Gorignak227's page

Here how the Flexible Caster works from the spoilers.

At odd lvls you gain your slots as normal, but at even lvls you don't gain a spell slot, so essentially -1 spell slot per spell lvl.

I was excited for this, but that is a tough pill to swallow for the 3 spells/level casters. I was hoping it was just going to cut down on the # of spells you were able to prepare rather than the # of spell slots. Hell i'd pay a feat just to have the option to cast spontaneously rather than vancian.

The play report is that a level 2 fighter with an 18 strength wielding a two-handed weapon is going to kill a goblin they hit most of the time with a single hit, and that on their first attack they're usually going to hit.

Hitting the goblins usually isn't the issue (especially for a fighter), the issue is usually the goblins are going to have quite a few shots hitting the party and there's some huge swinginess to the encounters based on a few high rolls for initiative and attacks (and how tactical the GM wants to play them).

For my first encounter with goblins in PF2 we were exploring a cave section.

Our rogue rounds the corner. Everyone roll initiative.

Quite a few of the goblins go first (they were stealthing with +5), 3 goblins shoot their shortbows at the rogue (the only one visible). One of the hits is a crit, he goes down.

The rest of the battle is now our cleric healing up a person/s, our melee trying to close with the goblins, getting peppered, and then going down. The healed person would spend nearly all their turn getting their weapons, getting up, and trying to close with the goblins again. Eventually it turned into a TPK.

The battle could have gone much differently if we went first, just didn't have quite so many crits against us, or just played safer as adventurers. But there are just a lot of chances for things to go bad.

TBH I actually think the goblin warriors are scarier than the commandos. They're two levels lower, so you can fit two warriors in an encounter for every commando, but they're just as accurate, and deadly d10 is pretty brutal at level 1 when HP values are so small.

It really doesn't take much for them to just start dropping characters. Tactics and coordination are essential in PF2 and make a huge difference in how easy combats are, but there's only so much you can do when you're dropped to dying in the first round of combat because someone rolled a little bit high.

Ya, agree on the goblin warriors. I was very surprised that the default first level enemies are given shortbows.

It is a huge culture shock for PF1 players already expecting to just run up and start slaughtering "a bunch of weak goblins". The goblin warriors start unleashing 3 attacks (2 that can hit you much easier than in PF1) AND deal out a bunch of extra damage on a crit. Definitely not a training wheels encounter to transition new players into the system.

For new players of PF2 coming from 5ed i think you should just have the PCs boosted a level, maybe even 2 until they figure everything out.

The culture shock for new players feeling like wimps in PF2 until they figure out all the tricks is kind of hard for a lot of player types.

graystone wrote:

PLEASE point out where that is explicitly written out in the core rules. I'd like to see a page number and quote for that.

It's more a "the GM becomes an unreliable narrator if you don't give the players at least a vague indication" than a thing the authors of the game thought "we'd better spell it out explicitly, or people won't realize" kind of thing.

Similar to how many GMs have their own way of running knowledge checks i've seen a pretty broad spectrum of how most GMs run spell effect feedback

Personally I like to give lots of feedback/cues/hints for the player about spell effects for many of the reasons noble stated and like it to flow like i'm reading a fantasy novel, but i'm definitely in the minority around here.

There is a sturdy shield that can take a beating. It is called sturdy shield.

https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=327

Sturdy shields are metal

The best gauge for playability of classes would probably be a survey on how much people play certain classes but one of those that can actually get a random sample of PF2e players is not easy. A PFS class survey might not be a bad idea to get a feel for the dynamic right now but even then that's going to be the most dedicated and experienced group of players.

Yes, it would be nice to see a little more wide ranging data such as pfs #s with a breakdown of PCs by classes played, lvls, deaths, etc.

One thing that I see from players that I wish I had more wide ranging data for is when players give up on a class. In my personally small dataset I've seen multiple players be excited to play warpriests and alchemists but then be unhappy with them and switch to something else (usually fighter and sometimes cloistered for warpriest and anything for alchemist).

