Ecidon's page

As a long time Pathfinder player, I'm not entirely sure if I'd buy more 1E splatbooks if they printed them.

I'd be interested in more APs, definitely more PFS, and maybe more setting information. But I think there's enough 1E options - and the later 1e options seemed to be not entirely well written/tested.

This is an example of something that should really get FAQed!

(Also, what happened to the FAQ button?)

Richard Crawford wrote:

I want no errata.

Because I want a perfect product with no errors.

But, given the choice between a product with unfixed errors and a product with errata, I'll take the latter everyday of the week.

Paizo does not have a good reputation for their handling of errata in the past, and with PF2, it seems to be getting worse.

At least with Pathfinder, developer's rulings ended up split between the faq and the errata documents.

Now, we need to refer to random comments that they're making on whatever podcast or promotional video that they have appeared on.

Where do you get the “seems to be getting worse” from?

When was the first errata for the first printing or the 1E core rulebook released?

Was it within 2 months of release?

It was within two WEEKS of release! The Thursday before Gencon!

And the second printing was in November.

It seems the problem is some errata have already been acknowledged which has given people arguably unrealistic expectations

Of the points that were mentioned I believe most were things that seem like they could have been design choices until confirmed as errata (wizard feat, sorcerer saves and unarmed proficiency). There were questions and doubt but no certainty

They are primarily working on the GMG and then getting classes ready for the APG playtest right now

But where has it been acknowledged? As far as I can tell, not having spent hours watching every twitch stream and podcast (but rather using these board's rather convenient RSS feeds - you can get it to flag every post by a developer!), they're only as part of off-hand remarks on videos.

Comparing an 18 to a 16, you will be behind by 1 for approximately half your play time. In exchange, you get quite a bit more flexibility.

Don't start with 14 in your main stat and refuse to increase it, and you'll be fine.

I think "half your play time" is incorrect: The amount of actual play that occurs post-level-14 tends to drop off massively due to real-life constraints.

I'd say you'd be behind by 1 for closer to 70-80% of your play time (at levels 1-4 and 10-14)

Conditions with direct analogues between PF2 and 4e:
Blinded
Deafened
Concealed -> Concealment
Controlled -> Dominated
Dying
Flat-Footed -> "You grant Combat Advantage"
Immobilized
Invisible
Persistent Damage -> Ongoing Damage
Petrified
Prone
Restrained
Slowed
Stunned
Unconscious

Please stop using a dollar sign to mean gp.

It's just wrong.

Those who prefer to rapidly have their characters "become gods" and not be threatened by lower-level foes seem to prefer the steeper power curve.

Having a high number does not make you a god. Given the lack of listed DCs, it's hard to tell exactly what a high number gets you, but one data point is that a DC30 acrobatics check will give you the "godlike" ability to...

Jump vertically 8'. With a run up.

Why should PCs get +anything to everything for "free" when levelling up?

This is the question that needs to be satisfactorily answered rather than debating what the actual value of the increment is.

The issue with the "dead level" argument is that because the DCs are increasing at the same rate, any concrete improvement that your character receives is based on options they select. And given that - at least compared with Pathfinder - the options are pretty lacklustre, every level feels "dead".

Ten years ago, this place was a den of negativity during the original Pathfinder Playtest. First Edition wasn't doomed because a rule wasn't changed...Second Edition probably won't be either. History repeats.

Luckily for us, Paizo do keep an archive of these discussions.

I see a lot more negativity here than in those boards...

Where I did see the negativity was in boards about another product released a few months before the Pathfinder Playtest was announced...

*blink*

*goes and reviews huge bookshelf of D&D materials, dating back decades*

*is unable to find a +1 system in those books*

Let's go back ten years. Pathfinder Alpha. V1.1 March 2008. The initial release had +1/level for trained class skills, +0.5/level for trained cross-class skills (remember them?) and +0 for untrained skills.

This was removed by Alpha 1.2.

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2hylq?Keep-Skill-Points

It would be interesting if Jason could explain why, if it was a bad idea then, it's a good idea now.

OP has let me play with their professional lockpicks and practice locks, and the fundamental idea of lockpicking as a potentially dangerous but rewarding process has a lot of potential. It succeeded in evoking the feel of the real thing.

While playing around with lockpicks and practice locks, did you ever break the picks while trying to open the locks?

Even when completely new to it? (untrained)

Matthew Downie wrote:

That would be a step up from "I think they explained it somewhere in a Twitch video I saw".

I'll disagree, since the videos tend to be bunched together and easy to find.

Sure, I'll watch 10 hours of content in order to find that explanation somewhere in there.

