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.
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".
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.
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.
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
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.
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".
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.
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."
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).
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.
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.
So I got in a little discussion about what the attack penalties on a Monk would look like, because we got two different interpretations of what Agile Weapons exactly do. Would the attacks be at 0/-4/-8 (reducing each penalty from -5 to -4), or would they be at 0/-4/-9 (-1 to the normal penalty for that attack)?
I wouldn't know, I always read the stuff in English. Do they even translate all their products to Spanish? As soon as you can't find the one you want, it doesn't matter if they translated 5% or 95% of the stuff... And when looking on forums/etc about how "Power Attack" works, you are better of googling it in English than in any other language, so I just read/search everything in English.
Well, I know they are physically placed in the USA, but one would asume they make a game for everyone and that they would aim to sell it everywhere... No? They could just go for "units" and be done with it. 1 Square = 1 Unit, spells are now 3-Unit Cones or 2-Unit Radius, etc. Add a small "1 Unit = 5 Feet" or "1,5 Metter" or whatever at the begining of the book depending on where it's published. I mean... When you are reading the range of a spell, you don't care if its 60 Feet, 18 metters or 3 and a half Ogres Lenght; what you are looking for is how many grid units away it reaches to know if you can heal/harm this token or not.
There wouldn't be really any implications, not that mattered anyway, if you just made 5 Feet = 1 Metter everywhere, including the spell ranges, jumping distances, etc. Yeah, the characters would make smaller jumps and run at lower speeds when compared to actual real world people, but not like it would matter in-game. I play in Spanish and we always say "1 Metter Step" instead of "5-Foot Step" and stuff like that. And Diego Rossi, about not being enough "players from lands not using the imperial system to be worth making the switch", you know that pretty much only the USA (and two small countries) uses the Imperial System, right? And I'm pretty sure people play Pathfinder, just like D&D, all around the world. I kinda agree with Rek Rollington that using the Imperial System on a Fantasy Setting is not too bad, it gives a sense of "old times" (because its ACTUALLY a medieval system that shouldn't have survived to modern times), but it brings nothing good to the game other than having to multiple/divide by 5 many stuff that relates to the grid, or having conversion problems between the different units. Just think about the possibilities! We could have Hampered 1, 2 and 3 instead of 5, 10 and 15! :-P
On regards of the unified conditional penalty for all mental stats, I think is a great idea. I assume you will still have individual stuff like "Alergic Reaction" to a Goblin Dog lowering your carisma because of the skin rashs and what not; but having a global INT/WIS/CHA Stupefy Condition is a great tool to build balanced Encounters in general where you want to aim at hurting the casters (just like some other encounters aim at hurting the martials) without it becoming a cake walk because the monster happened to affect INT and the group had a Sorcerer instead of a Wizard. Also it makes sense that being "stupefied" would affect all 3 mental stats. Doesn't feel metagamey or out of context at all. Man, I'm so sad we didn't get extra bits on info on the commments from the developers this time around :(
Igwilly the "this stack, this doesn't" probably comes from the fact that in the very few examples given in the post, we already have two kinds of Quick that stack but don't really... The Lv20 Monk Feat Enduring Quickness gives him permanent Quick... but is a "nerfed" Quick whose extra action can't be used to Strike or Step (I asume that last one should be in the list, since is a movement), so if he gets Quick on top of it, he doesn't gain any extra Actions (he stays at 4) but suddenly he can use that 4th Action to Strike.
Also, Fatigue seems to be quite weak to me (5 Hampered, -1 AC, and extra -1 AC for each extra Action you take while Fatigued).
I also liked Tayoyo idea of X Condition reaching X Number based on your CON/WIS/Whatever (depending on the Condition) having an extra effect, like having a Heart Attack at Fear 10 if your WIS is 10. I'm still wondering if you can get Slow 3 and have no Actions left (and be kind of paralyzed) or if Slow will have a rule of "You always have at least 1 Action available".
