers or wizards in play is a pretty strong indication that they're now seen as under powered. At least locally. I'm sure that different groups will have different experiences

• The character creation instructs the PCs to make crusaders that are willing to lay down their life for the mission. Are you surprised that not following the character creation guideline is leading to unsatisfactory results?
  
• It is really cool to be in the very church Ramlock was imprisoned and cared for at, the place he lost his mind. I'd be unhappy if even the church we were defending was offscreen.
  
• The intent of the encounters, the stairs, and the two strikes until their out seemed fairly clear: if the PCs try hit and run tactics the demons will go downstairs. Do you really want material written like a spec book with every possible judgement dictated?

My issue isn't with the players having their characters act inappropriately. Most players are pretty well trained to follow the railroad tracks.

My issue is if the PCs fail early. Which seems quite possible to me. A bit of bad luck could easily lead to an early character death which could rapidly escalate into a TPK. Or the players make colossal mistakes like not bringing Clerics and bringing Alchemists instead (only 1/2 a smiley on that one. The classes and builds within classes are NOT well balanced, especially for this kind of combat slog, right now).

So, the players find out that having held out for 1 WHOLE minute was enough to succeed. I think they're going to smell the rat and realize that they literally could NOT have failed.

I am now officially changing my mind on druids. While I wouldn't go as far as to say they suck, they're definitely under performing at reasonably high levels.

I just played Frozen Oath with my L10 druid. His primary combat technique is to wild shape into a battle form.

There are several problems with this
1) Depending on the encounter there often just isn't room for the larger battle forms, forcing him to go for a weaker form
2) Even in his best battle form (a huge form) he was basically doing the same (or less) damage as the monk or cleric. But without all the cool extras that the monk had. His AC was less than he had as a druid. About the only things that he gained from wildshape was reach and not having to have bought a magic weapon. Getting the feats that martials do would have been a lot better investment

But, you say, he is ALSO a spell caster. Yeah. He has heals. Which he can only cast in human form. So, for some fights, he WAS using his staff and blasting the bad guys. For essentially the same damage as the archer was doing with his explosive ammunition.

Being able to heal and fight IS great. As the monk who had multiclassed into paladin showed. Paladin multiclass is now the way to go for healing on a martial.

I did get to use air walk to some effect. Certainly better than taking on one of the underpowered flying wild shape forms.

He didn't suck. He DID have versatility. But that came at a very high cost. He would have been just about as effective in combat just wielding a +2 weapon. The wild shaping side is weak. The versatility is enough that I wouldn't go as far as to call it a trap but that versatility is ALL that your're getting and its not as good as it appears on the surface.

I'm VERY disappointed with the fact that the L12 Druid I'm building for Doomsday Dawn doesn't even get access to Dragon Form. So, my wild shape specialist will be using spells to, uh, wildshape. <Aside>The AC for Dragon Form is almost suicidally low</aside>

So, the L12 druid will probably use a weapon and multiclass to get the cool feats. Maybe get healing from Paladin so that he can use his spells for something else.

Edit: At least the new Focus Rules won't matter all that much (assuming the Wild Shape remains a separate pool). Claw shape is an absolute trap, they are nearly totally useless at this level.

pauljathome wrote:

I'm not a professional game designer and with seconds of intensive thought I came up with a story that would have been much more satisfactory, at least to me.

That would still have gotten exactly the same data (I wouldn't change a single encounter, just the story behind them).
...

Now I'm curious. Care to share?

Sorry, I mentioned it above.

Just change the PC mission a little. They are now a diversion, intended to draw the demons attention away from where the REAL ritual is occurring. Their job is to hold the demons attention as long as possible. Every minute may count so Don't run, don't retreat, keep fighting.

If they go down early, tell them that they're pretty sure that the huge number of demons they fought indicates that the enemies attention WAS drawn to them, their mission was a success.

If they actually manage to survive the whole thing, they get sent a message TELLING them the ritual succeeded and they should withdraw no

I looked and couldn't find an answer to the following.

In the Core Campaign, my wizard gets access to a spell book with Ant Haul in it. As was specified in a blog the wizard can pay to put this spell into his spell book and the fact that he did this is written on the chronicle sheet.

To be very explicit, there is NOT a scroll of Ant Haul on the chronicle sheet.

