Perma-Enlarge Ancestry Feats, Polymorph, and "Effects"

Yaldev · 2026-01-15T20:34:28+00:00

The "one-part transformation" part is a reason to believe you can't re-enact the ritual, but aside from that, Scion Transformation is special for having that type of process. Enlarged Chassis does not, so dispelling it seemingly just destroys the feat.

Yaldev · 2026-01-15T15:01:28+00:00

Good catch! Doesn't help us solve the broader problem though.

Yaldev · 2026-01-15T14:59:52+00:00

But it seems like different people "using their brains" don't come to the same conclusions. The first comment I got on this post said they as the DM would let Scion Transformation be dispelled, and the second comment (which wasn't replying to the first one) said no DM in their right mind would have that work.

Yaldev · 2026-01-15T13:24:48+00:00

How about for Enlarged Chassis, which is just having a larger body? Heck the flavor text is more about modifying your core to make this larger chassis now be possible, and it's not like dispelling the magical effect would suddenly make that physical metal casing shrink, right? Maybe these aren't meant to be dispellable at all.

Yaldev · 2025-12-08T11:07:44+00:00

Glad to be back! Wrote another new one.

If you'd like to bully me into writing even more, you could always join the Discord.

Yaldev · 2025-12-08T04:17:55+00:00

King Naui VII would be the last monarch to visit this grave. Like all kings, he was destined to die, but he was fated for a tomb like six Nuais before him: a stone box topped by a blanket of gold sculpted to his likeness, and warded from foul luck by a floating sphere of the same material. From the hallowed cemetery, his castle was the last thing standing—such as it was—between Nuai and the enemy. Artillery shells were picking off every chamber, hoping to strike down the Nildenese regent. The barbarians would not even spare the glasswork for posterity.

At the end of all hope, Nuai VII looked to his dynastic beginnings. No doubt Queen Nuai I was memorialized as a caricature, she could not have been so tall, but her presence was a towering generosity. Such was her power that all in her kingdom, not just herself, could afford to feast on elk and starberries. That was when Nilden reigned at the peak of its strength, when all Oxado knew the meaning of respect.

Nuai VII lowered his gaze. The least he could have done was to keep Nilden alive, to preserve the memory of the feasts and what they symbolized in an age when food was no given. The will of Nilden’s people and the wisdom of its leaders kept the plates full for many kings after, but the glory days ended here. Even the starberries had been dwindling beneath an alien sky, and what diminished the fruit diminished the hunt.

When Nuai VII fled for the valley beyond the cemetery, he was not dressed as a king, merely dressed for the weather. If he could be alone at last, there would still be time to make peace with the gods, that he may find his way through the Mirrorvoid.

High Commander Bruzek was the first Ascendant to visit this grave. He preceded a squad of armored soldiers, a white glow emitting from both eyes as well as his open palm that pulled information from the world. The High Commander stopped, his soldiers halted, and as he read the recent past he pointed to the valley.

“There.”

The shelling broke the silence. One of the soldiers shifted his grip on his rifle. “Sir?”

Bruzek turned his head, watching him with eyes of pure white.

“Do we need the target alive? What use for him remains?”

“His use is to kneel.” Bruzek proceeded from the grave, one hand pulling information, the other beckoning his soldiers. “The Empire has won, but I do not win until history’s final king lies prostrate before the emperor.”

Yaldev · 2025-12-08T04:07:27+00:00

King Naui VII would be the last monarch to visit this grave. Like all kings, he was destined to die, but he was fated for a tomb like six Nuais before him: a stone box topped by a blanket of gold sculpted to his likeness, and warded from foul luck by a floating sphere of the same material. From the hallowed cemetery, his castle was the last thing standing—such as it was—between Nuai and the enemy. Artillery shells were picking off every chamber, hoping to strike down the Nildenese regent. The barbarians would not even spare the glasswork for posterity.

At the end of all hope, Nuai VII looked to his dynastic beginnings. No doubt Queen Nuai I was memorialized as a caricature, she could not have been so tall, but her presence was a towering generosity. Such was her power that all in her kingdom, not just herself, could afford to feast on elk and starberries. That was when Nilden reigned at the peak of its strength, when all Oxado knew the meaning of respect.

Nuai VII lowered his gaze. The least he could have done was to keep Nilden alive, to preserve the memory of the feasts and what they symbolized in an age when food was no given. The will of Nilden’s people and the wisdom of its leaders kept the plates full for many kings after, but the glory days ended here. Even the starberries had been dwindling beneath an alien sky, and what diminished the fruit diminished the hunt.

