Jacob Jett's page

JiCi wrote:

The fighter may be balanced, but I feel like it's missing unique class features to differenciate it from other martial classes.

Some will be quick to defend the Legendary proficiencies, but... what else?

Part of the point of the fighter is to not have unique class features. It is a Tabula Rasa that is mechanically flexible enough to focus on almost any style of martial combat, and lacks any flavor which might clash with your own vision. It is the vanilla ice cream of classes. Some people like it on its own, but it also the best base to build a Sunday off of... where things like the barbarian are more like Chocolate Cookie Dough you eat straight out of the pint container.

This has always sounded like Fighter should be an NPC class to me.

IMO, the +2 proficiency bonus is a pretty huge advantage (the maths bear this out). But also, looking at the kinds of mechanics other classes have in Pathfinder and Starfinder--Fighter, along with Monk, and followed by Cleric and Ranger, are designs that evince a different kind of philosophy vis-a-vis build paths. Unlike other classes that fulfill similar roles (e.g., Starfinder 2's Soldier) Fighter and Monk have no build path guiding mechanics (which are useful for new players) [and Clerics and Rangers have few build path guiding mechanics]. This is old news though.

At this point my primary gripe with all four of the classes--fighter and monk in particular--is how tired their designs look when compared to fresher class packages being tested for both Pathfinder and Starfinder. Fortunately (and as always), this is a pain point that experience GMs can ameliorate through the application of house rules.

Apologies if this was covered in the Gencon spoilers. I couldn't attend and haven't seen it mentioned in the previews available via streaming. But, I'm wondering if there's been any word what the new crossbow weapon group's critical specialize effect is going to be?

I believe that was High Helm? IIRC, everything post High Helm is using the ORC license.

Unfortunately, I'm edging into the thought pattern that name changes are the minimum necessary to move the bar towards success vis-a-vis the remaster and that fighters still being called fighters essentially moots the other successes of the remaster process. Ultimately, time will tell but, it might have been strategically better for them to kill PF2 early and proceed to PF3 sooner.

In any event, I'm in a waiting pattern until November.

House-rule wise, I'm personally leaning more towards eliminating Monk as a distinct class and distributing bits of it across other classes for my own campaigns.

One of the issues that I think the existing iteration of Monk faces is that it doesn't bring the inherent religious social role that its name indicates it should have among in-game societies to the fore adequately. It's out-of-game motivation, the wuxia genre (and to a lesser extent American interpretations of that genre, e.g., Kung Fu) would argue for it being a fighter variant with a name that has fewer religious connotations since wuxia classics like the series of novels from which Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was derived feature non-religious oriented martial artists more frequently than religious ones. But these concerns are rather tangential to the discussion here.

Hrrmmm...this is an unexpected development.

Considering the conversations going on here and the released preview content, I actually find myself wondering more and more whether or not Paizo's work to divest PF2 of OGL content is going to work when the core classes inherited from D&D are being retained?

Given The Asians Represent Podcasts excellent discussion of D&D5+'s new version of its Monk class, I wonder if Monk shouldn't actually be jettisoned from PF2.r and its aspects distributed among other, less expendable, classes (e.g., fighter, cleric, rogue, etc.)?

Jacob Jett wrote:

Is the point of the debate to stamp out the thinking of one of the groups? If so, isn't that something akin to mere cyberbullying?

That is certainly what it feels like to me. Especially with people insisting on using derogatory terms for the rules text that they don't like despite being informed that it is in fact considered derogatory.

Ah. Well, we agree to disagree that it is a pejorative. Frankly, we used to use it positively more often than pejoratively (and in some communities it still is used this way, and of course I use it in that manner as well). After all the "fluffy" things in the world are important if one is to use a specific setting.

IMO, saying that I'd like my rules separate from particular setting-facing narrative is the same thing as telling the person at the fast-food counter that I don't want salt on my fries. Perhaps we're attaching to much negativity to others.

Jacob Jett wrote:

I see what you're trying to say. I don't think it's necessary. If everyone at a table agrees, it's fine to color outside the lines and do both. Pre-historic technology clashing with high-tech space opera sounds fine to me. #workedfortheewoks

Yes. if everyone at the table agrees. But it isn't something that one player should just feel entitled to do completely on their own and without consulting anyone else at the table.

You aren't at my table. Not sure why you think I need to know this...

Jacob Jett wrote:

I think the intent of the conversation though is that its a nice-to-have when core rules make this an easier process for tables by strongly signaling what is "fluff" and what is game mechanics. I agree that sentiment, which I think is contrary to yours.

Ultimately for some it won't matter because they can implement their visions anyway.

Yes, that is contrary to my sentiment. I feel that having the defaults in place is valuable. And that separating that out into two locations is ineffective and will do more harm than good. It makes the default flavor harder to find if nothing else.

We agree to disagree. I thought it was quite workable in the first three and half editions of D&D, worked well for HERO, GURPS, TORG, and a slew of other games, including relatively recent ones like Genesys.

Jacob Jett wrote:

Also, I think my base assumption is that when folks customize, they do so with "intention and thought put into it." So I'm not sure were we're really going here...

