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Our story begins in the most unlikely of places: a goblin village in the Brinestump Marsh. You be goblins of tribe Licktoad, neighbors of the man-town of Sandpoint. Not so long ago another tribe tried to destroy the town, but they did not bring enough fire to do the job, and died. Life is good for the Licktoad tribe. Lots to eat, travelers to terrorize, and fun things to do. But sometimes, bad things happen and yesterday the worst occurred! One of your own was caught in the act of the most heinous, vile, despicable of all crimes: writing. Even worse, he was trying to write down the history of your tribe, stealing those words from the Licktoad's heads forever! The criminal was quickly caught and punished. You tied him down, branded his face with random letters and symbols, then ran him out of town. For added measure, you burned down his hut and destroyed all his things. The vile Scribbleface is defeated! But something good did come out of all this. While looting Scribbleface's hut, you came across two things: a map, and a box of the greatest thing of all. FIREWORKS! They came in very handy for burning down the hut. Sadly, this means most of the fireworks are gone now. But not all is bad: Chief Gutwad has called for a feast to be held, to drive away all the bad luck Scribbleface brought on the Licktoad tribe. Even better, you have been invited to teh Chieftain's hut! Why? Who knows, but it's very exciting. *gasp* Maybe Chief Gutwad has a special secret mission for you! You should go and find out...
I saw a post, or series of posts, some years back from an interview with Paizo's developers stating that they used the Pathfinder Iconics drawn on the covers and splash age art for adventure paths to do their internal playthroughs/tests of the APs. I can't find it again. Anybody happen to know where it is?
Plan, discuss, and banter here.
The Sky Port of Balentyne. Lifeblood of the northern mountains, and one of the most prolific trade hubs in the world. You can buy anything in Balentyne: weapons, goods, people, and more esoteric items all make their way through the great northern port.
As a result it is built as much on as in and around the mountains, with vast bridgeways and narrow, vertigo inducing guardrail-less paths over sheer drops. The Vanara still make up the majority population in Balentyne, but only just. Ove the centuries it’s become an enormous cosmopolitan center, with dwarves specially making up a large portion of the immigrant population, but representatives of all of the other races claiming a piece of the pie as well. Each peak is a city all its own, and ruled by governors that impart their own law and order on their corners of the city. However, all answer to Primal Seers and their Interpreter. The Sages possess the knowledge of all Vanara; past and present. This give them immense wisdom: at a price. They’re often lost in their memories, or the day to day lives of random citizens, and can only become lucid with great effort. Much of the time the governors run the day to day of Balentyne’s various districts, and the Interpreter’s role is largely ceremonial: but when the Seers speak, all of Balentyne listens. You, the [Ironsight Regulators] have been in Balentyne for some time, and have made a name for yourself after a few successful missions, enough to be trusted with more sensitive issues. In this case, escorting a prominent political official. He’s one of the next in line for governor of your own district, the Ridgerunner district (named for its founder). The district is traditionally Vanaran, but the current candidate has a good shot at winning it as a Dwarf, which many of the purists take umbrage with; Ridgerunner is the last district that has never had a non-Vanara governor. Your job is to protect him for three days until the election concludes; after which, hopefully, the ire either dies down or is rendered moot by the increased security he’ll receive from the city.
For now, you wait in a hotel suite provided by Ridgerunner’s government, your detail to start on the morrow.
