shadram's page

Any changes to Hunt Prey? It's a massive action tax in fights with a lot of enemies (ie, the fun fights) and the benefit of doing it vs keeping the action doesn't really seem worth it, especially when Fighters don't have this kind of tax and tend to hit harder anyway.

Same, got an email notification of shipping for Kingmaker from Paizo. Sounds like a case of miscommunication, but I'm just glad to know the books didn't just disappear in shipping weeks ago.

Hello Shadram !
I can say that there is sadly no art of both of these characters. I checked the player guide, first book and the second book. i'd be shocked if there were THIS late shown in the third however, that seems way too late. Unless there's any in the mammoth lord region's book, seems like those need to get art chosen by the DM, instead :l

Thanks, I came to the same conclusion. For Merthig, I found this image of a dwarf barbarian and chopped one of his arms off in paint. Still looking for a suitable Nakta. :)

Is there any artwork available of Nakta and Merthig, two of the house leaders/mammoth lords?

The books only seem to have portraits of the other two leaders, Argakoa and Eiwa, and a wide shot of the five mammoth lords leading the following on page 66. I was hoping to be able to show my players the leaders of all the houses when they decide where their PCs belong.

I support the UPW.
For what little it's worth, I've been a subscriber for almost 10 years, despite the ridiculous shipping costs and delays to New Zealand. I fully support Paizo (recognising that Paizo is its employees) and hope that the executives choose to recognise the union, and address the poor pay and other issues raised in recent weeks.

Adding my voice, for what little it's worth.

I love the creative work that Paizo put out. 2e is my preferred ruleset. The inclusivity and representation I see in the world and adventures is what drew me in and keeps me here. I will not cancel my subscription as I want to continue supporting the creative work of the team.

I do not support the low pay and mistreatment of these excellent creatives by senior management that came to light this week. As a member of the LGBT+ community, the language reportedly used by the CEO to refer to us shocked and appalled me.

It's clear things need to change. I will follow the creative talent wherever they go - they are irreplaceable. Management are not.

Awesome, thanks!
I figured since this could only be triggered once every 3 rounds at most, more likely once every 4-5 rounds, having it be a little overpowered wouldn't be much of a problem. Nice to have something to compare it to, though!

Hi,
I wanted to give my party a powerful and unique weapon, and since I've been playing Monster Hunter World again recently, I thought I'd have a go at creating a switch axe. I realise it's a little complex, but, y'know, high level Pathfinder... Comments and criticism welcome. The main thing I'm unsure about is the extra damage on the 2 action activation - is it too much?

Switch Axe Item 14
Unique, Magical, Transmutation
Price 3000gp
Usage held in 2 hands; Bulk 2
Created by a legendary dwarven smith, this +2 greater striking great axe was created to slay dragons and great worms, the largest foes of dwarvenkind. A series of ten gems along its hilt store charges and light up with each swing of the axe, allowing it to transform and deal mighty blows to the wielder's enemies. All charges are lost if no successful strike is made for 10 minutes.

Activate (free action) Trigger You strike a creature with the switch axe while it is in axe form; Effect The switch axe gains 1 charge, up to a maximum of 10 charges.

Activate (one action) command; Requirement The switch axe has at least 5 charges; Effect The switch axe transforms into a +2 greater striking great sword which deals an additional 1d6 force damage on a successful strike. Performing a strike action with the switch axe while in sword form spends 1 charge. If the switch axe has zero charges remaining, it immediately transforms back into its axe form as a free action.

Activate (one action) command; Requirement The switch axe is in sword form; Effect The switch axe transforms back into its axe form.

Activate (2 actions) Requirement The switch axe is in sword form and has at least 5 charges; Effect Perform a strike with the switch axe. On a successful hit, the target takes an additional 8d6 force damage, increasing to 16d6 force damage on a critical hit. The switch axe loses all remaining charges and immediately transforms back into its axe form.

Does this go to Falcon's Hollow, or Darkmoon Vale?

