Physicskid42's page

TBH Talk to your GM and build things together so that you're both happy with it is all the help needed.

Far better IMO than hitting the GM on the head with a big Paizo book (figuratively) until they surrender.

But a robust rules system could at least be a jumping off point. I just don’t get this mentality where the mere existence of a rule will lead to adversarial Dm ing . After all the artifact gift rules are in the gm guide and there isn’t a big problem of players demanding a specific artifact. Even if they did a Dm could incorporate into play. I think there is a middle ground between the gm just hand waiving everything and the gm being held hostage. After all the whole “rulings not rules” thing is a big part of the problems with 5e

Physicskid42 wrote:

Ooze.

The old 3.x Forgotten Realms book on the Underdark had an ooze-related people called Slyth that I liked!

I’d like an ooze ancestry and I’d like some sort of shifter class in the future with an ooze sub class just so I can push my gooey powers to the limit.

Sanityfaerie wrote:

That's part of what I'd like to see in something like this, really. You'll have druids becoming One With The Forest. You'll have necromancers turning themselves info undead. If you want real balance, you need some way for the various martial classes to get into the macro play side of things while still being the martials that they are. My fighter wants a keep. My swashbuckler wants to start a dueling school.

I agree with you that part of the problem was leaving the martial out of macro abilities as class features.

My opinion on the other hand is that no macro abilities should be class features in the first place.

You want to start a dueling school? Talk to the GM and party and work it into the storyline. You want to build a castle made of force walls? Talk to the GM and party and work it into the storyline. You want to become one with the forest? Same answer, etc. etc.

Almost all of the macro level abilities are things that affect the world as a whole. If you are affecting the world as a whole there should be storylines and adventures about affecting the world as a whole.

The default shouldn't be 'oh, hey, GM I got a keep to start a fighter's guild at last level, how does that fit into the game?'

It should be 'Hey fellow gamers at the table, I'd really like to establish a base of operations as part of my character's ambitions to run a fighter's guild, can we work that in?'. The One with the Forest and force wall castle should be similar conversations, not class features.

Now, some macro abilities are tamer than others of course. Those can probably be worked in with a rare ritual or some such instead, but for the really big ones?

I can mostly get behind this. In my own campaign when a player spent downtime befriending every animal in the kingdom, I gave him the commune with nature ritual. Perhaps The compromise is for paizo to expand their blessings system and creat a truly robust set of intangible rewards that Dm’s can give out.

Ooze.

I'd rather Paizo focuses on making the mechanics for encounters more exciting and leave any mechanics for high-scale changes to the setting in the hands of the GM. The former needs a shared and precise Rules understanding far more than the second IMO.

I do not want my PC's impact on the setting becoming the topic of ruleslawyers threads on Paizo forums.

Why? There are already lots of debates about all sorts of macanical minutiae. I keep hearing about how players will tie there DMs hands, being like “ well the rules say I can blow up the world and kill every one so go to h€11 Steve !” This has never happened at my table, I’ve never heard of this happening to anyone first hand. Even when my groups shenanigans are at a peak it’s never ruined a whole game. I mean if you want them to fight a dragon but they raise an army of undead instead you can always just say “ you win but now the sacred order of the king will martial their forces against you for being evil necromancers”

I don’t think PF1 at this point has that stuff either. They had some stuff that just kinda worked that came over from 3.5 but that wasn’t legal either even if it did fit the framework. I’m sure give it more time and they will add more rituals and other downtime focused systems which will allow more stuff like this. I don’t think it’s a huge priority compared to getting much loved classes over from PF1 though. Paizo at the end of the day is a small company and they have to choose what they spend time on.

Well the example of building a castle of force and becoming warden of the forest were things that the kineticist and hunter could do respectively .

That's part of what I'd like to see in something like this, really. You'll have druids becoming One With The Forest. You'll have necromancers turning themselves info undead. If you want real balance, you need some way for the various martial classes to get into the macro play side of things while still being the martials that they are. My fighter wants a keep. My swashbuckler wants to start a dueling school.

