wakedown's page

Round 1
HP 210*/245 (normally 195; Divine Vessel +48) | results TBD -58 (Clem Direct) -5 (Bib LL) -?? (Rhesus) +36 (Channel) | AC 29* (T15/FF29) - F: +14* R: +9* W: +15
Location: Airborne
FRA: Pummel the crystal
SwA: Channel Positive Energy

@Bibic, with lifelink on you, you'll heal 5 and Clem will take 5 each round.

With a crystal giant in his face, Clement sees if his "Mega Angel" at least let him pretend to be a partial-Rhesus and inflict his own walloping.

Rod of Resolve #1 (d-vessel, inspire, haste, PA): 1d20 + 19 + 3 ⇒ (3) + 19 + 3 = 25 for 1d8 + 17 + 3 ⇒ (7) + 17 + 3 = 27 + 1d6 ⇒ 6 sonic
Rod of Resolve #2 (d-vessel, inspire, haste, PA): 1d20 + 14 + 3 ⇒ (3) + 14 + 3 = 20 for 1d8 + 17 + 3 ⇒ (8) + 17 + 3 = 28 + 1d6 ⇒ 6 sonic
Rod of Resolve #3 (d-vessel, inspire, haste, PA ): 1d20 + 9 + 3 ⇒ (11) + 9 + 3 = 23 for 1d8 + 17 + 3 ⇒ (6) + 17 + 3 = 26 + 1d6 ⇒ 1 sonic

Rod of Resolve Bonus (d-vessel, inspire, haste, PA ): 1d20 + 19 + 3 ⇒ (6) + 19 + 3 = 28 for 1d6 + 17 + 3 ⇒ (1) + 17 + 3 = 21 + 1d6 ⇒ 6 sonic

With both himself and his allies suffering some injuries at this point, Clement unleashes another bolt of holy energy, this time to mend everyone's wounds.

Quickened Channel: 10d6 + 1 ⇒ (3, 6, 6, 6, 1, 6, 1, 2, 1, 3) + 1 = 36

Clement exhales and checks his body for any shared wounds from Rhesus's frontal assault.

"Well, I expected that to be harder..."

Patting Rhesus on the back, both in admiration and also an odd mix of relief and disappointment(?) he was uninjured, Clement observes as Spasi interacts with all the Runelordy staircase-portal magic.

"Thought that might've been the runelord's spirit thing in the giant, but maybe not? Eventually we're having to put him down right? Further up? I just want to ensure we're prepared so that super dangerous thing doesn't happen..."

Clement's eyes stray to Rhesus, remembering that those times when Rhesus's mind is addled, things go much less well for their foursome.

Man, I'd just roleplay all day if possible. Sometimes this high level AP chapters really turn into encounter slogs and you lose your character in the repeat battling. (And when I say sometimes, it feels like most times, at least with Paizo adventures)

Round ?
HP 195/195 | AC 29 (T15/FF29) -
F: +14 R: +9 W: +15
Location: Move to Bibs
Action: Break Enchantment on his Confusion

DC to Dispel something is 11+CL(16) so 27. Looks like that takes out 2 of Clem's spells which all have the same CL and are Shield Other, Heroes Feast, Tongues, Heroism and Resist Fire.

1d5 ⇒ 4 -> Heroism
1d4 ⇒ 3 -> Tongues

Observing Spasi closing his eyes and heeding Bibic's warning, Clement resists looking upward at whatever is lobbing hellish fire in their direction and thwarting their magicks.

Recognizing the all-too-familiar confusion of his companions and peppering of Spasi, Clement glides over to Spasi and presses his hand on the elf's back.

Break Enchantment on Bibic.

Bibic has Fire Resistance (30), the longest duration application in the group, no less - I imagine he is healthier as a result? At 80/86HP?

Hearing a yelp from the room that Bibic still hasn't yet returned from and then the elf bursting into his usual dramatic overacting, Clement becomes more alert and observes as Rhesus either does some impressive mimicry or crashes into some sort of invisible wall.

"What's going on??"

Never quite be at ease in an ancient Runelord fortress, Clement takes flight and heads towards Bibic, seeing if the elf poked himself on a fork or was facing something more dire.

Is there a top to the invisible wall? Clement will check where it meets the ceiling. Otherwise if Spasi is presenting an option to Dimension Door/Teleport past for faster relief of our elf, Clement will join in that. There is always Breath of Life (touch) if needed.

Since Clement sees no reason to doubt them or disbelieve anything at this point, I don't think our group sees any reason to be concerned for their well-being that would prohibit gathering at whatever spot they want to chat and reveal what intel they have about the island to us. We of course would totally not be surprised they try to devour our souls since we are in such a dangerous place.

Clement glances around at Spasi's suggestion, as if the mere act of glancing is sufficient.

"They say their lord is Ogon-thunn. Don't recognize it, but they're offering to share what they know. Must realize how powerful we are?"

Clement squints beyond the creatures at the trench they emerged from.

/Aquan/"Is your camp that way? Nearby? Are there more of you or just you three? We don't breathe water, so ideally we can chat where there's air we can breathe and this arch seems safe enough for now? How long have you been here?"

Many industries have "The Convention" - the main one that is critical to their industry every year. Smaller companies sometimes double up room occupants to save costs. Sending your key employees to it is not just good for that employee, but as that employee grows, good for their employer.

I can't imagine if there was an issue with room sharing that someone as talented and important to the company as the individual we are discussing couldn't have asked the CEO at the time to spring for their own room. Heck, they could have probably funded that directly by having a sale on adventures/scenarios written by that same person.

The incremental $1000 or so a year is well worth the investment in personnel development and more importantly, employee goodwill. This doesn't feel like an issue of "we're over-spoiling our employees!"

James just needs to -
1) take advantage of the whole Infinite thing
2) run a Kickstarter
3) bring back the old guard from the early APs
4) produce another magnum opus or three

...

5) take my money!

Ah yes, there it is in the text of the spell, "Protecting a city from an earthquake, volcanic eruption, flood, or other major natural disaster."

Flapping his wings after shouting at the most recent pack of drunken sailors, Clement blinks and looks over his shoulder at Rhesus, Spasi and Bibic.

None of the three has said anything, but they all seem to be looking at him as if he should be doing more that fly around like an angel and shouting.

Do I need to let some otherplanar entity know it's about to be splattered by Rhesus? Did I miss it??

As a mother ushers her two children with haste up the street, Clement wonders if they'll have enough time. If only he could perform a miracle...

Wait! That look in Bibic's eyes. It's as if the elf was wondering if Clement was going to do just that! Perform a miracle. Clement was certainly close to godhood, but not quite at the level of performing miracles, not just yet.

