pathfinder

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/30560583

The Kickstarter is just about to hit its halfway point, and so far they are just over 67% of the way to being funded. People feel somewhat optimistic about its chances, given the timeframe involved, but there's still a big gap between what's been pledged and what they need. If you're interested in a Pathfinder cRPG based on the 2e rules, and you haven't checked it out, the link is in the title.

And a friendly reminder that the pricing is actually in Canadian dollars, so most people will have a friendly conversion rate given the CAD's current value.

The developers have been doing some interviews, though their ground game doesn't seem to be particularly strong. I've collected some of their media tour below.

• Trailer & Kickstarter Launch Video
• Showcase by Spell&Shield
• Interview with The Rules Lawyer (along side the Dawnsbury Days developer)
• Interview with Matt Barton and Matt Chat
• Q&A with NoNat1s
• Interview with Really Dicey

They've also posted a couple of updates to the Kickstarter page:

Update 1: Approaching 60% Funded!

Dear Demanders,

Today, we are happy to celebrate that we are a goblin's breath away from 60% funded with over 4,000 backers and nearly $300,000 CA raised!

Pathfinder: The Dragon’s Demand is our dream game. To all who have backed, THANK YOU for sharing our vision of a single-player, turn-based Pathfinder Second Edition CRPG that takes role-playing back to its roots with miniature-based characters and digital dice to recreate the look and feel of a tabletop RPG. With your support, we had a strong launch and were 40% funded in only two days!

To those who have not yet backed, we invite you to learn more on our Kickstarter page and in our interviews.

Looking for more reveals? We’ve only just begun. Don’t miss these interviews with Pathfinder: The Dragon’s Demand Product Director, Alan Miranda:

LIVE Q&A WITH DRAGON'S DEMAND DEVELOPER - PATHFINDER 2E VIDEO GAME with Nonat1s on YouTube Discussing Pathfinder: The Dragon’s Demand with Project Manager Alan Miranda of Ossian Studios with Really Dicey on YouTube

We have more exciting interviews in the days ahead!

Here’s a behind-the-scenes insight: For our in-game “props,” we partnered with Gracewindale Mini Scenery because we loved the style of their tabletop scenery and wanted to include it in our game Pathfinder: The Dragon’s Demand. Their entire line of 3D printable STL props are fantastic, so please check them out! www.gracewindale.com

Every Kickstarter needs its backers to amplify the campaign, so please share your enthusiasm with your friends and ask them to join the party. Your recommendation and word of mouth are invaluable. You can also shout out about us on social media–Kickstarter makes that easy. We’ve dreamed big, and we need your help to make this dream a reality!

In Gratitude, Ossian Studios

Update 2: Spread the Word With This Surprise

Greetings Demanders!

We've been busy getting the word out there for Pathfinder: The Dragon's Demand, doing interviews this week with PC Gamer, The Rules Lawyer, and Matt Chat (all soon to be posted). They're all super excited for this game! Being both video gamers and tabletop players, they could relate to the miniatures and dice, and were intrigued by the prospect of playing in a 3D cubic grid system where characters can do all kinds of cool things.

The vertical movement in a full 3D grid can take your character almost anywhere they want to go. You can levitate to a window at the top of a tower or climb down a chimney for undetected infiltration (mind the fire!). You can rain down volleys of arrows on your unsuspecting enemies from the cover of tree branches or send swooping monstrosities spiraling away with magical blasts of wind. This is a whole new dimension for tactical combat CRPGs!

And speaking of flying monstrosities, the grioths from the Dark Tapestry inhabit frozen, lifeless worlds in the blacks voids of space, and continuously seek out warm worlds to conquer by ritualistically tearing them away from their suns. But now, these bat-like humanoids have come to the small town of Belhaim with an inscrutable purpose...

https://2e.aonprd.com/MonsterFamilies.aspx?ID=240

So we'd like to bring these creatures to everyone who has backed us so far. In this update, we're giving the Grioth STL from our miniatures collection as a free gift via the link below! If you share the file, don’t forget to tell people where you got it. ;) Thank you all for your support and please keep telling your friends about the game to spread the word so we can reach our funding goal!

