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It's difficult to come up with appropriate events for this system without asking Standard Homebrew Question #1: How does this make the game more fun for your players?

Well, they end up getting more involved in their characters and in the story, it's a way to encourage them to roleplay.

But in the end, if they don't find that fun, and just want to murderhobo their way through the campaign like before, then i guess I don't want to play with those kind of players anymore.

One should also ask the question, what makes things fun for the DM?

Hullo, Finders of the Path.

So, I stopped awarding and calculating XP for my home games awhile ago, and since I've been leveling up my players whenever I feel sufficient time has passed, but usually after every 3 game sessions. However I felt that they really weren't doing anything to earn that new level, so I'm implementing an alternate XP/Level Up system I took from an RPG called Invisible Sun.

So far it has been working ok, basicly players need to gather 3 points of Joy, 3 of Despair, and 5 Acumen. They get Acumen for completing Character Arcs that are described in the original IS system. Joy and Despair they get whenever something really good or something really bad happens to them in the game. So growth and learning come from both good and traumatic experience through the course of adventuring, and through completing personal or group agendas (Acumen from advancing Character Arcs) like rescuing princesses, founding an organization, crafting a very difficult item, joining a secret cult, exploring a lost ruined city, and so on.

All this stems from the player's actions (and reactions), what their goals are, what they actually do in the game beside murdering and pillaging creatures.

However, my players are finding it hard to get Joy awarded to them, and I'm also finding it hard to come up with story reasons to give it to them, aside from "completing the quest" (also "screwing up the quest" for Despair).

The original Invisible Sun game system indicates three things that might award Joy, and three things that might award Despair, for each "Order" in the game (that's the closest thing the game has to Pathfinder's classes). So I thought of writing three things that would award Joy and other three for Despair for each race and class in Pathfinder. Of course not all of them at once, starting with the Core ones and going up from there.

So, what I came here to ask is: What would give an elf Joy? What would give a Dwarf Despair? What about a Barbarian? Or a Ranger? I'm having difficulty with the more martial classes, given that the Orders in Invisible Sun are pretty much all made up of magical characters.

These should be things that are not super rare, like once per adventure, but also can't be things that are too easy to achieve and abuse.

For instance: a halfling might get 1 Despair by going too long without good quality food. A ranger might get 1 Despair for failing to track his favourite enemy. A cleric that consecrates/desecrates the temple of an opposing deity might get 1 Joy. And so on...

Ancestries were a disappointment to me. Before realising how it actually worked, I thought we were getting the same amount of stuff we did at level 1 in 1ed + various ancestry options as we level up. I thought the idea was to give out abilities like the great racial feats of 1ed for free, like Orc Hewer, Mage of the Wilds, Effortless Trickery etc. instead of having to pick them from your regular feat selection, I was stoked.

But no, you get minimal physiological traits from your ancestry and then ONE ancestry feat at 1st level. The idea of getting ancestry-related abilities for free as we level up and not just at 1st level is great, however it becomes completely void if we don't get the normal racial abilities we got at 1st level in 1ed.

I mean, elves don't get their most iconic feature, Keen Senses.
"What do your elf-eyes see, Legolas?"
Absolutely nothing.
What they do get is not passive and its just about hearing.

On top of that, this system destroys the late great Racial Points system from Advanced Race Guide, where you could add a ton of little quirky and flavourful options at 1st level. I wonder if they want to evolve Pathfinder, which has become its own game and not just another D&D clone, why are they throwing original Pathfinder innovations like this out the window?

Designers keep blaring about design space, and even though they have expanded it by, let's say, three steps with getting Ancestry Feats during your adventuring career, they have also sent it six steps backwards with how little we get at 1st level.

I'm quite sure this is another decision to make the game more streamlined for new players by giving them fewer options to begin with, giving them more options in a slower pace with time, and also to set back power creep.

Well, if those are really the reasons... I don't really care about these two aspects, not to be selfish, but is no great help putting in place mechanics like this in order to bring new players in if they also don't appeal to veterans.

This is not the game that appealed to me in the past, I like a lot of options from the get-go, I like how powerful, and grand, and heroic, and full of tiny quirks Pathfinder characters are.

While I'm no a fan of PF2, I feel some of these critiques are a bit unfair:

Since, as you say, most Feats are underwhelming, who cares if spending them on a particular item is, effectively, mandatory?

Likewise, since Skills scale automatically now, there's no reason to use Skill Increases unless you need to qualify for a Skill Feat so using them on a Skill you selected for flavour is just silly.

Individual abilities getting weaker all around is probably required in light of the stated design priority of increasing overall competency of starting PCs.

Well that's because I actually like the Skill Feat mechanic very much, even if the feats are underwhelming they can still be fixed, what bummed me out was that really don't have the options (Skill Feats) necessary to invest in the skills I like. So really wouldn't need to get Arcana to Legendary, because as I said only one skill feat available for it, and as you pointed out no need for that. But the thing is I want to get Arcana to Legendary, and I want some cool skill feats to go with it, but nope, we don't get any of that.

As for the weak abilities, well I much prefer to be a weaker starting PC and get super awesomely heroic and powerful at later levels than this dragged down progression that feels like you're always at starting levels.

Yeah, I can be long winded, but dang. I got lost very quickly in trying to read anything constructive in what starts off as a "I don't like it, I'll never play it" feel of post.

Sorry, fixed that, it's because I started writing about 2nd edition in a comment section and decided to recycle the text so I could use it here. Also, I will DM it to two to three parties in the sheer hope of providing feedback to avert the catastrophe of this playtest.

I'm sorry but I heavily disliked almost everything that I read.

All feats, be they general, class, or skill, are very underwhelming, it seems Paizo let the Nerf Hammer completely loose. I can only specialize to legendary into three skills, but it seems Paizo determined that the skills I like aren't worth it, so they get only one or two skill feats that I can select, despite my desire to specialize in them, but skills like Athletics, Acrobatics, and Society get a ton of skill feats. I can't craft magic items using Arcana (1ed's Spellcraft) anymore, so I'm forced to invest in Crafting instead of a more flavourful skill that I'm actually interested in. Lore skills outside Arcana, Nature, Religion, and Occultism are mechanically unatractive despite me wanting to invest in them because of the flavour, why do I have to be punished for wanting to become Legendary in Lore: Planes? If I want to focus in one Lore skill I have to say goodbye to a whole third of all my skill advancement, and as much as I love being the knowledgeable guy it is just too much investment for little return, it's much more advantageous to just have it Trained, after all, being Legendary at it is numerically just three points more. As a matter of fact, I'm hard pressed to find something good about even Arcana, Nature, Occultism, and Religion, Nature being the only one with more than one skill feat. Still on skills, they said during the playtest previews that they were augmenting the number of skills the classes get, citing the Fighter going from 2 + Int to 3 + Int, but they actually reduced the number of skills the Alchemist gets, and the Wizard stayed the same. Also, way to dump Int right? It has no bearing on skills being 1st level, what a waste.

Zero organization, why aren't wizard spells at least organized into Schools of Magic?? That was a flaw of 1ed's supplements in relation to the Core Rulebook, and they made it worse by eliminating the short preview phrase of the spell. Why didn't they put the spell's spell list in its description?? I have to keep going back to the lists to see where they belong to, it's very bad. Who had the brilliant idea of putting the description of powers mixed with the descriptions of spells? That was awful, I have to keep jumping up and down the book to see what my class does. Turning everything into spells just to clarify 1ed's SLAs and Su abilities is bland and boring, just like the gamey term Spell Points, and as pointed out above it screwed the book's organization.

