(Played this yesterday, no GM experience with this yet.) I'm not sure. I agree that the specific callouts feel weird, but on the other hand, allowing you to substitute your (probably) best skill for any other skill feels weird. It's like being rewarded even more for doubling down on one skill. It's like answering a maths test with a three-page essay about why you think you deserve an A on this test. Not necessarily disagreeing, just saying it's not flawless. Hell, I would maybe allow it as-is, but at a higher DC. That allows a broader range of characters to try it, but still keep the playing field even.
Dotting for interest. Have no ideas for a character yet, but I'll post something in the next two-three days. 1.I'm very flexible in class choice, and I like filling gaps in the party. I'm also pretty mechanics-first, as in, I build my character's personality around what they do mechanics-wise, not the other way around. Not the best "pick me"-pitch, I know. :P If there's a strong fourth contender, I'm happy to pass my spot to them. 2. I'm currently GMing the third book of Abomination Vaults, and I've done several modules and scenarios in both first and second edition.
3. The dice fall on incredible odds. Not simply good odds that favour the suspected gambler, but simply interesting situations. Triple ones, for example, or a straight. The gambler would be excited more by the outcome than whether they won the bet or not.
Michael Hallet wrote:
Realised that after I signed in. Sorry for jumping the gun, and have fun!
Hey all, a bit of an odd request here: I'd like to make an Animist, but I'd like to see one in action first, see how it plays out. I'm willing to run any scenario if there's at least one (ideally two, minimum) Animist at the table. I was thinking a 1-4 scenario, so people can easily make one if they don't have one already, but if a group of people happen to have Animists at a higher level, I'm happy to run higher tier. :)
Anyone up for joining? Feel free to whip up a new character altogether if you don't have an Animist. Or play a different character, as long as someone brings an Animist (maybe even two someones?). :) And also feel free to suggest a scenario. :)
I mean, Gisher exaggerated, but he makes a good point. Our characters might be aware of things our players aren't and vice versa. Overlaying game rules onto a fictional world requires some suspension of disbelief, and I think experienced players are just more familiar with the constraints and "invisible walls" than new players. I don't mean to say new players are bad at it, they just aren't (completely) aware of the social contract. It might feel natural from a game perspective to not squeeze every bonus out of a situation, but in the fiction, in a life-or-death situation, you'll grab every bonus you can get. And it's up to the players, not the characters, to adjudicate how far you wanna go.
Yeah, Ascalaphus and Unicore bring up a good point. Sounds like it's a bit of inexperience combined with poor expectation management. Players don't like being told what to do, combined with not knowing how the other players want from you. This doesn't have to be a thing, but a "hey, I'm used to a different style of game, let's see if there's a middle ground" conversation might be a good idea. That also prevents fingers from being pointed at each other and saying badwrongno. Though I also really like the idea of an in-character training session.
I'll be running this soon, and the adventure is obviously pre-remaster. I'm not even sure if I should change the pregens at all (run as written and stuff), but it seems like an obvious choice to allow the Cleric to use the new rule of 4 Heals per day. But if I do that, it becomes a slippery slope to also allow the Sorcerer to swap out Dangerous Sorcery. I'm just split between keeping things as-is and running things as written (you know, what PFS is about), and the whole "remaster means everything gets updated" mentality. See, updating the Cleric's Healing Font is just a simple adjusting of numbers. You get two extra Heals per day. Sweet. But allowing the Sorcerer to pick up a whole new feat seems like it's going against the spirit of having pregens in the first place. Then again, is it even necessary to update the pregens at all? If I were to change feats, I'd probably give the Sorcerer either Reach Spell or Natural Skill for two more trained skills (Intimidation is always good on a Sorcerer, though maybe not appropriate flavour-wise, and maybe Occultism), so it's not like it's a drastic change, but still.
