theelcorspectre's page

Let’s try an experiment. What questions about this product do you have that would either make you preorder it or subscribe?

What is the spell-casting attribute for the Precog?

I feel like it should have feathers of some sort. Maybe from a Harpy or a fallen Angel.

I would love a book that does for other realms (like the First World, Heaven, Dis, etc.) what the Lost Omens World Guide did for the Inner Sea.

I’d be glad to see it gone, because I loathe how much the Varisians are Romani stereotypes.

That’s fair, but I think there’s still a place for it if they divorced it from being just a Varisian thing and simply focused on it being the setting equivalent of the Tarot deck.

Fun fact about the Harrow Deck: I love it. It’s one of my favorite tools to use in tabletop RPGs.

I’m curious to know if there are any plans for it in Second Edition? Also would anyone else like to see something more done with the Deck or am I alone?

I'd like something that makes it a bit more viable to sneak attack with cantrips. Maybe have an int based one that gives you proficiencies for cantrips as you level, let debilitating strike work with cantrips, something like that.

A magical Racket would be cool. They could call it the Trickster Racket.

It might be actually interesting if Paizo one day sold something called The Hidden Bestiary that explicitly contained monsters like these.

I'd like to see a "Mastermind" that can pick Dex or Int, and has something related to Recall Knowledge. Maybe if you get a successful Recall Knowledge check against a creature, they're considered flat-footed against your attacks for a round.

They are actually going to do a Mastermind Rogue racket in the upcoming APG, though I’m not aware of any specifics.

theelcorspectre wrote:

Thanks everyone for posting about your experiences. I’m glad to hear that everyone had mostly good things to say.

This is Paizo's house forums - consider widening your scope.

I have looked around other places, but I will admit this is the first forum ‘I’ have made on the subject. I mainly chose Paizo’s forums, because it seemed like the safest place to get a lot of comments soon. I also wanted to create forum detailing their actual experiences. Most statements I found, it was hard to determine if they were “I read this and I think it’s good/bad” or “I actually played this and it was good/bad”. I don’t want anyone to think that I’m trying to shut myself off from any negative posts about the game, I just wanted to hear some people’s actual experiences. Trust me, I already decided that I would at least try out this game long before I made this forum.

Thanks everyone for posting about your experiences. I’m glad to hear that everyone had mostly good things to say.

theelcorspectre wrote:

The Anadi sound nice, but I'm having difficulty finding pictures for them. I'm all for new ancestries so, Yes to Anadi.

Caution: colorful helpful spider

Thank you I'll take 12.

Hello, I've been a fan of Paizo for a while now and I bought the Core Rulebook for Second Edition almost exactly when it first came out, but I didn't have the time to play in a game for it and definitely didn't have the time to GM one. However now I have a little more time on my hands.

What I'm curious to hear, and I apologize if this isn't the right place for this topic, is anyone's experience with the game as a player or a GM. What have you liked about it, what have you not liked about it, what houserules do you use, and do you have any advice for potential new players or GMs?

Thank you for taking the time to read this and thank you for in advance if you post anything.

I know that there will be advice on designing adventures and campaigns, but will there be any advice on setting creation?

Well I appreciate everyone’s responses. I saw a lot of different opinions ranging from Yes, Yes But, and No. It’s almost like FUN is a very subjective concept. Lol

I’ll probably give the envoy a try, but I’ll try to make sure I know what the rest of my part is going to be made up of so I choose the improvisations that work best. I’m really curious to see the new options for the class in the Character Operations Manual.

“You don’t understand. If I were to use weapons, it would totally ruin my aesthetic.”

theelcorspectre wrote:

Rysky the Dark Solarion wrote:

Just the Infinite Worlds (reshape the area) and some Paradigm Shifts.

Paradigm Shifts are their Class Feats/Talents, it lets them do a bunch of modifying in the field (enemies, the area, the dice roll, etc). The moving grenades one looks really fun hehe

Thanks. Do they get any bonuses to certain skills like Technomancer did to Computers and Mysticism?

They get an insight to a skill (later skills) of their choice that increases over time that they can swap out every level up

Thank you for sharing.

I'm really looking forward to playing one.

Potential joke answers for when your character is asked "Where do you think Golarion is?":

"The same place my interest in this conversation went."

"Well I can tell you that it's definitely not at *specific coordinates to a very dangerous planet*."

"I'm going to be honest with you. Everybody knows where Golarion is. We just haven't told you because we don't think your cool enough for it."

"Why don't you see? The real Golarion was the friends we made along the way."

