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From my perspective it just runs counter to the way I see roleplaying games - as games we play together (including the GM) where everyone's contributions are valued fairly equally. I say this as someone who is behind the screen about half the time.

It basically validates the GM as servant / Story Teller model which is just the opposite of what I want from either side of the screen.

I see streaming differently because there people playing a game together. I know allowances are made to make it more entertaining to the audience and are generally more scripted than I would like at the gaming table, but it feels less off to me.

If it's your thing go ahead and do it. Have fun. It's just a different experience than I would enjoy on either side.

Here's where I stand. Both Wizards and Sorcerers could do with some tuning, particularly in the crucial 1-5 level band. I think it was probably not the best choice to give away some of the best Wizard spells to Druids and Bards. I also think some low level spells should be tuned up in damage.

I do not believe there are systemic issues that need addressing. I generally like the game moving away from being primarily about attrition. I generally like martial classes being better within their specialties and spell casters having more breadth. I do not want to return to the days of fighters being less relevant than wizards in boss encounters.

There are tuning issues at low levels, but the game is structurally sound in my opinion. I also think this is a case of judging PF2 more harshly than we do other games. Over all balance is pretty tight - a little too tight in certain areas.

So at the end of the day I tend to view the armor and weapon proficiency differences as mostly ribbon abilities. HP matters a bit more than that, but only in the event that difference in HP would cause one to get knocked out, but not the other.

The really important differences lay in the class features that actually support their skillset. Composition cantrips are stronger than a supplemental feature for a spell caster probably should be. Not sure how you can downplay it though given it affects the core math of the game.

There's not much of a game balance reason why Bards, Clerics, and Druids get better armor, better weapons, and more HP compared to Sorcerers, Wizards, and Witches. There was in previous versions, but the more martially oriented casters have gotten some pretty big upgrades in the spell casting department. Druids are not worse spell casters than Wizards anymore. They really weren't in first Edition that much either.

I think it's mostly tradition, but also the fiction. Like Wizards and Witches are not these dashing figures who mix it up in the same way Clerics and Bards traditionally do.

It's also far less of a real gap then it's ever been. When acting in archetypal ways really only the HP difference matters.

I think they were overly conservative with summoning spells. It's tough because you really do not be in a situation where it effectively becomes Summon Fighter.

Just going off of experience here. I find that you pretty much want to optimize AC while still doing the things your character was designed to do. You probably do not want to carry a shield on a rogue, ranger, or barbarian.

I do think the mitigation from a higher Dexterity is worth quite a bit more than extra hit points from Constitution particularly given that we get the whole die worth of hp now.

As a note that I didn't see anyone else mention (I think), The scales give a status bonus to AC which allows the wearing of armor or Mage Armor to stack.

The bonus applies when unarmored. It should be compatible with Mage Armor, Bracers of Armor, and enchanted Explorer's Clothing. It should not be compatible with actual armor.

A couple things.

A fair amount of the examples I see when discussing this issue seem to come from hypothetical players reading skill feats and attempting to do the exact same thing without having the feat. It's generally described in terms of the outcome they want and not something they are attempting to do in the fiction. Basically they are being weasels. Tell them to being a weasel if they are real.

That's not to say the underlying concern is not a legitimate one. Anytime you have a game that has something to say about how a given fictional situation works it's going to constrain your ability to freely handle those situations on an ad hoc basis.

Pathfinder Second Edition has stuff to say about how sneaking around works, how personal interactions work, how exploration works, etc. In doing so it allows the designers to build in a meaningful sense of progression, character customization, and build niches that complement rather than compete with magic into skills.

We do not get the sort of hallow martial characters we see in Fourth Edition and Fifth Edition that are almost entirely combat focused.

This does not come free and there is a danger in like going too far. For me personally I have not seen anything that sets off my danger sense, but we'll see.

The good thing is that Pathfinder Second Edition is an incredibly modular game and empowers us to make changes. If we see Survey Wildlife as something that everyone should be able to do just add it as a skill use and let players pick a new skill feat.

