My gut instinct is that an attached weapon with a shifting rune should only be able to shift into other weapons that can be attached to the item it's attached to.
So a Shield Spike with shifting could shift into a shield boss and vise versa.
An attached reinforced stock could shift into an attached bayonet.
This isn't RAW and it's probably not even RAI, but it seems reasonable to me.
It would also help with that thing where Poisoner dedication gives you four level 1 or lower common poison recipes, but there are only 2 level 1 common poisons.
Sacred & Divine, a book giving Divine casters the love they didn't quite get in SoM. Also expanded options for paladinsChampions, New Cleric Doctrines, a new version of the Inquisitor, and other things.
Possibly a LN and CN Champion, since we have NG & NE.
A shout out for cockroach people! It could be so very fun to play a cockroach person, and the general toughness, stealth, and creepiness of the species would make for some great abilities.
"No no, look I'm sorry but you can't ALL name your characters Gregor Samsa. It'll get confusing."
Alright, i have a silly build idea, which i know is going to be sub optional, but I'd like help making it as good as it can be while retaining a few core components.
Fixed points that cannot be changed:
PFS Legal
Giant Instinct Barbarian
Raging Thrower @ lvl 1
Rogue or Swashbuckler dedication
Fane's Fourberie by Level 4
Building to level 10
Current build
Spoiler:
Going for an intimidation build to synergize with Swashbuckler dedication.
Half-Orc
Giant Instinct Barbarian
Aspiring Free Captain
Stat @1 @5 @10
Str. 16 18 18
Dex. 16 18 18
Con. 14 16 18
Int. 08 08 10
Wis. 08 08 10
Cha. 14 16 18
Here's a hint. We won't have two playlists going on simultaneously.
...now to drive myself crazy wondering if "playlist" was actually a typo or if its the key to the hint.
If you meant Playtest, that means it won't happen until after September 24th, since that's when the Starfinder Evolutionist playtest will end. That playtest was announced on the 19th, and begins on the 2nd, so if Paizo did the two playtests back to back, it'd have to be after it ends on the 24th... coincidentally gencon is that week. Usually the next summer book is a gencon announcement, and Sayre even jumped into a recent thread to emphasize that gencon is THE tabletop con.
So you guys will be holding off for gencon's postponed date to make the announcement, is my guess, with the announcement hitting right at the tail end of gencon and right before the evolutionist ends a few days later.
Hell, lets put the announcement on September 19th (the last day of gencon), and the actual playtest on October 2nd to mirror the evolutionist playtest timing.
But if he meant playlist, we'll have to find his Spotify to know more.
A playlist entitled "Kineticist, Shifter, Occultist, & Inquisitor", but the only songs on it are "Never Gonna Give You Up" and "I Am Very Glad, as I'm Finally Returning Back Home"
Counterpoint: Ancient Elf, the heritage that requires you to be over 100 years old, gives you just a Multiclass Dedication.
Base assumption is apparently that elves who aren't active PCs or important NPCs basically don't do anything noteworthy, don't go anywhere, and learn very little over the course of a century.
"Henlo, i am a human who has been adventuring for 3 weeks, I'm now a level 5 wizard and can lob massive magic explosions"
"I am an aged and wise elf, who has lived for centuries. My stats are actually worse than yours because im a level 1 investigator with the wizard MC. I can't quite cast magic missile."
I'm excited for all of it, but my personal hope is for the inclusion of some extra wild-west style stuff that hasn't been revealed yet.
Things like Lassos as a net variant. 0 damage weapon that allows ranged grab and dragging.
Possibly (both because I think it would fit thematically for inventors and because I'm hoping for a decent sized equipment section) bringing the 'equipment trick' feats into 2e.
One thing, in general, that I'd want from any D&D or Pathfinder book on Dragons is a moderate length section on roleplaying and portraying a dragon as GM.
Most adult dragons have 16+ int and wis, some have 20+.
And yet all too often they're played as mindless ravening beasts. Oh they may be cunning or use tactics, but actually they don't even do that most of the time, they're just played as direct power combatants.
