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Hello everyone!
I'll make a personal review of the main aspects of the new edition, saying what I like and what I don't, as they have been revealed so far.
Gameplay: 3 actions system - 5/5
I'm excited at the new system (not totally new, actually): it looks easy to understand, but very flexible.
It should allow players to differentiate what they do each turn, making combat more dynamic but still tactical enough.
I also love having different kind of reactions. I'm only concerned about the -10 third iterative attack being something that is only worth doing against very weak opponents, given the risk of a critical miss. I know that a critical miss won't mean anything against most enemies, but when it does, the idea that I'm not only wasting an action but getting retaliated in return is one I don't like much.
It has been pointed that having different actions for different kinds of movement can bring problems when you have to combine them. I'm sure a workaround can be found.
Overall, 5/5 because the system looks very very good, and possible balance problems will likely be addressed during the playtest.
Gameplay: gameplay modes - 5/5
I feel that maybe this wasn't really needed, but it's still nice to have actual rules for exploration and downtime; of course we still don't know much about them, but I'm positive.
There are some cool ideas, like the new initiative thing, and crafting both magic and mundane items seems to have been reviewed. For the better, I'm sure!
I'd like to see how the encumbrance system is going to work, but I'm happy that it's going to be addressed somehow.
I give 5/5 because all changes I see here are probably for good.
Gameplay: degrees of success - 4/5
This is something I've always been thinking about. A paralyzing spell or effect that is partially resisted and results in a simple slowing down? Yes, please!
Rewriting spells to limit the power of 'save or suck' is very welcome, and this system seems like a perfect solution.
The fact that the +10/-10 rule is applied everywhere (attacks, saves and skills), is a good thing too.
Personally, I would have gone even further. I dream of a more dynamic system where every +5 allows to add something to the success (more damage on a hit, an aid to allies on a save, etc.) and every -5 makes the failure worse (the opponent can add such effects, for example, but you could even have the option to 'eat' one more negative extra thing to be allowed to reroll for success on the main task). I recon that it may be very complicated to have options like this for every kind of situation.
The only thing that really concerns me is the automatic successes or failures on naturals 20s and 1s. I think that they somehow break a good, consistent system, but we need to see how often they lead to inconsistent results in actual play. So, 4/5.
Gameplay: proficiencies and skill feats - 4/5
While in general the proficiences/skill feats system looks very nice, we don't really know to what extent it will alleviate the infamous martial/caster disparity problem.
What can a legendary axeman do with its weapon? Can a master stealther actually become invisible? How late will these potentally cool abilites be available, compared to spells?
Issues that have been highlighted are the need to reference the rules to know what a certain proficiency level can and cannot do (and it may slow down the game a bit), and expecially the fact that a +5 difference between untrained and legendary proficiency may be too small when you add character level to everything.
About this, I think that the playtest will prove if it is too small or not; I'm not worried about math, and I like the design goal behind it instead: not having tasks that are auto-success for a competent character and utterly impossible for the others, at any given level. Comparing a lvl 1 character with a lvl 20 one is a nonsense.
So, proficiencies and skill feats look good but we don't have enough informations about what they will make possible, thus 4/5.
Gameplay: death rules - 1/5
I don't think that death rules needed a revision, and I don't like how it has been done. At all. I find it both complicated and not realistic: if HPs are an abstraction for how hard it is to kill a character, why ignore them as soon as they go to zero? I really don't get why going into the negatives was so wrong.
Getting rid of non-lethal damage may be a good thing, but I'd like to see more details about that. Overall, 1/5.
Magic - 3/5
We still don't know much about how spellcasting will work, but we have received some indiscretions:
-we still have a Vancian system (no change, it seems);
-spells now span 10 levels (not a big difference);
-we have cantrips but they are not lvl 0 spells (does it only matter for metamagic?);
-many spells have been rewrote (good thing);
-effects now scale with spell level, while the DC goes up with the character.
The last one is the biggest change we know of: how will it impact the game? It's been said already that blasts will be stronger, but more limited as you have to upcast them; I find it a good thing. Control spells, instead, keep their utility even if cast from lower-level slots, and as they were already the stronger ones this could mean that casters are still the gods of the battlefield.