The reason for the debate is because there are some on this thread that want to remove the flavor entirely and leave only generic mechanics, and others that claim that having the flavor and the mechanics together means that the flavor must be enforced as rigid and unchangeable rules. Both of those ideas have problems.

I would be a proponent of this position for the core rule books. It works well for other systems. I have no reason to believe it won't work well here. (It would definitely make my ongoing setting migration from D&D3.5 to PF2/PF2.r easier.)

Ultimately, I'm not sure why the debate has to happen. Some folks think thing A. Some think thing B. There's more than enough community space for both groups to coexist. Is the point of the debate to stamp out the thinking of one of the groups? If so, isn't that something akin to mere cyberbullying?

IIRC you're in academia, so I'll put on my paper reviewer hat.

Jacob, from your previous posts, it makes it clear that you feel no issue with changing either the narrative or the rules to fit the game you want to play.

I'm not sure why this sentence is here. It isn't adding anything to the conversation.

My argument is that that is the intended way for the game to be played, but it becomes more complicated to play it that way when people see "rules" as some fundamental feature of a game that have to be respected as is, but "narrative" is something entirely irrelevant to understanding or using those rules, so it can be discarded without consideration for the changes that will make on the game as a whole.

I've spent a long time trying to parse this argument. It would probably benefit from being broken into several smaller sentences that make the argument clearer. I think what you're trying to argue is that splitting game mechanics (i.e., rules) from setting-facing narrative (i.e., "fluff") makes it more complicated to customize a ttrpg to one's own stories, settings, worlds, etc. Is that right?

Assuming that I got your argument right, er...we agree to disagree?

I'm not sure how separating someone else's stories, settings, worlds, etc. from a game's mechanics makes it more difficult to redeploy those game mechanics into one's own stories, settings, worlds, etc. Experience (and logic really) would indicate that the opposite is going to be true because game mechanics don't necessarily have intentions the same way that a bolt and washer connecting something in a garage door don't necessarily have intentions. E.g., the game mechanics realizing a spell, realize a spell. That spell might be realized in the Lost Omens setting as easily as my own setting.

Now we could argue that what we have are game mechanics that realize spells in Golarion. However, game mechanics are not like brownies. It isn't the case that the Golarion part is baked in and inseparable. The game mechanics are communicated by sentences which comprise phrases, comprising words, all of which can be teased apart until I have game mechanics for a spell and some portion that adjusts it for "in Golarion". It's more work to repurpose for a different setting but still achievable. That's rather the opposite of the argument I think you were trying to make.

Ultimately though, I'm not sure why your making that argument or even why this kind of conversation is happening. The game mechanisms for any (and every ttrpg) can be repurposed. That is the nature of machinery. This repurposing may go against the intentions of the creators of said machinery--although I'm going to argue that all of the encouraging sentences in the existing rule books aimed specifically at customization means that the creators intend for repurposing to occur--but such repurposing never goes against the intention of the machinery itself. Machinery isn't the kind of thing that has intentions.

Jacob Jett wrote:

breithauptclan wrote:

Jacob Jett wrote:

My setting, my worlds, my narrative. I'll handle the layering in of those things myself.

Yes. But the point is that you - and the other players playing with you - have to actually handle those things.

If you and your friends are coming up with completely separate and often incompatible narrative flavor, the game isn't going to go well.

This would be wrong per most of the rulebooks (everywhere they say, [and I paraphrase] 'feel free to customize').

And you are still not understanding what I am saying.

Yes. Customize. Of course you should make your game your own.

But you have to do it with intention and thought put into it. If all of the players at the table are customizing in different directions, then the story you are telling won't make much sense.

So sure. Re-skin PF2 to look like Starfinder. Adapt it to a prehistoric low technology setting. But work it out with the other players so that you don't try to do both at the same time.

I see what you're trying to say. I don't think it's necessary. If everyone at a table agrees, it's fine to color outside the lines and do both. Pre-historic technology clashing with high-tech space opera sounds fine to me. #workedfortheewoks

I think the intent of the conversation though is that its a nice-to-have when core rules make this an easier process for tables by strongly signaling what is "fluff" and what is game mechanics. I agree that sentiment, which I think is contrary to yours.

Ultimately for some it won't matter because they can implement their visions anyway.

Also, I think my base assumption is that when folks customize, they do so with "intention and thought put into it." So I'm not sure were we're really going here...

Jacob Jett wrote:

My setting, my worlds, my narrative. I'll handle the layering in of those things myself.

Yes. But the point is that you - and the other players playing with you - have to actually handle those things.

If you and your friends are coming up with completely separate and often incompatible narrative flavor, the game isn't going to go well.

This would be wrong per most of the rulebooks (everywhere they say, [and I paraphrase] 'feel free to customize').

I am not speaking for anyone except myself, but I do think that mechanical text at its best is also narrative text.

Rules are a prescriptive story for how to resolve actions and conflict. If you use "the rules as written" for PF2, you are adding a whole lot of narrative constraint to the game you are playing, even if you try to create some arbitrary line between "rules" and "narrative." Wizards exist in any game played with PF2 in pretty particular narrative constraints by having spell slots and requiring a spell book. It is a game where fighting dragons requires specialized heroes and not armies of untrained militia.

