Jacob Jett's page

This seems intriguing.

Players that rush ahead tend to slow down while those left behind get sped up.

This has also been my experience (since AD&D2 and on). Mixing characters of different levels isn't too arduous at all.

As an old lover of Spelljammer and veteran GM of FFG's trio of SW RPGs, I'll likely liberally cross the streams of SF and PF as the story dictates. A significant factor will be what SF classes look like when they only have access to PF equipment.

Jacob Jett wrote:

Ah, but it did cost the player something. It cost them a choice.

No, it doesn't. It's not taking away from a Fighter feat or anything else. It's just a free thing built into the chassis.

It isn't free. It's part of the class design budget. Like you get this or you don't. But if you don't, are you much of a game designer?

Like this is design 101. Everything is part of the budget and thereby needs a, "why I am here and who am I for." Personally I either would have made parry my go-to here or wrapped Shield Block into the collection of feat choices.

Now it's clear that Shield Block is primarily here to provide access to Reactive Block. But that raises a question regarding whether or not Reactive Block is something necessary for a level 1 character. But as I have said, these kinds of "have X to enable Y" design decisions are all over the character creation subsystems. And, this clearly is at the expense of players who don't need access to Reactive Block.

It's kind of like arguing that book X at the library has value Y on account that every taxpayer has a equal share of it. The problem is that all things being equal, it's not the case that every taxpayer would have bought that book if there was no library. In real life, this is the kind of thing that makes taxpayers exercised. I'm sorry that you don't see it. But I get the OP's position and am sympathetic to it. It's a flaw in the design of the fighter (and character creation in general).

The only person who said sword and board is the "correct" build is you. No one else has. It's there for those who want to use it. Almost every class has something like this (druid, wizard, Magus....). Now I could sort of see this being an issue if you cost you something, but it doesn't. And for a fighter it absolutely makes sense that they would learn to use a shield as a part of their basic training.

Ah, but it did cost the player something. It cost them a choice (of which they have been deprived).

Well...this is the thorny dichotomy between being given permission to provide the rules for free and being the official source of free rules for the game.

Hopefully some errata will be forthcoming when PC2 drops. Although, taken together with ongoing issues folks have with Gunslinger a notional PC3 appearing next year wouldn't be the worst thing. If nothing else it would gather the rest of the original 2E classes into a single reference book.

Jacob Jett wrote:

Rolling my eyes here. Minor thing remains minor.

I think you're pretty much missing the point.

Well, we agree that one of us is anyway.

IF the character actually uses their shield, then shield block is pretty much worth a general feat (I say pretty much to try and avoid arguments on where it is on the general feat power spectrum).

But if you're playing a two handed weapon fighter, or an archer, or a two weapon fighter, or a free hand fighter then shield block becomes much less valuable. Still has SOME value since even somebody specializing in another fighting style will still sometimes want to use shield block. But much, much less (especially since the monetary cost to keep a useful shield for blocking is non trivial).

For THOSE characters swapping Shield Block with an arbitrary general feat is very clearly a power up. It is slightly less powerful than just giving those fighters an extra general feat but only slightly. And there are quite a few useful general feats.

And, of course, if Player A sees Player B getting a "free" feat from whining then they're going to want a free feat too. Why can't my druid (especially Pre remaster) ALSO swap out their shield block for a general feat? Why can't my cloistered cleric swap out Proficiency with their dieties weapon for something? Why can't my lizardfolk swap out his claws attack for something?

etc. etc. etc

It is
1) Broken in this specific instance
2) Leads to a massive issue of what can be swapped out for what.

You say you like to make massive sets of house rules. Fine. Do what you want. Most of us, however, don't.

Edit to add: From a purely mechanical point of view, the 2 huge advantages that Humans get that are almost universally considered to make them one of the best ancestries mechanically are
1) Extra General Feat
2) Yet another general feat OR a 1st level class feat.

Especially at low levels general feats can be HUGELY powerful. As in almost character defining or almost meaning the difference between life and death. Eg, grabbing a...

Unfortunately, my interpretation of your diatribe is that the "correct" fighter build is "sword and board," to which I say, piffle. The hallmark of bad design are universal features that are only used by a minority of the population. When this pattern emerges, it's a clear indication that the universal feature should have been an optional one.

