Wizard

Tamago's page

RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16. RPG Superstar 6 Season Star Voter, 7 Season Star Voter. **** Pathfinder Society GM. 1,177 posts (1,185 including aliases). 5 reviews. 3 lists. No wishlists. 7 Organized Play characters. 2 aliases.


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Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

I'm planning to give my GM a customized Iron Gods GM screen for his birthday. I have some nice art for the front side, but on the back I'd like to include some useful info specific to this adventure path.

Without getting too spoilery, are there any particular rules or tables that would be especially useful to have handy in this AP moreso than others?

So far I'm going to be putting on Concentration check DCs and the weapon hardness/HP table, but there's plenty of room for other stuff! Please let me know what you think would be useful to have for quick reference during this adventure path.

Thanks!

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

So, my party is just starting Island of Empty Eyes. One PC got the bright idea to buy a Lyre of Building to assist with construction on the island.

I think it's a fantastic idea, but I'm not sure how to adjudicate it. How many man-hours does it take to reconstruct the Fort? Should using the lyre to rebuild the fort count towards the Respect score at the end of the adventure, and if so, how much?

Any thoughts?

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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James Sutter wrote:
After 9 months of working on this, I'm so excited for folks to finally get to play it! Plus it's a huge thrill to see Nathan and Laura voicing some of the characters. :) Hope you all enjoy it!

Having played the pilot multiple times and been a beta tester for the premium episodes, I can confidently say that your script is the best part of this game. I love the color and detail you've added to the world of Starfinder, and can't wait to play the full version!

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

Good afternoon,

I'm hoping to give my normal Pathfinder gaming group a taste of Starfinder in the near future, and I'm looking for advice for a good scenario to use. I'd like something that is a one-shot, and gives a good taste of what Starfinder is all about, without getting bogged down in too much exposition. Can any of you recommend a good scenario to start with?

My players are all Pathfinder veterans, so I don't need something super beginner focused. But the world of Starfinder is different, so I'd like something that shows off the setting without overwhelming the players.

I'm looking for a one-shot scenario, since they don't want to commit to a whole adventure path or anything. I'm thinking that a SFS scenario would be a good place to start. But I'm open to other ideas.

Low level would be good, to keep things simple. But it wouldn't necessarily have to be level 1.

I'd like to have a taste of starship combat included, or at the very least have the players use a starship in the course of the adventure. I want to show that it's more than just dungeon crawling on a space station or whatever.

A plot that's fairly lighthearted and straightforward would be good as well, so that my players can jump right in and not get lost in the weeds.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

Aaron Shanks wrote:
Tamago wrote:
I had assumed that this wouldn't impact the timeline for Chapter 1 of the Starfinder Alexa adventure, but I'm still waiting for it to drop. Any idea whether the delay is virus-related, or if it's just a case of the last 10% of the development taking 90% of the time?
Oh, we have a Starfinder on Alexa update blog scheduled at the end of next week. A lot is going on! You can play the free pilot with two new characters—now. And the Audible Studios are in NYC, so that's a slow down. We all will need some patience, but it is getting fancier. More from Amanda next week. :)

Sweet, thanks for the update! :D

I hadn't realized that they were using Audible studios, but that does make a lot of sense. Hopefully they can work around it!

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

I had assumed that this wouldn't impact the timeline for Chapter 1 of the Starfinder Alexa adventure, but I'm still waiting for it to drop. Any idea whether the delay is virus-related, or if it's just a case of the last 10% of the development taking 90% of the time?

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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MagicSN wrote:

Why only english-speaking countries ? You know, people in non-English-speaking countries actually CAN speak english very often...

Here in Germany people got English at school from class 5 to 12. That's 8 years long.

What hinders you to offer the english Alexa-Starfinder on German Amazon ?

You ARE aware that the world does not only consist of the English-speaking countries ?

My guess is that this is an Amazon restriction, not a Paizo one. Especially since there was not a simultaneous rollout even for the English-speaking countries.

There are also things like royalties and licensing to consider, which might differ depending on what country the user is in.

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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Rather than using the massive damage rule as the trigger for what causes an injury, I'm planning to make it so if someone gets a natural 20, and then confirms the critical with another natural 20, they have to roll on the table. Should be rare enough to be exciting, while also being possible to happen at low levels.

