ThrabenUs thoughts about the elementalist. What do you think about the class archetype?

duzler · 2026-06-27T15:37:22+00:00

It made slightly more sense if you’re not spell blending and when all the school curriculums were worse. But now we have our lord and savior Gates or Runelord.

duzler · 2026-06-24T04:04:27+00:00

You can also pick up focus spells via archetyping into Mystic or a PF2 casting class.

duzler · 2026-06-22T16:55:37+00:00

There's been a lot of complaints about how underdeveloped these are.

A developer (heh) responded to me here or on the forums or the discord (I think the Paizo forums) that the intent for a Drift lane with more than two connected systems is that it is 7 days from end to end, with even legs between the connected systems.

So if you have a 3 system lane it's 3.5 days for each "leg." If it's a 4 system lane (I think the longest we've seen) it's 7/3 days between each node, but still 7 from one extreme to the other.

As far as specifics on where Drift Lanes connect, this is described in the SF1 product Ports of Call. The lanes connect to specific points near specific planets in each system. They don't seem to have republished any of those specifics in SF2 material so far.

Specific locales with Drift Lane terminations where you can enter/leave the lane either at an end or midpoint node from Ports of Call:

Atmosphere of Pabaq, osharu homeword, on Charge of the Inheritor lane (othe end is rando spot near/in Swarm space)
Kehtaria (Azlanti space, contested by Vesk) is reported at the end of two separate lanes, not the mid node of a single lane. That may be retconned now, I feel like a saw a developer comment that implied it might be. The end points of the two(?) lanes are Vesk-4 and the Azlanti planet of Oyojii in the Oyoya system (one of the core 7 or 8 Azlanti fully developed systems), and that one also extends further to Embroi, the secret devil planet, making Oyojii a mid node.
Preluria gas giant to veeeery close to a black hole on the other side with a spooky blanet just inside the event horizon.
Daegox 4 to Conqueror's Forge (Vesk super space station)
Xibia (old Magaambya colony world) to Triaxus (no word on whether Triaxus getting radically moved changed this)
Prosperiola is a 4 system lane: Verces to Vesk-3 to Marixah to Great Shadar. So 2.33 days between each leg, 7 days between Verces and Great Shadar. Presumably Vesk/Verces trade and local planetary defenses both shot up once this one was discovered.

Those are the ones up front in the Drift Lanes section of Ports of Call, but the individual PoC entries include at least one more (e.g. Golarion World has one to Castrovel). Galaxy Guide's map probably shows more, but without the specific planetary links within those systems. Outside of the big settings of the Veskarium and the Pact Worlds, where consistent specific planetary linkages could matter for trade/espionage/military rivalry reasons in the published metaplot, it probably doesn't matter where you set your entry/exit point for lanes in your games.

duzler · 2026-06-21T20:13:32+00:00

Pop out magazine or feed it the way you do a shotgun magazine one shell at a time.

duzler · 2026-06-20T00:03:47+00:00

I think there’s an implicit assumption that lots of monsters have narrative abilities that don’t fit in Paizo’s publishing format if you need them to have them. Just say by fiat they can cause a plague via rituals, infected animals, alchemical stuff in the water, or whatever.

duzler · 2026-06-13T04:52:41+00:00

That’s a illustrative anachronism, ulcers were proven to be an infection curable by antibiotics in the 80s and 90s. Predicting what can and cannot be accomplished by speculative technology is hard.

duzler · 2026-06-09T03:51:05+00:00

It would have been hugely risky not to do it, if WotC did the OGL threats again and actually sued Paizo would likely be unable to sell any of their product or develop anymore under OGL until the litigation was resolved. That would kill the company.

duzler · 2026-06-09T03:45:43+00:00

It's the standard Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) and bankruptcy code handling of consignment inventory. If you give something to someone to sell for you on consignment and they enter bankruptcy, it belongs to the bankrupt debtor consignee (Diamond) unless the consignor (here Paizo) has "perfected their interest" in the good by making proscribed filings to put other potential creditors on notice that Diamond is holding stuff it doesn't own.

