ENHenry's page

Hasbro's really speedrunning the process of setting all the goodwill they earned with 5e on fire during this edition change. It's kind of impressive.

That’s the part that has me flummoxed. Who in their right mind would think this and some of their other recent moves were good ideas? My guess is lack of institutional knowledge has led to the new c-suite officers to think “ well, this is stupid, let’s remove it.”

When exactly did these individuals leave Microsoft, again? Recall that prior to about 2010, Microsoft was super-hostile to open source, before Satya Nadella and a lot of other people started seeing its benefits. I wonder if any of these people were part of the Steve Ballmer “open source is poison!” Crowd?

Not really any way to know, I’m just speculating.

Anything with alternate crafting rules is welcome by me. so far in our games, everyone has turned up their noses at even attempting to craft something, outside of alchemists and their daily infusions.

Lisa Stevens wrote:

Since quotes from Lisa Stevens seem important in this thread, Pathfinder 2nd edition is doing great and I am really happy with the way it is selling. And just for the record, Paizo isn't smaller, it is larger than it has ever been. And we are growing even more in the coming months.

I have been involved with quite a few edition change in my 35+ years in this industry. It always takes time for existing customers to take on the new edition. Always. It has nothing to do with how good a new edition is and everything to do with ongoing campaigns that need to be finished up.

And some people will never change, which is also cool. It is great when you are able to give people their perfect game on the first go around and also give them a lifetime of content to play with that game. Actually quite proud that we seem to have done that for quite a few people.

But make no mistake, Pathfinder 2 is doing really well and I expect will continue to grow over the next five years or so. So many new customers in the marketplace that it is the most fertile ground to launch a new edition on in the history of our industry.

Thanks, Lisa. Really glad to be here for another Paizo success. My metric is always staff numbers. I’m glad to see so many people able to carve out a career in the RPG world.

I look forward to PF2’s evolution and for whatever new thing is on the horizon.

These two thoughts always cinch it for me - if the head of the company is quite happy with sales, AND if there are no Doom and Gloom stories of mass staff layoffs or no stories of freelancers not getting paid, then all meaningful evidence to me points to “PF2 and Paizo are doing well and no one should be worrying” and I’m happy for them.

(I say this as someone who has pretty much stopped playing PF2 for the most part and plays 5e currently, but I’m always satisfied if Paizo and competition in general are doing well. Given If the Theory of Network Externalities is still working as intended, the huge glut of new millions of role players over the past five years that D&D has seen, even in the absence of ANY other factors such as new players only playing PF2 as their first game, etc. then Network Externalities would ensure that Paizo would be doing well anyway as a percentage of all those new role players wanted to branch out into something different from 5e to scratch new itches.)

It’s great to hear that you and your friends are getting back into gaming after such a long hiatus! Welcome back!

A caveat that i’m surprised no one has mentioned is that the Pathfinder 2e playtest rulebook has had many large changes during its playtest period last year, and the actual Pathfinder 2e rules to be released later this year will look significantly different, thanks to feedback, so do take that into account when evaluating it for future use. Pathfinder 1st Edition is a good point of comparison though for a lot of the points being made. Caster and martial balance in particular are likely to be quite a bit different when PF2 finally releases, and much closer in line, which is a welcome change to me.

From page 255 of the PHB: "Spells and other magical effects can't extend through the dome or be cast through it." Seems like you get hit by a spell that should never have been allowed to hit you...

True, but a Dispel Magic [u]could[/u] get through, I'm just guessing... Tiny Hut is a fantastic spell, but a party shouldn't get too complacent on one.

5e monks excel at the same things that basic PF monks do: high mobility, melee (while not necessarily as good as a barbarian, Paladin, or Fighter) and defense. It is true that there is not a good "Tetori" style monk subclass/archetype yet, but there are a few workarounds for the time being:

1) Using a STR-focused monk with the Grappler feat, or using a DEX-focused monk and pointing the DM to page 175 and realizing that this gives the DM tons of rules-leeway to allow the monk to substitute DEX for STR in their Athletics Checks. Voila! Instant grappler that can immobilize their enemies and beat them senseless at the same time. Mathematically, it still works out fine because beyond the proficiency bonus and the ability score there are very few other bonuses to add to the rolls, meaning that their scores will not be unbalanced one with another. (After all, the defender gets to use either Acrobatics or Athletics to defend, I've often thought the attacker should be able to do the same...)

