We know about the "Grab Edge" reaction for when you get pushed down a cliff or a pit trap opens under your feet.
What other general reactions are listed in the book? Anything to grab a potion tossed by a friend during their turn?
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So I was picking spells for my Lv1 Cleric and encountered "Air Bubble", that is a Reaction spell. From the wording I felt like I could only cast it as a Reaction, so if I was out of range when the Fighter was submerged into water or I had used my Reaction on that turn, I couldn't cast it at all on him while he remained under water (because the triggering of the Reaction is him ENTERING an enviroment where he can't breathe). That didn't make sense, so I started to look for some Ruling/Wording in the book that specified that I could cast a Reaction Spell as if it were an Action Spell. The closest I got was in Page 195 on the "Spellcasting Actions". It reads as follow: "As noted in Cast a Spell, some specific spells let you turn spellcasting actions into reactions or free actions." The key wording being that it allows you to "turn" them from Actions into Reactions. Nowhere else is this stated/explained (neither on the "Cast a Spell" section that is mentioned and right next to the text I quoted). I think the book needs a cristal-clear ruling that states (directly, not implied) that you can always cast a "Reaction Spell" using a normal Action with the same Spellcasting traits. On a side note, I don't see why I should be able to cast this as a Reaction when an ally ENTERS an environment where he can't breathe, but not on the next turn (still as a Reaction) while an ally IS INSIDE an environment where he can't breathe.
Talking about monsters rarity, I would personally really appreciate if the Monster Entries in the books included the Rarity, used Knowledges for identifying them, and their DCs. How is that not a thing?
Auto-heightening everything is vastly more powerful than an unlimited spell list. Like, a lot. Which is sort of the whole problem with this idea. Not sure is THAT strong, I mean, afterall, you already havie auto-heightening on your 2 most useful/powerful/versatile spells, so the extra ability of just auto-heightening everything would just be more about elegance, simplicity, easy-to-learn/use and allow some spells that will never be heightened to sometimes be so if the need arises. I would rather have that, that the old PF1 mechanic (already mentioned to still exist) of un-learning spells. Is good if you changed your mind or want to learn other stuff instead, but when you mention it as something you do because that level became useless for it's slot level... Personally, I would just let them cast anything in any slot, specially for the Playtest, see how it goes. It will be strong? Yes. Broken? I personally think not.
I like what I see. More spells that come with the Bloodline is good (and we kinda needed them so the Bloodline entity didn't fade within the cherry picked spells), but I'm a little disappointed we don't get a list (or at least a couple of spells) to pick from. Every single Demonic Sorcerer having Fear, Resist Energy and Slow is a little "meh" and may not be in line with the "Demon" the player had in mind. My problem is the whole thing under "Sorcerer Features": it's just busy work. A sorcerer has spell slots and spell known, let that be it and allow them to cast any spell known from any spell slot. The whole "you can pick 2 spells a day in particular that can be casted on higher slots, bla bla bla" is completely unnecessary; it's just over-complicating things for the sake of doing so. Just make the class elegant and simple, instead of adding this extra layer out of fear of the class being too strong. Let the Sorcerer be overpowered with global auto-Heighten (they are still paying the slots) and the Wizards be overpowered with their huge spell lists. Sorcerer's forte has always been being spontaneous, so let them spontaneously cast any spell in any slot now that you have the Heightening mechanic.
I just wanted to ask the bag of holding question since there's like a 99% chance that, when faced with an activated armageddon orb, someone in my group's first thought would be "throw a bag of holding over it, or slam dunk it in a portable hole (or possibly do both so as to wink it out of existence)" and I don't, right now, know how to respond to that. My personal take on it: you can contact stuff within a Bag of Holding or a Portable Hole (using message-style spells), so the trigger could also reach, and in my version it would still trigger and rain fire down it's designated area (since, in my mind, is an area designated upon creation, not something centered around the sphere). As for destroying it entirely... Depends of what you want to do with it a GM. If you think of it as the catalyst that makes the fire rain down from the sky, then it can't work no longer with the sphere gone... but if you think of it as a triggering device and the rain being already "casted" and waiting for the "start" instruction, and the sphere is more of a "don't start" on repeat, it would start the rain of fire soon enough after the sphere being destroyed. As others mentioned, many villains are probably interested in the sphere NOT raining fire by mistake (on destruction or when fiddled around by adventurers), so if your villain is one of those, the sphere only acts upon it's selected trigger (like the villains death, or the black moon that can bring back the Lord of the Death if enough people are sacrificed), and destroying it wouldn't activate the firestorm.
