Guntermench's page

I was wondering whether I should answer to this but I decided that yes it's better to address this.

Yes, there are other classes that can use the divine spells list and there are other classes with similar mechanics like medicine. At no point did I ever claim the cleric was the only healer or the only one with access to the divine spell list. I'm not sure where people got that from.

If any of you want to discuss whether occult or primal casters are as good at healing or whether other classes can be as good as a dedicated cleric with a healing font, we can make a thread about that.

However, what I'm talking about is how restrictions and mandatory behavior may affect players who may, for one reason or another, feel uncomfortable about it.

It's a matter of inclusivity and accessibility. Just as people should not be forced to engage with 18+ themes or other themes that require a trigger warning, people should equally not be forced to interact with the worship of fictional deities, especially in a world where people will sometimes beat and murder each other for worshiping in the wrong way.

Yes, I'm sure there are some atheists who don't mind and some religious people who have no issue with just playing another class. I never said every single atheist and theist had a problem with it.

I also never said clerics, deities, or anathemas should be erased, I only said people who may have a serious issue with religious themes should have an option to have similar mechanics.

I never said PF2 was an MMO or that it should be an MMO, it was just one example of how people from other games may feel like they want to play that specific character and I'm not sure why people are so hung up on that.

I never said healers are being forced to pick a cleric. I'm just questioning the claim that because they picked a cleric they did so because they wanted to have or liked the restrictions. I'm merely pointing out that saying they consented to it so they can't complain is dishonest.

I feel like what I said is at...

Inclusivity is covered by having so many options. Uncomfortable with deities? Pick one of the well over a dozen classes that don't interact with them. Done.

The literal real world definition of a cleric is a religious leader. The general TTRPG definition is a religious character. If someone picks it expecting not having to deal with religion because they don't like it, they're kind of asking to be uncomfortable. There's no context for this where they don't know what they're getting into, unless they're the most wilfully ignorant person on the planet.

Yes.

Thematic stuff is cool. The player always has the option of not doing it and facing the consequences. They also have the option of not taking it in the first place.

If I ever GM again I'm just going to use the simple DCs. Start at Untrained DC 10, bump it every 5 levels, adjust higher for Uncommon and Rare or for individual specific Unique info. So 1-5 DC 10, 6-10 DC 15, 11-15 DC 20, 16-20 DC 30.

What's the worst that could happen, someone actually uses Recall knowledge?

"It is fine for this one character a player gets to play to have this one ability a few levels early" is really not the same at all as "lets make new ancestries that just give multiple high level feats away for free and never go back and touch old flying ancestries..."

...which I agree would be a very problematic power creep problem. I really don't think that is likely. It is good that there are narrative assumptions about Pathfinder that are different from Starfinder. They are two different games and they fill different genres, with different audience expectations. Even if it was decided it was fine to let flight be one of those 1st level common abilities in PF2, it would be problematic not to errata everything that should give a level 1 flight speed into just doing so. I just don't think such an effort would be worth while as it would span stuff from multiple different books and change word counts significantly for pages where an ancestry had multiple feats tied up in it. I just see no vaule in worrying that something like that is in the pipeline just because a couple of Society players got special access to making one character with a special cross-game ancestry.

You can not think it's likely all you want, but you can't say it's impossible.

They have encouraged people to use both systems together despite the difference in baseline assumptions. The door is now open, the cat is now out of the bag. This is not a Society issue. This is a "it's literally on page one of Starfinder 2e" issue.

People really need to remember that the simple DCs exist more often.

Teridax wrote:

Unicore wrote:

I don't think one time events really get to decide "power creep" for a system. It is not the system itself breaking.

As mentioned already in the comment you are quoting, I am not claiming this is power creep, so I’m not sure where your reply is really coming from. I am, however, pointing out that the issue being discussed stems from cross-pollination between the two systems, which is not a “one time event”, and I don’t think you get to be the sole decider here of what does or doesn’t count as breaking the system, by whatever vague and undefined metric it is we’re even using. There clearly are issues porting content from one system to the other, and that much is worth acknowledging.

Unicore wrote:

SF2 is compatible with PF2 but will change many basic assumptions about the game. This is not something that should catch anyone by surprise.

