MusicAddict's page

Is there a reason that the shipping is said to start today? It is still quite a while until the official release

Due to the unreliable nature of predicting how long the shipping of a product will take, both to get to a given person and even just physically move all the product out out of the facility to get where it needs to be to get going to a customer, since street date is also including book, gaming and other hobby stores, product needs to start being shipped out up to 2 weeks in advance.

Since the introduction of the Leshy Ancestry, we now have a race with an unusual anatomy. I have issues with the Medicine skill uses being applied to a race which is a plant. I appreciate that the rules do not prevent it, but the same issue popped up in my Age of Ashes campaign last night, when one of the party used Battle Medicine on an Anadi NPC.

I, as yet have not prevented any such healing activities in my campaigns, but it strikes me as soemthing that is indeed worth a discussion

Thoughts.....

I think it's not worth any real discussion to be quite honest.

At most, you could introduce a specialty skill feat if the distinctions between multiple different types of patients become relevant.

If you implement any form of this kind of realism, be forward with players that this is fundamentally penalizing players who stray from the norm.

So... I'm a huge fan of a lot of things in second edition changing from both 1st edition and the playtest version.

It's not about the fact that " you must have magic items". Not entirely I guess. My problem and I'm sure a few others that might have been misunderstood... Quality was perfect, it was fine conceptually. What we have here is exactly the same MECHANICALLY... but the packaging is absolutely ruined.

There's no longer such a thing as "an incredibly high quality but nonmagical weapon" that has benefits over a basic blade. Magic weapons and armor are now functionally ubiquitous. There's no master blacksmith creating fine weapons and armor for the party without the power of "magic". It comes off as cheap and worthless, at least to me. Yes I can always reflavour it, but in the playtest it was the default other than the fact that magic items out scaled quality. I now have to explain this to parties when I GM, and probably get questioning looks of "what's the point" or feel some twinge of disappointment as my future ifrit or dwarf has to call upon the powers of magic for what should have just been a very fancy sword unless the GM decides that they agree with me.

I personally just refuse to sorcerers free spontaneous heightening without also giving the prepared casters the ability to spontaneously heighten/cast their spells as well, which I absolutely dont want beyond a shadow of a doubt, because that just kicks sorcerer back down in terms of having any advantage.

The reason I cant just give it to sorcerer is that it would make divine sorcerer and likely other spontaneous classes with time extremely restricted in expected spell list when it comes to a proposed meta, with the second concern being opportunity costs in general. With free heightening the expectation that a sorcerer fill every single slot on the spell list, if not immeadiately but with time on level up/downtime to change their spells known, with the spells meant to remove and counteract anything and everything, and any other spell that's too invaluable to not carry around in an easily heightened form.

Every Sorcerer ever would have to carry dispel magic, restoration(assuming it's on their current list) and the like, and there's a bunch of them. There's no meaningful choice to be had. Even if you had a divine sorcerer and cleric in the same party, there's NO value in having the cleric take those spells with the normal prepared rules when the sorcerer can have them at a much much lower opportunity cost. As is, a wizard should almost never carry around a dispel magic if they share the party with a spontaneous caster, but the limited number of heightenable slots keep it from being a burden on expectations for a sorcerer, which let's them build how they want.

Next thing you're going to tell us is that there isn't an expensive opportunity cost in the form of having to learn a new combat poison recipe every single level or having to take multiple feats and multiclass into rogue so you have a relevant DC, right?

The current state of the alchemist class and its feats aren't really super thrilling to me. Everything tends to feel either too specific or feat-tax like.Powerful alchemy is still in and looks mostly the same, and the 10th level feat to barely keep poison DCs relevant seems to still be there too, though text is hard to tell with our screenshots in places.

MaxAstro wrote:

Ediwir wrote:

I suppose it all depends on whether channeling a specific spell through a specific weapon is necessary.

In P1, that was the penalty you took for being allowed to full attack. It was definitely flavourful, but that doesn’t change the fact it was a penalty.
Now? It’d be flavourful, but the penalty aspect is gone, so...

I think "infusing your sword with a variety of magic powers and hitting people with it" has a long and flavorful history in games and fiction. Combined with the fact that Magus was a fan favorite, I firmly believe it will come back - but redesigned so that the core theme is applying a variety of rider effects to melee strikes, instead of being specifically a gish.

Fair, but that’s the concept of Bespell Weapon.

Perhaps I’m getting this from the wrong angle - when people want spellstrike specifically, what do they expect exactly? Because if the goal is to gain an extra action each turn and ignoring MAP... well, that one is obvious. But maybe I’m missing a key point.

I'd like to say that bespell weapon is less channeling various magicks through a blade and more making good efficient use of residual magic.

The concept people have of spellstrike isn't necessarily about the mechanical benefits, though it would be fairly strong mechanically in second edition. Large flashy magical strikes are what I want from a magus like character. Focus based with spells like a wide flaming cleave or a lightning overhead with the same extended attack mechanic as the fire giant did in the playtest. Maybe options focused on various self buffs or curse/debuffs that cling to the opponent hit by the blade. Bespell just feels like a small bonus for using your last action or two to attack a creature in comparison.

Elfteiroh wrote:

Alenvire wrote:

Dumb question along the lines of runes. Are runes basically just making a item magic? or is it literally a item you attach to any weapon so if you have a greater frost rune you could swap as you want to new gear you find?

It's weird a bit. It's an engraving/symbol imbued with magic you put on an item, but you can "move" the magic by engraving it in a special stone, transfer the "magic" to the stone, then do the same process with the new item.

(At least, that's what I remember from the top of my head)

Thank you. Answers my question. This way a family heirloom passed down to a player no longer gets tossed before level 3.

Can a weapon be upgraded from Expert to say Legendary? I mean, even if it can't I could always use Pathfinder Rule 1 and say it can. Reworked blade, A finer hilt, engravings. Whatever.

