Ikos's page

Gorbacz wrote:

Update: 200 reviews of PF2 Core rulebook @ Amazon in a bit over 5 months.

To give some more perspective: PF1 CRB accumulated 652 reviews in over 10 years.

Looking at all those numbers, it seems that Pathfinder 1e actually is more loved (higher rating) than D&D 5e is now! It may not have had quite as many sales because D&D is the big elephant in the room, but dropping it...

Exactly, Paizo decided it was too much “love” for their tastes and hobbled themselves purposely to give 5e a fighting chance. It had nothing to do with a real metric of commercial success - dwindling sales from an edition that peaked in 2014.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

What I don't get is why anyone wants the band so tight that a large enough pack of level 1 ghouls poses a threat to level 18 PCs.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Specifically I was addressing the people who don't want to add level to things so the range would be like -1 to +12. I personally think that would be terrible.

That's fair. Each person has their own tastes.

I don't personally find adventures where the characters are near-deity super-fantastic entities to be very interesting. Generally speaking, the last two or three books of any Paizo AP are torture. They're so far beyond the common man that the immersion is lost. The upper level creatures feel like bizarre abstractions of Earthly lore.

It's also fair for folks to conclude Pathfinder just isn't the game for me. I'm at that point, frankly, but if the system (and supporting automation) will support alternatives/house rules then Paizo can enjoy a wider appeal and maybe I can stick around.

Agreed, what some may enjoy is very thing that others find detestable and that's A-Okay - par for the course when attempting to negotiate reality and the people within it. If it adds to the success of the game by broadening its appeal to others, inclusion of alternate features as optional rules benefits everyone. The modularity of PF2 is its strength. Adding options plays to that strength; there's no talk of taking anything away someone likes. I really don't need to understand why someone likes apples, but I prefer oranges, to see the benefit of a grocery store offering both.

Honestly i think an official rules option to remove level from all the equations, be it to hit, skills, saves, dcs or whatever, is gonna be presented in the GMG.

Not that it can't be done without, but it seems to me that so many people would prefer to run the game with, let's call it, a kind of bounded accuracy, that it would help a lot with edge cases, and most character-creating software would then probably be updated to be compatible with that possible choice.

Since one of the goals of 2e seems to be to "leave no man behind", it looks to me like a small and effective contribution to acknowledging the number of players who would prefer level wasn't added to the proficiency rank.

By the same reasoning, I would also expect a variant for adding your level to Untrained. A lot of people seemed to grok that in the PT.

It's all optional rules, and Paizo would profit to cater to the various playing styles preferred by various groups. It could even convince someone who otherwise wouldn't play 2e to instead give it a try.

Yes, yes, and yes - preach the gospel sister. One basket all eggs is not the approach best suited to getting fence sitters in the game.

When I hear occult, I think of witchcraft, evil monsters and horror. What does that have to do with a charismatic, music-themed support class? The flavor just seems off to me. But maybe I'm not clear on what Paizo means by occult.

The original "occult" bard was Orpheus, around which a mystery tradition developed in antiquity. Exploring this archetypal character, in the Jungian sense of the word, might help in explaining the connection. Pathagoreans and Neoplatonic philosophers also, amomg other things, developed systems of occult corrodpondence in which notes, tones, and music played a role. Since fantasy pulls heavily from past belief in supernaturalism, ideas like these could be informing the decision to make bardic magic occult.

It’s vague, but has been hinted at since Rule of Fear - the swaddled bundle is key - the cursed offspring of a paladin of Shelyn and Urgathoa, putting the “bastard” in Bastardhall. The coach seeks blood relatives, for an undefined purpose.

Add me to the waiting with bated breath for the GM guide crowd. As soon as we get options for ABP and, even more so, stripping level out, my group could easily be swayed to get aboard. Having official support for such options adds a veneer of respectability (and the implicit nod from above that the system can handle the change without exploding in an unexpected manner) that a GM just houseruling the changes lacks.

The summoner is, hands down, the most poorly designed class in the APG. I hope it acts as more of a negative example of what not to do in PF2, rather than a touchstone worthy of emulation.

