RumpinRufus's page

Just reporting back - played one session with my warrior bard, and he was devastatingly effective! Magic weapon with a greatsword to do 2d12 damage at level 1 was pretty ridiculous - especially when I could cast True Strike to roll twice and take the better!

My take on Kendra Deverin: She is impatient and no-nonsense. Overall she is good-natured, but she can be commandeering and demanding. She has a tendency to pace restlessly while talking, or if she is sitting down she may tap rhythmically on the table while waiting for a chance to interject into the conversation.

Her vision is to continue building Sandpoint to become a prosperous cultural center to rival Magnimar. She is proud of the theater and the glassworks, and after building a new bank her next great ambition is to put a magical college on Chopper's Isle. This magical school would be called the Builder's College, and would focus on teaching practical magic that engages with the community to improve people's lives, perhaps even requiring internships where its wizards spend a semester working in cooperation with a non-magical craftsman or company. This sets it apart from the abusive and insular environment of Korvosa's Acadamae, or the esoteric mysticism of the Stone of the Seers in Magnimar.

By request, we're back! This 'Everything About' is looking into the four noble houses of Sandpoint: Deverin, Kaijitsu, Valdemar, and Scarnetti. Post all of your musings and homebrew material on any member of one of these families here!

Let's see all of your content (original or not) about any member of the noble families, including but not limited to:

The Paizo forums break up long text strings with spaces - those links will work if you manually delete the spaces out of them.

"Sandpoint Residents" Google Doc

Sandpoint NPCs Google Doc

Enhance Victuals wrote:

The transformation also attempts to counteract toxins in the food or water.

Is "attempting to counteract toxins" a reference to a defined mechanic, or just filler while you're still working on the mechanics of the spell?

Many PF2 spell-based mechanics work such that lower-level abilities can't invalidate higher-level powers (for example, Detect Magic can't see through illusion spells unless Detect Magic is cast with a higher caster level than the illusion.) So I imagine "attempt to counteract toxins" would mean that if your caster level is high enough, it will counteract the toxin, but won't have any effect if your CL is too low.

Interesting domain powers - but, if it costs a feat with Expanded Domain to get an extra 1st-level domain power, and a second feat with Advanced Domain to get the 2nd-level power, are these really strong enough?

I mean, I love tasty food, but even so, it seems almost impossible to justify spending a feat on it! Especially with the additional cost of the spell points it requires. Gives a new meaning to "flavor" ability at least...

And then Artistic Flourish - spend two feats and two spell points and 10 minutes to make an item slightly better? Honestly, how many times in an entire campaign do you foresee that ability being used? Or Tempt Fate - spend two feats and two spell points, and if you fail then you just spent those resources to actively make things worse!

When I first read that clerics could take an extra domain with a feat, I thought that sounded cool! Since each deity has only a small number of domains, I feel like the domain abilities could be slightly more powerful than regular feats. Instead, these previewed ones at least don't seem very compelling (dare I use the word "trap")?

I don't see the issue with Ring of Sustenance, as I'm not really interested in playing "Eating Simulator 2nd Edition".

I could see "voluntarily take an anathema in order to gain certain mechanical benefits" as being a thing one could spend a general feat on, similar to deific obedience in PF1.

I was mulling over an idea like this - take a feat that pairs a restriction with a benefit. There could be different ones for each class, for example:

• Barbarian superstitions
  
• Bard conceits
  
• Cleric commandments
  
• Druid taboos
  
• Fighter hubris
  
• Monk vows
  
• Paladin codes
  
• Ranger estrangements
  
• Rogue vices
  
• Sorcerer impulses
  
• Wizard oppositions

It'll be a tough design challenge though to balance them, and make the restrictions meaningful without being too overbearing.

Just throwing it out, designing PFS for 20 levels means it will be harder to find a table for your character, unless they stretch out the tiers (and it doesn't sound that fun to play a 1st-level character at the same table that someone else has a 6th-level character.)

Very interesting that metamagic Reach Spell doesn't seem to increase the spell level!

(Also, I love that Lamashtan clerics can choose to "channel positive". That totally fits my vision of Lamashtu!)

RumpinRufus wrote:

Mark Seifter wrote:

To try to use some numbers here to explain, suppose that there is a 0 to 10 scale of what you can do in an encounter, where 5 is about what you would do as a reasonable share of a 4-person team and 10 is "I can solo everything, you are coming to watch." If non-metamagic blasting was 4 in PF1, metamagic blasting was 6, hyperoptimized blasting was 9, and the strongest nonblasting caster shenanigans was 10, and we curb that "other shenanigans" category, then if blasting in PF2 competed with "hyperoptimized blasting" from PF1, it would be the new caster problem child.

