Search Posts
Absolutely thrilled to be getting the Swarmkeeper archetype! That's something I've been hoping for ever since the PF2 playtest surveys about your favorite PF1 options. I had three or four characters in PF1 with various swarm-related aspects, and it'll be nice to have that around as an option again.
What's a "middle ground?" ;P Well, flat metal surfaces for cooking are pretty robust, but I imagine some of the smaller portable ones for pancakes might be less so. If a bunch of people got rid of them at once, I guess you could get a pile of them? Oh, you said "middle ground", not "griddle mound". Yeah, I dunno either. Isn't that the name of Tolkien's homebrew setting?
I think Resentment only works with names conditions, so off guard but not the status penalty.Under this reading, how would something like Synesthesia work? Are we saying that only the Clumsy condition would get extended and not the other parts of the spell? Yep, that's exactly how some folks are running it. Clumsy 3 is still pretty strong on its own, since it's rare to get a status penalty that high.
In my head, they're going into a new semi-common category. I'll be even more willing to accept them into a game than Gunslinger or Inventor, but I'll still expect a player to do the legwork of considering how they fit into the game and presenting their character pitch. Realistically, Thaumaturge is probably in a similar category, where I want a bit of explanation for what your character's deal is. --- As for my concepts, I really want to do a legendary gnoll,blessed by Lamashtu. (More gnoll than kholo, since it leans more towards the older, more mythic lore.) Hyenas are known for their bite strength, and being able to make their bite attack an ikon feels fitting, eventually allowing for some very dramatic feats like eating the sun. It's the sort of thing I used Bloodrager for in PF1, and Thaumaturge for in PF2. A lot of my concepts are on hold until we find out the details of the domain archetype. Domains were a big part of my Exemplar customization, so I'll also need to see how much the class' other features are tuned to allow interesting customization.
Eh, I'd disagree there. Mentalism, for example, has a really strong and clear theme. It's pretty clear what kind of spells it covers, and that doesn't include Fireball. Let's suppose you, for some reason, are set on rendering the lists meaningless, and come up with an argument that makes a modicum of sense for swapping in Fireball. You're probably coming up with an interesting character- maybe a flashy stage magician mixing illusions with real magical pyrotechnics. The act itself has value, and you end up with something more interesting than just "wizard with a fireball", which is a very generic concept.
Are the Power Words still in the game or have they been OGLed? Someone mentioned that Power Word Kill had become Execute.
(Probably the wrong thread for hot takes about formulae, since it's not an errata item.)
Okay, you're lumping some thing together, and I think I see why it looks bad to you. There are two categories of errata needed. 1. Errata to the books coming out. This is minor stuff, and this is the normal time for it to be found. It turns out that having dozens of people read over a book, looking for every difference, is a really good way to catch things that slipped through the cracks. This shouldn't make you concerned about future books, because this is how it's always worked and you seem to have been okay so far. 2. Errata for other books. No amount of editing would make the slightest dent in this. Inventor had a feat that helped badly patch the terrible crafting rules. Fixing the crafting rules was guaranteed to break this, and the only other option was leaving crafting broken. Also, Inventor's feat is only useless because crafting got such a big buff. Inventors are still better off. Magus had a feat that relied to Wizards of the Coast's magic system. The only way to not break it would be continue using WotC's stuff. The feat still works just fine with all the old spells, so Magus is fine for the time being. These will likely get fixed up at some point through errata, and there might be Pathfinder Society guidance you can use at your own tables even sooner than that. This shouldn't make you worried about future books because the remaster is an unusual situation. Paizo doesn't normally go back and change sections of the core rules. But, it does explain why there's much more talk about errata than usual. Looking forward, PC2 is mostly options rather than rules changes. You probably don't need to expect a lot of out-of-book impact for anything other than maybe alchemy and mutagens. New rules books will be using the remastered rules, so there won't be much conflict there. The period between PC1 and PC2 is going to be weird, of course, but things should smooth out.
Oh dang, Courtly Graces is actually useful on high-charisma characters now! If you use the regular skill instead of substituting, you get a +1 circumstance bonus. It was such an annoying situation where many characters who would take backgrounds that grant Courtly Graces would find it useless. Now it does something for anyone moving in high society.
