Instead of removing +level entirely, you could just halve it. You get +1 at level 2, +2 at level 4, etc etc. It would flatten out the curve quite a bit, while not completely wrecking the balance of the game. Has anybody tried doing that?
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I mean, of all my wants Dragonborn are kinda least on my list. I just like having breath weapons, and I would rather be a dragon race than a half-dragon. Feels a little too OC do not steal. Plus I've always been into the idea of sapient non-bipedal creatures, and dragons fit that bill pretty well in dnd.I really don't care for "dragon people" personally.Kobolds are better. And plushier. Well, that's not quite fair, is it? Kobolds are quite distinctly undragon-like. They worship dragons, but are otherwise diminutive, cowardly, and don't have a breath weapon. As much as I like kobolds, and I love kobolds, they are far from dragon people. They didn't even have scales and strict association with dragons until like 3e, if I remember correctly. They used to be more dog like. Regardless, I'm not really advocating for Dragonborn in Pathfinder. While I would thinks that's neat, and would love to see their ancestry feats and what not, they are ultimately a dnd property. I do want a "dragon people" in pathfinder, but I hope they're more creative then Dragonborn, who are pretty bereft of decent lore, imo.
I'm going to agree with Old_Man_Robot on this one. I take Cloud Jump as two abilities. First is the extension of Long Jump and High Jump. When you long jump, you jump 3 times the distance set by the DC. When you high jump, you follow the rules of long jump without tripling the distance. The implication being that you can leap 60 feat for a single Long Jump. Since Cloud Jump modifies Long Jump, and being able to leap 60 feet would be otherwise impossible, I'd say that you can now jump longer than your speed. The second ability then is being able to further extend your jumps by your speed again. If the implication was that this was required to make the 60 ft jump possible in the first place, then putting an example of an impossible jump without explaining it was impossible without the use of this second ability would be absurd. Additionally, the wording You can also increase the number of actions you use (up to the number of actions you have remaining in your turn) to jump [i]even[i/] further. would be problematic, as the words "also" and "even" imply that this happens in addition to what is said in the paragraph previous, not as an explanation to how it happens. I also have to say that while this is powerful, its still not flying, and you can only go so far in a straight line. It's not even a situation that comes up frequently, and just makes you feel cool more than anything.
I really don't care for "dragon people" personally.Kobolds are better. And plushier. I mean, of all my wants Dragonborn are kinda least on my list. I just like having breath weapons, and I would rather be a dragon race than a half-dragon. Feels a little too OC do not steal. Plus I've always been into the idea of sapient non-bipedal creatures, and dragons fit that bill pretty well in dnd.
Ditto on the Xcom Vipers. I was leaning on the side of Serpentfolk should be playable up until I saw they're another human with an animal head deal. It is kinda weird how Pathfinder has 3 snake races and they range from humans with snake-y traits to scalie human with snake head. Seems a little redundant, especially considering none of them have tails or are legless. My top choices for Monstrous races are probably Lizardfolk (check), Xcom-Viper snake people, Kahjiit (check), and Dragonborn (or really, a dragon race, not even necessarily humanoid, but still medium sized and ready for adventuring). Elder Scrolls is definitely an influence on those choices, but what can I say :P
Almost as different? What? AD&D2e is definitely more different from 3e than 3e is from PF2e. And I wish I could bring myself to homebrew a wholebunch of Dark Sun stuff to run a game in the setting, but every time I try I set the bar too high, and end up giving up once I try to figure out defiling, and class changes.
