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You would have the option to not raise it every turn, and fighters often will be raising it as a reaction with reactive shield. Some turns you’ll want that other attack, some turns you’ll need to move etc. I don’t see a problem with reaffirming it every time. Each turn you get three actions, defending yourself with a shield requires one of them. When you have to spend an action to avoid being flat footed this turn, to be able to use deflect arrows, shield users can spend an action to raise their shield. Reactive shield or Shield Paragon will be a must have feat for fighters with shields and Shield Warden for Paladins. The mechanic needs to go away.
I found the icons a little unclear. I feel like like one and two actions are clear enough, but that when I see three actions, I'll have to stop and count. Maybe I am getting old, but why couldn't they just hollow it out and add a 1, 2, 3, F, R, instead? It would be clearer once you were familiar with the iconography and no less obscure before then. Both in the iconography and the traits (the somatic spell casting component may or may not have the manipulative trait? Why?), I feel like they are sacrificing comprehension for sake of word count. Increasing the learning curve will probably reduce the player base or slow the growth. You don't get more players by making the game less approachable and PF2e is far less approachable than PF1e or D&D 3.0 - 5e. I haven't finished my first read through, but this is looking like a poor direction for Pathfinder (at hopefully a superficial level). At a more fundamental level, I am concerned that the feats upon feats(PF2e should have the subtitle of "Yo, dawg. I heard you liked feats so...") replacing canned classes is going to lead to choice paralysis in some players, but that is harder for me to judge.
We don't know what they planned for class feats, but aside from the oath and smite ability, nothing about the paladin is lawful or good. You could make an argument for lay on hands in the same vein as cleric channel energy. Everything else is more about the character's role independent of alignment. My solution would be to add a few (4 to 9) variations of smite chaos, evil, good, and law. If you want to separate lay on hands, define a more offensive ability and tie it to whether a corresponding cleric would channel positive or negative energy. In a later book, add more differentiation by diety. No, flexible alignments would be easy to implement and easy to balance.
All creatures gain the extraplanar subtype when they leave their native plane.
Outsiders are by definition already 1% to 100% elemental and it makes sense that elemental is a subset of of outsiders. "An outsider is at least partially composed of the essence (but not necessarily the material) of some plane other than the Material Plane." That accurately describes an elemental. I think if types and subtypes were more fluid, elementals would be outsiders / oozes. Since types and subtypes are not driving the stat block (at least to the same degree), maybe the types will move to more of "tag cloud" and elementals will indeed become outsider oozes.
The statblocks are only suggestions. Not every orc is evil, but for the sake of there being common villains to fight, nearly all orc societies tend towards evil. They do this by continuing to self-select, killing the "weak" orcs that stray out of line, just like most goblins and hobgoblins do. They're all capable of goodness, it's just hard to be good when doing so puts you in mortal danger. The same is true of "common" humanoids in Cheliax, Irrisen, Nidal, Razmiran, etc. Which is why those are great places for player-controlled heroes to visit. =] Right. Orc culture may be evil and tend to produce evil characters, but the race does not. If the race has a physiological trait that subverts their control and actions, those actions are not good, evil, chaotic, or lawful because they are unwilling. The caveat is that the physiological (Dwarven hardy) traits are often bundled with cultural traits (Dwarven defensive training) as a "race." With luck, both ancestries and monsters will distinguish between the two in 2.0. It sounds like ancestries may at least.
The Paladin code mentions willing evil acts. If there could not be unwilling evil acts there would be no need to specify willingHow can there be unwilling Evil acts then ?Edit: How can an act be unwilling by the person performing it and be good or evil in regards to judgment of that person? Or the code is emphasizing that it must be willing to be considered and then it must be evil. Sometimes, redundant are stated explicitly for effect.
So, a body (defined by race) should not determine alignment?
This is all factually untrue in a universe with souls. Which Pathfinder is. We can argue all day about whether it's true in real life (personally, I'm religious and believe in a soul, but that's matter of faith rather than logic), but it's certainly not the case in Golarion, where souls can be empirically measured. That is not a given. For one the deterministic nature could come from the soul rather than the synapses, often part and parcel with the concept of fate. Second, you can still have deterministic behaviors determined by chemicals and neurons with a soul that is an influence on that physical system and/or carries the learnings from the physical onto the metaphysical (and possibly back again).
