#suck it wotc

[pathfuckery]

Pathfinder 2e New Player Resource Masterpost

Hey there! Looking to get into PF2e? You’re making a great decision, but you may not know where to start! I’ve put together a handy list of resources you can consult while getting into the game. As always, if you ever have questions about PF2e, please don’t hesitate to reach out! I love this system, and I love helping new players!

Official Resources

The Archives of Nethys are the official host for the PFSRD. You can find ALL of the rules of the game for free there. Literally everything that is not Golarian specific is on the Archives, and all of it is laid out incredibly well. It may not look quite as flashy as beyond, but its search functions and layout are superior. 

If you buy one product from Paizo as you get started, I HAVE to recommend to BEGINNER BOX. This thing is fantastic. It simplifies the rules, gives you GORGEOUS character sheets that highlight all of your abilities, and have a fun little adventure that dovetails nicely into either their Troubles in Otari or Abomination Vaults modules. (As someone who has run both of those now, they’re both fantastic as well and I highly recommend them.) 

Beyond the Beginner Box, I would also suggest picking up a Core Rulebook. It is true that all of the rules information is already laid out in the Archives, but having a CRB on handd is nice for the art, plus the book is laid out incredibly well. If you can’t afford a CRB at this time, though, you’ll still be good! You might also watch for Humble Bundles, as they often have great Pathfinder packs on there, and sometimes it includes Physical CRBs, in addition to a load of other great PDFs. 

When looking to GM, I recommend the following pages in the CRB first. I’ve also linked the corresponding Archive pages: 

Introduction, Pages 7-31. This will give you the rundown on key terms, how characters are created, the base flow of the game, and the action system (the best part of pf2e!)

Playing the Game, Pages 443-481. This is the longest section of the rulebook to read, but there’s a lot of great stuff in here. This will give you the rules for checks, combat, conditions, resolving actions, and the differences between encounter, exploration, and downtime mode. The most important is encounter and exploration mode, so you can feel free to only skim the downtime mode section of this part. 

The Gamemastering section has a lot of great stuff, but for a GM, your two most important sections will be the following:

Encounter Building, pages 488 and 489. The rules for building encounters work in this system, and they work WELL. Obviously, environment, terrain, and how a specific groups strengths and weaknesses compare to a monster affect things, but if you budget a moderate encounter, it can be expected to be moderate. Just be sure you recognize that Moderate encounters are still meant to be challenging in this system, and Severe encounters are potentially deadly. Extreme encounters should be used incredibly sparingly. Maybe 1 or 2 times per campaign.

DC Charts and Adjusting DCs. Pages 503 and 504.  If you ever need a quick DC, these charts are your friend. You don’t need to memorize them, but you’ll want to have them in an easy-to-reference spot.

Youtubers

There are a lot of great youtubers for PF2e. I’ll only be highlighting a few of my favorites here!

How It’s Played  is probably the best resource for a new player, and helped me a ton with all of the rules when I started GMing. They do close looks at different subsystems, and clearly break down how the rules apply. You don’t need to watch all of their content before you jump in and play, but if you watch a few of their main series on PF2e between each session, you’ll be a rules master in no time! 

I also really enjoy The Rules Lawyer. He always has well-reasoned takes on things going on in the hobby, and and has an enjoyable calm/measured tone. I highly recommend his “Combat Tactics” videos, as he highlights some of the major differences with 5e and what things are now expected to survive. A lot of common 5e tactics are a way to a quick death in PF2e, but you do have the tools to survive!

The final Youtuber I’ll be highlighting is Nonat1s. He’s puts out quite a variety of videos, including skits and other fun things, but is also a wonderful ambassador for the game and gives great character advice as well. I want to highlight his “Welcome to Pathfinder Second Edition” video, which is just perfect!

Other Resources

I can’t create a list of resources without calling out Pathbuilder! It is hands down the best character builder, and its available on desktop and mobile. It’s mostly free, with a small donation being required to unlock premium features. At this time, there is no crossover between the web app and desktop besides being able to save and access characters from google drive.

The Pathfinder 2e Subreddit  is a wonderful community of people, and it’s a great place for discussion. There’s weekly question megathreads, discussions about releases, people highlighting great builds and fun things in the system, and it’s probably the quickest place to keep track of announcements. There’s also a lot of love for 3pp there!

