The Prestige

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?

Everyone who felt like HWalsh already left for the 5e

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.)

Yeah Paladins aren't working for me right now either. If you're a defensive specialist but not a big threat offensively, any intelligent enemy is going to ignore you and go after the things that are squishier and more dangerous. Retributive strike is not particularly interesting and also not good enough to mitigate that.

Smite is thematically more interesting and was also a lot more effective at making the Paladin an actual threat.

That said, I'm okay with the idea of a defensive specialist, but they need the tools to actually do that.

I'm just going to say that as someone who enjoys martial characters, I find the answer of "if you want narrative power, play a wizard" deeply, deeply unsatisfying, and I strongly hope that is not the direction Paizo moves in.

Good news is Paizo is trying to make skill martials more narratively fun. Emphasis on trying unfortunately. For 'every walk through walls' rogue ability there's three supremely banal options like 'get climb speed' or 'add 5 ft to jump height!'

Take away a Cleric's holy symbol and her component pouch, what is she? A miserable little pile of secrets!

...not really. Take away a Cleric's holy symbol (not sure why a Cleric would even have a component pouch if we're talking the Playtest/theoretical PF2e, they don't use them anymore) and they still have literally every spell on their list that doesn't use a material component. Which is a lot of spells. Same goes for the Druid who loses their Focus, and maybe the Bard who loses their instrument depending on their repertoire. And of course Sorcerers just don't actually care about materials at all. So really the only caster that gets screwed by losing an item is the Wizard and their spellbook, and then only starting the next day. Sure in PF1e Material and/or Focus components were a lot more common and required the component pouch or a feat, but now days near as I can tell most things are just Verbal + Somatic.

Good news is Paizo is trying to make skill martials more narratively fun. Emphasis on trying unfortunately. For 'every walk through walls' rogue ability there's three supremely banal options like 'get climb speed' or 'add 5 ft to jump height!'

Powerful Leaper actually makes your jump height 5ft. It's 3ft by default. The feat adds 2ft, not 5ft. It is 60% worse than the example you used as a bad, dissapointing feat.

Tarik Blackhands wrote:

Good news is Paizo is trying to make skill martials more narratively fun. Emphasis on trying unfortunately. For 'every walk through walls' rogue ability there's three supremely banal options like 'get climb speed' or 'add 5 ft to jump height!'

Powerful Leaper actually makes your jump height 5ft. It's 3ft by default. The feat adds 2ft, not 5ft. It is 60% worse than the example you used as a bad, dissapointing feat.

Shows what I get for working off memory. Still, they're trying people!

Honestly, depending on the adventure, getting a Climb speed can be awesome.

Powerful Leap is harder to defend, but at least it's only a level 2 feat. :P

Lyee wrote:

Tarik Blackhands wrote:

Good news is Paizo is trying to make skill martials more narratively fun. Emphasis on trying unfortunately. For 'every walk through walls' rogue ability there's three supremely banal options like 'get climb speed' or 'add 5 ft to jump height!'

Powerful Leaper actually makes your jump height 5ft. It's 3ft by default. The feat adds 2ft, not 5ft. It is 60% worse than the example you used as a bad, dissapointing feat.

Shows what I get for working off memory. Still, they're trying people!

In contrast, "get climb speed," such as Raging Athlete, along with One-Handed Climber feat is an interesting way to attack. Most classes cannot climb and attack at the same time. My wife's barbarian with those feats managed to use it to lead foes on chases to use up their actions. Alas, it required cooperation from the GM, since the game lacks at taunt mechanic.

Using up an opponent's actions has become a battlefield control mechanic within the grasp of martial characters. It is like how trip worked in PF1, but it is more like, haha, I moved once to get out of your reach, but you have to move twice. Wait, stop attacking the wizard instead of me. Sudden charge!

It is a little silly, but it is also more interesting than stand still and Strike three times.

Gorbacz wrote:

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?

Everyone who felt like HWalsh already left for the 5e

Barf.

I do not play 5e thank you very much.

Thanks for your feedback on these new surveys too, everyone. In just the one day these have been up while I was getting back from Hal-Con, you guys have already been busy answering and providing plenty of feedback. Thank you for your dedication!

Is it better to try and answer the surveys now (all of them I mean, not only the new ones), or to wait till Update 1.6 is on air so that the answers take its changes into account ?

Folks, there are far too many people in this thread arguing with each other about who vision of the game is the "right" one.

Let's leave that at the door. With the playtest we are trying out a few things to see how they feel in the environment, and we are happily collecting a lot of feedback on how those elements are being perceived.

I doubt we are going to be making things too crazy in terms of what legendary can mean, but nor are we going to stick with "it must be in the bounds of ordinary world possibility". It is a fantasy game after all.

Carry on...

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.