2) If the DM does not allow it, then one could dump DEX (not entirely, see below), boost STR, and multiclass for one level in barbarian. This does give you rage (which admittedly you might not want), but does give you a different unarmored defense character feature, that uses CON in addition to DEX to determine AC. Remembering that in 5e, a starting AC of 15 to 17 is actually pretty good, and will get better as they improve their CON over time, something a grappler wants to do anyway, and get access to things like Bracers of Defense. Most 5e characters don't have ACs above low 20s, anyway, and the Monk has several things such as Patient Defense and Deflect Missiles to boost AC as needed.

3) The DM's Guild site run by Drive Thru RPG and licensed from WotC has a number of alternate subclasses for characters on it, including one of my favorite, the Pugilist (https://www.dmsguild.com/product/184921/); this 3rd party class has the "Squared Circle" subclass which is definitively a wrestler/grappler, and is pretty well balanced.

Just like PF, 5e is built and encouraged to incorporate 3rd party material - and as long as creators don't go stacking tons of bonuses on their subclasses or variants, then they work just fine. It can just be harder for some PF players to come with terms with using 3rd party material after being so hesitant to use it for PF games - I'm about to run a short campaign for my PF group now, and that's probably my biggest concern that they will feel as if they shouldn't be asking for tweaks or third party material for their characters, and feel somewhat constrained as a result -- which is ironic considering that's how I ran my 1e and 2e D&D games for years, because we didn't have tons of supplementary material to tweak PCs with.

I do know that the very first combat I ran for our group for the Chapter 7 Doomsday Dawn Adventure took an hour and a half to resolve. The second combat has so far taken 35 minutes, and is ongoing, and not likely to finish quickly during the second session. High level is always expected to be long, but it's still a bit of a slog, though no different from our PF1 combats (Hell's Rebels for us saw several two-hour long combats in the last book)...

Jason, you and your team have put in a tremendous effort to sift through all the positive and negative to be able to put it all into making a great end product. For that, we're the ones thankful. Hopefully the end result will be something that will be enjoyed for another ten years, and the best of luck to all of you to accomplish it. Happy holidays to you and everyone else at Paizo.

Our group is feeling Playtest fatigue, so we jumped Chapters 5 and 6, and went straight from 4 to 7. We've at least gotten through 5 of the 7 chapters, and have enough to give input low through high by now, so we feel pretty good about it. I've actually convinced them to jump to D&D5 for a lower-math palate cleanser before we decide what to do next before the 2nd edition actually lands next year.

To me, Pathfinder means in-depth character customization while still within the d20/D&D frame. It also means to me capping out most of my adventures within 10 levels because the wheels start coming off at higher speeds. Those are the two things I keep coming back to whenever I run Pathfinder.

DeathQuaker wrote:

Doktor Weasel wrote:

I agree that setting up false expectations is a bad thing and they need to be very careful not to do that. But at the same time, there should be feedback on the upcoming changes. This isn't about impatience, it's about making sure the end product is the best it can be. Stopping taking all feedback at the playtest and doing everything else behind closed doors and only telling us what's going on when it's a done deal, would be a big mistake. For example, Resonance was widely rejected, Focus...

I'm not following you. I don't see where they are saying they are going to cease taking feedback.

The bit at the end about sharing more of the final version of the game.

'Final' implies they're done already, which seems weird.
'More' implies they've already shared parts of the final game, which is... surprising.

I don't really see that, because 'sharing more of the final version' only implies that they WILL be sharing more of the final version; it does not state when. Further, we already know that there WILL be a point where they are done with development on one or more parts, and at that point they'll start sharing it.

And they already have shared parts of the final game -- a large amount of the playtest material WILL be in the final game, but we already knew that. Even considering silly basics such as classes, levels, and stats, it's accurate, and assuming they are definitely keeping the concept of ancestries, and spell slot heightens, and stronger cantrips, and the three action system, all of these parts seemed to be widely praised, and there's no reason they wouldn't be in the final.

In all, not saying Voss is doing this here, but reading into their statements more than is there will only lead to people misunderstanding, claiming Paizo lied about something or other, or situations where due to a messed-up game of Telephone, posters four months from now SWEAR that they read a Paizo employee writing that the game was completely finished well back in August and they were hiding the real version from the public, or something.

I understand that the system is inconsistent, but I find it hard to believe this can't be fixed by correcting a number, maybe a large number, of Bulk values in the book.

On the other hand, the old pound system is also inconsistent and unrealistic in multiple ways. More importantly, it is very unpleasant to use, to the point that I don't want to: Whether I'm a player or GM, I have many more interesting things to do in-game.

