QuidEst's page

Cool! It seems rather unfair that spontaneous casters get two cantrips, while prepared casters get two cantrips that can be changed daily from four options. I'm guessing the extra trained skill is there for? I guess with the larger untrained penalty, that's a much bigger deal now!

The higher level spells, though, seem very imbalanced between the two.

Kitsune
Tiefling (with various heritages)
Ratfolk
Kobold
Skinwalker

I do wish eidolons were set up better so that a new eidolon subtype wouldn't end up restricted from a lot of natural attack evolutions by default.

Anyway, the astral eidolons are far and away the most interesting addition- they get slower Str/Dex progression, but improve your summoning! (You can use your summoning SLA while your eidolon is out by merging it with one of the summoned creatures, conveying various benefits.) They also can divert more points to the summoner with aspect/greater aspect.

As for race-locked content, it's providing some material to get those new races quickly caught up to some of the existing races. So now there's a good reason to play Duskwalkers- you can get a thematic familiar for one feat less than other characters. Ganzis make good enchantment Oracles thanks to their FCB, and have a unique Paladin option. Aphorites can build Magus-lite on any casting class using scrolls.

There's some nice non-racial content. The ones that stood out to me the most were the five eidolon subtypes and a feat chain for a planar mentor that you can eventually call 1/week at a 50% discount.

(That player is dropping. I'll be running a GMPC for the fourth PC for the remainder of the playtest.)

Another player described it as like crunchy peanut butter, only the peanuts are hard and stale, so you can't enjoy either part. "It's got a bad mouth-feel."

The book is poorly organized and unintuitive, its inefficient despite this attempt at new fun dnd5e style pick-and-go options. It makes you hunt and flip through the book as opposed to a logical progression.

Like, i cant help but compare it to World of Darkness games, Werewolf the Apocalypse in particular. The books lay out things so well that its very easy for a novice to learn. Theres even a page that lists out basically a giant checklist of everything you need to make a character and where in the book to find the information for a certain category. It's easy as hell.

its like, if i could have a visual metaphor
this is how wod is:
(Basic flowchart.)
this is PF:
(Complex flowchart.)

----

Another player: "It's like a swimming pool, but there's no steps in. No ladder or anything, you just have to jump in. It's a little hard. It's so dense."

----

You go to ancestry. No problems. You get to backgrounds, and now you have to jump to half-way through the book to see what each one does.

Feedback from a player:

Assurance is garbage. (It doesn't seem to serve any use, because the result it gives is never helpful.) Several backgrounds give it as a feat, and it makes selecting backgrounds disappointing. More generally, most low-tier skill feats feel like they should just be part of basic proficiency with no feat- Forager or Student of the Canon were given as examples.

There's weirdness like Hunting Lore allowing you to earn a living, while Survival does not.

But that's the main problem I have so far with PF2: it feels like a clone of 5th edition, apart from the fact that they punish you with a glut of trap options and make it less fun throughout. See also how Ancestries work, or Languages, or the difficulty actually reaching target numbers (both skills and attacks) at level-appropriate DCs. They made it unfun to play the game. Company is the only reason why I'm still in the playtest, to be honest. You're lovely people and that's worth a lot.

I'd almost take Assurance (Stealth) to sneak around in plate armour, but monster perception at level 1 was already too good to make it worthwhile, even with Expert Stealth. I'm heavily a skill/background focused player in RPGs, and this is so discouraging. I just cannot connect with characters as they appear on paper after I translate the story seeds I have in mind. Too many things are non-functional.

Also, I think I'll just assume that clerics of Erastil are proficient with shortbows, as well, since I can just about guarantee we'll never see a combat at over 50' distance beyond round one. They don't design adventures that way, since they want you to use battlemaps. I know, I'm being demanding, but it needs to be playable, and if they don't provide that, I'm frankly breaking the rules so that we can get through the rest of it. A -2 in the bounded system is pretty crippling.

QuidEst wrote:

I’d love to hear what the new eidolon subtypes are!

** spoiler omitted **

Thanks! Sounds like some cool additions- looking forward to checking them out myself on the 19th!

I’d love to hear what the new eidolon subtypes are!

A Bard should be able to charm people, heal people, and create illusions.
A Bard should not be able to sling fireballs or turn into a dinosaur.

A spell list has been created to satisfy those constraints, and it’s called the occult spell list.

