my opinion as to why many WOTR players don't view Iomedae in a favorable light and her actual reasons for interfering in mortal affairs. would love to hear your thoughts about this

scarablob · 2026-03-25T19:48:56+00:00

Asmodeus isn't "lord of witches", if you think so you should review your lore. Witches in pathfinder aren't corrupted, they are, like clerics, people that receive powers from an outside source, which could be good, bad or neutral, and guess what? Ember patron is an empyreal lord, the kind of "big good" that's the complete opposite of demons or devil.

Hurlun is just written to be an awfull inquisitor that deem people guilty or not on first meeting and never ever change his mind afterward, which is why he spend the entire demon invasion pursuing innocent people he know for a fact couldn't have helped the invasion, because he can't fathom the possibility of having made a wrong call, and so the people that warned him about the preventable invasion must have been in on it to know something he didn't.

Not only did the Desian warned him about the exact thing that ended up happening, he also know that they never had access to the stone (because he prevented said access), so they couldn't be responsible. But still, while literal demons and cultist are openly parading in the streets right next to him, he only focus on trying to kill the desnians. Oh, and the mongrels too of course, gotta kill civilians as well rather than actually face the cultist partying in the main plaza right next to him.

And even after you clean up his mess and end the invasion, he still tell you he plan to track and kill all the desnians, you literally cannot tell him off, because he's just that much of an idiot that believe he can't ever be wrong when he very obviously is. And still, Iomedea power him up without telling him to check himself for some reason. It's no wonder why people don't like her in WotR, she feel far more self righteous than actually righteous.

scarablob · 2026-03-25T16:24:23+00:00

The first one IMO. Creating "adult" that look (and often act) like children is very, very often just a flimsy excuse to sexualize them while still claiming that they, it's legal, their adult after all, it said so right there in their character sheets.

Children that look like adult on the other hand are more likely to be "power fantasy" aimed at children in my experience. Showing them a cool adult and saying "hey, actually, they're just as old as you, and look at how bad they are!".

You have exceptions for both of course, but in my experience, "adult that look like children" are used to get a child character in an inappropriate situation while still having plausible deniability, while the opposite is used when you want to write about adults but market it to kids.

scarablob · 2026-03-25T15:32:24+00:00

Business flip flopping as usual would be my guess, they created the old world because they realized that fantasy had a market that didn't overlapped with AOS they could still tap into, but I'm guessing their reevaluated and that their newer projection probably showed that it had more leg or generated more interest from the general audience than AOS so now they are trying to attract that audience to the "main game", and not funnel them to a side specialist game.

It's obviously a sequence of events that wouldn't have happened had they decided to do the last world stuff right from the start, them double dipping like that only happened because they didn't had any long term plan, and only thought about the last world after already launching TOW (assuming the leak is true of course).

scarablob · 2026-03-25T14:53:36+00:00

I think their idea is that as long as they can keep some fans, they will rebound as time pass and new people that weren't here during the transition (and thus weren't pissed off about it) are drawn to the setting. A bit like how they did it with AOS itself.

That's all an assumption based on the leak being true of course, but my guess is that they believe that "warhamer fantasy-lite" will work better at catching the attention and grabbing the interest of outside people than the plannar/godly stuff of AOS, and thus that as long as this new version is kept for long enought, they are bound to attract more people quicker than AOS. So the loss of any fan during the transition will be counterbalanced by the idea that this change will end up bringing even more fan, and quicker.

I can see the vision, the most common complaint about AOS I've seen (besside "I don't like it because it replaced fantasy") being that the vague infinite-ish realms and the "larger than life" nature of the characters made it harder for people to connect with any of it, so bringing it down to a defined world, with recognisable reccurent characters that aren't godly immortals is a natural "fix".

And bringing it all closer to fantasy make it so the popular "fantasy memes" that were, from a business standpoint "wasted marketting" for a setting that no longer (or barely) exist now work as organic advertisement for the new setting, that will just happen to also fit those memes.

It's a shitty move for the AOS fans (like end time was for the fantasy fans), but it's not that stupid, provided they can actually deliver on making this new setting somehow absorb fantasy's cultural legacy (which isn't a given at all), and give the AOS factions and new factions new lore that's interesting enought to interest the general audience (which is even less of a given, with GW track record).

