Hurká's page

Franz's point is a good one. A well rolled AoE spell by an enemy could lead to a TPK.

And Matt, I like your solution to this, that one could adopt a "PCs do all the rolls" system. This makes PCs even swingier, but that could be fun.

I don't know how much of an issue it would be in real play, but to keep the balance identical you'd have to make reroll abilities work in the same situations they do now. So something that allowed you to reroll a failed save would become something that forced the caster to reroll a successful spell.

I don't know the math. Does "Fortune for the PC" = "Misfortune for the NPC"? Since, by the book, fortune and misfortune cancel each other out makes me think that they are close to equal.

It's a stylistic choice.

The things you claim "make more sense" really don't, they're just aesthetic and stylistic choices. You could change them, if you really wanted to, but to answer your question, you don't aim charm person because the people designing the game thought it didn't make sense to aim that kind of spell.

FWIW, I think "the enemy's resolve allows them to resist the full effect of your assault on their mind" sounds a lot better than "ahaha whoops your clumsy wizard nearly dropped their spell focus and so your spell only has half effect" so I'm not sure your idea of 'better' from a storytelling standpoint really is either.

I'm tracking. I see how it might just be more a flavor thing.

For a lot of spells Will saves don't make sense to me. And maybe that's just it, "me"; it makes sense to me so if it works for me and my group then we can just do it that way.

As I see it, the wizard casts daze and the enemy rolls a 12 and succeeds. The bard casts daze and and the enemy rolls a 19 and critically succeeds. The sorceress casts daze and the enemy rolls 1 and is stunned. What happened to the enemy in that 6 second period to have their will go on a roller coaster? IMO, it would make much more sense for their will to have stayed constant but the casting to have been performed worse/better by each caster.

[forgive me if I'm glaringly missing something here; I've drank too much wine today]

Why does attacking and defending work differently for physical combat than magical combat in 2E? i.e. physical combat (strikes, shoves, etc.) are all rolled by the initiator, but for most magical combat (except aimed magic like rays) the defender is the one who rolls. I get why it was that way in 1E (because 3.5 worked that way), but why not in 2E?

I'm playing a wizard right now and combat seems kinda flat. For example, when my ranger strikes and I roll an 18 I think "yeah! this character rocks! swoosh swoosh!" but when my wizard casts dominate and the enemy rolls a 3 I think "I only succeeded because the enemy can't keep the drool from dribbling down his chin."

Is there a reason that I can't switch to a system where Save DCs work like AC (i.e. 10 + proficiency + mods) and have all spells with degrees of success/failure are rolled like spell attack rolls? I have a sneaking feeling that there must be some balance reason or complexity that I'm not seeing, because otherwise it seems to be the simple "just makes sense" system that 2E would have implemented in the first place.

There are three additional bonuses to this type of system I see here:
1. Storytelling-wise it makes more sense for a lot of spells that "your wizard fumbled her complex arrangement of hand motions and incantations", rather than "mook #2 felt particularly steely minded in that moment".
2. It makes things faster, especially when there are lots of enemies affected by a spell, the GM doesn't have to roll and do math for 5+ enemies
3. It puts the power back in the hands of the PC to be inventive. Frequently I see physical combatants be like "can I throw the chair at the jug to knock it over onto his head with a difficult DC?" but never hear "can I try to widen the cone of this spell on the fly with a more difficult DC?" Maybe it's me, but with the character rolling, they might be more inclined to be more inventive in combat.

What are the drawbacks I'm not seeing?

And a lot of this debate, absent semantics, seems to come down to how often you should use [failing forward] and whether you should fudge the situation as presented to do so.

Cool. So some GMs use fail forward more or less often. Some GMs fudge and improvise more or less, including in "fail forward" situations. Some players enjoy these tables; some players don't.

Some people like Chainmail scenarios, which rarely (if ever, if I'm recalling correctly) employs fail forward. Some people like PFS where there is no opportunity for substantive narrative improvisation for the GM. Other people like Lady Blackbird, where every failure (apart from certain death) is a fail forward and there is no opportunity for substantive narrative improvisation for the GM because the narrative is solely determined by the players.

I think it's cool to share these techniques and preferences, but I've read 150+ comments here and it seems like people are more concerned with defending their way of gaming rather than learning about how other employ techniques to better their tables.

Can someone explain to me how "failing forward" is different from "failing"?

Succeeding at a check doesn't always entail good outcomes, failing at a check doesn't always entail bad outcomes, and sometimes neither entails a substantive outcome.