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1sjVYeMHYWE81tvjWSB47UWI8oLvlZaAZ?usp=sharing

(Printed and painted by our art director, Philip Lyon)

In Gratitude, Ossian Studios

Update 3: Weaving a Narrative

Greetings, Demanders!

We’re thrilled to announce the project is now 66% funded with a little over two weeks remaining. With your continued support and enthusiasm – and, if we may so bold as to ask, social media shares and word-of-word – we’re hoping to smash through the funding target and into the stretch goals with the force of Gorum exploding across the realms!

I'm Luke Scull, lead designer and writer for Pathfinder: The Dragon’s Demand, and I want to talk about our approach to implementing the game’s story and many colorful characters, as well as how we plan to grant the player agency in interacting with this beautiful world our artists have created.

Firstly, it is important to state that Pathfinder: The Dragon’s Demand is a deep, intricate computer role-playing game with all the narrative depth and dialogue complexity of the most celebrated titles in the genre. Players will experience a compelling new plotline that weaves the machinations of the Dark Tapestry into the high fantasy story of a town under threat from a wicked dragon.

During the adventure, the player will meet hundreds of NPCs that can be interacted with. How these characters respond to the party will depend on the player’s choices and the dialogue skills they possess. Do you wish to be a paragon of virtue and help the many colorful characters that dwell within Belhaim? Or would you rather take advantage of those you meet, and lie, cheat, and steal for profit, or to deepen your connection with the mysterious dark benefactor who haunts your dreams?

Every NPC in Pathfinder: The Dragon’s Demand has a story to tell. Unique dialogue options will show up depending on the player character’s ancestry, background, and class, as well as their reputation, for as the hero’s legend grows, the people of Belhaim will begin to react to their deeds. Harm too many people or loot too many houses and you may find yourself almost as reviled as the great scaled beast that threatens town. Go out of your way to do favors for folk and they will cheer your name as you walk by. Some may even gift you powerful items or show up to aid you.

The world of Pathfinder: The Dragon’s Demand is hugely reactive, with every choice the player makes changing how the story plays out, and deciding the fates of the hundreds of characters who call Belhaim and the surrounding environs home. No two players will have the same experience: in fact, the game will encourage multiple playthroughs with different character builds to fully experience the breadth of possibilities.

Allow me a moment to talk about companions. We plan to have a total of 12, of which the player can select up to three to travel with at any time, for a total party of four. Aside from the Iconic goblin alchemist Fumbus, these companions have yet to be announced, but each will have their own backstory, character arc, and associated quests. Companion relationships with the player character, as well as each other, will shift as the story unfolds. Upset a companion too often and they may leave the party permanently… possibly to show up later as a sworn enemy. Impress a companion often enough and new dialogue options will be revealed—perhaps even leading to romance, if Shelyn wills it…

These companions, as well as important story NPCs, will be voiced by experienced actors, bringing some of the best voice talent to Pathfinder: The Dragon’s Demand. With thousands of voiced lines and enough dialogue to fill several fantasy novels, my ambition as lead writer is to provide a deep world of incredible complexity and unforgettable characters that is every bit as engaging as the best tabletop campaigns.

Finally, I would like to say how excited I am about working with Pathfinder fans on incorporating their own creations into the game. Our higher reward tiers allow backers to include their own personalized magic item, NPC, bard song, or even quest in Pathfinder: The Dragon’s Demand. These would henceforth become part of official Pathfinder lore, to be discovered and enjoyed by players from release to ten or twenty years from now.

If you’ve ever had a beloved magic weapon from your tabletop campaigns that you wish to see included, or you’re a GM who would love to see a favorite quest you once wrote experienced by thousands of players worldwide, consider investing in one of these higher tiers. Your support will also help push the game towards its funding goal and beyond—maybe unlocking new stretch goal features to include even more of the magic of what makes Pathfinder Second Edition so special!

In Gratitude, Ossian Studios

The rules state:

If you find a scroll, you can try to figure out what spell it contains. If the spell is a common spell from your spell list or a spell you know, you can spend a single Recall Knowledge action and automatically succeed at identifying the scroll’s spell. If it’s not, you must use Identify Magic (page 238) to learn what spell the scroll holds.

