I like the look of those wings and the horns framed to look like they hold the halo up is great. The body is a bit lanky looking and the side view of the head just makes me think "unavoidable chin move". Benevolent, gold and strives to protect innocents. So it's basically a combo of the only metallic dragons most people could tell apart.
Dancing Wind wrote:
Scotty still knew how to use it though.
I think a lot of 80s, 90s and even 2000s movies give the impression that translation can often be a one for one thing. We don't get exposed often to the fact all languages have phrases that encompass ideas that are unique to that language or society. Many have single words to things other languages would require a sentence to describe just because it isn't a word for them. Also the fact many words come with social baggage or gender baggage, it can make it hard to put such things in simple terms without writing an aside for your language to allow you to relate better to it. With that in mind, I think this was an amazing piece, giving a lot of insight into things with such a simple setup and encounter between two people.
Orikkro wrote: Personally I really dislike this. A dragon wearing elegant jewelry and accents to what should be a majestic creature is one thing. Randomly sticking things over itself and stabbing weapons through itself comes across as punk goth emo dragon. Not to mention how hindering all that stuff would be. This type of thing for dragons is nothing new, in AD&D some dragons were described with gems stuck in their scales from sleeping on their hoard. This is a more extreme version of that, the description says things melt into them, doesn't mean they placed these things there, though some individuals might.I think the art tries to make it look purposeful instead of random as that might look worse to more people.
We've only just started lowering corruption in modern times compared to nearly the whole of human history so I don't think it should be all that surprising. When you add in actual evil beings and many anti-social or xenophobic creatures and societies that take resources and lives away, then is it any wonder why people in positions of power cut corners and make deals? Even with good intentions just trying to keep things stable, there's a lot going on.
Even if an AP or GM put you in a no win scenario, so long as it's a one time thing then it becomes a part of your character, the time they couldn't live up to their ideals. Maybe they blame themselves and see it as a mark they need to become better, either stronger to get through such situations or smarter to unravel them before they get too tight. Codes of conduct have never been a mechanic for players or GMs to use as a weapon to justify things, they are tools to build a character and tell that characters story, if either can't figure out how to reasonably tell that story then it's a table problem. For the long term,I think deity anathema is likely the most important thing for the "deity warrior" class. However I don't think we need a priority as that would just leave out character concepts.
If your down and get healed, you still generally aren't a threat since your hands are empty and thus most creatures (unless after a meal) would likely move on to active threats, and healers. So even if you get healed right after the last creature so they nearly all go before you they aren't likely to down you again, better to get to the healer anyhow. That gives you the agonizing wounded choice list. Stand up: likely.
Being unconscious is brutal, so I wouldn't have most things hit you just because you got some HP back, your next turn is very likely to be low impact anyhow.
Finoan wrote:
I would say no to this because Rangers have Companions cry, spend two actions to command your animal companion to give it 3 actions. This is the only way for a minion to ever get more then 2 actions.
Battlezoo already has a dragon versatile heritage, and I don't think Paizo has an interest in covering that content. The only reason they are touching dragons at all is because they need to. I hope they keep all the older dragons, making them more in line with how Mark wrote them up and perhaps new names I think would make most if not all of them vastly different to D&D dragons.
A lot of people are saying it locks you out for the next round, but you can easily say a round goes by between the end of your turn and your next turn. A full round has to go by for you to get another turn after all. A more precise way to look at it is if you use two actions to breath weapon and then one action for anything else, a full round is up on your next turn after you use two actions, thus you wouldn't ever be able to do a two action breath weapon two turns in a row. Rounding it out to start the lock out at the end of your turn also gets the same result for most abilities and is likely easier for most to understand. It would have been much more clear if it was worded "this ability can't be used for the next 1d4 of the users turns". Thus letting us know that getting a 1 on a d4 didn't mean getting lucky and having the ability right back.