The Bestiary 1 cards were fantastic, I'll probably pick up the B2 box as well.
I know it's a long-shot, but I'd love a set like this for NPCs - a big mix of levels, ancestries and roles with stat blocks ready to go. My biggest difficulty in running my homebrew game at the moment is a lack of stats for humanoid opponents after about 10th level, and the amount of time it takes to create them. I'm taking from the APs where I can, but it's difficult to fill out the different roles.

Hi James!

I'm looking for some GM advice. My players are approaching high level now in my first 2e homebrew campaign, and are about to start an adventure inspired by Dark Souls - a big undead city controlled by seven leaders, who will act as bosses.

I know you're a Dark Souls fan too, and while I appreciate that it's a very different beast to Pathfinder, I wonder if you have any advice on creating boss monsters with the Dark Souls feel, that are a bit more than "lots of hit points, hit with big melee attacks"? I want combats that feel epic and a bit longer than regular fights, but without becoming a drag. How do I avoid a fight that just degenerates into a stationary melee, with players doing the same old "strike-strike-raise shield" routine?

Bonus round question: do you know of any good boss encounters in print that could serve as inspiration, for any edition of the game?

After a monumental effort over the weekend, I've now finished my maps of Scarwall.

Linky: Castle Scarwall maps

EDIT: Just realised that imgur compresses the images quite a bit, so here's a dropbox link with the original files.

They're 70px = 5ft scale, to match the Roll20 default, and are 92 by 120 squares each. So pretty big... I also used the box text in the book to add the details for each room.

I had finished the first floor for my last session, expecting that they wouldn't get any further than that, but 5 minutes into the session they decided to dimension door to the roof... Yeah. I managed to wing it for the rest of that session, drawing boxes directly in Roll20 for a rough roof layout for the encounters up there, but figured I'd better get on with it and finish mapping the whole thing, since they can now pretty much go anywhere.

I'll have my revenge on them, though. They haven't yet discovered the dimensional anchor effect on the place, so getting out may be a bit more challenging. :P

Paizo Blog wrote:

... We have no plans for Bestiary 4 and will deliver monster content in a different format after this.

I'd love to have more details as to what this means.

From what was said in the panels, future monster books will be more thematic, so rather than just 300 new monsters to cover all bases, we might get a "Planar Bestiary" or a "Horror Bestiary" (neither of those was something they called out, it's conjecture on my part based on their description).

The July subscription is always such a difficult wait. I will continue to check my emails and Digital Content every 5 minutes, and pretend that I'm being patient... And then the even longer wait for the books shipping to NZ begins.
I guess it's my own fault for adding things to my sidecart. And for moving to a tiny country on the arse end of the world.

My party is just about to start exploring Scarwall, and since we've been forced over to playing on Roll20, I've started creating the maps for use on there.

So far I've got the barbican maps finished, and thought I'd share them with anyone else who might be interested. These were created with DungeonDraft, which is probably the best battlemap creation software I've ever used.
Scarwall Barbican maps
Map size is 54x54 squares, with 70px per inch

Next up is the ground floor map of Scarwall itself... It's a big map!

Each Bestiary contains a unique set of monsters - there's no overlap between the two books. Each can be used without the other, but if you want everything, you need to buy both. That goes for the books and the pawn sets.

I love the spooky ghost-fog tiles in this set! Now I just need to figure out how to use them...

Regarding the comment above about the tiles moving in play, I have been laying them on a large-ish foam-backed play mat (the giant-mouse-pad kind) with the foam side up. That holds the tiles in place quite nicely during play.

This sounds great! The Darkmoon Vale adventures were the first thing I ever GM'd, and turned into a 2 year campaign. Looking forward to seeing how this goes.

Hi,

I usually have my subscriptions sent to my work address, but our office is closing from Monday next week and we'll be working from home. I've updated my default delivery address to my home address, but this month's subscription has been processed and marked as pending.

