Asuet's page

No, but design choices that don't interfere with eachother (limited reactions, no AoO default, lay on hands action economy and power) need to be looked at from 1e. Where there reliability was, where there purpose of design was.

Why do you think that? P2 obviously doesn't orient the paladins design on first edition and why would it have to?

You basically want the natural ambition feat for every sorcerer. If the sorcerer is in need of more class feats then they should just get more and not have some weird workaround with ancestry feats.

I personally think all casters are kinda screwed because multiclassing is bought with class feats and having so few basically restricts casters from properly multiclassing but I also think your idea is not a solution for that.

It might still be fun to take the bloodseeker, if only for the shock value. I wonder if I could somehow get it to transfer its health increase ability to me. Time to take another dive through the rules :).

No matter what kind of animal you take, they don't benefit from their original species. Every familiar has exactly the same stats and abilities. What familiars can do on top of that is only determined by the points you spend every day.

Imagine being able to show up the the first session with a back story of being a half-elf, but raised by a kindly dwarf and her gnome husband. with a couple of elf and human biology features and still getting to have an ancestry feat to add depth to just what sort of impact that heritage and ancestry meant to your character and your concept.

No one keeps you from playing that concept already. What you want are the mechanical benefits from having this background which has nothing to do with the actual possibility to build that background with the current system.

Your proposal makes the penalty pretty much irrelevant. It should stay as it is.

Forget fighter dedication. Wizards who can afford a master or legendary hide armor already get +1 ac more than they would have otherwise without any or nearly no downsides. No check penalties (-1 for master), no movement reduction and latest from lvl 10 on you also have the max dex modifier of +4. And the biggest advantage is that you can actually enchant that armor with runes. Not like mage armor or bracers of armor. You actually can use property runes.

I commented on this in another thread, but cross posting here because it is also highly relevant.

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2v9p9&page=4?HalfOrcHalfElf#159

tl;dr - The half breed ancestry include 2 of 4 race typical features, and by investing twice you can get all four, so lets just do that for everyone automatically so you pick two parents (same race or mixed) and e.g. get the dwarfy or orcish features based on your blood.

That would be a good solution if every race would be able to interbreed with every other race which isn't the case in the world of Golarion. I'm sure you can come up with houserules for your homebrew setting but the pathfinder 2 rules are supposed to represent the world of Golarion and not every possible setting people come up with.

You may not be interested in playing a helfling, lizardforc, or Gnobold, and you may choose to disallow them from your table. But if other people want to play them in their games, why is that so bad? Why shouldn't the system provide the tools if it can be done so easily? What's the downside, that it involves giving out the additional feats that you yourself said people are demanding?

My position is not that half-x shouldn't be represented in the game. You completely misunderstood my position. My point is that any half-race you add later on can be easily implemented under the current ruleset. And you don't need more feats for that. Want to play a lizard-orc? Homebrew a feat into the orc ancestry feats that's called half-lizard and add some characteristics of lizards. Easy. No need for any additional feats.

Smaller numbers have a bigger impact because in 2e you have less ways to increase your hitchances than in P1. Of course the chance to hit increases in the same way. That + to hit has more value in 2e nevertheless.

And yes, if you completely ignore agile weapons because the damage dice is lower then you probably don't experience the same impact of your penaltyreduction.

As you admitted yourself, the bonus from your class didn't benefit you in your session. Again... that has nothing to do with the actual benefit. That's like a fighter saying his opponents only rolled 1's on their hits so him being trained in medium armor is useless.

All int classes should start out with 3 +int skills because of the way characterdevelopment works in this edition.
No one needs to dump stats and that is the big difference to the old edition. Int classes got so few starting skills in PF1 because they already get so many extra points compared to other classes who usually don't invest in int.
Other classes actually have the boosts available to do that now. There is a misbalance because of that on higher levels between the int-classes and the other classes which doesn't make much sense from a balancing perspective.
In the light of characterprogression, Fighter, Monk and Barbarian are more than fine with getting 3 skills.

Personally, I’d like to see the Rogue Dedication offer access to Finesse Striker (the rogue Dex to damage ability) rather than Surprise Attack. This small change opens up a wealth of builds (e.g., Dex-based but still melee paladins, fighters, barbarians, rangers...)

It actually doesn't open up any builds. These builds are all viable already. No one has to dump any stats in this edition.

The damage is generated mostly through runes at higher levels. The added damagebonus from ability scores only matters on lower levels and that not even a lot since you can always start out with 14 or 16 str, even if you put the highest amount of points into dex.

