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These forums have become toxic to anyone not on the majority bandwagon. Love the game, but this particular community is not an enjoyable one to participate in.
I don't work with animals. I don't study them. However, I can recognize virtually every single one in my country and in fact most of them around the world. I know which ones are poisonous, which ones might want to eat me, which ones have unpleasant defenses, which ones are found in which habitats, which ones are related to others, what animal kingdom they're from, what common ancestors they had. I even know animals that existed for the past few hundreds of millions of years. I'm moderately educated and interested about nature, but there's nothing special about my knowledge. It comes from living in our world and having a natural curiosity about it. I’m primarily the GM, and there’s very little people consider metagaming that I care about. It’s unrealistic to think that a twenty year old adventurer doesn’t know the common plants and animals of their world or even the fantastic monsters and their rumored powers. Whose grandma didn’t tell them stories of fairies and goblins and trolls and dragons, demons and witches, wizards and, well, all kinds of fantastical elements? If a character wants to roleplay that they know or don’t know something their player has learned, I’m fine with it. You don’t have to pretend for the 20th character that you don’t know trolls need to be burnt to prevent them from coming back. It’s ok to get better at playing the game. Or don’t. Roleplay whatever floats your boat, but don’t harangue the other people at our table about it. I see a lot of discussion around how to handle recall knowledge and other abilities to learn things like these. I don’t handwave those things off if a player doesn’t know them or want their character to know them and wants to use the ability for me to tell them. I have lots of new monsters that make the abilities worthwhile and rewarding. For those who are sticklers about having no metagaming knowledge, why do you do it, and do you think that’s more fun? Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
Casters get lots of props lately as debuffers. Cast an L3 spell, don't even get a crit fail save, and your foe is auto debuffed at Condition 1. Fighters get master proficiency with weapons at L5 giving them crit specials. In addition to doing double damage on a crit hit, they also automatically: Bows - +d10 damage and pin foe to wall taking 1+ actions away.
Only 2 of those debuffs grant a save. That's a lot of auto-debuff for free on top of double+ damage. By Level 5, you could also have: Snagging Strike, L1 feat: If you hit, target is automatically flat-footed until start of your next turn.
Already out of the gate, the fighter has virtually every caster debuff at her disposal without sacrificing constant damage or running out of debuffs. I especially like critting foes with a maul and intimidating strike. Nothing like 2x 1d12+4 damage, auto-knocking down my foe, and making them frightened 2. Would love to get some debuff help in there. /s
This is not another casters got nerfed rant. I still think casters can be cool. I think martials have more options to be interesting in more spheres of capability than ever before and that that is a good thing. I do want to shine the light on one of those capabilities I've been dwelling on: Unlimited martial fireballs. It can be done by either Barbarians or Fighters at L14 by taking the L14 feat Whirlwind Strike, and you max its range out with Giant Instinct and the L6 Barb feat Giant's Stature to get 5' extra reach. Let's imagine we're using a d10 glaive with 5' reach. Barbarians can get another 5' reach with L12 feat Titan's Stature for a total of 20' vs. 15' for fighters. L14 Barbarian - 20' reach, Avg. Dmg 38
L14/15 Fireball - 20' radius, Avg. Dmg 49 (Heightened L7) (L14 B: Rage+Spec-13, Str-5, Dice 3d10-16.5, Elem.Rune-3.5 = 38) The martial can "cast" her fireball every round, no limits.
The martial can "cast" her fireball in the midst of allies and damage 0 of them.
The martial, especially a fighter with enhanced accuracy, can crit commonly as they are attacking at full bonus for 98 damage.
The martial can miss and do no damage to some targets.
Yes, I know the caster can do some tweaks for more damage. This all has a little variance. The martial's glaive weapon actually does more, because it's forceful, so an extra 3 on 2nd attack and 6 on third attack+, which means crits really can be 110 damage, fighters do less damage but crit more, etc, etc, etc... Anyway, what's the point? None really. This one just gnaws at me a little.
Fighters have Power Attack. They also have archery feats focused on getting off more shots and mitigating MAP. No class currently has a ranged version of Power Attack. If a class offered it, would it be worth it? How would it compare to fighter feats as a baseline?
