Nox Aeterna's page

Hahaha Im totally that player.

The funniest it ever got to me was when I was spending gold by the tens of thousands on this system, while the other party members where buying gear. I had a multitude of buildings and workers. None of it ever made anything haha.

Usually it doesnt get to that point :P.

Well OP, I dont have answer for you. Hell, I dont think I ever expected anything out of it even. I just enjoy the little RP you just said at start and end of mission of having everyone in one of my HUBs and that is it.

The easy answer is depending on how much a player invest and on what it is invested. Have NPC start to react differently to the player, since he is more than just an adventurer, he is a possible *.

* be it contractor or partner in business...

This wouldnt leave the "main mission", but gives callbacks to the player that the game recognizes his investment.

Nah I would be fine. My characters all pass mark the check boxes of things I like, so overall, Im not concerned, while for sure I can say it wouldnt be 100% perfect and exactly what I would have picked in such scenario, all of them atleast wouldnt be a terrible pick either.

Wouldnt have to worry about age, since pretty much all PCs are young due to usually games starting lvl 1 and to me, that means they just out of bootcamp.

Wouldnt have to worry about your usual anime scenario where the MC ends up a girl. All my PCs are dudes.

Wouldnt have to worry about being crap, since always atleast keep a decent level of optimization.

Wouldnt have to worry about being alone either, since I always have a companion even if it is just a familiar. So hey, some moral support for this s&@!ty situation.

Ofc, being a PF player means I would be expecting a horrible death, since in my experience as you gain levels the likelihood of terrible demise increases greatly and this is with a GM often atleast trying to narrative that doesnt include you walk right into the CR 20 dragon cause you turned the wrong corner. So probably I would invest in more defense whatever build I had picked than I would if it was just a game.

I think you would have benefit possibly more making this thread on the 2E forums.

Well, it has been a long time since release so I already forgot many of my grips with it. Keeping the bias about my greatest gripe, which is the one I certainly wont forgot, in check is quite hard, so take this with some salt.

It is worth pointing out that what goes for magic in PF1 and 2E is hardly the same. 2E made a point to "balance" spellcasting. Personally i found it a horrid attempt.

- Some spell duration are pretty... restrictive. Many of them being utility spells now quite restricted.

- The new DC system of 4 states in theory is a method to help mages land spells. As now it isnt a simply binary success or fail state when passing a save DC. You can critical success, success, fail and critical fail. In practice, many effects on 2E now require a critical failure by the enemy, by 10 or more, to land the effect you would have in PF1. So often now you need to find ways to decrease a enemy DC before you can land what you want. In simple terms, it is easier to land spells, but they will be weaker when they land too.

- Some spells were completely removed or just rewritten so their to have effects distributed among different levels. For example, haste, which is single target at first, but if you cast it at a much higher circle can target multiple party members. If I remember right, it was for example circle 3 for single target, circle 7 for multiple.

Anyway, like I said, mine is a biased view. The point of the written above is to call your attention to this, so what you check the rules in the future you can see for yourself the changes to this aspect of the game.

This is kinda old, but it is my performance list:

Lista Total Performances:
---Core
Skill focus (feat) +3/6 bonus
Moment of Prescience (spell) +X (Caster Level) insight bonus on a single roll
Aid another (rule) +2 bonus if another person uses , no limit on how many can help

---Ultimate Equipment
Circlet of Persuasion (item) +3 competence bonus
Bracers of the Glib Entertainer (item) +5 competence bonus
Masterwork Musical Instrument (item) +2 circumstance bonus

---Mythic Adventures
Adroit (Legendary Item Ability) +20 insight bonus (cost 1 mythic point)
Display of Charisma (Universal Path Ability) +20 circumstance bonus (cost 1 mythic point)
Surge (Base Mythic Ability) +1dX (6/8/10/12) bonus on skill check (1 or 2 mythic points)

---Ultimate Campaign
Initiate (Reputation and Fame) +3 bonus by making it class skill
Hero’s Luck (Reputation and Fame) +4 luck bonus (cost 1 prestige point)
Intense Student (Reputation and Fame) +2 competence bonus
Magnum Opus (Feat) +2/5 bonus to one performance and take 15 on check
Talented (Base trait) +1 trait bonus on 1 perform and perform is class skill

---Bestiary 1
Nymph Inspiration (item) +4 insight bonus

---Advanced Class guide
Tome of epics (item) +2 circumstance bonus on Perform (oratory) and Perform (sing)
Lozenge of the Songbird (item) +2 alchemical bonus on Perform (sing)
Oil of the Masters (item) +2 alchemical bonus on Performs with instruments
Dust, Storyteller's (item) +2 bonus to tell story
Amulet of the Spirits , Heavens (item) +X (Wisdom modifier) bonus on all Charisma based checks

---Inner Sea Gods
Blade of Three Fancies (weapon) +4 sacred bonus
Inner Beauty (Shelyn,trait) +4 trait bonus on 1x perform check/day
Intense Artist (Shelyn, trait) +1 trait bonus on 2 performs and perform is a class skill
Deific Obedience (Shelyn, feat) +4 sacred bonus
Faithful Artist (Desna, trait) +1 trait bonus on 1 perform and perform is class skill

