Pathfinder

Could just be me, but some of these conditions sound like more to remember than before.

Normalizing them is good, though, I'll give them that, and it make it pretty easy to come up with your own custom conditions pretty painlessly.

The character themselves is silly? Admittedly, not had that one. I mean, I've had players who build setting-appropriate versions of pop culture characters, but they tend to play their Captain Ersatz characters seriously. I find that a bit uncreative, personally, but hey, it's how they want to have fun.

Mind you, if they're trying to be all silly about it when you're trying a serious game, my recommended solution is to dust off Toon or Paranoia (depending on how sadistic you're feeling) and let them take their character into that.

Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.

@Black Sun Nocturne If a player persists after you repeatedly tell them to knock it off, it's time to think about no longer including that player in the group (or at least play different games with them).

Was flipping through the Bestiary at the back of "Legacy of Fire" and found the articles on the azi. I'd forgotten about them. They really need to bring them back in one of the future Bestiaries, and expand on the concept. There's a shortage of Neutral Evil monsters to begin with, and a serious shortage of NE dragons, so further developing the dragon/div crosses would be cool.

Yeah, though we'll see if they bring them back before 2nd edition

What are the details on second edition? Are they just changing up mechanics, or are they redoing the whole setting? If it's the former, I have no real objections, if it's the latter I probably won't buy it—I like Golarion and it's nowhere near finished.

Sounds like Golarian isn't significantly changing, but goblins are going to be a core race.

...That sounds like it would require significant changes to goblins to make it happen. And I like the goblins the way they are, the psychotic little firestarters.

Probably going to hold off on buying any second gen material. I like a lot Pathfinder stuff but when they've disappointed me (Advanced Class Guide, Book of the Damned) they've really disappointed me. I'll at least wait and see what others report before making up my mind.

Different topic, different post. I was flipping through the Monster Codex and found the Fearmonger antipaladin archetype in the Bugbear section.

It states that the "Feed on Fear" ability replaces "Touch of Corruption." Yet it also states that the Fearmonger must select "shaken," "dazed," "frightened," and "panicked" as his Cruelties. But Cruelties, as I understand them, are applied as part of the Touch of Corruption ability. If he doesn't have Touch of Corruption, how is he applying the Cruelties?

Am I missing something really obvious here, or is this a mistake? I feel like it's the former but I'm not succeeding in reasoning out an alternative.

Bah, Book of the Damned was great

Anyway, from what I heard, they aren't planning to make any retcons(which is why Planar Adventures should still be usable in 2e since its mostly lore on planes and not just player mechanics), but they are considering updating setting by assuming 1e adventures did happen. Which honestly, is pretty much what they did with 3.5 adventures when they made 1e <_< First three aps are the ones that are most consistently assumed to have happened in other aps whenever rarely ap does assume other ones have happened.

That and it'd be silly be "Hey, after ten years of irl progress setting is identical, you just need to buy those 1e adventures because we don't ever have second korvosa adventure!" or something.

That said, goblins seem to be weird one because they insist they aren't retconning goblins, but considering how 1e loved to portray evil races as universally hated, it does come off like that. Like reasoning itself doesn't feel off, there are goblins living close to junkyards and sewers and other places near towns so makes sense that goblin tribes who aren't as violent or at least are capable of diplomacy would get tolerated and adventures in general are such weirdoes that I see goblins getting pass.

And there are places outside of Kaer Maga were goblins get tolerated in cities. Like Council of Thieves has minor appearance by Lawful Neutral goblin guarding sewer access to Hellknight's base who thinks they are member of hellknight(they aren't, but they did give him fullplate). So there is precedence for it, the jarring part mostly comes from setting material trying to hammer in idea that P Cs should never be goblins outside of campaign were everyone is :p

^It seems to be a mistake because archetype never remembered to give alternative way of using the cruelties.

edited 23rd Jun '18 1:03:47 AM by SpookyMask

Any ideas on how to fix it? Have "feed on fear" replace a different ability from "touch of corruption" perhaps? I'm building a bugbear antipaladin as a villain for a game, and I'd like to be able to use their archetype.

Speaking of which...any idea what deity a bugbear antipaladin would work for? I was looking at the four goblin-hero gods, but none of them quite seem the right fit. The CE one, Zogmugot, is a deity of scavenging, which doesn't really feel appropriate for an antipaladin, or indeed for a bugbear at all, even though, logically, she should be the one the bugbears are most drawn to (just as LE Hadregash is the one hobgoblins are most drawn to). I suppose that the two NE ones, Venkelvore or Zarongel could work, though there's no obvious hook. And of course there's always Lamashtu.