The issue with metagaming is that it is impossible to not metagame. You cannot separate player knowledge from character knowledge. Simply having the knowledge changes your decision making process, as making a choice without knowing its outcome and purposefully making the wrong choice and fundamentally different. However, that doesn't mean you could come into my game with the Bestiary memorized and think that you'll be gucci pulling out a cold iron dagger at the first sight of a Redcap, because people in universe don't have encyclopedic knowledge of Fey and all their types (unless they do). In this conversation, the subject chosen was unfortunate as it really isn't a good example; Trolls are super common knowledge, and people love fire. I'm not going to slap somebodies wrist because they pulled out a firebomb against a troll. I think a better example would be oozes. They're really a dnd only thing, and not even that common place within the settings. They're resistances to slashing and lightning are interesting for a few reasons. Slashing could easily be figured out with very few context clues, namely that oozes would sensibly not be harmed by things cutting it, cause it just falls back together. A savvy adventurer could probably deduce that, even if the players might not be able to, in kind of a reverse metagame problem. However, lightning resistance doesn't make intuitive sense. There's nothing to suggest why oozes are resistant. Maybe you could say something about the fact that they're liquid, or something like that, but eeeeehhhhhh, I'd probably call b**!*%~!. My point is that since it is impossible not to metagame on some level, there has to be an understanding from the DM that the more common the monster they use, the more likely a player is just going to know something about via osmosis, and really that's okay. It usually just makes the player feel empowered, which I generally see as a good thing. kudos to them. BUT! There is no hard and fast rule about this, and it just has to be a case by case basis. I think its also important to remember that this is ultimately a game, and you cannot avoid playing it like a game. Recall Knowledge is a very gamified thing in the first place, and is more to fill in the gaps of player knowledge than to define character knowledge, imo.
You're close, but not quite. You would still award 160xp, because it is an extreme encounter. Character adjustments don't effect the xp given. Also, you don't have to match your budget exactly, just close. Always give the xp value for the encounter type.
PF2 actually can easily support this "training wheels" method of play as well. Just shift the difficulty of all desired tasks down by 4 levels. Untrained characters will still sometimes struggle with a task, but it will shift the math to right about where you want it to be. You just hate the way things are done in PF2. You literally said "Manipulating your chance of success to 90+% for specialties is the most enjoyable way to play" as if it were some inherit truth. You've made it pretty clear that you don't care for anything PF2 cause it isn't PF1.
This discussion on how the games are going to be less generic fantasy now in PF2 is kinda baffling to me, considering how PF1 in my eyes was all about the crazy weird races and classes that didn't fit anywhere. I mean, goblin alchemist is downright cliche in comparison, not to mention goblins have never been taken too seriously, it's not hard for me to see them as a core race. Now granted, I'm much more loose-y goose-y with lore than a lot of you it seems, and I value having a fun and interesting game far, far above having an absolute consistent game world, but that's my 2 cents on Gobies and non-core races. As for experiencing PF2, I'll have my first real session of it this Thursday, cause it can be hard to really people for a new system out of the blue when you're neck deep in a another campaign. Regardless, I've built a few characters and gone through most of the rules with a fine toothed comb, and I've come up pretty please. Rampant errors aside, most of my issues aren't worth mentioning, or have to do with sloppy work in certain sections, like the Alchemist im general, or how shield stats scale(or don't) at higher levels. I'm excited to play.
Hey now. Old school 1rst edtion > 1978 here. Its the Monster Manual and we will include Githyanki, Githzari, Illithids and Purple Worms.... Well, you'll have to homebrew that stuff. Not Purple Worms, but the rest of it you'll not find in the Bestiary. You can guarantee that you'll find conversions easily though.
How well do martial weapons stack up against each other? Especially within the same category, such as the difference between a Longsword and a Warhammer? Or a Greataxe and Claymore?
Yes. Dragonborn should be digitigrade and have tails, imo. Always felt weird about the plantigrade feet with big ole claws.
I am preparing to run a PF2 campaign as soon as possible now that Second Edition on the horizon. This will likely mean I won't be able to make my own campaign, and instead will be running one of Paizo's (most likely). However, I've never been too crazy about sticking to default settings, at least with everything as is. I play pretty fast and lose with canon, to say the least. With that in mind, I've played waaaay more D&D than I have Pathfinder, and I've grown attached to many D&D staples. Even my avatar here is supposed to represent the closest thing to Dragonborn, being my favorite D&D race (in spite of how s!+~ty they are in 5e lol). I've started drafting my first homebrews for D&D classics like Dragonborn, Warforged, and Planescape-style Tieflings with concessions to modern depictions. I want to make some kind of Warlock Archetype, and some exclusive monsters like Mind Flayers and Beholders but that will have to wait till I have a better grasp on the rules. Are there character options from other settings (not necessarily D&D, but more of a wide net of non-paizo material) that you are seeking to "import"?
