Leveling Up!

Leyren wrote:

The True Monk wrote:

I'm on board with everything except the 1000 XP for every level. The three advancement tracks were great for choosing how fast a GM wanted their group to level up, and I'm sad to see that go. The system could be altered without abandoning it entirely, and I fear this new system could be restrictive for homebrew games that don't have a premade dosage of encounters pre-balanced to have PCs level up after a set number of challenges. It sounds like the Starfinder Society's "1 xp per adventure, 3 xp gives you a level up", but not all gamers like that.

The 1000xp rule is so good because your issues can be resolved with one sentence, e.g. "if you want your players to level faster, they gain a level at 800 xp. if you want them to level slower, they gain a level at 1,250xp instead of 1,000xp."

This is a good insight. I'm going to tell you an exciting way you can expand that concept even further, also in one sentence that would fit right after your sentence: "You can even vary the XP level by level to change the rate of advancement." So if your group wants to accelerate into the level 7-11 range, stay there for a good long time, and then accelerate up to a level 20 finale, you could require fewer XP to level for each level up to 7, then more XP to level from 7-11, then fewer again up to 20. And it's easy to tweak those knobs because 1000 is an easy number. Want 50% more content in a level? OK, 1500 XP it is!

This is especially good for people that hate low levels games but someone in the group still wants to start at level 1: have levels 1-4 each require only 500xp and done. It makes compromising between the GM and players for levels much easier.

Mark Seifter wrote:

Leyren wrote:

The True Monk wrote:

I'm on board with everything except the 1000 XP for every level. The three advancement tracks were great for choosing how fast a GM wanted their group to level up, and I'm sad to see that go. The system could be altered without abandoning it entirely, and I fear this new system could be restrictive for homebrew games that don't have a premade dosage of encounters pre-balanced to have PCs level up after a set number of challenges. It sounds like the Starfinder Society's "1 xp per adventure, 3 xp gives you a level up", but not all gamers like that.

The 1000xp rule is so good because your issues can be resolved with one sentence, e.g. "if you want your players to level faster, they gain a level at 800 xp. if you want them to level slower, they gain a level at 1,250xp instead of 1,000xp."

This is a good insight. I'm going to tell you an exciting way you can expand that concept even further, also in one sentence that would fit right after your sentence: "You can even vary the XP level by level to change the rate of advancement." So if your group wants to accelerate into the level 7-11 range, stay there for a good long time, and then accelerate up to a level 20 finale, you could require fewer XP to level for each level up to 7, then more XP to level from 7-11, then fewer again up to 20. And it's easy to tweak those knobs because 1000 is an easy number. Want 50% more content in a level? OK, 1500 XP it is!

This is especially good for people that hate low levels games but someone in the group still wants to start at level 1: have levels 1-4 each require only 500xp and done. It makes compromising between the GM and players for levels much easier.

Even better for the people who hate high level (and constantly try to make high level feel like low level for certain classes) but decide they won't just chuch exp and run games at the levels they like.

10,000 exp per level would keep high levels at bay for a long time

Dαedαlus wrote:

I personally don't terribly mind the SF leveling-up method (it just means you get your +1 to an ability a bit later, and get extra abilities as a bonus), so long as we keep PF-style ability score generation. I don't want an arbitrary cap on my limits- just make higher scores cost more and it works out fine. The 1-1 ability score generation just further encourages min-maxing your important ability scores, rather than spreading points out a bit more.

We are not using that generation method. As Logan hinted in the blog itself, the stat generation is more organically tied to your character concept and helps you spread around your ability scores if you like. As it so happens, you also wind up with slightly higher overall starting stats, than in Starfinder mainly in your less important ability scores that you're fleshing out for RP purposes, though I'm considering using the PF2 statgen system the next time I run a Starfinder home game as it's more generous to multi-stat classes at low levels, like solarians.

What happens when you reduce a stat? Do you get points back to put elsewhere? Thanks. :)

thflame wrote:

Will there be capstones(AKA Level 20 prerequisite Class Feats)?

The best part of that kind of capstone is that you get to choose your capstone! Not everyone was always well-served by the capstones in PF1 (for instance, omnikinesis, the ability to use any wild talent in the game, is a very powerful capstone, but it doesn't necessarily fit a fully focused kineticist, even though the class lets you build a fully effective single-element kineticist up to that point).

Being able to choose a capstone that fits best with your character concept sounds very exciting! Thanks Mark!

There's a few things I'm worried about:

Ancestry, such as it is, seems like it's strongly tired to the mechanics of the character - possibly leading to having a harder time for characters to escape/defy/shirk their ancestry. Since this is an important part of fiction and roleplay, I feel like the game will need some reliably way around it. And... if it does, then what's the point of having it so tightly bound at all?

I also have some concerns about tying class features so tightly to odd levels, especially for things like the 4- and 6-level casters, who both currently have alternating even/odd levels at which they gain their spells.

While not a worry, per se, this also seems to mean that the Sorcerer is going to be getting its spells at the same rate as the Wizard unless it's pushed *back* another level. Hm.

I wonder if I'll be able to 'unlock' through feats combat actions that would let my character fight against big monsters like Legolas did with the Oliphaunt.

I am glad to see the sorcerer finally stop getting shafted on spell progression.

This is a good insight. I'm going to tell you an exciting way you can expand that concept even further, also in one sentence that would fit right after your sentence: "You can even vary the XP level by level to change the rate of advancement." So if your group wants to accelerate into the level 7-11 range, stay there for a good long time, and then accelerate up to a level 20 finale, you could require fewer XP to level for each level up to 7, then more XP to level from 7-11, then fewer again up to 20. And it's easy to tweak those knobs because 1000 is an easy number. Want 50% more content in a level? OK, 1500 XP it is!

Oh, very nice indeed.

Ok, I have waited for this. First, I want to say that I am pretty hyped and nearly everything I heard sound awesome to me, all but this point.

