I think the idea could be applied with some success to a traveling group that surrounds the party, so followers and what not. That way you still get the flavor of the followers and supporting cast, but without having to micromanage them all.
Could get very abstract and say that the shared resource is the party's destiny and reputation (or dare I say, mythic destiny?), with modifications to capabilities that way. Go do this quest to get Fame in a region, to which you can use to have people do odd favors for you around town, etc. Very fun to think about.
Inventor still has int as the KAS so it has a lower hit rate, you can crit fail your skill-based damage amp and damage yourself, you have 8hp and your mechanical companion is still worse than a dex animal companion.
Gunslinger is better off as a crossbow slinger. In fact, just never ever use guns. You've either got d4 damage dice or screwed with reload. Drifter gets to not provoke an AoO with a ranged attack but still provokes on reload so that's a joke. The "brace of pistols" item doesn't work with quick draw so it's just reload with extra steps. At least early theory says you can get a half-decent gunslinger going by level 6-7 with juggler dedication, focused juggler and paired shots with repeating hand crossbows. Even with reload 0 you still need a free hand to reload so it's a trap feat for anyone not juggling.
Even the subscribers probably haven't fully analysed the rules yet, so making absolute judgements like that based information that can barely be called fragmented isn't very useful.
I don't think the world has enough fingers to count how many times hasty non-playtested judgements have been made and found to be wrong after a year of playing data.
Was the starstone inspired at any level by the pulp classic "Quest for the Starstone" (Image in link NSFW) with Jirel of Joiry and Northwest Smith? Paizo did publish this a while ago.
I appreciate it when a group is told that there is definitely no trap on the door, even though they know the trapspotter rolled a 2, and the barbarian walks through the door first. I applaud the group where the wizard goes through the door first with the same situation.
I think that the secret rolls can really help with tension, when appropriate. When you are rolling, there are situations where it is Capital-I Important. You don't half-ass Capital-I Important things. And for Capital-I Important things, your character may not have the full picture. You don't know if they can see through your disguise. You don't know if you correctly translated this vital clue (GMs, make sure there are at least 3 ways to discover it!). You don't know what's behind that door. But you tried your best, using the tools at your disposal, and given the state you are in. That all adds to the tension. It gets people sitting on the edge of their seats to see what happens next.
Knowing exactly how you rolled allows inferred information that will damper the tension. I think it's very noble to say "Well, I would never act on that information!", but it's rarely always true. Rolling that 2 on the Disguise check means I am fairly certain we'll be caught with my pants down, but I'll try to act as if I don't know that results. Much of the tension is gone, and we're just biding time until the jig is up. Maybe we'll still act like we think our disguises are great, but also in a way that once the fecal matter hits the fan, we'll be in a less-disadvantageous position.
But then again, maybe that's a good thing, reminding us to act in a way that minimizes potential losses in case things go poorly while literally surrounded by the Duke's very muscular body guards.
Maybe that's something the group enjoys, the comedy of knowing that your character is an idiot for thinking the Osiron garb will let you fit in with nobles at Magnimar.
It's complicated. It's a lot of additional things for the GM to keep track of for a game that already has a lot of those things. I don't like rolling dice as the GM all that much, and I definitely slipped on this a bunch in my sessions. But it's also a valuable tool for maintaining tension. I think that in my games, I'll generally have the players roll, but remind them to act as if they didn't. For Capital-I Important rolls, I'll roll secretly. Sure, it gives some information. But I feel like in most of those situations, the players already know if it's Capital-I Important.
I just wish there was a better way to keep the tension and player/character divide, without loading the GM with more responsibility, so that for more seriously-toned games, the tools were there.
I suspect that they feel that the excitement it brings to the table outweighs any negatives the spikes create. They certainly create memorable moments that you'll share with friends.
We finally got around to running the first playtest module yesterday, and we got halfway through. Rather than try to remember what happened in the first part after we finished it, I wanted to get it here.
Adventure Group and Recap:
We had a Dwarf Cleric of Nethys (Knowledge), Dwarf Fighter (w/ Power Attack), Goblin Rogue (Dex to damage?), and an Elf Sorcerer (Draconic bloodline).
