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It has enhanced my games by me knowing that any game that does not use any AI whatsoever is the experience I want to have. AI is art theft and tecnhocrats are using AI in another attempt to perpetuate the infinite growth capitalistic fallacy.
I can't think of a single system that has weapon proficiency work like thisYou're advocating for specific penalties to disarm and trip for not being proficient with one specific weapon? Absolutely NOT, yuck.Other systems do it just fine. Why can't Pathfinder handle it? Yeah, this just sounds like extra complexity and something else to track that isn't really needed - the current implementation works fine and is better for what the system is doing.
Because it's a fantasy game and the fantasy of elves are lithe, dexterous beings really good with bows - and bows have been a dexterity weapon for a long time in fantasy, it's just one of the genre tropes. Because the creators decided it would. That's all the justification that's needed.
There are tropes in heroic fantasy narratives and Paizo has chosen to embrace them. As Karmagator said, it's a fruitless endeavor to analyze and judge the system based on these things - they aren't rooted in real-world logic, it's arbitrary by design.
I'm currently playing an Exemplar in an ongoing homebrew campaign - but still set in Golarion. It's been four sessions so far and I'm having an absolute blast. His concept is heavily based on a few figures from extant mythologies (Perun, Thor, The Dagda), his Ikons being Skin Hard as Horn, Titan's Breaker, and Skybearer's Belt. Narratively, he's from Iobaria and as the game is set prior to the War of Immortals, the idea is that he received his divine spark from an ancient oak tree in the Fangard Forest - though he is unaware of where his power comes from, intended to be a character arc at some point in the campaign. The oak tree is meant to be a reference to the world tree from Slavic mythology where it's commonly described to be an oak - and that in my Golarion, there is some sort of divinity that gave it power, and then whatever nature spirit dwells in the tree passed on a spark of that power to my character.
Because it's a fantasy game and the fantasy of elves are lithe, dexterous beings really good with bows - and bows have been a dexterity weapon for a long time in fantasy, it's just one of the genre tropes.
Because sometimes the logic of real life differs from the internal logic of a game. (And I'm not talking about the setting, but the logic of the system.)
I think the new schools match the game just fine.
The situation of "Pharasman clerics and champions should be extra good at fighting undead, but not better at fighting fiends compared to anything else" seems like a place for bespoke rules for Pharasma. She is, after all, a foundational figure in the setting and there is, IIRC, an ORC God book coming out.Or maybe Pharasma dies. Pretty sure if she died, the current universe ends.
That's fair. I'd be somewhat sad about it, but I do...I can even say what: that Sin magic is not something fundamental and the best or even 'true' model of magic. Can't you see it yourself? Of these examples 4 aren't practitioners. Don't you put that evil on us, Ricky Bobby!
I can even say what: that Sin magic is not something fundamental and the best or even 'true' model of magic. Can't you see it yourself? Of these examples 4 aren't practitioners. True, but it's also a pretty common trope in fantasy that even the most powerful being doesn't actually fully understand something. Like, Morgoth was the greatest of the Ainur, but even he could never fully understand certain things and thus was doomed to fail from the start - not that Sorshen is the same, but the idea of 'mega powerful being misunderstands something they think they understand' is pretty common. Mostly spitballing here, but Paizo eventually coming out and being like "yeah, even the Runelords didn't fully understand magic, they just thought they did" wouldn't surprise me.
I think it might be that the game just cannot accurately replicate some of this stuff with regards to the most powerful wizards and what the old and new schools mean. Like, for purpose of a game, there have to be conceits and constraints, but what is actually true about the world, agnostic of the rules, can be different. Nothing will ever be a truly accurate depiction, because with characters like Sorshen, they should exist beyond rules and constraints - to accurately reflect their narrative. When any powerful person is given stats, there are always concessions that have to be made, just by nature of it being a system that has rules.
The GM should be attacking you if you are goading and bon motting your opponent, purely on roleplaying grounds. The GM is supposed to roleplay as well you know.Why should enemies be mindless idiots who do stupid things just because somebody is taunting them? Do you go around fighting everybody who insults you? Do you expect your players to do the same back to the enemies? Because it's heroic fantasy, and sometimes that means enemies do stupid things to play up the heroes doing cool things or using abilities.
I actually really like this - the flavor could even be you say some witty comment or a flourish with your blade, or some other thing. Yeah, I'd be for this.
I've heard a rumor that the Strength requirement for the Druid's Form Control feat was changed. Can anyone confirm that? That would be a nice change for those druids doing lots of shapechanging, but not needing strength. Always seemed like an odd requirement to me. Correct - there is no longer a Strength requirement.