The Herbalist can be better, though - it just means taking a feat for it. Additional Lore works with background lores in the remaster. This isn't something I'm bringing up from a balance concern, more an annoyance one. There frequently isn't a background that fits well, and having the lore scale makes the problem matter. Groups have a spread of four or five background granted lores, and scaling the background lore takes "Hey GM, can I use (slightly off-topic lore)?" from an occasional thing to a regular occurrence. Realistically , my annoyance with the Undead Lore thing would be a bunch of people online pushing it as a way better background, so it's a minor consideration next to the things I expect would change for tables I play in. I much prefer the situation where if someone has a scaling lore, it's because they took something for it. That said, everything I'm saying is just my balance of preferences. None of it diminishes that yours are valid, and probably common. Some people do care more about the lore, and plenty of characters would make more sense with a scaling lore. As a way to make that work under the current system, I'd love to see something like the Pillar common background, granting Additional Lore, but with the more broadly useful flavor of "you are someone who continues to pursue your craft even as you adventure". It's something that could be added in PC2 or a later book, even with the remaster keeping background lores at trained.
I'm gonna personally disagree on background lore automatically scaling proficiency. It's better off as something minor by default, with the option to scale it with the Additional Lore feat. Then you can play a former herbalist, or take a background because the skill feat is important to the character without winding up with Underworld Lore as one of your best skills despite the thematic discrepancy. I don't really want to run into a bunch of once-bitten wizards because scaling Undead Lore beats any magic-related skill feats on an Int class.
I am vaguely curious whether the new name is because "half-orc" was feared to be an infringement on WOTC or because the devs felt they just deserved their own name. Given orcs are still "orcs", I'm betting it's just time they got their own name. It's not like "half-orc" makes more sense than "half-human" does under the new system.
Just found out about the Group Impression changes, and I'm surprised they're not being talked about more. I'd already heard that you could Make and Impression on up to five people with a penalty by default (-2), and that Group Impression removed that penalty, but I didn't know that the scaling got a big buff that actually feels appropriate. Trained is ten people, expert is twenty, master is fifty, and legendary is one hundred. Going into a market (indifferent attitude), speaking loudly and making an appeal starting with who you are and why what you're doing matters, rolling a crit against the lower-level people within easy earshot with enough time to listen, and moving a few dozen people to helpful and willing to keep an eye out for somebody in particular? That actually does feel like a masterful feat of diplomacy. And maybe it's not a crit- the roll isn't that good, or this market isn't one where there are just a bunch of everyday citizens wandering around. You can still move some people to friendly, and willing to at least hear out a request. It feels like what "Group Impression" should be doing, not just allowing talking to more than a single person at a party. Coerce remains a more one-on-one action, which makes sense (both thematically, and because Intimidation has a great combat debuff built in rather than behind Bon Mot), and Group Coercion scales at half the rate of Group Impression. In that same situation, a character could go into the market, and start throwing around their authority or power to start threatening a bunch of people into keeping a lookout for the person of interest and reporting back. They don't get quite as many, with the edges of the crowd just slipping away instead, but they can still get a dozen or two. It's not going to win them any long-term favors, but they also aren't going to have to spend time making individual appeals like a regular diplomacy success would. Master proficiency only would have been good for ten people in either case before.
Just remember to never wield it in two hands ^^. Or just reflavour a leiomano, machete or something to avoid that silliness altogether.Same, especially rogues. The changes to ruffian rogue racket sound so cool; I can't wait to make a ronin-esque katana ruffian. Switching to two hands is useful any time you can't get sneak attack damage, like dealing with precision immunity or getting separated from any group flankers.
You only get one of three when you take the feat. "Combined" doesn't mean "you get all of them", just "there wasn't any point in having multiple unarmed attack feats when they could be just one".