The AP has lots of problems, from the map not fitting the descriptions, the plot hooks and the NPCs. Out of the 4 APs I've done so far this was the least enjoyable. That's saying a lot considering I played a Kobold inventor who started off styled like Wolfwood, carrying his mech around on his back until he could ride it, then he rode his dragon tank everywhere, was very fun. You find lots of broken steam punk automatons, fight several different types of them from guard bots to ale servers. So I think there's lots of steam punk inspired stuff around. The big disconnect is likely how the map looks rather plain and many of the descriptions of places don't make sense on the map and don't give the feel of crazy inventions and unique things that can only be found here. On the topic of weapons, you aren't going to get things that operate different then what we have. You can re-flavor them to be lever action or revolver like, but the mechanics are there to keep them balanced, that's one of the core principles of PF2e.
I enjoyed being a Kaiju, lost fly speed and elemental damage on primary attack from dragon form I primarily used, but nice damage overall, reach everything for grapple and trips, even over buildings. Nothing says cool like punching someone through the roof. Being able to be what ever when ever maximizes your utility for forms as tools, depending on what your doing could be very good.
An option someday to focus on just one form, via class or archetype, would likely be stronger and perhaps fulfill the fantasy many talk about when speaking of wild shape and similar options.
The cleric in my Kingmaker game allows my laughing shadow Magus to tank for the group, feels a bit much.
This requires summoners to boost athletics, making these options far more niche then previously. I hate it. Although going rogue for skill mastery is always great for summoners so it's still not as bad as it would be for some other classes, just a bit harder to give up amazing summoner feats to get those skill ups. A change to keep those feats working the way they used to for the summoner would be nice, I think Mark made them that way just to put in some monster flavor into the eidolon, let them do stuff that was outside the lines of PCs. Perhaps add a circumstance bonus with those feats instead, also might be nice for the feats to allow you to use maneuvers and not just the monster ability on larger creatures.
You have less HP and lower saves, just because you might match a poorly built martial(not fighter) in damage now and again doesn't make you equal to them. I played a wild druid with monk and the archetype boost to unarmed attacks to get legendary proficiency and I still didn't hold a candle to the katana wielding fighter in the group. The dragons fly speed made up for that as well as the Kaiju's overall better stats with limited use, being huge and whirling throw to the fighter was very fun. Any other character trying to make use of battle forms is going to be much farther behind, with lower to hit, less feat support and depending on class even less health.
This seems overkill to me. It's usually a terrible idea to get someone up in combat already.
Blave wrote:
Sure, but the OPs big concern was always on off guard. They also wanted other things to compare to. As a side note, if you think this doesn't allow nice damage then perhaps think about dual weapon warrior with this. Paladin in the FotRP game I was in did this and put out some very nice damage while tanking and giving the party extra attacks.
Teridax wrote:
Pf2 is balanced around martials being the force and casters being force multipliers. Try putting an all caster group through APs and they will struggle much more then an all martial group.You don't need to balance around that, each class can be good on its own. You don't need to think casters need to be squishy or martials need more health and saves, just make each class bring a full balance of options to the table. If SF2 can get the number of class releases PF2 is having, then you can get lots of different classes. Having a beefy front liner to draw fire while everyone else piles on is great but there's plenty of other ways classes can be put together to work together. Buffs can be created in such a way that squishier classes get more out of them, like giving someone plate AC or temp HP as if they had 12HP a level. If the balance of the game is everyone is a target, then you balance out from there, some classes will be good at drawing fire by repositioning and flanking or by locking down mech armor to increase damage output, some will be good at buffing to reduce and heal damage or decrease status effects, some will be good at controlling the flow of battle with structures or effects. Having access to a huge list of various spells makes it seem like casters can do so many things and yet its the Bard and Druid, who have great class abilities on top of spells that make them the best casters in PF2. Those class abilities in SF2 could push them into being viable front liners or flankers, there's a lot more room then just buffer/debuffer. Squishy martial or beefy caster would be great to see, as well as more two action activities for martials and one action abilities for casters, and action compression for both as you level. We're getting more and more interesting classes in PF2, hopefully that's a good starting point for SF2 classes.
