profounddark's page

Mythraine wrote:

Is there a reason why the blurb to the book says "Written by: John Compton, Crystal Frasier, and Caryn DiMarco" but the cover attributes it solely to John Compton?

Not a criticism, just interested.

Generally, the "blurb" is a solicitation to the industry written about 9 months before the product goes live. It is an idea rather that a product. The final cover should reflect who actually did the writing. Specifically, in this case, I don't know. I'll ask.

I'm a bit confused now. Who ARE the authors of this product? The credit here (on the website) says John Compton, Crystal Frasier, and Caryn DiMarco. But the actual adventure (at least the physical copy I have) lists:

AUTHOR
John Compton
ADDITIONAL WRITING
Caryn DiMarco and Vanessa Hoskins
DEVELOPERS
John Compton, Adam Daigle, and Vanessa Hoskins

Although I backed the Bestiary, I hadn't read the rules for monster crafting, but after your suggestion I've been looking at it and ...

Yeah, actually, this feels like it solves all of the concerns I was having regarding treasure, crafting, and equipment that I was having with the AP.

Good idea!

Just a heads up to GMs planning on running this whole AP, and this book specifically. Mark Seifter has made it pretty clear that the 6th Pillar Archetype from this book is going to be getting Errata'd very quickly, specifically in that it will not be allowing casters to gain expert proficiency with unarmed attacks at level 8 and master proficiency with unarmed attacks at level 16. SO if you have players excited about unlocking this archetype for one of those reasons you will either want to talk to them about their expectations.

That was quick! I just noticed it this morning. Was about to say, "so, heeeey, how about that Cloistered Cleric Master Unarmed combo?"

:-)

Actually, it isn't clear whether or not Assurance works on a check that mention requiring a die roll. See Go to this thread for more discussion, but it's contentious whether or not rolling a failure or success excludes Assurance. I'm not sure there's an intentional difference between "succeeding on a check" and "rolling a success on a check".

I actually think this is a perspective worth considering for people that feel like Assurance is bad. "How good/bad would Assurance be if 'rolling a success[failure] on a check' and 'succeeding[failing] on a check' were mechanically identical?" That is to say, if you adopt the interpretation that the Assurance result still counts as "rolling the check," how does it affect things? There are some obvious places where it creates meaningful opportunities, but the question becomes whether they are effective enough (or, in the alternative, too effective)?

My experience with Treat Wounds checks is that once the character gets Continual Recovery, the whole Treat Wounds process changes fundamentally. So, having the Risky Surgery/Assurance combo (or others) isn't that big of a difference. I'm not sure with Sneak Savant (as I haven't played with a level 10 Rogue), but I feel like giving up enhancements to the Debilitating Strike in order to build a "I always succeed at Stealth" combo doesn't seem that broken.

At least, it's worth considering. :shrug:

So other companies (3 that I have seen so far) have reached out to the development teams that built the "free content" and worked out a deal. I believe they even pay some of them to manage and keep the content up to date. Maybe Paizo can reach out to Hooking and work out deal?

Then the company worked out a license deal to provide premium content on the platform... :)

The issue there is that while there is a primary maintainer of the repository, there are several major contributors at this point (and any number of minor contributors). So, there's the problem of "who do they contract with?" And that's not to mention that PDF to Foundry does a significant chunk of what they might be selling as a digital package. It gets a bit convoluted.

I remember seeing a lot of folks that ask for tokens and art. It probably wouldn't be bad if they could get somebody to do token packs that integrated with the PF2 Compendium. :shrug:

Are the rules about using skills associated with the trait unique to this feat, or is that a general rule? If it is a general rule, it would go a long way to explaining why you want multiple skills for the tricks.

It is a feature of the feat, not a general rule.

Certain traits are tied to certain skills, so that's another reason why you might want multiple skills. For example, the Fire trait gives a bonus to Intimidation trick checks. So you'd want Intimidation as a skill. In contrast, the Air trait gives a bonus to Survival trick checks.

It probably doesn't matter TOO much, but later there are locations that give bonuses to certain traits. So, if town A gives a bonus for Fire tricks and town B gives a bonus for Animal tricks, having Intimidation and Nature as skills with the Fire and Animal traits would be optimal.

I realize this is a very particular question, but I noticed that the last two No-Prep characters had images that were JPEGs. Is there any chance we could see more images with transparent backgrounds (i.e., PNGs or WEBP)?

Other than that, I'm thoroughly pleased with this stuff and am excited to start sneaking it into my home games.

