Malthraz's page

I was thinking about this myself, and ran a few examples. I found the current system actually played out a bit better.

I found that adding 3-4 numbers together twice and comparing them, was easier than adding and subtracting 7-8 numbers and comparing them to one number.

Additionally, some things really seemed like that only should be added to one side (defence of offence) rather than subtracted from the other side.

We should definitely be thinking about these types of things, and it is a good suggestion, but certainly from my experience with the current complexity, modifying defence and offence I found easier.

In playing Dungeons & Dragons with my friends (before Pathfinder), we discovered that a cluster of generous people in a party support each other so well that they outperform the greedy people. The rules favor teamwork. In our later games, the savvy new players adopted the style of the teamwork players because they saw that that style worked.

Therefore, when I became a GM, I had a bunch of generous, team-oriented players whose party performed two levels above their actual level. I took to increasing the difficult of the encounters in the adventure path in order to challenge them. And thus, they learned another lesson: extra power did not make the encounters any easier, because the more power they had, the more I raised the difficulty. My players decided that the only extra power they wanted was the fun stuff--the interesting feats and flavorful magic items. As for the rest of the treasure, their characters gave it away to charity. This was great for me as a GM, because their character's generosity and kindness let me stage plenty of friendly interactions with NPCs and give them good information to support their quests.

The end result is that I had the players that most GMs wish for....

Run a game so that it is fun for people? What trickery is this?

I agree. The lack of reach from reach weapons while mounted is a huge disadvantage.

I was looking at a Paladin build with a mount, and the lack of reach meant that it is such a poor choice.

I think balance is important in so far as unbalanced game system can be very hard to run for the GM, and not fun for people playing characters that get eclipsed by the super characters.

On the flip side, games that sacrificed fun options for balance, are also making a substantial trade off.

My experience is that PFe1 with all of the additional material was so unbalanced that it caused problems. Whereas PFe2 has stripped out so many options as to become dull and boring for players. It does seem really good for GMs though.

I think more interesting options can be put back into PFe2 without compromising balance. However, this is not a trivial task.

Maximising fun is obviously the most important thing for a system. Game balance is part of this equation, and for some people it has a higher priority than others. Good game design is about balancing mechanical game balance against the other factors that make the game fun.

This game fixes the "powergamers destroy modules in pathfinder society" problem and the "designing APs is difficult when characters values can be vastly unpredictable"problem

The game is designed around Paizo's needs, not ours.

Sounds very similar to my needs as a GM.

As an experienced GM with great game knowledge PFe1 is very hard to run. There are plenty of ways too improve it, n but it is a huge overhead to enjoying.

PFe2 has made a lot of changes to address this. However, I think it had also sacrificed a lot of player fun. I think a lot of the negative reviews are coming from the players rather than the GMs. It is great to have a game that is easy to run, but it is hard to run a game without players.

So I think there is a decent amount of work to be done to put back characters customisation and abilities and systems that feel enjoyable.

I certainly have some misgiving about the PFe2 rules. But the main reason I have stopped reading and positing on the forums because it is an ocean of immature nerd rage.

I will likely be back once the seas have calmed.

If you can spend 6 seconds stabbing an unconscious person and they are not dead at the end of that, something is wrong.

The advantage of being able to hit only 40-60% of the time is that it means that defensive and offensive tactics become viable.

If you hit 95% of the time on your first strike, then actions like raise shield drop this to 85%. That only mitigates 11% of the damage for the first. Totally not worth it.

But if you have a only 50% chance to hit, then it will drop that to 40%.
It now mitigates 25%. This is much more worth it.

Similarly, you really want to be getting into position to flank to boost it up again. Or getting that bless or bard song.

A lot of these options are useless if you have a 95% chance to hit with your first attack. It also means that crits become very common. I think crits are more exciting if they only happen 5-15% of the time.

Randomness also makes the game more exciting. With unexpected rolls, a straightforward encounter can turn into edge of your seat action.

