Cyder's page

I think if 'Knowledge is Power' was just a standard class ability at level 1 that wizards had and an additional lore per school would help tie in the thenatic (wizard is about knowledge) with rules to give them their edge. Add in a few feats to expand/add to their school spells, add feats to inprove knowledgenis power to add a spellshape as a feee action and wizard gets its knowledge schtick and feels competitive.

While some tables and groups may accommodate a wizard and in a sense contrive situations to make the versatility of the wizard seem useful other classes dob't require 'a prefered table playstyle' to shine. Derivans sorcerer works well whether you allow a lot of prep and research time or not. Other classes tend to perform well without expectations on how a table plays. Investigator in the remaster even got its abilities widened to it relies less on research and downtime.

Wizard is ok but is outshined by other classes. Arcane witch can have as many freely swappable (school slots are restricted) as the wizard, be as good at RK as a wizard with better feats and focus spells and a suped up familar.

Arcane sorcerers are now just clearly better than wizards in most situations and tables.

Wizards need something that makes than masters of lore other just naming class abilities to sound vaguely academic.

I don't know how I feel about the changes to Oracle other than to say the class I loved in PF1 is pretty much completely gone.

My favourite thing about the class was how curses worked, their bespoke nature, the fact they were all different. I loved that curses while crippling at low levels came with bonuses later that sort of compensated as your character learned to deal with the curse. That is completely gone now.

Probably my favourite PF1 character to play as a Gnome Bones Oracle with clouded vision curse and a morbid sense of humour. There were so many cool roleplaying opportunities. The new oracle just feels flavourless. I know making interesting curses that operate in different ways is a challenge for balance but I feel something very unique and cool has been lost. When I heard PF2e was coming I was hoping they would make sorcerers more like oracles, a spontaneous caster that could choose options (feats) thematic to their bloodline (like mystery benefits in pf1e). Instead it seems all that has been stripped out to just be... boring numbers.

I feel like curses right now could mostly be rebranded into the price of power for sorcerers just as easily. Sorcerers could do cool stuff but at a cost to their body (drained or similar) working like curses work now. I am sure it will feel more balanced but I miss when Paizo did funky interesting things with less of a focus on raw numbers. Still its probably the communities obsession with raw numbers that push them to it.

I just calculated how much damage a Magic Missile with Dangerous Sorcery and Foretell Harm does and it outdamages a Greatsword Fighter 2 to 1 against a level +3 boss. So it's out of bounds for me (even if it's true it's only once per target). My Oracle already manages to be a massive damage dealer, if you give me such feats I'm pretty sure the rest of the party will quickly complain about my absurd damage output.

This is a little disingenuous as this is the absolute worst case scenario for the fighter (level +3) and the best case for an auto hitting single target spell. It also comes with a higher cost to pull off for the Oracle.

Comparing optimum for the Oracle and worst case scenario for fighter is not a fair comparison.

I feel the fail outcome on Bravado feats is an unnecessary complication and tracking.

- Means tracking what gave you Panache and when to little benefit
- Most Swashbucklers aren't going to want to hold off on Finishers more than a round so why bother with the extra tracking? What does it add?

I would rather see ways of expanding weapons that can be used with Panache, I feel Swashbuckler could have made a great anime style samurai with light armour and flashy combat but it is unusable with so many weapons. I would rather it got the ruffian rogue treatment.

Rangers are in an odd place. Outside of combat bonuses from hunt prey bonuses a lot of the core ranger feats could be archetype feats.

At this point I feel the concept of 'bounty hunter' has a more generic core appeal and could take the place of Ranger as a core class with most of the same feat but less wilderness theme with wilderness-y flavour being the archetype. But too late for that this edition.

Removing the nature dependency and super animal/plant/dragon limitations to some feats would go a long way and not really break the class.

Mechanically, I feel like the outwit skill bonuses could just be rolled into the other edges and the class would still be very balanced. Outwit could be buffed a little, have it apply to saves as well as AC and maybe give them a reaction where they can apply off-guard to their target if the target misses them on an attack.

Outwit struggles in that to get good use out of it (given how tightly PF2e's math is balanced) you want to invest in dex, wisdom, charisma and intelligence (for those Additional Lore checks) which makes the class way too mad.

Couple that with Animal Empathy still triggering off Diplomacy rather than Survival or Nature the number of skills a Ranger needs to invest in to do their schtick (particularly if outwit) is not viable. Animal empathy is already super specific and hard to get good use of without requiring investing in attributes and skills the don't align well with the rest of the class schtick.

PF2e does not reward and often feels like it actively punishes generalists/dabblers.

