IIRC it's canonical that some people get to walk away from the Test of the Starstone with fabulous wealth and no greater powers, but some people just get to walk away with their lives and nothing else.
I wonder what the ratio of "people who fall in the pit" to "people who expire in the cathedral" is.
From reading the Absalom book, enough people fall into the pit that a dive bar has turned it into a form of entertainment, so I'd assume that's the far more common result. Especially with the superstition that, to succeed at the test, you have to cross the pit in a unique way.
Is mythic confirmed??mythic rules playtestAny specific hopes or fears?hopes. thiers multiple mechanics for becoming a demigod the starstone bieng the primary obviously 2 stat chart for for 26-30 3 stats for the 4 horsemen psycopomp ushers and maybe the eldest
fears it never bieng a thing its the only big thing I want from the system at this point
No.
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I mean, if I'm being honest, what I've been hoping for for a while is something related to the Darklands. Yes, partly that's because I'd love to get official Darklands ancestries, like drow, duergar, and svirfneblin, but honestly, I love underground stuff! Cave systems, underground lakes, aboleths, I love all that stuff. But all of the suggestions here are also super cool (Inquisitor please).
I would totally be down for some Darklands stuff!
There are so many things to like about running a Darklands adventure. You can more easily isolate your players from NPC assistance, you don't have to pay too much attention to overland features like kingdom borders, you can seamlessly transition between "travel" and "dungeon exploration", you can experiment more easily with limited resource or claustrophobia gameplay, and you can get *wild* with the creatures that show up in a way you can't really explain if you're a mile from a major city.
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I'm trying to make my peace with the playtest being for primal classes, because I think they fit both of my frontrunners for the next LO book (either the Broken Lands or Tian Xia) better than divine options, even though it breaks my heart.
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If it's a primal book that's revealed I really hope it has a bunch of new subclasses.
An elemental barb (the equivalent to 5e's storm herald, except not garbage) etc.
The shifter as a concept dosent speak to me at all. A shaman could be cool, but it sounds like it would be more of a spiritualist/mystic vibe than a WoW 'I smack you with lightning sheathed hammers'. So again a eh for me.
That said if they surprise us all and make a 4e warden ish wisdom based defender, well then I might have a new favourite class.
A more faithful Shaman class is steadily creeping up the list of options I want to see, personally. Lots of neat real-world inspo to draw on, and lots of cultures in the setting to anchor them.
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I'm predicting that the Dark Archives hype has been so big that they're going to announce Dim Records at GenCon.
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I'm going to lay a prediction that if they do announce a playtest, the resulting class or classes will be a significant disappointment in the playtest, but really kind of awesome in the final version.
I would be not at all surprised if they playtest another wave casting class.
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As long as it's not disappointing in the playtest and just as disappointing in the final version.
A wave casting class could be cool. I half expect something more adventurous in design, but I also feel like some type of battlemage that isn't Arcane is a wide open design space crying out to be filled.
A more faithful Shaman class is steadily creeping up the list of options I want to see, personally. Lots of neat real-world inspo to draw on, and lots of cultures in the setting to anchor them.If it's a primal book that's revealed I really hope it has a bunch of new subclasses.
An elemental barb (the equivalent to 5e's storm herald, except not garbage) etc.
The shifter as a concept dosent speak to me at all. A shaman could be cool, but it sounds like it would be more of a spiritualist/mystic vibe than a WoW 'I smack you with lightning sheathed hammers'. So again a eh for me.
That said if they surprise us all and make a 4e warden ish wisdom based defender, well then I might have a new favourite class.
If I can take a moment to send praise to a cool 3rd party thing, Legendary Game's Shaman was actually a pretty good example of what I'd hope for 2e Shaman. It completely rewrote the class to take a lot more inspiration from real world shamanic practices, and had support for Primal and Occult casters (which I thought made sense, communing with either human or more animistic spirits in nature). It also has three subclasses, one turns it into Medium-lite, another wields a magical relic, and another anchors the realm of spirits to the material world in a physical space. It's really cool stuff. So I can see the case for a Shaman that has Primal elements to it without resorting to bad stereotypes. Primal has some weird connotations to it in general I don't think are well deserved.
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As long as it's not disappointing in the playtest and just as disappointing in the final version.
A wave casting class could be cool. I half expect something more adventurous in design, but I also feel like some type of battlemage that isn't Arcane is a wide open design space crying out to be filled.
There's plenty of space to be adventurous with wave casters. You have an entire half-class to play with.
