I honestly just want the sorcerer to at the very least have auto heightening on all spells or if not that a complete rework as they are now the only reason to play one over the other caster classes is flavor.
Y'all are really pessimistic over changes you guys asked for huhActually a lot of the people who are pessimistic over the changes in this thread are the people who have been positive about the playtest generally. Me included. Strangely a good portion of the people who were asking for the changes and have finally got them are silent. It’s no secret I’ve been one of the less satisfied with the playtest, I actually really enjoy the changes listed my big concern is how much it will change and how much work it will take,the Paizo staff are people as well regardless of how I feel about the final game I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being concerned. I also think there’s plenty of shots fired on both sides it’s the nature of debate however I severely doubt the forums were a dealbreaker I highly doubt Paizo would of bothered with surveys if they were just gonna go use whatever the forums listed instead.
I honestly was happy to hear the proficiency change though I did take a healthy sip of skepticism as well, I’m glad that your character has to invest to be good in something, what I now fear however is how several changes will influence the whole framework, the playtest has always had tight math so I imagine this could be a sizeable overhaul, I have had a lot of issues with the playtest but I find myself sharing @Gorbacz feeling of worry that such a big overhaul can be completed on time. In short whatever misgivings I’ve had with the system I want the final product to do well, I’m just gonna be patient before I outright make predictions on how it will turn out since the final product may look nothing like what we have now save for some core mechanics (3 actions and so on).
Well if you want to talk in extremes then why have players make characters at all? Just have the GM make them all apparently that’s the only way they can be trusted.I don’t know what kind of munchkins you play with that you feel the need to micromanage everything I got news paizo can limit options all they want people will always find a way to break a system, if the only way you can trust a player is by banning things and telling them how to play then I think you have a much bigger issue at hand.
If it requires a GM ok before I can take it I don’t want it in the core rulebook I’d rather it be in a supplement. As for players being entitled I never said there should be no rarity or limited supply I said there should be clear rules not a big GM’s discretion tag if that’s the route they want to take I personally think it should be in a DM focused book the players handbook should be for the player if I can’t play the character I want then what’s the point.As for magic gear I lean more into negotiations here as items are acquired in game not on character creation (inless starting at a higher level) or level up so I think it’s fine if I can’t find something (the caveat being if I never find anything for my character and the campaign is approaching high levels)
...Could you explain what benefit this provides? Is it only for simplicity? Assuming you can keep a party invested till at least tenth level it’s a little dishonest to talk like they get this guaranteed reliability heck it doesn’t even show any promise till at least seventh level, in the event you’re talking about assurance you don’t add bonus to that you get the number it provides, it doesn’t become remotely attractive till tenth level when you gain access to sneak savant turning a fail into a success a feat I never would of needed before because I’d be actually good at stealth. If taking ten levels before you notice any real improvement is your idea of good then sure it might be ok, but none of the players at my table could imagine slogging through ten levels of mediocrity before their character does as advertised.
Mirrored moon playing a half-elf Rogue who I made as stealthy as possible, went to scope out the lake where the sea serpent was apparently lurking I rolled a 18 for stealth on dice only to find out I’d been seen and that the serpent had rolled higher on stealth than I did. Honestly just feels like specialist characters aren’t allowed to be ‘too good’ even though they sacrifice just as many feats as every joker who invested only in combat options. The tight math in short just made all of us go the hell with it lets all roll for everything it doesn’t matter anyway. And the final thing that Paizo say will be fixed by the time the game is done is spell casters now I played a rogue from 1-20 in PF1e they were considered the second weakest class after monks and I would of rather played a 1E monk over a 2E caster, if your spell isn’t magic missile, heal or a buff then it’s bad or mediocre at best they upscaled the damage which wasn’t even the issue, the problem was that spell dc’s are so trash that most enemies shrug off spells even on their bad saves. In short we never felt awesome at best we felt mediocre at worst we would of rather played as monsters or NPC’s since they aren’t trash.
Could you explain what benefit this provides? Is it only for simplicity? I honestly to this day still don’t see the problem if I’m playing a Rogue for example and invest all of my feats, skills and other bonuses into a particular skill then I want to be bloody good at it, it’s utterly stupid to me that a character who commits at being a specialist can lose out because something else rolled 2 or 3 higher on the D20, if everything is roughly 50/50 then why roll up characters I could just flip a coin to decide everything.
