You can’t put a foot in you mouth!
General Skill
Prerequisites Legendary in diplomacy, failed a diplomacy check
You do get a second chance to make a first impression. When you fail a Diplomacy check, you can reroll the attempt taking the second result. You can not use this ability a second time a day on the same target or group.
Thoughts?
Keep them covered!
Soldier
You’ve learned how to hold a target in place. The penalties for the suppressed condition when you apply it to a creature is –2 circumstance penalty to attack rolls and take a –10-foot status penalty to all its speeds.
.
Thoughts?
He’s not that bad!
General Skill
Prerequisites Master in diplomacy
People just can’t hate you too much. You can not critically fail Diplomacy skill checks.
Thoughts?
Product– Pathfinder Adventure Path #182: Graveclaw (Blood Lords 2 of 6)
System- Pathfinder 2nd Ed
Producer– Paizo
Price– 26.99 here https://paizo.com/products/btq02asf?Pathfinder-Adventure-Path-182-Graveclaw
TL; DR-Why fight undead when you can fight the fey? 95%
Basics– Go to new places, meet new fey, and kill them! Graveclaw continues the Blood Lords adventure path as our heroes begin to track down the people who are involved in the poisoning plot and THEY ARE ALL FEY! Find the hags, kill them, and travel all around the land of Geb
Mechanics or Crunch– This adventure is a bit tougher for the players than most of what I’ve seen. The players had fun, but they took some beating compared to most of my Pathfinder experience. That’s not bad, but it can get discouraging as they have to keep fighting again and again to stay alive. It’s a fun adventure, but something that might turn away some players with some slight balance issues. Also, the faction system is broken. I like the general idea, but right now I and my players still don’t know what the points do. More guidance is needed to really bring this out for everyone. 4.75/5
Theme or Fluff– The story here is good, but disjointed. The major plot of finding who is responsible for killing everything is fully on display. That said, this adventure is more vignettes as the players learn where a hag is, go there, meet locals who hate her, go to her home, and kill her. Repeat till four hags die. It’s not bad, but a bit too disconnected for a full flowing story. But when hanging out with a magic drugged up Vampire lord on a bender is on the itinerary, who cares? 4.5/5
Execution– Overall solid work from Paizo with one problem that I will dock because I am petty. Solid lay out, eat to read, and good art all make this a great product. Things that would make me happy are maps that fit into Roll20, but Paizo backed Foundry instead. That’s understandable. It’s hyperlinked, so it’s nice for my tablet. The ONE thing that drove me up a wall was the last fight. The final boss is listed in one place, when you go there, it then references a second area. That annoyed me as the other creatures in the fight are listed in the first area. So, I end up bouncing between three places in a book. DON’T DO THAT! Aside from that one annoyance, Paizo makes a solid book. 4.95/5
Summary– Blood Lords continues to be some of the most fun I have had in Pathfinder that Paizo doesn’t like to admit too. It’s most definitely not a a standard hero story as the players often are not great heroes but aspiring evil lords. This particular part is good, but misses a few too many things to be amazing. The adventure is brutal, but not bad. The story is a bit disjointed, but still flows. The execution as always is good. I will definitely be returning for the third part of this path! 95%
Let’s be space monks!
Attuned Manifestation Solarian
Your focus on the stars manifests in your weapon. Increase the base dice size by one for your solar weapon.
Thoughts?
Let’s make friends!-
General Skill
Prerequisites Master in diplomacy
People just love you! When you make a make an impression action, you improve the attitude an additional step toward you on a success.
Thoughts?
Let’s be space rogues!
Operative
You do what I do because it works! Make a ranged strike against the target of your aim. If you hit, allies gain a +1 circumstance bonus on their next attack roll against the target till the end of your next turn.
Thoughts?
Lie to the one person who matters…
General Skill
Prerequisites legendary in deception
If you lie hard enough, you start to believe it. Attempt a Deception check against your own Perception DC. regardless of the result, you are immune to this power for one hour after an attempt.