I'm sort of curious if anyone else has similar or differing opinions about this. I've always been of the opinion that everybody wanting all character builds at level 1 to be a dumb, imo. Not that wanting it is bad, but how can everybody expect to be 100% of what they want to be at level 1. I'm also of the opinion that Paladin, Bard, and Druid are higher level ideas, and that one works towards being that kind of character, rather than starting out that way, but I digress.
I'm confused by you being confused. Monks are the unarmed martial class. They're martial artists. Would you feel better if they were called such? What exactly stops you from making your tavern brawler? They apparently have full support for non-ki monks, meaning they don't need powers to keep up. What exactly do you mean by needing "extra help to get over hurdles"? And then I can't figure out whether or not you like monks not requiring ki or not. Please explain your position, it's actually driving me crazy lol.
Put me in the "Sorcerers should be able to spontaneously heighten all their spells" camp. I approach it from a few different angles. Narratively, Sorcerers are inherently magical. They literally cast by feeling. As a result, they can fine tune the amount of power they put into a spell, because it's as natural as moving a muscle. It makes sense that when they get a spell, they are better suited to manipulating it on the fly than say a wizard, who needs to formulate their spells. So the fact that wizards are able to extrapolate all levels of a spell while sorcerers cannot seems like a reversal of their narrative roles, and imo a favoritism for wizards, but I digress. As for choice paralysis, it really comes down to if you want to cast a spell at its highest level possible or not. The extra choices brought by free heightening are less of a choice then the choice between the actual spells. The people who suffer from choice paralysis in spell casters will be exactly as bad with or with out the heightening in my experience, because the heightening is a matter of magnitude, not action.
Tbh, the only piece I think I have a major issue with is Amiri. When compared to her classic look, she is looking thin. I like how Wayne made her pallid and gaunt, giving her a haunted, crazed look which I think is apropos for a barbarian, but she is really thin. That said, I've always been partial to beefy characters. I don't find issue with Merisiel's new design, on the other hand, so idk.
Well, it's interesting because from a technical viewpoint, I find much of the new art superior. Facial expressions are stronger and better rendered, poses are more dynamic and make physical sense, the characters are more proportional, and I think there's a better balance of low to high detail areas. However there are definitely some things I like better in the old art, mostly relating to shading and shadows. The new art is pretty flat, in comparison. Plus I definitely see that Wayne likes to draw people thinner than he did ~10 years ago. I can't say which I like better, especially since this is a tad unfair comparison what with the new art being so low res. I remain indifferent.
Except alignment, which I hold to being a dumb mechanic that should be excised from the game, at least rules wise. I mean, tenants and anathema already exist, why limit class by alignment? Anyway, I'll hop off my soapboxIn fairness, 10/12 Classes don't ever care about Alignment at all. And Cleric only cares about it inasmuch as it effects what God you can have. Only Champion cares about Alignment for its own sake. I feel that works more against alignment than for it. After all, if it was more deeply and consistently integrated then I could see it as this weird quirk of the system, where different actions and abilities are labeled with alignment, and your alignment would change based on your actions As is stands, it affects only 2 classes, where they already have far more flavorful restrictions. Alignment pidgeon holes champions as it stands, since there can be only 9 subclasses. I'm sure arguments against alignment have been parroted over and over at this point, so I wont waste to much breath and of topic conversation on it, but alignment is one of my only big pet peeves about dnd & ilk.
I gotta say, I'm all about this non magic healing thing. I want to play an Alchemist with potions and what not, and being able to supplement that with the battle medic and tend wounds... Di Molto Regardless, the more I hear from this stream, the more it seems all my qualms about the playtest have been smoothed over. Except alignment, which I hold to being a dumb mechanic that should be excised from the game, at least rules wise. I mean, tenants and anathema already exist, why limit class by alignment? Anyway, I'll hop off my soapbox
Maybe it's because I really latched on to the whole clan aspect of their lore in the 5e handbook, but I love dragonborn. And in my experience, they're very commonly played. They're just cool. (Though even I hate their base stats. Like, a single breath weapon per long rest, and that's it? Wtf WotC) Kind of like Argonians, but with more dnd flavor. I plan on making some Dragonborn homebrew asap for PF2, even if I likely will never play it thanks to being the ever-DM Regardless, I like the Kobold art. They cute af. Maybe a bit too cute tbh, kinda makes them less of a threat, when they're small enough to punt.
