Danbala's page

Paizo chose not to create work for 4e primarily because it required adhering to a license that (1) prevented them from producing under the original license and (2) was revocable. The new OGL replaces the original license is likewise revocable: "“can modify or terminate this agreement for any reason whatsoever, provided We give thirty (30) days’ notice.”

My guess is Paizo does one of two things: (1) fights WotC by claiming the original license has vague language was understood for 20 years to be irrevocable or (2) reframes Pathfinder 2e as non OGL and a separate non infringing work. Both approaches have merit in my opinion.

However, whatever path they take they will need to do so immediately because as soon as the new license takes effect they will potentially be incurring both consequential damages and statutory fines by selling their own (theoretically infringing) product. Their lawyer will tell them to pick one of the lanes above and then either seek a TRO/Pre Inj against the new license or a dec relief action to find that their product in non-infringing.

Foundry is only 50 USA Bucks for everything. You pay once and never have to pay again for subscriptions or new content. It has a great interface, and installing a premade game system or community made module is really easy. Most importantly, players don't need to pay for anything, install anything, or even make an account. You just send them a link and they click it. It is pretty idiot proof. The only pain in the butt is setting up port forwarding on your internet router so you can host your own server. But you have to do that with maptools as well, and maybe Fantasy Grounds. And once you do it you aren't dependent on a server everyone in the world is using right now like roll20.

A quick question about Foundary. I use FG mainly because of the automation and the fact that you can buy the APs pre made. You mentioned that PDFs could be easily imported. I assume that they are not available for sale. Is that correct? If so, how easy are they to import? Is there some kind of parser?

. . . She will be active during the 1st session because one player will play Zinfandel, a Chernasardo ranger trainee mentored by Aubrin.

...

Was Zinfandel originally named Primitivo?

Ravingdork wrote:

You decide after damage is known, but before it is dealt.

Pretty sure the devs discussed this in detail on Twitch.

That's nice, but take a look at these shields:

Arrow-Catching If you use it and the attack hits you automatically use Shield Block, before hearing the damage.

Forge Warden To use one of the main features of the shield, you have to Shield Block. But Hardness 6, 24 HP isn't really very much at level 10.

These are shields where using the Shield Block is clearly part of how you're intended to use them, but their fragility compared to level makes them quite bad at that.

Yes, if you look at creatures at the same level that just seems wrong. Take a cloud giant. Its boulder will do around 30 points on average. If you redirect with arrow catching shield you have a roughly even chance of having it destroyed. The forge warden shield faces the same problem when hit from the cloud giant's ranseur.

The numbers seem off. My expectation is the shields should be able to block at leas three blows before they are destroyed. Anything less and they don't seem like shields.

Update: I went into his room yesterday and he was hunched over his desk writing on sheets of lined paper. He was eager to tell me about the "rock giant" that he designed to throw at his friends during the adventure he's running tonight.

We talked about his monster design ideas including giving the monster some cinematic weaknesses. I'll be curious to see if he can intuit hs way to a decent game balance (or whether he will be forced to do a little behind the screen fudging).

BTW, tonight includes 2 new players to the group, so he now has a party of 5.

I had a nice report that I wanted to share with the 2e team. My teenaged son has been playing Pathfinder for several years in a game I run. Twice in the past he has tried to run games for his teenage friends (Pathfinder and Starfinder) but they were unsuccessful - the rules were too complex for the group and they grew bored. He was reluctant to try it again.

One of his friends mentioned giving it another try. My son was reluctant at first but decided to give 2e a try.

The result? They played their first game this Saturday for three hours. They were so excited they played again on Sunday for another six. Their next game is set for this Friday.

My son credits the new rules for getting it to stick. (I also think he increased experience as GM was a factor).

What I DON'T enjoy, is what they've done to druids.

I am running the Age of Ashes adventure path and in it it states that it take 10 minutes to search a room. As a consequence players who need to regain focus find time to do that following most combats (at the expense of doing something else, like searching). Also, between combat healing takes 10 minute. I suspect you'd find that you have more access to your wild shape than you expect. In fact, I'm not sure you'd ever need more than one focus point.

