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Hello friends!
I've been playing Pathfinder with the same group since 2016. We've done a homebrew campaign, a full play of Tyrant's Grasp, and we recently got our feet wet with second edition with Outlaws of Alkenstar.
I am stepping into the GM role with a new group of folks who have never played any Pathfinder before, so my Unlit Star beginner box just arrived :D
My plan is to run the beginner box, transition into the Troubles in Grayce book, and then poll the party to see if they would rather move on to Bastion of Blasphemies or branch out into a homebrew campaign where they can see more of Golarion. One of my players is excited to play a Dhampir so I'm eagerly reading up about vampires to see what kind of plot hooks I can add.
This post is just to say hi, really. I haven't engaged much with the Paizo community (apart from writing up a review of Tyrant's Grasp on Reddit). But I'm excited to carry the GM torch into a new group.
Hello, welcome to the Paizo forums.
Well hi!
I have not played either and they look cool. Dhampirs are in Player Core 2 so that should fit in nicely with the remaster AP...but technically they're living, not undead. They just react to vitality and void damage as if they are undead. There are discussions on the forum as to what this means/how far this goes, so take a look at some of the discussions and decide how you're going to handle things like Heal spells before it becomes an issue.
Cheers and best of luck!
Easl wrote: Well hi!
I have not played either and they look cool. Dhampirs are in Player Core 2 so that should fit in nicely with the remaster AP...but technically they're living, not undead. They just react to vitality and void damage as if they are undead. There are discussions on the forum as to what this means/how far this goes, so take a look at some of the discussions and decide how you're going to handle things like Heal spells before it becomes an issue.
Cheers and best of luck!
Thank you so much for this advice! I've been struggling a bit to wrap my brain around it. It seems like the medicine skill will work and I'm planning on letting them buy special potions or something. For heal spells.. Great point I will take a look around!
SteeleType wrote: It seems like the medicine skill will work and I'm planning on letting them buy special potions or something. For heal spells.. Great point I will take a look around! Medicine skill does work out of the box like it does for other living creatures. For Undead PCs (which is also a thing - you could have a character that is an actual Vampire) the person doing the treatment would need Stitch Flesh. But that isn't required for Dhampir.
For special potions, those would be the Oil of Unlife.
And for Heal/Harm, you just need to pick how you want it to work. Either have them healed by Heal like other living creatures, or healed with Harm like other undead creatures. Don't try to 'run it RAW' because the RAW is that neither has any effect - which is just crazy. Most of the time I hear it being run that a Dhampir (or other living creature with Void Healing ability) will be healed by Harm and damaged by Heal like an Undead creature would be. That is also what I would recommend.
Finoan wrote: SteeleType wrote: It seems like the medicine skill will work and I'm planning on letting them buy special potions or something. For heal spells.. Great point I will take a look around! Medicine skill does work out of the box like it does for other living creatures. For Undead PCs (which is also a thing - you could have a character that is an actual Vampire) the person doing the treatment would need Stitch Flesh. But that isn't required for Dhampir.
For special potions, those would be the Oil of Unlife.
And for Heal/Harm, you just need to pick how you want it to work. Either have them healed by Heal like other living creatures, or healed with Harm like other undead creatures. Don't try to 'run it RAW' because the RAW is that neither has any effect - which is just crazy. Most of the time I hear it being run that a Dhampir (or other living creature with Void Healing ability) will be healed by Harm and damaged by Heal like an Undead creature would be. That is also what I would recommend. Fantastic! Thank you so much. The RAW does seem super strange. I like the idea of running it in reverse to build a little bit of tension and because there are other methods of healing which seem pretty generous. A little extra resource and slot management seems thematic for the horror-ish setting. Another player informed me they want to be a skeleton, I was initially hesitant but hey, it's Ustalav! I feel like someone would need stitch flesh to use medicine on them, right?
Welcome to the GM side of fun.
SteeleType wrote: Another player informed me they want to be a skeleton, I was initially hesitant but hey, it's Ustalav! I feel like someone would need stitch flesh to use medicine on them, right? Not exactly. The rules tend to be explicit about precise actions.
Here, Stitch Flesh is required to use the Treat Wounds action on an undead. It does not change the other actions of the Medicine skill.
Thankfully, AFAICT, only Treat Wounds mentions being used on a living being. All other Medicine actions can already be used on an undead even without the feat. Even Battle Medicine.
SteeleType wrote: Thank you so much for this advice! I've been struggling a bit to wrap my brain around it. It seems like the medicine skill will work and I'm planning on letting them buy special potions or something. For heal spells.. Great point I will take a look around! Another 'special' potion is a common Elixir of Life. It's alchemy, not magic (alchemy is generally not magic at all in PF2), so works on void healing living creatures. Other purely alchemical things also should mostly work.
SteeleType wrote: This post is just to say hi, really. I haven't engaged much with the Paizo community (apart from writing up a review of Tyrant's Grasp on Reddit). But I'm excited to carry the GM torch into a new group. Welcome! I hope you and your group have many more exciting adventures.
I would recommend you cut and paste your review of Tyrant’s Grasp onto the forums here (in the appropriate location) or the actual product review page for the books. I’m always interested in reading reviews and I tend to limit my social media, so rarely make it over to Reddit. You might find a different and more active audience here on the Paizo interwebs.