Perhaps not, but the specifics of what those assumptions are easily can and clearly did. Knowing that the two systems are different does not mean everyone will automatically know what to look out for, otherwise those flying ancestries would likely not have been allowed in PFS without adjustments. If we want to avoid more of this in the future, whether in Society play or at people’s tables, we should probably make explicit what those systems implicitly assume to be different, and Paizo could do with giving us a conversion guide.

The Starfinder GM core has a specific section for dealing with this, on page 246. It talks specifically about ancestries and movement types. So the tools you are asking for already exist.

In this one specific instance, Society decided to allow something that pushes against the default assumptions of the pathfinder system. That is not a systemic issue, and it is not even really that big of a society issue because of the one character, one time nature of the boon.

The OP of this thread was talking about whether this was a sign of the floodgates of power creep on the PF2...

It does open the door though.

If they look at the results and go "this is fine", they'll be more inclined to add more stuff earlier.

Basically, one of my goals is trying to see if people have experience with significant Ready:____ use, so that I / thread readers don't stumble into some rules (or balance!) problem as blindly as they would have otherwise.

I have experience with this and the other common Ready question of trying to Stun things. In short: neither are fun.

For one thing a fight that should have taken maybe an hour at most took two, and that's only because we eventually agreed to pretend the tactic didn't exist after nothing had happened for a little over an hour. It had very rapidly devolved into no one doing anything because avoiding damage took up most resources and while one could consider it tactical I and everyone else considered it to be a waste of time.

The only tactics I've seen like this that was cool was someone Readying to shove an enemy off a cliff as soon as another character had used Whirling Throw to get the target to the edge, and when I had a pair of NPCs team up to Disarm one of the players.

Edit: Also, I'm on the side that this shouldn't work the way you want it to regardless and have been since before this. It's just not good to allow to begin with, and if you want to get really picky about the rules as far as I know nothing says a target needs to stay in your reach for the duration of the Strike, they just have to be in range when you target them.

Gortle wrote:

Mangaholic13 wrote:

The scaling problem with assurance is that it doesn't include ability score bonus and item bonus. Ability score can get as high as +7 , status bonus of +3 and item +3 before doing anything extreme. Which means taking a 10 to ignore those modifiers is eventually like choosing to roll a zero.

That is pretty sad. Pretty much why I don't ever take something like this in PF2. They set the difficulty at 10 with all your modifiers in place for anything remotely meaningful.

Generally, meaningful isn't going to be basic though.

Assurance suffers from there being no reliable DC modifiers.

Lore skills are the only ones with a reliable DC modifier, but they're so specific that they're not worth investing skill feats into during normal campaigns. You'd need a special campaign like Spore Wars where Additional Lore (Demons) + Assurance + Automatic Knowledge pays off.

Mostly it suffers from GM's (in my experience) being fixated on level based DCs instead of simple ones and not knowing or caring that the adjustments table exists.

Even in the worst circumstances, you can perform basic tasks.

Keyword is "basic". Things a couple level lower than you, things your level with an easy or very easy modifier, trained and after not particularly long expert level flat DCs. All easily covered by Assurance no matter the situation.

It's not supposed to let you just do on level tasks always and forever.

I just apply the damage from indiscriminate AoEs to everything in the area. This includes structures and objects.

"Player Core Page.404" Saving Throws wrote:

Most of the time, when you attempt a saving throw, you don't have to use your actions or your reaction. You don't even need to be able to act to attempt saving throws.

The exact inworld reasons behind it is unexplained but examples given in the past is that paralyzed and stunned does not completely take away someone's ability to move their body, A paralyzed creature remains upright for example so they can still keep their balance.

Going to need to grab that for the pile of "Can't act" support.

Anyway it probably should, like unconscious, have a penalty to reflex saves.

Alright I will clarify: they've wilfully ignored it in every discussion brought up about it on this forum and Reddit.

Because it's been brought up in all of them, and people just point at the gaining and losing actions and ignore you can't act and the supporting links entirely calling it flavour text.

That clears up a lot Guntermench. Thank you for posting those sections.

And I can see now there is no such parallel for the phrase You’ve become senseless.

The thing is...this has always been the wording. This has been the case since release, it didn't change with the remaster.

People just ignore it.