Additionally, it would also be interesting to see if players switch back to classes (like casters) after they know the system better.

Deriven Firelion wrote:

...multiple attacks is the standard for martials.

In some campaigns.

Haha, "in some campaigns". Man i've been really taking it for granted to actually attack 2 (or even 3 or 4) times as a martial.

For the most part i think your style of discussion isn't too bad on the forums noble, but some of these responses feel like sometimes you argue for the sake of arguing and this tends to frustrate some people. Most people don't get too bugged by it but it would feel a little better if you try to see their side a bit better.

You still seem to be missing the "dice making you feel bad is a player trait, not a class trait" aspect of the discussion though.

I think he has already acknowledged that part of the discussion even though he has not explicitly specified it. But i think you might not be acknowledging his point that spellcasters usually have less chances to do something fun since they are casting a 2 action spell like Deriven pointed out.

Now, i think after PC spellcasters are more accustomed to PF2 and realize a little more how some of these 4 failure effects are still very important their opinions will change but a lot of players still struggle with doing their usual 1 spell and seeing the bad guys save against it.

Honestly I’m confused by this whole needing to go into adopted ancestry to reach back for 1st level feats. I can’t find anywhere it says you cannot train in a feat from a previous level...?

You can take a lower leveled feat later.

All in all i think i prefer the PF1 version of the ranger but the PF2 ranger isn't too bad.
But I do have a few thoughts.

Snares and Hunter's Edge are both great additions to the PF2 ranger

Focus Spells are cool but wish more of them had a little broader flexibility so they compared more favorably to just multiclassing druid spellcasting.

Hunt Prey feels a little bad to use
I guess its kind of supposed to feel bad to use but its weird getting bummed at your fellow party members for always killing your hunted guy and to shy away from focusing guys down with the rest of the party. Additionally its action penalty is at odds on a class which has pets, dual wielding, and actually being able to use their 3rd action for an attack via flurry. Of course smart players will say, "no you shouldn't play a dark elf with a panther friend and two swords because you're going to be too action hungry", but isn't that weird that your main feature goes against a lot of your other class features rather than synergizing? Plus after playing a flurry ranger next to a fighter you have some class envy that they don't have to do anything special and get fighters +2/-2/-6 vs your Flurry 0/-2/-4.

I do like the benefit for ranged weapons negating ranged increment penalties but wish there were some benefits of the base action on a melee build. So hunt prey feels like a game designer trick to give a ranger something cool but with a drawback that you don't quite see until you start playing with it. Ideally if you were to multiclass into ranger the Hunt Prey feature should be something they were excited to get. I almost think hunt prey should have had the monster hunter effect in the base package.

Favored Enemy and Favored Terrain
I used to like these features from PF1 but not too fond of them in PF2.
Like the Favored Terrain upgrade ideas but not quite good enough to usually pick.

Because lots of players like having deities in a fantasy setting.

Heh, most players i know would kick out their deities stained glass window for any character option they thought was advantageous.

I don't agree with this. Monsters for the most part are designed with common sense. big strong things have good fort saves, sleek things have good reflex saves.

I don't think as a blaster you need to metagame, just using common sense we would ascribe to any fantasy character will be enough the vast majority of the time.

You don't need to know the name of the monster, but your GM does need to give a good description of monster.

when im playing my druid, I always ask for information my druid would be looking for, how does the monster move, how is it built, does it move like a cat or is it more lumbering, what size is it, what color, does the monster look like any other common type of monster, and then i make an educated guess.

Asking a little bit about the description like that is a style of play i like from a player, i think its more fun myself, but a lot of the GMs that i have played with around here would instantly get the old beady eyes and probably wouldn't tell you much and might throw down the "metagamer!" gauntlet and feel like you are fishing for information you shouldn't have. (I usually see people play like its a board game and just rules vs seeing it like a fantasy novel).