Just some of the small stuff that I'm happy about, plenty of which has been mentioned. - Swap change is a huge quality of life improvement. I had a Thaumaturge have to drop an implement in the middle of combat because we needed an emergency potion, and that always bugged me. - Rules for tossing something to someone! Look, seriously, I know GMs could and did just wing it, but it's very satisfying to have something formal to point to. - The improvement to the Cauldron feat. Magnificent. It doesn't overshadow any of the alchemy options in the game, and our Witch is still getting good mileage out of an Alchemist multiclass, but an on-level potion once a day feels good and opens up a lot of interesting options. Or, if you want to keep it simple, it can eventually be a staple like Haste or Fly in a bottle. (At some point, I want to do a character that uses it for a free daily upgrade to their skillful tail ancestry feat.) - Illusory Disguise encompasses Veil now, and we have a flexible illusion cantrip for when you just want to show a rough map or be petty and cast a spell just to have a caricature of somebody flip them off on your behalf. - General feat for a customizable pet! It's just a fun feat, which isn't usually what the general feat slot gets to do. - The Repeat a Spell activity has apparently been improved such that you aren't risking fatigue with Shield or a Bard's composition cantrip. You only need to worry about fatigue with cantrips that require a bunch of complex control, like Figment or Prestidigitation. It's probably the least stealthy exploration activity, but being able to start combat with your AC bonus or the party buff active is nice.
Alchemist, Witch, Oracle, and Champion- it was four classes in total. (Champion for different reasons than the other three, though.) I'm heartened by Witch as well, yeah. Looking forward to seeing what their new take on Alchemist is, and glad it gets some extra time to bake.
Btw, I would caution against thinking that this list directly reflects what will be in the SF2 Core. Just because Skittermanders aren't on there doesn't mean they aren't in. I'm pretty sure the devs realize how much we love them, they just aren't in FT3 ^^ I'm not necessarily expecting them in the core book, but definitely in the first additional batch of species. Six arms is a lot to be core. But I also wouldn't be too surprised if they're in core.
Are ysoki even popular? Yeah, they are. They show up in a sizable chunk of the live play casts, and most artist commission portfolios I've seen in Starfinder spaces feature at least one ysoki, if not more. I can't speak as to Starfinder Society numbers, so it's just some anecdotal evidence. That said, I wouldn't expect them to rank highly in this particular poll since they're one of three options with an existing PF2 version.
Most of it, with a little mix-and-match. I've got an illusionist Wizard I'm already playing who will be using the substantial upgrade to Conceal Spell, selecting something for the freed-up feat, and also adding some of the new or upgraded spells. No more separate Veil spell, they get Figment for casual illusions, etc. My Thaumaturge is happy to have item swapping. Might grab the occultism curse removal I've heard about. I don't think there's any noticeable impact at all on my Kineticist, but I'll see if Acrobatics gets anything.
Yeah, something similar would be good. But I do think that the concept of "casting spells of one elemental is allowed" is too narrow for the "bloodrager" instinct. I think whatever spell list they get (and maybe we just specify arcane) they should be able to cast all spells from it as though they had the rage trait. And be able to substitute weapon movements for somatic components. But I also know those got reworked (but I don't recall how) so maybe that part isn't relevant anymore.Something similar to the Elemental Instinct ?Moment of Clarity doesn't work very well for the Bloodrager. They could use a real barbarian instinct or archetype for this.Actually, that's a solid idea. An instinct that has a special kind of rage that allows for spell casting and maybe grants a few cantrips and 1st level spells. The only spells needing free hands are ones with a locus, which so far is just planar travel spells. (Oh, and Slashing Wind, but that specifically calls out free hands instead of being it being a spellcasting thing.)
Nope.
I can hardly state how much having a basic swap items action improves so many little experiences in the game. Yeah! No more chucking your bow on the ground to pull out your sword. My weapon/regalia Thaumaturge will be able to use an emergency item without needing to casually drop his allegedly important relics.
I can hardly state how much having a basic swap items action improves so many little experiences in the game.
Too light on fixing the warpriest? That's definitely a take; I feel like clerics (and especially warpriest) made off like Robin Hood level bandits with this remasterThey didn't get fixed in the ways that would support how people want to play them. I think players want a wave-casting Champion and anything less is going to be seen as a failure. (How some people want to play, some players want a wave-casting Champion, and anything less is going to be seen as a failure by some. A lot of folks are pretty happy with the changes that were made. Sorry if that's what you meant by your post already, though.)