Remaster ranger was a missed opportunity. The crossbow feats still don't make it a great combat style (or competitive with bows) and the action enhancing requires either access to cover or investing in Deception and charisma or its not even close to reliable enough against significant foes to make a difference. Ranged combat is already weaker in PF2e, many adventures as written make taking advantage of range before melee hard to pull off (maybe 1 round).

Remaster ranger could have given them auto proficiency increases in Survival. Could have given them additional skill feats ala swashbuckler for Survival, Nature, Deception, Intimidation or w/e (Rangers used to be a greater number of skill points class). Damage wise the class is ok, it fails to be as good an archer as either a fighter archer or Starlit span Magus which is an issue. Its worse at x-bows than gunslinger. Rangers aren't really good at anything that someone else isn't as good or better at other than maybe tracking and difficult terrain which have very niche applications.

The (relative) silence and lack of wide playtesting on what sound like large changes to a class that a large part of the player base perceive have issues is not comforting.

Changes to splash and bombs without corresponding accuracy/DC boost sounds like a bad trade.

Alchs work ok as a 5th/6th/7th member of a party but even then there are feats (prescient planner) or just good prep that make their 'versatility' a crutch for lazy parties. I am dubious about a class whose primary value is as a walking emergency shop of consumables.

I loved PF1e alchemist. A lot of flavourful and cool options that seem to have gotten lost in the conversation to PF2e by making it a walking vending machine.

I just hope if there is ever a PF3e that funky cool choices don't feel like they end up worse than the cookie cutter ones. As it is despite everything there are some builds that are universally better and overshadow other options.

There are spells which are better to have prepared or known in most situations.

Sure there is balance but there are still options that are almost always universally more useful. Same was true in PF1 and while the gaps are somewhat closer there are still options that feel bad.

Class chassis can often feel bare.

Recent class design has gotten more mechanically interesting and they are kind of breaking out the mould. Power is still super conservative to the point I feel like Battlezoo is doing a lot more interesting things that while sometimes more mechanically power than core options not as much above the curve as under powered Paizo options are under curve compared to optimised ones.

Mechanical balance is a little too tight on weapons for them to feel all that interesting or even fun.

I would like to seem them get a little less conservative so specialisation outside of chassis feels like a thing. Right now specialisation tends end up behind of the curve rather or is outright impossible or requires you to pick a totally different class that may be specialised in what you want but not really the same feel as what you wanted to play.

I like PF2e its a good system but it needs constant new classes to stop from feeling stale as variance within a class feels limited and specialisation punished. Encounters tend to see the same universally useful tactics used over and over (trip being just too damn good). Some skills are way overpowered (looking at athletics, it does too many useful things both for combat and exploration for 1 skill investment).

Class chassis, number of skill advances and the like could do with more of a mix up. Class archetypes are still generally universally better than non class archetype options (hoping fervently PC2 fixes this).

The class and ability design is generally getting better but new options still feel behind PC1 rather than equal. The same problem of power builds arises but now they are simpler and there are less of them. The player options feel like they lack depth and instead there is a breadth of classes. The large number of ancestries often feel the same and I feel like ancestries could just have traits and can take any ancestry feats that have a matching trait (I think that is how they could do species in SF2 while keep the breadth of options without chewing up page count repeating almost the same things). I want to get excited with each new rule book but kind of end up disappointed as each new ancestry or archetype feels like a remix of abilities I have already seen.

That said the core of the game, the 3 action system, the simplification of a lot of the combat rules is great. The monsters with unique or cool monster actions are fantastic. The buff/debuff system is a little flat and leads to the same universally superior options.

Looks like SF2e is heading in the right direction at least as far as making terrain in combat more interesting. Hoping SF2e improves what they think about doing in PF2e.

The team did discuss the obvious "but guns should just be better than old weapons, right?" discourse, and we decided that it would be better for the game to break a bit of verisimilitude to have guns in Starfinder have parity with PF2 style archaic weapons, to make sure groups could better blend an work together, rather than just having one game "be better" / "have bigger numbers.

I can't express how disappointed I am by this. This in theory means a lasgum in SF is as effective as a flintlock against a lion. I have zero interest in parity between the two systems, for me its a lot better if they don't. A PF2e class can still pick up future equipment if there is time travel but having a lasgun artificially weak to balance with a flintlock is really breaks the idea of the game for me. As is a fight with a flintlock doing similar damage to a soldier with a laspistol (who has lower proficiency bonus) is a bad trade.

I am very sad there wasn't even a public survey for this but jusy an in house discussion.

All that being said... our plan is to include some optional rules similar to our first Field Test that provide a bit more drawbacks for the archaic rules on equipment. This is something we're NOT going to assume is a standard gameplay mechanic, but will cater to those groups who want their space-age characters to feel a bit more godlike in anachronistic settings.

