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>>96283202
Background lore scales as if it's an additional lore and PC's can also have one additional lore for free.

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Finished this one a bit earlier in the week than I normally do but that's partly due to the fact that I just kind of already knew what I was going to do with it relatively quickly. Ended up having to make a construct from scratch after initially wanting to just use the Clockwork Soldier as a baseline but it became clear really that wasn't going to work.

As always, anyone who wants to see the others I've done can do so here: https://x.com/DrumerThead/status/1953922929328013710

>>96283202
I'd always found the Bleed mechanic to be a bit strange with how it interacts with healing. It doesn't matter if you have Bleed 30, even a single point of magical healing just cures it all instantly. That plus the fact that it technically affects many creatures that, well, don't have blood makes it a really poorly named mechanic where people will constantly argue about whether or not something can be affected based on those types of words.
As such I came up with the Hampered condition to act as an alternative. Hampered in many ways acts exactly like Bleed, save for the fact that magical healing, fast healing, and regeneration don't just instantly fix them. Instead, say you have that 30 per turn as mentioned before. Now, you try to stem the bleeding with a cure light potion, healing at most 1d8+1. Now, at best, you've dropped that 30 per turn down to 21 per turn. Similarly, if you give the creature fast healing 5 instead, now that 30 HP lost per turn just decreases down to 25, then 20, etc. until it hits 0 or higher, at which point you start regaining HP again.

Tried to join an online PF2e game. Why are there so many questions about pronouns, gender identity and other useless crap? I just want to play a damn game.

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Well I do quite prefer my own homebrew.
I do also usually give (PF1e) Fighters and monks 2 extra skill ranks and fuse ninja and rogue.
Plus I will work with anyone to try and get a character concept off the ground

>>96283747
Ask yourself what kind of people would need to search for randoms on the internet to play with anon.

2e
Can you Delay into the new round?
Say I rolled 12 on Initiative. It's my turn and I Delay. Do I have to take my turn before the end of the current round or can I Delay after an enemy that rolled a 6 for Initiative?

>>96283896
No

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What are some cool builds for a duergar BBEG in 1e?

Need some that would work for level 4 to 6 characters. Anything from paizo is good. It'd be up against a party with a brawler, an alchemist, a rogue, a warpriest, and a cleric. I have a few duergar NPCs I've made but nothing too original for builds.

Sorry for the soijak but it looks like a duergar and it will attract attention to my post.

>>96283571
>https://x.com/DrumerThead/status/1953922929328013710
I'm loving these. Ready made plug in NPCs for my games.

>>96283571
>Dex 27
Have you seen her drive?

I've read Tian Xia setting book, and was really disappointing that there wasn't more information about Kishin oni/ Oni daimyo.

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>>96284909
I would argue that driving a car isn't a laborious Dex-based Ride check like riding a mounted animal is, the car is doing 95+% of the work and you just have to not be dumb about where you're turning the wheel. In that way I think it works more like a passive concentration check more than any skill that's in the game.

>>96284751
Appreciate it, I'm working on ERB's sheet now, that blasted fire you see coming out of her chest is really throwing me for a loop, I'm thinking MAYBE going a bit crazy with it and doing something like Kinetic Knight Kineticist with a Conductive weapon to represent Sting? I dunno, I'm still figuring it out.

>>96284921
Bro TELL me about it, my GM wants to do a level 20 one-shot epilogue to a campaign where each of us gets the Celestial template, which is a bit of a problem for my Tengu Antipaladin for obvious reasons. I've tried looking for any kind of alternative Templates or whatever that fit the Tian Xia vibe and I found almost nothing. Even the Oni that looks like a Tengu literally only exists to be a menace TO Tengu, it sucks.

Has anyone ever tried using 1e Pathfinder to run a game set in a later period where guns are the standard weapon? I see there are rules for it and I kind of want to try it out but I'm not sure how well it would work in practice.

>>96286808
If you stick with the early ones, you gonna have kind of a meh time. They really aren't that good as weapons, something only Gunslinger can use to full effectiveness. Maybe the Advanced Firearms could be good to mess about with but even then it would sort of amount to granting everyone a Ranged Touch AC spell they can cast at all times. The modern firearms are just really broken and shittly designed. So up to you if you think that would be fun to mess with.

https://2e.aonprd.com/Archetypes.aspx?ID=330
The necrologist seems cool as fuck, but... am I retarded or is it really bad?
The horde has to be sustained, so you can only realistically use attack with it once per turn, which also prevents you from casting a spell that turn (until you take the one mandatory feat at 10 to sustain it for free). Yeah it deals MAPless AOE damage for one action, but the damage is pathetic: 2d6 at level 6, 4d6 at 10, and given how high equal-level enemy saves are, they'll take half most of the time. Its space can't be occupied so you and your allies can't move past it (again unless you take one of the level 10 feats), and it can't really bodyblock enemies because you take its damage so they can just focus damage on it and kill you. Basically it's like being half a summoner with all of the downsides and only half the upsides, with no good support.
Is there any way to make this thing work? Because I love the idea but it seems like I'd be just griefing my party if I took it.

>>96283896
I dont get your example but yes, you can delay into the next round. Lets say the initiative is

Bad Guy A
Bad Guy B
You
Your Buddy
Bad Guy C

Bad guys A and B go, then your turn comes up. You delay. You are now out of the initiative order. You can choose to come back in after Your Buddy, Bad Guy C (these two would be on the same round you delayed) or Bad Guy A (on the next round). If you dont come in after everyone has gone (ie you have looped back to your original first turn) then you lose all your delayed actions and you take your turn as normal (effectively wasting a turn).

>>96287655
It depends on your base caster. I wouldn't use it unless your caster has real armor, at least light. It's a reflex save, go ahead and check what Occult and Divine have as options for targeting reflex. Other than cantrips, you're looking at Rouse Skeletons, which is a slotted version of this and worse in most aspects. You should think of it less as a summon that you plan your whole gameplan around and more a spell with a 10 minute cooldown. If you can get value out of sustaining it for multiple rounds, do so. But, you can also just let it drop. The horde just has to be summoned to have it attack, so you can spend the next turn after you set it just attacking before letting it drop. It doesn't cost a resource other than your feat slots, so spending 2 rounds doing 8d6 that doesn't hit allies sounds good to me.

I also see them attacking you as a win. If they don't down you, they wasted their time since you can just get rid of it and now the rest of your HP is safe. But like you said, the damage is just okay, so why would they attack it over your frontliners? That's a bunch of damage they didn't put into the fighter tripping and critting them for 60 damage. As for the point about saves, you shouldn't be using this on things that aren't low reflex, unless you just need filler actions to get through a fight without using resources. They're gonna fail saves if you just keep jamming them down their throat.

All that said, I haven't played it and may change my mind. It has really good feats to enhance the horde, the ghost route especially. I disagree strongly about the level 10 feat that lets you sustain the horde for free after you cast summon undead being mandatory. It's a fun gimmick, but as someone who has used Reanimator archetype, it will almost never be useful.

TQ: Starfinder 1e: Add a feat Improved Skill Focus with minimum level 12. It improves Skill Focus' insight bonus to +4 at 12, +5 at 15, +6 at 18.

Any technological equipment that provides an insight bonus instead provides a circumstance bonus. Any magical or hybrid item besides aeon stones that provides an insight bonus instead provides an enhancement bonus.

PF1E

The trove links aren't working for me. What do we get them from now, havn't been here for a few years

>>96289920
Check da PDF Share thread.

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Is an Investigator with a Detective background named Rust Kobold a stupid idea?

>>96293242
We don't know if it fits into your game but no, not on its face.

>>96289145
hold on there mister, what do you think this is? a version of sci-fantasy that actually has good feats

>>96283202
>What's your favorite houserule/homebrew?

Running Eberron with loads of homebrew, I wanted to have blasters/crafters to be more meta in the world with good anti-magic items as well

>Point Out to tell another to seek as a reaction
>Drop Prone as a reaction
>You don't need to spend an action to assist if the assist reaction is a free or reaction(such as speaking, dropping something)
>RK to see rolls of enemies

>Spell attack Potency
Simple as but make Shadow Signet rare and cursed

>Relics
If you use Relic Sets it could be equal to FA and a suitable replacement for ABP. Very fun to homebrew relics

>Hero Points Description Untyped Bonus
If you spend a hero point, you can go for description untyped bonus

>Hero Point Spellshaping
Use a spellshape as a free action or describe the spell for a modification

>Achievement bonus feats
If you do something really cool, you get a unique feat to make that thing you did easier

>Ceremonial Items
Gives bonuses to rituals and a focus spell as an alternative to staves for casters

Going to be running Season of Ghosts. Anything I should now going into it? I'm somewhat of a novice with the system, but I did play a lot of 4e back in the day.

>>96294804
Read ahead, especially concerning major plot beats, this one has actually fun twists and turns.

If your players are breezing through encounters, bump up the difficulty with more lower level foes, elite adjustments or just more health on foes. whatever feels appropriate. It's an AP that was made to be deliberately easier on combat than others and it actually lives up to that. If your players are sweaty it will be a breeze and it's the old adage of when you're a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. There are good alternate solutions to combat to basically everything in the adventure but if pulling out a sword solves everything, why bother?

>2e
What are some skillmonkey builds? Beyond just picking Rogue I mean.

Is there a Savage Starfinder?

>>96294884
I wish, shouldnt be too hard to port since savage pathfinder exists though. just effort.

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>Investigator somehow got it in their heads that they're a 'non-combat' class
>spent 2 of the 4 encounters of the dungeon abstaining from combat completely
>in one combat they actively tried to throw the party under the bus (as a joke, but still)
>only joined the last combat because the rogue got fed up OOC with them running off
>obviously the Investigator caught a lot of IC heat for it and a bit OOC too
>now he's talking about quitting the game
>wouldn't even care if he did (he's pulled something like this before) but I know it would bother some of the other players
At least the actual encounters I put together mostly worked out, although they wound up being too easy. I think I need to be able to threaten more of the party at a time, between having a 5th PC and some extra homebrew floating around I was basically just picking on the Fighter, although I guess that's sorta his job.

Hope you guys' campaigns are going a bit smoother than mine.

>>96295282
Nah my guys seem bored.
They don't do any strategy so asking them to play a megadungeon conversion was a mistake. They just facecheck every hazard and monster encounter.
I'm probably gonna have to start writing an active story using the factions and rival parties just so they get railroaded towards a win condition.

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How close can I get to playing as a Tau?

2e
Is the Kingmaker 2e encounters balance around 4 pcs + a companion or is it like the rest of the APs and focuses on a 4 man party? If the later, it seems weird they would give you so many companions and if you wanted to use them, it's more work for the GM.

>>96295954
From playing it, kingmaker isn't balanced and you should probably give PCs at least one gmpc companion as a freebie.
The game will seem balanced right up until chapter 6 at which point you should give the players every advantage possible.

If Androids can look like any humanoid, and are basically Meat Robots, why aren't they a heritage any ancestry can add to themselves? If you are gonna be a robot, wouldn't you want to be R2D2 instead of Blade Runner's generic human-bots? SROs/Automatons should be the core option for this reason instead.

>it'd take a Sarcesian 88 hours of continuous flight just to reach the ISS
>assuming they fly up in a perfectly straight line
>can't even do that until level, like, 17
How the fuck do they live in space and fly between planets?

>>96295981
NGL that makes me a little worried. My group is about to hit chapter 6 soon. Had 2 pc death in chapter 5 due to a combination of most of the party having the tactical and survival instincts of a wet sponge, most of the party rolling like shit during the boss fight, us overleveling exploring the map so the GM is increasing all of the encounters but we are still getting loot for the initial level, us getting no downtime to lvl up the kingdom because of said overleveling and half the group disliking it. Hell, we are almost lvl 11 and we almost have a lvl 5 kingdom. I have given my concerns to the GM so hopefully things will get better. But I do worry, since he wants to give us a year of downtime but i doubt that will be enough to get a kingdom to our lvl even with fast xp being used.

>>96296110
Yeah good luck.
My guys were just about staying above water until chapter 6 at which point they started hemorrhaging pc deaths, with the final party wipe taking place in late chapter 7.

I think if I was forced at gunpoint to run kingmaker again I'd do a lot of work making it into a genuine PWL hexcrawl sandbox rather than villain of the week escalation after escalation.

>>96283747
When I advertised my game in the PF2e discord, I made a google form just asking how you ranked combat Vs exploration Vs roleplay.

One box asked gender. If anyone put anything gay in there that was them filtered.

>>96296129
Thanks. A big issue is we lost 2 frontliners (thaumaturge and swashbuckler) and both are coming in with backline (sniper gunslinger and wizard). So now it's just me (Monk) and our summoner who rides his eidolon and uses a range weapon in melee in the front. With a fifth pc as a witch. So, going to have to convince the party that we should bring people like Valerie or Harrim (I'm the only one who likes him). Most already love Amiri and we would drag her along with us before even though we had way to many front line already. A big concern I have is that when my monk dies, it will cause a chain reaction since he is the tank, medicine healer, damage dealer, and tripper. Like he often is the last man standing / soloing half the fight and has been instrumental in boss fights. I missed a session once and the GM had him sit back in camp for the encounters and it got dicey for the rest of the party, Amiri was with them. Since all they had was soothe from the witch and I'm not even sure if she prepared it that day too. Combined with no one else is even being trained in medicine.