Arcane is essentially the main culprit for overlap, in part because the wizard is extremely greedy (or perhaps envious is a better word for it) when it comes to demanding spells be on the arcane list, given there are eight schools of magic and the wizard specialist in a given school demands a place at the table, even for schools that mostly match an essence that isn't part of arcane. This led to some interesting essence hybridization such as "How much of necromancy can be considered hybridized with Material because of working with the matter of the body, rather than purely Spiritual or Vital." The idea that arcane is a big tent that covers most spells is real; pretty much all of occult's occult-only spells were created after a push to give occult some unique spells, and yet alpha playtesters still asked me why they weren't on the arcane list. Back in PF1, the sorcerer/wizard list was exactly like this; often I would receive spell turnovers for a book that were, for example, really thematic nature spells that were on druid, ranger, and then for some reason sorcerer/wizard, and one of my passes would be the "remove sorcerer/wizard from a bunch of these spells" pass.

It's an interesting challenge, to be sure. In theory I'd like us to be able to get arcane to back down, but it's also important not to deliver an experience that's very different from what people expect and want from an arcane spellcaster, which is quite the tightrope to walk. Fortunately, there's a lot more room for acceptance when it comes to new spells; arcane is not the main force-user with force being often associated with Spiritual Essence, but losing magic missile would cause widespread discontent, whereas not giving arcane a hypothetical new spell called spirit force is much easier.

I doubt we are going to be making things too crazy in terms of what legendary can mean, but nor are we going to stick with "it must be in the bounds of ordinary world possibility". It is a fantasy game after all.

Therein lies your mistake, IMO. You already have too many "quasi-magical" abilities for those who like everyone as Aragorn and the hobits. You have too little of them for someone who thinks martials should get more narrative abilities (in and out-of-combat). I mean this is a divisive topic but I think if you provided really extraordinary abilities as Legendary (legendary Catfall is always a good benchmark), and just give the advice of "don't allow Legendary abilities if you want a more down-to-earth game".

I suspect Jason is basically saying that, necromental.

I can't imagine Catfall being nerfed; I think most people agree that it's a good metric for what a feat should do at Legendary. So when Jason says "no making things too crazy", he's likely saying "not going too far beyond Catfall".

I realized after I submitted my magic survey that I forgot to mention buff spells, so I'll note it here:

The very limited duration on most spells makes it very difficult (or impossible in certain circumstances) for a party to prepare for an encounter or a dungeon beforehand. I like it as a GM when the party uses good planning, intelligence gathering, and tactics, resulting in an easier time in combat than they otherwise would have had. It's the sort of thing I want to encourage; it's engaging for the players and it makes sense in-world that the characters would want to prepare as much as they could if they know they're facing something specific. Even if you cast a buff spell at the beginning of one encounter, odds are it'll be gone before the next, so you can't have one running for multiple encounters that you know it'll be useful in. Combined with the decrease in spell slots, this has led to a decrease in the use of buff spells in my playtest games so far.

Also, reading this discussion, I'm starting to feel like I have a very different idea of what constitutes "narrative power" than a lot of people (i.e., primarily based on roleplay and in-character decisions, alliances, and personality and not really taking into account class abilities at all). Maybe that's why I've never felt like my martial characters had less narrative power than my full-casters.

Not to say that either way is right or wrong, but it's interesting to me.

I think typically by narrative power people mean "ability to interact with non-combat obstacles".

For example, needing to get passed a locked door, sweet-talk a guard, sneak past a sleeping ogre, scale a cliff, blend into a crowd at a gala, etc.

It's relatively easy to make a caster that can do every single one of those. For some of them, you can auto-win without a roll with a spell. But it's nearly impossible for a single fighter to do all of those.

Looking at it another way, it is fairly easy to imagine an obstacle that a wizard can overcome alone but a fighter never can: For example, needing to reach a floating island.

However, it's very hard to imagine an obstacle that a fighter can overcome alone but a wizard never can.

That's basically what I mean by narrative power, anyway.

Dekalinder wrote:

Gorbacz wrote:

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?

Everyone who felt like HWalsh already left for the 5e

Barf.

I do not play 5e thank you very much.

Aw,, come on, 5th Ed is basically 3rd Ed Lite: the most hack-friendly edition, DIY, it begs to be pulled in an AD&D, 3rd, or 4th Ed direction; genius, I think. Definitely not a revolutionary edition, sort of a Greatest Hits, but free to focus on specific albums.

The Playtest has some pretty hack-friendly things, which I dig, such as toying with the +Level deal, and Item bonuses, plus they have mentioned they might address the +Level deal in a future product/source; I like this approach/attitude, keeps me interested in the potential PF2.

I think typically by narrative power people mean "ability to interact with non-combat obstacles".

For example, needing to get passed a locked door, sweet-talk a guard, sneak past a sleeping ogre, scale a cliff, blend into a crowd at a gala, etc.

