Golden Goblin Statue

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Organized Play Member. 1,295 posts (1,296 including aliases). 8 reviews. No lists. No wishlists. 12 Organized Play characters. 1 alias.


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Alrighty - let's see. First, super glad to hear that "morally dubious" was part of the goal! It sounds like the artifacts aren't really things that the PCs will interact with too much, which does mean that a lot of the design of the artifact doesn't matter as much. But, to sum up, let me take a swing at the goal of the Heart and the Shards:

The Heart of the Nation essentially belongs to the ruler of the nation and compels their people to love them. It also acts as a line of communication between their vassals through the dream council. The Shards act as a minor form of the Heart, compeling others to love them.

I think I'm alright with the Heart having a massive, city-wide charm, if only because it's an interesting plot point and the PCs won't really be interacting with it (unless they have a "Would you kindly...?" moment with the holder of the Heart as a grand reveal, which I am all for). The issue to me comes with the Shards - I just feel like charming part is fairly well covered with the bonus to Charisma checks and their own super charm sort of steps on the toes of what the Heart does as both an item and a plot point? Again, I'm not 100% sure of which direction you'd like to go with the campaign, but it seems like you'd like the Shards to be powerful enough to fight over and not just because of the status (and presumably lordship) it would impart.

My proposal might be a little unusual, but we're spitballing here! Here's a few thoughts:

1. Instead lower the charm range its normal 30 ft and make it unlimited casting as well. Drop it to a 4th level charm so it's single target stil. This means that it's not so effective as to neuter entire invading forces (and defending forces) as a time, but morally wrong as you have a ruler who could essentially just ensorcell politcal rivals and members of the court. Probably good to almost make wielders immune to the charm effects of other Shards.

2. Scrap the charm entirely and instead make the Shard incredibly defensive - something like a permanent sanctuary or animus mine in effect. The idea that the holder of a Shard is untouchable unless approached by someone more powerful or the Shardbearer breaks out into violence is an interesting story.

3. Change out the charm into different enchantments: command, suggestion, telepathic demand, or even crusade make for some interesting choices. The idea here is that the Shardbearer abuses their station to truly control the minds of their people.

I mean, these are just ideas - I feel like a mile-wide charm with an essentially impossible DC doesn't provide much for the PCs to work with, especially if they get caught in it. Then there's a weird "you should roleplay not liking this guy, but not enough to kill him," thing that sort of happens.


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Typically when it comes to "campaign-defining artifacts" I would say that it really only should do what you need it to do. Like, need a Macguffin that will end the world? Boom, an artifact that calls forth earthquakes exists and now it must be destroyed.

But looking at this, I can't exactly wrap my head around what its purpose is. Like, okay, the holder of the Heart of the Nation can essentially use it to influence people easily, moreso for those in the land. I think I like that, but I would use that more for "Make An Impression" specifically than a flat bonus to everything. That or just have people of the nation treat you as one step more friendly. I enjoy the calling of the council as well!

But then we get to the Ruler's Charisma/Lord's Charisma. These feel... huh. These feel very weird. Mechanics aside for a moment, this is a mile-wide, target as many people as I'd like with, essentially, a form of mind control? If the point of the artifact is that it's an evil thing and shouldn't fall into the hands of wicked rulers, then yeah, I'm all for this. This feels like "Lord Rulerman holds the Heart and none can hate him. His uses his power to massage his ego and drive his citizens to death through overwork/whathaveyou." I think that's a pretty decent idea, actually, but not sure if that's what you're going for. I mean, it also just works on everyone regardless of their nationality and within a mile and lasts for a full day. It's pretty darn strong, which makes sense for a level 25 artifact, but morally very dubious and potentially too powerful in an unfun way.

Then we get the the shards. So when it comes to these things, I don't assume that they'll be in the hands of level 18th or 19th level characters, but something that's a part of the campaign fairly early. I probably need more information on it, but wouldn't the goal of these to be put into the hands of those loyal to the holder of the Heart? And my assumption is these are the PCs? This feels... way too powerful and, like I said, not really interactive. "We're going to storm this fort? Give me an hour and charm everyone within. At most they'll be Unfriendly and we'll just talk our way through until they give in."

