Cheburn's page

Something along the lines of the following is what I would think (up through 13):

Half-Orc
Alternate Racial Trait: Sacred Tattoo, Shaman's Apprentice [Endurance as a bonus feat]
Traits: Fate's Favored, Tusked

Slayer 1 - Power Attack
Slayer 2 - Slayer Talent - Ranger Combat Style (Two-Weapon Combat) - Two Weapon Fighting
Slayer 3 - OPEN Feat
Slayer 4 - OPEN Slayer Talent
Slayer 5 - OPEN Feat
Slayer 6 - Slayer Talent - Ranger Combat Style (Two-Weapon Combat) - Improved Two Weapon Fighting
Slayer 7 - OPEN Feat
Slayer 7 / Horizon Walker 1
Slayer 7 / Horizon Walker 2 - Flickering Step
Slayer 7 / Horizon Walker 3
Slayer 7 / HW 3 / Fighter (Mutation Warrior) 1 - Dimensional Agility / Dimensional Assault (Fighter bonus)
Slayer 7 / HW 3 / Fighter (Mutation Warrior) 2 - Dimensional Dervish (Fighter bonus)
Slayer 7 / HW 3 / Fighter (Mutation Warrior) 3 - Dimensional Savant

Candidates for open feats (3rd, 5th, and 7th levels)
Improved Initiative
Blind-Fight
Iron Will
Combat Reflexes
Accomplished Sneak Attacker
Blood Vengeance
Ironhide

Candidates for open slayer talent (4th level)
Combat Trick
Slow Reactions
Weapon Training

It's likely this build could be improved significantly. I delayed entry into Horizon Walker to get the build a Swift Action studied target (Slayer 7), which I actually think is pretty crucial for action economy, especially since your higher level goal is to be doing full attack actions. Higher levels I'd tailor based on the needs of the campaign.

I want to build a Wandering Swordsmen who can Move Super fast and cut up his Foes

So I am planning a Slayer 6/7 Horizon Walker 3/4
Total levels Slayer 16/17 Horizon walker 3/4

I am very set on this build or something like U-Rogue / Horizon Walker

but would like some input

I'm guessing you're building for dimension door with Terrain Mastery/Dominance of the Astral Plane. I'm further guessing that you want to follow the Dimensional Agility/Assault/Dervish/Savant feats.

If so, it would bring your build online faster by picking up Flickering Step (conduit feat from Planar Adventures) and a few Fighter levels. This gets you an extra 2-5 uses of Dimension Door per day, and allows you to complete through Dimensional Dervish by level 11 (Slayer 6/Horizon Walker 3/Fighter 2) without the need for retraining.

Level 9: Flickering Step
Level 10: Dimensional Agility (Fighter Bonus Feat)
Level 11: Dimensional Assault, Dimensional Dervish (Fighter Bonus Feat)

If you pick up the Mutation Warrior archetype and add one more level, you can get a mutagen for an additional +4 alchemical strength bonus.

Final build would be ~Slayer 14 / Horizon Walker 3 / Fighter 3. To my mind, you're not giving up a ton by not getting 15-17 in Slayer, and you're gaining 5 uses of dimension door per day, a +4 alchemical strength bonus for tough fights, and early entry into your Dimensional X feats (plus two bonus feats). YMMV though.

Assuming that Paizo is going to discount a subset of survey results because of the <insert demographic categories here> of the respondents is quite paranoid.

And I don't see any evidence that Hanlon's Razor would apply in this case. Collecting voluntary demographic information about your player base is eminently reasonable, and is one item that can help add nuance to the interpretation of survey results.

"Overall, player opinions were slightly negative about this change. Players under the age of 25 in general were neutral about it. Players over the age of 50 nearly universally hated it. There is a strong correlation between the age of the respondent and their opinion of this change."

vs.

"Overall, player opinions were slightly negative about this change."

Which one of these is more useful? Well, if you have a goal of not alienating your older fans, the first one is. But you can't have that particular analysis without asking about player age on the survey (you can do other potentially useful analyses from other survey questions, but you're definitely missing out on a subset of useful data).

I believe Clerics also had to pray at a specific time of day, so no auto-replenish after 8 hours of rest. 3.5 may have kept this mechanic, but I don't know any GMs who employed it.

Actually, this rule even propagated into Pathfinder first edition:

Time of Day: A divine spellcaster chooses and prepares spells ahead of time, but unlike a wizard, does not require a period of rest to prepare spells. Instead, the character chooses a particular time of day to pray and receive spells. The time is usually associated with some daily event. If some event prevents a character from praying at the proper time, she must do so as soon as possible. If the character does not stop to pray for spells at the first opportunity, she must wait until the next day to prepare spells.

When the world is as magical as it is and angels/devils/demons walk around in disguise and people are mind controlled or dopplegangers and so on, it seems to kind of make sense to double check anyone you're going to spend at least a few minutes with to see if you spot any illusion.

In a world where people can craft and wear disguises, and where people commit espionage and sabotage, it makes sense to double check each person carefully to spot disguises and spies. I can see how this would play out in a campaign.

The PCs go to meet the king, who desires their help in locating a possible spy ring from a rival kingdom. As they walk into the room, the PCs carefully eye up every guard, examining every square where they walk with caution. When they reach the king after several minutes, he looks slightly confused.

King: "Um, what are you doing?"
PC 1: "We can't be too careful. Your guards might be spies, or illusions, or even doppelgangers. In fact, YOU might even be a spy, or an illusion."

