Mekkis's page

What you want is a Rod of Wonder. Just roll between 66 and 69: Reduce wielder two size categories (no save) for 1 day.

Mekkis wrote:

Pathfinder, with it's inherent imbalance, requires a social contract between the GM and the players - the GM to use levers to maintain balance between PCs and their challenges, and the players to show a certain amount of maturity to ensure that they do not exceed the expected power levels of each other (and of the challenges the GM provides).

Thank you; that cogently expresses much of what about I valued about PF1 that feels not to be so present in PF2. Except that the buy-in I look for from my players isn't "keeping their power levels similar and appropriate" but "getting into the wider range of roleplaying options available with more randomised power levels."

That's basically a byproduct of the system's imbalance: when players realise that they shouldn't min-max everything, it opens up many combinations where suboptimal choices (both in character building, and roleplaying) are enabled by the presence of powerful options.

So what was supposed to be wrong with an iteration?

As I see it, the answer is twofold:

The game needed to evolve to speak to the desires of the current crowd of gamers.

Pathfinder, with it's inherent imbalance, requires a social contract between the GM and the players - the GM to use levers to maintain balance between PCs and their challenges, and the players to show a certain amount of maturity to ensure that they do not exceed the expected power levels of each other (and of the challenges the GM provides).

The current crowd of gamers has been brought up without this kind of contract, or framework. And expecting them to grow into this is a Hard Problem.

Secondly, Paizo's business model of writing Adventure Paths and Organised Play content is dependent of them developing against a homogenous set of expectations. The very unbalance that encouraged hardcore players to invest hundreds or thousands of hours into Pathfinder, makes developing this content increasingly difficult.

Pathfinder 2 solves both these issues: making it easy to develop for, and less onerous for players.

This is an insightful article. My props to all the playtesters who heard the words of Grand Prince Stavian III:
"Persevere, Persevere, Persevere".

Do you see value in an incremental improvement to Pathfinder Second Edition in the next few years?

"In the end, loyalty is its own reward."

I've noticed that you're now charging sales tax ("GST") on purchases by Australian consumers.

However, one thing that you're selling - Paizo.com Gift Certificates - are also attracting GST.

This is incorrect - the sales tax should be only charged on redemption of the gift certificate.

I understand that international taxation is difficult, but hopefully this is only a minor issue.

There was a survey. Sadly the majority of answers was in favor of keeping the vancian system.

As someone currently playing a Cleric for almost a year (regularly) and reading the spell list all the time to find new tools and answers to help my party, I can say: The vancian system should've been gone.

There's already a good precedent with Arcanists, PF2e should've kept the change and they could easily find ways to change the sorcerers while they're at it, after all Sorcerers now can be divine, occult, arcane or primal and that's a huge change nobody was expecting... I'm pretty sure nobody would complain if there was only Arcanist casting (almost like 5e, without heightening) in the game but spontaneus casters were similarly overhauled to compensate.

The survey never actually asked that question. The survey asked something like "On a scale of Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree, do you think that wizards are flexible and powerful".

Reading the Sabotage feat has made me unclear about how it is supposed to work at all.

Supposedly, "Damage dealt by Sabotage can’t take the item below its Break Threshold."

But the Broken condition only applies when "damage has reduced its Hit Points below its Broken Threshold." So Sabotage can never actually break an item.

What gives?

I think the question is currently meaningless.

If you compare a PF1 CRB-only character creation to PF2 CRB-only character creation, there isn't a significant difference. Point-buy versus ability boosts... you still do the mental gymnastics to get things where you want them. Otherwise it's really just picking some stuff off a menu.

If you're building a caster, you've "got to" read the whole spells section, with either edition.

As again in a decade, when there are choices. 'Cuz right now, once you have a vague idea what you want to do, the two (or three) feat choices you get at any given level are easy to figure out which one(s) to not take because they have nothing to do with what you're building. Later, there'll be much more to choose from, and the granularity will be much finer, so taking time will make sense. Right now you could almost build a character by throwing darts.

I have found that the amount of busywork required to make qualitative assessments is considerably worse in PF2 than in Pathfinder.

Part of this is because classes don't have a "feat tree" that exists in Pathfinder. Part of this is because some class feats refer to focus spells that require referring to somewhere half a book away.

This is further exacerbated by having feat chains that are heavily siloed - so if you want to take a certain sixth-level feat at sixth-level, you'll need to take the prerequisites. So now you need to understand what the sixth-level feats do before you make your choice at first level.

The fact that character options have all been significantly underpowered makes the whole process feel unfulfilling. The very fact that

Right now you could almost build a character by throwing darts.

doesn't bode well for character creation.

Will you be publishing your answers in a written form as an FAQ (or even better, Actual Errata)?

