Scythia's page

Draco18s wrote:

citricking wrote:

For me clerics scale with level much more similarly to weapon users than wizards/sorcerers do, because a lot of their power comes from a class feature that doesn't increase in power with level.

Uh?

Channel is Auto-Heightened to the same level as the highest level spell you can cast.

This is why Clerics are actually Channel Energy: The Class

The healing increases when heightened, but doesn't really increase as a portion of your HP. So a highest level heal always heals a similar percentage of your HP. This isn't increasing power. Spell slurs increase in power with spell level, heroism increases from +1 to +3, fear goes from affecting 1 target to many targets, and so on.

In my experience in the playtest, the percentage of HP a heightened Heal restored was close to 80%. Being tied to 80% healing isn't so bad.

I finally got around to taking a look at the playtest book for the new edition and 2E honestly seems... really confusing. I didn't really understand a lot of the changes I was looking at. Why are Half-Elf and Half-Orc no longer races? Why were magic items nerfed so hard, especially when martial classes were already at a disadvantage compared to casters? How do action types work in the new action system? Why are there now critical successes and failures on noncombat rolls? Admittedly, I've only skimmed the book so far, so I may understand parts of this better after I've had an in-depth read, but I'm struggling to understand the thought processes behind some of the decisions with the new edition. At first glance, a lot of it looks... well, honestly, not fun.

I would suggest you look over the older topics, nearly everything you asked about has been discussed, often more than once.

When my Cleric channeled a single-target Heal. It almost always topped off or overhealed the target.

Any time my Cleric tried to attack. Lower than 11 on a roll meant a miss and the only way I could improve it was Bless adding a +1 to make it 10.

Given the multi dice version of weapon plus that PF2 is using so far, reduced die type from size would really sting. Count me in the camp that's glad they did away with it.

I like that silver is made the standard currency, but I HATE that pricing uses more than one currency. I'm dyslectic and liable to misread this A LOT. Of course, that could give me some hefty discounts on magic items...

I'm not dyslexic, but I still agree with this wholeheartedly. I remember looking at the special materials and thinking "wow, these sure are cheap" before realising they were in gold rather than silver.

Dex can still be used for initiative, by using Stealth for initiative. If you had a rogue in your group, they could have been doing this pretty regularly to get the drop on enemies.

Charisma is more important than Wis for a healing Cleric currently. Wis gives a +1 to Heal casts, Cha gives an extra auto heightened Heal cast.

Please let characters feel heroic and competent without having to rely on spell/power buffs, item bonuses, or fighting weaklings to do so. It's very discouraging to have a character that feels like they can't be good without the right buffs or their magic stone.

Not only that but "I am functional in heavy armor" is for some reason genetic and therefore mutually exclusive with "I am hard to poison" and "I am magic resistant" and "I live in the desert."

To be fair, heavy armour and living in the desert are pretty incompatible.

Scythia wrote:

dice

It looks like from 1st through 8th level or so, if you really want to heal, your best bet is to invest in both Wisdom and Charisma, since the ability modifier is especially relevant for the three-action healing.

Besides, what we have seen from the Resonance Test's fire ray suggests that Sarenite pure caster clerics are not going to be wanting for damage on the spot.

Until level five, every +1 you're adding from Wis (aside from the one gained by it being primary stat if you don't play an ancestry with a Wis penalty) could have been a complete extra casting of Heal. No matter which action version, that blows a +1 out of the water.

Do channeled heal spells no longer call for Wisdom for the base healing? Did I miss something in an update? I apologize if I did.

Only as a flat amount, easily overcome via the extra dice of automatically heightened Heal from channelling.

Matthew Downie wrote:

Rob Godfrey wrote:

Kings teleport, oligarchs get resurrected

A game with this kind of routine magic shuts down a lot of stories. Escort mission? Over in six seconds. Assassins targeting the king? Big deal, he'll just come back to life again. A mystery to solve? We'll just use magic divination to get the answer.

So, what types of stories are opened up in a common-high-magic game? I'm sure there are some, but my imagination tends to think in terms of "Lord of the Rings" or "Game of Thrones" where these magical things might happen, but they're not routine or reliable.

Assassin is totally possible, kill and steal the body is the easiest option, but disintegration, sime spells and abilities that make resurrection impossible etc, mystery is also possible, it requires planning on both sides, and can be a bit CSI:Divination but counters exist etc, also the setting tends to be interesting, in a way that other fantasy doesn't cover, as Magitek becomes a thing, dungeins make sense, as bunkers, protected against scrying, teleportation and physical threat, actually for a prime example of how this works, The Malazan Book of the Fallen series does it perfectly.

