Wizard Statue

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Asgetrion wrote:

If you ask me, 1E (and D&D 3E in general) is way more "codified" to satisfy rules lawyers than 2E, and I feel once again empowered as a GM, at least based on what I've seen so far of the new edition. In my opinion there are less "hard" rules and more freedom, making the game more enjoyable and easier to both run and play, regardless whether you're a novice or a veteran. I'm really, really excited about 2E, but YMMV, of course.

(BTW, I have several rules lawyers in my group, so I should know what I'm talking about! ;))

And for me, fewer hard rules means more difficulty and confusion in running and playing. As a GM I feel cast adrift, rather than empowered. But I look forward to the smoother operation, and maybe it's easier to codify/solidify rules from 2E than it was to loosen rules from 1E, so we can all be happy :)

On another couple notes, do the class symbols have any significance?
And was anyone else lost by the organization of the magic items chapter? Both because of all consumables except scrolls not being macro-alphabetical but micro-alphabetical under Consumables, but also the font size and spacing choices for section headers?


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Mark Seifter wrote:

We were hoping the ability to be especially good at preparing would be seen as more of an interesting/versatility increase, as opposed to a raw power boost, based on the feedback you guys gave us. Of our other ideas, I think the best one we didn't use was customizing your arcane bond from wizard to wizard (something like: amulets give you defensive benefits, staff for the extra spell, etc, with the possibility of adding more in later books) but then that would leave the wizard making two subclass choices as opposed to one for most other characters. Does that strike you as a wizard fan as adding more to the "interesting" factor than the "power" factor?

I for one, as a wizard fan, would see the arcane bond options as definitely adding more to the 'interesting' factor. Both for crunch and fluff (would bonded items have cosmetic/mechanical flexibilites like familiars?)


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Edge93 wrote:
Yeah, in some cases spells have a fairly high chance of the save being made, sometimes even if you aren't targeting the foe's best save, but this is offset significantly by almost all saving throw spells retaining some effect on a successful save, allowing you to inflict minor debuffs or decent damage while you try to get something stronger to stick. This is a dynamic I FAR prefer to save-or-lose from PF1.

I don't think it's even 'some cases' or 'sometimes'; while a hypothetical bad/worst base save for a 9th level PC could be +9 (only 40% chance of success in the Moonmere scenario), it's very easy or even automatic to increase that figure via increasing ability scores, inherent or accessible save rank increases, and item bonuses.

e.g. the cleric in my anecdote, with only trained Reflex and full plate, still achieves 50% odds for her worst save, which may not be fairly high, but certainly isn't low, either.

And I would agree with Fuzzypaws that a lot of spells do very little on successful saves. The effects of non-energy spells (typically?) don't last more than a round, and may or may not do much on that round anyway, while energy spells don't do any more than a hit with a weapon. Which, tbh, I'm mostly okay with, since it's standard that even a successful dodge of a flame breath or fireball will still singe, so a save against blindness or confusion causing temporary flat-footedness or loss or a single action seems more or less in line. But I don't think these results should always be the most common or expected results, as they are now.


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TheNewbie wrote:
Logan Bonner wrote:
DM_aka_Dudemeister wrote:
This playtest is going by so fast...
Tell me about it...
I'm not the guy from the post, but I've been constantly playing 5 hours/week for my group and I'm still at part 4: Mirrored Moon. We all want to do the surveys and contribute for PF2E, but we can't find time to play more. We don't want to rush the Campaign because we fell we'll be sending poor feedback if we do that, but we don't want to can't be able to contribute because we couldn't keep up with the dates.

The surveys are open until New Year's, I believe, so those us who are still behind can continue to play and submit surveys until that time.

Jason has suggested that we might skip an adventure or two if necessary, and that in such a case adventures 1,4, and 7 are the most important.


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HWalsh wrote:
Tamago wrote:

What bothers me is that there are several places where the rules say, "The GM sets the DC", but there's no guidance on what sorts of DCs should be used. Even if they would say something like, "This should be an Easy DC based on the level of the opponent" or something, it would help.

Ideally, I really think there needs to be some examples of the DCs of common tasks listed with the thing that calls for them. Having to flip back and forth to find the skill DC chart all the time is maddening. And it's large enough that there's not really any hope of memorizing it.