If you're the type of GM who likes to provide a very open environment where player actions (successful or not) often don't result in substantive outcomes, then that's more about the type of player experience that you are trying to create and less a function failed checks. If you're the type of GM who's trying to make a very cinematic RP experience that relies on a fast paced narrative tempo, then this would probably be a bad technique because your characters will spend time without making much progress. That's the kind of experiences that a lot of gamers are looking for, but some people find the realism of a more mundane world and drawn out narrative paths to be immersive and satisfying.

tl;dr isn't this argument mostly about how GMs create different role playing experiences for players by altering the balance of opportunities for PC actions that result in substantive narrative outcomes with those that don't result in substantive narrative outcomes? And if that's the case, then aren't we just having a "your fun is wrong" argument?

Hurká wrote:

QuidEst wrote:

I mean… the biggest reason is that they're making Pathfinder. If it didn't feel at all like Pathfinder, they'd lose their advantage of ten years of making PF1. Also, they all like Pathfinder.

There've been bits and pieces all over the place. I'm not gonna search back through the podcasts, but I know that the Arcane Mark stream said that Mark played around with a different number of stats on a "propose something really out there that we probably won't use" assignment.

Yeah, and that's what I want...

Sharing minutiae of design process leads, for every 10 people, to one person reading it with fascinated gaze and going "wow, there was so much thought put into this", 6 people not caring the slightest and 3 people tearing each other's eyeballs out over the fact that APPARENTLY, THE DESIGN TEAM FAILED TO CONSIDER THIS BRILLIANT IDEA I SENT THEM BY E-MAIL IN 2007.

Poor ROI.

And yes, "We keep 6 ability scores, AC, hp, saves and alignment because we're doing a D&D clone" is totally a legit decision you make without having to think longer than 5 seconds, given that you know who your market is. It's a no-brainer. You're doing a D&D, you need to keep the elements which make people recognize your game for what it is.

Fair point.

Dear PF2 Design Team,

Very Respectfully,
Hurká

I mean… the biggest reason is that they're making Pathfinder. If it didn't feel at all like Pathfinder, they'd lose their advantage of ten years of making PF1. Also, they all like Pathfinder.

There've been bits and pieces all over the place. I'm not gonna search back through the podcasts, but I know that the Arcane Mark stream said that Mark played around with a different number of stats on a "propose something really out there that we probably won't use" assignment.

Yeah, and that's what I want. Stuff like: "we had several mock sessions that tried to implement a system that replaced saving throws with ability checks and while it had advantages A and B, it had disadvantages X, Y, and Z that we felt weren't worthwhile. Now we tried to rectify X and Z by implementing a 7 stat system and tweaking proficiency but etc etc etc."

Stuff like: "we experimented with GM-less systems. We identified that marketing persona John and Suzanne really enjoyed this system in test session, but persona Zelda hated it, and all the rest were mum. We identify that persona Zelda makes up a large part of our target demo, so we decided not to implement a GM-less system in Core. But based on how much John and Suzanne like it, we might give outlines for a GM-less system in future guides."

That's the juicy stuff I want to hear!

All of our speculation is well and good, and probably accurate on the surface, but I'd like to hear some more details about how the design team balanced those decisions. I can't imagine it was as simple as: "Well, we all know that PF's demographic is conservative D&D players, so we need to keep all of these mechanics. Good meeting everyone." These people know way more about PF, PF players, and game design than we ever will and it would be cool to learn more about how they went about these individual decisions.

I just finished watching the Paizocon panel on PF2 design philosophy and I was a bit bummed that there weren't any questions asked about the basics of the system, both mechanically and roleplaying-wise. I was hoping that by posting here you all could direct me to the design team's answers elsewhere.

On mechanics I'd like to know why the design team chose to keep certain fundamental mechanical systems: six stats, levels, classes, initiative, hit dice/points, alignment, spell levels, attack rolls, armor class, and saving throws. This is not to say that I'm disappointed that they kept these mechanics, but I have roleplayed in systems that have none of these mechanics. The design team must have spent some time evaluating alternatives before keeping them and I'm interested in knowing how these decisions went down and what considerations they made in keeping them. They obviously had these discussions, because they introduced backgrounds, ancestries, and proficiency which introduce major fundamental mechanical changes. I would love to have been a fly on the wall when they talked about everything they ended up keeping. That--to me--is the fascinating part.