That is certainly a respectable position to take. Speaking for myself, I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum. My setting, my worlds, my narrative. I'll handle the layering in of those things myself.

EDIT: I should note, several of the core rule books (and at least one Lost Omens book) take some pains to lay out the customizability of the ruleset and how GMs can change things like narrative "fluff" (which is why I say Paizo would like to eat their cake and still have it at the same time). It's also why I think these conversations are kinda moot. It's pointless for anyone (not you specifically or at all) to nerd rage about integrated "fluff" when Paizo has written many, many sentences walking that fluff's existence back to reinsure folks with their own settings (or even own versions of Lost Omens/Golarion) that they can customize as they like. So despite being at opposite ends of the spectrum there's hardly anything to converse about let alone argue over...

Jacob Jett wrote:

IMO, the thing to be more worried about is whether or not you're strongly signaling what your IP is. Since game mechanics can't actually be copyrighted, the argument for separating "fluff" from your game mechanics is primarily to avoid the rather awkward situation of some arbitrary judge in a courtroom making the determination

That is the job of the SRD.

Check out the difference between the flavor filled Aldori Duelist from AoN (that has special licence agreement) and the Duelist from OGN that relies on the SRD alone.

I can see that this is likely to be the case for whatever SRD document is instituted for ORC. However the differences between the SRD and D&D3/D&D3.5 were somewhat larger than your Aldori Duelist example. For instance Illithids and Beholders were part of the base out-of-the-box D&D3/3.5 ruleset and appeared in many WotC authored settings for that ruleset. But neither appear under the purview of the SRD. They were retained as bespoke WotC IP. And if memory serves, no 3rd party publisher used them.

So the difference is actually quite a bit more involved.

I'm not so certain. There's definitely a perceived "balance" along with 1/encounter mechanic-set that the next edition could double down on. IMO, this would provide a three-fold benefit:

1) Make more observable the games mathematical balance points (which some perceive as "balance" in and of itself).

2) Institute a series of feel-goods through better aligning martial and spell-casting classes abilities into broad, @will, 1/encounter, 1/day abilities. (The flaw of D&D4 not being the institution of these things but in retaining the D&D brand for it. Better if they had made a new game and then slowly merged their lines...but that requires the kind of multi-year planning that the average business-person calling the shots doesn't have.)

3) Provide a distinct differentiation point between PF2/PF2.r and PF3. While lagging sales is often the primary cause of a new edition being created, the fact is that sales start to lag because people start to yearn for shiny and new things. This is actually part of GW's sales strategies (beyond the rolling balance issues that their tournament organizers face...). Newness is an important aspect for new editions. And truly, developers and authors like to try out new things too.

So, I would not expect so small an incremental advance as the differences between (A)D&D1 and (A)D&D2--the latter in some ways being more akin to a (A)D&D1.5 version of the former than a true iterative edition.

SuperBidi wrote:

Captain Morgan wrote:

I mean, fine, say you can't be a sorcerer without being born with it or can't cast finger of death with boxing gloves. The game still isn't broken just because you don't like some of the consequences. You don't need to have sorcerers gain powers from an experiment gone wrong to have a functional game. Personally, I'm not a fan of reflavoring in the first place. There are plenty of character concepts that still work without needing to turn your bow into a pulse rifle.

Maybe your vision of "broken" is not mine. I consider that if I have a significant portion of the rules that are no more working (Deer Animal Barbarian, Dispel Magic, Finger of Death on non-fingered creatures, etc...) the game is broken. I consider that if I can't play a non-vanilla Sorcerer (and certainly a lot of other non-vanilla things) the game is significantly altered.

But more importantly: What's the point in defending that not being able to become a Sorcerer is fine? Just to get a point?
I don't think anyone uses flavor text literally. Defending that flavor text and mechanical text are equivalent is false for most players.

Unicore wrote:

This attitude that lore is not a part of the game and thus either has to be 100% mechanical rules arbitration or it can safely be ignored by player without talking to their GM about the effect those narrative changes have on the game is why the word "fluff" is problematic for folks who invest decades in narrative game design.

PF2 strives not to have "flavor text" in their rule books. IF you want "flavorless rules" that is for something like a SRD that is not relevant to the world the game is being played in. Yes, the rules of PF2 can be modded easily to work with any setting or game world you want to play in, but the narrative intention text of those rules can be modded just as easily. Seeing one as more important to the game than the other suggests that the rule books should just not include any setting material or

...

IMO, the thing to be more worried about is whether or not you're strongly signaling what your IP is. Since game mechanics can't actually be copyrighted, the argument for separating "fluff" from your game mechanics is primarily to avoid the rather awkward situation of some arbitrary judge in a courtroom making the determination that your "fluffy game mechanics" are game mechanics and thereby you have no protectable IP. A beneficial side effect of this, is that it makes it much easier for expert GMs and world-building GMs to reuse your game mechanics (purchasing your game books) to realize their game settings. This was traditionally one of the two ttrpg markets that D&D has pursued all along (the other being the community of GMs that prefer to run pre-canned adventures). Ironically, you don't really need core rulebooks for the latter group since you could just write the "core rules" directly into your initial crop of adventure books. (And in some ways, D&Ds many setting books used this approach to customize their base game mechanics for different serialized adventure settings.)

