Igwilly's page

I expected the Witch to appear soon, but this set of 4 classes still positively surprised me. I'm curious about how you'll make the Investigator under this new system.

I'm reading the core book, and I'm quite impressed with what I saw.
Even though I'm loving it, there's always something to dislike:
1° What happened to item quality?
2° I think they should have used the Uncommon and Rare traits more often, especially with magic items.
Even then, that's great work, Paizo.

As a last note, I've met many RPG players, personally and on the internet. A total of 0 has used fantasy races as justified examples for acts of racism and such. In fact, all players I know are well versed in separating fiction from reality :)

They unfortunately can be, if people aren’t paying attention and write in their biases.

Only if the author actually writes them to be. Sometimes, this stuff is just in your head. The tapestry being blue just means the tapestry is blue. Just because you see it, it doesn't mean it's there.

Why can't an entire species be psychologically different from humans, especially when they're from a weird, chaotic plane of existence? Personally, I'm not a fan of "everything is basically human, just looks a little different".

This.

We need easy, low-level monsters. Otherwise, low-level adventures will be very deadly.

I'm actually happy with the carrying capacity being relevant this time around. For too long have people dumped STR and gotten away with no repercussions because of how hard the old system was to track. Not to mention that example with carrying Full Plate + Entire warehouse worth of items is ridiculous when you really think about it.

Videogames have really changed the perception of this... I actually thought it was kinda cool how you'd figure out the logistics in old games. Had to have mules or henchmen carrying your stuff.

Thank you!

Just commenting about the monk.
It may seem weird to people, but one of my favorite monk concepts is the monk that uses a weapon: a flamboyant sword or scimitar or something like that. I trained a short time under a traditional kung-fu school, and contrary to what video-games and D&D taught me, weapons were part of the training. Ok, I only got to a simple weapon (something like a sap), but many more were coming for it, if I had continued training...
I almost always GM, but when I actually have the book, money problems aside, I'll build one of these monks. Just for fun, perhaps ^^

That's what I was looking for!
As a GM, I've always used my own campaign settings, complete with its own deities, planes, kingdoms, technology, unique monsters, et cetera, along with a few fluff and rules changes (I try to keep those as small as possible). Is this product the go-to resource for me? It looks tasty...

Hey, I’m back! Did someone miss me? No?...
Ok then T_T
My comment about the bestiary: one of the things Pathfinder has/had unique to it was the fluff: darker and edgier than D&D. This was especially prominent in monster descriptions. I really hope they don’t hold down punches in this new bestiary, I love the darker depictions of evil monsters and such. Gives an aura of fear and caution.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to keep up with the playtest, real-life issues, so I missed this opportunity. But I hope the feedback collected here helps you create a better version of the game you have put forward, because that's the purpose of a playtest. I like the direction the game is taking, although there is much room to improve - otherwise, there wouldn't be a playtest XD
I'll patiently wait for the final version to come. I know that many things will be different between the playtest last time I checked and the final product, and I hope the end result is a game system I can use for my planned campaign projects that still didn't make past paper ^^

Igwilly wrote:

Alyran wrote:

David Silver - Ponyfinder wrote:

I played an alchemist and I reported I had not run out of resonance. I technically hadn't. I had leftover doodads. I never got to use them. The few I had, mostly got wasted due to OTHER people being out of resonance. I never felt good throwing a bomb, because friends were there, waiting to be splashed on. I mostly hit things with my torch.

Resonance did not make my game more fun.

We spent 4 healing potions (elixirs of life) on someone and they gained 3 hit points total.

Resonance did not make my game more fun. It actively detracted from it.

I agree that resonance has some problems, specifically with connection to the alchemist and their abilities. I don't think a class can reasonably run on this resource without a large amount of extra for that resource.

But this person is cursed. Nothing can help them.

I'm trying to think how that is actually possible. A Minor Elixir of Life grants 1d6 HP. The worst case is 4 HP for 4 of these.

I believe in anything else, though, but I just got really curious about this case.

Drink 3, roll 1s. Drink the 4th, fail the overdraw roll. Not an easy thing to do, but certainly possible.

Thanks ^^

David Silver - Ponyfinder wrote:

I played an alchemist and I reported I had not run out of resonance. I technically hadn't. I had leftover doodads. I never got to use them. The few I had, mostly got wasted due to OTHER people being out of resonance. I never felt good throwing a bomb, because friends were there, waiting to be splashed on. I mostly hit things with my torch.

