GreatCowGuru's page

GreatCowGuru wrote:

Excaliburproxy wrote:

GreatCowGuru wrote:

Excaliburproxy wrote:

-I agree that it is still fairly complex but it is still a solution with pros and cons to be considered. Relevant question: is there a simpler system that also actually solves the issues with quadratic cost scaling and low level consumable overuse?

I'm probably missing something here but wouldn't the simpler solution be to make the scaling cost of potions keep up with healing and therefore make using lower level healing potions pointless?

If a hypothetical 1st level potion restores on average 1/3rd the hp of an average 1st level chars hp. Then a 10th level potion should likewise restore on average 1/3 the hp of an average 10th level chars hp. Then we adjust the price of these items such that the 1st level potion takes up say 5% of the 1st level chars WBL, then the 10th level potion should also take up 5% of the 10th level chars WBL. Though I suppose that would require the flattening of the WBL curve, though it feels like pf2e has done this to some extent already by making an assumption of Xgp and a certain amount of permanent items at each level. Maybe just make the misc currency at each level more flat then exponential to match with consummables?

Yeah, that would imply a cost scaling that gave low level characters easy access to high level equipment by cost. You can always do linear cost scaling combined with restricting items by level, though.

Hm true, as a general realistic question though would that be a serious issue? Talking strictly about healing consummables like potions. If I could have 3 1st level potions or 1 3rd level potion isn't the tradeoff at that point whether I want to be able to go from 0 to full once or to patch up several times between fights with less chance of wasting the healing?

I don't know if it is a "problem" exactly as much as I think people would balk at limiting items by character level. "More like Word of Warcraftfinder!" they would...

Oh, I had meant even without an item level cap it doesn't look too problematic to me as far as healing items go. Just the choice between more small heals or fewer large heals, buying above your level is only so useful because at a certain cutoff the healing will be wasted . Honestly, to me, I've never had an issue with consummables to beginwith and it honestly just seems downright strange to try and impose so much control over when consummables are used. I just view it as if you've been able to afford them there's no reason you shouldnt be able to make the choice between saving them up to uae a bunch at once or sprinkling their use out over time.

GreatCowGuru wrote:

Excaliburproxy wrote:

-I agree that it is still fairly complex but it is still a solution with pros and cons to be considered. Relevant question: is there a simpler system that also actually solves the issues with quadratic cost scaling and low level consumable overuse?

I'm probably missing something here but wouldn't the simpler solution be to make the scaling cost of potions keep up with healing and therefore make using lower level healing potions pointless?

If a hypothetical 1st level potion restores on average 1/3rd the hp of an average 1st level chars hp. Then a 10th level potion should likewise restore on average 1/3 the hp of an average 10th level chars hp. Then we adjust the price of these items such that the 1st level potion takes up say 5% of the 1st level chars WBL, then the 10th level potion should also take up 5% of the 10th level chars WBL. Though I suppose that would require the flattening of the WBL curve, though it feels like pf2e has done this to some extent already by making an assumption of Xgp and a certain amount of permanent items at each level. Maybe just make the misc currency at each level more flat then exponential to match with consummables?

Yeah, that would imply a cost scaling that gave low level characters easy access to high level equipment by cost. You can always do linear cost scaling combined with restricting items by level, though.

Hm true, as a general realistic question though would that be a serious issue? Talking strictly about healing consummables like potions. If I could have 3 1st level potions or 1 3rd level potion isn't the tradeoff at that point whether I want to be able to go from 0 to full once or to patch up several times between fights with less chance of wasting the healing?

-I agree that it is still fairly complex but it is still a solution with pros and cons to be considered. Relevant question: is there a simpler system that also actually solves the issues with quadratic cost scaling and low level consumable overuse?

I'm probably missing something here but wouldn't the simpler solution be to make the scaling cost of potions keep up with healing and therefore make using lower level healing potions pointless?

If a hypothetical 1st level potion restores on average 1/3rd the hp of an average 1st level chars hp. Then a 10th level potion should likewise restore on average 1/3 the hp of an average 10th level chars hp. Then we adjust the price of these items such that the 1st level potion takes up say 5% of the 1st level chars WBL, then the 10th level potion should also take up 5% of the 10th level chars WBL. Though I suppose that would require the flattening of the WBL curve, though it feels like pf2e has done this to some extent already by making an assumption of Xgp and a certain amount of permanent items at each level. Maybe just make the misc currency at each level more flat then exponential to match with consummables?

As far as these two go,

This means that if a character gets to game the starting wealth system and, for example, start with a 5th-level spell scroll as a 5th-level PC in a one-off adventure, then they will have a large chance of distorting the adventure that way.

Problem #6: Are wands considered permanent items? This only really matters for the Pathfinder Society playtest scenarios, but it is worth asking. They are too expensive to be considered consumable items, yet they are significantly lower-priced than permanent items. Thus, can a character select a wand as a "permanent" item?

For the first table 11-5 on pg. 379 a 5th level spell is a level 9 item. Effectively for scrolls the item level is the level a caster would have gained access to that spell level.

Edit: I suppose I should clarify here that 1. The availability of anything is left as GM fiat, starting at a higher level does not change this. 2. Blowing all their character wealth on scrolls of what exactly that imbalanced this scenario?

For the second, wands have a limited number of charges and then burn out, therefore they are not permanent is what I would personally say, however, at the moment they lack the consummable trait so I would suppose them to be considered permanent magic items. That should probably recieve a dev clarification one way or the other.

Might as well toss an extra line in restating that other skills can be used as GM deems appropriate these are just general guidelines. Simply to keep it where even using other skills aren't houserules at that point that way everyone wins.

I like a lot of whats here, two things caught my attention however,

1. While you can get expert, master, legendary quality bombs this still only amounts to a +3 item bonus which leaves alchemists 1-2 points behind other classes item bonuses. This can also still be trumped by taking a quicksilver mutagen,but dont get me wrong I much rather would not have to rely on mutagens as a bomb alchemist so the increase to +3 is appreciated, I propose some method of gaining at least expert if not master proficiency with their alchemical items to fully flesh out their attack bonuses to meeting those of other classes.