Finesse striker is extremely underwhelming in regard to its combat benefit. What finesse striker actually does is that it allows the rogue class to spend more ability boosts on other stats like int, cha and wisdom that are used in the majority of skills.

The difference between -5 and -3/-4 is still big. Even if you only use 2 attacks per turn.
In this edition small numbers have a bigger impact. It is way harder to get +hit modifiers and every additional + to hit doesn't just give higher hitchance but opens up more crtitchance as well.

Obviously the ranger has to balance his actioneconomy like any other class. You probably should not use hunt target on every single goblin you encounter but rather use that to mark the big guy, so you don't waste a lot of actions on hunt target.
And giving up a third attack to command your companion can at times be a good or bad decision. But that is up to the player and not a bad thing.

1) Never hit with a second attack that would have missed but for Hunt Target. Nor did I crit as a result. +1 just does not have that much of an impact;

Just because it didn't change the outcome in your session does not mean that it is useless. Your chances of hitting as a ranger on multiple attacks are just better than other classes. Your samplesize was just too small to show that.

I would like to concur with this. I've had a character concept for a long time, based on the first JRPG I ever played. It's essentially a magic swordsman with a talking, flying cat familiar. When I learned from the teaser that I can have a flying cat familiar, I was over the moon. Then I learned about how multi-classing worked. I can make DragonMaster Alex, I thought. But even for roleplaying... I just... can't justify taking the familiar. A flying, talking cat accomplishes absolutely nothing other than flying and talking. Maybe with sorcerer dedication rather than wizard (and by taking the expanded familiar feat) but they need... more. At least 3 choices at base, and expand the Master traits so that they are... useful.

You can play a gnome. Or take the adopted ancestry general feat to get access to gnome ancestry feats. You don't need to multiclass necessarily to get a familiar.

Counterspell needs a rework. As fuzzy pointed out, you basically need 3 feats to even be able to counterspell. Counterspell, Recognize Spell and Quick Recognition. And then you can only counterspell spells you have prepared and ready at the time, which also prevents you from countering spells that are not available to you. As far as I'm concerned counterspell doesn't exist in this edition.
If this is intended, it's horrible gamedesign because it tricks players into making a heavy investment into something that is usefull maybe once in a whole campaign.

One day after taking 1 or more Dents, an item made from orichalcum repairs itself completely. It's pretty expensive but the mechanic already exists. Having on top of that more dents to work with is extremely good.

No matter how you dress it up, there will never be a better CC than "dead".

That's why there are classes that are really good at dealing damage. The conclusion is not that every class needs to be good at dealing damage. Would you use that argument for clerics? Why even pick classes that don't deal the highest damage in the game? Because there is more to a class than just damage. Defensive abilities are not useless.

I'm just salty right now.

Tonight's goal of *trying* to get Retributive Strike to trigger flopped bad and I can't figure out anything I did that was wrong. I *as the GM* had problems setting up a skill to go off. Though granted, I was being fair, I wasn't having the enemies intentionally turn away from the Paladin, they were animals, meaning that they weren't likely to understand how to avoid it, assuming that would be the best case scenario and still... Nope.

This is frustrating me to no end.

How did it not trigger if you were fighting animals? Did your DM reposition them so they didn't get the hit? Did you not move up next to them while they were in combat with your teammates? Did they always attack you?

Either you didn't use your abilities to full effect by positioning properly, your DM intentionally misplayed his animals by making them smartly reposition or they actually attacked you which is the whole point of retributive strike. Your playtests seem to be self fulfilling prophecy.

I tried to use it again today in a 10th playtest. This time it was my Paladin along as an NPC.

I could not get it to fire. In all 3 encounters. I could not get it to fire. I had 3 players laughing at how insane I was going to to try to get it to fire.

So you got exactly what retributive strike is made for. Forcing the opponent to reposition or attack you. That you still don't get that the attack itself is not the point of the ability is beyond me.

Asuet wrote:

I don't believe you.

I'm going to need you to reel in the cynicism and contemptuous language for other people's opinions.

I am an RPer and I have played a lot of paladins in a lot of different systems. It's usually the first concept I try out in a given game. I have played tanky paladins, healing paladins and smiting paladins. I've gone into a game with a paladin on many occasions knowing full well that there wasn't going to be a wealth of smite targets, because that was the character I wanted to play.

You do not get to decide what I do and do not enjoy.