Like the stunned description and "you can't act". Is the inability to act descriptive? What does it mean if anything? Nothing else within the ability indicates an inability to take reactions, but some people seem dead set on saying you can't take reactions. And confusingly it seemed like at least one person said the "you can't act" was descriptive text and should be ignored, but also claimed you couldn't take reactions (which isn't otherwise supported in the text).

The only problem is "You can't act" gets it's rules elsewhere.

It's in the Step 2: Act rules of Turns:

If you can't act, you can't use any actions, including reactions and free actions.

It's right there. You can use no actions, reactions or free actions. You also can't speak, and that's in yet another spot, the Basic Actions rules:

As long as you can act, you can also speak.

Effectively, you are as screwed as if you're Petrified, Unconscious or Dead while Stunned, and more screwed than Paralyzed which has a slightly weaker version of being unable to act. The action cost is the duration of the effect and a secondary effect, not the whole of effect itself. For as long as you have the condition you cannot do anything.

But wait, if you get rid of flavour text then people will actually have to play Stunned correctly...

Those you only get once

Obviously.

That's not what I meant.

I meant that you get a lot from dual class even without the one attribute boost.

Like better proficiencies, better HP, etc.

Unless you specifically avoid them anyway.

Guntermench wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

I give both. Why play dual class if you can't max out both key stats.

Because it still gives you a s*!&load of stuff.

The stuff only matters if it is effective which is driven by stats. So an unequal stat would push you towards the stuff using the higher stat.

I have played quite a few dual class games. Often all that stuff doesn't get used because action limitations always limit stuff.

A lot of it is excessive and sits there on the character looking like an option you never use.

What I like it for is when players don't want to play the healer or the support casters to give the players who don't like these roles the option to play these roles without having to give up playing a martial role they have more fun playing.

The biggest problem is with mixing martials that create stacking enhanced damage. Then you have monster classes that do this narrow thing too well. So I tend to use dual class to ensure caster-martial balance in a group not allowing martial dual classes.

Dual class casters have a natural bottleneck on power because action limitations limit spell use and caster abilities are set up very well not to stack.

Martial dual classes are the bigger danger when it comes to overpowered combinations. They often use the same stat anyway.

So giving both a key stat in a martial stat and a caster stat, which is how I usually structure dual class games makes the caster abilities and martial abilities equally attractive to use at least causing the player to choose between too equally viable options to use in a given round where as if I just give them the martial stat or caster stat they will almost always pick the martial stat and lean in that direction as it improves an unlimited resource they can enhance with weaker casting.

So I give both so the options are equally viable so when they pick from that "S-load of stuff" they don't feel one is clearly better than the other.

I was referring more to things like more skill increases and/or just better proficiencies.

I give both. Why play dual class if you can't max out both key stats.

Because it still gives you a shitload of stuff.

Guntermench wrote:

It's functionally identical to Keen Recollection, do you ban that too?

I treat it the same way, so it applies to the core skills, not "I'm going to use a hyper specific lore for the creature that just appeared in front of me" on literally everything that they're not a Master in the appropriate skill for.

The purpose is literally that they're good at things that aren't their specialty:

You can recall pertinent facts on topics that aren’t your specialty.

You're even more punitive than I am.

Luke Styer wrote:

Because Bob wanted to be good at identifying creatures, Bob selected Untrained Improvisation.

Except this makes no real sense in a game where options like Loremaster and Bardic Lore exist, both of which require more investment to do this specific thing and yet are strictly worse than Untrained Improvisation if you allow it for every Lore in the game.

There's no reason for either of those options to even exist if the actual design intent is "take Untrained Improvisation and just pretend like you have a lore skill for literally everything in existence." Especially when both of those are strictly limited to Recall Knowledge and Lore skills aren't when a relevant situation pops up.

Quote:

That’s my point. At level 1, Rules As Written, an untrained [Specific Lore] check to Recall Knowledge to identify a creature is better than a trained Occultism check to Recall Knowledge to identify a creature. That has nothing to do with Untrained Improvisation, which is a level 3 feat. The “problem” exists completely independently of Untrained Improvisation.

