Corwin Icewolf's page

I have actually played a druid a few times, but that usually involves me not fully engaging with the faith roleplay aspect...

I mean, what edicts are nature threatening to smite anyone for if they don't uphold them, right? Do not despoil nature? Kinda see that as fair.

And as many have noted, yeah there's lots of classes, I just feel like I'm always trauma locked into playing a character who was raised in a very orthodox environment and seeks arcane or occult power in rebellion. I've planned to play a few characters from rahadoum.

I did have chatgpt do a brief character origin roleplay last night where I played a character that was raised in a stompy, draconian insular village that was absurdly zealous toward Saerenrae. I guess Cult of the Dawnflower types, basically...

She was a good, kind hearted person at heart, and Saerenrae wanted her as a champion because of it, and because something something this character would do a lot of good as a champion... (It wasn't super deeply thought out...)

It helped? I think? dug stuff up to process, anyway... ugh... So I dunno... may or not play that character at some point. Might make more sense as an oracle either way, since she'd probably still have issues to work out.

Chill peeps. I will say that Castilliano is right about something.

The whole reason I wanted to try was because I'm losing out on playing quite a few classes and subclasses because trying to roleplay said character options feels inauthentic outside of a toxic framework, but while I can intellectually grasp that most clerics in Golarion are reasonable individuals, it's no balm for the wound.

To answer this question as well:

StarDragonJenn wrote:

Sure, but is a cleric having their own agency typically seen as a bug, as the divine magic essay implies, or are there canon clerics that would scoff at that essay? I think that's the bedrock of what I'm trying to ask.

No, Clerics and other religious characters having free will is very much a feature and not a bug, and the book explicitly mentions that the sect being quoted is uncharacteristically extreme in their zealotry

Pretty sure I addressed that in the original post. Silkas does acknowledge that they're crazy extreme, but he says they're crazy extreme because they think nethys is the only god who grants divine magic, or something. He doesn't say anything about their absolute submission thing, which gives the impression that he thinks that parts perfectly normal. In conclusion, the essays the problem I guess...

Maybe? But it wasn't until my third response that I interpreted it as looking at real-life faith so maybe it was worded fine if you were only looking at faith re: acting the part. (No method acting required BTW.)

I wasn't talking about understanding faith philosophically. Rather I feel as of late like something natural to being human may have been stolen from me.

Which... Even with all these logical arguments, my brain is sitting here screaming traumatized nonsense, so this was the wrong approach apparently...

And it feels like neither a mistake nor silly. We're discussing published material that's interfering with play for those with a common enough lived experience that there are scores of YouTube channels tackling it.* There are going to be other players with this issue who've perhaps felt too shy to address it or have avoided playing divine classes for similar reasons. I've known some. You're not alone.

And Paizo seeks this kind of input. They've created a trauma survivor risen to goddess and a powerful country defined by its struggle with the aftereffects of religious strife. This thread involves both, so you haven't gone astray with this.

True. Maybe someone further along than me reads this and it helps them more than me. Maybe someone not as far reads it and grows from it. That makes me feel a bit better...

And once again, thanks everyone. :)

Going back to the title of the thread, I don't think there is a way to understand faith through a roleplaying game.

Maybe that wasn't well worded...

But also maybe this was a mistake and kind of silly...

Thank you, everyone.

Thanks for the responses everyone. I mean it.

Deities have anathemas, if you break them you may lose spellcasting or other divine powers. That does not mean you are a servant without your own agency, and i am sure there are a lot of clerics that rate their own comforts a lot higher than executing the perceived will of a god or godess.

Sure, but is a cleric having their own agency typically seen as a bug, as the divine magic essay implies, or are there canon clerics that would scoff at that essay? I think that's the bedrock of what I'm trying to ask.