Given the choice, I'll stick to Bulk. If faced with player revolt over realism/consistency (not super likely), then I'll revert to the old solution ie. ignore encumbrance from weight as long as players don't do something truly egregious, and if they do, apply GM fiat.

I have to agree with this -- whatever replaces it, the PF1 and 3.x pounds system is extremely cumbersome to use without a computer program, very punitive to anyone who isn't a star athlete with STR 15 or higher or who doesn't have magic bags, and is unpleasant to use.

Personally, I haven't had any big problems with bulk, because the people carrying a lot usually have higher STR anyway, it's just reworking some of the Bulk numbers I think is needed. For example, Snare kit being 8 bulk means it "prices" it out of any usable range for most characters until they can afford to get a bag of holding, meaning it runs counter to the designers' goal of getting people to try out the snare system.

The Spellbooks and formula books being as bulky as a FOUR-PERSON TENT or TEN DAYS OF RATIONS, I have issue with. (Ever carried 20 or 30 meals bfore? Even for our military folks, this isn't exactly a bunch of MREs, here.)

The armors and weapons I don't mind, as someone isn't carrying more than one set, usually. If nothing else, they should tweak it to, say, rebalance the problem items, and maybe raise the Bulk capacity to 6 + STR mod, perhaps? Otherwise, I like it, and hope they can make it work.

ENHenry wrote:

Stu Venable from the Happy Jack's RPG Podcast has always said, "Always be listening in case your players have a better idea than you do." This applies both for things that complicate their lives, as well as things that add awesome details to the arising story....

I generally agree, but if there is too much of that, and things are only established through play, and the multiverse is in some sort of stasis until the PCs interact, that can damage campaign integrity, for me.

I would counter that, if the players are always having better ideas than their GM is, that the GM should probably do something about that. ;-)

The GM not only failed at embracing a Player Narrative, he or she failed as a GM. If the GM felt that the magical fire had to be literal magical fire as the source material said, he could have allowed the players Knowledge rolls to realize this before they staked everything on an alternative. Or he could have had them find an everburning torch in an overlooked chest. The GM's job is to make the narrative possible. The players crafted a new narrative that made it possible, doing the GM's job for him (that could be excellent teamwork of GM and players united to create a great story), and the GM shot it down.

Stu Venable from the Happy Jack's RPG Podcast has always said, "Always be listening in case your players have a better idea than you do." This applies both for things that complicate their lives, as well as things that add awesome details to the arising story. If my players are group brainstorming aloud and come up with the reason the way something is that is far more awesome than I had come up with, then "yes, that is exactly what happened." Some GMs think that changing what's written is unilaterally bad or cheating; instead, it can lead to events that your players celebrate in their retelling for years. I'd rather my players walk away talking about what a fantastic session they had, with energy in their voices, than for me to be right.

Though I do find it interesting that "those holdouts who haven't abandoned PF1 for 5E" seem to be demanded the removal of the +1/level system to make it more like 5E.

(Or at least that seems to be one of the most vocal lines of opposition and given that it's coming from people here, I'd assume it's mostly people who haven't abandoned PF1.)

Interesting fact - I've been gaming with a number of people who had no interest in D&D5 but don't like the +1/level paradigm (they have been finding the number grind over 10th level excessive, regardless of bounded accuracy or not). So, I'm introducing some of them to D&D5 soon to find out if it suits them or not!

It often seems like to me that what some people are arguing for is an a la carte classless system, for which case Pathfinder or D&D aren't the best choices of game. If you want ability A, F, and T from Ranger, and ability B, P, and Q from Rogue, there's no way to properly balance all choices, and frankly IMO the 3e style multiclassing, while fun, is not balanced in the slightest, because there are too many options which fall through the cracks either by not synergizing at all or synergizing FAR too well (fighters, barbarians, and rogues for instance stack VERY well compared to wizard/clerics or even wizard/sorcerer, something you would have thought stacked well.) I'd kind of wish to see it altered in D&D5, too, as some of the craziest thought experiments (such as the 'Coffeelock' and the 'Fighter/Ranger Crossbow snipers') involve multiclassing at their heart. (admittedly the latter has a problematic feat contributing too)

As for the "turning your back" storyline, I don't understand why it has to be so mechanically focused, when instead one could work it into background and skill choices, rather than going so far as to take several levels of a class solely for the purpose of switching out partway through and having abilities that run often counter and non-complementary to the entire rest of your character. Not to say someone is 'doing it wrong', I just often have a hard time understanding the desire to have the mechanics exactly match from edition to edition, as I've always more focused on implementing the core concept of a character using the existing rules in the edition given, and kind of see it as a fun challenge if I can still implement the spirit of a character regardless of rule set.