Hi!
I am so sorry to hear that your package was missing an item. I went ahead and set up a replacement to be shipped out to you with your next subscription order. Please let me know if I can assist you further :)

Thank you very much for the prompt response!

I had a question regarding subscriptions, specifically regarding subscription "start points." If you choose an older starting book, does this mean you sort of "skip" a product in the subscription line?

For example, in October, I started a subscription for the Lost Omens line (starting with Legends) and the Rulebook (starting with Bestiary 2). I received both of those, no problem. However, I was never queued for the Pathfinder Society Guide or the Advanced Player's Guide. I'm just trying to figure out if that's how it works and that the next books I should expect are Bestiary 3 and the Lost Omens Ancestry Guide, or if the APG and Pathfinder Society Guide will pop up later this year.

I just want to know so I can determine if I have to pick up those books separately or not. I'd hate to order them separately and then get a "bonus" copy later.

Thanks!

I just received this physical order. Per the shipping slip, it should have contained the "Pathfinder Adventure Path Bundle: Hell's Rebels" and my monthly subscription, the Pathfinder Adventure Path #163: Ruins of Gauntlight. However, the package did not contain the Ruins of Gauntlight adventure.

This isn't an emergency, mind you. I'm fine with it just getting shipped next month with my monthly subscription stuffs.

Thanks!

Regarding the adventure included with the Beginner Box, Menace Under Otari, I had questions related to the end of the first level. I ran it today and am hoping to turn the first level into a solid "intro to Pathfinder" session, but the end left me a bit confused, as it seems that whatever was intended seemed to have gone over my head. So, I have a few questions mostly pertaining to the final two rooms of the first level.

My first question relates to the connected bits from Rooms 10 and 11.

My second question relates to an enemy in Room 11.

The players I ran it with were relatively experienced at different TTRPGs and while they thought a lot of the scenario was a reasonable intro to Pathfinder, they were unimpressed with the end (of level one) and had a lot of their own recommendations. For others who have run it, what was your experience with the room? Did you run it as written? Did you make changes?

To be clear, I was able to find a solution for my issue. I was more thinking in two or three years, there's going to be stuff in the Archive of Nethys, the ostensible Compendium of all things Pathfinder, that has errors. I guess it just seems different to me because it's not JUST in the PDF or the book anymore.

But I also realize that errata for an Adventure Path is probably silly.

It was an observation from my D&D 4E experiences. Dungeon & Dragon content was also included in the "Compendium" along with official sourcebooks. But while official sourcebooks typically had an errata process, those Dungeon & Dragon articles did not. So, in late era D&D 4e, there'd still be stuff that popped up in the Compendium from those articles that still had weird typos or just didn't make sense.

That's the only point I'm trying to make, really.

It seems more likely that this 'nightstick' is designed to replicate batons with no side-handle at all.

I looked it up on AoN and your comment made sense, but then I looked in the module. The illustration for the Nightstick (in both extended and collapsed form) has a side-handle.

I'll chalk it up to "artist and writer thinking different things."

The one question that comes to mind for me is whether the "Adventure Toolbox" content of the APs will ever get any errata. I realize that's a pretty niche concern and probably not worth the effort, but given how easy it is to find the content via AoN, I feel like those monsters, items, and whatnot may have a much longer life then they did in PF1 APs.

My mind is stuck on the Mechanical Carny (from The Show Must Go On), that references abilities the monster doesn't have, so I'm thinking more "stuff that has obvious errors" vs. issues of balance or design.

One of the PCs is a (Catfolk) Duskwalker. Her shtick very quickly became a pastiche of the "spirit medium" confidence game. Several players referenced "Crossing Over with John Edward" as an inspiration. So, it sounds a bit like what you've got.

A small, representative sample from my current Extinction Curse game. Most of the art is official Paizo, although I do the borders, background, and layout myself. The two that are obviously NOT Paizo art are by Trash Mob Minis, who tends to do very cartoony stuff that I'm rather fond of.

A small skirmish, I guess? Totally staged, to be honest.

I originally went with solid black borders, but with the introduction of the Xulgath, I wanted something more thematic. So, Xulgath and their dinosaurs get the silly bone borders. Once I did that, it started me on "well, what should other people's token borders look like?" And somehow I got two-color rings for circus folks.

I don't know that you need to shrink the squares in the circus tent, but the circus grounds should definitely be one square is 10 feet (not 5 feet).

I just assumed that everybody in the Circus of Wayward Wonders lived in very small wagons.

