The Prestige

Monday, October 29, 2018

As we draw ever closer to the end of the playtest, there are still a number of questions we need to ask you about the way the game works and how that's conveyed to you in the book. Today, we're launching a pair of surveys that do just that, one focusing on presentation and another focusing on magic.

Presentation

First up, we have a survey looking at the presentation of the book. This survey looks at our use of symbols, color, and language to convey game rules to you. We tried some experimental things with the Pathfinder Playtest Rulebook, and want to know what you think of these tests. Your answers will help us determine what the final version of the game actually looks like. When you're ready to take this survey, follow the link below.

Presentation Survey

Spells and Magic

Next up, we've opened up a survey to look at how spells and magic items work in the game. This isn't the first time we've asked about these topics, but previously, it's always been in the context of other surveys with other goals. This time, we want to know specifically what you think about how magic works in the Pathfinder Playtest.

One of our primary goals in designing the playtest rules was to ensure that spells and magic items are still an integral part of the game, but also to make sure characters who don't rely heavily on such abilities aren't overshadowed. We did this in a variety of ways, but there are some places where it seems clear that the restrictions may have taken away a bit too much from magic and its role in the game. This survey looks at ways that we might add some sizzle back into your lightning bolt and some charm into your, well, charm.

In particular, there are three levers we can manipulate to add power and versatility to magic that we want you to think about when taking this survey:

  1. Number of spells per day.
  2. Chance that a spell will succeed (or that foes will fail saving throws).
  3. Power of individual spells.

Once you've given those some thought, you can find the survey at the link below.

Magic Survey

Looking Forward

Finally, I want to take a moment to talk about where we're at right now in the playtest and where we're heading in the future. We've gotten a lot of data about the game, and much of it has been synthesized into a very large list of tasks and things that we need to do to the game before it goes to the printer next year. In the coming months, the playtest will draw to a close, and there will be no additional public updates to the rules while we focus on making changes to the game.

That said, we're not going to leave you without an idea of where things are going. Next week, we'll be dropping an absolutely huge Update 1.6, which adds or adjusts aspects of every class in the game! This ranges from a small alteration in stances that affects the fighter to major changes for the alchemist and paladin. We think you'll see a lot of your concerns addressed in some of these changes, and the best part is, these are just a fraction of what we're doing behind the scenes to make the game even better!

As always, I want to thank each and every one of you for participating in this playtest. The game is really shaping up to be something great, and you helped make that happen!

Jason Bulmahn
Director of Game Design

Join the Pathfinder Playtest designers every Friday throughout the playtest on our Twitch Channel to hear all about the process and chat directly with the team.

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Grand Lodge

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I feel like any great divergence in the lists is a bad place to squint right now, something to expand on with each supplement instead.


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One thing the magic survey never touched on was Heightening. The way it's done right now is awful. There's no good reason why it should be limited as it is now. Just let all casters spontaneously heighten their spells and magic will become a lot more fun and interesting.

I'd also like to see prepare-per-cast disappear. Just steal 5e's magic system. It's super clean and works perfectly.


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Rob Godfrey wrote:
MidsouthGuy wrote:
I'm really hoping those "major changes" for the Paladin don't include non-Lawful Good Paladins.
I really hope they do. The idea of the alignment that scrapes into good on a technicality should be blessed is sickening, tyranny is tyranny, no matter if its for your own good or not.

Yeah, but then it can get a bit - everything means anything, so it all means nothing.


Tectorman wrote:
I'm really hoping those "major changes" for the Paladin DO include non-Lawful Good Paladins, if not a "Fury Totem" equivalent to nix the necessity of a Code of Conduct entirely.

Honestly I'm the opposite. I really want to stay with Pathfinder 2, but I have to be true to my beliefs on that one. That is really make or break for me. We'll find out in 5 days I guess.

I'll be sick to my stomach for the entire coming week.


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ClanPsi wrote:

One thing the magic survey never touched on was Heightening. The way it's done right now is awful. There's no good reason why it should be limited as it is now. Just let all casters spontaneously heighten their spells and magic will become a lot more fun and interesting.

I'd also like to see prepare-per-cast disappear. Just steal 5e's magic system. It's super clean and works perfectly.

There was a question on heightening, but in relation to power scaling, to which I answered ‘neither agree nor disagree’ and then wrote a bit about it in the open comments.

By 5e’s system you mean Arcanist? ...not a fan myself but it’s a lot simpler.


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ChibiNyan wrote:
Dasrak wrote:
PossibleCabbage wrote:
Indeed, the high level rogue feats that let you effectively walk through walls or mind blank or turn invisible are some of my favorite feats in the game and are indicative of why the rogue keeps up in narrative power late.

Really, something like this would be the ideal:

The Rogue can walk right through the wall
The Barbarian can smash clean through the wall with his raging might
The Sorcerer can dimension door to teleport past the walls
The Druid can use stone shape to create a passage through the walls

Each of these characters has different means of solving the problem with different pros and cons. The rogue's solution has the flaw that he can't take his party member's with him, the druid's solution requires the anticipation that he'd need the spell (which comes with opportunity costs), the sorcerer would need multiple castings of ddoor to ferry the party across (and even that presumes the PF2 ddoor nerf is reversed) which severely taxes his spellcasting resources, and the barbarian's solution will alert the entire dungeon to their presence.