To ignore rule #1 is to both over-value and under-value what the GM's role is. Fundamentally, the GM has to have the goal of the players having a good time. The value of rule #1 is that it gives GM's carte blanche to do whatever is necessary to ensure player satisfaction. And I'll be blunt here, player satisfaction = customer satisfaction. And so far from being broken, a house rule here makes the situation salvageable. Frankly this is a clear example of where Fighter, as a class, would have greatly benefited from the kinds of efficiencies afforded to other classes by having clear-cut, rules-forward build paths.

However, it occurs to me that part of the problem here are shields themselves. The rules surrounding them are a kind of simulationist approach to showcasing something that shields in real life are good at--blocking damage from attacks. The problem is that, with the sole exception of blocking ranged attacks, everything you can do with a shield, you can also do with any weapon (even a tiny knife). In point of fact, as anyone trained with martial arts is going to know, blocking with whatever you have at hand, be it your arm, a sword, a glaive, a dagger, etc. is the very first thing all martial arts teach.

And so, it is arguably better to fully merge shields (and their feats) with weapons. We simply combine the parry action with the raise a shield action and get rid of the Parry trait. We rewrite shield as a simple bludgeoning weapon with the a new trait granting it an additional AC bonus against ranged attacks. Now whether you wield a sword (or other weapon) or a shield, you gain a benefit to AC. Rename Shield Block to Block and alter its scope from a shield to a weapon in hand (inclusive of a shield) and mission (mostly) accomplished.

IMO, this is an elegant solution because it's just as simulationist as all the somersaults that have been made for shields previously and doesn't make a class feature useless in (arguably) many situations. This will also promote both a more cinematic approach to combat (now parrying is normalized) and an overall enrichment in fighter choices during combat (now I have some serious risk/reward stakes because blocking too many hits with my weapon is clearly going to break it...kind of like in real life...).

If folks are concerned about the optics of blocking an armed attack while unarmed there are additional permutations of rules that present themselves, not the least of which is roshanbo~ing weapons blocking weapons a la counterspelling (e.g., one needs a sword to block a sword, or a mace to block a mace, etc.). IMO, this isn't really necessary, as there are many ways for the unarmed to block the attack of someone who is armed, many of them having to do with being aggressive and/or employing one's clothing in ways other than what it was intended for.

As usual YMMV and we agree to disagree about the stakes, the role of the rules vs the role of the GM, and what makes for "balanced" vs. "broken."

Anyways, there's some other issues with it beyond that - it's not actually explicit that you can't count a weapon implement as bucket B to avoid violating it under your proposed ruling. It also doesn't handle the case of two weapons that are both implements (fun fact - swords are traditionally counted as regalia in the real...

I think you're neglecting the adjective "single" which logically implies that the other hand (whichever one it is) has the status of "empty-handed."

I agree about swords and regalia, which also extends to maces...

Considering the volume of changes necessary, I would say that this is still 3~8 weeks away. A likely scenario, is that it is finely deployed just in time for Monster Core to get released--and thereby the process repeats itself.

Personally, I'm considering that website completely disrupted until next year this time, after all of the remastered books have dropped and their changes fully integrated.

IMO, Paizo could seriously help them out by handing them a copy of the manuscripts going to the printers so that the AoN devs can get a jump on encoding all of the changes. But the changes are so major that the workload is much greater than standing up AoN in the first place. (And speaking from experience, I might have simply rebuilt the whole thing from scratch since I think that might actually have been less work. Data and information are tricky this way.)

Jacob Jett wrote:

IMO, exchanging the "useless" feat is already covered by the retraining rules. So, Bob's really your uncle.

No. You can't retrain non-selectable features by default. And this is non-selectable feature.

And this policy opens Pandora's box: now all players would want to exchange something for their characters.

HammerJack wrote:

I don't think you'll find widespread agreement that fighters need to be buffed, even with something small.

And free 1st level General feat is actually huge.

Rolling my eyes here. Minor thing remains minor. Honestly, there's no "math" here to back up balance arguments. Ironically, I had initially written "adding a minor houserule." Honestly substituting a level 1 athletics skill feat for shield block is totally neutral (good luck mathing up how it's not). A general feat is a general feat is a general feat. Substitutions are fine.

Now subbing something like Vicious Swing for Shield Block on the surface looks more major but, IM(E)O, it amounts to the same.

Let's not forget rule #1. IMO, OP should have a heart-to-heart with their GM. The houserules both write themselves and are unspeakably minor (compared to the rewrites I've done...but I've also whole-cloth written RPGs before so...make of that what you will...this is all a hobby after all and different people will find different aspects more interesting and fun than others).

