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Edymnion's page

Organized Play Member. 542 posts. No reviews. No lists. No wishlists. 1 Organized Play character.


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Zexcir wrote:
Edymnion wrote:
I also see no apology or admission of wrongdoing of any kind, just multiple "Well we had an email about it 3 years ago, so its not our fault!" level sidesteps.
Nor should they. From a legal standpoint they should neither address nor admit anything without consulting a legal team.

Exactly.

"I will neither confirm nor deny the allegations" is pretty standard legal speak for "Yeah, we did it, but you better hope your lawyers can prove it" level avoidance.

If the allegations are true, then suck it up and pay the price for your mistakes like a bunch of adults.


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So after reading this a couple of times, the things that stick out to me are:

There is no direct denial that anything brought up in "the social media incident" was untrue, and in fact several references that seem to indicate that what was alleged are in fact spot on.

I also see no apology or admission of wrongdoing of any kind, just multiple "Well we had an email about it 3 years ago, so its not our fault!" level sidesteps.

I also see no evidence of some of the more troubling aspects being corrected so much as simply avoiding situations for them to come up. "You have a lot of misogynists and transphobic people!" "We won't put them together in rooms with each other any more" is not a good answer, its a "we're sweeping it under the rug" answer.

As an individual and a company, the response I want to hear is outright denial of what was said (and the potential law suits that will be entailed if the employees can bring the receipts to back them up), or an admission that there was a problem and how steps are being ACTIVELY taken to fix it (as in firing the harassers, making restitutions to victims, etc).

"Well we gave them training on it" doesn't cut it. You can tell someone not to do something all day long, but if you leave them in an environment where there are no repercussions, it doesn't mean anything.

But, admitting you were wrong means your employees would have legal backing to seek damages, which they are duly owed. Good to see Paizo putting it's bottom line ahead of the well being of it's workers. Still. Doesn't look you've learned anything.


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If this is for 1e, great, shut up and take my money!

If its for 2e, don't care.


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Dire Ursus wrote:
Why not just house rule your own weaknesses then? I'm pretty sure that no GM would ever say you CAN'T be unoptimized. Start with crappier ability scores. What's really stopping you?

Oberroni Fallacy, 10 yard penalty.

Just because the GM can fix it doesn't mean it wasn't broken in the first place.


Vidmaster7 wrote:
They really need to combine all of these thread into one the issues you guys have brought up have been brought up elsewhere. Everyone just keep s making the same arguments over and over.

So to say it another way, "There is a widespread consensus that this is a problem."


lordredraven wrote:

Yeah they are tropes at this point but from a playtest standpoint the first thing you need to know is can you represent the stereotypes before you ask can I build the outliers.

Thats just it, right now we can't even do all of the main stereotypes.

The two dagger wielding rogue doing a flurry of attacks isn't possible with the Rogue we have without making a MASSIVE multiclass investment into Fighter, and "Thief with 2 daggers that have lots of little cuts that add up to the same as the fighters with their big weapons" is one of the most basic tropes out there.

The only fix I see for the system presented is what many derided about 1e, bloat. When the system doesn't allow for a generic pool to draw from, the only option is basically duplicating the same basic thing across multiple classes, and coming up with dozens and dozens of layers of stuff for each class. We already see some of that with the same feats for TWF being in both Fighter and Ranger.

That might give lots of room to sell books, but it doesn't make it any easier to navigate for a new player, as we're right back at "I need 37 different books to make what I want" when a greater eye for flexibility at the start could have headed much of that off.


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Joshua James Jordan wrote:
Those parts are generic roleplaying suggestions. It's for newer players, probably not anyone posting in this thread.

Thats the point.

These are the most outdated, and IMO inappropriate stereotypes to be presenting to new players. The game, the classes, the entire mindset has evolved GREATLY since the days of Gygax. We should be helping new players get in on where things are now, not where they were 40 years ago.


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Okay, without trying to get into specifics, the overall feel I have from the playtest is this:

That the goal was to simplify character creation in many ways in order to let new players to the TTRPG genre get started quickly and easily.

I feel like a lot of the issues I have stem from this, and that they all boil down to the same root cause.

That the attempt to streamline ends up with the effect of trying to lead players by the nose to certain outcomes, instead of making it easier to build what the player can come up with.