Can the wizard now purchase scrolls of Ant Haul? They're a spell on his chronicle sheet so I think maybe yes. But its really unclear to me.

If he CAN buy that scroll, can he lend the scroll to his cleric friend to cast?

Can that cleric friend then use that scroll to ALSO learn Ant Haul?

If the character is a Wizard/Cleric multiclass character, can he have his OWN character use that scroll to learn Ant Haul as a cleric?

pauljathome wrote:

What the PCs do in this chapter is utterly irrelevant. The NPCs get the ritual done regardless of how quickly the PCs die. Their actions don't actually matter at all.

At least for me it does kind of spoil the drama and story when I realize this as a player.

Well... that's not really the point of this scenario. The point is to get data on how much it takes to kill a group of PCs.

I'm not a professional game designer and with seconds of intensive thought I came up with a story that would have been much more satisfactory, at least to me.

That would still have gotten exactly the same data (I wouldn't change a single encounter, just the story behind them).

"Please don't notice that your actions are utterly irrelevant" just seems like bad story design to me.

I love druids right now (now means NOT counting the new Focus Rules). With a human its quite feasible to have a wild shaping druid with a pet. That character is VERSATILE. He doesn't do the raw damage of a barbarian or the healing of a cleric but he does more damage than the cleric and more healing than the barbarian :-). The Animal Companion is sometimes useful, sometimes isn't. But its there when you need it.

Every archer gets point blank shot... Wow so much variance.

I agree that all Core Archers get Point blank shot.

But my Cleric of Erastil Archer is quite different than my shapeshifting druid archer who is, in turn, different from my Ranger Archer. I found the Core Fighter too boring to ever make a fighter archer but he'd be different too :-).

I can make more different viable Archers in PF1 than I can in PF2 Playtest.

It's just a typical safety Option for how to continue the campaign if the heroes fail,

The Cleric's channel energy was unaffected since it isn't powered by spell points so I assume wild shape will be in the same boat. This just tanked your ability to use Wild Claws though.

Totally unclear to me, actually.

Wild Shape is "a special power granted (usually) by your class and it doesn't use a spell slot". Does that come from the old Wild Shape pool or from the new pool ? I honestly have no idea. Not sure Paizo does either :-)

What I DO know is that any playtest data coming out at this point may or may not have any value. I'm not talking about just the one scenario, I'm talking about Doomsday Dawn. What value is the data that includes a Druid using his Wild Shape Pool? That character may act completely differently.

My reaction is obviously emotional. But this is the first time that PF2 has become a game that I absolutely will not play if it stays in its current form.

I also don't think that playtesting this with one scenario with pre defined Level 5 characters will tell Paizo anything interesting about the new rules. Its far, far too narrow a test. Paizo can NOT get good data from that one data point and I'm worried that they apparently wouldn't agree with that statement

Well, I think this is the change that means I'm giving up on the Playtest.

My druid (built around wild shape) is now almost non functional.

Any scenario with more than 2 encounters and the druid can't use what they're built around. Previously, it had both Wild Claws AND Wild Shape, using two different pools, so pretty much could last a reasonable adventure.

Now, nope.

This is a pretty massive change to test only in one level 5 adventure and only with pretest characters.

I am very, very, strongly unimpressed

I think that IF (and its a big, big IF) Paizo comes up with cool, interesting and ACTUALLY USEFUL skill feats gated by proficiency levels then a great deal of the problem goes away.

If my master performer is only a little better than your expert one BUT once every session or two I get to really shine then I think I'll be happy.

But "Really shine" does NOT mean "Cannot critically fail" (Master Diplomat) or "NPCs have heard of you and you get good audiences" (Legendary Performer).

Sounds like something that could use a "non-combat" trait to clear things up then. I'm not entirely sure you could use the demoralize action without combat starting though. Being able to cause people to run off in fear outside of combat would add to the cheese of intimidate though, so I think it's worth discussing.

Intimidate is very definitely useable (at least in PF1) in social situations. Not sure if that is the demoralize "sub action" but it seems to me that it applies. They're frightened, they take -1 on sense motive, bluff, etc. Seems reasonable to me

pauljathome wrote:

And versatile performance still doesn't work in combat

Why not; What did I miss?

Many disagree, but I think that one has to read ALL the words in an ability and don't get to eliminate the ones which "obviously" are flavour.

"In social situations, you can rely ..."