It seems to be, that skills will progress with the characters proficiency bonus and not with ranks to be allocated freely. Now I want to point out 3 different concerns about streamlined skills. Examples will make this post word heavy, sorry.

Paizo told us, that building a character we as players want to build is one of their most important issues, but this skill advancement takes away most of the noncombat choices.

1.: Building a character is fine but what about character development? What is happening to the personality during adventuring? And what does that mean for the characters skills?
Maybe I play a redneck farm boy with some dragon blood mixed in. At the beginning he leaves behind the exhausting farm labor dreaming of exiting adventures, long leggy girls and extensive wealth. But beside some awakening arcane powers he only knows a littlebit about nature and cattle.
After some experience he grows stronger and starts to exalt himself above all those weak town folks. Pushing around the people which seems to need his strength because of their own debility. He learns to intimidate and how to appraise and he gets what he has dreamed of.
Some time later, maybe after the death of one of his mates, he must except the danger he puts himself into. He starts to doubt his own power and grows some more adult. He focusses on unlocking the mysterious power within and learns all he can about the arcane arts…
In first edition this could be done, please tell me that second edition will no forget about the greatness of roleplay outside of combat.

2.: Streamlined skill means there are some skills you are exceptionally good at and some you are absolutely not able to perform. What is with the in-between?
Also the amount of skills has to be reduced. Otherwise there would be to much things a character is not capable of. This seems to be the case with athletics for climbing, swimming and grappling I assume there will be more.
I will now compare to the only one thing about DnD 5e I like “advantage”. They reduced the amount of skill numbers but by getting advantage or disadvantage on a check due to the story you invented for your character the 18 scores on your sheet expand to 54 different talents depending on the task your character faces. If your character is raised in a rocky desert, he is unlike to swim very well even he can be quite good climbing.
There can be diversity even in same classes and back rounds. Attributes and class do not tell everything about my characters.

3.: Like in most RPGs combat is the only encounter the rulebooks seems to know. So many pages of detailed rules and information on how to fight and so less attention to all the interesting stuff happening beside.
The encounter mode was presented as fight mode. You can have downtime, exploration and fight. Will the great rules for chases find their way in the core rules? When I’m DMing I feel a little bit left alone with encounters like a sinking vessel, an angry mob which thinks the adventures are guilty of some evil act (because the real bad guy tricked them) or other stuff.
I totally understand that there can’t be rules for every possible noncombat encounter but please stop the “encounter = sword wielding”-mindset and help DMs building cool and challenging encounter.

And therefor skills are important and not something which is added to a character only because he has to argue with some noble from time to time. They need cool rules.

Please imagine, your group got captured by some evil overlord and he puts them in his personal prison to torture them later that sunny day. Your spellcaster are tied with some anti-magic filament which can’t be torn by pure force and no one has his equipment. The guy who does his duty in this rotting vault is looking like some Quasimodo but without the friendly attitude. What will you do?
Maybe the loving cleric of Shelyn tries to find some beauty beneath his ugliness. Inside/investigation-what-ever-you-call-it-check? She learns that he probably suffered all his live under the disgust of others and this was the only employment he got.
She sees a way to talk her way out, but it surely won’t be easy. To get some advantage the beautiful priestess wants him to get her some water and cloth to clean herself. Easy diplomacy check. She wins, and he brings some water and rags.
Now she starts washing herself in a position where he definitely will beware of her and she is sure he never had seen such a beauty before. Maybe a perform or a bluff check in order to get a good bonus to the unavoidable Diplomacy check.
She fells now ready and tries to charm (unmagically) him by taking about the beauty he can earn if he uncovers his splendid soul, releasing his inner light and following her on the path of love. Very hard diplomacy check. If she makes it, fine escape the castle and you got a buddy. She failed? The guard gets angry and starts to heat some iron bar in the ember mumbling something about ending her beauty.
(In Call of Cthulhu there is a nice rule on forcing a check, means to retry but if you fail the second time, something really worse will happen. This is a cool way to put players in an interesting spot “Do you really take the risk? -evil grin-“ If she makes it the guard suddenly starts to cry and help you out. If not…)
The hideous man calls for two colleges and turn towards the cell. When they enter the rouge recognizes that two of them have a key and one has a small knife. The fight is on. Without your gear this might be pretty one sided but if you win: you claimed your freedom. If you lose the cleric of Shelyn ended up this a huge stigma on her former beautiful face, one fellow is knocked out but maybe the rogue managed to steal a key or the small knife? The guard are satisfied by their easy victory and not intelligent enough to notice. Now can cut the anti-magic filament and free your wizard. Carve a model of a key he can use as material component to cast knock. Or you got a key and wait until the guard sleeps…
What will happen later? Will the cleric of Shelyn remove the scar as soon as possible? Will she try to improve her diplomacy skills to convince more? Will some dark anger raises within her?

One thing I learned in my games is that creating a character is living part of the game. At first you may not even have an idea of what this character will be turn out to be. I have a female tiefling wizard with points in perform / walk in (in German this is a pun Auftreten / Eintreten) and the reason is that is what she was doing in the game not the brawler goes first, no she does, yelling at the enemy try to intimidate them. After she opened an uptight door by rolling natural 20 strength check (strength 10), I really believe that it is impressive seeing her walking in!

To put it in a nutshell, I think that skills are often overlooked, that noncombat encounters should be more present in the rules and personalities need more than skills tied to their job or origins. I dislike the idea of having no control over the noncombat advancement of my character and as a DM I dislike social encounters solved by a single roll.
I know there are different approaches to the game, min-maxed power-characters, high-rollplaying-don’t-giving-a-s***-on-efficiency, beginners, simple-rules-lovers and more. All these are fine and have their place but please don’t forget one off them by trying to keep it simple.

Kind regards

There's a few things I'm worried about:

Ancestry, such as it is, seems like it's strongly tired to the mechanics of the character - possibly leading to having a harder time for characters to escape/defy/shirk their ancestry.

