[Closed] The Dispel Magic Entry Is A Garbage Fire

[ThatTricksyGnome]

I have never been more frustrated when referencing a spell.

Dispel Magic: "make a dispel attempt (see page 197)"

*flips to 197*

Dispelling: "Treat this as a counteract check (see page 319) using the spell's level as its counteract level and a spell roll for any counteract check"

*groans, flips to 319*

"If your ability has a higher counteract level than that of the effect to be counteracted, you automatically succeed. If your ability's counteract level is the same as the effect's counteract level or lower, you must succeed at a check using the relevant skill or ability against the DC of the target effect"

*facepalms because the book doesn't say anything about how to find the DC of a spell effect*

Obviously, the spell DC is that of who/whatever cast the spell, but the entry for Dispel Magic doesn't say that. And for god's sake, why do I have to reference two other pages when they could have just said "Make a spell check against the spell DC of the target spell" and be done with it?

This is bad writing. And it doesn't end with Dispel Magic, this kind of s+&$ is all throughout the book. It takes two or three times as long to reference a given rule than it does in PF1E. That is the exact opposite of what they are going for with 2E. This is why it takes so much longer to make characters than it should.

[Draco18s]

Oh yeah, its awful. On top of that, if you expend a spell to counterspell (that whole, "oh fireball, I know that, have a fireball and fizzle!") you only have a 50% chance of being able to actually negate it!

[Voss]

I think the really sad thing is this isn't even close to unique. It probably isn't even the worst case of cross reference in the document.

I know I've gotten up to at least 5 locations for related information when trying to figure out how something works. I'm anticipating breaking into double digits for something really obscure.

[Quandary]

^ Can you get higher chance by Counterspelling with Heightened version of what they are casting? Not that generally helps PCs, but seems logical.

[Draco18s]

Quandary wrote:

^ Can you get higher chance by Counterspelling with Heightened version of what they are casting? Not that generally helps PCs, but seems logical.

Oh, if your spell level is higher than the effect, you outright win. "You spent a 4th level spell to counter a 3rd."

The problem is when you're using an on-level spell. In PF1, the two spells canceled out. In PF2 it's a 50-50.

[Quandary]

OK, that's what I thought, just the "Fireball vs Fireball" / "Counterspell is only 50/50" framing didn't acknowledge that.
Also it's easy enough to home-rule from 'parity is dice roll' to 'parity wins', just 1 Spell Level difference.

[Draco18s]

Quandary wrote:

OK, that's what I thought, just the "Fireball vs Fireball" / "Counterspell is only 50/50" framing didn't acknowledge that.

Also it's easy enough to home-rule from 'parity is dice roll' to 'parity wins', just 1 Spell Level difference.

May also want to look at the success rate if someone uses a Lv3 Fireball against a Lv4; as written it's ~25% success. 50-50 (to me) is appropriate for being down by a level and 25% is good for down by 2.

[Quandary]

Sure, and hopefully they consider that in play-test.
There probably is tendency for "universal" rule on attacker parity = win/loss,
but it's possible specific situations could call for different approach.

[Zaister]

While I agree about dispel magic being difficult to adjudicate, I resent the aggressive and offensive tone of the thread title and OP – that is not helpful and will not serve to make the developers want to talk to you.

[master_marshmallow]

I'm really sick of virtue signaling being expected on anyone having a really hard time.

In customer service, when someone has an issue like this the company is supposed to acknowledge the problem, not blast the customer for being upset.

It's probably why there's so few of us here.

[Captain Morgan]

master_marshmallow wrote:

I'm really sick of virtue signaling being expected on anyone having a really hard time.

In customer service, when someone has an issue like this the company is supposed to acknowledge the problem, not blast the customer for being upset.

It's probably why there's so few of us here.

I don't think Zaister is a customer service representative for Paizo? And I hope you don't think it is appropriate to take the sort of tone the OP has with people in the service industry IRL, Cuz that kind of sucks.

