physicist-pi's page

Wait, new Gunslinger iconic? I like!

That's something I'm pretty worried about. needing to reword the core feature of the class without a second public playtest? just sounds real easy to miss the mark.

Investigator had a pretty major change to their core combat feature between the playtest and the APG release and the difference is pretty clear -compare Study Suspect/Studied Strike to Devise a Stratagem/Strategic Strike and it really feels like they pulled off something fun.

However, take that with a grain of salt -I only minorly looked through Oracle and never had a chance to play Witch or Swashbuckler, so I'm not as aware of if there were any playtest to release issues. But going from playing the playtest investigator to release has been a lot better and easier I've found

Quietly seething. Group was going in to do the Varl Wex fight, and I had to remind them about the aid another rule because there was no way they could make a lot of those perception checks (most of the party decided for some obscure reason to all dump wisdom bar the ranger and psychic). And then Wex arrived, realised they were there, snuck in through the window, and nearly got a strike on the defenceless and unaware bard... And I rolled a nat 1. And that basically set the tone of the entire fight. Any attack roles I made were natural 1s, any saves were 15+ (so our save-or-suck oracle felt useless).

It was over in 3 rounds and Wex didn't get a single hit in after I was warning them "This is a CR9 encounter and you guys are all level 5". Oh, and now the ranger has Balgorrah and doesn't seem too keen on giving it up until the value of it was mentioned.

Based on a note in Gods and Magic about the great scar on Golarion's moon, was Tsukiyo a god at the time of Earthfall and if so, did he have any relationship with Acavna as a moon goddess and did her death affect him at all? Part of me was wondering if Acavna and Tsukiyo's deaths may have been linked in any way due to their shared portfolio of the moon.

Hmmm...is the Torrent still in Ravounel? That's something I'm wondering about.

According to Tomorrow Must Burn, yes they are.

So, I got my hands on Tomorrow Must Burn and I figured I'd make some notes of things that are changed/updated between the descriptions of Ravounel from Hell's Rebels and 4719AR. Of note, the implication is that the rebellion took around 2 years, assuming a start date of 4715AR then with the last few books taking place in 4717AR.

• The Kitkasiticka village now has a name -Tastikka. In addition, as suggested in her NPC write-up in The Kintargo Contact, Solmestria has stepped down as rokoa in favour of Rarrnir.
  
• We don't really have any more settlements listed beyond Kintargo, Vyre, Cypress Point, Whiterock, Acisazi and now Tastikka, but there are mentions of mining and ranching communities in the Menador Mountains.
  
• We also know from the Lost Omens World Guide that there's a major aquatic elf city -Irim- in Nisroch Bay.
  
• There's also mention of a goblin tribe -the Saltstinks- who live on Cape Dis. (this is of interest to a goblin player of mine)
  
• We also have a new geographical feature -the Revousa Ditches at the confluence of the Katharevousa and Yolubis Rivers.
  
• The Menador Gap is still closed.
  
• Deepmar has been abandoned and there are strange lights -a follow up to No Response from Deepmar may be in order.

As for Kintargo, there's some updates to things.

• The Court of Coin has been replaced with the new Silver Council, however they're still powerful noble houses and wealthy power brokers. The Kings & Queens of Vyre support the Silver Council but aren't members -though I can see Manticce maybe being on it in her public face as a powerful businesswoman.
• The Order of the Torrent has taken over Castle Kintargo rather than returning to Citadel Vaull.
• The Temple of Asmodeus is being converted into the new seat of government.

Overall this is pretty interesting. It definitely suggests that the "official canon" Ravounel won't end up a democracy like Andoran or similar. It's still beholden to the nobility and landowners (though to be fair, the existence of the Board of Governors basically implied that anyway). Bainilus called herself "Domina", a title from the old Chelaxian empire, and while we know that the strix, aquatic elves and Vyre representatives all sit on a broader Council of Peers but their interactions tend to be fractious.

I definitely found this stuff helpful for building up stuff as I continue running my group through stuff. Also, we finally got NPC art for Chuko!

...Is that Damiel in the double-page art spread after the contents, fighting a clockwork dragon with Amri and Kyra? Just got my physical copy in the post and I was not expecting that.

Hell's Rebels (so Ravounel, so right on Citadel Enferanc's region) has Ithanothaur, a CN mature adult umbral dragon (so CR 15) living in the North Plains on the Cheliax-Nidal border.

physicist-pi wrote:

o, I'm still not 100% happy with these, but your thoughts so far?

I kind of love them. It's a nice touch using different handwritings for the various labels, even if some of the fonts are a touch hard to read. Makes it look like it's been through a wringer of censors, which I'm sure was the intent. The "official" town markers being sized proportional to population while the indigenats just want to make damn sure you know they're there is another good touch, though the writing of "Kitkasiticka" in the strix's red (not the town marker itself, just the writing) is kind of hard to see against the largely black background. Maybe use a yellow or light green if you can rationalize a pencil that would produce that color (pitchblende?).

Deepmar penal colony is left off the map entirely, though again I suspect that was intentional and gives it a gulag/secret city feel. Maybe add a marker for it on the second, edited map? Carmus is ever so slightly in the wrong place. The prevailing winds are northwest to southeast, and would blow into the main cove that is open to the northwest. It should sit on the southeastern shore of the smaller neighboring cove, just a smidge northwest of where it is now, for better harborage.

"Part of the Land of Nidal" rubs me the wrong way as a descriptor. You could just leave off the "Part of the" and it would work fine. Also, the "North Plains" label should probably straddle the border, as the geographic feature itself does.

"Ashford" is a name from A Song of Ice and Fire, and I would rather it not be. I suggested "Pickford" as a replacement a few posts ago.

Yeah, I'm already changing up the fonts, due to a player with dyslexia in my group, I'll shift Carmus a bit. The bit about "Part of the Land of Nidal" came from a map of Scotland from the 1600s I used as inspiration, but I definitely agree that it isn't really needed. Been shifting some of the stuff around as well, your thoughts on this one?

So, I'm still not 100% happy with these, but your thoughts so far?

First is this one which doesn't have Acisazi or Kitkasiticka marked on it.

Second is one after the aquatic elves and strix have made their thoughts known on how terrible these Chelish cartographers are, which can be found here.

Both are pretty big actually, so zoom in.