In short, the traditional archetype of the cleric is of a submissive devotee to a deity. But you don't have to stick to that. As long as you have a good background and do not seek to directly violate the anathemas of your deity, you can still, for some reason unknown to everyone but the deity, be blessed by the deity. Which can even make the character very interesting and open up many opportunities to tell interesting stories depending on the GM. But if you are still not satisfied, then choose another class. I don't mean to be offensive by this, but if the cleric doesn't appeal to you, there are plenty of alternative options.

This would be great advice if the reason I was considering doing this wasn't to reclaim/understand the thing that the cleric class is about. But okay... It seems like the consensus is that it's fine...

I've just always seen clerics played as being like 'Oh no, I didn't REALLY do anything, it was all my God,' as they're 1 hp away from death, which again seems self debasing.

If 'humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less,' then it should be able to coexist with a healthy level of pride. A cleric of saerenrae should be allowed to own the fact that they just nearly got themselves killed while fighting to help others, while acknowledging there's more to be done, IMO.

Quick context, my personal childhood experience with religion was... not positive.

No further detail needed, I suspect. But I've been thinking about trying to roleplay a cleric.

However any time I consider doing so, the idea of what a cleric is quickly shows up as a subservient, self debasing bootlicker in my head.

The Divine essay in Secrets of Magic... does not help.

I mean... it has a fundamentalist Nethys worshipper saying "Yeah, actually, you really do have to scoop out your brain and replace it with your deity's holy book to be a divine caster." And another worshipper of Nethys who acknowledges this as extreme, but doesn't really challenge the 'unthinking zealot' aspect of it.

Master Silkas protest seems to be 'Wait a minute, Other gods grant divine magic, too!' rather than 'Um... actually, you're not required to think that 2+2=5 just because your deity says so.'

I'm left wondering if there's space for a cleric that thinks like an individual at least a little bit. I mean there's the splinter faith feat, but even that doesn't quite seem to contradict the 'unthinking zealot' portrayal in the essay. If there's space for a Nietzschean-lite cleric who deliberately seeks out situations where their faith will be tested and deliberately pushes the limits of their deity's without breaking them, and with intent to refine them. Or just someone who sees their deity as a friend and confidant rather than a stompy master...

... There was a deity in a pfs scenario that would've been perfect for something like this named Roidira.

Course there's always Oracles if I did decide to go that route...

My main frustration with it is that I, after all this time, am still really confused as to what exactly is enforcing barbarians' anathema. And I'd rather they just be roleplaying guidelines than something where... I dunno... The platonic ideal of a giant gives you your rage and also takes away if you're insufficiently gianty.

Which is the best explanation I can come up with for why a barbarian needs to follow anathema. And explanations like that still feel rather goofy when applied to martial classes rather than spellcasting ones.

A kineticist isn't a satisfying "elemental wizard" to some people simply because it isn't called a wizard

Well... And probably because the kineticist isn't int based. For me at least, that's more important than the name.

The Raven Black wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

I did not notice familiars in Harry Potter unless Dobby was what was viewed as a familiar. If Dobby was a familiar, even he was far more powerful than any familiar in PF2.

Apparently the animals that each Wizard gets are officially supposed to be pets (you can buy them at the pets & familiars shop though). But the way they seem both linked to their specific Wizard and do not really act that much like typical animals really makes me think of familiars.

Did any of the main characters have them in the movies? I don't recall any . I only remember Dobby.

Harry's owl, Hedwig, was in the movies.

Corwin Icewolf wrote:

But patrons are so varied. Why would every single one provide access to only the occult list? Why would a patron who's, say... A kami not give the primal spell list?

It makes more sense to me as a pick a list.

You may as well say, "Deities are so varied. Why does every single one provide access to only the divine list? Why would a nature deity such as Gozreh not give the primal spell list?"

With clerics there's a built in answer that's pretty simple to understand. Both the divine list and clerics are tied to worship in a way the other spell lists and classes are not.

But there's nothing specifically tying witches to the occult list, and I don't see how tying it to that would give it more identity in and of itself like you're suggesting.