This does not seem super constricted or complicated to me.

Dave2 wrote:

TThis is also same conversation now. Casters were rebalanced for PF2 and many see that as nerf. I am happy with it myself. It is not new topic conversation though. Seen it come up various additions of the game.

happy with it in that you primarily play wizard and you enjoy the new PF2 wizard, or happy with it in that you don’t play wizard?

I kind of feel like most of the “happy with new wizards” posts are from people that don’t actually play wizard (not intending to single you or anyone else out); and ‘the people who do play wizards in my group enjoy it’ posts kind of give off a “my wife doesn’t mind my snoring” vibe. Okay, if you say so.

Happy with it in that I play a wizard (Illusionist) and a Barbarian (Dragon Instinct) in Pathfinder Society. I find spell casters feel far more engaging to play in Second Edition. Coordination, timing, and spell selection really matter. The action economy is working against you, but managing that is a lot of fun for me. I also love how capable my wizard is at using skills.

I will say that I have never really been focused on power fantasy. My enjoyment of PF2 spell casters come from how challenging and compelling they feel to play.Also a Soulsborne super fan.

My response here would be "Don't be a weasel."

Honestly I would probably just move Will over to Charisma. Perception already has significant defensive value.

On a conceptual level I just like Paladins/Champions and Sorcerers being more stubborn/intractable than Druids.

I am hoping we start to see some Bestiary errata. *Looks over at Clay Golem's Ancient Curse*

Other primary casters at that level are only getting proficiency level upgrades to saves or perception.

At 5th level

Bards are Expert in Perception, Will, and Reflex.
Wizards are Expert in Will and Reflexes.
Sorcerers are Expert in Will and Fortitude.
Druids are Expert in Perception, Will, Fortitude, and Reflex.
Clerics are Expert in Perception, Will, and Fortitude.

At this point every caster except the Druid is playing catch up to the Bard's proficiencies.

The ability for any class to be good at any skill makes it a lot easier to deliver on a character concept. My Dragon Instinct Barbarian is a disgraced noble and thanks to the changes to the skill system feels like a credible socialite.

Pathfinder Second Edition is a game where player skill, group composition, enemy composition, the round to round decisions during combat and how you prepare and transition between encounters has a huge impact on the outcome of encounters.

You could have two different groups go through the same adventure playing the exact same characters and end with dramatically different results.

The General feats in the CRB are just pretty lackluster. Regardless of class there are often cases where you are better served by a skill feat.

This is a spoiler for Absolam Initiation, the introductory Pathfinder Society Scenario for Second Edition.

As mada_gib says generally when interfacing with anything magical you use the skill for the relevant tradition. Like with Recall Knowledge you might grant the ability to use a skill for one of the other traditions at a higher DC. The skill chapter also covers using different attributes for a skill at GM discretion.

If the item is intelligent I would just use the normal social influence rules. Either stat it out as a creature or just give it a Will Save and an initial attitude. That way players could deceive it with Lie, Coerce it, or Convince it or even use Charm and other spells against it.

Besides some that were deliberately removed like war priests that were just as good at melee combat as fighters and disarm specialists I think mostly reflecting the more versatile classes from First Edition like Rangers and Paladins can be difficult to realize.

On the flip side any concept that is more skill dependent seems easier to model. You can build a strong Assassin or Knight off the Fighter chassis with a lot less work. You can build a very thief like Illusionist without multi-classing. Also multi-classing into a caster feels way better to me.

Generally speaking the 80/20 rule applies to most martial classes in PF2. Your pure throughput options are generally low level feats. Higher level feats are all about responding to unusual tactical situations.

Here's what the Lost Omens character Guide has to say on Uncommon Ancestries:

While these ancestries are uncommon in the same way a magic item, a feat, or a spell is, an ancestry is something you choose at the beginning of the campaign. Specific campaigns might provide a list of uncommon ancestries that are particularly appropriate for that setting, such as hobgoblins in a campaign set near Oprak, or lizardfolk for a campaign in the Mwangi Expanse, and grant access to those ancestries. In other games, these ancestries are as available as your group desires them to be.

