Frames Janco's page

errata wrote:

Page 278: In critical hits, "When you make an attack and roll a natural 20...or if the result of your attack exceeds the target's AC by 10" was too broad a brush and thus slightly inaccurate for how to determine a critical hit, in an attempt to state the conditions succinctly. Replace the first section with "When you make an attack and succeed with a natural 20" so that it's clear the natural 20 must succeed based on the total result in order to get a critical success.

So, a natural 20 is not a crit anymore? It has to beat the AC or DC by 10 now?

I think it's just clarifying a natural 20 isn't always a critical hit, as is the rule. It would have needed to be a success for the natural 20 to turn it into a crit. If you were to fail with a roll of a 20, it would still upgrade to a success, but not a critical success.

So Grapple not being an attack roll anymore means that it does not suffer MAP on the roll, but would increase it for the next action?

I spitballed an idea of making Striking Spell a unique cantrip that uses your weapon's damage, and can be interacted with as both a Strike and a Spell for the purposes of feats and abilities (eg. Metamagic and combat feats)

You can then get unique heighten and rider effects based off of your magus synthesis or feats.

I really don't like that the only role of Striking spell is to combine a spell and strike damage for the purposes of action economy/crits. That feels boring to me. I want it to be a magical strike that feels unique and can be interacted with meaningfully.

My campaign is using automatic bonus progression - would it make sense to wrap a bonus to spell attacks at the same levels everyone receives their attack potency increases?

At the moment it kind of feels like a "you get nothing, good day sir" level for casters.

Yeah, I think for the 'master summoner' variant, instead of having no eidolon: skinning it as though you have access to plural eidolons (albeit weaker ones) that take the forms of summoned creatures would allow more of the existing class feats to interact meaningfully. Would require some hard rules about what or how eidolon feats/evolutions interact, but means there isn't a whole pool of dead feats for the subclass.

This is just a spitball, and may be entirely off the mark, but thought I would throw it out for discussion. Please forgive if it has been raised elsewhere, this just occured to me while playing a bard last night.

At the moment striking spell feels kind of meh to me personally, and it feels like a negligible difference from just casting a spell and striking as normal. The whole "I have this spell I can cast, I'm also going to sneak some strike damage in" feels kind of... boring? with the new action economy allowing for that double up fundamentally.

As a magus, you should be able to do it as part of your core routine, like a bard's composition cantrip, without feeling like it's a burden.

What if your strike was placed in a cantrip wrapper? That is, you gain a magus attack cantrip with a range of touch that deals damage equal to the damage of your weapon strike. It could be textured as a magical energy placed into your weapon, or even a held weapon created out of magic itself.

The key here is then the interactions you can get from applying spellcasting effects to your strikes. For one thing, you could get unique heighten effects depending on your synthesis or feats.

I'm hoping we see new spellcasting feats and metamagic feats in the new book, which is a perfect opportunity to use them in a unique way.

Reach Strike? Cool.
Widen strike? Heck.

We can then use the real estate of magus potency for focus spells that may give you free metamagic or combination effects.

This then allows the magus to then apply their magical upgrades to their martial prowess pretty organically. It means they can keep their identity as a intelligence caster, but one that is just trained to use it more directly in combat.

Obviously there would be things to consider:
- How do potency runes on a weapon work? Are they applied to your spell modifier?
- The magus should have a level of security casting spells while threatened
- Can we make dex/str more relevant by allowing you to choose that for your spell modifier when using the cantrip?

This may be too out there, but keen to hear any thoughts on it.

Instead of the Eidolon flavours, choose from three distinct playstyles: Companion Eidolon, Synthesist Eidolon, and no eidolon but more interesting Summon X abilities.

I made some graphs a while back that show this and some other things. the graphs are here, you can make your own too with the tool.

Yoooo this is exactly the data I was looking for, thanks for your work!

Frames Janco wrote:

Bespell at 6 for sorcerers but 4 for wizards?

The errata has which number is wrong backwards, change the table to match the text (which is 6 to 4, not 4 to 6).

Ah, that makes more sense. Thanks for your work Mark, some good changes!

Bespell at 6 for sorcerers but 4 for wizards? Isn't the feat listed as 4?

Is the champion the paladin of any alignment? That would be awesome.

Yes Champions are now the broad bundle of the holy martial class, with separate alignments deceiving different names.

Paladins retain their LG status.
Redeemers are NG
Liberators are CG

I really, really hope that Paizo makes available a black/white printer-friendly PDF version of that character sheet. The one in this blog post has so many coloured areas, which uses way too much ink/toner and makes them useless for writing in remarks and the like. :(

I posted this earlier and Erik Mona confirmed there will be a printer friendly version :)

Frames Janco wrote:

Only thing I'm slightly disappointed to see confirmed is the colour scheme on the character sheet.