I have been able to run two sessions so far. As a DM, I have been surprised by:

* Increased mobility has increased the creativity and resilience of the party. Our rogue has been able to move around the battlefield from cover to cover and then spring out with a surprise attack, and then duck back into cover if need be. The casters could back off and position if they were targeted. All players easily able to pull back out of combat when they saw that they were in trouble. Finally, when characters went down it was easy for other players to step up and help them. My impression was that all the mobility kept players from feeling “locked out” of the game by being limited only to certain options. Instead a number of tactical opportunities were opened up to all players and they used them to make the party more resilient as a whole.

* Secret checks actually speed up the game. I thought that the rules for secret checks would slow things down. Under the old system the player would roll in a serial fashion. If someone rolled poorly the next person would roll until they were satisfied they had hit whatever number they suspected was the target. Under the new system, I could just roll quickly. When it came to searching in particular, it really helped with meta gaming as people were basically forced to accept the result of their effort which eliminated the serial rolls for the most part. Further, I have found that critical failures have changed the story in an interesting way.

* The 10 minute resource makes non combat more tactical. Speaking of searching, it was also interesting to see the result of 10 minute actions on play. Players basically had to choose whether to search the room, rest and regain focus, or do something else (like fix their shield). This made time into a resource which added tension to the time between combats. I found it to be a positive change.

There were also few things about 2e, that were more difficult as a GM than I expected:

First up: Action List. When I played to 2e at Gen con and I said “I swing my sword” Jack, our GM, would often correct me by saying “Ok. You take a strike action.” I found it irritating at the time, but now that I have a game as GM under my belt, I know why he did that. Each of the actions have different attributes. The GM needs to understand clearly what action you are using because these actions may trigger certain reactions. For example, if you say “I take a potion out go over to James and pour it into James’ mouth” what you are really saying is “I use an interact action to take out a potion. I use a Stride action to move to James. then I use my final action to use Interact to poor the potion into James’ mouth.” The interact action has the manipulation trait which means it triggers certain reactions — most notably attacks of opportunity. Also the traits effect how often an action can happen in a turn (actions with the “flourish” trait can only be used once per turn). They can also effect the order of you action as some actions can only happen after you use the Strike action, for example. All of this has the potential to be pretty complicated. I wasn’t expecting just how complicated this could be to run. I think Im up to the challenge but it will take some work.

Another thing that will take some getting used to: Item traits. So all of the weapons have traits, armor has traits and so on. This created some confusion in my mind. There are 12 different traits that apply to weapons and they all have special rules. On top of that there are “weapon critical traits” that apply to classes of weapons. Weapons also have materials as before and can be subject to runes or other enchantments that also have special terminology. This is also true of armor that has its on set of traits and materials. For the players this is straightforward: they only have to worry about the traits of the weapon they are using and they can’t use the weapon critical effect if they have a special feat. But for the GM you need to have a handle on all of these rules and how they interrelate. In some cases these rules impact the tactical options of the NPCs. It’s a bit much to try to take in all at once. Again, I’m optimistic I can get on top of it, but it caught me off guard how much extra load this put on my brain.

"Mobility equals Resiliency"

This works both ways though. There's no reason the DM can't also have the enemies do hit and run tactics. So it can become this slog of trying to chase them down or pin them in long enough to get killing blows.

Maybe. But when you are fighting giant rats and skeletons it doesn't seem in character for the enemy to do that. Also, in most cases the monsters are outnumbered which limits that tactic's effectiveness for them.

That's great to hear! My group is still trying to decide what they want to play and how we want to go. I offered to run the first part of Age of Ashes as well as The Fall of Plaguestone and the new Society Scenarios.

I'll give you a non spoilery review of Age and Plaguestone. They are both very well done (but you expect nothing less from Paizo as adventure writing is their strength).

Ashes is a very traditional beginner first level adventure with a Keep on the Borderland feel. (i.e. a dungeon complex that the PCs will travel back and forth from to the local hamlet with deeper challenges as they level).

Plaguestone start off as a "whodunit." This leads into some location based encounters and then finally a mini dungeon.

I had my first chance to run 2e and I was pleasantly surprised by a few of the new rules and their effect on my game. I ran the first part of Age of Ashes basically as written.