It could. Depending on how it was done. But they could also give witch it's own identity while retaining the pick a list aspect.

Squiggit wrote:

Occult only witch kills so many builds and fails to live up to the legacy of the original class and doesn't really give you anything positive in return. Hard pass.

It's about giving the witch its own identity. I don't see a lot of builds that use the witch class (and you didn't menion any), TBH, and "living up to the legacy of the original class" doesn't mean anything with regards to 2E's magic traditions.

The witch needs decent hex cantrips as a USP. I think it will get more familiar abilities instead, which are a lot of mental overhead for very little benefit, IMHO.

But patrons are so varied. Why would every single one provide access to only the occult list? Why would a patron who's, say... A kami not give the primal spell list?

It makes more sense to me as a pick a list.

The most hated casters were the super buffers and super debuffers because they trivialized the encounters. That was always bard and diviner wizards. They buffed bards and nerfed wizards, and here you are saying "the balance is good because it was Bard that they buffed". See the issue there?

I think that was because you could pile on 30 buff spells before a combat and stomp enemies 8 levels higher and probably about half of said buffs would still be active all day. As that's no longer a thing you can do, people don't have as big an issue with buffers.

As for the martials, fighter was buffed from "build-a-warrior" to "you can make a better wizard by playing a fighter with wizard dedication". Right now you can make an entire team of just fighters with archetypes and it will be a better party than most other combinations.

Yeah, no, I really disagree with this. Even if you take wizard dedication as a fighter, you're still a fighter. Your spells are likely relegated to buff spells because you don't have the int to make your save spells worth casting. And you might throw a cantrip at an enemy that's at range since it means not having to drop your sword and draw a bow. A fighter with wizard dedication plays very differently from a wizard.

Jacob Jett wrote:

And you have to think, most monsters are highly mobile and allergic to damage. So at best acid storm will do damage twice.

Being able to pressure monsters to avoid a given area is not a bad effect. You can also pre-cast terrain control spells, making acid storm great for an ambush or for defending an area you know enemies will have to come through later. Terrain control spells just have different balance considerations.

Especially if your party has ways of making another large area a bad option to be in.

Or if you're fighting in a room, cast resist energy acid a couple times and then cast it.

Cast it at a chokepoint and have the fighter stand in front of it.

Archers firing at you from above? Note that it has a range of 120 feet.

There are many ways that an ongoing large area damaging effect can be more useful than an instantaneous one, I guess is what I'm trying to say.

If we're going the animal hybrid route again, it'd be nice if they had some kind of modular monster or template so that we could literally have everything in this thread as an option.

A swarm of piranhacondas...hehe.

Heck yes! Just have a combined animal monster and give it modular abilities based on different animals.

Gorillapotamus, elephanturtle, rhinocemoose.

The only drawback is if the GM uses too many and it'd start to feel like they're copying ATLA...

The difference is the guy with the cards didn't have the resources to fight back. WotC likes a small target to bully; WoW could bully them right back.

I am curious about mimics, though. Mimics are super common in media, and the name is pretty generic. They might squeak by, but I bet the "stock mimic" art might stop being a chest, and the name might change. We'll see!

You don't think the fact that they're depicted in every video rpg ever as treasure chest monsters and are usually even called mimics will help?

I just feel like at this they're way too ubiquitous as treasure chest monsters to copyright.

Themetricsystem wrote:

Frankly, I think the best way to deal with the gripes about how Prepared Casters aren't flexible enough is to simply let them prepare more and/or give them ways to better customize, their existing prepared spells, not simply cave to the sentiment that they should be given more spontaneous-lite options.

Action-tax-free ways to boost/heighten/metamagic prepared spells using Focus Points would be a great option but in terms of bringing them closer to Sorc/Bard/Orc, nah, big no, that's moving in the wrong direction IMO, they need to make prepared casting more appealing and interesting, not just move them closer toward the schtick that defines other Classes.

