I've wanted an Ultimate Equipment 2 for so long!
For me, it's not. I understand the need for the Remaster after everything that happened with the OGL and the creation of the ORC. However, I already have a lot of money invested in Pathfinder (1e and 2e) and can't justify paying $120 for the new cores (or even $40 for the PDFs). I play 1e more than 2e anyway; I enjoy it more and I already own most of the books for it. When I do play 2e, I'll probably stick to the books I already own, and if I want to play the Remastered, version I'll likely use AoN to look up the rules. It's mostly a cost-for-content issue for me. Some of the new stuff looks cool, but I can't shell out that much money for it, as much as I'd love to support Paizo.
This is absolutely the intention of the rule, but it's not written as well and cohesively into the system as we wish. Because while you and I understand the intention, it's not immediate obvious and Stellar Modes does say you can't use it against non-significant enemies. But the intention is to prevent you from building up attunement prior to a fight. Fair enough about the general. After looking things over, I think what I most have an issue with is the way the rule is worded, especially with Solarian. I get what they're trying to do, but it could have been worded better. As a follow-up, we played tonight, and my whole group agreed that we don't have a "bag of rats" issue, and thus APL-4 abuse will not be a problem for us. So we have house-ruled it out. No harm, no foul.
This is exactly how I feel about it. Paizo is making an effort to allow blended groups of people to work mechanically, and WotC is erasing them from the game. Major props to Paizo!
Will half halflings be quarterlings? I still firmly believe that Humans are Dire Halflings.
We play in person and still play PF1. My players just finished Book 4 of Mummy's Mask. So far, so good. A lot of character deaths in the dungeon though.
No, what you do, is take it literally. Have the party get to the BBEG and find that he's just some dude with a wooden picket sign that says, "I'm evil!" But the twist is that the sign is intelligent, evil, and took over this guy's will. It's the sign that says "I'm evil" that's been controlling the guy the whole time. Everyone wins. The GM gets to have an evil villain that literally says they're evil. The players get a twist they don't see coming. The critic gets an unconventional villain with a surprising amount of nuance for such a silly concept. Obviously, something like this wouldn't work in a serious-toned game. But the concept is sound if you were to use the idea of this twist with some more serious themes. The villain IS more sympathetic; they're under the control of another. This forces the party to make some heavy choices concerning what to do about the one who's been pulling all the strings but turns out to be a puppet themselves.
I would agree with you to a point. True Dragons are hyper-intelligent, highly magical beings. They are wise, clever, and devious (regardless of color and type). I agree that adult and higher-aged dragons would be too smart to get themselves into trouble. Maybe some younger ones would be more reckless as they don't have the experience. However, one of the reasons why I love running dragon encounters is because I believe dragons have ranges of personalities and desires. For example, I had a party run into a Cloud Dragon who had a hoard of spoons. Just spoons. All nd of spoons. Fancy spoons, princess spoons, worthless spoons, common everyday spoons. She just loved spoons. She wouldn't let the party move through her domine unless they gave her a spoon. Thankfully, they happened to have one (I think it was made of clay). As for dragons never putting themselves into a position to interact directly with a party, I must respectfully disagree. I think some might, but not all. I think many dragons, though wise and intelligent, are also arrogant. And let's be honest, who's going to mess with an ancient dragon? Not many people; adventures are crazy, after all. I can easily see a dragon being like, "I'm so powerful, no one would dare piss me off or try to harm me. No one is that suicidal. What do I have to fear from this party and their petty magic and puny weapons?" Such was the case of an encounter with an ancient silver dragon in a campaign I ran. He was LG and considered the area they were in his domain to protect. He was also very nature-aligned. He didn't want the animals that lived in his territory to be harmed. He considered himself the law of the land, and he (secretly) ruled and protected it. The party ended up finding a roc nest, climbing inside, killing the roc, and taking the egg. The dragon discovered this and visited the party, appearing like an old wizard. He approached them at their campfire. They instantly did not trust him and questioned him, and all they could learn was that he was very magical (they failed their checks to see that he was polymorphed). He asked if he could camp with them and use their fire. They didn’t trust him, but he showed them that he had no weapons and meant no harm. They agreed though they were cautious. He asked them of their adventures, and they brought up the Roc. The following day. He told them that he protected this land and found the dead roc and wanted to know what happened. He was giving them the benefit of the doubt; he is good after all. After the party told him they needed the egg and the roc attacked them. The dragon-in-human-form questioned them and learned that they provoked the roc when they tried to take the egg and defended itself and its young. He told them that they must make reparations for their crimes. They were to hatch the egg and find someone to care for the baby roc until it could be released into the wild and find someone who knew about rocs to do this. The party was like, “Who are you to order us?” He told them he ruled this land and the creatures were under his protection, and he would allow them to make it right. They threatened him. He told them that he would raze their city to the ground if they did not do as they were told within X amount of time. Then he simply walked away. The Ranger drew his bow and attacked. This Ranger was optimized up the wazoo but still missed the AC, but I fluffed it that he turned and caught the arrow (despite not having that feat, it was more fluff to show them how powerful he was). He broke the arrow in half and stated their deadline again. Then they were freaked out because they figured his shot should have hit a wizard. The Ranger attacked again. This time he actually hit. After taking damage, the dragon turned and said something along the lines of, “We’ll do this the hard way then,” and transformed, and instantly the party realized their mistake, and by then, it was too late. Now, the ancient silver dragon could have wiped the floor with them, but instead, he killed only the Ranger (I think he flew him up 200 feet and dropped him) and told them that they had a deadline to do as he said, then flew away. Then they tried to find ways to kill the dragon but eventually decided just to comply; it would be cheaper and better than the alternative. It was a fun encounter. They later made amends with the dragon, and though never fully friends, they became allies. So, in conclusion, I think it depends on the dragon and the situation on whether or not they would disguise themselves and walk among the adventurers. But yeah, I like running dragon encounters.
