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So, I really like the ideas behind PF1 multiclassing; the idea that class levels are like Lego blocks you can combine in a lot of unique ways. However, there's a number of issues with this:

First is how different tracks work, more specifically, there are class-specific tracks vs more universal tracks. Universal tracks are stuff like the saves or Base Attack Bonus; they tends to increase regardless of what class you take levels in. Class-specific tracks are closer to stuff like spellcasting, which only advance when you put levels in specific classes. From how I understand it, classes that rely on universal tracks tends to suffer less from multiclassing, and those that rely on class-specific tracks suffers more.

Next is how front-loaded a lot of class features are. Classes tends to get a lot of features in its first few levels so that the class can be recognizable something specific early on, but this means that the early levels can end up being worth a lot more than the later ones. Players tends to like to get their concept "online" as quickly as possible, so front-loading a bunch of stuff is good for this reason. However, this does also cause a lot of issues with the idea of class levels being interchangeable, combineable, "blocks" if some of these class levels are worth more than others.

As I understand it, the latest version of D&D "fixes" some of these issues by having the class concept not really go online until level… 4 I think? Levels 1-3 is more like training to be a class and can sorta be seen as tutorial levels for newer players, while more experienced players are meant to start later. This helps keep the idea of class levels being mostly interchangeable and combineable in tact, but I can imagine a lot of players not being too happy with this since it means character concepts can take a higher level to go online. This would also generally weaken multiclassing in general. I'm not sure what they did, if anything, about the universal/class-specific tracks issue.

PF2 abandons the idea of classes being like Lego-blocks and instead makes feats do that. This means there is much less distinction between class-specific tracks and universal tracks, as well as allowing them to make powerful level-1s of classes without worry they'll just be pouched for multiclassing purposes.

If I got something wrong, please tell me. I don't really have much in terms of playing experience, so I'm going mostly from what I've read or heard about it.

Each of the solutions have their own pros and cons though, but I do feel PF2's allows for a great amount of diverse character customization without requiring a large amount of systems mastery to make use of.


So, something I feel is that Druids probably shouldn't be a weapons class. That's more something for martial characters. So I feel Druids needing a dedication feat for something like Fighter or Ranger to get feats that work well with a bow makes sense to me. That's going out of the main what the Druid does.

Something else I feel is that if a Druid player bought a bow and arrows and got proficiency for the bow, they've invested into using the bow. I somewhat understand not feeling this way without specific feats, but it does feel like significant investment to me, especially once one starts getting into magical bows. Also, such a character would probably prioritize Dexterity a bit more than other Druids.

Just my thoughts and feelings on the matter.


So, I didn't notice before, but the Ki abilities, Ki Rush and Ki Strike, are uncommon? Doesn't this mean that you can't pick them normally?


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It doesn't say they need to be on the ground in order to be in the stance, just to go into the stance. So I imagine once you're in the stance, you're free to go into the air and do Falling Stone strikes.


MaxAstro wrote:
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.

Oh, just noticed the touching-the-ground requirement.

…Does that mean you can't enter the stance if you're wearing shoes?


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Bardarok wrote:
Meophist wrote:
Armor spell failure is probably gone, but it seems heavy armour proficiency requires either to have it in your class, or to multiclass into Champion. So to have a heavy armored spellcaster, you either need to play as a Fighter or Champion and multiclass into a spellcaster, or start in a spellcaster and multiclass into Champion, each of which has their limitations.

Did they say that they removed the armor profocincy feat?

I didn't think about that, although that's still probably a heavy feat investment.

Lanathar wrote:

Probably a bit easier than 1E for the arcane casting hellknighf I mentioned . I think you need three feats in 1E for a full plate Signifer

Because the suggestion is that you would only need the one dedication feat? Is that right ? (If you started as a spellcaster). Or is that wrong ?

Starting as a martial class seems like it may take more investment to build up the casting but that is probably not the route to take

And this is without knowing what the hellknight prestige archetype does.

