Neodymium's page

This conversation is why I maintain that either Ancestry and Class feats should be renamed to not have "Feat" in their title, or General and Skill Feats should be renamed. They are not interchangeable despite the mechanical similarities and there is no good reason to have "...feat" appear 10,000 times in every class progression chart.
Powers are Spells with special and specific ways of accessing them. So there is precedence for having a mechanical subcategory gain it's own separate name. Why not go with Class Talents and Ancestry Gifts?

Here's an easy to read graphic to explain the feat groupings
[img]https://s15.postimg.cc/4ct13g1h3/pf2-feat_categories-1.png[/img]

I would find renaming feats to things NOT feats would be far more confusing. Because they act like feats. Having 20 different names for things that act just like feats is a pain.

Powers are Spells, but are named differently because they are accessed differently.

Ancestry and Class feats are not accessed the same way as General and Skill feats. I don't believe it's a good idea to have "Feat" in their name. Though I understand putting them under the category of Feats(just like Powers are spells, by format and mechanic, but not by acquisition).
I drew a Venn Diagram in the margin to help my brain understand it.

I have been calling Ancestry Feats "Gifts" and Class Feats "Talents".

Try replacing the advancement chart with other terms for ancestry and class feats. For me it really makes what was a Feat sea far easier to read and understand.

On a similar note; Legendary Elven Chain seems almost entirely pointless. The benefits of Master quality already negate Noisy(it's only a 1 increase to the only -1 check penalty) for a chain shirt. And mithral reduces the bulk. Legendary only increases the hardness(and still not enough to prevent an adamantine weapon from halving it).

Or did i miss something?

I absolutely believe this, because of one thing... Star Wars.

When Wizards had the Star Wars RPG license, they always released them in between D&D editions(between 3.0 & 3.5, then between 3.5 & 4), incorporating some aspects of each.
Now Paizo is continuing the tradition with Starfinder.

#StarConspiracy

Neodymium wrote:

It's not that I expect any of the Daily Deals to be OP or anything... but for the sake for flavor for a character, i desperately want to get my hands on the Wrap of Shadows(date: 1-09). Would anybody that got access to it be willing to shield mate with me? (wow, i just pictured shields mating. awkward.)

I will because you are my favorite rare earth magnet.

I am glad i could make such an ATTRACTIVE deal for you. :-D

It's not that I expect any of the Daily Deals to be OP or anything... but for the sake for flavor for a character, i desperately want to get my hands on the Wrap of Shadows(date: 1-09). Would anybody that got access to it be willing to shield mate with me? (wow, i just pictured shields mating. awkward.)

better than 3.5 when there didn't seem to be any mechanical benefit at all.

Something I find particularly amusing is the Amanuensis cantrip. With infinite cantrips in PF, all you need to do is train up an INT 10 or CHA 10 wizards/sorcerer, give them that spell, and you've invalidated the need to develop a printing press - they can photocopy pages of books with ease.

Honestly, I actually like that result. It helps justify and explain the fact that everyone in the Pathfinder universe is literate - books are plentiful and relatively cheap. It also explains the general prevalence of libraries and such that most D&D worlds take as an assumption. I'm planning on making it a cornerstone of my world.

oooooh, me likey. *yoink*

I use Behind the Name a lot, both for NPCs and for PCs. What I like about that site is that you can drill down on different cultures, and also that you usually get the meaning of the name.

Wow! I just use their random name generator and it's freaking amazing. One solid gold name after another. This is going to be my primary NPC name generating method for sure.

I've thought about this quite a bit in relation to several aspects of spells, and the only way I can answer it from an In-World perspective is that the spells are hard-coded to specific levels.

Basically, you say the magic words in a specific order and wave your hands just so and the spell goes off. It doesn't matter if you're INT 11 or 20, the magic missile is going to be the same either way, because that's the way the spell is written. The D&D system of magic is a formulaic one (for all classes until Sorcerer came along in 3.x, anyway) so the impact of CL is intentionally limited. Cure Light Wounds is always CLW and the variation between a 1st and a 20th level Cleric is limited. Want something more powerful, then cast a higher level spell, but otherwise the actual formula of the spell determines how much power it channels, effectively locking it into its level and determining its Save.

Then why does Magic Missile produce more missiles as you go up in level?

I don't have a solution to the problem, but your reasoning just seemed a bit off.

Ok,

My personal wish list.