In all the ones I can think of the shirking/defying is more about cultural practices and patterns of thinking/action than possible physical aspects of a race.

Frequently seen the drow trope of going against what is expected of a drow, never seen one of a drow going "damn I wish I wasn't so graceful and pretty." Or a Dwarf might cut of their beard to signal a disassociation from his people, but can't cut out his ability to withstand toxins. So long as there are a mix of feats that lean into different aspects of ancestry I reckon the trope will be pretty easy to do.

There's a few things I'm worried about:

Ancestry, such as it is, seems like it's strongly tired to the mechanics of the character - possibly leading to having a harder time for characters to escape/defy/shirk their ancestry. Since this is an important part of fiction and roleplay, I feel like the game will need some reliably way around it. And... if it does, then what's the point of having it so tightly bound at all?

I think there's a pretty easy answer to this. What your ancestry does mechanically is largely defined by which ancestry feats you select. I feel confident that Paizo will include many feats that don't reinforce stereotypes, and even some that actively play against them.

If you wanted to really scale things, you could require current level *100 to advance - so 100 for level 1->2, 200 more for 2->3, up to 1900 for 19->20. This comes out to the same total XP to reach 20 (19000 XP) but accelerates the lower levels while slowing down high level advancement.

Leyren wrote:

The True Monk wrote:

I'm on board with everything except the 1000 XP for every level. The three advancement tracks were great for choosing how fast a GM wanted their group to level up, and I'm sad to see that go. The system could be altered without abandoning it entirely, and I fear this new system could be restrictive for homebrew games that don't have a premade dosage of encounters pre-balanced to have PCs level up after a set number of challenges. It sounds like the Starfinder Society's "1 xp per adventure, 3 xp gives you a level up", but not all gamers like that.

The 1000xp rule is so good because your issues can be resolved with one sentence, e.g. "if you want your players to level faster, they gain a level at 800 xp. if you want them to level slower, they gain a level at 1,250xp instead of 1,000xp."

This is a good insight. I'm going to tell you an exciting way you can expand that concept even further, also in one sentence that would fit right after your sentence: "You can even vary the XP level by level to change the rate of advancement." So if your group wants to accelerate into the level 7-11 range, stay there for a good long time, and then accelerate up to a level 20 finale, you could require fewer XP to level for each level up to 7, then more XP to level from 7-11, then fewer again up to 20. And it's easy to tweak those knobs because 1000 is an easy number. Want 50% more content in a level? OK, 1500 XP it is!

I greatly appreciate the XP chart being flexible like this.

However, when I think about using it this way, I start wondering what kind of value would I get out of it, because it seems to me that I'd might as well just go XP-less.

Can any provide with some examples where a group would benefit from having a very flexible XP chart while still being a better option than story-based leveling?

Mark Seifter wrote:

Leyren wrote:

The True Monk wrote:

I'm on board with everything except the 1000 XP for every level. The three advancement tracks were great for choosing how fast a GM wanted their group to level up, and I'm sad to see that go. The system could be altered without abandoning it entirely, and I fear this new system could be restrictive for homebrew games that don't have a premade dosage of encounters pre-balanced to have PCs level up after a set number of challenges. It sounds like the Starfinder Society's "1 xp per adventure, 3 xp gives you a level up", but not all gamers like that.

The 1000xp rule is so good because your issues can be resolved with one sentence, e.g. "if you want your players to level faster, they gain a level at 800 xp. if you want them to level slower, they gain a level at 1,250xp instead of 1,000xp."

This is a good insight. I'm going to tell you an exciting way you can expand that concept even further, also in one sentence that would fit right after your sentence: "You can even vary the XP level by level to change the rate of advancement." So if your group wants to accelerate into the level 7-11 range, stay there for a good long time, and then accelerate up to a level 20 finale, you could require fewer XP to level for each level up to 7, then more XP to level from 7-11, then fewer again up to 20. And it's easy to tweak those knobs because 1000 is an easy number. Want 50% more content in a level? OK, 1500 XP it is!

I greatly appreciate the XP chart being flexible like this.

However, when I think about using it this way, I start wondering what kind of value would I get out of it, because it seems to me that I'd might as well just go XP-less.

Can any provide with some examples where a group would benefit from having a very flexible XP chart while still being a better option than story-based leveling?

Sure thing: Imagine a product that was basically a mega Kingmaker-style hex map full of cool secrets to find, enemies to fight, allies to make, resources to acquire, and more. Basically a giant sandbox. Suppose the sandbox had a few high level threats (the slumbering red wyrm under the mountain, etc) but was mostly in the mid-level range except for some lower level stuff around where the PCs start off, and the product even advises the GM what XP rate to use to match the content (you could also assume it was a GM homebrewing the sandbox campaign I describe instead). This allows the PCs freedom to explore at their pace in the order they choose while generally being at a good level to do so, while also providing something measurable for the PCs to use to gauge progress, since sandboxes can be much trickier to do story-based milestones than a more linear story game (to give one example of this, imagine you said "When the PCs discover the lich's castle, that's the milestone to hit level 10," and then they somehow stumble into it almost right away).

The value is to gms who use exp as a carrot to reward players for smart play and good behavior. It makes it obvious how far to go to the next level.

Dαedαlus wrote:

I personally don't terribly mind the SF leveling-up method (it just means you get your +1 to an ability a bit later, and get extra abilities as a bonus), so long as we keep PF-style ability score generation. I don't want an arbitrary cap on my limits- just make higher scores cost more and it works out fine. The 1-1 ability score generation just further encourages min-maxing your important ability scores, rather than spreading points out a bit more.

We are not using that generation method. As Logan hinted in the blog itself, the stat generation is more organically tied to your character concept and helps you spread around your ability scores if you like. As it so happens, you also wind up with slightly higher overall starting stats, than in Starfinder mainly in your less important ability scores that you're fleshing out for RP purposes, though I'm considering using the PF2 statgen system the next time I run a Starfinder home game as it's more generous to multi-stat classes at low levels, like solarians.