The scroll!

Clumsily reaching around, Clement imagined the scroll and his magical haversack produced it into his waiting hand. Hastily unfurling it, he began to read the words, wondering if the deity he was asking for help was whichever the scroll's writer commanded, or if it was simply him beseeching all his fellow angels that overlook Magnimar to join together.

As the scroll disintegrated to ash, blowing in the growing winds down into the turbulent sea below, Clement turned back to the others.

"It's done..."

Present..

Clement takes a look at a couple muffins he stashed earlier that morning and for some reason just doesn't feel as interested in gobbling them down as he used to.

"Kinda miss the shards."

Seeing Spasi "the Quasi" (Pathfinder) playing the part of wallflower as Society matters come up, Clement flutters his angel-wings to give him the aura of a deific presence before chiming in.

"We'd certainly be the best protectors if something unexpected happens. You know, perhaps demons from another plane of existence opening a portal to bring forth their hordes. Or a Runelord traveling through time to seize the artifact."

Clement gestures towards the others.

"Nothing we couldn't handle at this point, really."

Having known nothing beyond Magnimar prior to their adventures, Clement readily agrees with any plan to keep the artifact in Magnimara and prevent it from flowing to Absalom, even if that city is supposed to be important to the Society.

"We really should consider bringing the Society headquarters to Magnimar. I don't see what Absalom has that Magnimar doesn't besides a bunch of politics that we'd be better off without?"

As the group completes their cursory scan of the otherworldly lair in Leng, Clement's stomach rumbles.

"I don't know about you all, but I think we can load this stuff up the best we can, perhaps in a..."

Clement grins and singsongs, "portaaaable hooole".

Clearing his throat, he continues.

"And get out of here, get back to our pavilion and crew for a feast and some R & R."

There's a brief moment when Clement wonders if they should offer Morcruft a role in their retinue given the likely ability to clean up the carnage they all seem to leave in their wake but reconsiders given that it might be easier for them to find a rather large gelatinous cube for such duties.

Fluttering his angelwings, he takes flight and continues to practice a deep baritone voice once out of earshot.

"Lo and behold. Lo. And behold. Lo. And. Behold."

Clement observes as Bibic hungrily descends on the treasure, nearly prying the lid from the jar with the two-headed baby owlbear just to liberate the "lucky stone."

"Bibs, you're not concerned that owlbear has... two heads?"

Shuddering, either from the sight of the ettin-bear or from the dragon's semi-impressive visage, he tucks the scroll away certain that he's miraculous enough at saving lives that the scroll would jus tbe overkill and turns his attention to the toothpick of spear that seems to possess the ability to "flame on" at command and attempts to twirl it in his hands.

"This is kind of neat. A bit small, but neat."

Clement unfurls the magically portable hole and begins sticking the pointy end into it and nearly giggles with delight.

"Now, this is neat! We can probably keep ALL sorts of stuff in here! Rhesus, get over here! Try throwing something in it!"

Given our copious spell slots, I'll just go with some flavor RP that Clement used his Word of Recall to get back to the campsite with the hirelings and we teleported back to the portal room with the "Strike Team" vs slept down in this dump. That'll rely on Spasi burning a slot but I imagine that's in character for our arcanist as well to secure his creature comforts vs rough it for the Society.

Clement chomps on yet another oversized turkey leg from "to-go" box Sparkles assembled from the morning's heroic feast, while admiring the shine of Rhesus's pauldrons.

"Mrrph, Ox did a good job this morning. I wasn't sure if all the giant blood would be able to be scrubbed out by morning, but sure enough that kid worked a miracle."

The slightly overweight angel-kin gestured with the exposed bone at Rhesus's pack.

"... had Roxy pack you, mmrh, extra snacks *chomp*.. too."

Feast Temp HP: 1d8 + 7 ⇒ (3) + 7 = 10

Clement recounted the wards applied prior to returning to the otherworldly Portal-to-Leng.

Lifelinked with Rhesus. Check.
Lifelinked with Spasi and Bibic. Sure, for now.
Shield Othering with Rhesus. Check.
Greater Magicking of Koriah's Falcata. Check.
Communal Resisting of Electric Dragon Breath. Check.
Heroic Feasting. Check.
Lordly Pavillion. Sadly, still a day or two away.

Slots used: 6x1, 4x1, 3x1, 2x1. Communal Resist Electricity will be before we leap/fly in and good for 50 minutes on the five of us for Resist 30.

Belching in a manner uncouth for someone with brilliant white feathered wings, Clement then pointed a greasy plated finger towards the portal, oblivious to the evidence of the meal taking up residence on his chin.

"Portal time? Leng's supposed to be cold right? That helps food stay fresh?"

Clement grunts as a boulder thuds into Rhesus, but gives it little thought.

"One-armed giants? They're really scraping the bottom of the barrel for help here, eh?

He shields his eyes as he expects Spasi to hurl something bright. He presses a hand onto Rhesus's shoulder, holding the barbarian back a moment before he barrels through a half dozen pits.

I'm guessing green border, the woman, is the bard.

Pete gestures at the trilling woman with the flute.

"Bug! I don't like the sound of that! Get 'er!"

With that, the horrific cockroach zooms ahead (Fly 40, feels broken - except the damage will compensate)

Bug (charging, -2AC): 1d20 + 3 + 2 ⇒ (13) + 3 + 2 = 18 for 1d4 ⇒ 1

Pete, while not professing to be much of an archer, whips his longbow around and manages to nock a single arrow, sticking his tongue out and squinting as he lines up a shot at the girl and seeks confirmation from Gnoda or Marutson he's doing right.

"Feel a bit guilty shootin' a pretty girl, but she's Aspis right bosses?"

Longbow: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (3) + 3 = 6 for 1d8 + 3 ⇒ (1) + 3 = 4

Clement brings a "to-go box" from the morning's heroic feast (one a day, people!) and chomps down nosily on a celery stick after coating it in another container of some sort of dipping sauce (also packaged "to go").

"Giants? Those were fun last time, throwing boulders and stuff at at, right Reese?"

Clement nudges Rhesus and passes off a few scones in his direction.

"Dragons? Just one blue one? Remember when we fought those blue ones on that island with the treasure and they thought that lightning would hurt us?"

Clement grins again in Rhesus's general direction.

"Or those poisonous brown ones? Like three of them right that were trying to wrestle or tickle Rhesus?"

Clement taps Bibic's notebook to ensure they have this "order" well covered.