Hmm ... if we choose to ignore that the scientific community, both natural and social, use the terminology to refer to the least reliable form of data, yes. Placed on a continuum, all data is not the same qualitatively. Anecdotal evidence is a term used in pejorative for a reason; it is based in comparison to other more reliable and less bias-prone forms of evidence. Otherwise, there would be no difference between peer-reviewed journals and the accounts of patrons from my favorite taproom.

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Especially if it's just a matter of wanting to be higher or lower power than the baseline, or more or fewer character choices per level, that's extremely easy compared to before, and something we're going to get to you guys pretty soon after the launch products.

I'm curious to see this one, for sure.

PF2 GM Guide hopefully.

BryonD wrote:

First "trained" is a mechanical term here. I'm not onboard with it as a good narrative description of wizards. If the game "works" (still a big if right now) then those kind of meta issues are insignificant.

I've been playing various versions of TTRPGs since the 80s and it should be no surprise that I also enjoy related media. You are not describing wizards I recognize.

Someone already mentioned Gandalf, right? Arguably the most famous Wizard in the English speaking world, doesn't tend to get hit a lot?

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Wizards use a lot of magic items and spells to defend themselves. And even then they AVOID getting into hand to hand combat. The is literally no narrative basis *at all* for the wizard getting better at dodging blows.

You mean other than the Wizard going "getting stabbed hurt! Maybe I'll ask the Monk for some tips and a sparring session during downtime so it doesn't happen the next time I try to cast a spell?"

The idea that there is no narrative basis for a Wizard training defense at all is frankly absurd. Unless the Wizard is literally going to stand still and allow himself to be hit every combat, he's going to be trying to dodge. If he's trying to dodge, he's going to inevitably get better at it because people improve with practice.

And that's excluding that your narrative is not the only one. Plenty of sources have hybrid Wizards who also have some martial skill to fall back on (aside from Gandalf), and they will certainly not want to get stabbed.

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I think if you were to go out to the public at large and describe this, you would get odd looks. It "makes sense" only to gamers who want to rationalize free boosts to their characters.

Classy.

If you asked the public at large to describe this, they wouldn't know what you are talking about, because this is too mechanically indepth for someone not familiar with gaming. Asking those who are, you're going to get lots of answers.

Besides, even in the playtest, a Wizard...

The catch with Gandalf is that if we're true to the source material in the triology, he's not so much a standard run-of-the-mill wizard as Gygax imagined, but rather an immortal demi-god masquerading as a human dabbler, not too disimiliar to the Weis' handling of a certain wandering mage in Kryn. They are exceptions not generalities.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I feel like fractional math is a non-starter for the actual product (though it's fine for a house rule) since one of the reasons we added +Level to begin with was that it was a lot easier and cleaner than +Level to some things +3Level/4 to others, +Level/2 to some things, and +Level/3 to those other things.

Like are people really going to enjoy figuring out which numbers to increment when they level up, instead of just incrementing all of them?

They will look it up in a table, PROFICENCY BONUS BY LEVEL. The character sheet will have a line to record all the five kinds of proficiency bonus by rank, and then the player will use that line to alter individual skill entries. Erasing and changing some skill bonus numbers will be physically easier than changing them all.

The Pathfinder Playtest already has plenty of similar tables. My wizard leveled up to 7th level. Let me check TABLE 3–21: WIZARD ADVANCEMENT on page 136. He gets 4th-level spells, general feat, skill increase. Let me check TABLE 3–22: WIZARD SPELLS PER DAY. He can cast 2 4th-level spells a day. Let me check TABLE 5–1: GENERAL FEATS on page 160-162. ...

Pathfinder 1st Edition has full, 3/4, and 1/2 progressions for BAB, 1/2 and 1/3 progression for saving throws, 1/2 or 1/3 or 1/3 minus 4 progression for spell levels, 1/4 progression for attribute boosts and several class features, 1/5 progression for multiple attacks by BAB. Those were not showstoppers for that edition.

Agreed, I’ve encountered zero players over the better half of two decades who found these 3x tables outlining fractional advancement the least bit disconcerting. A finger and an eye are all that is required. The drive to do away with them altogether is conceptual - the tidiness of +1/ level to everything in the Playtest looks great when presented as a unifying system; too bad its homogenizing influence makes play feel distinctly different from what preceded it.

