Arssanguinus's page

To be fair, a whole lot of items in PF1 were almost useless from the moment you picked them up due to dc.

Exequiel: Was that a change that came with the remaster?

Arssanguinus: I guess that makes sense, but fae is such a broad category that... I mean what would you do with that other than the Fey Ancestry feat that Noxious brought up.

It’s not really broader than Nephilim.

I’ve always wanted something vaguely like a Nephilim but fae focused.

What I’d love is if there were an “archetype/dedication’” guide of some sort.

In the middle of the Elvanna fight in ROW.

That’s utterly ridiculous

Ryangwy wrote:

In a level-based game, by level 5 you do have enough HP and AC from levels (so long as you pick the right class) that a cloth wearing monk can expect to walk through five pikes wielded by level 1 soldiers, slap those pike users silly and walk out, with a pause to use their Wholeness of Body.

Both classes and levels are crutches. They're what I like least about popular TTRPGs.

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PF2e is still way better than most other systems

Names literally two other systems, says most systems...

I have 1.15 TB of TTRPG books, which say you've hardly looked at anything out there. If WoD is as freaky as you get, why are you even speaking?

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(And if your argument is levels shouldn't be doing that much, please, leave this forum, it's not good for you)

Levels shouldn't provide as much vertical growth as they do. 5e's idea that we should have bounded stats is one of the few things the system does well.

You claim to actually like the system yet say ‘one of the few things the system actually does w ell”. Really?

Arssanguinus wrote:

I’d list the skill consolidation as one of the solid negatives.

Fair. I think if you want to double the list again to have more detail, you'd also want to hand out many more trained skills and skill increases. I'm not against it, but if you want characters that do a few things well, the consolidation works.

Not double it but some things are weird. Sense motive and basic perception ring the same thing, for one example. If you’re a ranger out in the woods who barely interacts with people and is good and spotting things a long way off, you are ALSO an expert and picking up on people’s motives. There are other cases where to be good at one thing you have to also be good at a totally conceptually unrelated thing.

Arssanguinus wrote:

RPG-Geek wrote:

Arssanguinus wrote:

If you’re so convinced everything else is just better why are you even here?

Where else should I be? Is this forum supposed to be a lifeless echo chamber where only minor disagreements, if even that, are tolerated?

Seems really odd to hang around arguing on the forums of a game you don’t even like. Seems like poor usage of time.

If I didn't like PF2, I wouldn't talk about it. I'm just critical of things I like.

Ok. Name positives then. Because you sure can’t tell:

Arssanguinus wrote:

If you’re so convinced everything else is just better why are you even here?

Where else should I be? Is this forum supposed to be a lifeless echo chamber where only minor disagreements, if even that, are tolerated?

Seems really odd to hang around arguing on the forums of a game you don’t even like. Seems like poor usage of time.

Ryangwy wrote:

Theme parks are good, actually.

No, seriously. Don't look down on theme parks, they compress the complex history of places into a fun and interactive display. Games should be theme parks, because not even trained historians can agree on the economic impact of the production of plate mail, and most gamers don't even go that far.

I'll take a museum over a theme park any day of the week if I want a simplified take on a complex issue. Even then, you need to be wary of the biases that can be amplified when we condense things down.

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Is that theme-parky? Sure! But as Walt Disney himself said, theme parks are there to evoke history in a way that's even more immersive than the real thing.

Walt also said stuff about the Jewish people, and his parks highlighted a very whitewashed view of history that native groups have always had issues with. Theme parks are insidious in the way they enshrine narratives rather than highlighting truth.

‘But hitler’ is a poor argument which you shouldn’t be making.

RPG-Geek wrote:

They also have no desire to be above ground, and breed slowly compared to us. The lack of reach and slow speed is also something they'd struggle to overcome.

Made up fantasy rubbish. A real race with their characteristic would waste us.

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One loss for them is like 100 for us because they just don't reproduce quickly enough. Skill doesn't save you from a stray arrow or getting hit from behind by the human tribe that has 10 or 20 times your numbers.

