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Deriven Firelion wrote:

I don't know that DPR is attacked on this forum, but as a person who has been under attack many times for being combat focused, that does happen on these forums. If your group is more combat focused and prefers a combat focused game including min-maxing for combat, then you'll definitely find a vocal group resistant to that type of gaming.

It's not the whole forum or anything, but a vocal minority who don't care for that type of game or viewing game balance and rules through that focus.

From the other side of the debate, what I find myself arguing against is not 'hey, I personally like combat centered games'.

Usually it is someone coming along saying something like:

'This feat is terrible because it doesn't do much in combat. Why did the developers even write this?'

'This weapon is a bad choice because there is this other weapon that exists and has almost the same traits, but has a bigger damage die size.'

'Why do we even have to pay for skill feats? Why not just get all the skill feats automatically other than the small handful of ones that actually have a purpose in combat?'

So there is also a vocal minority that are resistant to the idea that there is any type of gaming other than combat centered and will view all game balance and rules through that focus.

The issue is that most tables are far more strict about the rules in combat than they are outside of it and a GM rarely ends in a TPK because you failed a skill check. Thus the balance ends up focused on combat because in the vast majority of cases, it's the only spot where that balance matters.

Kaspyr2077 wrote:

The problem that people have with the Fury Instinct is that not only is it lacking in any unique mechanics, as you would expect, but it is also the weakest at the level of shared Barbarian mechanics, and to compensate, it gets... nothing.

Although I enjoyed RPing my fury barbarian, I demonstrated 6 levels of advantage for my playstyle that was only possible with fury and that had advantages over the other subclasses.

Unique advantages of my build:
1) Allowed demoralize without sacrificing the sole L1 Barb feat - This is a strong advantage for the lizard folk's Threatening Approach [two-actions] Effect: You Stride to be adjacent to a foe and Demoralize that foe. If you succeed, the foe is frightened 2 instead of frightened 1.
2) Allowed for darkvision and acute scent 30' by L2 - Impossible for any other subclass without sacrificing Sudden Charge or their L1 feat choice.
3) Grants STR dmg bonus to Athletics maneuvers (a focus of the build) via L6 feat almost impossible for other subs to acquire. Reactive Strike is more common when not getting the L6 Barb capstone. RS is also an early option for this build.
4) d8 dmg + versatile PSB + free hand + shield + 2-target attack (0 map, +1 circ). No AC penalty. Not possible with giant (requires weapon so either no free hand or no shield).

Unique advantage of Fury in general:
1) Only class in the game that can start with up to three L1 class feats.

Folks are making it a point to mark it as unequivocally sub-optimal, but it's not true. The extra feat enables build combos with your ancestry and archetypes that are not possible with the higher damage mod subclasses. P2 is widely acclaimed for unique combinations hitting above their Dmg mods. For players interested in building something unique, it has a distinct advantage.

The issue here is that you built that character to be as effective as possible within a box you artificially placed around them. Another Barbarian built without those self-restrictions is simply going to contribute more. This likely won't make much odds but in a severe encounter played by a GM that doesn't pull punches, I'd rather have Deriven's build in my party than yours.

Balance doesn't care about your fluff, it cares about the math and your character doesn't math as hard as it could.

That sort of falls in line with my thinking above. A blowgun is a light (and relatively small) weapon so it makes sense that it might be able to drawn unobtrusively. However, even though a javelin is also a light weapon, javelins are generally long weapons. At least the kind of javelin I'm familiar with, so I wouldn't allow that to be drawn inconspicuously. Even atlatl darts that I'm familiar with are so long that I wouldn't allow them to be drawn unobtrusively.

I don't think bulk alone is good enough guidance.

Although...maybe in the sense of "throwing your players a bone" you just allow anything of Light bulk even if some items don't really fit in my mind.

If you're out of line of sight when you draw it there's a good chance that an IRL guard wouldn't even notice the end of a javelin sticking out past a desk or pillar. Unless you're actively looking for something people are remarkably change blind and prone to flat-out ignoring things they don't expect to see.

I'd generally err on the side of the player trying to be stealthy in light of the very real examples of how often people fail to see things.

RPG-Geek wrote:

Did you miss the part where I stated: "Beyond being a class that can create expected outputs for a TTRPG..." I acknowledged that the Necromancer has valid outputs as a game piece. What hasn't been explained is the in-universe utility of the Necromancer and its thralls. Where does the Necromancer class fit into a version of the game where we look at things as realistic developments of a field of study rather than as a collection of game rules?