According to the multiclass archetype thread, you need the dedication to get Trained and another to get Expert. It doesn't mention anything higher than that.


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Armor spell failure is probably gone, but it seems heavy armour proficiency requires either to have it in your class, or to multiclass into Champion. So to have a heavy armored spellcaster, you either need to play as a Fighter or Champion and multiclass into a spellcaster, or start in a spellcaster and multiclass into Champion, each of which has their limitations.


Focusing on Focus Points feels like it's something that could cause some balance issues. It would mean they would need to be careful what Focus Point options they give to other classes as multiclass archetype, since a powerful one can give more uses than expected to a class with a Focus Point… focus.


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Deadmanwalking wrote:
Meophist wrote:
From my question, it feels like an issue is that there's two types of ability scores. I'll call the two types "active", and "passive" for now.

The issue with the active/passive disconnect is that it's not strictly true. Intelligence and Strength both have meaningful passive effects (Int adds Skills while Str governs Encumbrance and reduces heavy armor's movement penalties...the latter lets you use it as a replacement for Dex on AC in many ways). And one of the 'passive' Abilities also have active effects as well (Dex is used on many attacks).

Plus anything used as a casting stat becomes active.

So that leaves literally every score with meaningful passive effects you would rather not be without (though Str and Dex can sort of sub in for each other in some ways)...except Charisma.

So yeah, I think Charisma needs help, but it's more because of its lack of passive effect than anything.

I mean, sorta? Maybe I should elaborate more.

A "problem", or sorts, for Dexterity is that it often acts like a passive and an active score. If you use a finesse or ranged weapon, Dexterity is used as both a passive(for defenses) and an active(for attacks) ability score.

As it is, the three active scores, Strength, Intelligence, and Charisma, are the easiest to dump, since it's relatively easy to not care about their passive effects, while the defenses Dexterity, Constitution, and Wisdom's defense increases are less ignorable(with the exception of Dexterity on heavy armour builds).

I don't think this is too bad of an idea, although having certain ability scores do the effects of others creates problems for this, and abilities scores doing both jobs as well.

Being a specific defense is a huge boon for Dexterity, Constitution, and Wisdom, and that's something that could help, but would be really difficult to add-on later. That said, I think that was a part of the current's D&D's solution to the problem?

IIRC, D&D 4th edition had the idea of allowing either of different pairs to serve as defensive saves. I imagine this helped, but I feel there's still an issue with Dexterity being responsible for so much defense? Then again, I remember hearing that some Paizo folks experimented with splitting Dexterity in two and that was still really powerful.

…It feels like too complex a problem to solve simply.


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From my question, it feels like an issue is that there's two types of ability scores. I'll call the two types "active", and "passive" for now.

Dexterity, Constitution, and Wisdom are the "passive" scores. These are basically the scores that are always in effect and scores you want to have at least some of at all times. Each also contributes to a type of defense, Dexterity being AC and Reflex saves, Constitution being HP and Fortitude saves, and Wisdom being Will saves.

Strength, Intelligence, and Charisma on the other hand are more "active" scores. These are scores to be invested in in order to do something in specific. In general, a character is unlikely to raise more than one of these, specific to their character concept. These generally don't increase any sort of defense.

So the basic idea seems to be that you focus on one "active" score and raise the "passive" ones to round them out for defense. There does seem to be a bit of an issue that some of the "passive" scores can also work as an "active" score, which decreases the need for as many ability score increases.

…This is probably all old news for folks here, but I feel this shows one of the issues with Charisma.


I have a related question:

In general, how would one rate the usefulness of each ability score? Just generally speaking.

I understand Charisma is considered the overall worst(although it's not like a Bard or Sorcerer would dump it regardless), I wonder about similar issues with other ability scores.

When trying to buff up Charisma, it might be good to take the overall balance into consideration.


