In playing through The Dragon's Demand so far we've found some points of confusion in the storybook. I wanted to bring attention to them so that they can get some clarification and possibly a FAQ entry. I suspect that these will be a thorn for others as well.
In the Dragon's Demand scenario 1C (The Wizard's Estate) the danger says to randomly choose a new Eldritch story bane. However the Eldritch trait does not appear on any story banes. The "during the scenario" text also references Eldritch story banes. For this one I assumed all of the level 1 story banes that had the magic trait or were barriers. Unlike the other two, I wasn't very certain about this one.
Scenario 1C, which does not have a villain, also doesn't list an alternative victory condition. Based on scenario 1A (And lots of prior experience with the PACG) I assumed that the condition was to close all locations.
Similarly, in scenario 2B (A Piece of the Auction) the danger says to randomly choose a new Artifice story bane. The Artifice trait does not appear on any story banes. For this one I assumed that it meant Construct.
For the first and last question, look at the back of your Wildcard card, it has a table of banes to randomly generate story banes of a certain theme, Eldritch and and Construct should be on that. [See page 21 of the Rulebook under Story Bane Roster]
Ahhhhhhh. Thank you. I never even looked at the back of the wildcards to notice that. Thanks for pointing that out. That makes things much clearer.
In playing through The Dragon's Demand so far we've found some points of confusion in the storybook. I wanted to bring attention to them so that they can get some clarification and possibly a FAQ entry. I suspect that these will be a thorn for others as well.
In the Dragon's Demand scenario 1C (The Wizard's Estate) the danger says to randomly choose a new Eldritch story bane. However the Eldritch trait does not appear on any story banes. The "during the scenario" text also references Eldritch story banes. For this one I assumed all of the level 1 story banes that had the magic trait or were barriers. Unlike the other two, I wasn't very certain about this one.
Scenario 1C, which does not have a villain, also doesn't list an alternative victory condition. Based on scenario 1A (And lots of prior experience with the PACG) I assumed that the condition was to close all locations.
Similarly, in scenario 2B (A Piece of the Auction) the danger says to randomly choose a new Artifice story bane. The Artifice trait does not appear on any story banes. For this one I assumed that it meant Construct.
I've been looking forward to this one for a while, and the trailer sure makes it seem pretty awesome. Hopefully it will be exactly as awesome as it seems!
Well, don't forget the bonus to the occult ritual checks that come from being a spellcaster. It's a +1 bonus for a creature that can cast spells, plus an additional +1 for every 5 caster levels. So you should be looking at a +2 bonus from there. If you can get to a 4th secondary caster, that also provides a +1 bonus to the checks. (You might be able to work out a deal that allows one of the scholars to assist with the ritual and then take 20 to wake up immediately afterward, possibly for additional price.)
You can also decide that some resources are helpful to the ritual check. Perhaps consulting one or more of the books related to the destination in particular, or Lowls' notes could be worth another +2 or so. If they take advantage of all of this, that brings your sorcerer's check up by another +5, which should at least bring the check into the realm of "hard, but doable." Hope this helps!
EDIT: I don't know if this applies, but some other helpful options include long-term spells. My group has a psychic that can cast heroism, which at their caster level lasts long enough to cover the entire duration of the ritual.
Hello! I'm about to start this AP in two weeks and I'm in the process of figuring out all the stuff the characters forgot. I'm having one character think they were someone else in a combat they remember having, another is going to be confusing a childhood memory for a recent one, another still will start with a cosmetic Polymorph Any Object spell cast on them.
I'm stuck on the Changeling Oracle in the party, and noticed the character guide said Changelings would be in good to play. Why is that? I know Winter is one, but having only read through the first book I'm not sure what other connection they'll have to the game, if any, and how I might use that to further tie them into the game.
Changelings have strong associations with witches and hags. There is at least one (Night) hag in the AP by default, and more are available through the random encounters tables (there's an interesting hag encounter available as soon as book 2). There are also a bunch of witches throughout the AP, with the grand-mammy of them all being the Briarstone Witch herself. So there are a whole bunch of different options you can use to give your changeling PC a strong, and horrible familial connection to some of the potential antagonists of the adventure.
After all, an unsettling discovery about yourself is a staple of Lovecraftian horror, and will the changeling heed the call after discovering who their parent is? Or will that knowledge break their mind and spirit?
]what might be REALLY fun, (and would never, ever happen) is for Paizo to do a 3 part, high level PF2 AP as a direct sequel to a PF1 AP.
I would be quite a bit less interested in an AP not starting at level 1, though.
why?
so many PCs never get to high level for a variety of reasons. why not just start there on you campaign?
we rebooted our Starfinder campaign and added 2 new players at level 7. it has been great. everyone gets fun toys right off the bat.
I can't speak for the nerve-eater, but for me, making a high-level character from scratch is a pain. I much prefer to grow a character organically. The one time my group ran a high-level module, character creation took about 300% longer than it normally does, and people were neglecting important things left and right and discovering it in play.
"Oh, wait, I only have 7 feats. Hang on.... oh, this would be helpful right now!" (Edit: to be clear, I'm not ascribing malicious intent to it, it's just much more likely to forget things to more things you have to keep track of all at once)
That's not to say it couldn't be done well, it's just one of the reasons why I (personally) prefer adventures that start at 1.
Now if you've got a Starfinder situation where a higher-level adventure is intended to be a direct sequel, that avoids my biggest problem altogether while also not stealing the fun from others who just want to start at higher level.
I ran an encounter in Mummy's Mask that I changed to be a 5-minute area denial encounter versus an endlessly spawning horde of undead. That's 5 minutes in-world, so 50 rounds of holding the line to win the day.
It took around 6 full sessions of gameplay to get through it. So at about 3-4 hours of actual play per session, it would have taken almost an entire calendar day if it was played straight through. With our once-a-week play frequency, it took more than a month of calendar time before the encounter was complete.
It was awesome and different, but not something I would do a lot of. It's a heck of a challenge to hold out for that long, even for high-level characters.
I didn't want to include spoilers in this post, but I reported on what I did and where and how in this thread for the curious who aren't worried about spoilers.
I think it's pretty clearly intended to be a spellbook for the purposes of copying spells or "borrowing spells" from it. My group had only spontaneous casters, so I was prepared to treat those spells in my game as a sort of "replenishing scroll" that would recover an expended spell after so much time... but then my players decided not to read the book thoroughly right away and then forgot about it. :\
Can we have rituals which are not 8+ hours in length? Ultimate Wilderness had a ritual for basically "Secure your Campsite" that my players love, and things like this (which happen on a timescale that makes them impractical in combat, but are still not full-day commitments) would be nice.
I'm a huge advocate for shorter rituals of 1, 10 or 60 minutes that don't all require multiple people to perform. And they would go a very long way to helping make up for the much reduced spell slots if most general out of combat utility magic was ritualized.
I remember when the previews were coming out, I was under the impression that there would simply be no spells at all which had a casting time that couldn't be completed in one round's worth of actions, and that all of the spells that are normally longer than that would be rituals of their usual length - which therefore didn't count against your spell slots. Your spell slots simply represented your combat magic capability, because of the time scale, and a magic person (or a person particularly invested in the skill associated with a magic tradition) could always have access to magic solutions they know for solving problems on an exploration mode or longer timescale. Then there would be the massive rituals, like occult rituals, that aren't exactly normal spells which function on the basis of skill checks and have a downtime-based time scale.
I recently looked back at those early blogs and I'm pretty sure that was just a mistaken impression on my part even then, but man did I think that was a fantastic idea, and would still think so if it were made to be the case.
My PCs are about to go into the Illusion wing. I'm down for the Mirrors of Opposition, that seems like good illusion-based defense.
But the Vraxeris simulacra rely almost entirely on evocation and enchantment spells, which seems odd for illusionists. Then I went and read every illusion spell on the sorcerer/wizard list up to 5th level, which reveals the problem: there are precious few illusion spells that they *could* use offensively. I mean, there's Phantasmal Killer, but that's about it.
I'm toying with the notion of using a custom effect that blacks out the room, shakes everyone up to change their positions, and then when the lights come back on everyone looks like Vraxeris and there are six new Vraxerises in the mix. Ideally, the PCs would wind up fighting one another under false pretenses.
But it'd be difficult to pull off. I could replace everyone's minis (I have a ton of Vraxeris minis, I bought a case of the Runelords minis way back when). But each player has to know which mini is theirs, and as soon as they move the mini, that reveals (in a metagame way) that that one is a PC, not an enemy. It'd be hard to avoid metagame knowledge influencing player actions.
I don't know, this encounter bugs me, I guess. Maybe I should ditch it and put in something else entirely.
You've got a cool kernel of an idea there. I think it could work if you took it just a step further. Instead of one blackout-shuffle, make it like a strobe light. Essentially, the board is getting reshuffled after every turn. That way players may gain some very short-term useful meta-knowledge, but it doesn't remain useful for long enough to spoil the effect you're going for.
It would be a lot of work to keep track of for the GM, but it sure sounds fun enough to try. If I ever run Runelords again I might steal this :D
In many significant ways, I'm a huge fan of the dedication feat concept and the PF2 style multi-class system. I don't get to play much (Constant GM), but when I do I'm a compulsive multi-classer. I have 7 memorable characters over my years of playing Pathfinder (most of them before I started to GM), of which 5 of them are multi-classed (and with prestige classes to boot).
Of those multi-class characters, many of them (the Mystic Theurge, Holy Vindicator and Arcane Trickster) strongly prefer the PF 2 method that lets you continue progressing your first class as though you never left it. The others (the Eldritch Knight and the Battle Herald) approached multi-classing more like a sudden career change, and not only appreciated that they stopped progressing their original class, but actively didn't want some of the features (The Battle Herald in particular wanted out of Cavalier before the Standard Bearer archetype game him the mount).
So, while I very much like the style of PF2 multi-classing with dedication feats and so on, I do also wish there was a parallel but separate option to "traditionally multi-class" where you simply stop gaining class features from your first class (permanently treating your level in that class as whatever you reached and no better, unless you later return to it) and started gaining class features from another (starting as though you were level 1). Is such a thing balanced or optimized? Probably not, but I didn't play a Battle Herald because I wanted to dominate the table.