Breath weapon
Claw claw bite
Spell
Take whip
Repeat.
I'd just really liked to see more dragons justifying and using their +4 to +7 int/wis/cha mods.
I'm a sucker for the dramatic and am loath to say something like "I cast fireball" at the gaming table. I would prefer cool-sounding incantations, such as Maleficent's wall of thorns spell.
Sleeping Beauty wrote:
Maleficent is trying to stop Prince Phillip from reaching King Stefan's castle
Maleficent: Forest of Thorns shall be his tomb! Borne through the skies on a fog of doom! Now go with the curse, and serve me well! 'Round Stefan's Castle, CAST MY SPELL!
Dark, towering clouds appear over the castle followed by lightning strikes. Huge thorns as thick as weeds burst out of the ground around the castle, cutting off Prince Phillip.
Anyways, I was hoping we could start a new thread in which people name an existing spell from the books and then make up a cool sounding incantation that can be used to enhance one's roleplaying experience.
Have fun with it.
Source of all power, Crimson pyre burning bright, let all your power gather in my hand, Fiiiiiiire-Baaaaaaaaaall!
Also, consider the Herbalist dedication (apg 176).
It gives you the ability to make alchemical healing items using nature instead of creating and (notably) using healer's tools instead of alchemist's tools.
So that indicates to me that they intend a natural medicine user to still carry a set of healers tools.
I like free archetype.
My personal favored usage would be that at level 2 you get a dedication and then at each even level you get bonus feat usable only for feats from that archetype.
I'm not sure if I'd even allow the bonus feats to be used for chained archetypes (like the Hellknight archetypes where you can start one even if you haven't satisfied the feat tax on the others dedication yet).
In the unlikely event that a player somehow managed to take every feat their archetype offered before hitting 20 (like by being a rogue and taking an archetype with skill feats) I'd give thema free retaining, essentially moving an archetype feat into the new archetype slot and having then take a legal feat in the previous non-archetype slot freed up.
I know Mortics have been lightly touched on, but i think it's worth revisiting.
It seems pretty clear to me that Paizo is willing to alter and adjust 1e lore and mechanics to make things workable and balanced from a 2e perspective.
And the Anadi and Sprite show us that they have little issue restricting, removing, or making a high level feat of powers and abilities that the Bestiary version gets built in, for a PC Ancestry.
So I think Mortics can work as an Ancestry or set of Versatile Heritages. Diminish the feeding requirements, gate the "hold your breath and become full undead temporarily" behind an ancestry feat at maybe 9th level.
Mildly surprised no one has pointed at "Barbarian" as being problematic.
Technically are characters in pathfinder are barbarians (except possibly Baba Yaga and some of the soldiers from earth in that one AP) since Latin and Classically Greek aren't language options they can take.
I like the idea of shifter's 'sub-class' being tied to a creature type.
Beast shifters building for bonus precision damage.
Elemental or Dragon shifters building for burst and area damage.
Ooze shifters building for passive and persistent damage.
Construct shifters building for defense and resistance.
Also, here's a wacky idea. What if you gave a class without base spell casting the Basic, Expert, and Master spellcasting feats as class feats?
If you had a Dragon Shifter subclass, it might make sense for them to be able to develop spell casting ability while a Beast Shifter doesn't.
If a human cloistered cleric used their ancestry feat for natural ambition (domain initiate) and their 2nd level class feat for domain initiate, and that gave them a focus pool of 3 at 2nd level, would that be powerful? Would that be a good use of feats?
Would people say "that's clearly the optimal way to build a cleric and everyone who plays a cleric should obviously do this every time because not doing so is obviously weaker and worse"?
One thing I'm learning is that pf2 uses ambiguous language as a sort of bulwark against the powergaming rules lawyering that 3.5 and pf1 had. If language is hyper specific and unambiguous then if you find an exploit it's "legal".
In pf2 language is ambiguous and instead of giving a lot of errata and guidance the official policy is "make a table judgment". Which I'm not 100% behind, but it is what it is.