Fortunately the GM can adjust these stats incredibly easily to suit the desired play style of their game.

I actually think missing is a good thing. But that is certainly personal preference.

General
Perhaps the most important is that character power level has been reduced. Not as noticeable at early levels, but substantially at higher levels.

Most things (saves, AC, skills, attack bonus) get a +1 bonus every level.

These things have an associated proficiency which gives you a small bonus to the roll and is relevant for unlocking some feats and other perks.
Untrained: -2
Trained: 0
Expert: +1
Master: +2
Legendary: +3

A lot of master and legendary proficiency is lock to particular classes.

You have fewer bonuses you can stack, so the difference in competency between a character that has super specialised in a particular thing compared to someone that is essentially untrained in that thing has been greatly reduced.

Someone talk about 4 degrees of success.

Spells

The spell lists have been divided into four: cleric, wizard, druid, bard.

Sorcerers pick a blood line which is tired to one of the four spell lists. They are then that type of caster.

Sorcerers and bards now get spells at the same level as the prepared casters.

Spell DCs for your various spells now are all identical. Still based off your main caster state, but now it includes your level and your proficiency.

Paladins and Rangers do not have spells in the traditional sense.

Paladins use spell points to cast "spells". The other casters also get spell points.

Generally when you are casting a spell from a magic item it requires an additional resource cost called "resonance". Few people like it as it is currently implemented.

Actions
Rather than move, standard, swift, free, immediate actions, you get 3 actions a round and 1 reaction.

You can make 3 attacks at level 1, but it takes all your actions and you get -5 on the 2nd attack and -10 on the 3rd.

There are some class feats/abilities and weapons that can reduce this penalty.

Haste grants 1 extra action that you can only use for some specific actions.

Either familiars are rubbish for Sorcerers or this is typo:

Familiar and Master Abilities (page 287)

• You can prepare one additional cantrip. You must be able to
prepare cantrips to select this master ability.

• You can prepare one additional spell at least 3 levels lower
than your highest-level spell; you must be able to prepare
level 4 spells to select this master ability.

----

COUNTERACTING CONDITIONS (page 319)

If your ability’s counteract level is the same as the
effect’s counteract level or lower, you must succeed at a
check using the relevant skill or ability against the DC of
the target effect. You take a cumulative –5 penalty to this
check for every level by which your ability’s counteract
level is lower than the target’s. If your ability is 4 or more
counteract levels lower than that of the effect you are
trying to counteract, your attempt automatically fails.

--

How can you take a -4 or -5 if you automatically fail?!

----

TELEKINETIC PROJECTILE (page 263)

Heightened (3rd) The damage increases to 1d8 + your
spellcasting ability modifier.

--

Should be 1d10 (I think).

I think it is dangerous. I also think it is quite a good thing.

Why can't my half-orc access Orc Weapons at level one? Why does he have to wait FOUR LEVELS to use a weapon he should have grown up knowing about?

It makes 100% no sense.

It's because level 1 characters are no very good at things. Orc weapons are hard.

You think being a half orc teaches sorcerers how to use falchions from level 1? 100% don't agree.

Feat tax? Half elves are amazing. +5 feet and LLV for 1 feat! Then dip into Elf for Nimble and pick up Fleet with a general feat. 40 ft movement.

So good.

Grab Natural Ambition from your human side.

I actually really like this ability. I think it is good game design. I actually think it makes reach weapons far more appealing for a Paladin.

Ogres were specifically designed not to have riders. They are a big lump of HP that can hit stuff.

The redcap actually does have quite a bit going on in it's start block, maybe not in terms of attack effects, but certainly other abilities.

It seems highly likely that other creatures will have attack riders. If for some bizarre reason they do not, then just put your own in.

But it does make a big difference if you are wizard with none of these abilities. Suddenly it is one feat that gives you 3.

Arrgh! I be a pirate wizard. But I've run out of rum and me spell book be gettin all salty.

People often do things without examination. Clarity costs little, and is quite valuable.