Exactly. Honestly, I think the best place to look for this is somewhere between heroic myth and anime. A monk should really be standing under a waterfall until they can carve out a mountain temple with their fists

Balance of combat proficiency isn't really what's in question, though. I am trying to draw attention to the more long-term, higher-level thinking, side of roleplaying. if one character can build a fortress made from walls of force and another character has figured out a way to become an attuned guardian of the forest, can you say which is more powerful? Yes probably in a strict mathematical sense but that's not usually how players think. having one player stomp everyone else sucks, but macro play tends to be a party-wide affair anyway, and even when it's not you don't usually have anyone made entirely obsolete.

The reality is that 3.x/PF1 were PCs and PF2 is a Mac. The PCs might have more bugs, run the risk of catching a few more viruses, and take more work to set up but in exchange, they are much more open to customization in the hands of anybody with even moderate skills and/or access to Google. PF2 is the Mac that you slide out of the packaging, admire the shiny design, and then plug in and use exactly as is until you buy the next model.

Clearly, there are a fair few people who like the simplicity of the Mac but for those that want options, they'll always be clawing at the walls of the walled garden.

Well, that's kind of true but I don't think it needs to be. Like I said I think that on a systems-level it's better in every way. It's really just the content that skews towards the more conservative approach. rituals make the perfect way to handle more open-ended spells. Skill feats can already do some pretty awesome stuff. It just needs more of that.

I was looking at 5e forum the other day and it's really interesting to me, how both games are direct responses to 3.5/pf1. 5e has run into problems because they're consumed by their overwhelming design goal of simplicity. Pf2 is held back by it's overwhelming design goal of balance. Both of which feel like counters to 3.5/pf1 pile of books.

The thing of it is I'm not really sure how much the whole "My character is a half dragon, half monk, half gunslinger who deals 11 million damage with one attack, so screw you dm!!" thing was an actual problem at the table.

There are things that I think should have been changed. Bringing martials closer to casters by just starting with the base assumption that they are magically powerful is great. I think ancestry feats is a good way to play monstrous characters. But note that despite having this tool, they haven't let you play things like trolls or giants. They even have a system a method of regulating overpowered things with the rarity system and they still haven't really used it yet. Pf2 doesn't need a page 1 rewrite, it just needs a change in attitude.

Getting it for free at level 15 as a player is also fun, I'm not going to lie about that, but it's a pain for the GM to suddenly need to deal with.

I think it's supposed to encourage GMs working with the players instead of a vs. the players mindset, and I'm cool with that.

I’ve never had that big of a problem With it. As the DM I have arbitrary power to resolve problems, plus I’ve never encountered anything that truly was a disaster.

Also earlier in the thread I posted an idea for how martials can get in on the action.

For what it's worth, during my campaign the players didn't often use complex strategies but the encounters were so aggressively difficult and varied that it didn't matter much. My players were a gunslinger, a summoner, and a shield-focused paladin, so most of their actions were taken up by class necessity but they sure did use every tool in the toolbox to stay upright despite losing a third of their hp in one attack.

To me this sounds like what you had in PF1/3.5 was that you'd decide to do some weird thing, do a deep dive in all the books, come up with a pile of feats items and spell, and go to the GM and say "I have a complete proof of how to reanimate myself in someone else's body" and then the GM would check it out and say "yeah that's a solid proof, you got me there".

And now it's more like "hey GM I think it'd be really cool to play a character who steals someone else's body to walk around in", and then the GM thinks about it and says "yeah well I suppose that's not the weirdest thing in this campaign, you could probably research some ritual to make that happen". And then figures out some way to do your research; maybe some downtime victory point system. And he can even include a book with a theoretical shortcut in a loot pile somewhere that gives you some free bonus research points.

It's a shift of power, to be sure, but I don't think it's a reduction in creative space. PF1 had so much already existing stuff that it sometimes felt hard to look beyond what was already printed. PF2 is much more on giving you a solid mechanism to expand the content with what you need.

