Gortle's page

This old chestnut. Anyway:

Tier 2:

Summoner (all, but Synthesist drops away),

Not my experience with Synthesis Summoner. For sure they do not have the massive action economy advantages that other summoners get. If that is your only criteria then OK go with that. But they are a serious 2/3 caster that tanks very well, rather than tries to hide. The shear flexibility of the build is best shown with the level 2 spell Lesser Evolution Surge, with this spell they can choose any feat they qualify for, including Expanded Arcana for any spell on their list, and also from all the evolutions for example eg immunity to an energy type, +8 to any skill, or movement/sense/attack powers etc etc. Further it is possible to get regular summoned creatures out then 'tank up' via a buffed Summon Eidolon. It is very different from the other Summoners but inferior or less flexible? I don't think so.

Risho wrote:

FAQ

Check the faq. Synthesist's can't take the skilled evolution. Other than that, it is a very useful spell.

Another FAQ

wat

EDIT: several failed attempts at formatting

The FAQ does talk about Synthesis Summoners, but it does not say that. At least not any more. Its definitely not in any of the links.

The problem there is that 1/2 BAB in PF1 sucked. It made making a weapon-focused Wizard completely unviable, just as this system would do, just so the Fighter can feel better by having so much bigger numbers instead of being better in combat in ways that don't require making other classes useless at combat.

3/4 BAB wasn't much better, either.

There is a LOT of differentiation to be had in PF2, it's just not all in the raw numbers and that is EASILY one of the best changes PF2 has made.

Yes I agree giving everyone the same BAB progression is one of the best changes in the PF2 playtest. The other being the action system.

I'm going to disagree on what the best BAB progression is though.

Playing a game where you have to be constantly handheld by the GM to not be bad is not fun.

Pathfinder is a complex game. There is always going to be a certain amount of guidance for new players. But I agree.

Playing a game where you have the "option" to be constantly useless because other players do your job way more competently without even trying is not fun.

To me that is more a function of there being over powerful and totally useless options in the game. The better way is for the designers to test these and fix them up, so there are dozens of reasonable combinations. Its a playtest isn't it?

PF1 is full of narrow, useless feats/spells and abilities.Plus a few broken ones. The designers need to take off the tops of a few mountains without making it bland and formulaic like D&D 4th ed.

Playing a game where some players are effectively level 8, one level 11, and one level 5 is not fun.

The designers should do their bit, but thats really up to the GM to pull up and stop. You'll have plenty of other problems if your player group are prepared to do that to each other.

Its a question of degree really, 25% differences can be fine, but 100% differences are not.

But with the way PF2 is at the moment in an encounter designed for a level 11 party, the level 8 character will die in one round, too bad about the level 5 one.

I'm not prepared to play in a game where the PCs and the GM are straight jacketed by the system. We have to have significant options and choices. Its an open extensible role playing game that everyone wants to do differently.

Preventing good optimizers from accidentally being able to roll basically anything in their way is why I'm not a fan of "PC bonuses increase faster than target numbers" in the bones of the system since I like my high level play to be somewhat challenging, and with the inevitable power creep over the life of an edition we're going to get there eventually.

Likewise preventing people from being incredibly bad at something I count as a positive since a lot of the time having a 0 (or lower) modifier at something in PF1 meant "you just sat their quietly and did not participate when that something was going on." See, for example, all of the Cha 5-7 characters with 0 ranks in social skills who simply decided to sit out all social encounters (not all low charisma characters, the mentally ill garbage-eating Cha 5 Vermin Druid in our Hell's Rebels game was great fun because the player was *great* at picking her spots, and the party had 3 diplomancers.) Having the nadir now be Level-5 (for Dwarves, Level-4 for others) now means that your 11th level dude can at least feel okay about opening their mouth at fancy parties- the question is now "do you avoid embarrassing yourself when put on the spot" instead of "avoid being put on the spot at all costs."

Thats all fine for casual or convention play. But I don't want to play in campaigns with rules like that. Players need to be able to get very good in specific things or it just never feels like they are progressing.

There has to be good and bad combinations. Building a character is fun. Being very bad at something is fun.

Every character should have a least something useful they can do in combat, and something useful out of combat. A GM should guide new players in that direction.

Characters shouldn't be the all the same, bland vanilla. Player choices have to matter.

Gortle wrote:

Each plus 1 equates to about 10% increased damage dealt in combat and 10% reduced damage suffered. Basically each plus one is a +5% chance of a hit and a +5% chance of a critical.

An absolute 5% increase in hit chance is better than a relative 5% increase in damage.

If I attack three times with 55%/30%/5% hit chance, I get an average of .9 hits per round (ignoring crits). With an extra 5% hit chance, I get 1.05 hits per round. That's a damage-per-round increase of 16.7%.

Yes I've phrased my percentages wrong. I was considering against a 100% base of hit chance.

You definitely should not be making the assumption of ignoring critcals as they are a large part of the damage in the game. Assuming that critical damage is close to double damage and therefore counts as 2 normal hits. (its actually higher because of deadly weapons and critical special effects)
To your maths I'd be adding in criticals on 19,20/20/20 for 1.1 hits per round base. Then with a plus 1 there would be an extra chance of a critical on an 18 => 1.3 hits per round for a damage per round increase of 18%.
But thats a particular case, often you aren't making a 3rd attack, often gaining a +1 to hit won't make a difference of a hit.
We also haven't considered increased hitpoints or damage.

Someone with more patience than me should do the maths properley. But I'm happy to concede that the increased damage from each +1 is 15% to 20%.

So help me understand something. Every single edition of this game leading up to Pathfinder since thac0 was no longer a thing has had the fighter add 1 to his rolls to hit every single level. With the same equipment a level 20 fighter will hit things on a 2 that a level 1 fighter will only hit on a 20 in 3rd edition, 3.5, and PF1. We can even trace this back to 1st edition even though the thac0 chart ends at "17+", as a first level fighter hits AC 0 on a 20 and a 17th level fighter needs a 4; thac0 being basically 20-BAB.

Why are we suddenly wanting to do away with this?

I personally want my high level fighter's ability to hit things to be much greater than the same character at low level. If BAB, and hence +Level, is fine for accuracy why are we making the argument about +Level instead of "what, specifically, it is added to."

Other classes always had a different progression. 2/3 for clerics

Dire Ursus wrote:

Igor Horvat wrote:

Richard Crawford wrote:

Igor Horvat wrote:

I would say that damage/HPs/special abilities/manuevars/spells should be enough to make definite difference in an encounter challenge.

If you are both increasing damage and attack roll or HPs and AC, you are double-dipping the same kind of thing and raising lowering difficulty too much over different levels, IMHO.

Sounds like Quadratic Fighters. Why is this an issue in-principle?

My only issue is that it trivializes CRs below your level really fast 2 or 3 levels max, and makes higher level CRs completely out of reach not matter how much preparation, tactics, or numbers you put in the fight.