Out of curiosity, what role do these items play in your campaign?


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This feels like a pretty huge undertaking and one that I would approach with care if you're really serious about it. I believe you're looking to convert the setting into a home game, right? I say that mostly because going from a 4X game to a TTRPG are going to have some pretty dramatic differences.

Now, as someone who hasn't played Endless Legend, my first question would be "How much can you reskin?" Save yourself some effort and use existing material and call it something else. Race of stone people who are hardy and stubborn - perfect, dwarves fit the bill. Horrible devil creatures who are super diplomatic - toss together some Nephlelim, Ifritkin, and Halfling Ancestry Feats.

My next question is also a bit obvious - why do you want to do this? Like, if you really enjoy the world, you should certainly have your vision of what it should look like at your table. Make a list of the things you want to see incorporated into PF2 and think about the best way to execute that. As a sidebar, make sure you have a group that is also interested in this idea. It sure sucks to but months of work into something only to have people say, "I wish we could just play in Golarion."

Alright, onto the specifics. I don't know what Dust is, but from a cursory glance, it's like a unit of currency? Or maybe it's like spice from Dune, so I'd use rules for Drugs to create something. Not exactly sure what role you want it to fill in your world.

Creating ancestries, I won't lie, is difficult. I'd start with reskinning before sitting down and creating lists of what each ancestry should excel at and then modeling 20 some odd ancestry feats for that.

As for Heroes, I'm... assuming those would just be the PCs? Unless I'm missing something.


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While it's certainly a stab in the dark, I imagine that the Rise of the Runelords AP has gotten the most play (which would then put Burnt Offerings up there as the top book). I think that I've run it about four times in just PF1 play alone, and I don't think that I represent some of the more extreme numbers in that regard.

I want to throw an honorary "just maybe" to Dragon's Demand because it feels like such a classic fantasy adventure to introduce to a group of players the first time, but likely didn't get near that level of play.


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Throwing my hat into the ring here again. I think that Antagonize is a good "ceiling" to look at when it comes to wanting to introduce something like this into your games. It incentivizes the opponent to attack you while also lending aid to allies. But it is also a class feat on a class that may not want to get smacked in the face often.

This is the design space that feels more appropriate to me. No one is losing agency and the ability itself plays well with the rest of the system. Now, taking these ideas and putting them into a widely available skill/general feat? Little bit trickier. We've shown in-thread that we can't quite get a consensus on what such a skill would be - Intimidation, Deception, Diplomacy. The one constant is Charisma, which... I can already see the threads of people complaining about making their Fighters or Champions extra MAD to pick up this hypothetical ability.

For people who really want this, my advice would be to put something down and work through the pain points. I don't know that we need much more than what we have right now, however. And I don't think that we're ever going to see something like a "hard taunt" that some people are asking for.

Again, stressing, I am wildly against this idea. However, I encourage people to prove me wrong!


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Finoan wrote:
I could say the same thing about instant death effects - that they should be reserved for magic. Yet Scare to Death exists and is fairly reasonably balanced and narratively justified.

While there's little more I have to say on "taunting," I should note the difference in the "fantasy" of taunt mechanics and the balancing act of mechanics. Scare To Death is a pretty good example of why people looking for a "taunt" will be dissatisfied. Scare To Death requires being level 15, has the incapacitation trait, and only functions when both you score a critical success against a target and it critically fails its Fortitude save. Getting Scare To Death for the ability to kill opponents with a glance is really not the best choice.

Now, I do somewhat agree with you, because Scare To Death (and others, like Implausible Infiltration) feel very much in the realm of "magic should do this." But they're also very much set aside for the highest levels of play - at which point, I don't get so up in arms. If people are looking for a "taunt," I would assume they want that to be something they can do from level 1. The idea is that it's a function of the gameplay, right? Like "I have a character who Strides, Raises Shield, and Taunts," like in an MMO.


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This seems to be something I always end up commenting on because of how staunchly opposed I am to "taunt" as a mechanic in TTRPGs. When there are two camps split between Gameplay and Versimilitude, I often find myself on the side of gameplay first and versimilitude second, but I make an exception for "taunting" and direct video game mechanics like that applied in a game that should (abstractly) represent a real world.