Imo you get to imagine the Armaggedon Orb however you like it. It could be the size of a room, floating in mid-air... or it could be like a marble, and being carried as a necklace. The way I personally picture it, is not an orb that rains fire... is an orb that triggers the fire rain, if you understand what I mean. I imagine it as a seer's crystal ball in size, inamovible placed on an altar, and if you look inside of it (maybe with the need of some kind of true-sight) you can see insid the 100 miles of countryside that are going to be affected, as if inside the orb was the exterior world... If it gets triggered, I would give some seconds/minutes of activation visuals (the sky tuning red and what not) and you could see inside the ball the fire raining down. Imagine the ball itself as a 3D projection of what's happening, but not really, it IS what's happening (magic and such). As someone mentioned, this is a world-affecting item. Your DM is supposed to get the details he wants/needs for it, like size, activation, de-activation time... Not sure why they felt like they needed to list 10 minutes in there.
Then why does it have AC in the first place? Not like you can crit it so that isn't why it is needed. Also 10? Really a character has non neglibele change of missing essentially what would be a big door on the ground. AC is an abstraction that includes not only a creature trying to dodge your attacks, but also you sometimes missing (ever missed hitting a nail with a hammer while you weren't even in combat?) and also hitting places where the damage gets absorved/neutralized (this is why armors give AC in the first place). The 10 AC reflects that sometimes you hit a little wrong or get unlucky and hit it somewhere without damaging it because of bad "luck". And even if its negible on most cases (and doesn't even matter if you miss it 10 times out of combat), sometimes you may want to break it during combat for a particular reason, and using your third attack (at -10) against it, your chances of missing start getting real. I have issue with the damage too, not that 10 damage isn't suitable for CR 1 trap, but that 20ft is 10 damage. I know that falling damage in PF1 wasn't the greatest, but that is ridicilous amount. For 30ft maybe that is suitable. Oh and the same argument that was made for AC can be said about reflex save, it should just automaticly fail them. The Fall Damage has been adjusted for PF2. I don't remember the exact numbers: I thought it was 1 Feet = 1 Damage after the first 10 feet, but the poster bellows says it was 2 Feet = 1 Damage. In either case, the 20 Feet fall turns into 10 Damage, and Fall damage ends being more deadly in PF2, with imo is a good call, and is not even unrealistic. A real human can kill himself on a 5 feet fall (their own height) if they fall in the wrong way. Nothing wrong with having easier maths and with Fall Damage being deadlier (it should, it was too often too little in PF1). And for the Reflex save, same as the AC. In my opinion it reflects it getting "lucky" (or the guy that throw the fireball "unlucky" if he wanted to destroy the trapdoor).
Sometimes you shoot a bullet clean through a piece of wood, and sometimes, the same bullet, from the same pistol, at the same distance, against the same piece of wood, doesn't get throught and gets stucked midway. That is kinda what AC and Reflex attempt to convey, on a trapdoor.
Grab edge reaction? Why? Why not simply say “grab the edge as a reaction”, why create yet anothr different action/reaction? Every blog seems to add a new one and i fear its becoming more and more awkward as well as harder to recall and teach new players. Yes i know the old system had a lot as well but wasnt this edition attempting to resolve this issue not simply relabel the complexity? Your question made me think of Zombicide, where the characters would have listed abilities like "Bloodlust", and if you don't know that was, it was as easy as going to the ability page on the book and read what Bloodlust does. You will use the Grab Edge reaction in varied occasions (when a pit gets magically created under your feet, when someone pushes you out of a cliff...) and all these events listing "You can use the Grab Edge reaction" will probably be for the better, as you can just go read the "Grab Edge" in the reaction list (that will most likely be in alphabetical order and really easy to scan) and hopefully will have listed DC examples based on terrain, grease spell and the likes. As for it being a Reaction (and not something automatic/free), I think it's cool. If the falling happens mid-combat, and you were using your reaction to block stuff with your shield (or whatever), its like implying you were so focused in the combat that you couldn't react to the fall.
The bag of rats requires 1 resonance to attune and 1 to use.LOL Don't mind me, I'm looking for my old 'bag of rats' so I have something to trigger pit taps... ;)The lid wasn't built to support their weight And is limited to 3 rats a day. But when you attune to it, you recharge it with as many rats as boots you are wearing.
Snares are a trap option. I see what you did there.
BTW, re: Monster Hunter's "The creature is bolstered." wording, what does that mean. We need to read the exact text in the Rule Books to know 100% for sure, but so far I think it was described by devs (always in comments) as: "Unable to be affected again, for 24 hours, by that particular effect, from that particular source." Maybe I'm making up the "from that particular source" part. But for sure is "Immunity for 24 hours to that effect".
