There's still a bunch of errors in the various sheets. I was hoping that they would fix them for season 2, rather than just add the new ones. Will the existing errors for the various pre-gens be fixed at some point in the future?
Flatter amount of HP with slower scaling could help solve that problem. Frankly scaling HP introduces a ton of problems, in general. How many problems go away when you don't have to scale up HP and, therefore, damage with level. It's probably a non-starter because people absolutely have to have their big numbers, but there are a lot of systems that don't have scaling HP and they avoid a whole host of issues as a result.
The issue for me is limited in scope. Having to spend an hour identifying the 100th potion of healing is both immersion breaking and boring. Very common items shouldn't take as long as uncommon and rare items. How many variations are there on healing potions? At some point you're going to just kind of know what one looks like even in a world without mass production. The other idea is that you should just auto-identify things that you know how to craft. I do like the mystery of a potion when the answer is going to be something uncommon, but healing potions are like daily rations. They're just there to be consumed and tracked.
My point was that just because something was not a meaningful choice for some doesn't mean it isn't a meaningful choice for anyone. In the Bard's case deciding between the Staff and the Weapon or Armor is important. Even choosing between the Weapon or Armor first is meaningful and sometimes prioritization is where the choice is. If I'm a Paladin, I'm probably going to prioritize the +1 armor over the +1 weapon and vice versa for the Fighter. I'll get them both eventually, but leaning into my strengths is a strategy as-is leaning into my weaknesses. I'm not saying that it couldn't be better, but there is a choice there, it's just when instead of if.
I'm not sure its a problem for all 1st level items. It's only really a problem with additive effects (i.e. effects that aren't affected by time or number of castings). A 1st level wand of Charm isn't as useful as a 4th level wand unless you happen to be Charming a lot of low-level people all in a row, at which point they might notice. Anything that involves action economy isn't additive either so really this is something specific to a few items and maybe that limited scope can have a limited solution applied to it.
The issue with auto-scaling is that its a huge boon for hybrid classes. Now my Bard doesn't have to pick between a Staff of Enchantment and a +X weapon. Or at least the choice is easier now. Pure martial and pure caster classes tend to be front-loaded. I've noticed that a lot of the design space for splat books is finding different ways to mix martial and caster classes, which would care very much about things being auto-scaling.
Admittedly this is a distinctly D&D and fantasy problem. In modern day settings, you would never try and model different regional guns differently. You would go with pistol, heavy pistol, shotgun, rifle, sniper, etc. Which leads credence to the idea that a short sword from a different region is a short sword with a different name and there really shouldn't be any mechanical difference even if there is some small difference in real-life usage. I do agree that the commonality system has issues around purchasability. I had the same problem with the monk weapons. I'm a monk in a two-monk party, one of us has access and the other doesn't. It seems strange to me that I can't just ask my fellow monk person to buy me some shuriken while he's getting some for himself. Additionally the weapon non-proficiency penalty doesn't really seem all that severe initially. Not having a ranged weapon at all seems worse than having one, but being stuck at -2. And for monk's specifically you can take a feat for all simple weapons or take a feat for all monk weapons. Since you're much more likely to find neat simple weapons than monk weapons it feels like a toss-up mechanically and a pity in terms of story. While I feel like there's a need for the rarity system, it feels unrefined and frustrating that the moment in how it's implemented.
Question: When did high-level characters ever get worse at anything in PF1? Worse relative to the challenge level, not worse on an absolute scale.
Given that we have crafting formulas now, it seems like characters should be able to identify items that they have the formula for. That would add a benefit to having a large formula library especially after you've graduated past certain items. Also certain base properties like potency runes could just be known. So that +1 expert longsword is known because +1 expert longswords are common enough and you know what a +1 rune looks like. This would alleviate a lot of the item identification issues, as you're much more likely to know how to craft the really common items. And, despite the fact that we don't have nearly enough skill feats, Quick Identification should probably just be rolled into the various spell skills with 1 hr. being base at trained. One thing I would add though is that we wasted a ton of time trying to identify things we didn't have the skill for. Between all the people in the party we had all the relevant skills, but everyone had to attempt to identify every item. So if we knew the branch of magic (e.g. primal), we could have done all the identification in 2 hours, instead it took about 8 since our characters would spend an hour identifying something only to be told that we didn't have the right skill. That's definitely something that could be cleaned up.