---Core + Ultimate Combat
Heroism (spell) +2 moral bonus -> Moment of Greatness doubles duration of moral bonus

---Faction Guide
Daring Dancers (item) +5 competence bonus to Perform (dance)
Savant (Social Trait) +2 trait bonus to one Perform and perform becomes a class skill

---Blood of Angels
Azata-Blooded (racial) +2 racial
Variant Aasimar Abilities (racial) +2 racial to one Perform skill or to Char

---Magical Marketplace
Hypnotic Tatto (item) +2 circumstance bonus on Perform (dance)

---Adventurer's Armory
Stage Magic (trait) +2 trait bonus during the perform
Instrument of the Divine (item only for clerics) +2 circumstance bonus MW and +X (channel dice) sacred

---Advanced Players Guide
Hero point bonus (Hero point system) +8 luck on one perform check

---Advanced Race Guide
Inexplicable Luck (feat only for humans) +8 luck bonus on a single roll/day
Samsaram - Shards of the Past (racial trait) +2 racial to 2 skill and they become class skills

---Ultimate Magic
Prodigy (feat) +2/4 bonus to 2 craft/perform skills

---Demon Hunter's Handbook
Portable Altar , Masterwork (item) +2 circumstance to any aided skill by the altars god , in this case any performance

---Occult Adventures
Four-Leaf Clover (item) +2 luck bonus 3x/day

---Cohorts and Companions
Basic Harmony (Teamwork feat only for bards) +X (Result of a perform check by one of the bards) bonus

---Inner Sea Races
Lupine Robe (item) +1d6/10(if kitsune and spend 2 uses) bonus on 4/day on Charisma based checks
Scarf of Glorious Histories (item) +5 competence bonus to Perform (dance)

Lista Total Charisma:
---Second Darkness Players Guide
Luthier's rapier (weapon) +4 sacred (Errated – Costs 25,020 gp)

---Ultimate Equipment
Headband of alluring charisma/prowess/superiority (item) +2/4/6 enhancement bonus
Tome of leadership and influence (item) +1/2/3/4/5 inherent bonus

---Bestiary 1
Profane Gift (special abilities) +2 profane bonus

---Mythic Adventures
Ability Score (base mythic abilities) permanent +2/4/6/8/10 bonus
Enhanced Ability (Universal Path Ability) permanent +2 bonus

---Pathfinder Society Primer
Clever Wordplay (trait) this allows you to use your INT mod instead of your CHA mod on a skill (in this case performance).

Nox Aeterna wrote:

Most of the times, assuming there is downtime, someone picks up crafting due to how 50% price is a insane power up with the bonus of being able to pick and chose your items.

Note that, in practice, the "power up" is not really that much. Basically, the magic item crafting feats allow you to sell unwanted magic items at 50% market price to make wanted magic items at 50% market price (no net change to character wealth). You still come out a bit ahead - because art objects, coins, gems/jewelry, and trade goods can be sold/exchanged at full price - but it's not the "double WBL" that some think.

Haha honestly it doesnt have to be for me to call it an insane power up.

Being able to "trade 1:1" magics items you didnt want for new ones you can pretty much hand pick is crazy powerful. All the "garbage", or even just sub-optimal, items we often get in adventures now "turns into" what you want gold wise. this is enough for me to call it insane.

I would say many consider it "double WBL" exactly because a huge loss is expected, one could say you often just sold everything at 50% and then bought what you needed instead of accepting worse choices, many times it is still worthy it even with this loss anyway. These feats makes you not have to face this.

In simple terms you are pretty much selling at 50% and always buying at 100%. Do this enough and you wouldnt be far from doubling your WBL from taking the feats.

Ofc, this all vary greatly on which gear the GM drops as well as how many levels the game goes on for. Cause ultimately many items will have to be exchanged for better versions or there is something better for the slots at higher levels... as the game goes on this stuff piles up.

I would say the factor above crafting is pretty important in my games. Technically this would make craft more of an enabler than truly the key component.

So the relevant part is: "Being able to get certain exact magic items".

Some builds depend more or less on certain items. Some benefit greatly, some would work with mostly whatever the GM drops. So this impact heavily on what is picked or not depending on the campaign and its expected rules.

Most of the times, assuming there is downtime, someone picks up crafting due to how 50% price is a insane power up with the bonus of being able to pick and chose your items.

Funny enough at my table, while we often use it and a vast majority likes it, I do believe we have 1 player who doesnt like how it increase the PCs power which in turn often increases the enemies... aka increases the rocket intensity, which could be delayed by players having mismatched gear.

My group is still in PF1 and, atleast as long as im a player/GM, i dont see that changing to 2E ever heh.

On a side note, one of my friends got himself some new vampire books, so we will likely start to try that out now while running the running the current PF1 CotCT game.

Honestly, i would rather go into other systems far more than playing 2E.

Well I can see it.

Iomedae doesn't set the alignments, they are set by the "universe". Good is good because the universe said so and so on.

This means the very universe she lives in tells her that her actions are good and righteous, same for the paladins. It isn't hard to understand why hubris is a thing.

I use in PF the same logic I use in SW.

If my player and it to work out with his SÓ, then it works out.

Honestly, never saw this create problems in the table and it makes people happy.