It was very much a defined option in the playtest, and I dont expect that to change.

Leshies and Lizardfolk seems like a terrible decision. There are lots of more popular ancestries.

While I'm sure there's at least some more popular races, leshies earn a lot of immeadiate popularity when they were added as a race in Ultimate Wilderness. Plus. running the spectrum of races, and not just doling out the current popular race names is better imo. It lets people find new favourites and gives a shot to races that might not be as popular simply due to the fact that they're a latecomer or overshadowed by certain other races with ridiculously undeserved amounts of popularity (no names being named here).

Plus, leshy are cool, and they're different from most other races. They're literally starting off with shining a spotlight on a race that isn't even a humanoid.

Something I'd like to see, based on the similar classes from starfinder, the Solarion and the Vanguard, is a class with some kind of building resource.

I really hope that classes with more complex mechanics aren't going to be completely absent from second edition.

Maybe something like a martial/caster hybrid class that "galvanizes arcane power" as they charge in and swing their blade before unleashing it with fancy burst attacks or self buffs.

Another thing I'd like to see, maybe based on a reworked kineticist, is a class with a straight-up stance system. Some abilities having modified effects based on current stance or are only available in a given stance, with maybe feats that allow them to transition from one stance to another more fluidly than a monk.

Another enjoyable vignette, curious about what it means for sorcerer.

My only point of confusion is that, a glint of a blade too bright for steel sounds like an odd way to describe adamantine, since isn't adamantine supposed to be a black metal?

I don’t mean to derail and it might just be me but I have no issue with the idea (and any mechanics that enable it) of thousands of level 1 characters (an army) being able to take out a dragon or other high level nasty. It makes sense to me and is another reason that said big bads don’t blatantly rule the world (other than PCs and other high level NPCs stopping it.) Meh, different strokes I suppose.

It works mostly the same way it did in the playtest, but the new rules has 2 different use cases, if you would critically fail on a 20, you now only fail, where before it would be a success, and the reverse is true now with natural 1s, so that if you were so good at a task you would critically succeed on a 1, it would be just a success, actually preventing the armies taking on minor demigods scenarios.

My personal feelings on this are that some of these, like harpies, dryads(trees have genders!), and the like are perfectly sensible to have male and female variants.

Diverse representation is a good thing, but, shoving it into every possible facet isn't inherently good just because of that.

I think we shouldn't have a large number of "Only this gender" races, but it's fine that some exist, as long as it's not overly problematic in its use. And there's places where there's room for exploration with "only one gender" type races. Changelings, still being a traditional humanoid race, always born female in pathfinder, is fine, because there's explorable space in that and it's not overly problematic in its implementation imo.

The thing that's most important to me that I really like is the sense of visual clutter has been massively reduced, while still giving them a TON of equipment. I really like this because honestly... the clutter on the original PF1 iconics makes me feel uncomfortable even if I like the visualization of how characters are carrying all of their things.

Other than that, part of me wishes droogami wasn't a snow leopard and didn't become such a goofy looking one, and I'm not a huge fan of new sajan, but it's whatever.

Looking at these, I feel like I'm looking at a misrepresentation of this, tbh. Your copies of the new art have a noticeable quality drop, whether it's intentional or not, lines not being as clean as they should be and the whole image feels blurry instead of faded. I appreciate the images being side by side, but I don't know how I feel about how it's currently presented.

I think this thread will need renaming...

Also, we've seen how Glimpse of Redemption (the special Redeemer's interrupt) works: the attacker has the choice of either failing their attack or being enfeebled and granting damage reduction (3 in Carina's case, probably depends on Cha) to their target (do say if I got it wrong).

"Life choices" XD

Another one - Diplomacy apparently doesn't affect a single person anymore (this is great news for me). Unless Qundle has a related skill feat, but I doubt that.

Playtest update version scaled as something like 2+level for the damage reduction of paladin actions and Qundle absolutely does not have a skill feat for it, since his background being being a field medic grants him the ability to treat wounds in combat.

At first I didn't think much had changed, but after a closer look, I see that it's actually quite a bit different. It seems to have gone from a more 'realistic' look to one that's for lack of a better word, more 'cartoony.' I think this is the only one I've seen so far, where the art style looks to have gotten simpler, and significantly so. I mean look at the old clothing with it's silver swirls and other patterns, the new one they're simpler, mostly some silver chevrons and trim around the borders. Her proportions have changed, but her body also seems to have lost most of it's actual shape. I do like the new head shape though. Her body is more child-like now than that of a small woman. Even the equipment and doodads she's got with her seem simplified. She's lost the dolls/effigies on her belt but gained a couple of pouches.

Sad to say, I'm not a huge fan of the changes. Mostly due to the diminished detail, and I think things moved too much towards her looking like a young human child and away from a non-human adult. Reminds me of a little girl in costume for her school play. I thought gnomes were done pretty well in PF1, so I don't think they really needed much of an overhaul, just more consistency between artists. Distinguishing them from halflings, should probably have been more on the halfling side.

I want to offer a few small counterpoints.

Second of all... she really doesn't look like a small child. Her body and limbs are WAY too thin for a kid who would have a proportionally similar head. Even the kids with the body shapes typically described as "string beans" have way smaller proportioned head to body ratio.

And I find the looks like an adult nonhuman weird because 1e Lini looks like a human in super dedicated cosplay in terms of human-ness. Non human humanoids shouldn't really look like humans in cosplay.

The change in her proportions feel fairly small while also making a significant difference in feeling for me. She's gone from looking like a small weird human with a skin condition who doesn't eat a whole lot to a small humanoid that feels like they could be related to the fey. I'm really happy with the move to differentiate the proportions of the races more strongly.

Droogami reminds me of that one chubby tiger from zootopia, and it's not terrible, but I'm not the hugest fan of it I guess.

Qundle, early on, made a perception check -- he rolled a 1 and his result was a 2.

Qundles Wisdom is 12

This suggests sorcerers are untrained in perception.