What you should consider is why Shield Block is a "general feat." It's not because it's not a useful class feat for a fighter. (It is a useful class feat for a fighter.) Its not a class feat for fighters because it would look weird to be a class feat for a wizard. The developers obviously thought all classes should be able to do this, which IMO argues better that it should just be a basic action that anyone can do.

Based on utility for a fighter generally, as a feat, Shield Block is on par with Vicious Swing. As such, I don't see a mechanical issue making a substitution. YMMV.

I get OP's frustration. Fighter is a poorly designed class that poorly interfaces with the games combat rules and selection efficiencies. The advantages it has are at the expense of other classes (and thereby other players). The entire set of character creation rules are full of these odd compounding, "we made choice X here so we have to support it with choice Y there" type of engineering. In my experience, this is the same kind of sloppy design that most software development cycles experience. Too little forethought and too many, "we can't undecide something."

In summary, the good parts of the game are its bones--encounter maths, creature designs, 3-action system, stealth/concealment, and similar exploration and gameplay sub-systems. The bad aspects of the game all have to do with character building. Let's exclude Ancestries and Backgrounds generally as they're adequate for purpose.

This leaves me with a list of specific complaints:
- general & skill feats are unnecessarily organized according to levels (with only 5 exceptions, you already have other pre-requisites, so level restrictions are mostly redundant)
- class designs are inconsistent and overly privilege martial classes (fighter especially) at the expense of other classes
- elimination of other utility-tier classes (non-spellcaster/non-martial) leaves the Rogue and Investigator looking over-specified and under-engineered and the Alchemist in an awkward space all by its lonesome (And honestly, there's really good reasons why most D&D games have a triumvirate of class groupings with respect to weapon proficiency.)
- archetypes are overloaded as a sub-system and at once present players with too many disparate choices
-- should I specialize (e.g., Archer, Dandy, etc.)
-- should I join a group (e.g., Hellknight Armiger, [Pathfinder] Swordmaster, etc.)
-- should I become something unnatural (e.g., Ghoul, Vampire, etc.)
-- should I multiclass (e.g., Fighter + Sorcerer; Champion + Druid, etc.)

Most of this directly contributes to the endemic feel-bads arguments here and elsewhere.

And again, rule #1 both exists and is rule #1, so rather than dogpile on OP for holding an opinion you don't agree with, perhaps make constructive suggestions within the full purview of the rules (remember #1?) that OP may, possibly, find helpful.

OP's complaint is pretty easily addressed with some very minor negotiation with your GM. The rules allow you to retrain your character using a week of downtime. This lets you exchange one feat for a different of the same or lower level. Just ask your GM to give you a week of downtime ahead of the game and swap out your "useless" shield block for a different level 1 general feat. You might even be able to persuade them that you should be able to retrain into a level 1 class feat instead. IMO, exchanging the "useless" feat is already covered by the retraining rules. So, Bob's really your uncle.

From a game design perspective, this is where actual build paths might have been useful.

For my own games, this is a non-issue. We don't have fighters.

As I understand it, there's a slight benefit to spontaneous casters because they don't have to play the guessing game. Whether this advantage is enough to merit writing some house rules varies quite widely.

A constant temptation that I have is to give prepared casters an actual materiel advantage by penalizing spontaneous casters (beyond their already lower number of slots). And more specifically the house rule I keep toying with is to increase the casting times for spontaneous spells by an entire action (i.e., add an action tax). This makes some sense because things you prepare ahead of time are usually easier and quicker to use IRL. However, this make prepared casters very strong. Stronger even than they are when they have good intel and prepare the ideal spells. Thus my hesitation to make any alterations (beyond things I'm already doing).

I should note, there is the flexible spellcaster archetype that really helps to more closely align the prepared casters with the spontaneous casters.

But mostly, I wonder if the differences are really much of a difference qua actual player quality of life.

Jacob Jett wrote:

I think the point that you can't make a functional champion for a philosophy, or other non-deity-based religion still remains.

I'm afraid, that personally, I'm having an increasing problem with both Champion and Cleric with regards to this. At issue is, it hasn't escaped me that most of the religions that are affected by this rule are ones that resemble religions in our world that have Asian origins. This seems problematic...

The Animist is specifically designed to be the Cleric-equivalent for non-deity religions.

I'm not sure the optics are better...

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I still want the ability to play a Champion whose cause is unrelated to any deity. I will happily take even more restrictive anathema if my cause can be "goodness itself" rather than "do what Iomedae says" or w/e.

Take a closer look at the pantheons. You can pretty much do that already by picking one with an appropriate theme.

