Henro's page

Having played the game since the playtest, there are tons of little things that have bugged me about the game. The Remaster is an opportunity to adress many of these things, and from what I've seen a lot of changes are exactly what I wanted to see in this department. Cleric changes, Rogue weapon proficiencies, Focus Changes... a lot of very positive quality of life stuff. The cantrip changes are good too, in core the power level of damage cantrips were all over the place with some massive stinkers and some wildly out of line. The remaster seems to be raising the floor and lowering the ceiling.

I don't like the Wizard changes that much, though for different reasons than most people who complain about them. I don't think it will be an especially big power loss, but I do think the new wizard schools are a bit too generic mechanically. They're a bit too close to Sorcerer bloodlines for my tastes, and I would rather they had a bit more spice to them.

MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR BLOOD LORDS AHEAD, OBVIOUSLY.

It's possible we lack critical information about the focus point recovery change, but that's also pretty trivial to implement today.

I thought the idea that Drow were a conspiracy cooked up by the Snekmin to be pretty funny. It's not a bad plan either, rattle the elves on the surface and make people who delve underground assume any cavern elves they encounter have sinister motives.

I think if we're returning back to the source and picking a new direction from there, we already have those kinds of analogues in 2E going forwards - cavern elves for one.

But 3pp will be in a much better spot to create something that borrows more heavily from WotC drow. Less to lose and less to protect in case the hammer comes down, and less of their own setting baggage to handle.

I guess that Henro is speaking of the same point already put forward by others : you can currently have 3 Focus Points but regenerate only 1 of them every 10 minutes.

So, 1 Focus point can be used basically once every encounter.

The other 2 Focus Points can only be used once a day.

This has been the sticking point for me, yes. The solution currently is currently quite indirect and I don't think "when your focus pool increases, that doesn't actually give you more focus spells per combat, just one extra per day" is especially intuitive to begin with.

Small stuff that's been nagging me about 2E for the years I've been playing it include;

The Deafness condition is possibly quite useless if run RAW, though what's actually RAW isn't fully clear. I would like it if the condition was changed to be more clear, and also that it lands on being useful rather than not.

I wish that resting between combat wasn't so granular. I would much prefer a system where the party could commit to a 10 minute or 1 hour rest to gain discrete benefits or something, rather than getting varying benefits for 10, 20, 30 and so on minute rests. This has been a pretty significant pain and timesink for me as a GM. I have reason to believe this is getting a tiny bit worse with the remaster due to the focus changes, which is not the end of the world but in a perfect world I'd like the game to go in the opposite direction.

I heard the crafting system is getting a second pass, so perhaps this is a little moot; but I think the current crafting system that's in the CRB is missing a pretty vital component. In some APs, players can find crafting materials as loot (such as finding 20 gp worth of alchemical materials). This is, IMO, a vital component to making crafting in base 2E interesting and I think it's a shame it's not mentioned in the rulebook.

I never liked how the focus pool and point recovery was disjointed. I've had to explain how this works to new players a lot and it always kills a little of the light in their eyes. Good riddance on it getting changed, even though I do have some mild concerns over the specifics of this change.

The game dropping class-specific weapon proficiency is something I've wanted for a long time. It never led to anything good and it kinda eroded the purpose of having weapon categories in the first place. The remaster does exactly what I want in this regard (well, maybe I don't think Bard deserves martial weapons but I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth).

This is the most petty thing ever, and I don't even feel like I have a stake in this because I don't use exp (my players tell me they prefer milestone and I'm happy to accomodate). But it would greatly satisfy me personally if exp went from 1000 to level to 100. 2E is one zero away from having the same exact exp system as Paper Mario which would be fantastic I think.

Harm also has a primary function of healing undead, in addition to being a semi-respectable 1A damage spell.

Anyway, getting back on track there are a few potential outcomes here. Some amusing, some horrifying, and some which would serve to proliferate the legendary status of Snowball.

1. Snowball does not get reprinted in the remaster. You could make a spin about it being too powerful to contain, but overall I would consider this quite unfortunate. It would of course still exist in the old books and could theoretically still be used, but an old and now also obsolete damage spell is bound to fade into obscurity.

