Playtest Reveals from the Crypt of the Everflame with GCP Finale!!


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Shadow Lodge

It still does not make sense with silver though, so... a change just for changing still, yes?


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Dragonborn3 wrote:
It still does not make sense with silver though, so... a change just for changing still, yes?

Well if the sword you're selling is worth 9000 silver pieces in resale, in lieu of giving you 180 lbs of silver pieces, the merchant could give 900 (18 lbs) gold pieces of more likely for a big ticket item like this 90 (1.8 lbs) of platinum pieces. I figure you can fit 2 lbs of coins in your pocket pretty easily, it's not a problem to carry.


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Frames Janco wrote:

I think a few of the concerns about potion pricing in this thread are very premature and a bit melodramatic regardless.

There are so many factors at play here and so many unknowns that to start calling design choices horrible or "on drugs" is full of assumptions, unproductive and pretty disrespectful.

Four true healing potions are more expensive than a Holy Avenger, which has been reported to cost 4500 gp. That's... completely unreasonable, by any metric whatsoever.


In the previous game they faced a Wood Golem and the wizard fired a Burning hands over the heads of his allies, so kind of weird that he couldn't do that with the swarms.

I was not a fan of the way that dying works.

I don't like that stopping bleed is just a flat DC 20 D20 check, or 15 if you take an action. You can't even use the medicine skill to stop bleed? Seriously?

The shield becomes broken and completely useless when you take a dent with one? How are they going to be useful beyond the first round of combat


Where did they state the prices of healing potions? I must've missed it.


Ninja in the Rye wrote:
Where did they state the prices of healing potions? I must've missed it.

It was me copying off the page from the Paizocon banquet.


Ninja in the Rye wrote:
I don't like that stopping bleed is just a flat DC 20 D20 check, or 15 if you take an action. You can't even use the medicine skill to stop bleed? Seriously?

Looking back at the skills page, I see under Administer First Aid:

Quote:
You perform first aid on an adjacent creature that is at 0 Hit Points in an attempt to stabilize or revive it. You can also perform first aid on an adjacent creature taking persistent bleed damage. The DC for either is 15.

So I'm actually unsure what was up with that in the podcast version. Maybe no one was trained with it, so that was just a faster way of applying Administer First Aid, as an effective mod of 0 (+2 level -2 untrained)? Who knows.


I'm pretty sure one of the guys said he had medicine skill but Jason made him make the flat roll.


Cyouni wrote:
Ninja in the Rye wrote:
I don't like that stopping bleed is just a flat DC 20 D20 check, or 15 if you take an action. You can't even use the medicine skill to stop bleed? Seriously?

Looking back at the skills page, I see under Administer First Aid:

Quote:
You perform first aid on an adjacent creature that is at 0 Hit Points in an attempt to stabilize or revive it. You can also perform first aid on an adjacent creature taking persistent bleed damage. The DC for either is 15.
So I'm actually unsure what was up with that in the podcast version. Maybe no one was trained with it, so that was just a faster way of applying Administer First Aid, as an effective mod of 0 (+2 level -2 untrained)? Who knows.

The PCs never Administered First Aid. They staunched their own wounds and never helped one another out. (except through magical healing) But I do know that the Cleric had Medicine, I just don't know why he didn't use it in that staunch check...


Iron_Matt17 wrote:
Cyouni wrote:
Ninja in the Rye wrote:
I don't like that stopping bleed is just a flat DC 20 D20 check, or 15 if you take an action. You can't even use the medicine skill to stop bleed? Seriously?

Looking back at the skills page, I see under Administer First Aid:

Quote:
You perform first aid on an adjacent creature that is at 0 Hit Points in an attempt to stabilize or revive it. You can also perform first aid on an adjacent creature taking persistent bleed damage. The DC for either is 15.
So I'm actually unsure what was up with that in the podcast version. Maybe no one was trained with it, so that was just a faster way of applying Administer First Aid, as an effective mod of 0 (+2 level -2 untrained)? Who knows.
The PCs never Administered First Aid. They staunched their own wounds and never helped one another out. (except through magical healing) But I do know that the Cleric had Medicine, I just don't know why he didn't use it in that staunch check...

Like I said, I'm pretty sure that he asked Jason about his medicine skill before he took the action/roll and and Jason didn't let him use it.


Medicine not being used to stop bleeding could have been a simple mistake by Jason.

Also, you couldn't use the Heal skill in PF1 on yourself for long-term care. Maybe the new medicine skill has similar limitations for other applications, as well.

Being able to treat yourself effectively could also be an expert/master perk or skill feat.


Starfinder Charter Superscriber
Excaliburproxy wrote:
Shadrayl of the Mountain wrote:
Dragonborn3 wrote:
Cyouni wrote:

Stronger healing potion is 2d8+4, probably level 3.

(Later options, by the way:
Moderate, Level 5, 20 gp: 3d8+8
Greater, Level 8, 60 gp: 5d8+12
Major, Level 12, 250 gp: 7d8+20
True, Level 18, 1200 gp: 9d8+30)
HOLY CRUD these are expensive in PF2 AND we're supposed to spend Resonance on them!? That's bull.