I like the idea of saying that Absalom and Idari aren’t being measured in LAND miles, but SPACE miles. What’s the difference? Well you see, a LAND mile is equal to 1.609 kilometers and a SPACE mile is equal to *unintelligible alien gibberish*!

Hello everyone. I fell in love with the Harrow Deck when I first heard about it. It fascinates me both as a story device and in it's mechanics. I've also loved learning about different games that can be played with the cards. Whether it's Towers (the game that comes with the base rules), Pillars (a fanmade game that is very similar to Go Fish), Illusionist or Last Azlant (two games introduced in The Harrow Handbook that are resemblant of Liar's Dice and UNO respectively).

However, I have never seen a version of one of the most popular card games, Poker, that used the Harrow Deck. I hope to fix that.

Obviously the most basic way to start making Poker, is figuring out what hands of five cards exist and how are they ranked.

Here's what I've got so far:

True Cross- Having five cards, all of the same suit, that make up both one row and column.
Truest Match-Five cards, all of the same alignment.
True Match-Four cards, all of the same aligment, with one card that doesn't fit.
True Opposing Match-Three cards of one alignment, two cards of a second alignment.
Suit-Five cards all of the same suit.
Cross-Having five cards that do not all share the same suit, and make up one row and column.
Good Match-Three cards of the same alignment.
Opposing Matches-Two Pairs of alignment.
Match-Two cards of the same alignment

What do you guys think?

If I were modifying the Solarian, and *not* doing a from-the-ground-up rebuild? The main things I'd do would be "6 skill points" and "you don't choose solar armor or weapon, you get both and can use both". The former is for all the reasons mentioned already.

The latter? I feel like solar armor is already a notably inferior choice, except for some limited and rather twinkish builds. Thus, its a choice that's not really a choice, and I don't like providing fake choices. Since solar armor is only cumulative with light armor, it wouldn't break the AC curve, and it would help balance out the issues with MAD: if you are getting a point or two of extra armor from your class, you don't need to get that point or two from your dexterity score. It also discourages heavy armor builds a bit, which is a plus since there already are a bunch of combat classes which revolve around heavy armor.

The net result is a Solarian that has more skill flexibility than current, and that has about as much survivability as the typical heavy armor build except without having to spend the feat or the money. You are still more fragile than the typical tank, but only by a little, and you still have the best DPS, but only in melee. Its about the best you could do to improve the class without a full reinvention.

Note: I do actually favor a full reinvention, for two reasons. One, unlike all the other classes, the Solarian is tied to a single ideological and cultural origin. I vastly prefer each class to be able to mean widely different things across different cultures and characters. Two, the class only really does one thing, without a lot of variation. There's no real equivalent to different connections or fighting styles, aside from the fake-choice of weapon vs armor.

If I had my druthers, I'd reinvent the class from scratch, ditch the faux-Jedi space monk aspects entirely, and reconceive of them as energy-controllers. A solarian isn't about enlightenment, they are about being a channel for cosmic energy. I'd drop...

The idea of getting both solar infusions is interesting. I actually like the Solarian flavor as is, but I see where you are coming from.

Those aren’t bad changes, but mechanically Solarians offer more skill bonuses then a Soldier for example. Seeing as the Vanguard is going to get 6+Int skills, I feel like the Solarians getting it too would make sense.

Honestly at this point the only thing I would change about the Solarians specifically is 6+Int skills (as opposed to 4+Int) and an additional Combat Feat at level 1. This way if you want proficiency in something like Heavy Armor or Long Arms you don't have to use your one level one feat (two if you're human) for something you see as necessary, or alternatively you can try a different feat if you don't see the proficiency as necessary you can take something else.

What do you guys think?

From what little experience I have with the system and from what I've read online: you can either be a melee focused Solarian or a range focused Solarian. If you want to go with Melee, you should focus on Strength, take the blade option, and get proficiency in heavy armor. If you want to go Ranged, you should focus on Dex, take the armor option, and get proficiency in better ranged weapons. Ideally you want to start off with at least a 14 in Charisma and put an Ability Boost in it every chance you get.

If I was GMing the game, I would probably houserule it and say that, Solarians get 6+Int Skill ranks per level instead of 4+Int and instead of Charisma being their key attribute, they can choose any of the three mental attributes to contribute to their saving throws and Resolve points.

Hey, I purchased the Core rulebook a while back, but I’m just now sitting and reading through it. I like what I see so far, but there is one thing I’m curious about. Why do themes only give a +1?

