Elleth's page

I like the 10 minute buff consideration, esp with the 10 minute rest options.
I appreciate stuff being calibrated down to try and balance for combat, but it is a little silly having somebody gain superpowers, or turn into a bear, or summon a creature (if this is in the running too) for only a minute. And I suspect that this is a change that could help reinvest the only frequent player of mine who dislikes the system.

I assume the excessive version is the case since this would actually give the create a bit of versatility when it comes to casting (just changes the source staff and you change the spell repertoire).

Incidentally, I really like the Transmutation Staff here, because of how Humanoid Form can be used by an unusually lucid demilich to take on the appearance of how they were in life.

Big things I've liked from the start:

I very much like this change. Things costing gold by default was hideously immersion breaking for me, especially as a GM who likes worldbuilding.

Dasrak wrote:

Yeah, two-handed weapon clerics just have some action overhead on the following turn to do it, but sword-and-board clerics are screwed.

I just really hope Paizo does away with this whole shifting grip thing. It feels like someone is adamant that PF2 Wizards are going have the same weapon restrictions as the PF1 Magus did, and the entire system is suffering for these rules. They aren't needed, they aren't wanted, just get rid of 'em and let us shift our grip like we could in PF1.

Yeah, it's something the game doesn't need.

...
any way to interrupt it?

So I realise this stuff is an out of context combination, but it did give me a rough idea for a more fun way of handling grip-shifting (esp given that so many people hate it right now).

Make it a free action, but with the manipulate trait so that it interacts with entangled, restrained, and AoO.

Thematically I think I'd be cool if ranger spells were handled like ki powers.

I don't actually like rangers being spellcasters by default, but it would be a nice option.

That said, I'll confess to just very much liking the place the Monk is in right now in general. Which is funny, as it was one of the two classes I was most concerned about prior to the playtest dropping.

I really hate Unburdened being turned into a heritage. A lot of the stuff in 1.4 was good, but I really hate that.

I was happiest about signature skills being removed.

About the Barbarian rage, you're getting on average .38 more rounds of rage per use of the ability, so I consider that an improvement (and now there's design space for feats to extend it even more.) I honestly never liked how Rage was only ever 3 rounds, now you have a ~44% chance of getting more than 3.

Still happy about the death of sig skills.

Honestly I think this sounds like a fun tactic that lets players feel clever.

Ki Rush has verbal casting, so you have to make noise as you move to gain concealment?

I mean I think I'm fine with annoying everybody else with "whoosh", "nyoom", or "hyperdrive, engage"

I very much like Ki Rush, and Chirurgeon makes me very, very happy.

As an asides. While the PF1 Investigator didn't exactly grab me (despite being formed from thematic favourites), taking into account how medicine can be used for analyze forensics, I actually very much like the idea now of alchemist MC-ed into rogue.

I feel like I have three strong opinions here:

I'm wondering if we couldn't redo armor so traits are positive like they are with weapons and give heavier armor some "damage mitigation" effect like shields have.

Like the reasons to use heavy armor being solely:
- your class gives better proficiency in heavy armor
- you can't afford much dex

Is consistently irritating.

I would honestly love positive trait armour.

If I was going to houserule climbing creatures, I'd probably have you roll against their acrobatics DC, either rolling athletics or acrobatics depending on what I felt was most appropriate to that situation. I'd probably wouldn't penalize the monster's AC in any way, or attacks against most folks, but I might penalize its attacks on you. And I'd probably let them use the normal break grapple/escape check rules.

Not really gonna be relevant for DDD, but it seems pretty workable in my own games. Certainly seems easier than trying to beat the CMD of bug creatures in PF1.

Also. Depending on the final chassis on the game, it might be fun to redirect crit failed attacks against a climber to the attacker, provided that the attacker is the creature being climbed.

Anybody got a link to the stream?

I wouldn't object to using other rules to climb onto monsters, but I'm not convinced that should give the grabbed condition. If you see what I mean?

As grappling currently works, if it worked better on large creatures it would make you better at nerfing them (higher chance for both Grabbed and Restrained to be inflicted, and a lower chance of them reverse grappling you). I have absolutely zero issues with some alternative maneuver that gives you a circumstance bonus on attack rolls or whatever against a creature you're hanging onto (with a likely circ bonus to do so for creatures of appropriate size), but I really don't think this should be the same thing as grappling.

I mean I don't even run games in an established setting outside of this playtest, nor do I particularly intend to stick with Golarion after it, but I actually really quite like pathfinder's daemons - they're relatively interesting and distinctive.