The whole party stares at the king intently, looking him over.

PC 2: "Yeah, and we needed to check your throne room for traps. That is, if it's really even a throne room. I rolled low on my perception checks, so I'm pretty unsure."
PC 3: "Excuse me, I need to go examine your throne."
King: Wow, I know adventurers are eccentric, but I think these guys are actually crazy. "You know, uhhh, on second thought, the reason I called you here is to invite you to a fine dinner next month."

Bluff: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (4) + 4 = 8

PC 1: "He's lying! This so-called king must be an impostor! Maybe even a demon!"
PC 2: "Tell us the truth, demon, or we'll have to get rough with you! Where is the real king?!?"

PC 3 begins casting detect magic.

King (0 ranks in spellcraft): "Help! Assault! Magic!"

I've seen people recommending "emergency force sphere if you lose initiative." While emergency force sphere can give you breathing room after you've been attacked, this spell does not work before your first turn in a combat. EFS is an immediate action cast time, and you cannot use immediate actions if you are flat-footed (before you've acted in combat).

You also cannot use an immediate action if you are flat-footed.

Flat-Footed: A character who has not yet acted during a combat is flat-footed, unable to react normally to the situation.

So if the rogue (1) wins initiative, (2) can move and attack in that round, and (3) hits, the sorcerer has to eat that damage. After that, the caster can EFS, go invisible, dimension door, or whatever else to [eventually] win the battle.

A lot of this sort of arena combat at level 9 with a relatively fixed sorcerer build (my assumption) depends on the arena TBH.

My first instinct for "when the fall should take place" is probably something like "the Paladin, once they realize what's going on, decides to slaughter everybody in Illmarsh and burn the town to the ground." Or something like that. Seems like a natural point for a righteous person to go "too far."

"This entire city just be purged! Those of you who have the will to save this land, follow me! The rest of you ... get out of my sight!"

I thought of another question: If someone has see invisibility on can they tell if a creature would otherwise be invisible? and if so, what would they look like? I imagine they would be kind of translucent or have a weird foggy outline.

It's in the spell description for see invisibility.

Such creatures are visible to you as translucent shapes, allowing you easily to discern the difference between visible, invisible, and ethereal creatures.

Maybe a double or triple the spell DC sets the perception check to then be able to do a free will save? Make it a two part process? The disadvantage here is that it means a lot of dice rolling...

I'd be interested in an analysis of correlation between highest perception scores and high Will saves. I suspect you might be mostly providing further advantage to high Will save classes, which already have the best odds of disbelieving Illusions.

As for illusions and "interacting", if a PC does anything to the illusion, even a general Perception check in a room with an illusion in it, I count that as interacting. I know that isn't RAW, but it alleviates PC frustration and generally keeps the game moving.

A common houserule, but one I dislike.

This rule cuts both ways -- it basically neuters Figment and Glamer spells for use by PCs. At tables that implement it, I expect that Figments and Glamers will see minimal use. For example, in a social setting, you're almost guaranteed to have someone see through an illusion like disguise self, or even a higher level spell like veil.

In exploration or combat settings, this means that spells like silent/minor/major image lose most of their effectiveness.

I personally like these spells and enjoy using them when I play (and enjoy players using them creatively within the rules if I GM). So I don't want to put a rule in place that makes them a "likely waste," because then players WON'T use them (from experience).

Just standing there with whatever AC your armor gives you is enough Vs lower level opponents. Wasting an action on your turn to raise a shield just seems worthless Vs mooks

A bold statement, but one not borne out by the math.

Say a bunch (4) of lower level enemies each have a 20% chance to hit you (hits on 17-20). Raising your shield (for a heavy shield) lowers that to a 10% chance, reducing your expected damage input by ~50% (neglecting crits). The ability to shave damage off of one of their attacks makes that even better.

Additionally, some classes (Fighter) have feats that allow you to reactively Shield Block. Thus, you can spend all of your actions on offense and save defense for a reaction (granted, this can compete with other uses of your reaction). Furthermore, since the trigger to that feat is "an enemy succeeds or critically succeeds against you with a melee Strike," you don't have to use it if the enemy would have missed you.

The information won’t do you any good without a gate or wish, because you won’t have an attuned focus to plane shift there. So bite the bullet and use a Wish to take you to his body.

A wizard's infinite spell component pouch has any attuned tuning fork for any plane they want to visit at any moment in time, right? I mean, I've certainly seen people argue that on this board (since it is a costless focus). So all our Rogue has to do is buy a spell component pouch and he will have a tuning fork attuned to his target's personal demiplane. That's how RAW works, right? \sarcasm

As an aside, the odds of success of this project strongly depend on the skill of the wizard's "player."

While your concerns are near and dear to my heart Edge, I must respectfully disagree with your proposed solution. Clearly, we should be using SI naming schemes here to match PF2E's very timely switch to meters, centigrade, and kilograms in update v1.7. I suggest the following weapon names:

Greatsword -> Megasword

Longsword -> Kilosword

Shortsword -> Sword

Dagger -> Millisword

It'd be far more simple and elegant.

I wholeheartedly endorse this suggestion. It will also make unit conversions between weapons much easier.

In the old system, it was very challenging to say how many daggers there were in one greatsword. But in the new system, we can very easily say that there are 1 billion milliswords in one megasword.