You're not wrong. There will always be a balance between player agency and gm fiat. Even in the face of a mathematical proof the gm could say "That's a solid proof. HOW ABOUT NO!" But it's not like there aren't any things like this in 2e already; the spell Fabricated Truth comes to mind. It's very open ended and it could have been worked out between player and dm but they still saw fit to put it in the book.

Rogues and Rangers both have a solid array of non-combat feats, and the Investigator obviously has tons. And multiclassing let's any class snag them. Archetypes options include dandy, Loremaster, linguist, ritualist, and a bunch more I'm probably forgetting. There are archetypes...

Ok, so this might have been a failure of terminology on my part. Instead of combat vs non-combat, I think it would be more accurate to say numeric vs non-numeric abilities.

to use the Linguist example, the feat Multilingual Cipher is a numeric ability, it only really increments a variable. Spot Translate is a non-numeric ability. It lets you do something that you could not do otherwise and its effect can't be relegated to any single variable. Its utility exists only in the brain of the player.

to use spell examples, Hyperfocus is a numeric spell. it affects something outside of combat but it boils down to a simple numeric advantage on skill checks. the spell Fated Confrontation is non-neumeric. There is math in it but the core of the spell is about changing the story.

In my opinion it these longer more narrative spells and abilities that we need more of.

Quote:

- There aren’t many at-will abilities. The only character I could find with something like an at-will disguise ability was a witch archetype whereas they were easy to make in 3.5/1e..

A greater hat of disguise can provide this. They are also working on a psychic class that amplifies cantrips to do some interesting things.

Quote:

- Few noncombat archetypes and abilities. The only archetype I could find with unique non-combat abilities was the Dandy. The rouge doesn’t have any noncombat-based subclass either. hut.

Aren't like... almost all skill feats examples of this? And the whole Investigator class? Are you looking for an option that gives up combat prowess all together? Because that shouldn't exist for PCs, IMO.

On the first point, even the grater hat of disguise only lasts an hour. The 1e oracle I mentioned earlier could alter self at will and have it last all day and even in their sleep at level 11.

On the second point, yes that's the role of skill feats, but there aren't many skill feat-focused archetypes and basically, no skill feat focused classes. The rogue gets a lot more certainly but all of their class feats are combat-oriented. Again to defer to 1e intrigue oracle revelations for what I would like to see more of.

I agree with you; I think that 2e can do these things and do them well, I'm just not sure we have gotten enough material to support it yet. What's more, I think that the design philosophy that 2e has adopted pulls the RAI away from this kind of play.

I feel like a bunch of this has at least barebones support already that GMs can build off of.

I agree that most of the building block are there. But I think they still need active support from Paizo. A lot of people are saying that they should just let the DM figure all this stuff out. I have two concerns about that.

1: I think both DM’s and players need things to inspire them.I wouldn’t have thought of my Enter Image plan if the Enter Image spell didn’t all ready exist.

2: It takes away the ad hoc feel of figuring it out yourself if your DM has to make all the best stuff himself and just sort of yadda yadda over any outside the box strategy. This is coming from a DM mind.

When one of my players wanted to kill a high level monster by using Create Cottage to smash it with a house, I said “you can try but you have survive direct attacks and concentration checks for 10 rounds” I’ll be darned if he didn’t pull it off. And that was a more interesting outcome for everyone. It was only possible because he saw and took one of the few open ended spells and took it.

Though my biggest gripe on the older d20 systems was that to enjoy these "Macro" abilities, you must be able to cast mid~high level Spells without outside help. Non-casters might be able to oneshot equal CR foes if optimized correctly, but they were still deprived of surefire ways to circumvent the "Mother May I" situation (OTOH the casters were enjoying Macro by default with the GM having to intervene to stop spiraling out of control).

I was actually thinking about this and I think that 2e can fix this by just leaning heavier on skill feats, particularly athletics. Consider this idea I had for a Legendary skill feat.

Heroic Strength:

By concentrating the character can make a ---DC Athletics check and tap into a pool of magical strength. For 1 hour they can move objects as if they were under the effect of the Telekinetic Haul spell.

Obviously, that would have to be refined, but I think this sort of thing could maintain the parity between casters and martial while allowing more Macro play.