Resonance did not make my game more fun.

We spent 4 healing potions (elixirs of life) on someone and they gained 3 hit points total.

Resonance did not make my game more fun. It actively detracted from it.

I agree that resonance has some problems, specifically with connection to the alchemist and their abilities. I don't think a class can reasonably run on this resource without a large amount of extra for that resource.

But this person is cursed. Nothing can help them.

I'm trying to think how that is actually possible. A Minor Elixir of Life grants 1d6 HP. The worst case is 4 HP for 4 of these.

I'm trying to gather friends here in order to play the playtest, but schedule problems kept me from playing it so far now. I really want to play.
So far now, there are no big surprises in the rulebook. The previews, articles and all were pretty informative, so most stuff is as I expected it. I think it's a good thing. I have criticism for the magic item system, but that could be left to the survey or another thread, and I still need to play it ^^

I'm so late...
I liked it, but the whole ancestry thing is something I'll check out carefully once the playtest is out. I don't know to feel about this whole subsystem.

Well, I'm with the people that loved this article ^^

Well, my opinion about the video-gamey talk.
This is a class-based system. Classes have abilities, unique abilities which other classes do not have. If anyone can have any ability, what one wants is a class-less system.
This *is* a game, after all.

Smurftastic!
I liked this druid ^^

I’m completely in agreement with spirit of your assertions, and am saying this joking, but, if I have to hear the word “elegant” or worse “inelegant” used to describe this or any other game system again, I’m going to have to let some additional air into my head. Let’s go out on a limb and try out similiar adjectives like sublime, graceful, efficient, tidy, streamlined, effective, or refined - just to see how it feels for a bit. :D

My most important adjectives for RPG systems are: cool and uncool.

tivadar27 wrote:

I'm highly disappointed that from a playtest/marketing point of view, PF2 seems to be focusing on running pre-generated content for GMs. It's nice to tip the hat and say "this will appear in the final version", but if it's not being playtested or even made visible during the playtest, why should I assume that that content is good?

One of the great things about PF1 was the ability to import it into any world/use it in any campaign (fantasy obviously). PF2 seems to be ignoring this at best, or have it as a non-goal at worst.

I suspect that the reason they're not having a lot of custom campaign stuff in the playtest's rulebook is the same reason they really don't want people using things like houserules and homebrew in the playtest: They want solid, consistent data. Their pre-printed content is designed to test specific mechanics at specific times so they can get regulated, consistent data on how it does or does not work.

Pretty much. Playtest needs trustful data. This is not the kind of thing that goes on there.

The Raven Black wrote:

I like GM-set DCs. Players beware

Having bought the collector edition of the playtest book, I am highly disappointed that it will be missing a significant part of the rules

Which is exactly why I DIDN'T purchase the "collectors edition." As a playtest, the book will be completely obsolete within a year. After all, how many of you are still using the Pathfinder Beta that came out back in 2008? So I just didn't/don't see any point to a "collector's edition" other than money-grubbing to finance other future projects.

I personally think all playtest print products are basically "collector's stuff". Just for bragging rights.

Not very exciting, but good articles nonetheless.
I just want to know the playtest's final boss, but I guess I'll have to wait :P
The downtime rules are going to get my attention. I've never thought much about using these kinds of rules in my games. I'll check that out.

So it's the scaling DCs of 4e...but with a static DC table too. One based on a "how difficult is this?" back of the envelope question rather than a "let's add up all these modifiers and see what comes out" approach.

Honestly, that's so elegant I wonder why 4e never thought to use it.

WotC's 4e was worse than 4e :P

(I hope anyone gets it).

P.S.: Why this avatar image popped up here, it's a mystery.

I'm also alright with Muse, since while the source of inspiration is fairly open ended, the actual class feature describes what form the inspiration takes. A muse could be Sheylyn, but the bard is driven to become a Maestro. A muse could be devotion to the Pathfinder Society which drives a hunger for Lore. There could very well be a better term for it, or Muse and Passion could wind up separate things for a Bard to describe their self with.

Thought about that, too. It would be better to create demi-generic Muses than going with specific ones, and I think they just chose the easy way of naming the mechanics by what the bard is going to be, I guess.