Direct hit and splash against a fire-weak enemy: Does weakness apply twice?I've been thinking about this ever since someone mentioned splash in the other thread with the frost giants. I think it's currently ambiguous in the rules, though since it's the same type of damage coming from the same attack, we should combine them to help an alchemist get through resistance (rather than be double-dinged for a fire resistant monster) and likewise weakness should only apply once. Something like this deals [value] damage to creatures in the splash area. Increase the damage against three directly hit creature by [dice]?
Short answer: I think adding such a thing is a deeply flawed and incorrect way to mechanically represent having a temper. Peoples tempers do not work that way. I have a temper, and have lost it (though I never severely hurt anyone and haven't lost it and done anything physical since I was 14), and that's my fault not some random thing that happened to me that couldn't be avoided. Having the self control to not hurt or abuse others is part of being a person in society, and certainly part of a Good Alignment. It is a poor, heavy handed representation. Having self control allows assertion of your intent. Not having it can cause your intent to be overridden. Another example, I have a three year old. He has gotten frustrated and bitten or hit people. It's not an evil act. It is a lower brain function taking over. It is a response to feeling threatened even when no threat exists. Part of what you describe as self control isn't control, it's awareness and proper assessment of the situation (that many of us take for granted). If you slay an invading raider and it turns out that one of the opposing spellcasters used an illusion to disguise innocents as attackers, you may feel intense guilt, but you did not commit an evil act. If you swing at a foe using power attack after they surrendered and only didn't kill them because you rolled low, you did not accept their surrender and you cannot claim to have been helping someone else knock them out to avoid violating an anathema. Intent based on your awareness is pivotal to the good/evil nature of an action. Culture can influence your intent, but not race.
I would argue that tempers have nothing directly to do with alignment. Alignment is about the intent of actions and when you "lose your temper," your actions are no longer controlled by your conscious brain; your reptile brain is reducing problems into fight or flight.Losing your temper and killing someone is an Evil Act. A Paladin can fall for doing it. Heck, so is assaulting someone in a rage in many cases. Good people learn some basic self control or they tend to stop being Good pretty quick. Let's add hypothetical mechanics to a temper and see how that sways the conversation. Temper [flaw]
Ok. Now, a lawful good paladin is insulted by passerby and the GM calls for a check. He fails and in the first attack kills the individual. Being lawful good, he feels deep regret, attempts to make amends, and sumbits to authorities, as appropriate. He before and after is trying to work around the flaw. Mechanically, this could be attempting to buy it off through some method or improving a skill for the check. He should not fall. He did not intentionally perform an evil act or violate an anathema. He was effectively mind controlled into performing the attack. Yes, it was internally generated and driven by the player's build choices, but a lost temper is a temporary loss of control. Your actions are not the result of your intentions and those intentions are key to interpreting alignments and anathemas. When you get into the territory of the player saying that he attacks the passerby because of his character has a temper and so would do that, it becomes iffy. You could go either way, but if you are going to allow it, it should include a trend of improvement and a tragic anguish roleplayed. I think the discussion separated from mechanics is very subjective and open to interpretation. Do you agree with my position surrounding the hypothetical flaw mechanics?
Now, genetics may play a small role (Orcs have violent tempers, which seem to make them more inclined to Chaos and Evil on average than humans), but it's a tendency, not a destiny or a mandate. I would argue that tempers have nothing directly to do with alignment. Alignment is about the intent of actions and when you "lose your temper," your actions are no longer controlled by your conscious brain; your reptile brain is reducing problems into fight or flight. A race's genetic tendency for violent tempers may impact their treatment by others and may create in turn a selfish cultural tendency which would manifest as part of alignment, but it is not a direct result of their temper. Additionally, the presence of a temper does not define alignment. A lawful good character will seek to control the temper and take responsibility for his reactions. By contrast, a chaotic evil character will make no effort to reign in his temper and will use it as excuse to avoid responsibility for his outbursts.