I don't see language about this one way or another in the rules or forum. Has anyone heard if it's come up? If I get a skill increase at let's say Level 6, can I save it until Level 7 to increase one of my Expert skills to Master? Thanks!
Range 30 feet; Targets 1 creature
Critical Success: The target is unaffected.
This means on average, you can do 5 dmg to almost any foe on a successful save, and that plus 2.5 persistent per spell level on a fail. At 9th level, your 5th level Phantom Pain does 25 dmg / 25 persistent. If this is all you cast against your BBEG, it seems devastating the moment you catch your first failed save. Actions to stave off persistent damage, sickened, and up front damage. Is this mega or what?
Thank you, Paizo, for getting me my core book early. I am leaving the country for three weeks Saturday, and now I get to bring it with me making 20 hours of flying bearable!
I read a recent post online questioning the validity of the flail as an actual war weapon versus a fantasy weapon. This is a fantasy game, and I have loved the flail ever since I saw Ivanhoe and two full plated knights were beating the heck out of each other with axes and flails. Sweeeeeeet! So I'm going to ignore the historical and go totally fantasy here. The flail. It does lower damage than other martial weapons. It has a limited damage type - bludgeon. It does the fruitier effects of disarm and trip. It has the sweep special effect. Balance Analysis: The flail is balanced compared to other weapons. I'm not going to argue it's a gimp weapon or over powered. It has lower damage but additional capabilities. Fantasy Analysis: What a let down. This is not why I want to wield a flail. I want to be a nasty monster and murderize foes with this thing! The very first game I ever played, I was handed an npc fighter sheet. The guy had been given a lot of weapons. I still remember my eyes lighting up when I read flail, "This guy has a what?!? I WIELD IT!!!" Problem 1) Damage Type Bludgeon - Most fantasy flails are covered in spikes. I expect my flail to do bludgeon or piercing as needed. It's covered in nasty spikes! It looks awesome! It's failing expectations here. Problem 2) Disarm and Trip - I'm not wielding this thing to be a fancy technical fighter. I'm wielding it to smash the heck out of people, punch through their armor, make a mess of them! Flail needs its own unique power like Shield Bypass. This should reduce the effectiveness of a shield as the chain can wrap around it to deliver blows. THIS is one of the reasons I wield a flail! To heck with conventional hack and slash. I want nasty, dirty DAMAGE. Problem 3) Sweep - Sure, the flail is swung around, but once it impacts something, it's done for. It's going to bounce off and... read this closely... FLAIL AROUND! Yes, the verb flail literally means wild and erratic motion:
This is not in line with expectations for making it easier to hit other targets. Sweep is not a fitting effect for a flail. How the flail looks today: Martial, 1H, 1d6 Bludgeon | Disarm, Sweep, Trip How I want it to look: Martial, 1H, 1d8 B/P | Shield Bypass
There are crit specials and feats that enhance your blows by moving an opponent 5' or making them flat-footed. There are some higher level feats that let you choose between the two. That higher level option is a good benefit. I would argue that the "options" that don't let you choose are problematic and unwieldy in a game and should be removed in favor of always letting the player select and select direction. Problem 1) My opponent gets moved 5' away and is no longer in range - Unless you are intentionally doing this to clear a path, you have just gimped yourself as it wastes an action to move 5' towards them to get another attack in. This is not a reward of getting a critical. It's a punishment. Problem 2) When it's the DM's choice to move an npc or flat-foot them, how do they fairly choose? - If I know my player needs to clear a path, I either have to give it to them knowingly helping them, or I have to choose flat-footed and intentionally thwart them. This is a silly, unfair burden on the game. If I'm flipping a coin, that's a mechanic. Why doesn't the feature resolve the problem itself? I think the Move or Be Flat-footed "non-choice" mechanic is negative and should be removed, because it is not rewarding as intended and not handled well as a mechanic.