Captain Morgan wrote:

I'm pretty sure druids and paladins have always had magical pets. Or at least it is heavily implied that the bond you share goes beyond the mere physical realm. Rangers always came across that way to me too, there's a divine (or now primal) bond between you and the animal. I always interpreted this as why your animal companion scales and doesn't have the same stats or abilities as other members of its species.

I don't mind that animal companions can be magical, or at least magically empowered with different spells and gear. I mind that as it stands that its the only option. There's an argument to be made that where you can satisfy folks who like their magical elf stories a little more gritty and grounded can at least have the option. There's different folks who play the game.

Y'know?

What are magical attacks good for? Dealing with things that ignore or resist non-magical attacks. A lot of people will be fine with that just being a thing that animal companions can eventually do. If not, you can:

- Ignore it. There's nothing visible at all about this- the only time you can even tell narratively is when there's a ghost. You can have your companion sit out those ghost fights like they would normally.
- Come up with another explanation for those effects. Work special salts into the claws as part of your daily preparations, or simply have it be nature's effectiveness against the unnatural.
- Not advance your animal companion. This is shooting yourself in the foot, yes. But, to a smaller extent, so is "I want my animal companion to be completely useless against ghosts, etc." There's also the option to grab an animal friend via a skill feat, depending on what you want from the companion.
- Try to give people a "useless against ghosts" option. That seems like what you're trying to do. I don't think that's a very useful core option, but I can see a non-magical option showing up in the future, maybe with some save bonuses.
- Houserule. This isn't a useful point, since it's always an option and this is the playtest. But it's exactly the sort of very minor houserule that there will be a lot of to support gritty, grounded games.

I’d feel better if the powers were more useful, but there’s maybe one or two where I don’t miss having a feat instead.

Second session! We just plowed through this one, and completed the rest of the scenario.

The group was cautious, carefully checking from outside as much as possible without actually entering them.

Druid: was sad that Wild Shape didn't grant vision to allow her to sneak in the dark, and also felt like the form was constantly giving her the worst of both worlds. She's slow and can't climb because she's not really a mouse, but she can't talk because she's a mouse, but she can't communicate with mice because she's not really a mouse, but she can't can't communicate with other people shapeshifted into mice. She used a transformation to scout ahead, but couldn't actually use it because she'd need a light source. (It turns out she was lucky, she was planning on scouting the centipede den, and would have died very quickly if any of them made their perception checks.) She eventually snuck along a wall to listen in, and reported back with one squeak for yes, two for no.

Combat with the goblins was interesting. Barbarian crit twice with nat 20s, and barely avoided crits twice. Scared them enough to draw attacks, and got dropped to 0. How does using a hero point to stabilize interact with regular healing? How do you administer an elixir? Can you administer to somebody who used a hero point to stabilize? Barbarian picked Int for their main mental stat (14), and didn't have charisma. That was her one resonance point. Once revived, she killed another goblin and hid from the fourth. The strength Bard finally got a decent hit in- everybody else was missing or rolling just 1 damage. (Druid wanted to use a hero point to convince the last goblin to surrender.) The Druid used Heal to bring the Barbarian up another 10 hitpoints, allowing the party to continue.

After the fight, the group checked the three side rooms. Good perception spotted the centipedes and won initiative to retreat back out before they acted. Nothing happened. The fungus was identified from outside the room.

They spotted the idol in the next room, and identified it as Lamashtu. Nobody poked the idol of Lamashtu. They spotted the alarmed door, snuck through, and snuck past the headquarters. The statue was suspicious, and they took turns examining it. It didn't read as triggering from standing in front of it, so somebody eventually recognized it as a trap and the Alchemist trained in Thievery disarmed it.

The Barbarian kicked down the door successfully on the first try. How is that handled in terms of initiative/turns? I just had the Barbarian win initiative automatically, with one action used, finishing up her turn. Everybody else rolled. She entered rage and spent an action snapping off her horns to wield them in her hands, earning her a hero point for awesomeness. (No mechanical benefit/penalty.) Druid missed with Tanglefoot. Alchemist missed with a pre-poisoned dart (and felt that it had been pretty wasteful). Boss went- transform back, draw weapon, move up. (Probably should have used a claw.) Bard moved up and used DC 13 Color Spray- boss made the save, but was dazzled. Barbarian moved to flank, hit, and then crit (nat 20) for most of the boss's health. Alchemist threw an acid flask, splashing the party and doing full damage. (Boss at 2 hp.) Boss attacked the Barbarian- longsword, longsword, claw. All three hit, but the middle attack missed due to Color Spray, and time was wasted trying to look up Grab. (If not for Color Spray's "on a successful save" effect, the Barbarian would have been down again, but fine with 2 hero points.) Alchemist rolled the persistent damage, and got exactly enough to drop the boss.