As posters before above me mentioned, this traditional style of multiclass has weird, potentially laggy interactions with the proficiency system. It works just fine if you treat any given proficiency bump as "increase to this rank," meaning that if you're already at that rank it does nothing for you, but you're going to get the better ones much later than many others in your group might. If the concept is important to you, you might not care so much (I'm a weirdo who actually enjoyed playing a pre-Mystic Theurge cleric/wizard), but it can be frustrating if your concept relies on good proficiency to work (like a replication of my Battle Herald might).
But both systems work equally well if the proficiency system were to be changed such that it was more of an a-la cart improvement after your initial proficiencies. For my comprehensive house rules, I've been implementing the system discussed in another thread where, following your initial proficiencies, every so often you get a free proficiency increase that you can choose to spend on one of the esoteric aspects of your character (armor category, weapon group, saving throw, spellcasting tradition, perception), with some classes that used to grant faster proficiency tracks instead having a class feature that reduces the minimum level required to select master and legendary proficiency (so Fighter/Paladin can become a master of [weapon group]/[armor category] respectively at level 3 instead of 7 (if they want to) and a rogue can become a master in a skill at level 5 (skills are still their own thing for skill boosts in this system, I'm just explaining for thoroughness).
In a system like this, your proficiency is never going to lag if you stop gaining class feats and features from your original class because, beyond level 1, your proficiency was never a function of your class, but of yourself. So if you started as a Wizard, but decided to give up on wizardry after a couple levels and then did a full stop and started over fresh as a full-fledged fighter, you wouldn't change your proficiency with weapons any (because you're well past your initial proficiencies) but you'd get the class feature that allows you to select master proficiency in a weapon group early. Getting that only helps if you first invest your training in improving to expert, so it avoids those sorts of sudden ability spikes that multi-classing in PF1 got a reputation for. It's simply a different advancement path than dedication multi-classing, one that caters to the career-changer as opposed to the hybridizer. I would like it very much if both paths were possible, but while I care enough to ramble on about it at length here, it's not one of those things that will make or break the system for me since I do like where it's already going - I just wish that it could go both ways without having to house rule it.
My Iron Gods campaign is on hold until my group finishes an older home brew campaign we started when we began playing Pathfinder. We ended with the completion of The Choking Tower. The Guardians of Numeria are planning to outfit the tower, leaving one PC behind as caretaker (the player moved out of state). Does anyone have any advice for Valley of the Brain Collectors? I have a friend who is able to print miniature scale maps for me at no cost, so that will save alot of prep time. I need to get my players and PCs motivated to continue the search for Casandalee. With Hellion's (my) lackluster performance at the end of Lords of Rust, they are not as concerned about Unity as I would like. They also see the Technic League as a bit of a joke since the only members they have met have been trounced quite handily (again by my own weakness in tactics). I hope everyone's Iron Gods games are going well!
I didn't do as good of a job with Hellion as I would have liked, either. What ended up working for me is that my players ended up making a strong connection with Longdreamer (they constantly were going back to her to rest and chat) and so when they finished the choking tower she expressed grave concern about the Dominion activity in the Scar, and that was enough to motivate them to explore the place thoroughly even though they weren't so cognizant or enthusiastic about the need to find Casandalee at the time.
And then, once they found and activated Casandalee, her exposition was enough to make them as concerned about Unity as they needed to be, with the knowledge that the evil, nascent god AI has been on the verge of breaking out of Silver Mount for decades or centuries and thus could happen at any moment.
So, as it exists in its current playtest form, I find the Lore skill to be rather lacking. A lot of my feelings toward Lore stem from the vagueness of the skill in terms of what you're actually getting, and from the bizarre (in comparison to other skills) way in which it represents a seemingly infinite number of skills in a rather unsatisfying way. Sure, I can have all the Lore skills I could possibly want, but there's little expectation that any given one of them will be useful (barring GM guidance) unless you have a whole lot of downtime.
But I recently had a thought about how the skill could be improved into a more satisfying interaction with the game world without actually changing it a great deal. The crux of the change is that Lore is no longer a potentially infinite series of separate skills, but one single skill that functions in both a general and specific sense. How do I mean? Let me explain by showing specific examples:
Lore (Int) Overview:
Lore represents specialized information about a narrow topic, as well as general information absorbed over a lifetime of experiences. When you become trained in Lore, choose an appropriate subcategory to represent the specialized nature of your knowledge. This category can represent a profession (such as a baker or blacksmith or sailor) or it could represent a field of study (such as a creature type, like vampires or dragons, or a plane of existence other than your native plane, like the Abyss or the Ethereal Plane), or a historical concept (like Ancient Thassilon or the Dominion of the Black). It’s always a good idea to consult with your GM about the subcategory of Lore that you specialize in, as some options may be more or less appropriate for a given campaign or setting.
The Three Main Uses Of Lore:
{A} RECALL KNOWLEDGE
[Concentrate]
You can attempt a lore check to try to remember information related to a subcategory of lore you specialize in. The DC is set by the GM and is determined by the obscurity of the information you try to remember.
Success: You recall a relevant piece of information.
Critical Success: As success but you recall an additional piece of relevant information.
Critical Failure: You recall an incorrect piece of information.
{A} RECALL GENERAL KNOWLEDGE
[Concentrate]
You can attempt a lore check with a -5 penalty to remember information not related to a subcategory of lore you specialize in. The DC is set by the GM an is determined by the obscurity of the information you try to remember.
Success: You recall a relevant piece of information.
Critical Success: As success but you recall an additional piece of relevant information.
Critical Failure: You recall an incorrect piece of information.
PRACTICE A TRADE
This is a very long entry because of the complicated nature of Practice A Trade, but the gist of it is that you can practice a trade in a profession you specialize in, or you can attempt to work in a profession you haven't specialized in at a -5 penalty (subject to GM discretion, etc, because some jobs are unsuitable for those with no experience).
Other Rules Interactions:
I think this change from many skills to one with binary functions (specialized or not) makes many of the interactions with other places in the rules a whole lot cleaner. Because it isn't taking up many different skill slots, it no longer competes as badly with your other skill increases. So something like Additional Lore could just let you choose another Lore subcategory to be a specialty, and for all your specialties you just use the same proficiency rank and bonus in Lore.
And then there are things like Bardic Lore, which could be simplified to the following sentence: "When you use Lore to Recall General Knowledge" you don't take a penalty.
You now have a single handy catch-all skill for what your character could possibly know, like Athletics is a single handy catch-all skill for feats of physical strength. Because of the inherent penalty (which can be tweaked to suit the success rate desired, -5 is just a nice round number), you're still much better off having one or more Lore Specialties, and Recalling Knowledge (even untrained) in the other skills that can Recall Knowledge is still desirable as well.
And, when designing rules elements where it matters whether you've studied in a given area or not, one can reference Recall Knowledge and Recall General Knowledge as separate entities. Option X might apply to Recall Knowledge, while Option Y might apply to Recall Knowledge and Recall General Knowledge. Furthermore, it can also cut down on one area that I've seen can take up table time flipping through rulebooks: if you can't find which skill knowing about something should fall into, just call it a General Knowledge check and move on.
So, what do people think about making Lore just one skill? I think it has potential to fix the most glaring issues I have with the skill, but I'm curious to see whether or not this addresses some of the other problems people have been having.
I think it would be helpful to include a sidebar with a suggestion along the following lines, possibly in the skills section or the running the game section.
Potential Sidebar wrote:
If your vision of your character's history would conflict with the applications of the rules in some way (such as an character with a trained or better proficiency rank in athletics that has lived their whole life in the desert and never learned to swim), you can choose to voluntarily reduce your proficiency rank for a subsection of a skill or other rules element below its usual rank. The default assumption for this reduction (as with the example above) is to treat your proficiency as untrained in the area in which your character is deficient. This means that you do not qualify for any feats or options that depend on your proficiency if they would relate to that aspect of the rules. (As with the example above, a character with Legendary proficiency in Athletics that has chosen to be unable to swim would not qualify to take the Legendary Swimmer skill feat.)
It's important to confer with your GM and your play group before taking a voluntary penalty like this, to make sure that doing do will not be disruptive to the group or the story in which your character exists.
If, after taking such a voluntary penalty, the story changes in such a way that causes your character to overcome, or seek to overcome, this weakness, you can use downtime for retraining as though you were retraining a proficiency increase. With each use of downtime in this way, increase your proficiency rank in the area you took the voluntary penalty once, to a maximum of your overall proficiency in the area. Once your proficiency in the area in which you took a voluntary penalty matches your overall proficiency, you no longer need to count its proficiency separately. (As with the example, a character that is a Master of Athletics, but is unable to swim, could use retraining to improve from Untrained proficiency in swimming to Trained proficiency, and could do so again to reach Expert, and then again to reach Master, but could not continue retraining to achieve Legendary proficiency since they lack Legendary proficiency in Athletics.)
I see the argument pop up every so often that the +1/level skills system makes no sense, and sometimes the argument is based on the way that certain areas of competence are lumped in together with the way that PF2 is streamlined. Having something like this codified in the rulebook this allows someone for who this is a conceptual problem to have a well-defined path for assuaging their cognitive dissonance, while also including a helpful reminder that you should make sure you aren't being disruptive.
Also, by not including any mechanical benefits (just psychological ones), and by giving guidance for how long it should take if you later reverse your decision, you don't accidentally provide any incentives for whole swathes of the player base taking, presumably roleplay-based, disadvantages for personal power - but only to fulfill their character concept.
The thing that I'm personally wondering is: Barbarians get Rage, Paladins get Smite... why can't the Fighter have AoOs as his thing.
I agree that the fighter should have a thing that sets it apart from all the other classes... I just don't think AOO is, in and of itself, an interesting choice for a class to have as its "thing."
The thing that frustrates me the most, is that they already had a fantastic idea in their pocket for what to make as the fighter's "thing" - Combat Stamina from Unchained.
They had the perfect opportunity to include something along those lines as part of the base assumption. Make 'em something like "Martial Spell Points" (Stamina Points even have the same initials as Spell Points, so they can occupy the same space on a character sheet) and let them be spent to dig deep and push one's self beyond the normal limits of martial combat.
Essentially make the Fighter the "Martial Wizard," like the Ranger is the "Martial Druid" and the Paladin is the "Martial Cleric." It practically writes itself.