I keep saying that they should bring back prepared metamagic as that was what made Wizards compete with Sorcerer despite Sorcerers having 6 spell slots. But every single time it gets shot down with "it was too powerful back then".

I still say people are vindictively against the Wizard being good because of some horror stories that aren't even the Wizard's fault.

As someone who's favorite class in 1e was the wizard, and who feels the 2e wizard is way too bland, mostly in the class feats department: I'm mostly against it because I never liked prepared metamagic. It's needlessly complicated, and unintuitive.

Then again, vancian casting is really unintuitive to begin with, but why add an entire other layer of unintuitive mess on top of that?

Corwin Icewolf wrote:

nephandys wrote:

How are you not able to build a convincing soldier with the Fighter chassis? I feel like a lot of people playing this game have surely done that before.

Yeah, that was gonna be my question. Like, legit question, what does the fighter need in order to be a soldier that it's missing?

To build a fighter as a soldier you have to select Hobgoblin for ancestry.

... Because?

Or you could sacrifice combat flexibility abilities to do things that look very similar to Hobgoblins' bespoke ancestry feats.

I... Then I guess my question is: what ancestry feats do hobgoblins have that are more soldiery than what fighters have?

Or maybe it should be: what flavor exactly are you looking for when you say "soldier?"

Corwin Icewolf wrote:

Say no to what? GMing? You have to do it to get better at it. Or say no to cackle?

Say no to reflavoring if you’re not comfortable with it rather than making it the book’s fault, going off your example.

It kind of is, though. I wouldn't have to worry about saying no or yes, were it named in a more flavor neutral way.

If you want to say "I'm batman" instead you can, even in PFS games!

I'm not sure that that is accurate.

Corwin Icewolf wrote:

If you're new to gming, you already have a hundred new things to learn and a billion things to focus on. Wanting to maintain simplicity at first is reasonable.

Then just say no instead of shoving the responsibility/blame elsewhere.

Say no to what? GMing? You have to do it to get better at it. Or say no to cackle?

Corwin Icewolf wrote:

drain bonded item doesn't force your character to sound like a complete and utter lunatic when used. And it's not so much about never laughing. I don't know if you've ever heard someone cackle, but cackling does. Cackling isn't just laughter, it's extremely loud and extremely annoying laughter and sounds like this. Even the most stern faced people might chuckle sometimes, but they wouldn't cackle.

The spell texts only says "With a quick burst of laughter, you prolong a magical effect you created. You Sustain a Spell". Nothing says that you need to "extremely loud and extremely annoying laughter and sounds like this". And in the end it's just a flavor text, the only thing that matters is that is verbal and that you Sustain a Spell. So don't matter! You can just smile while humming a laugh or cry instead of laugh it all will be valid to cackle!

The ability probably shouldn't be called cackle, then.

You can also laugh like a Ojou and Sustain a Spell! :D (ohohoho)

I'd argue that that is also cackling, so yeah definitely.

Though, slight off topic: It's been said that a cackle is to laughter what a shovel is to a face. If so, then that particular laugh is to a cackle what a cackle is to laughter.

Wizard needs massive upgrades all around:

* Skills the same as other casters.

I feel like they could take it or leave it, they already get a bunch from being int based, after all.

I mean, shoot, spare a thought for the sorcerers, they get 3 or 4 trained if they don't add anything to int.

* Reintroduction of prepared metamagic.

Hard disagree. Prepared metamagic wasn't particularly fun, and made everything a lot harder. Plus I'm pretty sure 2e wants to limit the advantages you get from being a system master, and I feel like that be harmful to that goal.

* Upgrades to existing school abilities.

Agree.

* More feats period (seriously, they have given wizards so few feats).

And more interesting feats. I'd like if the class feats they get can stand on their own in regards to flavor.

* More archetypes that actually care about Int and work with Wizard's proficiency. Way too many are more focused on literally any other class. (Only Con gets less love).

Would be nice.

