Ongoing Changes

This is starting to sound like a information parsing issue, which just cries for digital solution.

The system Mathmuse suggested is a better choice, as many others have stated.

Another excellent suggestion in separating out Powers into its own section instead of mixing them in with Spells. I can understand why Paizo puts them with Spells, but it is confusing, and having Powers in their own area helps consolidate things.

One thing I am curious about is "under review" - how so?

And I mean... has anyone even done multiclassing yet? Thus Reviewing it is curious. Personally I *like* how the multiclass system is set up so I'm hoping it doesn't change significantly. Tweaks to make certain multiclasses more effective would be nice but significant changes (or going back to the PF1 system) probably aren't required.

Ah well, thank you for the blog update. :) Even if it's leaving me with more questions...

I like Chess Pwn's way of spelling out the magnitudes quickly, which gives more versatility. For example, as Alchemic_Genius suggested, it can adapt to the Fear spell, too.

Then we add Andrew Riebe's suggestion of putting it in a saving throw line for added clarity.

The results look clean and clear.

FEAR Spell 1
Emotion, Enchantment, Fear, Mental
Casting [[A]] Somatic Casting, [[A]] Verbal Casting
Range 30 feet; Targets one creature
Duration by frightened magnitude
Saving Throw Will (S frightened 1 CS unaffected F frightened 2 CF frightened 3 and fleeing for 1 round)
You plant fear in the target. It becomes frightened and possibly fleeing with magnitude based on its Will save.

FIREBALL Spell 3
Evocation, Fire
Casting [[A]] Somatic Casting, [[A]] Verbal Casting
Range 500 feet; Area 20-foot burst
Saving Throw Reflex (S half damage CS unaffected F full damage CF double damage)
A burst of fire explodes, dealing 6d6 fire damage. Creatures in the area take a multiple of that damage based on their Reflex saves.
Heightened (+1) The damage increases by 2d6.

The keyword "basic" is not necessary and would only add to the jargon to memorize.

Thais os such a great suggestion that I'm surprised it isn't the actual format used in the book.

Two other suggestions that would make it perfect are: 1) adding an icon for the tradition/list; 2) Resume the casting actions description.

FIREBALL [[Spell List Icons]] Spell 3
Evocation, Fire
Casting [[AA]] Somatic,Verbal
Range 500 feet; Area 20-foot burst
Saving Throw Reflex (S half damage CS unaffected F full damage CF double damage)
A burst of fire explodes, dealing 6d6 fire damage. Creatures in the area take a multiple of that damage based on their Reflex saves.
Heightened (+1) The damage increases by 2d6.

I can't understand why the two/three actions icons aren't being used in the spells and the reason behind repeating "Casting: Casting, Casting".

Now, as we have your attention, I would also like to add that the Powers should have their own section. I'm ok with them not being sorted by class, as I can easily see the dragon bloodline powers being used in a dragon domain. However, the Powers should indeed have their own section/chapter.

I don't understand why they need to change the text at all. If the levels of success and their effects as a result of a spell which deals damage are defined under Reflex saves, then you don't need to specify in the spell because it isn't an exception.

Why not have a subcategory above casting that specifies the type of save and whether is damage, looking something like:

FIREBALLSPELL 3
Evocation, Fire
Saving Throw Reflex (Damage)
Casting [[A]] Somatic Casting, [[A]] Verbal Casting
Range 500 feet; Area 20-foot burst
A burst of fire explodes, dealing 6d6 fire damage; creatures in the area must attempt a Reflex save.
Heightened (+1) The damage increases by 2d6.

I strongly prefer the Success, Critical Success, Failure, Critical Failure order. Since it lets the critical version assume what happened in the basic version.

We could make it clearer by having the critical success and failure entries being indented slightly, however.

So you could have:

Success you throw a birthday party with cake
-Critical Success there is also ice cream and clowns.
Failure the cake is inedible and everyone is in a bad mood.
-Critical Failure there are also evil clowns.

I know that referring to the line above is the rationale, but I don't think it works.

When I get a dice result, I look up that particular result. I don't read all the results from top to bottom.

With the example above:

I roll my dice. I get a Critical Success (yay!). I scan the page for the text "Critical Success" and read "there is also ice cream and clowns". "Also"? That does not make any sense. Oh, it must refer to the line above... which I did not read, because I was looking for "Critical Success". I try to find the same spot again on the page, look at the line above, and read "You throw a birthday party with cake". Now I can finally make a complete sentence out of the two lines.