This is how I've been approaching my alteration to the Fighter for my comprehensive rewrites set of house rules.
The more I think about this, the more I start to think that it's actually worse than resonance used to be. Now instead of your magic items competing with other items, they're competing with your class features instead. I really, strongly dislike that. In my mind, magic items have always been and should always be a supplement to your character's innate abilities, not a consideration against which to balance them.
The more I think about it, the more I think the best solution is to keep the way Focus interacts with magic items, it's exactly what I wanted resonance to be, and keep it as its own, separate pool. Why does bonus magic item activation (or bonus effects from doing so) need to compete with anything other than itself? There are still interesting choices deciding whether you want to buff this potion now or use your wand an extra time later. You don't need to dilute the pool by throwing everything together, and I strongly believe the only things that class features should have to compete with are other class features.
Honestly, the more I think about it, I prefer the previous incarnation of Resonance, but with the changes applied to the options as though they worked with Focus, to this new iteration of Resonance/Focus. At least that way your magic items are competing with magic items. Apples vs Apples and Oranges vs Oranges, instead of Apples vs Oranges with a separate set of bananas.
What I'd like to see is a hybridization of the new Focus rules with the Spell Point rules, especially with respect with what happens when you mix two different Spell Point pools that are based on different stats: You simply use the better stat to determine the size of your pool.
It's simple, effective and there's precedent for it already in the design.
I would also prefer to keep the notion that each time you gain a new power, it adds to your pool. It just feels right.
EDIT: Well, actually, my highest-level preference is to keep them separate pools altogether, but if they must be condensed, this is how I'd rather it.
There's a lot to like here. I love the split between Resonance and Focus, and I love that you can spend your Focus to amplify the effects of magic items (or in some cases use them more frequently) so freaking much.
As for wrapping up Focus and Spell points together, I'm a little leery of making the quantities of all of the Spell Point powers in the game based on charisma as a stat. But this:
Resonance Test Document wrote:
You might be asking what happens to a wizard, who typically doesn’t have a high Charisma score, but still might have school powers. Since we don’t have a pregenerated wizard in here, we’d like to clarify our intent. Our current thinking is that a wizard might get extra Focus Points by preparing his arcane focus (in addition to the extra spells gained from the arcane focus). In short, classes that have powers will get an ability from the class that allows them to use their powers, but they also still have the option to increase their Charisma so they have an interesting choice in what ability scores they take.
This gives me hope. If it winds up working out that most characters that used Spell Points can still wind up having more-or-less the same amount of Spell Points, then I think this will probably work out okay. But I do worry about the level of scaling somewhat, especially for classes like the Paladin and Monk which currently only cast spells through Spell Points.
The other thing I like very much is unhooking the Alchemist from either Resonance or Focus and just giving them their own pool to power their class features. That was something that has been in my "potential house rules" document for a long while, now, and it's definitely a step in the right direction, in my opinion.
So call me cautiously optimistic! In fact, one non-obvious thing about this change that the efficiency-lover in me likes is the fact that, if all characters start with a Focus pool of some size, then you don't need to introduce the concept of Spell Points in every class which has them, and every time someone gets picks them up.
I've been struggling to come to a final decision in what I think is best for this area, but I've narrowed it down to one of two basic scenarios. Keep in mind that, regardless of which it is, I would leave the NPCs and bestiaries where there are in terms of AOO ubiquity. I do very much think it helps out the feel of combat for a monster AOO to not be a given.
1) Attack of Opportunity as a level 1 General Feat: I do somewhat like that the fighter is better at controlling the battlefield by default, but I don't like the hoops that other classes have to go to in order to also be good at controlling the battlefield. I don't think anyone should have to multiclass fighter in order to patrol an area with a reach weapon or provide disincentives to enemies just going past you to get to the squishiest party members. A level 1 General Feat (especially if the General Feats are expanded to every odd level, like I'd prefer) feels like the right amount of opportunity cost to me.
2) AOOs for everyone, and the fighter gets Combat Reflexes for free instead: The idea is that everyone can control the battlefield a little if they want, but fighters get to control the battlefield more and better by default. Ideally, if there were more ubiquitous and attractive reactions provided by the other classes, then wanting to save your reactions for those would be the balancing factor to whether or not everyone is actually using their ability to AOO all the time. Do I want to swipe at this guy now? Or save my reaction to Nimble Dodge the big guy going next? Etc.
I started by leaning toward the first option, but as I think about it more and more I think the second option is a bit more attractive to me.
As I've been tinkering with this concept to incorporate it into the comprehensive tweaks I've been creating for PF2, this is how I've approached the weapon and armor proficiency increases with respect to initial proficiency:
I've basically left initial proficiency alone. This is the only place where something might give you all simple or martial or specific weapons for your proficiency. This is your starting position, and you get to your own individual starting position based on your choice of class, and then possibly modified by your ancestry and background choices.
For weapons, once you are applying your proficiency increases, you always apply the proficiency increase to a weapon group as a whole. So, through continued training, you've gotten better at, say, clubs. Your proficiency rank with all clubs increases. Any clubs you were already expert in become master, any you were trained in become expert, any you were untrained in become trained, and so on, whether the weapons are simple, martial or exotic. Past the point of initial proficiency the simple-martial-exotic distinction is basically meaningless. I then adjusted the Weapon Proficiency general feat so that it "standardizes" your proficiency within a weapon group, so it increases your proficiency with any weapon of a weapon group that isn't your highest proficiency with a weapon of that weapon group by 1 step, to a maximum of your highest proficiency with a weapon of that weapon group. So it generalizes your training instead of improving it vertically, because improving it is solely the province of the level-up proficiency increases.
Then, with armors, I intend to incorporate additional benefits for armor categories that unlock once you achieve higher proficiency in them, different benefits for unarmored vs light armor vs medium armor vs heavy armor. I haven't gotten around to creating those, yet. But I can say that for a class like the paladin or fighter, their class feats or abilities that have a prerequisite or provide bonuses for things like "master in heavy armor" instead have a prerequisite or provides that benefit for any armor category in which you have the requisite proficiency rank. So your bastion of defense is a bastion of defense regardless of what equipment choices you make - so an elven paladin in light armor for speed and stealth would be just as supported as a traditional heavy armor knight as an Iroran paladin that eschews armor altogether, without taking any more effort than a few wording tweaks.
I think this approach will greatly diversify characters as soon as they start getting their proficiency increases, while still providing a common and easy-to-learn starting point.
Dunno, after all having DCs not keep up means they're more likely to be used up quickly. I always liked the idea of consumables being quick use stuff rather than long term stockup... Raise your hand if you ever played a MMORPG where you had a whole inventory page dedicated to elixirs. And never used them.
I've never played an MMO, but every Pathfinder campaign I've had a similar outcome with every Pathfinder campaign I've completed by the end. And, while I've never asked specifically, I do very much suspect that there are a lot of those sorts of things that would have been used if they could be made to have competitive DCs... but on the other hand a lot of those were found, so the DCs wouldn't be competitive by this change anyway.
This could probably stand to be accompanied by more abilities that let you buff the DC of something that has its DC already set. Perhaps that's a perfect interaction of resonance with consumables. So when some classes get one of these abilities that just works, it's valuable because you're no longer spending a resource to get the effect, which means you can instead spend that resource elsewhere.
That's an issue with spells in general. It would be better if TAC doesn't exist at all, and casters just use their casting modifier and attack AC like everyone else.
I always liked touch AC, but the more I think about it as time goes on, if we're going to have bother a spell roll modifier, then I think this approach is just the best way to handle it, both for rules simplicity as a whole and for option efficacy. For those things (like shocking grasp) where it's appropriate, providing a bonus to the spell roll vs regular AC is pretty much the same as providing the bonus to a non-spell roll vs TAC. The more I look at it, the more it feels entirely redundant.
And for the occasional effect that uses TAC where you don't particularly care what part of the enemy you touch, or whether you actually touch them or their armor, the current system can model that adequately by having some amount of effect on a failed (but not critically failed) spell roll.
It looks to me like the spell roll is vastly underutilized, and I strongly suspect that TAC is to blame for that.
I completely agree with the OP. The one some change would make so many things useful that are almost useless now.
As for feats that do something similar I would suggest just the feat just add a +1 or +2 to DCs.
This is not directed at you, personally, your post just brought up the topic. I would strongly prefer that there were fewer feats along the lines of "you get slightly bigger numbers for option X," and more along the lines of "you can now use option X in a way that you couldn't before!"
I really love this concept, to the point where it's one of those things that is not just definitely a house rule if it's not already part of the rules when PF2 comes out for real, but I'm certainly using it as the basis for a house rule for PF1 immediately. Now that I've seen it, I can't un-see it.
I think the only consideration that would need to be given is for the few places where there already exists a feat that allows one to use their class DC in place of the regular DC for one of these items. I'm of two minds about what to do about this. First, a class DC is often different from the craft DC (for example a rogue's class DC is based on their Dex, whereas craft is Int-based). That's a different enough distinction that I think you could get away with leaving those options in the game with additional wording of "if it's better." So it still allows for the niche of buying these items instead of making them and still getting the best you can get out of them, and other potential interactions along similar lines.
The second view on it is that these options are largely considered taxes on the concept of being good at item-usage. They could be allowed to be obsoleted by this concept, and then replaced in their classes by something else entirely that provides new and interesting ways of using the types of items they would have applied to instead of "keep up with the bare minimum of effectiveness."
Or you could use your Craft DC for anything you Craft rather than buying it off the shelves, making it offset the downtime required with a practical benefit.
This is one of those suggestions that's so obvious in hindsight. If this was a universal rule across anything crafted, I think that would make so many categories of items more usable in general if you have or are willing to put the time or effort into doing it for yourself.
So here's my two cents on the categories of bonuses and how they should stack:
1) Items
I think item bonuses are working perfectly well right now. "Items don't stack with each other, but do stack with everything else" is a simple and intuitive general rule.
