Easl's page

You know full well no one has claimed that hits cause disruption. It is the changes caused by the hit, such as Unconscious and its "can't act" text, that prevent further action via "interruption."

Saying "nobody claims the hit causes a disruption" followed by "...buuut if it causes unconsciousness the action doesn't happen" is saying the hit can cause disruption. And it is, exactly as I said, assuming that the reaction occurs with a specific timing related to the action, when PF2E rules don't say that. They are far more flexible, saying that when there are simultaneous actions, GM decides the order.

You also get 0HP, Unconscious creatures that continue to run 40 ft and Strike while they complete their Sudden Charge.

And here again, you assume the timing you are arguing for. You are just assuming unconciousness happens before the charge completes. No rule says that. The rules say crit hits stop various actions, that's all. So a regular hit on a Sudden Charging enemy lets the enemy complete the Sudden Charge, and after that you apply unconsciousness, prone etc. Alice charges, Bob hits her as she goes by, Alice finishes her charge, whacks her target, and then drops prone and unconscious due to Bob's blow. What is difficult to understand about that? PF2E reactions are not M:TG FILO card stacks. I don't know why you insist on treating them that way.

If a creature gets hit to 0HP, you must then add the conditions that include "can't act" and respect the rules of those new limitations. Allowing them to act after the Reaction is over while at 0HP is simply breaking the rules.

This is circular reasoning. Since the argument is about whether the reactive strike narratively completes before the action completes, you cannot assume it does as a premise. Show me in the rules where it says that regular hits disrupt non-spell actions.

in order for the Reaction to be the active block of text, the triggering action must be paused.

That's the entirety of my "claim."

Your claim confuses player timing with narrative timing. If GM Alice is describing an NPC's stride, and then Player Bob says their PC will reactively strike as they go by, then yes Alice stops talking while Bob makes his attack and damage roll. That's the pause in player/GM timing. However there is no FILO rule that demands Bob's damage narratively determines whether the stride completes. That simply doesn't exist in PF2E. So yes, Alice may pause in her description of events to let Bob roll, but that out of game pause does not demand or imply that when Alice continues the in-game description of what happens, that Bob's reaction prevents the NPC from moving. Even if Bob's PC does killing damage, Alice is free within the rules to describe (a la Highlander) how the NPC continues movement, and that their head falls off their shoulders after they've moved 20' further away. And given that some reactions are explicitly called out as disrupting and this isn't one of them, I'd say Alice has it right in this case.

Stories are full of double-hit strikes. And it's a real thing too. It's fully possible for Evil Henchman to swing at Noble Hero, have Noble Hero interrupt the swing with a deadly thrust to the heart, and yet Noble Hero still gets a massive chop to the face and gains Dying. If the rules don't say disrupt, it doesn't disrupt (...IMO...).

Having said that, as long as tables rule consistently, it's probably fine to go with some version of FILO if that's the table preference. I doubt it will change difficulty of the game one way or the other (other than giving a bit more power to PCs and NPCs with offensive reactions). The one outcome that I would strive for is fairness; if PCs want their reactions to interrupt NPC actions, then be prepared for NPC reactions to interrupt yours.

2. Do the inverse. Give the extra XP for the combat to the party that bypasses the combat. PF2 APs do this all the time. It can help cut down needless combats else where in the campaign and can really make boss encounters challenging if the party doesn’t find a noncombat way to enter the room.

This. Give XP for accomplishing some goal or resolving an encounter, not merely for killing things. The hostile is conquered OR swayed. The hazard is destroyed OR mitigated. This provides greater PC freedom of choice. "Murder hobo" play doesn't happen in a vacuum: when the players get told or experience "if you had killed it, you would've gotten experience. But you didn't so you don't", that's going to encourage it and discourage other more creative/different problem-solving.

Easl wrote:

Reactions always pause the trigger creature's actions in terms of mechanical execution of the rules.

No, this is incorrect. Player Core 1, p422: "If you use a move action but don't move out of a square, the trigger instead happens at the end of that action or ability."

The uniform, consistent timing you're trying to impose doesn't exist in the rules. So trying to extrapolate some more uniform consistent timing uber-rule is not warranted.

Well hi!
I have not played either and they look cool. Dhampirs are in Player Core 2 so that should fit in nicely with the remaster AP...but technically they're living, not undead. They just react to vitality and void damage as if they are undead. There are discussions on the forum as to what this means/how far this goes, so take a look at some of the discussions and decide how you're going to handle things like Heal spells before it becomes an issue.

Cheers and best of luck!

Or you must not, if the writer didn't intend to invoke retro-causality.

Yeah, that is a problem.

If author intent is unclear, I would err on the side of disruption doesn't happen unless it says so.

However as long as a table rules consistently for both PCs and NPCs, the table should likely be fine.

Also, a nitpick; retro-causality doesn't happen in the story, it only happens in applying the rules. But this is not any sort of story problem, and in fact books and movies "reveal" surprising things about a past event later in the story all the time. As GMs and players, thus, there is no need for us to get wrapped around the axle about wierd physics or retro-timing. The sword slashed when it did, even if the author of the story wrote about it a paragraph after they described the end of the fight.

The key is that ALL Reactions operate with the same "Pause trigger's execution, now run the Reaction text" idea.

