I don't see any similarity in spirit, either; I have played both, extensively.
2nn Ed is heavily narrative (epic campaign settings, meta-stories), can be played sitting in armchairs around a coffee shop (David Zeb Cook wanted it that way), a lot of TotM play; 4th Ed is all about the Encounter, heavily leans into cool stuff you can do with pieces of plastic on dungeon tiles.
Ah, this is where our disagreement lies. 4e is also very narrative-centered, with tons of narrativist mechanics and even a FATE-style freeform skill system where stuff is supposed to be adjudicated by the DM on the fly. Doing only encounters is not playing to the system's strength. I both played and ran sessions of 4e without a single combat in them, and I loved them still.
The biggest issue I have with this is that boss enemies will be 2-3 levels above the party, resulting in hit chances around 30% for the party while the boss enemy has it around 70-80%, resulting in the boss constantly crits every other attack, which feels awful.
Wasting your action 70% of the time (aka a hit chance of 30%) should not be okay.
EDIT: 30% hit chance also makes the new action economy useless, as a second attack would already only hit on natural 20.
I started out with AD&D 2nd Ed.
I got to try out 3e for a little bit when it came out.
Didn't much care for it in comparison.
For many years I didn't game after my group fell apart at the end of high school.
Then I was introduced to a new group about 6ish years ago and Pathfinder.
Loved it and now I'm a GM in my group.
While I have to agree that a full revamp of the concepts being tested here is highly unlikely, I can also tell you this Playtest does not bode well for my group of 8.
The more I tell my group about this rule-set, the more they are turned off by it. At least 3 of my players have outright said that certain changes, if carried through, are 100% deal breakers for them.
I can't even get them to try out a session at this point.
Hopefully as more of the playtest develops this will change, but I'm not holding my breath.
You know what is legitimately weird. I've noticed people that have startd out on odd editions of D&D tend to like favor the odds more then the evens and vice versa. So for example I started out on 1st edition and really like 3rd edition and I am ok with some of the design choices for 5th. While People I've met who started on 2nd edition didn't care as much for 3rd but liked 4th.
4e borrowed quite a bit of design philosophy from AD&D 2e. Both revolve around the party and their adventures, while 3e tries to be more grand.
I don't see that at all, 2nd and 4th Ed are almost at opposite ends of the spectrum, in mechanics and approach. 4th Ed borrowed from DDM, ToB, and SWSE.
The mechanics are different, but the spirit is similar. Both metaphorically put the party on a throne above everything else, and focus on the party's adventures to the exclusion of everything else.
There's a reason there's a lot of overlap between 2e and 4e players. I know lots of people who started with 2e, hated 3e, and then switched from 2e to 4e when it came out.
I started out with AD&D 2nd Ed.
I got to try out 3e for a little bit when it came out.
Didn't much care for it in comparison.
For many years I didn't game after my group fell apart at the end of high school.
Then I was introduced to a new group about 6ish years ago and Pathfinder.
Loved it and now I'm a GM in my group.
While I have to agree that a full revamp of the concepts being tested here is highly unlikely, I can also tell you this Playtest does not bode well for my group of 8.
The more I tell my group about this rule-set, the more they are turned off by it. At least 3 of my players have outright said that certain changes, if carried through, are 100% deal breakers for them.
I can't even get them to try out a session at this point.
Hopefully as more of the playtest develops this will change, but I'm not holding my breath.
You know what is legitimately weird. I've noticed people that have startd out on odd editions of D&D tend to like favor the odds more then the evens and vice versa. So for example I started out on 1st edition and really like 3rd edition and I am ok with some of the design choices for 5th. While People I've met who started on 2nd edition didn't care as much for 3rd but liked 4th.
4e borrowed quite a bit of design philosophy from AD&D 2e. Both revolve around the party and their adventures, while 3e tries to be more grand.
What is gone forever is the option to keep the status quo. Revolution is coming, be it one way or another, I feel.
That revolution may be a repeat of the one that took place with 4e.
A substantial percentage of the player base leaving for another company.
I really like some parts of PF2, the Action Economy, monsters, and the interaction between, I just hope this doesn't end up being Paizo's New Coke.
I'm not sure why do you consider New Coke to be some sort of a spectacular blunder.
Here's some facts:
1. According to literally all blind taste tests where they weren't told what is what, people preferred the taste of New Coke to Old Coke. The main reason New Coke was rejected by the public was that people subjectively felt "betrayed" by the company, not any objective lack of quality.
2. After New Coke was discontinued and Coca-Cola company returned Old Coke on the shelves, sales skyrocketed to significantly higher levels than before New Coke was introduced, meaning New Coke was a commercially beneficial project even though it never took off on its own.
I don't have a source on hand, but my understanding is that it also provided them an opportunity to switch the Classic Coca-Cola formula from using sugar to using the much more available high fructose corn syrup, without consumers being able to easily compare or readily notice the switch. I'm not 100% sure if it's true, nor where this fits into the whole Pathfinder Second Edition metaphor, but it's another interesting factoid. ^_^
That's only half-true. Before the switch to New Coke, some regions had Old Coke with Sugar, some had Old Coke with HFCS, with the split moving progressively further towards the latter of the two. After New Coke flopped and Old Coke returned, it was entirely HFCS, but it was already pretty close to that before New Coke.