It's relatively easy to make a caster that can do every single one of those. For some of them, you can auto-win without a roll with a spell. But it's nearly impossible for a single fighter to do all of those.

Looking at it another way, it is fairly easy to imagine an obstacle that a wizard can overcome alone but a fighter never can: For example, needing to reach a floating island.

However, it's very hard to imagine an obstacle that a fighter can overcome alone but a wizard never can.

That's basically what I mean by narrative power, anyway.

Yeah, I guess you could make a caster who could do all those things, but why would you? If you know you're working with a rogue who's really good at Diplomacy, why would you waste the spell slot on charm person to sweet-talk a guard when you could spend it on something else? It's a cooperative game, after all. Why not use the renewable resource (the rogue's charming smile) over your expendable one?

And the wizard will probably never reach that floating island if a bunch of critters grab them out of the air on the way. Lot harder to cast when you're grappled in something's mouth. While the fighter couldn't reach the island entirely unassisted, they could use a carpet of flying or another magic item, or a potion. (Our Hell's Rebels game had a barbarian who used a carpet of flying. Before he had the carpet, at one point the party sorcerer dimension door-ed him up to reach a flying dragon. I gave him a Reflex save to grab the dragon before he fell. He succeeded; the sorcerer fell to the ground and knocked herself out. Barb then proceeded to beat the crap out of the dragon while hanging on for dear life.)

Don't get me wrong, casters do have a lot of options, but in my experience, non-casters just have to be a bit more creative about solving problems.

(I hope this isn't too much of a tangent...)

EDIT: I realized this probably doesn't apply to PFS, since you don't know who you're going to be working with in any given scenario, so maybe that's where a lot of problems crop up?

Also, reading this discussion, I'm starting to feel like I have a very different idea of what constitutes "narrative power" than a lot of people (i.e., primarily based on roleplay and in-character decisions, alliances, and personality and not really taking into account class abilities at all). Maybe that's why I've never felt like my martial characters had less narrative power than my full-casters.

Not to say that either way is right or wrong, but it's interesting to me.

Narrative power entered this discussion with Cyrad's comment #44.

The main problem with high level spellcasting lies mostly with martials rather than the spells themselves. Martials get little to no narrative power beyond just stabbing or shooting things.

While the feat system helps, martials still get hosed. Most of them don't get any abilities that help them outside of combat. All characters get the same number of feats and class features as they level up, but spellcasters get spells ontop of that while martials (except the rogue) get nothing in return except for the proficiencies they got at 1st level.

I had a player named David in my Jade Regent campaign who played Pathfinder to relax. He built an optimized two-handed-weapon fighter and simply liked to beat up large monsters. Fortunately, Jade Regent threw many large monsters at his character and I added more, so he was happy. In that way, David controlled the story.

But it did not feel like controlling the story.

I like it as a GM when the party uses good planning, intelligence gathering, and tactics, resulting in an easier time in combat than they otherwise would have had. It's the sort of thing I want to encourage; it's engaging for the players and it makes sense in-world that the characters would want to prepare as much as they could if they know they're facing something specific.

That is what my wife thinks of as narrative control. She wants to make the decisions about the story. She decides which battles are worth fighting. I have had the players finish a module having skipped half the encounters in it, because their characters were not interested in those encounters. It could be good detective work in finding the ringleaders of the criminal gang without having to rough up a lot of low-level minions first. It could be flying to the enemy's manor house and avoiding all the encounters planned for the road there. It could be making a deal with the evil spymaster instead of defeating him, because the spymaster is smart enough to realize that his current side is doomed. It could be yelling in the middle of combat, "Hey, we are on the same side. Stop fighting before someone gets killed." It could be as simple as sneaking up behind the castle and climbing the wall with a grappling hook instead of attacking the front gate.

Detective work requires Perception and Knowledge skills or divination magic. Flying requires magic, but we could instead imagine a ranger leading the party through the forest rather than along the road via Survival. Negotiating with a spymaster takes social skills. I treat negotiating in mid-combat as a three-action Diplomacy check activity, but the only rules-legal way to do it is a Charm spell. Sneaking and climbing are also skills, but the Spider Climb spell works, too.

Some martial-character players, like David, don't invest in the abilities that allow narrative control. That is how they want to play and Pathfinder works well for them. Other martial-character players, like my wife, invest in abilities that allow narrative control. The advantage of spellcasting characters is that spells are more flexible. A wizard who usually casts Fireball can also learn Spider Climb. Fly is both a good defense on the battlefield and a good way of getting over walls.