A 20 str Orc with a huge ax, even if he is CR1 encounter should be a threat somewhat to higher level character, especially if he brings few friends along you you don't have any AoE or you are ambushed by them.

That's where I disagree completely. High level characters shouldn't have any problem dealing with low level orcs. Like at all. The fighter should laugh at them as he easily deflects all their blows and then slice through them like butter.

Richard Crawford said "Quadratic" and summoned the Mathmuse. Sorry about being late to the conversation.

The principle against quadratic leveling is that it is too slow at higher levels. The explanation is not simple: The Mind-Boggling Math of Exponential Leveling. The short version for this conversation is that Pathfinder 1st Edition scales so that each level makes a creature or character 41.4% more powerful.

PF2 actually scales at +1.5 per level, +1 from the level itself, and another 0.5 from magic item bonuses/spell bonuses/stat increases.

A level difference of just 2 is around +30% extra damage dealt and -30% damage taken. At just 2 levels the difference is crushing. At 3 levels differences it is a pointless waste of time going through the motions of resolving the fight. Adding extra enemies at that point just drags things out - they don't alter the outcome.

It's too much it creates a very narrow band of play. I like to play and GM in long compaigns. This makes it very hard to challenge the PCs with a swarm of "low" level mooks. The progression is too fast.

Count me among those who see +1/level to be a solution, not a problem, especially in relationship to combat. I find that it creates a clearly recognizable advancement in power as characters rise in levels.

The test results have proved to be satisfactory in this regard for all my players but one who simply loves the Min-Max, Optimization First style of PF1 - unfortunately, he's found it frustrating in PF2 because he's simply not found a way to make his character significantly better than the challenges he's expected to face at various levels.

Personally, when optimization is the only path to success, I think it becomes more restraining. PF1 has innumerable options but the need to optimize/min-max actually railroads players tremendously. So many fun character concepts became trivialized by their relative inadequacy compared to the hardcore op character, resulting in frustration and abandonment. It's one of the significant factors to why PF1 campaigns have rarely succeeded at our local hobby shop and why 5E all but made PF1 extinct. The Playtest has revived Pathfinder here.

My group has always liked that there were optimisation points in Pathfinder. While toning things down is definitely a good idea, the playtest has shown that they have gone far too far in that direction. There still need to be some useful combination and preparations that can be done.

Now a concern of mine with PF2 (as it exists now) is that there isn't enough delineation between the advancement in Skills. There needs to be more meat on the bone between Trained, Expert, Master, and Legendary. Some skills show some structure that makes improved skill obvious, but many (most) don't. I expect that to change with a final release.

I agree, perhaps a larger bonus, or more options at higher skill levels.

Its functional. Cost works out to be just a fraction over half the price of buying a scroll.
Yes the DC cap is stupid, and just wrong compared to what you can cast yourself.

I find the lack of RAW guidance a massive issue, especially when it comes to attacking and damaging items, and item attendance. Walls are a part of it, too, but to a lesser extent.

There is not much in the rule book. Just a bit on Object Immunities p175.

But even so when you get to higher level it is easy to damage legendary stone walls with normal damage output. It is even possible to damage legendary adamantine structures and a level 9 wall of force.

Personally I don't think that is desirable.

Why isn't it just a flat bonus. The fact that it is a reaction makes it awful. Half the time you will have already used your reaction.

I agree that the area is very complex. I'm not really sure what it is adding to the game. I'd be happy enough if the weapons were reduced to just +1,+2,+3 and it lined up with the item quality. Effectively removing the distinction between quality and potency.
Its the extra properties that make them interesting. Not the pluses.

Seems pretty clear to me:

"When you select this feat, choose chaotic, evil, good, or lawful."

Seems clear enough, pick one of four things.

"Your choice must match one of your deity’s alignments."

So Asmodeans can pick Lawful or Evil, Desnans can pick Chaotic or Good, but Norgorberites can only pick Evil, Shelynites can only pick Good, Abadarians can only pick Lawful, and Gorumites can only pick Chaotic. If you worship Gozreh, don't take the feat. Aligned as such you do extra damage to the opposite alignment- so Shelyn clerics would do extra damage to Evil, and Gorumite clerics would do extra damage to Lawful.

Technically Gorum folowers can pick Chaotic, Good or Evil. Just not Lawful.

Summon Nature's Ally, via the call of the wild feat was surprisingly very useful. The summoned creature plays about as well as an animal companion. Their AC is lower, but elementals are immune to critical hits, and the purple worm just had so many hit points that they can take it. Attacks are a bit down but not useless. Very useful utility blocker and trap detector.

Comments on Encounters
We ran from the Lesser Fire Elemental. We tried twice but both times it critcalled and almost killed a character in one round, in the end we gave up on it and didn't need to go back.

The toughest encounter was the Sea Serpent. Our GM limited himself to one spine rake, but even so the level difference was far to great.

The other encounter of note was the Hall of Mirrors where we ended up facing off an evil version of the Rogue with just a Sorceror and a Wizard. Very tough.

Boss fights seemed too short. I think that some of the bosses could have done with 50% more hit points. None lasted long when they got surrounded my the PCs in melee.

Overall Feedback

Thanks for putting the public playtest out there. It is really good to see what designers are thinking about, and having the oppourtunity for feedback. We all enjoyed it immensly despite some frustrations.

My current group regularily game and all have 30+ years of gaming experience. We played 1-2 sessions per week and we struggled to keep up with the playtest. We have just completed the 7th Doomsday Dawn module and will be returning to our regular Pathfinder 1 game next week.

We tried hard to play the rules as written and put as little interpretation on them as possible.

Doomsday Dawn Modules

We played all 7 adventures. We had no character deaths, and all of the blessings of Pharasma were still left unused at the end. This reflects our experience, and a bit of luck against the Demi Lich, and that we called time before the third wave of the Heroes on Undarin. Apart from that we completed everything successfully.

The party was Cleric (buffer), Wizard (evoker), Druid, Fighter(barbarian) and Rogue (archer)

We liked all of the modules apart from Red Flags. This was because stealth/diplomacy missions often give you good reason to split the party and we felt obliged to. The mechanic of the Goddess watching over was really hard to put parameters around and most of that party were casters and were therefore reluctant to cast till Necrion did. Hence frustrated and angry players. We finished it by using Ethereal Jaunt to check the final room and avoided the encounter with the Kracken. Which was probably good, when missing players, and not organised for combat.

The feel of the game

The action economy was really good and is quite promising. It was always crystal clear what we could and could not do. Definitely a major improvement over 1st edition.

Kudos to whoever designed the weapons. Armour, weapons and equipment were great. The balance between weapon and shield, or two handed, or reach, and range seemed great. Two weapon seemed a bit short but we never really tried that. The exotic weapons were interesting.
Backswing, Forceful, Sweep traits seemed too narrow to be worth thinking about
No one liked the Volley restriction or could see the sense.
How about a limitation for "can't be used while mounted", applying to at least longbows?

