Erdath's page

When the first blogs were presented I was very exited about PF2 and still think some of the changes to the core system are very good improvements, but later blogs diminished my enthusiasm, specially the ones concerned with magic, and frankly some were quite disappointing. Now that I have been able to read the complete systems involved I must said the disappointment on how magic is being handle in PF2 has only increased.

I will list the parts which I disagree with the direction taken and propose a design I will prefer.

• Prepared spellcasting Prepared casting can be quite unfun and is really difficult for new players.
  I think arcanist style should be used instead.

• Spontaneous heightening Spontaneous casting already has a very hard limiting factor in spells known, the limit on heightening on spontaneous caster doubles down on it.
  Spontaneous heightening should be free, I think it will be balanced with Arcanist style for prepared caster as long as spontaneous caster gain enough spells known.

• Spell disruption Is ridiculous easy to disrupt spells, that damage equal to level is enough to disrupt spells without offering any opportunity to the caster doesn't seem fair.
  There should be Spell Roll vs damage dealt to prevent disruption.

• Rarity Lots of staple spells are uncommon which is quite disappointing in itself, but frankly, I think games should aim to remove GM Fiat as much as possible, not increase it.
  This needs to disappear completely.

• Rods I don't know if Rods are just absent from the playtest or removed from the game, but I suspect the later.
  Bring Rods back, specially Metamagic Rods.

• Staves Staves are quite taxing to use, from what I have read is the only held item that require investment, it cause that nobody else could use the Staff for a day, and depending on the level is the charges it gets.
  Remove investing and charges from Staves, Resonance should be the only cap for activations.

• Wands level cap I’m very disappointed to see there is still spell level cap on wands, and with Spell roll cap on top of it.
  Remove the 4th level cap on wands.

• Wands charges I really think that Wands should not be consumables, actually I think consumables should be one use only.
  Wands should be like Dueling Wands without once per day limit.

• Magic items once per day Once per day abilities are quite unfun, and more so when is on top of expending Resonance.
  Remove the once per day cap, Resonance should be the only cap for activations.

• Resonance for consumables I already don't like consumables very much, the idea of using money on something that once used is gone instead of a permanent magic item that can be used over and over is already quite unappealing to me, that now on tops will consume a resource like Resonance is just too much.
  Seriously consider dropping it for consumables.

• 10th level spells Is really jarring to see that spells are gained every odd level except 19th, class progression should not be mutilated like that, and frankly 10th level spells are not that impressive to justify a feat gate for once per day at level 20th
  10th level spells should be gained automatically, two slots at level 19th and another at 20th.

• Metamagic feats I seriously cannot understand why metamagic feats are not general feats anymore
  Metamagic should not be class specific, return metamagic to general feats.

• Class feats Once per day abilities are unfun, at least I avoid them like the plague.
  Replace caps of once per day with Spell Points or another resource that allows a choice of number of activations
  

There are other things I have not make up mind still like concentrate, summoning, polymorph, and planar binding, but it doesn't look promising.

To conclude, I play RPGs because I like magic and high fantasy, so that is what I will be looking for to evaluate if the migration is worth it for me or not.

Reading the threads about Resonance and CLW Wands has been very enlightening, is a very complex issue with no easy answer. But one of the things that calls me more is that HP and healing increases linearly while overall power level and treasure increases quadratically, that brings me the questions:

1- Why somethings increase linearly and while others quadratically?

2- Is just for legacy or are other considerations too?

3- It would not be better that everything increased quadratically?

HP for example, in a quadratic progression would be Con mod * Class bonus * Levels, so a 10 lv Fighter with Con 16 would have 3*10*10 = 300 HP. This way high level healing magic items could heal enough to justify the high price.

4- Would be a bad idea that HP and healing increased quadratically?

I think having quadratic progression for everything would make easier to balance the game than having somethings increasing linearly while others quadratically.

Why quadratic should be the default? Because Pathfinder answer NO to Bounded accuracy, a high level character should not have a problem wiping low level ones.

Not a blog as such, but the Paizo live show right now is going through creating a character (including showing the character sheet), with Jason Bulmahn.

Linky

Front of character sheet
Back of character sheet

What is TEML?

Nice!

I really liked the Runesage archetype from Adventurer's Guide and not only because I'm a big fan of Thassilon, is a Wizard who can change his specialized school, how awesome is that? But in order to do so you need to be able to change your bonded object, so I was wondering if there are feats, traits, spells, etc to optimize the bonded object's replacement ritual, anything that reduces the cost and/or time. Or if is possible, to gain more than one bonded object? specially at lower levels.

