The Pathfinder Playtest is Closed!

DeathQuaker wrote:

Adding flavor text will NOT fix the playtest document's problem. If your (hypothetical) Thundering Strike ability starts with "Your mighty hammer makes a deafening KABOOM! when you strike the ground," and THEN follow it with incomprehensible jargon-laden stereo instructions, that doesn't change the fact that it's incomprehensible stereo instructions. It's just incomprehensible stereo instructions that ALSO waste verbiage and layout space on (often) unnecessary fluff.

Generally speaking, Paizo's writers have almost always done a good job of writing mechanics clearly without being overly complicated, and their editing cycle catches the things that slip through. I can only hope that the playtest document was just "raw footage" as it were, without a lot of actual text review, and the finished document will be up to their usual high standard.

Just to revisit this point but it does something the overall magic and feel of the game to write it that way. Like if you were so ashamed of the "Mathfinder" label as they seemed to be in several of their decisions they certainly did a lot of reinforcement of that with their writing style.

Ashamed of math? I think that we can wave Math Pride flags for Paizo's valiant efforts with Pathfinder mathematics.

Mathematics is the engine of any game that relies on dice rolls. In playing and playtesting boardgames, I find that games play smoother if the math is built into the mechanics rather than left as arithmetic, such as rolling 1d8 instead of adding +1 to the result of 1d6. Likewise, deciding to become Expert in a Diplomacy is more elegant than deciding to put two more skill ranks into Diplomacy.

Paizo is not ashamed of the arithmetic of Pathfinder 1st Edition, but they want Pathfinder 2nd Edition to flow more smoothly and elegantly, so they move the mathematics to the underlying layer. And part of the elegance is universal mechanics more resistant to game-breaking abuse. Pathfinder 1st Edition had a lot of individual subsystems; for example, BAB for attacks worked differently from skill ranks for skill checks. The Pathfinder 2nd Edition playtest had universal mechanics, such as a single proficiency system for attacks, skill checks, and saving throws. At least one of those universal mechanics, Resonance, failed the playtest.

Unfortunately, rewriting a game with universal mechanics means forcing those mechanics into places where they do naturally not fit. That was the case with Lingering Composition, so it made a great bad example. Let's look at the other 1st-level bard feats, which fared better.

BARDIC LORE FEAT 1
Bard
Prerequisite lore muse
Your eclectic studies inform you on just about any topic. You are trained in Bardic Lore, a special lore skill that can be used only to Recall Knowledge, but can be used to Recall Knowledge on any topic. If you are legendary in Occultism, you become an expert in Bardic Lore, but you can’t increase your proficiency rank in Bardic Lore by any other means.

Okay, I see a few cracks here. Paizo based Bardic Lore on the Lore skill, but immediately tweaked how the Lore skill works. I believe Bardic Lore is based on the PF1 Bardic Knowledge ability, "Bardic Knowledge (Ex): A bard adds half his class level (minimum 1) to all Knowledge skill checks and may make all Knowledge skill checks untrained." Rather than a numerical bonus to all skills with Recall Knowledge or a numerical bonus to the Recall Knowledge action itself, PF2 elegantly creates a general-purpose Recall Knowledge skill that can be boosted. That simplifies the math! Er, I mean Bardic Lore could have been boosted if it didn't specifically forbid increasing proficiency. Okay, Paizo nerfed the ability as they created it, stopping short of the finish line. That is a design mistake rather than a writing style mistake.

The limitation "that can be used only to Recall Knowledge" is an artifact of the playtest itself. Currently, Lore has no uses besides Recall Knowledge and Practice a Trade, and since a bard can practice a trade with Performance, I don't see a bard using Practice a Trade with Bardic Lore. However, maybe during the playtest Paizo would have added more actions that use Lore. I posted two suggestions myself, Conduct a Ceremony and Find Common Ground. Thus, they had to be prepared for something that didn't happen.

VERSATILE PERFORMANCE FEAT 1
Bard
Prerequisite polymath muse
In social situations, you can rely on the grandeur of your performances rather than ordinary social skills. You can use Performance instead of Diplomacy to Make an Impression and instead of Intimidation to Demoralize. You can also use an acting performance instead of Deception to Impersonate.

The math of PF1 Versatile Performance was already elegant, so PF2 does not improve on it.

The only writing glitch in this description is that it brought out "acting performance" rather than plain Performance for impersonation. Acting is still a Performance check, but it gains the auditory, lingual, and visual traits. The Impersonate action ordinarily has only the Concentrate and Manipulate traits. If an impersonation does not already involve speaking or visually resembling the person, then I don't see why using Performance ought to add those. Aside from that unanswered question, the writing flaw in "acting performance" is that it forces the player to look up what changes that causes.

MULTIFARIOUS MUSE FEAT 1 (from Rules Update 1.6, page 13)
Bard
Your muse doesn’t fall into a single label. Choose a type of muse other than your own. You gain a 1st-level feat that requires that muse, and your muse is now also a muse of that type, allowing you to take feats with the other muse as a prerequisite.
Special You can take this feat multiple times. Each time you do, you must choose a different muse from your own.

Before Rules Update 1.6, bard feats Loremaster’s Recall, Mental Prowess, and Mental Stronghold had Bardic Lore as a prerequisite. Bardic Lore was granted automatically by the lore muse, so lore muse fulfilled prerequisite. Rules Update 1.6 changed the prerequiste directly to lore muse. Likewise, Inspire Competence, Harmonize, and Inspire Heroics changed their prerequisites from Lingering Composition to maestro muse, and Esoteric Scholar, Eclectic Skill, and Unusual Composition changed their prerequisites from Versatile Performance to polymath muse. Bardic Lore gained Lingering Composition gained a maestro muse requirement,

This change was for elegance. I guess that playtest surveys revealed that players were having difficulty seen which feats were associated with which muse. This clarified it. It adds an extra step to creating a two-muse bard, but a two-muse bard would naturally be a complicated character not for beginners.

I cannot resist pulling out the welding torch and creating my own repaired version of Bardic Lore.

BARDIC LORE, VERSION 2 FEAT 1
Bard
Prerequisite lore muse
Your eclectic and esoteric studies inform you on just about any topic. You may use Occultism for any Recall Knowledge check.

There wasn't any reason to make Bardic Lore a Lore skill besides the name. Maybe version 2 is overpowered, but I would want to playtest it before nerfing it.