What is already "Hardcoded" into Pathfinder II?


Prerelease Discussion

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32

What is the scope of the Playtest?

I.e., has there been any official word on what can and cannot be changed from what is announced?

Liberty's Edge

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Likely the stuff announced is the stuff they're most excited about and probably not going to change. Alchemist is definitely going to be a core class, Goblin is definitely going to be a core race.


The new Action system seems to be a lock.


Changes to proficiency too.

I'm interested to see the nuts and bolts of character creation. I'm thinking Ancestry only confers the biological components of what race once granted (some stat mods, size, speed, vision).

Paizo Employee Designer

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We have some concept of what will be more or less difficult to change, but not much is set in stone.

Except maybe six ability scores, fireball, and whatnot.


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Logan Bonner wrote:

We have some concept of what will be more or less difficult to change, but not much is set in stone.

Except maybe six ability scores, fireball, and whatnot.

You heard it here first folks, fireball will be the gold standard for spell design.

jk


Threeshades wrote:
Logan Bonner wrote:

We have some concept of what will be more or less difficult to change, but not much is set in stone.

Except maybe six ability scores, fireball, and whatnot.

You heard it here first folks, fireball will be the gold standard for spell design.

jk

Might not be a bad idea, I can think of worse.


Threeshades wrote:
Logan Bonner wrote:

We have some concept of what will be more or less difficult to change, but not much is set in stone.

Except maybe six ability scores, fireball, and whatnot.

You heard it here first folks, fireball will be the gold standard for spell design.

jk

Fireball will be based on six ability scores


Zardnaar wrote:
Threeshades wrote:
Logan Bonner wrote:

We have some concept of what will be more or less difficult to change, but not much is set in stone.

Except maybe six ability scores, fireball, and whatnot.

You heard it here first folks, fireball will be the gold standard for spell design.

jk

Might not be a bad idea, I can think of worse.

In the new Pathfinder 2.0 spell system, everything is Time Stop or better.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

You didn’t mention my favorite spell! I’m out of here!


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This is their biggest mistake IMO. Dribs and Drabs are just going to give an awful lot of opportunity to take the info we do get in the worst possible light and solidify a reaction well before how it works in the whole framework becomes obvious. Its the slow pulling of the bandage and the creation of months of "I was with them until X" posts.


I'm not sure fireballs should have 6 ability scores, but I'd wait until august before I make a final judgement.


They are doing it this way because they want to preview it at cons before the big drop. I wouldnt have done it this way but its not up to me :)


At first guess, new action economy (maybe not the same as it is now, but definitely not old one), and stronger Golarion presence. All other stuff feels fluid enough


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Pain and suffering. : )

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32

I think it's worth remembering how much changed in the first edition playtest. IIRC, the entire skill system changed at least once, and numerous races and classes got changed fairly dramatically. (For example, high-level wizards at one point had the ability to cast wish as a spell-like ability.)

I mean, obviously some stuff is set in stone, but if there's something you hate then being pointed and specific in the playtest surveys probably gives you a decent chance to see change if enough others agree with you.

Liberty's Edge

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Logan Bonner wrote:
We have some concept of what will be more or less difficult to change, but not much is set in stone.

I suggest that every race have at least one racial hit die.

It never made sense to me that humans/elves/orcs have to pick a class at birth and even a 3 year old child is a Lvl 1 Commoner. Now that you're distancing from 3.5, you could ditch the whole legacy "0-HD race" concept, which would unify mechanics between "player races" and "monster races" so that *all* creatures would have base racial hit dice plus possible class hit dice. This would serve at least two purposes that I can see:

* Unifying mechanics = simplicity
* Boosting starting hit points and making level 1 less fragile, which is something you obviously want since you did it in Starfinder too

Just please, make it a racial hit *die*, and not a fixed amount like in Starfinder, to avoid unnecessary complication (do racial hit points count as hit dice for n purposes etc). You can always state that "PCs get maximum for their first racial hit die" like they do for their first class hit die, to avoid fragility.

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

Orville Redenbacher wrote:
They are doing it this way because they want to preview it at cons before the big drop. I wouldnt have done it this way but its not up to me :)

One of the primary drivers for telling people now is that we have to tell our retailer channel about things that are happening in August months in advance, and we picked this week because it gives us the opportunity to talk to retailers about it face-to-face at the game industry's biggest retail-oriented trade show next week.

Believe me, I wish we could announce it and drop the PDF on the very same day, but that would be horrible to our distribution network.


Ah. That explains why you didn't wait until Paizocon. I figured if/when the announcement would come, it would come there.

I learned something today!!! :)

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