As the title states I'm looking for an alternate system to create magic items, but unfortunately my google-fu have not been good enough.

My issues is that the system presented in 3.PF works more as guidelines at best, creating a magic item is more an art than a science, and many magic items just seem to follow a different logic, so I will like to find a system that is the opposite to that, that haves hard and detailed rules of how to create magic items and how to craft them by characters, it doesn't need to be for Pathfinder, although it would be very nice if it were for the d20 framework at least.

Given that I have seen many complaints through the years in forums about this issue I imagine that most probably some company must have had developed a better system at this point.

So does anyone know of such a system, from a 3pp or another RPG that match what I'm looking for?

I really liked the introduction of occult rituals, a form of magic that anyone can use linked with great peril. Even before of Occult Adventures I had this idea of rituals as powerful magic that works as a plot device, for comparison rituals would be to spells what artifacts are to magic items. And after all they are somewhat common as plot points, like for example a cabal of evil occultist that want to bring an extraplanar entity from the far beyond, or perhaps a group of drow who are going to cause a rock to fall from space causing a cataclysm.

But alas, I have one big complaint, and that's it that there are very few published occult rituals, I can only hope that in the future they receive a bigger coverage, like a compendium of rituals published in previous material, ready to be introduced in a campaign, somewhat like Artifacts & Legends Campaign Setting did for artifacts but for occult rituals.

In the meanwhile I thought that some interesting rituals can come from epic spells, for example one epic spell that I really like is Proctiv’s Move Mountain:

And so here is a proposal for the ritual form

What do you guys think?
Do you like to see more occult rituals been published?
You see rituals in a similar way than I do?
And what is your opinion about epic spells as occult rituals?

What are the chances of a hardcover book in the Campaign Setting line with stats and history of these guys:

All the Runelords including Xin
Baba Yaga
Geb
Nex
(actually all the NPCs in Inner Sea Magic)
Empyreal Lords
Archdevils
Demon Lords
Eldest
Elemental Lords
Horsemen
Asura Ranas
Kyton Demagogues
Primal Inevitables
Protean Lords
Psychopomp Ushers
Rakshasa Immortals
(Probably all the demigods)
Great Old Ones
Outer Gods
Kaijus
etc. etc. etc.

These and many more are mentioned in many sources but only a few have been fully covered, some in Bestiary 4 and others Mythic Realms. I really loved the Characters section in Mythic Realms, so can we get a book with all these characters? I know the Mythic rules are not the most popular but I think is a great resources for GMs as inspiration and BBEGs.

One concept that have always compel me has been the Erudite, a psion who can learn/access powers from all disciplines. So when psionics come to Pathfinder I got very excited to see the Generalist, an Erudite since launch day, but then I read and for my disappointment the Generalist only draw/learns powers form the psion class and the only class feature that allows him to access others powers is Expanded Mind a 20 lv ability and for just one power.

Then come the Erudite as an archetype to the generalist, I got excited again, when I first read Daily Powers I though, this is it, but then I read again and realizes to my greater disappointment that it doesn't allow discipline powers, such a let down.

So then my question what is the point of the Generalist and Erudite archetype in Pathfinder?

And second, is too broken to have access to all powers? Even in mythic psionics the psionic version of Wild Arcana is nerfed in comparison.

Hi everyone. I'm looking if there is a product somewhere that allows to convert Adventure Paths in a Board Game.

This is my vision for convert Epic rules to Pathfinder, and I'm looking for feedback, so please let me know your advices, suggestion, and criticism.

This is an ongoing project, there are things that are not finished yet, like monsters. I like to have some external opinions before continuing.

I know the existence of Legendary Levels and Mythic Adventures but I don't have the same feeling with them that I have with Epic, also I don't think they are mutually exclusive.

Epic Pathfinder

One of the things I'm hoping for Mythic Adventures is solo playing, no need for a party, not sure if this is coming or not is just a rumor a read on other threads, but then I start thinking that it will be cool to have modules for soloing like Choose Your Own Adventure stories, is only you and the book no GM or other players.

Anyone else is interesting in something like this?
Do you like that Paizo or 3PP publish solo adventures?

Hello all

I was looking for an alternative to the paradigm of GM-Player and I found this and I want to share it with the community

I start looking for something like this because of problems with the GM, I don't feel comfortable with that one person has all the power and responsibility of the game, bad things can happen. On the other side be the GM consume a lot of time and can be stressful.

So I like to know what other people think about this system, I think is not to difficult to implement and can be very fun.

After seeing the race builder from the play test for Advanced Race, I think it would be cool have a class builder system to create new strange classes or archetypes

somebody else want something like this?