There are no active choices to make to improve your armor proficiency past trained at all. This is disappointing. There are also no choices to increase your weapon proficiency. [I define choice as a feat or path you select, not the current locked down method which is waiting until you're 13th level and your class or feat progression earns an Expert proficiency or the like. That's fine but not the kind of choice I'm looking for. A comparable choice is the general feat for gaining Trained in light armor for example. I choose it. I get it when I spend the feat.] Early dev discussions discussed the fighter as having the best weapon proficiencies. Paladins had the best armor proficiency. "That's the dynamic." Why is this class-locked? And why aren't there options to improve proficiency by choice? With the introduction of the new shield dynamics, it's fun to get creative with fighter feats around defense. I say "defense," but the only two choices are parry and shield feats. There are zero armor feats. There are zero armor proficiency choices. (The same goes for weapon proficiency choices.) This is a disappointment. A defensive fighter is a perfectly valid concept. Yes, you can play it with shields, but armor is completely overlooked. I can never choose to be an Expert with my chain shirt. I can never gain Mastery with my breastplate. Getting Expert in medium armor at level 17th is a slap in the face. (Side note: The high level delays in simple things fall flat as a game design. Rarely will campaigns reach this level, so you're consigning things that would be cool at a lower level to a nearly unreachable level where it's going to be inconsequential at that point any way.) In further customizing my warrior, I would like to be able to select feats that give armor bonuses and abilities. Same goes for weapons. The loss of anything resembling P1's Weapon Focus is a disappointment, also. You shouldn't have to take the Fighter archetype and wait until the uncommonly high level of 12 to get any sort of bonus to your weapon skills (as in Expert proficiency). Sacrificing some offensive options to gain defensive ones is a trade some players would like to make, but it isn't available in P2. Pre-rebuttal to the "yeah, but a fixed to-hit progression makes for an easier to balance game" response: If my player has a +2 hit bonus higher than any other person of her class for her level, I bring balance back by throwing higher level monsters at her and knowing she can handle them. Or I can introduce the occasional scenario where she must use another weapon of lower offensive value. These are GM101 moves that are fun for everyone. Pre-pre-rebuttal to the "well what if I don't have that +2?!? it's not fun for me to watch them have all the fun" response: Ugh, this is so tedious. You don't get to be the best at everything. You pick what you want to be good at and relish it. Don't get hung up over what everyone else can do. It's not a competition. It's a party sport. Anyway, TLDR - I would like more choices for weapon and armor proficiency and armor feats as well. It's perfectly fine to give Fighters and Paladins weapon and armor proficiency improvements naturally over time, but having custom choices around those is desired.
The "1.7" update mentioned something ambiguous, "Resonance is completely gone," followed by something vague to the effect of, "Except magic item restriction." It sounded to me like resonance was only going to exist to serve as a limit on how many magic items you could equip at once, a replacement to the slot system of PF1. It may sound that way to me, because my group was already house ruling that in our PF2 campaign, but is that what the rest of you heard and interpreted? This raises a second question now: Does PF2 even need a system of magic item restriction anymore? Bonuses don't stack. That already prevents someone with four +1 rings from gaining more than +1. What's the problem with letting someone benefit from four magic rings? They could even be wearing two on the same finger if they fit. How is that different from a belt, a necklace, and two rings? What would be the point of restricting magic item use at all in this system? Special (art pet peeve) note: Sure, you could wear four magic belts. Why would that be a problem other than looking ridiculous? After all, the monk in the class section of PF1 is wearing SEVEN belts. Yeesh!
The year is coming to a close and with it discussion of the PF2 playtest. This past month has seen the most productive and civil discussion and some of the best updates (unofficial 1.7 from the video stream). Thank you to all of the folks at Paizo working long days and nights on the new system. I'm confident it will be worth it in the end. Now, go enjoy your holidays and spend some time on yourselves. If you're not taking care of you, who will?
I'm a fan, so feel free to delete this thread without guilt. Please do something though about the speed of the site. I can't name another site on the internet with lag and load delays as high as yours. I go to the forums... spinning circle... spinning circle... spinning circle... omg really? spinning circle... Lo... loa... load. That's all.