The difference in ranks of skills didn't seem significant. Only a little required a rank above Trained.
90% of skill feats were irrelevant, most because they were too narrow. Perhaps the few useful ones could be used to improve the importance of skill ranks.

The new critical successes and failures was fun.

Level dominates all other effects strongly. +2 levels is crushing because of the critical hit rules. +1 to hit (each level) represents about 10% increase in damage output and a 10% reduction in damage taken. We think you need to flatten it a bit.

It was very hard to defend non melee characters in this game. Very little in the way of attacks of oppourtunity. Combat in Doomsday Dawn tended to be very open and almost no fighting occured in corridoors.

Reducing the bonuses to conditional, circumstance and item was nice and simple. But there are far too many conditions like hampered and enfeebled and drained. A lot have numbers on them. It was very hard and time consuming to track this. Often monsters would end up with 3 or more conditions on them. Please limit what the non casters can dish out. The Rogue was Entangling and Enfeebling 1 every hit. Nice but keeping track of it was a pest. Can we have fewer but more effective conditions?

Magic
Buffing, utility and healing worked well. Direct damage spells were starting to get reasonable after v1.5 but I still think they could be increased further. Wall spells were too weak as they can all be easily destroyed with physical damage.
Generally save or suck spells were useless as
a) the saving throw DCs did not seem balanced.
b) many of the effects are just too weak to be worth while. For example spells like Fear and Entangle are only useful if the target critically fails their saving throw. Otherwise it was just not worth the casters actions, let alone spell slot.

The vast majority of the bloodline powers/domain powers/school powers/compositions are just too weak or too short in duration.

Magic has to be strong or it just destroys the whole feel of Fantasy RPGs. Especially at high level. Don't try to over balance things.

A few spells dominated: Sacred Ground, Heroism, Heal

Whole categories like Enlarge and the various Animal Forms spells are incredibly bad debuffs. Please throw them out and do them differently. Even 1.6 they are still no good at the minimum level that they can be cast at are still debuffs to AC. Too bad if its not your top level slot. I'd prefer something like add a small bonus to hit or a damage dice to the regular attack of the target. Maybe add a bonus to a skill. Plus movement and sense as they currently are. Allow some of them to be cast on willing targets.

Magic Fang doesn't have any effect on Animal Companions or polymorphed creatures - what is its purpose?

Glyph of Warding is abusable - Firey Body and 6 flasks trapped with a Glyph of a high level Fireball, or just Glyph of Heal incase any vampires open your empty flask.

The Book

Was not liked. Its pretty and all, but major rules were covered partially in multiple places with details buried here and there, the glossary contained really important rules like how to calculate your spell casting DC. It caused confusion and extended rule debates. It reminds me of Hackmaster 4th Edition (a parady game of excessive tables where character creation is buried in appendix I)

Classes

Asside from an alchemist and a monk we tried all the classes over the course of the playtest.

Alchemist - we tried hard to build one and gave up. Obviously a bit better now but we lacked the energy to try again. Most of the mutagens look terrible for the cost.

Bard - please give him a real reason to use a musical instrument. Facsinate is useless - it doesn't stop the fascinated target from moving toward you and attacking you. Please Fix. Please make his composition untyped so it can stack with everything.

Barbarian - a bit weaker than the fighter becasue no attack of oppourtunity early. Please make his rage damage untyped so it can stack with everything.

Cleric - your best caster because buffing works well

Druid - full elemental spell list is nice. Animal Companions are still not quite right.The item restrictions are too steep. STR based animal companions far very far behind in AC. Wild shape was improved by 1.6 but is still inferior. All the Animal Form spells are too weak even after v1.6. My level 17 Druid transformed into a heightened level 8 and v1.6 Dragon Form using wild shape while in Druids Vestments. It cost him his first round in combat. It lowered his AC as he can no longer use a Shield, it reduced his melee damage by an average of 5 (from his +4 Dogslicer with 2 damage runes), gave him a breath weapon thats only as good as his wand, and stopped him from casting spells. He gains size, senses and flight. All things he can get elsewhere with out the penalties. I did it just for fun.
The form spells are all very much worse that this as you can't even use Druids Vestments with them, and require you to give up points of AC and to hit.

Fighter - excellent, your best class, simple, some nice options, top attack and good defense.

Monk - needs an extra point of AC, no one would touch it with a ten foot pole. Don't pretend STR is a key ability, DEX all the way.

Paladin - Nice class, excellent defense. Retributive strike seemed to require reach to be of value. Could you please add a 5ft step to Retributive Strike to make it work with Sword and Board? I did a nice Paladin with a FlickMace. Never tried the later Paladins. Lay on hands is nesrly pointless after Channel Life is available.

Ranger - mixed up and doesn't know what its doing. No focus. Fighter is much better at combat, Clerics are better at Survival, Druids have a better Animal Companion. Tired it. Hated it.

Rogue - cool. Works. Even as an archer, which is clearly sub optimal, our rogue was churning out 100 points of damage in a round.

Sorceror - please don't make it a half pregnant spontaneous caster. Let every spell be freely heightened or get rid of the class.

Wizard - fix magic and he will be fine. Too easy for him to get into physical armour without penalty. That's just wrong.

Specific Bits and Pieces

Hero points - feels too much like other games. The GM allocated some but all the players refused to use them.

Snares seem like fun but do they really need to cost money and be destroyed when used? Can you simply make them require maintenance and disappear after a while. These shouldn't be another type of magical consumable like a potions or a scroll. This is something you make in the wild

Size isn't defined, please fix that.

Walls, Structure and Hardness. It quite easily to destroy even legendary stone walls by bashing it, even a level 9 Wall of Force is gettable by characters at that level. And I'm remembering that objects don't suffer criticals. Some things should be beyond the players normal means.

Why does it work only one round? Unless the party is surrounded, a fixed point is even better - the monk can just end every turn with the whole party between them and the monsters. Monks should love hallway combat, as long as they have a fighter or paladin buddy.

Or maybe it's a looser formation and the monsters decide to chase the monk. That's fine, too. Since they are almost certainly slower than you, most likely you can just run back and forth from end to end of the combat each turn - you get more attacks than the monsters do, guaranteed. If the monsters are really dumb enough to chase you, you might be getting three attacks to their one, even.

Because although the monk may be safe after one round the monsters can simply attack the rest of the party. Keeping one party member safe while the rest are in danger is of limited value. Its not substantially different to hiding in the rear rank with a bow.

It's also an interesting comparison because with AoOs being more rare, the extra mobility monks have can help a LOT.

A fighter probably has a 20ft movement speed. If he wants to make two attacks, he needs to already be close to his opponent, and he's ending his turn in melee reach meaning he suffers a full attack.

A 3rd level monk almost certainly has a movement speed of 35 feet, possibly even 40. Certainly 40 by 6th level.