Well clearly they already don't. A reactive sword slash at a caster doesn't use the same pause mechanics for regular hits and crit hits. As I said above, one way to address the crit vs. regular hit difference is to say "critical" implies a timing difference instead of merely a 'hit harder' difference. It seems perfectly okay to me for a GM to throw out the concept of "the sword swing ALWAYS pauses the action 0.01 seconds into it's 2 second duration" and instead go with something like "the sword swing happens at the end of the action when it doesn't disrupt, and in the middle of it when it does." Reactions are not defined in real world physics times, so there is no need to impose a one-size-fits-all real world physics timing on them.

One option for introducing “refresh spells x times a day” midway into a campaign is to tie it to an item or special environment boon, like a room with a fountain that restores your spell slots that they can go back to when they want to use it. You can limit it to once a day or not.

For AV, that's kind of window dressing. I mean it takes just as little time to fast-forward through "we go back to town and sleep, then come back to this exact spot" as it does to fast-forward through "we go back to the fountain to meditate, then come back to this exact spot." But I guess if players much prefer the latter to the former because of the difference in imagery, have at it!?!

If no one in the party feels like casters are weak with the ability to recharge there spell slots faster than once a day, then the issue isn’t that casting spells from spell slots is weak, it is that your caster players are locked into a scarcity mindset with spell slots that is their own doing (or the mentality of the table), not the game’s.

I tend to half agree with OP (glass), though I wouldn't phrase it as "low-level casters are weak." I'd phrase it as "several 1st level martials are front-loaded."

I'm currently playing in exactly the situation OP describes - i.e. low level AV - and the casters are doing fine. As Unicore and others have said: don't play scarcity, use your slots. Use the quite generous pacing of the AP to rest every 3 or so encounters. Use group tactics: spells that corral the enemy or debuff them rather than trying to out-direct-damage the martials. Use sustained spells on longer fights or in pull/wave encounters.

Casters should also be using the party's in-game knowledge to good effect. AV has numerous situations where you can either anticipate what sort of threat you're going to face or just initially retreat from something and come back later, informed of what it is and what the space is like. Do that - retreat and come back. Use knowledge of the layout of the encounter and what you know to be behind the door to inform your spell choice. Our druid swaps spells on a daily basis to excellent effect, and our spontaneous caster regularly uses the ability to swap on leveling to deal with different threats. And then there's scrolls for the really niche stuff.

It is probably true that in PF2E, a caster PC can't leeeroy their way through an entire level (i.e. 10ish moderate to severe encounters). PF2E casters are not designed to do that. It's not a video game-type magic system. If that's the pace that your friends want to play at, then probably the best bet for "party's magical blaster" would be Kineticist?

I think James' point leans more into saying that Paizo can't control whether GMs are flashing triggering images at their players

Agree. Not their job. It's a 'problem of our age' that these fora sometimes get used by players as an alternative to having a face-to-face (or at least, "camera on") conversation with their GM. I get why - personal interaction is somewhat more stressful to many folks vs. an anonymous airdrop into the ether - however that GM conversation is really the right place to start.

their concern is making the art suit the GM's needs (with content warnings so the right GM finds the right AP) more than with making sure it also suits every possible player

I agree here too....mostly. There's been a real advertising drive recently about personally tailored everything. Folks come to expect some personalization, it can be jarring when you find a product you really want that has none. But published books are (mostly) not that. The only - and very mild - pushback I'd say is that gone are the days when my teen self could go buy a module for my weekly lunch money. When a company is charging $60 per AP, yeah a 2"x2" note on the back of the book identifying if the imagery is not 'rated G' is probably something a reasonable buyer should expect. It's a lot more money down the hole (if I don't like it) than it used to be.

The idea is that a R.Strike begins when the gunner starts to raise the firearm, smacking the shooter before the rifle is ready to fire. And it is NOT trying to sell a situation where the R.Strike begins in response to the bang of the gunshot.

I think you're trying to impose a timing consistency in the rules that isn't necessarily there. Because 'reactions that disrupt' must logically happen before/during the action they disrupt, doesn't mean all reactions happen before/during an action. For that matter, the fact that spell disruptions typically happen on a R. Strike crit success doesn't imply all R. strikes go first, as "crit success" could be interpreted as "happens faster than usual, which is why it disrupts and a regular hit doesn't."

All of which is to say I think a more rules-centric approach (vs. rationale-centric) is warranted. i.e. if it says it disrupts it does, and if it doesn't say that it doesn't. If it is difficult to match the R. Strike disruption rules to some real-world physics scenario in ones' head, well, to me that doesn't mean "reinterpret the rules," it means the rules often prioritize game balance over creating a consistent real-world physics model.

Since the art in an adventure is meant more to inspire the GM than it is to serve as handouts for the PCs...

I'm surprised. Playing on Foundry, our GM flashes AP art on the screen all the time. Now I know, 'different companies,' but I always assumed Paizo was putting out book art on monsters so that yes, absolutely, players who wanted to see what the monsters looked like could do so. Regarding phobias etc, I agree that nobody needs to see it if they have a reason not to - i.e., the visual art isn't critical for play - but for sure, IMO art in an adventure does typically get handed out to the players. I would recommend Paizo take that into account. Not to shut down creativity or get less gruesome, but as a justification for hiring good artists and making great imagery that makes players go 'wow, that's cool.' IOW it's not just being seen by the GM, it's being seen and used by a much wider part of the community. Which is good, and means it has more value and impact.

So the alchemist is supplying the monk with mutagens, and the sorcerer is supplying the monk with haste.. it seems like the players have decided that this is going to be their team plan. It IS teamwork, but the shape of the teamwork is that they all decided to pitch into making one of them very tanky.