I feel like the idea of compelling someone to act against their will should be reserved for magic. Shouting at someone to make them angry enough to fight you sort of strips free will from the character. The intelligent wizard BBEG rushing in to swing his staff at the armored fighter doesn't tell a compelling story to me so much as it tells a goofy "I can't believe this happened" sort of tale.

And to also touch on the gameplay aspect of it, I hate the idea of saying "I am going to be the tank, my role is to get hit," and then they're forced into a gameplay loop box that's better fit to video games with less decision points. I don't want to be at the table hearing, "Come on, you have to taunt the enemy so we can do our routines." It also takes the fun away from me - the GM. A lot of people seem to forget that we GMs are playing the game, too, and aren't just an automated interface to game. I'm alright with my group stunning and controlling my creatures and opponents through spells and gameplay, but it feels worse to have that autonomy stripped away (on regular basis, I should add; I'm assuming people want "taunting" as a go-to mechanic in stead of a limited resource).

On the other hand, I love when players force the enemy to deal with them through tactical play. The champion who grabs a reach weapon and Attack Of Opportunity presents a threat to overcome - but not impossible. A monk who Readies actions to Trip anyone who gets near the spellcasting wizard works in some situations, but not all. The barbarian spending their time using Athletics maneuvers to keep enemies corraled while their team handles them changes the dynamics of encounters. A singular action that takes all of that texture and play from the game feels like, honestly, a horrible idea.


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TheFinish wrote:
While this is true, we need to remember that most of the cover rules rely on GM adjudication.

To me, this is pretty much the whole of the discussion. If I say "I spend an action to press against the wall and Take Cover," and my GM says "Absolutely not. What are you talking about?" then that's really it. Judging from the responses to the OP, it seems that a large majority of GMs would rule that way.

However, if you're the GM, feel free to Calvinball the rules - it is your game after all. If your players are enjoying that, then who's to stop you?


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defaultuserguy wrote:
Are you guys absolutely sure? I mean is this ACTUALLY how it's supposed to be played (option 2) and option 1 has no variation?

Yes.

defaultuserguy wrote:
How then do you tell the difference between a "rider" and a status?

What you're defining as a "rider" does not exist and conditions do exist.

defaultuserguy wrote:
Or do riders even exist at all, and do they need to be ruled for other than what is directly written on the ability?

The ability does exactly what the ability says. Creating new rules is something of your own creation. Feel free to do so, but your group may object to playing fast and loose with the rules.


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There was a similar thread to this awhile back, and I may be echoing the sentiments from there, but I believe it boiled down to this: "You can't expect PF2 to play like PF1."

What I mean is, PF2 looks to reward "wide" play - giving players a plethora of options that can be very situationally useful. This means that you won't always get the "most efficent" use out of your choices. You may have feats that don't get used as often as others or have class features that you never touch.

In PF1, it was common to trade away everything that didn't contribute to the one thing you did to the best of your ability. We had alternate racial traits to winnow away the "useless" skill feats, favored classes, and fairly set feat progression. That's not to say that these were bad, but just that you shouldn't expect that same mentality in PF2.


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I think the first thing you have to do is separate two pieces of media from each other by quite a fair margin to give either one of them a fair shake. I think it would be pretty disingenuous to compare Alkenstar and the Mana Wastes to League of Legend's (or, more accurately, Arcane's) Piltover. While there are some surface-level similarities, like reconciling tech's existance in fantasy worlds, they have very different worlds they inhabit, roles to play, and history.

Alkenstar has to reside in a something of a living shared world which makes it somewhat difficult to throw a lot of rules out the window on a system-wide scale. Now, that's not to say that you can't just do your own thing in home games, but as more math-inclined people than I have pointed out, revolvers in PF2 would either unbalance things or be so weak as to not fulfill that fantasy that those clamoring for them would want.

Also, are automaton's not to your liking when it comes to "warforged-esque" ancestry? It always felt like a bit of a bone thrown to the warforged crowd.

Like, I suppose what I'm saying is, a lot of what your asking is just a difference in perspective. If you want to tell a story of Alkenstar where there's neon lights and mutagenic drugs running rampant, your world can have that. You can even just take Outlaws of Alkenstar and tell the story in that way. But it does seem that's not where the writers are heading with the area.