For example, the Track skill really ought to have some example DCs for things, like:
Track an animal through fresh snow - 5
Track a large animal across soft ground - 10
Follow game through a dense forest - 15
Identify a type of humanoid based on its boot-prints - 20
Track a bird that passed across open water on a cloudy moonless night - 40

They didn't do that because they don't want Players to be able to reference a chart and inform the GM that they automatically succeed at something. That is something I saw in pfs/pf1 all the time.

While I, on the other hand, want my players to be able to just that. It makes my job a lot easier, especially if I don't have any particular DC or easier/harder difficulty in mind.


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pauljathome wrote:


4) Take 10 no longer exists and assurance is all but useless.

I hadn't thought about this before, but Assurance for leaping really can be useless for a significant set of characters - Until it hits Legendary, it only gives the '20' result. Which is guaranteed failure for a High Jump attempt and which allows a distance of 15 feet on a Long Jump attempt...which is already the distance a character/creature with 30+ movement (or Powerful Leaper) can Leap without making a check anyway.

The Powerful Leaper feat also causes some superfluousness issues - in boosting vertical Leap to a 5-ft base, it's not clear which a successful Athletics check would achieve anymore, since that also only allows a 5-ft Leap, rather than a +3 ft Leap, for instance. It effectively overrides any usefulness of Assurance for vertical leaping as well - Legendary assurance would only guarantee the 30 check to High Jump 5 ft, but again, the lvl 2 feat already guarantees that without a check.


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Paizo Blog wrote:
It took players, on average, almost 10 minutes less to make their 4th-level characters that it did to make their 1st-level characters, which is great news.

One of my players mentioned that character creation moved a lot faster not just because he was more familiar with the rules, but because he went for the 'ABC' method that the book seems designed towards, rather than starting with a specific concept and looking for the pieces to make it work. I hope this is something they clarify when they give their feedback after we finish our run of Pale Mountain, and I hope a few other players clarify the same.


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Vic Ferrari wrote:
Cool, but aside from Ancestries, pretty particular, I would like to see some solid considerations/comments on over-aching stuff (+Level, 4-tiers of success, monster stats/maths, spells, etc).

I would think they'll touch more on those topics once they have playtest data from higher level adventures - with primarily only 1st level play to pull data from, a lot of spells and aspects of the proficiency system won't have come up yet.

Mark's been in a thread of two discussing how some of the monster stats may be off due to an earlier generation method, so some of that may be an easy fix as well.


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graeme mcdougall wrote:

1) Layout: This is just where things are located, how they're referenced & organised.
I agree with the majority; it's proper rough right now.
Location of powers, organisation of feats, lack of feat effect summary in the feat summary table.
I'm not really worried about this at all. It's a playtest document, with all the problems I expect. I'm confident Paizo know how to organise a rulebook come the final.

This bit actually has me the most concerned - some of the changes seem easy enough to make, but I'm not sure how we get a guarantee that they'll change in the way that many of us might want them to. (after all, I'm not sure how to determine which layout changes were oversight and which were intentional)

e.g., Erik Mona specifically said that they're changing rarity indicator from color to something else. But I'm eager to hear confirmation that other large-scale layout changes will also occur, such as separating powers and spells, sorting arcane spells by school, indication which list a spell is part of, etc...


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My group and I reference the index frequently

-trying to search for what spell rolls are
-Found 'spells, roll & DC's', which lead to a table but didn't actually explain anything about what spell rolls are or how to use them (eventually found a little more info in the Wizard class section)

-Trying to find attack roll breakdowns for ranged and melee
-Looked under 'attack', 'melee', 'ranged', before remembering that they're called Strikes; looked under Strike which lead to the Strike paragraph which pointed to another page with the info I needed


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Good to see the insertion of which ability mod applies to spell attacks. My group spent half an hour at last night's session trying to figure out where we were missing it and if we were supposed to infer it.

Also, why not just ditch 'versatile' as a trait and list the weapon damage type as s/p? Are there that many encounters where it matters?


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Jason Bulmahn wrote:

Interesting.

We are constantly trying to strive and find a balance in the early parts of a game rulebook to provide just enough information to get started, without drowning you in too many details. We want you to be able to make informed decisions, but you do not need to know every interaction before doing so. This helps lower the barrier to entry.

Do you feel that the page references made it seem like you needed to read more? We added them as a courtesy for those who were curious.

While pages 7-10 do a decent job of explaining much of the basics, when combined with the rest of the 'overview' portion of the book, it feels like a lot of information gets repeated in the same balanced format, so it's a lot of reading for no or minimal new information.

Interestingly, there is some vital information in thus section which is only in this section and should perhaps be elsewhere as well, such as how to calculate to-hit bonuses.