People talk about the bloat of 1e, but what that ended up doing was giving a dozen different paths to the same end destination, and those different paths lead to a greater diversity overall.

Instead of layout out a myriad of different ways to achieve a goal, and then finding a way to help point people towards the options that would suit them best, it feels like what happened was more closing most of those side paths down entirely so that there are less choices to make.

While less choices up front does indeed make getting started easier, in the long run it means there are less places to go. Which means more people getting into the game, but less people STAYING with THIS game.

---

To use a metaphor/allegory, back in the day I was in a guild in World of Warcraft. We wanted very much to be a high end raiding guild, but we didn't have enough skilled players to fill the large team requirements that raiding had at the time. So, we made the decision that we'd take in almost anybody, we'd train them in how to raid, we'd help gear them up so that they could raid, and then...

...then everyone would leave our guild to join one of the hardcore raiding guilds. We became a revolving door that trained and geared half the hardcore raiders on the server, but because we couldn't give them the end goal they wanted (those cutting edge final raids), they left us as soon as they got good enough to be accepted by another guild.

That is kind of what I'm seeing PF2e as being right now. A gearing guild. Its something that wants to be more, but is stooping down to appeal to the entry level players, but doesn't have the end game content (the complexity) to retain any of them once they've got their footing.

---

So overall recommendation?

Rethink the guidance. Instead of having clear goals for where you want players to go, refocus on creating ways to help people navigate a more complex path.

New people in 1e were overwhelmed by choices and options because there was nothing there to shield them from the excess. Having a million choices is not a bad thing, if there is a way to filter them down to a dozen or two that would be right for what you were wanting to make.

Do I have an easy answer on how to do that? No, I don't. But I do fully believe that you need both an easy entry for new people, AND the full complexity for the older people, or you will fail. New people are fickle and will come and go, who will buy one or two books in large numbers and then vanish. Old players will buy damned near everything, but are fewer in numbers.

The goal should be "How do we make it easier to transition newbs into vets", not "How do we sell as many books as possible to the newbs before they wander off?".


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Look at the Rogue. The description starts out good, saying that while the stereotype is a thief and a scoundrel there many are respectable and honorable doing jobs like being scouts or bounty hunters. Thats great, it immediately sets up "there is more than one way to play this class".

But when we get to the "You Likely" and "Others Probably" sections its nothing but negative "you're greedy", "you're a law breaker", "nobody trusts you". What the hell? The Rogue hasn't been a sticky fingered thief since AD&D 2e. They've been the default "expert adventurer" for decades. Why is the "This is how a rogue probably acts" defaulting immediately to the 70's thief mindset?

Fighter isn't much better. Its "You're obsessed with weapons, think puzzles are a waste of time, and everybody thinks you're dumb."

If we're going to be offering flavor advice to new players, could we maybe not do the absolute worst stereotypes the genre has ever produced as the default assumptions?

For a fighter, instead of saying things like "you have little time for complex things", maybe something more along the lines of "You are likely to see things in terms of immediate goals and steps required to achieve them"?

For rogues, instead of saying "come to you to break the law", maybe "Come to you for out of the box thinking and creative solutions"?

Something to promote the idea of "Hey, this class is a mechanical toolset, it might define what you can do, but it doesn't define who you are".


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You know, thinking about it, this change is going to hurt low level characters.

It does away with copper, so anything that costs copper now (in 1e) is going to have to be rounded UP to the 1e silver.


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Chemlak wrote:
Tell the designers what you like, what you don’t like, and if you can, tell them why, but they don’t need armchair designers “helping”. (We’ll do it anyway, I know, but they really don’t need the “help”.

Exactly.

An example that comes to mind for me right now? Two Weapon Fighting.

From what I can tell, PF2e lets everyone hold two weapons and choose between which one they attack with freely with their Strike options. So you could do your first hit with a big clumsy weapon, then switch to the other hand for more reliable weapon to offset the penalties a bit.

However, everyone coming from 1e sees dual wielding as meaning "getting an extra attack because you have an extra weapon". And THAT is locked away behind class walls for the Fighter and Ranger. A rogue COULD wield two different daggers (say fire and ice) and use both of them in a single round, but what people SEE is "Well all the feats that make using two weapons good aren't available to Rogues, so Rogues can't TWF without multiclassing".

The way it is presented gives the impression that its totally locked out as even a general concept, when it really isn't.