It's easy for us to assume that some of their decisions were about simplicity, tradition, marketing, d20 mechanics, etc. but I'd like to hear some of the more nitty gritty reasoning that the design team went through. Do we have any quotes from the design team about about how they came to the decision to keep these mechanics?

Also, the panel talked about how they wanted Pathfinder to feel like Pathfinder, including how players roleplay. While this sounds like an obvious assumption, I imagine it too was something the Paizo team labored over. There are a lot of radically different roleplaying paradigms that have been developed in the last 10 years that PF2 could have incorporated. I'd love to hear more about how they chose to keep basically the same roleplaying paradigm, but I assume that they have not posted anything about that on the forums.

Yeah, if I’m reading for pleasure nothing tops print. If I am referencing, digital please.

This is what I do in practice too, but I'd much rather user paper for both.

The main problem I see is the fragmentation of information. For example, when I'm playing a spellcaster I have to use my phone because my spells are scattered across a dozen different books.

If there were possible to have an "Ultimate Spells", "Ultimate Bestiary", "Ultimate [class and all of their archetypes]", etc. books then I would prefer that over digital options. PF2 is bound to be accretive, so that's not going to happen.

Richard Crawford wrote:

It's very easy to move away from "builds" in Pathfinder. Just move away from them.

The system won't break down if you don't follow what someone has told you to do on the internet.

This will never be a satisfying way to solve the problem for anyone. Believe me, I got a lot of blow back from telling people that wanted CLW wands back in the game to just house rule that you gain full hp after every encounter. People don't like being told to change the rules if they don't like how something works. And honestly I agree, Not making "builds" in PF1 isn't as easy as just telling your players "Hey guys let's not make builds! Let's just play and see how your characters develop" some will flat out drop out of the game, and others will just make builds anyways because that's a huge part of pathfinder 1e.

Yeah, it's just not an option for most of us who aren't power gamers. We'll create a character that we like, but the power levels vary considerably. You don't have to bend the rules much PF1 to have this happen. Well meaning players can unknowingly walk into OP builds almost as easily as they walk into trap builds.

I've been at tables with no power gamers but because PF1 balance is so wonky we end up with a completely unbalanced team by happenstance. Now we have to artificially limit ourselves because we accidentally stumbled upon an overpowered build. That's no fun for someone who wants to play a balanced character.

I think that's how the demilich is supposed to work. He is CR15, so pretty difficult for this party.

My group spread out so that only one would be caught in the AoE. Since he only had 2 actions (due to concentrating on Maze) they were able to take him down since he wasn't able to reposition and cast spells to catch more of them in the AoE.

You attest to fix a problem, but I don't think most players see this as a problem.

Picking a race/ancestry with set penalties has been an enduring trade-off that has survived most incarnations of D&D. Figuring out how to make an engaging and powerful character despite their flaws is part of the fun. It's these choices that make TTRPGs interesting and I wish Paizo would include more of them, not remove most of the difficult choices.

2E won't be released for another 9 months, so no one can honestly give so much as a personal opinion on how to handle 2E. It could be very different from the Playtest. It could be very similar. No one, not even Paizo, knows for sure until they spend thousands of more hours on it and send it to the printer.

There will very likely be conversion guides for 1E to 2E, though much of the material for 1E won't be convertible since we're only getting Core 2E to start with.

More than anything, you should know your players and yourself. I like to make certain mechanical changes to 1E because it fits my group's preferences. I stay flexible because we're all here for the pleasure of it and different groups find different rules pleasurable at different times. I would suggest the same for any group.

Playtest Rulebook Pg. 318 wrote:

RETRAINING Retraining offers a way to alter some of your character options, which can be helpful when you want to grow your character in a new direction or simply change decisions that weren’t as interesting or effective as you expected. The three things you can retrain are feats (except heritage feats), skill proficiencies and increases, and selectable class features (like wizard schools or sorcerer spells known).

You cannot retrain your ancestry, background, or class.

Emphasis mine. Can't retrain class levels PF2 (was allowed in PF1). No matter what your player does, that character is locked into being and advancing as a cleric.

The closest you could get would likely be to make a new character that is a wizard, and spend a feat or two on cleric dedication stuff to simulate his prior devotion.

Yeah, creating a new character "works" in the playtest because the play for this character isn't continuous, but it doesn't quite work if we were actually playing the character through. If I wasn't trying to evaluate the RAW I would just have him retrain into a Wizard with a Cleric dedication.