Mekkis wrote:

By requiring the GM to make rulings in this situation, the GM is no longer able to remain impartial to the player. This is the source of the adversary.

That notion doesn't hold up. A GM stating something Uncommon is indeed staying Uncommon is no more "adversarial" than a GM directly banning something. What rarity does is let the GM cite a baseline rule for disallowing it instead of going out of their way to directly ban it, which is less personal, not more.

But the GM isn't stating that something is Uncommon. The rulebook is stating that it's Uncommon.

Once a player approaches a GM to ask whether or not they can have it, the GM now loses their impartiality.

The claim that "the GM has too much power" is very different to the talk of an "adversarial GM vs Player Relationship".

In every RPG I've played, Rule Zero exists. The GM can make rulings and change things if they need to. You can't have much more power than that.

And overuse of Rule Zero can create an "adversarial GM vs Player Relationship".

However, there is a difference between "The Fly DC to hover in place is DC15" (but the GM can invoke Rule Zero) and "The DC is usually a standard-difficulty DC of a level equal to the highest-level target of your composition, but the GM can assign a different DC based on the circumstances".

In the first case, the player is expected to know the odds; in the second case, the player has several unknowns to deal with. This introduces uncertainty and makes the character's effectiveness completely beholden to the GM, causing their achievements to feel artificial, their failures to be blameable on their GM, and overall a lack of real agency in the game.

If a player wants an uncommon or rare item or spell, the GM effectively has two choices: to allow it (perhaps with a sidequest), or to prohibit it.

By requiring the GM to make rulings in this situation, the GM is no longer able to remain impartial to the player. This is the source of the adversary.

It is disappointing that my favourite spell - Pyrotechnics - has been removed.

You're going to want to look over your ability scores. Pathfinder Society has a 20 point buy, and it appears that you might be a little over:

Str 16: 10 points
Dex 14: 2 points (with +2 racial)
Con 11: 3 points (with -2 racial)
Int 10: 0 points
Wis 18: 10 points (with +2 racial)
Cha 10: 0 points.

This looks like you've got a 25 point buy. You'll need to lower some stats a little - possibly dropping strength to 14.

So.. Tonya is attending PaizoConAP twice this year?

If you can find an extra couple of gold, a Lesser Metamagic Quicken Rod will be your best friend. Being able to use those low-level spell slots without sacrificing action economy is a massive boon.

Part of this ties into "Why do items have levels?", and "Why do items have rarities?".

At the end of the day, items should be priced such that there is a meaningful choice between what to get. The example I like using from Pathfinder is the legitimate choice between getting a Staff of Fire compared with increasing your casting stat from +2 to +4.

Unfortunately, with Paizo's claim that they are rewriting the mathematics the system is based on, any discourse about the current state of item pricing is moot.

Your base attack is actually closer to +13 than +20 (I don’t remember horizon walker BAB in 3.5 but I didn’t...

Divine Power
Evocation
Level: Clr 4, War 4
Components: V, S, DF
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: 1 round/level

Calling upon the divine power of your patron, you imbue yourself with strength and skill in combat. Your base attack bonus becomes equal to your character level (which may give you additional attacks), you gain a +6 enhancement bonus to Strength, and you gain 1 temporary hit point per caster level.

One of the fun facts about Divine Power. It doesn't matter if you tank your BAB.

High ground can come from anything from Air Walk, to some form of flight, to riding on a mule.

In terms of "how many different near-optimal choices are there at any given time", it's pretty hard to argue PF1e is deeper than the playtest. That number hovered very near to "one" at all times past character creation in PF1e.

One of the strengths of the Pathfinder system is that it's flexible enough that it's not required for players to make "near-optimal" choices at every turn.

The wriggle room that exists means that concepts that are definitely "suboptimal" (like most multiclassing choices), or are obviously "non-optimal" (I have a PFS character who, even at 6th level, hasn't rolled a die) are still viable.

Especially in a group of mature players who don't try to squeeze every last bit of optimisation out of a system.

Another big change that I'd make (in addition to those proposed upthread), is to reprice magic items.

Basically, a lot of magic items, even those in the core rulebook, are grossly overpriced.

What I'd do is set price benchmarks, and then rate every other item against them.

To pick a random Core Rulebook item, the Amulet of Proof Against Detection and Location has a list price of 35000gp. However, when compared against a +4 weapon (36000gp), a +6 stat-booster (36000gp), or even a +5 armour (25000gp), it's unusable. If a PC picks it up, they'll sell it.

The Core Rulebook, p549, explains that:

The easiest way to come up with a price

is to compare the new item to an item that is already priced,
using that price as a guide.

This guide should be reapplied to all items.

Alright, usual caveat of "You're at 20th level, Anything can (and should have already) happen".

Furthermore, assuming that this is asking for a single character, PHB/DMG only.