1 MSw * (10^6 Sw/1 MSw) * (10^3 mSw/1 Sw) = 10^9 mSw

A character with the rate class feature gains the benefits of rage powers only when raging. That applies to all rage powers, including superstition.

Its a range increment. So you can throw a bomb at something 20 or less away at no penalty, 25-40 is a -2, 45-60 is a -4, etc.

That being said: Explosive Missile, Far Shot, etc.

Distance Thrower can also be useful, especially combined with Far Shot (NB: you need the 13 str to qualify for the feat). Combined, you have no penalty up to 40' range, can hit an enemy at 60' range with a -1 (rather than a -4), and can hit an enemy at 100' range with a -3 (rather than -8).

As far as Intimidate how's, it's true that many enemies become fear immune at higher levels. Still for those who don't, the Dreadful Carnage feat can be quite nice. As can a cruel weapon.

I've been working on putting together my nameless (as yet!) Investigator's backstory, and have been enjoying doing so. I'm planning on playing as a Forlorn Elf, and it's very fun having the large amount of "childhood" to play with. I'm trying to nail down a timeline, based on major events in Golarion, and am trying to figure out the current year. I believe the current Golarion date is around 4718 AR. But do we know what year The Dragon's Demand starts?

Great! I'll start working on my character then before the holidays get out of hand.

@incandescant - Based on what I see, I think you could go with almost any class. Though if the Fighter is going spear/shield, we don't necessarily have a high single-target damage character (though I think we have a nice mix). A 2H Barbarian or Inquisitor, or a switch-hitting ranger (2H/bow) might contribute nicely? Unchained Monk also does pretty solid damage and has good mobility. And while YET MORE Arcane, a Magus also gives high burst DPR. I'm not sure how Magus plays with Inspired Rage, though maybe Spell Warrior gets around that?

@SamuraiNitta - Part of me feels like Enhance Weapons may be a little less general purpose than Inspired Rage, and losing Spell Kenning is really sad. But I can definitely see some applications for Enhance Weapons at least. Being able (at level 5) to enhance two party members weapons with Keen or Ghost Touch (or even just adding a +1 enhancement bonus at level 1) while also granting rage powers is pretty nice. FWIW, I don't think you'd get to the Immediate Action counterspell in The Dragon's Demand (ends around level 7 iirc). But if you're continuing with the character somehow, it is worth considering, and quite strong.

@GM ShadowLord - Thank you for the detailed CHARACTER CREATION RULES. I am curious if you are going to allow retraining. Specifically, for this class build, I would normally pick up Weapon Finesse at level 1 Investigator, and then dip into Swashbuckler at character level 3 (Inv 2 / Swash 1). Swashbuckler gets Weapon Finesse (Rapier) as a class feature at 1st level though. I'm curious if I would be able to retrain out of Weapon Finesse at that point. If not, it's no big deal, I may just be a little less accurate the first few two levels. (I know people will often start with 1 level in Swashbuckler, but given the party composition, I'd like to get level 2 Investigator ASAP for Ceaseless Observation.

Super excited that I got into this campaign. Nice to meet you all!

I'll start working on a character as soon as I know what class I'm going to play. Others have said they are flexible with what classes they're playing. I'm similarly flexible, and would be willing to fill pretty much any role. I would like to avoid playing a vanilla Bard or Cleric right now, because I have active characters [one PFS character, one home campaign that starts in January] in other campaigns with those classes with very strong personalities.

If no objects, and if roles are covered, I'd love to try out an Empiricist Investigator, as I love the flavor of the archetype and have never gotten a chance to play one (EDIT: Actually, just remembered the character build I had in mind would probably take a 1 lvl dip into Inspire Blade Swashbuckler, so it would end up Swash 1 / Investigator X. Would probably start at level 1 as an Investigator though).

That being said, if the party ends up needing another role, I would change that up as need be.

Piccolo wrote:

How the heck do you "trip" an enemy while the both of you are underwater?!

Flip em upside down so they have to spend a move action reorienting themselves.

While one can attempt to make a RAW case that you can trip someone underwater in Pathfinder, we do have James Jacobs on record as saying it won't work. And we're not in the Rules forum, so I feel free to pay that.

Well to sum up what I had tried to say before I lost my post, nobody I know, nor anyone they know, have ever played in a game where you only spend 15 minutes in combat a day. I was just using that, because I think a lot of people on here think that is the norm, because I constantly see it referenced.

And very few players I know spend 150 rounds (15 minutes * 10 rounds per minute) per day in combat or have 15+ encounters per day. It's more time than you think. Those with longer adventuring days typically spend a lot of it exploring or conversing, not in active combat.

Sorry to hear you're feeling depressed. Hope you feel better soon.

I have only slightly more desire to roleplay explicit sexual encounters (extemporaneous erotica?) in front of my friends than I have to actually have sex with them watching. That is to say, not much.

I have a similar level of desire to listen to them roleplay their carnal exploits in rapturous detail (well, more likely with painful awkwardness, but that's not quite as fun to type).

Fade to black.

Even if you plan to (for example) have their partner try to assassinate them during the act, fade to black, and then "Give me a Sense Motive check. As you are mid-encounter, you see an evil glint in the eye of Iyonicus, the supposed redeemed Incubus. He begins casting a spell-like ability. Roll for initiative!"

So a hypothetical one-handed weapon that is: 1d10 + 1 + 1d6 + 1d6, critical 19-20/x3 (3d10+3+1d6 + 4d10 + 1d6) and targets Touch AC. And you want to juice it up more? This can only end well.