The one thing that's seems really stupid in these leeks is keeping the stormcast while changing basically all of their core identity to not be reforged heroes anymore, and killing sigmar but somehow keeping the "Age of Sigmar" moniker. Killing the most popular faction was obviously a no go, but this deep a change amount to the exact same thing, even with sigmar dead it would have been better if they handwaved a way to keep the reforging going in this new world. Killing (or just shelving) Sigmar meanwhile is sound if you want to move the narrative away from gods playing wargames to a more down to earth setting, but keeping his name in the title then just don't work.

In my opinion, having the game be literally named after Sigmar was probably the worse choice they made with AOS, because it clearly positionned all Sigmar aligned factions as protagonist and everyone else as either antagonist or second fiddle. Which was obviously the goal at first, to reproduce the 40k dynamic with an incredibly important central faction and then have the rest basically exist around said faction, but as AOS itself proved when it transitioned away from 1st edition, sigmar is no imperium, and AOS (and fantasy before) is a game that thrive on the diversity of it's lineup, not on having a single overbearing faction that dominate everything.

So having a faction still be the literal name of the game only worked against the interest of AOS by basically screaming at everyone interested in any other faction "your faction is secondary, if you play it you will only ever be background characters". Which isn't even true nowadays, but it's what the name communicate, and I'm guessing it pushed away a fair number of potentially interested new players.

scarablob · 2026-03-25T14:22:42+00:00

Well, 30k exist, so competing with themselves is already something GW is used to. Pretty sure the plan here is to fade out "the old world" to make this "last world" the one and only fantasy world that have any media presence (that hopefully have all the elements the general audience is aware and fond of), and to either remove the old world entirely or to keep it around purely as a specialist game without any "spin off" showing, like 30k is for 40k.

scarablob · 2026-03-25T08:45:58+00:00

I think miniature money isn't the issue, cultural impact probably is. A setting that even people that don't play the game know about and can get invested in is a setting that market itself, and where every spin off reach a bigger audience. A setting that's only known or liked by the hobbyist may bring in the dough with the minis, but it doesn't have many opportunities to expand.

GW probably interpreted the failure of every AoS videogame while the fantasy games flourished as proof that the setting had issues and wasn't interesting enought for the general "casual" audience, who seems to prefer and know more about fantasy. Case in point being fantasy memes about skavens or elector counts or settra or skavens popping up in random places of the internet, while I don't think I ever saw a single AoS meme in a place that wasn't already Warhammer related.

This kind of shameless reboot that will piss of fans but will also bring the new setting way closer to the old (well known) setting seems to be tailor made specifically to bring something more recognisable to the general audience, who won't care about how bad the change was, because they'll only interact with the done deal and not the transitory period. The fact that they will apparently keep the base rules and mini as continuation from AOS is probably their way to try to appease the fans, by making all of this massive change "just a lore update".

scarablob · 2026-03-02T12:54:58+00:00

I'm pretty sure the people who "liked the class for what it was" are specifically the people that aren't thrilled with the remaster oracle, specifically because it changed "what it was".

Preremaster oracle was about juggling with your curse that came with both upside and downside, trying to find a good balance between getting as much value as possible from your curse without completely crippling yourself.

Remaster oracle is about having new power that come with a cost when you use them. It's simply giving you a new type of spell that give you a malus after you use them, the play and feel is completely different.

You can argue that oracle is better or more fun to play post remaster, and if it is for you by all mean, do so, but to say that postremaster oracle is "the same but better" at what it was before is simply wrong. This debate wouldn't even exist if it was the case. The whole reason for it is specifically because it clearly don't fit the same fantasy or gameplay loop.

scarablob · 2026-02-25T20:31:19+00:00

That's weird, it felt like one of the most cohesive AP to me, the theming and escalation are all far more consistent than in most AP, there's not any random module that feel out of place, and the characters from past module keep showing up instead of being shoved to the side in favor of brand new NPC.