It also helps stop unforseen shenanigans, which do happen in RPGs.

For the first time ever, I agree with Voss.

At least in the blog it says explicitly that you cannot multiclass into you in class. Hopefully things are clear in the book as well.

Sounds like a good trade off to me.

I was pretty sure this is the way PFe2 was going to approach multi-classing.

Given how class feats work, I think it is sensible. Multi-classing is very hard to balance in PFe1. This way of doing it does reduce options a bit, but it is far cleaner and easier to balance.

I am expecting this to be very controversial. I think it is a compromise situations, but I think it really will allow people to build the characters they imagine, reduce the amount of rules overhead, and reduce broken combinations.

This definitely gets a thumbs up from me. Great work!

Those are the playtest previews that I have been reading. I don't see weaker spells.

There has been a bunch of other stuff revealed.

Maintaining buffs
Check out the pre-gen character sheet for the Cleric for Bless.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?5411-Pathfinder-2-Character-Sheet- 2-Kyra-Human-Cleric

It requires concentration now to maintain. I believe this costs 1 action per round. I think a lot of buffs work this way. So it looks like there is no more fire and forget buff stacking. Going by the bard cantrips, buffs also seems to affect fewer people.

Less stacking
Additionally, there are far fewer things that stack. The Twitch banquet presentation on the Druid showed that polymorph type spell set your stats to particular levels, rather than added bonus. There are far fewer categories of buffs as well.

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2v5y7&page=1?Druid-and-other-PaizoCon-banqu et-information

Flatter bonuses
Because of the flatter maths, spells are not going to give big bonuses. We have seen some +1 to hit . But I doubt we will be see anything that gives a +3 that stacks with weapon/armour magic bonuses.

Reduced duration
A lot of buff spells shown so far have duration in the order of minutes. So, it will take an action (or two) in combat to get them going.

Debuff sliding scale
Because of the new debuff system, a lot of save or suck spells and effects appear to less sever on a fail, and only a major debuff on a critical fail. Whereas in PFe1, you could offload high DC, area of effect debuffs that essentially ended encounters starting around level 7. These got worse with Persistent Spell metamagic.

No automatic damage scaling
Many of the damage spells do not scale with level. They need to be prepared in higher spell slots for more damage. This is a clear reduction in power.

Burning Hands is previewed in the Wizard pre-gen character sheet.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?5427-Pathfinder-2-Character-Sheet- 6-Ezren-Human-Wizard

It does 2d6 fire damage. This is better than PFe1 at level 1, but then it is behind from level 3. Of course, it was quite possible to be doing 3d4+6 at level 1 with a particular character build, 5d4 with another.

Save scaling
Character and monster's saves are generally going to scale at a similar rate to spell DCs. Therefore monsters are going to be able to make saves more often. Critical fails are going to be rare against challenging monsters.

As someone that does a lot of home brew adaptions to PFe1 stuff I will give my take on the official play test feedback process.

Unfortunately, I do not have time to run the whole play test scenario. What I am going to do it adapt the level 7-8ish scenario. It is going to be mechanically identical to the play test scenario, but it will be a totally different story (so far as is possible with identical mechanics).

So, it will be my story, in my game world, my fluff and flavour, only with identical encounters, skill tests, traps etc.

That way I can run (kind of) what I want to, but still give useful and relevant feedback to Paizo.

I will also be giving a fair amount of general feedback. I hope it will be insightful enough to warrant Paizo's attention.

The Pathfinder 1st Edition spells are time-tested for power and were found to be totally unbalanced.

I fixed that for you.

I doubt Paizo will make the spells weaker.

What play test previews have you been reading? They are absolutely making spells weaker. And more power to Paizo for doing so.

Strong spell progression.
Single action buff cantrips.
Potent reactions.
Lots of skills.
Great muse class features.

Looks like Paizo has been seduced by the Bard.

Great work.