FWIW, I threw together a level 12 Fighter with a few basic TWF feats and two of these (I included the Effortless Dual Wielding AWT from Blood of the Beast to allow DWing these like they're light weapons. Not that I think it mattered, since he only missed on a 1 anyway). DPR against a CR 15 troll (AC30/TAC 7) was around 300, give or take, compared with its 220ish HP. A similar TWF Fighter with dual long swords had expected damage around 110.

Targeting Touch AC is monstrously strong. The only drawbacks are that you're pretty hosed against any monsters with Resistance (or Immunity) to Fire/Electric and that you're melee. I know you're probably inspired by Star Wars, and want a sweet Lightsaber, and that's understandable. But what you're describing would be pretty imbalanced in terms of weapons in the game. (If that's your goal and you can convince your GM, have at).

Wanted to write more tonight but need to get to bed. Will make an earlier effort tomorrow, which is really later today.

Sounds good.

Looks like a lot of people couldn't do like the OP asked, and focus on positive experiences in the thread.

"Don't you straw man me!"

"No, it's you who straw manned me first!"

There's definitely been some derailing, but the signal to noise ratio is a lot better than I feared it would be. I've seen lots of interesting posts, and also feel like I'm getting some gradual insight into those posters who said they never felt awesome (which is sad).

Hoping we continue to get some interesting reports!

The is the sister thread for the When Did Your Character "Feel" Awesome During the Playtest? I'm curious:

When in the playtest did your characters feel helpless or frustrated? When did you think: "This sucks. My character is super weak and useless?"

How many of these moments did you have? Did you feel that the PF2 ruleset specifically hindered your character? And as you played through the playtest, did you adapt your style to become more effective?

So the formal Pathfinder 2.0 Playtest has largely been completed at this point, and Paizo is sitting on a bunch of data from playtest surveys and other sources. Data is great. I love data! But right now, I'm more interested in personal anecdotes. Specifically, I'm hoping people are willing to discuss the following question:

When in the playtest did your character pull off a victory or accomplish a feat and think: "This is awesome! My character is a total badass!"?

How many of these moments did you have? And did you feel that the PF2 ruleset did anything to enable them, or would you have been able to do it just as well (or better) in PF1?

I've created a sister thread for this one, for negative experiences in the playtest (linked), so I hope you will please focus this thread on positive experiences (if any) you had in the playtest.

I myself have gotten very little chance to try out the playtest (though I've read the rules fairly extensively) because of real-life scheduling commitments and the lack of a group that wanted to do so. The one adventure I got to play (The Rose Street Revenge) I really enjoyed. But that's low level, and fairly limited in scope. So I'm really curious to hear from those with more direct experience.

That's not a bad idea.

If we treat the word "wizard" like the word "scientist", then we that the current version of "wizard" is equivalent to a single person having PhD's in physics, chemistry, biology, botany, geology, zoology, ecology, and psychology.

Nobody has advanced degrees in all that.

Making each "wizard" choose a specialty much the way a "scientist" does would mean focusing on one "science". That's where he will get his PhD.

In game terms, that obviously means that a wizard must choose ONE specialty school and that is the only school that he will get to 10th level spells. Then allow him to be a little versatile with a secondary school at, say, 5th level that will always be two levels behind (1st level spells available at 5th level, etc.) and maybe a tertiary school at 9th level that will always be 4 levels behind.

Before PF2 was announced, I considered a very similar system as a houserule variant for Wizards in PF1, with similar thematic reasons.

I had a heptagram in mind with each of the Arcane schools at a the vertices. You cast from your chosen school as a 9th level caster. Adjacent (2°) schools you learned as a 6th level caster (following the magus progression, so you can cast 1st level spells at 1st level, but don't learn new spell levels as quickly). Near-opposition (3°) schools you learned as a 4th level caster (so you could cast 1st level spells starting at 4th level). Opposition (4°) schools you cast as a 4th level caster and required two spell slots for each spell.

I thought it could be fun, and I thought Wizard might still be one of the more powerful classes. I never got a chance to try it out in practice though.

Cheburn wrote:

Deadmanwalking wrote:

Clerics are actually scary offensive casters at this level. Wail of the Banshee and Overwhelming Presence are solid, for example.

Interesting. I've heard lots of "Clerics have been gutted in PF2, and only Channel/Heal props them up," but I haven't gotten to see a higher level cleric at a Playtest table. This statement implies that clerics may not be in as bad of a place (even neglecting healing) as some posters seem to think they are.

In fairness, the Divine Spell list is probably the worst one in the game (healing aside, anyway). Especially at low levels. Note that both the awesome spells I noted were 9th level spells.

That said, improving the list (maybe by adding a few good low level offensive spells, and definitely by adding some better buffs) does seem like all they really need, balance wise (well, and Cha 10 Clerics getting at least one Channel), and even without that Clerics have managed to be very effective in Chapters 1, 3, 4, and now 7 (all the chapters that had one). The spell list is their only real issue, and it's hardly a crippling one.

That's fair enough. And if Paizo can work on that between now and the PF2 release, that's not a bad thing. But if the biggest complaint about clerics leading into the release is "the Divine Spell list at low levels could use a little work," I still won't lose too much sleep over it. If there's one thing Paizo has proven they're going to do over the years, it's release new material, especially new spells.