Only intelligent undead involve the soul. Mindless undead are just corpses and negative energy. Twisting negative energy to bring something to life, the opposite of what it should do, is what makes creating mindless undead Evil.

That isn't true. All undead involve the soul, thus Pharasma is pissed at all undead, the only difference is apparently how much of the soul is needed to make different undead.

A zombie might be made by just wounding a soul and taking a piece of it, but a lich would take the whole thing.

I would say magic has an actual high skill ceiling now and a high skill floor. For three editions that was the goal, but mostly amounted to people finding the most binary op spells and spamming them until something better came online.

Now tactics matter for magic. At least that’s how I’ve experienced it thus far. On paper, it looks like a nerf, but in reality it’s still strong.

If anyone here is a fan of mobas, it reminds of when lee sin gets nerfed. Every time it happens people say he’s garbage, and then it turns out he’s not garbage you just play him a little different and he’s still s tier as a champion (haven’t played in years so maybe it’s actually different now).

Nope, i disagree heavily.

There is only on paper for plenty of spells.

There is no high skill ceiling for unseen servant that lasts "10 minutes", if you actually keep it for 10 minutes, oh boy prepare for consequences.

Duration, was nerfed across the board, with one spell here and there being saved. Save or Die became critically Fail or be mildly/lightly inconvenienced for a short while for plenty of spells... Some buffs dont even make sense to me, like haste, i cant see why in gods name i would ever cast this spell till 7th circle and by then i would likely want something else in such slot anyway...

Due to the new balancing, apparently damage spells kinda work, if you spend enough other spells to support landing them well anyway.

I will give you that, when all yours spells are much weaker, you better be by far the most intelligent and capable person sitting on that table, cause you have a limited number of short duration spells to make count, missing will cost you. So high skill ceiling, if that is what you were going for.

Mages became "The guys who are fancy for a few minutes a day". Which for a fantasy setting kills any and all my interest in playing it. Their utility was reduced to pretty much battle and one offs.

Luckily, I have my main group and we will continue with PF1, in which magic is still fantastical, and other systems in which it doesnt have to be, instead of it.

Ofc, i understand it is the game for others, but as long as i can keep it away from this table, i really dont care.

Look OP, it is simple for me really. There are a number of grievances that I could list regarding 2E, but the one that breaks the deal and "can't" be fixed is simple, magic was crap.

I mean... it could fixed if I literally wasted my time rewriting spell after spell and then adding ones removed... but let's be real, no way I'm spending the time doing that.

So yeah, there and then it is over. No way I'm playing 2E, cause I can overlook the rest, but I sure ain't overlooking this.

As long as my main table doesn't either, hey, I'm fine. May others play 2E for the next 10 years till 3E.

Still, it is interesting gaining a perspective about 2E from this forums since I'm not going to be playing it.

These when needed, really makes it seem like less of an evil character.

Also:

CE

You must fight against all those who seek to shackle you or make you feel worthless.

Is this even an an issue? Seems like anyone would do this no need for any code at all, hell good characters would likely do this passively. And i mean this from LG to CG spectrum.

It really bugs me when people have this little respect for their GM's time. The GM is a person with their own life too, they absolutely should not be expected to have to take the time to sift through everything that could be available to a player and find everything they don't want to allow. ESPECIALLY as more and more content is added. The notion that they should is frankly disgusting.

Rarity is basically Paizo giving GMs a callsign on any likely candidates for -potentially- needing restricted, as well as a signal for players that this isn't a guaranteed (barring GM personally restricting access to it) option and if they want it they need to ping their GM. It's a good thing, and saves everyone involved trouble. Especially the GM, who frankly can pretty much always use a bit of load-lightening.

I dont expect of others more than i dont do myself. Im well aware the GM spends more time prepping, or most do anyway, than the players. Im assuming most here do, it comes with the field, I did,do presently and will likely continue to do it, im sure you are in the same position.

Having a list of houserules, sources... to present session 0 is part of the role. Yes, it takes time, still needs to be done.

2E doesnt change that either.

One way to run it is saying it is pure RAW, all sources, which is the simplest way, but you could also do it PF1 and it would actually be easier, cause in 2E even if you say that, then the questions of each players list of rarity requirements come to you anyway.

Assuming you dont want to run pure RAW, all sources, then it falls on the GM lap to prep the same list he would need in PF1 with the extra part to take into account rarity in 2E, which will be discussed anyway during session 0.

The reason i said rarity is at best an annoyance is exactly because it isnt something that i see changing much. It just changes the RAW which in turn can cause impact on the discussion while given time honestly probably just turning a second list to yet a primary list that GM decide to restrict from the stuff rarity didnt cover anyway.

Want an example?

Goblins.

Isnt uncommon, but based on what i have seen, sure belongs in the list to some folk.

The Gm can remove the option exactly like PF1, rarity doesnt make any player have the sure result that this will be added caused they asked. Exactly like PF1.

This is session 0, which is 100% different from "You need to have your entire build plotted out from the word 'Go.'" Session 0 is not a standard "thing" in most players' games, even though it should be. Rarity is that opener to the conversation, especially with newer GMs. Is the "plan out a character from 1 to 20" thing something that you're still saying is true? It feels like you're aware that it was a bit hyperbolic.