Well you see, it HAS to cost Resonance, so you don't use the obviously vastly more cost-efficient lower level potions. /sarcasm

Not a fan of systems designed to enforce a paradigm of the developers liking, when simply making the choice you want taken to be the best choice available.

I don't get why that is sarcastic? Shouldn't the game be balanced around fights having consequences that can eat into a party's daily resources?

Otherwise, the only meaningful fights will be those that stand a real chance of killing the players when they are at full health.

When you can just chug 30 level 1 potions after every fight then it is hard to make damage matter. I am sure this conversation rages in the wand of CLW thread even as we speak. I am mostly avoiding that, though.

You have a different threshold for meaningful than I. If a fight was fun to play, it was worthwhile. Also, you'll always still be burning through limited resources, it's just a matter of HOW limited.

I'm more opposed to the cost scale. Make it reasonable in cost, and just make the other costs of items scale somewhat reasonably. Right now it just makes Resonance look like a mechanic designed to burn away your spare cash, rather than simply encourage the use of high level items. Even with a linear cost scale, Resonance would still make you want to use though high-level potions, so why price-gouge us on them?

Edit: also, my 2nd sentence totally explained the sarcasm.


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Fuzzypaws wrote:
Frames Janco wrote:

I think a few of the concerns about potion pricing in this thread are very premature and a bit melodramatic regardless.

There are so many factors at play here and so many unknowns that to start calling design choices horrible or "on drugs" is full of assumptions, unproductive and pretty disrespectful.

Four true healing potions are more expensive than a Holy Avenger, which has been reported to cost 4500 gp. That's... completely unreasonable, by any metric whatsoever.

Eh, I'm not so sure. I'm inclined to give the designers that have been working for years on this the benefit of the doubt here over our knee-jerk reactions.

And don't get me wrong I'm not saying the prices aren't high - I just think we don't have a proper grasp of the economy or relative power levels of anything to say whether prices are completely unreasonable.

Using your example, the Holy Avenger is a pretty decent item. Is it worth 4500gp? Dunno. Noone will be able to answer that at this stage.

Let's have a look, from what others have pulled out about it. Im paraphrasing so forgive me if I misrepresent -

It provides you with some good damage and some situational perks like a 2-action, 2nd level detection spell at will.

Paladins get a debuff effect on an evil target crit, and a scaling 2 action dispel magic on an illusion or mental effect affecting an ally, or 1/day on a target or item.

Some good consistent stuff, some strong but very situational stuff.

Looking at a true healing potion, for 1-2 actions you can draw and drink it for an average of ~70hp. A d8 HD, 16 Con character at level 18 would maybe have around 200 HP (fact check?), meaning they could go from the brink of death to having 33%, maybe even up to 50%. Without knowing damage scaling at that level, this could last them a few extra hits.

The swords great, but it is it better for your career than 4 escapes from death? Maybe. You might not need the potion if you can kill something faster. But you also can't use the sword if you're dead ;)

I get where you're coming from, but I think there's more to it than you're giving the designers credit for.


I think it is far too early to get out loin cloths in a knot over item prices.

Maybe it is really hard to make a true healing potion. Maybe you need unicorn horns and angel tears and you have to spend days grinding up diamond. Maybe it has other effects too.

If it is too expensive, don't buy it.


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Do we know that healing potions only heal HP? I would believe that the better ones also remove disease, neutralize poison, etc.

Silver Crusade

That would be nice.


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Frames Janco wrote:

Eh, I'm not so sure. I'm inclined to give the designers that have been working for years on this the benefit of the doubt here over our knee-jerk reactions.

And don't get me wrong I'm not saying the prices aren't high - I just think we don't have a proper grasp of the economy or relative power levels of anything to say whether prices are completely unreasonable.

Using your example, the Holy Avenger is a pretty decent item. Is it worth 4500gp? Dunno. Noone will be able to answer that at this stage.

Let's have a look, from what others have pulled out about it. Im paraphrasing so forgive me if I misrepresent -

It provides you with some good damage and some situational perks like a 2-action, 2nd level detection spell at will.

Paladins get a debuff effect on an evil target crit, and a scaling 2 action dispel magic on an illusion or mental effect affecting an ally, or 1/day on a target or item.

Some good consistent stuff, some strong but very situational stuff.

Looking at a true healing potion, for 1-2 actions you can draw and drink it for an average of ~70hp. A d8 HD, 16 Con character at level 18 would maybe have around 200 HP (fact check?), meaning they could go from the brink of death to having 33%, maybe even up to 50%. Without knowing damage scaling at that level, this could last them a few extra hits.

The swords great, but it is it better for your career than 4 escapes from death? Maybe. You might not need the potion if you can kill something faster. But you also can't use the sword if you're dead ;)

I'll agree with you that we don't know enough. For instance, new Holy Avenger is approximately 1/3 the price of the old one, meaning it could have 1/3 of power also. And you are right about potential usefulness of a big potion.

But, the Paizo would do well to rethink the usefulness of quadratic prices. Especially if they want to have realistic economy with magic items.
And this kind of pricing was the same reason CLW wands were a thing, instead of using higher level wands, and they're doing the same thing now, only trying to punish you with resonance because you are willing to do math.