The Raven Black wrote: Welcome to the GM side of fun.
SteeleType wrote: Another player informed me they want to be a skeleton, I was initially hesitant but hey, it's Ustalav! I feel like someone would need stitch flesh to use medicine on them, right? Not exactly. The rules tend to be explicit about precise actions.
Here, Stitch Flesh is required to use the Treat Wounds action on an undead. It does not change the other actions of the Medicine skill.
Thankfully, AFAICT, only Treat Wounds mentions being used on a living being. All other Medicine actions can already be used on an undead even without the feat. Even Battle Medicine.
Oh so it's a good bit easier than I thought! This is super helpful, thank you! I like how easy they've made it to play unusual ancestries without too much punishment.
Errenor wrote: Another 'special' potion is a common Elixir of Life. It's alchemy, not magic (alchemy is generally not magic at all in PF2), so works on void healing living creatures. Other purely alchemical things also should mostly work. That makes tons of sense, thanks for the extra tip! Looks like there's plenty of opportunity for me to make healing as easy for them as everyone else.
steelhead wrote: Welcome! I hope you and your group have many more exciting adventures.
I would recommend you cut and paste your review of Tyrant’s Grasp onto the forums here (in the appropriate location) or the actual product review page for the books. I’m always interested in reading reviews and I tend to limit my social media, so rarely make it over to Reddit. You might find a different and more active audience here on the Paizo interwebs.
Oh great thought! I'll do that here in the forum soon. I'm a little hesitant to post it to the product pages because we made some relatively large changes that I think may have impacted some of my critique (overall I LOVED the AP though). For example I complained about issues I had with the final encounter, but it turns out our group was way off the intended balance. We had 5 players, which until then was pretty easy to balance for, but it's much harder with "boss" fights due to the action economy advantage. We also decided that instead of level 18 + mythic we really wanted to take out characters to level 20 to get capstones, because we had never done it before. Turns out that kind of impacts the balance lol. But I'll work on a modified version sticking to products themselves and see about posting them!
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Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber
For magical healing, a dhampir or undead PC can also benefit from the soothe spell from the Occult list. It is Healing, but does not use vitality or void energy so it works the same on both living and undead.
SteeleType wrote: steelhead wrote: Welcome! I hope you and your group have many more exciting adventures.
I would recommend you cut and paste your review of Tyrant’s Grasp onto the forums here (in the appropriate location) or the actual product review page for the books. I’m always interested in reading reviews and I tend to limit my social media, so rarely make it over to Reddit. You might find a different and more active audience here on the Paizo interwebs.
Oh great thought! I'll do that here in the forum soon. I'm a little hesitant to post it to the product pages because we made some relatively large changes that I think may have impacted some of my critique (overall I LOVED the AP though). For example I complained about issues I had with the final encounter, but it turns out our group was way off the intended balance. We had 5 players, which until then was pretty easy to balance for, but it's much harder with "boss" fights due to the action economy advantage. We also decided that instead of level 18 + mythic we really wanted to take out characters to level 20 to get capstones, because we had never done it before. Turns out that kind of impacts the balance lol. But I'll work on a modified version sticking to products themselves and see about posting them! Tarondor’s 2025 Guide to Pathfinder Adventure Paths begins with an explanation that all adventure paths have to be customized by the GM to become great. Some adventure paths require more work than other adventure paths to become great; hence, they can be rated. But advice on pitfalls, improvements, and customizations is a valid topic for a review.
I created a thread, Paizo Plus Email Invitations for Reviews, when I began posting reviews on the product pages. I was startled by one pitfall: the text loses all formatting and ends up as an unbroken paragraph in regular text. I have written only five reviews, mostly of Lost Omens books, because I stopped when real life got busy. I should get back to writing reviews.
Errenor wrote: Another 'special' potion is a common Elixir of Life. It's alchemy, not magic (alchemy is generally not magic at all in PF2), so works on void healing living creatures. I hate to break it to you, but the first sentence of Elixir of Life says:
AoN wrote: Elixirs of life accelerate a living creature's natural healing processes and immune system. This is definitely something I've seen some tables ignore, but it's not RAW.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber
Ajaxius wrote: Errenor wrote: Another 'special' potion is a common Elixir of Life. It's alchemy, not magic (alchemy is generally not magic at all in PF2), so works on void healing living creatures. I hate to break it to you, but the first sentence of Elixir of Life says:
AoN wrote: Elixirs of life accelerate a living creature's natural healing processes and immune system. This is definitely something I've seen some tables ignore, but it's not RAW. Yes, so it works on living creatures with void healing, as stated. I've added bold emphasis.
Ajaxius wrote: I hate to break it to you, but the first sentence of Elixir of Life says: Whoosh.
As HammerJack said.
But also I didn't write that TS mentioned vampires. Though this is mostly irrelevant as the player wanted dhampire and people gave advice for dhampires. For which EoL works. For vampires it doesn't, yes.
You're both right. I must have just misread it, and I flashed back to other arguments about "that doesn't count it's flavor text."
Call me an expert in occultism because I've got Automatic Writing.
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