Basically it just signifies an ancestry that might not be appropriate for every campaign and might not be part of "civilized" society. It's basically a matter of your GM making them available by default based on where the game takes place or asking your GM.

It's not really spelled out anywhere in the rules. Treat Wounds is the only skill action I can see in the rules that has this sort of if Expert you can do this thing. This sort of thing is fertile ground for an FAQ question.

I might be missing something, but my response as a player here would be ready an action to Grapple one of those suckers as soon as they got close. Then we would smash it so it cannot do that crap anymore. The other orcs should get the message.

One of the reasons I personally like rarity and additional content being at the GM's discretion is the creative freedom it provides to Paizo to create niche content. Fairly early in the life cycle of Second Edition we are getting playable Lizardfolk, Hobgoblins, Orcs, and Kobolds in player facing books. In an environment where everything is open by default we would probably not be getting those things.

When you open things by default nearly every option has to fit nearly every game. Taking this tact means Paizo is free to experiment and provide things that are a strong fit for some tables, but would not be a good fit for other tables. They get to create subversive and potentially disruptive material that they would otherwise not get to write because its inclusion is based on GM judgment.

In my experience Fifth Edition is played in a very open way. Because of that Wizards of the Coast has a very rigorous approval process that means most niche content is either cordoned off in GM centered material or just does not get printed. I do not want that.

Matthew Downie wrote:

John Lynch 106 wrote:

if your using a weapon attack to point out the square I hope it's a thrusting weapon. Otherwise a slashing or bludgeoning weapon really only narrows it down to a few squares.

How wildly are you swinging your club if we can't work out what you're aiming at to within a few feet? Normally you'd need a Cleave feat to swing your weapon across multiple squares.

How precisely can you watch someone else without expending actions to do so?

Exactly. Seek is an action. I think you would be justified in using it close to the area your ally attacked, but you would still need to use it.

Font is strong and healing is nice, but even if your Cleric never casts a single offensive spell there is lots of nasty stuff to remove in this version of the game. You will want Wisdom for Remove Disease, Remove Curse and all sorts of other important spells. Not to mention if you intend to be a full service healer and not just a combat healer you will probably want to invest in Medicine.

Neovancian spell casting also makes the wizard play almost exactly like the Sorcerer. It also has a massively constrained casting environment where any spell with a meaningful duration cannot be cast with other spells that have any kind of duration. Even then spell casters feel entirely too flexible to me.

Your Wisdom also impacts your DC when someone tries to counteract one of your spells. Having a low Wisdom on top of your lower spell casting proficiency is a recipe for having your buffs be dispelled away easily. If you play in a game where dispel magic does not get thrown around its less of a big deal.

You should also be getting spell scrolls as treasure during your adventures and be able to acquire spells in downtime. You get the two for free, but your a wizard. Be resourceful.

Basically work with your GM.

I think they should have implemented runes for shields maybe with hardness being one rune and improvements to shield hit points being another.

Make sure you really want to do this. Then let them know that standing back is usually a good idea. Then if they do not move to the back smack them, but make sure they have a hero point. Explain why they got smacked. Do not be subtle about it.

Of course that might not actually work because wizards can actually have a decent AC in this game and can have fairly decent hit points, particularly at first level. I mean a human wizard might have 15 hit points compared to a human rogue's 17 hit points and the rogue is expected to be part of the melee scrum.

It's also very possible depending on the fight that if they stand to far back additional enemies might engage them with no meaningful way for the front line to peel the enemies off them. This is not always the optimal tactic.

I think there is plenty of system mastery (perhaps a bit too much) to the game. It is just mostly weighted towards the round by round decisions you make. The tight math and degrees of success built into the game means small differences in the math have huge impacts. Things like knowing when to feint or demoralize, flanking, targeting weak saves, exploiting a monster's weakness, timing your attacks and spells, and the like all make a huge difference on success or failure.