I still don't LIKE how its handled, but changing how its presented would go a long way.


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BPorter wrote:
5e and PF2 aren't fighting for "which is more/less powerful", they are staking out simpler (fewer mechanics) vs. tactical satisfaction. Reducing the comparison to low-power vs. high-power is a strawman.

For the record, when I'm talking about 5e or PF2e and strength, I'm not referring to power level of the game. I'm referring to the power of the COMPANY and the BRAND.

I'm saying that if Paizo tries to make a product that is in even the same ballpark as what WotC is doing, then Pathfinder is not a strong enough brand to go up against Dungeons and Dragons on even footing.

Instead, you have to make your product stronger (aka better) than what the competition is doing so that you are competing where they are weak (not so good at). So if Dungeons and Dragons is killing it in the "Quick and easy to pick up, but not really that deep" market, you'd be a fool to try and squeeze in there with it. Instead, you'd want to aim at it's weakness (not deep) by making a system with a lot more depth and customization that is more detail and nuanced.

Think of it like... you own a Mom & Pop store, and a Walmart comes to town. If you think you can compete with Walmart selling the same things, you're an idiot and you're going to go under. Instead, you let Walmart carry the cheap crap, and you change focus to more expensive and niche products that can't be bought at a big box store. Whatever Walmart does, you run the hell away from as fast as you can, because Walmart is stronger than you are and you can't win against it. You just have to get out of it's way and do what it can't.


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One thing that sticks with me from having been in multiple video game alphas:

"The general player is VERY GOOD at spotting things that don't feel right, and VERY BAD at fixing them. Even hearing nothing but 'I don't like X' is valuable, and often times it is just as valuable as someone proposing a way to fix it."

Same goes here.

If a bunch of people are saying "I don't like X", then X is a problem. The idea should be to acknowledge that its a problem, and let the devs find how to fix it.

Is the problem with X that its actually a bad mechanic? Or is it that X was presented in such a way as to give a bad first impression of it? Either way, if enough people call out X over and over again, then something needs to be done about it (even if technically there is nothing wrong with it, the way it is presented can still be improved to remove the initial knee-jerk reaction to it).

All feedback is valuable.


Orville Redenbacher wrote:
What the hell is AoS?

Age of Sigmar.

Apparently its a Warhammer thing.


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Gug on the Silver Mountain wrote:
now you can pay in 10pp. Still less metal to carry.

Still goes back to PossibleCabbage's point of "Fruit vendors that can break a 1,000 gp gem".

I mean, I kinda agree with a silver standard, simply because copper and silver were pointless before. This does add some use for the lesser coins, but it doesn't solve the "giant piles of rare metals in neatly pre-stacked piles" problem.


Colette Brunel wrote:
Is anyone else having trouble maintaining group morale now that the playtest has appeared?

My group had someone look at the playtest material and sent me this link over messenger:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FjWe31S_0g

So no, not just your group.


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Orville Redenbacher wrote:
Avoiding feat traps for combat in PF1 was exciting. They went ahead and done the same thing with Ancestry and skills for everyone's enjoyment :)

Pretty much. From what I've seen, they've just doubled down on feat taxes by requiring you to spend feats in order to multiclass with "dedication" feats, just so you can then spend more feats to get that other class's stuff, which were things everybody could do without a feat in 1e.


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bugleyman wrote:
Dracovar wrote:
PossibleCabbage wrote:
I think the change I will be happiest for is when the party goes to a merchant to sell an unwanted magic item, and they are not paid in two hundred pounds of gold, implying the merchant just keeps it lying around in pre-measured sacks.
A couple hundred pounds of silver is way better.
That's an impressive amount of willfully obtuse to pack into one sentence.

Not really.

If you have a problem with "Carry a bunch of precious metal around", then changing from gold standard to silver doesn't fix the problem. Assuming the prices of things get scaled down to the new standard as well, all you've actually done is lost some low end granularity and gained some high end consolidation.

If it took 1,000 gp to buy something in 1e, and now that same item costs 1,000 sp, nothing has changed. Sure, you could pay in 100 gp, but you could have paid in 100 pp in 1e as well.


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GayBirdGM wrote:
I also dislike being told what trope to be shoved into with a class. Maybe I don't WANT to play a typical "CN rogue that steals from everyone and no one likes".

Agreed.