>>96296202
Still advertising? :(

>>96291710
Damn, no one's set up a SF2E yet.

>>96283747
Pf2e is a game for fags and theater kids

>>96296306
Unlike 1e, which is for REAL men to play make believe elves with.

>>96296311
This but unironically
Grogs are built different

>>96296219
That's interesting.
My guys going into chapter 6 were a swash and monk doing frontline tagteam, a cleric, and a wizard. The casters had the benefit of converting low rank spells into focus spells so the cleric could just cast low rank Heal x times per refocus which made healing less of a nutache. Prior to this they were doing fine, just falling behind on kingdom stuff.

Chapter six starts and I kill the wizard who then rerolls to champion. Surprised me because he had the means to live through the encounter by simply turning invisible.
At this point I forced them to take a GMPC companion; Mikmek the kobold whom they had rescued from Old Sycamore and who was serving as a representative of the Sootscales, an outwit ranger with a javelin. They left him behind at some point to 'guard the entrance.'
They were all captured and chose to play a rescue mission using companions; linzi, amiri, kereek and prazil the two kobolds from the troll fortress ducttaped together as a dual class fighter sorcerer, and jubilost. This succeeded with the loss of the kobolds.
I killed the cleric who rerolled to sorcerer with signature Heal. This put a lot of pressure on his character in combat because he needed to heal, buff, debuff, and do battlefield control.
They entered chapter 7.
I killed the champion who rerolled to psychic. His reasoning was that he needed to help on casting.
Then they all died due to a failed save against Repulsion. I couldn't offer them a reasonable way to recover, so the game ended.

Which was a shame because I had gotten far enough ahead on prep that I was looking forward to killing them with a dragon I had converted to being a mirage dragon, which I think suited it better than the former chromatic one. I was very excited to play that dragon.

Look after your wizard.

Tell me about your homebrew settings /ppg/.

>>96296234
>>96296234
No I've a party of four normies, one of which I'm not loving but that's life.

If there's a way to get your details, I'll keep you in mind if there's any changes

>>96296556
My next one will be a mash up of windwaker and FF10. Ocean based campaigns with various island nations with a giant sea beast that protects what has been contained within the centre of portion of ocean that has no breeze or tides.

>>96296469
That is an interesting party comp. Thanks for all the warnings. In terms of party members I need to look after I would rank them Summoner > Wizard > Gunslinger >= Witch. The summoner i'm most worried about because his play style causes him to eat so many AoO, sometimes forget they are also a caster and is a damage magnet since things can double dip damage on him. Wizard's pc has a flair for dramatic so they are the most likely to purposely get themself in danger. The gunslinger has enough range to stay out most enemies and the witch uses their familiar as her cast point, most likely using me to keep it safe with the feat that turns it into a tattoo to keep herself safe.
I told my GM before we started that i knew some endgame spoilers from osmosis, which he was cool with. I've been talking with him since I am now the only person who can use Briar. So we are working together to make it work since he wants story beat to be center stage. Also, going with all the Fey ancestry feats since we are using Ancestry Paragon and built my pc to have a link with Nyrissa. As both him and his fey wife knew her in the past and are trying to save her.

>>96296556
it's just dark fantasy sengoku japan with playable races severely trimmed down to only appropriate ones

/uj
Are we really going to pretend low level casters are okay?

>GM wants to play Starfinder 2e
>says I can just use STR for Solar Flare attack rolls and never build DEX to be an ever-loving beefcake with lasers
Not sure how broken that is but feels good

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This might be more of an "vidya" question since I'm talking about WOTR, but what "Hellknight Order" would make the most sense for an Paladin of Erastil? I wanted to get a Hellknight dip so I can Smite Chaos + Smite Evil my foes to death.

Godclaw seems like the easiest "Paladin Hellknight" order and also the same order as based regil but none of their five deities are Erastil.

1e, 2e doesn't matter even if it's leaning more 2e
how do you make higher level plot/enemy structure make sense if you don't want to go full absurd that 9 high commanders of hell decide to jump this one hero party, ffs not mentioning the skirmish system at 15+ where there's still barely any fitting troops for something a lil more kingstom/city state level over armies of outsiders

What is a good punchy class in 2e that still has good out of combat capacity?
Walking in to a game that unironically has 3 fighters, and do not want to bring in a caster to ruin the 'punch everything' vibe.

>>96297342
Come on you know you want to roll a shitty magus with unarmed spellstrikes.

>>96297342
Warpriest of Irori. Take might domain and be the party grappler instead of a striker.

in PF2E can you just buy higher level spell scrolls? Is that just something the DM is supposed to slap down?

Additionally, how common are scrolls actually? Should I just let my players buy as many as they want?

>>96297066
technically you could argue that the Order of the Chain would be most willing to humor a servitor of Erastil, since they are mostly about creating a strong unbreakable community. But I don't think the flavor is strong.

>>96297442
Yes, common, as many as makes sense in your setting and the PCs location.

>>96297442
Yes

If it is common and they are at a city of that level, they should be able to buy common items at their level or below without much fuss
They could buy high level scrolls if you permit(roll needed/quest reward to find or haggle) and they should drop from time to time as well. High level consumables are very fun rewards and are safer to dish out that higher level permanent items

Do I blow the scroll or save it to learn/sell?

>>96297470
Wouldn't "Order of the Nail" make the most sense for the whole "live on the fringe and kill beasts" stuff?

>>96296998
>/uj
What edition is that?

>>96297066
Order of the torrent, maybe, but that's not in the game. The ones on offer don't really fit with Erastil's way of doing things.
>>96297442
What's available for purchase is based on settlement level.
>Is that just something the DM is supposed to slap down?
You should usually restrict access to above level items. They're a sometimes thing.
>Additionally, how common are scrolls actually?
As common as the spell that's on it.
>Should I just let my players buy as many as they want?
Yes.
>>96297628
They're doing it to bring their city slickin' ways to the wilderness.

>>96297692
>They're doing it to bring their city slickin' ways to the wilderness.
But the description says they explicitly glorify the whole "Frontier Settler" lifestyle and estabilish order on their communities. That seems like it would be pretty fitting for Erastil.

>>96297628
erastil is very "stay home and be a family man"

order of the nail is very "leave your home and join the system"

They are almost arguably antithetical to eachother.

>>96297380
The point is to be a striker and not be That Guy.

>>96297722
"While he is a protective deity, Erastil steps in only when quiet, pastoral lives are threatened. He desires his followers to live their lives in peace, with no risk of being conscripted into armies, devoured by monsters, or destroyed by magic."

>>96297871
Well, that's what the description says in the game. Erastil loves wilderness and small communities, "Order of the Nail" likes orderly frontier living.

I dunno, I guess. Hellknight just seemed like a good dip for Paladin for smite stacking. It probably would have made a lot more sense if i just went with Iomedae as my deity. Everyone just straight up ignores it and acts like you're an Iomedae guy due to her being the 'main diety' of the game anyway. Still, I couldn't pick someone other than the based stag.

Pure Paladin is just so lackluster.

>>96297888
How is playing a Warpriest like a Warpriest being That Guy?

why tf am I seeing "sparkling targe is the best magus" lately, I thought that shit was just the perfect picture of how fucked that class's action economy is?

>>96298122
What do you mean, a shield specialist who never gets any additional shield blocks, never gets any additional shield hardness (except against spell damage, which *THBBFT*), never gets a shield-raised stance (and also can't get it from an archetype since it conflicts with Arcane Cascade), and whose only real benefit is replicated by anyone with a Spellguard Shield or is just straight up outclassed by a 4th level Cleric feat is just fine. Great. Peachy-keen. Probably overpowered, even (after all, you have nearly half as many spells as someone with a caster archetype).

>>96298122
>>96298412
I'm warm on Targe Magus. I don't think it is as fucked as y'all described. There's no Shield Raise Stances but Everstand and Impossible Wall Stance which no one uses, and Swashbuckler's Buckler Dance which is literally Level 20 locked even if it wasn't competing with Arcane Cascade. Spellguard Shield does do their benefit, but defense against spell damage is an innately selfish benefit and doesn't compete from the build, especially with the fact you can combine it with any other shield like Caster's Targe or Tower Shields. The action economy is pretty rough compared to other Magi, but Emergency Targe does clean it up a lot and Shielding Strike can satiate you until Level 4. And unlike something like Iron or Maelstrom Magus, more defense over more damage on Magus is a very valuable tool, even if it isn't interesting or attempts to play to the strength -- diminishing returns be damned.

It's not a GREAT option, I would pick Twisting Tree over Targe most of the time for both power and utility purposes. And the people are being fucking delusional over it. But I think it isn't awful. It does pretty much everything you want, it just needs a slightly smoother curve with Cascade Benefits (which applies to basically every Magus subclass), those extra shield blocks, and a bit more active powers to make it more interesting.

>>96298975
>and a bit more active powers to make it more interesting.
This is pretty much every magus subclass, though. It feels like the class desperately needs some of the potential ceiling on spellstrike lowered so the rest of the class can be allowed to do... Fucking anything? I don't even think this particular subclass is worse than the others about it, it just feels more punished when it comes to shit like cascade eating an entire action.
>there's no shield raise stances
>Paragon's Guard at level 12 on Fighter and Guardian being literally that

Truthfully I start to wonder if Exemplar had been called "Magic Knight", kept the automatic spell DC scaling from playtest, and had appropriate flavor, it would be functionally so much closer to what so many people looking at magus actually want from a spellsword class. Probably not because "muh spell slots", but still.

I want to make space ninja for SF2e which would be more fun Solarian or Operative?

>>96299224
exemplar as both warpriest and spellblade is way more interesting than exemplar as it's written

>>96299224
>It feels like the class desperately needs some of the potential ceiling on spellstrike lowered so the rest of the class can be allowed to do... Fucking anything?
This is sort of the fools' errand that goes into Magus's design, and ultimately the whole Eldritch Knight concept to begin with. It needs to be more than the "whack a guy with magic" class, but that's pretty much THE reason why people want to play the concept in a game where magic items are commonplace and multiclassing gives you magic on any build. It's a circle I don't envy anyone trying to square. It has to be potent enough to justify the sheer commitment that goes into it, but still leave enough room to be a full class and not just some scuffed feat.
I think back to the original playtest and them TRYING to cap the potential power of it through the commitment and excessive rolling so there was room for the additional powers like Slide Casting. But even then, beyond it being absurdly clunky and just shit, there was just not enough room to fit everything or make them all good options. Hybrid Studies and Arcane Cascade were the attempts to give them more a class fantasy, but without a full playtest period for these mechanics, we are just stuck with the worst interpretation of the concept. And I'm still at a lost on how to make it more fantastical without sacrificing Spellstrike.

>Paragon's Guard at level 12 on Fighter and Guardian being literally that
Did forgot about Paragon's Guard, but with Guardian I'm not gonna fault Magus for not seeing the future. Plus I think PG is more just to keep shield-and-board Fighter's happy, given how outclassed that style is compared to other builds, not including other classes. I do think an errata or rebuild with Targe Magus will just give them Champion's Defensive Assault on Shielding Strike.

>>96299296
Operative. Solarian is the opposite of our issues here, a class that is genuinely empty in key places. Really could expend more of the power budget.

I actually misremembered that you could get Paragon's Guard from Bastion, but it turns out you can't--even though you CAN get Dueling Dance from Duelist, because Fuck You.

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>Medium Aberration Undead Sexual grabs you through the walls after a flat check

Wat do?

>>96298122
I feel with FA and guardian dedication it could go hard

>>96299526
That always weirded me out too. Same thing with Twinned Defense from Dual-Weapon Warrior. All the fighting styles are represented with their "stance" defense except shields. Dunno what that's about.

>>96299361
I find the bizarre thing is that it... Doesn't really seem that hard to get some sort of spellsword, mechanically, working? The only thing holding it back is "it MUST be blending specifically fighter and wizard, not just thematically, but mechanically". Also that the budgeting value of features just is just all over the place and feels arbitrary.

Which is how we get shit like Solarian, who feels like it should check all the thematic boxes of being an alternative "spellsword" with the things it can potentially access (decent strikes, stance swapping with some potentially okay utility powers, some okay aoe blasts that shouldn't be split out into feats), but winds up stunted, confused, and lackluster because... Who knows? Who actually fucking knows. I still think about the "Paizo doesn't just make shit to check boxes" comment I see about classes and how laughable that is with SF2e. I'm still mad about the Aftershock feature from Starfinder Enhanced, btw.

My old HDD is dying and I lost a ton of PF1e stuff to data corruption. Oh well.

>>96299910
Mechanically, mayhaps. You CAN just stuff a bunch of features into one and call it a day. 5e Paladin and Hexblade Warlock are sort of just like that. But classes in d20 fantasy sort of need things they CAN'T do, especially in games that promote teamwork and tactics as PF2e does. You can fudge some numbers and definitions for sure, but you really can't get away with Protagonist Syndrome class concepts like you can in 1e akin to Inquisitor or Occultist. This leads Magus, a class all about catering to Protagonist Syndrome types but also lacking in its own identity from the get-go, in a very awkward case. You can see why defenses, action economy, and longevity in the adventuring day were the things that took the hit, but as stronger DPS classes with far less intense...everything came out and Arcane Cascade's flaws became more apparent, it does show how constrained the design space is for the concept.

