Robert Bunker's page

To me the game should be designed around the d20 roll, and not vice-versa.

The problem is that the game is designed as though you're rolling 3d6 or 2d10 - the smaller numbers don't have much impact on 1d20.

1d20 requires larger bonuses, hence the huge skill bonuses you could get in PF1.

They borrowed the proficiency system from a game that had you roll 2d6 for skill checks (Stars Without Number).

Tight math doesn't work with a d20 because of the randomness of the distribution. You need a large sample size to notice a 10-15% difference in success rate and you just don't get to roll the die enough times to balance things out.

It also makes complex skill checks unreliable. With a success rate at 80% (higher than you can actually achieve in PF2) you only have a 51.2% chance of succeeding on three consecutive attempts.

The math doesn't work

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It would be really nice if Paizo actually interacted with the playtsters through the official forums instead of hiding developer thoughts and interviews on IGN, Twitch, and other platforms.

Making it as difficult as possible to access all of the information seems dishonest, its not what you do if you're actually looking to engage with your community.

The notion of combining consumables with resonance is ridiculous. How does going from one method of tracking to TWO methods of tracking make this easier?

To use Erik Mona's favorite argument, I can't think of any fiction where a hero downed a potion only to lament that he had no resonance, so it wouldn't work.

Forget fiction, I've never come across a single game where this was possible. NEVER. I've been playing RPGs since I was in 3rd grade (more than 20 years) and Pathfinder 2e is the first and only game I've ever seen that limits you on potions like this.

They could at least give a gigantic warning in the Ancestry section telling Dwarf Players that they absolutely need to add points back into Charisma.

I think that its going to be easier to houserule Pathfinder 1e with the unchained action economy into a deeper / better game than it will be to houserule 2e into something fun.

2e is about balancing society play at ALL costs. Whats the point of "fun" if society doesn't play like WoW's dungeon finder?

They pretty much borrowed most of the skill system from Stars Without Number but left out the most important detail.

Proficiency ranks worked really well in SWN even with small bonuses because players rolled 2d6 for skills instead of 1d20.

With 1d20 you have 20 possible results that each correspond with 1 "total". Your chance of rolling a 1 is the same as your chance of rolling a 14 or a 20.

2d6 has 36 possible results, but those results only create 11 "totals". Those 36 possible outcomes aren't distributed evenly across all possible totals, you actually have a 66% chance of rolling 5,6,7,8, or 9. That's double the chance that you roll a 2,3,4,10,11, or 12.

A bonus of +3 feels a LOT bigger than a +1 on a 2d6 roll, but the difference is barely noticeable (outside of a large sample size) on a 1d20.

They couldn't even steal someone else's idea correctly. They borrowed the proficiency ranks, then removed the mechanic that underpinned that skill system's success. Tight math doesn't work very well when your die roll is as random as a d20. It turns the game into a series of slightly weighted coin flips.

These questions have been answered already. They were answered as early as April. Earlier probably, but it is harder to quote audio interviews.

Go to the Gameinformer interview for points 1-3.. Further elaboration can be found in various blogs, forum posts, twitch streams, and other interviews.

** spoiler omitted **...

Why exactly do I have to look for interviews and streams on 3rd party sites for information about the playtest? It's like they're trying to hide that information from as many people as possible and it strikes me as dishonest.

They could at least provide written transcripts of those videos and interviews on these forums or their own website so that we can remain informed about the direction of the product were currently testing.

If they wanted real feedback, they wouldn't be hiding their answers all over the internet and forcing us to go look for them. They wouldn't be avoiding giving us written blog posts and concrete answers. This is a publicity tour, not an invitation for feedback.

The game is mostly finished, the "playtest" is just a preview, and our feedback means nothing.

There seems to be the widespread view, that PF1 offers more individualization than PF2. This made me curious and though I never played PF1 I looked up the book I have.

For instance the Fighter:

In PF1 the Fighter is the class with most bonus feats if I am correct. By rule, every char gains 10 feats till 19th level at every other level.
The Fighter gets one bonus feat at 1st, 2nd and every even level therafter which is accumulates to 11 feats which totals to 21 feats overall.

In PF2 the fighter gets 31 feats in total.

So in PF2 the fighter gets 10 feats more than in PF1. To me this means there are way more options for individualization in PF2.

Those 31 feats aren't all meaningful choices though.

You may have only chosen 21 feats in 1st, but you had hundreds of options, and you also gained all of your ancestry feats baseline, many skill feats were included in the baseline skills, and you got a wider variety of baked in class features - especially once archetypes were introduced.

You get to pick more feats, but those choices are less meaningful.

Try comparing a Druid, or a Ranger to their 1st edition selves. You can't tell me that those classes have more options instead of fewer...