And so, in some respects PF2 has been more of a jumped up Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms style of rules books than a series of core D&D-style rulebooks. (And this is more-or-less fine for skilled GMs willing to apply house rules to customize the base rules.)

Ironically, the intrusion of Lost Omens "fluff" into the various PF2 core rule books argues rather strongly that Lost Omens as a distinct brand isn't really necessary since both core books and Lost Omens books are in affect, Lost Omens books. This does create some branding dilemmas though...why have two brands for the same brand?

IMO, until such time as Paizo institutes a second setting that pairs the core rules with radically different "fluff", PF2 (and PF2.r) will be in an awkward state of trying to eat a cake but still have it. There are some weird parallels with analyses of China's Three Kingdom's period and the Shu-Han's inability to progress from a warlord state to the kind of political states that Wu, Wei, and Jin established.

As always, YMMV.

- Frogs are predators. Deer are not, but they certainly are on the receiving end of the rage of wild predators. I'd simply play a deer barbarian as having more flight in their fight or flight response.

I don't think that's really necessary. Herbivores can be quite aggressive. Having a close encounter with a buck during rut season is definitely something to be avoided. Even mice have been know to fend off cats when sufficiently motivated. And...some food for thought...most herbivores are known to supplement their diets with meat. Deer have been caught eating small mammals and insects on occasion.

The whole carnivore/herbivore divide is a bit more porous than folks think. (Which is the case for the boundaries of most groupings.)

"The fury of a wild predator fills you when you Rage" => deers and frogs are hardly predators, so no Deer nor Frog Animal Barbarian.

Er...frogs are predators...

I think inevitably, PF3 (when it arrives years from now) is highly likely to resemble D&D4.

James Jacobs wrote:

The standard categorization remains as it was in 1st edition:

Deity = any divinity that doesn't get a stat block.
Demigod = any divinity that gets a stat block and is almost always level 26–30 and is thus generally out of reach of typical groups.
Quasi-Deity = any divinity of level 25 or lower with a stat block and is thus in the reach of typical groups.

In 2nd edition, we've removed all the other quantifications, most notably the number of domains a divinity grants since 2nd edition rules work differently. As we move into the remastered rules and away from the OGL, I suspect we'll use these naming conventions even less, to be honest, but we'll see!

Well this is why you click preview before posting.

In any case I really do hope we don't lose the classifications. Its a very interesting part of the Golarion setting, and it would be a shame to lose it.

I want to say, IIRC, the classifications themselves hie from (A)D&D1 originally. The method in which they have been implemented has varied over time. Having gone through the onerous process of writing around 4 dozen info blocks for deities in my campaign setting...I wish Paizo would formalize and streamline the mechanics surrounding them. I also kind of wish the avatar spell just used one basic stat block...I'm not looking forward to writing 4 dozen or so avatar stat blocks...

I think archetypes as a whole are a bit overloaded. It would be a nice-to-have if a future GM-facing book had some verbiage unpacking all of the different roles they play and how their specifications vary according to the role. Afterall being a Hellknight Armiger is different from being a Ghoul is different from being an Archer is different from the Fighter multiclass archetype.

These all fulfill very different ludo-narrative roles. That they use the exact same game engine portions to achieve this speaks to the overall robustness of the engine but also showcases a design pain-point in which it becomes difficult to produce things like a Gunslinger - Ghoul Fighter Hellknight Armiger Archer. Narratively, there's no reason such a combination couldn't occur (e.g., as it could in a novel...).

A wishes-for-fishes would be variant rules that break the space down into different, if related, sets of game-facing mechanics.

I honestly thought that Kaiju generally were more interesting than the tarrasque... So, I suppose I won't miss it any more than I'm going to miss alignment. Other things like the Otyugh on the other hand...

Do they need to replace it? I don't think I've ever seen an item this disruptive seeded into an adventure path and I doubt we ever would have anyway. It's a fun item to exist as a possibility for GMs fo throw out. We all like that it exists. But it can probably continue to be exactly as present in games as a legacy item. It will remain usable until PF3, at least. And a lot of things could change by PF3. To pick an extreme example, Hasbro could purchase Paizo and turn Pathfinder into the new official "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons."

I definitely employed it in my (A)D&D2 games. Twas a fun bit of randomness.

(And yeah. If I were an exec at Hasbro, this definitely would be one of my strategies since AD&D and D&D comfortably co-existed for almost 2 decades.)

Hasbro net worth 8.6 Billion

Blizzard net worth 63.4 Billion

So...

Eh...net worth is for speculators. Annual revenues say what kind and how many lawyers you can afford. IMO, compared to it's miniscule annual revenues, Blizzard appears to be grossly overvalued. But this is true for many media companies. Quite possibly a financial correction is coming that will simply erase all of that net worth like a pair of fingers snapping away 50% of the universe (if you take my meaning).