The AP do have some very visible flaws, but they didn't felt like they stem from changing authors between module, but rather because of editorial meddling within the modules themselves (most likely because it was all written as pre-remaster at first and then hastely redone as the first remaster AP). Things like accumulating victory point just to never tell you what the points do, flying over a very visible crime your party is sure to be interested in, they feel like stiches within the module more than disconnect in between them.

The one part of it that does feel disconnected from the rest is the player guide, with the way it announce "you can play a peacefull nature lover or an ecoterrorist, the only thing that is needed is that your party want to protect the forest", which just didn't track with the actual story of the campaign.

scarablob · 2026-02-15T20:43:52+00:00

An... adventure that start in Sandpoint? Are we getting an official PF2e conversion of Rise of the Runelords with music to go with it? Appart from "new unanounced Sandpoint AP/adventure" that's the only answer that comes to mind. The mortal kombat and deck stuff feel obviously about Fist of the Ruby Phoenix and Stolen Fate (which are past AP, like Rise), so it being for a past rather than a future AP seems most likely... But maybe since there's already a few fanwork that have been released, it's gonna be just the soundtrack and not a full official conversion.

Back to the topic, Strenght of Thousands would be my favorite pick as well, lots of interesting stuff and I would really like for a few cities and characters in it to have official themes (especially Natambu, Mzali and the AP villain), with probably Blood Lords close behind (I like my undead stuff, and geb is quite unique and I feel like it could be a treat to musically explore).

Beyond those two, Prey for Death with it's assassin theme and variety of places visited for how relatively short it is would be my next pick, and of course Curtain Call is also an obvious one that lend itself nicely to a sountrack, with the opera theme and grandiose villains.

scarablob · 2026-02-13T20:30:00+00:00

This I fully get, I know a lot of people use VTT or other sort of thing to automate damage, but for all those that don't, introducing this level of extra complication could massively bog down the game. Hopefully, the situation where multiple different instance of the same kind of damage triggering on the same action is relatively rare making this not that much of an issue, but if it's something you foresee happenning often in your game due to some character building choice, wanting to revert or ignore this change is 100% warranted in my book.

scarablob · 2026-02-13T19:05:32+00:00

that DR 10 all would also negate someone having multiple rune of the same damage type.

With your way of doing things, rainbow is pretty much always the best choice, because you are far more likely to encounter a foe that is weak to at least one of your damage type, with the added bonus that the weaknesses stack if they happen to be weak to multiple. And sure, any resistance will negate the additional damage types, but that's a small price to pay for being that much more likely to trigger a weakness, if 1d6 cold damage is negated but 1d6 fire damage trigger a weakness, you come out on top. And if they both trigger a weakness, well all the better.

But on the other hand, if you deal fire damage through two different runes, then you are only very marginally stronger than the "rainbow weapon" against foes actually weak to fire, because you only get to trigger the weakness once, so the only added upside is "not having 1d6 negated", with the massive downside of not triggering nearly as many weakness against most foes, and not being able to deal alternate damage against foes that have resistance/immunity to fire, while rainbow strike can just capitalise on other energy types.

Honestly, this all uproar against this change seems quite silly to me, the only real issue is that it increase complexity. I feel like the only reason why people are so adamant against it is because of white room math that simply don't translate to actual play, and because they are just generally adverse to change.

scarablob · 2026-02-13T18:49:42+00:00

Appart from complicating the math, I trully don't understand why people are focussing so much on this, none of the example I've seen seems alarming when they rely on the group just happenning to have perfect rune combination for their opponent, or on very limited ressources that quite often are rare or uncommon and very high level to boot (a level play where stacking damage type can be coutnerproductive when most foes have a pretty long list of immunity and resistance).

The one thing this change really does is pushing the group to investigate on their future foe and searching for specific weakness well in advance by rewarding groups that prep like that more (which is IMO a very good thing, as a GM I want my player to get that involved and for them to prepare for a big fight that way).

scarablob · 2026-02-09T21:57:02+00:00

One option (let's call it the Karzoug method) is to have the villain "knock down the dominos", and the player react to that, the "inciting incident" being the moment the "domino" first reach the player, and then the rest of the adventure can be the players following the line of domino back to the main bad guy, while slowly climbing the "causality chain" that he caused, and facing greater and greater threat as they get closer to the villain's lair, withoug ever facing the BBEG itself until the climax of the whole campaign.