Haha! I've had players bypass treasure because they didn't trust it either! Classic!
@Derklord - ABP would never fly with me and the people I game with. It takes the fun out of some elements of the game. We enjoy seeing if we have enough money to buy the things we need (the Big 6) and the other things we may want and choosing between them. ABP just gives it to you. You need to suspend your disbelief, as you say, but for me, it's suspending it a little too far. And the magic is not enchanted on the weapon, it's attuned to it and can be moved around at the PC's leisure. For example, let's say you're in a fight, and your weapon was taken from you, and the villain escapes with it. In a typical game, this hurts; you put a lot of money you worked hard for into that weapon. But in an ABP game, it's no big deal; just switch the attunement to your backup weapon tomorrow. Or if your armor gets sundered or your cloak is stolen. No actual harm or foul. If it works for your group, that's fine, but it's not a great system for all people and play styles, and I think that's what @Kasoh is talking about. It's not a bad system; it's just not for everyone. And yes, it does take some work, despite what you claim, as you have to recalculate prices of weapons with non-enhancement magic on them (Such as Bane, Holy, etc.). It can be a hassle to some GMs who don't want to deal with that level of minutia. As for @Calybos1's original question, what I find works the easiest is taking some of the treasure they would get from an encounter they bypassed and placing it elsewhere in the adventure as loot in chests or hidden compartments. I don't recommend transferring unique items if they bypass an encounter. E.g., The party talks their way out of an encounter that they would have dropped a cool dagger made of cold iron. That happens to be the only cold iron drop in the adventure game, and cold iron is needed to kill a nasty monster later that will not die unless dealt a killing blow from a cold iron weapon (I'm looking at you, RotR). (This wasn't my exact experience with this AP, but it's similar enough to use it as an example here.) Well, in the context of the story, they either missed their opportunity to get that item, OR they need to rethink how to get that item. If it's a MUST HAVE campaign item required to complete the mission, and the party bypasses it, the GM will need to reroute them back to it. I've had to do this before because a party ignored information they received, used social skills to bypass an encounter, and missed picking up an essential item they needed. They realized they messed up and had to double back and steal it, which they did successfully. The point I'm making, though, is that with only a little effort on your part, you can supply them with items they would get as murderhobo loot simply by including it elsewhere. And if that doesn't work, as others have pointed out, have the loot be rewards for their good deeds from people who what to help and contribute to the cause or whatnot.
I would want an updated Ultimate Equipment, or Ultimate Equipment 2.
It’s out for a few days: https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6shr4?Class-Is-in-Session-Strength -of-Thousands#discuss Awesome! Thank you!
Hey! Does anyone know when the Strength of Thousands Player's Guide will be available? Thanks!
In a homebrewed system I created (based on d20), I had a minor artifact that the party stumbled upon called the Ring of Bags. It was super lame, and I expected them to sell it, but they found it enjoyable and hung onto it. All it did was when you slipped it on an empty non-magical bag of random material, size, and design would appear in your hand. When you let go of it, it remained, but a new one would poof into your hand. It was essentially infinite bags. They kept it, and any time they wanted or needed a bag or sack, they used the ring. It was not game-breaking, but kind of funny how much use they had for it. Consequently, same game, same party, they found a creepy shop that they went into. The shopkeeper asked them if they wanted to buy an eyeball, and he kept hounding them about it. It was a human eyeball that was magically preserved. Just to get him to stop asking about it, one of them bought it. As soon as he left the shop, he threw it away (it only cost him 1 gold). An hour later, he found it again in his pocket. He tossed it away again, and it reappeared an hour later. He smashed it, the same thing. He tried giving it away, and it would be back in his pocket. He had it for most of the campaign before he figured out the trick. He had to SELL it to be able to get rid of it; then the eyeball would be someone else's problem. That homebrew system was fun! Haha.
But as you can pass through an ally's space, crashes would be reduced substantially as long as you're on good terms with other road users.No road user is on good terms with other road users. :D Fact!