So in an ambiguous situation where we know we're not likely to get errata or an official ruling, I think the question we need to consider is not "What exact specific thing did the dev's intend in this scenario" (especial since they've indicated that they often don't share a perfect unified vision) but rather look at the most common competing interpretations and ask "is this interpretation over powered when compared to other options or is this interpretation overly limiting and weak?" and then look for the interpretations that don't hit those bars.
So IS a cleric potentially having 3 focus at level 2 game breaking, or even just good enough to over shadow the other build options?
I'm not in a position to find and quote at the moment, but i thought there was a general rule that anything that grants you a focus spell increased your focus pool till you hit 3.
On the surface, I want a heavy focus on partial shifting. Grow claws, jaws, horns, tentacles, what have you, but don't usually fully shift.
I definitely agree that it needs good unarmed attack proficiency progression, good unarmored defense progression, and good HP.
Mechanically, I want it to be a Monk/Druid Hybrid.
Some focus spells, but shifting effects that are non-spell effects. Shifting being some combination of Stance or a mechanic like Rage.
No spell slots.
Essentially the shifter should be able to 'Shift' and be a decently effect martial combatant even if combat lasts more than 10 rounds, or the GM decides to drop a second combat in such a way that they can't refocus.
A shifter without focus points should be at least as effective as a Rogue or Fighter (who isn't unarmed build) without their weapons or armor.
I, for one, eagerly anticipate the possibility of playing a gurgist noble lady with a refined palette who seeks the most gourmet manner of preparing raw meat. Lots of sushi, I'm sure. I wonder if you can get away with searing?
Today's menu
Salad: shrimp ceviche
Starter: beef carpaccio
Fish course: tuna sashimi
Main course: Steak (blue)
[Ok this menu wouldn't pass muster because we're going fish beef fish beef, but people get weird when you put out chicken or pork carpaccio...]
I could see it.
1> Remember that the dev's created the rules and can change or break them. I can see a class with 4 or even 5 max focus.
2> Focus Cantrips
3> Cleric, Druid, Monk, Ranger, Sorcerer, & Witch get refocus 2 as a 12 level feat and refocus 3 as an 18 level feat. So if a classes full focus is focus spells it seems reasonable that they could get rf2 @ 7th, rf3 @ 13th, and rf4 @ 18 or 20. As a class feature rather than a feat.
Add in things like Surging Focus (cleric 8) and Familiar Focus and probably everyone will decide they're over powered because at level 20 they can do 4 level 10 spells every fight and possibly 6 level 10 spells in a boss fight.
Fair enough, my desire for pocket editions is that they're smaller and lighter, therefore easier to carry to cons and such, but i suppose pdfs fulfill that purpose too.
I just personally prefer a physical text.
What would we need to do to show enough interest to make this happen? Is it something that is or had been considered? Are there hidden obstacles to doing pocket editions for these books like they do for the core line?
Assurance cheese - Forensic medicine investigator, assurance medicine, Dump wisdom.
Normally 8 wis means you're not gonna be a good non-magic healer.
But expert at 2nd, Assurance doesn't add stat mods even if it's a penalty, free healz. Loads of skill feats to improve what you can do with medicine while not needing to actually increase your wisdom.
Outside organized play, we track downtime the same way we track non-magic ammunition, encumbrance, food rations, water supply, and non-costly spell components.
Suppose i want more focus on nature magic, suppose Secrets of Magic doesn't cover what i was looking for. I'm out of luck, it's gonna be a while before they put out another 100+ page hardback with a magic focus. How long til they do a wilderness focus HB that might expand the nature magic I'm looking for? Who knows?
But if they're doing small books (ideally every 2 months like in 1e) then my odds are suddenly better.
Releasing 2 major books with overlapping topics within a few years will get bad reactions, but releasing a small supplemental book along with the large major release? Might actually boost sales?
.
.
Specific wishlist
Adventures Armory 2E (w/ Gloves of Improvised Might)
A CharOp book with detailed rules for Awakened Plants, Animals, and Constructs as monsters, companions, and PCs.
huh, forum supports Bold and italic but not underline?