Whatever is in the books is very closely balanced and as such won't break the game. They won't include something that could be exploited to trivialize adventures..

This I think is a matter of game philosophy. What is the purpose of an adventure? Is it just a matter of rescuing the princess and slaying the dragon? I don't think so, personally. I think it's about defeating a world; defeating it in combat, or with words, or with a clever gambit. To give an example outside of ttrpgs, why is Breath of the wild so endlessly compelling. It's not really because the explicit adventure is so great, it's because the world is big and beautiful and hostile and you can touch it. It's fun to beat the moblins in a sword fight; it's epic to stack rocks in front of an exploding barrel and blow them away with artillery fire.

So i'm a bit tired right now so I will hold off on talking to your main points. But one thing to point out is that the Summoner does haves access to some monster rules, they get Knockdown and similar abilities. Which while that isn't swallow whole right now the design space is there.

Whoops. Missed that, strike it from the record.

So, this post will be super long and I need to explain the background but I think that it will be really illuminating on the fundamental pros and cons of 2e.
So, I just wrapped up my pathfinder 2e campaign. I was the dm and everyone had a really good time. It was a city building campaign and I had to homebrew a lot of the features like a slime-based sewer system but it was still a great campaign. In our group, we switch dm every time we finish or wipe. In this case, my friend got to be the dm and he is a big fan of 3.5. I had always been a big defender of 2e and we would often get into arguments about it. However, having the opportunity to play both games back to back I've had an epiphany about why the games play differently and why both are fun in different ways.

One of the goals of the design of 2e was to make it more balanced, and by most accounts, it was a success. 2e is probably the most balanced d20 system ever. I think this is a good thing for the most part. A lot of things done to make the game more balanced are great. I love skill feats. I love that martials, by default have supernatural strength. I think that the action economy is great. In almost every mechanical way, I think 2e is superior to 1e/3.5. But…there was still something missing; there was a type of joy I got from 3.5 that I just wasn’t getting in 2e.
For context, in my 3.5 campaign, I am playing a dread necromancer. I had acquired an undead template and I was trying to figure out a way to animate myself. I figured out a way to do it by using my familiar to tie up someone else, have summoned Allips lower their will, use soul jar to steal their body, and use revive undead on my own body. It cost me 5000 gold, a negative level, and a human sacrifice. I had essentially created my own ad-hoc evil ritual. That was the kind of thing I think that 3.5 does the best and I think that 2e is lacking.

I think that in ttrpgs there are actually two mechanical levels, a micro, and a macro. The micro-level deals with the mechanics as they pertain to the current situation. It's all the things we generally think about as mechanics. Pathfinder 2e excels at this. They even have good mechanics for roleplaying situations with their system of points for mysteries and such. Macro mechanics though are different. I think a lot of people conflate this with roleplaying but they're not the same thing. Roleplaying is the flavor of the campaign guided by player decisions, it usually doesn’t hugely affect the game other than maybe talking your way past a fight or two. Macro mechanics are about changing the game world. Creating golem armies, forming spy networks, cursing, or blessing strongholds with magical effects. Tunneling through dungeon walls, dominating other people's minds.

This has all been very theoretical until now so let me give a concrete pathfinder example. In 1e one of the characters I wanted to make was an information broker intrigue oracle. They would get a tone of abilities that would work with the role, like stealthy casting and a daily use of rumor monger. One of my main ideas was to use Enter Image and distribute statuettes of my character that would serve as spy cameras and communication devices with minions. I tried remaking this character in 2e and there was just no way I could even get close at present.

I think that there are a few key design decisions that 2e has made, largely in the name of balance, that hurt its macro design.

- There just aren’t a tone of open-ended non-numeric spells in general, especially at low level.

- The vast majority of spells like invisibility and illusory disguise don’t last long. Most also have tiny ranges unlike in 3.5/1e when high-level spells could have areas that affected entire cities.

- The new rules for minions mean it's almost impossible to create autonomous minions. No golem messengers, no undead workers. It's combat or they just go crazy.

