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.

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 ^^

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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".

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."

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 ^^

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.

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.

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.

Honestly, I would rather deal with some magic item powers spending 2 or more resonance points than going back to 1/day, X charges, once each 1d4 rounds, etc and add resonance in top of that.
Thing is, when resonance was presented to me, it was the way to limit magic item uses. Now, it's just one more thing to keep track off, and it throws out of the window many scenarios that made me cheer up for resonance.. I don't like that. And there is such a thing as over-complex characters (ask 4e epic tier).

Then you don't understand the problem I have with it. It's a continuation of the ongoing Terminology Problem, which encompasses all sorts of mechanical and in-game things that are anachronistic, inappropriate, awkward and/or mean something completely different than what the chosen term actually means.

That they're also treating etching metal like wax pencil marks and magical items like temporary tattoos just grinds it in deeper.

Further, given that PF2 is even more entrenched in Golarion as a setting, this is yet more things that... don't exist in that setting. Well established characters have legendary items that aren't Orihalcuzwhatsit with temporary sticker decals slapped on them.

Yes, pretty much.

I'm sorry, I didn't like these last two articles.
I was hoping that Resonance would actually replace all those charges, X/day uses, etc. That would be nice, but now it's just an extra-layer of complexity, which will end up not being good.
Also, runes shouldn't be so easily removed, transferred and so on. You might want to change the description. Runes seem to me something more permanent and personal: you cannot "transfer" a rune from one place to another. The description does not match the fluff, sorry.

With the previous information about resonance, I was excited about magical items. I'm not anymore, and I think this is my first disappointment with Pathfinder 2.

Weather Report wrote:

Crikey, flashbacks to 2012.

Yeah, sorry for the derailment. Revisionist history puts my favorite edition into even more of a negative light than it is already amongst enthusiasts. I feel an irrational need to defend it (as you’ll see is common in many hobbies, i.e. PCs versus consoles).

That said, no further sidetracks from me in this thread.

Not alone, my friend *high five*

Still, I'm viewing PF2 by itself, and I'm not seeing any of the mistakes 4e supposedly had or actually had. PF2 will have its own problems. It's an interesting game in of itself, and that's what it matters.
Anyway, specific issues are good, but just saying "it looks like 4e" without having anything to indicate how a particular mechanic is bad or disliked sounds trash. Not saying you did that, but some did.

Well, I guess there are some things you only know when you play it! ^^

Happy Tuesday! Here are a couple tidbits that weren't in the blog.

Monks have 10 + Con mod HP per level.

Monks have no alignment restriction.

So, my Monk will have pretty good HP and achieve enlightenment by deciding all life is meaningless and become a CE Omnicidal Maniac? Great!

…
What? Monks and Paladins are very different beasts hahahaha.

I liked it. I didn't personally find this to be complex, but other people may have different opinions.
I think this is an easy format to remember. I mean, you remember what the condition does, you have the number, go for it.
I don't see where this all "this stacks, this doesn't" is coming from. Fatigued looks like it increases while you try to do stuff, and that's logical. But it doesn't look like we'll have a bunch of "this condition stacks, this doesn't" stuff to remember...

One curiosity: what happens to energy/level drain? What mechanic would replace it for our cute special undead which players are terrified? Just got curious ^^

What they are doing with legendary it's a quite common trope. Charles Atlas Superpower:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CharlesAtlasSuperpower
This has nothing to do with magic :P
Plus, I guess a reasonable explanation for "fall from stratosphere" case is leaving a crater behind.

I liked the stuff here. I think the legendary skill stuff is great.
The medical skill stuff sounds amazing! I can create a Rogue medic or something like that and be awesome!
I'm excited for what I'll see at the playtest ^^

People seem to be misunderstanding the Sneak in Exploration Mode thing. Remember, systems for exploration almost always have rules where you have to decide what sort of thing you're doing while you're exploring, which limits your ability to do other things. For example, most exploration systems in RPG's would have "Be in Stealth mode." and "Be in trapfinding mode." be two separate things you can do while exploring... but a Legendary Stealth character could do both, because they don't have to declare that they're in "Stealth mode".

Thank you.

Expanding on what I said:
Magic is perfectly capable of reacting to non-magical stuff. It is very possible (even probable) that true seeing has a limit, and, if the sneaker is good enough, it just doesn't work. That's not making stealth magical; that's limiting magic. Something the game desperatly needs.

Igwilly wrote:

I wpuld question about disease curing spells. Things are changing and they already said stuff like diseases, poison and such are much more serious.

Stop basing comments around the idea everything else is going to remain the same. It won't.
Being able to heal a permanently blind person is amazing even nowadays, and normally using stealth in exploration is likelly going to have a cost.
These feats are already amazing. I wpuld absolutely hate if skills could do supernatural stuff, instead of superhuman.

Fortunately, you're not getting what you want. We already have an example of a Stealth feat that makes you so good at hiding you can't be detected even with true seeing.