It still creates debates at the table the minute a GM allows 3 out of 4 players to get what they want and say no to the fourth they’ve created a situation where a player can feel like they were punished for trying to play the character they want, additionally there have been multiple posts on multiple threads with GM’s just saying how grand it is they have rules to ban things they dislike, I’m fine with a rarity table that states how things are acquired I’m not fine with character options in the CORE RULES being locked away because they don’t meet someone’s fancy. In short rarity has been largely celebrated as a tool for GM’s to help railroad players and tell them how they can build their characters which is frankly not something I’m interested in. Role playing is meant to be a collaborative experience if a GM needs the chain of events to follow a roadmap in their head with no surprises I think they’re better of writing a novel than being a GM since novels go exactly the way they’re written.
It’s almost like we had something that dealt with wounds in PF1e that kept adventures from grinding to a halt *cough* wands *cough*. Honestly if magic healing is unrealistic and cleric channels are just gonna get nerfed because heal is the only good spell in the playtest they may as well just remove all magic healing, heck just get rid of magic clearly that’s intended to only be fun for monsters unless you’re a wizard we’ll buff those since they were too boring not because data said they were significantly weaker. Honestly though it feels like you’re inherently punished for wanting magic in the playtest, paizo say that they know and will fix it by the release and hey maybe they will but based on what we have at the moment I am extremely skeptical.
I don’t even get why anyone is surprised anymore Wizards will always be better because people basically demand it, hell the wizard literally got buffed because it wasn’t interesting not even because it was weaker, it honestly just seems like the sorcerer was designed to fail it’s got access to any spell list but the parent classes are almost always better, even their bloodline abilities don’t help much since they range from mediocre to just bad, who knows maybe they’ll turn out fine but from everything shown the sorcerer is gonna be the runt of the litter who got torn down because it dared to try and be relevant.
That's exactly the reason it shouldn't be an option. (Or at least, the argument against it.) If an option is terrible and will serve as a trap, don't bother including it. Guess a good number of class feats shouldn’t be included either then? (Looking at you power attack)
I strongly disagree with this if there’s going to be a rarity sytem it needs set rules having to pray your GM will ok your character is honestly terrible and will just increase the likelihood of favouritism at tables, then you get players screaming why one player can have what they want and they can’t. I’m one of several GM’s at a store the big issue with arbitrary rarity is some GM’s won’t disclose or don’t get a chance to disclose how they run their games, players then turn up with characters rolled up and are told they can’t use the character they’ve brought or worse a GM will allow the character such as a gunslinger for example and then never allow the character to find more guns because they think they should be near impossible to find, only for that same player to play that same character with a different GM and get all the guns they could want. It’s not a problem at home games where everyone knows each other but this is a new game with new rules anything that cuts down on potential rules arguments is a plus.
House-rule? probably give the reasoning behind it to the payer.I can only speak for myself: I prefer to seeing restrictions and then finding ways to be the benevolent GM who gives players an avenue to achieving what they want that isn't normally readily available, than having to restrict access to what the player believes the rules say is unconstrained.Okay, self-congratulatory, benevolent DMing aside, when something is Common, as decided, semi-arbitrarily, by someone else, and you think it should be Rare, Unique, or not available, at all, and the player demands access, as it is officially listed as Common, what then? I strongly disagree with this if there’s going to be a rarity sytem it needs set rules having to pray your GM will ok your character is honestly terrible and will just increase the likelihood of favouritism at tables, then you get players screaming why one player can have what they want and they can’t.
I can only speak for myself: I prefer to seeing restrictions and then finding ways to be the benevolent GM who gives players an avenue to achieving what they want that isn't normally readily available, than having to restrict access to what the player believes the rules say is unconstrained.Okay, self-congratulatory, benevolent DMing aside, when something is Common, as decided, semi-arbitrarily, by someone else, and you think it should be Rare, Unique, or not available, at all, and the player demands access, as it is officially listed as Common, what then? It’s not that complicated as a GM you inform your players what isn’t allowed at your table ahead of time, if you fail to do that and they build a character without that information then tough luck, the players shouldn’t have to play a guessing game as to what they can have, as for having a rarity list that’s also simple I want a concrete list with tables saying how those items/spells would be acquired if one is to be included, I don’t want everything that’s not listed as common to rest on the GM’s whimsy because that leads to some GM’s allowing anything anyway and others just banning things just because. A player should know ahead of schedule what they can and cannot have in a campaign last thing you want is to build a necromancer and then be told you can’t have raise dead after the fact JUST BECAUSE.