Would you feel the same way about a trap made with alchemist's fire that can set enemies on fire? I think not. "Alchemist's Fire" feels more "normal/medieval" to me than Liquid Ice. I guess is the freezing part, being crafted by a non-caster/non-alchemist, that strikes me weird. I can imagine Aragorn placing something to break/burn when stepped on, but freeze-explosion feels a little too in the magic-side more than something you craft as a trap. Dunno. To me feels like the ranger (but this is a general feat, so everyone can get it I guess?) should be placing Spike Traps and Bear Traps, not Ice-Freezing Traps. XD I really think the difficult terrain one could use a free trip attempt (low DC if you want), like if it were just a hidden rope. It also matches with "difficult terrain on 1 square" and "destroyed on trigger" stuff.
So, I have never beeng a big fan of the Ranger. Nothing against it neither, just that I didn't play any and didn't see many being played.
No spells sounds like the right approach to me, and as someone suggested I hope they have some Feat or ability related to "Herbalism" a la Aragorn, to get the medical and poisonous plants and such. I don't care mucha bout Favored Terrain/Enemy, and probably Studied Target is a better options, but from some of the comments it feels like it would be nice to have some Archetype or Feat that allow to still grab the old versions for those that loved them. The only thing that stroke me in the wrong way, were the snares. The fact that you have to use one of your 5 General Feats to grab "Snare Crafting" already felt weird, but if there are many types and have their uses, the cost is fair I guess.
The first one that transforms terrain into difficult terrain witout even attempting to trip the target (so just making them lose 1 square worth of movement, if they step on it) feels like most of the time it could be replaced with just actually creating some difficulty terrain by moving rocks and branches... The second... I didn't like. Many people may disagree with me, but that Freezing Snare felt more like MMORPG Skill than a Tabletop RPG snare. Creating a trap, with vials of "Liquid Ice", that explodes into cold damage/ice and slow-freezes the target? Is not something I would picture your typical movie/book ranger crafting and placing.
As for a dying (not just hurt) character being poured a healing potion from another chacter, I can see it working either way, to the point I may house rule that the players choose who spends the resonance: - The dying character is the one drinking it, and needs to use its own resonance for the magic take effect on his body. - The pouring character is the one using it, and I can easily picture her saying something like "Please, work", and the potion glowing (she used her own resonance to "activate" it) before starting to pour it. The part that sounds weird to me is... Mary (pouring player) knows that John (dying player) has no resonance left... But why/how does Melissandre (Mary's character) know that Aragorn (John's character) is out of resonance? Are we really supposed to waste both the potion AND let Aragorn die to avoid being accused of "Metagaming"? Do characters sense resonance at the most purest Dragon Ball Z Ki-Reading style? Anyway, at my table (if we use the current version of Resonance being shown here) I will allow the players to choose who spends the resonance in this scenario. Maybe (unsure) with it also costing 1 extra action (the one spend activating it before pouring) and probably (also unsure) only allowing it on dying character.
My two cents: went Resonance was first introduced, it felt weird, but also that there might be something in there. When I learned more about how you got it and what it was for, I started liking it more. Now instead of having a shirt that gives you an extra move action 1/day and a cloak that turns you into a crow 3/day, you can wear both and decide with your 4 resonance points if you run 4 times, or turn into a crow 4 times, or any mix in between, and didn't have to track remaining uses for neither, just a global Resonance Pool. When I learned potions costed resonance, I was also up for it. This encourages you to drink that one big level-apropiate powerful potion instead of drinking 20 crappy ones in a row after a fight, same for wands (wich I asumed would cost resonance to activate and would have no charges neither, so if you have 10 resonance points to use on wands, you want to make those 10 heals be better, so you buy better wands).
I was so into resonance, that I started homebrewing it in my current campaign, giving players wands and items that all have abilities that cost resonance, so they decide what/how they use them. And I do like having a resource similar to "How many spells do I have left? Do I want to burn one for this?" for all clases. Then the last 2 Blog Posts happened... What a mess... 3 or 4 new kinds of actions that have never been explained to us and that seem that could be easily replaced with "Somatic, Verbal and Material". If you want to have a "Amazing Opperator" Feat later that removes the Opperation Action from items, you can just make it read "Removes Somatic Actions needed to Activate an Item", no need to call them Operation Actions... And charges and X/day uses... Everything has them still... What a joke.