While Arcane is probably going to be the type of magic that is a clear and exact science, I think that Occult is going to be the sort of magic that is a more cobbled craft. Occult could well be piecemeal, eclectic. It could take up bits from multiple sources and build into something workable from disparate sources.

So you could just as likely get an Occult caster who has experimented with the music of the spheres and has learned from a wide breadth of lore how to work wonders as you could have somebody who has delved into cultish territory and learned things one was Not Meant to Know from aberrations and things from beyond the stars.

I thought Occult was just re-named Psychic Magic. However, I can see that…

Cyrad wrote:

Though, with bard as a full caster, I am concerned we might not get good support for a magus or a spellcasting warrior character.

I am holding out hope that one can build a reasonable spellcasting warrior from the multiclassing system in this edition.

I sort of suspect one of the design goals for PF2 was to first ensure the "pure warrior" (of various types) classes are on par with the "pure spellcaster" (of various types) classes, before we start trying to mix the two together.

Make the Fighter good, make the Wizard good, make sure the Fighter is as good as the Wizard (and vice versa), then later on start mixing the two together to get the Magus.

When it comes to the classic Sword-and-Spell Gish, I think one should be doable by multiclass. We could have a new class just for that but...

I once had a player who wanted a Guitar-Axe for her Bard. I mean, electric guitar and rock-and-roll and that. No sane DM would ever allow such a thing!

Of course I said yes.

I don't mind that the bard has gone psychic. I think it will help eat up the mesmerist whose flavour I liked but found the mechanics to be very much not what I like (on a conceptual level not on a balance level). Bards in PF1e were all about mental control and effects as well as hitting things with their sword with a minor amount of other utility spells like healing. Making that psychic just works too well together.

Well, the main cause of repetition in 4e was the always exclusive power-list. I don't think they will do that here, but perhaps include other classes with those same spell lists later, varying in features, feats and all of that. Or at least I hope so.

Mark Seifter wrote:

Xenocrat wrote:

Mark,

How do Bards provide material spell components?

Like how clerics can present a deific symbol, bards can play an instrument as the Material Casting as well, if they want. Or just provide the materials as normal.

Oh. They can replace every component with an instrument? If we get any weapon that can be used as an instrument [or vice versa] that'll be pretty sweet. A mace maraca? A new version of a totem spear?

https://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/File:ARR_Bard.png

Ok, I admit, the theory is true: the Bard is an occult caster.
I'm still not familiar with that, although I should know the definition of each magical traditions...
Other than that (not bad, just different and a little weird), I loved everything about the Bard here. I like bards very much, thank you, and I think they should be right along all the other classes instead of being the underpowered spoony bard of so many editions and other games.
I think the Muse idea is great, and the three of them are just right for the game's beginning: one which focuses on magic music, other one that focuses on lore, and a third one that focuses on being a jack-of-all-trades - another favored character concept that so many people just can't pull it off!

As a note: in my table , it will be a house-rule: everyone's first bard must be named Edward.
Come on! This poor guy deserves some time in the spotlight!

A fairy died when Paizo shifted from "Grey Maiden prestige Feats have membership requirement" to "Grey Maiden prestige Feats are Rare with membership requirement".

Of course they require membership! They are rare!

Well, you just don't pick options from everywhere you can read and put into the game without talking to the GM. You just don't tell the players to create their characters without saying what goes and what doesn't.
I mean, communication and all of that.

Because it doesn't make any damn sense?

Really? For me, saying "This spell is only available to this NPC" is pretty much like saying "No, you cannot play as a gelatinous cube".

Only as long as the goblin wizards don't steal your idea and start manufacturing them and selling them wholesale.

Damn goblins. You may not know, but I'm the wizard who invented firearms. I wanted to keep those for myself, but some meddling goblins arrived, and now my world doesn't use armor anymore...

It seems you are missing my point here. My point is that an adventuring party has very different needs from a fictional world. Things are balanced mostly with PCs in mind - the rarity system may be viewed at least as an attempt to create a rules set that doesn't implode the world if played even barely realistically.
Even if they cost the same, a +5 sword or a ring that lets you cast fireball 3/day are a lot tamer than Reality Warping.

Let me clarify. RAW, the settlement stat blocks place an incredibly severe limit on what you can buy. Literally a handful of different items depending on where you are. That's so intrusive that, in my experience, people don't use it, and just make it anything goes because approving every individual purpose is far too much work for the GM.

