Changes to the Way We Make Changes

Gortle, I think you might be getting the two halves of the ability update confused. We're talking about the new Voluntary Flaw mechanic, not the new optional ability array rule. I know it's, uh, a little tangled right now. One is a variant rule for a player option, and one is a solid rule for a player option.

Wizard Level 1 wrote:

If anything, clarifying that it is optional rule at the DM's discretion should have been enough.

Semantics. It is not a variant rule. It is optional for any player to use it. A GM doesn't get a choice as to whether they use it or not, except by using rule zero to do whatever they want.

Sometimes semantics are enough. Changing it from an optional rule to a variant rule would have been fine.

I, for one, am pretty happy about the changes, including the ancestry boost ones. The voluntary flaw change seems fairly unnecessary to me, but I'm not too bothered, since I never use it anyway.

So... a level 7 Chirurgeon can heal everyone by 1d6 every 10 minutes? Doesn't that seem a bit useless at that level?

I'd have preferred something like "You can only create one perpetually infused Elixir of Life per minute". That would give you 10d6 healing per 10 minutes, which is admittedly a bit high for free healing, but it scales much slower than say Lay on Hands. By level 7, you're already Treating Wounds for about 19 damage in 10 minutes, even guaranteed with Assurance and potentially to up to 4 targets with Ward Medic.

It would outscale other free healing options by quite a bit at level 11+, but at that point I don't think out of combat healing will be an issue for any party.

I think its a good series of changes, I'm optimistic about seeing more Gnome and Halfling martials in my game and I don't think voluntary flaw was too horrific a loss, way more builds are opened by this than closed.

I think it's good to keep in mind that this isn't really an either/or situation. We can have some version of Voluntary Flaws with the new ability rules. Removing Voluntary Flaws was more a tangential adjustment than a critical step in the overhaul.

Hey all, so, is there a place where we can view all errata?

I guess Nethys is or will soon be updated so that covers new characters but what about existing ones? I would like to see any errata relevant to my character and discuss it with my GM!

Check the FAQ for the 4th Printing!

As the ability score adjustments used to be a mechanical representation of the (formerly) racial descriptions, are you now also planning on rewriting those ancestry desriptions?
Should they not just focus on the optics now?
Or are those from now on truly disconnected?

What was wrong with the horse? I've been playing a simple weapon wielding cleric Cavalier for over a year and I've felt fine

So... a level 7 Chirurgeon can heal everyone by 1d6 every 10 minutes? Doesn't that seem a bit useless at that level?

Only from perpetual infusions. " If a creature heals Hit Points from a perpetual infusion, that creature is temporarily immune to healing Hit Points from subsequent perpetual infusions for 10 minutes" Having free potions essentially makes everyone capable of getting a downed character up to prevent them from dying, so even though it's only a 1d6 there is some use in that way.

People can still benefit from elixirs made with quick alchemy and advanced Alchemy as normal. Healing from perpetual infusions only makes you immune to healing from another perpetual infusion for 10 min. An alchemist can stock folks up on perpetual infusions and they are basically a free healing elixir they can use every 10 min on top of any regular infused elixirs.

Additionally, the chirugeon could make other elixirs that don't heal HP but that counteract status effects like Focus Cathartic or Sinew-Shock Serum which could be more useful to a group than extra healing. We are also likely to see a lot of other elixirs in the upcoming treasure book that has the healing tag which may be more tempting than an elixir of life.

Considering the fact that before the only perpetual infusion the chirugeon could make was antidote (which lasts 6 hours so you wouldn't need to make them perpetually) or antiplague which lasts 24 hours, this rule change is a pretty massive boost.

Hey all, so, is there a place where we can view all errata?

I guess Nethys is or will soon be updated so that covers new characters but what about existing ones? I would like to see any errata relevant to my character and discuss it with my GM!

Here is the FAQ look at the changes to the 4th printing.

I'm also disappointed in the Voluntary Flaws change. One of the things I've often experienced, particularly in Organized Play, is an intense stigma against "making your character worse for no reason", with the implication that your character is ruining other people's fun. The old system neatly sidestepped that to an extent by offering a small, but still relevant, benefit.