Is rolling 1d20+15 much harder than rolling 1d20+5? Cumbersome? Inaccessible?

[QUOTE/]

I've been quite clear here - yes, yes, and yes. Dealing with ACs of 28 and save DCs of 25 at level 9 is in fact (for some, beleive it or not, deride it or not) all of those things.

The problem our table encountered with +1/level was that the math necessary for a GM to run a game past 10th level becomes increasingly cumbersome. From a group that has been extremely pro PF2, but now is seriously having trouble finding anyone willing to referee high level play, I can reasonably say that the upper half of the game will be inaccessible to many casual gamers. The upper tier of play may be more stable now, but it is just as unpleasant to manage as it has always been. Lowering the progression would help open up more of the game.

Switch the word “simplified” with “consistent” and I agree. Simplified math implies to many that your are doing less of it in high-level PF2 than PF1, which is not simply not the case.

Steve Geddes wrote:

heretic wrote:

In all candour I find it almost impossible to be receptive to anyone who includes a “ if you don’t like this then this game isn’t for you etc.”.

Especially during a playtest where Paizo have said that everything is potentially up for change and they want to hear about what we do and don’t like. It’s premature to declare “this game isn’t for you”.

I don’t like +1/level more broadly than just this. However, the real problem for me is the way it applies to untrained skills my character has never attempted. I figure that distinction is worth bringing up to the design team.

The fans of +1/level may not be able to think of a way to reconcile the system as it currently stands with what I’m looking for. They may also think the cohort of people who share my opinion is negligible and safely addressed via “just overrule your PC’s stats or go find another game”.

I’m not really speaking to them. I’m addressing my concerns to the design team who are both more informed as to the state of the market and more experienced at crafting RPG subsystems. Maybe it will help improve the game or maybe not. It doesn’t hurt to put it forth during an open playtest (nor should it be shutdown by people who like the system as is - they can explain what they like without arguing over whether what I like “makes sense” or is “crazy”).

In the end it's about numbers and majorities. You and your cohorts dislike +1/level, there might be legions (including me) who like +1/level.

As you said, we all lack the knowledge of the true numbers supporting each approach. It might as well be that what appears to be cohorts shows to be the tiniest minorities as people content with a rule rather tend not to post in forums.

There’s another overlooked wrinkle here, an Achilles Heel of sorts in the playtest as a whole. It’s not just about the current Pathfinder enthusiasts and whether or not a majority agrees one way or another. The need for a new edition has just as much, if not more, to do with attracting new fans. Otherwise, why even make the effort to reform when so many in the current flock are already happy and quite resistant to change. An Unchained 2 would probably be warmly received by current fans.

The question that also needs to be asked is: which one of these approaches, (+1/level and bloated numbers) or something approximating at least the previous editions scaling, has the more likelihood to contribute to the edition’s positive reception in the gaming climate of the 2020’s. Does the +1/level dimension of the game make it enjoyable in a more general sense, outside of our current Pathfinder bubble? If so, why? If not,why not?

Mathmuse wrote:

Vic Ferrari wrote:

Shinigami02 wrote:

The bonus does at least theoretically equate to a more powerful being, because while a level-appropriate enemy will have the same bonuses and thus be on the same power level (how well balanced that power level is is its own debate that is already raging, so setting that aside for the moment) other creatures that were once a threat now... aren't, really.

Yes, +Level is good at tightening up threat ranges, and, also, 5th Ed may have gone a bit too far with the BA thing.

Why do some people want the threat range tightened up?

If people want to fight new kinds of monsters, ones more powerful than before, won't a fast experience point progression work just as well? Instead of 1,000 xp to the next level, make the threshold 500 xp.

I want a wider threat range. If the party has been fighting individual orc bandits at 1st level, and well-buffed orc veterans at 3rd level, and small orc patrols at 5th level, and warbands of orcs led by orcish champions at 7th level, and all around saving their small town from the orc menace, I have trouble saying, "You reached 9th level, so you will never see an orc again. The orcish champions are no longer a threat to you, not one, two, nor four of them, so those encounters are over."