Note, this is a side issue I don't feel like discussing here so I'll try and not reply to all the posts saying how wrong and downright stupid I am.

"the cavaliers mount died, the cavalier is built around his mount, the druid will turn into a horse and only do horsie things for the rest of the night so the cavalier can be useful"

To some Golda grade cheese that definitely shouldn't.

"My gnomes gonna ride on the barbarian using mounted combat feats to be his armor class cause all he's got is a Loincloth , then swift action hop off and circling mongoose the bad guys"

You're absolutely right. I'd allow the first and forbid the second (with some very pointed eyebrow raising) without a seconds hesitation even in PFS.

I owe you an apology. When I saw the first line of your post I assumed that you had made some absurd ruling or other. But no, you ran it EXACTLY as written. Death by bunny rabbit. I used to think that only happened in Monty Python movies.

When I ran this we ran out of time before we encountered the Bunnies Of DOOM. Fights take too long for a 4 hour slot.

In my experience intimidate is definitely too powerful right now. At the very least, it shouldn't be spamable ( eventually, yelling boo at the giant Sea serpent really shouldn't work)

And versatile performance still doesn't work in combat

The main thing i'm not seeing is how it's more dangerous now than it was in pathfinder 1.

Its more dangerous for the healer because healers are far, far, far more effective than in PF1. In PF1 in combat healing was rarely the best tactic, in PF2 it very, very often IS.

What BNW said.

Mounted combat with a PC and a well defined mount is ALREADY a huge mess of unclear rules interactions masquerading as a system. It totally doesn't make sense in all sorts of "edge" cases.

Add PCs riding PCs and the whole thing becomes a nightmare. Sometimes players want to do it because it is cool and funny, sometimes they're looking for some serious cheese.

There are good RAW arguments for disallowing it (more than good enough for me to instantly squash it at PFS tables I GM) but, basically, its just way too complicated, confusing and potentially broken to be a good idea.

My personal rule is that I allow characters to ride each other out of combat (at one point in an AP it got REALLY silly with us having Gargantuan all the way to tiny creatures riding one on top of another :-))but as soon as initiative is rolled everybody needs to dismount.

[Aside]IMO the best RAW argument against it is that
1) All PCs need to roll and act on their own initiative
2) Mounts and riders act on the same initiative
therefore PCs can not be mounted on PCs
[/Aside]

Also as a note since I saw a comment about the perceived need for a Cleric,

This is obviously a YMMV thing. In the group that I'm running through Doomsday if the one character wasn't a cleric but was instead, say, a martial I can't know exactly how things would have changed with one more heavy damage dealer.

But I DO know that, as things played out, the Cleric "seemed" absolutely essential to success in the Lake encounter and the Final encounter of Mirrored Moon. In fact, he did quite a bit of AoE damage in the Final Encounter (Cleric of Sarenrae). My best guess is that without the Cleric they'd have lost at the lake and likely won but with only one character left standing in the Final Encounter.

To be fair, playing a healer (or even a caster) has always been dangerous against intelligent foes.

Agreed. The difference, though, is now that combats tend to last long enough for the bad guys to actually focus fire the PC down.

Take the identical combat in PF1 and it would have been over in round 3.

Also, in PF1 (at least until the Heal spell becomes a thing) in combat healing is weaker. It isn't enough to bring a character from down to full in a single round.

Basically, in PF2 in combat healing is a FAR, FAR better strategy than it was in PF1. Which makes putting the healer down a FAR, FAR better strategy too

I just filled in the survey and realize that we totally forgot about hero points. That would have saved the wizard and may have saved the cleric.

But talk about COMPLETELY losing any and all suspension of disbelief, any even slight in world logic.

"The bad guy stabs down at your unconscious body, stabbing it right through the heart" (critical on final blow)
"Hero Point!!!"
"Uh, the shock of one more blow into your body jolts you completely awake and, while you still bear many wounds, you are no longer at all close to dying any longer. Because, uh, because!!"

I just realized that I HATE, LOATHE and ABHOR that particular use of hero points. The game world now makes absolutely no sense. Having a hero point miraculously save you if you fall from a great height, are left for dead on the battle field, etc is one thing (and a good thing). But having it turn a Coup De Grace into a free recovery seems way, way, way over the top to me

Just finished Mirrored Moon today.