I like the change. Anything that saves space by removing unnecessary rules text is a good idea. It also creates space for more exiting spell descriptions too whuch would make looking through the spells much more inspiring.

I would call it a Standard Area of Effect Saving Throw.

While you're at it, fix the order in which you present the saving throw results.

Critical Success
Success
Failure
Critical Failure

This is a more rational order, at least to me. I already know what result I'm after and once I lock onto the saving throw section my eyes can jump to the part of the paragraph relative to the amount of success that was determined.

With the current approach, I nearly always jump to the middle looking for success or failure and then have to scan elsewhere if it was a success. Your current order is...

More Common
Less Common
More Common
Less Common

I do like the idea, but I don't like the "depending on their basic reflex saves" phrase because it implies it's a property of the save or that there's a different way to do saves for other spells, rather than being a property or effect of the spell.

I'd go for explaining what the four degrees of success mean for most damaging spells, giving that rule a name or an easy way to reference it, and then referencing that rule when necessary. You could even go as far as making it into a trait, but it might be too much.

Maybe something like:

Saving throws against damaging spells:
Some damaging spells require the targets to roll a saving throw against them. In many of those spells the result of this saving throw will only affect the amount of damage the target takes and nothing else, in those cases the description will declare the damage is modified by the target's related saving throws and will behave like this:
[List the four degrees of success and their effects]
In any spell where the effects differ, the effects are listed right in the spell entry. Any spell asking for a saving throw and not giving the results for them will have the effects listed above.

And then in the Fireball Entry:

Fireball
[Traits, Actions, Range, Area]
A burst of fire explodes, dealing 6d6 base fire damage to creatures in the area, modified by the results of their Reflex saving throws.
Heightened (+1) The base damage increases by 2d6.

I added "base" there so there would be less ambiguity as to which damage is modified by what, but I might very well have introduced new ambiguity. In any case, that was only a mockup, to convey more properly what I was thinking of.
The point is that this is more in line with the way you present damage and critical/miss effects for other things; you don't explain critical hits as an attack dealing damage "depending on the target's AC", you first codify what a critical hit means and then say whether an attack does something else in a critical hit. Ideally, the book should explain what a saving throw means for spell damage and then specify which spells require a saving throw for their damage.

I would call it a Standard Area of Effect Saving Throw.

While you're at it, fix the order in which you present the saving throw results.

Critical Success
Success
Failure
Critical Failure

This is a more rational order, at least to me. I already know what result I'm after and once I lock onto the saving throw section my eyes can jump to the part of the paragraph relative to the amount of success that was determined.

With the current approach, I nearly always jump to the middle looking for success or failure and then have to scan elsewhere if it was a success. Your current order is...

More Common
Less Common
More Common
Less Common

Yeah, they gave a reason why they settled on the current order, after trying out all the others, mentioned.

This whole thing highlights some of the problems I saw coming down the pike with the 4-Tiers of success system (can also be a bit of a time-sink). Not sure if resting an entire d20 system on criticals/fumbles, is the right avenue.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I strongly prefer the Success, Critical Success, Failure, Critical Failure order. Since it lets the critical version assume what happened in the basic version.

We could make it clearer by having the critical success and failure entries being indented slightly, however.

So you could have:

Success you throw a birthday party with cake
-Critical Success there is also ice cream and clowns.
Failure the cake is inedible and everyone is in a bad mood.
-Critical Failure there are also evil clowns.

I know that referring to the line above is the rationale, but I don't think it works.

When I get a dice result, I look up that particular result. I don't read all the results from top to bottom.

With the example above:

I roll my dice. I get a Critical Success (yay!). I scan the page for the text "Critical Success" and read "there is also ice cream and clowns". "Also"? That does not make any sense. Oh, it must refer to the line above... which I did not read, because I was looking for "Critical Success". I try to find the same spot again on the page, look at the line above, and read "You throw a birthday party with cake". Now I can finally make a complete sentence out of the two lines.

After decades of reading mathematical papers, boardgame rules, and government regulations, I mastered the art of taking mental notes. When I see a definition, I record it in my mind and keep alert that the word no longer means what it usually means in English.

This is an acquired skill. Most people don't do that. Nevertheless, the Pathfinder Playtest Rulebook is written for people with mental note-taking skill. And using that skill can be mentally fatiguing, so we take shortcuts to reduce the effort.