If my soldier picks up an antique it should be bad. Archaic should be the base assumption. Can you please do a survey of the greater player base rather than just in house duscussion for these things?

At the same time, I personally don’t want to see to much hyper specialization with tactics because they are extremely limited resources. For example, a tactic that allows one caster to prepare a one action spellshape feat in advanced sounds like it might not be an issue power balance wise, but realistically, how many party members are ever going to utilize that tactic? Maybe 2? And what spell shape feats are being used more than once or twice an encounter anyway? Tactics that don’t have a lot of flexibility in how they can be used are very difficult to fit into a commander’s budget.

But we have tactics that specifically help martials, Strike hard is probably never going to help a caster. Its not asking for anything more specialised than what already exists for martials or ranged martials.

How about a reaction to sustain a spell or to at least move and sustain a spell for 1 action? That could be used by a lot of casters.

Its true we don't know what other tactics they have but I feel when it comes to options that specifically help casters as opposed to support options that favour martials (Bless, Courageous Anthem, Heroism) all favour martials, even generic universal debuffs all help martials (Fear, sicken etc). Martials and Martial muse bards all have a lot of things that help Martials with move and then later move and strike if they end up next to an enemy. Commanders offering more of the same without real caster support is just... on point for Paizo so far.

It is relatively easy for martials to inflict off guard, harder for casters to get it (for attack spells) and no equivalent for save DCs.

Pretty much what Squiggit said. Casters in the games I run are rarely out of place so movement abilities are rarely useful. If they are in the wrong place they either have ways of getting out of it easily enough there are no right spaces to stand so movement abilities aren't going to help.

Abilities to let casters cast 1 action spell/cantrip (shield) or dodge with something like nimble dodge might be better. Reactions to let them cast or prep a spellshape as has been said above all would be good. Even ones that allowed them to cast without provoking reactive strikes while niche would be good.

Martials get free strikes, things to help them get closer, things to help get them off-guard abilities allowing them to move and strike (2 actions) casters only get a 2 action help for attaching at level 15...

Paizo doesn't seem to know how to create abilities that support casters that universally good for everyone.

Its more commanders have tactics which are good for everybody and the a bunch which are only good for martials. There are no tactics which are themed for spellcasters.

Love the flavour of the Commander but feel it is yet another class focussed on supporting martials. It would be nice to have a support class with a greater balance between martial and caster support. This makes sense in Golarion where casters should be as much a part of tactics and war as martials.

I like there is support for ranged (martial) characters.

Tactics are all over the shop, some are so niche as to never see play or mostly trap options. I would suggest maybe Tactics be grouped into - supports melee, supports ranged, supports casters, general support. If Commanders need to specialise in supporting a particular group to help balance than so be it.

A Commander in the party right now is strong benefit to Melee and Ranged martials so will do well in those parties but offer very little to parties where they are the only martial.

I kind of feel like Guardian is a class archetype. While we haven't seen Guardian dedication I suspect fighter + Guardian dedication might be flat out superior to Guardian.

Its a 'defensive focused fighter' in flavour. There is nothing that makes it stand out as having its own real identity. It has the same or maybe even less identity than a Rogue Racket or Cleric doctrine.

Taunt and intercepting strike are cool but not enough on their own to warrant a distinct class identity. Make it a fighter 'doctrine' equivalent and it works.

I am all for quarterly hardcover releases if that is the way it goes. Less monthly shipping fees (overseas rates hurt), hardcover weather better and travel better. Monthly is nice but it can make the stories in APs feel disjointed. Much easier to read the story end to end before starting to run it.

I am kind of not excited by what I see here sadly. I was really looking forward to SF2e but for me these feel as conservative as PF2e ancestries. I hope they don't use the term ancestry, its a weird term and as much as species isn't great for androids, its still better than ancestry (which doesn't even make sense in PF2e since each ancestry does not have a common ancestor it was a weird pick to replace race (also a bad term) with. I hope they revert to using species, its matches the Starfinder feel more.

Still surprised Vesk and Iruxi are different species. I was kind of hoping they would make a more flexible approach to species in Starfinder, it would make more sense to have species descriptions and heritages and each species have a bunch of traits associated with it, e.g. reptilian, multi limbed, tailed etc. that way feats could have 1 or more traits and apply to multiple species without having to be reprinted and slightly renamed. Its the same problem a lot of ancestry and heritage feats have. How many ancestry feats in PF2e just equate to giving darkvision? It would be far better if there was 1 darkvision feat, I feat for ancestries that can all get wings for 1 minute than a higher level feat for permanent wings. For Starfinder it would make it much faster the bring out ancestries.