Those numbers seem way high to me!

I played in a party that had a hyperoptimized blockbuster blaster (crossblooded sorcerer 1/admixture wizard X with Magical Lineage for Fireball and all the metamagic feats) and I'd say they were around a 6.5 on that scale. The blaster sorcereress in my current Runelords game is non-optimized and probably a 1...

What are other people's experience with this? How would you rank PF1 blasters on the 0-10 scale?

I think it is pretty hard to comment without specific builds, but even then when we are talking about things that vary a lot from table to table. I do think there's a point where a well built blaster can pretty much solo encounters though-- I've done it without even using metamagic.

I don't know how much the exact numbers matter for Mark's point though.

But by "solo encounters" do you mean solo certain specific blast-friendly encounters (lots of mooks in a tight space,) or solo any arbitrary encounter? Because my experience playing PF is that most fights are against 1-2 enemies, and I've never seen a blaster solo a single-enemy fight (at least not without Dazing Spell.) So rating them as 9 (just one step from "I can solo everything, you are coming to watch") just doesn't match my personal experience at all.

My experience in PF1 is that you need to hyperoptimize a blaster to even stay relevant. Players who bring non-hyperoptimized blasters (usually new players) invariably end up disappointed when they're doing 10 damage each round while the martials are doing 30 damage.

It depends on what you are fighting; a GM can always throw harder stuff (like APL+5 encounters mentioned elsewhere in the thread, which adventure guidelines say to never do but a GM can get away with easily in PF1 if the group is hyperoptimized enough). My scale is based on monster baselines and the sort of encounters you'd expect to find in a published adventure. Having played that same (or similar) hyperoptimized damaging build in PF1, against standard opposition, the only thing other party members were useful for was a meat shield and occasional assistance if something blocks all my damage types. One of the other players in my group back quite a few years was curious, so we ran a test-drive through From Shore to Sea (he picked it especially) where I was only allowed to deal cold damage (which many foes resisted) and since I asked for meat shields (and people to make my skill checks), I received a team of NPC-classed experts who weren't allowed to take any feats or abilities except Skill Focus and other options that buffed skills. We crushed the adventure, including one encounter where the monster is really high level and you only fight a piece of it (avoiding more for spoilers), but we (well I) killed the full creature. So bizarrely, I actually do have empirical evidence of a well-built blaster + placeholder NPCs to soak hits vs a module. I don't really have data for anything else interesting like this; it was a random thing our group did when I was back in college.

In any case, the numbers don't matter if you agree with the relative placements (mostly just if you agree that there is some "other shenanigans" category that can move down).

Interesting, but I think the experiment might be testing "optimized character in a published adventure" as much as it's testing "hyperoptimized blaster vs standard PC." An optimized barbarian put through the same test might also come out looking like a 9 or a 10. It's pretty much just a known fact that if you optimize your character and then bring them to an AP or PFS game you are going to steamroll it.

The thing that I don't like to see is when a new player comes in, and all they want to do is build a blasty damage-dealing caster, and they are consistently doing half (or less) of the damage of the frontliner. If you specialize for blasting, I'd like to see you do an equivalent amount of damage as a frontliner. After all, the frontliner is performing two roles - tank/damage sponge and also DPR, so if the blaster is only performing one of those two roles and doing it half as well, it's no wonder they leave the session feeling worthless.

I'd agree with those numbers.

To clarify, you're agreeing with Mark's numbers or mine?

To try to use some numbers here to explain, suppose that there is a 0 to 10 scale of what you can do in an encounter, where 5 is about what you would do as a reasonable share of a 4-person team and 10 is "I can solo everything, you are coming to watch." If non-metamagic blasting was 4 in PF1, metamagic blasting was 6, hyperoptimized blasting was 9, and the strongest nonblasting caster shenanigans was 10, and we curb that "other shenanigans" category, then if blasting in PF2 competed with "hyperoptimized blasting" from PF1, it would be the new caster problem child.

Those numbers seem way high to me!

I played in a party that had a hyperoptimized blockbuster blaster (crossblooded sorcerer 1/admixture wizard X with Magical Lineage for Fireball and all the metamagic feats) and I'd say they were around a 6.5 on that scale. The blaster sorcereress in my current Runelords game is non-optimized and probably a 1...

