Ckorik's page

I'm trying hard to pronounce the ý now. I can handle ą,ę,ó,ź,ż,ń, but this one eludes me.

It's pronunciation varies depending on the language it is used in. It's not used in english - if you revert to latin as the base it just reads as a normal y. Otherwise it would have to be contextualized by the language where it was found to determine the right sound it makes.

Our group hated the playtest - the final product is well received though - other than one shots we haven't converted yet - but that's due to being neck deep in one AP and wanting to play Return - so it may be a year or two before we start a proper PF2 AP.

Return .... might just be the best AP that Paizo put out for 1e.

DPR is an ok measurement to run against a class to confirm if something is really broken with the math or design.

After that the focus should be on how the class interacts with the story and world because that's how people feel good about what the accomplished. No one wants to play Luke Skywalker if he can kill everything in one hit but can't mind control and jump high. They rather have one that can take a blaster to the hand now and then but also has other abilities.

Low action cost spells effectively means more spells in a single round, and given the biggest limitation on the power of spells is their action cost, reductions of that directly correlate to power.

That depends on if you keep the one spell per round limit - and then again it would depend on the effects of the lower action spells and how they balance out.

Casters are 'balanced' fine right now - that doesn't make them satisfying to play - having ways to interact with the action system would help.

Hbitte wrote:

Debuff is not even something wizards should focus on, considering the gaming and literature background. Remember when Gandalf threw a debuff on someone? I do not.

Well that's a terrible argument, Gandalf casts maybe three spells, Light, Animal Messenger, Summon Eagle.

False..

Anyone that believes that never really read the books.

It's sort of interesting to me how there aren't similar complaints about how much worse archery is relative to other options compared to PF1.

Since archery was the king of DPR strategies in PF1,**EDIT**

Archery had a similar damping down to spellcasting, but doesn't seem nearly as controversial.

Just had to respond to this - because I had similar discussions in PF 1 re: fighters in regards to how to make them 'fun' - and the discussions always came back down to 'they need pounce' - because barbarians could get pounce - even though the actual complaints were 'more ways to actually impact the game outside of combat'.

I dunno what to say about it other than people are weird - casters were nerfed - hard - spells/dc/spells per day/etc. were all messed with - and people are processing that change and trying to feel it out. Some of that comes out as 'I can't blast or damage like a fighter!' - because fighters are the new king of the hill (perception wise anyway) that makes a certain kind of sense - see which kid has all the cool toys - and try to figure out why they seem to have more fun than you right?

I stand by that it's not the DPR or the actual spells - it's how they interact with the system that feels off.

The entire spell section reads like this:

ADAM: I don't see anything about Heaven or Hell. This book reads like stereo instructions. Listen to this: "Geographical and Temporal Perimeters: Functional perimeters vary from manifestation to manifestation." Oh, this is going to take some time, honey.

Failure The target is slowed 1 and must attempt a Fortitude

save at the end of each of its turns; this ongoing save has
the incapacitation trait. On a failed save, the slowed condition
increases by 1 (or 2 on a critical failure). A successful save
reduces the slowed condition by 1. When a creature is unable
to act due to the slowed condition from flesh to stone, the
creature is petrified permanently. The spell ends if the
creature is petrified or the slowed condition is removed.

Yeah - the "Handbook for the Recently Deceased" reads easier than the spell section :) I feel like they'd have been better off saying "Flesh to Stone - if the target fails it's save it's slowed 2, if it makes the save it's slowed 1". Except they felt the need to keep this crit system working for every spell instead of just attack spells - hey we are where we are - and instead of having a spell you can use the action system with you get a 2 action spell and move (just like PF 1) but with weird and hard to read wording that doesn't make you feel like you did anything cool.

Lets rewrite flesh to stone so it interacts with the new 3 action system:

You try to turn the target’s flesh into stone. The target must attempt a Fortitude save.

1 action: The target is unaffected, Flat Footed (1 round), Clumsy 1, Clumsy 2

2 action: The target is unaffected, Slowed 1 (1 round), Slowed 1, Slowed 2

3 action: The target is unaffected, Slowed 1, Slowed 2, Restrained (a break free success reduces this to Slowed 2).

*note* if the target is lower level than the wizard failure or above results in the target being made into a statue gear and all.

I mean - that looks cooler to me and would give you options, keep the 'can't end a boss fight' and would feel more satisfying - but I'm just a schmuck on the internet.

My point was about low level spells in 1E not being that useful if they go after rival combatants . And that broadly stands. So this isn’t a big change. And I get that this isn’t necessarily a good argument because 2E could have tried to avoid this. But in this particular instance it is not really a nerf (not saying there aren’t others)

Anything further on this risks a de rail due to extensive mentions of the previous edition

Given a fight with 4 mooks and a caster with hold person DC 16 against your level 11 fighter with ... +11 will save?

So have one intimidate - now he's shaken -2 to will saves. Give one of the mooks a cruel weapon - hit him - now he's sickened and at -4 to will saves - now cast on him. Not enough? Make that hold person persistent via metamagic. Use touch of idiocy (no save 1d6 penalty to wisdom) - there are ways to work things out - not every fight should have these - but if you aren't using tanglefoot bags, and intimidate, and or trip/bull rush (etc) against your players pf 1 fights can feel pretty bland.

I'll admit - using all the options available to you as the GM takes alot of system knowledge and work though.