And Identify Magic says:

Once you discover that an item, location, or ongoing effect is magical, you can spend 10 minutes to try to identify the particulars of its magic. If your attempt is interrupted, you must start over. The GM sets the DC for your check. Cursed magic or esoteric subjects usually have higher DCs or might even be impossible to identify using this activity alone. Heightening a spell doesn't increase the DC to identify it.

Critical Success You learn all the attributes of the magic, including its name (for an effect), what it does, any means of activating it (for an item or location), and whether it is cursed.
Success For an item or location, you get a sense of what it does and learn any means of activating it. For an ongoing effect (such as a spell with a duration), you learn the effect's name and what it does. You can't try again in hopes of getting a critical success.
Failure You fail to identify the magic and can't try again for 1 day.
Critical Failure You misidentify the magic as something else of the GM's choice.

It makes sense to me that the DC should be the spell rank DC. What's not clear to me is how, if at all, a success vs critical success should be played. On a non-critical success, would they get a sense of the type of effect of the magic, but not know the specific spell?

My PCs encountered a vampire. The barbarian successfully trips the vampire and then grabs her.

Que the vampires turn and I am thinking about using the vampires special vapor form, Turn To Mist to get rid of the conditions - there is nothing preventing the vampire using it, it's not even manipulate.
But some of my well-versed-in-rules players seemed to really dislike it, mainly the "free" getting up (which I countered with the polymorph trait, you are getting magically reformed).

In my book it still costs 2 actions (physical to gas then gas to physical) same as removing the grabbed and then Standing up would, it does bypass rolling the fortitude check and any reactive strikes though.

Once you’ve decided "I want to give them a scroll now" or "I think it’s time they deserve to get a spell staff", how do you go about choosing which spells those are?

I assume different people have different ideas here, there isn’t one right answer. This is meant to be an open-ended discussion prompt.

Looks like Paizo has 20% off on rulebooks and some adventures on their website right now, in case soneone was eyeing the books but waiting to pull the trigger.

On the list of Familiar Abilities one is "dragon". I have a player thinking about picking up the Witch multiclass archetype for a familiar, and asking if theirs can be a dragon.

Is this allowed? Or is there some other context that I might be missing?

Building a rogue, and the description tells me Key Ability should only be Dex, unless a Racket gives another option. I chose the thief racket, which should not provide any extra options, but when I go to select my Class Boost, which is also used to define the ability used for Class DC, I have the options of Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma.

Is this a bug/missing feature in Pathbuilder, or am I misunderstanding what it’s doing?

I assume the intent is that either the answer is both yes or both no. But strictly reading it RAW, I can see a case that they may have different answers.

Step says:

Stepping doesn't trigger reactions, such as Reactive Strike, that can be triggered by move actions or upon leaving or entering a square.

To me, there is a good argument to be made either way, that Ready has a trigger the player sets, and thus it is not prevented. Or that they have chosen the trigger to be "a move action", and thus it is prevented.

Mobility says:

When you Stride and move half your Speed or less, that movement does not trigger reactions.

This is much more black and white. RAW, you cannot Strike someone who Strode less than half their speed.

I’m curious about whether you agree with my RAW interpretation, but even more about whether you think this is intended. And thirdly, if it is intended, whether you think it’s reasonable.

I’m not sure about the second question, but on q3 I definitely think it’s reasonable. Spending 2 actions and your reaction to get just one strike in. From action economy it sounds fair to me that this would bypass Step and Mobility. And from a flavour perspective it also makes sense to me, because a normal Reactive Strike is just quickly taking advantage of an opening they provide, but a Readied Strike is more like heavily concentrating on and waiting for a specific situation, which they shouldn’t be able to avoid just because they only take one step.

Opinions?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/26511521

So, if you're unaware, the basic math of PF2e's armour items assumes that for light and medium armour, (item bonus + dex cap) = 5, and for heavy armour, = 6. This means that as long as you can pick an armour that has a lower dex cap than your dex bonus, you are expected to be getting either 5 or 6 AC from your armour.