I feel like the question Paizo really needs to answer is "what IS a sorcerer?"* How is a divine sorc different from a cleric? How is a primal sorc different from a druid? And more importantly, why are those two sorcs the same class?I feel like the answer to this should be Bloodlines. Sorcerers really need to double down on the bloodline mechanic and make their powers really exciting and distinct. I don't think there'd be as much of a big issue of overlap with other classes if they had a real class feature beyond spellcasting. Too bad the current bloodline abilities pale in comparison to feats and the big hurdle is always going to be “Why don’t I just play the other class with the spell list I want instead?”Either they need more stuff to make them better casters or bloodline powers need to be super appealing, I imagine that one way or anothey they’ll end up either weak or overpowered depending on who you ask, the class has to actively compete with all other casters now which is a tall order.
The problem I have with this argument is if it’s not fun to play and I think “what were they thinking”The whole time why would I want to bother with the rest, I’m also tired of hearing that homebrew solutions fix a lot of problems, this is a new ruleset it needs to stand on it’s own if the only way to make it enjoyable to my players and myself is to rewrite half of it then why bother there’s already functional games out there. Also sick of hearing about how it’s new, it’s not an excuse this is meant to be an improvement compared to it predecessor, like it or not this new system has to stand next to the old one and prove it’s worth investing in because like everyone likes to remind me my old books aren’t going anywhere so I don’t need to buy the new edition. I want the game to be good but I honestly feel like this game was made for different people and is just wearing the pathfinder name tag for brand recognition.
What RPG would you play then? I'm seriously curious. The problem I have is that the cost of not being trash at things you didn’t invest in is you’re not that great at the things you optimised for, people can say “Well it’s because it’s boring if the rogue is never caught or fails a deception check’I honestly could care less when I decide to optimise towards something I want to be very good at it, but as I’ve said countless times though monsters have better skills anyway to the point that I focus on skills even less in the playtest than in 1E, with the experience I’ve had with the playtest if it doesn’t make killing the target easier or buff the party then it was a sub par choice, you may not like 1E skills but at least when you invested in them you were getting something out of them.
So while I protested initially over the "nerfing" of casters... it's much ado about not-so-much. Casters STILL have a huge selection of spells. Their lower level spells remain valid in combat, especially as weakened higher level foes will, after being softened up, be vulnerable to these lower level spells. And Cantrips will allow Casters to provide significantly greater support than a crossbow or the like, as do Wands and Staves.SO now casters just wait until the enemies are really weak and then have them make the save anyway? Spellcasting in this edition is stupid. Just get a sword cast your 1 minute buffs and hit stuff with a sword. The vast majority of playgroups never get past level 12, or at least that’s the case in 1E so saying it gets better at high levels is a pretty poor argument, especially when your spell proficiency doesn’t go up till 15th level, if you think casters being garbage until right at the end of a campaign is ‘balanced and fun’ then I can’t agree with that, either spells need to be overhauled or monster saves need to be knocked down a peg because right now if you roll a caster that isn’t a Cleric you did your party a disservice, honestly 1E was high fantasy the playtest is not, one of their goals was players being able to tell the same stories they did before too bad anything that requires a save is automatically worse than magic missile.
I play primarily martials and with the exception of Cleric wouldn’t even consider a caster in 2E, I tried a primal sorcerer and after our first combat where everything kept passing the burning hands DC I outright gave up on attack spells and just used healing and cantrips since most spells requiring a save are a joke in the playtest, blaster casters were mediocre in 1E but they’re pointless in the playtest since monsters are so overtuned.
Systems are easy to houserule, but going through every feat trying to decide on a balance point for it is much less fun. Just because a GM can use house rulings to improve a sytem it doesn’t mean the system is fine, rather the fact that the playtest requires house rulings is problematic, if the game struggles to stand on its own then it needs work, this is a new system that new GM’s will take an interest in, it’s unreasonable to expect them to house rule and fix issues on the fly, I like the games skeleton so far but a lot of the meat struggles to stick.