"Blue ones? We'll need Spas-- err, our arcane expert to let us know what they do, but I'm guessing blue means more lightning."

He then considers Nivlandis's request.

"Hey! Why don't you come along with us? We've got a new plan when we go onsite to Runelord places like this - we'll set up a nice comfortable camp. I think Bibic here brought a masseuse onto our payroll this week to help work out the knots from the all the fighting. You can be right on top of matters closer out in the field! If it's just giants and dragons, there's really not going to be any danger..."

Clement briefly considers the possible injuries to the new recruits they'd bring along but then dismisses such thoughts, fairly certain his mastery over life and death means it'll be at his total discretion what the risks would be in such an endeavor.

I'm going to assume we have a couple days of downtime coming up in Magnimar as part of selling and shopping. Let me know if I overstepped here at all, GM or fellow players.

Upon returning to Magnimar, Clement readily agrees that the group should immediately sink their teeth into the reddest of meats and the deepest of tankards. After the first hour, Clement quickly loses track of whose idea it was anyway and finds the nagging presence of his shard seems to subside further after consuming enough plates of food to sate a half-dozen lumberjacks.

"Mrmrr.. this is good, we should do this every day!"

As the night bears on and Clement begins to realize just how much gold they've obtained in their recent delves, his eyes widen.

"We could do this every day!"

Visions of a large pavilion tent, servants and daily feasts alight in the aasimar's mind and he begins considering what steps will be needed to make it a reality.

Besides, as Spasi told him so many times that eve, they deserved such luxuries given their meteoric rise.

Whatever day we report into Sheila, Clement will use his newly purchased Rod of Splendor to conjure the immense pavilion tent wherever there is room on her grounds and suggest the meeting is outside whereupon he'll begin the first of his daily Heroes Feast conjurations.

Thumbs up on Koriah using a shard.

I've got some ideas on Clement embracing the party's success and his ability to control life/death going to his head, and well - being around Spasi too much.

In letting his shard of gluttony affect him the slightest, he'll be springing for a daily hero's feast for the group and a rod of splendor to toss up a big tent when we arrive "on scene" at the Lodge or a new locale for shard hunting to announce our arrival.

Might need to look into the cost of some hirelings to clean up our camp sites after us, us being bigwigs and all now... I feel like Spasi could get into this.

Clem sadly doesn't have dispel magic as he assumed either Spasi or Bibic would be around to dispel the other.

Don't forget that belt upgrade, Rhesus!

Clement lays down, somehow now finding that to be a natural position when he's not moving.

He smacks his lips as he considers Spasi-mouse, feeling the hunger induced by his own shard course through his veins briefly before it subsides thankfully due to the ioun stone's wards.

"I'd say, we're probably not that strange walking about Kaer Maga..."

Clement doesn't seem surprised that Koriah doesn't want to take point on searching for traps and commends Rhesus on his prowess at discovering them.

"Maybe we can teach a course in Absalom when we're done to all those rookie Pathfinders? Our whole step-on-every-square-foot of tile technique is pretty thorough and I bet they haven't thought about it before.."

Clement pauses and considers what he knows about mummies.

Religion (mummies): 1d20 + 17 ⇒ (2) + 17 = 19

Scratching his temple, he realizes he knows a little but not a lot and voices his wondering aloud towards Bibic, Spasi and Koriah.

"So.. mummies. Do you guys know anything about them?"

Assuming we can triangulate fire vulnerability and paralyzing auras, Clement would toss out a Freedom of Movement on Rhesus (to pin them down) and Spasi (to burn them) along with a Communal Resist Fire (to bath in Spasi's hurled magicks).

Round 3 Init 5
HP: 99/135 -10 -3 | AC 27 (T1123/FF27)
F: +10 R: +6 W: +11
Spells Left Today: 1st - 6/7 | 2nd - 5/7 | 3rd - 7/7 | 4th - 4/6 | 5th - 3/4
Channels Left Today (8d6+1 each): 5/6
Summon Nature's Ally II Left Today: 1/1
Effects: Lifelink (Rhesus), Shield Other (Rhesus), Heroism, Haste
Location: Bibic's Side
SA: Breath

Reflex: 1d20 + 6 + 2 + 1 ⇒ (10) + 6 + 2 + 1 = 19 10 taken

Clement winces, barely even noticing the fiery strike that pales in comparison to that day at the Golemworks.

"Elves..."

Now appearing to take life and death less seriously as his mastery of it has grown, he slaps Bibic on the face a few times.

"Hey! Not that light. Come into my light!"

Breath of Life: 5d8 + 11 ⇒ (8, 2, 3, 2, 7) + 11 = 33

"I'm looking, I'm loo---"

Clement's rush to find the proper scroll ends as Spasi nonchalantly pulls the proper scroll from his haversack with barely an ounce of effort.

"If it doesn't, I'm thinking you pulled the wrong scroll and that was one of your copious grease scrolls..."

Clement waits patiently to see if they're about to have greased chicken on their hands.

I don't know anybody who has ever played PFS...

I'm used to a far more collaborative approach than PFS sounds like. And I don't want a finely tuned board game.

At least here, PFS was a major driver of Pathfinder sales. I saw hundreds of books purchased by players to 'prove ownership' whereas home gamers could easily rely on the online SRD alone.

In looking back at the 'death of PFS' here (the region went from ~500 monthly players to ~20), rules were only part of the problem. A lot of players were lost during the sci-fi season. Rules bloat hit a dearth of traditional fantasy simultaneously (there was much consternation at the Technologist feat and how only those 'in the know' had an advantage). This was followed by the 'elemental' season which I know was met with decreased enthusiasm alongside general fatigue, particularly as hybrid classes outshined core classes in play.

I can't help but see the hyper-balanced PF2e chassis is intended specifically to address organized play.

My first play-through of PF2e had all the players cite it felt 'board-gamey' like Munchkin Quest more than D&D. Here, the notion of +1 per level to all rolls isn't objectionable but is common-place as a game mechanic. It's when we are picking a system for home game campaign worlds where we want a better approximation of 'reality with magic'.

My sense is reception of PF2E currently divides a lot depending on how much a gamers' time split between home campaigns and PFS.

The folks coming from organized play fall into 2 camps:
1) Like it! I want a better balanced game (these are folks who played alongside raging barbarian/alchemists who did +32 damage at like 3rd level). They embrace the changes that bring all classes to parity (and things like heroism lasting 1 minute).

2) Dislike it! I want to dominate games (these are the folks who 'broke the game'). They generally don't like PF2e at this stage as it's not clear how to build a character vastly superior to average.

