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Dungeons and Dragons Megathread

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Also in Digimon they actually get to mega levels. The majority of Pathfinder or D&D games peter out long before 19th level.
 
I'm pretty sure Animist is more like the P1e shaman class, right down to having a shaman subclass.

The other class in War of Immortals is the Exemplar, which is conceptually summed up as playing as a demigod. I mean, look at the iconic. Nahoa is clearly Maui. Admittedly without the shapeshifting, but there's plenty of cool stuff.
 
Demigod, folk hero, Fate/Stay Night style servant or just someone whose whole deal is starting out with a cool magic sword at level 1. (Technically you get three cool things, but it's easy to flavor it as one cool magic sword and two additional cool things you get from the sword.)
 
One of the key things that stick out to me with the Exemplar is that you don't feel as punished for taking weirder weapon choices or for wanting a particular signature weapon.

The scythe your edgy boi is wielding isn't simply replaceable by the first 1d10 magic weapon that comes around. It deals extra persistent damage on attacks and lets you flash step across the battlefield after hitting an enemy in order to attack another foe.

Similarly, a frying pan in the hands of a Halfling Exemplar is going to do as much damage as a short sword in the hands of a Halfling Fighter. More really with the additional spirit damage it provides. (Not counting crits of course.)

Personally I'm pondering on an Exemplar that's a noble or something who just wails on people with his cane.
 
So I considered writing up a post about how the Exemplar works, but Ikons aren't particularly complicated, and describing what the class does would require describing the Ikons and Feats they get which is a lot of effort.
So instead I'm just gonna explain what one of the example Exemplars does.

Also a quick explanation of Ikons first:
  • Only one of your Ikons is active at any given time, denoted by your divine spark resting in it.
  • each Ikon has passive (Immanence) and active abilities (Transcendence). Note that the passive is only active while your divine spark is in the ikon
  • using your Transcendence abilities shifts the divine spark into a different Ikon, as does a 1-action activity that does nothing else.
  • You can only use one Transcendence per turn
  • thus you basically switch back and forth between turns between two Ikons, or one main Ikon and several others


Celestial Archer
"You are a hero of your people, your singular focus on the bow inspiring songs and legends". This is an Exemplar with high Dexterity, some Strength, some Charisma, and Acrobatics, Diplomacy, Performance, and Religion as skills.
Their Ikons are the following. Note that the Bow has several additional abilities via Feats:
  • Eye-Catching Spot (somewhere on their body): enemies get -1 circumstance to attack them, and for 2 actions the Transcendence forces a Will Save or be Fascinated for a turn which does not break if you attack their allies (but still if you attack them)
  • Gaze Sharp as Steel (their eyes are just that good): +1 status to Perception and +2 Status to AC vs. Ranged Attacks, and for 1 action the Transcendence adds 1D6 (2D6 at 10th, 3D6 at 19th) precision damage to your next attack before the end of your next turn
  • Thousand-League Sandals (their footwear): +10 foot status bonus to speed, and for 1 action the Transcendence lets you Stride and every ally within 10 feet Stride as a Reaction
  • Unfailing Bow: deals an additional 1 spirit damage per weapon die, which increases to 1D4 spirit damage on a crit. The Transcendence is 1 action, after a previous attack with the Bow, being an attack against the same target with the same D20 result on the roll, but with the penalties calculated anew (so Multi Attack Penalty can make you miss).
  • with Red-Gold Mortality (2nd feat): When you damage an enemy, they are marked for 1 minute. If they heal, they must make a Will save or only heal half the HP (none on a crit fail).
  • Through the Needles Eye (4th feat): a 2-action Transendence that makes a Strike, if it hits the enemy makes a Fortitude save or becomes Blinded for 1 round, or until they wipe the blood from their eye with 1 action.
  • Binding Serpents Celestial Arrow (6th feat): a 2-action Transcendence that makes a strike, if it hits the arrows transform into snakes that force a Reflex save or the snakes coil around the target, immobilizing it until it succesfully escapes.
For Class Feats, a lot are spent on improving the Bow, one is spent on getting an additional Ikon, but here's the remaining ones:
  • Sanctified Soul (1st): They gain the Holy or Unholy trait, and all their spirit damage becomes Sanctified
  • Journey of the Sky Chariot (10th): this enhances a body or worn Ikon. As it's Immanence, it lets them hover in the air even if they didn't Fly (e.g. if from Leaping). As it's Transendence, for 1 action they gain a Fly Speed for 1 minute.
And finally, they have Epithets - Titles, additions to their name they earned due to their legendary deeds:
  • The Radiant (3rd): makes them Trained in Diplomacy, and whenever they Spark Transcendence they heal one ally within 30 feet for 2 + (2x level), the ally is then immune to that healing for 10 minutes
  • Of Verse Unbroken (7th): They gain the Energized Spark feat, a first level, feat, for either sonic or vitality - they can choose to have their spirit damage be that damage type. When they Critically Hit with a Strike, rather than the usual crit effects, they can make the enemy Stupefied 1 unless they succeed at a Will save. And finally, when they Spark Transcendence, any one ally that starts within 30 feet of you can sustain a spell or similar effect as a free action, then being immune to that effect for 10 minutes.
 