That means the monk can walk up to any enemy on the battlefield, hit them twice, and then walk away. Far enough away that the enemy would likely have to spend two actions catching the monk, meaning they only get at best a single attack (and if the monk has a fighter or champion friend, the enemy is probably going to suffer an AoO for it, meaning most enemies are likely to just attack the fighter instead).

Hard to measure how much AC that level of mobility is worth. I was originally thinking monks needed more AC, too, but they are actually staggeringly effective glass cannons.

We didn't have mobility problems with any of our non monks. Many of the characters availed themselves of the various feats to get +5" move. Most had longstrider cast on them - 8 hours as a level 2 spell from a wand. It is one of the few long term buffs. So it was extremely rare for anyone to have a mobility problem. Even the heavy armour PCs where typically movement 30". Of course in this scenario the monk is faster still. Then there are mounts.

I think beween us we might have done a double move only a couple of times in combat in the entire playtest so far.

Your tactic is sound, but its easier to do by retrograding with ranged weapons. Its also only going to work for one round in these modules unless the GM is being kind, because other PCs are slower and we have generally been at fixed points.

Hmmh not sure what I was counting here. But I'll just agree with your maths and go with Monks are at least 1 and sometimes 2 points of AC behind before level 10.

Rogues have basically no way to Sneak Attack at range. They are, practically speaking, an obligate melee Class. Rangers have a ranged build, but their melee build is supposed to be viable. And indeed is viable AC-wise.

You are not trying hard enough with your Rogue build. For sure the melee Rogue build is simplier and effective but a ranged build is viable. I know that ranged weapons don't help with flanking or benefit from other peoples flanking however

Thats hardly a complete list. Most parties cooperate and help each other. Our Rogue had Sneak Attack with a bow more often than not.

Rangers have a numbers of options. I played one in the level 4 module and wasn't impressed. But they certainly have specific ranged options. Which a monk does not in his standard class features.

Monks should almost certainly get an AC buff, at least at some levels, in order to be as melee capable as others but they remain viable even without it, and we're talking a +1 or so at some levels rather than a blanket +2.

Well I think they need at least 1 point of AC to be viable. The STR based monk just doesn't seem viable at all.

Monks are a fair bit behind the Fighter in damage output as it is. You have to consider a Fighter with no shield will be wielding a d12 weapon, or a d10 weapon with reach. if you are looking at the Crane Stance you should be comparing it to a fighter with a d8 weapon.

Gortle wrote:

The 1st level monk is a melee specialist. With 18 DEX and Expert in unarmed, they are 2 points of AC behind a Fighter or Paladin in heavy armour with 12 DEX. 2 points of AC is important, it equates to about 20% more damage suffered. Good luck surviving.

This is not precisely true. A 1st level character with Dex 12 and Heavy Armor actually only has AC 17 at 1st level (1 Level + 1 Dex + 5 Armor). A 1st level Monk meanwhile, has AC 16 (1 Level + 1 Expert + 4 Dex). That's low, but only one point behind. They are two points behind someone with Dex 16 and a Breastplate, but that changes at 2nd level.

Surely you could work out that I was taking the best armour for 6 Armour at level 1, sorry OK thats a level 2 item. But they could just have another point of DEX which a fighter can easily do. Clearly 2 points behind.

Speaking of which, by 2nd level, the Heavy Armor guy can get Full Plate and be at AC 19, the same as the Breastplate guy has, but the Monk can have Bracers of Armor and AC 18.

Now you are just not comparing apples to apples - if you start talking about Bracers of Armour you have to start talking about Magic Armour as well. Medium Armour comes out the nextlevel as the Bracers and is good enough for our comparison.

They stay about one point of AC behind most levels until 10th level or so, when they catch up simply because that's when Dex goes to 20.

Considering a Fighter with the best possible defense, the best monk is

And the 'behind until 10th' thing is not unique to Monks, it's universal to those wearing light armor of any sort. Monks are just kinda stuck with Light Armor, something few other Classes that engage in martial combat can say (though Rogues can).

In short, Monks are precisely equal to those in Light Armor from 2nd to 12th level (minus one or two individual levels when Bracers lag a tad...they catch up eventually), and then pull ahead of all others in Light.

Rogues and Rangers have specific ranged attacks they are an optional melee class. Monks are forced into melee otherwise they are no better than a cleric with a bow. Yes I know that Monks can easily use ranged weapons, but they have no support for it. They should be compared to Paladins and Fighters.

Sorry Monks suck badly.

Nice to see you got the sea monster in the end.

We fought it in the water but with appropriate water breathing up.

I got initiative on the first round with my Druid and transformed into a megaldon (Huge Shark) I was then promptly hit and swallowed whole. Not really what you expect when you are in a huge animal form. But it turned out for the best. I was able to bite successfully from the inside, and the rest of the party in the water took a lot of damage.
It criticalled all the time, even with flanking only our Fighter could occasionally hit it - after being buffed with a heroism. Our cleric went through all his healing keeping everyone up.
I broke out ofter a big hit and soon stuggled to hit from the outside.

Fortunately our DM refused to rake more than once per turn - rightly guessing that that was too powerful and out of place compared to other monster abilities. We got lucky with our saves.

Eventually we did beat it but for a fight we were expecting it was extreme and totally exhausted the PCs abilities.

Level is extremely important in PF2. if you are 3 levels then you are hitting and critically all the times and you will only be criticalled on a 20, hit on a 15+ and probably rarely fail a save.

The best way to deal with it is to make sure you get your flanking bonus to hit, and a heroism spell. Aside from the that the maths is quite clear, you will get slaughtered.

Personally I find the curve far too steep.

Good Morning,

* As before, "raising your shield" is a joke among the group. It feels pretty ridiculous to continue to have to spend an action to do this. Wizards and clerics dont need to "spend an action" to raise their staff, or an archer to raise his bow. Feels like an unnecessary action penalty that doesn't magic logical sense within the context of the gaming system.

Yeah I do agree it feels a bit strange. I assume it is just a trade off between offense and defense. My Paladin was certainly glad for it once when he took the full attacks of 6 monsters. Compares favourable to a shield spell.

I prefer it to 5th ed.

* The biggest problem remains that tanks aren't sticky. While they do have an AoO it's of limited effectiveness (1 reaction at this level) and the plethora of monsters at this level can/will just ignore it. If your primary purpose is to be a tank, as a sword/board fighter, and enemies can freely ignore you without penalty then .. why.. be .. a tank. I do think 4e got this the most right of any RPG game with its style of flat penalties to enemies ttack rolls, strikes, etc. More of that please

Its very hard to keep a party member out of combat in this system.

The Paladin and Fighter seem to have not many options to protect an ally.

* I also think it's super weird that Armor doesn't scale that good for a fighter. My Monk has nearly as good AC at this level (I believe 28 to my fighter's 30). That's dumb.

Ugh, totally disagree.

