ClanPsi's page

*I posted this in another thread, but thought it might deserve its own.*

I was under the impression that the activity you do during Exploration Mode is used to determine your initiative at the start of a battle. Specifically, the roll you make to determine how good you are at that activity is also your initiative roll. That's how my group has been doing it and it works fantastically well - combat starts so organically - but it appears we may be playing it wrong.
Under Avoid Notice it says to make a separate Stealth roll at the beginning of combat to use as your initiative. Why? That character has already rolled a Stealth check. Why are they rolling another one? Am I fundamentally misunderstanding something? How do you play it?

I was under the impression that the activity you do during Exploration Mode is used to determine your initiative at the start of a battle. Specifically, the roll you make to determine how good you are at that activity is also your initiative roll. That's how my group has been doing it and it works fantastically well - combat starts so organically - but it appears we may be playing it wrong.
Under Avoid Notice it says to make a separate Stealth roll at the beginning of combat to use as your initiative. Why? That character has already rolled a Stealth check. Why are they rolling another one? Am I fundamentally misunderstanding something?

"Pathfinder Second Edition does not include one single sentence or rule carried over directly from first edition."

Except for, you know, the entire prepared casting system. It's straight out of the year 2000.

Another way to think of it, is if you apply the "over other diagonal costs 10ft" rule then 10ft reach should only reach the corner adjacent to your character. 15ft would get the second corner from your character. 20ft gets 3 (5+10+5). 30 gets 4 (5+10+5+10).

But 10ft gets an exception because it has a weird consequence that others don't, which is getting past someones reach without provoking.

So what you're saying is that I'm right and the other two are wrong, since that's exactly what I've been saying.

p455 it says: "Reach greater than 10 feet is measured normally; 20-foot reach can reach 3 squares diagonally, 25-foot reach can reach 4, and so on."

I believe it should read: "... 30-foot reach can reach 4, and so on."

Counting diagonally:
5+10+5+10+...

5 feet
15 feet (exception)
20 feet
30 feet

@ShadowShackleton Oh okay, thanks for the clarification. It's good to hear from an actual developer on the matter. I'm glad you're here to give us a definitive answer. -_-

@SuperBidi Is there a FAQ? The only one I know about was during a live stream a few weeks ago.

it all depends when you start to add 5 or when you start to add 10 ft to the diagonals.

since we have the "10ft reach is 2, 20 ft is 3, 25ft is 4, etc" quote, it's just that:

natural reach: 1 diagonal
10ft reach(+5): 2 diagonals
20ft reach (+10): 3 diagonals
25ft reach (+5): 4 diagonals
35ft reach (+10): 5
40ft reach (+5): 6
etc

so it does follow the expected progression.

Why would you count 10 as +5, though? It says "normally after 10 feet." Normally after 10 feet would imply that 10 is 0, which would be:

Since that's absolutely ridiculous, it's a lot more sensible to presume that Paizo just made a typing error, especially considering the inconceivably large number of other mistakes throughout the CRB.

Grid distance diagonally goes by 5-10-5-10-etc

The part of the sentence you cut:
"Unlike with measuring most distances, 10-foot reach can reach 2 squares diagonally"

Sets an exception.

And then continues to explain that AFTER the exception, Reach is measured like Range.

Hence 25 and not 30

If that were true then 15 feet would be 3 squares and 25 feet would be 4 squares, since it would be 5-10-5-10 starting from 10 feet. It specifically calls out 20 feet, though, which seems to point more towards my interpretation being the intended result.

Personally, I'd endeavor to never use a spell as a second attack because I really want it to land, especially if I'm burning a slot. So this doesn't seem like it will come up very much anyway.

Probably not that often. I was thinking of the situation where you take down an enemy adjacent to you with your first action and want to cantrip something at range afterwards.

That's pretty silly.

Can you give a page number, please?

On p455 it says: "Reach greater than 10 feet is measured normally; 20-foot reach can reach 3 squares diagonally, 25-foot reach can reach 4, and so on."

I believe it should read: "... 30-foot reach can reach 4, and so on."

Speaking of which, why is there no thread for posting mistakes for future erratas? Paizo, please add one.