I'm not sure if Journey of the Sky Chariot works with leaping. I think it means that if you use the transcendance ability to get a fly speed and then later switch back to it you won't need to use one of your 3 actions to Fly in order to prevent falling.
 
So, neat thing in Pathfinder 2E: the Animist Apparition Crafter in the Vault.
It grants the Vessel Spell (=a type of Focus spell, so you can cast it ~every 10 minutes) Traveling Workshop. Here's what that does:
  • it gives you scaling proficiency in Crafting and Thievery, up to legendary proficiency
  • it can do so for 8 hours, if you spend 10 minutes casting the spell (rather than doing so as an action, in which case it has to be sustained for up to 1 minute)
  • you don't even need to have it as your primary apparition for the effect to last, so you can easily swap to another afterwards
  • if you do that, you also count as having spent 1 day setting up for the purpose of Crafting
  • this means you can Craft an Item whose Formula you know right away following the normal crafting rules (skill check, spend the cost of the item in GP to craft it)
  • you can bypass the need to have the Formula by having the Inventor skill feat, which allows you to Craft Formulas following the normal crafting rules (so you'd first spend 10 minutes to cast that spell and invent the formula, then maybe 10 minutes refocusing, 10 more minutes to craft the item, and then refocus and swap to another aparition)
  • as a drawback, items you craft disappear shortly after they leave your possession, so it's best to craft consumable items you use yourself, immediately feed to your allies, or e.g. vehicles you ride in
  • you still need the Alchemical Crafting skill feat to make Alchemical Items, and the Magical Crafting skill feat to make magical items, as normal
Despite spending most of the text elaborating on the crafting feature, the two auto-scaling proficiencies are really the main draw of this. You can cover any needs for Thievery (Disable Device, Lockpicking) in your party with this, and having a Crafter is often useful to repair shields etc.
But getting needed items on the spot is pretty appealing too.
 
Kitsune said:
Musk is talking about buying Hasbro, which would include Dungeons & Dragons

https://gamerant.com/elon-musk-buy-hasbro-dungeons-and-dragons/

Groan
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That article looks more like a Hasbro puff piece to try and prop the stock price up. If Elon want's to buy them then you should first so you can sell to him at a profit.

Musk's tweet could equally be him sneering at Hasbro's financial issues, without him realising WotC is all that's keeping them propped up.
 
Is there anything wrong with preferring 1st edition Pathfinder over DND 5th edition? I have now played multiple sessions of 5th edition and while I will continue with the group, I still just don't like the game system as much.
 
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No, there's nothing wrong with it? 5e (to be as charitable about it as possible) isn't for everyone and that's fine.

My preference is for Pathfinder 2e, but that's just me.
 
Oracle has been heavily reworked and is functionally a different class than the PF1 version. Hunter might get ported over eventually (probably as a variant of Ranger or Druid, like how Bloodrager is a subvariant of Barbarian now) but they would probably need to introduce teamwork feats and that strikes me as... well, unlikely. PF2 already heavily incentivises teamwork and the mechanical design is extremely tightly woven, I'm not sure there's enough design space for a whole series of teamwork feats.
 
The controversial part about Oracle is that the Remaster stripped a lot of the incidental flavor away from it while making it stronger.
Pre-Remaster Oracle suffered a bit as a class, though "suffered a bit" still means "perfectly playable" due to PF2E balance standards.
Post-Remaster Oracle lacks stuff such as a Tempest Oracle creating a aura that puts out fires, then hinders all ranged attacks, then creates difficult terrain - it now no longer affects fires around you at all, only hinders your ranged attacks, and eventually slows you down, which is arguably lacking in the "there are powerful winds whipping around me" department.

That being said, you can still play Pre-Remaster Oracle just fine if you prefer.
Or for basically all the Mysteries/Curses, you can add the flavor back in at the cost of about 1 feat:
  • Tempest: putting out non-magical fires is basically a ribbon ability. Imposing a -2 circumstance penalty to enemy attack rolls is worth about a feat if it's conditional, which having a curse active is. The difficult terrain at major curse would arguably be another feat, though also given that it'd only kick in at level 17 anyhow, it won't affect things too much.
  • Ancestors got majorly changed, and the issue with the old one was that it was random. I don't like evaluating random things, so I'll leave it for now.
  • Battle can easily gain a feat that just grants heavy armor proficiency and scaling proficiency in one weapon group, that's just a normal feat. Alternatively, you have it grant the armor proficiency, and have it grant a variant of the Animist Vessel Spell Embodiment of Battle rather than the focus spell it already gets - the spell grants weapon proficiency, Reactive Strike, and a scaling status bonus to attack and damage rolls. I can even see keeping the auto-sustain on hit for it.
  • Bones arguably kept most of it's flavor, IMO at least
  • Cosmos can easily get "you only weigh half as much, you only take half as much damage from falls, and you gain the effects of the Powerful Leap and Quick Jump skill feats" as a Mystery-specific feat that is conditional upon the cursebound condition, or even one that is always on.
  • Fire arguably kept most of it's flavor
  • Life arguably kept most of it's flavor
  • Lore definetly kept it's flavor and function
Granted, "it requires homebrew" is not necessarily the best answer to things, even where the homebrew is based on already existing rules.


