Joe Mucchiello's page

If I wanted to, say, create an archetype that was all about fighting with a two handed weapon effectively, I could do so in a way that it packages all the pieces you would need to build that character in one tidy place, one that could then be taken by everyone. The old system allowed us to do this.. kinda, but it was all over the place, and was easily seen as bloat, especially as the years went on.

But that would be cool. A two-handed weapon archetype that any class (yes any class) could take (along with bowmen archetypes, sword and board archetypes, one-handed archetypes, etc) would be higher in flexibility and customization and allow you to fix the stuff that "all over the place". This was a paladin would be a warrior for a patron god. If that god likes backstabbing dagger wielders, he isn't locked into heavy armor, sword, and shield native to the current class. The ranger becomes an outdoorsman. Whether that involves bows or dual-wielding or just a big ol' greataxe is up to the player, not the class designer.

Think of perception as "awareness of one's surroundings" and it's application as initiative makes more sense.

Virellius wrote:

This system makes crits goofy and common.

Ayup. We had a level 1 character doing 6d12 + <something> (a crit was involved. But with True Strike and buffs crits happen a fair bit).

Giant Totem barbarian? Using the wrong rules for large weapons?

The problem here is having to command the animal for the animal to act makes no sense.

When you command an attack dog to attack, it does so. Non-stop until you tell it to heel. In PF2, the dog will attack once. And then if you don't tell him to do anything. He'll just stand there. Even if the opponent is whacking him with a sword. HE'LL JUST STAND THERE. Unless you command him to flee or attack.

That is crazy and unrealistic.

Other characters are going to have 3 actions total. Let's stick close to that number so everyone has a chance to shine.

Are we all really so saddened by someone else taking more time to resolve their actions than others? "DMmy, it's not fair, he gets 5 minutes of your attention and I only get 3." I've never understood why people were so upset that someone else's build gives them more (usually weaker) actions than normal.

It's fluff. But it's fluff with an entry in the weapon table.

The Dwarf ancestry explicitly says you receive your Clan Dagger when you come of age. I didn't make this up. Paizo did.

Why does it cost 25 sp to buy a dagger you receive during your coming of age rite? 20-30 years could easily pass between the rite and your adventurer career starting.

I'm curious.

Joe Mucchiello wrote:

You can use the weapon you love at level 1. You take a -2 untrained penalty for it. But you can use it.

So two people love the Dwarven Waraxe but have no acumen for them, but both insist on using them whenever possible- they go on the same adventures together and (somehow) make it to level 5, one of them becomes proficient because they are a dwarf and the other does not because they are not a dwarf. Why?

Two people love the saxophone. They play them for 5 years constantly. One of them is just better than the other. Why? Because he's just better than the other guy. It happens. Just because you practice, practice, practice does not guarantee you a day in Carnegie Hall.

And to your example, maybe at 10th, that other guy with finally "get it".

If you don't qualify for a feat, the feat stops working. This has not changed.

Bardarok wrote:

Very much in favor of minimizing the role of system mastery. I wan't new players to actually have fun without needing to read multiple books first to make a new character.

But that is something I've always enjoyed in a lot of games - I feel like the people who put in the time ought to be rewarded. If putting a lot of time into the system doesn't really reward me, I find it really frustrating, since I'll spend hours and hours circling builds trying to come up with something decent and ultimately failing.

It irks me when someone who slaps together a character in an hour will have something as good as I can make with six or eight hours of effort.

This is not good for long term retention of new players. If new players see that spending 6-8 hours up front gives you bonuses for weeks and weeks of later game play, but they know they don't have that time, why would they play? Just to sit at the table and watch your uber-optimized character outshine their character.

System mastery was a bad idea. Veterans calling out noob-ness just means new players feel like they aren't part of the inner circle.

I'm having trouble finding the damage for Large Weapons, as described in the Titan Mauler ability on Page 56. Any ideas where it's hiding at?