Linguistics has rules and can be tested against real-world use. Other humanities...Yet here you are, arguing about the definitions of words.You've never taken a social science course have you?Social science. The only science that never makes repeatable predictions and thus can never be tested. Nearly as useless a humanities course as one could take once one excludes philosophy. Well, yeah, except words can gain new meanings all the time - language is evolving with every generation and era, and the rules aren't as set in stone as people like to believe. But, that's largely off-topic - I'll probably try out the clarified rules at my table, but we hardly ever reach that scenario so I'm not sure if or when I'll even do that.
You've never taken a social science course have you?Social science. The only science that never makes repeatable predictions and thus can never be tested. Nearly as useless a humanities course as one could take once one excludes philosophy. Wow, that's uh, certainly a take.
Oh, man, I can finally play my Orc Warpriest of Gorum again.
This is just not true - everyone in my circle that plays PF2E plays it specifically in part because of Golarion, and most don't even use the APs. Golarion is the best original fantasy setting for any tabletop out there, imo.
Not everyone has the internet, and lots of people want to use physical books.Anybody who can afford to spend money on a TTRPG can also afford a device that can download an updated PDF (or cache a webpage if AoN is their preference) anyplace that has wifi. For dead tree types, you can always print out your class's updated spell lists as they're updated. It's not as if new books come out all that often. You can't actually know that, though.
Yeah, you can do that in PF2E. Easily.Is it done better? Do you even know what Blades in the Dark is and what it is designed to do? Yes, I have played it. Group didn't like it - and we've done stealth and social intrigue focus in PF2E to great success and fun.
Because the group wants to play PF2E.That's a bad choice. Play PF2 for what it's good at and play other systems for what they're good at. Don't beat a generalist high fantasy d20 game into something it's not. Yeah, you can do that in PF2E. Easily.
If my party wants to play that why am I running PF2 instead of Blades in the Dark? Because the group wants to play PF2E.
Those power budgets and pillars absolutely exist.
The classes are the proof.
Yeah, I just think you and a lot of other players here play a fundamentally different game.
That's just not true. Social and Exploration both have bespoke rules, and thus have balance taken into consideration.
Kineticist is great but there are definitely concepts that people come to the table expecting a wizard to fulfill that that con-dependency gets in the way of. KAS does matter for theme, a lot of people who want to make big fireball explosions also expect the character to be a fragile nerd.I definitely recommend having a Kineticist carry around a spellbook, wear loose robes over their leather armor, and chant nonsense when they channel elemental power. Enemies will expect a fragile nerd too! Then you can dramatically toss off the robe and be swole af underneath.
Count me in that one - as a GM and a player with a good GM in my group - we always have the adventure altered and catered specifically to the minutiae of the party.
Probably more appropriate for the homebrew section? Probably - I can also recommend the Clerics+ document from Pathfinder Infinite. It has a fantastic interpretation of the warpriest.
Some days I wonder what is the point of continuing a conversation where the primary question has already been answered by a designer, and yet it continues on and on rehashing the same old points and arguments while we have multiple threads that touch on the same general subject with the same people speaking the same phrases past each other? I think for some they believe if they keep doing it eventually Paizo will see it and make changes or something.
I don't find that true at all - I've long-played with folks who take what some people consider 'traps' and forgo 'must-takes' and the experience has been completely fine and often they had more fun than they would have if they took the 'must-takes'. Yeah, pretty much my point! Also sounds like a fun character.
No really, no - not in anything beyond just talking about off-hand. The people who play casters in my group don't think about weapons, that's not why they play casters. Some of them even just straight up don't put a weapon on their sheet - that's how little it matters to them. And they are just as impactful in play as anyone else.
Casters in my games don't use their weapons and if they have them, they're literally just for visuals or its a cool staff they carry around just because. Yeah, that's why I said 'in my games' - the point is to show that most discussions here are based on our experiences and aren't indicative of anything beyond that, really. The only people who could even know that sort of thing for any kind of certainty are Paizo - and even then, not really. It's not like video games that can attach metrics to games. A caster in my games would largely never do any of those things; those in yours would. That's all.
It's not irrational at all. That's being hyperbolic. Casters in my games don't use their weapons and if they have them, they're literally just for visuals or its a cool staff they carry around just because. They contribute just as meaningful as any of our martials in combat.
I don't find that true at all - I've long-played with folks who take what some people consider 'traps' and forgo 'must-takes' and the experience has been completely fine and often they had more fun than they would have if they took the 'must-takes'.
Yes.
You are still effectively playing what amounts to a demigod, and we still don't know the full ramifications of what lore will come as a result of War of the Immortals and what that means for Exemplars - so the tag is still justified, to me. Paizo, too, obviously thinks so.