As a new Pathfinder player, I wasn't quite sure about the Adventure Path format at first, but I've actually warmed to it quite a bit. As mentioned previously, it's just the "Dragon and Dungeon magazine combination," but with a theme across six issues.

I compare it to something like the PFS scenarios, which are *just an adventure*, and while I am interested in those, it's much less because there's usually less for me to take away from it than the standard adventure path. That is to say, I may not want to run Agents of Edgewatch, but there are things of interest to me, such as lore articles, new rules bit, items and equipment, character features. In addition to an adventure I may salvage some ideas from.

I get that it's not for everybody, but I like it.

As a professional graphic designer who is accustomed to working with layouts, this thread just makes me facepalm.

(For the reason CrystalSeas mentioned.)

I used to laugh at games like Starfleet Battles that published rulebooks in technical formats (i.e., section 1.1, section 2.3) but part of me laments that I can't just tear out the two offending pages of my Pathfinder Core Rulebook and replace them with errata...

I've decided to move on to Agents of Edgewatch, but just after I did I hit on an idea of how I'd work more circus into the campaign. I'd add some lore about the crystals needing to be charged by high amounts of emotional energy. In the past that would have been taken care of by Aroden, but now they need a replacement. The players would then have a clear reason why a circus is needed to save the island, and it would even help explain the kind of strange critical success criteria of hitting the exact target number. Basically, that was the point of the greatest emotional resonance, and it is where the crystals are perfectly charged. Each of the stones would require more and more energy to charge, which would incentivize going after higher and higher DCs.

This is similar to an idea floated by quite a few folks. Basically, with Aroden dead (a god who's folio includes culture), the Aeon Stones need the circus to essentially "recharge them."

I think it takes some work, especially in the later books, but it would better tie the circus to the story.

It's not *combat* that I have a problem with. It's more the notions that (a) entering the tomb doesn't relate to the stated goal of rescuing the Mayor or Harlock; (b) exploring the tomb doesn't seem to advance any goal or story; (c) removing the tomb has no impact on the rest of the Hermitage; and (d) the "treasures" collected in that section amount to grave-robbing.

From a narrative perspective, the only reason the PCs would go INTO the tomb is because the two bumbling Corrupted Retainers (Ebbern and Faldinor) trick them into believing Harlock is in there. It's worth pointing out that the adventure text makes it clear that their "deception" is extremely poor and that the PCs are unlikely to "fall for it." Yet, even if they DO enter the tomb, the only way out is the way they came. The solution to entering the tomb is "exit from the way you came in." There is no key or secret escape further in the tombs.

And then there's the grave-robbing... My players had already expressed concern that a fair amount of the treasures in Chapter 2 were essentially stolen. Now, in some cases, the items were from people who had died (Odlin's Orchard, Lindell Barn), so it's easier to justify. But, the Hawfton Mill? Simple burglary. The Crypt at the Goldenlaws Church? Grave-robbing. For my players, these were not acceptable sources of treasure, and I agree. So when I looked at the tombs, I realized we'd have the same concern. Which means that even as a source of treasure, the tomb didn't really work for me or my group.

To wit, the tombs were pointless. Just ghouls and grave-robbing.

I would suggest that either the entire Hermitage would have been better served by removing the tomb, enlarging the interior of the Hermitage, and having battles with the corrupted hermits and their minions. Even if the only purpose would be, "because they're in the way to the place we need to go" would have been thematically more engaging than the ghouls in the tombs.

Now, if your argument is that Pathfinder APs are just for killing monsters without purpose, I'm going to hard disagree. Combat is certainly important, but at least with PF2 adventures, there's a fair effort to justify why the PCs go to certain places and fight certain monsters.

The marketing for the adventure path billed it as a circus-themed adventure, not an endless dungeon crawl. That's also how I sold them on the idea and generated excitement for it because I too was mislead.

Is it really so odd that they want to get out of the dungeon and do more circus stuff than the module seems to allow for?

Well, not great. I've got one player sowing dissension and no one seems terribly happy about the hermitage arc. (They've just been stuck in the same area for too long without any reward to show for it.)

I think I got lucky; I cut the whole tombs part from the Hermitage because I couldn't even figure out what the point was. The Hermitage, overall, took 2.5-3 sessions to get through (which was still too long); by the third session, I had at least one player already expressing frustration. I feel like the ending, where I basically did the Harlock's intro to Chapter 4, helped pick up the overall mood; tying the setting/mood material from the beginning (the dying crops, dust bowl feel along with Nemmia's attack) to something big and magical (the Aeon Tower) gave some direction to everything.

