Tork Shaw's page

Sorry, I meant Evolved Summons. It lets you apply any 1pt evolution to a summoned monster. If you summon multiple monsters with one cast, it apples to all of them. 1 point evolutions include:

Reach, Skilled (+8 to any skill instantly), (Improved) Bite, Climb Speed, Bleed damage, Gills, Magical Attacks, mount, etc.

Basically, it turns every summoned monster into a unique utility spell.

Its not QUITE that crazy, but its still useful.

"If you summon more than one creature with a single spell, only one creature gains this evolution."

When viewing a company right now the holdings and alliances tab show ONLY YOUR OWN HOLDINGS AND ALLIANCES - not those of the company you are currently viewing.

Which is a bug.

Oh! Try now! Possible fix!

I think it would be unethical for me to attend, but I'm interested to see the results.

At the moment the implementation is not only bugged, but incorrect. So things will be a bit confusing for a while.

When viewing a company right now the holdings and alliances tab show ONLY YOUR OWN HOLDINGS AND ALLIANCES - not those of the company you are currently viewing.

The reason you cant edit your PvP window is probably because you are not listed as the leader of that company. That should have occurred when you set up the company with Bonny. Set up instructions on the blog request:

1) Company Name
2) Settlement Name
3) Names of up to 3 settlement leaders (these must be the names of players who already exist).

Do you remember if you gave her YOUR name as a leader? I'm not seeing any players listed as leaders right now. I cant really think of any other reason you can't edit your PvP window :/

Tork Shaw wrote:

I'm not sure whats happening with your 'doesnt exist' messages and to be honest you'll need to report that as a bug and swing it by QA to repro and investigate...

I can answer your other question, however!

There is currently no unique settlement UI - instead all the features of your settlement are controlled from the Company UI. To access that use the / command "/companysearch", find your company, and view its details. You can then 'edit' any of the stuff that is currently editable by settlement/company managers.

This is not ideal, I know. There is a full company and settlement UI in the works (I should know, I designed it!) but it a while before we can move from this short-term solution to the intended solution.

Done exactly that and don't know what to expect. That is why I asked others if it is a bug or me just not understanding what to do.

Settlement Name: Emerald Lodge
Company Name: Emerald Lodge

I have three tabs.

Under Holdings it says - No settlement
There are 11 or 12 towers listed as Emerald Lodge
Under Holdings it shows a PvP window that isn't editable
I have an alliance tab that is empty for allies and applicants

I tried multiple times to join my settlement.

So three options:
1) I'm just too stupid to understand the GUI and all works fine - then someone tell me what to do to get Emerald Lodge (company) into Emerald Lodge (Settlement). But even after Torks reply I can't see anything else I should be able to do

2) The settlement isn't set up / isn't set up completely. I got a very quick message from Bonny asking for company name that I replied too 3 days ago - but maybe it went into Nirvana. Do I need to applay again?

3) I was actually too stupid when I set it up and named the first company the same as the settlement and now pay the price. I send a second message shortly after my company name to Bonny inquiring if the same name causes problems but never heard back. So I assumed that is fine. Well - was thinking Thod's Friends and...

Hrm. Yeh I dont know WHAT is going on there to be honest, but I totally agree that it is buggy as all hell. I'll be doing a bit of playing with this myself today so if I have any insight I'll post it up here. Otherwise I'll be filing bugs up the wazoo and It'll need to wait for fixes.

Apologies.

A few. I'm super-tasty.

Ha! I survived. No troll stomach can hold me!

Whats all this about then? Who's idea was a NAP? I'm fascinated!

Yeh the search function is borked. It is meant to be paginated but there is currently only 1 page... This means you only get the top 50 results of any search. Which is strangely inconsistent.

Bug filed.

I'm not sure whats happening with your 'doesnt exist' messages and to be honest you'll need to report that as a bug and swing it by QA to repro and investigate...

I can answer your other question, however!

There is currently no unique settlement UI - instead all the features of your settlement are controlled from the Company UI. To access that use the / command "/companysearch", find your company, and view its details. You can then 'edit' any of the stuff that is currently editable by settlement/company managers.

This is not ideal, I know. There is a full company and settlement UI in the works (I should know, I designed it!) but it a while before we can move from this short-term solution to the intended solution.

Phew, thats a lot of questions. Ryan is correct - a lot of this is TBD. I'll have a whizz through and answer what I can...

1) Keep and auction house are large. Taverns are medium.
2) Nope. Slots are fixes sizes. NO SUBSTITUTIONS!!
3) Nope. Possibly in the future, but it is unlikely.
4) No/yes/no. Probably not in the short/medium term.
5) At EE they are in set locations. Once we get to beta you pick where everything goes.
6) 10 is the limit. There will likely be more that 10 possible slots in a settlement all organised in a way that looks nice and you can pick which 10 to use as you build.
7) Current look until art can make more. That will be a while.
8) Nopey. But I hopefully will be able to in the next few weeks. Its somewhere down Mike's art list but pretty far down.
9) It will be a while before walls appear. Likely not until we have settlement PvP/war in.
10) Yes.
11) No - they have their own '20th' slot.
12) Very few. Basically EVERY building with cover some training of some kind.

Then onto the next lot...

