AsmoSoulpyre's page

We know we'll get gunslingers eventually - so adding that first level spell 'Glock' would be handy.

They'd also love the 'Magic Bang' spell I'm sure...or you could maybe combine that with the 'Fairy Lust' power...you know, whichever.

We do need more fluff spells though, so having a 'Magic Band' spell that could play for parties at the 'Insect Dorm' would be handy.

But really - Dinosaur Fort - totally needs to be added.

It would also be nice for all the college bugs out there to have an 'Insect Dorm' available in the game...I mean, party bugs gotta get down somewhere.

I really think the game would be improved with a power like 'Fairy Lust'.

ShadeRaven wrote:

Nintendo or Intellivision :p

Nintendo or Intellivision? In my days we played pong on the atari and liked it! Now get off my lawn! ;)

Psh. You get off my lawn :D. My pong game was an orange console that clipped to the rabbit ears on the TV. It played pong, and that was it.

But to the point - I really don't think that the giant numbers are going to do the game any favors. The 'difficulty' aside - the current state of the rules you're just going to have people sitting at the table with calculators to speed up the math, and I've been working hard to keep electronic devices (other than a single laptop for running music and important references) off the table.

Numbers being high across the board slows things down. Not everyone can add 6d6+5 in their head quickly, let alone 1d20+23.

One of the beautiful things in AD&D were the percentage rolls, something largely removed from all of the D20 systems. Somehow it is too complicated. I've never been sure how.

Modifiers were in percentages, and you had an increasing or decreasing chance depending on your level of proficiency and any modifiers.

Just like the system now - except you did some quick calculations BEFORE THE ROLL...once the dice were on the table - that was it. Everyone knew if you made it or failed, and could celebrate or panic together (barring hidden rolls, then it was all about the GMs poker face).

BPorter wrote:

Davick wrote:

When I've playtested casters I didn't feel bad or mediocre. And the people I've seen who have made those complaints have framed them as not being as overpowered as they were. To borrow a phrase "a loss of privilege is not discrimination". Casters were too good. Lowering their power level is not inherently over-nerfing them.

THIS!! A thousand times THIS!

well I don’t think anyone’s arguIng spells shouldn’t be reduced somewhat, but the OP did a thorough job showing the level of nerfing felt extreme, and affected multiple aspects of most spells. I think some of us were hoping for a scalpel rather than an ax. Or, boost martials to cure any sense of imbalance rather than so much nerfing to magic

I think almost all of us would agree - bringing others up to the power level of the magic users is acceptable. Bringing the magic down to the power level of a martial character is an odd decision.

It is magic. It is implied 3.5 that Elminster has visited Earth. Does that mean we have to have an interplanetary teleport spell in the playtest? No. It doesn't.

But having the system in the playtest feel like the arcane casting classes no longer have a remote chance in fulfilling the same stories as their predecessors on the same world is a little odd.

Compare the Runelords to current casters(I've been reading about them lately), and tell me that something isn't wrong.

Does the fix require that magic be more powerful than everything else? No, it really doesn't. It does, however, require a fix to not render previous narratives obsolete.

Personally, this was my biggest issue with the MMO spellcasters in the edition that caused Pathfinder to exist. The stories about the people in the places that had already been told could no longer be told, without a hand-waving explanation that somewhere along the line magic was suddenly too weak for the exploits that the characters had done 10 years ago to happen again.

This is the same situation, inexplicably, in a matter of a few years, suddenly the entire backbone has been ripped out of magic. It isn't about the 'damage per round' of the spells. It isn't about the distance that a teleport can take you, or how many rounds it takes to cast the spell. It's about the fact that at equal level, an arcane caster has nothing but weakness compared to everyone else. There is no 'shining area' for a sorcerer or wizard in this edition. The class may have been over powered previously, now they are almost useless by comparison to the other classes. Everyone else brings MORE to the table.

Rogue, Bard, Ranger, Alchemist - all will do comparable damage to an arcane caster, even not built optimally and have more skills to use to help the party.

Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin - will outshine the arcane casters in damage even if played with mild skill, given magic weapons at low and mid tiers, to say nothing of high tier. Particularly given the rate of failure of spell casting.

Druid, Cleric - bring more versatile options to the table than the sorcerer or wizard while doing as much casting as the people who supposedly do nothing but studiously attempt to harness their inner power or struggle to learn other things because they're so focused on their spellbooks.

dnoisette wrote:

However, the main issue with Wizards remains because it is that which all arcane spellcasters share: nerfed spells, nerfed spell slots, nerfed spell DCs.

Well, Mark said that they would have a development cycle where they will do a spell pass, somewhen in the future. Until we know what the results of that are, there's still hope.

AsmoSoulpyre wrote:

You can look to older books for definitions of magic being awesome though. Merlin could predict the future, which is no small feat...but the really interesting things in Arthurian legend are the items. Someone had to craft them. It's really difficult to imagine that excalibur or the scabbard that contained it were created in a world where 3rd level spells are the cap.

I tend to think of Merlin and Morganna being powerful enough to keep each other in check - similar to dragons with bordering territories.

Magic should be narrative. If it isn't, it isn't magical.

Oh, I'm not saying that in the old legends there are no spells and items you can reference for D&D/PF purposes. I was trying to say that you can't define the entire magic system by that alone, since it is after all an evolution of many decades of fantasy literature, myths and actual Dungeons and Dragons/Pathfinder novels.

Most certainly. 'Fireball' isn't really something you'll find in ancient literature.

Just to throw this out there, as someone who has both played in and GM'd several 'high level' 'mythic' and 'epic' level campaigns going back as long as there were rules for them, I've never been so underwhelmed looking at a spell list as I am when I look at magic in PF2E.

I tend to think of magic in terms of the narrative power that it has - for better or worse. Can it tell the story of a magic user?

Could the current magic system produce the casters that are in ANY of the iconic books that started many of us down the path to playing casters?

I'm not overly familiar with the lore in Pathfinder, but Elminster and Raistlin would never have survived this casting system long enough to become legends. Gromph would have been destroyed by his fellow dark elves long before Liriel would have been born.

Wrong system, I know...but...tell me I'm wrong.

Considering that I knocked out half a group with 4 goblins, and TPK'd with a couple quasits in the first playtest section (apparently I'm a mean GM that actually uses monster abilities like polymorph and knockdown.) I'd say that this being a 'friendly' 'helicopter GM' game is a little absurd.

There are a lot of issues with the state of the game, being nice to the players is not one of them.

I had to abandon my playtest because I couldn't motivate the players to want to continue to roll characters that I was going to murder with trash mobs.

I'm honestly shocked to find such a lively discussion still ongoing here.

The core concept of the new edition is solid.

Ancestry and Class feats are a great idea in theory.

Making class and ancestry feats that will not be either niche choices or obvious choices will be a design challenge that I'm not sure ANY designer is up for over the course of many books. Things that give your character a bonus only in a certain situation are only interesting in a narrative standpoint if the situation comes up enough for it to be a defining aspect of a character. Certain options will inevitably be the 'core' options for each race and class, and players will be expected to have those options in order to be 'good' in organized play.

It really feels like a lot of the redesign of the game comes specifically with society play in mind. For those of us that play with the same people we've played with for years, society play is less of a concern. So when core concepts of the game are changed to 'protect' a particular function of a class role, it really challenges our ability to play the game the way we want. Particularly when the protection extends only to certain things.

Clerics are so much better at healing than everyone else, it's less of a protection and more of a system requirement to have a cleric in the group. If any other caster attempts to play the healer, they will use all of their casting resources for healing.

Thievery checks are gated by proficiency levels, so someone MUST have it as a signature skill in the group, or you will not be able to unlock doors at high levels.

All the other classes, despite the 'protections' are optional, but there is certainly not a way for the low-level characters to be kept alive in the action economy with just a bard or druid attempting to heal them.

