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Five of my core group conducted a level 18 Kineticist playtest, after filling out my surveys i keep going back and forth on some of the multiple choices options in the survey and eventually I realized why: HOW this happens doesn't matter as much as that it DOES, if that makes sense, and my thoughts about each of the options are linked primarily into the possibility that they would fix the problem, and my impression of what might be necessary to get everything situated correctly. The basic problem that the entire group observed, is that it felt like The kineticist needs more juice, its serviceable against multiple lower end targets, but fighting bosses as a kineticist really hurts because your pop of damage is very small relative to the difficulty of landing a hit-- more so than any class in the game, and what strategies worked for us in our playtest were either too contextual (a cold weakness allowing Sea Glass Guardian to put in obscene work) or too cheesy, their healing feels too low as well (using the water heal we tested anyway). One player expressed wanting an option to 'narrow' some of their moves to single target for a damage boost, another was discussing a desire for an action economy build up of bonuses, the common thread of everyone's feedback is that the Kineticist just can't output enough firepower-- and level 18 is a level where their class DC is equal to spell DC! When I was considering how I actually felt about survey options like the possibility of cantrips/amps, focus spells, or spell slots, what it came down to is that I do feel like the Kineticist needs a resource to manage so that it can have power spikes by using that resource. At the same time I think that the current design of Strength / Dexterity Strikes and Class DC oriented pseudo spells is pretty good but needs more juice. My only other feedback, besides this big thing, is that I think it should get Medium armor to better support strength builds so they can get by with 12-14 dex, rather than needing 16 for full AC. So I guess that leaves me with a preference for adding focus point amps or a Focus Point / non divide to the existing impulses to make them more powerful, and maybe adding an option to intensify strike damage for one as well. I'd like Burn, but I think it should be a repeatable version of Strain Mind. With a design like this, particularly with the psychic's recharge mechanics (two point recharge), you can bust out some powerful moves that justify a better damage scaling since they're limited, you're rewarded for CON because you have extra hit points to leverage into additional points, and I feel like it conveys the fantasy of not running out because of the 'Burn' feat (that not everyone is going to want, so it being a feat is apropo) and the fact that 10 minute focus recharges means you get to use them in basically every fight-- I think that's a good compromise between 'all day every day' and 'resources you need to manage' basically just things that you need to sit for quick 10 minute breather before you can do it again, or you can 'overheat' yourself with burn by drawing more to keep spamming your encounter powers. But the keyest takeaway: we need more juice, if we need to manage a resource to get more juice, then so be it, I just hope its focus points because that's a good, solid mechanic that's already built for being able to do something almost every fight, no need to reinvent the wheel here.
Hey Paizo Forums! I'm the Head Game Master of the LGBTQ+ inclusive (but not exclusive!) Pathfinder2e West Marches Server "Crosswinds Adventuring Company" and we're looking for new players for our pirate hexcrawl sandbox game, Secrets of Old Pandora. Become an aspiring pirate in the Pandoran Islands using the full Pathfinder 2e rule set and make your own fortune using our custom designed Voyages and Lead system. We welcome both optimization and roleplaying, and have a strong emphasis on emergent storytelling through sandbox play. For details on how our game works, feel free to check out our Player's Guide and the starting map for the game. We're looking for people interested in being a part of a fun and respectful community long term and playing Pathfinder 2e with us! I'm happy to answer any questions you have right here in this thread, if you decide you're interested in applying please direct your attention to our application.
I kept meaning to post this here but never got around it, these are my play procedures for the West Marches Hexcrawl I'm currently running on my LGBTQ+ Inclusive Discord Community "Crosswinds Adventuring Company." The campaign itself is entitled Secrets of Old Pandora It includes a fair bit of homebrew and house rules, including a formalized system of leads and voyages for managing adventure structure, our suite of house rules for play, some adjustments for familiars and hero points and crafting,passage of time, downtime, settlements, and most notable of all, a system for leveling up by spending gold, in order to emphasize treasure acquisition as the core of the game. Here's the Link to the Player's Guide that outlines all the rules adjustments. Here's the modified "Treasure by Encounter" tables we use to accommodate this system. Here's the current hex map, we intend to have multiple of these for different portion of the island chain, this one goes up to content intended for fifth level PCs. Its a product of my amazing friend Soul_Writ3r.