It also reveals that certain classes generally are untrained in perception.

That's... not good. I already have enough issues with Sense Motive uses being rolled into perception while removing the ability to raise it. If now my sorcerer or other character is forced to be completely incompetent at reading things socially... I'm really not happy about that.

I'm loving most of if not all of the changes here, especially for the alchemist, though I feel like the class still has a few kinks that need to be worked out for each of the research categories, though I'll absolutely check them out in what little play time I have available to see how it matches against my gut.

Bomber: the master proficiency in bombs might be enough to resolve the to hit issue, alongside the alchemist goggles, but I feel like the class wants a proper variant on the spell duelist wand and gloves.

Chiurgeon: what this option grants you feels lackluster, though I know I shouldn't doubt the amount of raw healing alchemist has now.

Mutagenist: Minor mutagens were absolutely on my list of wants, but the issue I have with mutagens and elixirs still remains. They want to a temporary counterpart to magic items, but they just can't compete long term. While they tend to come at a high value for their level(until spells and effects come into play) magic items replicate the value of these. The only thing that stands out as unique for the quicksilver elixir is that you gain a large movement speed boost and it was the expected way for you to play a bomber, because it was the only way to get a good item bonus for your bombs. The reflex save bonus competes with your armor, the hit bonus competes with magic weapons and the skill bonuses compete with skill items. And while for skill items it might mean you can choose to skip the skill item, for saves and attack bonuses, it makes any combat benefits to a mutagens FEEL bad. I'd rather mutagens grant a smaller benefit to combat abilities, but stack with your equipment. I'd would also like to see mutagens move away from being "acts like improved stat" and to something more like types of specialization, such as "duelist's aid" that improves melee defense, "crackshot mutagen" that specializes in ranged bonuses and perception, and so on, since the items are no longer providing direct stay benefits.

Poisoner: The alchemist still suffers from the general DC failure issue that the poisons have. Instead of granting some weak benefits to resisting poison, can the variant have viable poisons at various levels? Maybe it's an issue that's potentially solved eventually by taking some feat taxes and rollout of various poisons trickling out with new rulebook and sprats, but that's a long time down the road, and until then, poison users feel weak and worthless and even then, they'll have a money/formula tax every level to make sure they're using a quality poison so that they feel like they stand a chance targeting the often strongest save at any given level. A feat that allows a Poisoner to combine quick alchemy with poisoning their weapon would be nice. Adding an additive or two for poisons would be nice.

Things I'd like to see for alchemist in the core rulebook other than the stuff I talked about above: Make alchemist compete less with magic items and instead more with magic or a mix of both. I'd like to see more additives for all 4 researches. More items is a no brainer, but the most important thing in my eyes would be tools and bombs beyond level 1, such as cement foam or liquid pellet grenades.

Klladdy wrote:

So I just saw that mutagens don't even work with Advanced Alchemy or Quick Alchemy since they are uncommon . . . RIP Mutagens

I can see that they don't work with quick alchemy, but why not advanced alchemy? I don't see where advanced alchemy limits you to common alchemical items.

Also, as a general question, how long does it take to create an alchemical item for a non-alchemist? Does it really take 30 days to make a flask of acid for a 1st level PC? 1 sp per day, and it costs 3 GP (which seems like an error - maybe 3 SP?), so 30 days. Or should it be 3 days?

Do the alchemical items seem overly expensive considering that silver is now the base cost for everything?

The Item crafting rules say, take 4 days, -1 day for each character level above item level, spent half at the start(15SPish) and half at the end(15SP), but you can spend additional days crafting and using the crafting skill to reduce the cost for each day work, discount based on level/proficiency. Consumables like elixirs can be made in batches of 4 at a time (there's a reference that this isn't always a case in an alchemist ability, but other references to batches don't seem to have anything about variable batch size)

A level 4 Expert alchemist that makes 4 Lesser Elixir of lifes (level 4)
Spends 4 days creating the items, spending 24 GP, makes a craft check against DC 19(high DC for level 4 items). They have a +11 bonus (+6 proficiency, +4 Int, +1 high quality tools), so if they're successful, they can spend additional days reducing the cost of the project by 6 SP per day spent, which is about the same rate for those who are practicing a trade or putting on a performance. If they critically succeed, they treat their level as one higher, reducing the cost of the project by 10SP or 1 GP per day.

When they decide to finish crafting, they must pay the remaining balance left on crafting the item, so the alchemist who spent 5 extra days reduces the cost of his batch of elixirs by 3GP and must pay the remaining 21 GP(whole cost of batch is 48 GP, half(24) is paid at the start of craft, made 3 gp worth of crafting effort, leaving 21 GP unaccounted for).

EDIT: Ninja'd super hard while trying to write this.

Pathfinder first edition was honestly completely terrible at monsters and players following the same rules.

And now with second edition, they're honestly closer to following the rules like players are. Their level sets their baseline, their role likely defines their hit points and hit rate as well as skills, and their significant abilities will in ways mirror that of PCs.
But you're aren't meaninglessly hosing down the entire statblock with dozens of minor abilities and skill feats unless they're something that'll be relevant in play.

Hit dice were ugly and frustrating. A CR5 monster doesn't have 5 hit dice, it has 6 or 8 or even 9, whatever they need so the monster doesn't suck, and then they had to play fun with numbers to make the stats work and the powers were too strong or too weak. The " hound of xul" has 24 charisma because it needed it's unearthly belch to be about DC 26, but they couldn't touch con and strength without giving it too much hp or damage because it's a magical beast, and then they gave it a + 2 racial bonus on the DC because even they thought going for 28 charisma would be overdoing it.

Edit: fighting weird autocorrect decisions by mobile.

Souphin wrote:

I'd rather suggest taking a number of dents equal to the hit points of the shield.

Yeah, I said the same here in a post, which got moved to the organized play forum for some reason.