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Captivated is not a status, it's a word - one that happens to be a synonym for fascinated. You're getting caught up in semantics.

So, in essence, "Option 2" but you're also missing out that a PC that succeeds against Captivating Song is immune to all Captivating Songs for 24 hours. The odds of a group not having someone succeed (and thus able to assist their allies in breaking free) is pretty low, I would say.

Is it strong? Sure. Poorly balanced or written? I would disagree.


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A three year old necro, but this was actually errata'd already. You do not add your Dex bonus to Athletics maneuvers while using a finesse weapon.

You can feel free to houserule it, but letting you know that it's one heck of a necro to an already settled discussion.


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That's hardly a fair characterization. DF has only been doing this exact same thing for four years.

At this point, I'm starting to think it's a joke that the rest of us will never be let in on.


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I don't know that I entirely agree with the read on "Immune: death effects," if only because it falls under the "too bad to be true." I think my Strikes gaining the death trait would still harm undead targets, but they would be immune to the actual "death effect". Like, it isn't going to be slain.

I mean, even if it is intended to work this way, it definitely falls under 99% of GMs aren't going to run it this way.


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Dragonhearthx wrote:
Champion cannot cast spells.

But this could easily be accomplished with multiclass dedication.

Dragonhearthx wrote:
Weapon progression doesn't go above expert even for the favored weapon.

For... cleric? You could easily get what you want through a multiclass dedication.

Dragonhearthx wrote:
No deity has the khakkara as it's favored weapon. (Its the weapon monk priests use, and not even monks can use it)

Oddly specific, but if the intent here is "I want a warpriest who uses the khakkara," you have a few options:

1. Make a warpriest who uses a khakkara and talk to your GM about allowing a deity who uses a staff as their favored weapon.
2. Make another class and grab a multiclass dedication.

Dragonhearthx wrote:
I would like to have a fulu dabbler for the cleric. (like the Thaumaturge has for talismans)

Again, very specific. But many of the fulu have the talisman trait, so you can just pick up the Talisman Dabbler Dedication to get access to a bunch of free ones as well as going out and learning to Craft them on your own (without the dedication).

Dragonhearthx wrote:
I would like something as a Divine magus. (Hence the smite ability)

So this is very much in the realm of homebrew. People have clamored for it, but I would be dollars to doughnuts that we won't be seeing it from an official source. The Exemplar looks to be the direction that a divine martial will be taking in the future. I don't see why you couldn't just do all of this by taking the magus and giving it the divine spell list if you're homebrew friendly.

Otherwise, very simply, rather than ask for a full class to be broken into two separate classes, why not just make a champion with archetype feats?


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You did just have a thread on this topic moved off of General and into the Homebrew section. I'll keep the topic to one thread and will be responding over there.


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On my read, it seems like Unicore's GM is doing what all GMs I've seen do (and myself), which is to use the APs or adventures as a framework to build their story around. This is something designers and writers have come out many times to say is how they expect prewritten adventures to be handled.

Now I know that Bidi and I are both fairly avid PFS players and that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish. Certainly when I run PFS scenarios there's a "meta" that gets created because those stories are built with more constraints in mind. But applying this style of GMing to home games, adventures, and APs does feel a bit against the stated goals from the writers - which is to create an adventure that you group can really get their fingerprints all over and truly make their own.


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Calling that playstyle "the unicorn" is a little odd while also saying "I'm not sure why so much of the game seems to allow this playstyle." I think it's somewhat the core assumption of roleplaying games with the competitive minmax charop that has grown out of it that is the abberation.

Not saying that charop is a bad way to play, mind you, but I would note that it's much more likely to be uncommon in my mind.


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If only there was a way for these threads to stop appearing.

Unrelated image of a man in a hot dog costume.


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Bluemagetim wrote:
Some monsters are known to use good combat tactics, set up ambushes and can assess the party for optimal targets too though.

Not to speak for Calliope, but I believe they're saying that you won't see the same breadth of synergistic options in NPC stat blocks typically. That isn't to say that monsters can't or shouldn't be played tactically. There's a few reasons there.