I'm not sure if my tone came across incorrectly, but I intended it as a casual "oh, and there's also that" kind of reply. I suppose the utility would be not being constantly pursued by psychopomps and not being hated by the deity that judges the dead. However, as you can see in my thread about who would want to be a necromancer, I belong to the camp that believes if you don't want to anger those entities, it makes far more sense not to become a necromancer in the first place. Therefore, I can't really answer that question.

Having read that thread I think we agree more than we disagree. Though I'm not sure we should embrace the idea of a Necromancer who seems almost ashamed of what they're doing. It would be a stronger class theme if we have a Necromancer that was a capital-N, say it with their whole chest, Necromancer rather than one that could easily be flavoured as an Oozemancer, Fungomancer, Trap Setter, or whatever else might place unmoving easily broken tokens to activate other class abilities.

Unicore wrote:

I don’t really think the Runesmith is built on a martial chassis.[...]

This is not an open question.

If the term martial is to have any meaning, it needs to mean something.

Runesmith chassis has martial weapons training, accuracy/proficiency progression, and weapon specialization. This is what "martial chassis" means.

Again, Paizo playtested the Guardian as a new "lesser martial" that had martial weapons, but also had the same lagging progression of Alchemist.

It is clear that the Runesmith chassis *is* a "full martial," and that Paizo intended for Runesmith to be more Strike-based than the Guardian.

.

While proposed maximizations of RS's damage would doubtless be impractical in real combat, we have seen that, in large part thanks to Etching, it is incredibly simple to do rather silly damage so long as one party member is melee.

New classes in PF2 have to break rules otherwise they might as well be just an archetype for an existing class. A martial class that divests itself of defences to get a better offence and a strike that it can use if needed is an interesting design space. The balance of the Runesmith needs some work to achieve this balance, but the idea itself is a fine one for the developers to have.

RPG-Geek wrote:

Let's follow this thought experiment a little further.

1) Beyond being a class that can create expected outputs for a TTRPG, what utility do the Necromancer's class features offer to the would-be Necromancer that can't be gained by studying as a Wizard?

2) Assuming there is any utility to the class for the average non-adventuring Necromancer, what is the end goal of the class's in-universe development? We don't see any improvements to the stability or utility of the summoned thralls as the class gains levels.

The idea of flying under the radar as a Necromancer would make some sense if there were actual utility to the class or if the Thralls created began to better emulate the permanent undead they were designed to replace, but flatly we don't see that. The class uses them to solve ever more difficult combat puzzles and that's it.

The lack of utility that the Necromancer class fantasy usually gains from their undead lackeys makes this class a poor fit for any Necromancer that would use their undead out of combat.

Looking at this from a game design perspective, it seems to me that this class aims to allow players to be minion masters while also addressing the complaints against necromancers from previous editions.

Three problems were already solved by turning Animated Dead into a summoning spell, which addresses the upkeep and tracking issues, as well as the concerns about using corpses and being around a army of rotting bodies.

The only remaining issues are long turns and souls. By making the undead into spirits or something similar, and by removing alignment, they somewhat "solve" the soul issue. However, the problem arises with how they attempted to address the long turn issue.

Essentially, by making it so the undead can't move or attack—effectively turning them into static objects that can be used to cast certain spells—they ensured that no time will be spent on them. Since these undead will be constantly sacrificed, optimal players will likely have few of...

Did you miss the part where I stated: "Beyond being a class that can create expected outputs for a TTRPG..." I acknowledged that the Necromancer has valid outputs as a game piece. What hasn't been explained is the in-universe utility of the Necromancer and its thralls. Where does the Necromancer class fit into a version of the game where we look at things as realistic developments of a field of study rather than as a collection of game rules?

I mean, the original point that was objected to could be rephrased as:

"It's entirely plausible that the tradition of Necromancy as represented by the class specifically developed over time in order to avoid attention from villagers with torches and pitchforks, or nastier powers entirely. It's the sort of manipulation of the energies of death and life that's not likely to attract attention you want from anybody who protects those boundaries, whereas "creating permanent undead" and the like is much more likely to attract attention from well above your weight-class, so it shouldn't really be something inherent to the class.

Like the ritual to create permanent undead and the undead master archetype are still available to you.

Let's follow this thought experiment a little further.

1) Beyond being a class that can create expected outputs for a TTRPG, what utility do the Necromancer's class features offer to the would-be Necromancer that can't be gained by studying as a Wizard?