I've liked how other games scaled your power to make things way below your level non-threats. AC scaling addresses that as well as answering the age old question of my youth, "How can I get my AC higher?" You've got armor, dex, rings... a feat here or there, but other than that it didn't really scale... Please don't post your AC 50 fringe munchkin build and try to derail the thread. ...anyway, I like +1/level. Leveling feels meaningful every time. You get better at facing challenges. I can throw more exciting foes the players' way. Pipsqueak monsters don't stand a chance. Players feel big. Also really enjoying exploring the new feat paths with fewer feat taxes and cool new archetyping systems.
The first thing I thought was really cool about the changes in PF2 was how magic weapons worked. A +1 sword does 2d8 instead 1d8+1?!?!? Heck yeah! That's awesome! Now that I look through different character options though, the base die isn't cool for all weapons. For example:
I'm thinking now a normalized magic base die addition would work better, like a standard d8 per plus. I guess you could do a scale like +1=d6, +2=2d8, +3=3d10, but it might be complex. Has this been discussed? What are thoughts?
I'm sitting down to my morning coffee working on world building, and I start with my World 365 project. I had the idea this year that wouldn't it be amazing to have a book of 3 or 400 npcs to throw into my game? Yeah, well what if I made up one every day? I'd be done in one year! World 365. So I'm working on a nature based court wizard who tends to the land and its health, and I decide to look up the PF2 version of Control Weather. I see it's a ritual. I haven't delved into these too much, so I look at the reqs and give it some thought. Now I'm doubting the place of rituals in the game. Let's look at Control Weather: It's Level 8 - This is a late game ability now (vs. L7 in PF1 and L6 earlier).
Looking at this as a sum, you have to be really high level to cast it, it takes 3 people and a really high Nature proficiency to cast, AND it takes all day. Now putting the effects aside, when does something like this come into play for a player? I'm reading this and wondering how changing this from a 10 minute casting time to an 8 hour casting time for 3 people adds anything to the game. Locking away neat (non-direct-combat-damage-dealing) spells behind higher levels is something I haven't appreciated in PF2, but taking it out of the realm of the tactical (10 min.) and making it take all day? When am I ever going to use this? Pretty rarely. As a very high level wizard just gaining 8th level spells, do I even waste one of my two new learned spells on a spell with so many situational reqs that I could never use spur of the moment anyway? I can see this is testing out the concept of the ritual as a long, drawn out magical process to achieve a result, but is it worth it? What is this doing for the game? Anything fun? I'm asking that to see if anyone else is envisioning cool ideas coming from this. I'm drawing a blank from a player's perspective. Could an npc be drawing down a hurricane on your favorite city threatening to destroy it? And you need to reach him and stop him in 1 day? Sure, but as a GM I can come up with my own plot ideas without needing to restrict a spell from being a player ability to an npc/plot mechanism. How can the idea of rituals be fun for players?
Traveling back in time to 1981, I walked into my friend's house to his dad DMing for him and his brother. In the age of big budget hollywood epics like Spartacus, Robin Hood, and Ivanhoe, I was handed the character sheet for the group's npc fighter and told to join the battle. What was this game? I scanned the armory of weapons I carried and saw it. I can wield... a mace?!? And smash an orc with it??? Ahhhhhh!!!!!!! Hooked. There are two things I want to share about the early days of D&D that I think get overlooked in the PF community. The first is ability scores. The idea behind ability scores was to describe the character you were playing. D&D was created to give rules to table top simulations. Ability scores helped you answer the questions of how strong you were, how fast, how smart or good with people. That's purpose #1 - Describing you in a way that is relative to the world. On top of that, people who are for example stronger than others should be better at strength related tasks. Here's where the plusses and minuses scale comes in to help in ways beyond the fact that the score itself is a usable number. Today in PF this often translates to character crafters focusing more on the plusses and what they enable from a build perspective (which is fun and