Fluff's page

Re. encumbrance

We were never really sticklers for it but I did play a paladin with strength 14, dex 13 who was all about the charisma.

That paladin could barely wear her full plate without problems. We had a policy that if your strength was so low you couldn't even carry your basic gear then we paid attention to it, so she pretty much had full plate, shield, sword, bow, and that was it, at least on her person, for quite a while.

A dex character isn't likely to be lugging around heavy armour though.

Iterative attacks don't seem like a problem to me. Lots of things that I didn't think were problems at all, got fixed.

Or.. "fixed". Saying it's 3 actions and it's simple is a gross simplification of how it actually plays. PF2 is way more complicated than PF1 is IMO, if you compare core books alone. When PF2 has been out for ten years it'll be an absolute mess.

Anyway. The time for the merits and flaws is long past. Converting stuff from PF2 to PF1 does not seem that easy, as half the abilities of everything has been removed. You would have to add stuff. On top of that PF1 characters are more powerful so you'd have to bear that in mind when considering the context, whether it fits into the setting properly. Adventures about diseases better have some sort of reason to be a problem in PF1, for example, because diseases are not a problem.
Ditto things like long range travel, trekking across the wilderness, investigation, utility magic. You'd have to scale everything up and that can have consequences.

And even less easy given homebrew conversion requires pretty good knowledge of both systems, which I will not have.

Systems aren't like software, they don't really get out of date - certainly since the 90s anyway, maybe the really early hokey ones have become outdated - they merely change, and ultimately they run on novelty primarily. They aren't like computer games where XYZ 2 is almost certainly an improvement on XYZ 1. This is why there are edition wars, as there's always at least a case to be made to not change.

I don't think PF2 is an upgrade on PF1, it's basically a completely different game entirely with a few relatively superficial similarities. Like most new editions it's not really about upgrading, but about shifting copy. There are some exceptions but PF2 isn't one of them.

Well, I would buy new PF1 stuff. Especially APs if they are good ones. I like the more roleplaying heavy ones like Hells Rebels, there isn't an infinite number of those.

I've played 5th and didn't like it, and GMed PF2 and liked it even less, and I don't think I have the rules knowledge required to do a decent job converting it all myself, and no desire to learn tbh. So just being able to buy a PF1 AP would be a good thing for me.

Not really too fussed about more rulebooks, if anything PF1 has too many of those, some them, IMO, ill judged, as happens with such a long running edition.

TBH if I run out of PF1 modules I'd like to play, I'll probably end up switching to something else entirely, not classic fantasy - like old school Shadowrun or something. PF1 spoiled me so much I got off the WotC train entirely, and going back to it now just feels awful. Probably why I don't like PF2. But that'll not be a problem in the near future at least.

FTFY. D&D already has its game, if you want D&D, go play that instead, because Pathfinder isn't D&D, and as such the expectations should be different.

Pathfinder isn't D&D? P1 sure does look like it to me.

And if P2 does not, I'm out.

Some argue that allocating certain feats to classes restricts the freedom to individualize the character. They advocate to open all feats to every class. I tended to agree and thought gatekeeping was the death of individualization. But then I questioned this view and became very sympathetic to this class feat approach. Not every character benefits from every ability right now, even if feats were opened to everybody.

What left me feeling utterly cold on class feats is the fact that you basically pick a subset of your PF1 class abilities. You don't get divine health, mercy, aura of courage, etc. Instead you get a subset of the above. It's not possible to have even the CRB version of a paladin anymore, you don't have enough class feats.

Wow being able to come out with 22 18 18 16 16 16 is reason enough not to play pf 2e :(

...yup.

You can't really be bad at anything.

Unfortunately you're defined by what you are not as much as what you are.

My strength 14, charisma 18 paladin wont' be happening in PF2.

I think the community has killed this game for me. I like aspects of this game, and dislike others. Nothing is perfect. However in trying to keep up with the forums and get answers to questions, the sea of toxicity against this game has permeated into my every interaction with it.