I've made Pathfinder characters using 5e and Save Worlds rules, I've made Star Wars characters from West End Games' d6 system in WotC's Star Wars Saga (2007) rule set - they still had the same core concepts of how they fought, how they excelled, how they lived, regardless that in one version they had a +9 to Medicine checks and the Weapon Focus feat, and in another they had a d8 Medicine skill and the Trademark Weapon edge.

Of course not, but they all have maximum ranks in Perception. Alertness and Skill Focus are competing against feats that are vastly superior in boosting your PCs characteristics, skill points in Perception are competing against skills which are inferior in their usefulness. You pick Power Attack (or Natural Spell. Or Spell Focus) over Alertness just as you pick Perception over Appraise.

Actually, (maybe it was our differences in playstyle / inintentional house rules) but very few people in our parties are maxed for perception; usually only one or two are hyper-specialized in it, to notice details in searches, or to keep our party from being 100% surprised by ambushes, which rarely happen anyway. Usually, it's init that is maxed, with Improved Init feat and the Reactionary trait being as common as backpacks, rations, and tindertwigs. :)

However, you're not attacking with an improvised weapon, you're attacking with a spell, so that wouldn't apply -- and if not clear, it should be clarified. After all, it's not you throwing the item(s), the spell is. Same as the 4th level weapon strike spell or the hand of the apprentice power.

I believe it was said up to the end of the year, but for sure up through the end of November, because that's when the playtest runs through.

I don't expect we'll see them after December, so IMO if anyone is waiting as long as possible to get play time in, that's probably drop-dead time.

The Dappler -- between that and the Chameleon class comment, now all I can think of is an adventurer in camouflaged khakis... :-)

If you had a max of three "dabbles" for the character's whole lifespan, I suppose it wouldn't be unbalanced, but once you start going above this, you start getting into territory of a character that does too many things too well, because class synergies will inevitably come out.

I agree -- presentation of the spells could be easier - even if it takes more room, I really would have liked a simple representation for each spell who can last it -- the glyphs on page 42 would do nicely. The spell level won't change, so just a quick reference for access is super helpful.

What I am finding is a convoluted system and a play test besieged with rule changes.

Look, I get that people will have complaints about the play test, but to be told that they made rules changes to the play test??? Were is the consistency across the board?

Change is inherent to a playtest - the ruleset for the D&D5 playtest changed something like 10 times over a two year time span - major revisions, where whole classes didn't even work the same way, totally different sets of class features, etc.

Also inherent in any playtest is focus on function over aesthetics - in a video game, it would be banging into every wall in existance to check for collision bugs, triggering, finishing, and resetting a quest multiple times to ensure that minor changes like owning a certain random item did not make the quest fail or crash the game.

Same thing with this playtest - this is far bigger than a minor point revision (say, like D&D 3.0 to D&D 3.5) and more like the changes when D&D 2 when to D&D 3.0, except that was a closed test of only a few hundred people where the public did not get to see the sausage being made. This playtest is a rules system abattoir for all the world to see, but not in any way different from any other playtest that is a full functioning playtest, and not just for show for the general public the way a AAA video game company would do for a public beta.

Mark me as a fan of Opportunity Attacks being gone or vastly reduced - it and full attack were the top two things that in our games turned combat into almost wargaming set piece battles. The two sides run up to one another, stay in place, and trade shots till one goes down, never maneuvering for better position or performing different tactics besides attacking because it's too costly. That in turn always led to a race for "How could you inflict the most damage to make them go down faster, so you could move on to another opponent?" Makes for fun Napoleonics, I suppose, but it would be a very boring action movie.

With fewer Op Attacks, you're drinking potions, using magic items, casting spells, and encircling; with the removal of restrictions on combat maneuvers, you're also shoving, grappling, tripping, and disarming. In one of our games, when a fighter encountered a bunch of goblins, when they realized what a threat he was, they actually tripped and grappled him to keep him from wrecking their archers. It was something that would have gotten them summarily murdered in PF1 due to their need for improved grapple and improved trip. I don't know about other tables, but I'm seeing a lot more variety in combat because of it.

I agree with Wizardsblade -- it wouldn't be any different if you had the shield spell/cantrip via multiple sources versus having one source. You cast the spell, you block, it gets busted, if you are casting the spell as the means to get it, you can't cast it again for 10 minutes.