I can't speak the "One and Only Truth" until I have play the Playtest myself for reals, but so far I can see myself houseruling so much stuff related to resonance that is not even funny. And I DON'T want Resonance gone, I DO LIKE the concept of Resonance, but I really think Paizo are half-assing it by not going full-abord with the idea and keeping Charges and Daily Uses alongside with it... Make that invisibility in the cheap armor cost 3RP, problem solved. Have 6RP on your char and still wearing it? You deserve being able to turn invisible twice at the cost of not having resonance for other things, if you choose to. On a side note, what bothers me is rolling for extra uses after you resonance is gone... Half of my players can't even remember what their ACs are, or sometimes surprise me with stuff like "Does DEX affect INIT?". Do you want those people to remember at what DC their resonance is after X uses? That sounds good on paper, but gets annoying on the table really fast.
Will there be a potion of resonance restoration? Yes, restores 1 RP, and costs 1 RP to Activate it's Activable Activation Actiony Action. It's called water.
I said it before, and I will say it again, we REALLY need the Success/Failure stuff IN ORDER. Ideally: Critical Failure > Failure > Success > Critical Sucess (But I would settle for the other way around from Critical Sucess to Critical Failure). I don't care if sometimes you need to read Failure before Critical Failure because the later includes the effects of the first, in those cases you will have to read both anyway no matter the order, so JUST - PLACE - THEM - IN ORDER. When reading a spell wondering what it does, like let's say "Petrify", it shouldn't start reading like: "It sightly annoys your limbs > It does nothing"
One thing I don't like, and maybe I'm misunderstanding something, is the comment that part of the system was intended to make less book keeping. Specifically removing the charges from items. That sounds like a good idea. However, when we get down to the staff example, it looks like charges are back. So I'm confused. Yeah... And from the looks of it we also have "1/day" stuff, like mentioned in that sword. I guess the idea was to have LESS stuff that was X/day, and the X being your remaining Resonance and you decide how many charges you devote to each of the items you have equiped. I understand very powerful abilities wanting to be still limtied to 1/day and stuff like that... I understood Mark's post about not being able to make wands just use 1 RP instead of 1 Charge because that means buying a Wand of Haste can easily give you 10 uses of Haste everyday forever... So price should go up accordingly; but I guess you could also make wands use more RP for higher level spells or stuff like that.
The thing I didn't think about that I read in one of the comments, was that "forcing you to spend 1RP to invest in your magical item, makes you think more about it and what items you want to invest in". His point was how at higher levels, PF1 players often forget half the magical items their characters are wearing, and this system may increase the likehood of them knowing/remembering what they are actually wearing, and I like that.
And if new opponents are coming after the party so shortly after an encounter that they can't heal with a wand, I would consider that to be the same encounter still. Of course it comes with the assumption that you have time to heal up... If you DON'T have time to do so, there is no need to discuss at all if wand healing should be limited by Resonance or not... you aren't healing either way! But when you DO have the time to Heal (which I would say is an important amount of the encounters), it forces the DM to make all those isolated encounters potentially deadly, or else you can just heal afterwards to full anyways... A single orc appears, he is second in initiative... In PF2 you may consider how you act, you want to save HP if possible, in PF1 it doesn't matter what you do, you just heal it afterwards and continue. When the DM creates an encounter with orcs next to other rooms with more orcs that will come check the fight before you have time to heal, that is the same encounter pretty much, even if its divided in two battles. Giving the DM the ability to do use attrition or the players a sense of weight on their actions/resources, is important. Why should I use my Fireball for this groups of orcs if it's obvious we can beat them with just the martials and heal up afterwards as much as we want? Well... If you are limited by Resonance, maybe you start considering using the Fireball in this encounter to save HP, and you start seeing HP as something important (it represents your companions health after all) that you may want to prevent going down, not something that can allways be healed afterwards. And again... If you really want the old Wand of CLW scenario, just use 5 minutes short rests that heal everyone's HP to full everytime. Is not like you were limited by Wand charges past Lv3 anyway. The game will (in my opinion) be healthier if players are forced to start considering their HP as something precious they want to prevent from going down, which is something the characters should be doing... Stuff like rising shields, using dodge actions or spending resources on an encounter that could be considered trivial by PF1 standards will become more important and better options, as they should.