Other than that the conservative and super limited power for these feats (for the most part) make me feel like species will (mechanically) be as boring a choice that ancestry is in PF2e. I would much prefer they really make ancestry feats shine on a power budget level the same as class feats.

All we know is the core rules will he compatible (3 action economy, proficiency bonus TEML etc) and that the classes will be designed not to be cl9nes of pf2e classes but in space.

Everything else from the relative power of spells, additional class mechanics, the way focus/resilve work is up for grabs. Even skills m8gjt be c9mpatible but differently named (culture vs society, nature vs life sciences).

I hope balance isn't the grind it is in PF2e. I want my sci fi to feel scifi. Something about the way magic, especially magic items in pf2e seems to have lost the fantasy/special of them and replaced with something that just feels like utility or items I just purchase from a store.

I sincerely hope Starfinder feels compatible but a different game (not just different setting/gear) to Pathfinder else they should have just given us a high tech splat book for pf2e.

SF2e seems like a good place to break or test things outside of the constraints of pf2e in a way the remaster couldn't. They can take what they have learned from 5 years of pf2 and improve it without worrying about whether it is balanced against the pf2e crb like all pf2e stuff has to be.

More stuff for Starfinder 2e.

Something that shakes up Golarion for pf2e a bit. Hoping the Godswar refreshes the world a bit.

A direct sequel adventure path to Abomination Vaults.

APs in Cheliax and Taldor.

Someone to do a 2e Wrath of the Righteous like Kingmaker got.

Better Wizard options. Deeper class ootuons for classes with the least number of class feats.

Tbis l9oks amazing!

Wizard is still a mixed bag, more limited than it was before thanks to the lazy approach to the new schools. Wizards oower is in 4 spell slots per rank that they can freely change 3 of per day and 1 spell slot with a super limited number of school options. Feats are boring and mostly meaningless with little flavour compared to other casters.

For the 'knowledge/academic' class they have less interaction than most other classes do with recall knowledge other than a level 8 feat and the theory that recall knowledge benefits wizards more than other classes to learn a weakness... that they probably won't be able to take advantage of until they have slept overnight and done their daily preparations if they even know a good spell to take advantage of it. It does very little in the heat of battle.

The best way to think of wizard is the prepared spell slot arcane class as there is very little else going for it. Wizards are as powerful as spells are in PF2e and behind other casters for interesting feats that define those classes. Right now Cloister Clerics have more spell slots than they do at most ranks and always more max ranks spell slots (even if limited to heal/harm and with a feat remove conditions spells), a much better list of feat options, more flavour through deities, domains and more focus spell options. Clerics can also grab a couple of spells from other tradition lists with some deities.

There is a lot of room for improvement and the remaster was a missed opportunity to rethink how bland they are. New schools are just a very limited number of spells with rehashed focus spells from the pre remaster wizard. Its like they looked at the existing focus spells and thought about schools they could build around them. There is almost nothing exciting or winning about the new schools where they had a real chance to make them feel unique and interesting. Thesis are exactly what they were, none of them feel at all academic or tie into knowledge at all, to be honest I am not even sure what purpose they serve anymore as they feel like a grab bag of options, 3 of which amount to a couple of free otherwise easily obtainable feats (spellshape and familiar). Spell sub and staff should have just been low level wizard feats. Spell blending is the only one that kind of has a non feat level interaction with the class but even then could have just been 3 feats to blend 1 to 3 level spell slots at level 6, 4-6 at level 12, and 7 to 9 at 18 or maybe even just 1 feat that got better as you levelled.

JamesMaster wrote:

Conflating them means the ultra Perceptive, raised by wolves Ranger your player has put together also happens to be equally good at reading people’s intentions? This makes 0 sense to me.

I assume you have the same issue with Athletics. I mean... dead-lifting weight and rock-climbing are dramatically different uses of physical strength that have nothing in common.

Also Deception, where verbal falsehoods requiring agile-minded creation of fiction is blended with creating a disguise, which amounts to knowing how to use make-up.

Point is, for purposes of gameplay we've always had skills that lump thematically similar but mechanically disparate abilities into one roll. It's always been up to the player to decide if their character is good at all applications of a skill. If your character is bad at reading other people but good at spotting distant enemies... don't roll for sensing motive.

I already have issues with Athletics being a god skill in PF2e. Combat applications of athletics should be either a separate skill or skill feats. Right now athletics is the be all and end all skill for strength and combat, it does everything physical and the only feat a martial needs to invest in to have it all (other than balance). There are 3 social skills, 5 knowledge skills etc so a social/knowledge character cannot cover it all but a fighter only need to max athletics to cover 90% of what they need to.

