Liir's page

So I decided to make a Trident and Shield Fighter, and ran into many issues.

Are thrown weapons melee or ranged (or both)?

If they are melee weapons and a feat requires a melee weapon and calls for a “Strike”, can that Strike be a ranged Strike? (see Furious Focus, Combat Grab)

If they are ranged weapons and a feat requires a ranged weapon and calls for a “Strike”, can that Strike be a melee Strike? (see Incredible Aim)

If they are ranged weapons and a feat requires a “reload 0” weapon, what is their reload? (see Double Shot)

There needs to be a pass done on the rulebook to clarify thrown weapon usage.

I’ve been creating characters for PF2, in anticipation of participating in the Play Test when our current campaign is concluded. The first character I made was a Fighter, for my ability scores I wanted a high Strength, Dexterity for Armor Class / Reflex, and Constitution for Hit Points / Fortitude, and Wisdom for Will. I wanted him to be a crafter which is Intelligence based, so I decided to sacrifice my Wisdom.
STR 18 DEX 14 CON 14 INT 12 WIS 10 CHA 10

My second character was a Rogue. I needed Dexterity for Armor Class / Reflex / Hit / Damage, still needed Constitution for Hit Points / Fortitude and Wisdom for Will. I wanted him to demoralize opponents (and knowing that a +1 means a lot in this system) decided I wanted a 16 Charisma.
STR 10 DEX 18 CON 14 INT 10 WIS 10 CHA 16

If I had wanted a 16 Intelligence on my fighter, in order to be a really “good” crafter (or multi-class Wizard) -- it would have required a large sacrifice in my other important ability scores. Rogues, because they are so Dexterity-based, have “extra room” to allocate ability scores, ditto for “caster” Clerics. As I advanced my Rogue and Fighter to higher level, I noted that the Rogue could cleanly assign his ability boosts to the abilities he cared about (DEX,CON,CHA,WIS); while the Fighter had to sacrifice one of his desired abilities at each boost.

Proposal:
> Change Will Saves to be based on the better of Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma.
> Remove extra Skills from Intelligence (I’m super smart, thus I’m trained in Athletics?!?)
> Remove the Resonance modifier from Charisma (everyone gets 3 + Level?)

In the Play Test book Will Saves are described as “to resist effects that target the mind and personality”; that doesn’t scream Wisdom to me, in fact on the same page -- Charisma is defined as “This score measures your character’s strength of personality,”….

I just wanted to share something I found interesting. I’m not advocating this as a change that should be implemented, though I will point out some advantages of using this approach. Either way, to me it’s just.. neat.

Basically it is an alternative method of determining a critical success or critical failure.
Mathematically it creates the same chance to critical as the current 10 over or 10 under method (exceptions noted below).

Here are the rules:
If your result is a success and you rolled a 10 or LOWER on the d20 die, the result is a critical success.
If your result is a failure and you rolled a 10 or HIGHER on the d20 die, the result is a critical failure.

Example 1:
Attack +10 versus Armor Class 16
Using the +10 method if you rolled a 16, 17, 18, 19, or 20 (25%) you would critically succeed.
Using the 10 or LOWER method you would critically succeed on a 10, 9, 8, 7, or 6 (25%).

Example 2:
Attack +7 versus Armor Class 23
Using the -10 method if you rolled a 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, or 1 (30%) you would critically fail.
Using the 10 or HIGHER method you would critically fail on a 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 or 15 (30%).

Exceptions: The maximum critical failure or critical success rate is 50% and it doesn’t account for having an automatic (critical) success on a 20 or an automatic (critical) failure on a 1.

Advantages: Less math, you don’t need to add or subtract to find the critical targets -- you only need to look down at the d20. Additionally, you can modify the critical target outside the +/- 10 range without complicating the math. For example: You could have a sword critically succeed on a 9 or lower (reducing its critical chance by 5%). It is much easier to look at a die and see it is 9 or less, versus comparing the result to the target AC+11 (instead of +10).

Can we have Archetypes back?

I like choices. I like reading through splat book after splat book and trying to match a specific archetype’s (or two!) ability with a feat chain to fit a character’s theme or just come up with something unique and interesting. I like considering if I should multi-class, what level I should multiclass and how that fits my character. Many players are not like me.

I don’t like scrounging through 1,000 combat feats to find the 20 that are relevant to me. I don’t like feats that nobody should take because they are so specific or situational that they are “trap” options. I don’t like reading through one hundred 1st level spells to find the ones with meat on them.