* More poaching of other classes. If all other casters are going to get feats that let them take spells from any list, why are Wizards being left out when their thing is studying magic?

Yeah. Call a feat "elective studies" or something and let them pick from a handful of spells from other spell lists.

* Rebalance Thesis because right now some are clearly way too weak. Not to mention that Spell Substitution should had been either a feature or a feat if wizards had actual features.

I like spell substitution as a thesis. But a lot of them might need a boost, that's true.

* Related to more feat, more metamagics and way to modify said metamagic. As well as ways to modify spells period.

Seconding more metamagics.

* If spontaneous casters are going to get ways to get prepared spells, Wizards should have ways to get spontaneous spells.

Eh... Wizards kind of can do that by picking the flexible casting archetype. I'd rather they get feats to get a couple more prepared spells so they don't have to reach outside their class to do that.

Corwin Icewolf wrote:

Rysky wrote:

Bad GMs are gonna bad GM. No amount of rules are gonna change that.

(No idea what alignment has to do with stats)

They don't have to be a bad GM, they could just be an inexperienced GM.

Cackle wrote:

You can extend one of your spells with a quick burst of laughter.

Inexperienced GM: hmm... This gosh darned ability is called cackle and very specifically says "laughter." I'd like to let you chant, but I guess there must be a reason it's so specific.

Disappointed player: well dang it! Now my extremely serious, stern faced witch has to laugh hysterically like a dum dum every time they cast a spell!

That is a bad GM by your example.

GM: I’d like to let you but…

Player: what’s stopping you, you’re the GM?

If you're new to gming, you already have a hundred new things to learn and a billion things to focus on. Wanting to maintain simplicity at first is reasonable.

Interestingly, this is kind of the opposite of the 1st edition cackle problem. Since it was a supernatural ability, people weren't even sure if you had to make any noise, and it led to big ridiculous discussions quite like this one.

Clearly marking optional flavor text as optional actually sounds like a good way of dealing with this to me.

I am completely in favor of witches having Cackle as a class feature.

If your witch conceptually doesn't laugh, then she's probably exotic enough to also not have a familiar, or is a wizard, as much of pop culture ends up calling wizards as witches due to there not being a clear cultural distinction between them, like agent has within the RPG universe.

I am completely in favor of witches having Cackle as a class feature.

If your witch conceptually doesn't laugh, then she's probably exotic enough to also not have a familiar, or is a wizard, as much of pop culture ends up calling wizards witches due to there not being a clear cultural distinction between them, like agent has within the RPG universe.

The most important point here is the mechanical importance of the thing. Nobody complains about the mage having drain bounded item as a class feature even if conceptually the character has nothing really establishing that he should withdraw extra powers from an item, but they complain about the witch having cackle because the character they want to make doesn't want to laugh.

drain bonded item doesn't force your character to sound like a complete and utter lunatic when used. And it's not so much about never laughing. I don't know if you've ever heard someone cackle, but cackling does. Cackling isn't just laughter, it's extremely loud and extremely annoying laughter and sounds like this. Even the most stern faced people might chuckle sometimes, but they wouldn't cackle.

Bad GMs are gonna bad GM. No amount of rules are gonna change that.

(No idea what alignment has to do with stats)

They don't have to be a bad GM, they could just be an inexperienced GM.

You can extend one of your spells with a quick burst of laughter.

Inexperienced GM: hmm... This gosh darned ability is called cackle and very specifically says "laughter." I'd like to let you chant, but I guess there must be a reason it's so specific.

Disappointed player: well dang it! Now my extremely serious, stern faced witch has to laugh hysterically like a dum dum every time they cast a spell!

Huh. Every time I try to get it to gm something for me it tells me something like "as an AI language model, I can't serve as a full gm, but I can help you gm your own game by generating dungeons and npcs." So I guess you're lucky you even got what you did out of it. Heh.

When I saw the Anadi, I instantly wanted to play one. Shapechanging, intelligent spider PC? Count me in! Reading the class though, even after the errata, they are a very nerfed ancestry (still playing one for my first pf2e game ever!).