Speaking of 3pps, I LOVE the Battlezoo line! One of my players is OBSESSED with dragons, and they have a whole book that was tailor-made for him, and it’s incredibly balanced and fun. They’ve also got a whole bunch of other cool stuff that’s been kickstarted and will be releasing soon. 

What VTT should you use if you’re playing online? My hat is thrown into the ring for Foundry VTT. It’s my VTT of choice. It’s wildly powerful with the Pathfinder 2e system, and a wonderful community of devs have gotten the system almost entirely automated so you can focus on RP! It’s a breeze as a GM as well, and the only difficulty is in self-hosting, but even that isn’t too bad. Their site has a great set of guides, starting HERE with the ways you can host. If you choose to self-host, you only need to make a 1-time payment of 50 dollars for the software, and only one person needs to actually do the hosting. Split between a group? That’s incredibly affordable, especially considering there is no subscription!

I’m gonna shout MYSELF out here. I put together a List of Actions you can take in combat that isn’t just moving or attacking. Coming from 5e, it can be easy to get stuck in the loop of move and attack, but there are so many more options, and those options are very crucial. This isn’t comprehensive, but covers the basics characters can have access to with only minor skill investment.

[the-akunim-ra]

I'm missing 3.5 even the most broken shit seems reasonable again

[raviolirash]

[darlingshane]

Jon Bernthal as Wayne Jenkins WE OWN THIS CITY (2022) Episode 4

[traitorsinsalem]

this is a funny as fuck dialogue option for when you're playing a dead-birth-parents-rogue who just so happens to be mixed. get gathened idiot.

[spawnofbhaal]

I just want to say that anyone who plays BG3 without playing BG1 and BG2, please don't judge Viconia and Sarevok from their portrayal in BG3. I love BG3 but its treatment of these characters is, to put it bluntly, terrible and depressing.

Imagine if there was a BG4 and suddenly Shadowheart is the new evil Sharran mother superior who tortures children and Astarion is ascended vampire lord and his dialogue isn't funny anymore, just cliche. They are both short boss fights. Because who actually cares about player choice or the actual characters when there's "canon" to be made, right? That's how bad it feels.

[piichivii]

âm dương sư // a wizard for an eastern fantasy

[berrymeter]

i must admit i am victim to the hype. i wish i could afford something to play bg3 on. stares off into the distance

[bloodied-serpent]

"Tieflings live a few years more than humans" How about you get fucked. To me they're immortal

[thisgodwontforgiveyou]

by far the stupidest thing in dnd lore* is that myrkul and shar are friends

[katagawajr]

apex, wizards of the coast, AND wacom all on twitter in the same day posting AI generated images instead of hiring artists for their promo…. man.

[definitelynotarabbit]

So my brain traveled back to Urabrask recently, and I reread The Side of Freedom from the New Capena story ngl I'm pissed about the phyrexian story arc all over again.

There's a line about Vivien picking her bow and quiver up while talking to Urabrask and the first few times I read the story I didn't pay it any mind but dEAR GOD I was wrong to ignore it.

Okay, so Vivien does not have a plane to go back to right? The only thing she has from her home is the arkbow, RIGHT? So would anybody like to explain to me how much trust it would take for her to leave that thing with someone?! Let alone URABRASK?!?!? Wtf did this mf do to earn that?!

Also that absolute trip of a realization aside, did Vivien just never take Elspeth to talk with him? There's a huge chunk of story missing there and I get the feeling like it may have been cut so they could forget about Urabrask being a genuine ally. I just, errrrg they had such a good story in their lap but screw that I guess.

[aboleth-eye]

Hadozee in 5e Spelljammer: Or, How the Hell Does the Biggest TTRPG Company in the World Make Something So  Racist in 2022?!  

I wholeheartedly applaud the person who first posted about this egregious material,  @KendoMakesFilms on Twitter, for sharing screenshots of the new 5e book’s lore for the Hadozee and alerting the community on how incredibly racist it is.  But before I did my due research, my emotions were in absolute furious frenzy and I started a whole twitter thread pointing out stuff the old lore and getting even more horrified that somehow this is the most racist lore in all the poor hadozee’s history.  And now I’m sharing it with you all, because this is absolutely not being talked out on the major d&d content creators and sites...