One of my Shadowrun players, who is only peripherally interested in Pathfinder as one game among many, and not one he's currently playing, told me that he warned off some guys going to UK Games Expo, told me that they'd be disappointed because he heard they'd done a "4th edition" on it. He told me before I said a word on the subject to him.

So the news that PF2 is bad must have spread a fair bit. I got no idea where he heard it.

The major problem I can see with that is it still keeps the issue of the rest of the party twiddling their thumbs while the Rogue goes on a solo adventure, possibly even worse than PF1e had it. Granted, that problem still does exist to a certain extent in the playtest (mostly because monster skills are so inflated that it's detrimental to do things without being optimized), but that's a tuning thing and not a basic systemic issue.

... I really don't see how paladins clanking and rogues sneaking is a problem.

I am ok with all the magic nerfs. the goal of this edition is to allow the game to be played at all levels. the truth is, most of those spells on the uncommon list broke the game. so I am ok with that. I don't agree that blasting is nerfed. damage got nerfed across the board for all characters, barbarians, ranger, fighter , rogue, monk all had their damage potential reduced quite a bit.so in blasting spells are actually quite good now in this edition. if this were a fighting game, you would say that casters got normalized, more so than nerfed.

.

The game isn't really playable at "all levels".

There's only one level now - low level. They got rid of high level and even mid level by simply abolishing everything that made it high level or mid level.

That's true even of the mathematics underlying the system, whether you're fighting level 1 kobolds with your level 1 fighter or a level 20 pitfiend with a level 20 fighter, the experience is fundamentally the same.

Remember most character get 3 skills that could possibly be raised to Legendary and that doing so to all three means the vast majority of your skills are going to be untrained. Anything that stretches the numbers too far means every character at high levels is going to be able to do a maximum of 3 things well, and everything else is going to be trash. We will be back to people in armor never being able to move stealthily with the rogue, or even within hearing range of the rogue because they will be so far behind.

Clearly what we are looking for in a game is just not compatible. I like that characters are different. The higher level you get, the more different they become. Yup. Good.

You want your full plate paladin to be sneaking next to the rogue? What's the point being a rogue then? Or, for that matter, being a paladin?

Funnily enough I'm just playing Hells Rebels and our party shadowdancer went into the Menador Gap keep and did thorough recon, and then jammed all the doors shut. Shadowdancer player very happy. Then the barbarian went in there and massacred everything. Barbarian player very happy. The barbarian player doesn't want to sneak, he revels in being a thug. The shadowdancer doesn't want to fight (much), she revels in having some finesse. Neither of these would happen in PF2, to, IMHO, the games detriment. Certainly the players I'm with atm would be less happy.

jquest716 wrote:

I was a 5e player both in d&d and shadowrun. And my 5e d&d table (6 of us and a DM) of 4yrs just unanimously decided to,switch over to PF2. D&D 5e got a bit stale and pathfinder 2 is a breath of fresh air for us. But thats just My store atm

Oh god, Shadowrun. How do you do it? How does anyone do it? I love the lore, but man is that game brutal on crunch. Just this past month, I tried to finally give it a go after enjoying the video games for years and spent days figuring out all the little rules, building characters, so on and so forth. I love the priority mechanics for character building and sifting through all the gear and options is a great way to waste an entire day.

But actually playing it is just such a slog. I gave up after a few sessions after I found a HERO System conversion that transfers the whole economy, Matrix, Spells, races etcetera from Shadowrun. HERO is no less complicated than Shadowrun if we're being fair, but I've been playing it long enough that I have house rules, tricks and all the tables memorized to counter-balance the crunch.

Shadowrun 5 is mostly just, you roll a (huge) number of d6s, count up whichever ones get 5 or 6. The opponent does the same. High roll wins. Sometimes there are limits, which are maximum number of successes you can roll.

The system at it's heart is pretty simple compared to prior editions. Like, West End Games Star Wars sort of simple.