* I cannot figure out equipment. On any character. It remains a baffling confusion of runes, materials, items, etc. I loathe how complex it is, how difficult it is for even advanced veterans of a system to understand, and why its this way. Nobody really complained about equipment before, it feels like we are trying to fix something that wasn't broken. This needs more simplification, or an alternate rules (flat progression of bonuses at this point honestly).

Insanely complex - but that was always pathfinder.

Deadmanwalking wrote:

Gortle wrote:

There are a few exceptions Monks can't wear armour and are stuck with lower AC.

This is actually only true at very low levels, or for non-Dex Monks. They get Expert in unarmored (eventually more than that), and by higher levels, Bracers of Armor are within a point of Light armor.

It's still a bit of a problem for the first few levels and for non-Dex Monks, mind you, but it's worth noting that not all Monks suffer from it forever.

It is the same for non-Dex Druids. (I am playing one, with high Strength and high Wisdom, and as good as no Dex. It is viable, it is fun, but I get constantly critted.)

The 1st level monk is a melee specialist. With 18 DEX and Expert in unarmed, they are 2 points of AC behind a Fighter or Paladin in heavy armour with 12 DEX. 2 points of AC is important, it equates to about 20% more damage suffered. Good luck surviving.

No they don't catch up, the other melee characters get ranks in defensive skills as well.

No one I know would touch a monk with these rules.

A Wild Druid needs Strength so will probably have hide armour and 2 points of DEX. He has the same AC as the monk but has options and is not just a melee specialist. HE doesn't really need to max his wisdom. Personally I started my Druid with 3 points in DEX at first level.

Just ran Heroes. We had a Barbarian, Paladin, Monk, and Evocation Wizard.

We ran it 2 weeks back now.

Had a Fighter, Paladin, Rogue (archer) Wizard (evoker) and Cleric (multiclass Bard, buffer with no weapon attacks)

The first 2 waves were quite easy because
1) our GM had let us buy a few potions of flying,
2) the Cleric got down a Sanctified Ground
3) the Paladin had Aura of Faith which meant doing Good damage was easy

Spells were fairly pointless as they were doing less damage than the Fighter. Saving throw DCs weren't too hard due to the armour bonus. It was really only Critical Fails that hurt. The GM was not happy when I Critically succeded as the first victim of a Chain Lightning.

The Paladin had Channel Life so there was stacks of healing

Because we had flying the enemy casters that we did encounter were very quickly in melee.

But we just ran out of time it was more than 10 hours of play over multiple sessions so we just called it off in the end. We still had 2/3rds of our healing left at this point, but the casters were getting low on spells.

We had a brief look at the third wave. The party concensus was clear after fighting the first 6 waves.
Encounter 7 would have been a problem because disarming the only weapons of the fighters whould have been it for the party. But other wise it would have been tough due to the insane AC and attacks of the demons. We also were running out of fly spells so they could have abused their longer reach.
Encounter 8 would have been a pointless doddle even for a weakened party.
Encounter 9 would have definitely been a total party kill as we would have had no resources left at that point and the final monster had a ridiculous AC.

In summary, the level difference was just too great for the party to win that final fight, maybe even if we had had full resources. +1 per level is crushing in this game. The monsters 2 levels below the party where a total cake walk, we could get through an encounter with them almost unscathed.

Saving throws are not well balanced between the PCs and the Monsters.

Now that blasting got more damage, they might not be quite such a terrible option.

Yep the damage that direct spells do is way behind the increase in hit points over the years.

But thats been true for all systems not just this playtest edition.

Personally I don't mind that so much as it was done for the purpose of play balance, but maybe it was power creep to sell editions to players.

Anyway I do think that spells should do even more damage than they made in the recent changes. Except for cantrips as they should be in general below weapon strikes for damage.

But its the non damage spells that really suck. Point in case I was just looking at Enlarge for its conditional bonus to damage - then I realized Sluggish was a penalty to attacks,reflex saves and AC. Its actually a net negative unless you really really need to be large for some other purpose. I should be thinking of it as a debuff. Definitely not worth an action to cast. 80% plus of the non direct damage spells are an utter waste of space.

Also, they consume feat slots.

Yes that is annoying, trying to put together a high lecel caster and I don't seem to be getting the feat slots that other classes get, so I'm losing ability to try some of those better high level class feats.

I guess I just have to console myself with the high level spells. Maybe 1 in 5 high level spells seem OK :(

Produce Flame

Produce Flame is an odd one in that it is the only melee touch attack cantrip. Optional ranged touch too.

I'm not really sure how significant that is. I suppose it does mean you can attack using your STR modifier instead of DEX, but its an unusual caster that that is STR is higher than DEX and they will have a better weapon to use.

TwoWolves wrote:

Regarding the Duration of Shapeshifting, it's an easy fix: Make the duration in hours UNTIL you make an attack, at which time the remaining hours convert to rounds/minutes.

I think they could leave it hours unless they plan to add Natural Spell. Shapeshifted Druids without spellcasting are hardly broken.

True but I don't like roleplaying effect of a player not being able to talk. Fun for a session but a game killer there after.

The attack modifiers are much more egregious. A Fighter at level 20 gets +35 to attack, while a spellcaster gets +30 with their attacks vs. AC and +32 for their spell attacks (assuming 20 Dex and the best item bonus for each case).

AFAICT the STR companions will have +8 STR bonus and the DEX companion will have a +9 DEX bonus at level 20, along with expert rank in unarmed attack. That is around about +30 at level 20 which is about what a caster will be doing. I think that is fair. It has to be less than the fighter or why would you play a fighter.

OK maybe they could go another +1

The big problem is the AC for the STR companion, and the lack of options to do things with your companion, as they are immune to almost everything you can do to enhance them.

Dragon Form and a few others have been updated in 1.6

I'm assuming the update to Monstrosity Form level 9, is out by ten.

Update 1.6 dropped today

Just commenting about druid issues

7. Druid:

Yep I agree with your comments but you missed a clear typo in 1.6 update

Page 240—In monstrosity form, add the following heightened
effect. “Heightened (9th) Your statistics are AC 29 (TAC 26);
attack modifier of +28; add 1 additional damage die on all
Strikes; 25 temporary HP; Athletics +29.”

That worse than the AC it currently has as a level 8 spell
I suspect it is supposed to be AC 39 (TAC 36) which is comparable to a level 18 PC with +4 armour.

The other issue I have is with Druid's Vestments. The item is too confusing as it doesn't tell you how to calculate your attack bonus and AC - Does it include your armour and weapon? It should otherwise the value is going to be pathetic. The vestments should go and it simply be a part of the various form spells.

12. Animal Companion:

Helpful, but the strength based Animal Companions still fall 5 points of AC behind the dexterity based companions by level 20.

Note that from what I can tell animals can wear items like Belt of Giant Strength. They get the stat bonus but not the item bonus to skill. I haven't been using those items in my maths so far.

I find the attack bonuses Ok they will be around the same as the Druids and 2 lower than the Fighters. This seems fair.