I'm not a new player, so I look for a lot of specific information, which made the page references kinda frustrating. Especially when multiple page jumps can be involved, like a line about traits on page 8 referring me to page 10 for more info, which then points me to page 414 for a list.


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When it comes to opposed checks or checks dealing with NPC, setting level isn't too difficult. However, even in such cases, I have to wonder how long it will take to memorize parts of the 'level = DC' table, otherwise I'll constantly be doing a double reference to figure out/remember what DC something should be.
But more static DC's are weird for me to understand as a function of level - while the DC will be increasing insofar as the party is encountering more difficult environments, trying to assign a level to something like a waterfall or tree branches or bookshelves or the Cliffs of Insanity feels like it takes a lot more understanding of what I want to be accomplish-able at certain levels rather than simply upping a DC, especially when the idea of level is often based off of a 'base' action and then scaled in difficulty, rather than increased in level. This will also be impact by how well I know other comparable levels and the DC's that those correlate to - so even if I remember that climbing a cliff is a level 2 challenge, and I remember that that default to a high difficulty DC of 15 - are the cliffs of insanity one difficulty higher? two? Would they be the same base level? And how does a cliff compare to walls of various type, level-wise? It feels very easy to over- or under-shoot, and subject to varying opinions by DM's with different experiences/expectations.


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master_marshmallow wrote:

I'll most likely be doing a few threads over the next couple weeks to talk about the entire system as a whole, but as I skim through the pages to find something I want to discuss, all I keep finding is more and more reasons to be skeptical of this release. (Or excited to really get to work on solving some issues I see, optimism notwithstanding)

Classes
Yuuuuuck. For starters, why are there class symbols? Ranger looks like it should be druid and I have no idea what the sorcerer is supposed to mean. Nix these. Also the repetitiveness cannot be complained about enough, most of the class build-ups have to be sifted through literally the same words over and over again explaining how character progression works. The table does fine, though I think the table should intentionally not include the progressions that are parallel to all characters, I'm fine with dead trees, but not excessive dead trees.

I think the devs are generally in the mindset of flexibility and openness when it comes to changes, so I'm still in the 'excited to really get to work on solving issues' mood.

I agree about the repetitiveness of the information given the class tables. There's a lot more base, general stuff that all classes get compared to prior editions, but I'd still like to see all of that in a general table at the beginning of the classes chapter, and leave the class table for class specific items. As it is, the tables look way too crowded.

And the class symbols confuse me as well; I don't think they're used anywhere else in the book? What's the point of them?


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Vic Wertz wrote:

I posted this in the update thread:

While I still don't have a good idea of how long it's going to take, fulfillment has been speeding up; they're quickly approaching 15 percent shipped.

I don't have a good way at this time to look at orders in aggregate, but I can manually examine individual orders once they've shipped. Just to give you some idea of the timelines, I looked at 5 US and 5 international orders that shipped in the last few hours. All 5 of the US orders have expected delivery on August 3. International is (unsurprisingly) much more variable:

Destination: Japan. Expected delivery: August 7.
Destination: Italy. Expected delivery: August 3.
Destination: British Columbia. Expected delivery: August 8.
Destination: New Zealand. Expected delivery: August 13.
Destination: Sweden. Expected delivery: August 7.

Thanks a ton for keeping us apprised, Vic!


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RafaelBraga wrote:
I dont foresee having fun trying to do a very good blacksmith in a system where total level matter more than choices.

Fortunately, PF2 aims to not be that kind of system. A 15th level untrained (or even trained) character simply cannot achieve the same quality or complexity of items that a 3rd level expert blacksmith could achieve. The higher number means very little if you don't have the training to go with it.


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Mark Seifter wrote:
Aramar wrote:
Ultimatecalibur wrote:
Aramar wrote:


If I'm reading things correctly, this also means that Trained Assurance only applies to 3 possible tasks; level 0 trivial and low, and level 1 trivial.

Characters are less likely to have Assurance in skills they are only trained in. Expert, Master and Legendary benefits tells more.

If the chart is extended following the same pattern:


  • Experts with Assurance will never fail Trivial tasks below level 7.
  • Masters with Assurance will auto-crit level 1 Trivial tasks and never fail a Trivial task before level 12.
  • Legends with Assurance will auto-crit level 11 Trivial tasks and never fail a trivial task under level 22

I agree completely that the higher levels Assurance are much more impressive.