And now that i just read the Battle Assessment feat i think those same GMs (who probably are a little adversarial) would probably use that feat and the other feats that use Recall Knowledge as ammunition that your common sense assessment is actually/should be using the feat/skill instead.

I was a fairly lenient GM in pfs 1st ed who often got eye rolls from some of the other GMs when i actually gave out relevant info on knowledge checks rather than some sort of blind attribute pick 'em game (which only worked for the experienced meta gamer players and left the new players always thinking picking up a knowledge skill wasn't helpful). I have a feeling i'll be getting eye rolls in this edition as well.

Unfortunately, other than cheating by metagaming there is no truly reliable way of knowing what a monsters worst save is.

Oh you can often guess. But what information you get on knowledge checks is very, very undefined and up to the GM.

Just to double check is @Pauljathome correct on this?

Everyone seems to be implying that knowing and being able to target the worst save is easy (on a recall knowledge?) and usually part of the base calculations so to speak.

This is, as you've assumed, a very often brought up topic. Casters in second edition are much more of a support class than they used to be. If adding onto the fighters chance to hit or healing or controlling the flow of battle isn't something the players enjoy, they are a little out of luck.

Definitely agree on this. Casters are doing a pretty good job of making the party more effective in this edition but oftentimes they aren't doing things that are that fun for themselves.

As others have said sometimes they'll do an amazing job and buff the party and then debuff the enemy and then...the martials are even more amazing and can hit on their 2nd and possibly 3rd attacks even and the party crushes the bad guy but the caster feels like pure support and didn't get to do his own fun thing. It kind of makes the party balance feel worse.

I've never had an encounter last longer than 6 rounds, 10 rounds is a ridiculous length to call short.

I haven't had tons of play experience but with a non-powergamer party i would say the easy encounters were around 4 rounds, normal 7, and for harder encounters they would routinely go past 10 rounds since once a pc drops there's a lot of back and forth now trying to save your friend or the pc just getting back into combat and everyone's damage output tends to drop.

I guess my question would be, have you been able to see the giant instinct in play? Did he/she hold up well enough? Obviously its easy enough to ruminate over "could be's" and "maybes" on paper, but a different thing altogether when actually playing it. (Honest question by the way, not trying to be sarcastic/argumentative).

From my play experience...

The drawbacks to reflex saves and AC is pretty noticeable. You will be crit quite a bit.

The main thing i was excited for was getting AoOs with reach and using Whirlwind attack to attack a bunch of people. In practice:

Reach and AoOs
I wasn't able to use Titan's stature that often because of cramped spaces (probably got to use it around 40% of the time). I got some AoOs but if i wasn't able to get huge the monsters often had comparable reach even when i was using a reach weapon. All in all i felt that 2 feats was not fetching me enough benefit beyond just using an enlarge potion which provides reach AND a damage bonus. In fact you could just be a giant instinct barb for the extra rage damage but use the enlarge potions to save yourself some feats and do more damage.

Whirlwind Strike
In practice, I rarely got much good use out of Whirlwind strike. By the time you get it most of the monsters are large size or more and hard to pack in a lot of enemies and the 3 action requirement makes it hard to line up properly. If you regularly get access to haste it would make it a little better to use.

Your 3rd Attack
The barbarian list is a little light on things to do for your 3rd attack so plan accordingly.

I must admit that's one of the reasons I don't like much martials in PF2 and prefer to play casters: You are too dependant on luck. Rounds when I don't hit are not very fun, and rounds where I suddenly do crazy damage just because I roll 20s are also no fun to me. Having the feeling my contribution is only a matter of luck doesn't please me.

On the other hand, I find casters to be very nice. Even when the dice are against you you have a contribution, just a smaller one. It's less frustrating.

Interesting.

I usually think the psychology goes the other way for most players. For spellcaster players its often frustrating that the GM makes the save and is "in control" rather than the player and casters usually only "swing once" per se and have less chances to make an impact.

