kyrt-ryder's page

kyrt-ryder wrote:

Michael Sayre wrote:

If you're still playing 5E

Some of us are still playing PF1 :P

I hope I'm not being annoying by repeating my question once, but I would love to get a developer opinion on this.

What would be the most appropriate benefit to give a multi-classed Veilweaver who receives dead binds? A bonus Akashic Feat for which they qualify [considering that Access * Chakra Slot are feats] or +1 point of Essence?

I wouldn't give them anything, in the same way that multiclassing fighter when you're a paladin doesn't let you go in and swap all your redundant proficiencies, or in the same way that you don't stack wizard spellcasting levels with sorcerer spellcasting levels.

Giving them an additional goodie for having overlapping binds is just not a necessary thing to do and it makes multiclassing arguably too appealing from a raw power perspective compared to mastering a single class.

Thank you very much for the insight, I really appreciate it.

I also don't understand it lol.

Pathfinder 1e in general goes so far to discourage multiclassing that it's frustrating as a GM who loves to see characters branch and grow in creative and interesting ways regarding the mechanical framework.

Giving them nothing in place of dead binds is like not giving a character who happens to have levels in sorcerer any new spells per day when they take a level in wizard, just because they have sorcerer levels.

That being said, if you're going to do it anyways-

Not essence; you'll bloat out things that key on the size of your essence pool and those aren't really equivalent resources anyways.

If you're going to make the change, I'd go all the way to the root and replace the non-unique binds of every class with the corresponding Access Chakra feats, kinda like how the zodiac does it base.

This works perfectly. Especially in concert with my houserule where a character who receives a redundant feat can take any other feat for which he qualifies. Thank you Michael.

Somehow, I completely missed that EDIT note lol.

Thanks for pointing it out and making me look even more blind than I really am :P

Too much screen time, yup, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

Read the rest of my post. :P

I did lol. You suggested allowing sensitive subjects while also trying to control bad actors.

I don't like the idea of any governing body having the right to decide who is or is not a bad actor. That's what the power of our wallets is for :P

As a sidenote, I do cautiously hope that the ORC adopts language similar to the new OGL's about prohibiting blatantly abusive content. We don't need "Myfarog, ORC edition".

Respectfully... I disagree.

An Open License should be universally open. Let the market burn anyone who wants to produce content that shouldn't be published.

The last thing I think most of us want to see is a license that can control creators. While that power can be used for good, there's nothing guaranteeing that it will be.

I can't say that I've ever purchased a Kobold Press product until now, although I've used a large number of their rules that made it onto d20pfsrd.

What I can say is that I am so down to go sailing with them and throw my hat aboard that fleet. {Sorry Paizo, I'm just really not big on PF2 lol}

There's a good chance people will flock to familiarity.

In the same way Paizo was once the refuge for those who weren't done enjoying 3.5 style tactical fantasy RPGs, I have a strong suspicion that Kobold Press is going to be the big winner if their new experiment has similar enough texture to 5e D&D.

The difficult part is Hasbro/WotC holds such a huge slice of the market pie, will enough fall off for the pie to be equitable between the various companies squaring up to survive the upcoming changes?

I imagine there's probably only going to be one 'Pathfinder' that rises out of these ashes to snatch up a Paizo level market share.

In the long run the other games are going to either fade away or settle into a 3rd tier niche community.

Xenagog wrote:

Anguish wrote:

Sure. You can roll dice outside of a VTT.

Sure. You can use a paper character sheet and then start typing stuff into an online roller outside of a VTT.

Both of those are annoying. Annoying products aren't used as much as convenient products.

What proportion of D&D/Pathfinder players use VTTs?

I'm not asking that sarcastically to minimize the issue. I'm honestly wondering. I've never used a VTT in my life, and it didn't seem to me like something that was that ubiquitous, but I first started role-playing more than forty years ago so maybe I'm kind of an old fogey out of touch with current ways; I'm getting the impression VTTs are a lot more popular than I realized...

They're very popular, and definitely approaching the mainstream. After all, its incredibly difficult to play with friends on 3 continents without the use of a VTT. Or even just those a few countries over. I personally still prefer play in person, but am very glad VTTs are a big thing now.

Even just a few *Counties* over isn't easy.

I don't know about other nations or regions but here in Washington State it takes at least half an hour to traverse a county border to border

I found this, and it makes grim reading.