"The Bleak Blades were assassins feared by even the richest merchants and most powerful nobility, for they were known to use weapons that trapped the souls of those they killed, thus preventing resurrection or even questioning the spirit to identify the assassin." Things like that.

What simplified math? Most of the bestiary monsters I've looked at have level, stat mod, and what I presume is proficiency (per page 23) and then... Somewhere between 4 to 7 points (at higher levels) added on with no indication of where it comes from or why. And it varies wildly between their hit bonus, DC, AC and saves. And hit points- at Cr17 the range for hit points is 262-380 for no apparent reason.

It makes monster math look like a random number generator, and as a bonus it's set to 'too high' compared to PC math.

Use the hp, damage and to hit of every other monster of that level, set AC to whatever would give your most optimized combatant a 50% chance to hit, and voila. That's some simple maths.

The Summon Rune hazard as written is harmless. It specifies that the summoned creature gets three actions and a reaction, unlike regular summoned creatures (limited to two actions). It does not specify that the rune summoned creature acts independently, so just like any summoned creature now does it will do absolutely nothing unless commanded by the summoner (the rune in this case I suppose).

- NPCs following totally different rules. Monsters are one thing, but it bafffles me that an NPC fighter can do the same damage as a PC fighter with a +3 weapon, only without the weapon. Why are they so much better than the PCs? It's immersion killing when the world doesn't have internal consistency.

This is a big one. The PC Fighter is wholly dependent on their Potency runes for damage, but the NPC is such a master that their damage is a matter of pure skill with the weapon. That's kind of the reverse of how heroic fantasy usually works.

Did you mean the "Dabbler" maybe? (As in dabbling in different things)

Bardarok wrote:

I like the flat ten for resonance though that seems like a good change relative to PF 1.

I like it...but I think they should ditch the name Resonance. Just call it what it is -> magic item slots.

Picture Mister T. See all those necklaces? Ten of them can now be amulets.

Pg 8 fails to deny the player the right to take feats multiple times on the grounds that the word "usually" predicating the statement creates the induction that it is not always the case that the special heading has been included in feats that can be taken multiple times.

Pathfinder isn't a deny-based ruleset, it's an allow-based ruleset.

Maybe this is the question they're referring to?

Quote:

I would prefer no potency on weapons and armor at all. Attack roll bonuses and AC bonuses would come from item quality, damage would come from my character's inherent martial ability, and any necessary saving throw bonuses could come from elsewhere.

edit: It's near the end of the rules survey. It seems pretty clear, but knowing what it meant before reading it makes me a poor choice for evaluating clarity.

I remember seeing that in the survey and thinking it needed a "yes to some no to others" response. That was too much to group into one question.

You know what would be a cool Thievery feat? At Trained you gain the ability to pickpocket, at Expert you can attempt to pickpocket in combat so long as you're unseen, at Master you can attempt to pickpocket even when the target is on guard, at Legendary you can attempt to pickpocket an item in use.

I think more skill feats ought to have scaling effect based on degree of proficiency (like Catfall).

Scythia wrote:

I'm all for metric, but Celsius is rubbish. The vaunted benchmarks Celsius is based on are of highly questionable practicality, and the fact that what is a 100 degree difference (0-100 in Celsius is nearly a 200 degree difference (32-220) in Fahrenheit shows that Fahrenheit allows for nearly double the precision in describing changes in temperature.

Do you guys not have decimal points in the US?

We do. Adding decimal point to both measures still results in Fahrenheit being almost doubly precise. A good example is average human body temp, which is 98.6 degrees F, but 37 degrees C. (No decimal point there oddly, but who needs to be precise for such an unimportant measure?)

I'm all for metric, but Celsius is rubbish. The vaunted benchmarks Celsius is based on are of highly questionable practicality, and the fact that what is a 100 degree difference (0-100 in Celsius is nearly a 200 degree difference (32-220) in Fahrenheit shows that Fahrenheit allows for nearly double the precision in describing changes in temperature.

As much as I don't like the direction of PF2, I don't think I'd go this far. It's not a matter of trust, just realising that they are going a different way than I would like. That's how it works sometimes in a world with different people that have different wants and ideas.

Scythia wrote:

Vidmaster7 wrote:

Scythia wrote:

Vidmaster7 wrote:

Its easy enough to see you just track the history. Whether or not we should be chained to history I think is the more pertinent question.