Demons and devils are alright, but I'm a bit soured on them due to the fighting due to different alignments thing from D&D, and they don't strike me as super duper original in comparison (though, I do quite appreciate that PF demons have a thematic basis in sins).

I do kind of like asura as well though. To a lesser degree qlippoths, but that's mostly for aesthetic and some minor divergence from demons.

Vic Ferrari wrote:

ENHenry wrote:

Stu Venable from the Happy Jack's RPG Podcast has always said, "Always be listening in case your players have a better idea than you do." This applies both for things that complicate their lives, as well as things that add awesome details to the arising story....

I generally agree, but if there is too much of that, and things are only established through play, and the multiverse is in some sort of stasis until the PCs interact, that can damage campaign integrity, for me.

I would counter that, if the players are always having better ideas than their GM is, that the GM should probably do something about that. ;-)

I find that "well, if that is what you want" strikes an inordinate amount of fear into some of my players, with regards to their ideas. :/

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Every PC in Pathfinder is and has always been magical (because the world itself is) it's just that many of them do not have spells.

I'd like to take the opportunity to expand on this, because I know it can ruffle some feathers.

"Every PC in Pathfinder is magical" is another way of saying "Every PC is extraordinary from a real world viewpoint"

A fighter being able to meaningfully harm an animated mountain with a sword doesn't require a spell, but it's quite clearly not a mundane feat.

Given that magic exists in the setting, it's easiest to say it's some kind of suffusing background magic that allows these feats and call it a day. You could say that, actually, it's an inherent property of Pathfinder PCs to grow strength and sturdiness far beyond that of Earth Realism, but you'll quickly find that there's no meaningful distinction between that and magic.

You can play a character who doesn't like or trust magic and certainly doesn't cast spells, but they're also a character who grew up on a planet that acts as a cage for an apocalypse god.

It's not a stretch for me that the barbarian can grow superhuman muscles that let him choke out a tarrasque and the rogue developed superhuman skills that lets him defy physics in other ways. You don't have to call it magic, but from day 1 everyone has started on a path that takes them to truly incomprehensible from an earth perspective heights of ability.

One thing that was really nice to see as a GM was my player's reaction when he wondered out loud "wait. Is the barbarian basically a muscle wizard?"

I kind of like how the most sensible featless twf is to fight with whatever in your main hand and an agile weapon in your second hand. Like Rapier+ Main Gauche is a plausible, realistic weapon combination that is encouraged in PF2 by the twf rules but was a bad idea in PF1.

I also like the dwarven equivalent:

Vic Ferrari wrote:

MER-c wrote:

What if we did more of an Inheritance Cycle style where magic takes as much energy as the mundane task you are replacing. Thus making it risky to try and one shot an entire horde of enemies because you might kill yourself in the process

Spellcasting tied to HP depletion?

It would be interesting, like you can cast a normal spell of your caster level but if you want to heighten it you take an amount of damage equal to the level you heighten it to or your character level

One of the few things I came away from Shadowrun really liking about the system was the spellcasting system.

It wouldn't work here, but it definitely works sort of like the Inheritance type. But I like it more as you can use basic probability to clearly cast at whichever level of risk you're up for.

TL;DR you pick which spell to cast, and how many to cast at once. Pick the level of each spell (spells don't have levels by defaults, costs relative to their level), roll for each spell, and then roll a resistance check (shadowrun so dicepool. More dice you have, the more confident you can be of what exactly your tolerance is) against backlash from casting for every single spell you cast then. Below a certain amount of unmodded backlash it's nonlethal damage, above it it's lethal damage (both damage tracks accrue penalties for things you do). You can take more backlash in exchange for casting spells with a lesser action, or later unlock methods of reducing the backlash (e.g. with somatic or verbal concentration techiques, or a magical focus)

But don't all the caster classes have customization built into them? Sorcerer Bloodlines, Wizard Spell Schools, Druid Orders, Cleric Domains, and Bard Muses all offer ways to differentiate one PC of the same class from another.

They do. It just doesn't necessarily feel like that. My wizard player before he left the playtest (2 of my players hated it, 4 seem to really like it) felt like human was the only reasonable choice for his level 1 non-universalist wizard, simply because he didn't get to pick a feat at level 1 (I think cleric and druid seem better at face value to players there though?)

shroudb wrote:

pf2 doesn't do well the 1vs many boss encounter.

the reason is not action economy or anything like that, the reason is Accuracy.

a hard boss encounter vs a single boss would end with casters only applying their spells 1/5 times, martials hitting just once very 2 rounds, and etc.
on the boss side, it will totally demolish what it strikes, but it strikes not too often.

the end result would be an encounter that's not enjoyable from either side:
a monster that acts way too little (comparatively) and players that do too little on the monster regardless of their abundant actions.