Now I'm looking at Chapter 4 now and looking at how I can cut out the majority of the tower/dungeon and add more non-dungeon content. We have at least one more circus show to do in Abberton, so there's that.

In previous/other TTRPGs, Flaming weapons usually had some way to deactivate and reactivate the flame. The PF1 Flaming weapon specifically lists "Upon command..." Another TTRPG has a weapon called a Flame Tongue that specifically mentions having a command word to activate the fire.

Do property runes like flaming have this in PF2? I looked around and couldn't find anything specific indicating as such.

"Some magic items have abilities that always function. You don’t have to use any actions to do anything special (beyond wearing and investing a worn item or wielding a held item) to make these abilities work. For example, an everburning torch always sheds light, and a flaming weapon deals fire damage every time it deals damage." CRB, 531

To that end, can a +1 flaming rapier have the fire "turned off" if desired? Or a +1 frost spear have the frost deactivated by the user?

Obviously, as a GM, I can make it true for my own games, but I am curious if this is formally allowed per the rules (RAW).

I'm sort of surprised at how many people don't like the circus theme either, as the "fantasy RPG but with a circus" was what sold me on Pathfinder 2E altogether. But, I get that tastes differ significantly. I'm at the end of Book 1 and feel like the dungeon-y stuff goes on too long; I'm probably going to start abridging most of the dungeon-type content to be a handful of iconic encounters. But, that's just me.

Sounds exciting, either way.

Those look great!

Yeah; the circus characters certainly fall by the wayside after their introduction. It sort of requires some group investment.

I was watching the 2Perception livecast and they do quite a bit to reference the circus performers quite a bit. I feel like if that's something the group wants to have as part of the game, they sort of have to make it important on their own.

There are a few threads on the forum here of people trying to tweak or re-work certain aspects of the Circus Rules; it may be worthwhile to take a look at a few of them.

https://paizo.com/threads/rzs4343s?Circus-Rules-Plus

https://paizo.com/threads/rzs42x9c?Circus-Show-analysis

A few things: The "missing feat" actually refers to using multiple skills: https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6sh2k. So that could be useful for PC performers.

In addition, the Costar Reaction relies on being able to make the same check as the performer you are helping: "Attempt the same check as the trick check you are attempting to aid." So, if you have 2 or 3 people in the same Act with the same skills, they can aid each other more easily.

For PCs, Saving Throws at higher levels of proficiency typically have extra features. For example, consider the Fighter's Level 15 Evasion: "When you roll a success on a Reflex save, you get a critical success instead." So, that may be relevant to doing trick checks: do you want a crit success or not?

Also, somebody pointed out in another thread that being able to fail (or critically failure) gives you some more control over total Excitement, so having a lesser skill may be of value if you overshoot the Anticipation (although I'm less familiar with that).

I'm not aware of NPC performers having any special benefit for being a team.

I want my players to get traits that fit their tricks better and the way to do that is through NPCs.

So, I am interested in knowing when other GMs added new NPCs to the circus. I know that there are certain encounters that allow the PCs to recruit people as part of the plot, but the inside covers have NPC acts that don't appear in the actual adventure. I was wondering how you incorporated them into your campaigns, or whether you just replaced them with NPCs of your own creation. And if you used them, how did you incorporate them, bonus encounters? People just looking for circus work and approaching? A job fair?

Any advice would be appreciated, the last thing I want is to mess up the adventure balance by adding too many traits/NPCs too early.

Because there was a certain "Professional Wrestling" aspect to the circus, my PCs basically asked Pruana Two-Punch if she wanted to participate in a match, so she's part of the "promotion" as The Two-Punch Princess. Not sure if she'll stick around after they leave Abberton; that's up to them.

I'm also working in a little "side quest" that will involve making Bardolph his own act; the adventure already went to great lengths to talk about how Bardolph is basically an independent performer, so whipping up a Performer Card just made sense. [Note: I make my own "Performer Cards" because I've deviated heavily from the established rules.]

That being said, I've taken a very Suikoden "108 stars of destiny" approach to this AP, where the PCs are recruiting all sorts of people to the circus (not just performers) and that this will tie into the end goal of Book 6.

So somewhat related note. I can't figure out why being able to use multiple types of checks is a useful addition to a signature trick. Using the example on page 65 of the first book, Girard seems to gain no mechanical advantage for doing one check with thievery and the second with fortitude. Given one is likely to have a higher bonus than the other, it seems like he's actively sabotaging himself.

