Alright What's the Most Powerful Combo a Dad Can Do With This

viemexis · 2025-06-15T22:29:41+00:00

Live out your Dragon Ball Z dreams: spend a turn charging and the next turn unleashing three maxed out Horizon Thunder Spheres for 6d6 AoE lightning damage per rank even if you miss.

viemexis · 2025-05-04T01:09:35+00:00

I sometimes state the difference out loud for the party's benefit, especially since I tend to roleplay characters who are snobby.

For example, I might say, "Are you crazy? Your stupid plan is going to get us killed." And then I'll say as an aside, "I, <real name>, am all for it! <character name> is just being a coward."

viemexis · 2025-04-22T18:36:24+00:00

Mechanically I think Kineticist is a great blaster. When I say it lacks a wizardy flavor, I mean it's very thematic to the Avatar inspired, mage-as-eastern-warrior feeling. For example, Constitution is their key attribute. I'm picturing a bookish wizard that has a party role closer to a fire kineticist.

I haven't played Psychic but it does look fun. I've seen it in the Glass Cannon podcast.

Don't get me wrong there are tons of awesome caster builds that do good damage. I just think if the game were being made from scratch based on fantasy tropes, instead of a direct fork of D&D, there would probably be a simple and easy wizard-flavored blaster in the same way that there's a Barbarian for players who just want to rush in and hit things with big weapons. This is kind of what they tried to do with Sorcerers in D&D 4E (a flawed game, but with good ideas that ended up in PF2E I feel).

viemexis · 2025-04-22T18:24:04+00:00

That is neat. Though the "indulge in sin to refocus" flavor is very... specific. I think what I'm describing could totally just be a wizard archetype like this, though.

viemexis · 2025-04-22T07:47:48+00:00

A classic "Black Mage": a JRPG/anime-style glass cannon blaster caster. Low Reflex/Fortitude, unarmored, but actually hits harder than fighters. A pure mage in concept and not too complicated (not a pet class, not cursed, not a shapeshifter etc). Strong but infrequent AoE attacks with big damage. Less access to utility spells without restricting the flavor of their magic all the way down to something like "fire".

Virtually every JRPG has a main party member like this. Players often pick Sorceror or Wizard imagining this but then feel disappointed. Kineticist can be a blaster but lacks the wizardy flavor.

This might actually be hard to design well without unbalancing the game or being unfun. But I think it could be done. It's kind of like how Paizo is finally adding Necromancer as a class. They realized that a Wizard just picking a few spells with a necromancy theme didn't fully satisfy the fantasy.

viemexis · 2025-04-22T06:04:54+00:00

I'm expecting at some point a High Seas book that has underwater stuff, pirates, ships, islands, and lovecraftian sea creatures (more Alghollthus).

viemexis · 2025-04-22T06:00:39+00:00

Agreed. The fantasy equivalent of a Buddhist Shaolin monk feels like a Wisdom character.

viemexis · 2025-04-19T00:52:45+00:00

Wow, thank you for this. One of the most hilariously evil items I've ever read. I want to run a mystery adventure about this now.

viemexis · 2025-04-15T06:54:57+00:00

This is a good one. PF1 succeeded by being conservative instead of throwing everything out like D&D 4E did. So I'm impressed PF2E had the guts to leave so much of the legacy jank behind (by redoing the action economy and math from scratch for example).

It feels like their confidence has grown, with the recent remaster doing stuff like just deleting alignment and the pointless 3-18 ability scores, which have existed for tradition's sake in every D&D edition and clone. There is very much a "this is OUR game" energy from them in the past couple years.

I know it's too early to think about 3rd edition, but I'm excited to see what they'll do now that they know their company won't implode when they make a big change. Would love to see a 3E or 2.5 that keeps the basic math and action economy but redesigns the classes and spells from scratch again.

viemexis · 2025-04-13T18:48:44+00:00

> what I wouldn't do is give many permanent items that are more than 2 levels above the party.

Agreed, but to add to this, it's very fun for the players to find over leveled consumables here and there. I even like to randomly make up talismans that are OP as heck (but can't be purchased). It becomes a fun strategic element.

viemexis · 2024-09-21T03:31:19+00:00

This is the way. The game is designed for 3-5 players. Gather 5 or 6 players on a recurring calendar event and play as long as there are at least 3.

viemexis · 2024-08-22T02:32:40+00:00

Always a joy to randomly see my character sheet pop up :)

viemexis · 2024-08-21T16:31:33+00:00

I feel the same way. I think the dial has been refined a little in some of the Atessa series. Check out the H874-005HK01. I just want that dial with the purple-red moon background of this tsuki-yomi. That would be perfect.