I think that the three-action economy of Pathfinder 2nd Edition can favor developing non-attack skills, because those skills might be better than a third attack at -10 attack penalty. A fighter who Demoralizes as his first action in a turn would also have the Intimidation skills to Coerce information out of a captured minion. A rogue who Feints before a sneak attack will also have the Deception skill for a good bluff. A druid who Recalls Knowledge to learn resistances and weaknesses before casting an elemental spell might also Recall Knowledge about the history of the enemy's castle and recall a secret escape passage and talk with the local squirrels to find it. (By the way, Recall Knowledge needs to give more information so that the druid can learn the resistances and weaknesses in a single Nature check.)

The fighter does not need to cut mountains in half. He needs to be able to say, "I was drinking with the baron's men and they regularly guard the road. We need to go around."

Yeah Paladins aren't working for me right now either. If you're a defensive specialist but not a big threat offensively, any intelligent enemy is going to ignore you and go after the things that are squishier and more dangerous. Retributive strike is not particularly interesting and also not good enough to mitigate that.

Smite is thematically more interesting and was also a lot more effective at making the Paladin an actual threat.

That said, I'm okay with the idea of a defensive specialist, but they need the tools to actually do that.

Maybe they can have options to be a defense specialist if they want. But it shouldn't be the default. There's a lot of room for different paladin roles. Making that very narrow niche the default, completely misses the point of being a paladin and unnecessarily restricts it.

I think this tight over-defining of roles is a problem with classes in the playtest in general, but the paladin is by far the worst offender.

Arcane is essentially the main culprit for overlap, in part because the wizard is extremely greedy (or perhaps envious is a better word for it) when it comes to demanding spells be on the arcane list, given there are eight schools of magic and the wizard specialist in a given school demands a place at the table, even for schools that mostly match an essence that isn't part of arcane.

So it strikes me as odd for identified systemic issue to continue to be placed at mercy of demands of School Specialists... When the obvious alternative is saying School Specialists can expand spell list while keeping core more restrained. I mean, right now even (for example) Necro Specialists are gaining advantage of over-broad list in all other schools. We don't allow Cleric list to bloat in every direction in the name of specific Domains, we grant those Domains what they need, and leave the Core simple.

It's not even necessary to ABSOLUTELY gate these spells by School Specialization, go ahead and allow Universalists to gain access to these spells by spending a Feat... It could even be "rolled into" a Spell Focus Feat, if you want. Maybe the "Opposed School" concept could be retained by barring Specialists from taking this "Deep School Spells" Feat (/Spell Focus) for their opposed schools? (in which case, should opposition schools be fixed or by choice?)

I think one of the problems is that people who play Casters want the Casters to be better than the "Mundanes" - Fighters, Rogues, and other classes that don't use spells. In older D&D and AD&D, Wizards went several levels before they took off and became something potent and game-changing.

But how many of those people actually PLAYED through all those levels? If you die and roll up a new character of the same level you could easily have a fifth level fighter, toss him into a hopeless fight, get him killed off, and then create your 5th level Wizard who isn't as squishy anymore but can toss off Fireballs and the like. Or with old AD&D you do five levels of Fighter to get the hit points and then Dual Class with Wizard so to have a non-squishy Wizard.

Fighters and Rogues and other classes should be equally powerful to the great spellcasters out there. For every potent Wizard you need a Madmartigan or a Sorsha who is able to cut through the ranks of lower, less effective warriors. (That the two couldn't face Sorsha's mother doesn't say much seeing she was an End Boss that was of far higher level than they were.)

One thing I have noticed is that heavy armor is pretty much useless. I was going through the level 7 characters for the Playtest and noticed something... the Fighter with +2 Half-Plate armor and a magic shield is one point of armor off from the Rogue with +2 Studded Leather armor. Sure, said fighter will be able to absorb damage with his shield and the magic of the shield absorbs one extra Dent... but they're doing the same damage as the Rogue if they use that Shield for a generic strike.

So yeah. Heavier armor needs to protect better. As-is, it's not exactly effective to be a low-Dexterity Fighter, compared to the older Pathfinder where such a character could still shine.

Magic is also way, way more restricted in AD&D, especially 1st Ed; what spells you could know, your chance to learn them, even if the opportunity, interrupting during casting, dangerous outcomes to some blasting spells, and much more. It could be risky. A bit naughty, freaky-naughty.

3rd Ed removed most of that, hence the whining about caster vs. martial disparity.

Also, in the AD&D PHB, it states the DM may omit, augment, diminish, or add new spells. That is wonderful.

Magic is also way, way more restricted in AD&D, especially 1st Ed; what spells you could know, your chance to learn them, even if the opportunity, interrupting during casting, dangerous outcomes to some blasting spells, and much more. It could be risky. A bit naughty, freaky-naughty.

3rd Ed removed most of that, hence the whining about caster vs. martial disparity.

Also, in the AD&D PHB, it states the DM may omit, augment, diminish, or add new spells. That is wonderful.