I don't...really know what's going on with Solarian though. That class was fucked up in SF1e and now its so...vanilla in 2e despite having more room to express itself. I said it before, it likely needed more space to distinguish itself, it always was gonna be a feat-heavy concept akin to Kineticist but when you are squished in a book with 5 other classes, something had to give.

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>>96300026

>>96300148
The protagonist syndrome shit always makes my eyes roll given we have Fighter and Rogue as kings of fat cock mountain, ft Barbarian as of the remaster, and meanwhile despite its obnoxious fluff text pretending it has it, Exemplar itself (let's not think about the archetype rn) isn't any more special than anything else on the power scaling front.

>>96294804
Its too fucking easy and the adventure keeps leading you up to bullshit. Takes forever to go anywhere.
If your players dont want to engage with town politics (mine dont) half of the adventure goes down the shitter. And the town management subsystem is pretty bad, I'd just skip it.
The enemies are boring. You'd do well to replace most of them with bestiary monsters.
It was released before the Tian Xia region guide so it doesnt really adapt all the new lore. Doesnt matter too much because Willowshore is so isolated, but there's things like new races and archetypes that fit.

>>96300202
It isn't necessarily about the power scaling of Protagonist Syndrome classes (though it can be an issue or exaggerate the strength of classes). Otherwise I'd bring up 3.X/1e Cleric and Druid. CoDZilla wasn't a problem just because of them eclipsing every other class in power and versatility, but the loss of opportunities in teambuilding, synergies, and party design. Classes have gaps to be filled by other classes. The potency of the gaps can vary (see the above Fighter and Rogue not really caring about getting no magic -- when are they ever going to reprint Eldritch Trickster BTW??), but the core of the idea is that a team is a team and don't have to rely on a sole anchor that does everything. Everyone matters in some respect than just cheerleading. That's the ultimate issue of Protagonist Syndrome, it goes against why people are playing the game with others. It leads to them feeling like they are detached from both design principles and the world they exist in. Think of the last time you asked to help a 5e Bard (assumign you've played that in recent memory).

I very much appreciate 2eMagus's design letting it capture both parts of the martial and caster building experience, creating your kit and magic items to supplement your spell options -- while still being restrained enough that you know it just can't be everything. I think that's one of the positives of the design, why I wouldn't be for removing the bounded spellcasting setup (though having 3 slots a level over 2 would be MUCH appreciated...). And why I don't call out Exemplar being a symptom of PS, it does just play out like the average martial past all that fluff. Neither are what I would argue are or could be built self-sufficiently. But you can tell they were pussyfooting around the accusations and they do suffer for such. Which could have been avoided by simply asking "do we really need the concept here?" And for Magus, that does stack onto its variety of core issues.

>>96300371
I have a magus in my campaign and he pretty much alternates between being a 100% caster or a 100% martial with spell cascade, for what it's worth. So they arent really that independent in practice.

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>>96300371
I think I just do not actually follow your train of thought in the slightest then, and kind of find Inquisitor being used as an example of this really distracting given how team-reliant every inquisitor I've seen in play was-that class REALLY wants to have allies to lean on, so it can in turn do shit to benefit them in kind. It just feels like you're going on some unrelated tangent now.

Which is fine because there was no real coherent point being made on my end. I just think magus is real fucked up, and am annoyed by the things that could mechanically fill similar thematic niches also feeling kind of fucked up. A real "shaking my fist at a cloud" on a monday" kind of deal.

>>96300554
Pardon, more tired, lost my own train of thought and didn't realize it 'til I posted. Was mainly trying to say its isn't just power but what it means for the game as a whole.
Ultimately, I like 2e Magus (and 1e Magus for different reasons, despite it being kind of the 2nd worse of the 2/3rd casters), I'm not immune to Protagonist Syndrome myself, I REALLY wish it was better and willing to take some oomph out of spellstrike for a smoother experience, and don't want them to just stuff every good thing they could need all at once.

>>96300634
Ultimately it just kind of ends up feeling like a weird point to hammer on, since a lot of classes feel like they fall into being bizarrely selfish and unreliant on their team in more than the most basic elements.

On the flipside, nobody is complaining about something like Drifter gunslinger or Fire Kineticist, because one of those is complete dogshit and the other is funny (and piss easy to shut down) enough nobody seems to care.

>>96299910
For my money, the gold standard of Swordnspell Guy is still the 4e Swordmage.

>>96283202
I want her feet in my mouth

Who is the schizo who is always rambling about how the Cycle of Souls is the same shit as the Wall of the Faithless?

pf2e is woke edition

Why is the Guardian Archetype Dedication so overloaded? Taunt is worth a whole feat by itself.

>>96294868
Eidolons have different attributes from you, so they can be used to have good scores in multiple skills. Whether base Summoner or the archetype. It also has a couple of feats that help with it.

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>>96302303
Paizo's dedication balancing is usually pretty schizophrenic. If I was charitable about it, maybe they tried to balance it against the champion archetype?

I think Guardian wins out though.

>>96300371
>Everyone matters in some respect than just cheerleading.
I agree with most of what you said but i just find this line funny because major bugbear that people have with 2e is Casters feel like the only way to play them is to be the cheerleader to the martial protags.

has there ever been in-depth looks at a Goloma village, or any artwork of one?
how they live, what they do besides hiding, etc
or is it just "grab any generic hits in a jungle pic and your good to go"?

>>96297066
This might be a bit late, but if you really wanna do an Erastil Hellknight on WOTR, your best bet is probably Scourge, no?

I mean, Scourge is more of an "Abadar" Order, but I suppose you could say that since Erastil wouldn't want small communities to suffer under the fist of tyrants. You know, what with "Burn down the small peasant village" being an Evil Overlord classic.

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Playing 1e, coming in with a level 11 character. I'm thinking Shadow Oracle, what's some good thematic spell options I should grab?

>>96302303
someone there managed to sneak something good into the final book, just like Spirit Warrior archetype or Exemplar. You should get something if you have to spend a class feat for it. Other dedications need to be brought up to par.

>>96297044
he just gave your flare the brutal trait, but at that point you should just have throwing on your solar weapon

>>96302303
If anything it is the standard more feats should be. The armor proficiency of Sentinel was always massively overvalued, full armor scaling should be a general feat at most instead of the dogshit version we have now. Which leaves the taunt, which is... Fine? It's a few steps above a skill action since It Just Works(tm), but

>>96304204
Flare should be Brutal Propulsive and have at least a 30/50 ft range at base

>>96304128
I was happy with dedications being at the power level of the Champion one. But I'm baffled at them going noticeably higher than that. It creates an even bigger gulf between the shitty ones and the best ones.

>>96303888
Oracle is woke class. If you want to cosplay shadow heart from bg3 pick cleric

I thought rules were supposed to be free. Why do I have to pay for the Starfinder 2E pdf?

>>96304385
Because you don't. Both Demiplane and Archive of Nethys have it. The SF2e site just isn't indexed yet because it is super barebones.
https://2e.aonsrd.com/

>>96304240
I guess they felt that Guardian is so empty a class concept, it needs to give something to make it more a multiclass. And that they felt that Intercept is more the "class defining feature" than Taunt, given how several archetypes already have similar powers. But they just sort of undervalued WHAT it is giving to people, compared to how much.

>>96304410
Woah. Thanks anon. I didn't know they hid it.

>>96304410
The intercept being split out the way it was is so hysterical to me, because it's so situational and mediocre feeling even on Guardian itself? And Guardian has so many incredible feats that having full taunt just means you can completely ignore the intercept and be fine. Baffling choice. Good job paizo, I'm happy for this outcome, but really confused by it.

Not sure why they didn't just make guardian intercept be defensive swap ++ but aight.

>>96304322
I know this is a troll but Cleric is 10x more woke than Oracle. Religious zealots and hystericsthe class lead to more social justice moments in game than playing abused powergirl. You are a powergaming faggot.

>>96302091
>Everything I don't like is Woke

Paizo shipping is so fucking slow
I want my sf2e player core and battlecry gdi

>>96287655
it's ironically horrible for casters and great for rangers with their action compression. Twin Takedown opens up an extra action to sustain your horde and gives you concealment while also not conferring shit AC to your horde.

What level 8 Rogue feat should I get for my Ruffian Rogue? There are so many good ones. Using a one-handed mace for maneuvers, in a party with a Paladin/Marshal, Barbarian, and shapeshifting Druid

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>>96308632

Post-remaster Gang Up is a fantastic feat, particularly with a reach weapon.

Opportune Backstab has always been the single greatest 8th-level feat that a rogue could possibly take.

>>96306339
NTA but getting pronouns with every NPC description is pretty lame.

>>96308048
Between that kind of things, the site having issues and a lack of new products past December, I kinda have a bad feeling about Paizo.

Are Changelings immune to girdles of gender change?

>>96312060
Probably, although a supernatural creature getting stuck with the setting equivalent of flipped controller inputs is kinda funny.

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>cis white old human male with white beard
>wizard unified magic theory and spellmaxing
>grumpy old and tired but still ready to save world because zoomer pathfinders can't

>>96308639
Yeah Gang Up looked good, but I haven’t been having any issues with flanking since we’re all melee party.

Does Opportune Backstab suffer from MAP? It doesn’t explicitly say it does/doesn’t, so I wasn’t sure.

Other ones I was considering were Sly Striker and Inspired Strategem

>>96312060
2e, no, since male Changelings exist. 1e, maybe not, but given how miserable it is to be female Changeling, they sure would wish it was...

>>96312609
>Does Opportune Backstab suffer from MAP? It doesn’t explicitly say it does/doesn’t, so I wasn’t sure.
As long you aren't using a Readied action and it isn't your turn, no reaction suffers from MAP. This may change if you are doing some reaction stack nonsense, but otherwise it is good.

>>96312263
Reminds me how annoyed I got when I realized they never made proper age rules for ancestries. I get why 2e reduced the amount of simulationist mechanics, but it is the little things that helps make Pathfinder Pathfinder and not just GURPS but lesser.

>>96312753
>2e, no, since male Changelings exist.
Lame

>>96312792
This is one of the odder retcons that I still have yet to 100% square in my head, even after all these years. The shift from making Changelings a full race of beauty sexy woobie women to a versatile heritage makes sense. Hags are the last people on Golarion that get to be picky about who they rape and eat, and they all become hags at the end of the day. But between them pretty much handwaving males existences on "they kinda hear the call but not really and usually get raped and killed if they follow it" and them obviously doing it for WOKE reasons, erasing that pulpy history, it just leads a sour taste in my mouth.
They are at least a good VH no matter what. Easy access to Electric Arc, a good ancestral unarmed attack, and some fun spells.

>>96312834
More and more i feel my decision to ignore 2e vindicated

>Hefty Hauler, General, Skill, Feat 1
>Trained in Athletics
>You can carry more than your frame implies. Increase your maximum and encumbered Bulk limits by 2.

You can take this at level 1, and it never does anymore than let you carry 2 more Bulk, not even at being legendary at athletics

>Cat Fall, General, Skill, Feat 1
>Trained in Acrobatics
>Your catlike aerial acrobatics allow you to cushion your falls. Treat falls as 10 feet shorter. If you’re an expert in Acrobatics, treat falls as 25 feet shorter and 50 feet if you’re a master. If you’re legendary in Acrobatics, you always land on your feet and don’t take damage, regardless of the distance of the fall.

Starts at real life parkour landing, improves as you level up to 20 and advances into Incredible Hulk powers

Too many skill feats don't actually grow with you as you advance

Starfinder 1e player here - question about how you guys think the Operative's Sniper Alternate Class Feature working with Shot on the Run.

the rules of the Sniper feature: You can’t use this ability (trick attack) with a weapon that has the unwieldy special property unless it also has the sniper special property, in which case this ability doesn’t allow you to move before attacking.

Shot on the Run specifies: If you have the trick attack class feature, you can take your movement from trick attack at any time during a trick attack with a ranged weapon (instead of only before).

The player is stating that instead of moving BEFORE attacking (which is not allowed by an unwieldy sniper) he can move AFTER, when my POV is that Shot on the Run is letting you "take your movement from trick attack" which per the Sniper feature is null with an unwieldy weapon.

All of this is moot if he wanted to use the Coil Rifle which is not unwieldy, but he likes the damage and versatility of the other snipers.

>>96312609
I'd say Opportune Backstab is first priority then Gang Up. It might not seem like it now, but being able to flank by standing next to each other is incredibly valuable. You can save people actions and not taking reactions from enemies with it. It's very noticeable once you fight huge and larger creatures. A demon tried to fly into our backline one time after noticing our cleric was nuking its minions with sanctified spells. It never got there because it flew passed my rogue and another party member's eidolon. The eidolon hit with his reaction because of off guard, and I got to crit it with an Opportune Backstab and down him.

>>96313143
I would agree with your assessment. Besides, you're the gm, you get final say.

>>96312609
>>96313458
Cool, thanks for the advice. Opportune Backstab it is

>>>96314057

What makes Munitions Master bad, besides just being Inventor?

