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"The Last Airbender" becomes "The Last Kineticist"
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Like I said, that just circles back to "stronger attacks deal more damage". The effectiveness of the DR and the individual attacks do not change, your perception of the numbers as a whole does.
It does become a matter of perspective and perception, I agree.
It's not just a trick of the mind. 1d8+6 averages to 10.5, so DR 5 is about half of it; 1d6+3 averages to 6.5, so DR 5 is about 3/4 of it (also, DR 5 can reduce the latter to 0, but never the former). Also, if you normally deal the same total damage across more attacks, DR will reduce your damage more, since it's applied separately to each hit. That's the thing though, the DR isn't more effective on several attacks, it's equally effective on each. Say the character does 3 attacks. For each of those attacks 5 damage is negated. This is true. However, you're interpreting it as a total sum of 15 damage negated, rather than 5 to each attack. If you increase the attacks of the stronger hitting character to match he will have the exact same number of damage negated. You can add and subtract number of attacks on either side and that constant will never change. Every attack has 5 damage negated. The DR doesn't grow or shrink in response to the attacks. Every attack is just as effective relative to the DR as the other attacks. So at the end of it we just come back to "stronger attacks deal more damage", which is true regardless of whether DR is involved or not.
Going by the assumption that DR functions the same in PF2nd as it does in PF1e, I would argue that one of the two being more "effective" than the other is an illusion. They're equally effective, because the DR affects them the same way. If the DR is 5 and the two different characters deals 1d8+6 and 1d6+3, both damage potentials are reduced equally. The subjective perception is that the stronger attack is more effective, but it's more effective on a hit regardless of DR anyway, so it's a trick of the mind that makes it feel like one is affected less than the other. If the DR is of a specific type that one of the two can't overcome, then it's no longer an illusion, but then it's also moved away from what I see as the core of your initial issue.
I think changing it to "complication" would cause more confusion than it would resolve. As an abbreviation "comp" is most commonly used to mean "complimentary", and more colloquially "computer". So you're replacing a word that's potentially confusing with a word that is at least equally capable of confusion. In contrast "Fail" is unmistakably a negative result from whatever attack or skill check that was rolled for. Although, I will grant you that your proposed word could lead to this exchange: Player: So? Did I hit or miss?
Since one of my favourite things to do as GM is tinker with new creatures and items and whatnot, I would definitely like a dedicated book with all of the "create-a-thing" sections in it, rather than spread out over several books. Yes, it makes sense how they did it in PF1e with each "create-a-thing" section being in the book relevant to the "thing", but with PF2nd they could theoretically put that ahead of the curve, so to speak. Creating new monsters became a bit awkward in PF1e because iirc there's at least two-three books that make up the important bits of monster creation.
lets avoid going down the 4th ed road of any stat can be used for anything. Yes please, let's avoid that as much as possible. I really did not like defenses i 4e (and melee training, int to bab instead of str). It rendered ability score allotment pointless and all characters being even more same-y.
How often do you have those sorts of quests? Because the group I play with always has a healer and then some way of making sure the healer can be brought back to life (even if it means a scroll of raise dead with the rogue UMDing it). We'd also be disinclined to do this because it means one of our players doesn't get to play until we finished the quest unless we give them a temp PC. Is that a bad thing? I don't recall anyone ever fondly recalling the time they sat out while the rest of the party went on a quest without them [you known, because they are dead]... The less time players are dead, the better. I really shouldn't have to specify that an example is an example every single time. The important bit was just before it. The issue comes when something a caster could achieve on their own, because they were that powerful, is now arbitrarily made into rituals requiring more people (we don't know if that's truly the case, but it's implied), and be able to be performed by anyone that have put enough ranks into whatever skill the ritual requires. Kinda takes the punch out of the old "take the remnants of your fallen companion and quest to find a high level priest" quest. Even so, the companion needn't be a PC. It could be any range of important NPC that the players might want to resurrect for whatever reason. It can be a PC, and you can make it work without having the dead PC's player sit on the sidelines, but that's besides the point.