We removed the +1/2 level treadmill from 4th Ed after about 5 sessions (and used the Inherent Bonus rule from the DMG2), worked out great.
We started with that, but once we decided to actually create a commercial game, we ended up removing the d20 altogether.
Our engine is now a radically different beast from the D20 engine, and honestly we've landed with something that (ideally) scratches the D&D itch but looks nothing like it.
Right on, a non-d20 D&D itch-scratching system, colour me intrigued, not Badd!
FOr me it goes into the good game maybe not D&D thing.
There are other fantasy RPGs out there and things like the D6 system which avoid some of the problems D&D has. But then you're not playing D&D.
Well, we clearly don't have the rights to D&D and it would be vanity to try and say "You should play this instead!".
But it's a fantasy RPG that is class and level based, that works around the notion of having a strong focus on combat and task-solving, and that is based on the principle that the rules are there to simulate the "physics" of the action rather than informing the narrative (which is up to the players and DMs).
And all of that makes it similar to D&D. We want to scratch the same itch, not be the same thing. But this isn't the time and place for self-promotion.
Where can I find your system? The description piqued my curiosity.
The only thing I can imagine limiting the manticore is that he only has 12 shots. But then I guess those are mostly enough to kill a Party without a Healbot.
After running out of shots, the Manticore still has melee attacks at +15 attack bonus, which will crit more often than an improved critical rapier in pf1e...
What is gone forever is the option to keep the status quo. Revolution is coming, be it one way or another, I feel.
That revolution may be a repeat of the one that took place with 4e.
A substantial percentage of the player base leaving for another company.
I really like some parts of PF2, the Action Economy, monsters, and the interaction between, I just hope this doesn't end up being Paizo's New Coke.
I'm not sure why do you consider New Coke to be some sort of a spectacular blunder.
Here's some facts:
1. According to literally all blind taste tests where they weren't told what is what, people preferred the taste of New Coke to Old Coke. The main reason New Coke was rejected by the public was that people subjectively felt "betrayed" by the company, not any objective lack of quality.
2. After New Coke was discontinued and Coca-Cola company returned Old Coke on the shelves, sales skyrocketed to significantly higher levels than before New Coke was introduced, meaning New Coke was a commercially beneficial project even though it never took off on its own.
chances are high, Paizo will never bring Old Coke back
To be clear, I'm also very disappointed with PF2e and believe it's awful in the current state, I just do not feel comparisons with New Coke are valid, as New Coke was an actually good product, unlike PF2e.
What is gone forever is the option to keep the status quo. Revolution is coming, be it one way or another, I feel.
That revolution may be a repeat of the one that took place with 4e.
A substantial percentage of the player base leaving for another company.
I really like some parts of PF2, the Action Economy, monsters, and the interaction between, I just hope this doesn't end up being Paizo's New Coke.
I'm not sure why do you consider New Coke to be some sort of a spectacular blunder.
Here's some facts:
1. According to literally all blind taste tests where they weren't told what is what, people preferred the taste of New Coke to Old Coke. The main reason New Coke was rejected by the public was that people subjectively felt "betrayed" by the company, not any objective lack of quality.
2. After New Coke was discontinued and Coca-Cola company returned Old Coke on the shelves, sales skyrocketed to significantly higher levels than before New Coke was introduced, meaning New Coke was a commercially beneficial project even though it never took off on its own.
I was the Double Slice Rogue there. During the Manticore encounter, I shot at it 15 times with a shortbow. 15 misses. That rather miffed me. Monster attack bonuses and AC's are way too inflated to the point where they are blatantly unfair towards PC's.
You must have rolled really poor. As a rogue, I assume +8 to hit with a short bow? The first attack is almost 50/50 to hit. I suppose it could have been in long range but the short bow has better range than the quills.
The Manticore would rest at an altitude of 80ft on our turns, and then do the following chain of actions on its turn:
1. Descent by one move action to 40ft.
2. Attack from the edge of one range increment.
3. Ascend back to 80ft.
Thus giving the Manticore a huge accuracy advantage (+12 vs +6).
I was the Double Slice Rogue there. During the Manticore encounter, I shot at it 15 times with a shortbow. 15 misses. That rather miffed me. Monster attack bonuses and AC's are way too inflated to the point where they are blatantly unfair towards PC's.
The spell can be used on any creature (including foes), and has no saving throw. As far as I can tell, using it as an offensive debuff in a fire damage heavy party to focus damage on a single enemy is the best use of the spell.
As the Rogue in the first of the two parties ran by Colette, it felt frustrating that the only sane way to open the door was to break it down, rather than to pick the lock, despite being a Rogue, being trained in Thievery, and having a thieves tools kit.
Have any of you who posted above actually played the game? I'm far more interested in what people who have played the game have to say.
I mean, I thought 4e read like a GREAT system...until I played it. And then, I thought it was horrible.