I was only thinking that Trained Assurance itself seemed lackluster, and even more so if it happens to be a pre-req for any higher assurance levels.
Buy it once, and it autoscales as you increase your skill rank!

Oh thank goodness. I don't know if I missed that tidbit before, but thank you for saying it.


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Aratrok wrote:

For example: I can't tell what Paizo thinks a task being "trivial" means, and it doesn't jive at all with my own personal definition. A 1st level trivial task in this setup is failed by a trained specialist of the same level (+4) 25% of the time, and an average attempt from an untrained character (-2) fails 55% of the time. This is almost certainly going to translate to comedy of errors gameplay at the table, with party members regularly failing the easiest possible tasks the system defines.

If I'm reading things correctly, this also means that Trained Assurance only applies to 3 possible tasks; level 0 trivial and low, and level 1 trivial.


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I'm planning on running Doomsday Dawn, largely because I don't know the scope and/or particulars of time and mechanical focus that paizo is looking for out of the playtest.

I'm intrigued to see more of what kinds of tasks/skill uses are given what level.


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Fuzzypaws wrote:

While it's on my mind, I would note that I haven't ever actually encountered anyone, certainly not a player, who hates abundant magic items except in a specifically low magic setting. What we hate is the mandatory boring items, the big 6 et all, that break the game's math if you don't have them. So chopping down the Christmas Tree doesn't actually strike me as a good goal in and of itself. Just give us /interesting/ items, items that /do stuff/ instead of being just a bunch of numerical bonuses.

If we still end up with a bunch of bonus items outside weapons and armor, and if any of them start being considered mandatory, then this whole exercise is a failure.

I second this to an extent - even when there are interesting items, if there remain any items (of the number-booster variety) that are more or less mandatory, it forces the choice between having an interesting item and actually being able to hit target numbers. Overall the tighter math and other item previews make this seem less likely, but done incorrectly, i would have to worry about both my gold and my resonance going to things that let me do interesting things or things that actually let me affect the bad guys.

On the discussion of staves and wands - if staves were to keep charges, would it be too weird to call those charges Resonance Points as well? It would still be bookkeeping, I understand, but would making the names the same be more or less confusing?
That said, you can count me in for removing the charges from staves - I like how they've been given extra effects, and it would be good to build on that. Also, let some of the staves in the CRB not be actual staves, but other types of tools or weapons.
Also in favor of revamping wands to either not exist or not have charges.


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BPorter wrote:

For the "you could do it PF1 crowd", Irori is the exception not the rule. As was Iomedae and Cayden.

So, now we no longer need to pass the Test of the Starstone to achieve godhood, we just have to advance to legendary. Got it.

As noted previously, I also haven't read a Pathfinder Tales that emulated scenarios closer to Beowulf than Conan.

And I think I've discovered the reason for the Gap in Starfinder. PF2 enabled all high-level adventurers to become demigods without an in-universe explanation and the resulting campaign-breaking paradox required Golarion to be retconned out of existence.

Booyah!

Additionally, there are other games out there that have non-nerfed spellcasters interacting with heroic, but mortal martials. I sometimes play those games, but PF is my preference, it has more content, and is easier to find players to game with. So, the "take your ball and go home stuff" isn't really convincing or compelling.

Seriously, if anyone is gaga about Legendary stuff, good on ya. Just because some of us aren't, doesn't make us "wrong" and you "right".

Assuming you're not opposed to a Legendary tier in general, what kind of abilities do you personally expect from such a tier for non-magical characters?


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Pan wrote:


My issue isnt with Gandalf being good with a sword. Its with every wizard ever being good with a sword. Sure you can pretend your character isnt, or you can even roleplay failing forward, I just have an issue with it being ever present in the system. I want choices to matter, and there to be differences in characters based on choices, not simple level progression.

All wizards are good with swords* in PF1 as well; a 10th level wizard has a higher BAB than most any Earthly warrior NPC**.

Certain aspects of characters have always been automatic rather than choice. The choices now are even less in the numbers than the feats and unlocks.
You may not choose that +20 to thievery, but you absolutely choose mechanically whether or not that bonus can actually be used to pick locks***.

*assuming they take a proficiency feat, of course, just as they should in PF2

**won't be higher than 4th or 5th level.

***assuming, like PF1, that locks can't be attempted untrained.


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42nfl19 wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:
Bardarok wrote:

I don't like the concept of being unable to make an attempt at something even if the odds are terrible. Would it be unbalanced to apply a penalty for lacking sufficient training?