Individual Orc Bandits > Orc Veterans/Orc Patrols > Orcish Warbands > Orcish Champions is a good progression though, and exactly the kind of thing I was mentioning with improving the orcs. But here's the thing, that isn't what would be happening with the change, particularly the Orcish Patrols or Warbands... because those individual Bandits from level 1 are still going to be potentially lethal to you at level 9. Sure they die in less hits than the Champion you're fighting now, but they're probably just about as hard to hit and hit likely just as easily. A patrol might well lead to a TPK, and a Warband, well, you might as well just run because you're going to need an army not an adventuring party....

That's assuming for some reason you're in the habit of fighting armies of anything. PF1 made the troop template for that very reason - to make large groups of mooks perform as genuine threats, mostly because somebody thought it would be more interesting if they did. There's diminishing returns to the momentary glow of being invincible. It gets old pretty quickly.

The data is just coming in on higher level play now. Gauging satisfaction on that front may be central as that’s when the inflation becomes increasingly obvious. I’m also curious what else is tied to the +1/level mechanic that’s not so obvious with a passing glance or a few sessions at the table, meaning would it’s exclusion cause a meltdown somewhere that we have not anticipated?

I've never understood why there are so many numerophobes in the world. In particular I don't understand why higher numbers are a problem. Is it just because they're higher?

The same could be said of people who don’t find the math unpleasant by those who do. Not all that profound; we’ll chalk it up to the mysteries of the universe.

For me, it really boils down to wanting a pastime (after 60 plus hours of work at a salary position) to feel like a relaxing hobby rather than just another spreadsheet. The sentiment is shared by most of the people who left PF1 for 5e in droves a few years back.

Yes, the bounded accuracy in 5e is accomplished by higher hit points, not higher math. The higher hit points are already there in PF2 as is the high damage. The fact that the math in PF2 scales higher faster than PF1 is my concern, not that math exists in the game. Higher level play in PF1 was unattractive for many reasons, one of them being that it became larded with higher numbers to the enjoyment of few.

Thanks, I didn’t think +1/level was an issue until looking at it square in the eye at the table yesterday. Just like higher level play in PF1, the more math inclined in chapter 4 playtest seemed to have little difficulty while the other half of the table’s brows immediately furrowed as they sought to keep pace. Removing it could only benefit the system in terms of ease of play and accessibility to new players.

Greg.Everham wrote:

For better or worse, +1/level is sorta here to stay, even if it is ultimately the biggest problem with PF2.

Excellent post, but the good news is, it's dead simple to omit, or dial up or down.

Outside the playtest, I have experimented with +1/4 level, +1/2 level, +2 x level, and complete removal. I prefer complete removal. Opens up the threat range of monsters, less auto-crits and only hitting on a natural 20, less number inflation.
Seems intentional, and they have talked about a mechanical variant book (that's how we got the new Action Economy), could easily mention omission of +Level for a different feel. I wish 5th Ed would release a book of mechanical variants (that XGtE turned out to be a guide to not much at all...).

Has anyone run an actual stat breakdown regarding stripping +1/level out of PF2? The math becomes onerous in the playtest at much lower levels than PF1, to the point in which running chapter 4 in Doomsday felt like running a 13th to 14th level game of PF1. The numbers scale high too quickly for easy enjoyment. Staving off the math porn for as long as possible sounds increasingly like the right course for me. That, or either not GMing past level 9.

While we're here, let's keep going down this recursive rabbit hole to nowhere and agree that making pointless arguments about not wanting others to make pointless arguments is equally (and obviously, don't forget) without merit.

Ikos wrote:

Here’s were we need to highlight the difference between assumption and fact. We do not know how many people are walking away. We do know that many people who first had reservations about the system, still have those reservations, and unhappy people tend to make more noise than those who are happy. If your assumptions are correct, the game will radically change before it goes to print. You and I may consider ourselves authorities, being old enough to remember 4e or even D&D 2e, but relative to the people navigating his venture, we have very little skin in the game. It’s our hobby; it’s their careers and they’ve got people who were actually on the inside of the 4e fiasco. Controlling the narrative by circulating what has now become a tired trope on these boards does not make it neccesarily true. The proof will be in the pudding, not in feelings, angry board postings, or analogous anecdotes.