Words on a page only go so far. But, if you have played the playtest, I'd certainly be interested in hearing your experiences in that because, to me, that's really where the rubber meets the road.
I played through two different sessions as two different classes (Rogue and Demonic Sorcerer).
I hated it. Just about every single thing about the game is unenjoyable. The character options are far too stingy and make you feel bad before the game even starts, the dying rules feel like they were designed to be obnoxious, etc.
Sometimes style matters more than substance. Way back when the original pathfinder (1e) playtest rolled around, the general feeling you got when comparing pf to 3.5 was something like....
Awesome! All classes get these extra bonuses on top of what they had before! We get more feats per level! Favored class actually does something now! Races give more perks!
I got sucked into that playtest, and have been using pf as my dnd-clone of choice for several years now, and i have played a LOT of systems. Over time, since the 3.pf chassis is almost 20 years old now, you notice more and more cracks in the system, and last time i dm:d pathfinder i used something like 8 pages of houserules to make it palatable.
Last year Paizo released starfinder. I found that while not perfect, it showed that the Paizo team had learnt from some of the bigger flaws in the 3.pf engine, so when i heard about the pf2e playtest, i was pretty hyped.
And then we got....this. Even if the system is solid, it is just...boring?
All the perks of leveling up seems to upgrade you sideways or boringways, you get very few flavor or utility packed abilities, and the promised legendary skill feats (something i hoped would make martials catch up to casters) does very little, the backgrounds seem more limiting than fun, and the ancestries seem to just be a mishmash of clutter for your character sheet, rather than meaningful options.
In the end, i will skip this playtest, since my hype is dead. If there are some major revisions coming at a later date, i will look it over again and see if i can get a playtest group rolling, but with the material as it stands, i dont see where it fits in the market.
Combat focused? Dnd 4e
Rules light dnd? Dnd 5e (which also has brand recognition)
Grimdark? Shadows of the demon lord
Old school? DCC
I dont see how pf2e is going to be better than any of these systems, there would have been a place for a higher magic, more gonzo system, especially if martials had been given meaningful high level abilities,...
Completely agreed. The largest insult is the ridiculous nerf to Prestidigitation, which was never a particularly powerful or an imbalancing spell in the first place, but rather just a flavor trinket that people liked to have.
They explicitly said 4e outsold PF1e for the entirety of 4e's lifespan, despite having a very poor reception overall, meaning brand does trump all.
I heard PF overtook 4th Ed in sales at one point.
Perhaps at some moment in time that was the case, but my point is that 4e was very financially successful and largely eclipsed Pathfinder in public consciousness outside of this local bubble despite being highly controversial, precisely because brand does trump all.
They didn't drop 4E because they were winning. 4E is a case study in how brand *doesn't* trump all. I genuinely find it humorous that you're trying to argue otherwise here, of all places.
They dropped 4e because they didn't make as much money as they could be making. They still made more money than Pathfinder, however. Pathfinder was always #2 until the very tail end of 4e's life cycle when it begun dying.
They explicitly said 4e outsold PF1e for the entirety of 4e's lifespan, despite having a very poor reception overall, meaning brand does trump all.
I heard PF overtook 4th Ed in sales at one point.
Perhaps at some moment in time that was the case, but my point is that 4e was very financially successful and largely eclipsed Pathfinder in public consciousness outside of this local bubble despite being highly controversial, precisely because brand does trump all.
Yes, brand-recognition is huge; the brand name is definitely what led to the initial sales being so great.
And the important takeaway from that is that PF2e is fighting an extremely uphill battle. Being decent is not enough. Aiming for the same niche is not viable.
The game must be good, and it must have a unique niche. Without either of these two components, it will likely flop.
Right now, the game feels bad, and it feels like a worse 5e in most ways, in that it aims for the same niche, but delivers it worse.
That's a guaranteed flop, and the game needs to have some major rewrites to ensure financial success.
They explicitly said 4e outsold PF1e for the entirety of 4e's lifespan, despite having a very poor reception overall, meaning brand does trump all.
I heard PF overtook 4th Ed in sales at one point.
Perhaps at some moment in time that was the case, but my point is that 4e was very financially successful and largely eclipsed Pathfinder in public consciousness outside of this local bubble despite being highly controversial, precisely because brand does trump all.
4e sold really well, (hell I bought 4 4e books before I figured out I didn't like it) just few people stuck with it long term. But 4e is also the reason why Paizo and Pathfinder is a thing.
Which only serves to demonstrate that "brand trumps all" is a fallacy.
Brand trumps all when the game doesn't stinks. D&D 4E stinks, and even then they sold very well and only lost first postion for PF1 when the game was descontinued.
Pathfinder 2.0 is starting to smelling odd.
Hmmm..."Brand trumps all, except when it doesn't (according to highly subjective criteria)" just doesn't have the same ring to it.
Have you even read the post you replied to? They explicitly said 4e outsold PF1e for the entirety of 4e's lifespan, despite having a very poor reception overall, meaning brand does trump all.
Feats tend to lead to players playing their feats instead of addressing the problem at hand.
