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It might be because war, while sometimes an unfortunate necessity, is never a capital G Good thing. Individual soldiers and causes may or may not be Good, but when you get right into the pitch and start the dirty business of actual battle... Well, maybe an affable Neutral is what a proponent of such things is going to be. Just a thought for the discussion.
+1, take the background out.
indeed. Faith doesn't even need to have a supernatural focus.
Paizo- "Please test these rules we made." Playtester - "I didn't try those. I tested my rules instead." This might be of interest, but it is not as useful to the question actually asked.
It isn't a mechanical distinction, so I'm not bothered. Vitality is what gives the capacity for instinct, emotions, motivation, faith and such. A setting assumption. . No problem here.
I'd say that undead and sapient golems gave a Vital essence or they wouldn't have drive and motivation. It might be a twisted essence in the case of essence, hungry and cannibalistic , but still Vital.
Both mental and vital essences can exist without faith.Sure can! Faith is a manifestation of the vital essence, but you can easily have vital essence and have a distinct lack of faith (but if you lack all vital essence, you don't have the capacity for it). Just like squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares. I think the issue Drejk is addressing is that all vital casters appear to have a religious component, which seems to be grating. I think that Druids can easily be a non-religious option, though. They are mystics for sure and a lot of them probably are religious, but faith doesn't seem to be a mandatory component.
Sounds like not being domesticated by the temptations of civilization to me!
Wild Druids in an Urban campaign are probably a rough fit, but the city could just be where things need to be done, they live and sleep in the Wilds and meet up with people behind the walls. An Urban Druid archetype that alters Anethema slightly seems like a natural thing to come in the future, as does a Savage Druid for evil Druids who are evil even to their own charges.
I see the Anathema as an admonition against terraforming and creation of blights. A few cracked branches are likely not a big deal, but even though a forest fire can renew an environment, that isn't the Druids call. Causing a fire out of raw neglect is also right out. Consult your local spiritual resources for guidance and support in all conflagration concerns.
Thank you for all of your hard work. I'm looking forward to seeing the full release soon!
Psychics in D&D/Pathfinder also have a healthy tradition of biokinesis or psychometabolism. Psychics being the Mind of Matter including the matter of the self.
I think that it is likely that Oracle will stay Charisma, but it might not be necessary considering how the Sorcerer is turning out. I'm pretty sure that the Me+Vi caster is going to be the Psychic and the Shaman/Summoner will be Ma+Sp. What Ma+Sp is going to be called has been puzzling me, though. I made a post about the subject in the thread about the Four Essences. I'll spoiler block it here. Spoiler: This sort of reminds me of Rolemaster's realms of power; Essence, Channeling, Mentalism. The parallel is that all casters were either pure (one Realm), hybrid (two realms), or Semi (a magical Realm combined with mundane skills).
The primary casters in PF2 are going to be what could be described as Hybrids, but there could be room for Pure casters in the future. "Semi" casters could map roughly to classes like Paladins who have supernatural powers derived from a theme of a Tradition, but not spell slots. What do we have confirmed so far... Ma + Me = Arcane
We know we have Primal coming up, but has it been fully revealed? Ma + Vi = Primal? Almost certainly Vital magic due to the connection with the First World.
Then we have potential Pure casters. Not as many spell options, but maybe a bit more in the way of powers? Ma = Kineticists?
I think we are going to be seeing three basic types of casting classes. The first are classes largely locked to one spell list. We know about these already. Wizards (Arc), Clerics (Div), Bards (Occ), and Druids (Pri). Differentiation will be by style; school for Wizards, religions for Clerics, muses for Bards, and orders for Druids. The second are classes that might be based off of primary attributes instead of spell lists. Sorcerers (Cha), Oracles (Wis), and Witches (Int). These will have a greater variety of spell types; Bloodlines, Mysteries and Patrons will all have different lists assigned to them. I am hoping that their spell slots will be more limited, but bloodline powers, revelations, and hexes will be the main draw there. The third could be spell-less classes that have themed powers instead. The Paladin and any future Exemplar style classes are going to be the poster children for this. Hunters, Inquisitors, and Magi among others could all be very well served by this sort of thing. They are still magical, but under the new paradigm might not need to be actual spell casters.