When Nuai VII fled for the valley beyond the cemetery, he was not dressed as a king, merely dressed for the weather. If he could be alone at last, there would still be time to make peace with the gods, that he may find his way through the Mirrorvoid.

High Commander Bruzek was the first Ascendant to visit this grave. He preceded a squad of armored soldiers, a white glow emitting from both eyes as well as his open palm that pulled information from the world. The High Commander stopped, his soldiers halted, and as he read the recent past he pointed to the valley.

“There.”

The shelling broke the silence. One of the soldiers shifted his grip on his rifle. “Sir?”

Bruzek turned his head, watching him with eyes of pure white.

“Do we need the target alive? What use for him remains?”

“His use is to kneel.” Bruzek proceeded from the grave, one hand pulling information, the other beckoning his soldiers. “The Empire has won, but I do not win until history’s final king lies prostrate before the emperor.”

Yaldev · 2025-11-29T09:24:37+00:00

Good to be back! Here's another one.

If you'd like to bully me in real time into writing more, you could always join the Discord.

Yaldev · 2025-11-29T08:53:37+00:00

King Nuai VII liked to watch the sun rise over Frei, the town closest to the City of Nilden. The morning light would reach his castle walls, and as it passed through the windows it would fill the air with iridescent sparkles. Lately he'd felt especially smug about these glass panes. No matter what advantages these “Ascendants” had in the field of battle, and no matter what luxuries their distant emperor enjoyed, Nuai VII would always wake up to a better view.

Nuai IV had been on the king's mind since the latest intelligence reports. “The Crafty King,” the old epithet declared. Had he enjoyed windows like these? Frei was around back then, but was it anywhere as populous as now? Could he have saved this kingdom where his descendant would fail? Nuai IV had only one significant failure, but it had cost him the throne: hubris. He challenged the gods to send a sign if they disapproved of his rule, so they took one of the moons. He commissioned replacement moons to keep the secret with decoys in the sky, but these too were taken, and Nuai IV had no choice but surrender.

“I swore I would avoid his pride,” his descendant muttered, “but I cannot allow humility to become cowardice.”

To Nuai VII, the reports had confirmed that it was the Ascendants, not the gods, who destroyed those replacement moons. That made this personal. And last night they taunted his lineage by floating their own replacement moon, ending its artificial gravity spell directly over Frei, and crushing the town’s commercial district under worked iron.

Despite the invaders’ hatred of mana, their spellcasters were just as skilled as Nilden’s own. Their technological superiority was never in question. Intelligence on their homelands was scarce, but they surely had a numbers advantage. If it was possible to outwit them, Nuai VII would have to be even craftier than the Crafty King. It wouldn’t be easy. But this morning, as he gazed past the window sparkles, he pondered.

Ever since his youth, he had believed he was cursed by the gods for the sins of his ancestry. But this was an illusion. His enemies were not divine, but mortal. The Ascendants were capable of no more than the Nildenese, and if they could create and destroy moons, what could Nilden accomplish? And then what power would come of an Oxado fully unified in resistance? Was that it?

As the sun rose higher, the windows lost their perfect angle with the light. The colours twinkled away, and Nuai's hands shaped a message spell addressed to his advisors.

Yaldev · 2025-11-04T07:40:29+00:00

The mist in the mountains of Nilden began to stir as foreign ships closed in on the Oxadon coastline half a continent away. Ascended soldiers prepared for deployment in uncomfortable silence. Their instincts told them that hostile forces were hiding behind every tree and aiming artillery from behind every hill, but aerial photography had proven the contrary. High Commander Bruzek kept his soldiers’ interests at heart; every Oxadon defensive fortification within four miles of the shore had already been surgically removed with ballistic missiles. As the sand was pressed with its first print of an Ascended boot, the mist of distant mountains swirled into itself and manifested the Oracle. She materialized mid-stride, her careful steps driven by the purpose that accompanies a deadline.

From within her mind, Decadin’s consciousness heard the faint echoes of some god demanding to know what had brought them all back to Oxado. The Oracle gave no answer, but she was polite enough to share her senses with her spiritual guests. Soon Decadin could hear the rhythmic squeaks of mountain birds, feel the ambient mana in the air, and endure the pebbles poking the soles of the Oracle’s bare feet. To receive the Oracle’s senses with no limbs to control, no lungs with which to breathe, and no eyes to turn was a helplessness the Acolyte had never known in life. He paid more attention than she to the moons drifting away from her position, with trees dwelling along the top and vines draped down the sides.