If this were a game made for me, a GM of more than 20 years, I wouldn't need rarity. Plenty of GMs wouldn't. But the game is built to get as many people as possible and this includes new GMs as well; new GMs that wouldn't be aware that their adventure is about to fly off the rails from a scrying spell or know how to handle an ifrit PC.

I mean, I get it. You're worried about the "extra step" when you have a really cool theorycrafted idea you want to show to the GM. But even if what we've seen is a ton of feats all gated behind rarity (which we haven't) or ancestries that are rare (still haven't, though we're likely to see them), it would still make sense to clear this with your GM. You did it in PF1. Even theorycraft builds would say things like, "If your GM allows it, you can take [X]," or "This is a powerful feat, depending on your GM's interpretation." None of this is new. It's codified and creates a baseline to make sure the game functions as it's intended.

And don't forget that GMs aren't doing this to punish you (one would hope). Rather that they are playing the game, too.

Ofc, mostly it is exactly because rarity is just some extra layer that PF1 "already had", to some extent, that i said it is an annoyance.

Still, the change from: "Asking for permission" instead of "Waiting for denial" to me will likely result in tables rules varying even more wildly than PF1.

The step was always there, really home games in PF1 often already have individual quirks that come with the GMs. It is just a change in the paradigm.

And really, yeah there is only the core right now and all that, but... do people actually think given time they wont start to restrict things even outside the rarity list anyway PF1 style?

That wont make whatever is restricted any less "rare/uncommon" in that GMs game.

I have no idea why people are pointing any Rule 0 abuse blame at the rarity system.

It isnt about abuse of rule 0 really, I dont consider abuse a GM wanting remove guns or eastern stuff, it is that the rarity system is literally a rule 0 attached to the RAW by default.

Now "uncommon stuff" is an uncertainty till you ask the GM, while before it was a certainty till the GM removed it.

What I THINK you're upset about - and feel free to correct me - is that in the future there will be feats and builds gated behind rarity and you won't be able to access them without GM permission. Am I wrong there?

In a way you could say that. GM permission is always a given in any group that understand session 0 and the need to set the expectations and possible changes.

Ultimately the issue being more of an annoyance of what the inversion of this order means.

Annoyance being the world because rarity really isnt such a big deal, it is just a direct way to bring forward a big discussion during said sessions 0.

Still I dont agree on it being something you can "leave for later" really. If you want said spells, weapons, feats... And your game doesnt start with them, then you should make the request during session 0 so you dont feel like trashing the character down the line when the GM denies anything which you didnt ask.

This seems pretty hyperbolic. Like, I'm all for having a discussion about the rarity system, but this is a bit outlandish. You even state that currently there isn't much bound up in rarity ("I'd like my character to use katanas," is not "Well, at level 2, I need to get access this feat, and at level 5 I'll need..."). This is just fearmongering of the most extreme situation. That situation being, "My DM isn't going to let me use the build I want because it's going to be all higher rarity."

Uncommmon races existed in PF1, they just weren't codified. If a player brought a character into my game in PF1 and didn't mention his race or class until dice were rolling, I'd be doing a pretty bad job as a DM. "Oh, classic sword and sorcery game? But my wayang gunslinger should fit in just fine!" This has always been a thing.

Rarity provides a baseline of play.

? whatever good or bad things rarity will do, it will certainly do it, cause it is part of 2E. I dont see what it has to do with fear mongering, since fearing what you cant change doesnt make sense.

And the same can be said about PF1 and GM power, to begin with, it was already set that rule 0 can change whatever you want in PF1 as well as 2E, which means a GM could literally allow everything that rarity sets instantly as well as change any other thing in the book. No written word in that book beats rule 0 at any time given time.

Those are indeed simple examples of that already is common in PF1, that was the purpose. Gunslinger is another valid example of something likely uncommon in 2E due to how it was seen in PF1.

The simple gap is:

- PF1 everything was tossed in by default, each GM could go and remove the things they wanted.

- 2E more and more things will be left out over the course of time, the GM has to go and then add them in.

Rarity isnt a suggestion list of what a GM could ban, rarity is a straight ban of the things the GM might later decide to allow.

This simply means by default you now literally need to go on a check list to make sure the GM will add everything single thing you want to that list. While in PF1 unless it was removed, you could assume it was there to begin with.

Nox Aeterna wrote:

In PF1 one wouldnt present a build to the GM with every single lvl planed out most likely.

In 2E you literally have to do that. You want X, Y, Z things at lvl T, R and O...? Then you need to from the start send this to the GM to make sure all this will be available or that the GM shortly after you reach the lvl make it part of the story.

What sort of builds are gated behind rarity? Currently we have a number of spells, but nothing that is "my build is based on this" that I can see. I mean, if you're making a diviner (as was mentioned), then that's something you mention to your GM, but you're not going through and planning out every single level.

The only thing we've seen so far (that I know of) are the... ** spoiler omitted ** ...which seem more narratively focused than build dependent.

I said it earlier and someone echoed it later in the thread: Rarity sets a baseline. There's no need to plan out your every single level when you're playing on the baseline.

All eastern stuff in uncommon, if someone wanted that and the GM said nope, well, there can go a character. In the future entire races could well be uncommon, even PF1 already references that.

These are examples, ultimately rarity is just a gate for GM approval, paizo can toss all sorts of things behind it in the name of saying for you to use it you need a GM.