Which is a problem with 4th Ed powers for me, at the same time the characters have these cool (that was the marketing buzzword for 4th Ed, oh, and "robust) at-will, encounter, and daily powers, it seems to limit characters, expressively, and even though there is an improv action table, and some claim to use it a lot, I find most players go to their cool powers rather than a less damaging, no riders improv move.
They were buffed in DMG2 in 4e, making them comparable to actual class abilities. (pages 62-63, terrain powers, the book suggests that players should be able to come up with their own).
What is this? I'll let it slide that Katana are listed as a 1 handed weapon even though they aren't. However, Versatile P is absurd. They're a single edged sword. Oh also they're just a longsword that costs twice a much.
You can stab with a katana and that was the preferred way to use them against well-armored targets. It was historically only used as a slashing weapon against poorly armored opponents, and as a piercing one otherwise.
To use either of those, you NEED to have the spell on your spell list. There is no UMD-equivalent in this game, either. Which means that the fantasy of a martial using wands and scrolls to supplement their abilities is no longer possible.
5e went for a lower entry bar, which, mind you, is still higher than of any modern board game, and was able to smash Pathfinder's market position by ...
having the name "D&D" attached to it, for the most part
Exactly. D&D will beat any competitor by virtue of being D&D if they do the same thing. The only way to compete is to be meaningfully different. And given that 5e goes for the low power level kind of games, PF2e should take the other niche and be high power level.
Dying/Unconsciousness rules are way too severe and make low levels needlessly punishing. Deadly 1d10 on goblin shortbows makes it very possible for level 1 characters to drop unconscious from a single critical. Immunity to critical and precision on oozes is, in my opinion, an artefact of the past that I would like to see removed.
Worse yet, the character generation was too boring. No options excited me, I felt like I was picking slightly less bad options out of a sea of completely worthless options.
Anyway, I guess my personal hope for the direction is kind of twofold. First, and probably most importantly, culling all the fat. Pathfinder has hundreds of feats, but too many of them are either hyperspecific (Bull-Catcher style comes to mind) or a minor +1/+2 bonus (or both). If you get rid of all of those you have a very solid core of pretty good feats (maybe some are a bit situational, but still functional), and all the hyperspecific and +1/+2 feats could be combined into feats worth taking or that are more interesting and memorable. This also works with class options and archetypes to a certain extent, but those are a bit more restrained typically (and there's way fewer of them). Currently I think it went way too far in this direction where it cut the fat, the meat, and part of the bone out when restructuring everything. So instead of Pathfinder but leaner and meaner you have a skeleton that individual steaks are being stapled to.
Second I guess would be redoing Unchained, but with more classes and adding more options. PF1e has a decade of design already made, and there's piles of stuff that are great and piles of stuff that just didn't work. Consolidate all the stuff that was great and made the classes memorable and fun to play (Advanced Armor/Weapon Training for example) into the core rule set as a starting ground, make a few mechanical adjustments to how the game runs (like the HP changes, three actions, etc), rebalance numbers and spells, and tighten up rules text and I'd be super jazzed with the system as a whole.
I don't think just culling the fat would be enough. The niche I am suggesting in the OP is going even higher power than Pathfinder currently is - giving all the power to the players, and then some. That would be radically different from D&D 5e, would be the logical culmination of the paradigms of 3.5e, and would get players excited.
I think ancestry should be a beefy level 1 package and that is it. Let background be something that evolves with the character. Either way, right now it feels like ancestry is just a trait.
I think a middleground could be fun. Imagine if you started out as, say, more or less PF1e elf, but, over time, got to build up on that basis to become even elfier. You could maybe get even new fancy ways to use a longbow (after all, elves are famed archers), or open up some unique magic-related feats or even elf-exclusive spells. That would make ancestry a much more exciting part of the game.
A) Stop forcing people to color inside the lines. I'm finding this compartmentization of options to be frustrating and annoying. If everything is a Feat, just make them all feats. Seriously. Drop this. Now you get an ancestry feat, now you a skill feat, now you get a class feat, now you can have a general feat.
seriously Fk that.
You get a feat
select from General, Skill, Ancestry or Class.
(oh but they want to make sure you have a well rounded character. DON'T tell me how to make my character, sure as hell don't FORCE me to make my character to your standard. If I want to make a Fighter with a ton of Skill Feats let me do it. If I want a Dwarf to go all out on Ancestry Feats let me do it. If my character ends up gimped from my choices that's my problem.)
B) Make the redundancies general. This is the Druid name for the feat that gives you a bonus to will saves, this is the same feat but with a different name for Clerics, here it is again for Wizards but with a different name again.
Just make it a General Feat
Some of this stuff shouldn't be class specific at all. Why can't rogues be good at two weapon fighting? Why do only wizards and sorcerers get Metamagic (except for Reach which all casters seem to get, except bards for some reason). Why is Power attack Fighter only? Barbarians and Paladins don't know how to hit people hard for some reason?
My problem isn't as much with options being compartmentalized as with most of them being boring.
3e/3.5e thrived by encouraging player agency. The DM was relegated to a much more minor role than in AD&D, while players (especially casters) got tons of shiny and powerful options that allowed them to significantly influence the narrative.