Here's the Goblins as player character blog post 2e, for the record.

^^I'd probably have feed on fear instead of replacing touch of corruption altering it and have it consume uses of it when used. So fearmonger could use both touch of corruption and feed on fear

Lamashtu is probably simplest one yeah for bugbears. They could probably do goblin hero gods, but those seem more of goblin thing than rest of goblinoids. I'd think demon lords would work in general though

edited 24th Jun '18 1:23:42 AM by SpookyMask

That makes sense. He can use his Touch of Corruption to inflict a fear effect via Cruelty, then feed on it next turn with Feed On Fear, but he can't do so too many times.

One of the books does mention Bugbears worshiping demon lords, though it doesn't say which ones.

Regarding the Goblin Hero-Gods, we've usually seen them from the Goblin perspective which does colour how they appear. Hadregash, based on the Goblin vision of him, comes off as a complete buffoon. Then Ironfang Invasion showed us what Hobgoblin worship of him looks like, and presented us with a more dignified vision of him. So I suppose it's entirely possible that just as Hobgoblins have a different take on Hadregash, Bugbears have a different take on one of the Goblin Hero-Gods that we haven't heard about yet.

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Something I wanted to bounce off the forum. I've normally used Adventure Paths when GMing, so my experience at making my own villains is limited. I'm looking to do my own sometime soon. Some of my players have expressed an interest in an aquatic campaign. Others have expressed interest in something in Tian Xia. I am considering splitting the difference and setting it in Wanshou.

Anyway, I thought it might be a good idea to generate some Oni based on the aquatic giants, since as of the moment, the only water-going Oni is the Kigyo (possessed merfolk). There are no specific instructions on how to do this, though looking at the Ogre Mage, Atamahuta, and the various Yai, the pattern seems to be that an Oni is CR 5 above the giant he is possessing.

I started out simple, using Merrows. For the Freshwater Merrow, all I needed to do was apply the aquatic subtype to the Ogre Mage and play around with the feats a little. For the Saltwater Merrow, I "Ogre Mage" into an NPC generator, switched the size to "Huge", and moved a few feats around, and what I generated is a CR 11 monster, the appropriate jump from a CR 6 Saltwater Merrow. I still need to treat him as having "aquatic" as a subtype, but it otherwise seems to be working out.

Obviously this isn't going to work once I get to other possible Oni hosts, like Marsh Giants and Ocean Giants. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

edited 24th Jun '18 10:17:45 AM by AmbarSonofDeshar

I think Shax would make decent fit for bugbears due to being demon lord of murderers and bugbear hobby of stalking and killing folk.

Anyhoo hmm. I'd think it might be good idea to take inspiration from aquatic oni/yokai for those, but otherwise not really sure what would be good way of doing so. Like I guess you could compare oni version of different things(such as tengu and oni version of them, same with nagaji and such) but I haven't looked closely to oni to see if they follow a common mechanical theme

Hmm... comparing that blog entry to Advanced Race Guide goblins is very interesting.

I guess first and foremost to note is that the ability scores are getting swapped around, and particularly noting that they're effectively gaining +4 to charisma (going from a penalty to a bonus). I guess this makes sense in light of the game more strictly defining charisma as force of personality rather than likeability. Also, eating the wisdom penalty makes perfect sense for how Pathfinder goblins have developed.

I'm interested to note that many of the "racial feats" they describe are very analogous to alternate racial features in the current edition. Even the ones that have new effects (like the ability to tinker up usable if junky gear from scraps) are clearly based on previously established fluff (the City Dweller alternate racial feature). This also gives us plenty of room to bash out new stuff based on how they're clearly building things. Also noting that a few are just plainly better in the new edition - the ARF that gives a bite attack to goblins currently gives a 1d4 bite, but will apparently give a 1d6 bit in the new one.

Finally, huh, their base speed is being reduced 5 feet. I'm curious if this base speed reduction will happen in other species, or if goblins are just going to be "fast for Small creatures." I'm looking at that askance, because it really seems like it's going to hobble melee characters even more.

Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.

There's some common things among the Oni, like their regen ability, and a few of the spells/spell-like abilities they get, but having looked over the stats...there isn't a clear pattern beyond "increase CR by 5". How much the various statistics increase from the base level giant varies wildly.