The first encounter went really well for the players, and we were all amazed at the fighter putting out 20 points of damage with his Power Attack. The ooze was able to get one action out, so it used the Filth Wave, but it only affected a single PC.
In the second encounter in the sleeping chambers, the Sorcerer first tried to find a spell they could use to get attention away from them, but was frustrated that the rules are now VERY clear that you have to loudly and strongly say the magic words for verbal components. No more whispering. So they tried to sneak past the goblins. I wasn't sure how to run that situation of a bunch of clanky people moving sneakily, and rather than stop play to look into the Stealth and Sneaking rules, I rolled Perception for each goblin, and said that the Goblins needed 2 successes to notice them, rather than bicker at each other about that great statue that kept on falling. The cleric with the -7 penalty to sneaking did surprisingly well. The elf, who was the only one with Low-light vision, had a bullseye lantern with a very small beam.
Once the goblins caught wind of weird things happening (they didn't see the light, due to good usage), the party tried to book it into the Purification Chamber. The elf unfortunately tripped on the first step (I ruled that hastily running with a very small beam would make it very hard to get full details, including steps). We paused at this point to figure out if people who hadn't acted yet were flat-footed. We ruled they were, since I wasn't finding as much as I was hoping. Since the information is all over the place, not finding it doesn't necessarily mean it's not the rule, so we reverted to PF1e. After looking around the rulebook while writing this, I think in the future I won't have them be flat-footed.
Then we had the first real good combat playtest (using theater of the mind, rather than the grid, as there was still cheese on the table), and it went pretty well. A goblin critted against the rogue, but somehow only did 8 damage (rolling 1,1,and 6). The fighter was very, very good at their job.
I appreciated how easy it was to parse the Goblin Warrior statblock. It solved a major complaint I had with 1e. The cleric did a lot of Chill Touch, and the Sorcerer did a lot of throwing the recently-unattended dogslicers using Telekinetic Projectile. I think they both enjoyed the more powerful cantrips. The rogue did some great roleplaying, and I think sneak attack helped out quite a bit. The last goblin tried to run, but clever positioning meant that it couldn't Step safely away from the fighter (it was blocked by the rogue and the crumbled statue), and then the fighter used the AoO to do enough damage to knock it out.
At this point, their healing reserves were at about half. They really wanted a healer's tool, but couldn't afford it right away. They did find the ring, and sold it for a healer's tool once they went back, but they still went to the next room.
(Of note, I told the Goblin PC that the centipede room was "Pet Bug Trash Room", "Motivation Chamber", and "Weird Plant Room", so he recommended they didn't venture into those rooms. Probably wise, but they seem to be convince that there'll be a vampire, and Motivation Chamber disproves that.)
They did find the Idol in the Purification Chamber, but I forgot about the set DC to get it out with a tool, so I just said the cleric spent 3 minutes moving it out with his staff. He then put it in his backpack, at which point Lamashtu birthed out two quasits.
This was was a fight that was interesting in some ways, but not in others. It almost knocked out the Sorcerer due to the Quasit poison, but she quaffed a potion of healing, and rolled max. That is what kept her alive in the end. I still haven't shaken the idea that AoOs aren't really a thing for most PCs, so I didn't move the enemies around as much as I could've. I wasn't sure how to figure out how Quasits turned back into their normal shape, as their ability didn't mention that. It had the concentrate trait, and rather than look that up, I made some assumptions and just had them not maintain the changed form, so they reverted on their round again.
Then, all out of the healz, they retreated to town, and got a healer's kit. Once we got the kit, we looked up the rules for resting, realized it would be easier to just use the healer's kit, and did that for 2.5 hours in-game. Lots of TLC that night. We realized that with the healer's kit, there was no real reason to Rest to restore HP, as you get far less. There were no critical failures, so the party wasn't bolstered against it.
Thoughts: (list functionality seems busted :( )
I didn't have time to fully read the new DC setting guidelines, so I just winged it. Most DCs I came up with were 11 or 15. Some of them were 5.