2. Im not sure if it was a copy paste error from the book text, but your advanced alchemy still has the clause about only being able to create common items.

3. I know i said two but this is one that still bugs me at the moment, I'd like to hear your ideas on bomb alchemists dealing with incorporeal creatures because as it stands they're 100% immune to nonmagical attacks. Also you should add an electric damage lv 20 bomb.

KungfuCracka wrote:

So I've go through the rules and forums. There is a lot of debate and interpretation, enough to confuse someone working out some of the details. So here is my question.

When Alchemists do their daily prep? Do they use RP (Resonance) to make bombs? Potions?

I know other PCs use RP to drink potions and Alchemists use healing potions they made with quick alchemy at no additional RP cost. But I'm trying to nail down their daily prep costs.

Also, does daily prep for an alchemist cost money to make bombs/potions as well as a craft roll?

Thanks.

It doesn't cost money, but they do spend resonance for items like bombs and healing elixirs (but at the rate of 1 RP for two items). Quick alchemy is more flexible but is 1 RP for any item in their formula book.

Also of note these items have the infused trait which means that the alchenist doesn't have to pay any additional RP cost of the item. For example during daily prep you make an elixir of life, when you go to drink the elixir later you don't have to pay a point of resonance. However, if you pass that elixir off to someone else they do have to pay 1 RP to drink it.

Zamfield wrote:

GreatCowGuru wrote:

JoelF847 wrote:

runestone - what exactly does this do? Just act like a piece of paper you can put a rune on? Why would you do that ever? Just to carry in your pocket and smile? How does this help you in any way?

I could see some use in this for keeping extra property runes around for when they're needed like one for each element change then out as needed. Also keep in mind its a 3gp slate you can slap any rune on instead of needing the proper, and very expensive eventually, master and legendary quality items for potency runes.

As for basically everything else yeah i generally agree items need to wither be invested or cost per activation never both. Also alchemical items should never have cost resonance.

Great write up, totally agree with almost everything

I saw the runestone as useful for removing runes from items or as a raw material for crafters, especially if you don’t want to carry a bunch of bulky magic armor out of the dungeon.

I guess you could use them to avoid 4 bulk from a suit of magic full plate, but that seems annoying to have to do for every suit of magic armor you find, and prepare for having enough blank runestones. The good old portable hole seems like a much better and more versatile solution (or a pack horse or wagon if you want to go low tech.)

To be fair I agree, that's the better solution hands down, transferring a rune costs you I think it's 10% of the value of the rune everytime you transfer it, plus a day of downtime, plus a craft check and the legendary full plate itself is still worth like 6,500gp. Thats probaby why I would only bother transferring cheap property runes just to exploit enemy weaknesses.

runestone - what exactly does this do? Just act like a piece of paper you can put a rune on? Why would you do that ever? Just to carry in your pocket and smile? How does this help you in any way?

I could see some use in this for keeping extra property runes around for when they're needed like one for each element change then out as needed. Also keep in mind its a 3gp slate you can slap any rune on instead of needing the proper, and very expensive eventually, master and legendary quality items for potency runes.

As for basically everything else yeah i generally agree items need to wither be invested or cost per activation never both. Also alchemical items should never have cost resonance.

GreatCowGuru wrote:

Page 325 Under heading Multiple Exposures

"Multiple exposures to the same affliction have no effect if it’s a curse or disease. However, for a poison, failing the initial saving throw against a new dose increases the stage by 1 (or by 2 if you critically fail) without affecting the maximum duration. This is true even if you’re within the poison’s onset period, though it doesn’t change the length of the onset...

My understanding is basically multiple poison doses escalates the stage track without having to wait for the interval period but don't make the character immediately suffer the effect.

Page 325 under the heading Stages wrote:

An affliction typically has multiple stages, each of which lists an effect followed by an interval in parentheses. When you reach a given stage of an affliction, you are subjected to the effects listed for that stage.

We read the last sentence as stating the effects of the new stage occur immediately *in addition* to the stage going up, as you've 'reached' the given stage. The multiple exposures text doesn't seem to state that you don't suffer the effects of reaching the stage, just that the maximum duration or onset doesn't get reset.

I've been debating exactly whether that is the case or not honestly the reason I said that I don't believe it would is the sentence referring to the onset period. You don't take suffer the effects of the affliction until after the onset period so at the very least in that case it raises the stage without suffering the new stage. That led me to think well maybe the same is true for the afflictions interval and you don't take the effects of the new stage until you hit the next interval. This is one of those things that really needs some clarifying. Also in your case how did you rule it if they were already at max stage and failed the multiple exposure check?

HWalsh wrote:

Rysky is 100% right:

All of the things the OP said apply to a lot of things, and Rysky is right about the reply: Money.

---

I need a series of surgeries and medical treatments. Why don't I get them? Money. I can't afford them.

This applies to the peasants and wands, or potions.

According to the book a peasant makes like 1 SP in a day of downtime.

If a minor healing potion costs 3 GP that means 30 days of savings with no money going out.

If we assume the average peasant pays out 50% of their funds for housing and food that means they have 3 SP 5 CP per week for savings barring other needs.

Of that we can assume 2 SP in miscellaneous expenses.

Leaving 1 SP 5 CP per week.

Assuming nothing else comes up that means in 20 weeks (5 months) a peasant can afford 1 minor healing potion.

Magic is awesome and expensive.

Money isn't a control factor. It doesn't work now, nor has it every really worked.

They book says a peasant a makes 1sp, sure. But that is just an arbitrary number that has no real basis in reality at all.

In 3.5 your average peasant farmer can make 250gp to 300gp a year, with out much of a problem. And that is with giving half his production to lord of the land. Nor does that take into account livestock and things like butter, cheese, eggs, and milk production.

The idea that a peasant makes 1 sp a year, is just idiotic. It shows how little effort paizo actually puts into the foundations of various game mechanics. And why what they build on top of has little substance.