After the fight, the Barbarian crit-failed the resonance overspend roll for a potion.

The body was used to convince the headquarters goblins to leave. I didn't prep the personalized items rewards in advance, but the Alchemist loved all the books and occult stuff. Alchemist had Aklo due to her background, and so read the journal. She made a complete copy of it before she showed the original to Keleri.

Impressions:
Barossa, the Barbarian, was the person who mattered in combat. Even though the Bard had a 16 in strength, the Barbarian was rolling 20s and smashing faces in, while the Bard was rolling poorly and mostly just contributing bard song. Druid's cantrips missed or did low damage. Alchemist provided some healing and a bomb, and didn't accomplish much when resorting to weapons. Barbarian was the only one truly free to hold a lantern; everybody else at least wanted both hands free.

Meanwhile, skills-wise, the Alchemist and Druid shone. Bard's middling charisma (14) didn't matter because no charisma skills showed up. Having invested in Wisdom rather than Int for character reasons, the Bard's bardic lore was behind the Alchemist's untrained lore. If I'd remembered to roll secretly, though, there would have been enough crit fails to make it as much a liability as a help. Barbarian's 14 Int and trained Society were overshadowed by Alchemist's 18 Int and trained Society. Druid made important nature and perception skills very well.

Questions/feedback:
Wild Shape has been a fairly consistent let-down. Any time the player wants to do something, it's not allowed. After learning how limited the spell was, she was excited for the opportunity to scout ahead, and was prevented by the lighting. Even though low-light vision wouldn't have helped, its absence was surprising and another disappointment. Furthermore, even if she had been able to scout, she would have quickly killed by centipedes wanting to eat a mouse. She felt being unable to do mouse things because you're actually a magical mouse should come with the ability to talk (since you're actually a magical mouse), making the roleplay fun.

What penalties does Perception take for distance, doors, etc.? I couldn't find that.

Bard player felt that the tradeoff on combat/skills was really unfair to martials. They have to invest in physical stats that don't provide social skills. They felt that strength really got the short end of the stick in this department, and felt it was bad that Fighter, Monk, and Barbarian were getting far too few skills, effectively being penalized twice for playing martials.

How does being small/medium interact with items? I can't find information on if small/medium characters need weapons or armor sized for them, or what the penalties are if they don't.

This search utility was hugely helpful when I remembered to use it. So much easier to look up conditions there. It's hard to find stuff in the PDF. Maybe I need a physical copy open to the index at all times?

Un-gripping is not an action; it's only re-gripping that costs an action.

So far, so good on the action system. Not much play time, but explaining it was a lot faster than move/standard/swift/immediate/full-round action and the first combat went smoothly.

Session 1, The Lost Star:
The party:
Barossa Oakswey, Half-Orc Barbarian (Deer Totem). Adopted/raised by a noble family. Pretty smart, but not very socially graceful.
Sabine Chastain, Gnome Alchemist. Bleachling gnome from a family of nobles that does pretty messed up partying with the fey. Focused on Int and Con. Not a nice person. Alchemical familiar is a useless slime eel named Splorch.
Flora Fauna, Halfling Druid (Wild Order). Very friendly, likes to turn into a mouse. Player is playing through a migraine.
Columba the Blue Blade, Human Bard (Lore). Strength focused, nothing else above a 14. Focused on roleplay and probing mechanics.

Couple of hours finishing up sheets and waiting for folks to resolve stuff. An hour and a half spent on initial research (asking Talga questions, knowledge checks about vampires, how to aid another on recalling knowledge, could you aid first and then reverse rolls, let’s cast Guidance, how scary is suddenly casting a spell to a traumatized goblin, how do component rules interact with spells like Inspire Courage and Message). Lots of time spent dealing with digital sheet problems and other roll20 issues. Twenty minutes (maybe more) spent deciding on exploration mode activities and trying to figure out what you could do while sneaking. One combat.