Yep, agreed! You can't be afraid of "awesome" abilities if you want characters to be fun and independent of the Wizard. Why shouldn't a mid level Barbarian be able to smash a 1-ft thick stone wall? Or why can't anyone seem to jump more than 10ft high? Some abilities in this game are really interesting, but a lot of the skill feats feel as conservative as spells ended up being. The background ones specially are really lame! That one that let's you smuggle tiny items is really weak for example, but the concept of it could let players really excercise their imagination if it was less restrictive.

I really don't want to see every class have those kinds of abilities. Mundane and magical capabilities should not be equitable in my opinion. Magic should be more powerful, demonstrably, than legendary mundane skills.

Otherwise, magic becomes pointless.


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HWalsh wrote:

I really don't want to see every class have those kinds of abilities. Mundane and magical capabilities should not be equitable in my opinion. Magic should be more powerful, demonstrably, than legendary mundane skills.

Otherwise, magic becomes pointless.

I guess the issue is that I see a difference between "Magic" and "Spells". Like the Monk can treat his fists like adamantine for purposes of punching; the Barbarian can grow horns, fly, or breathe fire; the rogue can turn invisible or phase through walls; etc. All of these classes are already magical, they just don't do it via *spells*.


PossibleCabbage wrote:
HWalsh wrote:

I really don't want to see every class have those kinds of abilities. Mundane and magical capabilities should not be equitable in my opinion. Magic should be more powerful, demonstrably, than legendary mundane skills.

Otherwise, magic becomes pointless.

I guess the issue is that I see a difference between "Magic" and "Spells". Like the Monk can treat his fists like adamantine for purposes of punching; the Barbarian can grow horns, fly, or breathe fire; the rogue can turn invisible or phase through walls; etc. All of these classes are already magical, they just don't do it via *spells*.

The Rogue doesn't "phase", they just find some crack or something to squeeze through; the Rogue it not magical.


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Rogue abilities are completely clear:

Quote:

You become invisible

...
You move directly through the wall or floor from one side to the other.
...
you can move across water, air, and solid surfaces that can hold only limited weight as if they were normal ground.
...
etc.

All of these are not mundane abilities and the book makes no effort to give them plausible "it's not magic, honest" justifications. Every PC in Pathfinder is and has always been magical (because the world itself is) it's just that many of them do not have spells.


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David Silver - Ponyfinder wrote:
I feel like any great divergence in the lists is a bad place to squint right now, something to expand on with each supplement instead.

I think there are some simple things that could be done now that would establish a strong foundation for future supplements. Currently, the spell lists - particularly Arcane & Occult - feel very muddled. Building on that will only increase the dissonance.

Since I talk about healing a lot I'll share my preferred differentiation there.

Divine - Keep Heal as is.
Occult - Revise Soothe to make it more distinct, perhaps adding Temp HP in addition to Healing?
Primal - Remove Heal from the spell list. Replace with a unique thematic spell, perhaps one that grants fast healing?

Liberty's Edge

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Rob Godfrey wrote:
MidsouthGuy wrote:
I'm really hoping those "major changes" for the Paladin don't include non-Lawful Good Paladins.
I really hope they do. The idea of the alignment that scrapes into good on a technicality should be blessed is sickening, tyranny is tyranny, no matter if its for your own good or not.

Lawful Good does not scrape into Good on a technicality. It's not the 'best Good' and not solely deserving of Paladins IMO, but it's certainly not the 'worst Good' either.

As a firm libertarian in real life, I tend to agree that 'for your own good' strictures are inappropriate and bad...but that's a very Chaotic perspective to take in Pathfinder terms. Forcing people to do things against their will in Pathfinder is usually Evil (slavery, for example, is explicitly so), but the prizing of freedom of action above almost anything else, while my real world attitude, is not necessary to be Good in Pathfinder's universe.

And heck, even by my real world beliefs, such things are only bad if you're forced to live in such a society against your will. The military takes a lot of personal freedoms away when you join 'for the greater good' while they serve, but that's only morally problematic if people are forced to join. Willingly giving up your own personal freedoms is morally fine, it's when you start taking those of anyone else that problems arise. Now, some LG societies might well go past that line into forcing others to do things, but not all that far past or they stop being Good (see above regarding slavery).

Besides which, not all Lawful Good people or societies do anything of the sort. It's possible to do certain things for people's own good that those people would object to within the framework of LG, but it's by no means a necessary precondition for the Alignment. Someone could easily be LG and find the very notion of doing so abhorrent. Being Lawful can represent a lot of other things as well, such as personal honor or their devotion to their society's traditions just as easily as anything to do with the more problematic aspects of the Lawful part of their Alignment.


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Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
PossibleCabbage wrote:
Every PC in Pathfinder is and has always been magical (because the world itself is) it's just that many of them do not have spells.

I'd like to take the opportunity to expand on this, because I know it can ruffle some feathers.

"Every PC in Pathfinder is magical" is another way of saying "Every PC is extraordinary from a real world viewpoint"

A fighter being able to meaningfully harm an animated mountain with a sword doesn't require a spell, but it's quite clearly not a mundane feat.

Given that magic exists in the setting, it's easiest to say it's some kind of suffusing background magic that allows these feats and call it a day. You could say that, actually, it's an inherent property of Pathfinder PCs to grow strength and sturdiness far beyond that of Earth Realism, but you'll quickly find that there's no meaningful distinction between that and magic.