On top of all this can we please admit that the tactical combat in 1e is actually quite shallow? Especially for martials. 5ft step and full attack over and over is really brain dead but is the most effective way to fight for like 80% of the cast. 2e combat so far (halfway through chapter 3) actually has hard choices and so much more mobility. We have been loving combats so far even though they are a bit harder than we are used to in 1e. Actually the increase in difficulty has been refreshing to be honest.

The unchained action economy added a lot of that depth to 1e.

They didn't need to stray this far from the original game to make the needed fixes and updates.

I would have liked to see class features like weapon training, bravery, and the class features that replace them when you select an archetype become "class feats".

I just didn't expect to see Power Attack, Cleave (Swipe), Two Weapon Fighting (Double Slice) and other martial attacks to become class locked.

I was hoping to see archetypes kind of removed and replaced with class feats, while general combat feats remained open to anyone.

I'm not a fan of the silos within class feats at all. It feels very punishing to pick something "off spec".

You seem to be forgetting that as a Dwarf you have innately more HP over other races than that potion could have possibly have given you. So the lack of resonance didn't do you in even if it feel like it, because someone with 10 cha but 4 less HP would be in just a bad a state. And bad rolls happen. You could have died because you rolled a Nat 1 climbing up a 20ft wall. You could have died because an enemy got a Nat 20 against you. I'm not sure how this is a Resonance problem any more than it is a "dice rolls exist" problem, except that the Res roll just happened to be the thing that exposed the dice problem.

4 Extra HP is worth a lot less than the RP you lose by being a Dwarf.

Resonance is fine at high levels and makes low levels feel like crap.

Either there needs to be a minimum, or low level consumables should be excluded.

Or the developers could join the modern world of tabletop games and give us healing on short rests.

This is something players want, its a big reason for 5e's popularity, and its something all of my players want to see in 2e or we won't be playing.

Mandatory dedicated healers makes the game feel like WoW. If I wanted that experience I would just re-up my subscription.

2e isn't S&S, it's a tabletop MMORPG. Everything is squished and normalized, you lose hp every fight, there are no skill specialists anymore. Everything is a fight and every fight causes you to take damage. There are no more tactics, no more planning, no more useful skills or consumable items.

They took the creativity out of the game and it's not fun anymore.

I'll either be picking up 5e or sticking with 3.5/PF and the unchained action economy.

I started playing PF1e during the playtest because I was disappointed by the video game feel of 4th edition - and now Paizo has decided to turn 2e into the very thing their original playerbase was fleeing in the first place.

. In PF2 this is not the case, and until that's dealt with stealth is completely unusable in the vast majority of situations.

It's being pushed out so that the whole game plays like a WoW dungeon.

Creative approaches are gone, mandatory heal-bots are in. If you just expect 100% of encounters to be combat, 2e is damned near perfect.

What cost? Seriously, what cost? None of those spells truly costs anything to cast

A peasant only earns a few silver pieces per week. They would have to spend all of the money they earn for a whole year to be able to afford to pay a teacher to learn a single first level spell.

Potions start at 50GP. That's more than your average peasant family has ever had.

It also requires tireless dedication and training to be able to cast spells at all. Most peasants are "commoners", very few are "experts" or "warriors" and even fewer are "adepts". Spellcasting player classes are so rare as to be nearly unheard of in most smaller villages.

You aren't born a Wizard, most prepared casters spent their entire adolescence learning to control magic. It's like asking why everyone isn't a doctor or lawyer - most people just never have the opportunity.

The need for the GM to alter or go outside of the ruleset in order to allow a playstyle contraindicates the possiblity of that playstyle in the first place.

This sums up my thoughts on the game currently requiring a dedicated healer in every party.

Why is there NO support within the system for a party without a healer? Or at least one that isn't a pure healer?

If we want to have out of combat healing that is 1) not mundane, 2) not item based, 3) thematic, and 4) disruptable I'd like to propose adding one hour rituals to the game.

I support this fully. We would still need someone who can heal, but that player would be allowed to use Spell Slots / SP on other things. Big heals in combat will still be useful, but you won't be burning all of your spell slots and SP to top people off between fights anymore.

In D&D 3e and PF1, anyone who could use wands could provide out-of-combat healing.

Having to use daily spells to heal wounds hasn't really been essential since AD&D. It's a relic of the 20th century.

According to the developers, this was playing the game wrong and daily spell slots are supposed to be for healing.

Pathfinder was only popular because WOTC dropped the ball with 4th edition. They took away a ton of character options and forced everyone to choose a "spec". The game started to feel more like an MMORPG than D&D and players fled in gigantic numbers to Pathfinder.

Now Paizo is telling us that the way we've been playing for decades is wrong and trying to explain to us why they know best. Their reasoning for nerfing the longbow is consistent with this. "Your imagination is wrong so we forced you to wield the shortbow we think you're really imagining your character wielding"

If they hated healing wands they should have addressed the problem they were being used to solve instead of just doubling down on the stance that 75% of their own players were wrong.