The videos might be easy to be found, but they're unsearchable and very difficult to reference (somewhat like the Playtest rulebook).

Ecidon wrote:

Jason S wrote:

Ecidon wrote:

What was the real problem with negative hitpoints that the new dying rules are attempting to fix?

It means not instantly killing PCs, especially when you are higher level and everyone is doing 20-30 damage per hit easily, when you're down to your last 10 hp, you know you're going to die on the next hit.

Now when I GM I don't need to worry about what everyone's hp are at, I just doing whatever damage and I know I can't kill them outright. For me, it's a huge improvement.

Isn't that issue trivially solvable by altering the negative HP value that would cause death?

It is a potential solution, but I'm not sure figuring out the appropriate threshold is trivial. You then need to pretty carefully measure that threshold against expected damage input a PC will be enduring. (Not an easy feat in any system, but probably much harder given the swingy nature of PF2 damage.)

If the designers haven't calculated the expected damages that a PC will be receiving at a given level, then they haven't been doing their jobs. It's a pretty fundamental part of the mathematics of the system.

Ecidon wrote:

What was the real problem with negative hitpoints that the new dying rules are attempting to fix?

It means not instantly killing PCs, especially when you are higher level and everyone is doing 20-30 damage per hit easily, when you're down to your last 10 hp, you know you're going to die on the next hit.

Now when I GM I don't need to worry about what everyone's hp are at, I just doing whatever damage and I know I can't kill them outright. For me, it's a huge improvement.

Isn't that issue trivially solvable by altering the negative HP value that would cause death?

What was the real problem with negative hitpoints that the new dying rules are attempting to fix?

graystone wrote:

N N 959 wrote:

PFS

You do know that lots of people play the game and aren't people you play with in PFS right?

You and Diego beat me to it. Thank you for voicing this. PFS is not PFRPG. PFS has its own specific “houserules” in order to make its style of play work. We should not be using PFS play as the measuring stick. It is cool for what it is, but it can always “houserules” the system to make it work.

Let’s make a great new edition and then worry about what is needed to tweak for PFS play.

The current "tweaks" that are "houseruled" in PFS are:

WBL related

• Set gold per scenario to keep wealth at a reasonable level
  
• Profession/Craft/Perform to gain money replaced by a dayjob (<=150gp per scenarion)
  
• Crafting extremely curtailed (limited crafting available to wizards, alchemists and gunslingers)
  
• Item availability governed by fame
  
• Scrolls, potions and wands are created at minimum caster level, with defined crafters (no ranger-brewed Potions of Lesser Restoration)
  
• Spellcasting services (and some items) governed by Prestige
  

• Leadership-related feats disallowed
  
• Some out-of-game items (T-Shirts, etc) provide rerolls
  

• Reincarnate, Permanency and Awaken do not exist.
  
• Long-duration spells, even instantaneous or permanent durations, expire at end of scenario.
  

Note that nowhere is PFS "house-ruling" to change the implementation of a printed rule. I don't see this changing in PF2.

Animal Companions, Cohorts, Familiars, and pretty much ALL tertiary "Characters" that are attached to a Class have been relegated to being options they can pick up through Class Feats as far as I've seen for Wizard, Druid, Pallly.

I for one think this is a GREAT way to handle it, instead of players juggling Archetypes to get or lose a Cohort they instead must CHOOSE go get it.

Other than the fact that your comment has nothing to do with "hunt target", you evidently haven't read the Pathfinder rules.

There are no core classes that need to be archetyped to avoid having a companion.

Druids choose between a series of domains instead of animal companions. Paladins can choose to imbue their weapons with their spirits rather than a mount. Wizards can have an arcane bond. Rangers can form a bond with their companions, and give them Favoured enemy. Sorcerers can choose a bloodline other than Arcane, and even then, can choose to have an arcane bond.

You already have a choice. Get the facts right.

So you assume that PF2S will have the exact same meta than PFS?

I assume that PF2S will maintain the current policy of "Run it with our ruleset, do not deviate from it."

I also respect PFS for its exercising of the existing Pathfinder ruleset.

One other thing. Currently, in Pathfinder, a ranger can make a 40' radius difficult terrain, for ten minutes plus at fourth level. At long range. In a single action. For no monetary cost. Imposing a -2 penalty to hit and AC to every enemy involved.

This is replaced by the ability to make a single square difficult terrain for less than one round, requiring a minute to set up, presumably being at the location. For a non-trivial monetary cost. And at nineth level, it imparts a -2 penalty to you alone.

This is not an improvement. It's a lemon.