Yeah I'm in agreement. The build isn't broke, the party is just spending resources buffing it up. Play on. Dumb enemies should fall for it - but smart enemies should go around the tank. Particularly if he's not doing much offense. It's IMO perfectly reasonable to have even dumb enemies and animals switch targets to the more significant threat when one of the PCs is hiding behind a shield while another is really wailing on them.

I do wonder why they have a new PC at L10 of AV. If it's from a character death, fine. If this is switch for no good reason, on the last level of the AP, that is a pretty good clue there's going to be something hinky going on. I suspect if I tried that, our GM would be like "finish out with what you've got, save the new concept for the next campaign." After all, it kinda breaks story verisimilitude to have your friend and companion for months just exit the story while some random pinch-hitting minotaur nobody knows comes in instead.

The thing is that a sorcerer or kineticist don't play like a wizard does, doesn't use the same attributes a wizard does, and thematically (even if flavor is flexible) don't have anything to do with each other.

Except that many of the mechanical choices are arbitrary. You point this out yourself. If PF3E comes out and the Official Wizard has unlimited (max R-1) blasts, or can cast spells they know any amount of times from their slots, do you think people are going to complain "no, that's not a Wizard!" Of course they won't. They'll likely be happy about both changes. To many, the label matters more than many of the specific mechanical choices. The only thing I see strongly linked thematically to the use of the label is Int as the core attribute. But it's easy enough to go Int 3 with a Kin or Sorc if brainiac caster is your red line for what it takes to earn the Wizard label.

But, let's say Paizo were to release an Int-based prepared full caster named "mage" which was all about learning spells and tweak them. I get the feeling most people that aren't happy with the wizard would be with this "mage" class,

Yes exactly. The Wizard is not the class with vancian casting, the Wizanrd is the class with the title Wizard, no matter what casting it's given. If Paizo goes too far from the standard Gandalf template, players will complain. But there are many many mechanical ways to get to standard western trope pointy-hat caster, and which way Paizo chooses to instantiate it, is far less important to many players than the ability to play a class Officially Called Wizard.

The same thing is going on here. You could probably just copy the entire Fighter class entry, make some small trivial change, call it Samurai, and this would likely make folks like OP happy. Because having the Official Label is a big part of the ask.

so why do we need a new class for that when the fighter already exists and the fighter could get everything samurai-esque from an archetype?

I'm largely in agreement, we generally don't. At most, Samurai might need something iaijutsu-related, but even there it's debatable. The system already has fast draw feats and initiative boosters - if you want to be pull-and-strike-before-they-do, you can already select choices for that. Magical ninja, there's more room because as I said, the PF2E magic baseline is that magic is loud and flashy, so subtle magic in support of stealth missions is a space the game could still expand into. At least IMO.

Though, if I have to be totally honest, I feel discussions about how X or Y is named don't go anywhere.

Unfortunately, names matter. At least to many people. This is why people who want a blaster wizard get unhappy when told 'play a sorcerer' or 'play a kineticist' '...and wear a pointy hat'. For some, it either detracts from the fantasy or doesn't get them where they want to be to role play the concept but lack the Official Label. And it's why the OP here would probably be unhappy with the answer "play a fighter" for samurai. Even though, in this system, that's a fairly good answer.

Magical ninja's a bit harder because PF2E magic is typically loud and expressive. Stealthy magic user is a place where there's room in the system for an archetype or some feats to provide additional support beyond what Conceal Spell does. A more limited, specialized caster that trades out depth of spell list in exchange for stealthy casting is definitely an area the game has not, but could, explore.

If this is a character for an actual game (which is what it sounds like from the tone of the post) then what is the rest of the party composition? And what size of battle maps is the GM going to be expecting to use?

The risk with a character like this is that while you are safer, the rest of your party is going to be taking more damage as a result.

While I agree, 'archer' is a pretty standard character concept so I wouldn't necessarily avoid it. What I would say is that OP shouldn't try to optimize for kiting, because it's not all that necessary - in many encounters, your teammates' being in enemy reach is the 'ability' you'll use to prevent the enemy targeting you.

So in terms of build, if you want to do archer, by all means do archer.

1. Yes, get Fleet for the extra 5' movement, knowing that your 1a stride of 30' or 35' elf will cost many opponents 2a to get to you. It's a good feat anyway. Also useful on offense, to maneuver to get a shot, because one problem with the 'kiting archer' build is that enemies can just step behind corners to take themselves out of your attack range.

2. Yes, if you can manage it, get some trick or ability that lets you lay down a wall or difficult terrain. Again, that's a generally useful trick.

3. Better than laying down difficult terrain would be concealment. Shoot and hide can be an effective strategy. You would not believe the number of times that 25% miss chance makes a significant difference to an encounter.

4. But don't worry about finding the maximum movement or maximum difficult terrain laydown or maximum way to conceal. Most of the time just being 5' faster or dropping 10x10 difficult terrain will do the job of costing your opponents actions to get to you, and just about any form of concealment gives the same mechanical benefit.

5. I would finally caution against trying to go 100% "my defensive strategy is to never be attacked". It just doesn't work in this game. It might work for the odd encounter, but over multiple different encounters, something's going to get to you. So don't ignore the basics: good AC, good HP, good saves are still your bread and butter defenses. Ignoring them because you have a kiting tactic is going to land you in trouble, because kiting will fail for some encounters. Heck it fails against most ranged save spells.

Mainly, I think the decision is just that what we got out of tian xia is more interesting and relevant to the team that put it together than having more bog standard Japanese pop culture stuff.