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Ryu's Hadoukens aren't actually made of fire or anything, they're a sort of "wave energy", which could be represented by Ki blasts pretty easily, I think.

Although out of the original 8 world warriors, Dhalsim would probably be the most difficult to replicate, followed by Blanka.


I have some ideas as to "fixing" Charisma, although to be honest, I end up revamping the entire ability score system since I only consider Charisma's issues to be a part of the whole.

That said, there's only so much I want to do before knowing the whole rules.


I know this is a bit late, but it feels it could be on two axis now: Observed/Hidden, Known/Unnoticed.

Like, if you're trying to hide in a crowd or use a disguise, you could be observed, but unnoticed to someone trying to find you. Alternatively, I guess if you turn invisible during combat, foes can know you're there, but you're still hidden from them.

…Might be overly complex, I don't know.


If there was a generic dodge action, it would probably be something that must be done as your first action if you're going to do it, and give a multiple attack penalty as if it were a strike action. Even that could be too powerful with spells.


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I guess one solution would be to limited to two actions as long as you have a minion, but the minion always has access to two actions?


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Themetricsystem wrote:

I'd personally like to see the return of the PF1 style Trait System as optional.

Tie CHA to that, everyone starts with 2 Traits + CHA Modifier.

This helps ground Traits in what they were supposed to be in the first place, defining aspects of your character's history and personality. Sure that means uninvested Dwarves only get 1 Trait, and that Bards will end up with a TON of Traits, but thematically I think that fits.

Give a VERY close eye towards the kinds of minor bonuses that Traits can give this time around instead of publishing them all loosey-goosey whereby 2/3 of all Characters just choose the +1 Save of choice or +2 Init every time. Perhaps it would be a good way to reduce a single Uncommon "Gate" for stuff outside of the Ancestry or Archetype system too.

Thoughts? Has this idea already been crushed to a fine paste and sprinkled on Ancestral Weapons grave?

I feel this will make character creation a lot more complex and slower than it already is, which feels like a good reason to pass on this.


Classes like Barbarian, Paladin, and Ranger are already conceptually basically Fighter+, so it makes sense they don't really gain much from Fighter multiclass.


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I do mostly feel that dedications aren't available at the first level because they don't want to front-load too many decisions for newer players. More experienced players can probably just start at level 2 to get around those restrictions.


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I don't really have much experience with tabletop RPGs, so I don't really know too much about this sort of stuff but…

First character idea that came to mind was a simple spear & shield fighter. That said, when I looked at the playtest, it seemed the spear was a simple weapon and there wasn't really any martial polearm that could be used with a shield, so my character idea feels like it ends up a bit subpar from the get-go. Hopefully there's more support for this.

Next idea is more complex and kinda weird. The main idea is that he's a man with humble ambitions, managing a small business in a town. He focuses on crafting things, probably either an Alchemist or a Wizard, to help people around him. That said, from time to time, he gets strange requests. Some people seem to think he's some sort of accomplished adventurer and ask him to do some wild things. Although he keeps on the cautious side, he has difficulty turning down a request although he promises no results. He tends to make an honest attempt but tries to avoid putting his life into too much danger.

…But at night, he turns into someone else entirely. A woman rogue with a knack for adventure, she spends much of her time completing the requests he receives without his notice. The two change personas at the same time every morning and evening and each are effectively sleeping while the other is active with no memory of the other's actions. Since the man takes extensive notes on everything that happens in his life, the woman reads these notes to get a good understanding of what went on and is very aware of the man counterpart's existence, but he doesn't quite believe in her's. Regardless, when folks ask him for help on adventuring things, they're generally asking for her help in actuality.

The basic idea of this character would be to use two sheets, and they will be switched involuntarily at fixed intervals of the day. I don't really know how practical this would be in a tabletop RPG and would likely require coordination with a DM to execute, but I like the idea at least.


An alternative would be using a different scale for spells, something that's not levels. Although it'll lose granularity, I think something like the untrained/trained/expert/master/legendary scale could work.