Too light on fixing the warpriest? That's definitely a take; I feel like clerics (and especially warpriest) made off like Robin Hood level bandits with this remaster Some folks were of the "wave caster or bust" mindset. Warpriest is still a full caster that has levels with lower accuracy than martial classes. As good as the buffs are, anyone who mainly wanted that to not be the case is out of luck.
You can always recreate anything you want for your own games but the short answer is no, you cannot. Part of what made schools good was the sheer number of spells you had access to for that final slot. The new schools give between 1 and 3 spells per spell rank and even if you made a custom school that gave three spells per rank you'd fall well short of what the old schools used to give.Given that this would be mostly for importing an existing wizard (transmuter), I agree with the other's who suggested that it could work. School of Protean Form should do a good job of that. The new focus spell let's you scramble an enemy's body a bit to make them sickened, if I remember correctly. The spell selection:
Do you want to convert existing wizards over to a similar new school? Yeah, that's easy. They mostly map to one of the schools, with illusion and enchantment getting merged thematically. They'll have a smaller spell selection for the bonus slot, but as a GM, I'd probably grab the player's favorite spell of each rank from the old school and add it to the list for the new one. That should avoid a player feeling like they're missing out on something important from before, without doing much work. Also, Illusionist can be carried forward with no problem, because illusion is still a spell tag.
My concern ms about defining arcane magic as something more scientific and studied though are that losing schools of magic gives players no framework for talking about the classification of spells and how they can be used that doesn’t feel like charlatan hocus pocus. Which I can be ok with, (arcane magic not really conforming to the rules and classifications any school of wizardry tries to place on it), but it is a narrative lore space that needs a whole book’s worth of material to start filling examples and in world implications of things like “necromancers” now just kinda of being creeps obsessed with the dead, and probably leaning heavily out side of the arcane tradition to be particularly good at controlling or using undeath powers. Ehhh... The old classifications work about as well now as they did then. Paizo just isn't going to put the label on there for you. We don't exactly have Discern Taxonomy in real life, so this makes the Thassilonian classification one popular option instead of the one true classification with spells and feats confirming it.
Offer not valid for 80% of witches playing Resentment patron, who need Phase Familiar to keep their buddy alive a little longer. (Conflicts with Patron's Puppet, I think?) Resentment also doesn't want to use their hex for turn at the beginning of the turn anyway (better to extend durations after casting your debuff spell), so a Witch going with Resentment has a couple reasons to go with Phase Familiar. On the opposite end, Patron's Puppet works especially well for Faith's Flame, since you only need to keep your familiar near some allies (giving extra distance).
That character still does not exist within official PF2 products as created by Paizo. So what, in universe, has changed to prevent such from existing with the same ease and frequency as they could have in PF1?Rare spells that can be easily disallowed, summoned elementals that are significantly worse than outsiders, and 3rd party material... Wow! I'm convinced now! Nothing changed in-universe. The rules are the lens through which we interact with the setting, but they aren't a one-to-one mapping of that fictional universe. The rules allowed body-hopping wizards, but the setting didn't feature many, if any, body-hopping wizards. The only classes with possession features in something like an archetype were Witch, Spiritualist, Psychic, and Mesmerist. When PF2 rolled around, the focus adjusted. The lack of systemic longer term body-hopping was better reflected by the Possession spell being shorter duration and very difficult to use reliably, especially against someone more powerful. The distinction between arcane magic and magic that interacts with souls was drawn a little more clearly, so the Possession spell ended up on the occult list instead of being very broadly available- lining up with what classes actually got options related to it. It became uncommon, better reflecting the setting's general lack of people suspecting a criminal was possessed, dragons taking precautions against being possessed by scrawny casters, etc. The changes were on the rules side, not in-universe.
The proposed spell traditions certainly make more sense with the lore of essences, but I'd find them unpleasant to play with. Having no spells that can affect the material world directly is a big pain and would limit certain casters to just sitting on their hands when there aren't strangers or ghosts around. I do think it's important for the magic traditions to sprawl a bit outside of their strict confines. But, hey. If things roll around to PF3 and the designers want to sit down and make lore-guided spell lists that still give everyone plenty of things to do, I'm happy to check it out. I'm not going to rule out the possibility that I'd like the result. As it is here? Eh... it feels needlessly strict.