@Mathmuse, I expect having healing actually cost resources in PF2 will encourage many groups to try to avoid combat through investigation and negotiation like you describe.

But it doesn't cost resources if you simply walk away and rest overnight (or two nights) - assuming that someone is playing a cleric or other healing-focussed class.

Of course, if noone is, then you'll be spending heaps of money on healing items.

Now we have the "Force someone to be a healer" problem, combined with the "15 minute adventuring day" problem.

Staffan Johansson wrote:

Chest Rockwell wrote:

Total, I can see that, but crits favour monsters more than characters, so while I do not want confirmation rolls, I do not mind a crit-range of, like you said, 5th Ed, of 18-20, max, but I would also not double extra damage dice from features such as Sneak Attack and Smite, etc, just double the base weapon damage dice is enough.

Actually, sneak attack not doubling on a crit is one of my pet peeves with Pathfinder/3e. If anyone should benefit from using more precise weaponry, it should be the rogue.

Also, from a balance point of view: rogues get sneak attack to make up for lower base damage. In 5e, rogues essentially get sneak attack instead of multiple attacks, so a crit makes things more swingy but doesn't really unbalance things overall.

it becomes a problem when used against the PCs, +10d6 is an excessive spike, to me.

Also, yes, Sneak Attack makes up for Extra/Iterative Attacks (which is no longer a thing in PF2), but I don't think either should have spikes like that, and it puts those with abilities like Sneak Attack way ahead.

At a level when you're getting 10d6 sneak attack (level 19+), +10d6 (35 average) is not excessive.

One thing that I've found constantly prevalent is people getting impressed or intimidated by large numbers of dice. It needs to be considered in the context of the typical amount of HP available at that level.

Yes, it also seems like Resonance are sort of like Healing Surges from 4th Ed, especially in light of this new CLW wands information from the blog. And the comment about never having to worry about running out of resonance (tracking it) was not particularly thrilling, either.

No. It's what happens when you combine the healing surges from 4e with the Item Daily Usage limit (also from 4e) with the Magic Item Attunement limits from 5e to one big monolithic number.

Which results in the worst of both worlds.

So the character progression seems to be a variation of Another tabular-based character advancement. With perhaps a few additional "feats" at certain levels.

As I see it, "Feat" just means "selectable option".

Maybe we should take it further:

"Clerics get the 'Basic Domain' Feat at first level."

Basic Domain CLERIC 1
Choose a domain represented by your deity. You gain the Initial power from that domain.
Special: You may take this feat up to three times. Each time you take it, choose a different domain.

"Clerics get a 'Channelling' feat at first level."

Channel Positive Energy CHANNELLING 1
You may cast heal 3+cha mod times per day, as a spell of the highest level you can cast.

"Clerics receive one 'Deity' feat at first level."

Deity: Shelyn DEITY 1
....

Resonance PLUS charges is not a good design idea, in my mind; we're ADDING complexity to solve a problem? Needs to be either/or. I do like D&D5's method of making a random roll to check if a wand is destroyed after x uses; perhaps something like "if you have used resonance to activate the wand today, roll a d20; on a 1, the wand is destroyed."

You're implying that adding the complexity by means of Resonance actually solves a problem...

Diego Rossi wrote:

Weather Report wrote:

Ecidon wrote:

Weather Report wrote:

Matthew Downie wrote:

+1 per level seems reasonable as long as there aren't too many other bonuses.

On top of ability score mods, on top of proficiency bonuses, on top of weapon quality bonuses, thank god for the 4-tiers of success system, or this would seem like number porn for the sake of it.

Have you played Pathfinder past level six?

Yes, unfortunately.

Sorry, but thatsound as "I want PF2 to be a E6 game." A very different argument and one that merit its own thread. it is out of bounds in a thread about playing a 20 levels game.

Well, that is not what I'm saying, that ship has already sailed, but the "out of bounds" line is hilarious.

That was also not what I was saying. Playing Pathfinder at any sort of level after about six will achieve modifiers much greater than what you are complaining about "number porn".

And the reason I ask it is that you appear to have started posting shortly after the system was announced (three months ago), and have somehow achieved 900+ posts.

The claim displayed some serious ignorance of the nature of the system PF2 is designed to replace.

Matthew Downie wrote:

+1 per level seems reasonable as long as there aren't too many other bonuses.

On top of ability score mods, on top of proficiency bonuses, on top of weapon quality bonuses, thank god for the 4-tiers of success system, or this would seem like number porn for the sake of it.

Have you played Pathfinder past level six? This is a serious question, because your comment really seems to lack perspective.