ETA: For "Goodness" I would suggest "The Offering Plate", for instance.

I think the point that you can't make a functional champion for a philosophy, or other non-deity-based religion still remains.

I'm afraid, that personally, I'm having an increasing problem with both Champion and Cleric with regards to this. At issue is, it hasn't escaped me that most of the religions that are affected by this rule are ones that resemble religions in our world that have Asian origins. This seems problematic...

WatersLethe wrote:

Jacob Jett wrote:

AnimatedPaper wrote:

arcady wrote:

Just being 'Mr. Furious' ought to have the best baseline damage as what it gets for not having any other theme - yet it's the weakest one.

For the record, the lack of theming is supposed to be the primary benefit of Fury Instinct. That's also why it has the weakest bonus.

I'm not sure that makes sense. But it is what it is.

I think it's a straight up bad design decision, if true. Theming should be a *draw* not a burden.

Fury has no anathema AND an additional level 1 Barbarian feat.

Still not sure that rates the smallest bonus but I can see the argument for it.

If we're going there, I'd like to see support for an ecstatic (e.g., a Dervish) style dual-weapon champion...

arcady wrote:

Just being 'Mr. Furious' ought to have the best baseline damage as what it gets for not having any other theme - yet it's the weakest one.

For the record, the lack of theming is supposed to be the primary benefit of Fury Instinct. That's also why it has the weakest bonus.

I'm not sure that makes sense. But it is what it is.

There was a submarine board game a while back that did a pretty good job. But that was a board game (albeit with many role-play features) and not a TTRPG...

exequiel759 wrote:

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Monastic Weaponry being a feat is probably there for Monks who have no interest in weapons, so they can express this by "not taking the feat."

I mean, if you want to play a samurai and use fighter for that, even if you solely dedicate yourself to katana, wakizashi, and maybe nodachi, you still have proficiency with weapons that a normal samurai didn't even know existed or weapons that didn't exist at the time like a bec de corbin, earthbreaker, or most firearms. If you don't have interest in weapons as a monk, don't use them, but don't tax a feat on those that do want to use them.

Small tangent, but the samurai had firearms for most of there existence. Firearms would be completely on brand.

Given that the samurai emerge as a specific military formation in the 600s and congeal into a social class in the 900s, I would say that they only had firearms for about 2/5ths of their existence. That said, yes, for sure, firearms (and bows) are super on brand for samurai. Spears, axes, and even weirder weapons would not be off-brand for samurai.

It's probably important to note that the stereotypical war-mongering samurai that many Western audiences think of really only existed from around the 1070s-1630s, with their most ascendant point actually being from the 1330s-1590s. After the 1630s they are increasingly bureaucrats and before 1070s they're really either somewhat militant land-owners (and in Eastern Japan particularly, many of them were horse ranchers) or gang-like enforcers for really rich land-owners.

One person's rubbish is another's treasure and vice versa. At least one of my old players recently confessed to me that he purposefully chooses sub-optimal options because it makes the character more interesting to role-play.

I'm like, as long as everyone's having a good time, it kinda doesn't matter what's optimal or not or senseless to some.

I posted this in a thread I started but should have titled it differently. The idea isn't to use character creation rules to make playable ships as characters. Someone came up with a fully developed way to use the normal PF2e character creation rules and normal combat with very little adjustment to make and run starship combat.

for example, a ship's Frame is its Ancestries which determines the ship's stats. Feats are the ship's modifiers, and the ship's class gives it abilities and actions that the crew uses by using interact action. It's as easy and diverse as making characters and mostly uses normal combat and action economy.

This could be used for Mechs and Vehicles too, which means all types of combat could be run using the same system.

PF2e starship combat .

I'm curious about potential cross-pollination with PF2. What are the implications of these rules for things like ships, carriages/carts/wagons/chariots, boats, barges, etc?

Personally, I would love a worldbuilder toolkit book for GMs. Preferably, it would be stuffed with tables.

This kind of boils down to individual tables and GMs and how much time is going to be spend in combat vs social situations.

And of course, other games have implemented social situations as combat systems (Genesys basically does this).

Sounds amazingly like Battlezoo's take on playable Dungeons.

Anne Leckie's Imperial Radch has a similar approach, except the ship's "robotic body" would likely have the troop trait.

If Battle Zoo can turn Dungeons into a playable character why not starships? Found this linked in Reddit.

Starships as characters .

Love where this whole thread went. But also, hopefully the Battlezoo folks will do starships.