I'm infamous for just utterly tossing out every last shred of flavor text on items, spells, even entire classes and keeping nothing but the base mechanics.

My favorite 1e character is my gnome Synthesist Summoner. Do I play that whole "semi-transparent outsider overlay" thing? Hell no, she's my Pacific Rim style giant mecha pilot. Its not some mythological beast, its a Colossal arcane magitech golem robot thing stomping on people.

Or my Vigilante (Magical Child)/Witch (Gravewalker) who is basically Sailor Necromancer.

The default, generic, and frankly often completely uninspired flavor text on stuff in any system is usually crap. Its a nice "Well here's what we think it would be good for" example, but thats it.


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PossibleCabbage wrote:

Problem with the "small handful of gems" or "letters of credit" approach is that we expect the PC's money to spend the same everywhere and for every merchant to be able to make appropriate change. So we have to assume the lizardfolk village on the other side of the planet takes letters of credit from banks in Absalom, or that every fruit vendor can make change for a 1000gp gem.

"Smaller numbers" is a more easily applicable solution I think.

Its just a level of abstraction.

I know in my group, especially during APs, we stopped caring about the fancy descriptions of art objects and even the actual loot long, long ago. The AP might give a paragraph long description of an art object worth 500gp, but nobody writes down "Gold hair pin in shape of dragon with emerald set eyes", we just add 500 gp to liquid capital because screw it, nobody wants to waste table time haggling with a shopkeep and trying to sell things one item at a time.

The actual GP values, at least in my games, are abstracted to the point where you might say you paid 500 gp for something, but in reality you're not handing over 500 individual coins, you're handing over some coin, some gems, bartering in some art objects, etc. If its a big purchase, maybe that +2 dagger you "sold" last time is still on your person and that was part of the trade for this big item. Stuff like that.

Just no one I know finds that level of shopkeeping enjoyable, so its a lot easier to just say "You pay him 500 gp and you get your stuff" unless there's an actually good reason to stop the rest of the game to haggle.


Terevalis Unctio of House Mysti wrote:
No, he knows where he is and what he is doing.

Oh I know.

But its much more amusing to treat them nicely and watch them get mad that their trolling isn't working than to feed them. :)


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Gorbacz wrote:
As with every playtest, Paizo is asking us to PLAYTEST the rules, not to provide first glance opinions.

Ah, I see where the confusion is coming from.

You think we're in the Playtest Feedback forum, which is over here:
http://paizo.com/community/forums/pathfinder/playtest/feedback

We're actually in the Playtest General forum, which means any and all conversation relating to the playtest material (which includes initial reactions, quick glance opinions, etc, right down to discussing if we like the font that was used or not) is on topic.


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PossibleCabbage wrote:
I think the change I will be happiest for is when the party goes to a merchant to sell an unwanted magic item, and they are not paid in two hundred pounds of gold, implying the merchant just keeps it lying around in pre-measured sacks.

Or a small handful of gems, or some letters of credit. I mean, if the merchant has the liquid capital to buy this level of stuff in the first place, its generally assumed they've found a way to actually facilitate said transactions and we're just glossing it over in easy to reference mechanics.


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So, been digging some more.

Apparently the iconic idea of a thief dual wielding daggers cannot be built in PF2e without:

Investing in Athletics, spending a 2nd level class feat to multiclass into Fighter, and then a 4th level feat to get Dual Slice from the Fighter list.

At which point you are locked into Fighter multiclass for at least another 2 levels until you take another Fighter class feat so you can get any flexibility back.

Am I the only one that things that is a MASSIVE investment just to get a very basic fantasy cliche?

Gorbacz wrote:
Maybe, once all those people will actually PLAYTEST the material and have feedback that goes beyond "I don't like this" or "The PDF smells like my 4e PDFs do and that's a bad thing" or "well this is garbage, whoever wrote it should just expire and I'm not going to even try testing these rules but I sure as hell will crap all over the place because that's how I roll".
Which negates the entire point of the thread, being that its about KNEE-JERK REACTIONS, as in "This is what I'm seeing/feeling upon first glance, without having spent hours and hours thoroughly playtesting every possible combination in order to have a fully informed opinion".
Quote:
As you may have garnered by now, I am fueled by adversity, which means this is pretty much open duck season for me.

So you're trolling, gotcha.