The eighth level Int 8 barbarian knows *more* than the first level wizard who is an expert in Lore.

Conversely, the Str 8 eighth level wizard is better at climbing, breaking objects, swimming, and grappling than the first level barbarian.

I’ve seen that in play during my 4e and Star Wars Saga days. Unless it’s a trained skill, everyone rolls. The entire table. Because why not?
And when the variance between master and amateur is around +/-5, which is well within a single dice roll, half the time the person who succeeds at the task isn’t the person who should be the best.

This is it exactly.

Also for some things, like say sneaking around, it has to be pretty safe before you're going to do it.

In our current PF1 game we sent in our shadowdancer, covered with a message spell, to sneak around, recon, and jam doors shut before our assault.

That is viable because the shadowdancer is very good at sneaking. In PF2 it's going to be, dex 18-20, +2 for proficiency? so +5 or so better than anybody else? That would either be suicide for them to try alone, or you may as well bring the whole party because we're all about the same. Not the 15 or so points the shadowdancer has over us on stealth innately in PF1.

I just think of a lot of cool things that have happened in my PF1 games, and I know these cool things won't be possible in PF2, the system simply doesn't allow you to express such differences between characters. That's the upshot of the rocket tag, which I don't find such a problem because it's a consequence, and if you get rid of the rocket tag you get rid of that too.

At level 2 as an Unchained Rogue, I had +30 to Stealth before I even rolled thanks to a piece of gear made from spidersilk.

That's the sort of thing a 3.75 edition could fix.

I believe that adventurers should encounter some of their old foes at higher levels.

Yes, I remember in Council of Thieves you met some Council agents a few times throughout the AP. They were almost always level 5 rogues. The difference is at the end, when the party are level 12, you're fighting a lot of them. They weren't much of a threat to the martials but you could still stab up the clothies quite well.

I’m at my wit’s end. I can’t find any compelling, or logical reason why to play a TTRPG that adds +1 to everything / level. Wise players please help me. Is there a way to play this cool game without having Useless bloated numbers. Go look at at a level 20 character, it looks stupid. Seriously make a level 20 character. It looks utterly silly.

It's so the experience is fundamentally not different as your levels change.

In 1E, consider the baseline to be level 0. Every level you gain, means you deviate from that 0. A level 1 barbarian is a little bit of a barbarian trowelled on top. A level 20 barbarian is a lot of barbarian trowelled on top. You get bonuses per level, on being barbaric. You don't get bonuses on being wizardly, though of course the system allows a bit of cross pollination with skills.

This specialisation means at the higher levels, you are very much A Barbarian and you will not fail at doing barbarian tasks. You will need a 2 to hit most things you'll be fighting, because your specialisation is hitting things and you took a lot of levels in hitting things. But when it comes to sneaking around, you may just be no better at it then you were at level 0, before you even applied any barbarian classes.

The 2E approach is to make the experience fundamentally the same from level 1 to level 20. At level 1, your barbarian gets +1 + mods to hit, and fights level 1 rats with AC 10 + 1 + mods. At level 20 your barbarian fights with +20 + mods to hit, and he fights pit fiends and jabberwockys which have AC 10 + 20 + mods. The experience is the same. The numbers are the same. He may as well be level 1 and fighting rats. He can do more things, and he will have a few more bonuses (legendary is +3 after all) but his differences between his fellow PCs, and the jabberwocky, will be WAY smaller. The baseline is not 0, it is your level. Proficiency bonuses, ability scores, let you deviate from this baseline a little. But it's much easier to balance. And you can have a go at any task appropriate for your level and have at least a chance. A wizard won't be hitting a jabberwocky with his sword in 1E at level 20 unless there's some shenanigans going on.

As someone who enjoys low level, mid level and high level play, and how they feel different, I'm not a fan of this design goal.

Probably because Organized Play is one of the biggest draws of Pathfinder (at least in my area). If the system isn't consistent and doesn't work well enough to be done "out of the box" it really impacts that amazing organized play environment that Paizo has set up. Frankly, without PFS I wouldn't even be playing and every rule I see I have to evaluate with regards to the PFS environment - and that's where designer intent matters and houserules don't mean anything.