- There aren’t many at-will abilities. The only character I could find with something like an at-will disguise ability was a witch archetype whereas they were easy to make in 3.5/1e. I was a little disappointed that the final version of the summoner still didn’t really have access to unique monster traits like swallow whole or rock throwing.

- Few noncombat archetypes and abilities. The only archetype I could find with unique non-combat abilities was the Dandy. The rouge doesn’t have any noncombat-based subclass either. There aren’t a lot of unique strange class features either, like the witches moving hut.

- Not a lot of material on permanent enchantments or structures. It would be hard at present for players to build their own dungeon, let alone the level of detail and options in something like the old 3.5 stronghold builders' guide.

I don’t think these problems are unsolvable though. In fact, I think that 2e's existing mechanical chassis can fix most of them. Here are my suggestions.

- Make rituals a bigger part of the game. Right now most of them are super rare and prohibitively expensive.

- Allow the creation of autonomous minions. If the combat balance thing is a problem just make it a rule that a player can't direct them in combat.

- Make more esoteric, non-numeric spells and have them last more than an hour.

- Add more skill feats, particularly at the master and legendary tier.

- Make it easier for players to create their own hazards, complex and simple. Right now this is possible but there aren't a lot of robust rules for it.

This is all just my opinion. I leave it to you. What do you think? What's your opinion on micro vs macro design? Is pathfinder 2e lacking in macro play? Are my suggestions good ones? Love to hear everybody's thoughts.

Maybe some version of a permanent telekinetic haul could be a feat.

The rules say you start with an implement that is mundane but there's no reason to suppose it has to start that way. They'll probably add an ability to "remake" your implements if you lose them. Your wand implement could also be a regular wand

There is one that I thought of. IT may sound crazy but I make it a bit of a challenge to build a magical girl in every system; I think a Thaumaturge with the vigilante archetype would be perfect. All you have to do is reimagine all the skulls and voodoo dolls as ribbons and bells and you have it.
you can summon your weapon to your hand, get a familiar, and make a pact with a fairy queen.

That makes me think of a thaumaturge that instead of vast esoteric knowledge, gets by with random junk and dumb luck. An accidental magic expert who gets everything wrong.

The-Magic-Sword wrote:

one weapon makes sense for a class with a really strong weapon fantasy like the Swashbuckler...

I've actually always disliked that you have to use a one-handed weapon for the swashbuckler; I wanted to be a jumpy-flippy spear person.

I'm already adapting an alchemist character. They're exploring the world and documenting every creature, biology, ecology and creating guidebooks to them all.

His purpose is to prevent any needless tragedies by creating guidebooks for all. So no one mistakes the signs of a raiding party nearby, or the signs of a new creature entering a territory etc.

Basically Dummy's guide to mosnters or a creature compendiam. They were previously using alchemist (lots of items, int based, easy to target weaknesses) and loremaster. but I want to try them out using Thaumaturge..

Thaumaturge gets a lroe similiar to loremaster lore. So that is a comparible thing. though I think lroemaster archetype is still desirable. As with the right choices. You can take 10 (which you can via a few skill feats though), but you can also decipher writing with it. Which.. IMO deciphering writings and obscure forgotten rituals etc is very inline with the concept.
I'm worried abotu skill numbers though. Being Cha based. I'm still hoping final product is cha or int as a choice.

That sounds pretty cool. I bet you could do an interesting variation of that concept who's a chef; they would want to sample every kind of monster in the world.

3) Too few "generic" class feats. If you're going for a very particular flavor, then great, you have something perfect. But if you don't have one of a few very specific flavors, you don't have much to choose from. The best example of this are the Pact Feats, which could be made into Contract Magic Items (which they are already incredibly similar to), then giving the Thaumaturge feats which interact with those Contracts in unique ways. This allows the Thaumaturge not only access to those Pacts, but lets them interact with the Contracts already printed.

I don't agree with this at all. The best part of this class is all the weird feats. In general, I think that 2E's biggest flaw is that too many class feats are "generic." The high lights are things like the Barbarian's earthquake and the Witch's walking house. They may be mechanically weak but I don't care.