Very seriously considering skipping Heroes of Undarin both due to time considerations and due to the fact that I expect to absolutely HATE running it (totally not to my personal taste in scenarios).

A game I ran today (Doomsday Dawn, L9 characters) crystalized a thought I'd had before.

Being a healer is DANGEROUS if you're facing reasonably intelligent bad guys who want to win.

Final fight of The Mirrored Moon. PCs had done everything right so it was a fight between 4 L9 PCs and a CR9, 3xCR 8 enemies

First round, some damage done, some moving into position, some buffs.

Second round, a wizard does lots of Area of Effect Damage so the bad guys focus fire a bit. Do lots of damage. Cleric heals him all the way back on their turn because that is what clerics DO now.

Third round, bad guys, being intelligent, focus fire the cleric down. Wizard (who has multiclassed into cleric) brings cleric back up.

Fourth round, they focus fire the cleric DEAD. If they want to win they have no choice. The cleric is so powerful that any other tactic is just conceeding the fight. They now know the PCs can bring him back if he is only unconscious.

Bad guys are going down at the point too. 2 Down, 1 almost down, 1 in good shape.

Fifth round, they turn on the alternate healer (the wizard) and focus fire him dead too. They don't know that he has shot his healing bolt so they kill him.

PCs mop up remaining bad guys.

Final Score - PCs win but at the cost of 2 deaths out of 4.

I'm normally a pretty soft GM and don't like focus firing unconscious characters to death but
1) Playtest. So I'm trying as hard as possible to kill PCs
2) There really was NO alternative if the bad guys actually wanted to win. Clerics are WAY too effective, they HAVE to die or you just lose.

I'm not totally sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. But it is a thing. This game is more dangerous than PF1 and making yourself the primary target is very dangerous. And killing unconscious opponents is a riduculously good (almost essential) strategy

As a DM, a PC successfully makes a Recall Knowledge check on an enemy, Im gonna give that PC useful info. If he critically succeeds, he will get alot of useful info.

As I've pointed out several times in this thread, that is absolutely NOT what the rules say.

The rules say ONE piece of information on a success, TWO on a crit. Rerolls allowed but at an escalating DC. One failure and you stop.

That is NOT me screwing with the players. That is doing what the rules SAY.

Oh, and its NOT clear to me as a GM what information the players actually want. Players and characters want DIFFERENT things. I don't necessarily know what is best to tell them. Although I'm pretty sure that telling them the Manticore has spikes is NOT it :-(. And, as written, it is the GM who decides and not the player.

In fact, I admit that I am violating those rules. Because the rules are atrocious. I am in violent agreement with you as to what SHOULD happen.

But saying "Well, a good GM should just ignore the rules" which is what you ARE saying whether you realize it or not is a pretty good indicator that the rules are seriously flawed, NOT that they're working

I'll also reiterate that I expect Paizo to fix this in the final product. I don't see this as some fatal flaw in PF2, I see it as a wart to be fixed.

Edit: Just read some of the other comments. Note that I'm not really talking about who determines what information to give. That is, in my mind, a fairly minor matter (groups will come up with a solution that works for them). My main issues are (as I stated way up there) that, mechanically, the PF2 rules are just WAY WORSE:
1) No take 10 or take 20 (Assurance is literally LESS than useless since it is almost always an auto fail which stops you getting more answers)
2) Get incorrect information on a crit fail
3) Unclear what skill to use
4) Get ONE piece of information on a success, TWO on a crit. No More
5) Takes an action
6) Player characters, by design, can NOT get the bonuses that they could in PF1 so will only rarely get more than 1 or 2 pieces of information (they stop rolling on a failure). It will be very common to get NO information at all with a slightly less than fully maximized skill. Dabbling in knowledges is insanely bad since it means you're close to being wrong as often as right.

My thoughts on this fall into two distinct cases:

Case 1: This is a playtest, and the item list for this particular chapter is pre-defined for a reason. Thus no changes to the list should be made because that specifically defined list is the test parameter.

Case 2: In regular campaign play, why the heck not, it's barely even a benefit and it makes in-character sense.

In this particular case, even in a playtest, I'd just give it to the player. It is going to make ZERO difference to the playtest and it makes the player happy. A happy player is more likely to stick around for the rest of the playtest :-). So, no cost, some benefit. Go for it.

Even in a playtest one can take "Run As Written" way, way too far

I'm going to second this with the caveat that this problem also existed in PF1 and 3.5.