2) Assuming there is any utility to the class for the average non-adventuring Necromancer, what is the end goal of the class's in-universe development? We don't see any improvements to the stability or utility of the summoned thralls as the class gains levels.

The idea of flying under the radar as a Necromancer would make some sense if there were actual utility to the class or if the Thralls created began to better emulate the permanent undead they were designed to replace, but flatly we don't see that. The class uses them to solve ever more difficult combat puzzles and that's it.

The lack of utility that the Necromancer class fantasy usually gains from their undead lackeys makes this class a poor fit for any Necromancer that would use their undead out of combat.

I feel like the way to make striking and tracing interact well on a martial chassis would be to give runes a weaker invoked effect and a stronger invoked when struck effect. So you could trace and invoke runes and get a decent baseline, but tracing and striking to activate the effects would give a greater reward. It never goes so far as to force a rotation, but it does strongly suggest that trace/trace/strike or trace/strike/move would be good ideas.

It's tough to see the 4 traditions of magic as a good pillars of design when we're having this much debate about an iconic type of spellcaster with a very easy-to-assign list of spells. A Necromancer's spell list should be an easy slam dunk, but the inability to narrow down a caster's list of spells has led to debate and discord and will surely lead to friction for the entirety of this class's existence.

He's 100% someone that made a fleshy golem [like Charnel Creation], not an undead.

Have you read the novel? The "monster" had free-will, the capacity for love, and was cursed only in having a creator that wasn't capable of the same. Life was properly created in that lab.

I think you are making the umbrella WAY, WAY too big for a single class. What you call pigeonholed, I'd call a selection of reasonable and popular themes. Raising dead, healing, making golems, divinations... I think you have to have realistic expectations about what ONE class can do.

You could do all of these with a PF1 Cleric who went down the path of necromancy and took the right crafting feats to make a golem.

R3st8 wrote:

A lot of people may disagree with me, but I believe a necromancer should have abilities like healing and raising the dead. What kind of necromancer can't revive people? People have become too accustomed to the Diablo necromancer and have forgotten that the whole point of being a necromancer is to resurrect the dead.

I think the fantasy is making undead and not raising the dead. I can't think of any fantasy where a necromancer is reviving people. Or healing non-undead. the healer/cleric fantasy is to heal and raise/revive people. If a necromancer tries to raise someone, I'd expect them to come back like pet cemetery.

Dr. Frankenstein is 100% a necromancer who created life, not un-life. If the OG doesn't fit the class the class is missing something.

In universe explanations tend to suck, tbh. D&D's done more damage to its settings trying to explain their retcons than with the actual retcons.

I disagree. I like internally consistent fantasy universes that stick heavily to their internal logic. If something major changes, we should eventually see why it changed.

If the magus is using out of class focus spells and sure strike to spell strike, then we are talking about only spell striking every other round and burning actions on recharging, right? Not even the starlit spam magus is spell striking with sure strike every round. I don’t think the magus damage math is as effected by the change to sure strike as people are making it out to be.

If your character has a hero point as well (a resource you only burn on a miss), spell striking g with sure strike on round 1, then using a hero point if you miss on your second/third rounds while using conflux focus spells is going to be much better damage output than repeatedly sure striking out of class focus spells.

Most people seem to prefer holding their hero points for failed saves rather than burning them for a bit of extra damage. So this is effectively asking a magus to give up defense for offense in a way they didn't have to before.

It would indeed be nice to see some weaker options get buffed without having to homebrew.

But there is a limit to available time, ressources and printing space that paizo has to work with.

Stuff that are blocking potential design spaces like how potent True Strike/Sure Strike was (at least from the point of view of the devs, you don't have to aggree) can be more of a priority to change to allow for more options of higher power later.

IF this nerf/rebalance of Sure Strike means future attack spells will be more potent to compensate for their lower accuracy, I'll take that trade.

Now, I really want to see more attack spells lol, my Magus needs options that aren't people repeating to multiclass into psychic or cleric for their focus spells lol

We'll need to wait and see if Sure Strike being changed impacts the release rate and overall strength of spell attacks. I'm not going to hold my breath though.

If these wrrata changes are meant to balance the game why are there always so many too good options nerved but very rarely any utterly awful options buffed? Balance is a two way street and while it might be more pressing to fix outliers that are breaking encounter balance, like a certain dedication that will remain for another six months, it should also go the other way and fix spells and feats that are actively hurting characters that use them. Until that happens errata will tend to feel bad as it will "break" characters that people enjoy playing without equally fixing other characters that could use the help.

RPG-Geek wrote:

Golem were widely considered to be a poor fit for PF2 and have been redesigned to solve this problem.

