Your wife's name's Morgan? Wow! If you ever have a kid, would you name him Mordred?
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I freakin' love Advance Wars, despite being terrible at it.The reality of the matter is, while skill can increase enjoyment by allowing you to access deeper nuances of a game, it's fundamentally not required for enjoyment. I love Guilty Gears games and while I'm generally pretty good at Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, and most of the Dragon Ball fighters (or similar games), I never got the hang of Guilty Gears, so I just play it like a button masher and hope for the best. Still love it.
Big mood. I was lucky to get good enough to beat Godhand. Couldn't do it now.
Your wife's name's Morgan? Wow! If you ever have a kid, would you name him Mordred?I strongly suspect it's in my best interests not to christen any potential children of mine with a name that invokes stories of patricide.
OMG LOL! So Chronus, Zeus and Oedipus are also out, then. In the same vein, while I love the name Daedalus (or Dedalo in Spanish), I wouldn't name my kid after one of the most famous rebels (thou shall ovey your parents... or else).
I named my kid Shariar after the king from the Arabian Nights, and now I fear for his future wife XD
Since this thread is about asking you random stuf... Did you know that today is Shoryuken day?
https://www.eventhubs.com/news/2021/jun/23/shoryuken-day-celebration-sf-623 /
To celebrate, I'm going to post a preview on something I've been working on for some time.
https://paizo.com/threads/rzs43eqv?Celebrating-Shoryuken-day
Sorry about the format and not-embedded links!
Is it by design that the Volt Dancer unchained monk archetype is even more MAD (or, if you prefer, MADder?) than most unchained monks, due to relying on Int to spark, but not having any features that alter the ability scores that the monk relies on?
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Is it by design that the Volt Dancer unchained monk archetype is even more MAD (or, if you prefer, MADder?) than most unchained monks, due to relying on Int to spark, but not having any features that alter the ability scores that the monk relies on?
The question is a little loaded in its phrasing, but to unpack it-
It's intentional that Spark of Inspiration doesn't rewrite to Wisdom over Intelligence. Base Path of War intentionally breaks the martial balance of PF1 to create more powerful combat options, and that's something that the options in The Voltaic release specifically avoid doing by preserving the martial performance ceilings while raising the floor. If the volt dancer rewrote SoI to use Wisdom instead, it would be blatantly better than other unchained monks. Instead, the paradigm is set up to force a choice as to which stat you're going to pull from to boost Intelligence: Strength, Dexterity, or Wisdom. Strength is generally the easiest pick, since Dexterity can subsume a lot of Strength's functionality anyways, but swapping either of the other stats has its own particular advantages and drawbacks.Options like boosts and counters can be used for improved survivability, reducing the need for Con alongside the unchained monk's larger hit dice, and of course stances and maneuvers add bonus damage that can compensate for a lower Strength.
So the premise that they don't have any features that alter the ability scores monks rely on isn't really correct; a volt dancer using e.g. Dex, Int, and Wis will have similar damage and performance profiles to an unchained monk who invests Str, Dex, and Wis; better survivability with a few counters and boosts unless the UnC monk is also able to put points in Con to even that curve (though with an improved stat spread like that the storm dancer could also pump Strength to save on feats like Agile Maneuvers and improve their damage and control profile); and better mobility and versatility thanks to a combination of maneuvers and unique class features.
What they don't have is a stat consolidator that would allow them to add all of those advantages on top of the performance of a standard unchained monk.
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Since this thread is about asking you random stuf... Did you know that today is Shoryuken day?
https://www.eventhubs.com/news/2021/jun/23/shoryuken-day-celebration-sf-623 /To celebrate, I'm going to post a preview on something I've been working on for some time.
https://paizo.com/threads/rzs43eqv?Celebrating-Shoryuken-daySorry about the format and not-embedded links!
I definitely missed Shoryuken day, but I've added it to the calendar for next year :P
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It's almost Akashic Mysteries 5th birthday! It was released 5 years ago in August IIRC.
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Great job on the Iconic Encounter: Whispers in the Storm short fiction. It got me thinking about Seltyiel as a character and his moral outlook.
What alignment, if any, did you give Seltyiel when you were writing the story? I know in his adventure path debut is was lawful evil, and in Pathifnder Society it was LN (I guess because no evil PCs in PFS, Meligaster the iconic mesmerist was the same).
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Great job on the Iconic Encounter: Whispers in the Storm short fiction. It got me thinking about Seltyiel as a character and his moral outlook.
What alignment, if any, did you give Seltyiel when you were writing the story? I know in his adventure path debut is was lawful evil, and in Pathifnder Society it was LN (I guess because no evil PCs in PFS, Meligaster the iconic mesmerist was the same).