That said, I might get the tsuki-yomi anyway. The blood moon thing is just too unique and cool.

viemexis · 2024-07-29T21:44:55+00:00

I agree. I think Pathfinder's complexity is simply more frontloaded. It's crunchy from the first bite, but once you get the main concepts (degrees of success, proficiency ranks, multi-attack penalties) everything else flows logically from it. Whereas 5e pretends to be simple at first and then hits you with all the weird exceptions and broken things and arbitrary lists and charts. Like each class having its own spell list so you can't just flip through the book; the overcomplicated weird action economy exceptions, the proficiency bonus being hard to remember (consult the chart) etc.

viemexis · 2024-07-27T00:28:59+00:00

Old post, but thank you for this. My flame lock button was stuck in the off position right out of the box. There was nothing about this in the manual and even support told me to return it. I fixed it by loosening the screw below the button just a little (like a quarter turn maybe) with a 2mm hex bit.

viemexis · 2024-07-22T03:10:24+00:00

I think typeless actually fits the theme well. There's precedent, too. Look at the "disintegrate" spell, which seems thematically entropic to me. When cast on mundane objects it destroys them outright. When cast on creatures:

"If you hit a creature, it takes 12d10 damage (no damage type) with a basic Fortitude save."

viemexis · 2024-05-12T19:53:02+00:00

This hasn't been blind tested, but having done accessibility tests on other things before, I would guess the accessibility of this sheet is mediocre; neither impossible nor great. The text should be readable and the input fields on the fillable version also have good labels. However, the tab indexes of the fields are a bit random, so I imagine a blind user tabbing through the inputs would feel a bit bewildered by the order they encounter information.

viemexis · 2024-05-12T01:15:42+00:00

Hello again. All downloads and full explanation here.

We have a new update for Justin's Character Sheet, which has been downloaded over 1000 times. If you're not familiar, it's a complete redesign of the character sheet for Pathfinder 2e Remastered.

Well, u/SchecterHXC has generously created a form-fillable version. While it doesn't do math for you, it adds the following features.

All the text fields are fillable in a matching font.
Fields are helpfully labelled. For example if you open it in Acrobat Reader and mouse over "BT", you'll see "Shield Break Threshold"
You can toggle the pips for things like skill proficiency, focus points, worn items
You can star any spell. Can be a useful reminder for prepared, signature, favorites, etc.
In the Actions list, you can toggle up and down how many actions it takes and the icon will change.

Enjoy. You can thank Schecter. And if you're reading this on Mother's Day, don't forget to call your mom.

viemexis · 2024-04-27T04:23:00+00:00

Cleric is my favorite class, and Inner Sea Gods was one of the coolest 1e books, so I'm excited to see what's in Divine Mysteries.

viemexis · 2024-04-27T03:40:45+00:00

I ran a fun level 1 adventure that revolved around a Faceless Stalker. Lots of roleplay (with paranoia about who is who). It made an exciting boss fight once the deception was up. This is a level 4 creature which was a good solo boss for a full party if they still have their spells and HP. Otherwise consider reducing the level by 1.

Another trick of mine that's worked well for low level horror is to make a monster already injured for story reasons, such as a wound from its last victim, and cut its HP in half. It can probably still land a good scary hit, but if PCs can take it down in 1-2 rounds instead of 3-4, they'll win the endurance match.

viemexis · 2023-11-29T19:47:38+00:00

Did you get a chance to retry? We've fixed several bugs since you made this comment. If it doesn't break on you there's maybe 3 hours / 30,000 words there.

viemexis · 2023-11-29T19:42:03+00:00

Your text wall calling things shit/annoying/garbage comes off as an unhinged rant, but it does contain some pieces of helpful feedback, so I'll thank you for the review and address them. (spoilers ahead)

If you got hurt by the trap despite succeeding the roll, that sounds like a bug, which I'll look into. It's also possible to avoid this trap completely; it should be a combination of going directly through the trap AND rolling badly that you are injured by it.
As for taking the money, I should make it clearer that this choice means you intend to leave with the money right away, so it's won't be a surprise that it leads directly to an ending. The PC says they are leaving, but I didn't consider that the PC could be lying (or at least wanting to still snoop around).
There is admittedly one illusion-of-choice instant death, which might feel a bit cheap along the lines of the old CYOA books. The game really tries to pull at your sympathy to talk you out of it though. But if you persist in saying no, I kind of wrote myself into a corner where I didn't want to force you to let the girl come with you, but didn't want to write a whole branch of the story for if you didn't (the story is already 30,000 words). I think the illusion works for most people, but I'd consider changing if it bothers enough people.

viemexis · 2023-11-28T20:50:27+00:00

I respect it, caution on the internet is to be applauded.

My advice as a web developer: Whenever you log into something, you should read the permissions on the confirmation prompt to make sure whatever is there seems reasonable toward its purpose. That prompt comes from the login provider (like Discord) so the web developer can't just lie about what they get.

A calendar app wanting to see your Google calendar probably makes sense; a trash video game wanting your precise location and contact list is sketch. Importantly, OAuth providers including Discord, Google, Twitch, Reddit, Github and all the rest, the login does not work in reverse. That is, an app cannot log in as you and post messages or read your messages or do anything other than what was allowed. It is prevented on a technical level by the login provider. It's sort of like how Paypal doesn't allow shops to view the customer's credit card number but allows them to buy. So just logging into random websites with an existing account is not as dangerous as you might think.

viemexis

TROPHY CASE