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Saedar wrote:
Davido1000 wrote:
Im definetly hoping for some sort of charisma based fighter that isnt the champion, more like a warlord or military leader that buffs his allies through the power of TEAMWORK!
+1 for Magical Girls. #SorryNotSorry

A Magical Girl/Sentai/Kamen Rider-style class could actually be pretty neat, I think. I would like to see that.


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graystone wrote:
Pumpkinhead11 wrote:
On this particular point i’ll agree to disagree, and feel a couple of days would be much too short a time frame
It depends how familiar they are with the spells. If they have been playing with the game and know the spells well enough that they don't have to look up what they do, it wouldn't be hard to spreadsheet the spells by level and add a quick mark to each spell for it's spell list as you go down the sheet. Now if you just grabbed someone that's never looked at the spells before, yeah it'll take a long time reading up on each spell. So depending who did it, either one of you could be right. ;)

I mean, doing that is one thing, but in terms of game design, it's difficult to simply make changes like that. You can make the four lists, sure, but are they fun, balanced, contain enough variety within them? A lot of this stuff needs testing. Pathfinder is a large, interconnected system, making changes in one part has ripple effects throughout the whole system.

I don't really see it as being something that can simply be done in a few days, regardless of their familiarity with the spells.


I do sort think thesis is separate from school, as stuff like familiars and metamagic were first-level feats, unlike school specialization.


The thesis stuff sounds like some of the first-level feat choices the Wizard got rather than the schools, so I think they might be in addition to the schools, and perhaps replace the first-level class feats.


If I may have a bit of a critique, I'm not a fan of the leggings/footwear blending in with her… skirt? They're somewhat difficult to make out and makes it a bit weird details-wise.

Otherwise, I really like the new look. Lower legs area aside, the design is easy to read and has a lot of nice detail to it.


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QuidEst wrote:
Themetricsystem wrote:

I have a STRONG suspicion that ALL Classes are going to get another starting Class Feat at level 1 and that ALL Multiclass Dedication Feats are going to get moved down to level 1 in order to help facilitate the huge number of hybrid classes from PF1 that DON'T have to wait until level 2 to "come online."

At least, I'd like to hope it turns out that way.

That seems unlikely to me. You're already picking an ancestry feat, a skill feat via background, and possibly a class feat. Four feats seems like a bit much to throw together all at once for new players. I could be wrong about that, but if so, I really doubt they'd add the rather dizzying possibilities of every multiclass feat in on top of that.

Since players choose a heritage at first level anyways, they could change the ancestry feat choice for a class feat choice at the first level, swapping it for the class feat choice at second level.

That said, it's probably a bit more complex than that, and selecting two class feats at first level would feel weird. Giving each class a class feat at the first level and having additional features for the ones that already have one seems more elegant.

That said(the second time), it's likely better for newer players to not front-load so many choices at the beginning as allowing archetypes at the first level would do. Another possibility is to just have some "training wheels" levels with the choices more spread apart that could be skipped for more experienced players.

A number of competing priorities does feel like it can make this part of game design challenging.


It seems Fighter Dedication didn't have the 16 Dex option until more recently, I feel requiring 16 Str could make it more interesting?


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I don't like intelligence penalty as a thing for ancestries in general. It's not an idea I'm in favour of.


I just want to say I currently agree with Vidmaster7 that level 1 archtypes probably isn't worth the increased complexity of the changes necessary, or at least proposed.

There could be a system where level 1 archtypes are possible without such an increase in complexity, but I don't see it here.

I want to be particularly against allowing (current) archtypes to be bought into via general feats. General feats don't really have the combat power to be a viable option over archtype feats at the moment.


So, I've been thinking about how Pathfinder 2 is handling feats and progression, being somewhat dissatisfied with it. This led to the line of thought: How would I do this if I were designing this game?

Okay, rather than calling them feats, let's just call them "choices" for now. As you create and progress your character, you make various choices for your character. This is fine.