In PF2 enemies focus martials because they do the damage, casters support. Killing a non healing caster makes the fight easier but still life threatening. Killing the martials is close to winning the fight. If creatures wanted to get to casters they would, the "defender"/" tank" abilities mostly protect other martials. I'd rather classes be closer in survivability and have less hard tanking abilities so you can field far more variety of party compositions.
Hopefully we can get an article on remastered animal companions.
I don't care about the hang ups people have of changing the class focus and such, but if you do want to change then soldier is a back ground, not a class. A field operative is a soldier, a sniper is a soldier, a tank crew are all soldiers, a spell caster who's enrolled in the military also fits. If we are going to have every class have more of a theme and not have a generalist combat class then I hope the classes we do get can cover a WIDE variety of concepts because otherwise there's going to feel like a big hole. It might get filled eventually by being able to have more interesting themes, but it does seem like a weapon generalist fits a lot of peoples idea for just want to be good with gear theme. I'm all for themed classes, so long as they are varied and aren't mechanically inflexible. It will hurt the short term but I think would allow more classes in the long run. As for a new name, maybe point man, SAPper (Squad Assault Person), Demolisher or Brute.
Dark_Schneider wrote:
I would agree with this for spells you know. Otherwise you have to have the somatic components and you don't know them without reading them from the scroll. This seems to be changing with the remaster however.
Indeed. Why bother having a pc remove X your group the next day when you could buy the cure and continue adventuring at full power. Having solutions in the moment of tension is always how every group I've been in has played, if you can put off a tense moment so you can prepare for it, then everyone usually has options at that point, unless your going out of the way to make a certain style work, time no one else needs. Sounds like there are a couple options to mix them some, I'm all for mashing the cloth casters together to have a spell book and a repertoire.
I loathe vancian casting. I've never played in a game in 30 years that a DM would give you so much knowledge of what your up against that you could make spell choices that you knew would be perfect. I've also never played a game where you knew for sure you would have have a day off so could swap to all non combat spells and have that be meaningful. So for me, being prepared for as many things as possible as often as possible has always been a baseline. Prepared casters have always been bad at that, because sometimes you need that one spell two or three times, and only spontaneous casters reliably cover that. The exception being themed adventures like AV, but I tend to have a low opinion of adventures you can build a character that is just a good counter to the adventure as a whole. I haven't played one yet but I think I would like a sorcerer with the spell book feat to have some ability to swap spells around. For me, the feel of having multiple spell slots not be the right thing for that day vastly outweighs any good feel having the right spell gives. As well as choice paralysis, do you use this ok spell now and maybe not have it when you need it? That's the least amount of fun possible to me.
Balance for ease of DMs. Modular feat system that gives plenty of depth without adding a ton of complexity. Multiple standard action system, choose to do what ever you want with your action economy. Themes, a lot of options that appeal to me, characters that I would like to play that have mechanics backing those themes.
Likely to get higher weapon dice for ranged compared to PF2, but the big difference is probably going to be magazine size, not having to reload all the time so you can instead put damage out and do something else. Melee will still likely be the only d12 and have stat to damage. Can't imagine them having multiple dice for any basic weapon, would be nice though. Hopefully with interesting traits and functions the weapons will be more interesting to use then just thinking about what die it has. If we don't get a slew of new traits and abilities like beast weapons, then it will be very stagnant.
With futuristic ranged weapons there should be a wide variety of options, all with some basic actions they should be capable of that others won't be. Like two or three round burst could add agile to the weapon when taking a firing activity.
The same can be done for melee and armor to really give the building blocks for a play style.
Jedi are space magus. Biotics/psychers are space wizards/sorcerers. We already have lots of sci-fantasy with magic.