I thought it would be fun to have a dedicated thread for the different character concepts people have for the thaumaturge. The idea of Dresden and Constantine are obvious but what are your outside-the-box ideas? Feel free to include an archetype pairing if necessary as well.

I thought it would be fun to have a dedicated thread for the different character concepts people have for the thaumaturge. The idea of Dresden and Constantine are obvious but what are your outside-the-box ideas? Feel free to include an archetype pairing if necessary as well.

A little bit of interpretation can expand explosions to include any kind of environmental damage effect. In say a mansion you could have it bee shoot out a chandelier or something.

Question, given that this is a book on magi-tech will it include more armor runes with unique functions to make the most of those new slots the inventor can get?

I agree, the best role for a sniper both in real life and in games is part of unit, they should get lots of support skills

I agree it would be cool to add a hulk buster option

Most of this could be done with reskining but I absolutely think a few extra medicine based features would be cool purhapse even a new sub type

I was just thinking that a fun addition for the armor and construct would be feats for becoming large and huge. Other classes have this so I don’t think it would be a problem. There could even be a variation of the druids Kaiju form that allows you to go gargantuan.

I have no real complaints here, I’d like some more options but that’s always true.

I do think harping about the name is unnecessarily fussy, after all the paladin is fighting against dastardly Turks in 1207.

I don’t really care that much about the specific flying example but I think the main source of contention is how the players carry through implications. Yes substituting one explanation for another works for a one to one problem but it is in players nature to experiment and to try to apply story logic to gameplay, especially new players.

Of course dms can correct any abuses intentional or otherwise but it is best to avoid confusion and to encourage experimentation.

If for example a character had a breath weapon that felt negative energy damage I could reflavor it to be ice because there an undead that hurts with deathly cold that could work. As long as all the correct damage modifiers apply.

However if they wanted to use this to freeze a lake to cross with it, I’d have to give it to them, that makes sense. I could in game that there spectral breath cant affect water or out of game just tell them no. But why would I discourage creativity like that

graystone wrote:

KrispyXIV wrote:

I pointed out that from level 5, Summoners have extreme freedom to navigate vertical obstacles by granting a climb speed on demand, which could easily be attributed to wings/flying in those cases.

I just don't see it. You still need your hands free and what sense does 'wings help' have on climbing DOWN or upside down on a ceiling? If anything wing flaps would actively make it WORSE. You want to tie it to jumping? Great. Running? sure. Heck, want to have penguin wings and tie it to swimming and I'm there. Climbing? Doesn't fit

Just to play devil's advocate here.

Bat style claws on the tips of the wings.

If you want your dragon to be more drake.

No one wants to be more Drake.

This problem could be avoided entirely if the eidolon and the summoner had more synchronized abilities.

I think that the phantom eidolons are also interesting, especially if they lean into them as spirits different from ghost that are still bound to there summoner by a personal connection, sort of like GEIST.

I would prefer players weren't encouraged to add wings to their eidolons ascethetic because then it wouldn't be an issue that they couldn't fly. A simple bit of text saying that eidolon dragons & angels, dragon typically don't have wings as it something they grow in later development would suffice.

Agree, just say that there wings are underdeveloped.

I'm sorry, I'm think we may have drifted off the real topic here.

I'm talking about making accommodations for player characters/assets who thematically could reasonably fly, but for balance reasons can't actually do so for 2/4 more levels.

Not as a general replacement for flight, and not for NPCs or monsters who have no need for such an accommodation.

Theres no "need", mechanical or narrative, to make an accommodation in that case.

That's fine but i think its worth keeping in mind that player abilities are not just keys to fit into specific locks. They should be flexible tools that players are comfortable using in unexpected ways.

Physicskid42 wrote:

I think the main problem is that players and GM need things to have universal properties so we can understand how they interact with novel circumstances.

Take, water for example. we know what water is and how it behaves. its wet, it cold, it puts out fires etc...

if we encounter a pool of oil and we just say to use swimming rules for water because, hey there both liquids that's fine for the circumstance but what if one players gets it into his head to light the pool on fire.

if the GM says "no i just said it was shimmering oil to make it cooler it's actually just water." that feels bad and makes the world less immersive.