One of the concepts I was most excited about when it was first mentioned in the previews was the division of the spells. Arcane, Occult, Primal, and Divine. Then, we got the implementation, and everyone was stuck on one list...except oddly the clerics, who could cross over depending on their choice of religion. So...the class that has the most spells per day is the one that gets to cross the bridge and have arcane and divine spells. I'm no longer excited about this, instead I'm concerned that because of the high level power of arcane casters in previous editions, that they have been subject to restrictions by omission in order to keep people from complaining about them again.

At my table, we EXPECT the wizard to be amazing at high level. They bend reality if they can survive long enough to do so. As it is though, I'll have trouble getting anyone to willingly play the wizard, since the casting options for the other classes are more compelling. A high level druid is just as capable of wiping a city off the map as a wizard. From a design balance standpoint, that is good...but what is it that a wizard has that makes it a unique class? Just what spell they use to do the same thing that everyone else can do? Ouch. Step down from your throne oh mighty wizard king, for none fear you. Currently they have NO unique 10th level spells, unlike EVERY OTHER LIST.

Again, I'll be monitoring the forums, and the changes for the new edition. We haven't given up hope. We WANT the new edition to be worth moving to. The playtest, however, is too restrictive for our limited time at the table. We're too old and grumpy to test mechanics we aren't enjoying.

ikarinokami wrote:

signature skills are no different than class skills. and the only difference is that you can get to certain level. you can still take the skill, you just wont be quite as good at it, by like a point or 2. which is a good thing. i don't think the wizard with no multiclass should be legendary in athletics, or acrobatics or stealth. it does in my opinion water down the classes.

it would be ok if when you multiclassed, you also gained that classes signature skill. that would be a fair compromise. if you want to as good as another classes stihck then there should be some investment, beyond just merely spending the skill points.

Except that signature skills limit what skill feats you can take now, which wasn't previously a concern. I get why some people dislike them, but I think keeping some form of "class skill" around is a good thing, to indicate the usual roles for a class member. There just need to be a reasonable, not overly-restrictive way to get extra signature skills (like we used to get class skills with Traits), and perhaps a flexible signature skill for each class.

That's the big point right there. Signature skills are a gate. Proficiency levels are a gate. With no way to do that besides multi-classing (which you don't REALLY do currently) it's not role protection so much as role confinement. There is only one kind of cleric that can craft legendary level items. Hope no one wanted to cast fireball AND craft high level divine items, cause that's a no no.

sherlock1701 wrote:

Mostly agree, though I think Signature Skills are fine. We just need a way to easily gain more for characters who want to specialize outside their usual roles, for example via a skill feat.

"Pick two Skills that are not on your list of Signature Skills. Those Skills become Signature Skills for you."

They stated the intent of Signature Skills was role protection of sorts. If we're giving two free signature skills away, then the original intent is moot.

Basically, I see no reason why they need to exist if the plan is to simply give them away for free anyways.

PC's do not get enough Skill Increases (even the Rogue) for Signature Skills to be anything other than limiting in a conceptually exclusive way.

'Role protection' is actually another point that we really didn't enjoy. Slowly as editions have marched on the RPG has gone the way of balance in all the classes.

Some people may disagree - but to some of us old timers - each class is intended to have a different function than the others. It is becoming harder and harder to see the differences between the classes when you strip away the descriptors and get down to the math. This is good, if your goal is to create a balanced computer game. This is awful if you are trying to get a group at the table to resemble a group of heroes in a story.

I want the fighter to have a different role than the cleric and the wizard. I want the damage to be different...I want the weaknesses to be different. I do not want to change the descriptive words on the abilities I use and suddenly be a fighter when I am playing a bard.

The old systems did tend to favor the caster classes at higher level. There was a solution in 3.5 that was a lot of fun to play with - 'The Book of Nine Swords'. If you just HAD to have melee characters that could keep up with the damage on a sneak attack or fireball, you could pick that book up and run with it. I've been meaning to do a conversion on it to balance it out to PF1, suppose I'll get started on that for my next campaign.

Let me start off by saying that my group and I had not played a game in about 3 years until shortly before the Pathfinder 2 announcement. We were excited to be able to participate in an edition transition from the company that rescued us from the nightmare that we found in 4th ed.

