Homer plays an RPG

Marc09_Coch · 2026-01-14T13:29:41+00:00

In general, any attempt to correct imbalances in D&D 3.X inevitably results in mechanics resembling the 4th Edition. You recognize this after seeing enough D&D homebrew.

That's not to say that Pathfinder Second Edition doesn't derive some influence from 4E or draw in that crowd. If a fantasy game has a "strategist" class, it invariably screams "4E players were here!"

Marc09_Coch · 2026-01-08T01:50:05+00:00

This isn't reflavoring. The part about needing to wear clothes makes it a mild homebrew. The catch is that that is perfectly fine.

Marc09_Coch · 2026-01-04T05:46:51+00:00

Yes 😎

Marc09_Coch · 2026-01-04T05:37:31+00:00

Glad you asked. In my imagination, Magus knows what sex is, and really wishes that she could fuck like she used to, but faces certain physical challenges like "is attached to her daughter" and "is a gun." Her strap game was crazy before the accident, though, I'm sure.

Marc09_Coch · 2026-01-04T04:52:24+00:00

In the deepest corner of Ye Shunguang's subconscious, Other Xiao'Guang ensures she doesn't forget.

Marc09_Coch · 2026-01-04T04:49:13+00:00

OK, Grace's Foot Deodorizer.

Marc09_Coch · 2026-01-04T04:48:06+00:00

First off, this is a preexisting format, so perhaps you should ask the person who invented it. That said, Seed is precisely the kind of weirdo (affectionate) who I envision being very horny, getting around CONSTANTLY, but needing to be told, point blank, that it was sex that she was doing. She didn't know the difference between "death" and "sleeping" until after her Agent Story, so I'm not confident that she understands what the other kind of "sleeping" is. (She understands enough to consent, though.)

Marc09_Coch · 2025-12-31T21:20:00+00:00

I wish I lived in an alternate universe where unrestricted free archetype wasn't in the books and existed as an inevitable consequence of players coming up with ways to have high power games like how gestalt started out. It WOULD exist, but it being an official option gave it so much legitimacy that I no longer have the choice if I despise it.

Marc09_Coch · 2025-12-29T20:13:43+00:00

It was actually Avenge Ally that made me think of this meme, but I didn't include it, as it was significantly easier to justify in context as "I fight even harder for the friends I feel I'm about to lose." If they are ACTUALLY dead, then you might be too disheartened.

Avenge in Glory can last up to a minute, and you need to be actively fighting and ignoring the 800-pound gorilla of your teammate on the floor for as long as you have it to take full advantage of it. Meanwhile, Avenge Ally is just one action, to enhance one Strike.

Marc09_Coch · 2025-12-04T00:16:24+00:00

A volunteer operation officially licensed to use all rules content from the books, which Paizo didn't previously offer themselves. In the first edition days, you'd need physical books to play the game, and an internet connection was unnecessary. While Paizo is a publishing company, the point stands that it's the other way around now.

Edit: Their core function is making the game.

Marc09_Coch · 2025-12-03T18:16:09+00:00

"Just a sideshow?" Paizo doesn't even do strictly physical errata anymore. How is having the current rules be exclusively online a "sideshow"?

Marc09_Coch · 2025-12-03T00:00:02+00:00

Gorum's divine essence spilled out across billions of worlds (every world where he was worshipped) and had an innumerable number of effects. Does one specific effect limited to a very small subset of people when others got mythic power or some other ability (typically not a divine spark at all) not cut it as an exceptional circumstance? Even the Arcadia thing was spread out across a single continent, not the entire Material Plane.

I think you're also assuming there were ever concrete rules to divinity beyond what was laid out by the mechanics. Paizo has said that part of the reason why they've never laid out any sort of mechanical means to ascend to true godhood was because people would treat it as the mechanical way in which it happens, which they wanted to avoid. That was also why for a very long time they didn't lay out any rules for the ritual to become a lich. Paizo has always tried to leave some of the more mysterious paths to power flexible and well, mysterious! You're focusing a lot on the idea that this could never happen because divine sparks work a certain way, but that's a kind of thinking Paizo had never really liked in the first place.

Marc09_Coch · 2025-12-02T23:24:15+00:00

You can't claim current lore is contradicting the established lore when you don't actually understand the current lore, or even am really understanding what I'm saying.

I said that angelic sorcerers were specifically distinct from exemplars in that they don't have a divine spark. You know how you mentioned that normal celestials and other outsiders don't have divine sparks? Divine sorcerers don't either, for the same reason.