>>96314706
No scaling on the single target ability is the biggest one. It's not absolute dogshit, seems actually pretty good as far as inventors go but it has a weird niche of bad single target shots and aoe that is a lot better than cantrips but worse than an on-level fireball.

I think it only gets worse as you get high level too; the single target shots really fall behind and utility like the difficult terrain you generate gets made useless by every enemy having a fly speed.

>>96314741
Oh, you're right; only one extra d6 forever is garbo. And having to deal with friendly fire sucks.

>>96314706
Extremely action intensive, extremely awkward to play around, it doesn't get legendary DC even though replacing the level 19 feature with it would have been piss easy, and it takes until level 15 (and an innovation tax, lol) before you can safely blow up an area without hurting allies. Still easily the most interesting thing inventor has going.

>>96312792
>>96312834
2e also has male harpies, granted it was mentioned somewhere in 1e too

>>96317768
can't find the 1e mention of male harpies, but I can assume they wanted to get rid of one of the "reproduces only through cannibalistic rape" monsters

>>96318043
Sandpoint book if I recall correctly, an obscure mention in the hinterland part/section.

2E changed several "Female only" races, and altered several "mainly female" ones to be more balanced.

>>96318082
What're some of the other alterations? Changelings and Harpies have men now but I don't know about any others.

>>96318193
Dryads/Nymph, but some of those changes/alterations started in 1E.
I feel like I am forgetting some...

>>96318193
Medusas are a little vague about having males, the block use the same "they" pronouns as the harpies one. But they don't bring up anything about males and they still stick with being a primarily female monster race.
Their descendants, Sthenos, do have male and female ones, though. They are supposed to be "player-ancestry" ready, but they never got around to that for some reason.

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I have an idea for an archetype for inventor to make it like a power ranger

do not get reconfigure, complete reconfigure, or infinite invention
get special powerful fist that also affects your innovations' strikes
get all the innovations
must use overdrive to access innovations, armor innovation forms around you as part of using overdrive (collapse armor, can also choose to form weapon innovation when using overdrive or form it as a single action during combat (collapse weapon)
can use overdrive when initiative starts as free action
when using overdrive, choose an initial modification for whatever innovations you're using
can add a breakthrough and revolutionary modification at relevant levels
manifold modifications gives each innovation a permanent initial modification

get collapse armor, collapse construct, and new collapse weapon at level 1, all have negligible bulk in this state
cannot use construct companion until level 2 archetype feat
level 2 archetype feat also lets you share compatible runes between your weapon innovation and your fists

feats include:
-feat to make one enemy explode as a single action after a successful strike (with a -2 penalty to their save if they are below half health, and one outcome worse if you crit them)
-feat to change your weapon into a different type of weapon you are proficient with as an action, can also change its modifications
-feat to change your offensive boost into a different type as an action or when you use overdrive
-feat to summon your construct companion to a different square within several feet and then teleport inside it as part of summoning it
-feat to add one property rune to your weapon for one minute per day (can use once while in normal form and once while mounted on your construct companion)
-feat to add an eye laser attack to construct companion
-reactive strike that your construct companion can also use while you are mounted on it

continued...

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>>96318345
continued

companion must be summoned via three actions, gets to act as if you had commanded it when used this way
can only be summoned once per day for one minute, increasing to twice per day at 7th level and three times per day at 15th
when using summon companion:
-overdrive duration refreshes and you enter critical overdrive as if you had critically succeeded on overdrive roll
-must be at least one size larger than you
-you mount your companion, except you don't take a penalty to reflex saves
-if you are not mounted on your companion, it cannot act and you cannot command it, but you can remount it as an action
-you have greater cover against enemies targeting you (cannot use it to hide), and gain a +4 circumstance bonus to saves against anything that would involuntarily remove you from your mount (does not include mental effects that make you voluntarily leave your mount)
-can wield your weapon innovation and benefits from your armor innovation, your weapon appears in its appendages or mouth and is resized for it
--thus it can also benefit from your runes
-can summon it at increased size at levels 7 and 15, increasing its existing reach by 5 for each size above medium
-all of its strikes and inventor class/class archetype abilities deal one extra die of damage, including offensive boost and megaton strike (and another extra die for unstable megaton strike)
-if companion is destroyed, you appear in a random adjacent square, taking any excess damage dealt to your companion, and your weapon returns to normal size in your square
-can automatically succeed at unstable checks the first time you or your construct uses an unstable ability, stacks with unstable redundancies
-cannot use abilities like duo dragon kick
-can use your crafting modifier in place of any check it would be trained in

>1e
Does a Bolt Ace or Crossbowman get Dex to damage from bombs using a launching crossbow?
https://aonprd.com/EquipmentWeaponsDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Launching%20crossbow

>>96288256
Alright thanks!

>>96284520
Gun Tank and Scatter Gunner Gunslinger.
If it's a duergar tyrant, you even get some psychic powers.

2e
I need some help deciding on what I should do. Recently ended Gatewalkers and the GM is giving us 1 year of downtime to do whatever we want. We fought a superboss afterwards and for defeating we all gained a Mythic Calling. I am a Thaumaturge with Bard FA and Thespian's Calling. They are letting us use hero points to activate them. They brought up if I wanted to I could earn income so I looked into that. I have Talisman Esoterica so I could pay out of pocket to craft / or get an ally to craft a Orchestral Brooch. So I found that I need a 13 on the die to crit for a lvl 20 earn income with all my bonuses. But thanks to my mythic calling, i could make that check mythic and only need a 9 to crit. So I need help deciding if I should go with 2 40% or 1 60% with a stupid high payout? Also, there is no rules for Mythic Earn Income so not sure what to use for that. Before anyone says anything, I talked with the GM and are cool with it and I am only buying lvl 12 or less items and the remaining money will be given to my fellow pcs. Also, thanks to Thespian's Calling, as long as i pass, I will get a hero point back.

>What's your favourite houserule/homebrew?

Champion reactions only need to have an ally taking damage within the aura to function. It just blocks damage. It does whatever extra stuff your cause does if the enemy is in the aura.

>>96283202
>Dumb playoid arbitrarily decides to withhold information from the rest of the party for no reason.


Why must you make my job more difficult for no reason?

Is Draconic Sorcerer fun? I was thinking of going a primal one.

What’s the most outlandish/hard-to-accept Pathfinder character backstory you’ve ever seen/written?
I’m trying to figure out where the bar is in terms of how ludicrous I can get without being laughed out of the room.
Specifically I’m trying to play a Reborn Soul background Psychic whose backstory is a shameless ripoff/mixture of both Sadako Yamamura and Ryuji Takayama towards the end of “Spiral” by Koji Suzuki

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Are (Ranged) thaumaturges just low damage as a general rule? I'm playing one with an air repeater and I am definitely the lowest damage dealer in my party as far as strikes go.

>>96322965
Yes, but it's not as bad as it'd be for, say, a fighter doing the same thing. You have both Implement's Empowerment and Exploit Weakness to improve your damage. It'll get better as you level and get more weapon damage dice.

If you're feeling the squeeze of tiny damage dice, though, you can take the Crossbow Infiltrator archetype for a Repeating Hand Crossbow, bumping your d4s to d6s, though you lose the agile trait.

>>96322965
Range is inherently better so obviously it needs to be lower damage.

So, my PF2e party I'm GMing for might go for a composition where they don't have a spellcaster: its looking like it'll be Commander, Monk, Thaumaturge, and Kineticist. Will they do alright without a caster?

>>96323658
Kineticist is pretty much a caster, Thaumaturge hits weaknesses anyway, and Commander provides plenty of support. You good.

>>96301054
PoW Mystic is up there too. And don't think it's a coincidence that they're both their own thing rather than just trying to turn a fighter/wizard mix into a single class.

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(1e question) Is a creature with 5 magus levels liable to fucking kill my party?

I've got a kineticist, two gun users (a gunslinger and swashbuckler), a magus, and an unchained rogue

>>96288256
"If you Delay an entire round without returning to the initiative order, the actions from the Delayed turn are lost, your initiative doesn't change, and your next turn occurs at your original position in the initiative order."

So no, actually.

>>96323658
Are you fixing Commander-Kineticist (non)interactions?

1e fighter chad here. How is this class so peak? Mogging caster sissies and barbarians is kino.

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>>96323658
A caster is nice to have but by no means required. The thaumaturge might want scroll thaumaturgy so the party has a reliable scroll/wand user though.

>>96323369
Range can't flank and is barred from doing a slew of things that can only be done adjacent or within reach. Not to mention AoOs

>>96325192
Even cavemen figured out why range is good, and yet you're still struggling.

>>96325199
Talk about irony. I never said it's not good. But it being inherently better simply isn't true and you'd have to be a simpleton to think that.

Is Glamorous Buckler worth it for a scoundrel rogue

>>96322571
I don't get what's the choice with 2x40%? In any case, that one has a 4% lower chance to fail.

>>96322998
Yeah I know it's not as bad due to empowerment and exploit but it feels kinda weak to be pidling out 9 damage when I see the exemplar in our game pumping out 20 damage a strike regularly.
But I assume it gets better and shit over time.

>>96325427
A lvl 20 Earn Income has a DC of 40. I am rolling Performance at +27 normally at lvl 11 thanks to being Master, Virtuosic Performer, Entertainer's Cincture and Orchestral Brooch. If I use my Mythic Calling of Thespian's Calling, I can turn it to Mythic proficiency and jump my roll to a +31. I also have Densa's moderate boon. So if i roll at Master, I need a 13 on the die, which is a 40% chance and I could spend either a hero point or my boon. With Mythic, I need a 9 on the die, 60% chance. Although thinking about it, I should be able to do both turning it Mythic and using my boon since my GM is ruling that the boon has the fortune trait and Calling's don't. It will just be costly but I will get a point back thanks to Thespian's Calling if I succeed.

>>96326221
You'll probably never outdamage the exemplar, but you're still doing good damage. And you're doing it from a relatively safe distance, with the option to attack twice almost always available to you, since you don't need to move into melee to hit. That sort of thing does add up. If you can get consistent accuracy boosts from somewhere and consistently use your strongest option from EV, you'll really pull your weight by being able to hit twice every turn.

There's also things like the regalia adept benefit, sources of sneak attack, and other personal buffs that you can put on yourself to help with damage.

>>96326221
Thaum is a DPS class but they are distinctly capped by their one-handed weapon restrictions. Exemplar is a DPS class based entirely on massive metastrikes and stance dancing. You are fine, man, especially once you get your second damage die. Comparison is the enemy of contentment.

>>96325383
It's okay, but +1 to feints is easy enough to get unless you like the once per day ability. Dueling cape could be a cheaper solution as an example, although it's not as friendly to using that hand for other things unlike a buckler.

Where all male Pathfinders?

>>96332795
Doing office work while the women get the real stuff done.

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>>96327574
>>96326787
Thanks lads. And FWIW I already have a striking rune on my air repeater, but so does everyone else.
Either way I'll just vibe. Thaumaturge seems like a fun class overall.

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I REALLY wanted to make Liz's sheet a double spread-er like Gigi's, but it was threatening to be way more work than I have time and/or mental capacity for this week, so I'll try to compromise a bit and include some of the missing information in the lore blurb I'll do later.

Anyway, I had a hell of a time trying to figure out what, exactly, I was going to mechanically do for Liz's sheet. The biggest thing that was throwing me off was the constant blue flame that's always burning on her chest, the eponymous Bloodflame, as it were. I hm'd and haw'd over what the heck I was going to do about this very prominent artistic detail of her design, until I finally realized what it was I could do. Initially I thought that Kinetic Knight would work (it's literally in the name), but I found the archetype too constraining for what I needed, so I just went with the basic class for 90% of the build. From there, apparently there's only one Prestige class in the entire game that's compatible with the Kineticist, so if I was going to keep my little game of having at least one level in a prestige class for each member of Justice that was going to be my pick.
I'm ultimately the least invested (both emotionally and literally) in the single level dip into Flamesinger, not least of which because I think it has the least mechanical justification for being there but also because I almost felt like I had to have at least one level in Bard, and that archetype just fit the best. I also realize as I look over this sheet that I am technically missing a weakness that should have been imposed by her armor, but whatever, it's fine.

As always if you want to see any of the others I've done you can find them here: https://x.com/DrumerThead/status/1956840886836613508

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Let's say, theoretically, a powerful Fae queen was collecting "kingdoms". Like, she was literally collecting kingdoms and turning them in to what seemed like magical grains of sand in a magical hourglass.

Theoretically speaking, what would happen if a player opened the hourglass and ate the kingdoms?

>>96336696
Depending on what turning a kingdom into a magical grain of sand does to the kingdom and everyone in it, your player possibly killed thousands and thousands of people and destroyed a bunch of stuff, which is bad. Either way, they also ate a bunch of sand, which is a both peculiar and stupid thing to do even if the sand isn't magically transformed kingdoms.

>>96336696
Gain the power of thousands of frail old kings, also an intestinal blockage.

>>96336696
Sickened 1.

2e
So a Full Plate comes with an undercoat of Padded Armor. So if I was attacked in the night and only wearing the Padded Armor. Would the runes I have on the Full Plate also count as on the Padded Armor since they are a set?

>>96338131
Yes and this is specifically how you maintain your characters investment to the armor despite removing it.
Keep in mind any runes that require the armor be the correct category like fortification would be suppressed until you don the full armor.