I like to think that characters that are new to each other, such as at the start of a campaign, aren't a well-oiled machine yet, and play suboptimally for two reasons:
I get what the player is doing with feinting: they're showing off what they can do. But on the other hand, as others have also said, it's not metagaming to know there's only one penalty for being distracted. Maybe in a more rules-light game you could make the two effects stack, but not in PF2e. Yes, you don't have to squeeze out every +1 you can get or be as efficient with your actions as possible, but that shouldn't get in the way of basic combat. I have two stories I'd like to share, both from PFS:
Bottom line of these two stories: "It's what my character would do" is fun at the start and in low-stakes situations but players (and characters) should adapt to the group. It's a team game, and you cannot do your own thing if it is actually in the way of the group dynamic.
Definitely. Not sure if it should key off Charisma instead, but it's definitely a feat that changes the whole feel of the class, and deserves more exploration. Not sure what other subclasses would look like. If you go off the Rune-singer and interpret subclasses as different ways of calling runes into being, I'm just thinking of how other media depict different styles of magic. I've come up with:
Also, I think gnomes have different hair texture. the iconic Druid, Lini, has grass-like hair, though maybe that's just the artist's style. I also get the feeling their skin colour tends to be a lot more vibrant compared to halflings. Good Gnome art really shows how alien gnomes are compared to humans/halflings.
Fair, good point, thanks for pointing that out. Still feels like a powerful ability to give to a PC without specifically mentioning it, though. But while I was looking this up, I found something. Lots of undead from Monster Core specifically call out immunity to bleed, while older books don't. Is that just clarifying and moving the indirect reference to bleed immunity into the stat block, or are there also Monster Core undead that actually are susceptible to bleed? I haven't looked at all the undead creatures in MC to confirm either way. My question wasn't meant to be contrarian, just a new question that popped up.
Time to bring up an old issue: do skeleton PCs bleed? They are not covered in the FAQ, and I've seen discussions flare up about this. Some people say that undead PCs don't bleed, as per the normal skeleton creature, but that isn't reflected in their PC statblock. I personally think that's a strong bonus to be given to PCs, especially since it's not listed in their statblocks (then again, not breathing also isn't...). Against: Skeletons (and zombies) don't have a circulatory system, so what's there to bleed?
Not breathing is powerful, but very circumstantial. You won't encounter that very often. But lots of creatures or effects inflict bleed damage, and you could encounter that several times across a single level. Being immune to that while not listed as a benefit feels like a big oversight. I could envision it being an ancestry feat, or a heritage even, but considering Skeletal Resistance is a level 9 feat, I definitely wouldn't give it baked into the ancestry itself.
Ascalaphus wrote: PF2 chases seem to be a clever worker placement game, where you carefully figure out which PC should be doing which check, and who should be staying in reserve for the next obstacle. But it just doesn't really pan out. People don't understand, or don't really want to agonize over that kind of choice, or the GM isn't letter you look ahead to the next obstacle so it's a blind choice. All in all, the worker placement aspect of the minigame is a dud. I've seen the reverse to be also true. I've had players with bad/few skills go first because they knew they couldn't clear the obstacle in one go. Going after the rest would only cost them their precious victories, while I ruled you couldn't go into the negatives (can't have -1 chase points). The people without the appropriate skill go first, then the skilled people. If the obstacle wasn't cleared, they'd go in reverse, hoping they clear the obstacle before the differently skilled people crit fail again. "Looking ahead" isn't in the rules by RAW (as far as I can find), but seems reasonable. That makes the decision process a lot easier, but doesn't help if you're also bad in those skills. My main issue with skill challenges is that I've seen a lot of players who just don't have a lot of skills, or have a wonky stat distribution so that they don't have backup skills. I've seen several Barbarians or Fighters with +4 STR, +3 CON, which leaves only two or three more stat increases across four stats. Plus, they tend to favour Athletics since that's their only STR skill, which leaves only two more skills they most likely only have a +1 in. Rolling at a +3 or +4 at best while others are rocking a +6 or +7 just doesn't feel like you're contributing. I know, it's a conscious choice when you make such a stat spread, but that's objectively the "best" way to make a Barbarian. Go have fun with your skill challenges when you only have one "good" skill.
Haven't read book 6 in-depth yet, but you could also just have the PCs sail to Hermea themselves. You miss the big dragonstorm at the beginning of book 6 (which might be beneficial to the PCs, but you'd miss out on a cool setpiece), but now they'd have all the more reason to go to Hermea. Catch up with Uri, and stop the plan he and his sister have planned. Also, there's a three-day countdown. They ran through all three days?
