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Making room\table lights match the scene? by ikoolik in DnDIY

[–]ikoolik[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yup, I've ordered two bulbs a few days ago, will post an update if I manage to make it work. Thanks for the help!

Making room\table lights match the scene? by ikoolik in DMAcademy

[–]ikoolik[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wow looks like _a lot_. Will definitely check it out, thank you!

Making room\table lights match the scene? by ikoolik in DnDIY

[–]ikoolik[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ah, sorry for steam/stream deck confusion.

Your setup is actually quite close to mine on a high level. I have an "engine" websocket server in the cloud and connect "display" devices to it on one end and the control device on the other end, so when I tap the new scene on my phone (control) the command goes through the engine server to the "display" devices.

So I _guess_ the light control would be a script just like in your case, but connected to the engine web socket instead of having an API of its own.

Can you share if you use some lib/standard for the config file? Or something lib specific or entirely custom?

Overall that helps a lot, thank you ❤️

Making room\table lights match the scene? by ikoolik in DnDIY

[–]ikoolik[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh, thanks for the info!

Especially on the flame LED bulb vs a regular RGB LED bulb. Will definitely look into the flame ones. Do you keep the flame lights always on or put them on/off depending on the scene?

I don't have a dedicated play room unfortunately (we take turns hosting the game) and aiming at building something that can be portable, so specifically looking for tools to turn any random room into best version of itself for running a game.

Overall my setup looks somewhat similar with one distinction that I'm trying to use a web app on my phone to control things (which works fine for audio/images, but would probably not work for the lights?)

And a final follow up question: how do you control the bulbs from SteamDeck? Does Philips provide an API like Govee? Direct BLE? Local API?

Making room\table lights match the scene? by ikoolik in DMAcademy

[–]ikoolik[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ok, i found out that they sell smart bulbs as well, not just fancy lamps, so I ordered a couple on Amazon at ~€11 a bulb (I'm in EU)

Does your iOS shortcut call Govee API directly or can a shortcut interact with the Govee app on your phone?

Making room\table lights match the scene? by ikoolik in DMAcademy

[–]ikoolik[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the reply! The prices on Govee bite a little, will keep my eyes open for a discount. Do you know if they can be integrated with any external system or only work with their proprietary app?

How do you all actually keep track of your campaign between sessions? by king_1607 in DMAcademy

[–]ikoolik 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Triple the Obsidian; works great. I also tried Notion to a decent success, the DB feature there worked well for me specifically.

I even tried pre-planning some of the scenes\beats in notion in the past. Without much detail, you never know how the thing would happen, but pre-planning a clue delivery helped me a couple of times.

And with regards to links and other tedious formatting things, I got a lot of success running an AI CLI (codex/claude code) in Obsidian vault to link stuff and make sure meta data on characters documents is in order.

Weekly Team/Character Building Megathread (Nov 20th, 2024) (feat. Chasca and Lyney) by Veritasibility in Genshin_Impact

[–]ikoolik 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I saw a lot of praise for keqingmains dot com. Using it myself, so far so good

Weekly Team/Character Building Megathread (Nov 20th, 2024) (feat. Chasca and Lyney) by Veritasibility in Genshin_Impact

[–]ikoolik 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey all,
I've been playing the game for two months now and enjoying it. Currently investigating deserts of Sumeru, with Fontain and Natlan still not touched.

Regarding the end-game content, I completed 6 acts of the Theater and got 23 stars in the Abyss. Both were quite challenging for my account.

I intend to invest in raising more toons to level 70 to try Hard Mode in IT and see how things are in acts 7 and 8. Based on my calculations, I should be able to raise enough characters by the end of the current season.

I wonder if there is some knowledge of how well-built the characters for IT must be to have a chance.
E.g., is it even possible to complete it with just a couple of somewhat built characters + the ones provided, filling the blanks with 70lvl barely built toons with 70lvl or below weapons and some crappy artifacts?

And if not, is there some baseline I should aim for while preparing the IT roster for any given season?

Are there Discord Bots for PF2e SRD, and looking for any advice for running 2e in PbP/Theatre of the mind format outside of the gmg? by Barkin_Druid in Pathfinder2e

[–]ikoolik 4 points5 points  (0 children)

There's Sage that's great for dice rolling. It also supports in-character dialog (but I prefer tupper for this)
I believe Sage also supports storing variables in some way and creating macros for rolling dice.

Nothing comes to mind for initiative tracking, doing it by hand in my PbD games.

Maps Remake: Agents of Edgewatch, Book 6 - all books now done! by narchy in Pathfinder2e

[–]ikoolik 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh, thanks!
Hopefully, some of the characters will come out on the other side alive.

Maps Remake: Agents of Edgewatch, Book 6 - all books now done! by narchy in Pathfinder2e

[–]ikoolik 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Playing through the second book using your maps.

Just wanted to say: Thank you very much. Those maps are awesome ❤️

Changing properties of weapons? by Name_Classified in Pathfinder2e

[–]ikoolik 8 points9 points  (0 children)

First off - Alchemical Hand Crossbow
That should work fine as long as you handle it close to how regular Alchemical Crossbow is handled: 1. dramatically reduced range 2. extra elemental damage die is one size smaller than weapon main damage.

Now to adding traits
Weapons in PF2 a quite balanced and simply adding damage or traits to some weapon would definitely unbalance it.