What exactly do you mean then? The former means a monster takes 5 more damage from slashing attacks while the latter means it takes 5 less damage from slashing attacks. Fair point regarding the zombie. We will have to see how it all shakes out. With magic missile, at first level, a three action magic missile might come out ahead. I personally think 5 may be a little much, but we will see how it plays out.
It may be helpful to check if you are reading the change correctly. Skeletons have resistance to slashing and resistance to piercing. This is the same as damage reduction bypassed by bashing. It doesn't apply to magic missile. Magic missile will only be diminished by resistance or immunity to force, which will likely be very rare. I am not sure how spell resistance will work, if it is present. When the fighter or barbarian have magic weapons, we do not know what the options for the wizard are, but they will surely have higher levels spells if magic missile does scale when heightened. Also, it's not clear how different levels of spellcasting proficiency will impact spells cast. Does that help to alleviate your concerns for now?
Huh? I am like 95% sure you could already crit against undead and you never needed a feat to do so in pathfinder.Plus touch attacks against zombies tend to crit those guys for even more damage!Wow. You can crit against undead without a feat now? You are correct according to the SRD. I was not aware that had changed from 3.5.
Would yall who have the playtest explain how exactly this background thing works? I mean I get the general mechanical idea but not how the whole 'ancestry background class' thing works. Is this removing standard stat generation entirely or adding onto it?It is completely replacing the old stat generation, but we will probably get other options for stat generation after the playtest. This will be the standard though. Someone said there would be a system for random stat generation, but that they would prefer that playtest characters be generated using the standard method. That implies that the at least one alternative method will be spelled out in the playtest copy. However, it could have been a disconnect. (There will be a system of randomly generating stats [in the final product], but they prefer playtest characters to be generated using the standard system [as opposed to attempting to port over a PF1e system].) That seems unlikely. It just occurred to me that under the new system you can't have a starting 19-20. Bummer.
I am guessing at least one will be an arcane apprentice type. Is there a Golarion Hogwarts? It could also be a hedge wizard or similar. I hope one is a diviner/fortune teller.
Yes and no. It is certainly not difficult to change the explanation of a mechanic in terms of what it is abstracting. However, I feel that it is diminishing the abstraction. I don't think 1 action/reaction should equate to one swing. In addition, your wording lends more to an extra attack than a response to activity that provokes. It is explicitly counter to the current (and likely future) definition of provoking an AoO. In any case, is there someplace with an active discussion on attacks of opportunity? I don't want to continue to derail a thread on backgrounds. I don't think I've said this yet, but I like them. It's hard to get really excited about them, but I do see them coming out with adventure paths and splat books (to capitalize on new feats).
I can see the concern, so far some things do seem overwhelming, all these different sources of ability scores increases, everything and its mother being called a feat, I think once we see things in a more concrete way, it will fall into place. Just feels very busy, right now. I think his point was to get the steps to neatly become "ABCD."
Maybe for characters of a certain level, but I just don't see how it makes sense for every creature having battle-hardened reflexes as to know when to strike an enemy that is somehow moving away or distracted. An array of hedgehogs, they'll get ya!! My point was that they aren't doing anything to do it necessarily. It's not a reflex. You dropped your guard and walked into the hedgehog volley that was happening anyway. When you provoke, it might be you walked up to someone who takes a swing or three as you run by or you may run careless into a field of swinging. In the abstraction, there isn't a distinction between the two. In the abstraction, you take turns swinging, but they are actually happening simultaneously and you swinging at the enemy does not actually start on your turn. Mechanically it typically does, but if they provoke, they got wallopped by a swing that was already happening. It doesn't require special training; it's just part of the abstraction.
Also, as I mentioned in the other thread, AoOs not being the norm helps every type of character I can imagine. I'm not sure how we transitioned to attacks of opportunity, but the problem with them being restricted is that it reduces the abstraction. I have never thought that an AoO represented a single swing. I have never thought that losing 10 of 100 HP represented 10% of your physical damage threshold. I have never thought that +11/+6/+1 represented three swings. When you provoke an AoO, you drop your guard in an environment with swinging swords, macs, staves, punches, and llama spittle. You don't necessarily get hit by a swing directed at you. Maybe you got clocked by a staff that the wizard was swinging wildly. It is abstracted as an attack roll, but I don't think it can be considered to represent a discreet attack. As such, I don't think that it makes sense that it is something that you have to train in.