First of all I have to agree with the above posters that this sort of change doesn't fit with the basis of pathfinder.

Second, cantrips for the most part are now useless to peasants there are a few that could possibly be used but most wouldn't impact their lives in any significant way.

Third, spellcastees have massively fewer slots now then they use to this couple with the fact that most casters in the world are of an extraordinarily low level means that access to any truly useful spells is not a common occurence to beginwith. On top of that is the issue that they might not be free to spend their spells slots however they dictate, perhaps they need the slots themselves, perhaps their church restricts how their low level clergy use them, or we get into the next issue.

Fourth, commoners and the general people without class levels effectively have their racial hp and that's all. Spending money on a healer or on a potion or wand is pointless when you can rest up for a few days and be alright. In cases where the healing is urgent? They wouls porbably recieve magical healing but those cases would come along far less often.

Fifth, magic is substantially less awesome in pf2e. Most of those defensive spells you keep mentioning those past mostly 1 minute now, some last 10 minutes. When all casters have a very limited number of slots bundled with substantially shorter spells means that casters have to spend their slots wisely.
It's going to be rare seeing that king or queen who wants a thousand spellcasters on staff to refresh a spell on them every minute.

Lastly, resonance which exists to fix the issue of people utilizing more cost efficient low level magic items and trying to deck out their magic item slots. The only problem is people decked out their item slots to get as much of an advantage as they could because to some extent the games math expected it. In 2e theirs so few bonus types that resonance isn't even necessary and consummables are still as cost inefficient as they always have been when looking at stronger versions of the same item. All that's led to is more clerics to replace the clw wands. Resonance as a whole woulsn' be necessary if the basic design philosphy wasn't attrition of hp, so they tried to limit item based magical healing which has sort of worked? It's made a decent bit of people dissatisfied, but ultimately they simply don' want infinite healing if the party has to stop and rest occasionally problem solved for them.

Oh, and one last thing the choice of continuing on and suffering major side effects or resting to spend spell slots later isn't anymore or less of a choice and limitation then the current systems. People will stop and wait over accepting side effects unless there's a time crunch in which case the same is true for the current systems. If the adventuring day is 8 hours or 30 minutes doesn't matter if you accomplished the same amount of work.

Sorry for bumping up an oldish thread, but we just ran the fight with the centipedes last night (yes, we are very behind; hard to find a lot of time to play unfortunately) and we were all very confused by the poison too.

One of the things we could not find clearly was if, say, three centipedes each poisoned a target, was it considered poisoned once--but worse a stage--or poisoned three times and having to track each case of poisoning separately. (And therefore, do you need to make three saving throws per round or one?)

Reading the conversation above it looks like indeed yes, but several of us were looking at the rules and couldn't find anything. It doesn't mean it wasn't there, just we weren't looking in the right place. What we would see, the affliction rules talk about saving per round to move up or down a stage, but not how to deal with multiple doses of poison, that I could find. Of course I was trying to flip between the Bestiary, the afflictions page, and the specific poisons page, so I may well just have been flipping at the wrong point. (I really feel like the Bestiary needs to include things like specific poison/disease etc effects in it [though of course not the rules to run them per se]--I should not have to be flipping constantly between two books to figure out how a very basic monster ability works.)

All I can say is we probably should have had a TPK and didn't because we probably adjudicated the poison wrong. Well, that and the party withdrew and then the centipedes crit failed vs the sorcerer's burning hands spell, but that was just luck.

Page 325 Under heading Multiple Exposures

"Multiple exposures to the same affliction have no effect if it’s a curse or disease. However, for a poison, failing the initial saving throw against a new dose increases the stage by 1 (or by 2 if you critically fail) without affecting the maximum duration. This is true even if you’re within the poison’s onset period, though it doesn’t change the length of the onset period."

My understanding is basically multiple poison doses escalates the stage track without having to wait for the interval period but don't make the character immediately suffer the effect.

So in this case it seems like multiple poison doses could push the character to stage 2, but they wouldn't take poison damage again until the interval comes up for them to roll a fortitude save.

First choice, Summoner

Second choice, Kineticist

Class that needs the most work, Alchemist

Draco18s wrote:

The Break DC being 5 higher than the Thievery DC is intentional, but is based on the assumption that the door/chest is made out of comparable quality materials as the lock.

E.g. no one puts a bank vault lock on a prefab wooden door.

Which makes sense. But if Doomsday Dawn is anything to go by, it's expected that a door requires multiple Thievery attempts to open. If it requires more than 2, then breaking it down is actually a better bet because +5 to DC is much less of a penalty than requiring several rolls.

Thats looking at like a DC 25 athletics check for a standard lock which might be a problem, but under no pressure a character can attempt to break open a door 3 times a round and just has to roll till they get a nat 20.

This seems to be an odd situation to beginwith because even if you have almost no hope of picking it, enough attempts to break open is guaranteed to suceed.

The battle was surprisingly close though in the end the PCs prevailed. They made their way around until they came to the sealed door that the captured Cleric had told them about. Using detect Magic Roc could see that the door was glowing with mystical power and told the others as such. Trying to force it open had no effect. Their perception though revealed that there were four inlets in the door, round, about the size of the amulets that they each carried.

Just a minor comment here but, Detect Magic doesn't work that way anymore it's more like a sonar pulse that sends back a yes/no to is there magic within 30 feet.

There is a new cantrip, Read Aura, that effectively reveals a single targeted object as being magic or not but, takes 10 minutes to cast.

In this case it isn't really important as they would have found the holes in the wall either way.

I think they'll probably have Ghost Salts and such again soon.

Though I wish they had put that in thise core along with silversheen.

They could bring back force bombs again, the damage might have been low but at least almost nothing resisted force.

@graystone They could just pickup a magic weapon and swing away at the enemy but at that point why exactly do alchemist's even have bombs? The real good insult to injury is there is a magic item that gives an item bonus to throwing bombs, Greater Alchemist Goggles, which give exactly a +2 item bonus which is what empower bomb already grants at 19th level. Its nice to have a magic item that benefits only non-alchemists who throw bombs.

