Alceste008's page

I have not been a fan of Pathfinder 2E. As a player of mine said, you just do not feel heroic in 2E. Starfinder still manages to capture that heroic feeling without the crazier scaling issues of 1E. We as a group enjoy the Starfinder system. The setting has lead to quite a few very funny moments.

I think he means the style is too different and these are barely the same characters, despite what we were told. And I will say Seoni doesnt feel like the same person, though I honestly contribute that more to the hairstyle and color personally, same with Harsk. But I dont mind the difference (though prefer the old hair on her) and I think she looks more like her personality from the comics and whatnot

You are correct. These do not feel like the same characters at all despite Paizo stating that they would be. If they wanted character redesigns then Paizo should have just gone ahead and spent the time to create new characters rather than creating this mess. This does reflect poorly on second edition.

Now, my main concern is letting my players and venture agents know how negative my thoughts on second edition have become.

Once again, I am very disappointed in the new art. I have decided that the artwork in second edition is just going to be a huge negative for me. I have been wavering on the migration for 2e for awhile and this definitely is not helping. This is nowhere the same portrayal design as the previous despite what was said from Paizo.

Having dealt with someone who had a drug addiction issue. They have issues taking care of themselves as well as the place they live. The bags under the eyes / glazed eyes as well as degeneration of apparent health and increased aggression were definitely there. Thus, the above illustration brings out reminders of drug addiction.

Now, someone who through lack of experience in having dealt with drug addiction may not see this as signs but they definitely can be.

Ouch, this illustration is definitely going for the strung out drug addict look. Maybe she is doing crystal to give her strength to rage?

The previous version looked a lot better. That version at least looked like she went outside and worked out. If this is the direction for the new iconics, I am not looking forward to seeing them.

Alceste008 wrote:

Jason Bulmahn wrote:

Hey there all,

We knew the Paladin was going to be a bit contentious. The class has provoked strong emotions and discussion since the earliest days of gaming. In designing this class, we really had two routes we could take. Traditional, but very flavorful, or Reimagined, but ultimately more generic. I chose the former.

I am going to disagree with this decision from a business standpoint. There is a malignant effect created by having this class be the primary defender upon the whole PF 2.0 system. Many people have had bad experiences with self-righteous, demeaning, and / or condescending behavior from Paladin players due to the way the class and code creates entitlement in the “one true path”. Those experiences cannot be changed. These same / more people will have to possibly suffer through this behavior more often due to this class and code being the primary defender. I disagree with making this happen because of class fantasy. Having this behavior occur more often is not how you grow markets but rather shrink them. Also, you typically grow markets by being more inclusive not less.

Please note, I do not care about the name but rather the mechanics around the primary defender in this system. I actually am not a fan of the name. I would suggest the class name being changed to knight \ warpriest \ etc. with Paladin being a special archetype or alternate class.

Fortunately for them there is an option in playtest by which other classes (Fighter perhaps?) can gain legendary armor proficiency and therefore fill the role of defender.

I am not actually hopeful at this point in time. If the system does not have a way for the other martials to be as good of a defender as a paladin then the whole of pathfinder 2.0 fails for me. If there is a way then I can simply ban paladins from any home games I run. For PFS, I may look into playing or running something else.

Hey there all,

We knew the Paladin was going to be a bit contentious. The class has provoked strong emotions and discussion since the earliest days of gaming. In designing this class, we really had two routes we could take. Traditional, but very flavorful, or Reimagined, but ultimately more generic. I chose the former.

I am going to disagree with this decision from a business standpoint. There is a malignant effect created by having this class be the primary defender upon the whole PF 2.0 system. Many people have had bad experiences with self-righteous, demeaning, and / or condescending behavior from Paladin players due to the way the class and code creates entitlement in the “one true path”. Those experiences cannot be changed. These same / more people will have to possibly suffer through this behavior more often due to this class and code being the primary defender. I disagree with making this happen because of class fantasy. Having this behavior occur more often is not how you grow markets but rather shrink them. Also, you typically grow markets by being more inclusive not less.

Please note, I do not care about the name but rather the mechanics around the primary defender in this system. I actually am not a fan of the name. I would suggest the class name being changed to knight \ warpriest \ etc. with Paladin being a special archetype or alternate class.

After talking with my venture agent on why I am looking to exit running and playing PF 2 ed after Gencon, he suggested that I give the reasons on why this poor class design bothers me so much.