It doesn't need to make sense, it's TTRPG ;p Exactly! The OP isn't asking about all PF mechanics in the real world, they're asking about what are the real world consequences that would exist for PF mechanics. I wasn't thinking that all mechanics apply at the same time. I was isolating specific mechanics and trying to figure out what consequences there would be for them. If ALL mechanics applied, it would just be an RPG, and this thread would be moot. So my argument for teleport replacing most commercial air travel was just about teleport, not all PF's mechanics. I don't think PF's WBL for players or NPCs would work in a real economy, so I didn't factor it in. I was factoring in mostly a real world-like economy, in which I still think if magical teleportation existed, commercial air travel would be less of a thing. Besides, as a GM, I hardly ever look at the NPC WBL. An NPC is as wealthy as I need them to be for the situation. But I DO admit, @Carrauntoohil, that if WBL were a factor involved, yes, teleport would be much harder to pull off. My whole argument makes some assumptions (Magical study leading to more accessible magic, real world economics, etc.). Still, in my opinion, real world teleportation would highly reduce the need for commercial air travel. ^Suddenly I have this vision that the result of "Fix whatever is wrong inside this person" would depend very much upon point of view, so you'd better be REALLY careful about your choice of care provider. Bahahaha! I could SO see this happening! Depending on the hospital and the faith of the one healing you, all kinds of great stuff would happen! :-D God forbid you get a cleric of Lamashtu to heal you up that day. This made my day!
KingGramJohnson, what was your version of mas combat like? My major issue with mass combat (as written) is that it's a slog, and it's boring. I did not have fun doing it as a player, and I did not enjoy running it as a GM. Overall, I found it to be disappointing, so I altered Mass Combat to function in three parts: Army vs. army
Army vs. Army This functioned similarly to mass combat army builds, but with reduced rules so it's a simple three-round fight that takes an arbitrary about of time (depending on the situation). This was a simple best two out of three. This would determine how many casualties on a mass scale there were for one side or the other. Party vs. Captains/Generals I describe this part of my version of mass combat as while the armies are battling, we "zoom in" to where the PCs are in the heat of battle (but for simplicity reasons) unaffected by the army around them, and there they face down the leaders of the opposing armies. I treat this like a boss battle. There is the general(s) (the boss(es), and the captains (the powerful minions of the general(s)). This is fought like any other straight fight like you would run in a dungeon boss room. Complete Objectives This part of my version of mass combat provides something else to accomplish while fighting the captains/generals. The party is given several objectives that they need to complete to prevent the opposing army from advancing/breaching the city/gaining a foothold, etc. There is often a time limit or some similar factor involved here. For example, in one fight, while in the boss battle, the party may have five rounds to close the city gate's portcullis. And while they fight, they need to try to save as many civilians as they can from dying (if too many die, it will count as a failure), depending on why the reason for the battle and the location, these objectives will change. Like with the army vs. army part, mass combat is best two out of three. So if the party defeats the bosses and their army wins but loses the objectives, they still "win" the mass combat. Admittedly, this is stacked in favor of the party, BUT I think that's okay for mass combat. When we ran it this way, my players liked it a lot better. It's not perfect, but it works for us, and it's a heck of a lot more fun than the RAW mass combat rules.
I did enjoy Kingmaker, though still not a fan of the mass combat stuff. I highly disliked mass combat when I played through Kingmaker, so I altered the way it worked when I had GMed it.
Some of my favorite APs are Kingmaker, Rise of the Runelords, and Mummy's Mask. I've never played any of the published modules. I ran a homebrew campaign that I wrote myself (inspired by some of my own ideas mixed with some ideas I found here on Paizo's forums) called "The Godkiller". It dealt with the question of what happened to Aroden. It was well-liked by the people I ran it for.
I know this is a fairly significant thread necro...but I'm curious about further developments now that there has been 7 or 8 months worth of gaming to develop them. I'm sorry, I didn't see this until just now. Thank you for the curiosity about it. We finished that homebrewed campaign just before Christmas of 2019. We intended on taking a break for the holidays and starting an AP. But shortly before COIVID-19, one of the players bowed out, and we decided to end the group for the time being (I have another group I play with, so it wasn't that bad for me.) The campaign ended well. One of the corrupted time traveler players had to leave the group due to school scheduling conflicts, but the others who remained had to deal with the corruption for the remainder of the campaign. They did eventually hire their guide and made it through the Underdark to the Vaults of Orv, and found what they were looking for, freeing a slave along the way. They were able to make it to the antagonist godess realm and defeat her (imprisoning her in a prison similar to Rovagug's). They were working with other gods to accomplish this goal (this was a divine quest). They succeeded and were highly blessed by the gods, and received boons and the removal of their corruptions, and were granted the blessing of being offered heroldship when they died if they desired it. Overall it was a fun campaign, and the players enjoyed it, including the way it all ended. It's funny how a random encounter with a dragon would alter their plans so much, but it did. They felt the weight of that for the rest of the campaign. Thank you for asking. :-D
Hello everyone! I wanted to submit an update. I was able to make a baller map, and my players were surprised and enjoyed the encounter on it. Because you all helped me with ideas on how to make it for cheap, I wanted to share the final result. Thanks!
I also hate it when people just touch my dice. I don't mind them borrowing them if they ask. And so help me if they roll my d20 without permission! As for other RPG quirks I have: Before the game starts (both as a player and as a GM), I roll my d20 once (and only once) to "fire it up". I tend to always roll bad on initiative regardless of character build or what my initiative bonus actually is. Occasionally I'll roll well on initiative and I'm surprised. Funny enough, this does not apply when I GM. I tend to roll well for the enemies' initiatives. I don't HAVE to play with a complete set of matching dice...but I prefer it. My GM dice usually have to be black, and I dare not use them as a player, bad things happen when I do. I use a notebook when I play and I record my HP, money, and daily powers and abilities/spell slots on there so this way I don't have to wear my character sheet out. I'll update the character sheet itself at the end of the session on some things, and on other things I wait for a level up. I try to encourage others to do this as much as I can, but a lot of people I play with don't care enough. I like my character sheets to stay readable! Bonus fact: I know a guy who washes his dice before every session.