I followed all of the previews for the Playtest, and shared them with my group as we took up a 'world-changing' campaign in our home brew setting, as is our tradition leading up to an edition change. We were so excited to run the playtest that we actually put a pause on our ongoing campaign to run through the system, despite being worried about some of the mechanical changes that we weren't quite sure what to make of.

When we started the playtest, we were a little underwhelmed by how the system played. It felt very scripted, as though the encounters were coming straight out of a video game. We got through the first chapter, but we could not motivate ourselves to continue with the next portion of the test. We will continue to monitor the changes and updates, and perhaps will give the final product a go, but for now, we're going back to our current campaign.

I'd like to leave some feedback before I mostly go into observation mode on the forums, I'll start with some things we liked, then get into the stuff that made us run away.

1. Character creation. Creating the characters without rolling the dice was an interesting option, and a written in mechanic to avoid the issue with tanked stats on a point buy was wonderful.

2. Conceptually, not having one 'initiative' stat was refreshing. Unfortunately the exploration to combat transitions tarnished this somewhat.

3. Not rolling hit points was nice (for most of us, one player actually liked the random concept of HP).

4. Spell progression changes, as well as the metamagic changes. The concept of casting a spell at a higher level, and having scaling cantrips is a favorite. This will likely move into our house rules for future 1st ed games. Even with the reduced number of spells per day, the casters felt as though they would be able to be useful in the 'minor' combat situations.

Now to transition to the less pleasant feedback.

--- Class feats were advertised as a way to create customized characters to play any character we wanted. Instead we have limitations on which class abilities we have access to, and those limitations come with situational benefits that are often underwhelming. Other options are nearly required for good party play.

--- Class locked character concepts. Want to get the benefits for dual wielding? Better pick the correct class. We were really hoping for feat options that were more akin to the 'mythic adventures' options. A general pool, some 'role-specific' pools. Options, rather than restrictions.

--- Action economy and critical hits. The action economy seems to work well to remove some restrictions on movement and attacking. It also, in it's current form, allows for potentially super-lethal combat. I've never knocked out half a group of players with 4 goblins before. This one was key to our lack of enjoyment. Monsters with low hit points and high damage are not interesting in a narrative. Combat is short and deadly, even in some situations where it should not be at low level. The slime in the first area nearly knocked a character out.

--- The change from 'Race' to 'Ancestry' again advertised a way to make your dwarf unique and interesting. Instead we have situational options that lack any new flavor and options that were previously granted to any member of a race gated behind racial feats.

--- There are multiple threads already on the 'exploration' mode, so I'm going to keep this short - the transitional rules from combat to encounter mode being so strictly defined make for a far more 'game like' experience, rather than a seamless narrative.

--- Signature skills - from a narrative standpoint this is telling people what they can and cannot let their character concept be. This is also saying that a good general is not also likely to be a skilled negotiator. All kingdoms must send bards or rogues to negotiate for them at high level. That trusted knight can just sit and listen.

--- Resonance. Conceptually, the idea of removing the need to fill each slot with the best magic item is one we actually really liked.

The concept, however, was used as a tool to seemingly 'fix' something that is only broken if a GM allows it to be.

I would instead do something along these lines. Equally less popular with the spam crowd, but more engaging in a narrative game.

-Tie potions to constitution modifier. Current 'overspend' rules can still apply. You're drinking magic.
-Tie wands to the 'resonance pool' just like staves. No cost per use, but you can only have your casting modifier in 'spell items' bound per day. Staves and wands have casting modifier charges per day. The device has been optimized to power spells, but still needs a bit of your energy to work.
-Scrolls would tie to the casting modifier for the scroll, limiting the number used per day, same 'overspend' rules as currently exist. You are reading out words of overwhelming power.
-Remove the 'activation cost' from all items. Other items are simply bound. Including weapons. No 'pass the magic sword' during combat. Magic items should indeed be special, part of the magic being that a character has become comfortable with investing part of their energy into the item, or some similar narrative concept.
-The trick magic item feat would allow a character to 'invest' in a spell casting item, and use it as per the modifier that allowed them to 'trick' the item.