Agree. It is more interesting (at least to me) for Golarion's people, places, and classes to be new and fresh and simply draw inspiration from history, rather than try and drop history in with a thin paint job over it.

Having said that, there are probably some minor mechanics that could be added in so that folks can realize their vision. Maybe a fighter feat that further increases the bonus given by Incredible Initiative and lets you draw as a free action, while you're wielding your chosen weapon. And for the other guys, maybe some sort of advanced Conceal Spell feat which reduces the cost to a free action or lets you move, cast, and conceal spell for 3a. There are also plenty of 'distraction' feats, so some sort of 'distracting spell' feat probably wouldn't be out of the ordinary.

Our GM has always played it reasonably. Door open = pull. Door closed but heard = prepared.

I agree published adventures set up some unreasonable situations. But I'd rather have a fun and balanced game.

The Fighter is monofocused on one weapon type due to the gamification of the concept of the fighting man; it's easy to give pick-from-list abilities that benefit one single weapon, and over time that became the mechanical identity of the class. That's not to say the Fighter is a bad class; it instead best represents citizen militias like the Greek hoplites and English longbowmen who only have time to practice one weapon, or professionalised military like Swiss Guards, Zweihanders and the ubiquitous Pikemen that don't have infinite money to chase being good with everything.

The noble warrior class is better represented by the Ranger (remember, Aragon is a king) or Commander; good with multiple different weapons...

No argument that other classes may have non-melee skills that fit the trope well. However it baffles me that people keep thinking of fighter as 'mono-focused' when it is as good with all the other weapons as the Commander and Ranger and the other martials. Nothing prevents you from taking your specialty in Sword and then swinging a polearm or firing a bow when the need or situation calls for it. It's like saying "Bob has a fruit salad with world class cantaloupe. Charlie has a fruit salad with average cantaloupe. Therefore, Bob can only possibly ever eat cantaloupe." It just does not follow. Bob isn't more limited than Charlie - rather, Charlie is more limited than Bob.

Agonarchy wrote:

I would love a swashbuckler build that was more oriented toward stealth and gadgets. Can easily build any number of action spies that way, like a fantasy James Bond, Batman/Robin, creepy shadow clown, etc., but also fit ninja and assassin tropes. Sneaky tricky tots and flashbang surprises make for great showy fun just as much as ninja flips and swinging from ropes. And with the right build on an awakened duck, well, Let's Get Dangerous.

Ehh, we already have Dex Armour Inventor for that...

I think that it's important to view ninja 'gadgets' more like spell components (e.g. fireball needing guano, animal friendship needing food) than technology.

Honestly it sounds to me like there's at least three themes that different tables, players, or GMs would want to emphasize (realistic stealth ninja; magical ninja; james bond ninja), so any class or class archetype is likely to disappoint at least 2/3 of players lol because it won't reflect their mental notion of what it should be. And while it's nice to recognize original folklore, modern books and films are perfectly fine for a player to draw their PC's inspiration from too.

Given that, I'm totally fine with no bespoke class or even archetype. Use the tools Paizo has to realize your vision, and if it's just the lack of a name on the class, well, rename it. Though I do agree with Teridax that a good way Paizo could support the ask would be to offer additional game-mechanical "tools" (feats, spells, etc.) so that someone using a base class + existing archetype and then leaning into the theme has ways to get to a character with the right "toolbox."

PossibleCabbage wrote:

...or specifically "what tools would we need to give the Magus for this to work."

I think the main things a caster would need is Acrobatics/Athletics and sneaky abilities (including disguises).

A caster with high dex/acrobatics is pretty easy to build.

I honestly think bounded casting would be fine.

Yeah me too. While I don't think Paizo should necessarily cater to any (more) culture tropes*, spellstrikers with different traditions or spell lists is a place where there is a lot of room for expansion. By all means, bring on the spellstriker who can learn AC spells plus those with the Detection, Shadow, Subtle, and Void tags!

*I'm okay with viking. Yes, it's a cultural trope, that was a bad move. But "Marine" isn't - pretty much every culture had fighters whose job it was to man the boats. Boat+fight is not a cultural trope. Ditch the horned helmets and berserker attitude, it fits everywhere.

Tendra.Calrissian wrote:

Like I said, this is my first foray into such a choice-abundant rule set, so I will misread things and get things wrong, and make sub-optimal choices.

Fortunately, for the most part, a character with some suboptimal choices is still rather playable.

Yeah particularly for the kineticist. Just keep Con at max and all your offensive abilities will mostly take care of themselves. Then it's your choice of Dex for Ref/AC, Wis for Wil/Init/Medicine, Cha for social skills, Str Heavier armor/melee Blast damage, etc.

the only "just in case" instance is if there's no magic...which would also make your chakram useless since it wouldn't return. To make a chakram functional, it'd take gold (better spent elsewhere) & Dex as good as your Con (which it shouldn't be in medium armor).

There's some premaster critters with spell immunity. A backup weapon on a kineticist is good for them, at least at early levels. The other reason I've seen it taken is for range; a crossbow goes farther than any EB. Use it round 1, then drop it as they move into range. However if OP is taking Weapon Infusion, then "I need a long range option" shouldn't be much of a factor.

I don't see the cost of making a chakram returning or keeping it up on runes as too much of an issue. Kineticists don't have a lot of equipment needs; if OP wants to trick out their backup weapon, its probably within budget. Though I'd consider a Thrower's Bandoleer instead. Also maybe think about Plate In Treasure impulse if they want to regularly strike with it rather than blasting.