Heal is taking the place of Cure Wounds. I'm guessing the name Cure is specifically reserved for the line of spells that were previously Remove Disease, Remove Blindness/Deafness, etc. Because curing an ailment is closer to the meaning of the word "cure" than healing an injury. If Heal has taken the place of Cure, then I hope Cure isn't a spell at all anymore. Instead of saying 3.5, D&D or PF, I'm going to say D20 here: Like it or not, Cure Wounds is closely tied to the identity and feeling of playing D20. As the blog post itself says "There is power in naming something".
The issue comes when something a caster could achieve on their own, because they were that powerful, is now arbitrarily made into rituals requiring more people (we don't know if that's truly the case, but it's implied), and be able to be performed by anyone that have put enough ranks into whatever skill the ritual requires. Kinda takes the punch out of the old "take the remnants of your fallen companion and quest to find a high level priest" quest.
Heightening spells is interesting. Scaling cantrips, I dunno. I guess I want to see the full implication of scaling cantrips. After having a kineticist in our game (they are since not allowed in our games), I'm very wary of inexhaustible magical attacks. Especially when they scale with levels. So is Cure X Wounds gone now? I don't want it to be gone. Finally, rituals. Obviously the specifics are for the actual playtest, but from this read they sound very 4e to me. I wasn't a fan of rituals there because instead of creating rituals that were new and interesting, it locked old spells behind the ritual mechanic, which seems exactly what's happening here. But it just seems really odd to have Bard as the only class to get a unique spell list. Because bards are awesome, that's why. '<'
Arbitrary numbers and "points" are already very game-y innately. That said, when it comes to rules I prefer the wording remove as much vagueness as possible. The PF1e CRB has its fair share of wording issues where the rules are vague enough to cause interpretation problems. So for that reason I would favor "points of damage" over "x damage" when it comes to the text in the rulebook. In actual speech between players it doesn't matter as much which one you use.
But are those bonuses really floating at the other two stages other than race? And are their numbers predetermined? Are there ability flaws? If so, are those numbers predetermined? Yeah, maybe it lets you get a 16 in whatever score, but what if you wanted to go down to 7 in one score for the benefit of another, or put down a mediocre or worse Charisma score for a sorcerer, but the character generation doesn't let you because it's sub-optimal?
Upping small character's damage dice to the same as medium character's is decent. So, is the ability boost/flaw mechanic going to replace point buy completely? Because right now it seems very restrictive in comparison. I generally prefer rolling ability scores, but it's better suited for games where everyone play at an actual table, and point buy has been a decent compromise for online games for us. I'm glad they don't have to begin with a flaw to strength; it's now a player's choice. Negating a flaw with a boost is not the same as not starting with a flaw.
Towards the end of the video, the topic of ability scores are touched upon and it's hinted at that they're not generated the same way as before. Now they're determined from your choice of class, race and background. Does this mean that someone that makes the same choices as another player/character will have identical ability scores? I really hope that's not the case, though. Maybe we won't get an answer to this until the actual playtest is out.
Some of the effects had saves, but the DC was the amount of damage done, so at higher level there is no making those saves. Now I don't know every card off the top of my head, but I am resonably certain that not a single card actually does that. If a card doesn't outright state a DC (typically, 10, 15 or 20) the confirming roll is used. That's supposed to be the roll after modifiers, but I use the what the actual raw die roll is.
You know, if I wanted to play a cartoonish farce starring incompetent buffoons... I can only ascribe such vehemence to either having never used the rules, but dislikes the idea so they're by default the devil, or simply doing it wrong (applying fumbles on every failed roll, forgetting confirmation rolls, etc).
Due to the nature of RPGs, any critical failure system will effect PCs (who make more attack rolls than NPCs) far more than they will any individual NPC. This makes players feel incompetent and makes the game less fun. Having employed the Crit and Fumble decks ever since they released, and had ad hoc'ed in fumbles before that, I must say that I've never had an issue with that. Heck, I even employ a houserule where a fumble breaks off a full attack, and it's never become an "issue". Since Fumbles require a confirmation roll, they're actually exceedingly rare in our experience. But due to how PF2nd handles crits and fumbles (namely making them much more common), I for the most part will have to put the cards and houserules away for the playtest.