Frames Janco wrote:
I get where you're coming from, but I think there's more to it than you're giving the designers credit for.

You mean those same designers that have continuously published dozens of overpriced and useless magic items, and nerfed those few that could compete with big 6 to oblivion? I mean it doesn't mean that they don't generally do a good job, but they are human also, and this is a part of the game they don't have a very good track record.


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Money in the game grows quadratically, as do prices. If it were linear, PCs would pool their WBL to buy a few members overpowered equipment, and loot balance would be very tricky- impossible, even, for certain constraints like “this shouldn’t be too bad for parties of 3-6”.

If healing potions scaled at a fixed cost per point of healing, the answer would be to buy over-leveled healing potions. Then, in combat, just heal from “about to pass out” to full in one swig. I think it’s reasonable to say this isn’t a good solution; there’s very little tension, and if enemies do it, it’s that feeling when an Elite Four pulls out a Full Restore for their toughest Pokémon. (It’d also really break any semblance of supply/demand.)

So, prices have to scale quadratically with your level. This results in another problem, though. For out-of-combat healing, you just get the best cost ratio. This problem isn’t as bad as what you’d get with linear pricing, but it’s not a great feel to have PCs churning through cheap wands and potions. Resonance is a counterweight there. It still needs more-than-linear cost on the other side, though.


Unless item effectiveness is also going to increase quadratically prices should increase in a way that correspond to actual item effectiveness, a linear progression is easier to compare and calculate prices, if that means changing treasure progression to linear so be it. Right now looks like Resonance is been placed in order to force players use overpriced consumables.


edduardco wrote:
Unless item effectiveness is also going to increase quadratically prices should increase in a way that correspond to actual item effectiveness, a linear progression is easier to compare and calculate prices, if that means changing treasure progression to linear so be it. Right now looks like Resonance is been placed in order to force players use overpriced consumables.

The issue with changing treasure progression is that you would have to completely and utterly divorce NPC creation from PC creation rules, which would (and frankly did in Starfinder) have dramatic backlash. A part of using PC rules for NPC creation is using PC wealth, which means PC wealth levels of loot. Which means it is possible to get multiple times your current level's wealth in loot each level, since even solo fighting an enemy of CR=Level likely won't (and IMO shouldn't) level you up. Which is why we have the quadratic scaling WBL we do.


Shinigami02 wrote:
edduardco wrote:
Unless item effectiveness is also going to increase quadratically prices should increase in a way that correspond to actual item effectiveness, a linear progression is easier to compare and calculate prices, if that means changing treasure progression to linear so be it. Right now looks like Resonance is been placed in order to force players use overpriced consumables.
The issue with changing treasure progression is that you would have to completely and utterly divorce NPC creation from PC creation rules, which would (and frankly did in Starfinder) have dramatic backlash. A part of using PC rules for NPC creation is using PC wealth, which means PC wealth levels of loot. Which means it is possible to get multiple times your current level's wealth in loot each level, since even solo fighting an enemy of CR=Level likely won't (and IMO shouldn't) level you up. Which is why we have the quadratic scaling WBL we do.

From what I have read NPCs and Monsters are already using a different creation rules than PCs, so I don't see any issue there. For me the real issue is WBL, is too limiting and cause issue like the one you present, I would prefer a table that indicated level adjustments based on tiers of wealth.


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NPCs and Monsters can use different creation rules, but it has also been confirmed that you can create an NPC using PC rules and it will line up as CR (or the new equivalent) for that level. In stark contrast to Starfinder where using PC rules will throw the math all out of whack.


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edduardco wrote:
Unless item effectiveness is also going to increase quadratically prices should increase in a way that correspond to actual item effectiveness, a linear progression is easier to compare and calculate prices, if that means changing treasure progression to linear so be it. Right now looks like Resonance is been placed in order to force players use overpriced consumables.

Hitpoints mostly increase linearly. This allows enemies to be in the level ballpark, rather than needing to wait until the PCs are level 2 to use level 2 enemies.

If hitpoints Increase linearly, healing effectiveness should increase linearly.
So, we can’t change healing to quadratic.

If we make treasure progression linear, that means that two level 10 characters have the wealth of a level 20 character. That’s a huge balance issue, because you can’t have any items that are appropriate for a high level character but broken for a low-level party.

Resonance, the pricing structure, and the healing/health progression push using the same percentage of your wealth by level on healing the same percentage of your health.


QuidEst wrote:
edduardco wrote:
Unless item effectiveness is also going to increase quadratically prices should increase in a way that correspond to actual item effectiveness, a linear progression is easier to compare and calculate prices, if that means changing treasure progression to linear so be it. Right now looks like Resonance is been placed in order to force players use overpriced consumables.

Hitpoints mostly increase linearly. This allows enemies to be in the level ballpark, rather than needing to wait until the PCs are level 2 to use level 2 enemies.

If hitpoints Increase linearly, healing effectiveness should increase linearly.
So, we can’t change healing to quadratic.