Here exploration, build and spell selection can have a significant impact on success, but it is not the same sort of impact it had in First Edition where it decided success or failure all on its own. It's more that your build provides you with a set of tools that you have to utilize to win the day. Some builds will be more suited to a given encounter than another, but you still have to execute. As an example a monk who has elemental fist has the ability to pretty much target a wide variety of monster weaknesses with their ki strike, but actually executing on it involve a series of choices made while playing the game that they would not have access to with a different build.

Character build in this game is more like building a Magic deck. You can build the best deck you know how to, but you still have to play the game, might get some bad draws, or run into decks that have strong counters to what you can do. Does that make any sense?

So my suspicion is that granting 4 boosts instead of 1 or 2 is mostly in place to keep the math relatively tight. My assumption is that the developers basically assume most players will be investing in their primary plus at least Constitution and Wisdom with many also investing in Dexterity to keep defenses from going pear shaped at high levels like they do in other editions. You can opt not to and make tertiary investments in Charisma or Intelligence, but for the most part the more math critical Ability Scores will generally be chosen.

In exploration mode when what a character is doing is not part of a defined activity it is left up to the GM to define what happens. Just like when you attempt something in combat not covered by the rules. There is guidance that says when improvising look at how often they are performing they activity. It says doing an encounter mode action frequently might be limited or cause exhaustion. The GM is supposed to apply judgement when making this determination. Obviously they should be looking at the fiction when they make that decision.

I think there is a fundamental difference between a game that fundamentally requires GM intervention to even function much like how ability checks function in D&D 5th Edition and one where GM judgement is applied in specific cases called out by the game like Apocalypse World. Pathfinder 2 as written reminds me a lot more of Apocalypse World than Fifth Edition.

Broadly the game is very good at providing tools to help the GM make the calls they need to make.

No one can really tell if a given stand alone adventure will be appropriate for their game without actually getting it, reading through it, and often making alterations to make it fit the sort of game they are looking to run. The blurb only tells us enough to tell if an adventure is worth looking into.

Adventure Paths are another matter entirely. Part of running an Adventure Path involves substantial buy in. You are opting to follow the setting, tone, themes, and pacing of the Adventure Path.

Season finale? Does that mean future seasons might be in the cards?

Generally even if you do get a designer response it will not be with official weight. Mark Seifter has said on numerous occasions that he can talk about how he would handle it, but that his words are not an official response. When Paizo wants to clarify things officially they will do so through more formal channels.

I am actually really glad they take this stance because it means designers are more free to engage with the community.

I don't really think they intend for there to be an official answer. Much like encounters per day in this edition individual groups are expected to find a cadence that works for them, the skill levels of the players, and the decisions players make.

In many ways I think the answer for how long should we rest is whatever we can get away with according to the situation. I think it is meant to be a decision for players to make based on the risks involved.

Honestly I am seeing somewhat of a return to the mentality of earlier editions of Dungeons and Dragons in Pathfinder 2.

The primary reasons for a Wizard to multi-class into fighter are because they want weapons that do not suck and fighter feats. If you are an elf you can already get weapons that do not suck without using valuable class feats.

The issue is that wizards are much closer to the martial classes than they have ever been. Their hit points and armor class already do not completely suck in comparison. They have little reason to multi class for survival reasons. So the only compelling reason is to be better at using weapons.

Part of the reason to use a Bastard Sword instead of a Great Sword is that with the Bastard Sword you can release your grip as a free action in order to do a combat maneuver and still have a useful weapon. It's a d8 instead of d12, but it is still useful.

I would note that you cannot be hidden/undetected and ready an action. As soon as you ready you are not doing any exploration activities so avoiding notice does not apply. When you are hidden/undetected doing anything except step, hide, and sneak makes you observed.

My reading is that Swipe is a single attack that counts as two for the purpose figuring out MAP once resolved. The language is just like Power Attack.

It also makes sense in the fiction. Swipe is described as a single wide arcing swing of your weapon.