I had initially planned to make an update to my Impressions thread, but a month into the playtest and two weeks of downtime makes that kind of thread seem less useful at this stage. For the cliff notes of my final thoughts (on magic items): I think the Rarity system is good in concept, but very gamist in an unsatisfying way, and Resonance seems to exist to solve a problem that didn't really exist in a very clunky, un-fun way. But the purpose of this thread is mainly to ask Paizo, if they'd be kind enough to respond, what they wish to accomplish with this iteration of the system. What are the basic design goals? Aside: I'd ask everyone to keep pith to a minimum if you have your own opinions on what you can glean from the text (which I otherwise wholeheartedly welcome); comments like "to make money" or "chase a new audience" aren't helpful and are actively unproductive to the discussion. I ask because I cannot for the life of me figure out the game PF2 wants to be, really. A lot of its subsystems seem largely at odds with each other, resulting in a hodgepodge of ideas, some of which are actually pretty great, but none of which really complement each other in a satisfactory way. As an easy example, the streamlining of certain core systems of the game (like the pretty solid revised action economy, or the...less solid Proficiency system) seem to point toward the game wanting to be a more simplified system that is more intuitive to pick up for newcomers. The issue is that's at odds with a lot of the design in other areas, particularly regarding races, classes, and magic items, all of which are very fiddly and full of minor bonuses or separate resource pools which make the game less friendly in the character creation process. In short the PLAYING of the game is very newcomer friendly at a basic level (with some exceptions for other subsystems like the death and dying rules which were revised), but the SET UP of the game is not, similar to a board game with very simple rules, but a lengthy and tedious set-up period before each game (like many peoples' houseruled abominations of Monopoly that make the game take 45 minutes to an hour to set up and remove all the nuance from the game itself). I'm curious what underlying design philosophy led to this. Maybe I missed the mark and I'm completely wrong about what kind of game this was supposed to be, which is fair enough, but I think it would be useful at this stage (now that everyone has had time to sort of form their own opinions first so the devs can see an outside perspective) for a more explicit "This is what we wished to accomplish" statement to help give more guided feedback on how perceived problems should be remedied.
Having had a good skim and skip of the book, I'm dumping these impressions here in large part to organize my own thoughts and understanding of how this system is meant to work, exactly. People have rightly pointed out that the book's layout is poorly thought out, but that's to be expected of a playtest document, and consistent with past Paizo Playtest material. Still, writing it down like this should help me, and may hopefully help some other people. This will be multiple posts. When I get my actual playtest group up and running (probably next weekend) I'll post any opinions that have changed after seeing certain mechanics or systems in play in further detail.
Overall I like the streamlining of action economy. This one is very straightforward, though the implications of what this new action system mean requires a lot of jumping around. Three actions (plus one Reaction, and a GM ruled number of Free actions) per round gives players a lot of flexibility, and allows for a lot more granularity than systems like 5e, which can feel stifling at times with their very rigid action apportioning. Allowing characters to full attack from first level and while moving is a welcome change, even if the enormous penalties mean these extra attacks are EFFECTIVELY locked off until higher levels. I have my problems with how the use of Reactions is utilized, but that's an issue with those specific ways Reactions are used (which I'll get to when I write down my thoughts about class feats and skills) and not the mechanic itself. "Reaction" is much more intuitive phrasing than "Immediate Action", and that goes for the use of the term "Action" in general rather than having a distinction between Swift/Standard/Move/Full Round/Immediate actions that I've seen be overwhelming for new players. The symbology is...unhelpful, in my opinion. I believe its purpose is entirely meant to save page count, which it succeeds at admirably, but there's something off about it. Maybe I just don't like how it looks. Not really a fair criticism, but it's all I can come up with. It feels wrong. The use of the term "Activities" is the biggest misstep IMO. It isn't intuitive terminology for something that takes multiple actions to perform. "Extended Action", Multiple Action", or something like that gets the point across better. "I'm performing an activity" sounds stiff and awkward in a way that "I'm taking an action" lacks. There's no excitement or sense of adventure in the term at all. Tl;DR: The new action economy/nomenclature is in most regards better (and far more intuitive) than the 3.PF action economy/nomenclature, with a few missteps (primarily in terms of Activities). Kudos!
Not a fan, here. Primarily in regards to traits. In theory the creation of important keywords is a good thing, but it ends up making ability descriptions look cluttered in the current way it's put down, in large part because many abilities have upwards of three traits, with one Fighter ability having five different traits. Side note, Traits are probably better referred to as "Tags", because that's really what they are (and that term stands less of a chance of being confused with Pathfinder's Traits by long time players). Descriptors is also better, since in PF1e terms that is literally what they are, and is more accurate terminology. The Witcher Adventure Card Game uses Traits in a similar way and it's just as confusing in that game.