See above.

Real living creatures competing for resources with advantageous traits would waste us. You're applying real evolution and biology here, right? Not made up fantasy limitations that aren't real. You want realism, right?

Realism is elves that 800 years would utterly annihilate humanity. They would have no reason to breed slow. They are competing for resources and power like humans did and will waste us.

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They should also annihilate Golarion, as heroes are meant to be rare, and only the largest cities have anybody who can fight at or above 7th level. They all have to hold the idiot ball to make the setting function so we can assume they'd have the same lack of initiative if they were real.

So it's realism when you want realism and made up stuff when you want that?

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That's when you either shift your grip or drop your primary arm and go for a grapple with your dagger.

Or you figure out that the real versions of these weapons were built with a specific purpose in mind. Absent that purpose, they would be inferior like using a polearm in one on one combat or trying to use a bow in a melee.

We don't want that version of the weapon. We want the imaginary, fantasy versions where bows can be fired effectively like in seconds and swords or halberds can be standardly carried weapons with minimal differences in capability.

We don't want the real versions of what were basically military weapons built often to counter some military advancement from an opponent or to...

Once you start changing the characteristics of the race as presented you are no longer even having the same discussion. Part of the definition of elves is a low Birth rate. If you start snipping off bits and replacing them then it’s no longer even the same discussion. In the REAL WORLD long lived races tend to have lower birth rates.

Its also rather relevant to state that the Fighter might just not be as interesting as other classes who gets benefits from their subclass. Those that can invest more into feats that unlock more versatility other than just expand options with the weapon types that they are planning on using.

But considering how effective they are at advanced and multi weapon usage I have a hard time placing them as the 'worst', but its certainly a case where Champion, Barbarian and Monk gets to pick more than just combat weapon techniques.

After all I picked druid simply because I feel like druids have to few options available at each level due to how many feats are order locked.

And why can’t someone just wanting a simple class that is effective at what it does without complicated bells and whistles be a valid option?

Ruzza wrote:

Are you arguing to me or to Paizo? I imagine that they have more experience in the realm of publishing than I do. You can grab your soapbox, but I fear you won't find too many on your side to adopt more WotC policies.

Both. You said page count is an issue, and I disagree as a PDF costs no more to publish at 110 pages than it would at 90. However, the reason we don't get PDF first publishing is a Paizo issue.

WotC has it's issues, like not letting their team produce the volume of work said team would like to make and handcuffing them on fixing core issues with the game, but they're a market leader for a reason.

Brand name and momentum. That’s the reason,

Dragonchess Player wrote:

RPG-Geek wrote:

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So it feels to me like we are mostly in agreement on that. PF2 could potentially be played in a way where noncombat focused characters would be fun to play even though they are not very useful in combat. But that isn't how this game is normally

I think PF2 isn't well designed for a campaign focused on things other than combat. It doesn't have great rules for long stretches of play where combat doesn't happen, and spends so much page count on things only useful in combat that it doesn't sell itself to RP-focused groups the way other systems might.

Well maybe people could use the mechanics laid out for exploration mode (Player Core, GM Core) and downtime mode (Player Core, GM Core) if they don't want to rely on pure rolelay...

Or maybe even use encounter mode for things other than combat (such as "a race to disarm a doomsday device before it detonates, or even an impassioned negotiation with the queen"). GM Core even provides specific structure for social encounters...

Are the social encounter rules as detailed as the combat rules? No. But they don't need to be, as you don't have to account for all of the different spells and weapons, positioning, maneuvers, conditions, etc.

They would need to be more fleshed out than they are if the game wanted to be primarily a social or otherwise "combat is a last resort game." PF2 isn't that and doesn't pretend to be: it's a combat focused game that gives you generally workable rules for other modes of play.

That's not a bad thing, and it's not a flaw in the system. That's just it's...

Actually, if I want to run one of those games I DON’T want a system that has strict rules for ‘social combat’. I want “generally workable’ but simple rules instead, every time. Social parts of the game constrained by a high level of rules would sap the fun right out of it.