With all that said, there are a ton of armours out there that offer some kind of tradeoff, where that formula doesn't hold. For example, the Armoured Coat gives +4 AC between item bonus and dex cap, but it has the flexible trait which negates the check penalty to athletics and acrobatics checks. In my mind, that's a crazy tradeoff to make. The extra AC is so much more important.

At the end of the day though, I don't have the time to analyze the tradeoff offered by all of these "sub-optimal" armours. So yeah, I'd love to hear if anyone has experience with an armour item that yields less than 5 AC (or 6 for heavy armour) and yet the tradeoff was actually worth it for them.

Also on Kickstarter, and wrapping up in the next couple of days (ends on 9 August, at 6pm EDT/midnight UTC+0), is Legendary Game's Sea Monsters bestiary.

I grabbed their Mediterranean Monsters and Latin American Monsters books last month, and was really happy with both of those. They were thick softcovers with a lot of interesting legendary beasts, spirits, and faeries. And since I apparently just collect monster books now (BattleZoo and Viklander say 'hi'), I'm absolutely getting this one, too.

I was trawling Kickstarter again and came across another project supporting Pathfinder (this time both 1e and 2e): Lugon: Evolution & Magic.

It's a setting book that's adding some new races, classes, and spells, apparently with a focus on how magic interacts with or is derived from the ecosphere.

It has currently met its base funding goal, but it doesn't seem to have as much momentum as some of the other projects I've highlighted. Some of the stretch goals include extra spells, and "Mage guilds", which -- to my ear, at least -- sounds like some extra Wizard schools, something I know many Wizard players feel the game could use post-remaster.

Personally, I can't really find the interest to watch someone talk about things that could've been a text file, but maybe you all can peep some info on your classes of choice from this. I hear investigators and alchemists are eating good, but...

I'm just so upset about battle oracles, how could paizo do this to me immediately after bopping my favorite deity, too?

Hi, my name is Khan and I am the person behind Devabhumi. I am of Indian origin, and I have always been interested in non-European rpg settings. There is such a treasure trove of untapped stories, monsters, and legends in Indian Culture, which can provide fresh and unique content for your campaigns.

Devabhumi is a high fantasy TTRPG setting inspired by the history and epics of Ancient India. This setting features:

• 100+ pages of lore
• 8 new races
• 20+ historical weapons and armor
• 25 monsters inspired by Indian folklore

And much more!

You can check out the project here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/silvercompassmaps/devabhumi-a-dandd-5e-setting-inspired-by-ancient-india

Dr. Dhrolin's Dictionary of Dinosaurs is a monster book for D&D 5e written by paleontologists Drs. Nathan Barling and Michael O'Sullivan is gettinf a Pathfinder 2e conversion.

The book features realistic dinosaurs and paleontologically accurate (as of 2023) background information, as well as artwork by paleo-artist Dr. Mark Witton.

I'm maybe a little too excited about this one. I was a dinosaur kid growing up.

Buried somewhere in the announcement post on reddit is some really interesting creature adjustments coming with the book. u/Linda_Zayas_Palmer, a former Paizo developer who consulted on the conversion, dropped this:

Roughly 4 level -1 adjustments, 20 level +0 adjustments, 75 level +1 adjustments, and 20 level +2 adjustments.

So it's going to be a massive toolkit for GMs.

At level -1, we've got things like thin dermis, which includes vulnerability to slashing damage.

At level +0, we have things that you might be looking for to change your creature's habitat but that aren't going to make significant difference to their power level. Concepts like wader, which helps with moving through shallow water, and pneumitisation, which makes your creature a bit faster at the expense of making them easier to topple over.

At level +1, there are tons of examples. Some of them are more defensive, like a bony frill that can be raised defensively. Others grant new Strikes or reactions, ranging from the realistic, like adding a horn attack, to the fantastical, like a dinosaur with web-shooting spinnerets or the ability to shoot off psychic mind rays. And others do a variety of other concepts that I'm not previewing just yet :)

At level +2, we start getting into concepts like super-tanky creatures with thick armoured plates and creatures with neurotoxic venom.

You can find the original announcement here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1dfy8r0/british_palaeontologists_excited_by_pathfinder/

I believe there are many such examples, but the particular one I’m thinking of right now is the Cold Spot haunt which states that a character is clumsy 1 if they critically fail. When would they stop being clumsy 1?

