Pathfinder

Is this just a new name, or a new setting?

Judging by the playtest material the setting is still the same, only the name is changing. Pretty sure the name itself is a pre-existing concept within the campaign setting.

Age of Lost Omens is the name of current age in Golarion.(started when Aroden died and prophecies stopped working) Its been a thing since 3.5 campaign setting book, but now they have renamed setting after it

Edited by SpookyMask on Mar 7th 2019 at 9:40:25 PM

Is there any in-game explanation as to what happened with all the races and classes not used yet, or is this a full retcon? Or a case of "they are there, but will appear in an expansion. Maybe."

For 2e? Its just case of "not yet". Do note that since NP Cs don't follow PC rules anymore, you can still have "Witches" without them being "Witch class". Heck, npcs don't use PC race rules, since PC have the whole ancestry feat thing or whatever it was called.(so bestiary will include kobolds, but not player rules for kobolds until they release ancestry product that will have rules for kobold ancestry feats)

(in general, I don't think they can introduce new ancestries/races in bestiary anymore since the system requires them to have list of feats fo pick from. On positive side that means players don't need to buy bestiaries just to get more options :p)

Only straight up retcon that happens between edition change that I can tell of is 1) they are giving some monsters for unique appearance to make them more separate from D&D versions(like hobgoblins and bugbears seem to come with similar headshape to goblins) 2) they are moving away from one gender monsters, so each monster either has both genders(medusa, lamia and harpy seems to be moving that direction) or they have opposite gender counterpart(nymphs & satyrs, incubi & succubi)

Edited by SpookyMask on Mar 12th 2019 at 9:54:46 PM

So since nobody really discusses setting lore here, I'd like to note that Concordance of Rivals is fricking cool book Also makes me theorize whether there are actually two or three different Asmodeus'. I mean, it kinda leads credence that Asmodeus and Ihys story is true, which conflicts with the Empyreal Lord Fallen Angel Asmodeus. But if both stories are true, who is to say that Asmodeus in Hell is either of them because he is a liar

(of course it could always be that fallen angel story is the fake one, but would honestly be appropriate for prince of lies to be lying about their identity in first place)

Edited by SpookyMask on May 2nd 2019 at 9:51:41 PM

It would totally be a classic Asmodeus move to deliberately set up others to also be Asmodeus in order to set up a greater plot to rule everything.

I took a swing at a take on Asmodeus in my cosmology.

He tried for a truer immortality than even most gods get by stamping his identity on the mantle as The King Of Devils. Ever since, anyone else who assumes the throne becomes Asmodeus. Here's the thing- they're also still themselves.

In a fitting irony, the Asmodeus damned himself, living forever as a kind of mask, a flesh-suit stretched *thinly* over whomever takes his place. They assume some of his mannerisms and appearance, but impose far more of their own, especially as he's passed between incumbents and worn ever more thinly.

So I'm not sure if this has brought up in the thread earlier, but ''Kingmaker'' is getting its own Anniversary Edition.

Given the release of the video game and the popularity of the AP, I can't say I'm surprised. As a person without the capital to toss a $30 at a RPG product every month, I'll be more than happy to purchase the Hardcover collection once released.

Pathfinder 1e: Reskinned half-orcs as just orcs so I could make orcs into a core race for my homebrew. Gave them appropriate crunch to match; +2 Str, +2 Wis, -2 Int (Orcs are blunt creatures in both mind and body.) Each of the non-human core races has a connection to an Outsider type, gave orcs psychopomps and just generally being roughin' it, outdoorsy ancestor worshiper types.

Thought about their history, ran into a problem. Considered going a little Netflix Bright, make them an oppressed and often enslaved race. Not for any historical justification like they sided with the Lord Sauron analogue ages ago, but because the other more advanced races of the world decided, "Ya, fuck these guys in particular." They were easy picking, they were less advanced, they didn't quite look like the other races.

Realized I made the oppressed minority analogue the only core race with an intelligence penalty. Not good coding. Bad coding.

Edited by God_of_Awesome on Jul 1st 2019 at 11:41:18 AM

Connection to psychopomps seems kinda random to me. I kinda see ancestor worship as completely separate from outsiders and gods.