The part that makes Untrained Improvisation relevant to that discussion is that the feat makes the problem still exist at level 5 when it otherwise wouldn't. With the feat, using "super specific lore for this singular named creature that I never mentioned knowing about until right now" is better than someone who is an Expert in the relevant skill, and also better than someone with Bardic Lore/Loremaster Lore, both of which are supposed to be for this exact purpose (since those are only trained at this level).

But yes, it is also a problem at level 1 even without it the feat if its allowed. That just normally ceases to be a problem so quickly that it rarely comes up in practice.

I just don't allow it at all for consistency.

It's functionally identical to Keen Recollection, do you ban that too?

Guntermench wrote:

I think they mean you can improvise Golem Lore and be better than someone that's Expert in Arcana or Crafting.

However this is largely solvable by just making people guess what to use instead of just assuming they use the most appropriate thing.

Also Investigators get this for free on Recall Knowledge.

Eh, I really don't think the guessing game is a good general solution. It goes in really hard on "What is and isn't a lore" to resolve mechanical issues. "Monsters of the Absalom Sewers Lore" is certainly something I'd let a player take, but now there's no guessing for a dungeon and improvisation is the better choice. Or you don't allow something like that, and now it's a question of how good the player is at guessing the sort of creature it is, which is a fairly metagame-y thing. (It might be fun for particular groups, of course, with it actually being an intentionally meta game of "how specific do you want to risk the lore you choose to be, weighing a better reduction vs. missing the mark and getting very little".)

But yeah, that's definitely what I mean, and thank you for the good example.

They could definitely guess something more general, then narrow it down if they're correct for the future more difficult attempts. This is perfectly reasonable.

I mean more if they're untrained in everything and they're literally just guessing (in character anyway) that giving them the best case option is kind of silly.

Guntermench wrote:

However this is largely solvable by just making people guess what to use instead of just assuming they use the most appropriate thing.

Outside of weird corner cases like “Is this Osyluth an undead or a fiend, that seems SUPER antagonistic GM behavior to me, and I say that as a GM.

I honestly don’t understand the why so many GMs seem to want to make Recall Knowledge checks harder or less efficacious. I love when my players make Recall Knowledge checks, so I like almost any option that encourages it.

In this particular case it's because they're literally taking a shot in the dark. They are less recalling knowledge and more bullshitting and hoping they're correct.

That’s my point. At level 1, Rules As Written, an untrained [Specific Lore] check to Recall Knowledge to identify a creature is better than a trained Occultism check to Recall Knowledge to identify a creature. That has nothing to do with Untrained Improvisation, which is a level 3 feat. The “problem” exists completely independently of Untrained Improvisation.

Only if they get to be correctly super specific, which seems overly generous on a first attempt.

QuidEst wrote:

I'd generally chuck this under the "does this interpretation sound too good to be true?" rule of thumb. If one general feat allowed you to apply a -5 to the DC of recall knowledge checks, then it would be better than Expert in the relevant skill.

Putting aside the fact that Untrained Improvisation doesn’t allow “you to apply a -5 to the DC of recall knowledge checks,” but rather allows you to make a check you were already able to make with a proficiency bonus greater than 0, how is that better than “Expert in the relevant skill”? Expert in the relevant skill provides a proficiency bonus of Level + 4, which is always higher than Untrained Improvisation ever goes, and you also get enjoy whatever reduction to DC applies when you use the skill to Recall Knowledge.

Quote:

It would also mean that at level 1, you should never roll Arcana, Occultism, Society, or Crafting to recall knowledge on any character, because the +3 from a trained skill will always be worse than the -5 to DC from an untrained specific lore.

If a specific Lore skill exists, sure, though that’s an entirely separate “problem” from using Untrained Improvisation to Recall Knowledge with Lore skills.

I think they mean you can improvise Golem Lore and be better than someone that's Expert in Arcana or Crafting.

However this is largely solvable by just making people guess what to use instead of just assuming they use the most appropriate thing.

Also Investigators get this for free on Recall Knowledge.

I imagine "You can do it!" in a Rob Schneider voice.

Pretty much.

And because it's both so effective and free it's used constantly.

It's so f$#+ing obnoxious.

F#~+ One For All.

I hate that god damn feat.

Character ends up going "you can di it!" for every god damn thing the entire party does. No one can just do their thing without another player chiming in with "I rolled over a 25, you get a +2/3/4!".