1) Architect: Keep (large)
Officer: Barracks (large)
Seneschal: Keep (large), Guild House (medium)
Soldier: Barracks (large), Training Field (medium)
2) I cannot. That stuff is WAAAAYYY off to be honest :/
3) That seems correct to me. There are more and eventually we will release a building list but I'm forever tweaking it right now so you'll need to wait a bit on that!

PoIs and Outposts

1) I'm not sure what you are referring to...
2) Still working on those!
3) Yes.
4) POIs are designed for companies of between 10 and 20 people to run. It will be some weeks of gathering/building to complete one.
5)I believe so. That is a very hard question to answer at this stage. Projections say yes.
6) Yes, probably. The difficult part would be defending these and managing upkeep for both settlement and PoI. You would also need a pretty big company (20+ members) to run a PoI AND 2 outposts.

Sorry to be vague on some of this but lots of it is pretty TBD/outline only.

Aasimar's can get a +2 racial bonus to Int in place of their spell-like ability (Variant Aasimar Abilities). Peri-Blooded get +2 to Int and Cha. So you can start with a +4 int for a wizard...

Wait, WHA!? Where is the +2 INT in place of SLA from?

Tork Shaw wrote:

These are unreal. Absolutely incredible.

Niiiice.... Can you let me know if you see any more art?

Sure!

Géraud Soulié released some of the artwork he was commissioned to do for the ACG.

From that we also know that:
Animist=Shaman
Blade Adept=Arcanist
Counterfit Mage=Rogue
Ecclesithurge=Cleric
Grave Warden=Slayer
Hex Healer=Witch{?}
Primal Hunter=Hunter
Spellstorm=Bloodrager(?)

These are unreal. Absolutely incredible.

Yeh I was in it for the link.

The Collegiate Arcanist gets one.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/prestige-classes/other-paizo/c-d/magaambyan -arcanist

Quote:

The target line seems to disagree with you. Note that it says "stone OR stone OBJECT touched."

Yes - you can use it on an actual stone or an object made of stone.

If it hit an area of stone floor (for example) surely it'd have an area line, something like:

Area up to 10 cu. ft + 1 cu. ft/level (S)

It doesn't - it's an object targeting spell. You can no more use it to hit a small part of an object over your volume max. than you could use Enlarge Person on a giant's left arm.

Plus, the way you're 'weaponizing' it, you're already simulating higher level spells (like Spike Stones or Wall of Stone) to a greater or lesser degree with a mere Stone Shape. I'm pretty sure it's not meant to be that powerful - that'd require an area effect.

Again, not saying don't do what you want for your game - whatever works for making it fun, right? Just doing the 'anal GM' thing... ;)

P.S.: There's a bunch of spells in the Spell Compendium if you want to do this sort of stuff (and don't mind using 3.x stuff): Sudden Stalagmite, Stoney Grasp, Stonehold, Sarcophagus of Stone, etc..

I'm on side with ProffPotts. Allowing this spell to target a section of stone larger than the area/volume permitted by the spell is a serious power upgrade.

(If the answer is "it's already balanced because non-clerics can also get cool stuff from the religious faction" then that's totally legit.)

Plus this ;)

Thanks Tork. I'm sure most of us appreciate that there are tradeoffs in this process. As a possible alternative to adding more deities or domains, how complex would it be to maybe have the domains that exist made accessible to the alignments that can have them, even if not under the specific gods that exist now?

That would allow (from RHMG Animator's post) the NG cleric who might one day want to worship Kurgress to take the Strength domain now, to more closely fit what they want to be if/when that god is available?

That doesnt meet our intended design goals really. I get what you are saying, but I think it is more likely that we will make it somehow easier to switch to new deities when they are released rather than train players incorrectly from the start.

That said... and dont quote me on this (someone totally will, I know it ;) ) but secretly its very likely that ALL domains will just end up being available to EVERYONE in early enrollment. The faction system is not scheduled for EE - so there will be no way to distinguish between clerics at all! Even alignment doesnt come in day 1!

EDIT : Temples can support up to 3 deities IN TOTAL with upgrades. The one you pick when building it and then 2 more as upgrades.

As with ALL the large Role structures right now the Cathedral a bit of a weird sell since it only trains Clerics but it takes up a large plot. ITs the same for all of them to start though... The University for example will eventually cover Bards, Wizards, and Sorcerers, but to start with it ONLY covers Wizards. On paper then you may as well JUST build the Academy, which covers Wizards alone... But in the long run (and for the other settlement benefits they offer) the large structures are a much better bet.

Hi Tork- thanks for this really great explanation of the cleric role and training scheme. I have one question about variety, though: a settlement that builds a Temple can only support one deity and thus 2 domains. A Cathedral takes up a large plot and can support 3 deities / up to 6 domains. If we compare that to Fighter, a medium fighter trainer can (I'm assuming) train every weapon specialization, and a large plot fighter trainer can train every weapon specaialization plus 2 more whole roles.

So I guess what I'm asking is, do you think the tradeoff at the settlement level of buying a cathedral to add 2 more deities and their domains is arguably worth giving up training 2 whole roles? Is a temple with only 2 cleric specializations an approximately even buy with a fighter hall which supports every standard option for that class?

Would you be open to considering some kind of options for expanding deity availability- either by adding deity slots to Temples and Cathedrals at a DI cost, or possibly creating a small-plot shrine which would support an additional deity if a settlement already had a Temple or Cathedral?