fine) over the original purpose which was to describe you in a roleplaying way. Roleplaying does not mean a disconnection from +'s. It means in D&D you putting aside you and playing a fantasy character instead. Plusses are of course part of the game, and they are fun. The point is having an 18 strength is not defined as having a +4 (or a +3 back then). It means you are bristling with muscle. You might have the build of a pudgy strongman or the cut tone of Schwarzenegger. You might be really big. That's the historical concept of having ability scores. The plusses are only part of how to translate that fantasy image into game terms. What's my point? This is semantics, right? Sure, but let's look at how this impacts pathfinder. Ability Tests: Two characters working at a strength task. One has a 10 strength. The other has an 18 strength. Both roll 1d20 + str bonus for success. This could be working at their own tasks or opposed to each other. The problem with reducing ability scores to be first and foremost plusses is that in virtually any test of strength, a character with a 10 strength should never be able to compete with a character of 18 strength. Arm wrestling is a good example. D20 + 0 v D20 + 4 is not a good simulation mechanic. Bending bars is another. A character with a strength of 10 is never going to succeed where an 18 cannot, but reducing ability scores to plusses makes that a possible dice roll outcome. PF2 stat improvement: By level 20, you can have 18's in every ability score. What does this mean in a roleplaying, descriptive sense? All characters have the body of Schwarzenegger, the mind of Stephen Hawking, and the inspiration of JFK? (Ooh, did I just describe Tom Cruise?!? Don't get me distracted!) I don't know. PF is heavily concerned with the surface view of plusses with almost no consideration for the RP side. This is a pattern of the game system and part of the community. I have always thought the lack of stat improvement was a problem, even back in the 80's, but I struggle with conceptualizing my character with all 18's. I'll segue into skills. Today skills are heavily codified and spell out tons of things you can do. That's a lot of work on Paizo's part to create, and a lot of work to keep up with in game. I do love being able to do cool stuff with skills though! Where did this evolve from? How did we get by for 4 decades without table 10-2? In the early days of D&D, the optional skills system had a bunch of DM adjudication expectations. I'm going to make the case that nothing has changed except our perception, but let's look at that system. Are you trained in sailing? Ok, let's say sailing is a wisdom based skill, and you have a 14. A very rudimentary check to sail across a lake without getting stuck or off course could be: Roll 1d20 and make a 14 or less. Are you a practiced sailor? Maybe you get a +1 bonus on that roll. Maybe you know the lake well. Let's adjudicate quickly and move on. Variations of that system let DMs adjust difficulty on the fly by using d6's instead. Oh, you want to jump on the table and around the orc to flank him? Sure, your dex is 16? Roll 3d6 and get 16 or less. Wait, the way is blocked so you want to flip off the table over him? Roll 4d6. You're carrying your unconscious halfling teammate over your shoulder? Sure, roll 5d6. What's the point? What am I pointing out with this crude system? Two things:
Tying Ability Scores, Skills, and Table 10-2 together: Ok, here's the point of my post. Skill systems and difficulty tables like 10-2 don't phase me. I don't worry about whether they are mathematically correct or break the system, because I expect DM adjudication to run it. But wait! How can that be consistent you say?!? How can we run that in PFS? How is it fair? Well, I'm not pretending it is, but I recognize that every column and row on that table is arbitrary and subjective. The real question isn't: Is this a level 7 challenge of Very Hard? That's already subjective. Paizo is publishing this, but they won't be at your table adjudicating. You will. The real question for a DM is: How difficult should this be for my player? What are her stats, her skills, her bonuses, and how hard of a roll do I want this to be? How often should it fail? Bam, there's your DC. We are essentially doing the same thing today that we did in 1981. Follow up point to Paizo: Don't forget the fluff side of ability scores. Game first (to me that means the fantasy), game mechanics second. TLDR: The core of skill systems is DM adjudication just like it was in original D&D. Don't get hung up on table 10-2. Also, ability scores should define your character, not just enable plusses.