I will note that "literally nothing the Kineticist does can affect a Will O' Wisp" is something that survived both the Kineticist playtest and the remaster.

I'm not a fan of that or sneak attack immune enemies either. That kind of class-punisher enemy isn't the style of game that PF2 is or should aspire to be. There are places where classes should shine or take a step back, but shutting off high-budget features entirely is worth avoiding.

The last thing PF2 needs is another interesting class that ends up a chore to play due to poor action efficiency. I'd rather see a drop in burst damage than a crippled class stuck with a fixed two round action loop.

Lots of melee martials can't fly. Its not built into most classes at all, you need some other way to get it and throughout a lot of the game (including the levels most people play at), those aren't really options except "get a caster to know that spell and spend their turn enabling me."

At those same levels flying enemies are a rarity at higher levels it becomes relatively cheap to grab an item to enable flight. They have ways to solve the issue at levels where it becomes an issues, the Necromancer, as currently tested, has no way to bring a main feature to bear in that situation.

Hell, what does a caster do against a Golem when they don't have the right kind of spell for that specific Golem? This type of stuff is already a thing that happens and players have to adapt. Having thralls conjured up that somehow just float in the air is just completely absurd sounding.

Golem were widely considered to be a poor fit for PF2 and have been redesigned to solve this problem.

Thralls could easily be flavored as spectral when in flight and as bloated drowners when in water.

There will be situations when "I spam thralls" isn't the best option. Use your other abilities. If the class is really so totally dependent on thralls that they must work against every enemy no matter what and that means we just need to bake levitation into them now, then the class design is flawed and needs a rethink.

The issue isn't that they're dependent on thralls, it's that thralls are roughly half their class budget and rendered entirely worthless in fairly common scenarios. It would be nice to have a workaround even if it's inefficient like adding a second action to the normal thralls summoning action or requiring a feat to share movement buffing spells with thralls.

So is the early Summoner in the same boat?

Yeah. Classes should have ways to bring their primary feature into different environments and those ways should come online around when the fly spell becomes available.

Level 7 is when limited flight is first available via spell effects, etc.

Level 9 or 13 has some ancestries gain flight abilities, and are (give or take) the levels where you get items like Cloak of the Bat or the Winged rune that help with flight.

Level ~12 is when you start seeing stuff like Dragon Barb getting wings, and martial class options to solve flight.

I'm aware of when things come online. Level 7 is when a melee martial can, with help, contribute with their melee damage against a flying enemy.

It doesn't seem unreasonable to allow a 2-action ability to give your thralls the ability to hover in place at around that level. Like I said, it doesn't have to be an efficient option, but it should exist and level 7 wouldn't be an unreasonable place to grant it.

I'm not arguing that the class becomes useless against anything that flies, I understand that there are spells to be cast, backup weapons to be used, etc. It just seems odd that a major part of your class identity is completely unusable whenever swimming or flying foes enter the picture. Pure melee classes can fly to bring their primary means of attack to bear, but the Necromancer has no presently printed option to use their thralls on anything but a solid surface.

It would be nice to see a feat or class feature that resolves this around level 7 when characters start getting easy access to flight.

Good thing Necro is a full caster!

This is hardly a necromancer specific problem. What does a melee focused martial do in this situation? You need to use another tactic.

I don't view this as a problem. The fact that the class doesn't have one ability that solves every single problem isn't a bad thing.

A melee martial that can fly just flies up and does their thing and as such being able to fly when needed is something a martial character should invest in. Contrast this to a Necromancer who just loses an entire class feature and everything that builds off it and has no way to mitigate that loss and you can see why something, even a costly and inefficient something, would be very nice to have here.

Hello Maya, I might not be a bastion of positivity but I'm glad to see you here. Hopefully, we don't cause you too many headaches.

Paizo developers are still people, not the company they work for. Be as negative as you want, but perhaps some slightest awareness of tone might help criticism be heard as something other than an personal attack. The developers necessarily have a thick skin, but nobody does their best work under an acrimonious watch. It should seem no surprise that so many companies have cut off communication in such a climate.

We're not exactly pointing to any given dev and saying, "Yeah, you're the one who's causing these issues. You're bad and should feel bad." We're pointing out systemic issues like lack of communication, the lesser quality of work since the remaster, the loss of big-name team members, and a less-than-desirable errata schedule.

Much of this could be solved with communication because people tend to be more forgiving when you're willing to step up and explain why certain things aren't happening. Then we'd be less negative and more supportive because we'd have a more humanized team to empathize with. A lot of this negativity is self-inflicted.