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

Chris Morrow wrote:
Tamago wrote:
Jim Butler wrote:


Tamago wrote:
I know the software industry is notorious for delays, but if it's at all possible to have the release date before March 15th, I will definitely spend my no-rush credits from all my Christmas shopping on a premium episode!
Based on where they are right now, you should definitely see the first premium episode in February. Exact date in February is still TBD.

Huzzah! I'll be sure to pick this up!

For people who signed up for the beta, do you know how that process will work yet?

Hey Tamago!

I'm actually working on the beta organization as we speak, I'm hoping to start on-boarding folks over the next two weeks!

Woot! Seriously excited for this!

Now I just need to get my wife to finish her playthrough so that I can free up my save slot for the beta ;)

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

Jim Butler wrote:


Tamago wrote:
I know the software industry is notorious for delays, but if it's at all possible to have the release date before March 15th, I will definitely spend my no-rush credits from all my Christmas shopping on a premium episode!
Based on where they are right now, you should definitely see the first premium episode in February. Exact date in February is still TBD.

Huzzah! I'll be sure to pick this up!

For people who signed up for the beta, do you know how that process will work yet?

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

Aaron Shanks wrote:
We will set clear exceptions for the premium episode launches in February!

Thanks for the info! Just to clarify, do you mean that more info about the premium episodes will be released in February, or that the episodes will be released in February and will have clear expectations at that time?

I know the software industry is notorious for delays, but if it's at all possible to have the release date before March 15th, I will definitely spend my no-rush credits from all my Christmas shopping on a premium episode!

Thanks :-)

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

Quen Pah wrote:
When can we start running PFS 2.0 Adventures?

The game releases August 1st!

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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GentleGiant wrote:
GM zebeev wrote:
kevin_video wrote:
And for anyone who can answer this, what is the design behind the AC? Is that a suit of armor? A shield? I can't tell.
GentleGiant wrote:
I believe it's from an existing piece of art, but I can't remember which.

I believe it's based on the suit of elven chain on p. 356 of the Playtest Rulebook.

Indeed. I just scoured the blogs to see if I could find it. Found it in... the playtest armour blog. ;-)

I feel like it would have been a good idea to use something a bit more recognizable as the backdrop. A nice, basic heater shield shape, for example would work well and be instantly recognizable.

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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I'm afraid I have to agree with most of the people here who don't like the new sheet.

The color version is way too busy. It's one thing for the sheet to pop, but all the bright colors draw the eye away from the important bits, which is what the player actually writes on the sheet!

I'm also miffed that there seem to be boxes for everything. That's helpful for knowing where to put stuff, but it also makes it very hard to be flexible. Even if there were a "misc" box to put stuff that didn't go elsewhere, that would help. But I'm in the camp that thinks character sheets should be a bit messy. There should be room to write in that your character has a +2 to bash open doors because she rolled nat 20s on three consecutive door-bashings and everyone decided she's somehow an expert at it. Or the extra feat that her god granted her after she did a particularly great service. Or a place to write the name of that one NPC in the margin who sold the PC her sword.

Having lots of little boxes for everything makes it hard to go "outside the box" (literally!) and also looks intimidating for a new player.

I also find that having a big blank space to write in class features/feats is much better than a bunch of little narrow boxes. Some things take up way more room to describe than others, and for most characters, you will never get up to level 20 anyway. I'd much rather just have a big blank column labeled "Class Feats" and let the player choose how much to write there (or not).

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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Looks great!

My only nitpick is that it comes with 18 PC magnets but only 4 condition trackers. It seems like it would be more useful to have, say, 8 PCs and 14 conditions. Since having multiple PCs with multiple conditions is something that often happens, but it's quite rare to have a Pathfinder table with more than 7 PCs.

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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Barnabas Eckleworth III wrote:
In Monopoly, every player but the winner has to eventually sit out while everyone else continues to play.

There's a reason why Monopoly isn't the game of choice for most of us here.

Personally, it's a big pet peeve of mine when I get taken out in an RPG, either by death or by some kind of "save or lose your turns" effect. If my character gets killed, petrified, or even stunned for 1 minute, then I'm going to have to sit out for the next hour or two until the combat is over and the Party can fix the problem. That's not fun.