What are other people's experience with this? How would you rank PF1 blasters on the 0-10 scale?

edit: I wasn't counting Dazing Spell in the above assessment, as I don't really considering it blasting at that point. If you add Dazing Spell in then "blasting" becomes insanely more powerful, but I'm more wondering about actual damage-dealing blasting.

First tip: get off this forum! This is a forum for GMs, even most of the thread titles here have heavy spoilers.

How about a universal archetype that buffs your blasting? Call it Elementalist and then druids, wizards, and sorcerers can all take it.

I agree we desperately need stronger blasting in PF2. I'm 100% OK with it requiring investment for a caster to rival a fighter in DPR, but if they invest heavily into blasting they should be able to get close. So many people want to play blasters, especially new players, it's a real shame PF1 doesn't support that playstyle.

And poisons still have super low DCs. Yaaaay.

Did you miss the 5 gp price tag? I was actually wondering if DC 13 was too high.

I don't know what kinds of other dangers or restrictions are involved, but if I could just visit the local apothecary and spend 5 gp for a poison that has a half-decent chance of slowing and maybe KOing my enemy, I would probably poison 100% of my weapons 100% of the time. Obviously drow sleep poison will not be that readily available, but if other poisons are similarly deadly with similarly low costs I can see a massive shift in the percentage of characters that use poison.

It's also interesting to note that both the elixirs mentioned (Bravo's Brew and Lesser Bestial Mutagen) along with the one we already knew about (Elixir of Life) give +1/+2/-1/-2 types of effects.

I think a lot of people were expecting PF2 to end the era of "fiddly +1/+2s", but it looks like they're here to stay.

NielsenE wrote:

From the examples shown, it appears that activated alchemical items require resonance by default. (However most the examples show 'no resonance cost')

There's also the line about attuning elixirs -- so if you steal an alchemists's elixirs you can't use them yourself. Neither the Bravo's Brew nor a mutagen. The Bravo's Brew, feels a little odd to me to have to be customized to a person, while I understand it for the mutagen.

That line about attuning in the paragraph on the restrictions of mutagens that starts with the word elixirs should say "mutagens." We should have a fix soon!

OK, good! It was bugging the verisimilitude center of my brain to have "non-magical" elixirs be attuned by spitting into the brew.

(It still bugs me that "non-magical" elixirs require resonance. I'm hoping that little piece of equivocation drops out in the playtest.)

As long as we're doing this thread, we may as well have a proper poll.

Poll is here.

Results are here.

I'm really questioning what the problem is.

As a GM, say I'm running a combat with three types of enemies. I have goblins, goblin commandos, and an NPC. On a goblin's turn, he attacks and I roll a nat 3.

In PF1 I literally don't even need to look at his statblock at all, I just know it's a miss. I've just resolved an entire turn in about 3 seconds.

In PF2, I need to look at the statblocks, find the goblin's stat block, find the attack bonus, look up at the board to determine flanking, try to remember if there are any other buffs or debuffs active, look back at the die result, add everything together, ask the PC what their AC is, they try to recall whether or not they put their shield up, they respond, and then I can finally resolve it.

It may seem trivial because you do all that so frequently, but this is the stuff that bogs combat down. I love the turns that you can resolve in 3 seconds because it keeps the action moving so quickly, and now it looks like those 3-second turns are dead and gone (at least when your PCs have fumble-triggered abilities.)

The fact that even in PF1 where combat healing is weak, there is still a very common sentiment that someone needs to play a healer makes me very worried what would happen if PF2 buffs combat healing.

I've actually seen people post on reddit with questions like "Right now the party is a druid, a witch, and a ranger, so we need a healer. How can I make a cleric that isn't boring?" This conception that you need a healer just won't die, so reinforcing that conception by making combat healing powerful will unintentionally mean a lot of players get pressured into playing a character they have no interest in playing. This is especially a problem for new players! New players don't have the system mastery to refute and say "actually we can get along just fine without a cleric," and they're more likely to accede to pressure from other players on what kind of character to make. That leads to uninspired characters and bad (first) play experience.

I'd almost like to see language right in the cleric class description of the CRB, something like "While druids get their healing powers from their connection to natural life forces, and wizards get their healing powers from manipulation of the material fabric of the world, clerical healing powers are a direct gift from the divine." Just some kind of bright flashing message to brand-new players - "there are other options!!!"

To clarify, I have nothing against the cleric class - I actually love it - but I do object to seeing players get pressured into playing a specific role, and that happens A LOT. Buffing combat healing is bound to make that problem worse.

Voicing support for "Power Pool".

It seems perfectly descriptive, and I could even imagine one of my PCs using the term without it sounding metagamey.