At no time, does the Titan Mauler ability tell you to increase the weapon's damage die:

You can use a weapon built for a Large creature if you are Small or Medium (both normally and when raging). If you’re not Small or Medium, you can use a weapon built for a creature one size larger than you. You also gain access to your choice of weapon at character creation. When you are wielding such a weapon in combat, double your conditional bonus to damage rolls from raging, but you have the sluggish 1 condition (see page 324) because of the weapon’s unwieldy size. You can’t remove this sluggish condition or ignore its penalties by any means while you’re wielding the weapon.

Bards checked the table for each class they have and used the best one. And there's no explanation of how exactly that works for Bards since there is no "Bard" entry on the table.

The PHB says quite directly that bards use the druid chart based on their bard level. Page 118, second column, first paragraph under the heading "Bards".

Because Gygax.

No reason to disrespect the guy who ultimately is responsible for the games we are playing. And I don't mean Dave Arneson, who thankfully thought up the idea of the game. I mean the guy who wrote it all down. Spent years in his basement typing on a typewriter rules and charts. Getting venture capital to create a company. And thus actually make a game on store shelves that people could purchase. The guy who then got ripped off by his business partners and drummed out of the business. But that's a different story.

No idea why the concept of sub-class is difficult. Subclasses mean you don't need a separate to-hit and saving throw chart for every class. You just say the subclass is under another class and those two things (and only those two things) are taken care of. We'll never know what Gary might have done with a 2nd edition. Unearthed Arcana introduced subclasses. He might have made the class/subclass hierarchy better in a 2nd edition. (Although he said he never wanted a 2nd edition which is (a small) part of why he was ousted.)

That is unfortunate.

Optimal shield use strategy will probably involve blocking one attack per combat (when you're reasonably sure the attack can't break your shield) and then spending 10 minutes fixing it. Also, it doesn't look like your shield can be destroyed on a single attack, so it might be viable to break the shield every combat and then draw a second weapon, or use a bastard sword.

It is hard to optimize anything for which you don't fully know the underlying mechanics.

Someone proposed something like this. I liked it:

untrained -2 forever
trained +1/3 levels (+0, +0, +1, +1, +1, +2, +2, ...)
expert +1/2 levels +1 (+1, +2, +2, +3, +3, +4, +4, ...)
master +2/3 levels +2 (+2, +3, +4, +4, +5, +6, +6, ...)
legendary +1/1 levels +3 (+4, +5, +6, +7, +8, +9, ...)

But then, if everybody could get the fighter's cool toys, why would you want to play a fighter?

Weapon Mastery, Weapon Specialization. They aren't feats.

He's asking about using a 2nd level spell slot to cast a 1st level spell AS A 1st LEVEL SPELL. This was something PF1 sorcerers could do.

Adding or subtracting 10 is "all that math"?

Far more annoying to me is telling the players the DC for everything. Because it matters.

Joe Mucchiello wrote:

I so wish the Arcana Evolved (Monte Cook) spell system were still being used in a supported FRPG.

A fair amount of people had been using a magic system similar to 5e since 2e.

5e magic is a subset of the full AE spell system. In addition to heightening spells, spells could be diminished, laden (cast one spell with 2 slots for added effect), cast with templates (a better metamagic system), etc.

PF and now PF2 are the only systems clinging to the old memorization ways.

Ediwir, if you look at the chart on page 354, the entries for thin wood and thin steel have hardness values of 3 and 5 respectively. This is implies that shield use the "thin" line in the specialty materials entries. So adamantine would be 10 and 13, not 14 and 17 for master and legendary workmanship.

I also question the sanity of making legendary, special material shields. The master adamantine shield is 600 or 700 gp with 10 hardness. For 3 more hardness, you can pay 13,000 or 15,000 gp. Aren't there better ways to spend 13,000 gp than temporary DR 3?

So how do we determine which of you is right? Culach has quoted the RAW and played a playtest at a Paize booth. What's your source Starbuck_II?

So you disagree with Culach above, which is the premise of my entire post that you quoted.

You are saying that 9 damage does not dent a Hardness 5 shield, right? That's not what the rules say.

At a minimum, repairing those materials should take the same time as a trained craftsman repairs mundane items. IOW, if you have the quick repair feat, it should not allow you to repair legendary orichalcum in 3 rounds. It should take a legendary craftsman an hour (10 minutes with the feat).

