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Leaping away from my pile of collected dust and dreams of distant stars to throw in my excitement.
I've been around since nearly the beginning and have seen the game quietly develop itself with a variety of resource systems and expectations with more and more rules stacked on top of one another.
To see it mashed up and streamlined into something more coherent excites me in many ways.
Yay.
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I was around for the first Pathfinder playtest and was overjoyed to see Pathfinder keep 3.5 thriving.
I am excited about Pathfinder 2E.
If it makes the game easier to GM and play while maintaining the versitility of the Pathfinder Legacy ruleset, I will be pleased.
My main regret is that I didn't get to play as much as I would've liked during the past 10 years.
I'm looking forward to the new rules and wish Paizo great success in this endeavor.
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I really think this is the perfect time for a reset on the rules. It will be so nice to go back to just a few races and classes and feats to choose from for a little while, and to finally kill some sacred cows and fix some of the numerous issues that PF1 had.
I was around when 4th was announced, and it soured my opinion of D&D so much that even when I was participating in the D&Dnext playtest I couldn’t help but feel like I would rather be playing Pathfinder, which had become my dear TTRPG love by that point. But there are a lot of things 5th edition did right, and to learn from that and other developments to RPGs over the last decade is just thrilling if they can pull it off with this edition.
I'm optimistic that the new rules will be an overall improvement on the first edition. No doubt there will be aspects I'm not fond of, but so far so good. The question for me is: what do I do with my old Pathfinder books?
In the current state of PF2E i am optimistic about the game system, its going to be different from 1E for sure and i hope they manage to irk out the issues i had with the 3.X system in general.
Still cautious about a few of the changes, but the ones that does not makes sense for me personally is something i could easily ignore or might be explained in better detail down the line ( Like the goblins, or how the critical system work in practice ).
"Time vil shøw" as they say.
I've been playing RPGs since the days of AD&D and I have never played a system that I couldn't make work with some house rules. Back in the days of AD&D the list of house rules at our table was fairly long, only some of them were really necessary, the others were bolt on features (like hit location) from other systems that we liked and thought would make the game more interesting.
Over time I've noticed that the number of house rules we have implemented have become less as game design has improved. We had less for D&D 2e than AD&D for instance. The notable exception to this is gurps, because that system is specifically built with GM fine tuning in mind. For every other system: Cyberpunk, VTM, Shadowrun, Pendragon etc. we found that we were requiring house rules less and less. For Pathfinder 1e we have three very basic house rules that we use consistently at our table, that's it. For everything else there are already optional rules that cover what we need (we use crit cards and chase cards for instance). I expect when Pathfinder 2e comes out, because it is better designed, we will ditch even those last three and just play the game as it is written.
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Breathe little flame of hope breathe. Dont die out in the cold wind of wild speculation.
I think the timing for 2e is pretty much spot on.
Through a weird coincidence we had a chat about the possibilities of a second edition for the first time the week prior to it being announced by Paizo. Given we meet weekly and have done for years and have never spoken about it before it was almost like providence.
2/3 of the game engine are both better in design and more mathematically consistent making encounter design and running the game faster and easier as the GM, and hopefully more engaging and quick to execute as a player.
The last 1/3 reeks of crane wing.
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I'm so far quite hopeful and like almost everything (I'm still a tad worried about skills).
The last 1/3 reeks of crane wing.I am now curious what falls under this category.
For me: feat tax to get 10th level spells, Channel energy not using Spell points, and three spells per level at day.
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I'm so far quite hopeful and like almost everything (I'm still a tad worried about skills).
The last 1/3 reeks of crane wing.I am now curious what falls under this category.
Things like power attack taxing you two actions, but not being better than making 2 attacks, unless [math thread] which makes it very poorly designed in a vacuum.
Plus the other feats we've seen on the fighter and rogue which seemingly are still much less versatile than spells, with a few exceptions, it seems counter-intuitive to the new action system and takes the freedom you just gained by playing PF2 away by forcing you to go back to the move+single attack or full attack action meaning you really didn't gain anything.