I was hoping Mage's Magnificent Birthday would make its way into this edition!

Details, glorious details! Thanks Mark!!

Resurrection. Resurrection being made impossible is enough reason that necromancy is evil. Once someone's been reanimated as undead, Raise Dead is flat-out impossible on them. Even True Resurrection fails unless you destroy the undead creature inhabiting their body.

Even if someone willingly volunteered for their body to be made into an undead creature (which is definitely the only way necromancy could possibly be not-evil,) you don't know if some higher power might want for them to be resurrected at some point. If they've ever been reanimated, at the very minimum that's going to require Resurrection instead of Raise Dead, and if their body is still animated then it could require a Wish to summon the corpse so it can be destroyed before being resurrected.

Definitely agree - you should get at least 2 ancestry feats at level 1. Otherwise all the races will just look the same at low levels.

Please same tone, more info, longer posts if necessary.

(Btw, is anyone else bugged when the word "spoiler" is used for their reveals? It's not a novel, it's a rulebook, you're not "spoiling" it by telling us what's in it!)

I'd reaaaally like to know more about how ability scores are generated. If it's true that backgrounds play a part I'm worried that we're going to get into a situation where all Barbarians take the same 3 backgrounds because they grant a STR boost, for example.

I'm really concerned about this as well. At the very least, I'd like as many backgrounds as possible to have multiple options for stat boosts.

Example backgrounds:

Mercenary: +2 to any stat

Scholar: +2 to Int or Wis

Escaped slave: +2 to any stat

Thief: +2 to Dex, Int, or Cha

RumpinRufus wrote:

Quote:

Fey Fellowship, which makes a gnome more charismatic when dealing with fey

For these types of super-situational feats, can you at least balance it by giving a whopping huge bonus? Otherwise we get something like Dragonheart: you get a bonus to saves against one specific type of creature... and by that way, that bonus is +1. Enjoy. (Has anyone ever actually taken that feat??)

My angle on this is similar but opposite at same time. Fey does not need be super-situational. IMHO Gnomes themself should be Fey. As with Wayang. As with the Tian Xia Spirit-creatures I forget name of. Paizo has said they will take less-strict approach to Type abilities, so having actual Fey type for all of these shouldn't be a big problem IMHO. I just think this would be good for game, and makes things like Favored Enemy: Fey alot more relevant. IMHO they might as well collapse Gnome and Fey languages as well, but YMMV.

Making gnomes fey is interesting, I could get behind that. They certainly retain a very strong connection with the First World.

Wayangs on the other hand are clearly not fey, they're connected to the Shadow Plane and don't have any canonical connection to the First World. (And besides, if you told me the feat is not so bad because it boosts your Cha checks vs wayangs, I'd ask you how many campaigns I'd need to run through before seeing my first wayang.)

gnomes are horrifyingly obnoxious hateable creatures (ESPECIALLY if this terrible "Bleaching" BS is going to be rammed down our throats) and shouldn't get +Cha. Stick with +Con +Int please. Give them the ability score bonus (Int) that reflects the shifty conniving wretches they actually are.

You... you've never met a gnome, have you? "Shifty" and "conniving" are definitely not words that apply to most gnomes. If anything, gnomes are probably forthright to a fault, just because they are so interested in doing their own thing they don't particularly care what you think about it.

Of all the ancestries I think +Cha is most fitting for a gnome, as they are the most self-defined and genuine of any ancestry.

Also!, this is interesting.

Blog wrote:

Most ancestries get three ability boosts

Humans probably get two boosts with no flaws. (We all know humans are flawless!!!!)

Additionally, the sling is now a more formidable weapon than in Pathfinder First Edition—we've both increased its damage and done away with the difference in damage die size between Small and Medium creatures. A halfling with a sling can be pretty dangerous!

Very nice!

tanglefoot cantrip

Looking forward to seeing this one!

Fey Fellowship, which makes a gnome more charismatic when dealing with fey

For these types of super-situational feats, can you at least balance it by giving a whopping huge bonus? Otherwise we get something like Dragonheart: you get a bonus to saves against one specific type of creature... and by that way, that bonus is +1. Enjoy. (Has anyone ever actually taken that feat??)

I've copied the Google transcription of Erik Mona and Logan Bonner on Know Direction to this document.

This should help make it easier to search for specific topics in the YouTube video. The transcription isn't perfect, if anyone wants to edit it it is open for edits.

I found the Erik Mona quote, it's at 32:03 in the Know Direction interview.