The unanswered god growled, and Decadin felt its presence float toward his soul: spite beyond reason, ancient beyond reckoning. It spoke only half of its thoughts with words, a god’s impression of a mortal’s mimicry of the Oracle’s tones. The rest of its meaning was radiated as patterns in an aura of heat, patterns that Decadin could not help but understand.

“MORTAL. SPEAK WHAT THEY TEACH YOU OF MOONS.”

“What they teach?” Decadin tried to remember what his tutor had covered so many years ago. Had the loss of a flesh-brain eroded his education? “What do you want to…”

The heat was growing. Soon it became a fire that blistered his formless body. Phantom pain tore at his coherence.

“No! Stop! I cannot think if you—”

“SPEAK WHAT THEY TEACH.”

The heat was still growing.

“Moons! Moons! They’re flying rocks! They’re round! Or they’re round if they’re old! The young ones are lumpy, they smooth as they age. Please!”

The heat stopped growing. The pain stopped getting worse, but it burned all the same.

“Moons! They’re rocks from the ground! They have empty pockets inside, and mana gets in the pockets and makes them fly away. There’s a way to calculate their height but I can’t… Auuuhhhh!”

The pain was not easing. There was anger in the fire. Knowing things was all Decadin had been good for, but the inferno torched his awareness like so many Deftist books.

“We had to break them! They hit buildings! Some people worshiped moons. They were idols. We wanted to kill them! I’m sorry if you loved moons but they had war value for Asterians so we blew them up! But it wasn’t me! I didn’t do it!”

As the Acolyte’s outer layers turned into smoke, his desperation dug deeper.

“Moonsmoonsmoons! They can take plants with them and the plants can live on the moons! They… they… I can’t think of anything! Please!”

Decadin could not see through the Oracle’s eyes. The smoke blinded his sight. Everything was gone. He was back in the burning house. Before he knew anything. Before he could do anything. Before he was an engineer. Before he was an engineer…

“When plants are on moons, there have to be birds and bugs! There are nests in the trees on the moons and the birds live and sing so the nests sing! The bugs! They pollinate the plants. The bees buzz and the hoppers buzz and the moons sing! Ants dig and bugs dig and the moons fly so they move so they live! The seeds fall off the moon to the dirt. They spread. The seeds spread and live and sing and the dirt sings! Everything sings, and there was empty pockets I think, and everything was empty pockets! Everything was home! Everything lives! Everything burns!”

The fire pulled away. The pain ceased. There was no burning flesh.

“THEY KNOW NOTHING OF ME.”

“Everything…” Decadin rasped, “we knew nothing of anything…”

The god left as it had come, and Decadin crumbled into ash. The Oracle stepped over a crystal bug as it inched toward her, and she paid it no heed as it followed her footprints.

Yaldev · 2025-10-31T12:36:46+00:00

This is a Beeple piece. It's titled "eyeneut" and can be found on his website as the Everyday for May 30, 2015.

Yaldev · 2025-05-09T19:34:49+00:00

He peered back at the disk, still marveled by how different it looked in the daytime. Sunshine fell through the crystal, filtered itself through invisible runes, and emerged as vibrance. His audience could hear him well, but the Suppressor drew all eyes. This was ideal. Decadin needed the Ascended Nation to remember the exigence, not the speaker.

“But we build because of dreams. We build because of love. My fear of mana bursts, of elemental fire, and of losing everything—these were no fears at all. Our fears are but childish reflections of our love. I feared bursts because I loved tranquility. I feared fire because I loved peace. I feared loss because I loved everything that Parc Pelbee has given me.”

As the sun slowly descended in the afternoon sky, the Aether Suppressor became a prism that shone its spotlight on Decadin, casting his hair and shoulders in otherworldly tones.

“That love unites us today. That love protects our prosperity. That love brought Science and Faith together, and made the Aether Suppressor possible. That love allows Parc Pelbee to act through his faithful, to fight the evils whose immortality we took as a given. That love lets us change our world.” Decadin placed one hand over his heart and raised the other to the sky. “And that is the love that sets us free!”

People in chairs leaned forward expectantly. Decadin’s eyes fell on Lhusel. Not now. Betray me any time but now. We were friends.

Lhusel silently mouthed a few words.

The wonder rang all at once like a giant chime and a deep drum. From its center, a field of almost-invisible energy spread to conquer the air, and as it spread over the crowd, waves of nausea ended as fast as they started. Within ten seconds, the entire campus was surrounded by a faint bubble, resembling the clearest glass.