I do want to highlight this use case for Paizo as a deficiency with multiclassing in PF2. My character is trying to tell a cool and interesting story but can't do that with the RAW.

One of my players was playing an cleric in Chapter 1 and his building out his character for Chapter 4. Due to events with Pharasma in Chapter 1, his character wanted to abandon his deity for Pharasma and become a wizard. Not multiclass as a wizard, but dedicate himself to wizardry.

The deity change is doable with retraining, since it's a "selectable class option". However, I don't know how to do the class change in general. In PF1 this character would just be a Cleric 1 / Wizard 8 character. That's not possible with PF2 as far as I can see.

Do any of your know how this is done in PF2? If it's not, this is definitely something I find lacking in the rules. I thought my player was taking a very cool roleplaying element to make an interesting character, but I'm kinda blocked here at the moment.

Yeah, I was confused by the lack of Research Points and the difficulty involved with getting 4. If my PCs ally with the cyclops, I will let them use them for Ally Points or have the cyclops use their Flash of Insight ability to gain Research Points instead (or 1 Ally and 1 Research). This makes gives the PCs more tactical options and makes the final battle more interesting.

I don't think that the majority of PCs playing Humans is surprising or bad. And yes, Golarion and the iconics are heavily weighted toward Humans.

I just want Paizo to be aware that some of us want to see more non-Full Human ancestries featured in artwork and media. Displaying different ancestries in a variety of roles is A. more interesting to look at and B. invites players to experiment and explore different roleplaying opportunities with ancestries.

The Pathfinder Playtest Rulebook does a poor job representing the ancestral diversity I find in the PCs at my table. Just as in real life, where racial representation in media affects society's perception and acceptance of those races, Paizo could do better by a most ancestries by simply representing them more frequently in their artwork and other media.
[I'm in no way trying to equate RPG ancestries to the plight of RL minorities. I'm simply saying, "don't be surprised if most people play humans when >40% of your core ancestry artwork features humans."]

I went through the Playtest Rulebook and took count of every discernible face shown in the pictures. Here's the ancestral breakdown.

• Dwarf: 8
  
• Elf: 15
  
• Gnome: 7
  
• Goblin: 18
  
• Half Elf: 3
  
• Half Orc: 2
  
• Halfling: 7
  
• Human: 52
  
• Not Core*: 20
  
• Can't Tell**: 20
  

Things I noted while taking count:

• 1. 4 of the 5 appearances of Half-Humans are on Page 23 alone!
  
• 2. 13 of the 18 appearances of Goblins are on Pages 273 and 335, and all as enemies.
  
• 3. 4 of the 7 appearances of Halflings are of the bard iconic, Lem. 2 of the others are for the ancestry face plates.
  
• 4. 5 of the 8 appearances of Dwarves are of the ranger iconic, Harsk. 2 of the others are for the ancestry face plates.
  
• I know some of this is due to reused material, but there's got to be left-over material of other Halflings and Dwarves. They aren't pigeon holed to one class.
  

Paizo! Give us more ancestral diversity in the artwork for the Official Rulebook and other media when 2E is released!

@Hurka : Sure, I agree. But I'd still keep the "mystery" around artifacts or special items, so that the mystery doesn't feel old after a while. I don't see the intereset of failing ID attempts on healing potions and Elven capes.

To me those both sound like great opportunities for roleplaying! Making things easy usually makes them less interesting. Making them hard usually makes them more interesting.

It's hard to go backward though. If your PCs are used to making 15' standing jumps, 15 miles of overland travel through dense jungle, or automatically IDing every potion they come across then it will be very hard to reset the standard. Certainly not always, but in general, I find that the higher standards gives my PCs more room to grow and adds to the mystery and excitement of roleplaying.

So yeah, basically if you go from correctly IDing 40% of potions to 65%, that's exciting and gives players a sense of accomplishment and the remaining 35% gives a sense of mystery. If you go from 100% to 95%, that's no fun and doesn't add mystery, just frustration.

Why is "identifying magic items" fun or interesting? Like half the time I don't bother with it in PF1, instead choosing to just tell people about their new toys.

I tend to drop a lot of custom and cursed items for my PCs. This makes finding items significantly more exciting than buying the "optimal option" from Ultimate Equipment because they can find some unique and powerful weapon properties. That is traded off with the risk of the item being cursed, though sometimes the curse is rather minor and worth the tradeoff.

