It's been a while, but I got really upset about something the other day, and as I processed my feelings, I realized... I haven't actually been depressed in a while. Stressed? Yes. Upset or sad? Yes. But not depressed.
I blame my friends and family. And the support of my coven. (If you are in my GW2 guild, I refer to you as my coven when talking to others, because what we do in there is magical)
Thaumaturge progress.
Minotaur Ancestry wasn't giving what I wanted. Swapped to Catfolk. Huge improvements in quality, theme and selection. Can maintain whip theme (catwoman, cat o nine tails, etc), and bell theme (cat bell).
Thaumaturge caster keeps feeling like a trap and I didn't like doing triple/quad stats to have like witch in there and Oracle was always... too negative? Maybe I need to learn more about oracles. And I hate bards on principle.
Was looking at rogue or poisoner. Any help?
https://churchofpangoria.blogspot.com/2025/03/trying-to-learn-pathfinder-2e.html
Tried to formalize my thoughts a bit more about my journey through learning PF2e.
Over the last few years, as I've been working on Anarchy Realms, I've tried learning several other TTRPGs. I don't want to be talking out my ass about things and then not have experienced different games. But all TTRPGs come with a difficulty to establish. As in, the group is already mid campaign in a D&D 5e game. There already are other groups doing that game (but they are mostly full and play on the same days as your game). There are barriers, and limitations to trying out a game.
So when I started learning Pathfinder 2e, I started with online videos. And my goodness are the PF2e creators passionate about their game! Look at this cool thing! This is an awesome thing! Rank this! Talk about that! Mix and match here!
D&D 5e content creators are always, "Hasbro has doomed the game! WotC is using AI for everything including the DM, which is you! You are now AI!" etc, etc, etc. So there's a lot of attraction TO pathfinder in that way. Not only that, there are certain slices of the game where they REALLY show how much love they put into the game. With design ideas and detailed expansion of concepts.
But as I learned more, and the more I looked into the math, the more .... worried I got. But hey, I haven't played the game yet, and some of these ideas, rock really hard when used in 5e. So I'm gonna borrow column A and B, leave C and just maybe come back later for the D. Anyways, that is to say, I took what felt good and I experimented. I experimented with a 10 over to critically hit system, but in 5e it ... over power and over guarantees certain things. I tried the Doom condition as a curse (that both high level fear applies and just existing near a powerful elite monster can create). I even converted backgrounds into a ersatz archetype system.
In the end, some things worked, and somethings didn't but it made me want to explore Pathfinder 2e even more. So, as I started to get ready to do character creation in Anarchy Realms, where some of the steps felt similar to how I had read the character creation for PF2e was, I decided to go to Pathbuilder, and build a character.
Now this was my first deep dive, and making a level 1 character is EASY, FUN, and consistently gave me results I was excited to explore. But then I made the mistake of trying to plan the character. I tried to level up. And that's where all my glittery eyed optimism for Pathfinder started to fall apart. When I started to actually dig and brush away the sand of this beautiful dinosaur bone, I realized that what I was coming across was coprolite.
So, first of all, the class that caught my eye was the Thaumaturge. In the end its not perfectly what I wanted, but it was super close to perfect (to be fair, there's no single class in d&d that is perfectly what I want, but between the broadness of d&d and multiclassing, I can usually get the character done).
So first things first. I build characters to be a pun, reference or joke. For example, making an Orc Pirate Sea Druid for a forest campaign. Too niche? How about designing a Wild Magic Sorcerer named Kows M Waldo (Chaos Emerald) who uses Chaos Control to create wild magic surges. The game is taken seriously. The actions are done to be included with the group. But the character is designed to be a joke. If I go for funny, I'll end up with serious.
So I read through some things, and I saw that the Thaumaturge had the ability to fly on their implement, and use a whip and bell and I could choose to play a Minotaur (love Minotaurs). So here I am designing flying bullshit and I get feats (skill feats, general feats, class feats etc) all the time! So many decisions! But, with few exceptions, the decisions don't feel good. Not only that, but without reading the books and referencing things, its hard to see that a decision I'm planning at level 1 or 2 or 6 suddenly locks me out of something. How I have to pick what will be a legendary skill for me, even if my design wants both. But that's fine, cause I believe that a game is a series of interesting decisions, and so planning this level up, is itself a game, and part of the game.