Update: Well...they did it. They traveled through time to prevent themselves from fighting the dragon in the first place. I attacked them almost right away with some Hounds of Tindalos, like
Other consequences they'll need to deal with are as follows: - The three of them who traveled though time have corruptions that will begin to manifest shortly. - A Bythos aeon has them on it's radar (they're too low level to deal with it at the moment). - A time dragon may eventually show up and read them the riot act. - The main villain of the story (who happens to also be a goddess) is now aware of the party and is watching them (it'll take too long to explain, but this goddess was unaware of the party and their movements against her, but now their time travel caught her attention. This could be campaign ending bad for them). Thank you everyone for the help and advice on the fight with the red dragon. This was a wild ride for the last several weeks taking turns I never thought it would.
Long story ahead as an update on how things went with my party and their attack on the dragon's lair. Things went bottom up, but not how I, as the GM, expected. TL:DR: They thought things were going well until suddenly they weren't. People died, more people may still die, revenge may be had, and now they want to use a wish spell to fix it all, which may or may not include time travel. Full story:
First of all, for all their talk of trying to bait the dragon to come to them so they could fight it in the open, they only tried it once...from 70 miles away, when the dragon wasn't around. I told them that they were very far and might have better results if they moved in closer.
Move in closer they did, up into the mountains closer to the volcano the red dragon calls his home and rules from. They found a nice clearing, I made it a perfect spot for them to try to signal the dragon and get it's attention. And they just made camp to sleep. I even asked them if they were going to build a signal fire, and they said nope. I was like, "Ooooookay." The next day they found the entrance to the cave system that leads into the volcano, where the kobolds that serve the dragon live. They then proceed to kill one of the kobolds, say "oops, sorry, can we talk?" When they finally convince the kobolds to talk, they speak with one of their priests. I'm thinking they're going to deal with him so they can get in to the lair with ease. Wrong again! The (only partially) paraphrased conversation went as follows: Party: "We want to see the dragon." Kobold Priest: "Oh, you have a request or you want to make a sacrifice?" P: "No, we want to kill him." KP: "You want to kill our master?" P: "And take his treasure." KP: "...I see...Wait here, I will see if our chief will agree to speak to the master and tell him that fools are here to challenge him." 2 hours later. KP: "Our master is angry that fools would dare to challenge him and threaten him. If you insist on trying to kill him, you must face him where he is strongest, inside his lair itself. He will not come out to you. Also, we cannot allow you to just come in and kill our master, so we will be waiting for you." P: "Cool, we're a coming." KP: *Walks away* They make preparations, and raid the kobold caverns, slaughtering them with ease as they do their best to stop the party. Now, here's the thing. I had placed several clues and bits of information in the caverns. A long history of the lair, as it wasn't just one dragon's hoard and lair, but a five thousand year old draconic dynasty. There was going to be info and clues as to the nature of the lair, some of the traps that are in there, and how to avoid them. My party always loots bodies and thoroughly checks all rooms before moving on. Except this time! They ran from cavern to cavern, killing kobolds and looting nothing, looking at no information I had laying around for them. I even suggested they take time to read the history and loot the bodies. But they insisted on not doing it and looting the bodies on their way back. They didn't want their buffs to run out before meeting the dragon. They finally made it past the kobolds and the surprise drake attack, into the lair of the dragon himself, who is buffed and ready for them. In the center of the volcano, below the cone's hole surrounded by a ring of lava is a 100 ft. tall pile of treasure, a dynasty's worth of loot. The fight begins. Side note: I told my players not to tell me what their plan was, so I could not accidentally directly counter it. This dragon does not know the party and thus only protected his lair how I thought he would for general attackers. Some magical traps and a teleport trap. I reworked the dragons feats and spell list, but that's about it. I added a lair action at the top of each round for added flavor. But because the party uncharacteristically ignored all of that, they had no idea about any of it. The fight with the dragon went relatively well for the party They have an alchemist who uses cold bombs, so he was the MVP of damage dealing. The sorcerer was able to (by sheer luck) dispel the dragon's displacement, the druid summoned 2 rocs to help them fight and try to bring the dragon to the ground (which failed, despite the rocs' awesome bonuses to grapple, luck was on my side there). The dragon was able to drop the paladin unto unconsciousness. And when the dragon realized it was about to lose and die, he decided to save himself. So he activated one of his negative energy skull traps he had. The burst killed the paladin. On his next turn, the dragon defensively cast invisibility and flew out of the volcano to fight another day. The party is excited, because they believe they won, but also freaked out because the dragon is gone, but alive and will want revenge. This is when things went oh so wrong. The hear from far off the dragon make some noise as it flies away. One thing they learned was that the dragon had a level of control over the volcano and had calmed them. This time, the dragon was commanding it to erupt. They feel a rumble and the lava starts to rise. They make knowledge rolls to know they have less than a minute before the volcano erupts. They rush over (all of them under the effects of fly at this point), and start grabbing as much treasure as they can get their hands on and shove it into anything