Finding and IDing items can be a great source of fun. If you're a GM, I highly recommend spicing up the often mundane or tedious aspects of adventuring (overland travel, IDing items, learning spells, etc.). Rather than getting rid of these "time/energy suck" activities, you can transform them into activities the PCs actually look forward to participating in from a RP perspective.

The only mention that I've found is in the introduction to Doomsday Dawn, under "Adjusting Encounters":

Pathfinder assumes that the typical group consists of a Game Master and four players, but often a Game Master will find that the number of players interested in her game doesn't always align with this expectation.

Since it's not mentioned, I assume that you're free to have as many or as few as you want. The survey itself leaves "Number of PCs" as an open text field rather than a drop down, so I assume Paizo is giving GMs flexibility here.

Yes. Though 2 PCs will be hard, especially for kids since you'll lack a diversity of ways to solve problems (e.g. skills, tactical options, etc.).

If you're concerned that your kids will have difficulty with certain sections because they lack the necessary resources of a 4 person party, you can always add an NPC or two to the party and adjust the encounters accordingly.

The Bestiary includes a full set of rules for adjusting encounters (up and down) for party size, and how to adjust individual monsters (up and down) to achieve the appropriate difficulty level.

I have a party of 6, so for each encounter I make the adjustments when I prep for the session, noting how much I need to scale up the encounter and then I physically write those adjustments in the Doomsday Dawn book at the encounter so I don't forget.

Thanks for the heads up! I will definitely have Lucvi intimate some concern. I'll probably also make it so the PCs don't have to pry as much. I'll look to see how other tables handle it before I run Chapter 3. It looked like a one-and-done even with the investigation.

By the way, does anyone know how the PCs are supposed to explore the salon? The book states that they can sneak around after they've gone to bed, but by that time the waves will have started.

I am very happy that sign languages are getting more attention in 2E, but the implementation seems half-way and unrealistic. As I'll show below, it could easily go all the way without adding to the page count. [Though it does slightly add to the complexity.]

Sign languages are very different from written languages. Someone who learns ASL can't read English without separate training. The syntax, morphology, etc. are all different.

Yet the Rulebook states:

[In the case where your character uses sign language to communicate instead of spoken language], your character can communicate using the sign languages associated with the languages she selects, as well as being able to read and write the written forms of those languages.

I understand why there would be distinct sign languages for each spoken language, but couldn't we decouple the signing and the reading/writing? It would be very simple.

The same sentence could read something like this:

[In the case where your character uses sign language to communicate instead of spoken language], your character can communicate using the sign language associate with the languages she selects, as well as being able to read and write the written forms of as many languages as she can sign.

Most of the time players would choose the same languages, but this would give them the flexibility they have in real life. This type of situation isn't unheard of in real life (e.g. deaf scholars who can read/write fluently in multiple languages they can't sign in), but almost never happens with non-deaf people (e.g. I've never heard of a non-deaf person who can write fluently in a language but can't speak a lick of it, even with "dead languages" such as Latin).

The same could be done with the lip reading feat. For example, you could have a group of human slaves who had their tongues cut out and grew up signing Common behind the backs of their Orc captures. They can read and lip read Orc, but they can't speak Orc nor speak, write, or read Common.

In the end however, I am not deaf, so more than anything it would be good to hear from Paizo about the feedback that they have gotten from the deaf community on their implementation of sign language. I've got my opinion, but they are kinda secondary. I'd love to hear what the deaf community thinks.

It's a tool for those of us who aren't experienced with 2E or are bad at math to understand how challenging a DC is for "average PCs" at each level. I find it very useful.

Also, you shouldn't need the table open all the time. Your PCs should all be about the same level. So even if you're making up DCs on the fly every 5 minutes, you just need to write down one row.

I can hear you ask why druid breaking their oath at beginning of the game. let me explain the most idiotic move druids doing since the AD&D they eschew use of metal armor but did any one of them ever think for a sec. iron and most of the metals are natural resources thus technically its eligible in the oath to wear iron armor yet our idiotic arch druids are banning the metal armor. Thus making sure you are technically break your core anathema then use their powers willy nilly acting all knowledgeable. so can creators actually explain why the druids cant use metal armor.

The anathema section doesn't give an explicit reason that metal armor and shields aren't allowed, yet metal weapons and other equipment are. Scythia's explanation doesn't work here either (besides the fact that worked wood and leather and basically as unnatural as worked metal, if not more so).

It would be interesting to have a reason why only armor/shield metal items are anathema, but I'm not sure there is one.