YMMV

Hasbro is maybe a $2 billion dollars a year company. Blizzard is so much bigger they can do what they want.

Actually Blizzard is the $2 billion a year company. Hasbro is closer to $6 billion a year. So...

EDIT: I should note, annual revenues for both have down year after year for the last two years...

So if I am getting this right we have moved the discussion into "Is the Fighter AS good than Monk at Unarmed Attacks or are they BETTER?" and just completely accepted that this idea that they should even be tied is just genre and concept defying madness...

I get that we have a developer up in here defending the idea that the Monk is good with Unarmed Combat "in other ways" than Fighter but here is the thing, the Fighter can do everything the Monk can BETTER than a Monk with Weapons and can be at least AS GOOD as a fully single class specialized Monk in Unarmed Attacks if the Fighter simply takes a few Monk MCA Feats. There is NO WAY a Monk can EVER even approach being as good at what a Fighter is good at via MCA Feats or anything else... but the Fighter gets a free pass to invest a few of their one resource the also happen to get more of than any other Class to have or surpass parity with the power scale of the actual Class they're poaching from. Maybe the team should look at it from this perspective, that is unless the whole idea of the Fighter Class has always been "the best at Martial Combat THE-END."

The Fighter seems to be getting special treatment here where they have their own niche protection but at the same time, they're allowed to poach the niche of other Classes all while still maintaining accuracy superiority and having a bunch of flexible Class Feats to spare and gain consistent bonuses to damage that don't rely on gimmicks to pull off.

We agree (let's not agree violently). The maths say, fighters are a privileged class (in more ways than one).

It should be able to houserule some tags that do the same thing as the holy/unholy tags are going to do with spiritual damage.

Wei Ji the Learner wrote:

Not sure where Divine fits yet.

Wasn't that Gods & Magic?

Gods & Magic is specifically a Lost Omens book. Whereas Secrets of Magic, Dark Archive, and Howl of the Wild are more simply just PF2 source books.

So, I'm in the camp of, "hope we get a divine book soon," too. Hopefully it addresses non-deistic faiths pike philosophies, nature worship, animism, etc., etc. (if Tian Xia does not in fact address some of these already).

I apologize if I already posted this, but I am hoping for a Yeti ancestry in the Tian Xia book, especially after fighting some yeti monks in Ruby Phoenix. There is a lot of weird directions you could take that ancestry.

Ooo, +1 to this wish from me. My setting has Yetis. Twould be nice to give my players the option.

I'm pretty excited to see Iruxi getting a remasterr. No specifics have been announced as far as I know, but I was curious what kind of changes the community might be interested in for paizo's scaled astronomers?

For me, I never thought the Aquadic Adaptaion (breath control) quite fit Iruxi in 2e. Why can desert Lizard men hold their breath for so long? From what i know most lizards arnt particularly well suited to aquatic life aside from marine iguanas. I feel like its one of the hold over aspects from DnD. In addition to Paizo was doing a really neat thing by emphasizing ecological variation with the sandstrider, wetlands, and woodstalker heritages. It represents the diverty that lizards have evolved to better thrive in their environments. I hope to see the remaster really dive into those environmental variations.

Blog post mentioning the remaster.

I always thought that Aquatic Adaptation was for all those wetland dwelling Iruxi.

The obsession with Legendary proficiency on martials in this forum is bizarre, NGL.

IMO, it would make some sense if they had expert/master for unarmed, and possibly monk weapons, a bit quicker than they do.

Fighters are mathematically superior to other martial classes. Now it would be easy to argue for nerfs, but I think sharing the expertise around to other martial classes also shares around the feel goods.

Edit: Part of the design issue with archetypes is that they come in four very distinct types: cross-training (i.e., multiclassing), specialist (e.g., sentinel), elite group membership (e.g., Hellknight Armiger), and cursed/undead (e.g., ghoul). This makes for a schizophrenic design space that troes to solve multiple design problems with a single tool. Unfortunately it has all the problems of the single tool approach. E.g., while a swiss army knife is useful in a pinch, actual screwdrivers, scissors, etc. are superior tools. Or alternately, if you don't like the multitool analogy, "if all you have is a hammer, then every problem looks like a nail."

We haven't tasted it yet though...

IMO, the simplest solution is going to look something like, every wizard gets access to the entire arcane spell list from which they select spells for the old spell-book. Then specialists get small bonus lists from which they can add spells to their spell-books and universalists get some other bonus. You have to think the solution will be the lightest weight solution possible. No body likes make work.

Frankly, until we see sample pages or other spoilery info though, we won't really know what the impact of the OGL changes is. I, like others, think it's going to be fine (if a pain to expand on) but the kind of up in arms, Paizo's wrecking everything talk is over the top IMO. These are all Schrödinger's manuscript drafts for now.

People have difficulty with flight. That is not for debate. I think its reasonable to go "GMs should be empowered to make a game that is fun for them and the entire table, and that includes limiting flight at early levels if they see it as a problem" instead of "GMs should let the players have unlimited flight and hope they can make it fun for themselves and the other players"

I'm saying the first (and that it's easy). I'm not saying the second. Folks are reading what they want to read when I say, flight has never trivialized anything in any of my games.