Combat looks to be designed in such a way that the math of the game is going to be completely re balanced, but the implications of what needs to exist to achieve that balance from a design perspective superficially complicate the game more than most people seem to realize, and every time I mention this I get flamed so to continue I'd vote we move this to the other thread.
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For me: feat tax to get 10th level spells, Channel energy not using Spell points, and three spells per level at day.
Why Channel Energy? I don't agree with the others but they are power downs, but that's a straight bonus.
Things like power attack taxing you two actions, but not being better than making 2 attacks, unless [math thread] which makes it very poorly designed in a vacuum.
Plus the other feats we've seen on the fighter and rogue which seemingly are still much less versatile than spells, with a few exceptions, it seems counter-intuitive to the new action system and takes the freedom you just gained by playing PF2 away by forcing you to go back to the move+single attack or full attack action meaning you really didn't gain anything.
Combat looks to be designed in such a way that the math of the game is going to be completely re balanced, but the implications of what needs to exist to achieve that balance from a design perspective superficially complicate the game more than most people seem to realize, and every time I mention this I get flamed so to continue I'd vote we move this to the other thread.
Fair enough. Though, for the record, I disagree with a fair part of that.
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For me: feat tax to get 10th level spells, Channel energy not using Spell points, and three spells per level at day.Why Channel Energy? I don't agree with the others but they are power downs, but that's a straight bonus.
Fair enough. Though, for the record, I disagree with a fair part of that.Things like power attack taxing you two actions, but not being better than making 2 attacks, unless [math thread] which makes it very poorly designed in a vacuum.
Plus the other feats we've seen on the fighter and rogue which seemingly are still much less versatile than spells, with a few exceptions, it seems counter-intuitive to the new action system and takes the freedom you just gained by playing PF2 away by forcing you to go back to the move+single attack or full attack action meaning you really didn't gain anything.
Combat looks to be designed in such a way that the math of the game is going to be completely re balanced, but the implications of what needs to exist to achieve that balance from a design perspective superficially complicate the game more than most people seem to realize, and every time I mention this I get flamed so to continue I'd vote we move this to the other thread.
It's not the topic here, but I'll gladly engage in civility if you wanna PM me.
For me: feat tax to get 10th level spells, Channel energy not using Spell points, and three spells per level at day.Why Channel Energy? I don't agree with the others but they are power downs, but that's a straight bonus.
Having less resources to track is a worthy goal that makes playing easier. And because it seems like they are going to be plenty of options to increase the number of Spell Points I just think is a missing opportunity to not make Channel energy use Spell points, and that Channel energy effects are spells make it worse. Makes sense?
EDIT: Just to clarify, I did not make the list based on power downs but what I consider bad design decisions.
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Channeling is better than the domain powers, so it needs a separate pool. Otherwise, you’d want to dump your feats into new domain powers for more channeling. Fights start to drag on as the Cleric just keeps healing herself to full and making one or two attacks.
Channeling is better than the domain powers, so it needs a separate pool. Otherwise, you’d want to dump your feats into new domain powers for more channeling. Fights start to drag on as the Cleric just keeps healing herself to full and making one or two attacks.
I have not seen domain powers so I'm not sure how did you make that analysis, but if what you said is true you can make channeling cost more spell points.
Depends on the nature of the domain powers.
Touch of Chaos was most definitely on the lsit of things I'd put over channelling. Or like high level touch of madness.
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I always saw the best domain powers as the passive, always on ones. Travel and Protection domains come to mind.
Sadly travel never let me clown the GM's dice.
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Channeling is better than the domain powers, so it needs a separate pool. Otherwise, you’d want to dump your feats into new domain powers for more channeling. Fights start to drag on as the Cleric just keeps healing herself to full and making one or two attacks.I have not seen domain powers so I'm not sure how did you make that analysis, but if what you said is true you can make channeling cost more spell points.