If we make treasure progression linear, that means that two level 10 characters have the wealth of a level 20 character. That’s a huge balance issue, because you can’t have any items that are appropriate for a high level character but broken for a low-level party.

Resonance, the pricing structure, and the healing/health progression push using the same percentage of your wealth by level on healing the same percentage of your health.

But PF2 restricts items by level like Starfinder, isn't that enough?


edduardco wrote:
QuidEst wrote:
edduardco wrote:
Unless item effectiveness is also going to increase quadratically prices should increase in a way that correspond to actual item effectiveness, a linear progression is easier to compare and calculate prices, if that means changing treasure progression to linear so be it. Right now looks like Resonance is been placed in order to force players use overpriced consumables.

Hitpoints mostly increase linearly. This allows enemies to be in the level ballpark, rather than needing to wait until the PCs are level 2 to use level 2 enemies.

If hitpoints Increase linearly, healing effectiveness should increase linearly.
So, we can’t change healing to quadratic.

If we make treasure progression linear, that means that two level 10 characters have the wealth of a level 20 character. That’s a huge balance issue, because you can’t have any items that are appropriate for a high level character but broken for a low-level party.

Resonance, the pricing structure, and the healing/health progression push using the same percentage of your wealth by level on healing the same percentage of your health.

But PF2 restricts items by level like Starfinder, isn't that enough?

For those of us unfamiliar with Starfinder, what are these restrictions you speak of?

Liberty's Edge

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edduardco wrote:
But PF2 restricts items by level like Starfinder, isn't that enough?

Actually, it doesn't appear to do this. Items have a level, and you can't create items above your level, but there appears to be no restriction to buying whatever items you can afford.

Which really makes sense. In Starfinder you can justify the level restrictions with necessary licenses and the like, but there's no good justification for a similar restriction in Pathfinder.

Fuzzy-Wuzzy wrote:
For those of us unfamiliar with Starfinder, what are these restrictions you speak of?

In Starfinder, it's assumed high level items have some level of illegality/licensing required, so you can't buy items higher than your Level +1 (or Level +2 in big cities), as an abstraction to reflect the level of weapons dealers/license brokers/fences who will sell you things. You can use over-leveled items if you find them, but you can't buy them.

This makes much more sense in Starfinder's setting than in Pathfinder's, and there's absolutely no evidence they are duplicating it in PF2.


edduardco wrote:
QuidEst wrote:
edduardco wrote:
Unless item effectiveness is also going to increase quadratically prices should increase in a way that correspond to actual item effectiveness, a linear progression is easier to compare and calculate prices, if that means changing treasure progression to linear so be it. Right now looks like Resonance is been placed in order to force players use overpriced consumables.

Hitpoints mostly increase linearly. This allows enemies to be in the level ballpark, rather than needing to wait until the PCs are level 2 to use level 2 enemies.

If hitpoints Increase linearly, healing effectiveness should increase linearly.
So, we can’t change healing to quadratic.

If we make treasure progression linear, that means that two level 10 characters have the wealth of a level 20 character. That’s a huge balance issue, because you can’t have any items that are appropriate for a high level character but broken for a low-level party.

Resonance, the pricing structure, and the healing/health progression push using the same percentage of your wealth by level on healing the same percentage of your health.

But PF2 restricts items by level like Starfinder, isn't that enough?

Lvl 10 chars with wealth of lvl 20 can still equip one lvl 10 with lvl appropriate gear beyond his means. Each slot fully loaded with everything you'd want.


Senkon wrote:
edduardco wrote:
QuidEst wrote:
edduardco wrote:
Unless item effectiveness is also going to increase quadratically prices should increase in a way that correspond to actual item effectiveness, a linear progression is easier to compare and calculate prices, if that means changing treasure progression to linear so be it. Right now looks like Resonance is been placed in order to force players use overpriced consumables.

Hitpoints mostly increase linearly. This allows enemies to be in the level ballpark, rather than needing to wait until the PCs are level 2 to use level 2 enemies.

If hitpoints Increase linearly, healing effectiveness should increase linearly.
So, we can’t change healing to quadratic.

If we make treasure progression linear, that means that two level 10 characters have the wealth of a level 20 character. That’s a huge balance issue, because you can’t have any items that are appropriate for a high level character but broken for a low-level party.

Resonance, the pricing structure, and the healing/health progression push using the same percentage of your wealth by level on healing the same percentage of your health.

But PF2 restricts items by level like Starfinder, isn't that enough?
Lvl 10 chars with wealth of lvl 20 can still equip one lvl 10 with lvl appropriate gear beyond his means. Each slot fully loaded with everything you'd want.

But from where did they get level 20 wealth to begin with? Would that be a real scenario following the rules by the book?


Deadmanwalking wrote:
edduardco wrote:
But PF2 restricts items by level like Starfinder, isn't that enough?

Actually, it doesn't appear to do this. Items have a level, and you can't create items above your level, but there appears to be no restriction to buying whatever items you can afford.

Which really makes sense. In Starfinder you can justify the level restrictions with necessary licenses and the like, but there's no good justification for a similar restriction in Pathfinder.

Fuzzy-Wuzzy wrote:
For those of us unfamiliar with Starfinder, what are these restrictions you speak of?