I don’t see why there is this much effort being put into trying to neuter the aid action.

We gamed last Sunday, finally got out of that hut and are now on Triaxus defending a fort.

Oooh, that was fun.

I've read enough XKCD What If? scenarios to know that you need to be very smart to be that stupid.

Most people just wish for something practical and end up dying after they have a lifetime supply of gold dumped over their head. Even more ambitious wishes usually only destroys the tristate area.

And most wizards smart enough to do wish for something truly off the wall- and not wise enough to reconsider- probably kill themselves in some magical accident long, long before they can meet a genie.

So we are talking about an extremely narrow band of possible scenarios that could lead to this destruction. And there are a variety of other ways to have those happen without having a genie present. If you are going to summon outsiders to come and destroy everything around you, it is simpler to just go with demons.

Most people don’t want to destroy the world because it’s where they keep all of their stuff?

Why are people still alive in a world where nuclear weapons exist? Because they are.

Even though I seen SF fans being kinda upset that SF2e is going to effectively be more like a new setting for PF2e rather than its own system with the rules they like, I think its the best idea Paizo could have if they wanted to make Starfinder relevant. Only by looking at the release schedule of SF products you'll notice that is more likely Paizo does it more as a passion project than something that gives them money, though by making it compatible with PF2e you immediately make everyone that plays PF2e at least interested in it, which means its going to initially sell better, and likely the people that already likes to buy all the content from PF2e would want to buy everything from SF2e too since thats effectively more content they can use in PF2e too.

I'm personally in the process of making a setting that could incorporate stuff from both systems more easily since I'm planning to use SF2e content in PF2e, and I seen a ton of people online that are planing to do that too, so its likely Paizo would pivot from the (hyphotetical) success of SF2e and make more standalone-but-not-so-much systems that change some of the core rules.

Seems like it also,massively increases content that star finder aficionados could use and dip into.

Perpdepog wrote:

In contrast to Sanityfaerie, my Groetus cleric, Unsaint Visibini, was incredibly upbeat. She belongs to a splinter sect of Groetus worshipers who believe that the end of all things, while sad or whatever, has to be absolutely amazing to be able to observe. Their only real aphorism is "witness, and enjoy." They take it upon themselves to get everybody excited for the show to end all shows, literally.

She doesn't see this goal as a violation of Groetus' anathema of spreading hope, because, while you can enjoy seeing all existence end, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, you can do to stop you and everything and everyone you ever knew from evaporating into oblivion. She will make sure you have a snack, however.

I like this! I've always felt an annoyingly cheerful cleric of Groetus whose philosophy is more along the lines of "We're all gonna die and be forgotten about, and eventually the Universe will too, so why get upset about it?! Enjoy your life AND your death!" would be fun to play, and if you roleplayed them as oblivious to the fact that people find their blithe nihilism creepy and upsetting, it'd side-step the anathema of spreading hope.

“It’s the end of the word as we know it, and I feel fine ….”

Other than mother vulture, I am pretty sure all of those are evil gods. And the only truly problematic part for mother vulture clerics is their...diet.

The rest of the details are just normal murder hoboing as a good or neutral cleric. You know, murder for quests, horde every item you find, not really add anything to the local agriculture industry.

Honestly, I think mother vulture might make a suitable Lamashtu replacement for a player goblin. everything on that list seems right up a goblin's alley.

I rather wish this “killing is murder’ bit would stop. All murder is killing. Not all killing is murder. They are not the same thing, they are different words with different meanings.

Arssanguinus wrote:

Once you’ve tried to stab me in my back, you don’t get to say oops my bad.

Indeed.

First rule of OGL-cide : do not miss.

Don’t pick a fight with someone who buys dice by the barrel.

Once you’ve tried to stab me in my back, you don’t get to say oops my bad.

Apparently the forces of Saruman saw the riders of Rohan coming down the hill at them …

I think they were caught off guard by the unified response, flanked, and sneak attacked.