2) Class
These would be bonuses from your own class features and class feats. You can never give class bonuses to another character; you can only ever gain class bonuses from your own abilities. This would help prevent "class clash" such as what barbarian and bard have going. Barbarian rage would be a class bonus, while bardic inspire would not be (since it's buffing other characters). Class bonuses are always bonuses and never penalties, to limit the number of stackable debuff categories. This bonus type is very intuitive: "the bonus is from my class feature, therefor it is a class bonus"
3) Magic
Typically from spellcasting, but could also come from more magical class features like a bard's inspire. This is again very intuitive: "the bonus came from a spell, therefor it is a magic bonus"
4) Circumstance
Circumstance bonuses and penalties apply to situations like flanking, screening, prone, etc. They are the circumstances you're in. Because there are a defined list of conditions (no matter how many spells are published that knock you prone, there is only ever going to be one prone condition) these can be allowed to stack within a +4 to -4 range.
5) Afflictions
Poisons, diseases, or conditions such as drained or enfeebled, are afflictions. Afflictions are always penalties. Afflictions never grant bonuses.
Along with this change, you'd split the circumstances (flanking, prone, etc) from the afflictions (enfeebled, drained, etc), and other miscellaneous (friendly, hostile, seen, unseen, etc) into three separate lists. This would mean that you'd know based on which list you're looking at which type of bonus or penalty you're looking it.
I think this is a fair balance for stacking, as well as making...
I like this organization structure a whole heck of a lot.
The only thing I would add is that for those conditions which do many different things at once, perhaps listing everything affected by the condition in a bullet point format would be more effective at getting the information across clearly, and with less possibility of something critical being overlooked.
Don't they already have a Skill Feat that allows for a character with Survival to provide Food/Shelter for more people? I'm pretty sure it also scales up with proficiency as well.
Forager
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While Surviving in the Wilderness during downtime, you can always find enough food and water to provide yourself a subsistence living (provided you aren’t in an area that’s completely lacking in appropriate resources). If you are trained but not better, finding food and water for another or providing a comfortable living still requires you to attempt Survival checks and hope for a critical success; onany other successful result, you still find only enough for your own subsistence.
If you’re an expert, even without rolling you can always find enough food and water for your own comfortable living or subsistence living for yourself and one other creature that eats roughly as much as a human, and on a critical success you find enough for a second additional creature.
If you’re a master, you can always find enough for comfortable living for yourself and one other or subsistence living for yourself and two others without rolling, and you can provide for twice as many others on a critical success.
If you’re legendary, you can always find enough for comfortable living for yourself and four others or subsistence living for yourself and eight others without rolling, but a critical success provides no additional benefit.
Multiple smaller creatures or creatures with significantly smaller appetites than a human are counted as a single creature for this feat, and larger creatures or those with significantly greater appetite each count as multiple creatures. The GM determines how much a particular non-human creature needs to eat.
You know, I overlooked that feat. If I had remembered it I probably would have chosen a different example for my first one. I have other thoughts about skills and proficiency and, if I were to have my way with them, the benefits of the Forager feat would simply be the way that using your survival skill gets better with your improved proficiency rather than a skill feat, much like how several of the existing Diplomacy skill feats got wrapped up as just part of how the skill operates when I made my revisions there. The things I want to tweak with PF2 are becoming so systemic that it's hard to remember what is and isn't actually PF2 anymore.
But Regardless of any of that, I still think that there are many benefits to be had from unchaining the degrees of success from +/- 10. It makes a good default position, and a great starting point, but cleaving to it dogmatically is, in my opinion, one of the things holding the game as a whole back.
This is called a distinction without a difference.
None of this is "real", it's all artificial. It is literally a made up world. Everything you're proposing is artificial too. The entire game is artificial.
Resonance is a change to the incentive structure. It just turns out that people got angry about that change. I still think that overall, it is a good idea, and gets to the heart of some of the problems.
It's not a distinction without a difference. The reason people got angry is not because it was a change to the incentive structure - full stop. Rather it's because it set up a conflicting incentive structure. The efficiency tells you one thing, and resonance tells you something different. Actually, this is the reason I disliked resonance for consumables. I can't actually speak for anyone else, just strongly suspect.
Irontruth wrote:
Also, you're still thinking small. All you're doing is talking about moving the gold/hp ratio.
Why not change the structure of how healing works outside of combat?
Minor Wand of Rest - heal 1 hp per round for 15 rounds.
Lesser Wand of Rest - heal 1d4 hp per round for 15 rounds.
Wand of Rest - heal 1d8 hp per round for 15 rounds.
(Taking damage ends the healing effect).
Or....
Lesser Wand of Rest - heal 1d4 hp per round, last for 1 round per level of the receiving character.
Slow healing that brings characters up, but is largely worthless inside of combat. Potions and spells are used for in combat healing, but the wand takes care of what happens between fights.
Change the question, and you get different answers.
I'm not sure where you get anything resembling this sort of impression from my continuing post history in this thread. I've said repeatedly that what I want is for the incentive structure to be fixed. I started by providing an absurd extreme that was literally just adjusting the HP numbers to match the GP numbers to show how ridiculous they would have to be to even approach having an incentive structure that makes an efficiency-minded consumer even consider spending their money on them.
But since then, as other ideas have come in and the discussion progressed, I've made it clear on multiple occasions that I'm aware of and in favor of any dial that acts as a solution to the incentive problem, be that adjusting prices, adding intangibles that make it harder to get concrete math, having items that you can sometimes get your money's worth (but not always), making items work in a fast healing method, whatever. I don't sweat the specifics as long as the incentive structure gets fixed somehow.
Your wand suggestion sounds absolutely fine to me, too, provided the incentive structure surrounding it (i.e. prices, etc.) make people not just prefer the higher-level ones, but eagerly anticipate it, because the next option is actually the better one - you were just too low-level and poor to afford it before this lucky day. I want the same to apply to potions and elixirs. How that happens is functionally irrelevant to me, so long as the incentive structure works.
I think there's probably room to have a note for GMs in the Running The Game chapters that suggests that +/- 10 is a good starting point for consideration when coming up with DCs and schemes on the fly, since it makes for easy math and has a good range that makes it special. I included this style of skill writing in my example reworking of the Diplomacy skill, so anyone can check out how I think this would end up looking in more detail. Credit to Tholomyes for the formatting suggestion I used in some places.
I've mentioned a little bit of what I think about this topic elsewhere, but I'll use this thread to go into some more detail about it. Using your scheme, it's somewhere between #2 and #3. Basically, things that you can do with a skill have some combination of gate-keeping and scaling based on proficiency. And then skill feats come in and allow you to do things with that skill that are unusual or mind-blowing. This system also greatly benefits from an unchaining of results from the +/- 10 system, but still works even when chained.
For a clear example of what I mean, I'll take a look at the Diplomacy skill, and how I would adjust it to fit my vision.
Unrestricted Uses of Diplomacy
Gather Information: You canvass local markets, taverns and gathering places in an attempt to learn about a specific individual or topic. The GM determines the DC of the check and the amount of time each check takes. Success: You collect information about the individual or topic, per GM discretion; Critical Failure: You collect incorrect information about the individual or topic, per GM discretion. Alternate: Failure (-10): You collect incorrect information about the individual or topic, per GM discretion.
- Untrained: You can attempt to gather information up to 3 times per day.
- Trained: You can attempt gather information up to 6 times per day. (Hobnobber benefit)
- Expert: You can attempt to gather information up to 6 times per day. Treat a result of Critical Failure as a reslt of failure instead.
- Master: You can attempt to gather information up to 6 times per day. Treat a result of Failure as a result of success instead.
- Legendary: You can attempt to gather information any number of times per day. You always succeed at your attempt, and it never takes you more than an hour.
Make an Impression: With at least 1 minute of conversation consisting of charismatic overtures, flattery, and other acts of goodwill, you seek to make an impression on someone to make them temporarily agreeable. At the end of the conversation, attempt a diplomacy check against the target's Will DC, modified by any circustances per GM discretion. Success: The target's attitude toward you improves by 1 step; Critical Success: The target's attitude toward you improves by 2 steps; Alternate: Success (+10): the target's attitude toward you improves by 1 additional step;Critical Failure: The target's attitude decreases by 1 step. Alternate: Failure (-10): The target's attitude decreases by 1 step.
- Trained: When you Make an Impression, you can compare your Diplomacy result to the Will DCs of up to 2 targets. Group Impression benefits from here on out
- Expert: When you Make an Impression, you can compare your Diplomacy result to the Will DCs of up to 4 targets.
- Master: When you Make an Impression, you can compare your Diplomacy result to the Will DCs of up to 10 targets. Treat the result of a Critical Failure as a result of Failure instead.
- Legendary: When you Make an Impression, you can compare your Diplomacy result to the Will DCs of up to 25 targets. Treat the result of a Critical Failure as a result of Failure instead.
{A} Request: You can make a request of a creature that's friendly or helpful to you. You must couch the request in terms that the target would accept given their current attitude toward you. Some requests are unsavory or impossible, and even a helpful NPC would never agree to them. Success: The target agrees to your request, but might demand added provisions or alterations to the request; Critical Success: The target agrees to your request without qualifications or agrees to a request that would ordinarily require it to have an attitude toward you one step better than it has; Alternate: Success (+10): The target agrees to your request without qualifications or agrees to a request that would ordinarily require it to have an attitude toward you up to 1 additional step better than it has;Failure: The target refuses the request, but may be open to further negotiation or other requests; Critical Failure: The target refuses the request, and its attitude toward you decreases by 1 step. Alternate: Failure (-10): The target refuses the request, and its attitude toward you decreases by 1 step.
- Trained: You can make the same request of up to 2 targets at once.
- Expert: You can make the same request of up to 4 targets at once.
- Master: You can make the same request of up to 10 targets at once. Treat the result of a Critical Failure as a result of Failure instead. Shameless Request benefit
- Legendary: You can make the same request of up to 25 targets at once. Treat the result of a Critical Failure as a result of Failure instead.
{A} Call the Guards: Calling for the guard requires a Diplomacy check modified by the settlement’s law modifier. It’s only a DC 5 check to call for the guard. Success: The guard arrives in 6 minutes. Success (+5): Reduce the time it takes for the guard to arrive by 1 minute. If the time was already reduced to 1 minute, reduce the time by 1 round instead.