Not only that, now domains and bloodline abilities not only have been reduced but have become just spells, and nothing more, No longer will we get passive domain and bloodline abilities, like the super flavourful Woodland Stride, that now has become a limited Spell Point spending power/spell. Making the Bard an occult spellcaster is just a forced excuse to have the "occult" concept in the game from the get-go in the Core Rulebook. And what's even the difference from Arcane and Occult magic? Why should there be such a difference?? At least with the psychic classes it was a little more fleshed out, but this is just lazy and forced. Why aren't sorcerers arcane spellcasters by default? It's horrible, sorcerers should be the masters of dramatic fireball-slinging spellcasting just like wizards, not of Divine magic, for instance. I mean, I love for them to get spells from other lists based on their bloodline, but to change the whole spell list?? No! It should be arcane just like 1ed, even though I think they should definitely get more spells from other lists than they did in 1ed. If anything, changing their list but reducing their bloodline abilities is less flavourful, so is having class feats that focus on their list instead of focusing on the actual bloodline, damn it.

NASS (Non-Automatically Scaling Spells) is a needless bog of boring choices, I don't want to choose at which level I wanna cast the spell, I just want to cast it. And NASS also had a terrible effect on the sorcerer, because it either makes spontaneous casters too powerful or too weak, in the end the playtest design chose the second option, where the class has to give up one of its known spells for each version of the spell the character wants to pick, automatically scaling two known spells being an ineffective and lazy fix.

They murdered some spells, like Haste and Glitterdust, instead of just making them higher level if they felt they were too powerful in 1ed. 10th level spells are a complete joke, they are glorified 9th level spells that were actually nerfed in relation to their 1ed version, and on top of that you must spend your capstone feat to get them, which allows you to choose TWO from a incredibly long list of THREE. Metamagic feats are few and far between, and although I like the "add one action" mechanic, they are very underwhelming, just like I said of the other feats.

Familiars actually got weaker and less customizable, which is crazy. I'm not saying I wanted them to be combat animals (that's already the role of animal companions), but in 1ed. I wanted to at least get to choose some extra feats for them as we level up, now that's not even in the agenda anymore to save familiars.

Ancestries are just sad, you get minimal physiological traits from your ancestry and then ONE ancestry feat. The idea of getting ancestry-related abilities for free as we level up and not just at 1st level is great, however it becomes completely void if we don't get the normal racial abilities we got at 1st level in 1ed.

Resonance is another joke, they said that resonance was supposed to be a single system to keep track of magic item uses, and yet they didn't get rid of the old systems as well, so I have to spend 1 resonance and 1 charge to activate staffs and wands?? Great Corellon! It should be either one or the other. Also, they want to make the game more streamlined for new players, but having to spend 1 Resonance to activate a one use item, like a potion, is one of the most counter-intuitive things I've ever saw in an RPG

Retraining as part of the core rules is nice, except they aren't really much in the way of rules, since they don't assert how much money you have to spend to retrain a certain ability, only time, and barely.

I think the playtest has some great ideas, like the way encounters are put together, using more silver pieces at the begining, xp awarding, poisons, traps, and other hazards being actually meaningful and not trivial, creating new monsters faster, skill feats if all the skills got the proper treatment they deserve, etc. but its content is awful.

Except for gnomes getting a Charisma bonus, I really like the current 1st ed. racial bonuses. And as people said, floating boost is great because it covers woodsy elves and whatnot.

My view always was that elves were the masters of arcane magic, that was what 3rd ed. told me, even though elves were not really good wizards back then (unless you went gray elf from Monster Manual). So then I was really thrilled when Pathfinder gave elves a bonus to Int.

Reflecting on my home Greyhawk campaign setting though, that changed a bit, I use a system where High Elves get +Dex, -Con and get to choose between +Int or +Cha. Because although they still live in forests I prefer my High Elves more cultured and sophisticated than woodsy lumberjacks. That said, you can still find Legolas in my home Greyhawk setting, that's why Wood Elves get +Wis instead of choosing between Int or Cha. Gray Elves always get Int instead of choosing as well, as they are more scholarly and high-minded even than the High Elves. Wild and Snow Elves get Wis same as their Wood cousins, so you see, as the original poster suggested, elves should be wise, three of my home subraces get Wis, they just aren't a majority in the setting, High Elves being more common than all the other varieties, Grays, Wild, and Snow being positively more rare, in that order of less to most rare.

My Rock Gnomes get Int while their Forest cousins get Wis. Svirfneblins are a thing. And if you really want to get Charisma as a gnomes on my home games use 2nd ed's floating bonus or select a Wildflower Gnome. They get Cha, but aren't a subrace, they are born to either Rock or Forest gnome families at random, and are different than their fellows in that they are much more whimsical and prankish than even a regular gnome, and are born with one vibrant hair colour. They are said to be touched by wild magic.

I really don't like this, because I always liked the idea that Pathfinder was a generic system that gives you the rules and bothers with minimum lore/fluff so you can fit it to any home campaign world you're using. It's still that in general, sure, but this for essences things goes a bit against that, and I don't want it. First because I hate the idea that a wizard, for instance, is limited only to mental and material essences. I mean, why can't we have wizards who practice spiritual magic?? Or clerics that lean more into the mental essence, and so on... This essences fluff reinforces that boring trope where wizards are "scientists of magic", they use "rational" magic. No, I want wizards to be esoteric and occult and weird. Book magic doesn't have to be scientific, magic shouldn't be science-like, magic should magical, mystic. Also, why is there even a difference between arcane and occult magic? Those words mean the same thing! Why cast out arcane magic as more mundane and always have divine and occult magic be more esoteric (hence cooler, IMHO)? Tired of that trope, and the essences fluff just reinforce it. I would even prefer a system where there's no divisions between arcane/divine/occult magic. Second, I much prefer a system where most spellcasters have their own lists, or two, max. three of them share a list, than a system of standardized four (or six in the future) lists. It maybe less unwieldy design-wise, but it has much more benefits. You can differentiate between the casting classes way more with it. Instead of having the Inquisitor just share the divine list with clerics and oracles, make his own list like in 1st ed.! Way better to show how specialized in infiltration, detecting, hunting down and interrogating heretics than the more general (and powerful) divine list. And the 1st ed. list system is also good to show not just differentiation, but where same casters meet each other as well. Because while I think that every divine caster getting the same list is super bland, having some of the casters share the same list is still a feature in a system where most classes would have their own list.

As with variant multiclassing from Unchained, I really like this approach, but only if it is one alternative to multiclassing, "classic" multiclassing still being available. If this though would be the only way to multiclass then I dislike it very much. I want it both ways, in my 1st edition games I allow both classic core multiclassing and Unchained's variant multiclassing, and that's what I want for 2nd edition PF.

Same goes to Prestige Archetypes, I liked the approach, but I still want to have classic prestige classes, because there are some changes that only a whole new level in a class could provide.

NetoD20 wrote:

Ancestries was one of the things I was mostly excited about, the idea of getting free racial treats as we level up is great. However what I didn't realise at first was that we don't get the same amount of stuff at 1st level as we did in 1st edition. So really what ancestry feats have become is just a way of spacing out our racial traits throughout 20 levels, and I'm very disappointed in that. Why my dwarf can't start out with Greed, Defensive Training, Stonecunning, etc. at 1st level and then get his other ancestry feats later as he levels up as well? That would have been great! It would be like getting all the stuff you normally expect to get from playing a dwarf/elf/gnome whatever in 1st edition, and then getting the 2nd edition equivalents of 1st edition's great racial feats (Orc Hewer, Mage of the Wilds, Effortless Trickery etc.) as ancestry feats later on as you level up. I thought the new ancestry feat system was about developing and emphasizing your ancestry throughtout the whole character advancement instead of just at character creation like in 1st edition. Instead it's just getting the same stuff you got in 1st edition, but instead spaced out through many levels.