I have been jazzed to dig into update 1.3 since the twitch preview, and I was not disappointed. Combined with the upcoming changes to resonance, my list of things to be house ruled has been reset. Here's what I love: Treat Wounds - Spend 10 minutes to heal the party with natural techniques. * Not only is this a great mechanic, Paizo scores double points with a throwback to my Basic set days of 1980 where all combats took 1 Turn, and a Turn equaled 10 minutes. Why? Because it was assumed you cleaned up, looted, tightened the straps on your armor, sharpened dings in your blade, and patched up your wounds. How long would all that take? Eh, let's call it a Turn (10 minutes) and move on. Even back then I wished there was some way to translate that mechanic into some restored hit points. Now we have it! Natural healing techniques have been a successful mechanic of games for decades. It's great to finally have one in PF2. Actual problem solved. Identification and Repair - Another shortening to 10 minutes. * Much better, a fine tuning in the right direction towards fun. Activity times of 1 hour were the equivalent of saying, you can't do this in a dungeon. 10 minutes (the ancient Turn) is a great activity duration that says, "No, you can't do this in battle or on the move, but if you do take a moment to rest, it's fine, and it won't take too long." Ranger Feats - Fun improvements to archery and two weapon fighting that elevate the ranger in their chosen style. * Hunt Target works as before but adds in free Recall Knowledge about your target if you have the Monster Hunting feat. Hunt target needed work for it to be a tactical benefit for the cost of an action (unless you can do it in the moment before you ambush someone, so it's free). Personally I'm not sure the Monster Hunting feat is tempting enough to spend a feat just to get some info, but the feats below make Hunt Target clearly worth using. * Hunted Shot - 1/round on a Hunted Target you can spend a mere single action to fire two arrows (normal multi-attack penalties) and combine damage on a hit? Wow, yes! This is a differentiator for the class. The ranger can truly excel here. Increased action economy and versatility once a target is Hunted. * Twin Takedown - The same rules as Hunted Shot but able to work for two weapon fighting. Again, increased action economy differentiating the ranger as a lethal two weapon fighter against their Hunted targets. Rogue's Technique - Three distinct combat styles for rogues offer cool and fun options so rogues aren't all finesse fighter carbon copies. * Finesse Striker - The old dex to damage trick for those who like using agility and accuracy to inflict extra damage. * Brute Attack - Really digging the idea of the bruiser who beats you down with a club. Not all Muscle have to be fighters. Nice! * Scoundrel's Feint - Another cool style option to integrate Feint into your sneak attack style that truly rounds out the choices available to the rogue. Dying - Gain the dying condition, get healed back to consciousness, and now you have the Wounded condition. This is cool. It has verisimilitude. It feels realistic and affects your decisions after being grievously wounded enough to almost die. This is a rare change that adds in roleplaying opportunities to combat! I was a fan of the "die at negative hp = to con," but this is a cool improvement to dying. It's not just up and down and back up again anymore which was ridiculous. Shield Blocking and Dents - A Shield Block is no longer capable of giving your shield more than 1 dent and will not cause your shield to break. * Yes! Now, I can't say this is a "good" change, because the old rules were obviously broken not only in realism but in the name of fun. Breaking your shield after a single, average damage hit or within a round or two was not a fun concept for a character built around using shields. This is especially so considering how fun the options for using shields are in PF2. They have lots of cool tactical options. This is, however, an awesome and much needed correction. More Archetypes - Yay! We knew they were coming, but I was pleasantly surprised to receive them during the playtest! I love the archetype system of multi-classing, so getting to see so many new options is fun! Archetyping is a cool system to allow you to expand your abilities without impinging on your main class' ability progression by sacrificing class feats instead of levels. This is a big leap forward for fun in multi-classing. Early critics claiming Paizo was not listening, not handling the playtest well, and losing players should take comfort from Update 1.3 and take a second look. Not only are the rules being improved, more options are being released already. A mention to the upcoming Resonance revamp. After two read-throughs of the rules on Resonance, I put it on my list of rules to House Rule away. With it now looking like a slot replacement system instead of an overall consumption limiter, I'm planning to use it. Another move in the right direction. Thanks, and keep up the good work!