Direct link to the Champion Remaster preview

This isn't strictly a Pathfinder thing but I like this community.

Basically, there is this meme that Human Figher is a "boring" default choice or sign of an uncreative character. I disagree. Picking out a weird ancestry is not creative. Choosing a human fighter basically means that you get zero flavor from your ancestry and class - so you are forced to get creative yourself. You are forced to give your character a personality, and you are forced to solve problems creatively.

For me, the stereotype is the opposite - if a player chooses an esoteric ancestry and class combo, I worry that their characters whole personality is just their ancestry.

Of course both humans and other ancestries make for great characters if done right.

u/MeiraTheTiefling on Reddit has released a homebrew Sorcerer subclass for feedback and testing:

I try to keep my homebrew as close as possible to official design standards, so feedback is always welcome!

FAQ:

Q: Can I share your content or use it in my games? A: Absolutely! Please credit me as MeiraTheTiefling when sharing with others. Also, if this ever hits your table, I would love it if you reached out to me eventually to let me know how it plays :)

Q: When might the Thornmaw Snapper make saving throws? A: Any time it makes sense, e.g. if it's affected by an indiscriminate AoE (like Howling Blizzard) or a reasonable creature-targeting ability (like Ignition). If there's any doubt, the GM has the final call. Note that its Tendrils never make saving throws, as they're only affected by attacks that deal damage.

To check out my other work (mostly 5e homebrew as of now), visit my Homebrewery page!

The-Magic-Sword from, like, all of the other Pathfinder forums was live-recapping the PaizoCon presentations. Linking them below:

Keynote

Godsrain Panel

Starfinder 2e Panel

With Howl of the Wild released, the wider community seems to be turning its attentions to Player Core 2 now. The new hotness is "what do you expect from {class} in PC2?"

So, what does the Threadiverse expect from the classes in PC2? We know Alchemist, Champion, Oracle, and Sorcerer are all in line to get some kind of meaningful touch-up.

• One of Oracle's class features just got generalized to the whole game
• Champion needs adjustments to account for the removal of alignment. And with the Guardian seemingly stepping into the non-religious defender role, the Champion could see its theming further narrowed.
• Sorcerer needs some of its bloodlines to be reflavoured to disentangle it from the OGL
• They said they wanted to make Alchemist not suck-out-loud for players who don't have the most mastered of system mastry.

But what does this mean exactly, in your estimation?

Personally, I'm seeing people starting to get hyped, and I think they're all going to be sorely disappointed by the scope of any updates in this release. I'm expecting modest changes to the chases of Oracle and Champion, some tweaks to TEML progression for Alchemist, and no chassis tweaks at all for Sorcerer, with Oracle and Champion getting additional feat support in War of the Immortals.

Paizo Design Manager Michael Sayre just dropped some long-awaited errata on us, marking a return to the 2022 plan of regular errata updates.

The current release includes errata for Guns & Gear, Firebrands, Rage of Elements, and Howl of the Wild, and a promise of another errata drop in the fall/winter period.

Hi, my name is Khan and I am the person behind Devabhumi. I am of Indian origin, and I have always been interested in non-European rpg settings. There is such a treasure trove of untapped stories, monsters, and legends in Indian Culture, which can provide fresh and unique content for your campaigns. Devabhumi is a high fantasy TTRPG setting inspired by the history and epics of Ancient India. This setting features:

• 100+ pages of lore
• A karma mechanic
• 6 new races
• 20+ backgrounds and feats
• And much more!

You can sign up for the Kickstarter here.

We are going live in 3 days!

Over on the 2e subreddit, u/EzekieruYT let everyone know that they'd stumbled across a pre-launch Kickstarter project called Pathfinder: Dragon's Demand. Speculation swirled for a bit before former Paizo Marketing Director Aaron Shanks chimed in to quietly announce the title, and confirm that it's being built on the 2e ruleset.

No details have been announced yet, and the studio behind it doesn't have a deep catalogue, so who knows what it'll actually look like in the end. People are getting hyped for PaizoCon, though.