u/Malcior34

Just joined a game with a mystic, envoy, operative, and mechanic, probably gonna be the only melee in the party, fun times! Which traits would you recommend? My gut says Trip, Grapple, Reach, or Free Hand. Any thoughts?

Also, what pros are there over picking a Grappling trait over a Free Hand trait if you plan to grab enemies and hold them for your friends to shoot? Seems like Free Hand is just straight up better since you can both Grapple and use Manipulate actions.

The sourcebook, Absalom: City of Lost Omens is positively massive. 300+ pages for a single city and it really helps the place feel alive and lived-in. Makes you wish there was a good adventure path set here Sorry, I'll keep my Edgewatch slander to myself.

What I like about games in big cities like this, is that it's very easy to introduce seemingly minor problems that are actually parts of a much bigger threat. A few local thugs shaking down someone for cash are part of an operation run by a naga crime lord wanting to poison the city's water supply. A few seemingly random undead are actually part of a plot by the Whispering Way to smuggle tons of nonsentient undead into the city in cargo crates during a festival.

What campaigns would you like to run in the City of Lost Omens? Have you been in a game that featured it, or just visited it for a few sessions in something like an Abomination Vaults game?

In previous FEs, there was no hiding who the main character Avatar was, they were all emphasized front and center in the trailers. But in FW, Eshmel gets... 5 seconds with their back to the camera. Weird.

Especially considering they seem to be pretty important in-universe, a divine servant of the dragon-goddess of time. Avatars tend to be pretty high-concept (typically connected to gods in some way), so you'd think they'd be hyping Eshmel up as a major player in the story, yeah? Do you think this is nothing or might there be a reason for it?

Geb is currently one of the most powerful evils on Golarion, a mythic archmage with more power and experience than Tar Baphon. Even if he's mostly passive now, it'll probably change sometime soon with Arazni free and Nex returning soon. So we're probably gonna face him at some point, maybe in next edition to keep the focus on Big T.

So, if we eventually get an AP where we take down Geb, it's gonna be pretty crazy for any groups that completed Bloodlords.

"Hey, that guy was my old character's partner in crime! And now we're killing him." "Oh, we worked her into my backstory! And now she's getting a Fireball to the face." "That's our group's old mansion! And it's being burned to the ground..."

And, of course, gotta have the badass moment where you fight Geb's elite guard, but the GM swaps them out for your old characters to have a massive brawl. Fun times for everyone! :)

I was wondering if you had any cool stories of ways new characters were introduced to your ongoing campaign. These are two introductions I've seen in my homebrew game:

In our 5th-ish session, we got a aasimar barbarian joining the group and GM basically just said "You see X leaning against the side of the tavern. She seems to stand out from the other townsfolk." and pretty much just joined us because she didn't have anywhere else to go. Not much to really go off.

More recently, we got a new player and his introduction was a bit more creative, being the friend of a local lord we saved from a hag. The character went to the lord requesting help recovering an extremely valuable keepsake from the hag coven we were currently after, and pointed them our way, after which we welcomed them in to join the fight! Personal stakes, and tied into the current villain/plot, love to see it! Just wanted to gush about how far our GM has come as a storyteller 💙

What about your groups?

The Jotunborn might be cool, but they're extremely narrow in terms of lore, being extraplanar weirdos who randomly showed up during the Godsrain for reasons.

Meanwhile, there's currently no mechanical way to make your character descended from the various fun giantkin races of Golarion. So I thought it might fun to do a quick thought experiment and see how we can reskin the Jotunborn with existing options to help represent the children of our ceiling-hating friends.

* Frost Giants: Undine heritage, Rimesoul feat. Give yourself a big frosty beard!

* Taiga Giants: Rimesoul works too, but you could also go Beastkin as well since they're by far the closest to beasts of the giantkin. Watch as your enemies piss themselves in fear as they see the GIANT WEREMOOSE charging right them! :D

* Fire Giants: Ifrit heritage, pretty self explanatory.

* Rune Giants: Taking the Runescarred Archetype is probably the best way to show the power of ancient runes covering your body.

* Marsh Giants: This one's a bit tougher, since these creepy fish/frog-like giants have more than a bit of Lovecraft's Shadow Over Innsmouth influence on them. Using Adopted Ancestry to get access to Tripkee feats would probably work, but I'm open to better suggestions.

* Cloud Giants and Storm Giants: The Sylph heritage for the wind-walking skycastle living giants.

* Stone Giants: Oread heritage, easy dub.

* Hill Giants: Probably just vanilla Jotunborn since these guys whole thing is being extraordinarily ordinary among giants.

* Cyclopses: Thankfully there's no mechanical changes needed here, just say you've got 1 eye. The Mythspeakers Player's Guide even recommends this!

* Ogres: For the creepiest mutated giants of them all... err... Adopted Ancestry Fleshwarp, I guess? It's the only way I can think to portray their twisted inbred bodies.

* Trolls: Fun Fact, Trolls all have the Wood trait! Ergo, the Ardande heritage is surprisingly fitting, as they have several feats that relate to resiliency and vitality that can reflect a troll descendant's innate regeneration.

Following the release of *War of Immortals,* the Mythic system was widely derided by players, while the two APs that used it (Mythspeakers and Revenge of the Runelords) were met with a resounding "Eh, it's fine."

I honestly expected Paizo to simply sweep it under the rug and move on. After all, we took down a Demon Lord in Spore War without need for mythic shenanigans, so it hardly seems necessary at this point.

But, as it turns out, Hellfire Dispatches all but confirms that Paizo aren't done trying to make the Mythic system work yet. The reborn minotaur warlord, Voradni Voon, is explicitly called out as being a high-level mythic threat currently menacing Absalom, rallying an army of mythic warspawn, along with mundane harpies and centaurs, to his side to eventually besiege the city.

Meanwhile, the horselords are rabble-rousing in Nidal, using the chaos of the Inner Sea War as a chance to finally free the land from Zon Kuthon's clutches. A Nidal AP has been a LONG time coming, and I was really excited about an AP set here... and then I read this:

"Although social intrigue,
intelligence work, and open warfare can help free the people of Nidal, breaking the chains that bind the land itself will be a mythic tale. The Mythic Monster Templates (War of Immortals 168-169) and complex hazards can help show the direct influence of the Netherworld and Zon-Kuthon."

Well... I guess that's that. It "WILL be a mythic tale." It's pretty rare for Paizo to just put a stamp on something that all but says "This is what the AP will 100% be."

What are your thoughts? Do you have any hopes or fears for a future spooktastic adventure in Nidal?

Outside of combat, where it has potential with Feint and some archetype abilities, I haven't seen someone use deception all that often. Especially in comparison to its siblings, Diplomacy and Intimidation. This is probably because lying tends to create more problems than it solves in the long-term.

My brother even suggested that Deception is wholly unnecessary and that it should just be rolled into Diplomacy. I personally wouldn't go that far, but I am curious what your thoughts on this skill are. I personally am just having trouble seeing where the real value of this skill really is, because the risks of lying and being caught always seem way risky than just rolling Diplomacy and failing.