Oh, it very definitely existed in PF1 and 3.5. I utterly agree with you there. It is one of the areas with the largest table variation in PFS.

But its MUCH worse in PF2 instead of, as one would hope, being actually better. At least in PF1
1) It was clear which skill to roll
2) You got more information the higher you rolled. For every 5 higher than the base DC
3) It was quite possible to have knowledge checks at sufficiently high levels that most GMs would tell you at least most of what you needed to know. I've seen mid to high level characters exceed the base DC by 20 or 30
4) Take 10 and take 20 were things (for at least some characters) and Take 10 was actually useful.
5) It didn't take an action

Paul:

Isn't there a line of feats around recalling knowledge? Even being able to do that as a free action once per turn and so on? I dunno what DM wouldnt allow that to confer info on weaknesses. I mean, damn, who running your games?

Playtest. RAW :-).

Dubious Knowledge is sort of wonderful or absolutely awful, depending on how you feel about Meta Knowledge and how good the GM is at deceiving the player (and yes, I MEAN GM and PLAYER, NOT character)

The Automatic Knowledge Feat is basically almost totally useless under the current assurance rules. To take the example that prompted my comment, a L13 demon. Lets assume the character is also L13

So, the DC for the knowledge check is 28 or 30 or more (depending on GM opinion on how rare it is). Skill is, of course, unknown but lets assume at least one character has it more or less maxed out. So, character has something like +6 (stat) + 13 (level) + 2 (Master) + 2 item. That is REALLY pretty maxed out, btw, hardly guaranteed. So +23.

The Automatic Knowledge check failed. I have to use Assurance, even if I'm master that is only a 20. Auto fail. I barely make the check if I'm Legendary (which I'm not likely to be when facing a CR13 monster).

So, I take an action. +23 vs a 28 or 30 or so. Only a 5% chance of incorrect information (possibly no chance with various feats, etc). Very good chance of a success. Reasonable chance of a crit (need a 15 or 17 so not great, but reasonable). Various ways to roll twice, get lots of rolls. All of which cost resources of one form or another (feats, class options, spell points, etc)

So if I get a success I get ONE of its best known attributes. Manticore has tail spikes is an example. If I crit, I get ONE attribute plus "something more subtle". Very vague.

And further uses "increase the DC". By how much? Probably the difficulty level on the chart. One ultimate difficulty attempt or one failure and I'm done. So, best case is pretty much 4 attempts (Medium, Hard, Incredible, Ultimate). At Ultimate even my maxed out character needs to roll a 13 to succeed and may get FALSE information on a 1-3.

So, now lets look at that Treachery Demon. It has something well over 20 potentially interesting things for the GM to tell the player.

That maxed out knowledge character MAY find out the weaknesses but its a long, long way from certain AND its totally up to the GM what to say.

Edit: I've noticed that both myself and GMs that I've played under are often ignoring the actual rules. Its "obvious" that this is a bug that will be fixed so its better to see how characters do against a monster when they DO have information than how they'll do without the information. If we want to test how good a monster the Treachery demon is then its almost certainly better to let knowledgeable characters actually get an advantage from that knowledge

Also, it has Weakness to Fire as well as Good, providing spell options to capitalize on said weakness, and archers can have cold iron arrows easily enough.

One of my current concerns with the game is that there is absolutely NO remotely reliable way for the spell casters to GET the information they need to take advantage of those weaknesses.

I expect Paizo to fix this in the final product but right now, RAW, knowledge skills are very, very much up to GM fiat. Certainly as I interpret how they're written I think they're close to useless.

If characters are more or less EXPECTED to be able to take advantage of monsters weaknesses then this is an issue that MUST be fixed.

pauljathome wrote:

wolfwing wrote:

ooops sory I found the forum choices a bit confusing, how do I get this moved? :>

Flag it asking it to be moved (I already did that so I don't think you neex ti)

Thanks :> I love druids, and shapeshifting, so was just trying to think of a way to really go all in on it, was thinking monk might help a bit with the survivability due to AC bonuses and such they get.

very definitely. Druid/monk or druid/barbarian builds are very popular in the non gestalt world. You might want to check out various wild shape guides and adapt their ideas to gestalt.

Shapeshifter/druid could also be really good, especially at the lower levels before druid wild shape really comes on line.

yes, they're definitely trying hard to change players perceptions of her.