I think the biggest thing is that traditionally there's a lot of pressure from the party for the cleric to spend her resources on healing them instead of doing the cool thing(s) she wants to do. By making the new channel energy into its own completely separate pool, it means that there's no longer pressure on the cleric to spend her spell points and slots on healing instead of firing blasts of holy fire and conjuring up balls of blinding light. There's a pool of healing that exists solely for that purpose, so even if the cleric is going all out casting spells and firing off domain powers, she's still got some healing in reserve and there's not the same kind of pressure to spend spell points she could be using to do whatever cool trick(s) her god gave her on healing the party.
Channeling is better than the domain powers, so it needs a separate pool. Otherwise, you’d want to dump your feats into new domain powers for more channeling. Fights start to drag on as the Cleric just keeps healing herself to full and making one or two attacks.I have not seen domain powers so I'm not sure how did you make that analysis, but if what you said is true you can make channeling cost more spell points.
Channeling is always as a top-level spell. Domain powers were said to be better than cantrips, but not as good as your top level spells. We know how much a max-level heal spell heals, and we know how much hitpoints a Cleric will have. At odd levels, you're healing about half health.
Good point about the extra cost, but I'd rather have it separate so that the healing doesn't count against something else.
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So far it looks like pretty much every class in PF2E is on a lower power-level overall, and I'm okay with that. We don't know the system as a whole, but I'm fine with classes being more limited so long as the system meaningfully rewards their choices.
Also, as for Power Attack, I wonder if it also multiplies Magic Weapon bonus damage. Power Attacking for 4d8 with a +1 Longsword seems pretty sweet.
It just uses the base die, but it scales so that it can keep up with magic weapons.
Well we can speculate that most of you guys are going to play it regardless of your current beliefs? The ones that are not going to play it most likely already left.
Plus the other feats we've seen on the fighter and rogue which seemingly are still much less versatile than spells, with a few exceptions, it seems counter-intuitive to the new action system and takes the freedom you just gained by playing PF2 away by forcing you to go back to the move+single attack or full attack action meaning you really didn't gain anything.
I wouldn't be surprised if martial feats were still not as versatile as spells, but the bold section has me piqued - care to elaborate with some examples - I've been following the blogposts, but not always following the minutiae of each ability/feat and how it interacts with action economy. Or is there a thread?
I think the biggest thing is that traditionally there's a lot of pressure from the party for the cleric to spend her resources on healing them instead of doing the cool thing(s) she wants to do. By making the new channel energy into its own completely separate pool, it means that there's no longer pressure on the cleric to spend her spell points and slots on healing instead of firing blasts of holy fire and conjuring up balls of blinding light. There's a pool of healing that exists solely for that purpose, so even if the cleric is going all out casting spells and firing off domain powers, she's still got some healing in reserve and there's not the same kind of pressure to spend spell points she could be using to do whatever cool trick(s) her god gave her on healing the party.Channeling is better than the domain powers, so it needs a separate pool. Otherwise, you’d want to dump your feats into new domain powers for more channeling. Fights start to drag on as the Cleric just keeps healing herself to full and making one or two attacks.I have not seen domain powers so I'm not sure how did you make that analysis, but if what you said is true you can make channeling cost more spell points.
I can see that happening, although it also serves as an argument against feats that uses Channel energy but doesn't involve healing the party like Turn Undead (granted Turn Undead is kind of lame but it is the only example I see so far).
Plus the other feats we've seen on the fighter and rogue which seemingly are still much less versatile than spells, with a few exceptions, it seems counter-intuitive to the new action system and takes the freedom you just gained by playing PF2 away by forcing you to go back to the move+single attack or full attack action meaning you really didn't gain anything.I wouldn't be surprised if martial feats were still not as versatile as spells, but the bold section has me piqued - care to elaborate with some examples - I've been following the blogposts, but not always following the minutiae of each ability/feat and how it interacts with action economy. Or is there a thread?
The Power Attack math thread covers this extensively for that feat in particular, but essentially it's not ever beneficial to use it unless you also are making a second attack with your 3rd action, which is essentially a full round attack action.