It would make sense if performing different checks helped to mitigate the multiple performance penalty. That provides a mechanical incentive and for flavor helps keep the performance fresh instead of repeating the same schtick, but there's nothing like that in the rules.

The "missing feat" actually refers to using multiple skills: https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6sh2k

In addition, the Costar Reaction relies on being able to make the same check as the performer you are helping: "Attempt the same check as the trick check you are attempting to aid." So, if you have 2 or 3 people in the same Act with the same skills, they can aid each other more easily.

The non-performer roles are available for PCs that don't have tricks. It's obviously not required to fill them. It's more of the idea of "hey, if you're not doing something else, you can help in this way." But, if PC performers are using skills they're best at, they'll universally be better than NPC performers. So, in that regard, it's a trade-off.

While I wanted the Circus to be more like a mini-game (like a mini-board/card game), I found the traits to be frustrating. Some have significant effects, some don't. Especially when a trait like Magical requires the performer to expend a spell slot, but NPC performers don't necessarily have *spell slots*.

I used the map and it worked alright. However, I made one substantive change: I re-gridded it. Really, I just made each square 10ft (so I doubled the number of squares in my VTT). That made a lot of the distances make a bit more sense. Arguably, you could experiment with it further if you use the gridless version of the map.

That being said, most of the encounters are not super tactical, so you could probably fall back on to some casual "theater of the mind," if you're into that.

The biggest recommendation I'd have is to remove Nemmia from the Kanbali wagon. If the PCs go to that wagon first, they find her, and it sort of ends the scene (even though there's a bunch of other stuff going on). I let the PCs explore a few spots, have the Grig encounter, and then have Nemmia show up. And whatever they don't end up seeing is probably not that important.

I far prefer writers to simply "cheat" - to use monster guidelines even for tool users. A lot of spells would be very cool if only monsters got extra "corruption damage" or whatever when they use them, for instance.

Maybe it's my 4E background showing, but I'd prefer if they just had damage blocks that are consistent with the expected damage expressions for their level. I'm actually surprised at the number of enemies that have weapon damage stats that look like PC stats (especially, as with this case, when there's a non-weapon attack that does more damage and is more consistent with GMG guidelines).

I also give AoA and EC a bigger pass because they were both developed before the final ruleset was completed. Or, at least, that's what I'm assuming based on some of the content.

One thing I've thought a bit about was the idea of themed shows. Especially as more performers have been added to the show. Something like, "oh, this is the animal themed show," with bonuses towards acts with animal or similar focuses. But, basically, the goal is to mix up the regular arrangement.

For example, maybe the first week in a town, the Circus of Wayward Wonders does the Carnival of the Animals, where most of the performers have animal themed shows. On the second week, it's all feats of agility and strength. Or something like that.

I've also focused on the idea of NPC performers getting better as the story moves on, though, so it would be easier at higher levels to still put on a successful show only using performers of a certain theme.

Part of my experience is that one of the PCs is basically a luchador. He didn't participate in the first performance, but there was an invitation made to a certain character in Chapter 2 of The Show Must Go On (known for their wicked haymaker) to come to their next show. And there's already the "so she can fight!" aspect... I'm actually 100% okay with "the Circus of Wayward Wonders also becomes a professional wrestling promotion," so the idea of the show mixing it up every time they perform makes sense.

Happy to hear from the Ron or Jason on the intended frequency of the clowns.

I'm pretty certain the the intended frequency was once per act and that the line on page 7 is a typo. I feel like if it were once a show, the Backup Clown non-performer role would be crazy required (instead of doubling number or clowns, it quadruples!).

As Zapp mentioned, even if you have a once/act frequency, the initial show is pretty difficult with the rules as written. There have been quite a few discussions about it on other forum posts.

The whole Circus thing is a pretty light sub-system. If, as a group, you get more into it, you'll probably want to look around at some of the different ways to expand it that people have proposed. If not, it's probably something that can fall by the wayside.

I'm curious to hear people's thoughts on what the demons in Abberton will do if they aren't stopped.

My players went to the church but, after a near TPK during the fight with the wrecker demon, they opted to flee back to the circus with the priest, leaving the vermleks and quasit un-harmed. They plan to come back in the morning. What would the demons be doing next after they get new bodies and finish desecrating the church (especially without Nemmia around to command them)? Kill the Hawftons? Attack other areas of Abberton?