For me, this class design about being the one true way to behave is too reminiscent of dictatorial thinking patterns that cause heinous results. The holier than thou created by this design literally poisons table atmospheres. This poor class design encourages the paladin to believe that their character is "always right" because they are a "paladin" and there is one true path. The paladin player therefore feels entitled to tell others the way they should play their characters. I managed to escape one groupthink society so I have no desire to encourage similar thinking patterns.

If this class was not essential and you rarely saw people playing them then you suffer thou the occasional table. However in PF 2.0, the paladin is a core component because no one is comparable in armor skills. Locking a core component of the system to such a groupthink character is pretty poor design.

As someone who has played since the early beginning when Paladins were just lawful counterparts to avengers, count me as one who is extremely disappointed. I am either now going to rework or ban paladins again or just move to 5 edition. I am really tired of paladin arguments. I wish Paizo the best but may be time for me to move on.

I like the cover. When you fight creatures from the lower planes they should be scary. After all, they are not goblins or kobolds.

First, this was the shortest two and half hour movie I have ever seen. Second, I really liked the movie. I really enjoyed Thor and "Rabbit" in the film. I will agree that having a villain with at least reasonable viewpoint was pretty important in my enjoyment of the movie. I am planning to watch the movie again there seems to be details that I missed.

Having played DND from a time when Paladins just were lawful and Avengers were the chaotic counterparts with similar abilities, I have a different opinion then a lot of people. The game has changed over time. I am good with the game adding new flavors and varieties now.

I still prefer to weave a story. A player who wants to play a CG paladin will need to provide a good background but I am confident that I can weave such a character into my campaign story like I have been doing for many decades. The game requires both players and DMs to have choices.

I really like the concept but the current version really needed to be play tested. The current version needs to be buffed.

I am not a big fan of alignment. Trying to do a murder mystery, just have the cleric / paladin detect evil until they find the evil person. No one detects as evil just have them take off their rings.

There are a lot of loopholes with the arbitrary system of alignment we have now. The Monkey King is most definitely a monk. Paladins have no abilities grounded in law only good. Which funny enough is the exact opposite of the original which was only Lawful (ie no good at all).

That being said the alignment system is used as a short hand for monster types in the game. For example LG (stuck up but generally helpful), NG (pure hearted), and CG (flighty but helpful). The easy classification allows players to go waaagh when seeing a normally hostile race like orcs and goblins. When seeing good aligned races they are more prepared to negotiate. This does make the game go faster and can be easier on both the dm and players. Is this good? I am not so sure.

The Last Jedi was an okay movie. The plot holes and changes from traditional Star Wars tropes made for a fairly hollow Star Wars experience thou.

While the The Last Jedi is the highest grossing US domestic movie of the year, the performance vs The Force Awakens is off by about 30%. I am hoping that Disney will see the reaction / fall off and change the direction of the series.

I was not expecting much as I am not a fan of Will Smith. Strangely enough, I had fun watching the movie. I am hopeful for Cyberpunk / Shadowrun style movies / series in the future given Bright's success.

I liked the film but their were issues. I agree with the heroes in the film feeling like the characters from the comics. The humor in the film helped me to overcome the cgi and plot issues.

My family and I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. And I'm perfectly fine with how much was played for humor even if it wasn't classic Marvel Thor who was nearly always extremely humorless. It's really hard to do the cosmic, Hulk-infused stuff without some humor.

But now I'm wondering if I can get my wife to cosplay Hela...

Yeah, the humor added a lot to the movie. I really liked Ragnarok quite a bit. The sound track was also really good. Ragnarok is just a well made movie.

Okay, there are some inaccurate statements being posted in this thread.

First, original DnD only had Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic. Good and Evil did not exist in the game yet.

Second, Paladins were Lawful and a subclass of fighter. Avengers were Chaotic and added later. All alignments had their special champions in basic dnd.

Third, the very first DnD paladin was played by Gary's close friend ( Don Kaye) was a cowboy who used magical six shooters (special wands). Bonus, if you can identify the character. The character lived by a specific code.

The concepts of Law and Chaos presented by Moorcock and Anderson were pretty important in the formation of the game. While I struggled to get through Anderson's work, I really enjoyed Moorcock's work. You can clearly see their influence on the game.

It has certainly encouraged me to never play a pregen unless its for no credit to fill a table.