Personally not super stoked about that. Magic number HP per level and three racial ability bonuses and one penalty (as far as we know, "boost" and "flaw" could mean something else, but probably not) seems an effort to try to level the "gaps" between characters. Making everyone closer to each other in terms of raw stats. When building a character, deciding which stat(s) would have to take a hit was always a more poignant choice than which stats would get buffs. Now, not so much. Other than that I don't find much to comment on.
Lady Firebird (whether it's deliberate or not) is working pretty hard to make this subforum a very hostile place for anyone who doesn't embrace most of what has been revealed so far. Truth be told, I get that feeling from the majority of the forum at this point. Especially the heavyhanded moderation on the forums in the name of promoting a "welcoming" space, but is decidedly not welcoming to some, warranted or not. I've invested what... 10 years into playing Pathfinder, and building my campaign setting over those 10 years. I'm having a serious rethink as to the next 10 years, due to what I'm seeing on the forums here. I've already decided to stick with the PF2nd playtest pdfs instead of the print copies that I was originally intending to order.
Gorbacz: Maybe they do, but it would be nice with something more... official, and something that doesn't require an internet connection. Chance Wyvernspur: It would probably require quite the workload, yes. The content from the main line of products could be excluded (CRB, APG, UC, etc) to mitigate that somewhat, even if only a little. Still, it's a product I would gladly pay for. As for character builders, I'm not a fan. To each their own, but I've found that almost invariably extensive use of character builders cause players not to understand their own creations. Less so for experienced players than beginners. In fact, I discourage the use of builders for new players.
I've always worked with the perspective that the oddities of weapon and armor names in fiction is simply what the people in those settings named these items.
This whole thread is pointless. By extension, so is the entirety of this sub-forum.
One thing I've been thinking about is: with the move towards PF2nd, will there be some sort of compendia, collecting the various rules tidbits and archetypes and what-have-you that are scattered across a myriad of adventure paths and companion books? Yes it might diminish the perceived value of those books, but as a send-off to PF1e and those who intend to keep playing it, it would be nice to have all of that disparate content collected in one place (or one place per topic). Especially since not everyone have the ability to purchase every single splatbook.
Is there even a goblin equivalent of Drizzt? The only one I can think of currently is Styx from the games of the same name. He's definitely not as ubiquitous as Drizzt. As for playing a clone character, it wholly depends on the intent behind the character. If the pre-existing character is merely a point of inspiration, I see no issues at all with that (arguably at that point it's no longer a "clone", but I'm willing to stretch the definition for the benefit of the discussion). One of my favourite PCs I've played was a dhampir heavily inspired by D from Vampire Hunter D. My character was much, MUCH, more talkative than D has ever been (in the movies at least), since I had specced him towards attaining Epic Bluff ranks (we were playing a 3.5/PF mish mash). I was close too. +42 or something in Bluff, but then T-Rexes started to fall from the sky... An attempt to play as the pre-existing character can also work, as a self-imposed challenge to stick to an already defined character. I don't think it's something I would encourage at my table, however. I've also never read a single actual work about Drizzt. I just know about him from people talking about him. I didn't even connect the now obvious reference to him in The Gamers until now...
That wizard would be rolling around with a 34 Int score, at minimum. He'd be on par with Mephistopheles. Quite the assumption.
And yet, you can ID a silent, stilled, material-eschewed spell ...You can identify the spell effect, sure, but in that specific circumstance identifying it as it's being cast wouldn't fly since there's no cue to recognize it by. The answer in the linked post is more vague than your quote implies. "Although this isn’t directly stated in the Core Rulebook, many elements of the game system work assuming that all spells have their own manifestations, regardless of whether or not they also produce an obvious visual effect, like fireball."
"Special abilities exist (and more are likely to appear in Ultimate Intrigue) that specifically facilitate a spellcaster using chicanery to misdirect people from those manifestations and allow them to go unnoticed, but they will always provide an onlooker some sort of chance to detect the ruse." The answer is in no way clear on what said "special abilities" are (I would argue that metamagic applies. I mean, what other purpose would they have than to obfuscate the casting of a spell). If "manifestation" covers both the act of casting and the spell effect, and they happen even if you've applied metamagic, then there's no reason to have said metamagics at all (aside from my issues with the metamagic system itself).