Clerics are actually scary offensive casters at this level. Wail of the Banshee and Overwhelming Presence are solid, for example.

Interesting. I've heard lots of "Clerics have been gutted in PF2, and only Channel/Heal props them up," but I haven't gotten to see a higher level cleric at a Playtest table. This statement implies that clerics may not be in as bad of a place (even neglecting healing) as some posters seem to think they are.

Either way, pretty much all Adventure Paths would work as an anime series without really changing anything about them. Heck pathfinder mechanics, whether at higher or lower levels, aren't out of the place either.

That's true, but lots of anime wouldn't work as Adventure Paths. Then again, lots of anime wouldn't work as other anime.

If Spike in Cowboy Bebop suddenly started screaming and powered up, then launched an energy beam from his buttocks that destroyed the planet that Vicious was on, that doesn't fit in the story.

Similarly, in Assassination Classroom, people who aren't Koro-sensei don't randomly fly around at Mach 5.

In Death Note, it would be pretty stupid if Light could punch so hard that it parted the clouds from Japan to India.

In Neon Genesis Evangelion, Shinji (or any of the other Eva pilots, or any human) can't kill Angels barehanded because of the intense physical training they've undergone.

I seriously wonder if people who claim something is "too anime" can name more than Dragon Ball (Z), Pokemon, Sailor Moon and maybe Gundam and Yu-gi-oh.

"Too anime" is a kludgy way to put it, but the idea it's getting across is reasonable. For any fantasy world, you want a set of rules that the world obeys. People who complain about options being "too anime" are generally complaining about over the top options that break the laws of physics without a reasonable in-universe explanation.

Hence, I highly doubt that many would complain about options from The Ancient Magus' Bride showing up in Pathfinder. Similarly, the world of Black Clover probably wouldn't bother them (outside of magic, people behave as expected). Neither would (I suspect) giving characters the physical abilities of people from Danmachi, Darker Than Black, or (for a non-fantasy) Attack on Titan, or Samurai Champloo, or Code Geass.

But people don't come on the forums advocating that. They want their non-magical characters to have the abilities of characters from Hunter x Hunter (actually, probably too low power), or One Piece (probably also too low power), or Bleach, or One Punch Man (Saitama's power level, from what I can tell, is one of the major running jokes in the series, but hey, let's ignore that). It's major Power Fantasy stuff. Stand on the air just because I'm badass. Slice through spacetime with my sword and teleport where I want to because I can swing my sword so hard. Blow away mountains when I parry your attack because I've become so powerful (in fact, I'm now so powerful that you can no longer sense my reiatsu and don't realize how outclassed you are!). Destroy a city by punching it. Catch a lightning bolt with my teeth and use it to lasso a tornado, which I then turn into my mount.

People react to that and say "it's too anime!" And they're simultaneously wrong and right to do so.

Me personally, I want non-magical classes to have some grounding in the physics of the real world, though they don't have to be rigorously tied to it. I don't, for example, want a Fighter to be able to pick up two towers and swing them around as weapons, decimating entire armies. Nor do I think a Fighter should be able to Leap from Varisia to Absalom in a single bound. But hey, that just proves my closed-mindedness and lack of vision (and that I want to screw over Fighters), right?

marcryser wrote:

No. You're an intelligent biped. If you have a dagger in your teeth, would you try to stab someone with it or simply drop it from your mouth and bite as hard as possible?

Obviously try to stab someone with it.

You see One Piece. I see this.

Obviously by raw, there is nothing saying it can do this to begin with, but if you look closely, we aren’t in the Rules Questions forum, rather, we are in the General Discussion forum. So would you find it believable for an intelligent quadruped to wield a weapon in its mouth?

Disney movies aside, No. Though to be fair, I also wouldn't find it believable for an intelligent biped to wield a weapon in its mouth. I have nothing in particular against quadrupeds.

Edit: Ninjaed!

RAW, only reactions and free actions can do this, not regular attacks

And it's not reactions and free actions. It's reactions and free actions where the provoking trigger was the "Concentrate on a Spell" action. So if you use an action to Stride from a character and provoke an AoO, then Concentrate on a Spell, you would not lose the spell you are concentrating on.

So no, just getting hit while the spell is up does not hinder it. Getting hit during casting (Be it AoO, Readied action, or other) does, and so does getting hit during the Concentrate on a Spell action, but that is much rarer as few things can disrupt you there (Readied actions might be able to, IDK.)

A readied action allows you to attack as a reaction with a trigger you designate. So a character could ready an action to attack when a caster concentrates on a spell, and that damage, if the readied action hit, could disrupt the spell (since it is damage from a reaction where the trigger is the "Concentrate on a Spell" action). And since they have to burn two actions on that, I'm not sure it's going to be everyone's first move.

Cheburn wrote:

Personally, I thought up the following system ...

I like the concept as well, but I think drained would work better than HP damage because HP damage is too cheap to get rid of.

I considered Drained, but felt it was too big of a penalty, and (more importantly) too hard to get rid of. It would be nice if there was some kind of middle ground.

I wouldnt use it but thats just me. Im not a fan of hurting myself to use my class abilities.

That's a reasonable enough stance to take. Some players might not like that flavor. And some characters might not choose to push their bodies that far, even if it's allowed (even if the players controlling them would be fine with it). In that case, the class behavior defaults back to the behavior in the playtest - 3 rounds of rage, 1 round of fatigue. You haven't lost anything over the playtest. You've only gained more options.