I do like the idea of the Champion. The deity Onos combines both Metal and Water, and the Obedience Cause fits nicely with Onos and my Ancestry. The Reaction fits a potential future Matriarch quite nicely, and the Armor training is a definite boon.

As to the weapon, Onos prefers the Chakram; while the Impulses are always clearly better, it is never a bad idea to have an extra weapon on hand just in case.

Flavor-wise, you can have your blasts look any way you want. Have your EBs be chakrams. There's no mechanical benefit but it's a way to personalize them based on your theme/archetype.

What Theaitetos said. GMs may allow any Lore they want, simply adjusting the bonus up or down according to specificity of the group covered. Bob Lore, -10 DC when recalling facts about Bob. Golarion lore, -0 DC for things about Golarion...unless you're playing SF, in which case, since the in-play setting is much bigger, -4 or something. The main rule here should be "come to agreement with the player about what it gives before they select it, so they can make an informed choice."

Castilliano has it right, your idea is a no-go. If you're looking at kineticist as your class and trying to boost EB, look at Desert Wind. A DW build won't give you the outright damage of an all-fire build, but for boosting EB after about L10, it's hard to beat. Even so, it never combos with strikes or strike effects, because it isn't one.

Maybe if the creature is a bookworm ;)

Seriously, if you're in a library and an encounter happens, and the beastie is something the GM assesses hangs out in libraries or is regularly associated with libraries, then I'd allow it. But otherwise i.e. for some random critter whose presence there is unrelated to the nature of it being a library, nope.

We've used stabilize a bunch of time in combat. And we like the tension of the after-combat still-in-initiative bleed out scene. My PC isn't the medicine guy, but I have no problem sitting and enjoying it for the minute or two it lasts. Geez that scene takes less time than some players' in-combat what-do-I-do decision making during their turn.

Personally, the OP's complaints are a non-issue for me because even if true, Medicine is incredibly useful and it has actually good skill feats. So I see this as a case of a skill that does A B C D E, and even if C D and E rarely come up, who cares because being proficient at doing A and B is really good. Treat wounds, battle medicine, your skill is really useful.

Free daily usage snares granted by an ancestry, class ability, or feat last 24 hours after deployment in the field.

I guess the question is, where does it say that?

Also, that's a somewhat unusual time limit. Most daily prep things last until the next daily prep, not a strict 24 hours. The difference mostly won't matter for active encounter use, but could definitely matter for snares placed around an encampment before you sleep. I would be surprised if the RAI was that a snare you placed at 2359 is supposed to last until 2359 next day. It would be more in keeping with PF2E daily prep items that it lasts until the next morning when everyone wakes up and does their daily prep, around 0800. At that point (typically), you gain a new set of daily consumables but lose any previous daily consumables. Which makes no physical sense at all but is a reasonable game rule to prevent stockpiling.

Any rate the question is, can I start him as a Ancestral Elf Heritage and then take a feat that allows him the ability for the Wood Elf heritage or does that not exist. I am figuring a ranges who has an alchemist's dedication works for the back story with adding a lore for civil engineering or something.

Not sure!

I'm going to assume you mean Ancient Elf and Woodland Elf. Since Ancient Elf just gives an archetype, you can 'emulate' having both by taking Woodland Elf as your heritage and then at 2nd level, taking a multiclass Archetype feat. Then you just call the archetype feat your Ancient Elf heritage. If the GM did allow you to take "Ancient Elf" heritage as a feat at L2, this would have exactly the same result.

If, OTOH, by 'ancestry heritage' you mean the elf feats ancestral longevity and ancestral linguistics, you can do that easily. Take Woodland Elf + one of those feats at L1, then take Ancestral Paragon to get the other one at L3.

fujisempai wrote:

Maybe some universal way of altering spells by adjusting the amount of actions required. Most spells are all 2 actions which kinda left casters using the same action economy as 1e. Perhaps something trading actions for one of the spell variables. e.g. range, damage, number of targets

I cannot be sure whether you are doing a bit or not, but assuming this is a genuine request, that's essentially spellshapes/metamagic.

Pretty sure fujisempai was thinking about metamagic-like mechanics that lower the action cost to 1 in exchange for some loss of capability (range, damage, # targets).

I suggested the same basic thing a few days back, but (a) limited to cantrips and (b) include the [Flourish] trait, so a caster could only cast one sped-up cantrip per round.

Should it not be inferred that a spell which lacks magical incantations cannot have a verbal component by defintion;

I agree with Finoan. Both PF and D&D have a long history of lists of bespoke spells. Spell construction is not really an in-game thing in these systems. It's perfectly fine for a GM to look at CRB and pre-master and playtest statements like that and use them when constructing their own in-house spells. However any time that sort of guidance clashes with an actual, published, spell description, the description should IMO take precedence. If Paizo publishes some 2a spell with Concentrate only, then that spell is what it is. You play it the way it's written, and I think it would be counter to RAW and RAI to infer some mistake and then change it to Concentrate+Manipulate just because it's 2a and some old statements made reference to 2a = both verbal and somatic.

Since size doesn't automatically give more (or less) HP, then movement through hazardous and damaging terrain shouldn't automatically deal more (or less) damage.

Well "per 5 feet of movement" is still going to do more damage to a large creature, but probably only a trivial amount more. A large creature will have 1 more "5 feet of movement" in any given move where part of them is in the terrain because the 'back' of their token is not the same square as the 'front' of it. So whatever the increment of damage is per 5' of movement, they'll always get one more. But only one more, no matter how big the hazardous terrain area.