Anyhoo, good thing ye noticed ye were falling into a trap Lot of folks do that without realizing it.

Less worship and more ally. Both parties have keen interest in make sure the dead are properly interred and go where they are meant to.

Either way, just to note that if you want to keep mental stat penalty while hoping to avoid any coding(note that coding itself isn't inherenently bad even if its hard to deal with when people make connections you didn't intend), just make it charisma penalty instead(for pretty much same reason as dwarves :p)

Edited by SpookyMask on Jul 3rd 2019 at 10:30:15 PM

There were a few reasons for the Int choice, and one indeed had avoiding making them like taller dwarves. Another had been I hadn’t seen any of the core races use Int as a penalty.

I might try a different tact to avoid coding, like simply electing not to add “slave race” to their background. It’s not as if it’s become integral to my world building so far.

(As an aside, one of the conceits of my setting is each outsider type can trace a connection to a core race. Different breeds of elves have gotten all the breeds of celestials, fiends and fey respectively. The elf breed* connected to fiends are not only normally better at working with such creatures, but also have just as many members better at slaying them. *dark elves are just regular elves with dark vision and dim dweller traits. drow stat block used to represent outright fiendishly corrupted kin from Sea Commoragh.)

Apologies for the double post-

I recently discovered Simple Class Templates and as a DM I am super excite bike over this.

Especially since my given setting allows more “Okay” monsters, giving easy made NPC allies as well as enemies.

On side note, something I just remembered but have never mentioned here

Archive of Nethys got promoted to status as the official prd when paizo decided they don't have time to update the old official one or something. Means that besides all crunch there are also all the rule content there nowadays. There are some errors regarding creatures that have different versions of themselves(such as 3.5 and actual pathfinder version being really different), but otherwise its pretty good source considering it doesn't change name of abilities like d20psfrd does so no confusion when talking with players about "What the heck is crimson assassin" :p

So has anyone checked out the Oblivion Oath stream or Knights of Everflame? Bit curious about that

Oh yeah, 2e got released and stuff. Had anyone else checked out it yet here?

I looked over the rules on Nethys. Not a whole lot changed from the playtest other than Resonance getting canned. It's a lot smoother overall without sacrificing too much of PF's customization but I don't think it's smooth enough to draw people away from 5e.

Most of major changes from playtest are in math really. Hard to tell without playing it, but it seems potentially much better at least. That said, my favourite part of playtest was the bestiary so I'm hyped for monsters mechanics at least.

I don't think they were planning to trying to attract 5e audience though. I mean 5e audience is partly D&D brand name and partly because 5e works really as "Someone's first ever RPG" game. Like one of reasons why I don't really like playing 5e is that it doesn't have that many customization options to do per level up, biggest choice it at third level and afterwards character is pretty much set. Sure you can instead of ability boosts take some feats, but none of feats are really big enough deal customization wise to make different characters of same class set apart.

Ah, it's out? Well, I can easily hit the FLGS on my way home... it wouldn't surprise me to learn they're sold out, but I can always swing by.

Yeah, it was out at start of august. I think Fall of the Plaguestone might have been sold out, but not sure about core book overall

I'm not sure what audience they were trying to attract, though.

Oh, that they have explained in blogs, twitch streams, gencon panels, forums...

They were definitely aiming to streamline the system(and process of learning to play the system), but they weren't ever really aiming 5e type simplicity.

Like, Pathfinder 1e is kind of a mess to be honest. I run the game regularly, but we also house rule tons of shit. Lots of people have stopped playing the game over the years because of stuff like gaming breaking down easily, it being hard to teach to newbies, there being lots of trap options, etc.

I think they are pretty much trying to be more customization heavy alternative to D&D 5e style simple game. Like, there are lots of ideas that over lap since its part of the whole streamlining things, but I think most of that is kinda superficial stuff compared to how the game plays.

Edited by SpookyMask on Aug 26th 2019 at 12:06:39 PM

Anyone else saw the Knights of Everflame videos? It is the best game campaign I've ever seen, mostly because everyone from the players to the GM was so likable. The story was pretty epic too! You can find it on youtube.