Compounded by the unspoken request to avoid Stupid Exploits or loopholes that any sane GM would veto (Simulacrum, Polymorph Any Object, etc).

As this is 3.5e, I'd start by ditching Fighter and going with Cleric:

Specifically, Cleric 14/Loremaster 3/Horizon Walker 1/Bard 1/Dragon Disciple 2

You have access to True Seeing, which will get around displacement/darkness etc.

Choosing Luck Domain opens up Moment of Prescience, and gives you a free reroll.

Feats:
Endurance
Metamagic or item creation feat 1
Metamagic or item creation feat 2
Metamagic or item creation feat 3
Skill Focus (Knowledge whatever)
Weapon Focus (weapon of choice)

Spells in effect:
Divine Power
Righteous Might
Aid
Divine Favour
Heroism, Greater (from a scroll)
Blink (from a scroll)
Haste (from a scroll)

BAB +20
Ability +16 (18 + 2 racial + 5 advancement + 6 enhancement {free} + 5 inherent +4 size +2 Dragon Disciple [42])
Enhancement +9 (+5 plus Double Bane - you can get this for only 50000gp by casting Greater Magic Weapon)
Size -1
Luck +3
Morale +4 (Heroism)
Insight +1 (Horizon Walker)
Competence +1 (Pale Green ioun stone)
Weapon Focus +1
Untyped +1 (Loremaster Secret)
Blink +2
Haste +1
High Ground +1

For a total of +59. Your first attack hits on a 1.

Moment of Prescience (Luck Domain) adds a +20 insight bonus (+24 with Strand of Prayer Beads) for a single attack.

I haven't actually crunched the numbers on the cost of the items required for this, but it doesn't seem unreasonable.

What is surprising is that this character actually seems viable to play from levels 1-20, without really appearing overpowered. There might be an XP penalty for multiclassing for some levels.

The magnitude of the modifier isn't what's important. The difference between modifier and DC is more important.

I don't care if I have +100 vs DC110 as opposed to +10 vs DC20. And if a modifier that I keep investing in remains at +10 vs DC20 for levels 1-10, it's not advancing.

Likewise, if a modifier that I keep investing in grows to +100 vs DC110 by level 10, it's still not advancing. It's just inflating.

Big numbers alone don't excite me.

I honestly don’t think the superhero feel of PF1 is marketable anymore. Even during PF1 hey day, most campaigns only ran from levels 1-10 ish. In my own experience, which certainly does not speak for everyone, It seems a general consensus that play after those levels isn’t appealing.

The number of people I've seen discussing how awesome their characters' capabilities will be at high levels seems to run counter to the lack of appeal of playing at high levels.

The biggest barrier to high-level play is the ability to keep a group together for the amount of time required to get the characters to those levels. And any 20-level system will have that issue.

Once that barrier is removed, high level play becomes in much more demand. Take a look at the PFS forums to see how much people have demanded more high-level content.

While admittedly it is difficult to create content for higher levels due to the range of differing powerlevels on a per-group basis, I don't feel that this contributes to the lack of appeal.

There is certainly a valid argument that it was because the system became too broken after that point, which I think PF2 fixes, but there was also the argument of verisimilitude and how ridiculous a world is where PCs become superheroes. So while PF2 fixes the balance issues, it exacerbates the problem of verisimilitude by having Higher level PCs and monsters be vastly more powerful than their low level counter parts. Also, the +10/-10 crit system requires precise math tweaking and the 3-action system requires excessive damage dice (through the use of

Magic weapons or arbitrary monster damage bumps) due to lack of extra attacks.

Prior to 5e, that’s all the mainstream in the d20 system (d&d and pathfinder) knew so it was just accepted. Sure there were fringe systems, like castles and crusaders, that somewhat achieved a more balanced d20 world, but they didn’t quite nail it. However, 5e finally created a world that could tell believable stories which fit closer to fantasy literature / films. A big part of its success involved removing number inflation.

Others have stated PF2 doesn’t want to compete directly with 5e. I just don’t think that’s a route they can take (unless of course there is some copyright law against removing number bloat). Telling a super hero story in a fantasy setting is such a niche market.

Explicit inflation (where everything explicitly increases as a result of level) such as what is found in PF2 and in D&D4e is one kind of "advancement". Not only does it break verisimilitude, but it can easily disempower players from making meaningful choices. This has been discussed at length.

With a 500' range, the cheese is to cast it so that a 1'x1' fort appears in the middle of a populated area.

One of the reasons that there hasn't been any real outcry over Starfinder is because it wasn't designed to replace Pathfinder. It's not replacing anything. People who dislike it can simply stay away.

To a player who is invested in Pathfinder - especially in organised play - PF2 can represent a significant step back.

Wow.

I knew this was a hot topic, but I didn't expect this level of reaction.