The folks coming from home games fall into 2 camps:
1) Dislike it! They have a finely tuned game world, where they rationalize how fast a character is, or costs of goods, or how magic plays into their campaign (and consequently house ruled things like a Create Water cantrip). They're not as enthused because things like +1 per level to everything means oddities like a 5th level Carpenter who picks up a sword for the first time ever probably has a better chance as striking a target than a 2nd level Fighter (or take your pick of wizards arm-wrestling or other similar metaphors).

2) Like it! Their home groups approximated organized play a little more closer and they had game-breaking players and the system as it stands provides a better engine to reign those players in by using the printed 'rules' as the hammer vs having obvious GM fiat/discussions rein them in.

There's certainly exceptions here, undoubtedly the replies to this post will be those too!

Many of the authors behind some of Paizo's best products have done just that.

If you flip through the best work Paizo ever did - your old Dungeon magazine, Runelords, Crimson Throne, Carrion Crown, etc APs you'll pick out names like Nick Logue, Greg Vaughan, Richard Pett, Tim Hitchcock, Brandon Hodge and others I'm forgetting (sorry!).

Pett still pens an occasional Pathfinder adventure but has launched the outstanding The Blight with 5e support.

Others are releasing 5e material across all genres (Hitchcock is writing scifi for Legendary Games supporting both 5e and Starfinder).

I'm still waiting to see what Wes Schneider does next since his adventurers were generally very solid and evocative.

One thing I'm curious about is if the new system will bring a lot of the most evocative adventure writers back to PF2e, even if it's via a 3PP.

The designers are posting dozens of times a day... you just need to create a thread that has a title they want to click into versus avoid!

"Go back to the drawing board" in a product forum isn't really clickbait for a product manager.

I dragged a player kicking and screaming to create a character to playtest. She went with 'elf ranger', which is her go-to in any game.

I'll try to summarize.

Fast forward through fairly boring and obvious stat boosts to hoping for a chance to feel awesome.

Elf
Great, now its time to become more "elf-ey"...

*Scans the list of elf feats*
1. Ageless patience, something-something-downtime, pass
2. Ancestral longevity, meditate to be trained in a skill, pass but maybe come back..
3. Demon skirmisher, too situational, pass
4. Forlorn, +1 saves against emotion effects, blah, pass
5. Keen hearing, hmm some interest at the name, Seek action is a 60-ft cone vs 30-ft cone, blah, pass
6. Nimble, +5 Speed and ignore difficult, that one sounds OK I guess

By process of elimination we pick Nimble, because it's the "least bad"

Ranger
OK, big change here is Hunt Target instead of Favored Enemy. This is now going to take an action, and it only benefits subsequent attacks against the same target...

Type of target right? Like designate goblins and its against all..

No, just that one goblin.

Huh, okay I guess.

Let's move on, you get to pick a feat.

Which one makes me a better hunter?

Okay, to this person, by "hunter" she means whichever one makes her a better hunter, like a bonus to Perception, or be a better archer, or better Survival or Stealth maybe)

Hold on, you have 4 to pick from, here they are...

1. Animal Companion pass, don't want to deal with another creature on the table...

2. Crossbow Ace pass

3. Double Slice that sounds like melee? yeah.. pass

4. Monster Hunter this is the last one...

wow I hope it doesn't suck

When you critically succeed to identify a target you're hunting you and your allies get a +1 bonus on your next roll against it.

Critically succeed?

Yeah, you beat the roll by 10 or more

+1 bonus to just the next attack, which is the first one after that thing that's like Favored Enemy but not as good?

Yeah..

Can I skip that and pick something to boost my Survival or Stealth from General Feats?

No, you need to pick one of these 4 Ranger feats

Seriously?

Yep. How about we take Monster Hunter since that's the only one you have a chance to possibly use.

I guess.

This is the second time I've come close to going off the rails of the Playtest and just let players pick any feat in the book that's level 1 rather than the feats they are restricted to.

I feel like that would go a LONG way towards building enthusiasm.

5e killed PFS at the closest FLGS here (I would visit ~7 for PFS during its peak).

PFS we'd turn away players with 4 full tables (all the store would take), but they've since crammed a 5th table in and set up a half-dozen tents on the street in front to make way for the 5e demand. To be honest, its so crowded for the 5e events, many folks don't want to deal with the crazy crowds especially in the Summer heat.

The upcoming September Con still has 2 PFS tables and 1 PF2E table with 4+ players a piece. Last I checked there were over two dozen packed 5e tables at the same time.

From the folks at our local cons, I'd say about 1 in 25 are hardcore enough to go to GenCon. Out of the wider group, perhaps coincidentally, its the PF players who go to/went to GenCon who project the most satisfaction and positivity with the Playtest (they're also VCs/VLs).

I went ahead and put on my marketing hat for a few minutes and confirmed everything is great.

All missions accomplished.

In our PF group, we're all pretty gung-ho about it due to the 'rebalancing.' Then again, over half of us are GMs, too, and rotate campaigns, so maybe your last point explains why we're all happy about it? :-)

Absolutely the case!

I'd imagine in a gaming group of 6 co-GMs the "willingness to convert" level is at least twice that of a gaming group with 1 always-GM and 5-never-GM players.

I'm not advocating on increasing 1st-level power creep or power creep at even any level as a benchmark, but that Paizo might want to consider giving some low-power "shinies" so it can better appeal to all those groups that aren't populated by co-GMs.

I mean it's silly but having our regular paladin player be able to start with a gilded pommel on his sword or a regular horse would go a long way without skewing any balance. Retributive strike vs a balanced smite at 1st level is a huge impediment to this player. There's just a ton of little stuff like this.

Pathfinder 1e was designed as a game that would be an easy sell to a table currently in the middle of a 3.5e campaign.

Players flipped through it and compared it to the 3.5e chassis and saw they were picking up feat(s) or their classes were improved in many ways to be more competitive or functional. Depending on the timeline, they saw they were picking up traits, and picking up skill ranks or hit points from favored class bonuses.

It was a very easy sell to a table of six players to convert their characters over.

On top of this, if a player was playing a class that didn't port over to Pathfinder 1e core (like a Psion or a Warblade or whatever), they could keep playing that class pretty interchangeably with it being pretty easy to tell them their favored class bonus would work out to +1hp or +1skill, their choice and handing them a few more feats at their odd levels.

There was very little friction moving from 3.5e to PF1e. In fact, it was greased up and there was a vacuum effect sucking the average player in.

PF2E is different.

Perhaps I can talk a player into a PF2E "one-off" to test the system, but nobody in my gaming groups has any desire to migrate any in-progress PF1E game over to PF2E. They are not all power-gamers either - there are a few though.