The group thought that player character generation took way too long, and wasn't streamlined enough. I suspect this was primarily due to jumping around PDFs constantly to get all info. Jumping around PDFs is apparently much slower than physical books for us. Part of the problem was also probably the lack of suggested starting items, lack of "kits" of items, and few suggestions on what to do. Also, learning a new system as we made them.
We all really liked baselining silver as the main coinage used.
Some players felt like you needed to max out your main stat, and that this made boring attribute spreads. It turns out they forgot the 4 free boosts.
Some players found remembering all the traits to be a really high cognitive load. It is perhaps not as accessible to those with mental disabilities or a lot on their minds due to life. As an example, our rogue said he did not enjoy having to remember under what circumstances his dogslicer (agile, finesse, goblin, backstabber) did special things in, even though it was relatively few situations.
Personally, I think the mental load of learning all the traits will be fairly high, but once they are known, using them will be much less complex.
I think everyone generally liked the 3-action system. The only complaint I saw was comparing to 5e's ease of moving in and out, and hitting in the middle of your movement. I just don't think they tried that out, as it seems like it would still work better in PF2.
Some complaints about things that used to be free now taking up an action. No specifics were actually given on this, but I suspect it was stuff that we had an unknown house rule about. My assumption is that Recall Knowledge is the one in mind. Only getting 1-2 tidbits of information per action, and then increasing DC when you spend the most important resource in the game didn't sit well, even though it's pretty realistic.
We all noted that it's so much more codified. I commented to them that it felt like many rules were specifically added to prevent forum arguments. I appreciate this, but it does increase cognitive load a bit. "If this was a computer program's source code, it would be beautiful"
I think we all expected a less complex system than Pathfinder 1e, given current market trends. I suspect that we will in the end prefer a less complex system (save me from 5e please!), but everyone said they thought 2e has potential, and that they want to play again.
I'm going to give the rules a twice-over, and am really excited to run the second half of the Last Star. It felt very nostalgic to me, due to being back into Pathfinder again. I'll update this thread once we finish the scenario.
The main thing I would add is that in PF1, across the number of groups I played in, the concerns about wands of healing and what not never really appeared. We understood that they existed. The concerns never really played out though. We never used a ton of low level items, except for the "Happy Stick".
The Christmas tree effect didn't really affect us either. Items chosen using the Rule of Cool worked surprisingly well, despite all the moaning on the forums about needing the flat bonuses that drove the Christmas tree effect.
Based on what I saw on the forums back then, the groups were generally a low-to-average-power level. It certainly was not anywhere near the stereotypical PFS level of optimization, or even a tenth of that. It was mostly rogues and fighters. In some of my main games, it was rare to use anything but CRB classes. They were simpler, but still allowed players to have a lot of fun.
There is an interesting tidbit from Jeremy Crawford that blew the minds of the 5e community earlier this year: Despite how prevalent discussion of feats were in 5e communities online and in organized play, most characters don't use feats. They are still super popular, and players like them, but a majority of characters simply do not use them. This sort of reminds me of that, and maybe that's the cause of the friction. (Also, how amazing must it be to have that sort of data? Being able to see what people are actually doing, how things are actually being built up, etc. Incredible!)
I really like the idea of a unified system, rather than tracking all the different points for different classes. I really like the idea of making Charisma useful to all characters, even if they won't be talking. I'm not sure I like everyone having to track something now, when before there were many options to not have to track much. But I'm very excited to see what the design team is able to come up with, as they've shown many awesome solutions to problems in the past.
I think all of these sides have some interesting and good points, but I can't escape laughing at the fact that Fighters finally are the best at fighting with a wide range of weapons, something people were clamoring for in 1e, and people aren't liking it.
What's really odd is that, perhaps I haven't read all the rules close enough yet, the #1 thing that stuck out to me is just how similar it was to Pathfinder 1e. It seems to me that it's just a more-codified, more extensible version of Pathfinder 1e with math that actually works. I was under the impression that it would be a simpler system, but at its heart, it's still a system where the formula for a die's roll is not "Number of die face + ability modifier + proficiency + other bonus", but instead some formula that has 10 different things affecting it.
But again, maybe I haven't dived as deep as others have, or maybe I'm reading a different ruleset.