True, really true. A party+4 threat numbers needs to be adjusted..

ehi, we can create a "reaction/free/ability action list that costs xp with each option appended on the boss, of max party lvl+3 or +2! (more hp=10xp, movement reaction=20xp, and so on)
that could be a good compromise between a dynamic encounter and numbers balance ^^;

I feel like this sort of thing would work better as a template, and if it alters the difficulty to simply adjust the effective level (much like Elite) of the boss, the template in part scaling with the original level of the boss.

I kind of want all classes to have a level 1 feat just so we can have archetypes which cost level 1 feats to take so that you can start as one.

That would be nice.

I want a level 1 feat for all classes not because I think casters need the buff, but because I think it feels bad to be missing level 1 customisation for a caster player.

I dislike the thematics and gut reaction with +1/level, but I think I like the effect it has on the game, especially combat.

1/2 level (more so given that the largest reliable mod without level is something like 15) would definitely be less thematically jarring, esp if it were phrased something like
"You add your proficiency modifier to your rolls and DCs, which is equal to half your level. Your proficiency modifier counts as 4 lower when untrained, 1 higher when expert, 2 higher when master, and 3 higher when legendary."
But I suspect it might have some unwanted effects on the relative smushability of weak monsters and deadliness of boss monsters.

The biggest problem with the Alchemist was forcing them to use Resonance to power their class features, which the Resonance Test makes clear is being fixed.

That said, I think they should get class DC on all items made with Advanced/Quick Alchemy (basically all infused items) because it just feels bad not to get that until super high level.

The other thing I would like to see is some sort of cantrip-like at will ability to that they have something to do when they run out of reagents.

Just personal opinion, but I like the idea of being able to set in your daily preparations a possibly nerfed alchemical item or two that you know to be quick alchemy-able at will, and at various levels getting to prep higher level items for it.

So I feel like the basic appeal of the other two Rogue techniques are "what if you envision your character to use a weapon that did not work with finesse striker" they want you to be able to have something other than a dead feature.

Like I wanted to roll up a rogue that used the Elven Curve blade, which is incompatible with Finesse Striker because it's a 2-handed weapon, but works fine with Scoundrel's Feint. I'm going to be feinting anyway for accuracy, so "better feinting" is fine- Plus, since I'm rolling d8s every potency rune makes up another 2 point gulf between Str and Dex in terms of damage.

On a side note. Not a top end option by any means, but Scoundrel's feint with a rapier and a main-gauche is very thematic. Reactive pursuit and nimble roll or sideside makes it even better there.

Really like the visibility conditions.

Similarly to you, I'd be fine with having the social conditions axed and/or tweaked and stuck elsewhere.

Not a massive fan of enervated thematically, but I at least like the name over level drain by a massive margin.

Fleeing I detest as a common condition, for the same reason I dislike 5e frightened -limits the options of affected PCs for RP reasons, not physical reasons.

If enfeebled became any stat instead, it would be fun to see things like Ret Strike opened up to flexibility targeting.

The PF1 boards were a snoozefest of people posting constantly about how rogues were "underpowered."

Post after post of people complaining about rogues.
Now rogues get too much attention.
Can't win.

New rogue is a winner for me.

In the case of DPR, the Finesse and Brute builds are roughly equal, with the Finesse build having a nearly-negligible advantage at Levels 1-4. The Finesse build may be better on their second and third attacks with an Agile weapon compared to a Brute with a Longspear or 2H Staff, but they're otherwise very similar.

While brute rogues could probably do with a few more weapon options, my favourite thing about the longspear rogue is how it later interacts with gang-up and opportune backstab.

MaxAstro wrote:

I agree with Elleth... and not just because I just realized she shares a name with one of my favorite PCs... :P

I much prefer a system where monsters and PCs run off the same action economy but monsters have abilities that let them do more with their actions. It's still cheating to make boss monsters work, but it's cheating in a more subtle way that's less likely to break immersion for players.

Some monsters already have stuff like this in PF2, like the Marilith. I would be happy to see it expanded on and show up on more critters, though :)

Ngl, I really like how the marilith handled "has a bunch of swords and can hit things in different ways". As a general point on monster design.

Yep, some of them have a reaction, but is really limited one, usually an extra attack.