I see him as riding the line between Neutral Evil and Lawful Evil. I think he's probably more Neutral Evil if you look closely, in that he's really self-centered and arrogant to the point that everything he does is really about his own journey and paying back slights against him in excessive measure. But I can see how my peers arrived at Lawful Evil too, in that he's kind of got a code and at least in his head there's always a justification to his actions, whether it be that the person he's hurting has done something to deserve it, from Seltyiel's perspective, or that he's simply balancing some kind of universal scale.
I think he's treading the line so closely between the two that it really comes down to his intent, and I think in his own mind Seltyiel always knows exactly why he's doing a thing and sees it as restoring order to an unfair world (even if he always ends up benefiting from the actions he takes to impose that order). So, Lawful Evil by a hair and largely because he's just self-aware enough to recognize that his actions do require some justification.
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How do I break out of my roleplaying comfort zone and play characters in different campaigns that feel different enough from each other to be unique characters, rather than the same archetypal profile with a different coat of paint each time?
I feel like I've fallen into a bad habit where my characters end up being the same LG semi-mystical tank character even if their class isn't always Paladin (sometimes it's Bard or Cleric or Oracle or Magus) and their ancestry, gender and choice of deity vary a bit, and that it's making me a boring player...
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How do I break out of my roleplaying comfort zone and play characters in different campaigns that feel different enough from each other to be unique characters, rather than the same archetypal profile with a different coat of paint each time?
I feel like I've fallen into a bad habit where my characters end up being the same LG semi-mystical tank character even if their class isn't always Paladin (sometimes it's Bard or Cleric or Oracle or Magus) and their ancestry, gender and choice of deity vary a bit, and that it's making me a boring player...
Start by picking something that is mechanically really different. If you play a lot of elf champions, make an orc barbarian. Then pick one character trait (maybe you grunt instead of saying "yes" or "ok"). Don't worry about the other pieces yet, just practice that one trait until it comes naturally to you in the game. Then pick one more trait that's different from what you normally do (maybe you don't like people but you are extremely protective of children).
Don't worry about jumping into the deep end and making a fully fleshed character right out of the gate, give yourself time to get the know character and see where each piece of the puzzle takes you along the way. Maybe you even mimic a character from a comic book who has a personality you find interesting and borrow pieces from that until you've built a new persona.
Little things can build into more complex personalities and consistency is what helps you get there, so just piece them together one Lego block at a time and pretty soon you'll have a complete character with their own personality. Then do it again in the next game (it'll probably go faster the next time through). Once you have 3 or 4 personas that you know really well, start mixing and matching. This character also grunts in response most of the time, but doesn't get children and feels uncomfortable around them. This character is LG but in an extremely gentle way. So on and so forth.
How much info on the humans of Akiton does your SoT volume give, if you feel comfortable answering? I’d love to have anything to hang onto for RP if I ran a small game there, and I’d prefer to have the party be locals.
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How much info on the humans of Akiton does your SoT volume give, if you feel comfortable answering? I’d love to have anything to hang onto for RP if I ran a small game there, and I’d prefer to have the party be locals.
There's enough information to run some other adventures on Akiton if you want, but I'd just say to keep in mind that as the penultimate volume of Strength of Thousands, the backmatter's focus is on a general gazetteer of Akiton and all the specific goodies you need to run the adventure printed in the volume.
How much info on the humans of Akiton does your SoT volume give, if you feel comfortable answering? I’d love to have anything to hang onto for RP if I ran a small game there, and I’d prefer to have the party be locals.There's enough information to run some other adventures on Akiton if you want, but I'd just say to keep in mind that as the penultimate volume of Strength of Thousands, the backmatter's focus is on a general gazetteer of Akiton and all the specific goodies you need to run the adventure printed in the volume.
Appreciate the reply! If you don’t mind two specific asks: is there info on the native humans (what Starfinder has called Hylki) and iruxi (what Starfinder has called ikeshti)?
Howdy, I recently noticed that the section "Damage Types and Traits" originally on page 451 of the CRB was removed in its later printings/pdfs. It dealt with how weapons inherited traits from the damage types they dealt (a flaming weapon would have the fire trait for its attack actions).
I wasn't able to find any FAQ or explanation for why the section was taken out, so I was wondering if you could verify that it was removed intentionally and not taken out for type-fitting/in error? I'm not sure how I would rule if it came up and it does have interesting connections to things like conducting runes that players could pick up.