RPG-Geek wrote:

GameDesignerDM wrote:

Hey, can we stop assuming what Paizo is doing, has done, or has 'lost', or whatever? It's all mostly speculation, anyway.

It's unproductive, and its stuff like this that makes ANY dev not want to engage with the community.

Paizo, aside from scheduled announcements at conventions, already doesn't interact with the community anyway so it's not like we're losing anything here.

At least not on this site. They do seem to go on streams and other sites but avoid here like the plague. James Jacobs is about the only one I can remember posting anything here in quite a long time but every once in a while someone will post a link to someplace where they engage with another community and answer questions.

This site should be the primary hub for them to engage with the community. It would drive traffic to their forum/website while putting all communication in one easy-to-find place.

... How much of the stuff you're describing do you want, OP?

Like skulking around sinisterly in graveyards, having to scrounge for corpses, abilities that only work on creatures that leave behind dead bodies... a lot of that sounds like it would be genuinely really miserable in play.

I agree there could be room for some long term minion support, but that could be as simple as offering up the Undead Master feats in-class without having to archetype.

I was never miserable in older editions where you had to find corpse, preferably of the right kinds of creatures that made good undead minions, and then animate them to do your bidding.

Michael Sayre has definitely left Paizo, I am sure that has interfered in the Errata plans.

Yeah, it has been confirmed here: https://paizo.com/threads/rzs5jmxs?What-happend-to-Michael-Sayre

I'm surprised we have no communication about the errata. It erodes trust when you promise something and then fail to deliver it. It erodes trust even faster when you're silent the entire time.

Because "running weak" and "full parity" are mutually exclusive. Either options function exactly the same for PCs as they do for monsters, or they don't. If one ends up weaker than the other, then they aren't at parity with each other.

The monsters run exactly as they should, it's just that 3.x monster design struggled to keep up with a normal PC so the monsters as players ended up behind the curve. My players loved using them, so I have a lot of experience with what the system implemented did well and did less well. I found that the prebuilt monsters as a class content was, outside of a few decent options, way undertuned but using the guidelines to convert new monsters actually worked pretty well.

RPG-Geek wrote:

PossibleCabbage wrote:

What if-

One of the side effects of the Godsrain involves "certain old Magics stopped working" so Vordakai (and anybody else) could cast Imprisonment pre-Godsrain, but now that same ritual just doesn't work anymore because the universe is broken in weird metaphysical ways what with all the divine viscera all over.

Paizo could have made that change if they wanted to, but they didn't. I also don't like the idea that we should encourage removing player-facing options and excusing them with freshly written lore.

I don't think they either did or didn't make that choice. There's a lot of fallout from the Godsrain that we just don't know about yet. If they were going to comment on "magic works different now" they would do it in the book that we start playtesting the classes from on Monday.

I'd think it would be noted in the source that gave the rituals themselves that the underlying magic they use has been changed. Even then, if those are the only rituals changed the lore would have to be very well written to make it seem like anything by a CYA move in response to community feedback.

What if-

One of the side effects of the Godsrain involves "certain old Magics stopped working" so Vordakai (and anybody else) could cast Imprisonment pre-Godsrain, but now that same ritual just doesn't work anymore because the universe is broken in weird metaphysical ways what with all the divine viscera all over.

Paizo could have made that change if they wanted to, but they didn't. I also don't like the idea that we should encourage removing player-facing options and excusing them with freshly written lore.

*Laughs at "full parity"*

If you think Savage Species provided parity to anything, then your perception of the facts is so skewed that there is no point in even debating the matter with you.

The monsters as classes design of Savage Species did tend to run weak, but the actual guidelines could be used to give players access to any monster in the game. Given that a player could theoretically play any monster, I don't see how you can dispute the idea of full parity in that system.

I still remember the 3e days of D&D where monsters used similar leveling systems to that of PCs (in that they had "monster hd" that functioned sorta like "class levels"). However, to get the numbers needed to BE MONSTERS, they had all sorts of cheats built in, like tons of arbitrary natural armor to AC.

TTRPGs have never been simulationist even when the fans claim otherwise.

Yet for anything that wasn't a monster, they used the same rules as the PCs and Savage Species was released which gave PCs access to monsters allowing PCs to use those same "cheats" providing full parity.