Exploration mode entering A1 (where there is a sneaky slime), everybody eventually decides to sneak. Only one person beats the slime’s perception (I missed that blindsight would render this moot). Slime rolls stealth against perception, beats half the party. Bard is assumed to have their weapon out. The stealth rolls are used as initiative all around. (Should perception have been used by the party instead because their stealth attempts weren’t relevant against blindsight?) Druid wins initiative, gets three damage with Ray of Frost. Ooze goes next, moves twice and attacks the Barbarian. Bard moves to flank, uses Inspire Courage, attacks the ooze for ten. Alchemist rolls knowledge and makes it. (How much information to give?) Pulls out a bomb and throws it for five damage with Inspire Courage (splashing allies for one). Confusion over Inspire Courage and splash damage, have to look up the text to see it’s only rolled damage. Barbarian rages, attacks twice, and deals 23 damage to get rid of the remaining 22 hp. Call it for the day.

Questions/feedback:
- Nobody can identify spells, and they are obvious. How do people react to cantrips and other spells? Is Calm Emotions going to freak people out?
- Certain verbal-only spells contain mention of what you say. Is this the verbal component? Does Message silence its own casting? Does Inspire Courage seem like a spell? Can bardic performances be integrated with speeches or singing, or are they still obviously spells?
- Alchemist player didn’t find it clear that Alchemist bombs are a category of normal alchemical item now, and no longer a ranged weapon like in PF1. A table of alchemical items by level would have been helpful.
- Really hard to figure out what you can do while sneaking in exploration mode. What perception checks can you make?
- How much do you recall with a successful knowledge roll about a monster?

Idle questions:
- For the purposes of Barbarian’s animal totem anathema: Alchemical bombs are weapons? What if you use alchemist’s fire to burn a bridge? Can you wield improvised weapons? Can you throw rocks? Is magic the only way you can make ranged attacks?

I will try to make a post for each session. My group has started collecting questions we have. I'll try to separate questions that actually came up in play from ones that were more idle.

Thanks! This is really nice for comparing bloodline powers and stuff.

Cantriped wrote:

Mark Seifter wrote:

It's supposed to have only one damage type (though seems to me probably would be slashing, would need to check notes further) to prevent it from being slightly but strictly superior to the longsword and greatsword. We could also give it versatile and make it exotic; being a bit more versatile than a martial weapon with its traits but not more damaging is kind of exactly exotic's wheelhouse.

Please do check!

The 1st level pregen Barbarian's Bastard Sword lists them as Slashing weapons with Two-hand d12 (so as the rulebook but slashing instead of piercing).

I would not make it any harder for Amiri to justify her already very niche weapon choice; you've already had to build an entire totem just around ensuring she could be updated to the new edition. Don't make her suffer proficiency issues all career too!

I personally prefer keeping it martial and not versatile because that lets more types of characters (and Amiri) use it. But if enough playtesters want it to be versatile for both damage types, we can certainly do that and make it exotic; Amiri could get away with having a greatsword if necessary anyway, since she rarely one-hands her weapon.

I'm with you on this- I'd rather have its flexible handedness as something available in martial.

Anyway, the clarifications and fixes are good to have. Thanks, Paizo!

It looks like Rope Trick and Magnificent Mansion were both moved to uncommon as well, so Magnificent Mansion did get a nerf after all- it costs you a whopping 60% of your expected personal funds for that level to learn, if you can find it.

Well, if they are using Celsius, then that would be 230 Fahrenheit. It would be weird if they have one international measurement vs the US standard for feet and etc.

The Celsius bit was a joke, like the other two "suggestions".

One of my least favorite things about Starfinder is how unpleasant player vs. player combat is, and that problem stems largely from the tanky PCs/glass cannon NPCs thing Starfinder does. I thought the devs had mentioned that PC and NPC math wouldn't be different in PF2, it's disappointing to see that this isn't the case.

They didn’t say that- they said you could still build NPCs using the PC rules.

Alabamans have fire resistance 10?
Alabamans have fast healing 1 for a minute after taking fire damage?
Paizo is using Celsius after all?

Minor point, but gold dragons aren’t actually LG by definition, and there’s a lot of internal Paizo debate about that particular dragon’s alignment.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Well,there are Neutral Clerics of Norgorber in his role a "the Reaper of Reputation" which is the most socially acceptable version of worshiping Norgorber, so I won't say there are "none."