Later on, WotC stepped back away from that paradigm, reducing player agency and bringing control back into the hands of the DM in 5e.
PF2e seems to be going the same direction, and my main question is why follow the market leader? That segment of the market is already cornered, it will be difficult to compete with D&D at the same thing they are doing.
Instead, in my opinion, it could be more productive to go the other route - give players more power. Shiny, cool toys. Options that make you go "wow!" instead of options that make you yawn. Things like that.
That can be a niche very different and separate from D&D 5e while being a fun game that, in my opinion, many people could appreciate.
I really like the Ancestry Feat concept. Being able to flesh out your Ancestry benefits over time is a cool mechanic.
However, I also see a fatal flaw related to that.
At level 1, all Ancestries feel extremely bland to me - you are essentially just a package of HP, movement speed, and vision type, lacking things that, according to setting lore, all members of an Ancestry should have (e.g. sleep immunity for Elves). The idea of building up on your Ancestry with Feats ultimately falls flat in my opinion if you build up on a blank slate instead of something that is interesting from the get-go.
I play several point-buy systems. I don't mind them. In fact, my favorite roleplaying game OF ALL TIME is Shadowrun. It's a point-buy game. I love it. The setting, the combat, the crunch...it's all good to me.
What I DON'T like, is a game that offers you an option to roll stats, then punishes you for doing so. Yes, most people don't roll stats as well as I do. I get that, I do. I've rolled some pretty piss-poor stats in my day and been forced to play them. It sucked.
But when I do roll, I always tell the DM that I rolled incredibly well and would have no problem offering up those same numbers for everyone in the party to use. Mostly, this is met with a good response. Though, there are some people that don't like using numbers they didn't generate. I can respect that. It's the same reason I won't play a pre-generated character. I have nothing invested.
The fact is, I, like Daedalus here, am an optimizer. I like scouring the texts available to get every ounce of benefit I can. Some call me a power-gamer because of this. Fine, I'll accept the stigma that comes with that. But to have the numbers to do so, only for the game to outright tell you "NO!" and giving NO reason for it, smacks of just being an angry parent yelling at their child.
It's pointless. It serves no purpose than to be limiting.
Now before anyone wants to try and deconstruct this argument with exaggerated hyperbole, no I don't mean you should be a fighter, but be able to backstab/sneak attack, or that you should be a monk and be able to cast wizards spells. To people that wanna blow it out of proportion like that, f*ck off! I'm talking about stats. It's where the game starts. If the attribute system is warped, it throws the whole game out for me. And being limited to no stat above 18, even though you have the numbers to go beyond that, and the game gives you no adequately explained reason why, it's a deal-breaker for me.
If that makes me a power-gamer, then so be it.
It's not a punishment.
You pick one of two systems. The bonus allocation is the replacement for point buy - people grab bonuses and slap them on top of all 10's to get higher.
If you could roll and THEN add all of those bonuses, it would have been outright broken.
As is, the rolling and bonus systems are roughly balanced against each other.
You can't both have the cake and eat it.
My interpretation is a twist on #2:
All magic items have their own pool of magical power. However, that pool of magical power is difficult to tap into and most people lack the mental capacity to force magic items into giving up their power. More resonance = you're better at pulling that power out of items for your purposes.
So one of my favorite things about PF1 was that it was completely feasible to make a strength based rogue rather than a dexterity based one. I found it fun to work against the assumption and play a burly half-orc rogue with a greatsword and power attack, sneak attacking their foes.
However, it seems PF2 is sorta doing away with this concept or at least discouraging it.
The enworld iconic character sheet preview for Merisiel lists sneak attack as only working on agile and finesse weapons and a redditpost from someone who had played a demo mentioned a class feat that expanded it to work for clubs as well.
I for one am incredibly sad that now you are pushed towards being a typical dex based rogue who uses lighter weapons if you want to be able to use one of the class's most iconic abilities. At best it seems you'll have to pay a feat tax in order to be able to use sneak attack with other weapons, but it seems likely that many won't be possible to use with it at all.
I'm just hoping this will change in the playtest so that strength based rogues don't simply become a thing of the past.
Yeah, they really started pushing this in 4th Ed, and 5th Ed has carried the torch, and then some: Str is the premier dump stat.
You are incorrect. DEX/STR Rogues were the most popular Rogue build in 4e, adding both STR and DEX modifiers to damage. Moreover, Rogues had STR-based class features since the very first PHB.
Only specific critical effects and perhaps certain class abilities are capable of inflicting bleed (not counting monsters, but we don't have any outside of a minute few until mid-fall).
By the same degree of realism every attack that doesn't self-cauterize, is non-lethal or is not bludgeoning damage should inflict some degree of bleed. They don't, ergo it's not worth getting caught up in realism on an à la carte basis.
Not every wounding/severe wound critical (a) succeeds (resisted by successful saving throw) and (b) dismembers.
Edit: within this system it is possible to get wholly dismembered and survive ... but it is incredibly unlikely given the combat mechanics required to align in that specific configuration.
First there's the matter of surviving four critical hits, an unlikely event in its own right.