We don't know anything about the gamebreaking spells, but they will probably still be around.
In general, I don't see anything particularly good, except for the fact that each spell is going to be reviewed in consideration of the new action system and the multiple degrees of success. 3/5.
Resonance - 2/5
I don't like the concept. Tracking a single resource for different uses/day items has its merit, but having to realy on resonance for a healing potion scares me, and I also never felt the 'christmas tree' thing was a really big problem.
The CLW wand is an ugly thing, but it serves it purpose to prolong the adventuring day very well. I'm happy to see that groups can still use wands, but have to take ones that are closer to their power level; but resonance can become another reason to stop the adventuring and make camp.
I hope that it will play better than it sounds. Maybe a guaranteed minimum-effect when out of resonance could help with that; I give 2/5.
Character creation and levelling: in general - 4/5
I love options. So, I'm happy that the developers promised us that they are not cutting down the complexity of character creation, while trying to make it easier rules-wise.
When I read about ancestry-background-class I thought it was a perfect system: you can choose your 'race' with more details then before, get proficiencies and/or feats thanks to your background, and then set your further progression by choosing a class. I really hope that backgrounds will grant enough so that, together will the first level class feats, you can have a character that is 'unique' and at least basically competent in its field; at the same time, since you get as much from your background as you do from the first level in your class, multiclassing wouldn't let you abuse the system by dipping a single level for powerful class feats.
We still don't know much about backgrounds. There's some speculation about archetypes and multiclassing. The modular system they are building with feats allow for interesting ideas, we'll see.
I say 4/5 for potential. Judging by what I have seen about the other stuff, I fear that I will be disappointed by how backgrounds will be implemented, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.
Character creation and levelling: ancestries - 2/5
While I don't care about the word used, if they mean 'more than a race' (Varisian Human, Wood Elf...) I'm happy with that. If they give feats throughout all the character progression, that's good too.
But so far, I must say that I don't see much of this. Dwarves are just Dwarves, with the usual ability score bonuses and penalties, slow speed and some feats that can be chosen instead of others. Do they scale with level? Can I take more powerful ones when I'm a level 15 Dwarf?
It seems like they took the PF 1e racial abilities, made them into options and spread them over the 20 levels. How does this make me feel 'more dwarfy' when in the current edition I already have all of that by level 1?
About goblins, I'd rather have something different in core, but I don't mind too much. I don't play PFS, after all.
I really hope I'm wrong on this and that there is much more they haven't still told us, but it's 2/5 for me.
Character creation and levelling: classes - 3/5
Classes should give you some basic abilities that scale with your level, along with a choice of progressively stronger feats. Feats (expecially general feats) should be options, not flat bonuses lest they become a tax to keep being competent at what you already can do.
Has this been fulfilled by what they have previewed? It seems so.
We don't have the full progression, but the Rogue's sneak attack hints at an increasing number of damage dice, and they say that the Alchemists will do increasing damage with their 'bombs'.
The previewed class feats all look like nice options.
I share the general concern that characters may be a bit weak and uninteresting at low levels, but again it depends on how backgrounds will be implemented.
What I'm baffled at are the level requirements to take some class feats that are hardly gamebreaking. I hope to see some adjustments to them, and the introduction of REALLY powerful feats at higher levels. Things that can be compared with spells.
I mean, at level 14 a Fighter can become so skilled with her shield that she can use that against AoE attacks. Wow. By that level, a Wizard can probably cast Disintegrate a few times per day.
A disintegrating melee attack may be a bit too much, unless you limit its usage somehow, but that's the kind of feats I'd like to see.
So far, thus, I like the design basics but not much how classes have been implemented: 3/5.
Did I forget something? I may add more later.
EDIT: some typos.
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Gameplay: death rules - 1/5
I don't think that death rules needed a revision, and I don't like how it has been done. At all. I find it both complicated and not realistic: if HPs are an abstraction for how hard it is to kill a character, why ignore them as soon as they go to zero? I really don't get why going into the negatives was so wrong.
Getting rid of non-lethal damage may be a good thing, but I'd like to see more details about that. Overall, 1/5.