I prefer the 2e combat system for most things but all the drawing/regrip stuff can feel worse sometimes than pf1 for some edge cases.

I deliberately said that druids are not meant to tank and spank, so the one trying to twist the discussion seems to be you.

I agree on the other hand that the fact druids have been given shield block was a bad choice, since they will be using it only during the first levels.

But again, druids are not meant to go melee ( unless shapeshifters, and because of that no need to rely on shields ).

I think you have a different opinion here than most regarding druids role.

Druids and clerics history have been as the original in combat hybrid casters (7 lvl spells for the win!) And why they can wear armor and shields. In pf2 it doesn't seem very optimal to attempt melee without wildshape but it's supposed to be viable from class history.

I have this funny mental image of the classic trope where you save the Damsel in distress who turns out to be sinister.

She gives the poisoned tea to the hero who is paralyzed but she can't quite slit his throat (even with the AC penalty) because he's too high a level for her.

If you're a dabbler, just pick any shield you want and enjoy its simple +1 or +2 AC.

I like this terminology btw (and it doesn't seem ambiguous to me).

But, as for a PC who is a Shield Professional...
...who invests in shield feats, it kind of sucks as a GM when you want to give your PC Captain Absalom a cool new shield and he sells it and just buys the Sturdy Shield for that level.

Shield mechanics are actually one of the cool things that PF2 has over 5e.
I don't know why you wouldn't want to lean in and try to make them as cool as possible. It kind of sucks as a new player to come up with this really cool dwarven fighter shield master character who uses a Forge Warden and then see it get destroyed on its first hit. That PC is going to have a bad taste in his mouth even after the GM says, "ya don't worry, you just need to get a sturdy shield all of the other ones can't block".

Not to mention that most players and GMs don't even know that you know the damage before blocking or that all these shield calculations aren't even talking about going against boss enemies where your shield is even worse with the high number of crits.

For a reference point, the disrupting (greater) rune has a slaying effect vs undead.

https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=294

Dward Ancesties wrote:

Nearly all dwarven peoples share a passion for stonework, metalwork, and gem-cutting. Most are highly skilled at architecture and mining, and many share a hatred of giants, orcs, and goblinoids.

This suggests that many dwarves would be prejudiced against goblins. Couldn't see any on AoN about Torag's attitude to goblins. Are you asking as a player or GM?

Technically the dwarf ancestry description still mentions goblinoids as an issue but I believe in PF2 they pretty much retconned dwarven ancestry hatred vs goblinoids and have a few places where goblinoids just haven't been edited out. Which is good since Torag paladins were like judge dredd on orcs, giants, and goblins.

From PF2 Dwarf Ancestry:

Dwarves are slow to trust those outside their kin, but this wariness is not without reason. Dwarves have a long history of forced exile from ancestral holds and struggles against the depredations of savage foes, especially giants, goblinoids, orcs, and the horrors that dwell deep below the surface. While trust from a dwarf is hard-won, once gained it is as strong as iron.

From PF1 Paladin Code

Against my people’s enemies, I will show no mercy. I will not allow their surrender, except when strategy warrants. I will defeat them, yet even in the direst struggle, I will act in a way that brings honor to Torag.

From PF2 Torag

Anathema: tell lies or cheat someone, intentionally create inferior works, show mercy to the enemies of your people

From Deadmanwalking

Torag is, by all indications (most notably being Good-aligned), not racist.

He's not at all forgiving of enemies...but most PC goblins would not fall under that category, and those that do would do so due to their behavior not their species.

I would say Torag actually kind of is racist but your point would still stand regarding PC goblins. When you say that you are NOT to "show mercy to the enemies of your people" its kind of a broad rule and stereotypes a decent amount. A PC could definitely view a good goblin or orc PC as an exception but in general they would be guilty until proven innocent.

Yes, he's trying to be a switch hitter of sorts.

When he gets enough money for a returning weapon he can start mixing it up a bit by throwing his weapons and still being ready for melee.