If the departure that is the PF2 playtest is any indication, we aren't chained to history much at all.

I find this confuseing since in the past the paladin was LG and in the play test the paladin is LG.

I found it confusing as well since aside from it and cleric/deity all other alignment restrictions went away.

I was referring more to the near total revamp of systems though.

Oh so you went of topic to throw some shade eh?

I'm not up on the lingo the kids use these days, but I don't think "shade" means pointing out clear differences. To use some outdated slang, be cool.

And even with this change PF2 never gets remotely close to Exalted/Werewolf level of dice-bucketing. Ah, those buffed Get of Fenris Crinos Garou and their 20 dice for a nice meaty claw attack...

That or a Star Wars D6 Jedi ... those stacks of dice.

In Exalted 1e, I developed a combo that could do 52 or so dice of damage... after soak.

Scythia wrote:

Vidmaster7 wrote:

Its easy enough to see you just track the history. Whether or not we should be chained to history I think is the more pertinent question.

If the departure that is the PF2 playtest is any indication, we aren't chained to history much at all.

I find this confuseing since in the past the paladin was LG and in the play test the paladin is LG.

I found it confusing as well since aside from it and cleric/deity all other alignment restrictions went away.

I was referring more to the near total revamp of systems though.

Its easy enough to see you just track the history. Whether or not we should be chained to history I think is the more pertinent question.

If the departure that is the PF2 playtest is any indication, we aren't chained to history much at all.

Scythia wrote:

Megistone wrote:

Given the power of the ability, I feel that it should take two actions.

After all the golem is not just moving, it's doing something like moving while punching/kicking like mad. At least, that's how I figure it.

It's just charging forward like a train, using mass + momentum to do damage. That's why Blake's suggestion that it should be limited to a straight line makes sense.

It does. About how the golem does its march, well, I guess that everyone has its own opinion.

That's fair. It probably colours my perception that I've seen what a train does to somebody without any need for punches or kicks.

Yeah, I'm confused on what the question actually is. Because last I checked, materials were really only useful for combat purposes.

Martials, on the other hand, have only slightly moved their out-of-combat contributions, whereas a Caster's out-of-combat contributions have been significantly wing-clipped.

Yeah, it seems like most out of combat stuff now is Rogue central or hinges on taking the correct non-specified Lore skills, regardless of class.

Scythia wrote:

Gloom wrote:

Corwin Icewolf wrote:

Charisma is being able to sell a tomato based fruit salad

But isn't that just salsa?

Only if you also consider jalapeno and onion fruits.

Jalapenos are peppers, peppers are fruits.

(Here's how you can check: does it have seeds?)

Green beans could be called fruit if that's your measure.

Given the power of the ability, I feel that it should take two actions.

After all the golem is not just moving, it's doing something like moving while punching/kicking like mad. At least, that's how I figure it.

It's just charging forward like a train, using mass + momentum to do damage. That's why Blake's suggestion that it should be limited to a straight line makes sense.

Are you asking about materials (like adamantite, and darkwood), or martials (like Fighter class)?

Corwin Icewolf wrote:

Charisma is being able to sell a tomato based fruit salad

But isn't that just salsa?

Only if you also consider jalapeno and onion fruits.

I support increasing both the numbers and the actually good skill feat options.

dragonborn

Fus'Roh nah, I'm pretty sure that's copyrighted. (The D&D or Skyrim version)

I'm a fan of removing dailies. They've already done so for stunning fist & rage, with different tradeoffs as balance (2 actions for 1 attack and fatigue respectively). Especially because of this problem:

Matthew Downie wrote:

Want to use magic to Fly past the obstacle? You can, but it'll cost you combat ability later.

Is the party going to be in combat "later" (without opportunity to rest)? And how hard will that combat be? Will fly in that combat be a slight bonus or absolutely necessary? Or is fly in a slot that a more combat oriented spell could be cast from? Will lacking that slot actually be a limit, or does the caster have enout other spells that there wasn't really a loss by casting fly now?

Daily resources ask the party to make decisions based on information they (probably) don't have. You could argue for scouting with the rogue or using scry, but that also eats up table time, potentially a lot of it. And you don't know if scouting will be a useful use of time or if you can brute force your way through the encounters.

If a player is making a decision without relevant information, it's not a meaningful decision. It's a guess.