You can play a character who doesn't like or trust magic and certainly doesn't cast spells, but they're also a character who grew up on a planet that acts as a cage for an apocalypse god.

It's not a stretch for me that the barbarian can grow superhuman muscles that let him choke out a tarrasque and the rogue developed superhuman skills that lets him defy physics in other ways. You don't have to call it magic, but from day 1 everyone has started on a path that takes them to truly incomprehensible from an earth perspective heights of ability.


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Pathfinder PF Special Edition Subscriber
The Once and Future Kai wrote:
gwynfrid wrote:
... And my answer would be, not very much. This is because the lists have too much overlap, in my opinion.
Agreed. As noted in my thread on the subject, I find Occult particularly muddled thematically.

Well, I thought Arcane was the most egregious case, but Occult has just 14 unique spells, not that much better.

When the concept of the 4 essences was described in the blog I thought it was really cool, but the outcome feels like there is room for improvement. It's possible that the restricted size of the playtest forced the devs to put more overlap than what's in store in the final version, at least, that's my hope.

Thematically, Primal is pretty well identified: Forces of nature, including animals, plants, and elements. The concept was taken to its logical conclusion, where shape-changing and energy blasting spells are now Primal spells. This makes sense but takes away a lot of uniqueness from Arcane.

Divine is also pretty clear: Blessings and revelations from the gods, just like PF1. No issue with that, it still works well.

Arcane's traditional theme has always been a lot more muddled: Pretty much anything was fair game for inclusion, except healing spells. In PF2, this has been split into 2 lists, Arcane and Occult. Occult gets enchantment, illusion, necromancy, teleportation, summoning, and force spells: A pretty good representation of the theme, I think. Arcane gets, well... The rest, but it doesn't lose any of the classic staples of the old wizard/sorcerer's list. As a result, the distinction between Arcane and Occult is not very clear. Occult has more thematic strength, but most of it is duplicated in other lists. Arcane's main identity seems to be as a successor of the D&D wizard, but it really suffers from the duplication with either Occult or Primal.


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WatersLethe wrote:
PossibleCabbage wrote:
Every PC in Pathfinder is and has always been magical (because the world itself is) it's just that many of them do not have spells.

I'd like to take the opportunity to expand on this, because I know it can ruffle some feathers.

"Every PC in Pathfinder is magical" is another way of saying "Every PC is extraordinary from a real world viewpoint"

A fighter being able to meaningfully harm an animated mountain with a sword doesn't require a spell, but it's quite clearly not a mundane feat.

Given that magic exists in the setting, it's easiest to say it's some kind of suffusing background magic that allows these feats and call it a day. You could say that, actually, it's an inherent property of Pathfinder PCs to grow strength and sturdiness far beyond that of Earth Realism, but you'll quickly find that there's no meaningful distinction between that and magic.

You can play a character who doesn't like or trust magic and certainly doesn't cast spells, but they're also a character who grew up on a planet that acts as a cage for an apocalypse god.

It's not a stretch for me that the barbarian can grow superhuman muscles that let him choke out a tarrasque and the rogue developed superhuman skills that lets him defy physics in other ways. You don't have to call it magic, but from day 1 everyone has started on a path that takes them to truly incomprehensible from an earth perspective heights of ability.

One thing that was really nice to see as a GM was my player's reaction when he wondered out loud "wait. Is the barbarian basically a muscle wizard?"


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gwynfrid wrote:
Arcane's traditional theme has always been a lot more muddled: Pretty much anything was fair game for inclusion, except healing spells. In PF2, this has been split into 2 lists, Arcane and Occult. Occult gets enchantment, illusion, necromancy, teleportation, summoning, and force spells: A pretty good representation of the theme, I think. Arcane gets, well... The rest, but it doesn't lose any of the classic staples of the old wizard/sorcerer's list. As a result, the distinction between Arcane and Occult is not very clear. Occult has more thematic strength, but most of it is duplicated in other lists. Arcane's main identity seems to be as a successor of the D&D wizard, but it really suffers from the duplication with either Occult or Primal.

I think I finally got a handle on roleplaying a stylistic difference between arcane and occult during In Pale Mountain's Shadow. The elemental scholar Tular Seft had begun as an arcane master with elemental magics but switched to Dark Tapestry later, which I treated as occult.

I also toyed with the philosophy of occult magic in yesterday's thread, Bard Skills: Performance and Occultism.

Arcane is the magic that benefits from intellectual analysis. The more a wizard studies it, the better he becomes at arcane magic. Scholars debate theory and practitioners refine their spells with scientific analysis.

Occult is the magic that is best glanced at indirectly. Some of it is Dark Tapestry material that will drive the user insane if he delves too deeply. Other parts were pieced together from fragments of forgotten information and the fragments were enough to cast the spell. Or the spell is performed by rote recitation and trying to think about its meaning would merely be a distraction.

Alas, neither of these stylistic differences say which spells should be arcane and which spells should be occult.


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HWalsh wrote:
Tectorman wrote:

Your fictional Paladin character can recognize that enforced goodness sullies the very good being enforced. How do you not see how that same enforcement sullies the Paladin itself? How does "what the Paladin *is* in-universe" outweigh that sullying?

It wasn't that I was ignoring your point; it was that your point doesn't justify itself and you never justified it, either. It fundamentally tears itself down before I even get involved. So, yeah, you're right in that I don't respect that so-called reasoning, but in thread after thread, you never provide a reason to respect it, by your own criterion.