As for Hunter - it depends entirely on what you want?
If you want Teamwork Feats, there probably never will be Teamwork Feats in the PF 1E sense, since 2E already assumes you to work as a team, and for such feats to be worthwhile they'd have to be numerically superior and thus break the balance. What you do already have is ways to heavily help with said teamwork, if you want that.
If you want a Martial class with an Animal Companion and Spellcasting, you can either take a Spellcasting Archetype on the Ranger, or the Rivethun Involutionist Archetype, or just both the Beastmaster and a Spellcasting Archetype on any martial class.
 
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FaeGlade Plural said:
If you want a Martial class with an Animal Companion and Spellcasting, you can either take a Spellcasting Archetype on the Ranger, or the Rivethun Involutionist Archetype, or just both the Beastmaster and a Spellcasting Archetype on any martial class.
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In games I have been in , the teamwork does not end up getting use much but having an animal companion and spell casting to start is really nice.
 
To put it another way, with the remaster the Oracle's curse is always negative instead of having some negative aspects & some positive aspects. In exchange they have access to feats that are intentionally made to be powerful, but increase the level of your curse to begin with.

There's various ways you can get a companion. Inventors can build a mechanical one, Summoners focus on having a singular powerful summon that hangs around as a companion and there's a variety of archetypes that can allow any class to have a companion starting at level 2.
 
Kitsune said:
In games I have been in , the teamwork does not end up getting use much but having an animal companion and spell casting to start is really nice.
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As mentioned, Ranger with any Spellcasting Archetype will get you that - Animal Companion at level 1 (if you take one), Cantrips at level 2, ranked spells at level 4, and spells up to rank 8 over the course of your career.
Your spells will always be noticeably behind in terms of accuracy, so you won't want to use them for offensive use, but that wasn't the Hunters niche anyhow IIRC.

Also Ranger gets some spells too (if you take them) - those being Focus Spells, so you can take them every 10 minutes.
 
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Not saying that I would never play second edition but I do like first edition and certain classes I really like. I also will not judge second edition until and unless I have played it. Learned the first edition system pretty well as well. There are some games that even though I have not played, I don't know if I really want to learn. This includes Hackmaster and I at least looked at the system a little because a friend seems to like the system.
 
Kitsune said:
Is there anything wrong with preferring 1st edition Pathfinder over DND 5th edition? I have now played multiple sessions of 5th edition and while I will continue with the group, I still just don't like the game system as much.
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No? Why would there be?

I personally don't like what I've seen of 5E. From reading the rules and listening to Actual Plays, it seems like the fun that people have while playing it is in spite of the system rather than because of it. The rules for everything but spells seem very slapdash and vague, and the balance is nonexistent. It feels like it's got all the things I didn't like about 4E, and none of the things about 4E that I thought were improvements.

Frankly, I'd rather play either edition of Pathfinder, 3E or even 4E than 5E. I'd take 5E over AD&D or OD&D, I guess. Although I'll be damned if I ever give WOTC a dime ever again, with all the amoral shit they've pulled.


Kitsune said:
My understanding is that some of my favorite classes don't reappear in 2nd edition Pathfinder
Oracle and Hunter at least
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Oracle is in PF2E. Two versions of it, even. The remastered version was in Player Core 2, so it's essentially a core class now.

Hunter has not reappeared as a class yet, and I don't know if it's going to. Some of the Hybrid Classes from PF1E's Advanced Class Guide have shown up in PF2E as core classes (Swashbuckler, Investigator), some have become subclasses (Warpriest), some have become Class Archetypes (Slayer, Bloodrager), but some have also become kind of redundant. There's no need for a Brawler class to create an unarmed fighter that isn't a Monk, because anyone can do that with the Martial Artist archetype. Same for Cavalier, which is not an archetype instead of a class. There's no reason to create a new class for a concept unless it's got a new, distinct mechanic that requires it. The idea of the Hybrid Classes from ACG, that they could mix elements of two different classes, is already possible via the multiclass archetypes. They don't really need to create a new class that's a mixture of Druid and Ranger with an animal companion because you can already make your Druid have elements of Ranger or your Ranger have elements of Druid via archetypes and choose an animal companion from your 1st level class options. And any class can have an animal companion by taking the Beastmaster archetype. So you could build something functionally similar to a Hunter with the options that already exist.
 
Curious if I can ask about Inquisitor?

I played one in a mythic game that seemed just too overpowered but an Inquisitor can have an animal companion (A few different ways to do it - God, Ravener Hunter archetype and Sacred Huntsmaster - I was playing an Inquisitor Ravener Hunter /Monster Tactician) in Pathfinder First Edition and has most of the scouting skills of a Ranger / Hunter and also gets the longbow W.P.
 
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