Orichalcum is the best you can get for a shield at 16 hardness. Popping into the bestiary, a treant (level 8) will dent such a shield with each blow (averages 20 damage with 2d12+7 "branch" attacks). And that costs 18,000 gp. Who would spend that kind of money of something that needs constant repair?

If Culach is right, at high level, why would anyone ever carry a shield? The very first encounter, you raise it, it blocks 5 hp, and is destroyed. So shields are basically one use, mundane items that for 10 sp or so give 5 temporary hp. Only at very low level do you get a few uses out of them.

Why would anyone spend the money to make a +1 shield? or a +5 shield? By the time you can afford it, monsters are doing enough damage to destroy it in one shot.

From the bestiary, this is (randomly) from the Harpy, a level 5 creature:
Melee morningstar +13 (versatile P), Damage 2d8+4 bludgeoning
Melee talon +13 (agile), Damage 2d6+4 slashing

Those attacks average 13 and 11 damage.

Crafting: Seriously, I'm going to go into a dungeon and face a dozen encounters. After the first one, maybe two, I'm going to carry around this broken shield the rest of the way, including into the boss fight so I can repair it. Rather than just spending another 10-20 sp when I get back to town?

More annoying. Light shields have a bulk of L. I can just see some fighter saying he has 20 shields in his backpack that only take up 2 bulk. Each fight, he just keep swapping out shield after shield. (Not a first level, of course, but eventually 200 sp is not a lot of money.)

Under what circumstance does a shield receive a dent? It seems that the way Shield Block is worded, the shield only takes as much damage as its hardness. So how can it take more damage?

And please do not discuss attempts to attack the shield or an unattended shield. I'm specifically talking about shields that are in the raised position.

Isn't spell DC and spell rolls enough?

I so wish the Arcana Evolved (Monte Cook) spell system were still being used in a supported FRPG.

I greatly dislike how they’ve taken away some of the most unique parts of pathfinder that can’t be replicated in other systems. The cool rope trick escape, simulacrums, clones, planar binding pacts with devils are all some of the most unique aspects of PF1E and they’ve removed them. Why it bring other classes up instead of tear the most fun part of casters(at least for me), the mad scientists can do lots of cool magical things.

All the things you list were in AD&D1 since 1978.

But, I agree, these are the things we look for in Fantasy RPGs.

To answer your question, bringing fighters up gets you grief from the "That's unrealistic" "that's too cartoonish/comic bookish" folks who make up a large portion of the audience.

Um, persistent damage on Acid Splash. You need to roll a 20 to stop that damage. That will melt you on a crit.

This is the best answer, not because he is saying just use RAI, it's best because you the GM are avoiding cheese, the player gaming the system to only block the hits that he or she knows will destroy his gear, think about it in the theater of the mind, make the attack let them know they are hit, and that they are going to take damage from a specific source, then the player AND the character decide at that specific point whether or not to use the the shield feature. Make character decisions...

First, if they know they are going to be hit, why don't they know how bad the hit will be?

Second, Re: Cheese, if my players want to take the whole 23 points of damage so they don't lose their shield, I welcome them to decide not to block.

It should be in big bold letters set outside the normal text flow on the ability scores page, flashing red and blue if possible.

I'm not happy about 1 being an automatic critical failure. Rolling 1 is going to happen to the PCs infinitely more often than it will to any individual monsters. Rolling a 1 should just be automatic failure. It will frequently, but not always be 10 less than the required DC. Critical Failure does not need the boost that Critical Success does.

I could be convinced that 20 should just be automatic success as well. But success is always more fun. :)

And thus shields do not stack with cover.

1) How narrow does a Lore have to be? The fact that one of the examples is "Lore - Vampires" really bothers me. At that granularity not even wizards investing a LOT into Lore can learn about more than a small subset of monsters, especially once the bestiary train gets started.

I think a granularity along the lines of PF1 Favoured enemies would be about right, at least for mechanical benefits. So, Lore Undead would tell me about the basic combat abilities of vampires, Lore Vampires would also tell me about notable vampires, vampire culture, etc.

Granularity should just affect DCs.