>oh wow did you...
>did you really just...
>try to do something as a caster?
>sweet summerchild...
>i cant even right now with you
>you arent allowed to have FUN!
>your job is to be a buffbot for the party martials and that is IT!!!

>>96338173
i disagree but the mastery of dodging shitty options is more than it should be even if you don't include books that did nothing but introduce more dogshit spells who's niche is often covered better in pre-existing PC/PC2

>>96338600
>18 levels of being a cuck and then finally at lv19 with a homebrew item that gives you +2 or more to your SAR and DCs and you maybe sometimes get to do 1 thing per fight that isn't just tipping the numbers in favour of the fighterman

>>96336696
he gets a cardboard crown and is dubbed the burger king

>>96338625
This will also unlock a random encounter with a rowdy Mwangi female while traveling on an airship.

>>96338600
>Do less damage than a poorly optimized ranged martial
or
>Massively boost your frontliner's effectiveness

>>96340692
You should be doing both, especially "less damage" only refers to singular targets and not spread out over crowds.
also debuffs help you too.

>>96340699
I want to blast enemies with magic. I don't want to buff the martials, and I don't want to debuff/control the enemies (aka buffing the martials but in a roundabout way). Why do martials get to live out their power fantasies and have a million different archetypes for every niche they could want, but casters get fuck all?

>>96340911
>I don't want to debuff/control the enemies (aka buffing the martials but in a roundabout way
First of all, this is just the wrong way to think about such. There are statuses you can inflict that help you more than martials, Enfeebled, Clumsy, Fatigued, Stupefied, they all impact foes more for your purposes than what martials can (reliably) inflict. Sure, some statuses like Prone help some classes more than others. But crowd control by its very nature is an important aspect to winning the game. Not even Fighter or Barbarian can get away with JUST damage, they need to find ways to do such and they won't be as potent as you, the caster, at doing such.

>I want to blast enemies with magic.
Two, I don't know what this means. There's plenty of spells that just do good damage on a bunch of people. Fireball, Howling Blizzard, Divine Wrath, Inner Radiance Torrent, Holy Cascade, Sanguine Mist, Noise Blast, so on and so forth. Even on saves, this still does good damage thanks to their high scaling.
If you just mean SINGLE-TARGET and the lack of ACCURACY, this is a different issue that still technically have their own fixes, as goofy or cumbersome they all are. And even then, being AS ACCURATE in single-target damage as the martials is an odd ask when you think about it. I do think they should get some spell attack runes or the like, as much as Kineticists do. But it is clear there is no need to be exactly the same as martials.

>have a million different archetypes for every niche they could want
Thirdly, there's plenty of archetypes casters can use too. Pistol Phenom, Scout, Field Propagandist, Familar Master/Sage, Time Mage, Geomancer, Hallowed Necromancer, Necrologist, Spell Trickster, I can on and on. Yeah, martials get more support but that's always been the case. They have more room to slot in stuff, more inspirations to draw from, and the nature of spells in this system cover a lot that could be done in a typical archetype.

>>96340911
>>96341523
Don't get me wrong, there are clear issues with casters in the system. The numbers can be fucking whack at certain level ranges, they get bad content updates and additions, many still lack good feats, Wizard, and the core design of some classes are more weird than they ought to be. I don't think casters need to be as overstuffed with junk in the trunk as Animist is (and even they got some weirdly shafted slop like Shaman), but I do think Paizo don't do their due diligence in properly playtesting them as they do with martials, or give them as unique features as they do with things like Thaumaturge, Swashbuckler, or even Alchemist and Inventor. Only recently they started to realize they overvalued the hell out of spellcasting, hence why we can get pretty potent options like Witch, Witchwarper, Animist, or Mystic. And why I have high hopes for Necromancer (really should get 3 slots a level), Technomancer, and even the Psychic refresh with the Dark Archive Remaster.

Beyond stupid shit like their refusal to give even a +1 spell attack rune (we can do simple subtraction, not everything has to be tied to DCs!), the Sure Strike nerf, or them printing stupidly strong options that Fighter gets to trounce with ("lol", says the Phantasmal Doorknob. "lmao". Even nerfed it still kind of a problem...), I think casters are overall in a healthy place and most complaints are ignorant of what they have gotten over the years or always had.

Ultimately the debate with casters in 2e revolves around "effective problem solving" vs "satisfying class fantasy".

Like, if you had a class that could do almost anything, but the lore of how they go about doing that is that they lick a doorknob, and somehow licking a doorknob in just the right way was how they went about solving every problem (and it works!), mathematically that's a valid way to solve the problem of not losing the game. Realistically, however, if the rest of the game was filled with much cooler sounding options but all of them mathematically sucked donkey nards, we'd basically be having the same discussion. You have spells in the game whose descriptions say things like
> You channel the ancient power of the underworld, a claw rising from the ground and tearing at the target's very soul, as if trying to drag them down into the darkest pits of Hell
and the actual, in-game effect is something like
> Critical Success: The target is unaffected
> Success: The target is shaken 1
> Failure: The target is shaken 1 and takes 4d6 negative damage
> Critical Failure: The target is shaken 2 and takes double damage
And all of that is to say nothing of the fact that because of the way the math works out you'll basically never get a Critical Failure on anything that you actually care about unless they Nat 1.

getting fatigued from triumph of the tusk
scheduling is fucking us so we play like once a month for four hours and 2-2.5 of those hours are spent on one fight fighting orcs with scaling math that all have shield block AoO and ferocity. nearly every session
the party's 3 martials and a wizard with no ability to turn off reactions

>>96341745
That is a valid line of thinking, imo. There is a clear factor of frustration that comes from how Paizo writes its fluff and advertising compared to the role and practicalities of many spells. Sometimes it just get in the way for no good reason, like Pocket Library becoming Rare because LO writers need to be shoved into lockers. And this isn't a caster-only issue, we have routinely shat on Monk's Godbreaker option for example.

Then there's the issue of how the degrees of success system ties into the advertising and system intents. Even if a spell functions the same as how D&D5e writes spells, the way the DoS system showcases everything makes people believe that the crit-fail are the "real" spell, and not the contingency for the GM to build scenarios around/excess crowd control. Even the Failure effects can be less expected around compared to the Success ones. I think it is unintuitive and Paizo not creating guides for such is frustrating.

But I do think it is more than reasonable to look past these issues, especially as they are more universe and meta than how casters practically end up. Once you understand these hurdles and how they affect different classes and playstyles in different ways, I think you do just come around to how things are.

>>96341863
>and a wizard with no ability to turn off reactions
https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1583
https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1470
could definitely try that....

>>96341888
both he and I are aware of spells that do it, but he's not taking them because they're offbrand for his character

>>96341929
>"it's against my character!"
>ruins it for everyone
sounds about right

Seriously though, unless he's like a Greed/Gluttony Runelord, don't really know why he gotta be like that, especially if you know you are getting fatigued out of the reaction spam. I suppose he should slot in some spells with the Death trait like Vampiric Feast.

>>96341745
Even outside of math issues, they could fix the power by loading more into the success effects. I actually like your example spell more than a lot of ones in the game if it were a first or second level spell. Realistically, the success effect would just be 2d6 damage and the spell would be at least third level making it feel like you did nothing on a successful save. Using your example, I'd like their spells to be more like
> Critical Success: The target is unaffected
> Success: The target takes 4d6 negative damage
> Failure: The target is shaken 1 and takes 4d6 negative damage
> Critical Failure: The target is shaken 2 and takes double damage

If casters are going to be about consistency, make them feel consistent. When I roll 26 damage on my Divine Wrath, that feels like good damage on a guy with 150 health. On a save? 13 damage feels like a rounding error and a waste of actions. I'd prefer the success and failure effects both deal full damage, with the failure effect having a nice rider or forcing a second save to fall prone or whatever. That or come up with something better than half damage on success. Phantasmal Calamity is the exact example of a spell you're talking about. Sounds cool, generic half damage on success effect.

>>96342234
It took me a bit to realize why this bothered me, beyond just "MUH SYSTEM IS PERFECT I HEART PAIZO" fanboyism. And then it hit me:
It *hit me*.

If my squishy Level 1 12 HP Elf Sorcerer got hit with this, I'm killing my GM. A spell with a 5% chance of not instantly murking my character with no recourse is a little absurd, dontcha think? Even at Level 3 to account for it being a 2nd rank spell and not first, this is still taking out 75% of my HP no matter how I build.

Even if you wanna argue that spells shouldn't be in the hands of the GM (and friendly fire if this is an area spell...), you still removing a lot of agency and design space out of such. Half damage on save is to make sure a monster doesn't just lose to 4 guys doing the same thing while making sure that something was accomplished and information gathered.

>>96283202
I've got a specific question about The Forgotten, that I figured you nerds would know. Can vanished/forgotten dieties grant divine power? The only thing keep me from buying The Cradle of Night is I'm 70% sure it doesn't answer anything about them.

>>96340911
I'm basically the opposite. I want to protect my party. I want to debuff enemies. I don't want to blast enemies with magic. That's why I picked emotional support and infinite eye. But my class features only apply to direct damage. My debuffs haven't improved in 10 levels. I can give you +1 AC. I can give them -1 to attacks if they fail a save. I can give one person heroism. There's no utility. There's no variety. It's always just let's attack until it dies.

>>96342691
It's only absurd because casters are too squishy on top of the problems with magic. But I do see your point, and I have a solution that fixes some more of my issues with casters. Many of them get no evasion effects until 17, on top of having only unarmored as their default armor. An armor type which exists only so you are squishier than everyone else and provides no benefit, unlike heavy armor which should sacrifice your reflex save for superior AC but doesn't because of Bulwark. So how about this? Unarmored gives half damage on successful saves against magic as an innate benefit. This gives unarmored casters something unique and thematic, and also makes unarmored an actually tempting choice depending on your campaign.

Your second point about people rushing down monsters with this doesn't matter. Monsters are already generally stronger than PCs and spell slots are a limited resource. If a party wants to play like that, all power to them. At worst, you might have to adjust the damage on a few spells by a dice or die size if it's that potent a playstyle.

>>96318817
Reroll.

>2e is so good it's so much better than 5e, you can do anything! look at all these classes! look at all these options!

>ok so here's the list of feats you have to take otherwise you're gimping yourself
>no don't play that class it's bad, this class is objectively better in every way
>if you aren't playing an elf or human you wont get any good ancestry feats
>here are the only useful skill feats in the game you will take on every single character ever
>blasting? here's the list of pre-approved buffs to cast on the martial
>if you do literally anything else as a caster you're dragging down the whole party
>ok now here is your basic rotation, you'll be doing this every single turn for every combat, forever

>isnt this so much better?!

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>>96336696
be honest, how bad was the headache you felt.

>>96336696
Fae expert here:
The queen would demand to be compensated for the destruction of her property. She'd demand an equal number of kingdoms be returned to her collection. The correct move here is to give her a collection of history books of every kingdom the players could possibly visit, so she has "collected" the kingdoms. If you want, you can end the hostilities here. Otherwise, you can have the Fae queen consider this gift more literally and she steals the collective history of all these kingdoms. What happens from there is up to you. Maybe all the kingdoms disband and make new ones since they all collectively forgot their history. Or it turns into a wild west where king and peasant alike are on equal footing.

>>96344639
gonna be real with you and say that all d20 "optimization advice" mostly boils down to playing the game in a really safe way since you can't really foresee what an individual GM will do in regards to setting up encounters, how generous the GM has been, and so on. I don't think the game is so rigidly designed that your average afternoon at a Pathfinder Society pick-up game will be utterly ruined if someone is "suboptimal".

>>96344704
Well, you see. It's actually a gift to the first world eldest. She's left to go tell them she has an amazing gift for them and has prepared a whole ceremony to give it to them.

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Just finished my final campaign, probably the last game I'm ever gonna run. Started out 6 years ago in DND 5e and switched to Pathfinder 1e after the second game, so most of these games belong to this general. (As you can notice, dragonborns disappear from the party lineups lol).

Made a little drawing to commemorate all the campaigns I've ran for roughly the same group for over half a decade. I'm not a very good artist, but my players seemed to like it, so I wanted to share it.

I really liked running Pathfinder 1e, although I avoided going past levels 7-9. Mostly because the campaigns reached their logical conclusion before they could go past those levels, and mostly because the longest I've ran (44 sessions), I was trying out Epic 6.

I have a lot of thoughts about it. I was thinking of writing after-action reports or campaign journals for either a forum or this board, but in retrospect, nothing truly "epic" happened and a lot of the campaigns were low-level and personal. (My players had a tendency to become enamored with locales and npcs, so there was not a lot of globetrotting).

ALSO, halfway through I decided to incorporate the Spheres of Power and Spheres of Might to "spice things up". I can talk at length about them, but I'll be brief. They can be fun but they're horrendously broken. Wouldn't recommend them.

Anyway, I'd like to talk about my campaigns if anyone is interested in listening, and if not, please enjoy this mspaint drawing I made.

>>96345041
Mate these drawings are very sweet and you talk with such passion about your campaigns.
Please do share more, would love to hear it!

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I miss him

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>>96345041
>>96345086
The first two games were run in DND 5e.