One of my earliest critiques of D&D I can remember was the lack of ability to improve your stats. Why can't I work out and increase my physicals? Why can't I study or interact to improve my mentals? That kind of sucks, especially when my stats were "randomly" rolled anyway (oh come on, you know you all re-rolled a bunch and fudged a few things here and there, but still...). When PF1 introduced a +1 point mechanic every 4 levels I was stunned. Whoa, this is really revolutionary! Well, let's dial that back a bit. This feels right. This is a good mechanic. Yes! Let's provide a way for a little bit of growth in stats just like we provide growth in Level, BAB, Spells, Feats, and the rest. Nice. Now we are on PF2 and stats have evolved yet again. Well, for those of you who have not yet done the math, a human starts with nine stat improvements of +2 each. That's 18 points to distribute on top of six stats of ten base each. Now, it's not that simple with backgrounds, races, classes, and choices influencing distribution, but it does boil down to eighteen points. With eight points added every five levels, here is PF2's math: 60 + 18 + 8 + 8 + 8 + 8 = 110 / 6 = 18.333... Now, I love great stats as much as the next player, but having greater than all eighteens at level twenty feels like the realm of the absurd. The dynamic of immovable stats in the original versions has been completely inverted. For further investigation, here are the rest of the stat averages by level: 1: 60 + 18 = 78 / 6 = 13 5: 60 + 18 + 8 = 86 / 6 = 14.333... 10: 60 + 18 + 8 + 8 = 94 / 6 = 15.666... 15: 60 + 18 + 8 + 8 + 8 = 102 / 6 = 17 What does all this mean? Where is PF2 in relation to previous versions of the game? The glaring truth is... I'm not that good at statistics to tell you more than a 6 x 3d6 distribution = an average of 10.5. The most common rolling method of the 80's, however, was: 4d6, rerolling 1's once, and taking the top 3. (Statistician please help, but) I think that's a tad less than an average of 13. PF1 with a 20 point buy as human gives you an average of 13.5. Therefore, I think it's safe to say that PF2 at level one is dialing stat averages back a tad. However, since the point buy system made high stats more expensive, PF2 is actually making having some high starting scores like eighteen much more feasible (and apparently necessary given the optimization assumptions). Where is PF2 when you factor in progression? By level five, you are above the averages of past versions, even PF1's 25 point buy. By level fifteen, you are a perfectly well-rounded and powerful being, and by level twenty, you are above mentally and physically perfect beyond any human dream. What does this mean for the game? I'll insert my opinion here. Verisimilitude for me is completely broken. With the tight math of the version, being expected to have an eighteen at level one is already stretching my roleplaying focus to be more game-y. Personally, I can get by that. I do love a big stat, an eighteen. I can live with being a bit greedy there. Getting eight more points to spread at level five though is pretty wild. I feel a little guilty about this. I'm not bad at anything. I'm super human now. Ok, I want to be super, so I can still live with this. By level ten, I can't overlook the level of growth. I can't explain it away. My stats no longer define my character and who they are. I'm just loaded with +'s. I'm a powerhouse at every stat and every skill, and so is everyone else at the table. There are still sixteen points of increases left. Stat increases should be dialed back. This isn't just a numbers game. It's a roleplaying game. I don't want to make a blanket statement on why people play, crunchers vs. roleplayers, so I'll just point out the name of the genre - "RPG" - and assume the basic intent to some degree is to live or play out a fantasy role. What's the fantasy in having eighteens or above in every single stat? I won't deny there are a handful of people right now drooling at the concept, but I'll go out on a limb and say I don't think most people come to the table to have success on every roll guaranteed, one shot dragons, and rule the world. I personally need to face more challenge to enjoy any of that success, and I think the rest of you do, too. What do you think of that stat situation in PF2?
There has been negative feedback on what has happened to the ranger. I thought it was all justified until I took a second look. Here's what I like: * Start with Expert proficiency in all saving throws.
