MaxAstro's page

Ah if thats the case with Bounding Toss I'd say don't reference flurry at all. Just have the follow on feat reduce the action cost of Bounding Toss to 1.

Actually, my original write-up did just have a "Swift Bounding Toss" that worked exactly that way. Ironically, I threw it out and replaced it with Throwing Prodigy because four attacks in a round (bounding toss -> rebound catch -> flurry) seemed like too much. XD

Also I think giving monks two different "2 attacks for 1 action" abilities that are similar but different fails the complexity test. Especially since a monk can already flurry with (some) thrown weapons if they have Monstastic Weaponry; it just made more sense to roll it all together rather than force the player to track two different abilities and how they function slightly differently.

I love that you went there, Rysky. :)

I think that the first one could be a general feat that makes any object/weapon become a throw weapon.

That's a very strong feat; probably too strong for a General feat, especially. It has precedent - Throw Anything from PF1e - but it seems like it would step on the toes of actual thrown weapons too much.

Shields aren't that unreasonable because typically speaking throwing your shield is itself a disadvantage (unless you are going to dual wield shields I suppose), but I don't think we want to incentivise greatsword-hurling as an optimal tactic.

Totally didn't homebrew some feats specifically for this idea... ~glances at other thread~ :P

Yeah, Fighter out of the box can fight single shield very effectively by combining free hand feats with shield feats, especially multiclassed with Monk. I think the only things you'd need to complete the Captain America feel is a way to throw your shield and a way to flurry with it. ~glances at other thread again~ ;)

But while I don't think gonzo shield hurling is likely to be in the core rules, all other evidence indicates that "single weapon shield bash" is a very solid Fighter build.

I mean, the point of "fail forward" is fundamentally that each roll changes the world state in some way. In the aforementioned "climbing the wall makes a racket, which rouses some guards" we shouldn't jump immediately to combat, but we should force the players to choose between "keep climbing", or "get down and hide" or "get down and get ready for a fight" or "get down and try to bluff the guards that you saw the malefactors and they went that way, etc."

I mean "the guards in this area will be alerted if the PCs make a racket in a nearby area" is a thing that is codified in a lot of APs. But I fundamentally see no issue with "baddies pop in and out of existence" in places where the PCs can't see this happening.

That's the thing, though. While I totally agree with you, some people DO have a problem with "reality reshapes itself arbitrarily based on the PC's rolls", to try to phrase it negatively.

@Malk_Content What Seisho mentions was my intent with Throwing Prodigy - not that you get 4 attacks, but that your 2-attack Flurry can be a Bounding Toss and benefit from the increased range on the second attack. Like I said, my wording is awkward but I'm not sure how to improve it.

@Seisho I'm not sure why you call out Throwing Prodigy here; Bounding Toss doesn't restrict the kind of weapon you use. Yes, it's pretty silly with some weapons, but not more silly than other things monks can do IMO. It works by ~coughcoughmuttersomethingki~, obviously. Just like Cloud Step. :P

I think ultimately this comes down to a preference of narrativist vs simulationist GMing, and people who prefer one or another are never going to agree.

For example, the statement "a mechanic that relies on the GM hiding information from the players is a bad mechanic" is so alien to me and my players that my first reaction to reading it was "the heck?!" and I had to stop and think to figure out where that statement could even be coming from.

But if you are coming from somewhere where that statement makes sense, then I can understand why you hate fail forward. Because F>F operates under the premise that the game world changes in response to the player's roll, and that idea is alien to people who prefer simulationist games.

EDIT: Also, when Jason described F>F as a "new" mechanic, I think what he really means is "codified". Paizo has been including instances of F>F in their adventures for ages, they just haven't referred to it that way or talked about it as an official thing.

For example, in Hell's Rebels -

For an even more direct example, Serpent's Skull

Just some totally unrelated feats for a highly original character concept I have...

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Shield Hurl (Fighter 2); Tags: Fighter
Bash attacks you make with a shield gain the Thrown 20ft property.

Bounding Toss (Monk 1); Tags: Monk; Activity (2 actions)
Choose two creatures you are aware of. Make a Strike against one and then the other with the same thrown weapon. Multiple attack penalties apply normally to these attacks, but for the second attack determine range and cover as though the attack originated from the first creature.

