Renchard's page

I'd much rather see level bonus go away, and tie higher level abilities into class abilities and proficiency gated feats.

Make proficiency tiers be gated by character level.

Make feats and abilities be gated by proficiency tier.

Make the in-game effects be gated by feats and abilities.

Plus, getting rid of the requirement to explain why the 20th level character is a better farmer than the 1st level farmer, despite never having farmed, is certainly a bonus. (Yes, I know about trained/untrained uses of skills and skill feats. But isn't it better to just have a system where a 20th level character doesn't have a +20 bonus to untrained skills?)

1. Do you currently like pathfinder 1e? (I know it sounds loaded, but please bare with me.)

2. Did you once like pathfinder 1e but now find it troublesome? (feel free to give details.)

3. Do you like 4th or 5th edition D&D? (Also sounds loaded but again no judgments)

4. Which are you looking for class balance, smoother high level play, more options, or even all of those things?

5. How do you feel about making the game more accessible in general?

6. Are you willing to give up on accessibility if you can still gain all of the benefits listed in question 4?

7. Would you be willing to play an alternative rules system then what we have been presented? (A different version of pathfinder 2nd edition if you will).

8. And if you said yes to the above question what would you like to see in that theoretical game? (Most of you will see what I'm doing here, I'm finding common ground)

1) Yes.

2) No.

3) Yes. I like every edition of D&D. I like pretty much every RPG, actually, because I choose to play them for what they are.

4) Since all of those things seem positive and don't contradict each other, all of them would be appreciated.

5) Do you mean easier to learn for people new to the game? I have no problem with that.

6) Since I'm an experienced gamer, accessibility is less of a priority for me.

7) Of course. I'll play pretty much anything.

8) I'd probably drop the level scaling. Bake more powerful options into feats gated behind master and legendary proficiency. Get rid of general feats and put more narratively focused options into its place. (Replace general feats with dedication feats, maybe?) Move some higher level class feats down to open up lower level options, and change them to scale with level.

Renchard wrote:

Lucid Blue wrote:

Huh. Different philosophies I guess. So would you be opposed to just letting players erase any damage after each combat? Or assuming that they always have enough food and water, even in locales that don't have food and water?

If not, is the objection purely math/balance related rather than in-world-fiction related?

Maybe I'm the odd duck here...

It's always immediately obvious who hasn't played Dungeon World, or Blades in the Dark, or any other narrative RPG.

Or played them and found them not to their liking.

If that was the case, the OP would be about the recognition of the presence of narrative mechanics and an argument that it's not the aesthetic they think the game should strive towards.

Instead, we got "it's not realistic!" pearl clutching and references to hoary old diatribes like the Alexandrian's.

So I'm floating in the negative energy void. And the party is starving. But my ranger KNOWS... that the secret recipe of KFC chicken isn't REALLY a secret. It was stolen by the nightshade many years ago. So before the party starves to death, I float over to the secret KFC vault, and pilfer enough crispy chicken to sustain us for another day.

Is this an acceptable explanation? If not, why not? Does the explanation of a math block REALLY need to match the fiction of the world? Who's to say that I CAN'T find the secret KFC stash in the void?

If the in world explanation DOES matter... Shouldn't we just avoid the dissociated mechanics in the first place?

KFC would violate genre constraints, but other than that, sure, why not?

Granted, a Survival check on the Negative Material Plane should probably be Very Hard, like in the DC50 range, and I wouldn't allow it all unless you had Legendary Survival proficiency. But that's about challenge setting, not "dissociated" mechanics.

Renchard wrote:

Honestly, if people don't understand that 3-18 for Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, Cha is fundamental to the definition of D&D and its descendants, they shouldn't poke holes in other people's design.

Many things were "fundamental" to D&D. Like THAC0, and Elf/Dwarf being a class instead of a race. Doesn't mean we kept them.

THAC0 was 2e only. Elf/Dwarf as classes was only from Moldvay B/X onward to Rules Compendium, and isn't part of the lineage that current D&D/PF are derived from. Much less fundamental that the stats. They're as definitionally part of D&D as rolling a d20 to attack.

Edymnion wrote:

It was pointless as anything but a vestigial holdover from rolling for stats.

What would you propose for groups (like mine) who only ever roll for stats? Just have a chart that if you roll an 18, your ability... score(?) is a +4? There's no real point to getting rid of them, and it seems like a weird complaint to have.

Honestly, if people don't understand that 3-18 for Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, Cha is fundamental to the definition of D&D and its descendants, they shouldn't poke holes in other people's design.

See, thats where I disagree. I think that MY CHARACTER should be as good or not good at whatever *I* decide he/she is good at. Not what the designers tell me he/she is ALLOWED to be good at.

Then, quite simply, you shouldn't be playing a class-based game. Putting abilities into silos to reinforce flavor is the reason the class concept exists in the first place.

A 10th level cleric will have 15 spells per day to cast, plus 4-7 or so free heals, plus 4-7 casts of their powers, plus cantrips, plus whatever bonuses 5 free class feats have given you. They are hardly starving for options or power.

The idea that they're "taking away powers, and giving us feats to buy" is fundamentally flawed. They're creating a brand new baseline. There's no way they were going to make PF2 start at a PF1 baseline, and then add a whole host of new options on top of it. Turning class features into feat choices is still a power increase; "choice A or B or C" is always better than "choice A only", even if choice A is normally the best option, simply because B or C might have synergies with other options that aren't immediately obvious.

Pessimism is not a biological imperative; choose optimism, voice your concerns but have faith in the designers.

They can't be Orders. Druids have Orders. You'll have Storm Order Druids casting nth Order spells.