(2) Few ways to increase spell DC for a big moment. Can come with class feats or focus powers, items, etc. Just don't exist now

See right here you can imagine a system were a 1 action cast has no conditions on a save, a 2 action cast is what we have, and a 3 action cast is at +1 DC.

Just like that casters have options (3 spells in a round? If a save means nothing happens wouldn't that be a waste anyway? Isn't that an *interesting* choice for a player to make?) using the action system that makes them feel more dynamic in play.

I was excited to see in 2e martials being able to do more than full attack more easily.

Yep - very glad to see attack chains shortened to 3.

I've seen many players complain of casters being over nerfed. But vast majority just state it without examples or any explanation.

Disagree - there are examples and explanations abound - most of them are blown out of proportion

I've discussed it with my play group and nobody seems to be of the opinion that they were over nerfed.

Then that must be true.

In fact several typically martial only players have expressed interest in playing casters in 2e.

If they want to play the least powerful classes from 1st edition - and now want to play the least powerful classes from 2nd edition - it is my humble opinion that they didn't like martial characters, but just being underpowered and feeling like the underdog - which is a viable play style - but has nothing really to add to the discussion.

I think casters are largely balanced now.

They are

I think making one dimensional caster's who focus on mainly one thing has always bad.

The one dimensional caster was the most OP one - but also the easiest for the GM to shut down if they wanted - bit of a give and take that.

I think the blaster caster was never as good as the utility caster.

That's certainly a matter of opinion - blaster casters - if hyper specialized - could be just as OP as anything else.

But it's clear you in for a rough time if you like comparing your dpr to the fighters. Especially on single Target.

DPR is - in my opinion - the single biggest problem that PF1 had. It objectifies the game into a number race - and ignores the teamwork and puzzle solving aspects that generally bring parties together to tell a good story.

You can actually best out any martial in AOE effects though.

I think a lot of players dislike prepared casting and due to this they feel worse to those players.

That's a pretty big assumption on your part. I don't think you are correct.

Me personally I feel it's a skill gap. The truly skilled players will make a prepared caster shine.

They don't have to - casters are balanced and work fine even if you have no idea what you are doing. This may change after we have a couple dozen sourcebooks - YMMV.

*Opinion follows - beware all ye who enter*

If you want to know why casters feel bad at the moment - it's mostly because of the crit save/fail system - and lack of action engagement with the spell system. The crit save/fail system combined with boss monster encounters results in feeling like you can never 'win big' against a boss. That's intentional due to balance but it results in the 'save my big stuff for the boss' players to feel let down in those encounters. The paradigm shifted - time will heal this.

The second reason, I think, is a fail on the design and has no easy fix. That is - frankly - that the 3 action system gave cool tools to everyone but 'core casters' - the example I want to use here is the heal spell.

Heal is perhaps the best 'designed' spell in the game - it gives different effects depending on the actions used - this is a sterling example of how the new action system can make spells interesting, dynamic, and require the player to make an interesting choice when casting.

Almost every other spell in the book is two actions to cast. Nothing interesting - nothing exciting at play - take your turn - move and cast - that's it - the keystone of the new edition (3 action system) essentially goes into the gutter. This leaves casters feeling ... a bit bland compared to all the cool things the martials get to do.

This doesn't make them 'overly nerfed' - nor does it make them 'underpowered' - but combine the two things and it does tend to make straight up casters feel in a worse place than they deserve to be.

/my two cents.

When the issue that was highly complained about was Caster/Martial Disparity, making the Fighter as good as the other melee classes (mostly other martials) doesn't really address the issue.

Nah - you are confusing arguments. The fighter was seen as bottom tier all the way through the end of PF1 even though it spent several years with enough options to be competitive against even new 'hot' classes like the slayer (Weapon Master's handbook came out in 2015 ) with advanced weapon training.

Rogue was seen as 'fixed' with unchained rogue - the difference here is that books *can* fix a class post launch - but they can't do it via scattered options that require a dozen books brought together to make a whole. Which is a 'handwave' argument that casters are fine because they can be fixed with future books.

They can, but that hardly is a good reason for any class to feel off on launch.

since we can always fix the latter problem by printing more books.

Even though this is factually true - it is empirically untrue. Fighters in PF1 (when used with stamina, melee tactics toolbox, background skills, and other new goodies) were objectively as good as any other melee class yet carried the stigma of their core printing through to the end.

The only way for that to change is for them to 'wrap up' all the rules into a single place (like unchained rogue).

I'm new around here, but is old-school play really that foreign to Pathfinder? Am I going to find PF2 doesn't support that style of play?

PF2 actually supports old school play better than PF1 did I think.

Spiking doors was because they auto-shut and locked - thats not the default assumption in dungeons anymore (hasn't been for several editions actually) but 1e AD&D assumed monsters never had to roll to open doors either - so that playstyle is still 100% valid if you are using it.

The other stuff - is highly dependent on you as the GM - if your players want to use a spell to get away - let them - nothing holds you down to using the mini battlemap for every part of the game - if you insist on following every rule at all times then it will fail to support what you are asking though.

My suggestion (if you are still new to the system) is to keep reminding yourself the rules are a framework to tell a good story - and if they get in the way it's ok to move past them. Running away is just not really a well supported trope within the mechanics framework these days - if that's part of your normal GM kit - you'll need to be ready to take the game out of 'mechanics mode' when it happens.

Wands of CLW are also nonsense because the difficulty of the game was varying a lot depending if you have access to them or not (or if they are exhausted).