While I think having two different gating mechanisms is cumbersome, I recognize that making something exotic is basically forcing a feat tax to gain its additional effects. It's an effective way to increase the mechanical cost of superior weapons.
I guess my question is, if humans have all these wonderful sub-cultures, where are the other races sub-cultures? You have Varisians and Tians and so forth, but you don't really list those distinction for non-Human races and that feels lackluster. I would really like to see some cultural diversity among non-Human races so that Dwarves from this part of the world have a different culture and maybe even language than Dwarves from this part of the world. Perhaps these Halflings over here don't speak Halfling as their mother tongue, but speak Varisian instead.
I like the idea of classes enhancing core concepts rather than having them specific to them. In this case, the Cleric might start with the ritual already known and get a bonus to it. Perhaps the cleric could double the healing from the ritual, or it could roll twice on its roll. I don't want to see healers as a required role, and I don't want to see healers reduced to meaningless. Saying that the cleric is the king or queen of healing rituals kind of allows for having a niche without making them required. If the cleric truly out-heals all other healers, then that becomes the baseline for setting difficulty and becomes a de facto requirement.
The more I think about this, the less the Standard or Basic adjective works in my head. For one, there haven't been any modifiers introduced anywhere else, with the exception of Ranged vs. Melee and those could be addressed as well. Really all other modifiers are traits. It would be nice if rather than have a mixed trait/adjective system, you stuck to one or the other, with my preference being Traits. Traits have this nice bit of also being explicit about what it interacts with. If Evadable (or some other name) was a trait, Evasion would be very explicit. You wouldn't need the clunky, "if you could save for half, you take no damage." Fire trait could read, "you can choose to set things on fire. Unattended objects make a something Save to avoid having the Fire continuous effect applied to it." There are other traits that could have these basic rules applied to it. Sonic damage might do no or half damage to deaf creatures, for example.
The level four adventure is kind of messed up right now because it's all animals and dog men and things like that that have high perception. It should not serve as a baseline argument for perception versus stealth. To note the level 7 adventure has perception scores only one or two higher despite being three more levels and crossing the master threshold. it's also a factor that in all of these scenarios were sneaking around in broad daylight. There's no bonus for lighting or distractions or anything else that could be a factor in trying to make you or four consecutive stealth checks. If you can get a 100% success rate using no consumables, daily resources or prior planning then when is there ever going to be a real need to use them? And all of this is really only a problem for the rogue until level 10 where the combination of Assurance and their sneak feat makes them virtually undetectable.
My one complaint about Assurance is that is has gaps. I wish it was a smoother progression than it is.
Except in this case they would be in encounter mode and would only be making one check probably. Or perhaps if they're going to be out awhile, go ahead and expend some expendables and drop it down to failing on a 1. Or they could take Assurance in Stealth and succeed against all of checks DC 20 or less, because as long as you fail on a 1, you're still going to have a 20% chance to fail at least one of 4 checks. Four checks in a row also seems pretty extreme, but perhaps succeeding 4 times in a row should be that difficult.
Rameth stated it well. You're not expected to fight monsters of equal level most of the time. You're expected to fight between -4 and +2 (for bosses). With a heavy weighting towards the -4 side. Also if you're investing in Stealth, I expect you to have a least one type of Terrain Stalker feats to avoid the roll entirely. And Quiet Allies to reduce the ACP of your friends. On top of that you're likely heavily invested in DEX with little or no ACP. But let's say that you don't have any applicable feats. At level 7 (+7), you're likely 18+ DEX (+4), master Stealth (+2), and have Shadow armor (+2). So you're already at +15 against the first several group of enemies against a Perception DC of 18/19. You fail on a 3 or less -- hardly catastrophe. And for the hardest non-boss encounter, you're looking for a DC 22 (with a +15). So you fail on a 6 or less. At level 10, as a rogue you can even make it so no longer fail Stealth checks, which means you only fail via Critical Failure on a 1 most of the time. So this idea that it's a coin flip even for those heavily invested in a skill just doesn't hold true with the actual content presented. At the very worst you're looking at 30% chance to fail against the hardest non-boss enemies with zero consumable expenditures. Frankly, that seems fine.