I (re)played this adventure yesterday, and while we personally had no trouble with getting Swallowed Whole by the tendriculoses, there is something I'd like to point out. They have a rupture value of 14. With piercing and slashing resistance, that goes up to 19. Most light weapons I've found go to 1d6. Let's assume you have a striking rune. That's 2d6. At level 7, most martials get weapon spec for +2. Assuming a maxed out Strength, that's 2d6+4+2. If you roll max damage, that's 16 damage, still not close to reaching the Ruptire value if you take the resistance into account. You'd need some kind of spell effect, item, or class feature that allows for additional damage in order to pop out, and Flaming runes and the like are available from level 8 on. The Thaumaturge in the example above is a good one, but how is a standard Fighter going to reach that (okay, running the numbers, most melee classes can boost their damage, but only if they took a certain feat/subclass: Barbarians with rage, Fighters with Power Attack, Investigators/Rogues/Rangers with sneak attack, Monk with the right styles and flurry, Wildshaped Druid)? Let alone a lower-level character playing up. Hell, even 14 seems like a high number. The only saving grace is that it's off-guard, so it's slightly easier to crit. The only other option is to escape through the mouth again. An argument against resistances from the inside is also that for most creatures, their skin is protected somehow (thick hide/scales, and so on), but it wouldn't make sense for their insides to have the same protection (the stomach is basically a goopy bag - then again, would a plant have the same kind of stomach?). I don't know why a tendriculos would be resistant against slashing and piercing specifically, but I wanna bet the inside wouldn't have that. TL;DR: I think Rupture 14 is already pretty tough, adding resistances on top of that (specifically resistances against damage types to escape the belly) is practically impossible for most classes.
I'm always torn between letting the unknown be unknown - there is so much to explore already! - but on the other hand, that's where you get cool stuff. Arcadia feels like forbidden terrain, since so little has been done with it, but on the other hand, Bhopan was really fun. I'd say peel away those layers slowly. Revealing too much ruins the mystique. I expect Kyonin to change after the Spore War AP. But yeah, Kyonin has been vastly underexplored. Not sure what to do with Hermea (currently almost in the final book of a certain AP), but it definitely sounds interesting. I'd like more aquatic-themed adventures (not necessarily underwater, though that is an option). Not too many, but having to deal with different environments is fun. A change of scenery and different problems to solve. It's just that underwater poses a lot of challenges to unprepared PCs. I haven't seen much of Tar-Baphon, despite him being free. He's just sitting there (I know there's a high-level scenario revolving around him soon). I would've expected to see more of him in the last five years. Maybe more exotic places, even within the Inner Sea? The Mana Wastes, Nex, or Geb been left relatively untouched. Realm of the Mammoth Lords and megafauna are always fun. Numeria and its death robots, gloomy Nidal, or some classic horror in Ustalav. Or more hobgoblin goodness in Oprak. Thuvia and the Sun Orchid, or the Sodden Lands and pirates in the Shackles. And of course New Thassilon!
Radu the Wanderer wrote: If my best skill only succeeds 35% of the time, why bother investing in any skill at all? I guess the only point is to get access to the trained only actions, because the numbers do not seem make an iota of difference.
People have already made really helpful comments, but I'd like to add some more: - Yes, it feels a bit frustrating that "excelling" at something means you only have like a 50%-60% shot at succeeding. I admit, it's something you have to get used to. There's no real solution to that, other than using teamwork. Debuffing enemies and buffing your allies really helps, a lot.
Finally, I think Pathfinder Second Edition is just a tough game. Like other people said, you're not superheroes. But it can be if you want it to be. If you find things are too tough, ask your GM to tone things down a little. Lower DCs by 2 or 3, use the Weak template on enemies, and you'll have a much more enjoyable time if you just want to stomp enemies. And there's nothing wrong with wanting that, it's just that 2e expects a grittier game than you're used to/want.