In Starfinder, it's assumed high level items have some level of illegality/licensing required, so you can't buy items higher than your Level +1 (or Level +2 in big cities), as an abstraction to reflect the level of weapons dealers/license brokers/fences who will sell you things. You can use over-leveled items if you find them, but you can't buy them.

This makes much more sense in Starfinder's setting than in Pathfinder's, and there's absolutely no evidence they are duplicating it in PF2.

I agree that it doesn't make much sense for the setting, but we could say the same for resonance and yet here we are.

EDIT: Also, if you are not allowed to craft items of higher level I don't see why would you be allowed to buy them


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edduardco wrote:
Senkon wrote:
edduardco wrote:
QuidEst wrote:
edduardco wrote:
Unless item effectiveness is also going to increase quadratically prices should increase in a way that correspond to actual item effectiveness, a linear progression is easier to compare and calculate prices, if that means changing treasure progression to linear so be it. Right now looks like Resonance is been placed in order to force players use overpriced consumables.

Hitpoints mostly increase linearly. This allows enemies to be in the level ballpark, rather than needing to wait until the PCs are level 2 to use level 2 enemies.

If hitpoints Increase linearly, healing effectiveness should increase linearly.
So, we can’t change healing to quadratic.

If we make treasure progression linear, that means that two level 10 characters have the wealth of a level 20 character. That’s a huge balance issue, because you can’t have any items that are appropriate for a high level character but broken for a low-level party.

Resonance, the pricing structure, and the healing/health progression push using the same percentage of your wealth by level on healing the same percentage of your health.

But PF2 restricts items by level like Starfinder, isn't that enough?
Lvl 10 chars with wealth of lvl 20 can still equip one lvl 10 with lvl appropriate gear beyond his means. Each slot fully loaded with everything you'd want.
But from where did they get level 20 wealth to begin with? Would that be a real scenario following the rules by the book?

If wealth is linear then the wealth you have at lvl 20 is two times the wealth you have at lvl 10. And so two lvl 10 characters will have the wealth of one lvl 20 character.


Cyouni wrote:
Thanks for the extra math on the notes which I didn't note down myself. Being able to block 9 damage on an attack is pretty solid on a heavy steel shield, but one dent breaking it seems a little odd, because then shields would be really hard to use at higher levels. We'll have to take a look at that when we have more complete numbers on that.

Just one thing, that wasn't mentioned elsewhere in here, but I suspect that +X shields will follow the same metric as +X weapons, in terms of damage. While I wouldn't expect shield bonuses to scale, due to their intention to keep the To-hit/AC math fairly tight, I'd expect a +1 Heavy Shield to block 18 Damage, +2 27 damage, ect, meaning as long as you keep your shield at close to parity with the weapons you'll be facing, I suspect it will still be effective at those higher levels.


Senkon wrote:
edduardco wrote:
Senkon wrote:
edduardco wrote:
QuidEst wrote:
edduardco wrote:
Unless item effectiveness is also going to increase quadratically prices should increase in a way that correspond to actual item effectiveness, a linear progression is easier to compare and calculate prices, if that means changing treasure progression to linear so be it. Right now looks like Resonance is been placed in order to force players use overpriced consumables.

Hitpoints mostly increase linearly. This allows enemies to be in the level ballpark, rather than needing to wait until the PCs are level 2 to use level 2 enemies.

If hitpoints Increase linearly, healing effectiveness should increase linearly.
So, we can’t change healing to quadratic.

If we make treasure progression linear, that means that two level 10 characters have the wealth of a level 20 character. That’s a huge balance issue, because you can’t have any items that are appropriate for a high level character but broken for a low-level party.

Resonance, the pricing structure, and the healing/health progression push using the same percentage of your wealth by level on healing the same percentage of your health.

But PF2 restricts items by level like Starfinder, isn't that enough?
Lvl 10 chars with wealth of lvl 20 can still equip one lvl 10 with lvl appropriate gear beyond his means. Each slot fully loaded with everything you'd want.
But from where did they get level 20 wealth to begin with? Would that be a real scenario following the rules by the book?
If wealth is linear then the wealth you have at lvl 20 is two times the wealth you have at lvl 10. And so two lvl 10 characters will have the wealth of one lvl 20 character.

OK, but what is good for if you cannot have items of higher level than you? I admit this is pure speculation of my part at this point, and this exemplifies the issue of having quadratic progression for somethings and linear for others.

Liberty's Edge

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edduardco wrote:
I agree that it doesn't make much sense for the setting, but we could say the same for resonance and yet here we are.

We've had talk of 'personal magical fields' since the APG. Resonance is fine in-setting.

But more importantly, such restrictions have been mentioned nowhere. Assuming we'll get them is thus weird and premature.

edduardco wrote:
EDIT: Also, if you are not allowed to craft items of higher level I don't see why would you be allowed to buy them

Sure it does. You could buy plenty of items in PF1 before you could craft them. Even in Starfinder (which also restricts crafting to items your level or under), you can buy items before you can craft them.

In short, buying things before you can craft them has been true in every edition of D&D and Pathfinder that you can buy items in. Assuming you can't is another weird and unfounded assumption.