Heck, I *vastly* prefer getting Dominated and ordered to kill my party than getting stunned or paralyzed, because then I at least still get to play!

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

In my experience, the combat rounds in PF2 took a little bit longer at level 12+, but not that much longer. They still felt like they were moving pretty fast.

However, the combats themselves seemed to take forever. I ended up calling multiple fights in the past couple of scenarios with the bad guys still at about 1/2 HP, because they'd been going for hours and it was just getting so boring.

The bad guys have hundreds of HP, and my most optimized characters were doing about 20-40 damage per turn. After about six rounds, things just started to feel like a grind.

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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DM_Blake wrote:
If you regain 1 or more HP for any reason, you become conscious.

This would be a problem if you were already at full health. Since then you would not be able to "regain" any HP.

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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Ninja in the Rye wrote:
Charlie Brooks wrote:
I'm fairly certain that one of the larger surveys covered the idea of tying damage to level instead of items. If you want that change (or want to make your voice heard in the other direction), I highly suggest taking that survey of you haven't already.

Which Survey, and which question?

The closest I could find was this "I would prefer no potency on weapons and armor at all. Attack roll bonuses and AC bonuses would come from item quality, damage would come from my character's inherent martial ability, and any necessary saving throw bonuses could come from elsewhere."

Which is the closest option they present to what I would want, but still isn't particularly accurate to what I want. I think that damage bonuses should come from level, is that "martial ability"? I don't know. I also see no reason for saving throw bonuses to be coming from "elsewhere" and I'm rather meh on the idea of attack and AC bonuses coming from item quality.

By lumping all of those statements in together it makes it very unlikely that I'd pick Extremely True or even Very True on it. But, apparently, it's what they're looking at to determine if they should keep runes or not.

I think you're spot on. I picked "Extremely True", specifically because I'd read the discussions on these boards and figured that was what they were trying to ask about. But if what they are actually trying to ask is, "Should you automatically get extra damage dice when you level up?", then I think a lot of people who like that idea would be led astray by the wording of the question and think they're talking about getting rid of all magic item bonuses.

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
Stabilization and Recovery rules explain it.

Those explain it in the context of death & dying. But what happens if you fall unconscious for some other reason? In the original example, it was a Greater Constrict attack, but I could imagine a number of other ways a character could get knocked out without actually taking enough damage to drop them to 0 HP.

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
Oh, and you won't wake up for 10 minutes unless some outside stimulus causes you to become awake (such as a PC slapping you awake for whatever actions needed as determined by the GM, or being healed).

Where do you see this? I looked through the updated rules and I was not able to find any reference for how to remove the Unconscious condition, except by "returning to 1 or more hit points." Which, if you don't lose any HP when you gain the condition, would be instantly, right?

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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You know, the ability in question was actually in the stat block for the monster. Instead of:
The weapon gains the deadly trait with three dice of the same die size as the weapon

Why didn't the ability just say,
On a critical hit, the weapon deals an extra Xd12 damage.

It's both shorter and clearer!

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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10 minutes is a little bit hyperbolic, but it still completely killed the momentum of the game.

We have the same problem with healing spells. Adding up 17d8 just plain takes a long time. Our group really misses the 1st edition Heal spell with its flat amount of healing.

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

Edge93 wrote:

The die size of the weapon is d12. The "Three dice of the same size as the weapon" is emulating the Deadly trait on a Legendary quality weapon. it adds 3d12. Looking at the Deadly trait, which it references, makes this fairly clear. Just like Potency runes add one die of the same size as the base weapon per +1, so deadly adds x number of dice as the base size of the weapon.

It says "add three dice", not "add three sets of dice". That is also important.

I thought the die size of the weapon was 4d12, because it's Gargantuan. A regular Greatsword does 1d12, so I thought it went something like:

Medium: 1d12
Large: 2d12
Huge: 3d12
Gargantuan: 4d12

The weapon isn't magical, so 4d12 is the base weapon damage. I thought that's what the "dice of the same size as the weapon" was referring to. That is, use add three Gargantuan greatsword dice, or 3 x 4d12.

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

FowlJ wrote:
Meteor Swarm's meteors can't overlap, and only affect a single target once - it says so in the spell description. So it's only ever 23 dice, which is still a bunch, but not something quite so ridiculous.