Actually, the Ancestry Feats seem to be more in line powerwise with the racial feats of PF1 than the starting racial traits. They share many of the same names, but they seem to be on average way better and the best ones are REALLY good.

I much prefer to get half a dozen weaker but flavourful options than one powerful one at 1st level. A 1st level character should get some 5 or 6 ancestry feats instead of just 1. Also, I don't like heritage feats, the physiological benefits of heritage feats should be granted for free alongside the standard ancestry benefits (speed, ability boosts and flaws, and such). Ok, maybe not the Ancestral Longevity one, but come on, elves don't get anything to Perception as a standard physiological feature?? I mean, that is perhaps the most iconic feature of the elven race. "What do your elf-eyes see Legolas?"

Ancestries was one of the things I was most excited about, the idea of getting free racial treats as we level up is great. However what I didn't realise at first was that we don't get the same amount of stuff at 1st level as we did in 1st edition. So really what ancestry feats have become is just a way of spacing out our racial traits throughout 20 levels, and I'm very disappointed in that. Why my dwarf can't start out with Greed, Defensive Training, Stonecunning, etc. at 1st level and then get his other ancestry feats later as he levels up as well? That would have been great! It would be like getting all the stuff you normally expect to get from playing a dwarf/elf/gnome whatever in 1st edition, and then getting the 2nd edition equivalents of 1st edition's great racial feats (Orc Hewer, Mage of the Wilds, Effortless Trickery etc.) as ancestry feats later on as you level up. I thought the new ancestry feat system was about developing and emphasizing your ancestry throughtout the whole character advancement instead of just at character creation like in 1st edition. Instead it's just getting the same stuff you got in 1st edition, but instead spaced out through many levels.

"Creating unnatural weather patterns that could be damaging to the local environment (such as by using a 9th-level control weather ritual) is anathema to her."

But that's exactly the sort of stuff that I hoped to do with a Storm Druid! Not to harm the environment per se. But controling the weather left and right is something I expected to do.

Disappointed that Leaf druids only get a plant familiar instead of a plant companion. I mean, I love leshies, but I want the option of getting a combat oriented plant companion just like the Animal druid straight forward gets a combat animal.

When Jason showcased one of the polymorph spells at Paizo Con and I saw that I didn't need to invest in physical stats to make them useful, I though "Great! No more just ability score boosts from polymorph spells!" But now seeing that the Wild druid has to invest in Stregnth is just disappointing, just seems forced. At least Constitution would make a bit more sense to me.

Dragonborn3 wrote:

They are really pushing the mundane healing, aren't they?

Not only healing, but mundane in general.

The reason I'm really not liking this new edition. If I wanted mundane I wouldn't play a fantasy game.

Also, I don't really think that wands are that big a problem to require Resonance, I mean, maybe they needed so tweaking. But what pissed me off the most was that they said that Resonance was to be a universal system to track magical uses, so instead of uses per day for this or charges for that you would only keep track of resonance. But then they said in one of the item blogs that you need to both spend resonance AND a charge to activate a wand/staff. I mean, come on, you propose something to supposedly make the system less complicated, but it actually makes it more complicated, and just seems like another cap on magic and casting, which I'm sick of in this playtest.

Erik Mona, whom I deeply love and admire as one of my indutry heroes, said in a stream I think, something along the lines of "in what fantasy movie or novel you ever saw/read the protagonists stoped and just went using a wand 15 times to heal up a companion?". Excuse, great sage Iquander, but I have some very good ways of describing that mechanic in a good narrative form. What I do actually find more artificial and "gamey" is potions to suddenly stop working because a stat number is spent.

I tried to give Resonance a chance, but after the "spend resonance AND a charge" I'm just done with it. Are we gonna have Resonance? Okay, but at least make it really replace charge items and make one-use items (potions, scrolls) exempt from it.

I don't want to play both editions, I definitely wanna settle with one and keep tinkering with it. That said, it's a matter of will I keep DMing with 1st ed adapting some stuff that I like from 2nd or will I transition to 2nd edition and adapt some stuff from 1st ed. into it? Ultimately it's a question of what requires less work. I would love to not have to adapt anything and just jump into 2nd. But while I'm loving a lot of things (action economy, weapon traits, backgrounds, skill feats), I'm hating others (spellcasting, resonance, sorcerers, bards as occult instead of arcane spellcasters, reducing the number of spell/day, spell points, the four padronized spell lists). It's very possible that NASS (Non-Automatically Scaling Spells) will make me not adhere to the new edition, and keep me in 1st ed.

Nature is not always pretty and bucolic, nature is also often savage and brutally competitive. I'm trying to channel the dark aspects of nature to form a bloodthirsty cabal of Ur-Flan druids. My idea is that, being a god of the naturalistic Flan people, it would be a great opportunity to present Nerull as a patron of such druids. Nerull is the god of death, and death is a very important aspect of the natural cycle, there can be no life without death, no renewal without decay. The weed feeds the lamb, and the lamb feeds the predator, the predator feeds the worm, the weed, and the flowers. I'm thinking of druids that worship the Decay aspect of nature, much like the Rot in the Swamp Thing comics. Nerull is a great candidate not only because he's a god of death, but also an embodiment of winter. Winter means the death of all life. Spring its renewal. Nerull cuts off the head of Obad-Hai, the Shalm, and hangs it in a tree at the beginning of every winter. In the beginning of spring seeds fall from the head into the ground, and Obad-Hai is reborn anew. So yes, Nerull is a great candidate for the patron of evil druids, even if I'm struggling a little bit with the whole undead aspect of Nerull, and how his druids would deal with that. Is undeath as unnatural to them as it is to most other archetypical generic druids or do they somehow embrance undeath as part of nature? Maybe they only raise spirit-less undead, the soul being departed as the natural cycle demands, but the corpse is still useful to the druid, just like it is to the worm, and the vegetables that grow off of it. Do these druids like to employ Yellow Musk Creepers? I'm fishing for ideas here, people, and for any interesting material/literature on evil druids and/or worshippers of Nerull. I DM Pathfinder, so any mechanical material from 3.X/PF would be great, but I'm more interested in lore about Nerull, and Ur-Flan druids. Of course, I can adapt material from any edition, as long as it is on-theme and/or Greyhawk related. I posted this here because I didn't know where a Greyhawk thread would be best suited to be.

About Heighten, it does fundamentally seem strange for a Wizard to be able to arbitrarily choose any # of spells to Heighten each day (limited by spell slots), but a Sorceror can't. Perhaps a compromise would be allowing the Sorceror to be able to prepare-as-Heightened similar to a Wizard AND have limited spontaneous-Heighten ability on the side. I feel like part of calculus is not letting low-level Spells Known freely "upgrade" to high-level Spells Known, although I feel that concern isn't as strong as it seems at first glance, considering the Wizard is being allowed to gain spells and later freely Heighten them at no cost.