With the default point but method, the +1 just makes it so you always have at least one attribute that starts at an odd level. I guess it works ok if you decide to go with the rolling method.

Why not just make it so that every theme gives a +2 instead so it makes a difference? What do you guys think?

A dwarven blacksmith once got an order for some high-quality arms and armor from some local elves. After reading through the order list he notices one of the desired items is half a dozen Horacalcum Shields, and this confused him as he had never heard of such a material. After asking one of the elves to describe the material, the dwarf began laughing and told the confused elf that the material he was thinking of was orichalcum and it is not spelled that way. The elf did not find this funny and demanded for the dwarf to apologize. The dwarf refused to do so, thus
began a war between the two people, a war that would jokingly be referred to by humans as the "Super Serious Seven Season Skymetal Semantics Squabble". Everyone else finds this name hilarious except for dwarves and elves who will usually point out that it was more like eight seasons.

Rysky wrote:

Self defense does not make one a barbarian.

In my country, if you kill someone out of self defense, you have great chances to end up in jail. Self defense is no license to kill. And if you kill 20 people out of self defense, you are considered mental, not the paragon of good.

Most of the time when someone says they killed in self-defense and they are being completely honest, what they really mean is "This person was trying to explicitly murder me and I tried to stop them from killing me. However, while trying to prevent them from killing me, I accidentally killed them. I really didn't want to hurt anyone, but I also didn't want to die." As far as killing a large group of people in self-defense, I'm not sure if there is a precedent for that. However, while killing someone accidentally to stop them from killing you may not make you a better person or a "paragon of good", wanting to live doesn't make one insane.

* Also, trying to see everything through political correct glasses to determine "good/evil" behavior runs the risk of undermining the alignment/gods system. I mean of the good core gods, Torag straight up refuses surrenders, Iomedae ask all her Champion to be the "first in battle and last to leave it", and Erastil is the god of hunting.

Most neutral deities don't care, with Gorum straight up wanting battles, and few would want to mess with a calistrian.

Thinking about whether or not fighting and potentially killing a sentient creature is not being politically correct. Wanting to play a game where morality is something that is a little harder to guess or assume is not being politically correct. It's being a nuanced, thinking person.

As far as the gods you mentioned:

Torag forbids showing mercy "to the enemies of your people" which depending on your people, could mean many different things. I wouldn't call a tribe of goblins who keep to themselves and have never done anything actively malicious to anyone let alone my home "enemies of my people". I would even argue that a goblin who was raised in a tribe that has regularly attacked my home, but was uncomfortable with that and left the tribe before they joined their first war party would not be an "enemy of my people", but a DM might disagree with me.

Iomedae is a goddess who commands her followers to fight for justice. Justice means everyone gets what they deserve, and killing a creature not because they deserved it, but because you thought they looked like they deserved it would not be justice. She does command her followers to fight with valor, but let's not forget that Discretion is the better part of valor. Nothing about her says that you can't worship her while still accepting a person's request for mercy.

Erastil is a god of hunting, but that doesn't mean his followers should always be "Oh boy! Here I go killing again!" Two of his biggest tenets are "keep the peace" and "protect your community". If you attack a group of creatures who are minding their own business and not hurting anyone, you are neither keeping the peace nor protecting your community. In fact if those creatures you attacked have a lot of friends who decide that the unprovoked attack on their lives deserves recompense, you have done quite the opposite.

Gorum……..okay you have a point about Gorum. He is a CN war god who loves battle, hates negotiation, and has no good-aligned clerics and champions. However, even he forbids killing a surrendering foe.

Calistria is also a CN deity, but she does have CG followers. Specifically, Callistria is a goddess of revenge. I don't need to tell you that attacking someone who has done nothing to you or those you are close to is, in fact, not revenge.

3) There is at least one item in the game that gives an item bonus to save DCs. The Staff of the Magi gives a +1 bonus I believe.

Actually the Staff of the Magi gives you a +1 to your saving throws against other spells.

Specifically Hobgoblins are going to be an option in Lost Omen's Character Guide coming out in October and the Orcs are coming out in the APG. I don't know if they are doing just classes in the October Playtest for the APG, but hopefully they also include a few ancestries so we won't have to wait until Gen Con 2020.

To be fair the book literally says, most of the time players can do the same check and you don't need to change the DC. However, sometimes you want a check to be challenging. To me that says that a DM needs to think about how challenging certain DCs should be, especially since many situations will involve multiple players doing the same thing, such as searching a room. I could actually see situations where you could have a case of "too many cooks in the kitchen."