EDIT: I should say, I feel like there's some weirdness with the "fun" aspect. Like if you as a player are not having fun because of another player's character concept, then the issue might be with you and not them. Like it's a good thing for players to discuss what they want out of their characters with one another. If someone wants flight and most folks are good with it (and really, why shouldn't they be, same team and all) then the one person who does have a problem is playing with the wrong group. (And ultimately, whether a character can fly or not, that's not what makes the character special.)

So one thing Pathfinder 2e is set up to do is to empower GMs to shut down certain things that will break specific plots or scenarios that the GM has planned without having to do things like "seed anti-teleport traps everywhere.

Sounds exhausting. I can't recall my players having this much teleport at their fingertips.

So sure, there are absolutely stories where "one member of the party has infinite flight from level 1" is not going to be a problem, there are assuredly plenty of stories where it is. Pathfinder 2e is set up to enable the GM to tell the sorts of stories that the GM wants, and if the GM wants to tell a story where "flight is rare and limited at low levels" they should be able to. You might have done a lot of work before you even know who the PCs are and having to find out "oh, I have to rewrite a bunch of this because one of the PCs can fly" kind of bites.

A good rule of thumb (advice from a veteran DM), lean into a character creation session so you know what's what. Some anecdotes from history. Most folks start with modules/APs. In my day we played the starter adventure, IIRC, it was called something like "The Terrible Trouble at Tragidore." I was a player, not DM. It was fine but knowing I'd soon be DMing, I found the adventure structure to be a narrative straight-jacket.

Once you move on from canned adventures/APs, then you write your own. That's pretty natural. As you're doing that you might start bottom up world building the way DM Lair describes it. This is all journeyperson level and, where if you give players free reign at character creation, you could be bit by something unexpected. IMO, this is the most frustrating stage for GMs because at this level of expertise there's a tendency to overprep your narrative and the players can easily make choices that disrupt it. Ironically, I experienced the most problems with this level of storytelling with FASA's Shadowrun game. If you don't want your players to wreck things, this is the level were you need to discuss with them ahead of time and negotiate with regards to your expectations as GM and their expectations as players.

Eventually, you'll either burn out storytelling at the journeyperson level (because players are not interested in the story you as GM want to tell--they want to tell their own stories, and they should, that's really the GM's remit, facilitating the players in telling their story), or you take the next big plunge--top down worldbuilding. In top-down world building the focus is on designing a sandbox through which manifold stories can be told. One of the activities you'll engage in during the top-down approach is reading and re-reading rules multiple times in order to situate everything in your setting just so (like a complex pattern of dominoes). You should expect to take and make lots of notes. Through all of this you will achieve mastery.

From there it becomes observational. The players make the characters in your sandbox and you tailor the story to them. Because really, at the end of the day, it's their story. You already did your part, organizing a space in which their story can happen. If they want to fly, blow crap up, etc., etc. Let them.

Additional helpful skills for master GMs to develop include: ad libbing, making up crap on the fly, and knowing which rules need to closely followed, which ones to ignore, and which to pay lip service to are vital skills to develop here. It's helpful if you've played and GM'd multiple different ttrpg systems (at a minimum I'd say 7 or 8 minimum). Be sure to at least play, if not GM, Torg. Observe its Drama Deck in action. I only ever interacted with Torg as a player but the narrative impact of the Drama Deck was a lesson I took to heart.

But another reason to not allow unlimited low level flight potentially is that anytime you're singling out one member of the party as especially capable or incapable, that kind of sucks for at least one player. It's like how you don't run a lot of scenarios where "darkness is a problem" with parties that are like a Dwarf, a Goblin, a Tiefling Elf, and a Regular-Degular Human (all darkvision except the last PC) or with parties that are like an Orc, an Anadi, an Iruxi, and a Halfling (nobody even has low-light vision except the Orc.)

This is a non-issue if you tailor the story to the players rather than try to jam all the square pegs into your matrix of round holes. Write for them. Don't make them jump through hoops for yourself.

I won't lie, my way of GMing isn't for the casual GM. But then again, I don't think a crunch-heavy system like PF2.r is for the casual GM either. It has so many delightful sub-systems that can take the game from zero to 120km/hr in seconds. For more casual GMs, they are plenty of light-weight systems that have great balance points, e.g., Lasers & Feelings.

For the record, the most trivial thing to do in any TTRPG is to deliver a TPK. Even D&D3.5 presented no obstacle to this and I suspect it's equally possible with D&D5. If PF2.r does anything, it makes this trivial thing even more trivial.

EDIT: Upon reflection, we have here an almost Han Solo v. Obi-Wan Kenobi kind of difference in world view. IMO, there's no such thing as luck. If you aren't deeply plugged into character creation as a GM, then you're basically relying on luck to keep everything going to plan, instead of planning for the choices your players are making.

Lurker in Insomnia wrote:

In other words, as far as niches go we still have the Universalist, evokers (battle magic), transmuters (protean form), and others right? Even if they are rough analogs, they are still similar roles and should be mechanically similar?