No repositioning/escaping/utlity ones.
Expand, expand! ^^

The actions symbols definitely helped with skimming that.
Free actions actually seem often even better for this at a glance.

I'm sort of torn.

I don't particularly lean strongly one way or another for the DC being based off the culprit. I like the idea, but in practice it bogs the game down, and annoys the players who are less than keen on complexity but like knowing what to expect. Given that I want to win players over to this system, and pretty much everybody I know plays 5e, I could stand to gain from less unnecessary complexity.

On the other hand, I do very much like durability playing in somehow.

I think my favourite suggestion was allowing various levels of fort training to modify the DC, but I am a little concerned that this would skew the importance of fort.

Personally I look forward to roleplaying an Int 18 goblin wizard who speaks fluent Common and finds the rest of his people hopelessly backwards... but still gets a little jumpy around horses and dogs. :)

One of my players brought along a high int blatantly CE blackfingers-worshipping goblin alchemist, who still speaks in gibberish and is somehow a functional and likeable party member.

Lucas Yew wrote:

The playtest nerfed spellcasting by three elements;

A) Lower number of slots per day
B) No automatic scaling
C) Individual effects weakened

...which critically shrunk its old cubic power.
If they decide to give back one or two of those elements back, what is your order of preference?

B and C. If PF2 will keep +lvl to everything (which most certainly will be) spells should Auto Scale in order to keep the pace. As for the weakened effects, other posters have already elaborated on this topic better than I could do.

Spell DC and to-hit does scale in that way, which keeps the pace.

This was one of the big things I actually liked in 5.

I'm not sure it's required here though, as the 3-action system, auras, and unique monster reactions and free actions seem to be doing a lot of the stuff I thought legendary actions contributed anyway.

Personally I really enjoy the flipside of it rapidly becoming absurdly easy for PCs to melt lower level mobs.

For the boss, on the defensive side at least I think I appreciate the built in saves buff. Probably mostly because I'm coming from 5e, where legendary resistance became a necessity for keeping bosses in the game, and I prefer proportionately low odds of failure to straight-up wasting the first 3 spells to be cast on said boss.

Also it needs to be little streamlined more.
No need for noisy or clumsy mechanics.

Conversely, while I'd happily see Noisy or Clumsy go, I think I like the idea somebody proposed of giving armours more traits, much like weapons.

In my view the weapon tweaks have been one of the coolest bits about the new system. It's the first time I've been properly excited about weaponry in a TTRPG beyond "this would look cool".

E.g. you could make full plate give a circumstance or item bonus against being shoved (and maybe have a chance to change certain types of damage from lethal to nonlethal), and unarmoured or light armour giving a small bonus to reflex saves or certain maneuvers.

You could even mimic the crit specs on weapons by giving armour effects against a critical miss (like a pronged set of armour giving you a chance to disarm as a reaction) or on a critical success for a save (e.g. unarmoured letting you Step after a critically successful reflex save).

I'm not going into any specifics, but you can safely assume there will be a fair amount of additional content in the final version of the game.

Thanks for letting us know!

While obviously a specific number is out, do you guys have a rough idea as to the expected size of the book?
Provided you can say of course.

I 100% understand and agree with the wish to have a character that is inept at a few skills as part of their characterization

What I do not want and that PF2 skillfully avoids compared to PF1 is that MOST characters would be inept at a few skills, and even that they would be inept at most skills

I like that PF2 can easily be tweaked so that you can choose a few skills and be inept at them rather than choose a few skills where your 20th level character will not be inept at (aka PF1)

I mean that sounds like an interesting house rule. Picking 1-2 skills that being untrained in means that level doesn't add to them.

But I think "PCs" are inherently exceptional so should survive "parachute failure" level dire circumstances much more often than would be realistic.

I mean this is what the Catfall rogue lives for. Starting a mission in free fall.

An attack of opportunity is explicitly a Strike taken with the intent to maim, kill or disrupt. A nudge is a warning to draw attention to things.

However, frankly if they're arguing that much detail, then they are the one that loses out.

Because they didn't use subtle/melodious spell, as per the updates this would, I believe, have a spell manifestation. Visible to all those around. This means the guy would get instantly noticed and wind up in hot water.

I personally think there are some fun items. E.g. for me the skeleton key, dancing scarf, diadem of intellect, persona mask (I think I actually prefer the low level version to the high level version), possibility tome, choker of elocution (though I'll confess to being confused as to what the command activation does), anklets of alacrity, gloves of storing (although I will admit that they are uncommon), I like how the new Luck Blade is a Wish battery instead of containing a set number of one-use Wishes, etc.

