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Aiden2018 wrote:

MerlinCross wrote:

That aside, I know people want Ki-less Monks for..., flavor or mechanics reasons but what do you DO as a monk if you don't have your Not magic but totally magic powers?

For me is mostly about flavor. I personally like mystical monks as much as I like mortal/brawler monks. I just don't like the idea of not being able to choose the latter.

As for what you do without mystic powers? ...Well, I would hope you do what comes natural and punch bears in their stupid faces. From what I hear they are still very viable as combatants.

And yet at least from what I saw of the playtest, Monk is still very much a trained, drilled, and schooled Unarmed combatant. Put a different way, I can't flavorly make the Brawler I have now(Washed up, half drunk former tavern bouncer who fights well due to his job and the fact he's seen like 50 adventuring parties throw down in a pub and recalls their tricks) with PF2 Monk. If anything, he'd probably be closer to Fighter and even then that's still not close enough.

(snip)

This sounds a lot closer, concept-wise, to the Rogue with the Brute Attack Technique from the playtest... basically, they can do sneak attack with any simple weapon (instead of just a short list), can wear medium armor, and can use strength as their class key stat. The level 2 feat for this lets you beat the fear of you into people.

The fist is a 1d4B simple weapon that is agile, among other things, though the rogue would be as effective with a club, staff, or mace.

I didnt realize I was going to buy a textbook!

They've repeatedly said '640 pages', which makes for a serious tome. The CRB can join Hero 5th Ed. in the category 'RPG books that can stop small arms fire'.

It's not so much of a jump considering this isn't the only data point indicating this. The tendency of the playtest was to make magic bad, and some of the other choices revealed since then seem to continue this trend. [...]

I hope I'm wrong. I hope magic items are still good, and it's just wands that are junk. But I do see a trend of a mindset that magic use needs to be punished. And that's a deal-breaker. And no, smoldering fireball doesn't make up for the bad taste in my mouth for self-destructing wands. It just means the risk to reward ratio will be even worse for those wands.

One of the complaints about D&D and related systems is that their character felt like a coatrack; that vast majority of their character stats and capabilities came from the hoard of powerful magical gear they were wearing, and not so much from the character itself; this is especially true of melee characters. Spellcasters were their own problem, as spells that scaled with level made them vastly more powerful at high levels than a non-caster.

So it looks like, to some degree, spellcasters and magic items are less powerful than in PF1 or earlier games. In the grand scheme of things, I think that's not a bad thing. Martial and skill-based characters can be cool because they have cool abilities and amazing skills, not because they've managed to hunt down all the best +stat and +skillmod magical gear, or the best enchanted items to give them access to magic. And spellcasters are still VERY powerful at high level... Just not quite as game-dominating as they used to be. There are relatively low level spells that summon dragons or shapeshift you into a dinosaur; and that can be cast at higher levels to become more powerful as you level. It's just that now they cost a 8th or 9th level spell slot, instead of still being 4th level.

Waiting for #6 to show up is killing me.

Based on the cards before and after it, I'm guessing it's the card with 'Rarity' defined... which would seem kinda appropriate. 8)

I've often toyed with running something in a setting where the gods played that kind of role, rather than the more typical fantasy RPG role. Where the sun was actually the Sun-god's chariot rather than the sun god just sort representing abstract sun-ness.

Max Gladstone's Craft Sequence plays with this: Mortal wizards have risen up and slain the gods, only to discover someone has to keep the world running. In one city, they have to keep up the old sacrifices to sustain enough power to keep the rains coming and the city from perishing in drought.

In Godbound (an OSR-style ttrpg), a similar story plays out; mortals attack heaven, to find the Creator missing from the throne. They've driven the few remaining angels to hide in hell, and the damage from the fighting and lack of angelic maintenance causes issues with the celestial machinery that keeps the material plane functioning. So mortals take pieces of Heaven to create their own 'Made Gods' to champion the beliefs of/enforce the morality of their own nations or organizations. Wars between the Made Gods' nations break out... Shocking no one, this nearly destroys the world.

Some time later, normal people occasionally find themselves connected to a piece of the Divine; they gain power from the Divine Words this grants them, and start gathering a cult of worshipers. They are the Godbound, and are humanity's last real hope for saving the world as it falls apart. It sounds like a pretty neat game.

They actually discussed the next TWO Lost Omens books at the banquet.

Lost Omens Character Guide ( October?)

Has tons of new backgrounds for coming from anywhere in the Inner Sea, as well as some new archetypes that are more regional. From the sounds of things, a lot of these may be listed as 'uncommon' with a shift to common if your character is from the associated region. Also has roleplay ties and faction info to put your PC (or NPCs or monsters, for GMs) more 'into' Golarian.

LO3: Lost Omens: Gods & Magic (I think this was slated for December)

Lots and lots of more deities with their domains and spells and powers and favored weapons, etc. More magic items, more spells, etc. More rituals, for the non-spellcasters to play with, too.

I think they are both 128 pages.

Truly things have gone full circle if the new and better way of TTRPG is based on "the GM has all the power because surely that is the only way great stories can be told". Gygax loved that paradigm. I do not because not many GMs have the skill to provide fun to players when being all-powerful.

I have many issues with this. Player narrative control is a game design choice. Some games offer very little, some games offer so much they drop the role of 'story teller/game master' completely.

Your final statement makes a claim that I have the greatest issue with, as lots and lots of players are having fun playing in low-player-narrative games, with GMs of varying skill. Having a great GM can enhance the experience, regardless of the amount of player narrative control available; just as having a poor GM will make the session more frustrating.

The amount of player narrative control in a game is more to do with the type of story being told. Games with high player control tend to be more about telling the individual PC's stories, with the GM acting as procedural authority and dispute judge. Some might call these 'sandbox games'. Games with low player control tend to be about the GM guiding the players through a story that he/she is telling. Which you prefer is personal, and should be part of the discussion of a group when gathering to play.

The Raven Black wrote:

I consider killing opponents who are at your mercy ruthless, thus in my game at least not Good.

I wouldn't necessarily call it Good either, but a Good person (and Valeros is NG) can take non-Good actions regularly and remain Good really easily if they also take Good actions. Evil actions are another matter, but I wouldn't say this particular example is Evil.

The Raven Black wrote:

I do not remember how it falls under PF2 playtest alignment definitions and of course we do not have the PF2 alignment definitions yet.

Fair enough.

I rather appreciated the Edicts and Anathema for the deities in the PF2 playtest more than their general alignments. In this case, Cayden Cailean has an anathema for 'abide slavery', so he's probably not too concerned with the lives of these guys. And at least he's not a dwarf... Torag is LG, but has an anathema of 'show mercy to the enemies of your people'... Torag is all for putting your enemies in the ground.