This might be an odd place to ask this but, do alchemists have any way of damaging incorporeal creatures? Bombs are nonmagical, they can't apply ghost touch, or even make their bomba magical, so ghosts and the like are 100% immune.

I do not see what is stopping each of the ettin's heads from controlling a single flail.

I probably worded that badly, what I meant was both heads can have a flail but they then lose the ability to use their fist for an agile weapon on second attacks. Basically the decision is +14/+9 at 2d6+5 or +14/+10 at 2d4+5.

It’s definitely a function of how much detail you want. Personally, I’d much rather they introduce gradations of wounds rather than encumbrance. The abstract nature of hit points is way, way more immersion breaking to me than bulk.

The situation of carrying twenty shields doesn’t come up much when we play, so all that matters is the overall effect (which seems roughly right most of the time in aggregate).

I always find the situation of high level PCs dying is much harder to grasp: I’m fine...I’m fine...I’m fine...I’m unconscious and dying. It still bugs me after years of playing.

Well I wouldn't be opposed to seeing a wound system over hp it was certainly something in Dark Heresy and the other 40k rpg line that kept death and dying a very real and immediate possibility even at high levels. I think something thats less gritty than that but more threatening than the current death and dying rules and hp would hit a good balance, though it might just be one of those things people would consider breaking from tradition.

I haven't done any in-depth analysis, but here's my initial analysis of the scenario:

The Monster's side: (Ettin only)
The party of 4 level 2 PCs will have an incredibly difficult time winning these fights. The Ettin hits on a 4 vs. a PC with AC 19, so its accuracy is 85%/65% and 85%/65% for its maximum 4 attacks per round, and 75% for each of its 2 possible Attacks of Opportunity.

Expected damage for each hit is:

First Strike (with Flail): 0.5 * (12) + 0.35 * (24) = 14.4
Second Strike (with Fist): 0.5 * (10) + 0.15 * (20) = 8

So on each of its turns, the Ettin is expected to deal 22.4 damage to a PC, or 2/3rd of the Fighter's hp in the example (34).

Expected damage for the AoO is:

0.5 * (12) + 0.25 * (24) = 12

Which is a bit more than 1/3rd of the Fighter's hp.

At low levels, PCs have fewer options to throw around, including fewer buffs, items etc. With how much damage the Ettin is expected to throw out (downing the Fighter in 3 attacks, on average), there is no good way to brute force this thing down. Even if the Ettin doesn't attack in round 1 and allows the PCs to surround it, once round 2 begins, it can start downing 1 person per round.

That's assuming the PCs are all Fighters with 19 AC and 34 hp.

The Party's side:

In reality, if the party is optimized for an encounter of 4 levels higher, they will eschew with spells and abilities that rely on a successful check or save to work, because the monster's saves will probably be too high for those to have an effect. For this exercise, I will pick a party of Bard/Cleric and 2 Shield Fighters.

The PCs start the fight with both Fighters having Magic Weapon cast on their weapons. Then the Ettin will probably have 2 turns in a row because its Perception check is so high (+14 vs. +6 for the Cleric, and +3-5 for the others). It'll spend its first turn moving up to melee range, and then its second turn almost killing a Fighter.

Then, the battle begins. Having the Ettin take 2 turns in a row may be a...

Not sure how much it will change the expected damage but the ettin is listed as having 2 flails, and each head only controls 1 arm which means each head has to choose to use only flail or only fist.

GreatCowGuru wrote:

...an empty vial has no weight and a filled vial weighs the same as padded armor, a javelin, a handcrossbow, or a light steel shield.

That's a "I've not completely grasped what bulk represents" issue, as the game does not in fact state anything even close to those items weighing the same.

Here's what the game does say: "The Bulk value of an item reflects how difficult an item is to handle, representing both weight and the size of the item."

Emphasis mine.

Thats actually exacty what the system insinuates by making all of those items have an identical bulk value, which isn't a real value but a nebulous amount less then 1 full bulk.

That being said lets look at two examples here then shall we. An empty vial weighs absolutely nothing even if you have 10 of them unless the GM decides otherwise, 10 filled vials automatically counts as 1 bulk. Lets compare that to your points of emphasis the filled vial is no more difficult to handle, is the same exact dimensions as the empty vial, the only difference is weight which jumps from nonexistent to .1 only it's 0 till you reach 10.

Second example filled vial versus padded armor. The vial is smaller the padded armor, more easily handled, so the weight would be the only point at which it could be bulkier then the padded armor. The question is, does a small glass vial holding 1 ounce of liquid weigh more then padded armor does to justify them being the same bulk. My personal answer absolutely not, but due to everything less then 1 bulk being categorized as light bulk they functionally fall into the same height, weight, ease of carrying range and that simply feels wrong.

All of that would generally be summed up as the point of my original post which is to say how do people feel about expanding bulk ranges and dealing with slightly larger numbers so there can be some actual specificityand differentation among the bulk of objects.

Just out of curiosity how would people feel about effectively multiplying the current bulk system by 10 and eliminating L bulk entirely.

Bulk capacity becomes (5 + str mod)*10
L bulk becomes a number from 1-9
1 bulk becomes a number from 10-19

And so on,that would at least eliminate odd cases where an empty vial has no weight and a filled vial weighs the same as padded armor, a javelin, a handcrossbow, or a light steel shield. You lose the general vague category numbers but you end up with things having more realistic relative weights.

As an added bonus a belt pouch would now hold 4 bulk rather then 4 L bulk which might hold like 4 filled potions but not 4 lught steel shields.

My chief concern with Resonance comes from the viewpoint of a Wizard character player. The limitations on spell slots is crippling for a Wizard. To address this we have to use scrolls or wands which now cost Resonance meaning we are limited in item usage along those lines as well plus we have to invest our magic items via Resonance. We're getting a double whammy here.