Full package, a holy warrior available for each faith. Holy warriors for Irori. Holy warriors for Pharasma. Holy warriors for Lamashtu. A warrior class that is not some personification of the diety or an aspect, but a warrior for the faith, empowered by the faith. A class code about treatment of the faith and the followers of the faith and adherence to the strictures and anathema of the diety. Even if we were restricted to lawful good, I hoped that there would be more differentiation between gods than paladin code + anathema. I would like to see "falling" be handled largely as a GM and player conversation (a cooperative story telling point that leads to changes in the character rather than a point of antagonism between them). I would like for the actual "fall" to have three primary paths: temporary fall plus quest for redemption; loss of faith; and conversion of faith. I also thought that it would be neat to have a litany/chant used at will with a longer cast time (maybe a minute) to divine whether a course of action is in line with the faith. More of an automatic knowledge check than a divination. It would be something that would be a parachute for players with cruel DMs and perhaps have minor side benefits (identifies you as faithful, unnerves or distracts faithful and/or outsiders of opposing faiths, etc). That's what I would like, but I am not getting my hopes up.
Captain America is chaotic, from how he entered the Armed Forces to his tactics in the military afterwards AND while in the service of SHIELD and the Avengers. Captain America's stance on law strikes me as exactly in line with Abador's (the god of law) expectations of his followers. Captain America is a great example of Lawful Good.
I think what Mark meant was basically quickdraw for shields. He said "ready," not "raise," which implies that there is no way around the sword and board action tax. It could be that there is, but it is not related to the holy ally options. However, as it stands, you cannot hold out your kite shield from in front of you, double stride to your foe, and swing in one turn (barring haste). Sword and board becomes an option of less action, inability to keep pace with a maneuverable foe (even if your movement rates are the same), and as a paladins, using a shield is even worse because there are more class features to compete for those actions.
For example, I could see Sir Tristan being statted out as a Paladin/Druid.Now that does make me curious. I don't see either Paladin or Druid in Tristan at all. What do you think I'm missing? Well, it has been over 20 years since I read The Acts of King Arthur And His Noble Knights and there have been assorted movies, the Pendragon RPG, and I may just be confused. If you consider paladins as inspired by the round table knights, the foundation for paladin is laid out. For druid, I thought Tristan studied under Merlin (sometimes portrayed as a druid rather than a wizard) or studied to replace him. How far off base am I?
I think it should be relegated to a suggestion at most. I feel that it is less of an issue since it is more flexible. For paladin, even opening it up to any good would be a huge improvement. In general, alleviating the alignment restrictions, to adapt James's phrase, would expand the stories that we can tell. For example, I could see Sir Tristan being statted out as a Paladin/Druid. As far as the codes, I was hoping that they would be derived entirely or primarily from the deity, like the cleric's.
I have a sudden need for a goblin Paladin of Shelyn. Perhaps that will be my official playtest character.... - You must act with honor, never cheating, lying, or taking advantage of others. (Good)This is a 100% lawful tenet - honor is one that is on a solid amount of LG deities, and a few LN or LE ones...while not at all on any NG or CG ones. This is 100% a mixed bag. Honor as an abstraction is more lawful versus anything else, but not lying nor taking advantage of others? That's good, not lawful.
I don't know about the whole "badge of authority" thing (HWalsh's opinion, not mine), but this whole "LG-only Paladins make Lawful Good the Best Good" argument really misses the point for me. No one is saying that (not even HWalsh). Because Paladins are more than just a divine champion. Not alignment-wise (I'm not saying they are more righteous than a divine champion), but flavor wise. There's more to them than that. For the me, "lawful good is the best good," whether I agree with the statement or not, means that you have divine powers and the LG powers have clerics, paladins, and other miscellaneous servants. Other powers, good or not, will only have clerics and the miscellany. Chaotic evil being the exception with the antipaladin. Sure, some of the deities of other alignments will allow LG followers, but they will be fewer and less in line with the deity. This results in a power imbalance and makes LG the best deity alignment (unless CE has an equal number of antipaladins). For me, this has no direct effect on player alignment, but if the party alignment conflicts with the LG Paladin code, then it becomes disruptive.