None of this would be a problem if they hadn't choose to overhaul the whole spellcasting system and replacing it with NASS (Non-Automatically Scaling Spellcasting). Not only did they put NASS in place but they even reduced the spells per day. So is double-nerf showdown on casters. And so the sorcerers would get a huge boost in this system if they were to be allowed to heighten at will or they get a huge drawback having to spend a spell known for each spell level version of the same spell they want, and Spontaneous Heighten is a shoddy tool for trying to fix this. But what irritates me a lot on top of all the problems these new subsystems cause is when a hear a phrase trying to sell them as a good thing. Like "now your cleric can choose which spell level he wants to cast his spell with!". I've always loved you, Paizo, but no, don't try to push this on me. State things plainly, "we are nerfing spellcasters", don't sugar-coat it.

I started very hopeful about 2nd edition, now I'm ever more disappointed about it as the new blogs come out. New subsystems like Resonance and Non-Automatically Scaling Spellcasting (NASS) created to solve non-problems turn to ever more clunky solutions. Really didn't like spontaneous heightening, and sorcerer getting fewer spell per day, as many as the wizard gets. If it were not for NASS those need not to exist. And now sorcerers become more atuned to items, which I don't like, sorcerers should have less need of magical implements. Great Corellon, I loathe bloodline-dependant spell lists, sorcerers should always be arcane. In 1st edition it was cool for you to get thematically appropriate spells from other lists, I even think we should be able to get more, but changing the whole list is too much. The mechanical reason sorcerers and wizards were physically weaker in 3rd edition (only one good save, worst BAB, and worst HD) was because their spell list was generally better than divine lists, more versatile, giving sorcerers a different list althogether just throws them off. My idea of sorcerers always was that they did the same thing as wizards, but with a different method/technique, what wizards had to research was something that came instinctively to a sorcerer. Beauty being a different approach to the same art (or rather, Art). I want more intermingling between spell lists, not locking a class away in one of them and giving it just some pinches of magic from other sources.

Only three bloodline powers through out the whole sorcerer carreer? And before you answer "evolution feats", those are thematically tied to the spell list, not the bloodline per se. The individual bloodline should be the focus for thematic customization, not the spell list it is drawing from, the spell list is just another aspect of customization, it shouldn't be the basis for it, that should be the role of the bloodline. Also, bloodline powers always being spells that you cast: where are the passive bloodline powers? Woodland Stride, Unusual Anatomy, Draconic Resistances, Added Summonings??

And why is there even a difference between arcane and occult?? Arcane means occult. Why can't I have a sorcerer or wizard that rearranges the basic building blocks of reality and communes with spirits with the same ease? Or a cleric of Wee Jas [or Pharasma, or Nethys] that has learned arcane secrets from ancient scrolls in her church's library? Why can't arcane magic be as esoteric, mysterious, and occult as divine and psychic magic? Why can't nature magic be arcane magic just as it is divine or "primal"? Also, who will use the occult list? Bards?? Bards are awesome, but they are (or rather should be, imho) arcane.

Having individual [i]and[/i~] shared lists like in 1st edition, with the possibility of getting cross-lists spells (through bloodlines, domains, prestige classes, etc.) was great. You could have lists shared by two or three classes that made sense together, like Sorcerer/Wizard, Cleric/Oracle/Warpriest, Bard/Skald, etc. But you also had unique lists for more specialized classes, like Witch with her mix of buffs/debuffs drawn from the cleric mixed with cackling arcane drama. Or the Inquisitor, with her unique spells mixed with cleric-drawn spells, and whatever spells helped this pragmatic individual to hunt down or rat out heretics. The Shaman, which most people would judge at first to be "just another druid or cleric" when actually it got a singular spell list that reflected its animistic theme. These lists were a great tool to create uniqueness using both the concepts of close magical practice for some and a more apart spellcasting for others. Having just four lists to fit all the spellcasters into is just bland to me. I was hoping that maybe 2nd edition could take the 1st edition approach but providing more accessible options for those who want to get cross-list spells.

This has always been to me a question of whether will I transition to 2nd edition and port somethings from 1st edition into it or the other way around. Now it seems that it will probably be the later rather than the former. I mean, I love skill feats, three-action economy, device-tinkering alchemists, backgrounds, and weapon traits, among other things. But these new lists, Resonance, NASS, spell points, and less spell slots are driving me away.

I agree that, superficially at least, the pirate feats look weaker/narrower than what I expect the class feats they're replacing offer. The only caveat is that they are granting signature skills and from what we've heard so far its possible, but semi-rare, so that might be a large bit of their value.

Yes, I would like some more attention not to make archetype feats so circumstantial/narrow. They should provide big circumstancial benefits and some more general benefits as well if they are going to replace class feats.

I don't know if i like it yet, I think that maybe you should be able to use general feats, not just class feats, to buy archetype feats. Otherwise you'll have to sacrifice you main class all the time.

I also really don't like that the Gray Maiden is the only prestige archetype on the playtest book. Not just because it's only one prestige archetype, but also because i applauded when it was announced that the Pathfinder Hopeful would be in the Doomsday Dawn book instead of the playtest book. Putting in the Gray Maiden, the only prestige archetype in the book, seems more to me than just "Golarion infused". Also, I was hoping they were finally gonna make Loremaster an interesting wizard option, something akin to Arcane Savant. Not that they aren't going to, but I wanted to see the classic 3.X prestige classes that are included in 1st ed's Core Rulebook.

Really like that 2nd edition's archetypes aren't like Starfinder, it's a relief after boring Stamina (Spell Points) made it in.

Barbarians sundering my walls of force, just what I needed.

I would really like if they changed it to spell circles and got rid of "spell points".

Oh, I wouldn't kill a red cap, I would make it my faerie kingdom's Warden and call him Papa Smorte (that is a pun in portuguese, which would equate to Papa Sdeath). I actually wanted to make him a my Royal Executioner, but one of the other players wanted that office, so it went to him. My elven gestalt fey sorcerer/wizard/arcane savant was the Ruler of a kingdom to the south of the Stolen Lands, near Kyonin.

I don't like Bounded Accuracy, it limits choice too much. I think some level of numbers crunching is reasonable so that things don't get out of hand and so that high level play isn't broken, but in general I don't like BA. One of the things that pissed me was when I read that in 5ed some kinds of AC protections just didn't stack, I don't remember the example exactly, but something like a monster's natural armor wouldn't stack with manufactured armor should that monster decide to wear it, because you either calculated it one way or another. Although 3.X/Pathfinder has something similar with the "bonus of a same type don't stack" it doesn't even feel like a limitation like with BA and it's much more "organic".

NetoD20 wrote:

I wish each time you gained a new Skill Rank you gained a Base Skill Use, which would be the same for everyone who attained that rank in the same skill, much like an Occultist gains a Base Focus Power everytime he gets a new implement school.

Well, we don't know for sure that there aren't some skill usages which are gated by proficiency, outside of an Untrained/Trained split. Would something like that cover what you're after?

Maybe, that could be a thing.

NetoD20 wrote:

I hope Occultism skill feats include Object Reading. And that Arcane, Nature, or Occultism skill feats include natural divinations, like looking at a fire, reading tea leafs, gazing at crystal balls, reading entrails, reading the patterns of dust in the wind, etc.

But the way the progression of Skill Ranks and Skill Feats is right now, I think that gaining a new Skill Rank does you very little good. You get a +1 and it's a gateway for you to get new kinds of skill feats, but only next level. I wish each time you gained a new Skill Rank you gained a Base Skill Use, which would be the same for everyone who attained that rank in the same skill, much like an Occultist gains a Base Focus Power everytime he gets a new implement school.