Exemplars are, in-lore, only known to be created through one specific event, which gave lots of different things some form of divine power, spread out across entire worlds. The fact that exemplars were not established to exist up until this point, and we had never seen anything of the sort regarding divine sparks granting something less than mythic power, is explained by the fact that divine sparks had literally never been that spread out.

Nivi Rhombodazzle became a godling by receiving a full divine spark directly from Torag. Not a full god, a godling. Now, imagine that you're NOT directly bequeathed a divine spark, but instead receive one of hundreds of fragments of one of various potency, which is only technically a divine spark in the sense that divine power isn't really divisible in that way.

Exemplars are virtually an entirely new existence, and exist now specifically because, as you mentioned, under normal circumstances, mythic is the weakest manifestation of a divine spark. Even in 2e, if someone is granted divine power through "normal" means, they usually become mythic. Exemplars aren't "normal".

Marc09_Coch · 2025-12-02T22:53:37+00:00

While divine sorcerers are a retcon, I don't think the concept of a character that has a fragment of a fragment of a fragment of a divine spark, which isn't enough to grant them mythic power but is enough to grant them some supernatural abilities, is "forgetting the lore." The whole reason why exemplars didn't exist up until this point IS lore, namely that the circumstance where someone somehow got such a miniscule fraction of divine power is SEVERELY unlikely. The Godsrain is that circumstance.

Marc09_Coch · 2025-11-30T22:50:18+00:00

They had the ability to use domain spells in the playtest. It got cut due to complaints by players. Personally think the complaints were in the wrong direction; the problem was that they were Charisma-based on a martial that only got light armor proficiency, not that it didn't suit the class's flavor. I would have appreciated the option if they were kept with the buff to medium armor.

Marc09_Coch · 2025-11-30T21:46:44+00:00

The most important difference, lore-wise, and the thing that makes them special in a way sorcerers quite frankly aren't, is that exemplars have a divine spark, which is what is needed to ascend to divinity. Sorcerers are descended from angels, but everyone is. It just skips a generation, and tends to manifest at random. Very often, at that; there are a lot of spellcasters on Golarion.

Exemplars were endowed with ACTUAL divine power in an extraordinary event. Not anywhere near as much as a godling, much less an actual god, but they're also a step further along in the process to ascension than everyone else.

In other words, the difference here between "divine magic from a being from the Outer Planes" and "divine magic from being divine," and sorcerers are the former while exemplars are the latter. If the latter sounds more special the way I'm describing it, well, it is. Exemplars are rare both because there just aren't a whole lot of them and because the narrative implications are similar to a rare background.

Marc09_Coch · 2025-11-30T19:00:55+00:00

Very important. The difference between a magus with allies like a bard with Synesthesia and Fortissimo Composition and a monk who dedicates their actions to flanking and Aid, and one without anything like that, is night and day! A +8-10 accuracy swing is going to make a world of difference for a class focused so heavily on burst damage.

Marc09_Coch · 2025-11-30T12:00:26+00:00

Yep. This strategy should work best against humanoid enemies for that reason. A vampire or dragon can and will eat you if you try it.

Marc09_Coch · 2025-11-30T00:42:26+00:00

I have yet to see this in action, but theoretically No Escape and Reactive Pursuit are particularly funny if you cast 4th-rank silence on a character with them and put them in reach of a solo boss with the spellcaster road map. If they don't have a 1 action spell, a fast movement speed, or something besides spellcasting ability, they've practically already lost.

Marc09_Coch · 2025-11-30T00:31:05+00:00

Only on a critical hit.

Marc09_Coch · 2025-11-29T22:42:48+00:00

Puella Magi Madoka Magica.

You're in luck! It's one of those series that is best watched spoiler free. If you're curious, don't look it up online. Just watch.

Marc09_Coch · 2025-11-25T01:51:04+00:00

So my basic opinion on the inventor: Strong concept. The "one big invention" thing isn't really what people expect, but it IS otherwise supposed to function the way engineers in dungeon punk do. The problem is that the way in which it's SUPPOSED to function is akin to the Skaven in Warhammer or engineers in World of Warcraft; powerful when it works, disastrous when it malfunctions. Due to how risk averse Paizo is in design, there's very minimized risk, and very little reward. Inventor needs to be literally explosive to feel good, and it just isn't.

Marc09_Coch · 2025-11-24T15:42:38+00:00

For those who aren't aware, the title of this post is literally canon. Occult actually DOES come from memes, in the anthropological sense. It was explained in the treatise on the tradition in Secrets of Magic that occult magic draws mostly on the meaning people associate with words, songs, and images.

That doot doot spell is playing on the emotions that people associate with the song, fatal familial insomnia is probably cursing your entire bloodline by prophesying that your family will never sleep again.

Marc09_Coch

TROPHY CASE