2. Snowball gets reprinted in the remaster, and it's still an incredibly weak damage spell. Quite possibly the best possible outcome, as this would only serve to increase the legend.

3. Snowball gets reprinted in the remaster, and it's been buffed into bland mediocrity. Quite possibly the worst outcome I can imagine.

4. Snowball redemption. It's not just back, it's now a geniunely strong spell, and it's strong in a fun and thematic way. I sincerely believe outcome 2 is superior to this, but this would of course be fun to see and it's definitely one of the better outcomes.

Wait, how have you been flavoring it?

Some may call me a little boring, a basic b~@!* even, but if you ask me vanilla is the ultimate flavor for ice crea-I mean a spell like Snowball. Just like the humble salt, vanilla is severely underestimated and when its true potential is realized it rises far above more one-note and unsubtle Snowball flavorings.

Snowball was, as many of you know, one of the best and most beloved spells in Pathfinder Second Edition. While I realize the reasons why are incredibly obvious to anyone who has been playing the game for a long time, it is probably not as apparent to anyone who is newer to the system. On first glance, many people would in fact draw the other conclusion. For that reason I have included a brief explanation of why Snowball has been such an integral pillar that you can of course skip if you already know all the reasons why.

With the remaster, the fate of Snowball remains uncertain. Will it be removed from Pathfinder Second Edition or worse yet, given a meagre buff in power level which pushes it into mediocrity? Not enough people are asking these questions.

Henro wrote:

My very minor thing I hope gets looked at is the Deafness condition. It swings between quite useful and completely useless depending on whether it affects verbal spell components or not. It's also never been entirely clear if it does or not, a surface reading of the rules tells you it does, a deeper reading tells you it does not, and then with an even deeper reading you loop back to uncertainty.

It's a moot point in this case; verbal components are being replaced with the concentration trait.

It would still be nice for Deafness to get a second pass since it'd just end up as a bit of a nothing condition in that case.

My very minor thing I hope gets looked at is the Deafness condition. It swings between quite useful and completely useless depending on whether it affects verbal spell components or not. It's also never been entirely clear if it does or not, a surface reading of the rules tells you it does, a deeper reading tells you it does not, and then with an even deeper reading you loop back to uncertainty.

Paying a class feat to gain a benefit the GM is likely to handwave most of the time seems pretty bad yeah, ngl. As I said in another thread, I'm a little concerned the new focus point system is going to reduce build diversity if you can still get focus points as easily as you can right now via low level feats.

If the change were just dropped in as is I'd mostly agree with you, but I feel like this + the general tone of remaster also gives Paizo a strong incentive to re-examine some of their focus spell balance choices (which in some cases is problematic to begin with, so it's not like we're upsetting a perfectly balanced status quo).

I could see something like this happening, though AFAIK we have not heard about anything like this yet. I would personally be in favor of removing focus pool increase from feats that grant focus spells (it was always kind of weird you got to double dip that way, especially now that a focus pool increase represents such an increase in power compared to before), and making focus pool progression something that comes built into the baseline, with classes like Oracle and Psychic starting out with a bigger pool (and possibly maxing out at 4 points instead, I think that would be neat). There are other ways things could be adjusted as well, of course.

My main concern here is that these changes would be things that heavily affect classes printed in books outside of the ones covered by the remaster, so making the neccesary changes might be hampered by that fact.

Personally I'm a little worried that the focus point changes might push the game towards greater polarization of power between builds. It is a (probably deserved) early-game boost to casters, but you only get that boost if you pick up the feats that grant additional focus points and focus spells. Furthermore, this will widen the gap between classes that get premium early focus spells and those that don't (or alternatively reduce build diversity for those classes if there are universally good options for archetypes to snag a good focus spell). 2E is generally pretty good about having builds of various levels of optimization be close to one another and I see this as a potential step away from that.