I was reading nostalgically over some of my old 4e books after going back to check on some old advice from the DMG I remembered, and ended up looking at some powers and remembering how everything being a named attack had a certain charm to it where my players developed fighting styles of their own around these named techniques. Now I much prefer the PF2e system overall despite my nostalgic love for 4e (lack of trap options, asymmetrical resource management, better out of combat support), and I was thinking about how the game accomplishes this feeling with some of its class feats to a lesser extent, like One Inch Punch, Double Slice, Twin Takedown, and so forth, along with some of the feats from say, Ruby Phoenix--- or even some spells like Blazing Dive or Horizon Thunder Sphere, and was thinking that I hope we continue to see more such attacks when an idea hit me. One mechanic I don't think we've seen are combo attacks where you have to spend an action on each move of a given combo in sequence to get to the later stage of it. Unlike normal multi action activities, you wouldn't spend the actions at once, instead you use the first action, then the second action, and then the third, choosing to exit the combo anywhere along the way or starting it late so you don't have the actions to finish, but with each step building up to the finish. The key is that you can't get the benefit of the later stage of the combo without spending actions building up to it with the first part. I suppose this could also be accomplished for something like the fighter with more Openers/Presses/Finishers that flow into each other, allowing them to be customized, but then it loses some of the fun factor of it being a named combo.
For me, its gotta be what I'm doing now, my hexcrawling west marches, I adapted the system to run off of the acquisitions of treasure in a sandbox and its really capitalizing on hexploration and exploration mode, as well as the amount of variety in the game-- there's also a lot of thought going into teamwork now.
So I posted this on reddit a little while ago, and realized I should probably make it a point to post it here as well, its been 2 and a half years since Pathfinder 2e released, and I think I finally have a handle on the optimization in it to talk about it in the abstract! I. The Concept A recent post (which wasn't a big deal or anything) questioning the role of the Gunslinger got me thinking about something I keep coming back to in terms of how we should think about character optimization in Pathfinder 2e. As most of you know, we often talk about combat roles from other games (like Tank, Healer, Damage) that don't really fit the model of Pathfinder 2e's combat (although elements of them certainly exist), and we've all been thinking about how to teach not just the game itself, but the metagame to new players who are interested in the nitty gritty of optimization but carry a lot of baggage from other systems. This post is aimed at addressing how to think about character optimization in Pathfinder 2e. Specifically, rather than roles I propose that characters in Pathfinder 2e can be interpreted to have various 'areas of expertise' that represent things that they can spend their actions (or in the case of exploration and such, activities/time) doing-- the many character options of the game dictate how well they perform in each of these areas. Because of the highly flexible system of feats that the game offers, its important to understand that these aren't roles, because any character can perform them to differing degrees, and can tune their own performance in each of these areas by taking different feats. The most accurate picture of a character's performance in these areas would have to be rated on the build level, although it could be useful to discuss what a class offers to each of these areas, we do so at the risk of rendering our examination useless, as they can be heavily impacted by archetypes-- archetypes can also be rated according to this system. The rating system itself could be numeric or color based, and I make no assertion as to which method ought to be used. It is also important to remember that the action systems provides a bottleneck for almost all of these areas-- your potential to perform setup, and your potential to perform payoff for instance, are generally inversely proportional due to the need to spend actions on each, this dynamic of course implicitly boosts the value of game elements that let you do one thing while doing something else. The areas probably bleed into each other, and some game elements probably boost multiple (such as initiative) this is probably just a reflection of how the game works, rather than a problem with the categories. II. The Areas of Expertise Protection - This is your ability to actively mitigate or prevent incoming damage on a team basis. The Quintessential protection is the champion's reaction, which literally subtracts damage from an attack. An ability that encourages enemies to attack you instead of your ally (in tandem with your own Defense-- see below), or prevents them from using their own Reach (See Below), boosts a fellow Party Member's Defense, or robs an enemy of actions (or makes those actions less useful) qualifies as protection. I would assert that Healing is also Protection, as it undoes damage done and 'protects' allies from hitting zero HP (which is the threshold where something bad actually happens)-- while this argument could be used for damage, alpha striking isn't reliable enough in Pathfinder 2e for this to make sense. In other words, dead isn't the best status condition to protect your party, because it just takes too long to apply in this game system. Defense - This is your personal ability to deal with something being thrown at you: your AC, your Saving Throws, your HP, your ability to Shield Block, pop reactions like Nimble Dodge, all that good stuff. This is probably the simplest element, but its important to consider separate from protection, because high defense alone doesn't give the enemy any incentive to attack you, you need to be doing other things in order to incentivize that, which means ye olde 'tanking' can only