What limits my ability to play a Paladin is far more likely to be the campaign's theme with regard to alignment. If the GM wants to play a morally grey game, I won't play a paladin. Paladins are also very frequently banned or discouraged because of their inflexible code ruining other people's fun.

So, yes. I do enjoy having the capability to unleash holy fury on a deserving target even if that doesn't come up every day.

Based on your comments here it is pretty obvious that for you it's about the damage and as you said yourself, you wouldn't even play a paladin in a campaign with a morally grey theme. That's not me being cynical.

For everybody who wants smite back. Ask yourself one thing. Would you be content if smite came back and did minor extra damage? Lets say 1 extra dice.
Would you still be upset or would that be enough to appease you? Or do you want to be the one on the table who deals the massive damage blow?
I can understand the people who want a cinematic effect of the divine energy channeled through the paladins weapon (which I think is already properly implemented in the game). I have no understanding for people who just want to be the big damage dealers on the table. There are enough other classes to do that.

A wizard with a good INT can cover most of the basic knowledge skills easily enough. With an 18 Int the wizard has 6 skills? Craft, Arcana, Occultism, Religion, Nature leave one slot open for either society or some other specific character concept skill. That is a plenty of skill support for the caster with the best spell list and widest access to that spell list in the game.

The point is that with the new system every class gets way more ability stats then in PF1, including int. In the previous edition other classes didn't invest in int later on. Now they do. That's why there is an imbalance between the wizard and other classes right now the higher the level progresses when it comes to skills which just makes no sense.

I want to play a Paladin who can smite evil.

I don't believe you. I think you want a paladin who can smite whatever. Would you have fun playing a paladin who can't use smite because the campaign basically doesn't have evil monsters? How fun would that be?

Asuet wrote:

If you want a meat shield, bring a barbarian. If you want damage and capable defenses, bring a fighter. If you want a chivalrous leader looking out for his comrades, bring a paladin. Welcome to Pathfinder 2.

Pump your brakes. That's "Pathfinder 2 Playtest"

I think at this point the basic concept of classes won't be thrown overboard. I assume the developers were fully aware that the 10 dice smite fans would make a ruckus after seeing the changes.

The thing is, you can find that playstyle already in other classes. Want to make a crusader who roots out evil? Make a LG fighter and roleplay him being a zealot to fight the enemies of the church. Just one of many examples. You don't need smite for that.

If you want a meat shield, bring a barbarian. If you want damage and capable defenses, bring a fighter. If you want a chivalrous leader looking out for his comrades, bring a paladin. Welcome to Pathfinder 2.

If smite was the paladins meaningful reason to exist then good riddance.

Thanks commander. That's what I meant.

@AndIMustMask
I didn't fall into any traps. Being able to shield others still rounds up the protective capabilities. I can imagine many situations where blocking is more beneficial than hitting the enemy and the other way around. And it still doesn't change the fact that retributive strike is not about hitting. It's about changing the combat behaviour of the enemy.

@WatersLethe
The whole idea that paladins use ranged weapons is completely stupid and by the way wasn't possible in early eaditions. It contradicts the chivalry code on which the paladin was built in early editions and i'm glad the bow using paladin now is gimping himself deservedly by doing that.
Why are you complaining that a paladin gets shoehorned into using heavy armor and defensive skills. It's like complaining wizards get shoehorned into casting spells.

The Paladin design drastically changed from being the damage dealer to being the protector of the group. Of course this doesn't appeal to anyone.

The question also isn't if paladins should get their big smite damage back. That ship has sailed. The intended concept of the paladin in this edition is obviously that of a protector.

So the real question is if they can fill this role properly. The whole premise of this thread is that paladins are reactive and not proactive. That is a basic misconception of what retributive strike is supposed to do. It's a carrot and a stick. Don't hit my friends or I hit you. So you better hit me. It's an elegant solution to what was lacking in RPG's. It's a taunt. Sure you can reposition as an opponent. But that messes with the action economy. It's a win win situaton for the paladin with this simple retributive strike mechanic. It is not about the reaction at all. It's about how retributive strike changes the decisionmaking and actioneconomy of the opponents.
That being said, it's not his only mechanic to be the protector. Lay on hands and later on the ability to block damage with his shield for other players rounds it up. He is the best in his role. Being the protector.

Pathfinder 2 attempts to give every class it's own niche. That doesn't take away from the experience. You want to deal a lot of damage? Play fighter. That's their dedicated role.