Let's go back to the "searching a room" example. Say somebody got murdered in a room, and the PCs want to check the room for any clues or evidence that could help identify the killer. It might be DC 15 by default. The ranger who naturally has the best perception says he is going to check the room. He has a +7 to perception, so his chances for
Crit-Success/Success/Failure/Crit-Failure are 15%/50%/45%/0%. By himself he is much more likely to succeed rather than fail.

However the kind Barbarian wants to help his friend the Ranger. The DM decides that while two pairs of eyes are better than one, there is a decent chance that they could get in each others way. So he increases the DC to 17. The Barbarian has +3 to Wisdom so with the higher DC his chances are 0%/35%/45%/20%, while the Ranger's decreases to 5%/50%/45%/0%. That might look worse at first, but in reality the two of them working together have a chance of at least succeeding of 70.75%, which is higher than the 65% that the Ranger had on his own.

Of course most of the time the DM wouldn't (or at least shouldn't) do this and the book says as much. This is completely ignoring the fact that most of the time, the players will have no idea what certain DCs are, especially when the DM changes them. Unless of course the players secretly read the DMs notes or the module they are playing. In that case, a slightly higher DC is the least those players deserve.

I don't personally know what it takes to become a Hellknight, but from what I've heard, they really put their trainees through HELL!!!

Get it?

All seriousness though, I agree with HenshinFanatic

Deadmanwalking wrote:

I'd think checking about specific Uncommon stuff you happen to want would still be pretty doable in a PbP game. I mean, most characters want, what, a few spells?

While and single individual issue is simple enough to ask, the more you have to ask the less likely you are to get into a game as there are always more players than slots: the person without a page of questions will seem like they are easier to deal with than one that does. For myself, it's not just an individual rarity but what access means, like can I expect to buy more Shuriken if I lose them. Then I have to ask about bulk [I really hate it, both it's concept and it's implementation] and any other 'ask the DM' rules that happen to affect my character. It's more complicated than 'can I take magic aura?'

Yeah I can definitely see a DM immediately ignoring a player with a long list of questions because they see that as "high maintenance". Personally, whenever I run a game on sites like Roll20, I actually like it when players ask a lot of questions as, to me, it shows that they are passionate about the game. However, I can't say which mindset is most prevalent.

theelcorspectre wrote:

I would recommend typing up a generic letter/questionnaire that asks all the questions you would have for the average game.

LOL I might have to but as I mentioned to Deadmanwalking, with more players than slots my handing in a sheet of questions is likely to impact the number of games I actually get into. It'll be a balancing act it decide what questions are the most important to ask so I can ask the best one as I'll try to limit it to what I feel will be accepted as 'normal questions'.

That sounds like a good idea. Maybe try to decide what the three most important questions to you are?

theelcorspectre wrote:

I hope this advice was at least a little bit helpful, but I apologize if it was not. I am hopeful that you are correct about the Gamemastery Guide and I hope that you find a game that helps you enjoy the system sooner rather than later.

I was thinking along the same lines, so I'm not sure how helpful it was but none the less it's appreciated: the devil will be in the details in what the list will look like. I'm most likely just going to join a few 'normal' games and see what issues really bother me and which I can live with and then make up the list. Thanks for the thoughtful questions and suggestions. ;)

No problem. I'm glad I could be of some amount of help. Good luck.

theelcorspectre wrote:

I'm not sure if you've mentioned earlier, but when you play games do you mainly play online or in-person?

I have before, but I don't recall if I did in this thread: I play PbP, no PFS. My location, my health and family issues combine to make going to a home game/FLGS [or DMing] untenable.

theelcorspectre wrote:

You're entitled to your privacy and you shouldn't feel pressured to answer me if you would rather not.

No problem at all, ask away. I welcome honest dialog and questions to understand points of view. ;)

I can understand your concerns. You obviously have a lot on your plate and the less hoops you have to jump through to find a game that fits your playstyle the better. Obviously with the default rules being a little vague in places regarding rarity and some other things makes it a little more difficult then if the rules were more "hard". Even though a lot of people like the way the rules work and others are at least fine with it (I'm personally more in the latter camp), I can see how it would add difficulty to the experiences of people more like you.