I know that attack spells contribute to MAP, but since they essentially just involve waiving your hands around, are they considered agile? For example, if you attack with a sword with your first action, would your second and third actions being used as a spell attack be at -4? It seems like the most sensible conclusion given that unarmed attacks and light weapons are all agile.

Why would they be worse? I bought these specifically for the pictures to help my students understand what each condition is.

Why would they be worse? I bought these expecting them to be similar.

I just got the condition Cards pack. I was led to believe each card was going to have nice Goblin art on them, but mine show nothing but text. WTF is going on?

A description of what each special material does is on p.578

That's why I'm wondering if it's a printing error. It seems like the bit about resting should have been added a lot earlier and not at level 19.

The ability lets a Ranger sleep in light or medium armour without being fatigued the next day. That's cool. Why is this ability level 19? The campaign is ending in two sessions by the time you get it. The Ranger should get this ability at level 1.

This article begs the question: How long until Hobgoblins and Bugbears get playable stats?

Gorbacz wrote:

It's been great 10 years Varisia, but you've been done to death.

There'll never be enough Varisia material for me.

The Lost Omens world book was announced a couple of months ago. Did you miss it?

With Paizo using OGL, how does Intellectual Property work with respect to classes in their books? Some dude is charging real money for a 5e conversation of the Slayer class in the APG. Isn't that illegal? Wizards seems perfectly okay with it, but they are pretty much pond scum.

https://www.dmsguild.com/m/product/276205

Thank you very much for the heads up!

bookdepository is cheaper for Japan, but I don't know about other countries.

Arcanist-style spellcasting, exclusive NPC classes for all playable ancestries...

That's what I can think up as of now.

YES! Prepared spellcasters should have been this from the start. All spells should be spontaneously heightenable, too.

Of course, this would require Sorcerers to get more unique abilities, which I'm all for.

I hope I'm wrong, but it seems from the wording of the DM that you still have to prepare each individual casting of a spell, and that you have to decide at the beginning of the day whether or not you want to prepare a spell at a higher spell level.
Again, I hope I'm wrong, but if this is the case... that is SO BAD!!! >_<

I was going to contact directly, but I figured I'm not the only one with this problem, so hopefully starting a thread helps more people.

What is the best way to go about getting the English version of the 2e books in August while living in a non-English speaking country? I live in Japan, so every TRPG book I've seen sold in stores is always in Japanese. Ordering from Canada or the US is possible, but international shipping is often quite pricey. Are we able to order directly from you and not have to pay international shipping? I'd be willing to pre-order now in order for you to group my English books in together with the larger shipment of Japanese books.

Even 5E has Medium playable dragons from the start (albeit without wings and breath severely limited), PF2 should have at least a Small one as soon as possible!

Dragonborn are the single worst thing in D&D. They're nothing but an appeasement of whiny nerds crying that they couldn't play a dragon PC without taking a 10-level prestige class. I don't want that sh*t anywhere near Pathfinder.

Except that in 5e a level 1 can hit a lvl 20 enemy with AC 20 a good 25 percent of the time.

So? In PF1, a level 1 Wizard can hit a level 20 enemy with TAC 9 an astonishing 75% of the time. What's your point?

The struggle to use that 20% maxed out features as often as possible hid the treadmill in PF1. Every opponent had a weakness where they were not maxed out and one style of combat especially common among wizards who targeted saving throws was to figure out...

I really hope they've addressed this, because they fundamentally failed at this in the playtest. None of the monsters felt unique and interesting at all, and none had any interesting abilities. I routinely thought: "Okay, what cool thing can they do this turn. ... alright, I guess I'll just attack. -_-"

Sure, these numbers are rough and only based on what little i know about the system, but you can see which feels more epic and fun

My problem with this is I've personally experienced having a super OP character who just destroys everything (Thanks, Bloodrager. You broke PF1) and it isn't fun. Like, at all. It's extremely boring when there's no challenge or threat, so the kobolds existing at all in the second part of your example is stupid and pointless. With +level to everything, every single enemy in the game is a single-use paper plate. You use it once, then throw it away. It's awful game design.

... However, removing +level should be very easy to do for those who wish to do so.