I hate identifying magic items, I think that's the stupidest waste of time in the entire game. I don't like that kind of “Mother may I?” secret-holding from players, it doesn't help at all. Just tell them it's a +1 sword and move on with it. Now I know how we are addressing that in second edition and I think it's pretty awesome. So that's one thing that I really don't like. Let me think a little bit about some of the other ones... but that, I hate that with a burning passion.

To those who are advocating the mystery element, do you actually use RAW to identify magic items in PF1? Because in my experience, there's never much interesting mystery to it. Usually one or two casters have detect magic prepared, and they roll their Spellcraft, and then they either get it and you learn about the item (no mystery,) or else they wait a day and try again, and maybe prepare identify to buff the roll, or maybe take it to town to purchase a casting of identify, and you basically still always learn exactly what the item is, but now you've wasted a whole bunch of game time.

I think it would be more fun if your fighter could just walk up to an item that looks special, and use their instinctive connection with magic (i.e. resonance) to temporarily bond with the item and understand its secrets.

If you don't use RAW, what is your preferred method of item identification?

As for cursed items, one option would be that this method is unable to detect curses at all, you need special specific magic spells to detect curses. (You could also exploit the fact that this method requires physical contact with the item, and have a curse that triggers immediately on contact.)

Erik Mona has expressed his loathing for magic item identification in PF1. I think we can all sympathize - identifying magic items has always been super clunky. When you find a dragon hoard with 8 magic items, does anyone actually look up the CL of all eight items and then force each party member that uses Detect Magic to roll eight different Spellcraft checks?

Resonance allows a super elegant and simple solution. My proposal:

A character in contact with a magic item may expend one point of resonance to identify the magic properties of that item.

That's it. No magic required, no checks, no slowing down the game by looking up item caster levels.

It makes intuitive sense because resonance is a character's capacity for interacting with magic items.

And it provides at least somewhat of a meaningful choice - when you find the item, do you blow your resonance immediately to identify it, in case you might want to use it later that day? Or do you conserve your resonance until just before resting, in case you need the resonance during a fight? And if you find multiple magic items (maybe more rare in PF2 but I assume dragons still exist) then which one do you identify first? Or do you blow through your resonance to identify them all?

This seems about 1000x more elegant than PF1's system. What do other people think?

I think that Appraise, Knowledge (nobility), Knowledge (geography), and Sleight of Hand should all be bundled together into one mega-skill. That skill should be called "Yeah Right, You're Still Never Going To Roll This."

Healing will slow down the game. More healing = longer combats.

Not necessarily a show-stopper, but something to keep in mind. If I was at a PFS table and someone said "Should I play my cleric or my barbarian?" and I knew that with the barbarian each combat would last 45 minutes whereas with the cleric each combat would last 60 minutes, I would say "Play the barb pretty pretty please!"

Players should just confirm with their GM that such a thing exists in their setting. I can't just claim my PC is an earthling who has been unexplainably transported to Golarion, and expect that to be allowed because it's just flavor.

Flavor is important for tone as well. If two players are trying play serious characters that have personal attachment to the story, and a third PC just got out of Klown Kollege, that's likely to cause an issue.

Best advice on both sides is just use "Yes, and...". The player comes to the GM with the flavor, the GM says "Yes, and here's how to fit it to the setting, can you make those changes?" The player says, "Yes, and here's how my character's gonna act. Could that work?" The GM says, "Yes, and here's how you could make it work."

Can we get "Yes, and..." in the rulebook?

The question though is Cabbage, did Anyone else see it as Illegitimate Authority? And, if John had won out in the end, who then would be seen as the Legitimate Authority? History afterall is written by the victors, and Stories (if Robin Hood is indeed fictional) are written for Good to Triumph over evil(like John).

Well according to the renowned political theorist Max Weber, there are three types of legitimate authority.

"The Three Types of Legitimate Rule" (Die drei reinen Typen der legitimen Herrschaft) is an essay written by Max Weber, a German economist and sociologist, explaining his tripartite classification of authority. Originally published in the journal Preussische Jahrbücher 187, 1-2, 1922, an English translation, translated by Hans Gerth, was published in the journal Berkeley Publications in Society and Institutions 4(1): 1-11, 1958. Weber also refers to the three types of legitimate rule in his famous essay "Politics as a Vocation."

Weber's ideas about legitimate rule also appear in his Basic Concepts in Sociology and The Theory of Social and Economic Organization.