Still lots to read...

Recycling Kai:
Heritage Feats: I like this proposal. Starting Ancestry needs to feel far more impactful.
Ancestry Feats:
Feat Progression:
Backgrounds:
I don’t mind just don't make it too complex.

Health and Stamina: Not a fan, that's a different game. Should be an optional variant at best
Healing: Ditto
Dying: Same as above.

Crits and Botches: Ok, but I'm concerned about it being too complex
1s and 20s: OK.

Level Bonus: Good idea. Not sure about the rate. Maybe quarter, maybe half. The progression is currently far too steep. Monsters just 2 levels behind the party get crushed very easily even when they have greater numbers.

Weapon Damage: Eh. I like the current weapon scaling just not that it’s linked to magical weapons.

Size Modifiers: It is needed but I like that the small martials aren’t too disadvantaged out of the gate.

Bulk: Bulk is simple and I like it

Reactions: Maybe there could be some more added. I dislike that some things like the Paladins Divine Grace bonus to saving throws is a reaction - which bascially means they will never use it as they only have one per round.

I'm curious what kind of Armor Class characters are having in the play test. Starting with part 2 our group made a commitment to high AC to lower damage, and limit the need for healing.

Part 2: Our ACs ranged from 19 to 21 without conditional or circumstantial modifiers

Part 3: Our ACs ranged from 23 to 26 without modifiers.

I'm wondering how those might compare to groups who had a harder time.

Its pretty easy to worth out:

Expected AC is level + 7(armour bonus plus DEX) + magic armour bonus + any additional ranks in defence + shield if used.

Apart from Monks most characters can buy heavier armour type with feats. The maximum AC that you can get for armour for light, medium or heavy plus DEX bonus is 7.

There are a few exceptions Monks can't wear armour and are stuck with lower AC. Some people will choose to not optimise their AC. Eventually when DEX can get over 18 it is possible to get a bit higher AC in light armour.

AC is important in this game because of critical hits. If a monster is critting you on numbers much least than a natural 20 you are in for a world of pain.

Experienced min-maxers will always have maximum AC, though they may or may not want a shield.

Sadly a lot of the Animal Form type spells fall behind the curve and are basically useless in combat. Sucks to be a wild order druid.

I see the problem as being one of balance. How do you create an awesome, useful, and combat-effective animal companion that doesn't cause the PC + animal to be way more powerful than any other character concept that doesn't include an animal companion?

With the current rules the combination of player character and animal companion already have one more action than any other character. They probably have more combined HP than any other character either.

On the other hand, if the defences of the animal companion are dropped too low then the animal companion becomes a quick target for removal from the combat by the enemy group. And if the combat options of the animal companion are dropped too low, then the animal companion becomes a minor annoyance to be ignored rather than an actual threat.

Really, really hard to balance this.

I think that the action economy does a good job of covering this. It really costs to spend one of your 3 actions commanding the animal every turn.

Please don't push for them being completely balanced or you'll end up with the mess of the 5th ed D&D Ranger beastmaster which no one plays. They are always going to have some strengths and some weakness.

My main character is a Druid of the Animal Order so I've had an animal companion in most of the playtesting so far.

The companions AC is too low and they get criticalled a lot. At higher levels its basically compulsory to take nimble companion over savage companion as it gives you 2 extra points of AC at the cost of +1 hit and damage.

The Animal Order druid has a one action range touch heal spell for animals which is as strong as a regular heightened heal. So they can normally stay close to their pet and keep them up. I wouldn't recommend building a primary combat companion any other way.

The dromaesaur has a Darting Attack allows a 10 foot stride in an action. That really helps the action economy. Probably the best choice for pure combat once its get its advanced maneuver.

The bear is OK but its work together is ability hard to use. It seems like it would work well with a two weapon Ranger, but in practice it is almost impossible to set it up.

Riding your animal companion is largely pointless. Only the horse has the mount trait. Do it if you want but you gain all the benefit with the young companion, so I'd recommend that you don't put any further feats into it after that. The problem is your multi attack penalty applies, so its really only combat useful if you are not making attack rolls - I suppose Electric Arc works fine.

The bird companion can be nice. It does less damage but it has a nice effect and is a reliable flanker. Just don't expect it to last long if you let it get surrounded.

The Riding feat is not required to ride your companion.

It sucks that there is basically nothing you can do to buff your animal companion equipmentwise after barding.

A lot of spells that you think might help, don't - magic fang doesn't work as it provides an item bonus.

My GM was also not prepared to allow Animal Companions access to the PC dying rules. It would be nice if that was unambiguous in the rules.

I like the flavour of the companions but they have been frustrating to use.

However, in order to get the extra damage dice, you need meet certain skill or item requirements, as follows:

--) You don't get any extra damage dice if you're untrained in the weapon, regardless of its quality.
--) In order to get +1 damage die (3rd level), you need to either have expert proficiency or be wielding an expert-quality weapon.
--) In order to get +2 damage dice (7th level), you need to either have master proficiency or be wielding a master-quality weapon.
--) In order to get +4 damage dice (15th level), you need to you need to either have legendary proficiency or be wielding a legendary-quality weapon.

Good idea.

Flavourwise, I don't like that combat becomes so item/weapon dependant as you go up levels. Conan needs to be able to pick up an ordinary spear and still be impressive.

I think that this upgrade to spells is going about things the wrong way. I do not so much think that the scaling issue with blasting spells is their raw damage output at the heightened level. The scaling issue is that a character's lower-level spell slots become worse and worse for blasting spells due to static damage dice, whereas hard control spells (e.g. blindness) and buff spells (e.g. haste) always remain relevant due to not being reliant on quickly-outdated damage. This is, incidentally, the exact same issue 5e's own blasting spells suffer from.

I think that what Paizo should have done was implement a system for better scaling of blasting spells even in non-heightened form.

I welcome the increase in damage for spells. I think it was justified

I am happy that lower level slots do less damage so I'm not really seeing your point. The game would be unbalanced if an evoker could heighten all their fireballs to maximum level.

Yes the arcane school powers, especially the evokers, are weak. The shaping area of effects in 5th ed D&D was much better.

But really it is the non damage spells that are exceptionally bad for wizards. Please fix those. Up to 4th level only blindesss and suggestion are any good. All the others are only good if you can count on critical saving throw fails, the results for normal saving throw fails are very ordinary.

I think it would be a valuable exercise to re-evaluate which issues are currently at the top of the heap with respect to enjoyment.

Now it looks like this:

1. Lack of combat style customization and flexibility outside of class
2. Weak spells
3. Limited class options (narrow feat level tiers, enforced party roles, "least bad" feat selection)
4. Limited first/early level customization
5. Over-reliance on a designated "healer"
6. Low success rate for optimized characters
7. Heavy armor being too heavily penalized
8. Skill feats taking too much away from baseline skill functions
9. Class specific problems (Retributive Strike, Hunt Target)
10. Bland races
11. Focus

I'm not really seeing all these issues. The lack of options issues I put down to this being a playtest and obviously there will be more developed as it matures. Yes there being losts of options is very important to me.