With that said though, making focus pool and point recovery linked is a big win in my eyes. It used to work in a way that was pretty unsatisfying and unintuitive for a lot of new players so I'm happy it changed, it's just that the specific nature of the change has some worrying implications IMO.

Your table canon is always canon at your table. Nothing we do should change that.

Of course, I'm just grandstanding haha. After my last campaign set in Kaer Maga, that place is run by ghouls (this is the PCs doing).

"Perhaps the most mysterious and legend-haunted location in all Sekamina is the ancient city of Zirnakaynin. This sprawling ruin features architectural styles echoed today among many other cities, yet curiously Zirnakaynin lacks sekmin influence. Sekmins consider it forbidden, and they dedicate considerable effort to guarding all tunnels leading to this city. Who—or what—built Zirnakaynin, and what may live there today, remains unknown."

I am going to make the completely unsubstantiated claim that this means my "and they mysteriously vanished... but why?" table canon is canon.

None of my players have ever seen a Drow on Golarion, though they probably assume they're down there somewhere. If I ever go downstairs for an adventure I think I'll make the Drow a long-dead civilization the surface dwellers still have legends about. Might make for an excellent setup and "oh s@*#" moment for whatever it was that did them in.

My overall impressions are very positive. A lot of the things getting a second pass are things that I've had some frustrations with in the past, and certain classes like Witch getting a glow-up sound well-deserved. There are some things going with OGL that I'll miss - schools of magic is something I have a great fondness for, though the 2E implementation of wizard schools never did much with the concept so there isn't too much to really miss anyway.

There are other changes I'm at least slightly mixed on. The focus point change is something I'm overall pretty positive about - the janky nature of increasing your pool and recharge separately was something I found myself explaining to new players over and over again so I'm glad those are now interlinked. However, I'm a little wary of the specific way this is being implemented as it both seem to place a greater emphasis on GMs making a distinction between 10 and 20 minute rests (something I am not fond of), and something that could potentially make certain character options that grant early focus spells extremely strong. Changes like this also risk leaving classes stuck in the awkward middle of too old but also too recent to be covered by the remaster in the dust (I'm mostly thinking about Psychic).

I don't use it and I don't especially miss it. Opportunity cost is something I value when it comes to character creation, and none of my players have ever really been too fussed about it. What I often do (and would highly recommend others who don't use Free Archetype try) is sometimes giving out Archetype Feats as quest rewards. Usually these free feats are tied to personal quests and ambitions the PCs have (I'd say I usually give out a feat this way to every PC every 5-6 levels), and it has worked out extremely well in the past for me.

CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR BLOOD LORDS

I am currently running Blood Lords, and I am having a blast! However, I felt that it was a bit of a shame the reputation system doesn't really come into play until the later books. For that reason, I decided to add some "sponsorship rewards" the PCs can get if they reach a certain reputation threshold with a faction. I have currently not decided how much reputation the party should have before they get offered a sponsorship (probably around 15), and I don't think I am going to allow multiple sponsorships. If the PCs decline a sponsorship, they will lose some reputation with the faction they snubbed, but gain some reputation with its enemies.

Anyway, here is two of the sponsorship items the PCs can recieve in case a GM wants to steal them/the idea. Because they are a bit of a handful to port over to the Paizo site, I'll settle for posting one for now but I can post the rest if anyone is interested in using them. I also wouldn't mind hearing other people's thoughts on this idea/items before I use them in game.

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CELEBRANTS
Bloodclone - Ritual 6
Rare, Necromancy
Cast Time 10 Hours
Duration One Year
Cost a tub of prepared special blood worth 200 gp
Primary Check Arcana, Religion or Occultism (expert)
Secondary Check Crafting or Society
Secondary Casters 2
The Bloodclone ritual was created by the Celebrant faction as a way to be in multiple places at once, as limiting yourself to just one party at a time was too restrictive. The blood clone has no combat abilities, but can use the charisma-, wisdom and intelligence-based skills of the copied creature. The clone looks like the original, though it has telltale signs which reveal it is not the same upon close inspection, such as a red tint to its skin. The clone has the memories of the original from when it was cloned. When the duration ends, the blood clone melts into a puddle of normal blood. However, the copied creature can absorb the blood clone at any point during the duration to gain some or all of the memories from it.