It damages the setting in my opinion and damages my enjoyment of the game.

That is all you need to know and accept.

Please do not speak to me on this topic again. Thank you.

HWalsh wrote:
Tectorman wrote:
I'm really hoping those "major changes" for the Paladin DO include non-Lawful Good Paladins, if not a "Fury Totem" equivalent to nix the necessity of a Code of Conduct entirely.

Honestly I'm the opposite. I really want to stay with Pathfinder 2, but I have to be true to my beliefs on that one. That is really make or break for me. We'll find out in 5 days I guess.

I'll be sick to my stomach for the entire coming week.

You asked me to not speak to you on the topic of Paladins again. I didn't. I will now ask you to extend the same courtesy (that "reciprocity" thing that's really the whole crux of why the Paladin needs to be opened up, so of course I'm not expecting my request to be honored).


If "non-magical class power < magical class power" is to be definite, the former must cost less XP to level up than the latter. It's a matter of the raw economical value of XP; what's the point of the former if you paid the exact same price to get a completely inferior ability?

Since the 3.X system's old "class stacking multiclassing" seems to have been removed, different XP level-up per class seems to be viable once again (which I do not like, by the way; this time, it disrupts the equal value of character levels, and going on a circular logic of rants with the above idea).


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Yeah, the idea that "magic needs to be more powerful than the mundane" only doesn't create an imbalance if everyone has magic.

In Exalted, for example, magic completely trivializes the mundane, but the PCs are all paragons of magic.

If there is unequal access to magic, and magic is more powerful than the mundane, then classes with access to magic are strictly better than those without, and that's bad for the system.

Personally, I prefer the "everyone has access to magic" approach. I love firebreathing barbarians and rogues that walk through walls - I want to see more of that.


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HWalsh wrote:

I really don't want to see every class have those kinds of abilities. Mundane and magical capabilities should not be equitable in my opinion. Magic should be more powerful, demonstrably, than legendary mundane skills.

Otherwise, magic becomes pointless.

From a thematic perspective everyone is a bit magical at the higher levels, to the extent that they perform superhuman deeds. The barbarian is every much the peer of a wizard of his level, and that means he needs powers and abilities that match the scope of what the wizard can do.

From a game-balance perspective, the martials will have a limited selection of such abilities - mostly gated by skill feats. Casters (especially prepared casters) get a far broader selection of spells to cover a wider range of options. While casters must expend daily resources to cast their spells, they do not need to expend much in terms of their character build. Learning dimension door is a trivial matter for a 13th level wizard, so even if he's limited in how often he can cast it he still got that ability with much less investment.

I feel there's a lot of leeway to balance this.

Deadmanwalking wrote:
Lawful Good does not scrape into Good on a technicality. It's not the 'best Good' and not solely deserving of Paladins IMO, but it's certainly not the 'worst Good' either.

Lawful good characters feel that lawful good is the best good

Chaotic good characters feel that lawful good is the worst good
Neutral good characters feel that they're both missing the point

Even in a universe where alignments are an objective fact, how people in the universe perceive and understand them is still as subjective as ever.

Grand Lodge

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Bjørn Røyrvik wrote:

Loaded questions, no options to talk about many important changes to things (like the introduction of new forms of magic, adding 10th level spells, redistributing who gets what spells, etc. etc. etc.) outside of 'comments', and a general feel of the survey being kind of only asking half the important questions. and leaving out important options for replies.

I can't tell if they are trying to gloss over these things or just didn't think about it.

These things are addressed in other surveys, including the Class Survey.

Silver Crusade

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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Yeah, I think the surveys insofar covered virtually every area of tested mechanics and left enough space to put in any comments.


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MaxAstro wrote:
In Exalted, for example, magic completely trivializes the mundane, but the PCs are all paragons of magic.

One thing I really like about Exalted is how Charms and Spells are separate representations of the magical potential of your characters. For the former these are upgrades to skills (like skill feats structurally) that range from "you are better at this skill" to things like "you shoot one arrow at every target you see" or "you dodge out of the way of the attack by literally having never been in this scene to begin with" or "you can leap miles at a time." Now obviously that game has "gonzo" in it's DNA in way Pathfinder obviously does not. But some higher level feats in PF2 are literally the same effect as (capstone or mid-chain) charms in Exalted - you are so good at medicine you can restore severed limbs, you can survive in the void, you can run on air, you can scare people to death, etc.

So all I really want is consistency in the power levels of high level stuff. If we're giving some skills or some classes class feats that are super-impressive at the levels where people are legendary at things, let's make that uniform. Now obviously not everybody is going to want a game where people are jumping over mountains, but "lopping off the legendary tier/not playing above a certain level" is always an option- this is how a lot of people dealt with 9-level casters in PF1.


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Yeah, that's exactly my thought, too. I want Legendary skill feats to blow me away in the way that Catfall does, and I want high level class feats to do the same.

How does a character get so good at Athletics that they are completely incapable of hurting themselves falling, even accidentally? No one knows, no one tries to justify it, it just works because it's awesome and high level characters are awesome.

I want more of that.


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Vic Ferrari wrote:
ENHenry wrote:


Stu Venable from the Happy Jack's RPG Podcast has always said, "Always be listening in case your players have a better idea than you do." This applies both for things that complicate their lives, as well as things that add awesome details to the arising story....
I generally agree, but if there is too much of that, and things are only established through play, and the multiverse is in some sort of stasis until the PCs interact, that can damage campaign integrity, for me.