For me the VTTs are the weakest link.

https://arbiterofworlds.substack.com/p/the-perfidious-treachery-of-wotc?utm _source=substack&utm_medium=email

VTTs with direct rules integration sure.

You don't need an SRD baked into a VTT, all you need is an interactive map that can accept your tokens you made or bought.

Heck you can offload the dice rolls to discord, there are several good dice bots (admittedly one of them is linked to D&dBeyond, but that's only one of them.

This seems like a perfect case for why Government intervention on anti-competitive practices is good.

It would be great if we can get the government involved since what Hasbro is trying to due is effectively monopolize an entire industry given how prevalent the OGL 1.0a is.

The government is also invested given that this can and will reduce tax revenues and increase unemployment.

Funimation and Crunchyroll were allowed to merge. Anti-monopoly policy is dead in the US

Oh, was 250,000 a typo? Makes sense, assuming over 80% profit was crazy lol

^If your revenue is $1,500,000 and your expenses are $,250,000 (including paying federal and state and maybe even local taxes), you aren't going to be earning income under the OGL 1.1 -- you're going to be losing $50,000 each year (or $75,000 if you didn't sign onto their corrupt bargain with Kickstarter).

Meanwhile, WotC/Hasbro has the right to make any amount of income from what they so dishonestly say that you "own", and they don't owe anything to anybody except federal and state and maybe local governments (assuming that they can't figure out how to worm their way out of those obligations as so many big businesses do).

Also, note (in what purports to be the full document linked well above) that when you sign onto OGL 1.1, you waive your right to a jury trial.

Math is off. WotC is only taking their cut on the revenue above 750,000.

If expenses were Only 250,000 that person would profit over 1 million before taxes.

But an 84% profit margin is unheard of in this industry lol

EDIT: Not that the math actually matters given a license that can be changed on a whim with 30 days notice

I might strongly disagree with some of Paizo's decisions and the way they used to swing the FAQ like a hammer...

... but the core of Paizo as a company and the people running the ship are amazing and this hobby is so much better for having them.

Vardoc Bloodstone wrote:

This is relevant. Roll For Combat is hosting questions at 4:00 EST today. Bottom line is that fears of OGL 1.1 are probably overblown:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZ6iTzeiNY8

Edit: time error

That's opposite the impression I got from Stephen's commentary.

Same. This is not the time to be passive and go quietly into the night.

The leaked OGL 1.1 is basically an attack on the tabletop landscape that's been a defining feature of our hobby for the last twenty years.

Philo Pharynx wrote:

From RollForCombat's video: there is now a site taking signatures against this. opendnd.games

Link doesn't work. And I can't find the site via a Google or Bing search.

Working Link

[Turns out, the forum software automatically turns links into internal ones if they don't have the http:// at the start]

I imagine Paizo are already doing something similar, albeit on a much grander scale.

probably.

would be a shame to lose PF1, but if they don't want to fight that battle that's their call to make. The time and cost would be staggering.

Eeveegirl1206 wrote:

Coridan wrote:

Most likely it's whoever in charge of WotC wanting to impress their bosses in Hasbro. This happens a lot in game studios where a studio head will be in a meeting with the big boss (like EA) and the big boss starts singing the praises of one branch who brought in x money with microtransactions and live services, them goes to the other studio head "so what have you guys got coming up" and the guy who heads a studio known for epic single player RPGs then comes up with Anthem on the spot

This sounds exactly what happened when corporate busy bodies who know nothing of the industry decide they want to increase profits.

I hope this fails.

That 1980s cartoon had way more DND feels than this generic movie. They should bring back it.

Or Record of the Locosss which was a DND campaign.

what is that?

Record of Lodoss war is a Japanese multi-media franchise that started out as a Replay [textualized retelling of a roleplaying game session/campaign, there's actually a market for it] of a Basic+Expert DND campaign.

It eventually spawned the premier fantasy roleplaying game in Japan, Sword World. Which runs on a 2d6 system.

I mean I'd rather crowdfund a legal fund to shut down WotC's attempt to overwrite the OG OGL with an Oppressive Gaming Leash.

But to each their own lol.

Before people get too panicky, it might be good to remember that business don't like spending money.

Panicking won't do any good, but neither will casually letting things develop according to course.