You might even say that you couldn't perform a manipulate while also using Shield Block, but I'm not even sure it's possible for such a situation to arise where you're reacting to use a shield block and also casting a spell.

THAT one is pretty well covered by the rules, at least: "You only get one reaction per encounter round." PC1 p15. So if you've raised a shield and have Blood Vendetta in a slot, you'll have to pick either shield block or the spell, as you can't use both.

The 'manipulate' trait is vague enough that GMs may have some judgement calls they need to make at some point or another. All we know definitively is that (a) it's motions that can trigger reactions, (b) it doesn't require you to have your hand free of stuff, and (c) you can't access it when your hands are bound/tied. But the concept of '(c)...or otherwise unavailable' is kinda there, implied, waiting in the wings for GM assessment.

I will say that a wizard holding 2 scrolls sounds awesome on paper until you get pushed over a cliff and can only succeed on grabbing an edge if you critically succeed the check...and fall horribly to your death...Not that I would know this from personal experience.

That seems excessively restrictive. The motion of 'open my hand' could certainly be part of a reaction.

Seems like giving the PC the choice in this case would be both reasonable and allow more agency. PC picks: release it as you grab, you will succeed on a success but the scroll falls to its doom. Or keep hold of it and try for the crit success. We have one player in our group who would likely have his PC keep hold of it, because that's just who the PC is :)

I mean, at that point you literally have attributes with another name, no?

Depends on how it's done. Any system where you add two orthogonal things together to get a dice pool or bonus pool could probably fit the definition.

However what I was talking about was one where you only have proficiencies. The proficiency concept is expanded to include combat traits (AC, Attack, spell attack, HP, etc.), but all proficiency feats or experience spends just give a bonus to that stat. So instead of STR (does damage AND attack) + Attack modifier, you'd have Attack modifiers, period. Instead of Dex contributing to your AC AND Ref save, you would have AC feats/spends and Ref feats/spends. This, in my opinion, would not be "an attribute system under another name", because you've gone from a two-axis combinatorial system to a one-axis one. Simpler and cleaner, though there will certainly be players who don't want that because they want the combinatorial aspect of A adds to X and Y while B adds to X and Z. Games like Feng Shui do something like this: you don't add Str+Proficiency+Level+etc to get your attack stat, you just have one, direct, attack stat, and if that stat is what you want to increase, you spend experience to increase it.

Unicore wrote:

After thinking about it more, I think an attribute-scoreless system like we started to outline above could pretty easily fit in an unchained book because you could keep the game math exactly the same with level caps on the total character bonus you could get to any one check, and just give out ability feats every time in character creation you could get ability score boosts...

I don't think it would be as easy as you think.

For one, if we straight up remove attributes, then we need guidelines to tweak every single DC and monster statistics to accomodate for the PCs lower numbers,

Its easier to keep monster stats the same and change chargen. Since a PC right now gets 9 attribute bonuses, you give out 4-5 "+2 to..." ability feats, with a max stacking limit of 2 feats for any given thing. These could include attack, AC, damage, saves, and skill groups.

I do think room could be made for other spellcasting styles, going so far to make sure that Vancian isn't the default for all classes,

This already exists! Both spontaneous and kineticist are different systems.

Personally, I think if Vancian prep casting is to survive, I'd like it to be much like druids and clerics. Wizards and witches should be able to wake up and choose from the entire list, and that would make prep casting pretty powerful and more competitive with signature-spelled-repertoire casters. You'd have to give spellbooks a different function, but that's okay, they rarely enter play anyway.

And removing attributes? That seems absurd to me. The system is a fun way to show a character's innate strength and weaknesses. I could see them getting shifted a little, and I could definitely see them fixing up partial boosts, but outright removed? Absolutely not. It's a part of the DNA that makes Pathfinder what it is.

Yeah, I think if they stick with a d20 class and level system, you want attributes because that's what these players like and want. There are plenty of other systems that do it differently, and that's okay, but it would take quite a big system change to go there.

Yeah, same. I think Guidance is fine. You use it when you want to try to get an extra edge. It does its thing without fuss.

The value also has to do with the somewhat natural imbalance between offense and defense. If I take a defensive bonus (like, say, 1a take cover), that helps me....but the enemy still has plenty of targets not benefiting from it. Whereas if I give an offensive bonus, that in essence helps the entire group. So in terms of defeating enemies in an encounter, a smaller offensive bonus can be as or more effective than a much larger defensive bonus.

Paizo tried to hint that a +3 is OK in a offensive ability score but the optimzer community and most of the player base haven't embraced that.

Well of course not, the math is linear. +3 to +4 is exactly as useful as +2 to +3, and if they try to tell folks different, nobody's going to buy it.

If they *really* want to change the relative value of attributes, change the standard roll from 1d20 to 2d10.

Characters can take one of these as a free feat at level 1 if and only if they don't have a +4 ability score.

I like it. It doesn't change the base Pathfinder system and is consistent with previous theming where one ancestry (typically human) gets a jack-of-all-trades sort of concept.

Though I think your specific feat ideas may be too strong. They are generally objectively superior to a +1 attribute, so they would simply drive optimizers to always take those instead of always taking the +4...but not increase the variability of character concepts. Example, your strength feat gives +1 to attack, damage, and Con. This is strictly superior to the +1 to attack and damage that a bump to Strength would give you, so why would anyone ever bump Strength up to 4 in your system? They wouldn't. So you'd simply be replacing "all fighter players feel obligated to take Str 4" with "all fighter players feel obligated to take Str 3 and the strength feat."