Something important to do is to separate combat and non-combat choices. Combat is a big part of Pathfinder, and it creates problems if a character is too strong or too weak compared to the other characters in combat. If combat and non-combat choices aren't separate, then those who use choice that could be used for combat for non-combat things can end up too weak to meaningfully participate in combat encounters, and for the reverse, they could end up so strong they may invalidate the contributions of the rest of the party during combat. Since these scenarios are bad, combat and non-combat choices needs to be separate.

So we have combat choices and non-combat choices being separate things. Next thing we need to worry about is the different requirements for combat choices and non-combat choices. Specifically, for combat choices, we generally want to build tall. For non-combat choices, we generally want to build wide.

Starting with the combat choices, "building tall" means that the choices needs to increase in power over time; they need to be scalable. Numbers go up over the course of a character's adventuring life, so the combat choices needs to account for that. So, I thought of the idea of "Paths" for combat choices. You can choose one or more Paths at level one and can either go into new Paths or invest more into an existing Path over future levels.

One possible Path could be Sneak Attack for the Rogue. Sneak Attack adds a bit of damage at level 1, but needs to increase in damage in order to keep up with the increasing amounts of HP enemies get. So in this Path, the Sneak Attack automatically advances in how much damage it deals as you increase in level. Additionally, you can invest in it with future combat choices in order to, for example, add effects to the Sneak Attack or make it easier to do. Alternately, you may want to go into a different Path altogether for enhanced versatility.

Okay, so combat choices can be done with this Path thing, what about non-combat choices? Skill feats seems good for that, but that by itself feels a bit lacking. Well, more than lacking, it doesn't have that personal touch, it feels a bit too generic and, well, everybody could get them. They're not you.

So, I think it's possible to do them more class-like. Make them class feats, special non-combat things that showcase the class themselves, rather than just a skill. Many of these can have skill proficiency requirements, but they could feel like they belong to the class. I feel that could do a good job.

Between these combat choices and non-combat choices, probably best to give the player choices in these in alternate levels. Ah, right, there's Ancestry feats as well, isn't there? Well, we can make half of the non-combat choices dedicated to these. Then we could…

…Wait…

At this point, I realized I basically just reinvented what Paizo did for Pathfinder 2. The combat choices are class feats, non-combat are general and skill feats. And there's also ancestry feats. The class feats also generally fit what I've described as "Paths" as well, although not quite laid out in such a way. The non-combat is more class-agnostic than what I would like though, but the general concept stuff is similar enough.

Where to go from here?

To be honest, I think the current system came from pretty logical steps, but although my line of thoughts ended up in similar place as Paizo, they're not the same(to be fair, probably because I read the playtest before this thought exercise). So, why the differences? Well, it has to do with what I feel is lacking in the current playtest.

First thing I feel is lacking is that it feels like the current class feats, well, you can invest your class feats into a certain direction, and it feels like you'll fall behind if you're not consistently investing in a specific direction. Admittedly, my current Paths idea has a similar issue, but I feel its auto-progression can give space where you can't simply continuously invest in one playstyle and give room to diversify. So, to put it in another way, and in bold because it's important, I think you shouldn't be able to invest all of your class feats in a specific direction to force the player to invest in something that's not simply the single style, and this will give more incentive to move away from simple cookie-cutter builds. Having more auto-advancement in class feats can help with this, creating blank levels where continuing to invest in that single style is impossible.

The other thing I feel is lacking is, well, the classic problem: The Fighter. The Fighter is good at, well, fighting. More specifically, it's good at martial combat, so pretty much all Fighter feats goes towards advancing that. The Fighter isn't really the only one that suffers from this, just the most. Nearly all of the Barbarian's feats only affects its rage.