A Cathedral (which is actually the large Cleric building, not the temple, my error) can have either additional deities added OR paladin training added (subject to alignment) Further down the line there will be other classes that may end up on the Cathedral too (its possible you may like to speculate on what those will be ;) ). So it supports 2+ classes vs. the 3 that others can.

Temples (which are the medium Cleric structures) can also support up to 3 deities as upgrades (again, subject to alignment). So thats up to 6 domains initially, and 9 when each deity gets its 3rd domain.

Each faith is not a role. There are not 9 roles for clerics and there fore 12 roles at launch. However, faith in Golarion is important and so it is reflected that way in our design. Settlements will be flavoured not just by their class choices but also by their faction choices and a large part of that will come from deity selection.

So your question is tough to answer. If a settlement wants clerics of a diverse number of deities then sure! Its totally worth it! If a settlement is more concerned with a diverse breadth of classes then they are probably going to have to choose which (smaller number) of deities best represents their settlement (and are compatible with their alignment.)

In short, we believe that this system is both fair and represents religion in Golarion. Being a cleric is not like being a Priest in WoW. You are not just a 'wizard that uses divine magic'. You are a devoted follower of a particular living deity, and as such you must make forsake the worship and associated abilities of other deities if you want to gain power.

Adding deities is expensive, time consuming, and provides very little in the way of gameplay compared to many other systems. Such a discussion is also a minefield of personal hobby horses. We will not be adding more deities, until that comes up. We will not be adding more domains, until that comes up.

If you are keen for these things to come up sooner and keen for a particular deity to get some love - get crowdforging!

Tork Shaw wrote:

I'm not following what is going to be problematic? Can you elaborate? Your best bet for your settlement is to build a temple to Desna (ugh. Butterflies) and live with the Luck and Travel domains. Alignment wise you are all set up for Milani and Cayden when they come along and you can add up to 3 deities to a large cleric structure. There's space for them all in there - and they even share alignment! Perfect!

Mechanically you can worship only one of the core 9 deities at launch. You can only gain faction rep with them, you can only build structures for them, you can only learn domains that they cover, and only their favoured weapons (unless they just happen to be in the generic weapons we include) will be included.

This only adds to the comments I have made before. GW plan of training requirements for clerics makes it a harder role to support. Now you suggest that the 3 religion cathedral be used to support one alignment.

Compare, wizards do not need separate learning sites for different schools. There are multiple fighter schools, but mostly so that dreadnought can support multiple roles (barb, cleric, rogue, wizard, … ACE?).

Once again, there are not 7 starting roles but 15 (wizard, fighter, rogue, Aristocrat, Commoner, expert and 9 cleric roles). As additional deities are brought in, there will expand to 18 and then over 20 clerics, which LARE sites can support 3.

Additionally, while TT clerics have 2 domains and domain spells, PfO only support one domain at a time and no spells. It is not clear how the combat capabilities will be supported, The combat skills recently listed were rogue or fighter roles while arcane were wizards and divine are cleric. No combat skills are cleric based (some armor are).
Reduced domain skills, needing to learn fighter roles to get combat skills (forget role dedication bonus), 9 roles (expanding to 20 roles) versus 1 for the other 6 initial roles. Cleric attack spells are weak.

THis is supposed to be settlement vs settlement...

I have covered this before so I'll just whizz through it once more.

Cleric domains are a TINY fraction of what makes a cleric. MOST cleric abilities - I mean the VAST MAJORITY of them are generic. Spells, orisons, save bonuses, armor feats... the list is endless. The Seminary is the 'generic' cleric building and together with the temple will cover most of what you need for being a cleric. The domains (and eventually faction abilities, which is the same for evey class) are the only thing that is restricted to individual deities/temples associated with those deities.

In addition - yes, you are correct - playing a cleric is differnt from playing a wizard/fighter/rogue. That is how Pathfinder works. In Pathfinder it is nigh on impossible to switch your cleric abilities and those available to you are extremely limited by your alignment and deity. In PFO you can change alignment and faction rep MUCH easier, making switching between deities much easier, but PFO is an online Golarion where your religious dedication matters.

This does not gimp or nerf clerics. This does not make their advancement harder than other classes. This does not give them fewer options than other classes. This does not introduce any additional XP tax on clerics than on any other class.

EVERY class must choose between feature feats and must by each of them individually. Clerics must source these feats from settlements with compatible alignments. This is the major difference between Cleric class features and those of the fighters/wizards/etc. This is a feature of Golarion and it is a feature we are deliberately mirroring in PFO.

PFO is not WoW. It is an MMO set in Golarion. Alignment and affiliation matters - it has consequences and benefits for your character, your settlement, and your dreams of conquest.

One last quick note - your understanding of clerics and their combat ability seems skewed. I get that you are probably just venting some concerns framed as fact, but I'd hold off until we release more about being a cleric or at the very least you get to play as one with all its skills and abilities in place. I play a cleric every day, by choice, when testing the game. Its awesome.

Bringslite of Fidelis wrote:

I suppose that an important question for clerics awaiting a preferred Deity is: Are the available domains required for level advancement in the generic (waiting for a diff God) "Role" that is available now?

In my case, if the travel domain works for Cayden down the road, then what feels like a resource tax to me may be trivial. I'm not really sure.

On the other hand if I really had my heart set on playing a cleric of Milani with liberty and healing domains then the demands of training two new domains whenever minor deities like Milani get support might be non trivial. Those might not even be domains in the works. Again I'm not sure.