Rebound Catch (Monk 6); Tags: Monk; Free Action
Trigger: In the same round after Striking with a thrown weapon, you Stride at least 10 feet
Effect: If you have a hand free, your thrown weapon returns to your hand. Otherwise it falls at your feet.

Throwing Prodigy (Monk 8); Tags: Monk
Requirements: Monastic Weaponry
You treat all attacks with thrown weapons as though they were monk weapons, gaining all the normal benefits of the Monastic Weaponry feat. If you possess the Bounding Toss feat, you may apply the benefits of that feat's Activity when Striking with a thrown weapon as part of a Flurry of Blows action.

-----

Other than the obvious inspiration, the intent is to give some love to thrown weapons - and especially throwing monks, which got basically no love at all in the playtest.

Bounding Toss assumes that Monks will be proficient with at least one thrown weapon out the gate; otherwise it will need to be a Monk 2 feat. Rebound Catch might be a bit weak, since it's just a weaker version of the returning property rune, but it does save you a rune slot...

Meanwhile, the wording on Throwing Prodigy is a bit awkward. I think it gets the idea across, but I'm not sure if there is a better way to phrase it.

Mark Seifter wrote:

Captain Morgan wrote:

Mountain Stronghold: Allows you to take an action to get 2 more AC until your next turn-- it sounds like by increasing the dex cap upwards.

It both gives you the action and permanently boosts the Dex cap by 1!

So it has a passive Dex cap increase and lets you have a Shield Raise action. Not bad...

Considering I'm planning on building Captain Taldor at some point, I'm very curious to see if Mountain Stronghold will stack with Raise Shield... Defend/defend/attack could be a decent set of actions if you are getting 4AC out of it.

Of course that is reliant on some way to get Str to thrown accuracy, otherwise Captain Taldor is going to need more Dex than Mountain Stance allows. :)

OH! That's why it's "perpetual". Because you can perpetually create those items. That makes sense! The name was confusing me before... Wow, that actually makes that feat really good.

Mountain's Stronghold is an awesome reveal. I love how it not only increases the AC bonus, but also relaxes the max Dex limitation - recognizing that you will probably put an ability increase into Dex at some point.

Secret Wizard wrote:

MaxAstro wrote:

I didn't find the dialog that bad...

Then again, I played through the original NeverWinter Nights, so maybe I'm just desensitized to terrible writing. :P

I mean, me too! But I got spoiled by Obsidian and Bethesda, I guess.

I'll leave this conversation for another time.

Has no one introduced a dialogue mod?

What is and isn't moddable is I think still being discovered.

So far I haven't seen any mods that modify dialog or add new events, so I'm not sure if it's technically infeasible or just no one has tried yet. I've been meaning to look into that myself, because I want to make Happs a potential companion.

On the flip side, we have a full turn-based combat mod. XD

Yeah, I'm starting Age of Ashes as soon as my Hell's Rebels campaign finishes - they are on book 6 right now and should be done pretty soon after 2e comes out at this rate.

Errata Bot, you are my hero.

I personally let the players set a great number of the details themselves when they opt to, even if doing so gives them an advantage, provided they are being at all reasonable. Since one of the main jobs of a GM is to describe the world in a way that creates a mental picture that is shared by all. If we change "imagining the world" from a passive task (i.e. "listen to the GM and try to follow along") to an active one (i.e. "try to think of what sort of thing could exist here which would be helpful") I find it works much smoother.

Like RPGs are fundamentally "asymmetrical improv" with a bunch of systems grafted on, but there's no reason they can't be less asymmetrical. So if my players want to posit the existence of a convenient dark alley, secret tunnel under some ruins, a nearby hamlet, a chandelier rope, a scullery maid, etc. then I'm happy to confirm they are correct.

One of my favorite things about Exalted 3e is that they codified this in the form of players being able to make a "Fact Introduction" roll. Basically they make a knowledge check relevant to the fact they want to introduce, and if they succeed that thing - subject to GM interpretation - becomes canon.

So instead of "I succeeded my knowledge check; what fashion is popular in Nexus right now?" it becomes "I'm going to roll Fact Introduction; my character has heard that long sleeves and floral patterns are all the rage in Nexus lately."

@DM_aka_Dudemeister: 100% all of this. "Each roll should change the game state in some way" is exactly how I see F>F best working.

@John Lynch: Gorbacz is always like that. In my entire time on this site I've seen maybe... two?... non-sarcastic comments? It's just his thing. Everyone kind of accepts it and moves on.