ENHenry wrote:

Anyone else besides me blowing a gasket while trying to figure out what classes to play for the playtest? :) I know that Doomsday Dawn will have at least two chances for players to make PCs to play, but I can't narrow it down from twelve choices!!!

Mark, why couldn't you ladies and gents have intentionally made at least one or two classes suck, to make my life easier??? ;-)

If you are playing all of Doomsday Dawn and you never repeat classes except when it's the same character, you will get to play 5/12 classes. Still doesn't help you though, I think. Sorry, which do you recommend we make suck?

Make the paladin suck. Oh the tears...

This fixes one of my major problems with Pathfinder 1, which was codex creep and rule exhaustion.

As someone that GMs far more than I play, I think this change is absolutely fantastic.

Also, anything that resembles teleport is going to be rare.

I am definitely someone that leans towards spell casters. My favourite classes are sorcerer, paladin, druid, cleric, bard, oracle, rogue. In that order.

I absolutely welcome the caster nurf. It is entirely required at high levels.

A remotely balanced (even a playable) end game.

So far things are look very promising.

I think if people do get their books before August 2nd, the playtest PDF should release as soon as the first people start posting their first impressions. Otherwise this will lead very early on to a skewed perception of the playtest and many, many angry customers. Which will make for a bad start to the playtest, IMHO.

I just got my book.

Paizo now has to release the playtest pdf.

Do it!

This is my level 14 Paladin buff list:

Already Active:
Eagle Soul
Magic Weapon, Greater
Delay Poison

Priority:
Saddle Surge
Holy Weapon
Angelic Aspect, Greater

Scrolls:
Stunning Barrier, Greater
Ironskin
Shield of Fortification, Greater
(Divine Favour)
Blade Tutor’s Spirit
(Righteous Vigour)
Vest of the Champion
Weapon of Awe
Burst of Glory

(DF and RV were subbed out for some of the situation spells)

Scrolls (situational):
Death Ward
Resist Elements, Communal
Deadly Juggernaut
Crusader's Edge
Iron Beard
Righteous Blood

I did not ever go the full cycle, because it was ludicrous, but I certainly was prepared to do so.

It has been a few months, I could not remember exactly what one or two of them did.

I think it would be good if buffs were toned down a bit.

Allowing Sorcerers to automatically heighten all their spells creates some problems. Let’s take a spell load out for a Sorcerer of level 7.

You get: 4, 4, 4, 3

You might take:

Level 1 : Vanish, Summon Monster I, Magic Missile, Mage Armour
Level 2 : Glitter Dust, Create Pit, Scare, Darkness
Level 3 : Dispel Magic, Fire Ball, Haste, Protection from Energy
Level 4 : Dimension Door, Confusion, Overland Flight

Now assuming you get automatic heightening, what does this turn in to (definitely some guess work on what spells are lumped together):

Level 1 : Vanish, Summon Monster I, Magic Missile, Mage Armour

Level 2 : Invisibility, Summon Monster II, Magic Missile II, Glitter Dust, Create Pit, Pit, Scare, Darkness

Level 3 : Invisibility Sphere, Summon Monster III, Magic Missile III, Mage Armour II, Spiked Pit, Deeper Darkness, Dispel Magic, Fire Ball, Haste, Protection from Energy

Level 4 : Improve Invisibility, Summon Monster IV, Acid Pit, Fear, Dispel Magic 4th, Fire Ball 4th, Protection from Energy Communal, Dimension Door, Confusion, Overland Flight.

It is only level 7, and it is seriously out of hand.

I will do a down casting version later. It looks better, but I still prefer spontaneous heighten for its adaption and planning element.

Malthraz wrote:

Is there a DC boosting implement? Or is it that most classes are not going to get access legendary saves, and casters are going to max their primary stat, whereas people cannot max all of their saves?

We just don't know!

We actually do know this. Mark Seifter got into it in a thread, explaining that you can max out your stat and Proficiency with Save DCs pretty readily, but that nobody can actually do that with more than one Save. The Potency thing is thus added to keep most people from needing 15+ to Save vs. most on-level spells.