We built the Paladin to be the best holy warrior we could make. You made a divine warrior who is holy, who is empowered by and is characteristic of her deity, as an afterthought. It's a narrow, party disruptive class that the only released effect of worship is that the deity's anathema adds to the restrictions of the character's disruptive behavior at the penalty of losing the class abilities. You gave an example of the sin of sloth. Let's not focus on the parallel to real world religions, but instead, can you explain why this is considered a sin for Irori, Iomedae, Sarenae, Torag, Erastil, Abadar, and others that apply? Not individually, but why is, without exception, a vile concept they oppose? Is a paladin of Abadar going to utilize a litany against greed, if one were to exist? (let's assume that it does for sake of argument to give you the greatest freedom to discuss how the deities interact with their paladins.) They may champion wealth of the many over wealth of the one, but that could put them in conflict with the law of the land.
The fact that you are having to clarify, "LG Paladin" is the issue in and of itself. The fact that I have to clarify "human paladin" is as much the issue as "LG Paladin" is. Which is to say that it is not an issue. The class can be expanded without damaging the existing concept(s) it covers.
No, not actually. A boss, a device used to deflect blows that transitioned to a decorative component, is not going to add any substance to a bash. Historically, I don't think that shield spikes were an actual thing. That said, the above argument holds less water for spikes, but then things get weird if you are talking about multiple spikes, particularly given that typically destroying or deconstructing a magic item undoes the enchantment. If by shield damage, you are referring to damage to the shield, the damage and disposable shields would be more realistic, but would add more complication and overhead than benefit it would provide for the average user. Shield users would need to travel with multiple shields, possibly an NPC to haul them, and tracking a second set of HP that will potentially be rendered pointless by the mending cantrip.
You are not after defining a class or character, you are after controlling the playstyle of everyone else. I am not sure that we can proceed without devolving into yes you are, no I'm not. An alignment restriction is part of the class as is the role amongst the deity's followers. Opening it up to to other alignments, along the same veins as the cleric, fills the hole for other deities while still allowing LG paladins to exist as normal. Nothing about that diminishes LG paladins.
If you can play a CG FULL Paladin of Milani, then it doesn't matter that I can play a LG Paladin of Iomedae because the class isn't the same anymore. Something is different and it doesn't feel like a Paladin anymore. It is just a generic holy warrior at that point and that has little to no draw for me. You are not after defining a class or character, you are after controlling the playstyle of everyone else. If they released 9 paladin variants to cover the alignments or if they managed the same thing more efficiently with one class, you would oppose the second, objectively superior option despite their being no meaningful differentiation between the two implementation. I don’t know how you will handle the potential outcome of paladin variations handled by archetypes after the core release.
It doesn't work that way. First, why should a class with such a tiny place in the world deserve a spot in the core rulebook? Second, the exclusivity and the trappings it comes with is a flaw of the class and the source of party discord. Third, being able to paladin of Milani has no impact on your ability to play a paladin of Iomedae. The difference is that you have a set view on how a paladin should be played and are against players having the option to deviate from that. You are not preserving paladins of Iomedae, you are tearing down the options for others. Look at it like the gods are colleges and paladins are football teams. Football teams represent the college and their rivalries much in the way paladins represent their deity's causes and oppose their rivals. Having the option to have a paladin of Iomedae temporarily team up with a paladin of Asmodeus or opposing a paladin of Irori would add complexity and flavor to class, not detract from it.
Hi. I apologize for not digging through the entire thread. I swear a page or two was added since I started. Edit: I tried to make this level headed and constructive, but I do feel strongly about paladins and flexible, inclusive game design. Combined with the emotionless nature of text-based communications, I apologize if I offended anyone.
You had the option of making a divine class whose deity was a secondary concern and disconnected from the flavor or one where the deity was the primary defining aspect of the flavor. You chose the former. You may prefer to present it as you did, but I have no doubt that you could have made the paladin accessible to more alignments and therefore more deities while still preserving the lawful good implementation, if you want to play it.