For my opinion i think the actual biggest problem is the psychology of most spells in the new system. I don't think the balance is really that much off between martials and casters (especially compared to PF1) but seeing things in action and watching a cleric cast spells against a boss monster was painful. The boss was +3 CR over party level (6 man party) so it was definitely going to be an uphill battle for us (but it actually wasn't too difficult overall).

As a martial i needed a 14 to hit with my first attack (i was eligible for a greater striking weapon upgrade but hadn't got the money yet). But after we got flanking ready i would usually hit once a round and if i didn't, not that big of a deal since i didn't use a resource.

Watching the cleric casting Divine Lance and Holy Cascade at this fiend i expected to see him in his element but he needed a 15 to hit with his divine lance and only connected with 1 over multiple rounds. And when he used holy cascade the boss only needed to roll a 4 to save. The boss saved on one of his casts and crit saved on the next. The boss saving reduced the damage to less than 1 of my strikes (even with weakness 10) and no damage respectively.

Over 5 rounds of battle the cleric had 1 cantrip hit and minimal damage on 1 high level spell. There's just a lot of dead rounds for casters sometimes, and i think they should have tweaked the #s a bit to still keep the balance but not feel so bad for a caster. When you are spending resources and accomplish nothing it feels much worse then a martial missing all his attacks in a round. 5ed had a good design tidbit where they decided to NOT increase AC too much and rather increase HP since missing too much felt bad from the players perspective. I wish they would have followed a similar philosophy.

How do you run the villain with the knife to the hostage neck scenarios now?

I still have to see this in action but it seems like everyone really likes this.

Its weird for me to think that one of the core mechanics of the warrior protecting the wizard is no longer a main theme. I just imagine both the players and the monsters swarming past their opponents and focusing on the squishy/BBEGs now.

Mr.Nightray wrote:

Allow unlimited play, as long as its with a new character.

I'm fairly new to running society games but as I understand it, repeatable essentially means that any character can run the scenario once but the GM can run it multiple times, getting credit each time they run it.

I guess I don't fully understand the argument you are making. Care to elaborate?

re: GM can run it multiple times, getting credit each time they run it

http://www.organizedplayfoundation.org/encyclopedia/pathfinder-2-0-organize d-play-basics/#replaying-adventures

re: I guess I don't fully understand the argument you are making.
Since i haven't seen a reply yet, i'll offer my own thoughts which are probably pretty similar to his views.

Nightray's PFS chapter is probably similar to how my own was about a year ago.

I'll post what was a typical scenario for me.
In my case i had about 4-12 semi-active PFS players. I would schedule a game on wednesday nights.

I would post the game on meetup, "Hey guys, any requests for scenarios?" ...crickets...

"Hmm, i think 2 veterans and 3 relatively new guys (with level 2 characters) will probably show up." Lets try to find a scenario that they all haven't played and in the right tier for their characters...

"Damn, we've already played all of the current season tier 1-5..."
Level 2 is one of the hardest levels to accommodate because playing a higher level pre-gen can't be applied to them.

"Hmm, vet 1 started playing religiously after season 5 and vet 2 has been playing a lot but stopped playing during season 3 so i'll look through those..."
"Hmm, that one's dumb...but this one's cool."
I would post in the meetup, "Hey guys has anyone played this season 3.x scenario?" Vet 3 and a few newbies, "Looks good to me."

Awesome, i start prepping the scenario.
Tuesday rolls around, 3 people can't make it and drop out. Damn, not enough players.
But another guy signs up, vet 3...
"Hey, I've played that one"...here we go again.

