Lechteron's page

Whether the classes be one thing or another I just hope that one of them (or both) is a skill-caster hybrid (in the way that Swashbuckler and Inventor are martial-skill hybrid and Magus and Summoner are martial-caster hybrid). Using skills with casting to get extra damage or debuffs or some other way to buff casting through skill use.

I suppose some sort of ritual based class kind of fills that role but only sort of and would step on the toes of the Ritualist archetype unless they have maybe short, combat focused rituals. Sort of like Inner Radiance Torrent or the like... multi-turn rituals that are extra powerful if they work.

Lechteron wrote:

1. A physical skill class. The rogue is the jack of all trades skill class and the Investigator is the skill class that focuses on mental skills so it would be cool to get a skill class that focuses on the physical skills. Probably have some options for movement speeds and maybe doing it's version of sneak attack when it trips or shoves or what ever. So focusing a bit more on mobility and control. Kind of like monks, I guess, but a bit more skill focused.

Be tough to do this without overlapping too hard with swashbucklers, but I’d be willing to listen.

One thing I was thinking was that of course they wouldn't have finishers and their weapon progression would probably be similar to rogues but maybe the way they get their precision damage is through a combo system. So like you could have a grappler sub-class for them that gets Titan Wrestler for free and can add the Grab trait onto their unarmed strikes so they can punch someone, spend an action to grab using their previous attack roll, and then spend another action to apply a small amount of precision damage. That would be like the basic and safe option. But they could apply a more advanced action to grab after the strike thus incurring MAP but it gets the precision damage and other effects but it's less reliable. From there they could then apply a submission move (being at full MAP) that would have a really big payout if it succeeds but provides a penalty of some kind on crit failure which is likely since you have to have grappled that turn. It would certainly have to be tweaked some so it's not too powerful or too weak or so that Assurance doesn't become broken but the idea would be using safe, weaker options vs. pressing your luck for massive takedowns as opposed to the Swashbucklers style of showing off once and then getting a little extra until they cash it in for one big hit (which is more often than not the super safe still do some damage on a miss one anyway).

For the wrestler form you could also have a lariat feat that acts similarly to Sudden Charge but with a trip attempt. Or a luchadore feat that lets you use acrobatics for grab attempts.

You could also do a trip or shove focused sub-class or one that focuses on acrobatics. Maybe one that uses a rope as a weapon to lasso enemies in combat (or maybe have that as a feat). Or a dancer one that uses performance for stuff. All in the press your luck for potentially devastating attacks sort of style.

There are two classes that I'd like to see. Names and how they exactly come out I don't really care about but I would like to see these two mechanical concepts fleshed out.

1. A physical skill class. The rogue is the jack of all trades skill class and the Investigator is the skill class that focuses on mental skills so it would be cool to get a skill class that focuses on the physical skills. Probably have some options for movement speeds and maybe doing it's version of sneak attack when it trips or shoves or what ever. So focusing a bit more on mobility and control. Kind of like monks, I guess, but a bit more skill focused.

2. A skill-caster hybrid class. We have skill-martial hybrid in the swashbuckler and martial-caster in the summoner and magus. So the next logical step is a class that combines skill use, precision damage, and spell casting.

And there's also just so much better things to do with it. You can move while doing it kind of. You don't physically move but you can mentally move and see from where you moved to. So you can scout through hallways and open doors and what not without danger. It's stupid good.

And it is also uncommon so it's spelled out extra plainly that a GM has every right to veto it. Any player who would do that shouldn't get access to it or you strike a deal before hand where it essentially becomes a "take 20" sort of thing where you just get every level of success and failure and we move on. Essentially a Dubious Knowledge on steroids.

So granted this is totally impractical for multiple reasons but I was checking out the new capstone feats from Ruby Phoenix last night on Nethys and the Investigator one, All the Time in the World, caught my eye. So for 3 actions you can take 9 actions worth of observational and mental actions. Well if you use all 9 of those actions for Reason Rapidly you could make up to 45 recall knowledge checks. And you can do it every round if you wanted to for some reason. Pretty sure 45 actions on a turn reliably is the best action economy though.

Heyo.

Was building someone based off the Illusion of Gaia (Club+Flute (or blowgun maybe)).
Came across Clockwork celerity (which; makes me think of Exalted RPG pretty sure there was one).

