Dreamer3333's page

So why not just tie Focus (or whatever you want to call it) to your classes' main stat (set at character creation for str/dex classes?)?
Something about your personal "core".
Everyone's going to have a "best stat", why not use that to drive class abilities (spell points) and whatever you want "focus" to do with respect to magic items.
Yes, it might mean you need something else for Charisma to do for non-charisma classes so it's not so obviously a dump stat...

That being said, I'm still not sure why/how thinking/wishing/focusing/praying really hard should make magic items act better.

And I also think the whole "invisibility potion is more powerful with focus than a 20th level Wizard's casting of it" is really weird/broken (spell only ever lasts a minute, but focus makes potion last 10)??

Data Lore wrote:

Sanmei:

I disagree. Your deity's divine grace was channeled into the magical elixer you used your Focus on. As you imbibed it, you were charged with her divine sense of strength and purpose.

It works just fine. Focus means different things thematically for different classes but has similar mechanical functions with regards to items. That's OK.

I'm still seeing classes having to choose between something everybody does and things which make them recognizably what they are, and I dislike that mightily. A monk never had to choose between healing potions and a Ki Pool before; now they do. A cleric wasn't choosing between their domain powers or elixirs before; now they do.

Ya, it does seem very odd that some class-specific abilities are drawn from the same resource pool that all characters have, that are required for other, non-character things.

And if the solution is "Class #2 will get a small boost in focus to allow for their focus-based abilities" shouldn't we ask whether spell points + focus points (or some version of 2-resource-pools) makes more sense (as much as they're trying to avoid keeping track of these things).
Because adding to focus pool then allows them to (for some reason??) be able to do more "non-class-based" focus spending.

MaxAstro wrote:

It seems like potions in general are not supposed to be spells-in-a-can anymore, and overall I like that.

I like that too, and for magic items to be less formulaic.

But it does mean every spell in the game, if it's allowed as a potion, needs a new entry saying what it does as a regular (and Focused) use potion.

Also doesn't explain why a focused invisibility potion works better (longer) than any level caster casting the spell itself (as far as I can tell).

I like where this is headed, but have a couple questions/issues concerning potions:

1) I don't like how focus + potion = more powerful effect than casting the spell can do.
Example given is invisibility potion. Seems like even raised to 4th it's still only 1 minute duration (just doesn't end when you attack). Is there no way to get the 10 minute scout effect of a focused-potion.

2) isn't it dangerous/terrible to have potion effects different (in general) than their spell's regular effect? Probably don't want to have to have a magic item entry for every single spell that can be put into a potion, to describe how it's different than the spell, and how the focused version is again different. Wouldn't it be better to have a more general rule of "potion does base of spell, focus elevates it to higher level effect of spell"? Or something like this?

I'm fine with the order:
Success
Critical Success
Failure
Critical Failure

I think the devs said before it has to do more with what's more common, not "best-to-worst". Could be just we need to get used to it.
Even:
Success
Failure
Critical Success
Critical Failure

makes some sense using that understanding.

I personally don't like the short-forming that I've seen in a lot of stat block examples above, where you're just using S, CS, F, CF

These short forms are a bit too short maybe.
Also you have to remember that a lot of spells have full sentences to describe the different effects. It's not just "half damage", "no damage" etc.
I think for the "non standard" saves, 1 per line will look better.

Look at Dominate for example, these save outcomes would look terrible without newlines, using just S/CS/F/CF

I like it.
Maybe consider putting it somewhere other than in the actual description though.
So when we know what the spell does and are just looking for how exactly the saves work, could still look at the bottom somehow, where the saves would be listed if NOT Basic (please capitalize)?
(Keep this information in the same place, regardless of Basic or not)

Maybe the term "Standard" instead of Basic?

And while I have YOUR attention (and we're talking about spell blocks).
It seems (unless I'm missing something) that there's no way to tell while looking through a spell description (or a page full of spells) what spell list(s) they are on. It's a real pain to have to have to reference back to the spell list charts every time you're looking for a spell.
1) find it alphabetically
2) see what spell level it is
3) check all the spell lists independently at that level to see who gets it

Qazyr wrote:

16 means you need some exceptional stats (how many characters do you have with two or more 16+ attributes?)