Sense motive should be a seperate skill from perception.

A thick as bricks fighter shouldn't be better at detecting a lie or understanding motives better than a socially skilled bard.

No matter how quiet you are or whatever we want to say about the rustic ranger understanding motives, particularly when they are complex is a social skill.

I would much rather 'sense motive' was tied to the higher if diplomacy or sense motive. Diplomacy involves understanding what other people want ad part of being good at it. Good deception involves knowing what people are willing to believe or not believe, how far truth can be stretched.

These are very very different to noticing an ambush.

Part of the issue is how blunt skill tied to attribute is rather than the some skill used in a different way (a recall knowledge about athletics not being int based). They have feats in some situations (strength for intimidate) but nothing for blanket you can use int to recall knowledge adding your prificiency with amy applicable skill. Int for nature, medicine and religion makes sense for simply recalling kniwledge. But equally appraising how difficult it is to climb a wall int + athletics should be an option.

Don't update Foundry then? You don't need to do the update immediately.

What if the rest of the party and the GM wants to update? Should the rest of the group miss out?

This isn't necessarily a good or workable solution for a group.

At level 7, a low threat encounter should yield about 220gp to the party. Assuming you have to sell what ever you find (which should not be the case all the time) and a party of 4, that is 27 and half gold pieces, per low threat encounter. A level 1 scroll is 4 gp, so not even 15% of what is really the minimum amount of treasure you should receive for that encounter. Yes a spell slot is more convenient than a scroll, but it would take some strange number of encounters for that issue with scrolls to be something where having 1 more rank 1 spell slot is significant or important compared to having a bundle of 1st rank scrolls at that point in the game.

That hasn't been my experience at all. Many creatures have no treasure in APs and when treasure is gotten it is in items which sell for half price if not needed by other players. Treasure is rarely coins, is not divvied out this way. This is completely out of line with published adventure and play experience.

A dead level 1 slot is such a minor issue

But you agree it is an issue.

Minor or not it didn't need be designed that way. With a little bit of extra thought designers could have ensured there was at least 1 spell per rank in each curriculum that stayed useful as the character levels when cast at the rank it was received at.

By design, unless you are playing proficiency without level mixed level parties are not really well supported in PF2e.

In AD&D mixed level parties were a feature as different classes required different amounts of XP to level, only humans had access to every class, other ancestries had huge class restrictions. Only humans could have unlimited levelling (and I think Half Elf bards in 2nd Ed) other ancestries were capped in what their max level could be so Halflings could only ever go to level 8 as a fighter and never higher.

Part of me misses how organic parties were in that it encouraged different levels of ability but told the story of them well. I never liked limited class levels based on ancestry but the rest was lore defining. Also every ancestry was better than human which is probably why they were unrestricted in level and class choices.

PF2e class levels make a huge difference to ability to survive or dominate an encounter. A 1st level character in a fight against a 5th level boss that might be easy for 4th level party members is all but guaranteed to die in a hit.

N9ne of mine has shipped, no pdfs, no response from CS. No updates here.

You will always need to intervene as a GM in some way. Even if that is to say 'no, you can't add those spells'.

... is... is this really your argument? That a GM saying no to something justifies bad design?

Its also not intervention as you are not intervening/providing an intevention merely saying use the options as written, you are not intervening to change things.

Point is people are already talking about how to remove school slots or impact of poor spell choices set to them without relying on fickle GM intervention.

The new schools look like they decided which focus spells to keep and then decided to try to build a narrative around them without fixing core issues. School of the boundary in particular males little to no narrative sense. It looks like a way to blend Augment Summoning with Dread Aura so is a hodge podge of things that don't quite fit together forced into a concept.

Augment summoning still wasn't fixed to ne a reaction or freeaction with the trigger being casting a summoning spell.

Schools could have been so much more. They could have included non arcane spells, they could have actually spent the time to make good new thematic focus spells for identifiable themes. Basically not try to rearrange what was there to work but given them the care and attention they deserved.

There is a not a single good design reason not to have a school spell at each rank that remains useful/relevant when cast at the rank you get it. School of Battle Magics school spells are eclipsed by cantrips by rank 3.

Requiring GM permission to have amother spell rather than explicitly allowing a player to always pick a spell that is within them as part of the process or just doing the job properly and making sure school spells in thst rank can be relevant for more than 2 or 3 levels isn't a big ask.

Good design can only limit GM intervention, not prevent it entirely.

Difference between 'limit' and 'require.'

Nothing limits GM intervention other than self restraint or a lack of need by game or players.