I'm sure this applies to lots of other things like folks who love to play rangers, barbarians, inquisitors, paladins, sorcs, and so forth.

The devs have finite time and resources, and I'm sure that a lot of awesome stuff will be released as the game grows. It would be cool to have some way to re-spec so one could change their fighter/cleric character from beta into a paladin (for example) when that comes out, but I expect that would be God awful difficult.

Ok, two things -

1) You are correct. Those domains may not be in the works. As far as I know, in fact, NO domains other than those of the core 9 are 'in the works' because until we get to the point when we are considering introducing new domains we are thinking about other things. This will be in part a crowdforging issue - we will probably need to add 'packs' of deities (and domains) according to their popularity in crowdforging.

2) The cost of domains is minuscule compared to the overall cost of all the other things you need to have purchased to become a cleric. You will have next to no trouble purchasing at least 1 of the domains you want when it becomes available, particularly if you choose to hold onto some XP for that purpose. Holding on to / banking some XP will NOT MAKE YOU LESS POWERFUL but it will mean you have VERY SLIGHTLY fewer character options until the domains you want come out. You might have to take just 2 crafting skills instead of 3. Or take ONLY the travel domain instead of Travel and <whatever> to start. Since you can ONLY slot ONE domain at a time this will not affect your character's power, only his options.

On a related note - although you want Liberty and Healing you can ONLY SLOT ONE at a time. Clerics in PFO do not work the same way they do in PF, so its worth keeping that in mind from the start. You will find it very hard to mechanically build an existing (or imagined) PF character in PFO - but of course you can, and we encourage you, to role play with as much conviction as you can muster!

T7V Avari wrote:

Bitter Thorn wrote:

I won't be too butt hurt about that if the domains are not tied directly to the initial 9 choices.

Domains
Abadar: Protection, Travel
Asmodeus: Fire, Trickery
Desna: Luck, Travel
Gozreh: Water, Wrather
Gorum: Glory, Strength
Iomedae: Glory, Sun
Lamashtu: Strength, Trickery
Norgorber: Charm, Trickery
Sarenrae: Fire, Sun

For example, I am OK with taking the travel domain for my CG cleric and calling him a cleric of Cayden. I would prefer not to have to take Desna
as my patron to do that.

It just seems that with such a tiny list of deities and domains to start off with it would be nice to have some wiggle room.

I get that I am not going to be able to play a cleric of Milani with healing and liberation domains for a very long time (if ever), but I prefer more choice to less.

I'm in the same boat Thorn. Wanted a worshipper of Milani but the only thing that's close enough to that is Cayden. Desna probably won't do it for me and I'm thinking a different concept now.

So I feel ya, but that the boat almost everyone is in unless you want a sword n board human fighter or a blasty elf wizard.

This feels like it will be a problem for our settlement. Our founding companies have Cayden, Desna, Milani, and Milani respectively for their patron deities, and we are looking like we will be a cleric heavy settlement.

I'm not following what is going to be problematic? Can you elaborate? Your best bet for your settlement is to build a temple to Desna (ugh. Butterflies) and live with the Luck and Travel domains. Alignment wise you are all set up for Milani and Cayden when they come along and you can add up to 3 deities to a large cleric structure. There's space for them all in there - and they even share alignment! Perfect!

Mechanically you can worship only one of the core 9 deities at launch. You can only gain faction rep with them, you can only build structures for them, you can only learn domains that they cover, and only their favoured weapons (unless they just happen to be in the generic weapons we include) will be included.

Now of course you can present yourself in game any way you wish. I totally expect that players will role play as clerics of other deities, but until we get the time to include the art and abilities of additional deities only the core 9 will be represented in game. This is the unfortunate reality of iterative development :/

(IIRC, Tork can correct me if I forgot something) You can be a full member of multiple factions, just not multiple factions on the same "layer" of the system. So you could be a member of the Crusaders, Church of Iomedae, and Pathfinders, but not the Crusaders and Hellknights.

This is correct! You could even be a member of multiple factions that are sort of similar - like Sarenrae and Iomadae. You may actually maintain faction rep with as many factions as you can manage. Each time you earn rep with a faction you lose major rep with its direct opposition factions and a small amount of rep with ALL other factions. Basically, you'd need to maintain your rep with all factions you want to remain in good standing with. You cant just rack up high Iomadae faction rep then run off and work for Desna forever without losing Iomadae standing.

Bitter Thorn wrote:

Does this mean that in alpha and beta we will have to select one of the 9 deities and we will be limited to their two domains?

When or if our preferred deities become available later will we be able to switch?

If it gets left up to crowdforging (very likely), the scream will be for new classes ahead of new Gods for the existing ones so be prepared to wait a while for Cayden & the gang.

There will be only the opening 9 deities for a bit. You can switch deities with relative ease provided you keep you alignment on track. Faction rating will be relatively easy to gain, particularly if you are a cleric. It will not take you long to switch deities.

It is also possible (it has been discussed but only in outline) that there could be ways to trade in faction rating when if we introduce new theistic content.