Unless you REALLY REALLY REALLY want the 3D gimmick, get the 2DS. It plays all the same games and is cheaper (and slightly more durable, since it doens't have the clamshell hinges to break).
NOTE: The...
Personally, I recommend the 3DS over the 2DS, just because the giant rectangle is a bit annoying to carry around in my opinion. The 3D definitely isn't the selling point it once was tho.
And looking it over, it seems that there's now the 2DS XL, which has the folding case. I'd recommend getting the XL, no matter which version you get. It'll perform better than the base 2DS, and can play the 3DS Exclusive games. Also, that little analog stick on the right hand side is great for many games.
Even some biological things can be learned and grown. The great Pearl Divers in the Pacific have some minor ability to hold their breaths longer than most humans, but a lot of it is practicing and pushing themselves.
Even things like Darkvision I can see as only coming on-line later on in your life. Baby's aren't born with object permanence, but it's a biological thing due to brain juju, and that's one of the traits that separates homo sapiens from many other animals (aka: a racial feature).
So, the basic number of a reasonable limit on free actions will probably be something found in core. From what I recall, the best example is an archer with the So Dang Obvious Feats And Character Options That They Are All No Brainers. AKA, rapid shot and many shot stacked, probably with some boots of speed or the haste spell up. Doesn't matter how you get them, but it's fairly easy and reasonable to get that setup.
At 11th level, as a fighter, this is something like 3 base attacks, +1 attack from Rapid shot, +1 arrow from Manyshot, and +1 attack from Haste. So that's a base of 6 arrows we're dealing with, and given that drawing an arrow is a free action, that's at least 6 free actions that are reasonable. With extra attacks at even higher levels, that goes up at the same rate.
So at a minimum, if you're really looking for a hard limit of reasonable free actions, it's 8 + 1 (talking). It could be a sliding limit based on limit and expected points where archers can get additional arrows in, so in effect an Arrow-based Reasonability Limit Index (ARLI).
But man, the game is already fiddly enough. If there's a problem, use communication to talk about it with your players. They should be able to have fun, but so should the GM, and that does involve having fun making encounters that don't explode.
I do recall some arguments over dual wielded double barrel pistols, and how you could limit them a ton by limiting the number of free actions.
The only problem was that doing something the game encourages, doing rapid shot / manyshot as part of a full attack, requires just about the same number of free actions to do, and no one had a problem with that.
The arguments over limiting free actions to a reasonable number got really weird.
There are a number of people I'd like to play (or play more with). I played with Rogue Eidolon only once, but would be fun to play again with. Same with Ssalarn. A game with Endzeitgeist would be very interesting (and he uses so much 3pp that I wouldn't even be able to metagame capabilities!).
Wraithstrike would be good fun as well, I feel.
RavingDork would be amusing to watch play. Not sure if I could handle his type of games tho.
I'm also wondering once again where Mikaze went.
I'd enjoy a game with CalebTGordon, Abraham Spalding (Who is back from serving, apparently!), Umbral Reaver, Steel Draco (who I learned from another forum is doing Savage Fallout. I'll join that one, thanks.), Diego Rossi, TacticsLion, Robert Brookes, ....
Now that I think longer on it, as long as there's pre-gens and beer, I'd probably play with most people.
Rest in Peace Steve. I'll never forget you for your generosity and for helping me get started in the industry. I learned a lot from you, and wish your family the best in these dark times.
Smoothness of movements, types of movements, sounds it makes, odd smells (elves don't usually smell like rotting flesh), etc.
I mean, a skeleton in full armor is going to be making a lot of noise. The only thing the armor is touching is bone, and that's going to rattle around a ton because it's not properly resting on anything useful.
Might even be a decent maracas stand in. I imagine the Dirge Bard would love that.
I thought this was pretty nice and filled in some gaps with the divination sphere. Especially interesting is the Sensory Overload talent, which lets you use the divination sphere for offensive purposes. It takes you and them out of the fight, but that could still be pretty useful if you're purely focusing on divination.