I must admit that my experience with Play-by-post games are a little limited, so you should take my advice with a grain of salt. Instead of having to talk to every potential DM you find online and having to ask the same questions over and over, I would recommend typing up a generic letter/questionnaire that asks all the questions you would have for the average game. These questions would probably include "how accessible are uncommon spells", "are certain magic items available to purchase like you would certain common goods", "are there any races that aren't available or at least would face heavy prejudice in this campaign", and so on. Once you have this generic letter/questionnaire made up, save it to your computer. This way whenever you see a potential campaign that you are interested in, just pull up your letter/questionnaire, edit it a tiny bit so it makes sense, and send it to the DM/GM.

I hope this advice was at least a little bit helpful, but I apologize if it was not. I am hopeful that you are correct about the Gamemastery Guide and I hope that you find a game that helps you enjoy the system sooner rather than later.

Rysky wrote:

graystone wrote:

Rysky wrote:

Also gaining them from your class.

What class gains an uncommon non-focus spell?

Clerics through their Deities can.

Ah, ok. I hadn't really looked through the higher level spells.

It does make me wonder why those spells are uncommon though, as some of those spells are 'problematic' spells like magnificent mansion, Shadow Walk and Tree Stride: if it's not 'game breaking' for one class to have those spells, how 'problematic' is it? If someone wanted to learn them, can't they go to a church of that god and buy a scroll of that spell to learn it?

From a gameplay perspective I would say that they either do things that could be game-breaking or are close relatives to gamebreaking spells. From a story perspective you could say that the followers of certain gods were the first to create/practice those specific spells and therefore see them as sacred and are very restrictive about who they share the knowledge with. Perhaps if a PC were to do a favor that church or at least prove their morality is in line with their gods, the church will freely share the knowledge of their sacred spells.

Ravingdork, that is actually a really good example of how the rarity system could work (and maybe was intended to work). It shows a player and a GM talking about their desires, intentions, and expectations, and then the two maturely coming to an agreement that is fun for everyone.

Love or Hate the new Rarity system, I think most people can agree that the CRB would have benefitted if it had an example like that in a sidebar somewhere like the GM chapter.

I feel like this whole forum (even though it seems like it was not the OPs intention) has partly brought to the front a very old and dangerous concept. The idea of "Player vs. DM/GM".

On one hand we have people who are afraid that with the RAW, players who want to play more unusual character concepts could be easily shutdown by their DMs/GMs just because some of their character choices don't make sense for the setting or their story (ie. are Uncommon).

On the other hand we have people who are afraid that without the RAW, the game will devolve into players automatically choosing the most overpowered and unbalanced options for items and spells

For those in the prior camp, I would say something that has pretty much been said a couple of times. It has been like that for as long as there have been TTRPGs. The DM/GM has always been the "boss" who could set limitations and change rules to his heart's content, because it is his world. However, do I think that the rarity system makes it a little more likely that a DM who wouldn't otherwise limit an option to limit an option? Yes I do. However, you have one ability that the "boss" can never take away. The ability to quit. Just because it's his sandbox doesn't mean you have to play in it.

For those in the latter camp, yes the system does help DMs/GMs veto potentially game-breaking character concepts. However, like I said earlier, DMs/GMs have always had that power, its just now the system has a few more guidelines and justifications for when they use that power.

Games like Pathfinder generally aren't meant to be competitive, but cooperative. Everybody should be able to play the game wanting to have fun and know that everybody else is wanting to have fun also. However, a game like this is more than a game, its also a conversation. That conversation should start before the lights dim and the story begins. DMs/GMs should talk with their players about expectations, desires, and fears and vice-versa. If you realize that you probably wouldn't enjoy yourself playing with them, say so. Its much better to figure that out at the beginning rather than several sessions later. If you don't want to have this initial conversation then, (and I don't mean this maliciously) that is on you and nobody else.

There is an old adage in the community that still rings true today.
"No gaming is better than bad gaming." I hope everyone here can find the perfect DM/GM or player group and experience what they will be able to call "good gaming".

As an alternative explanation, you can crack the cover open to a two-page spread. They're all clearly terrified of the two-story goblin with horse-sized bombs. :P

It makes so much since now, the Red Dragon was never trying to hurt anyone, it was merely trying to scare off would-be adventurers from the even greater threat of the Dire-Goblin Alchemist Fumbus. The dragon has been protecting us since the first edition's core rulebook.

So is the playtest going to be just for the new classes or will it feature some of the archetypes, heritages, spells, etc?

I'd like to thank you all. You have been very helpful and have given me a lot of advice. I especially appreciate you introducing me to d20pfsrd.com. I will most likely buy the first Bestiary and Advanced Player's guide, before anything else. Again thank you, I appreciate the advice and I look forward to going further into this interesting system and interacting further with this community.