I think it's because of the pendulum swinging in different directions. Most seasons focus on a certain theme and the fallout around that. Last few seasons have been rather social in nature, so all the metaplots will focus on that as well. Eventually, the story will move away from that and find new themes to explore. Another thing to consider is Pathfinder's now over fifteen-year history. A lot of scenarios currently are callbacks to other scenarios or earlier adventures, and unless you only explore only part of a bigger complex (such as the Pallid Peak), there's only so many ancient dungeons to discover. As mentioned earlier, there have been a lot of social events lately, and it's easier to write cause-and-effect stories around that. And those can theoretically be produced infinitely: Pathfinders meddle in business A, piss off group B. While fighting group B, group C gets involved, and so on. This is a practically infinite well of ideas and potential twists and turns. There's only so many ways to write an innovative dungeon delve.
I do feel like a lot of seasons require knowledge of the metaplot to enjoy, which is a shame. Not all players are able to play all the scenarios, and keeping up with the Society story isn't always an option. It's an extension of the my previous point, but I feel like earlier seasons, and also the earlier seasons in PFS1 were much more standalone in nature (I joined during Season 5 of PF1, and really started to follow the story in Season 6). It's a matter of balancing the pros and cons of an ongoing narrative (pro: lots of investment) against freestanding adventures (pro: easy to hop in), I guess.
Is it supposed to be dark? I'm not sure, the scenario doesn't mention it, but it seems reasonable. I'd say maybe. Are PCs supposed to be fatigued? Definitely not. While it's not the biggest penalty, giving an all-round debuff without the scenario specifically mentioning it seems a bit much. The time doesn't add up, but that shouldn't impact the scenario without specifically being instructed to do so. I think the two or three hours per leg was intended to impact the scenario in some way, but it was either forgotten or fell out during editing.
Just an after-action report: my very martially-inclined party (Rogue, Fighter, Barbarian, Thaumaturge) scored 8 points with a party of 4. I found it a bit odd that you have to fight the entodemonologist if you want full treasure. The party had a very pleasant conversation (only got 3 points, sadly), but got some information and swiped some plans. Yes, I guess it would've been nice if they had swiped all the books, but I didn't want to dock them points for solving things diplomatically. I had a few tiny niggles during the adventure, but overall it was a very interesting scenario, and I'm looking forward to potential follow-ups. Definitely looks like they're planning something. I'm sure the Godsrain will also open up new avenues here.
Ah, I knew I forgot something: the paper locust swarm (and tornado in higher tier) says it transforms into a swarm (or tornado) of paper locusts and one leather locust. Since there's no size or stats mentioned for the swarm or the locust, I don't think I should treat them as an actual swarm, right? It's tempting to use the stats for the swarm on page 15, but since the encounter doesn't mention them, I think it's just a 5-foot square. Similarly, the leather locust makes it appear that there's two individual creatures to fight, but the Routine only mentions the swarm/tornado. While on the subject of encounter A5, I see that in both tiers the swarm/tornado does 2d8+5/2d8+9 damage on a save, while a fail is just a flat 2d8, but with persistent damage. I know persistent is much worse, but the difference doesn't seem like a lot. Is this correct?
Maybe I'm missing text from the Obstacle subsystem, but page 8 says about the obstacles in the maze: Each PC can attempt any of the checks set forth in each obstacle...." The way I read it, that means, every PC can attempt a check at every obstacle. That's a lot of potential successes, while you only need a number of successes equal to the number of PCs to succeed. Other than that, I loved the tone from prepping it! I was surprised at the conciseness of the scenario (12 pages to the conclusion), yet it has a whole lot of content.
Adventures have "fight to the death" as a default option I find, because that's the easiest way of dealing with them, from an author's point of view. Especially named NPCs or people who know the BBEG's plot could throw a wrench in the plans if they were to survive and spill the beans. Plus, imagine an adventure where the author keeps track of every NPC after that encounter. The further you are in the story, the more elaborate the web of possible interactions becomes. An author might throw in an "if X is alive at this point, you can replace one random mook with X," but authors have limited time and resources available to them. Much easier to pass that job on to the GM, even if that seems lazy. I'd rather build that web myself than be overloaded with information from the get-go with flowcharts of which NPCs might do what, most of which becomes irrelevant when NPCs die. For example, imagine four random unrelated NPCs that could potentially interact with each other, and might want revenge on the players. An author has to account for whether that person is alive or dead, and if they're alive, if they're free to do whatever or are thrown in jail.