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Zardnaar wrote:
WHy not dump most of the "no you can't" mentality of 3.x and rpelace with "well you can and this feat instead of removing a restriction makes you better".

I'm sorry, but as someone who was a gamer well before 3.x came along, this is just wrong.

One of 3.x's biggest achievements was a blanket "Yes, you can do that, here's how". You want a wizard in full plate and a greatsword? You could do that. You'd have penalties and restrictions, but you could do it. D&D2e? You flat out could not do it. You want to TWF? Sure, big penalties, but anybody could do it, and then burn some feats to make it easier to do.

PF2e? Rogues can't dual wield, thats a Ranger only feat (Double Slice). The iconic dual dagger wielding rogue, a staple of fantasy for decades, cannot be built in PF2e without "multiclassing" into Ranger.

3.x (which I include PF1e in, as it was basically 3.75) said "Yes, everybody can do it, maybe not well, but they can try", PF2e is flat out "No, you can't do it at all unless its a class ability."


Eternal_Twilight0 wrote:

I could be wrong about this but didn't the playtest for pathfinder 1E use a similar energy system to the Stamina system from Unchained? Also the Medium class from Occult Adventures was fairly different in the playtest, as was the Gunslinger.

They have said already some systems such as Resonance are on the more extreme side of what they wanted to test so we will most likely see a change of some kind.

Changing a class (even a full rewrite from scratch) is not what I call a radical change.

Chopping out Resonance (while welcome) would not be a radical change.

These are relatively small, self contained changes.

Completely overhauling the skill system would be a radical change. Converting HP over to a Toughness saving throw and changing every damage and HP reference in ever feat, spell, etc would be a major change. Scrapping the entire spell list and replacing it with a point buy spell creator would be a major change.


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Ched Greyfell wrote:
The book has been out a day, and already people are crying about it. I wish folks were more open-minded.

In all due fairness, many of the problems people don't like have been around for months, as they came up with the very first sneak peaks. We were told "Just wait, it all works better when you see it in context", so we waited. Now we have the context, and its still an issue for us.

So no, it hasn't just "been one day", its been months in the making.


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Vic Wertz wrote:
Edymnion wrote:
The purpose of this playtest is to polish what they have, not revamp anything from the ground up. I'd wager what is in this playtest is 90% set in stone at this point, with only minor details being up for revision.
Not even close. If we learn that something major isn't working, we will change it. Rules development clearly moves quicker you think—we even have time to test multiple potential solutions to a problem.

Honestly, I don't believe this. I'm sorry but I truly don't. At least not at any fundamental system altering level.

Feats might change, some classes might change, Resonance might get the boot, but if the feedback is, say, "We don't like the 3 action economy", I honestly do not believe that you would scrap the entire basis of the engine and rebuild every class, feat, and spell from the ground up over it. If its "We don't like hitpoints anymore", I honestly do not think you would scrap the entire way damage is dealt and tracked and rebuild that from scratch at this point. Unless you are here saying "Yes, we are willing to scrap the entire system, cancel the release, and rebuild everything from the ground up and try again in a few more years", then a great deal is set in stone already.

To be blunt, this all feels like you are chasing after 5e because its popular and currently eating your lunch. PF1e succeeded because everyone who adopted the system *didn't want 4e/5e play styles*, they wanted the more complicated and deep build options.

I truly feel that this is alienating more than a small chunk of the 1e player base, and that you seem to be expecting to make the numbers up with new players (which is normal). However, you seem to be chasing 5e into a market space you can't win in. Unless you can make PF2e head and shoulders above 5e, and do so instantly out of the gate, you're trying to pit strength vs. strength against someone that is stronger than you.

You're never going to beat WotC at (literally) their own game. The only real option, IMO, is to pit strength against weakness, to aim the game at people who DON'T like what WotC is doing, instead of trying to ape them.

But this is clearly not the design philosophy you've gone with. Instead of helping people create whatever they can dream up, you've closed things down to pre-made cubbyholes. I don't see a system that helps me build what I want to play, I see a system where I make minor modifications to what YOU want us to play. Long as we want to play cliche tropes, PF2e seems great, but as soon as you try to play against type, my first glance over everything says the system is going to fight me tooth and nail to prevent it.