Great. I edited my post as you were replying, speculating exactly this. Greta stuff.

Edit:

Bloody hell, now you are editing to catch up with my editing, while I was posting this, which I am now editing.

This being the case, there are no Save DC enhancing items, and he said as much. However, AC is not like Saves, since heavy armor can compensate for low Dex there, so there are items giving an attack bonus with spells.

Yeah, I have been thinking about this. I figured there could be.

They really have thought through a lot of the scaling issue very thoroughly. It is very impressive for the mathematically inclined person.

Looks great.

Maybe a slight rewording for a few parts of the pit trap description, removing a "trap door" and describing it as "camouflage":

Description Camouflage trapdoor covers a 10-foot-square pit that is 20 feet deep.

Disable Thievery DC 12 to remove the camouflage, making the trap no longer hidden (Perception DC 0 to notice)

Trigger A creature walks onto the square with the pit.

Reset The trap still causes falling damage if anyone falls in, but the camouflage must be reset manually for the trap to become hidden again. This takes 5 minutes. {or some other amount of time}

This is a nice thread. It would be terrible if someone were to detail it by talking about breathing.

I have a suggestion about casting. Rename verbal "wow", somatic to "pow" and material to "kow".

That way when your DM and you what you are doing you can be: WOW POW KOW magic missile!

I like it. Not too much to say really.

Resonance is now becoming a trifle limiting even on items that used to be automatic, like a vorpal weapon. Here is where you lost me: a rare circumstance comes up (only 5% of all rolls are nat 20s) and you have to spend resonance or you get nothing? What goes from being a dramatic and cool moment becomes sad and frustrating if the character is out of resonance or the target makes its Fort save. I get that it is cheaper to implement and thus make it appear more often. But if it works so rarely, why bother?

I think running out of resonance happens if you use consumables and magic items like they are going out of fashion. But judicious use means you will not run out unless your GM wants you to.

I think the design principal behind a lot of PFe2 is presenting players with interesting choices in combat and out of combat. If you can always just spam a good spell, then you will just do that most of the time. But if you can cast a good spell only a few times, use a item only a few times, and use spell point spenders only a few times, then you have to start making interesting choices. Is this encounter easy, or am I going to have to break out some big abilities/consumables? Is using an item and 1 resonance to blast these guys going to be more effective than using at will abilities and then spending 1 resonance to heal up the additional damage from not blasting? A lot of people enjoy the tactical decision making.

However, a lot of people also seem to want to blast, blast, blast, potion, potion, potion all day long. This is not wrong, it is just at odds with the design of the system.

So, arcade blasting or tactical optimisation? Paizo has gone with the latter to underpin their game design. I cannot see a way to accommodate both styles of game. I am in the tactical camp, which is why I am loving a lot of these new features, but I can see the other style of player being very unhappy.

Thanks for the blog Stephen, I really appreciate all of the hard work you guys are putting in to this new system.

Resonance

I understand the design principals behind resonance, and I think it will really add to the game. There needs to be more than just gold expenditure to balance magic item use and slots for magic items worn. However, I think the added overhead of tracking resonance as well as uses per day (and charges for wands) is legitimate cause for concern.

We definitely want to have strong items, which would be too good if you could freely cast until you run out of resonance. Limiting it in some way is important. However, I think we should move away from uses per day currently previewed and emphasising the unpredictable nature of magic items.

Proposed Change

Here is my proposal: Every time someone Activates a magic item they spend 1 resonance and make a flat d20 roll. If they pass the DC the item is still active (maybe “resonating” as the word). So long as the magic item is resonating, they can continue to activate it by spending resonance and making the roll. If they fail the roll, the item is silent and cannot be used for the rest of the day.