Mostly I'm running this based on what makes sense strategically. It wouldn't have made sense to try to push more wave casters until they'd had a chance to see how magus and summoner played out in real life. Those two have now been around for long enough to get a good, clear idea of how they run in actual play at a wide variety of tables, so now's a good time to try more of them.
I still see Thaumaturge and Psychic as having been pushes in the direction of "slotless caster" but I don't expect that we'll see any further push in that direction until they, too, have had a chance to show themselves under actual play conditions.
We've also had the gunslinger and the inventor around now for a decent length of time, but I don't really feel like there's anything there that particularly points at paths to grow out from? I kind of feel like each of them is their own thing - they've reached their destination, and there isn't really anything past it.
As for witch... well, I feel like they've been getting better at this as they go. Gunslinger and Inventor seem to have done fine, and the other four recent drops have been really very solid. It is kind of a shame about Witch and Alchemist, but you sometimes make mistakes when your'e building out a new system, you know?
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Oh I hope not, it's hard enough gazing longingly at the several Rare ancestries I adore but my GMs will never let me use, and from what I hear there's Archetypes in DA that are going on that same list. To have entire classes to drool over but be barred from would be absolute torture.
Oh I hope not, it's hard enough gazing longingly at the several Rare ancestries I adore but my GMs will never let me use, and from what I hear there's Archetypes in DA that are going on that same list. To have entire classes to drool over but be barred from would be absolute torture.
Why do they restrict them?
Usually just on basis of it being Rare. My GMs so far have allowed moderate access to Uncommon options but have pretty much barred Rare and up outright for most games. Had one who was talking about doing an "Over the top Fantasy BS" game where I was hopeful but that died before even making it to character creation.
Simply because they are Rare, or are there particular reasons? Most of the Ancestries aren't even that crazy imo.
Simply because they're Rare, yeah. Anything with the Rare tag is basically just put off-limits. Which is honestly about what I expected from my group back when the Playtest came out. At least I can get Uncommon.
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While I really love rarity, there are def GMs who load it with assumptions of imbalance and err hard on that.
Meanwhile I think my game acknowledges spell and magic item rarity only, just to keep some items as reward onlys.
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Shaman class would fit if Gatewalkers is a clue for 2023 being our Broken Lands year, Avistan trading off with Garund between years. Kellids and Sarkorians have similar traditions, historically, as do the nearby-but-technically-outside Iobarians. There’s also a lot of fey stuff across the River Kingdoms, which would again nicely fit a Primal book tie-in.
Rarity tends to be more a matter of prevalency in the game world than anything else. So I hope those GM's aren't barring them under the belief that Rare always means more power. Either way, it is pretty unfortunate that none of your groups seem willing to explore Rare options; especially where Ancestries are concerned. As Luis stated in a different thread, Rarity changes as location does. So Arcadia likely has all the Core Ancestry options, but some are likely Uncommon or Rare in that case. Hope you get the chance to play with some of those rules one day. ^^
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More on topic; I'll take anything they choose to give us, but I am still hoping for Mass Combat rules soon. I'd expect them to be in Kingmaker, but a dedicated martial book is more what I'm looking for atm.
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Alrighty, so, predictions:
Rulebook: Either something exploration and primal based, or an organization based book that includes mass combat rules.
Lost Omens: another Rogue's Gallery entry. My hope is for a bunch of minor factions and potential mentors, but we'll see.
Lost Omens: Harrow seems like a longshot, but it would finish of the Year of Spooky in a satisfying way (allowing for all of the uproar pushing stuff into 2023 that would have originally been late 2022).
Adventure: I would deeply appreciate an entry in the 9-11 range. There's no pattern to these, so this could be anything.
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Like most folks, I'd love an inquisitor and a shaman.
One of my favorite series in PF1 was the softcovers Classic series (Classic Horrors Revisited, and the like).
I'd still love a book chock full of all types of pre-made NPC villains for all levels.
Less a prediction and more a discussion point: how do we feel about the idea of Paizo potentially developing another setting outside of Golarion and the Pact World? Like something akin to Eberron or Forgotten Realms in scope. Or even d20 Modern.
I know Golarion isn't everyone's favorite setting. But would anyone be opposed to a new setting using the same system?
Idea mostly stems from doing something similar to Drift Crisis for PF2. The only thing that make sense, in my head, is maybe a new setting. It could take place in the same universe. Like maybe expanding on what may be happening to Earth and its Star System. Maybe something in a parallel universe perhaps?
Thoughts? Posted it here only because it could fall into a prediction if it came true. But may make a separate thread depending on how expansive the conversation becomes.