In TT(PnP), clerics must have a diety. Most deities have 4 domains, often one of those is related to alignment (Law, Chaos, Good, Evil) but there are usually others. Clerics can pick only two domains, say Sun and Trickery. Both are active and provide access to domain spells, but there is only 1 domain spell slot per level (I believe the domain spells can be slotted as regular cleric spell, while regular spells can not be slotted in domain slot). So basic first level is 1 clerical spell and 1 domain spell which is choice of one of two offerings.

In Pfo, how many of a deities domains may a cleric pick? (2 in TT)

In Pfo, how many domains benefits (e.g. increased perception or increased bluff) are active at a time? (2 in TT)

In Pfo, how many slots added per spell level? (1 per spell level in TT, spell level increase every 2 class level)

a) Each deity offers 2 domains (to start). You can learn both of these but domains are the cleric class feature, so they can have only one slotted at a time. Much like fighters can purchase weapon specialization in multiple weapon groups but can slot only one at a time.

b) Only one domain benefit is available at a time. Domains only provide passive bonuses. They do not provide additional abilities.

c) None. Domains do not provide additional spells/power per day.

Each cleric in PFO picks a deity.
This deity must be compatible with their alignment.
Each deity has 2 domains.
A player can only slot one domain at a time, but can purchase as many as they wish.
To slot a domain you must have both the correct alignment AND a high enough faction rating with the deity who provides it.
This means you can potentially OWN all the domains but can switch back and forth between dissociated domains only when you are able to move your alignment and faction rating enough to fall into the bracket offered by that deity.

Example:

I'm a neutral good Cleric of Iomadae with a positive faction rating with her church.

I have the Glory domain and the Sun domain. I can switch freely between these domains when I like.

I decide I want to Worship Gorum (or get the strength domain if I am playing in a totally cheesy non-role play way.)

I need to move my alignment to something compatible - true neutral is probably easiest (Gorum is CN).

I also need to raise my standing with Gorum's faction (which will in turn reduce my Iomadae faction).

Now I can go and buy the Strength domain from a Gorum temple.

Now I own Strength, Sun, and Glory domains. I cannot slot Sun because I dont have the right faction rating or alignment for it, but I do have the right features for both Glory and Strength (since Gorum offers both).

I can still only slot one of these at a time, but I can switch freely between them when configuring my character.

Dakcenturi wrote:

Having a link to a diety is pretty core to a cleric, otherwise you are just an oracle that can't spontaneously cast. I think this should be something you have to define, if you can just pick as many domains and swap them out as the need arises I think it un-balances clerics and it also makes it so evey cleric is a cleric of everything, rather then having different clerics of different things.

As long I understand and agree with the flavor of Cleric of a Specific Deity, clerics were not only bound to one god, there is the option to follow something different.

Cleric Description wrote:

While the vast majority of clerics revere a specific deity, a small number dedicate themselves to a divine concept worthy of devotion—such as battle, death, justice, or knowledge—free of a deific abstraction.

The main reason for my previous idea is exactly to balance the cleric option in pair of others 3 roles. If the role system are made to not hold a character from change to rogue to fighter, why should hold to change from specific decisions of determinated role. If it does so, will the game have 9 (or more) differentes roles of clerics?

Another statement is about archetypes of others roles and specialists of arcane magic. They are all part of their roles.

Someone with better forum-fu than me might be able to find it, but in Golarion there are no clerics without a deity. Its in the core rule book because the core rules are not Golarion specific, but James Jacobs has clarified that in Golarion all clerics must have a single deity who grants their power. This also means they will all have to select appropriate domains.

*pops head above parapet*

I am into this. I'll have to have a bit of a think about the implications, but it could work if it were super 'spensives. One of the advantages of the Feud system is that the cost is variable according to the power discrepancy between feuder and feudee. This helps prevent too much 'bullying' by larger companies. Allowing feuds against unclaimed hexes doesnt have this balance factor which might be sticky...

I'll have a think and watch this thread for the inevitable back and forth!

Tork Shaw wrote:

I am completely happy to agree that there may be a situation where you cannot train or even be supported in the same settlement as your friend. That is the way the system is designed. If that is your point then you are correct. That is deliberate and meets the design goal. If what you are saying is that you do not like that design goal I cant possibly argue with that :)

Indeed, I do not like that specific design, and indeed, I really don't like to hear "you will love it, you'll see". That doesn't mean that I will argue stupidly for hours to try to terrorise you into changing it. :p

Your intentions are clear, and I am totally fine with waiting to see how that goes. Maybe that it won't work in practice, like a lot of things in a lot of games, and that you will change it, and maybe that it will work perfectly, and that we will love it, I am completely open on the outcome, really. I have doubts, but I don't have any problem with giving you my trust, so I will wait and see.

I appreciate your trust. I'm also totally prepared to admit I'm not infallible... I'm designing in the abstract, dont forget (such is the nature of game design!) so who the hell knows... (hopefully me!) But I very much appreciate the trust.

I will say though that I, unfortunately, have more info than we have put out into the world - both deliberately (cos some of its not locked in) and just by osmosis, since I've been working on the game for 18 months. So things that seem much more definite/cut-and-dried to me I totally appreciate are still a bit nebulous to you guys.

Tork Shaw wrote:

There hasnt actually been a change, its just that the original quote wasnt quite as clear as it could be...

Each tier of structure has a minimum reputation requirement to build. But a settlement's reputation requirement is set settlement wide.

So if you want to build high tier stuff you have to have a high settlement reputation minimum. That minimum applies to ALL settlement structures, even if they are crappy. There is only ONE reputation minimum per settlement even if you have structures of diverse tiers in that settlement.