I will say, one thing I'd been hoping for and expecting, that from everything I've heard isn't there, was a way for most of the non-caster classes to splash a little magic without going Caster MC.
Whether it be class feats like Rogue's Minor Magic or Focus Spells, just something.
The return of teamwork feats, and a marital and caster classes built around them.
Teamwork feats - a tag [teamwork] that can appear on general, skill, or class feats.
Characterized by being slightly weak if only one person has it but stronger the more party members have it.
Tactician - Martial, lots of teamwork class feats, bonus teamwork feats like rogue and investigator get bonus skill feats. Signature feature is granting allies temporary access to their teamwork feats.
[Name] - caster, teamwork class feats, but no bonus feats, some form of group cast metamagic. Able to spend their actions to apply metamagic to an allies next spell?
The title, as general and abridged as I can make it with limited words, is still unsatisfying to me. So, I'll break my question into specific component Styles.
Battledancer: You gain panache if you get a success vs an observer's will DC. So to me that parses as they must be able to observe you, i.e. you performance must be one their senses can perceive.
So if you're dancing, and they can see you, even if they're immune to fascination you can succeed, but if they can't see you it doesn't work.
Also, battledancer isn't limited to dancing by the rules as far as I can tell, so for example singing should also work. So an eyeless enemy could still be targeted using song if they can hear.
Braggart: You gain panache if you successfully demoralize a foe. So maybe you can try, but if they're immune to Intimidate to Demoralize you can't ever actually succeed.
Fencer: Again, requires successful feint or distraction, so if they're somehow immune to those actions you can't succeed and therefore can't gain panache.
Gymnast: The maneuvers can't be used against illegal targets. You aren't allowed to use the action targeting a creature that isn't a legal target, also it again requires success in the maneuver. So you can't use Grapple, Shove, Trip to gain panache against targets that you can't Grapple, shove, or trip.
Wit: Again, Wit requires success in the Bon Mot, and you can't succeed against a target that's immune to the effect.
Battledancer is an outlier because the wording they used to allow them to use Fascinating Performance to gain panache under battle conditions means that they can target enemies they can't actually fascinate and try a check against their will dc.
I don't care about summoner or magus. I just want to know if the other classes are getting new feats, new spells, or new options. Has anyone heard anything related to those?
WHOLE BUNCHA NEW SPELLS! Over 100 spells for all 4 spell lists: cantrips, focus spells, level 1-9s, 10s, whole enchilada!
Not that it will help some classes, since many spellcasters are restricted to choosing their spells from the Core Rulebook.
That definitely is a downside to playing PFS.
I mean, you could find the spells during a PFS adventure etc. As long as they aren't forbidden etc
I also consider it at least possible that, as this is a core line book and focused on magic, that the spells chapter or statements/errata issued by paizo/pfs might open this specific book up.
Something like "anytime a feat, class feature or ancestry feature would let you select a common spell from a list in the core book you may select a common spell from the appropriate list in this book instead".
After all, PFS does want to encourage people to buy books, and forbidding or boon gating everything new works against that goal.
Personally I agree with Samir's point of view, particularly that errata should come more often, and that we need standard answers to any CONTENTIOUS questions for PFS.
I personally feel that if the Dev team can't answer these questions, due to understandable work load and time issues, that PFS should at least issue PFS rulings until such time as official errata can be issued.
Especially since my current experience is if you go into the PFS forum and say "Hey I can't find a consistent ruling on this in the rules forum, how are people ruling it in PFS" you get "That's a rules question go ask in the rules forum."
You know, like how a Witch Dedication Familiar works.
Or what happens if you try to make an Ancient Elf Eldritch Trickster Rogue.
Or anything else that gets asked on Rules and results in a 10 page thread full of "No you're stupid" and Mod posts of "Deleted 47 posts don't godwin the thread".
That said, I do find the rules forum useful because it often provides a good idea of how people are LIKELY to interpret an ambiguous rule, helps when you are confused because you misread a rule, or simply can't FIND a specific rule because Paizo can at times be bad about things like mentioning something once in one spot not obvious to look in (I'm looking at you, PF1 throwing a two handed weapon being a full round action).