I am now in the same boat. I would let a table bust rather than play a pregen with this rule. I cannot even recommend in good conscious pregens to newer players anymore.

I would like to see the magical child and spirit dancer archetypes improved. I want to play both because of the rp potential but the mechanics are pretty weak.

I walked into the movie not expecting much. Wow, this movie was just great. I am so glad that Fox has decided that R ratings do not mean failure at the box office anymore. The movie really benefitted from being able to show the rough side of nature.

I have really liked this book so far. Keeping prestige classes few and flavorful is the correct path imho.

I have played a lot of DDO by soloing with a hireling. I normally use only the vendor hirelings that you can buy with in game gold. I have an injury that hampers my reaction speed so I prefer to solo so people do not get upset when I fail to move. Yes, you can definitely solo in DDO.

I would recommend a 2 rogue / 18 wizard for your first trip through the game. You get to play a wizard and can still disable traps & evade by yourself. You can take the augment summoning feat to make your hirelings, summons, and skellie (if desired) stronger as well. this gives you a few agro magnets while you rain death and destruction from a distance.

To answer the question above, yes there are druids in DDO now. You get an animal companion plus you can still summon nature's ally as well.

Angry joe not very pleased with it

Angry joe

Well, that was entertaining. Angry Joe is usually spot on. I am sad the game came out in such a state.

There are several 5E D&D Twitch games that are streamed. The players in these games are voice actors and actresses usually in their 20s. The DMs and players are pretty good. I can see why 5E D&D has a solid following among younger people. The game is solid and easy to pick up and play.

I personally prefer Pathfinder with loads of options but I can understand others who prefer 5E. I do not see Pathfinder's presence as much online outside of Paizo.com.

I'm more interested in Legacy of Fire personally. :-)

I agree. Second Darkness needs a lot of rewriting. Legacy of Fire is a stronger series that needs mostly game mechanics updated.

Druids are actually very capable combatants, pet or no pet. And they can easily share their buffs. A single archetype switching Wild Shape for Animal Focus would be just as effective...

Also, a single feat brings Ranger and domain animal companions to full progression. Again, a simple archetype would suffice and do pretty much everything a Hunter does... While saving time, effort and resources that could have been spent making the ACG a better book. We'd have fewer classes, but they would probably be better designed and more unique.

But that's just my opinion, of course... We can always agree to disagree.

Having played both, animal focus is much, much better than wildshape for character that goes into combat. Wildshape + Natural spell is amazing for casters thou. Outflank + Pack flanking (teamwork feats) is a +4 on almost every attack. Add some more teamwork feats and you would be surprised at how effective hunters are. Ranger pets are truly an after thought even with boon companion (when it is not banned) without animal focus / teamwork feats.

I use to think that teamwork feats were a waste of space due to how few players used them. Hunters add an additional element to the game that is rarely used for me in making an animal companion interesting. In the end, different players find different things interesting.

Blackvial wrote:

New animated short out Hanzo vs Genji

Dragons

Maybe it's just me, but that one may be the best one yet. Of course, hints are the last one involves the old Overwatch teammates - Reaper vs. Soldier 76 taking place in Dorado.

I have really enjoyed their animated shorts. Alive with Window maker was the first short that highlighted a "villain" although Tracer was there as well.

Sadly, I am not that interested in the game. I prefer co-op and single player games these days.

My changes are below:

Sorcerers should get 4 skill points a level plus they should get their bonus spells when they get that level of spells. Not huge changes but rather quality of life improvements.

Fighters need a bit more. I did like the stamina system from Unchained but it would need to be flushed out a bit.

2015 was going to feel less imho than 2014. Guardians of the Galaxy and Captain America the Winter Soldier were both outstanding movies. Ant-Man and Ultron were fun but just not up there in that league.

On the TV front, I am really liking Agents of Shield now more so than in the past. I need to give Daredevil another try so no comment there.

I like highly customizable classes like oracles, blood ragers, etc. I cannot wait to try out a medium (spirit dancer).

Strife2002 wrote:

Also there's a lot of negativity in this thread, so let me just say THANK YOU. It should be no surprise to anyone who's ever seen me on these boards that I'm smitten with errata (as a GM and ONLY a GM, balance and clarification is way more important to me than me getting "robbed" of something I wasn't supposed to have in the first place).