Biztak is worth mentioning knowing that losing 4 AC, while it always increases the chances of being hit, sometimes it won't affect Crit at all depending on your AC and the enemy Hit Chance. If they need to roll a 14 to Hit you (something normal), lowering it to 10 still means they only crit you on a Natural 20. Not a fan of the Monk's pseudo-Quickness. Either give it Quick 1 (Strike included), or make it non-related to Quick. The way it's right now looks like it doesn't really stack, so that Lv20 Monk is less affected by the Haste Spell than anyone else (only winning the ability to use the extra action it already had to Strike, but was probably going to use at least one to move anyway, or we are probably talking about a -15 Attack unless he uses 2x 2-Action Attacks).
"You don't have to win", heck, you don't even have to accept it if you don't want to, and many people seem to be forgetting that part. If you fail to ACCEPT the challenge, for whatever reason (its too dangerous, it would take time away from a more important task, you don't feel like it) you will "only" lose some (or all?) your Totem-Related stuff (temporarly mind you), but still be a Barbarian. Then in comes the roleplaying bit of "Why did I backup from that challenge? Did I use the excuse of my mission to avoid it, or was I afraid for my life?" (or however you wana go about it) that represents tha Barbarian losing his focus/center, and so not being as good at fighting until he has sorted his mind out.
Again, this reminds me a lot of what happens to the barbarian Wulfgar in some of Salvatore's books.
I did enjoy the read on the Barbarian, and also many of the comments in favor or against some of the specific things, but please if you feel the need to post over 10 post complaining and trying to refute other's opinions, go open a thread dedicated to it, don't make half the comments under ANY Paizo Post be a discussion between 4 guys quoting each other non-stop... As for calling the Barbarian thingie something else than "Anathema" (some suggested "Taboo" and other things) that would be going back to square one and call every Class Feat something different for each class. They want to make PF2 easier to read and understand, we don't need 5 different words to decribe the same thing for 5 classes. Call all the RP-Hooks Roleplaying-Guidelines or Character-Codes Anathemas for everyone and be done with it. And about having a problem with a particular Totem having a particular Anathema that doesn't fit your character, I could just say the exact same about my Wizard having to write and daily memorize spells from a book (have yet to see that on a movie)... Just live with it... or don't. Rule it out. If you are exerienced enough at Pathfinder to know how to do interesting characters and roleplay them, chances are you are also experienced enough to know when to ignore a Rule/Anathema/Suggestion that doesn't suit you or your group...
If your actual problem is that you can't agree with your DM to use a different Anathema for your Barbarian (or none at all), and that he wants to do all by the book... Looks like you shouldn't be playing with that DM to begin with (not because he is wrong, but because you clearly want different things and games).
The whole Barbarian Anathema thingie keeps me thinking about Wulfgar, from Salvatore's books. When he fails to do "the right thing" (from his point of views/traditions/etc), he loses his center and can't concentrate (nor "rage"). I do wonder if Paizo got some of the inspiration from him. BTW I must say I'm surprised by the 3/1 Rage/Fatigue rotation, but the idea to keep gaining Temporal Hit Points on a long combat does fit my image of the barbarian.
How do you figure balancing oversized weapons? Afaik we only know that Small and Medium weapons, the two most common ones, used by all the Core Races, and that both always had their damage entries written in the lists, now do share the same damage, to simplifiy lists, make it easier to read/understand, and so Small Races (ancestries) don't feel nerfed damage-wise (specially because PF2 now adds Weapon Dices on Magical Weapons). It's probable than smaller than Small and bigger than Medium still have different damage values.
I do wonder... Do monsters also get a -5 penalty for each successive attack made the same round? Or is this "math" simplified on the monsters' side by them always attacking with the same Attack Bonus (like in PF1)?