@graystone: I'm definitely confused, based on your comments, about how many days you think a magical effect that lasts "one month" would last. Previously I would have said that "a month" is quite well defined, but ironically you've convinced me it's ambiguous. :P

Sure, and that's a great story and I'm totally fine with all of this (right down to not telling the players)...as long as your players are aware you do things like this.

To be fair, I am lucky that I seem to consistently have awesome players and I have a good enough reputation that my players trust me with things like this. I can understand feeling sketchy about this GM style with a stranger; it really only works because of how well I know my players.

I actually once had my players come to me and basically say "We had this idea where we all have amnesia about the same time frame but we think it's more interesting if we don't even know the truth out of character; can you just write this section of our backstory for us and have us find out mid-campaign?" I feel blessed, because I don't think there are many players who are comfortable enough with their GM to pull a stunt like that. :)

Probably, but I like GM OfAnything's suggestion. :P

Man this has me so hyped for arcane trickster-style rogues. :D

I hope I am right and we do get a follow up feat to Magical Trickster that allows fireball sneak attacks at high levels... In PF1e the earliest you could do that is 14th level (rogue 1/wizard 3/AT 10) but the intended level was 16th (rogue 3/wizard 3/AT 10), so I'm gonna guess Rogue 16 if the feat does exist.

MaxAstro wrote:

Wow, something I disagree with Deadmanwalking on. Wasn't expecting that. :P

Well, nobody can agree 100% of the time, but I'm not sure we disagree all that much in practice.

MaxAstro wrote:

Well, I only sorta disagree. I agree that it's possible to plan everything in advance and still run a fun game. It is in fact even desirable for it to go that way. I just tend to think that eventually, something is not going to go to plan, and the ability to improvise a way to salvage the players' fun is a critical skill for a GM to both have and be willing to employ. I guess put another way, I feel GMs should strive to be absolutionist, but be willing to drop that the moment it impedes the fun.

I'm not saying I don't improvise, I absolutely do. But I improvise within the bounds of the world as created. The enemy will certainly improvise in-universe, and any NPCs the party has on their side as certainly happy to give advice on alternate courses of action and the like (or go out searching for lost PCs, or other similar things), but an NPC's total HP don't change mid-fight, and tunnels aren't suddenly there when they weren't before.

I will sometimes introduce new and unestablished details (or roll with it if players do so, my descriptions of places are probably my weakest point as a GM so this happens), but I don't ever contradict existing details, whether the players know them or not.

No, we disagree quite a lot. :) In fact, my philosophy is that "details only exist when the players know them".

To give an extreme example, one time my players were theory-crafting what they thought the motivation of the main villain was based on what they currently knew. Eventually they came up with a theory that was way more interesting than the motivation I had originally come up with.

So I retroactively changed the villain's entire plan, threw out everything that didn't fit, and adjusted the rest. My players had a blast and were able to pat themselves on the back for figuring out the villains plan, and the game I ran was better for having a villain with a more interesting motivation than what I originally came up with. Never told my players I'd changed anything, and they never noticed - after all, I only changed details that they hadn't seen yet, so those details didn't exist from their point of view.

As an aside, I agree with the person who suggested "simulationist", I think that is a better term for the "world is set in stone whether the players interact with it or not" style of GM.

I'm not sure what a good name for my "world only exists when observed by the players" style would be.

I am not worried about this instance either, but having sometimes concrete measures and sometimes vague ones does not make reading this more organic to me, either.

And lets face it, Pathfinder is as far away from "Magic is imprecise and chaotic" as it can be, whatever is written in the fluff description. You actually CAN set your watch to Magic Duration, because it is precise to the second. Suddenly saying it gets imprecise out of Encounter Mode is, well, not very consequent.

...Except one of the designers just said that's not the case at all?

Not to mention "rogue that uses magic items to supplement their routine" is WAY more viable now, since wands and scrolls have non-crap DCs.

Almost a hundred years, I think, for Cheliax. It came into Thrune control some time around 4636 AR.

"Upon closer inspection, you notice that although it is rough and slick, one section of the cliff side is covered in dense moss that provides easy handholds."

Any GM who can't explain their improv in-game isn't trying hard enough, IMO. :P

I will chip in that I like Burn, but I dislike Elemental Overflow; the idea of Burn being a thing you take as a desperation move for extra oomph but aren't mechanically assumed to be taking all the time sits well with me.

