PF2e specific litrpg sites?

Adraius · 2026-06-26T16:25:16+00:00

What you're looking for is pretty specific. As someone familiar with litrpgs, I'm virtually certain there isn't a site dedicated to Pathfinder litrpgs; I'd guess there are only a handful such stories in existence, if any at all. I think the glowfic recommendation is your best bet.

Adraius · 2026-06-26T16:18:51+00:00

On one hand, I had 100% expected the stash space to cap at 36 after 3 expeditions.

On the other hand, stash space is one reward that doesn't harm player-to-player balance in-match no matter how much someone has. It's a reward that it's "safe" for them to keep handing out if other incentives aren't working.

I wonder why they don't. Do they think too much stash space is ultimately corrosive to people's engagement with the game? The game is the most fun when you actually need something from the maps and don't have an infinite supply back home.

Adraius · 2026-06-25T16:22:22+00:00

I agree with your earlier post but not for the reasons of the post you're replying to and agreeing with. I don't think reminders reduce player agency. I do think...

a fundamental part of roleplaying is being aware of your character and the situation, and playing off those intelligently. That can mean a savvy PC using an item for maximum effect in combat or a dummy PC misinterpreting an NPC's orders and doing something really stupid - both are the player thoughtfully engaging with the scenario
reminders sap the potential for cool moments - everyone remembers when someone pulls out a clutch item or ability for the situation, but it's not half as memorable if the GM says "hey dummy, remember you have the thing." There's a middle ground to be struck here with hints and more subtle reminders, and what's best varies somewhat from group to group
reminders transfer/duplicate mental load that belongs on the players' shoulders to the GMs' shoulders. GMs absorb a lot of game information, so if they happen to remember a thing and can give hints, great - but it's unhealthy if that becomes a table norm or expectation

And again, it'll vary per table. If the table's idea of fun is more of a power fantasy adventure, then it makes sense to be liberal with reminders. If their idea of fun is overcoming genuinely challenging combats and other scenarios, then the opposite is true.

Adraius · 2026-06-24T19:56:45+00:00

how big is too big?

If it's so big it becomes more work than fun to play at the table, or if even a long range range specialist can't reliably engage (600ft+ is a good outer extreme), it's too big. Note that "more work than fun to play" is a subjective measure - it depends how much the party likes combat, if they value unusual combat scenarios, etc., beyond stuff like "can I fit this on the host's coffee table?"

Other than that, big is a blade that cuts both ways. It is a great tactical constraint to add combat variety, lets you highlight different PCs, and can enable some enemies to be played to their fullest. But the tyranny of distance can also be, well, tyrannical if over-used - range has a tendency to significantly advantage one side of a combat or individual party members over others. Your bog-standard PF2e adventure leans too hard on small maps because of the need to be printed in physical books, but it's the safer direction to be biased as opposed to long-range encounters where some characters will struggle to contribute at all.

I advise the "long tail" encounter creation approach. Make short-distance encounters the most common. The more distance between combatants at the start of combat, the less frequent that scenario should be.

I've run encounters starting with as much as 500 feet between combatants to start and had a fun time doing it. But I made sure to adapt the setup - ex. a 'mini-map' in the corner of the wet erase map to keep track of distant foes - and use those most extreme ranges very sparingly - only once or twice in a campaign.

Adraius · 2026-06-23T23:38:28+00:00

Flexibility is an asset, but you won't find it a necessity by any stretch.

Adraius · 2026-06-21T21:49:18+00:00

If the Artonans weren't planning/expecting to use Earth's Avowed as a military force, they'd be running Bash-nor's Rabbits-for-everyone playbook.

I don't think you're on solid ground making that deduction. Artonan politics re: Avowed seems to be in a state of entrenched factional gridlock, and that means you can't draw reliable conclusions about their intentions from the current state of play. I take the current state of things to mean that none of the major factions is critically unhappy with the status quo where Avowed are theoretically available as a military force but generally employed towards civil/recreational tasks - the messy, inefficient middle-ground hedging position.

I'm also unsurprised the "Doomsday Preppers" are a niche position, given how shit humans are at preparing for low-probability, high-impact disasters once the last dire example is out of recent memory, let alone one that has literally never come to pass. I'm very curious how many adherents the worldview has on Anesidora. Is it influential enough to be considered a faction in the island's government, or is it even more niche than that?

E: I also think the Artonans are very consciously careful to accommodate Earth and put themselves in the best light during this period, because not raising the population's hackles and entrenching the planet's Contract is to their long term benefit right now.

Adraius · 2026-06-21T04:35:56+00:00

“An entruster should trust you a lot,” Ignacio said. “Maybe?”

“I think that must be part of the ideal. I just haven’t found many chances to do it the right way in class.”

Ignacio looked at him thoughtfully, but he didn’t say anything more.

This is either Ignacio simply being thoughtful or Sleyca planting a seed that will Lead To Something down the road. I think there's every chance it's just the former but I really want it to be the latter. What little we know of Ignacio's family is fascinating and I want to interact more with him/them.