be understood as a combination of multiple areas of expertise, and since most things useful to a party qualify as incentive to hit you, it should be understood that tanking is a spectrum. As my Wizard Emrys discovered when they cast Mask of Terror and Fiery Body, and used their fragile hitpoints to bait Opportunity Attacks. Setup - You've probably heard about how important it is to inflict conditions, and how big a difference +1 makes right? This is that reflected as an Area of Expertise. Flatfooted, Frightened, Game Elements like Inspire Courage, Elemental Betrayal, and anything that makes you better at these sorts of thing. This is anything that is meant to raise the stakes by preparing your allies for their own attacks. One of the big things that made me realize 'roles' are misleading in Pathfinder 2e is because actions can be split (and are incentivized to be split) in a turn providing multiple kinds of value, and setup is a big part of that. A big hit from a Giant Barbarian is Payoff, but the action he spends prior to that using Raging Intimidation to demoralize the target is Setup, even though he also benefits from it. Some characters might be devoted to set up though-- imagine a Sorcerer who is casting fear on one target while straight demoralizing another. The numbers work out that setup is pretty much always useful (in other words, payoff is always better with the right amount of setup, thats just how the system works), but obviously someone needs to capitalize on the setup, which brings us to... Payoff - This is your Flurry Ranger who spits out a bunch of attacks with features that make them low MAP, or your Magus's massive Spellstrike everyone is hoping will crit, or your Barbarian's big rage hit, or your Double Light Pick Assassin-Fighter's Marked for Death Double Slice (you know, for Fatal and Deadly at the same time on two MAPless Attacks) or your Spellcaster's disintegrate, or even their big area fireball. We call it Payoff because these big hits are at their best when another character has prepped the field for them, generally by making it more likely to crit, although they may have given you other benefits to lubricate your action economy. Your rating in this area, is specifically your potential to lay on the hurt and bring out the full potential of Setup. If Setup and Payoff are balanced correctly you can optimize your position on a curve between the two and bring a truly ridiculous amount of hurt, they're two sides of the same whole-- never forget that when you celebrate your big boi numbers. Reach - More than just the weapon trait, Reach reflects your mobility and range, its your ability to put yourself into a position where you can do your job and lay down your hurt. That could be the increased speed of a monk, the teleport attached to the Laughing Shadow conflux spell, or the ability to drop a spell or bullet 500 ft downrange. An example of optimized reach is the famous Massive-Giant-Barbarian-with-a-reach-weapon-using-whirlwind-to-do-his-best- impression-of-a-fireball technique. If you can provide some of this to an ally, even better, although that arguably bleeds into setup and defense. I actually went ahead and developed 2-3 other areas, but these are shakier because their usefulness is more dependent on your table culture, how the GM runs Recall Knowledge, and whether your between combats is set dressing or not. I believe that they are and should be useful when the game is being played properly, but obviously, some tables would disagree. Information - This is your ability to gain information from the world around you, that could be your ability to rip information out of the Monster Statblocks in combat using Combat Assesment, Identify Creature, or Recall Knowledge, it could be your perception and its ability to tell you where a hiding creature is, it could be your ability to find out about secret doors that might have optional treasure or routes behind them while searching in exploration, or even a Gather Information activity to find out useful stuff. A lot of Investigator features fall into this category, Bardic Lore or certain free skill ups, high perception, a wisdom or intelligence focus. In the right game, the Approximate cantrip or Eye for Numbers feat would totally be here. The key is that the information needs to be more than just dressing, this area varies in usefulness depending on how useful your GM allows information to be in their game. Trapfinding is another example, since its useful, but only if your GM actually uses Hazards. Execution - This is your ability to interact with the environment to solve problems, things like using your Thievery to actually disarm a trap, or using magic to summon flying steeds to carry you someplace fast, or Athletics to move the boulder covering the secret door someone with good Information found. A lot of spell casting, utility abilities, comes up here, its usefulness also depends upon the GM running the game. I am going to say that your abilities as a face qualify as execution-- unlocking a door, and intimidating a guard might feel a lot different, but in essence they fall into the same category of having the skills to impact your environment in desirable ways, so you can consider the Diplomacy, Intimidation, and Deception to largely be Execution skills. That means enchantment magic often qualifies as well. Basically, if you can abstract something in the game world to a lock in the meta-narrative of the fiction, and an ability or skill check can be used as a key, the Execution area is at play... I strongly considered dividing it into Execution and Negotiation, but they're the same thing just in different situations, and the division between social stuff and problem solving is often an obstacle to understanding, so I don't want to perpetuate it. III. Conclusion Whew, that was a lot, feel free to discuss these ideas, or bicker with me about whether this taxonomy and way of thinking about character optimization works for you. I not however, super interested in arguments about why we shouldn't think about Character Optimization period, and its very much a valid interest for people playing the game, so kindly keep it out of the thread.