Rare spells that can be easily disallowed, summoned elementals that are significantly worse than outsiders, and 3rd party material... Wow! I'm convinced now! You said the character "wants to create a demiplane with a stored clone", and PF2 supports that being a research project instead of trivially guaranteed. Elementals are outsiders, at least in the PF1 categorization. They're a lot more varied in PF2, so I wouldn't just dismiss them out of hand just because they were generic in PF1. But, if you just want powerful flashy summons, there's elemental herald and some incarnate options like throwing a bunch of dragons at your enemies. The third-party material is replacing something that most GMs wouldn't have let fly in PF1, repeatedly magic-jarring a dragon to ignore your weak stats. Just because PF1 didn't have rarity didn't mean that GMs had to let you get away with everything, and some of the most broken things didn't carry over, or got easier ways for GMs to opt out of them. Yeah, getting some third-party content approved is often more work than getting your GM to not kill your wizard's body after three days of re-possessing a dragon... but not much more. My point isn't so much to convince you that, oh, PF2 is just as strong as PF1. It's that the character itself, a wizard grasping for the safety that a private dimension with a backup body, calling upon otherworldy forces to fight their enemies, and (with some leniency by the GM) looking very imposing in the process, is still something that the system is set up to do, even for an intentionally difficult suggestion.
The way PF2 works, there really is no character that existed in PF1 that can’t already be made, or simulated well enough with the addition of a specific archetype that there is a need to fundamentally change the lore to make it fit. Like “but I used to be able to cast 8magic missiles a day” isn’t really a narrative thing that matters.Okay so show me how a Wizard who wants to create their own demi-plane with a stored clone who currently inhabits the body of a dragon and mainly starts battles by summoning powerful outsiders with top level spell-slots can be made in PF2. I'll wait. Wizard who wants to create their own demiplane with a stored clone who mainly starts battles by summoning powerful outsiders with top level spell slots. The ability to have the full spellcasting of a wizard and the powerful body of a dragon turned out to be kind of broken, but you can still do it with a popular third-party piece.
The four traditions, especially with arcane schools being removed, are fundamentally incompatible with how magic used to work on Golarion. Any attempt to define them without there being some in universe reason for them having changed in the first place is doomed to failure because all the pieces that must fit to explain things cannot currently fit. I hope Paizo is willing to write the changes they've been forced to make into lore without destroying the already tenuous connection some classes have to their past versions. Eh, it matches up just fine. We had three traditions of magic before, with Bard and Witch being weird outliers on arcane and Druid/Hunter/Ranger being a weird outlier on divine. In PF2, Bard got moved over to the occult list, and Druid's list got spun off into Primal. That actually fits PF1's lore better than PF1's mechanics did. As mentioned, the only big thing keying off of schools of magic in terms of lore is sin magic, which was the inspiration for Wizard's schools of magic. Now, instead of clumsily fitting gluttony and all of necromancy together, they can eventually make a gluttony school that has suitable necromancy spells like Vampiric Siphon, but can also actually conjure food or transmute it to remove poisons and improve the quality. I guess there are a few odd results of the shift, like arcane magic not being a great fit for calling devils anymore, but I think we've all been expecting an arcane devil-binder archetype at some point, whenever they get back around to Cheliax again.
What? The names "intellect devourer" and "purple worm" are removed? I understand Paizo cannot use kuo-toa, neothelid, or yuan-ti because these names are 100% created by Wizards of the Coast. But intellect devourer and purple worm look like very generic English word to me. How can Wizards of the Coast own a generic word? By the same logic, I guess Paizo can use names like red dragons, blue dragons, gold dragons, silver dragons, et cetera freely without problem because these names cannot be owned by Wizards of the Coast. How can Disney own "Frozen"? That's just one word! If I made a movie called "Frozen" that's about a ski-lift malfunction that strands people on a mountain, I'm not going to get sued. If I make a movie called "Frozen" that is about an ice princess, I'm going to be having a long talk with the Mouse's legal team. Or a short talk, more likely. (That probably gets into trademark vs. copyright, but I'm still going to use it as an example.) Paizo only used "intellect devourer" and "purple worm" as monsters because D&D did. They didn't just happen to come up with the same names. If Paizo had a "purple worm" that was a small creature that gnaws its way into people's arms and takes control of that arm's motor functions, they would be probably fine. It's not actually the phrase "purple worm" that's protected; it is the combination of "purple worm" and "massive high-level burrowing worm with a stinger" together. On the flip side, D&D can't be sued by the license holder of Dune for using a big burrowing worm, but they probably can't call them "sandworms", "Makers", or "Shai-Halud". Similarly Paizo can have Stompy the Dragon, a dragon that is both evil and red. Paizo probably can't have evil red dragons, green dragons, blue dragons, white dragons, and black dragons, alongside good bronze dragons, gold dragons, silver dragons, copper dragons, and brass dragons. That's clearly just using D&D's particular interpretation of dragons. I'm not a lawyer, so take it with a grain of salt.