As an authority old enough to recall 4E, I'm sure you also recall that they also assured us that voices on the internet were not reflective of the community as a whole.

It turned out that a lot of unhappy people were not even bothering to comment.

We were also assured that us armchair experts should be confident that the professionals behind the design know better and would never make an error like this.

We don't know numbers. But it is not an assumption that the *tone* and patterns of debate are exactly repeating what we saw before.

A few people saying something doesn't make it true. I don't dispute that. Of course, that cuts both ways.

But the patterns are strongly consistent.

Let me asking you bluntly: Are SOME people walking away? Do you have any evidence that it is NOT a significant portion? Do you have ANY answer for how to salvage them?

Calling something a "tired trope" doesn't make it an accurate evaluation. And the steady trend, online and offline, in this assessment is alarming, while the presence of "you don't know" as a substitute for equally matter of...

Assumptions stated as fact without evidence are still anecdotes, nonetheless. They become tired tropes when one insists continually they are undeniably reflective of truth.

It is interesting how the debates always migrate.

The OP made very valid concerns about things feeling mathematically the same, even when coming from very different starting points.
The "4e feel" and antithesis of the 1E feel were noted.

These are serious and real issues which are fundamental to the mechanical chassis of the system. And, steadily, more and more people are running into it.

.....

Sunk cost fallacies and egos aside, the long run is what counts.
How do you stop the steady stream of people walking away?
That is a more important questions than "how do I tweak the game all those other people are walking away from?".

Here’s were we need to highlight the difference between assumption and fact. We do not know how many people are walking away. We do know that many people who first had reservations about the system, still have those reservations, and unhappy people tend to make more noise than those who are happy. If your assumptions are correct, the game will radically change before it goes to print. You and I may consider ourselves authorities, being old enough to remember 4e or even D&D 2e, but relative to the people navigating his venture, we have very little skin in the game. It’s our hobby; it’s their careers and they’ve got people who were actually on the inside of the 4e fiasco. Controlling the narrative by circulating what has now become a tired trope on these boards does not make it neccesarily true. The proof will be in the pudding, not in feelings, angry board postings, or analogous anecdotes.

Dire Ursus wrote:

MerlinCross wrote:

Step 1) Pick Rogue
Step 2) Pick up Bow.

I think I made an Archer Rogue...

well no you didn't because now you're taking a -4 penalty to firing into melee, and your BAB isn't very good. Also you can't sneak attack since it's very hard to make people flat footed.

It's like putting a Bow on a Paladin doesn't instantly make them a Bow Paladin then huh?

Unless it doesn't work both ways. And if it does, why can't I instantly become a Bow Rogue with just a bow, it's just a bow right?

Archery in both systems is JUST giving a class a bow right?

BRB, Making Bow Sorcerer in both systems. Totally works.

From the playtests I've participated in, archery actually does lend itself to a wider variety of characters because you no longer need multiple feats just to make it viable in combat, everyone gets the same bonus to attack, and magic weapons add extra damage dice. The level of specialization required to be tied to that one combat style does not require the same tax. Giving any character a bow actually does make them an archer in a way not possible formerly because the bow tree in PF2 is nonexistent.

it's kind of funny that we get another thread of someone voicing their complaints on something, and the first reply is "well why are you even here then?"

That question is actually at the crux of the matter. If someone has already decided that the playtest is not enjoyable, that they’ve lost all confidence in the developers, and that they’ve aired their concerns multiple times, but feel absolutely ignored, it seems quite natural to wonder, if one truly believes those things, why the continued dramatics? Either the issue is as dire as described (and pointless) or one of those variables is not entirely the case.

I think you're confusing lack of trust with lack of good faith. The latter infers dishonesty while the former means you have reservations regarding the designer’s choices. If the playtest is causing this level of personal angst and you truly believe the designers are actively out to defraud their customers, it actually might be healthiest to step away.

Well technically they *can* change the fundamentals of the system during the playtest, but I'm worried that people who gave them money to get the playtest book believing it would be used for about 1 year wouldn't be very happy to learn that it's no longer the case

I can't speak for everyone who bought the book, but those I know wished the book would have been loose leaf rather than bound (so that entire pages could be replaced), realizing at purchase that the word "playtest" meant that the sytem was in flux.