I see that being yet another of the really big challenges for Paizo. PF1E immediately built a player base the first month it was released. PF2E, assuming it navigates a lot of the issues it has open at the moment, if it keeps the same design tenets and goals, will likely have to wait for campaigns to end since it has so little draw for converting campaigns in progress.

(That said there are likely some GMs who will insist upon the conversion because they view PF1e as so fundamentally broken and they will want to migrate to a new system as sort of a 'rebalancing' act ~ at least in my games assorted house rules are already putting in place many balancing factors)

If you want some reading, here's some of the most commented threads on the Playtest.

Pathfinder Playtest Megathread - First Reactions, Quick Questions, Discussions (1747 replies)

The Pathfinder 2nd Edition Playtest is Available (632 replies)

The more I reread the Pathfinder 2nd Edition rules, the more I appreciate DnD 5th's design (411 replies)

I guess I wanted Pathfinder 1.5 instead of Pathfinder 2 (213 replies)

Lots of posts with a smattering of replies.. some of the biggest discussion is on the 5e forums, where there's an obvious increase in the number of perspectives/comments from folks who made the 3.5->PF1E->5e journey and are evaluating what's next.

In fact, are there any good examples of magic wielders as massive physical pushovers in classic or very popular media. I am struggling to think of any.

I just got quite a chuckle from imagining Dumbledore sans-magic, brawling barehanded in Diagon Alley against a dozen thugs.

(in this imagery, it's young Jackie Chan as the too-obvious stunt double with a barely attached beard no less)

There is a HUGE, HUGE difference between playing a low level premade game with premade characters and building a character ..

I was just having this discussion and the possible epiphany here is that many folks are thinking about Pathfinder 2E all wrong.

(That's those of us who are complaining that the system doesn't feel right to fit our traditional fantasy roleplay system of choice).

The comment that struck to me was that Pathfinder 2E isn't meant to scratch that itch, but is instead meant to potentially be the market leader in the tabletop-pseudo-roleplay-boardgame space.

My closest gaming group has had occasional dalliances where we play games like Talisman, Runebound, the World of Warcraft boardgame, etc. Afterwards all our reactions are almost always very positive that it was a a fun game ~ marching the wizards and rogues we randomly drew around and collecting gear and abilities and feeling that 'leveling up' like going from 'Burning Hands' to 'Fireball' and such.

If you look at Pathfinder 2E through the lens that it's part of your shelf alongside Talisman, and don't look at it through the lens of 'this is what I use as the backbone for my homebrewed world/campaign', it's a tidy little system for running a Fighter, Wizard and Rogue through a pre-printed dungeon that occupies a space somewhere between Talisman and traditional D&D.

The point was even made that the pages in the PF2e Playtest book with feats, spells and powers are about as close to 'cardifying' things you find in a facedown 'chest deck' on a gameboard with keywords, icons, etc.

Depends on what the end-game is for Paizo with their ambitions.

I was having a discussion with someone who thought the current Playtest felt "more like a boardgame than a roleplaying game". Then it kind of devolved into what Paizo's plans were over the next 5-years.

It was compared to playing a couple hours of Talisman, Runebound or the World of Warcraft boardgame where you have essentially a pre-gen with some canned abilities that you may get to pick starting with, and you get to plug in next abilities as part of playing through the content. If Paizo was shifting to this space, maybe it's the coolest game in that space, right?

In that case, PF2e is certainly at beta quality today and it just needs to flesh out rule mistakes that would certainly be discovered in 6 months of playtesting. It's just those folks who want it to supplant 3.5/5e for weekly fantasy roleplay that perhaps feel like it's a lot further away from the end-goal we're strapping onto it.

Let me first state that I love feats. I loved my Pathfinder companion subscription and I loved skimming through a few dozen new feats introduced to the game every month.

I greatly enjoy using Herolab and the "is valid" feature and keyword searching through thousands of feats, both as a GM and a player.

If I could make one change to 5e to make it better, I'd have allowed characters to pick up a feat every other level to enable better character customization.

From those of us that are still active on the forums here, I can see those of us still playing Pathfinder as the system of choice are here because of the feats. And I can see many folks when they open the Playtest book pump their fist and they are like "Yes! This is like three times the feats as the 1e Core Rulebook!".

However...

I've been chatting with various folks in my local gaming community (those who have faded away as our PFS scene has shrunk from 100 tables a month down to 2 Starfinder tables and a couple PFS tables) and have been asking "hey, are you going to be coming back and trying the Playtest?".

We've got a couple tables scattered at stores. One has 3 players signed up and one has 5, so there's some interest... but not a crazy backlog of interest.

So far, folks have said they've downloaded the PDF (so they wanted to possibly get hooked back in), but the one thing I've heard consistently is:

(roughly)

"Oh god, it's worse than original Pathfinder. I can't believe they put even more feats into the game."

So as I dig around here, I actually (to my surprise) discover that a lot of the local gaming community actually dislikes a feat-heavy system. This runs against my own personal sensibilities. Who wouldn't like the ability to customize their characters further?

But as I try to make the argument that Pathfinder is superior, I'm argued back against the "fatigue" they have with a "feat heavy system", especially one from a company that produces monthly books that keep adding more feats.

I've come to understand this perspective better, and it's actually hard to surmount.

There's 3 main segments I see in TTRPG participation:

1. Us, The Hardcore Forumites - who are here because we love the word feat, and love games that give us more of these.

2. Volunteer GMs - who as volunteers, directly make more tables available to play at each month. Those folks who are amazing narrative story tellers, who were so amazing we had to have a lottery system to play at their tables. The majority of these say they have no interest in PF2e because it looks "worse than PF1e" and its because to GM over a multi-year span they shudder at all the feats they'd have to adjudicate in organized play. They just prefer to "roleplay" where the collective majority doesn't need to memorize hundreds or thousands of feats.

3. Casual Players - these are the folks who'd never shell out for HeroLab or more than 1-3 books beyond the core player book. They tell countless stories about playing alongside us players that did shell out for all the books and how it was unsatisfying to always feel like they were missing out on something, and how in newer "mostly feat-less games" there's only maybe a dozen or two feats that they need to know about. Total.

Here's the rub..

This is all just packaging and perception. I counter back that "well PF2e has just put the label 'feat' on what other systems, like PF1e before it, called class features or class powers. So it's not like it has that many more.

But these folks, they twitch (really!) at the word feat like someone's mentioned their ex-girl/boyfriend's name. If someone had just run a global search & replace on the PF2e Playtest book and put the word 'Power' or 'Feature' in its place, they'd have had a totally different reaction. They don't care that there's a rational argument here that a system like 5e basically has 'class feats' hidden inside the class descriptions.