This is because the math for what Power Attack adds to your damage does not outpace the expected damage range from what you can expect on a secondary attack, given both the design philosophy of the new critical hit method and the fact that at later levels Certain Strike becomes a thing. Unless you understand this, you will have a hard time understanding why using the feat you took is actively making you worse at damage than the guy using a one-handed weapon and a shield. Feats shouldn't make you worse at doing the thing you want to do, especially in a scenario where you're trying to play the game the way it's intended to be played.
Then there's other things that are now being taxed actions that were not in PF1, like raising a shield which dip into your freedom even more. To be fair though, this action can be taken with the reaction and presumably lasts until your next turn which I do not hate, because you can choose to actively do it on your turn or do it reactively if you feel the need.
Quick Reversal requires you to not only be in flanked position, but you then have to make at least two attacks for the feat to even trigger because it only works on your second or third attacks. In game this means you either have to a) purposely take your first action to move into position to trigger the feat and then spend your next two actions attacking, or b) leave yourself open to be intentionally flanked on your turn so you can make two attacks to trigger your feat and then move away afterwards next turn. The tactical implications of this design philosophy remove the freedom and agency that you gained by inventing the new action system and take the game's engine backwards.
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The Power Attack math thread covers this extensively for that feat in particular, but essentially it's not ever beneficial to use it unless you also are making a second attack with your 3rd action, which is essentially a full round attack action.
The word 'essentially' is carrying a lot of weight in that point and misrepresents the math a little bit. Power Attack is almost always better when you take all three actions to attack. It is sometimes better when you only take two actions to attack. Power Attack works best with a big weapon against hard-to-hit enemies.
I recommend reading the Power Attack math thread and looking at the different perspectives. Not everyone values options the same way.
Wait, are you telling me that power attack seems to be situationally useful? I.E., it's good in some circumstances, but isn't an auto-include on every turn? Sounds like good game design.
We should continue in the other thread.
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So far it looks like pretty much every class in PF2E is on a lower power-level overall, and I'm okay with that. We don't know the system as a whole, but I'm fine with classes being more limited so long as the system meaningfully rewards their choices.
I'm not really sure this is true. We have some evidence of low level features getting pushed back several levels-- Mutagen and Debilitating Injury spring to mind. We also know clerics have less spell slots and presumably other casters will follow suit. Save or Dies are being reined in a little, with the worst effects occurring on a critical failure. There is some evidence absolute damage numbers are going to be lower. And we know falling hurts more now.
But we also know Healing has gotten a pretty big buff, 1st level characters have more HP, and the universal scaling proficiency + ability score generation means all characters will be more broadly competent-- even minimal investment in a skill means it will stay competitive into higher levels. They have promised martials are eventually gaining the ability to super human, physics crushing things like leap 30 feat into the air to smash a flying enemy out of the air. And spells still seem preeeetty powerful in the narrative sense. They are adding one called Alter Reality and adding a whole new spell level to get REALLY CRAZY with.
There's also lots of interesting trade offs going on between editions. 1e shields provide their bonus all the time, but 2e shields can be used for damage reduction. Dominate Person may only 1e dominate on a crit fail, but crit fails also means a fireball could deal double damage. And save or dies are almost always going to have a lesser effect on a non-critical success. In general, there seems to be a greater emphasis on getting new types of actions you can do rather than just adding higher numbers. We can't rely on unlimited expendable healing wands, but our magic items are supposed to do cooler things before. All classes can perform rituals. You can make 3 attacks at first level.
And we don't know how tough monsters will be-- relative damage is probably more important than absolute damage changes. An old 3.5 guy saw the 5e Tarrasque and commented that it seemed awfully weak and that high level adventurers shouldn't have a problem with it. He wasn't aware of how much power had been lowered in 5e across the board.
Basically, I think power is being shifted around in a lot of ways. Gonna be interesting to see how it all comes together. But based on comments about their design goals, if characters start off less powerful it seems unlikely they will remain that way.