Monsters with the same variety of player options is a lot of cognitive load for even experienced GMs and having three to four in a single encounter can make things rough. As well, large stat blocks tend to eat into page count, which makes spreading out impactful NPCs a bit more necessary than if you threw them all into one heavy encounter and left the adventure with a number of more generic feeling encounters.

And also there's just things that players can do that would be unfun on the recieving end of if you had to deal with them all of the time. I know my group sometimes gets upset when faced with certain abilities that they wouldn't bat an eye at if they possessed them. (Did you know there's an AP that allows an NPC to use a Reaction to instantly drop an opponent prone on a successful Feint? - Those sorts of abilities getting heaped on in every battle would grow tedious outside of the odd encounter, I feel)


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Getting closer to stealing this idea, myself.


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So it's just one of these things that just goes on and on and on when it's just subjective and silly.

"Wizards feel boring," is something you can say about your experiences. I can't really disagree with your experience. "I'd like it if wizards had more interesting feats and class options." Sure! Sounds great.

"Wizards are boring," is now a statement that I can say is just wrong. I don't find them boring and their playstyle is something I enjoy. "The wizard needs more feats and features to compete." Again, I disagree - they function just fine. I mean, look at this:

Deriven Firelion wrote:
I think they have boring feats. Thesis are fairly boring.

An opinion, cool. Sure, those feats can be boring, I can see that.

But then:

Deriven Firelion wrote:
The most obvious examples being Augment Summoning should be a free action cast while you cast the 3 action summon. Evocation focus spells should all be at range. Charm school should always debuff an enemy prior to casting a charm spell or maybe increase the number charmed, something useful for the play-style.

We started leaning into "this is how it should be played," not "this is what I'd like to see more of." It's genuinely frustrating to have conversations with other posters like this. And I've had these conversations with you since, like, the launch of the game. You've also talked about mountains of data that you've compiled and claim to be an authority on the game. Do you not see how this is just... incredibly off-putting? How you entirely undercut the point of any conversation when you interact with people this way?


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Ruzza wrote:
Also, why have all of the threads just become the same conversation stretched across the General boards?

Can we consolidate our points on a singular thread? Like, your responding to my quote in which I said nothing about RP to sort of address a broad number of topics on the boards.

Roleplaying is often entirely apart from the mechanical aspects of the game and it's not something I've talked about. It's sort of the Stormwind Fallacy here: I'm saying that you place more emphasis on tactical elements in a turn-by-turn sense and overcoming the challenges in (by your standards) optimal ways; my groups don't tend towards caring that much about some sort of DPR or overall measure of effectiveness. I'm not saying "Ah, DF cares so much about the mechanics that he must be bad at RP."

What I am saying is that many parts of the game that I and my groups greatly enjoy are things that your groups would not enjoy. Where they crop up, you and your group have gone to great lengths to not engage with them or minimize them. It's going to skew your perspective on design when you approach the game from one mindset/one playstyle.

I love a bit of an old-school romp where the group wizard sends out a prying eye in the morning to scout out the area they'll be tackling in the days to come. They inform the group, make plans, have some downtime, and tackle the problem on a later date. I like when the group has two to three months of downtime to get ready for a massive event. I enjoy when the party requires a high-level item that they must craft because itcan't be bought anywhere. I love when they are compiling information about enemies they've heard about before they encounter, giving them an edge in the fights to come. I like research and planning and all of this work that takes place before swords and drawn and I measure everything in six-second intervals.

And I also like when all that planning goes entirely poorly and the players are forced to improvise and react.

I don't really care so much about combats getting solved "correctly," only that my groups enjoy when they do. I enjoy when they say, "Well, that didn't go as planned," or "Hey, that was a great idea, good play."

I don't think there's anyone who at all argues with "wizard could use more interesting feats," much the same as any class getting more interesting feats and options would be great. The argument always seems to come down to "wizards are lesser," when many times it feels like the detractors either...

A) Have a different vision of what a wizard should be.

or

B) Have a different playstyle that deemphasizes things that wizards have a natural proclivity towards.