What do you think would be the best sphere for some sort of object reader? Enhancement would fit, but bestow intelligent specifically calls out "not knowing what happened before it became intelligent". Divination kind of sort of fits, but that's not really checking out the objects so much as standard divination stuff.
The PDT doesn't do FAQs on non core-line work. The closest they've done to that was some encouraging for the Golarion team to answer the Freebooter Ranger archetype question.
Your best bet is to ask the question in the product discussion page for the product it came from.
So, based on the way that James has been trying to manage expectations about this secret project, which of us will be the first back here to say, "Uh, that's it?"
;-)
I'm certainly preparing for everyone to say that. ;-)
Out of sheer contrariness, I will now be completely over-the-top in my enthusiasm for whatever the sekrit projects are, no matter how mundane.
Today, Paizo announces Pathfinder, The Toaster(tm), the newest way to bring the excitement of Pathfinder and the giddy flames of goblin kind to a breakfast near you. With exciting toast burn configurations such as "Ezren's Chin", "Griddle of Opposite Germination", and "Runetoast", breakfast will never be boring again!
Given that today is just 3 days shy of the 8th anniversary of the Pathfinder RPG being announced, it's obvious that this announcement will be a new game system.
One of the main problems that I see with the cleric is that it's trying to shoehorn all sorts of practitioners of deities into one chassis. A cleric of the god of magic shouldn't have the same abilities as a cleric of the goddess of battle, but for the most part, other than ~4 relatively minor abilities they are going to have the same sort of things going on.
The best case would probably be one class per god with different powers based on the deities themselves, but that's a lot of work.
I could also see a system sort of like the playtest Vigilante or the summoner's eidolon. Pick a deity, or concepts, and that will restrict you to a number of talents you can select as you level up. Have them be level gated, and share them among deities. That way you get to select things to customize closer to your deity, without having to come up with 20 different classes. Of course this runs into the same problem the holy vigilante ran into, where not every cleric makes sense to be a full caster, so how do you handle that sort of thing?
I know that the person who created the Potions chart for the GMG mistakenly added a number of personal potions to the list. He made a post that basically said "Whoops, my bad, sorry. They shouldn't be on the list" after it was brought up, as personal potions are not meant to be a thing.
There's also a FAQ about personal alchemist extracts given out using Infusion, as that bypasses the rule of no personal "potions".
Just because there are stats for 0-HD races doesn't mean they are meant to be player races. Strix, etc are not meant to be player races but they have 0 HD stats.
Also, technically Drow Noble has the first level adjustment, it's just baked into the CR adjustment. And they also aren't meant to be a player race.
Did your GM also cause a ruckus in your character's mansion while you were skipping the session, and you're now wondering how to rebuild it using the lyre of building in such a way that you can just take 10 and breeze through it without spending skill ranks?
With the caveat that I totally wanted this to be the case so I probably ignored some good arguments against it, I reasoned that such an expensive item would be masterwork, even if the rules aren't explicit on that. I mean, when was the last time you found a shoddy magic item whose whole point wasn't that appearances can be deceiving?
Second caveat that I found out while researching this post: I wrote a magic item for one of the Player Companion books that explicitly called out the base object as masterwork. So, foiled myself again.
So, in the course of 5 minutes, I just defeated my prior reasoning and found out that I need to find a way to get +2 to perform (strings).
Weapon enhancement bonuses cost double the equivalent armor bonuses, so using the same multiplier for both is a silly thing to do. I could see an argument that it shouldn't be twice the unusual armor formula, but given that the attack bonus portion of an enhancement bonus is by far the most important part of it, I wouldn't say anything beneath a multiplier of 1.8 is fair to use. The ability to overcome DR is irrelevant, as they'll have magic weapons.
The main value of such a ring is that it essentially takes your iterative attacks from "might hit" to "one will hit", essentially giving an extra attack at your full BAB.
I was toying with the idea a while ago of converting the wizard into either a 6th level caster or reducing the number of spells per day in some way. The most interesting classes to me are the 6th level casters that get lots of unique class abilities that tie them to their theme, and while I can certainly see how spell selection is meant to be like that, there's some big difference that I can't place my finger on.
Basically an attempt to make all schooled-wizards different from one another.