That's what I thought all along. So, is there anything wrong with this analysis?

Jason is from murderhoboville. Murderhoboville has such a low minimum reputation set that it can only support Tier 1 buildings.

Jason wants to train Tier 2. To train Tier 2, he has to raise his reputation enough to get into a town with Tier 2 buidlings, such as Goodingsville.

Even if he raises his reputation enough to train in Goodingsville, it does him no good if he's still living in murderhoboville (since murderhoboville only supports tier 1).

Jason relocates to Goodingsville to keep his Tier 2 available, so now he has to keep his reputation at Goodingsville's minimum.

Months later, Jason wants to train Tier 3. Goodingsville still only supports/trains Tier 2, so Jason has to find another city with Tier 3 to train at.

He finds Twoshoesington. He has to raise his reputation again to train at Twoshoesington. Of course once he trains, he has to relocate to a town with Tier 3 support/training (and thus the higher reputation minimum) to keep the Tier 3 active.

This is correct. I very much hope these become real towns in game :)

One (composite) question though - why does Jason not live in Twoshoesington to start? Or move there at step 2? Or encourage Murderhoboville to raise its rep?

Tork Shaw wrote:

Yes. In in the remarkably unlikely situation you describe you would have to find another settlement to join together.

I am sorry, but I don't really see how this situation is remarkably unlikely ? Because from what I understand, the point of your system is, to discourage multi-support. So it will happen a lot.

I totally understand that niche-roles are more tricky, but I wouldn't consider it a meaningful choice, to see a settlement without support for every classic basic roles. I understand what you say, and I understand what you mean, but I just don't think that it's a good design. You are free to hear it or not, but since crowd-forging is one of the bases of this game, I consider it fair, to express myself on the matter.

I'm not sure what other way I can make it clear, so this'll be my last crack at it.

Even in a settlement which specifically EXCLUDES support, i.e. chooses to support the MINIMUM number of things they can, SEVEN classes are still supported. There are only 4 classes in Alpha. There are only 11 core classes in all of Pathfinder.

In addition, the choice of which classes to support is made by the settlement, not by Goblin Works. If you want to ensure your class is supported get involved. If you dont want to get involved then you will need to live with the consequences. Pathfinder is a game of agency. Your agency. You, the player. The game extends beyond logging in and killing creatures. If you want to make sure something happens I'm afraid you are going to have to roll up your sleeves and work on it. That is the nature of a sandbox game.

I am completely happy to agree that there may be a situation where you cannot train or even be supported in the same settlement as your friend. That is the way the system is designed. If that is your point then you are correct. That is deliberate and meets the design goal. If what you are saying is that you do not like that design goal I cant possibly argue with that :)

I hope I have managed to convey the way in which you, the player, get to control where and when those issues occur, and I hope that I have been able to indicate that because of the way the system works they will be rare. It doesnt really seem productive to try and convince you that you will LOVE this design since until you see it in action you will probably remain dubious of it. Its useful to have a dissenting voice because in some cases that raises important points and considerations that send us designers into a frenzy of discussion.

Thank you for being part of the crowdforging process. It benefits everyone in the long run.

Could Ryan, Lee, Stephen, Tork, somebody share the rationale for limiting support?

Probably not any clearer than we have already, heres a summary since some of these points are spread out across different threads/posts.

1) Encourage inter-settlement communication and travel- Specifically we want to encourage settlements to keep their gates open, at least while their PvP window is closed.

2) Encourage friction within settlement management - dont like the way your settlement is run or the choices they have made? Go and make your own, get elected to the leadership, or campaign for a leadership role in another settlement. Politic. Backstab. Organise a coup.

3) Encourage diversity in settlement creation - Alignment, faction interest, and reputation are mechanics that affect what a settlement can do. Social pressures within management, settlement location, and alliances are all external, non-mechanical pressures that will push each settlement in a unique direction.

4) Create interesting economic and social implications for Settlement - See a niche in the available training in-game? Fill it in your settlement and reap the rewards. First settlement to reach X% standing with a particular faction? Capitalize on that by being the first and only settlement to offer their specific training. Find yourselves in a relatively safe location and able to maintain some good alliances? Go crafting crazy and corner the trade market!

5) Create dependencies beyond the settlement - your settlement cant do everything and there are going to be gaps to fill... Maybe thats martial so you need to hire some mercenaries now and again. Maybe that crafting, so you need to ship in raw materials. Maybe thats gathering/harvesting, so you need to swap all your excess ore for some corn. Whatever the pressure, a settlement should not become a closed entity.

6) Create interesting mechanical balance and imbalance between settlements - settlements should be like characters. A mage can blast you from a distance but will come apart when you get up close. A cleric can play a long game with healing, buffs, and status effect removal for a long time but will struggle to close a battle...
We want this in settlements too. If your enemy is strong in X, develop Y. Every choice you make in PFO will close off other choices and that WILL make you vulnerable to certain kinds of attack.

Over all the answer is "your settlement should not be able to do everything". That is the driving principal within settlement systems. I hope from the above you can understand why, but I appreciate that there are players who will always say 'but I want to do X AND Y AND Z'. That, a good game does not make :) This is not a single player game and this is not WoW. You will not be the best at everything, even though you are paying to subscribe to this game. I know that for some players that is a frustrating prospect but that is the nature of PFO. That is the game we are setting out to make.