I don't talk about preventing GM intervention, I talk about removing the need for it. These are very different things.

If I have to ask a GM to change things or pick particular options to remove the limitations of a key design (schools) that is a failure of the design.

If even the most avid supporters are proposing those options or talking about adding spells to schools or other ways to work around them that is a failure of design.

Good design doesn't require GM intervention.

Good design doesn't have players making choices to erase the mechanics of the option.

Good design excites players about the mechanical possibilities to support their narrative.

There are lots of examples of this in other classes in PF2e but wizard, like pre remaster witch isn't quite where it needs to be. Its functional but its not good.

Popularity of class not a measure of success on its own. Many people play wizard because the love the fantasy of the wizard not because its mechanically a good class. I have no idea how Paizo determines the success of a class but I have never seen any surveys or other customer engagement about them go out. If its PFS numbers... thst is only a very small part of the picture and without follow on questions they cannot know why people are playing a wizard.

Stats like that without qualitative information or something else are meaningless on their own as they tell you only that many people are playing a wuzard. not why people are playing, not whether they are finding it satisfying (or not) nor whether they are playing a lot of games with wizards. It could be create and try to make it work and give is a s#@# only for it to be a disappointing experience once we get to where most pfs game levles stop.

For those of you waiting for your subs, let me give you my little story about picking up my pre-ordered copy from my FLGS.

This isn't really relevant. 1 store not treating your order properly does not really have any relevance to a paid subscription service being subpar with late and poor communication about issues.

I would say subtle/conceal removes the need for incantations and obvious gestures. I would say it doesn't say remive gestures so you can't cast while bound using subtle spell.

In terms of countering, it makes more sense to counter the spell effect than it does counter at casting. A conceal ray of frost still has a ray if frost shooting from you and I would still allow a counter at point of effect.

In terms of countering charm... there are other abilities that allow you to detect if someone has been charmed, there is also dispel magic. Recignising and counting charm as it is being done seems unfun, its a much better story to discover that someone has been charmed then keep an eye out for whonis doing it should they try again.

Immediately noticing and being able to counter manipulate type spell effects or knowing someone just cast invisibility etc takes the fun away from those effects as a narrative. Investigating what happened is a much better story. YMMV though.

And again no pdfs on release day. Given international orders take the longest to get to subscribers I would think they should be shipped first. I only got the physical books for last mobth's sub yesterday. You would think if Paizo usn't going to spend the time looking regional shipping centres like other small companies manage you would think they would send international first so we weren't waiting a month after release for physical books.

Like others I think I need to look into other options if Paizo can't fix their shipping.

Maybe diversify and not make vision an ancestry thing? I mean its lazy that vision improvements are such a common thing rather than other adaptions.

Also now they aren't under the OGL they can more easily update the fantasy of the ancestries to be more varied.

If there was one key thing you wanted to see different with the Wizard what would it have been?

I like the new school themes for role play and the possibility of new schools or just making your own but I do think future released schools will have potential for power creep.
I like the staff nexus addition but think it needed to have progression of some kind any kind at levels 4 and 6.

I will give you 2.

School spells as a font as described above.

A complete rework of thesis. Right now they feel like half formed class ideas that were never completed, never properly balanced against each other and don't feel at all academic. If wizard is supposed to be an academic class it should have a stronger thematic tie to recall knowledge, preferably aligned with Thesis.

Even a thesis 'Magical zoology' - You can use Arcana to make Nature based recall knowledge checks about plants/animals/beasts. When you crit succeed at a recall knowledge check using arcana instead of nature you get a +1 on your next spell attack roll or 1 target takes -1 on the next spell DC against a spell you cast before the end of your turn.

Suddenly that feels academic, feels like they have a benefit for researching a particular academic topic rather than the weirdness that Thesis now are which have no thematic link to each other and don't feel academic.

I am kind of sad so many ancestries still have 'low light or darkvision' as their thing. I would rather Paizo have moved away from almost every ancestry has better sight than humans trope. Its lazy and boring.

Seems like a clear majority of ancestries have low light vision and not having it is the exception.

It never made sense that low light vision was arbitrarily upgraded to dark vision if both your ancestries (for mixed heritage) had low light vision in some cases.

I feel if they ever get around to PF3e or even a proper .5 edition they should rethink low-light and darkvision as a default for so many ancestries - they are no longer shackled by DnD so they can reinvent things a little. They seem to do this with some things and not others.

Also maybe the nerf to poisons means Alchemists will get other buffs. Regarding TV poisons being stronger they can easily errata them down once player core 2 gets released. My hope is more of the class power for alchemist goes into the alchemist - even if it is the alchemist gets more power from items than others. Part of the issue of the alchemist is everyone else gets more benefit from their stuff then they do. Being a class that can provide 70% of its contribution to the party during daily preparations (creating and handing out consumables) and then can be replaced by another character is not a good feeling for a class.