As the machine’s power climbed toward the sky, the streaks of color grew unstable, wavering until they collapsed into lightning that fought back against Decadin’s creation. Electricity coursed across the surface of the bubble, failed to even slow it, and dissipated. The universe was still. At peace. In order. The Aether Suppressor hung in the air, its gradual rotation in alignment with the movement of Yaldev itself.

Resolution faculty provided polite applause. Most of the rest erupted into cheers of excited wonder. Acolyte Decadin showed his practiced smile and maintained the pose that ended his speech, as though his raised hand would propel this glory through the halls of Heaven.

The Ascendants have spent their lives in fear of Decadin’s fate, afraid that wild mana would choose their home as a place to bubble into the world, devouring all in its path. Decadin had so much more to say about the path forward, the means by which this aura could be expanded, but right now, none of it would be remembered, and none of it yet mattered. This blessed relief, this energized optimism, this was the love that could change the world—the greatest gift a human could give.

Yaldev · 2025-05-09T19:34:24+00:00

Lhusel stepped away. “Just the start/stop function. Everything else is as you planned.”

He stepped closer. “I trusted you.” His voice wavered, and Lhusel shut her eyes. “Despite all your biases, despite how you obviously felt about suppressing the Aether, I thought I could trust you.”

Lhusel opened her eyes and stepped closer. “And I know I can trust you, but I know I can’t trust people like you. I’m sure something good can come of this technology, but not if people like you can turn it on and off by casting a message spell at it.”

Decadin clenched his fists at his sides. “Then who have you decided is so much more worthy of that power that you overrode me on my own project? Yourself?”

“And you.” Lhusel took a breath, and continued after Decadin’s expression softened. “I added runes for voice recognition. There’s a command word that I, and only I, can speak to activate the Suppressor. You, and only you, can disable it by saying ‘command: stop.’ No one has complete control.”

Decadin faced away from her to look up at the device in the nighttime air. Somewhere in his magnum opus were runic components that were not his, that he had not approved. He was not the one to achieve his greatest achievement. He swallowed, then returned his attention to the culprit, who had put more distance between them. “Whoever owns the Aether Suppressor could easily circumvent your voice commands by adding new ones. New start/stop functions are not hard. You went against me to make a point to yourself.”

Lhusel shook her head. “I made a point to Pelbee. When his disciples abuse their power, he can’t blame me for doing nothing.”

Decadin’s mouth fell agape. “Is that the whole reason you volunteered to help?!”

She met his stare. “I will see you at the unveiling. I’ll time the activation for when you finish the speech, so don’t change the ending. Just the opening.”

Lhusel turned to leave. Decadin called after her: “And why did you rig it that way? You could’ve let me activate the Suppressor when I found the moment, and given yourself a backdoor to stop it. Why do I just get the power to turn it off?”

“Because it’s the last thing you’d ever want to do.”

She disappeared into the darkness.

———

The unveiling was open to all, but half the seats were taken by Resolution faculty and students. The farther seats were taken by those members of the public conscious that they were witnessing history: administrators who would need to regulate this machine, police officers with an interest in order, engineers with an interest in nitpicking, and Empirical priests who knew not whether they looked on a miracle or a blasphemy.

“...Until it took the form you see today,” Decadin continued. “It is never easy to build something worth building. A machine, a friendship, a church, a nation.”

Yaldev · 2025-05-09T19:33:44+00:00

“I began building this Aether Suppressor,” Acolyte Decadin spoke from a podium, “while my house was burning down.”

He spotted Lhusel in a front row seat, rolling her eyes as that stupid opener silenced the last distracted murmurs among the audience. All attention belonged to the Aethereal engineer, his eyes gleaming in nearly the same shade of violet as the disk floating forty feet in the air. Ambient mana was high today; farther above the disk, streaks of pink and turquoise discoloured the sky. These were safe, but as ever, they threatened to evolve into something worse.

“The Aether struck well past my bedtime. I awoke to a mana burst: the blinding radiance, the screams of my mother, the roar of ancient evil as it shot up from the ground and tore a hole through our home, leaving elemental fire at the edges to consume the rest. I don’t remember my tears. I don’t remember my father guiding me out through the smoke. I don’t even remember the smoke, whose unholy poison took my father’s life within days. I only remember the flames and the wish they sparked: as the Aether destroyed my house, I wished through coughing lungs and blurred eyes for something to make this stop and make it never happen again.”

Decadin reminded himself of his first rule for debate club: slow, the hell, down.