Applied_People wrote:
This sounds exactly how I think most people use it, and likely results in people playing what they want. So I don't understand your statement of rare making it so many people won't be able to play it. We don't have a rare class yet, so will be interesting to see what they show mechanically and thematically for such an option.
I played the play test summoner through AoA and only once did I want tandem movement. Most fights in APs start and stay within 30 feet it seems. Get the extended tether range item and it shouldn't ever be a problem. For level 4 feats, lifelink surge and skilled partner offer so much more then an extra move you might need every dozen fights or so. Not much reason to run donuts around in the backline during most fights. If you don't have a stable front line, then it might be worth more, but then just do what any other caster would do, fly or go invisible or whatever.
From the view of someone who didn't play PF1 or SF1, but read some of the books. Hopefully a good mix of one and two action abilities for all classes. Since the vast majority of things magic does in a fantasy setting can be done with tech and ranged combat being a more standard method of fighting, I hope casters can engage in the three action economy better, be more effective damage dealers and not pay so much of their design budget on having spell ranks. Less focus on items for skill bonuses and more on doing cool things.
More ways for classes to work together, either able to buff/debuff (also make sure every class can actually benefit from those effects) or by some class specific thing you can set up that others can capitalize on.
More reactions like champions and gunslingers(far more useful when not using single shot weapons). These generally just work and feel good, while things like +1ac against one attack (even with riders) has such a small chance to actually change a die roll that it doesn't feel meaningful. Maybe make saves work like most everything else in the system, roll against the enemies DC instead of the old school way, might make players feel more invested in their abilities. Also could let hero points work on such things.
The rogue could do that and the cleric should have good Cha anyhow. So depends what you mean by helping. In combat could focus on grappling or a reach weapon and knockdown for battlefield control, swap barb dedication(unless there's feats you want from it as it doesn't give much) for champion, get the champions reaction to protect allies and lay on hands for in combat heals.
Try a +3 hydra or dragon. Or try some monsters from battlezoo, there's one that can endlessly summon more minions. Certain monsters, many uncommon, do indeed have interesting abilities and action compression. Otherwise, a BBEG type boss should be unique, meaning you should tweak an existing creature or make your own that fits your party. There's guidelines for such. All you need do to simulate "legendary" actions is make sure your boss has a few reactions it can take and maybe give it two reactions a turn and bam, using the systems the game already has you accomplish it instead of taking on new layers and homebrew.
I think that Michael meant casters have to wait until the right moment to use spells. Either bring about the conditions to use your slots or use them when the time is right. The problem is that suggests you should be doing other things then using magic most of the time. This was common in older editions but how many stories are told with pure caster types just not using magic all the time these days?
Even as a GM, if you just run creatures based off of two letters in their stat block then those creatures might as well be nothing more then a stat block the PCs are fighting. Real creatures have lives, motivations and moods based not just on what they are but where they are, what their day has been like and how they encounter the PCs. Other than animals/unintelligent things and planer creatures I could easily make situations for most creatures that make them feel like any of the old alignments. If you want to make interesting encounters then just find art that jumps out at you and make a reason why such a creature would be antagonistic or not to the PCs. Otherwise just use low intelligence creatures that are defending their territory, nice and simple.
You're going to get both sides with either of them though. Both your young character and older character are going to start out with little power learning how it works and then grow to master it, so your only fulfilling that character idea at very different stages. What do you envision for the other half of your playtime?
Haven't seen the book yet, but hope to make an earth/air Kineticist, earth born Iruxi who was raised to be the protector of the sands yet wants to broaden his horizons on what outside forces he's defending from. My other idea is a 3.5 character I had that I think the class would fit. A young silver dragon who was seemingly abandoned and sets out into the world to survive and figure out what happened to his parents. Having nearly starved and survived on eating snow and ice, he gains an affinity for water and ice above even that of other dragons. Start water Kineticist and maybe add some combination of air, wood or metal.
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