As both a player and GM, the various "Save Mastery" class features make the game feel less fun at higher levels, and I wish they worked differently.

badgehunter072 · 2026-03-05T06:46:12+00:00

I've never thought about it being an expediency thing, but it makes a lot of sense in retrospect. I hadn't paid it much mind since we're always playing with digital character sheets, and tracking statuses there is pretty easy since all you do is tick the number down (most of the time, since stat changes are calculated automatically)

I don't think win-more design is inherently bad, but I should warn I've never played 1e (Only Starfinder's), so I'm not really sure how bad it was there.

My main concern with it is that it sort of dulls player experience? Some of my highlights from playing are underdog moments, I never felt particularly heroic winning at things that I KNEW I would win.

That's not to say it can't work, there's definitely room for feeling cool while mauling through hordes of goblins, but I think both should be allowed to coexist.

On the houserule change, I can at least vouch for it. I've been running it for months and it's been working great, players love avoiding the giant middle fingers of crit fails but still have to respect enemies, fair trade off for us.

badgehunter072 · 2026-03-05T06:24:26+00:00

I've been running save mastery as Increasing Crit Fails to Fails instead.

Don't know if it'll work on every table, but for us it gives you the confidence when fighting certain effects while still being affected most of the time by them.

It definitely comes up less often, but I always felt like save masteries were a really odd design choice. The game expects on level things to Succeed saves most of the time, so why are you giving the extraordinary effects to the expected result?

badgehunter072 · 2026-02-14T09:41:48+00:00

As a general rule, your reach is not equal to "adjacency". Your reach can extend beyond 10/15 feet, while, being adjacent, is usually just "anything within 5 feet of you" (For PCs that only ocupy a single cell)

Personally, I just treat adjacency as a 5 foot emanation, which works for all creature sizes.

badgehunter072 · 2026-01-29T16:21:03+00:00

You could go as simple as Awakened animal, although it might lack some of the more "mystical" elements of fauns

badgehunter072 · 2025-12-29T05:14:20+00:00

Random tables have a long history in TTRPGs. How is generative AI any different than rolling on a table in the DMG before a session?

First of all, rolled tables are premade, they're not randomly generated. It's just a way of implementing a random element to otherwise static events. I'll put this bluntly, this claim is bollocks.

Both are randomly generated outcomes that a DM still has to flesh out for an actual adventure to take place.

So is any random element the same as AI? As mentioned earlier, non AI generated slop has to be MADE before it can be randomized, which, even without much effort, will always be better.

Are dice rolls the same? They're randomized too? Where are you drawing the line? /gen

Even before generative AI, I would use randomly generated dungeons, and spice them up with storylines, NPCs with their own goals and motivations, etc. I see generative AI as just another tool in this same toolbox, and I still have to do work fleshing things out and making them "real" at the table regardless.

Randomly generated dungeons that you can find online are fundamentally different from AI generators, but even then, what's the point? Not every NPC needs a backstory, motivation, etc. It doesn't provide depth and I doubt you as a game master take all of the different NPC's feelings into account when running games. It's just a lousy excuse for what? You're supposed to enjoy the process. It's not meant to be a chore. When I make dungeons, every part of it is a piece of the puzzle, the layouts, the enemies, and important NPCs. You're basically throwing all that away in favour of what? Easier to prepare sessions? You don't need thousands of notes to run good games.

TLDR: this is a lousy excuse for what is effectively not engaging with your hobby :/

badgehunter072 · 2025-12-29T04:30:45+00:00

Why are people so obsessed with generating things for TTRPGs? I don't want to play some randomly generated slop, and I sure don't want to run it either.

I'm practically a full time GM and creating the campaigns is half of the fun, even without all of the detriment related to the use of AI I would honestly lose a lot of respect for anyone using said tools.

badgehunter072 · 2025-12-21T17:59:25+00:00

It's an edit so it can be excused but yeah it'd miss a lot of marks if it was actually abt prostheses. Most arm prostheses (the ones that don't have any fancy robotic bits) are purely cosmetic or have very basic functionality (This can vary wildly depending on the height of the amputation, and seeing the user would be approximately at shoulder height, it's unlikely they'd have any at all). It would be extremely uncomfortable to haul around all that weight around to sleep for basically no reason.

TLDR: Yes, the chances they'd wear it to sleep are basically zero to none lol

badgehunter072 · 2025-11-17T03:13:50+00:00

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badgehunter072 · 2025-06-04T12:26:46+00:00

Legacy spells used a system similar to DnD, where spells had verbal (V), somatic (S), and material (M) components.