Personally, I thought up the following system:

You can never be reduced to 0 hp as a result of the Drained condition.

Conditional penalties like Drained cannot go above 4. This means that at most you can lose 4hp/lv.

Even if you were Octavia, an Elf wizard with 8Con, and were Drained 4, you would still have 6hp (racial hp) and thus not dead.
(You'd probably still die against a fluffy bunny)

Note that I only know this because a dev pointed it out in a DD encounter discussion and mentioned where it was written once: I cannot find it again and it should probably be more obvious.

One might think that this information would be found near the Conditions section of the book. It's not. It's on p. 291 of the Playtest Rulebook in PLAYING THE GAME -> CHECKS -> IDENTIFY MODIFIERS, BONUSES, AND PENALTIES -> PENALTIES.

Negative circumstances, harmful conditions and spells, and inferior items can impede your rolls. There are four different types of penalties . . .

Conditional penalties are caused by negative conditions. Being sick 2, for example, imposes a –2 conditional penalty to all your checks and DCs. Conditional penalties
range from –1 to –4. Some standardized conditions appear in the list of basic conditions on page 320 . . . (emphasis added)

Thus, it sounds like Drained should have capped out at drained 4. But that certainly seems to be contradicted by the rules text that Colette quoted in her linked thread

https://paizo.com/threads/rzs42bph?My-10thlevel-party-was-killed-by-a -family-of When any creature wakes someone else while in Dvalinheim, the waker is immediately stricken with a powerful curse that manifests as a bone-deep weakness and desire to rest, although rest perpetually eludes her. She is immune to effects that cause the asleep condition (but not other forms of unconsciousness), is drained 3, and cannot reduce her drained condition. If she awakens multiple creatures, her drained condition increases by 3 each time. . .

I don't have the original rules in front of me, and (unlike CB) I would never apply this curse to a whole party at once; however, the quoted text strongly implies that you can increased drained 3 by ... 3. Condition penalties (like drained) are supposed to range from -1 to -4 (from the Rulebook).

So is this a case where

.. Seems to be becoming a bit of a problem.

For example, at a certain party where the PCs weren't supposed to cast spells, a PC insisted on casting Detect Magic anyway. I suggested that someone in the crowds he was mingling in might notice and give him a quick dig in the ribs to remind him he wasn't supposed to do that.

You can immediately guess what the problem with that was. As the player said, "If he could do that, he'd have an AoO'.

Anyone else had similar problems? I think these need to be looked at carefully.

The problem is not a lack of AoO, it's a contentious player. Antagonistic RAW-happy players will cause problems in PF1 or PF2. In PF1, everyone gets to make AoO, which sounds good and all, but a motivated player could still make arguments against this very scenario in the PF1e Ruleset (AoOs and all):

(1) You (normally) can't make AoO unarmed. Therefore, the person in the crowd can't make an AoO to give him a quick "dig in the ribs."
(2) You can't make AoO outside of combat. Therefore, you need to roll initiative, and (since the Wizard always goes first) the person in the crowd doesn't have Combat Reflexes, and therefore can't make the AoO because he's still flat-footed while the Wizard is casting.
(3) The person in the crowd cannot give a nudge in the ribs, because making an attack that deals no damage is not defined in the rules [going off of memory on this one, but I suspect that's true].
(4) If the person in the crowd somehow has Improved Unarmed Strike and Combat Reflexes AND if we houserule that the person in the crowd can make an AoO that doesn't deal damage, there was not enough damage dealt to interrupt the spell and it still goes off.
(5) [if all else fails] He was going to cast defensively, so there is no AoO. You're not the boss of him, and your NPC can't nudge him.

As a GM, I'd suggest telling him that Rule 0 lets the NPC nudge him in the ribs, and that it's not an attack. There's no mechanical effect, and it would not interrupt the spell, but if he continues casting he'll deal with the RP consequences.

But the real issue is whether the challenges get harder because you are attempting harder things or just because you are gaining levels. In the latter case, the treadmill is too obvious and strains the suspension of disbelief.

The recent Treat Wounds update is an example of the latter option -- the skill DC is based on the healer's level, for no apparent good reason.

The motivation for the scaling DC seems obvious to me. A higher level character heals more HP than a lower level character. Assuming a party of six, with an average CON bonus of +3, a level 1 character will heal 3*1*6 = 18 HP on a successful Treat Wounds (54 HP on a critical success). A level 15 character will heal 3*15*6 = 270 HP on a successful treat wounds (810 HP on a critical success).

Now I think the way it is implemented right now is a bit inelegant and could be improved quite a bit. I feel like the DC could be based on the number of HP the target is missing, rather than character level, which would potentially model being able to patch up minor wounds more easily with higher level. But I don't pretend that such a system wouldn't have its own potential problems.

Jason Bulmahn wrote:

If you want to play your foes all as ruthless beasts, that is a call you can make. I am not sure that is a play style I find palatable, but if that is what you and your group enjoy, then more power to you. As for wether or not your reports are valid, your surveys are a part along with everyone else's. You are one extreme.. and that is ok. Our spreadsheets account for that.

Your playtest results are valid, but to be honest, I am not sure I am going to making any significant changes to the game based on a rather harcore approach to NPC tactics.

Could you please clarify what you mean? The playtest results are valid and are taken into consideration along with everyone else's results, and yet no significant changes will be made based on any results that stem from an extreme GMing style?

