So resonance may not be in PF2. So whatever system winds up in PF2 may not ever be playtested. If that doesn't epitomize everything wrong with this playtest I don't what would.
I have these memories of 2008 all over again. No one at WotC listened then and it seems like Paizo didn't even set this playtest up to have a chance at succeeding.
So the days of seeding the starting adventure with plenty of healing potions, or a wand of CLW, is over. Back to the bad old days of the 15 minute work day. Can I say how much I hated that as a GM.
Oh wait. I can just ignore this nonsense in my own campaign or switch to 5e.
Some people have tried to express this idea and I'm going to try and say it as clearly as I can.
Pathfinder, and the earlier versions of D&D upon which it was based, were fundamentally the generic FRPG system. They modeled, or allowed the GM's who ran games using them, any world based on that well understood "baseline" fantasy concept. The reason many of us refused to transition from 3.5 to 4e was not just because 4e was bad but because it broke that convention. 4e changed things to the point where many GM's simply could not adapt their campaigns or their views of what a FRPG should be to it.
Now Pathfinder 2 doesn't feel like it is staying true to the very reason that Pathfinder was created. Sure we haven't seen everything but from what we've seen this is a significant departure from PF1 and that baseline fantasy concept that PF should strive to allow GM's to model. I get that Paizo has said they are going to tie PF2 more closely to Golarion, not that I understand why, but between that and this steady march down a path I so unfondly remember from the 4e playtest I am starting to wonder if 5e might be worth a look.
Item slots being removed as a formal part of PF won't remove them from a lot of campaigns. I limited PC's to a single worn magic item on each part of the body long before PF was printed and I'll continue to do so after PF2 comes out. Did PF1 go too far with its headband vs head slots and all the rest? Maybe but I think the major problem was that frequently there was multiple desirable magic items in one slot while other slots have next to nothing. A better fix would have been to spread out where the good magic items are worn more, for instance there should never have been a single item that was the sole saving throw booster no matter what slot it occupied.
Wand spam is preferable to forcing a player into the healbot role that they do not want to play. It also gives the low level wizard something useful to do and helps cut down on the 15 minute work day phenomena.
I was of the opinion that it was time for a second edition of Pathfinder. But I expected an evolution of the game not a brand new game with just the name retained.
The low level party where they can't each buy a wand of CLW and let the available caster wield them all greatly limits the healing available and functionally forces someone back into the healbot role.
The low level wizard won't be able to buy a Wand of MM and at least plink away for 2-5 damage when he can't do anything better, and no one better recommend a light crossbow.
In the mid levels, between 5 and 10, some PC's will have enough items worn and stuff they need to activate that I think they will be up against the limit all the time.
I get that this is an attempt to constrain wealth by level but it feels forced. Let each GM make that decision for his campaign.
Correct me if I misread but a character gets no benefit from a carried shield unless they spend one action a turn on it?
I know there are arguments against sword and board fighters but they are the classic template people think of when they think of fighters in fantasy RPG's. making the archetype both bad and excessively complicated to play seems like a bad idea.
Shields are way better now. If you get hit you get its hardness as DR for a reaction. A sword and board fighter now beats an otherwise equal two-handed one on one.
Look at the action economy to get a little DR against that one attack and shield AC for one round, 1 of 3 actions in a round plus the character's only reaction per round. Now consider the 2 handed fighter. Simply use all 3 actions for attacks or movement as needed and have the reaction for AoO or whatever else might be available.
The sword and board fighter invest too much into it for what looks like way too little return in the combat round.
Correct me if I misread but a character gets no benefit from a carried shield unless they spend one action a turn on it?
I know there are arguments against sword and board fighters but they are the classic template people think of when they think of fighters in fantasy RPG's. making the archetype both bad and excessively complicated to play seems like a bad idea.
I think the supporters who effectively say "The descriptions we get of Goblins are basically written by unreliable narrators!" or "Goblin history hasn't been written by Goblins" are also on the right track.
Actually since I'm the GM of my campaign and I decide exactly what the creatures in it are like and goblins are far worse than the traditional Paizo portrayal then I know precisely what goblins are like in my campaign world, being the NE goblinoid makes them overall vicious and selfish with little regard even for each other. They are not comic relief.
The problem with Paizo putting goblins in the new CRB is that GM's like me will now be forced to ban a core race which is one of those things GM's hate doing. Goblins would be fine as an optional race somewhere just not in the new CRB.
Not to go off topic but has anyone here actually tried using RW at the table during a session? It's not very good and unless I've missed a bunch of updates it was never really designed for that kind of use.
I use it every week. Its great. I have no idea when the last time you tried or what you complaint is but you should take another look.