So, the most important part of every dungeon exploration, before even having a proper armor or weapon, was to have the proper batch of wands able to handle the whole thing. Otherwise, you were screwed, as other types of healing were far away from giving you back as many hit points.

That doesn't make them nonsense - it just makes them a mechanic and a resource to track.

The same as in the new system - a mechanic and a resource to track. You can make a valid case that CLW wands were unintended with AD&D 3 (I have never seen proof of this - but accept it as probable) - you cannot however say the same thing about PF1 which kept the mechanic - and also *designed every official adventure including society play based on this mechanic*.

So CLW were not 'nonsense' or unintended in PF1 - they may have been a holdover - but they were certainly known and embraced by the design. PF2 changed the mechanic - but you could call the 'healing kit' a 'healing ritual wand' and it's the same thing - the only real change is a limit on healing per time function - which *is* interesting game design and changes things up - but doesn't make the previous mechanic 'nonsense'.

And no D&D version or Pathfinder version has ever been a "system that results in taking a sword to the chest that doesn't require 2 months of downtime to recover from" because that is not now, nor has it ever been, how hit points work.

You are right - that would be realisim - this is a game - mechanics in the game are not nonsense - even if you don't like them. CLW wands and the current 'mundane' healing are just mechanics that work slightly differently - but mundane healing of wounds is so much more fantastic than using magic - you have to totally lose reality at your table to allow it.

It's obviously not about money - healing kits cost 5g for infinite healing. It's about forcing high level play to use higher cost items for quick recovery. A note that as mentioned earlier in the thread - the 'sweet spot' for mundane healing tends to be level 6-10 in PF2. To put it in perspective outside of a treasure drop - a group in PF1 would most likely not have a CLW wand until the group is level 3 at earliest - while in PF2 they have treat wounds affordable from level 1. The mid levels treat wounds is arguably better in terms of cost than a CLW wand - it's only (again) high levels where the mechanic favors higher cost items and thus the investment by characters.

Short rests in 5e is done with a limited pool of which you can use only half the pool a day. The encounter math is entirely different in that monsters are intended to wear down your HP pool over many encounters before you take that hour long lunch break. People say 5e combat is easy but that is only because they spam the short/long rests and avoid the intended attrition of HP and healing resources.

This is incorrect - they balance the game with the expectation that all characters start combat at full health each time. We have actual words and facts to back that up instead of conjecture.

Clw was nonsense to begin with.

Any system that results in taking a sword to the chest that doesn't require 2 months of downtime to recover from - is also nonsense to being with.

The current system could just as easy be 'you use a special ritual item of cure to heal people for 10 minutes if you can activate it with a heal check'

See how changing the words - doesn't change the mechanic or how silly it feels? If you deal with wounds at all in your daily life - the current system feels much more gameist and silly than magic ever will (because we have no real world reference to work with magic) - there are many kinds of wounds that are *hard as hell* to treat - and require months of healing.

10 mins with a bag of poultice may float your boat - whatever - but don't for a second think that it's more 'grounded' than wands of cure light wounds - it's way more out of this world.

it is much preferred over the CLW nonsense.

It's almost exactly the same thing. It's almost exactly the same as a 'short rest' in 5e. It's just another mechanic to do the exact same thing with a different flavor - and the 10 min downtime covers many abilities (focus/repair/etc) that it would still happen if someone had a click stick of healing.

Mechanically it has positives and negatives, flavor wise the idea of a guy with band aids fixing someone who was almost dead is the same conceptually as using magic (except magic is more plausible really). A real world 'visceral' experience would be a heal check DC 15+1 each point of damage - then a save for each heal check and if you fail you get sepsis and die without a cure poison within a week. Within 24 hours another save or get Staph and die within 2 weeks without cure disease. Real world battlefield medicine is all about stabilizing the wounded until they get to a real medical facility for treatment - the idea that a kit will stay sterile enough to fix people multiple times and not have them die is more fantastic (based on our real world knowledge) than 'magic heals your wounds' - at least one assumes the suspension of disbelief up front.

I see statements like this frequently and they feel designed to gloat - and I'm sorry to say that your version of healing doesn't hold up to any kind of realism, that improves upon the idea that 'magic heals things.'

The only thing it did was slow healing down - which is a fine mechanic, but hardly makes CLW 'nonsense' - at least that nonsense made actual sense in game.

spoiler - so no peeking if you are playing!

My two cents.

Is this really how you see the Emporium? Just a bunch of power builds the GM needs to say no to? And to think that for years and years I thought I was making interesting and fun CHARACTERS for people to enjoy however they wanted, to provide a community service of sorts.

*Gestures exageratedly in mock despair*

Oh what a fool I've been!

I actually love your builds - I've even handed some of them out for use in one shots :)

I'll always call the druid hippo one of the most hilariously overpowered things I've ever encountered though :)

PS: Yes, I understand that it doesn't happen a lot, but you're coming across as saying it never happens and/or the rules don't allow it, even if it's not your intent.

Not my intent - I know some groups play that way intentionally - Mageskun (I may have that spelled wrong) and his group do for example. Some do it by accident - (which is really where you can make a case that PF1 was broken) but the rules don't go out of their way to encourage broken builds.

For someone who lived through the 'complete X handbook' series and what that did to 2nd ed. for example - there is no single book Paizo put out that breaks characters (Mythic excluded please) - it is in fact much easier to make a broken character than one that is stupid OP - which again - makes a much stronger case for why PF2 is a better system.