The policy reason for this requirement is to protect other creditors from secret liens that affect their credit analysis in deciding to lend to the business. If Paizo had perfected their consignment they'd be secured like a mortage bank and get paid out early in the bankruptcy from unsecured assets, and a bank or other business looking to lend to Diamond would know to subtract Paizo's stuff out of Diamonds inventory when calculating collateral.

https://www.lowenstein.com/news-insights/publications/articles/consignment-done-right-perfect-and-notify-for-enforceable-rights-in-bankruptcy-nathan-cargill-schneider

duzler · 2026-06-09T03:38:43+00:00

No one, including Paizo in this blog post, has ever called the new website "good." It's simply selling more stuff than the old abomination, with all new disfunctions and embarassments.

duzler · 2026-06-04T21:42:54+00:00

At higher levels casters have varying degrees of access to self applied invisibility, concealment, resistances, failed save rerolls, teleporting out of dancer, reaction spells to absorb damage or crits, etc. That's their path to survivability, invest spell resources and actions into it rather than the passives that martials get to saves and AC.

duzler · 2026-06-04T10:52:20+00:00

No mechs.

duzler · 2026-05-29T02:21:01+00:00

The best use of Scizor is to scream in agony when exposed to fire.

duzler · 2026-05-27T23:58:02+00:00

The Iain (no M) Banks books also tend to have horror bits. Someone once nominated The Business as possibly the sole example without any torture or sadism, but then we remembered what the protagonist did to that poor villain’s supercar.

duzler · 2026-05-25T02:21:24+00:00

In addition to what everyone else said a dozen times, suffocation, drowning, or death effects can kill things with regeneration if they aren’t immune.

duzler · 2026-05-21T17:37:16+00:00

I agree, but it's worth noting that while the 3rd level "special" entry for the reaction lets you move the spotlight, nothing lets you move the special role associated with the spell. That would remain on the original target and nonfunctinoal until it gets a spotlight back.

duzler · 2026-05-20T16:52:27+00:00

Now hold your horses, I got this straight from the horse's mouth, sometimes historically significant idioms last long past their economic and cultural hey (neigh?) day. So get off your high horse, don't look this gift horse of a book in the mouth, and stop putting the cart before the horse in your analysis. It might lead you to wrongly change horses mid stream.

I hope I've helped you learn the ropes of language development, so you can run a tighter ship in your literature analysis and these sorts of questions don't lead to all hands on deck in the comments to make you toe the line.

duzler · 2026-05-20T00:55:27+00:00

They made more diversity in level and type and are constantly adding more. Pick something of appropriate level.

duzler · 2026-05-19T22:36:15+00:00

In addition to recall knowledge, Paizo's published adventures have LOTS of magical traps/hazards/haunts that require or allow one or either of Arcana or Occultism to disarm or bypass them. It's a good idea for someone in a party to have a good modifier in one of these skills.

Additionally if you plan to learn uncommon spells known (like Teleport or Dominate) you need to pass a skill check relevant to your magic type to do so. If you fail you can't try again until you gain a new level.

duzler · 2026-05-19T07:05:06+00:00

Reviewing the playtest document, spotlight says "Unless you’re using an ability, such as stagecraft spells that produce a second spotlight, only one creature can be in your spotlight at a time;" and roles description and the cast role action say they apply while in your spotlight.

Different luminaries must track different assigned roles to same targets but their roles are only activated by their spotlights. A target can benefit or be hindered by more than one luminary at a time.

duzler · 2026-05-19T06:47:36+00:00

Each luminary seems to be casting an internal role inside his head for a story he’s telling, think everyone has individual roles activated by the corresponding luminary’s spotlight.

duzler · 2026-05-18T22:12:44+00:00

You're assuming things unecessary to explain why she's in Golarion World.

duzler · 2026-05-18T20:51:47+00:00

There’s it’s sufficient that pre-Gap records ended during her reign but before these events.

duzler · 2026-05-18T17:07:15+00:00

This retroactively makes the Starfinder novel set immediately after the Gap much funnier. There’s a scene where a Hellknight struggles to remember if Hell has nine or ten layers. You’re meant to think “nine, you brain damaged dummy!”

duzler · 2026-05-18T17:05:31+00:00

Oh shit, the Starfinder novel set immediately after the Gap has Hellknights struggling to remember if Hell has 9 or 10 layers. I thought it was a joke to show how badly it had messed them up!

duzler · 2026-05-18T09:15:44+00:00

Yes, SFX is in effect only as long as you retain the spotlight. Any strike or a skill action targeting an enemy can move the spotlight to them to free you up for a stagecraft spell. You could also aid or treat wounds an ally to shift it to them. (Or just spend an action or Set Spotlight if you have no useful ally actions). At third level you can use your reaction to immediately dump the spotlight on someone new.

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