Beast Weener's page

rknop wrote:

Erik, a request: please don't have crucial updates and explanations only on a video feed somewhere. Text is faster to process, and far easier to refer back to or point somebody else to. You can also skim it if there are parts of it that aren't relevant to what you're looking for. Having to watch video to get crucial information is just too time-consuming.

The twitch thing is just a weekly spoiler for said document.

Be nice to have a brief summary or time code for the rulesy stuff, though, for those of us chomping at the bit. But really, I’m more interested in what the format of these updates is going to be. If there are a significant number of new changes even every month, iterative errata style updates would become a bit difficult to keep up with.

5. the caster/martial disparity: yes, i said the magic words! i'm sure some will completely disregard my post for bringing this up, but it needs addressing: every single class gets roughly the same amount of class features, class feats, skill feats, and general feats to help build their character in the direction they like, and then casters get spellcasting (multiple powerful, thought-provoking options) on top of that. non-caster classes should get something that doesn't cost feats or proficiencies of around equivalent value, be it stronger class features on average, or more interesting and flexible class feat selections, or some equivalent set of actions that they can do instead (DreamScarredPress's martial stances and maneuvers from "Path of War" was one solution: allowing martials abilities to target various saves, inflict different status effects normally impossible, smooth out the clunkier actual maneuvers like disarm or feint, and more. Though I don't think it is the only oway to solve the problem, it was a solid attempt). I repeat, whatever the solution may be, it cannot, must not require a tax, because the entire point is to give them something "on top" to even things out in comparison (and martials don't have a feat advantage with which to pay those taxes).
the point isn't that we should hammer down casters, it's to elevate non-casters to a rough ballpark of similar flexibility and narrative impact.

Thank you! Completely agree. The interesting options/feat combos for martials seem to be needlessly limited and (like most of the system) suffer from a dearth of numerical benefit. For instance, look at Nimble Dodge/Nimble Roll. That's a very interesting option, but the fact that that base +2 that powers it doesn't scale means it's probably not going to proc all that often. Now if it scaled up to, say, 10 at high level and you were allowed to see the attack roll before spending your reaction-that would be something.

Beast Weener wrote:

Gorbacz wrote:

Beast Weener wrote:

Good point. The question, though, is how far they leap into the detail-soft side of the ruleset spectrum. 5E really has that staked out and they also have the only mainstream name recognition in all of RPGS. This Pathfinder player base, at least as far as I can conjecture, are mostly still-hardened edition warriors who preferred the detail and character differentiation of 3.5 over 4E. I think they'd be willing to follow Paizo to a PF1 - 5E midpoint with PF2, but the playtest seems to be a little too far afield. There's a lot of concepts in the Playtest that smack of some of the big 4E Sins people fled from. And if you don't keep enough of the base, who's going to lead the wayward 5E children back home?

Brutally speaking, it's only the shrinking PF1 base that cares about where WotC touched them in 2008. New players don't even know something like 4e existed.

Don't think that's brutal, just honest. Accurate, too, but it is what paid for the house. To go back though, if you lose that base completely and you can't differentiate sufficiently from 5e to get new players that leaves you with...who? I dunno. It's not like our armchair market research is founded in hard numbers. How much of the base really care about X over Y. I guess that's why they're spending a year on this.

Well, I have the advantage of working with The Industry on occasions and I am aware, in a very general sense, just how far ahead did 5E overtake PF1. While the actual bite taken off PF1 wasn't quite fatal, the almost total domination in attracting new players is deadly in a long run.

The question "how to capture new people ahead of 5e" is a very good question and I'm curious how Paizo will handle it, but I sincerely doubt that "let's give them a tweaked iteration of 3.75" is anywhere close to a solution.

And you wouldn’t say that 5e helped substantially grow the market as much or more than consolidating players under its storefront? I mean, that is the common nerdmedia narrative. But yeah, would agree that a slightly rounded 3.x is unlikely to be the path forward. Hmmm. So, just to be clear, you don’t believe that FAQ statement that Paizo doesn’t “need” to do this?

You missed the part where WotC offered PF players an unfamiliar 5e and took them away from Paizo in droves. I mean, 5e is far cry from PF, yet it ate Paizo's market share for breakfast.

So, Paizo is now left with a rapidly shrinking base of PF1 players. They won't get new ones. WotC has a sleeker, more accessible product with beholders, Drizzt and Critical Role. Were I to be a new player and choose between PF and 5e? 5e it is, no contest.

Faced with that, your choices are either to watch the PF1 Titanic sink slowly and your "super loyal, will stick with Paizo no matter what" players ultimately going away because their group switched to 5e, or trying something else entirely. I'm no business analyst, but I'd rather go with leaping into the unknown than watching the Titanic sink.

Good point. The question, though, is how far they leap into the detail-soft side of the ruleset spectrum. 5E really has that staked out and they also have the only mainstream name recognition in all of RPGS. This Pathfinder player base, at least as far as I can conjecture, are mostly still-hardened edition warriors who preferred the detail and character differentiation of 3.5 over 4E. I think they'd be willing to follow Paizo to a PF1 - 5E midpoint with PF2, but the playtest seems to be a little too far afield. There's a lot of concepts in the Playtest that smack of some of the big 4E Sins people fled from. And if you don't keep enough of the base, who's going to lead the wayward 5E children back home?

I agree with OP for the most part. The underlying system seems pretty good to me, but a lot of the options appear subpar.

This was my response to a lot of the high level feats in particular. I just don't understand the reasoning behind putting big limitations on high level martial class abilities. Look at Savage Critical. I read the sentence "This doesn't make a natural 19 automatically hit" and thought...why not? I mean, this is an 18th level character. Why not give the Fighter a nice toy? Is it game-breaky? Yes, but so is Teleport, so is Mindblank (they did a nice job, by the way, on rebalancing the spell lists). Higher level characters begin to get game breaky abilities-they should.

its absolutely ridiculous that we don't have clickable hyperlinks yet.

In this free of charge rough draft document that's 400+ pages long.

They limit it because it was the design decision to make the game overall a less high-powered game. Characters are more even as heroes in relation to each other, which they should be.

Character balance is a good objective, but sometimes in this system it feels like it's coming at the cost of character differentiation. I definitely like the "past 18 a boost = +1" rule, but it would be nice to have some variance between stat maxes between character type. But these are hardly the worst examples of bonus deflation. I mean, at this point it seems like the best way to improve your character's capabilities is to level up and buy good equipment. An 8th level fighter with a normal sword and an 18 strength has got a +14 to hit, which is dead even with an 8th level Rogue with a 18 dexterity and a +2 shortsword. Maybe that's progress but it feels kind of samey to me.

Like even a +1 weapon having an IMMENSE impact on character damage more than high level fighter abilites, for example.

Yeah, the math, more than anything, is what's setting my head to shaking. It's like an unholy baby made of 5e bounded accuracy and 4e "Add your level to all rolls".