If the PCs didn't see the Vermleks yet and you want to keep it easy on yourself, you can just presume that the Vermleks were not actually there digging up graves on the first day but show up on whatever day the PCs get to the graveyard.

In the alternative, the Vermleks are described as feasting on corpses at the graveyard. So, maybe they just keep doing that. So, the alternative is, "nobody found us at this buffet, so we just went back the next day."

Another alternative could be that they go back to the Lindell Barn to take an extended nap. "We ate SO MANY corpses that we have to sleep it off for a few days."

Of course, the fussy option: the description indicates that "Vermleks use their powers of deception and disguise to infiltrate mortal settlements and influence unwitting acquaintances of the bodies they wear." So I would imagine that they'd find some friend or acquaintance of the Lindell Brothers. This is where I'd base it sort of on where the PCs go. For example, if they decided to go to the local shop for supplies, maybe the Lindell Brothers were associates of the shopkeep and they encounter them there, trying to terrorize the shopkeeper. I'd only go with this if the PCs happen to go somewhere where it makes sense (like a shop, or the mayor's house, or something).

In general, my instinct would be to avoid anything that involves the vermleks going off to places that the PCs wouldn't already go (or wouldn't be directed to). Especially if they hadn't even seen them to begin with, because then they don't really know what they're dealing with.

This is correct, but I can provide a bit of insight as to the specifics here.

Nemmia adds her Dexterity modifier to damage rather than her Strength modifier with the sickle, because it's a small and fast weapon (agile, finesse). Can PCs do this? Nope. Can monsters and NPCs do things PCs can't do? Yep.

Thanks for helping explain that, Ron! I'm new to Pathfinder. My last d20 game was D&D 4E, so I'm used to monsters not "making sense" as compared to character builds, but it stood out as weird that her staff attack seemed so much weaker (and followed standard PC rules). I also had trouble making sense of it because her damage output seemed lackluster as compared to the guidelines in the Gamemastery Guide (with a 5-6 point mean damage as compared to the low guide of 8-9). However, it makes sense that the "cheat" here was "add her Dexterity modifier to damage."

Thanks again!

Monsters don't follow the rules for player characters. Do not expect to be able to calculate or predict monster damage by abilities or equipment. Instead, monsters follow the guidelines (not rules) presented in the Gamemastery Guide.

Hope that helps.

No, that's not particularly helpful. I was just pointing out a potential typo.

Possible errata:
I'm getting ready to run the battle with Nemmia Bramblecloak and I'm a little confused. Is her sickle damage incorrect? It says she does 1d4+3 damage on a strike instead of 1d4-1 (based on a -1 STR). It wouldn't bother me that much, except that her staff DOES deal 1d4-1 on a hit. And, I assume that if she used the staff two-handed, the expectation would be that she does 1d8-1 (and not 1d8+3).

I don't think should is the word I'd use, but it'd definitely be understandable if they did have it since nightsticks are based on tonfas. The fact they don't, well, I can live with that. Then again, my experience with playing a monk was pre-Advanced Players Guide so fists were the way to go.

To your original point, my thought was less for "this is a good build" and more "hey, here we have the rules for tonfa, a relatively common martial arts weapon that somebody may want to build their monk around." And, who knows, maybe some day somebody will find a defensive tonfa monk build. :shrug:

And, to be honest, I also look at things from the perspective of "could this be an easy errata that would make sense for the game, long term." Having the tonfa/nightstick in the collection of monk weapons is a pretty easy thing to do that doesn't really upset the cosmic balance of the game. This feels more like an accidental omission than a deliberate choice.

I actually just responded to a slightly similar thread profound posted elsewhere, so I'll give the shorter version of the second half of that post.

Ha! I think that was my post, which I made after replying to this thread, thinking a lot about monk weapons, and then reading the first Agents of Edgewatch module.

I do actually agree with a lot of your assessment regarding Monk weapons. I think anybody interested in maximizing their damage output should probably stick with stances. My original response was under the assumption that the player knew they were likely taking a lesser choice but wanted it for other reasons.

Honestly, the Poi/Fire Poi distinction is weird to me. For example, if you use Fire Poi (but don't light them), what you have is thematically the same as Poi but mechanically deals a bit more damage (from the Twin trait) and is a lot harder to use proficiently (Advanced weapon). And, as you pointed out, if you add a Flaming rune to a non-Fire Poi, you have a Simple weapon (without the Twin trait) that deals more damage than Fire Poi.