they can carry it in; bags of holding, back backs, handy haversacks, etc. all the while hanging on to the body of the dead paladin. Now they're playing a game of risk. They don't know how many rounds the lava will rise until the volcano blows. So they collect treasure until they feel like they don't want to risk it anymore. The magus and the alchemist go invisible and fly out the volcano's hole. The sorcerer grabs the druid, his animal companion, and the body of the dead paladin, and teleports out. Activating the teleport trap. The sorcerer failed his will save and they teleported into the lava. Now, the party was prepared, they had fire resistance 30 for the fight, they helped a little. But 20d6 points of damage was still enough to kill the sorcerer outright, and nearly kill the druid. His animal companion dropped unconscious with the residual damage taken the next round. The dead paladin melted away along with their quest related items (which are artifacts) sinking to the bottom. They were able to save one of the artifacts, and keep the hand of the paladin. They flew out. They regrouped. The alchemist took his share of the loot and split (his player left the group, but their plan relied on him to work, so I allowed one of the other players to play him until the fight was over). They were able to get 100k gp, so about 66k between the remaining party members, more than enough for what they wanted to do, but not enough to raise two party members (one of which they would need True Resurrection for) and buy new gear for him, and do what they wanted to do So, they're at a net loss. Also, two party members are dead, the four volcanoes in the area are erupting and people may die due to that, and the dragon lived and lost his treasure so will likely kill people in vengeance and come after the party. This sent the magus into a depression. He and the druid wandered back to a city, which took several days and discussed their options. They effectively failed. They didn't kill the dragon, several people died, they didn't get enough to make the attempt worth it, and they doomed many, many people to die in the dragon's wrath. The conclusion they came to, with no help or prodding from me: Use the money we got, pay for wish, and fix this. I'm sitting there like...What?! They have connections to a 20th level wizard NPC who might help them do that (for a price that is not calculated in gold, silver, or copper). They came up with three options (just sitting there, I thought of at least 10 ways better than what they came up with, and I may hint some of them to the party). 1. Wish the dragon dead. 2. Travel through time and stop ourselves from going after the dragon in the first place. 3. Travel though time and fight the dragon again knowing what we know now about the lair. I swiftly informed them that if they used wish to travel though time there would be cosmic consequences (I'm thinking a corruption, and maybe some other things,and may have angry aeons on their butts). So, yeah, they're going to inform me of their final decision on what they want to do to fix things. So yes, this spiraled downward faster and in ways I never considered. This will be fun to deal with. I love RPGs!
I love this!
To start off, I just wanted to share my own experience with RPGs for the sake of context. I have over 14 years of RPG experience both as a player and as GM. I have experience in playing many published systems and many homebrewed systems, and have even homebrewed a few of my own systems. I play or GM quite regularly with several different groups, all of which have differing playing styles. At the moment, I’m playing mostly Pathfinder and D&D 5e, and one of my groups agreed to do the playtest of 2e with me. The group I am running the test with are all people with player and GM experience equal to or greater than my own; a great group to test with, in my opinion. I would also like to be completely open with this community and admit that upon reading many of the preview blogs as well as the core book when it was released, I did not like a lot of what I read (though some of the changes seemed promising). However, I wanted to keep an open mind, and see the game played as a whole rather than just judging the individual elements of it. Our GM for the playtest likes most of what he read in the core book. Everyone else is somewhere in between. After playing the first part of Doomsday Dawn, I have reversed some of my opinions on some of the things I disliked. Seeing it as a whole made me see how well it worked with the new system. But I do believe there are some things that can be adjusted and fixed. With all that said, I will try to keep things concise and brief. The Party:
A six person party, but our GM was able to use the adjustment rules in the core rulebook to adjust the encounters to fit our party size. And it was brutal! We had 9 times that someone was knocked to 0 HP, my character being 2 of those times. We almost had a TPK with the fight in the cave with the goblins (the trap room). It was only luck that kept us alive. I’m not complaining about the difficulty, I like games to have some challenge to it. But it felt like a beat down. We had no money to buy potions with; we eventually had to go back to town and rest for several days until we could go back in and deal with the boss. Overall the first part of the adventure it was fun and we enjoyed ourselves. Things I like about Pathfinder 2e: • Action Economy: This is good. It’s easy, it’s simple, and you don’t have a million types of actions. I think this was a great change and it offers some variety to what you can do in battle. I feel like it’s better than 5e’s action system. • Silver Standard: I thought this was a good idea the moment I read about it. It puts more value on gold and silver in general. Also, I joked about this on the forums, but I love the fact that a spyglass doesn’t break the bank. Not much else to say about it. I think this is great. • Weapons: Weapons feel different from each other with their new qualities. I love this! I want to implement this into 1e! This makes every weapon do different things and nothing is chosen for a fluff reason, really. I really, really like this. Though, a bastard sword really should be listed as a slashing weapon, not piercing. • Character Creation: This wasn’t