First up: Secret Checks. I thought that the rules for secret checks would slow things down. I needed to know everyone’s scores and then personally roll for everyone. It sounded like a drag. Plus, it seemed to take some of the fun away from the players. In fact, the secret checks worked great. It actually sped things up because I could just roll quickly for everyone and do the math in my head. When it came to searching in particular, it really helped with meta gaming as people were basically forced to accept the result of their effort. There was also a nice feature of the adventure that basically changed the results based on how much time the party allocated to the search. This made searching into a game of resource management. Finally, the secret knowledge checks were also fun. We had one critical failure when one player tried to find the way toward the tower that sent the party on the wrong direction. We also had a critical success that resulted in another player learning some interesting information about the goblin tribe they were dealing with. In both cases it changed the story in an interesting way.

Next surprise: Damage was not spikey as I thought it would be. I assumed with the new critical rules that combat would involve a lot of burst damage and sudden kills. That wasn’t the case. First of all, criticals were still not all that common. In most cases you would need to roll a 20 to crit by getting 10 over the target number. Second, everyone had enough HPs that the occasional crit could be absorbed by most combatants. Finally, they seem to have made damage from spells more consistent and less spikey. The really strong effects only happen on a critically failed saving throw which only comes up about 5% of the time.

Next surprise: Mobility Equals Resiliency. Speaking of resiliency, I was pleasantly surprised how increased mobility changed the game. 2e does two things to increase mobility: it got rid of most attacks of opportunity and got rid of full round actions. The big beneficiaries seemed to be the glass cannons such as the rogue and the casters. Our rogue was able to move around the battlefield from cover to cover and then spring out with a surprise attack, and then duck back into cover if need be. The casters could back off and position if they were targeted. All players easily able to pull back out of combat when they saw that they were in trouble. Finally, when characters went down it was easy for other players to step up and help them. My impression was that all the mobility kept players from feeling “locked out” of the game by being limited only to certain options. Instead a number of tactical opportunities were opened up to all players and they used them to make the party more resilient as a whole.

Next surprise New and interesting treasure I think we are all used to the usual first level treasure haul. Scrolls, potions, etc. 2e opened things up a bit with new kinds of consumables that could be applied to weapons and armor to give truly powerful bonuses but only once. For example one player now has a modification to his battles axe that will let him at +1 and an extra die of damage for one attack. These new magic items seem fun.

Overall, our group had a very positive experience.

I am wielding a katana in one hand and a shield in the other. If I drop my shield as a free action, take an action to change my grip to hold katana in 2 hands, does that count as a "manipulate" action ? I can't seem to find a clear answer. Thank you for any help.

Yes. To change your grip requires an "Interact Action." Interact Action's" have the manipulate trait (see page 470). Traits with the Manipulate trait trigger an AoO (pr page 142).

That is correct, everything is either a spell or not a spell in PF2.

that is so much better

I agree with your analysis for Paizo's motivations for 2.0. But I disagree with your assessment of the current level of acceptance among players. I believe that a solid majority of the player base is happy with 90% of these new rules. But the purpose of the playtest is to iron out problems so it not surprising that problems are the focus of discussion online.

There are certainly some payers that HATE the new rules and they have made their opinions clear. But it seems to me that they are in the minority.

Having said that, there are a few parts of the rules that seem universally reviled: resonance and gating feats behind class requirements come to mind. But my guess is that Paizo will "fix" these aspects of the rules the same way that they "fixed signature skills.

However, it's my firm belief that roles not filled should hamper the party in some way- hamper in a way, for example, that nobody should have the healing power a cleric does, or the casting power of a wizard.

.

Why limit a role to one class? Shouldn't, for example, the 2.0 Bard and Sorcerer "have the casting power of the wizard"? If not, why take them?

I read thro "On the topic of Hit Points Healing -- What about Stamina?" forum post and most people there think that they should not be obligatory.

Do anyone think that it's a good thing to always need a cleric or other healing focused class in the party?

I think that healing is a core part of the game. It makes the game more interesting for the players to have specialized roles -- such as "face" or "knowledge guy" etc. Healer is an important one.

My wish would be for more classes to be able to assume this role as well as the cleric currently does it. Druid, Bard and Alchemist, in particular, come to mind.