Now if only there was a way to spin around and become a mini-tornado.

If I were building out the Illusion of Gaia characters I'd probably go Swashbuckler for Will. His tackle and slide moves fit the Swashbuckler style fairly well.

Freedan... I was thinking Fighter at first but he might be a Champion with a domain spell for his projectile.

Shadow might be a monk with the Wild Winds Stance for the phoenix shots.

I kind of thought some of the same. Maybe crafting should autoscale. At level 2 it immediately becomes expert without needing a skill increase, level 7 it becomes master, and 13 it becomes legendary. Then give them a free crafting skill feat every few levels. Maybe even just at level 1, 2, 7, and 13 as they get the skill increase. Borrowing from the skill classes a bit but in a much more limited way.

So for Rebounding Assault what might work better is making it more reliable but also more dangerous. What I mean is let it make weapons throwable (that's fine even if throwing a whip at someone is really odd) and you shoot the target at the same time and both attacks hit the same place on the target thus the extra precision damage. From there you can, as a free action, draw another weapon or stride to the target and use an interact action to grab your thrown weapon.

It's more reliable in that you can always retrieve the weapon or draw another one instead of both attacks needing to hit but more dangerous in that you're doing multiple things that might trigger opportunity attacks and the whole thing is much easier to conceptualize and make sense of and it maintains the mobility theme that drifter has.

Pistol shrimp sort of throw balls of water through water and there are underwater lakes (brine pools) so I don't see why not.

Love it but a couple notes:

1. You guys realize that humans are going to get other things too, right? You get full human-ness and some elf stuff and then later access to just about everything human and elf plus exclusive half-elf stuff. when you can take 3 moves in a turn an extra 5' of movement speed makes a substantial difference. A half-elf human fighter focusing on a mobile combat style (taking things like sudden charge) is just going to be straight up better at it. So, yeah, you miss out on a human feat that you may or may not have taken any way and can take later but you get a lot of stuff for it. Some of it may seem fairly small but it makes a lot of difference long run. And we still don't have the write up for humans so, yeah, we know their stat spread and a couple feats but that's it. It's not like being a half-elf is just being a strictly less elfy elf. It's being a full human that also has elf stuff.

2. Half everything for everyone! It has never really made a lot of sense to me that humans are the only thing that can intermingle. They may well be the most likely to but if elves can mate with humans and orcs can mate with humans it seems reasonable (culturally weird perhaps but physically plausible) that elves and orcs can mate. So come the full version I'm really hoping that there are more half traits (half-dwarf, half-human, half-gnome, half-goblin even). I've always loved the idea of antipodal characters caught between two extremes. A half-dwarf elf or half-elf dwarf could be a super interesting character given the ever present rivalry in fantasy between elves and dwarves. More refined tastes than other dwarves but more gruff than other elves. So many fun possibilities and mechanical interestingness.

I'll actually throw my hat in for kind of liking the idea of more ape like orcs, it makes a lot of sense. I mean genetically humans obviously have a lot in common with bonobos but we also have a surprising amount in common with pigs so if you "dialed up" the pig similarities and "deevolved" the primate ones then you'd end up with a longer armed, less upright creature. Besides from an evolutionary stand point if you have a sapient, humanoid predator species that relies more on brute power than intellect it makes sense that they'd have proportionally longer arms. Plus it helps differentiate them a bit more from just being kind of big and angry people.

Edit: Throw in some stuff to give them an extra edge with thrown weapons due to their arm length and maybe some kind of bonus for climbing and they really start feeling like they actually have a place. In truth, I've never really liked using orcs as enemies. If I want brutish humanoids than ogres are better. If I want swarm enemies than their are plenty of creatures that do that better. Military style enemies are done better with hobgoblins.

holy wall of text pallyman. I dont think alignment needs a priority order especially since the pally code now has a tiered code that does what you want.

That's largely fair. My biggest issue is with the fast and loose definition of what law means since there's no internally consistent, objective definition in the system it leads to confusion and very different ideas about what lawful good means. Some think that it's the purest form of good while others think of it as another version of evil because of the inherently corrupt nature of man made monopoly law systems.