I'm very much a fan of not having dedicated slots, or 'required' items. As stated above, I'd really like to see something more along the lines of a pool of 'investment' points tied to your level. No stats, no bonuses. 1 magic item per level, or better yet 1/2 level in magic items minimum 1. A 20th level fighter should be able to have trinkets and items that are worth something to be invested in. Rings, armor, a shield...even weapons. Investment in items needs to be an all in thing for permanent magical items, not a pick and choose mechanic.

I even dig the old mechanic - as much as people hated it even in my own group - the concept that you couldn't just pick up the BBEG's gear and put it on. You needed to take it somewhere and spend time doing nothing but identifying those items before using them. Now, that may be extreme, but making items limited too. A magical item can only be invested in by one character per day. (The GCP playtest part with the dagger being passed back and forth nearly killed me from a narrative standpoint)

Wands can be solved by limiting them to casting modifier of charges per day, and they must be invested into like any other item. To keep that clunky clw wand thing away, you simply restrict the user from being able to invest in a wand of the same spell more than once, or that you can only invest in a number of wands equal to your casting modifier per day.

Potions can be solved by stating that you can only drink 1 potion per con modifier per day before having to make fortitude saving throws to avoid 'potion sickness'. You are consuming the magical forces and mystical ingredients in order to empower your body - drinking too many of these potions induces nausea and fatigue. Failing said flat check prevents eating or drinking ANYTHING until rested.

Scrolls can function similarly to wands. Reading a magical scroll does not cost the user anything, as the scroll was invested with magical power during it's creation. The creator CAST the spell into the scroll. After casting their key modifier of scrolls in a day, each subsequent scroll cast is subject to a flat will save. You are gazing upon raw magical energy in the form of written words. Failure to to make said save induces fatigue, all spells cast the rest of the day would require an extra action, and no further scrolls can be used that day.

Staves are basically invested the same as they are now, except there should not be an extra resonance cost to activate them. One staff that can be invested at a time, with a few wands. This greatly increases the spell flexibility of the caster considering their limited spell slots at this stage, but ties their casting to a limited resource that has to be managed.

Honestly I thought the staves were just absolutely awesome until I realized you had to invest a point and then spend to cast the spells...do people actually use staves as a melee weapon on their wizard in active play enough to make that change necessary?
Further, as it stands, a wizard must invest for the staff, and then spend for the spells, but the fighter can pick up that +1 flaming longsword and hand it to the cleric and then the rogue to fight that frost giant. Yep. Makes sense.

The trick magic item feat should mostly function just like it does in the written rules, only you can use it to invest in items that are not part of your class or spell list. You can only invest in one item at a time for each spell list that you do not normally have access to. This prevents your wizard from becoming the primary healer by investing in those pesky cure light wounds wands, but allows a wizard with cleric dedication to pick up those wands normally if she has the appropriate feats.

I am tremendously excited to see a race of creatures that have such a widespread population and diverse culture be adapted to a 'core' concept race. People talk about things that you had to get DM approval for, or might cause controversy in a game, but that can happen just by having an elven wizard and a human sorcerer in the same game if you are actually ROLE-PLAYING. Conflict resolution within a party is one of the things that make the story interesting.

I am currently running a campaign - on a home-brew world, with the pathfinder rules. The party - with no goblins - encountered a group of goblins and killed most of them until one of the characters thought to knock one out for questioning. After questioning, they decided that they should let the goblin live, and offered it a place in their party. They now have a goblin 'mascot' that needs reminding occasionally to behave. Their 'mascot' has gained class levels, and assists them in their objective, realizing that it will be taken care of far better as an adventurer with the rag-tag group of characters that let him live than he ever would have been with his own people, just by the vary nature of their culture differences. He still won't ride a stinky horse, but he'll happily scarf down all the jerky they can provide.

Why is it so difficult to imagine a goblin hero in a world where you can have a dark elf, or tiefling that are 'usually bent towards evil' end up as your party's 'good' cleric?