A has several options:
Similarly, B might do the same, but has to plan from jail. Which requires a separate text explaining how they accomplish that. And same goes for C (or C's friends/family/gang members, etc). This is only three NPCs. Imagine doing that for every single NPC you meet. The only reasonable solution is if there's the same explanation for all of them. Explain how they do it once, and let some higher power take care of the rest. For example, some corrupt politician bribes all the jailed NPCs out of jail and resurrects the dead ones. That's a whole lot of text only for random NPCs to interact in the future. TL;DR: "Fight to the death"-tactics might seem lazy, but it's just an easy way to not deal with enemies in the future. Any exceptions can be written out, but the GM will have to do the work if their players are merciful, because the author just can't account for all the potential outcomes.
Regular muggers? No, I don't think so. Most people prefer to live, so if they're outmatched, they either surrender or flee. Only truly desperate people fight to the death. The only exception I can think of are mobsters or other people who report to some higher authority, where failure isn't an option. They might rather want to die than to bring shame upon themselves.
I had the same issue. Party of 5, three at level 3, one level 1, one level 2. 17 challenge points, barely low tier. I ended up at 30 points due to the high modifiers from the level 3s, and still enough fails that each leg took 3 hours, rather than 2. Not that that mattered much, just thought I'd note it. While my table was especially lopsided, I do agree that 2 checks per person seems generous. Also somewhat strange that there's no adjustment for 5 players. Seems a bit unfair that they just luck into the 4 player adjustment.
Yes, curiously some reviews get eaten sometimes. And even more weirdly, it usually happens to badly-reviewed scenarios (or at least, I happen to see it more on those, see also this scenario from PF1). Indeed, they're still visible on the user's page, but don't appear on the product page. I don't want to assume bad faith or breach of community guidelines, but it seems very coincidental. There's certainly enough bad reviews remaining that I don't think someone is "cleaning up" the reviews to make them look better than they are.
I mean, I don't know how much gold there is on Earth, but it does indeed stretch the limits of believability when in higher levels you come upon hoards of 1000+ gold coins. For OP: a very brief history lesson (all from high school economics, so I might be grossly wrong and oversimplifying): back in the day, coins were worth the amount of money they were because the amount of precious metal in the coin was exactly worth the value of the coin. Say you go to a goldsmith and buy 1 bar of gold. You can melt those down into exactly the amount of gold coins you used to buy that bar of gold.
Banks started to come up where you could store your money, Basically, everyone at the bank had a bucket where people could store their money. You drop off your money where it's safe, it goes into your personal bucket, and later, you could ask for it again and someone grabs that amount of money from your bucket and gives it to you. Later, "paper money" was introduced as a letter of credit. It wasn't worth the hassle of lugging around piles of coins. You store all your coins at the bank, and you got a note from the bank that you can then trade in again to get that amount of gold from any other bank. And then, you could trade your letter of credit to someone else so that if they go to the bank, they got that amount of gold. Basically, the amount of paper money was exactly equal to the actual amount of gold in circulation. And rather than a clerk filing the bank note and withdrawing money from bucket A and putting it into bucket B, we just skip the whole middle process: banks don't divide their coins into separate accounts anymore, but keep it in one giant pile. Saves a whole lot of hassle and space, as you don't need like a million buckets anymore, with the risk of money accidentally going in the wrong bucket, and so on. Even later, we now trust that the banks are good for the money they say they have. The banks still hold gold, I believe, but the amount of paper money in circulation would outweigh the value of gold in storage. But if we would all withdraw our savings, banks wouldn't be able to give everyone their money, as the value is only theoretical. Money has value because we all agree that the green bill with the number on it is worth money. That's why our coins are made of mundane and cheap metals: they don't represent the value of their metal anymore. And to circle back to OP: the Middle Ages, roughly where Golarion is technology- and economy-wise, hasn't invented the bank notes yet (or maybe the early stages). Wealth isn't theoretical yet, so each coin is actually worth the value of their metal. The only abstraction is probably that 1 gold coin isn't worth 10 silver coins, but that's just to keep math easy and not worry about conversion rates.