I particularly like the "accept the Drained condition to reFocus in combat" concept.

It's also kinda funny, I was originally put off by how complicated of a class Kineticist seems to be. What changed my mind was the Kingmaker CRPG - since the rules just work without having to interpret them, I was able to cleanly see how they work and how the class fits together, and it is now one of my favorite classes.

I actually homebrewed a class long ago with the "all-day blaster" concept - actually called Conduit and based on the Infamous games - and it's kinda funny how similar it ended up being to Kineticist.

In any case, really hoping Kineticist comes back in 2e, and I agree that the action economy and general system design seems made for it. I also love nick's radical idea of making the class completely build-a-bear, to be honest.

I might have skimmed over some things.

This is one of the most brilliant understatements I have ever seen. XD

PossibleCabbage just said what I am trying to say better than I could have said it.

I do think the important thing with fail forward mechanics is that they be either invisible to players or fully codified.

In other words, either have a chart that says "this is how I run lockpicking: if you fail by this much, it takes you this long to open the lock; etc..." or never tell your players what the DC actually is. The biggest risk with F>F (totally stealing that) is damaging verisimilitude, which is critical to maintaining fun.

I don’t think a rogue will need impromptu sneak attack since there was the level 14 class feat that made enemies flat footed at the cost of one action.

I forgot about this; this effectively is Impromptu Sneak Attack under another name.

On the Focus spells thing - I don't think all classes should have native access to Focus spells, but I do think all classes except maybe Fighter should have a path that gets them Focus spells. I feel like "X, except with a little magic" should be a thing you can do without needing to multiclass - and more then that, I feel like every class should have its own "little magical things" it can do that are specific to that class.

Powerful Alchemy/Powerful Poisons still being a thing is disappointing. Why are Alchemists the only class that has to spend a feat to use their Class DC for their primary class feature? :/

Out of all the Arcane Trickster class features I think that is the one least likely to return, yes.

I don't have a problem with it being a Focus spell, though - I think all classes should have access to Focus spells one way or another, and arcane trickster Rogues seem like the obvious candidate for a Rogue build that has Focus spells. The feat just needs to include the language "if you don't have a Focus pool, you gain a 1 point pool and can recharge it by [whatever]".

Those are Arcane Trickster class features. Impromptu Sneak Attack let them make a sneak attack against a creature that didn't have any other reason to be vulnerable to one, and the Arcane Trickster capstone let them sneak attack with AoE spells.

So, I'm pretty sure this whole thread is a semantic argument where people are arguing past each other because they're using different definitions. I think failing forward is fine by most definitions of it I've heard, but certainly not by John Lynch 106's.

As such, the core discussion in many ways doesn't seem very productive to me.

For the record, on an interesting side issue, I'm fairly absolutionist by MaxAstro's standards, but I'm pretty sure my players would agree I'm mostly a good GM anyway.

This is because I try very hard to design worlds the PCs will have fun in. I'm pretty good at it and put a slightly too high amount of effort into it a lot, but the end result is that I can do a consistent world where the PCs have fun because the world is designed that way, rather than because I adjust it on the fly (to steal an example, I think through 'what happens if the PCs fall down the cliff?' and have an interesting option in mind, rather than needing to add one later). That's when running games, of course. I've played games with GMs who were clearly coming up with everything on the fly and that was fun, too.

I don't think this is inconsistent with most definitions of failing forward, since most of the good fail forward options are, in fact, logical in-world consequences of screwing up on the action in question. In order for them to not be the equivalent of fudging dice (which I also hate, for the record, though I don't have a problem with other people doing it as long as they make that clear to their players), you have to set it up in advance...but if we're talking about Paizo doing it, it's in the adventure. That's the definition of in advance.

Wow, something I disagree with Deadmanwalking on. Wasn't expecting that. :P

Well, I only sorta disagree. I agree that it's possible to plan everything in advance and still run a fun game. It is in fact even desirable for it to go that way. I just tend to think that eventually, something is not going to go to plan, and the ability to improvise a way to salvage the players' fun is a critical skill for a GM to both have and be willing to employ. I guess put another way, I feel GMs should strive to be absolutionist, but be willing to drop that the moment it impedes the fun.