My first hard dislike, here. I'm not a fan of critical failures in this kind of game. They work in systems like Mutants and Masterminds because combat in M&M is generally lower stakes; death is rare and easily fixable, just like in comic books. Pathfinder and other D&D derived fantasy games tend to feature more visceral danger in its encounters, with creatures injuring and killing PCs on a regular basis. Rolling poorly is ALREADY BAD, and can lead to a premature character exit. Adding an extra degree of failure below that is likely to lead to frustration.
I like it, in general terms. It bridges the gap in some ways between PF1e and 5e in game style, having much less granularity than the former and more than the latter. The locking off of certain actions to certain levels of proficiency is an interesting idea to combat the old and hotly debated problem of "stages of play" Pathfinder 1e has (at which point does a character become superhuman? 5th level? 10th level? 15th?) in regards to how powerful skills can be, and allows for more cool things to be done with skills. My main complaint: I feel like the bonus for Untrained skills is a bit too high (and the difference in bonus between the other levels of proficiency is too small). 1/2 level rather than level -2 is my gut instinct on what is more appropriate. This leaves everybody capable of performing simple tasks like climbing a rope (neatly avoiding the issue of the level 8 Wizard struggling to get up a cliff without burning a high at the time level spell), while reducing the amount of "jack of all trades" ability characters get under the level -2 system. That said, that's just a gut instinct, not real analysis of the system math so far. The other main complaint is in Signature Skills, which I'll cover in more detail when I get to skills. Aaand...that looks like that's it for section 1, besides basic terminology. Races next, unless I feel like skipping around. I'll talk about Ability Scores there, since the impression of those is largely intertwined with some opinions on the changes to race.
Our journey begins in the sleepy village of Redbridge, where the four of you have gathered. The local Trapper's Lodge had several bounties open, but you settled on the easy money today: A simple Two-Star hunt, for a pack of creatures called Gunbeaks nesting on the steppes to the east. They're fairly common, as monsters go, but reasonably valuable and only TRULY dangerous in large herds. You've hunted them before, to some success. Bipedal avians, with feathers of red and brown, their main distinguishing feature is their large beaks with rounded nostrils. A gunbeak naturally produces flammable gasses in its stomach. Not enough for a flame breath like a dragon or salamander might breathe, but enough to fire seed pellets like a shotgun from their nostrils. Their preferred diet consisting largely of Stone Melons, this ejection of the indigestible seeds can be quite deadly to any unfortunate creatures nearby when they are expelled. Still, you are fairly confident that barring unforeseen circumstances, the creatures will prove to be not especially challenging prey...
Discussion thread here. Tentative character creation: -Level 8 -Choose your own stats, I don't particular care what you have. -Gestalt -Mythic Tier 1 for the purpose of qualifying for Mythic Feats and Talents. You gain none of the core Mythic Tier abilities nor do you choose a Mythic Path and gain the abilities of such, though you may choose Talents from any Path. You may choose a single Mythic Talent, to be approved by me. -Any material allowed on a case by case basis but any Paizo and Dreamscarred Press generally allowed. Other third party will be under stricter scrutiny by me, and will MOST likely be rejected, but feel free to ask. Gear: We will be using a form of automatic bonus progression that includes all of the Big Six items. You have full level 8 WBL to apply to anything outside of that, though I urge you to put an emphasis on utility and greater versatility or build enabling rather than raw boosters, you will be getting plenty enough of those. I reserve the right to veto any magical items I feel significantly deviate from this. Thoughts? Questions? Suggestions?
Anybody who wants to be eaten by undead say yea. All opposed, say nay. Abstaining counts as a yea.
You kill the two Gargoyles (for expediency's sake) but they sound the alarm. You have one round to prepare countermeasures for an unknown number of enemies.
Get your dots here.
Discuss. 
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