I mean, yes, but that's honestly just business. For all that diehard free market proponents love to talk about the merits of competition, the reality is that competitions always have winners. Everyone works towards that monopoly in whatever way they can because it's the most efficient way to make money, and therefore the ultimate goal of any serious competitor. That's miserable for everyone else, ofc, hence anti-trust laws, but it doesn't change the fact that it's still the goal.

Especially for a publicly traded company that's beholden to shareholders who are themselves usually more interested in getting fat returns on their investments than on what the company stands for or its consumers. That's how we end up with the adversarial relationship between the management of Hasbro/WotC and the audience; the shareholders, and by extension upper management, want to separate the audience from as much money as they possibly can, whether the audience wants to part with it or not, in order to boost profit margins. That means killing competition, changing the business model from "ownership" to "rent-seeking," and forcing brand loyalty going forward by quashing 3pp and taking the majority of income on 3pp products by virtue of its licensing rules and larger economic scale.

It's actually a sensible move through that lens. However, to everyone but the corpo suits, it's utterly vile.

They aren’t trying to win by competing but by outlawing their competitors.

kyrt-ryder wrote:

I don't like the idea of any governing body having the right to decide who is or is not a bad actor. That's what the power of our wallets is for :P

And I’m not sure I like the idea of the power of wallets deciding who is or isn’t a bad actor. Sure, the cancellation pf DnD Beyond subscriptions could be seem as a “wallet-powered” exploit, but similarly I see bank-rolled bad actors are legion. It feels like “let the market decide” all over again. And over and over again, the market has decided in favor of investors, slavers, polluters and other assorted captains of industry.

And just as or more often those same things are pushed or bankrolled by governing bodies. If you give them the upper hand you lose control over where they put it.

Without posting the new license, any press release is just hot air.

“Mea culpa. Now will you please just look away for a moment…”

Tangenital Response to Tangential Rant: I mean, me, I looked at 3.5, I looked at Pathfinder 1 (with Rolemaster leaning over from the one-in-forp'nnies) and said "that's not complicated enough! I'mma make my own edition, with Brimoraks and Hook Horrors! Let's add it all together and steal some bits from 4E and 5E (since I saw the latter on Unexpectables!) Huzzah!"

...

I do not think I am anyone's target market anymore.

Oooh. I still have my role master for when I get a real desire for numbers

I get it, but I'd like ORC to be more focused on who we are and what we can create than what we want to happen to our enemies.

What will happen for our allies rather than to our enemies?

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

*I'm not sure I buy the "teen boys" theory in particular. Maybe if they have no understanding of the current demographics? But that seems unlikely. It's not being marketed as a boys-only game anymore. There's still gender bias, not nearly as centered as it once was.

I'm going by where I see the boxes placed at Target. They're placed toward the area of the endcap game shelves that corresponds with the "war" and "action" toys - your action figures, Nerf guns, licensed Lego sets, and Matchbox cars. The stuff that's classified as "boy toys" by the industry. They're not at the end of the game shelves that corresponds with the more domestic play styles, things like dolls and accessories (classified as "girl toys").

I’d have to say the judgment of stores like target of what the audience that buys it is not necessarily what I would go on

I actually have adopted many of the deities.

Is there any such thing as a possible negative trait for a race/species to have that has not at some time been attached to some real world race or ethnic group? Seems like it’s a rabbit hole it’s really easy to go way too deep down.

Also, a different type of bow is quite different from a different mechanism of damage entirely. Even if it was the same type of bow, it wouldn’t be the gotcha you seem to try to imply.

If you had a modern game and you allowed an Anachronistic firearm it wouldn’t also follow that you were unfair if you didn’t allow lasers too.

Well yes. Taking feats that change the rules will in fact change the rules.

And even then the phrase for you must be added so that +5 vorpal cookie sheets arent created.

Now you have me wanting a +5 vorpal cookie sheet…

Load up on divination spells. Knowledge is power,

Arssanguinus wrote:

They aren't exactly normal and do tend to attract glances.

