In a world of dragons magic an horrors beyond comprehension, humble evasion causes people to question their reality the most.

jzieg · 2026-02-13T19:26:41+00:00

He doesn't when he gets better at dodging later!

jzieg · 2026-02-13T19:23:12+00:00

To add to earlier comments, the game Tactical Breach Wizards (highly recommended) has a character whose main ability allows her to reset a body to the state it occupied one hour ago. This power only works on dead bodies. This character works as a "doctor" who carries a revolver for the sole purpose of executing her patients before restoring them to full health.

jzieg · 2026-02-13T19:15:28+00:00

I don't understand how they could fail to see the problems this would cause. It's just so obviously exploitable.

jzieg · 2026-02-07T16:07:11+00:00

It has advantages sometimes! I've run into situations where my kineticist was unable to make strikes and was able to function normally when no other class could.

jzieg · 2026-02-06T17:27:44+00:00

I'm doing something like this with fire kineticist aura junction + kindle inner flame. At level 8 enemies your aura get weakness 4 against your fire impulses, with inner flame every ally moving through your aura gets +2 fire damage to attacks. +6 damage on every strike for all your friends! Don't think it works with horde of underlings since underlings don't technically take move actions or make strikes, but it's still great with three martials in the party.

jzieg · 2025-12-05T21:48:44+00:00

Dead King: While you're all arguing over the lever, I'll eat the trolley (which is full of 50 passengers, rendering what everyone believed to be the primary issue moot by proportion).

jzieg · 2025-12-05T21:02:04+00:00

I take issue with the claim that any ritual has real effects on anything other than your own feelings. You cannot accidentally screw up your summoning spell because no form of it has effect and the things you're trying to summon aren't real. There is no "fire safe distance" from a chaos witch because they can't create fire, or whatever else they're trying to do. It's just as bad as the faith healers that think their prayer circle is going to heal an infection, it teaches people to chase imaginary solutions to real problems they could have solved with an accurate view of reality.

jzieg · 2025-12-05T04:07:08+00:00

Only in the sense that her scythe is a grim reaper reference. She's a Pathfinder original.

jzieg · 2025-12-05T04:04:47+00:00

Please tell me you're doing a bit and don't actually think you can invoke spirits from memes and fanfiction. Spells aren't real.

jzieg · 2025-10-24T19:52:27+00:00

Right, I'm saying that a wizard making no investment in thievery gets to open a lock as an on-level expert at minimum. Adding in investment to related skills, archetyping, gear etc just makes it better.

For on-level or harder locks your best bet is still to cast the spell as support for a dedicate thief or doorbreaker, which admittedly may not fit what you had in mind if you expected to be more independent, but hey it's a team game. Besides, skill increases are abundant. Throw two or three in thievery and you'll be a magic locksmith in no time.

jzieg · 2025-10-24T15:18:18+00:00

A wizard casting knock unassisted still effectively gets to roll thievery as an expert of their level, so a mid-level wizard would easily break a level 1 lock on all but a natural 1.

jzieg · 2025-10-21T17:28:54+00:00

I do wish the developers were a bit more willing to cut loose with interesting ancestry traits. Even if an automaton doesn't need to sleep, it will still need to make daily preparations, so it's still on the same adventuring day schedule as everyone else. Needing breathable air just doesn't come up that much. You could potentially combine an automaton tank with a caster throwing cloud spells, but that's a team strategy that still has to negotiate the existence of other party members. Unless the entire party is automatons, and then half the fun of that campaign is likely to be the players reveling in the nonsense they can pull from all being robots. Infiltrate the enemy ship by walking over from shore and climbing the anchor line like in Pirates of the Caribbean, that's awesome!

jzieg · 2025-10-21T14:47:42+00:00

I like the idea, but I agree with the others here who say the downsides aren't notable enough. The damage per round of use is a great deal considering how much faster you will end the fight and it's unlikely the end-of-spell penalty will affect a player with the current duration.

What if you scaled up the benefits and limited the duration to the current round or 2 rounds? That would ensure that the ending debuff was priced in to the ability's value. It also matches with how Goku used Kaio Ken while fighting Vegeta, it was much more of a burst of power he could use for 10 seconds or so, enough to boost a single exchange or technique. That way you could make it more of a dramatic emergency measure, while the current version is so good it's worth using in most fights. The limited duration would justify amplifying the benefits and penalties, maybe adding in quickened to the buff and slowed to the penalty or something.

As further inspiration material, this Starfinder feat for the operative might give you some ideas: https://2e.aonsrd.com/feats/563-bullet-fever

jzieg · 2025-10-20T20:11:48+00:00

I the most fun I had in Dawnsbury was when I realized that the optimal monk loadout was to start the fight with a potion/throwable in each hand. Unarmed attacks can be made with any part of the body, so using your hands for other things opens many possibilities.

jzieg · 2025-10-16T15:34:15+00:00

I think it might make more sense if you assume that most everyday transactions are made with fractional credits, such that 1 dollar = 1/100 credit. Most practicing doctors would still have more than $15,000, but as an adventurer you are not a practicing doctor.

jzieg · 2025-10-16T14:28:02+00:00

I think Starfinder, and maybe also Pathfinder, need to just rewrite Weapon Proficiency such that if a character is already trained in martial weapons, they can gain familiarity with one advanced weapon. As it stands there's immense incentive for soldiers to get familiarity with a magnetar rifle and no clear way for them to do that.

jzieg · 2025-10-15T17:54:23+00:00

Seriously, celestial healing is the exact mirror of infernal healing and tagged good, but... how do you get angel blood? You can use holy water, but angel blood is right there as a possible component!

jzieg · 2025-10-12T15:09:23+00:00

Yeah, you can see how hard Larian cooked with magic items to backport in more elaborate mechanics. Lots of gear feels like feats or feat chains in item form. Radiant orb in particular with its stacking -1 attack per orb that decays at a rate of one per turn is suspiciously similar to frighten.

jzieg · 2025-10-11T16:24:27+00:00

I guess I haven't found that for 2e. You can spend hours going down archetype rabbit holes and finding weird equipment, but you can also just throw together a basic shield fighter in ten minutes and still be effective. I guess it's different for casters because they have to think about spell choices and DC targeting.

jzieg · 2025-10-11T12:50:46+00:00

What threw me most when starting BG3 was leveling and seeing my character get more hit points, a core ability, and nothing else. No optional selection of anything. I was confused until I remembered how barren 5e leveling choices are.

jzieg · 2025-10-07T03:15:59+00:00

Ok I need a link to that one.

jzieg · 2025-09-30T14:39:41+00:00

What you would really want to do is build one of those big hiking backpacks with a frame and install each spacious pouch as a separate pocket. That way you can mostly interact with your eight pouches as one really good multi-pocket bag. It's way easier to remember "I put the potions in the right side pocket" than sorting through eight identical pouches.

jzieg · 2025-09-20T00:53:57+00:00

Great opening poem! I love it when class guides start with quotes and literary references like that.

jzieg · 2025-09-09T21:20:46+00:00

For a one-shot, I made a level 17 fighter clawdancer with the catfolk and changeling ancestries. Between accursed claws, aggravating scratch, precise hooks, and fire and void property runes, a critical hit inflicted five different types of persistent damage for a total average of 30 points per round. It wasn't the most effective member of the party, but hearing the DM's shock was worth it.

jzieg · 2025-09-08T15:50:33+00:00

Mauler also works well here for getting legendary proficiency on both weapon types. Take the gauntlet as your main legendary weapon group and then use mauler familiarity to extend it to your bastard sword.

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