But for the most part I like it, "joining team evil" is not really a thing neutral characters should be particularly interested in, and the "only one step" rule always bothered me since "Oh, no... I'm a neutral Cleric of Rovagug" wrankled. A lot of people would just play CN as a sort of "diet evil" and worship something horrific just to skirt around rules that prohibit actual evil. I will be glad to see this gone.

There are plenty of reasons to serve an Evil God without being Evil yourself (a severely deformed person praying to Lamashtu or a very strict lawyer revering Asmodeus for example), and previously published material directly mentions non-evil Clerics. So this is nothing but a retcon, which I am not a fan of at all. There should at least be a Heretic feat that allows for this as an option.

Lamashtu is a demon lord. If you’re not even willing to sacrifice somebody’s baby to her, why is she going to hand you a bunch of power?

Archetype feats are in place of class feats, so yes. Any time you have spare class feats, you should check out the archetype options.

I think the reasoning is the underlying essences. Druids are material and vital essences, and so getting spirits to do things for them isn't part of their schtick. Cleaning or dirtying something is material, and Bards cover mental and spiritual essences.

That said, Prestidigitation always felt like as much a Bard spell as a Wizard spell to me. Flesh things out so that Bard can do some as many things with it as Wizard. (Also, I'm a little sad that concentration means the party can't eat flavored things together as a group. My parties have shared a lot of moments together over dwindling trail rations and water that has been magic'd to kinda taste like real food and drink.)

This is a thread for cases where you are presented with two or more options and one is strictly better than the other. (This isn't for apples-to-oranges comparisons like saying demon bloodline powers vs. celestial bloodline powers.)

I noticed that animal totem has the following strictly betters:
Deer, wolf, and bull all have 1d10 piercing unarmed attacks leaving hands free.
Animal rage gives all of them scent, but deer gets 45ft. movement, wolf gets 40ft., and bull gets 30ft.

Cat also gets 1d10 piercing hands-free, plus scent and 40ft. movement from animal rage, but also gets 1d8 slashing agile claws (using hands). That puts them as strictly better than wolf and bull.

They're not big differences, but it'd be nice to have some mechanical reason for each form.

Any other cases like this?

Unseen Servant is concentration up to a minute now, down from an hour per level.

thievery, religion, arcana, athletics, acrobatics I believe have gotten external class ones, I get its really not the end of the world if it isn't there, just feels a little limiting. It's really the one thing I've seen so far that has came up as a limit so far

Thievery can be followed up at 8th level with making any of Rogue's signature skills a signature skill, increasing it to master-level, and getting a skill feat for it.

Prestidigitation is concentration, so no more flavoring things for the whole party. You're also limited to ten minutes. Occult casters can't flavor stuff, but Primal casters get access to that now.

Unseen Servant lasts up to one minute, concentration. That really smarts. That and Prestidigitation were the two spells that let you be magical. You could wave your hand and have something brought over without having to make a scene by casting something. You could have an umbrella float over you as you walked out in the snow.

Suggestion is a level higher despite some sensible nerfs to suggestions that become unreasonable. The duration was cut and moved to crit-fail only on top of that. (I know it's got plenty of combat applications, but being able to make people do reasonable-sounding things is solidly "quality of life" too.)

Only somewhat related: Most polymorph spells are too short to carry out a social interaction with. (I'm glad to see two ten-minute options. Cutting things close, but a second casting with metamagic to hide it should cover most situations.) (Another note: Shapechange is really bad on a spontaneous caster, and useless on Aberrant Sorcerer.)

I know nobody likes to see their cheese moved, but spells that provide a comfortable living are a big part of the appeal to casters for me. A big part of the appeal to polymorph spells for me was being able to fake being something you weren't with a little judicious Extend Spell. Maybe we could have a fraudulent form spell?

----

That said, they didn't go after all the utility/comfortable life spells:
Mage Hand starts out with about the same weight limit, and scales to double the old limit.

Magnificent Mansion is untouched.

The Illusory X spells have good durations and don't generally don't need to be babysat.

----

Nerfs I can't complain about:
Yeah, Rope Trick was really low level for something that creates a pocket dimension.

You can definitely take skill feats with general feats. The skills preview stated it.

My goodness, it is a hassle to compare/pick anything.

Weighing sorcerer bloodlines? Track down three powers sprinkled throughout the spells.