I think this is the problem really, why I don't like the way it's going - into a sort of finely tuned board game designed for 'competitive roleplaying'.

Your experience and mine are completely at odds. I don't know anybody who has ever played PFS. I asked around all the players I know, not a single one even knows someone else who did it, let alone played it themselves. For all I know they don't even exist in the UK (I guess they do, I've not checked, but they may as well not exist where I am anyway).

I'm used to a far more collaborative approach than PFS sounds like. And I don't want a finely tuned board game.

I feel like prestidigitation was kind of a weird spell really (and not just to spell) It was illusion right so is it really cleaning the cloths or making it look clean? I don't know I feel a lot of its use and abuse was from it being vaguely defined and in some games it may have been real nice and in others no one would of touched it.

I think it was supposed to be a catch all to let wizards do all the sorts of things stereotypical apprentices can do. Cleaning up their room with magic, cooking food with magic, adjusting their hair with magic, blowing fantastic smoke rings with magic, etc.

So that sort of catch all would require vagueness.

Casters should be able to use 0-level cantrips which require saves only if the GM feels like it while martials should jump the hoops of multiple skill checks and be just plain unable to match a 0-level cantrip at all?

This isn't fun. This is driving the "casters do cool things, you get to stand and watch" further. I can see how, by being a caster player, you didn't notice that.

You could do the same sort of thing with a Sleight of Hand roll to surreptiously spill something over the guy.

It's probably a lot easier to get away with than a cantrip as well, a lot more subtle and more likely to work.

Do you think that a 0-level at-will cantrip should have that big narrative powers?

If you think the ability to clean stuff and soil stuff with a cantrip is too much then I think we're not going to agree on much regarding magic.

Gandalf blowing a smoke ring with a cantrip would probably be too much at this point.

Have any of you who posted above actually played the game? I'm far more interested in what people who have played the game have to say.

Unfortunately I've played 4th and 5th edition and the level on everything, proficiency based system, is a hard no for me. The rest of it could be great but I'm not going to get past the horrible feeling of crushing conformity that such a system engenders in me.

@Fluff, I think your image of what a paladin should be has been shaped by board games just as much as fantasy. I don't recall reading any fantasy about paladins bravely standing in doorways. In the same way, the new system is ripe to create fresh new images for paladins. Moved to action to righteously avenge their teammates, or, always by their fragile companion's side. Who knows what else. The purpose of a second edition doesn't only have to be retreading old ground.

Really? So no knight in shining armour ever leapt between a foe and a damsel?

This new system is frankly ridiculous. Baddies bop damsel, knight bops baddies. And ... every fight with a paladin is going to be like that now as it's kinda their core ability. Maybe if they had something like Compel Hostility instead, so you had to hit the paladin. That seems more organic and less weird. I don't know. It makes a bit more sense but it's not ideal. TBH... I'd just rather stick with 1E?

No, it doesn't have to be but I'm not going to bother with it if it's worse, and I absolutely loathe it, almost all of it. Even down to abilities like retributive strike.

I think it's just not for me. D&D has slowly become more and more of a wargame over the years. I have some colleagues at work who play 4th edition, they don't roleplay at all. There isn't even lip service to it. They like 4th edition precisely because it plays like a board game. 5th edition rowed back a bit from that, but it looks like PF is more headed that way. I guess they think grognards and 'crunch' players want to play an RPGised WFRP or something.

Oh and silly stuff like Retributive Strike and Attack of Opportunity.

Retributive Strike makes no sense to me whatsoever. This is a pretty good example of how board gamey it all is, how I simply am not going to be able to visualise what's going on in IC reality without some serious game mechanic induced cognitive dissonance.