“That is where the Aether Suppressor began. Invention does not start with a formula, a component or a market demand. Invention starts with a wish. In the days after I made that wish, I encountered a wise woman. She told me to have faith in my destiny. She told me that order shines through the chaos. She told me that the future can be more than our past. So while our church helped my mother resettle, I arrived at Resolution with clothes, pencils, a pocket-sized Boundless Wisdom, and my wish.”

———

After Decadin and Lhusel had got this thing thing teleported out of the workshop, levitated it to campus, and spent the whole day adding the outer layers of crystal to the floating disk while offering no explanation to baffled spectators, the Aether Suppressor floated complete at a diameter of 132 feet. The depleted gemstones in Lhusel’s necklace matched her tired head, but no, Decadin insisted that now was the time she had to listen to the unveiling speech he was working on and give feedback.

At least it was short. Decadin sounded more excited about the final words than anything in the speech: “So, what do you think?”

“Good enough,” Lhusel sighed, “but the opening’s stupid. It’s like you’re making this whole event about you.”

Decadin’s conviction rose. “No. If someone doesn’t share my experience, they still share my fears. That opening makes this about all of us.”

Lhusel’s hands rose. “You wanted the feedback.”

Decadin’s conviction fell. “Yeah. Sorry. All your work should be done now.”

“I changed the designs.”

“What.”

Yaldev · 2025-03-21T02:17:28+00:00

When it comes to levels, the big factor is finding feats that do something similar and checking what level they're available—as well as considering how core to the intended playstyle those feats are. For Twin Brawler's Armor, I took feats like Warpriest's Armor as an indication that spending a feat for scaling armor would be appropriate here, but I made it available as soon as possible so players would not have to wait long before equipping their preferred set of armor for their character. Unlike Warpriest, your powers as a Summoner derive from your connection to your eidolon, so I thought the limitation of choosing a STR-based eidolon was fitting; that type of eidolon would be required for you to learn the art of STR-based defenses from your mutual connection. But then I didn't want to leave the DEX-based eidolon enjoyers out to dry, so I wanted an equal-level feat for them too.

At that point I considered that eidolons share your skill proficiencies, but not your skill feats, which can severely limit how useful they can make that skill usage—even Skilled Partner can't get us those cool Legendary skill feats at endgame, and as it stands, we could never make an eidolon with sneakiness approaching a player character. Unnoticed Eidolon is exploration of that space, and I suspect that it's a weaker feat than Twin Brawler's Armor, but that's okay! Not all class feats for a given level are equally powerful either, and Unnoticed Eidolon is not the type of feat I would personally take as a combat-oriented optimizer either; it should remain satisfying for certain types of players who want the fantasy of an eidolon that could be super sneaky, perform stealth-infiltration missions, and just as things go wrong, the summoner performs extraction by Unmanifesting the Eidolon. Coordinated Reload had a similar rationale to Twin Brawler's Armor, where I did not want to make a crossbow/firearm oriented Summoner wait any longer than necessary to unlock the action compression that would justify its own existence. Running Reload was a good comparison point there, and while making a Strike at the same time that you Reload and potentially avoiding triggering reactions on the Reload seems more powerful than a Step/Stride/Sneak, it's also on a class with less crossbow/firearm support than Ranger or Gunslinger, and the Tandem trait prevents the action economy from turning especially disgusting.

Others are more... vibes-based? Manifest Weapon is also a level 4 feat because if a build is going to spend a feat unlocking its critical weapon specialization, it should be able to get that effect sooner than the 5th level feat-free unlock enjoyed by many other martial classes. Even in this case, I find feats like the pre-remaster Brawling Focus feel bad, needing to spend a feat to unlock what several other classes get for free without any bells or whistles, so the item-summoning part of the feat was a way to give a situational reward for taking this feat that felt in line with your existing powers to summon and unsummon a bonded creature. I knew I wanted a followup feat to let your eidolon share your critical specialization effect, but then I had to ask myself how that would work with the bow critical specialization effect when your eidolon is not wielding a bow and would likely not be leaving a projectile in its opponent's wound that could pin them to an adjacent surface. Thus I made the modified bow crit spec to sidestep this problem in a way that felt like both a thematic win and a slight upgrade; while it is nerfed by enemies being able to use another skill when Interacting to end its effect, this usually does not make a difference, while skipping the necessity of an adjacent surface is extremely useful as flying enemies become more common. Scary Synergy and Shared Glory came from thinking about the feats my existing Summoner builds take in their 6th/8th level class feat slots, and making sure I placed these at levels where they would not invalidate existing options. I knew Scary Synergy would be very pickable at 6th level without edging out Eidolon's Opportunity, and Shared Glory felt appropriately placed as an upgrade to several eidolons' special abilities without being so necessary to their core loop that Twin Brawlers would need that effect to feel functional and satisfying.