I do like what you are doing with the Resonance Point system and why you are doing it. I am all for it. However, I think we need to address spell slot numbers for the casters. We no longer gain extra spell slots for our high Intelligence scores so you could say that's a triple whammy to Wizards. I realize that some people think Wizards are overpowered and we are to an extent, but a triple whammy to spell slots has seriously underpowered us.

Something has to give here. I would like to keep Resonance working along the lines it currently is. I am happy to see the unlimited healing addressed via it along with the Christmas Tree effect. But we Wizards need to have some of the spell slots restored so that we are on a par with melee classes. I don't think we need the number of slots we had in PF1. Four was the limit per the Wizard table 3-16 plus a school slot and anywhere from 1 to 5 per Bonus spells due to Intelligence.

Granted, not everyone will have that high an Intelligence. Usually 3 bonus spells would be in play for a total of 8 spell slots for most Wizards for L1 spells, 7 spell slots for L2-4 spells by 11th level or so, and so on. I think to address the triple whammy imposed in PF2 Wizards should get 1 to 2 more spell slots per spell level spread out over the levels OR put the Bonus Spells back in due to high Intelligence scores.

I am personally in favor of the Bonus Spells due to high Intelligence being put back in.

Alchemists have it even worse spend resonance to actually have alchemical items for the day, want to benefit from class feats that actually add effects to your bombs spend resonance on quick alchemy inefficiently, at the same time having to save enough resonance aside to be able to use any magic items at all, and elixirs of life which require you to spend resonance to make and other people have to spend resonance to drink to heal less then an equivalent level potion or heal spell.

Yeah, after looking at their weaknesses ranging from around 7 to 15 increasing it by 5 is probably a good number. My only problem with going that way is that halving resistances benefits every attack against the target except for ones that would bypass the resistance while increasing weaknesses doesnt benefit regular attacks at all and only benefits attacks targeting the weakness. It ends up in sort of an inverse scenario to where im not sure it'll actually helps as much as originally intended.

Edit: Actually giving a damage bonus equal to half the demons weakness value on all attacks that don't target the weakness would probably be the most equivalent solution.

Example: Demon with resist 15/cold iron would have had its resist lowered to 8/cold iron making all attacks without cold iron weapons effectively do 7 more damage while cold iron weapons would overcome all resist effectively doing the full 15 extra

A demon with weakness 15 cold iron could recieve 7 bonus damage from all attacks that don't target its weakness and recieve the normal 15 bonus damage from cold iron.

A bit cumbersome.of a solution but probably the most accurate to how the adventure is written at the moment.

While reading through this section I noticed something odd, the stained glass window can be illuminated with a light spell by the PCs to halve the resistances of the current wave of demons. The only problem is the general design of monsters has been fewer resistances and more weaknesses so after checking the bestiary a total of 2 demons still have resistances.

Wrath demons with resist electricity 10 and the Devastator with resist 20 all (except adamantine or good). The devastator doesn't show up at all while Wrath demons only show up if you have 5 or more players.

Ultimately my question here is what should this actually do? This feels like an artifiact of an older version of monster design where demons still had resistances not weaknesses, personally I would probably make it increase their weakness by 1.5 or 2x or even make all of the PCs deal 5 or 10 good damage on all of their attacks for one wave.

A friend playing a rogue had lots of luck on the rolls, and picked that lock in 2 rounds (6 actions) without breaking anything. Thievery skill was +5 (+4 Dex, +1 level).

Later, he came up with a method to pick locks effectively. You need 2 lock pick sets - one broken and one normal. You begin with the broken set. As soon as you get a single success, you change to the working set - you can always trade off a success to save your tools. If you get back to zero successes, you change back to the broken set.

He ran some simulations using this method. The average time to open the lock was 12 actions (or possibly rounds, I am not quite sure I remember correctly), but the variation is HUGE - it can take from 3 to 50 tries. Since there is no appreciable danger and the only result of a fumble is lost successes/time, this can get VERY tedious for the rest of the group. Kind of a netrunner moment (from Shadowrun, netrunning (computer hacking) was a solo activity that could easily eat up half an evening's game time.)

BardicWander wrote:

While playing around with lockpicks and practice locks, did you ever break the picks while trying to open the locks?

That's a great question!

No.

This migth work very differently with lower-tech lockpicks, who are not made out of steel but out of iron or brass.

The thing that seems off about that is breaking an object with the broken condition should destroy it right? Logically that seems to be correct but I think the only place its spelled out is when objects take dents but crit failing a lock never mentions the tools taking a dent.

GreatCowGuru wrote:

Just mildly curious if this has come up in the thread as well, but Fighters in particuliar get expert, master, and legendary proficiency in their weapon group at levels much earlier then a Wizard, all spellcasters actually, get the same proficiency in their spellcasting, yet spellcasters lose their 12th and 16th level class feats while Fighters get the proficiencies as part of their free static progression. This stacks with weakened spells and fewer per day and really comes off as poor class design just because spellcasters get fewer core class options to justify being able to cast spells.

i think that's because of "free" spell powers from bloodlines and such taking the space of "class feats", not because of proficiency.

but that's just a general pf2 problem:

in general, there are a lot of stuff in the class feats that should have been baked into the base classes (just take a look at poor alchemist as an example, half his "class feats" should have been base features, I mean, he has to pay a lvl8 feat just o get his class dc to his class abilities...)

I do think that a lot of class feat trees need in general to be remade almost from scratch, and regardless of balance, not getting a class feat because of a reason or another just feels bad.

Oh I agree, with both that I can understand the 1st level class feat for spellcasters effectively being their spell point and first power but to lose 2 class feats for a +1 number boost which doesn't even put you ahead of the monster scaling it just keeps it on par feels terrible.

Also while it's a bit of a tangent I agree wholeheartedly about alchemists the most disapointing thing for me is being forced to use quick alchemy instead of your daily prep to benefit from any of their extra bomb effects that you've spent class features on.