The hyperbole of 'whoever wins init wins' is my point - even using a party of zen archers I could create encounters - using the CR system as intended - that would survive a total loss of init and have a chance at winning. A case could be made that published adventures couldn't compensate for the wide gap of player abilities and skill at high levels - and also that many GM's were not ready for, or could adjust the to power explosion that happens after level 12. Those things are all true - but it wasn't unplayable, and the rules work.

. So, now, the Alchemist gonna do a Will Save against Dominate cast by a Kitsune Fey Sorcerer for a DC 30. Good luck.
Having monsters immune to characters as sole answer is the proof things are not going well :D

Yes - the 'internet builds' that no GM would allow at a table really are ridiculous.

The real world where people who try to play those get told no, encounters work just fine.

It's funny how the 'internet builds' also show PF2 wizards as sucking - because in the real world they don't. That's exactly my point. The game wasn't balanced around Ravingdork's character emporium, and off the wall examples rarely survive actual group play beyond level 7 when the GM would show up in the forums for advice on how to tone things down.

Similarly - despite being a 'thing' for several editions - I've never once seen or heard of an actual Snocone wish machine, or the 'portable hole/bag of holding' arrowhead - outside of theorycrafting.

Skill bonuses that went wonky too fast... yes that was a real problem - the skill system was totally abusable. Feats and traits picked from a shopping list - yep - but even using the 'guide to guides' to make a character I've yet to pull one that made a broken character (using example builds).

Heck - I'll even go on record as saying personally, many of the complaints I saw *about kineticists* were from GM's that thought they did absurd damage per round - DESPITE THAT DAMAGE BEING "NORMALIZED" based on math DPR - because in the real world few players could ever achieve the 'normalized dpr' that everyone here on the forums assumed were a *given* due to playing the game rather than making a math character - and the fact that in a real battle the GM only has to tweak the battlefield slightly to make half the cheese tactics unfair.

When my player with the level 20 cavalier (mythic tier 3) was able to charge he lit up - and I didn't alter anything specificially against his character - it's just a fact that most fights stuff *got in the way* and he wasn't able to full on charge - when he did... yeah - he could one shot a even CR NPC - but even then... that was one... out of 6-8 of them. That's not an autowin.

One shoting an opponent of your CR is the minimum you can ask to a PF1 character flagged as "damage dealer".

This is why it's a good thing encounters were not built around a single at level CR opponent.

That alchemist just went up against an enemy with resistance - oh no their damage is halved.

The barb hits something with a truckton of hit points.

The kensai hit something immune to electricity - suddenly he does 1d8/15-20/x2

Scary.

I suggest taking your own advice, as “whoever wins initiative wins” was a prevalent issue in higher levels and not something they’re making up.

It's 100% as real as a worthless PF2 wizard. That is it's 100% true to anyone who wants to believe it - even if it's not in the real world.

Frankly, if you increase martial power to the point of a PF1 wizard you end up with even more of a "whoever wins initiative wins the combat" problem than PF1 already did. That's another issue that PF2 was trying to resolve.

I keep seeing this - having played 3 campaigns to 20 - this was only true if your encounter was wildly off the cr scale (high or low).

Oddly when you play by the rules - that doesn't happen. (Although I'll admit the mythical situation where the wizard has a perfect spell for the specific encounter might happen - but we played mythic with 'cast anything' and still never saw this.)

*edit*

I mean it's fine to call out people saying wizards are 'horrible' as being over the top - but it's just as bad to make up stuff that was 100% untrue like 'whoever wins init wins'.

I ran the playtest with no fudging of rolls whatsoever. I had rules errors, but frankly no more than Colette, I think. Or not many more, anyway. My players never had a TPK, including in Chapter 5. And that's even sans Hero Points after Chapter 1 because we routinely and collectively forgot their existence.

And my point was - fudging isn't just about rolls - it's about how the entire game plays - because it's a game and the GM is supposed to adjudicate for a fun experience - there is always fudging going to be going on, a player can't really know - and the way over level enemies works in PF2 - if a player suspects that it's happening - well the rules are setup to make sure they fail more than succeed, and re-enforce that feeling.

We played straight - and had 3 tpk's (2 in the first adventure) - oddly every single monster that killed us - was altered - replaying that now with the new monsters - the game was much different. It was validating.

Your statement up there just ignores that fact.

That's not actually what was said.

I have to ask what you refer to here - because the devs did indeed state flatly that they don't balance for her kind of play but feel it's a valid playstyle. If you don't follow the logic that they expect GM's to play monsters dumb to encourage a game - then that discussion would require another thread. I don't really want to get into the weeds over this as it was an illustrative point - I happen to agree with the majority that the game is more fun when it's not a strict simulation.

That's not to say that Colette's play style is bad, but they got crap for it due to reasons that had very little to do with fudging rolls.

Not arguing if it was bad or not - but I feel pretty confident based on posted play-logs that their group is 100% no fudge - the entire playstyle seems like it would depend on it.

My objection was not to fudging. Fudging is fine as long as people know it's that kind of game. My objection was, and is, to fudging specifically to remove success on something from the PCs. To make the PCs fail something where they actually succeeded. Doing that is pretty definitionally a sign of bad GMing.