Good question. I think tradition is really the main reason. And I absolutely *do* think that other classes should be able to be great healers.

In my opinion, it should be possible to build a bard, or druid, or sorcerer or whatever who is a better healer than a "standard" cleric. But if someone takes a cleric and really optimizes them for healing more than anything else, I want that to be the best healing in the game.

But again, there's no particular reason clerics should be the ones who are the best, aside from tradition. As long as a cleric doesn't feel required in order to have a prayer of surviving the dungeon (pun intended), I'll be happy.

Ok. I think we are on the same page. In my ideal world several classes would have a "healing spec" that was roughly equivalent in power but maybe went about healing in a slightly different way.

I think someone on here had the idea that Leaf Druids could heal with regeneration that was slower but healed more over time. While Wizards might "heal" with force fields and other forms of damage mitigation. Bards might give out temporary hit points to simulate "inspiration" and so on. I like these ideas. They seem flavorful.

Ideally, dreaming up and playing healing builds would be as much fun as coming up with damage builds.

I do want Clerics to be the best healers in the game, . . . .

I agree generally with your sentiments but I'd like to challenge you a bit on this one point. Why -- other than tradition -- should clerics be the healer? I agree that they should be among the best. But I think the game would benefit if other classes were equally good.

And it might also encourage more variety in cleric builds since you wouldnt feel that you were letting the party down everytime you chose an option that didn't optimize healing.

One issue that has come I my group's playtest: clerics are perceived as "mandatory."

The feeling is that the swingy combat from high crits necessitates the ability for significant in combat healing and post fight recovery In current playtest. The perception from my players is that only clerics seem to be well suited for that job because of their ability to use a special resource (channel) to heal. This has resulted in a certain "sameness" of their party composition.

I would propose that Paizo consider adding a "healing spec" to other classes by adding a channel-ilkei ability based on Charisma. For example, the Bard Maestro muse spec, the Druid Leaf order and the Angelic bloodline for sorcerer all seem uniquely well suited for this. Perhaps the alchemist could be granted an option for channel like healing from elixirs?

Obviously, these would not be true channeling -- that power should be reserved to clerics. But Leaf Druids, for example, could have to ability to a plant based healing a number times a day equal to their charisma modifier. (perhaps by generating healing spores). Like a maestro bard could perform a healing performance a certain number of times per day, etc

My feeling is that spreading out the Channel style healing will improve party variety and not force every cleric into the heal role

The PCs did their best to recover. They spent Hero Points, and the cleric doled out healing, but unfortunately, neither automatically pops a character back into the fight in 2e. The janky dying rules still demanded Fortitude saving throws to regain consciousness, and even when that did happen, the characters lost an action and had to spend two actions picking up a weapon and standing from prone. There was absolutely, positively whack-a-mole going on during this process; the fighter dropped to 0 hit points a staggering three times during this battle, and they got to make an attack exactly once, whereas the barbarian dropped to 0 hit points four times, and received absolutely no opportunities to make any attacks. This was what prompted the barbarian's player to ragequit; I took control of the barbarian from there.

•...

The way I would handle this situation is require the the goblin NPCs to make a challenging medicine check to notice that the formerly dispatched player was in fact still alive. If the failed they would move on thinking they had conquered their foe. This would give the players a chance to regroup.

I've been thinking about this for a week now. IMHO the system is still skewed, just differently. It's like trying to focus a microscope, it was too far out of focus in 1e, and now it's too far out of focus in the other direction in 2e.

My quick thoughts on how to dial that focus in.

1. Keep resonance. I can't stand it, but I understand why it's there.

2. Kick up spellcasters' # of spells a day so that they max out with 5 spells/day of 1-5th level, 4 of 6-7th level and 3 of 8-9th level.

3. Take the +1 die damage out of magical weapons and put it back into the proficiencies - so someone trained in the longsword does 1d8, someone expert does 2d8, master 3d8, legendary 4d8 (+ability bonuses get multiplied as well). Lancelot's sword isn't the hero, Lancelot is.

4. Double the raising shield bonus, but make it applicable to 1 attack per proficiency level. If the shield is equipped but not raised, you get the regular bonus (so raising it would be 3x in total).