A forth, pseudo-magical class type would be people who use mundane skills to produce supernatural effects. The Alchemist is the first example we've really seen about this, but I'm starting to think the Occultist might slot in nicely too. Where the Alchemist is ... well... Alchemy, the Occultist is said to be the master of Resonance and might well be the master of Ritual Magic as well. Zero spells, but the ability to draw out more from magical items and ceremonies than any other class.
That is pretty clever, really. You could use your full Cha stat to determine how much magic your aura can fuel before you start feeling the strain of it.
That's assuming we don't need X feat to do [thing that anyone should be able to try and possibly succeed at]. And what we've learned about pickpocketing doesn't bode well for that. I agree that what different tables think a "thing that anyone should be able to try and possibly succeed at" is will be a problem. Pickpocketing isn't on that list for me, for sure. I am happy that warriors can be expected to bandage wounds properly without learning how to be a chirugeon, though.
There are two main things in language and history that charisma is. One is charm and social appeal. The other is supernatural power. Granted, in our world this power is based on divine gifts, but for D&D it has been inherent as often as, if not more often than, bestowed power. As long as there has been a 3rd edition of D&D as well as Pathfinder, the game has pushed to two of those definitions together. For 18 years of the game, people with high Charisma have both a natural social aptitude and a greater ability to push magic around with raw force of this supernatural talent. It isn't an accident that the Mesmerist is based on Charisma as well as the Sorcerer and other internally powered classes. Even the Oracle, since its power cannot be taken away like a Cleric's can implies that its power once bestowed belongs to the Oracle utterly. In this sense, Resonance is only new in application, not concept. Resonance is a resource derived from this personal potency that grows with experience and gained vitality, and can be poured into magic items to power them. Aside from the Alchemist who has apparently developed techniques to leverage applied thaumatology instead of relying on more personal gifts. That being said I'm not a fan of everything that is being done with Resonance so far, but I do think that the basic concept is sound and should be polished to see what can be done with it. My personal tipping point might be how it is handled when you are out of Resonance and are starting to pull water out of a dry well.
While PF1 skill ranks were trying to be more organic, characters were too often strangled to accomplish basic adventuring tasks. The poor Fighter with only 2 ranks per level is well known as the most punished victim of this. What I'm looking forward to is PF2 having more capable adventurers as levels increase. Fighters that can at least have a decent chance to sneak about without spoiling the whole groups stealth. A cleric who can manage to climb enough that the party doesn't have to drag her around like a lead weight. A wizard that can do basic first aid without killing a companion. Training, Mastery, Expertise, and Legendary skill will all matter when it comes to the breadth of ability, but with experience nobody will be so abysmal at fundamental, Everyman tasks that you might as well just assume failure. At least, that is my personal silver lining about the new Proficiency set up.
Rooneg (and others that posted while I was typing) is right. The first two examples are allowing the untrained character to do things they don't know how to do. Somebody with natural talent (ability scores) may be able to out perform a veteran (more proficiency ranks) at basic tasks, but the veteran will be able to do more things that the prodigy just wouldn't know how to start. For the third example, higher level fighters have more combat endurance. There are more narrow scrapes, last minute defenses and other things hit points represent rather than raw structural capacity for harm. Also, 10th level fighters are going to have more going for them than you are assuming. Similarly for the fourth example, experience matters. Ability and training are important, but there is no substitute for actual field use of your skills. The 10th level wizard is just going to be better at what they are doing than the 1st, even if they took the same classes at Hogwarts.
Sacred architecture/geometry could be great for that.
Spiritual Tidy and Cook could be the summoning of very minor help-spirits, or the temporary creation of said critters. Something even more ephemeral than a ghost that flutters out of existence when it is no longer needed.