In the playtest, there is only 1 possible character build that doesn't have at least 2 16+ stats by level 5 (starting with 18 12 12 12 12 12, literally trying to avoid having a 16 in a second stat as much as possible). Even then and if you keep trying to avoid more 16s as much as possible, you still have 20 16 14 14 14 14 at level 10).

Firstly, love the idea - can't wait to see how it works out.

It does feel a little bit more (too much?) like 2e D&D though... Where your stats precluded you from taking certain classes.
Why can't you be a somewhat lesser part-wizard? Why are you enforcing that you have to be a "talented" wizard?
Is there a balance issue I'm missing? So much of 2e has been "play the character you want to play" - this seems to be a bit of a change in that.

MerlinCross wrote:

Almarane wrote:

I feel like many people against this blog think they lose a feat by doing a Half Heritage feat. I don't see it this way for two reasons :

- First, you get some things that you wouldn't be able to get or that would require other feats to get (for exemple for the elf : increased move speed is only for elf characters or Trained in Diplomacy would require a Skill Feat).
- Second, the Half Heritage opens two whole new feat trees. Even if the Half isn't that fleshed out (which would be weird, and would still be fixable, and can't be worse than PF1 options for Half-breeds), you would at least get 1.5 new feat trees. You could take the best of three worlds. (maybe humans, with their adaptability, could get a feat that would allow them to increase their spell slots, while elves, masters of magic, would get a feat that increase their spell damages)

You don't take Half Heritage feats just to say "I'm a half-orc/elf" like many seem to imply. To me, those feats look more like Combat Expertise from PF1, which gives you a benefit and a tone of new options.

Hmm, weird. I always took Half Orc/Elf because I thought it suited the character. Why do I have to suddenly weigh the options of picking it now?

You've turned a fully fleshed out race into a math problem.

Agreed. I don't know where the notion of "you don't take half heritage feats just to say 'I'm a ...'" would even come from. Munchkins who treat every character decision as a means to power are actually rarer than people think, in my experience.

I pick half-races (they're actually my favorite) because I feel they make for interesting backgrounds and RP opportunities.

I totally agree. Have to be careful comparing 1e to 2e, and rather compare 2e to 2e.

Which does kind of open up a bigger question of playtest feedback. I wonder what happens when a majority of people "complain" about something because they liked it the way it was before (even if the developers have the math/reasons to prove it's too powerful or breaks stuff).
I assume the devs will not capitulate in these cases (good) but will still cause some backlash (they didn't listen to us).
Giving a voice is super-cool and a really good idea, but of course some people are going to think they should have more "ownership" on the finished product than they do.

Not bad, I have really like every class preview so far - this one falls a bit flatter imo though.
Love the spell list idea, and the bloodlines are cool - but I'm yet unconvinced that losing the "spells per day" advantage over wizards is overly balanced out by anything else, when you consider the spells known requirement - what makes them "that" different?

1) I'm a bit confused I think.
I thought there was only 1 "heal" spell - that just is better depending on at what level you cast it -- so you don't have to learn/know a different healing spell at every spell level.
The description of heightening helping out not needing to learn new "heal" spells confuses me, or at least makes me think my understanding was wrong from previous spell blog.

2)
Also, if the spells per day are the same as the wizard, and the argument is "they should be better at magic items because they should have more resonance"...that logic seems a bit flimsy, unless the sorcerer specifically gets to somehow be better based on a class ability. Since anyone can have a highish CHA - just because it's a side effect of having it be their primary stat is a bit off.

Castilliano wrote:

So throwing uses Strength on attack rolls?

I don't think it really goes off of anything. I think it's just what the designer wants it to be. The ogre has +5 mod on str. +10 to hit with his ogre hook, +8 with his javelin and does 7 static damage with each. No current understanding of the math makes all that add up.

That's a good question -- does the math still "add up"?

Looks good, thanks!

Seems odd to list the 10 ft reach in the weapon specifically, if it's because of the creature's size.
Makes it harder to figure out if/when they pick up other weapons during a fight -- is the reach because of size or the weapon itself? What if the weapon itself provides (extra) reach? etc...