Is it still possible to change the address to my home address? I understand if it's too late, and I'm sure it will still reach me eventually, but would be hugely grateful if it could be changed.

Hope everyone is keeping well, sending best wishes to everyone at Paizo from New Zealand.

OMG, so much happiness right now! Thank you Paizo, from the bottom of my twisted-GM heart!

I'd say no. It's too punitive for the class, which relies on unarmed strikes. You can say that their fist only makes very brief contact with the ooze, and they pull it away fast enough to avoid taking damage, thanks to their lightning reflexes. Or handwraps.

Can anyone shed any light on the item conversion table?

I notice , for example that weapons from 1,500 to 11,500 (levels 4-9) are all marked as having “+1 striking”

That seems like a downgrade for those on the upper end. Or am I supposed to add further runes to bridge the gap but no more bonuses or striking ?

So could I add returning to a +1 striking dagger to make it an 135gp item? Therefore a level 5 item?

But conversely that item in PF1 is 8,300 so a level 8 item worth 475gp but capped at +1 striking. So what do I do here? Add the difference in gold and other items

I am a bit confused but this is also confusion / uncertainty with the new rune / magic item rules ...

I believe the idea is that you can add more expensive property runes to the item to raise its level and its value. That doesn't fill all of the level gaps, but you don't have to get a new weapon every level - use those levels to grant other magical items instead.

The table just lays out the level expectations given in the core rules - until level 10, you should not have (easy) access to +2 weapons.

Oh wait, one of my players just found text in the appendix (pg 629) that says

"Attack (trait): An ability with this trait involves an attack. For each attack you make beyond the first on your turn, you take a multiple attack penalty."

I think that clears it up - the intention is that you do take the penalty on all actions with that trait. If they'd used that text in the main chapter, it would have been a lot clearer.

Thanks for your help, everyone!

I'm very much a "rules as intended" GM, rather than "rules as written", but in this case, I'm really not sure what was intended, which is why I started the thread.

As previously stated, I'm completely clear on Trip, Shove, etc. contributing to the MAP. But the text saying that MAP applies to "attack rolls", and the description of attack rolls being against AC is what has me confused.

As written, I'd have to rule that MAP does not apply to these Athletics actions, but as intended, I'm really not sure.

My group and I can't work out if you apply the multiple attack penalty (MAP) to Athletics checks for maneuvers like shove and trip.

On page 446, it says "The second time you use an attack action during your turn, you take a -5 penalty on your attack roll." However, while the Shove and Trip actions have the attack trait, you're making an Athletics check, not an attack roll.

Also on page 446, it says there are "three main types" of attack roll: melee attack rolls, ranged attack rolls and spell attack rolls, but it does not mention any of the Athletics actions.

It's completely clear that making one of these skill checks contributes to MAP, so a Shove then a Strike would incur a -5 penalty on the Strike, but if you Strike and then Shove, do you get -5 on the Athletics check?

I'm sorry if there's a thread on this already - I looked through the first few pages and didn't see anything obvious on it.

The magic item conversion table is very useful, and helps set an expectation of the kind of weapons and armour that players have at various levels.

The monster conversion guide is pretty much how I've been doing it for my homebrew campaign since January (with playtest rules), and that's been going well so far. The biggest problem is the lack of medium humanoid creatures above 6th level to base stats on.

Hi all,

Next session my party will be starting History of Ashes. The first part of this will be the journey to the Cinderlands - nobody in the party can cast overland flight or teleport, so they'll be walking there.

Of course, a major part of this journey is climbing to the Storval Plateau and passing through Kaer Maga. After reading The Redemption Engine and the City of Monsters sourcebook, I really want to do something in the city as they pass through. The party is also a little behind in XP (they bypassed pretty much all of the Arkona mansion and smuggle caves by getting themselves TPKed and waking up in the torture chamber outside the Vivified Labyrinth), so this seems a good way to make up for that.

Did anybody else do something in Kaer Maga at this point in the story? Or does anyone have some ideas of fun things for a level 10 party to do here? I don't really want to spend more than a single session here, but don't want to miss the opportunity.