Trained+ Uses of Diplomacy
{AAA} Direct a Crowd: You attempt to convince a crowd to move in a particular direction. The crowd must be able to see and hear you in order to be influenced. Success: The crowd moves slowly in the direction you indicate. If you are in encounter mode, it moves at a rate of 10 feet at the end of every round.
- Success (+15; Trained): Increase the speed the crowd moves by an additional 5 feet per round.
- Success (+10; Expert): Increase the speed the crowd moves by an additional 5 feet per round.
- Success (+10; Master): Increase the speed the crowd moves by an additional 10 feet per round.
- Success (+10; Legendary): Increase the speed the crowd moves by an additional 20 feet per round.
Bargain Hunter: You can gather information specifically about deals on items rather than other information. Name an item or a general category of items (such as "magic weapons") you're looking for and then roll your Diplomacy check. Any bonuses you have when Gathering Information apply. Success: You find a deal on the item you were looking for. You can purchase it at a discount equal to the value of a successful Practice a Trade check for a task of your level; Critical Success: You find a deal on the item you were looking for. You can purchase it at a discount equal to the value of a successful Practice a Trade check for a task of one level higher than your level. Alternate: Success (+10): You find a deal on the item you were looking for. You can purchase it at a discount equal to the value of a successful Practice a Trade check for a task of one additional level higher than your level.
- Expert: You can Practice a Trade with Diplomacy, representing spending your days hunting bargains and reselling for profit.
- Master: When you Practice a Trade with Diplomacy, treat any result of a Critical Failure as a Failure instead.
- Legendary: When you Practice a Trade with Diplomacy, treat any result of Failure as a Success instead.
Skill Feats:
Glad-Hand (Expert): First impressions are your strong suit. When you meet someone, you can immediately attempt a Diplomacy check to Make and Impression with a -5 penalty rather than needing to converse for 1 minute. On any Failure result, you can continue spending 1 minute of conversation to attempt a new check rather than accept the Failure result. You may not use this ability in encounter mode.
- Master: Reduce the penalty to -4.
- Legendary: Reduce the penalty to -2.
{AAA} Legendary Negotiator (Legendary): You use your incredible skill at persuasion to negotiate quickly in adverse situations. You attempt to Make and Impression and then immediately Request that your opponents cease their current activities and engage in negotiations.
Hypnotism (Expert): You use the power of suggestion and subtle psychic influence to alter a subject’s mind and dredge up repressed memories. Hypnotizing a creature requires 1 minute inducing a trance-like state in the subject, who must be willing to be hypnotized. Hypnotism can be used to either Recall Memories or Implant Suggestions.
Recall Memory: You can draw out forgotten memories from a willing subject. Make a Diplomacy check against the target's will DC. Once completed, the trance ends. Success: The target immediately attempts to Recall Knowledge about a topic they might possibly have once known or been exposed to.
- Success (+10; Expert): The number of topics you can cause the target to Recall Knowledge about increases by 1.
- Success (+5; Master): The number of topics you can cause the target to Recall Knowledge about increases by 1.
- Success (+5; Legendary): The number of topics you can cause the target to Recall Knowledge about increases by 1. You can attempt to hypnotize an unwilling creature as well. An unwilling creature must be restrained or fascinated for the duration of the check.
Implant Suggestion: You can implant a suggested course of reasonable action in the mind of creature, along with a defined trigger. Make a Diplomacy check against the target's Will DC. Success: You implant the course of action, as a suggestion spell with a duration of 10 minutes from when the triggering condition applies
- Success (+10; Expert): The duration of the suggestion increases by 10 minutes.
- Success (+5; Master): The duration of the suggestion increases by 10 minutes.
- Success (+5; Legendary): The duration of the suggestion increases by 10 minutes. You can also attempt to hypnotize an unwilling creature. An unwilling creature must be restrained or fascinated for the duration of the check, and receives a Will save to resist the suggestion (use the spell results for the saving throw) once the triggering condition applies, using your Diplomacy DC as the save DC.
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And there can be other, interesting and oddball uses for Diplomacy - but I think I've gone on long enough. I would generalize this pattern to all of the skills. So some things you get access to just by increasing your proficiency. And things you can already do automatically get better for you as you increase in proficiency beyond where you acquired them. Always forwards, never stagnant. Is this more complicated to design? Possibly. I went through this off the top of my head without too much difficulty - the hardest part was sorting out how good each reward for a new tier of proficiency should be (whether I did a good job of balancing it is another matter entirely). I think the benefits of embracing this structure in terms of both fun and a definite feeling of progression are worth the additional thought required.
I like this concept a whole heck of a lot. It elegantly puts a finger on something that had been bothering me for a while, but I wasn't sure what it was. ::tips cap::
This would also solve some of the oddities with, for instance, the new Treat Wounds ability, where instead of scaling with your character, a higher level character achieves a higher and higher degrees of success against the same check.
It certainly feels like a more intuitively consequential relationship of experience to results.
I like +10/-10 triggering a critical success/failure. I know it's a major factor in the system's tight math but I'm still a fan largely due to how my players have embraced it. It's intuitive, dynamic, and - at least for my groups - fun.
But I'm mixed on the four degrees of success. I, generally, like them for spells, attacks (noting that Strikes got off easy), and saving throws. I don't like that certain Skill based actions now only have four outcomes - scaling results need to return for certain Skill usages. It's also a bit silly that a warrior can never critically fail a Strike (barring another ability in play) but a Legendary Healer can still critically fail Medicine.
One of the benefits of unchaining the degrees of success from the +/- 10 is that it still lets you use 10 as that number where appropriate - it's just not codified as the Always Threshold, which means that in places where a smaller (or larger!) number would work better you don't have to futz with the math or the sizes of the results in order to get the balance you want.
And consider the case of the attack roll, one could make it a single degree of success for +10, or you could go really crazy and add another critical for each 10 by which you beat the AC. The point is that one part of the system doesn't care what degrees of success any other part of the system does or doesn't have and what sizes they're based on.
I like it. There are a lot of skills that don't really feel like the critical success is tuned quite right, and skills overall being designed around critical success causes issues. One thing I'm wondering though:
Leedwashere wrote:
Legendary survivalist leading a whole army through the hidden path in the swamp to encircle the enemy? Check.
Are you suggesting something like:
Success: Effect X
Success (+Y): Effect X, plus bonus.
Success (+Z, Legendary): Effect X, plus bigger bonus.
Because I think I like it, though I wonder how big skill usage blocks would be, if you have multiple degrees of success, in addition to different success conditions based on proficiency. I still think I like it, but it feels like it could get a bit overwhelming for some.
I wasn't suggesting that specifically, but such a thing would be simple to implement in the places where it would be appropriate - whether through natural inclusion or by way of feat somewhere. But it's a great example of the versatility of the overall idea in that it can easily expand to encompass that idea, where the +/- 10 system would require much more explanation along the lines of, "replace the existing critical success result with this critical success result," or something like it.
The actual thought in my head at time of writing was that the DC to navigate the hidden path in the swamp was fixed at whatever number, but the Legendary survivalist being high-level and having a large bonus would beat that DC by many more increments than another character might. But I do like what you proposed as an auxiliary way to further reward specialization, either through feat or just virtue of having the higher proficiency.
At first I liked the +/- 10 success system. I thought it was cool, and there is a pleasant, natural consequence of beating (or failing) a DC by such a large margin. It feels like something ought to happen for managing that, and I do very much like that it does.
But over time I've come to realize that PF1 did it better. In the places where it matters (because even with the PF2 system not every check has a result for all 4 tiers of success) I think that codifying everything to +/- 10 turns out to actually be unnecessarily limiting at best. Allow me to explain a little more in-depth.
Let's look at survival as a prime example. PF2 survival has the following results: Success: You survive with enough to sustain yourself; Critical Success: you survive with enough to sustain yourself and 1 other, or make your own survival comfortable; Failure: You don't get enough to survive; Critical Failure: Not only did you suck, but you also broke your legs and an owlbear came by an urinated on you (paraphrase).
Now let's look at PF1 survival. It still has a DC you must achieve in order to sustain yourself, but it has the ability to assist in the survival of others for every increment by which you beat the DC. If you are a survivalist, you can reasonably expect to use your skills to help your whole party and (pulling a little from Ironfang Invasion) if you have a party of survivalists, you can reasonably expect to use your combined skills to feed and shelter yourselves plus a gaggle of refugees. But consider that same situation converted into PF2. At best you can provide food and shelter for N*2 creatures, where N is the number of survivalists in the group.
There are several other places where one can make a similar comparison between PF1 degrees of success and PF2 degrees of success, and in many cases the PF2 crit success having only one, and fixed, increment turns out to be more limiting in terms of over-success threshold and what reaching that threshold allows. Sure, the math is easy - adding +/- 10 is trivial for most people, I think.
But what if, instead, we made the system a hybrid of the PF1 degrees of success and the spell heightening mechanics?
Let's take a look at survival again and I can give you an example of what I mean:
Success: You forage for enough food for yourself and your shelter gives you basic protection from the elements, providing a subsistence living.
Success (+X): You also provide basic food and shelter for 1 additional person, or provide comfortable subsistence living for 1 creature for which you are already providing basic food and shelter.
Failure: You are exposed to the elements and don't get enough food, becoming fatigued until you get enough food and shelter. (The skill text can provide the stipulation that if you don't attempt the check yourself, you automatically receive a result of failure unless another creature includes you in their success).
Now let's take a look at some other, less obvious areas where the 4 degrees of success are partially applied and see how this change might interact with them. Let's look at the Nalfeshnee (Boar Demon) and its Greedy Grab reaction ability.
PF2 Current Version:
Trigger: A creature critically fails a weapon Strike against the boar demon.
Effect: The boar demon tries to snatch the weapon used in the triggering Strike by attempting an Athletics check to Disarm the boar demon(?) at a –2 penalty. On a success or critical success, the boar demon takes the weapon into one of its hands instead of the normal success effect.
Revised Version:
Trigger: A creature fails a weapon Strike against the boar demon by X or more.
Effect The boar demon tries to snatch the weapon used in the triggering Strike by attempting an Athletics check to Disarm at a –2 penalty. If successful, the boar demon takes the weapon into one of its hands instead of the normal effect.
Or how about pick a lock?
PF2 Current Version:
Success: You gain 1 success toward opening the lock.
Critical Success: You gain 2 successes toward opening the lock.