It feels great when you turn a miss into a hit or a hit into a crit, but only if you know that happened. Foundry has a module to automate it, but it should be pointed out in person as well.

We quite like foundry in that respect. Not just for Guidance, but all the bonuses - it tells you when they made a difference. Definitely pleasing to see it pop up that your off-guard guidance demoralize turned a miss into a hit. Our GM likes it too, and he regularly points out when this happens.

I have to say, though, that in our group nobody really complains about Guidance being wasted. It's true that most of the time it doesn't make a difference. But I think everyone in our group is cool with the idea that it could, and is sometimes more relevant than the alternative uses of that action. You are buying improved possibility for an action, and both our martials and casters like that. Our GM is a bit of a stickler on what counts as Aid though, so that may be a factor at our table which improves it's relative value for us - Guidance just works, no descriptive acrobatics needed to justify the bonus and no GM "no", which ultimately means more rounds and scenes per hour of game time and less time rules haggling.

Clearly, there are cases where stagnation does occur, like Picking a Lock that isn't trivially easy to pick during exploration and potentially attempting the same check many times until it eventually opens.

In cases where there is no danger on failure, we've dealt with those stochastically - i.e. just imposed a number of lock picks used based on statistics, and moved the plot onward to "you eventually open it." Fair warning - this is not super satisfying to our thiefy character. But it does prevent the issue of much play time being lost to one player rolling over and over again. I think another way to do it would be the 'wandering monster' penalty. i.e. a failed roll means the lock opens with a big thump, attracting danger. We haven't seen that yet, but it's certainly an option.

To me, ultimately, fail forward isn't about giving the PCs a reward they didn't earn. It's about making your 2-3 hour session filled with fun scenes not boring scenes. So a success at some "gate" roll should lead to the fun scene they were aiming for, while a fail can lead to a fun scene they weren't aiming for. In an AP you might shoehorn this to end at the same plot point, but in a home campaign it can completely diverge.

A similar example might be Nonlethal Spell, which is Wizard only for some reason that I can't fathom except "we didn't have a way to make it more generic", and which causes all kinds of grief in campaigns where taking people alive is important.

We just had this come up last session. However since only the "last" hit is what determines knocked out/dying, it wasn't a big deal. But that's a quibble. Yes, for all the complaints that people have over skill feats being not good (Medicine excepted), they really could have shifted some class feats into "proficiency feats". This would let the classes that have those good feats take more of them, and allow the classes that don't have access to them to get them...eventually.

Fighting in formation properly is a skill that you have to drill. You don't just do it automatically and not everyone has that training. That's what taking the feat represents.

I agree, that's what taking the feat represents.

The game doesn't have to mirror RL to be good. But in RL, this is exactly what happened. Armies conscripted butchers, bakers, candlestickmakers and taught them how to fight in a shieldwall. Heck I suspect it even happens in SCA - accountants learn how to do this on the weekends. But in Golarion, why, it's even more impossible than throwing a fireball from your fingertips!

And really, if that's not a reason to have things gated by feats and balance isn't a reason to have things gated by feats... why have feats at all?

I have no problem at all with it being a feat. I have a quibble with it being an exclusively fighter and champion feat. A much better gate would have been something like "trained proficiency in martial weapons".

If we want to evoke history then the most successful fighting style should be shield and Spear but only for troops in ranks. The shield was not impenetrable because it was used to swat away sword blows, it was impenetrable because it formed a wall that protected everyone in it and repelled blows.

I am not certain but several feats that use aid another could be woven into a group of henchmen with the same armor setup as a character which allowed him to fight as a group. Three or four should be enough.

Not sure how to do it but everyone having the same feats as a cooperative element would be how you would replicate that.

The feat "Shield Wall" is what you're looking for. It gives cover as an added benefit when you work with others, which is quite good and seems to me to be a reasonable in-game version of realism, so that's a positive. The negative is, this is a good example about how Paizo sometimes gates something everyone can learn how to do behind a class feat or ability for balance or just flavor purposes.

Nevertheless, I'll have you know that I have always interpreted them as floating disks;

I remember getting excited and 'hoooollly cow' about it the first time I read it too, thinking they were giving essentially a limited form of levitation/flight as a 1st level kineticist feat. Took me a couple of test PCs and re-looks at the various impulses before I really sat down and read it closely. But when you do that, I think the RAI and RAW are pretty clear. At least, I can tell you I switched my opinion on my own, after just reading, without anyone having to convince me of it.

The Contrarian wrote:

Either way, you're good for short temporary bridging.

LOL; Indeed.

Again, I can respect the loophole argument in the rules...

... and still shut down the obvious cheese.

Agreed. RavingDork/Contrarian is both reading the wording and reading the intent wrong. Though maybe just to poke.

Going up a vertical surface, it's easy to see what they mean - you have a wall, you put the steps on it going up the outside. Some old towers were built like that, as well as Inca terraces.

Is it common in your groups to look at stat blocks of enemies of a campaign you are playing, let alone the end boss?

It would be a great no-no for me or any of the GMs i play with.

Us too. If your characters get a lot of info about the boss, then that's great. Every PC can also then do RK checks to elicit 1-bit-per-success extra info. But players should generally try to separate what they learn out of game from reading manuals and AoN from what their pcs know in-game.

I'll also add this to my list of proposals for a future edition; make casters casters lean into 3 action system a bit more. If most spells have 1A, 2A, and 3A variants, it could IMO result in a more fun playstyle of mix-and-match 1A and 2A version of certain spells to make action rotations.