How is it possible that results can be valid, yet not taken into consideration for changing the game? How would Paizo even discern if a given set of survey results stemmed from a hardcore GMing style?

They won't discern it directly. You'll just be part of an extremely small subpopulation of high kill-rate GMs that won't affect the overall statistics of the group.

When the overall lethality of the game is where the designers are happy with it, and 0.02% of players has a nearly 100% TPK rate, you're probably looking at a statistical outlier.

Expecting a change in that case is a bit like expecting car makers to limit the top speed of a car to 80 MPH because some people like to floor the accelerator and then crash when they can't control the car.

Mergy wrote:

An average Pathfinder human clocks in at 12.5 feet per second for each stride action they take. This means they move at roughly 8.5 mph, which is pretty much on the nose. A monk will eventually outstrip an Olympion, and wizards can do ridiculous things from level 1 (an elf that casts fleet step has a 60 foot movement speed, striding at over 20 mph.

Neat! I can dig the average well equipped adventurer having a combat speed about even with what the average person can do in a sprint while carrying nothing.

8.5 MPH is a pretty easy pace for a runner (7 minute mile). Definitely not a sprint.

Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I was in high school, the 40 yard dash times (by students) were under 5 seconds. That would be an (unencumbered) PF2 speed faster than 48' (which also accounts somewhat for acceleration, though not for deceleration).

Given that combat movement involves things like "dodging arrows and fireballs," I have no problem with the more sedate 25' movement speed for heroes.

As far as the OP goes though -- is it common to envision movement in combat in PFNe as walking? That seems to be at the core of the post (calculation Usain Bolt's speed aside). I've never thought of characters in combat walking around the battlefield, as it just seems very counter-intuitive. Am I in the minority here?

SwordOfTheLaw wrote:

Quote:

I have to be careful even mentioning Warcraft on these boards, but like it or not, Warcraft is one of the most iconic sources of Paladins that exists. The Warcraft III paladins had healing, a defensive aura, and a mass resurrection ability. Their healing ability could harm undead etc like Lay on Hands. Not much offensive focus there.

Someone already mentioned the Retribution Paladin, which is meant to deal a lot of damage.

Pandora's was talking about Warcraft 3's Paladins, Ret Pallies are from WoW.

Ret Pallies also (A) didn't really do bonus damage against evil enemies, and (B) generally (through the end of Cataclysm, when I stopped playing) didn't top the raid DPS charts. "Dealing a lot of damage" just meant "getting in the ballpark with everyone else." Their contributions to a raid were more in the form of some utility while also doing respectable DPS ... similar to what Pandora's is describing.

Speaking of signature skills, the wizard multiclass feat Expert Wizard Spellcasting requires master in Arcana. How can you get that if you can't make Arcana a signature skill?

Wizard Dedication makes Arcana a signature skill for you.

Cheburn wrote:

graystone wrote:

BryonD wrote:

Secret Wizard wrote:

2. CLW wands were boring. Glad to see them gone.

Why did you do boring things on game night?

Well you can CLEARLY see how much more exciting casting a healing spell is to using a healing wand... ;P

One option involves tactical use of daily resources by a character, and the other involves spamming a wand at no real cost. I know which one is more interesting to me.

But was one EXCITING and the other BORING? Not to me, neither one is either one. "tactical use of daily resources" isn't wildly interesting/exciting in an out of combat sense when all you are doing is shifting resources. If you could trade a spell for ki, would using it be nail biting, edge of your seat excitement? To me, it's up there with the thrill of counting arrows, rations and spell components. :P

To me, the use of finite resources is one of the most interesting (and enjoyable) parts of a pen and paper RPG. Do I burn this spell slot on a buff (or debuff) or save it for healing? Do I use Smite Evil now, or save it for later? Can I bluff (or negotiate) my way through this encounter, and conserve combat resources? Can I come up with an unexpected solution to avoid having to fight this army head-on, saving resources for killing the Big Bad?

Most classes have to manage resources in one way or another. A whole party doing so effectively can be the difference between clearing a dungeon in one go and having to stop and rest every 3 rooms (which I find both tedious and immersion breaking, for a variety of reasons).

To me, pushing past the expected limits of a group is exciting. Scraping by when most parties would be burned out, and then surviving by the skin of your teeth as you kill the boss is a great feeling.

Of course, you can take this idea too far in one direction or the other. Really heavy survival / attrition games can be a drag and can lead to death spirals.

But the extreme of the other direction would be where you no longer have to worry about resources outside of a single combat. HP/MP and abilities/spells automatically refresh after combat, and are available for every combat. Now, daily resource management is no longer a thing. And that can be a fine system -- I've played Dragon Age, and I enjoyed it. But it's not what I'm looking for in a TTRPG.

BryonD wrote:

Secret Wizard wrote:

2. CLW wands were boring. Glad to see them gone.

Why did you do boring things on game night?

Well you can CLEARLY see how much more exciting casting a healing spell is to using a healing wand... ;P

One option involves tactical use of daily resources by a character, and the other involves spamming a wand at no real cost. I know which one is more interesting to me.

Alchemists fire and acid vials are really cheap and effective at dealing with low level swarms.

They're pretty good at dealing with low level swarms that have low HP. A decent number of swarms at CR 4 or lower have a bunch of HP though (e.g. crabs swarm and leech swarm referenced above iirc). For higher HP swarms, you're still looking at 8-10 Alchemists Fires, which is quite a few (especially if you have a party of 4-5).