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I would be opposed, yeah - Golarion’s only gotten around to one and a half of its own continents in any real depth. I there’s already more to the setting than there’s a plausible hope of the writers getting to, and all of the current mechanics are shot through with Golarion flavor.
We’re still basically blind on anything about Casmaron. We don’t know the names of most Arcadian nations. We haven’t ever seen the bottom 2/3 of Garund. Many parts of Tian Xia still have less than 3 pages of info on them.
It would feel a lot like being abandoned, IMO.
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Less a prediction and more a discussion point: how do we feel about the idea of Paizo potentially developing another setting outside of Golarion and the Pact World? Like something akin to Eberron or Forgotten Realms in scope. Or even d20 Modern.
I know Golarion isn't everyone's favorite setting. But would anyone be opposed to a new setting using the same system?
Idea mostly stems from doing something similar to Drift Crisis for PF2. The only thing that make sense, in my head, is maybe a new setting. It could take place in the same universe. Like maybe expanding on what may be happening to Earth and its Star System. Maybe something in a parallel universe perhaps?
Thoughts? Posted it here only because it could fall into a prediction if it came true. But may make a separate thread depending on how expansive the conversation becomes.
Before Starfinder, I would have said "it'll never happen". After Starfinder, I will say, "it'll never happen again". Even then, Starfinder kept and built off of the existing setting and lore.
This is especially true because if somebody at Paizo wanted to make such a thing, it's the perfect thing to launch separately from Paizo under the OGL. See: Jason Bulmahn's Eventide setting. There are other third-party settings, like Indigo Isles for PF2 and Grimmerspace for Starfinder.
Plus... of the people who are interested in PF2's rules but not the setting, how many would be interested in a specific different setting done by Paizo? I imagine a lot of them aren't interested because they prefer their homebrew setting, or they use a setting from another company (whether a D&D setting or a fantasy series), and there's no setting Paizo could make from scratch that would catch their fancy.
If they do announce exactly what you suggested at GenCon, though, I will be very amused at how wrong I got this.
My gut instinct in that 2023 is a primal year, the way 2022 was a spooky/occult year. Fey bestiary, primal book with Shaman and Kineticist, and a Lost Omens entry in the Broken Lands. I don't know why I feel so certain, but I do - and I'd be a little bummed, but I know lots of other folks would be happy.
...so when it ends up being an Inquisitor/Medium divine book with Neutral Champions and an Arcadia book, I get to be pleasantly surprised :D
I'm doubtful it'll happen any time soon. Before anything, I'm certainly more interested in the established things we know almost nothing about. But I'm also open to completely new concepts as well.
Pathfinder Modern has been something I've had in the brain files for a while and would love to see.
Is there any ideas for a Drift Crisis style event that you think could work in Pathfinder?
Several. The easiest would be a Rovagug centered event, as it could happen simultaneously across the entire globe, with both local and regional effects to be contained, and a Mythic adventure path to contain the Rough Beast once again, probably centered on (or at least ending in) Casmaron and the Pit of Gormuz.
Imagine dozens of minor and major incursions, allowing plot hooks centered on a wide scattering of locations that need no other unifying theme beyond "it sounds neat".
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Is there any ideas for a Drift Crisis style event that you think could work in Pathfinder?
Something immense and world-changing, like from the AP plots from before. Something as important as Tyrant's Grasp's inciting incident of Tar-Baphon escaping his prison. Or maybe the formation of another huge threat (like the Worldwound).
I thought before it'd be unlikely to happen due to the writers of Paizo wanting the players to experience the world-changing events via the APs, but doing what Drift Crisis did and pair a rulebook full of adventure hooks in with an AP would be the best compromise I can see them doing.
OOOH!! Maybe something major in Numeria occurring and using that as a platform to drop Numeria-related tech all over the world.
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I feel like the only reason that you would want a different setting is to have different metaphysics, and Paizo seems pretty invested in their metaphysics.
Otherwise, if you want to have different societies, different people, etc. you can just do it on a different part of Golarion, or on a different planet that is reachable from Golarion.
I'm one of the few diehard defenders of the Spellplague, so I'm potentially interested in a Drift Crisis-style big deal - but again, there's so much of the setting we still haven't gotten to see the status quo of in any real depth, so I'd sooner prioritize that.
As for what I'd reach for myself, a big Dominion of the Black invasion and/or something that touches on Zon-Kuthon and his corruption could both hit a variety of locales, and offer interesting new player options some spotlight. The two might be linked, or part of some other aberration-heavy plotline with cosmic horror vibes, but I think both are overdue for some more spotlight.
I had an idea at one point, but I forgot to make notes on it and can't recall.