That would get combat to feel more like a life or death struggle, I think. What we have isn't terrible, it's just very mundane. I'm a firm believer that our actions ought to be meaningful if we take the time to do them.

1. sure. but something should be done for alchemist.

One of the best things about the playtest rules is the acknowledgement of three modes of play: encounter, exploration and downtime. The rules also do an excellent job in making sure that no one class exclusively grabs the limelight during encounter mode. All classes have a chance to shine.

But that isn't true for the other two thirds of the game. For legacy reasons, some classes can become trained in ample skills to be effective during exploration and downtime modes (rogue, ranger) while others do not (fighter, barbarian). Worse, in order to maximize their effectiveness in encounter mode the unskilled classes are encouraged to use their limited resources on skills such as athletics that have less use during exploration mode. As a result, exploration mode is the time when the fighter catches up on his social media.

I understand that historically the rogue (i.e. thief) was the only class to have any skills at all. But I don't see any story reason that fighters and barbarians are automatically unskilled morons. In fact, the literary versions of such characters are often the opposite (Conan, Fafhrd, Elric, etc).

Why not give the same number of skills to all the classes? If anything it would increase the customization of all classes.

If that is not possible for legacy reasons, then I have another suggestion. Most of the classes have one or two "must have" skills. For example, Thievery for Rogues, Perform for Bards, Religion for Clerics, Arcana for Wizards, Athletics for Fighters/Barbarians, Survival for Rangers/Druids, and so on. Without these key skills each class is not functional.

Why not just give each class their key skills without having it count toward their total number of skills? In other words, just give Fighters athletics for free and let them use their skill training on the truly optional ones.

A ballsy move by Paizo thats for sure, and with the possibility of having a divine magical tradition, things are looking interesting for the Oracle....

Is Oracle now an arch-type for Sorcerer?

On things like Alignment restrictions etc I am kind of neutral.

I see what you did there.

I would rate Tony Stark as more Nuetral, with a fairly Authoritarian tendencies and erratic Altruistic tendencies, all heavily complicated by a decidedly Narcistic personality.

Do you mean "authoritarian" or "autocratic"? I'd argue its more of the latter than the former. He seems to have no respect for laws or governments and excessive faith in his own judgements.

What other things help smooth out this potential group / game ending class? Has anyone had similar issues happen with Cavaliers / Clerics etc? It only ever seems to come up with Paladins...

The easiest way to conceptualize these characters is to identify a fictional character that is well known. I think of paladins as basically Captain America.

Captain America (as portrayed in the moves, not the Hydra version) has a strict moral code that is a bit out of step even with his do-gooder friends (especially the chaotic good Tony Stark). But he is not a stick in the mud. He also is not a scold.

He has a sense of humor even when he is defending his moral code. And in some cases his moral code puts him in opposition to the civil authorities (Civil War). He realizes that reasonable, well intentioned people might disagree on a given course of action and part of being "good" is being patient and tolerant of other points of view.

But his main animating force is his sense of self sacrifice (also a good trait). He is willing to sacrifice himself for the cause but does not demand that same level of commitment from others. Thats what makes him a paragon and a source of inspiration.

So if your paladin are scolding rather than inspiring then -- in my opinion -- they are not playing lawful good.

Would Paizo consider putting out an "Unchained" style book that offers Starfinder-style reworked character classes for Pathfinder?

I really like the themes, improved health/death mechanics, and the steam-lined feats -- among other things.

Is that something that Pazio would consider?

Darkbridger wrote:

If Wizards is indeed going down this route, this seems like a direct response to or a direct result of the primary product line of Paizo.

Yeah, because never before in the history of D&D prior to Paizo's adventure paths did anyone ever put additional rules into adventures.

It's a revolutionary new concept that no other company has ever EVER done before. Certainly not as early as the 1970s.

I think you are missing the bigger picture. Paizo is different in that they started with APs -- that is 1 to 20 campaigns -- and then rules and supplements, even the core rules, were later developed to support them. There is no question that this was a different approach than D&D traditionally took.

I think its telling that Wizards now seems to be following the Paizo approach in leading with 1-20 adventures and then offering supplements to support them.

The movies haven't pulled a story seed or character newer than 2006. Marvel could have cancelled all its books almost a decade ago and the movies wouldn't have noticed.