Critical Success You regain 20 temporary hit points, ignore all conditions that only affect you till the end of your next turn, and gain a +2 circumstance bonus to your next action.
Success You gain 10 temporary hit points and ignore all conditions that only affect you till the end of your next turn.
Critical Failure You feel the full weight of your lies and become stunned 2.
Thoughts?
Product– Starfinder 2nd Ed playtest
System- Starfinder 2nd Ed
Producer– Paizo
Price– FREE here https://downloads.paizo.com/PZO22000E.pdf
TL; DR– Want to play some Pathfinder in space? 95%
Basics– Pathfinder 2nd ed IN SPACE! Ok, let’s look deep into this deep space RPG.
Base Mechanics- Do you remember pathfinder 2nd Ed? If you are proficient in a thing, it’s proficiency bonus (trained, expert, master, or legendary) + ability modifier + level + d20. Not proficient? D20 + ability modifier. This is versus AC or some static number from another character. That’s it! If you love Pathfinder 2nd Ed, you can instantly play this one.
This is a full RPG, but honestly if you have the Pathfinder basics down, then you are ready to go! Let’s look at my thoughts.
Mechanics or Crunch– I love Pathfinder 2nd Ed, so this is perfect. This feels a bit better balanced from small things like cantrips doing damage based on level. The changes that were imposed to make the 3.5 to Pathfinder 2nd ed transfer are solid, like Aim for the Operative class making them equivalent Pathfinder 2nd Ed ranged rogues. All the new changes from the standard Pathfinder 2nd ed formula work well adapted to the space opera of Starfinder. It’s what I expected, but still enjoyable. 5/5
Theme or Fluff– This is solid, but things are missing. We have the basics of the world, but some things are lost and have to be lost. A big one for me is the notion of stamina. I loved stamina and hit points being different. Now, you just have hit points. That changes the flavor a bit. It needed to go for Starfinder to work in Pathfinder 2nd Ed’s mechanics, but it’s a change that loses some of the originality of Starfinder. Other things work well like the mystic, Starfinder’s cleric-ish character, having a giant pool of hit points that it can use to heal any character in the group. This feels like a fun new addition to the Pathfinder system. The changes are good, but some flavor is lost in the transition. 4.5/5
Execution– Starfinder 2nd ed is well done, but I feel I want a few changes. The layout and PDF is well done. Also, given this book is free it is instantly amazing. You can easily speed read through any section and skim to find the information you need. But I want more summary tables. Skill feats have nice tables, giving summaries of each of the different feats and the full feat is below with its full write up. Class feats are not written that way. Archive of Nethys does this better; it has all class feats in nice tables that you can read via hyperlink. Make those tables for each class to make it easier to read! Also, this may be a bit petty, but Pathfinder 2nd Ed started using titles in their PDF files. This document does not. PLEASE DO THAT. I don’t want to have to memorize long strings of digits to know what files I need to open for game night! And last but not least, missing are the major rules I was hoping for: space ships. Ship combat in Starfinder was fun, BUT you had to want it. And most players did not, based on how the adventures are written. This book does not have spaceship combat. I know Paizo knows how to make Pathfinder 2nd Ed work. They do fantastic jobs on Pathfinder 2nd Ed, but I don’t know how they plan to handle space ships. The absence of these rules is something experienced Starfinders will feel. 4.75/5
Summary– Go get this PDF! It’s free, so I need to tell everyone to check this out. I love Pathfinder 2nd Ed, and I watched Star Wars Ewok adventures on VHS so many times as a child I broke the video tape. Starfinder is the system that was built for the Starfinder game, but saw a few issues. Starfinder 2nd Ed is a solid progression of the Starfinder brand. There are issues, and some of those will be fixed when the full rules come out and others are just growing pains of the system. Others are just CHANGE HOW YOU NAME THINGS! But, even with a few small issues, this game is a solid RPG that you should check out. 95%
Throat Punch Games 