It's painfully obvious what WotC's intentions are here, and the d20 community needs to rally over this. Make some noise and vote with your wallet.

I know PF and 5e fanbases have rivalries. But this is not the time to accentuate those rivalries. Many 5e players still love Paizo and PF (I know I still do, even though I don't play as much anymore).

I any case, let's turn our hatred towards Hasbro!

At the end of the day, all d20 players are one family. We may fight or argue now and then, but we're all descended from a couple of wargaming grandpas who gave us a hobby worth fighting for.

Coridan wrote:

First, as amusing as that would be, it's almost certain that KotOR had a separate agreement with WotC, as at the time Wizards held the RPG license for Star Wars. I doubt their agreement had any reliance on the OGL.

Second, they're not trying to fine you for driving yesterday, but the fear is that they'll try to stop people from continuing to sell more copies of stuff previously published under the OGL.

A lot of people are panicking though over something that is really really gonna go poorly for WotC in court, and probably wasn't their actual intention. It was likely meant to be a poison pill clause like the GSL but phrased differently. Or someone with no concept of caselaw on open source licensing thought they could get away with it and is probably getting an education right now in between the leak and the official release (which is supposed to be on the 13th according to the leak)

The fault in your position is assuming it will ever be argued in any court of law. Nuclear Lawfare is conducted by companies that know they stand little chance of winning a case decided in a court by a judge, but use their financial position to wear down the opposition so much they either go bankrupt or must walk away from litigation due to the extreme cost of legal services before the case is EVER argued in a court.

Which is why this whole mess has to get big, big, BIG, BIG

It has to get so big that it damages WotC's bottom line. MTG players are an adjacent community to the RPG industry, I don't know what else WotC is involved in, but this has to be blown up so big that DND becomes something Hasbro loses interest in.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Onkonk wrote:

I saw an interesting post from Michael Sayre about PF2 and the OGL (it was made 9 months ago so not a comment on the leak).

...

Now that is interesting.

If Pathfinder 2 can be legally published without the OGL due to significant differences as a game (I'd still expect WotC/Hasbro to challenge it), then while it means taking PF1 products off the store (and likely Starfinder), they could potentially continue to sell and produce products for PF2, without getting plundered by Hasbro.

It also means that if Paizo were inclined*, they could replace the OGL text with a pathfinder game license and allow third parties to continue to develop products for PF2, completely independent of the WotC shenanigans.

*Given Paizo is a company made up of and run by people with a deep love and respect for the hobby, my guess would be on them being so inclined. But legal matters are tricky, so I wouldn't begrudge them moving cautiously in these times.

The real question is if the OPGL {OP lol, but Open Pathfinder/ Open Path} could be used in a manner similar to publish PF1 material similar to how the OSR guys were able to use the OGL to rebuild TSR editions.

It's murky water, but if it could be accomplished that would be an amazing middle finger to Hasbro.

If they want to create a new license [which shouldn't be called an OGL, because it ain't open] that's one thing. Rock on I guess.

If they can somehow find a way to force 1.1 to be applied to 5th edition content, whatever. There's probably some legal room to maneuver there.

But to try to overrule 3rd edition's Open Gaming Status, and suddenly claim exclusive control over that OGL content and content derived from it?

I can't imagine a legitimate court in the country that would honor that lol.

Vardoc Bloodstone wrote:

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

Also, Vardoc, we've linked two accounts now from lawyers who seem extremely concerned. They're a good read, and an informative watch.

Look, I’m not saying don’t have an interest, or don’t follow the story. But frankly, most these folks don’t know what they are talking about. I love Ron as a content creator and member of our community, but he is not an expert in these fields.

So my message is to ease the panic, but if that doesn’t sit well with you then by all means, you do you.

And for what it is worth, I am fairly confident that none of these fears will come to pass and that Paizo can continue to Paizo. Like 80-90% certain.

Edit: typo.

I certainly hope you're right.

Paizo will be fine regardless. They have multiple options here.

It's the rest of the community who loses if this fight is sidestepped rather than won.

Obviously it would be better if the victory could come in the form of the court of opinions where WotC realizes that trying this would ruin their public image and damage D&D's revenue.

But most likely they're going to go full corporate on this and demand submission or an actual legal battle.

Not saying Paizo has an obligation to participate, they don't. There are absolutely reasons they would probably be better off avoiding that battle.

But it would sure be nice if they did.