Yep - it's a sign of bad GMing - it doesn't mean he has a "s#!+ty GM". I see this tossed around way to much and it isn't really helpful - most new GM's need to spend a good deal of time in the weeds before they understand that tabletop RPG's are neither a book, nor a computer game. There are some epiphanies that need to be had before you really can get over the idea that you aren't the author of the story - but rather the players are.

As an aside - it was redundant - the OP wouldn't be worried about the GM altering the result if they felt confidant in the GM. I expect that is a different topic but the root of the 'edition anxiety' all stems from places that take away the players ability to 'ensure success' - if you think about it even for a moment you can follow that path to the root of the issue - which is fear of player agency being taken away or denied - which is only compounded if they have a GM that isn't 'super'. It's also (if you follow PFS threads at all) a huge reason why PFS is so popular - it doesn't take a statistical study to notice the overwhelming majority of problems with PFS stem from players wanting 0 GM variance.

I thought the general gist of that particular can of worms wasn't so much never altering the dice but rather "every enemy ever from the slimes to the pit fiends are played with the precise purpose to kill the pcs" to which yeah, the system generally isn't meant for everything to be supreme tactical hiveminds that go straight for throat cuts the second a pc gets downed.

And that's a form of fudging - it's just that is what everyone expects from the game. In the real world a pack of dogs doesn't stop attacking the downed 'target' because they stop moving - and intelligent animals (Humans) will obviously co-ordinate to best effect.

I even agree that it's a *brutal hardcore* mode of play - but it does expose the truth behind play - that the GM is expected to play a *game* and not a brutal deathmarch - and in *many* cases that also means they are making sub-optimal choices for the NPC enemies to not overwhelm the players.

That's fudging - it's just want everyone accepts as part of the game - if you accept that the GM is going to make calls for the game to keep the 'fun/excitement/fairness' and that it's still a game and not a simulation - then you can't (in good faith) get righteous because they change the outcome of something.

The game even encourages this - with secret rolls. If 'fudging' was such a sin against the game - all rolls would be encouraged to be open and in front of the players (many groups *DO THIS* because they are so against fudging). You can't however - have secret rolls and encouraged adjudication without accepting that the GM can modify the results and you wouldn't know.

mcintma wrote:

Playing a Wizard I've found you'd better hope your DM rolls bad on saves and does not fudge crit fails (IME alot of DMs do this)

Then you're playing with s#!+ty GMs. Fudging to take away crits from the PCs is pretty much the definition of a bad GM, and not something wrong with the system.

Fudging can be fine if the whole group is on board with it, but doing so to take away PC successes? Absolutely not okay at all.

I did have to respond to this - because he one playtester that documented and went out of their way to not fudge *ever* (Collette) got ROASTED because her table plays *brutal hardcore*.

The *OVERWHELMING* consensus of the vast majority of the game (including the Devs who while validating she had a right to play that way - admitted they don't balance for that kind of play) assume that the GM is fudging in some way to keep the game balance in check.

That absolutely will go both ways in any normal game - you can't 'take it easy' on the players without *accepting* that you alter the dice rolls on occasion.

Ravingdork wrote:

For now anyways. As more options are released, this may well change.

And we are discussing now, not some imaginary future.

Also, there's plenty of ways now to get Expert in Crafting on level 2 via taking various Archetypes.

So what you are saying is - that right now - Wizards have no feats worth taking at all at level 3 - so they should go for a skill feat instead - because that's actually useful.

Well it's nice that you participated in what the thread is about - in a odd way - but that does go to show how lackluster wizard feats are I guess.

I mean... "When everyone else agonizes over cool choices your best option is to go for a skill feat!" at least makes me feel like the thread topic is on point.

I would LOVE to see a developer response to this since I think, RAW, you are absolutely right, but I nevertheless don't believe it was ever the developers'intent.

PF1 - however same issue - and Return of the Runelords volume 1) part 4 page 51.

If you would rather not read adventure text - the gist is that they recommend an xp cap for certain monsters and to award xp if they are avoided.

Detect Evil being at will was needed because Smite Evil had so few uses.

The simpler - and much more elegant solution to this - would have been to just have smite *not be used* if it was attempted to an invalid target.

Sometimes a DC is set because that's the intended objective difficulty and there is no particular expectation being made of how likely the PCs are to succeed.

Sometimes a DC is set because the desired chance of success is known - effectively it's just saying "there is an X% chance of this", but allowing for outliers and not calling for a different die roll than players are used to. That's what DCs that scale relative to the level of the character making the check are.

Well that would be cool if the devs didn't emphatically state that wouldn't happen in PF2 adventures (there wasn't a "society might be different" or anything).

I feel like this is the same argument - had over and over - there seem to be two camps playing the game:

Camp 1: Wants to level up and be better at what they do - even to the point that they are the best and can easily do what others have a hard time doing.

Camp 2: Wants every single roll to be a nail biting challenge.

I mean PF2 is already geared at camp 2 - does recognizing a pattern really deserve to get harder because you are higher level?

Wait a minute. Is General Azaersi portrayed just like the First Edition hobgoblins in Lost Omens World Guide? If that's the case, then I would be very sad. I really anticipated to see her new look. :(

Oprak - which you would presume features her on the throne - is done in the new hob art.

Her head shot looks like her image from Iron Fang 6.

So my party went after the goblins first - they are still level 2 (I gave them enough exp to level up but have not rested yet) - and have pushed down into the tunnel just to the 'gauntlet'.

