Page 34 – Piston Gauntlets were probably not supposed to have the divination trait.
The CRB has 8 spells/focus spells with the "[one action symbol] to [two action symbol]" line. Those being Heal, Harm, Magic Missile, Rebuke Death, Ki Blast, Aberrant Whispers, Swamp of Sloth, and Warped Terrain. Of those, only Magic Missile and Rebuke Death have the casting components (somatic, verbal, or material) in parenthesis beside the symbols. All the others do not have the casting components in parenthesis. Faerie Dust also has the casting components in parenthesis, ostensibly to keep the it from bleeding into the "or more" after the [one action symbol]. That said, this is the with a casting designation of "[one action symbol] or more" in the game. My guess for all the discrepancies is that, at some point in development, "[one action symbol] or more" was a standard for spells where you could choose up to three actions. This caused them to need to put some of the components in parenthesis to make the entry more clear. They eventually decided that it looked sloppy and transitioned to the "[one action symbol] to [two action symbol]" formatting. They missed Faerie Dust. Then they got rid of the parenthesis, but missed Magic Missile and Rebuke Death.
Thank you all so much for the fantastic playtest. The rules are already in a good state and have instilled a lot of faith in your company's judgement on game design. So feel free to be bold with further changes. Rest assured we are ready to move forward from the flaws of the old PF1 system and into the future!
"There seems to be a push to increasing the combat capabilities of the Rogues from Paizo, from PF1, to PF Unchained, to Starfinder, to PF2 they keep getting more and more powerful in combat. They aren't getting weaker and weaker in skills though." It is the first day of the PF2 Playtest release. There is no way to judge whether rogues are the combat powerhouse you are alluding to. They don't look like they will be, especially not compared to operators. This is a specious comparison and it is jumping the gun based on superficial similarities. The point of a playtest is to test through play, not test by eyeballing it.
Specialties don't come from rank increases in PF2, they come from skill feat selection. If a rogue and a fey bloodline sorcerer have both invested in the signature skill diplomacy and bumped it up to master, then they are the same. Relative usefulness of that skill is not determined by them being master, but who has invested in related skill feats that expand the applicability of the skill. If I am a rogue and I stuck my skill feats into thievery and stealth, it doesn't matter if I am a master at diplomacy like the sorcerer (a +2 bonus.. we aren't breaking the door down with this), I still won't be as useful in it as the sorc that stuck their skill feats into diplomacy. Moreover, rogues get 20 skill feats. There are 99 skill feats listed in just the playtest alone. They can't be good at everything. Now think beyond the playtest to core. Even more skillfeats. Now think about when they start putting in splatbooks. EVEN MORE skill feats. Rogues being skill monkeys are not going to take away from the party because it will not be possible for them to have it all. Invariably, different members of the party are going to be better at different things as they use their skill feats (not their skill training) to specialize. Rogues are not a problem and to the extent to which they are perceived to be a problem is a consequence of the limited material of the playtest. The more material that gets released, the more specialized their skill feat selections will be. |