I don't think I'll be able to address everything, but let's address some of the points:

Mekkis wrote:

The have been countless threads on this forum about issues with the +1/level system. And every time it comes up, well-meaning people suggest replacing it with +1/2 levels, or removing it entirely. I don't believe that this will achieve anything meaningful.

...

Count myself to the "countless" supporters of +1/level.

I mean, by all means, critisizm is all good and fine, but why do people always have to exxagerate and present their cause like the overwhelming majority supports their case, what's not the case in this +1/level discussion at all. Many actually like this mechanic.
So please peeps, if you have an issue with a mechanic you personally don't like do not pretend to speak for everybody or for the majority of players. Thanks.

The only comment I made was that there were countless threads: nothing about whether the nebulous majority supports my views.

And even that playtest surveys did not address this issue, so it's unlikely that the designers have a clear idea of how many people support it.

thorin001 wrote:

MaxAstro wrote:

You know what that table you propose doesn't do, though?

Answer the question of "what DC will typically be difficult but not impossible for a level 17 character?"

But that should never be a question as that is just placing everything on the treadmill.

I can't be the only one who designs dungeons with a particular level of party in mind?

I've been doing that since PF1e, and Paizo has been doing it since before Pathfinder existed, so I'm not sure why it would be surprising that PF2e is designed with that mindset.

Using "level-appropriate DCs" to design a dungeon is one thing (it's still an issue - if there's an underground river, it doesn't have to be "swiftly flowing with slick sides requiring a DC38 swim check). The other issue is that abilities such as Lingering Performance and Treat Wounds are also based on such scaling DCs.

A bard is never going to reach the point where he can reliably pull off a lingering performance.

I think it is a bit of a disservice to the OP to let this thread devolve into a discussion again of whether to change the +level bonus to proficiency. The OP is more concerned with the reality that, on paper especially, character leveling doesn't feel very significant in relationship to the other players. Is that true?

Not just the other players. The game itself. If I get better at hitting things, I want to be able to hit "things" on a lower number on the d20.

The fact that now I'm level 6, I'm better at hitting CR2 "things" is immaterial - I'm not hitting them anymore. I'm hitting CR6 things.

For me, I think the problem is made to look worse than it is when theory crafting. Looking at a part of 4 first level characters, and then watching them level up to 2nd, the differences between those 4 characters numbers are not going to be as noticeable as they were in PF1. IF you don't take equipment into consideration, that issue continues through most of the mid-levels. At high levels, I think the issue morphs more into an optics issue because looking at +21 and comparing it to +24 doesn't feel all that significant in comparison to a +1 to a +4, but in the playtest, the difference really is about the same in terms of likelihood to hit and crit.

Negative Theorycrafting works both ways.

But one thing that Pathfinder has going for it is that skills are "allowed" to be "broken", because they don't have as much impact on combat. And with the static printed DCs, your improvement is obvious and clear.

This thread is all over the place. If PF2 is going to use +1/level, that's going to the balanced dynamic. If you don't like that, you can subtract that everything and play however you feel best playing. Personally, I like the new dynamic.

The point of this thread is that it removing +1/level doesn't change the dynamic. All it does is makes some numbers lower.

I like leveling up to be more meaningful for absolutely everything with specializations thrown on top of that. Skill challenges are irrelevant for me. I am experienced enough at GM'ing to set DC's on the fly that give an appropriate chance of success. Adding level to that or not changes nothing for me.

What +1/level does achieve is an obfuscation of the fact that your character isn't actually advancing much at all.

A 10th level character should be about an equivalent match to a level 10 Young Red Dragon. And at level 14 that character should be able to walk all over that young red dragon but they should be equivalent to a 14th level adult red dragon. Otherwise frankly either the creature's or the player's levels are mislabeled.

Now yeah, Fighters should be above 50% to-hit on most foes because few foes should have defense to match the Fighter's offense. But I fully expect that to be the case once the monster math is polished.

You can have an equivalent match without a 50%. Even taking your example, a Paizo-published level 10 NPC fighter has a +18 to-hit (not including an additional +3 from mounted charge). A Young Red Dragon has AC22.

The fighter hits on a 4 - and this is with NPC wealth.

So yeah, Dispel Magic is not that great anymore. Then again, negating high level spell slots with low(er) level ones was a broken and unfun tactic, so there's that to keep in mind.

Same applies for Remove Disease/Paralysis and stuff. Makes the spellcasters have to burn their strongest spells just to remove conditions. Oof!

"Broken and unfun"? The thing with dispelling is that it's Reactive. Even if you manage to pull it off, you've already been affected by the spell once. (Readying a dispel is impractical due to the two-action cast time).

And ultimately, your chance of success (even without the 'counteract level adjustments') is going to be at best 50%, so it's by no means guaranteed.