With how rushed the remaster was I feel wizard bandaided with the new schools shoehorned in with little thought. The whole class reeks of a rush job with mo champions for the class on the design team.

New schools are lazy. Augment summoning still not being able to be cast on the turn you summon the creature is still poor design and not looked at. 1 less base skill for no reason still males mo sense and hardly affects balance.

New schools are shoehorned with little thought on school spells at differebt levels of play.

New feats are... ok I guess, better than what the ranger got but clearly given far less consideration than the cleric.

Mot sure why people think the new arrangement of focus spells for school slots is good, still a wierd mishmash. School of the boundary feels incredibly hodgepodge with a confused narrative that falls apart under any real scrutiny.

I think the largest problem with the wizard and the new schools is they are rushed and rather than maybe writing some proper new spells to fit the narrative in some cases thwu shoehorned in some vaguely relevant existing spells (both focus ans spell slot spells).

Wizards would be better served if they got a font like clerics but only for school spells amd got rid of the bonus spellslot per rank which is a hangover from dnd anyway. Low level school spells would remain relevant all the way througb the game. They would be encouraged to strongly work with their school spells as they would always have more of them prepared at high ranks.

I'm gonna personally disagree on background lore automatically scaling proficiency. It's better off as something minor by default, with the option to scale it with the Additional Lore feat. Then you can play a former herbalist, or take a background because the skill feat is important to the character without winding up with Underworld Lore as one of your best skills despite the thematic discrepancy. I don't really want to run into a bunch of once-bitten wizards because scaling Undead Lore beats any magic-related skill feats on an Int class.

And I am going to disagree with you there. Having your background feat continue to improve and remain one of your best skills because thematically even though you may have 'left that life' the skills, knowledge and interests never leave you. Its like I no longer work in several kinds of industries but whenever I hear news or come across articles about subjects in those industries I feel compelled to read and know.

For underworld lore you may have left the thug life, but the thug life never leaves you, your old associates etc are still around, the game is still in your blood and even though you want to leave you know you need to keep up in case old contacts come into your life again and want to end you.

Undead Lore from once bitten, I can imagine if I had a harrowing experience before I started adventuring like being bitten by undead I would keep my knowledge of undead up out of fear that I want to be prepared or know what I am up against next time.

Undead Lore being super good (campaign dependent) leading wizards to taking that background is a lore balance problem... or not. Maybe being good at something that is valuable in a campaign is a positive.

Honestly I feel like backgrounds are a great idea but need to be reworked to either matter other than 'I picked this background for mechanical reasons' or I didn't pick this background because the skills it grants or the attribute bonuses are irrelevant - if background forces a boost for 1 of 2 stats I am not interested in (say Int or Cha for most fighters) then picking that background is a bad choice even if the story of it suits my concept.

I would rather fewer more generic backgrounds with more depth and more advancement options that the massive monte haul of rarely picked backgrounds we have now.

Sweet, looking forward to this... but then I look forward to most APs.

I love the fantasy of swashbucklers... I hate the implementation. A fighter or rogue with duelist archetype is just better right now and that is sad.

At low levels its a super frustrating class, not sure why Paizo doesn't consider that classes need to feel good, or close to as good as each other at low levels. Most play is at low levels, not being disappointed by your class pick, having your moment to shine is super important, especially with keeping people playing.

Paizo also has a problem balancing risk vs reward playstyles, risk is always high, reward is balanced around what other classes seem to achieve without the risk which is just bad design. Succeeding against a very high DC especially at low levels is bad. Much better to have success against average DC with something extra for crit succeeding.

Finishers either need to hit a lot harder if I can't attack for the rest of the round or they to not have that restriction. This doesn't open up interesting play or interesting attack routines, it just leads to frustration and wishing they were playing a fighter or rogue themed as a swashbuckler.

Hopefully they get less conservative with Player Core 2 as they have more time to do things right. Unfortunately I feel it will be like player core 1 where 1 or 2 pet classes get great buffs and other classes get some window dressing disguised a fix for issue with the class. I still can't fathom the buffs for cleric and rogue, both were already super strong classes.

CorvusMask wrote:

Orcs make much more sense as core option than goblins do because orcs already had nuance shown to them where goblins got spontaneously overall much more nicer in much higher quantities when they became core :'D

Perhaps unfortunately for those not involved an awful lot of that development was in Society, there were many scenarios over 10 years and multiple seasons showing numerous different goblins and goblin tribes working with both the society and others in helpful ways. So there was absolutely a ton of cooperation shown, just perhaps not in ways that every player would be able to see and experience.