Here's my 2 cents on the subject of Paladin alignment coming from a few different perspectives that I hope will bring some balance to this discussion and hopefully build some bridges. Sorry in advance for having far too many parenthetical notations. It's a really bad habit but I can never quite break it.

My perspective(s) as a player/GM:
I started role playing with a mix of 3.5 and Mutants & Masterminds 1e (more so M&M) which, I think, gave me an interesting perspective on this. I want to play a unique and interesting character and usually have some interesting dilemma or conflict that I want to explore when making that character. As such I've always seen class in games that have it as purely mechanical with fluff for inspiration but my tables (both GMing and as player) are rarely set in the Forgotten Realms or Golarian or whatever other baked in setting is apropos. Usually it serves as inspiration but not much more. As such, I really do not care for alignment restrictions. I tend to think that they're needlessly constraining on character concepts and aren't really useful. I get that they've been around for a long time and were used as a weird balancing tool back in the day since the class was just better than the classes it blended but that's just bad design. Nothing against Gygax and co... what they did was legendary but when they were designing games there was no such thing as studying game design. They made great leaps forward in the field but there've been 40+ years of advancement. I very much want to easily be able to refluff characters to fit the concepts I want to play and as such I'll definitely house rule alignment restrictions away and likely write my own sets of oaths for different kinds of champions.

All that being said, I do understand the traditionalist perspective on this and their view of the paladin as the knight in shining armor. The incorruptible force of good and order (and I'll get my issues with that in the Voluntaryist/Anarcho-Capitalist perspective). It's an inspiring and deeply meaningful image. One that I share wholeheartedly even though I reject lawful good as being good at all (depending on how you view what it means to be lawful).

I think that last part is the biggest issue. Law/Chaos is kind of ambiguous and different people have very different perspectives on what that means and, in fact, traditionally it means very different things depending on if they're paired with neutrality, evil, or good. That's the core problem as I see it.

My perspective as an amateur game designer:
What we all have to keep in mind is that this is material for a public play test and not the final product. I have yet to publish any of my work. I have a couple games in various levels of completion that I've been working on over the last several years. I started with a setting agnostic system designed for gradual, natural character growth in a structured but very open and free form way with a very unique attribute/resolution system. That was probably a mistake since it's also by far the most ambitious project and probably not the wisest place to start but it's the system that I'm by far the most passionate about. The reason I bring that up is because I have absolutely learned that when play testing it is extremely crucial (vitally so) to be as focused as is possible for the stage of development that you're at. It is so indescribably important to focus on getting the core pieces right and get as many kinks worked out as possible before adding more complexity. So as such I completely understand why, for the play test, they want a very specific and narrow narrative and mechanical theme for the class. I absolutely hope that we get other kinds of Champions in core rule book because, as I'm about to get into, I think that Lawful Good is either the truest good alignment or one of the most inherently evil depending on what exactly lawful means.

I also understand and sympathize with the reluctance to simply slap different alignments on the exact same chassis when there are specific mechanics tied to the alignment system (as stated by one of the designers but we don't really know those mechanics. Those mechanics are clearly not the falling system as that can be handled by a chosen god's specific codes). It's certainly a rough place to be in. I can definitely empathize with that.

Preface to this section:
I am quite aware that my philosophical/politcal views are well outside the mainstream and the specifics of them, as much as I enjoy talking about them, aren't really the point here. Seeing as that they are uncommon positions I do feel the need to define my terms and meaning for clarity but over all my point is to discuss the issues of what alignment really mean.

My perspective as a Voluntaryist/Anarcho-Capitalist:

I am, among other things, philosophically a Voluntaryist. That is to say that I have very strict moral code in the Non-Aggression Principle (No one has the right to initiate [be the first to use] coercion [narrowly defined as force, threats of force, or fraud] against another person. This allows for defensive force but not initiatory force.) that I hold myself to and, as I believe it to be a logically consistent, objective (unbiased), and universalizable primary moral system (I believe in other moral ideals but the NAP is primary), judge others by as well.

Belief in the NAP (and interest in the Austrian school of economic thought) has led me to be an Anarcho-Capitalist politically. In the most basic terms (and a bit of an oversimplification but it should do for the purposes of this discussion) I want the governments of the world to be trust busted, broken up into specific pieces, and forced to compete on the open market. That is to say that they would lose the coercive power of taxation and their monopoly status over law (favoring systems such as common law), security, and the like.