And this doesn't take into account the fact that oftentimes i would often only have 1 or 2 confirmed players and would rely on walk in players who just showed up. Trying to find a valid scenario for everyone to play would be extremely hard, not to mention the fact that you're often running it cold.

ps. What if we only play the current season? So only 1 per 2 weeks?
This works for a little bit but you will always have mixed groups where some new players have new characters to play and veteran players can't replay any of the tier 1-5. So the vets will have to start staying home which isn't that bad for a bigger PFS group but will kill smaller groups like mine was.

tldr; Its really hard to schedule pfs games when you have to worry about replay and character tiers and any improvements would really be appreciated by overworked PFS GMs
Imo, having replay and the ability to apply pregen credit to higher level characters than level 1 would both be a step in the right direction. But i honestly haven't thought of this since my last thread on the subject which went over like a lead balloon.

And i'm sure there's a bunch of other great ideas out there but people seem to be really entrenched in the current method.

Someone made a poll regarding the change in styles in regards to the iconics a little while back.

Old Valeros:
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/pathfinder/images/f/f8/Valeros.jpg/revi sion/latest?cb=20080602020111

New Valeros:
https://cdn.paizo.com/image/content/PathfinderRPG/20190514-Valeros.jpg

Poll:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScC-3qS8DicPYQgmAZBxvbgIC6CpS57Mal GEMO5II-mnmjZpw/viewform

They seem to have to gone to a less detailed artistic style.
I prefer the PF1 more detailed asthetic myself.

So I saw that the devs were thinking of Arcanist style casting for prepared casters, but decided against it because it would limit the sorcerer's niche. That gives the perfect opportunity to make the sorcerer a core spell point caster for people who want to make a spell caster but don't want to use spell slots.

It fits with the theme of the sorcerer, and I feel like there would be a lot of people who would like that to be an option in core.

Ya i agree. With 2nd ed, i was hoping they were going to really be bold and finally do the spellcaster who is separated from vancian casting and more like the spellcasters from typical fantasy novels.

I wasn't sure if this chassis would have been based on spell points, kineticist style casting, or a more fleshed out words of power or that 3rd party product which i can't think of right now...

I still hope they change their mindset a bit and dream a little bigger with this playtest.

Right now I think the class is perfect. very much the AD&D 2nd edition cleric. a very strong healer and restorer, the spell list is good, very situational, but the situation they rectify have major affects. you don't need one, however having one, makes things a lot easier.

I only played the cleric once, and i was a little underwhelmed with previous favorites like Spiritual Weapon and Bless and was having a hard time finding cool spells besides Heal.

Which were your favorite "all star" spells?
And which niche is the divine spell list better at than a druid or bard?

re: WIS too powerful
Although WIS is useful for initiative (if you're not sneaking), remember that WIS has been reduced in usefulness in regards to resisting mental effects because most save or suck spells have been reduced in power and usually require a critical failure to have a dire consequence.

Unburdened shouldn't be a heritage and should be moved to a feat

In addition, Unburdened isn't as good as Fleet for elves (especially with their speed stacking) and should either remove up to -10ft penalty for armor and/or should reduce armor penalty (as mentioned from others).

I don't really follow the logic on some spells getting nerfs while others didn't.
It seems like they kept some of the biggest GM headaches...

Nerfed communal air walk?
I'm okay with nerfing the air walk duration but it would be nice to be able to buff your melee guys (multiple) to allow them to attack flyers (without having to deal with potions and resonance).

They DIDN'T nerf invisibility
I'm really surprised invisibility in general didn't get more of a nerfing. They kept invisibility, greater invisibility, and invisibility sphere at the same PF1 power levels which allows the party to trivialize stealth encounters for 1 min/10 min/1 hr at a time?

And i thought they would have made Greater Invisibility at least require concentration to give monsters a chance to stop the flying and invisible nuke wizard.

I think they need to make see invisibility a targeted spell buff so martial guys can drink a potion and have some option against invisible creatures/mages.

Exhibit B:

Quote:

IMPROVED BRAVERY FEAT 6 - Fighter
Trigger Your turn ends.
Reduce your frightened condition by 2, rather than 1.

I can't think of a less exciting way to describe bravery. It says nothing to a new player at all, and hardly sums up the image of my fighter holding his steely nerve in the face of a fearsome demon as the rest of my party quakes in their boots.