Its a shame a lot of the story, even summaries of society stuff or key story points are not easily (to my knowledge at least) accessible.

I feel like if they wanted this outcome it would have been much easier to just say you die at dying 3. That is your maximum dying value is 2. Its a whole lot of extra complication to add a wounded value each time you are down for very little gain.

This seems to be a case of overly complicating things for minimal gain and honestly feels like a throw back to some of the more complex PF1 rules and interactions. I am not saying the change isn't the intended change but there are easier and cleaner ways to reach the same outcome and I wish they had done that rather than this convoluted way of going about it.

This change, if intended does massively increase the value of Toughness, Diehard, numb to death and orc racial feats which were already very strong and overshadowing other options. Not sure why they needed this buff, they now feel almost mandatory which I feel is a bad change.

Advanced doesn't really have that, and weapons which were just more powerful like the falcatta would be too much of an auto pick if they were cheap to use. If you could spend a general feat to increase your damage dice by one or add deadly to it, why wouldn't you? Once you have toughness and fleet there's very little worth taking among general feats.

I disagree with this. There are a lot of great general feats that are potentially stronger than +1 avg damage per die or adding deadly for a class that doesn't have fighter accuracy. It feels like you don't value the other feats and have assumed others don't. Prescient planner can be a god send when you need something and you don't have it. Uncanny acumen is great for classes with a low save that want to improve it, or getting better initiative. Just because you don't value other general and skill feats doesn't mean others don't. I was rather a better will save than +1 damage per die (average) since 4 extra damage at max level is less important than not making or crit failing a save. Having the right consumable can often be more impactful.

You value extra damage more, not everyone does. I have no issue with advanced weapons getting more use than the waste of space they are right now otherwise.

For the cost of a general feat I thonk it should level with class weapon proficiency. Advanced weapons really aren't that big of an upgrade, certainly not worth more than a general feat.

Right now its a disadvantage to use an advanced weapon even for martial classes and at that point I ask why even bother to print them. They are too niche and take up book space that would be better used for things that would see a decent amount of play at most tables.

Lightning swap could have been a good candidate for a General Feat. It eould benefit a lot of classes and playstyles.

It feels the remaster was super rushed and some basic things or considerations were just missed.

For me if Quick Alchemy is what is holding the class back then I wouldn't miss it at all.

I would rather Quick Alchemy be a 10 minute activity or gone entirely if it mean I can be more reliable in other areas. As a 10 minute reprepare some of what you made using advanced alchemy into something else (maybe with a 2 or 3 advanced alchemy being remixed into 1 quick alchemy object) it might balance while still giving that balance out of combat.

Alternatively less infused reagents per day but with quick alchemy being a once per hour activity to make a number of items based on int modifier.

I don't mind about the price increaes its the shipping costs to Australia thats killing me. I really wish Paizo would investigate other distribution options. Reaper and other small companies have mamaged it so not sure why Paizo can't.

M8nd you given that we are discussing the merits of 1 specific feat which is an optional pick against a slew of strong other lvl 4 feats for the cleric I would say this is a resounding success for the remaster cleric.

Ravingdork wrote:

Just remove the Monk trait from all weapons and give monks proficiency in all non-firearm advanced weapons. It will instantly make them unique among classes and--alongside giving wizards and witches Simple Weapon Proficiency and Rogues and bards Martial Weapon proficiency--will nicely streamline all class' proficiencies along the three proficiency groups.

After all, in nearly every medium they appear, monks and martial artist are all about using unusual weapons to outmaneuver their opponents in combat.

Let's see.

The Karate Kid.
Kung Fu.
Saint Seiya.
Kung Fu Panda.
Bruce Lee's movies.

Nope. Not many weapons there.

And yet here are 100s more martial arts movies where they use weapons. Cherry picking a very very limited list doesn't help anyone or make any kind of point.

Numchaku are synonymous with Bruce Lee so not sure why you blanketly reference Bruce Lee movies without mentioning that he does use classic 'monk' weapons in many of them. Also arguably the reason Asian style martial arts and weapons became popular in the western countries.

Some other great martial arts movies.

Hero
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
House of Flying Daggers

These are amazing and award winning movies yet aren't on your list.

Awesome, its fiction like this that bring the world of Pathfinder alive and give a solid basis to imagine and work out own stories. from.

It does have unlimited targets, so it may have value in a party that has many minions or in campaigns where you expect to heal large groups of NPCs.

Thats super niche. As a skill feat triggered off religion its ok, as a clads feat its dead on arrival.