There is plenty of it in the very core book of the game, hell knows how much of it there will be in the tons of splat books and other such books that paizo will toss out, but based on your post, even feats can be uncommon so things might spiral in quite a crazy way.

Either way, giving a list spells right now to the GM and having it denied is a perfectly valid reason to give up playing a caster as far as im concerned and that is just right now.

Some players do like to build as they go, but the ones I know, with 1 exception, present day 1 their build and have a pretty decent idea of what they will get each and every single level from the very start. In 2E, without a blank get whatever you want card, i can only imagine them having to present such a huge sheet with every single thing they want till whatever level the game ends.

In the end of the day, rarity is mostly an attention call.

In PF1 one wouldnt present a build to the GM with every single lvl planed out most likely.

In 2E you literally have to do that. You want X, Y, Z things at lvl T, R and O...? Then you need to from the start send this to the GM to make sure all this will be available or that the GM shortly after you reach the lvl make it part of the story.

This means the GM now knows exactly what you will get and have all the way to the lvl the game ends.

This does make more annoying to make a PC and it does also means the GM can, or not if he just gives a pass and says everything will be available, take more time prepping since he needs to check each entry he doesnt know which you just requested, but it can lead to a more stable game.

The player answer, just like in PF1 remains the same. If the GM deny something, the player can try to:

1. Argueu in favor of it.
2. Just change characters and present yet another list to the GM with other stuff they want instead. Simply restarting the process.
3. If the player and GM cant come to terms, the player will simply leave the table and that is that.

Time will tell how well rarity works in the end.

Oh I agree discussions with your GM should be the go to move. I just dont quite understand the "X spell is" is uncommon or rare and now GMs can disallow it and that sucks. I want a rule that forces the GM to allow me to have X spell"

Why? If the GM was against something being in his game and as mentioned above even if you could "force" the GM to allow you to have "X spell" why would you want to do this?

A good GM should be more than happy to help you realize your character design assuming it would not be completely broken or there is another in-story reason for it. The GM should be able to explain why they are restricting the spell.

A bad GM is just a bad GM and you are probably better off not playing with them regardless of what they are restricting or weather you could use RAW to force your way with them.

You cant really "force" a GM to do anything, outside PFS where there is actually something even higher than the GM, so for most it is more of a convince the GM.

Ultimately, again i think it is about weight of your arguments during said discussion.

By default, rarity is a prohibition rule. You cant have X. That is final, that is RAW.

A player literally has no grounds in 2E to have anything that rarity denies. best he can do is request it and the GM can give it or not, that is it.

Now if there was something in RAW that gave the player to power to get it, that would give weight to the players side.

Honestly OP, this is literally the logic behind rarity.

It is all about human psychology and said weight in these discussions.

I will not go deep into this, but to make a simple point, the GM in PF1 could always forbid a spell to begin with, then why rarity?

Rarity is there because now the GM inst forbidding anything, by default it is forbidden, now the GM is in a position of the guy allowing things.

Again, all about the weight and how these discussions go.

Uhhh... inst that all the players got?

The GM is an all powerful, all knowing, all deciding entity as far as the ingame world goes.

The GM per rule 0 can rewrite or change rules, granted per social contract it sometimes isnt something most would do at any random time.

The players, cant change anything, cant decide anything. What they can do is talk to the GM and present their arguments, still, ultimately the GM will make the call. If they disagree to the end, all a player can do is leave the table.

Trying to convince someone of RAW seems easier than making a pitch for your own houserule to covers the GMs idea. Also RAW is something more often know by all players, which might also gather support.

Sure the GM makes the call, but if all players would rather play under the RAW, there is a far higher chance to convince the all powerful GM.

Simply put, being a social game, discussion will end up being the way decisions are made, but I do think the RAW can weight heavily on how those discussions go.

Hopefully due to my serious disappointment in some areas of the game you can take this for what it is worth: This is the best version of the game I've ever played. The combat is smooth and fun. The modularity makes for easy adjustment. (We already have house rules in place to fix the parts I consider broken and we've only played four times.) If I were you, I'd give it a chance and just fix the broken parts. The chassis is stable.

Well, while it does seem to have some interesting areas, this isnt my only grievance.

Even if it were, rewriting every single spell or almost all of them, be duration, effects... is a bit too much for the houserule end, so really, it is just easier to avoid the entire thing.

With the above said, lurking on the forums did give me a better grasp on many parts of it.

I do wonder why people keep pointing to utility of casters really.

I gave a look to the spells, paizo literally broke the utility to pieces. Spells have crappy duration, buffs were tossed down the hills, many of the tolls in the shed are gone, some arent even caster only anymore.

I mean, the state of how crappy is the utility of casters now can be seen in something as inoffensive as unseen servant, which now lasts ALMOST 10 minutes... IF you stay all ALMOST 10 minutes concentrating on it.

Well, it isnt my problem since im just checking on news of 2E so i can make sure i convince my group to never adopt it, but still, im not seeing the point people are trying to make here.

Seriously... alarm is what people are pointing to the use of casters in 2E. Wow! Amazing!

Casters are then meant to be inferior in combat in some weird trade for utility... very crappy utility, that is then very limited in access since they have less slots too. Well, happy i can see this thread, sure gives me much to talk about to my table.