Liberty's Edge

Tholomyes wrote:
Just one thing, that wasn't mentioned elsewhere in here, but I suspect that +X shields will follow the same metric as +X weapons, in terms of damage. While I wouldn't expect shield bonuses to scale, due to their intention to keep the To-hit/AC math fairly tight, I'd expect a +1 Heavy Shield to block 18 Damage, +2 27 damage, ect, meaning as long as you keep your shield at close to parity with the weapons you'll be facing, I suspect it will still be effective at those higher levels.

This is probably done via special materials and named properties rather than '+1' (which would be confusing), and may not scale at quite the same pace (6d12+6 is not actually 6x the damage of 1d12+4, it's more like four times) but we have indeed been told magical shields get higher DR.


edduardco wrote:
Senkon wrote:
edduardco wrote:
Senkon wrote:
edduardco wrote:
QuidEst wrote:
edduardco wrote:
Unless item effectiveness is also going to increase quadratically prices should increase in a way that correspond to actual item effectiveness, a linear progression is easier to compare and calculate prices, if that means changing treasure progression to linear so be it. Right now looks like Resonance is been placed in order to force players use overpriced consumables.

Hitpoints mostly increase linearly. This allows enemies to be in the level ballpark, rather than needing to wait until the PCs are level 2 to use level 2 enemies.

If hitpoints Increase linearly, healing effectiveness should increase linearly.
So, we can’t change healing to quadratic.

If we make treasure progression linear, that means that two level 10 characters have the wealth of a level 20 character. That’s a huge balance issue, because you can’t have any items that are appropriate for a high level character but broken for a low-level party.

Resonance, the pricing structure, and the healing/health progression push using the same percentage of your wealth by level on healing the same percentage of your health.

But PF2 restricts items by level like Starfinder, isn't that enough?
Lvl 10 chars with wealth of lvl 20 can still equip one lvl 10 with lvl appropriate gear beyond his means. Each slot fully loaded with everything you'd want.
But from where did they get level 20 wealth to begin with? Would that be a real scenario following the rules by the book?
If wealth is linear then the wealth you have at lvl 20 is two times the wealth you have at lvl 10. And so two lvl 10 characters will have the wealth of one lvl 20 character.
OK, but what is good for if you cannot have items of higher level than you? I admit this is pure speculation of my part at this point, and this exemplifies the issue of having quadratic progression for somethings and linear for others.

Well like I said you can deck out 1 of the character with more items he would normally have while sacrificing the second character. Where you might have normally been able to buy 1 or 2 best in slot for each you can now buy 2-4 items for 1 character. Even if those items are all lvl 10 it might push him into unstoppable territory against lvl appropriate enemies. This does not even account for different lvl 10 items having different costs.

Imagine a lvl 10 char that spreads their stats out evenly. He might be able to do alright but someone who min/maxed is probably a few steps sharper. Putting most into main stat + cha + con + dex for armor is probably going to be much better than the jack of all trades. The same can be said for lvl 10 items.

There will be items that when added up will account for all the "stat" points available when making a lvl 10 items but they will be spread too thin. The more specialized items will be coveted more and therefore be more expensive. Demand drives up the price. It's a lvl 10 item that is more appropriate for lvl 11+ characters. It might even be so expensive that it's really just meant to be relegated to a roll on the loot table.


Deadmanwalking wrote:
edduardco wrote:
EDIT: Also, if you are not allowed to craft items of higher level I don't see why would you be allowed to buy them

Sure it does. You could buy plenty of items in PF1 before you could craft them. Even in Starfinder (which also restricts crafting to items your level or under), you can buy items before you can craft them.

In short, buying things before you can craft them has been true in every edition of D&D and Pathfinder that you can buy items in. Assuming you can't is another weird and unfounded assumption.

Isn't this going to cause the math to broke? PF2 has a tighter math after all and more prone to this kind of disruption. Like Senkon said, what if characters pool their wealth to buy a very high level item? Resonance seems like a very good incentive to go this route.


Deadmanwalking wrote:
Tholomyes wrote:
Just one thing, that wasn't mentioned elsewhere in here, but I suspect that +X shields will follow the same metric as +X weapons, in terms of damage. While I wouldn't expect shield bonuses to scale, due to their intention to keep the To-hit/AC math fairly tight, I'd expect a +1 Heavy Shield to block 18 Damage, +2 27 damage, ect, meaning as long as you keep your shield at close to parity with the weapons you'll be facing, I suspect it will still be effective at those higher levels.
This is probably done via special materials and named properties rather than '+1' (which would be confusing), and may not scale at quite the same pace (6d12+6 is not actually 6x the damage of 1d12+4, it's more like four times) but we have indeed been told magical shields get higher DR.

The PaizoCon Banquet video, when it shows the magic items (where people got the stats for the potions and the Holy Avenger) also shows an Unbreakable Shield. It's Adamantine Heavy and the Hardness is 13. Can't be dented or broken except by a disintegrate spell that does 90 damage or more; or an artifact like a sphere of annihilation.