Ah well. I look forward to having to rebuild half my characters to comply. :|

As the ability score adjustments used to be a mechanical representation of the (formerly) racial descriptions, are you now also planning on rewriting those ancestry desriptions?

Should they not just focus on the optics now?
Or are those from now on truly disconnected?

There's no need to. Literally nothing in the "Physical Description" of Elves suggests they are frailer than other ancestries, or of Fetchlings that they are in some way more dexterous.

Gortle, I think you might be getting the two halves of the ability update confused. We're talking about the new Voluntary Flaw mechanic, not the new optional ability array rule. I know it's, uh, a little tangled right now. One is a variant rule for a player option, and one is a solid rule for a player option.

Paizo stuffed up their own terminology in the update. Their phrasing in the FAQ is loose.

Hey all, so, is there a place where we can view all errata?

I guess Nethys is or will soon be updated so that covers new characters but what about existing ones? I would like to see any errata relevant to my character and discuss it with my GM!

https://paizo.com/pathfinder/faq

Just click the "Pathfinfer Core Rulebook Errata (4th printing)" section. Nethys will be updated at some point as will other parteners.

I'm also disappointed in the Voluntary Flaws change. One of the things I've often experienced, particularly in Organized Play, is an intense stigma against "making your character worse for no reason", with the implication that your character is ruining other people's fun. The old system neatly sidestepped that to an extent by offering a small, but still relevant, benefit.

Ah well. I look forward to having to rebuild half my characters to comply. :|

You don't need to rebuild your characters, both the "old" and "new" ability score generation systems are equally valid.

And yes, "I gimped my character because I like edgy challenge // I like how everybody at the table talks about how I'm a low CHA bard" are both intense red flags that suggest somebody's ego is too big for the table they're sitting at.

We're talking about characters generated with Voluntary Flaws and Boosts, which I believe are now outdated?

We're talking about characters generated with Voluntary Flaws and Boosts, which I believe are now outdated?

Pretty sure Paizo will let you keep your VF&B character in org play as it is (saw something along that in the Reddit thread on these changes), but we'll have to wait for the final word on that come Thursday.

Kalindlara wrote:

I'm also disappointed in the Voluntary Flaws change. One of the things I've often experienced, particularly in Organized Play, is an intense stigma against "making your character worse for no reason", with the implication that your character is ruining other people's fun. The old system neatly sidestepped that to an extent by offering a small, but still relevant, benefit.

Ah well. I look forward to having to rebuild half my characters to comply. :|

You don't need to rebuild your characters, both the "old" and "new" ability score generation systems are equally valid.

And yes, "I gimped my character because I like edgy challenge // I like how everybody at the table talks about how I'm a low CHA bard" are both intense red flags that suggest somebody's ego is too big for the table they're sitting at.

An example:

I'm making a fleshwarp animal barbarian, and I want dex, con and strength. I could before do a stat spread like +Con, +Dex, +Str, -Int, -Cha.

After the change I can either do +Con, +Str using the Fleshwarped stats or +Str, (+Dex or +Con) using the new stats. But in either case voluntary flaw is now gone.

It isn't the biggest deal ever and I'm appreciative of the new stats for opening up more builds but it is a loss to some characters for sure.

There's also tons of great reasons for a voluntary flaw for its own sake. It's rare I create a character without a single weak point. But Kalindlara also put it really well--I always feel like I'm "letting the party down" if I intentionally weaken my character purely for roleplay reasons. That whole energy is kind of why I don't do PFS much to begin with.

Less incentive to minmax is a feature, not a bug, at least to me.

I'm also disappointed in the Voluntary Flaws change. One of the things I've often experienced, particularly in Organized Play, is an intense stigma against "making your character worse for no reason", with the implication that your character is ruining other people's fun. The old system neatly sidestepped that to an extent by offering a small, but still relevant, benefit.