Why change a grip is an action and not a free action? Because it can boost your damage? Is that so good to change a grip from two hands to one hand? Open or close a hand takes the same effort of Strike?!? Why? Well, it makes some sense if changing the grip includes re-arranging your weapon (to the ground or your shoulder) because you can't really keep holding it in an attack position (as you presumably where, in middle of a fight, if you are caring about tracking and saving single actions) with a single hand. Instead of picturing a Wizard with a staff touching the ground, imagine one that just swinged his greatsword and now wants to cast a spell immediately after, it makes some sense that he needs to "put the weapon down" while "changing the grip". We will see how all this plays (I'm also a little worried about the full-round-actions to open a door stuff), and maybe it changes after the Playtest.Your character has proficiency in shields just like she does with armor, and when using a shield, you use the lower proficiency rank of your armor or shield to calculate your Armor Class. Well... If you are not proficient with holding a shield, it encumbers you. It makes "some" sense that while just carrying/holding it (and not attempting to use it to block attacks with an action) it lowers your AC. Raising a shield should never lower your AC, switching grip should be a free action. Hell, I'm no warrior but I can change grips on an axe or the like in a heartbeat. Raising a shield is, at maximum, a -2 (from untrained) and a +1/+0 (from presumably the worst shield available) so a net -1. Sounds about right when trying to use a shield in a fight and being completely untrained with how to actually use a shield. You could argue you are blocking your view and movements and that you would have more chances to avoid the attack if you weren't trying to hold on to a shield you never trained for. And yeah, you are no warrior and can change grips on an axe in a heartbeat (which is already 1 second, or half an action), but can you do so in between attacks, even while the axe is mid-swing, and use the free hand to open a door (or cast a spell) while fighting an orc?
In the end it can be good that players get to choose what they do by those things having some resource impact. Too often players want to do everything, at once, for free, while holding 3 weapons. How many times have we read in books or seen in movies how the protagonist has to use/defend with whatever he is holding because there is no time to draw/change weapons? Also take in mind 1 Action in PF2 is not as expensive a 1 Action in PF1: not only do you get 3 instead of 2, but the one you don't get to use is always the worst one (the Attack with the higher negative bonus). So that's something too.
People are pondering if the "Arcane List" will just be the Mental Spells plus the Material Spells, and the "Divine List" includes the Vital Spells and the Spirit Spells. We always had crossing of spells in Pathfinder 1 and other games, and you can get more "lists" this way (6 if mixing 2 of them). It also opens the possibilities to have a new classes that get more Spell Slots, or Gain Higher Spell Slots earlier, or get extra powers by being over-specialized (like a Shaman that only gets Spiritual or a Psionic that only gets Mental), or the other way around, someone that gets a disadvantage (slower Spell Slot progression) in exchange of being allowed into 3 of the lists. We don't have proof, but there are some indications that make us think that those could very well be the "4 Spell Lists" and the Classes just refer to which ones they have access. Maybe Paladin has more spells that he used to have, but only access to Vital, not Spirit, etc. We will have to wait and see, but we are free to speculate :-P
I wonder... If you don't like casting free level-appropriate cantrips all day long and feel like a WoW Mage casting Firebolts non-stop that are on league with a Fighter's Swings, and you House Rule (or Paizo releases) a class that completely forfeits cantrips all together for extra Spell Slots, how many would you need for balancing purposes. I always liked the "useless Wizard" that is saving his big spells for the most needed moment, and feels like he does nothing for the fight when he is not using his battle-changing spells. Not sure if I will like this "I can always "Firebolt" for decent damage, all rounds, every fight, all day long..." I think I'm also in the wagon of calling "Spell Levels" something else.
But only sometimes, not always... I think? If they were ONLY used to Cast Spells or Improve Spells, I wouldn't have a problem with it being called "Spell Points", but I get the feeling this pool may include things like the "Monk's Ki Pool Abilities" or "Barbarian Rage Powers", so the name "SPELL Point" will be highly inadequate if that's the case.