I did the playtest demo and scenario (Rose Street) last week at Origins and I have some concerns about Shield Block:
1) It seems too powerful. Blocking 5-10 damage, multiple times, is a big deal. Or if it can block 4 or less damage indefinitely.

2) Shields don’t get damaged and destroyed that easily in real life, and certainly not in seconds.

My concern is that since the ability is powerful, people will find ways to make it work or ways around it:
- Adamantine shields
- Lots of shields in a Handy Haversack or Bag of Holding

I LIKE the idea of shield block, I feel like it would be better if:
1) Shield blocks blocked less damage. If it blocked only it’s AC in damage (1-2 damage per block, more with feats or if the shield was magical), it would be good without being too good.

2) Shields should get damaged at a much slower rate. For example, if a wooden shield has 10 hit points, it takes 1 hit point per hit that does more than 5 damage. A metal shield has 20 hit points and takes 1 point of damage when the blocked attack does more than 10 hit points of damage. Or use dents instead of hp, it doesn't matter. I guess what I’m saying is that the shield should be able to take more than 3 dents before being destroyed.

Thank you.

1-2 damage per block would feel incredibly terrible. I understand that it might have come off as strong during your game, but reducing it below 4 damage might be balanced (This is going to be based on price of shields, value of character's reaction and actions compared to raising shield) in some ways, but it'll likely feel terrible in practice. Blocking 5 damage feels good at level 1, and if in turn shields come off as as more disposable, I might be fine with that.

I'll admit I don't know much about shields, but if say dealing more damage than the hardness to the shield is a serious blow to the shield, wouldn't it be reasonable that after one or two serious blows that the shield would need repair? Otherwise, the AC bonus and damage = or below hardness represent glancing off and blows that don't heavily damage the shield.

Vic Wertz wrote:

Lyee wrote:

I'll also be releasing a homebrew monster daily, in case there are not enough in the playtest.

The listing of creatures by name takes up 3.5 pages in the Playtest Bestiary.

That sounds like a lot of monsters.

For the playtest module (Doomsday Dawn I think it's called) are the monsters also listed in the module itself or will we have to look them up in the bestiary each time we encounter them?

It sounds like there are a ton of creatures in the bestiary, are rules going to be found in it (or the Playtest rulebook) for making your own creatures if you so desire?

They've iterated in the past that they want us to be using the creatures in the bestiary (and PC built npcs to an extent?) to test if their framework for producing monsters even works before giving us the framework, because homebrew creations can start to quickly fall outside of numbers expectations and provide less useful information from groups that are doing custom campaigns and one shots since that information would be useful in its own right otherwise.

I think that 5 hardness shield is just for a low-end shield and that at higher levels you can get shields with more hardness. I seem to recall some mention of that but I don't know where. And as Tristram and Hargert stated, I think the hardness only comes into play when you're using a reaction to reduce damage from a hit, not for just using it for extra AC. So you're in control of if you want to take a dent (or sacrifice the shield if you already have dents) to prevent some damage.

And historically shields did break. Viking duels famously included rules for the number of shields a participant can use (usually three). Might not be quite as fun in Pathfinder to have to go through multiple shields for one fight though. But this is a test to see how things work.

If my memory serves, the indestructible shield has a hardness of 13 and never takes dents, and another shield of adamantine and high hardness had a hardness of 26 or 29, while lacking the nice benefit of never having to worry if your shield might shatter, and those were probably the top end of shields.

My thoughts:

• Social encounter interesting, I don't remeber those mentioned before.
  
• Maybe I didn't understand something but Verdant Metamporphosis looks kinda lame for 18th level feat.
  
• Contro Weather now is 9th level, more nerfs >:v
  
• "POWER 1/SPAN>" on Tempest Surge looks super weird
  
• I don't like the association between Str and Wild Shape
  
• OK I have said this enough times but it still bothers me a lot: "new spell levels at every odd level save 19th" booo
  
• Looks like cooldowns are really going to be thing in PF2 eh? Looking at Frequency
  
• 8 HP seems like too few for a bear, even a small one

Verdant feels a little late, Control weather is a ritual, meaning it doesn't use a spell slot. /SPAN> is a typo probably. Frequency/cooldown effects seem to be uncommon and for rare effects, such as using the shield cantrip to block and this effect. 8 HP is probably just the Racial HP, which probably stand to be 10, and they'll have a high natural con for the massive pool of HP.

MusicAddict wrote:

Let people like me have our classes, stop trying to strip what made the class interesting and enjoyable to us away so you can have yet another toy.

Please let others enjoy what would otherwise be a fun/interesting class by allowing options other than the one that they see as bad. Some people didn't like favored enemy/terrain: the game didn't tell them to 'go take a hike', it gave options to play the class without that feature that didn't suck. I don't think advocating for that with the kineticist makes me a horrible person.

And it doesn't, nor does just wanting a burnless kineticist, there's nothing inherently horrible about either. And I don't have issue with the overwhelming soul and the alternatives, though I'm aware that the balance for those archetypes were fairly under par. But as someone who has had a lot of experience with having their unique "toys" being gutted or drastically changed beyond recognizability for expanding their use to a wider audience, I'm heavily passionate about keeping mechanical soul intact for the toys I do love, and there's been a lot of anti-burn commentary in this and a few other threads.

I don't want burnless kineticist to be the base and gold standard,as it would drastically change how burn would be able to function as a feature into a very limited state, and make burn optional, affecting the perception of people who play that variant in a way that has a very high chance to be viewed negatively and potentially banned from things like PFS, which affects the perception in my home games too, whether the burn variant is too weak or too strong.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Seisho wrote:

I think the kineticist had the role of the warlock filled in a good and interesting way

even though the recource system was...harsh? complicated?
either way I thin a spellpoint based kineticist would be good to fill that role

I really don't want the "you do math and hurt yourself" kineticist to go away- those are the reasons I love the class.