Took my group ~6.5 hours of casual play, but they triggered every single encounter and took their sweet time roleplaying in the empty rooms, cracking jokes, and "interacting" with the hazards.

Alarith, about the negative feedback.

If we put forum posters into 3 main groups. Here is what we'll hear:
1. Enjoys Playtest: At most 1-2 posts lauding Paizo. Maybe a few mild posts with pointed feedback on balance, questions, etc.
2. Mixed Feelings: At most 1 post lauding Paizo. Probably several posts with misgivings.
3. Negative Feelings: Probably no posts lauding Paizo. Likely several/many posts with grievances.

Forum posters are a very particular/select group. I own a laptop, furniture, board games, cookware, investments, plants, bicycles, and lots of other stuff that I do not participate in any forums for. Most of Paizo's customers are the same.

For example, I'm overall very happy with the direction of the playtest and so are the 6 other PCs in my playtest session. I haven't created a post praising Paizo. Why would I? I'll give them some feedback and buy the official release if it looks good. *None* of my PCs post in the forums. They either have no need, interest, and/or knowledge of the forum. Roleplaying to them is a fun game. They are all filling out the playtest feedback survey.

Yeah, I'm not for "all loot should be useful", but a critical success reward for the introductory session shouldn't be useless.

I subbed in a holy water.

My group has been very positive and excited. It's made up of a couple of new PCs, 5E players, and experienced 1E players.

We had two people drop out because of time commitments, but I had two more people asking to join the next day.

I really wish "AC" would be renamed to "Defense Class" and for guns we could get "Armor Class", so that your armor can protect you from bullets but you can't dodge them, as opposed to PF1 where you can dodge bullets but you a shield and armor don't help at all. That never made any sense to me, like: How slow are these bullets moving? And are they made of quarks?

Can't use "Defense Class" because the DC acronym is already used.

Here's an option I haven't heard yet: we get all of our ancestry feats at level 1 and lose them as we level up.

Orc eyesight gets worse, elf breaks a leg, dwarf learns to appreciate duergar, etc.

It would counter the whole "leveling is always good" axiom, but leveling would still be better than not leveling. Also, this would make much more narrative sense.

I mean, reading through the book a lot of the options fall into that "bland but functional" space, which is somewhat disappointing, but then I recall that this is a core rulebook and "precise shot" or "spell penetration" weren't exactly options that engaged the imagination some 10 years ago.

So I'm just going to need an adjustment period to get out of the "really evocative options from things like latter day Player's Companions and X Adventures or Ultimate Z" mindset.

This is something I've been trying to keep in mind while reading. There are lots of functional/foundational options needed for the core system to just work.

Are they bland?
Sure.
Are they necessary for all the color later on?
Yes.
Are we going to get the 5k+ pages of color we have with 1E in the Playtest or even on release?
No.

Too many great archetypes. I like many of the popular ones, but I've also overplayed some so they don't seem as fresh or interesting.

If we're just limiting this to Core + Alchemist, my top 5 in no order are:
1. tortured crusader (paladin)
2. wyrmwitch (witch
3. cardinal (cleric)
4. cad (fighter)
5. martial artist (monk)

All of these change lots of fundamentals about how I play the character. They also aren't just reskinned. I hope that the PF2 archetypes are unique and not just reskins.

I doubt there will be much of an issue here.

Many spouses share email addresses. Many individuals have multiple email addresses, usually for legit reasons. Tons of people share IP addresses. People change names, move, etc. Some people might not have internet at all and will be going to the library, signing up for a new Gmail account and submitting their responses that way.

Survey responses are notorious for being under-filled, abandoned, etc. Paizo can be a hard-ass here, but it's going to be difficult for them to vet everything, and it's unlikely to get them much better data in the end.

In the podcast they talk about the sessions being 8-9 hours. Is that each individual session or the sessions in total will only be 8-9 hours of play?

"Legerdemain" is a pretty rare word in English. So is "thievery". They appear is 1 in 70k and 1 in 30k printed words respectively.

Google Ngrams link for comparison.

The benefit to "thievery" is that anyone and everyone knows what it means, without a dictionary, even though it is rare. I would be very surprised if even the average college educated adult could spell and define "legerdemain" correctly if asked to.

"Thievery" sounds a bit dumb, but only a bit, and at least we all know what's being said.

EDIT: Nevermind, was ninja asked and answered.

Will there still be archetypes that remove or limit core class features and alter/replace them with other features?