Well....I think we really won't know anything until a year or two after the game is released (especially since I do expect a lot more revision).

I think the important thing to consider is that this forum probably isn't a representative cross section of the game buying public. Hell, forums in generally are pretty much dying off, as discussion spaces have moved into sites like facebook and Reddit.

There was basically NO POSSIBLE WAY a new edition could go forward without alienating some existing set of Pathfinder players. We just don't know how significant that set is.

Yes, the boards attract a very specific type of player, hardcore fans deeply attached, deeply entrenched, and possessing the free time to post with regularity. Of the players in both my playtest groups, only two out of the nine of us meet that criteria, including myself. The others either don’t care what is said here, find the boards disruptive to healthy living, or lack time to post given their other responsibilities. Personally, because of these same reasons, I post with relative scarcity, despite being a lifestyle gamer with thousands of dollars sunk into the hobby.

Sorting out which of these issues are Doomsday Dawn specific (a purposeful meatgrinder meant to produce data) and which are systemic to the rule set is important. The chapters being primarily a stress test shapes the experience. The content needed an explicit warning that, like any hazardous test site, things sometimes blow up and people leave unhappy with the results.

Exploration mode is suppose to be like the non-combat skill challenges of 4th ed. Unfortunately none of the lessons learned during that fiasco seem to have stuck.

Having used both, they are not alike. 4e relied on specific events followed by a series of required successes before failures. Exploration mode is a generalized approach to grinding through terrain, without the same cinematic focus on singular events and no need for tracking multiple successes before failure. Without reaching, one could say they share superfluousness. Yet, in specific design, they only share the similarity of requiring die rolls in response to the environment outside of combat. For the record, I’m not a big fan of either.

To be frankly, almost all this sub-systems Paizo put out over the years in the AP (ship combat on S&S, Rebelion rules on Hell's Rebels, Caravans on Jade Regent) doesn't work and make the game less fun.

Yes, many of them were notably unpleasant or flawed. The caravan and mass battle rules were particularly devoid of fun for our group. We did, however, enjoy the rebellion mechanic. If the GM takes the time to weave it tightly into the narrative, it plays quite well.

I dont know, experience suggests it is decidedly a good idea to take out the garbage,and store things in their proper containers, otherwise the kitchen starts to stink.

I am very sorry to write this, but it's the truth.

Pathfinder 2.0 is trying to keep up with the success of D&D 5e, but it's failing very badly.

I am 43 years old and i can say that i pretty much played all the big Rpgs.

We stopped playing the Playtest after chapter 2, because it wasn't any fun to play at all.

We had all different kinds of players involved, from 17 year olds to 50+, from people that never played before to veterans of two dozen systems and everyone agreed: Pathfinder 1.0 & Starfinder are great, the Pathfinder Playtest isn't.

Your experiences are far from universal. Of the two playtest groups I've participated in (12 4-hour sessions so far), I've watched curmudgeons dead set against a new edition transform into outright fans. Of the nine of us in total, ages 30 to 60, many have been gaming since the red box and we see room for improvement, but are pleased to have a chassis not plagued so heavily with the problems we've been enduring, or house ruling, for the past two decades. As far as solid foundations to build on go, PF2 is proving capable.

I don’t understand this mentality of “it’s your loss” if you don’t participate in the playtest.

This concept is central to any process involving representation, whether it be politics or consumer feedback. It's the cornerstone of how change occurs in an egalitarian society. Being absent from the discourse means your interest are not heard and then never acted upon.

noodohs wrote:

If I might offer some feedback on the language used here, this reads an awful lot like, "If you say anything negative about the rules we worked so hard on, we aren't going to listen to you." I hope this is not what you are trying to say, but that is how it reads to me and it does not much encourage me to leave any feedback.

Speaking as someone who's made a number of critical comments about stuff in the PF2 playtest and still received good responses from folks at Paizo, it's more of a matter of tone.

'I don't like this' or 'This seems to have these unfortunate effects' or even 'This seems like a mistake' are all a lot more likely to get positive responses than more emotionally charged language like 'horrific' or accusations that the people at Paizo don't know what they're doing.