(Bonus) Quick Unlock Skill Feat: When you succeed at a check to pick a lock, you gain 2 successes instead of 1. When you critically succeed at such a check, you gain 3 successes instead of 2.
Revised Version:
Success: You gain 1 success toward opening the lock.
Success (+X): You gain 1 additional success toward opening the lock.
(Bonus) Quick Unlock Skill Feat: Add 1 success to any successful result when you pick a lock.
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I could go on, but I'd like to think that this is enough to show that not only is this revision often more concise, but it's more versatile in practice. It gives the freedom to make that "+X" whatever is most appropriate for the situation instead of one blanket number, but it also now opens up the design space for potentially unlimited degrees of success where appropriate. Legendary survivalist leading a whole army through the hidden path in the swamp to encircle the enemy? Check. Master lock-picker getting the vault open in the time it takes for another character to wonder aloud about the combination? Check. With less reliance on specific numbers and specific categories, the whole thing has the room to breathe and be more robust, and there should also less need to so tightly control the size of the numbers that characters are allowed to have.
EDIT: Forgot to include, if you still only want there to be 1 degree of success you can still use the spell heightening convention. So a DC 15 check that has only one additional success result at +10 might look like this:
I would also like that class feat for any classes have some kind of auto scaling (less than Powers of course because they don't use ressources) mainly to avoid the "You pick that feat at level 1 so now you MUST pick this one at higher level, then this one, then this one" because they are chained together and making another choice is crippling your character
I think animal companions are the worst offenders at this, hands-down. The game asks every few levels "do you want a feat, or would you like to keep your companion relevant?" I think the structure is fine, with the progression from "young" to specialized, etc, because it allows different animal companions to grow at different rates: the ranger's feats are available levels behind the druid... but you can get that same effect just by stating at which levels they gain their steps.
And then, to make up for the "options" you just took away, you add feats which instead alter how the animal companion plays. Things like allowing your companion to continue spending 1 action each turn to continue following your last command if you stop commanding it (no net change in number of actions/turn). Or give your animal companion the AOO feature (and ability to use it) while it is commanded to defend, and so on.
To prevent this tangent from becoming a true digression: I think it would be interesting if some of the bloodlines (like Fey, especially) had the option of getting an animal companion as a bloodline feat.
You've just re-invented resonance. This is one of the reasons why stick-only resonance, especially resonance for consumables, was so heartily reviled. Because instead of using any of the many dials available for adjusting the incentives to make people want to buy the better healing items, you are instead artificially enforcing the less efficient options on people.
It chafes on people because the incentives are telling you one thing, while the stick slaps your hand every time and says "Nyet!"
Usual disclaimer: bigger numbers are bigger and action economy in a turn does matter. These are incentives to use bigger healing items, but they are not incentives to buy them. Your best option is to buy low, find high for emergencies, and try your darnedest to avoid spending your actions on healing in combat. That's what the incentive structure says.
We can go 'round and 'round on whether the math makes sense from a developer point of view, but I really don't think that it makes a difference. I've seen players in real time, and read stories on the boards. People really do make their purchasing decisions based on the efficiency of those options. Not everyone does, sure, there have been examples of that in this thread, too.
But enough people do that the "wand of CLW" problem was a thing. If the efficiency remains un-fixed, then it will continue to be a problem in second edition. Maybe it won't have as much of an impact on the game because of the impact of the medicine skill. I can't say, but I am confident that the majority of healing purchases in most games will be the lowest-level items. People interested in efficiency will find a way to make it work. Bags of holding are a thing.
As has been pointed out in this thread as well, there are more knobs to turn than the ones I put in the opening post. In fact, my favorite ideas have come from other people once the discussion started. The numbers I put forth in the opening post are patently absurd, and I know that - but they were used to show how absurdly the system breaks down when you scrutinize it from a practical standpoint instead of a theoretical one.
A lot of things look "fun" on paper but aren't that "fun" in practice.
Take the classic 3.5/PF situation, where I have +15 to a skill with my Slayer, which makes me feel that the math is fun because double digits and I hit high numbers and I got rewarded for being specialised. And I'm better than the Cleric, because with her crap skill point count and ACP and whatanot she's at +5 to that skill.
BUT
it also means that the GM has a very hard time making a challenge for a group when one person is at +15 and the other are at +5. Such challenge is either impossible for them or trivial for me. If it's trivial, well, where's the challenge, if it's impossible - woe be to the party if I don't turn up for the game, or if my PC gets kidnapped by the bad guys, or if for any other reason my super-specialised ability is unavilable. Bummer.
I think this is an aspect that gets overlooked or at least not talked about enough: The math also needs to be fun for the GM. The PF1 math-discrepancy has led to quite a lot of frustration on my end as a GM and has made the game not fun on my end, especially since quite a few unexperienced players have joined our group over the years. I know quite a few GMs who had similar problems and it made designing encounters quite difficult and tedious, which led to no one running any Pathfinder games anymore in my area, even though the hobby has grown quite a bit over the last couple of years.
Gorbacz wrote:
With PF2 math, most common challenges (eg. sneaking among sleepy orcs, climbing a cliff, swimming upstream) can be attempted by the entire party, not just by one or two super-specialised PCs. Does that take away some fun out of hyperspecialisation? Sure it does. But on the other hand, it allows more challenges where the entire party can succeed, leaving them less dependant on hyper-specialist, discourages gamey character advancement ("OK we need everybody to max Perception and now we need to split Knowledges, Sense Motive, Stealth,
...
Speaking as my group's Constant GM, I find the PC success rate frustratingly low. There's a definite hit to player morale that I've seen across my playtest games. And, for me, if my players are feeling frustrated then I'm not really having fun either.
But I also know the pain of nothing ever being a challenge for the party. So I do like the math being tightened - I just think that it's been tightened too much. I would rather my players who specialize and put effort into an area feel confident of success - not be guaranteed it, just not approach each skill check with the defeatist attitude that multiple playtest sessions have instilled in them.
EDIT: for clarity, I have not yet gotten a chance to play since 1.3. So whether or not that makes a difference for my group yet I can't say.
At random intervals, the overall mass of divinity spawns a paladin and an anti-paladin simultaneously. This reduces the overall mass of divinity by an infinitesimal amount. Given enough time, this will cause all divinity to evaporate from a setting.
I, too, think it would make a lot of sense as an Int skill. Then maybe make natural medicine somewhat more relevant (but not necessarily as good (like the difference between heal and soothe) so there is also an option for wisdom type skill-healers. One uses your knowledge of anatomy, the other uses your ability to notice the useful things around you. It's a good dichotomy to set up.
This is how you make a player feels legendary while keeping him on the same RNG as the other players: by having him roll to see how awesome he is instead of just checking if he fails miserably. And then you can balance the game around that; eg, a failure in Stealth could just trigger a warning for team monster (they heard something, but they're not sure it's a PC) while a crit success could allow to remove a warning. Legendary Rogue Boy could never fail, and still be on the same RNG as anyone.
My wife insisted on a system like this, where experts can prevent critical failures, for her expert climber barbarian described in Expert Climber Aiding Trained Climbers. Her main argument was that climbers apply these techniques in the real world.
I am thinking of generalizing it to a SAVE OTHER reaction, restricted to experts, based on the AID reaction on page 306.
[[R]] AID Trigger An ally is about to use an action, activity, free action, or
reaction that requires a skill check.
Requirements The ally is willing to accept your aid, and you have
prepared to help (see below).
You try to aid your ally’s check in some way. To use this reaction,
you must first prepare to help, usually by using an action during
your turn. You must explain to the GM exactly how you’re trying
to help, and she determines whether you can Aid your ally.
When you use your Aid reaction, attempt a skill check of a
type decided by the GM. The typical DC for Aid is 15, but at the
GM’s discretion this might change to DC 20 for particularly hard
tasks or DC 10 for particularly easy tasks. The GM can add any
relevant traits to your Aid reaction or to your preparatory action
depending on the situation.
Success You grant your ally a +2 circumstance bonus to the
triggering skill check.
Critical Success You grant your ally a +4 circumstance bonus
to the triggering skill check....
I regret that I only have 1 favorite to give this post.
These sorts of interactions with the proficiency system are the sorts of things that I was hoping/expecting more of based on the previews we were getting before the actual rules dropped.
Not a bad idea, though I'd have to ponder on it a little more, though I do think Imperial feels more Arcane, as it seems the most 'classic sorcerer' of them, and Undead seems more Divine (or maybe Occult?) than Arcane, but if we're going for 2 of each, I'd see Imperial and Undead switched.
This is really only based on my own personal taste, I don't think it would break anything if they were switched. I just feel much better in the brain if there are 2 of each. I also rather like how it worked out (without planning) that at level 16 half of each spell list type got a metamagic feat and the other half got something different.
Tholomyes wrote:
Also, I'm unsure if the evolution feats are balanced. Arcane basically grants you any spell, so long as you don't use the scroll, where Occult and Primal have most of those spells on their list anyway, so it seems like a limited extra spell from their list, in most cases, with some cases where they can get from another list. Divine is interesting in that it gives spells not on their list, but the spells you get from deities is still quite limited, let alone the looks you'd get, if you decided you wanted disintegrate, so you start asking around to see where you might find a symbol of Rovagug.
Like I said, I didn't rigorously test them. I expect the usefulness of each of them will continuously expand as more options are eventually released. The more varied deities there are, the better (or at least less situational) the Divine one gets. Also I didn't state explicitly, but expected that these feats would most often be used for grabbing spells along your theme from the other spell lists - although they can also be used for grabbing a spell that's too situational to be one you have in your repertoire. It's a fine line to walk, though, because while I wanted them to be good often, I tried to avoid making them so good compared to other level 4 options that they become mandatory. Achieving that sort of balance is tricky. Right now I'd expect a Fey sorcerer to get more use out of Primal Evolution than an Elemental one.
EDIT: A curious thought just came to me - what if the spell list prerequisite was removed from these feats? As it stands, they can already be used to grab spells from any spell list - so is it actually necessary that they be gated by bloodline segments? There aren't a lot of areas for the Sorcerer where you get the chance to spread out laterally into the territories of the other paths, like say a bard or druid. This could be a minor burst of that feeling. Hmmmmmm.