These archetypes (e.g. Wyrmwitch) are some of my favorites (and I believe Archeologist is the highest rated archetype for Bard). Limitations create a framework for creativity (e.g. poetic form) and I find that archetypes with limitations are some of the most fun archetypes to play. I'd hate to see them go.

I've usually bought my Paizo books at stores, so I'm unfamiliar with how Paizo handles release dates.

Does anyone know how Paizo ensures that our books arrive on--but not before--August 2nd? In past releases did people have to wait a while for their books to arrive?

Now with reactions in 2E, hopefully the full playtest has more interesting crowd control options (including some for ranged combatants) that lead to more strategic combat. Druids, alchemists, rogues, et al could all have interesting and unique ways to manage opponents' movement in combat with single actions (that will no longer consume "full attack") and reactions.

Hurká wrote:

In PF1 magic made many skills moot, so I believe that the pendulum needs to swing the other way. Legendary Medicine being able to raise the dead seems like swinging the pendulum too far in the other direction.

I don't think Medicine should be able to duplicate Raise Dead... At least not until the inevitable Mythic tier is eventually published. But as for Breath of Life? Reviving someone who has dropped within the last few minutes, rather than days or however long ago? Absolutely, yes this is the province of Medicine. Lesser versions of that aren't even legendary, I am trained in CPR myself, but legendary could and should certainly be able to resuscitate someone sworded to death as long as it's done quick.

My concern is a situation like this:

GM: "As you enter the chamber the orc steps up to the alter where Gerald's [NPC] unconscious corpse lies, lifts his ax and SMASH SPLAT! [Additional color here] The orc performs a coup de grace and Gerald's body lays in three pieces upon the alter. Robin, you're up."

Robin: "I move 15 feet to the alter and perform [Legendary Medical Feat] to revive Gerald."

Not every death is like this, but it's not an extreme example either. I just don't see why a mundane skill, in <=3 actions, should be able to reconstitute a burned, cleaved, etc. creature like Breath of Life does.

NetoD20 wrote:

FedoraFerret wrote:

The Sideromancer wrote:

Joana wrote:

FedoraFerret wrote:

Not gonna lie, unless Remove Blindness/Deafness and Cure Disease have been turned into much higher level spells I'm not super impressed by that legendary Heal feat.

The main benefit I see is that it opens up condition removal to classes other than cleric/paladin, making non-standard party composition more viable.

Only at high levels. If it required Expert or possibly Master, I could see the point, but this might just be adding rogue to that list.

This. Legendary Heal feats should be along the lines of Raise Dead/Breath of Life, or completely restoring someone to full hit points instantly. Things that are beyond the bounds of the physically possible.

I completely disagree, the legendary feat is indeed legendary by mundane standards, and I find it very good. I think it is crazy that people want mundane means that are not even high-end tech to be able to compete with magic...

This in spades!

I can't like this more than once, so I had to voice my support.

I don't want mundane skills to be equal to magic.

In PF1 magic made many skills moot, so I believe that the pendulum needs to swing the other way. Legendary Medicine being able to raise the dead seems like swinging the pendulum too far in the other direction.

That said, I think it would be cool and balanced if a circle of high level fighters could raise their fallen comrade through a complex/expensive/long ritual, but that would clearly be a spell not a skill.

Wouldn't all of those things (breaking doors, bindings, objects) be a strength check?

Granted, you can gain some skill, but isn't it very limited? Like, being sneaky/knowledgeable/deceptive/etc. are things that you can train at specifically to become much better at without raising your ability score. One might say that they are mostly about training/experience and only enhanced by one's ability. IRL I probably have ~10 str and I imagine that without becoming stronger, I can only get so good at bending metal bars. It's not terribly skillful. It's mostly about being strong. Someone with 20 str will beat me at bending bars every time.

Also as Planpanther said, some skills just get lost in the mix. "General memory" is certainly something you can train, but in PF it's just an INT check.

I really hope they have a blog on multiclassing soon.

Unlikely, considering there are a lot of classes yet to be blogged about. They will have an easier time talking about multiclassing with more classes to use as examples. If they blogged about multiclassing today there would be a flotilla-load of questions from the community.

We only have ~16 posts left. At this rate there are many topics that won't be covered in blog posts before the release.

The issue I have with rules like "dump the 6th stat to boost the 4th and 5th stat" is that it doesn't allow me to play my Dwarf Wizard with 18 STR and 16 INT by dumping CON and WIS.