Or vice versa, in the case of Riven and our most recently completed encounter.

I can imagine the gaping open mouth and the look like a landed fish still.

:-)

I’m sorry, but I don’t see how it’s nonsensical. There are plenty of perfectly cogent explainations on how a prepared spell system would work in ‘reality’. Just because you don’t like their flavor doesn’t make them nonsensical.

The more I see Mark and Jason talking about the final version of the game, the more hyped I get. Probably the only way I could get more excited was if they said Vancian Casting is going away in favor of Arcanist but I don't really see that happening, unfortunately.

Also, I can't help but notice that you two have been a LOT more active in the boards lately. Does that mean the time is coming...? The time for... drum sounds... revealing stuff?

I really don’t get the “"Ceterum censeo", "Carthago delenda est”

Level of disdain for prepared casting I see out there. It’s not a disparagement of you I just literally don’t get what causes that level of engagement over the issue.

Also, it should be noted that this is gonna be one book. It won't be able to encapsulate every possible character you want to play. They can only fit so much in there. Luckily, we will get a lot of books in the future, as Paizo is prone to do. Just because something isn't possible in core doesn't mean it will never be possible.

People seem to also be seeing "problems" with PF2 that also existed in PF1 by any reasonable metric. The super hero thing is especially silly considering the amount of power given to high level PCs in the first edition. High level driids can literally cause earthquakes and reduce towns to rubble. The "super hero" nature of heroes is by design. They want to emulate Beowulf and Guts at high levels.

If people are talking about problems with a new edition they are naturally going to view the continuance of things they saw as a problem in first edition as also a problem in second edition. Why is this odd in the slightest, whatever the individual complaint might be?

As long as we don't bring back "you can voluntarily lower your stats in order to increase other ones" I'm not concerned about "dumping stats in PF2".

I know people are going to say "but I want to play flawed characters" but there isn't a "take a flaw to gain an advantage" system in roleplaying games which hasn't been run roughshod on by minmaxers. Plus, there's no reason you can't be a "phenomenally foolish person" with a 10 wis, or a "catastrophically clumsy person" with a 10 dex, etc.

No. Because as soon as dice rolls come up you are not actually those things.

Why is it insisted that level itself rather than the various things each level grants needs to be a significant factor in a character’s growth?

Arssanguinus wrote:

Part of my problem with the plus one per level to all, is how it really really restricts the universe of opposition that is useful as even cannon fodder. Below say two levels lower things might as well not even be there and above two levels higher and the pcs might as well not even be there. I really don’t like hardcoding ‘superhero’ status like that.

How's that different from PF1 CR=APL-2 encounters being non-existient threats? A APL 10 party wouldn't even notice a CR 8 opponent, they would just walk past it.

Superheroism was so hardcoded in PF1 to a degree that a mid to high level party was less Fellowship of Rings or Conan and Co. and more Justice League.

They could be included as an element of an encounter and have some meaning. Now they aren’t even a speedbump at all.

Part of my problem with the plus one per level to all, is how it really really restricts the universe of opposition that is useful as even cannon fodder. Below say two levels lower things might as well not even be there and above two levels higher and the pcs might as well not even be there. I really don’t like hardcoding ‘superhero’ status like that.

But we aren’t allowed to think that. Because any flaws whatsoever must be removed from characters. They are only allowed to be good or REALLY good at something.

Is it really heroic though if there isn’t any risk in attempting those things because, hey, they’re good at them now just because they exist and have raised levels, no other reason.

Ediwir wrote:

SO WHO’S EXCITED FOR MONK POWERS???

there hasn’t been a single alignment paladin since 2004’s Unearthed Arcana, so can we please move on after almost 15 years?

Actually, Paladins for Every Alignment was a thing as far back as Dragon 106 ("A Plethora of Paladins") from way back in 1986.

And they were distinctly different from each other.

It does seem in general a theme of 2e is that the traditionalist portion of the customer base is not one there is much interest in serving anymore.