I'm going to 100% disagree with you here. The PF1 system had no drama - in 95% of cases you were either insta-dead, or you were "dying but actually fine" because you were 3+ HP away from death in a fight that's only probably going to last 3 more rounds. There was such a vanishingly narrow band of HP where there was actually any tension (like when you were 1-2 HP away from death,) and especially as you get to higher levels where damage totals are higher, it became even more statistically improbable to end up in that state where you were actually close to death.
The new system actually spurs the party into action. If someone goes down, someone has to save them, quick. You can't just always wait until after the fight like in PF1. In PF2 you have reason to take daring action and put yourself at risk to deliver a healing elixir. It becomes an actual story moment instead of just "Frank went down again, talk to you in 30 minutes bud."
Also, I hate to use the word "hate" but I HATE the SF-style nonlethal. It would just feel viscerally bad if you build a nonlethal-focused character who believes in salvation and redemption, spec out for nonlethal, and then the nonlethal damage you do ends up contributing to someone's death because your companion got the killing blow instead of you. I understand the desire to reduce bookkeeping, which is why I proposed a compromise solution in this thread:
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The last one is the biggest change we know of: how will it impact the game? It's been said already that blasts will be stronger, but more limited as you have to upcast them; I find it a good thing.
This is one that is very concerning for me. As a practical matter, blasting requires the expenditure of more spell slots per combat encounter than other strategies. The reason for this is that controllers can simply stop casting once combat is under control, thus conserving their spellcasting power while the fighter mops up. Blasters, however, need to keep blasting until everything is dead. After all, an enemy with even 1 hit point remaining is still a full threat, and if you've been blasting rather than controlling there's nothing locking them down. This dynamic feels right to me; blasting is a very "spammy" playstyle where you don't stop casting until everything is dead.
It remains to be seen what the actual math is. I certainly like the idea that blasts will be reasonably strong right out of the box without having to invest heavy support in terms of feats and class features, but if the price of this is that blasting builds cease to exist (because there's simply no way to get a sufficient number of uses per day to make it your primary combat strategy) then that's a step backwards.
What I'm baffled at are the level requirements to take some class feats that are hardly gamebreaking.
Unnecessarily arbitrary prerequisites have always been an integral to the Pathfinder experience /sarcasm.
In all seriousness, this is one place that the playtest should be able to help with. Hopefully the feedback can help identify abilities just just aren't up to par for their ostensible level, and could stand for a lower prerequisite.
I do think there is room for improvement with death rules. The new system ill definitely need to try out. I do like that they designed it to stop Chumbawumba. I greatly dislike boss kobold kills you deader than minion kobold mechanics. That part is 0/5 for me.
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I do think there is room for improvement with death rules. The new system ill definitely need to try out. I do like that they designed it to stop Chumbawumba. I greatly dislike boss kobold kills you deader than minion kobold mechanics. That part is 0/5 for me.
They don't kill you deader, exactly. The DC to avoid dying goes up based on their CR. Which makes sense inasmuch as CR is the equivalent of level for monsters.
Your last hit points are your last hit points to me. Though id be ok going straight to dying 2 on a crit-crit.
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Resonance - 2/5
I don't like the concept. Tracking a single resource for different uses/day items has its merit, but having to realy on resonance for a healing potion scares me, and I also never felt the 'christmas tree' thing was a really big problem.
The CLW wand is an ugly thing, but it serves it purpose to prolong the adventuring day very well. I'm happy to see that groups can still use wands, but have to take ones that are closer to their power level; but resonance can become another reason to stop the adventuring and make camp.
I hope that it will play better than it sounds. Maybe a guaranteed minimum-effect when out of resonance could help with that; I give 2/5.
I would give this a 1 of 5 I like magic magic items not items people can make magic with "innate mysterious powers"
The third attack at -10 is most likely going to be your last resort. If the class features work like I imagine they do, only TWF will want to attack 3x a round. You will have much more interesting things to do with that action.
but the words, "so far"...
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On the basis of 'so far' and therefore subject to change as we get more info:
Resonance is worrying me a lot. 2/5 is about 2 points too high.
I'll add:-
Classes: Multiclassing potential - it's not looking good Not a lot of information, but there are occasional hints and inferences to be drawn that it's not going to be easy or effective.