The DC can be set based on how many uses per day you think is reasonable, but it is still very up to chance. For example rather than 3 times per day, you set a DC of 8. So, you are guaranteed 1 activation, with a 65% of a second activation. Providing you get the 2nd activation you still have a 65% chance of a 3rd activation. Because of how statistics work, DC of 8 will be 42% chance of a 3rd activation, 27% chance of 4th activation, 18% chance of 5th activation. Sounds about right for a limit of 3/day.

The equivalent of 2 per day would probably DC 11. So you get guaranteed 1 activation, then a 50% chance of a 2nd activation, 25% chance of 3rd, 13% chance of a 4th.

The equivalent of 5 per day might be DC4. So you get guaranteed 1 activation, then a 85% chance of a 2nd activation, 72% chance of 3rd, 61% chance of a 4th and a 61% chance of a 5th. You still have a 23% of a 10th.

Let’s say you want activation to only be limited by resonance, then you set the DC to 1. If you only want strictly 1 use per day, you set the DC to 25.

Key Advantage

This proposed system only requires tracking 1 resonance per activation. Then there is simply a flat d20 roll and the DC. It is definitely simple and streamlined.

Drawback

RNG can be a harsh mistress. An item with a low DC can still go silent after the first use. Also, a device with a high DC can still be used quite a few times with a string of good rolls. I think losing access to a low DC magic items could piss a player off. Some justification is that the winds of magic a fickle.

Even with this downside, I think it is far more streamlined than the uses per day limitation.

Change to wands

I would suggest using this for wands and abandon charges. I think if people desperately crave a 10 charge wand, then there should be a book of scrolls. You can have ten scrolls in the book. They can all be the same scroll, or you can mix them around based on what you think you need for the day.

Consumables

One use items should keep the current mechanics. Resonance needs to be there as a balance leave in addition to gold expenditure.

Staves

I think staves should keep the current mechanics. I like them.

General Feats

Can we get a +3 (or 2 or 4) resonance general feat? If you find that you are running low on a regular basis, this might be a good feat to have access to. Maybe gnome can also get this as a racial feat.

Magic Weapons

I really like how magic weapons work. A lot of this has been previewed already. I want to repeat that separating potency runes from property runes was a masterful move.

I think the +hit from weapon quality could possible go away, since it does not stack with +hit from potency (right?) it is almost never going to come up.

Upgrading Weapon Quality

I think it would be also good to be able to reforge your own weapon to improve its quality. I have changed the handle three times, and the blade twice, but it is still my grandfather’s axe. People do get emotional about their weapons, and this is great RP. The rules need to support this.

Etching -> Inscribing

I was surprised some people seemed up in arms about the word “etched”. Maybe “inscribed” would be a better word? I hope it requires a bit of downtime to shift a rune from one weapon to another. I find hot-swapping runes a bit unsatisfying.

Can a potency rune found on a sword be transferred onto armour? I think this could be good.

Set DCs

Set DC on vorpal was an interesting reveal. Are there level 18, 19 and 20 vorpal runes with DC 36, 37 and 38 respectively?

I would like to see variation come mostly through archetypes. I do not think the core classes will be enough to cover everything. But I think you could include maybe another 10, and then branch out with general and class specific archetypes and a good number of feats.

For example, I do not think you can easily do an Arcanist or Summoner through just an archetype. I think a new type of casting probably requires a new class. But something like a ninja or slayer probably could just be archetypes.

Malthraz wrote:

One suggestion I think could work would be rolling a die, and having the wand be exhausted on a particular roll. I think being exhausted for the day, is better than being totally exhausted.

OPTION 3
When using a wand, you spend 1 resonance and roll 1d4. On a 1, the wand is exhausted for the day.

So, there is a 25% chance that you only get 1 use of the wand that day. But there is also a 5% chance that you can use it 10 times that day. There is a 40% chance you can use it at least 3 times a day, and a 30% chance you can use it at least 4 times a day. These seems like fairly good numbers, if we are talking about spells 1 or 2 levels below your maximum. This would have to be balanced with WBL.

