Slurmalyst's page

On criticizing people who haven't played it:

I agree that people who have played the system have a more valid opinion of how things work, but I also think that the "initial read" is important.

It's worth pointing out that putting together an RPG session takes effort and buy-in from a group. I love to try new RPG systems. There are tons and tons of systems that I'd like to try but will probably never in my life play because most of the gamers I know are not this way, they find a system that works for them and then heavily resist trying anything new for even a single session unless they think it is very likely it will increase their fun.

I think 5e casting is a good example of how to tone down power while keeping things fun. Caster/martial balance was bothering some players. 5e nerfed casting overall but still gave casters some fun things that 3.5/PF casters couldn't do and even buffed some spells (like Prestidigitation!), so even the players who liked to play casters were intrigued and willing to give it a try.

So what can my PF2 wizard do that my PF1 wizard can't? It seems the main answer is "avoid overshadowing others". Which is all well and good, but it's not very sexy if you like to play wizards.

I think the simple explanation is that a race represents having certain innate talents, but talent is nothing without training (i.e. experience). Just as being an Olympian requires both a certain level of talents/genetics and a lot of training. You might have the world's greatest swimmer's body, but if you seldom jump in a pool, it doesn't count for much.

Dwarves are taught to hate giants, and taught stories about the weaknesses of giants their whole lives, but to a growing dwarf, those are just stories. Once the dwarf starts to learn about the hack and slash of combat, and begins to see how justified those hatreds are, he finally understands the importance of those lessons and how they can be applied to the chaotic hack and slash of combat.

Many half-orcs have low-light vision, but developing this into darkvision is harder for them than pure-blooded orcs. It takes training, practice, focus, and discipline, and when they're among ordinary folk, they don't really feel the need to develop it. Only once they start adventuring do they appreciate how truly dark and full of terrors the night can be and find it within themselves to develop this latent talent.

The point of Signature Skills is clearly to maintain some semblance of class vs. cross-class skills. You had to invest resources (e.g. a trait) to make a PF1 character proficient in a cross-class skill. The idea is that a typical Rogue has an easier time learning how to sneak or pickpocket than a typical Cleric, which I think most people would agree this is iconic to D&D as a system, even if we also celebrate having tools to break out of that mold. So maybe part of the problem is just not having those tools.

Now whether Signature Skills is the right way to implement this, I'm not sure. I can see the concerns.

Maybe one idea: you can spend a skill upgrade to make a non-Signature skill into a Signature skill.

I do agree with the complaint about imbalance of skill picks. As a frequent Cleric player, I'm ecstatic about finally having 5 skills and finally knowing more about my deity than the average man on the street, but I don't see why the Fighter can't have just as many.

Good catch. The book seems to be missing text somewhere that says "All characters are considered Trained in Unarmored Proficiency unless specified otherwise."

Lay on Hands has a Somatic component, which gives it the Manipulate trait.

The Manipulate trait provokes attacks of opportunity (from the apparent minority of creatures that now have that ability).

So for practical purposes, Warded Touch reads "Lay on Hands no longer provokes attacks of opportunity".

Agree that Colette is making some leaps in tone. I'd be more speculative right now.

But speaking of Fighters and archetypes, I wonder if Fighter Dedication might be borderline must-have for a lot of classes. For an investment of just 2 class feats, it seems a caster can become fairly competent at weapon-based fighting.

This might become a lot like Longarms proficiency + specialization in Starfinder, which were almost essential for casters to pull their weight in combat.

Fighter Dedication does seem to outstrip most of the caster Feats that improve their weapon. Abilities like the Cleric's Deadly Simplicity, Channel Smite, Align Armament. Or the Sorcerer/Wizard's Magical Striker.

The offset to this is that they'll have to invest some resources in their weapon to keep up with the Cantrip scaling. I don't have a sense of how big a tax on resources that is.

I'm generally with Xenocrat.

I think it's a misnomer to call this linear/quadratic when really the "problem" seems to be that martials are better at fighting and casters are better at utility and support. The classic linear/quadratic problem was that late-game casters dominate both in and out of combat.

The classic problem that casting overpowers skill monkeying in the late game might still sort of be here, but maybe in a weaker form. But that problem is really tough to solve entirely without making magic feel weak.

As others have pointed out, melee drones tend to suffer but can be viable, for certain meanings of "viable". After all, they are still a body with a reasonable attack bonus that can carry a weapon. And if you have relatively few encounters per day, then even if they die every encounter, that's not so bad. It does suck if you have 4 encounters and they die on the first though.

The melee drone tends to suffer from four issues:

1. Lower AC than a proper tank, even with the Armor mod.

2. Less HP than even a 10-CON Technomancer (SP+HP).

3. They are extremely difficult to heal.

4. Drones suffer from action economy issues, and melee characters need to move + attack more often than ranged characters. Also, unlike Soldiers or Solarians, they never get options like a standard action charge.

I second Porridge's idea giving flexibility on when to take Archetype powers (and what class powers to give up). Though my thought would be to maybe expand the list of class features that can be given up. So maybe an Envoy could give up an Expertise Talent instead of an Improvisation, for example, in exchange for gaining a 2nd level archetype power at level 3. But I guess that could make the balance challenge even greater.

Good observation on Cache Capacitor. I think this is by far the worst ability that can be swapped out with an Archetype, and practically every 6th-level Archetype feature is better. Cache Capacitor 1 (the only one relevant to SFS) is bad enough that you may never make use of it, as you have to weigh the feature against the opportunity cost: a 1st level spell slot (and spell known).

Bigger numbers ain't even what I'm after at this point. In that regard, everything is balanced. I just mean more STUFF to grab. Technomancer gets a mere 7 Magic hacks, 2 of which are so important and borderline mandatory that they might as well be class features (the two Fabrication hacks)so technically 5 hacks.

Whoa, calling the Fabricate hacks "borderline mandatory" is pretty strong. I don't think they're necessarily even optimal, though they're certainly viable.

Much of the time a TM should be able to do better things in combat than spend a round and a top-tier spell creating a short-lived weapon. As for Fabricate Tech, its viability probably depends on the GM and the campaign. I wouldn't expect it to be very good in SFS. OTOH in a more open-ended campaign, it can be be pretty handy. Some GMs might even be lenient enough to allow some broken abuses, since it is pretty open-ended.

Overall, I think the Spell Hacks support a few different viable approaches, which is really the best we can hope for at this stage.

If the Swift action wasn't consumed by the Full Action, it would make so much more sense and offer so many more possibilities to work in concert as real benefits when they "speed up" an action like drawing a weapon or standing up as a swift action.

I think you hit the nail on the head here. Full Actions consuming your Swift is seeming more and more like a bad rule change. Is there some specific abuse that it's meant to prevent?

A lot of swift actions are investments of resources to reduce a move to a swift (examples are Kip Up / Ysoki and various methods of quick drawing). Is it fun to say, "Actually, in this situation where you want to do that thing quickly that you built your character to be able to do quickly, it will not actually help you do it more quickly in any practical way?"

Alright, so you walk into a hospital where a crimelord is being treated. Everywhere you see large vesks in suits carrying tubas, surfboards, and stop signs.

I love it.