RPG-Geek wrote:

That was a house-rule band-aid fix to the actual change that brought on this conversation. What actually happened is that rituals that were formerly available to PCs were gated behind those PCs being mythic with a dev explanation that handwaved how an already established NPC did that same thing without being mythic boiling down to "Eh, NPCs just get to do things when the story needs them to." If he'd said something like, "Sometimes NPCs have greater time and resources than PCs and this allows them to do things your characters generally can't. That said, if you do have the time your GM should be willing to work with you to do things outside of normal PC limits." I think we'd be less upset with the explanation and what it means for the direction PF2 is moving in.

I'm aware it was a house rule. More the point is that adding limiters in general is adding simulationism to the game, not making the game more gamist, and that "we're not trying to be a simulation" feels incorrect here. That it's more simulationist to require you to do more things to get an option than less.

Limitations aren't inherently more simulationist though. Invisible walls are an example of limits that break immersion. Retcons which add limits to things that used to work differently are another example of limits that harm verisimilitude.

Limitations alone are not the only thing that defines well-simulated a system is. Added detail and explanation can add a sense of reality to a system. Ars Magica is vastly more detailed than PF2 and simulates magic in a way that feels more real than every spell being a set rank with set effects and it does so in a way that adds freedom rather than restricting it.

Mild weird thing about simulationism being used as an argument though.

Isn't requiring a complicated process to do something instead of just granting it as a default a form of simulationism?

Someone used an example earlier that you'd need to gather 10,000 victory points at a library to do it. Instead of just granting the ritual on an "it does/does not bug me" basis to people who meet the prerequisites.

I'd exert that requiring the construction of a legendary artifact that takes years of study and millions of gp is adding simulation to the game, not subtracting it.

If anything, just leaving it as is was is more gamist than anything.

That was a house-rule band-aid fix to the actual change that brought on this conversation. What actually happened is that rituals that were formerly available to PCs were gated behind those PCs being mythic with a dev explanation that handwaved how an already established NPC did that same thing without being mythic boiling down to "Eh, NPCs just get to do things when the story needs them to." If he'd said something like, "Sometimes NPCs have greater time and resources than PCs and this allows them to do things your characters generally can't. That said, if you do have the time your GM should be willing to work with you to do things outside of normal PC limits." I think we'd be less upset with the explanation and what it means for the direction PF2 is moving in.

Simulationism leads to "selective realism" which is bad for game design. People will say stuff like "there's no way a human being could load, aim, and fire a crossbow that quickly" but nobody will ever say "magical chain lightning can't do that."

So Simulationist game design has a problem in a fantasy setting where it serves to limit all mundane ways of doing a thing, but no supernatural ways of doing literally anything; after all- it's magic.

You can have a detailed game that sets out to simulate its own reality without falling into the trap of making magic unbound while strictly binding mundane effects. Simulations want detailed games that are internally consistent not games that simulate reality but with an added dash of fantasy.

Like PF1 only had "monsters use the same rules as PCs" in name only, since all of the monster math had several fudge factors applied behind the scenes in order to make the math work right. In the interest of transparency, PF2 has moved away from that and "why does that monster roll that number in this case" is something that's can be easily inferred from the monster rules. So what we have here is that in the less "simulationist" game I can easily design an entirely new kind of dragon from whole cloth with just the monster rules inside of an hour, whereas in the more "simulationist" game I would have to look at other dragons to figure out what the appropriate correction coefficients are.

Most people are fine with monsters using different rules, while still fitting into the same overall system as the PCs use, and 3.x even went further by allowing PCs to play monsters which entirely removed that barrier. The issue is when humanoid NPCs break rules that bind the PCs or when NPCs do things that a PC with the same resources simply cannot do.

If possible, I would like to know, even if it's in a private message.

I can guess that the explanation will blame short attention spans and a lack of willingness to embrace things that require time to understand fully. There has been a trend in all areas of entertainment towards keeping the pace brisk and minimizing periods where engaging action isn't front and centre.

I think something that is being missed with tying the saves of the spell part of Spellstrike is that this change would impact *players* as well.

Would you, as a *player* be happy with the DM saying something like this:

"Ok, the enemy magus makes a Spellstrike with his halberd. He rolled a 20, so you're crit. It's greater striking, with no other runes for 3d10+whatever damage, doubled, and he was using Distintegrate. He crit you, so you have auto-crit fail (or down two on whatever you roll, one from the proposed changes, and one from the spell), so take 24d10 more untyped damage."

As Deriven has said more than once in this thread, Magus might be the best-balanced class in the game. It's great the way it is; it does not need changes.

I'd be fine with it happening. I have no issues with high-lethality games where the NPCs can use every dirty trick the players can.