Not quite.

As it currently stands currently Evocation Wizards can get an extra slot of every level (except 10th) to cast any evocation spell that they know from the entire list of arcane spells. The new system appears to only grant a small list of spells closer to what sorcerers bloodline and cleric deities get.

So the wizard is losing a tons of versatility (what was its bread and butter). For a single unique spells and the flavor of "I went to college" that was already provided by the fact that they got a thesis and had it all over their feats.

We actually can't be sure that this is what's happening. It's better to reserve judgement until we see the actual text as it will be implemented. What you're describing is kind of a "worse case scenario". My bet is that wizards will have some general versatility with universalists ruling the roost with regards to versatility.

In other words, as far as niches go we still have the Universalist, evokers (battle magic), transmuters (protean form), and others right? Even if they are rough analogs, they are still similar roles and should be mechanically similar?

In essence. Yes.

I do believe that the potential social benefits of attending a college are adequately captured in (IIRC) the LO World Guide and GMG which both have sections on factions. Colleges, fraternities/sororities, and professional associations can all be implemented using the faction sub-system. A number of existing archetypes suggest themselves for repurposing for use with such factions. As such, I'm not sure there's a compelling argument for adding such specific social sub-systems to the wizard class itself. (It also rather jarringly auto-opts-in all players, even those who don't really want to engage in such memberships. Whereas in the real world such memberships are the burden of the individual members to actively opt-in [typically through the paying of annual dues].)

So let me see if I'm parsing your argument correctly...
- GMs shouldn't mind having chunks of their toolbox trivialized, because they still have some toolbox left. Losing pit traps is fine. You still have other traps that are not pit traps.

Wrong already. Flight is as much a tool in the box as bears and pits.

- A true GM should be able to work around this with no problem.

Facts. Although I'd drop the word "true". Any GM should have the skills to know when and where to employ bears and pit traps to challenge the players in manners that aren't easily trivialized.

- This means that those who don't like this optional rule are simply stubborn, and, further, opposition to using it is tantamount to complaining about the game, because clearly this optional rule (with serious built in warnings) is the way the game was meant to be played.

Nope. Clinging to the notion that "giving players flight out of the box is game-breaking" is what's pig-headed.

Frankly a close reading of the CRB and GMG reveal that the manner in which the game is meant to be played is up to individual tables. In my opinion, no table should dismiss the optional flight rules out of hand. They're good and not unbalancing.

- In conclusion, anyone who doesn't agree with you on the matter of this optional rule isn't being properly supportive of Paizo/PF2

Sir, your argument does not reflect well on you.

Hyperbole and personal attacking here. I've said no such thing. Merely that those who choose to believe that flight is going to trivialize their games lack adequate imagination to see how it won't. It is a fantasy game afterall. If your poaching bears in the forest, I shouldn't be surprised if the forest's protectors come calling. If we're talking encounters, then the GM needs to have a thorough understanding of their players' characters. And thereby, plan accordingly. This doesn't mean don't use bears and pits. It means use bears and pits creatively.

Ultimately, I think there is a difference in GM skills at play here. I come from an old school place where we were encouraged to paint outside the lines, build our own worlds, and customize our stories to our players characters. Dealing with mechanics like flight is par for the course in my case. I don't consider it a meaningful challenge to keep it from trivializing anything. A good skill for GMs to develop is dealing with mechanics like flight which are quite ubiquitous in many other ttrpgs (where they again fail to trivialize things). I reject the thesis that flight is game-breaking. But I also have more than three decades running games like this one. YMMV

Jacob Jett wrote:

In three different editions of D&D and dozens other ttrpgs, this is a problem I've literally never encountered.

I mean, for example, if you can fly all day and have a cantrip that does damage, you can defeat an infinite number of bears without taking any damage. You will just eventually get sleepy and fly off where the bears can't get you.

There's also stuff like "Pit traps are not a problem when you can just fly out of them."

I mean...I suppose we can can concoct any manner of deus ex machina to trivialize all of a game's bits and bobs. IMO, this is a malfunction of the GM and not the game's mechanics. I'm pretty sure your flyer won't be able to trivialize one of my bears encounters... I'm also not certain where you'd go where the bears won't get you. Town maybe? (Then the bears become someone else's problem I suppose.)

I'll also point out that there're are more kinds of traps (and hazards) than just pits.

But I can see some folks are just really pig-headed about this, which is really a demonstration of lack of imagination. Which is pretty sad since we should be celebrating this game instead of picking stuff apart.

I should think that an awakened snake can use its lower body and tail like a pair of hands for the purposes of grappling folks and opening containers, and possibly even wielding weapons. Disney's animated Robin Hood and Jungle Book movies seem relevant...

Dero as a concept does not originate with D&D. It means "DEtrimental RObot" and is from fairly modern occultism. They are inhuman subterranean sadists tormenting all of humanity.

It's also a name of one of the Nereids in Greek mythology and a genus of worms. So...

So, now that I have my copies of the BZ Bestiary and BZ Ancestries Dragons, I'm wondering if (or hopefully when?) the new dragons in the Ancestries book will get bestiary entries? I would love to use some as encounters, qua interesting dragons.