For me the issues in decreasing order are

1. The maths of the system only works within narrow bands of +/-1 level. When our level 12 party was attacked by a larger group of level 9 monsters, we just crushed them without a sweat and rolled critical after critical. In comparison the level 13 monsters were extremely tough. Suggestions from our group was to either
a) reduce critical successes and fails to just natural 20s and 1s, or,
b) make AC, to hit, skills and saving throws go up by +1 per 2 levels

2. Offensive magic sucks. Why would I ever cast a level 1 Fear spell? The target has to critically fail before it is a useful result. A normal fail only gives them -1 for a round. What a crock! The wizard is better off firing a bow or using a cantrip. So much of the magic list is just like that. Direct damage spells are so so, buffing and utilities are OK but limited duration, but everything else is much worse. It does even met the test of the wizard spends a spell and an action to have a 50% chance of denying an opponent an action. If magic is not interesting and somewhat powerful then there is no point in playing the game. Its a core part of the FRPG concept.

3. There needs to be a few combos in the game. You have to allow a few things to stack together. The special bard cantrips and the barbarian rage should be untyped and stack with everything. Its the primary purpose of the class. Why not let me use Magic Fang on my Animal Companion, my wild shape or Animal Form? No? Then what is the spell for then?

4. Too many very complex fiddly little numbers. When the Paladin strikes with his bludgeoning holy flaming weapon against a demon with vulnerability to good but resistance to fire. But see its a retributive strike at -2 to hit on santified ground at +1 hit and damage, but there is a heroism up +2 but that doesn't fully stack with the sanctifed ground, -1 because the Paladin was enverated, its a reach weapon so screening? etc etc.
The people who play pathfinder are generally the one who think 5th ed D&D is too simple, we aren't afraid of maths but throw us a bone please. Each battle was taking over an hour and I'm with a group of very experienced and intelligent gamers.

5. Skills I'd perfer if the some of the skill feats were moved into actions available at higher ranks of a skill, and the rest moved to general feats. Also please change the skill rank bonuses.
-4,0,1,2,3 isn't big enough. Try -4,0,2,4,6 for skills.

6. Two weapon fighting still needs a bit of help even after the ranger changes. Remember that agile weapons do significantly less damage due to low die size. Sword and board, reach, mounted, and two handed are fine.

7. I'd prefer if the increase in weapon damage dice was not just purely about magical weapons. I'd be happy if fighter types got an extra dice just due to their skill at mid levels.

8. Monk AC is too low, everyone else can get an armour plus dex bonus of 7, Monks start at 5 with an 18 DEX counting their extra proficiency and it sucks for a melee character. We can't get anyone in our group to even attempt playing a Monk.

9. Alchemist still sucks even after the changes. The mutagens just aren't good enough effects. We had players trying to put together a build but just giving up.

10. Progression of various form spells are wrong. My druids AC dropped whenever he went into Animal or Dinosaur form. I like the intention of simplifing things but why cast a spell to give you a worse AC and a mediocre damage output.

11. Please put some meat on size differences and weapon sizes.

12. Please make the Bard a bard and give him a reason to carry an instrument. Making him a full caster just means he is another type of Wizard.

13. Healing. A lot of people are complaining that the cleric heal is just too good. Maybe take it down a dice size to d6s. I view the channels as a party thing not really just the one character. But really the scalling problem at the top of the list means that the party has been rarely challenged and I'm not confident enough to speak much on this issue till we find some tougher encounters.

Gortle wrote:

Weaponstorm is nice for a cleric of Gorum.
Stoneskin and Resist Energy are OK.
Restoration is required sometimes.
But the stand out is Sanctified Ground, if you can get it out before combat and in many of the encounters you can.

Soo...in 9 levels worth of spells we have....four good ones?

Am I reading that right?

Nope, the original poster asked for highlights.

ikarinokami wrote:

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?

All the buffs are useful but most are short in duration

Weaponstorm is nice for a cleric of Gorum.
Stoneskin and Resist Energy are OK.
Restoration is required sometimes.
But the stand out is Sanctified Ground, if you can get it out before combat and in many of the encounters you can.

Premise and confession: I, as GM and as player, have repeatedly
My criticism was not about Clerics as a whole, but actually about Channel Energy.

I see lots of players even outside my group picking the Healing domain because "it's the best", and they manage to cast so freakin' much, I forget one core problem:

I took healing domain as a Paladin, but really a lot of the other Domains are good also. Zeal, Might, Luck Passion.

That while the channel is so extremely powerful that it eclipses every other player at the table, the cleric that carries it around is actually pretty bad.

I look on Channel as really more of a party ability that the cleric takes to support the group.

Low casting (for this edition). A very restricted spell list, most of which is highly situational. Spells that depend on your god's alignment, but with no compensation for neutral gods (my guy is a Pharasman because of flavour reasons. He feels terrible...

I played a cleric of Gorum starting with higher STR than WIS and concentrated on buffing and meleeing with the greatsword. Lots of fun. Very effective. Didn't miss the WIS

Uh, pretty much everything I wanted to communicate is in the subject.

To elaborate a little bit.

There's of course going to be ways to build a character in a game like pathfinder that is terribly unoptimized. Like a Barbarian that puts all their boosts into mental stats or an alchemist that doesn't boost int for whatever reason...

What makes the Monk a little different is that it's pretty MAD. It benefits from Str, Dex, Con, and Wis and it is very easy for someone to think that they should be able to mix and match these according to their character concepts.

Except that you can't make a slow bruiser that focuses Str and Con or a hard hitting mystic that boosts Str and Wis and leaves Dex behind as Dex is the ONLY way that I have found that can boost the monk's AC to an acceptable level for a melee martial class. It has to get at least three boosts in charater creation, if not four.

Monks need DEX then STR, CON and WIS are just nice to have.

Fists are finesse weapons so a monk can do all their attacks using DEX on their to hit roll. As magical weapons (handwraps) become available they gain extra damage dice and being a point or two behind in STR is less of a concern. Though it still effects your athletics rolls including Trip, Disarm, Grapple Shove.

They have a real problem with AC. Monks start lower than all the other classes who melee. They can all get to the design limit of AC bonus plus DEX modifier = 7, but Monks just can't till higher levels. In this game AC is important because of the critical hit rules.

Personally I wouldn't start a monk without 18 DEX and 16 STR, and I'd always rank both stats as the character levels.

Kodyboy wrote:

Wildshape is terrible in this edition.

It's not that bad.

At their respective spell levels, most of the polymorph spells will grant you:

- better AC than you normally have and on par with medium armor + max DEX

Not if you have magical armour - which every on does - or a shield.

- no more speed reduction or ACP
- increased speed on top of that

Most medium level druids will have longstrider up and already be fast enough. Sorry doesn't stack.