Well, the current system obviously fails at what it was supposed to do. Rarity can be a much easier-to-implement one if done correctly.

Bruunwald wrote:

This seems a bit intrusive and a bit more unnecessary. Not as intrusive and unnecessary as forcing everybody to play in Golarion or spend hours separating it from the core rules like picking unwanted raisins from a chocolate chip cookie, but I digress.

It seems to me that rarity as relates to setting is something the GM can decide on his own, and for other uses, was perfectly serviced by a mention in a stat block.

Do we really need to service the pedantic and unsophisticated on such an intimate level? I remember when these games challenged you to be resourceful, creative, and to learn a little something along the way.

You know what doesn't challenge you to be resourceful? Being able to acquire every magic item at the Quick-e-Mart.

"What do you mean, I cannot just buy a Ring of Three Wishes here? This store sells all sorts of magic items! Even the strongest Bag of Holding or something..."

"Well, you will have to work more to get the ultimate Reality Warper power for 3 uses."

I agree with Elleth.
There is much stuff that isn't all that powerful, PC wise, but would completely change the setting if they're commonly available. Teleportation spells are a terrific example. Even spells which grant you a magic mount can transform your quasi-medieval setting with Magical Pony Express. And let's not even talking of resurrection spells or even Wish. That last one can mean great destruction more than any other 9/10-th level spell.
In my games, anything related to the planes is very rare - especially the Astral stuff. Reaching the realms of deities and afterlife should be quite difficult (and I won't even talking about the whole "leaving your material possessions behind").

Well, I actually liked it.
I'll have to wait and (re-)create my own world so I can see how much this is useful to world-building, but in the core setting's context, it's actually very useful to regulate stuff like spells, magic items and so on. So that a novice DM won't put a Vorpal Sword in sale at the magic items shop in a rural village. That happens to people more than it looks - it can happen with experienced DMs!
In any case, I can see why it's helpful: instead of climbing the wall, you have stairs. It gives a beginning for DMs ^^

I am definitely someone that leans towards spell casters. My favourite classes are sorcerer, paladin, druid, cleric, bard, oracle, rogue. In that order.

I absolutely welcome the caster nurf. It is entirely required at high levels.

I personally like the Wizard and the Paladin above all classes, but spellscasters sure come first in general - except perhaps the Tome of Battle (3.5) classes and the Warlord (4e).

Igwilly wrote:

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I'm pretty sure they've said all the classes which will be in the playtest are the core classes from PF1 plus the alchemist- there will not be surprise classes.

So, people never lie or backtrack to create surprises, huh?

I just think we should wait until we have the bard preview before theorizing something like this ^^

I'm really unclear on what there is to be gained from clearly stating: "the classes in the playtest are: Alchemist, Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Sorcerer, and Wizard" and then having 2-3 classes that aren't in that list show up come August.

Like it seems like there's more lost in terms of "breach of trust" than there is to gain from there being a surprise. No matter what, a good portion of every class is going to be a surprise come August, just not "what the classes are."

If I ever "lie" to my friend, saying there won't be a surprise party for his birthday, while I'm just concocting that, I wouldn't be seriously called a liar.

Anyway, that's not my main point. My point is: the bard being occult is a too big change to just "assume" it's going to happen because of a sorcerer's bloodline.
Also, the core rulebook may have more stuff than the playtest. They may very well introduce a full occult class later, while watching what sort of reaction this list causes.
Bard being occult may be right, may be wrong. I just want to wait until the preview so I can then think on those terms ^^

Igwilly wrote:

So, people never lie or backtrack to create surprises, huh?

I just think we should wait until we have the bard preview before theorizing something like this ^^

The Bard being an Occult caster is certainly speculation. The Bard being in the playtest is not.

Weird. I never said the Bard wasn't in the playtest, just that I would like to wait the Bard preview ^^

I'm pretty sure they've said all the classes which will be in the playtest are the core classes from PF1 plus the alchemist- there will not be surprise classes.

So, people never lie or backtrack to create surprises, huh?

