Tarn U Tarn's page

The problem with assurance is it doesn't scale.

The DCs for skill checks increase with level, but assurance doesn't, so it quickly becomes a total waste of time.

If it was a 10, 15, etc + modifiers it would be good.

If it was a 10+level, 15+level, etc it would scale and be useful.

As is its only useful for a few levels and then needs to be retrained to something useful.

Loves- (well, likes anyway)

1. As mentioned by a previous post, I like the action system. I like the way there is an action economy to consider, where more actions with a spell (e.g. M/Missile) or an item (Ring of the Ram) add to effect, but have to be counterbalanced against losses e.g. to step back or to raise a/cast shield. The mechanics do seem a bit faster than PF1 as well.

2. I like the fact that Cantrips scale now. They probably don't scale as much as they should in some cases, some that could scale don't and some that do are simply not worth the effort. But its an improvement on PF1.

3. I love the fact that ranged and melee touch spells can use Dex as a stat (your favourite secondary when you are a squishy) rather than the frankly stupid division into Dex & Str based touch spells in PF1.

-Hates-

1. The rule book! You will have had a fair bit of flak about it I am sure, but I don't think it can be over emphasised.
- the poor organisation
- information that should be linked located all over the place (might work with hyperlinks - maybe, but never in a paper book)
- missing information where you have to try and infer what was intended by drawing from nearly unrelated sections (we have had more DM rulings and house rules in the play test modules than when we played a home brew game).

Frankly character creation was a nightmare (more because of the organisation of the information than the system) and I would rather not play the system than attempt to play it with new people or worse, my kids. Get a professional technical writer in to reorganise and rewite it; during the re-write the missing sections / contradictory sections and some of the basic errors should get visible so they can be cleaned up.

2. The nerfing of arcane magic generally. Clerics seem to be doing ok, but a lot of joy has gone out of being a wizard and there is no value in being a sorceror.

3. The scaleability of some parts of the system (not all, just some things). For example the feat Assurance (a mandatory part of the Scholar Background): as a flat 10 + no mods it is great at 1st level and quickly becomes useless as challenge DCs increase with party level, but the feat's flat 10 + no mods doesn't, spells e.g. Bind Undead, that are the slightly useful at low level and near useless after that.
This is not a problem with the system in general, more a problem of not putting enough work into the details - unfortunately there are enough scaling failures that the gems in the system get lost in the dross.

Has anyone noticed the shrinkage in cold based spells?

There is 1 cold based cantrip and the next cold based spell is Cone of Cold (well, not very cold) at 5th level.

Do you remember when you had a choice with fireshield of going hot or cold flames? Or the icy bludgeoning of an Ice Storm spell?

Given the fire elemental in the 2nd play test module, I am surprised that no-one has noticed the serious dearth of cold based spells in the rule book.

Perhaps they are intending to put a fire resistent demon and fire elementals into the 1st commercial module they make, so everyone has to buy an enhanced book of spells to get those much needed cold damage spells?

I agree with many of the points listed in the detailed analysis of the nerfing of Arcane spells & the sorceror, so have not added more on that.
However, I would like to get people's impressions on the schools of wizardry. My impression is that Univeralist wizard is fairly pointless now. In PF1 the benefits of going evoker, abjurer, necromancer, etc were counterbalanced somewhat by the disadvantages of Opposition schools - so there were some benefits to being a universalist. In PF2 the benefits of the Universalist are not as great as the benefit of taking a school (which has no downside now).

As far as the Universalist's school power goes, it's a joke.
Given the nerfing of mages in PF2, you take Elf, Weapon Familiarity, spend a general feat on light/medium armour rather than waste a spell slot on mage armour (and go magic armour & weapon as soon as possible), make a bow attack as your 1st action then follow up with a "Save Vs" type spell like electric arc for your remaining actions. The whole throwing your weapon (e.g. as an elf, a finesse weapon like rapier) using the "worst" of your proficiencies is no match for a single bow shot. And the errata nerfing the Drain Focus (which is far less useful than the Arcane Bond of PF1) from 1 use per spell level to 1 for each spell level (i.e. 1 first level spell & 1 second level spell, etc) just tipped the balance against univeralist for me.

In an attempt to be fair however, I should mention that the option treat all touch spells as having the "Finesse" trait - meaning you only need to boost Dex as a secondary stat - is a massive improvement on the stupidity of PF1 where a mage needed a High Int + a high Dex for ranged touch (and AC of course) and a high Str for melee touch spells.

Comments or useful feedback anyone?