Critical Success As success, except the blood clone uses a modifier 1 lower than the original for mental skill checks.

Success The ritual is successful. When the blood clone uses a mental skill check, it uses a modifier 2 lower than the original.

Failure The ritual fails, and the same creature can't attempt to create a blood clone of itself for 1 month. Half of the material components used in the ritual can be salvaged. 

Critical Failure The ritual appears to succeed, but the resultant blood clone holds a grudge towards its creator and attempts to secretly undermine them.

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TAX COLLECTOR'S UNION
Taxman's Mark - Item 11
Artifact, Magical, Transmutation
Usage Worn Tattoo
A Taxman's Mark is a unique magical tatoo, usually etched onto the hands or arms. By Gebbite tax law, a bearer of a Taxman's Mark has the right to extract taxes from officiants of any major faction of Geb, other than the tax collector's union. A copy of the mark is then applied to the officiant, indicating they have paid their taxes to a bearer. Overuse may sour relations with certain factions.

Destruction Each Taxman's Mark is bound to the original copy of The Dead Laws, an artifact in its own right. If The Dead Laws is destroyed, so are all the Taxmen's Marks.

A lot of the data you would get from a playtest already exists given these rules have been out in the wild for four years at this point.

It appears that the link stopped working at some point. I'm not sure how many people this would affect, if any, but I figure I might as well make sure there's an up-to-date link in case anyone happens to stumble on this thread.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1l_642uWTwp0yvADFjwtJsXy-cPqqYThU/view?usp= sharing

I would have preferred to just edit the original post but this will have to do I suppose.

I like the graveknight archetype a lot. That's a fun capstone feat.

Personally I'd swap around the abilities from the dedication feat and Graveknight's Curse. That brings the resurrection feat back in line with the levels when other undead get their abilities to self-resurrect, and Graveknight's Curse also just feels like a weaker feat. The curse is cool and thematic, but it does require you to be dead for it to work which isn't all that much fun for the player.

If it doesn't feel like it fits the flavor of what a graveknight should be able to do you can put a line or two in with the dedication mentioning that the player has not yet fully come into their graveknight power, and require a sacrifice to wear their armor before being able to return to life.

Believe it or not, this was actually how the first draft of the graveknight dedication worked. I was talked out of it, and I think both approaches have their pros and cons. On the one hand, the getting the spicier resurrection method from the start is something I like. On the other hand, starting with the "basic" resurrection might make more sense. Either way I'll definitely consider swapping back.

It's also worth noting that Graveknight's Curse also grants the Advanced Undead benefits, so it is giving you something else even if you're not dying that often.

Hello! This is a homebrew archetype I've been working on for my Blood Lords game. It's mostly made for my own purposes but I figure I might as well share it here too in case anyone is interested. When creating homebrew I try to maximize spice and usability while limiting power to somewhere around the upper limit of what already exists within 2E at most. For this reason, any feedback would certainly be appreciated.

I have also created a Lich expansion for the same reasons. The expansion is just two feats, but one of them is fairly extensive. My reason for doing this is that I feel the base Lich archetype is a little lacking for anyone who is not already a Wizard (or Magus). Immortality is fun and all but I feel like it should be more of a "caster archetype" if that makes sense - not in terms of adding power but in terms of adding spice. The spells Liches can access through this archetype are not intended to be much stronger (if at all stronger) than a regular 7th level spell. Rather, the intent is to provide premium necromancy spells to Liches so they can access a broader repertoire of spells within that niche. Similarity to the Graveknight archetype, feedback is welcome.

Graveknight archetype

Lich Magic

I'm not sure if underpowered is the word I would use, but the Lich archetype definitely feels a bit underbaked to me. It makes sense as a caster archetype, but does not offer much if anything for casters who aren't Wizards or Magi (The fist upgrade is very nice for a magus).

I did some light homebrew on the side to add some more spice to the Lich archetype. It's just two feats, but I'll link them here since they're relevant.