Martials should be weak like small children. They should beg their Wizard overlords for gruel everyday and be grateful that the Wizard doesn't just smite them down, but then realize that they're not worth the spell slot. Martials should be grateful that their measly hit points can be used to soak damage intended for their betters. They should be limited to small, rusty broken weapons and realize that they aren't worthy to be in the same room with a magic weapon much less look at one. Martials should be thankful that they have the strength to climb stairs, not walls. They should recognize what little strength they have is to be a human pack-mule for the Wizard's many spell books. Martials should remember than when a Wizard needs to sit, their place is as a human chair as to not let the Wizard's robe get soiled. To be clear, the Martial's place is under the Wizard's foot. -- A reasonable Wizard's position. (The above is designed to be read as satire. If you do not recognize this as satire, my condolences that you've had to deal with so many jerk players OR if you're one of our "special" wizard community... something, something, something)
Whenever someone's justifications for their opinions on game mechanics is that some players "tend" to roll higher or lower I just roll my eyes. Give them new dice or something. Rolling isn't some skill that people can be good or bad at. If you're "good" at rolling that means you're literally cheating and rolling it in a way to get high numbers or your dice is unbalanced. Same goes for people who are "bad" at rolling. While that's statistically possible, I would check your dice for weighting due to manufacturer defect. This is especially common in opaque dice as their opaqueness conceals internal defects. There's a salt-water trick you can use (or really anything that's more dense than the die) to test to see if your dice are weighted. Most dice have at least some minor bias, but some can be really bad. That said, balancing a system for people with crap dice or crap luck isn't a good starting point.
And any multi-classing in 1e means that your capstone abilities are just gone. I think that's: a) a problem with individual feats; and
Admittedly I don't play 5 different Paladins or 3 different Wizards. If I play multiple characters they tend to be in different classes (or different systems) and so it's not a problem for me. So if there's only one feat I really like at a given level, that's fine because I'm probably not going to play another "whatever" before I play all the other classes that are available. Now I come from GURPS originally rather than D&D, so the idea that everything is universally and generically available is baseline for me. But that's never what D&D has been. And making something that was really just a series of small template (i.e. everything is an archetype) has some merit, but also feels so alien to what D&D/PF is that its probably a non-starter. That said, GURPS wasn't balanced at all and it didn't even really try. It only ever supported low-fantasy. So siloing isn't my favored starting point, but I recognized that a class-based system is going to start there, by definition. It's just a matter of what systems are siloed and which ones aren't, with the understanding that most of the systems are going to be at least partially siloed. If there was no heritage to restrain Pathfinder, they could move to a class-less system where everything was part of a feat-tree with level- and feat-based prerequisites. But that's not what we have, nor is it an option that they've indicated they would entertain. And while I understand that your issue hasn't been feat interaction, it has been an issue with d20. And it's one of the reason that new feats tend to be more lackluster -- there's a fear of unbalanced interaction which creates a downward pressure on power levels. So as long as I can pick up a class feat that I want with Dedications, I'm probably good. There's literally very little not available to us anymore, except if what we really want is a combination of 4 or more classes, at which point you've just hit the biggest problem with class-based systems which isn't going away anytime soon.