Magic is limited, not omnipotent ;)

I wpuld question about disease curing spells. Things are changing and they already said stuff like diseases, poison and such are much more serious.
Stop basing comments around the idea everything else is going to remain the same. It won't.
Being able to heal a permanently blind person is amazing even nowadays, and normally using stealth in exploration is likelly going to have a cost.
These feats are already amazing. I wpuld absolutely hate if skills could do supernatural stuff, instead of superhuman.

Honestly, how many big spells does a Wizard need to feel useful?
They already have scaling at-will cantrips (not particularly to my taste, but I can go for it) and people still want a huge number of spells. It's like being able to cast high-damaging spells every turn of every combat!
I'll suggest an idea: try to be a little more cautious about casting your non-cantrip stuff and the Wizard will not be reduced to a 2-encounter wonder (like they ever were that).

Mekkis wrote:

thflame wrote:

So I take it that this means that wizards will be running out of spells somewhat frequently?

Wizards will have to ration their spells if they want to have them when they count?

Wizards that "go nova" are going to be near-useless later?

Wizards that want a ton of utility spells at the ready are NOT going to also be able to contribute to combat effectively (outside of whatever combat utility those spells offer)?

If these are true, then this would be awesome, but I have my doubts.

These are true in Pathfinder. By limiting spells more, all you do is shorten the Adventuring Day.

Although with scaling cantrips it may be that your actual spell lots are your big finale type powers where your cantrips help fill out so you are not a two encounter wonder.

Pretty much. I hate to admit that, but scaling at-will cantrips go a long way to make the Wizard contribute to every encounter. Casting all your non-cantrip spells in two encounters is pretty much trying to be a spell machine-gun, so I'm not sorry about being reduced to cantrips for the rest of the day.

PF1 Wizards already had this flexibility. I don't see where you're getting "more power" from.

The thing is, you're assuming PF1 Wizards were balanced and don't need a nerf. They do.

The more I think about, the more I'm worried about this feat. It is the only one thing I don't like about this article.

Well, the only one thing I didn't like was the Quick Preparation feat. I hope it has some limits or counter-balances, or this better be left entirely for another class. I think that it's way too good as it is.

About the Arcanist: I hate to admit that, but...
Hybrid classes were cool. However, they were created by a necessity: correcting certain flaws in the multiclass system - flaws being certain combinations who were very cool but didn't combo'ed together. We know nothing about multiclass, perhaps they won't even be a thing...

The problem of giving every Wizard Arcanist-style spellcasting is obvious: it would destroy the Vancian magic system. I would not like that. But as an option - like the Arcanist was in PF1 and this feat seems to be now - it's cool :)

They have to play catch up, shore up their bottom line, and simplify the game to get more people playing because that's the market now. The days of complex RPGs are going away.

With so much tactical and customization complexity, I couldn't really call PF2 "simple". I mean, not at all :)

I liked it!
Glad to see we'll be able to choose between an specialist and an universalist. I missed the last in 5e ^^
The Focus and Familiar are well and alive. Meta-magic seems to be strong with the Wizard. Cool!

Ok, I was unsure about spells being heightened, but I'm fine by now :)

PCs can research unique spells in PF1 too, per the rules, if the DM doesn't disallow it. I take it you object to NPCs also having unique spells that they researched? If an NPC has a unique spell, is it a hard line for you that the PCs should always be able to recover it in scroll form off their corpse, even if their spellbooks are elsewhere or they're a cleric / druid / sorcerer who doesn't even use spellbooks?

Well, I love spell research!

I don't care if I have 18 in charisma, or +4 i charisma. Paizo is concerned that changing it from 18 to +4 will causes problems with a decent minority of the player base.

I would have no problem with this, but perhaps some people would object...

Legendary proficiency is not difficult to justify...

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CharlesAtlasSuperpower

The important critique:
Changing monsters: In PF1 it is easy to alter, add a template, change, upgrade or nerf monsters, or even add in custom house-rules. Everything has enough detail to easily break down the PF1 statblocks to figure out why everything the way it is, and to alter anything and everything needed.

Changing, upgrading, or creating new monsters in 3.X/PF1 was a nightmare, and it was the worse case among all the systems I've tried to GM. It was what made me leave PF1. Sorry, I won't miss this part.

Honestly, one thing I like about 4e was the easiness of monster design. One thing I hate about 3.X/PF1 was fiddly, overly-complex monster design.
There's absolutely no need for monsters to have feats, numerous tables and rules accounting for generating stats, and so on.
As Paizo has presented these stat blocks, I think my main complain about PF1 is gone. It functions clearly, it has the information I need, and it can be as tactically complex as I like. That's terrific!
I think one should look this article as it is, and it's awesome :)

Edit: Also, giving keywords such as arcane or evocation to magical abilities is a great way to identify them when this matters ^^

Ok, I don't know if everyone agrees with this, but...
I don't think monsters should be built as PCs.
I don't think they should have "feats". I don't think their stats should be the result of many pluses all around the game.
I think they should have special abilities, defenses, qualities and so on. Their stats should be about how good they are in a fight, or how they perform at different tasks, or how much damage they can take, and so on.
So no, I don't think they should have the same mathematical (or building) rigor of PCs.