. . well, actually, the Guardians of the Galaxy movie is based on a version of the team created by Dan Abnett that started in 2008 . .

I think WotC dont really care about "winning ICv2" because that represents gaining the lion's share of a trivial market. As such, I dont see that failing to provide for electronic...

Based on their actions, I think their concerns are (1) keeping costs to a minimum (the layoffs and the small staff); (2) making sure that their department is in the black -- even if its a small number (commitment to printing only the books that sell the most copies); and (3) demonstrating that the endeavor can produce valuable license arrangements.

GreyWolfLord wrote:

If that is the case, ICV is no longer really a reliable source to determine numbers and Amazon (even with how volatile those numbers can be, sometimes switching hour to hour) may be more reliable on how sales (at least in the US) are doing.

You say that like it has ever been all that reliable of a source.

Shoot the messenger?

Before 5e released there was a lot of speculation as to wether 5e could prosper in light of Pathfinder's new dominance. I would think that next quarter will be 5e's best shot at taking the top spot. If it can't do that then I would begin to wonder about its longevity. (Hasbro pulled the plug quickly on 4e as soon as it was no longer in the top sales spot.)

It looks like D&D 5e didn't beat Pathfinder in the month that the PHB was released:

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/29999.html

I am genuinely surprised. Are sales weaker than expected? Is that why Hasbro didn't even mention the D&D release in its earnings summary?

Even at +21 you have over optimized for diplomacy at level one. You should expect the target DCs for your level one challenges to be somewhere between 12 and 15. A +11 should pretty much ensure that you succeed as much as you'll need to. You should focus the balance of your build making your character good at some other things.

Yeah, as MMCJawa and Matt Thomason wrote, I don't think we can predict because we don't know what D&D's product release schedule is going to be like over the next few quarters - and that includes other items that are "D&D" such as card games, accessories, board games, etc. Sometimes all "D&D" items are lumped together by the respondents.

I think both games thrive in the short term. I'm very interested to see how Pathfinder Unchained is received in the Spring.

D&D's marketing this time around has been *so* much better than 4E's marketing - much more inclusive.

I have read that the D&D development team is only 8 people. This is why they farmed out of their adventures and only released one of the core books each month. Unless they decide to ramp up staff, this suggests to me that their release schedule will be very limited.

Part of me wonders if the main purpose of 5e is simply to make sure there is a current version of the game out there to support licensed products and spin offs such as movies. They tried to make money using the 4e subscription model and it didn't work out. Hasbro likes to license its products for bigger money making ventures like movies and tv. I wonder if support for the game will remain only at the level needed to provide the impression that the game is an ongoing concern.

Your rogue needs a 14 to save. Your cleric needs a 3.

Is that a feature or a bug? In other words, is it intended that the cleric is the example not be at risk for the will saves while other classes are at risk? is not being at risk an intended benefit of being a cleric?

I have a small problem with my dm. He has gotten real comfortable with the stance that he is the dm and there is always right and word is absolute. He has made at least a few questionable calls and the just rubber stamps it with I'm the dm conversation over. I will provide a few examples.

You should speak to him as a group. Make sure all players are on board before you speak with him. Ask him what the purpose of the game is. When he admits the purpose is for everyone to have fun let him know which decisions he is making that are leading to less fun for the players.

There will be a a great deal of build support outside the standard swashbuckler in the final book by way of both archetypes and feats.

Will there be a feat that allows gnome or halfling characters to mitigate the size disadvantage for parrying?

I appreciate that the -4 was reduced to -2, but I still think that this twist is unnecessarily punitive to small melee characters that are already placed at a disadvantage from their reduced weapon damage. It seems to me that swashbucklers should be the primary melee class for fun seeking gnomes. If anything gnomes should be encouraged by the rules to be swashbucklers as opposed to fighters or other melee.

This class show be all about style, bravery, and showmanship. In order to best represent this the swashbuckler should use Dexterity to hit and Charisma for damage. Physically, disadvantaged swashbucklers -- such as small sized gnomes or swashbucklers who are out numbered -- should find it easier to acquire panache. They should have an advantage when using an improvised weapon or when performing a feint.