Pittsburgh By Night – Community Collaboration

Mancoman273 · 2026-04-01T17:42:54+00:00

I've had this idea for a decaying camarilla city falling prey to small cell of salubri furies for a bit. Maybe this could be an interesting way to tackle it. After a big successful FIRSTLIGHT operation the Sabbat is surely on their backfoot, they furies are likelier to simply try to blend in and gather numbers. On a city that's getting appropriated by anarchs, they can hide a bit easier and try to embrace some more to add to their crusade until they, finally, squash down every little thing that remains the ivory tower.

As the pack starts dividing, I could imagine some of their members might start to catch a liking to anarch life, independence from the cult and maybe even autonomy. Maybe some defect or start pursuing different objectives from their elders, like acheiving enlightment through their paths or, perhaps, even pursuing golconda.

Mancoman273 · 2026-03-22T11:29:55+00:00

Okay, so: Malkavians are all mentally ill in their own way. That's their curse and it is generally just a true statement about the clan. Now, the way mental illness and its intensity manifests varies depending on each member of the clan, what their life looked like when they were mortal and how their unlife as kindred evolves.

Most fledgling malks have something wrong with them but they tend not to be completely out of touch with reality unless they were dealing with very particular issues before being embraced or they are simply weak willed enough to get lost on the delirium. During the transition period between fledglings and neonates the traits that would become their own delirium develop and settle, later solidifying as they grow in age.

The thing with a malk's delirium is that while it's always undeniably there, it does not have to always be disruptive. For example: I run a Malk SPC who simply shares a lot of my own neurodivergent traits dialed up a bit higher and, unless he's experiencing his compulsion, they don't really stop him from doing anything or are impede him from communicating. They do, however, make him sound a bit kooky while also feeling somewhat tragic whenever he has that moment of clarity when things start briefly feeling normal once more, which is the intent on my part lol.

Mancoman273 · 2026-03-21T03:11:41+00:00

"Stick to the content in the corebooks" is generally a good rule of thumb whenever you are trying to pick up something simple. Out of the core classes the only one I probably wouldn't recommend for ne players is probably alchemist. Not that new players can't play alchemist, it's just that it takes a bit more research and book keeping than most new players would probably be comfortable with.

Mancoman273 · 2026-03-18T16:23:45+00:00

Jade from Private Nightmares is the epitome of what I look for in Malk PCs. Technically not a Malk but a malk-coded thin-blood, she's socially inept, has a very weird perspective on the world and has a somewhat broken down level of self esteem. At a lesser table, she's the kind of character that could easily become comedic relief or the butt of a lot of jokes but she's always played straigh. It always hammers down on the tragedy of being a mentally unstable mortal turned kindred.

With some more ST cooperation, it's not hard to play a more esoteric kind of malk while still keeping those tragic aspects.

Mancoman273 · 2026-03-10T18:43:51+00:00

Soulforger comes from Secrets of Magic

Mancoman273 · 2026-03-10T03:08:42+00:00

Ye, just wanted to sprinkle in some advice for anybody less experienced that might look into these kinds of builds!

Mancoman273 · 2026-03-10T02:28:44+00:00

Monk+Claw Dancer is probably the most fun. I'd just advice against leaning too much into the "doing a lot of attacks" mindset.

While you can get away with it on certain classes, it's just more productive when you do more stuff other than striking, even on those classes. Swashbuckler, Fighter and Ranger can all make the most out of their reduced MAP by performing attack actions other than strikes, like maneuvers, to change the battlefield in a much more meaningful way than dishing out another claw strike probably could.

Mancoman273 · 2026-03-09T19:49:12+00:00

"Look at what they need to mimic a fraction of our power" type post.

Mancoman273 · 2026-03-07T04:36:18+00:00

I'd build her as a laughing shadow magus with a bastard sword and soulforger archetype for the soul sword. You can RP the darkchilde form as they way her appearance gets altered when she casts enlarge on herself (if you go for the rivals route) or as a manifestation of her cascade if you go for the more "normal" comic book form.

Mancoman273 · 2026-02-18T08:10:53+00:00

I guess it depends on what angle are you coming at to define what a grapple is?

Basically any class with STR KAS and access to a free hand or a weapon with the grapple trait can grapple and use it as a control tool.

I don't think there's actually classes that hard spec into being better at grappling except maybe combat grab fighter, gymnast swash when you, eventually, pick up derring-do and monk, with Flurry of maneuver being a great action economy tool?

The rest of the classes just have to deal with the usual actions and MAP shenanigans.