Wands of CLW were popular for years before Pathfinder even existed. It wasn't unique to this game, and EVERY other developer seems to have realized that the lack of nonmagical, out of combat healing was the problem.

The problem is not that the game forces someone capable of some healing on you, that has been a staple of the game for decades. The problem is that this game forces you to have a dedicated healer.

Exactly. In previous editions, you needed a healer to activate the cheap, consumable magic items you used for most healing. The "healer" was then free to use spells and other powers on buffs, control, or debuffs - giving them an actual role in the party beyond "guy who spams cantrips or basic attacks so he doesn't waste potential healing"

In this edition, the Cleric's Spell Point class feature may as well read "You may cast heal a number of times per day equal to your Wisdom modifier". I feel obligated to tell players that domain powers are a trap, designed to punish you for trying to have fun because they use up the SP that you have to use on healing.

In previous editions you could avoid damage. Monsters can now hit on a roll of 10, you can't avoid the damage and every way you had to recover has been nerfed.

They successfully recreated the feeling of playing WoW's dungeon finder in a tabletop game. I'll be playing 5e if they don't give us healing on short rests, stamina, or cheap and easily used consumables.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Plus "the magic stick solves our problems, the magic stick is life" is aesthetically irritating in a way "let's take a breather" is not.

THIS. This this this.

I have zero problem with players having reliable access to out-of-combat healing.

My problem is that the reliable out-of-combat healing is centered in a magic item that just happens to peak the cost/benefit math.

Wands of CLW are popular because there are no reliable sources of mundane healing.

4th Edition had healing surges and Wands of CLW weren't a problem.

Starfinder has Stamina and doesn't require a dedicated healer or allow any item like a wand of CLW.

5th Edition allows hp regeneration on a short rest, and wands of CLW are not a problem.

Wands are the SOLUTION to a problem that other games have solved. Players expect to recover SOME health in between encounters - if PF2e would provide them with a limited and strictly defined amount of healing after a fight, then they wouldn't need to wands in the first place.

Requiring a dedicated healer to spend all of their resources on healing feels punishing and unfair. There are few situations where a Cleric will cast a big healing spell in combat. They're mostly going to be using the lowest level spell slots available to cast healing spells between fights. Instead of the wand having 50 charges, it's a PC who has to dedicate half of their daily resources to healing off damage that is now unavoidable. Monsters hit more often than ever, players have access to less healing than ever.

Do anyone think that it's a good thing to always need a cleric or other healing focused class in the party?

I don't care if you need a healer. What I don't like is that the removal of spammable healing items is going to force that healer to spend >50% of their SP / Spell Slots on healing and the majority of it will be done between encounters.

We've replaced the Wand of CLW with the Cleric's SP pool. It turns every single domain power into a trap. It feels ridiculous that Clerics should above using their domain powers, the one specific to Clerics of their faith, so that they can instead be a walking hp battery for the party.

In previous editions of the game, Healers could craft potions, scrolls, and wands to handle the actual healing outside of encounters and used their limited resources on buffs, debuffs, or control.

Now they have to choose to heal or to use spells that are actually rewarding, knowing full well that they're expected to choose healing spells.

I've been playing PF since the 1e playtest but I will walk away without hesitation if they decide to make 2e into a tabletop version of World of Warcraft. Dedicated healers are a concept from video game RPGs and they make the game feel more "game-ey" than wands do.

If players had access to any kind of healing between encounters they would never have started to abuse the wands in the first place. Removing the solution to a problem that hasn't been solved is bad game design - and making that choice purely to spite a large portion of your playerbase for "playing the game wrong" is petty.

I want Paizo to kill off low level item spam, and I hope they can find a way to do it without the gamey feeling system of resonance.

Players don't like attrition or 15 minute adventuring days. Players don't care about CLW spam. Only salty GMs who have ideas about how other people should have fun care about it.

If you don't like CLW spam, stop forcing players to take damage. You can't have it both ways.

In 2e, players cant avoid damage. The monsters are more likely to hit on their first attacks and they HAVE to recover between encounters.

Either they're going to do it with low level consumables, or one player has to give up >50% of their daily spell slots and/or SP to heal others outside of combat.

Nothing helps a cleric RP like being unable to use their character defining domain powers because someone might need a heal later and you just can't allow players to access cheap healing.

Resonance is a great idea to help combat the problem of high level characters wearing too many items, but the double cost for consumables is honestly stupid. Consumable spamming has been a part of DnD since the beginning, and taking it away just to nerf CLW spam is a step in the wrong direction.

If you're worried about players getting back to full hp, then the developers need to either add healing on a short rest, stamina, or a healing surge mechanic that limits and/or defines the amount of healing that can be received by each player after each fight or in an adventuring day.