It's worth noting, if nothing else to avoid gamers who don't have a strong proficiency in English making a similar mistake, and to avoid confusion among new gamers. Personally, I ascribe to the "common sense and inference says you can't take a feat more than once by default" school, myself.

Cyouni wrote:

"The Ordinary Tasks tables on page 338 list common tasks that don’t increase in level. You can use them as benchmarks when deciding the levels of similar tasks. Each entry is followed by the task level, examples of factors that could impact difficulty, and the character level at which the task becomes so trivial that you can usually assume a PC succeeds rather than spending time on a roll."

That one little "usually" is the point graystone is contesting.

The problem is, you can NEVER eliminate Jerk DMs through "sufficiently tight rules." There is no such thing. The DM who will "ask the Legendary smith to roll for ha'penny nails" won't be stopped by lawyer-tight rules - the only thing to stop jerk DMs is grown-up conversations at the table about social expectations and fun, and players who are all on the same (or at least a similar) page.

To Jason and the design team,

While you will read commentary like above and see it get some “likes” do not fret. There are also plenty of people who are really enjoying the Playtest rules, see the changes you are working on, and are very excited about what the final version will look like.

The good news is that it sounds like they are getting positive affirmation that they are on the right track thanks to the survey data. As long as people keep responding to those, I think they will keep dialing in to the majority of fans. I know my group personally seem pretty happy with the stuff so far, and the parts that do have really rough edges seem to be getting filed off. In my part, just looking at the resonance test tells me that I have a feeling I'm going to like the direction of the alchemist much better - if they would just lower those bomb cutoffs by about one level, because they are about one level too high for where the infused bombs were....

To me, part of the problem is a natural desire for characters to be very good at their invested skill set versus too many darned required rolls. Rolls should only be required when the outcome is in doubt and meaningful. What sense is there in making a Legendary acrobat walk a tightrope in a light breeze? It makes the person who fails the roll (despite having invested a major portion of their character resources) feel frustrated, and even more frustrated if the person who only invested minimal resources in a skill rolls a 19 or 20 and blows it off spectacularly. As one poster said on these forums a long time ago, it leads to a temporary moment of humor, but it also hurts both drama and suspension of disbelief every time it happens.

The more I think about it the more I'd like to see some types of skill use auto-succeed without a roll, given sufficient proficiency (similar to the examples under Recognize Spell). I think the skill target numbers are actually pretty good as-is and if not perfect, are very close, but one thing to get rid of the consistent complaint about omega-skilled characters failing basic rolls is to gate auto-success behind proficiency levels and have everyone else just roll.

I can’t say it’s one of the things I’m happy with, but so far it hasn’t caused any major breakages in-game.

CLW wand spam is a problem that seems to exist nearly exclusively in the minds of the devs. I have never once heard a complaint about it from players or GMs.

Contrast that to the amount of complaints that’s are voiced in opposition to resonance, the system devised to fix this supposed problem.

*Raises Hand*

Count me as one. I can’t stand its abuse to heal to full health every single combat, and the presumption in later PF1 scenarios that that’s what you’ll do every single time. D&D was originally a game about strategic use of resources, it’s why both spells and clerical healing and magic item healing was limited in the first place to encourage picking your time and place for battles rather than charging headlong into every situation. Instead, over the decades we went from strategy to larger and larger pools of resources. Now, people look at you funny If cure light wounds wands aren’t for sale at every thorp and village.

I can’t say i’m perfectly happy with the treat wounds alternative, but at the very least it takes 100 rounds per application and one has to spend hours doing what a bunch of heal sticks would crunch out in 3 minutes, if that, so time restraints to achieve an objective is still a thing. Otherwise, if people are going to heal up with the help of happy sticks all the time, why not just take them out of the game and say people heal to full with 2 minutes of rest?

So now you’re heard at least one complaint on the forms against the happy sticks. :)

ENHenry wrote:

Unlike PF1, being flat-footed is a very simple condition: you get a -2 circumstance penalty to your AC, and you're flat-footed.

The definition of flat-footed is that you're flat-footed?

Poor choice of phrasing on my part - in other words, they are considered flat-footed for any ability triggered by that condition. It’s obvious, I know, but I’ve seen people not think about what abilities they have that are triggered by that in PF1.