Mats Öhrman's reading style is more typical. He skims for the important information. That style greatly reduces the mental load. Even I skim when I think the text is a preamble or flavor.

Look at the description of fireball. "Fireball" - name of spell. "Spell 3" - means 3rd-level spell. Box containing traits Evocation and Fire - traits are not immediately important unless it says Attack or Press or Open. Casting - count the icons, takes two actions. One says somatic, so it provokes attacks of opportunity. Range and Area - the spell is aimed at a distant point and spreads across a circle with radius 20 feet, which is 4 squares, and center that aiming point. Etc. The description has to be unpacked, but usually, as with traits, we can put off the mental effort until we need that particular information. The boldface header words are markers that guide us around the information so that we can unpack it as we need it.

A Saving Throw line lets us readers skip the details of the saving throw and its effects until we need to read it. Putting "Reflex save" into the text points out that we will have to read the list of save results and explain them to the target of the spell. Putting "basic Reflex save" into the text means that we have to pull "basic" out of our mental notes (or the index of the rulebook) to explain it to the target of the spell. The latter is more tiring.

(Sigh, my Chronic Fatigue Syndrome flared up today, so I measure everything in how tiring it is.)

I do like the idea, but I don't like the "depending on their basic reflex saves" phrase because it implies it's a property of the save or that there's a different way to do saves for other spells, rather than being a property or effect of the spell.

Yes, that is another good point about the mental load of jargon. "Basic" does sound like it modifies how the Reflex save is rolled, rather than explaining how the results of the spell are affected by the Reflex save. Only having memorized what "basic" means tells us otherwise.

My only problem with using something like basic saving throw is for the people who are converting from PF1 and would assume that basic saving throw works the same as PF1 and not bother going to look up what that means. So in that case I would like something more descriptive like the S,CS,F,CF setup or something that shows it is different than what PF1 is.

I have been playing D&D or D&D related systems for so long I tell people when they ask me a rules question that the answer will be correct, the version of the rules will be random. Anything that makes it plainly clear to me it is different than PF1 or even 3.5 is a plus in my book.

--Chris

For as much as it would clean up and shorten various entries, I think it is a good idea. Maybe call it a "Standard" saving throw, instead of "Basic". But either way, make sure Standard or Basic is capitalized.

Basic saving throw implies that there are other ways to roll a save, which is not true. This is just about the consequences of a (perfectly ordinary) save.

If you‘re going to introduce another technical term (and you already have tons of them; some parts read like a math theorem), apply it to the damage instead:

...creatures take 6d6 fire damage, graded by their Reflex save.

Listing the different levels of success (not just in spells, but in skills particularly) feels like it's taking something away from my agency as a GM. That's obviously not the intention, but as the GM I want a critical success to adapt to the story we're playing at the table. Yes, the mechanics must be standardized, but the descriptions of successes and failures should offer inspiration to the GM, with mechanically appropriate suggested outcomes rather than hard and fast results.

Maybe when I've got a better grip of the rules it'll be easier to interpret mechanics into storytelling, but I'm glad for the simplification.

Reposting this excerpt from the other thread:

Please don't waste time playing with the spell formatting while there are still broken core systems to be addressed.

However since we're already on the topic, I think the proposed format is terrible because it makes the effects of a huge number of spells even less clear, and demands we memorize or reference yet another rule in order to actually use our spells.

I didn't mind the current spell format much, besides the order results are presented in. It absolutely should be in order of Critical Success, Success, Failure, Critical Failure. Because it reads more easily, and because 'steps' or 'degrees of success' don't make as much sense when you present them out of order.

I've been pretty supportive of the keyword-driven language, but this feels like it would cause confusion. I can run it by my group tonight.

Suggestion: Can you hyperlink all of the keywords in the PDF to their explanation? Doesn't help the book people too much, but I feel like we are moving towards a digital-first layout anyway.

Such a huge space saving has to be worth it.

As a compromise, perhaps the reflex save influence on damage could be abbreviate to fit on one line, something like:

Damage 6d6. Save: Reflex, damage effect: x0, x1/2, x1, +2d6.

It's a great idea.

Please don't waste time-

Please continue to look over all aspects of the Playtest. The mechanical, the formatting, and the presentation ^w^

I agree with the people that say that if you do end up using it, the descriptor should be something that stands out more than the word 'basic'. Also, for it to work for newer players, I'm assuming that you will spell out the nomenclature very clearly in an appropriate location. This would not be something you stuff in a sidebar in some random place in the spell section.
As long as you do this, it should work out fine.