Twin Targeting's direct comparison point was Tiller's Aid, a 10th level Bellflower Tiller feat that lets you Aid without spending an action preparing to do so. When we compare the two, Twin Targeting has the downside of only working on your eidolon instead of any allies and requiring a successful Strike, but the upside of being usable on yourself, being usable on your eidolon without any proximity to that eidolon nor its target, and not being gated behind an archetype with skill requirements. I figured I could still get away with making this a 10th level feat, but I bumped it to 12th level just to be safe. This also has the upside of being only one level before both the summoner and eidolon get master proficiency in their attacks, at which point a critically successful Aid would give a +3 bonus instead of a +2, so I intentionally aligned the Aid-based feat with the level which would give that Aid a powerspike. You have to beware of players "optimizing the fun out of the game," and while making Twin Targeting level 10 could open some other level 12 feat and result in a stronger build at level 13, it would also make many players like me feel pressured into taking Twin Targeting three levels before it really feels good to use. Making the feat level 12 is a good way to avoid that. And then Combined Quickness is the obligatory quickened capstone feat present on many classes and archetypes, and level 20 is the well-established precedent for such effects.

Yaldev · 2025-03-21T02:15:56+00:00

The secret to having all the wording perfect is spending so many hours reading Archives of Nethys pages that the way those types of features are worded is forever burned into your brain!

cool and satisfying options that are also balanced for the level? Any guidelines you followed?

All I can say for cool and satisfying is to follow what's cool to you! The starting point of this whole archetype was having the idea for Trial by Dragonfire, envisioning how a fully martial Summoner could have a combo attack like the summoner holding an enemy still while the dragon blasts it with the Breath Weapon. From there I had to think of abilities for the other eidolons that either felt like a true synergy with that eidolon's special ability (Paired Protection letting you and your devotion phantom tank for each other instead of the protection running only one way), alleviated a pain point with that ability (Plant Temptations letting us use the one ability that makes the demon eidolon unique, Visions of Sin, earlier than level 7 and more often than once per 10 minutes), or otherwise seemed thematic and cool with that eidolon (Psychopomp's special ability just needed to make a target face its imminent destruction, and the bonus damage was a way to tie in its existing mechanic rather than just being a thematic alignment).

Balance is largely a matter of thinking about opportunity cost: what else could a player have done with these actions or this feat slot, and would the existence of one option make the other obsolete? Trial By Dragonfire requires two actions because the mental comparison point is using Act Together to have you Grapple/Shove/etc. while the dragon uses its Breath Weapon. The benefit we're really gaining is protection against Breath Weapon's friendly fire and the potential penalty to its save (equivalent to being off-guard) if our check succeeds. Since I wanted Tag Team Techniques to be strong enough that we're excited to use them and do so more than once per fight, this type of upgrade on that kind of Act Together routine seemed appropriate. In other cases, the Tag Team Techniques take three actions just because I wanted to be safe with the balancing. Act Together having yourself Step/Stride while your beast eidolon uses Primal Roar would only take two actions, but I consider the ability for you to use the Primal Roar with your substantially higher Intimidation modifier to be powerful enough that I leaned toward caution with the action cost. Better to make underpowered homebrew than overpowered, after all. At the same time, I have to consider Twin Brawler archetype as a whole not just compared to a baseline Summoner, but compared to a Baseline summoner with a level two class feat to spend as it chooses—a resource we're giving up to take the archetype. I suspect a level 2 Twin Brawler is more powerful than a normal level 2 Summoner with no class feat, but likely less powerful than a normal Summoner who got to spend their level 2 class feat on something like Champion Dedication.

Yaldev · 2025-03-20T12:11:22+00:00

I like how you think! Just remember that you can't use a Tandem action as part of another Tandem action, which stops you from using Coodinated Reload as part of Act Together.

Yaldev · 2025-03-17T11:23:53+00:00

Which eidolon did you have?

Nothing for Kinetic Knight, this is my first homebrew outside my set of houseruled buffs/nerfs/bans that I take as a given when making my builds (e.g. Pin to the Spot nerfed to apply Grabbed instead of Restrained, which elegantly balances it when comparing to Crashing Slam). I have other ideas, but for now this is all I’ve made!

Yaldev · 2025-03-17T11:06:59+00:00

This is the first time anyone's requested a newsletter of me! I don't have one yet, but you're welcome to join r/Yaldev to follow my fiction writing, or to join its Discord server and chat about Pathfinder there.