As a player who hated her, I think that I'm ok with deciding that she has reformed and redeemed herself. It would help to know WHY she has changed though

ooops sory I found the forum choices a bit confusing, how do I get this moved? :>

Flag it asking it to be moved (I already did that so I don't think you neex ti)

I’ve seen players get irate and yell at GMs, organizers, VOs, even game store owners

To complicate matters, sometimes the event organizers at a con will NOT let us follow the PFS rules.

Locally, the second largest (it may actually be the largest at this point) Con has stated in the past that GMs MUST allow players at their table to play their own characters even if those characters aren't PFS legal. There is some wriggle room for things like illegal point buy, illegal races, etc. But there is absolutely NOT wriggle room for things like missing chronicles.

Our solution (other reasons are also involved, as you know) has been to not offer PFS there for the last couple of years. Probably the best we can do but not by any means an ideal situation.

If all the other issues could be resolved, personally I'd far rather run PFS there without being allowed to audit chronicle sheets than not be allowed to run at all. And I think it would be far, far, far better for PFS as a whole

If we are going to bother reporting games online, shouldn't there be an online auto-fill system that just calculates your XP, gold earned and boons?

The current online reporting system is VERY, VERY far from being able to do anything remotely like this.

It is cumbersome and data entry is extremely error prone. Part of the latter is inherent (trying to decipher players chicken scratches can be a challenge) and some caused by bad design on Paizo's part (the information that IS available is slow to load and often does NOT load).

Not to mention the fundamental issue that it takes time to enter scenarios (the fact that its such a chore contributes to this) and people sometimes forget.

Relying on the record system for ANYTHING would be a major, major problem.

YMMV

My Mileage DOES Vary :-).

Note, I'm NOT saying that you're wrong to feel the way that you do. But I also don't think that I am wrong for not really caring at all about the state of the persons paper work so long as their character is more or less legal AND vaguely balanced.

With the current power creep characters that are actual problems at the table are MUCH more likely to be the result of some twinked out monstrosity than the result of some errors on the players part caused by insufficient attention to paperwork. While there is merit to solving the minor problem I just don't CARE enough in the face of the much greater problem

Yes, this feat DOES significantly affect one particular chapter in Doomsday Dawn (which is what I think you may well be referring to).

But I don't think its a huge deal. Without this feat my group had no problems with finding everything in sufficient time. The feat will increase your groups odds but not in any game breaking way

I agree he's in the wrong forum.

But to answer his question anyway, clearly a Beast Totem barbarian multiclassing into Druid would be the best choice for this if you're primarily about damage while wild shaped :-)

I think that I'm going to have to bow out of this. A couple of things have come up and I don't think I can guarantee my participation

The changes to the class make it unplayable (from the standpoint of enjoyment) for me.

You might want to hold your nose and give it a try. At least for me (and I shared many of your misgivings) it actually DID work quite well in play. Far better than I expected it to.

Falling into quicksand and being attacked by a creature with reach? One Wildshape into Frog later and problem, if not solved, addressed.

It FELT like a wild shaping druid in play.

Dotting in. Will create alias Real Soon Now (ie, tonight) :-)

G'day all

Probably playing a druid. May change my mind if tomorrow's heritage changes spike some cool idea.

I'd be interested. Already created a level 10 Druid as a pregen for a run of this I did . Which reminds me, I HAVE run this if that is a problem.

Edit: new errata coming out tomorrow. I assume should update to that

Genuine question for those of you who hate the changes.

Is this based on actual play experience or on theory crafting?

I've played the druid and find it quite enjoyable. And quite viable as a character. Its flexibility more than makes up for its lack of raw power. Hence my question

Druids are one of the least represented core classes I see at tables.

Not at my tables :-).

Seriously, though, I suspect that class preference is a place where local tastes vary a lot from "the norm". People (especially in PFS) tend to gravitate towards "cool" builds that they've seen (or are inspired by them, at least)

Just making a couple of minor tweaks (race was wrong in stat book, missing trait). But its probably easiest to copy everything.

Oh, EST here.

Here is my submission. I'll create an alias if I'm selected (I already have one for my familiar that I can recycle :-))

Summary - Rahela is a Duskwalker Benefactor Shaman accompanied by her thrush friend Vralk. She is a worshipper of Pharasma and her primary spirit is the Life spirit