Interesting. I'm looking forward to seeing it, then. I've been wanting to play a barbarian that pretended to be stupid while actually being quite cunning for a while, but point buy always cut me short. If P2e will help that, well I suppose I'll have to give it a go.

I'm definitely warming overall to P2e, but still hoping it doesn't end up just being 'fantasy Starfinder'

then get some more Hit Points (8 + Constitution modifier for a cleric

Even more HP bloat over 3.e/PF1? That's... not good, unless damage is scaling in some sane fashion (unlike Starfinder)

Feats, spells and stuff with no dead levels sounds... good? If vague. I note a lack of more 1st level spells at 2nd (or 3rd) level.

Is there going to be some sort of mechanic that accounts for XP gained from overcoming greater challenges, such as defeating higher CR monsters?

I presume that CR itself will no longer be tied to an amount of XP rewarded since that would mean players would level up faster at higher levels.

Leyren wrote:

The True Monk wrote:

I'm on board with everything except the 1000 XP for every level. The three advancement tracks were great for choosing how fast a GM wanted their group to level up, and I'm sad to see that go. The system could be altered without abandoning it entirely, and I fear this new system could be restrictive for homebrew games that don't have a premade dosage of encounters pre-balanced to have PCs level up after a set number of challenges. It sounds like the Starfinder Society's "1 xp per adventure, 3 xp gives you a level up", but not all gamers like that.

The 1000xp rule is so good because your issues can be resolved with one sentence, e.g. "if you want your players to level faster, they gain a level at 800 xp. if you want them to level slower, they gain a level at 1,250xp instead of 1,000xp."

This is a good insight. I'm going to tell you an exciting way you can expand that concept even further, also in one sentence that would fit right after your sentence: "You can even vary the XP level by level to change the rate of advancement." So if your group wants to accelerate into the level 7-11 range, stay there for a good long time, and then accelerate up to a level 20 finale, you could require fewer XP to level for each level up to 7, then more XP to level from 7-11, then fewer again up to 20. And it's easy to tweak those knobs because 1000 is an easy number. Want 50% more content in a level? OK, 1500 XP it is!

And thus did the PFS players did squee, verily.

Mark Seifter wrote:

Dαedαlus wrote:

I personally don't terribly mind the SF leveling-up method (it just means you get your +1 to an ability a bit later, and get extra abilities as a bonus), so long as we keep PF-style ability score generation. I don't want an arbitrary cap on my limits- just make higher scores cost more and it works out fine. The 1-1 ability score generation just further encourages min-maxing your important ability scores, rather than spreading points out a bit more.

We are not using that generation method. As Logan hinted in the blog itself, the stat generation is more organically tied to your character concept and helps you spread around your ability scores if you like. As it so happens, you also wind up with slightly higher overall starting stats, than in Starfinder mainly in your less important ability scores that you're fleshing out for RP purposes, though I'm considering using the PF2 statgen system the next time I run a Starfinder home game as it's more generous to multi-stat classes at low levels, like solarians.

Interesting. I'm looking forward to seeing it, then. I've been wanting to play a barbarian that pretended to be stupid while actually being quite cunning for a while, but point buy always cut me short. If P2e will help that, well I suppose I'll have to give it a go.

I'm definitely warming overall to P2e, but still hoping it doesn't end up just being 'fantasy Starfinder'

You should be much more able to build a 1st level barbarian with 18 Strength and secretly 14 Int that you pretend is lower, say, than doing that with a 1st level soldier in Starfinder (where you would run all 10s in the other stats if you did that). You'd still have some other positive stats in PF2 in that case.

Ilorin Lorati wrote:

*snip*

I think there's a pretty easy answer to this. What your ancestry does mechanically is largely defined by which ancestry feats you select. I feel confident that Paizo will include many feats that don't reinforce stereotypes, and even some that actively play against them.

This is fair, but I'm afraid that would end up needing a lot of extra complexity for something that can simply be sidestepped to begin with. First, you have the multitude of Ancestry feats to begin with to match the concept - more than you need for a given character, otherwise what's the point - then you need enough anti-stereotype feats for each ancestry that they aren't all the same.

Even assuming a certain amount of overlap (no point in giving numbers) and that even characters being played against type will likely have a small number of feats picked from their ancestry because some things will still make sense, that's still a lot of feats to cover.

Now it really got me curious. Human is an Ancestry or Taldan, Ulfen, Varisian etc... are Ancestries ? If Human is an Ancestry and ethnicities are sub-ancestries, there are ancestries feats tied to ethnicities ?

The thing people don't understand is that "feats" are ceasing to be a definition-less add-on on your already numerous abilities: now, they are a way to customize your ancestry, class, etc. by choosing which benefit will you gain.
I think that's great! I hate feats as they're represented in 3.X/PF/4e. For example, now they are not just random meta-game constructs with no in-world counterpart: now they're increases you choose to augment your ancestry, class, etc.
By the way, yeah, I thought the name change was because of that. It's a good idea ^^

I'm not too sure about this. The more info that comes out, the more it seems like unnecessary changes are being made just for the sake of it. It seems less backward compatible with Pathfinder 1e than Pathfinder 1e was with D&D 3.5.
I want to see a backward compatible Pathfinder 2e, not a whole new game with the brand name of Pathfinder slapped on it. That's been done before.
I hope I'm wrong.

Are all class features encapsulated in feats?

This is sounding very similar to Five Moons RPG, the game by SKR that turns almost every class ability into a feat.

I'm not too sure about this. The more info that comes out, the more it seems like unnecessary changes are being made just for the sake of it. It seems less backward compatible with Pathfinder 1e than Pathfinder 1e was with D&D 3.5.

I want to see a backward compatible Pathfinder 2e, not a whole new game with the brand name of Pathfinder slapped on it. That's been done before.
I hope I'm wrong.

Honestly all backwards compatability means to me is "shackled by previous desicions."