I was able to create a Merrow Mage thanks to the fact that Freshwater Merrows and Ogres have almost the same stats, and a Saltwater Merrow is just those stats with the Size shifted from Large to Huge. So all I had to do to create a Merrow Mage (Freshwater) was take the Ogre Mage and add the Amphibious Aquatic subtype, Claw and Javelin attacks, and a Swim speed. Creating the Merrow Mage (Saltwater) was then just a question of taking those same status and adjusting for Huge Size.

Conversely, not sure what to do for Marsh Giant or Ocean Giant. I suppose for Marsh Giant I could use the shift from Stone Giant to Earth Yai as a model and just assume it would be roughly similar. Both would be a CR 8 to CR 13 jump.

edited 25th Jun '18 12:24:17 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

So anyway, Planar Adventures is really making me happy right now

The new bard looks absolutely amazing.

Easily my favorite class overhaul.

You can tell he never had experience with old-days bard play when he says "For some reason, bards are the butt of goofy jokes." Or, for that matter, played earlier Final Fantasy games, where bards are very much a Difficult, but Awesome class in a bunch of games with much easier-to-access Game-Breaker strategies. As a long-time fan of playing bards, trust me, I know exactly why they're the butt of jokes.

I'm not surprised that they went with a full spell progression for them - Sublime Chord was a popular prestige class back in the D&D days, and that the fifth edition of that game went with full progression was met very positively. I'm not totally sure I like that they're now occult casters, but that might just be flavor that can easily be refluffed as appropriate. In particular, two touches that I like are that they actually give a reason for performances beyond Versatile Performance (and thus, even bards who swap that out can find a reason to buff out their performance checks), and that the way they're handling feats means it's no longer a class that's a bit feat-starved.

Based on what I can see, the bardic muses are going to be where the archetypes come in; I'm interested to see what they'll do with them. Also, I'm curious as to whether performances beyond musical instruments can be used to replace verbal and somatic components. Would I take Silent Spell to make an evil bardic mime that can actually trap people inside an invisible box? You're damn right I would.

I can see where there is room for improvement, but as a long-time bard fan, I like what I see so far.

Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.

I've only ever once played a full progression caster in PF, and that was a Spheres of Power character who lacked traditional spellcasting progression to aspire to in the first place.

Bards are my favorite casters, so it'll be interesting to run one who's not a welfare mage any more. I'm still going to focus on melee combat, and from the sounds of things they'll be designing classes to be a bit more flexible to allow that without gimping your character. In particular one of the designers hinted at multiclassing no longer being a very niche character building option.

Speaking of Multiclassing!

It doesn't look too hot, though I suppose it's objectively better than the extremely clumsy way P F1e handles it.

I've brought this up before, sorry.

Switching one of the diminutive races with Goblins. That is, take Gnomes or Halflings, their stats and their places in generic D&D, paint them green and add some goblin-y traits on top of it.

Inversely, taking Goblins, stats and roles and all, doing the same right back to them, mashing on some traits from the previous race on top of it.

Thoughts?

It's your game, if that is something you want to do, go for it.

Unrelated, I've been reading Planar Adventures in hopes of fleshing out my own multiverse. I'm only 60 pages in (barely through the player options) and I've been enjoying it immensely.

Well, part of why multiclassing was such a bear in Pathfinder is that they deliberately designed the system to discourage it. They instead created archetypes to allow for the kind of tweaking that multiclassing (and I'm including prestige classes in this, since they are mechanically a type of multiclassing) handled, followed by new classes that in many cases were just blending of two classes that would previously been handled with multiclassing (it really took off in Advanced Class Guide, yes, but we all know that magus was meant to be a blend of fighter and wizard/a base class version of eldritch knight).

The way that their sample multiclassing reads is like a more robust and customizeable version of Variant Multiclassing from Pathfinder Unchained (in that you sacrifice feats for another class' features, but this is nice since it'll let you skip redundant class features, thereby making combos like Rogue/Barbarian potentially feasible). I'd have to monkey around with it - while it does sound like this means they'll phase out the combo classes (so long, bloodrager - we're having fun, but it sounds like you'll be converted to barbarian with variant sorcerer when we're done), I'm not sure yet just how well everything will work.

Edited by 32_Footsteps on Jul 31st 2018 at 10:19:40 AM

Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.