Ah well. I look forward to having to rebuild half my characters to comply. :|

I was just talking to my friends about this elsewhere - even outside of PFS, it's a lot easier to sell your group on "My character takes a couple flaws in order to get a boost to something more relevant to the concept" than it is to sell them on "My character takes a couple flaws because it fits their concept better". People generally don't mind the former, but there's a lot of folks out there (and I do mean a lot of folks) who swear by optimization practices and see the idea of playing a character who's voluntarily weaker than expected to be detrimental to the party.

Changing how Voluntary Flaws work will ensure the system is used far less often both in organized play and at home games, and it removes one more option for tweaking characters from the game. It's not just about character optimization (though obviously it is at least a little about that).

So you either wanted to play a frail Human for purely roleplaying reasons with no mechanical representation, which means you're not affected at all, you're good to go with telling everybody how sickly and tired you are every half an hour, or you were trying to minmax/shoot yourself in the foot, in which case I'm glad you can't.

Blave wrote:

So... a level 7 Chirurgeon can heal everyone by 1d6 every 10 minutes? Doesn't that seem a bit useless at that level?

Only from perpetual infusions. " If a creature heals Hit Points from a perpetual infusion, that creature is temporarily immune to healing Hit Points from subsequent perpetual infusions for 10 minutes" Having free potions essentially makes everyone capable of getting a downed character up to prevent them from dying, so even though it's only a 1d6 there is some use in that way.

People can still benefit from elixirs made with quick alchemy and advanced Alchemy as normal. Healing from perpetual infusions only makes you immune to healing from another perpetual infusion for 10 min. An alchemist can stock folks up on perpetual infusions and they are basically a free healing elixir they can use every 10 min on top of any regular infused elixirs.

I get that. I understand that the limitation on healing is just on perpetual infused elixirs. But the healing amount being laughable for its level. Other than picking up a dying ally, it does nearly nothing.

It gets slighty better at level 11 but by that time you probably have enough healing in the party to no longer care about yet another source of free healing.

Additionally, the chirugeon could make other elixirs that don't heal HP but that counteract status effects like Focus Cathartic or Sinew-Shock Serum which could be more useful to a group than extra healing.

Those elixirs use counteract checks with a fixed couteract modfier and counteract level. They are basically useless as perpetual infusions because they will be at least 5 levels behind your character level and fail to counter pretty much anything you're up against at that level.

We are also likely to see a lot of other elixirs in the upcoming treasure book that has the healing tag which may be more tempting than an elixir of life.

Considering the fact that before the only perpetual infusion the chirugeon could make was antidote (which lasts 6 hours so you wouldn't need to make them perpetually) or antiplague which lasts 24 hours, this rule change is a pretty massive boost.

That new stuff in Treasure Vault better be amazing because so far they haven't really done much for the chirurgeon's perpetual infusion other than given him a slightly better stabilize cantrip.

I appreciate that they do anything at all and using crafting for medicine is a huge improvement. But as it stands right now, perpetual infusion is still mostly useless for a chirurgeon.

I love PF2E and I love the changes added as they further improve the game.

I just have one gripe:

The one weapon that actually SHOULD have reach, doesn't, and that's the 1h spear. There's no point in giving it a throw range if there are javelins that already do this.

It should be a simple, yet effective weapon that conveys an advantage of reach.

I mean:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ni-h8SH1yUw

I petition:

1. remove the throw range increment on spears and give them reach instead.

Less incentive to minmax is a feature, not a bug, at least to me.

So you either wanted to play a frail Human for purely roleplaying reasons with no mechanical representation, which means you're not affected at all, you're good to go with telling everybody how sickly and tired you are every half an hour, or you were trying to minmax/shoot yourself in the foot, in which case I'm glad you can't.

Seems like an odd stance at a change where you also make it easier to minmax (i.e. it is now easier to use Orc builds where you don't use the strength boost).

There is some sense of irony of complaining about people being annoying and being this hostile.

I love PF2E and I love the changes added as they further improve the game.

I just have one gripe:

The one weapon that actually SHOULD have reach, doesn't, and that's the 1h spear. There's no point in giving it a throw range if there are javelins that already do this.

It should be a simple, yet effective weapon that conveys an advantage of reach.

I mean:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ni-h8SH1yUw

I petition:

1. remove the throw range increment on spears and give them reach instead.