Well, some stuff does, like Crafting (since now you can craft Expert/Master/Legendary stuff) but for other skills it might feel a bit too game-y to do that.

Like, for example, what would you give Thieving at Expert? That isn't something like "You can now pick Expert Locks and Disarm Expert Traps".

I understand your point. But well, you'd give them something like a Skill Feat appropriate for that Rank, but weaker, since you're already getting the +1.

I hope Occultism skill feats include Object Reading. And that Arcane, Nature, or Occultism skill feats include natural divinations, like looking at a fire, reading tea leafs, gazing at crystal balls, reading entrails, reading the patterns of dust in the wind, etc.

But the way the progression of Skill Ranks and Skill Feats is right now, I think that gaining a new Skill Rank does you very little good. You get a +1 and it's a gateway for you to get new kinds of skill feats, but only next level. I wish each time you gained a new Skill Rank you gained a Base Skill Use, which would be the same for everyone who attained that rank in the same skill, much like an Occultist gains a Base Focus Power everytime he gets a new implement school.

NetoD20 wrote:

There are two solutions to that, either you accept you're a muggle and have fun with it, or you do what PF2nd is doing and make everyone magical at high levels (even if you don't admit it).

<snip>
I think it would be fine if they gave me a line or three or four about how legendary feats are not mundane abilities.

You think they're not mundane abilities.

And the rest of us, who think they *are* mundane abilities are simply not "admitting" it?
And Paizo needs to confirm your thinking by adding words that turn mundane abilities into magic abilities?

There's another solution:
We don't admit anything
Paizo doesn't add any more lines that change legendary feats into magic.
You admit that mundane abilities aren't magic abilities.

We accept we are muggles who have legendary mundane abilities. And Paizo doesn't have to change anything for that to be true.

I never said Paizo needs to do anything. If you had read my post attentively, you would have seen that I used the expressions "I still would like", and if they did A and are doing B then "it would be fine if" they did X. And when I say "it would be fine if" I mean to say that to me it would be reasonable if they did X. I also used the expression "The way I see, the problem is" Q, so I clearly did not say that what I see as a problem is something objective, quite the contrary.

I love that there it´s at least an intention of making fighters and rogues to be more on par with the magic-oriented classes, but there it´s no point to it if it cost them their very soul. I want to play fighter and rogues because they are characters that are tied to certain rules and need to find more or less plausible ways to solve their problems in contrast with just snapping their fingers and fixing everything.

The way I see, the problem is that you can't have both things. So okay, you chose to play a muggle, and you like the flavour of it, you like being a muggle, that's fine. But at the same time you want your muggle somehow to compete with magic at everything, and you don't even have high tech to do it. That just doesn't make any sense. Magic is altering reality, you wanna do stuff on par with altering reality without altering reality, it doesn't make sense.

There are two solutions to that, either you accept you're a muggle and have fun with it, or you do what PF2nd is doing and make everyone magical at high levels (even if you don't admit it). The first option is PF 1st ed, the second is PF 2nd ed, I'm fine with either, but I still would like an in-world explanation for the later. After all, mythic did this to explain its reality breaking shenanigans, and now they want to insert more Golarion flavour text/worldbuilding into the core line, so if they are putting a little more flavour text than in 1st ed, I think it would be fine if they gave me a line or three or four about how legendary feats are not mundane abilities.

master_marshmallow wrote:

Malk_Content wrote:

master_marshmallow wrote:

How does Perception fit into this?

If Perception is not a skill, but is used parallel to them for things like initiative, then how does one deal with someone taking Assurance on their chosen "go-to" skill for initiative in Exploration mode.

I would think things like tracking, sense motive, wild empathy, and the like would all be uses of Perception that ought be improved with Skill Feats, but if perception is not a skill, even though it's used like a skill, then where do we go from here?

I love the new d20 engine, and I really like the uses of skills and different feats to gate abilities. I wish the rest of the game was designed with this in mind to reduce uncertainty as you progress, not to increase it. This is the best part of the new game.

I notice there is a lot of confusion for myself in the new system of having a bunch of things that function the same way, but are specified not to be the same thing, in an indistinguishable way aside from what's printed on paper telling me that it's different. Spells that aren't spells but are still spells, and a skill that isn't a skill but is used in the same scenarios as skills.

This I fell needs tightening up.

Perception doesn't fit into it. As one of the proficiency outside of Skills I'm guessing the resource you use to interact with it will be the far more limited General Feat pool.

Assurance and Initiative doesn't strike me as a problem. If you've got something like a +10 you might want to roll anyway, but taking the safe option for a middling initiative may be appealing sometimes. Seems like an okay choice to make.

Tacking and Wild Empathy seem to be better fits for Survival and Nature respectively. Sense Motive is confirmed to be part of Perception.

I don't think it's all that confusing at all.

It's not the mechanism which confuses me, but rather the implementation.

If it works like a skill, and is used the sane way (and

...

Yes, absolutely, if Perception is gonna interect like and with other skills then it should totally be skill, even if, as you said, they want to give everybody proficiency with it.

I guess my main issue with all of this right now -- and I'm sure someone has said this already -- is that Skill modifiers scale with your level. I thought part of this updated system was a "number crunch" of sorts (one of the few things I like about 5E), but it seems like in Playtest we will still be getting huge bonuses to rolls -- particularly Skill rolls -- that seem to get bigger for the sake of differentiating between your character's current and previous levels.

If I understand correctly, your Skill modifier is your Proficiency modifier (Proficiency rank bonus/penalty + your level) + Ability Score modifier + any extra things from feats and abilities. So at 1st level, my rogue who might be an expert in Stealth has a maybe +5 or so bonus to that skill. Remember, he is an EXPERT in Stealth. However, a Paladin who is level 7 and UNTRAINED in Stealth -- a skill he probably rarely uses or finds a need for -- will likely have an equal or higher bonus to that same skill. Maybe I'm splitting hairs about the words Untrained, Trained, Expert, Master, and Legendary, but even for the simplest action for a skill that can be performed without a skill feats, it doesn't make sense that an untrained character would be better at performing than a trained or higher character who lacks the same amount of XP.

I think I know where they are coming from: Proficiency Rank represents training, the level component of the Prof. modifier represents experience, and the Ability Score modifier represents talent. Still, getting a +1 EVERY time you level just seems to give huge weight to experience which -- let's not be coy -- mostly shows that you've fought a lot of monsters... And I believe that a level of experience is more or less implied in becoming an expert with something.

I could understand if it was half your level + your rank to make your Proficiency mod, but as it is now, this Skill system is just doing more or less what PF 1st Ed. already does -- simulates numbers getting bigger and bigger. Don't get me wrong, I love...

Wait, I thought you didn't add your level to a check if you were untrained. I thought it was:

Untrained: 1d20 + Ability Score Modifier -2
Trained: 1d20 + Ability Score Modifier + Your Level + 1
Expert: 1d20 + Ability Score Modifier + Your Level + 2
Master: 1d20 + Ability Score Modifier + Your Level + 3
Legendary: 1d20 + Ability Score Modifier + Your Level + 4

You're telling me we add our level even if we are untrained?? That doesn't make ANY sense.
Also, that paladin in your example should get some problems with his clunky armor.

EDIT: I do think it would go better if it was half level, though, like this:

Untrained: 1d20 + Ability Score Modifier -1
Trained: 1d20 + Ability Score Modifier + Half Your Level + 2
Expert: 1d20 + Ability Score Modifier + Half Your Level + 4
Master: 1d20 + Ability Score Modifier + Half Your Level + 6
Legendary: 1d20 + Ability Score Modifier + Half Your Level + 8

MER-c wrote:

You know I realized it awhile back but if you really look at it the skill system PF2 is putting out is actually very similar to AD&D 2e’s proficiencies Systems.