Specifically that when a partner publishes a Paizo product in some new format the only way to purchase the new format product will be to buy, or to already own through Paizo, the PDF of the same product.
I have some thoughts on this.
1) Are you guys going to take steps to make buying physical copies of your books worthwhile? Specifically when bought through a FLGS? Have you considered joining http://www.bits-and-mortar.com/ or doing something similar?
2) Some of us have a substantial amount of your product dating back to a time when there were no PDF's or before portable devices became common. I bought Rise of the Runelords not long after it first came out. I then bought the anniversary hardcover from my FLGS because I wanted the hardcover and the update to PF rules was appealing. I very much want the Realm Works version to make the next time I run it even better but the prospect of buying the PDF(s) and then the RW package is more than a bit daunting.
I know you are skeptical of new mediums and have to protect your income but this policy strikes me as bad for retailers and bad for your oldest customers.
Jessex looks up from his studies clearly bored by the intrusion.
"Is this all the Ten sent? What has become of the Society?
Spoiler:
Jessex is a 14th level wizard.
Always cast buffs:
extended mage armor
water breathing
resist fire 10 from ring
If Jessex knows combat is imminent he casts on himself
extended stoneskin (140 points)
mirror image
shield
extended resist energy 30 (type determined by enemies preferences if known)
see invisibility
fly
Jessex uses dimension door's, flight, quickened spells and judicious use of his elemental wall ability to stay out of reach of the enemy while dealing as much damage as quickly as possible. Jessex's priority target is always other casters who he targets first with feeblmind to take them out of the fight with a single spell. When staying out of reach is no longer possible or when reduced to below half hit points he teleports to safety.
Just to play devil's advocate, but why? A large part of me says, let them overwhelm the scenarios. Then, maybe, if it stops being so much fun to hyper optimize, they will start making more balanced characters.
Has anyone anywhere ever seen that actually happen? I've seen over optimizers quit out of supposed boredom because things weren't challenging enough but I've never yet seen one of them reform.
I second the cult of lissala arc. I've played or run most of them and there are some very hard scenarios in there if played on hard, you do have to get the party to agree before hand.
Waking Rune, high tier, hard mode with a GM who has thought about tactics and is well versed should rarely get past the first encounter and I have real trouble imagining how a party could beat the big bad.
If you download the Iron Gods chronicle sheets. or any AP, there is a document that explains how to run the AP in campaign mode or with PFS characters using only the sanctioned content.
You're 100% right. Things do need to be reined in. This is completely independent of the drow issue.
I GM PFS, when I do, so that others can play not because I particularly enjoy it. I love running my home game. PFS caters so much to the "push the envelope" players that casual players feel unwanted and locally a lot have left for DDAL and so have an awful lot of GM's.
Back on topic why are the half drow options still in the AR? It's been months.
The season 8 guide allows the hiring of a 20th level caster for greater magic fang. That reduces the cost of the +5 amulet of might fists by 90,900 g.p.
I do not find that reasonable even before I have to start having to deal with cloaks of invisibility.
my empiricist is nearing the end of his career but the question of can inspiration be used with day job rolls would be one I'd like to see officially answered.
Solar engines themselves are nothing new (I believe various types have been around since 1987) and most of them work off a hydro/solar principle. However, advances in solar engines have been gaining ground rapidly over the past 3 years. We aren't the only show on the road...so a little research into it probably could show you at least what was up around 5 years ago in the field.
There's an island called Modesta, I believe they use peak wind and solar power to pump water into huge cisterns that have been carved inside of the local mountains. At night, they generate electricity, by dropping that pumped up water through hydroelectric plants.
Never heard of and cannot find anything about such an island but pumped storage hydroelectric is not that uncommon. Using solar to power the pumps is being done in a number of places. There is one such in the high desert of Chile which takes advantage of the Atacama Desert's extreme aridity and altitude.
Did you just say you are personally insulting and attacking me?
Why would you do something like that?
Because you have started off every post in response to me by insulting me?
You are still pretending like you have some special secret knowledge when you don't even understand the most basic ideas of what you're talking about.
No matter what you call your system it still must gather sunlight and turn it into usable energy. The most efficient such systems in the world cannot hit the numbers you claimed and no matter what the storage technique, which is what you're babbling about when you call something a solar engine, is irrelevant to that.
There are solar panels that can produce energy off moonlight. Assuming you only get 8 hours of energy and nothing the rest of the day is a false assumption. 8 hours at full efficiency means these would produce only 2.1kWH/day.
A normal system of static south facing solar panels angled for your latitude will produce at least 4kWH/day...
4 kwh/day is not 455 kWh/day which was the claim I was debunking. 6 of those is 24 kWh/day not 455.
I used the most efficient panels in existence because those are the only ones with a remote chance of hitting that kind of goal. The sorts of commercial units you are referencing simply cannot. You already provided the math to prove that.