One of the playtest goals is to be able to tell the same kind of stories. To do that you need to be able to have the same kinds of characters.Making the connection between same kinds of stories and direct analogues between character builds is a loooooong stretch. One of the playtest goals stated was that the new game would feel like pathfinder, so before you say “It does you fools”You need to remember everyone valued different parts of the previous edition and a big issue a lot of players have now is that classes included in the playtest no longer have access to play styles they used to have, because of this those players feel that the goal of the new edition feeling like pathfinder has failed. Now I know a lot of builds can kind of be recreated via multiclass dedication feats but again a lot of people don’t want to HAVE to take these feats, additionally some combat feats are class locked in the new game when they weren’t previously. So yes 2E has customisation but there are players who feel that the characters they want to play aren’t available such as bow paladins, strength rogues or dex paladins to name the ones I see mentioned with the most frequency. So yes while a lot of concepts can be kind of remade in the new sytem people want to play characters and build them their own way instead of being forced to go through particular channels. And again the major cause of friction on this topic is what people consider to be the main feel of 1E, for a lot of people it’s the ability to build what you want the way you want instead of being handed cookie cutter templates you have to layer to get the desired shape, for others the main draw of 1e was versatility of actions and then there were people specifically drawn to the high fantasy which has led to some feeling like the same stories can no longer be told because magic for some people (myself included) has become a pale imitation of its former self. To summarise no one’s feelings about the feel of the playtest is inherently wrong people just want different things because the previous edition had multiple draws and some people feel like certain draws have been prioritised over others.
I’m not sure if this is aimed at me but the fact is certain topics and what some players consider to be problems have been addressed while others haven’t, I do all the surveys and want to believe it’s going to help, but there are others who are wondering why some issues have been publicly addressed while others have not, I don’t want to hover I was merely saying why I think some people are unhappy no need to get prickly Thank you for a calm response I agree some people go a touch overboard on both sides, I myself am not a fan of the current state of spellcasters, however while I have not been happy with the playtest there is a lot here in the current framework I do like, I also understand what you’re saying everyone’s experience is different I was simply stating why I think some are unhappy. Thanks for the response I’m glad you’re having fun :)
That feel when you ask why martials can’t be buffed instead of casters getting gutted twice and they ignore it and only focus on the rest of your post largely changing the tone and message of the post. Unfortunately the increased mobility hasn’t done much anyway, it’s the same pattern of doing two attacks you just finish with a move and then they chase you and swing back, heck several monsters can move and attack in the same action resulting in standing in place like 1E anyway.
I think if you don't trust Paizo to take your feedback and turn it into a workable ruleset without you looking over their shoulder, why would you have any faith in their published products going forward? The vast majority of those will not be playtested, after all. I’m not sure if this is aimed at me but the fact is certain topics and what some players consider to be problems have been addressed while others haven’t, I do all the surveys and want to believe it’s going to help, but there are others who are wondering why some issues have been publicly addressed while others have not, I don’t want to hover I was merely saying why I think some people are unhappy no need to get prickly
Well technically they *can* change the fundamentals of the system during the playtest, but I'm worried that people who gave them money to get the playtest book believing it would be used for about 1 year wouldn't be very happy to learn that it's no longer the case I fully agree with you I bought a book but would be fine with an overhaul, but I can easily understand a lot of people not wanting to learn a revamped sytem and only have PDF’s it’s a tricky balance.
That’s still a concern because it is effectively the same as saying “Trust us you’ll like what comes next we’re certain we can fix and replace things without making any mistakes”I’m not being sarcastic either if that happens and they nail it then sweet but I think a lot of people’s anxiety is that they keep saying they have issue with certain things (Spell casters, resonance, the inclusion or exclusion of particular ancestries) and they are worried they aren’t being heard. Again I’m not saying people are being ignored but there is a percentage of players who have had problems with one or more of the examples I listed in brackets that have recieved little to no PUBLIC attention from paizo, again these issues could be receiving heaps of attention behind closed doors. In short I think a lot of dissatisfied playtesters just want confirmation that their concerns are heard.
That feel when you ask why martials can’t be buffed instead of casters getting gutted twice and they ignore it and only focus on the rest of your post largely changing the tone and message of the post. Seriously every time I ask it’s always ignored it’s like people have this silent belief that in this new edition someone has to be disappointed, I want a game where everyone feels like they matter and during the playtest myself and the rest of my group didn’t feel like our characters mattered, you can say what you want about balance but if balance means punishing people for daring to like one play style over another then we’d rather play a sytem like 1E or 5e D&d where the balance is a little wonky but we have fun playing the classes we want, the 5e sorcerer is probably the second weakest class in 5e yet I had more fun using it than I did in the whole playtest, the PF1 core rogue is one of the weakest classes and I’ve played one from level 1 through to 20 because despite being weaker I felt unique and fun. I honestly feel like nerfing things because of 1E is a poor decision, instead of tearing down casters martials should be built up, to hell with ‘realism’ it’s a fantasy game where you fight monsters if casters get spells that do amazing things let martials do equally extraordinary physical things, because if the design model moving forward is nerf anything problematic then what happens when martials overshadow casters will third edition make casters gods again while relegating martials to mediocrity again? Or give martials supernatural effects like what Stygian Slayers had, if a lack of magic is what makes martials terrible give them supernatural abilities not tied to spells like grit points or a ki pool, they not only give martials options but allow for more powerful effects since you’re paying a cost be it grit, ki or any resource the game designers feel to be appropriate.