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Howdy, I recently noticed that the section "Damage Types and Traits" originally on page 451 of the CRB was removed in its later printings/pdfs. It dealt with how weapons inherited traits from the damage types they dealt (a flaming weapon would have the fire trait for its attack actions).
I wasn't able to find any FAQ or explanation for why the section was taken out, so I was wondering if you could verify that it was removed intentionally and not taken out for type-fitting/in error? I'm not sure how I would rule if it came up and it does have interesting connections to things like conducting runes that players could pick up.
This isn't really the place for core rules clarifications. We try to handle that as a team through publicly accessible venues (and specifically the FAQ and Errata page) so that everyone has access to the answers, and so that an off-the-cuff response that isn't phrased exactly right doesn't lead to people getting the wrong impression or deploying an out of context response to try and resolve a rules question.
Sometimes there's an easy question that we can solve by pointing to a specific section of the book without directing someone elsewhere, but "Can you comment on the intent/intentionality of this errata" is outside of that box.
Yeah I wasn't sure if this would be alright because it's more about "Is this errata at all?". Thanks for taking the time to reply regardless.
Can Mysterial monks learn blood or ring veils?
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Can Mysterial monks learn blood or ring veils?
Not in a way that's functional, since they don't have the slot. Most characters don't have a ring or blood veil slot as they're unique to viziers and daevics (respectively), so even if you were to gain the ability to shape it, you don't have anywhere to shape it.
Hi! :-) How is it going? I can tell that there are many things on schedule.
I find somewhat difficult to "grasp" the impact of the numbers and how they affect the game. I mean, I read about this spell that grants a +1 bonus or that condition which inflicts a -1 penalty... or an ability such as rage that grants a +2 attack roll bonus... and I can not "feel" the importance of those increases/decreases. And since I plan to introduce the game to other people, it worries me that they will also struggle to understand the usefulness of them, to the point that they might avoid those "+ / -" effects as "pointless" or situational.
A more concrete example is Mage Armor. I am not sure how to "quantify" this and judge objectively if it is worth the spell slot for "just" a +1 bonus to AC (in the most basic form of the spell).
Could you give any advice in order for me to strengthen my understanding of the mathematics behind the game and thus be able to appreciate any such effects towards the dice roll outcomes?
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Hi! :-) How is it going? I can tell that there are many things on schedule.
I find somewhat difficult to "grasp" the impact of the numbers and how they affect the game. I mean, I read about this spell that grants a +1 bonus or that condition which inflicts a -1 penalty... or an ability such as rage that grants a +2 attack roll bonus... and I can not "feel" the importance of those increases/decreases. And since I plan to introduce the game to other people, it worries me that they will also struggle to understand the usefulness of them, to the point that they might avoid those "+ / -" effects as "pointless" or situational.
A more concrete example is Mage Armor. I am not sure how to "quantify" this and judge objectively if it is worth the spell slot for "just" a +1 bonus to AC (in the most basic form of the spell).
Could you give any advice in order for me to strengthen my understanding of the mathematics behind the game and thus be able to appreciate any such effects towards the dice roll outcomes?
Absolutely.
So one key thing to do as a GM is call it out when those numbers make a difference. Because they can and will but feeling that they are is difficult to achieve if you don't get the flag in the story you're experiencing.
As an example of this, I was running a one-off game just recently where the bard's inspire courage and the rogue's flank helped turned the gunslinger's hit with a gun sword into a crit and the way I described it was "As the point of your blade skitters along the tyrant's breastplate, you feel a surge of confidence from Bella's inspiring song and you lean into the blow, thrusting forward as Tak shoves the enemy from behind. As your blade punctures the enemy's armor, you pull the trigger on your hilt, releasing a thunderous blast of lead and fire into the wound."
My players knew that their bonuses had led to that change in the situation and I included everyone involved into the description of the effect, so no one was left wondering whether or not their efforts had contributed to the moment and they all got to share in that spectacular (and lethal!) attack. It'll also create touchpoints in your own memories of the times this kind of thing came up, and the more often it comes up (which is going to be pretty consistent with the frequency at which you play, at least in my experience) the less both you and the players are going to doubt the power of these small bonuses. Same thing with mage armor. Whenever an attack misses because of the difference made by your mage armor and/or any other defensive buffs, don't just say "The attack missed you" and move on to the next action or character. Take the time to say "As the enemy's club whistles towards your ribs, you manage dance back just enough that the force of the blow is absorbed and deflected by your magical wards and protections." Don't just let the bonuses exist, make them part of the story. In the case of the mage armor, that's up for the whole day, so once it's helped deflect even one attack or turned one crit into a normal hit, the questions about whether or not it's worth the slot should start drying up pretty fast.