I think you could push your wand when it is exhausted, but if you roll a 1 on the d4 the spell works, but then the wand is destroyed.

D3 rather than D4
Ok, so some people hate d4s with a fiery passion. Using a d6 and counting 1 and 2 as a fail obviously reduces wand effectiveness, but this could be balanced with the cost of the wand. 33% chance of only 1 use; 44% chance of at least 2 uses; 30% chance of at least 3 uses; 20% chance of at least 4 uses; 5% of at least 7 uses.
I think this could be a goer as well.

I think that's an idea I like a lot more, though with some of the stuff we've seen so far, I'd suggest a DC 5 flat check instead of the 1d4 roll.

Wand with flat DC5 checks

The staff reveal
In other news staves having +bonus to particular spells or spell types means that they will likely be are quite powerful for certain builds. What this also means is that casters will probably have to choose between having a wand in hand or having a staff in hand. This definitely places another restriction on wand usage in combat in addition to resonance, gold and charges. This is a good thing.

Do we still need charges
I am not outraged that wands have charges (probably 10), but I think PFe2 might be a good opportunity to remove that as a bookkeeping overhead.

The argument for resonance
Also, I am definitely in favour of resonance. Feedback from play testing appears that people have enough (more than enough?) if they are not abusing low level wands and scrolls. This is good. Reducing the reliance on magic item slots to balance equipped items is also good. Balancing between Christmas trees and lots of consumable use is great.

Drawback of charges
Tracking charge use and limited use per day (albeit rare) in addition to resonance could be a bit of a downer.

Argument for attrition based paradigm
Clearly I am in the attrition encounter design camp. Not because it is the only way to balance encounters, but because it is very easy to build encounters without attrition under an attrition paradigm (i.e. give players chances to rest each encounter, therefore being at full resources for every fight, attrition becomes a non-factor), whereas it is not possible to build attrition based balance if the system allows for cheep regaining of resources.

In PFe1 you can get 50 charges of 1d8+1 healing for 750g, and 50 charges of 1d4 stat restoration for 750g (paladin lesser restoration is a level 1 spell). This means that mid level characters are immune to HP and stat attrition. It removes the GM option of attrition based encounter design. Reducing options is bad.

In essence, an attrition based system is the most flexible because it can be used or removed at the GM's discretion, whereas a system without attrition mechanics is far more limited.

Nathanael Love wrote:

The obvious answer is "no".

Pf2 will continue the Pf1 policy of great sword or gtfo.

The greatsword isn't even the best martial weapon in PF1...

That would be the falchion.

Scimitar and shield. Or two kukri.

At low levels reach weapons are amazing.

Lance for very specific mounted builds.

And then there is the long bow.

I will definitely echo the need for clarity on describing how magic items work. I read the Cloak of Elvin Kind about 5 times, and I am still not sure I fully understand it.

However, I definitely do not think resonance is the disaster that a lot of people are making it out to be. I think using a second resource, in addition to gold, is essential to balance magic items. I think there is definitely some room for improvement and fine (maybe not so fine) tuning. I really do not foresee tracking it is going to be a problem. It is like saying HP damage is a problem because you have to track it.

I think that the design for staves is really good. I think this could have been explained a bit more clearly though. I also really like trinkets, and I think that they have to be attached to a weapon or armour seems like a nice feature. Can you have more than one attached at any one time?

In terms of describing items better how about this?

CLOAK OF ELVENKIND ITEM 10+
Illusion, Invested, Magical
Method of Use worn, cloak; Bulk L

This cloak is deep green with a voluminous hood, and is embroidered with gold trim and symbols of significance to the elves.

Spell ([[A]] Somatic): The cloak allows you to cast the ghost sound cantrip as an innate arcane spell. {that is just a guess regarding somatic}

Use ([[A]] Interact Action): When you draw the hood up over your head, the cloak transforms to match the environment around you and muffles your sounds, giving you an item bonus to Stealth checks. You can raise or lower your hood as an interact action.