Better game?

Hum tricky question. Guess it depends on what you are looking for. I can say I don't see myself ever playing 2E. I lurk here just to get a general idea about it, I hear about far more things I hate than things I like.

With this said, I did manage to keep my group grounded on PF1 for now too, so I'm not as affect as some others whose group decided to move on to it.

Design wise I don't see 2E as better either. It would be like comparing a duck and a shark. Both touch the water, but both seek to do completely different things.

Liking one certanly doesn't mean you will like/Support the other.

I mean, the game really shouldn't work differently with a party of a Monk, an Alchemist, a Champion, and a Rogue than it does with a party of a Wizard, a Druid, a Cleric, and a Bard.

Guess we really see things completely differently.

I don't think a game could be a greater failure than that actually.

Imagine a class based game where the game doesn't greatly care about which classes you have on the table and what should be the greatest choice a player can make is treated as this irrelevant.

At that point might as well abolish classes. The game will run about the same anyway, just pick some powers and go.

They could, if they dont, is because the GM decided to make them not to for whatever reason, this is no way represent how this creates should or shouldnt act, it is a personal call of each GM and that is it.

Playing an AP for example, many of the enemies have reasons behind what they are doing. Some wont run, some will do so and then pester the party later in a number of ways.

If they can teleport? They are meant to do so if the conditions are met.

It falls on the players if they want to be 100% sure, to find ways to stop each enemy from just leaving. There ways to stop teleporting, if they cant manage and the enemy can just run, most will do so and seek revenge later.

Indeed. It was a good run, 10 years is no small amount of time, but all things come to an end.

Part of the fun was indeed checking out new options that constantly came out, if we are lucky, then the 3rd party like some said will continue to hold the flag... who knows, maybe a new "pathfinder" will be born to hold the torch for another 10 years.

Nox Aeterna wrote:

Well, guess that is that for 2E and now PF1 wont get new books either...

Oh well.

Don't panic yet. A lot of 3rd Party publishers are likely to continue supporting PF1 for a bit.

Well, never been one for third party much, but guess now there is no other choice. Will start to check on this.

Mitigating the "Caster/Martial Disparity" was like Job #1 when it came to the "balance" part of creating a new edition.

It's conceivable this is going to be the first edition since, well, first edition where I play a Wizard.

Well i suppose. I only checked the spells, not going to check the rest really to see what changed from the playtest, the spells alone already showed me i wouldnt want to play this game anyway.

Guess i will hear how it goes in the forums and such from now on.

All magic got nerfed into the ground. If that works for you, good. If not, PF1E will always love you.

Yeah i was wondering after they ended the playtest saying they would take a look into it if they had buffed it back up.

Took one look at Nethys, saw spells still nerfed to the ground, just came here to confirm it is as bad as it looked to me.

Well, guess that is that for 2E and now PF1 wont get new books either...

Oh well.

I would go with within a certain range and reason, the player can set their character, even more if there is reason for it.

But since there is disguise anything you do is subject to it.

There is no default pass cause of character story either.

Which means, if you are a human that want to pass as an elf, you better be good at disguise, otherwise i dont care how you look, anyone , assuming an easy perception check works, will instantly know you are for example a human, you are male, +- your age...

I do agree that checking with the GM is the best bet, ultimately, that will be the last word on the subject anyway.

Loved: Honestly i pretty much love all of PF1. Hell my fav games are run RAW going from, if it is in any book... well outside unchained which i avoid like the plague and only pick very few things from, then it can be added to the game. While true i dont add in every single system every single time due to how big the system is and the amount of possible rules. Then again, i love it because of all those rules and options haha.

Wanted: Even more books, even more options, but above all, even more pet classes.

Hated: Nerfs. How i hate paizo new found need to "balance" everything out. Why they made up this need to balance out everything in a table top game i dont know, but did i hate each time they nerfed eyt another thing. Above all, i hate their unchained summoner, hell i pretty avoid the whole book because of this change alone.

Will Miss: having new options made all the time. Overall ofc, if the playtest is anything to go by, then i will just keep playing PF1, 2E be dammed haha. Honestly, not a single thing in the playtest made me want to change editions, while plenty made me for sure not want to.

So i will be starting a game shortly, lvl to 1-20 with an actual decent chance to reach 20, and i thought of building the usual shapeshifting murder machine.

As apparently the entire table is of full casters, this kinda of thing will be the melee.

The issue is that, being honest, i suck at making these.

So please, does anyone have good druid/brown-fur or whatever else full caster melee builds to share?

Ofc, any help is welcome, doesnt need to be a full build, just some levels or guidelines would already be pretty handy.

Thanks for reading.

Well, on my experience the least played are the summoner, gunslinger and antipaladin. For the same exact reason, they are all banned. Nobody went for the crappy summoner second version either, so overall, it doesnt appear much.

Honestly, most of what i see are the first classes, aka from core to hybrid, with the unchained version of all, but summoner, being picked often. Occult, vigilante and shifter dont see the light of day at all or pretty much ever.

That is a pretty reasonable argument, making reference to mithral does point to this being a relevant part of the armor part.

A bit sad that my current PC that would use it, which is a arcane full caster, then is not a match for this amazing creature haha.