PF1 - The paladin defends the people who need defending by ... making sure the bad guys don't get to them. If there's a door, they stand in it. If someone can charge the wizard, they stand in the way. When people try and go around the paladin, there's all sorts of incentive not to do that. Full round attacks, attack of opportunity, and so on.
I think it works great. I play a martial, I can imagine what's going on. You have a front line, you have a melee which sucks people in, you have people hanging well back from that melee. There's still scope for sneaky characters to dash past. You don't HAVE to be a paladin either, it's just something everybody does, because that's how fighting is, though maybe some people are better at it than others (Stand Still, or Mobility, or whatever). It all happens organically, anyway, just a consequence of common and pretty easily visualisable things.

PF2 - The paladin stands next to the person who needs defending. There's no way they can intercept anybody now without attacks of opportunity and the general greater mobility the system affords, so you kinda have to do that. When they attack the clothie you get a free hit.
This just makes no sense to me. It's not organic, it's forced. I can't imagine in my minds eye some sort of movie scene or a scene in a book where this would be playing out. It can only make 'sense' in the context of these rules. I know D&D combat is highly stylised, but it still could sort of happen as described in the Silmarillion or something. This? I dunno. It only makes sense as a board game.

so I've read. It's a PFS problem mostly, as I understand it. and I still can't get rid of the feeling that PF players are held hostage by the PFS with many of the changes made for PF2

Seems like it to me.

We use wands of CLW a bit at our tables. It just means the cleric isn't the personal healbot of everybody else. I'm not really seeing a problem.

The proficiency system. The way everything is based by level. The way a thick, uncharismatic barbarian at level 8 is more suave than a charisma 18 noble who is level 1. A level 8 barbarian should be much better at being a barbarian, but better at everything else? Why?

The ability score system. The way abilities just go through the roof over time as you go up levels. It's less a profile of the characters basic self, and more just another way to trowel on advancements over the basic 'I'm level 5'. The way no ability is ever bad.

This plus the proficiency thing means I'm simply unable to RP in this system because it makes no sense. A gentle hospitaler paladin who started at strength 14 is going to end up as musclebound as the barbarian within a few levels, there's literally nothing else for it. Where else are the boosts going to go? Which makes it feel like a board game not an RPG.

The class abilities system. The way you have half the abilities you had in PF1 and customisation means picking which half you want. The way all those abilities are now terribad in comparison.

The skill system. Rather than just being organic 'if you roll a 10, not bad, if you roll a 20, excellent, if you roll a 30, then amazing!' with what you can do based on a target number now everything is behind a feat. You can't even pick a pocket without a feat! You could be a legendary thief and not pick a pocket. What? Why? I simply can't mentally explain that to myself, why I might have a very dexterous character, who has some points in thievery or sleight of hand or whatever, and yet some things, really basic things, are behind some weird gatekeeping feat. It makes no sense. Why are skill feats even there if that's what they are to do? The old way, if you're good enough at sleight of hand, you can pick pockets. If you're not good enough, you can try but you'll get caught. Seems fair.
Of course, "very dexterous" is completely meaningless now thanks to the new ability system. Everybody's going to be 'very dexterous'.

The magic. It's been gutted. It's now computer game magic, where everything only has an impact in a single fight. It's not magic in a literary sense, it's magic in a board game sense. Like everything else. Durations all capped to ridiculously short times? Effects reduced to mere trivialities. Macros the Black isn't just a gun in human form. Or shouldn't be.

The whole game isn't helping me visualise any characters, with game mechanics backing up the in character reality. It seems like an utterly non-immersive computer game reality.

It's basically my absolute worst case scenario and I must admit when all the talk in the lead up was about how balanced it's all going to be and well designed I did assume it would end up like this. Like 4th edition. Where you may as well not bother trying to create an immersive world in anything other than the most rudimentary sense because the game mechanics are just so intrusive on basic common sense. Though I held out hope it would not.

Nothing, really.

Your response of "they aren't going to do that" significantly implies that you're ignoring that the lack...

I'm sure they'll change bits of it, but they aren't realistically going to nuke the entire site from orbit and start over.