Similarly, don't be afraid to recontextualize what a bonus specifically means in the moment when it makes a better story and doesn't interfere with what the players are trying to accomplish. Rules are paths to bigger, more cohesive stories and more exciting games, not straitjackets dictating your story. In the story about the crit above, I attributed the rogue's contribution from making the enemy flat-footed as being active rather than just limiting it to "the tyrant is too busy keeping one eye to watch your party member" and attributed the shove (not Shove) to the many minor movements and adjustments that are actively happening during combat and which are part of the activity that things like 5-foot squares are implying about combat interactions anyways. Be sure your players are on board with that kind of interpretive storytelling and give them opportunities to describe the moment themselves if they want (most of my players defer to me describing the results of events and actions like this, but I'm in another group where the GM always tells us mechanically what happened and then lets the person whose turn it is interpret that information into the story. Both types of storytelling work really well and it's all about going with the version that the group is happiest with.)
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As to the math of the game itself-
One thing to keep in mind is that even as your level and proficiency numbers rise, the numbers on a d20 are constant and you will also be facing increasingly high level opponents. So a +1 to your AC as a 1st level character fighting a 1st level enemy still has roughly the same effectiveness as a +1 to the AC of a 20th level character fighting a 20th level enemy, but is even more valuable to a 20th level character fighting three 18th level enemies since it might do something like e.g. make it impossible for those enemies to get a crit on anything less than a natural 20. You'll also have more bonuses available to combine once you get out of the lower levels, so you might find that e.g. shield, mage armor, and sanctified ground are collectively working together in a way that changes the dynamic more than any one bonus type could pull on its own, and in a very signficant way.
Anecdotally, I'll note that my experience with people who underestimate the value of these bonuses is that those players tend to get hit or fail their saves a lot more than the people who recognize the value of the bonuses and utilize them, which is often the difference between a party thinking an adventure was relatively easy and another party wondering why someone would publish such a punishing meat grinder.
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Wow, thank you so much!!! The advice of incorporating the effects of those numbers in the narration is amazing! I am very grateful for your input! :-) And about the math, I've started watching the Band of Bravos episodes (yeah I'm somewhat late to the party...) and I think I can tell that even the +1 "inspiration" bonus from the bard can indeed in many cases make a difference...
What's a mechanism you'd love to steal from another game and put it in Pathfinder?
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What's a mechanism you'd love to steal from another game and put it in Pathfinder?
Hmmmm.... That's a really good question! I was playing Blades in the Dark recently and I really liked that your crew and base had their own character sheet that was simple enough for the group to easily manage but deep and meaningful enough to really spark some engagement and entertainment. I could totally see myself adapting that for PF2, especially since one of my many side projects I've been playing around with is a guild-based campaign setting.
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What's a mechanism you'd love to steal from another game and put it in Pathfinder?Hmmmm.... That's a really good question! I was playing Blades in the Dark recently and I really liked that your crew and base had their own character sheet that was simple enough for the group to easily manage but deep and meaningful enough to really spark some engagement and entertainment. I could totally see myself adapting that for PF2, especially since one of my many side projects has been playing around with a guild-based campaign setting.
Yeah, the party having a "class" of its own is one of my favorite pieces of Forged in the Dark design tech.
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Yes! The idea of a second character of sorts that the whole group shares is fascinating.
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Hi Toz! Dipping my toes back in.
I think the idea could be applied with some success to a traveling group that surrounds the party, so followers and what not. That way you still get the flavor of the followers and supporting cast, but without having to micromanage them all.
Could get very abstract and say that the shared resource is the party's destiny and reputation (or dare I say, mythic destiny?), with modifications to capabilities that way. Go do this quest to get Fame in a region, to which you can use to have people do odd favors for you around town, etc. Very fun to think about.
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Have you guys read the PF1ed 3pp book called "the five families", it makes organization into kind of characters, including 6 ability scores that more or less correspond to a character's.
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I've not seen it, no!
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Is the 2E formian supposed to have only the formian trait?
James Jacobs gives a fairly comprehensive answer to that quesetion in this thread.
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Loved your interview with Deadly d8, especially your comments near the end about fantasy being bigger and speaking to more people than what the hobby traditional defines it as; the shoutout for El Santo is awesome, too.
Is there a place on Golarion you're most eager to spend some time in, either literally or in writing?
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Loved your interview with Deadly d8, especially your comments near the end about fantasy being bigger and speaking to more people than what the hobby traditional defines it as; the shoutout for El Santo is awesome, too.
Thanks!
Is there a place on Golarion you're most eager to spend some time in, either literally or in writing?
Hmmmm....