Thanks for the help!

Given that specific wording, I'd say no. The wearer is protected as though by a mithral breastplate, meaning the wearer gets the Armor Class bonus; it says nothing about acting like a mithral breastplate in any other ways. Otherwise, they'd have said it could be worn as if it were a mithral breastplate (see ring of force shield and others).

Thanks for the help, so on the full cut it does reference the person wearing it:

"As a full-round action, a sapphire ooze can transform into wearable armor. This armor can be sized for creatures of the ooze’s size or one size category smaller, and the subject must be willing to wear the ooze as armor. While in its armor form, the ooze cannot take actions other than to use its hero’s infusion ability or to return to its true form as a full-round action. While the shape of the armor created can vary, it always appears to be made of glittering sapphire crystals and provides protection as if it were a mithral breastplate.

While a sapphire ooze is worn, it takes 1d6 points of damage each time its host takes more than 5 points of damage from a single attack; this damage bypasses the sapphire ooze’s damage reduction and immunities. If this damage reduces the ooze to 0 hit points, it immediately reverts to its true form and falls to the ground."

So here it is:

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/oozes/ooze-sapphire/

It reads:

"While the shape of the armor created can vary, it always appears to be made of glittering sapphire crystals and provides protection as if it were a mithral breastplate."

Does this means it always also gives the arcane check penalty of a mithral breastplate to the person wearing it?

This, as everything else, is under the call of the GM and often GMs won't have this happen.

Even casting many of the evil spells won't affect you either.

Now, if start to use necromancy, expect a swift fall to the evil side.

So lets see it.

The wizard can have pretty much double your wealth by level. Since it costs very little for one to have crafting feats.

The wizard is likely to have contigency ready to go.

You should expect the wizard to pretty easily just teleport away in case you do get past its emegerncy force sphere and cause it damage. Which means if you expect the wizard to die, you need to be able to account for this.

Wonder what other points people can think up, but anyway, if you go head to head with the wizard, you better have an entire bag of tricks up your sleeve.

I don't think things (short of mind-control magic) should ever force an intelligent opponent to attack one person no matter what.

At best, mundane options should provide an incentive to attack one person (i.e. "you get a bonus to hit me") and or a disincentive to attack anyone else (i.e. "you get a penalty to hit anyone else.")

But nothing short of magic should ever force anybody to do anything when it doesn't make sense- like "ignore the lightly armored wizard and run over there and attack the heavily armored person" - no matter how insulting you can be.

Well to each their own ofc. I would be more interested in making a full list of every single effect that "pulls the aggro" to a player and then people can run whatever way they prefer. If they want to run antagonize, that is could be an option pending house rules.

Ultimately, a player can just turn to making a full arcane caster and simply end fights with disables. This is clearly "tanking" as the enemies cant hit your team anymore or do about anything really after a few lvls, but then again, this isnt what many players expect when they visualize a big guy in armor taking hits in front of the guy in robes.

Im surprised nobody said Snapdragon Fireworks yet.

Love having this overall, be it for parties or for using during some performance moment haha.

One can discuss the definition of a tank, just like you can with other words... Ultimately, in my experience, most people will indeed come in with tanks being the guy that can take many hits and help his allies to not get hit, by whatever means, usually having something to make itself the target even if for a while.

Ofc, definition wont matter AT ALL once the player declares what they want, because the word tank might be up to discussion, but when the person literally explains the above is what they think a tank is, the door is closed and if you give them the other options people listed here chances are you will have a frustated player that cant do what they wanted to do, doesnt matter others are calling it a "tank".

What comes to mind in order of a nowadays classic tank, is antagonize, i remember also some spells that could help with this, as well as feats. It should be kinda of possible to make up such a tank. What i wonder is how many such builds one could come up with.

Did you talk to the other players about this?

The starting point on this kind of issue is OUT OF THE GAME discussion among players and GM regarding the PCs relations. How to proceed from there it is something you guys should decide together.

From what you wrote, im assuming you made a PC that does not match your party if they keep giving you fire. If you do turn CE, the paladin will literally need to have pretty good reasons to even work in the same party you are without losing his powers, so yeah, chances are this will escalate the situation if you dont deal with this now.

Usually one would either agree to go nice, aka start to go towards good instead of evil much more, make a new PC, aka you just exchange the problem character out of the party and let it be evil as a NPC, or, if you guys are certain you can deal with the ramification of this, you start to allow PvP and greater party conflicts, aka eventually the party is likely to kill your PC if they really dont like you.

Don't think there is any RAW on this. People can say what they think is best, but ultimately, nobody is right, which in turn means, it is time for you to talk to your GM directly and for him to make a call on how this will work at your table.

As you can see per this thread, expect table variation on this.

Rules don't create much of an issue. We go by RAW in my usual table, If there is dispute, the GM says how it is going to work and the later we check on it.

I would, funny enough, say there is far more dispute on golarion setting things haha. Ultimately there are clashes from people who read material after material and those who wing it, which ofc doesn't offer a faithful depiction of the god/city...

I do find funny what people infer as evil while pathfinder has an entire nation of racists and yet it's alignment is CG. A God of traditional values is LG and so on.

Anyway, leaving aside how alignment can clearly shift drastically based on the GM, OP start to put neutral enemies in there too.