Wow, we totally missed that. That significantly reduces the amount of damage it can do to a single target!

You'd still need to roll that many dice, though, if you were targeting multiple opponents with different meteors.

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

Captain Morgan wrote:
You do know deadly dice aren't multiplied on a crit, right? So if it starts with 4d12, it should get up to 11d12.

I wasn't multiplying the deadly dice on the crit. Those were added after.

That is, the weapon deals 4d12 damage. The Rune of Destruction adds "the deadly trait with three dice of the same die size as the weapon". That's 12d12. Plus the 8d12 from the crit, is 20d12.

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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Grave Knight wrote:
They need a way for us to amass more than 3 points, and clearly definitive rules on how acquire them base on our ancestry, background, and/or class. My Bigbelly Goblin, Goblin Renegade, Rogue should be getting hero points for eating strange and exotic things (like a sea serpent, a red dragon, the eyeballs of our enemies, a bag full of twigs, etc) and successfully stealing stuff from NPCs (but not players cause we don't want to open up the mess that's player versus player).

I'd personally be satisfied with a rule that allows you to earn HP for good roleplaying, rather than just "being heroic".

I am a big fan of the way Fate does it, where you get Fate Points for doing things that are in-character but are detrimental/make your situation worse. You can then turn those in to get bonuses when you really need to succeed at something.

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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We got confused about this last night. A monster has Greater Constrict, which on a failed save renders the subject unconscious.

All of the rules I could find for the Unconscious condition seem to assume that the unconscious creature has zero hit points.

Unconscious wrote:

When you’re reduced to 0 Hit Points, you fall unconscious...

If you return to 1 Hit Point or more, you become conscious.

So does that mean that a constricted creature immediately falls to zero hit points? That doesn't make sense. People don't wake up every morning and chug a healing potion because they only have one hit point left after waking up!

If it doesn't mean that you fall to zero hit points, do you immediately wake up, because you have "1 hit point or more"? If not, how can you awaken an unconscious creature?

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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Does anyone else feel like high level spells require rolling too many dice?

A player cast Meteor Swarm last night, targeting all of the meteors on a single target. Each meteor does 4d10 bludgeoning damage and 19d6 fire damage. All together, that's 16d10 + 76d6 damage!

The game completely ground to a halt for about 10 minutes while the player had to add up 92 dice. Not fun!

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

A data point from my game last night:

Players were fighting the Rune Giants. One of them got a 20 to hit the party cleric. It had the Rune of Destruction up:

Spoiler:
Rune of Destruction The weapon gains the deadly trait with
three dice of the same die size as the weapon, and any armor
worn by a creature hit with the weapon takes 1 Dent (a
second Dent causes it to become broken) unless the creature
succeeds at a DC 32 Fortitude save.

The rune giant's weapon is a Gargantuan greatsword, which does 4d12 + 9 damage. On a crit, this doubles to 8d12 + 18. Adding three more sets of weapon damage dice from the Deadly trait brings the total to 20d12 + 18.

The cleric was dropped from full to dying in one hit!

I feel like having the deadly trait only add 1x the weapon damage dice would be more balanced.

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

Mats Öhrman wrote:

Well, with alternative 2 you have to take into consideration just what the creature is using to grapple you at a distance.

A) Is it an appendage, like a tentacle?
B) Is it a weapon, like a Man Catcher or a Sasumata?
C) Is it something disposable, like a lasso or spider webbing?

Hmm, good point. Though in the case of a weapon, probably it does make sense that you couldn't attack the creature. But you could attack the weapon (and if you broke it, presumably you wouldn't be grappled anymore).

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

It seems to me that there are three ways of approaching this:

1) Say that you can't attack the creature if you are not within your own reach. This means that things like grappling on creatures with long reach become extremely powerful, perhaps much more so than intended.

2) Say that you can attack a creature that is grabbing you, regardless of how far away it is. This seems to me to make sense narratively, but seems a little bit clunky as a rule. You'd have to find it buried somewhere in the rules, and I could see a lot of people missing it.

3) Say that when you get grappled, you are also moved adjacent to the creature grappling you. This would be easy to adjudicate, but could lead to some weird questions like, "why can't the kraken just hold you in place where you are?"