I wanted to give this time to stew, and potentially get an actual playtest out of the way before posting a thread so I could give mechanical feedback as well, but its officially looking like this October is just too nutty for me to fit that in. So bear in mind that this is less about playfeel and balance, and more about the thematic direction of the class as I've read it and thought about characters I'd make with it to make it appeal to the greatest number of players and to me personally, its also somewhat in response to other people's concerns about flavor, about Antithesis as a Charisma recall knowledge mechanic, and the flavor about where weaknesses come from. The basic concept of the class revolves around Esoteric Antithesis which involves either leveraging an existing weakness or convincing the universe of a link between a creature and an object to create its weakness, often with a sense of poetic justice (the key example of using the broken shackles of a freed slave to overthrow a tyrant being the basic example.) The flavor disconnect some people have, is that this feature blurs the line between discovery (this creature has always had this weakness and we're using our ability in order to learn what it is) and creation (lets actively establish a link between these two nouns that did not exist before), and additionally, that the mechanic by which the creative side functions is unclear (which makes it sound way too soft and almost fourth wall breaking.) Another facet of this 'problem' (because not everyone agrees it is one) is that Esoteric Antithesis uses Charisma to make the Thaumaturge center on Charisma (which matches certain inspiration characters, like Constantine, who often functions as a tricky, fast talking scoundrel) but Charisma is not the knowledge stat or even the perceptive stat, so if you're focused on the discovery side of it, it feels like it should really be Intelligence, or at least Wisdom. But if we do Intelligence, the class feels like it overlaps far too heavily with the investigator, who is already focused on knowledge about creatures and leveraging weaknesses, and could cover that quite comfortably with a new methodology focused on being a supernatural detective. So to my mind, if its a problem worth solving, we need to double down on Charisma, and clarify the lore at work. Enter, the concept of the Thaumaturge as the 'Sympathetic Magic' class where we take the creative side of antithesis (which is super fun) and elaborate on it. What if the class lore explains that there are essentially connections between all things known as "Sympathetic Bonds" and those bonds are of varying strengths, some bonds are so strong (like Werewolves, Moonlight, and Silver) that anyone can take advantage of them-- but others are latent and have to be strengthened to be used, the actual magical acts being performed by the Thaumaturge, the thing they do that other classes do not, is the art and science of sympathetic magic. They are capable, through their bespoke class magic, of taking 'latent' inactive bonds between things, and strengthening them so that they can be used against the creature (or to affect objects.) Finding connections between things that aren't obvious, and are often poetic or metaphorical in nature is very much apropo for Charisma and while study could help you do it, its the kind of study you do to write poetry, or learn old songs and how to play music, rather than the 'memorizing an obscure weakness out of a book' side of the mental spectrum. This lore works for the implements as well, as the associations between each implement and its function work to allow the Thaumaturge to magically invoke the hidden potential of each object. - There's a natural bond between the concept of a Lantern and 'Revealing' so the the Thaumaturge can strengthen it to make it capable of revealing magically hidden creatures and illusions. - There's a natural bond between the concept of a weapon and the person who wielded it, so the Thaumaturge can heighten the connection between the two to allow the weapon to 'know what to do' - There's a natural bond between the chalice and nourishment, which the Thaumaturge can heighten to give it healing properties. -There's a natural bond between the concept of a wand and magic, allowing the Thaumaturge to heighten it to let them fling magic around with one despite that not being how wands are normally used. Thir actual class powers, massage and stimulate these normally inactive bonds to work miracles others can't, all using Charisma. This would actually give the Thaumaturage shades of the kind of Magic Kvothe uses in the Kingkiller Chronicles, which is a very popular contemporary fantasy series that isn't usually represented that well in terms of its magic system in RPGs. It would fit well with Contracts and Pacts as another form of magic that creates a Sympathetic bond, it would fit in well with the Curator's essay in Secrets of Magic too. Finally, it would give the class a completely unique branch of magic that it uses among the other classes (although really, I think it should be explicitly identified as Occult, with the other branches of magic being seen as Sympathetic Bonds that explore an understanding of Jatembe's old magic-is-magic, philosophy.)
Ergo, does making a strike with a flaming rune Wish Blade allow you to trigger the resonant trait off it or use a Conducting Rune? My understanding is yes, because the fire trait is inherited by the weapon and therefore the attack. But we've been discussing it a lot in my group, because my interpretation will cause weapons with the flaming rune to become unusable underwater, and weapons with the sonic trait not work in an area of silence. I've found weapon strikes in the Bestiary that seem to gain the fire trait from a feature that says any weapon they're holding has the effects of the flaming rune. But I'm hoping for more discussion to help me navigate this.
The VOD isn't up yet, and I unfortunately had to miss it, I know James Case was on to discuss Secrets of Magic, among other things.
I love stories like this, where the 'responsibilities and monotony' of growing up, breaks via the sudden appearance of magic. This legitimately made me more interested in the Summoner Class.
By popular demand, I've elected to write up my thoughts on how Pathfinder 2e naturally creates an excellent environment for 'OSR' style 'Combat as War' elements as another solution for the difficulty of the encounter guidelines, and indeed, a fun and exciting way to play the game that awakens the full potential of the system (e.g. really uses its systems to maximum effect.) These are my quick and dirty notes, but I've been percolating this playstyle for a while through my most recent 'A Watcher's Tale' campaign as I've become more familiar with the system. I expect to be able to properly give voice in play to all of these elements and more in my upcoming (sixish months out? a player of mine is running a campaign at the moment) Pirate-Themed Hex Crawling West Marches. Ideally I'll be able to has this into a proper playstyle guide as I grow more experienced and confirm my theories. Feel free to discuss this playstyle, I'd prefer to keep it from devolving into a debate on the validity of this playstyle in the system, since it seems fairly self evident. Instead I'd like to treat this thread as a ground zero for experimenting with, developing, and troubleshooting it. I'm aware that OSR games usually make different choices frequently associated with this playstyle, chiefly player character disempowerment to discourage character optimization and limited access to magic items. But part of the premise of the thread is that these things aren't a true necessity, and that the different experience provided by utilizing them in a player-empowered system like Pathfinder 2e is equally valid, if distinct.