It'll be a (forgotten?) historic landmark that is built largely out of stone and fossils emulating ancient dinosaurs. Maybe it's haunted by the spirits of undead dinosaurs looking to feast upon the living as they did in their existence? The PCs won't know until they are called upon by Dwarven investors looking to build a trade hub to attract tourists, to enter in and cleanse the dig site of the dinosaur ghosts.

Thank you for reminding me that one of my Shadowrun GMs once ran Jurassic Park but with spirits.

Yes, per the spell design rules in the DMG, fireball and lighting bolt should both deal 6d6, but purposely bumped them to 8d6, for legacy reasons, and as they are standard innate spells for monsters.

This is a really big pet peeve of mine tbh, I dislike "no brainer" picks on a spell list, it's part of why I'm also happy to see Wish reigned in and gated behind a capstone. On the bright side for me, I feel fairly confident so far from what we've seen that PF2 won't go down the route of making a spell disproportionately good due to legacy reasons alone.

@Edge93: While the difference shouldn't be extreme, it is important that fireball be a stronger spell than heightened burning hands.

Otherwise, why bother learning fireball? You could learn a completely different spell and increase your overall utility instead. By choosing to learn fireball you have expended additional character resources, so the extra power of the spell over burning hands is rewarding you for that.

But on the other hand, if the difference is too extreme, then heightened spells aren't viable.

-----

On another topic, I'm really happy to see Paizo officially address the math being too tight/success chance being too low.

So we all agree that no one needs to make the 50% comment ever again until we see what that address looks like, right? :P

I personally was really happy when I realised that upscaled burning hands was the same damage as fireball here. It felt consistent to me.

Jason is going to need go a lot higher than 19d6 damage to send me to the game store to buy more dice.

Pretty sure I can handle up to about 74d6.

I actually reasonably like most of the conditions in PF2. I think a few of them could be more intuitive so you don't need to look them up so much. More importantly, they should probably be at the very back of the book right before the index so they're easier to look up when you need them, which is a lot.

Also, the Hampered and Slowed conditions seriously need to swap names with each other.

I just think conditions need better organisation.

I don't know guys, this is a hard one.

Both Secret Mage and Dinosaur Fort are strong contenders.

Great. Now I want Dinosaur Fort.

Paradozen wrote:

DM_Blake wrote:

I'm about 99.99999% sure that Lamashtu clerics should only have Negative energy in that table. The "or positive" is a misprint and will be errata'd if it hasn't already.

The only deities on the chart that allow "Negative or Positive" are the ones where the deity has some sort of Neutral in their alignment (CN, LN, NG, NE, or N). Lamashtu is the only exception and it's a glaringly obvious error.

Preview blog/dev comments explicitly called out Lamashtu as having access to Positive due to the "fecundity of the abyss" and called out the possibility of a Good deity who only allows negative energy (thought they did state that none of the gods provided follow that rn, I do think they mentioned a Tian god that might qualify). This is 100% intended and I personally like it a tonne.

EDIT: Here you go. It was in the eminent domains preview blog.

Listing the type of channeled energy the deity grants allows for some really exciting situations. For instance, Lamasthu may be an incredibly evil deity of nightmares, but she's also a deity of the wild fecundity of the Abyss, so she allows her clerics to choose negative or positive energy when channeling. You could even have a good deity that granted only negative energy (none of the core deities worshiped in the Inner Sea region of Golarion do so, but it could be possible for a deity like Tsukiyo, perhaps, as part of his dualism with Shizuru) or an evil deity that could grant only positive energy.

I think I like the conditions overall, but the organisation is awful.

I'd see it changed from alphabetical to clusters of related or mechanically similar conditions. And I'm going to write such a change up to give to my players.

I definitely don't like how class powers work off of Charisma instead of a class's main (or secondary) ability. Like I have a Dwarf Monk and Druid who had quite a few powers and spell points, and I left Charisma at 8 as a deliberate decision of "I'll use fewer potions, I guess."

Yep. I think I'm really not a fan of charisma feeling all devouring.

I mean, I'd be fine with it for say, fighters, rogues, rangers, non-ki monks, barbarians, running off charisma focus as mentioned.

Sorcs I think I like the idea of them actually being bosses with focus powers, so I'd be happy with something like this, plus easier access to increased points.

Clerics, Wizards, Druids, I all very much want to be able to run on their primary stat. Given how alchemist seems pretty fun with some of the changes (bar mistform elixir which seems far too weak) I'm personally biased towards wanting them to potentially have it run off int in some way.