Hargert's page

What is the deal with selling map packs with battlemaps with a scale of 1 square = 10 or 20 feet but not having a high enough image quality to use the darn thing? I am running the Tyranys Grasp AP and this thing is covered in useless maps that I have to remake. I am paying for the convenience to not have to do that.

Why can the Fantasy Grounds software get the high quality maps?

After making characters for our game next week and reading the rules to prep it my biggest take away is this seems much like 4th edition D&D far to focused on maintaining balance and trying to ward off the power players than making a game that feels fun. It tries to have a rule for everything and everything spelled out like some kind of legal document. I for one noticed this trend when the Kenisistist came out and figured it was just an effort to avoid power creep taken a bit too far. There is a DM there for a reason yet just look to the arguments about what having a hand free entails for a good example of this.

I tend to agree that I think far too much effort is going into trying to balance things for PFS play and dealing with the various min/max rule lawyers out there. I have seen PF and SF both start down this rabbit hole in recent years. It stems from players and GMs not remembering rule one or not slapping down characters who want to make some build that makes no sense and is vastly overpowered to "win" the game. This causes the rule books to be far more of a legal document trying to cover every base. It is how we get people arguing about what holding something means.

Add to the fact that monsters and characters alike have on average more HP now. If it maxed at 5-6 with no bonuses that would help but I am afraid that in an effort to stop the dreaded power gamer that the average caster is going to be less than fun to play. Will find out once I get a chance this weekend to play one.

I look at cantrips as small utility spells or what you learned before you learn real magic. Using them as the main attack is less than feeling like a hero. I think the whole getting rid of most auto scaling spells and adding spell heightening sucks even more if you have to use your higher level slots to power them. This encourages the one encounter per day style of play far more than before. What makes it worse is there are no bonus spells, every 4th level caster will have the exact same number.

Another Hero Lab classic user here but after looking at the HLO model I just went nope right out. My group uses it as well and while my players were interested in Starfinder once it became clear there was not going to be the HL Classic support we moved on. So it has cost the HL people money as well as Paizo, I know I am far from alone in this matter. I hope someone will put together a HLC version of PF2 out there and if HL does not do it the first company that can will get my money.

I am frankly floored that there have not been any "I got the book" posts. It looks like they have done a great job of avoiding an early release of this. As a very early buyer, I was hoping it would show up a couple of days early.

The player has to use the shield to block the hit. So the player makes the choice if they want to destroy the shield or take the hit. I dont think you can attack the shield to destroy it that way.

Hargert wrote:

So does this mean that orders are already showing up? Do I have to start camping my mailbox?

I don't believe there have been any reports of shipments being received. (Amazon has a successful history of making sure Harry Potter books didn't turn up a week before release.) It's been individual local stores breaking their agreements to wait for street date.

After doing some looking into it at least one person got their shipment to their house early. Sadly it is not me.

How about just remove CLW, give low level clerics and other healers a class feature to do their basic heals and save healing spells larger amounts to use in combat. Boom problem taken care of. When healing requires a level 3 wand people are paying some actual costs for it.

The problem here IMO is people are looking at resonance as being added to the game solely to combat clw wand spamming, when that is only one facet of the change. It also streamlines resource management and gets rid of body slots. Depending on implementation it may also help meter access to especially powerful items by requiring a larger investment (something I have heard theorized but have no proof of).

If you look at this solely as a reaction due to wand spam then yes, it does seem to be an over reaction, but in light of the other issues it touches upon perhaps it's worthy of the playtest and critique.

: )

I for one think item slots are a much more natural way to limit magic items than some kind of magic mana system to see if you can use them. Get rid of the stat items and make items that "DO" something. Putting powerful or any item behind some kind of level gateway I think does more harm than the problem it fixes. People complaining of the christmass tree effect because it was assumed that players would have X items. That limited what other items you could use. As the system now just gives you those bonuses just leave the good items.

How is letting every character self-heal any better? The end result is much the same, either the characters can heal up or not. Just giving everyone their entire HP pool back by either rest/or skill does not solve the issue other than it puts an arbitrary limit on it. Maybe a better way is up the costs of healing wands or just get rid of them altogether. Have healing magic be part of a class ability and remove the cure line of spells if you want to limit it.
Ultimately players being cheesy and gaming the system is up to the DM to squash. That is why they are there and trying to design around every issue leads to creating more problems. Rule zero should exist for a reason.