The special spells granted by this feat are not intended to be much more potent than spells of the same level, if at all. Instead, it's intended as a way to give Liches access to a broader suite of premium necromancy spells if they choose to invest in it.

I apologize for using Evil necromancy to revive a long-dead thread.

The other day, I found an interesting tidbit on page 456 of the CRB:

"Many area effects describe only the effects on creatures in the area. The GM determines any effects to the environment and unattended objects."

This which reminded me of this thread and the discussion surrounding collateral damage. Turns out the game more or less handles it like I wanted it to after all, which was a pleasant surprise to be sure. Fireballs do in fact destroy unattended chairs (unless the GM is a hardass about it).

The only reason I bring this up is to the benefit of future 2E GMs who stumble onto this thread - it took me two years before I even found this passage after all.

EDIT: Wait... Did Lethe really bring up this passage on the second comment??? How did I miss that back then??? Then why did I even...? Anyway, don't mind me, carry on.

It depends a lot on the situation. I'll generally allow a takeback, and will give my players information or context in advance of certain actions if I think their characters would be aware of some critical piece of information that they missed. A chasm may look fairly safe in a player's mind, but the PC can see it and knows just how deadly a fall would be.

However, at some point an action has happened, and choices are made as a result of that action. At that point it's too late for rollbacks - not because of realism or grit but because the choices and actions subsequent to the rollback are valuable too.

One thing I've done lately is being a lot more loosey-goosey with magic item levels relative to PC level, especially when it comes to consumables. For instance, giving the players a high-level scroll of a spell they can't cast yet can be a lot of fun and make players more excited about picking that spell later.

However, I think this approach works less well if you run a game with easy access to buying and selling magic items. I prefer running games where buying and selling (especially very valuable items) can be a challenge.

Edit: I also do Class/Spell DC for all magic items.

Are there? The Daikyu seems rather unique in its awfulness. I have trouble thinking of a weapon that's as bad as it, maybe only the heavy crossbow. And even then, I can think of more characters that would make use of a heavy crossbow just because it's simple.

Sort of late reply, but I think Heavy Crossbow is actually pretty sweet depending on who's using it. The key is never ever reloading, which is totally feasible as a low level Wizard (you're probably not using those hands for anything for the first couple of levels anyway). Getting a d12 ranged attack once per fight is not unlike getting an extra focus spell, and once you've fired you can drop the crossbow as a free action if you need to use those hands for anything. IMO, low level crossbow usage is actually pretty optimal for a lot of characters.

But Daikyu sucks, yes.

If you run the spell as written, the optimal way of using the spell is choosing a trigger that triggers as frequently as your GM will allow.

So if you can get away with it "Trigger: I breathe" or "Trigger: a second passes" would be the optimal triggers to stick on any casting of contingency. Most(?) GMs probably wouldn't allow those triggers but you can apply this to other kinds of triggers as well. For example, "Trigger: I take damage" would be completely superior to "Trigger: I take fire damage".

I want something in the design space of the 1E occultist (martial who prepares special items which change around their playstyle). I'm not at all married to many or any of the specific mechanics of 1E occultist though (and Antiquarian is a really good name). So that's probably the new class I'd like to see.

At very low level, with a party that large, I don't actually think the bard is doing too poorly. Inspire courage scales with party size, so keeping those coming consistently is a good idea. At mid/higher levels, occult spellcasting gets some really hard-hitting spells that makes mixing things up important.

Beyond that basic advice, the GM might adapt to this as enemies get smarter. If the enemy can set up an ambush with pincer tactics that could be pretty bad for the Bard.

I'd be curious what has changed in your estimation since that post.

A few noteworthy things;

I'd also be interested what the equivalent ratings are for spell casters.

Honestly, I'm not sure I could make equivalent ratings for casters. If I were to do something like this for casters, I think my gut instinct would be to rate the spell lists instead of the casters themselves - rating a Sorcerer like this doesn't make a whole lot of sense when their choice of list matters much more for their role than the class itself. Some casters affect the role more via their class kit (Bard and Cleric come to mind) but even then much of their role is determined by their list (and snagging spells from other lists tends to be the key to working roles outside of your purview).