Sands of Karak took place mostly in a desert landscape with mountains. It was the most "epic" but also the most abrupt and truncated because all the players were new to ttrpgs. A demonic invasion was threatening the city-states of the deserts and the players were stuck in the middle of it all. They ran into Templars, who, because one of the players was a rather evil warlock, accused them of consorting with the demons, and ran them out of the cities. It ended rather abruptly when the gnome druid poisoned a well and caused the party to enter a multi-hour argument, which ended when the barbarian picked up the gnome and throw her to the ground like a touchdown. Probably the most amount of evil characters I’ve seen in a game.

The second game, Age of Tyranny, was a restart of the first. It took place in and around a coastal city, marshes, hills and small mountains. A souped up Devourer monster took root inside a city and was creating undead, which was snatching people at night. The players rather haphazardly stumbled upon the Devourer in the sewers, and spent almost half the campaign in said sewers clearing out undead. One of the player characters died and was buried behind a brothel.

Cont.

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>>96345155
For the Empire was the shortest campaign I ran. It was a survival campaign. The players were escaped slaves who had to survive on the frontier of said Empire. It was around the release of Tasha’s Cauldron, which I recall made me quite mad and stop running DND 5e altogether. I don’t even remember why, probably the gender-fluid elves. The game had another evil warlock who was sacrificing baby goats to her patron behind the party’s back.

Reign of Sorcery, on the other hand, was the longest campaign. It’s when I started running Pathfinder 1e, and used Epic 6 to boot. It took place entirely inside of an ancient city, inspired by republic rome/northern italy, which was locked down and taken over by a grandiose wizard after the assassination of the king. The players had to navigate a web of intrigue and lies, there were factions, there were betrayals, there were criminals in the streets, there were evil brothers and insane cultists, there was an efreet in the tunnels below the city. As well as being the longest, it was the most personal for the players as well, since they made characters tied to the city. It ended rather abruptly when they decided to leave after losing a fight to a vampire, but they had to make a wish to the efreet to escape.

Cont.

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>>96345161
Winds of Change is when I introduced Spheres of Power and Might, and it completely threw the balance of the game out of whack. One of the players was a death knight necromancer and one was an insane berserker that could kill multiple enemies in one turn and never die. The setting was the sea and an island. They were hired to help a viking-conquistador type conquer the island that he considered to be his birthright. It ended up becoming Fantasy Treasure Island, when over half the vikings turned against the party and tried to murder the leader. One of the player characters was an insane tiefling who caused a LOT of problems by murdering a bard in his sleep, because the bard got drunk and was annoying. He later died to a dinosaur.

The Anarchy was the most stable game, and yet had the most bullshit character. A Spheres of Might mounted knight with a lance who killed any enemy that approached him. The setting was the frontier of the Empire once again, this time abandoned by the Empire after many years. Lots of forests, mountains, rivers and a village that served as the base of operations of the party. The players fought an army of hobgoblins and beastmen and saved the local towns from destruction. The knight ended up becoming the king of the land because of how powerful he was, and because he killed a lindwurm/flightless dragon. The elf and the dwarf are the same character. It was a dwarf at first, but he died and the druid player reincarnated him into an elf.

Cont.

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>>96345164
The Bereaved is one of the shortest, in fact it was only 11 sessions. The party were turned into monsters by a witch and they worked with a rather evil wizard to turn back. The evil wizard was the ruler of the land, which was being plagued by werewolves and vampires and of course, the witches. Very Transylvania/Scholomance inspired.

Enemy Within is the final game, and the one I tried to take most care. The setting is the failing Empire mentioned above. A sort of mixture of the late roman empire and the persian empire at the time of the muslim conquests. The party were a band of mercenaries, and they traveled half the realm to fight snake-worshipping cultists, undead monsters, undead mercenaries, bandits roaming the countryside, GOBLINS, and finally, ally with a tribe of barbarians and defeat an army of orcs and two dragons. Since it can’t get any better than killing two dragons, I decided it to be the final campaign. The party also encountered an antediluvian lich king that liked riddles, and one of the players got quite flustered when he failed his riddle.

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>>96345173
One final drawing, and my greatest creation.

>>96345238
Good stuff. I've started to make a habit of drawing things from my own games as well after my table challenged each other to just draw our own tokens no matter our artistic ability.

Am curious though, why's it going to be the last game you run? Retiring to be a player?

>>96345291
Real life obligations and I feel like I'm running out of (good) ideas. Maybe I'll return to being a GM in a year or two depending on how things go, but for now, I'm happy to lay back and relax.

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>>96345331
You fool! You think you can just QUIT GM'ing?!
Hope things sort out IRL, man. These seem like super fun campaigns.

>>96345445
Thanks

>>96296556
Magic is only 100~ odd years old (ie, many longer lives races remember an age before magic), and everyone is freaking the hell out. Most places are theocracies since 'miracles' (mechanically divine magic) were the only supernatural power available to non-monster races before this point

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Pathfinder 2nd Edition

Gonna GM Prey For Death in September, any common pitfalls/problems to keep in mind? I already plan to have Jakalyn make a VERY brief appearance at the start just so the players know who the hell they're supposed to be working for, but other than that I'm trying to keep close-ish to the book

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>>96336696
Like having your Own Sister shooting you in the back of the head

>>96344639
I feel like the most ironic part of this, even considering that the best vs worst class in 2e is closer than even the difference between T4 and T5 martials in 1e, is that the floor of blasting is easily so much more accessible in in 2e vs PF1e, and buffing people was a massively better use of your slots even on dedicated 1e blaster builds.

It's just kind of incredible to me that despite any step forward 2e did actually make in terms of making a coherent, "balanced" game, it manages to kneecap itself off how things feel to a player coming in fresh/without a very specific brain disease. The vagueness of game feel is such a nightmare for a designer.

>>96344639
Are there any classes besides Battle Herald and Inventor that are boat anchors? I honestly can't think of anything else that isn't at least 'fine.'

>>96347086
I dunno if those two are even boat anchors, they aren't actively harmful to your party, just underperformers with atrocious design. Battle Herald probably isn't even that hard to unfuck, even.

>Quantum Field: Movements blur as images of alternate iterations of your enemies flicker around them. When an enemy in your quantum field attempts an action with the concentrate trait, the action is disrupted unless they succeed at a DC 5 flat check. The first time a creature fails this check, it becomes temporarily immune for 24 hours.

fuckin hell paizo, just fucking stop with this immunity shit

>>96346811
Some of the stuff isn't really Paizo's fault. If you coming straight off of D&D5e or PF1e where you don't have to try to be powerful, it wouldn't really make much sense that you have to try and think about how every mechanic is meant to mesh together. It's like going from Final Fantasy or Pokemon to Shin Megami Tensei, Etrian Odyssey, or even Dragon Quest. There's a genuine system shock in acknowledging stuff like buffs, debuffs, status effects, and consumables actually matter and aren't just RPG set dressing.

Sure, Paizo really could hire better writers that can create guidelines and expectations. I'm surprised they never made their own online tutorial series that break down play patterns and expectations. It's frustrating how much the fans have to put in the legwork in selling their own game. But the general field of RPGs, especially in the d20 fantasy space, doesn't lead itself well to bucking the power fantasies.

>>96347225
Ehhhhh, I would actually call Battle Herald a fucking millstone to the party. Not only it is a frontliner that sucks at frontlining, you are actively pivoting away from the reasons why people would want a Cleric in the party for something that any Divine caster can do. You get no damage buffs (WHERE THE FUCK IS THE WEAPON SPECIALIZATIONS??), your class DCs still only rise as fast as caster spell DCs, and you really are hurting your team synergy because of how little the party can benefit from your mechanics. Why does it take 'til Level 20(!!) for you to have a one-action cast time for your auras??

Yeah, it can be fixed, but as it is, it is pretty FUBAR'd. Champion and Warpriest are right there.

PF2E has a serious issue with bloat. There is so much worthless shit that could easily be condensed into other stuff.

>>96349410
It just going to be a longstanding Paizo issue. Between their production schedules, the team split, the rogue's gallery of freelancers, them being a lesser company to WotC (where they just poach the good writers), and the nature of d20 fantasy requiring a quantity over quality, bloat will always be an issue. Hell, powercreep can turn even good options into bloat over time.

Though I will say a good number of writers should have been sacked a long while ago. People that make shit like Vampire Archetype, Munitions Master, once-per-day magic items that are less effective than a spell slot of HALF its level, Battle Harbinger, Sanguimancer... There's bloat for bloat's sake, and then there's literally not even playing the game you make content for.

>>96349406
Yea it's definitely awful, no argument there. I've had to go on lengthy rambles at people detailing all the ways it feels like someone's rough draft that got published somehow. It is not actively useless, but anything it does, someone else does better.

Most insulting is still that if Battle Herald was just "what if we just gave Warpriest Wavecasting, then the same weapon and armor scaling as a Ruffian Rogue" it would have been considered one of the most compelling class archetypes in the game. To say nothing of some other way to implement the auras.

God class archetypes are just so shitty. Even the """good""" ones piss me off.

>>96349501
It's weird how much Paizo been struggling with the Class Archetype idea. I understand that by design, it is pretty limiting and the modern 2e archetype system is just more open than how 1e handled it. It DID had a lot of archetypes that...probably shouldn't be tied to one class or a class at all (Geisha Bard, Groom Ranger, Kensai Magus, Urban Skald). And the good ones like Remastered Runelord does show you need to leave a lot of space and have a strong foothold to build up on. Something like Synthesist Summoner does require more work and understanding, else you just get like a shitty shifter build...

But like...it shouldn't be this hard to pump out a good number of good CAs. Spell list swaps, dual-class setups, bounded casters, specific weapon focuses. Sure, it is fine to have something like War Mage or Bloodrager where there's definite bad feats/features but ultimately a workable-to-good package. But completely stumbling to find a point like Avenger, Munitions Master, or Palatine Detective is absolutely mindboggling. These AREN'T FULL CLASSES, they shouldn't be this hard to playtest and figure out why they should exist! No one should have looked at Spellshot for YEARS and needed to say "maybe this should have spellcasting and a spellshot...".

Half the work in making a Class Archetype work is already done. It's called the Class itself. Just focus on making the new concept work first.

>>96349450
My main issue is there is a ton of worthless magic items and spells. Like you already have neat system with modular spells whose effects change if you use more actions. Just cut half of the worthless spells and give the rest that modularity with different effects.

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>>96349602
It definitely seems like like 8/10 times, archetypes in 2e are abysmal dogshit, and most of the time the remaining 2 times only ever reach "kinda okay", and class archetypes might have an even worse track record than that. I wish I had more enthusiasm for brewing stuff for 2e, because class archetypes feel so ripe for exploration, but I dunno man-it just never feels worth the effort, maybe I just burnt myself out after making shit for 1e for years.

>Avenger
They did my boy Zadim and my girl Imrijka, too so fucking dirty it's unreal, makes me sad every time I think about it. At least with Munitions Master it's bad but interesting? It fails, but it isn't trying to bring back some 1e thing, and it at least tries something weird, unique, and kinda cool?

>>96347086
Inventor isn't even that bad you actually let them craft and remember to get item bonus to crafting

>>96344639
>rotation

You're so bad wtf

>>96344639
>start turn
>stance on initiative (you DO play original homebrew 1-20 everytime, you're not some kind of AP whiney baby faggot being spoonfed by a woke gm are you)
>flurry of blows the friendly fighter (he needs a challenge)
>step away so he doesnt kill me back
>Moonwalk 60ft away
lol now repeat

>>96340692
>>96340911
If frontliners are doing the most damage, you're playing an easymode table with really boring encounters

Frontliners at hardmode tables will be spending most of their actions escaping grapples, raising shields, tumbling, stepping, getting up from prone and trying to pick up their items. First ones to lose actions and get downed typically

>>96342691
You are correct. Spells are balanced to be used against players, almost no other D20 type system is

>>96349933
Naaaah. I totally get your point, but even when they are cruising for a brusin', your frontliners should be dealing the most single-target DPS. It's their job, someone's not playing the Giant Barbarian correctly if they aren't topping the charts.
Strikers are as important as Controllers in 2e. The average encounter should be the frontliners holding off big threats while the backline keeps them up and the mobs from outnumbering the foes. Rogue, Ranger, Thamauturge, Swashbuckler, Magus (past the extent of its own design issues), even Inventor would be FAR more dysfunctional if they weren't good at pumping up the DPS numbers.

>>96349622
Magic Items are more suffering from the silly idea that if a martial had essentially their own spell slot, it shouldn't be as potent as a caster. Which, sure, but they are SOOOOO compromised, they really don't have a good purpose.
As for spells, ehh? I understand the bloat complaint with them, but they are also designed to fill super specific niches. In this kinda game, the average caster doesn't really "need" anything more than Fireball and a healing spell. But the universe they live in is not one where combat solves everything. There are many situations where you need a specifically-designed spell, and that's kind of the caster's fantasy in the d20 space. No amount of modularity in actions or free Rituals will ever cover everything that could happen in a campaign. So it is more appealing to create a bunch of spells that do unique things, even if they have limited utility or lacking in power. I don't begrudge 1e or D&D for having a bunch of bad spells, it what separates magic in these systems from narrative-based ones, where because it can be anything, it can't really DO anything.