too bad. Pretty clear and easy, I’m not a fan of the attribute cap, but I can get used to it. The only suggestion I can make here is really clarify were features can be found in the book so that CC can be smoother. Things I dislike about Pathfinder 2e: • Resonance: I feel like resonance as it is written now is like cutting off a hand can calling it a fix. I understand the purpose of resonance, and I don’t hate resonance as a whole, but the way it is now is just not good. Say you have a character that is out of resonance, he drops to 0 HP, and a buddy throws a potion down his throat to save his life. The player rolls against overuse of resonance, critically fails, he now can no longer drink potions. He dies because of this. This did not happen in our game, but it can happen. A magic restriction mechanic should not have the chance of killing a character, in my opinion. I suggest resonance being there, because as a whole, it’s not a bad idea, but remove it from consumables like potions and scrolls. I also suggest removing charges from wands and adding a per day limit or have it operate only on resonance to eliminate CLW spamming. I think if resonance was dialed back a little, it can work. But as it is now is a deal breaker for me. • Crit System: Oh boy, I was not a fan of this. I’m sorry to say, but it’s not intuitive and easy, not even that fun. It sounds simple on paper, but in practice, it’s not. Its mechanic is easy: 10 greater or lesser than DC and it’s a critical success or failure. What’s not intuitive is that it’s there are four degrees of success, but it’s not universal. Some things have all four degrees; other things only have three or two. Different things happen on a crit with some weapons or spells, but not others. It bogs down battle when you have to look up several different effects based on a crit. It was not a fun element to the game. I did enjoy the chance to critically fail skills, but I’m not a fan of the degrees of success. It got confusing almost every time there was a Nat 20 or some other kind of crit. • Death too complicated: I went down twice in the first part of Doomsday Dawn, some other members of the party did as well. It’s confusing how the DC of what downed you was figured out, and it was a constant question. Also, I don’t like that your place on the initiative tick moves. I get the purpose of it, to allow you a full round for people to help you, which is a good idea, but then it takes even longer to get back to your turn, and you sit around with nothing to do for a while. It just got a little boring for me waiting for my turn to come around when I would have been next, I now had to wait another whole round before I got to see if I stabilized. • Layout of the core rulebook: Yeah, I know Paizo is aware of this, and are probably already working on the layout. It’s a bit of a mess here and there and just needs to be better. Also, some of the wording is hard to read even for experienced players, I feel bad for new players who don’t know much about RPGs in general. • Character Sheet: The same can be said about the character sheet. AC needs to be more visible and bigger on the page. There were some things that I felt should be on there, like your dying status (similar to how 5e has it would be nice). A horizontal sheet didn’t bother me in the least, but a few of the others didn’t like it very much. • Half-Elf/Half-Orc/Goblin: Goblins have been made core, and Half-Elf and Half-Orc have become feats added to Human, it felt like a demotion. I do not like this at all. Half-Elf and Half-Orc tend to be popular choices and to make it so that it’s simply a feat added to Human seems cheap to me. I feel like they don’t get enough features to make the feat required to be one is worth building one. And I’m not 100% anti-Goblin. But I don’t think they should be core. Based on the history already established in Pathfinder, they are not welcome to have around due to the violent and chaotic nature. I feel like they should be moved to 2e’s APG (if there will be one), and Half-Elf/Hlaf-Orc be made full ancestries. • Lock Picking: Three successes to pick a lock. With numbers at low level and the crit system, the chances of succeeding are too small. I played a Rogue, with a +5 in Thievery, and I was unable to open the lock because I critically failed my second attempt at success. Please reconsider this. Things I’m on the fence on about: • Magic: I’m a little on the fence about magic. I love cantrips being able to scale and do damage! But I’m not sure about Sorcerer not getting an auto heightening like some of the other classes get. I’m also not sure if I like the crit system with magic (again because it’s too complicated and may nerf magic too much). However, we didn’t get to test the full capability of magic just yet due to low levels. We’ll see in the next few parts. • Secret Rolls: I don’t have an issue with secret rolls in general, but I felt like almost half the rolls made in the first part of the adventure were secret. Every time I looked around or sneaked around, I didn’t get to roll. I like rolling dice. Let me roll dice. But again, I think we’ll have to wait to decide until I see this in action a little more. Those are my thoughts; I’ve been enjoying the playtest so far. I hope this feedback was clear and concise and didn’t sound angry or hateful, because that is not how I wanted it to sound. So, forgive me if it did. Thanks for reading.
I got my books in the mail! Thanks again, Steve! I'm excited about the next wave.
I would rule that yes, you're allowed to ignore the battle, but then you're also not going to get the XP for said battle because you did nothing to help the party. If there's story leveling instead of XP, then you have to deal with angry party members for not helping (if they're angry about it). Though, I've always ruled that if a battle wakes everyone up, they just sleep longer the next day so they still get their dailies and rest. I do like the idea with someone having a flaw that caused deep sleep and was always a problem for them, not just when they wanted it. That might be kind of a neat flaw to explore.
Snake attacks are my favorite kind of attacks. ;-)
From the name, I was expecting a map of Golarion, not just the Inner Sea Region. A whole map of Golarion at this quality would be amazing!