Hey there Starfinders! Greeting from the PF2e neck of the forums! I was hoping some of you could help me with something. I'll happily take thoughts and opinions from anyone who'd like to give me them, but knowledge of Pathfinder 2e and Starfinder both would be a plus, and some of this involves comparing Pathfinder 1e to Starfinder as well. I like to have one go to game system for different sorts of genres, for Fantasy Action stuff, that's Pathfinder 2e and I'm thrilled with that system. For contemporary paranormal stuff, it's Chronicles of Darkness, and for superheroes, even though this one is kind of limited to teen supers, we're happy with Masks: A New Generation. But one thing I don't have, is a game for the sci-fi niche, to cover our Mass Effect/Star Wars/ Star Trek esque fantasies. Recently my physical subscription for the Lost Omens Ancestry Guide came in, and it came with this gorgeous foldout laminate promoting Starfinder and Starfinder society. The art (mass effect vibes!), and its kitchen sink elements (I can have Magic Space Knights, Mecha, Starship Combat, and etc all in the same game!?) have been gradually seducing me into maybe committing to it as our Sci Fi game (the fact that I recently discovered I had a little more Paizo credit than I realized is helping too.) Now I keep flirting with the idea of adopting Starfinder, and I already own a bunch of the PDFs from a sale a while back. So me and some buddies are gonna do a deep dive ourselves, but to prep us, I want some questions answered that I feel like take actual experience in the game and community. I have a lot of experience, first with 4e, then with 5e, now with Pathfinder 2e, so what I really need is some comparisons by people who know what they're talking about. Also I know some of these might touch on sore points so keep it civil, I promise I'm not trolling, just take any seeming value judgements as assertions of preference. 1. Our biggest fear is that it's too close to PF1e, we love crunchy D20 stuff (Pathfinder 2e is completely satisfying) but our fears relate to the imbalances of ivory tower design that was endemic to 3.5e. Is this the sort of game where our optimizers will use obscure systems knowledge to outpace those who don't do the research unless they hold themselves way back? We have generally negative views of linear fighters/quadratic Wizards and such (though I know Starfinder is half caster centric). We want some power variance, but I would like opinions on whether Starfinder has *too much* such that a group will irreconcilable needs in encounter design, and similarly, do the EXP guidelines function accurately to measure the amount of challenge a given encounter will provide? Take for granted that all of the players can follow simple optimization rules (like always boosting the primary stat in 2e) but not conduct extensive build research. We expect to use Starbuilder for character building, given our great experiences with Pathbuilder 2e. 2. Similarly, we have fears about some clunkier mechanics, I understand Touch AC isn't a thing anymore but BAB is, can someone tell me about what's been streamlined compared to Pathfinder 1e? What are the big points of how the system has been made easier to grok and book keep? 3. Hows the resolve system? I mostly just want to hear about whether its enjoyable and your experiences with it. 4. Finally Starship Combat, is it fun? I've heard its a matter of if people know the things they can do, and plan to have something they can usefully do in this mode, which would be alright, as that's more or less how exploration mode and downtime mode work in 2e-- I like that dynamic where it encourages building for diverse areas in character building, but I know some people are down on it and good Starship stuff is a big selling point for me-- of all kinds, star wars fighter squadron play, capital ships, Star Trek scale, Gundam mecha in space (I know mechs are upcoming but that there was a playtest?)you name it. 5. I've already discussed it with my players, and they don't mind stream crossing so there's no need for 'hard sci fi' in the purity of the sci fi sense, with that in mind, can I do most kinds of action sci fi in this system? Stories about grand wars, intrepid explorers, interstellar politics, smugglers and bounty hunters, mysterious space creatures, first contact, droids, sci-fi cantinas, fighter pilots, sci fi horror, and so forth?