I don't want to go and refer to ANOTHER table on another page in order to find out what happened. I'd rather see what happens on the spell's entry.

But you've already memorized it:

Double damage > full damage > half damage > no damage

I'm fine with the order:
Success
Critical Success
Failure
Critical Failure

I think the devs said before it has to do more with what's more common, not "best-to-worst". Could be just we need to get used to it.
Even:
Success
Failure
Critical Success
Critical Failure

makes some sense using that understanding.

I personally don't like the short-forming that I've seen in a lot of stat block examples above, where you're just using S, CS, F, CF

These short forms are a bit too short maybe.
Also you have to remember that a lot of spells have full sentences to describe the different effects. It's not just "half damage", "no damage" etc.
I think for the "non standard" saves, 1 per line will look better.

Look at Dominate for example, these save outcomes would look terrible without newlines, using just S/CS/F/CF

The phrasing needs to change but the idea is sound. Explanation of the common saving scheme needs to be put in an obvious place.

Maybe call it a Typical Saving Throw (Reflex).

And then have a section called Typical Saving Throw in the Playing the Game Section or something.

Also I'll agree that the ordering

S
CS
F
CF

hurts my brain hard. I'd prefer

CS
S
F
CF

or
S
F
CS
CF

I liked the suggestion to bring back the Saving Throw entry in spell blocks. It works out better than trying to make basic Reflex save sound natural.

Save: Reflex (basic)

After decades of reading mathematical papers, boardgame rules, and government regulations, I mastered the art of taking mental notes. When I see a definition, I record it in my mind and keep alert that the word no longer means what it usually means in English.

This is an acquired skill. Most people don't do that. Nevertheless, the Pathfinder Playtest Rulebook is written for people with mental note-taking skill. And using that skill can be mentally fatiguing, so we take shortcuts to reduce the effort.

After a career in software engineering I was pretty much broken of doing that. Sure, we'd collapse something like "Standard Area of Effect Saving Throws" into a function so that we didn't need the code in a bunch of places. That's great for code efficiency and computers can handle it, no problem.

The trouble was humans couldn't keep up. Stacked simplicity is complexity. When your app's code has 1,000 functions, you can't remember them all.

So, while this proposal could be really good for saving them space, and even work well with the humans, if the pattern continues it will eventually break the humans.

So long as the term is clearly defined and linked in the index (perhaps something like: (Table XY: Basic Saving throws), this is a welcome change.

If you had three or four common outcomes for saves, you could differentiate them as Basic A, Basic B, Basic C... etc.

note: this would be excellent material for the GM screen.

Absolutely this, but I agree with others above that it should be Standard instead of Basic

What do you think of "default" saving throw?

As in, unless specified otherwise, a default saving throw's results work like... blah blah blah. Standard is certainly better than basic, but I think default is just a hair more precise.

I like the idea of having a shorthand for damage spell saves. I would call them damage saving throws.

Other people brought up valid referencing concerns. I would include a reminder line of some kind (it still reduces the line count).

I like the idea of having a shorthand for damage spell saves. I would call them damage saving throws.

Other people brought up valid referencing concerns. I would include a reminder line of some kind (it still reduces the line count).

....damage saving throws (pg.123, CRB).

^ This would be perfect.

Frankly, I cannot believe that the PF devs are thinking of adding more reserved game terms to their already-unwieldy system to save, what, a little over a hundred lines?

This does not really help matters. I do agree with Mathmuse's points, though, and think that his implementation would help.

For those who don't like 'basic' or 'standard' applying to saves, what about 'Reflex save with standard result levels?

I mean, I don't like this idea, but if you're going to do it, do it right.

What Mathmuse said about mental fatigue... I think a big problem with PF2 is that it *was* written by RPG experts, and it feels like it wasn't double-checked against the layman. I know Mark, and he's absolutely brilliant, but the way he understands things is not the way the average person does.

All this aside, a simplified line such as
Graded Damage Save: 0x, 1/2x, 1x, 2x
would be fine in my book. It should be pretty obvious to ayone reading it what this means (assuming they're familiar with the 4 degrees of success), and you could state earlier what this meant just to make sure that was also included.

Note, I'm not tied to the word "Graded", but let's not add any additional keywords here, pretty please?

The results look clean and clear.