Fair enough. 80% seems too high to me personally. I guess 65% (or a 8 or higher) for the optimized character is good, which is where the 2e fights have been that we've done. Taking a look at the current playtest where you're level 7: Spoiler:
You fight some Ghasts wit their 18 AC. At this point the fighter is likely to have at least an 18 STR, level 7 with expert proficiency and a +1 weapon (master which would be available, gives an additional +1). So you're looking at a +13 to hit an 18 AC. Meaning you need a 5 to hit (75% success), and crit on a 15+. Or we could look at Vampire Spawn Rogues with their 19 AC. Where you would need a 6 to hit (70%) and a 16+ to crit. Or the Poltergeist with its 19 AC. The only two things in the entire piece that are any kind of challenge are the Greater Shadows with their 22 AC (55%) and the boss with a 25 AC (40%). And that's before buffs. So in more than half of the fights, the fighter is, in fact, hitting about two thirds of the time without any buffs. I think the problem is that people are comparing their to-hit not against what they will actually be fighting, but against equal level opponents which you will rarely encounter in your typical adventure. For the most part the adventures seem to be building out more fights with more lower-level enemies.
To those people who want to hit 90% of the time on their optimized rolls... "Why?" It sounds like what you want is a complete power fantasy. Do you also like your having your critical hits described by the GM as eviscerating your enemies with their bowels spilling out or their heads being flung across the field after being decapitated? If you want that, your GM can run you through really easy encounters. They can give you a chance to dominate. But if you can only feel really good about yourself if everyone else in the party can only fail challenges in your area of expertise, that's not a good experience for the table. There also seems to be a presumption that equal-level challenge means equal level enemy, but as others have done the research on it, we see that the enemies are often lower level than the players. The difference at high-level between no investment and full investment isn't 7, its more like 17. Moderate vs. full investment puts it closer to 10. That's still significant. Even the 5 range between Untrained and Legendary is significant in relative terms.
Roll twice is fine, roll thrice is kind of "wrong", and unnecessary especially since you're already really good at the rolls. How about (effects are additive): Untrained: the usual -2 penalty
I guess I see the Archetype system as actually more flexible overall, while removing the strangeness of the Fighter just being the king of feats. In 1e, you had very limited options if you wanted to pick up a class feature from another class. Multi-classing was very mixed in its results and if the class feature you wanted was even mid-level (say 10), you were talking about a huge reduction in capabilities. And any multi-classing in 1e means that your capstone abilities are just gone. So the only class features effectively available are essentially fighter feats and the shared metamagic feats, given that the fighter is mostly just a collection of combat feats. Which leads us to the problem of very large pools of options (in this case feats). As 1e added feats to the general pool, the number of optimizations you could make to your class increased. There's this general sense that splat books cause power creep, but that's also a side effect of having more options. Individually a lot of the feats may not be that much better than the core feats, but combined they can make for a much better character mechanically. Silo-ing combat feats into classes means that problem is largely avoided. 2e is trying to thread the needle where you have access to a large number of features (more so than 1e overall), but while acknowledging that increased options mean increased potential for unbalance. And, personally, I think they've done a decent job of it.