And the only way I see that changing under this ruleset is basically to re-introduce the bloat and have a million different options for "Well here's a class/archetype/whatever that can do that!" when a sounder decision (again, IMO) would have been a more generic system that supported a "Here's a generic base, here's the options to customize it right from the start" mode of play. To give MORE options right out of the gate, not less.


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GentleGiant wrote:
So you're just going to completely ignore the reply you got from Vic in another thread?

Can't ignore what I haven't seen, mate.

Quote:
Vic Wertz wrote:
Edymnion wrote:
The purpose of this playtest is to polish what they have, not revamp anything from the ground up. I'd wager what is in this playtest is 90% set in stone at this point, with only minor details being up for revision.
Not even close. If we learn that something major isn't working, we will change it. Rules development clearly moves quicker you think—we even have time to test multiple potential solutions to a problem.

Okay, well I can say this. I. Don't. Believe. Him.

I simply don't.

If everyone here said the 3 action system was bad, I honestly do not believe that they would scrap it and rebuild literally every class, every feat, and every spell.

If I said I don't like hitpoints, I do not think they are going to redesign the entire way damage is dealt and tracked at this point.

I have never seen Paizo or any other company make RADICAL changes to a product this late in the game.

Especially not when their entire design mantra with this seems to be a full 180 degrees away from what I wanted to see.


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Dire Ursus wrote:
You've been posting so much on the forum about how much you hate the game the question has to come up where do you find the time to actually read the rules? Like did you just gloss over some classes and then come here to complain?

You could say that about anyone posting negative OR positive things. Yet I don't see you biatching at anyone saying "Yeah, this is great!" because "You can't possibly have had time to read it yet".


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KyleS wrote:
be constructive in how to improve upon it or just do those of us who want to improve upon it a giant favor and leave.

If I thought it would do any good, I would. I honestly do not believe Paizo will change the things that I think need changing the worst, because they are too fundamental to the core of this system. To fix what I think needs fixing would basically require them throwing the entire thing out the window and starting over from scratch, and thats not going to happen.

As for "You can either like it, or you can GTFO", well we don't need gatekeepers like that.

If you actually think Paizo will change things on any great scale, then you NEED people who aren't just gushing that "Everything is perfect, I love it so much!".

To say "Like it or leave" is to say "This is exactly how it will go to print, nothing can be changed, everyone's opinions right now are worthless."

Is that really the message you want to send?


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Renchard wrote:
Honestly, if people don't understand that 3-18 for Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, Cha is fundamental to the definition of D&D and its descendants, they shouldn't poke holes in other people's design.

Many things were "fundamental" to D&D. Like THAC0, and Elf/Dwarf being a class instead of a race. Doesn't mean we kept them.


TheGoofyGE3K wrote:
do you want ability damage to also cut in half? And not everyone will remember that they gave themselves a half point in a stat. All this talk of fractions and negative numbers is, by definition, more complex math than counting up and down. It's simpler to stick with the old method.

There would be no half points. You either had a full modifier or you didn't.

Its not simpler to have a middle man, just base everything on what is actually being used, the modifiers. +1/-1 to modifiers is a hell of a lot simpler than "Okay, this one is a -1, but it only affects anything if its a stat that is odd, otherwise nothing happens".

When doing modifiers, something either happens or it doesn't. There is no fiddling with go-betweens.


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Amanda Plageman wrote:

Maybe I should have expected this, but I didn't. Pathfinder 1E was effectively D&D 3.75. But somehow I didn't expect that Pathfinder 2E would be D&D 5.5.

I guess I'll try to change my expectations and start going over it again....

This is true. Pathfinder always has been trying to ride D&D's coat tails instead of making their own product.


Its due out in summer 2019, IIRC.

And racial adjustments would be considered a minor detail, IMO.

Things like the 3 action system, the idea of class feat walls, etc, those are gonna be locked. Some feats might get moved into general, but the "Here's how the systems work" type things are most definitely set in stone.


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Ronin_Knight wrote:
Funny because everything I've read so far makes it seem far worse than I feared, before I thought it would have hints of 4e or 5E, maybe a bit of both. Instead we got the mutant hybrid of those two with not a shred of PF1E or 3.x left in sight.

Agreed, its WORSE than it looked, and it looked pretty bad to start with.


TheGoofyGE3K wrote:
Not to mention past 17/18 things drop to +1 instead of +2 to stats.

That is easily fixable by simply cutting the rate you get the boost in half after +4.