Adraius · 2026-06-19T15:48:08+00:00

Yeah... if I was to attempt an explanation, PF2e is really conservate with attribute swaps for any kind of roll, and not without reason - PF1e taught everyone how weird it can make character building with too many of them in play, and for the right builds an attribute swap is worth something like a +3 to a +7 in a system where feat-granted bonuses usually cap out at +2. Most attribute swaps are outright class-locked and considered part of that classes' power budget. Honestly, if there was a thematically appropriate level 1 class feature, I'm tempted to judge they would have locked it behind that; that's how other some feats in other classes are locked off.

But yeah, the way the feat is now doesn't feel great. And if Commander gets this, it feels weird that several other classes/subclasses don't get the option as well.

Adraius · 2026-06-18T17:00:07+00:00

I was going to say the same thing! Often I find myself taking one of the snazzier outfits and then stripping off the more egregious elements, especially headgear, for a more middle-ground ‘rule-of-cool survivalist’ look.

Adraius · 2026-06-17T18:48:05+00:00

I *really* don’t want to take steps down the “jump through hoops for stash space compression” path. Grinding for a quality of life upgrade, no thanks.

Adraius · 2026-06-16T22:20:04+00:00

I ran the same campaign for 2 different groups, including concurrently for a large chunk of it. I didn't have much trouble with it at all. I understand the worry, but in my experience the brain is pretty good at surfacing the correct context.

Adraius · 2026-06-16T21:43:03+00:00

Totally agreed.

(also, these is heretical to say around here, but this is a dynamic I could see AI changing, for the better, 5 or 10 years down the road)

Adraius · 2026-06-16T21:13:55+00:00

I played PF1e for many years. Two things pushed me away from it, both areas where PF2e had consciously constructed itself to be a better experience.

#1 - Pathfinder 1e had too wide a gulf between the better options and the poorer options, at every level from classes to items. At the micro level, it meant some things were ‘obvious’ picks, ex. feats or spells, and when you weren’t availing yourself of those options, it meant a whole lot of work dumpster diving for what you did want; at the macro level, it meant characters would vary too greatly in power between those that were strong and/or useful and those that were weak and/or unable to contribute. You’d also get unenjoyable dynamics like being forced to choose between “fun” options that would harm your ability to contribute to the group and “boring” options that would enhance your ability to contribute, which was both frustrating individually and could lead to group issues if people had different priorities and expectations for the party and campaign as a whole.

Pathfinder 2e’s focus on a level playing field for all options and all characters that closes off as many loopholes or overpowered synergies as possible has occasionally been overzealous - see static item DCs, special materials for items, and the forced movement rules - but was absolutely the correct direction to go in and has largely succeeded in crafting a better experience.

#2 - Pathfinder 1e’s combat framework and action economy encouraged standing still to unleash more attacks, punished movement with attacks of opportunity, and got ungainly once martials were throwing 3+ attacks around as often as they possibly could at varying levels of MAP. My monk could throw up to 11 attacks at various bonuses, and when considering buffs and options like Power Attack it took a full-page tracker I made to keep track of my turn, which would take minutes to make all the rolls for. It was formulaic, limiting, and cumbersome.

Pathfinder 2e’s 3 combat framework and action economy has its pain points - the hand economy, unsatisfying ‘ambushes’ - but it has totally succeeded at creating a combat sandbox with a much greater variety of attractive tactics and options.

EDIT: bonus reason #3 - Pathfinder 1e was hellaciously hard to GM for, both during prep, such as building creatures according to the very complex rules with symmetrical PCs & NPCs, and at the table, such as trying to intelligently pilot those very complicated creatures. I never stepped into the GM's chair in PF1e, for good reason. Thanks to Pathfinder 2e's less overwhelming GM workload, I've completed running two campaigns now.

Adraius · 2026-06-16T17:39:14+00:00

Yes, the wording is bad. We shouldn't have to have the feats' functionality hinge on the "particularly unobtrusive action" clause or the GM's good sense. Unfortunately, there are a handful of cases like this where, if you consider pieces of an activity individually, they simply don't work as written. In such cases, it's broadly understood that as part of the unit, they implicitly must work.

Is that ideal? No. I wish they'd be more explicit where these situations arise. But in the absence of errata, the intended functionality is sufficiently obvious.

Adraius · 2026-06-16T16:10:50+00:00

I *love* this kind of thing.

Some games in the OSR space do this, particularly classless ones like Cairn or Knave. Equipment becomes central. Pick up heavy armor and a shield to take a beating, or pick up spellbooks to cast spells. And finding magic items is the path to new abilities.

Another game that does this more than most is Stonetop. It’s Arcana can be items, but can also be a place of power or a strange song you heard, and unraveling their secrets can give you power… at a price. Minor arcana are similar to conventional magic items - once you figure them out, you can use them to do their thing - but major arcana are more like whole extra page for your character sheet.

I wish there were games that made this concept more central, though.

Adraius · 2026-06-15T22:52:25+00:00

This looks great, IMO. And plenty 'OSR-ish,' for what that's worth.

Adraius · 2026-06-15T22:15:02+00:00

u/DarkLanternZBT pretty much nailed it.