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

Even if WotC isn't touching the OGL, and all the leaks are somehow wrong, it's never a bad thing to keep them afraid to touch it in the future. I say, keep the torches and pitchforks coming.

And also, abandon the OGL in favor of an actual open content license that doesn't have this type of loophole in it in the first place.

Re-releasing the PF2 CRB without it wouldn't be a bad plan.

There is no real loophole.

Some corporate schmuck just noticed that modern licenses use "Irrevocable" where licenses of the time said "perpetual" and fired up the machine.

WotC's odds of winning this in court are less than 20% from everything I've been reading. All the precedence is stacked against them.

Xyxox wrote:

I think they underestimate the fan base, especially where the loyalties really lie.

I'm not so sure. Folk posting on this forum were already skewed against WotC, as evidenced in the 'Do you also play D&D?' thread, where everyone shat on 5e.

Most people who started roleplaying since 5e hit its stride, and who - in all likelihood - play nothing but D&D5e, won't care one whit what happens to Paizo or other smaller 3P creators.

I doubt the majority of those players are even aware of what is happening right now with the OGL.

As someone on the EN World forums said, WotC will get maybe a month of moaning online, then it'll be back to business as usual.

Obviously that doesn't account for any other predatory practices that are still in the pipeline for 2023 and beyond.

The Youtube Content Community is making sure they all know what it is and the gravity of it.

This thing is blowing up on Youtube

Valid points Dancing Wind, thanks.

kyrt-ryder wrote:

Belafon wrote:

The people who come up with these plans are the real-life equivalent of RPG “rules-lawyer” players.

Isn’t that what all Lawyers are supposed to do? At least corporate lawyers. Figure out loopholes so they can save 0.2 cents by dumping toxic waste in the ocean.

Please don't lump rules lawyers in with this sort of excrement.

It still isn’t good because even if Pazio can continue smaller companies without the resources to fight against Hasbro’s legal team.

They should be challenged in court by people with resources instead of SLAPs on small companies.

Because if you learn more about Critical Legal Theory you would understand that the laws are made by powerful and rich people so that they keep being powerful and rich.

I am in agreement. IMO the best result for the industry at large would be for Paizo to participate in this fight and WotC to get their asses handed to them in court.

AFAIK, they have the strongest case by far, not exactly a guarantee but quite close.

Problem is the time and finances required to wage that war, and whether or not Paizo is prepared to do it.

The people who come up with these plans are the real-life equivalent of RPG “rules-lawyer” players.

Please don't lump rules lawyers in with this sort of excrement.

Note to self: start backing up the PF1 sections.of Archives of Nethys, D20pfsrd and Libraryofmetzofitz just in case Paizo decides to bail on the OGL rather than defend it.

I couldn't blame them if they took the path of least resistance, court battles are incredibly expensive and it's not like 2E absolutely needs the OGL to exist, though it would require serious revision.

Much like when the D&D movie poster stole Paizo's proprietary art and they killed the discussion instantly, I suspect this will not go too well either.

Anyways, I have all the books on my shelf. Let Hasbro come in and try and burn 'em.

That's the biggest blessing for other 3rd party publishers. If they can't touch Paizo, then that gives a big defense in court afaik.

Not a lawyer of course, so I could be mistaken on this.

kyrt-ryder wrote:

That's great as a possibility for a given setting.

terrible as a system demand. (Considering the game we're talking about. Bling the Gathering* could be a fun rpg with such a premise.)

That's incorrect. It's terrible for some game styles (a game style that hasn't been supported the game since 2e until 5e came back and forced that game style as the only option).

It's perfectly fine for others, especially since nothing prevents the Big Six from being fixed AND having the option for High Magic. I'm happy as long as the Option of having high magic still exists.

If it's a System Demand you get your option while I don't get mine.

Far better to have a system engineered to accommodate both.

Dammit Cosmo

The problem is that poster enjoys survivalism type challenges and wants to be immersed in Roughing It, but their GM is handwaving something they enjoy.

Ryan Freire wrote:

So beyond the standard magic items, and stat boosters, i'd really like to see some of these other magic items bite the dust. Leading off with the ring of sustenance and all of its permutations. It should take more than a couple grand to kill sleep requirements and eating requirements dead. Cheap magic that removes environmental threat, supply management, and time management needs to go. PC's should have to think a little before traipsing off to the uncharted wilderness for an adventure.