This is a playtest and you could change up the incarnation we play with from time to time. Otherwise, we will have a one-sided basis for the vote that was suggested. People sitting on the fence may be more likely to take a stance on which incarnation is more fun if they can see and play with a polished draft. Alternatively, making both available and seeing how often each version is picked may be a good supplement for a survey.
I disagree. Without approaching that from the onset, it makes approaching it as a retrofit more difficult and more likely to result in awkward patches or new classes to handle an assortment of narrow variations on the paladin. A flexible base class is a better solution even if the core book only presents a few options and the remainder are released in a supplement.
Until then.. be kind to each other folks. We are all hear to tell stories and go on thrilling adventures. Nobody wants to fight their companions along the way. That is a good sentiment, but you gave us the version of the paladin that is arguably even more of a party enemy than prior incarnations. The straight-jacketed implementation of a lawful good only code combined with deity anathemas results in a class that must only travel with like-minded companions or be the source of party strife. How are you planning on evaluating the anti-social aspects of your class strictures? This implementation that is a class who is mechanically a team player, but the strictures make it disruptive unless he subjugates his party.
This is largely a disappointment. Again, gods who disallow lawful good clerics have no holy warriors. The lawful good paladin wasn't the one you needed to get right, it was the one that you needed to step back from and start from the concept it is filling. If I recall correctly, the original paladin worshipped one specific diety and no one else had paladins. 3.0 addressed this hole with a few prestige classes and 5e has incorporated variations into the core class. The 5e incarnation or the 3.0 Templar (expanded to 20 level class) are more indicative of how the paladin should be treated. Other deities deserve a divine champion and we should not have to wait for a supplement to play divine champions of core deities. Again, the shield tax needs to go. If paladins are iconic shield users, they can't be down an action every turn for it. Especially, if they need to juggle actions for attacking, positioning, using lay on hands, and spell casting. I like the AC bonus with lay on hands. (I would actually prefer that the bonus did not apply to the paladin, perhaps +x to AC, up to the paladin's own value.) I didn't see anything about actions or hands available required for paladin lay on hands or spellcasting. Edit: Also, did anyone finally teach paladins the mend orison?
I was originally going to use obsidian as the comparison, such as a Macuahuitl. However, unless you are expecting to do crunches, it is my understanding that no one who can afford it will buy full chain over a fitted suit of plate. The full plate is less encumbering if properly fitted, and more effective. It is hands down the winner, not due to poor balancing decisions, but due to being on a different technological level than the competition. Perhaps you can recommend a better simile.
Wait. You pluck the spikes or pry the boss off of your shield and plug it into a new one? That's a bit ridiculous, don't you think?Considering that, historically, a "spiked shield" was usually a "shield with a spike on the shield boss" and the shield boss (also including the grip) was riveted to the layered wood of the shield (to make it easier to replace the wood portion as it became damaged), no. It's like saying that the pommel is what gives your weapons their magic. The shape of it determines the damage type more than the weapon itself. Want to change weapons? Pull out the gem and plug it into your new one. Magic shields should not be disposable money sinks. Damaging shields will render some magic shields pointless, make mending a combat cantrip, or be rendered pointless by mending while adding overhead to the players to keep track of. It should be dropped and with it the notion of recoverable magic shield accessories that only exist to persist through shield destruction.
The action tax on shields needs to go. Sword and board paladins needs to be a viable option instead of devolving into juggling actions in order for core functions. I came to play an action game, not a resource management Sim. In addition, I want characterful shields, not disposable ones that get thrown away because they break. The best in category armor is valid and should remain so because the differences are technological differences. If you can afford full plate, you don't buy banded and trying to make them an even trade off is like making bronze weapons equivalent to iron. To make it less confusing than before where you could have a shield simultaneously enchanted as both a weapon and an armor in the same weapon, we have separated out the shield spikes (for piercing) or boss (for bludgeoning) as weapons that you deal with separately. This incidentally allows you to do a lot more with your shield and to switch out your really nice boss or spikes into a new shield if you find one that's awesome. Wait. You pluck the spikes or pry the boss off of your shield and plug it into a new one? That's a bit ridiculous, don't you think?