So the big problem this gives the Fighter is that it doesn't give the Fighter much to do outside of combat, especially not anything unique. I feel giving the Fighter more skill ranks is only a bandaid for the problem, when it comes to skill, it's not like it's going to beat the Rogue. Now, signature skills do go some way of helping with this problem, but I don't really like that entire mechanic, but that'll be for another post.

How do we fix this? Well, I gave a solution above. We should make more general/skill feats class-specific, so that each class has more unique things they can do outside of combat. I don't mean make the current general/skill feats class-specific, but make new ones that show off what each class is about.

That's about all I have to say currently on the matter. I have more details, but they're details and are less important. Thank you for reading.

tl;dr: Bold stuff.


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ChibiNyan wrote:
Arachnofiend wrote:
The new monster creation was advertised as a means of allowing them to make numbers that made sense without faking it by padding them (like how in PF1 every monster got a crap ton of natural armor so that they could compete in AC without giving the PC's a ton of loot). Level 0 goblins being as good as the best possible level 1 PC was not part of the deal.
A more recent discovery I made by analyzing the math (that other people probably already figured out) Is that besides some edge cases (Goblins), monster AC is too low by the same amount that their attack is too high. This means even if the monster is more lethal, PCs are also more lethal against them, this sort of "balances" out these attack advantages and results in inflated damage/crit rate from both sides. However, it also results in jarring stat blocks that don't add up with PCs. Giving all PCs +1 or +2 prof bonus from trained but keeping AC the same (Base 8 or 9) would equalize this. We'd gain proper homogeneity between monsters and PCs without increasing the miss chance.

I want to talk a bit about this.

The math in both Pathfinder and Pathfinder 2 has a bit of an oddity: AC increases way more at level 1 than at any other level, and it's mostly just AC. This is because putting on armour itself gives a big bonus, and it generally only increases by one or two in each level after the first.

I think in order to compensate for this, before, level 1 characters had little HP, so when they do get hit, it means a lot, but they're not going to get hit much. This made low levels very swingy compared to later levels.

One of the goals of Pathfinder 2, it seems, to make play across levels more even. So players gets more HP at first level, monsters have higher attack modifiers and lower AC, because relatively speaking, that's how it's going to be through the rest of the levels, relatively speaking.

Because all other values generally only increase by one or two per level, this means the difference between player numbers and monster should be most felt at the first level, and should gradually even out over time.

This is all mostly my theory, anyways.


Xenocrat wrote:

The Fighter's Dual-Handed Assault provides zero action economy benefits under the current handedness rules (one action to put a hand on, a free action to take off), only granting either a +2 damage bonus if your weapon has the two-hand trait, and a die increase if it doesn't.

It's possible that rather than being a terrible damage booster that is worse than attacking twice this was originally an action economy saver when taking a hand off still required an action. If that's the case, recommend making it one action but adding a once per round limitation.

Isn't Dual-Handed Assault attacking one-handed, changing grip to two handed, then attacking two-handed, then changing grip again back to one-handed? That would be two attacks for two actions, along with an extra bonus, which seems fine to me.


Rather than being more powerful, I think the initial Ki feat should probably be more interesting. A person who want to make a mystical Ki-using Monk probably wants to do something more than getting a simple attack bonus. Something more similar to Wholeness of Body or Ki Blast would make more sense for that, I think.

As for Monastery Weaponry, I feel the reason it's a feat is so that there's a reason to use a Monk that doesn't use weapons. Otherwise, might as well always pick up a weapon.


Some of those in the no-choice category do have a similar choice, of sorts.

Monk's Ki Strike is the lead-in into the Ki feats, literally being a prerequisite for them. This seems like a clear thematic/mechanic level 1 choice you can make.

Fighter has clear archery, shield, two-weapon, and some other lines starting from level 1.

It's possible there's a variety in approaches due to it being a playtest and they want to know how people prefer things. We currently have "hard choice" for things like Sorcerer or Barbarian, where your choice locks you in and gives you mutually exclusive stuff as you level up, and "soft choice" like the Druid or Bard, where the choice leads you in certain directions but doesn't require you to commit. The "no choice" classes are similar to the "soft choice", but with even less commitment.