I like it a lot. Now basically you play what you want to play.

It was already addressed many pages before that ancestry feats covers sub races and ethnicity. Since I notice some people are asking about it.

Anyway, that's a lot of customization to say the least.

CraziFuzzy wrote:

So do feats have level requirements as well? It'd be great to see something like:

Sudden Charge (Fighter 1, General 5) - meaning a Fighter can take the feat as a class feat at level 1+, and any other character can take it as a general feat at level 5+.

What I wouldn't mind, just as it would save space in the long run and really show the idea of customization is just have a general rule of "you can take any class level feat as a general feat, as if your level was 4 lower"

I really, really like this idea. Particularly if "class feat" = "class feature" in PF2.

Now it really got me curious. Human is an Ancestry or Taldan, Ulfen, Varisian etc... are Ancestries ? If Human is an Ancestry and ethnicities are sub-ancestries, there are ancestries feats tied to ethnicities ?

Core, human is an ancestry. You could do Taldan, Ulfen as variant ancestries, potentially having the base human Ancestry Feats as available, but a list of specific Taldan etc Ancestry Feats (although I suspect you're more likely to see this for Sea Elves, Bleachlings, and the Tiefling/Aasimar inheritances than for humans in Golarion)

I like the increasing of stats aka Starfinder. One of the big issues for me vs classical fantasy is the Xmas tree effect caused by stat boost items. You simply gimp your effectiveness if you did not use everyone of the items. When I play I prefer Conan style where the power is in the character versus the items.

I also like the customization of characters quite a bit. I am looking forward to seeing the new system.

Now, in regards to deadliness, I like faster paced combats where a good hit is a serious danger not something that inflicts 20% versus 10%.

Quote:

then get some more Hit Points (8 + Constitution modifier for a cleric

Even more HP bloat over 3.e/PF1? That's... not good, unless damage is scaling in some sane fashion (unlike Starfinder)

This is really concerning to me as well. Increasing HP is exactly the same math as reducing melee damage, or reducing blast spell damage. Ie, not exactly the most problematic parts of the current system.

I would be happy to see a larger HP pool at lower levels, but a wizard with 115 HP at 11th level worries me. They are supposed to be fragile.

I'm also concerned this will put more emphasis on static bonuses over die rolls for damage. Which is a complaint I have about the current system. Increasing HP will only make that worse.

We don't have the full math here, there's no way we must figure out how HP vs damage works in this scale.
Yes, I think damage, both weapon-based and spell-based, should get a lot more spotlight than it currently has in 1e. However, they may, for example, go the old-school AD&D way of simply capping "hit dice", and then just a small, fixed bonus for each level. So far now, we cannot say anything about math here, and I think this is something we'll not be told: we will have to wait the playtest and see it.
It's a good thing actually. Usually, you can make changes in math without upsetting deep personal preferences from the fans. I mean, no one is going to rage-quit if X weapon deals Y damage instead of previous Z.

Draco Bahamut wrote:

Now it really got me curious. Human is an Ancestry or Taldan, Ulfen, Varisian etc... are Ancestries ? If Human is an Ancestry and ethnicities are sub-ancestries, there are ancestries feats tied to ethnicities ?

Core, human is an ancestry. You could do Taldan, Ulfen as variant ancestries, potentially having the base human Ancestry Feats as available, but a list of specific Taldan etc Ancestry Feats (although I suspect you're more likely to see this for Sea Elves, Bleachlings, and the Tiefling/Aasimar inheritances than for humans in Golarion)

I had thought I heard somewhere that there are "Ancestry Archetypes" (as in "options to modify your ancestry" similar to Alternate Racial traits) and that's probably where you want to do stuff like Kellid or Vudrani or various flavors of aasimar, tieflings, and changelings.

One of the designers mentioned that one of the things they want to do with Ancestry is to allow things like specific noble / empowered bloodlines to be an ancestry unto themselves. So, for instance, a royal clan of the dwarves wouldn't necessarily have the same "racial abilities" as other dwarves from the same city.

I don't think they would go so far as to have different human ethnicities have different ancestry/"racial" abilities; that could get into unintentional racism really fast. What's more likely is that different nations will have abilities acquired via Background or something else.

Dαedαlus wrote:

Mark Seifter wrote:

Dαedαlus wrote:

I personally don't terribly mind the SF leveling-up method (it just means you get your +1 to an ability a bit later, and get extra abilities as a bonus), so long as we keep PF-style ability score generation. I don't want an arbitrary cap on my limits- just make higher scores cost more and it works out fine. The 1-1 ability score generation just further encourages min-maxing your important ability scores, rather than spreading points out a bit more.

We are not using that generation method. As Logan hinted in the blog itself, the stat generation is more organically tied to your character concept and helps you spread around your ability scores if you like. As it so happens, you also wind up with slightly higher overall starting stats, than in Starfinder mainly in your less important ability scores that you're fleshing out for RP purposes, though I'm considering using the PF2 statgen system the next time I run a Starfinder home game as it's more generous to multi-stat classes at low levels, like solarians.

Interesting. I'm looking forward to seeing it, then. I've been wanting to play a barbarian that pretended to be stupid while actually being quite cunning for a while, but point buy always cut me short. If P2e will help that, well I suppose I'll have to give it a go.

I'm definitely warming overall to P2e, but still hoping it doesn't end up just being 'fantasy Starfinder'

You should be much more able to build a 1st level barbarian with 18 Strength and secretly 14 Int that you pretend is lower, say, than doing that with a 1st level soldier in Starfinder (where you would run all 10s in the other stats if you did that). You'd still have some other positive stats in PF2 in that case.

Hmmm.... I mean, I'm still not a fan of SF's ability score generation as a concept, and anything that bears a decent resemblance to it just... no. A game where a Kobold PC could have the same strength as an Orc PC at character generation, where both pumped strength to the max, is not a game I am interested in for heroic fantasy.