And yet, you can ID a silent, stilled, material-eschewed spell ... You can identify the spell effect, sure, but in that specific circumstance identifying it as it's being cast wouldn't fly since there's no cue to recognize it by.
if I want my fireballs to be powered by tiny fire elemental dolls that explode, why force me to stuff it with guano and sulfur? Because part of identifying a spell as it's being cast is observing the material components. If you can use anything you want, then that particular mechanic stops working.
It is true that a skilled geographer would know more about geography than a historian, but there is some degree of overlap there. That was just a repeat of what has already been said. The ", but" implies that there's a counterpoint being made, except there isn't. I'd prefer it to the frequent situation in 3.x where the Rogue doesn't know Sleight of Hand, because it's not a commonly enough needed skill to make it worth giving up on something else to take it, even though thematically it makes sense for the majority of Rogues to have it; Maybe the rogue in question is a cutthroat vagabond that doesn't care for subtleties? Now we're veering into the territory of complaining about people allotting their skill ranks "wrong", thus by extension pigeonholing the classes. @PossibleCabbage
A more appropriate term to use would've been geographer, true. Considering Pathfinder assumes a world where kings and lords are a current part of the world, not something of the past, I've always viewed Kn. Nobility as keeping up with the political environment. The suggested tasks reflect this: "Know current rulers and their symbols", "Know proper etiquette", and "Know line of succession". Yeah, you can argue a degree of overlap, but the key distinction is that Nobility focuses on the "current" state of affairs. The same kind of distinction can be made between Kn. History and Kn. Geography. A historian may have some knowledge of old maps and whathaveyou, but plop him down in a spot of land and ask him to determine which hemisphere he's in based purely on the environment and suddenly Kn. History isn't so useful.
Nobody is suggesting this. Indeed, there's definitive evidence that Knowledge is spread among a minimum of three skills (Nature, Occultism, and Society) plus all the Lore skills (which are at least somewhat freeform). That part of my post was literally a response to someone doing exactly that.
I don't think you understand what the argument is here. If every skill in the game is now a mish-mash of 2 or more skills, then every single skill in the game is going to be subject to situational penalties and bonuses. The switch from Spot/Listen/Search to the consolidated Perception carried with it confusion when it came to visual or auditory based perception skills. And by confusion I don't mean confusion about of how the rules function, but confusion in practice (keeping track of what penalty/bonus applies when). Now apply that to all skills.
There are two aspects to this. First, skill overlap between party members. With less skills there's going to be more overlap. Whether the new method of skill allotment ameliorates this has yet to be seen. Second, skill homogeneity between characters in general. Namely a character with Occultism (assuming it's smushing Kn. Arcana and Kn. Planes together) is going to be just like any other character with Occultism. Whereas before a character could have no ranks at all in one and several in the other (or further, not even have one as a class skill). If that's going to be remedied by skill feats and proficiencies, then what was the point of rolling them together in the first place? Not to cause less confusion, because I'm fairly certain there will be at best no difference there.
Hardly anyone is arguing against abstraction itself, but rather that consolidating the skills further than PF1e did is a step too far. I'll say it plainly: We're never going to agree on this. What exactly would you say these "corner case" skills are? As for knowledge skills, clumping those together into one is even worse of an idea than smushing DD and SoH together. Yeah, sure, being "knowledgeable" in one thing is "thematically" similar to being knowledgable in another, but in practice it's absurd. If I walk up to a historian and ask him about geology he's gonna look at me like I'm dumb, because I would be. I still argue that overly consolidated skills will lead to more confusion about situational penalties, as well as character homogeneity. I have yet to have seen or heard a good counterargument to either.
One of my greatest hopes for PF2nd is a revamp to the entire CR concept. I don't know how it'd be done, but it's sorely needed. CR simply doesn't work beyond APL 4-5. APL appropriate monsters will get obliterated in 4*-1 combat by a party that is even remotely well specced. Dual Initiative from Mythic (and many other things in Mythic) is a good way too beef up a BBEG to be a satisfactory opponent. There are other ways to do it as well, but most require some GM Chicanery. If you go purely by CR to create a one-monster boss fight, then for that monster to be able to survive the punishment of a party, its CR needs to go up so high that the CR-appropriate damage output on the monster's behalf will one-shot half, if not most, of the party.