As for its simplicity, I still assert it’s easier to remember to subtract 2 than to subtract a variable number, all the more variable if you have Dex damage or other modifiers. Also, it’s one less stat to track, which is not a bad thing. I, too, kinda wish they had done away with touch AC, especially since in PF2 it’s so often close to the regular AC value.

Sounds like the writer for the rules was thinking impersonate in the sense of "pretending to be someone" in the sense of actually interacting with people as the person, rather than a one-off bluff to confuse.

Instead, sounds like what you wanted would have fallen more under creative usage of the one-action "create a diversion" skill use, where "being sensed instead of unseen" meaning on success that your group got a DC 11 flat check chance for the enemy to fail to realize which way you'd gone -- but that's more creative DM ruling than hard-boiled rules as written. In any event, it could warrant a little more expansion on "create diversion" to include something like what you're describing - and as a single action, would be consistent with your "wouldn't take 2 full seconds to say." :)

A +5 weapon can do 6 D X damage.

From my experience, it takes longer to count and is a lot less consistent then it was in PF 1.

Wizard fireballs do 10 dice of damage at max, and at least five dice off of a wand, where it can be cast dozens of times.

An 11th level fighter specialized for two-weapon fighting will be rolling anywhere from four to five times to attack, and anywhere from four to eight dice if those attacks hit. A16th level fighter (much closer to the type of character who would be sporting a +5 weapon) specced in such fashion will be rolling for sure anywhere around 20+ dice (attacks and weapon dice together) every time they get a full attack - and most such players don’t spec themselves out such unless they have plans to full attack a la quick runner’s shirts, etc.

Therefore, attacking once or twice a round (realistically speaking, even at 20th level) for six dice at a time doesn’t really worry me much.

Problems Solved! :-)

I'll still be glad if they decide to move the alchemy to a different pool than Resource, though, if resource is altered or removed. When I was playing an Alchemist for Chapter 3 of the playtest, I had to be super-careful to pick as few items as possible which used resonance. I spent all of my magic item budget on weapons and runes that were always-on, or items that cost no resonance such as bags of holding. I think the only think which used resonance on my entire person was my armor. :) On the plus side, I had 12 resonance a day after daily investitures for my alchemy; on the minus side, I was severely hampered by what magic items to pick.

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

The question is "Why?"

Because people are having experiences like this:

FitzTheRuke wrote:

Every session, multiple times, with nearly every player, I've got to remind them that they can't just draw their weapon for free (for example), it's an action. You can't just get extra actions. It would be unfair to the other players who are sticking to three.

I really like that the three-action economy forces players to pay attention to what's in their hands, but I'm finding that I am *constantly* having to crush what people think they can accomplish on their turn. "No, you can't cast a spell and drink a potion - you had a hammer in that hand. You've got to put it away, get the potion out, and THEN drink it. That's like, a ton of extra actions."

I'm not doing a very good job of explaining, but my point is: It's making me feel like a "strict" game master - constantly telling my players "no" in a way that has been frustrating them.

Back in that thread, even people talking about how they could do less with the new system were even getting wrong the costs they could do things for in PF1. (in PF1, pulling a potion from anything except a Handy Haversack or belt pouch is a Full-Round Action by itself. It's even a move to pull from a bandolier or pouch, and standard to drink, and you couldn't cast a spell and drink a potion then, either, because it's a standard to do both.) in PF1, retrieving a potion, drinking, and casting a spell in worst circumstances will take three rounds, in best circumstances two rounds.

Drawing a weapon for free? Drawing a weapon' not free - it's part of a move action, and STILL TAKES A MOVE ACTION IF YOU AREN'T MOVING (that's the part some people forget). People see the DM allowing them to draw a weapon while advancing on the enemy, and assume it's free. You can't stand up, draw a weapon, and move, because standing up isn't a "regular move" as worded on the actions chart.

To me, PF2 is more intuitive to think about how many actions it will take to do something, because once you know the things that are free and reactions, everything else is an action. I would almost want to say if it's any subject a verb, then it's an action, but I wouldn't go that far:

Draw a weapon? Action.
Stand Up? Action.
Open Door? Action.
Pull lever? Action.
Retrieve a potion from a pack? Action.
Retrieve a potion from a pouch? Action.
Retrieve a potion from your trained blink dog's mouth? Awwww....action.
Drink potion? Action.
Cast a spell? One Action per component. (Different debate on talking while chewing gum for later. Still plainly spelled out.)

That's one of the very best things about this system. Nobody does nine things (in your example 11 things) in a round anymore. Nobody rocket tags the enemy in round 1 and annihilates them to death before they get their turn.