Want to pick a general feat? Sift through all the skill feats. (I'm guessing this is because some general feats are skill feats without a skill.)

Want to take a feat for Society? Find the table, then individually look up the six trained feats scattered throughout all the general/skill feats.

All in all, I'll be very glad when one of the reference sites gets the contents up.

Paizo would like us to keep the preview blog threads free of early spoilers.

QuidEst wrote:

Alchemist being able to make and distribute alchemical items for free seems pretty legit new to me. For a lot of the other stuff, they need to capture as much of old Pathfinder as possible.

Herbalism nature bond for Druids.

You can do potions and elixirs in PF1, and after many years, poisons, but not alchemical items like tanglefoot bags and so on.

Ngai M'katu wrote:

Sounds like your mind's made up. But think of it this way - its as if when TV only had 4 stations, a person were to say, "Bah! They only have 4 choices? I'll be sticking with radio, thanks."

But both radio and TV are great.

The beauty of it is that both PF1 and PF2 still exist. I can have fun with 2nd edition, you can have fun with 1st edition. There's no need to crap on each other's preference.

Except I keep trying to be open and persuadable here if Paizo would just put in a new idea that makes me want to play it.

Apparently that's asking too much.

And we all know that in Practice the second PF2 exists PF1 ceases to exist and I won't be able to get a table at a Con to play all my PF1 characters.

To be honest-- there's a much greater chance I will just go to 5th ed instead than go to PF2 as it looks now because of the lack of any new/interesting idea other than "everything's a feat and you get a buttload of them".

Alchemist being able to make and distribute alchemical items for free seems pretty legit new to me. For a lot of the other stuff, they need to capture as much of old Pathfinder as possible.

When it comes out, though, I’ll be playing a Rogue with unlimited Bard song.

While I’m not too concerned about how it applies to feats, I’m pretty happy that Sorcs have a way to trade spells out at the cost of a lot of time.

Ugh, no blog today? And I have to wait until Friday in my time zone?!

I think we've got another two hours in which we could get a blog today.

Does this means just carry several shields?

You can:

In PF1, a shield couldn’t absorb damage from any attacks without breaking, because it couldn’t absorb damage from attacks. An emergency 7hp at level one is a good deal.

Unicore wrote:

BUt it is not fair to say PF2, it its playtest is not going to offer the options of PF1 after 10 years of material. We have to look for how this material can be integrated, because more than likely, the vast majority of previous options will come back with time.

Is it fair to ask for ONE singular new thing?

Just one!

Just give me one thing I can do in PF2 that I couldn't do in PF1- and I have yet to see a feat that fits this description in any way.

Just one thing that makes me think "Yeah, I want to play in a PF2 game so I can make X"?

I mean- almost every single Player's Companion over the past 10 years has managed to have at least one thing- some of them a ton (looking at you, Weaponmaster's Handbook), but the entire new edition can't put in a single one?

Going with a standard of “would at least be a very significant archetype”:

I can definitely understand waiting for more options to come out, though. A lot of what I’m excited for isn’t even in the playtest (Bard multiclass archetype, for instance), and I’ll be impatient for ancestries.

QuidEst wrote:

Dragonborn3 wrote:

It is a bit strange you can start play as a Wizard with 8 Intelligence but have to have a 16 if you start as something other than a Wizard....

It’s not as strange as playing a Wizard who dumps Int, though.

Still: if somebody isn’t very bright, they can be a Wizard with enough hard work. You have to be brilliant at a minimum to be learn wizardry on the side, though. Somebody who is focused entirely on being a Fighter can overcome weakness, but if you expect to wear any armor with a little work, you better be pretty strong. And so on.

But the current setup does nothing to account for the increasing difficulty of more specialized training vs the reasonably low difficulty of entry level abilities.

I think it does something to account for that: feat level requirements.

I’m cool with dabbling in every type of armor and martial weapon requiring a pretty good strength score so that it doesn’t take as much effort, or grasping the fundamentals of magic without a year of potentially lethal study requiring you to be really smart. Cantrips are a big deal in PF2!

It is a bit strange you can start play as a Wizard with 8 Intelligence but have to have a 16 if you start as something other than a Wizard....

It’s not as strange as playing a Wizard who dumps Int, though.

Still: if somebody isn’t very bright, they can be a Wizard with enough hard work. You have to be brilliant at a minimum to be learn wizardry on the side, though. Somebody who is focused entirely on being a Fighter can overcome weakness, but if you expect to wear any armor with a little work, you better be pretty strong. And so on.