I feel like a world changing event should be something largely plot agnostic, but effect something pervasive enough to the plot that it is universal, if that make sense. Like the the Drift Crisis I feel does that. The Drift is a universal plot device that largely sits in the background of the setting. Then, suddenly, it stops working, and the narrative throughout the entire setting changes.
Kind of what I'm looking for I guess. Like, imagine if Pharasma and Philosophy never stopped working, and then it suddenly did. That has the potential to change how everything works in-setting.
I can't imagine something that would be disruptive enough to make a difference, but not enough to flip the entire system on its head. So something like loss of magic or deities doesn't sound like a good idea to me.
Hmmm.....
Something really big but not the complete loss of deities or magic.
What if all of a sudden all undead ceased to be undead.
Pharasma and Sarenrae win! Yay... (kind of impactful for Geb... sort of takes care of they Whispering Tyrant for everyone)
So with an idea back to Drift Crisis... there could be a few 'resolutions' of the Undeath Crisis. One might re-enable magics that could make undead... but only new ones... ones from before the 'point' are destroyed and don't come back.
Another resolution could reveal it was only a pause on the magics and existences of undead. Those undead where were able to/strong enough/lucky enough to survive through the 'pause' find themselves existing again, but potentially weaker in cases. This might be a Infinity Wars level event for them... potentially wiping out half or even 4/5th of their sentient populations out.
(might even explain the existence of the Corpse Fleet in the future... they blame some unknown group of the living for their near permanent extinction)
However, whatever stopped undead from existing, might also have impacted the ability to do certain other planar magics dealing with the souls of others... so magics such as speak with dead and such might be impacted.
I'd say with all the setup for the Whispering Tyrant, this wouldn't be something they would want to do this year however, for instance right after a Book of the Dead.
Trying to think through other options... trying another options less impactful to recent publications... What if Golarion was struck by magic that caused there to cease to be Humans. (or pick a different choice) The Human Ancestry ceases to be an option... rather than having nations vanish... my suggestion being that existing humans on the world find themselves mystically changing overnight to an alternate ancestry. [adopted ancestry can be taken by former humans to unlock memories and powers tied to their former human ancestry they have not lost]
Again... resolution of the Human Crisis... everyone shifts back to becoming humans like they used to when resolved... or maybe people have a choice to revert or not as it resolves at the moment it is resolved. Maybe all affected have the ability to eventually revert back, should they choose at some point in their future.
And another option... what if somehow there is a shattering of the separation of the Shadow Plane and the Material Plane and a giant cloud forms over the Arcadian Ocean and as a result timeless shadow replica Golarion's ancient Azlant Continent somehow manifests. Armies of shadow creatures begin to emerge from the continent. Ranging from fetchling refugees... to armies. How does the Golarion deal with opening of a second front in their war against 'evil'. And how do they deal with the Plane of Shadow overtaking part of the material plane? (the implication being that the new continent may behave much like one expects being on the plane of shadow, instead of being on the normal material plane) Can they convince the new forces to aid them against the whispering Tyrant? There would even be the option to have a party have been sailing in the Arcadian Ocean when a storm comes and when they sail back, they find the rest of Golarion is now appearing to be from the plane of Shadow?
Does solving the Shadow Crisis cause the re-raised continent of Azlant to disappear or does it once again sink down back into the sea a second time in history... or does it potentially leave it there for re-colonization by the survivors?
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Pretty sure Paizo saw the fragmentation caused by the various different D&D settings that resulted in progressively fewer sales of each setting and made Golarion specifically so they didn't have to deal with that.
It would be a pretty severe marketing blunder to create a new setting that isn't compatible with their extensive and excellent existing lore books which also contain mechanics.
I think the closest we'd get is Starfinder merging into PF2 rules but keeping the kitchen-sink-sci-fi setting.
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Time of Earthfall.
Very different, very mysterious, and yet quite familiar.
I’d sooner go for the Age of Darkness.
Most of the elves are gone, though you’ve heard stories of some fighting with a god down south. Human culture is functionally destroyed outside of the horse lords in Nidal and their dark patron. Stout creatures and green-skinned warriors pour out of the earth itself, making war with one another. There is no sun in the sky, and very little grows. Magic is all but forgotten.
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Ah! I recall what I was thinking! Shifting the setting to a place before Azlant was destroyed. Whether this be actually in the past or some time shenanigans that bring Old Azlant forward in time, exploring the Azlanti Empire before its fall would be really neat. Heck, they could extend this to certain other fallen civilizations, but in a more controlled manner. Like, maybe a Jistkan city hidden by magitek somewhere in Garund, or a Razatlan ziggurat with a still living residents buried in the Darklands and made accessible by an earthquake. Maybe several still functioning city of Shory flies so high above the clouds that it has stayed hidden so centuries and is essentially Skyloft from Zelda.