And to this whole fluff debate: Paladins in old editions didn't have smite at all. That was added later to make that class more appealing. The big mistake was to make that way too strong and to make it the big centerpiece of the class.

It's a horrible idea because innate spells are supposed to come from within. Much like the sorcerer's powers. Having your innate spells work with something like dex is just power gaming. I think you could make an argument that divine innate powers could use wisdom for example but using the physical ability scores for that makes no sense thematically. Innate spells are not ki abilities or spirits. They are spells. If they add a feat where you can get a ki ability that's not an innate spell then I would also argue for not using charisma as the modifier.

The number of available ancestry feats will rise over time. This is just the playtest. And you say yourself that even without the feats you can still make any concepts. So I don't get why you then think it's restrictive if that's the case.

Wrong forum. Also horrible idea.

I think their point was if you set up your reactive ability and then the enemy just ignores you or avoids you by repositioning, then you are bad at working together with your team and not pulling your own weight. This is a concern with a primarily reaction-based feature like Retributive Strike, which is basically in the hands of the monsters if you get to use it or not.

Good luck repositioning when you give the paladin a reach weapon. And even if the opponent avoids your retrebutive strike by repositioning, you deny him one action. Action economy is actually a thing in this edition. A common misconception to underestimate that.

Another misconception is that retributive strike is a damage tool. It's a tanking tool. It forces opponents to focus the paladin or waste actions to reposition.

The big misconception here is that you think retributive strike is a damage tool. It's not. It's a tanking tool. Once enemies realize that they get hit in the face when they try to hit the paladins companion they will switch their focus to the paladin. That's what it is for.

Beside that your "statistics" are highly biased and most likely your players had no clue how to play the class considering their weapon choices. Something you as a DM should bring up before a game by the way. If a player comes up to me and tells me he wants to play a wizard without spells then I would not just say: Go for it!

Also paladins of erastil are not restricted to just using bows. You need to make that absolutely clear to every player who comes up to you with such a gimped concept.

Multiclassing into a specific class will never be as powerful for all classes. Some classes always get more out of it. That's not a problem and never will be a problem.

Asuet wrote:

The new paladin concept as a protector is something that was missing for a long time. The way paladin plays out is refreshing and innovative. And from my personal view I think it's way more cinematic to have a paladin throwing himself in front of his comrades with his shield and striking back at the evil that threatenes his friends than using smite every single turn and just be a fighter with a divine infused sword.

As soon as the Bodyguard feat came out in PF1 a friend of mine had a build for Paladins that used it. Of course, it was also a Halfing with Childlike and Pass for Human "Dont't hit my Papa!" build, but still. Paladin's have had the option of being 'protectors' for a while now.

To be fair, what the paladin can do now goes way beyond what the bodyguard feat did in PF1.

I understand that many players liked the big damage from smite that they had in the previous edition. It's a completely different concept now and people have to get used to it first. It also opens up way more possibilities and playstyles than the old version.

If you are concerned about fluff... Creatures can hold magical essence up to a point where their bodies can't take anymore. You are welcome.

I'm just wondering how something like "Longbow only" and "Shield only" paladins can even happen.

Listing encounters with a"Longbow only" paladin build when retributive strike is melee only is a bad joke and shows your bias.

Beside that you can't take anything from that. Maybe you only attacked the paladin. If that's the case please nerf retributive strike. It's definitely overpowered and makes the paladin the best tank in the history of roleplay.

Your whole example falls apart when the fighter doesn't have the bag of holding. It makes no sense to have it on him in the first place. It's good on characters with low strength.

The bookkeeping is not more of a problem than it is to keep track of your prepared spells. So that's not really an argument against it.

Your third argument is just an argument from fluff and has no weight. The magic in the world of pathfinder doesn't follow any logical rules. If Paizo says that this is how they want it to be then that's how it works.

Ancestry feats give power to the players to create the type of character they envision. It adds diversity where everything was streamlined before. I don't read much about people actually complaining about the basic concept. Usually the opinions go apart when it comes to how much you can customize from the start.

Now you behave as if half-x were erased from the game. This is getting ridiculous.

shroudb wrote:

If they worked mechanically exactly the same, but were instead in their own subsection, would it change anything?

If they were their own Ancestries? Yes.

I close my case.

In a system where on higher level the average intelligence stat is way higher for every class, it seems bad designchoice to keep the int class at low starting skills. Starting skills should be increased to 3 for wizards for balancing reasons.