Hardly anyone is arguing against abstraction itself, but rather that consolidating the skills further than PF1e did is a step too far.
For those who object to "thievery" being a skill, what other name would you suggest? Purloin? Pilfer? Filching? Larceny? None of those are particularly more appropriate than "thievery," since the end result of taking something from someone forcefully, is all the same. Sleight of Hand and Disable Device were fine already.
people will actually play a rogue now. If I took every sentiment like that I've seen on the forums at face value, then Pathfinder would be a weird game where no one plays anything.
More choices for performances wouldn't be a bad idea. There's not much else I would outright change, since I like the bard already. I wouldn't mind the performances and the bard's spellcasting being intermingled in some way, though. Not sure how that would function, but maybe as a different delivery method for spells, kinda like how familiars can be given a spell to deliver?
Did you gloss over, or just ignore, the "or the like" qualifier? I also didn't specify that it's a general description of the idea, not a hard-line "this is how it always is"statement, because I mistakenly figured I wouldn't have to. Still, I can play the alignment game if you want. You boldened the G, I could bolden the C.
That's just going to increase the time people spend going "wait, did I have a bonus to thievery in this situation? no wait, it was for this other use-case" as well as increase the number of times it happens by a lot I was ok with how PF1e consolidated the 3.5 skills because I feel it did it just enough to not become too broad. There still are cases where the 3.5 skills are superior. Having a penalty on visual Perception checks causes far more confusion than having a penalty to Spot ever did. The main improvement PF1e did over 3.5 was fixing the confusing math involved.
The notion of "Thievery" tells of further consolidated skills (Disable Device and Sleight of Hand, maybe more, rolled into one). Not happy about this at all. It's another step towards 4e, one that may well be too far for me. The whole point of being a skill monkey is greatly diminished by consolidated skills. From what they've said, skills are going to be a much more impactful part of the game in P2e than P1e. If that's the case, then removing the granularity of the skills system will be completely counter to that idea.
I can only chalk up the fear of Wish to people not instilling fear of it in their players instead. I've made it perfectly clear to players in my games that wishes are a dangerous game, since I have carte blanche to twist them in any fashion befitting the narrative or situation, and I consider myself quite capable in doing so. Wording matters, so outside of the safe options as per the spell, the wish must be spoken out loud as intended. "My character wishes for this, this and that" is not applicable, and wishing in character about rule terminology is especially dangerous. I generally make a distinction between divine wishes and arcane wishes (yes, technically the spell itself is purely arcane, it's a thematic distinction). Divine wishes, from beings such as djinni or the like, will twist the wish into an undesirable outcome for the amusement of the wish giver. Player: I wish for a castle. Now that castle could be anywhere. Like for example, a dilapidated castle sinking into a swamp with a hefty debt of gold that comes with it. Arcane wishes try to resolve in the most literal, or efficient, way possible, without regard to safety (or anything, really). Player: I wish for a castle.
Are there any 3PP adventures where gestalt rules are assumed? In the game I'm currently running I'm using it as a central theme. So far to great effect. I'm pretty pleased with the setup and concept of the thing. Enough to consider making it into an actual published (self or other) adventure myself. So I was wondering if there were already existing adventures to look at. (Who would you even credit the gestalt variant to?) Maybe it's a shot in the dark, I don't know. (Edit: I didn't know where to put this thread, so I went with General Discussion) Edit 2: Seems Gestalt originated in Unearthed Arcana. So technically owned by WotC. Not sure how the legalities work there.