Costs 23,000 GP. I imagine the price is for the whole second part since the shield isn't otherwise enhanced, so Adamantine seems to be Hardness 13.

Liberty's Edge

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edduardco wrote:
Isn't this going to cause the math to broke? PF2 has a tighter math after all and more prone to this kind of disruption. Like Senkon said, what if characters pool their wealth to buy a very high level item? Resonance seems like a very good incentive to go this route.

Eh. The price progression seems to be on par with PF1, which makes this not something you can usually afford unless you're leaving everyone else seriously undergeared for their level, in which case it tends to balance out.

Silver Crusade

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edduardco wrote:
Deadmanwalking wrote:
edduardco wrote:
EDIT: Also, if you are not allowed to craft items of higher level I don't see why would you be allowed to buy them

Sure it does. You could buy plenty of items in PF1 before you could craft them. Even in Starfinder (which also restricts crafting to items your level or under), you can buy items before you can craft them.

In short, buying things before you can craft them has been true in every edition of D&D and Pathfinder that you can buy items in. Assuming you can't is another weird and unfounded assumption.

Isn't this going to cause the math to broke? PF2 has a tighter math after all and more prone to this kind of disruption. Like Senkon said, what if characters pool their wealth to buy a very high level item? Resonance seems like a very good incentive to go this route.

"If we intentionally break the math won't that break the math?"

Yes.

Everyone pooling their resources together to get a certain item means you have that 1 item... but it means your deprived of other things you could have bought. Plus, you have to convince everyone to pool their resources together in the first place.

Edit: ninjaed succinctly by Deadmanwalking


Rysky wrote:

"If we intentionally break the math won't that break the math?"

Yes.

Just saying, resonance seems like a good incentive to do so even more


Deadmanwalking wrote:
edduardco wrote:
Isn't this going to cause the math to broke? PF2 has a tighter math after all and more prone to this kind of disruption. Like Senkon said, what if characters pool their wealth to buy a very high level item? Resonance seems like a very good incentive to go this route.
Eh. The price progression seems to be on par with PF1, which makes this not something you can usually afford unless you're leaving everyone else seriously undergeared for their level, in which case it tends to balance out.

But isn't that because wealth and prices are quadratic and not linear? I forget who is arguing for what now but I'm saying that loot wealth and shop prices should be quadratic. This makes it a choice on weather you should use cost effective items or resonance effective items or a mix of both.

Liberty's Edge

Senkon wrote:
But isn't that because wealth and prices are quadratic and not linear? I forget who is arguing for what now but I'm saying that loot wealth and shop prices should be quadratic. This makes it a choice on weather you should use cost effective items or resonance effective items or a mix of both.

I'm not arguing with you. Indeed, per the designers, what you suggest is more or less exactly what they intend, and thus what's gonna happen. And I'm cool with that.


Senkon wrote:
Deadmanwalking wrote:
edduardco wrote:
Isn't this going to cause the math to broke? PF2 has a tighter math after all and more prone to this kind of disruption. Like Senkon said, what if characters pool their wealth to buy a very high level item? Resonance seems like a very good incentive to go this route.
Eh. The price progression seems to be on par with PF1, which makes this not something you can usually afford unless you're leaving everyone else seriously undergeared for their level, in which case it tends to balance out.
But isn't that because wealth and prices are quadratic and not linear? I forget who is arguing for what now but I'm saying that loot wealth and shop prices should be quadratic. This makes it a choice on weather you should use cost effective items or resonance effective items or a mix of both.

The answer to that if I have to guess right now is don't use consumables.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
edduardco wrote:
Senkon wrote:
Deadmanwalking wrote:
edduardco wrote:
Isn't this going to cause the math to broke? PF2 has a tighter math after all and more prone to this kind of disruption. Like Senkon said, what if characters pool their wealth to buy a very high level item? Resonance seems like a very good incentive to go this route.
Eh. The price progression seems to be on par with PF1, which makes this not something you can usually afford unless you're leaving everyone else seriously undergeared for their level, in which case it tends to balance out.
But isn't that because wealth and prices are quadratic and not linear? I forget who is arguing for what now but I'm saying that loot wealth and shop prices should be quadratic. This makes it a choice on weather you should use cost effective items or resonance effective items or a mix of both.
The answer to that if I have to guess right now is don't use consumables.

That's not true at all, consumables allow for a great value per gp/resonance. The price scaling of items is always going to be awkward, because a functional economy while having a scale of power and reward is impossible.

But a way to look at resonance and magic items is to take a step back and see resonance as the resource, with magic items being the gate to using the resource.

Every character has resonance and it grows with them, but they can't use it without magic items to leverage it, magic items come in many different types and varieties, with there being 3 main categories, consumable, multi use, and permanent.

Consumables allow for incredibly powerful effects for a cheap price point, due to losing the item after use. They also have benefits of being more easily transferable between party members. Consumables are best for healing effects due to quick transferability, preparing for specific foes due to cheap price point, and powerful effects that aren't needed often, such as teleportation, curse removal, and flight at low levels due to a cheap price point and the rarity of circumstances that absolutely need their use. Healing must always fall into this category, due to its intrinsic value to every character leading to crowding out more interesting items and even character abilities otherwise, as well as allowing healing to remain relatively cheap.