The feats do seem pretty weak. Maybe roll the three into two? I feel like “don’t suck at a skill, but only on a ship” should be the sort of thing handed out reasonably cheaply.

Power Attack works off the base die, but automatically scales as you level.

Thanks Quid

Hmm... I thought about characters taking dedication and then mostly powers etc - so they would stop growing at half level if one doesnt take further spellcasting feats? that would be kind of a bummer tbh.
If thats the case I hope there are some possiblities to leverage that (like for example the pf1 feat that allows to increase the effective level when calculating your animal companion strength)

No.

Cantrip scaling is only a problem if you have other spell slots. You only have other spell slots if you take that feat for spell slots. (If your class has casting, that progresses at the full rate.)

I reread the whole and kinda stumbled upon something in the wording.

The Wizard dedication feat says you get two cantrips and doesn't state anything about their power.

The basic Spellcasting tells that Cantrips, Spell Powers etc are scaling at half you level.

I guess the info how all the wizard related stuff scales should be in the dedication feat (or individual in the feats with only the stuff its relevant too listed)

It also opens up the question what the cantrips strength is withoug basic spellcasting

and how well half your level is when you want to use cantrips in high level

Cantrips always scale to your highest spell level, or half your level rounded up if you don’t have spell slots. (That’s the same as the highest spell level of any of the casters.) because you’re getting spell slots slower, the second feat has to keep your cantrips from getting weaker.

One cool thing about this is that two feats can change any spell point caster’s pool. While I’m not sure how the DCs work, a Paladin can probably take two feats to get a Wisdom-based pool from Cleric, and a Monk can spend two feats to get an Int pool from Wizard. It also adds one to your pool

The more i read the more confused i am by the last line of the basic wizard spellcasting feat;

Even though you can cast spells, the spell level of your cantrips and arcane powers is half your level rounded up.

Is this not always the case? Why is this line here, it seems curiously redundant unless the normal rules for cantrips and powers are different? If they are different then it reads very odd indeed, if i take the dedication i use different rules to when i take another feat and specialise more.

Mark explained that one. (… I just watched The Disaster Artist, and it feels weird talking about Mark.)

Cantrips and powers use half your level rounded up if you don't have any spells. If you do have spells, they use your highest spell level. These have an exception in them so that taking the casting feat doesn't drop your Wizard cantrips.

Would it drop the level of your ancestry cantrips? Sounds like something to look at the actual rules on.

I want to try:
Bard with Rogue feats (only because I can't do the much cooler reverse yet)
Alchemist with Wizard feats (I'm about equal on being able to do the reverse)
Enchanter Wizard (what does it take to be a decent face?)

I'll be running the game, though, so I might have to wait until after that.

And Paizo continues to impress.

One of the big changes from PF1 to PF2 is that a lot of what were baked in class features are now class feats. So in essence, PF2 multiclassing means literally swapping out some class features of your main class for those of another class, much like archetypes worked in PF1... only less adhoc and more deliberate.

As someone who has multiclassed a lot over the years and juggled a lot of silly numbers, I have to say this is a much more elegant approach.

For example: If you want a spellcasting paladin, you can swap out your 2nd and 4th level class feats for cleric spellcasting of up to 3rd level spells by level 8. Sure, you only get 1 slot of each level without further feats, but you get access to spells while they're still relevant - unlike in PF1 where you didn't see 3rd level spells until 13th level. A few more feats and a paladin can cast up to 8th level divine spells... while still being a smiting, armoured, martial juggernaut.

That is awesome

And, if this is carried to the final book, you can pick instead pick Sorcerer instead with a divine bloodline of your choice for charisma-based divine spontaneous casting.

I like the high stat entry requirements, at least once we get the full class options. (It's a little hard on charisma-based characters and the four represented classes to start with.) You'll be able to grab classes with the same stat with no sweat, but it means that a Wizard who wants to be tanky will need to make a sizable investment in strength, while a Fighter who wants to be casty can choose to go with a Wisdom-based class and shore up their will saves at the same time.

It's at a level where you can get it with your secondary stat in most cases. If not, fifth level is very manageable.

I think one of the useful things to test will be how well a class can function spending its level 2+ feats on options from an external class. The fact that casters get a couple fewer feats seems even more relevant now.