I think 2,500 gp is too cheap relative to other rings. In our medium to high level parties everyone has one.

Really?

They're all giving up that precious ring slot for such minor benefits?

kyrt-ryder wrote:

Ryan Freire wrote:

kyrt-ryder wrote:

There's softballing and then there's douchebagging. I only give a 5% chance of night attack per night in ordinary 'dangerous wilderness.'

Extraordinarily dangerous wilderness (don't go into the tall grass!) Gets 1 out of 12 per night.

So you cut the standard by 2/3 to 3/4 and then treat the recommended encounter rate as douchebagging.

You softball, and thats fine, but you contribute to the ability of casters to have dominance over martials by doing so.

Would you please show me where a standard is listed?

As to my 'softballing causing caster dominance...'

A: these are primarily issues at levels before casters dominate and...

B: I'm an extreme homebrewer who solves system problems at the system level. Meaning my high level martials look more like comic book heroes or martially oriented Xianxia 'Cultivators' than low level adventures.

Rise of the runelords 20% day/night Kingmaker 15% day/night

I don't recall these from RotRL [it's been a while since I GM'd it] but I have to ask, does it says /night is it explicitly stating that's the odds of an overnight ambush at camp?

Reading that percentage right now suggests to me those are the odds of coming up on a random encounter while traveling. Camping cautiously is far less likely to draw attention [and from a realistic perspective (as opposed to the strictest rules reading) more difficult to actually ambush if there is someone at watch since there isn't all the noise of motion and forward focus that happens during travel.

Deadmanwalking wrote:

-Due to the way Class Features and Class Feats work, it seems basically certain that Sorcerers get new spell levels at the same level Wizards do, which is a notable bump from PF1.

Interesting I did not think about that. Not sure if I like that or not. Makes it that the only thing wizards will have over the sorcerer is access to more spells.

Just checking here... Do you want to perpetuate Wizard dominance?

Sorcerers and Oracles never should have had delayed spell progression to begin with.

There's softballing and then there's douchebagging. I only give a 5% chance of night attack per night in ordinary 'dangerous wilderness.'

Extraordinarily dangerous wilderness (don't go into the tall grass!) Gets 1 out of 12 per night.

it really makes me wonder why I would pick a sorcerer over a wizard

That's the joke this industry has been playing since the year 2000.

Sorcerers look like fun, and at least prior to PF2 were Easier to play (assuming good spell selection) than a Wizard, but a knowledgeable and experienced player is always better off with the Wizard class.

It's not good game design but there you have it. Paizo appears to be proudly carrying on the tradition of stepping on the sorcerer.

Ryan, what level are you seeing your players jump on the Ring of Sustenance?

At the very low levels I can appreciate some serious survivalism based challenges, but I like to phase out those needs, starting with strong resilience to food/water/sleep deprivation at level 5 and culminating in a more supernatural form of sustenance somewhere around level 9 where food and drink become luxuries to indulge in with good company rather than necessities.

Stuff about containing casters at the GM level

Sounds like a viable strategy if that's the kind of game you want to run.

I run a variation of 3.P to embrace the power curve, it's the martial Classes that don't get to play past early levels that I want brought back to par.

Mage of the Wyrmkin wrote:

From a balance perspective I really don't think that casters should be doing comparable damage to martials with their blast spells. Casters own the narrative space, have utility and buff spells, control spells and best of all spells that allow for no saving throw or SR that just work.

From a player's perspective blasting is fun but having a caster that is only (or mostly) a blaster is a dull experience in repetition. Casters should be powerful but the power should come from the proper application of spells in the right situation and not simply by dumping more dice on the table.

I know that players that love blasters will probably disagree but this is where I stand.

I think this is an absolutely fair perspective. I would just like it if they had more of a middle ground between enabling blasting as something fun and relevant and keeping the martial niche safe. Narrowing the range of any specific caster into something more like Spheres of Power might be a good approach.

Why have we all agreed to settle on 'simple damage' as the martial's niche?

I can agree with this basic premise at very low levels [although not even then really, combat maneuvers should be very powerful battlefield control and there's no reason specific martials couldn't obtain powerful buff and debuff abilities outside the realm of magic] but as levels rise the martials niche should be expanding [which is a bit of poor humor on PF1's part, seeing as the extant system enforces ever greater narrowing down of niche by piling feats onto the same concept to remain relevant.]