They're making a 1h reach spear in Treasure Vault! So in but a few months you'll have your wish.

Totally Not Gorbacz wrote:

Less incentive to minmax is a feature, not a bug, at least to me.

So you either wanted to play a frail Human for purely roleplaying reasons with no mechanical representation, which means you're not affected at all, you're good to go with telling everybody how sickly and tired you are every half an hour, or you were trying to minmax/shoot yourself in the foot, in which case I'm glad you can't.

Seems like an odd stance at a change where you also make it easier to minmax (i.e. it is now easier to use Orc builds where you don't use the strength boost).

There is some sense of irony of complaining about people being annoying and being this hostile.

I have no problem with max-maxing. Min-maxing, where you try to weaken your character in one area to strengthen it in others, tends to end in two ways - it's either optimisers who know exactly what they're doing and end up with that one true optimal ancestry/class/flaw combo OR folks who think they're making the game more interesting by playing an STR 14 melee Fighter, but it doesn't really work.

I know that you can't eliminate those situations entirely due to how PF stat generation works, but in an ideal world, I'd have a system that mandates at least a 16 in your key ability and doesn't let you go below 10 in anything. I'm weird like that.

Those elixirs use counteract checks with a fixed counteract modifier and counteract level. They are basically useless as perpetual infusions because they will be at least 5 levels behind your character level and fail to counter pretty much anything you're up against at that level.

Fair point. I hadn't considered that by the time you get those particular perpetual elixirs you will have out leveled anything around the level of the elixir that would apply those conditions.

That really sours me to this fix. Chirurgeon has gone from having 2 useless perpetual elixirs to a handful of almost always useless perpetual elixirs.

More elixirs that don't do anything for my party isn't a solution.

I think, to make up for stealing humans' whole no-flaws shtick, we should take a page out of the dwarves' playbook and give every human PC a gun.

"As with alternate boosts, any alchemist you already made remains a valid character!"

I'm confused by this. How is my human 8 14 14 18 14 8 alchemist valid with the new stat rules? Seems like they would very much not be. Is he just saying that those characters will be grandfathered in for the purpose of PFS or something?

Will this same twice yearly approach be taken for Starfinder?

I am very happy with the announced change to errata frequency, as someone that does not really use printed books, it was always a bit vexing to be tied to the reprint cycle.

Don’t worry about doing all the math of average damage, just follow your heart to which seems most severe.

I will Paizo, I will follow my heart.

old Gil wrote:

As the ability score adjustments used to be a mechanical representation of the (formerly) racial descriptions, are you now also planning on rewriting those ancestry desriptions?

Should they not just focus on the optics now?
Or are those from now on truly disconnected?

There's no need to. Literally nothing in the "Physical Description" of Elves suggests they are frailer than other ancestries, or of Fetchlings that they are in some way more dexterous.

Literally??

I am reading this description:
Elves

elves possess a fragile grace -> - Con, + Dex
grace, sharp intellect -> + Dex, + Int
with immense talent and knowledge -> + Int

The attributes were once based on these descriptions.
Thus my question whether there still is some correlation or practically irrelevant.

So you either wanted to play a frail Human for purely roleplaying reasons with no mechanical representation, which means you're not affected at all, you're good to go with telling everybody how sickly and tired you are every half an hour, or you were trying to minmax/shoot yourself in the foot, in which case I'm glad you can't.

Today I learned that these are the only three possible motivations I could have for doing something like this!

Thank you for this useful revelation. I can't believe I trusted my perception of my own motivations.

Blave wrote:

Those elixirs use counteract checks with a fixed counteract modifier and counteract level. They are basically useless as perpetual infusions because they will be at least 5 levels behind your character level and fail to counter pretty much anything you're up against at that level.

Fair point. I hadn't considered that by the time you get those particular perpetual elixirs you will have out leveled anything around the level of the elixir that would apply those conditions.

That really sours me to this fix. Chirurgeon has gone from having 2 useless perpetual elixirs to a handful of almost always useless perpetual elixirs.

More elixirs that don't do anything for my party isn't a solution.

This is conflating the issue too much.