As far after its original publication as this is hitting, this IS being robbed of abilities. If we 'weren't supposed to have it' it should have been taken away immediately.

I'm honestly tired of Society's adventure design causing class changes that overshadow home games that were JUST FINE. Crane wing was fine until society's big single bosses couldn't get past it because MMS gave it too early.

Gun jams only slow down a gunslinger compared to an archer.

I'm sure there are more, but I don't have time to hunt them down right now.

Home games almost by definition are a collaboration between players and DMs. Now, I and my fellow DMs that I play with have always disliked Master of many styles so the archetype was simply banned. Crane Wing has a very different power level with MoMS banned so much so that we never adopted the errata changing the feat. In a home game, you can really customize the power level to be where the players and DM are having fun. Is your DM simply running everything as RAW without house rules?

Ross Byers wrote:

I'd rather get a finished game for my birthday than a broken game for Christmas, so that's fine.

your birthday happen during Unification Day? you're so lucky ;)

I never buy games when they come out anyway, I wait a while, so I'm all for them taking time to polish the final product.

I can understand that position of waiting for bugs to be fixed. I never buy a Bethesda game until a year after release due to the buggy nature of their games. Firaxis does a better job at bug squashing before release so I am okay with picking up their games at release. Plus, I really enjoyed the first Xcom games.

Nah, the Master of Many Styles is finally a decent archetype that can and will actually be played start to finish. The hot mess from before needed to die in a fire well before this; if it hadn't been letting people Crane Wing at level 2, the Crane Style feats wouldn't have been such a problem in PFS and the whole mess that resulted from the Crane Wing errata probably never would have happened in the first place. I think the new MoMS is probably the best thing to come out of this batch of errata.

I definitely agree. Master of many styles was banned in my home game since the beginning.

The biggest question I have is when you run a home game, you really modify the rules together with your fellow DMs. For example, we limit metamagic rods to one charge per day but keep the same cost. Imho, metamagic rods are too good for their cost and are much, much better than the feats. Errata that changed something about metamagic rods would not necessarily be implemented in our game.

The only downsides I can see with errata is when you and a player have a different book version, then you have to decide together on which version of the ability you use.

I never played the extended cut dlc (or even replayed ME3), and my synthesis choice seemed a perfectly great solution to the problem. It fell right into the harmony / make everyone satisfied paragon that Space Hero of Ferelden was in my game. I never had a big "problem" with the three colors ending myself, I just felt letdown that after the Saren Husk boss fight in ME and the Human Reaper in ME2, the boss fight in ME3 was Marauder Shields. Wake up from your indoctrination, only to kill 1 guy then spend 20m crawling through access vents, then spend 20m listening to ghost-kid emote about reapers, then choice and 20m of cinematics. That is a letdown endgame compared to the previous two games. I wanted a boss fight, dadgummit!

I'm excited for Andromeda, and I hope they keep Shep and Co out of it. Commander Shepard had his spotlight to guide the Milky Way to its glorious machine integrated future. Now its time for generic hero and his allies to shine without dodging Shep's Shadow.

Changing to a different galaxy to allow a whole new set of races to visit and planets to explore is a good thing imho. While I really, really enjoyed the first series (except the ending), the new start with generic hero 1 interests me.

I am much happier with the new summoner as well. I like the additional flavor of the outsider plus there will be no groans will I show up with one in PFS.

Durngrun Stonebreaker wrote:

How does a virtual level increase grant an ability that an actual level increase does not?

This was the essence of my position also. If you don't get the ability or improvements when you organically reach level 7, then surely you don't get them when you are treated as level 7.

You've given up those abilities or improvements. They don't exist for you any more.

Anyway, I'll bow out again swiftly and politely :)

Yeah, I am going to simply agree with this statement. You show up for any table I run this is going to be the ruling. The abilities do not exist for you any more since you gave them up.

Yeah, 5th ed solved this by the very simple (and totally stealable) expedient of allowing everyone to break up their movement any way they like. There is no 'full attack' action, only the 'attack' action, which lets you take all the attacks to which you are entitled.

Simples! : )

While I love the variety of Pathfinder, this innovation has been truly great so far.

Dragon78 wrote:

I would love it if instead of killing Ahsoka, Vader freezes her in carbonite so she could be alive and maybe in a live action movie.

Dear Disney,

Please ask Ashley Eckstein if she would be willing to don the makeup and lekku, and do the 3-4 months of preparatory Jedi swordtraining, to appear in Star Wars VIII or IX.