I would counter that, if the players are always having better ideas than their GM is, that the GM should probably do something about that. ;-)


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ENHenry wrote:
Vic Ferrari wrote:
ENHenry wrote:


Stu Venable from the Happy Jack's RPG Podcast has always said, "Always be listening in case your players have a better idea than you do." This applies both for things that complicate their lives, as well as things that add awesome details to the arising story....
I generally agree, but if there is too much of that, and things are only established through play, and the multiverse is in some sort of stasis until the PCs interact, that can damage campaign integrity, for me.

I would counter that, if the players are always having better ideas than their GM is, that the GM should probably do something about that. ;-)

I find that "well, if that is what you want" strikes an inordinate amount of fear into some of my players, with regards to their ideas. :/


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Players don't necessarily have better ideas than the GM, but they do reliably have *more* ideas than the GM (since you're generally outnumbered by the players, and they are generally more "in the moment" than the GM is.) So it's usually that the players thought of something you didn't, which you can quickly and easily adapt to be something you like better than whatever you had prepared.


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MaxAstro wrote:

Yeah, that's exactly my thought, too. I want Legendary skill feats to blow me away in the way that Catfall does, and I want high level class feats to do the same.

How does a character get so good at Athletics that they are completely incapable of hurting themselves falling, even accidentally? No one knows, no one tries to justify it, it just works because it's awesome and high level characters are awesome.

I want more of that.

EXACTLY! I can't understand why anybody would not want martial classes to do awesome stuff. It's like magic- users saying: "No! No! You can't have as much fun as me!" I play D&D/ Pathfinder to feel like my charcter can do something unimaginable from the viewpoint of our world- Fighting stone giants with a dagger, jumping 4 meters high, holding breath for half an hour while swimming upstream, turning a group of kobold into ashes by flick of a finger etc. etc. And I always felt that magical classes just have too much to say in... everything? It's great that they are making martials step up to similar level and I want more of this stuff!


Pathfinder LO Special Edition, Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, PF Special Edition Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Superscriber
gwynfrid wrote:
Divine is also pretty clear: Blessings and revelations from the gods, just like PF1. No issue with that, it still works well.

"As the mage Génin wrote:

He who names miracle magic, insults churches and gods, and he who attributes unto a spell divinity, insults its caster. Confusing magick and religion is both offensive and blasphemous."-- N. Robin Crossby, Tome Of The Shèk-Pvâr, 2004, Shèk-Pvâr 3.

A slightly different take, I think.

Liberty's Edge

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I think Martial abilities and Casters' spells should be different ways to reach results but still be on the same scale of powers.

And if you do not want out-of-this-world abilities, you just put a hard ceiling on power that equally affects both Martial abilities and Casters' spells.


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agreed there--some internal consistency should be enforced on both, to the same level.

if your spell can meteor-strike an entire city to ash, i can to cleave a mountain with my sword, etc. etc.


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Mathmuse wrote:
Mats Öhrman wrote:
Vidmaster7 wrote:

So maybe like turn a lot of utility spells into rituals using the skill tree's maybe?

Have rituals been touched at all in the playtest? Any groups found them useful in the scenarios, any surveys asked about them? Any discussions on the forum? Any playtesting at all?

Otherwise, if they are looking for something that can be cut to make room for stuff that are actually used...

(Not really fair to compare, but rituals in our 4E campaign were unused and a dead weight until my GM cut casting time *severely* and we got to a level where monetary costs were negligible.)

All rituals in the Playtest Rulebook take a day to cast, except for the one that takes three days, so they don't fit into the playtest adventures. Really, no downtime activities are being tested in Doomsday Dawn.

There should probably be shorter rituals that take hours instead of days. The idea that rituals are only downtime actions limits their possibility. And the fact that nothing about downtime was tested at all means there was no data about them at all.


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Doktor Weasel wrote:
Mathmuse wrote:
Mats Öhrman wrote:
Vidmaster7 wrote:

So maybe like turn a lot of utility spells into rituals using the skill tree's maybe?

Have rituals been touched at all in the playtest? Any groups found them useful in the scenarios, any surveys asked about them? Any discussions on the forum? Any playtesting at all?

Otherwise, if they are looking for something that can be cut to make room for stuff that are actually used...

(Not really fair to compare, but rituals in our 4E campaign were unused and a dead weight until my GM cut casting time *severely* and we got to a level where monetary costs were negligible.)

All rituals in the Playtest Rulebook take a day to cast, except for the one that takes three days, so they don't fit into the playtest adventures. Really, no downtime activities are being tested in Doomsday Dawn.
There should probably be shorter rituals that take hours instead of days. The idea that rituals are only downtime actions limits their possibility. And the fact that nothing about downtime was tested at all means there was no data about them at all.

i actually wouldn't mind some of the longer duration buffs to be good couple-hour ritual candidates, especially for some of the lower leveled ones like mage armor. it'd really take a bit of stress off deciding those precious three (or so) spells per level for the day.

Silver Crusade

The Raven Black wrote:

I think Martial abilities and Casters' spells should be different ways to reach results but still be on the same scale of powers.

And if you do not want out-of-this-world abilities, you just put a hard ceiling on power that equally affects both Martial abilities and Casters' spells.

I partly agree and partly strongly disagree.

I like the flavour of the world AND the mechanics to more or less be in sync with each other. I probably care more about that than Paizo does.