LOL And those are the reasons I hated the class. [well the burn mechanic at least] ;)

Myself, I'm all for just about ANY mechanic to replace burn. Heck, I loathe resonance and I'd take that as the mechanic that powers kineticists over burn.

You'll have blasty options that don't have burn mechanics, and there were archetypes that replaced burn. Burn was an actually interesting give and take that I enjoyed. I love classes like it, I love the oddball classes with an overheat mechanic in video games, I like the unlimited until you push yourself. These types of classes have place and purpose, that take the games normal rules into a weird but different place.

Let people like me have our classes, stop trying to strip what made the class interesting and enjoyable to us away so you can have yet another toy.

It was brought up in another thread, but the possibility that Half-Elves and Half-Orcs become Human Heritage feats might raise some eyes if they went that route. Probably still less contentious than whatever they do with Multiclassing.

As someone who loves half-elves, I'd be far more upset about that, because I'd be stuck spending a feat just on defining my characters' pasts and upbringings, even if the benefits from the feat aren't something that fit the characters. It'd certainly negatively flavour my view of the entire playtest, even if I'm aware how extreme of a PoV that is.

Gyor wrote:

I'm more convinced them ever that Pathfinder should just go with a neovancian system like 5e, but like tis system (3 actions, four power source spells lists, and so on), but with neovancian instead of vancian.

Gods, yes! I hate paleovancian with a passion. Paizo came out with the neovancian system before 5E did, I was sure that PF2 would use it for every caster. I guess I should have known better, considering how they implemented "psionics".

This terminology is so awkward and looks like gibberish to me, I'm not going to lie. But 5es implementation of scaling spells, and how they handled spells known and prepared is a terrible mess for me. And I rather like how wizard and sorcerer are laid out in 2e, and would like to see the return of arcanist style crafting, but not on the wizard as is.

Even if sorcerer at the moment is likely a few degrees stronger (according to in house playtesting), removing spell waste from the wizard, cleric, and druid would honestly probably need a reduction in the number of spells available to keep the niche of spontaneous casting safe, and you're already pretty low as is.

Secret Wizard wrote:

So yeah, I want DEX-to-damage to be gone to have more build choices. A Rogue will always boost DEX for accuracy, and they'll have the option to boost STR for damage, but given they get a broad choice of attribute boosts, boosting INT/WIS/CHA/CON should also have their advantages.

I don't think removing Dex-to-damage increases build options. I think having it not be mandatory does. I'm all for other, equally good, options rather than that one, but Dex-to-damage can be a lot of fun.

Dex to damage needs to be a true cost if it doesn't want to affect build variety, and a major one, if any class has access to dex to damage,it can't be at the cost of just a class/race/general feat, it needs to come at the cost of something very powerful/class defining that can't be regained. If dex to damage is available for as something as cheap as "part of the class", it pigeonholes the class, and as a feat, it becomes a feat tax for rogue and any class with access and dex as the key ability score .

The problem is then that the people who choose dex to damage might cry that they're being "punished" for wanting dex to damage, and this "solution" only works for rogue as is.

MusicAddict wrote:

I read this stuff, and look at the playtests we've actually been able to participate in, with the classes that got major changes. It just makes me think "I saw all the playtests and I had super strong opinions on the subject and wanted it my way, but paizo didn't go that way".

There was a lot of this during the OA playtesting, and 2 of the classes that recieved from that playtest came out as two of the most balanced and fun(fun is subjective I'm aware) classes in all of pathfinder. I wouldn't give them a 100% approval rating, sure, but this narrative of "Paizo doesn't listen to playtest feedback" is ABSURDLY wrong.

A lot of the reason behind this narrative push comes from people who didn't get the kinds of changes they want. They wanted kineticist damage gutted or needed huge damage buffs to keep up with the best archer fighters, they wanted burn to be completely removed from the class because they felt it was the worst design decision ever. They felt that throwing out OA altogether would have been better simply because they didn't like psionics and didn't want it in their pathfinder.

Not everyone who has concerns about the viability of playtesting is like this, but I know a number of the ones who are crying "bad track record" are operating in poor faith over reasons like above.

Oh yeah, there's a big difference between listening to the playtest, and accepting every proposal. Something that is impossible because you're going to have a lot of people saying contradictory things.

I'm not quite with you on the kineticist (the only OA class I've played). It's got a lot going for it, but ultimately I think it falls slightly short because it's a bit of a one-trick pony. You blast. All the good utility abilities and versatility of the blast are so back weighted that you often won't get any really useful options until the game is basically over. And I think the scaling of burn at higher levels is a bit problematic, although you do get more options to negate burn at those...

To veer off topic a bit to talk about kineticist.

A few of its wild talents are priced too highly considering how health costs work, but the combat and infusion side plays out to be very well balanced for their cost, considering how many raw hit points a kineticist has between natural Con, their defense and EO stat bonus. The class is very much balanced, does what it is supposed to do, but it might be a bit too fair in the wake of a lot of other classes being able to be unfair.

The fair vs unfair thing is actually a concern of mine for the new alchemist. The class seems alright, but with how bomb damage currently appears to work, the effectiveness of the other elixirs, alchemist has a lot of really cool abilities, but the strength of them comes off as too fair compared to "do it all day" martials and "blow the load" casters.

I don't understand Paizo's reasoning regarding spell heightening: "Sorcerers have limited spells known, so we'll require them to burn a known spell slot for each level they want to cast it at, and give them this 2/day patch. Wizards have unlimited spells known, so we'll let them learn each spell just once at its lowest level, and freely let them prepare it in higher slots to get its heightened effects."

This is completely backwards. Sorcerers should be the ones able to learn once and manipulate it at will, and wizards should have to learn at each level because they can.

The only conclusion I get from this is that they really like paleovancian casting.

The thread has gone over this multiple times, and the devs have said that they've fully understood how absurdly strong giving sorcerers such a boon would be, so they gave them a 2 day because giving them none would make them too weak, but all is too strong. And doing such a thing to wizard would absolutely destroy their viability, even compared to a sorcerer with no free heightening.