Just mildly curious if this has come up in the thread as well, but Fighters in particuliar get expert, master, and legendary proficiency in their weapon group at levels much earlier then a Wizard, all spellcasters actually, get the same proficiency in their spellcasting, yet spellcasters lose their 12th and 16th level class feats while Fighters get the proficiencies as part of their free static progression. This stacks with weakened spells and fewer per day and really comes off as poor class design just because spellcasters get fewer core class options to justify being able to cast spells.

All right, new data, with new runs.

For this analysis, I took Mark's suggestion of giving Barbarian the same Proficiency Progression as a Ranger (Expert at 3rd, Master at 13th), and gave the Ranger a Greatsword but otherwise the same.

The data looks much better. I did levels 1-12, 100,000 3-round combats as before, and the results by level show Fighter first, Barbarian second, and Ranger third.

The Barbarian stays within 10% of the damage output of the fighter, and the Ranger, while lagging at times, gets noticeable improvements when they receive more damage dice. Interestingly, the CoV for the Ranger is now the highest.

I obviously cannot speak for Mark or the other developers, but I would think Fighter vs. Barbarian damage numbers at this point look to be in good shape, while the Ranger has okay damage, but its other issues that have been highlighted probably still make it quite weak.

1:
F: 26.75
B: 26.98
R: 21.72

2:
26.821
27.047
21.678

3:
26.802
28.934
21.819

4:
43.457
42.037
38.54

5:
43.351
41.944
38.525

6:
43.417
41.874
38.523

7:
43.431
44.057
40.767

8:
60.054
56.903
57.764

9:
59.901
57.001
57.452

10:
62.575
58.914
57.715

11:
62.366
60.779
57.781

12:
78.914
73.92
76.827

On the greatsword ranger did you keep the same action setup from the bow ranger? I ask because the assumption of the fighter and barbarian using sudden charge on the first round to approach the target would require the greatsword ranger to need to stride once or twice based on the assumed distance to the target.

I'll be honest: not really. At level 3 (assuming wisdom 12) you'll have +5 to the roll. Your chance at crit failing is fairly low. If you use a healer's kit that gives you another +1.

It's a lot worse then you might think in that example you have a total of +6 to medicine with the healer's kit this gives us

Crit Failure 20% average damage 5.5
Failure 50% average damage/healing 0
Success 25% average healing 6.5
Crit Success 5% average healing 12

Which averages out to only 1.125 hp recovered per target per use.

The potential amount isn't necessarily the issue so much as the likely results of the roll being 70% to not recover hp when used.

The sample char used above with a 16 wisdom has somewhat better odds with their +8 on this same roll.

Crit Failure 10% average damage 5.5
Failure 50% average damage/healing 0
Success 35% average healing 8.5
Crit Success 5% average healing 14

Which gives us an average result of 3.125 hp recovered per target.

Again I feel like the issue where non-spellcaster healers fall short early on is in consistency of their healing which heavily impacts their perfomrance into being very swingy, that is if my math is at all correct.

I really don't see where people are are finding issues with the shield block and item damage rules so lets try to break it all down together.

An item can be destroyed if it takes damage enough times. An item reduces any damage dealt to it by its Hardness. The Hardness of various materials is explained in the Materials section on page 354. If an item takes damage equal to or exceeding the item’s Hardness, the item takes a Dent. If the item takes damage equal to or greater than twice its Hardness in one hit, it takes 2 Dents.

You snap your shield into place to deflect a blow. Your shield prevents you from taking an amount of damage up to its Hardness—the shield takes this damage instead, possibly becoming dented or broken. See page 175 for rules on dented and broken items.

Alright so when you shield block your shield reduces the damage you take by its hardness the shield also takes this full damage value as well.

Step 1 Reduce damage to the character by the shields hardness value.
Step 2 The shield does the same for itself.
Step 3 The shield takes a number of dents equal to how many times the remaining damage can equal its hardness.

Example A hardness 5 shield is used to shield block a hit for 11 damage. The character blocking would take 6 damage. The shield wouls reduce the 11 damage against itself by 5 points leaving it taking 6 damage as well. Since that value of 6 hits the items hardness of 5 one time leaving a remainder of 1 damage the shield takes a single dent.

Yes, I do see the point David was making about shield block not functioning by raw as the wording really needs to read more like.

"Your shield prevents you from taking an amount of damage up to its hardness-the shield then takes the full damage of the attack, possibly becoming dented or broken."

I think what we might be forgetting here is all items reduce damage dealt to them by their hardness. A shield with 5 hardness gets raised for a shield block. The monster rolls 9 damage to the hero. The hero takes 4 damage and the shield does NOT dent, because the shield only took 4 damage.

If we read page 175 under "Item damage," it states in the second line, "An item reduces any damage dealt to it by its Hardness." They even give an example in the section too.

Just to add to that the example in that same section on page 175

"For instance, a wooden shield (Hardness 3) that takes 10 damage would take 2 Dents."

Blocking 9 or less before denting at early levels isn't terrible I think thats also where the shields had 9 hardness before misconception came from.

Building another character based on Shepherd Grim my halfling Paladin of Erastil.

1) Making a ranged halfling Paladin is very frustrating in this system.
2) Where are the riding dogs? Yes it makes a difference.

Paizo there is so much to love about this new system, but I am almost immediately running up against the edges of it with characters I could make fairly easily in Pathfinder 1st Edition with just a CRB.

When I play a character against type, it doesn't mean I'm picking Botany as a skill, it means I want to use a character's strengths (for halflings that's ranged combat, and riding dogs) to express the class I'm playing.

Necromancers who can't create skelemans, and Paladins who are bad at range because they must be clad in heavy armor to benefit from their class features are some stumbling blocks I'm having with character generation here.

Quite honestly at this point I'm concerned how animate dead/create undead will even turn out when summon monster has been reduced to summoning 1 monster only and requiring 1 concentration action to maintain said creature as well as grant them their 2 actions and they're unable to take reactions.

All in all it feels like they might be constricting a bit too much in minion related options for all classes that use to get them.