So, if IN WORLD fighters are meant to be non magical mundanes then I really don't want to see even Legendary fighters cleave through mountains. Even Legendary fighters should be limited to something vaguely realistic (say, Hong Kong Action adventure movie level of realism, or low powered super hero like the Arrow, or Xena/Hercules level of realistic).

But I have no problem at all if the world defines martials as basically being magical in nature so that they CAN transcend mortal levels and do the kinds of things that the Heroes did in mythology or that mid powered super heroes can do.

I thought Earthdawn was brilliant in its in world setup. ALL PC classes were magical adepts. Some just showed it in the way that they swung swords or thieved.

Its not so much about power as it is about shtick. A monk harnesses the power of Ki and so can do magical things. A fighter doesn't and can't.


Filown wrote:
MaxAstro wrote:

Yeah, that's exactly my thought, too. I want Legendary skill feats to blow me away in the way that Catfall does, and I want high level class feats to do the same.

How does a character get so good at Athletics that they are completely incapable of hurting themselves falling, even accidentally? No one knows, no one tries to justify it, it just works because it's awesome and high level characters are awesome.

I want more of that.

EXACTLY! I can't understand why anybody would not want martial classes to do awesome stuff. It's like magic- users saying: "No! No! You can't have as much fun as me!" I play D&D/ Pathfinder to feel like my charcter can do something unimaginable from the viewpoint of our world- Fighting stone giants with a dagger, jumping 4 meters high, holding breath for half an hour while swimming upstream, turning a group of kobold into ashes by flick of a finger etc. etc. And I always felt that magical classes just have too much to say in... everything? It's great that they are making martials step up to similar level and I want more of this stuff!

If I want a martial to swing their weapon around so fast that they take flight I'll play Mutants and Masterminds.

If I want a Fighter to unleash a wind blade from swinging their sword really hard I'll play Big Eyes Small Mouth.

If I want a Rogue that can phase through solid matter I'll play Exalted (or M&M, or BESM, or Nephilum)

I have plenty of games that the anime stuff gets into. I don't want it in Pathfinder.

I can't avoid it either if I don't like it because I do play PFS. It's bad enough that I'm planning to walk away if Paladins get a new alignment spectrum, I'm already going to have to deal with the most annoying race ever made available to players (Goblins, ugh) and now people are trying to turn this into Naruto.

Edit to add:
The ONLY exception I'd even remotely agree to is if these WERE actual magical abilities. Namely instead of being just uses of skill the feat allowed the character to gain an actual magical ability. Namely the Rogue is so good at Stealth they have somehow gotten in touch with the mystical element of the shadows and then said ability doesn't function in non-magical areas (like AM fields etc).


ENHenry wrote:
Vic Ferrari wrote:
ENHenry wrote:


Stu Venable from the Happy Jack's RPG Podcast has always said, "Always be listening in case your players have a better idea than you do." This applies both for things that complicate their lives, as well as things that add awesome details to the arising story....
I generally agree, but if there is too much of that, and things are only established through play, and the multiverse is in some sort of stasis until the PCs interact, that can damage campaign integrity, for me.
I would counter that, if the players are always having better ideas than their GM is, that the GM should probably do something about that. ;-)

Of course, if the players have to take over the narrative, you got big problems; so, yes, crap DMs are crap.


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So is update 1.6 the last update of the playtest document? It really feels like there is way too much work left to be done to end things there. Although playtest fatigue is totally a real thing, and I have it. Leaving everything else to be untested doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

I'm certainly curious about these Paladin and Alchemist changes. The Alchemist is almost certainly the worst class in the game right now, but it's probably the easier fix. The framework is there, but it needs to be enhanced at every level and have alchemical items improved.

The problems with the paladin are deeper though. It's problem is based on the core idea of the class. As it is, the playtest Paladin is a heavily armored, defensive specialist who's main shtick is an Attack of Opportunity that only triggers if their friend is hurt. That is not anything close to what I consider a paladin. A paladin should be bringing holy beatdowns to the monsters, not waiting to react to them hurting their friends. Smite Evil was overpowered in PF1, but it at least made the paladin feel like they're bringing divine power down upon evildoers. It's much better than retributive strike, which is completely uninspiring as a primary class ability. And armor shouldn't be a defining feature of the class at all. And heavy armor is currently pretty terrible anyway. The paladin doesn't need major changes, it needs a complete rewrite starting with the idea of just what a paladin is. The alignment question is trivial compared to that. (I currently lean towards paladins being Any Good and anti-paladins Any Evil. I don't see a neutral option really making much sense.)


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
HWalsh wrote:

If I want a martial to swing their weapon around so fast that they take flight I'll play Mutants and Masterminds.

If I want a Fighter to unleash a wind blade from swinging their sword really hard I'll play Big Eyes Small Mouth.

If I want a Rogue that can phase through solid matter I'll play Exalted (or M&M, or BESM, or Nephilum)

I have plenty of games that the anime stuff gets into. I don't want it in Pathfinder.

I can't avoid it either if I don't like it because I do play PFS. It's bad enough that I'm planning to walk away if Paladins get a new alignment spectrum, I'm already going to have to deal with the most annoying race ever made available to players (Goblins, ugh) and now people are trying to turn this into Naruto.

Edit to add:
The ONLY exception I'd even remotely agree to is if these WERE actual magical abilities. Namely instead of being just uses of skill the...