Choices and consequences.

FMS Quietus wrote:

Audoucet wrote:

Brighthaven because I want to be cleric, and my friend in Phaeros, because he wants to be a roguee. These are not opposed roles, and I would consider it very bad design to discourage it.

But you don't have to do that. You can have your friend live with you in Brighthaven, as long as it offers support for rogues. He would just need to go to Phaeros to train up his rogue.

Well yeah, except if phaeros doesn't support cleric, because it needed something else.

Yes. In in the remarkably unlikely situation you describe you would have to find another settlement to join together.

OR, since this is a game about interaction you could lobby for Cleric support. If this really is the settlement full of all your friends you should be able to get some good sway going. Hell, you could even often to take your friends out adventuring to raise both the DI (through trophy capture) and the resources to cover the cost of the Cleric structure yourself. If, however, you are living in a settlement where a) your role is super-niche and contrary to their focus and b) you are being ignored by settlement management, you might want to consider a new home anyway.

So in this example we can hopefully see the opportunity for both social interaction and meaningful choices.

Thank you for the clarification Tork. I didn't mean to seem ungrateful.

Oh, thats not what I meant - apologies - you were post 1 on page 5 so you might not have seen the previous stuff. Glad to have cleared that up!

Tork Shaw wrote:

All settlement buildings have the same reputation requirements.

That's probably where the disconnect comes from. A lot of us were probably thinking of the Alignment and Reputation blog. It had this part in it:

Quote:

Higher end structures, like tier 2 and 3 training and crafting facilities, require the settlement have its minimum Reputation set to certain levels to function. So if you want your town to have awesome training and crafting facilities, you have to set a high minimum Reputation to enter the settlement. This means characters that do a lot of PvP outside of wars, feuds, and such will be forced to visit less developed settlements that are wretched hives of scum and villainy.

I didn't realize that it had changed, so the two did feel not so much connected but that one compounded on the other quite well.

There hasnt actually been a change, its just that the original quote wasnt quite as clear as it could be...

Each tier of structure has a minimum reputation requirement to build. But a settlement's reputation requirement is set settlement wide.

So if you want to build high tier stuff you have to have a high settlement reputation minimum. That minimum applies to ALL settlement structures, even if they are crappy. There is only ONE reputation minimum per settlement even if you have structures of diverse tiers in that settlement.

What tombstone said.

See my reply.

sample settlements

Thanks Nightdrifter!

Tork Shaw wrote:

<Magistry> Toombstone wrote:

Tork Shaw wrote:

A settlement can potentially support nearly EVERY role up to the max level. Members of classes will have to travel to train but will hold onto any of the skills their home settlement supports. Let me say that again - A SETTLEMENT CAN SUPPORT NEARLY EVERY ROLE UP TO THE MAX LEVEL.

At what cost? How much of a settlement's DI and structure slots must they devote to achieve this? If it's *possible*. with an astronomically high cost, it doesn't solve the problem for those who are concerned.

At the cost of other settlement options. This question feels a bit meaningless. Your settlement cannot do everything, just like your character cannot do everything. If you want to have loads of classes supported you'll have to sacrifice crafting and special upgrades. If you want to support loads of crafting you'll have to sacrifice crafting and special upgrades.

This is how the game works. If its not for you, its not for you.

The question is about the relative magnitude of the sacrifice, not "is there a sacrifice." We all understand that supporting a large number of classes isn't completely free.

I posted 3 sample settlements previously. I forget what thread. Hopefully someone is able to link them for you. I cant be any clearer than that. If that doesnt answer your question you'll need to wait for a another blog post about settlements, which will unfortunately probably be a while now - settlement stuff is a wee ways off.

Could you elaborate on the separation of the systems? Mainly these two things that I'm wondering.

Do higher tier buildings still require a higher minimum reputation for the settlement?

Do higher tier buildings require more DI (thus limiting how many other buildings can be higher tier)?

All settlement buildings have the same reputation requirements.

Higher tier buildings cos more DI. If you want lots of high tier buildings get lots of DI. Just the same way as if you want lots of high tier skills you will needs lots of XP.

Tork Shaw wrote:

A settlement can potentially support nearly EVERY role up to the max level. Members of classes will have to travel to train but will hold onto any of the skills their home settlement supports. Let me say that again - A SETTLEMENT CAN SUPPORT NEARLY EVERY ROLE UP TO THE MAX LEVEL.

At what cost? How much of a settlement's DI and structure slots must they devote to achieve this? If it's *possible*. with an astronomically high cost, it doesn't solve the problem for those who are concerned.

At the cost of other settlement options. This question feels a bit meaningless. Your settlement cannot do everything, just like your character cannot do everything. If you want to have loads of classes supported you'll have to sacrifice crafting and special upgrades. If you want to support loads of crafting you'll have to sacrifice crafting and special upgrades.

This is how the game works. If its not for you, its not for you.

This thread is pretty all over the place. There are a number of different goals and agendas at play and thats making it very difficult for this to become a genuine discussion. I'm not going to wade in on any side or direction, but I am going to summarize what I think are the specific complaints and than address them.