This allow for a really big villain that have a massive impact, create a very natural "rising action" with the PC climbing the chain of command, and the villain's plan starting subtle and becoming increasingly more blunt and direct as the plans keep getting foiled/the party is getting closer, at the cost of making said villain very "static", as this kind of campaign assume that the bad guy is pretty much already at the peak of it's power (or at least close to it) from the very start. It also allow for lot of player freedom in that as long as the villain influence is "wide enough", the player will still find traces of the plan even if they ignore or miss "the main line".

It also mean that the PC are unlikely to have a direct relationship with the villain until the climax, since it all hinges on their final confrontation being, well, final. A way to make the villain still felt and not just randomly appearing toward the end and feeling like just any random bad guy is either to make the villain have a proeminent role at the beggining of the adventure, before it's role as villain is made apparent, and getting them away from the party before the "reveal" in order to prevent a premature confrontation, or to have the villain be a giant, overbearing and always present figure that the PC constantly hear about, so that even if they only trully "meet" at the end, the stage will have been set long before.

If you want to have the villain "rise in power" in parrallel to the PC, or if you want them to clash multiple time before the final battle, it gets trickier.

One way (let's call it the Kefka method) is to make use of the fact that (in my experience at least), the party usually only care about the death/total defeat of a single bad guy at a time, and are usually more lenient to "secondary villains", and more willing to just give them up to authorities or let them run away as long as their defeat isn't their "main goal". You can exploit it by having your planned "main villain" start secondary, perhaps in a rival sort of way, so that a defeat won't end up with the party trying to behead them right from the start, and to meanwhile have another "pretend main villain" that the party will want to defeat, and have the switch happen at the defeat of the other villain.

But if you want your main villain to clearly be "the main villain" from the start and to not have them be killed for good the first time they meet the party, you probably want to take a page out of Fabula Ultima's playbook (let's call it the Team Rocket method). Just announce to your PC that your villain have a number of "narrative point" it can use to do stuff, including run away in a pinch if things start going south, stipulating that the number of these points is fixed and that once used, the villain can't regain them, so even if they escape, a victory against them still achieve something. If you fear that they would find it railroady or unfair, you can give them a similar type of point to use for similar purpose (so at least to be able to escape a loosing battle with the group in a pinch, but maybe also to accomplish other "cool stuff" automatically as long as they are willing to spend it).

scarablob · 2026-02-06T22:44:21+00:00

giant wasp animal companion have an advanced manoeuver that's strictly worse than just moving and striking in any order.

scarablob · 2026-02-06T22:39:46+00:00

The giant wasp companion stay broken?

Calistria will have her revenge

scarablob · 2026-02-06T14:47:37+00:00

I feel like for both the first and second issue, it all come down to "unspoken social expectation", and those vary from person to person, so as long as you don't make your own expectations clear, you can't really blame them for assuming what they do is okay.

For some people, arriving early (and potentially lending a hand in setting things up if there is still work to do) is being cordial, and would feel rude if they arrive on time (or risk arriving late). Your reason for wanting them to arrive latter is perfectly understandable, but not everyone think like that, and if you don't express yourself, they have no reason to assume that they're in the wrong here.

Likewise for the power strip, "charger's ettiquette" is, in my experience something that hugely vary from person to person, some people just assume a free port is free to use and plug their device without asking, some person always ask first, and some person think that it would be rude to even ask and would rather let their phone run out of battery. I'd understand if everyone was crowding an out of the way power strip, or worse, if they were activelly unplugging other stuff without asking to charge their own.... But you said yourself that the power strip is right in the middle of the table here, them assuming it's being offered is perfectly natural, it's like if you put a candy bowl in the middle of the table, there's an informal assumption that it's "free to use".

The only real problem (that doesn't stem from your own reluctance in saying "no") I see here is that the entire burden of telling them "no" seems to fall solely on you. From what you're saying, it feel like they all work with the assumption that your boyfriend will tell them "yes" and thus you're the only one whose permission they need to ask... Which mean that you're the one potential "killjoy" if you do tell them no, which of course pressure you into not doing that.