@John Lynch: I apologize, by the way, I didn't mean to throw shade at your GMing style. If it makes sense I was more trying to address you as a player rather than as a GM.

Regardless, my opinion on fail forward remains the same: You have defined it in such a way that it is by definition bad game design, so I agree that your definition is bad game design. I am a little frustrated by your unwillingness to recognize anyone else's interpretation of the term as valid, though.

I am also, as others, confused about your apparently contradictory stance on improv. It seems like you are saying "changing a monster's HP on the fly is wrong, but improvising material on the spot is fine".

How is suddenly deciding that a monster has less HP than you originally planned not the same as suddenly deciding there is a secret passage where you didn't originally plan it?

As far as Arcane Trickster itself, I strongly suspect it's simply been absorbed into Rogue as "things Rogues should be able to do anyway". I would bet we will get Rogue feats for ranged lockpicking and emergency sneak attacks, and a high level Rogue feat to sneak attack with AoE spells.

I didn't find the dialog that bad...

Then again, I played through the original NeverWinter Nights, so maybe I'm just desensitized to terrible writing. :P

Ah, I think I begin to see the disconnect. John, correct me if I am wrong, but you seem to be an absolutionist. That is, you feel the game world should be absolute and static. If the party falls off a cliff and the GM adds a secret tunnel on the fly so that they can get back up, or if the GM originally set the DC of a wall at 30 but decides to lower it to 20 after seeing the first round of rolls and realizing the party can't get near that number, that's "cheating".

In my experience, good GMs try very hard to give the appearance of absolutionism, but absolutionists make very poor GMs. A good friend of mine struggles with this and we've had lots of conversations about it. "Dude, that fight dragged on forever and your players clearly were not having fun. Why didn't you just quietly cut 50hp off the boss?" "Because that's not how much health the boss has!"

At the end of the day, the players having fun is paramount and should take precedence over the consistency of the world.

I can see that being a matter of opinion, but it's an opinion I'm pretty strong on because my whole worldview as a GM is that my number one job is for my players to have fun.

Okay: I agree that John Lynch's definition of fail forward is bad game design, as does I think everyone else because of how extreme his definition is.

Can we now use this thread to talk about how everyone else's definition of fail forward could be implemented in PF2e in interesting ways?

I certainly recall the adventure where the plot assumed the PCs pass a DC 30 Linguistics check in order to find the plot, and I had to frantically figure out what to do when no one in the party was able to make it.

Ah, I had missed that Red Mantis Assassin was confirmed. That's awesome! My former Kingmaker player whose character is a Red Mantis will be happy to hear she can rebuild her character out of the gate in 2e. :)

I don't think fail forward is always a good way to go. However, I think it is strictly superior to wasting table time on failure not actually being possible.

The best example of this is lockpicking. In many cases, picking the lock on a door really has no failure state. It's roll-until-you-succeed. I really can't see how anyone can defend that as anything except a waste of table time in most cases. You are going to succeed eventually - who cares how many die rolls it takes you to get there?

So I'm a big proponent of... I don't know if "fail forward" is the right term, but rather "every roll changes the game state". If you fail a lockpicking roll, something happens such that simply retrying the exact same role at the exact same bonus is not an option. An outcome of "you succeed, but it takes you a long time/alerts nearby enemies/etc" is a good way to accomplish that.

I think a lot of GMs do this anyway. I know I'm not the only GM who likes to rule that if you nat 1 a lockpicking attempt you jam the lock and can't try again. That, effectively, is fail forward - your failure has advanced the game state. Now you have to deal with a door that can't be picked. Maybe you could call it "fail backward" because it's a setback.

But surely anything is better than "fail stationary", where a failure doesn't actually have any consequence. THAT is removing player agency, IMO.

IMO there shouldn't be "rules" for creating custom items, or even guidelines written such that some people think are rules, or you wind up with people thinking "constant true strike item for 4,000 gp" might be a good idea in PF1. As for guidelines to build your own custom content, with the caveat that it's guidelines and so is less for crafter PCs than GMs, we're with you, but like you said it needs to be lengthy. You should expect guidelines for building your own brand new items to live with guidelines for building your own brand new monsters, etc, in the big book of modding the game, GMG.

As usual you make excellent points. :)

I certainly see the risk in trying to codify a full modular item creation system, and it's easy to look at things like GURPS and see how that sort of thing can go pear-shaped when optimizers get their hands on it. That is exactly what happened with the ARG race creation rules to an extent, after all.