Not to mention that of those 9 attacks, fully 4 or 5 of them almost every round AREN'T going to hit due to decreased attack bonus on two-weapon fighting, etc. However, you'll still do around the same type of damage in PF2 when attacking three times and hitting twice for multiple dice of damage each time with that highly magical weapon.

Maybe, I'll grant that it's unfortunate that it is pretty much impossible to plan a successful ambush in which you launch an attack from stealth and kill the enemy before it gets a turn. I'd like some kind of special rule system in place for this. Something like "When transitioning from exploration mode to encounter mode, if you take an enemy by surprise, all your attack rolls are automatically criticals" or something like that (just spit-balling, doesn't have to be that). Something that lets ambushes be dangerous.

Because, in the current version, your ambush will really go like this: "You take the monsters by surprise and unload an entire round of your maximum firepower, but they're just wounded about exactly as much as if you had walked up to them, issued a challenge, waited for them to acknowledge you, and then won initiative."

I can see that, but honestly you couldn't in PF1 or 3.x either, because if you ambushed someone, you only got a surprise round, which was one standard action, you didn't get a full round to blow them away. I wouldn't mind seeing something critical in surprise as an optional rule anyway. One rule that impressed me with its lethality was from Green Ronin in their Black Company d20 Campaign setting book back in the mid-2000s. If you successfully got surprise on someone, all damage you did WENT STRAIGHT TO CONSTITUTION. You could, indeed, flat-up murder someone in the surprise round in Black Company if you caught them - but then, it's a super-grim setting, it fit with their style.

(the saving throws heritage is still terrible though...)

Actually, that's a pretty cool ability, even ignoring the resonance drawback. So long as you can find work-arounds for no magic armor and no potions for about 4 levels, Magic weapons, most runes, and bags of holding don't use resonance, and in return you get a +2 to any one save per turn. Just have the alchemist or cleric back you with Spells or Elixirs, and you can have save that are basically two levels higher. I could see some fighter, cleric, or barbarian builds that would do pretty well with Ancient Blood.

...and humans being able to start with 2 extra general feats at level 1, meaning a wizard could start with medium armor even without multiclass

I honestly have to wonder if that's a typo -- though we won't know until later this week. Given that, for most other races, they removed certain duplicative feats when putting them into heritages, I think they might have meant to remove the +1 general feat and +1 trained skill feats for those heritages. Otherwise, Versatile Heritage is CRAZY good, because you can use it to front-load anything from saves, to movement, to hit points, etc.

Speaking of Downloads, the 1.4 Update just now dropped on the playtest downloads page - though the new blog is not yet available.

Some Examples:
Alchemist's Debilitating Bomb (pg. 49)
Barbarian's Come and Get Me ability (pg. 59)
Fighter's Combat Grab (pg. 89)
Fighter's Aggressive Shield, Brutish Shove, Intimidating Strike, Improved Combat Grab (pg. 90)
Fighter's Shatter Defenses (pg. 92)
Ranger's Distracting Shot (pg. 116)
Rogue's Unbalancing Blow (pg. 122)
Feinting via Deception Skill (pg. 150)
Chill Touch Spell (vs. undead) (pg. 210)
Daze Spell (pg. 213)
Flanking an enemy (pg. 313)

...there's a pretty extensive list, involving Class Feats, Skills, spells, etc. It's better to not worry about ALL the cases where you end up flat-footed, just deal with them on a case-by-case basis. The most prevalent is flanking, but it is not the only method. Unlike PF1, being flat-footed is a very simple condition: you get a -2 circumstance penalty to your AC, and you're flat-footed. No need to calculate AC without Dex, etc.

Derklord wrote:

Darigaaz the Igniter wrote:

Here's a nice chart from the 3.5 era

"Cure Light Wounds Clear" Stopped reading there. There's no way a health potion that doesn't look blood-ish can survive on the open market!

Edit: Potion of invisibility is also "clear". Yeah, when you're close to dying, and desperately need a healing potion, having to discern betwen one of those and a potion that prevents your teammakes from finding and healing you is exactly what you want!

Well, of course healing potions look bloodish, in the old times troll blood was the main operative ingredient....

and Elf blood was used to make longevity potions, but those disappeared in 3.00

Potion: Bull's Strength

I don't WANT to know how this potion was made, I just don't! *turns green*

Our PF Group meets biweekly for about 4 hours per session, and we just finished Chapter 3.

Chapter 1 - finished in one session.
Chapter 2 - finished in two sessions.
Chapter 3 - finished in two sessions.