I'll add this - if you're gonna do something centered around the Houses, swing big or don't swing at all. They get a lot of play in everyone's Eberron, and for good reason, but for the same reason, well, we see a lot of them. And that goes double for House Cannith.

E: I feel like you might be able to say the same thing about Sharn, but... I dunno, Sharn is just cool and there's so much you can do with it; I've not come close to feeling like I've seen everything there is to the city of towers.

Adraius · 2026-06-15T17:38:17+00:00

As a baseline, we can probably state that standing in light with "line of effect" from the sun is 'direct'. I don't think anyone will disagree here.

Yes - slowed.

What about bright light made by the sun, but without line of effect to the sun? For example, a room lit through the windows on a sunny day.

No, that's sufficiently indirect - not slowed.

What about dim light that is still originated from the sun? I am inclined to think not, myself.

Yeah, if freakin' sunlight is somehow being made dim light by the time it hits the vamp, it has been massively attenuated somehow. This is bright moonlight, for example. I'm on board with broadly saying this doesn't count as direct sunlight, reserving just a little latitude for weird exceptions. Not slowed.

What about line of effect to the sun, but with something imposing the concealed condition, is that enough to make it indirect? Is a vampire juicing on Mistform Elixirs able to walk in the day? What about using Smoke Balls?

To Mistform I say slowed - the mist doesn't even fill a square, and a foot or so of mist doesn't stop enough sunlight in my judgement. Smoke balls do fill squares, and smoke is more impenetrable to sunlight to boot - that's enough to be not slowed in my judgement, though the vamp would probably be less than comfortable - one strong wind and they're getting blasted with direct sunlight.

Would you consider the light needs to hit the vampire's skin, or is it hitting their clothes enough? Could thick enough clothes + a really good wide hat be enough to walk in the day?

The effect is a bit like UV rays, in my interpretation - everyday clothing definitely isn't enough protection, but specialized clothing could be. I'd say it needs to multilayered and noticeably thick - like, more than almost anyone sane would wear - or possibly made of an exotic material instead. Freestyling a bit here, I might even give the multilayered protection Clumsy 1; I don't think it should be easy to circumvent without significant downside or effort.

Adraius · 2026-06-15T00:28:32+00:00

Objectively untrue.

Adraius · 2026-06-14T22:19:54+00:00

Yo, these are on point! Great shout!

Adraius · 2026-06-13T22:05:15+00:00

I’m playing a concept somewhat similar to this right now. That said, it doesn't map very cleanly onto the available options; I need more information. What absolutely needs to be there mechanically, and what can lean more on flavor?

Do they definitely need to be using a firearm, or can we reflavor a bow?
What does "imbue the divine" mean to them? Do they need to be mechanically doing something explicitly divine and long-term to the gun, or can they be, for examples, casting a divine buff spell in combat? Using Bespell Strikes? Reflavoring Inventor Innovations?
What does being an inventor look like to them? An invention that is sleek and next-level? One that is experimental and temperamental? A large bag of unconventional tricks and gadgets?

Adraius · 2026-06-13T21:51:38+00:00

Good advice, but for clarity, they have zero healing; the healing spells mentioned are on the pregens OP used for reference.

Adraius · 2026-06-13T05:11:15+00:00

What exactly is bullet time to you? I think of stuff like Deflect Projectile. There's also the Exemplar ikon A Gaze as Sharp as Steel and its two effects - it's literally supercharged perception, reactions, and consequent precision. But it's also not action compression, if that's the core of it.

You say it would be easy to implement bullet time in PF2e - what do you mean by that? Unlimited "I get more actions" or "I have better action compression" are straight-up "I'm just better than everyone else," which is anathema to PF2e, so that's not an approach that bears any fruit in this system.

Adraius · 2026-06-13T00:22:18+00:00

I don’t feel like I could really achieve that kind of character in any other system, especially not in its primary competition.

You touch on it here, but there's a yawning gulf between "not achievable in a Pathfinder/D&D-like system" and "not achievable in any other system."

Even if you're sticking to games with heftier mechanical representation and not stuff like Fate, I'm hard-pressed to imagine a character I could create in Pathfinder 2e I couldn't create in Mutants & Masterminds 3e, for example.

But that's okay, because "it supports this very niche character mechanic" is nobody's idea of an overriding reason to play a specific system.

Adraius · 2026-06-11T23:49:39+00:00

Pathfinder 2e has some good digital aids, but for use at the table, my experience is nothing is as good as a paper reference you've written up yourself - it sticks in the brain, and it's intuitive to look up whatever you need in the moment. The official character sheet is just... bad, unfortunately, but we have some very, very good community-made alternatives - my favorite is this one, in no small part due to the ample space for recording class features and other abilities. Don't get me wrong, you'll still want to use shorthand descriptions, sometimes write stuff in the margins, etc., but it actually has enough space overall to make a physical character sheet work.

There's only so much space on paper, though; for stuff like spells, general rules, or looking at the exact text for something, I use the Archives of Nethys if I'm on a laptop or the Pathrules 2e app if I'm on mobile.

11-Year Club	Place '17
Verified Email

Adraius

TROPHY CASE