People certainly play games very differently of how i GM and often get to play.

Rape, torture, gruesome death of innocent folk like kids... All normal stuff for evil NPCs to do. Thus happen. Actually it is harder for it not to happen during long games, since given time, chances are some evil guy will get to do these evil things. Evil doesnt hold punches.

Same goes for evil races. It isnt uncommon there to be some gnolls, orcs... who arent evil, but they are the exception and are called out multiple times before they appear to avoid the PC jumping on them and heads rolling. If the book point to a alignemnt, then one can assume a vast, vast majority of any given race will follow it and often act on it instead of imagining this one will be the 0,001%.

Even if a species has a 'tendency towards X alignment', outsiders aside I don't want to see more than 60%

Deadmanwalking wrote:

gustavo iglesias wrote:

I have seen a lot of encounters start with rolling initiative because the party encountered was a bunch of orcs, while if the same party encounter a group of gnomes, they ask for parley. Against the green skinned ones, they don't stop to ask if they are one of those saerenrae followers or whatever.

And I'm saying I've never seen players do that and that no AP relies on them doing so.

I'm not arguing that people don't do that in some games, but it's not inevitable, required for the game to work, or morally acceptable in my games (and is pretty morally dubious in most published Pathfinder products as well).

Even if it does not happen in your games, it is a staple of the genre. Faramir did not stop to ask the orcs what are they up to, he ambushed them.

In a genre where you can safely know enemy from foe just based on race, genocide is a given.

The quoted text conflates 'genre' with setting.

Faramir was at war with the Orcs who served a known greater evil.

If every orc is an evil monster, killing them is no different than killing ghouls or demons.

Aye, default alignments for humanoids is a very stupid concept.

Now default alignments for organizations or the agents of nations I can support, but not by species or in regards to the common folk.

Oh no.

They're still violating spontaneous casters (assuming Spells Known don't go through the roof compared to PF1)

I honestly thought Paizo was better than that.

For a start it would either require levelling at an extreme pace or little to no levelling at all. Elric, Perseus and Gandalf are pretty much just as powerful at the start of the story as at the end.

Self contained campaigns that only spread a handful of levels (whether they start at level one or 17 doesn't really matter) and have good closure are great fun.

In fact I've participated in two particularly great campaigns without leveling at all, the entire games happened at level 9 and level 14 respectively.

The problem with striping back classes at level 1 and saying "just start at level 5 if you want a PF1e level 1 experience" is that it doesn't work unless you strip back all classes and delay their level 2-5 class features by 5 levels. We know 5th level wizards get 3rd level spells, so starting at level 5 for a PF1e level 1 experience doesn't work.

Oh, that's what you meant. You wanted to recreate a PF1 level 1 experience.

Aye, that does seem to be a problem with PF2 as presented.

I want to throw a ball of mud at someone to splatter on their armor. What AC do I use?

If the target is the armor itself I would call that a reflex save

I prefer touch attacks as reflex saves rather than to-hit rolls ignoring armor

Excaliburproxy wrote:

Also, if I may speak towards your fighter-with-greatsword example:

I think the fighter finding two good greatswords is not the problem. The problem is when the fighter finds a good greatsword and a good bow and sun glasses that makes him immune to blind effects and a good magical sleeveless shirt that shows off his muscles just right. You end up with a situation where the "natural" loot from an encounter or adventure distorts a player's power by a significant amount larger than that of his fellows. Under the current system (1/2 value sells), the difference between a random party member and my hypothetical lucky fighter is much lower when compared to the 1/10 item sale system of starfinder or a system where selling magic items is difficult/impossible.

Maybe that is a lesser evil though.

Well, the GM still has to do some work. If one party member is getting a disproportionate share of the rewards, part of the GM's job is to make sure other people in the party get their fair share too. Even if running out of a module, you can replace one item with another, or just change the magic sword into a magic flail.

I find it so much easier and more fun to offload that GM work into the level up process with minimal non-level-granted superior equipment.

Building 'gear power' into levels as an option allows for a very different narrative, where the pursuit of wealth is far more easily discarded because it doesn't make you stronger (except in the political sense)

Dropping a sack or single shoulder slung bag (which if Masterwork increases effective carrying capacity) is a free action in PF1.