That's actually a really good idea! I just checked the Beastiary and it gives the level of the monster in the description. For example, Banshee are Uncommon Monster 13, so it's easy enough to just minus 13 from everything. Nice!

I haven't heard anything, but I sure hope so. Proficiency is more than enough. Just have UTEML at 0-2-4-6-8 and leave it at that. It'd be so clean and nice.

I pretty much agree with you 100%. I love the action system, and class feats are a neat idea, but I capital-h HATE how everything in the game scales with level. It's the most boring, uninspired design I've ever seen. As others here have mentioned, I also hate feat taxes. Why feats are pretty much the only thing in the game which don't scale with level is beyond my understanding.

A neat solution would be to give almost every class and monster some kind of reaction, but have them all be unique.

As many on these forums, including myself, have been suggesting ever since the rules first released, the way magic is being handled is less than optimal. 5e introduced a fantastic re-work of how magic preparation and casting is handled. Prepared casters can prepare a certain number of spells each day, and can use their spell slots (equal to or greater than the spell's level) to cast any of those spells. Heightening was spontaneous, with similar effects from spells as there are in the Playtest for casting using higher levels spell slots. Casters who spontaneously cast, such as sorcerers, were given extra special abilities to greater differentiate themselves. It also alleviates the need for boring, uninspired abilities such as a Sorcerer's "Spontaneous Heighten" (which isn't spontaneous AT ALL) and a Wizard's "Quick Preparation."

So my suggestion/question now is: Can we get a special mini-playtest, similar to what you did with Resonance, to test out a new and improved form of spellcasting? I know changing the entire rulebook right now isn't particularly feasible, so a mini-playtest 1-off with a small selection of spells would be the perfect opportunity to experiment with what is a vastly superior magic system to the antiquated rules the Pathfinder Playtest has currently.

Some people may say the prefer the PF1 system, and that's fine. They don't have to play PF2 if they enjoy PF1 more. The point of PF2 is to improve upon the previous edition, and making magic both more interesting and more enjoyable to play is extremely important for the future of Pathfinder. I believe this would also solve your current problem of people thinking magic is not as powerful as it should be, since introducing this system opens up a lot of opportunities for spellcasters that don't exist currently (for example, actually being able to prepare some non-combat spells without feeling like you're handicapping yourself).

I just ran a session where sleeping for the night healed everyone to full, but Treat Wounds was extended to an hour so they wouldn't spam it. It worked fantastically and everyone enjoyed the session a lot more because of it. Everything just went so much more smoothly, but there were still plenty of clutch moments.

I REALLY like the Kineticist suggestions. I always felt like Kineticists were the most Sorcerer-like class in PF1. Making them a base class in PF2 would be SO AWESOME!!!

I completely agree that Sorcerers are boring. They get to choose spell lists, which is neat, but that's it. Nothing else about them is interesting. 5e made Sorcerers super f*cking cool and unique, why can't PF2?

I can't give a definitive answer, but in PF1 Sneak Attack wouldn't apply to the second attack, so presumably it's the same in the playtest.

PF Playtest hero points are dumb. There's really no good reason to ever use them for anything other than stablising before death.

I really like how Eberron implemented them, though, by essentially being what are now Fighter Superiority Dice. Give an extra +1d6 to any d20 roll.

Changing to 5e-style casting would solve so many issues I have with magic in the playtest. That is, Arcanist-style preparation and casting as well as spontaneous spell heightening.

This would also necessitate a change in Sorcerers, which I am all for. As it stands now Sorcerers are not unique enough. Bloodlines with specific spell lists are a step in the right direction, but they need more. 5e gave them Metamagic; doing something similar would be nice.

One thing the magic survey never touched on was Heightening. The way it's done right now is awful. There's no good reason why it should be limited as it is now. Just let all casters spontaneously heighten their spells and magic will become a lot more fun and interesting.

I'd also like to see prepare-per-cast disappear. Just steal 5e's magic system. It's super clean and works perfectly.

Flanking rules as written are, as in D&D 3e and PF1, kind of dumb because the "flank" is the left or right, not behind. 5e, on the other hand, completely got rid of it, which I don't really like either.