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There's very little to go on with regards to multiclassing at the moment. I think the only hint we've gotten so far is that multiclass characters will reference a single table rather than two tables. However, we also know that the idea of a "chassis" is basically gone now (BAB is gone and saving throws now work like proficiency) so it's unclear what exactly that means. I don't want to jump to conclusions, but I'd agree there's reason to be concerned about whether we're getting actual multiclassing or just a watered-down substitute like VMC was.
The last one is the biggest change we know of: how will it impact the game? It's been said already that blasts will be stronger, but more limited as you have to upcast them; I find it a good thing.This is one that is very concerning for me. As a practical matter, blasting requires the expenditure of more spell slots per combat encounter than other strategies. The reason for this is that controllers can simply stop casting once combat is under control, thus conserving their spellcasting power while the fighter mops up. Blasters, however, need to keep blasting until everything is dead. After all, an enemy with even 1 hit point remaining is still a full threat, and if you've been blasting rather than controlling there's nothing locking them down. This dynamic feels right to me; blasting is a very "spammy" playstyle where you don't stop casting until everything is dead.
It remains to be seen what the actual math is. I certainly like the idea that blasts will be reasonably strong right out of the box without having to invest heavy support in terms of feats and class features, but if the price of this is that blasting builds cease to exist (because there's simply no way to get a sufficient number of uses per day to make it your primary combat strategy) then that's a step backwards.
It depends: you can finish off the wounded enemies with a lower-level blast, even if it can be risky. This may or may not be feasible depending on how upcasting is handled mechanically, expecially for prepared casters: do you just memorize 2 fireballs, or do you have to preset their level?
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I'm not sure why everyone keeps harping on the -10 to hit for the 3rd attack. That's how PF1 works for the 3rd attack. At 11th level a fighter has +11/+6/+1... that's -10 for the 3rd attack.
I'm a bit scared of critical misses. Rolling low on your third iterative is just a miss in current PF, while it could bring very bad consequences against certain enemies in the new edition.
Gameplay: death rules - 1/5
I don't think that death rules needed a revision, and I don't like how it has been done. At all. I find it both complicated and not realistic: if HPs are an abstraction for how hard it is to kill a character, why ignore them as soon as they go to zero? I really don't get why going into the negatives was so wrong.
Getting rid of non-lethal damage may be a good thing, but I'd like to see more details about that. Overall, 1/5.I'm going to 100% disagree with you here. The PF1 system had no drama - in 95% of cases you were either insta-dead, or you were "dying but actually fine" because you were 3+ HP away from death in a fight that's only probably going to last 3 more rounds. There was such a vanishingly narrow band of HP where there was actually any tension (like when you were 1-2 HP away from death,) and especially as you get to higher levels where damage totals are higher, it became even more statistically improbable to end up in that state where you were actually close to death.
The new system actually spurs the party into action. If someone goes down, someone has to save them, quick. You can't just always wait until after the fight like in PF1. In PF2 you have reason to take daring action and put yourself at risk to deliver a healing elixir. It becomes an actual story moment instead of just "Frank went down again, talk to you in 30 minutes bud."
I'm in disagreement here. In Pathfinder, when on low hitpoints, you are risking actual death. If you're on 3HP, thirty damage will kill you.
With the new system, low hitpoints simply risks the inconvenience of losing a couple of actions making saves, while a party member needs to spend an action to get you up. There's no risk of death here.
This is a big issue in 5e, actually. Playing a cleric, there's no point healing your allies until they're down. Once they're down, the Bonus-action at-range Healing Word is enough to get them back up....
You only ignore dying allies if the enemy (or let's say, the GM) doesn't like finishing them off, and never does. That's more a matter of playstyle than of mechanics. In my PF playing experience, when a party member goes down it does feel dramatic.
With the new rules, instead, I think it becomes even less useful to heal a fallen but stabilized friend, because it's not guaranteeed to have him back into the fight.I agree that the 'dying window' gets tighter as the levels go up, but I'd rather fix this feature than make a completely new system.
Also, I hate to use the word "hate" but I HATE the SF-style nonlethal. It would just feel viscerally bad if you build a nonlethal-focused character who believes in salvation and redemption, spec out for nonlethal, and then the nonlethal damage you do ends up contributing to someone's death because your companion got the killing blow instead of you. I understand the desire to reduce bookkeeping, which is why I proposed a compromise solution in this thread:
Quote:
As long as you've taken any nonlethal damage, the character that brings you to 0 may decide to knock you unconscious instead of giving you the Dying condition.
