SortHac's page

So, first things first. This is an absolutely amazing project, and I am incredibly thankful to everyone involved because there are some great changes and fixes to a very wide reach of aspects in both 3.5 and Pathfinder included in this homebrew system, and I love it.

I did notice a few things that need either fixing or clarifying though:

1) In the rules for Double Weapons, it states the following:

"Double Weapon: You can use a double weapon to fight as if fighting with two weapons, but if you do, you incur all the normal attack penalties associated with fighting with two weapons, just as if you were using a one-handed weapon and a light weapon."

Now, the wording on that last line implies that they aren't "a one-handed weapon and a light weapon". They are simply treated as such for the purposes of attack penalties for two-weapon fighting. This is further reinforced by the fact that any examples of double weapons in Chapter 5: Equipment refer to them as a "two-handed double weapon".

So... Do they get the normal benefits for attacking with a two-handed weapon? 1-1/2 strength to damage? If so, is it with one end or both ends? What about Power Attack? Do you get the 50% increase for attacking with a two-handed weapon, but also get a -50% for the off-hand attack resulting in a net zero for the off-hand? If so, do you still retain the 50% for the main-hand attack?

2) The rules for Overrun in Chapter 7: Combat are completely missing. Does anyone happen to have the Kirthfinder rules for Overrun handy, or should I just substitute them with the rules from either 3.5 or Pathfinder?

3) When using the Total Defense action, it says that you "give up your normal attacks for the round". Does this mean that you lose those partial actions, or do you get to keep the partial actions and they just don't get to be used for normal attack actions? If you get to keep them, can you hold those partial actions and use them to attack later in the round?

4) As written, the Leadership feat does not function properly if you don't have a Diplomacy bonus of +10 or higher.

For instance, let's assume you have someone who takes it at first level, but doesn't have any Charisma modifier. So all they have is a single rank in Diplomacy to qualify for the feat. Ergo, they have a Diplomacy bonus of +4. Plugging their Diplomacy Bonus into the formula [((X - 8) / 2 )^2] gives us a Leadership Potential of 4.

The problem comes if they level up. If they put another rank into Diplomacy, that bonus rises to +5, and if we plug that into the formula...

[((5 - 8) / 2 )^2] = 2.25, rounded down to a Leadership Potential of 2.

As you can see, by leveling up, they've managed to lose followers.

I won't get too far into the specifics, but the point is that as the formula stands currently, it only starts to work properly if you have a Diplomacy Bonus of +10, because that's the first time you get a Leadership Potential of 1, and it begins increasing that Leadership Potential as your bonus increases.

Thankfully, there's an easy enough fix that doesn't require changing the formula at all. Just implement a rule that if you have a Diplomacy Bonus lower than +10, your Leadership Potential is treated as 1 (or 1/2, either works).

This way, you can't have someone giving themselves a -4 in Charisma with 1 rank in Diplomacy to get a CR 16 army.

(Though admittedly that would be hilariously funny to picture, especially because at level 1 your option for followers would be limited to Kobold warriors, experts, and adepts. As each are CR 1/4, this hypothetical leader with crippling self-esteem issues would be in command of a whopping 64 Kobolds!)

So I noticed the bit about Unarmed Strikes in The Gauntlet's description. How do gauntlets work with unarmed strikes in 2e? Do they now simply boost unarmed strikes? Do they finally allow unarmed strikes to get enchantments?

Hopefully it'll get explained soon, I've been a long-time fan of unarmed combat, which hasn't been in the best of places in Pathfinder, at least in comparison to other weapons.

On another topic, I'm very happy to hear that Fighters are getting Flexibility! Even if it's a bit late in their career, it's still amazing to be able to 'prepare' feats for the day, much like a Wizard does with their spells. Stances also sound very interesting to me, as does this 'combo' business. Wonder what kind of interactions it'll lead into? I'm imagining an ability to turn a miss into a feint for your next iterative attack.

Great work on this, I can definitely see why someone would play the Vampire Hunter outside of an undead-heavy campaign now. Matter of fact, I'm going to be looking into making one sometime.

As a side note, may I suggest adding in either the Crossbow or Elf section that the latter have a variant racial trait that can help out with the former, Crossbow Training?

Crossbow Training: An elf with this trait can reload a light crossbow as a free action and a heavy crossbow as a move action, provided that she is proficient with the weapon. If she selects the Rapid Reload feat for a heavy crossbow, she can reload the weapon as a free action. This racial trait replaces weapon familiarity.