I love how magic is handled in ad&d! It's sad we've lost so much of that charm! Also the monsters write ups are probably my favorite of any edition.

Also, in the AD&D PHB, it states the DM may omit, augment, diminish, or add new spells. That is wonderful.

One of my favorite sections of the ad&d2e DMG is in a section that lists various ways to handle spell acquisition.

However characters acquire new spells, always remember that you are in charge. You have complete control over what spells the player characters get.

If a player character has a spell you don't like or one that severely disrupts or unbalances your game, it is not the player's fault. Who gave the character the spell? Who allowed it in the game? Controlling spell acquisition is an important responsibility. Consider your choices carefully.

By keeping the selection of spells limited, you automatically increase their importance and value to the wizards in your campaign. A simple scroll with a single spell becomes a real treasure if it has a spell on it the wizard has never seen. This gives the player a touch of choice. Should he cast the scroll during an adventure where it might be useful? Should he save it until he can take the time to research the spell for his spell books?

When the characters overcome a hostile mage, the first concern of the wizard will be for his spell book. Where is it? What spells does it have in it? Even a nonmagical item like a spell book becomes very important. Knowing their value, NPC wizards will go to great pains to protect their own spell books, hiding them carefully, locking them in trapped chests, and scattering magical traps throughout the pages.

Fantastic advice, even if it doesn't exactly apply to newer editions.

Vic Ferrari wrote:

Magic is also way, way more restricted in AD&D, especially 1st Ed; what spells you could know, your chance to learn them, even if the opportunity, interrupting during casting, dangerous outcomes to some blasting spells, and much more. It could be risky. A bit naughty, freaky-naughty.

3rd Ed removed most of that, hence the whining about caster vs. martial disparity.

Also, in the AD&D PHB, it states the DM may omit, augment, diminish, or add new spells. That is wonderful.

I love how magic is handled in ad&d! It's sad we've lost so much of that charm! Also the monsters write ups are probably my favorite of any edition.

Yes, as the editions have waxed, magic has become less magical, more predictable, and scientific in approach.

1st Ed AD&D monsters and the Deities & Demigods book is what got me into this malarkey.

Vic Ferrari wrote:

Also, in the AD&D PHB, it states the DM may omit, augment, diminish, or add new spells. That is wonderful.

One of my favorite sections of the ad&d2e DMG is in a section that lists various ways to handle spell acquisition.

ad&d 2e DMG wrote:

However characters acquire new spells, always remember that you are in charge. You have complete control over what spells the player characters get.

If a player character has a spell you don't like or one that severely disrupts or unbalances your game, it is not the player's fault. Who gave the character the spell? Who allowed it in the game? Controlling spell acquisition is an important responsibility. Consider your choices carefully.

By keeping the selection of spells limited, you automatically increase their importance and value to the wizards in your campaign. A simple scroll with a single spell becomes a real treasure if it has a spell on it the wizard has never seen. This gives the player a touch of choice. Should he cast the scroll during an adventure where it might be useful? Should he save it until he can take the time to research the spell for his spell books?

When the characters overcome a hostile mage, the first concern of the wizard will be for his spell book. Where is it? What spells does it have in it? Even a nonmagical item like a spell book becomes very important. Knowing their value, NPC wizards will go to great pains to protect their own spell books, hiding them carefully, locking them in trapped chests, and scattering magical traps throughout the pages.

Fantastic advice, even if it doesn't exactly apply to newer editions.

Yeah, and I guess they are trying to formalise that in a clunky and odd way in the Playtest, with the rarity system.

How about this, the DM hates teleport, gone.

I know people will decry, that makes the DM weak, not up to the task of dealing with said spell, and will not accept player narrative input, and blah de blah.

No, for this campaign I am running, me, not you, this spell (or anything else, for that matter) equals lameness, done.

A GM deems a spell or character concept/build inappropriate for a given campaign and says "no" is not a new thing.

Frankly, it's a thing that should be much more common.

A GM deems a spell or character concept/build inappropriate for a given campaign and says "no" is not a new thing.

Frankly, it's a thing that should be much more common.

Yep, like the original 2nd AD&D Dark Sun...Gnome, Paladin; no, to both, end of.

Next campaign setting may be nothing but gnomes and paladins, we'll all see.

I think one of the problems is that people who play Casters want the Casters to be better than the "Mundanes" - Fighters, Rogues, and other classes that don't use spells. In older D&D and AD&D, Wizards went several levels before they took off and became something potent and game-changing.

I believe that other editions of Dungeons & Dragons are relevant in that their mechanics can give us insight into potential or existing Pathfinder Playtest mechanics, but the above paragraph instead sounds like, "We need to correct this old problem in AD&D." That problem was corrected long ago.