Why is it so much worse to have the party use wand charges to heal? The alternative is that one of your players can't use their resources for anything but healing, and realistically they'll do almost all of that healing outside of combat. Being forced to use limited daily resources "off screen" like that kills RP. When a Cleric CANT use their domain powers because they need that SP for healing it ruins the flavor of the class and honestly ruins the gaming experience for one of your four players.

Nobody wants to be a pure healer, and since buffs have been nerfed to the ground that's all you are as a healer. You heal out of combat and in combat you spam cantrips for damage. So much fun! Such an improvement!

Wands of CLW are a solution that the community found to address a flaw in game design. Mundane healing is too weak and unreliable and players would prefer not to exit the dungeon and rest for three weeks in between fights.

CLW wands have been one of the worst things ever in this game. the healer role is a central to this game, as is the skill monkey, the physical damage dealer, and the arcane caster.

The Arcane Caster was better at skills than anyone else because they could use spells to bypass most of them.

The Arcane Caster was the best physical damage dealer and melee combatant for most off the game's history.

You could absolutely do any and all of the content without any of the primary roles as long as you had a Wizard and a lot of splat books.

The problem is that the healer in previous editions of the game had the option of using wands or scrolls, or crafting potions to keep people alive because using those things didn't prevent you from wearing magical items.

High-level spell slots were used for buffs or debuffs and not strictly for healing spells.

I hate that they want to introduce dedicated healers to 2e and force them on every party.

You'll never find fantasy literature that includes an MMORPG style healer. I don't seem to remember there being an iconic health battery in The Lord of the Rings.

The idea of the pure healer comes from modern online rpg video games, and D&D is supposed to be based on themes and ideas present in fantasy literature. As soon as there's a pure healing class, it's a mandatory part of every group, and the game is nothing more than a combat grind.

If I want that experience, WoW does it better than PF ever can because it requires much less bookkeeping. If you really need to stick to tabletop, Gloomhaven is a better miniature combat grind than 2e.

Tabletop is about RP and story. Mandating that someone play a boring role is a surefire way to kill the immersion and narrative aspect of the game. If my players don't want to play a healer I need to have options to support that playstyle.

Players walked away from 4th edition and embraced Pathfinder because it felt more like the Dungeons & Dragons they all knew and loved. Pathfinder's player base is primarily people who hated the tabletop MMO feeling - so why is it being forced on us?

Paizo is making 2e feel a lot like the thing I was running away from when I started playing Pathfinder. I've been playing since the 1e playtest, but if a dedicated healer is a requirement for every party I'll be leaving for another game. I would rather have my players abuse wands of CLW than force someone to play a role they don't enjoy.

One thing I'd like to point out about the video, is that Jason skims over market availability saying that limiting access to high level equipment is arbitrary and artificial. Which is exactly how I describe Resonance.

Resonance is a solution to high-level arcane casters with crafting feats having access to so many magic items.

What resonance does is stops low-level Dwarves from drinking potions and forces every party to bring a Cleric. In fact, it's never a bad idea to have 2 Clerics right now.

It might feel better at low levels if you simply started with more RP. Maybe 1st level consumables shouldn't require RP? It would certainly make trinkets and healing potions feel better as loot. I'm expected to give my players ten 1st level consumables by level 2, but I don't think they'll even be able to use them all.

But I still think out of combat healing should be a premium and not something every party can have unlimited access to.

I think that players should have access to a specific and defined amount of healing between fights. Similar to short resting in 5e or Stamina in Starfinder.

If you give them a way to recover some, but not all of their missing HP it allows the party to go on without a dedicated healbot as long as they avoid damage when possible. They won't die to a thousand cuts and bruises but aren't able to shrug off every fight the moment they down the last enemy.

CLW wands were an ugly solution to a problem presented in 3.5 - published content asks players to go through more combat than their hp can handle without a dedicated healer. The dedicated healer would rather use wand charges than spells because nobody wants to *only* heal - especially when all of that healing is done out of combat. Throwing a big heal on a hurting character in the midst of a battle can feel heroic or fun. Using four level 1 spell slots to top off the party is bad gameplay. Why not just let healers conjure magical food and water so players can eat and drink to full HP in 30 seconds if we're going to try to turn DnD into WoW?

Healing in combat is perfectly fun - but what ends up happening is that the Healer won't "waste" turns in the fight to heal someone. The party is better off killing the remaining sources of damage and then healing after combat.

It turns the Cleric into an auto attacker who only uses resources during rests. It turns all of your spells and all of your powers into "traps" because its sub-optimal to do anything except healing other people until mid levels.

If a healer class is mandatory and the healer is required to spend ALL of their early game resources on healing in 2e I'll be playing another system.

I am not interested in playing WoW the tabletop experience and it seems like 2e is going to turn the game into a crappy tabletop MMO.