But lastly, to answer Samir's final question with the answer I have been given several times: The Paizo dev team is small for the amount of material they put out, and they don't always agree about how a specific rule should be interpreted, AND they don't have any one specific person granted official top authority over rules questions, SO any rules errata requires them to essentially STOP WORKING on new content and devote days or even weeks to meetings to hash out more detailed specific answers.
A little bit of a tangent, but I see some people asking for a default large ancestry, wouldn't that break some (all?) existing adventure path/module maps, requiring the large character to Squeeze through 5' hallways?
I mean, to a certain extent that's true, but it doesn't and has never stopped Paizo (or WotC OR 3rd parties) from publishing 'Aquatic or Semi-aquatic races that are routinely hosed by not having access to a large body of water every N hours'.
Like, if you consider Azarketi to be an acceptable ancestry to publish then really any argument of "This ancestry has special problems and limitations in a large number of prewritten adventures" is NOT a good argument to use.
And clearly Paizo thinks Azarketi with their water dependence IS a good race to publish, since they've released it for free as a preview because the book they were planning to publish it in has been delayed.
Personally, I'm more of a "talk to your players" like adults," rather than a "revenge-murder them in-game like a petulant child," kind of GM.
Which is why I find it really odd that so much of your player-side questions come off as a completely separate attitude from that.
Like this one, where you're apparently expecting the perceived letter of the rules to triumph over everything else until/unless the GM steps in to say "Nuh uh, no way is that happening." even though you seem to know you're trying to squeeze an unfair advantage out of the definition of a word.
I mean, I generally think the rules mean what they say until the GM overrides them. That's just how games work I figure.
Though I'm not generally a fan of "surprise house rules," what many have described in this thread to keep things sensible don't really meet that criteria in my mind.
I can't really control how people see me anymore than I can control how they'd interpret a given rule. Insofar as I'm aware, most who have personally played alongside me have found me to be quite reasonable though.
Most of my forum antics, as some people perceive them, are just me expanding my understanding of the rules and peoples' interpretation of them through experimentive dialog and corner cases. Oftentimes it's not really planned; I often post things as they occur to me.
For many years people have referred to me as a Rules Lawyer, but I like to think of myself more as a Rules Philosopher. And yes, sometimes that does confuse people and make them want to poison me.
The Diogenes of Rules! It makes sense now.
(my previous answer was intended as playful for what it's worth. I wouldn't out of hand murder a pc for something like that, but I WOULD 'say' something like that in response as a sort of verbal flick to the forehead)
If you had a time machine, and you posted the actual now published PF2 Swashbuckler in the Homebrew forum about 2 months before the APG playtest went out, aside from triggering a leak hunt and much upset at Paizo, I'm fairly certain you would have gotten a metric tonne of feedback that said "That's not a Pathfinder Swashbuckler" "That's now how Panache Works" etc, etc, etc.
The biggest problem with adapting ANY class from PF1 to PF2 is that a lot of mechanics and subsystems, *Which may be considered Iconic for that class*, do not work or are against explicit design choices for PF2. And people resist change, and people want what they know.
IMO the hardest classes to adapt from PF1 to PF2 at this current moment are any of the 4/9 that you don't want to strip of spells like they did with Ranger and Paladin, and 6/9 casters that don't make sense to turn into full casters like they did with bard.
Because we all SAW how unfortunate their solution for Magus and Summoner were in the playtest, and we don't know how they're going to fix it in SoM yet.
So how do spells go for a Bloodrager? An Inquisitor?
Any answer you or I or even the actual Paizo development team come up with is gonna get a lot of community push-back.
I think that for Martial classes to have the "4 Degrees of Success" that casters have with many spells, you'd necessarily have to make martial ATTACKS work more like SPELLS.
So Fighters get a limited set of Maneuvers with varying levels and most of those Maneuvers take 2-3 actions and when they've used up their Maneuvers for the day all they have left is they Cantrip Basic attack and hold on there seems to be a Mob with pitchforks and torches out front I'll have to continue this later...