I have 7 players, so their severe encounter budget is 210 xp, and their Moderate exp is 140, we use relatively short adventuring days, and my players are well optimized so I tend toward the Moderate to Severe end of the scale for our encounters which has worked beautifully for most of the campaign (we had 6 players for most of it, we've had more for like 2ish levels of play) Last night, they were level 17, I threw 4 skull takers at them, which are level 18, so for them worth 60 exp each, coming out to a total 220 xp, basically just over the severe threshold, which are encounters they usually don't have much trouble with. Well, a few horrid wiltings and a couple finger of deaths later, I had killed two of my PCs and the party had to full retreat and resurrect one of them, while the other took over the powerful NPC cleric allied with the party. Now this was really a product of one character rounding a corner on the four of them on his own even though they knew the rest of the party had lost initiative, then rolling some of the worst rolls of his life, including on his hero point rerolls of the saving throws. This was also the party's main source of healing, so once he went down, they lost their ability to pull people out of finger of death range. In the end it was actually pretty awesome because the resurrection scene had super intense rp in my setting's spirit world, allowing a character who is very cagey and secretive to finally bare their soul to the party. It also really raised the stakes and feeling of challenge in my finale dungeon for the whole campaign. This isn't me asking for advice or anything, I have the situation well in hand. But I wanted to offer some advice, and maybe spark a discussion of experiences. But the point is, be careful of your exp budget when you get super large, at roughly the 7 person mark, you officially have enough exp to use a number of slightly higher leveled monsters to potentially brutalize your party in very short order-- especially because AOE attacks tend to scale perfectly with party size (whereas normally, even the most powerful monster attacks are still hitting a very limited number of targets.) Its very easy for these AOEs to overwhelm the party's collective HP and start dropping people, and death effects are way more common (especially for the undead creatures that fit the theme of the current arc.) So basically: Watch out. This is true even when your party are cakewalking 'severe' encounters filled with lower end foes, or single +4 bosses and such. In the future, after this ends, I'm going to probably keep party size down-- which I want to do for other reasons as well related to rp and spotlight time. But it should also prevent this, since the exp budgets would normally regulate the number of higher level creatures you can possibly have pretty well.
After a discussion with some fine folks on Discord I'm now in the camp that thinks they should nix spell slots in favor of leaning Martial with pervasive magical abilities. Specifically, I'd like to see them get the Oracle's Focus Point Progression, with Focus Spells as a "Striking Spell" type thing where each one is a cool, curated, flavorful "arcane weapon technique" based on the Magus fantasy-- Flaming weapon sweep attacks, teleporting reposition strikes, lightning infused burst attacks, magically guided thrown weapons, exploding thrown weapons, the works. These takes on Spell Strike could be curated to be balanced without having to use the pre-existing spell damage numbers exactly, have weird neat magic rider effects, and because Focus Points are so easy to recharge (and like an Oracle, you'd start with two of them) you'd be able to use them very frequently-- the game even already has support for things that interact with your focus recharge! For those that want proper spell casting, they could create class feats that are equivalent to the caster multi-class spell-casting feats-- Basic/Expert/Master, and build them right into the Magus so that you can get real spell-casting on a multi-class progression if you want utility magic, but save yourself the dedication feat. This'd be a decent compromise I think, since the worth of that casting style is pretty well established in the system. Class feats like Spirit Sheathe, could help to punch up the pervasive magic feel of the class, others could add more of the "arcane-martial techniques" the way you can get more Witch Lessons for that class. This is very much in line with one of the survey questions which suggested the possibility of nixing spell slots and focusing more on "magical abilities" on a Martial-focused class. This model also makes it very different than the fighter/wizard hybrid you can already do, and might be covered by a melee equivalent to the Eldritch Archer (Eldritch Knight?), which I've seen a lot of support of. This would let the team really chase down and pursue that Blended-Martial-Magic feel that can be so hard to replicate with multi-classing (where the abilities are disparate and taken from multiple places.) I'm sure that the Team will create something great whether or not they go this route, but I'm very much in support of it. I haven't seen a thread taking this idea completely seriously yet, so lets see how people feel about it.
There's been some side discussion in other threads about the Magus Potency ability-- its a feature that puts you a little ahead (+1) of your to-hit for about 2 levels whenever it heightens before it eventually stops doing so. Similarly the rune impression feature doesn't seem super useful either. Simultaneously, the very low number of spells slots that we have feel very scarce for a class that feels like it wants to use them in tandem with a feature like Spell Striking. I'd like to suggest we solve both problems by eliminating the current focus spells, and replacing them with damage focus spells designed to be used alongside Spell Striking. So that you have a consistent and renewable resource to use with your Spell Striking-- as usual for Focus Spells, they'd do less damage than your proper high tier slots, but more than cantrips. What do you all think?
Both the Magus and Summoner get four spell slots, that upgrade as they level up without gaining additional ones. You will basically only have 2 slots of each of your two highest levels, before feat investment. This is a new addition to the game that we haven't seen before. It seems to be a form of casting that is considered appropriate to ride along with major features-- Martial Weapon Proficiency, or the entirety of the Eidolon. How do we feel about this system? I want to read discussion about this because I'm divided on it right now.
This past PAX Unplugged I GMed two blocks worth of quests for 2e society, now I don't normally get the chance to play Society so I never bothered to check it online, but I was looking into it for Paizo-con online and such to see if I had anything I'd want to take advantage of, and I noticed only one of the quests I ran appears, and I only have one achievement point as a result. These were supposed to be from the papers I turned in for the adventures right?