+1/level is a symptom, not the underlying problem

The have been countless threads on this forum about issues with the +1/level system. And every time it comes up, well-meaning people suggest replacing it with +1/2 levels, or removing it entirely. I don't believe that this will achieve anything meaningful.

The underlying problems will still be there. What +1/level has done is replace advancement with inflation. Removing it doesn't solve the lack of meaningful advancement, it simply removes inflationary advancement.

Back in March, I outlined that clear and meaningful advancement is one of the most important things I'm looking for in PF2. Unfortunately, meaningful advancement is only achieved when a character comparatively improves when compared to the challenges they're expected to face.

The concept of "level-appropriate challenges" breaks immersion pretty hard. The inclusion of table 10-02 is the kind of thing that already raised red flags. A good fighter should be able to hit most of the time. A good diplomat should be able to convince an adversary most of the time. A conman should be able to pull off a scam more times than not.

A second, equally concerning factor is the tight equivalency between all the relevant rolls. Your attack bonus, skill bonus, armour class, saving throws, and perception modifier are so tightly coupled that it is believed that the system will break down if a character ends up Really Good at one thing. This is at odds with many of the published literature, where we do see characters Really Good at such a thing.

Pathfinder has solved this problem by making it possible for a character to be Very Good at certain aspects without causing the system to break down. Admittedly, maybe it's too easy to get too good at too many things (especially with more non-core options being printed), but by and large it succeeds.

There needs to be a method to allow advancement in some aspects to exceed increased DCs. Adding +x to both is nothing but inflation.

I've updated it to correct the missing images and turned it into a two-column view. Let me know if anything's missing.

Aenigma wrote:

75%? I'm so surprised at seeing so many people like the new way of building monsters. I have always thought monsters should have statistics more like PCs as they used to. But to my surprise people don't seem to prefer this nice old way.

They're too restrictive. All fey have d6 hit dice, good R and W saves and 6+ skill ranks per level. All of them. All animals have the same base - mammals, reptiles, fish. All aberrations. You should not be able to look at an aberration of all things, decide it's got roughly so many hit points, d8, so x number of levels and then know it's BAB, saves and number of skill ranks.

They don't offer any diversity for statistics within the creature types

That is Trivially fixable. The change of type-based hit die to something role-based could be done in two paragraphs.

It's not a very good case for overhauling everything.

I've been looking at the PRD, and it seems to be missing the introductory text at the start of each chapter.

I understand that the Flavour that appears on the two-page spreads is obviously Product Identity, but my question is regarding the pre-section information:

In the wild parts of the world where monsters hold
dominion, a sharp sword and sturdy shield are a far more
effective means of communication than words. Combat
is a common part of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, and
the following rules explain this crucial process.

Each chapter of the Core Rulebook seems to have these sections, but they don't appear in the PRD.

Are these paragraphs OGL?

Aenigma wrote:

Mark, can I ask you a question? I wonder, why did Paizo decide to make the 10th level spell list? When I first heard that there will be 10th level spells in Second Edition, I was really happy, because I thought that means we will have epic rules included in the core rules. But later I found out the 10th levels spells are not that powerful. Many of them were originally 9th level spells and some of them even got nurfed. I'm confused. Why did Paizo separate them from 9th level spell lists and create a 10th level spell list instead? I mean, I think just deleting 10th level spell list and putting all the 10th level spells into 9th level spell list would be a good idea.

It's simple actually, Wish was freaking broken, such that I have actually not met a DM yet who hasn't banned it and other spells that are now 10th level. This makes sure they don't appear until the very highest levels, where they belong.

Wish isn't broken; it's literally the opposite (as it requires the GM to approve its use on a case-by-case basis). I have never banned Wish in any of my campaigns. At a 9th level spell, available at level 17 (maybe a couple of levels earlier as loot), it already doesn't appear until high-level play.

Since May, when I made this post, I've been trying to work out what could be changed from Pathfinder that could not be considered "worse" by any current Pathfinder player.

As far as I can tell, I've arrived at some changes:

• Remove some unnecessary rules, like the +1 BAB requirement to draw a weapon while moving.
  
• Remove or reword horribly misunderstood and unclear rules, like the "bless counters and dispels bane" and other "counters and dispels" clauses that never come up in matter of course.
  
• Reword the counterspell rules in general - in particular, remove the "same target" requirement that makes counterspelling personal-range spells impossible.
  
• Increase skill points for the sorcerer, fighter and cleric.
  
• Change the sorcerer's spell access - possibly by removing their one-level penalty compared to the wizard, and definitely by making their bloodline spells available as soon as the slots were unlocked.
  
• Possibly replace Arcane Spell Failure with a straight proficiency requirement.
  
• Add sidebar notes to commonly abused spells like Simulacrum to curb the theorycrafted abuses that arise.
  