My question is with the 3 heavy hitting casters - I don't want to overwhelm my party here - I'm thinking that the chief will race to attack once the fight starts - but I'll be making him roll perception checks along with time to get 'to' the fight.

The snake based on the writeup I think will stay hidden until the chief looks like he's in trouble - I'm just unsure about this and when/how to explain the snake.

The witch.. well that one has me nervous - the potion of fly really changes the game up on that encounter - the only saving grace is the writeup really gives a good reason why the witch won't rush to aid anything else going on - given her being shunned from the other goblins.

Still - I'm expecting this to be a really tough fight for my group and wondering how it panned out for others.

Midnight Anarch wrote:

Also, for so many reasons, this (also from Ironfang) says "Hobgoblin soldier" better than the new hob-soldier art, which as I've said elsewhere, looks more like a hobgoblin got his head stuffed inside his armor and had a goblin shoved down to fill the space instead. Again, I get the logic but the end result still manages to come across as bizarre and unfitting to the race.

Your "hobgoblin soldier" looks indistinguishable from an orc to me.

Well if you look up the orcs you'll see they now look like Mangalores from Fifth Element.

I'm very happy to hear that about the ogres btw.

Indagare wrote:

I think that it's a pretty interesting look, and I'm glad that they're trying to keep the Goblinoids thematic instead of them looking like completely different species.

For my part, I always liked the Hobgoblins who looked like burly, hirsute Elves (as can be seen here), and if I had a vote, I'd want all of the Goblinoids to have this sort of look.

That's a great look for a hobgoblin. It's also the 3rd edition D&D look for a hobgoblin, and that means we want ours to look VERY different. Which is a big part of why we went the route we did.

James - a bit OT but why did you change the Ogres then? PF1 Ogres had a distinct look that - frankly I thought was a better 'Paizo' identity than goblins - but they are now back to 'generic ogres'. Seeing this answer - I want to accept it but then I think 'ogre' and go ... huh?

/sigh

Faenor wrote:

I think they should rush to release an Unchained book to fix the Alchemist and maybe even rush to release a 3rd edition which would be the 5e of Pathfinder (PF2 being its 4e so far) /s

Tried 5e. It was icky. This is much more enjoyable so far.

Edition wars are really not helpful. I do bring up old editions, and I try to do so in context to stop these 'it was never this way' arguments that ignore old farts like me and want to make our feelings about changes invalid. Change is a process and does require people time to 'feel' the change to process it - trying to stifle every negative voice doesn't bring them around to how you think - it just shoves them away.

That said - 5e is a fine game, and if you played it you should easily see how many of the new shiny bits from PF2 are iterations on themes from 5e. The two bits of the game that are brightly unique are the 3 action combat system and the rigid design language. Both I think are great additions to the genre.

It's not a bad thing to be influenced or to borrow from you know - most songs are just past songs with new bits (for example) it's not the influence or idea that is borrowed - it's what you do with them, it doesn't hurt PF2 to acknowledge these things.

Ckorik wrote:

FAQ's (like old) answered quickly - but never as 'an' answer - always as 'we suggest using this as an answer - if you don't like X the dev team considers Y valid as well - and we saw solution Z in the posts that seems like a good fit - pick what works for your table until/if an official rule change is made

Why? "Table solutions" are already a given with the nature of the game itself. Being vague or wishy washy just leaves people who for whatever reason are looking for clear official guidance with nothing to really work with.

If you want official hard code answers to things - then experience would say you will get to spend much time without any answers.

To be fair to the PF2 ruleset - so far there are less ambiguous areas of the rules, but it's new and shiney - ask again in 3-4 years when the first set of tires needs to be changed and there are a couple of leaky gaskets :)

But "devs chime in on the forums to give official answers" is a bad way to go about it since that particular information would not disseminate very quickly among all people who would like to know it (most Pathfinder players are not here.)

Boy-o-Boy - well do we need official answers? Is the game better if communication is only for official fixes and hard errata ok'd by committee to print?

Other editions of the game did just fine when rules questions were not answered and people were forced to invent solutions, or if there was an answer it was in a 3rd party magazine that not everyone had access to (nor was it easy to search until much, much later).

Now if there is a very bad issue (for sake of argument) lets say the mutagenest issue qualifies, then perhaps that is the way to go. I'd sure has heck like to see more frequent responses that aren't held to 'but the devs said x' - heck if we are going to opine (and what else are we doing here but that) consider this:

NEW FAQ SYSTEM/ERRATA for PF2 (suggested):

FAQ's (like old) answered quickly - but never as 'an' answer - always as 'we suggest using this as an answer - if you don't like X the dev team considers Y valid as well - and we saw solution Z in the posts that seems like a good fit - pick what works for your table until/if an official rule change is made

Errata: Released as Paizo feels the need - this would be reserved for big bad issues that actually change a fundamental fact or rule - crane wing nerf or changes to the shifter fall under these. Errata of this kind should be easy to find - and possibly kept in a single document for all products as a PDF - thus you could check a single source for anything owned.

And then we players could get the best of both worlds - simple answers on how to run the game on complicated or unsure wording - without the devs having to 'hard line' to answer a question - and real hard answers when the problem is actually affecting the health of the game.

/my two cents.

Do you have a source for that quote?