This general assumption that CLW wands completely negate damage between combat baffles me in the first place. There are many other considerations to such an equation, like ability damage/drain, status effects (nauseated, etc) and short duration buff uptimes (haste, mirror image) or even new opponents coming after the party shortly after an encounter, which make spending several minutes healing up with CLW wands between combats not always a practical solution. It does completely negate Hit Point damage between combats. The fact that there are other things (Ability Drains, Poisons, etc...) has nothing to do with the ability to heal Hit Point entirely. And if new opponents are coming after the party so shortly after an encounter that they can't heal with a wand, I would consider that to be the same encounter still. The "problem" with unlimited daily uses of potions/charges is that, as others mentioned, forces you to make every encounter potentially deadly or else there is no point to it because, no matter what you do, you can fully heal afterwards without expending daily resources. At that point, if you have a problem with Resonance limiting your Healing Pool, you can just allow short 1-minute rests to fully heal everyone's HP, and it would be almost the same as having unlimited CLW Wands (which is the case after some levels and Gold starts to rain). I hate how this Resonance post was worded and shown, but I like the concept of Resonance itself. Also, PF2 is making great efforts to give everyone new options to "heal". A Fighter rising his shield to be able to use a reaction to absorb damage is a pseudo-heal of sorts, but without feeling like you are healing, so is the Rogue's Dodge reaction; and all seems to indicate that investing in Medicine will also have some healing benefits that don't affect how you build your character for combat at all, nor does make you a heal-bot in any way.
The wording is completely unrelated to resonance, it's all a question of style and clarity. We originally had it as Operate, Focus, and Command, but Activation was added during editing to make it clearer. If people think it doesn't make it clearer, that's good feedback and it's easy enough to change if that's widespread. "Activation" is fine. Repeating it inside the "Activation:" field is not... It was the same with the spells. They were written like this: "Casting: Somatic Casting, Verbal Casting".
"Activation: Operate Activation, Command Action" is redundant and doesn't help reading the key parts (Operate and Command) inside a field already called Activation.
I think they need to define them because some will generate Attacks of Opportunity, others won't, and stuff like that. But yeah. The wording is really bad. It was as bad on the spell example.
Also, the fact that they are talking about them as if they were terms that got explained to us (when they weren't) doesn't help neither and creates un-needed confusion while we try to guess whats the mechanical difference while playing between a Focus Action and a Opperate Action. Does Opperate require a free hand? Does it generate AoO? I'm assuming so, but from educated guesses and half of them will eventually be proven wrong. If the post was going to use the language, it should have started explaining it.
A prime example is a sword with the frost property runeIs this a subtle hint to rune magic being more prominent in Pathfinder from now on? It was mentioned in another post that Weapon and Armor enchants are now called "Runes".
Although is nice to see cheaper staves I think they still has the same problem PF1 staves had, that is a poor ROI, my biggest issue with PF1 staves was the limit of one per day recharge, so I'm skeptical of how much play PF2 staves are going to see, taking the minor staff of healing as example, at level 5 it drains from 2 to 5 RP in a day, 1 RP from investing + 1 to 3 RP from casting the spell + 1 RP to recharge, that seems like to much for a level 5 character in a single item. From my understanding, you spend only 1 RP to invest into it in the morning, and this includes recharging a number of charges equal to the max level spell you can normall cast. So if you have access to Lv2 spells, you recharge 2 charges to it. Unsure about the rest because poor wording. Badly written post is badly written.
How dare you ninja-post my Discord rambling? XD
Please... Stop with the "casual tone" when presenting items. Look at that Healing Staff mess...
So the blog didn't confirm it, but personally I'm reading: Focus Action = Free Action
I believe it was mentioned a while back that if you failed a Resonance Check, you were cut off from trying to spend Resonance again that day.You can overspend Resonance Points! If you're at 0 RP, you can attempt to activate or invest an item anyway. You need to attempt a flat check (a d20 roll with no modifiers) against a DC equal to 10 + the number of points you've overspent today. The way remember it (I may be wrong), you got cut off from trying only if you Critically Failed the Resonance Check. Otherwise you didn't manage to activate it (because you are "low on magic"), but could try again. The difference in the average extra Resonance charges you can get on a daily basis changes substancially (assuming you need to Critically Fail to get cut off) between the DC increasing +1 per attempt or +1 per success.
You can overspend Resonance Points! If you're at 0 RP, you can attempt to activate or invest an item anyway. You need to attempt a flat check (a d20 roll with no modifiers) against a DC equal to 10 + the number of points you've overspent today. Up to this point, I think we were all under the assumption that the DC went +1 after every attempt at activating an item. The text here seems to suggest that the DC only goes up after you have succeed at activating an item. Is that right?
I sure hope the flavor text gets separated from what the item actually does in the Rulebook, and not mixed/in front of it. I don't want to have to read stuff like "This copper coin dangles from a leather strip strung through a hole drilled into the coin's center. It's usually tied just below the throat on a suit of armor. Until it is activated, the coin becomes invisible for a few seconds every few minutes, but always at random intervals." mixed in front of all the items to know what they are about... Hell, that description is twice the length of the sentence describing the mechanics and there is no way to know where to start reading if you just want to know what the item does. Flavor is good, but don't place it mixed with the mechanics of the item. Also, I see no mention about any Trinket Limit... Can I have 50 of them afixed to my Armor? 30 gems in my Weapon? BTW, all the Opperate/Focus/Command Activation descriptors are useless if we don't know the mechanic differences. So far I assume Focus is Free, Command is 1 Action (Verbal, no AoO) and Opperate is 1 Action (Somatic, generates AoO). But would have been nice to mention it from the start.