YuriP wrote:
To Battle! is an archetype feat at level 8 that costs at least 2 feats to obtain (the dedication, and TB! itself). That's a pretty heavy commitment. Strike Hard! comes basically for free with the class at level one. Plus, since it doesn't eat an archetype, so you can archetype into something else (if you only wanted to get TB!, ignore this if you wanted it for other stuff as well).
Unicore wrote:
You don't have to go last. Just go after the person you want to use the tactic on, even if they're not next to the ideal target. Hell, I think it's better to go sooner rather than later, because knowing whether an enemy drops helps your party members prioritise. They don't have to spend actions walking over to an enemy if it's gonna drop in a single hit anyway. And more enemies on the field means it's more likely anyone is going to be standing next to an enemy at any one time. Also, why pretend Strike Hard! is only useful with only a handful of classes? Rogues and Thaums do loads of damage, maybe the Swashbuckler as well. Hell, Ranger with Precision, Inventors (although both of those fall under "free damage bonus"), wildshaped Druids... like half the classes would benefit from SH!, and even those with one-handed weapons or average damage output would kill for an extra attack, and don't pretend otherwise. Also also, oh no, a debuff, my day is ruined. Yes, getting penalties on to hit sucks, but it's not the end of the world. And in my experience, enemies don't debuff the party often enough to make Strike Hard a bad option. Yes, Strike Hard! can be situational, but it's still a damn good option to have. And like Trip.H said, it'll become the most brain-dead routine if you have it most of the time, probably the opposite of what's intended with the Commander.
I'm personally worried that Strike Hard! is going to be a "best in slot" option. Many tactics are situational, but an extra attack is pretty much always going to be useful. In all honesty, in the shape it is now, I'd rather not have it at all, no matter how appropriate it feels for the class. Adding some kind of cooldown or a "once per combat" rider to it feels weird, but would prevent people from spamming it every single round. Also, I think the "action loss" (two actions to do a single-action Strike) is completely fair. It's a powerful ability, plus, people forget it works across a pretty large distance. Instead of walking up to a creature, you can instruct your friend who's already there to smack it. Meaning you can stay out of danger or engage a different enemy. Two actions seems like a very reasonable cost, IMHO.
I guess the flavour of the Commander feels pretty niche, but Uncommon is more for things that don't fit the tone of the world. Druids wouldn't fit in an urban adventure, and Witches not in a low magic setting. The reason the Inventor and Gunslinger are Uncommon are that not everyone likes to have guns and tech in their adventure, because it implies a certain scientific advancement you don't want to deal with. A Commander wouldn't fit every party, I agree, but it does not shape the setting in any way.
I'm gonna throw a dissenting voice into the mix: I agree that 2 drilled tactics feels too low, but I think increasing it by one at every odd level is too much*. You'd have way too many options, and at high level many builds would have the same active tactics running, homogenising the class (though differentiating through feats is still possible). I'm not smart enough to suggest an ideal progression path, but I feel like it should be possible to increase them over time. * Compare this to a caster: Sure, they get extra spell slots, and at high level you have an absolute wealth of options available to you, but many of the lower-rank spells are practically irrelevant at that point. In practice I tend to use the highest two ranks of spells I have in combat, and anything below that becomes utility (with some exceptions, of course). Plus, spells run out, naturally decreasing your options over time. Let's say that a high-level caster has 7-ish relevant spells at once (including cantrips), and that number goes down with each use. A level 15 Commander would have 9 tactics to choose from, on top of being a martial and always having their melee/ranged strikes available to them, and I haven't even mentioned class feats that open up actions. That's an absolute overload of choices for every round of combat.
Decemvirate suspects:
Wait, Dreng? Missed that completely.
Also, Osprey always seemed like a close associate, but never really Decemvirate material. Plus, their disappearance after like Season 2 in PFS1 makes things difficult. But it would explain why they knew about Kyalla and Eyes of the Ten. Thanks for the list, eddv!