Agreed - sage advice. The playtest boards are all too fertile ground for soap opera. Yes, there is work to be done on PF2 [everyone (including the desginers) agrees], but we're not going to expedite that process with the sort of histrionics, Dear John letters, and developer conspiracy theories we've been seeing.

In the context of spell knowledge, there are many factors shaping rarity that are not based on economic scarcity value. It advantages spellcasters who have a particularly powerful spell not to circulate it commonly, as they would then be more likely to be on its receiving end. Wizardry in particular is dependent on direct transmission. In a world full of active deities, some knowledge not in line with a faith’s ethos may be purposely obscured. States have a vested interest in reigning in the types of magic that endanger their power, making some spells less frequent. Cultural forces may predispose certain types magic to be more popular than others or outright viewed as rude or taboo. The types of material components and the intricacies of somatic and verbal casting may simply make some spells easier to cast than others, predisposing certain spells to wide circulation while others are not. Knowledge does not flow in straight lines. It is often lost, stagnates in certain cul-de-sacs, and is rediscovered much later. It is reasonable to imagine magic is not immune to such patterns.

Ditch resonance to cut out the middle man. Put a scaling cap on magical item attunement - x plus Cha. mod. and be done with it. Keep wands as they are limited to 10 charged with high cost. For the most abusable items, add the bolstered effect so that each party member can benefit from them once per day. Open up nontraditional modes of healing for multiple classes via feats.

A twenty-foot burst? I must have missed that on my first readthrough. That's... a super tiny AoE, given that fireball is a pretty iconic spell. Depending on spread, you're really only going to hit two guys at most (or maybe a couple more if they're really bunched up). Any chance we could at least throw in a material component to make that 40' burst?

Regardless, the second format works. I agree that "basic" is confusing. Maybe add a line about "the standard save table" if that's what you're going for?

They have been 20' since the beginning of time.???

Why 65% feels bad.

Most players have went to school for 12 plus years and you are told somethings about what is good, what is average, and what is bad. We know these marks .....

For my bachelors program you were required to have at the least a B average in your main field of study. And you had to have at least C in all courses for your main field of study. You are considered an expert
in your field when you get your degree.

...

I think my head just exploded. From my experience, successful completion of a graduate degree means you are literate in your field and can then begin engaging “experts” with some level of competency, but have hardly become one yourself before substantial work and publication.

The errata version is better than its predecessor. But, the problem with both iterations is that they should be simple and intuitive, like the 3 action economy, and are not. Instead, they are needlesly complex; in that complexity ambiguity and inertia thrive. From scaling death DCs that GMs have to pause to affirm to doling out various levels of action penalties based on your dying condition, momentum-breaking fiddle bits make dying a formula to be solved rather than an indisputable event obvious to all. Make the death DC a flat check, making it less of a personal event and more of a universal force of nature, and apply a one-size fits all penalty during the recovery round. Reduce the number of moving parts.

I ran a five-player group through the first part of Doomsday Dawn this Saturday. The age range of players was 40 to 60, with well over a century of collective tabletop-gaming experience in the room. The party composition was dwarf cleric, elf ranger, human fighter, elf rogue, and dwarf cleric. A little more variety race-wise could have been warranted. The group is accustomed to gaming together and synergizing their tactics.

Encounters: The group slew the sewer ooze effortlessly, breezed through both goblin encounters, cautiously avoided the centipedes and fungus, found the idol, battled the quasits for a few rounds, took swigs from the purified font, missed the skeletons entirely, got hit by a pile of rocks, and smote Drakus the Taker in the second round of combat. Only two of the five PCs sustained injury in the double digits; no one dropped to zero at any point. By the last encounter, the cleric had exhausted his channels, although he was very generous with them throughout. Obviously, a four-player party (or a party without a healer) would have been challenged to a greater degree.

Combat Mechanics: The group quickly fell in love with three actions per round with the potential for Athletics "maneuvers" minus the AoOs. Three actions seemed to make combat move swiftly. PCs could get to the front line or get the requisite weapon out and attack in the first round rather than the second. Similarly, the four degrees of success were a big hit. The crits were potent, but in a good way. Even though encounters were generally easy, having random spikes in damage made combat exciting. PCs using ranged strikes were pleasantly surprised to fire into melee without penalty. The lack of a surprise round was noticeable with mixed opinions on its prior usefulness. A few at the table balked when the 1st level ranger's animal companion hawk meted out 1d6 for a beak attack, but we explained it as the bird going for vitals.