Page 128 "At 2nd level, you gain a sorcerer class feat. You gain another at 4th, 8th, 14th, 18th, and 20th levels." Seems like they should get an additional class feat at 10th like the other casters as 12th and 16th are when the spellcasting proficiency increases are.

SUMMON MONSTER to me seems like it was nerfed beyond what it needed to be. Can only summon 1 monster now, use an action to give the monster 2 actions, if you don't concentrate to give the monster actions the spell ends because it requires concentration every turn or the spell ends early, monster cant take reactions, and the level scaling seems as bad as in pf1 despite in pf1 being able to summon multiple weaker monsters and not having to deal with the 4 levels of success.

Heightened (2nd) Level 1.
Heightened (3rd) Level 2.
Heightened (4th) Level 3.
Heightened (5th) Level 5.
Heightened (6th) Level 7.
Heightened (7th) Level 9.
Heightened (8th) Level 11.
Heightened (9th) Level 13.
Heightened (10th) Level 15.

So even with a 10th level spell slot you can summon a monster most likely 5 levels lower then anything you're dealing with and with a 9th 7 levels lower. Oh, on a similiar note GATE can no longer be used as a calling spell its just transportation now, and while neither of these are game changers I seriously doubt summon monster will see much use now and gate is only useful because plane shift is an uncommon rarity spell now and all tuning forks for the common planes are uncommon while demiplanes and the less common planes have rare tuning forks.

I'm thinking they might have cut them for the playtest as in pf1 at least they're treated as evil options. That being said I too am curious if this is just because its the playtest and not cutting them as player options because they couldnt find a way to "balance" them.

And for your second answer... The playtest is played with pre-made characters... I asume they got a list of what that Iconic Wizard was carrying?

Just wanted to comment that unless you were referring to the sample games at conventions and such so far that this is absoluely incorrect. During the playtest period and for the playtest adventure the devs have stated wanting to test character creation extensively and will not be using pre-made characters.

As to the other point the int modifier + x is for raising untrained skills to trained and only skills as are the skill increaes gained every other level, Mark has stated that increasing saves, weapon and armor proficiencies outside of your class features will be much rarer if you will be able to at all in certain cases. I would assume you could still take a general feat to become trained with all simple weapons but thats quite a cost seeing as we ony get 5 general feats as far as I remember.

While I'm sure it's much too early to say that the ki abilities are weak or downgraded from pf1 I do have some concerns with how long it will take for them to really come online. The example we have for the only entry into ki powers in the playtest feels very underwhelming to spend a point from a limited pool to get a +1 bonus to a single attack roll. I understand the math in pf2 is much tighter so even a +1 bonus is useful but for spending a spell point I don't see why it wouldnt at the very least be for

1. All attacks this round

2. A bonus to attack and damage

Hopefully the ability scales to some degree that we haven't seen otherwise I have serious doubts it will ever see use once other ki powers have been taken making it seem quickly obsolete.

Catharsis wrote:

Good stuff overall. I'm wondering whether the rage-cycling won't require an uncharacteristic amount of bookkeeping and strategic considerations for a Barbarian, though.

Also, that bit about being a primary healer was super vague... given that we've had two blogs about skills already, wouldn't it be fair game to divulge how the Medicine skill works, assuming that's what's going on here? Can it be used an unlimited number of times per day...? Is there some sort of resource depletion?

You don't have everything you need yet for Linda's barbarian. Combat Medic is part of the picture though.

Some sort of herbalism natural concoctions from nature as well maybe?

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Let me guess what's next, Legendary Stealth allows a "Hide in Plain Sight" skill feat that grants a form of Invisbility, something that 2nd level+ Arcane Spellcasters can do? Cool, sure, but you could at least raise it to Improved Invisibility for a Legendary Skill + Feat.

Here is something that was posted with the Rogue section of the Hail the Gauntlet blog:

"And finally, Hidden Paragon lets you go completely invisible, even beyond the sight of true seeing, see invisibility and the like and impossible to outline with even glitterdust, faerie fire, or similar magic!"

You might be underestimating some of these skill feats a bit.

Also, keep in mind, the Legendary Medic feat lets you cure these things at no cost of spellslots. In a game that seems to be reducing the spellslot number a bit, that's useful.

Hidden Paragon is a rogue class feat not a skill feat and is effectively the capstone ninja feature from PF1e so presumably still a capstone ability.

GreatCowGuru wrote:

They just havent charged yet, they've said the payment option will be charged in late July before the books ship out.

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2uzw6?Pathfinder-Playtest-Preorder-and-Fulfillm ent-QA

Awesome, thank you :)

(Linkified your link in the quote in case it's helpful to others as well.)

No problem also ninja'd me fixing the link.

They just havent charged yet, they've said the payment option will be charged in late July before the books ship out.

Predorder FAQ

Sebastian Hirsch wrote:

I was kinda hoping that magic missile would no longer be an auto hit..

It was even an autohit in D&D 4th ed. It was always going to be an autohit.

Not sure if someone else mentioned this yet, but in 4e magic missile actually required an attack roll initially. It was errata'd to be an autohit after a lot of outrage which is why it's probably not a good idea to do that again.

^Oops, I somehow excised the spell between Grove of Respite and Stone Tell . . . then when I heard people talking about 10th level spell in a Pathfinder 2nd Edition thread, I thought they meant a 10th tier spell.

Yep the classic case of caster level, class level, character level, and spell level getting mixed together, tangentially to that makes me wonder how contigency will work in 2e with caster level no longer playing a role. Also my vote for strongest god is Aroden clearly just waiting it out to come back and command a horde of starstone ascended dieties.

Pounce wrote:

Isn't a part of the Awaken Nature Oracle loop to cast Miracle -> Contingency, for a simple "When Intelligence has been drained to <3, cast Awaken" contingency? Simple and self-contained.

I thought of that, but since Awaken isn't a Cleric/Oracle spell(*), you would have to use Miracle to duplicate it, and Miracle is too high level to work with Contingency.

(*)And if it turns out to be indeed a 10th level Nature Mystery spell, its level is too high to work with Contingency.