I have no idea what a psychonaut is, but it sounds neat, I was (still am) a big fan of Micronauts, back in the day (best action figures, ever).
I took the name (and the concept) from the Ultimage Magic Alchemist Archetype of the same name. The short version is that they use their alchemy to alter their consciousness and do a lot of divination-related things like remote viewing and precognition. It's pretty neat, especially the association it has with psychoactive drugs as materials.
One topic of discussion I see pop up frequently is the overwhelming tendency for the sorcerer and wizard to multiclass. I believe this is strongly correlated with the overall lackluster class features and abilities that they get. There just isn't a strong incentive to pick your own class options, because others prove to be better with just a little math. I think the best way to approach this problem is not to further deconstruct the other multiclass options, not to place limits on how many feats you can take from outside your primary class, and certainly not to reduce the number of class feats that these classes get to pick from.
Rather, I posit that the best and most effective solution is to make the class options better, so that there's more of an incentive to stay within your class. Ideally, any given multiclass character should be pursuing that path because they wanted those other features, not because they didn't want their own features, as we see so frequently at this stage in the game.
I'm not one to propose a problem and solution without offering up some specifics of how I think this could be accomplished. In this thread I'll be focusing on the Sorcerer specifically. And for the Sorcerer, I think the biggest avenue for improving their class features revolves around their biggest draw: the bloodlines. Currently, each bloodline gives you three bloodline abilities (until 1.3 these were not optional). To go along with giving Sorcerers the same number of class feats as everyone else (a topic I discussed HERE) I would propose expanding the amount of bloodline abilities to 7. In this scenario, each bloodline is providing some sort of class feat option at levels 1, 2, 6, 10, 12, 16, and 18. I will give examples of these expanded bloodline options, as well as make some points about some of the other Sorcerer class feats which could be made into more usable and/or attractive options.
Aberrant:
Spell List: Occult
Level 1 Feat: Tentacular Limbs
- Reduced to Somatic Casting only. I also added Heightened (+3): Increase the reach by 5 feet.
Level 2 Feat: Rubbery Skin
- Provides a small resistance to bludgeoning damage, as well as a conditional bonus on attempts to squeeze, escape, or break a grapple. Also provides a small conditional penalty on opponent attempts to grapple you.
Level 6 Feat: Aberrant Whispers
- This one is largely unchanged, except I added Heightened (+2): Increase the duration by 1 round.
Level 10 Feat: Unusual Anatomy
- I also left this one largely unchanged, except I added Heightened (+1): Increase the resistances by 2 and the acid damage by 1d6
Level 12 Feat: Bizarre Grace
- You become a master of Reflex Saves. Functions as evasion.
Level 16 Feat: Unspeakable Presence
- Gives you an aura that can sicken or even confuse creatures depending on their Will save.
Level 18 Feat: Unnaturally Limber
- You become entirely boneless, automatically critically succeeding on a check to Squeeze. You also gain the effects of freedom of movement.
Angelic:
Spell List: Divine
Level 1 Feat: Angelic Halo
- I left this one largely unchanged, except that it now also functions as the light spell.
Level 2 Feat: Holy Conduit
- Adds a small amount healing to any spell you cast on an ally.
Level 6 Feat: Angelic Wings
- I left this one largely the same, except that I scrapped the reduced duration for extending the spell and just made it simply that if it would expire, you can spend spell points to extend the duration by the base amount.
Level 10 Feat: Celestial Brand
- Reduced the casting to Somatic Casting only and extended the base duration to 3 rounds. Changed to Heightened (+2): Increase the damage by 2d4 and the duration by 1 round.
Level 12 Feat: Discerning Judgement
- You become a master of Perception. Creatures you can see take a -2 penalty to Deception and Thievery checks against you.
Level 16 Feat: Righteous Spell (metamagic)
- You change the damage type of the spell to Good damage. Creatures critically hit by the spell (or that critically fail their save against it) take persistent Good damage.
Level 18 Feat: Truespeech
- Constant tongues and a circumstance bonus on Deception, Diplomacy and Intimidate checks.
Demonic:
Spell List: Divine
Level 1 Feat: Glutton's Jaws
- Reduced the casting to just Verbal Casting. Heightened (+2): Increase the piercing damage by 1d6 and the temporary Hit Points by 2d4. Add an Item bonus to attack rolls equal to the number of additional dice of piercing damage.
Level 2 Feat: Covet Spell (Reaction)
- You attempt to steal the spell from a caster within 30 feet of you. Spell Roll vs Spell DC. Success: The spell treats you as the target (or origin) for all purposes; Critical Success: The spell has no effect on you if harmful.
Level 6 Feat: Swamp of Sloth
- Reduced casting to Verbal and Somatic only. Increased base poison damage to 3d6. Heightened (+1): Increase damage by 1d6
Level 10 Feat: Abyssal Wrath
- Increased base damage to 5d10. Heightened is now +1 levels instead of +2 levels
Level 12 Feat: Overwhelming Pride
- Become a master of Will saves, functions like the Bard's Mental Prowess
Level 16 Feat: Lustful Caress
- Free action, triggered on a success or critical success with a melee touch attack. Target becomes stupefied 1 or 2 for short duration depending on success vs critical success.
Level 18 Feat: Greedy Consumption
- When you use a consumable with variable effects, you get maximum effect.
Editor's Note: This bloodline is the reason I picked 7 as the number, specifically. I wanted there to be a bloodline feat option for every sin!
Draconic:
Spell List: Arcane
Level 1 Feat: Dragon Claws
- Changed to Heightened (+2): Increase the piercing and energy damage by 1d4 each, and increase the resistance by 3. Add an Item bonus to attack rolls equal to the number of additional dice of slashing damage.
Level 2 Feat: Draconic Hoard
- Gives a conditional bonus to all saving throws as long as you have a threshold value of money in coins on your person. Editor's Note: doesn't care if it's your money or not, so convince your buddies to let you be the party bank!
Level 6 Feat: Dragon Breath
- Left this one largely the same, but changed the heighten to add 2d6 damage instead of 1d6.
Level 10 Feat: Dragon Wings
- Left this one mostly alone, except made the same alteration as to Angelic Wings above.
Level 12 Feat: Draconic Fortitude
- You become a master of Fortitude saves. Functions like the Barbarian's Juggernaut ability
Level 16 Feat: Frightful Presence
- Gives you an aura that can frighten creatures based on their Will save.
Level 18 Feat: Power of Wyrms
- Grants scent, immunity to paralysis, and a bonus to initiative and saves against magic.
Elemental (New Addition):
Spell List: Primal
Bloodline Skills: Acrobatics, Athletics
Bloodline Spells: Cantrip: ray of frost; 1st: shocking grasp; 2nd: acid arrow; 3rd: lightning bolt; 4th: wall of ice; 5th: elemental form; 6th: chain lightning; 7th: fiery body; 8th: polar ray; 9th: meteor swarm Special: At 1st-level, choose the elemental plane that influenced your bloodline. This will affect how some of your bloodline feats function. You can’t change your elemental type later. The elemental planes and their associated energy types are air (electricity), earth (acid), fire (fire), and water (cold).
Level 1 Feat: Elemental Assault (Power 1)
- Verbal Casting. Targets 1 weapon. For 1 minute the weapon deals +1d6 damage of your element type. Heightened (+2): Increase the damage by 1d6.
Level 2 Feat: Elemental Versatility (Reaction)
- You alter a spell you cast that deals acid, cold, electricity or fire damage, and change the damage type (and traits) to match your bloodline element.
Level 6 Feat: Elemental Movement (Power 3)
- Functions like the Angelic and Draconic Wings powers in terms of casting and duration, but grants either fly, burrow, swim or double speed depending on your bloodline element.
Level 10 Feat: Ride the Blast (Power 5, Reaction)
- You teleport to any space within the area affected by a burst, cone or line spell that deals acid, cold, electricity or fire damage.
Level 12 Feat: Elemental Invulnerability
- You gain a scaling resistance to the energy type of your bloodline.
Level 16 Feat: Lingering Spell (metamagic)
- An instantaneous area spell that deals acid, cold, electricity or fire damage persists, blocking line of sight and continuing to damage creatures that begin their turn or move into the lingering spell.
Level 18 Feat: Elemental Ambassador
- You gain the ability to speak with creatures that have a trait matching your bloodline element. Such creatures are not hostile to you unless you act hostile toward them.
Editor's Note: The asymmetry of the bloodlines with respect to spell list types bothered me too much to not add this one.
Fey:
Spell List: Primal
Level 1 Feat: Faerie Dust
- Increased base duration to 2 rounds. Added Heightened (+2): Increase the duration by 1 round.
Level 2 Feat: Otherworldly Beauty
- Bonus to Deception, Diplomacy and Intimidate checks against creatures that could be sexually attracted to you.
Level 6 Feat: Fey Disappearance
- Left largely the same. Added Heightened (+2): Increase the duration of the invisibility by 1 round.
Level 10 Feat: Ridiculous Notion
- Changed the bolstered result to part of a critically successful save. Added Heightened (+2): Increase the duration by 1 round.
Level 12 Feat: Bizarre Grace
- Same as the Level 12 Aberrant feat.
Level 16 Feat: Blinding Beauty
- Gives you an aura that can blind creatures for a duration depending on a will save.
Level 18 Feat: Natural Ambassador
- You can speak with living animals, plants and fey at will. Such creatures are not hostile toward you unless you act hostile toward them.
Imperial (Changed Spell List):
Spell List: Occult
Level 1 Feat: Ancestral Surge
- Increased base duration to 3 rounds. Added Heightened (+2): Increase the duration by 1 round.[/b]
Level 2 Feat: Scion of Royalty
- Gives a circumstance bonus on Deception, Diplomacy and Intimidate checks against creatures with whom you share an ancestry.
Level 6 Feat: Metamagician's Shortcut
- Removed requirement of choosing the metamagic feat in advance. Instead can apply whenever you would use a metamagic feat within the duration
Level 10 Feat: Ancestral Countermeasure Changed name with spell list, see note below
- Left largely unchanged. Added a clause that if the spell can't be reduced in level, it instead increases the circumstance bonus by 1.
Level 12 Feat: Overwhelming Pride
- Same as the Level 12 Demonic feat.