What happens when this armor is looted by a party without this feat? On the post it's written: "[...] grants +7 AC and +3 TAC, and has a Dexterity modifier cap of +0; otherwise, it uses the same stats as full plate." That word made me think that we got listed the Grey Maiden Armor Stats (that are better than a Full Plate), AND if you don't have the Feat, it just acts as a Full Plate (which I asume would has sightly worse). At least that was my impression. And if it gives +1 AC over the best default armor in the game, it could easily be worth a Feat.
TheFinish: the problem is if we don't get an answer/clarification here and now, and then it turns out it's also open to interpretation in the Playtest.
I see how stunning fist is not super strong in your difficult fights but it's going to own lower cr creatures. Who are crit easy and will crit fail the dc often.Again, it's not a question of how easy or hard it is to stun with stunning fist. It's a question of the name no longer being very accurate for something which is likely to happen less than 5% of the time. Well, it may be a little missleading, but not that much, and I think its a good nomenclature. If a Basilisk or a Medusa in PF2 only turns you to Stone on a Critical Fail, and those happen (if you are the adecuate level and have the correct gear) 5% or 10% of the Time (so, not really often), you wouldn't call the ability "Slowing Gaze", would you? TheFinish: You are right... Its open to interpretation. That's why we need proof-reading during the Playtest. Personally I did read it like if it had a "Super-Critical-Fail" condition that only got activated on a Critical Strike... But I forgot entirely about the Crits making the save result one category worse...
BTW, sorry everyone for the confusion I may have caused. I really assumed that Weapon Proficiency (that uses the same 5 degrees) was leveled up the same way with the same points than the normal proficiencies like "Athletics" or "Craft".
graystone, frist quote was a typo on my part (meant Simple Weapons)... and I can't edit it anymore :( And for your second answer... The playtest is played with pre-made characters... I asume they got a list of what that Iconic Wizard was carrying?
There is "Unarmed Attack Proficiency", so I asume there is "Armed Attack Proficiency" (or maybe Simple/Martial proficiencies?). I think we are still missing some key pieces to know for sure what we are talking about.
Um, citation needed...? Where are you getting that you can convert skill ranks into weapon proficiency? Well... I assume Weapon Proficiency is just a Skill, like "Athletics", "Unarmed Attacks", "Unarmored Defense" and "Armored Defense" and all that stuff? Why would it be something different? As in: Untrained (-2), Trained (0), Expert (+1), Master (+2), Legendary (+3) with Martial Weapons? I just assumed. But granted I may be wrong here. Maybe we only get "Unarmed Attacks" and "Armed Attacks" as Skills, and proficiencies are something separated still, but I asumed they would be put together with everything else in this new system. EDIT: Just went to re-read the post and the exact text is: Your monk could take Monastic Weaponry at 1st level, letting him use his unarmed attack proficiencies, as well as any monk abilities that normally work with unarmed attacks, with simple and martial monk weapons Thats a Feat (I asume) to use your "Unarmed Attack" (that's a proficiency/skill) with simple martial monk weapons... Do we even know if there are "weapon proficencies" as we know them still? Or everyone knows how to handle them and is about how many skill points you place in "Armed Attacks"?
Don't know Tholomyes, may also deppend on what kind of enemy, and overall I get the feeling you get way better accuracy on your first hit on PF2 than you do on PF1. A Lv1 Monk with 18 STR has +6 to Hit (4 from STR, 1 from Level, 1 from Expert Unarmed)... Let's assume for this example he is flanking with a budy, or he made the target flat-footed with his previous Stunning Fist, so that's a +8... If he is fighting something with a very sucky armor (10 AC, like a Zombie or Naked Man) he Crits from 12 to 20 (45% of the time).
Then he needs to Critically Fail the Fortitude Save. I'm not sure how you calculate it, but in the post it says it's based on your STR or DEX... Let's assume its 10+Level+STR, that would be DC 15 (is this right? I'm missing something? Maybe a Proficiency?) A Lv1 enemy usually has +0/2 Fort Save, right? Let's be generous and go with 3. So he Critically Fails when rolling 1 or 2, so 10% of the time... In these two scenarios (assuming your DC is actually 15, and the 10AC and 15AC enemies have a +3 Fort Save) you are Stunning them 4.5% and 3% of the time). Granted, is not amazing, but is looking okay-ish. If the enemies had a +0 Fort the Crit Failure would increase from 10% to 25%, and the total stun chance would grow to 11,25% and 7,5%. Granted, this is eyeballig and assuming somethings, but looks accurate. In these examples the Monk has a +2 from Flat-Footed enemies, but it doesn't have a +1/+2 from possible friendly buffs from a Bard, ot stuff like "Aid Another" (if it still exists).