"it means no morals! It's the end of all days!
I am now torn between a playtest bard with a blasphemous flute to up the occult flavour and a dwarf with bagpipes. Choices, choices....I don't understand the distinction. ;) OH... Bagpipes are a set of blasphemous flutes. So obvious in hindsight.
This sort of reminds me of Rolemaster's realms of power; Essence, Channeling, Mentalism. The parallel is that all casters were either pure (one Realm), hybrid (two realms), or Semi (a magical Realm combined with mundane skills). The primary casters in PF2 are going to be what could be described as Hybrids, but there could be room for Pure casters in the future. "Semi" casters could map roughly to classes like Paladins who have supernatural powers derived from a theme of a Tradition, but not spell slots. What do we have confirmed so far... Ma + Me = Arcane
We know we have Primal coming up, but has it been fully revealed? Ma + Vi = Primal? Almost certainly Vital magic due to the connection with the First World.
Then we have potential Pure casters. Not as many spell options, but maybe a bit more in the way of powers? Ma = Kineticists?
I for one am not trying to reconcile a thing. It is perfectly intuitive to me and makes so much sense that I latched on instantly. Bards gather a myriad and diverse collection of lore and weave it into their magic. They had me at hello on this one.
I am now torn between a playtest bard with a blasphemous flute to up the occult flavour and a dwarf with bagpipes. Choices, choices.... I don't understand the distinction. ;)
I haven't seen that blog post, but that is really disheartening news. That is not a pace any group I know can keep up. We can get 8-10 hours in maybe once a month, maybe.
While Arcane is probably going to be the type of magic that is a clear and exact science, I think that Occult is going to be the sort of magic that is a more cobbled craft. Occult could well be piecemeal, eclectic. It could take up bits from multiple sources and build into something workable from disparate sources. So you could just as likely get an Occult caster who has experimented with the music of the spheres and has learned from a wide breadth of lore how to work wonders as you could have somebody who has delved into cultish territory and learned things one was Not Meant to Know from aberrations and things from beyond the stars. I'm also alright with Muse, since while the source of inspiration is fairly open ended, the actual class feature describes what form the inspiration takes. A muse could be Sheylyn, but the bard is driven to become a Maestro. A muse could be devotion to the Pathfinder Society which drives a hunger for Lore. There could very well be a better term for it, or Muse and Passion could wind up separate things for a Bard to describe their self with. I'm really looking forward to how it all turns out though.
I had a Fighter that I dumped points into Heal, ride, and survival and I called him a Knight Hospitaler. He was acually pretty usefull in Downtime it saved the cleric resourcess and was a huge help when the cleric got downed. From what it looks like in PF2 you can do the same thing with the fighter here and you won't have completely crippled skills at high level. You can have some of those trained, kick up some to expert eventually, and the base proficiency bonus lets you be fairly competent at "everyman" sorts of things in the other skills. I'm hopeful that the fighter will wind up shaking off some of the stigmas from 3.x days of limited skill resources.
I always play a Rouge but I think now want to sing.. You could be a Moulin Rouge.
So Muses are an alternate way of saying "your characters passion" and that passion can be hung on whatever sort of narrative hook that you like. I like it. As for what makes martials stand out in combat, while all characters share the same progression bonuses to dice rills, it feels like PF2 is focusing more on breadth of ability rather than just big numbers. At a range the elf wizard and the human fighter might be hitting the target roughly equally,but the fighter will have more tricks up their sleeve in actual adventuring conditions. Which combined with getting more proficiencies on leveling is why I'm not bothered if fighters don't get as many proficiency ranks in skills at level one, at least if their weapon skills feel like actual skills in play.
+1 for playtest as written, give good feedback,see what happens in 2019. Or if it isn't for the playtest, ignore it for consumables for sure.
Nice. Not thrilling,but nice. Decent to have a framework where you can easily set up expectations like that, but not a particularly interesting or enticing bit of news. It is a good addition, but considering how few blog posts are left, just not meaty.