We accidentally talked our way out of a massive boss battle. The party consists of a slayer (me), a synthesis summoner, a rogue, and a paladin. I'm playing an Aasimar with an 11 in CHA and little to no social skills (he's pretty because of his angel blood, but not good at talking to people), I am in no way the face of our group, but I have a knack for talking people into or out of things, and that's been pretty consistent throughout the game. Our group has been playing for over 2 years in a homebrewed campaign. From early levels (we were level 11 when this happened), there was this wizard/vampire who has caused us problems. He enthralled our paladin's girlfriend, and he's been trying to get her back since the beginning of the game. We finally tracked him down and were going after him. hopefully for the last time. We literally spent five sessions tracking him down and looking for him, going through layers of ancient dwarven ruins inside an active volcano, where his fortress was, we nearly died several times. We finally found him and fought our way to him, got into the room were he and his minions were, it looked like an epic boss battle that would truly test our party's strength. When we entered, the wizard/vampire said, "Why are you breaking into my home? Just leave me alone." Then the GM asked us to roll initiative. As we rolled, I had my character say, "Look, we just want to get his girlfriend back, tell us how to reverse her enthrallment and we'll leave." I mostly said it as a joke, knowing he wouldn't go for it. The GM just paused for a moment and said, "Okay, okay, I'll do it." The party could not believe it. I asked the paladin if that's what he wanted to do, he said yes. The vamp gave us what we needed to save his girl, and we were true to our word and left. The GM gave us the XP for the encounter and our next level and told us he didn't expect that, and that the vamp did just want to be left alone. So, we avoided a big boss battle just because I said something off the cuff, it was kind of crazy.
Cheap whiskey and a brick to the face.
I'm not going to lie, I feared this blog post. Paladin is my favorite class in Pathfinder, and so I was worried about changes to the class. I'm not talking about alignment stuff. Honestly, I'm okay with different alignment typed paladins. But I'm liking what I'm reading here. I think I'm going to like 2e paladins.
Awesome. Thank you for the info.
My issue is not really with the <10> system. Yes, people can add ten, no problem. It's with the complication with the levels of success. Four levels of success, but only sometimes. Different things have different levels of success. It is NOT intuitive. It may work on paper, but I know for a fact many groups will say, "screw it, let's use the old system."
The advantage to it however is that they will be using the same system for skills and saves. It's more complicated but at the same time it will apply more broadly across the game, so in the end will require less time to learn, especially for new players who are not working through the baggage of multiple rule systems being in there head and the associated assumptions.That was more of a joke. But my point still stands. I feel like this is too complicated for a crit system. Exactly! This is going to cause so many headaches. Edit: I see that I was wrong with my next statement, so I removed it. But I still think this will cause more problems than it solves.
That was more of a joke. But my point still stands. I feel like this is too complicated for a crit system.
Okay, am I the only one who instantly sees the issue with this new crit system? It's not intuitive. There's already dozens of questions on how it works, in what circumstances it works, and what scenarios change things. Crits are going from simple to confusing very quickly. Pathfinder First Edition:
I've never been a fan of crit confirm in Pathfinder, but I always understood why it was there and have used it because it made sense and was simple. I do love the idea of critical failure and success on skills and things like that, but I feel like it needs to be simpler. In PF 2e though, now there's four levels of success, but only sometimes. And a Nat 20 always hits but only sometimes crits. Nat 1s are always a fail but only sometimes a critical fail. Different things will have different levels of success. It's already confusing, and it'll only get worse as more rules are released and more classes/abilities/spells are published, unless it's simplified just a little. I'm not asking for something so simple like 5e. I don't want 5e. But I would like to to be intuitive so you don't slow down game time trying to figure out how far above and below the DC the check was, and which level of success that is. As written now, after every nat 1 and 20 the game will come to a halt and rules looked up depending on the spell, skill, attack, or situation. A lot more math involved. Mathfinder 2e, now with even more math! Please make the crit system intuitive!
I actually disagree. I find the act of rolling initiative builds suspense, especially when you have no idea why you're rolling it, or you don't know what the monster is yet. There's a tense moment and the GM says, "roll initiative" and I get excited or fearful of the battle to come, depending on the situation. And several times (as a GM and as a player), I've seen battle be calmed down out of battle rounds by one player trying to talk to the aggressors. It doesn't always work, but sometimes it does. Not everything that starts as a fight has to end as a fight.
I think all GMs have had someone like this at their table at some point. Honestly, the best thing to do is to pull him aside privately and discuss this with him. Tell him how you feel about his play style. Let him know that it's not fair to the other players when he doesn't write down something as basic as his saves, or takes too long to make up his mind during battle. Ask him if he's invested in the game and if he really wants to play, because if he does, he'll have to start putting in some effort. That's not too much for a GM to ask of his players. In game, during battle, try letting who's next in the initiative tick know that they're on deck, and they can be thinking about what they will do before their turn starts. That helps a lot sometimes with slower players. If he's still taking too long, start putting a time limit on it. Tell him he has 1 or 2 minutes to decide what he wants to do otherwise his turn is skipped. If this person continues to give you problems, or doesn't want to discuss things, consider cutting him from the table for a while. Find someone who will be invested in the game and will consider everyone else at the table.