In my group we also found that the game scaling basically demands that you optimise your characters, Which is funny when they said they wanted the game to be nicer to new players and we still have low level trap feats like half the paladin oath feats, don’t get me wong I LOVE the flavor but oath of the dragonslayer makes no god damn sense on a lowlevel character, it’s like when a ranger in 1E takes favored enemy dragon at level 1 everyone just rolls their eyes because they know the only dragon you ever hunted was an iguana that grew really big.
When I sign up for PFS scenarios at level 5 and above, I will sometimes opt out if there are no casters in the group.Are you serious? In the 200ish tables I've sat at PFS at all levels of play is utterly dominated by weapon combat - maybe not pure martials, but people who "do combat" by hitting things with a weapon. Ok I bothered to read all your back and forth, in first edition I played primarily martials I only learned casters when I started playing with newer people so they could play a simpler martial characters, so before I get ahead of myself yes there was martial/caster disparity and we agree that’s a problem, what we disagree on is the solution, I decided to try a sorcerer out since I never got to play one in 1st edition another player chose Wizard since he’d only ever played a cleric and no other caster in 1E, we both dropped our highest level slots against a ‘level appropriate’ enemy only for it to critically pass both saves, now some people think casters had too much power and options so I can get behind reducing either output or the amount of casting but in this instance both have been hit, any spell that requires a save is bad which hilariously has led to magic missile being the damage go to in the playtest, what I have always advocated for is not the gutting of casters but the improvement of the other classes. The big argument I hear is if you improve martials instead of nerfing casters it becomes ‘too anime’ or ‘that’s unrealistic’Who cares? It’s a high fantasy game, any world where a guy can turn invisible by playing a flute has room for a guy who can do equally insane physical acts, why can’t this be considered why do either casters or martials have to be weak? Honestly just seems like a lot of people who want to watch the other side get punished for some hidden slight against them where 1E was the delivery device. To summarise I think casters having less spells is fine, but they should still feel powerful, right now you can’t even really be the ‘lore keeper’ since most characters are just as good as you at a skills unless they’re untrained, additionally I see no reason martials have to subscribe to reality, if martials being a bit too ‘anime’ is worse than half the players not wanting to play I think there’s a bigger problem that needs to be addressed.
In all fairness I’ve been fairly negative towards the playtest I’ve done every survey that has been put out, I don’t doubt there are some who didn’t do them but there are plenty of people who haven’t enjoyed the playtest who simply want to share their experiences and concern, it’s a playtest people aren’t obligated to like it, in fact if people dislike it they should make themselves heard so Paizo knows why they’re unhappy, I could be wrong but your post feels like you’re saying enjoy what’s in front of you or don’t speak.
I used an unchained rogue last time, however my biggest gripe with them is skills I didn’t play a rogue to be ok at skills I chose them to be AWESOME at skills, I agree that dread striker is really good but found nimble dodge to be a wasted feat with how high monsters to hit bonuses become, I also don’t see why they reduced sneak attack damage but left a lot of creatures with immunity to it, people can beat the ‘realism’ horse all day I don’t buy it, in a world where people can gain flight by being angry realism is a pretty poor argument.