This weapon is actually less of a tonfa / traditional nightstick and more of a 'collapsible baton'.

Nightstick wrote:

Source Pathfinder #157: Devil at the Dreaming Palace pg. 78

Price 1 gp; Damage 1d4 B; Bulk L
Hands 1
Category Simple
Group Club; Traits Agile, Finesse, Nonlethal, Parry, Uncommon

This collapsible baton consists of several nested, telescoping metal shafts that can be extended as a free action by flicking the wrist. Once extended to its full length (usually around 2 feet), the baton locks into shape until the wielder uses an Interact action to collapse it—a collapsed nightstick is 8 inches long, making it easily concealed. Lighter and more maneuverable than an ordinary club or truncheon, nightsticks are designed to subdue foes without causing permanent injury. A nightstick is an uncommon simple melee weapon.

It's collapsible, but I don't think that changes it's function as a tonfa. I mean, if you've ever seen somebody who's properly trained with a side-handle nightstick, it look an awful lot like Okinawan tonfa style. And this includes the expandable/collapsible models. The collapsible part is on the long end, which in the natural (Honte Mochi) grip protects the forearm. I assume that's why they gave the weapon the Parry trait, as that's the typical way to wield the weapon.

If you're interested in context, I'd recommend searching for the Monadnock Expandable PR-24 (although realize you're going to get links to a bunch of police supply companies).

Should the Nightstick have the monk trait? The fact that it has the Parry trait coupled with the picture really suggests that this is supposed to be a tonfa (or a "side-handle baton"). It just seems a weird oversight, especially when you consider that the 1E tonfa was a monk weapon.

Okay, final thought: I'd stick with my former suggestion (6th level Advanced Monastic Weaponry feat) than whatever I was saying in my second post. The Monastic Weaponry feat does a bit more than ancestry feats, so it's probably best to treat this a bit different.

Re: the monk trait
I'd suggest that on a quick look at the equipment chart, the monk trait does have some mechanical "weight" to it (from a game design perspective), in that there are at least two instances where it seems to be balanced against the finesse trait. The Kama is a good example. Compare it to the Kukri: mechanically similar (Martial Uncommon, 1d6 S, agile, trip) except the Kukri has finesse and the Kama has monk. You can see a similar comparison with the Sickle and the Kama (except there, you have to accept that moving from Simple to Martial is equivalent to raising the damage from 1d4 to 1d6). My intent is not to give a TED talk on PF2 weapon balancing, but the overall suggestion is that "the monk trait costs about the same as the finesse trait."

That being said, I don't think the Poi (in this context) are going to be functionally that different than most of the other Monk weapons. Arguably, once you paid into it with Monastic Weaponry, the Nunchaku are probably going to be more effective as a Monk weapon than Poi.

Giving this a little bit more thought, another way to look at it: Monk is like Orc, Dwarf, or whatever. Taking Monastic Weaponry gives the monk access to all uncommon Monk weapons. And, for the monk, martial monk weapons are simple weapons, and advanced monk weapons are martial weapons. Sort of like how the Ancestry Weapon Familiarity feats work. As the Monk normally doesn't have proficiency in Martial Weapons, it means that taking Monastic Weaponry alone doesn't make them proficient with Advanced Monk weapons. Hence, the additional feat later. Adjust as you feel appropriate.

I won't claim to be a PF2 expert, but here are a few thoughts. My final answer is at the end.

Re: the monk trait
I'd suggest that on a quick look at the equipment chart, the monk trait does have some mechanical "weight" to it (from a game design perspective), in that there are at least two instances where it seems to be balanced against the finesse trait. The Kama is a good example. Compare it to the Kukri: mechanically similar (Martial Uncommon, 1d6 S, agile, trip) except the Kukri has finesse and the Kama has monk. You can see a similar comparison with the Sickle and the Kama (except there, you have to accept that moving from Simple to Martial is equivalent to raising the damage from 1d4 to 1d6). My intent is not to give a TED talk on PF2 weapon balancing, but the overall suggestion is that "the monk trait costs about the same as the finesse trait."

That being said, I don't think the Poi (in this context) are going to be functionally that different than most of the other Monk weapons. Arguably, once you paid into it with Monastic Weaponry, the Nunchaku are probably going to be more effective as a Monk weapon than Poi.