In my opinion, the “+1 to everything problem” is not a problem. It’s a feature which is a component of a deliberate design direction, one that I wholeheartedly embrace. To be blunt, it’s becoming tiresome to constantly hear the same few posters saying “it’s too like 4e for my group” or “that’s not what pathfinder is supposed to be” or “I want to be bad at skills mechanically without roleplaying so everyone has to be bad at skills because if they aren’t they’re playing wrong” or “I can’t enjoy the game if paladins aren’t super-duper-special-lawful-best-only because any filthy casual who wants to play a non LG paladin is ruining it.”

To those posters, I say; you’ve said your piece, we know your opinions and your feelings, so check your sense of entitlement and let Paizo tell us about the changes they’re making and why they’ve decided to make them. I’m excited by the direction the game appears to be going. If you listen with an open mind, you might feel that way too. If after play testing you decide it’s not for you, well, there’s masses of PF1 content available still. Surely that’s better than insisting on changes to PF2 to make it into PF1 from a position of incomplete information?

In my opinion, the "+1 to everything" is a problem.

Paizo has already stated that nothing is set in stone, and that everything can be changed. Indeed, back in 2008, the Pathfinder beta did have +1 per level to every trained class skill, but that was removed in favour of the original skill rank system.

Now, I generally try and avoid personal comments, but this attitude of "don't talk about what I don't agree with" - especially from someone who walked away from Pathfinder in 2008 after Paizo refused to convert to 4e - stinks of hypocrisy.

Phantasmist wrote:

Mostly pathfinder 1e with some minor clean ups and re-balancing. Nothing drastic, no changes for change sake. I still want D&D 3.5.

You may want to look elsewhere then, as PF2 is being designed with very little 3.5 influence.

That's a pretty Extreme view.

I find this kind of comment both offensive and counterproductive. I also strongly hope that Paizo isn't following the same tact with this.

It's like saying "If you like what we've been doing for the last ten years, go away. We don't care about your opinion, and we don't want you as a customer."

Over the past few months, many posters who shared views with Phantasmist have stopped posting on this forum, turning it more and more into an echo chamber of people who want a revolutionary change to the game. And the demands are getting more and more extreme.

I hope that this changes when the playtest is released.

Looking at these statblocks, along with the claim that they're "More concise" and "Easier to run", we should look at empirical evidence.

The Ogre: 12 lines, 458 characters.
This compares to the Pathfinder Ogre at 24 lines, 649 characters. Half the lines, maybe 80% of the characters. But wait: it's also omitting titles such as "Offense", "Defense", as well as the XP value (which has probably been removed). It also omits the Ecology section, the Environment section, its Organization, and its treasure. Once we discount them it stands at 15 lines, 446 characters. So it's more text to read.

Let's now look at a "moderately complex" monster, the Redcap:
43 lines (at 80-column width) 2339 characters.

Compared to the Pathfinder Redcap at 47 lines, 2178 characters. And this includes the Ecology, Environment, Organization and Treasure.

In volume alone, I'm not sure how this makes it "simplified" or "easier to read".

What would be less fun would be hard-limiting the maximum score that a given attribute can be.

Level-limiting the maximum is not much better.

From reading this, I have two concerns.

Firstly, I'm concerned that the removal of universal monster rules will make it harder for a GM to prepare and run a monster, especially several different monsters in the same combat.

Secondly, the handling of the Marilith (and other multilimbed creatures) seems to be a shoehorning of greater proportions than the "Come up with a CR-appropriate natural armor bonus" that designers have been complaining about.

ParcelRod wrote:

Talek & Luna wrote:

How do you figure? Its virtually nothing unless PF2 math assumes bounded accuracy which they have said is not the case. I just see a feat such as two weapon defense making shields a poor choice and that is not good.

Likely to do with the way Crits work in PF2. +10 AC excess or a nat 20 roll. That +2 is small only at a quick glance.

Very much this. With the +/-10 rules, if someone can successfully hit you on an 8, then they have about a 15% chance of getting a critical hit against you, the same as if they were using a rapier in the current system. You raise your shield, suddenly they only crit you on a natural 20 (like turning their rapier into a pointy club) and you get some amount of damage reduction in the event they do hit, which is also now 10% less likely to happen at all. The current system is stuffed with stackable static modifiers that distort the value of small bonuses, but a new system with a tighter math framework makes those bonuses consistently relevant across the life of the game without creating a numerical arms race.

True it's replacing the "numerical arms race" in Pathfinder with a "numerical arms treadmill"

Ecidon wrote:

Who is "We"? I haven't seen it as a stated design goal. If it's something you're personally campaigning for, please be frank about it.