Like, other classes can RK and even have feats and chassis that support that. I don't think wizards are currently the lords of knowledge and I'd love to see more support in that direction. They aren't even the best at crafting or Downtime, but they don't really need to invest much for their slower playstyle of preparing and planning to reward these characters. I would never say that wizards are perfect, but I wouldn't say that of any class. I certainly wouldn't say that wizards are underpowered or "a broken class" when they function just as well as every other class - which sort of seems to be the definition of balance.


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To further add in, item bonuses to spell attack rolls (at the time separated into the wordy "non-weapon melee touch attack rolls" and "spell that requires a non-weapon ranged attack") were playtested back in 2019. For the reasons mentioned above, they didn't make the cut.

I grabbed out my Playtest book and snapped a quick picture for posterity.

EDIT: This was also the time that magic weapons went up to +5. As you can see the spellcasting item bonuses become available later than the bonuses typically were. Even during the playtest, the designers were bearing in mind the strengths that casters would have.


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I think comparing modern TTRPGs like Pathfinder 2e to the wargames of Gygaxian-era Chainmail is somewhat falling in line with "DF plays the game quite differently" which will skew his opinion on the matter of wizards, spellcasting, and RK. Also, why have all of the threads just become the same conversation stretched across the General boards?


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Swiftbrook wrote:
The more I read about the Remastered edition, the more it is sounding like Pathfinder 3.0, not even Pathfinder 2.5. There are so many changes, not just in mechanics, but in concept as well. I'm sure there must be some marketing reason why they are not changing the number, but the reality is that this is a new edition.

Wait, what mechanics are being changed? I've seen nothing beyond the occasional "Grab now requires a roll," and "we're clarifying Recall Knowledge." Could you explain this more clearly?


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Not to beat a dead horse, but...

Ruzza wrote:
I mean that's sort of why these discussions are frustrating to me, I don't think we'll ever see eye-to-eye on what makes the game enjoyable to us.

Like all of the things that I find enjoyable and worthwhile about playing a wizard are things that your group doesn't enjoy. So it's fine to just say "Oh, we don't like this class." There are those of us that do - it fits exactly the sort of playstyle that we've been looking for. I can't speak for all fans of the wizard, but I know that if it were changed in ways to cater towards a playgroup like DF's I... well, I would be disappointed.

Now, as always, more flavorful feats and interesting spells are great, but I think we're just going to go in circles about what our groups value. But again:

Ruzza wrote:
...I'm not going to stand here and act as an absolute authority to tell others how to play.


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But I will say that I'm not advocating for a singular way to play. This is quite the key difference here. You can both sides "people play differently," but I'm not going to stand here and act as an absolute authority to tell others how to play.


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Deriven Firelion wrote:
Ruzza wrote:
Snip.
And you're telling me you still want to roll every campaign to figure out fire stops regen on the trolls? You're making character number 20 and you still want that character to be in the dark on how to stop regen on a troll? That's what you're telling me?

I mean that's sort of why these discussions are frustrating to me, I don't think we'll ever see eye-to-eye on what makes the game enjoyable to us. Because... yes? Yes, I like to have the character who shouts out, "The books are wrong! Trolls are weak to electricity!" after he fumbles a Recall Knowledge. I like the dice taking part of the storytelling for who my character is - and getting to know them over the course of the campaign. It doesn't really matter to me that an encounter could have gone more smoothly if I used my own player knowledge. I mean, I've also been on the GM-side of things for more than 20 years - that's a lot of knowledge I could use to game the system, especially when it comes to the more common encounter types.

Deriven Firelion wrote:
This is not about metaknowledge for something interesting. This is my group after playing this game a long time no longer finding rolling to figure if the belt of strength gives a +1 athletics check or the demon was a weakness to good damage as fun. It's not fun any more. It's not interesting. It doesn't provide an interesting game experience any longer.

And the thing is, I do find those interactions still interesting after all these years. You don't, and that's fine, but it's a playstyle that I really don't think is the norm and probably shouldn't be taken into consideration when skills and abilities are discussed. I don't want to go point by point, here, but a few things to keep in mind.

Deriven Firelion wrote:
You've never played with a group that engaged in tactical team play? I find that hard to believe. That's all we do.