...Of course, more good spells are always nice. Not everything needs to be Electric Arc's level of omnipresent, but more stuff like Boneshaker is always fun.

Thoughts on Gust of Wind? Seems a bit situational.

>>96349953
Ehhhhh, don't sell 1e short on such, or even other d20 fantasy games. These games always had a "balance" between how players and GMs have similar rules. Simulationism is a core tenet of these games, and 2e kind creates harder splits between player and GM rules at times, compromising the simulationism, for the sake of its own balance.

You can always argue if you already fudging monster numbers and abilities, they shouldn't have "spells" in the traditional sense. Hence why I focused on complaining how...lame it is to beat on a monster with guaranteed damage. If the risk of failure is so miniscule, then it does just lack challenge. You need to have your lows to have your highs.

>>96349724
Archetypes are just one of things that both have to be quantity over quality to fill in gaps in playstyles; and limited in power because they could go on ANYONE with the right skills. 1e, even ignoring its celestial-high power ceiling, could afford to make archetypes that just made classes and builds FAR better because they were tied to their classes (rare as that was...). They do sit in an awkward design space, important as they are to 2e's health and longevity. They are like spells in many ways. But at least the way they are, they can just get more and get into better spots than when they launch (rare as that is...).

It's Class Archetypes that don't make much sense. They are the 1e design, with some bonus class feats tacked on to be a "2e archetype". They have a lot more design space (if not page space), so why are they still compromised? I get they are more work than normal Archetypes, but they should be better than what they are.

>At least with Munitions Master it's bad but interesting?
It is at least a funny playstyle. It just scales SO BAD, as if this thing would ever replace a caster if it did had Legendary Class DCs...
Again, why the compromises? Why do these things gotta be so sabotaged?

>>96350123
I think it's a very good spell for both combat verse fast low fort save monsters(like kobolds, goblins and gremlins) and exploring with it's wizard engineer potential; knocking disarm items around, clearing out gas and inhaled hazards, filling sails with wind etc

I think it's reliability is good with exploiting pushing objects around, could pull some BG3 nonsense

>>96350123
Kinda sucks, poorly worded (the success is better than the fail because it is a 60ft semi-wall, not just proned for an action) should have given it scaling, powercrept by later air spells and Wall of Wind. You can definitely find some uses for it, but there are better non-damaging crowd control options out there.

>>96350174
Any other suggestions for a primal spellcaster at level 1 for crowd control?

>>96350161
Regular archetypes in 2e sit in the awkward space where 95% of the time I just wish they existed in a general feat system that didn't bore me to fucking tears instead, because their current value propositions are just so insulting they just piss me off.

I can only imagine class archetypes are shit for the same reasons most class feats are kind of shit, one of which I can only guess is Paizo being fucking terrified they might accidentally print something that upsets PFS, so they lowball it, same as with everything else.

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>>96350188
Runic Weapon

>>96350251
*gets crit disarmed*

Summons are always mathematically better level 1. Instant flanking, another body, another roll, another action even another pair of hands etc

>>96350188
500 Toads
Fear
Grease
Shockwave
Lose the Path
Protector Tree

For the good, non-damaging options. Some things get better as they scale up past Rank 1, like Fear. So early on, though, you can probably focus on chucking in a damage spell such as Sacred Beasts, or a flat buff like Runic Weapon. CC becomes more important when there's you want to control and wouldn't just explode by the Fighter/Barbarian/Rogue thinking too hard near it.

>>96350191
Most archetypes suffer from bad design than explicitly low-balling the power scaling. You can have something like Mind Smith where it that power ceiling is super noticeable and gets in the way, or something like Guerilla where it is too niche to be practical, but you see the intentions. But then there are just stuff like Sanguimancer where NO ONE bothered to playtest the idea to see if it actually does anything. Or I guess Pirate to not punch down on a shitty adventure path design....

I actually think most archetypes are okay enough to build around, even with the obnoxious Dedication system getting in the way of their possible versatility or build potential. While there are plenty that COULD be General/Skill Feats (Classes should have their own Skill Feats so shit like the Metamagics aren't always in competition), I think for the most part I see where the power lies and how they could be good replacements for Class Feats (in a non-FA game). But there are just...bad archetypes that are hideously dysfunctional.

>>96350274
This is for a primal dragon sorcerer so I do get Fear for free. I did take thunderstrike as well since that seems pretty fun. Protector Tree looks interesting but isn't 10 HP pretty weak?

>>96350188
Summon a skunk.

>>96350288
You have very little reason not to have Heal.

>>96350191
They're deathly afraid of anything being "too good" to feel like a must pick (ignore that this still happens in many other places in the system) versus more vanilla builds. There are benefits to this, Timmy doesn't just get to build a better Investigator than Jimmy because he bought the new book, but mostly drawbacks. The thing that they're really banking on is that people will be willing to trade flavor for power. Yeah you could be an Investigator with Witch/Cleric archetype and get roughly the same thing with more power, but Palantine Detective is LITERALLY Constantine. Don't you want to be Constantine? Yeah you could just pick all the spells that do bleed damage, but that's not a REAL Blood Mage like the archetype makes you. Isn't a negligible amount of temp HP so flavorful?

>>96350288
The average high damage range for Level -1 to 1 creatures are 3-6 points. Even taking 2 hits for your allies is 2 hits they didn't die to and no one needs to heal. There's a reason why the Wood Kineticist feat that lets you do this infinitely is busted as hell.

But as you may notice with all the other advice going around, Primal has a little bit of everything and expects you to build around such. This early on you don't have to be on point with your spell selection and you don't even need a damaging option thanks to your cantrips holding the line. Experiment and don't overthink it. Just know once you get your 2nd-rank slots, then you should start figuring out your role and controlling options.

>>96335394
Are kineticists still fucked in PF2?

>>96350364
No, pretty damn good. Arguably better than casters in certain scenarios and bonuses, but they are usually strong picks in any party, assuming you know what impulses are good takes. Not burdening a class made to skirt long term and confusing daily limitations mechanics with a confusing daily limitation mechanic is shockingly powerful!

>>96345155
What level were the players when it ended?

>>96345161
What mechanics did you use to run survival and how did you find making the switch from 5e to PF? It's something I am considering.

>>96350548
Sands of Karak ended at level 4, rather abruptly. Age of Tyranny at level 7. For the Empire at level 5. Reign of Sorcery at Level 6 (But I was using Epic 6 at the time, and without it, they would've been around level 9). Winds of Change at level 7. The Anarchy at level 8. The Bereaved at Level 7. And Enemy Within, the final game, at level 10.

I noticed that I enjoyed running the games the most between levels 1 and 6, where the monster blocs I was using were challenging but fair to fight against. After that, the players either completely trashed the encounters or I had to bust out demons with SR and damage resistances to stand a chance against them lol.

>>96350562
For the survival game I used a nerfed version of gritty realism, healer's kit dependency, and slow natural healing. I tracked spell components, food, water, sleeping, exhaustion and so on. The casters either had to hunt down components or haggle with the guards or merchants, and I got a lot of mileage out of hunting down animals for food and clothes.

I found that my workload increased when I switched to Pathfinder 1e, but the player creativity soared. I also found that after a point, most monsters, several CRs above the players in fact, didn't really pose a challenge anymore, so I had to juggle between the verisimilitude of monsters that they'd encounter, and providing an adequate challenge. Pathfinder also made survival moot, since clerics can just create food and water without spell components.

Overall, I really liked it when the players were below level 7. I recommend against Spheres of Power and Spheres of Might, because a halfway creative player can make some truly nasty, game-breaking shit (Such as one player character that was useless offensively, but couldn't be attacked and shielded the other players from any harm after a while).

Biggest gripe about 2e class archetypes is that it locks you into a dedication instead of being implemented like a subclass.

>>96350161
>Why do these things gotta be so sabotaged?
Some bad faith powergamer might sneak up to your table and abuse an exploit that makes him so strong it ruins the whole campaign and system for your group. And this "sabotage" is the only thing that can possibly protect you!

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pf2e is over-regulated and you literally expected to build in specific way completely removing all creativity and fun.
second edition is not fun it's like linear shit compare to sandbox immersive sim like pf1e and dnd3.5.

this is the main problem not even woke infestation which was even in pf1e and dnd3.5 but in less noticeble quantity

>>96352280
>regulated
Woke gubmit is when pozzo tells me what to do and I do so like a good little cuckold. You sound like a faggot

>>96352280
What's stopping you from using PF2E like a sandbox?

>>96350161
>These games always had a "balance" between how players and GMs have similar rules

They were both asymmetrical in building NPCs and PCs, both use feats and spells to make monsters
But
PF2E says to use spells to make NPCs, and make feat-like abilities
PF1E says to use feats to make NPCs, and to make spell-like abilities

I prefer spells since those are more player-facing

For PF2e.

I have a friend who's got approval to take the Exemplar Dedication and is playing a Dragon Barbarian with Spirit Warrior, so he does the weapon in one hand and flesh gem fist as the other thing. He's asking for recommendations on how to get the most out of it. Game is fairly high optimization and starting at level 10. Free Archetype and Ancestry Paragon.

Rest of the party is a Martial Bard, Dragon Sorcerer, Gunslinger inventor, and maybe a Guardian.

feet

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>>96352831
It's gotten to the point that when I blast the picture of the NPC to the players someone will always mention "feet". What the fuck

>>96352847
They're nice feet, Bront

>>96313134
>grapple BBEG
>have the wizard teleport you both into low earth orbit

>>96352280
>slopper got filtered
Why am I not surprised?

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>>96352847
The weak fear the strong

>>96352854
I've seen better

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>>96352896
Everyday of my life over the past 6 months I think about them

>>96353205
for me it's the 2nd to last bottom row

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At some point we're doing a footchads only char design thread

Prepping to run a sf1e campaign and I can't shake the feeling the game never really took off is because the designers are assholes. So much of the sourcebooks feels like malicious compliance from people who hate their fanbase.

>People ask for item creation rules so they can fill in massive gaps in player loot: Lets write custom gear rules aimed at players where everything is 3 levels underpowered.

>Can't add no frills greatswords or lights lightsabers to the weapon table, we need more page space for feats that are completely redundant with skill synergy.

>This book is our last hurrah! What should we add as an archetype that replaced major class features like spell hacks? How about football coach?

Plasma axes are dogshit. Why? Because one of the designers got pissy about space dwarves and didn't want mystics with cool weapons.

>>96353551
There should be a "the reason" somewhere in that opening paragraph.

>>96353551
Personally I believe there was some upper editor who was complete malicious arse with sf1e.
You kinda get glimpses about how some abilities and gear would have been awesome, but somewhere near the end of writing cycle someone intentionally changed numbers so that the ability became completely worthless, or added some idiotic restriction that has no right for being there. Or removed some line that would have brought the ability together.

I'm playing pathfinder 1e and I was wondering, if I can use my ranks in one skills in place of another, does that count as ranks in the second skill for feats?
For example, my Alchemist can use his Knowledge Nature in place of Heal, would that let me take Healer's Hands or would I need 1 actual rank in heal?

>>96355143
No unless specifically mentioned that it counts as such.GM can obviously allow it though

2e
So it seems weird that Nagaji can be classical nagas but they have no feats for using your tail. Was curious if there are any 3rd party feats to fill this gap? I'm currently playing one and if not I was going to pitch to my GM if I could take Flexible Tail from Lizardfolk. Just wanted to see if that sounds reasonable to fellow anons?

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>>96353381
Listen I know you like dangerous women but the grandpa ghost is a huge red flag.

>>96353551
Playing an Envoy in a SF1e campaign was such a bizarre experience of feeling like I was just being punished for existing. Worse skills than Operative, boring rotation, you barely get any abilities until super deep into levels, so you end up with a really samey rotation.

Though I also have a chip on my shoulder because small arms felt so shitty, and getting proficiency without being a race that grants it for free blew ass. Oh boy, I have to pay TWO feats, while some random bird assholes get free longarm proficiency AND specialization? WOW!

I hate the Kevri so fucking much.

>>96355093
The number of feats that are "+2 insight bonus to two specific skills while under some special condition" is mind boggling. As is the fact they waste an entire ass page in starfinder enhanced on "witchwarpers get infinite worlds charges separate from spells" when it should have been a fucking errata less than a month after COM came out.

It is fucking bizarre some of the hangups the writers had. They outright refused to patch holes in itemization, instead adding more gimmicky shit weapons, and made it functionally impossible for other classes to spec into the amount of healing mystic has natively. And then the medic archetype does fuckall.

>>96355093
>>96355552
That's another example of "no fun allowed". Double Tap is a simple feat that already has a feat tax to use that gets rid of the pointless spec damage penalty for small arms. But then they lock it down with restrictions against using it with full attack, trick attack, and any special weapon abilities when even with all those they'd still be doing worse damage than longarms.

>>96355994
I personally find the Bane weapon fusion one of the most offensive ones around.
Fucker adds crit effect Stun, but half the creature types it lists are immune to either stun or crits.

Are there any decent Starfinder beginner adventures or should I just make something up about an abandoned space station?

>>96356269
1e or 2e? 1e has Junker's Delight.

PF1e. Do the variant entangle spells, like sickening entangle, burning entangle, ect count as entangle for stuff like spell perfection or would I need a feat for each specific one?