I wanted to focus some discussion on predicting the stats for the APG Ancestries, since they're one of the elements I'm most excited for. We know that we have five ancestries (Ratfolk, Catfolk, Tengu, Orcs, Kobolds) and five universal heritages (Aasimar, Tiefling, Duskwalker, Dhampir, Changeling.) Some questions that jump out at me: What ability scores do you think each ancestry will have boosts and flaws to? What Heritages do you think each ancestry will have? How do you think they'll handle variations within each universal heritage? (Devil Tieflings vs. Oni Tieflings, for example) Which are you most looking forward to for character building? Any particular concepts you're excited about?
Hey, I'm talking to a player about one of their relic abilities, encompassing darkness. Does this ability (which i would link, but its not up on nethys yet) allow other people to remove items from their shadow? it states that someone could find the objects if they know to check the shadow. It also states that "you" can stow remove objects like a mundane container using an interact action. He's interpreting that as the source of the ability to interact with his shadow in that way, but the bit about the mundane container makes me question if other people could pull things out of his shadow if they know about it, in which case the you would be generic. I'm imagining him being knocked out and imprisoned, does the encompassing darkness give him a means to keep a weapon on him no matter what, even if the guards notice it?
We've always been really bad at hero points (and inspiration in 5e) and I don't really like how they're supposed to be distributed, nor how they're a session mechanic, I happened to have this idea while brainstorming for how fate works (like the fiction of it) in my setting the other day and I want to run it by people. I'm considering a model where hero points are replaced by fate points, which are the same thing, except that you get a number of them equal to A) Half your Charisma Mod Rounded Up (Minimum of 0)
You would be able to have more than 3 (the highest modifier you could get to is 7) but they would restore on daily preparation, so its possible that whatever number you have would have to last for a number of sessions until you get to rest again (as opposed to refreshing to 1 every session.) Of course, one concern is that some players are gonna have way too many hero points for short adventuring days. Notes: 1) Not interested in defenses of the base hero point system, we've already playtested it, and it *will* just fall by the wayside for us. 2) It's charisma because Charisma is the only stat that doesn't have generic benefits hanging off it, Dex, Wis, and Con are all defenses, Strength has bulk, armor, etc Int gives anyone who invests in it extra skills and a way to earn income. I know that charisma has space to be buffed from the "balanced ability scores" variant in the GMG which gives it Will as a defense, and the existence of Resonance as a generic mechanic in the playtest that wasn't replaced with anything.
A while ago when my Pathfinder 2e game master's guide was in my sidecart, I clicked the "ship as soon as possible" option, and it moved to pending, I just want to double check that I didn't screw myself for getting it during the usual subscription date starting on the 12th since it wasn't part of the automated order generation.
So, a few folks in my discord were discussing the viability of thrown weapon ranger builds the other night, and we stumbled on an interesting area of the rules. The Thrown trait (post-Errata) states in it's first line that: "You can throw this weapon as a ranged attack, and it is a ranged weapon when thrown." So great, Hatchets and Daggers (as an example) are melee weapons, but are ranged weapons when thrown. But then we started to look and work out what feats that qualifies a thrown weapon ranger to use: ___________________________________________________________________________ __ Twin Takedown states in it's requirements line: You are wielding two melee weapons, each in a different hand. This is unquestionably true when you're holding two daggers, as they are melee weapons- wield's definition is: "You’re wielding an item any time you’re holding it in the number of hands needed to use it effectively." The rest of Twin Takedown only instructs you to make strikes with the required weapons, I'm trying to work out if that means you cannot leverage the thrown trait when using Twin Takedown, or if its fine because they were still melee weapons when you were wielding them.
Penetrating Shot meanwhile has this line in it's requirements: You are wielding a ranged weapon. Now when you're throwing a dagger, it becomes a ranged weapon, does it qualify for this requirement? In it's description: Make a single ranged Strike with the required weapon against the chosen target and your hunted prey. Obviously the "make a single RANGED Strike" means you have to throw the dagger if you're allowed to use it in the first place.
So I've got a few interpretations, and I'm the GM, and I can't decide which to go with, I'd love RAW overall, and RAI a close second, but I can't decide what either of those are: #1 is that when you trigger the Twin Takedown feat, they are explicitly melee weapons as listed in the requirement. If this is true Twin Takedown works only so long as you make melee strikes with your daggers, as the text says to make a strike with the required weapon (which includes the word melee.) This might also allow penetrating shot to work under the same logic- since it can be a ranged weapon, you can use the feat and are locked into the corresponding type, but it also might not because you hadn't thrown the dagger and therefore you were still wielding a melee weapon not a ranged one. #2 is that when you trigger the Twin Takedown feat, they are melee weapons at the time you're wielding them, but since the strikes don't specify melee strikes, you can use the required melee weapon you were wielding to make ranged strikes instead, because the required weapon is capable of that. This would provide Thrown Weapon Rangers with some currently needed support. Penetrating shot however definitely ceases to work because it can't become a ranged weapon until after the feat is triggered, and therefore can't fulfill the wielded line. Obviously this whole mess hinges on order of operations for requirements- does it being a ranged weapon when it's thrown, make it a ranged weapon when your GM is deciding whether you can use the feat? Does it being a melee weapon when you're "wielding it ready to use" allow you to make strikes of any kind with it since it was still the required weapon, or does it still have to fulfill all the requirements at time of attack resolution (even though "attacking with something" and "wielding something" are different timepoints)
I'm actually really in love with some of the feat options for Halflings and Gnomes, especially the luck-oriented party support features of the former and the focus point restoration on the latter (it seems very strong on say, a Devil Sorcerer with Hellfire, or on a ki blast centric monk build.)