My friend and I have been discussing this exact approach. We created two different characters no investment (NI) and full investment (FI). The issue is that between items, feats, ability bonuses you already have up to a +/-10 difference. Adding an additional +15 on top of that breaks the ability to have DC bands. Looking at table 10-2, they've broken down DCs by difficulty class for each given level, with tasks ranging between Trivial (-2) and Extreme (+2) with High (0) in the middle. The High DC seems to be the baseline for the purposes of most checks (e.g. Lingering Performance, Downtime checks). So taking into account the various bands, a design goal could be stated that the NI character should have a 50% chance to completely the Trivial task and a 0% chance to complete the Extreme task. Likewise the FI character should have a 100% chance to complete the Trivial task and a 50% chance to complete the Extreme task. The exact percentages can be tweaked, but I'm using them as an example. If that's the case than we know that the total range of bonuses between two characters cannot exceed 20 (or what is available on the probability die). That's not just proficiency, but all reasonable stackable bonuses. Now the system could argue that NI isn't a valid strategy and that some investment is required always. In that case you have a Minimum Viable Investment (MVI) which takes the place of NI for calculations. Though if that's the case you limit the viable choices for characters. Looking at table 10-2, it seems like the approach they've taken is mapping NI/FI. Looking at level 20, the Trivial task is DC 29, while the extreme task is DC 47. The Trivial task maps exactly at 1*L which implies that no investment is presumed. And the level 20 NI character would have about a 50% chance of success, and additionally no chance of making the Extreme DC. In fact, it turns out they would be capped at Low-High. The FI character on the other hand should have between a +30 (+7 ability, +23 proficiency) and a +37 (+7 ability, +23 proficiency, +7 in various bonuses). That gives them a 50% chance to succeed at an Extreme task and a 0% chance to fail the Trivial-Low tasks. This gives the GM the ability to set DCs that cover the various storytelling needs and allows them to create challenges that only the FI character can succeed or create challenges that everyone can succeed while giving the FI character a guarantee, allowing the story to move forward smoothly. Currently the difference between the NI and FI characters caps out at about 17-18, which is what the die can tolerate and still give us a range of options. If the total difference was, say, 27, then the GM would have a lot fewer options as Trivial would be the only task possible for the NI character and FI characters wouldn't even be challenged by a Severe DC. One possibility is dropping the rate of proficiency increase, though that introduces its own problems. That said, it's a trade-off. Ultimately any adjustment to proficiency bonuses is going to have to take into account that the total distance between the NI character and the FI character cannot exceed the die itself (even if it already does in table 10-2 at high levels).
I'm still trying to catch up with all the comments in this thread, but I haven't seen the problem with the classic BAB system this way: The +1/level, +varying/level, +0/level are all linear functions. The only way not to have a huge differentiation between 20th level characters is if the slope is the same for all the functions. +1/level, +0.5/level, +0/level all have the same slope. If you vary the slopes of the linear functions based on who you are, you're going to end up with huge separations by the end as soon as level (L) is large. If you were to use varying slopes in one area you would have to have to add additional functions that worked in the inverse to balance it out. E.g. if the wizard was +0.5/level and the fighter was +1/level, then the wizard would need access to ~+0.5/level in additional bonuses that were unavailable to the fighter. While this kind of balance could be worked out initially it would be incredibly difficult to maintain. 1e never solved this problem which is why it can only tolerate the ~10 difference (5 from level, 5 from other factors) that basically gave the fighter ~75% chance to hit and the wizard about a 25% chance to hit. But as L increases, the math dictates that the difference between the two resulting numbers will eventually increase past the size of the die. So, two solutions while keeping varying functions. Limit L to something like 10 (where that is the max level). Or add exclusive bonuses for smaller slopes (e.g. 0.5, but not 1). Otherwise the problem isn't solvable literally because math.
Can we get a lot more, a lot more skill feat options? And better options? Right now I have to take a skill feat because I can't downgrade, but for some skills there aren't any legendary feats. And for some skills even feats they do have aren't really compelling.
Humans are fragile creatures, even heroic ones. But taking one hit and going down is annoying. So different games have come up with different systems. E.g. Nathan Drake in uncharted has "luck". As you're getting shot, you're not actually getting hit, but you are pressing your luck. If you press your luck too much then you actually get hit and then die. Because people just don't move the same after taking a bullet. Is it contrived? Absolutely. Is it more fun than reality? Absolutely. Stamina represents your heroic ability to evade attacks, but as you tire out from all that last-second dodging it takes it toll and eventually you get hit for real and then the healer needs to come in and heal your wounds. Still contrived, still more fun than the alternative.
Why isn't this a trait? E.g. Evadable Evasion
Traits
There's certainly a balance between explicitly starting things and hosting them behind keywords. CCGs have to handle this all the time. It's one thing when a keyword will be prominent and exist for a short period of time and quite another if it has to live forever. Normally I would be against the shortened version because it adds a moment of confusion while you're trying to figure out why it's different. Also it doesn't flow well since it requires you read the text of the spell rather than jump ahead to the success/failure entry you care about. If you're going to do this there needs to be something in the header that you can quickly look at first too tell you how to interpret below. Now all that said it might be even better if not so many spells followed the exact same pattern. I would rather have fewer spells that are more distinct than have so many spells that area just an element plus a shape plus a save. It's not exactly the most exciting. Why wait ten more years for 3.0; make the changes now!