While an amazing concept with some cool lore, it’s clear the developer(s) that came up with it never went through a period in their life where they found spiders fascinating. I’ve seen some in this post mention pedipalps, which is a good step, but no one has mentioned that spiders have 2 claws on every foot, and web weaving spiders have 3, which they use to grip, climb and yes, manipulate things (read: fingers). While I don’t see them wielding a sword, the manipulate issue was only somewhat solved by the errata. I think a creature with 16-24 opposable thumbs can do a lot more manipulating than described. And surely, knowing how weak their fangs and venom were, an intelligent race capable of magic and weaving would have developed some sort of weapons or tools, even armor that they could wield? Especially after they met people who screamed “kill it with fire!” How they weren’t hunted down to extinction is a mystery.
Also, as the only real thing they get is 1d6 fangs, there surely should have been other things they could have done.
No low light vision or dark vision, even though spiders are commonly portrayed in fantasy settings as subterranean or nocturnal? Surface dwelling elves get it for some reason… in fact, the list of non-humans that get at least low light vision is extensive, without any logic behind it. 15 foot imprecise tremorsense at 9th level is weak, mainly because you can’t get it until 9th level. If you do, you never get a climb speed.
Web weaver is ok for a 1st level feat, especially considering most Anadi can’t spin webs. But it never gets better. The thing that kills the lore, is it still doesn’t allow for Anadi “weavers”, since anything created must be maintained daily, or dissolve away into nothing. That Anadi blanket being displayed by the peacock...

If you can't take lower level ancestry feats then I've been doing it wrong. And if you get to level 17 you may as well, since there's currently no 17th level ancestry feats for Anadi. Which is its own problem, of course.

Alchemic_Genius wrote:

Are people also seriously forgetting that the kineticist has access to walls, movement control, and other utility?

Maybe, possibly, depending on their feat selection (and depending on how your GM rules how magical those features are).

Especially since, if I'm not mistaken, in this case your GM would technically be perfectly within the RAW to rule that not a single one of the kineticist's impulse feats affects a Golem, unless it's one of the specific magical effects that does something to it.

on the subject of "respectful" shamans who would they even be respectful to?

The people it originally applied to, if we want to be respectful. A more generic name might be the better approach, though. It might be a bit confusing, but with the equivalent of the pf1 spiritualist being folded into the summoner, we could reuse that name.

based on what I've read the term originally referred to religious figures in Siberia, Mongolia and associated areas but has since been applied to native Americans from Inuit through to indigenous beliefs in Peru, not to mention aboriginal priests in Australia, and spitualists in Africa and through the Indian ocean. Other than a general belief in spirits these groups have basically nothing in common that you could use as a basis to ground what a Golarion shaman is.

It was white Christians who barely knew anything about those practices who started applying the term to those other people, though, so it was already a bit racist to do that. Like, "Oh you talk with spirits and lead your people in their religious beliefs, you must be exactly the same as these other people on the other side of the planet."

It seems worth noting since no one's mentioned it, that the term shaman originally came from northern Asia, and Christian white people started applying it to native American medicine men, and other indigenous religious leaders because they looked the same to them.

So I'd start there if we want it to perfectly reflect real world shamanism.

Either way, primal or occult sounds right. Divine but with ancestor themes to take the place of deities for the class would sound interesting, too.

What someone said upthread about them using diplomacy in place of religion sounds cool, if we take that idea and run with it, they could be charisma based and have an ability that let's them identify magic items and such by speaking with spirits.

Chase young from xiaolin showdown for lawful evil. Gleefully sets lava on innocents but let's the heroes go for no other reason then "I gave my word, accepted your challenge, and lost"

You just have to weight them to se if they weight the same as a duck.

No, that's for witches. Wizards hang out with kings and kings sit on thrones, and thrones are cushioned, therefore you need a butt that's very cushioned with fat to be a wizard.

keftiu wrote:

Should note that the signature kasatha fighting style in 1e was dual-wielding bows.