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RafaelBraga wrote:

After failing with math, people fail with reading. (Unless it has been errataed)

The Ki Strike power doesnt have a cost.

You can use it as often as you like as long you have the ability to do verbal casting (i.e. youre not silenced)

Both the Power description or the Feat say anything about having a cost, it just gives you your first access to Spell Points.

You gain the ki strike ki power (see page 234). This power is a type of special spell you can cast by spending Spell Points.

This is what the feat says(emphasis mine). That said, it doesn't say how many Spell Points you need to spend to use it, but it probably was intended to be one point, as opposed to zero.


RafaelBraga wrote:
Meophist wrote:
Dragon Stance attacks do do 1d10 base, but they're neither Agile or Finesse, which makes it a poor fit for Dex Monks, although the posted Monk is Str-based. It's also Tiger Stance, which is 1d8 base, which also doesn't work, there is a 1d12 attack you can do with it, but that's not the same.
Fierce flurry.

…Oh, I missed that. I was just looking at the feats. Sorry, must be a bit tired. Thanks for the correction.


Dragon Stance attacks do do 1d10 base, but they're neither Agile or Finesse, which makes it a poor fit for Dex Monks, although the posted Monk is Str-based. It's also Tiger Stance, which is 1d8 base, which also doesn't work, there is a 1d12 attack you can do with it, but that's not the same.


Xerres wrote:

Not a feat I think, but maybe just a sidebar for an alternate rule or something. "You aren't really your Gods normal cup of tea, but gosh darn it, you're just adorable they love you anyway, so they give you the powers of their Clerics!"

A feat that just lets you bypass alignment rules is annoying for the people that hate alignment. Archetypes that let you do special things tied to being a Heretic of that Deity would be fun for later though.

"A Lawful Neutral Cleric of Asmodeus, the Dark Prince appreciates someone lying so convincingly they even fool themselves and has a use for you! Congratulations, your suffering will be legendary even in Hell, but maybe you'll lie your way out of that one too."

"A Chaotic Good Cleric of Gorum, Our Lord in Iron finds your gumption charming, and is interested to see just how well you'll do in your seemingly hopeless battle. And maybe you'll cheese off a Demon Lord or two and they'll be stupid enough to fight Gorum himself! Fun!"

I once made a Cleric in D&D 3.5 who was neutral but followed a Chaotic Neutral trickster god, which wasn't allowed in the normal rules, but the DM allowed it. DM had a non-standard campaign that was all about doing underhanded and sneaky things, so since I thought the Cleric would be the least suited class for such a thing, that's what I picked. The idea was that the Cleric was good at disguising as Clerics of other gods, being neutral allowed them to avoid alignment detection magic and cast both Heal and Harm. The character wasn't particularly Chaotic or Lawful, had little in terms of personal motivations, just followed directions for the most part. Being able to disguise as a Cleric of any god allowed them to go into many places much more easily.

The god was okay with this because they were causing a bunch of divine and religious chaos due to the actions, even if they weren't trying to specifically do so.


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Franz Lunzer wrote:

Rewording this again.

You are in the middle of leveling up to 5th level of your Wizard with the Fighter dedication feat.
For your 5th level Ancestry feat you select Natural Ambition (which gets you a 1st level class feat).

Which feats do you consider 1st level class feats?
How would Fighter Resiliency (a 4th level fighter archetype feat) get to be a 1st level class feat?

Would you allow someone to select Natural Ambition (Conceal Spell) at 5th level?

You could've highlighted the "class" part too, since archetype feats aren't class feats.