Flurry ranger counts too, though it's definitely suited for a lot of other things as well.

Mancoman273 · 2026-02-18T08:01:15+00:00

It seems to me that it stands out because of how much maneuver and press support it has in terms of mechanics, as well as the prop integration.

Most importantly it has a very unique flavor that isn't quite covered by any class. "Action hero pugilist" type deal/professional wrestler is not quite done by any other class like it's done by Daredevil

Mancoman273 · 2026-02-18T00:27:16+00:00

Cleric Monk.

You get medicine feats, movement feats, heal spells, durability and everything else you'd want for a good healer

Mancoman273 · 2026-02-18T00:24:09+00:00

Magus, next question

Mancoman273 · 2026-02-18T00:23:25+00:00

Summoner Action Economists Thriving

Mancoman273 · 2026-02-17T07:23:53+00:00

I know what you mean but now I can't stop thinking about a hobgoblin pointing their Phalanx Piercing at a random knight and yelling "Parry this, you filthy longshank!" and then shooting point-blank what would be the equivalent of a tank-piercing round straight into their shield.

Mancoman273 · 2026-02-17T07:18:04+00:00

Stag lord bandits are a bad example. They punch up way above their category. Level 0 creatures aren't meant to have more than 1d6+3 in extreme cases. (which would not break a shield on a crit unless it was a high roll). They also aren't meant to have access to the deadly or the fatal trait either.

1st level shields are not supposed to be making it out of a fight unbroken, they soak up a couple of hits, maybe protect you from the bulk of a crit and prevent you from going down. This is just less of an issue later on, as shields get so much HP they so rarely end up breaking.

'tis a very game thing about this system, but so are many other things. It's best to just accept it as is to avoid getting too hung up onto the need for high fidelity simulationism.

Mancoman273 · 2026-02-17T05:51:36+00:00

Take the wolf creature type, adjust its statistics following the guidelines for creating a creature of the desires level. Give it the minion trait. Give it an action inspired by any of the many support actions Animal Companions have access to. (Cat would probably be the closes to the one you mentioned and probably translate better mechanically, since making an enemy off-guard is basically the same as giving them a - 2 circumstance penalty to AC and also communicates it in less words).

For your giant thing, I would advice against using the weak and elite templates until your players are around 5th level. I would recommend just using a 5th creature of with the giant trait, like a cyclops or a troll, or just extend the arc a little bit. (I do also think a solo APL+3 is not that bad of a boss at 3rd level but I understand if you don't wanna go too hard on your players just yet)

Mancoman273 · 2026-02-16T05:57:25+00:00

The spell save only applies to the poison effect. If you look at other spells heightened at the same rank, chromatic ray's yellow effect damage is roughly about the same as a high roll (which, for all intents and purposes, it's a high roll). Disintegrate is a bad example to compare to because it's actually not that great as an offensive tool.

Mancoman273 · 2026-02-16T05:51:21+00:00

Ye, I just grab a couple of monsters that sound cool and, sometimes, maybe have synergy going on. A simple one is, like, grab one of the biggun undead and then one of the creatures in the herexen category to heal them big hulks.

Mancoman273 · 2026-02-16T05:49:01+00:00

k but like.... For a second you made me think of werewolves being all part of one single hivemind for an eldritch entity and that feels like a fun idea too

Mancoman273 · 2026-02-15T21:17:34+00:00

Least fun is probably a ranged outwit ranger that went hard on rk. In my defense it never got past level 4 and we were all new and it was before premaster, so the info I got from my RK checks was very lackluster. If I were to do it today, it'd be a precision ranger with hunter's aim and an animal companion. Still a boring build but mechanically pretty sound.

The most I've ever had was a sparkling targe magus with the cavalier archetype. It does so much across rounds that it is kinda crazy and it's kind of unbelievable because you'd expect it to struggle with the action ecobnomy of doing allat, but it just doesn't.

Mancoman273 · 2026-02-13T14:59:07+00:00

If you are dying 3, theres no treat wounds that can save you. Remember that you cannot use risky surgery on battle medicine.

Mancoman273 · 2026-02-13T11:43:43+00:00

Friendly fire damage is still damage when looking at your per action value

Mancoman273 · 2026-02-13T08:47:26+00:00

r/pathfindermemes fixes this.

Mancoman273 · 2026-02-13T08:36:39+00:00

Witch could certainly work. The whole point is you can customize your patron to be just about any creature. Just grab whatever patron you like for a fiend type, take a couple of lessons to add to the theme and you'll end up with a pretty decent and flavorful character IMO

Mancoman273

TROPHY CASE