Resonance is like cutting off a hand and calling it a fix. I like the item slot system. It's intuitive, it works, and out of anything in PF it has common sense. Want magic boots? You already have magic boots, pick the ones you want to use more. No. No, no, no! Please no resonance! This is just not a good idea.
Ooooooo! If we're chanting, do we get to hit our foreheads with boards too?
My question is: will the 10th level spells be what the 9th level spell are now, or are they adding a whole new level of power beyond wish and and all the other 9th levels?
I've had things like that happen. Believe me I know how tough it can be. My best advice is to find a way to have the events shape the world. It might not match where you wanted to go, but it does make the world feel a little more alive, and that the players can affect it. The world shouldn't exist in a vacuum. When the players aren't around, it's still moving and working, and they're actions can have positive or negative effects on it. For example. I was GMing a homebrewed game (not Pathfinder, my own system, based on the d20 system. Fantasy setting). In it the characters play people in a special order. There are codes they live by. The adventure I was running involved the party finding and dealing with a dragon god who had a cult surrounding him. In order to take him out, they needed a special spell, in order to get that, they had to speak to a specific dragon, and in order to do that, they had to traverse an area called the Draconic Expanse, which is dragon territory. They were stopped by a dragon who threatened to kill them unless they amused him. He split the party into two groups and commanded that one group preform an act of great good in one nearby village, and the other group to commit an act of great evil in another village. He kept one more party member as a hostage to ensure they did as they were told. Make a long story short, one of the PCs did not like the situation they were in, so they used a mcguffin to stop time and learn all magic and master it all (something very few could do). As the GM I was under the impression that he was going to fight the dragon. That is not what he did with his new found power. destroyed the village, completely. No survivors. He did it so that the rest of the party wouldn't have to, they're hands could be clean. Once he was sure the dragon was satisfied, he committed suicide and rolled up a new character. No one, including myself saw this coming. This shook up the players and characters alike. They discussed what this meant for the Arckon Order. Was his act, though evil, good for the sake of the greater good, or was it still wrong? This one act broke my world, and it broke my order. I decided to roll with it. I had it become a very real problem. My next campaign using this game setting will involve an Arckon civil war, those who agreed with the PC who did it, and those who don't. This war will affect the world in a very real way as the Arckon are powerful and influential. Needless to say, sometimes it's more fun to roll with a broken world, because it can add tension to the game. However, I see your point about not wanting to continue because you see your brother in everything now. Maybe try to work his betrayal into the story, you might come up with some fun situations.
This is a cheap move, most good players will value their character more than just to clone them. I, personally, have only done this once. It wasn't Pathfinder but in a different published game. In that game, paladins cannot run from battle, period. Our GM purposefully set a hard fight we couldn't win and we would have to run away. Well, my character, being a paladin, didn't run and fought. The gryphon killed me outright. Me, and the rest of the players, were angry. The GM said, "You could have run away." I said, "No, paladins don't run." I opened the book and showed him where it said that. "He was like. Oh, sorry." He basically screwed me over and didn't care that much. So I took my character sheet, erased the name, put a new one on there and said, "It's his identical twin brother, who is also a paladin." The GM relented saying that was fair because he screwed me over. That is the one and only time I pulled that move. I would never do that again as it puts less value on the character. Maybe just tell your players that if they die they have to play a different build, or at the very least, a different style of the same class (an archetype or something).
I know this one will be unpopular, but I ignore the 5', 10' 5', 10' rule for moving diagonally when I GM. I find it annoying to deal with as a player and as a GM. It's just 5' for each square.I find it's easier to just count squares instead of feet. Diagonal movements are 1.5 squares instead of 1, and you always round down. That makes it much easier to do than trying to remember how many diagonals you've moved along the way. Easier, maybe, but no less annoying. I just don't like the rules for moving diagonally. I house rule it to 5' each square.
I know this one will be unpopular, but I ignore the 5', 10' 5', 10' rule for moving diagonally when I GM. I find it annoying to deal with as a player and as a GM. It's just 5' for each square.
This sword is most definitely an artifact. I was just curious of the pricing on it. I'm not going to sell it, I'm going to use it. Not bad for a level 10 character. ;-)WOW. Considering that is at least 4 times the typical wealth by level it must be a very high-powerful campaign Very much so. We're planning on going to level 20 and into mythic. We've been teased with this sword for a few months, and when we found the person using it, it wasn't in time to stop him from completing the ritual with it, but we were able to get the sword afterwards. So, now our characters have a reason to go into mythic levels, as we now have to face a demigod.
You can change someone's alignment by strapping them to a chair and repeatedly casting Protection from ____________ on them.Alignment shifts in general. Never seen an alignment change happen once that wasn't a result of some screwball curse or stupid magic item. I have. In a campaign I was running. The group got a hold of 30+ soul jars and decided to sell them all to a very shady buyer. The moment that money changed hands, they both dropped from CN to CE. They consciously and willingly sold human souls for the sole purpose of profit rather than releasing the souls from the jars. I felt that deserved a shift into the evil side of things. They figured it might happen, and were fine with it.
This sword is most definitely an artifact. I was just curious of the pricing on it. I'm not going to sell it, I'm going to use it. Not bad for a level 10 character. ;-) |