SortHac wrote:

I really don't want goblins in Core primarily because they are described as few in number. While it may or may not be written down, Core races/ancestry have the distinction of being some of the most common races to be seen as adventurers, as well as being not uncommon sights in taverns.

Aren't goblins incredibly common on the face of Golarion, whereas things like "Half-Orcs" are terribly rare? I don't understand this argument.

If you're saying "Goblin Adventurers were rare" then sure, I agree with that but all kinds of adventurers are pretty rare, and "adventurer demographics" have nothing to do with population demographics.

I mean we've already experienced things like "new kinds of Changelings are printed, so we get kinds of Changelings as adventurers that never were previously adventurers" already and can deal with it. For most of Pathfinder 1.0 there were no Shifters or Vigilantes, but suddenly they were always there.

Well, for the record, I actually didn't know Half-Orcs were that rare. Moreover, after reading the blog-post again, I'm not sure where I got that impression from. Hmm...

After thinking on it, I've narrowed down some of my problems with Goblins as Core (not as PC races, I'm perfectly fine with them.)

1.) Goblins are still considered as born inherently evil. (I draw this reasoning from the fact that they can and will eat each other as children/in the womb) I would much rather this be changed to 'culturally lean towards evil/chaotic'.

2.) There are no confirmed Good/Neutral goblin *communities*. If we were to have confirmed by Paizo that in the last ten years such a community were to exist, I'd be perfectly fine with that.

3.) As others have stated, why is it that Goblins made it in as the first PF core monster race? If you want monster races that can be reasoned with, why not Kobolds? Or Hobgoblins? Why not Catfolk or Lizardfolk or even Ratfolk? Jason himself has stated that it is *not* because of the popularity of Goblins, so then why them?

So regarding the "doesn't fit with lore" argument, what if in 4218 AR a goblin passes the test of the Starstone, and it turns out that goblin had a good alignment (let's say NG to split the distance between Cayden and Iomedae).

A goblin attempting the test isn't really news, since all kinds of people get themselves killed doing this all the time. But no one has passed it in ~900 years, so it would be major news if someone passes it, but it's still just "one person being awesome" so it's not a major change. "One Goblin is Neutral Good" and "One Goblin is awesome" are both plausible things, so...

But as soon as that happens, a lot of people's eyes are going to be opened. Both people who now have reason to reconsider how goblins are, since one of them literally just achieved apotheosis, and also goblins who may have a new role model to emulate.

I mean, if the intention is for Goblins to be in the core rulebook, it's probable that there should be a good aligned deity which is goblin-oriented added somewhere along the line.

As much as that would clear up some problems with Goblins in-universe, that doesn't seem to be happening.

...That change is not going to happen overnight. Its not going to happen by decree.

As for me? I really don't want goblins in Core primarily because they are described as few in number. While it may or may not be written down, Core races/ancestry have the distinction of being some of the most common races to be seen as adventurers, as well as being not uncommon sights in taverns. You aren't going to turn heads for being a dwarf in a common pub, but a goblin? 'Kill-on-sight' or not, people will be immensely wary and more than a little abrasive.

They are both restrictions. This is a FACT.

Not your opinion on the matter. Both together are what make the paladin what it is in PF. You can ofc think one is more relevant than the other, but you cant change the FACT they are ultimately just 2 restrictions placed upon this class together and that together form what it is in PF.

To throw my hat into the ring, I put this forth: On one hand, you have a very real point. Being Lawful Good is just as important as following the Code of Conduct to a Paladin in PF1e.

On the other hand, all that means in PF2e is that it is simply an example that could be followed, or ignored entirely in favor of another definition of Paladin.
I mean, if tradition is the only reason for Paladins to remain only Lawful Good and only having one Code of Conduct, why don't they also remain Human-only? That's just as old of a tradition as either of those, and no less important to the whole identity of a Paladin in the editions it was present in. Yet it was changed, for better or for worse.

Could we at least get Dex-to-damage at level 1? It's such a prevalent concept in fiction (Arya Stark!) that it's really disappointing to have to tell people, "You can do that by level 5, but the first four levels you'll be basically dead weight..."

I cannot remember where exactly, but they have confirmed that Rogues get Dex-to-damage at level 1.