So, I can tell you the difference between our perspectives. You are thinking of the rules as fiat. I think of them as negotiations.

Every game that I have been in, rarity tags are an invitation to negotiate between the GM and the player for access. More options, (even if "hidden" behind a single, highlighted button press) gives you more of an opportunity to advocate for what you want. More words -- more versions -- give more of a picture of how the parts fit into the whole.

If that isn't how you play the game, that isn't how you play the game. It is not a benefit *for you*. But you needn't be so harshly dismissive of other approaches.

Rarity tags are, simply put, fewer options available to players by default. They're only an invitation to negotiate because they force you to negotiate for them in the first place. I generally run my games wide open, if it exists in the official rules we're using it. So for me, all rarity does is waste page space and add visual clutter.

This change is the worst of all worlds from my perspective. It makes PCs and NPCs even more different. It forces players to interact with the mythic subsystem if we want to use the most up-to-date RAW version of these rituals. It takes away page space from something more interesting that could have been printed.

I'd much rather have rules that expand what players can do, not rules that add extra barriers, however minor.

I'm *not* saying you shouldn't talk about it.

One person wanted to know if there were any benefits. (And was using the fact that "no one could list any benefits" as an arguing point.) So I listed a benefit.

That benefit also has drawbacks, and it is entirely appropriate to decide that "the drawbacks outway the benefits" but that doesn't mean that it isn't a benefit.

I don't even see it as a benefit as the new versions don't meaningfully add anything that didn't already exist. They just take an old thing, lock it behind a new requirement, and now you need to jump through hoops to even see the old version of the rituals. This really doesn't meaningful add to the game.

RPG-Geek wrote:

Having to own an older version of the game's rules or look in the legacy section of online rules repositories is not the same as having two versions of a rule.

Umm, it is *exactly* that.

Personally, I am *always* toggling between Legacy and Remaster versions of rule elements. It is extremely easy to do.

It may not be something that fits your playstyle, but that doesn't make it a wider problem.

It clearly wasn't intended that way or they'd have given the new rituals different names and thus clearly stated that both versions are valid. The route they chose didn't go that route which is what people are taking issue with. Even worse, the mythic versions of these rituals don't offer a meaningful change to the old versions so aren't really adding anything new.

I think this is solely because there are only so many slots on the release schedule, and only so many pages in the books so priority is given to "things that apply in a lot of different stories" and "things that apply to a lot of different characters" as well as "things that help us tell new stories."

The problem with a subsystem for "designing new stuff" is that it kind of only applies to very high level characters of certain classes (that and it's very hard to balance.)

Traditionally the rules for creating new spells and custom magic items have been available starting at low levels. You'd just be limited in the scope of what you could create at those levels.

RPG-Geek wrote:

To the people defending this choice, rather than debate RAW or how much impact this change has on lore, gameplay, etc., let me ask you this; what benefit does this change bring to GMs and players of PF2?

First of all, I don't have a horse in this race. No one in my games has ever even considered creating a demiplane.

But to answer your question: the benefit this brings is it gives a GM more choices. There are now two versions of these rituals, which means that she can now allow either or both (or neither) to be valid in her games.

More choices are always a benefit.

Also, by RAW, Mythic is an optional rule. If you choose not to use Mythic, then nothing has changed, so it is in no way a detriment. (The new rule element, being Mythic *doesn't even exist* if you are not using the optional rule.)

There are not two versions in the post-remaster version of the rules and, as the new ritual has the same name as the old, the old version won't show up on AoN by default. Having to own an older version of the game's rules or look in the legacy section of online rules repositories is not the same as having two versions of a rule.

Well, RAW isn't a thing anymore. But the method Karzoug used is basically some sort of "research subsystem" thing where you need 100,000 RP to finish it and the PCs don't even have the appropriate library (but Karzoug did.)

Undead PCs could potentially be alive long enough to rediscover everything Karzoug knew but unless there is a house rule or said PC becomes and NPC they cannot replicate his feat. Period.

Like it's obvious that there is a way that powerful Wizards discover new spells, rituals, runes, magic items, etc.. After all somebody had to make all the artifacts. We don't really have rules for "go in the lab and come out in a year with a new spell that's designed for specifically the purpose you have for it" but we assume that people do that sort of thing.

There absolutely should be a book that lays out rules for PCs researching new spells and creating new magic items. That PF2 lacks such options is one of the things I dislike most about it.

Anything an NPC has done a PC should be able to aspire to and have a rules-based approach to being able to reach said goal.

