In the glossary (appendix 2) under Spell DC -see Spell roll.
Ah, thank you! I’m glad it’s in there somewhere. Hopefully it will be more clear in the final book. The glossary to me should be more of a reference than the main explanation of a rule.
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Good point as my goal isn't to get ride of Cover Tracks, but get Paizo to recognize that Trackless Step is essentially pointless and it hurts the class to get stuck with a mechanic that isn't utilized in actual game play, regardless of how thematically appropriate it might be.You want to keep a Cover Tracks mechanic in the game? Great. Just give Ranger's something else that's actually useful more than once a decade in real time.I think your mistake was not starting the thread with this, which I agree with emphatically. OK, yeah, I don’t disagree with that. I legitmately understood your posts to mean, “I don’t like this option, so remove this option and replace with something more to my liking.” With that clarification, I can’t and won’t quibble that there should be other options available.
Yes, I have. There was a module I ran years ago, by Troll Lord Games I believe... No, I was answering the question you and JDLPF asked. I think my entire answer made it clear that I don’t think the lack of use in prior modules is a valid method, by itself, for determining whether a proposed new mechanic is good or not. I think this kind of feat could see use, especially if you have a player who wants to do that kind of thing and has a GM who tries to deliver play experiences the players want. It may have zero value to you, but I’m betting other players would love having access to this feat. I don’t think that one feat, which never *has* to be chosen, is going to unbalance a class all by itself. If you could show there was some other feat that was both necessary to keep ranger/druids balanced and somehow didn’t make the book because of this feat, then I might agree with you. Instead, though, you’re arguing that the mere existence of the option weakens the class, which I don’t buy.
I maybe found something. Page 8 of the playtest rulebook says, "The DC for any statistic is 10 plus all the same modifies you'd add to a d20 roll using that statistic." That would jive with my previous thought that is likely 10 + ability mod + proficiency mod. However, if that's the case, it's completely unclear from the way that sentence is phrased, the lack of cross-referencing makes that impossible to figure out, since no reference to spell save DC ever refers back to this page. My suggestion to the writers would be to provide some text explicitly explaining how to calculate spell save DC, the same as they do for AC and TAC.
I believe it states to use the class's key ability score. Meaning, if I have a wizard with an 18 IQ, my spell save DC at level 1 is 19? Can you point me to the page where is says that? I can't find it anywhere, and that seems both a little high and out of synch with how other static DCs are calculated.
I mean, has anyone ever read any adventure or module, ever, where there's instructions to the GM to account for the PCs covering their tracks?This. Yes, I have. There was a module I ran years ago, by Troll Lord Games I believe, where you have to find a group of monsters who were raiding caravans to the local town. Part of the plot is trying to find the monster's base camp without getting caught, so there is a bit of cat and mouse going on between the PCs and the monster highwaymen. There was some discussion in the GM notes about different ways players could avoid capture by the bad guys, including hiding their tracks. But I'm not sure what your point is. Are you saying that because ostensibly no writer ever used a similar mechanic as a plot point in a previously published module that somehow means Paizo can't design a rule to cover what is frankly a common occurrence in fantasy fiction? To pick just a couple of probably better known examples, the novel the Eye of the World by Robert Jordan and the movie Willow both involve scenes where the heroes are trying to evade capture by bad guys in the wilderness. A few scenes like that appear in the Song of Ice and Fire as well. Or, heck, large chunks of the Lord of Rings involve scenes of either tracking or avoiding enemies in the wilderness. If you don't want to use the rule, don't. It doesn't make the book worthless for you if it appears in there. Meanwhile, if someone wants to include something that in their home adventures, or even better, sees the mechanic in the book and wants to include it as part of the adventure, that's a good thing, right?
Was your point that none of your examples involve burglary of personal houses, and therefore they were all nonresponsive to his question?Wouldn't any thief or criminal be interested in getting this feat? I haven’t seen every movie on his list, but Ant-man and the Italian Job both have crews breaking into houses. But I think his point was more that a criminal crew working together is not only an established thing, but that the feat in question would be quite beneficial to said crew.