As someone who is cross dominant this always bothered me. I'm right handed, but left-eyed so in order to shoot accurately (with a bow or a gun) I need to shoot left-handed.

It seems very difficult to hold two bows in your two right hands (since they're going to get in each other's way), and it seems impossible to hold a bow in your left set of hands and your right set of hands.

FWIW, I have also always been bothered by the "gun in each hand" thing you see in action movies. This accomplishes nothing unless your only goal is "put a lot of lead down range without any particular preference about what you hit with it."

Which makes sense to do in a world where most people can survive one bullet, to be fair.

Thess wrote:

The stakes are real, and they could party wipe with bad planning or bad luck. In a Pathfinder game, they’d just run into the cave and use some power or another to win and I, the GM, would be bored to tears.

Coming from 5 years of 5e, this is the opposite of my reaction to PF2 combat. Compared to their biggest competitor, Pathfinder is already much harder. Your group must be real pros if they just randomly clear Level +3 encounters.

I think they were talking about 1e, where everything they said was 120% accurate, for good or ill. They said upthread that they hadn't had much chance to try 2e.

2 Progression is too steep. A fifth level character can fight 1st level villains all day without breaking a sweat. We have been playing OSR games with flatter curves and have been much happier.

PF2E isn't any better in that, to be honest. Pretty sure it's intentional, too. A lot of people in playtest, myself included, wanted level to really matter, and as a result pretty much anything 3 or more levels lower than you is a bug to be stepped on.

PF2E does reward specialization less than 1E though. Mainly in that using the same tactic in all situations ever is eventually not going to work. But also there's a lot less of x stat to y going on.

I don't like the fact that I accidentally hit refresh and lost the entire page of gripes that I just wrote... *Sobs*

I don't understand barbarians having anathema. Do Giant barbarians worship Giants, and the Giants give them the power to rage in return? If not then what's enforcing the anathema? If so then how are Giants and dragons and animals giving out power like gods.

I don't like the ancestries being so bare bones.

I didn't like material components for spells the way they were presented in pf1e and I'd prefer 5e arcane foci than a bag of random garbage powering your spells. I also don't like that wizards need to spend a feat just to avoid using said bag of random garbage.

I don't like how weak player characters are without magic items at higher levels. "Oh you're a level 5 fighter? You got stronger, but not stronger enough. Time to go buy/steal someone else's power. Or learn to craft magic weapons yourself I guess..."

As someone said above, I don't like that casters don't get a level one feat because it discourages playing non human casters.

I don't like how weak low levels are in general. I don't like how hard it is in PFS to start at a higher level than level one. I've done the level one song and dance so many times at this point. I'm sick and tired of having to take characters up through the rat slaughtering levels.

I tend to agree with the people saying spell penetration is boring.

As a rule, plus ones with nothing else attached are boring. They were boring back in 3.0/3.5 when 90% of your levels gave you +1s and nothing else, and 90% of fighter feats looked like

Superior ultimate great weapon specialization

Prerequisites: superior weapon focus, great weapon focus, ultimate weapon specialization, weapon specialization, weapon focus.

You gain another boring +1 to your attack and damage rolls. Yahoo, I guess...

In pf1 Paizo figured out they were boring, and gave every non caster something at every level, and even gave most casters something at all even levels. So a boring plus one being defended as a great feat kind of irritates me.

Take for example action costs. The 3 action system is great for adding versatility. But it's mostly just Martials who enjoy that as they get multiple ways to interact with the action economy. Casters do not have those interactions. What little interactions they do have is gained only at high level and are very limited.

Many of the new spells in secrets of magic allow for exactly that, actually. Gravity pull, and elemental annihilation wave, for instance. I'd still like more interesting wizard feats, though.

I'd rather a more lamia/naga like version of the nagaji than adding serpentfolk. I don't mind what my snake people are called, but if they still have legs then I don't see the point, tbh.