Ah, the good old roll under system, elegant, and works well when the PCs rarely have an ability score over 18.

I am hoping of turning some AD&D proficiencies into Skill Feats, mainly Planescape stuff, like using Planes or Occultism or Arcana to shape Aether in the Ethereal Plane.

How about dragons?

Or owlbears?
Or alchemy which is definitely not magical but still nonsense?

Great Corellon, how I despise that alchemy isn't magical anymore, in 1ed edition it said it wasn't divine or arcane magic, just "magic". I always house-ruled it to be arcane magic, and probably am going to do so again in 2nd ed. I always flavored alchemy very differently, in a way that an alchemist doesn't mix chemicals, he works with mystical ingredients, like if he wants to make a bomb he uses the trapped breath of a fire elemental and stuff like that.

NetoD20 wrote:

Fuzzy-Wuzzy wrote:

NetoD20 wrote:

TheFinish wrote:

Deadmanwalking wrote:

John John wrote:

Maybe its just my personal preference and the fact I like supernatural pc's but luck doesn't cut it out for me, at least for an ability that's repeatable without any cost.

If you're not willing to have things occasionally be luck/preparation based then you're really limiting the kind of Legendary character people can conceptually play, IMO.

Because for a lot of people, you can't prepare to do any of these things. You can't "prepare" to survive a terminal velocity fall (well, except for having a parachute) it's all down to luck. And the feats, presented, aren't luck. They're skill.

It's much easier to accept "magic" as an explanation than "I'm just that good" because for a lot of us, we know you can't be that good. It's impossible in a world trying to emulate our world's underlying laws (and Golarion, aside from magic and a few system glitches, does). Therefore the only logical conclusion for me and others is that they have supernatural aid.

Yes! Exactly! And honestly, what's the problem of admiting those are supernatural in nature?? As an example, I still maintain that Heracles holding the sky should be clearly considered magical, he's not just strong as a mortal is, he is supernaturally strong.

Hercules' strength is like dragons' flight or golems' mobility: there may be beyond-physics stuff in it somewhere, but it keeps working in an AMF anyway, so it can't be made (Su).

I am quite certain that all constructs stop working inside antimagic fields.

It would make sense, but it is not so.

Antimagic Field wrote:

The spell has no effect on golems and other constructs that are imbued with magic during their creation process and are thereafter self-supporting (unless they have been summoned, in which

...

I'm flabbergasted, I was really sure that was the case, I'm sorry for spewing wrong information on that one, folks. Maybe I confused it as a reminiscent of 3.X? I don't know. Again, I'm sorry.

NetoD20 wrote:

TheFinish wrote:

Deadmanwalking wrote:

John John wrote:

Maybe its just my personal preference and the fact I like supernatural pc's but luck doesn't cut it out for me, at least for an ability that's repeatable without any cost.

If you're not willing to have things occasionally be luck/preparation based then you're really limiting the kind of Legendary character people can conceptually play, IMO.

Because for a lot of people, you can't prepare to do any of these things. You can't "prepare" to survive a terminal velocity fall (well, except for having a parachute) it's all down to luck. And the feats, presented, aren't luck. They're skill.

It's much easier to accept "magic" as an explanation than "I'm just that good" because for a lot of us, we know you can't be that good. It's impossible in a world trying to emulate our world's underlying laws (and Golarion, aside from magic and a few system glitches, does). Therefore the only logical conclusion for me and others is that they have supernatural aid.

Yes! Exactly! And honestly, what's the problem of admiting those are supernatural in nature?? As an example, I still maintain that Heracles holding the sky should be clearly considered magical, he's not just strong as a mortal is, he is supernaturally strong.

Hercules' strength is like dragons' flight or golems' mobility: there may be beyond-physics stuff in it somewhere, but it keeps working in an AMF anyway, so it can't be made (Su).

I am quite certain that all constructs stop working inside antimagic fields, and the breath weapon is Supernatural.

Golarion isn't trying to emulate our world's underlying laws. The underlying laws of our world make dragons, giants, surviving a dip in lava, or tanking several hits from a greatsword impossible. These things are mundane in Golarion.

To be fair I always hated surviving a dip a lava without magical assistance just using hit points as a buffer.

NetoD20 wrote:

I can agree with part of that, but "just being that good" doesn't cut it to me. If they don't wanna explain, fine, don't, but at least in game mechanics terms those abilities should get a Supernatural tag or whatever it is equivalent to that in 2nd ed and don't get to work inside antimagic fields and such.

Where exactly do you draw this line?

Because, as I've mentioned previously, in PF1 an 8th level Fighter can generally out-wrestle a rhinoceros with nothing but Str and BAB. A higher level Fighter can likewise survive immersion in lava.

Do those need to be Supernatural? And given that they are inevitable consequences of BAB and HP, how do you make them so?

To me if it's impossible it requires as magical or high tech... I will not say "explanation" because it's not about explaining how it's done but rather where it comes from, so I'm gonna say reason. However people probably are gonna yell at me and tell me that wrestling a rhinocerous shouldn't be explained as magical, as impossible and ridiculous as that is. So I'm forced to compromise and draw the line further ahead, at the epic legendary abilities, which certainly seem way more impossible than wrestling a rhinocerous. (just for clarification: epic is a descriptive term in this sentence, not using it as a game term, the game term is obviously legendary)

Deadmanwalking wrote:

John John wrote:

Maybe its just my personal preference and the fact I like supernatural pc's but luck doesn't cut it out for me, at least for an ability that's repeatable without any cost.

If you're not willing to have things occasionally be luck/preparation based then you're really limiting the kind of Legendary character people can conceptually play, IMO.

Because for a lot of people, you can't prepare to do any of these things. You can't "prepare" to survive a terminal velocity fall (well, except for having a parachute) it's all down to luck. And the feats, presented, aren't luck. They're skill.

It's much easier to accept "magic" as an explanation than "I'm just that good" because for a lot of us, we know you can't be that good. It's impossible in a world trying to emulate our world's underlying laws (and Golarion, aside from magic and a few system glitches, does). Therefore the only logical conclusion for me and others is that they have supernatural aid.

Yes! Exactly! And honestly, what's the problem of admiting those are supernatural in nature?? As an example, I still maintain that Heracles holding the sky should be clearly considered magical, he's not just strong as a mortal is, he is supernaturally strong.

NetoD20 wrote:

Wait, what? I thought there were not going to be class skills anymore, you chose a x + Int mod number and you got those as trained in 1st level.

This is correct as far as it goes, however, it's also been revealed that each Class does get Signature Skills, and that only Signature Skills can be bought to Master or Legendary.

They did also say there were non-Class ways to get additional Signature Skills, but which ones your class gets remains a relevant thing.

Wut. I was liking this system so much, but signature skills prohibiting you instead of given you something more? Damn, devs, just let people get whatever skill they want and develop it over years/levels. I'm gonna be really pissed if my elf wizard can't get Nature to Legendary or has to spent a feat or similar resource just to make it signature. Also if Wizards in general don't get Occultism, which seems to me like the most esoteric skill of those, I'm also gonna be really sad about it, wizards need to get away from the "scientist of magic" trope and finally be able to be more mystical, and mysterious.