As a total aside, we know the identity of several Decemvirate members now, right? Or at least know of their existence, I believe. Am I missing people? Confirmed Decemvirate members:
Eliza Petulengro is a publically known Decemvirate member, and the Waterfall's identity was revealed at the end of season 4. Decemvirate members we know of: Season 2 opened with two Decemvirate members in Iobaria, Sapphire and Shrike (one of them also having a waterfall-like mask, but that could be coincidence), but I didn't really follow the rest of season 2 due to pandini-related reasons. I never really found out what happened to them.
I don't think the Decemvirate should count as "leadership." Yeah, they're technically leaders, but in practice they rarely show up to hand out missions (excepting one or two scenarios). They're not the focus of the Society (unless there's a specific storyline, such as last year's). Yeah, they're around, but they're not important enough in your day-to-day life to remember. Or rather, you're too unimportant for them to involve themselves with you. Anyway, point is, the Decemvirate is just a "plug in when needed" device, and that's fine (IMHO). I do agree though that Starfinder has a lot of cool storylines involving the faction heads I wish Pathfinder would incorporate. That could also fix the problem Zoomba mentioned of not being invested. Killing off or removing people seems a bit drastic, as I think they all fulfill an important role in the Society, but I would welcome a reason to care more about them (other than playing "f-, marry, kill" with the school heads) (Kreighton Shaine, Sorrina Westyr, and Marcos Farabellos respectively, by the way)
After a single PFS scenario as a Commander, I feel like Commanders need a little guidance to help them out. They feel a little unfocused, and because they're a bit unorthodox (IMHO), players might not know what to do with them. Subclasses could guide them, but might also unnecessarily restrain them. Someone on the boards suggested three subclasses. One uses the Combat Medic, one the Deceptive Tactics, and I forgot the last one (Combat Medic and Deceptive Tactics have feat trees anyways). I like this, but I might do them differently: one focusing on the banner (increasing range and effectiveness), one on the mount, and maybe one more on the skills (giving bonuses to feinting and Medicine, for instance) and running interference. Like the typical inspiring warlord, mounted warlord, and cunning warlord style. The cool thing with this is that they don't step on each other's toes. You can take the banner subclass and still pick up the other feats without feeling like you're missing out. A lot of other classes have subclasses that lock each other out of goodies (Barbarians require certain instincts and Bards require Muses, for example), but that does not need to be the case here. There are no feats locked to certain subclasses, it's just that some subclasses get a bonus from them, similar to how Alchemist subclasses focus on different alchemical items (Poisoners boost their poison DC, but others can still use them).
Anyway, as I said, not sure if the Commander needs a subclass, but I do think a little more hand-holding is appreciated.
exequiel759 wrote:
Would it be a good idea to have subclasses that give a "free" tactic to be used? Maybe divided into movement/offensive/defensive or something like that? Or maybe like a Wizard's school (which is essentially the same)? I was thinking of maybe allowing a "one of each" approach, but that seems needlessly restrictive. Also, sometimes you want offensive tactic A and sometimes offensive tactic B, so forcing people into choosing only one seems bad. I haven't played a Warlord yet (I will on Wednesday), but I do think the current number of 2 "active" tactics seems too limited. If you had one or two always available tactics that means you can choose more niche options so you're not locked out of options when your niche isn't available.
Deceptive Tactics is good because it doesn't eat a Tactics slot. You only have two tactics at a time (so far), so this is for the people who didn't pick Pincer Attack (or vice versa). It's good to have redundancy/fallback options so people aren't stuck with the one option. Another option is that you can use Deceptive Tactics and an actual tactic in the same round. You could do Deceptive Tactics, Piranha Assault, Strike, in the same round, for instance. A third option, though this might just be an editing thing, is that Pincer Attack specifically says If any of your allies end this movement adjacent to an opponent, that opponent is off-guard to melee attacks from you and all other squadmates who responded to Pincer Attack Note the lack of "you or any of your allies" there (which is present in End It! or Piranha Assault), meaning that if you're the only one threatening an opponent (maybe the other frontliners are busy with other enemies), you didn't put that opponent off-guard. The differences are subtle, but I think it's worth having Deceptive Tactics as a feat, maybe even alongside Pincer Attack. About Lord EmbokAC: 16 (10 +3 Dex, +2 Armor, +1 Dodge)
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