So, maybe I missed the answer to this question somewhere, as I'm finding the rule book difficult to navigate, but after spending entirely too much time flipping through the book and not finding the answer even after doing a forum search, I still can't figure out how to specifically calculate spell save DCs. I assume it's like AC, thus a base of 10 + ability mod + proficiency, but it's not actually spelled out anywhere that I can find. In the character class descriptions, it refers me to page 291 for the rules on calculating DCs. And indeed on that page it mentions that I could add my proficiency to spell save DCs, but it doesn't tell me the base of that save. A little later on in that chapter, it talks about AC and TAC and refers back to page 16, which is where it is mentioned the base for AC is 10, but nothing is ever said about spell save DCs. Nothing I can find in the spell chapter was any help. Even the character sheet, which helpfully indicates a base of 10 for class DC and AC, is completely silent on the spell DC section of what the base should be. I apologize if they're someplace obvious in the book and I just can't find them, but any help someone could give me to directing me to the page with the rule on it would be most appreciated.
1. No. 2. Yes. I liked it initially as an improvement over 3.5, as it fixed some of the bigger, better known problems with the game. However, the game now suffers from the same level of rules and power bloat that 3.5 had. Also, as the results of promotions and procreation, I don't have the kind of prep time or playing time that I used to have 10 years ago. So I need a game I can run with less prep and that goes fairly quickly at the table. If we only have 2 and a half hours to play on a given game night, I'd rather get through three or five encounters instead of only one or two. 3. 4th was OK, but problematic for me and mine. We played one campaign with it when it first came out, but my group as a whole didn't enjoy it, so we moved on after an unintended TPK around level 6 or 7. I enjoy 5th, and it is the current system I use with my group, though I don't think the game is without its problems. 4. From your list, class balance would probably be my biggest priority. Other things I would want are, as mentioned, quicker play and easier prep. I'd like a game robust with options but without being so bogged down with them such that any character that is not made with options from at least three (or whatever) splatbooks is severely underpowered as compared to everyone else. And let me say that I totally get that having hundreds, or thousands, of options is big part of the fun of PF's hardcore fan base, but it's no longer what I'm looking for in my game system of choice, which is why I'm no longer a Paizo customer. There is, to my mind, a sweetspot for character customization, and currently PF1 is pretty far beyond it (for my own tastes only, obviously). 5. It's a necessity for me to play the game at all. No one in my current gaming circles is playing PF anymore. Many of them came into the hobby outside of 3.5/PF, but a lot of the others left for other systems more to their liking, 5e foremost among them. But if I can't bring those players to the table to try PF, I can't use it. Currently, while two of my friends and I have played around with the system a bit (i.e., making characters and running a couple of encounters), we are having a hell of a time organizing enough players to actually play the playtest adventure. The reluctance of our recruits is due in large part to their perceptions of PF1. 6. Nope. See my answer to question 5 above. Although I agree this is a bit of a false dichotomy as you can have a complex system that is still accessible. For example, I would say compare the HERO system with Mutants and Masterminds. Both are fairly robust systems in terms of options, but I find M&M to be fairly accessible to new players, the HERO system not so much. 7. Sure, I guess? I mean, it depends on what I'm looking at. If it's just another PF1 with a few minor tweaks to fix big issues, I will probably walk away from the playtest. What's got me interested in this one is that it's a substantial shift away from PF1 towards more of the kind of game I'm looking to play. 8. Beyond what I've already mentioned in my previous questions, I don't think anything springs to mind. If Paizo can deliver a game that plays fast, doesn't require as much prep time or system mastery to play, but provides more character customization than 5e currently does, then I'm in.
I will also voice my support for a bestiary 1 of the same size as the current bestiary 1 for PF1. Dropping the cash for a bestiary the same size as the CRB will be a little prohibitaive for me, cost-wise, at least out of the gate. And the GRD/PDF route isn’t practically an option for me, since my table of grognards does everything analog. Also, I agree that the current CRB is a little unwieldy to schlep around as is, so if I could limit my bag to containing only one 400+ page book, on top of the miniatures, etc, it would make my life a little bit easier. |