James Jacobs on Second darkness

1) The info about "ALL DROW ARE EVIL" in Second Darkness was from a pre-Pathfinder era where we were facing a culture of gamers who were VERY resistant to the idea of Paizo trying to pawn off a Driz'zt clone to cash in on that character's success, plus we wanted to make sure that what we were doing with drow wasn't trying to cash in on a lot of what Wizards of the Coast was doing with them at the time, so we focused back on the early incarnation of them in the game as demon-worshiping bad guy elves. Since then' we've gone through two edition changes and over a decade of real-world changes, and that information is no longer accurate. There can be good drow, and as folks have mentioned, there's plenty of examples in Golarion of them. Furthermore, as you'll see in the Bestiary, drow have lilac flesh tones now

That surprised me - because I always figured it was cannon (I never had an issue with 'good' drow despite that. But I'll respect what he's saying here and not use it as a source for 'Pathfinder'.

i'm not sure where you got this from.

Because I can't find a contradicting source anywhere and I have no idea where you got the idea that Advance Race Guide was wrong from. I do see they changed it for the PF2 Bestiary (kind of - it implies that a true Dhamphir child is rare) so I don't doubt they changed it, or that the book was wrong, I'm just not sure where that information was published, and where you got the statement that Advance Race Guide was wrong.

No no no, you don't get to exclude it just because it was using 3.5's rules.

I didn't - I exclude it because JJ said it was not pathfinder and should not be used as a cannon source.

It's more accurate if anything since it's set on Golarion, where Bestiary 1 and the ARG are world neutral.

Not according to the official source.

Paizo didn't drop the world neutral stance till Bestiary 6 and Planar Adventures. The ARG was written under a world neutral mindset and thus has conflicting info in places, such as the aforementioned state of Dhampirs.

When looking at the info for Dhampirs - it matches what is in 'blood of the night' - the only place it's changed is PF2. I have no idea where you are getting your information from - but if it's JJ - I wonder why you accept his word for Dhampirs and not for Drow.

As for actual "canon" have you ever seen Paizo illustrate a black Drow in Golarion?

Nope. Have no idea why that's relevant at all - I never complained about the art (I loathe the new Ogres in PF2 - because the old ones were unique and cool - but the drow art is pretty badass IMO) - I'm also not asking for drow to be black. I don't understand why that's relevant. This isn't the first time I've said this either.

Yes, English can be weird. It can be understood through tough thorough thought, though.

1) Advanced Race Guide was world neutral with plenty of nebulous information. Like:

2) Dhampir being unable to breed and not being an actual race.

"Drow have dark skin, ranging from black to a hazy purple hue. Most drow have white or silver hair and white or red eyes, but other colors are not unheard of" - PF1 Bestiary pg 114.

The only PF books that describe the drow - are in agreement - other books (like second darkness) are officially not pathfinder.

Black->Purple includes reds and pinks - grey and lots of shades.

"Elves who dwell in a region for long find themselves physically adapting to match their surroundings, most noticeably taking on coloration reflecting the local environment" - PF1 Core - pg 22.

I've never had anyone ever suggest before that the Advance Race Guide wasn't cannon - but after checking - I find that the information matches other sources 100%. Are you just assuming things?

Here's the thing: this is Paizo's game.

No one is disputing this - this is a feedback thread for future content - if you can't understand that please stop - this isn't a b#&&% thread.

You can whine and moan as much as you want about how they're retconning

I'm not moaning about retconning at all - perhaps you meant to respond to someone else - even if so - comport yourself accordingly.

Now Paizo has explained the change. They didn't like the way Drow looked in 1st edition and have used the edition change to change that.

Don't have an issue with that.

Now they're trying to appease everyone by being all wishy washy about it and saying "Oh there's a range. Drow can be dark purple, but we're not using that as the default colour anymore"

This has Not been said.

You can either accept what Paizo has done. Or you can reject it. What you can't do is say "Paizo is wrong! Golarion Drow are <blah>." Because at the end of the day only Paizo gets to say Drow are or aren't in their official products.

Or you can provide feedback and correct the numerous people who keep making statements out of thin air with no facts behind them. Like inventing quotes about range of colors - heck the entire post you quoted was to point out that PF1 did have a range of colors (contrary to what the previous poster had said) - Please re-read the thread you quoted and the previous posters quote to achieve that comprehension.

I personally like traditional D&D drow.

Good for you - I don't - I like Paizo's better and wish they would have done away with the entire 'torture demon death' vibe entirely - especially the matriarchy which was way more a "Forgotten Realms" invention than Good Drow. That isn't what this thread is about.

Ckorik wrote:

Cthulhusquatch wrote:

. And darker skin tones are still canon. It was mentioned there are different ones among drow.

Not currently. Currently they are all lavender - PF1 had a range of colors and that is officially now *not cannon*.

The range of colors was blue and purple.

Lavender comes in blue and purple.

That is not true now - nor was it true in PF1. I've quoted this before in this thread - "Drow skin ranges from coal black to a dusky purple." - PF Advanced Race Guide pg. 102.

Going to the pantone color guide - black to purple includes alot of grey, blue, pink, etc.

Elves are: "The coloration of elves as a whole varies wildly, and is much more diverse than that of human populations. However, as their coloration often matches their surroundings," - PF Advanced Race Guide pg. 20

The bold is my own - and gives weight to the consideration that the environment colored the drow and not the 'transformation'.

. And darker skin tones are still canon. It was mentioned there are different ones among drow.

Not currently. Currently they are all lavender - PF1 had a range of colors and that is officially now *not cannon*.