Maybe bloodline spells could be automatically Heightenable in that way.This was discussed... Gotcha, thanks for the reminder.
Well, you surely can read it like that, but I was actually pointing at the way they are chosen... "Twice per day, the sorcerer can choose a spell it can spontaneously heighten for the duration of that day". The spontaneous heightening feature lets you choose two spells at the start of each day that you can cast as their heightened versions using any of your spell slots Using any of your spell slots really does sound like as long as you have slots to use, you can upload your chosen lower level slots into them. It sort of makes those spells like Spontaneous Cure or Domain spells. I do think that the sorcerer is likely to need a way to get more of those though. Maybe bloodline spells could be automatically Heightenable in that way.
I anticipate Oracle Feats that represent sorcerer-ness being inflicted on somebody by something other than heritage. Feats that deliver potentially stronger abilities, but also carry hinderances in the bargain.
I'm not so bothered by the revelation about Fighters having a lower number of starting skills in PF2. Short form of it is pretty simple. In PF1, Fighters having a low number of skill ranks per level is basically crippling. Either you over specialize in key adventuring skills and be terrible at everything else or you don't specialize and you are just kinda bad at everything outside of combat. In PF2, Fighters having a low number of Proficiency Ranks in skills isn't actually too terrible. Being untrained does hurt at low levels, but even Untrained skills get decent at basic tasks. It feels like games without character classes. You want to play a fighter type, your highest skills are going to be in weapon use, but you should still have a rough competency at other tasks. You didn't get this in PF1, but we might be getting this in PF2. I think that Skill Feats are also General Feats, so if you wanted to make a Lore Warden type character, it could be fairly simple. I guess what is going to solidify or crush this idea for me is when the playtest document lands and I make a few characters for testing, how many of those circles under Senses, Saving Throws, Proficiencies and Skills are going to wind up having Xs in them. If the Fighter has at least as many actual Proficiency Ranks in all categories combined as other classes? I'm more likely to accept that. If the Fighter is outclassed completely and has the least Proficiency Ranks in all categories combined? That I'll be less okay with.
I have the rough idea that RPG healing should be a variant of those signs you might see in small mechanics shops. They boil down to "Fast, Cheap, Good. You can have any two."
The "no ability score for ranged damage" is interesting, but can perhaps be addressed through other means. The Deadly 1d10 for crits (2d6+d10?) could help a lot, plus we don't know what traits a composite bow might have. We're missing out on a bonus for thrown weapons though. I hope that hasn't completely disappeared.
What is TEML? I have not seen or heard of it Trained Expert Master Legendary
Ancestral Longevity? Huh, maybe not all elves get to enjoy centuries worth of lifespan this time. Or, (personally) better yet, all playable humanoids have a similar base lifespan, then further augmented by either ancestral feats or class ones (such as the Druid and Monk's Timeless Body feat(ure), if it still exists). It also implies that a longer life span could be worth a feat at first level which is a curious thing.