A very strange interaction of the Sacred Ground feat is that if you want to use it to heal people inside a cathedral consecrated to your own god, you must either take people outside or break the cathedral's consecration. Unlike the cathedral's consecration, this doesn't appear to have any effective rank for a counteract check. I think the cathedral just wins, and it's up to the GM to allow it to function in a consecrated area of the same deity. But without counteract stats, I don't think this can function in another god's consecrated area. Might be a good FAQ/errata candidate? Having a scaling counteract modifier that only suppresses other consecrations for the duration does give it another useful thing to do without just trashing a big ritual.
Eh, I'm just going by the first dictionary definition. Unholy's primary definition is wicked and sinful, while profane's is secular rather than religious.
So good gods use holy power and evil gods use unholy power? I personally don't like the term "unholy" because, well, we don't say good and ungood, lawful and unlawful, neutral and unneutral right? Wouldn't it have been better if Paizo came up with an entirely different word instead of "unholy"? for example, how about "profane"? Profane means secular or non-religious, so it'd be a poor fit for "tied to the worship of evil deities". That's kind of the problem - a lot of antonyms of holy either mean "worldly" or rely on an "un-" prefix.
It's not one I'd take, but it's definitely something I'd recommend to any player who wants to go around doing miracles. Being able to go around healing masses of people with your deity's presence is fitting, and it's only a one-minute activity for the Cleric. They can either move on, or speak with a captive audience for ten minutes. (In a much more limited sense over on the evil side of things, a Cleric can go around repairing the damage to hundreds of mindless zombies.) In a dungeon, it's probably most useful when the Cleric needs to refocus, at least for those gods where giving medical treatment isn't a refocus activity. But yeah, mainly I think it's there so Kineticist doesn't hopelessly outshine Cleric as a healer of the masses or getting members of an army back on their feet. I'm happy to have that in whatever form it takes, because it's a thing that felt off.
This is very specific, but I'd really enjoy Starfinder rakshasas and finding out what they're up to in the future. Maybe their niches are already too filled out already, but still.
Kineticist is great but there are definitely concepts that people come to the table expecting a wizard to fulfill that that con-dependency gets in the way of. KAS does matter for theme, a lot of people who want to make big fireball explosions also expect the character to be a fragile nerd. I definitely recommend having a Kineticist carry around a spellbook, wear loose robes over their leather armor, and chant nonsense when they channel elemental power. Enemies will expect a fragile nerd too!
I'm happy to see void healing getting cleaner support in core, since we've got Blood Lords, dhampirs, and playable undead. Our party's Warpriest will be happy with the changes too!
From the previews, I was excited to start seeing unique species feats, like shirrens being able to get a major boost to saves against the Swarm.
Oh, I definitely know how it's simplified, but that doesn't tell me what parts somebody is talking about and cares about. The three action system is also simpler, and that was mentioned as a positive. Just a general, hand-wavy "it's dumbed down" isn't useful, because most people don't want a game made more complicated for no reason. You can discuss something more specific, like the move from feature-heavy classes to "initial feature plus class feats", and that would get somewhere more productive.