I'll wish they had used the word "method" instead of "stance" because the semantics of stance imply one is standing.

The rules make sense. I only need to write alternate feats to pick up the slack for feats that don't work while mounted, which are just these ones (as far as I can tell):

- Sudden Charge (1)
- Barrelling Charge (4)
- Parting Shot (4)
- Shielded Stride (4)
- Sudden Leap (8)
- Overpowering Charge (10)
- Spring Attack (12)

They're all kind of thematic with mounted combat.

Let's consider archetypes of any kind to out-of-scope for this question. Basically, I'm now the one compiling a list of joe regular feats, specifically available to fighters (again excluding archetypes), that still work as written when on the back of a mount. #imonahorse

I'm currently looking through the feats and feel like I've discovered a gap in the rules. There is apparently no rule barring someone from using a stance while mounted.

Is that right?

Does it make sense to work that way?

How could it be abused?

Wouldn't stances specific to being mounted make more sense?

Related, Command an Animal doesn't require any hands...this is not typically how horses (or other mounts) get bossed. Directing them with just your voice and knees is actually kind of an advanced practice. (With horses, it's easier to get them to go where their looking and halter leads help to direct their attention.)

So, subsequent question, should Command an Animal require 1 hand? (This actually opens up the design space for a feat the removes the hand requirement at higher levels.)

Nostromo Valdez wrote:

Exactly. and Since PF2e is ideally a 4 person party, I would suggest they limit roles and officers to 4. Helm, Enginering, Combat, and Analysis. Captain can just be an honorific or archtype of some sort.

"Ideally" is not "fundamentally". At bare minimum it needs to be playable and functional and fun with anything from 3 to 6 players.

I think fundamentally, yes, it needs to flex enough to accommodate 3-6 players (in my experience 5, not 4, is usually the sweet spot--is one of the reasons digital gloomhaven is just not as good as table top gloomhaven which is adjustable for 5).

Then I would add satisfactorily, it handles 2-7 players.

"Ideally" it handles 1-8 players.

A lot of this though has to do with GM skills vis-a-vis managing your players and their expectations. Large groups are not for the faint of heart or easily overwhelmed. Frankly, online play isn't for everyone either. But the game engine's ability to flex, is no small thing.

Nostromo Valdez wrote:

Exactly. and Since PF2e is ideally a 4 person party, I would suggest they limit roles and officers to 4. Helm, Enginering, Combat, and Analysis. Captain can just be an honorific or archtype of some sort.

"Ideally" is not "fundamentally". At bare minimum it needs to be playable and functional and fun with anything from 3 to 6 players.

I think fundamentally, yes, it needs to flex enough to accommodate 3-6 players (in my experience 5, not 4, is usually the sweet spot--is one of the reasons digital gloomhaven is just not as good as table top gloomhaven which is adjustable for 5).

Then I would add satisfactorily, it handles 2-7 players.

"Ideally" it handles 1-8 players.

A lot of this though has to do with GM skills vis-a-vis managing your players and their expectations. Large groups are not for the faint of heart or easily overwhelmed. Frankly, online play isn't for everyone either. But the game engine's ability to flex, is no small thing.

See that bit at the end? That's why everyone disagrees with you. Because you apparently think that balance is meaningless, whereas we're coming to it with a real appreciation of the benefit that it brings to PF2 as a game. Balance is something that PF2 does really well, and it's a big part of the draw.

PF2 is a game. Fundamentally, it's a thing that people play together to have fun. Having it be balanced is an important part of maintaining the kind of fun that PF2 supports - open, broad-based, and welcoming, where people of radically different skill levels can sit down at the same table and all contribute usefully to the same party.

In other threads, at other times, you've talked about how you have huge amounts of experience as a GM. I'm a bit surprised you don't know this stuff already.

Know stuff. Yes. That is the problem. I know differently. From experience.

Interestingly, what the analog trait is trying to do is not easily accomplished using Venn diagrams. Like if my inner "analog" circle is 90% of my "weapons" circle is that a useful distinction? Isn't it better to draw a circle around the 10% and call it "foo?"

(And like honestly...this is software and information engineering 101...)

This discussion literally (and figuratively) has nothing to do with balance issues, perceived or otherwise.

Is there a list of which feats can be used while mounted?

Like I assume that Sudden Charge can't be used because it doesn't have the Simon Says word of mount anywhere in the movement description. But I assume something like Vicious Strike works fine.

But things like Parting Shot, Running Reload, or even Mobile Shot Stance aren't usable while mounted (although the last one could be fine).