Re: Poi and Fire Poi

I find the difference between Poi and Fire Poi to be peculiar. Poi are Simple, Fire Poi are advanced. But the Fire Poi only deal an additional 1d4 fire damage (with an added critical success benefit). And gain the Twin trait (which is weird the normal Poi don't have). I think it gets even worse when you consider that the fire damage doesn't scale with striking runes, so magical versions of it will do less overall damage than a magical weapon with a d8 damage die (or quite a few of the different stance styles). That is to say, I think the Fire Poi are a bit underwhelming.

[One aside: I think the Twin trait may be doing more work than I give it credit for.]

Re: Advanced monk weapons
Although there are no Advanced monk weapons (that I'm aware of), I don't think Monastic Weaponry would apply to it. As you observed, it makes the monk Trained in Simple and Martial monk weapons. As the monk's proficiency with unarmed attacks increases, their proficiency with "these weapons" increases as well. The Rules Lawyer in me suggests that this is limited to the simple and martial monk weapons (and not other monk weapons).

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I'm not sure if any of that helps. If I had a player that wanted to do it, I'd probably be okay with giving both Poi and Fire Poi the monk trait and let them use the simple Poi at early levels. As for the Fire Poi, I think the most obvious answer would be to create a custom Monk Feat (call it Advanced Monastic Weaponry at level 6, similar to the Fighter Advanced Weapon Training) that lets them choose an Advanced Monk weapon (i.e., our Monastic Fire Poi). Basically, it just does what Monastic Weaponry does but for a single Advanced Monk Weapon. So they'll have the proficiency and all the monk bonuses.

Will it be balanced? More or less. I don't see anything that would make Poi especially unbalanced as a Monk weapon. The biggest problem I see is that the Feat Tax for Fire Poi proficiency may actually be too high a price to pay. But that goes back to my concerns with Fire Poi.

I hope that helps!

So, who didn't roleplay Ledorick as Gaston? Because he's totally Gaston, and I dig it a lot. Especially as Lyrt looks a little like Morshu from Zelda CDi, so I have this mental image of the Lyrt/Ledrorich possession sequence being like a YTP video that blends Zelda CDi and Beauty & the Beast.

Reading it, I think it's going to be a good deal of fun though, starting to run it tonight.

Well, he looks like Gaston.

As a duelist, why yes, he's intimidating!
My, he's a guy, like Gaston!

I just finished my first session of EC, having gotten through the initial Circus show. One of the players thought that the "challenges" during the show were an interesting thing to keep the circus show dynamic. After the first show, has anybody leaned into random events (such as from the Random Events chart) a little more heavily and turned them into narrative/role-playing opportunities?

I should add that one of my thoughts behind this was that the clowns only work so much before the audience gets tired of them... So, the PCs would want to be a little bit more choosey about WHEN they use clown actions.

I may change the restriction on Send in the Clowns to be any number of times per Act, just because having two limitations (once per Act AND Clown Points) is a bit much.

I had a last minute inspiration that worked well, although I'm still tinkering. I'm just going to be upfront: this isn't for everybody. I'm not a super simulationist so I don't mind if things are more "gamey" then "realistic." With that said ...

CLOWN POINTS.

Every show, the Circus starts with a certain number of Clown Points. They're contextually like Focus Points. Every Clown action takes a clown point.

My concern was that the clowns could become surprisingly effective later, especially if one person acts as the Backup Clown and another acts as the Clown Coordinator. But, also, I thought it would be interesting to add other ways that the Clowns interact with the show.

As of right now, I have two Clown actions: the original "Send in the Clowns" and the new action "Segue the Clowns."

Segue the Clowns (Clown Action)
Free Action
Trigger: An Act of the Circus concludes
The troupe of clowns come onstage, acting as an entertaining distraction between acts of the show, helping to set the audience's expectations. You may raise or lower the show's Anticipation by 1.

[Explanation: Thematically, the idea is the clowns either calm down or build up the audience a bit between acts. It also provides a way for the PCs to manage Anticipation, in the case that there's a major Anticipation/Excitement mismatch.]

I'm thinking that as the circus expands, I'll create a few options for additional clown actions that also add more Clown points to the pool.

So ran my first session with the rules and overall I was really happy with how the updated rules went with them.

The party ended up succeeding on their first performance, though they were a bit disappointed because they had a crit success with a couple performers to go and lost it by continuing to succeed. I think I am going to change the crit success rules to be if you are more than 50% over the anticipation it is a crit success.

Overall, really happy with how it went.

Good to know! I'm doing my first on Saturday, although it's the actual *first session*, so I'm probably going to only use some of the new stuff (as it's the first show with no build-up beforehand).