I very much like the new economy. Makes more sense, and even giving my players 20gp now makes them happy, where before that wouldn't be worth getting out of bed for.

Items get more complicated. A +1 longsword in PF1 is 2,315 gold (or 231.5 gold in PF2) but, that same sword in PF2 costs 35 gold (PF2 Core p. 536) which would be a 3,500 gold item in PF1.

I don't understand this. A +1 longsword in 2e is 35gp, or 350sp, and is equivalent to a masterwork longsword in 1e (+1 to hit, no extra damage) which cost about 350gp. Aren't the they same price for the same thing? Where did the 3500gp value come from?

This is excellent, thank you!

I'm pretty sure you could kill a man with the Core Rulebook, so flimsy and frail are two words I'd never use to describe it.

In terms of its bindings, I've carried it around, spent a lot of time reading and flipping through it, and it's as solid as when I first received it. Unlike my Starfinder collectors edition, which I'm afraid to touch since its pages are so loose now.

I think I read somewhere that involuntary movement does not provoke AoO.

Best use I can think for it is throwing gnomes and goblins at walls or off cliffs. In that regard, I consider it an excellent feat. :P

I think every monk is going to want a stance. For just 1 feat you not only get a die size increase, but you get ancillary benefits like "can 10' step" or "resistance".

Agree with that, particularly since you could then use Ki Strike with your special unarmed attacks. I don't see it as needing to be an either/or thing.

TL;DR: stop trying to min-max. Pick something that is enjoyable. It will almost certainly be viable, and other people will be hard pressed to even argue that what you chose is sub-optimal.

Never has a truer thing been said on this forum.

FowlJ wrote:

Captain Morgan wrote:

Where is THAT stated? I haven't seen it, and we have some pretty compelling evidence it isn't the case since Jason told the Champion she could refocus back to back several times in a row.

Page 300, the requirements for the focus action:

Quote:

You have a focus pool, and you have spent at least 1 Focus Point since you last regained any Focus Points.

Huh, I missed that. That certainly shifts their paradigm, and also explains why feats like Meditative Focus are worth having. And that's consistent with how they were used in Oblivion Oath.

I totally missed that too... Thanks for the heads up, it certainly changes things!

For pure Ki focused monks, I think the Wild Winds stance is somewhat viable, since it lets you make ranged ki attacks for the rest of the fight if you stay in it, but that doesn't come online until 8th level...

Has anyone run the numbers on doing just normal unarmed monk attacks, with once per combat ki strike, at low levels to see how it stacks against the stances?

It would perhaps have been bearable if some of the humanoid races had higher level stat blocks (like drow, orcs, hobgoblins, etc) but all of them had CR1 or CR2 mooks, and capped out at level 5 or 6 for the leader types.

I guess the APs will be a source of higher level NPCs over the next 6 months, but since I'm playing in Age of Ashes, I don't really want to look at those books (yeah, I know this is a problem of my own doing, but... eh). I've already grabbed the stat blocks from Fall of Plaguestone and the PFS scenarios for later use, but for those released so far, they cap out in that same 1 to 5ish level range.

I figured it would be a female goblin, so maybe one of the We be Goblins tribe?

So I wonder if a brawler build is beneficial at all You know monk multi-class fighter? I think it might be the other way around but I don't think the monk really gains anything that way.

Probably not much. Monastic Weaponry specifically says it applies only to monk weapons, so you can't flurry with a long sword. You can get AoO at level 4, and there's probably some useful fighter feats, but the dedication itself isn't much use.

EDIT: Monk/rogues ninjas seem to be unbeatable

With stances, most monk strikes go to 1d8, and are agile. Dragon stance makes it 1d10, with backswing but no agile. And if you choose not to take a stance (which you probably should), Ki Strike lets you do a more powerful attack with an extra d6 damage (although only once per fight).

Also, fighters would take a -2 penalty if trying to do lethal damage with an unarmed attack. Monks are the only class who don't take this penalty.