I am fine with readied actions as long as the trigger is something in the fiction and characters who do so do not do anything else. I am not fine with trying to justify a trigger of initiative. I ready an action to attack the first creature who comes through this door is fine. Initiative will still be rolled when someone intends to immediately act against the other and if the trigger occurs before their turn players will be free to use their reaction.

If your intention is to immediately attack and try to word a trigger to do so my response is that we are going to be rolling initiative possibly with a small penalty for the monsters if the monsters are unaware of your presence.

As a player it can both be true that I want to seek out every advantage at my disposal to tip the scales in my favor while also wanting to experience an element of risk, danger, and drama. I want it to be the case that we need to bring our A Game in order to win while there is still a chance we might not.

I want things like flanking to really matter not be something that is nice, but might not have an effect. Against an equal level opponent flanking might mean you score a critical hit on an 18 instead of a 20 and hit on a 9 instead of an 11. That's huge!

The impact of Raise Your Shield is likewise extremely significant.

I want knowing how to exploit monster weaknesses to be the reason we might win or lose an encounter. It was awesome that in Knights of Everflame Omelette was able to trigger the zombie's weakness twice when she attacked with her axe that was filled with positive energy from her rage and burst it wide open.

Still I want the whole affair to still feel tense and dangerous if we are fighting monsters at our level or higher. I like the gut punch of being hit by an owlbear, grabbed, and then having it attempt to disembowel me. I want this stuff to feel dangerous and I want winning to require all the skill at our disposal and maybe a little luck.

I want to have to play hard and not have it be because my build obviates the challenge.

Corvo Spiritwind wrote:

I'm actually a little curious, do people believe that a high bonus to skill in PF1 equals the 'skill-monkey' vibes to someone maxed out in the same skill in PF2?

Can we do as much with skills in PF1 as in PF2 in the end?
Not counting class abilities, is it more skillmonkey to never fail the DC, or to be able to use skills in ways other can't even attempt?

If someone is going to claim to be a skillmonkey, then I would expect them to be as good at skills as the wizard is at casting spells, as they're fighting for the same niche in the party (non combat problem solving). So a skill monkey should succeed at whatever skill it is they've been brought on the job for.

I don't care what they can do with the skills so long as they succeed at doing it when we need them to do it. That's why they were brought along.

Performance on command, at the drop of a hat. That's the kind of reliability that I expect from someone who claims to be a skillmonkey.

The game is designed to highlight a sense of risk, uncertainty, danger, and drama.

This is as true for spell casters as it is for skill users and martial classes. Spells that once guaranteed success like Knock, Discern Lies, True Seeing, Nondetection, Mind Blank and Cure Disease now either improve your chances or give you a chance to counter powerful magic using the new countering mechanic.

Many spells have variable effects on saves using the same Critical Failure, Failure, Success, and Critical Success breakdowns. They do tend to have a small impact even on failure, but they use a pool of much more limited spell slots.

Additionally spell casters can no longer stack their save DCs sky high to guarantee success and targeting poor saves no longer means automatic success because saves scale much better.

No one gets to obviate challenges on command anymore. You have to engage with the game and take risks. This is true for everyone.

You might not like it, but I am thrilled by it. Spell casters and feel more engaging than they have ever been. You need to make decisions and consider the risks carefully.

3 Dedications do not require 3 class feats. They require you to spend 3 class feats per dedication. You could get to the your third fighter dedication by 14th level, but at that point you have only your first level fighter feat. You are barely a fighter.

As someone who likes to play spell casters I am a fan of most of the changes to spell duration because I like when I cast spells to matter. I like that to get the most of my spells I must make tactical and strategic decisions. I like that I could make the wrong call.

Playing a spell caster should be engaging.

Honestly Medicine is likely to be the forte of most healing focused Clerics as well. They are likely to have the highest Wisdom in the party and due to corresponding themes can use Treat Wounds and Refocus at the same time. Honestly being able to use Medicine rather than spell slots for out of combat healing feels like a win to me.