Currently the rules read:
"A line drawn between the center of your space to the center of your ally’s space must pass through either opposite sides or opposite corners of the enemy’s space."

Suggestion - Change the rules to the following:

"A line drawn between the center of your space to the center of your ally's space passes through your opponent's space."

Then you can flank from the side, which is what flanking is. There's no logical reason why flanking should require two people to be on opposite sides. It is the most advantageous position to be in, yes, but it isn't necessary to gain a combat advantage against an opponent.

I must admit, it never occurred to me to just use Treat Wounds over and over again. My group was treating it like a Short Rest in 5e where you only do it once between encounters if you really need to. Personally I like that idea better than using Treat Wounds ten times in a row. Just make it super good and only allow it to me used once or twice a day. Also, make sleeping better.

Sleeping gives Con Mod x Level healing. Treat Wounds does the same with a tiny chance of more on a critical success.
What?! Why is it so awful? It's on average 10% of your max hit points, or in other words half of one encounter. If a player doesn't boost Con then it's even less than that. You might as well not get any healing at all since it's almost completely useless.

Am I missing something important here? Why are the shoehorning everyone into boosting Con as high as they can? What's wrong with 5e's hit die system, and why doesn't Paizo adopt/adapt things that are proven to work well (I'm looking at you, Vancian spellcasting *glare*)? o_O

10 + Monster CR + Monster's highest stat bonus. Doesn't seem difficult to me, and like I said already, it could easily just be added to the stat blocks of every monster.

That being said, having Con / Fort Prof affect the flat check is a decent enough compromise.

The changed it from a Fort save based on what knocked you out to a flat death saving throw. Personally I don't like this change at all. It's exactly the same as 5e now, and I do not like 5e dying rules. It's just as easy to die from a dragon's breath weapon as it is to die from a level 0 goblin scratching your toe. I much preferred the 1.3 rules.

Suggestion: If people are having trouble calculating a monster's DC, why not just put it in the monster's stat line? Then you wouldn't have to write it under each individual monster ability either. It'd make it much simpler while still being unique and interesting.

My group ran In Pale Mountain's Shadow yesterday and my god, the quicksand encounter was an absolute slog. Here are some of the problems we encountered:

1) It says the Ankhrav nest is next to the quicksand, but the area is insanely big with tons of sinkholes. Is there an Ankhrav next to each one? If not, why does it just to happen to be right next to the one a PC falls into? Pretty unrealistic situation.

2) The PC who fell in was riding a camel. Is he just unaffected by the quicksand for the first 2-3 turns while the camel sinks?

3) The first thing the party did was throw a rope. There are no rules for how that interacts with the encounter. Can the party pull? Does it give the trapped PC a bonus? If so, what is the bonus? Is there a cumulative bonus for having more party members hold the rope? What if they tie it to a camel to help?

4) Does the Ankhrav even need to appear? Can't he just murder everyone from below in the sand? Is there a limit to how many times he can f*ck up everyone's armour? If no, why not?

Are other hazards this poorly thought out and written? If the rules are going to be this vague I highly suggest Paizo actually finish the rules before they release them to the public for testing. The more I read and play of the Playtest the more clear it becomes that Paizo has no idea what they're doing with PF2 with no clear vision.

It seems a lot of people here are only comparing Raise Shield to Strike, as if Strike is the only other option in combat. With all of the extra options classes in the playtest get, surely there is more to do than just Strike, and having these abilities I mentioned taking actions to prepare for significantly limits the number of cool actions you can take in combat.

@Fuzzypaws Hahaha, I know, right? It's ridiculous.

I'm okay with one action to ready a shield at the start of combat, but thereafter it should just work. The reaction is fine, re-raising it every turn has proven boring in practice. My players with shields rarely remember to actually raise it, or prefer to do other things with their turn.

I agree with this idea, and I would extend it to Dueling Parry as well (Though I'd like to see Dueling Parry made more interesting than just giving you an AC bonus equal to a shield. As written it's also really boring). It should grant its bonus until you use it for an attack or something like that.

...instead you can bring up your shield and protect yourself.

That's what the reaction for DR is for, and that makes sense. As I mentioned already, I love that idea.