The translation of the German word Herrschaft is at the heart of understanding Weber's point about political legitimacy. The translation Rule was employed in the 1958 essay translation by the key early Weber translator Hans Gerth, and is in the title of the essay as translated here. Other translators of Weber including Alexander M. Henderson and Talcott Parsons, translated Herrschaft as authority. Weber translators Tony Waters and Dagmar Waters discuss the difficulties in translating Herrschaft as well, typically using "dominion" and "domination" in addition to the original German Herrschaft.

According to Weber, beliefs in the legitimacy of a political system go beyond philosophy and they directly contribute to the state system stability and authority. All rulers have an explanation for their superiority, an explanation that is commonly accepted but during a crisis can be questioned. Weber sees only three categories of legitimation strategies (which he calls "pure types") used to justify the right of rulers to rule:

• Legal authority is based on a system of rules that is applied administratively and judicially in accordance with known principles. The persons who administer those rules are appointed or elected by legal procedures. Superiors are also subject to rules that limit their powers, separate their private lives from official duties and require written documentation.

• Traditional authority is based on a system in which authority is legitimate because it "has always existed". People in power usually enjoy it because they have inherited it. Officials consist either of personal retainers (in a patrimonial regime) or of personal loyal allies, such as vassals or tributary lords (in a feudal regime). Their prerogatives are usually similar to those of the ruler above them, just reduced in scale, and they too are often selected based on inheritance.

• Charismatic authority is based on the charisma of the leader, who shows that he possesses the right to lead by virtue of magical powers, prophecies, heroism, etc. His followers respect his right to lead because of his unique qualities (his charisma), not because of any tradition or legal rules. Officials consist of those who have shown personal devotion to the ruler, and of those who possess their own charisma.

The types of authority change over time, when the ruled are no longer satisfied with the system. For example, after the death of a charismatic leader his followers, if they lack the charisma of their predecessor, will try to institute a system based on tradition or law. On the other hand, these systems can be challenged by the appearance of a new charismatic leader, especially during economic or military crises.

These 'pure types' are almost always found in combination with other 'pure types' — for example, familial charisma (important in kingship and the Indian caste system) is a combination of charismatic and traditional elements, while institutional charisma (existing in all church organizations, but absent from a priesthood that fails to develop such an organization) is a mixture of charismatic and legal elements.

I think we can all agree that Prince John had none of the above: no legal authority, no traditional authority, and no charismatic authority. So we can safely declare him illegimate.

Wait, weren't we talking about rogues?

Some people like paper copies - Paizo calculated that they can sell the book cheaper than it would cost for a playtester to print out the pdf at a Kinko's.

And some people want it as a collectible.

If you don't fall into one of those two categories, you probably won't want to order a copy.

Under the new standard rules, I think my big issue is that it seems like players will be hopping up and falling back down until they die for good. At least if I'm understanding the way dying works.

I don't think I'm going to like that much in PF2.

I do agree with this - it seems like you regain consciousness startingly fast, even without being healed. I prefer PF1 where unless you were healed, you would be KOed for a minimum of one day. Under the current playtest rules as I understand them, you could get KOed, come back up two rounds later, get KOed again, come back up two round later, get KOed again, and come back up two rounds later (all without any healing.) Then retreat for a few rounds and do it again.

Fuzzypaws, I really like most of your design work, but this one really misses the mark for me.

Firstly, a clarification - every enemy has a DC (not sure the actual term but I think of it as a "Death DC") that assumedly is right there in the stat block. There's not actually a "boss vs mook" distinction, it's just that the goblin might have a Death DC of 11 while the adult dragon might have a Death DC of 23.

Now, your system is massively more complicated than the PF2 system - two DCs, modified by Dying level, and then you have to keep track of how much healing you received on the previous round, and keep track of whether you succeeded or failed your previous check, and the Dying level you die at is different for everyone. Then there's a separate check to regain consciousness. Honestly it's kind of a mess. PF2 dying is quite simple - you roll a Fortitude save, and if you pass, you are OK. If you fail, your Dying level increases. If you hit 4, you're dead.

In your system, your friends can go to extreme lengths to heal you (run across the battlefield into mortal danger to pour a potion down your throat) and still watch helplessly while you die. That's gonna feel bad for everyone involved.

It also loses some of the urgency and drama. For a Con 16 character that won't die until they hit Dying 8, you know you have a bunch of rounds even if they manage to crit fail multiple saves. And then once you get to the level that you can reliably deliver 15 points of healing, you can basically say "see you in 3 rounds buddy while we finish killing this thing." The PF2 system has more urgency that you better do something quick.