Activate ([[A]] Focus Activation, [[A]] Operate Activation, [[RP]] Resonance): When you activate the cloak, you pull the hood up and are affected by invisibility for 1 minute or until you pull the hood back down, whichever comes first.

Type standard; Level 10; Price 1,000 gp
The cloak grants a +3 bonus to Stealth.

Type greater; Level 18; Price 24,000 gp
The cloak grants a +5 bonus to Stealth, and invisibility is heightened to 4th level.

Synergy: If you're also wearing greater Boots of Elvenkind, the Greater Cloak of Elvenkind allows you to Sneak in forest environments even when creatures are currently observing you.

This is some good game design. There were a lot of hints previously that this is the direction things where going. It is good to see a nice preview.

Good to hear that archetypes that do swap out class features are in the works, albeit someway down the pipe. I think an armour specialist fighter would make some people happy.

I really like that there is some dip restrictions, but they are not too punishing.

I think outsourcing spell review may be a good idea. Might also stop some unanticipated consequences from powerful combinations. Sometimes I think some players understand PFe1 better than some of the AP authors.

What's this hard copy book you guys keep talking about?

I think there will be some recovery mechanics for exploration mode. I don't think there will be spell slot recovery. HP recovery and affliction removal will likely get a look in. I think limited spell point recovery may be possible, but I am leaning towards not being included.

So I got in a little discussion about what the attack penalties on a Monk would look like, because we got two different interpretations of what Agile Weapons exactly do.

Would the attacks be at 0/-4/-8 (reducing each penalty from -5 to -4), or would they be at 0/-4/-9 (-1 to the normal penalty for that attack)?

I think agile is 0/-4/-8/-10 (with that rare 4th attack). I vaguely recall Mark saying something to this effect in a thread somewhere. It was about 2-3ish weeks ago, but that's all I remember. Hm, I think it was in reference to two weapon fighting and double slice.

The main factor is how many attacks have you made, and then the weapon type you are using. So, the 1st attack you make has no penalty. The 2nd attack you make normally has -5, but if you use an agile weapon it is -4. It does not matter what weapon you used to make the 1st attack.

So, you could use a standard weapon to do the 1st and 2nd attack at 0/-5 then the 3rd attach with the agile weapon would be -8. The 4th attack is -10, because it maxes out at -10.

I have a notions of how I want Monks to be.

I expect that someone out there has different one. As a matter of fact, I expect there to be many of them.

Limiting a whole class to a single playstyle is terrible game design, turning a whole fantasy into a series of levers to be pushed and pulled. We would only get to choose limited inputs, and optimization is the only variant.

Permitting many different playstyles based upon a fantasy would be more akin to giving a blank canvas with a specific set of colors – within a certain range, create what you want. We would get to choose how to realize our fantasy, and what for.

I actually agree with this. However, I think what we are seeing in the play test is the evasion style of Monk. I think there should be other styles, and I think there will be other styles, but for now it has been pushed to fill this combat niche.

So I don't think it is bad game design, it's just limited game design. I think it is unreasonable to expect Paizo to be able to replicate 10 years worth of character development in a single play test release.

So a class that is supposed to be a dedicated frontliner can't actually stick around on the frontline. A'ight.

Who said monks are dedicated front liners?

Everything in the design points to them not doing this. Sure they can, but they are at higher risk than a Paladins or Fighters.

They can get +4 AC against ranged. This means that they should often be at range.

They even pick up a free action at high levels for movement.

I am not a big watcher of martial arts films, but of the few I have watched they are often jumping around and breaking distance. Not standing there and taking it.

Although there are characters that so a lot of blocking, these characters are generally a much higher level than their opponent, therefore a much higher AC.

I think you will find monks are supposed to have low AC because they are supposed to run away with their last action. Remember that they are faster and can double attack as 1 action.

They can dictate range to avoid blows, not high AC. Flying kick in to re-engage if you are feeling ballsy.

Wah-pah-pah!

Really nice design concept.