It's the 'elixir paradox' that will be familiar to any old school Final Fantasy player. Elixir were the most powerful healing item in the game, and you only found a limited amount. Because they were both powerful and limited people usually saved them, but when situations came up where they'd be useful, people were still reluctant to use them because they worried a worse situation might arise in a later battle. The most common result is that they would end the game with a stockpile of elixir they never used for worry of needing it more later. This is neither fun nor good design.

pauljathome wrote:

Besides, they have to have SOME cool things for the later splat books :-)

"We printed an incomplete system so we can upgrade it later" is not really a selling point.

It's working great for the video game industry.

As to the OP, PF2 seems to expect every party to have a dedicated combat healer, so clearly the answer is "have the cleric heal you".

Mark Seifter wrote:

dwaisley wrote:

I think in this case, since it is confusing enough to warrant a FAQ entry, that the entry should be change for production to include a note about AC being included. Frightened should also include extra wording

Part of the reason for this inclusion is the wording "Gives a penalty to your checks and saving throws" does not lend itself to including your AC. Your AC is not a check YOU make, it is the DC for someone elses check. With the inclusion of saving throws in the wording (which is also a check) it could be misconstrue to not include your AC as you never make checks against your AC.

The wording could be changed to the following to make it more understandable

"You take a conditional penalty equal to this value to your checks, including your AC and saving throws"

Yep! We've added a "this includes DCs" to our files for all of the "all checks" conditions.

Either AC should be renamed Defense DCs or should include "This includes ACs and DCs". Because it'll still be missed.

Defense DC has a nice sound to it, and so much is being changed already.

I would just have two casting times

* Action casting time (e.g. in combat) - duration 1min
* 10min casting time - duration 8h

Be careful, a 10 minute cast time in Exploration mode means you'd turn into a fatigued animal.

The Archive wrote:

Like... regardless of I think of PF2 as is, I can only think of perhaps one or two PF1 games out of many that would have been at all similar using PF2. And that's including APs. The same stories just cannot be told.

Can you name an example of a Pathfinder AP story that cannot be told with the Pathfinder Playtest rules?

Rise of the Runelords. Not only is pre buffing not nearly as much of a thing as it was in PF1 (and many of the bosses in RotR rely heavily on pre buffing), but also they'll be far less threatening using so many of their actions to concentrate on maintaining their buffs (the absolute minute duration cap on many will also be very limiting to them). Summon Monsters now require an action to command or just stand around doing nothing, so they're not nearly as useful to provide quick minions. Spells per day being reduced will also reduce their threat. Basically, a fellow like 'Karzie' is the epitome of the sort of epic heights of power PF1 allowed. PF2 playtest allows competence.

Yes, you can hand wave all of that, give them enemy only spells that work completely differently, and otherwise allow them to break the rules, but by breaking the system to make things work you're only proving that PF2 currently can't tell those kinds of stories.

The biggest market for Paizo is new tabletop roleplayers. Many of these potential customers balk at the wall of crunch needed to create a Pathfinder 1st Edition character. I have walked people through character creation, but that is at a rare setting, such as a game store table, where I have the opportunity to meet new players. We want new players to start games without experienced players.

I keep hearing people talk about how PF2 character creation takes hours per character. I didn't have that experience when my group made characters, but that's because I made several characters to test it out when I first got the book. In other words, the only reason my group didn't have the problem is because I was there as an experienced person to assist. The same situation you're saying they want to avoid.

To see such effort made to create a distinction between nothing and zero (the mathematics representation of nothing) is just inspiring. How appropriate that this appears in the playtest forum, as it does so much to explain why PF2 feels the need to be exceedingly granular on traits of feats, actions, and spells. Seeing this amazing analysis, it's apparent they may not have gone far enough. Perhaps an even more technical language approach is needed.

Paizo, I suggest you make it clear in alll materials PF2 that if an entry describing how much penalty something applies lists no penalty, that no penalty is also zero penalty. This is somehow a matter which is unclear. Please also specify that "not applicable" is abbreviated as NA or n/a, as it has somehow come to confusion that "-" means not applicable. Thank you.

If you want further evidence that the weapon die doesn't increase, look at the Enlarge spell.

I did a long list, and I doubt I can recall them all easily. A few were Squire, Wizard's Apprentice, and Feralite (child raised by animals). Given that I'd like to see more depth added to backgrounds, I didn't suggest mechanics to go with.

For 8, there are no "one or two handed" weapons in PF2. There are one handed weapons with the two-hand trait to increase damage when used with two hands, but those are one handed weapons.

It didn't come up as a problem in my game. Oddly, every character in my playtest game was trained in Survival. I'm not sure why.

pogie wrote:

I don’t understand this mentality of “it’s your loss” if you don’t participate in the playtest.