Personally, I think #2 is best, but I'd be curious to see if anyone else has any ideas.

Thanks!

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

This topic came up in this thread, but I thought it was worth breaking out and starting a new thread about it.

Suppose you are playing a Fighter, and you are grabbed by a creature with a long reach. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that it's a Kraken, which has a 60 foot reach. You get grabbed when you're 60 feet away from it.

Can you attack the kraken in melee?

On the one hand, by the Rules as Written, you are not within range to Strike the creature with a melee attack.

On the other hand, from a narrative standpoint it seems ludicrous to me that you wouldn't be within range to attack a creature that is literally touching you.

Thoughts? Do we need a rule for how to handle this?

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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TheFinish wrote:
Tamago wrote:


The wizard and the cleric both cast Freedom of Movement, and thereafter didn't care about getting grabbed. The monk and rogues were both grabbed, but didn't really care; they just stabbed/punched the Kraken until its hit points gave out. Also, a DC 5 flat check is only a 20% chance of failure. I think there was only one point where it mattered, which is when one of the rogues tried to use a Necklace of Fireballs on the beast. He was able to do it again the next turn, so not a big deal.

The kraken was critting on a 12 or so, which had the players very worried. But since the Cleric wasn't grabbed, she was able to keep everyone healed up.

Did the Kraken just grab them when they were adjacent to it and never repositioned them? Because Grab doesn't have the same rules as it did in PF1, and the target is not moved to an adjacent square. Which means the Kraken can grab people anywhere within it's reach and keep them there. And if your players don't have the Kraken in reach, they can't attack it.

Also do note that freedom of movment doesn't protect you from being grabbed, it just lets you autosucceed when you try to escape. The PC still has to use one of their Actions, which might impact the rest of the turn (no 3 action Area healing, for example).

The kraken repositioned one of the rogues in order to get a beak attack in, but that wasn't super effective, so I didn't repeat the tactic. (It's more effective to just do another one-action double attack, even at -10, than to reposition and bite a single target.)

The PCs didn't move, but if they are being grappled by a thing, then surely it's close enough to attack! The idea that a character wouldn't be close enough to swing their sword at the giant tentacle that is literally touching them seems frankly ludicrous and didn't even cross my mind.

I can't remember for certain, but I think with respect to Freedom of Movement, the grappled casters did spend an action to automatically escape, and the kraken at that point realized that they were not going to be able to stay grabbed, and didn't spend a lot of actions trying to get at them.

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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Just to add a contrasting experience...

My group played Red Flags this weekend, and here's how it turned out:

The Kraken was indeed a tough foe! But they did eventually manage to beat it, with only one PC down and zero deaths.

The one-action double Strike was formidable, but since the Kraken has to take a second action to Grab, it can't do that combo twice in one turn.

The Grappled condition really isn't that bad. For a melee character, it basically doesn't matter. My group had a wizard, cleric, monk, and two rogues. They all got grappled at some point during the battle.

The wizard and the cleric both cast Freedom of Movement, and thereafter didn't care about getting grabbed. The monk and rogues were both grabbed, but didn't really care; they just stabbed/punched the Kraken until its hit points gave out. Also, a DC 5 flat check is only a 20% chance of failure. I think there was only one point where it mattered, which is when one of the rogues tried to use a Necklace of Fireballs on the beast. He was able to do it again the next turn, so not a big deal.

The kraken was critting on a 12 or so, which had the players very worried. But since the Cleric wasn't grabbed, she was able to keep everyone healed up.

Was it a tough fight? Absolutely! But it wasn't a foregone TPK as I'd been lead to believe by reading these posts. In fact, it probably wasn't even the hardest fight in the Playtest so far! (Not counting chapter 5, of course!)

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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In my group, we play at one couple's house, so they each get 2.

One person chronicles the adventure and writes the recaps, so he gets 2.

One person brings snacks, so she gets 2.

One person drives in from out of town, so he gets 2 in recognition of the extra effort it takes him to get there.

So, basically, everybody gets 2.

I might only give 1 if someone showed up really late/didn't level up their character/wasn't a "team player" for some reason. But so far that hasn't happened yet.

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

If your group has the time for it, I think this sounds like a great idea!