As the person stuck in my group who ends up always playing the healer, please end my suffering. I would like to play something else, I really would. I spent two years stuck playing a class I didn't enjoy so that other people could because no *one* in our gaming group wanted to play a cleric, but a cleric was absolutely vital to avoid having one or two fights a day.
You do not have to account for a +1 rune when selecting a +2 rune as part of your starting selections. As someone previously stated property runes are separate items, though so you can't pick up multiple runes for free. The only rune that is included in the purchase is the potency rune.
There's a lot of wiggle room between freely heightening 2 spells and All spells. Perhaps upping the baseline to 4. Or increasing it regularly. Say 2 to start and 1 for every other new spell level leaving you with 5 free by level 19.
That particular style could get a Natural Armor kind of defense built into it without necessarily negating mobile sources of defense.
I got the impression that rangers got crossbows instead of bows because of the iconic's art (Harsk). So because a Dwarf was the iconic, and Dwarves look like of dumb with longbows, we get crossbow-wielding rangers.
I guess a compromise would be for it to give a little extra then what a weapon would. so the 1 resonance is worth it. This would still leave the gap between 1st and whenever you get your +1 handwraps since you can't apply oils or crystals of potency. That said, it's likely that oils and crystals of potency are a bad idea overall. Since they don't actually work past early levels, is there some math that says we need them at all. It seems like the encounters should just be tuned as if they weren't available at all.
As someone who actually enjoys playing a bard and was hurt a little when they cut it from 4e initially, I would be sad to see it reduced to an archetype here, even though I would understand if it's popularity simply wasn't sufficient to justify such prime placement. That said, I think the problem with Perform is that they really haven't fleshed out the skill feats for it, nor given it any design space that isn't duplicated by other skills. Other systems have done it far better. Some basic mechanic ideas (in need of balancing): You could even add seduction-based powers if this weren't a PG game.
Yes, please. That was one of my favorite parts of 4e.
There were a lot of things in 4e I wish weren't so tainted by the brand. This was definitely one of them. It's just a cleaner system to explain and run. The other one that we've seen a bit is Rituals. I'm glad they're making a return from 4e/5e, but I'd like to see them dramatically expanded. E.g. Phantom Steed for the entire party was inspired. There's not that much utility in an emergency steed for 1 person and the party shouldn't have to have a wizard to get it.
There's also the fact that the monk is, by far, the most mobile of the martial classes. The fact that you can take a move-and-a-half and still hit 3 times is pretty big. Also you don't *need* wisdom anymore. If you don't need it to be crazy high if you do take it. All-in-all their need for stats isn't quite as bad as 1e. Tiger monk also plays extremely well with Fighters. You can position yourself so that you can step 10 to avoid getting hit while guaranteeing that if they want to follow they're either going to waste 2 actions stepping or they're going to trigger an AoO while moving away. They could use some love, but I don't think they're unplayable by any means.
Bracers of Armor can make up for *some* of the loss of DEX, but, yeah DEX is pretty important. It's really a question of WIS vs. STR. Do you want to be the strong monk or the ki-monk. Doing the level 4 playtest my monk has 20 AC which is pretty decent. But even with only 14 DEX, she would still have 18 AC which isn't a significant cause for concern as that's right around where other martial classes are. Right now I'm testing 14 STR / 18 DEX, but you could probably get away with 18 STR / 14 DEX with no problem, take the +2 to damage and just get hit 10% more often. It has the added benefit of making Dragon Kick more viable as well.