Except there's a special rule that lets you replace a class feat choice with an archetype feat, and there's no rule saying that the restrictions on the class feat also apply to the archetype feat since they're different types of feats.


shroudb wrote:
Fuzzy-Wuzzy wrote:
shroudb wrote:
Meophist wrote:
When, let's say the Fighter, says that they're "Trained in a number of skills equal to 3 plus your Intelligence modifier", is this only when they go into level 1, or does this count throughout the Fighter's life? Like, if their Intelligence modifier goes up by 1, do they get an extra skill trained? Likewise, if their Intelligence modifier goes down by 1, do they lose a skill trained?

ability changes are retroactive.

so yes, they gain a "trained" skill when they increase Int (but not upgrade an already tained to expert or higher)

That is my thought as well, and it's a rule in PF1, but I haven't been able to find it stated in the playtest rules. Where is it?
on my cellphone atm so i can't "search" the pdf. But one place i remember it stated it was (edit:) in the Potent section of magic items
I found the relevant text:
Quote:

When you invest an item that has the potent trait, it improves one of your ability scores, either increasing it by 2 or increasing it to a total of 18, whichever grants the higher score. This gives you the benefits of the new ability score: increasing Intelligence lets you become trained in an additional skill, increasing Charisma adds to your Resonance Points, increasing Constitution gives you more Hit Points, and so on. These benefits go away once the investiture runs out.

A potent item grants this benefit only the first time it’s invested within a 24-hour period, and you can benefit from only one potent item at a time. If you attempt to invest a potent item when you already have one invested, you don’t gain the ability score increase, though you do gain any other effects of investing the item.

This only applies to increases from the potent trait, it doesn't describe what happens with normal ability score increases.

That said, if you level up while under the effects of potent and increase the effect of a skill you've increased using potent to expert, what happens when the effect runs out?


When, let's say the Fighter, says that they're "Trained in a number of skills equal to 3 plus your Intelligence modifier", is this only when they go into level 1, or does this count throughout the Fighter's life? Like, if their Intelligence modifier goes up by 1, do they get an extra skill trained? Likewise, if their Intelligence modifier goes down by 1, do they lose a skill trained?


Improving attack bonuses still kinda keeps them more or less essential. If you want them to be more optional, an option could be to remove all numerical bonuses from magical weapons, so weapons can have other features, like detecting orcs.


Dual-Handed Assault lets you attack twice, once two-handedly, and end with a free hand open for 2 actions. If you need to have a hand free, this feels like a good way of doing so while still having the increased damage of a two-handed weapon. This also increases the damage of attack as well, so it gets stuff that a normal two-handed weapon does not.

So I think this feat is supposed to be the primary advantage of weapons like the bastard sword.


Mudfoot wrote:
5) Point Blank Shot gives you +2 to hit within the first range increment unless longbow in why case complicated rule which essentially means the same thing, max 50 feet.

Damage, actually, not to hit.


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Since it works on skill checks, I think it work cause issues if Guidance didn't have Bolstered.


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The reason the second one exists is so that the damage of a Fireball hitting multiple targets and only some critically failing the saving throw can be done more or less fine.

The former helps keep variance in check, making the extreme outcomes less likely.


JRutterbush wrote:
Meophist wrote:
"Sling staves" isn't quite a weapon, although there is a weapon called "Halfling Sling Staff". It's unclear where you get training in this weapon or if you just gain access to them. It feels like there meant to be a non-Halfling "Sling Staff" weapon that was left out.
"Staves" is actually one accepted form of plural for "staff".

I understand that, but there's no "Sling Staff" weapon, just "Halfling Sling Staff". Usually, when the rules refer to a weapon, it uses the full name.


Fighter and Paladin gets higher proficiency with heavy armour compared to other others, so they have effectively higher AC with heavy armour.

No one else has heavy armour proficiency without multiclassing into Fighter, which only grants Trained, unless one becomes a Gray Maiden, who can get up to legendary in its special full plate-like armour.

So heavier armours have an AC advantage, even if you max out the Dex bonus.


Even if you can only get negative Intelligence modifier via choosing to do so or with rolling, the rules do support it so it should support whatever outcomes from that.

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