It's pretty clear this is what Paizo are going for. They've removed BAB, different progression of saves for different saves, shield enhancement bonuses and I expect bonuses like weapon training will also be gone. Replacing all that with +level, +proficiency bonus, +item bonus on ALL aspects of the game means the math is flatter. Just as 4e had +1/2 level, Pathfinder 2e is goin to have +level. The result is everyone's bonus to anything is going to be within a specific range which means everyone can contribute in all situations no matter what skills or combat style they've chosen to specailise in. It's why we've got scaling cantrips, they needed to give spellcasters an equivalent of the martial's at-will melee basic attack.

The math will definitely be flatter. The biggest difference between PF2e and 4e's math vs 5e's math is 5e removes the +level/+1/2 level. Otherwise the math will be strikingly similar.

If Paizo is going for flatter math, and people don't like flatter, why shouldn't they be complaining?

If there was a stated design goal by Paizo claiming that "PF2e should have Flatter Math", then it could be called into question, and brought into discussion.

And if the designers are insistent that that design goal is not going to change, then those who disagree can find another system and stop decrying other parts of a system they won't be using.

Because this hasn't been made clear, people are decrying that Armor bonuses aren't going as high as they are in PF1. They're also decrying the skill bonuses aren't going as high as they are in PF1. I imagine in two weeks' time, they'll decry that save bonuses aren't going as high as they are in PF1.

We're going for flatter math and people are decrying that bonuses won't go as high as in PF1?

Who is "We"? I haven't seen it as a stated design goal. If it's something you're personally campaigning for, please be frank about it.

The power curve can't always go upwards, folks. I for one, relish the idea of tactical, character, and gear variety that PF2 seems to be aiming to achieve.

Yes it can. Yes it should. That's why people prefer Pathfinder over other systems like 4e and 5e.

IMHO GMing for PF2.0 should be no more difficult than for PF1.0. Perhaps less. Espcially since one of the design goals was to mid to high level characters easier to manage.

I have yet to see ANY "design goals" of PF2. Could you please refer me to the design goals you're referencing?

NielsenE wrote:

Logan Bonner wrote:

Bardic Dave wrote:

I like most of this. I was surprised to see that Channel Energy and Spell Points are not connected. I was expecting them to draw from the same pool. My knee-jerk reaction is "don't like!" because I thought the whole point of Spell Points was to get away from having to track several different resource pools. I'll wait to see how things play out at the table though.

Spell Points are used for abilities unique to their pool and to the class. The spells from channel are essentially more prepared spells per day.

So this means the "why" could be something like: Clerics (or PC clerics at least) normally need a large pool of healing. We didn't want that healing to eat into their spells per day (or else they only prepare heals, or just end up spontaneously converting all their spells to cures). We also didn't want to combine their channel with their spell pool, so they don't feel guilty about using pool points for domain powers rather than channel?

Indeed, we're eliminating the tyranny of forced (or pressured at least) conversion of the stuff you wanted into heals by giving you a bunch of free heals.

I thought that that was eliminated by the Wand of Cure Light Wounds.

I actually ran Bid for Alabastrine in PF2 and was able to use the Influence system right out of Ultimate Intrigue with no adjustments other than DC changes. It turned out even better than before due to the way the Investigation option worked.

But in Bid for Alabastrine, the only mechanical device present in the scenario are the skill types and DCs. If performing "no adjustments other than DC changes" is what was required, it's not a reflection on ease of conversion.

Doktor Weasel wrote:

"This new system is worse than the old one, go back and tweak that instead of this new thing." is a valid response to changes. I just have to hope that Paizo is as open-minded as they're expecting us to be. I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt because they've been good in the past.

This is unreasonable and not gonna happen after 2 years of in house development.

If a product is bad, the market doesn't care how long it has been developed.

In 1991, Microsoft spend hundreds of man-years on a project called Pyramid, trying to rewrite Word for Windows from scratch. It was in a working state before it became clear that it would not be able to support the feature-set that competitors would have been able to introduce in the time required for development. Luckily for Microsoft, they had never stopped working on the old code base, so they had something to ship, making it merely a financial disaster, not a strategic one.

I would hope that if it is determined to be a failure, Paizo will acknowledge it and drastically scale back their efforts at a rewrite.

As a customer, I don't care how long a product has been in development for. I just want a good product.

It's a bit rich trying to say you're trying to remove the math involved without moving to metric. Looking up the number of feet in a mile - or calculating encumbrance when comparing the weight of five pounds of gold vs four pounds of armour is ridiculous.