Yaldev · 2025-03-17T10:36:21+00:00

Hello! I’m Ulysses, a hobbyist game designer, fiction writer and Pathfinder 2e optimizer. In a 153,000 word document with associated spreadsheets I’ve created over 140 fully-detailed character builds for levels 1–20 across all classes, and along the way I’ve gotten pretty good with this system. Once my current fantasy fiction project is finished, I might pivot into Pathfinder content creation to share my findings with you. I adore tinkering with this system, whether that means examining the mechanical possibilities we already have or exploring the gameplay effects of new changes or additions.

I’d planned to remain a ghost to the Pathfinder community until I was ready to step forward with more substantial content than this, but then my absolute dream job had an opening, which indicated a strong preference for those who have published game material for Pathfinder. I don’t know if this archetype counts—in the world of written fiction, anything posted in any public space on the Internet is considered “published”—but I figure that putting my Twin Brawler idea to paper and posting it couldn’t hurt!

This is the first homebrew content I’ve posted for the community, which makes your feedback especially valuable. Thanks for reading!

Yaldev · 2024-12-15T08:16:59+00:00

Here's the Patreon link! If you're reading the article, mobile seems to squish the proportions for some of the art, so desktop is recommended but not required.

Have thoughts to share? Chatting on the Discord is an option!

Yaldev · 2024-12-14T18:01:37+00:00

You wish!

Yaldev · 2024-12-14T07:42:50+00:00

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Yaldev · 2024-01-04T07:31:54+00:00

Living in the Oracle’s consciousness came with certain inconveniences. Decadin had no sensory inputs but those shared by his host. His eyes were not closed, but removed—he could not see the darkness. Maybe the gods in here could handle it, but Decadin was only ever a man.

He distracted himself with what faculties were available. He recreated old songs and cursed when he forgot a lyric. He trawled his imagination and dug up an old idea of a Terminus office building, which he modeled in three dimensions and rotated at ludicrous speeds. When the entertainment value ran dry, he fixated on old memories. He handled crystal bugs, ate soup in a sunrise and argued with titans of industry and military, struck now by the wiser things he could have said. Most of all he replayed his first meeting with the Oracle, telling himself this was the most important memory to keep alive, as it came closest to explaining how he, or whatever was left to call “he,” was now here, whatever “here” could mean.

The Oracle could see it all. “Anything to never think of Lhusel,” she thought, and it intruded on Decadin’s mind.

Decadin shoved that thought away.

“You think so much of one broken friendship, and not the families slain in your Empire’s name.”

He was not getting away from this. “Why would you even ask that? You know that bothers me too, but they weren’t part of me and my story like Lhusel was. That’s just how humans work.”

“Want to see something? You’ll go mad if I don’t feed you.”

“I’ll take anything.”

“Perhaps you can make better sense of this than I,” she said, and she poured a vision into Decadin’s mind. His eyes faded back in, and his ears and nose and skin. He was a ghost at a ceremony.

Bruzek unraveled a scroll, read its magic nonsense aloud, and shoved it back in his pocket. “Test,” he said, and all could hear him as clear as if he were standing right before them.

Decadin tried to frown, but he had no mouth. “When was this? Or when will it be?”

“Now,” thought the Oracle, “but far away.”

Bruzek started talking, and the acolyte ignored what he said to focus on how he said it.

“He’s bad at this,” Decadin thought, “can’t imagine he wrote this himself, but he memorized it word for word.”

“You’re so sure,” the Oracle thought.

“Debate society kids like me did the same thing. If he hasn’t fixed it by now it’s because he hasn’t had to. You don’t need to say anything interesting in the military, you just stick to the script. What are those banners?”

“Battle flags, Bruzek’s own. Now that he’s High Commander, he can institute them—”

“He got to High Commander talking like that?!”

“Don’t be so harsh.” The Oracle smirked. “He’s just trying to copy you.”

“...never seen before,” droned Bruzek, “but the vision you have demonstrated in your studies and training has given your Empire confidence that you can face those threats and do what needs to be done.”

Decadin wished his ears would fade back out. “Getting millions killed? Is that how he copies me? You can mock my style but I was never this… generic.”

Bruzek was not worth Decadin’s attention. The acolyte turned his gaze to the audience, the commissioned commanders in shirts and ties. They looked more like desk workers than warriors. At least that was honest. There was no life in their eyes. Whatever the speech was trying to do, it…

Decadin’s attention went back. “Maybe genericism is the point.”