I also don't like the Action Points thing. I know that Hero Points let you do this in PF1, and we don't know yet whether they will in the playtest, but it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Without going into any spoilers, I was listening to a podcast recently where a character used Hero Points to not die, and I almost stopped listening to the podcast because it just ruined the drama and tension so quickly and so completely. Thankfully they redeemed themselves soon afterward, so I think they realized what a terrible choice it was to allow that usage of the Hero Points.

Let's do an example: Billy goes down - his Con score is 10.

• First round: Billy is at Dying 1. The cleric healed him for 4 points, but to regain consciousness he rolled a nat 13 for a total of 17 vs DC 20 so he doesn't regain consciousness. To stabilize, he is rolling for DC 16 with a +4 bonus. He rolls a natural 11 - oof, just shy. Down to Dying 2.
  
• Second round: Billy is at Dying 2. The cleric heals him again for 4 points, but again he fails to regain consciousness with a nat 14. So he is rolling for DC 17 with a +4 bonus. He rolls a natural 19 - succeeds at the check, so he's still at Dying 2 but will get a +1d10 bonus next round.
  
• Third round: Billy is at Dying 2. He rolls 1d20+1d10 against DC 17. He rolls a nat 15 on the d20 and a nat 10 on the d10 - that's a success, but not a critical success. Still at Dying 2.
  
• Fourth round: Billy is at Dying 2. He rolls 1d20+1d20 against DC 17. He rolls a nat 11 on the d20 and a nat 5 on the d10, failing the check. Down to Dying 3.
  
• Fifth round: Billy is at Dying 3. He rolls 1d20 vs DC 18. Not looking good for Billy. He rolls a nat 15, and fails his check. Down to Dying 4.
  
• Sixth round: Billy is at Dying 4. He rolls 1d20 vs DC19. Nat 17, he fails the check. Billy is dead.

Even though Billy never rolled below an 11, and got healed twice, he still dies. And the process to get there is so mind-bendingly rule intensive, people would probably start audio-recording the whole process just to go back and see if they made any mistakes.

I do agree that if you are not at risk of death you should not have the Dying condition.

RumpinRufus wrote:

{. . .}

Also, for those looking for compiled info about PF2 this Google Doc is a great reference.

This document and the original post say that 0th level spells are no longer a thing, but the same document and at least one of the blog posts and/or a developer post shortly after it say that Cantrips are still a thing. Which is it?

Cantrips exist but are no longer considered 0th level spells.

Relevant survey: Half-orcs are the #4 most popular PC race, and half-elves are #2 (see question 3.)

Paizo would be shooting themselves in the foot (and messing with a lot of players) by making it into a complicated mess to build one of these.

"It also does imply an aspect of rapeyness that is well out of date"

It's not out of date. Orcs are an evil race. Rape is evil. Orcs are fecund and love rape. That's clearly one of many evils that they are all about. There's nothing "out of date" about having an evil race do evil things. Orcs should make you uncomfortable, they are vile.

Well there are a lot of survivors of sexual assault who don't want those memories dredged up while they're trying to just play a game. I understand that. Considering the huge numbers of people have been sexually assaulted, it makes sense to tread lightly on the subject.

I just don't understand how removing half-orcs achieves that. If you're going that route, I'd think you would just want to soften the image of orcs entirely, such that half-orcs no longer have the implication of rape. Even just introducing NPCs who are the produce of consensual orc-human relationships seems better to me from every angle than removing half-orcs completely.

I don't think its retconning the setting. I see it as expanding upon the setting and moving away from ugly ideas of past editions. Make the orc playable, like the goblin, and have the Half-Orc be a trait or racial feat so its still there as well.

If anything, the happy lovey children of Human-Orc matings are a deviation from the setting as demonstrated by the descriptions of orcs posted from Paizo material shows.

Orcs have been a playable race since 2012.

And if I understand correctly, the original request is to remove half-orcs entirely from the game, which would require retconning dozens of NPCs (and two iconics) to either become full-blooded orcs or humans. It didn't seem like "leave half-orcs in as an option" was part of OP's request.

Fuzzypaws wrote:

MerlinCross wrote:

Meanwhile I dislike Alchemist is suddenly mundane and weaker now. Along with the gold cost. My fear is that Alchemist just becomes a money pit in game. Or the supply officer of the team.

That at least isn't a concern. They get a number of free items per day, which presumably rises with level, like how a caster gets extra spell slots per day as they go up in level. /On top of that/ they can spend gold to have even more consumables permanently available, just like a caster spending gold in PF1 to permanently have more potions and scrolls available.