I’ve been semi-active on the forums since the playtest dropped it’s been several weeks since the playtest started and I just wanted to share my overall thoughts in a hopefully non rant format and simply state my thoughts, I REPEAT THEY’RE MY THOUGHTS, if you disagree with anything in this post it’s not a slight against anyone just how I feel. 1)Character creation: Lets start with the good, the new character generation makes it so you can for the most part have the numbers you want it’s a touch counter intuitive to PF1 players but not a hard sell, backgrounds are ok but lack depth, ancestries are unfortunatey rather shallow deciding starting health and move speed with not much else. 2)Martial Classes: This is honestly a mixed bag on the one hand I think the fighter having the highest to hit bonus with weapons and being the most flexible in combat is fine the martials are a real mixed bag, for starters the Ranger is a mess with hunt Target just being painfully mediocre they also lost double slice after the last errata and got two knew feats, so they failed to understand that hunt target is bad and got rid of a perfectly good feat and replaced it with 2 new feats that only work with hunt target, additionally snares are a cool concept but are very hard to use effectively and just don’t really seem to be worth the hassle, moving from the ranger we reach the Paladin who unfortunately is still alignment locked in the playtest, they also have their code and deities edicts unfortunately this results in the same problem of them not meshing with so many adventure groups, however despite me not liking them in 1st edition due to their strict code they at least had power as a trade off, the paladin is more of a defender in the playtest which would be fine if it weren’t for the fact that a lot of their feats are mediocre and their role as defenders is undermined by the simple fact that breaking shields and running past the frontline has never been easier, right now the paladin seems to be suffering an identity crisis it doesn’t know what it wants, the monk has honestly had little exposure at my table but I’m happy they can as of the latest errata use more than just fists, finally the barbarian my playgroup always found the 1st edition barb to be a little too good so we typically avoided it unless we wanted to min max, however in the playtest we ran into the opposite problem, barbarians retain their poor ac while raging but lose a large chunk of the damage and extra to hit they used to have, this has left them feeling like an aggressive frontline who doesn’t have the power to back up their own hype, that being said the totems are interesting and give a nice touch of flavor. 3)Specialist classes the Rogue and Alchemist: Hoo boy not gonna lie I was excited for the Alchemist but after reading resonance rules my interest quickly died they have since lessened the amount of resonance they use however the class itself still feels weak when compared to other utility options like the bard or cleric, moving on to my favourite class the rogue I can honestly say I’m not impressed, the once unparalleled skill monkeys of first edition are a pale shadow of their former selves with monsters and npcs often being just as good as they are sometimes even better, unfortunately it doesn’t get better the rogue has always gained the majority of their damage from sneak attack in pathfinder however many creatures had immunity to this type of damage, unfortunately the playtest didn’t change this for most of the monsters and also reduced the damage making it even less appealing to put yourself in harms way, while rogues have easily the most mobility it’s made into a bittersweet affair when you realise your damage output is even less than it was in first edition. 4)The casters: let me be clear I have never been a fan of how casters overshadowed marshals at high levels, however I’d always hoped martials would receive improvements however it appears paizo decided the best fix was to instead gut casters and punish them rather than improve martials, with the exception of the Cleric I dunno what’s going on at paizo but someone loves clerics, they’re pretty much a mandatory choice if you want to have a longer adventuring day, while sorcerers and druids gain healing and buffs as well the cleric does it better and does it more, unfortunately this makes them easily the best caster class since damage spells were unfortunately rendered pale imitations of their former selves, I haven’t seen the bard in action but have been told they’re ok, the sorcerer and Wizard need help I honestly never thought I’d see the day where I’d be more scared of an enemy with a dagger than fireball. 5) Resonance) If you want to keep it in let it be a measure of how much magic GEAR you can own, don’t make magic itrms and consumables use resonance I already paid gold or crafted the items it’s ridiculous that I have to use another resource to make my MAGIC items work, pathfinder has always been a high fantasy game it’s part of why I love it but the playtest has constantly reinforced the idea that magic and magic items aren’t allowed to be fun, it also feels like half the problems paizo talks about with things like cure light wands and such aren’t really problems, it’s a FANTASY game why wouldn’t I heal with magic if magic healing is unrealistic you may as well take out everything that isn’t human or that doesn’t exist in the real world. 6) Magic gear) The new sytem has given everything an item level this is a little hit and miss on the ond hand the GM slways knows how strong you SHOULD be, however on the otherhand it feels very video gamey like when you find an axe and the game says you don't have enough strength to wield it, a lot of items require that you invest resonance in them each day just so they function and then ask for more resonance to use their special abilities, again the game seems to be telling us that this is not a high fantasy game and that if you came expecting one it won’t be found here. 7) Proficiencies and skills: Honestly skills are a joke in the playtest you are always competing with NPC’s and creatures who typically have better numbers than you making things like stealh more trouble than they’re worth, the errata has since made untrained skills worse but specialists still gain little and often feel on par with NPC’s at best and flat out inferior the rest of the time, I get they want you to always have a chance of failing but it honestly just feels like your characters are side characters in someone else’s show. 8) Monsters: are honestly ridiculous half the fun things that were taken off of players are still readily available to monsters making them tactically better but they also have superior numbers on average leading to slogs with players doing nothing while the monster of the week tears into the party with little resistance, in short monster felt like they were designed with the soul intention of giving GM’s the ability to bully their players easily. My final thoughts on the system are that the new action system is nice, it’s also nice that barbarians were given more flavor, sorcerers having different spells based on bloodline was a very nice choice too, however with these great diamonds in the rough we had to dig through a lot of mud, I honestly hope second edition turns out well but in it’s current state I doubt myself and the rest of my group will ever recognise the new game as pathfinder but instead see it as a pale imitation trying to garner popularity from its predecessors name to gain easy attention, this doesn’t feel like it was made for pathfinder fans but rather for people who dislike pathfinder, I truly hope the data paizo recieves is listened to and it turns out great but those have just been my thoughts overall, if you like the new system it’s perfectly OK power to you and thank you for taking the time to tespond in these forums I don’t always agree with everyone but the variety of opinions and different views makes for a good read please comment your own thoughts.