If you have Lore - Undead, the base DC for knowing something about a vampire should be, say 10. For Lore - Vampires, the DC should be 0. For Lore - Evil Creatures, the DC might be 15 or 20. Because the GM sets the DC, the narrower the Lore category, the lower the DC should be.

This also means narrower Lores are more likely to crit.

But I agree, Recall Knowledge should give you more than 1 or 2 data points.

If class feats became class talents, there would still be repetition in wizard talent, fighter talent, rogue talent, monk talent. The text is still going to repeat the word talent after the class name. Someone will come along and say, why don't we give a unique name for each class' talent so we don't have to repeat the word talent needlessly.

quote from page 176
Your Armor Class equals 10 plus your Dexterity modifier
(up to your armor’s Dexterity modifier cap) plus your
proficiency modifier for any armor or shield you are using
plus the armor’s item bonus to AC.

I assume that means the armor's item bonus is excluded from any other item bonuses you might have.

And level should not be overloaded either.

Spells will have circles. Magic Missile is a circle 1 spell.
Powers will have ranks.
Monsters will be noted by frights. A green hag is a fright 4.
Magic Items will have thaums. "That's a 9 thaum sword, that's at least +2!!"
Feats will have prowess. "I can't decide which prowess 7 feat to pick."
Hazards will have yikes. "That ceiling collapse is a 10 yikes hazard."
And I suppose class can have level.

After all, if you use level for all those things, it would just be confusing.

First, yes, you can select any skill with any class. But only signature skills for that class can be advanced to master or legendary using your skill increases.

Feats that give you a feat? So you can take a feat you normally do not have access to. Why is that a bad thing?

Advancing skills? First, read about proficiency levels on page 8. Being master or legendary in a skill is used as prereqs for some high level feats.

That was most of the questions. Now, there are a hundred threads on the layout of the book.

I've read a lot of them. This is consensus "Best practice" I have come to think they should employ:
-------------
All ancestor, class, and skill feats should be listed with the ancestor, class, or skill. No flipping around. In ancestories, heritage feats should be listed separately from other ancestor feats.

All class powers, that aren't spells, should be in a section called powers. Or listed with the class.

Spells (and powers) should be listed by level, then name alphabetically. Uncommon and rare should be text (and Paizo already said they would not use color again). All the traits for an object should just be line of text in the listing, not the running list of text in a weird sidebar box. And among the traits should be the spell lists the spell can be found within.

Spell name -> level 3
Traits: Arcane, Divine, Enchantment, Mental, Primal
casting: A> somatic A> verbal
etc.

I'm not understanding niche protection on Perception. All adventures need it.

You can use the weapon you love at level 1. You take a -2 untrained penalty for it. But you can use it.

The feat over rides the general rule.

Does it say that in the book?

I mean, there are backgrounds now for a barkeep and an entertainer, but not one for a chef or a baker-

Just take the barkeep one and change "Alcohol Lore" to "Bakery Lore". Poof. A Baker background. Do you really need every possible profession listed. The flaw here is barkeep, should have been Shopkeeper or Craftsman. Alcohol Lore should have been "Lore related to your shop or craft"

Because they didn't like the choice of backgrounds in the playtest adventure.

It seems silly that one day you just get dark vision.

Why do you people keep saying this? Darkvision would be a heritage feat. You either have it at 1st level or you NEVER get it.

Let me demonstrate with goblins.

So, goblins have two Heritage feats. One gives them sharp pointy teeth, the other one makes their skin thick.

This means, when you meet a goblin in the wild, it will either have sharp teeth, fire retardant skin, or neither. You will never find one with both features. That is some weird genetics.

Some gnomes have keen sense of smell and other just pretend.
Elves ditto but for hearing.
Halfling ditto for eyesight.

And where is the general feat that allows you to take another heretage feat at first level.

But the spells per day chart stops at 9th level

Just for fun. One of the creatures in the adventure has Lore (all) +xx. Not sure how that works.

The spells per day chart stops at 9th level. So how does a spell heightened to 10th level get cast?

Why, if feats go from 1st to 20th level and characters and monsters go from 1st to 20th level, do spells only go from 1st to 10th level? If you are going to make everything have "level" why are some levels spread over 20 values but others only over 10 values?