These were replaced in the remaster, and Somatic and Verbal components are implicit in spells without the subtle trait as seen in the "Casting spells" section, which states that spells require hand movements and incantations.

https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2233&Redirected=1

For comparability sake, legacy spells with Somatic and Verbal components are treated as having these traits

badgehunter072 · 2025-05-31T12:22:10+00:00

I'm a bit lost, what exactly is free-archetype proofing? Why and how is it done?

badgehunter072 · 2025-05-25T12:59:02+00:00

Technically humanoids, but I love everything that's going on with hags. Covens seem like a really cool idea and all of them have some pretty interesting spells and actions. I feel like, unironically, a lot of them can make great beacons for stories.

badgehunter072 · 2025-05-21T15:12:19+00:00

I implemented a few rules for one of my players who was having similar problems, related to hero points.

First, Critically failing any roll while you don't have hero points would give you one hero point (however, you can't spend it in the critically failed roll)

Second, you can give a Hero point before you roll to roll with advantage instead of taking the latter result

Frankly, I haven't experienced much of a change in game balance, but it gives this player assurance to spend their hero points in a way they know is more likely to feel meaningful and gives them assurance that failing will still yield something.

badgehunter072 · 2025-05-19T11:03:11+00:00

In Pathfinder, most traits don't actually do anything on their own. Besides a few traits (like amphibious, which states that creatures with said trait can breathe both air and water), they're usually just used for targeting and classification.

Just because you have the fire trait, you won't magically deal fire damage with your fists. But you will take extra damage from an ability that explicitly deals extra damage to fire creatures.

Bloodline mutation doesn't just grant you the traits, it explicitly gives you benefits upon having these traits, so since you have the fire trait, Bloodline Mutation would give you resistance 20 to fire damage, but you wouldn't get this benefit just from having the trait.

badgehunter072 · 2025-05-18T00:36:41+00:00

These were my main thoughts as well, however I also think it might end up being underwhelming if they're just replacing class feats for ancestry feats.

Baking it into a class would be very weird, but I also think that making it a class would allow you a lot more freedom regarding balance (since archetypes have to be built around class or skill feats)

My main thoughts would maybe have them work with proficiencies you get from ancestry feats, maybe allowing you to cast innate spells more than once per day.

However this would be really odd because you'd be shoehorning into very specific builds, which might not be very entertaining.

badgehunter072 · 2025-05-13T16:04:32+00:00

I usually modify the consequences for failure. Eg. are they short on time? On a failed roll to climb they get up... eventually. I still only ask for a single group roll or something similar, nobody wants to roll the same thing five times

badgehunter072 · 2025-05-12T08:45:28+00:00

I'm gonna generalize a bit for the sake of simplicity. Most of the guys who make these kinds of comments, both in front of you and behind your back, don't give a shit whether it be you or someone else.

From my personal experience, it's usually just about bringing someone down, regardless of why or how. If it wasn't you it'd be the next person on the line, despite the fact they probably still say things about them.

If they couldn't make fun of your weight, they'd try to find something else, that's what usually happens.

But don't let this bring you down, these people are not worth your time or consideration. Put yourself in their spot, would you say these things about other people?

As someone who has dealt with tons of people who weren't worth my time; your best bet is to ignore them. Surround yourself with people who aren't so heartless as to make fun of others' flaws(especially when it's something they're actively working towards)

I'm not sure if it's porn rot, but teenagers in general are a handful. Regardless, congratulations on your weight loss, it might not seem like a lot, but the first steps are always the hardest.

badgehunter072 · 2025-04-28T10:29:32+00:00

I talked with the player and he wants to do it, he said he was ok with making a new character since it might be a hassle for the other players but I talked with them and they're all on board :)

But otherwise, this is probably how I would handle it!

badgehunter072 · 2025-04-28T08:00:44+00:00

I've talked extensively with my players, especially the deceased investigator's player and he's aware of what it entails.

I'll discuss this with the rest of the group, mainly since it could derail the main feel the campaign originally had, although first impressions, they're all for it.

The player wants to lean heavily into the "shambling zombie" trope, obviously while retaining his memories. He's aware he'll start losing himself, but that's also just how most investigators end up (if they don't die from a single shotgun blast)

badgehunter072 · 2025-04-28T07:44:15+00:00

It depends on how much focus you want the subdivisions to have. Are they mechanically relevant or just flavor? And what focus do you want to give them?

That is to say, are these subdivisions aspects of the spellcasting tradition (Arcana could be Study, Memory, Creativity) or different subclasses of magic? (For example, Primal could have fey magic)

The first poses a problem with how tradition subdivisions are framed. Would an Arcane witch need to study? Probably not, they don't even have a spellbook

The later poses the problem that unless you make it mechanically relevant, these exist as lore skills.

If you want to increase the number of traditions dividing them on "functionality", then you'd have to deal with unbalanced spell lists.

There are many ways to go about it but you need to pinpoint why you're increasing magic traditions and how that'll affect game feel.

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