Alternate Class Builds (kits)
I'd love to see alternate class builds, with whole feature set's switched out, for example, switching out favored enemy for increased movement and adding unarmed fighting to a ranger, adding in an AC bonus based on WIS and tossing all armor capability for an instant Tarzan class or feral woodsman class. It would be even better if these 'alternate build' or 'kit' mods came with bunches of fluff, and additionally the rules for only switching out one power/ability (IE: Only adding Unarmed Fighting as a Ranger alternate fighting path). A way of building a Rogue that gives him a spell list, but takes away say his rogue tricks.

Customization Methods
Ways to customize the character. Be they advantages and disadvantages, or traits, or whatever you want to call them. Small things that aren't worthy of a feat, but are good at making one elf archer different from another, things like unusual parentage (grandpa was a drow, or an orc, or a celestial) or things like knacks for certain things (like building bows, or for casting a specific spell). Also things to balance them out (like, odd features (eyes different colors, blue hair, an extra finger on each hand) or other little things. You all get the idea.

YES AND YES!! i can not emphasize this enough.

Malachi Tarchannen wrote:

Why do none of the previewed beasties have Hit Die advancement shown in their stat blocks? Are there no Pathfinder rules for this, or have the ranges of advancement not yet been determined?

The rules for advancing monsters are in the Bestiary; they're actually pretty extensive, and supported by even more extensive rules and guidelines for building brand new monsters. We took out the "advancement" line since we felt it was too limiting. Without it, GMs can advance monsters to whatever HD they wish and whatever size they wish.

The MM bulette, for example, has an advancement line of (10–16 HD (Huge); 17–27 HD (Gargantuan). This implies that you can't have a 28 HD bulette, or a 15 HD Gargantuan bulette, and so on. We didn't want those limitations in the Pathfinder game, and so we simply dropped the advancement line from the stat blocks.

EDIT: Rules for determining a monster's CR are a lot more detailed, and involve comparing it to average values for hp, damage, AC, saves, and save DCs for monsters of that CR score. So when you do decide to advance a bulette to 28 HD, there'll be plenty of guidelines for pinning down its CR. It won't be a simple math problem to build, since monster CRs are a LOT more complicated than that. Assigning a CR score to a monster is as much an art as it is math.

Interesting. I do look forward to seeing how it turns out.

Err, I don't see your point. Many 3.5E templates weren't open to PCs either. Also, PCs couldn't advance by Hit Dice or gain size increases on 3.5E, so there were always things that monsters could do that PCs couldn't. The PF Bestiary monster advancement rules only allow DMs to make the things they already did - but more easily and efficiently. I doubt players will note any difference.

Many templates weren't necessarily intended for PC use, but there was still a mechanic for doing it if, by chance, the PC happened to have the bizarre requirements.

Looking at the Bestiary preview I understand that old "advance by HD" thing is gone, and instead we get templates such as "advanced", "elite", "giant" which are used to boost monsters.

Hi, 4th edition, glad to meet you. I was unaware you didn't already exist and suck.

If there is no way built into the system for PCs to use(at the GM's discretion) the same templates as monsters, i am immediately very upset. A larger gap between the mechanics of a PC and a monster is a bad thing to me. It seems like a symptom of a weak game.
It really annoys me that in 4th Ed. if you fight a "monster" of your same race, especially as a monster race, they are very likely to have abilities that you could never possibly gain.

Not enough was done with the monk to differentiate one monk from another. I'll be using my own variant in place of the stock one.

definitely my main gripe so far. I can't believe that they weren't given options(although having extra feats is cool) for there special abilities. Why the f++! do all monks choose to learn the secrets of the Abundant Step or the Quivering Palm? It seems like they would have done something similar to the sorcerer bloodline to determine some monk abilities(a school or style perhaps).

If even the defenders of the old spiked chain admit it was by far the best(or only) exotic weapon choice, then it should be obvious that there was a problem. The issue is not that it was too powerful in game play(which is debatable), but that it was too powerful compared to other exotic weapons. I'm not really taking a stance in this post on whether it should have been nerfed or other weapons get buffed, but something needed to be done.

i will note that i like the idea of all the exotic weapons having a special feat-worthy mechanic to go with them for fun and flavor.

hmm, the 10% chance per level thing got me thinking.
maybe having something that comes into effect even if they make the spot/listen check.
or conversely, something that comes into effect if they fail on the spot/listen.

I am (re)developing a rather sneaky prestige class for use in a friend's game. One of the prerequisites will be the Darkstalker feat from Lords of Madness. I'm trying to come up with a class ability that will expand on that feat. I'd say outright immunity to blindsight, et al, is a little extreme. Although a penalty on the detection roll is a reasonable solution, i was wanting something a little more interesting.

Any ideas?