Since it costs nothing it's every. Single. F~!~ing. Roll. No one gets a solo moment to shine because someone decided having a cheerleader feat was a good idea. Except the cheerleader of course, because they can't Aid themselves.

Holy hell I wish that feat had never been printed.

Even without my personal vehement hatred of the RP aspect it also makes it too consistent easily getting a huge bonus.

Guntermench wrote:

By RAW you don't roll some "Untrained Improvisation" check, you roll the check the same as anything else, so it would get the lore adjustment.

With that said, I probably wouldn't help them pick the most appropriate lore to use. If they get lucky they get lucky, or if someone has narrowed down the options go nuts. Otherwise you're improvising, it's a shot in the dark. It's really only problematic when you have someone that knows a s%!#load about the game and can metagame choose the best option every time.

All of that said, and even though it's generally not problematic, I do find this to be extremely stupid.

The problem here is in the phrase "the lore adjustment" suggesting that that's some fixed adjustment that exists. The only lore adjustments are ones the GM decides are appropriate to apply.

It's a convenient shorthand, I didn't mean there was some set in stone adjustment.

If they're improvising dragon lore against a dragon it's still appropriate, so typically that would result in a lower DC.

The adjustments themselves are outlined though. So you'll either get a -2, -5 or -10. Any of those help when you don't have any proficiency.

By RAW you don't roll some "Untrained Improvisation" check, you roll the check the same as anything else, so it would get the lore adjustment.

With that said, I probably wouldn't help them pick the most appropriate lore to use. If they get lucky they get lucky, or if someone has narrowed down the options go nuts. Otherwise you're improvising, it's a shot in the dark. It's really only problematic when you have someone that knows a shitload about the game and can metagame choose the best option every time.

All of that said, and even though it's generally not problematic, I do find this to be extremely stupid.

Literally only want Synthesist.

It specifies the skill to be rolled, not just the action.

I think people just need to stop with selective reading.

Allowing is allowing you to take them because the feat rules say you can only take feats with the general trait in skill feat slots.

If you put requiring you'd actually stop being able to take them at all.

RAW no, it doesn't work, and personally I wouldn't allow it to.

An errata to remove the reach portion would fix this for this situation, and thrown axes, but it wouldn't make a ton of sense for melee axe users.

I do kind of hate that though, because I liked the idea that you could lean into your archetypes schtick hard if you really wanted to (and if it had skill feats in it). Trading a class feat for a skill feat is usually going to be weaker choice.

I mean, you can. You just take the class feats from the archetype in your class or FA slots and the skill feats in you skill slots.

The only time this would be an issue is if there's no level 4 class feat option, which is rare.

Overall I think this is all moot since the Skill trait directly says when you can take feats with it:

A feat with this trait can be selected when a class grants a skill feat or general feat.

The archetype line is just stating that you can take them at all, since given they have this feat they can only be taken with skill or general feat slots and in another section it says you can only take feats with the general trait.

Clearly Paizo needs to cater to reading comprehension and add the word "only" though.

There's absolutely no reason to assume that they would work differently than baseline skill feats.

They are in two different places because you can take archetypes that give skill feats without using the Free Archetype variant rule.

Player Core states that archetype feats with the Skill trait are taken in place of skill feats or general feats. GM Core states that Free Archetype gives you class feats. Therefore you can't take archetype skill feats in your FA slots.

It is worded that way to allow you to take an archetype skill feat despite these general rules:

For most classes, you gain a general feat when you reach 3rd level and every 4 levels thereafter. Each time you gain a general feat, you can select any feat with the general trait whose prerequisites you satisfy.

General feats also include a subcategory of skill feats, which expand on what you can accomplish via skills. These feats also have the skill trait. Most characters gain skill feats at 2nd level and every 2 levels thereafter. When you gain a skill feat, you must select a general feat with the skill trait; you can't select a general feat that lacks the skill trait. The level of a skill feat is typically the minimum level at which a character could meet its proficiency prerequisite.

If you look at something like Steel Skin it has the Archetype and Skill traits, but is missing the General trait. This is unlike a normal skill feat like Acrobatic Performer that has the General and Skill traits. Without the wordi

It is not written to allow you to take a skill feat in place of a class feat.