I've actually started trying to build a system like this; watch the Homebrew section in the coming few weeks.

So signatures from the GM will no longer be required if we move away from Sheet 1?

The problem with PF1/D&D 3.x is that it has skill points. And you never have enough of them.

Why? Because to stay on the treadmill, you have to put ALL YOUR POINTS into the skills you want to be relevant in. Just relevant, not good. 'Good' requires investing feats. Or being a caster, but that is a problem they are getting at.

However, that means that all your skill points are spoken for, and even putting so much as 1 skill point into a knowledge skill for flavour (mostly being able to roll for more then a 10 and actually know something that isn't 'common knowledge') is basically 'gimping' you character elsewhere. /hyperbole.

But Pathfinder skills barely have any "treadmill" to stay on. After spending far too long looking at the tables in the Core Rulebook, I've noticed that there are very few skill uses that have any form of per-level scaling: I can even list them.

• Acrobatics to avoid AoO (enemy's CMD)
  
• Bluff to Feint (enemy's BAB or Sense Motive)
  
• Bluff to lie (opposed by Sense Motive)
  
• Disguise (opposed by Perception)
  
• Escape Artist to escape a grapple (enemy's CMD)
  
• Handle animal to rear a wild animal (animal's HD)
  
• Intimidate (opponent's HD)
  
• Linguistics to create a forgery (opposed by linguistics of opponent)
  
• Perception to detect a pickpocket (opposed by opponent's Sleight of Hand)
  
• Perception to see someone hiding (opposed by opponent's Stealth)
  
• Use Magic Device to use a scroll (DC based on scroll CL)
  

This isn't much. And everything on this list is based on an active opponent - you know - the time it makes sense for a check to scale.

As far as I can tell, the only treadmill-like table I have seen in Pathfinder is the scaling in PFS specials, and Table 4-1 from Ultimate Intrigue (which is again effectively pitting skills against active opponents - and yet I haven't seen it in play...)

PF2, however, is scaling DCs in nonsensical ways - not only is table 10-02 presented with a tacit expectation for it to be universally applied (as it has been in the published adventures) - powers such as Lingering Performance and Heal are also based directly from that table.

Mekkis wrote:

One thing you've missed is that as a GM (or organiser), you'll need to have Log Sheets printed out and available to your players too. At a minimum, it'll be one page per three player-slots, but let's be honest. With walk-ins, new players and lost sheets, I'd be surprised that it'd be less than one page per two player-slots.

So even the business-card sized pages would not be significantly cheaper.

1) you'd only need to print off one sheet per new player or character, or 1 per 25th or however many rows there are.

There are three rows in the Sample Logsheet. Hence 1 per three player-slots is the minimum.

Cost-savings is an interesting proposition, because only one of these proposals (the business card proposal) actually saves money, and the amount of money saved is pretty miniscule unless you're at the scale of a Gencon or something. I don't think we should be making cost decisions for a massive organized play campaign based on the tiny sample size that is very large conventions.

** spoiler omitted **...

One thing you've missed is that as a GM (or organiser), you'll need to have Log Sheets printed out and available to your players too. At a minimum, it'll be one page per three player-slots, but let's be honest. With walk-ins, new players and lost sheets, I'd be surprised that it'd be less than one page per two player-slots.

So even the business-card sized pages would not be significantly cheaper.

The problem with wands of Cure Light Wounds that I heard from Slyme and the developers is that they don't like the players using the 1st-level wands instead of the 4th-level wands. A wand of Cure Light Wounds cost 15 gp per charge and healed 1d8+1 hit points for an average cost of 2.7 gp per hp. A wand of Cure Critical Wounds cost 420 gp per charge and headed 4d8+7 hit points per charge, for an average cost of 16.8 gp per hp. That is about six times as expensive, so players prefer the cheaper wand of CLW. Changing the price of those wands to the same cost per hit point healed would remove the incentive to buy the low-level wand.

But what is the underlying issue with using lower-level wands here? Is it that they're not spending enough money on out-of-combat healing and this is causing wealth imbalance? If this is the case, there are other ways of resolving the wealth imbalance.

Is it because in-universe wand-makers aren't selling enough high-level wands? If this is the case, there's a case for making the higher-level wands more attractive.

Is it because their idea of "levelled items" breaks down when people have no impetus to buy the "high-level" version of a category of items? This might be cause for rethinking the idea of levelled items, perhaps.

I'm currently earning about eighty times as much money as I was fifteen years ago. I still drink the same water and beer, and (most days), eat the same types of food. I pay nowhere near eighty times as much for transport as I used to. And my medical expenses have hardly changed at all.

pogie wrote:

CLW wand spam is a problem that seems to exist nearly exclusively in the minds of the devs. I have never once heard a complaint about it from players or GMs.