In Mirrored Moon, I had the "mercenaries" that Kelerei hired be their PCs from our Kingmaker game. My players were super excited about that part. I suspect running into some NPCs from your SnS game would be similar :-)

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

Draco18s wrote:
Tamago wrote:
marvin_bishop wrote:
In many cases it's not even worth adding the bonuses. If the dice show 4, the check fails and if the dice show 17, the check succeeds.

It is actually necessary in most cases to add up the bonuses, because it could make the difference between a failure and a critical failure.

I love the concept of the four tiers of outcome, but in practice I've seen that it does slow down gameplay. Because now instead of just rolling a 3 and saying, "Nope, I failed that", it's now "Hang on... I rolled a three, so that's... 16. No, wait, I'm enfeebled 2, so 14. Oh, wait, but the bard song makes it 15. Is that a critical failure?"

"I rolled a 3, I failed. Hang on I'm enfeebled 2, so that's a 1, but bardsong makes it a 2. I failed."

Remember: in order to fail by 10, and the base threshold of success is 11, you need to roll a 1 (modified by modifiers other than level, attribute, and skill).

Its still only a rough guide, of course, but the math is so tight that it really is pretty much under/over 10.

Let's say the character in question was level nine, rolling a Reflex saving throw. That seems about right to me for the above numbers (3 on the die + 9 level + 2 DEX + 1 Expert in Reflex + 1 item). If the party were fighting, say, a Young Red Dragon (level 10) which has a breath weapon DC of 25, then whether you had a 15 or a 16 does make the difference between a failure and a critical failure!

Yes, if you're fighting a perfectly-tuned opponent of the same level as you, it's likely a 50/50 shot. But quite often PCs face off against more powerful opponents, and the math slows down as people need to calculate whether they crit fail. The same happens on the opposite end, as they need to figure whether or not they critically succeeded against lower-level foes.

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

Not quite one of the poll answers, but I will definitely not be buying PF2 when it comes out. I'll wait and read some reviews, and at the very least wait for the second printing and the inevitable errata before deciding whether or not to jump on board.

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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Charon Onozuka wrote:
Tamago wrote:
Personally, I'd rather swap the costs so that spending 1 Hero Point gives you a reroll, and two brings you back from dying.
That's what my group has been thinking. We normally only have about 2 hero points per session, mostly since I forget to give more out. But players don't think much about the higher uses of Hero Points because the 1 point use to come back from dying is already so strong. They'd rather just save their points in case they go down (even though that hasn't happened much yet).

I feel this too. No one wants to spend 2 HP to reroll, because that's two get-out-of-death-free cards they are giving up. Even if the reroll was for a critical failure on a saving throw or something, most of the time my players would be like, "eh, if I die because of this, I'll just spend one hero point and still be up, which is better than wasting two on the chance that I'll make the save the second time."

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

Dire Ursus wrote:
I haven't been handing out hero points as frequently. On average 1 person in total gets a hero point for doing something "heroic" in character per part in Doomsday Dawn.

I've been doing the same for the in-character points. But everyone starts the session with 2 -- one for showing up, and one for being a good OOC member of the group (hosting, bringing snacks, chronicling the adventure, etc.)

So the baseline is 2, and sometimes people will have 3 by the end of the session.

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So, obviously the design team is doing a whole lot of work on the death and dying system, given that they have released multiple updates changing/fixing that system. However, in my games, despite the players going down fairly frequently, they don't really care about the death and dying rules at all because of Hero Points.

Let me explain:
Because anyone can spend 1 Hero Point to come back from dying, there's no tension in the death saves. If the party is doing badly, the player will spend a hero point to come back and take her turn normally. If the party has the situation in hand, she'll go, "Eh, whatever, I guess I'll roll. If I crit fail or whatever, I can just spend a hero point to come back."

Since each of my players has been getting 2-3 hero points per session, that essentially means they have to be taken out three times before actually being at risk of dying. And since combats are taking so long, there are only 2 or 3 encounters per session, so there's practically zero risk of any one PC dying unless there's a TPK.

I really do like Hero Points! But I am worried that the way they interact with the death and dying rules makes the latter irrelevant.