I have a decent sense that, at least in August, organized PF2e Playtest game attendance is low simply because of a perceived overuse of a single word in the rules along with some sort of irrational bias against that word 'feat'.

I'd think it's something to consider in a final printing - how to give those of us who want more options what we want, but at the same time acknowledge that there's a decent number of gamers who associate a stigma with a 'feat-heavy system'.

Aaaand Starfinder is the second best selling RPG currently, giving D&D 5e a run for its money. So chances are that Paizo will follow the route that made them bounce back, rather the one that makes them slide into oblivion.

Is it? The two local FLGS I frequent still have the same Starfinder hardcover on the shelf from May according to the staff and they claim their 5e monthly sales numbers are outrageous.

Amazon has tons of 5e, Zelda, Warcraft, etc stuff ahead of the Starfinder book.

I'm in one of the most active TTRPG OP markets (pop 16 million) that used to field over 100 tables of PFS each month (packed at 6 players a piece). We're clocking in around 14 SFS players each month over 2 locations, and those same players are mostly folks that are so into TTRPGs that they are also playing 5e every week too.

Most of the folks who are running stores or gaming are operating on the belief that Pathfinder/Starfinder "are dead" (their words, not mine, I'm trying to make the argument that a comeback is about to happen...)

..that Halfling Rogue has a +7 to beat two +4 rolls. Oh and is instantly seen if there's no cover so I hope the GM didn't just give you a straight hallway to try and sneak up to these guys.

I'm assuming appropriate cover by barrels, garbage, what-not.

But if we just swung the typical 3rd level "rogue sneak" vs a pair of guards from high probability to low probability, remind me to sell all my shares in Golarion Thieves Guilds.

I'm hoping someone else sees something we don't in how this plays out, numbers-wise. i.e. Somehow does the 3rd level small-sized rogue sneak past with a failure and only is seen on a critical failure?

At low levels, without putting feats purposefully into place to boost skills, ranks are all the low level character had to distinguish itself in skill from other characters.

Something I keep meaning to process.

Say you have two 2nd-level guard NPCs watching a hallway. Say they are nothing special, there's no feat investment into detecting/perceiving/guarding.

Take a 3rd-level halfling rogue who hasn't done anything significant to invest in Stealth feat-wise. He's picked it as best he can otherwise (picked it as a skill, or maxxed points in it).

How do PF1e and PF2e rate at the rogue's success? I can recall a Kingmaker adventure where our 3rd-level rogue was something like +14 (6 ranks, 4 Dex, 4 size) sneaking through some level 2 warriors at +0 (0 ranks, 10 Wisdom).

In PF2e, how different is this classic trope?

In PF2E, he won't be adding as many modifiers, and instead will roll more dice. The numbers will be right in front of him, instead of us having to remind him what each one is or look them up. That should help with the math - as will buff spells requiring an action to concentrate on them.

This is probably the best explanation I've ever read for rolling more dice - when the alternative is a person having a half-dozen floating modifiers that they may or may not forget.

This deserves to be a "Designer's Sidebar" in the finished product, if they continue to go with more dice as part of the system.

This is almost boardgame-esque - i.e. a player who normally rolls grey dice, you could image "Bardic Inspire" dice always being red or Smite dice being blue.

In another thread, someone pointed out that this game gives too many ability score boosts. If you start the game as a gentle but strong paladin with Str 14, by 10th level you end up with an 18 Strength, which is typically depicted as being rippling with muscles.

This was pointed out by our group as well as somewhere PF2e fell flat against other systems.

Specifically, you have a decent number of female gamers who want to play a female warrior but don't necessarily want to play one that's starting with an 18 Strength.

Sure you could always say "pretend that she looks like she's still lithe even though she behaves as she has this strength" but ultimately your subconscious makes you feel that if someone has an 18 Strength (the peak of Human potential at 1st level), there should be visible signs that they are that strong.

At any rate, you have this idea for a heroine warrioress who isn't giving off an Amazonian vibe...

"I know, I'll make a paladin archer..."

*looks at rules*

"Nevermind..."

Paladin was a nice class because you didn't need to overload Strength to be effective. The same is true for archery.

(I know the optimizers will always say the best choice was to max that Strength for both paladins and archery, which is correct - but the point here is you could be competitive without doing that).

Now it feels a little more like an MMO where your stat array doesn't really matter - it's like playing Warcraft where you don't really pay attention that your Strength is 932 (or whatever it is these days) and just accept because you picked X as your class, your stats will roughly always look like Y.

The biggest question I've heard from the gamers in my circles who have enough interest in PF2e to download the PDF (but aren't hardcore enough to participate on forums):

"When's the next beta release of the rules?"

A lot of them discarded the rules from the PDF last week for various reasons (most around not wanting to learn certain systems, but many because their wasn't a clear path to certain character concepts). They are willing to invest the effort once it's a little more polished and it's another step iterated (with some of the baggage they don't want to learn - Resonance, Dying rules, etc jettisoned or improved upon).

I'm been suggesting that we'd probably see something in November since that'd be enough time for some 'alpha testing' to have run its course and seems about on par with other TTRPG rulesets I've seen tested via an online audience.

There's nothing official yet though, right?

One thing I'm curious about, is why there was such a big push to get more damage dice rather than boosting static modifiers? Is rolling handfuls of dice for every melee attack really that important?

After some discussion, it almost feels like PF2e was designed to make every little operation in the game be more time-consuming and cumbersome for the average gamer.

That way your gutcheck when picking your fantasy tabletop system is "wow, PF2e is way more heavy than 5e".

A little playtesting and it's pretty apparent that the game (as it exists today in the playtest) finds every possible way to be bulkier than its 5e counterpart (which some folks will like and some will not like).

1. Watching players have to roll more dice (and instead of pick the highest, making them add them all up). To me, it seems like folks are getting worse at basic addition each day.

2. Watching players figure out how to use 3 actions per turn (vs an action and bonus action). "Guys, whats the best way for me to use my last action?"

3. Watching players remember if their action took 1 action, 2 action or 3 actions, or a variable number and what that variable number of actions does.

4. Watching some players take 3 move actions and start counting out squares on a tactical map and lose their place and then have to start over and wonder where they started again.

5. Having players who are a bit math handicapped tell you, "uhh, I hit in the low 20s" and then telling them you need an exact number because you now need to determine if they beat the target by more than 10 since the effect will be different (or vice versa) and then waiting so folks who used to give you "low 20s" as a result" now need to always deliver the exact number.