Then all four saves against dismemberment have to fail, also highly unlikely for many characters.
Characters that are likely to fail all four are probably going to be long gone before their fourth limb comes off.
Edit 2: How is a divide between stamina and hit points worse that just hit points? They're the same thing in all practical ways save that stamina is recovered with a 10-minute rest while spending 1 RP. PF hp are not significantly different. With all the discussions about how implausible it is that any person could absorb a tank round to the face via raw hp, now it's not acceptable if their stamina is representing the bulk of PF character's hp not representing raw durability but scrapes, nicks, flesh wounds et al?
I don't buy it.
My thematic issue with Stamina is that the new divide is the less abstract than HP. Former HP was a vague combination of everything - luck, stamina, actual damage, whatever else. Now, there's a clearly spelled out split between "this is luck and stamina" and "this is actual damage", which makes mechanics inconsistent with that divide much more jarring.
364 vs 184 is almost exactly double, and you assumed HP FCB, which feels unlikely to me. Just saying.
Every class guide I've ever seen has Favored Class to HP. I've certainly seen it go the other way...but on a melee Fighter going with the skill (or racial FCB) is usually combined with Toughness or some other HP booster.
And I left Toughness out entirely on the Fighter build. I did leave it out on Soldier as well, but still.
Noodlemancer wrote:
If you compare 224 (without HP FCB, but with a +6 CON item) to 384 (assuming a +2 personal upgrade in CON at level 20, which feels likely), it's also almost double.
Not really. Even that's less than 1.75 times as many. It rounds down to 1.5 more easily than up to 2.
And it ignores the Tome/Wish thing, which is very common at level 20 and makes the ratio a whole lot closer.
Noodlemancer wrote:
As far as I understood, they assumed the Soldier started with 10 CON and simply picked CON as one of the four stats to boost every five levels (which is overwhelmingly likely for the majority of Soldiers).
This, however, is substantially correct. I didn't necessarily assume Con 10 to start with, I just assumed less than Con 14.
"70% more" is decently close to double, I'd say. As for FCB's - I've never used the HP FCB in my entire gaming career, so that sounds odd to me. As for Tomes/Wishes - in my experience of high-level play, typically only those to primary stats (whatever you use to hit/damage/DC's) see play, with CON being virtually never taken. So it's definitely not a safe assumption.
I'm glad that they cut such things. Realism and Starfinder don't need to go to bed together. If they did, we wouldn't have a game to play what with lacking FTL drives, working magic, and so forth.
YMMV.
I'm not talking about realism. I'm talking about Stamina failing to meet its' thematic goal of splitting Hit Points into "you're not actually hurt if you take damage to this pool" and "if you get hurt here, this means you're actually hurt". The thematic split simply doesn't work when you look at it.
364 vs 184 is almost exactly double, and you assumed HP FCB, which feels unlikely to me. Just saying.
That is without adding items. I don't think they have con boosting items in SF. plus he gave the fighter a lower con then the soldier so you'd have to add another 40 hp to that total to put them on evener ground.
As far as I understood, they assumed the Soldier started with 10 CON and simply picked CON as one of the four stats to boost every five levels (which is overwhelmingly likely for the majority of Soldiers).
Also, I edited my post to account for items slightly before you replied.
364 vs 184 is almost exactly double, and you assumed HP FCB, which feels unlikely to me. Just saying.
If you compare 224 (without HP FCB, but with a +6 CON item) to 384 (assuming a +2 personal upgrade in CON at level 20, which feels likely), it's also almost double.
The problem could also be in regard to this kind of situations in the plain definition of Stamina Points given in the Core Rulebook in Chapter 1: Overview: "Stamina Points represent how much damage you can take before you're actually hurt, while Hit Points represent how badly hurt you can be before you fall unconscious or die."
Yeah, that's what bugs me here.
Stamina Points make the abstraction work worse thematically than in Pathfinder. It's a downgrade in that regard.
As far as I can tell, the black knight from Monty Python was a fairly high-level Starfinder PC.
At high levels, if someone attacks you with a relatively low damage weapon, such as an Ember Flame Doshko, it takes a lot of hits to get through your SP to your HP. The same Ember Flame Doshko also has the Wound critical effect, which makes you dismember the enemy on a critical hit, rolling on a table to see which bodypart the enemy loses.
So, if someone uses an Ember Flame Doshko to attack a high level PC and are fairly lucky with their critical hits, the PC can lose both arms and both legs before losing even a single point of HP, only ever losing SP in the process, with that stamina being recoverable by simply resting for 10 minutes.
Let's call it a draw!
This post is caveated that so far I have only played a single session and that was Fugitive on the Red Plant.
I played a Healing Mystic on the basis that it looked like there was less readily available healing in SFS compared to PFS. No just buying a wand after your first adventure and being able to start every encounter at full health necessarily.
What I hadn't realised is that all of the mystic healing only heals Hit Points, not Stamina. That makes judging when healing is needed much trickier, especially playing online when such information may not be immediately visible.
It also places PCs at a lot more risk as the buffer between "needs actual healing" and "lying on the ground dying" is much smaller.