Maybe it's just a case of having one of the writers who's very good at exciting superlatives to have a pass over the feats and spells and make them sound cool and desirable? Paizo has some outstanding creative writers there, this is something they can do comfortably within their capabilities. Crystal Frasier can't help but sound awesome whenever she writes anything down. Paizo can absolutely improve this.

It would mean accepting a few less feats in the main book, because *pagecount*. But that's the cost of flavour.

I definitely agree with you that the writing can make a big difference in how the game feels, and the playtest is very dry atm.

But (i think) they are waiting to add those descriptions, which are a little harder to write, once everything is a little more finalized. At this point of the playtest they are trying to test things out without fully fleshing everything out.

edit: ninja'd

What I propose is to give the halfling 2 more HP. They are the "humans" of small races. No special vision but decent base HP and moves.

I wouldn't be opposed to 2 more HP but the extra HP don't amount to much in the big scheme of things. I think ancestries need another balancing point besides starting HP.

For the highest HP race (dwarf) vs lowest (halfling, elf, goblin) fighter at level 5 and with con of 14 for both is 70 hp vs 66 hp, meh.

Good job Paizo IT guys!

Was so easy i accidentally downloaded 2 copies :)

Where in the book are the domain powers? Not finding them and they dont seem to be in cleric or spells section

They are in the spells section.

For example, for the Domain "Ambition" the 1st power "Blind Ambition" is found on p 208 right under Bless.

I like it.

Excited to see what the multiclass details for Fighter and Rogue look like in the playtest.

Favorite preview yet!

Very flavorful implementation.
Each druid order feels very different and all look fun to play.

Was hoping they got rid of prepared casting so there was a wisdom based spontaneous caster but hey no class is perfect :)

Actually, it's not less complex, but more so.

Wizards have 2 pieces of book-keeping to do with spells: spells known and spell slots used.
Sorcerers have 2 pieces of book-keeping: spells known and spell slots used.
Arcanist have 3 pieces of book-keeping: spells known, spells prepared and spells used.

I think we'll definitely have to agree to disagree on the point of complexity of prepared vs arcanist/5th ed casting.

From my experience its much easier to teach (and play correctly with) arcanist/5th ed casting to new players (especially 5th ed players).

I think that it is likely that Oracle will stay Charisma, but it might not be necessary considering how the Sorcerer is turning out.

As a player of dwarves and hater of prepared casting i really wish there were a few more spontaneous casting classes/options that didn't use charisma. I still can't believe there isn't a spontaneous druid option yet.

Was kind of hoping that crossbows had some sort of weapon trait that separated them from bows.

Will have to wait to see the ranger feats that enhance crossbows that mark alluded to but its a pretty steep drop off from a Deadly (composite) shortbow with no reload.

Hmm, i'm curious how golarion lore is going to explain magic and culture with some of the charisma penalty races like dwarves and most 1st level monsters.

What's a good explanation as to why dwarves, or any race with a charisma penalty, make magical items when they can't use them?

Do merchants with magical wares just not go to dwarven or orcish towns?

Gorignak227 wrote:

That is a painful stat array, even with the new stat generation system.

I disagree. The array is pretty solid. You could theoretically have Str 16, Cha 12 and be a better combatant...but worse at healing and with less Resonance. That's a choice some people would make, but I'm not sure it's strictly better.

Ya, i don't have a problem with the array of numbers themselves ;)

Just that it is going to be tough to build a combat focused cleric without neglecting charisma and losing out on that class feature. Just like in PF1.

At least my dwarf combat cleric will still have 2 channels to work with and won't have issues with selective channeling, but will have issues with resonance.

But i still look at that alchemist stat array and get a little jealous...

I think that # of buffs are excessive but currently Pathfinder BBEGs require buff spells for them to handle "hard counters" from PCs like greater invisibility or fly.

I think this is going to be redone in PF2 because buff spells are getting a pretty big nerf. I doubt that we are going to see many BBEG Wizard's without a bunch of minion blockers in the new edition.