My day kinda got ruined after finding out the new lore for 5e Hadozee is incredibly racist.  Ruined not because of anything that personally affects me (as a non-poc eldritch horror being on social media), but because one of the biggest tabletop roleplaying companies in the world just allowed something so racist to be put out on the consumer market...  A market full of people (including a huge proportion of color) who are going to buy this book and either ignore the horrible racist “worldbuilding”, make excuses for a major corporation with bootlicking, or be hit in the face by “you paid for us to inflict racist horror on you”.

How does Wizards of the Coast, in 2022!, let this happen?!  How does the world’s dominant tabletop roleplaying game’s production empire allow this horrible, insulting and degrading content to reach digital and print copy?! 

Here’s the basics:

The hadozee are a race of simian-looking humanoids who have flaps of skin like flying squirrels.  They have been in D&D since Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (2nd Edition), detailed in the Compendium Spelljammer Appendix I book.  That was back in 1990, when monster and non-humanoid creatures were just monsters, before monster/non-humanoid races were a thing.  And even then they had a bad connotation (not to mention were apparently a ripoff of a Star Wars expanded universe race).  They were called “deck apes”; because they were great at working on ship/spelljammer crew sails.  The elves of the setting “discovered” that the hadozee were intelligent and “granted” them respect and positions on their ships--all to face the orcs, who back then were the dominant nemesis race against the “oh so tolkienesquely perfect elves” in the lore.

Yeah, even back then they were quite already dipped in racist stereotype; only given respect when a more “perfect” race deemed them worthy to work “for/with” them.  They were also much more monstrous, and more an amalgamation of simian traits rather than how they are depicted today.

Spelljammer is very much a product of science fiction/western tropes, and around that time it was steeped in Star Wars IV through VI, as well as its “gritty space adventure” clones.  So a lot of stereotypes were just used to make monsters.  Literally on the opposite page of the hadozee in this book are gorilla men, and holy heck it’s bad.  I’m just glad we left that archetype to the dust, it is not worth knowing at all...

Moving on, Dungeons & Dragons had evolved to 3rd edition by 2000, now owned by early Wizards of the Coast.  Then three years later there was a great big “patch” called 3.5 edition, and that became the definitive edition for many, many years.  Monsters were more complex and customizable; and each supplemental book added new races to try out against new challenges and even settings.  One such book was Stormwrack, a book about high seas adventure and pretty much nothing else!  And that was the reintroduction of the Hadozee as a playable race for the first time!

In Stormwrack the hadozee (or “winged deck apes”) became developed enough to seek out adventure for themselves, aboard ships and among crews they chose.  The lore really leaned into the curious monkey aspect and shed off the most obvious of racist tropes, but they do retain the adoration/fawning over elves--which is quite icky still.  The elves were more wild folk and chaotic rather than a paragon race, though still very much tolkien levels of pale.  But there’s no specific lore about their history that makes them only seen as good because the elves “chose them”, and the hadozee appear to have connections with other races and their crews. 

And that’s the last we’ve seen of the hadozee until now.  Stormwrack wasn’t a necessary book by any means, but the hadozee were worked more into just literally being fantasy orangutan people.  

Also of note, Spelljammer never had an official 3.5 setting release.  Certain elements were utilized, and books like Stormwrack started the trend of giving big vessels statblocks with the updated d20 system.

Now this is where things come to a head, and why this discussion is happening now.  It’s 2022 and 5th edition D&D has been out officially since 2014.  (We don’t talk about 4th edition, no no no...)  And in 2021 an Unearthed Arcana article was released called Travelers of the Multiverse., written by Chris Perkins and Jeremy Crawford at Wizards of the Coast.  That article had all the playtested races for an obvious Spelljammer setting that was in development; and the Hadozee were in it among other spelljammer races like astral elves and thri-keen.  5th edition players could now play these races in their own settings, as the article had no lore or artwork for what was to be in Spelljammer 2022.  But 5e had been such a success across the board that no one expected what was to come out.  And Spelljammer was a setting that inspired so many d&d players, entire forums and sites were made to try and update the setting from AD&D to 3.0/3.5 editions...