[master_marshmallow]

I'm in the service industry.... I deal with this attitude all the time.

I don't think we should be putting posters down for their choice in words. Clearly you disagree.

[Zaister]

I'm not a representative of Paizo, no. :-)

I wonder, who is this "us" of which there are so few here?

Regarding choice of words, well, I know what to think about people who use terminology like "virtue signaling".

[master_marshmallow]

It means you publicly display that you are more virtuous than someone as justification for flaming and insulting them.

I'm no fan of PC culture, but I accept that we adhere to it as policy on this site, but for some reason it's still acceptable to flame someone for being upset about shoddy game mechanics.

Doesn't mean we shouldn't call attention to it, but sometimes harsh ish language may be the only appropriates way to express one's feelings without a wall of superfluous text.

[Zaister]

No need to explain, I know what the term means. I also know what kind of people use terminology like that.

I disagree with everything else you say, especially that I was "flaming".

[Gorbacz]

master_marshmallow wrote:

It means you publicly display that you are more virtuous than someone as justification for flaming and insulting them.

I'm no fan of PC culture, but I accept that we adhere to it as policy on this site, but for some reason it's still acceptable to flame someone for being upset about shoddy game mechanics.

Doesn't mean we shouldn't call attention to it, but sometimes harsh ish language may be the only appropriates way to express one's feelings without a wall of superfluous text.

If you want to achieve anything beyond venting your emotions and feeling better about yourself, harsh language is never an appropriate way to express anything.

[Captain Morgan]

Gorbacz wrote:

master_marshmallow wrote:

It means you publicly display that you are more virtuous than someone as justification for flaming and insulting them.

I'm no fan of PC culture, but I accept that we adhere to it as policy on this site, but for some reason it's still acceptable to flame someone for being upset about shoddy game mechanics.

Doesn't mean we shouldn't call attention to it, but sometimes harsh ish language may be the only appropriates way to express one's feelings without a wall of superfluous text.

If you want to achieve anything beyond venting your emotions and feeling better about yourself, harsh language is never an appropriate way to express anything.

Yup. Here's the thing marshmallow. There are lot of people on this forum who don't do anything other than complain and make redundant topics. While you do plenty of complaining, you actually have actionable ideas. You put the time into thinking up variations on the rules that you think would improve the game, rather than just crap on the mechanics already in the book. Some of those ideas are probably good.

The problem? No one will care if you keep up your current posting habits. I have stopped clicking on topics you make because I find the tone you take tiring. When you make huge wall of texts, you need to craft your message in a manner that people actually want to read. If *I* can't be bothered to read those walls of text because of how they complain about the rules as opposed to their content, what do you think the odds are that people who wrote those rules will bother?

I'm not the most sterling example of "debating kindly" on the forums-- I get more riled up than Deadmanwalkings for walking. But I do at least try. And while I'm sure this is entirely coincidence, I've noticed that 1.3 has some things that I have specifically been advocating for. Not just axing or clarifying existing rules, but adding entirely new mechanics I had posted about. I am sure these were ideas the professionals at Paizo were already considering, and if my voice was heard it was probably part of a much larger chorus. But it still feels really good to see changes I wanted put into play. Which motivates me to continue following Vic Wertz's guidance on how to make your voice actually heard.

[master_marshmallow]

Posting habits? I haven't been negative on here on a while... I haven't been posting much either, been busy. Did play test part 1 again with a different group.

[Sara Marie]

Closed the thread. If you want to try it again with a less aggressive tone please feel free. I know its a pop culture trend to be really over the top with descriptions when you like or dislike something, but calling a book a "garbage fire" is unhelpful. Part of the community on the paizo.com forums are the people (employees & freelancers) that create these materials. Hyperbolic insults really only serve to create a hostile environment on our forums and particularly drive away content creators from engaging the community here. Critique is fine and welcome, insults and aggression are not.