However, the overall dumbing down of the system is not a good thing and I hope Starfinder learns from this (but I doubt it will). Remember this is why Pathfinder was started in the first place! D&D 4.0 was a terrible system, it completely dumbed down AD&D to a tactical miniature game... and now I see Paizo following the same track with the 2.0 system; it's not nearly as bad as what WotC did, but it is heading in that direction. I can mostly deal with the 2.0 rules system (except for the crafting rules, they're just bad), but when the 3.0 comes out I'm betting another company will come along and reforge the roleplaying experience yet again. Look, "dumbed down" is kind of a rude way to describe it, and it's also unclear what you mean specifically. Trying to make your point by talking about 4e is worse. We're a decade past that, and Paizo hasn't handled things like WotC. You may know what you mean by those, but I can't tell if you don't like focus spells or want a thousand general feats. Historically speaking: It is rare for any institution to fix its problems for the better. Typically, things will continue to get worse until it completely fails (see what WotC is currently doing to both MtG and D&D). Please don't misunderstand, it's not out of the realm of possibilities to fix their problems and perhaps release a 2.5 version which deals with the dumbing down of the game; just that the chances are slim from a historical perspective and all. This doesn't seem to fit the reality of the situation to me. PF2 is doing much, much better than PF1 did. There isn't some big mistake where Paizo went too far and streamlined things so much that players are bouncing off the system as a result. Tons of people are enjoying it, playing it, and having a good time. Don't get me wrong, I loved the chaotic crunchiness of PF1. I had a character with seven character sheets, and a caster who poisoned people and turned invisible before he touched his standard action. But when I sit down to try getting back into making a PF1 character, it's a chore, and enough of one that I stop. Usually when I've heard someone not feel that way, they're using HeroLab to do the heavy lifting. I used to kind of dread getting a brand new player, because of how much explanation would be needed to get them through just the action system and character creation. It's also not like there's some huge loss of what sort of characters you can make or games you can run. Just for a personal example, Spoiler:
my gnoll Thaumaturge in Blood Lords got his powers by ritually tapping into the secrets of the country's buildings while working for the Builder's League (weapon implement, hammer). He used that to start making his own undead to set himself up in the style of the gnoll rulers he inaccurately imagines predated Geb's arrival in the region (Undead Master free archetype, zombie mount as four undead carrying a throne palanquin). When he died, he got an off-the-books resurrection by the church of Zon-Kuthon (swap heritage to tiefling and weapon implement to scorpion whip). He was able to get a hold of what is believed to be one of the bones used by the gnoll mages predating Geb's arrival (regalia implement). This boosts his diplomacy focus significantly, buffs allies in combat, and synergizes excellently with the Witch, who multiclassed into Alchemist with a cooking them, since the alchemically treated breakfast they share boosts the follow the expert activity that the regalia implement expands. I can't exactly comment on what you mean in relation to SF2, but I can at least reassure you that Paizo didn't actually shoot itself in the foot with PF2 and it's doing quite well.
Probably more appropriate for the homebrew section?
One of my planned Wizards does not even have any Focus spell (Universalist flexible caster with Sorcerer Archetype for extra slots) so can see if there can be different play styles and how it matters. (Just mentioning, Remaster Universalist will get both Hand of the Apprentice and a bonus first level feat.)
Divine Mysteries you say? Does that mean we can anticipate three other similar books, named Arcane Mysteries, Occult Mysteries, and Primal Mysteries? Probably not, no. Paizo really hasn't been copy-pasting titles in the Lost Omens line. Not sure if the four traditions (arcane, divine, occult, and primal) or the four essences (Matter, Mind, Spirit, and Life) still exist in Pathfinder Remaster though. They do! The Witch preview mentions all four traditions, and has feats that are thematically linked to Material and Spirit essences. If the god who will die is indeed Urgathoa, then I honestly have no idea. Is she the least popular among the 20 core deities? I didn't particularly dislike her. I thought Erastil would die, because he seemed the least loved among the core deities, at least to me. You seem to be assuming that it's just a given that the least popular god is going to die, and that doesn't make much sense to me? Why kill off a god people don't care about? There isn't much impact there. Now, I don't expect it to be Urgathoa personally, but not because there are less popular gods than her.
That's fair! I don't really have a problem with the faster movement, but even just giving a 5-foot boost before having means a lot of characters with the default 25 feet of movement get to move more. I continue to be very excited to see everything coming out over the next year, and even more excited for the long and rich future Starfinder has ahead as a result. X)
|