I'm unsure why you thought you were disagreeing with me when you actually stated that I was correct.
I misread your initial assessment and that changes my numbers, but it is still close to doable on my house. 455kWh/day / 4kWh/day/m^2 = 114 m^2, so only slightly larger than my 100m^2 of south facing exposure. I can probably do it since I am using footprint instead of linear feet for the roof, since I'm not sure of the pitch. Each of the 6 systems I was referring to was 54, no 4 kWh/day (I had misread your kWh target as a kwh/day target).
You're claiming to get 4kWh/day per m^2 of panel? You previously said you got 4kWh/day from a system that was 15m^2. One is in line with reasonable efficiency panels, the other is a massive increase of efficiency over any panels presently known to exist.
You really don't have a clue and you dare say I don't understand something?
Calling it a solar engine or anything you like does not change a thing about the efficiency of the panels or how much power the panels can produce. Just changing the batteries in the system for a flywheel or steam or molten silica doesn't change a thing about how much power the panels can collect.
I've demonstrated that your claim was bogus without ever involving the storage medium. Since the storage device cannot be 100% efficient and I didn't include any storage losses at all in my calculations. It is immaterial whether your storage is 85% efficient or 78% or 50%.
BTW if you don't like being insulted and having your foolishness pointed out you shouldn't issue personal insults when responding to others.
There are solar panels that can produce energy off moonlight. Assuming you only get 8 hours of energy and nothing the rest of the day is a false assumption. 8 hours at full efficiency means these would produce only 2.1kWH/day.
A normal system of static south facing solar panels angled for your latitude will produce at least 4kWH/day...
4 kwh/day is not 455 kWh/day which was the claim I was debunking. 6 of those is 24 kWh/day not 455.
I used the most efficient panels in existence because those are the only ones with a remote chance of hitting that kind of goal. The sorts of commercial units you are referencing simply cannot. You already provided the math to prove that.
I'm unsure why you thought you were disagreeing with me when you actually stated that I was correct.
I don't work for the company, I'm an investor. I am probably one of the six biggest investors of it's stocks (actually, I'm almost positive I'm in the top six, maybe the top 5
Then you are a sucker. And you wrote about me being wrong on everything?
You claimed a solar installation so efficient it would power a home for two weeks off one day's sunlight. That is patent nonsense.
The most efficient panels that exist are from SunPower which hit just over 24% efficiency. In lab testing, which means ideal conditions, one of these panels produced 272.5 watts from a total panel area of just over 1130 cm^2. The average US residential consumer uses 911 kWh per month. So for 2 weeks of power you need 455 kWh. I'll be generous and assume 8 hours of full efficiency sunlight. That means the installation needs to produce 56.875 kW, assuming 100% efficiency batteries and no other losses (because I feel generous), which means it needs 209 panels of the 1130 cm^2 size to achieve that result. That is 236,170 cm^2 of panels, assuming no frames or other lost area). Which is a just less than 5 m^2 of panels.
Of course the reality is you'll never get that 24% efficiency in a real installation, panels will not operate at full efficiency for the whole day and there will be other losses in any such system. And that completely ignores latitude.
5 square meters of solar tracking panels on a residential roof is marginally doable but a 10 square meter array?
Solar is certainly making large strides in efficiency but do not make claims that cannot be supported.
Solar panels work best when angled towards the Sun.
That said, there is absolutely no reason they can't be placed on most flat roofs and still generate significant amounts of power.
They can be mounted at an angle even on flat roofs, much like they are in solar farms in deserts or other areas.
That said, if I wanted solar, I'd have to cut down a lot of trees that give me nice summer shade. Then I'd actually need to get AC.
I was thinking weight problems. Considering flat roofs are angled wrong that makes it even worse as the brackets needed are even weightier than the usual ones for mounting to sloped roofs.
Related side note:
I've seen a lot of large building construction the last couple of years and exactly none of them have either solar or green roofs. If it was such a slam dunk option to go solar then the major builders seem to have missed that memo.
Those same roofs are engineered for several inches of water/feet of snowfall. A cubic foot of water weighs just over 62 pounds. They can handle solar panels and the frames needed to get them at the optimal angle.
As to you not seeing green and/solar roofs, I have no idea where you are. Where I am I haven't seem a building go up recently without major effort to reduce its energy needs and that has included things like rooftop solar or plantings on the roof.
The Maze of the Open Road. You think a mystic hedge maze with an unklillable quasi-friendly medusa guardian on the grounds of a lodge might come in for further investigation at some point.
Where ever you live just look around. Consider all the large flat roofs. There is no reason that solar could not be installed on those roofs.
Big reason - Flat roofs are not engineered to hold solar panels.