Skills: This group uses skills quite frequently, particularly knowledge checks. Finding the correct skill was somtimes difficult. A more detailed go-to list of equivalencies would help. For example, when attempting to assess the construction of the ossuary we lacked engineering and fumbled a bit to find an analogous skill. Also, we're no stranger to hidden rolls. Sense motive and Perception have been hidden rolls for some time. But, by the end of the four-hour session, as a GM, rolling so many knowledge skill checks in secret was unnecessarily tedious. On a similar note, our rogue was bested by a lock. We guessed higher level rogues would meet with less abject failure. The table here was also divided. Some embraced the series of checks required; others saw it as needlessly fiddly.

While not truly a skill, this is as good a place as any to mention our observations regarding the 20' torch/light rules. Four out of five at the table wholeheartedly embraced the lack of an additional 20' of dim radius, arguing that these parameters now make the darkness of a cavern or dungeon a genuine force at the table. Who has the light spell, someone strike another torch, and don’t let it go out were real concerns that heightened the sense of danger and mystery. The other side of that coin was that darkvision is now considerably more potent, a factor effecting racial balance that may or may not have already been accounted for in game design.

As a GM, I have always rolled Sense Motive and Perception in secret, mostly because players respond so consistently to “outside” knowledge of danger/ doubledealing when the stakes are high, but player knowledge is ambiguous at best. Today, we ran the first playtest chapter including all secrets checks marked in the new rules. The players, all five of them, shrugged and could care less. I, on the other hand, was rolling a lot more dice as a GM, which did get tedious by the fourth hour. Keeping some rolls secret does add a layer of welcomed intrigue. Rolling knowledge checks in secret, however, I can file in the diminishing returns cabinet.

I can’t help but wonder if some of the more reactionary stances to this edition are hardwired culturally - the art of haggling (outside of the car dealership and the board room) is largely dead on this continent. Plus, we want everything, yesterday - with the push of a bottom. Compromise to satisfy both parties in this particular instance would be to find a middle ground between designers wanting to create a stable, long-term viable system that doesn’t break apart at 45 miles per hour like PF1 did and gamers who valuable the greatest amount of individual empowerment possible. This playtest is the haggle, not an existential battle for Paizo’s soul or finances.

Nice, thus far, this thread is refreshing - pointed concerns with proposed fixes minus the drama. Let's keep this type of feedback going.

Is there an explanation any where as to why the shift from gold to silver?

I suspect dropping a zero made it a little less riculous when carrying around wealth. To buy many items in the old system, you had to frequently carry around handtrucks worth of gold currency, which was a problem if you watched encumbrance. Most premodern economies ran on silver, at least on this plane of existence, to boot. An in-game reason provided though, no.

I can't speak for Dekalinder, but I'd rather see resonance removed and HP/healing run on the Starfinder Stamina/Hit Points/Resolve mechanic with 10 minute rests. Is that too sweeping a change if resonance playtests poorly?

Please no stamina - another resource pool runs against the current streamlining intent.

Good LORD seriously?

Since the 2E announcement, I've tried to maintain a conciliatory tone; I've tried to respect everyone's opinion. Hell, I'm still not sure how I feel about 2E myself.

But the grinding negativity, the incessant waling and gnashing of teeth...enough, already! There's a huge difference between offering suggestions for improvement and screaming your displeasure at the top of your lungs ad nauseam. Not only are you not helping, you're actively derailing meaningful conversations, because if you can't have the game you want, then NO ONE CAN.

It's basically scorched earth crap. Cut it out.

Agreed - it has reached near cartoon level - after a few passes, it becomes harder and harder to take anyone waving an "the end is nigh" sign frantically all that seriously.

Secret checks in specific instances to thwart metagaming, heighten tension, or for dramatic effect have been pretty common at many tables for years now. The results of some checks are more obvious than others and I'm not certain it's all that contentious of an issue. Game Masters or groups who don't favor them, probably should not use them.