The Azlant bit really rides on the idea that they may never do anything proper with the ruins of Azlant as they are now. I would love to explore the disparate islands left behind in the wake of Earthfall; but I'd love to explore Pre-Fall Azlant as well.
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I could be wrong but I'm not sure I really see any setting shifts, whether it's timeline based or new worlds, happening. Feels like Paizo's stretched enough just working on covering Golarion as it is.
Perhaps. But I'm not here to presume what kind of workload Paizo is capable of managing, only what sort of ideas they could push out. They same thouggt process could have been applied to the idea of Starfinder before it was ever released. They prove quite frequently that they are capable of putting out quality products. Given the right time, I'm sure they would be more than capable of putting something like this out if it were on their to-do list.
Golarion has a lot to work with for certain. To say nothing of the other celestial bodies in its star system, and the entire planes and dimensions, which are whole planets/universes unto themselves I will always want that to be developed first, of course.
But an entire alternate Earth exists in setting. I would love to do something with that. Or Androffa.
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I think the more honest answer from me is that there isn't a setting Paizo could make that I would want than Arcadia. Indigenous and Americas-inspired fantasy made intentionally and with very nice art is firmly at the top of my list.
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Very excited for next week. Love me some sneak peeks
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Actually. So I started watching Disney's Treasure Planet today. Something that, apparently, most people.my age don't remember existing; even if they were Disney kids. Anyways, Treasure Planet is a very "science fantasy" and "sword and planet" genre of setting. Starfinder is described as being a science fantasy setting as well, but definitely leans more into the science portion of that equation.
I've seen a pretty big desire to take both settings and merge them together in some way. So, it got me wondering, what if we did just that and made a Spelljammer-esque thing? The actual timeline of this could be several thousand years after Pathfinder, when space travel starts to really pick up; but, well before technology and the Drift was a thing in Starfinder?
Magic boats in space, powered by some measure of tech kind of thing.
I don’t think it needs to be a Starfinder crossover for a sword & planet book to work - just give me a meaty gazetteer of Castrovel’s nations and history, playable Ancestry rules for Lashunta, Formians, and Vercites, and I’d be content. Extra bonus points if they add a Pathfinder Solarian!
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Fun fact: Starfider was originally conceived as a bolt-on supplement to Pathfinder rather than an entirely new system. From what I understand, that changed very early on when they actually sat down to design it all and realized they needed more scope for the changes they wanted. But now that they have more practice making those bolt-ons, perhaps they’d be more willing to try that again.
It would probably be a beast of a supplement though. I can’t imagine using less than 3 classes, specifically the Envoy, Solarian, and a general “magic” class that the Mystic, Technomancer, Witchwarper, and Precog could make use of (fair to leave the last two for a later book though). That last one is a stretch though; and really they’d need to be separated so as to be able to draw on different pools of feats. And since 30-50 feats would eat up all the page count anyways, might as well just print full classes.
Side note: I’m curious if they’d use the support (warpriest/alchemist) chassis, or go with bound casting.
I think you could do the others as new subclasses or class archetypes. They’d all need plenty of feats, but Operative and Mechanic aren’t too far off Rogues and Inventors. Soldiers would probably need a class archetype. Vanguard, Biohackers, and Nanocytes are all classes I’d love to see in Pathfinder, but I don’t think they could fit them all into a single playtest, and so not in the same book.Maybe if they ran multiple playtests?
Another side note: If Mystics are Divine, Technomancers Arcane, and Precogs make the most sense as Occult (time-wimey being firmly in that wheelhouse), can primal stretch to cover Witchwarper? Flavor would admittedly be weird, but looking at the actual abilities and spell list, which are both chock full of environmental effects, elemental damage, and some healing, it is not as wild as I first assumed.
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Another side note: If Mystics are Divine, Technomancers Arcane, and Precogs make the most sense as Occult (time-wimey being firmly in that wheelhouse), can primal stretch to cover Witchwarper? Flavor would admittedly be weird, but looking at the actual abilities and spell list, which are both chock full of environmental effects, elemental damage, and some healing, it is not as wild as I first assumed.
"Primal's gotten weird over the years."
Like, "there have been strange shifts in the fundamental nature of things" is a classic way to add some extra creepy to your sci-fi universe. Why couldn't we see the Primal power source itself twist its nature?