I think for cantrips that would be okay. I think for slot spells it would not; the caster would simply feel greater pressure to 'stand and blast' by always using the 3a version. I mean we already see that with force barrage, right? If it's sitting in your top slot, ain't no way you're going to expend that slot for the 1a or 2a version. You'd see the same behavior occur with all other spells.

Perhaps another option is to expand on the "Aqueous blast" and "Floading Flame" type spells. Make more of the sort of spell that lets you blast when cast, and then lets you use actions on either that turn or future turns to continue blasting with it. Sustain Floating Flame, 1a cantrip, move could be a good turn.

I do like the whole theme of casters using magic to accomplish what others use class feats for. I agree with Teridax that they aren't really needed, however for GMs looking to spice up their caster's play, I think creating 1a cantrips that do something non-blasty while also giving you a slight benefit could be good and not unbalanced. 'Magic up' - stand and step. 'Blur' - concealment in iffy conditions. Terrifying Presence - make a demoralize roll, as if you had the Intimidating Glare feat. Etc.

even in the current system, I have the feeling most casters already get to use their third action for something that's arguably better than a 5d6+stat damage cantrip anyways...Also, the damage you make when a singular foe when they succeed on a save is pretty much neglible...

The option of that 1a spell attack is incredibly powerful and could significantly change the game, even if as you say a lot of the time it isn't chosen. My main game is on foundry, which gives the PCs an indication of how damaged an opponent is. I can't tell you how many umpteen encounters we've been in where I've spent a 2 action cast, sent an enemy to "near death", but didn't have a way to finish them off. This results in them getting at least one more round of attacks or casts in, often with significant impact since an enemy at 1 hp does just as much damage as an enemy at 100 hp. In a game where combats are 3 or so rounds, where you may have between 1-5 opponents total, and where doing damage to an opponent does nothing to their offensive capability, killing a significant threat critter a round earlier is a big, chunky, difference in the overall pacing of combat.

If you make a feat to patch a failure of the system, then you are making it a feat tax

To be clear: I don't personally see a failure in the system here. I got the impression you were looking for 1a options, so I gave an idea which has the advantage of not requiring the publication of tens-hundreds more spells - and indeed letting a caster use ANY blasty 2a cantrip as a 1a blast instead - at the cost of taking a feat. But if that option was never implemented by my GM (and it won't be), I'm totally fine with it. I don't see it as necessary and I'm not pining for it. Instead, I see this as me offering a homebrew suggestion to you, based on a dissatisfaction you voiced with the current system.

its a matter of "casters feel bad in play" and I think a future edition should adress this.

Well I get that. See my "d20 rolled for damage" example above; it can feel not as fun to very consistently deal low damage, vs. less consistently dealing bigger damage. Even when, over time, you're contributing about the same either way.

But it's not either-or. Paizo can give casters both by keeping the way spells work exactly the way it is now, and just adding in some 1a AC targeting spells. Something like the kineticist's EB as a cantrip.

Funnily enough, I think at high levels cantrips are mostly failing non-casters who took them for fun or for a non-weapon ranged option. I don't think it's necessarily bad if casters are having too much fun with their main spells that they don't always fall back to their cantrips.

The two wave casters may still be using them. Though if they were able to poach good focus spells, they're using those first.

Cantrips in PF2e usually start at 1dX at 1st level, increasing by one damage die every two levels thereafter, up to 10dX at 19th level. My proposal changes this to 1dX+casting stat at 1st level, increasing by one damage die every 4 levels thereafter, up to 5xD+casting stat at 17th level. Even when I'm proposing to change cantrips to one action all across the board, due to the lack of accuracy on a potential second cantrip attack,

Ugh no, you and I definitely have different tastes. I hate the 'big step' increments. To me, that makes it useful only half the levels (i.e. when you've just incremented). Also, save spells don't lose accuracy on a second cast, so your 1a variants are doing more than you think. And probably doing a lot more at low levels than you think, because of the +4 instead of +1d4 change back.

What I'm trying to adress here is that nobody has a reason to use cantrips after 4th-5th level

Fair. Conceptually it would be completely valid to have evergreen blasty cantrips, then slot spells focus on utility, buff, debuff, etc. It would definitely be a departure from PF2E as it is now though.

Perhaps a way to accomplish this is to have the regular 1-rank increments (R2, 3, 4 etc.) they do now, dice upgrades every 3 ranks (R3, 6, 9), and then one bigger upgrade at a high rank. So for instance, EA gets "chaining" at R6. At that point it would be doing 6d8 chaining. Not top slot worthy, but very good. Casters would still be using top rank slots for blasts, but they'd now probably fill the slots in ranks below that with utility etc. because they wouldn't need as many R-1 or R-2 slot blasts.

Most martials usually do 2 attacks each turn, while a caster, due to the action cost of most spells, gambles their whole turn on a d20 roll that they don't even get to make most of the time. A 1A cantrip can fill the role of that second attack martials get to make in most turns, while also providing a non-resource way to contribute to combat in the case they would run out of spells.

I get you. However it's not much of a gamble: casters do some damage the vast majority of the time, because of the 'half on a successful save' mechanic. If you want to make them more martial, you could add a feat something like this:

Fast Casting [Feat; Free action; Spellshape; Flourish]. Requirement: Your next action would be to cast a 2-action cantrip that requires a saving throw and does damage. Effect: the spell requires only 1 action to cast, however, it does no damage on a Successful save.

Adding an ability like that is a lot simpler than reinventing the whole cantrip list :)