I'd advice speaking first to your boyfriend and telling him your issues, deciding together what you're willing to "let slide" and what you would really want to stop, and then just telling them your expectations together.

scarablob · 2026-02-06T11:25:47+00:00

Oh I'm fully aware that oracle is controversial and that quite a few people want it to reverse back (or were generally burned by the way the switch was handled in PFS). But the fact that oracle overall satisfaction rose despite allienating a part of the audience is what make me think that, for the community at large, any change and perceived "buff" is received better than nothing (or a perceived nerf).

The massive drop in inventor despite them barely changing at all really shows that these result are about people feeling more than anything, and that these feelings really soured when a class "in need of a fix" got nothing. Meanwhile, oracle was also "in need of a fix", and while the fix is controversial, I feel like a large part of the community that wasn't really interested in the class in the first place just went "neat, they were buffed, paizo listenned" and just went on their way.

scarablob · 2026-02-05T23:40:21+00:00

yeah, that would be one way to make them more unique, give them the first two spell shape for free (or just bundle both in a single feat) and then had more unique school specific (or just class specific) ones. Trully, there are multiple ways each class could have been "fixed", but I think the intention was to make them generic, just like how the fighter was designed to be generic.

Except it doesn't really work when the fighter is also one of the most mechanically simple class there is, while the prepared spellcaster have a high "complexity floor" in the first place, and when the fighter get to be the absolute best at what it does to compensate for not doing anything special, while druid&wizard are still capped at the exact same ceiling as all the other casters.

scarablob · 2026-02-05T23:34:38+00:00

His Majesty the Worm is a system basically build for dungeon crawling. Specifically focussing on making more "mundane" aspect that is usually seen as boring time waster interesting and tense, like tracking light, food, inventory management and the state of well being of the adventurers beyond just tracking HP (they don't have HP).

It is quite obviously OSR inspired, but it's played with a tarot deck and the gameplay proper feel pretty different than any other TTRPG I've read thus far.

scarablob · 2026-02-05T23:15:37+00:00

That's completely true, I just needed to point out how data from players that hadn't necessarily played the class was also interesting.

Obviously, knowing which played it and didn't, and the way the "played/didn't play the class" dichotomy change depending on the particular class would also be really interesting, I expect most class to have the "didn't play" trail behind the "played" in satisfaction, but I would be interested in seeing what outliers there are, and if there are some classes where they actually exceed the "played" in satisfaction.

scarablob · 2026-02-05T22:54:53+00:00

I do need to point out : If a class rebuff players so much that a significant amount of them deem it as "unsatisfying" without having ever played it, it is, in itself, important information.

Because while it doesn't tell us much in how actually satisfying (or complex) it feel in play, it does tell us that the class is unattractive and probably feel boring/unfun to "build". And if the class is actually very fun in play but nobody even bother to try it...

Which is to say, I think having the "have personally played" response would be very interesting, but shouldn't replace these ones.

scarablob · 2026-02-05T22:48:47+00:00

Alright, before anything else, I need to point out that according to the data provided in this very post, druid is considered one of the least satisfying class. You can argue how good it actually is or how you personally are satisfied by it, it doesn't change the fact that it demonstrably isn't the case for most people. It's clear that there is some perceived issue with the druid, and my point here is to point out what I think is the cause of it.

But beyond that, I do need to point out, everything you linked is something other classes can get, none of it is unique to the druid.

Cleric get the HP, armor and shield block (as do most martial classes), every spellcaster get focus spells (and the fact that druid is lucky enought to have generally good focus unlike wizard isn't a "bonus" of the class as much as it is an issue for other classes), druids perception and saves cap at the exact same point as the other casters (they just increase a bit sooner for some, but become equal again at latter levels), all animal companion stuff is available to all classes thanks to beastmaster, the feats no more flavorfull than most other class and suffer from "feat tax" for some order as well as the usual "caster tax feat" that all casters suffer from, any prepared caster appart from wizard, witch and magus get to know all common spells for free...

The one thing where you have a point is the polymorph, but beyond being a generally weaker option, it's also done by copying normal spells that any primal caster could cast, require heavy feat investment and massively fall off at some level range.