Feats:
The rest of the feats don't interest me and are arguably weak. I do like L4 Twin Parry a bit, and I think L6 Skirmish Strike is useful. However, the animal companion stuff seems junky to me personally. Snares are so conditional and uninteresting. I agree with the negative feedback here. So why do I like a class that caps out on neat feats so early? And whose signature ability Hunt Target is questionably useful? Archetypes! I could totally see taking Cleric or Wizard at L6 and then boosting spell capacity at L8. Suddenly ranger has a whole new range of builds and options to explore. Solid offense, decent armor, good saves, tons of skills and capabilities... all of that and spells of any type you like? Heck yeah. For me the lack of cool feats gives me no regrets about using those class feats on an archetype instead. I could totally see myself playing one of these in PF2 and having a good time. (Sure, sure, you can argue that the feats and abilities need to improve, and I won't say anything. However, there's a lot to like for some playstyles, so here's a positive review.)
Ok, the results of my well intentioned but amateurish survey are as complete as Survey Monkey is going to allow without paying for more than 100 results. Next time I'll use a Google Form. Here are the results of the first 100 respondents. There are only two points I will comment on. The rest you can draw your own conclusions about given the limited sample size and dodgy format: Q1. Does Resonance make the game more fun?
Q5. What do you think of magic items?
That's all for me.
This is a survey to voice your opinion on the PF2 Resonance system. It is informal.
The specialist wizard options of PF1 were interesting. I'm not finding much reason to be one in PF2. The low level options don't seem useful: Abjurer - Protective Ward
Diviner - Diviner's Sight
Enchanter - Charming Words
Evoker - Force Bolt
Illusionist - Warped Terrain
Necromancer - Call of the Grave
Transmuter - Physical Boost
These powers should make us want to play a specialist. None of these excite me about the classes. Layout - Where are the powers? Someone perusing the specialists in the Wizard section would want to compare the classes side by side. The powers are mixed up with the spells. It's another case of having to flip through pages dozens of times to see and compare. TLDR - There aren't interesting powers for Specialists. Universalists get the same number of spells as specialists minus 1 but with more versatility. I don't see myself choosing a Specialist over a Universalist. First level Specialist powers should be more interesting.
Hi, I'm a fan. I want this to be the best version of D&D to date. Feat layout I liked the P1 layout of having all the feats together. If I'm building a character, I want all my feat options listed. I want all their explanations to follow. That's how I build a character. Having the feats in the class section makes me flip through too many pages. I'm a fighter taking the rogue dedication? Now I must flip through separate sections for fighter feats, rogue feats, general feats... It's too much. Group them in one place, please. Spell results I read spells from the perspective of the caster. When I'm a wizard, I want to read the spell and immediately see what's the best possible result. Everything should be from my perspective. If I'm a DM playing an npc, I should expect to follow that perspective. Now in that perspective I want to see best result, next best, etc. Let's give those a 1-4 where #1 is the best, and #4 is the worst. Again, this is from the perspective of the caster. Therefore the results section should be ordered as follows and explicitly called the Saving Throw Results section: 1 - Critical failure: The absolute best thing that can happen when I cast this spell!
I'm sure this has come up in a bunch of threads, but I have to add my voice to the din. The p2 layout could be much more helpful. Remember in p1 where you looked up a major version of a spell and it doesn't even list the basic parameters like range or saves? It just said See the non major version of this spell? That wasn't helpful. It annoyed you every time you saw it and needed that info. P2 needs to improve on that. Good luck and keep up the good work!
There's a lot of talk about how rogues are underpowered. I don't disagree, but I don't compare players against each other for power and effectiveness, and I don't feel the need to make everyone equal in battle. There are roleplaying reasons for wanting to play a rogue, and personally I don't care if they're as effective in combat as a fighter. That said, I've made two changes to rogues, and I'm curious what others are doing about the magic side of their rogue talents. The first is I use d12 for sneak attack damage, and I rule it like backstab (from behind, unaware) not sneak attacks (straight up combat). The second is minor/major magic. This is what I'm curious about. What thief would waste two talents that take four levels to accumulate to get a single 0 and single 1st level spell when they could sacrifice 1 rogue level, take wizard or sorcerer, and get a bunch of spells and other abilities? I combine them both into one talent that includes the benefits of both. Otherwise, you're begging your rogue interested in a few spells to take a spellcaster level and set back their rogue progression (skills, backstab, BAB, etc.). What are people doing on rogue magic?
1st level wizard (universalist)
Buy a large sized greataxe.
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