If this was the first time Paizo decided that NPCs should no longer adhere to general rules, I would at least understand the outrage, but this was a rule established since day 1 of the game, and there are things far more egregious than max level rituals that NPCs ignore the rules for (like ability score relevance, modifiers, scaling, etc). Mountain out of an ant hill IMO.

I do believe it could have been handled better, but my games, and the game as a whole, isn't going to fall apart because one ritual that isn't used at 99% of tables got changed into something else. I don't see the value in being that hypercritical about it when there are other things to be more hypercritical about that are more relevant to the topic (i.e. rituals as a whole).

So if you care so little about this change, why are you here telling people who do care that they shouldn't express that opinion? What are you gaining by being in this thread?

Isn't the answer "well, he was one of the leading experts on Thassilonian Rune Magic, something you know very little about" a satisfying answer to "how did Karzoug do that?"

Like a major theme of Pathfinder is that the various states and empires before Earthfall were much more advanced than the ones that came after it. There's no expectation that a PC should be able to recreate the flying cities of the Shory Empire, the golems of the Jistka Imperium, or any various wonders of the Azlanti Empire since the knowledge of "how they did that" simply isn't available to the PCs. I think it's much the same with Karzoug.

By RAW if Karzoug was a PC he'd still have zero ability to turn all those advantages into a demi-plane. This is what people take issue with.

Wait, so a change that just so happens to involve rituals now no longer involves rituals as a mechanic themselves anymore? They are so intertwined you can't talk about one without referencing or discussing the other. Really, the relevance of rituals in the game (not necessarily the setting) is precisely the scale at which this change in particular truly affects the game, which is, once again, "little to no tables are significantly affected by this change." And when the question of "Why is that?" becomes posed, the mostly unanimous answer is "Because 90%+ of tables don't use these rules/options whatsoever, or hate using them, so they houserule it into something else instead."

The thing is, all of these cries of badwrongfun on Paizo's part comes from a position that practically has no benefit from reverting these particular changes because the tables never used them (meaning they get no benefit), or houseruled them anyway (meaning Paizo's reversion does nothing for those tables). Nobody loses or wins by any change here, so the reaction being posed is practically nonsensical.

And really, if we are trying to fix things, it's far more important to fix rituals as a whole than just one specific ritual in particular that Paizo just changed because they felt it better reflects the...

Why not campaign for both? We can desire both a revert to this poorly received change and a general revamp of the entire ritual system. This is not a zero-sum game.

The change wasn't done because it was broken; the option still functioned (poorly as it did). It just functions differently now because Paizo feels it better reflects its power scaling. That's it.

If that's what they wanted there are more elegant ways to accomplish that. I also feel like changes that take things from players should probably be accompanied by a developer commentary. I'd like more developer commentaries from Paizo in general, because every once in a while they release either a total banger or a complete headscratcher and I'd like to understand the thought process that can lead to such opposite outcomes from the same team.

The lack of transparency from Paizo is one of my least favourite things about the company.

Notice I said 'results may vary' but yeah sometimes that's what happens. Design is often a feels based discipline - and it can play out that way more often than you think.

Not for 'lulz' either, but a sincere belief something is better the way they envision - most devs don't do their jobs in bad faith, and even when it isn't received well, there is more often than not genuine intent behind it.

If that is how it happened then this was a poor choice by the designer in question. It literally adds nothing to the game and 2/3rds of what was changed could have been achieved by adding a +5 to the ritual DC to free/imprison mythic beings that us counteracted if the ritual's leader is mythic themselves. This is a case of design without thinking of the psychology of loss and how much people are hardwired to dislike losing things.

Sometimes in game dev, decisions made by one designer may not have been something agreed upon by another, and when one has a chance to alter that decision, they do so.

Not saying that's the case here, but sometimes its just "because we/I/my team wanted to" and that's completely within their prerogative to do so. The results vary with how they are received but sometimes its nothing more than that. I've encountered it a whole lot in my job.

So your hypothesis is that a random dev didn't like these rituals being available without even more hoops to jump through and thus pushed through a change with little upside just for the lulz... This is not a strong argument for why we should be cool with this change.

"NPCs follow their own rules so they don't have to be Mythic because reasons," was my initial reaction. But after thinking on it, wouldn't it be more fair to say that James Jacob's position is that "There should be a plausible in-story reason for why an NPC might be an exception?"

There should be plausible in-story reasons for everything that happens. The fact that you can handwave a reason into being retroactively doesn't mean that it's good storytelling to do so.