Off-guard will take some getting used to, but it kinda makes more sense - being flat-footed to a particular creature was always a bit of a weird concept.
Vitality and void, huh? I approve of the alliteration.
I’m not sure about vitality for positive though, “vitality damage” doesn’t sound to me like something that only affects undead
Oooh, wish is a ritual now? Interesting…
Honestly, I think that makes more sense now that Paizo has proposed the adjustment.
Not sure I’m familiar. What’s the adjustment?
Mostly flavor, but some mechanical. You won’t be casting wish in combat any more.
From the Ritual entry on AON (emphasis mine to highlight the changes from Wish as a spell):
A ritual is an esoteric and complex spell that anyone can cast. It takes much longer to cast a ritual than a normal spell, but rituals can have more powerful effects.
When you take charge of a ritual, you are its primary caster, and others assisting you are secondary casters. You can be a primary caster for a ritual even if you can’t cast spells. You must know the ritual, and the ritual’s spell level can be no higher than half your level rounded up. You must also have the required proficiency rank in the skill used for the ritual’s primary check (see Checks below), and as the primary caster, you must attempt this skill check to determine the ritual’s effects. The primary skill check determines the tradition. Rituals do not require spell slots to cast. You can heighten a ritual up to half your level rounded up, decided when the ritual is initiated. A ritual always takes at least 1 hour to perform, and often longer. While a ritual is a downtime activity, it’s possible—albeit risky—to perform a ritual during exploration with enough uninterrupted time. A ritual’s casting time is usually listed in days. Each day of casting requires 8 hours of participation in the ritual from all casters, with breaks during multiday rituals to allow rest. One caster can continue a multiday ritual, usually with some light chanting or meditation, while the other casters rest. All rituals require material, somatic, and verbal components throughout their casting time.
Considering that Wish is supposed to be the end-all-be-all of spells, it makes sense that it would be a ritual rather than just a quick “wave my hands and say mumbo jumbo” cast as an afterthought. It now takes at least an hour, requires gathering other spell casters, multiple checks, and it fits the description of a ritual in that it can have more powerful effects than a normal spell.
Edit to add: I may have misunderstood your question. The adjustment I was referring too was the change from a spell to a ritual, not that rituals had been adjusted.
Ah thanks for the breakdown. Turns out I misunderstood your original comment, thinking there was already a rewritten wish ritual out there from paizo.
Most of this is good, but I think renaming the geniekin heritages is a bit much. The old names are older than D&D and common enough in culture that there’s no way there’s a copyright issue
As far as I can tell the only geniekin with a name change is ifrit. All other changes are to the actual genies. And at least in principle I think the changes are good: ifrit and efreeti are just different ways to transliterate the same Arabic word, as are (and this is much worse) djinn and genie. AFAIK there is nothing relating to earth in the word Shaytan or to water in the word Marid. I don’t know much about the new names, but at least the duplication was surely only there for continuity reasons (which are now a detriment rather than a boon).
It’s more an issue of if there is a risk of litigation, or potential avenues of it. Having less things potentially be targets helps differentiate a products identity more and have less ‘weight’ if it is used in court as evidence thereof.
Another benefit is this allows them to deviate from past/common tropes that people would expect from a “Shaitan” or any other renamed creatures based on knowledge from other systems or analogous creatures of myth in future writing - even if they still borrow from the latter in most creatures cases.
Anyone know what’s the meaning of the spell schools one?
The 8 spell schools are very D&D so they have to go in the Remaster. For specialist wizards, they’ll instead have actual schools that they studied at, with various themes like the “School of Battle Magic”, with a predefined list of spells they specialise in.
As far as I can tell the only geniekin with a name change is ifrit. All other changes are to the actual genies. And at least in principle I think the changes are good: ifrit and efreeti are just different ways to transliterate the same Arabic word, as are (and this is much worse) djinn and genie. AFAIK there is nothing relating to earth in the word Shaytan or to water in the word Marid. I don’t know much about the new names, but at least the duplication was surely only there for continuity reasons (which are now a detriment rather than a boon).