Contrast that to the amount of complaints that’s are voiced in opposition to resonance, the system devised to fix this supposed problem.

Don't blame the devs. They heard more complaints over more years.

For example, a quick web search brought up a thread from 2013: Hating on the Wand of CLW.

Have you actually read that thread? Almost all of it is one person disliking it and everyone disagreeing.

Regarding the OP:

Am I the only one who sees the only actual problem with wands of CLW spam is the fact that no one buys higher tier wands, not actually the use of wands to heal?

[...]

Would it not have been easier to fix this 'problem' by simply adjusting the price of healing wands? Make CLW more expensive, or make CMW and CCW less expensive? Maybe even make a completely new healing item that scales with the users level or something?

Why would you make the wands more expensive? What are you trying to achieve here?

Is it that characters are getting too wealthy and that they should be spending more on consumables?

Is it that there are items in the Core Rulebook that are never bought? Reading the Magic Items section, there are many items that fit that criteria.

Temperature is something that due to the two systems in place, really needs to be expressed in both Celsius and Fahrenheit. I've recently been travelling in North America, and I still can't easily tell whether setting a thermostat to 68 is reasonable. And I get blank looks when I remark how tomorrow's going to be 15.

A clause that comes up in any scenario using the Environment rules:

"Fortunately the weather is not as cold now, but during the night the temperature still drops below 40 degrees Fahrenheit for 4 hours (1 a.m. to 5 a.m.)."

Players have a really hard time relating to what "40 degrees Fahrenheit" actually means.

The Once and Future Kai wrote:

MerlinCross wrote:

You can. You can totally build it.

Why would you want to?

Because people play for different reasons?

*dusts off copy of Robin's Laws of Good Gamemastering*

Not everyone is a Power Gamer or Butt-Kicker. Some players are Specialists or Method Actors. And that's okay. Let's not discourage folks from doing what they find entertaining just because it's mechanically suboptimal.

Also, personally, I find the challenge of optimizing mechanically "weak" character concepts more fun than optimizing "strong" character concepts.

Yeah okay.

Till the community tell them it's wrong. And the math tell them it's wrong. And the guides tell them it's wrong. And the rules tell them it's wrong. And their fellow players.

Not a power gamer? Too bad, become one to keep up or get out.

*Lights the Robin's Law book on fire*

It didn't let you get the numbers high enough and everyone knows you're supposed to get the numbers high enough. Otherwise you're a badwrongfun GM or player.

They want to go crit rogue. Go for it.

Better be ready to be told it's wrong by everyone and their brother so I hope they have a supportive group. I mean we have people, in the thread already, saying "Oh this is how you do Crit, why aren't you doing it that way". The rules aren't even finalized!

So again. You CAN. Why would you want to unless your group is okay with it? You will be left behind.

If the system and the math doesn't support playing this concept, it fails point 1 of the litmus test I wrote back in May.

I really don't like how these negative conditions don't stack.

If an enemy is prone, surprised and flanked, it stands to reason that they'd be easier to hit - and easier to crit - than were they just surprised.

This not only rewards players for cooperating to impose different conditions, but also improves realism when it comes to an assassin being much more likely to crit their victim after they've sneaked into their room while the victim is sleeping.

The argument of paladins being of alignment extremes is tempting in its simplicity. On the surface, it seems logical.

But the fact of the matter is, a chaotic-evil antipaladin-blackguard-whatever is such an unplayable concept that I doubt it's worth the time to develop it or the pagecount to print it.

I've seen a lot of people state "lingering composition" is a good example of how the treadmill is bad. But I disagree entirely. Lingering Composition is something that shouldn't be a static level, because then it becomes unbalanced,

I disagree. As levels increase, the methods of achieving Conditional bonuses increase too. With the lack of stacking, this is a serious consideration.

but you should be able to "get ahead" of the curve if you wanted. If a bard decides to invest skill increases and items to improve their performance skill they can make lingering performance activate more often. However if a bard decides to just leave performance alone and not touch it at all they start to fall behind and it begins to work less often. This seems like good design to me, and makes lingering performance always an interesting give or take ability while rewarding those that want to spend resources to improve their ability to use lingering performance rather than their combat ability, or their spells.

Lingering performance isn't actually a very interesting ability. It literally gives 1 action for one Spell Point. If you succeed on the check. There is no way to call it otherwise.

With Lingering performance, the DC to achieve the same outcome increases with level. This is the definition of a treadmill.

the inevitable heat death of the universe.

The Pathfinder universe is "open" or "flat", and continues expanding without form. And what provides its energy will eventually die out?

I thought there were enough anomalies in the cosmology of the setting that would indicate a different long-term outlook.

Either that, or Rovagug - which still isn't the heat death.

Tell us more!