If an alchemist gives buff items to party members, they act just like a buffbot caster. If they instead focus on destructive items they act like a blaster caster. If they instead focus their buffs on themselves, they act like a codzilla.

You actually addressed why it's a concern, not why it isn't.

Potions and Scrolls as nice as they are, are limited to 1 a day. Alchemy however, at least in 1e, does not. You are limited to time still yes but Gold is the bigger one. So during possible downtime, an Alchemist can get with crafting far more stuff than a Wizard can. And with the benifit of not needing team mates to need Spellcart or UMD.

So I can see Alchemist just stockpiling stuff

I'm guessing that the free items will be temporary, and lose potency after 1 day. To make them permanent, you need to spend gp.

It's not even all that handwavey - you can say that the stabilizers are the expensive part, and that the alchemist is skilled enough to actually brew unstable concoctions without the stabilizers (which is why he can do it for free,) but without the stabilizers they will degrade.

I don't really get the request. You are asking Paizo to retcon the setting, so as long as you're asking them to retcon, why not just retcon so that half-orcs are the result of consensual relationships? Why do you need to remove them entirely?

If you want orcs to be nice enough not to do nasty things to people, why would the children of these happy orcs imply assault?

Gameplay: death rules - 1/5

I don't think that death rules needed a revision, and I don't like how it has been done. At all. I find it both complicated and not realistic: if HPs are an abstraction for how hard it is to kill a character, why ignore them as soon as they go to zero? I really don't get why going into the negatives was so wrong.
Getting rid of non-lethal damage may be a good thing, but I'd like to see more details about that. Overall, 1/5.

I'm going to 100% disagree with you here. The PF1 system had no drama - in 95% of cases you were either insta-dead, or you were "dying but actually fine" because you were 3+ HP away from death in a fight that's only probably going to last 3 more rounds. There was such a vanishingly narrow band of HP where there was actually any tension (like when you were 1-2 HP away from death,) and especially as you get to higher levels where damage totals are higher, it became even more statistically improbable to end up in that state where you were actually close to death.

The new system actually spurs the party into action. If someone goes down, someone has to save them, quick. You can't just always wait until after the fight like in PF1. In PF2 you have reason to take daring action and put yourself at risk to deliver a healing elixir. It becomes an actual story moment instead of just "Frank went down again, talk to you in 30 minutes bud."

Also, I hate to use the word "hate" but I HATE the SF-style nonlethal. It would just feel viscerally bad if you build a nonlethal-focused character who believes in salvation and redemption, spec out for nonlethal, and then the nonlethal damage you do ends up contributing to someone's death because your companion got the killing blow instead of you. I understand the desire to reduce bookkeeping, which is why I proposed a compromise solution in this thread:

As long as you've taken any nonlethal damage, the character that brings you to 0 may decide to knock you unconscious instead of giving you the Dying condition.

RumpinRufus wrote:

I'm interested to see some of the high-level alchemical items! It would be cool if they were priced so that lots of characters might actually buy consumables - and one advantage of the alchemist being that he gets them for free. It would be nice if they just worked a la carte for a rogue (or whatever other class wanted to use them,) without requiring alchemist class features to actually use effectively. It would be a shame if Paizo spent all this effort developing an elegant alchemy system, and then made alchemical items a trap option for everyone but the alchemist.

While I feel the term trap has been overused to the point of being almost meaningless, I struggle to understand how, on any level, a Class whose entire concept is based on excelling with alchemical items being better with those items in any way detracts from the usefulness of said items to other classes.

Alchemists should be better at alchemical items, for sure. I just don't want them to be useless for non-alchemists.

In PF1, almost no one ever really bought consumables (besides for healing.) Consumables were generally something you found in loot, stuffed in a sack, and then promptly forgot about. It would be nice to see in PF2 that spending your money on consumables is actually a viable option.

I think they've opened up some design space for this - now that you don't need to spend all your money to fill every possible item slot, and magic items cost resonance, that opens up a nice niche for alchemical items as consumable power enhancers that don't cost resonance.

It'll just be a shame if we see that they've created a beautiful alchemical item system with 100 different cool alchemical items, but for one reason or another they're all useless or overpriced for non-alchemists.

My main concern is the money issue. There was no mention in the description of bombs, mutagens, alchemical items, etc being free. Is the alchemist going to be a class that never has money for anything because they have to spend it all to do anything? If the only way they get anything for free is to spend Resonance, which they need to wear magic items, that is going to REALLY suck.

The blog implies that they can craft a number of free alchemical items each day.

The alchemist is also a master of poisons (which he can craft for free each day just like other alchemical items)