I want to echo the notion that adding "mode" to it will add some meta game-y feel to it all. I'm also not sure that the goal has been achieved if the goal was to be less confusing. Just calling combat "combat" seemed to work fine enough. "Encounter mode" sounds like it can be anything. You can "encounter" an old man walking down the road to buy pastries. But, in practice both combat and not-combat will likely just be like it always has, with the mayor change that what it's called in the book is different. What I am more concerned about is "downtime mode". More specifically how much of it is hardcoded into the game. At most we use downtime as a timeskip. Other than that our games tend to not have "downtime", being a continuous narrative. There's no "between adventures". As has become the custom with these previews there's not enough to go on to be sure about anything, but I can't help but be skeptical of the implication of sizeable portions of the core rules be something that I'd just skip (those of you that wanted to throw that one at me, beat ya to it).
I think including a section of rules for creating new things in the playtest rulesbook would be a good idea. Since we won't have an extensive PF2e bestiary for it we would need to either convert monsters, or make new monsters. Most will probably have a combination of both.
I generally just give casters an extended benefit of Eschew Materials for most spells. It's when material costs go into the thousands of gold pieces that I begin to want to take it into account.
I intend to run shorter adventures that span at most two sessions, upping levels and having the players switch characters and classes. I haven't decided what the actual adventures are going to be, but I have time to figure that out. Unless they include monster creation rules in the playtest rules, I'm going to attempt to reverse engineer the monster stat blocks and build new things. Monster creation is one of my favourite things to do as a GM, so if there are rules for it I want to try them out. I also intend to houserule some of the more divisive topics of discussion on the forums (raise shield, resonance, and what-have-you). To see if I can "fix" or break them, or if it's not necessary. I don't know if our group's other GM has any inclination to run a playtest adventure, but if so I would have to give my favourite class, the bard, a spin.
The main benefit from TWF in PF1e was the added attack(s) it gave. So if the number of attacks remain the same no matter if you do TWF or not (and without additional context), I'm struggling to see why I shouldn't just roll around with a greatsword instead.
Counterspell being a reaction makes sense, and would actually make counterspelling viable. Counterspelling in 3.5/PF1e is so situational and overly complicated that I've never once seen someone actually do a counterspell.
So the fighter is the only one that starts with attacks of opportunity? does that mean AoO is a feat? My guess is that it's what Combat Reflexes is going to be in PF2nd. I really do love all the 'Having to raise my shield is terrible' talk. One way or another using a shield is active. Are you moving your body to get the shield in the right position to block an attack? You are actively thinking about and using it. Are you moving your arm to put your shield in the way of an attack? You are actively thinking about and using it. If you really want to go that route there's an equally valid argument that can be made for the opposite. A well versed enough fighter would have largely honed his fighting technique into reflexes, thus not really requiring "active thought". Or a more mundane example. Say you're riding a bike. You're not consciously thinking about every single movement your leg makes in order to propel the bike forward. Not to mention there is one other step here that people aren't getting yet. Swing, swing, block is not a bad thing in this edition. Forgoing that -10 swing is forgoing a 50% increased chance to fumble and possibly get slapped for it while increasing your AC by (lets say 2) 2 and decreasing your chance to be crit by 10%. That's not a terrible action. I would argue you're misrepresenting what most critics of the shield are concerned about (I can only truly speak for myself course, so mild speculation is at play). You're not 'only' giving up that -10 attack, you're giving up every other tactical option as well. Want to Attack, make a guarded step forward and attack again? Alright, but then the shield is not really doing anything. Want to use the shield? Ok, now it eats up that one action, so if you want/need to move on your turn you're down to one attack. And if you use the shield reaction, you can't do AoO's until after your next turn.
I had a thought going over the thread, not sure if it's been addressed elsewhere and I don't think it requires its own thread. So I'm posting it here. Readying an action is still a thing in PF2nd. In PF1e it required a Standard action to do. Now all actions are the same, so could you ready three actions in PF2nd? I can see that opening up for some interesting, maybe odd, tactics. I like these FOOLS who try and compare 1st edition to 2nd edition. YOU CAN'T. You don't understand how everything works so therefore you CAN"T MAKE ACCURATE comparisons. So why even try? I'm going to repeat myself, again: What would you have people do? I keep seeing this sort of sentiment and that's what I saw as a concern in the thick skin thread. Comparing the info we get about PF2nd to what we already know about PF1e is effectively being treated as wrongthink.
I do agree with this. |