| MelodicCodes |
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A lot of people, myself included, have major complaints with regards to the current playtest release of PF2e right out of the gate. I am among them. Now would be a great time to "break down" these major design issues so they can be quickly corrected/iterated on and we can focus on more specific minutia.
1. Feats should be "unchained" from classes.
A lot of people have mentioned that, without any form of multiclassing, you cannot have a TWF Rogue(at least one that's meaningfully better than a 1 weapon Rogue). This is silly, and an example of a seeming design oversight but it highlights a bigger issue.
By bundling feats and classes together, options during character building and leveling are hugely restricted. The game's writers have to consider each likely "build" for every class. It either leads to character concepts that can't be done properly, or to individual feats being reprinted multiple times, which is a waste of space and time. Moreover, oversights like this are very liable to be repeated in the future.
Feats should return to being selected from a categorically-seperated pool in their own section with specific prerequisites, rather than being bundled up with classes. If the writers see fit, they could list a specific class as a prerequisite to take a feat, but this should probably be done sparingly.
Race feats are less of a problem, but could probably be renamed to avoid confusion with the rest of the feat system.
Bundling feats into classes does not solve any meaningful problems, from what I can tell.
2. Resonance solves a problem that never had to exist.
From what I can gather, the Resonance system was created to prevent magic item spam/abuse. I take great issue with this reasoning, as it has always been ultimately up to the GM to decide what and how many magic items the players get. In other words, it's solving a problem that a clever GM could easily sidestep, while simultaneously putting hard limits on what PCs are able to do, especially high level martials.
You're putting new rules into the game in order to keep the GM from making a decision that the designers think is bad. I don't think it's wrong to put warnings for GMs before historically problem magic items, but this is limiting on both players and GMs. It doesn't add anything to the game on its own, only takes away from the possibility space.
3. Proficiencies in skills & saves are silly.
Thog the Barbarian has trained his whole life to hit stuff. He is a level 10 Barbarian, who smash really good. Suddenly, he's put in a situation where he has to sing, despite literally having never done so in his life. He at least is getting a +8 modifier to that check from proficiency. What?
I don't see what was wrong with static base save progressions and skill points. They were actually somewhat easier to explain/more self-evident than proficiencies, and required you to actually put in training to be good at something, rather than just becoming passively good at everything(and having to update every. single. skill. every time you level up).
4. Sorcerers must keep learning the same spell at higher levels.
Why does a Sorcerer need to keep relearning Fireball at every level up in order to be able to consistently blast with good damage? Sorcerers already have limited spells known, all this change does is make Wizards more unholy powerful by comparison by effectively making Sorcerers less able to efficiently utilize said spells known.
Metamagic in the past did a fine job of making higher level spell slots more powerful. This just makes wizards stand out as powerhouses more than they already were.
My last major issue, and probably my biggest gripe is...
5. You can't do traditional multiclassing at all, ever.
There are many mechanical and storyline reasons why a PC might want to change class partway through their adventuring career. It's very arbitrary to keep people from multiclassing, as people in real life do this sort of thing all the time. Med students discover a passion for the arts, circumstances force somebody to change careers, etc.
The Rogue, seeking to redeem his past actions becomes a Paladin, using his dextrious moves and precision in place of brute strength. Maybe a Swashbuckler ship captain retires from his adventures on the high seas, telling tales of his travels and barking orders to his allies as a Bard or Skald, while still being a daring warrior with the blade. A Human Fighter becomes a Vampire Hunting Inquisitor after his spouse and comrade is murdered by a vampire. These are all examples of the storytelling potential of multiclassing using 1e as a framework.
As more suppliments are added and concepts from 1e are "ported", storytelling potential from multiclassing will simply evaporate. Instead of changing lifestyles when multiclassing, the new system feels a lot more like "oh your Rogue decided to dabble in some magic for a bit", rather than "Your Rogue has made the decision to become a Wizard from now on".
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It seems like Paizo really wants to reinvent the wheel with this playtest, and while things like the new action economy work fine, I would advise them against making too many sweeping core mechanics changes from 1st - the game is still supposed to be Pathfinder at its core, after all. Player freedom is an aspect that PF1e excelled at, this edition so far is rather lacking. While it's tempting to say that's because there's less content overall, the new core changes don't facilitate much in the way of major choices.
Paizo mentioned that they were going to do a lot of the big changes that they weren't sure about during the early stages of the playtest. I hope the issues mentioned above all fall into that category and can be ironed out before the next playtest release, so we can focus more on the specifics of classes, balance, spell lists and feats next phase. I have other gripes, but they're better saved for a time when more glaring complaints are ironed out.