Thoughts?

Jacob Jett wrote:

Bonus points to anyone who can call out the subtle differences among relations, relationships, and entities in the context of relational databases.

Oooh. I love bonus points.

Entities are the individual items in a database - usually represented by a table row and its associated data.

Close. Entities are set of attributes and are thereby usually implemented as a table of columns. The names of the columns and the data values in their cells are important. Each row realizes an individual exemplar of the entity(-set). You can really boil it down to things that exist.

Relationships are the connections between related data as the human sees it.

Again close. Relationships are indeed connections - usually represented by a table of rows and the data in their cells. So in essence, a set of similar or like connections, typically implemented as a table of rows. The identities of the rows and the data values in their cells are important. Pivot tables and tables that record events (like sales transactions) are quintessential examples. You can really boil it down to stuff that happened.

Relations are the actual defined connections in the database between the data - so the relationships as the computer sees it.

Not as close. For this one you have to dig back into the late 60s to get into the pre-db days when all we had were tables (a la today's csv/tsv files). The relation in this case is the table itself, which when named correctly (notice the intrusion of language into the math; it's extremely significant) indicates to the human why all the stuff in the table is there. Importantly, we can express the entire table as an expression in first-order logic. And then use the same maths to cherry-pick data out of it. You can really boil it down to stuff.

The thing is, we really don't need the kind of rules bloat being discussed elsewhere in this thread. Like why wouldn't runes work with technology? That's not an assumption a lot of modern urban fantasy actually take. Heck, it doesn't even work that way in things like Star Wars. Why are we doing so much mental gymnastics for something that could be so simple? Like imagine if Google worked this way. You wouldn't be able to find anything and ABC would go bankrupt. KISS is an important engineering principle. Balance is nonsense.

Jamming electronic weapons is a time honored mechanic in futuristic games...? It is certainly hardly any different than disarming. More over this is a game made in physical books and they created the trait already? Why argue with me when I'm stating the trait exists in the field test material and a likely reason why it does exist?

I think you mean jamming RADAR-guided weapons is a time-honored method in real life. There are defensive measures you can use against other kinds of guidance (camera-guided, laser-guided, infrared-guided, etc.--e.g., chaff, flares, balloons, etc.) but barring an EMP blast, you really can't do much to weapon electronics. It's not like I would hook up the electronics in the laser sight on my all-too-"analog" 9mm slugthrower to the internets...(like what would be the point,? other than leaking my position to the enemy?)

I'm arguing against it's inclusion because 1) it's silly and 2) it's an unnecessary bit of adipose tissue that SF2 (and by extension PF2) doesn't need.

Ultimately not everything needs a trait. A keyword that appears on most of the data isn't useful in information retrieval situations (#askmeimanexpert).

Bonus points to anyone who can call out the subtle differences among relations, relationships, and entities in the context of relational databases. Also for those that need the proofs, check out the not particularly heavy maths of Boolean and Relational algebras. (Set theoretics is also applicable here but, mostly to explain the results we're trying to get out of the database.)

There is a very real group of theories and maths regarding why keywords and traits are useful. Analog exceeds the "it's useful" boundaries.

AnimatedPaper has it absolutely right. It has nothing to do with (not) needing common sense, default assumptions...

This simply isn't how databases actually work. (Or logic for that matter... Or indexing systems either...)

You look for what you want. Not what you don't want. You exclude what you don't want.

So literally, find me everything "NOT Powered". #howstuffworks

I suppose I misread precisely what signature spell does (and what it does is much more marginally useful with this new understanding because it matters only a little if I had to burn a spot on my repertoire or not to access the heightened effect).

But this is one of the many areas where I feel like someone in development had a serious axe to grind against spellcasters, which is rather deeply the problem here.

But then again, class design has long been a problem for the D&D family of games. (Twas why I rewrote all of them for my 3.5 setting. Is why I'm rewriting them for my reimplementation of my setting for PF2.)

As we can see in the OP's post, repertoire casters are just kind of better than Vancian ones. This has pretty much been true since D&D4 when the resource management minigame became more forgiving. There's some good comparisons to made to OD&D where Vancian really makes sense (because the resource limitations are much greater).

Here though, I suppose it's one of the sunk costs carried forward from the '70s without much thought to its purpose and playability. The Vancian casters are because the Vancian casters were. Hopefully, this entire sub-system will be much more rigorously examined when PF3 finally begins to evolve.