They have said that there will be no world shaking event. The timeline will advance ~10 years (1 year of game time for each year of real world time since the original game came out) and the outcome of some adventure paths will be incorporated into the timeline, but no TSR style Time of Troubles or WotC style Spellplague with the associated enormous time jump.

Honestly, that does make me feel better. Changes as big as the Time of Troubles and especially the Spellplague were more disruptive than fun.

rooneg wrote:

They have said that there will be no world shaking event. The timeline will advance ~10 years (1 year of game time for each year of real world time since the original game came out) and the outcome of some adventure paths will be incorporated into the timeline, but no TSR style Time of Troubles or WotC style Spellplague with the associated enormous time jump.

Honestly, that does make me feel better. Changes as big as the Time of Troubles and especially the Spellplague were more disruptive than fun.

Fate of Istus (Greyhawk) was worse. Oops! All assassins are dead now! Welcome to the edition transition railroad adventure.

quillblade wrote:

rooneg wrote:

They have said that there will be no world shaking event. The timeline will advance ~10 years (1 year of game time for each year of real world time since the original game came out) and the outcome of some adventure paths will be incorporated into the timeline, but no TSR style Time of Troubles or WotC style Spellplague with the associated enormous time jump.

Honestly, that does make me feel better. Changes as big as the Time of Troubles and especially the Spellplague were more disruptive than fun.

Fate of Istus (Greyhawk) was worse. Oops! All assassins are dead now! Welcome to the edition transition railroad adventure.

Time of Troubles did the same thing for the Forgotten Realms. Bane needs some magic to power a spell, so they sacrifice all the assassins in the Realms to power it. Except Artemis Entreri, apparently, since he's an important character in a popular series of novels.

This is a good insight. I'm going to tell you an exciting way you can expand that concept even further, also in one sentence that would fit right after your sentence: "You can even vary the XP level by level to change the rate of advancement." So if your group wants to accelerate into the level 7-11 range, stay there for a good long time, and then accelerate up to a level 20 finale, you could require fewer XP to level for each level up to 7, then more XP to level from 7-11, then fewer again up to 20. And it's easy to tweak those knobs because 1000 is an easy number. Want 50% more content in a level? OK, 1500 XP it is!

Why on earth would you do this, when you can also just apply the multipliers to the XP you handed out?

If I want levels 1-4 to go three times as fast as usual, levels 5 -7 to go four times as slow, levels 8-10 to go one fifth as slow, and level 11 to go one third as slow, before returning to normal progression

What XP is required to reach level 12 if you change the XP level up numbers?

What do I need to multiply or divide the XP I hand out by at any given level band if I do it the other way?

Why would you do this to yourself?

Mark Seifter wrote:

Dαedαlus wrote:

Mark Seifter wrote:

Dαedαlus wrote:

I personally don't terribly mind the SF leveling-up method (it just means you get your +1 to an ability a bit later, and get extra abilities as a bonus), so long as we keep PF-style ability score generation. I don't want an arbitrary cap on my limits- just make higher scores cost more and it works out fine. The 1-1 ability score generation just further encourages min-maxing your important ability scores, rather than spreading points out a bit more.

We are not using that generation method. As Logan hinted in the blog itself, the stat generation is more organically tied to your character concept and helps you spread around your ability scores if you like. As it so happens, you also wind up with slightly higher overall starting stats, than in Starfinder mainly in your less important ability scores that you're fleshing out for RP purposes, though I'm considering using the PF2 statgen system the next time I run a Starfinder home game as it's more generous to multi-stat classes at low levels, like solarians.

Interesting. I'm looking forward to seeing it, then. I've been wanting to play a barbarian that pretended to be stupid while actually being quite cunning for a while, but point buy always cut me short. If P2e will help that, well I suppose I'll have to give it a go.

I'm definitely warming overall to P2e, but still hoping it doesn't end up just being 'fantasy Starfinder'

You should be much more able to build a 1st level barbarian with 18 Strength and secretly 14 Int that you pretend is lower, say, than doing that with a 1st level soldier in Starfinder (where you would run all 10s in the other stats if you did that). You'd still have some other positive stats in PF2 in that case.

Hmmm.... I mean, I'm still not a fan of SF's ability score generation as a concept, and anything that bears a decent resemblance to it just... no. A game where a Kobold PC could have the...

It's not really that similar, and it also doesn't have that "ignore your race and apply these preselected stats wherever you want" option that Starfinder does, so assuming kobolds kept their -4 Strength penalty like in PF1 (they aren't a PC race right now), they would be incapable of reaching the max Strength of other races. On the other hand, not every branch of an ancestry is exactly the same (as seen by humans with their flexible ability scores in PF1, though weirdly mostly only humankin PF1 races had that flexibility), and we let you customize your ancestry a bit more than ever before in that regard. So if you were a member of a tribe of burlier kobolds who were stronger than typical kobolds, you could at least be a little closer to everyone else.

Mark Seifter wrote:

This is a good insight. I'm going to tell you an exciting way you can expand that concept even further, also in one sentence that would fit right after your sentence: "You can even vary the XP level by level to change the rate of advancement." So if your group wants to accelerate into the level 7-11 range, stay there for a good long time, and then accelerate up to a level 20 finale, you could require fewer XP to level for each level up to 7, then more XP to level from 7-11, then fewer again up to 20. And it's easy to tweak those knobs because 1000 is an easy number. Want 50% more content in a level? OK, 1500 XP it is!

Why on earth would you do this, when you can also just apply the multipliers to the XP you handed out?

If I want levels 1-4 to go three times as fast as usual, levels 5 -7 to go four times as slow, levels 8-10 to go one fifth as slow, and level 11 to go one third as slow, before returning to normal progression

What XP is required to reach level 12 if you change the XP level up numbers?

What do I need to multiply or divide the XP I hand out by at any given level band if I do it the other way?

Why would you do this to yourself?

Calculating 130% of 1000XP needed to level up is way easier than calculating 70% of 25XP gained.