No idea how the others will go yet.

ENHenry wrote:

the best defense in a D&D world wouldn't be a castle, it would be an underground bunker

Which is why D&D worlds are full of dungeons protected by magical traps.

So... you're saying the monsters are the normal ones and WE'RE the villains beseiging their castles???

**mind blown**

I remember a post about this once, where the best defense in a D&D world wouldn't be a castle, it would be an underground bunker sealed with a Forbiddance Spell and a couple of Wizards and Clerics on-staff to counteract magics. It's one of those things where, if you took the implications of the in-game magic and physics to their logical extremes, it would drastically alter many of the tropes that people find appealing in Medieval Fantasy.

My PF Group just finished Chapter 3 of the Doomsday Dawn Playtest, and Dispel Magic became something one of the group wanted to try (no spoilers other than this). We actually stopped play for 10 minutes trying to read the text of Dispel Magic, which went something like this.

Look up Dispel Magic. Refers us to page 197.

Counteracting spells refers us to Page 319, with really NO additional information.

Page 319 Gives us the table, with NO info on how to use it for Dispel Magic.

SIX grown men with probably 180 years of RPG experience between us spend ten minutes flipping between three page references, trying to decipher what the **** we're supposed to do.

We look up references on these forums for people who HAVE figured it out, and spend another two minutes trying to figure out how they came to the simplified answers they gave.

The player decides to just let the effect stand and decides to attack again instead.

Dispel and counteracting is a really rough edge that I hope gets simplification. PF1's Dispel was easier than this to figure out. After having it explained, I see what they're trying to do, and I kind of wish the designers had just duplicated whole-cloth the mechanics of Dispel Magic from D&D 5th edition ("spellcasting ability" is similar to "spell roll" - it's just your ability mod instead of proficiency mod + ability mod), because it works much simpler to accomplish basically the same thing - or worst case, roll it back to something similar to the mechanics for PF1.

That looks fantastic. It's setups like this that make sessions memorable for a long time to come.

Personally, I'm REALLY against re-inventing the swift action. Whatever complaints people may have against the playtest's goal of "simplifying for new players," the system of "three types of actions" is a very, very good one. If a player understands, "action, reaction, and free action," then that works. Then, the only thing they need to understand is "what actions are free actions and what actions are reactions", because everything else is an action. Everything. Dismounting, mounting, pulling a weapon, standing up, getting out a torch, lighting that torch (even if it's 3 actions or more), opening a door, pulling a lever, splashing acid in a foe's face, etc. So personally, I can live with "free to drop grip, action to add grip."

I'm happy to agree if something is priced as "too many actions" or "wrong type", but I'm really hesitant for "new types of action."

It's now written into Golarion Elf lore, so no longer just an unbased legacy.

Retroactive Continuity is usually my biggest point in support against making something a rule mainly because it's in the lore; if it was written into lore specifically because it was a legacy thing in the first place, which is the most likely result, then making something a rule "because it's canon" can mean a huge future debt that impedes making a great game. I'm not against any one rule, such as the elf sleep immunity, or "goblins shouldn't be a core race," or "paladins should only be Lawful Good," but I'd rather it be the foundation for a good game than include it because we always had it.

(I personally feel similarly about Sorcerers, too - my personal recollection from many years ago from a conversation with one of the WotC personnel is that they were originally created specifically to introduce spontaneous casting among the general base of D&D players back in 1999 to see if in the future it would become a staple of wizards - but instead, there were so many outcries over its lack of power in comparison to wizards, that to balance them Paizo turned them into their own thing, with bloodlines and other tweaks - but if wizards were to ever gain some form of spontaneous casting, it would eat most of the sorcerer's lunch overnight, all because WotC should have IMO pulled the trigger almost 20 years ago in the first place instead of being gun shy. Unfortunately, most of the conversations about this have been washed away with the destruction of various forums and Usenet Newsgroups.)

I ended up ignoring it, but at the time I was going to use a bit of Deus ex Machina, and have Lady Vord have a sending spell to them to the effect of, "This is Lady Vord - spies detected Heralds entering tomb today. Estimate no more than 1 to two days before discovery."

or something to that effect.

ENHenry wrote:

Other than snow or mud in an unblemished plane, are there any other circumstances so simple as to not need a check?

Given the types of creature you might be tracking in a game like this, there could be a trail of slime, acid, or six-inch deep footprints in solid rock.

Excellent examples, and to me, just like a pristine snow-trail, they are exceptions which prove the rule.