Level 16 Feat: Persistent Spell (metamagic)
- Targets that attempt to save against the spell must roll twice and take the worse result.
Level 18 Feat: Ancestral Versatility
- Gain additional resonance and spell points. You can assign your Spontaneously heightened spells on the fly each day, until you have assigned all your available heightened spells.
Editor's Note: I felt that the theme of this bloodline was a better fit for the Occult tradition, and so I replaced it with a different bloodline to be the second arcane bloodline.
Undead (New Addition):
Spell List: Arcane
Bloodline Skills: Deception and Intimidation
Bloodline Spells: Cantrip: chill touch; 1st: ray of enfeeblement; 2nd: ghoulish cravings; 3rd: vampiric touch; 4th: talking corpse; 5th: drop dead; 6th: vampiric exsanguination; 7th: mask of terror; 8th: horrid wilting; 9th: wail of the banshee
Level 1 Feat: Grasping Dead (Power 1)
- Skeletal arms do a 5' burst AOE Slashing Damage. Reflex save, can knock targets prone.
Level 2 Feat: Feign Undeath
- Can use Deception to trick undead creatures into treating you as undead
Level 6 Feat: Stench of Decay (Power 3)
- Creates an aura that can sicken creatures based on their Fortitude save
Level 10 Feat: Toll the Bell (Power 5)
- Spectral bell deals sonic damage to 1 living or undead target, and deafens it with a duration based on its fortitude save
Level 12 Feat: Negative Energy Affinity
- Treated as undead for purposes of Positive and Negative energy
Level 16 Feat: Necrotic Spell (metamagic)
- Spell can affect undead creatures, even if they would normally be immune to the effects
Level 18 Feat: One Foot in the Grave
- Bonus on saves with the emotion or mental traits, or that specifically targets living creatures. Improves your success with Feign Undeath.
Editor's Note: I felt this was a better choice for the second arcane bloodline because of the association with liches and the fact that necromancers are stereotypically arcane casters.
The Evolution Feats:
There's an enormous variance in the usefulness of the 4 different evolution feats. I adjusted them so that they all do similar things, but in different ways.
Arcane Evolution: You become trained in one skill of your choice. Additionally, each time you make your daily preparations, you can choose one scroll in your possession and add the scroll’s spell to your spell repertoire until the next time you prepare. If the scroll leaves your person or the spell is expended from the scroll, you immediately forget the spell.
Divine Evolution: You become trained in one skill of your choice. Additionally, when you make your daily preparations, you can choose a holy or unholy symbol in your possession. Add one spell that deity grants to your spell repertoire until the next time you prepare. If you violate that deity’s anathema you immediately forget the spell.
Occult Evolution: You become trained in one skill of your choice. Additionally, once per day, you can spend 1 minute to choose one spell you don’t know of a level you can cast with the mental trait to add to your spell repertoire for the day. You lose access to this temporary spell the next time you make your daily preparations.
Primal Evolution: You become trained in one skill of your choice. Additionally, once per day, you can spend 1 minute to choose one spell you don’t know of a level you can cast with the acid, cold, electricity or fire trait to add to your spell repertoire for the day. You lose access to this temporary spell the next time you make your daily preparations.
Additional Notes
I tried to balance these options theoretically against other, similar options where they existed, but have not gotten a chance to rigorously test them. Additionally, these suggestions are not exhaustive - there's absolutely still room to make other adjustments to Sorcerer class feats to make them more attractive options. Finally, while I provided some specific options here, they are intended to be examples rather than demands - as in I think the Sorcerer would benefit from changes like these rather than necessarily these specific changes and only these specific changes
I'd love to hear other thoughts on what can be done to improve the bloodlines, and just generally make the Sorcerer a more attractive class in general. I think the design space of a class that alters itself so dramatically based on your choices is so fascinating to explore, and I started thinking about this because I want to explore it more - the playtest version feels like a timid dipping of a toe in these waters, and I'd love for it to do a full-on cannonball instead. This has been a fun exercise to go through, even if nothing ever comes out of it but house rules, and I'd like to thank everyone who stuck with me through the whole thing!
I would love to see more classes start with some sort of path, and I think the alchemist would really benefit from a reorganization and expansion along the lines of the Bard or Druid - where you can freely grab abilities from other paths, but possibly some function better if they're from your chosen path.
I think the biggest hurdle is that some of these paths would require additional content that has not been currently presented, and I'm not sure how (or if) the overhaul to resonance will affect things. Hopefully not largely.
If I had to pick my top for for the PF2CRB:
Chirurgeon: Focused on health and welfare (empowered elixirs of life, condition removal, etc.)
Grenadier: Focused on empowering bombs and using them in strange ways
Mixologist: Focuses on mutagens and combining multiple effects into new and custom combinations
Toxicologist: Focuses on creating, using, harvesting, combining and empowering poisons.
Some notable runners-up that I would either also be happy to see instead, or think are interesting enough to come in early rules supplements:
There are some interesting ideas, here, and I'd like to give my thoughts on each of them.
Floppy Toast wrote:
Penalizing characters for reviving.
I don't like this one, but it might work. If you get another penalty every time you go down, there's a heck of an incentive to stay upright. But I think that the playerbase would probably just shift to figuring out ways to remove the negative condition.
I think there's nothing inherently wrong with applying a penalty as an incentive to apply in-combat healing before getting to 0 HP. If the problem that needs to be addressed is that there's too much yo-yo-ing, then a cursory look at the mechanics shows that this is likely because a character at 1 HP is just as effective on their turn as one at 100 HP, so why spend actions on healing them until you have to? With no penalty, those actions would obviously be better spent trying to end the fight faster.
In the dying rules before 1.3, that penalty was that you were slowed for 1 round when you got back up. Now the penalty is the wounded condition, which makes the next time you go to 0 even more deadly. I think this is a perfect penalty, because it doesn't negatively impact your ability to contribute if you continue to try to take part in the fight, but makes you consider the looming specter of death as the consequences for doing so.
Not all penalties are created equally, and the stick and the carrot don't have to be used to the exclusion of the other. You can use a little bit of both to adjust behavior as well.
Floppy Toast wrote:
Reward characters for having higher HP.
This one's really interesting.
I could really see this being the spot for some super cool Morale bonuses. The best part, you don't have to worry about condition removal cheapening this. Definitely more "carrot" than "stick." As an extra bonus, you could use this to replace item bonuses (since HP scales with level)
I don't think there should be inherent bonuses just for being at full HP. That state is too easy to achieve, and all adversaries usually start out meeting that condition all the time.
But I would like to draw attention to the soothe spell, which does apply a buff at the same time as healing. That spell isn't the best healing per spell level compared to other spells, but its additional utility provides an incentive to use it to heal during combat instead of between combats, because it bridges the gap between spending your actions healing or contributing to the actual end of the combat.
There's probably some wiggle room to apply a rule that if you are healed to full HP you get a morale boost until the end of your next turn. The benefits of soothe last for a minute, and don't require you to reach full HP to get them. It's a minor carrot, but when combined with a minor stick like the wounded condition they work together as both a positive and negative incentive to heal before your ally gets to 0 HP working in tandem. But you have to be careful with something like this, because you don't want to have an incentive for characters to heal up to full, then cut themselves for a few HP so that they can quickly heal up for those sweet bonuses. That would be a strange game state, and should almost certainly be avoided.
Floppy Toast wrote:
Give everyone ways to sacrifice HP:
I mentioned Martyr builds upthread, and while that would be an interesting way to encourage healing, I'm thinking that PF2 is a little too deadly to want to sacrifice MORE of my HP.
HP is a resource, and having interesting ways of interacting with that resource is certainly interesting. The value of that resource depends entirely on how easy it is to replenish it. So while things like the Holy Vindicator's stigmata can be neat, I think this topic is really only tenuously related to a discussion on healing at best.
Floppy Toast wrote:
Bake healing into the characters themselves:
Someone mentioned this upthread, but I kind of like the idea of having characters slowly reheal if they aren't taking damage. It removes the need for a healer, makes battles more dynamic (the real strategy would be to cycle who's on the front lines so that your other guys get a chance to heal). I'd point to high-tier MOBA play as an example. But on the other hand, I could see this slowing down combat pretty badly.
This is the only area where I think I fundamentally disagree with you. I think totally free healing is uninteresting and would have a detrimental effect on the game by removing one major area of opportunity costs. As I mentioned earlier in this thread I think the state of the game should require healing, just not require a healer. Parties should have to consider how they want to stay alive, and work toward that goal. Do they want to have a cleric that specializes in it? That works. Do they want to keep a trained medic on hand? That works now (as of 1.3 anyway). Do they want to spend money on it instead of spending that money elsewhere? That should work, too.
Or a more balanced approach might be some combination of any of the options, or even other options not listed. But if you just hand out free healing it takes one area of resource management out behind the shed and shoots it. I think the game would be lesser for losing it, and some character concepts become entirely pointless.
Each trade in resources should have its own benefits and drawbacks. Using spell slots (or channel energy) is fast, but has hard limits in quantity costs you versatility elsewhere. Using medicine (1.3) is very repeatable, but slow and comes with a chance that you might botch it. Using healing items is fast, but costs you the ability to afford other equipment that might help you stay alive more proactively - except that it's also an exponentially increasing money-waster if you try to use anything other than the lowest level healing items in any circumstance other than a dire emergency, so in practice they're not actually really competing with other items of their own level and you can spend trivial amounts to get all the healing you could possibly want as long as you're willing to spend time on it. The opportunity cost is broken.
I'm kind of hoping there isn't a stipulated alignment restriction to the archetype prerequisites turns out to be a hint that the final version of the paladin will be loosened and restructured so that it can be the chassis for a divine champion of any deity. Were that the case, then it could reasonably expected that anybody thinking of multiclassing paladin could find a deity whose ethos they would want to emulate, and problem solved.
That being said, though, if they decide to leave the paladin restrictions in place, then they should probably just include the alignment as part of the prerequisites for the archetype to make it crystal clear.
I dunno, it feels like in this edition it's wholly possible to play a bard who never puts down their instrument to pick up a weapon, so I can see people who want to do this choosing to play whichever instrument conjures the most amusing mental image- sousaphone, marching glockenspeil, tenor drum kit, etc.
