Avalon Reln's page

IT WORKED ITS UP

"Soon"

There is chum in the water and the natives are getting restless... There's going to be talk of storming the castle at this rate. ;)

*sigh* I'll get the torches and pitchforks.

The only thing I take issue with is that it seems like there were clearly some things that the players could have done differently. For starters, they could have been readying an action to attack a caster that is casting spells in melee, effectively letting them negate the spell and punish the caster.

While I have no doubt they were still thinking smart, it can get a little tiring hearing people say they tried one thing and thought the combat was boring. At level 7, there are potions and magic items and combat maneuvers and positioning that all add to the list of "things to do instead of standing in place and attacking 3 times". This is made even more important given that you guys didn't do anything other than the final encounter because you assumed stuff would have gone swimmingly. If I had all that gold to spend on one fight, I can imagine getting loads if trinkets and other magic items to make it interesting.

All I'm getting at is that when you're not having fun, it isn't always a defficency in the system. Gone are the days where you 5-foot step and full round attack--pathfinder is trying to evolve away from that, and they have out a lot of work into enriching combat with items and tactics. Not using them means you're not even using the system, you're just trying to play Pathfinder 1e in a 2e scenario.

* Also, I don't want this to sound too standoffish. I realize there is a lit of butting heads on the forums, I don't mean to add my voice in a negative way. It can just get exhausting to see a lot of negativity all the time. I personally like the system and have already had incredible times with my friends. I just wish looking at the forums wasn't such a bash-fest.

A concession: If (and only if) spending resonance to empower a potion brings that potion's healing range up to the point where the value of the healing (in terms of HP/GP) is at least consistent across the level of items, then this will be an effective solution to the problem of exponential value drop-off.

I realize that I'm totally fine with a higher-level healing potion being a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad value unless you spend resonance on it. Because there's at least a possibility of getting your money's worth, I think people would suddenly be willing to pay for it, instead of reluctant. And with only so many times you can get your money's worth in a day, that also incentivises having other healing options at your disposal (whether those are healers, rituals, whatever).

Solution synergy.

To get a *little* bit math-y, there will always be some cost/benefit line (as you had described) that will separate items that are "worth" the money or not. I have no doubt in my mind that Paizo has some internal work done around looking at where consumable items fall. With this suggested change, you could have consumables fall below this ideal cost/benefit line normally, but have their heightened values fall above it.

This makes me think that it could be the best of both worlds--you don't leave people without means of healing, but it is in your best interest (optimizing-wise) to heighten it with Resonance. This gives the player agency to tailor the consumables to the situation, but encourage them to "spend upwards" using Resonance for maximum effect.

I believe that it is also worth mentioning that this change could add a lot of relevance and power to the Alchemist. Having the ability to pre-heighten potions could make an alchemist a party-bag healer that hands out useful potions at the start of the day. These potions could still have the infused effect, and therefor only be good for one day at a time, but I think that it could make the alchemist feel like they are really doing something useful. Even just being able to Infuse and Heighten potions at a better rate (2 per Resonance during daily prep), this change could very easily expand the number of viable ways to heal a party without resorting to needed a dedicated healer.

I understand that my initial example could have been better, but the core idea is that you could have potions that scale very slowly when not Heightened, and have their scaled versions be in line with what they are now or even a little better.

Personally, I like Resonance how it is, but that doesn't mean that everybody enjoys it. If they don't change a thing about it when it goes to the final release I will not be upset. I am merely trying to think of creative ways to make Resonance appeal to a wider group of people.

This carrot not stick stuff is fine for consumables but I prefer the current implementation of resonance for permanent magic items (functioning like attunement in 5e but, clearly, allowing way more "attuned" or, as PF2 calls it, "invested" items).

I fully believe the invested nature of Resonance should be left as is. This thread was merely a suggestion that could address people's concerns about Resonance and consumables.

I was just reading through the Q&A that Jason B. was holding regarding some upcoming changes and the state of the game. In this Q&A, he discussed how Resonance was being seen as a form of punitive enforcement (a stick) as compared to something that would be more positive feedback (a carrot).

The short of this post is the following: what if resonance was used to heighten uses of consumables, which are always able to be used in a pinch but need something else to boost their performance.

I like resonance, and I wholeheartedly believe it should stay as a fundamental part of PF2e, but I recognize that changing resonance could allow it to be really cool!

Imagine healing potions being closer to the strength of elixirs, but they don't require Resonance to activate. Resonance is instead used to boost the performance of the potion.

Here is an example:
Minor potion of healing:
1d6 healing
Heightened (1 Resonance) +1d8 healing

Better items could offer a better heightened effect with use of Resonance, and it could lead to an incentive to buy higher level items. The non-heightened healing could scale slower than the hightened healing. I believe that Resonance could still be overspent, but now there is always something that you can get from a potion even if you can't invest into it (even if the amount is small). Also, the concept of heightening is already in the game in the form of spells, so it wouldn't be a radical departure within the system.

Additionally, I imagine that with this system there could be some interplay with the alchemist to make it stronger. I think that when the alchemist makes a certain amount of items during prep each day, they could invest Resonance into the batch as a force multiplier; this investment would boost all the items created, and not require other members to use resonance to heighten the item when they use it.

In total, the purpose of this boils down to never being left without a usable potion, but more importantly it allows resonance to be seen as a shot of magic into your body that is extra effective. Imagine during an intense fight you go to quaff a potion, announce you're going to invest resonance into it, and reach into your bag to grab some extra dice to roll high. I think a shift towards making resonance really cool could make the game even more awesome!