It's just kind of a shame, because I am personally a huge fan of modular item creation systems. :) Very much looking forward to seeing what guidelines are in the GMG; I'm hoping at least that they will be a little more concrete than what 1e offered.

And I'm definitely also hoping that we get new property runes at a more regular pace than 1e got new special qualities. A lot of my concerns would be answered just by that, really, since property runes are a lot more flexible than the old special qualities. Especially if some of the unique item powers, like Stormflash's energy absorption, showed up as property runes at some point.

Actually, considering what I've seen done with mods, it probably wouldn't be that hard to make a mod that largely converts Kingmaker to 2e... the action economy would be the tricky thing, but should be possible. I mean fundamentally you just take the turn based mod and instead of move/standard/swift you give everyone standard/standard/standard...

The only thing I don't know if would be possible is changing the "feats at odd levels" progression, since I've never seen a mod alter that. Making each class give class feats at appropriate times is relatively trivial. Making the math line up with monsters would be tricky but not impossible.

MaxAstro wrote:

Mark Seifter wrote:

PossibleCabbage wrote:

So we can build magic items by just etching runes into things, but are effects like "it casts lightning bolt" available with bespoke items (it's inherent to the shock rune, perhaps) through means other than "GM fiat"?

You can upgrade the fundamentals of a bespoke item, but it has no slots for property runes. In essence, the unique bespoke abilities are in lieu of property runes.

I think Cabbage meant the other way around - is there a non-fiat way for a player to get "shoots lightning bolts" on a custom crafted weapon?

It's not any more directly stated than if you wanted the dread blindfold to be like a cloak with scary eyes on it, but it shouldn't be too hard to build it or a different weapon if you like!

This is a little disappointing to me, because to me this reads "If you want to reskin Stormflash as a different weapon, that's fine, but there aren't rules for giving specific special abilities to custom weapons".

So for example, if I wanted to make a magic storm-themed quarterstaff that has Stormflash's "summon lightning bolt" ability but not the electricity absorb ability, and instead give it a wind-themed special ability inspired by some other magic item, it sounds like much like PF1e there's no way to do that other than GM fiat.

I really hope at some point we get a book entirely dedicated to rules for creating custom magic items with the complexity of Stormflash - or at least has a full chapter for it. Such a book would be very useful both for crafter PCs and also for GMs who want inspiration to introduce unique, appropriately-scaled magic items to their game. Something with the depth that ARG gave to custom races, but applied to custom magic items.

Because inevitably, one of my PCs is going to see Stormflash and say "Oh! I want to make a flaming scythe that absorbs fire damage that way!" and I will have to answer "well, there aren't really rules for that..."

Oh man, I would love a PF2e game in the style of XCom. I'm playing Warhammer: Mechanicus right now and loving it; a similar experience but with Pathfinder rules would be amazing.

Just whatever CRPG experience we end up with, please please please make it turn based... I'm replaying Kingmaker with the turn based mod and my experience is 300% improved.

I just hope Paizo hasn't fully clarified the unarmed combat rules as they apply to conflicts with certain demonic entities

It would be a shame if there was no reason to recreate that thread in 2e. :P

PossibleCabbage wrote:

So we can build magic items by just etching runes into things, but are effects like "it casts lightning bolt" available with bespoke items (it's inherent to the shock rune, perhaps) through means other than "GM fiat"?

You can upgrade the fundamentals of a bespoke item, but it has no slots for property runes. In essence, the unique bespoke abilities are in lieu of property runes.

I think Cabbage meant the other way around - is there a non-fiat way for a player to get "shoots lightning bolts" on a custom crafted weapon?

I'm hoping that we get a nice middle ground in the form of "characters attempting to do two things at once suffer a -X penalty on both rolls".

Awesome magic items. I hope 2e is full of items like that.

Ruling it that way also allows room for, to give an example, "you can repair your own shield while you refocus" to be a class feat for Clerics of Torag.

I love that they realized the potential problem with Mountain Stance and made it a Trigger instead of Requirement. If you are going to build your character around it, losing an extra action whenever you need to jump would feel bad.

The playtest was very divisive and arguments were had about pretty much everything, but "Catfall is the high water mark for skill feats" was one thing basically everyone agreed on. :P