Both Powered and Analog should be traits. And "Analog" as a trait is useful for any ability or mechanic that interacts with analog weapons, as that one word is easier and clearer to write out than "Weapons without the powered trait".

Why? Why not use the default assumption of, weapons without the "powered" trait are not powered? Can we not rely on a modicum of common sense? (Although...I am fond as saying that, 'there's nothing so uncommon as common sense...')

Think of it as the number of hands a weapon uses. They could have simply used 1+ and 2, leaving 1 as the assumed default with no entry there, but specifying 1 handed weapons are 1 handed gives them a bucket to be sorted into.

This is a false dichotomy. A better comparison is "shove" vs "not shove." Should we have "shoveless," "sweepless," "forcefulless," etc. traits? What do negative traits accomplish? If a weapon has a trait it has that thing. We shouldn't add traits based on what qualities weapons don't possess. If we did, the number of traits any given weapon would need would rather aggressively blow up to infinity.

***Edit***

Oh and on the analogue trait, it describes weapons immune to stuff such has hacking. Theoretically there are non-analogue axes in Starfinder with blades made of plasma or what have you

Again, I think this is better served with a default assumption. Weapons cannot be hacked unless they possess traits x, y, and z. Mission accomplished without having to go back and add "analog" to every weapon in PF2...

...and honestly from a game design perspective, I would not put in place rules that let players "hack" weapons. That sounds unnecessarily fussy, unfun when used against the players, a total time-suck for the GM, and a slippery slope for the meta. Again, common sense...

I know no writer or director would make trip this common and easy to do. It would look terrible in a story or movie.

The entire wuxia filmography would like to have a word...

I think also, if prepared casters' slotted spells auto-heightened a lot of the disparity between them and spontaneous casters (who already get this advantage with some of their spells) could be alleviated.

Fighter players will probably object (linear vs quadratic progression and all...).

Next Question I have is are there any type of humanoid dragon-sort of monsters that could easily replace the dragonborn. I don't need them for use by player characters but they are the working population and primarily source of military soldiers for the draconic empire. In my world history they are focal to winning what essentially was a world war in my world.

Is there any such creature? Or will I have to create my own?

If you're willing to use 3rd-party products, the Roll for Combat folks have an excellent book detailing playable dragons as an ancestry. IMO, it's quite well balanced against PF2's existing engine.

IRL, redundancy is good. It leads to what we call system robustness. "Redundancy is bad" views largely emerge from capitalism's drive for maximal efficiency and maximized profit margins.

That said, I would want a party with a little of everything before developing any redundancies...

Karmagator wrote:

Jacob Jett wrote:

I hope that archaic stays optional. Speaking from real-life examples, Kevlar might be relatively effective at stopping bullets but knives and and other sharp, pointy things (like arrows of all things) tend to slice right through Kevlar. So...

I also hope so and it seems quite likely. Because even when we assume that it would be realistic, it's certainly not fun for everyone. A lot of people will want their Barbarian with a big, low-tech axe or something. Not to mention the problems that would cause for monsters - when bloody Excalibur has problems causing damage, why don't the teeth of a wolf?

All in all, this way people who want this aspect can have it and the rest don't have to worry about it. Best of booth worlds.

There are weapons with the analogue trait assumably for this reason

I'm not sure what non-electrically-powered weapons have to do here...but then again, I don't think axes are low-tech. Being a home owner I can think of all kinds of uses for an axe...(that don't involve murder durder). So I don't think the analog trait actually serves a purpose. Better if the electrically-powered weapons simply had a "powered" trait. That would be quite sufficient to write some distinguishing game rules. (And yeah, as someone with an electrical engineering background, I'm going to say that not only is it not technically correct to call an axe analog, it's also vacuously idiotic. Like of course the axe doesn't use electricity. Why would it? So I'm left with, what was the point of this trait?)

Ironically, the things that would likely be electrically powered (chain-saw, drill, rail guns, lasers, masers, particle beams), all go right through Kevlar like butter too. The thing about armor, is it usually boils down to rock-paper-scissors...for example, mail is great against slashing weapons, breast plates are great against bludgeoning weapons but both are nigh useless against piercing weapons like picks and bullets (though the latter mostly boils down to the thickness of metal needed to deflect a bullet is more than a human can comfortably bear).

From a design aspect, I'd be cautious adding such traits. They don't add much to gameplay and tend to alienate large swathes of players who have valid character ideas that the game then simply no longer supports. Generally speaking you always want to empower players with choice, not clip the wings of their imaginations.