Over 60% of the druid class feats are order specific, over 33% of the Barbarian class feats are totem specific. Can you imagine 3 years from now when you’re reading the “Complete Guide to Druids” handbook (or webpage), and you’re skipping 30 of the 35 first level class feats because they aren’t relevant?

We need archetypes back. The barbarian class should have a very limited set of “generic” class feats that any barbarian can choose. Not a lot of choices, making a “standard” barbarian easy for a new player to create. The specific totems should be archetypes. You can continue to add new ones in book after book, but a barbarian with the animal totem archetype would only need to consider the barbarian class feats, and the animal totem class feats. They don’t need to even skip by the dragon totem class feats, because they are found under the dragon totem archetype.

In my opinion spells (and what were previously known as combat feats) need to work the same way. New players (and I) don’t want to comb through 30 1st level spells, which would surely become 100 or more 1st level spells in 5 years. You can capture the essence of the wizard or cleric in 10 or fewer spells per level. Add any additional spells to Archetypes, specific Schools or specific Domains. A cleric of Iomedae would only review 10 1st level cleric spells, and the 3-6 additional spells (from domains).

Using the design set forth so far, these Archetypes don’t even need to be limited to specific classes. A generic Archer archetype that in 1st edition was limited to Fighters, in 2nd edition it could easily be cross-class. Instead of the choosing the Storm Order archetype, perhaps an Archer archetype would be a better fit for a elven druid character concept.

I think we need a new basic action to carefully watch an area and/or enemy.

Guard (Basic Action – 1 action)
You are actively scanning for threats and prepared to take advantage of strategic openings. You can use the Attack of Opportunity reaction until the start of your next turn. Using the Guard action is apparent to all observers. You cannot Guard when you are flat-footed. Using this action ends your turn.

What does this give us?
• Adds the capability to use the threat of an opportunity attack as a tactical decision (with a cost) to all characters.
• Allows quicker decision making for players during combat -- because you know who is guarding and can perform an opportunity attack.

Mechanically, Guard is the same as readying an action to strike, except in exchange for being limited to a specific trigger: “A creature within my reach uses a manipulate action or a move action, makes a ranged attack, or leaves a square during a move action it’s using”, it costs 1 action instead of 2 actions.

You could adjust the Fighter class feature for compatibility, replacing Attack of Opportunity with something like Combat Awareness. Combat Awareness: You can use the Guard action as a free action at the end of your turn. Attack of Opportunity would gain the prerequisite “You are guarding” and be added to the list of Specialty Basic Reactions (page 309).

You could add a Guard (action) trait and apply it to defensive actions. Guard trait: When you use an action with the Guard trait you can use the Guard action as a free action at the end of your turn. Some actions that could qualify for the Guard trait: Raise a Shield, Dueling Parry, Twin Parry, and Parry (from the weapon trait).

I think backgrounds should be tied more closely to ancestry, expanded and made more fun and impactful.

Some backgrounds don't seem to grant the abilities you would learn if you spent your youth doing them. For instance, the Warrior background doesn't provide training in weapons or armor. Generally the ancestry feats are nice to have interesting tidbits, but don't really move the needle taken individually.

Expanded background examples:

Halfling Sneak
You spent your child hood in the shadows and on the roof tops of your village.
You gain the Distracting Shadows and Sure Footed ancestry feats.
Chose one of the following skills: Stealth, Thievery, or Acrobatics
You are trained in the chosen skill and it is a signature skill for you.
Choose two ability boosts. One must be to Dexterity or Intelligence, and one is a free ability boost.

Soldier
As a warrior of your tribe or militia, you waded into battle in your younger days.
You are trained in all simple and martial weapons.
You are trained in light, medium and heavy armor.
This background counts as Fighter Dedication for purposes of qualifying for feats.
Choose two ability boosts. One must be to Strength or Constitution, and one is a free ability boost.

Destined
You have been training for your chosen class all your life.
You gain an additional 1st level class feat.
Choose one additional Ancestry feat.
Choose two ability boosts. One must be to your class's Key Ability Score, and one is a free ability boost.

I would like to see Humans start with an additional Ancestry Feat, and all ancestries granted access to the Ancestry Feat - Adopted, which would grant the ability to take backgrounds restricted to other ancestries.