I am absolutely a law and order kind of person at my core but I have been convinced that non-voluntary power is inherently and universally corrupting. So as such I would argue that monopoly law and monetary systems are inherently chaotic. They create disorder in society and individuals. See the deleterious effects of Alcohol Prohibition in the United States or it's new form in the Drug War or the role of central banks and fractional reserve banking in creating the business cycle (See Austrian Business Cycle Theory).

But I have great respect for what I believe to be legitimate authority, that is authority that I have voluntarily sided with. I have great respect and obedience towards my bosses because I have voluntarily chosen to submit myself for the sake of the employment relationship. I have great respect for security at private establishments and the rules of private establishments and property owners. But I don't see government agents as legitimate authority because as Mao quite correctly stated. "All political power comes from the barrel of a gun." In fact, to be perfectly frank, I see them as terrorist despots one and all (With some possible exceptions like the prince of Lichtenstein but that's a very odd situation where he's trying to abdicate as much power as he can. I believe he does in fact describe himself as an Anarcho-Capitalist.).

TL;DR here's where term clarification ends and the real discussion begins.

So am I chaotic because I'm openly hostile to traditional authority (going so far as moving 3,200 miles to be a part of a political migration of like minded people) or am I lawful because of my devout devotion to morality? I respect legitimate authority wholeheartedly but that's defined very differently from how most people would define it.

This is, I think, the core of the issue. There is no objective definition for "Lawful". A lawful good character is often described as obeying the law of the land as is codified in the Paladin Code though thankfully lower than goodness. But again that's still an issue. By the moral code I present taxation is theft and is thus immoral because it's collected with threat of gun and cage and not by proper contract and consent and that taints every other action since every other action is then funded by immorality. But a Lawful Neutral character may be described as a legal positivist or a pure traditionalist. And then there's Lawful Evil... Often the view is based on what station they see themselves in. If they're an official they're usually depicted as following rules and laws to a "t" (having a lot of overlap with some views of lawful good in my opinion) but if they're not part of a government then they're evil and selfish but have a strict personal code that they follow.

Conclusion and possible compromising solution:
I think if you're going to keep alignment then it really needs to be tightened up definitionally and perhaps expanded a bit. My suggestion would be to double the categories by having a priority system. So lawful good may be split up to look something like...

Lawful Good: Law comes first for this character. They are concerned primarily with establishing order and rules and good secondarily.

Good Lawful: Is for good characters who are good first and live their lives by a tight code. Their primary concern is with goodness.

This does put true neutral in a bit of an odd situation since it's inherently double balanced but you could split it up as "Unaligned" for those who have never put much thought into it and "Neutral" where they have a different kind of concern such as the ever popular "maintaining cosmic balance".

Mark Seifter wrote:

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I am sort of confused as to where this "you're going to need to carry more weapons than you did in PF1" notion is coming from.

I'm not sure either, but maybe because the different weapons have cool and useful abilities in various situations? We worked hard to give weapons those various advantages enough to be worth taking the weapon for its advantages but maybe not dramatic enough to be worth the hassle of constantly switching around between weapons, but that's a tightrope walk we'll need to test with the playtest.

For my part, I think you misunderstand: I--and many other--have always WANTED to be a cool boy with 5 different cool weapons. I hope that PF2E is the game where I can be that cool boy.

I think a lot of us are in the age range where we grew up with the 80s TMNT cartoon and the 1990 movie. Casey Jones was cool. He fought on even footing with Raph just using tons of sports equipment. That's bad ass.

Am i missing something with the glaive? The static bonus of 1 or 2 on damage seems fairly trivial for successive attacks.

It's +1 (or +2 for later attacks) damage per damage die and it gets extra damage die on crits. Plus weapons being +x now grant increased damage die instead of a flat damage bonus (and + accuracy seems to be based on the quality of the weapon). Add on top of that special attacks (such as power attack) can add damage die. It does seem a bit weak at first glance but it seems like there are plenty of ways to get increased damage die so it actually could be extremely powerful. Imagine a glaive wielder with a +1 glaive getting hasted, attacking twice normally, and then power attacking with the extra action and critting. Tons of damage die and each one of those damage die becomes an extra +2. It can add up pretty quick.