It is quite a big difference and I haven't yet decided how I feel about it. It has made me look more carefully at the Envoy which can do in combat Stamina healing which may be a lot more valuable than I had thought it would be.
Healing is very readily available though. Mk 1 Healing Serums are much cheaper than healing potions ever were in relation to your expected wealth, allowing you to buy inordinate amounts of them, potentially hauling entire carts of them on missions. To boot, they are explicitly mass-produced and so common they're sold in vending machines almost everywhere.
I prefer the Pathfinder way, if only because I feel Starfinder's Stamina is poorly tacked on.
Starfinder's split doesn't make much sense if at all to me. If you're attacked by a low level flame doshko at high levels, you can lose all your extremities to severe wound crits without losing any HP, only SP, completely shrugging that off on your next 10 minute rest.
Mechanics simply don't support the supposed thematic split at all, and it's also weird that PC's are the only ones who have Stamina.
It would have been much simpler if there was only one pool - Hit Points, while Resolve Points provided a set amount of healing on a 10 minute rest.
When I see thin atmosphere, I don't think low pressure - I think low oxygen. And when I see thick atmosphere, I don't think high pressure nor high oxygen, but rather turbid atmosphere.
High pressure is usually regulated to either high gravity or deep ocean in my own head cannon.
Well, time to recalibrate my knowledge.
** spoiler omitted **...
To slightly add to this: the game even says thick atmosphere rules should be used to simulate the extreme pressures of oceanic depths and other similar locales, despite those not being quite atmospheres.
You don't get more attacks, but the ability to wield more weapons (and tools) can make you more versatile
Most notably, however, the Fusillade feat requires your character to have 4 or more arms
The saddest part about this is that you need a separate action to draw each weapon. Even with Quick Draw, you need four swift actions (more than an entire round) to draw all four weapons, making it impossible to use Fusillade until at least round 3, assuming you spent the first two rounds mostly drawing your guns.
I don't know about you, but in any situation it's not rude to do so that I expect to get shot at, I'm going to already have my weapons out.
I'm just generally sad about how useless Quick Draw seems in Starfinder.
Outside of the ugly edge case of spending two rounds to draw weapons for Fusillade, only about 2-3 classes are capable of making any use of it in principle, and even that is situational, for everyone else it offers absolutely no possible benefit in any imaginable situation as soon as they reach BAB +1 (which is, at most, level 2).
You can't even Quick Draw and Full Attack or Quick Draw and Trick Attack in the same round - both of those are simply illegal by the rules.
I'm honestly not sure what the designers have been thinking.
You don't get more attacks, but the ability to wield more weapons (and tools) can make you more versatile
Most notably, however, the Fusillade feat requires your character to have 4 or more arms
The saddest part about this is that you need a separate action to draw each weapon. Even with Quick Draw, you need four swift actions (more than an entire round) to draw all four weapons, making it impossible to use Fusillade until at least round 3, assuming you spent the first two rounds mostly drawing your guns.
About Bertrand Strahnd
About me:
Character Name: Bertrand Strahnd
Character Race: Human
Class: uRogue Scout/Shadow Scion
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Deity: Count Ranalc
Current Moderator: GM Wulfson
Adventure: Kingmaker
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Gender: Male
Age: 19
Height: 5' 9"
Weight: 155 lbs.
Eyes: Brown
Hair: Brown
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Character Level: 1
EXP Points Gained:
EXP Needed For Next Level:
Known Languages: (Common, +1 for Int): Common, Sylvan
Special Armor Class Notes: None
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Save vs. Fortitude: +2 (Base: +0, Con: +1, Trait +1)
Save vs. Reflex: +5 (Base +2; Dex +3)
Save vs. Will: +1 (Base +0; Wis +1)
Level 1: Point Blank Shot: +1 to hit and damage with ranged attacks within 30'
Human Bonus Level 1: Precise Shot: Can use ranged weapons into melee without taking -4 to hit
uRogue Level 1: Weapon Finesse
Traits:
Rostlander: Benefit Your hardy nature grants you a +1 trait bonus on all Fortitude saves.
You were raised south of Brevoy, a land of dense forests and rolling plains, of crystalline rivers and endless sapphire skies. You come from hearty stock and were raised with simple sensibilities of hard work winning well-deserved gains, the importance of charity and compassion, and the value of personal and familial honor. Yours is the country of the sword lords and the heroes who refused to bend before the armies of a violent conqueror. You care little for matters of politics and nobles or of deception and schemes.
Race: Human: Gruff Watcher: +1 to Initiative and Perception
Race:
Race: Human
+2 to One Ability Score: Human characters get a +2 bonus to one ability score of their choice at creation to represent their varied nature.
Medium: Humans are Medium creatures and have no bonuses or penalties due to their size.
Normal Speed: Humans have a base speed of 30 feet.
Bonus Feat: Humans select one extra feat at 1st level.
****Skilled: Replaced by Low-Light Vision.
Languages: Humans begin play speaking Common. Humans with high Intelligence scores can choose any languages they want (except secret languages, such as Druidic).