That said, I hope the legendary skill feats for stuff like Alchemy and Arcana and Nature and Occultism be just as epic as falling an infinite distance to the ground unscathed or surviving in the void of space. Really pumped for those. I can imagine nature being things like the Train Plants and Grow Plant Creature feats in 1ed.

NetoD20 wrote:

oksananana wrote:

A beautiful example of Legendary in action is surely Tai Lung from Kung Fu Panda -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Os5wI6zIFEM

Alot of what he does here sounds ON PAPER ridiculous and magical in nature. For example, defying gravity, leaping from falling block to block to climb up hundreds of meters in the air.

Alot, maybe not always, but alot of the time, of the 'laws of physics breaking' legendariness can be rationalised with is a creative enough DM. Instead of your character actually landing on his feet from orbit without a scratch, he has not only manoeuvred himself to slow his terminal velocity, he has landed on birds in the air to delay his fall and found himself a bush to execute a perfect tumbling landing to kill off the momentum.

Instead of passing his body through a head sized hole in a force wall, he has managed to find the shimmering cracks in the surface, and pried them open just enough that he slides through with ease.

I love Kung Fu Panda, and I love all that wuxia stuff, but just because the guy trained and trained and become legendary at it, it doesn't mean that it isn't magical, that cannot be mundane. To me it clearly derives from ki abilities, and I'm not even saying that a monk needs to spend a ki point to do it, it might be usage of passive ki-relyant abilities, but ki is clearly magical. Why can't we just call it magical??

People choose to play nonmagical characters and then want to be able to do magical stuff, okay, fine, but at least call it what it is.

It's really easy to flavor it as magic in your head though. Leaving it without an explanation let's the players fill in the gaps. I happen to share Malik's headcannon that you are gradually infused with more and more Magic as Resonance demonstrates, but you could also call it ki, divine favor, or just being that good.

Basically, just because no explanation is given doesn't mean the explanation doesn't exist, they just haven't figured it out in...

I can agree with part of that, but "just being that good" doesn't cut it to me. If they don't wanna explain, fine, don't, but at least in game mechanics terms those abilities should get a Supernatural tag or whatever it is equivalent to that in 2nd ed and don't get to work inside antimagic fields and such.

John John wrote:

Really, I am not a fan of Indiana Jones, so I have no idea about where this happens. I would never imagine indiana Jones making a straight fall 1000 feet on solid concrete and taking no damage.

He doesn't do that, but this isn't actually a hell of a lot more plausible (and he manages to bring people with him to boot).

How you justify something like Catfall in-story is a matter of personal preference. Indiana Jones justifies it with luck. Increasingly unlikely coincidences just save him. That seems a perfectly reasonable way to work that Skill Feat to me.

Of course, as noted, Indiana Jones would probably not actually be Legendary (and could maybe pull those falls off with Catfall and Master...maybe).

John John wrote:

That's beautiful.

Thanks! :)

John John wrote:

Now for inevitable discussion of which legendary skills belong to which class.

Well, there's gonna be some overlap. We know Paladins have Diplomacy, for example, but I'd be shocked if Bards don't as well. Paladins and Clerics also seem very likely to both have both Religion and Medicine, and so on and so forth.

But we really don't even know how many different Classes get, swo it's hard to say. Druids get 4 (the same as the number of Skills they get) but how meaningful that is we have no idea.

I mean, if we were just doing 4 per Class (with extra for Bards, Rogues, and Rangers) it might be something like this (based almost purely on PF1 skills):

Alchemist: Arcana, Crafting, Medicine, Thievery,
Barbarian: Acrobatics, Athletics, Intimidation, Survival
Bard: Deception, Diplomacy, Performance, Occultism, Society, Stealth,
Cleric: Medicine, Performance, Religion, (+1 per Deity...we actually know all these are Cleric Signature Skills pretty much for sure making this the only one that isn't entirely speculative except for Druid)
Druid: Crafting, Nature, Survival, (+1 per Order, this one's official)
Fighter:...

Wait, what? I thought there were not going to be class skills anymore, you chose a x + Int mod number and you got those as trained in 1st level.

A beautiful example of Legendary in action is surely Tai Lung from Kung Fu Panda -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Os5wI6zIFEM

Alot of what he does here sounds ON PAPER ridiculous and magical in nature. For example, defying gravity, leaping from falling block to block to climb up hundreds of meters in the air.

Alot, maybe not always, but alot of the time, of the 'laws of physics breaking' legendariness can be rationalised with is a creative enough DM. Instead of your character actually landing on his feet from orbit without a scratch, he has not only manoeuvred himself to slow his terminal velocity, he has landed on birds in the air to delay his fall and found himself a bush to execute a perfect tumbling landing to kill off the momentum.

Instead of passing his body through a head sized hole in a force wall, he has managed to find the shimmering cracks in the surface, and pried them open just enough that he slides through with ease.

I love Kung Fu Panda, and I love all that wuxia stuff, but just because the guy trained and trained and become legendary at it, it doesn't mean that it isn't magical, that cannot be mundane. To me it clearly derives from ki abilities, and I'm not even saying that a monk needs to spend a ki point to do it, it might be usage of passive ki-relyant abilities, but ki is clearly magical. Why can't we just call it magical??

People choose to play nonmagical characters and then want to be able to do magical stuff, okay, fine, but at least call it what it is.

NetoD20 wrote:

What's curious to me, though, is that all your personal explanations after the "Edit" lead me to believe that you'd support the Su tag, yet you say you don't want it.

]

The rest is really just a difference of opinion that can't really be resolved. I feel both our ways of viewing things are perfectly reasonable and its mostly a semantic divide which neither of us have to shift from in order to be consistent.

This last part is quite important to me though and I try (probably fail as everyone does) to be consistent on where I come down on these things. If there is a difference in equally valid ways to do things (as in there isn't a strong mechanical or balance reason it should be one way or the other), and one involves a restriction I'd lean on the side of going with the least restrictive direction so long as that restriction is easy to impose. This is my PoV on things like Goblins or Alignment restricted classes (don't want Goblins, cool don't have them. Don't like non-Lawful monks, don't have them!) In this case I fall on the side of preferring the restricted version and to advocate for implementing the restriction as part of the core rules when I could easily apply it myself in home games would be very hypocritical of me.

Now I understand you perfectly. Thanks for explaining it to me, mate.

On the first part, though, yeah, I know it's just a difference of opinion and that it can't really be resolved. But sometimes I raise those matters anyway because it's kinda fun to speculate about magic Lol

It isn't about commonality. Our definition of what constitutes Magic is different from the in setting ideas of what Magic is. Magic is a specific thing with specific in universe rules. It does not mean outside of the natural, in fact it is an extension of many natural laws. Some sects might include certain parts of it outside of that (Pharasmans and Undead for example.)

So the Legendary abilities might be "Magic" by our world view, but they don't have to be "Magic" by the in setting world view. Just like the wonders of modern technology would be "Magic" by the PoV of almost everyone in human history, but isn't. We operate by entirely different rule structures.

EDIT: Although to be fair I personally (head canon) include Legendary abilities (or just most class features over a certain level) to be part of a person becoming more infused with ambient magic as they become a locus of fate/destiny/whatever, in a similair way that Resonance represents that (once again Head Cannon, we don't have the full description of Resonance yet.) But those are my personal explanations for it and I wouldn't want them tied to that by adding a [Su] tag (especially as those don't exist anymore) and all the mechanics that entails.

