It truly be Christmas in April!

User u/Urumii has released their 2e conversion guide for We Be Goblins Free! This is just a conversion document, not a rewrite (due to copyright), but it should help anyone wanting to try out the third (fird?) installment of the We Be Goblins series.

They also have guides for the first two adventures in the series, linked below.

We Be Goblins Free

Direct Link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jC6McjxxGxAmR1HCJN-pc2Jktlzp1T8LA25trhneGyM/edit#gid=0

Original Post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1cgp0mp/we_be_goblins_free_conversion_from_1e_to_2e/

We Be Goblins, Too!

Direct Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/13ologj/we_be_goblins_too_conversion_from_1e_to_2e/

We Be Goblins!

Direct Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KJhO38q8F1gNxHjo2R7TrmEFjzWw3CeN/view

@ForesterDesigns@kind.social has a series of Pokemon inspired DnD magical items that they've been porting to Pathfinder 2e, and they're on the Fediverse! You can follow them from Mastodon, Akkoma, Pelroma, Friendica, Hubzilla, kbin, GotoSocial, Misskey/Foundkey/IceShrimp, other Misskey forks, etc. etc. Most Fediverse platforms that allows you to follow users, and not just groups.

Paizo has released two new martial classes for testing!

Commander

The commander is an Intelligence-based tactician with unparalleled authority over the battlefield! But they’re no slouch in the fight themself, being trained in martial weapons and all armors, so if you want to lead your fellow adventurers to victory, be sure to playtest the commander!

The Commander is a support martial class that buffs the party using Tactics to grant 2+INT party members extra reactions. They also buff nearby allies with a fear-opposing aura.

Guardian

The guardian is a Strength-based protector who excels in the use of armor, both for their own benefit and the aid of others. If you are the type of player who enjoys keeping others safe from harm, be sure to playtest the guardian!

The Guardian is a pure martial Tank, with some features that seem to be similar to Champions without the magical element. A defensive expert, focused on redirecting damage away from allies and towards themself, they have abilities that buff ally AC, and nerf enemy attack bonuses against allies while buffing those bonuses against themself, incentivizing enemies to attack them first.

Michael Sayre shared a Commander ability to turn up the hype on today's play test. As a utility guy, this looks pretty awesome.

What's everyone else think?

Golarion is a high magic setting, and that's reflected in PF2s rules for magic items. Unlike in 5e, where magic items are often wondrous and a little bit game breaking, they're expected to fit within the players' power curves.

But there's such an incredible depth of magic items made for 5e (and older editions, of course), that porting them to PF2 is always a temptation.

So, how do you go about doing it? How do you make sure they're balanced? How do you translate their effects? What requires investment? What's better off as a Relic? How do you handle Trick Magic Item? And how do you measure the impact at the table?

I have very mixed feelings on secret checks. One the one hand, they make a lot of sense, they seem like they really help roleplay and being in character, and they generate suspense and uncertainty.

On the other hand, I like rolling my pretty math rocks. I'm a minor dice goblin, and my expensive RNGs demand to be rolled!

Which is fine, I'm the GM at my table, but if I were on the other side of the screen, I think it'd drive me a little crazy.

I also know that they're a controversial topic more generally, and some players have really, really strong negative reactions to them.

So, how do you feel? Does your table use them? If not, why not? If so, how do they feel? Do you have anyone at the table with very strong feelings about them? If so, how have they articulated those feelings?

I recently came across Mortals and Portals and was instantly hooked. I just caught up to where they are (save for today's new episode), and it's left me with a bit of gap.

So, what else is good? I'm currently also caught up with Rotgrind and Rotgoon, which have been really good, and are better demonstrations of PF2 game systems.

So, what's good? What's everybody ~~stealing ideas from~~ listening to?

So, over on the subreddit there's a post that caught me off guard. I'm not experienced enough with the game to know the ins-and-outs of all of classes, so when someone posted asking about Ruffian Rogues and Picks.

From the comments, this appears to be a Thing of Great Contention within the Pathfinder space (or, at least within that Pathfinder space; I find r/Pathfinder2e to be a rather... idiosyncratic place, personally).

The long and short of it is that Picks have the Fatal d10 trait, but Ruffian specifies:

You can deal sneak attack damage with any weapon, not just the weapons listed in the sneak attack class feature. This benefit doesn't apply to a simple weapon with a damage die greater than d8 or a martial or advanced weapon with a damage die greater than d6. (Apply any abilities that alter the damage die size first.)