Maybe -10 per level of training you are behind so an untrained character can attempt a trained only task but takes a -10 penalty or an expert only task at -20 etc. the odds of critical failure would probably be enough to prevent most people from trying it but it means you can still make an attempt.

I don't think it would break anything to allow this houserule, but it would lead to some of the situations that many on this thread find particularly troublesome, where the 20th level barbarian with 10 Int can use +18 - 10 = +8 Arcana to outperform the 1st-level 18 Int trained in Arcana wizard (1 + 4 = +5 Arcana) on some kind of trained-only test of obscure arcane theorems. That's something we've included safeguards to avoid, but it won't break anything if you do as you suggested, since it's not like the plot of a 20th level adventure is going to be likely to hinge on a standardized test duel between your 20th level barbarian and a 1st level wizard.

I know you don't want to have the Barbarian out "nerd" the wizard but by the time they reach that high level, shouldn't it make sense that they would have some Arcana prowess that they have experienced? They could have learned somethings through osmosis through proximity of partner members or the challenges they have faced in the past. If I had a Bard teammate that played his annoying flute every spare minute, I might have picked up at least some musical inclination from it. Or another party member speaks in another language often enough that I might pick it up.

That's, partly or mostly, what the +level to the skill check represents - the Barbarian above might out-nerd the wizard on some of the most basic Arcana checks (anything that can be tried/remembered untrained), but when it comes to higher levels of obscurity and specialization, the barbarian is functionally clueless.

You might pick-up a handful of foreign phrases from a comrade or learn to carry a tune that the bard plays, but without any actual training or dedication for the underlying fundamentals, you can't really extrapolate or display any further in those skills.


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ElSilverWind wrote:
Aramar wrote:
If you happen to be an artisan who takes a commission for a particular item; in order to pay for Crafting the item you would pay half of the item's price up front, and the rest if you want to be done after 4 days. Unless, as a cunning PC, you are going to do a mark-up of the price to earn a profit from the NPC with the commission, you won't have earned anything if you complete the item in the default 4 days. You would need to intentionally take longer to craft in order to make a profit. Am I understanding this correctly?

Remember, unless you’re crafting the item for charity or whatnot, you would be selling the item for full price in PF2. The customer would pay you half of the cost for the item up-front for materials, then the other half once they have received their item. If they specify that they want that item quickly made, the customer would need to pay that extra fee.

So let’s say that your customer wanted to purchase a 200 sp set of Expert Quality Scalemail.

100sp up front, then 100sp once the item is delivered that would be done in let’s say 2 weeks (14 Days). A 100sp profit for you.

But your customer really wants that armor as soon as possible. Crafting that armor in 4 Days requires an additional 100sp worth of additional materials.

So now the customer pays 200sp upfront, then another 100 sp once they have received the item. A 100sp profit for you.

Ah, so you're saying there is a mark-up, since in the latter case this NPC is paying full price plus an extra 100 sp as an acceleration fee.

I imagine the same would apply to PC's looking to purchase custom/unavailable items, with a mark-up of 10%-50% depending on how quickly they want it.


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Generally speaking I'm excited to try out the Wizard, but counterspell gives me some of concerns mentioned earlier. I don't think I've ever seen any overlap of uncast spells of the party caster and opposing caster, so even as a reaction the ability would never be used.
Broadening it to schools might be too powerful, but somewhere there should be a middle ground.


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My biggest concern with the lack of a breakdown for the monsters' numbers has to do with the skills - it looks like some of them are at higher levels of proficiency, but without know which level of proficiency that is, can we accurately tell what the creature can do with said ability?
I would think that any ability equivalent to special skill feats would be listed somewhere in the stat block, but if basic things like attempting certain DC's are also locked behind proficiency level, it would behoove us to know how proficient the creature is.
This also applies to weapons and armor and shields, although I expect not quite to the same degree (e.g. I don't know if the Ogre is an expert in hide armor, but even if I gave him chain or plate I expect I would just treat him as an expert in that, and increase his AC by the difference between and hide and the other)

Dislikes:
- Using symbols for actions/reaction. Just use words
- Lack of numbers breakdown
- Mundane information at the top of the statblock

Likes:
- Showing just the ability modifiers, rather than score
- Saves and AC all on one line


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This is the most concerning blog entry for me so far. Generic numbered bonuses to weapons and armor was something I hoped would be left behind. But I will wait to see how it interacts with other magical weapon enhancements.
Also not excited about the impressive number of penalties that heavier armor will be imposing.