We know that cantrips will scale with level, but we don't know to what effect. If I have access to 4th level spells will a damaging cantrip deal 2d3 damage, 1d3 plus level, 4d6 damage, or what? Cutting down the spellcasting that spellcasters do does not help caster/martial disparity. Addressing spells like Tenser's Transformation and save or suck spells. (Transformation may not be the worst offender, but it's an example of casting a spell to do what another class does.) No, we have every spell potentially competing for your highest level slot, fewer slots per level, domain slots are gone and now those spells are competing with everything else for fewer slots, no spontaneous heal or harm. This is not choices that matter, this is fewer iconic abilities and as a result, fewer choices that matter. If I play a cleric, I expect to be able to cast spells. I expect to heal. With cleric healing being reduced from Channel energy plus spontaneous conversion of up to 4 spells per level plus potentially domain spells down to only channel energy plus what a prepare ahead of time up to 3 per level, I will be doing less of both. Maybe I prepared too many healing spells for day and lost precious spell slots or maybe I prepared too few. Either way, I will be less of a cleric and of what is left, I will have less of a choice. These are not choices that matter, these are false choices that are predetermined by role, specifically the healer role, and was something 3.5 and Pathfinder improved, but 2e is apparently rolling back.
When discussing the spell slots, the spells for high ability score aren't just gone with no replacement; you also get more of your best spells automatically (2 of your best spells at odd levels, 3 at even without counting channel/domains, as opposed to PF1's 1 at odd 2 at even without counting channel/domains). While at very low levels, a heavily optimized character (starting at 20 casting stat and aggressively pushing headband) might be getting 2 bonus spells or her highest level from ability scores, that tends to be impossible to keep up by about level 5. I apologize for not having the time to get caught up on the thread, but by the time I did, I would be behind on the next one. However, I have to disagree with you. Your spell slot changes have removed bonus spells with no replacement that you have revealed so far. Yes, the changes let you keep pace with a Pathfinder 1e caster at first, but instead of having a maximum of 4 spells per level, plus bonus spells, plus domain spells, plus a domain power, plus channel energy, we have a maximum of only 3 spells per level, plus a domain power, plus channel energy. While channel energy, cantrips, and maybe domain powers sound like their might be cooler, you haven't revealed enough to offset concern that you are hindering our ability to cast signature spells. Yes, a cleric can now heal with channels, but now healing is competing with channel energy usages instead of spells. With what you've revealed, this is a significant net loss of spellcasting for a dedicated spellcaster. What about for classes that don't typically channel energy, like a wizard? The reduced number of spells would be crippling. Anathema, on the other hand, sounds awesome and I hope we see it applied to all of the divine casters, particularly, the paladin.
If someone wants to play a PF1 Dwarf they'll be sorely disappointed by all the things they lose. Same for all the other races really. That depends on how many picks/ancestry slots we have at first level. We don't really know what the new first level baseline will be and whether dwarves are being lowered to that mark or others are being elevated to dwarven standards.
I really like the potential of the ancestry system shown in the goblin, elven, and dwarven previews. I am hoping that it will allow balanced drow, aasimar, tieflings, and other powerful races at level one with no level adjustment. Instead, you could have some flavorful level 1 options (Aasimar poetry, drow parkour, tiefling angst) with later levels unlocking more powerful abilities. Perhaps aasimar get a choice of SLAs if they take an ancestry feat with a minimum level of 5. Perhaps instead of light, yours can cast cure wounds or a divination spell. Perhaps instead of taking that feature, you took one that gives you spell resistance or faster healing. Also, I would love if the term "feat" was changed to "feature," though that may cause confusion with classes. (Credit to The Mad Comrade) Movement is 30 feet. So are most other races. If they really want elves quick as a cat, either bump it up to 40 feet, grant the Dodge feat, or grant a +2 in initiative.Most of you post seems to read as "I want Elves to be stronger than other choices" but this part is just factually wrong. Standard speed is now 25ft. Elves are faster, can get even faster with ancestry feats and also initiative doesn't exist. It is getting really hard to keep track of what is official and speculation, particularly with the different sources (blog versus playtest podcast versus responses in the comments versus quotes from presentations). Is there a "what we know so far" thread? I could really use one. |