I'm curious, MerlinCross, do you honestly believe that every class from 1e all have design space to be unique classes in 2e? I mean, I haven't played 90% of them, considering how little pathfinder I've played, but I've definitely read all of the classes, and imo most of the alternate classes and hybrid classes can be binned in favor of archetypes that will allow the same thing. Most of the occult classes, the Oracle, the Summoner, and the Inquisitor stick out to me as class worthy, and the alchemist, obviously, but otherwise a lot of them could be covered pretty fairly by expanded class customization. Even the Magus, which I have special reverence for because I am in love with arcane gishes, could be pretty handily covered through a wizard fighter multi class with a spell strike feat(which doesn't currently exist, granted). Or even a class archetype for wizard or fighter that turns it into a magus. Idk. Point being, I think there are only a handful of classes worth being brought over from 1e, and the rest should explore new ground and concepts.
I kinda agree with Ediwir. Without much concrete to talk about within these forums, most of these topics are people arguing over semantics of this or that since there's nothing else to talk about. I don't really even know why Paizo opened up these forums so early, lmao. Not much good conversation has happened.
Okay, I've largely avoided paladin alignment threads because frankly nothing of value ever seems to get done. This is one of the most contentious this community has ever gone to war over. I frankly don't give a crap about what alignment paladins wind up with. I do have two issues with the current set up however, Firstly the mechanical roles of heavy armor dude and divinely powered non-spellcaster( spell points/powers, i don't really know how to word that one, but lay on hands, domains, you get the idea) are locked to one alignment, unless you want to kind of put the monk in that second, but that's iffy at best. I feel like that's bad design, those are both kind of wide concepts that I feel like should be pretty open to anyone from the start. The second is more to do with the way the decision has been handled. I went back and read the paladin blog again, and yes, I understand paizo claims to have listened to both sides of the argument. I really have trouble believing that. At this point I would love to see something from the devs at least discussing what considerations each side was given, because at present it kind of reads like they looked to the LG only crowd and kissed their boots, then turned to the people advocating for more openness, to varying degrees and said, eh, maybe someday we'll throw you a bone. That seems, disrespectful. It doesn't help that neither side of the whole mess has really acted all that paladin like through the whole thing. Frankly at this point I'd almost like to see the paladin not just removed from core, but from the game in general. The community just isn't mature enough to handle it. Sorry that the whole post went a little bit long and blocky, but hey, my 3 cents Except It's not a zero-sum game. That implies that both sides gained and lost equally, where ultimately nobody benefited. This was not a zero-sum game. This was a "Paizo decided one side was right, namely that Paladins are Lawful Good only" game. And the other side got a vague statement that there might, in the future, maybe be non-LG Paladin-esque characters. This might not have been a problem if paladins didn't hold near exclusive rights over the defensive typed character, with almost all defensive actions and feats as well as Legendary Armor Prof locked down (not that it actually turns out to be worth it in the end cause all it means is a +1, but that's a different argument). More than that, there are people willing to compromise on the Paladin == Lawful Good argument, as far as making the Paladin a smaller part of a whole in the form of a new class, in which the Paladin holds a selection of exclusive, Paladin-y abilities such as Smite Evil and Lay-On-hands, while the other alignments of the class get other abilities like horse riding and non-righteous divine magics (as that does exist within the confines of Pathfinder). This does in fact fit within your purview of Paladin == LG, unless you will stand for nothing less then Paladin being it's own exclusive class, solely Lawful Good, with no other classes poaching those abilities. Which, good for you, I guess. You've chosen to die on an uncompromising hill over a game, but with the arguments I've gotten into over Star Wars, I can't really criticize all that much. It's also pretty hard to take the Historical angle on this as well, because, Historically speaking, Paladins weren't always holy, nor even particularly virtuous. They were, more than anything, Knights of particularly high rank, or simply special. The Image of the modern Paladin of DnD comes, ultimately, from one specific knight of Charlemagne, those knights who were referred to as Paladins, from the roman base Palatine, meaning a government official who worked on Palatine hill. This specific Paladin was noted of being particularly virtuous, and had a number of stories written about him. A better title