This is an issue in a video game, not a tabletop RPG.

In PF2E, the GM has the ability to determine a hazard level, check one chart to determine how much damage it should do, and have people roll a reflex save at the standard DC for the level of the hazard. Whoosh.

Pf2e makes going from narrative to mechanics easy by making mechanics broad and simple.

yes but in order to come up with clever plans everyone must have a firm sense of cause and effect. for the flying vs climbing example. If the players are in an ice cave then the creature could fly but not climb.

imagine if the players were fighting this creature if they knew it was climbing and not flying they might try to trap it in a slick ice hole whereas if the creature is described as flying they would not, even if mechanically it was climbing

I think the main problem is that players and GM need things to have universal properties so we can understand how they interact with novel circumstances.

Take, water for example. we know what water is and how it behaves. its wet, it cold, it puts out fires etc...

if we encounter a pool of oil and we just say to use swimming rules for water because, hey there both liquids that's fine for the circumstance but what if one players gets it into his head to light the pool on fire.

if the GM says "no i just said it was shimmering oil to make it cooler it's actually just water." that feels bad and makes the world less immersive.

I never play published adventures my self and I pride myself on outside the box thinking, using powers in new ways. Different styles I guess .

Physicskid42 wrote:

KrispyXIV wrote:

Physicskid42 wrote:

I think the problem is that such an abstraction breaks down in all but the most specific circumstances. Flying isn’t just something you say to get over a hole . It’s a tool, a mode of play

And if the “balance” of flying is such a concern why can’t we just limit it to minutes per day?

At level 9, you get it for 1 minute for every 10 minutes you spend to refocus. For free.

That's objectively better than any "minutes per day" variant you might get at level 8 (the earliest possible level in line with established paradigms) as a feat.

Its literally a mandatory class feature already.

I disagree that it’s better that it’s better. I’d rather have some short term continuous flight. If my eidolon has to fly up a really tall tower for example he wouldn’t be able to stop every minute for a Gatorade . Admittedly this would be more helpful to an eidolon without the distance restrictions but that’s another thing I think is way to restrictive.

Rechargeable flight means at level 9 my winged eidolon can fly in every single encounter in a day if its important to me.

X minutes of flight limits me to, at best, flying in X encounters.

I would always take Rechargeable myself, as I would consider the example you presented to be a significantly less common an occurrence than wanting to fly in an encounter.

Sure, but you get the most out of flying outside of encounters.

Physicskid42 wrote:

I think the problem is that such an abstraction breaks down in all but the most specific circumstances. Flying isn’t just something you say to get over a hole . It’s a tool, a mode of play

And if the “balance” of flying is such a concern why can’t we just limit it to minutes per day?

At level 9, you get it for 1 minute for every 10 minutes you spend to refocus. For free.

That's objectively better than any "minutes per day" variant you might get at level 8 (the earliest possible level in line with established paradigms) as a feat.

Its literally a mandatory class feature already.

I disagree that it’s better that it’s better. I’d rather have some short term continuous flight. If my eidolon has to fly up a really tall tower for example he wouldn’t be able to stop every minute for a Gatorade . Admittedly this would be more helpful to an eidolon without the distance restrictions but that’s another thing I think is way to restrictive.

I think the problem is that such an abstraction breaks down in all but the most specific circumstances. Flying isn’t just something you say to get over a hole . It’s a tool, a mode of play

And if the “balance” of flying is such a concern why can’t we just limit it to minutes per day?

That’s a good explanation but I think it still shows a lack of consideration. That and the lack of combat spells and class abilities . I know most of that is covered by skill feats but it’s a crime that the mastermind gets almost nothing out of combat

Ok so imagine you have an enemy that is in hiding and the are waiting to attack the party. According to the the current system you role stealth and perception to determine initiative but what if the enemy wants to wait before attacking so he can get the whole team aon a floor trap. How do you hide as a hostile without intiative?