This will certainly be an uphill battle for PF2e. While a better balanced system from PF1e, he switch cost from PF1e to PF2e is substantially higher than from PF1e to 5e, which will mean many groups stick to PF1e or if they opt to switch they switch to the system that's easier to switch to.

There's nothing preventing folks from sharing characters right?

Perhaps in Spoilers here?

It would be great to see "Here's what I made in 5 minutes" or "Here's what I made in 2 hours" along with some commentary on where the time sink went (i.e. ancestry selection, equipment, etc).

I have players who can spend 2 hours on gear regardless of the game system.

FWIW, it took me ~30 minutes to crank out a human rogue given I already knew the concept I wanted and rushing through it as quick as I could.

But, this is a playtest document. This isn't a polished book. This is about testing rules and such. It isn't about hyping the player up, that isn't what playtesting is for.

You're saying a product company wouldn't want to get my gaming group's players interested/hyped about creating their characters?

We live in a world with a plethora of early access and playtest material for fantasy gaming. In order to even have a shot at being playtested (and thus evolve & shake out to be ultimately successful), a game needs something to motivate a player to spend their evening with their game vs copious alternatives.

I'll elaborate further on my above comments - where I sit today is all the campaigns I'm involved in are still running under non-PF-3.5e or PF rules. Nothing in 5e yet.

Ultimately when we sit down with any of these systems, it's because we are looking for a fantasy roleplaying game, which means a bunch of people who are planning to sit at a table and pretend they're really haughty elves or holier-than-thou paladins or feytouched sorcerers.

My impression is when the kinds of players I know get their hands on a fantasy roleplaying game, they flip to the race or class of the kinds of characters they like to play. For particular folks I'm thinking of (waving at them) - that means flipping to bard, ranger and paladin chapters.

If I were to give a player 5 minutes to flip through:
1) the PF2e Playtest Paladin (pg 104-111)
2) the 5e Paladin (pg 82-88)
3) the PF1e Paladin (pg 60-64)

I feel like PF2e is sorely lacking on what I'd refer to as marketing "fantastical inspiration" that motivates a prospective player to immediately starting rolling up a character.

This has nothing to do with the underlying mechanics of the system (and the fact that a PF2e paladin who dedicates to cleric or fighter paths could be more interesting than their counterparts in other systems, for example).

Consider a prospective player who is weighing their judgement and enthusiasm of a system solely to fulfill their paladin fantasy based on the Playtest pgs 104-111. There's not enough focused on marketing to them, seeding them with ideas and luring them into the PF2e universe to begin play. There's very little that stokes your imagination within the class section and leaves you staring at your buddy saying "Daaaaamn, dude wait 'til you see what I'm gonna make!"

This is because PF2e spends way too much space on pages on very bland concepts. For paladin, this is:

a) (proficient) access to deific weapon
b) a retributive strike if an ally is hit
c) general education about champion powers/spell points
d) getting some feats, and some skill feats
e) a righteous ally (finally something a little interesting..)
f) some general feats
g) some skill increases
h) some ability boosts
i) some ancestry stuff
j) expertise with a weapon
k) some fortitude with armor
l) holy smite (yay! something interesting *at 9th level*)
m) aura of justice (sounds cool, but not too exciting to read)
n) armory mastery
... {list goes on} ...

There's a lot of weeds in the way for someone to find and pick 1 or 2 flowers ~ Your imagination is really not stoked by 2 full pages of "class features".

OK, finally page 108 and some feats to read. I'm sure I'll get something exciting at level 1... what cool choice do I get??

a) domain access (that I need to flip to read)
b) some hospice training
c) lay on hands being less hand gestures

There's not a ton here for fantasy imaginations. I'm not lured into something sensational about being a paladin with these level 1 feats.

So keep reading.

d) divine grace for +2 when I save
e) when i retributive strike vs dragons, bonus..
f) same, with fiends
g) same, with undead

The kicker here is I'm 5 full pages into a paladin section and there's been very little to get imaginative juices flowing.

Now the 5e comparison...

Here's where 5e has learned some tricks to employ in a modern TTRPG which is that a class section has to carry a marketing workload to entice a future budding roleplayer.

Whether you like the underlying crunch of 5e or not, your chronological 5-page journey into the paladin class has:
a) Divine senses, with imagination stoking copy ~ "like a noxious odor", "rings like a heavenly bell"
b) Lay on hands (most folks don't get excited by this)
c) Picking a fighting style, defensive? dueling? great weapon fighting? protection?
d) Spellcasting
e) Divine smiting
f) Divine oaths that "bind the paladin forever, who up to this time was in a preparatory stage..."
g,h,i,j) ... { more ho hum stuff ommitted }
k) Oath of Devotion .. bunch of imaginative, flavorful stuff
l) Oath of Ancients .. bunch of imaginative, flavorful stuff
m) Oath of Vengeance .. bunch of imaginative, flavorful stuff

What 5e has done is its figured out how to make what really is not a ton of choice seem like a "sensational possibility". It's done it really with just tricks on copy choice and how it lays out the content.

PF2e could have within its copy similar "placebo choice" that stokes the imagination to the possibilities that await. Something like "At 2nd level, you'll pick what kind of paladin you want to be with your dedication feat choosing from combat mastery like archery or defensive shield-wielding to focusing more on your medical prowess". And then possibly listing 4 common choices here on how to fulfill those (many which possibly follow the path of a Fighter dedication and some follow up feat choices).

Some of us get how this works. But many folks will not just because of how it was laid out, and that is one of the biggest threats to PF2e success.

Thus this specifically, is my Playtest feedback:

The Playtest doc needs to recognize it must sell fringe players of gaming groups on their favorite styles of class fantasy, hyping them to get to the table in order to test out novel, theatrical abilities (like 5e's spectral grasping hands for an Oath of Ancient's paladin that I gave earlier).

This is particularly salient for Paizo as thats been a bullet fired across their bow countless times - "Finding something cool to do with your characters is like finding a needle in a haystack and better done with build guides". Some of us like that hunt, but there's those folks who just want to sit down and be a hot-headed dragonblooded sorcerer for an evening, with the enabling rulebook sending them with purpose in the direction they didn't know they wanted to go until they read the copy that led them there.

On another note, I suspect this is why Paizo is where they are:

If you're running a game at a con, and if you hand out the pre-gen paladin, it's not as jarring. You avoid the mental tax of parsing the dull and boring copy/formatting and page flipping.