For everyone complaining that Monks aren't by default trained in Martial Weapons, think of it this way: They probably get around the same number of Trained Skills (total) than the other classes... If you want to go the weapon route, you can get one of your Lv1 extra Skill Ranks (Class+INT at Lv1) into Weapon Proficiency if you want to use weapons. But if you don't want to use weapons, for those other monks, it's kinda like getting an extra skill somewhere else (because that "default Lv0 skill" that wasn't placed in Weapon Proficiency was probably placed somewhere else). Me, personally, I would keep them like they were presented here (untrained), but I would also make Wizards to be untrained by default (the -2 is very fitting for a Wizard that doesn't want to specialize/train with weapons). But who knows? Maybe that's already the case, maybe Wizards are also Untrained with Weapons by default and the Iconic Wizard that people have been playing in the Playtests just happened to have invested one of his Lv1 Skill Ranks in Weapon Proficiency.
Hm... You may be right, if its exclusive to low Hit Dice weapons, specially how the Magic Weapons scale in PF2 by adding dices... A 3d6+7 Rapier +3 (DEX) vs a 3d12+7 Greatsword +3 (STR) doesn't feel as bad.
Untrained is always a -2 (for Diplomacy, Weapons, Unarmed or whatever you are Untrained with). Imo is a perfect penalty. The old -4 was too big. Now you could consider using something you aren't trained with, specially since the first attack seems to have more accuracy overall than it did in PF1. And for DEX to Damage... I'm not sure... Is a slippery slope... STR only gives damage (and Bulk, but many players ignore it entirely).
I know it makes sense to have DEX>Damage because how accurate your hits are, and its cool building a character that way... But I'm not sure it's very healthy for the game itself. 24 STR nets you +7 Damage. 24 DEX would net you the same +7 Damage, and +7 Freaking AC (no joke) AND +7 to Reflex Saves on a world where Fireballs can critically hit you. I love DEX to Damage, but I hope they don't include it.
Remember Subutai1 that the attack you are giving up in exchange for the possibility to Flat-Foot/Stupefy/Stun the target, on a "Full Round Action" turn, is one made at -8 (at best, -10 if you are a Monk using a non-agile weapon).
Human Fighter. You gotta stay classy and start from the begining ;-P The Shield interactions and new Action Based abilities also look great.
I don't have a problem with stunning fist actually "stunning" the target very rarely. I have a problem with it having a 2 action cost, which from what we have seen so far will almost never justify its cost, if you can do so much more with those 2 actions instead. Would you rather attack twice at -2, -6, or three times at -4, -8, -8? Is hard to tell, both options feel almost as good. Well... The first option (-2, -6) is pretty much what the Monk gets after flat-footing a target with Stunning Fist and following with a Flurry of Blows.
Stunning Fist at 2 Actions is juts fine. It's a choice, as it should be. At 1 Action it would be a no brainer. Why would you EVER normal attack instead? The Stunning part (even if its in the name of the skill) is just the cherry on top if it happens. You are using Stunning Fist mostly to Flat-Foot your target for the rest of your party attacks (including yours), with Stupefy and Stun being nice extras. If you had to move once to reach the target and have to choose between a 0 Attack (2 Actions) that can Flat-Foot/Stupefy/Stun or 3 attacks (Normal + Flurry of Blows) at 0, -4, -8... Well, it will depend on the situation and the initiative order; or maybe in this scenario is better to not use Stunning Fist... But that's great. The fact that you don't do the same every-single-round (like all characters did in PF1). *Does Stupefied reduce Will Saves? Condition reads: "imposes a conditional penalty on spell DCs as well as on Intelligence-, Wisdom-, and Charisma-based checks."
If Monastic Weapon doesn't work with style feats, then taking it at first level doesn't really seem to be "cost" whatever benefits Crane Style feats. Well, from the text we get that with Monastic Weapons, the monk can use "any monk abilities that normally work with unarmed attacks", and the Crane Wing is an unarmed attack with a set damage. I assume from the text you can use Crane Wing while using a Monastic Weapon no problem, but looks like the damage will still be the 1d6 set by the Crane Style, like if you hit the enemy with your grip, using the Style's set damage instead of the weapon's. Just speculation, but that's how I think it will be. We also have to take into account that some of the Blog Posts aren't that well redacted, and they are obviously missing a lot of info, so maybe in the final text all this is explained and obvious how they work together.