It's just extra work for the GM to ensure that there are no encounters or problems that one PC (but not the rest) can trivialize by "you can fly".

In three different editions of D&D and dozens other ttrpgs, this is a problem I've literally never encountered.

I mean, the cosmology has never been that well understood. There's lots of things that are mysterious, like "Where do Domains come from, they apparently predate Gods" and "Why does Pharasma do what she does" (a thing they won't comment on too much because they don't want players trying to "game" dying.)

So "what's outside this universe, it's not nothing" isn't necessarily that much of an issue.

Which is why the rules treatment for non-deity faiths is sooooooooooooo frustrating...

Evan Tarlton wrote:

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

The strix actually have a variant rule attached for first-level flight. My guess is awakened animals will have the same. That said, I've seen Paizo designers saying that they may not feel as strongly about flight being a problem as they used to, so who knows? It'll be a Rare ancestry, after all. Hope springs eternal.

That said, winged ancestries are pretty prevalent in the game right now. I wouldn't be surprised to see more.

1st level flight? Where is that variant?

It's just a general variant for ancestries who should all be able to fly from the Ancestry Guide.

Quote:

Flying PCs: Certain ancestries, such as strix or sprites, have wings. The presented ancestry rules intend to provide a good combination of story and game balance for most groups. However, some players might have character concepts that don’t fit this assumption and might wish to fly from initial character creation. At the GM’s discretion, the GM can grant these PCs a 15-foot fly Speed, replacing any other abilities that involve flying, such as the strix’s Wings ancestral trait. In this case, any feat that upgrades the PC’s flying capabilities, such as the strix’s Fledgling Flight and Juvenile Flight feats, might instead upgrade this Speed by an additional 5 feet. However, GMs who allow this option should be aware that a PC who can constantly fly can trivialize many low- and mid-level challenges, consistently outshining or leaving other characters behind; the GM should consider this option very carefully before allowing it and adjust the game accordingly.

Wow. That's actually more generous than the 5' fly speed I'm using in my Gargoyle ancestry draft for my home games.

I think mainly, folks remember when WotC rolled out D&D3.5. Since Paizocon, it's become clear that the quantity and scope of many of the changes are similar to that change. Personally, I'm more of its PF2.1 or at most, PF2.2. But I'm not against folks going with PF2.5. It's fine. We still have many a year before a 3.0 will be necessary.

Everyone mark your calendars because Temperans and Unicore are making (loosely) the same argument in that PF2 is (slowly) moving away from a static cosmology that is knowable in its boundaries. We are going to see more of this explained in Rage of Elements and how different cultures and societies believe different things about the number of elemental planes. The folks in Avistan, for example had no knowledge at all about the plane of Metal or the plane of wood and only some are going to be getting introduced to them and believe they are real.

Also, magic is getting less structured and more open to interpretation about how it works and who can cast what spells.

These are not Golarion shattering changes, but it does seem clear that the lore team is leaning into Golarion bound narrators for rules books that have incomplete knowledge to share with the reader.

I mean...not unironically, the existing Game Mastery Guide has rather relevant (if not too crunchy) instructions on how individual GMs can turn these knobs and flip these switches anyways. IMO, the customizability is just more apparent now.

Slings are weird; they don't really seem to fit at all in the niche the game has defined for them. For instance, I have no idea how they're a "simple" weapon. I promise you I could reasonably operate a crossbow with half an hour of practice, but a sling? No way. At the very least a sling should be martial, if not advanced, and it should effective enough to at least somewhat justify the investment. I can only speculate that slings are "bad" because they don't seem to enjoy a favorable place in popular fiction.

Facts. Similarly swords with longer blades are easier to teach effective techniques for than ones with shorter blades. Knives and daggers in particular require the most training to be fully effective. I sometimes wonder if simple=primitive and/or simple=doubles as a tool...

Jacob Jett wrote:

Isn't Asmodeus originally from pre-D&D sources? IIRC, this is true of a bunch of demon lords and princes of hell. Like Dispater is actually an Etruscan god of the underworld. Etc. Etc.

Asmodeus comes from Redwall. Of this I am 110% certain. This is why the Prince of Lies is associated with snakes.

This statement should not be taken at face value

No. It's important to do the homework.

As I mentioned. This is the case for many of D&D's big bads.

Edit: Wait, wait, wait. I hate how hard text in other colors is to read on phones. I'm with you. Apologies if the terseness is too blunt. Offense is not intended. Can't recall the strike through markup right now but am leaving the link in case others take it as literally as I did at first.

Isn't Asmodeus originally from pre-D&D sources? IIRC, this is true of a bunch of demon lords and princes of hell. Like Dispater is actually an Etruscan god of the underworld. Etc. Etc.

Actually... I notice that this book is giving us two different aquatic ancestries. We're getting Tian Xia, which has that Xidao tie-in. We just got Firebrands in... could we be seeing the lead-in to an Aquatic Adventures book of some sort? Possibly something about the Shackles?

I would love an aquatic themed book. :D