Multiuse is for magic items that a character uses consistantly, several times a day, granting them a higher cost total than a consumable, but the consistency of the use makes it worthwhile. These are a mix of versatility improving effects and consumable effects that have dropped in effective value or become consistantly valuable enough that it's worth picking up. Other than consumable effects that don't need to be gated anymore, the kinds of items in this category tend to be things such as unique forms of attack, such as a sword giving a ranged blast or an aoe explosion from a magical gauntlet, forms of movement such as climb and swim at low levels, flight at mid-levels, and more impressive things at higher levels.

Permanent magic items are incredibly expensive point for point, due to removing the need to spend more than 1 resonance and potentially actions, especially as certain effects become weaker or more expected as you level. The expected price of the item in comparison to even Multiuse items can be absolutely insane if the effect had value as a consumable or Multiuse items, such as flight or size effects. Otherwise permanents maintain affordability due to fairly weak, passive effects for their level, such as bonuses to skill checks, abundant ammunition, flight at high levels and rings of resistance.


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You don't have to make costs or treasure progression quadratic or linear. A far better progression would be something like the old 3.x experience progression, to wit:

((Level-1)^2 + (Level-1)) x 500

Using 500 as above, a 2nd level character is expected to have 1000 sp, a 3rd level character is expected to have 3000, a 4th level character is expected to have 6000, and so on.

This means two 10th level characters (45000 each, or 90000 total) still can't pool their money to acquire the loot of a 20th level character (190000), preventing stuff from being as easily broken. It also keeps the economy from going absolutely insane. A potion that heals twice as much is more than twice as expensive, as it should be due to greater action economy, but not crazy ludicrous expensive.

You can play around with the formula or change the multiplier to adjust the actual numbers, but the principle is the same. There is a middle road and I feel it would be better for the game.


Deadmanwalking wrote:
Tholomyes wrote:
Just one thing, that wasn't mentioned elsewhere in here, but I suspect that +X shields will follow the same metric as +X weapons, in terms of damage. While I wouldn't expect shield bonuses to scale, due to their intention to keep the To-hit/AC math fairly tight, I'd expect a +1 Heavy Shield to block 18 Damage, +2 27 damage, ect, meaning as long as you keep your shield at close to parity with the weapons you'll be facing, I suspect it will still be effective at those higher levels.
This is probably done via special materials and named properties rather than '+1' (which would be confusing), and may not scale at quite the same pace (6d12+6 is not actually 6x the damage of 1d12+4, it's more like four times) but we have indeed been told magical shields get higher DR.

Didn't they say that shields cannot use Potency Runes? Maybe just the shield accessories can, but pretty sure normal +X shield is out this edition.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber
edduardco wrote:
Unless item effectiveness is also going to increase quadratically prices should increase in a way that correspond to actual item effectiveness, a linear progression is easier to compare and calculate prices, if that means changing treasure progression to linear so be it. Right now looks like Resonance is been placed in order to force players use overpriced consumables.

I don’t see how players are being “forced” to use anything. I imagine the llaytest will allow us to find the sweetspot.

Liberty's Edge

ChibiNyan wrote:
Didn't they say that shields cannot use Potency Runes? Maybe just the shield accessories can, but pretty sure normal +X shield is out this edition.

That's where I was going with that, yeah.


edduardco wrote:
Isn't this going to cause the math to broke? PF2 has a tighter math after all and more prone to this kind of disruption. Like Senkon said, what if characters pool their wealth to buy a very high level item? Resonance seems like a very good incentive to go this route.

That's the trick with quadratic WBL and item price. Even if all the characters do pool their wealth, it won't do them too much good.

PF1 had quadratic wealth by level. (GP ~= 4300 * level^2 - 56000 * level + 160000) If you look at how high up a party of four 5th level characters could buy by pooling their wealth, it's the wealth of about a 9th level character, instead of linear, which would be the wealth of a 20th level character.

Resonance doesn't actually incentivize this. Why not? Because you only care about running out of resonance. Provided level-appropriate healing leaves you with enough resonance for the items you have (it does, as reported by testers), then it's not worth it to get better healing when you could be getting better permanent items instead.


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Fuzzypaws wrote:

You don't have to make costs or treasure progression quadratic or linear. A far better progression would be something like the old 3.x experience progression, to wit:

((Level-1)^2 + (Level-1)) x 500

Using 500 as above, a 2nd level character is expected to have 1000 sp, a 3rd level character is expected to have 3000, a 4th level character is expected to have 6000, and so on.

This means two 10th level characters (45000 each, or 90000 total) still can't pool their money to acquire the loot of a 20th level character (190000), preventing stuff from being as easily broken. It also keeps the economy from going absolutely insane. A potion that heals twice as much is more than twice as expensive, as it should be due to greater action economy, but not crazy ludicrous expensive.

You can play around with the formula or change the multiplier to adjust the actual numbers, but the principle is the same. There is a middle road and I feel it would be better for the game.

… The formula you gave is quadratic, though?

That works out to Amount = 500 * Level^2 - 500 * Level, which is a quadratic equation.

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