I would also like fewer conditions. Also the reason that some conditions include others is likely so that they don't stack. So if restrained just said you were at -2 AC and someone also made you flat-footed if one didn't include the other then you would be at -4 AC instead of -2. I do agree that formatting might be nice. Then again, I don't mind if something just listed multiple conditions and we removed some of the meta conditions.
Treasure table is wrong. Special materials don't add item levels or rarity. In fact, there is no additive items levels or rarity in the game. Each item is the item level of the highest property that has an item level and the highest rarity of it's various properties. So expert weapon = 2
So a +1 expert weapon is item level 4. A +1 master darkwood weapon is item level 7 (+1 rune = 4, master quality = 7) One of the very real problems is that people are understandably reading in 1e rules into the 2e playtest. In this case there isn't anything that mentions additive logic for item levels or rarity so it simply doesn't work that way.
This has been covered numerous times. The six primary stats are one of the sacred items in Pathfinder. They won't change them (at least not yet) because they are part of the fingerprint that makes Pathfinder, Pathfinder. I think there are a few issues to this. One changing the 6-stats would be breaking a massive breaking change from d20 meaning character concept conversion would be incredibly difficult. I think that's also why we have the same classes even if their concepts have evolved quite a bit. Two, system inertia means that too much deviation from the existing system means that moving to a completely different system is the same amount of pain as moving to 2e. It's a large part of why Operating Systems are so keen on backwards compatibility -- reducing friction to upgrade keeps people in-system.
Right now you only disarm an opponent if you critically succeed, which is hard. And if you succeed, they aren't disarmed, but you get a +2 to the next attempt made before their next turn. Given that future attempts would be made with the multiple attack penalty, it feels like the bonus on success should at least match the MAP. Disarm as it stands just feels a little too difficult to accomplish with no significant boon if you don't critically succeed.
I love my casters, but I've been one of those people asking for simultaneous nerfs to casters and a buffing of martials and that's what we got. Some of the spells were over-nerfed and I think Paizo will come back up on some of them. With regards to Uncommon items and over-strict GMs, perhaps you should talk to them, but if they're running pre-written modules I'm guessing the spells will show up at the appropriate time. One big problem we had with Teleport, especially at high-levels was being able to do it twice. We would just teleport out and back as a party to re-equip. Since you were always going back to where you've been there really wasn't a problem. And while the castle might be warded it's hard to justify that the entire mountain was. At some point it just gets silly and the ability to just pop out and back whenever destroyed any tension. Frankly Teleport should just be an overall less-nerfed version that is a 1-hr ritual with high-cost. Frankly I'd like to see a lot more spells maintain their more powerful effect, but become rituals. I will ask this though, the people who are talking about martials being just as important narratively as casters, please stop lying to us or yourself. The fact that good roleplaying can come from anywhere is not a question of game balance and is not a balancing factor between martials and casters. One last thing I will add, is that I'm sorry to see the backlash against 4e left us leaving behind a lot of good ideas that it had. Casting times of encounter or day were a really nice way not to worry about 1 min. vs. 10 min. Right now we're kind of stuck with arbitrary times of 1 min., 10 min., 1 hr. and sizes of 1, 5, and 10 people. As has been stated multiple times, 5 people isn't a great size for 6-person parties. Though, I would like to see more consolidation of spells like Tongues, Comprehend Languages, etc.