I disagree, magic should have a definition beyond how we think about magic. Of course, we can have different opinions of what constitutes magic, and that's okay. To me it's anything that's supernatural, even if the natural world is full of supernatural phenomena. Supernatural is not anti-natural or something apart from what is natural, the way I see it supernatural is just something that's above what is natural, not necessarily apart or in opposition. It's anything that's not mundane, not physical. It comes from what is metaphysical and immaterial. It isn't obliged to work under the rules that govern the mundane, physical elements of the universe.

What's curious to me, though, is that all your personal explanations after the "Edit" lead me to believe that you'd support the Su tag, yet you say you don't want it.

God Blood is only magical because it doesn't exist in our world. Almost everything every character in Pathfinder above level 8 does falls into that description. It ISN'T magic in a world were those things are a part of reality.

In the same way if you showed a person of 150years ago your house they would marvel at all the magic that inhabits basically every object. Because in their reality the technology is not a native expectation. Golarion is just as different for us, as we are to the folks of 5 generations ago.

That doesn't make any sense, just because something is common it doesn't mean that it isn't magical. And your examples fall very short, you're telling me that stuff that is common/everywhere isn't magical, but, your examples of god blood and level 8+ abilities are far less common than say 1st level spells.

TheAndyman wrote:

I like the idea of the system, but I think you're overselling the "legendary" proficiency quite a bit. From what I've read, Legendary skills don't become available until like level 19. This means they will never even see the light of day in society play, and home sessions will take years to get there. IIRC even master level is late in the game. So are there options for intentionally scaling up your proficiency, for specializing in a skill so that it is more effective early on? Some of the things you described as legendary skill uses are kind of available to specialists like bards and rogues fairly early in the game, at least earlier that what it seems like here. If not thwn this is all just fluff, as the skill system otherwise seems pretty weak

When you get certain Legendary Proficiencies varies.

Level 15 is when the Legendary Proficiency hits with skills.

Level 13 is when a Fighter gets Legendary Proficiency with his or her weapon/s of choice and level 19 with all weapons.

Level 19 is when a Wizard's Proficiency in Arcane Spellcasting goes up to Legendary (10th Level Spells are unlocked via a feat).

Wait a sec, you're telling a need to spend a feat to get 10th level spells?? wuuuuuutt Where is that referenced?

The Chosen of Corellon can now change their sex after a long rest; fun in Vegas.

Not at all the subject, but I LOVED THAT.

My elf wizard doesn't worship gods, he's far too proud for that, but damn does he kinda sorta respect Corellon in a tsundere kinda way.

NetoD20 wrote:

Heracles was a demigod, Atlas a titan, it's clearly magical.

Not magical, god-blood, not Into the whole because we have a high BAB and Str we are are like Hercules vibe.

What?? How does god-blood isn't magical?? Everything that's supernatural is magical! In my opinion, anyway... I find that saying otherwise highly diminishes magic. Makes me sad... like for reals. Of course you don't have to agree with me, kind sir. I'm sorry, yet again I digress.

Isn't some of those D&D trademarked?

It is, however you will see avatar of Elminster and Raistlin and stuff from Dragon and Dungeon Magazine around, so probably they can use stuff D&D stuff that they published themselves, I don't know, really.

Also, somehow Paizo owns and old font used in D&D books, Greyhawk Uncial. How does that work? It's matter for another thread. Sorry for the digression everybody!

DeciusNero wrote:

"Scaling Feats"

You have my attention on this feat-ure!

Yeah, definitely. The idea that a feat you took early on might not become obsolete with time, but improve as you do in a skill is great.

YES! That would be great! While we are at it, bring scaling spells back for Corellon's sake!

Also, Paizo, could we get Corellon Larethian, Mordenkainen, Melf Brightflame, and the time wizard from Legacy of the First World Player Companion as available avatars?

TheFinish wrote:

SilverliteSword wrote:

See, this is actually where I'd like to see things go the other way. If the legendary thief could disarm/dearmor enemies during combat, I'd be very happy.

He doesn't have to do it unnoticed, because it's the middle of a fight. He slips around behind the big ogre and just slides his dagger between the metal plates, severing leather straps like he's done this a thousand times. The armor chatters to the ground, no longer usable, and the enemy stares at him in shock. I think it would be cool.

As I said, it's not that I dislike abilities of this sort. People who love them can have them and people who don't can excise them from the game. What does make me raise an eyebrow is the game telling me this isn't magic, but rather a person being extremely skilled. Because it's magic. Stripping the armor off an enemy mid-fight isn't skill. It's magic. Spending [X] minutes hiding in shadows stealing full plate off a knight isn't skill, it's magic. Surviving unassisted in the vaccum of space for, say, more than three minutes isn't determination, it's magic. Falling from ten kilometers high and landing on your feet unscathed isn't skill, it's magic.

If you're going to have this kind of Legendary skills, just go full Earthdawn and stop pretending non-spellcasters aren't magical too. All PC classes are magic, the magic just materialises in different ways. Lets call a spade a spade.

I see where you’re coming from. Obviously some of these Legendary tasks are impossible by mundane means. But the word “magic” has certain connotations. That’s why, for example, Psionics, though clearly not mundane, aren’t called magic. I think the word “Legendary” is an important one here. Lots of Legendary or mythological heroes were said to have done unbelievable things, yet most wouldn’t describe them as magical. Like Heracles holding up the sky in Atlas’s absence. Clearly impossible, yet he did it, and I don’t think most folks would describe it as an act of magic.

I disagree, it's obviously magic, Heracles was a demigod, Atlas a titan, it's clearly magical. I'm not saying it's a spell, an incantation, but it is certainly magical. If they are not giving us an in-world reason for how these abilities come about (see, I said how they come about, not how they work, bc for instance no one explains how spells work), then I to me they should at least slap a Supernatural tag there or whatever the equivalent of that would be in 2nd ed. I'm not having my wizard's magic not working in an antimagic field while the fighter still is a demigod under the beholder's gaze. Also, shadow dancers were not spellcasters in 1ed, but they clearly slapped the SLA and Su tags on their ability, it'd be only fair for the same to be done to Legendary abilities.

Last, but not least, I found the description of the rogue dismantling an enemy's armor in full sight actively fighting against them to do it much more compeling and believable, I like it.

NetoD20 wrote:

Okay, my problem is not with the power level itself of the Legendary feats, it's a why of them. I was never talking about balance, I was talking about flavour. You want Wuxia stuff? Fine, that give me a better in-world explanation. Why not easy to fullfill story prerequisites? The above of example of, if your ranger spent all his life in a non-magical forest cutting logs then he can't survive in the void. But if he went through some horizon walking planes wandering shenanigans, got forbidden lore from a half a dozen planes, and was exposed to all kinds of reality warping planar vibrations, then yes, you can do it. Or if your fighter already wrestled with a dozen giants, slayed a wyrm, and dons a magic power suit, then I guess his body can sustain that ridiculous fall.

On another topic, I think that I'm gonna houserule that everytime you get a skill rank you also get something else, maybe a whole new skill feat, because really, skill rank is just a gateway to unlock tier appropriate skill feats, nothing more, that +1 is meaningless in the math compared to your level. But not during the playstest, not doing house rules during the playtest, gonna play as written, because that would kinda ruin the data.

P.S. still hate the "stealing full plate" stuff, that one is the only one I can't compromise with in any level.

I’m pretty sure that in-game explanation is for the player to decide on.

Completely disagree, if they aren't giving us a minimum explanation in the books, then the DM should decide what explains it, or the player should provide an explanation for the DM to approve. I'd approve almost anything (except the stealing armor nonsense) given a good explanation that isn't just "determination!" or "courage!" or "hard work!" uggh