By the same token, a Throwing or Speed enchantment doesn't need to be on the blade where the CI is (Neither would frost or shock if we could get confirmation that CI is a decent thermal and electrical conductor). If CI's disruption doesn't "leak," any restriction is an engineering problem that can be solved (and considering you need better-made swords to stuff magic into in general, this is not a point against CI). If it does leak, why the [GOODNESS] isn't that leaking used to break opponent's magic? No, the same token doesn't apply. If you are going to be enchanting a weapon, you probably have to have the enchantment be on or at least directed at and including the weaponiest part of the weapon. So if they blade/head/etc has enough Cold Iron in it to do anything mechanically sound like say, trigger a Weakness or overcome DR, then its natural resistance is going to make it harder to enchant effectively. If the Cold Iron is only a small amount placed in the right spot of the item for a good description, then there is no need for it to be a disruptive presence to the overall enchantment. Narrative example: "How did I get these burns on my hand? I figured out a rune to ignite a sword a long time ago. I was just an apprentice mind, so when I activated it the rune lit up the whole thing, grip and all. I wrapped the tang in a light layer of Cold Iron though, that keeps the Evocation on the blade where I want it. The professor said it lacked elegance and my runework was sloppy. Got a B- for it all the same." Pathfinder is not an engineering simulator. Somethings are going to have to be considered below granularity and I'm fine with that. I'm going to leave this post with a quote from another game behind a spoiler tag. I think it might be fun to read, but it doesn't need to clutter up the thread. GURPS Thaumatology: Iron
A common, legendary resistor, iron harms faeries, drives off the Devil, and breaks charms and glamours. The blacksmith is traditionally considered holy, thanks to his constant, purifying exposure to iron. Casting magic on someone wearing iron, into a house protected by an iron cross or horseshoe, or on a blacksmith, may mean penalties as severe as -5; castings on or across iron itself may suffer as much as -7. Iron cannot serve as an insulator, and any iron item intended to contain magical power must be “magically degaussed.” In some traditions, magnetized iron becomes a conductor akin to blood. Fantasy novels and games sometimes restrict these powers to “cold iron,” an ahistorical concept likely based on misremembered Kipling poetry. If the GM wishes, he may define “cold iron” as cold-rolled iron, wrought iron, or meteoric iron. Alternatively, meteoric iron might be a conductor, since it fell from the higher spheres. In that case, “star-iron” causes no negative effects, and in fact grants +3 to +5 (depending on purity and quantity) to magic using or cast through it. Whatever iron’s effects, the GM may rule that steel, as “impure” iron, doesn’t share them.
Is there a way of determining how much resonance I have? How about somebody else? Will this allow for "power level" detection?I think only Jedi can determine a character's Resonance count. Even they need to have a bloodtest kit in their belt.
At the moment, It's in the paradoxical state of having both low resistivity (since it cannot be used for components that use high resistance) and low conductivity (since it cannot be used for components that use high conduction). I don't think that a single CI component is enough to make the whole item count as CI. A hilt of the stuff would be great for keeping fire enchantments on a sword from creeping over the wielder's hands, but still leaves plenty of normal sword to etch runes into. A hint of Cold Iron for thaumaturgical flavor should fit in fine with what you are saying. It is only when you are trying to enchantments the stuff directly that there is a problem, hence not being able to imbue as many enchantments onto a blade made entirely or almost entirely from the stuff.
Cold Iron isn't an enhancer of disruptive magic. It is a resistor of all magic. It is a mass of undiscriminating static. So if you have a magic effect that interferes with a spell it is still magic so cold Iron still resists like lead in a circuit. Okay, bad analogy. The fact remains that cold Iron isnot an abjuration. An abjuration is a kind of magic. Cold iron doesn't work well with magic. It follows then that cold iron doesn't work well with abjuration.
Cold Iron isn't an enhancer of disruptive magic. It is a resistor of all magic. It is a mass of undiscriminating static. So if you have a magic effect that interferes with a spell it is still magic so cold Iron still resists like lead in a circuit.
The only real criticism I have for this is thinks should cost Resonance or have X per day limitations not both. Absolutely not both and between the two I'd rather have Resonance. I'm really looking forward to seeing how hard using more Resonance than you have is going to turn out.
Short form for repeated opinions; Int for skill based magic, Wis for channeled magic, Cha for innate magic Or in other words; Int for manipulating ambient magic, Wis for directing magic derived from an outside source, Cha for controlling the magic that Wells up from within. Other people have drawn the parallel that Int is Dextrous magic, Wisdom is having the spiritual Constitution to draw on magic from Beyond, and Charisma is the Strength to direct your own power. So that was a lot to say the same thing three times. ;)
You're a mean one, forum Grinch. You really are a drag!
*No similarities towards actual forum members intended or implied.
Ever since the Harmonium accidentally shifted a whole third of Arcadia into Mechanus, things just haven't been the same down in the gears.
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