Here's to hoping there's a cleaner, print friendly version. But excited regardless

Erik Mona promises a printer-friendly version:

Erik Mona wrote:

There will for sure be a printer-friendly version.

Praise Desna!

I wonder if the 5-foot speed reduction in Mountain Style can be countermanded by some thing that dwarves can get, which would make it make sense as a Dwarf thing. Dwarf monks are already speedier than others of their kin, but something that makes you faster in armor should also probably apply here.

Also, how should I imagine falling stone attacks? Dragon tail attacks are kicks, wolf jaw and tiger claw attacks are made with your hands, etc. Are falling stone attacks like knee and elbow strikes?

All I see is a dwarf suplexing a lich.

This is excellent - thanks Mark (and Rei for getting it up!). Excited about all of the nuggets here.

Only thing I'm slightly disappointed to see confirmed is the colour scheme on the character sheet.

Here's to hoping there's a cleaner, print friendly version. But excited regardless!

I like the way Pillars of Eternity did it.

Every stat contributed to most things.

You had Might, which scales the damage/healing of all your effects.

Dexterity increased recovery time between any attack.

Intelligence increased durations and aoes.

Mind you that system would not translate well to tabletop due to its percentage nature, but the core design is interesting.

I think Bulk as a capacity catch-all is a good concept, but agree it could use a different approach.

My shower musings on how it could work differently:

Bundle in "inventory space" to the formula. This could be as simple as making a 10ft long pole, which may not weigh a lot, have a higher bulk due to its space requirements.

Eg (at a simmered down level)

A lighter, smaller object - 1 bulk
A lighter, larger object - 2 bulk
A heavier, smaller object - 2 bulk
A heavier, larger object - 4 bulk.

The more complex version of this is stretching it out over light + bulk items, to alleviate the "I carry 300 daggers" absurdity. So while light objects may be light, they still occupy space. Removing the 10 light = 1 bulk system and just have everything scale on a "capacity" so light objects still occupy a space. I realise this is approaching the old system, but you could keep it abstracted and the numbers simpler than realistic weights. Think inventory space in games like Diablo (but without the tetris).

Another approach would be to split the light objects and bulk objects into 2 scales. Light objects operate on a quantity scale realistic to how many things you could feasibly hold and store. Instead of 10=1, you can hold up to X light objects, which is easy to track with rows and numbers on a sheet. This doesn't necessarily even need to be tied to STR, but could be a function of armor/backpacks/bandoliers (the fighter's plate armor doesn't have pockets, but the rogues leather armor does). Bulk objects have the same grounding in weight as they do at the moment, but don't need to equate to numerous light objects to be realistic, and can have a closer tie to STR.

I concur with above sentiments that CON should play a role in rage capacity. It keeps its legacy interaction (more CON = more rage), and makes more sense thematically for barbarians as the CON class.

Counting 3 on 1 off is easy.
Increasing flat checks adds a bit of a mental load and book-keeping, though rolling for perseverance is a fun bit of drama.

I like DM's suggestion of guaranteed rounds = CON modifier, but would change the flat check to be 11+ or something after that. So 3-5 guaranteed rounds depending on how you build your character, then some chance rounds after that when you start to flag. The probability of continued rounds at a 50% success drops significantly as well, but allows for those awesome "Oh wow another one" moments.

Gives some design space to influence the flat check as well through feats as others have suggested.

Frames Janco wrote:

I think it has more to do with some players making a point to come to every thread and sowing dissent in emotive posts when it is clear the devs have already heard it.

This isn't some conspiracy - they're just game developers. Give constructive feedback and your posts will stay. Playing devil's advocate for the sake of it is not productive.

There's a lot of this going on on both sides. Sure, we don't have a "my group is quitting the playtest" thread without some people chiming in to agree and give their reasoning. There's also a contingent that shows up to those threads to dismiss the OP with comments such as "playtesting isn't for everyone," "the playtest is designed to be fun," and "I hope you filled out a survey" (with an implied "because what you say in your...

Oh don't get me wrong, I have no issue with people posting their experiences and think it is 100% a valuable contribution. I was directly responding to the insinuation that devs are actively censoring opinions they don't like - the "there is something creepy/unsettling" and "I won't say more because my posts are getting removed" kinds of posts. I don't think there is any place for those sorts of comments on the forum.

IMO all playtest discussion should be on the game itself, not on the folks at Paizo or how they run their business.

Anyway the irony is that I've derailed with a post of my own, ha. Apologies.

... Paizo aren't entitled to my money.

