Thank you very much for the heads up!
bookdepository is cheaper for Japan, but I don't know about other countries.
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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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
By the way: I love your user icon! Is that fox from something specific that I'm just not familiar with? I have no idea. Presumably it's just one of the stock options from the site which I selected way back when I created my account.
I really like how blocking with a shield is a reaction that grands DR, but can dent the shield. That's a fantastic option for combat. I also like how Half-Orcs can use their reaction to get a +1 bonus to spell saves. More options are almost never a bad thing, and both of these are great additions to the game. What I don't like, however, is having to spend an action to prepare for something that might not even happen. It's really boring and uninspired design, they don't make any sense (Why would someone be fighting with a shield but not be using it? Why would an Orc be more susceptible to magic if he isn't squinting his eyes or whatever the f*ck the preparation action implies they do?) and their benefits don't warrant an entire action in my opinion. My suggestion: Get rid of the preparation actions completely. For shields, give the AC bonus all the time and keep the reaction to raise it for DR.
I agree with people here that Int needs more uses. With the Focus change Cha is finally useful for everyone. Now Int is the de facto dump-stat for most classes. I don't like the idea of a dump stat, especially when you get four skill boosts at every 5th level.
I don't get the point of not showing maps. I run pre-made adventures because I don't want to spend the time being creative. If I wanted to create my own maps I'd make my own campaign along with them. Your maps were a fantastic help. Thank you!
You do now, thanks to update 1.4!
Versatile? Yes. Powerful, no, not even a little bit. Some first-level class feats are amazing. Getting an extra one is SUPER powerful.
I think it would be interesting to have ancestral abilities linked to regions. It doesn't have to be big, maybe a lore skill proficiency (if they every make a solid list of categories for the skill, anyway) or something like that.
As I mentioned already, I would much rather they drop distance and temperature measurements altogether and adopt a simpler system based on squares and temperature steps.
SWIM
AQUATIC COMBAT
As for concentration, I have no idea. It doesn't say you can't, which usually means it's okay.
That's a nice sheet! It's missing one part though: "Any time you lose the dying condition, you increase your wounded value by 1 if you already have the condition" You could probably just change it to: You had dying condition [Wounded +1] Also, what does "Hard difficulty skill DC of the monster's level" mean?
While nothing in the current rules allows this, I could see an action existing - "Steady" or what have you - where you spend an action doing nothing but reducing your MAP by one step. While the idea is nice, abilities to lesson MAP already exist (for example, Double Slice). As such, your "Steady" ability would make them redundant, which isn't something the developers want to do.
This emphasizes quite well how stupid everything scaling with level truly is. I'd much rather nothing scale than everything. People argue it's a better way of implementing skill points and BAB. I say get rid of it all and only have TEML proficiency (but re-worked to 0 . +2 . +4 . +6).
That's a good idea for temperature! They could even combine your idea with Themetricsystem's Sol idea and have something like: +3 Sols = Death from exposure in ?? minutes / ?? rounds.
Then players know exactly what happens to characters in extreme weather, and racial abilities for the Arctic Elf (I personally think it should be Mountain Dwarf) and Desert Dwarf (I personally think it should be Desert or Aquatic Elf) could have easier-to-understand descriptions, such as: "Ignore extreme weather penalties of -1 and -2 Sols."
I like this! Measure distances with squares and temperature with Sols.
I, like millions of other players from around the world, come from a country where the Metric system is used for measurements. I don't understand Imperial. I suggest putting two values on everything in the game. Keep Imperial if you must, but adding in the exact number is squares afterwards in parenthesis would be absolutely fantastic. Thus, 30ft movement would be: 30ft (6 squares) As for Fahrenheit, it is the most ridiculous measuring system ever created and doesn't belong in modern society. Please switch everything to Celsius. If you absolutely have to keep it (ugh...), then do something similar to what I suggest above and use parenthesis. It would look as such:
I think the system of changing your initiative to right before whoever knocked you out is interesting, but not without flaws. It's fine when it happens once, but in the first module, every single PC in my group ended up getting knocked out by the BBEG. That meant that by the end of the battle the initiative order had changed to: 17 16.4 16.3 16.2 16.1 16 It's probably okay for groups who play with cards for initiative, but we put order on a whiteboard. Constantly reordering is a huge pain in the butt.
Hopefully something interesting. Golarian is better than Forgotten Realms, but it's still a bit too bland for my tastes. Personally I love Warcraft Goblins, and am totally down with something like that in Pathfinder.
Elf Step is also f*cking awful. It should increase the number of difficult terrain square you can ignore to 2 in order to be useful.
Maybe I'm just too used to Eberron, where one of the most powerful sorcerers in the world is a Kobold. Eberron is so fantastic.
That's a really strange thing to say, since it's pretty much why stat boosts and ancestry feats exist in the first place. They're a mechanical representation of what an ancestry is fundamentally good at.
I agree. I wish Half-Elf was part of Elf with Human feat options, and Half-Orc was part of Orc (made into a new playable race) with Human feat options. That would free up Humans to have Aasimar and Tiefling as choices. I also really want to see Kobolds as a base playable race with Goblin stats and Goblins re-worked to make more logical sense (+2 Cha? What?!). It would be really unique because no game has ever done that before.
I actually just came to the forums to suggest changing Goblin stats to Kobold. It's really nice to see that quite a few people already agree with me. Goblins aren't charismatic, they're crafty. Thus, Goblins should be +Int. Kobolds are Sorcerers, so they should be +Cha.
I don't like your ability score modifiers for Flaws. I think all races should stick to the standard already established. As such, I do prefer the boost to Wis over Con. Most other things are pretty neat, but possibly a bit underpowered in comparison to options from other races. :)
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