FEAR Spell 1
Emotion, Enchantment, Fear, Mental
Casting [[A]] Somatic Casting, [[A]] Verbal Casting
Range 30 feet; Targets one creature
Duration by frightened magnitude
Saving Throw Will (S frightened 1 CS unaffected F frightened 2 CF frightened 3 and fleeing for 1 round)
You plant fear in the target. It becomes frightened and possibly fleeing with magnitude based on its Will save.

FIREBALL Spell 3
Evocation, Fire
Casting [[A]] Somatic Casting, [[A]] Verbal Casting
Range 500 feet; Area 20-foot burst
Saving Throw Reflex (S half damage CS unaffected F full damage CF double damage)
A burst of fire explodes, dealing 6d6 fire damage. Creatures in the area take a multiple of that damage based on their Reflex saves.
Heightened (+1) The damage increases by 2d6.

The keyword "basic" is not necessary and would only add to the jargon to memorize.

YES YES YES!!! Best idea yet; simple, easy to read, and keeps the word count minimized. All you need is a simple paragraph at the beginning of the Spells section to identify the abbreviations (S, CS, F CF)

I guess I don't honestly care - this is so at the end of 'what is wrong with the layout' list (my personal one anyway) that I don't see what difference it would make.

Assuming that the entire book doesn't drastically change it's layout - the new system will do one thing for me - make me abandon physical books. Out of 5 people at the table - all with books - the only way we could find information during our playtest sessions was using the PDF and search. Frankly what I always took as an advantage of physical books (the ability to see two sections at the same time with a thumb or other marker and flip quickly) became a hindrance when I had to keep 3 or more sections of the book handy to parse a single ability - what with keywords, powers, and class text all in different sections of the book, and some of those referencing 'standard terminology' at the end of the book on top of that.

As others have said, a pdf of the rulebook should make extensive use of hyperlinks both between areas of the book and from the ToC and index to the relevant page. And give powers their own description section. Also agree with drakkonflye regarding mathmuse's contstruction of spell descriptions. Although I might word the description of the effect of the fear spell a bit differently: "You plant fear in the target. It becomes frightened (magnitude based on its Will save) and may flee."

I like the change, though in the FINAL core rules releases I'd probably add a little more flavor text to the spell.

Hey, while Im not very active in these discussions, I would like to hear some feedback at how I described Paizo's developers efforts at balancing martials vs casters, if anyone has the time to read it:

Does Pathfinder 2e Playtest fix the “linear fighters, quadratic wizards” problem?

If possible, a blog post at how those issues, in particular, were tackled by the team would be really helpful. Thanks.

Colette Brunel already opened the issue with The return of linear martials and quadratic casters, and how to address it. I tried to build a foundation for analyzing the power levels with The Mind-Boggling Math of Exponential Leveling, but I need more experience with playing Pathfinder 2nd Edition before I can reach an accurate conclusion.

The spellcasters' advantage in Pathfinder 1st Edition is that (1) some spells, such as Teleport, are powerful solutions to many difficulties, (2) other spells, such as Charm Person, substitute for skills and upstage the high-skill characters, (3) the martial character's strength of long endurance is moot when the party decides on a 15-minute working day, and (4) the martial classes' high-level abilities are weak.

Pathfinder 2nd Edition has nerfed many spells, but the changes don't seem related to why the spells were considered disruptive. For example, Prestidigitation, used in lighthearted roleplaying such as a wizard adding flavor to bland soup, lost half of its little tricks. It can still affect color and flavor. Spider Climb no longer lets the climber climb on ceilings. Teleport gained a 10-minute casting time, making it useless for its non-abusive use of emergency escapes, and a 1% error in arrival location, nerfing the scry and fry tactic of teleporting to an enemy's bedroom when he is unprepared for battle. Teleport still eliminates shipboard and caravan adventures because teleporting is still faster than mundane travel. Mending, which had a 10-minute casting time in PF1 because it was a cantrip, became a 1st-level spell with a 1-hour casting time in PF2. I can understand the 1st-level part, since damaged shields will be very common in Pathfinder 2nd Edition, but the 1-hour casting time makes it irrelevant compared to the untrained Craft action Repair, which also takes 1 hour. Magic is supposed to be marvelous in exchange for being limited.

Spells that substituted for skills give conditional bonuses in Pathfinder 2nd Edition instead. A wizard with a Knock spell can still unlock a door better than the rogue, but the best solution is to use Knock to aid the rogue. Charm, no longer Charm Person, gives a +4 circumstance bonus to the spellcaster and all allies. That keeps skills relevant.