One of my first impressions from looking at the playtest, especially at the class feats, is that some of the Witches features are far too specific- it feels as if it was designed to create the most superficial elements of the commercialized Halloween Witch. In isolation those elements are fine, but without a stronger thematic basis it feels out of place and overly niche relative to the game's other casters (or like the Witch should drop the multi-tradition angle and settle for being the game's prepared occult specialist to really lean into the specialty) Each of the other spell casters answers a central question of "how" they perform magic, and can fit any number of different fantasies under that umbrella. The Witch actually has that, utilizing the Patron and its unique familiar mechanics- but then instead of building on that thematic ground, many of the class feats instead seem focused on trying to shore up the "Witch Caricature Elements" I think this can be done more elegantly by reexamining the Witch and ensuring it's thematic space is as deep as it's CRB spell casting counterparts. 1. The Witch has a Patron, who is the primary source of their familiar and therefore their powers. If sorcerers are the magic users who have magic because of their lineage, and Wizards are magic users who use magic through study, then we should double down on Witches as THE patron spell caster. I posted in the Patrons/Mechanical Weight thread about how this could be emphasized without losing our current flexibility. 1.5. On the same general subject, the familiar is and should continue to be a massive part of the witch's flavor and abilities- they represent the Witch's only link with their Patron, I'd love to see them tied into more witches abilities. 2. The thematic through-line to a lot of broad commercialized witch depictions, is actually that the witch is something of a hedge-mage, and rural spell caster (think about the Witchers in the Witcher, or Idalia and the other Wildmages from the Obsidian Trilogy). Wizards often do their magic in fancy towers and laboratories, Witches do it in huts in the woods. This doesn't need to be strict, but I think we need to take a pass on the Witch's class feats that cleans up what they're trying to convey- Cauldron is actually pretty cool in this respect. 3. Some classic Witch abilities, like Living Hair, would be better as a Focus Spell so that the Lessons can be the main mechanic for "what flavor of Witch am I?" (Also using Focus Spells to go into temporary magical states to enhance melee combat capability is generally a model of Gish I support, since it introduces natural drawbacks relative to actual martials, who dont need 10 minute breaks) 4. Coven is actually a perfect example of what I'm talking about, its a witchy seeming feature that kind of implies that Witches have something to do with Hags because they can participate in covens, but its very hard to use and doesn't really say anything about what a Witch is. Instead, I would suggest we go back to the fundamental idea of what a coven *is,* which is to say, a means for a group of witches to pool their abilities and amplify their powers. Following from this, Witches should have an ability where they can create synergy for multiple spellcasters in the same party, acting as a kind of hub point where multiple party spellcasters (and NPCs if relevant) can gain bonuses on their spell casting by joining with the Witch character.
I assume the Game Master's Guide is going to have the guidelines for this, but does anyone know what the guidelines are for writing up new gods for use by clerics and champions? Its clear that they have a favored weapon they're associated with, a harm or heal, some bonus spells, and a list of domains. My big question is about the bonus spells, and the list of domains- at first I assumed the spells came from their domains, but this doesn't appear to be the case. I'm also curious to know whether all the presented gods having four domains is essential for balance reasons, I'm converting my setting which has countless (minor) gods in a shinto type way- and I'm wondering if each of the local deities needs to have all four, or if I could use their number of domains as a ranking system. In reality, I'm going a step further, and am considering creating a template that makes regular creatures gods- it gives them some minimum amount of innate casting in one of the traditions, gives them some other setting necessary elements, applies the elite stat adjustments, empowers them to ordain clerics and anoint champions, and bless items with runes. I was considering the possibility of having multiple tiers to reflect rankings between the gods, with each tier (up to the four of the Golarion Gods) awarding a new divine domain. The goal is to be able to create very present, very immediate gods, who might watch over villages, forests, rivers, etc.
I'm new to Pathfinder, so I wasn't sure how this stuff works.
Having come from 5e, and 4e before that, I really adore this magic item system- where players can mix and match runes on weapons and armor to create their own magic item, and a DM could do the same to create items to be found in dungeons and the like. I really hope more cool runes are in the works for us mess with, I'd be very strongly tempted to utilize it for all of our magic weapons and armor, since it's so modular, and seems pretty well balanced on the surface. The system applies to any weapon or armor type, including any future ones, which means no categories of item really want for support. There are a lot of possibilities as well, like runes that confer weakness on foes, runes that allow the item to be used for utility purposes, or inflict conditions. What kind of property runes would you like to see? |