Personally, I'd rather swap the costs so that spending 1 Hero Point gives you a reroll, and two brings you back from dying. Or maybe make 1 point count as a crit success on a death save, and two points come back with 1 HP and clear the Wounded condition.

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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marvin_bishop wrote:
In many cases it's not even worth adding the bonuses. If the dice show 4, the check fails and if the dice show 17, the check succeeds.

It is actually necessary in most cases to add up the bonuses, because it could make the difference between a failure and a critical failure.

I love the concept of the four tiers of outcome, but in practice I've seen that it does slow down gameplay. Because now instead of just rolling a 3 and saying, "Nope, I failed that", it's now "Hang on... I rolled a three, so that's... 16. No, wait, I'm enfeebled 2, so 14. Oh, wait, but the bard song makes it 15. Is that a critical failure?"

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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My group talked it over and decided ahead of time to skip adventure 5. We were 2 weeks behind the playtest window already, because Mirrored Moon took so long. I didn't reveal to the group what Undarin would be testing, but the group was just plain tired and grumpy from all the playtest and just didn't care to continue.

So we decided to skip to part 6. I'm extremely glad we did! After the group made our decision, I outlined what they would have done in chapter 5, and read the opening and closing flavor text. Everyone in the group immediately said that they would have hated playing it! So I think we bypassed a lot of grief at the table.

I'm sure my group will like Red Flags better. Though whether they will *like* it at all is a bit up in the air; most of the sessions so far have been mixed-to-negative.

*sigh*

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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This came up in my game and I ruled a minimum of 1 damage. Otherwise things like monsters that deal 1d4-1 damage don't make sense.

Sczarni 4/5 RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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My biggest comment:

Regardless of the layout, I really think we need to have one-line spell descriptions (and for that matter, feat and ability descriptions as well)! For a new player, reading the entire description for each spell gives you information overload and makes it very difficult to decide what to do on your turn. Being able to read something like, "Lightning bolt: Deals 4d12 damage in a 60-foot line", is a lot easier for someone to hold in their head at the table while deciding what to do than reading the whole six-line spell description.

For the record, I think this is a problem in the main rulebook, too. Selecting feats and spells during character creation is a huge pain because there's no easy way to skim the available options and decide which ones look interesting. You have to slog through the entire text before knowing if something fits your character concept or not.

Sczarni 4/5 RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

Any chance we could get these surveys added to the main playtest page? It looks like the PFS section there still only has the surveys about the four adventures, not any of the general PFS surveys. I think that would help people find them, rather than having to look through the blog history.

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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Draco18s wrote:
Kerx wrote:
Likewise, I've already provided all the instances in which the rulebook grants the player the ability to take feats for which they qualify when dictated by their class. Player's don't stop being qualified for feats once they possess those feats.
Then why have "special: this feat can be taken more than once" at all?

That is, indeed, the question we are trying to figure out.

Either
a) the intent is that, in general, feats can be taken more than once (in which case the "special" text is unnecessary and can be removed), or
b) the intent is that, in general, feats cannot be taken more than once (in which case the rulebook should say so).

As written, I think Kerx is onto something. From just reading the rules, nowhere does it state that taking a feat disqualifies you from taking the same feat again later. Unless we are missing something.

Sczarni 4/5 RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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Alex Augunas wrote:

Just finished my survey!

For Options 2, 3, and 4, have you considered that none of these options will fit neatly between more than one ring in a 3-ring binder? Many people use 3-ring binders to store Chronicles with their characters (myself included), and these tiny chronicle sheets would be a real pain to carry places because they couldn't be stored in what is arguably the most common paper-storage device.

If this were the format, I would probably have to buy a set of clear sheet protectors to store the sheets in a binder. But I could see it getting problematic if they are all loose in the pocket -- it would be very easy for them to fall out and get all mixed up.

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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The Once and Future Kai wrote:
I think the Action Economy just needs some polishing for things like drawing a weapon or pulling out a potion or switching hands. Just make them free aspects of the usage actions. I don't think that's unbalancing. We haven't really had the leftover action problem.

I feel like that eliminates a lot of the simplicity that makes the 3 action system so attractive.

"Everything you do takes an action" is very easy to explain.

"Everything you do takes an action, except these things, which don't take an action and this other thing you can do for free but only once per turn, etc., etc." gets complicated very quickly.

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