Awaken is indeed the 10th level nature oracle bonus spell coming in as a 5th level spell meaning you only need to be caster level 15th to set it up with Contigency, which in turn is only a 6th level spell and easily duplicated by Miracle which can duplicate any spell of 7th level or lower.

Deadmanwalking wrote:

Volkard Abendroth wrote:

Congradulations, you've just taken my level 1 wizard and effectively told him to pound sand.

In PF1 he could Magic Missile or Disrupt Undead with meaningful results. Now, only half as effective. You've doubled the hit points and while nearly all of my wizard's spells would have bypassed DR, they now deal a far smaller percentage of the zombies total hp in damage.

Well, in PF2, you can do 3d4+3 with Magic Missile at 1st level if you like (and invest 3 actions). That's a larger percentage of their HP than the 1d4+1 in PF1 is (10.5 is north of 1/2 the PF2 zombie's HP, while 3.5 is only a bit over 1/3 of a PF1 zombie's). And they probably have Positive Energy vulnerability, which might apply to Disrupt Undead.

And that's against the unfavorable zombie. Against skeletons, three missiles focus-fired guarantees a kill, and a gambler could take out one skeleton with two missiles and hurt another one significantly with the third. Plus touch attacks against zombies tend to crit those guys for even more damage!

Just because of the wording, I'm curious if the mention of touch attacks being easier was just a generalized statement because so many spells target touch AC NOT because magic missiles have an attack roll now right?

Question: Does a mob of level 1 alchemists with fire bombs just win against anything weak to fire?

You are pretty much guaranteed 1 point of splash damage, a feat grants you + INT (which will almost certainly be +4) and the extra weakness looks to be an additional +5. That's 10 damage per alchemist that can get into throwing range of a frost giant...or a white dragon. (more if the get a nat 20!)

If this is the case, that seems like an oversight.

Keep in mind both armor and level contribute to touch AC now, gone are the days of dragons with 3 touch ac.

As far as making everyone happy goes, here's where I'd be willing to compromise: Make a class with the following features.

Alignment: Any
Primary feature: Martial combat.
Secondary feature: Healing and buffing.
Stat focus: Charisma instead of Wisdom (this is the big deal for me; I like Charisma. I like expressive characters.)

Do it in a blend reasonably close to what the Paladin has and I will be totally satisfied. You can call it the Crusader or the Zealot or the Cobra Kai Never Dies or whatever, it doesn't have to be called 'Paladin.' Doesn't even have to be mechanically identical to Paladin. Just has to be 'melee primary, with some modest access to healing and buffs to do nice things for their teammates from time to time' and I'm totally happy with it.

Problem is Paizo has a very poor history with actually providing this. I don't trust them to make good on it now, not when every previous attempt at it has been so low-quality and not fun to play.

I want a specific, clear commitment to a real take on this idea before I'll be satisfied. I want details and timelines. Vague assurances on this particular topic are worth very little from Paizo because they have consistently shown throughout the last several years that they're aware players want this sort of thing but their attempts have all been really lacking in the end. I don't use Martial Artist on Monk, nor Grey Paladin on Paladin.

I'm not trying to banish the Shining White Knight Atop A Charger from Pathfinder. I'm trying to get Martial Primary plus Some Healing And Buffing on a Charisma-driven class without being tied to Lawful Good. PF1E doesn't have any good options for this (I won't say 'no options at all', because it does have them, they just suck).

All told, I'm very upset by this decision and it has gutted my interest in PF2E. Which is a shame, because up until now they had been making some interesting changes which I supported. I trusted Paizo enough to drop the $60 or so for the special playtest book. And right now, I...

Just pointing out if you haven't already you can attempt to just cancel your order through paizo customer service as whatever payment method used isn't even being charged until late July.

On the opposite side of this, I hope this get rid of all 'generic' magic items aka +1 sword, +1 armor, generic AC bonus items. Boring 'must have' items that simply add numbers. I know that a +1 sword is the most classic item in D&D, but I think it's time to lay the concept to rest in favor of more interesting items.

Rather then get rid of +n weapons it seems more like they're attempting to make them more unqiue, i don't recall off the top of my head where it was first stated but even a +1 longsword could be more unique in that it could possess the ability to shoot searing rays from it via spending resonance. On top of the fact that they're becoming more unique, im hoping for a list/table of unqiue traits for different + levels of weapons, a +1 longsword would no longer do 1d8+1 but rather 2d8.

Bardarok wrote:

Mathmuse wrote:

"Why would need a magic armor though if your ac already increases by your level?" But AC does not improve with level. Is this something out of Pathfinder Unchained?

They have been pretty cagey about how AC works in second edition. The notion that it progresses with level comes from statements that all proficiencies act the same including armor proficiency and it is known that proficiency scales with level. Some(me) are thinking that AC might scale the same as spell save DC and different armor types are represented in some other way, maybe damage reduction or other abilities.

Example:

Untrained: Lvl -2, DC/AC = 8 + Lvl
Trained: Lvl, , DC/AC = 10 + Lvl
Expert: Lvl +1, DC/AC = 11 + Lvl
Master: Lvl +2, DC/AC = 12 + Lvl
Legendary: Lvl +3, DC/AC = 13 + Lvl

But that's still just wild speculation at this point.

My money would be on the Starfinder system. You buy new armor every level or two thats 1 AC stronger than the previous armor.

I find that relatively unlikely given one of Mark's comments in todays blog that they want few or no armor types to be useless, much as they're trying to do with weapons and the weapon blog already shows that they're not using a starfinder item level system.

Friendly Rogue wrote:

The Sightless Swordsman wrote:

This is also why messers are inferior weapons because you cannot end your opponent rightly.

I'm still waiting for when Paizo finally adds stats for sword pommels, but odds are they'd likely be too OP, what with them being able to completely demolish entire villages and what not.

Also, Excalibur's scabbard was actually more OP than Excalibur itself.

So what are our chances of getting some magical scabbards this time around?