However, Tangent101 has a point that many people who play Casters want the Casters to be better than the Nundanes. The reason is not that the players feel that they earned the extra power through the trial of surviving the low ultra-squishy levels. The reason might be that magic is fantastic in literature and mythology so they want it fantastic in the game. Or the reason might be that making a spellcaster requires more system mastery, because reading through long lists of spells is not easy, and the player wants to be rewarded for the system mastery.

The solution there would be to simplify the game so that players need less system mastery to play a caster and don't feel that the effort deserves extra power. But we need to avoid the trap of which Vic Ferrari reminds us, "Yes, as the editions have waxed, magic has become less magical, more predictable, and scientific in approach." Magic ought to be fantastic. Powerful is optional.

But how many of those people actually PLAYED through all those levels? If you die and roll up a new character of the same level you could easily have a fifth level fighter, toss him into a hopeless fight, get him killed off, and then create your 5th level Wizard who isn't as squishy anymore but can toss off Fireballs and the like. Or with old AD&D you do five levels of Fighter to get the hit points and then Dual Class with Wizard so to have a non-squishy Wizard.

I did. Almost all of my player characters started at 1st level. One exception was when my daughter departed a campaign when she moved out of Maryland and my wife persuaded me to take over her 9th-level gnome barbarian Muffin. The character started from 1st level, but the player didn't.

I recall a college AD&D game in 1981. Everyone started at 1st level. This resulted in a mixed-level party, 1st through 8th. And the low-level characters died more often, so the player started again with a new 1st-level character. It was much less fun than the current system of starting near the party's level.

I think one of the problems is that people who play Casters want the Casters to be better than the "Mundanes" - Fighters, Rogues, and other classes that don't use spells. In older D&D and AD&D, Wizards went several levels before they took off and became something potent and game-changing.

Well, right now in the playtest I feel like casters are worse than non-casters, and you go through a lot more mechanical complexity with picking spell lists and such to get that.

And that's kind of a problem. If there's a bunch of extra effort required to play a caster well and what that gets you is worse than a much simpler character, why bother?

I don't think they should be better. It's a team game, everyone in the team should excel in some role within the team. But we're not there in the playtest either.

But how many of those people actually PLAYED through all those levels? If you die and roll up a new character of the same level you could easily have a fifth level fighter, toss him into a hopeless fight, get him killed off, and then create your 5th level Wizard who isn't as squishy anymore but can toss off Fireballs and the like. Or with old AD&D you do five levels of Fighter to get the hit points and then Dual Class with Wizard so to have a non-squishy Wizard.

I do, and I'm not big on the "quadratic wizards" thing because of it. Low level spellcasters tend to be totally different in how they play than higher level ones because of how spells are so severely restricted early on. Cantrips do help that some.

One thing I have noticed is that heavy armor is pretty much useless. I was going through the level 7 characters for the Playtest and noticed something... the Fighter with +2 Half-Plate armor and a magic shield is one point of armor off from the Rogue with +2 Studded Leather armor. Sure, said fighter will be able to absorb damage with his shield and the magic of the shield absorbs one extra Dent... but they're doing the same damage as the Rogue if they use that Shield for a generic strike.

So yeah. Heavier armor needs to protect better. As-is, it's not exactly effective to be a low-Dexterity Fighter, compared to the older Pathfinder where such a character could still shine.

The problem is that because of how crits work, nobody can afford to fall behind on AC. If heavy armor flat out gives you more AC, that means both less hits and fewer crits, which is a huge gain. If they make enemies that are a threat to those heavy armor folks, they will absolutely crush anyone in light armor barring other kinds of magical defenses.

Heavy armor needs to be better than it is, but it can't straight up give you higher AC unless other things in the system change at the same time.

I'm wondering if we couldn't redo armor so traits are positive like they are with weapons and give heavier armor some "damage mitigation" effect like shields have.

Like the reasons to use heavy armor being solely:
- your class gives better proficiency in heavy armor
- you can't afford much dex

Is consistently irritating.

Heavy armor needs to be better than it is, but it can't straight up give you higher AC unless other things in the system change at the same time.

Why can't it? It's supposed to be a "reward" for choosing a certain class (OMG, I hate it so but here we are), and it has all other drawbacks (completely punitive in skills, speed and in bulk, not to mention the clumsy trait).

I'm wondering if we couldn't redo armor so traits are positive like they are with weapons and give heavier armor some "damage mitigation" effect like shields have.

Like the reasons to use heavy armor being solely:
- your class gives better proficiency in heavy armor
- you can't afford much dex

Is consistently irritating.

I would honestly love positive trait armour.

Tridus wrote:

Heavy armor needs to be better than it is, but it can't straight up give you higher AC unless other things in the system change at the same time.

Why can't it? It's supposed to be a "reward" for choosing a certain class (OMG, I hate it so but here we are), and it has all other drawbacks (completely punitive in skills, speed and in bulk, not to mention the clumsy trait).