But we finally get three books for 5th edition Spelljammer.  On August 16th 2022, the Astral Adventurer’s Guide was included in the book drop, which would include all the wonderful lore and options for d&d players to make setting-inspired characters...

And holy heck did the most racist lore for the hadozee drop ever!  After doing all this research into the hadozee’s history in d&d, I am honestly shocked that in 2022 that is the case... 

According to the Astral Adventurer’s Guide, and I paraphrase here: the first hadozee were originally tiny treetop creatures the size of housecats, flitting from branch to branch.  That is, until several hundred years ago when a wizard named Yazir showed up with a bunch of apprentices on some spelljammer ships; and they captured the animalistic hadozee and perform experiments on them.  The hadozee are given a “magic elixir” that makes them grow, become bipedal and intelligent.  As well as “intensifying [their] panic response, making them more resilient when harmed”.  All to make a slave army the wizard could “sell to the highest bidder”.  

But luckily the white savior apprentices under Yazir “liberated” the hadozee and they all killed the big bad racist wizard.  They all then took the experimental elixir, went back to the hadozee homeworld and used it to happily make more.  Eventually the "enhanced” hadozee had children, and those newborns had their mutated parents’ traits--so they took to the stars.

How does someone not get whacked in the head for glamorizing the horrors and longlasting trauma of freaking slavery and all the inhumane atrocities committed by slavers?!   Oh but wait, they’re so “enhanced” that rather than live with the horror of being twisted beyond your entire species they decide to be happy little deckhands and “give”/force the mutative unknown substance to more of their animalistic kind...  

We’re not done yet...  Apparently the current “enhanced” hadozee are curious to a fault, “unquenchable optimists” and expressive with “loud whooping, fang-bearing, and snarling”.  They are specifically stated as not philosophers; simply wanting to “do good and happy work”.  And apparently taking “great joy in the simplest of shipboard tasks and chores”.  Lastly, the writers brought back the “great love of the elves”.  Probably because astral elves are effectively the most “elf” they’ve ever been, way past original tolkienesque to the point of freaking Silmarillion immortal perfection.  But the elves are written to “not mutually respect them”.  Because of course they don’t have to see another sentient race as even close to equal and deserving of rights.

I bet they thought they were so smart to make “Abu from Aladdin” and “Jack the Monkey from Pirates of the Caribbean” as a playable race in the zip-zappy magic space setting... 

One last thing of note, and this is up on D&DBeyond if you want to check; but the portrait artwork for 5e hadozee--what everyone will picture when making hadozee for 5th edition from now on--is a smiling simian-person dressed as a bardic “minstrel”.  Yeah...  We got minstrel shows in 5e now... 

“Thanks for buying our overpriced 49.99 digital book bundle, spelljammer fam”, says the coastal Wizards lying on their 5th edition money, “There’s a super special surprise on page whatever just for black people!  Vindictive hatred and glamourizing the slavery of this cute little monkeyman, see how they sweep and hoot and grin cheerily because they’re just so gosh darn lucky their ancestors were captured and forcibly experimented on to be war chattel/smiley labor for money.”

Somehow 5th edition’s writing team, especially Perkins and Crawford, decided to rewrite slavery for the ideal “happy little ship monkey” as a playable race.  They took everything cheesegrated off of 3.5′s Stormwrack hadozee and just molded it together into the perfect little ship monkey.  And they sprinkled on some “spicy” tropes to make it theirs and give it some “juicy” trauma... Stupidly (and most definitely with racial blindness to the point of willed ignorance) they remade slavery and the “happy slave’ stereotype in OUR scifi d&d setting.    

Admittedly, I have not thought about the hadozee for a long long while since I first glanced through Stormwrack when I was starting out playing d&d 3.5.  They’re not as prevalent in d&d content, and there are so many races that it’s very hard to dissect them all.  Hadozee have been around for a long while but they are a very fringe race that rarely given a chance outside of high seas or spelljamming campaigns.  And I haven’t played really in any of those campaigns, especially the latter because Spelljammer didn’t get an official update for 3.5 edition. 