for a Knight who serves a Holy cause would probably be Templar or perhaps Crusader, but those also run into some possible hangups in terms of definition. Regardless, history falls apart on many of the names of classes throughout DnD, with especial attention to Monks and Sorcerers vs Wizards vs Druids, so I digress. As for saying the die is cast, that is explicitly not true. That's kinda the whole point for the playtest, is that the die is *not* cast and that people who want to see it changed should continue to push for it. It is in poor taste for you to condemn those who wish to see change by essentially lying. The whole alignment debate, I believe, comes down to more of an argument about whether or not alignment is explicit or implicit. In other words, does alignment dictate your actions, or do actions dictate your alignment? A tangent off that, but also important, is alignment actions that you perform or your beliefs? Personally, I prefer the view of alignment is implicit in mortal creatures, defined by their actions, while it being explicit in immortal beings such as gods and demons, guiding their actions and ideals. As such, Paladins would be implicitly LG as their Oaths would push them to be so, but ultimately not a thing to codify as mortal beings are simply not the same as outsiders and immortals, which can be definably Good or Evil. Now this whole post has been pretty long in the wind, but I think I got all of my talking points out there. lmao idc tho EDIT: Rereading this, it comes across as a little terse, and I would apologize for that. Just wanted to get all the factual stuff out in as quickly of a manner as possible with devolving the English language.
I mean, I think dropping the Lawful good requirement for Paladins doesn't mean that suddenly all Paladins will be Chaotic Evil. After all, if we only drop the alignment restriction, suddenly the LG alignment becomes more of an implicit thing, then explicit. With how the oath and anathema are written, people who are paladins would need to be good, and would tend to be lawful. Thus, most paladins end up being LG in the end, as they still need to follow their code, but also allows for interesting characters who have to choose between their instincts, and their righteous powers. I would argue the same for Clerics, but that would require oaths to each God, and that would take up so much space I can understand making that explicit just to save space.
Has it been clarified anywhere whether or not the use of backpacks, satchels and belt pouches adds any extra bulk usage? For example, does a Dwarf Cleric with 14 str, and thus 7 bulk before encumbrance, gain 4 bulk to a total of 11 bulk before encumbrance with the use of a backpack? And further more 12 max to 16 max?
You do realize they get like 40 something spells by 20th level, right? And they know all of them always? And can retrain those spells a week per spell in downtime right?
So, you're given a very limited amount of bulk to work with without becoming encumbered. And there doesn't seem to be any way to increase your bulk limit easily. And the containers seem to hold a set amount of bulk on their own. So I guess my question here is this: Do items in a container count against your own bulk? and if not, then what exactly is the limiting factor of containers?
I think the best way to go about it is to have a Half blood template, where you pick something like 2 traits from each of the races, and then you pick feats from both races from then on. That said, Ancestry feats being chosen after level 1 also doesn't rub me the right way. I probably would just have people choose like 4 of them at level 1, and deal with the consequences of them being a little OP. This is probably the only part of the PF2 that so far I just can't really jive with, though Resonance certainly has me suspicious with how clunky it looks, but that's harder to see the full form of.
No, I get that. What I'm saying is that a Wizard knows Dispel Magic 2 - 10 simply by having it in their spell book, while a Sorcerer will either only know a single level of that spell, waste multiple of their precious spells known slots on it, or know that they might need to cast it at a higher level that day, meaning it's not really all that spontaneous. Isn't kinda weird that there is a spontaneous feature that you must prepare at the beginning of the day, making it not spontaneous? If the sorcerer know that they'll have to cast that Dispel Magic at 6th level today, then so does the Wizard, and they can now prepare it also at 6th level. This restriction also means that, by some strange twist of fate, Sorcerers cannot actually heighten their own spells, except by Spontaneous Heighten.
Let me get this straight in my head. If I take Dispel Magic at 3rd level as a 2nd level spell, and when I get to 5th level and get my 3rd level spell slots, to cast Dispel Magic as a third level spell I will have to:
Seems Like a whole lot of rigmarole that Wizards don't have to deal with, in the name of keeping it simple. It doesn't seem too bad, but Spontaneous spellcasting, along with the Resonance system, both seem like they kinda missed the mark on elegant design.
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