If the enemies are intelligent there could be easily some who just aren't evil, you can also add oozes/animais/constructs...

Even in APs where the whole dungeon was under the control of one big bad i have seen safe spots where the players can rest, it usually a hidden place often even the big bad doesnt know about, but it is there.

Ultimately, i have yet to see a party be completely stupid about this, sure they want to rest, but they go to a place they believe it is safe and use whatever they can to make it safer and then rest.

They dont just sit in the middle of a corridor, sleep and then go around fighting again.

The real reason parties skip rest is time. If they have to get to the big bad in time or crap happens, they are unlikely to rest. That is it.

I wouldnt go with this. Mostly because it is weird to me really.

The reason for this is that i dont think alignment is a logical decision on the PCs part, it is something they are, therefore, if the evil guys keeps making the good guy do evil things and this turns the good guy to evil, said now evil character wont see any reason to ask for atonement, he is evil now, he was corrupted, why would he ask for forgivness? Why would he even care about the same gods? His entire world view has changed beyond that.

Ofc, the player out of the game would still go and wish to recover his PC anyway, but it is weird to me, so it is easier to just close it off from the get go.

And, honestly, i wouldnt want to use dominate to take a PCs away from the player for a long period of time, while i can totally see PCs using this on NPCs to turn them. Since i dont favor unequal trade of blows from the PC side to the NPC one, i wouldnt want this in place either.

Honestly, i think spellcasters look rather blah in general, not only damage, but then again, the devs said they will be looking into it, now how the finished version will look only time will tell.

This idea that cantrips could carry over the MASSIVE amount of debuffs spread across the casters was just terrible.

Actually, it really does. You were saying in PF1 core there wasn't a huge gap between optimizing and not optimizing. Captain Morgan was pointing out how there very much was such a gap, from overpowered spells to knowing to take certain feat chains being a big factor in effectiveness, to entire classes being underpowered choices.

Which is definitely very much referring back to what you said about there not being a big mastery gap in PF1 core.

Again, no this isnt being discussed at all.

There is no "non optimizing". Everyone is trying their best to optimize AND both sides understand the system, there no new player that cant tell what the hell they are doing in this discussion.

Class balance also being irrelevant in said discussion, which is more about fighter vs fighter, then fighter vs wizard. Not that again, this has ever being an issue to me anyway.

The difference is simply how far said system mastery goes.

Again i say that, if both players understand the system, the you can perfectly well play a PF1 game with only core and it will be similar to 2E where following guides/forums wont lead to much variation at all. A person can read the entire core book and remember the options and thus optimize by themselves just fine.

Which means, this is just a false perception from the simple lack of books when it comes to 2E.

I suspect Paizo will use the Starfinder release schedule for PF2, right now SF has about five major books, two of which amount to bestiaries, in the other three we have a maximum of eight classes, with three more being added later this year, each new core book has given extra class options or in the case of the one setting book a bunch of archetypes which any class can take. Armory added loads of new items which admittedly is very SF specific since it’s more gear centric.

That remains to be seen, but i guess that if they want balance over even options, then this will be a must.

Which ofc works great for me, since it is bound to drive even more players to remain in PF1.

That is true to a point, but at its core PF2 is showing itself to be straying away from the various stacking up of small numerical bonuses that was a prime cause of PF1 optimization difference than even PF1 core, let alone any supplement.

It's a base difference, not just a content difference. The lower number of bonus types plus nearly nonexistent untyped bonuses means that barring drastic change in splatbooks the main area of min-maxing is inherently very limited.

This remains to be seen.

Just because the options arent about numbers, dont mean options that work 99% of the time wont be called out plain better than situational ones and so on.

As more and more options appear, all of which people want to be "meaningful choices", some will emerge stronger and some will go to the bottom. System mastery and going to forums and guides will most likely still result in a vast gap from player to player.

To add to this, nothing is to say that in 2E numerical stronger and stronger options wont appear here and there, which funny enough might actually make system mastery even worse, since those who know those few but awesome options will get even further ahead than those who dont.

That's not really true. The core rulebook has some of the least balanced stuff the system ever had. Core rogues and core monks were wildly reviled. Core fighters could be built to do DPR very well if you two handed with power attack or had a lot of system mastery to build their complex feat chains, but only did comparable damage to barbarians, paladins, and rangers while falling severely behind in versatility. And many of the most narrative bending spells are right out of core.

And of course there are systematic things that lead to more variance, like point buys or the old WBL system.

Meanwhile many of the 6th level casters published later are widely regarded as much better balanced and some of the better brand's best work.

Which is not to say more options doesn't make the system harder to balance, but PF2 core is definitely off to a better start than PF1 was.

That has nothing to do with what im saying. You are trying to bring this about balance among classes, like some people do cause they care, moot point to me, since i couldnt care less about it myself.

The issue here is if PF2 has what it takes to publish books every single month, often multiple books a month, which is what PF1 does and what many expect of PF2, if you check many posts are about waiting a few years till PF2 bloat and thus be worth getting into, all the while adding more and more options at the same time it keeps up with what some here seem to expect, which is dimished system mastery to the point where vising forums and checking guides wont result in major power gaps.

Personally i doubt it, but only time will tell for sure i guess.