Greylurker wrote:

so the solution is Everyone is good at it, and the one guy is slightly better at it?

the old "Everyone is Special, so Nobody is" solution

Full Metal Jacket game balance.

"Here, you are all equally worthless."

But why are the vast majority of posts going on here where someone with a valid concern about a mechanic is trying to pin it as a fact that this mechanic is set in stone and will forever be non replaceable?

... they'd have to rewrite the whole book to get me to play it. I think it's awful, almost all of it awful. And they aren't going to do that, so....

I just hope they keep the PF1 stuff for sale, but as it's all digital and probably costs them nothing to serve up I guess they will. And maybe some third party company will produce stuff for PF1 still. I've not been at all impressed with the existing third party stuff though so I don't really hold out much hope there.

You missed the part where WotC offered PF players an unfamiliar 5e and took them away from Paizo in droves. I mean, 5e is far cry from PF, yet it ate Paizo's market share for breakfast.

Did they? I don't think many PF players switched to 5E. I think 5E players are new entrants. At least anecdotally. Which makes sense. There are more 5E players than there ever where Pathfinder players, so most of them must be new blood, no?

I gave 5E a go, but I'm never going to play it again. If my groups switched to it I would quit the group, it falls under the minimum threshold of fun where I can do other things entirely to have more fun. Fortunately they think the same as me pretty much.

My two groups are pretty much dead set against bothering to change anyway because they are happy with PF1 and don't see a burning reason to change anything. I did suggest we try PF2.

But now I've read it I'm not going to. I think it's awful. I converted a few old characters over to the new system, they are so weak now, their abilities are so un-amazing. The class feats mean you lose half of your stuff compared to PF1. Divine Health you now pay a class feat for and it gives you a measly +1? I'm not even going to notice I've got it The spells have been destroyed, it's like computer game magic now. Everything has been wrecked, everything. I guess it's balanced now because it's all equally bad. And I do mean equally given how by far the biggest contribution to your roll will be your level, on everything, AC, everything.

I can see the business case for Paizo and understand why they did it, but I'm sorry, I can't play this, any more than I could play 5th or 4th. At least there's enough material for PF1 to keep us going for a decade more. Just keep the PF1 stuff for sale is all I ask.

PRD-Bardic_Masterpieces wrote:

Effect: This brief description summarizes what occurs when a bard performs the masterpiece. Unless otherwise stated, a masterpiece's effects are supernatural. Unwilling creatures may attempt a Will save against the effect of a masterpiece; the save DC for masterpieces is equal to 10 + 1/2 the bard's level + the bard's Charisma bonus. Masterpieces that duplicate spells use the bard's caster level for the spell's caster level.

Thank you very much. :)

The bardic masterpiece, Canticle of Joy.

Does the victim of a Canticle of Joy performance get a saving throw to avoid its effect? The text implies not, as no saving throw is mentioned, unlike other bardic effects (fascinate, for example).

It's an excellent spell, one of the very best of it's level. One of the few buffs with a duration beyond the current fight at 10 minutes per level, when you're mid level it has a duration (especially with a cheapo rod of extend metamagic) of hours. This alone makes it worth having because really, why not? a spell that will last the majority of most dungeons.

A duration like that makes it gold, even if its actual effect is minor.
Pathfinder generally stripped long lasting buffs out of the game so the majority are 1 minute per level, the ones that remain relatively long duration buffs are always worth having.

But its effect isn't /that/ minor at all. The buff to AC is very high for its level, on a par with very expensive alternatives (rings of prot +5, and higher). That it only affects ranged combat isn't a huge bother given for a straight wizard at least ranged combat is the most likely scenario for him. Unlike protection from arrows it'll work on anything (dr /magic is the easiest to get around), unlike shield of faith it lasts for ages, unlike wind wall/wall of sound/fickle winds it works on rays (and lasts for ages). Chances are it'll never be obsolete due to it's duration, even if you can cast fickle winds.