I mean if we're doing PvP, then Evil Champion is probably the best martial class, and then casters mostly win if they can use 4th level invisibility. Such a tier list would be completely useless, however.

I think that applies to most kinds of 2E tier lists actually. There is no established baseline for what kind of environment these classes are judged against, unlike a fighting game. That was true for 1E as well, but in that game certain classes eclipsed other ones in nearly every conceivable area, making it possible to say one class was better than another.

Even the things that probably seem like the most "duh" baseline of making a 2E tier list to some people are things I have a hard time taking seriously. For example, "Fighter is in a tier which is higher than Alchemist" is not a statement I think really has legs. Not when so much of that depends on party comp, table style, campaign, etc etc etc.

Quite like these categories as roles. Can you apply them to the classes with rankings?

Here's a ranking I did in the past. These are entirely based on limited personal experience with the classes, and I don't feel the same way about all of them anymore. Hopefully the conversation in this thread is of some use.

EDIT: Also, I should note that these ratings only really apply to base-class only with no Archetyping. I think ratings like these start to break down completely when you try and take archetypes into account.

EDIT the second: I will also note, having a perfect 5 in this rating is not the same as being Tier 1. In most games, many martial PCs tend to need to play at least 2 of these roles, switching between them as needed.

I actually did a rating using these roles in another thread previously. It’s a little outdated since I don’t feel quite the same way about all the classes I rated after getting even more experience with the game, but I’ll go dig it up tomorrow (it’s getting late).

My initial role classification for martials in combat was;

"Supported Striker" (Giant Barbarian would be the posterboy for this, and so would Rogue. This role focuses on dealing big damage, but usually needs help from the rest of the party to operate at max efficiency and also just to stay alive)

"Independent Striker" (Monk is the best example of this role. This role focuses on skirmishing, helping out with flanking, and generally being in the right place at the right time. Mobility and action economy is a big focus)

"Tank" (To tank, you need two things; bulk and tanking abilities. The tanking abilities usually come in the form of reactions like AoO. Generally wants to punish enemies if they decide to attack the frailer party members. Best example is obviously Champion)

"Support" (For a martial this mostly means buffs & debuffs, and to be honest it's a bit of a misc category mostly there for Alchemist. However, Rogue and Investigator would be two other classes that do some useful things in this regard.)

This classification focuses less on abilities in a vacuum, which I think is important when rating classes from a combat role perspective. I also don't think casters and martials can be rated against each other in any meaningful way. They tend to occupy fairly discrete spaces within the party, and the fact that casters start out somewhat below curve but generally scale slightly ahead of martials complicates things further.

I use the same metric as Exo for some things (role classification), and while I think that metric would be the place to start for proper tiers, I also think actually doing tiers like this becomes too complex to actually go anywhere.

This has been a helpful thread in helping provide uses for that spell. When going over spells, I looked past it as it didn’t seem particularly impressive at first glance. Removing all reactions on a successful save now does seem a great way to throw a wrench in my players’ tactics.

Muahaha! And they will have all of you to thank...or blame.

Notably, the spell is a lot less powerful in the hands of a GM since you lose the spell's best case scenario (full party vs a solo enemy). In the hands of a boss monster, the spell is quite weak. However, it can still be a useful one to remove annoying PC reactions like AoO, especially when the enemies are in a group.

The secret use of this spell is that it's unbelievably good. It's gotten a bit of a reputation of being a bit OP at my tables.

The trick to it is using it against solo bosses or other fights with few opponents. At that point, you're not trading actions 1 for 1 - you're trading 1/12th of the party's actions for 1/3th of the enemy actions, and their reaction. It's an exceptionally good deal for a 2nd level spell.

Honestly I am surprised I haven't heard more people talk about wealth as a limited resource because there is a large block of posters to this forum that have pretty negative opinions about consumables and view the destructibility of shields as an impediment to their use as opposed to incentive for the GM to keep giving out new, more level appropriate shields as the game progresses.