I think this was only unclear because it doesn't look like you referred to the Feats rules themselves.

You're doing it right. RK says: "You attempt a skill check to try to remember a bit of knowledge regarding a topic related to that skill. Suggest which skill you'd like to use and ask the GM one question. The GM determines the DC. You might need to collaborate with the GM to narrow down the question or skills, and you can decide not to Recall Knowledge before committing to the action if you can't don't like your options."

So it's expected for the player to know what to roll before rolling it. You're a bit more upfront than the rules but overall the information you're giving is supposed to be given.

That reads as the player doesn't know what skill to use and just picks one that may or may not be relevant.

You should confirm if you're allowed to use either of those with your GM.

If you go Fighter you're going to find things too easy unless the GM bumps the average party level when making encounters. If you go Monk you'll be better than normal but if someone else goes Fighter then you're not going to feel that much stronger.

If you have to buy into atrocities that seems to really weight the scales towards evil.

I also think Kingmaker almost needs to be split into two entries next time: PF1 Kingmaker and PF2 Kingmaker. I don't know for sure, but my feeling from playing it and seeing other reactions to it is that these versions have not been received equally well. (I know anytime someone recommends Kingmaker and has actually run/played the PF2 one, its always caveated with "throw out or massively house rule the kingdom rules", and that's kind of a big problem.) Plus as you noted it's very polarizing in that people either love it or hate it. So there's some definite "know your group before starting this one" here, as some players just won't vibe with the open and largely freeform nature of this.

It's definitely love or hate. The rest of my group seems to love it, I rate it a 2/10 only because I enjoyed before we got our charter.

I actually like freeform stuff and hexcrawls, I just hate the kingdom rules, including the popular alternative ones, and having spent much more time thinking about what about it I don't like I've realized that I just find the premise absurd.

Should errata Know Thy Doom to be usable. It needs a specific statement saying you can use that reaction despite being unconscious or something.

Foil Senses breaks verisimilitude, and at a relatively low level, so it can be hard to accept the HUGE diversity of senses that it foils. But it does, whether or not one can rationalize it. How does one mask their "life" or "blood" in an offhand way they perform every day? Whether meditation/chakra/chi/zen practices or herbs/body modification/mundane balms and lotions, it can be whatever one wants. And it works.

(Funnily enough, I'm writing stories for a high-level Rogue in Golarion where I have to justify such things, mostly via lowering their "presence" via breathing and diet. But in the game itself, explanations can be handwaved away.)

Clearly you drain all of your blood and replace it with something else.

This feat has always been stupid. There's a number off special senses there's no reasonable way for you to prevent being seen by without dying.

My personal favourite was a Monk+Barbarian. Dragon Stance with Dragon Rage, every Leap feat either class has (this was better before the remaster). It was pretty fun, very maneuverable and hit like a truck.

In terms of optimization I've found Fighter or Gunslinger plus anything is almost always going to be best. This becomes more necessary the more other players do that. We were playing in a West Marches server and basically everyone had Fighter so it got a little hard to hit things for those of us that didn't.

I don't play most of what already exists and remove most of it when I GM, so none.

I'd just take Rogue for Perception for Initiative, Reflex saves, and a shitload of skills.

If I absolutely had to take two caster classes I'd go Wizard and Sorcerer to combine Sorcerous Potency with Spell Blending.

Channel smite has the same mechanism in that you get to hit and cast a spell in two actions and deal double damage on a crit, but:
- You don't need to recharge
- You don't provoke

It doesn't necessarily not provoke. Your still cast the spell, it just loses manipulate. If they can react on a spell cast or concentrate it still provokes.

It's also for a significant portion of the game at a lower to hit.

Forgot not everyone is trained yet.

But they do technically have one per the rules on class DC, it would just cap at 17. The rest about Arcane Fist is still relevant though.

If the Magus gets a remaster, it will have a Class DC.

It already does now, every class has a Class DC that it's Trained in.

Given Arcane Fists was errata'd to key off of Spell DC instead of Class DC for critical specialization I doubt they're going to add scaling to the Class DC of the Magus.

Generally "slowly" should cover it.

Lesser Death is brutal.

Yes. Yes they are. It's kind of hilarious.