Is this antagonisation really necessary? I don't think they've ever tried to suggest otherwise. This is a playtest for people interested in playtesting - they're not running an extortion racket. They've readily accepted and acknowledged several times that a portion of the community won't like their changes. That's to be expected.

Skeld wrote:

Am I missing out on some drama?

It has to do with players providing feedback and the perceived reception of it by Paizo staff, judging by devs posts on these forums.

I won't say more, last time I did, my post was deleted and so was Vic's.

I think it has more to do with some players making a point to come to every thread and sowing dissent in emotive posts when it is clear the devs have already heard it.

This isn't some conspiracy - they're just game developers. Give constructive feedback and your posts will stay. Playing devil's advocate for the sake of it is not productive.

Thanks for your work Jason - it's always great having you engage with discussions and hearing your musings!

If I was inclined to do this, I think I would simply allow an Assurance on the monster lore roll if the player chose.

Which honestly seems like something rangers will also get.

True dat. Flexible lore assurance would be cool.

I've liked some of the suggestions about favoured enemy as feats, and I agree that it is thematically great.

I have always associated it as a representative of the ranger's experience encountering something and they have taken the time to analyse their encounter and remember the details on behaviour, weaknesses etc. This moreso over "I hate goblins". For this reason I like Hunt Target to a degree, as its like studying the enemy on the fly.

But I would be interested in seeing Favoured enemy come back as a "I've experienced this before" kind of thing. Haven't put pen to paper as to what it would be mechanically, but something that takes into account the enemies you've faced. Something along the lines of if you have had an Encounter with this creature, you gain a bonus on [combat mechanic] or [skill check] to do with it. Maybe you can have enemy specializations = lvl + wis or int modifier, but can swap them out after a new encounter.

Not sure if anything like that works / is viable, but I would love to retain the idea of "I have a history with this thing", as it reflects the ranger's wisdom.

Frames Janco wrote:

I think a few of the concerns about potion pricing in this thread are very premature and a bit melodramatic regardless.

There are so many factors at play here and so many unknowns that to start calling design choices horrible or "on drugs" is full of assumptions, unproductive and pretty disrespectful.

Four true healing potions are more expensive than a Holy Avenger, which has been reported to cost 4500 gp. That's... completely unreasonable, by any metric whatsoever.

Eh, I'm not so sure. I'm inclined to give the designers that have been working for years on this the benefit of the doubt here over our knee-jerk reactions.

And don't get me wrong I'm not saying the prices aren't high - I just think we don't have a proper grasp of the economy or relative power levels of anything to say whether prices are completely unreasonable.

Using your example, the Holy Avenger is a pretty decent item. Is it worth 4500gp? Dunno. Noone will be able to answer that at this stage.

Let's have a look, from what others have pulled out about it. Im paraphrasing so forgive me if I misrepresent -

It provides you with some good damage and some situational perks like a 2-action, 2nd level detection spell at will.

Paladins get a debuff effect on an evil target crit, and a scaling 2 action dispel magic on an illusion or mental effect affecting an ally, or 1/day on a target or item.

Some good consistent stuff, some strong but very situational stuff.

Looking at a true healing potion, for 1-2 actions you can draw and drink it for an average of ~70hp. A d8 HD, 16 Con character at level 18 would maybe have around 200 HP (fact check?), meaning they could go from the brink of death to having 33%, maybe even up to 50%. Without knowing damage scaling at that level, this could last them a few extra hits.

The swords great, but it is it better for your career than 4 escapes from death? Maybe. You might not need the potion if you can kill something faster. But you also can't use the sword if you're dead ;)

I get where you're coming from, but I think there's more to it than you're giving the designers credit for.

I think a few of the concerns about potion pricing in this thread are very premature and a bit melodramatic regardless.

There are so many factors at play here and so many unknowns that to start calling design choices horrible or "on drugs" is full of assumptions, unproductive and pretty disrespectful.

- The issue of resonance has been raised but is not trivial. Sure you could have 0 charisma and have 18 resonance at 18th level, but do you really want to be using that all up on tiny potions or be using that giant stockpile of magic loot you have? I expect resonance is going to be a valuable resource, and being able to use less of it on stuff like healing means you can use your more powerful items. I think saying "I have 18 resonance to use on potions" is hyperbole.

- ACTIONS. Sure you can do P1 CLW spamming with cost effective small potions and milk as much as you want out of your buck, but in the middle of combat every potion you need to draw and drink will cost you 2 actions (for the most part). It is a HUGE advantage in a dire situation to get more HP per action.

- We don't know a characters WBL. At level 18, the fraction of your total wealth for up to 100 hp healed with one resonance (maybe?) and two actions might be perfectly reasonable.

Tl;dr chill.