As I said, roleplaying draws all different types of playstyles into the hobby. I've played with groups that definitely go in harder on the tactical play, but they haven't neglected the roleplay side of things. I suspect you play along these lines as well (or else, why play a TTRPG at all?). However, I have frequently played with people who have zero interest at all in the tactical encounters. They go in harder on other aspects of their character. In a group that still wants to play PF2, they allow many of their roleplay choices to help guide them through tactical combats. Like, PF2 is heavier on the crunch, but I'd be hard pressed to say it functions better than, say, an actual tactical wargame.

Deriven Firelion wrote:

"Snip." <-- Quotes about combat heavy groups

You've never played with a group like this or seen a group play like this?

I will be very direct here: I respect that you play the way you do and have no interest in telling you that you're wrong. However, that sounds like the worst, most absolute horrible use of my time. If I joined a group like that, I would quit immediately and warn friends away from them. It sounds like a group of people going out of their way to unnecessarily ruin my leisure time. If I want a challenge with a group of friends, I won't choose an activity that is as freeform and open as TTRPGs. Online gaming, wargaming, and even more intense board gaming can provide that - that's not at all something I am even the slightest bit interested in.


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This is sort of the issue I have with these discussions - yes, people will always have different playstyles and approaches to the game, but sometimes they're entirely antithetical to how the game was designed. This isn't definitely a "you're playing wrong" sort of thing, but DF's playstyle is likely not the norm. I, obviously, have zero data to back this up, but every post that DF makes about his view of how the game is played just isn't one I've ever seen.

Like, I enjoy Pathfinder and roleplaying games a lot, and I think 2e has a very strong, crunchy tactical element. But it's also not the sort of game where I ever think about "beating" it. Sure, a tactical video game or even board game with end states and a variety of different approaches would have me saying "Hmm, I don't need to use this."

But like, there is a separation of player knowledge and character knowledge and we all know there's an honor system of using meta information and each group will approach that differently. What becomes tedious is hearing repeatedly that something like Recall Knowledge doesn't have value because one could just use metaknowledge to "beat" the game more efficently. I will never quite grok that playstyle. On a personal level, I simply don't want to treat my social game days as exercises in mathematical precision where I should just disregard my character and ignore the abilities that allow me to utilize or uncover metaknowledge.


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Temperans wrote:
Martialmasters wrote:

Yes you should design your encounters to highlight different players and classes strengths and weaknesses.

That's the Hallmark of a good GM

Not needing to do that is the Hallmark of a balanced RPG.

I mean, a poor GM can still follow the rules to a "T" and still make a wildly unbalanced encounter by designing against their group and players. I mean, the classic "Tucker's Kobolds" is essentially this - the rules and balance of the game are still in the hands of the GM. If you come in as an antagonistic GM or even one who isn't letting the characters play as intended then balance means nothing.

Not exactly sure what point you're making here.


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That's a heck of a leading title with little room for discussion. Like, the most I can add to the conversation is... I have yet to see anyone ban alternate ancestry boosts? I run a Discord server with close to 20+ GMs and it hasn't come up once.

I probably also wouldn't put people that you've had discussions with on other sites on blast like that.


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AidAnotherBattleHerald wrote:
Ruzza wrote:
This one, sadly, isn't true. You take a -2 circumstance penalty to attack rolls, and Grapple has the Attack trait.

Wildly, attack rolls are a special kind of roll that isn't defined by having the attack trait.

All attack rolls have the attack trait, but not all attack trait actions are attack rolls.

Came up in an early errata.

Whoop! You got me there! I'll link it here just to be safe.

LINK


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Well, it seems that you have your answers.


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Which, I suppose also makes spellcasters martials then?

If your definition of a martial is "no magic, no focus spells" then we're getting into some "Behold! A man!" wackiness.

Sorry ranger, monk - you have had your martial status revoked.


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You are still new to PF2, I get that - this not at all unusual. There's a big difference in how the two companies operate and how they approach the market.

EDIT: Also...

Dragonhearthx wrote:
[The title of this thread is just a simple attention getter. But it's probably the case that some only read the title and nothing else.]

Don't do this and be surprised when people engage with it. Not to mention that many of your follow-ups (original post included) tend to reference back to removing the class.

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