Also mechanics and what the actual narrative in-world is portraying can be different. For example - A Ranger might use their Perception to spot something no one else does, because they are used to spotting even the subtlest of movements in the wild, from the tiniest movement in the bushes to the smallest ripple in the water. An Exemplar with Gaze Sharp as Steel might see something no one else does because the winds of the divine whisper to those with glinting eyes so that they might catch that which others do not. I don't know, I feel like any flavor works, and if you compare a lot of things to their mechanics, they might seem overly bombastic - but that happens with a lot of games, and Pathfinder's math being so tight necessitates it, but that doesn't to me mean the flavor is bad or wrong.
My new epithet is Big Mike Under Heaven.Calling two people peerless under heaven makes literally 0 sense. Whose Cry is Big Mike.
In the current campaign I'm in, I'm playing an Iobarian Exemplar based heavily on Perun, and he thinks his powers are from a blessing of the local nature spirits that they worship there. One of his companions is a Tengu, and she thinks he's an Avatar of Hei Feng, and he sort of lets her believe that because in truth, he doesn't fully know for sure where his powers come from. There's a lot of narrative room to play with, I find.
its not whether it changes the actual game math, it is about what it leads players to try to do in play.I don't get this guardrail approach to player fun. Devs should make a system that plays well without needing to overly currate that fun. Instead, Paizo seems to have taken the wrong lessons from PF1 and thinks players and groups can't be trusted to find their own unique fun if given a box of legos without instructions. Yeah, I don't get this viewpoint at all. The system is the opposite to me and my group, and to most people I talk to about it.
Super cool to see the positive responses and the Exemplar won't be changing too much - my favorite class right there with Kineticist, and expanding the Epithets will be awesome. Adding in 'always-on' effects to Ikons when they aren't empowered by the Spark will be great, as well.
I don't really see those as 'issues' of the Champion so much as design constraints, which is why you strategize with your party to say, lock down an enemy so they can't move out of the Champion's range, thus enabling other party members to take advantage of the Champion's impact. It's all a synergetic circle, and what many point out as 'issues' are to me just design constraints - and with a system that is so tightly designed elsewhere, as a fellow designer myself, I can't see it as anything other than intentional.
A well positioned redeemer can be a gamechanger without doing any damage, combined with wrestler archetype and goinfg for a shield plus free hand you lock down enemies, and when your allies do get hit, you give a pretty hefty debuff on the enemy, and resistance to your allies(or nullify the enemies' action, which is also very valuable). Yeah, in my current campaign we have a Redeemer + Marshal that is scary good.
I think it's worth pointing out that the best force multiplier in all of PF2E - and I think this was pointed out by the devs at some point - is the Champion, and it has nothing to do with damage, but how much the Champion can negate enemy tactics. I honestly think an overfocus on 'damage' around here does a disservice to a lot of conversations.
I think that's because of a focus on optimisation in these discussions to an extent that the game doesn't demand. One of the PCs in one of my current PF2 games is a bard who focuses on nasty/body horror vibes for their magic, and makes most of her choices around that. She casts her spells featuring worm infestations and lots of blood routinely, almost always casting them in place of more optimal spells like Synesthesia. She continues to be an effective member of the team, and these less-optimal spells are by no means a big enough difference in power that she feels like she needs to cast them to be effective.Not really, when that larger toolbox is compensated by lack of quality tools, and the game is balanced assuming quality tools are being used, especially in the late game. What is considering 'challenging' is going to vary in perception from table to table though. I've ran plenty of encounters my players have found challenging and the casters have utilized only cantrips and spells that some consider to be 'suboptimal' and did just fine.
I think that's because of a focus on optimisation in these discussions to an extent that the game doesn't demand. One of the PCs in one of my current PF2 games is a bard who focuses on nasty/body horror vibes for their magic, and makes most of her choices around that. She casts her spells featuring worm infestations and lots of blood routinely, almost always casting them in place of more optimal spells like Synesthesia. She continues to be an effective member of the team, and these less-optimal spells are by no means a big enough difference in power that she feels like she needs to cast them to be effective.Not really, when that larger toolbox is compensated by lack of quality tools, and the game is balanced assuming quality tools are being used, especially in the late game. Yeah, almost every player in my group that normally plays spellcasters basically always plays them for a narrative theme or conceit and picks their spells accordingly, most of which many people here would consider 'sub-optimal' - for as much as that actually means in PF2E. Not once has any of them felt ineffective or that they didn't contribute to the group.
We're going to get the offense-oriented Divine martial next year - the Exemplar. Sure, it's flavor might not be for everyone, but you can reflavor it, certainly. And, yeah, like other posters, I'm not really sure how to rectify an understanding of you wanting characters to just be able to do whatever they want, but then also want super specialists. It seems disingenuous.
I mean, yeah, every game has conceits and constraints, otherwise why have rules at all? Some games will do things you like, and other things you don't. That's just how it is - the devs have a specific idea in mind for what they're doing with spellcasters, and that's their prerogative.
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