I don't dislike your solution, but let's make some examples.
Your party has downed an enemy with a fireball, a few arrows and ultimately a sword thrust. Somewhere in the middle of that, you added a non-lethal punch in its stomach. Should that be enough to say that the sword hit didn't actually finish it?Of course, if you did most of the work with your non-lethal attacks and then an ally does that last few HP damage that sends it below zero, that's a totally different scenario.
Anyway, I have only read speculations about how non-lethal damage will work in 2e, so I don't want to go too deep on that in this thread.
I feel like 'watered-down' is a watered-down description of VMC.
I am sad to see Multiclassing go(if -please note the use of if- it is now just a trap option that will get you killed/made useless). It was one of my favorite parts of the game.
I like multiclassing, but I don't like the fact that you can get so much with just one level 'off'.
I really don't like VMC either, and I hope that's not the way the new system will handle multiclassing.I guess we have to wait until we know more.
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Gameplay: death rules - 1/5
I don't think that death rules needed a revision, and I don't like how it has been done. At all. I find it both complicated and not realistic: if HPs are an abstraction for how hard it is to kill a character, why ignore them as soon as they go to zero? I really don't get why going into the negatives was so wrong.
Getting rid of non-lethal damage may be a good thing, but I'd like to see more details about that. Overall, 1/5.I'm going to 100% disagree with you here. The PF1 system had no drama - in 95% of cases you were either insta-dead, or you were "dying but actually fine" because you were 3+ HP away from death in a fight that's only probably going to last 3 more rounds. There was such a vanishingly narrow band of HP where there was actually any tension (like when you were 1-2 HP away from death,) and especially as you get to higher levels where damage totals are higher, it became even more statistically improbable to end up in that state where you were actually close to death.
The new system actually spurs the party into action. If someone goes down, someone has to save them, quick. You can't just always wait until after the fight like in PF1. In PF2 you have reason to take daring action and put yourself at risk to deliver a healing elixir. It becomes an actual story moment instead of just "Frank went down again, talk to you in 30 minutes bud."
I'm in disagreement here. In Pathfinder, when on low hitpoints, you are risking actual death. If you're on 3HP, thirty damage will kill you.
With the new system, low hitpoints simply risks the inconvenience of losing a couple of actions making saves, while a party member needs to spend an action to get you up. There's no risk of death here.
This is a big issue in 5e, actually. Playing a cleric, there's no point healing your allies until they're down. Once they're down, the Bonus-action at-range Healing Word is enough to get them back up....
What most people are missing, is that Mark Seifter has indicated multiple times on multiple threads, that massive amounts of damage can take you from alive to dead. So just because "damage stops at 0" doesn't mean that if you have 1 hit point you can take infinity hit points of damage and just go to zero and still be alive.
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I'm not sure why everyone keeps harping on the -10 to hit for the 3rd attack. That's how PF1 works for the 3rd attack. At 11th level a fighter has +11/+6/+1... that's -10 for the 3rd attack.I'm a bit scared of critical misses. Rolling low on your third iterative is just a miss in current PF, while it could bring very bad consequences against certain enemies in the new edition.
Sure, but until we see what the baseline AC, and its CR increase, looks like, and at what CR creature critical miss reactions start, we really have no idea if that -10 is going to be as big a deal as people are making it out to be. But also keep in mind, it appears, so far, that the world of iterative attacks and archers getting 8 arrows a round and two-weapon fighters getting 7 attacks a round at higher levels is going away. At most, people might be able to make up to 6 attacks a round depending on what two-weapon fighting looks like.
And there are going to be many other very useful things people can do with actions that affect combat that aren't just swinging a weapon.
Taking that 3rd attack might not be something you do very often. Or might only be something you do against mooks, but the BBEG might not be a great idea. We really have no idea. So its hard to really review that aspect of the game without knowing these other pertinent details.
But the fact of the matter is, the penalty for swinging a 3rd time is equal in PF1 and PF2. So it bewilders me how much angst people are placing on that.