Just because the Perpetual Infusions feature doesn't work well with Focus Cathartics or Sinew-Shock Serums does not mean it'll not work well with all future alchemical elixirs with the Healing trait. This change was done specifically with the new items in Treasure Vault in mind, so there's likely plenty of items for a Chirurgeon to choose from.

I think we should wait to see what Treasure Vault has in store for us before we write it all off.

So you either wanted to play a frail Human for purely roleplaying reasons with no mechanical representation, which means you're not affected at all, you're good to go with telling everybody how sickly and tired you are every half an hour, or you were trying to minmax/shoot yourself in the foot, in which case I'm glad you can't.

Or you just want to give a bit more tweaking to your character without min-maxing into mind and the old rules were pretty fine for that.

I, for example, dislike having 12 Constitution and 12 Wisdom, which is what I end up with many of my characters (18 16 12 12 10 10). My character feels just average outside their 2 main stats. So in general I take 14 in one and 10 in the other, opening another stat for a flaw (18 16 14 10 10 8). It's not min-maxing as my character is worse thanks to the change (considering that depending on my character I either increase Constitution or Wisdom, we can hardly call that an improvement) and I like to have an 8 in one attribute as it gives roleplay opportunities.
Now, I can no more do that. So my Alchemist can't be wise and my Paladin can't be solid, as it's now some matrices I'll be bared from.

Also, taking a flaw without any compensation, even the slightest one, just feels stupid. Even a skill feat, or 10 gold pieces would be enough to justify the choice. But nothing, it's like shooting oneself in the foot and be fully aware of it.

An alchemist can stock folks up on perpetual infusions and they are basically a free healing elixir they can use every 10 min on top of any regular infused elixirs.

Be careful that Perpetual Infusions last one round. So you can't really "stock folks up".

Totally Not Gorbacz wrote:

old Gil wrote:

As the ability score adjustments used to be a mechanical representation of the (formerly) racial descriptions, are you now also planning on rewriting those ancestry desriptions?

Should they not just focus on the optics now?
Or are those from now on truly disconnected?

There's no need to. Literally nothing in the "Physical Description" of Elves suggests they are frailer than other ancestries, or of Fetchlings that they are in some way more dexterous.

Literally??

I am reading this description:
Elves

elves possess a fragile grace -> - Con, + Dex
grace, sharp intellect -> + Dex, + Int
with immense talent and knowledge -> + Int

The attributes were once based on these descriptions.
Thus my question whether there still is some correlation or practically irrelevant.

Fragile grace could be +Cha or -Str, the "immense talent and knowledge" line is about how others see Elves, and honestly, we're in the "all X are Y" stereotype territory which is what Paizo likely wanted to ditch.

That guy above with his rant about supposedly universal American traits, is a great example of why this kind of stuff belongs in the trashcan.

Marios wrote:

Hey all, so, is there a place where we can view all errata?

I guess Nethys is or will soon be updated so that covers new characters but what about existing ones? I would like to see any errata relevant to my character and discuss it with my GM!

Here is the FAQ look at the changes to the 4th printing.

Thanks to all!

The REAL BIG MEANINGFUL change to Golarion that this errata brings will be a dramatic fall in the number of people of all ancestries who were adopted by gnomes.

The REAL BIG MEANINGFUL change to Golarion that this errata brings will be a dramatic fall in the number of people of all ancestries who were adopted by gnomes.

Do you think the drop will be bigger than the increase in Halfling Barbarians?

Golarion's going to change a lot.

Totally Not Gorbacz wrote:

The REAL BIG MEANINGFUL change to Golarion that this errata brings will be a dramatic fall in the number of people of all ancestries who were adopted by gnomes.

Do you think the drop will be bigger than the increase in Halfling Barbarians?

Golarion's going to change a lot.

I'm all for diversity and having fewer "every Paladin was found in the wild after being raised by fey" situations as we had in PF1.

I'm all for diversity and having fewer "every Paladin was found in the wild after being raised by fey" situations as we had in PF1.

The funny thing is that my first PF1 character (back when it was using third edition rules) was a Gnome Paladin... The only Paladin who was not raised by feys!!!

Ok, I stop speaking about my life.