A soul eater style, living weapon ancestry. Essentially a sentient weapon that has an alternate form as a person.

I don't play many weapon wizards personally, but I'm gonna go ahead and say I'm in support of this anyway, to make the concept easier for other players.

Pretty much. What I gather from the essays in secrets of magic is that yes there's a connection between occult and arcane, moreso than the other traditions. But it's that occult is the art to arcane's science. So I don't think a wizard should have an occult option either, just like I don't think bards should have arcane as an option.

Not in the main classes anyway. I could see adding some archetypes that switch spell lists.

It... Doesn't really make sense to me when I try to think about what it means from an in universe perspective, and raises questions about what spell slots even are.

Corwin Icewolf wrote:

Was ABP not made with alchemists in mind? It seems problematic if it wasn't, considering alchemist is a core class now. But the way their bonuses work...

Alchemist from the start were practicaly thrown to the side compare to how the rest of the system functions. Like the entire class on release was barely playable due to half the options either not working properly, being hard to use without having 4 hands and twice the bulk, or just straight up not really supported.

I think the bulk issues were mostly mistakes, to be fair.

The fact that the alchemist pregen in pfs doesn't line up with the original bulk for the alchemist's pack supports this.

But even so, if abp didn't take into account how alchemist's bonuses work, then like I said that's really questionable.

Magic items are part of advancement experience in D&D type of games. They have been incorporated as part of advancement since the creation of the game.

I think Paizo was smart to include certain mandatory magic items as a measure of advancement. I think the majority of their customers enjoy magic items being part of the experience of advancement. I think just as getting new spell levels or a new higher level feat is part of increasing your power, getting a new powerful, meaningful, and necessary magic item is part of the character advancement experience.

I still don't really understand it. And can't see it that way. Gold is money, not experience. Buying a new magic item isn't the same as getting a new spell level at all. That spell level is something innate to your character, that's power, your power. Buying a new magic item is getting someone else's power. It's not the same, and doesn't feel as awesome.

Well, To me it feels kinda lame since it means your character is dependent on some random craftsman to do more damage, but I guess I could see someone more socially adept and well adjusted than me finding it cool, maybe even equally cool in a "people stick together and help each other" kinda way...

But I don't understand how anyone could see it as being cooler.

Ahahah That's litteraly a Golden Sun spell xD Love it

I mean, bigby's hand predates Golden Sun so I never really thought of it that way, but that is pretty cool.

I don't really understand the people wanting the mandatory magic items myself. Striking runes have actually somewhat turned me off of playing fighters and monks in pfs.

And playing those classes is actually otherwise fun to me in pf2.

But then they get to level 5 and are waffling little wimps without those runes. So they have to then buy more power from somebody else to succeed, instead of getting stronger themselves.

Well, unless they're crafting them themselves of course, but then all my fighter and monk characters also have to also be magic item crafters. Which feels weird.

That's how I feel about it, anyway.

I think that it's a strange design decision regardless of which question you ask.

Because of how it works, first level spellcaster feats have to compete a bit harder with second level spellcaster feats than with martial feats.

And choosing to take less than optimal feats for the sake of following a desired character concept becomes a bit more painful for those who do so...

In first edition, The Alchemist had class feats discoveries that allowed them to grow a tentacle, vestigial arms, a parasitic twin. They could mummify themselves, grow insect like wings. Their familiar could become a tumor on their body, which is an ability not shared by the alchemical familiar in second edition.

The 2e alchemist can't do any of that. And, given that long term buffs are problematic in 2e, and the fact that there's not one single Alchemist feat that fits that theme so far, I'm actually concerned that those abilities aren't coming back.

I'm also wondering if I'm in the minority here, or even the only one, since I haven't seen anyone else talking about it...

I guess it could be the essence thing. How do you build a temple out of spirit and life?

*Notices a huge temple made of biomass.* Oh...