While in D&D5e, once I level up a class, all the necessary features get added, and my decision is in feats and multiclassing. So I have to decide if getting my ability score up is worth not getting some feats, and in many cases, with the all feats now having an ability score improvement with them, the decision is often easier to pick the feats. As for multiclassing, because of how the game gives you all your class features at level up, you can easily split focus and even plan around good cut off points.
Pathfinder player choices are instead leaning more towards gritty realism, incremental improvements, and quirky funny choices, that aren't quirky or funny. Every increment and edge helps because the game is designed to keep you at a 50% hit rate (if you don't upgrade your stuff, upgrading and magic items are vital to pf2e). Magic items in d&d5e are all, boosts and fun. You don't NEED them for a build to work, or to have fun.
I kept not having fun after the first level of making characters in Pathfinder 2e. But this experiment is still ongoing. I just wanted to get some of my thoughts out there.
https://sites.google.com/view/anarchy-realms-rpg/start-playing/chapter-1/1-b-attributes
Here it is! Update on skills from 24 to 72! The main focus is that as you level up, if your base style is Martial, you CAN get caster abilities (you're even GIVEN access to caster point skills to spend on it), but its just less than your martial or even general skill points totals.
Next step on this topic, is creating the actual skill steps (untrained, known, trained, expert, master, and legendary). So it covers what you can try depending on the skill level you are at.
That moment when the 24 skills you made for your TTRPG becomes 72, and also you remixed and rewrote some of the original 24, and now you're staring the the barrel of creating at least 5 skill feats for each skill, and mathematically you know that's 360 skill feats, but in your HEART you know that some of those skill feats will have options and some skills are not part of the skill trees and they also need some feats and now you're a millipede. (cause of all the feet....)
https://www.anarchyrealms.com/start-playing/chapter-2/2-f-the-styles
Character play styles ... or better yet, combat styles are key to how you play the game. Your choice of playing a Martial, Caster or Generalist can affect your play pattern.
But don't let the names fool you, because in Anarchy Realms, a Warlock is an Arcane Martial, and an Occultist or Witch is an Occult Caster! Both represent that aspect of the D&D warlock.
https://youtu.be/UuQO_bvhbxQ?si=49F0NiZb-FbKCkxG
I'm a crazy frawg!
Thanks to @OwlValkyrieQuinn for helping with Anarchy Realms!
https://www.anarchyrealms.com/start-playing/chapter-2/2-e-the-roles
The roles! This is an exciting view point, and almost expansion like mindset of the 4 roles that 4e introduced to people, but this is how abilities, features and equipment are categorized! This is a high level introduction to the concept, and I'll begin expanding on the idea, as we move to what it means to build a character in Anarchy Realms!
So, I work with IHSS as a way to make money while I do the work of supporting my mom while she is unable to do things. This isn't a lot of money (they only pay me for 15 hours of work a week), and obviously I do more but this just helps fill the gap.
After all the recent political news my most recent paycheck I was waiting for says $0. This was my primary income. I usially try to raise money through asking people to support the work I provide. So please support:
https://ko-fi.com/pangoria/goal
Running the adventure denoument episode for my players. The, you succeeded, lets see what this changes.
One player was dying, but they all managed to prop them up to survive long enough for a divine intervention.
Now they are back home, getting a celebration day (Day of the Black Rose Association, or Day of the B.R.A. for short), and they get to finally use their bastion!
So we are getting a fun filled logistics 2nd half!
In TTRPG News, I pushed a bit of an update for Anarchy Realms: https://www.anarchyrealms.com/
I'm trying to find a balance between 5e and PF2e. There's a simplicity to 5e (broad category decisions, some specific general decisions) and PF2e (tight category decisions all the way through).
For those who don't know, 5e classes and subclasses essentially choose your feats for you, while in PF2e, you can choose every feat, and mix and match class and subclass feats. (not exactly, but idea wise, yes).