As for the 15-minute workday, some people in this forum say that adventuring is down to a 10-minute workday because more damage is dealt and has fewer ways to heal.

The martial classes' high-level abilities are still weak in Pathfinder 2nd Edition.

Hugely approve of this, for all sorts of reasons - but one minor suggestion: change it to "A burst of fire explodes, dealing 6d6 fire damage to creatures in the area, depending on their basic Reflex saves saving throw (Reflex)"

If you're going to call it a 'basic saving throw' then you should call it a 'basic saving throw'.

YES!

I like the simplified format.

Lots of good feedback folks, thanks. This sort of change might seem like an extra thing to learn, but it can also be seen as about 100 things you don't have to learn. It also can be played with in some useful ways... (Take 6d6 cold damage with a Standard/Basic Reflex save to reduce the damage. On a critical failure, you are also slowed for 1 round). I am not sure that is better, but it is something we are playing around with (as we are with the term itself).

And this sort of thing is a big deal because it saves us somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 pages of space, which is a lot more spells or flavor we can add to the chapter.

Thats all for now.. carry on.

And this sort of thing is a big deal because it saves us somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 pages of space, which is a lot more spells or flavor we can add to the chapter.

You only need to have the Spells per day chart one time and just have all the classes reference the one chart.

This will also help eliminate any confusion as to thinking the charts are different.

Also I really really really implore you to remove flavor text from mechanical text. Put flavor at the end after all of the mechanical text. Fireball is short on flavor text thankfully, but my players and I pretty much have to train ourselves to ignore the first one or two sentences of every description in the book because it's not useful information.

I agree with this, except I'd prefer the description to come first, in italics.

While on the subject of saving space, can the text "You can use
XXX while Burrowing, Climbing, Flying, or Swimming instead of Striding if you have the corresponding movement type." be replaced with a rule to this effect, and a note about this in few effects where this does NOT apply?

Preferably put this in the description of the Stride action, making it an action with sub-variants for the different movement modes.

As for the 15-minute workday, some people in this forum say that adventuring is down to a 10-minute workday because more damage is dealt and has fewer ways to heal.

Closer to 5 if you don't bring a cleric or 2. Have an encounter, use all your healing, crawl home dragging your dead/KO'd party members to rest up for a few days.

Does it really take that much space? If you didn't put a new line after each condition, and just spelled it out, it would look like:

Fireball ARCANE, PRIMAL 3
Evocation, Fire
Casting:◆⃟ Somatic, ◆⃟ Verbal
Range: 500'; Area: 20' burst
Saving throw: Reflex
A burst of flame emanates from your hand, exploding in a flavourful manner
Enemies in the area take 6d6 damage, or twice that on a critical failure. A successful save halves the damage, while a critical success negates it.
Heightened (+1): The damage increases by 2d6.

(Who here didn't realise Fireball was on the Primal list?)

Lots of good feedback folks, thanks. This sort of change might seem like an extra thing to learn, but it can also be seen as about 100 things you don't have to learn.

It's less that it's one extra thing to learn, and more that it's one extra out of 100 new things to learn.

Also if you're going to stick with "basic" saves (please don't and consider the CS/S/F/CF notation instead), would it be too much to ask that key words get bolded or italicized or something to make them stand out more? Staring too long at word soup is going to make it much more difficult to pick out important rules text from the rest of the wording.

Italics or bold for keywords would be helpful; I believe that the CS/S/F/CF format works well; and our adventuring day was less than 3 rounds in Doomsday playtest part 1, for the most part.

Such a huge space saving has to be worth it.

It doesn't 'have to be' worth it.

There is a big clarity vs. 'space saving' issue afoot, and it looks like clarity is losing badly, especially if we're shrinking down to single letters masquerading as abbreviations and no punctuation to separate clauses, or worse, randomly ordered multipliers.

I dont think I ever suggested shirking down single letters or abbreviations. I appreciate the thoughts here folks, but that does not work for us.

While on the subject of saving space, can the text "You can use

XXX while Burrowing, Climbing, Flying, or Swimming instead of Striding if you have the corresponding movement type." be replaced with a rule to this effect, and a note about this in few effects where this does NOT apply?

Preferably put this in the description of the Stride action, making it an action with sub-variants for the different movement modes.

Why don't we call it a "Move" action?