I don't know about PFS, but the rest of us can just work with our DMs. I can't imagine a rule that is flexible enough for the "Roleplaying Min/Maxers" that won't be abused by the "Powergaming Min/Maxers".

Hurká wrote:

I don't want Golarion mentioned in Core. I think it should be in supplements, not rulebooks. In my experience Golarion is restrictive to roleplaying. Pathfinders have gotten so used to Golarion that even homebrews that I've been in on feel very much like Golarion. This is not a unique problem to Pathfinder, but I believe that Paizo could find a creative way to encourage flavor without involuntarily railroading most RPers to Golarion.

I'd be very curious to hear more about this problem. Golarion is a kitchen sink setting where you can do pretty much anything and have it fit the lore, it has to be one of the least restrictive settings out there.

This is part of the problem with Golarion.

Say someone wants to make a setting based loosely on Egyptian mythos, or Renaissance Venice, etc. Players less inclined to actually make my own setting because Golarion has it fleshed out to completely that even if it's only 80% like what you what it's too easy.

This leads Pathfinder to have one very well fleshed out world, Golarion. But not nearly the wealth of player generated content that breaks out of the familiar tropes.

I would much rather Paizo give people a few smaller ideas and a several books on worldmaking and roleplaying instead. There must be dozens of books on worldmaking and roleplaying locked up in the heads of the designers at Paizo. I would love to learn more about how they create a comprehensive in depth world and keep track of all the pieces, write flavor, made design decisions, etc.

Golarion has been hugely profitable for Paizo, and I get that. I want them to be profitable, which is why I think they should publish Golarion content (albeit separately from Core). But from a roleplaying perspective, I wish that the APs took place in stand-alone settings.

I don't disagree with you Tarik. My example is far from perfect.

If you prefer, imagine many victims. The paladin cannot save them all, even if they use the wand. But with it, they'd save more.

Do you feel that, in principle, saving innocent lives should come after not ever casting an evil spell? That's what codes are about, principles.

Divine codes are different.

There are many Earth religions that are that way. In several religions blasphemy, conversion, etc are things people would die because of.

"But blasphemy is just words! Can't you just say it to save your life!?" No. Many people won't, and historically many people of many religions died believing they did the right thing by not blaspheming.

This is the same thing with evil spells. It seems so easy to someone who isn't a Paladin, but to a Paladin not casting evil spells is above even death of an innocent. Makes perfect sense to me from a religious point of view.

I don't want Golarion mentioned in Core. I think it should be in supplements, not rulebooks. In my experience Golarion is restrictive to roleplaying. Pathfinders have gotten so used to Golarion that even homebrews that I've been in on feel very much like Golarion. This is not a unique problem to Pathfinder, but I believe that Paizo could find a creative way to encourage flavor without involuntarily railroading most RPers to Golarion.

I don't want iconics in the CRB for many of the same reasons. Classes give players a framework to build characters off of, but iconics give them stereotypes and anchor expectations about characters. I don't believe this is healthy for roleplaying if it's so prevalent. I think it's in a good state in PF1 because it's mostly restricted to fringe content. I'd be happy if we kept it this way.

I like Paizo's idea that the rulebooks should have flavor; that they shouldn't just be a generic ruleset for any setting. The PF1 Core rules do a very good job of this already. I believe they can and should do more to encourage creativity, roleplaying, and flavor. I believe that despite the intention, iconics in the CRB would do the opposite.

[I'm one of these fringe people who don't even think the pictures near the classes should even likely resemble the classes. If you put a "wizardly" character near the bard section or the rogue section, or even the ranger section, I believe that would do more for encouraging creative roleplaying than putting them near the wizard section. "New players will be confused!!!" Really? So what if they play a rogue that likes to wave around wands? That's more interesting than what many experienced players choose to roleplay anyway.]

Too many great archetypes. I like many of the popular ones, but I've also overplayed some so they don't seem as fresh or interesting.

If we're just limiting this to Core + Alchemist, my top 5 in no order are:
1. tortured crusader (paladin)
2. mute musician (bard)
3. cardinal (cleric)
4. cad (fighter)
5. martial artist (monk)

All of these change lots of fundamentals about how I play the character. They also aren't just reskinned. I hope that the PF2 archetypes are unique and not just reskins.

Mark is a math wiz nonpareil, and other people at Paizo are pretty good at math too. I'm sure they can get the theory right, and certainly better than we can do here with partial information.

If in the Playtest that theory doesn't match our experience or is unbalanced across all experiences, then hopefully they can tweak it to match.