I want a character with low strength and high dex to be viable, I don't want them to not be, but I want the character with 10 strength and 20 dex to deal less damage than an otherwise identical character with 16 strength and 20 dex, and have that lower strength actually mean something. I think the strength and ACP direction is a good option, but I don't think it alone is enough for differentiation.

Steve Geddes wrote:

The only equivalent playtest was PF1 - the others have been of bits and pieces of an already existent system. The playtest of PF1 made huge differences to the final product and Paizo are clear that this one will also be considered carefully and that nothing is set-in-stone.

If this playtest is essentially a sham, they're not only being explicitly dishonest but also expending an enormous amount of energy for nothing. I don't believe either of those things about Paizo. (In my opinion, people often confuse their dislike for an end-product with some kind of insight into the process used to produce it - I suspect Paizo's "reputation" you mention is an expression of some people's dislike for various products).

There's nothing to confuse here, playtest of thing was bad, people pointed that out, nothing satisfactory was done about it, and the end product was bad. It would be different if they just released an unsatisfactory product without asking for feedback, but Paizo has repeatedly released prouducts that have had public playtests that revealed that the material broke down at a certain level or had problems in play, yet these issues made it to print. This has been Paizo's recent MO, and this is what I assume will happen come the playtest.

I read this stuff, and look at the playtests we've actually been able to participate in, with the classes that got major changes. It just makes me think "I saw all the playtests and I had super strong opinions on the subject and wanted it my way, but paizo didn't go that way".

There was a lot of this during the OA playtesting, and 2 of the classes that recieved from that playtest came out as two of the most balanced and fun(fun is subjective I'm aware) classes in all of pathfinder. I wouldn't give them a 100% approval rating, sure, but this narrative of "Paizo doesn't listen to playtest feedback" is ABSURDLY wrong.

A lot of the reason behind this narrative push comes from people who didn't get the kinds of changes they want. They wanted kineticist damage gutted or needed huge damage buffs to keep up with the best archer fighters, they wanted burn to be completely removed from the class because they felt it was the worst design decision ever. They felt that throwing out OA altogether would have been better simply because they didn't like psionics and didn't want it in their pathfinder.

Not everyone who has concerns about the viability of playtesting is like this, but I know a number of the ones who are crying "bad track record" are operating in poor faith over reasons like above.

MusicAddict wrote:

dragonhunterq wrote:

So it's fine for a caster to go all in on e.g. wisdom and ignore intelligence, but a martial can't go all in on dex and ignore strength (or vice versa)?

Dex to damage should be a legitimate option without requiring some notional lip service to strength.

I oppose this, and would ask the developers to relax their general opposition to easily available dex to damage.

If it offends your sensibilities keep some parity between the stats in your own characters, don't spoil the fun for those of us who are not opposed to the idea.

Dex to damage is a cancer that reduces any concept that likes dex to the same exact array. There's no variety in dex to damage, no decision making, no choice. Every class/concept should have primary, and probably a secondary( this is proving true in 2e) if that second stat is that important... ( Which is pretty true of every caster so far). After that you should have a choice in your stats. If you should want more damage in martial combat and more carrying capacity? Go strength. You don't need more? Feel free to pick what you feel you need.

I want pathfinder second edition to run with 0 straight stat replacement options including dex to damage or alchemists int to resonance.

Yeah, I dislike immensely flat arrays. I like spikes and dips in ability scores. I don't want sensible, homogenous or realistic. I want fantastic. It's a preference.

I have never noticed easy dex to damage overtake strength builds in practice, it has not unbalanced the game anything close to the issues caused by any full caster.

Not a fan of flat arrays either unless my characters demand it,nor am I a fan of spires, I prefer stats with peaks and valleys. I like having a character with an amazing stat, a fairly good stat, 2 decent stats and 2 lackluster, though I do like to change that up. When you make Strength completely unimportant for anyone who gets access to Finesse Striker... suddenly they'll see a 10 strength character who's impressive in everything else with smart ability score distribution, more of a plateau overlooking a deep hole.

All dex to damage does, with the number of ones I've seen (I've seen far more players with dex with dex to damage builds than I have regular strength builds, but that's an anecdotal and a quality of the group I play with), is promote that any character that would use dexterity as their primary stat make the "choice" to neglect strength as much as the rest of the group would let them get away with. They usually always neglected their encumbrance outside of their original character sheet creation. This isn't really about "Fantastic" or "Realistic" it's more about meaningful choice and consequence.

I want to feel like having a finesse character investing in strength to be an actual choice rather than "You're being stupid for not just dipping rogue/grabbing dex to damage for a melee Dex-fighter". I want my level 15 bard to be able to look like S16 D20 Co14 I12 W14 Ch21(23) because they're able to hold their own in a fight, but if I have access to dex to damage... they should probably just look like S10 D20 Co16 I14 W16 Ch21(23), and suddenly every melee bard starts looking pretty similar, only difference is whether you want better int or wis, unless you REALLY want to push for a melee strength bard.

So it's fine for a caster to go all in on e.g. wisdom and ignore intelligence, but a martial can't go all in on dex and ignore strength (or vice versa)?

Dex to damage should be a legitimate option without requiring some notional lip service to strength.

I oppose this, and would ask the developers to relax their general opposition to easily available dex to damage.

If it offends your sensibilities keep some parity between the stats in your own characters, don't spoil the fun for those of us who are not opposed to the idea.

Dex to damage is a cancer that reduces any concept that likes dex to the same exact array. There's no variety in dex to damage, no decision making, no choice. Every class/concept should have primary, and probably a secondary( this is proving true in 2e) if that second stat is that important... ( Which is pretty true of every caster so far). After that you should have a choice in your stats. If you should want more damage in martial combat and more carrying capacity? Go strength. You don't need more? Feel free to pick what you feel you need.