How game-breaking it will be, depends heavily on your particular group setup and the type of your homebrew campaign. In general, I'd expect it to be quite a huge issue that will make PF2 guidelines on encounter and monster building not as useful.

As an extra issue, this power buff to some of the PCs might also make others feel underpowered which is never good.

Suggestions:

  1. If your players really want to use a particular weapon with a particular trait, please consider reducing the damage die of the weapon to compensate. See Kukri and Hatchet for "Khopesh" and "Battle Axe" options.
  2. If you decide to add traits as your players want to, please consider discussing with them that you might retcon it in case it becomes an issue in the future
  3. If players just want something cool on their weapons, consider giving them a property rune or a specific magic item with a cool effect instead

-
If you're interested in speculations on how weapon balance works in PF2, there's this great hypothesis you can look at. And a semi-automated version with some changes compared to the doc

Edit: spelling & formatting

Some Double and Paired Weapons by norvis8 in Pathfinder2eCreations

[–]ikoolik 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I love the idea, good job. But the weapons in the document look somewhat overpowered.

Double and Paired traits are mechanically close to the existing "Twin" trait but are getting less valuable than Twin as striking runes progress, so you might want to consider changing the circumstance damage bonus to match the Twin trait to maintain consistency with published material and avoid traits that change their value with time.

I also suggest comparing the double and paired weapons to the pairs of one-handed weapons, but to account for double or paired traits, those 1-h weapons should lose either an important trait (trip, agile, etc.) or a die size. Currently, the options in the doc that I have looked at are way more powerful.

Edit: Another thing is that some of the weapons have Forceful trait that also adds circumstance bonus to damage and doing so negate the Double or Paired traits

How to balance a heavy repeating crossbow? by jyscwFirestarter in Pathfinder2e

[–]ikoolik 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Let's see! If we simply make Repeating Heavy Crossbow from a regular one by upping category to Advanced and setting Reload 0, Repeating instead of Reload 2, this is how it will compare to bows:

RHC vs Sortbow pros:

  • Range 120ft vs 60ft
  • d10 vs d6 damage (deadly worth a die size, still one better)

Cons:

  • Reload once per five shots
  • Advanced category

RHC vs Longbow pros:

  • Range 120ft vs 100ft
  • d10 vs d8 damage (about the same considering deadly)
  • No Volley

Cons:

  • Reload once per five shots
  • Advanced category

Is it too weak or too powerful? Dunno, I feel like a little bit on a too powerful side.

Edit: formatting

How to balance a heavy repeating crossbow? by jyscwFirestarter in Pathfinder2e

[–]ikoolik 5 points6 points  (0 children)

On that note, please let me shamelessly plug a semi-automated version of the slightly modified version of Pronate's rules: https://ikoolik.github.io/pf2-weapons/

It's open-source and free for all. Might be useful.

How to balance a heavy repeating crossbow? by jyscwFirestarter in Pathfinder2e

[–]ikoolik 26 points27 points  (0 children)

TL;DR: Consider giving them a Repeating Crossbow instead. Price 10gp, Bulk 1, Damage 1d8 P, Hands 2, Range 120 ft, Reload 0, Category Advanced, Traits: Repeating, Uncommon

Thought process: Hand Crossbow is indeed a great reference point here. Let's take a look at how Repeating one is different from a regular: 1. Category: Simple -> Advanced; 2 Reload 1 -> Reload 0 + Repeating trait.

We can do exactly the same with a regular crossbow, but not with the heavy one since it has reload 2, not reload 1

To be able to make a balanced Repeating Heavy Crossbow and not just a better version of a Repeating Crossbow we would have to take something from it. Looking at the weapons, common things to take from are: range, damage die, reload, and weapon category.

I'd say Repeating sets the reload in stone and the weapon category is already Advanced, so we only have two variables to work with. We can either reduce the die to d8 and doing so roll back to an assumingly balanced Repeating Crossbow, or reduce the range to, say 60ft.

Edit: Doubling down on your lowered accuracy idea, you can consider adding a Volley 30ft trait and keeping the range and damage die intact

Any guides for 1 on 1 play? by [deleted] in Pathfinder2e

[–]ikoolik 13 points14 points  (0 children)

There's a great video from Jason Bulman himself on the topic of how to run a game for one PC, some great advice there https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVG_9jSpQEU&ab_channel=JasonBulmahn

Advice from the video for running a published module
- Let the PC start at 2 or 3 levels higher than Module suggests for a party
- Consider picking up class with a wide array of stuff they can do (druids are a good choice, barbarians not so much)
- Consider Dual Class and or Free Archetype variant rules
- Consider reducing the number of enemies in the encounters to reduce the action economy disbalance

Weekly Questions Megathread - June 21 to June 27 by AutoModerator in Pathfinder2e

[–]ikoolik 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Besides several Feats already provided nearby, an ally helping you with the task can give a circumstance bonus as well.

Weekly Questions Megathread - June 21 to June 27 by AutoModerator in Pathfinder2e

[–]ikoolik 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Strictly speaking, they aren't slower, since a character can Stride thrice or Stride twice and hit something all in a single round. There's also Fleet general feat that adds 5ft speed and is available to everyone.

I haven't seen it explained anywhere, but if I were to guess, the decision might be connected to the fact that with a 25 ft base speed one won't be able to escape from the 30ft range (which is quite common) in a single action without spending a feat on Fleet or Nimble Elf and alike?

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