I agree that Glutton's Jaws is a exciting power, but from my understanding it's seems to lack versatility. It replaces your need for a back up weapon but doesn't really give you and edge in martial fighting.

Did I discount it too quickly?? What do you plan to use it for? I'm genuinely interested!

re: versatility - i agree but think its a step in the right direction

As I've said too many times before they really do need multiple power choices so people aren't stuck with a power like being forced to melee when they don't want to melee.

But i definitely think Glutton's Jaws is a step in the right direction compared to the other class powers previewed.

And I would like to see them push the envelope further for class powers
As for my own philosophy on class powers (and especially your primary class powers like those from a bloodline or domain), i believe that they should push the envelope and make them much better than they currently are so they feel like a "signature" ability.

When i pick a Demonic Bloodline sorcerer i would definitely like to feel like a badass demon child and actually feel like i'm going full demon when i'm using my bloodline powers rather than "get ready for my marginally useful power that i break out when i can't think of a good spell to use".

An example of what i'd like them to do
I would like to see 3 "tracks" with a signature demon for each (with additional tracks released in splat books). I think it would be very flavorful and hopefully picking a track (or picking up powers from multiple tracks) would keep players from feeling shoehorned.

Gain these powers over course of advancement. These would obviously have to be balanced as appropriate, but thematically i would like to see them get elements of these.

Glabrezu (melee track)
- gain increased strength, temp hp, and DR/good
- elemental resistances all
- gain bite and grow pincer arms with rend ability (additional attack iterative discount?)

Succubus (charmer)
- dr/cold iron or good
- succubus kiss w/energy drain
- charm, suggestion, dominate person (with increased dc), and profane gift. Charm at lower levels and move up to dominate person
- elemental resistances to electricity, fire, and poison

Shadow Demon (weird track)
- incorporeal
- dr/cold iron or good
- elemental resistance to cold, electricity, and poison
- cast darkness and blend into darkness ability
- cold touch attacks
- add a few shadow evocation version of spells to spells known

All I was saying, is if you play a spellcaster there is already a lot of decision making to do. If a blaster has to compare Fireball to Magic Missle III, Flaming Hands III, Shocking Grasp III, and Sound Burst II then they might be sitting there a while trying to figure out which one to use.

That is why Mr. Seifter is worried about decision paralysis.

This is the first example where i can understand why people think upcasting might be too complicated for some players.

If players are doing some sort of dmg/spell level calculation for different spells at different levels it could be too complex for some.

And now i finally get also why 5th ed went with their system.
Their system is designed around higher level spells always being more powerful than an upcasted spell of the same level to limit complexity, i.e. Fireball I > Burning Hands 3.

Very cool!

Its a bold design that i would have been scared to do in fear of highlighting contrasts between classes when you can pick up any spell list. I would be scared to make players always question whether playing a sorcerer would be better than a cleric, druid, or wizard.

More like "Glutton's Jaws" and less like "Diviner's Sight"
Some of the other class powers have seemed unexciting but Glutton's Jaws seems like its pretty cool and kind of useful (for certain types of pcs). I hope that other class features are more like Glutton's Jaws and less like the wizard's divination school - "Diviner's Sight" power.

Reiterate - Please more power options after playtest
Glutton Jaws is one of the cooler powers that has come out, but i will reiterate that I would like to have a choice of powers at each level. And i think i heard that they were going to add these after playtest.

Having a choice of at least 3 different powers for your bloodline at each level of Initial, Advanced, and Greater would be so nice and allow players flexibility in their sorcerer characters.

When there isn't any choice you have the problem of PF1 where you spend a lot of time trying to NOT pick up a horrible choice of 1 of your powers in the chain for your character (PF1 cleric domains were horrible because of this).

Cleric already supplanted as best channeler
Long live the new king: divine sorcerer with Divine Evolution.
(I think this may be gated behind a couple feats though).