I want pathfinder second edition to run with 0 straight stat replacement options including dex to damage or alchemists int to resonance.

I wish it was more clear that powers are a type of spell so people stopped arguing over spell points/power points/why don't martials get powers.

Isn't haste likely to be a vital essence spell and thus not likely to be on the bard list? Hence why they probably have access to spell powers that give the [quick] condition.

haste and it's big brother time stop have carried connotations of the user acting faster because their brain is moving faster with their use and various descriptions in pathfinder, and slipping out traditional wizard spells into the druid and cleric would feel incredibly off, so with both facts in mind, haste and time stop are decidedly mental spells.

Voss wrote:

Mark Seifter wrote:

Stone Dog wrote:

So Muses are an alternate way of saying "your characters passion" and that passion can be hung on whatever sort of narrative hook that you like. I like it.

As for what makes martials stand out in combat, while all characters share the same progression bonuses to dice rills, it feels like PF2 is focusing more on breadth of ability rather than just big numbers. At a range the elf wizard and the human fighter might be hitting the target roughly equally,but the fighter will have more tricks up their sleeve in actual adventuring conditions.

Which combined with getting more proficiencies on leveling is why I'm not bothered if fighters don't get as many proficiency ranks in skills at level one, at least if their weapon skills feel like actual skills in play.

Not only will the fighter have more tricks, but even the differences they have can lead to some pretty significant results.

For instance, suppose the elf wizard is pretty tooled up on Dexterity and his bow and can hit a solid challenging opponent on a 10 (pretty good for a wizard!) and the fighter is ahead by +3 on accuracy. The wizard is going to do pretty well on that arrow (especially since he can cast a spell and then shoot each round as sort of a freebie). But that fighter is going to do 50% more damage on average just from the accuracy, without any of his tricks.

Why +3? Can't the wizard just prioritize dex over int to close that gap(since stats don't give bonus spells and its presumably possible to just avoid save based spells)?

Are buff spells eliminated in PF2 that a spellcaster can't boost rolls/give higher bonuses? It would seem odd if all of those old personal buffs are missing (especially since bless isn't missing...)

I am pretty sure that extra +3 comes from weapon proficiency. Fighters get their ranked up proficiencies for weapons incredibly fast compared to others. So basically if the ability stats are equal then the fighter is going to...

This and the wizard will never have an ability score that matches a fighter in its specialized stat, assuming both are keeping it maxed. The two have an equal modifier from ability scores from level 5-9 and 15-19, otherwise the fighter will be ahead on the ability score, and then you can account for proficiency. And fighters have a lot of tricks that we don't really have a full picture on yet.

Rysky wrote:

TheFinish wrote:

Also, we know Bless requires an action to mantain each round, is that what "Concentration" means? Which would mean Forbidding Ward is on the same boat? Long live buff spells, I suppose.

Assurance grants a flat 10, no bonuses, no penalties (she's wearing chain mail).

Uh, I think you quoted the wrong part of my post, but even then, the Chainmail ACP has to be -3 or worse for Assurance to be equal to Kyra using the old Take 10. And since we don't know what her Athletics modifier actually is, we can't work out what the ACP is just that Chainmail is either +5 AC/ +2 TAC with +0 DEX; or it's +4/+1 with +1 or better DEX.

Considering that armor itself got slashed down across the board I wouldn't be surprised if ACP is in the same situation. Which means that, yes, Assurance is a poor man's Take 10.

Captain Morgan wrote:

I'll note chainmail almost certainly has an ACP of at least +2, so her athletics score is probably 1 at most. Assurance is actually pretty great because it can be used in situations where you couldn't take 10 before, like combat. Climbing a wall in the GC playtest was only DC 10, but because they were doing it while a character was dying at the bottom of a pit taking 10 wouldn't have been an option. As such, Assurance may have saved not one but two characters' lives

Lore also can be used like a knowledge check, just for a very narrow and less relevant field. However, if you find yourself needing to roll a knowledge check that could pertain to either Narure or Farming, Farming will probably have the lower DC.

See above for the armor thing. As long as the ACP is -3 or worse, Assurance is just a worse Take 10 (numerically speaking). While I will concede that you can now use it during combat, there were plenty of ways to do that in PF1 as well. The second example depends entirely on GM; I wouldn't consider someone dying at the bottom of a pit to be enough to rule out a Take 10 for someone climbing down, the same way climbing a...

Assurance athletics is from her background as a farmhand, so she probably got it for free without needing to meet the requirements. Fumbus has his background feat and alchemical crafter from being an alchemist.

As for Athletics, her bonus would be +3 (+1 level, +2 Str). No idea why it isn't listed, since she has to be Trained to have Assurance. Also goes to show Assurance is just a poor man's Take 10, even at lower levels.

Actually... I think she's untrained in athletics. If she is, and even if she isn't, it would mean that cleric has an absurd number of skills 5-6 even. She's apparently trained in religion, medicine, performance, diplomacy, and survival already.

And wow, are weapons complicated now. I understand that this is done to make them different from each other, but that Scimitar? YOu hit better if you attack different People but do more damage if you attack the same guy, one bonus scales, the other doesn't... That does not sound beginner friendly.

And bless is a "conditional" Bonus. Is that a new type I wasn't aware of? Does it stack?
+1 to the really strange idea of having a spell Bonus but not using it on any of her spells.
The way heal works as damage vs undead is also Counter intuitive.
As a touch spell, it's an attack, as a ranged spell, it's a save by the Monster - why? Why not just make it an attack and use the spell Bonus for both, as any beginner would expect it to.
And finally, Kyra Shows that they have a Long way to go if the want to have fewer pools to track - she has four different pools at Level 1 - spells, spell Points, channel energy and resonance. That does not scream streamlined to me.