Here's my question for you, then: In your mind, how does a straight fighter attain meaningful narrative power comparable to a wizard from their class features?

Liberty's Edge

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Dasrak wrote:


Deadmanwalking wrote:
Lawful Good does not scrape into Good on a technicality. It's not the 'best Good' and not solely deserving of Paladins IMO, but it's certainly not the 'worst Good' either.

Lawful good characters feel that lawful good is the best good

Chaotic good characters feel that lawful good is the worst good
Neutral good characters feel that they're both missing the point

Even in a universe where alignments are an objective fact, how people in the universe perceive and understand them is still as subjective as ever.

My take on the various Good alignments is this :

Chaotic rebels against the system. A Chaotic Good character will mistrust any system, even a LG one, because he sees how all these rules will be turned against the people and innocents will suffer

Lawful trusts in the system. A Lawful Good character will mistrust dissolution of rules, even by CG people, because he sees how anarchy will end up in law of the strongest and innocents will suffer

Neutral Good does not see either the system or anarchy having anything to do with Good or Evil. He cares only about whether innocents suffer, whatever the cause

Liberty's Edge

pauljathome wrote:
The Raven Black wrote:

I think Martial abilities and Casters' spells should be different ways to reach results but still be on the same scale of powers.

And if you do not want out-of-this-world abilities, you just put a hard ceiling on power that equally affects both Martial abilities and Casters' spells.

I partly agree and partly strongly disagree.

I like the flavour of the world AND the mechanics to more or less be in sync with each other. I probably care more about that than Paizo does.

So, if IN WORLD fighters are meant to be non magical mundanes then I really don't want to see even Legendary fighters cleave through mountains. Even Legendary fighters should be limited to something vaguely realistic (say, Hong Kong Action adventure movie level of realism, or low powered super hero like the Arrow, or Xena/Hercules level of realistic).

But I have no problem at all if the world defines martials as basically being magical in nature so that they CAN transcend mortal levels and do the kinds of things that the Heroes did in mythology or that mid powered super heroes can do.

I thought Earthdawn was brilliant in its in world setup. ALL PC classes were magical adepts. Some just showed it in the way that they swung swords or thieved.

Its not so much about power as it is about shtick. A monk harnesses the power of Ki and so can do magical things. A fighter doesn't and can't.

In all honesty and with all respect, I do not see the disagreement here. Since you describe different levels of power for Martials only, I believe it fits completely. We would be in disagreement if you mentioned Casters as being inherently more powerful (even narratively powerful) than Martials. But you mentioned no such thing


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MaxAstro wrote:
HWalsh wrote:

If I want a martial to swing their weapon around so fast that they take flight I'll play Mutants and Masterminds.

If I want a Fighter to unleash a wind blade from swinging their sword really hard I'll play Big Eyes Small Mouth.

If I want a Rogue that can phase through solid matter I'll play Exalted (or M&M, or BESM, or Nephilum)

I have plenty of games that the anime stuff gets into. I don't want it in Pathfinder.

I can't avoid it either if I don't like it because I do play PFS. It's bad enough that I'm planning to walk away if Paladins get a new alignment spectrum, I'm already going to have to deal with the most annoying race ever made available to players (Goblins, ugh) and now people are trying to turn this into Naruto.

Edit to add:
The ONLY exception I'd even remotely agree to is if these WERE actual magical abilities. Namely instead of being just uses of skill the...

Here's my question for you, then: In your mind, how does a straight fighter attain meaningful narrative power comparable to a wizard from their class features?

Answer? They don't.

Not everything is 1:1 equal. Note that I mostly play martials.

A Fighter is a Fighter. They do as a Fighter does. They aren't going to teleport, or summon demons, or reshape a mountain. That's not what they do.

What is a Martial good for? They are the fantasy of the common man. They don't have super powers, they have their wits, a sharp blade, and they get by on skill. It's not as easy as a Wizard, or Cleric,or Sorcerer, sure... But that's the point. That's the challenge.

They are self made. They don't rely on magic spells, they don't need a God,they don't have ki, they don't need to sleep for 8 hours, they don't get nullified by a case on insomnia. They're dependable. They do things the hard way.

They need to be smarter than the smarties and sneakier than the sneakies as a certain McDuck once said.

Generally the people who actually play martial don't care about narrative power. That's a complaint by a very small minority of only the most hard core members of the community. If you want that kind of power... Play a Wizard.

If you want a challenge, to think of different ways to succeed, to be pushed to your limits... That's when you play a martial.

Did Lancelot have the same narrative power as Merlin? No.

The whole narrative power thing is especially moot in 2nd edition because spells on the whole took a power loss anyway.

Generally, in stories, martial characters don't have narrative influence. What they do have, however, is the human factor.

What does the wizard do when the chips are down, they're out of spells, and there's no safe way to rest for 8 hours? He sits back and sobs while the Fighter draws his sword, hefts his shield, and says, "Don't worry. I've got this."


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HWalsh wrote:
MaxAstro wrote:
HWalsh wrote:

If I want a martial to swing their weapon around so fast that they take flight I'll play Mutants and Masterminds.

If I want a Fighter to unleash a wind blade from swinging their sword really hard I'll play Big Eyes Small Mouth.

If I want a Rogue that can phase through solid matter I'll play Exalted (or M&M, or BESM, or Nephilum)

I have plenty of games that the anime stuff gets into. I don't want it in Pathfinder.