I can't imagine that wizards don't get ANY weapon proficiencies so... yeah. The monk gets LESS training than a wizard in weapons by default. SO, no, it NEEDS to continue until monks get some basic weapons they can use. Why can't you imagine it? Not having Proficiency in PF2 only is -2 (as opposed to the old -4), and Wizards (like everyone else) are now "Full BAB". A Lv1 Wizard can easily attack at +2 (16 STR/DEX for +3, Lv1 for +1, and -2 from Untrained at Weapons).
I see it as perfectly acceptable. And then, the Wizard that feels like he wants to hit stuff with his sword because it's always a nice option to have, or wants to emulate Gandalf, or even just want to build a Magus (we still need to know a little more about Archetypes and Multiclassing) can just decide to spend 1 skill point in Weapon Proficiency and get a +4 at Lv1 without maxing STR/DEX (or even a +5 if he for some reason maxes STR or DEX).
So I don't know if it has been confirmed or stablished, but up to now I always asumed, like on Unchained Monk, that you could use your Lv3 Class Feat to grab a Lv1 Class Feat (even if they are supposed to be "weaker"). So I asume you could get Monastic Weapon at Lv1 and Crane Style at Lv3 (or the other way around) if you really wanted to have both.
Could a developer confirm if the Stat Progression only gives +1 for Stats over 18? I was under the impression that PF2 was looking at always giving progressions that affected the bonus and that it would be always +2 to 4 Stats, no matter what their values. Otherwise, 22 is the maximum you can get on any stat, at Lv20, assuming it started at 18 on Lv1... Wich feels a little low for a Fantasy Roleplaying Game. I though (and hoped) there weren't Stat Boosting items anymore, so most of the STR of a Legendary Lv20 Barbarian came from within, not from a Belt he happened to be wearing? Also, I remember Mark mentioning in the past that the progression "wasn't exactly like Starfinder", but it's looking exactly like Starfinder.
So a character with four attacks using both an agile and non agile weapon can exploit the system to do first attack with the heavy weapon at full bonus, second attack with agile at -4, third attack with agile at -8, and fourth attack with heavy weapon at -8?When you make a fourth attack then with agile, is the fourth attack also capped at -8 or is it -10?It's pretty clearly -8. The point is that attacks after the third use the same penalty as the third, not that they cap at a specific penalty. If the premise of the first quotes it's correct, I guess you do the first attack normally, then substract 1xWeapon Penalty on the second attack and 2xWeapon Penalty on the third attack and any that comes afterwards. So in your example it would be Normal Weapon (0), Agile (-4), Agile (-8), Normal Weapon (-10). Assuming at some point it will exist a really Heavy Weapon that does -6 per interaction, using that one on the third Attack would be -12, and using an Agile again on the fourth attack would be a -8.
Heh... so, looking at it, a third-level elf Monk with the ancestry feat for speed is moving 45 ft. per action and ignoring one square of difficult terrain. Dwarves and non-elves wearing medium armor need three moves to catch up to you. Even if they’ve got sudden charge, you’re making two or three attacks to their one.Sounds like something to keep an eye on in the test, and another good argument for setting base speed for everyone back to 30. Speed 25 after armor vs a speed 50 opponent is at least doable, whereas speed 20 vs speed 45 means no attacks ever without special abilities or reach, yeah. The new ancestry speeds are all good imo. And I kinda like how the slow but sturdy dwarves or the nimble light small races don't get as affected by difficult terrain, while human-like (25 feet) lose 5 feet if they move only once (or any non-multiple of two). If anything, I think the monk shouldn't gain +10 at Lv3. It's a little over the top with 3 Move Actions available and the new reduced speeds.
since -8 is still way too much of a penality for anything but worthless or stationary opponents. We don't know that for sure. Don't get me wrong, -8 is huge, but in PF1 everyone with multiple attacks due to BAB already had a -5 per attack. A Lv11 Fighter had 0/-5/-10, and a Lv16 had 0/-5/-10/-15, granted it was worded diffent (+16, +11, +6, +1) but it was the same principle.From my understanding, and early comments that the Fighter would be hitting their target more often than other classes, and other clases would do so more often than in PF1, I get the feeling that instead of the 2nd hit being hard to hit and the third imposible, I think the first one will be almost guaranteed, the second will be normal, and the third one hard to hit rather than almost impossible... Maybe not exactly, but you get the idea, it may not be as bad as we think right now when we read -8 and -10. |