I hope that archaic stays optional. Speaking from real-life examples, Kevlar might be relatively effective at stopping bullets but knives and and other sharp, pointy things (like arrows of all things) tend to slice right through Kevlar. So...

I think they could just errata what they have. I'm not sure they have the budget to remake products. Possibly though, they'll just update the existing pdfs and problem solved.

What I wished more is that their stuff would appear on AoN. But that might eat into their business model.

They have the best 3rd-party content in the industry. Some of it is even better than Paizo's (or they're at least in a position to take bigger risks--looking at you Dungeon ancestry).

Rounds taking only 6 seconds is cartoon physics. In real life the fastest rate of fire that an Arbalest is capable of is 2 shots / minute. IMO, if you want a more realistic simulationist set of boundaries then you have to start by pegging the length of rounds in combat to 30 seconds.

So I suppose the most OP thing from my perspective is that you can shoot a musket or an arbalest 10 times in a minute. That's alot (not sure how aiming is even possible). To say nothing of melee combat.

This is kind of an outgrowth of the rather inconsistent (all-but-haphazard) approach that seems to have been taken with proficiencies and their progressions. A more consistent design paradigm vis-a-vis proficiency progression would likely have ameliorated some of the confounding feel problems PF2 classes have. There are good reasons why classes in AD&D2 and D&D3.5 had chock-a-block to-hit, save, and skill progressions. Benchmarking is an important aspect of engineering.

Eh, balance is a social construct anyway. It's a snark that no one should hunt. I'm more interested in something Mathmuse just mentioned

Alas, Thurston Hillman's statement, "A good example of this would be that we're going to allow for 1st-level characters with certain ancestries to get unrestricted flight. In PF2's meta this would be an immense change and break all semblance of balance. In SF2, well... guns exist and it's not really a massive game-breaking option," misses the reason why flight is restricted in PF2. After all. in PF2 bows exist and are as useful as guns. The problem is that a lot of low-level monsters in Pathfinder lack both flight and ranged attacks, so if a party could take to the air and shoot the creature, it would have no counterattacks available. The developers want to avoid risk-free fights, such as Anti being able to shoot unsuspecting Shadow Creepers.

Interesting. I have overlooked this issue. I think it was not an issue for older games like AD&D2 or D&D3.5 which, IIRC had plenty of low-level monsters with both ranged attacks and flight. This might be why I perceive the presence of flight and greater reach at lower levels as not game-breaking. IMO, this is a rather bad chink in the armor of PF2's encounter maths. Kind of like having large numbers of lower-level monsters tends to cause the math to break down (due to the significant action advantage simply having greater numbers provides). This of course dovetails nicely with my view that PF2 isn't actually balanced. It simply tries to provide a narrowly scoped experience.

keftiu wrote:

Solarians, I believe, look a fair bit like 2e Kineticists.

My guess is that the Solarian is somewhat like the w but is more default focused on melee combat and doesn't come in quite as many flavors to limit pagecount. Probably has a similar "gather power" routine though.

I wonder if anybody is getting their KAS changed, because in SF1 the Solarian, Envoy, and Witchwarper were all CHA classes.

Like Kineticist, Solarian would arguably be fine with Constitution.

What you are wanting with 'fully compatible' is that all content can be swapped from one system to the other without any thought put into it. And that isn't possible. At least, not without losing everything about Starfinder that makes it interesting and distinct from Pathfinder.

What SF2 is, is more that it is 'easily compatible'. It isn't like pulling a creature or item from PF1 and using it in PF2 - those two game systems are not compatible. While doing that import and conversion is possible using the creature creation rules or item creation rules from PF2 and the theme and purpose of the creature/item from PF1, it takes quite a bit of work.

The semantics of "fully" and "easily" are subtly different. While being told one thing but receiving the other thing is within the realm of possible results, that still results in a fail state for the first thing.

The Mystic has been explicitly confirmed as a core class already. You can see what is effectively an alpha version here.

I've little bandwidth for Paizo's blog posts, so it's just possible that I, like many others, simply missed this.

Since I'm an RPG gearhead though, I do like to conjecture, speculate, etc., etc. Also, while the blog post adequately communicates the intention of the design team, I would still want the playtesting to confirm that Mystic is different enough from existing PF2 classes to stand on its own. Not all design intentions survive the playtest process. Several of MCDM's design videos have illustrated this nicely. But that's just me.

Also, until the thing is actually published, I should think things are subject to change. I doubt that the manuscript is already heading to the printers (although it must be very close to that state).

YMMV