Even that "paper" to counter the "rock" of the swarm is pretty crappy.

The wand deals an average of 7.5 damage (11.25 when accounting for AoE weakness). A leech swarm has 39 HP (a crab swarm has a similar number, a wasp swarm has 31 HP). Naively, we'd say you need about 4 rounds to kill the swarm, fewer if you get lucky.

A level 2 rogue probably has a 6 UMD, though, and needs a DC 20 to activate the Wand of Burning Hands (CL 3). That gives a 35% chance to successfully activate the wand each time they try.

Of course, if the rogue ever rolls a natural 1, they are locked out of trying to use that wand again for the rest of the day.

Out of boredom, I rolled some dice in MatLab. I was curious how many rounds it took to kill a CR Leech Swarm with a CL3 wand of burning hands. Here's what it looks like in PF1e. The x-axis on the top plot is the number of UMD attempts needed to kill a leech swarm from full HP. I accounted for the 1.5x damage from AoE. The most common number of rounds from my dice roll is 10 (for a class with burning hands on their spell list, this becomes 4-5 rounds, and they don't have to worry about locking themselves out of the wand).

I didn't directly account for the chance of wand lockout (resulting in loss of all ability to deal damage to the swarm), but I plotted its probability on the same x-scale (second axis). Basically, by the time you need 10 attempts, you've got a 40% chance of being locked out (1-0.95^10).

Well, it ... doesn't look good for the gallant and well-prepared Rogue. Maybe the group's Sorcerer can cast CL 2 burning hands about 6 times ...

Well, I wasn’t aware there was a controversy there about Teleportation Mastery. To me, it sounds like you are casting it, it’s just you need a “focus” item that meets the prerequisites of the feat. I dunno if that makes sense to you.

The multiple interpretations stem from the description in Teleportation Mastery:

Benefit(s): You can cause an item that has a conjuration spell of 3rd level or higher in its construction requirements to cast dimension door.

Since the feat says "you cause an item to cast dimension door," some people reasonably interpret that as saying that the item is casting, rather than your character.* That then implies that you do not qualify for Dimensional Agility, which has a prerequisite of

Prerequisites: Ability to use the abundant step class feature or cast dimension door.

rather than "ability to make an item cast dimension door." I don't have a particular interpretation that I support, and there are reasonable arguments for both that I don't want to rehash here -- I think the more restricted is probably most in line with the abilities as they were written, and I don't have a good sense of the "intended" interaction in this case (unlike with Flickering Step, which is unambiguously clear).

If I were running a home table, I'd be likely to allow the more permissive interpretation (Teleportation Mastery qualifies you for Dimensional Agility) because I feel Fighters can use any help they can get at higher levels, but I wouldn't argue with a GM who interpreted it otherwise.

Your interpretation is reasonable, but it's not the only reasonable interpretation. Regardless, the feat combo is definitely subject to table variation (even with well-intentioned GMS who are not biased against martials) at a minimum. Flickering Step should not be.

--
*As an example, if I say, "I made that person sculpt me a replica of Michelangelo's David," I can't really say that I'm the one who sculpted it.

@Reksew_Trebla Actually, I'm glad you brought Flickering Step to my attention.

Unless this has changed recently, it's a point of some contention (and subject to significant table variance) as to whether Teleportation Mastery (Item Mastery) fulfills the "ability to cast Dimension Door" requirement of Dimensional Agility.

Flickering Step unambiguously grants DD as a SLA, and is designed to allow this exact combo. The feat is particularly biased towards Fighter, because Dimensional X counts a combat feat. This means a Dimensional Assault fighter build can be fully online by level 12 (though it does delay the Advanced Weapon Training you could normally take at level 10), which is not bad, considering. And the only requirement to set up the build is to put skill ranks in Knowledge: Planes.

Still, the number of uses per day is pretty low (2 at level 10, 3 at level 15), and so you're comparing a very limited use ability to casters. If casters start expending limited abilities at high levels, they can do some pretty insane things too. Tricks like Persistent Dazing spells can decimate encounters, and can be pulled off with minimal class investment. That doesn't mention the boatloads of utility and flexibility that casters tend to have compared with martials.

I've got a soft spot for martials, and I'm happy to play them. I'm glad that Fighter in particular has gotten some love from Paizo over the last few years. But I haven't seen anything, including the Dimensional line of feats + Warrior Spirit, that really indicates that an optimized high level martial will outperform an optimized high level caster.

Of course, the "most powerful and versatile class" metric is generally a poor way to choose what classes to play, as it maps very poorly onto enjoyment of a class for most people.

Mark Seifter wrote:

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I think the thing about the anathemas of the various orders is that the order which gives you the most power over a thing also expects you to use those powers most responsibly when dealing with that thing.

So a Leaf druid can make it snow in the Sahara desert, a Wild druid can kick every puppy she sees, an Animal Druid can cut down every tree in the forest, and a Storm Druid can enjoy every vice civilization has to offer, but a Storm, Animal, Leaf, and Wild druid respectively cannot do those things.

Since no feats are order-locked (you just get extra benefits with them if you have the right order) this is just a "Great Power = Great Responsibility" thing.

That's good insight on the way the orders work.

It would also be insightful to see that some people don't want it to work that way. Me included.

And that other people, like me, feel it's both thematically appropriate and a light burden in terms of normal roleplaying.