Favored Class Options: +1 HP/+1 Skill Point/Add one spell to spellbook(at least one level below highest usable)
Replace Skilled with:
Low-Light Vision
Many feyborn have low-light vision. Races that normally have darkvision (such as dwarves and half-orcs) can take low-light vision in place of darkvision. In the case of humans, this trait replaces the skilled trait (and the human also gains fey magic and fey thoughts, as detailed in Fey Magic, above).
Fey Magic
The character has a mystic connection to one terrain type, selected from the ranger's favored terrain list. The character selects three 0-level druid spells and one 1st-level druid spell. If the character has a Charisma score of 11 or higher, when in the selected terrain, she gains these spells as spell-like abilities that can be cast once per day. The caster level for these effects is equal to the user's character level. The DC for the spell-like abilities is equal to 10 + the spell's level + the user's Charisma modifier. These spells are treated as being from a fey source for the purposes of the druid's resist nature's lure class feature and similar abilities.
Fey Thoughts
The character sees the world more like a native of the First World. Select two of the following skills: Acrobatics, Bluff, Climb, Diplomacy, Disguise, Escape Artist, Fly, Knowledge (nature), Perception, Perform, Sense Motive, Sleight of Hand, Stealth, Swim, or Use Magic Device. The selected skills are always class skills for the character.
From Fey Magic: 1/day in Forest can cast: Orisons: Guidance x3. 1st Level: Cure Light Wounds
[spoiler=Class]
uRogue, Scout/Shadow Scion
uRogue:
- Weapon and Armor Proficiencies: Rogues are proficient with all simple weapons, plus the hand crossbow, rapier, sap, short sword, and shortbow. They are proficient with light armor, but not with shields.
- Sneak Attack: If a rogue can catch an opponent when he is unable to defend himself effectively from her attack, she can strike a vital spot for extra damage.
The rogue’s attack deals extra damage anytime her target would be denied a Dexterity bonus to AC (whether the target actually has a Dexterity bonus or not), or when the rogue flanks her target. This extra damage is 1d6 at 1st level, and increases by 1d6 every 2 rogue levels thereafter. Ranged attacks can count as sneak attacks only if the target is within 30 feet. This additional damage is precision damage and is not multiplied on a critical hit.
With a weapon that deals nonlethal damage (such as a sap, unarmed strike, or whip), a rogue can make a sneak attack that deals nonlethal damage instead of lethal damage. She cannot use a weapon that deals lethal damage to deal nonlethal damage in a sneak attack—not even with the usual –4 penalty.
The rogue must be able to see the target well enough to pick out a vital spot and must be able to reach such a spot. A rogue cannot sneak attack while striking a creature with total concealment.
- Trapfinding: Replaced by Shadow Scion: Shadow Dweller
- Finesse Training (Ex): At 1st level, a rogue gains Weapon Finesse as a bonus feat. In addition, starting at 3rd level, she can select any one type of weapon that can be used with Weapon Finesse (such as rapiers or daggers). Once this choice is made, it cannot be changed. Whenever she makes a successful melee attack with the selected weapon, she adds her Dexterity modifier instead of her Strength modifier to the damage roll. If any effect would prevent the rogue from adding her Strength modifier to the damage roll, she does not add her Dexterity modifier. The rogue can select a second weapon at 11th level and a third at 19th level.
Scout: N/A until 4th level
Shadow Scion:
- Shadow Dweller(EX): A shadow scion gains darkvision with a range of 30 feet and a +1 competence bonus on Stealth checks in dim light and darkness. If she already has darkvision, the range of her darkvision increases by 10 feet. At 3rd level, and every 2 levels thereafter, the range of her darkvision increases by 10 feet and her bonus on Stealth checks increases by 1.
Starting Gold: 240 GP
Armor: 10 GP
Weapons: 63 GP
Equipment: 131.6
Remaining Gold: 35 GP, 4 SP
Movement: Base Speed: 30 ft.
Character History:
I started life nineteen years ago, first born son of Jean and Rel Strahnd. Rel had some old stories about his family being minor nobility many years ago. Whether or not they were true mattered not in the least anymore. He was a simple carpenter, hard working and poor, married to a simple woman that wanted a large family. The attempted birth of my sister ended her life and Rel's thoughts of a large family.
As much as I didn't believe my father's stories, I wondered about my mother. Before she died she told me plenty of tales, stories about another world and strange creatures that lived there. A couple of them were about Count Ranalc. But who was he? I figured the stories were likely just to scare me, but as I grew up I learned that her stories were about the 'First World' and the Fey, and Count Ranalc was a real.... entity. Over time I learned what I could about them, real information behind some of the stories. I learned that they are real, and in these lands. Were her stories a warning? Or something more?
We lived on the edge of Restov, struggling to earn a basic income. Rel was an adequate carpenter but I had no interest in learning his trade. Instead I learned how to earn coin other ways, how to avoid trouble and take what I wanted. And I hid my ill-gotten gains from Rel so I wouldn't have to explain them. Now I hear that they're gathering groups to head south and try to tame the 'Stolen Lands'.... Well, I'm fairly certain there will be a coin or two to find there.