The reason it’s looked at so heavily from a player perspective is pretty simple, if your players hate it you won’t have a group to GM for, furthermore if people wanted a game where it’s always 50/50 most of the time they wouldn’t bother rolling up characters they’d have the gm tell a story where we let coin flips decide everything, same thing but no one has to wast 30-60 minutes rolling characters.
That’s not just a pathfinder 1 problem, you can break 5th edition easily as well in fact magic in 5th edition is better than in pathfinder, as for people being ‘too good at skills’ that’s the point if I invest feats and skill ranks in being better at something guess what I want to be BETTER, in the playtest trying to optomize skills is pointless since NPC’s remotely close to your level are just better than you, there’s no feeling of progress when you level you are merely treading water just trying to remain relevant in a system where everything is designed to upstage you and remind you that you’re actually not the heroes of the story you’re the side characters who’ve lasted longer than the GM expected.
This will vary wildly by table of course. But in this case, according to the OP, the players knew on round 1 before any of them acted that the sea monster can hit their best AC on a roll of 4 (and they suspected it could only miss on a natural 1). They're fighting a powerful monster that can hit them easily, in its element, in an engagement that is not their primary goal. That would be a good time. Our GM decided to roll in front of us after seeing the monsters stats, after reviewing the creatures perception bonus and attack mods he wanted us to realize that the creature had very good bonuses, we later learned how impressive it’s saving throws and ac were after trying attacks and spells to no avail, the GM asked what everyone’s movement speed was and confirmed that only the rogue (myself) could escape, I don’t know if the module says to let your players escape like some other posters say but as everyone likes to remind me this is a playtest, if we can’t beat it on skill rolls which lead to us being ambushed and it’s movement, attack statistics and saves are all better than ours then how are we going to fair any better in the actual release if we don’t ‘complain? I realise some people disagree with me on this topic but at the end of the day this was OUR experience we play these games to play the characters we want and have fun, if we wanted to HAVE to build characters a certain way and do things the ‘right way’ than we’d just play a video game and that’s the problem when building characters in the playtest it’s like building video game characters where if we don’t use the META we’re punished, pathfinder 1st ed had bad options and new player traps but there was no right way to play, however in the playtest I always see people saying
I really don't like the lack of AoOs. It makes combats ridiculous. To follow up on your metaphor, it's as if the offensive line are unable to block for the quarterback.At this level, the lack of Attacks of Opportunity is not the fault of the game system but the players. They've all had ample opportunity, regardless of what class they are, to acquire this. If they don't have it, then they've just prioritized other feats ahead of this. That’s not an acceptable argument if every non caster has to drop class feats to multiclass to acquire attacks of opportunity to be viable then what was the point of taking them away from everyone except fighter until higher levels, if you have to build your characters one particular way to be viable why bother including all the other options?
The group as a whole voted it wasn’t one persons decision, additionally this isn’t the first time the playtest has been less than enjoyable, at the end of the day it’s a game and I already said we’d do the survey but until the game recieves a severe overhaul the group as a majority decided they’ve had enough, this isn’t a case of trying something new and not liking it but trying it weeks in a row and it doesn’t get any better, saying “It’s a playtest”Is not an excuse I don’t understand why so many people hate any negative criticism about the playtest, the fact that we don’t want to bother with the rest of doomsday dawn also speaks for the quality of the module, it always feels like a slog, paizo has written some of the best modules around so the fact that this is so mediocre by comparison is extremely disappointing, end of the day they said this would still feel like pathfinder and as far as my group is concerned it doesn’t, the current game in its current state is bad as far as we’re concerned, you don’t have to agree or like that statement but putting words in my mouth acting like I thought the game was perfect then quit after one problem is dishonest and frankly childish.