For those calling for something simple like "Don't be a jerk.", you've missed the point entirely about this being a call to address the toxic gamers in the room. If certain words have been made political it isn't by the people who created them, but by the people opposed to the ideas those words represent. No one likes being called out on their bad behavior. No one likes the idea that someone would need a safe space from themselves. But people do harm and we can all do less of it. I would also make the case that being in one marginalized community doesn't mean you're not doing harm to another one. Your inclusion in a marginalized group does not mean you aren't doing harm to others. And I've seen it be used as an excuse far too often. With regards to mental health issues, many people don't know they have a diagnosed condition. I mention PTSD, but a lot of people just have anxiety, depression, or some other un-diagnosed, but very real condition. Should someone at the table who already feels like an outsider because of their depression tell a mixed group that they have mental health issues? It typically ends up poorly. Mental health is severely stigmatized in every country. Disabilities are stigmatized. And if the requirement to play comfortably at a table is to open themselves up to potential ridicule, even briefly, many will simply opt out. There is a common idea that is being spouted out that this isn't really a problem in most places. It is. That marginalized groups aren't welcome is such a pervasive sentiment that it's everywhere. Does your local gaming area represent the local population? I doubt it. Do women have to put down other "hysterical" women to prove they're one of the guys? Do LGBTQ people show displays of affection to their partners when they're around or are they scared to ick someone out? The privilege to be able to be yourself because you tick all the right boxes: white, male, cis-, hetero while other people have to suppress their feelings to be accepted is what keeps people from feeling safe. It's a silent call that you can be here as long as no one else finds out you're not really "one of them". And any call for actual equality where someone can exist in a space as themselves is seen as controversial or being political. If your response to a woman's discomfort with another man's advances or stares is that she should get over herself. Or if a woman comes forward with stories about your "good" guy friend being inappropriate results in you defending your friend over this "crazy b**tch", then you are the problem, too. If your black friend seems uncomfortable being called "dawg" by your white buddy or your white buddy decides to make the "honest" argument that if he can't use the N-word than no one should and you don't speak up, then you are the problem, too. Power and privilege maintains itself not through overt action, but by making others hide their thoughts and feelings. Closeted LGBT are well aware that it is the act of being themselves that upsets people and therefore hide it. Black and brown people know they have to code-switch to be like white people in order to exist in their world. Paizo is creating a call-to-action to say, "be better about these thigns." And I, for one, applaud it.
With all due respect to you HWalsh, your version misses the point. The terms you find objectionable are the very terms used to communicate that something is safe for marginalized groups. Removing the terms "safe space", "marginalized", "social contract" gut the text of much of its meaning to those listening to know that a place is safe. To anyone listening your rewrite is significantly worse. Something I do want to respond to. People who are bullied frequently become bullies themselves. It's actually part of the cycle of abuse and this idea that you don't need to call out gamers for their bullying because they know what real bullying is like is horses**t. I've watched in my lifetime as nerds have turned their childhood abuse into a get-out-of-jail-free card to harass, bully, threaten and degrade women and the LGBT community. Paizo is absolutely 100% right to try to tackle toxic gamers head-on. And they can't do that by gutting the meaningful language of the section meant to do just that.
@Scott Romanowski Anyone actively proselytizing typically gets thrown out. You mentioned someone wearing a Christian cross. If they're handing out pamphlets they should have the owner's permission to do so and if they started talking about Christianity I would ask them to stop. With regard to the BSA, I'm going to admit that I'm not a fan of the organization itself, but I'm also not very knowledgeable about them. I kept track of their position about admission of gay members, but haven't keep track of their positions on general subjects. And, yes, atheists and agnostics (either weak or strong) should have the full protection and consideration as people with any other belief system.
Find me a person doing this who isn't trolling and I'll answer your question. But let's say it's a Wiccan and a couple of Christians at the table. Yeah, there's gonna be some issues. One of the reason I didn't mention religion in my posts was because religion sometimes doesn't have a clean way to resolve the conflict. Or I'm GMing at a convention. Two Boy Scouts sit down in uniform at my table to play. The BSA Bylaws explicitly say that I cannot be the best type of citizen. Can I ask them to leave or do I have to put up with the insult? Is that because you're not a BSA yourself? Does the BSA code say that because you're a homosexual? I, think, in this case the BSA has dropped that particular objection, but you would be within your rights to ask them to not participate if their organization openly demonized someone based on one of the outlined traits (e.g. gender, race, sexual orientation). Rephrase that as an African-American GM and two KKK members in uniform. What then? If the KKK members are in full-regalia at a private convention I would hope the organizers would show them the door. If you're talking about military uniform and they started espousing white supremacist viewpoints, then again, I hope they would be shown the door.
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