We already have 10th level characters who are 7th level druids casting 3rd level spells that function at 8th level. Redundant redundancy is already a thing.

I'm a bit of an oddity in that I have loved every game I've ever played. Basic D&D, AD&D 2e, 3(.5)e, 4e, 5e, Pathfinder, Strike!, LotFP, DCC RPG, White Wolf, WHFRP 2e, The One Ring, BCG/Z, BFRPG, Darker Dungeons and more!

I HATE edition wars. They are divisive and more often than not bring out the worst in the gaming community. I loved 4e and feel so slighted that so many people balked at it simply because it was different. I felt the same way when people balked at 3e when 2e was winding down. And, while it was not as pronounced, I know more than a few people who freaked when WotC announced 5e.

Pathfinder 2e is something long needed. the d20 system is being weighed down and becoming far too bloated to be healthy. It needs to slim down or die from it's own weight.

That does not mean I hate Pathfinder! I love Pathfinder! I fully intend to continue playing it just like I do so many other games! Change is not bad, change is needed lest system fatigue occurs.

So bring on P2E! I embrace it!

Amen, sir! New is good! New is fun! Every edition of every RPG supports a certain playstyle, embrace that playstyle so that you can have fun whatever you play.

Goodnight, sweet Mystic Theurge. Early entry has been removed from the FAQ.

There will definitely be more stare options in the book.

And a Care Bear race, I hope.

Honestly, while I like the overall skeleton of the class, my biggest beef is tying the implements into the overused wizard schools. Why not design the powers around the major types of implements, rather than using the implements as a proxy for the schools? Let the occultist master an implement type to gain their spells, and also have class abilities to strengthen the powers of magic items that they find, thus giving them a greater incentive to seek out new treasures?

Something like:

Weapons - learn spells that increase personal combat power, and the ability to grant extra abilities to focused weapons.

Clothing (including armor) - learn spells that increase personal defense and personal transformation, and grant extra abilities to your armor, and other body slot items.

Magical tools (wands, staves, rods) - learn spells that grant magical attacks, and grant extra abilities to magical implements.

Objet d'art (valuable slotless items, gems and other valuables) - learn spells that influence emotion, grant extra abilities to slotless items.

Momento mori (relics of the dead, many items may fit into other categories) - learn spells of knowledge and necromancy, some minor enhancement abilities.

Trinkets (useful but consumable items, various tools) - spells of utility and transformation, can be enhanced to grant to various utility functions.

While I do like the medium (an inherited love from the 3.5 binder, its obvious ancestor), I think having 54 spirits is a case of symmetry for symmetry's sake. Here's what I would do to simplify the class.

1) Drop the alignment restrictions for binding multiple spirits. Make as many spirits as you can make cool abilities for, and then stop. Grid filling then becomes unnecessary.

2) Streamline the abilities a bit more. The seance bonus and the ability to give them to the party is cool, keep those. The spirit bonus mostly seems like a separate entity to have something to trade out for archetypes, I guess. Otherwise, I would roll them up into the lesser powers, and have the higher bonuses in the higher tier powers.

3) The dual/triune/quartenary aspect thing is overly complex. I'd rather see "At 5th level, you can channel two spirits. You get their powers." Done. At 11th, you can channel 3. At 17th, you can channel 4. (Or not. I think 4 might be overkill, but I'd have to see.)

4) There's no need for spirit abilities that reference other abilities. I'm think of some of the Wisdom spirit abilities that have the Spirit act as a Strength spirit in some situations, thus causing the player to have to reference a whole new menu of options, and have some bonuses either appear or disappear. That's just painful.

5) Giving every spirit a spell list seems to add extra work, again for the sake of symmetry. I'd rather see the medium have their own small spell list, and a small list of spells known.
Have some spirits (not all, but some that are obvious spellcasters, like The Unicorn, The Lost, The Devil's Lantern, for example) have powers that let you treat some spells as being on your spell known list while being channeled.

I'd really like to run a 19th century gaslight campaign with these classes, along with the Investigator, Brawler, and Swashbuckler.

Hooray, we finally have the arcane Spirit Shaman I've been hoping for since, oh, Complete Divine came out.

Point 1: Arcanist vs Wizard. The arcanist has a bit more during the encounter versatility, but it's important to remember that the Wizard still has a greater breadth of options available. The Arcanist will only have between 3-5 options of his highest 2 spell levels available at any one time. The Wizard can have a number of different options equal to the number of spells he can prepare. Different, but both equally valuable.

Point 2: Blood magic is boring. +1 CL and +1 DC for your school spell? Rounds per day of a bloodline ability? Yawn. How about:
- being able to prepare your bloodline ability as a spell, which you can then cast?
- Or magical school bloodlines as an option?
- Or maybe you don't have any blood power to start, but casting the spells associated with your bloodline gives you blood power? The more you cast, the more your heritage awakens. Maybe tie it to a school rather than just the bloodline spells, to connect the fluff together better.

In general, most of the classes from this playtest are pretty safe. I wanted to see them get a little edgier, especially since we're 5 years out from release.

cannon fodder wrote:

an element bloat in the periodic table.

There totally is! All those transuranic elements cluttering up the place! What did they ever do for us? Atom bombs? Yeesh. Totally OP. They lost all sense of balance when they added that stuff.

E6 (element six, that is) all the way! Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus and magnesium. Who needs the rest? Anything worth having you can make with those six!

Bah. One metal (and why a +2 oxidation metal?) and no halides makes your element system unplayable. True chemists drop Mg, and only play with Na and Cl.

:)