No one is saying that winning is impossible but this is a role playing game a party shouldn’t require a particular set up to win fights if I can play 1st edition without a cleric the new addition should be the same, additionally if winning combat requires certain party compositions and feat lines then why put the other options in the book, because at that point they’re either deliberately putting in trap feats or the games balance is bad, especially when the playtest says play what you WANT, so if we can’t play the classes we WANT and succeed then it’s bad, the question then becomes are monsters too good like the original post states or are player characters trash? I get what you’re saying Deadman sorry if I came off as a little aggressive have just gotten very tired of people always saying “Well you should have had a cleric”And yes we understand that things will be harder with three but it’s not just a case of challenge but enjoyment, none of us had fun we’ll still do the survey for the chapter but we’ve lost interest in going further the short version is we like the games action economy, but we personally think spell casters have been gutted, we didn’t have a main frontline aside from the Animal companion, we had a barb back in Pale mountains shadow and we didn’t like the class, we tried ranger and we didn’t like the ranger, the paladin is mediocre, so that leaves fighter and monk, I don’t think swapping one or both of our casters for those options would have given us a win, that’s the large overview basically it feels like player characters were gutted because it’s preferable to have monsters that are ‘realistic threats’ which is still the most ridiculous argument I’ve ever heard, long story short we’re done after this chapter we’re foing all the other surveys that we can and we want the game to turn out good but we’re not willing to show up every week and always feel like we’re just practice dummies for the monsters to murder while we sit there and wonder why we wasted 20-60 mins rolling up characters, all of us play pathfinder to play heroes and we’ve felt like we were signed up to a dark sun campaign and no one told us. Anyway thanks Deadman for your responses we disagree on some stuff but you give in depth responses.
so if we can’t play the classes we WANT and succeed then it’s bad And? Like I’ve already said if I can play 1st edition without a cleric and succeed than I should be able to in the new edition, if people have to play particular party builds just to succeed than why have players build characters at that point every module should just say here are the characters you must play.
That said, if the monster can hit on a 4, I feel like that's not really an issue of party size or composition. That monster is probably going to score two crits in a round, or a whopping three crits if it uses its agile tail attack. That means it's going to average 150 damage per round, which even a max-Con dwarf fighter couldn't survive at 9th level. No one is saying that winning is impossible but this is a role playing game a party shouldn’t require a particular set up to win fights if I can play 1st edition without a cleric the new addition should be the same, additionally if winning combat requires certain party compositions and feat lines then why put the other options in the book, because at that point they’re either deliberately putting in trap feats or the games balance is bad, especially when the playtest says play what you WANT, so if we can’t play the classes we WANT and succeed then it’s bad, the question then becomes are monsters too good like the original post states or are player characters trash?
This is a major problem when GIANTS are as good as dodging fireballs as rogues
Like I said earlier only one of us could have escaped and if two thirds of the party die the session is still done.
Agreed we all got into pathfinder because it was a high fantasy setting where we played heroes, if we wanted to be scared of everything we would play Call of Cthulu because we already have that game, the problem we have is much like 1st edition pathfinder the playtest advertised itself as a game of heroes but you feel like background characters waiting around to be slaughtered, my GM pretty much agrees with most of your sentiments so we’re in one way glad but also a little saddened to that there are others who feel similar.
I get what you’re saying but it’s out if my hands now both of the casters at the table have made it clear they won’t play anymore, because you’re right this is a playtest but it’s also meant to be a game, so after spending an hour leveling their characters from level one to nine only to be destroyed effortlessly they made it clear they’ve had enough, in that sense they’re still supplying data the data being that the test materials weren’t good enough to slog through, because if every week they turn up and think “I wonder how I can feel useless today”Is how the system makes them feel then there’s a larger issue than one encounter going poorly.
I’m sorry but I’ve supplies numbers you can look at the serpents stat block and confirm for yourself, as for number of players that shouldn’t matter I’ve been in a party of two and we managed to run the whole of The Emerald Spire which is meant to be one of the harder modules, as for its other saves being bad it’s worst save was it’s +16 willsave, our wizards spell dc was 23 so unless he calculated that wrong the creature passes on it’s worst save 65% of the time while passing 80% of the time on reflex with it’s +19 bonus and only ever worying about a one with it’s +22 fortitude save, I have always played primarily martials but even I felt like casters had been made pointless.
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