I did have a problem with the name "Spell Points", but it had nothing to do about it sounding "gamey", my concern is that most of the time it won't be used to track "Spells", its a bad name that creates unnecessary confusion. Something more along the line of "Power Points" (yeah, I know it sounds specially bad because Power Point Presentations are a thing we use) or something like "Ability Points" or even just "Mana" or a new word like they did for Resonance... After all, this new resource is used to track your uses of things like Domain Powers or Bloodline Abilities; NOT Bloodline Spells or Domain Spells. From the wording, and Paizo wanting to reduce/combine stuff (like with Class Feats and such), and I get the feeling that this "Spell Points" resource will be used to track stuff like the current Monk's Ki Points or Barbarian Rage Powers and such; and even if this wasn't the case and its only originally used for Spell-Related stuff (which I highly doubt), give it a year and a couple of books and that won't be the case anymore... The word "Spell" needs to go from it.
What worries me most, is what will really happen with low level spells as you gain new levels... Cantrips now DO level with your level (well, max Spell Level you can cast, but its pretty much the same thing), but Caster Level is gone from the Spells, so by the time you can cast Lv5+ Spells, the damage from your Lv1 Magic Missile should be a waste of an action: a free Cantrip does more. Every time someone addressed this, a Designer mentioned that you "Could choose to use your low level slots for situational stuff", but to me it feels like you are FORCED to do so, because how bad is to use them for Damaging Spells when your Cantrips (affected by "Caster Level") are probably doing more damage than the low Level Spells. This is probably my biggest fear/issue with PF2 so far. Also I really hope the final product reads way better than these posts. Not a fan on how you guys decided to list Success, Critical Success, Failure, Critical Failure in that order. In my opinion it should go in order, from lowest (Critical Failure) to highest (Critical Success), as in 1-2-3-4. Right now it reads 3-4-2-1...
And lastly you really need to think about naming this new "Spell Points" resource differently. From the looks of it it seems it may include stuff like the Monk's Ki Points, will it? So it's not used only (or at all?) for Spells... and even if right now that was the case, I'm pretty sure that very "soon" (give it some books) it won't be used only for Spells anymore. Maybe "Power Points" or something along those lines could be better... After all you use those points for your "Domain Powers" and your "Bloodline Powers", not for your "Domain Spells" or "Bloodline Spells", that would make the name less ambiguous if you are expected to use it for many different things, many (most?) of which are not even Spells at all. I really liked that this post had more substance than the last ones, but the poor choices of wording/listing some stuff (including Heal example being completely wrong originally) made me worry more than necessary :-s I also wonder... Do Spell Casters get more High Level Slots than they do in PF1 to make up for the fact that the Low Level Slots never increase in power?
Removing all damage restrictions from the weapon sizes (Small/Medium at least) is a little... odd? I was expecting one of the Weapons abilities to be "Sizeless" for stuff like the Sling or Rapier, where they would use the same damage at different sizes. But when you are wielding a Mace or an Axe, the size (and weight) should matter. Do the Small/Medium sizes even exist? All in all, at least it makes the game simpler in a good way by not having to know/check/remember two damages for every single weapon for your average (Small/Medium) sized adventurers, and "buffs" being a weapon-wielding class as a small race. As for people complaining about all small races getting +CHA... Well... Small creatures are cute, right? :-P In all seriousness, if it needed to change so they are/feel different I would give the +INT to Goblins with the excuse that the ones that became adventurers and are allowed in the cities are way smarter than the rest; and the +WIS to Gnomes, because I think it fits with their usual classes/themes/habitats, but maybe that's just me. Also a little surprised that both Halfings and Gnomes got away with d8 Ancestry Dice. I think a d6 for Halfling would have made more sense and added some flavor. It this an attempt to "balance" the races (as in, they felt it needed better HP because it had less speed than the Goblin)? If so, no one really cares about 2HP more or less past level 2 or 3, and I think your average Halfling should be less durable than your average Human. Overall pretty disappointed by this blog post... Too little info, and the most interesting/surprising one (Small/Medium weapon dice difference gone) was hidden and could be interpreted as it only working for Slings. We really need/want more precise info on the new Spell system/lists and more global stuff like that. This whole post could be reduced to 4 lines listing the ancestry bonuses and mentioning the 4 feats (and for half of them we didn't even get actual numbers/mechanics). I'm really looking forward to PF2, but I hope the next post has more substance than this one.
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