- extra hit points (worth a full class level)

They are just temporary and you can't heal them but yes the hitpoints are nice.

- additional senses (low-light vision, scent...)

Quite important

- decent skill bonuses

No. You basically lose the ability to use most skills

- better attack roll than you normally have
- better damage bonus than you normally have

Perhaps. If you have a sweet magic weapon you can be behind

- a large selection of damage types and utility (climb, swim...)

Yep, but if you want the good movement like fly your combat ability will go way down.

There are 4 major issues for me:

- You don't get to transform into anything worthwhile before level 4 so you're just a very subpar martial character until then - very big issue because fun is dead for 3 consecutive levels.

- You need the Druid's Vestments when you get to very high level of play because your spells no longer keep up with AC and attack roll - not a big fan of mandatory magic items.

- With minutes duration, no more turning into an animal to cross that river, climb that mountain, scout ahead or move your party faster by carrying them on your back.

- There is no Natural Spell feat. This one is the real dealbreaker.
Seriously, with wildshape being so limited in duration and number of uses per day, having to go out of your animal form to cast a Heal spell so you're not knocked out of combat really diminishes the class' potential. Why is this not an option?
I can understand not wanting Wild Speech. Since wildshape is no longer something you can have always on but has its role limited to combat, it's not truly needed.
But Natural Spell?
Come on Paizo, this is what makes Wildshaping so bad at the moment!

Fair criticisms. But also.

Druid Vestments suck as a magic item it should allow you to take the best of both not limit you.

Requiring a player not to speak because they are in animal form is a game play killer.

1 minute duration is awful. It forces you to cast the transformation every combat and sucks up your actions.

The game has to allow for some combinations to work or there is no point thinking or building your character. It is half the fun of the game. Don't neuter everything. Magic Fang, Hand wraps, Longstrider, Magic Armour/Weapons - its too much.

LordVanya wrote:

It alone still doesn't do anything to make the measly-looking +1/+2/+3 on my character sheet not FEEL crappy.

And that is just as important as the actual mechanical benefits.

+Level drowns it out, a bit. I am not so sure about the UTEML system, as implemented (and more revolutionary, out of the blue, than I would prefer). I was hoping for Legendary to open up for some amazing feats for non-casters.

Improve the value of the ranks yes, but also improve what they can do.

Why can't legandary athletics allow you to do thing that are legendary
Powerful Leap is not Legendary enough - a 5 foot jump is very underwhelming.
Cat Fall is much better it actually allows for awesome things to happen at higher ranks.
This is a game with heroes, magic and deities. At higher levels it should be Legendary or even Mythic.

Sorry didn't read the spell. Basically nothing adds to the various form spells so Handwraps don't work

That said, I could see uncorking a vial with a Glyph'd Lightning Bolt to shoot it out (it isn't clear how a line from a point works? I would call that an area, but having it 'centre' on the person opening it seems weird, and also leaves room for rotation). If you're fire immune, having five buttoned pockets on your coat with a Glyph'd fireball for immediate point-blank bombs sounds cool.

I hope this isn't patched out. Intentional glyph bombing is a neat as hell idea.

I don't think anyone can reasonably say that deliberately opening a container yourself wouldn't work. Other trigger options might work, but GMs are going to give different rulings.

I'm quite fond of the concept of anti-vampire devices loaded up with a heal spell

Glyph of Warding seems to be quite a usefuly spell. Page 227

1) You can heighten it to any level and use it to include just about any spell with a suitably vague 'hostile' effect. Fireball, Shocking Grasp, Heal (hostile to undead) seem obvious choices.

2) Duration is unlimited so the normal rule about long duration spell page 197 does not apply. The number of glyphs is capped at your spell casting modfier so typically 4+. It basically seems to be a way of preparing some extra spells.

3)The triggering seems suitable to put an a glass vial and throw it at a target which could be an enemy, an ally or the ground. That target will then break the container by impact and activate the spell.

Most other versions of Glyph of Warding don't allow for this sort of abuse but here the wording seems open enough to my mind to allow it. How do other people read this spell?

While Casting this Spell, you also Cast a Spell of a lower spell level
to stored in the glyph. The stored spell must take 3 actions or
fewer to cast, have a hostile effect, and target one creature or have
an area. You can set the glyph with a password, a trigger stimulus,
or both. Any creature that opens the target container or enters the
target area without speaking the password or matching the trigger
stimulus activates the glyph, releasing the harmful spell within.
Once a spell is stored in the glyph, the glyph gains all the traits
of that spell. If the spell targets one or more creatures, it targets the
creature that set off the glyph. If the spell has an area, that area is
centered on the creature that set off the glyph. Glyph of warding’s
duration ends when the glyph is triggered. The glyph counts as a
magical trap, using your spell DC for both the Perception check to
notice it and the Thievery check to disable it; both checks require
the creature attempting them to be trained in order to succeed.
You can dismiss glyph of warding with a Verbal Casting action.
The maximum number of glyphs of warding you can have active at
a time is equal to your spellcasting ability modifier.

Magic Fang requires that the target's unarmed attack be only one die. I did not see a higher level equivalent or heightening option. Items say they're for humanoids unless otherwise stated; I did not see such an exemption for handwraps.

What is the method of giving an animal companion with its first upgrade (and thus at least two damage dice) a magic attack?

AFAICT there is no way in the rules to do this for Animal Companions. Which is very frustrating. The fact is that Magic Fang is an item bonus and is therefore not allowed by the Animal Companion rules.

The other use for Magic Fang traditionally was on wild shaped Druids or polymorphed characters. But again this essentially only works at very low levels. Before too long all the "Form" spells provide multiple dice in attack and therefore Magic Fang can't be applied.

Very disappointing. This is the traditional and just about only use of this spell and it basically doesn't work.

Handwraps of Mighty Fists do seem to work for wild shaped Druids, though some GMs might argue some details, but 'claw' is specifically mentioned on the item.

I don't really understand why they thought that critical's time had come again?

It's the most radical change in the whole of Pathfinder 2 and frankly also the worst thing to crawl back off of the slab of bad game design idea's imho.

Spikes in damage may be exciting to some but once people have lost enough characters to bad rolls rather than bad tactics I think they will regret its inclusion.

They threw in mandatory Hero Points as a band aid to cover some of the spikes but that just means they lost all the drama they built by letting everyone die once per session for free before they really need to worry.

Do they really want the bad old days where people would roll up a batch of chars so that they could slot poor sob number two in after number one had died?

It doesn't lead to a lot of character development / player investment.

I agree with what you are saying but I don't think it is as extreme as all that.

Criticals are fun but you can get some wild results. The dying rules are more forgiving, so its not too bad. But criticals are baked into the maths of the system. If they changed them they would have to start a new playtest.

I don't like the hero points either. They aren't necessary. We haven't had a player death yet in our testing so far and haven't felt the need for them.