Flurry essentially gives you a free attack per round - your first attack is two attacks, and there's no reason to ever not use it.

Monks seem fine, and I'm super excited to start playing mine in Age of Ashes on Saturday!

I made it dark, and required the PCs to provide their own light sources. It's a trivial problem for the PCs at this level, but makes everything a bit more spooky.

I had Vimanda pretend to be Vencarlo (which worked for about 10 seconds) - they found "him" stuck in the tiger-head-trap room without light, pretending he'd been feeling his way through. Real Vencarlo is chained up in the throne room, so of course he didn't need a light source.

My party has now found Vencarlo and Neolandus, and captured Vimanda (she could probably escape any time, but is enjoying herself), so are working their way back out. I'll have Glorio waiting for them in the cavern outside, which will trigger a battle between him and Vimanda, and he'll try to kill the PCs too to keep the Arkona secret. Should be fun, especially when the giant reefclaw joins the fight!

As for the suggestion of substituting in monsters from PF2, my friend was running a well-known Level 1 PF1 module last night, and found that the module's shocker lizard did not have an equivalent in the new Bestiary. It would have been nice to have a table to make a rough conversion of the math.

Very much agree with this.

EDIT: Was it Master of the Fallen Fortress? I ran that with playtest rules, I think I swapped the shocker lizard for a slurk...

You could always tweak the Resurrect ritual and add a random d6 (or d8 to cover half-elves and half-orcs) roll for Ancestry, and then a d4 (or whatever) roll for Heritage. That should cover the physical transformation, and maybe grant something equivalent to the "Adopted Ancestry" feat to allow them to continue taking ancestry feats from their original ancestry?

I've been running a playtest > 2e campaign since January. One of the big problems that I'm starting to run into, now that the PCs are hitting 5th level, is that the options for humanoid enemies run out around 6th level, and beyond that it's just bigger and bigger monsters.

I know the rules for NPCs and monsters will be in the Game Mastery Guide, but that's now pushed back to January, and maybe even later. They mentioned during the playtest that they thought about releasing the monster creation rules then, but it didn't happen.

So, as the title says, any chance of throwing us GMs a bone and releasing the creation rules a bit early? Or even just some advice on how to do it in the meantime, without having to go through the full PC creation/leveling process? We can call it a playtest if you like, given that players get their new class rules early in October. ;)

(I know this is wishful thinking, but a man can dream...)

What are some of the monsters that you're excited to bring over into 2e?
And a sub question (sorry, breaking your rules), are you contributing to Bestiary 2, which was just announced?

In the panel, they mentioned that Investigator lent itself well to the Agents of Edgewatch AP, and would do a lot with skills. Swashbuckler is intended to be the ultimate mobile combatant, and will be able to move about the battlefield like no other class. Oracle and witch were just super popular classes, and they wanted to play with curses and hexes, respectively.

It allows you to roll your stats on 3d6 (or some variant). But other than that, not much reason for them that I can see.

A 50% price increase for PF2 PDFs? Well, there goes my plan to grab the PDFs to see if the hardcovers would be worth buying and the system would be worth switching over from PF1.

One price increase of $5 in ten years doesn't seem unreasonable...

I'm in the middle of rewriting most of this book. The framework is good, but the "kill dozens of the same monster" to conquer each district is boring. I'm trying to add more wonder and places to explore, depopulate the city a bit, and replace some of the more mundane encounters with interesting ones, using the newer bestiaries.

I'll likely start the vaults of madness a bit earlier, too, to provide a reason to go into each district.

Excellent, thanks for the update!

Do we know when they are likely to be announcing new things? Or should I just spam "refresh" for the next 4 days until some news pops up?

If you're having trouble downloading, your browser may be caching the link. If you're using Chrome, hit F12 to open the dev console, then right-click the refresh button in the browser and use the secret "Empty Cache and Hard Reload" option. No guarantees, but that has worked for me in the past.