If you think it's reasonable to allow a range of hues when making a player character - please - by all means - voice your support, or conversely - say you support monocolor drow - that's fine also - but pointing at what 'was' when there was an intentional change to the 'was' is unhelpful. It's even more unhelpful to suggest people just run what they want - in a thread trying to provide feedback before the ancestry is officially published.

Providing that feedback - is literally the entire point of this thread.

FrostFox wrote:

MaxAstro wrote:

In the gnoll thread, JJ confirmed that drow skin tone is not universal; the artwork in the Bestiary is simply the most common/iconic skin tone.

"With each new drow we illustrate, I absolutely DO expect the shades to vary. But with one illustration, or even two (as you get in this book), when they're intended to serve as baselines and references four our artists as well as the first impression for tens of thousands if not more newcomers to the game... we only get that one chance."

So the baby blue elves are going to be the Drow baseline going forward.

Are we disagreeing? That seems like we are saying the same thing.

I am - mostly based on context of that post being about illustrations (which is a vary reasonable take - artists don't exactly chroma-match when making art) - and the bestiary saying the are a single mono color.

"their flesh adopted an unearthly lavender sheen that made the drow instantly recognizable." (PF2 Monster Manual - pg 136).

Which is fine for the monster entry - but if we are going to posit a discussion for the ancestry to come I believe it's worth noting that mono-shade is the only part I really dislike. Based on the many posters seeming to argue that 1) that's not what the monster manual means even though JJ said it was and 2) JJ was talking about other colors just not the art - when the context of that quote seems to be the opposite based on the text and previous statements it seems that many of us are in agreement with the idea - but just want to (apparently) argue that I'm wrong for suggesting they won't have shades when the ancestry is published.

To the argument about what JJ meant... whatever - if he wants to clarify his statement that's up to him - to the fact that I think they should have other colors available if they will be used as a player race - if you agree then just show support - the arguing over semantics isn't going to present a clear voice.

I mean the choice is "Lavender and/or shades of lavender perhaps" or "I really hope that the ancestry allows for more than one color - even if the art and monster entries don't".

Then of course you have "I'll do what I want so I'm going to come in and poop on this thread because I'm bored - GM FIAT RULES" also tossed in - which is very constructive in a thread about ... the changes to the drow race as feedback.

So whatever - I made my point I think.

Drow should be the color of blind cave salamanders and I will GM fiat whatever the books say anyway.

I would be good with that.

blind cave salamander coloring: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_salamander#/media/File:Speleomantes_supr amontis02.jpg

and goblins are green.

Not always. "Their skin ranges from green to gray to blue" PF2 CRB Page 46

If their coloring overlaps with non-evil/surface elves then why even have Drow at all? Just make them Cavern variety elves.

For many reasons:

• Because then it automatically means 'non-elves' can't look at skin color and assume something
  
• Because it means that drow coloring is influenced by the underdark but not because they are 'evil'
  
• Because we could not have drow as a race (and instead just be a type of elf) but we don't - because lore reasons. Honestly the way Pathfinder made elves space aliens I'd have been happier if drow were just another type of space alien instead of 'sworn to demonlords and turned to evil' - but that ship sailed long ago (alas).
  
• Because Cave Elf isn't a race - it's a heritage (see pervious point).
  

I dunno - if it's hard to tell 'drow' apart to the surface world then it makes it easier to integrate them into the game. But this thread was about discussing the rebranding of the drow - I didn't come in here for 'DEFEND YOUR OPINION 101' - I mean you are welcome to your own and all that but even without all the above I don't expect any race to be a single mono color - ever.

As an aside - I didn't see JJ say they would be shades - I saw him say 'lavendar over lilac they can't be both' - and I think.. why not both?

To be fair, artist are notorious in terms of not sticking to bestiary designs. I mean thats how catfolk went from catgirls to "catgirls and khajit". And why Barbatos doesn't anymore have seven fingers specifically.

Like I'm sure there is gonna be arts of drow with multiple shades of blue

I'm more talking about JJ saying they would be lilac - I don't mind if that's the 'norm' I just hope that the ancestry or heritage lets them overlap with surface elf coloring a bit - perhaps that wasn't intended in PF1 - but it made sense to me. Frankly I'd be ok with surface elves changing to have lilac colors available also if that's the hangup - as 'space aliens' they shouldn't really need to conform to standard human hues.

Well surface elves can be black - it makes being a drow easier to disguise on the surface honestly.

I don't really care that they are changing - however that they are I guess I would hope for:

• That there is some overlap between surface and drow coloration - making it much harder for 'non elves' to even know for sure
  
• That they aren't all a single color - that's just ... wrong to me on so many levels - they weren't a single color in PF1 ("Drow skin ranges
  from coal black to a dusky purple." - Advance Race Guide) and honestly I'd be very dissappointed if they are monocolor.

That's about all I can say about it.

As someone who owns Hero Lab for PF1 with *every* option - I have 0 plans to use Hero Lab online - I did try it - and I've found Fantasy Grounds does a better job building a character than it does - which says quite a bit as Fantasy Grounds is *not* a character builder.

Just my two cents.

I've also converted 3rd party stuff into Hero Lab classic - so I really invested in that system - it's very frustrating/sad to see it go away.

I'd be willing to buy an entire book dedicated to elves. Also for dwarves.

I still want to see Minotaur, Ogre/Giantkin, Troll, any and all large races that never were touched in 3.5 due to weapon size issues.