I feel compelled to chime in as a staunch anti-permanent-item destruction poster. I still strongly support consumable use and am a huge fan of tactical scroll use and the spell slot liberation that comes with them.

My beef with shield destruction in particular is that shields aren't consumables - they're permanent items - and therefore occupy a different role in the game's economy. The game is ready and balanced around players spending consumables but not magic item.

This thread needn't become another shield thread (and I apologize in advance if I inadvertently cause that to happen) - just wanted to clarify why someone might be vehemently against permanent shield destruction but not consumable use.

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As a GM, I rather frequently give out consumables like scrolls earlier than the players are expected to have them - to give the players a taste of later power (potentially influencing their build decisions if they find a spell they like more than expected), and giving them a super-tool to get them out of a jam.

I had a recent online conversation which made me warm up a little towards Clinging Ice. Previously I wrote it off because while it's very action-efficient, I thought it would run out of steam too quickly unless you face off against several foes (not dealing damage on sustain, coupled with temporary immunity, means you can only damage one particular creature once per combat.)

However, it was pointed out that the sustained -5/-10 movement speed can actually be really impactful in solo encounter, specifically against enemies with a 25ft speed, due to the fact that these enemies then become super easy to kite. Having that utility in solo fights (against 4+ enemies it's just plain old efficient damage), definitely got me past my poor first impression of the spell a little.

I wonder how much of the shield problem we could solve by making destroyed shields salvageable (possibly in downtime) without a significant GP expense.

Since "you can't use your cool magic shield until you get back to town" seems less punitive than "that's some money wasted."

Incidentally, this is basically how I run things at my table. A destroyed magic item counts as 90% of the destroyed item's value in materials - so it can be remade with crafting/paying an NPC for a reforge. This has the added bonus of making crafting a more generally useful skill.

Not sure how having the choice is punishing over it just happening without a choice on the players part.

Again, the only thing I really care about here is permanent magic item destruction, which I don't think should be a thing in the game. If shields could be destroyed without player input, I'd think that was an even bigger problem than what we currently have.

Personally I just feel that blocking a big attack with your shield and barely hanging on is a great cinematic moment and feels good as a player to do - therefore I think the game is in error when it punishes this exact behavior.

I will add that I have no personal gripe with knowing the damage before blocking, just with permanent shield destruction (and magic item destruction in general).

Sidetrack on Clinging Ice - do other people find that focus spell strange? It's one I see brought up fairly often in defense of Witch, and 1-action damage + slowdown definitely seems welcome on a cantrip. The fact that you only get the damage on cast and not sustain seems like a pretty severe drawback to me, combined with the 1min immunity.

In practice I could see it play out differently than I expect it to, but it seems very hard to get long-term use out of it in a lot of encounters. If a solo monster makes the initial save the cantrip is basically dead for the rest of combat - is this a big issue for people using it or does it end up being fine in practice?

I think the big disconnect comes from the fact that 2E operates opposite to how you expect the fiction to work in this regard.

Fiction: "It seems my foe is coming in for a devastating attack... I have no choice but to sacrifice my trusty shield if I want to remain standing"

2E: "It seems my foe is coming in for a devastating attack... Now is the time to intentionally not block with my shield, taking the attack head on and dropping unconscious. Falling in combat is just a temporary setback, while losing my shield would be near-permanent damage"

Shield destruction is the game giving you an option it's not prepared for you to take. Generally, I think its bad that the game lets you potentially break your character's economy for a temporary advantage. At best, it basically never gets used.

You're being very aggressive in probing me right now, which I can't say I appreciate. The Wild + Life witch brought it to a oneshot which wasn't specifically prepared for what each individual PC might look like - I feel like I should be allowed to run those too. And yes, the Witch played really poorly... I really don't know why you find that so hard to believe. He cast his spells and didn't have a lot to fall back on after that unlike the other casters in the party.

Shroud comes from whiteroom and online conversations - APs apparently have a lot darkvision as you reach higher levels.