Weapons are a fair bit more complex, but players generally only need to learn one weapon or two at a time (god help the GM , but they should be knowing what they're getting into if they see all of the weapon complexity and go straight into using NPCs using a ton of different weapons with different properties). And leveraging the full benefit of all the properties of a weapon isn't easy for a beginner, the traits themselves seem to be fairly straightforward most of the time. Scimitars get a +1 to hit if you switch targets in a turn, and the weapon gets a +1 to damage on the second attack against any target, and a +2 on any attacks after that, if they make one.

Heal isn't a touch spell? It's got 3 different forms of targeting, melee touch, simply choosing a target without regard for accuracy (though you could make it ranged touch by doing the 1 action version with reach metamagic, but I digress), and targeting everything in a 30ft radius. It's a bit weird that the touch version targets AC, but the other two versions don't target AC, but it's not that much of a burden. They probably don't want the players to have to deal with their ranged heal spell on an ally missing.

Kyra has a lot of pools, but that's the tragic fate of being a spellcaster. Spell points for spell powers, Spell Slots for Spells, Channel energy as the cleric alternate for School Spells/Wildshape bonus spells. Ideally most people playing spellcasters are going to get the gist of it before resonance becomes something to manage and more than the very easy to remember "this goes down by one when I drink this potion or use this scroll and it will get a bit weird if I run out"

Thankfully other than spells, for a cleric, the pools are distinct and are only used for 1 thing (if you don't take feats that expand it) at first level.

MusicAddict wrote:

rooneg wrote:

This sentence:

Kyra wrote:

You can cast the following power by spending 1 Spell Point

Really drives home why "Spell Point" is a stupid name, doesn't it?

Also, don't get excited about Bless being a cantrip, it's just accidentally listed as one on the first page, the second page correctly lists it as a 1st level spell.

I don't see your hang up, like, at all. Spell points are used to cast powers, which are a type of spell, just like how the other type of spell is cast using spell slots.

If I'm casting it, why don't they call it a spell? I can't recall any other game where characters get powers and the activation of those powers is referred to as casting them. If it needs to be referred to as a power because it's somehow different than a spell, why isn't it triggered by spending a power point?

It is a spell? It uses the spell rules for everything, other characters will be affected by it the same way as every other spell, it uses the same actions to perform, but it's called a power to be clear that it's from a different mechanical source than where capital S Spells come from, using spell points and comes from class features and feats, rather than slots and the spellcasting feature/traditions.

This sentence:

Kyra wrote:

You can cast the following power by spending 1 Spell Point

Really drives home why "Spell Point" is a stupid name, doesn't it?

Also, don't get excited about Bless being a cantrip, it's just accidentally listed as one on the first page, the second page correctly lists it as a 1st level spell.

I don't see your hang up, like, at all. Spell points are used to cast powers, which are a type of spell, just like how the other type of spell is cast using spell slots.

There’s a lot to like here, but I have to say ... I dislike those action icons a lot. They are completely unintuitive and I predict they will quickly become really cumbersom in play.

Very curious to hear what peaople think of them in actual play ...

I really hope Paizo drops them and goes back to using actual words.

Personally I really like them and wish it was easier to use them on my own sheets, they draw my eyes to them and helps me focus on the content better, as someone who sometimes has issues keeping her head on straight when reading things.

I know what the blog post mean, but my point is that it's counter intuitive, does not respect the rest of the system, and it's just messy as hell. If such a system was in place, I would remove the Heightened (+X) in the spell description and just call the spell Heal X, with an entry for the effect at each level.

Exemple:

Heal X Spell X
insert regular description
Heal 1 (Spell 1): the healing effect of the spell is 1d8
Heal 2 (Spell 2): the healing effect of the spell is 3d8 for the...

That's SUPER nasty and awful, fireball (4th) is good enough for fireball at 4th level, and NO ONE wants them to waste that much space on every. single. scalable. spell.

If you have heal (3rd) known, I don't think there's an issue with saying you cannot undercast/deheighten the spell.

So it says due to using resonance during downtime to make items they only have 2 resonance to spend but what did they spend it on during downtime. It can't be quick alchemy or those would already be useless. That is really confusing.

The pregen sheets skip daily preparation like spells and have it done in advance. If it weren't a pregen, presumably most of those alchemical items in the alchemists sheet were made as part of daily preparation spending 3-4 resonance as a rough guess based on stats, items, and resonance stated as left over.

Are Sorcerers getting substantially more spells known than they had in PF1 to compensate for having no more spells per day than a wizard AND having to learn the same spell over and over again if they want to Heighten it?

It's the only thing I can think of that would prevent Wizards from completely blowing Sorcerers away in the Playtest.

They were clarified to have 4 spells a day and 4 spells known per level at cap, and the incredibly powerful ability to copy fit two of their spells to whatever heighten level they need at the time of casting, which is honestly a stronger ability than it might feel at first glance, since a wizard can very easily not have it at an appropriate level or prepared too high or too low to be of real use.

Vidmaster7 wrote:

You know saying things like that without reasoning behind that doesn't help sway people to your side.

It wasn't really an attempt to influence but a statement of fact. Anyone that was around for the Kineticist playtest should know my feeling and reasons: heck I think there's a pretty good chance Mark knows. It boils down to 'I don't want to punch myself in the face to power-up', especially incurable damage punches. In terms of "resonance work like Burn", 'I don't want to punch myself in the face to heal...'.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

In any case I really hope the Kineticist still uses Burn in PF2 and not spell points or resonance.

Oh I hope not: new pathfinder is the chance to fix it and make it playable to me. They could do like the alchemist [gets resonance+] with spell points [in essence, they can be the 'master' of them]. Though, I'd take most anything that wasn't burn.

Meanwhile I hope for the complete opposite. The Kineticist was perfection in what I wanted in a "primal elemental caster" with a cast from hit point ability. If they take away burn, they'd have to tear away so many things that made the class fantastically fun, and I'm worried about how they'd introduce kineticist without damaging what it is. Reducing them to a spell point system would feel boring and lacking.