Mark Seifter wrote:

This is a good insight. I'm going to tell you an exciting way you can expand that concept even further, also in one sentence that would fit right after your sentence: "You can even vary the XP level by level to change the rate of advancement." So if your group wants to accelerate into the level 7-11 range, stay there for a good long time, and then accelerate up to a level 20 finale, you could require fewer XP to level for each level up to 7, then more XP to level from 7-11, then fewer again up to 20. And it's easy to tweak those knobs because 1000 is an easy number. Want 50% more content in a level? OK, 1500 XP it is!

Why on earth would you do this, when you can also just apply the multipliers to the XP you handed out?

If I want levels 1-4 to go three times as fast as usual, levels 5 -7 to go four times as slow, levels 8-10 to go one fifth as slow, and level 11 to go one third as slow, before returning to normal progression

What XP is required to reach level 12 if you change the XP level up numbers?

What do I need to multiply or divide the XP I hand out by at any given level band if I do it the other way?

Why would you do this to yourself?

Mostly because it's easier to perform math like division or multiplying by a percentage once on a clean number like 1000 than it is to perform it every time on numbers that might not be as clean. But it works out exactly the same if you do it the way you describe, just a little more legwork for you.

EDIT: Ninjaed by Elfteiroh!

Dαedαlus wrote:

Mark Seifter wrote:

Dαedαlus wrote:

Mark Seifter wrote:

Dαedαlus wrote:

I personally don't terribly mind the SF leveling-up method (it just means you get your +1 to an ability a bit later, and get extra abilities as a bonus), so long as we keep PF-style ability score generation. I don't want an arbitrary cap on my limits- just make higher scores cost more and it works out fine. The 1-1 ability score generation just further encourages min-maxing your important ability scores, rather than spreading points out a bit more.

We are not using that generation method. As Logan hinted in the blog itself, the stat generation is more organically tied to your character concept and helps you spread around your ability scores if you like. As it so happens, you also wind up with slightly higher overall starting stats, than in Starfinder mainly in your less important ability scores that you're fleshing out for RP purposes, though I'm considering using the PF2 statgen system the next time I run a Starfinder home game as it's more generous to multi-stat classes at low levels, like solarians.

Interesting. I'm looking forward to seeing it, then. I've been wanting to play a barbarian that pretended to be stupid while actually being quite cunning for a while, but point buy always cut me short. If P2e will help that, well I suppose I'll have to give it a go.

I'm definitely warming overall to P2e, but still hoping it doesn't end up just being 'fantasy Starfinder'

You should be much more able to build a 1st level barbarian with 18 Strength and secretly 14 Int that you pretend is lower, say, than doing that with a 1st level soldier in Starfinder (where you would run all 10s in the other stats if you did that). You'd still have some other positive stats in PF2 in that case.

Hmmm.... I mean, I'm still not a fan of SF's ability score generation as a concept, and anything that bears a decent resemblance to it just... no. A game where a

...

I hope this doesn't come at the expense of SF's tendency to be forgiving toward unconventional race / class combinations? One of my favorite things about that game is that I don't have to pick my race primarily on the basis of which class I intend to play. I can even pick specifically suboptimal combinations like a vesk engineer and not feel like I'm being punished that hard.

Meanwhile, Pathfinder point buy slaps you hard in the face for daring to play a Dwarven sorcerer. I hope that doesn't continue to be the case.

sooo much easier and not complicated at all /sarcasm

Not sure why the sarcasm tag is there. XP based on APL and CR is easy and not at all complicated.

Dαedαlus wrote:

Mark Seifter wrote:

Dαedαlus wrote:

Mark Seifter wrote:

Dαedαlus wrote:

I personally don't terribly mind the SF leveling-up method (it just means you get your +1 to an ability a bit later, and get extra abilities as a bonus), so long as we keep PF-style ability score generation. I don't want an arbitrary cap on my limits- just make higher scores cost more and it works out fine. The 1-1 ability score generation just further encourages min-maxing your important ability scores, rather than spreading points out a bit more.

We are not using that generation method. As Logan hinted in the blog itself, the stat generation is more organically tied to your character concept and helps you spread around your ability scores if you like. As it so happens, you also wind up with slightly higher overall starting stats, than in Starfinder mainly in your less important ability scores that you're fleshing out for RP purposes, though I'm considering using the PF2 statgen system the next time I run a Starfinder home game as it's more generous to multi-stat classes at low levels, like solarians.

Interesting. I'm looking forward to seeing it, then. I've been wanting to play a barbarian that pretended to be stupid while actually being quite cunning for a while, but point buy always cut me short. If P2e will help that, well I suppose I'll have to give it a go.

I'm definitely warming overall to P2e, but still hoping it doesn't end up just being 'fantasy Starfinder'

You should be much more able to build a 1st level barbarian with 18 Strength and secretly 14 Int that you pretend is lower, say, than doing that with a 1st level soldier in Starfinder (where you would run all 10s in the other stats if you did that). You'd still have some other positive stats in PF2 in that case.

Hmmm.... I mean, I'm still not a fan of SF's ability score generation as a concept, and anything that bears a decent resemblance to it just... no. A game where a

...

I can live with that. I still would prefer that ability score caps applied before racial mods, though, so that the smartest elves would be smarter than the smartest gnomes (except for Bleachling ancestries, anyway), and the fastest halflings would be more nimble than the nimblest dwarves, and so on. Especially since ancestry seems to be a bigger part of characters now (what with Ancestry feats and all), it would be nice if that applied to ability scores as well.

I can live with that. I still would prefer that ability score caps applied before racial mods, though, so that the smartest elves would be smarter than the smartest gnomes (except for Bleachling ancestries, anyway), and the fastest halflings would be more nimble than the nimblest dwarves, and so on. Especially since ancestry seems to be a bigger part of characters now (what with Ancestry feats and all), it would be nice if that applied to ability scores as well.