(Emphasis mine.)

A lot of words have been published over how the Ruffian doesn't lose Sneak Attack on a critical hit, but this seems pretty straight forward from the text here that it does. Weird and stupid, and something I'd never personally enforce, but clear and straight forward nonetheless.

This is the updated wording from Player Core 1, no less, and Ruffian's text was updated in the remaster, so there was an opportunity to reword or clarify that was not taken, so I'm not sure what others are reading from this that I'm not.

How do you interpret this situation? How would you judge it at your table?

The publishers of Nightfell, a horror/grimdark setting for 5e, made a post on Reddit announcing their kickstarter for a PF2e port.

The setting looks interesting, and it's well reviewed on DTRPG. It's also received ongoing support since release. So, I'm a little excited about established 5e 3PPs dipping their toes in the PF2 waters, rather than just slapping a new name on the 5e mechanics and launching "their own" system.

It kind of feels like the game is approaching a critical population limit, where 3rd party support will be more common, and projects supporting both systems will become much more normal.

Kickstarter link https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/grimmoonstudio/nightfell-a-grimdark-fantasy-setting-for-pathfinder?result=project&term=nightfell

Crazy how the only one of these airing criticism that says the budget isn't doing enough is the publicly owned one.

Hey everyone, just an update to my last post from Sunday night.

The eclipse went off without a hitch -- thankfully, I am not personally capable of interfering with celestial events -- and I have to say, nothing could have ever possibly prepared me for the experience. No photo has ever actually captured what I saw Monday afternoon. I don't think any of them have come close.

Picture of my own attached for total lack of effect.

As I looked down at my camera screen and watched the last light of the crescent Sun disappear from my view, I felt totality occur. The umbra of the Moon swept over me while I looked down, and the world got noticeably chilly. The wind died down. The world was silent for a hiccup. I immediately and excitedly looked up, and I think my brain broke.

Hovering in the sky over Potato World was an black, alien orb, surrounded by a thin ring of brilliant white and pink shimmering fire. It was something straight out of a science fiction movie, and not necessarily a good one, either. It looked so incredibly fake.

It looked downright cartoony.

And it hit me like a ton of bricks. I wept as I stared at it, completely unable to maintain composure. I gawked at how bright the solar corona actually was -- I had completely expected to have to strain to see it. I marveled as I realized I was seeing, with my own two, naked eyes, solar prominences arching over the limb of the Moon. And I just sobbed through the whole experience.

My fiancee, whose interest in this had seemed to be primarily a mix between modest curiosity in a significant natural and cultural event and support for my interest, also cried at seeing it, while her son sat on the ground with his mouth hanging open.

It was both the longest and the shortest 3 minutes of my life. When it was over, I just stood in the field in a daze, periodically pressing my camera's shutter button. In just a few minutes following the end of totality, the field, in which hundreds of people had gathered, was nearly empty. Only a handful of us remained, and most of the others had heavier equipment than my DSLR and tripod.

At the end of the day, I didn't quite get the pictures I wanted. I had hoped to get bracketed exposures during totality, and I had assumed that my camera's settings for that when using the LCD display as digital viewfinder would be the same as when using the optical viewfinder, and they weren't. But I'm not too fussed about it. The pictures still turned out significantly better than I could have hoped for.

I'll be posting the rest of my photos -- including some pictures of Potato World itself -- to my PixelFed account, which can be found here, if anyone's interested: https://pixey.org/i/web/profile/384533916920271164

I'm sitting in a dark hotel room on the eve of my first - and possibly only - total solar eclipse, with my partner and step-son, and I am positively awash with emotions.

I have been waiting for this day for 30 years, since my first partial eclipse in May of 1994. That was an underwhelming experience for many reasons, but not the least of them was that I had nothing and no one to view the eclipse with.

Three decades, two astronomy degrees, 5 years operating a planetarium, and 5 years as a guide at the local observatory later, and I'm fully prepared. Today, I have more viewing glasses than i have fingers, two cameras with filters, I have my family, and I am smack dab in the middle of the path of totality.

And the forecast calls for clear skies.

I can't believe it. I can't believe that this is actually happening for me. That everything looks like it's going to work out.

The only disappointment is that I discovered that Potato World exists - it's the New Brunswick potato museum (and it's next door to my hotel) - but it's closed!