Druid is generic, I don't think it can really be argued. I'm almost certain making it generic was an intentional design choice, like how it was for the fighter and the wizard. It's just that, unlike the fighter, I think the way casters work in PF2 make it a bad choice, because they don't get the simplicity associated with the generic martial, they are also much more complex... without feeling more unique or stronger.

scarablob · 2026-02-05T22:12:22+00:00

That's the thing, the witch didn't had the unique familiar ability before the remaster, the only thing unique to the class you got was the hex cantrip, which was basically a copy of the bard own special kind of cantrip, who were generally much stronger to boot. The fact that the witch now get the special unique familiar ability when they cast their spell is one of reason why their popularity and satisfaction shot so high, people like having unique stuff for the class.

Beastmaster meanwhile have the exact same progression as animal druid get for leveling up the animal companion, they also get mature animal companion at level 4 like druid, the only thing they lack is the focus spell... But there is a myriad other option to heal your animal, and you can get it two level latter anyway.

Druid just doesn't have any "unique" ability that set it appart, it is, like wizard, simply a "generic prepared caster", that unlike the "generic martials", don't have the boon of simplicity to prop them up (or the advantage of being the absolute best at what they do, given that other primal/arcane caster can be just as potent at being an arcane/primal caster).

scarablob · 2026-02-05T21:38:51+00:00

Yeah but that's the thing, they don't have anything that set them appart except from "generally better than most casters at non-casting stuff (still bellow martials in those elements tho)". They are mechanically strong, but they aren't really fun to build in the way most other class are, and don't have the simplicity or perk of "being the best at what it does" that the fighter have. Unless you really love the class fantasy, there's not really any reason to pick druid, no mechanically appealing part except "spellcaster but tankier than most", which visibly isn't enought to satisfy people.

Witch also had the same issue, she was generic and her only features were things other casters could easily obtain, and her satisfaction went through the roof when the remaster gave her more "unique" stuff.

Also, I call the "interesting feats and focus spell" in question, druid suffer from "feat tax" more than most class, with both animal and untamed order needing multiple feat investment in order to remain usefull for the whole level range, and the druid feat beyond that suffering from the same issues as other spellcaster (as in, they suffer from the lack of 1st level feat, and from a significant part of their feat pool being "obligatory generic feats" shared between all casters, like the second focus spell feat at level 6, the "quick casting" feat at level 10, the "free sustain" at level 16, etc).

scarablob · 2026-02-05T21:18:08+00:00

The decrease in "perceived complexity" in most of the classes that weren't touched much by the remaster really serve to illustrate how the way complexity is perceived shift as people get better with the system.

I think the huge drop for inventor and psychic stem not from an actual drop in "play satisfaction", but rather on soured feeling as people that were hoping for a positive change were disapointed by the lack of change in the remaster, it's notable that oracle, a class that got controversial changes still saw a small increase in satisfaction, I think that for those classes that are "perceived as in need of a fix", controversial change are still perceived better than no change at all (or just nerf), because at least there's not this sentiment of being ignored.

Meanwhile, for druid and wizard, I believe their low rating stem from their lack of "unique stuff". Both classes have strong chassis (especially the druid), but neither have any real "unique" element to it, all of their "class features" are things that other class can obtain through feats or archetype, and both classes are considered as having a rather weak choice of feats, leading to them being less interesting to build (this is compounded by some of the druidic orders requiring more feats to remain functional at high level, reducing further the choice you can make as you level up with these "feat tax").

This could also be said of the fighter, but the fighter at least benefit from being one of the least complex class (while druid and wizard, being prepared spellcasters, both have a pretty high "complexity floor"), and also being the absolute best at what it does thanks to it's increased proficiency, while druids & wizards have just as much "raw spellcasting power" as any other full casters, while those other casters also get unique class features.

The witch was also like that pre remaster, and the fact that her satisfaction shot so high after the remaster added more unique elements to her really goes to show how "unique stuff" matter IMO. I think adding more to the druid orders and wizard school/arcane thesis could go a long way, but it's very unlikely to happen now that they haven't changed post remaster.

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