That is sort of true and sort of not true, in that barring the optional dice rolling method, there aren't explicit "caps" per se (instead, just like in PF1, there are effective caps in that the method will only generate stats up to a certain value). As I said, it's not really similar to the Starfinder initial ability score generation method, despite sharing the level up part.

Meanwhile, Pathfinder point buy slaps you hard in the face for daring to play a Dwarven sorcerer. I hope that doesn't continue to be the case.

I really hope PF2 just drops attribute penalties due to ancestry entirely

Mark Seifter wrote:

Dαedαlus wrote:

Mark Seifter wrote:

Dαedαlus wrote:

Mark Seifter wrote:

Dαedαlus wrote:

I personally don't terribly mind the SF leveling-up method (it just means you get your +1 to an ability a bit later, and get extra abilities as a bonus), so long as we keep PF-style ability score generation. I don't want an arbitrary cap on my limits- just make higher scores cost more and it works out fine. The 1-1 ability score generation just further encourages min-maxing your important ability scores, rather than spreading points out a bit more.

We are not using that generation method. As Logan hinted in the blog itself, the stat generation is more organically tied to your character concept and helps you spread around your ability scores if you like. As it so happens, you also wind up with slightly higher overall starting stats, than in Starfinder mainly in your less important ability scores that you're fleshing out for RP purposes, though I'm considering using the PF2 statgen system the next time I run a Starfinder home game as it's more generous to multi-stat classes at low levels, like solarians.

Interesting. I'm looking forward to seeing it, then. I've been wanting to play a barbarian that pretended to be stupid while actually being quite cunning for a while, but point buy always cut me short. If P2e will help that, well I suppose I'll have to give it a go.

I'm definitely warming overall to P2e, but still hoping it doesn't end up just being 'fantasy Starfinder'

You should be much more able to build a 1st level barbarian with 18 Strength and secretly 14 Int that you pretend is lower, say, than doing that with a 1st level soldier in Starfinder (where you would run all 10s in the other stats if you did that). You'd still have some other positive stats in PF2 in that case.

Hmmm.... I mean, I'm still not a fan of SF's ability score generation as a concept, and anything that bears a decent resemblance to

...

The thing is, though, is that that's kind of the point. Sure, you can play a Dwarven sorcerer (or an elf kineticist, or a halfling barbarian), but you'll never be as good as a halfling sorcerer (or a dwarf kineticist, or a human barbarian), and it fits with the description of the races. If, in real life, I'm 5' 6", clumsy, and want to play basketball, I can try, but I'll never be as good as the guy who's naturally athletic, 6'2", and fast on his feet. If the world says that, "dwarves usually tend to being clerics" or "elven wizards are some of the best in the world," it would be nice if being a race that apparently is really good at or commonly becomes a certain class is actually better than a race that's not known for being good, or even particularly bad, at a certain occupation.

vagabond_666 wrote:

Mark Seifter wrote:

This is a good insight. I'm going to tell you an exciting way you can expand that concept even further, also in one sentence that would fit right after your sentence: "You can even vary the XP level by level to change the rate of advancement." So if your group wants to accelerate into the level 7-11 range, stay there for a good long time, and then accelerate up to a level 20 finale, you could require fewer XP to level for each level up to 7, then more XP to level from 7-11, then fewer again up to 20. And it's easy to tweak those knobs because 1000 is an easy number. Want 50% more content in a level? OK, 1500 XP it is!

Why on earth would you do this, when you can also just apply the multipliers to the XP you handed out?

If I want levels 1-4 to go three times as fast as usual, levels 5 -7 to go four times as slow, levels 8-10 to go one fifth as slow, and level 11 to go one third as slow, before returning to normal progression

What XP is required to reach level 12 if you change the XP level up numbers?

What do I need to multiply or divide the XP I hand out by at any given level band if I do it the other way?

Why would you do this to yourself?

Calculating 130% of 1000XP needed to level up is way easier than calculating 70% of 25XP gained.

Also, changing the XP needed to level up is more transparent to the player than changing the XP gained. Also, it could end up making strange events, like a Dragon that would give less XP than the Orc you killed a couple levels befores, even if the challenge was similar.

This also helps with rollover. For example, you're playing in a game that is fast at levels 1-5 (say 500 xp/level), then slow from there on (2000 xp/level). Your party is level 5 with 450 xp. You defeat an encounter and gain 150 xp (based on the relative challenge at your level). Now you are level 6 and 100/2000 towards level 7.

If you were adjusting the other way, using the same percentages, you'd be at level 5, with 900/1000 to level 6. Defeating the encounter would yield 300 xp, still leveling to level 6, but now you're 200/1000 towards level 7. 20% complete vs. 5% complete.

You can get around this by applying the multiplier separately, but then you have to apply your fast multiplier until you hit the level up, then back out that multiplier and apply the new level's multiplier. Way more math for the same result, and adjusting the level mark is easier for the players to understand how the levels will stretch or contract assuming that XP gain remains relatively constant.

It's not really that similar, and it also doesn't have that "ignore your race and apply these preselected stats wherever you want" option that Starfinder does, so assuming kobolds kept their -4 Strength penalty like in PF1 (they aren't a PC race right now), they would be incapable of reaching the max Strength of other races. On the other hand, not every branch of an ancestry is exactly the same (as seen by humans with their flexible ability scores in PF1, though weirdly mostly only humankin PF1 races had that flexibility), and we let you customize your ancestry a bit more than ever before in that regard. So if you were a member of a tribe of burlier kobolds who were stronger than typical kobolds, you could at least be a little closer to everyone else.

13th Age has you get an ability score bonus from your class, and then a choice of ability score bonuses from your race, but you can't select the same ability score for each. (Like, being an elf grants you +2 Int or +2 Dex, and being a wizard grants you +2 Int or +2 Con, and so an elven wizard can take +2 Int, +2 Con or +2 Int, +2 Dex - IIRC, no guarantees that those are the actual stats.) Any sense of how similar PF2 is to this in practice?