GameDesignerDM wrote:
Plus, and then you'd have to rework anything that gave a +1 to an ability score

Nothing gives ability score boosts in +1 except level up bonuses, and its just as easy to say you get a +1 modifier half as often.


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GameDesignerDM wrote:
Edymnion wrote:


It was pointless as anything but a vestigial holdover from rolling for stats.
What would you propose for groups (like mine) who only ever roll for stats?

Roll for modifiers. 1d6-2. You now have a full range of -1, 0, +1, +2, +3, and +4. And you can do it on one die instead of 3-4.

Or just roll like you do now, look up the modifier, and write the modifier down, then throw away the base rolls. They aren't needed.


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Grognardy Dangerfield wrote:
Ability score is only in the game so grogs like us can feel more at ease. Thats some respect I tell ya!

Lol, I still remember how To Hit Armor Class 0, but doesn't mean I'd want to go back to it. ;)


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Marc Radle wrote:

Could not disagree more.

Not listing the ability score is extremely jarring and counter-intuitive. The bonus is a function of the ability score, but it isn't the actual ability score. The barbarian has a Strength of 18, he doesn't have a Strength of +4.

Why?

Both have the exact same levels of granularity. At no point does having a Dex of 16 mean anything different from having a Dex of 17. Even in 1e, the ONLY TIME raw ability score ever mattered was for carrying capacity (which was routinely ignored).

Literally the only reason to have an odd numbered score was because you got an odd number of ability boosts from leveling up, so one of them was "half priced" to get up to the next modifier boost.

Modifier might have been a function of the score, but everything in the game used the modifier. At no real point was the score itself ever used.

It was pointless as anything but a vestigial holdover from rolling for stats.


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Gorbacz wrote:
In which case, you'll be happy playing 1e and I'll be happy playing 2e.

Correct.

I have no interest in playing a system that tells me what I'm allowed to make or not make. I have a set of crazy test builds/concepts I put any new system through. The more of them it can do, the better I consider the system to be.

So far, 2e is failing on ALL OF THEM because it has no real flexibility.

I've been in this hobby for a quarter of a century now. I don't give a damn about generic cliche characters, and that is all I see 2e promoting. Horrible cliches and 1 dimensional builds.


Lyee wrote:
I'm optimistic. I just hope Paizo is willing to make some sweeping changes to that content to bring it up to 'exciting' rather than feeling things are too late and that they are only willing to make minor changes.

Extremely unlikely, given that they have print dates to meet.

The purpose of this playtest is to polish what they have, not revamp anything from the ground up. I'd wager what is in this playtest is 90% set in stone at this point, with only minor details being up for revision.


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Rameth wrote:
How can you not make a dex fighter anymore? Where do you even get the idea of that?

You're right, my bad, I overlooked where the fighter gets Str or Dex as a class boost, bad example on my part.

Quote:
2. Backgrounds only add flavor to the character.

Generic, bad flavor. I *HATE* it when books try to just shove all the flavor at you like that. There's no point in wasting all that space when it serves no purpose.

Quote:
3. There are still ability scores. Just because they only added the bonus doesn't mean they just don't exist. They probably just realized it wasn't needed for monsters and was just wasting space on the paper.

Again, why?

They serve no purpose. Nothing uses them. EVERYTHING is based on the modifiers. Nowhere I see right away has the raw score being used. Its a leftover from earlier days that should have been cut entirely.

Quote:
4. The class walls argument doesn't make sense. Of course you can play a Paladin who is tanky. But SHOULD you be able to play a Paladin who is as tanky as the Fighter who's literal job is to be the best at using weapons and armor? No, absolutely not

See, thats where I disagree. I think that MY CHARACTER should be as good or not good at whatever *I* decide he/she is good at. Not what the designers tell me he/she is ALLOWED to be good at.

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5. Having gaining stuff over levels is kind of the point of a level system based game.

Personally, I prefer Mutants & Masterminds here, because I can build and play the character I want to play from the very start. I don't have to wait half the game to play what I want, nor do I have to stop playing what I want because I out-leveled the sweet spot I like.


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Ronin_Knight wrote:
and that's the point where people like me who came to pathfinder because it was the opposite of 4E/5E, lots of customization and variables, wave goodbye to the good people of paizo, because I want more than 3 effective options per class and that's coming from a permanent GM.