(Thus the positive feedback to date is mostly reflective of being handed a pre-gen and socializing with other games, and not "at home time" having to go from cold to absorbing a system that's standing between you and your future class fantasy)

However, if you flip open the Playtest doc to a class you're interested in - there's a lot of tedium to wade through to try to find something to get excited about, and way too much mental friction to find the "something cool" / sizzle item(s).

The Playtest Doc shows you can't make a new player work hard to find the sizzle in their steak ~ it's like making someone eat 3 bowls of broccoli first.

I see similar friction in just getting player desire to play the game.

I know there's some folks who crack open an RPG and starting reading on page 1, but I think a player who's got some prior experience has some idea of "class fantasy" already in their head when they pick up a Player's Book ~ stuff like "man I love rangers" or "I can't wait to be a shining paladin" floating around already.

So they flip open to their favorite class and try to get invested into the system by starting there (some others might start with a race like elves or dwarves).

Here's where PF2e really struggles vs PF1e, 3.5e or 5e. There's too much "foreign stuff" in the way and not enough sensationalizing why your paladin will be so exciting to play.

Grab the 5e handbook and just the way the written word is presented can get you kind of psyched to play a paladin. The way they present the choice of Oaths. Reading flavor text in order like "you can cause spectral vines to spring up and reach for a creature..." just after you read your Tenets of the Ancients. And because there's not all this ugly formatting and keyword baggage, you keep reading about how you can "utter ancient words that are painful for fey and fiends to hear".

It's like damn, I'm reading about this awesome paladin I could be.

Now compare to PF2e...

The first page is fine, but let's get to what paladins can do.

Deific Weapon : "If your deity's favored weapon is uncommon, you gain access to it..." Yawn.

Retributive Strike : "You are a stalwart protector of those under your charge..." Yawn.

Champion Powers : "Divine power flows through you, and you have learned... Spell points, blah blah." Yawn.

Skill Feats / General Feats / Skill Increases / Ability Boosts / Ancestry Feats / Weapon Expertise / Armored Fortitude ... SUPER YAWN.

(this is a problem all this junk is here because now I'm getting really bored and skipping through what looks like generic baggage and miss Holy Smite since its sandwiched in all this boring stuff about proficiency in simple or martial weapons becoming expert).

OK, I'm finally onto page 108. Here's some feats. What exciting thing can I do?

Deity's Domain: You embody an aspect of your deity. Choose a domain and gain the initial domain power. Gah, I gotta flip around to another area to get excited about this. Pass, I'll flip pages later, maybe this next one...

Hospice Knight : Your long hours in hospice have taught you additional ... Yawn! My time in hospice?? Really?

Warded Touch : You can lay hands in a simple motion without any complicated gestures. THIS IS IT! THIS IS WHAT I'VE BEEN... wait, no.

**

The above I believe is the biggest impediment to PF2e success. Getting players excited about playing a class. I imagine if we had hidden cameras trained on would-be players, Paladin is maybe #1 for the class flipped to first so it's a decent litmus test for being the gateway vehicle for a fantasy RPG.

Try it ~ Hand someone the 3.5e, PF1e, 5e and PF2e "Paladin" section and see which one stirs their fantastic imaginations and gets them fired up to play the most.

The actual delivery of the document was a bit of a bomb here.

"It's just a total mess".

Let's take someone who wants to play a Paladin. For me, most of my players flip to their favorite class and start there in order to get excited.

PF Playtest
1) Page 105 reads great, it's nice fluff about paladins
2) Page 106 has this incredibly dense table which makes it at a glance look like a ton of stuff is going on every level. The word density here is just too high versus the old tables that made leveling a paladin look less tedius
3) I get some friction here as "what if my paladin isn't retributive?" and "where's good old smite evil?"

Here's where it goes downhill FAST
4) Pages 107-111 start to make the game look "messy" and "a lot like what made 4e bad". There's tons of little light grey boxes filled with [Paladin] and the word FEAT dozens of times and tons of horizontal divider lines and the number (14) a bunch of times under a heading of "14th Level" for example.

I'm battling a gut reaction to just how the game is presented which is "an ungodly mess".

5e PHB
Flip open to the 5e Paladin, pages 84-87 and consider the first impression of it "at a glance". The readability here is so much more engaging to a reader versus with PF2e it feels like you're trying to parse information like a code compiler or computer might, like you need HTML tags around each ability to be self contained.

The general notion of "just having spells" vs if you read PF2e having to deal with all kinds of terms from "Spell Points" to "champion powers" to "feats" to "litany" to "metamagic" to "oath".

PF1e Core Rulebook
Pop open your Pathfinder Core Book on the paladin, pages 60-63. There's so much less distracting/business/messiness in the formatting, you can read through your future paladin and the features are organized in the order you'd level up with them, so if you were just worried about a low level paladin you're basically done on page 61.

The main takeaway is that there's some magical about the presentation of game mechanics in 2e, 3e, PF1e and 5e for my player groups. 4e and PF2e do something that the general sentiment is "messy" which derails the desire to fight through the mess and want to play. A lot of the excitement to play fantasy comes from reading fantasy fiction and when the game rules deviate from that simple pleasure of reading fantasy fiction and morph into an appendix for special abilities at the back of a CRPG manual, the enthusiasm wanes significantly.

Round 5
HP: 90/135 | AC 27 (T1123/FF27)
F: +10 R: +6 W: +11
Spells Left Today: 1st - 1/7 | 2nd - 2/7 | 3rd - 3/7 | 4th - 0/6 | 5th - 4/4
Channels Left Today (8d6+1 each): 2/6
Summon Nature's Ally II Left Today: 1/1
Effects: Lifelink (Rhesus), Shield Other (Rhesus), Communal Resist (Cold, Fire), Confusion, Freedom of Movement
Location: Front
SA: Stab Rhesus

Confusion: 1d100 ⇒ 89
Target (1=Monster, 2=Rhesus): 1d2 ⇒ 2

Rut-roh.

Clement blinks a few times as his ward wears off and he's once again subjected to the monster's beguiling gaze.

He turns to Rhesus.

"You.. you... DENIED my magic?! The MAGIC that keeps YOU ALIVE?!"

Ignorant of the fact that stabbing Rhesus is the same as stabbing himself, he thrusts his blade at the barbarian.

+1 corrosive dagger #1: 1d20 + 12 ⇒ (7) + 12 = 19 for 1d4 + 4 + 1d6 ⇒ (4) + 4 + (1) = 9
+1 corrosive dagger #2: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (9) + 7 = 16 for 1d4 + 4 + 1d6 ⇒ (3) + 4 + (3) = 10

Thanks for running the calcs and doing the breakdowns, Zek!