Because it makes you less likely to be critically hit at the same time as it makes you less likely to be hit. Adding AC is incredibly strong. With crits happening anytime they beat your AC by 10, there is a thin line between where a heavy armor user is effectively immune to criticals outside of a nat 20, or light armor users are getting crit far too often and risk being blasted to pieces in a single turn of attacks.

If you also change how crits work, then it would open up more room for this, I think. But as it stands right now, just letting heavy armor give you a higher AC than light armor +DEX is capable of is problematic.

I'm wondering if we couldn't redo armor so traits are positive like they are with weapons and give heavier armor some "damage mitigation" effect like shields have.

I like it. Like, full plate giving slashing resistance based on the quality of the armor would both give it something advantageous and also let it grow as you progress to better armor separate from the potency rune.

That doesn't mess with the crit stuff but does give you something you can't get with light armor + DEX. It also makes armor feel less punitive than weapons do, where weapons get traits that do positive things and armor is loaded up with negative traits.

How about this, the DM hates teleport, gone.

I thought that was the default. GM doesn't want it in the game, it's not in the game. I usually only ban material for thematic reasons but occasionally I'll ban something for other reasons. Like Subjective Reality. None of my players have had a problem with that approach but I also let them know proactively so they don't build a character concept around banned materials.

...the game lacks at taunt mechanic.

Quoted for truth! I'm not saying we need tanks with aggro control, but I believe more skills should have combat uses. A good combat use for Diplomacy seems to be some kind of taunt.

Detective work requires Perception and Knowledge skills or divination magic. Flying requires magic, but we could instead imagine a ranger leading the party through the forest rather than along the road via Survival. Negotiating with a spymaster takes social skills. I treat negotiating in mid-combat as a three-action Diplomacy check activity, but the only rules-legal way to do it is a Charm spell. Sneaking and climbing are also skills, but the Spider Climb spell works, too.

And this is why the level-appropriate DCs of Table 10-2 are so destructive. If just finding your way requires a level-appropriate Survival roll, the Survival DC to find a path *around* a problem has to be one PCs simply can't match.

A GM deems a spell or character concept/build inappropriate for a given campaign and says "no" is not a new thing.

The rarity system helps GMs find the confidence to do this. Its much easier to give the players *more* toys (by giving access to uncommon and rare things) than it is to *take away* toys from the PCs.

This is not a matter of rules, it is a matter of human nature and human interaction. I don't like the rarity system, and I likely won't use it, but I fully support it being in the game.

I do not want and will immediately ban any "force aggro" effect in Pathfinder, even if it involves banning an entire class to do so.

It's an absurd mechanic in video games, and I do not want it in tabletop.

Mathmuse wrote:

...the game lacks at taunt mechanic.

Quoted for truth! I'm not saying we need tanks with aggro control, but I believe more skills should have combat uses. A good combat use for Diplomacy seems to be some kind of taunt.

I think Skills should be completely detached from combat, in D&D/PF.

I do not want and will immediately ban any "force aggro" effect in Pathfinder, even if it involves banning an entire class to do so.

It's an absurd mechanic in video games, and I do not want it in tabletop.

I take it you are not a fan of "Come and Get it"?

Mathmuse wrote:

Detective work requires Perception and Knowledge skills or divination magic. Flying requires magic, but we could instead imagine a ranger leading the party through the forest rather than along the road via Survival. Negotiating with a spymaster takes social skills. I treat negotiating in mid-combat as a three-action Diplomacy check activity, but the only rules-legal way to do it is a Charm spell. Sneaking and climbing are also skills, but the Spider Climb spell works, too.

And this is why the level-appropriate DCs of Table 10-2 are so destructive. If just finding your way requires a level-appropriate Survival roll, the Survival DC to find a path *around* a problem has to be one PCs simply can't match.

Sometimes the table makes sense. Lord Avarite insists on good DC 18 locks (4th-level Hard) because he knows that the town has 4th-level thieves. He is too stingy to pay for the DC 20 locks (5th-level Hard), because he does not think the thieves in town are that good. He hires observant guards with +8 Perception (3rd-level expert Perception from Alertness feat, +2 Wisdom bonus, and +2 unexplained NPC bonus) to spot those sneaky 4th-level thieves, too.

But when my players are deliberately bypassing a challenge, then they are in territory where their opponent had no influence. This could be easier--a Survival roll to navigate through a dense forest far from the baron's roadblock could be lower than the Stealth roll to sneak through the forest next to the roadblock. Or it could be harder--the party decided to climb down the chasm and swim the raging river instead of crossing the swaying rope bridge, but the Athletics rolls to climb and swim are much harder than the Acrobatics roll to balance on the bridge. Either way, they have replaced the GM's level-appropriate challenge with a challenge of their choice that no longer matches their level, and checking the row matching the party's level on Table 10-2 is no longer valid.