This concept is central to any process involving representation, whether it be politics or consumer feedback. It's the cornerstone of how change occurs in an egalitarian society. Being absent from the discourse means your interest are not heard and then never acted upon.

There are times that the desired outcome of an individual is so different from the process that no amount of participation will result in a meaningful adjustment in outcome.

No matter how many campaigns they volunteer for, how many election cycles they vote in, or which candidates they talk up to friends, a Monarchist will never see their goal of returning a democratic republic to kingship by participating in democracy. Likewise, a a DM or player who has goals opposed to balance at all costs and tight maths is unlikely to ever get what they want out of this playtest no matter how much they participate.

The veteran gamer Decades of playing and sometimes STing White Wolf, dabbled in AD&D, years of 3rd and PF(1), occasional forays into the Buffy and Witchcraft games, tiny amount of BESM, and a few random one shot games in systems like Elric or Project A-ko.

Played a Goblin Alchemist, and was excited for it initially. Interest waned quickly over first three sessions. Was excited when I called for a game change after the sixth session. He found the inability to get better at his bomb throwing frustrating, felt like his combat options otherwise were very limited, and was hoping to be a healing and support type with alchemy only to find the class ill suited for such. Did enjoy role-playing up the goblin character, portraying him as an atrocious gormand.

The Impulsive
Eight or so years between D&D 4, PF(1), and D&D 5, some White Wolf, always a player.

Played a halfling rogue (classic, no?). Was consistently the best damage dealer, and rolled less than 14 maybe three times in six sessions. Was fine with the playtest system, although he did think skill feats looked mostly boring. He would frequently end combats with ten or less HP. Played just short (no pun intended) of Kender style, regularly taking everything that wasn't nailed down or under direct observation.

The Reserved One
About six years mixed experience with White Wolf, D&D 3, and PF(1) all during games I ran.

Played an Elf Sorceress (dragon), with a half blaster spell selection. She was frustrated by constantly missing with her cantrips, frustrated by trying to line up her leveled spells that didn't require an attack roll, and was the first character to use the Dying rules (pre first fix). As the story went on, her ancestry became more consequential than her class.

The First of Her Name (me)
Decades of experience STing and rarely playing White Wolf (WoD, Exalted, and Aberrant), combined decades of DMing AD&D, 3, and PF(1), some Star Wars (WEG and the first d20), L5R 1st ed, and short excursions into Deadlands, Shadowrun, CoC, Elric, the Angel rpg, and In Nominae. One shots in too many systems to recall.

Played a DMNPC Human Cleric (of Sarenrae, healing domain of course). I was impressed by the sheer healing potential she had, was completely underwhelmed by her near complete inability to hit enemies. Found the character satisfying from the standpoint of keeping the party alive effectively, quite unsatisfying in other regards. Found most of the Cleric class feats uninteresting, so tried multi class to Fighter. Liked the multi class feat system. I liked the character concept and may reuse it for another game in a different system.

Overall, everyone liked the chargen system, finding it more interesting and personal to the character than point buy or random rolls.

After my third session, I started making changes, usually one or two per session.

The first change was doubling proficiency modifiers, and I would fully suggest it to anyone who's dissatisfied with characters that don't feel like they're really improving.

The next session I scrapped the ever increasing heights of 10-2 for a stable formula (regular task DC lv+14, difficult task DC lv+18, extreme task DC lv+20). This allowed characters who invested in skills to perform reliably with them rather than barely break even.

A further session saw adding general feats that improve proficiency one step with a weapon group, armor category, or shields. The otherwise inability to improve that is a serious design defect. This, coupled with the increased proficiency mods, gave players a real way to improve at combat. I also reduced multi attack penalty based on proficiency. The third attack was still a waste, but a second attack was far more likely to succeed for a skilled combatant.

By that time it was almost a game I could stay with... If I had been willing to fully rebuild the bestiary (or wait for them to).

I wonder how much this would be improved if the +10/-10 was kept but the system was balanced around +1/2 level instead of +level?

It would be identical, aside from it taking a +6 monster to wipe the floor with the party, and the party only being super effective vs -6 or lower monsters.

The +level is there to give the appearance of advancement without actual advancement (because everything else scales at the same rate or higher). You could swap it for 1/2 level, 1/4 level, 1/10 level, or no level adjustment and the only difference would be how much higher level creatures are a threat, and how stompable lower level creatures are. Equal level creatures would remain the same regardless.