Also, I am not a black person.  I am not a person of color, and my white privilege has definitely shielded me from recognizing the tribulations and obstacles that target those of different culture and skin tone.  I am no expert on race; I’m just a near-thirty year old person who loves roleplaying fantasy.  I am still learning how to expand my empathy and use my privilege and platform to help others targeted by racism and other forms of hate.  When I saw the post from Kendo on Twitter I was beside myself with rage; tweeting honestly very messily trying to wrangle my feelings into a singular point.  I felt horrified that the game, in its most accessible form that generates billions of campaign stories between friends, now would actively spear a huge chunk of the diverse population of players in the heart.  It would actively disregard their history and the history of the United States of America, showing that “if this happy little flying monkey can go through all that and be fine then racism is over and you should get over your inherited trauma”.  

And now, after doing research, I can wholeheartedly say that Wizards needs to burn these books before they go out on the shelf.  The Astral Adventurer’s Guide, part of the Spelljammer bundle for 5e, is on sale for digital right now.  Most content creators and ttrpg influences are shilling for this without warning people.  Without having any qualms about the new shade of scifi/fantasy slavery, now available to digital download to perpetuate horrific stereotypes in freaking 2022!  

You know, you could just NOT decide to include slavery in 5e lore.  That just does NOT have to be a thing.  You could have just made them from a world of simian people that decided to build magical spaceships and soar across the galaxy wherever they choose.  You did not have to include evil racist wizard that’s already dead and then continue his atrocities to “enhance” the creatures experimented on to be mindless, resilient slaves.  You can write absolutely anything for Spelljammer: it’s high fantasy magic in freaking space?!  And yet we got this...

Were the hadozee always racist?  Absolutely.  Are they racist now just because “we’ve evolved as a society”?  No, they were racist even for the far-off year of 1990!  Are they ever not going to be racist?  ... Probably not.  Like how goblins and dwarves are never not going to have antisemitic roots.  Like how drow/dark elves are never not going to be “different” for having different color skin.  “Ape” is still such a derogatory word against black people, and with this new iteration of the “ape men” for the modern age now gaming tables around the world are gonna have a new archetype to introduce to their games without knowing better.  

There are racists and other horrible people who should know better who play d&d and other games--being on twitter these last few weeks has really shown me that--and you can’t stop a bad person who willingly defies where we are as a society and where we hope to be.  But there are kids who are just taking off their privilege blinders off that are getting into this game.  Every day more and more interest in 5e builds, and those who have no way of knowing better will look at this depiction and might not recognize its horrors, or might not listen to their black friends about it being racist.  

In closing, to the writers of the 5th edition Spelljammer race of Hadozee, Chris Perkins and Jeremy Crawford: you should absolutely be ashamed of yourselves.  You created something that overshot racist stereotypes from three and a half editions ago by miles.  You have failed, your proofreaders failed, your editors failed, your team of ghost-writers failed you (if they exist at all), your playtesters and friends failed you, and the company you work for failed to smack you upside the head.  We are not “reading too much” into this; you willingly were ignorant, stupid and/or racist in creating this horrendous affront to black people and people of color.  I and many others have read exactly what you wrote.  And you are not only bad writers, but bad people who should have known better.  

And to Wizards of the Coast.  You deserve a lot of callouts for a lot of different reasons.  But you are subjecting millions of your consumers, the community/fandom that keeps you printing money, to one of the worst modern forms of racist worldbuilding I have ever seen.  Your company failed to oversee this abhorrent content being churned out from your content creation cycle; and now your company has profited off of a product that contains horrendous racism.  Do damage control all you want; you just declared that you do not care about those directly harmed by this racist content with your stamp of approval on...  Shut it down now before people literally get their hands on it.  

      With deep frustration and exhaustion, and with love for everyone except WotC and the spelljammer writers; this is Aboleth-Eye, sending you hugs and love!

- Aboleth-Eye 8/30/22

[pinacoladamatata]

I just think that if my Tav ever introduced Astarion to their family, Quenthel would call him "a very sweet boy"

[eponymous-v]

if anyone sees this, please share the most incomprehensible memes your dnd group has come up with

i'll start

[heronbrew]

How is wizards of the coast charging less than $300 for the Minneapolis festival in a box, which has three entire boxes of cards in it, but $500 for a single box of commander masters? Commander is supposed to be for everyone...