You just made that up right? Those big flat roofs hold big HVAC units and in some cases have had entire additional floors added onto them. Retrofitting solar is trivial and is being done all the time.
As I said, we already have a plan where we could provide the energy for the entirety of the US. That energy would be available during day or NIGHT, but the electricity would be gained during the day.
The ONLY areas that would have problems are those in the US above the Artic Circle.
Most energy would be self sufficient, in that it could be provided via rooftop solar energy. No need for solar farms for any place except the HUGE skyscrapers in the downtown portions of cities. Otherwise, most places have enough roof space to allow for enough solar panels (our type at least) to provide all the energy they need. There are storage solutions these days so even when it's dark...you can still use energy.
Furthermore, with the advances in solar cells (at least ours), it can be cloudy and you still obtain power.
This isn't science fiction, give us the money to do...
I've seen some high efficiency cells but there is no way you're sitting on an economical cell that is high output at mid to high latitudes during winter during less than sunny weather.
If you had such a thing the patent would be worth so much you wouldn't be begging for money on some gaming forum. I'm a big believer in renewable energy but come on.
And the military's record with nukes lately is less than sterling.
The Air Force once dropped two bombs in the South. As it turned out, one of them even somehow armed itself, and only by the slimmiest of margins, it did not detonate when it hit ground.
And lets not get into the recent scandal regarding requalification of nuclear launch officers, shall we?
There are reasons the Army and Air Force do not operate NPP's.
The worst nuclear accident on US soil was caused by US Army personnel. The SL-1 explosion in Idaho.
The USN OTOH has a sterling record of safety with NPP's. Admiral Rickover created a very effective but very difficult training program that resulted in decades of safe operation of NPP's in very difficult conditions without a single accident. But as I pointed out above the program cannot be significantly expanded without diminishing its standards which would diminish safety. So using USN personnel to man numerous new civilian power stations is out of the question.
You ain't kidding, i went through the civilian side of that, and it's about 1 year training minimum. There are days i alternately cursed his name, and praised him.
I should have made clear that I was discussing this from personal experience. I was a nuclear power electronics tech while in the USN. It took almost 2 years to finish all the required training and go to sea for the first time.
And the military's record with nukes lately is less than sterling.
The Air Force once dropped two bombs in the South. As it turned out, one of them even somehow armed itself, and only by the slimmiest of margins, it did not detonate when it hit ground.
And lets not get into the recent scandal regarding requalification of nuclear launch officers, shall we?
There are reasons the Army and Air Force do not operate NPP's.
The worst nuclear accident on US soil was caused by US Army personnel. The SL-1 explosion in Idaho.
The USN OTOH has a sterling record of safety with NPP's. Admiral Rickover created a very effective but very difficult training program that resulted in decades of safe operation of NPP's in very difficult conditions without a single accident. But as I pointed out above the program cannot be significantly expanded without diminishing its standards which would diminish safety. So using USN personnel to man numerous new civilian power stations is out of the question.
The only serious real solution that will reduce CO2 emissions in time is nuclear power - the U235 kind.
Just use modern designs and place the reactors in the middle of military bases. Have a base within a base and make the military responsible for guarding and operating the facilities.
The military has a good record with that I think. How many nuclear ships have had catastrophic problems?
Not possible.
First the US Navy, the plant operator that has managed to be highly successful and safe at operating nuclear power plants, achieved its safety record by having a 2year long training program with an over 75% attrition rate. One of the reasons the USN ceased operating nuclear cruisers was they had difficulty recruiting enough people to fill all the plant personnel positions they needed. Massively expanding the number of power plants would mean lowering those training standards and that would definitely lower safety.
Second the nuclear waste problem has still not been solved. Building more NPP's until some method of disposal would be unwise.
On another subject solar and wind are nowhere near saturation. Where ever you live just look around. Consider all the large flat roofs. There is no reason that solar could not be installed on those roofs. On sunny days it would at least offset the cooling and lighting costs of those commercial buildings, which is a surprisingly large part of our total energy consumption. Small vertical axis wind turbines can also be placed on commercial and industrial roofs almost everywhere.
They would have to be quite explicit with a detailed example. They certainly would not try and make the distinction with one word in a conversational style.
Fine, it raises a skeleton rather than summoning one. That has zero impact on my argument.
The ability allows you to raise a single skeleton or zombie by the explicit text of the ability. That's it. One. Only at 13th level can you get more than one when the healing ability allows you to split the one you are allowed to have. That is the explicit text of the ability again.
The ability isn't to summon skeletons or zombies. The ability is to raise a single skeleton or zombie. The ability is quite specific. Only the 13th level immediate action to heal the skeleton or zombie allows for the splitting of that single servant.