>>96356835
No, they are their own spells. Only exceptions as far as I know are Mythic versions of the spells that still count as the same spell, and spells like Mind Thrust that has higher level versions included in the same spell.

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>>96355526
>No girl has the will of the warrior. You have the will of the housewife, or at best the schoolmarm.

>>96356690
2E but I could convert

>>96353551
That's just paizo in general.
pf1e managed to avoid the worst by virtue of copying everything over from 3.5e.
pf2e is designed the same way and sf2e inherits it.
It's all spite.

>>96358235
I'll protest this only insofar as that while PF2e still has spite for players in its heart, it doesn't feel nearly as bad about it as SF1e did. PF2e is mad at you if you ever go outside the most basic character build paths, but SF1e just kind of hates you, period.

>>96358372
Even I would say that while the spite layered in PF2e's design is similar to SF1e, it seems like it was on a mission to prove Hanlon's Razor wrong. That you can be both incompetent AND malicious.

>>96358393
Whenever I look at SF1e, I still think about how enhanced felt like a parting shot to the nuts instead of a fix of anything. They really printed that shit for Solarian and acted like it wasn't an insult.

>>96358406
I had high hopes for those custom weapon/armor rules, but shit is so unfinished and malicious that they are unusable without heavy houserules. And even then I'm not even sure if I can create customized Doshko that works with feats and such.

>>96358406
Enhanced Solarian is like when DC let the guy who ruined Cassandra Cain write a Batgirl mini. If they still don't know how they fucked up, why do they get a second try?

>>96360935
What baffles me most is how the SF2e Solarian feels like fumbling a third try. They took any interesting direction they could have gone with it and decided to go the opposite, most boring way possible instead. I don't care if it's actually still perfectly serviceable as a melee martial, they made a solar magic knight class look mechanically BASIC AND BORING. Soldier gets to break the rules of what a stat gets to do with Con, but Solarian is relegated to being a Strength class forced to invest in Dex to use a feature they are forced to have? Its premiere special feature is that it gets a slightly better sword than other martials?

You could have been bagging the hexblade crowd while solving SF1e Solarian player complaints, but you fucked it and just made a boring Fusion of Inventor and Exemplar. Incredible.

I feel like pf2e/sf2e could be a really, really good game if you cut out all the player options and monster designs and write your own ones from scratch, only using the basic rules elements to make a total conversion of your own.
I'm really on some d&d5e player level copium "the system is good you just have to rewrite it from scratch, and this is a good thing" type shit.

>pf2e
My players are about to fight their ally who has a goal that interferes with theirs, and my players are probably going to try to talk the guy out of it, since they love rolling diplomacy and trying to convince people. I don't wanna take that away, so I thought it'd be cool if they can argue mid fight and roll diplomacy to hinder the npc they're going to fight. I was thinking that on a success, they can apply stunned 1, and on a critical fail, the npc will argue back, trying to make the PCs hesitate, making them do a will save for the same thing. Is that too much of a reward? A solo boss with two actions feels underwhelming. Should I make him stronger to compensate? Using intimidate and frightened just doesn't feel the same.

plot tl;dr: a wounded Paladin and friend to the party, hired the party to kill an evil necromancer. Party sympathized with necromancer who was trying to save his daughter and regrets it, so party promised to save her. Paladin has sworn to kill the necromancer and avenge his family and brothers.

>>96361202
Said it before, say it again: Solarian just isn't a class that can be stuffed in the core book. It's a concept that needs space akin to Kineticist so you can print all the goofy feats. It is, at the very least, a good base to build up on (and I can totally see them just saying fuck it and tossing in DEX Key Ability Score + Finesse on the Solar Weapon, or Brutal on the Flare). But yeah, they really went too soft on the class, especially given how overloaded Operative and Witchwarper are. Hell, if they were gonna be super basic and have Legendary Solarian weapons anyway, might as well just give them the Fighter scaling treatment. Or even just Heavy Armor.

>You could have been bagging the hexblade crowd
fuck them warlocks.
Seriously, there's not a good way to catch that crowd without both giving Solarian a lot of space and being hideously overloaded. Fuck, most Hexblades I've seen barely use most of their features anyway, how many times have you actually seen the HEX part get used. Say what you will about Magus, it does demand you to play the whole kit-and-kaboodle to function.

>>96361254
That's just an absurd take. The player options are what makes Pathfinder Pathfinder. Sure, they give us SO MUCH SLOP, but Paizo's identity was formed on providing a strong pipeline of options.

>>96361338
>Fuck, most Hexblades I've seen barely use most of their features anyway
that really just feels like HOW you bag them, honestly, because most of hexblade's shit is pointless filler for them. Give them a laser, an explosion, and a sword, all keyed off Cha for their accuracy, and you get basically all the elements 90% of the people I've met who went hexblade actually seem to want.

>>96361308
Make the stunned require two successes or give the NPC quickened.

>>96361308
Rule of thumb: just add more adds. Avoid solo battles if you can help it.
>but muh plot
There aren't many situations in a narrative where one dude or monster would just be one dude or monster AND be important.

>>96361353
Ehhh, I wouldn't like them being a Single-Ability-Dependent class like that, and 2e doesn't really provide value in dips like that with the multiclass archetype setup. What made the CHA focus of Hexblade so absurd was less the CHA powers and more how many classes and synergies it opened up, between Paladin, Sorcerer, and Bard. Ontop of how stupid Pact Magic is as a mechanic for each of those classes... Hexblades are more in the big damage spikes Pact Magic provide or the spellblade aspects, which is something Solarian can't necessarily provide. It really is more a concept, imo, for the Soulknifes or Kinetic Knights in the room, a focus on single-target melee elemental damage.

Ironically, STR would be the closer analogue in 2e's meta, given how Champion, Guardian, and Exemplar would want the stat.

>>96361254
The base of the systems is still heavily flawed, the way I see it. So I'd rather port the good design ideas and the good character options to a more solid base.

>>96361585
I don't really agree, but I also was never big into 5e and clearly neither was anyone I played with. I also think the Cha part would have been just flat out more interesting for a class, a nod and evolution of the SF1e iteration of the class (which was bizarrely Cha-focused despite not doing enough to justify that), and would ironically be LESS SAD than the existing Kineticist (you'd still need Str for melee damage and Athletics rolls, at bare minimum)

Just making Solarian a "what if mind smith was a whole class" class based on Str just ends up boring as fuck to me-again, a boring version of shit like exemplar whose only saving grace is "well TECHNICALLY starfinder doesn't have a Str-based melee class in it!"

>>96361308
The base game has the Bon Mot and Legendary Negotiation feats for arguments during the heat of combat, but the former is kinda lackluster and the latter is a level 15 feat. Perhaps you could look to the Redemption Champion's Glimpse of Redemption reaction and Weight of Guilt feat for inspiration, and have a regular success either inflict Enfeebled 2 or Stupefied 2, with Stunned 1 being reserved for a critical success if anything? I'd imagine a party who notices their diplomatic efforts working would expect him to eventually yield, and as a diplo-happy player myself I would propose a compromise where the necromancer is made to personally repay the paladin for his actions as a form of justice and proof of his regret.

>>96361585
>>96361683
Part of 5e's issue in this regard was always how frontloaded about half of their classes were. With a 1-3 level dip into a bunch of different classes you got a ton of abilities that more than made up for the fact that you were depriving yourself of either feats or ability score improvements.

>>96362706
In some ways, it is actually clever. You get the most exciting part of your class fast, the curve of 5e isn't so intense you the stat gain (Extra Attack is more debatable...), and it provides meaning to multiclasses for people that hate long-term planning or opportunity costs. It is a casual-friendly, powerful system to doing everything.
The main problem comes from less the feature bloat of the early levels and more what is IN those early levels. Even with 5e24 rearranging and cutting the chaff of early level features and subclass, you still get a bunch of incredibly potent options, and Warlock's Pact Magic slots are some of the most extreme increase in power in the game. And there isn't much that could be done about such features without MASSIVELY crippling the appeal of such (see the 'tard raeg at the Warlock playtest that makes them more traditional half-casters). And that's ignoring specific spells and cantrips like Shillelagh that makes gish builds *trivial* to make.

>>96363056
> the curve of 5e isn't so intense you MISS the stat gain

Honestly, I'm not so sure how to even fix Solarian. If I want to play a full combat melee dude with weird abilities and a built on weapon, Evolutionist is right there, and doesn't have to deal with half the class abilities being locked out at a time.

All I can say is "waste a full action to roll to see if you get extra attunement" was a bad idea. They should have made the ability a roll to see if you gain the opposing attunement after spending all your attunement points.

>>96361338
>That's just an absurd take. The player options are what makes Pathfinder Pathfinder. Sure, they give us SO MUCH SLOP, but Paizo's identity was formed on providing a strong pipeline of options.
It doesn't sound like he's saying to get rid of player options so much as to just throw out the mountain of garbage Paizo gave us and replace it with stuff that's actually good. Like what we did with 3pp stuff before the terminal PFS brainrot gutted the third party scene.

>>96361338
I mean, 2ER Witch already fixes most of the issues with Warlocks, like being Int instead of Cha casters, theming spell list access off patron type, and so on.

Hexblade was always meant to be a fix for how useless the Pact of the Blade was in '14.

>>96363497
I wonder if there's any community errata for SF1e now that Paizo's abandoned it.

>>96364147
I was building one, but got kinda demoralized how paizo handled the last book and SF2e announcement.
Now I'm building my own system and setting with blackjack and hookers.

>>96364071
Witch feels like the only way you can link it to warlock is "ooooo patron", they're otherwise so radically different in function that "witch fixes issues with warlock" comes off as laughable to me. Might as well say Thaumaturge fixes issues with Warlock at that point.

>>96364426
They're the same "power comes from an otherworldly patron" core concept that someone seeking Greater Knowledge falls/drives themselves into. Witch just fits the concept better.

>>96364446
Sure, but mechanically they're entirely different classes, is the point

>>96364454
They're entirely different systems too, buddy.

>>96364071
>>96364446
So it is clear that Paizo likes individual parts of Warlock, but not the entire kit n' kaboodle when put together. That would be too much power budget stuffed into one class, even nowadays with stuff like Animist. Instead, they split up each section and gave it to different parts.
>Witch got the fluff and Pact of the Chain
>Magus (and Summoner to a small extent) got the limited spell slot and Hexblade setup
>Psychic got the Pact of the Tome and cantrip focus. Even the CHA key ability score, given how the first edition didn't.
Basically, there was a good point in 2e's lifespan where they wanted to cater to Warlock fags and designed a lot of classes and mechanics around poaching the stuff. But since it isn't really "what people like" about Warlock (read: being this huge mess of customization options only loosely tied together), most people just don't see it. A likely reason they sort of tempered down and look more into the 4e class design barrel, granting us stuff like Commander, Necromancer, Runesmith, and Animist.

>>96364454
>>96364446
Yep. Warlocks actually support the fantasy of using the dark side. Drawing on a power that is beyond mortal capabilities. Quick power that is ultimately shallow. Witches are wizards with improved familiar. Mechanics tell stories. Warlocks and witches aren't in the same book.
>>96364655
Warlocks are a 4e class design. The 3.x design was very different. Inspired kineticists. A 2e warlock would be like a thaumaturge with focus spells and exploit vulnerability that also works on wand implement.

>>96361338
>Sure, they give us SO MUCH SLOP, but Paizo's identity was formed on providing a strong pipeline of options.
Okay, so where is that strong pipeline of options now?

Got Pathfinder 2e GM Core for a bargain at an EB Game sale on Tuesday. Picked it up today.

>>96364775
>Drawing on a power that is beyond mortal capabilities.
eldritch blast spam seems pretty comprehensible, but you do you.
And I agree that Witch can be a bit empty, even if you are a diehard Pact of the Tome/Chain user over bogstandard gish dip (i once played in a game where there was literally two Hexblades and they didn't thought it was a problem because "we have different patrons!"). Some of 2e's ire towards casters is causing some of the gaps. But I think you are very much overselling how eldritch or unknowable a 5e patron is, or how much room you have in PF2e to make your own being of unknown power.
>Warlocks are a 4e class design.
I'm aware, I was saying more they started to shop around some more for more class ideas by the time of the Remaster. Since 4e is sort of the last game in the d20 space that was all-in on making a bunch of classes and not just subclasses.

>>96364806
We are in a bit of a content slouch at the moment. We should see more products on Friday, but in the meantime I think they wanted to give Starfinder2e more oxygen at the expense of Pathfinder, even if the actual content is gonna be a little rehashy since it has to be treated as its own game. I'm still uber-salty at them removing all the new playtest skill feats for page space for the redundant core rules, but I can imagine they will come back in that Tech book or even Impossible book just to help pad it out.

>>96364918
The really incomprehensible thing here is how you live with such poor reading comprehension. The patrons aren't unknowable. They offer magic that is distinct from other magic. Pact slots and invocations.

>>96364918
If they wanted to give Starfinder more oxygen they would have shipped a complete book instead of leaving out two major classes and two major rules subsystems.

Though not including hacking kind of makes sense, when you read SF1e you get the feeling the person who wrote hacking vanished into thin air shortly after 1e shipped. Deeply confusing yet not a single bit of errata or FAQ answers in 7 years.