Ok, people, I just want to say it's best not to assume things about classes which didn't even show up.
We know barely nothing about the Bard, except it's perhaps a full caster. However, they didn't told us everything about the playtest, so they could be up to a surprise for Witch or Psychic. I remember the designers, when comparing why the Alchemist is in the playtest, that the "Witch is a close second".
You all may be right, and the bard may be a full occult caster, but I think it's better to not come up with such conclusions right now. People may get disappointed because of hype about stuff that was never said. The playtest is only next month.

Hmm wrote:

I don’t share the same assumption that near-nudity equals confidence.

Poor Conan

Oh, for God's sake, they can't please everyone.

Now, I love the fact that all spell lists are Sorcererable now, but it does worry me that if it's tied to bloodlines, we lose the ability to have stuff like Oracles of Flame or the like.

The designers have said in this thread that Oracle is not merged with Sorcerer ^^

Well, if you're an Angelic-bloodline Sorcerer who worships Gorum, you're getting your magic powers because one of your distant grandparents was an angel, whereas if you're a Cleric of Gorum you get your powers from being one of Gorum's chosen without any need for special blood. A Sorcerer who happens to worship one deity or another really isn't different than a fighter who does the same- gods don't generally say "Don't worship me."

And an angelic sorcerer could very well be a mistheist who thinks all gods are superpowered jerks and only prey on mortals, and be of a "Fallen Angel" heritage.

Crayon wrote:

Dragon78 wrote:

Also Seoni's new look is horrible.

Apart from the drawing itself being incomplete, she looks identical to her PF1 version to me. What's changed?

It's more of an actual dress and less of a "piece of fabric with a neck slit and a belt." She's at far less risk of a wardrobe malfunction now.

It's an awesome drawing, and I'm a big fan of black-and-white (or something close like this) drawings :)

I'm curious about what this Imperial bloodline is and what it gives. I've thought some possibilities, all of them awesome. I guess I'll see at the playtest ^^

Ok, I actually loved it. It seems a great and fun class.
What most caught my attention, however, were the magical traditions: arcane, divine, primal and occult, and apparently spell lists are shared between each tradition. Interesting...

I always found it strange that my 'mountain man' survivalist ranger had to also be a spellslinger, which was confusing and impossible for me to work into my understanding of such characters.

That's what I'm saying about 3.X and PF1's ranger: it got his spells out of nowhere. There was not much (if any) explanation behind this.

I liked pretty much everything here, nothing to complain ^^
Honestly, the Ranger's spellcasting was an old artifact, from a time which Rangers were vastly different from our "modern" conception, such as in OD&D and AD&D's Ranger. With that previous concept, it made sense for the Ranger to have spells. But once 3e was in, spells for Rangers became non-sense. Things make sense again, now ^^
Of course, there's nothing that stops us from including spellcasting Rangers later...

My two cents: went Resonance was first introduced, it felt weird, but also that there might be something in there. When I learned more about how you got it and what it was for, I started liking it more.

Now instead of having a shirt that gives you an extra move action 1/day and a cloak that turns you into a crow 3/day, you can wear both and decide with your 4 resonance points if you run 4 times, or turn into a crow 4 times, or any mix in between, and didn't have to track remaining uses for neither, just a global Resonance Pool.

When I learned potions costed resonance, I was also up for it. This encourages you to drink that one big level-apropiate powerful potion instead of drinking 20 crappy ones in a row after a fight, same for wands (wich I asumed would cost resonance to activate and would have no charges neither, so if you have 10 resonance points to use on wands, you want to make those 10 heals be better, so you buy better wands).
Making potions cost a valuable resource (Resonance) was also the perfect excuse to make them more powerful (since you are limited to how many you can use in any given day) so you would track your 3 AWESOME POTIONS instead of 20 crappy situational ones; and things like drinking a Healing Potion in Combat wouldn't be so much of a waste of actions (if it did for once heal more than what ANY enemy in the battle field could damage with half their attacks).

I was so into resonance, that I started homebrewing it in my current campaign, giving players wands and items that all have abilities that cost resonance, so they decide what/how they use them. And I do like having a resource similar to "How many spells do I have left? Do I want to burn one for this?" for all clases.

Then the last 2 Blog Posts happened... What a mess... 3 or 4 new kinds of actions that have never been explained to us and that seem that could be easily replaced with "Somatic, Verbal and Material". If you want to have a "Amazing Opperator" Feat later that removes the Opperation Action from items, you can...

Thank you. That is exactly how I feel, too.