The new paladin concept as a protector is something that was missing for a long time. The way paladin plays out is refreshing and innovative. And from my personal view I think it's way more cinematic to have a paladin throwing himself in front of his comrades with his shield and striking back at the evil that threatenes his friends than using smite every single turn and just be a fighter with a divine infused sword.

Keen ears is a heritage feat that you can only take at level 1. That's the thing. Physical traits are easily explained in this edition because you can't take them later on. (except for the half-orcs who are admittedly horribly implemented in the current state).

Explaining getting new ancestry feats is no different than explaining all the other feats and skills you gain from leveling up. Or how do you explain that you go into a dungeon with no lore and come out with legendary lore skill? Or you knew the basics of smithing but when you come out you are a master of your craft? You can't explain these things realistically except for taking regular downtimes, which is not required.

Why do people use this argument when it comes to ancestries and not for the rest of the characterdevelopment? Because they need to construct a problem where no problem exists to justify getting more feats from the start.

Example: Wizard with the feats quickened casting and effortless concentration

Turn 1 - Summon Monster 3 actions

Turn 2 - free concentration action, summon another monster 3 actions

Turn 3 - 1 free concentration action, 1 concentration action, summon another monster with quickened casting 2 actions

turn 4 - 1 free concentration action, 2 concentration actions, 1 action left to do whatever

This allows you to control 3 summoned monsters at the same time.

shield block p. 255:
You snap your shield in place to ward off a blow. Your shield
prevents you from taking an amount of damage up to the
shield’s Hardness—the shield takes this damage instead, possibly
becoming dented or broken. See the Item Damage section on
page 175 for rules on dented and broken items.

As dragonhunterq said, it only prevents damage equal to the shields hardness. I have seen a lot of posts where people said it would still block all damage.
They really should make a dedicated section about blocking with examples. It's one of the rules that is all over the place.

Asuet wrote:

Take a look at the Magical Shorthand feat.

That... doesn't really help all that much. The 1/week limit on retry isn't a whole lot more frequent than once-per-level (less frequent in many campaigns, actually). The primary effect of this feat appears to be reducing the amount of time it takes you to learn the spell, which isn't worth a feat when you're only learning uncommon spells. Wizards, on the other hand, should greatly appreciate this as a way to quickly fill their spellbook with low-level common spells.

Well ok. I never played in campaigns where I leveled frequently every week. For me that is the reason to take the feat. That feat basically makes sure that I can learn the spell I want in the downtime.

Comparing half orc to dwarf gives us same sturdiness 5ft speed and low light vs dark, which is about the same.

So half orcs are at a disadvantage here.

No, they are not. What you forget is that being a half orc opens up a second pool of feats. The orc feats. They are not implemented yet but they will be there sometime in the future.

Asuet wrote:

No, she isn't.

I don't know where you got the impression that you know what I'm saying better than anyone else, and feel you can speak for me and my position. But I'd appreciate being allowed to speak for myself and not "translated" by you.

Asuet wrote:

Dim light vision and 5 feet extra movement. You call that a "tax"?

Yes.

The ancestry system is built on choice and customization. Unless you're a half-elf, in which case you can only ever have ONE choice. I don't care if it's the best choice ever. I care that the system is sold on choice, and half-elves and half-orcs don't get a choice.

If you criticize the ancestry system because your real agenda is that you don't like the world of Golarion then that is a dishonest way of giving feedback and not constructive because ultimately no system would make that person content except for the change of the world Paizo created.

This part of the forum is for Playtest/Player Rules/Ancestries. Problems with the world of Golarion should be adressed in the general forum. That's why it's improper.

To your comment on tax:
Every race has heritage feats. If you want to take them you have to take them at level 1. That is the same for elves, dwarves, gnomes, goblins, halflings and humans. Half races are heritage feats and grant massive boni. No one complains about being forced to take the elf heritage feat keen hearing. It's only when it comes to half-X that people get a problem with that.

Picking heritage feats is not a tax. People just want more feats to chose from right from the start. I can get that. The system Paizo went with in this edition is that you develop your ancestry over time. You might like that or not but it is not special for half-X.

Every race is limited in their choice of feats at level 1 if the player wants to include the heritage feat. the good thing is that you get more feats over time.

No, she isn't. She was responding to my argument with Aldarc who wants the half-races to be changed because he doesn't like the way these races are portrayed in specifically the Golarion setting. Which is a completely different argument from saying that the half-X feat is a tax, which by the way is ridiculous considering that the half-elf feat is one of the best feats you can take as a human. Dim light vision and 5 feet extra movement. You call that a "tax"?