Literally: Jalmeray, the Lands of Second Souls (where undead luchadors wander the reachs searching for the final ultimate contest that will finally satisfy their ambition), or Absalom.
Literary-ally: Sarkoris Scar, Land of Northern Lakes, or Razmiran
Hey, how's everything?
I have a question about akashic dragons. I'm trying to make a new type for my games, and after reading all the akashic dragos section, I get that they get veilweaving but not class features of a class, not even essence. Extrapolating, Vritra get their racial HD+1 in essence, but just want to be sure.
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Hey, how's everything?
Busy but good! Hope things are going well on your end.
I have a question about akashic dragons. I'm trying to make a new type for my games, and after reading all the akashic dragos section, I get that they get veilweaving but not class features of a class, not even essence. Extrapolating, Vritra get their racial HD+1 in essence, but just want to be sure.
Vritra have the akashic subtype, which means they have an essence pool equal to their Hit Dice (if you have Akashic Mysteries, the relevant subtype info is on page 76). So that puts their essence pool at 8, then the example vritra has Extra Essence and Essence of the Immortal as two of the feats it gains based on its Hit Die, bringing it up to 11.
Akashic creatures generally don't have class features or class levels, but vritra are the critters that first taught veilweaving to mortal viziers, so they have the same veilweaving progression as the vizier class, called out in the vritra's veilweaving ability, with matching number of veils and bind progression. Depending on what you want your akashic dragon to do, it could have pretty much any veilweaving progression it needs re: # of veils and which binds it gets in what order, but you probably don't want to give it a progression that's better than vizier since that class and the vritra are intended to set the parameters for "best in class".
Is there a place on Golarion you're most eager to spend some time in, either literally or in writing?Hmmmm....
Literally: Jalmeray, the Lands of Second Souls (where undead luchadors wander the reachs searching for the final ultimate contest that will finally satisfy their ambition), or Absalom.
Literary-ally: Sarkoris Scar, Land of Northern Lakes, or Razmiran
Surely there's places to put your feet up in the Land of Northern Lakes? And I can't think of more honest work than trying to carve out some coziness in poor old Sarkoris.
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Surely there's places to put your feet up in the Land of Northern Lakes? And I can't think of more honest work than trying to carve out some coziness in poor old Sarkoris.
Oh, for sure, I just have an aversion to demons and have become accustomed to more temperate climes in my years away from Alaska.
Vritra have the akashic subtype, which means they have an essence pool equal to their Hit Dice (if you have Akashic Mysteries, the relevant subtype info is on page 76). So that puts their essence pool at 8, then the example vritra has Extra Essence and Essence of the Immortal as two of the feats it gains based on its Hit Die, bringing it up to 11.
Akashic creatures generally don't have class features or class levels, but vritra are the critters that first taught veilweaving to mortal viziers, so they have the same veilweaving progression as the vizier class, called out in the vritra's veilweaving ability, with matching number of veils and bind progression. Depending on what you want your akashic dragon to do, it could have pretty much any veilweaving progression it needs re: # of veils and which binds it gets in what order, but you probably don't want to give it a progression that's better than vizier since that class and the vritra are intended to set the parameters for "best in class".
I am making a monk-y imperial/akashic dragon, so they will have guru veilweaving but no class features or philosophy. And no, they won't be wielding nunchaku LOL
As a game designer, what is the worst part of your job?
Hey, I just made a 1st level character as per a request, and noticed something. A Wrath Daevic with the Daevic Aspect, Chakra Power and Akashic Charge feats would have 3 sources of insight bonuses to damage, that apply under different conditions but could potentially all apply to the same action (a charge with power attack). The question is, would they stack? Or should Wrath Daevic just stay away from those feats since his Daevic Aspect alone gives more insight bonus to damage?
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Hey, I just made a 1st level character as per a request, and noticed something. A Wrath Daevic with the Daevic Aspect, Chakra Power and Akashic Charge feats would have 3 sources of insight bonuses to damage, that apply under different conditions but could potentially all apply to the same action (a charge with power attack). The question is, would they stack? Or should Wrath Daevic just stay away from those feats since his Daevic Aspect alone gives more insight bonus to damage?
Only the highest insight bonus applies, so in a charging power attack you'd end up with redundant bonuses.
As a game designer, what is the worst part of your job?
Lol, the answer to that question is the same reason I can't answer it.
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Testing....
***Edit***
It worked! By the way, I'm the Design Manager for the Rules and Lore team making the Lost Omens books and Design hardcovers now.
Massive congrats!! Super excited to see what you and Luis put together; you know I'm a big cheerleader for Arcadia stuff, but I'm all over whatever you can put out :>