Fighter dedication doesn’t provide much benefit to Barbarians, Paladins, and Rangers and there has been a lot of discussion about creating Combat Feats and the gating of weapon styles behind the Fighter Dedication feat. A believe a simple fix for this issue is to just bake access to the fighter class feats into the three other martial classes.

You would replace Sudden Charge from Barbarian and Double Slice from Ranger with the following class feat. For the Paladin you would just add it to their class feats available (they currently only have three class feats at level one)

Martial Training (Feat 1) <Ranger, Barbarian, or Paladin>
Gain one fighter feat. For the purposes of meeting its prerequisites, your fighter level is equal to half your level (minimum of 1).
Special You can select this feat more than once. Each time you select it, you can gain a new fighter feat.

This is easier to digest if you open your Playtest PDF to page 89 [the first page of Fighter feats].

Feat Formatting
The current formatting for the feats doesn’t make some very important information readily apparent.
If you glance (not read) a page of feats you should..
… know that Point-Blank Shot is a Stance.
… know what powers are Attacks (even if they are not Attacks themselves, but have you take Attack actions – I’m looking at you Double Slice).
… know if they require that you have not yet taken an Attack action on your turn (Point-Blank Shot, Power Attack, and Sudden Charge).
… know if you can only use the ability _after_ you have taken an Attack action (Combat Grab, Furious Focus)

My point is important traits, ones that change the mechanics of a feat, need to have their own section on the feat, or their own symbol, color, etc… Knowing that the feat is a Fighter feat, or involves movement (Move trait) makes sense from an organizational standpoint, but when blended with mechanic changing keywords, obfuscates key information.

Open and Press
I don’t understand why the Open trait exists on many feats, I believe there will be some bewilderment from a player when you tell them that they can’t:
* Strike to kill the orc in front of them and then Sudden Charge to other orc beating on the Wizard.
* Certain Strike an orc that is near death and then Power Attack his friend standing next to him.

The second example is a double winner, since Certain Strike is a Press (which I didn’t realize until I looked carefully at it while writing this post).

I can understand if the feat has the Open or Press trait for balancing purposes or for thematic purposes, but currently it seems like often these two traits were assigned to put to use the Open/Press mechanic.

After reading a large portion of the Dex to Damage thread, I started thinking about how I would address the issue. Many posters approached the problem by attempted to carve out a unique combat experience when using finesse weapons. I prefer systems to be consistent; and thus would rather have Dexterity directly impact damage as Strength does today. Instead, I set out with the following goals.

1. Make Strength more valuable to Dexterity based characters.
2. Close the Strength versus Dexterity divide.
3. Simplify.

The result ends up changing how armor works, by replacing the Armor Check penalty with a new attribute of armor (and shields) called Burden. Here are the "bullet-point" changes:

• Armor Check penalties of armor and shield are replaced by a new "property" called Burden.

• Burden reduces your Reflex Saves and Dexterity and Strength based Ability Checks (including Skill Checks).

• Movement is reduced by 5 ft per point of Armor Burden (note this excludes Burden from Shields).

• Arcane Spell Failure is 5% + (Burden x 5%)

• Burden of each item worn is reduced by your Strength Modifier, when Armor Burden is reduced in this way, the Armor provided is increased an equal amount
(Note: Burden is not increased by a negative Strength Modifier)

• Armor Burden and Max Dexterity Modifier is adjusted by the Wearer's Size. (Example: Small is -1 Burden and +1 Max Dex, Large is +1 Burden and -1 Max Dex), this offsets the movement penalty for smaller creatures.

• If you are not proficient in the armor or shield you are wearing increase the item’s Burden by 1. Burden from items worn with which you are not proficient apply their Burden as a penalty to attack rolls.

Example Items:
Leather [Armor: +2, Max Dexterity Modifier: +8, Burden: 0]
Studded Leather [Armor: +2, Max Dexterity Modifier: +5, Burden: 1]
Chain Shirt [Armor: +2, Max Dexterity Modifier: +4, Burden: 2]
Scale Mail [Armor: +2, Max Dexterity Modifier: +3, Burden: 3]
Chain Mail [Armor: +3, Max Dexterity Modifier: +2, Burden: 3]
Splint Mail [Armor: +4, Max Dexterity Modifier: +0, Burden: 3]
Full Plate [Armor: +6, Max Dexterity Modifier: +1, Burden: 3]

Using these modifications you need a higher Strength to get the most of your armor. May your burdens be lifted!