Which is what I really don't understand what Paizo is going for.

They're alienating their existing player-base, but they're aiming at a market the CANNOT WIN IN to replace them?


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magnuskn wrote:
- Summon Monster almost only has neutral (30%) or evil (67,5%) monsters on the list. Thanks for that, much fun to play a good-aligned spellcaster who wants to summon things. The only good-aligned monster is on the 10th spell level. -.-

If I had to wager, I'd say this is on purpose to stop players from using it, while leaving it an option for enemies.

Lots of summons/minions/etc slows the game down, to the point they gave the setting an unreasonable hard-on hate for Undead that mostly just stopped white necromancers from being a thing due to minions being too hard for the system to do.

Seems like their answer was not to make summoning better/easier/more streamlined, but to just take it out of the player toolbox almost entirely.


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Gorbacz wrote:
Welp, finally Pathfinder is heading into the direction where nerds with too much free time won't be automatically at an advantage over new/casual players due to system mastery.

Which is just another way of saying the system has no depth.


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GreyWolfLord wrote:
Did you miss 5e and it's popularity??

Problem is, everyone who liked that is already playing 5e. It is the superior option, as D&D is the superior brand name.

If Paizo wants to compete, it can't try to mimic D&D.

To reference The Art of War, you don't pit strength against strength, you pit strength against weakness.

Because if you try to be 5e, you don't have to be as good as 5e, you don't have to be better than 5e, you have to be SUBSTANTIALLY BETTER than 5e. And frankly, I don't think Paizo has it in them to do that.

So the obvious answer is to do well what 5e can't.

Its like owning a mom and pop store when Walmart comes to town. You don't try to fight Walmart, you're going to lose. You change and offer things that Walmart doesn't so that you can both co-exist.

If it comes down to "PF2e and D&D 5e are similar", then 5e is going to win, no questions asked.


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GameDesignerDM wrote:
I welcome all the nerfing. It's more in line with 5E

Thing is, if I wanted to play something like 5e... I would be playing 5e.


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I'm still reading, but my first knee-jerk reaction after getting through character generation, classes, and skills?

Everything feels VERY cookie cutter, like its actively promoting only the most generic fantasy tropes, and that it is actively punishing anyone who wants to play against type.

I dislike the entire idea of how default ability generation works, as you no longer get a choice in how your character is really built. Back to playing against type, you can't do a Dex fighter anymore because the classes force you into taking stats you don't want. And then its going to be a case of either everybody has identical cookie cutter backgrounds, or the entire concept of backgrounds are going to be ignored and it just becomes "Pick some more stat boosts". Frankly, should have just ran with point buy and called it done (which is completely missing, I notice, yet that archaic sacred cow of rolling for stats is still there).

Speaking of ability scores, why do we even still have them? Monsters in the bestiary don't have them, they just list modifiers. Why do players still use them? If the idea was to streamline and simplify, getting rid of 3-18 format ability scores seems like an obvious place to do it, so why are we holding on to it if literally nothing uses it?

And I just cannot get over the "Everything is locked behind class walls". If I want to play a Paladin tank? Tough luck, only the Fighter gets shield feats. Want to play a sorcerer with a certain bloodline, but don't want the spells the designers think are appropriate? Tough luck, you don't get to choose from a generic spell list anymore.

And my god, having everything stretched out over so many levels just makes the entire idea of having to wait to play the character you want to play SO MUCH WORSE! Apparently the answer to "High level play is kinda broken" was to say "Hey, lets make the un-fun parts of low level last as long as humanly possible!".

So yeah, its basically what I feared from the previews, only worse. GREATLY reduced customization, a system that actively punishes you for thinking outside the box (I need to be trained in Religion just to READ A HOLY TEXT?!?), and is overall just very video-gamey.

Knee-jerk reaction is that you don't make characters anymore, you basically just choose between premades. And that is AWFUL. A system should allow you to make whatever you want, and help you do it. This... this feels like it is actively fighting against you if you want to go even slightly off-center from what the devs think you should be doing.


Rules for submission to the app store aren't a problem.

But yeah, I was more asking for things like "I have the Deluxe Harrow Deck, I assume I can't use the art from that in a public release version of the app?" and "Can I advertise it as being a Pathfinder Harrow Deck Simulator, or do I need to use generic names?". That kind of thing.

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