I take it you are not a fan of "Come and Get it"?

Well, that one in both PF1 and PF2 works via "I leave myself open to encourage the opponent to hit me, and then I hit back harder". I see a world of difference between "encouraging or discouraging an opponent to do or not do something" and "compel an opponent to do something even if it doesn't make any sense for the opponent to want to do that in the circumstances."

Mathmuse wrote:

...the game lacks a taunt mechanic.

Quoted for truth! I'm not saying we need tanks with aggro control, but I believe more skills should have combat uses. A good combat use for Diplomacy seems to be some kind of taunt.

I do not want and will immediately ban any "force aggro" effect in Pathfinder, even if it involves banning an entire class to do so.

It's an absurd mechanic in video games, and I do not want it in tabletop.

For low-intelligence monsters, I often use a random d6 roll to decide which PC they attack. The odds go up for a PC that looks like prey within easy reach and also go up for a PC attacking the monster or otherwise demanding its attention. For example, we had a barbarian in the monster's face attacking it, a ranger shooting arrows at it from a distance, a sorcerer that just threw a lightning bolt at it from a distance, and an alchemist who retreated down the hallway to tend her wounds. My roll would be 1-3 the barbarian, 4-5 the ranger, and 6 the sorcerer.

I also explain my numbers to the players and make the roll in the open, on the premise that they can see the reactions of the monster. "It's a 4. Looks like that last arrow got its attention." I seldom need more than 6 options and trying to decide how to subdivide a d20 roll would be too much work.

The barbarian class has an advantage in such taunts, because barbarians take hits. A monster might give up on attacking a well-armored fighter that it can barely hit.

High-intellgence monsters use tactics, so taunts are ineffective.

I also sometimes go for the exciting chase whether it makes sense or not.

For Pathfinder 2nd Edition to adopt such a mechanic, Paizo would have to model the behavior of its monsters in a chapter in the Bestiary. That would be a lot of work. And separating the low-intelligence from the high-intelligence monsters is not clear. Usually, I default to random rolls if I can't think of tactics that fit the monster.

For Pathfinder 2nd Edition to adopt such a mechanic, Paizo would have to model the behavior of its monsters in a chapter in the Bestiary. That would be a lot of work. And separating the low-intelligence from the high-intelligence monsters is not clear. Usually, I default to random rolls if I can't think of tactics that fit the...

I agree with what you say, and i also use random die rolls like this for monsters. I don't restrict them to only unintelligent monsters: tunnel vision in combat is real.

But the reason for the quote above is that I miss the "tactics" section of the stat block very much - I absolutely want a brief description on how to role-play the monsters in combat. I want this so that not all opponents behave according to *my* tactical sensibilities, creating greater variation and verisimilitude.

As to how to write a Taunt stunt, I acknowledge that this is very hard to do well. 4E gave the taunted creature a -2 penalty to attack anyone but the taunter - plus riders specific to each class. This worked so-so, honestly The riders were more important than the penalty, and -2 was not enough to motivate monsters to attack a fighter, the AC difference was much larger than that. But in PF2, AC differences are small (if you pay the Dexterity tax) and a -2 penalty is more significant. But I'd prefer some other system that was less artificial. Perhaps attacks of opportunity against a taunted opponent should be a free action, or a reaction if you normally cannot do an AoO? That would be a Warning rather than a Taunt, and would naturally key to Intimidate, not Diplomacy.

* Shrugs*

I know many people, including some players at my table, hate any form of aggro control, and the issue is not that important to me. I just gave it as an example of how more skills could be used in combat.

i think that some means of guaranteeing enemy attention does seem to be in order--especially for people like the paladin, who (as of pre-1.6) has basically 0 active abilities and appear to be designed as a "tank" via covering their allies.

currently this basically doesn't work, as their punishments to enemies that ignore them is nonexistent (-5% accuracy and 1 melee attack/turn against a single enemy), and their other means of trying to dissuade enemies from attacking allies in the first place are mutually exclusive and completely worthless against multiple enemies--but this is all secondary.

if paizo plans to follow through with allowing a "tank" niche, they need to very seriously consider how to fit that into the game on both the enemy and player side, since without some means of guaranteeing enemy attention (such as by forced "aggro", intense penalties/debuffs for attacking targets other than the "tank", or other means--the idea of making yourself the biggest target and/or protecting your allies from harm needs to actually be backed up by the mechanics), the entire role goes out the window from the get-go. and unless the player can act on their turn (especially with their class' core gimmick) and know they're having some impact on the fight as their class, it gets boring fast (and raises questions like "if all this is good for is AoOing and positioning to try and get those, why am I not just playing a fighter?"). especially if you're trying to groom an entire class for that role.