I can't avoid it either if I don't like it because I do play PFS. It's bad enough that I'm planning to walk away if Paladins get a new alignment spectrum, I'm already going to have to deal with the most annoying race ever made available to players (Goblins, ugh) and now people are trying to turn this into Naruto.

Edit to add:
The ONLY exception I'd even remotely agree to is if these WERE actual magical abilities. Namely instead of being just uses of skill the...

Here's my question for you, then: In your mind, how does a straight fighter attain meaningful narrative power comparable to a wizard from their class features?

Answer? They don't.

Not everything is 1:1 equal. Note that I mostly play martials.

A Fighter is a Fighter. They do as a Fighter does. They aren't going to teleport, or summon demons, or reshape a mountain. That's not what they do.

What is a Martial good for? They are the fantasy of the common man. They don't have super powers, they have their wits, a sharp blade, and they get by on skill. It's not as easy as a Wizard, or Cleric,or Sorcerer, sure... But that's the point. That's the challenge.

They are self made. They don't rely on magic spells, they don't need a God,they don't have ki, they don't need to sleep for 8 hours, they don't get nullified by a case on insomnia. They're dependable. They do things the hard way.

They need to be smarter than the smarties and sneakier than the sneakies as a certain McDuck once said.

Generally the people who actually play martial don't care about...

Bingo, great post.

When everyone has the same type of narrative input, it can lead to homogeneity, which is what caused me to become disillusioned with 4th Ed at one point.

Having said that, I would like Legendary to open up for some gnarly shenanigans for martial types.


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Vic Ferrari wrote:

Bingo, great post.

When everyone has the same type of narrative input, it can lead to homogeneity, which is what caused me to become disillusioned with 4th Ed at one point.

Having said that, I would like Legendary to open up for some gnarly shenanigans for martial types.

Sure. It doesn't have to be some insane One Punch Man, Naruto, Mountain Cleaving crud though.

I'm fine with legendary jumping leaping 40 feet in the air. With legendary climbing granting the ability to scale a mountain at full speed while gaining a +5 bonus. I'm totally fine with a legendary swimmer swimming against a whilpool's tide. I'm fine with things like that.

I'm not cool with phasing through walls, running at the speed of sound, or leaping 200 feet in the air then dancing on clouds.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
HWalsh wrote:
Vic Ferrari wrote:

Bingo, great post.

When everyone has the same type of narrative input, it can lead to homogeneity, which is what caused me to become disillusioned with 4th Ed at one point.

Having said that, I would like Legendary to open up for some gnarly shenanigans for martial types.

Sure. It doesn't have to be some insane One Punch Man, Naruto, Mountain Cleaving crud though.

I'm fine with legendary jumping leaping 40 feet in the air. With legendary climbing granting the ability to scale a mountain at full speed while gaining a +5 bonus. I'm totally fine with a legendary swimmer swimming against a whilpool's tide. I'm fine with things like that.

I'm not cool with phasing through walls, running at the speed of sound, or leaping 200 feet in the air then dancing on clouds.

Again, I am in total agreement; a Barbarian being able to rip a demon's head off with their bare hands, that kind of thing: Demon Head-Rip.

Silver Crusade

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HWalsh wrote:
They are self made.

Take away a Fighter's equipment and what's left?


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Rysky wrote:
HWalsh wrote:
They are self made.
Take away a Fighter's equipment and what's left?

1d4+5?

Silver Crusade

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HWalsh wrote:
Generally the people who actually play martial don't care about narrative power.

Actually we do, we just like having narrative power tied to our character's sphere of influence, so usually combat/destructive related.

Having a character jump up on flying dragons and leaping from each one as you chop off their wings instead of sitting the fight out.

Powering through a magical trap/sea of damned souls to save someone.

Give us John Carter and Kratos and Hercules.


Take away a Wizard's spellbook and what's left

Silver Crusade

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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Take away a Cleric's holy symbol and her component pouch, what is she? A miserable little pile of secrets! Take a Fighter's +3 holy shock corrosive sonic burst greatsword and what is he? Well, a 1d4+5 death machine!

Seriously, it's the People Who Wanted More Exalted in Their D&D vs. HWalsh. Can I get ringside tickets, because this is going to be glorious?

Silver Crusade

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scoutmaster wrote:
Take away a Wizard's spellbook and what's left

The spells they've memorized already.


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Gorbacz wrote:
Seriously, it's the People Who Wanted More Exalted in Their D&D vs. HWalsh. Can I get ringside tickets, because this is going to be glorious?

Allow me to join the fray with... It depends. I don't normally run campaigns in Golarion so I don't really care what makes sense there. A system ideally should have enough flexibility to accommodate a range of power levels. This is an area where - in my opinion - the Pathfinder Playtest is superior to Pathfinder First Edition.

I like how the proficiency levels provide neat thematic caps. Paizo needs to tighten up the categories a bit but I'd like to see it along these lines.
-Expert: Peak of Real Life
-Master: Over the top Action Movie
-Legendary: Supernatural ability

If I want a gritter campaign that doesn't let Rogues have Supernatural abilities like phasing through walls or turning invisible... All I need to do is cap level/proficiency at Master. That's a great simplification.

On a sidenote that's been over-discussed: a current weakness of the Playtest is the reliance on Magic Weapons for damage. This runs counter to the neat proficiency caps by making it difficult to run low fantasy settings.

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