Thank you,
Ambrosia Planeswalker

Lol, this comment made my day. This would be a great way to introduce the younger audience to the Star Wars movies.

Mikaze wrote:

"Our Spike, good. Your Spike, sexy!" - Yoko Kanno on Cowboy Bebop's English dub

I was just about to mention Bebop and the fantastic voice acting done on the dub. I've watched both the original (first) and dub (second), and I vastly prefer the dub. The voice actors on the original were okay, but they didn't feel like they belonged to their characters. The dub actors felt "right."

Dub vs Sub definitely depends on the series and person in question. Cowboy Bebop, I agree had very good actors on the dub version. I also really liked the dubbed version of Ghost in the Shell. In general, I prefer subtitles thou.

However,I also have a few friends that have tremendous issues with subtitles. One of my friends with said issues got hooked on Fairy Tail (thanks to me). He simply would not watch the series of a dubbed version was not available. Now, I prefer the sub version for Fairy Tail but I can definitely hang out and watch the dubbed version with him.

Dubbing increases the range of your audience. The actors may vary in quality but without dubbing, anime would be watched by fewer people. Since I like the shows and want them to be successful, I am fine with a dubbed version being available.

Uh. That's not the disgusting trend that is being exposed here. The disgusting trend being exposed is how a vocal minority (hopefully) will latch onto anything to spread disgusting lies and lash out at women, while hiding behind weak claims of "journalistic integrity".

I mean, they are literally discussing the pros and cons of harassing Zoe Quinn until she kills herself. (warning: not for the faint of heart.)

Are you sure that's the side you want to be on?

What these people are doing to her is utterly despicable. Their presence on one side of the debate utterly and totally taints that side's message especially in regards to this issue.

When people like this are agreeing with you, you should rethink, reevaluate, and respecify your message by leaving the entire incident involving her out. Because otherwise, your message will get lost with the likes of these truly disgusting individuals and normal people will just ignore anything you say.

It's a lot weaker than a standard Cleric. But most classes are, so that's hardly a huge complaint. As long as Clerics have 9 levels of spells, decent BAB and weapons/armor, in addition to a list of really powerful domain abilities, it's going to be really difficult for any class to fit into the "warrior priest" niche without being compared to the monster that a well-designed cleric can be.

On a tier list, Clerics are in T1, while Warpriests are in T3. Considering T3 is pretty much smack dab in the middle of "can do lots of stuff well, but isn't able to do absolutely everything" I don't really think it's a bad class at all.

Among T3 classes, Warpriest are on the low end. Since the bonuses are enhancement bonuses, a Magus will deal tons more damage. On the other hand, Paladins have so much better defenses between amazing saves, immunities, etc. Plus paladins decent melee with smite and a full BAB.

I would state that a Warpriest does a lot of things, but none are done very well. The Warpriest class is one of the disappointments of the ACG.

The changes to Warpriest were huge. Charisma is simply no longer a viable stat for a Warpriest. Also, multiclassing with paladin / oracle is now a very bad idea.

Also since the only VC in this thread is pointing out that normally the very specific rule regarding a change in ability score usage allows a rebuild should superceede the very general rule in additional resources, I am inclined to allow rebuilds of Warpriest characters.

I am old enought to remember the old DunjounQuest games, Buck Rogers, Pool of Radiance,Wizard's Crown,Eternal Dagger and so on.

Lol, I am old enough to remember them as well. My first rpgs were the gold box games. I have played all of them. I definitely would like to see them updated.

Sarenrae is an interesting Goddess. Being on one hand the God willing to go to battle against Rovagug face to face, while the rest of the deities worked to bind him. On the other hand, Sarenrae seeks to redeem even those gods that have fallen into darkness. Neutral Good is a good fit for a deity that is willing to use different methodologies to achieve goodness.

Well, I was not expecting this Overpowered class to gain even more power. Simply every single thing a sorcerer can do the arcanist can do better. Hell, the arcanist can easily pick up the draconic bloodline abilities plus the wizard school abilities and still not even worry about charisma. The only thing saving the wizard is getting spells one level earlier. We are actually discussing some of the most powerful classes in game being outdated here.

After, the nerf to the warpriest (not a hugely useful class now) plus buffing what seems on the surface to be a very OP class worries me a lot about the book itself.