I have issue with the DCs being based on the foe, one it is yet another thing to track and two I can see players getting pissed that Bob the fighter only had to make a DC 12 check because a mook got a lucky crit but Alice the fighter had to make a DC 20 check because the boss hit her with a magic missile. HP is the representation of health and wounds should be agnostic once inflicted.

I hate the idea for resonance as it is a rule for the game sake of a rule where it should be the DM slapping the players and saying no. Change how wands work and/or are built. The fact is people do it because it is the most cost-effective way to heal. Remove that cost/ease and the problem goes away.

The truth of the matter is that PF has some sore spots on it. High level play for most grinds to a point where even simple combats take hours to fight. I have players who have been playing for years and still have issues with what actions take what. The Christmas tree effect of magic items turn them from cool rewards to must get or suck. If they can shape up some of these I am all for it.
I do agree goblin as a playable race is no dragonborn and unlikely to draw in new players.

I knew it had to be coming, only so many books you can sell before you start to run out. That said I don't mind at all, a chance to clean up some of the clunky parts is a good thing and if it leads to a better game I am all for it.
So far hard to say what I want to see but glad if they can fix higher level combat maths and getting rid of the Christmas tree effect of magic items is great.

I am just going to re-skin the magic as psychic powers ala Babalon 5. The players can be whatever they want but any other Psychics will be rare in the world. I think that will work for my game.

Warlock also has better range and completely bypasses the immunity issue with the damage being untyped. Warlock also can use all blast shapes and other powers at will once you have them. No tax to get flight. On the whole if you brought the warlock over and just gave him burn for metamagic and a stat bonus to damage I think it would have been in a good place.

I think the above points are valid. Most of the arguments that everything is fine are at level 11 or 16. Most games I have player or run that is end game. That is a lot of time to spend not able to contribute well to the party success. A good class should be valid at all levels. This is a character concept that lots of people want to play as it stands it lacks for how much you give up.

It seems that the devs are very worried with power creep and seem to always err on the side of caution. On top of that we are seeing the same reaction that many have to unlimited spell powers so every effort is made to keep them reigned in. This leads to an under performing class that is useful for making certain theme builds only. The same happened with words of power and despite being a cool idea no one uses it now.

Non MMO video game? I want my Pathfinder Balder's Gate!

No give me a pathfinder gold box turn based game. Let's get the actual game I love not some real time game with Pathfinder pasted on the cover.

Unless something is a outright problem or miss print things should stay as published. Having so many different versions out in the wild are a pain in the butt. You also fall into what pathfinder started out to not do...make books obsolete. Originally it was you could use your 3.5 books. If something is a little over the top unless it is game breaking let it be. If you feel there are so many issues that need correcting then maybe it is time to go back to the drawing board and use all the lessons learned and do Pathfinder version 2. Do not try to build a system that is free from cheese and exploits of the power gamers that path has been tried and that is what led you to making Pathfinder in the first place.

They did not let me down in the slightest. DO I think it is perfect no but it does look like I can make interesting characters with this that I can not make with any other class. If they had followed what you wanted Goblinsaurus the board would be filled with cries of power creep and calls of why play any other class.

On the flip of this this is a role playing game, you don't like it change it. Not everything is going to be or needs to be balanced versus everything else. Going down that road leads to a boring game where everyone is the same with just different flavor text for powers.

Is there an occult ritual I can perform to make my PDF appear quicker?

Yes but where are you going to get 4 goats, a black cat, 14 gallons of black paint, and a cursed book of the dead?

I wonder who will the first to get there pdf this time.

It is the epic battle between shipping and the people generating the orders for gen con. Only one can win and both should be in the office soon if not already.

It is looking like subscribers should start getting PDF access on Monday. Just a coup,e of days until more info will be coming out. I foresee a lot of new NPCs that will make my players go" Wait he did what? You can't do that". I am hoping for another moment when I sprung the magus on them for the first time.

It will hopefully release in a little over 6 hours so not much longer to wait for the masses. Now I can work on building everyone from Firefly to show up in a game.

The spell Damnation Stride states that it has a duration of 1 minutes/level, can you use it every round or once you teleport with it once does the spell end?