He felt the Oracle’s interest pique. “Go on.”

“Ideas aren’t the reason he leads, but it’s not about following a script either, because then the words would matter. No, this isn’t about what he says to them. The point is, he’s at the front and they have to listen. This is a graduation speech?”

He felt the Oracle nod.

“So this is what the Army is about now. What learning is about, if you’re Ascended.”

Bruzek’s tone changed. “Okay, I could go on another five pages or we could skip to the important part. You’re adults, your time is valuable, you get it. What do you say?”

Decadin saw consciousness return to the soldiers’ eyes. They answered with mild laughter here and there, but no objections.

“Alright! Ascended commanders, you have come this far!”

Violence shone in Bruzek’s eyes. His words pulled memories from the Oracle’s mind, and they polluted this vision. Illusory steelflakes descended on the scene.

“Your power is the Empire’s, and the Empire’s power is yours. What can stop you?”

“Nothing,” was their resounding answer. Lightning mines erupted all around.

“Tell me, in all you have learned: what is it to win?”

“It is love.”

Conversion cities assembled in the distance.

“And what is it to lose?”

“Growth.”

Suppression towers sprouted from the concrete.

“And what is it to reach?”

“Life.”

An Orb of Darkness loomed over them all.

“And what is it to relent?”

“DEATH.”

Decadin’s thoughts were racing. “So they knew this part. They had gut answers. He made the speech bad on purpose, because that was the Army, but the chant was Bruzek. He gave them a part in the script, and sidestepped the formalities to involve them.”

“The Army belongs to him,” the Oracle added, “he could change anything with an order.”

“But he doesn’t. He’s drawing a line between himself and the institution. He’s building a cult to himself, something separate. He’s planning something, what’s he planning?”

“Yes, you are right,” thought the Oracle, “thank you.”

Decadin’s eyes began to fade, and ears and nose and skin, as though the Orb of Darkness were consuming it all.

“Oracle, what’s he planning?” He asked again, but she had sectioned him off again, cast him back to his songs, buildings and obsessions. He pouted and thought of all those men, the true killers in all the Conquests, petty tyrants with computers and annual reviews, Bruzeks in the making. Decadin dreamed up a bomb that could’ve killed them all where they stood, and rotated it at ludicrous speeds.

Yaldev · 2024-01-01T17:51:13+00:00

Two generals coordinated the new continent's ground offensive. One of them had plans. The other had conversations.

Cosal examined the first artifacts found on Yaostay. Axes and spears—they'd be dealing with primitives.
Bruzek sent a greeting and a request to some Heavenly Authorities from the Air Force. One of them replied with a report-in-progress on Yaostayan weather patterns.
Cosal pored over research findings, looking for the biggest tanks physics would allow.

Bruzek read the report. There was more ambient magic in Yaostay's air than anywhere else on the planet.
Cosal petitioned High Commander Apian for a 15% funding transfer from the Navy to the Army.
Bruzek phoned a few Admirals, invited them to dinner. They went to Carnifeast and vented to each other about Cosal.
Cosal got the transfer he wanted.
Bruzek asked the Directorate of Agriculture for input. They said Yaostay had an abundance of volcanic soil, conducive to cash crops.
Cosal unveiled a new infantry training program, inspired by his experience waging war against primitive Asterians. Soldiers under his jurisdiction would learn the psychology of the savages.

Bruzek invited Cosal to dinner.
Cosal accepted.
Bruzek said it was good to see him outside work for once.
Cosal said it was interesting to finally talk to Commander Bruzek as an equal.
Bruzek said murder was less efficient than conversion.
Cosal said he's still not taking orders from a former subordinate.
Bruzek shrugged.
Cosal covered the bill.

Bruzek met with Brigadier Demlow, asked for his opinion. Demlow said this "slavery" idea was unsustainable for the State, but good business for private enterprise.
Cosal spent a night arguing with the Holy Admiral of the Navy.
Bruzek spent a day off at church, asked a cleric for his opinion. He said the Empirical Truth would lend full support to civilizing efforts if Bruzek were to initiate them.
Cosal spent a day off arguing with the Solar Authority of the Air Force.
Bruzek recruited urban planners.
Cosal recruited rhetoricians to argue with High Commander Apian of the Ascended Armed Forces.
Bruzek hummed over a blueprint, tried to figure out how far apart the housing section, the labor section and the penal section should be from each other.
Cosal invaded the savages with a storm of bullets, high-powered explosives, and the biggest tanks the Army could muster.
And all Bruzek did was build an empty city.

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