In preparation for some homebrewing, I've been taking the PRD and running it through a bunch of scripts and hand-editing to create a LaTeX version of the Pathfinder Reference Document (basically, an 'OGL core rulebook').

So far, the content should be all there; I'm working on improving the formatting (convert to two-column layout, deal with tables too wide or too long etc). But if there's anything that's OGL, in the core rulebook, and missing, I'd appreciate it if you let me know.

(I'd appreciate it even more if you made a pull request yourself).

You can access the source on my github.

I'll try and keep the compiled PDF up at my website.

Here's one that I've never seen come up, and I didn't know existed until I read through the PRD:

A character with at least 5 ranks in Knowledge (geography) or Knowledge (local) pertaining to the area being traveled through gains a +2 bonus on this check. [Survival check to avoid getting lost].

At least it answers the question I posted last month.

Seems like: The Designers are okay with PCs fully healing between encounters, and that a party is expected to purchase healing kits to achieve this.

If you have a problem with "CLW Spam", could you be a bit more explicit about what you dislike about it?

I don't understand how everyone seems to have lost the entire legacy of Ancestral Memory of when all TTopRPGS required a Cleric, Rogue, and Wizard at EVERY table in order to survive the first 2 encounters, let alone DAYS of an Adventure.

I think it's that everyone does remember it. They just agree that removing that requirement has improved the game markedly, and that returning to that state would be a step backwards.

And that's just undeniably true. Heck, lets just consider ability scores. You may want optimized ability spellcasting modifiers in PF2, and you may find monsters have better odds at success. (I actually haven't seen that in the actual encounter design so far, but let's go with it.) But you wanted that maxed spellcasting mod in PF1 as well. Not only did it affect your save DCs, it affected how many spells per day you got. Heck, it could even prevent you from casting spells of a certain level at all.

In PF1, a battle cleric that didn't put enough into wisdom NEEDED to get a headband to upgrade it later or they would not be able to use higher level spells at all. In PF2, a 10 wisdom goblin cleric is actually pretty OK if they pick the right buff spells.

I have played a druid in Pathfinder Society up to level 12 with a starting wisdom of thirteen and no increases.

At no point did I feel ineffective.

Well, are you sure you need to cast spells at all?

If you want to do a super combat wild-shape dude you don't need all the levels of druid. I mean, beast shape III is as good as beast shape ever gets for druids, and you can get that at 8th level.

With Shaping focus at lvl 5 the only reason you have for going back to druid is if you want to wild shape into elementals and plants. But I don't think you need to. Don't forget, wild shape lasts for hours per level. So at 4 lvls and four levels of anything else you're already up to 24 hours of wild shape. Since you'll likely be sleeping for 8 hours of the day you could even spend half your waking hours as a celestial version of your chosen form. For the rest of the party you might as well exist as Dire Tiger. Now if you really want lvl 3 spells you could stick in Druid until lvl 6 as a lion shaman and gain use of beast shape 3 without needing your shaping focus feat. This would still give you 12 hours a day of what I assume would be dire tiger form (pounce and rake). The only reason I would suggest taking six levels of druid is so that you can take wild speech, allowing you to talk with the rest of the party in wild shape form. Which I imagine the party will appreciate.

I would strongly consider level dipping monk for the wis to AC and all the free feats. If you know of an item that gives wis to AC you could probably skip the monk. So if you were starting at 8 or later I would say to take your level's like this for the best feats.

Monk 1/Lorewarden 1/Lion Shaman 6/Lore Warden 5/Whatever

1- Improved Grapple, Improved Unarmed Strike, Stunning Fist
2- Power Attack
3- Dragon Style
5- Weapon Focus (claw) [your totem transformation gives you access to natural attacks]
7- Natural Spell
9- Feral Combat Training, Dragon Ferocity, Combat Expertise
10-Greater Grapple
11-Wild Speech
12-Weapon Specialization (claw)

At that point anything's a good option. Your CMB is ridiculous. You're damage is . . . good. If you're sticking with core classes dwarf is probably your best bet?

15 point buy lvl 12
Str 16 Int 10
Dex 12 Wis 16
Con 16 Cha 8

Wild Shape on a Dire Tiger on a 15 point buy (no magic items). Lvl 12
Cool stuff you'll have as a dire tiger- Scent, Speed 40, pounce, rake, and a grab on all your attacks.

2 Claws +16 (2d4+10 plus grab) Bite +15 (2d6+6/crit 19-20 plus grab)
or power attack at -3 to hit +6 to damage. Sadly you can't make rake attacks the turn you grapple. Keep in mind greater grapple lets you make a grapple check twice in a turn. Meaning four claw attacks on any target you have grappled. Also, whenever you crit with a claw your opponent is shaken for 1d4+str mod rounds, no save.

And your CMB to grapple is +26.