Friends who want to play different styles/roles/alignments/reputations will NOT be able to:

a) play together : Incorrect.
Players can be members of multiple companies. Companies have the most minimal restrictions on membership, particularly non-sponsored companies. A diverse group of players could run together and even own a PoI together. Associating with players of violently opposite alignments may have implications for your own alignment, however, so Paladins and Assassins are unlikely to find it easy to work together.

b) live together : Incorrect.
A settlement can potentially support nearly EVERY role up to the max level. Members of classes will have to travel to train but will hold onto any of the skills their home settlement supports. Let me say that again - A SETTLEMENT CAN SUPPORT NEARLY EVERY ROLE UP TO THE MAX LEVEL. Players with vastly different reputations, however, will NOT be able to live at the same places - reputation will limit which settlements allow you to join.

c) Train together : Correct.
While a settlement can support nearly EVERY role it will only be possible to train a max (at the current revision) of 9. This does not affect their ability to LIVE together and get training elsewhere (see above). Players with vastly different reputations, however, will NOT be able to train at the same places - reputation will limit which settlements offer you training.

I'd also mention that the reputation system and the role/class/skill limitation system on settlements are ENTIRELY SEPARATE and designed to achieve separate goals. The reputation system is designed to discourage undesirable behaviour. The settlement limitations are designed to encourage interaction between settlements and players. These systems are not connected in the manner implied by much of the above discussion.

Hope this helps!

Are there currently any slows/grapples/etc that slowdown or stop your character when you are getting attacked? I notced little ? images popping up above my health bar just not sure what they are since they only have a ?. However, I could have sworn in a fight last night when I got ganged up on that they locked me donw so I couldn't move.

There are indeed, and by heavens its brutal! There is a stacking slow debuff that some of the bandit archers apply. The animations/effects are all wrong for it so you just seem to stop dead or slide forward very slowly, but it basically means DEATH right now if you are trying to get away.

<Magistry> Toombstone wrote:

What differences in basic combat can you be envisioning that would make them very different from theme park combat? It's the same stuff. Even just conceptually, what could be all that different from Everquest, SWTOR, LOTRO, WoW, any of them? You aggro some mobs and use various abilities to kill them. They usually run towards you and try to hit you. You either stand toe to toe with them, or kite them, or CC them, or root them, or AE them, or whatever.
What's going to be different?

I don't know what they're actually implementing so I can't say for sure.

But perhaps certain mobs are programmed to go after healers because they are a little smarter and know that the healer is the threat. Or maybe not and they have animal intelligence.

But to your specific point, this game will not have a point person to hold all the aggro so everyone else in the group doesn't have to worry about being attacked.

The difference between those games you mentioned and PFO is that PFO is intended to be a sandbox game. The ones you listed are Theme Park games and all use Trinity to balance out their scripted boss fights.

This feels like something of a debate so I'm only going to pop my head in briefly to say:

"What differences in basic combat can you be envisioning that would make them very different from theme park combat? It's the same stuff. Even just conceptually, what could be all that different from Everquest, SWTOR, LOTRO, WoW, any of them? You aggro some mobs and use various abilities to kill them. They usually run towards you and try to hit you. You either stand toe to toe with them, or kite them, or CC them, or root them, or AE them, or whatever.
What's going to be different?"

With a definition this broad it is very difficult to say what will be mechanically different - what you are describing here is every killing mechanic in every game ever. However, if we narrow the definition to be more useful, as Quietus does:

Its about tactics. The important goal we have for PvE is that the monsters do not behave significantly differently from the way that players would behave - much like monsters in tabletop which are controlled by the GM (effectively an omniscient player). Our monsters will have tactics of their own as well as responding to the attacker's tactics. They will not blindly follow aggro lists, but instead will react to certain types of play. Its impossible to see this in the current builds because there is very, very little AI right now. I believe they currently have ONE aggro list for each encounter, passed between the monsters. So first player to tag a monster is going to get them all on him almost indefinitely.

What we want to achieve with monster AI is a system where playing the PvE game is not radically different from playing the PvP game. This is where the distinction lies between PFO and the games mentioned above.

Tork, could help unpack your comments on what roles/parts of roles can be trained/supported?

Tork Shaw wrote:

Balanced Settlement: This is what I imagine a settlement who is trying to cover their bases will do. Its what I'd do, basically ;)

It trains 7 classes and supports 3 more (for a total of 10 supported).
It supports 4 feat schools.
It trains 6 craft skill.
It trains 5 trade skills.
It trains 12 Skills.

In this example, the first line sounds like a settlement could have 10 viable roles. Seven of them you can train in-house, and three you can support in-house, but essentially if your chosen role is one of the 10, you could live in Ozemtown and do your thing.

But then the second part makes no sense to me--I'm not sure what "feat schools" vs. "craft/trade skills" vs "skills" are. Do "feat schools" correspond to roles, so instead of training 7, you actually fully train four and then partially train three? If your trained roles included commoner and expert, would 6 craft+12 trade skills cover both roles?

I'm trying to get a handle on how many roles a settlement could make viable in their settlement--something like "We plan to train Fighter, Cleric, Rogue, Wizard, Paladin, Commoner, Expert, and support Aristocrat, Monk, and Bard," knowing that if someone wants to be a Ranger, Druid, Barbarian or Sorcerer, they are not really a good fit for us. But the "4 feats part" makes me think maybe the number is a lot smaller.

Tork Shaw wrote:

2) A quick example : The Cleric training facility is the Temple. It is a medium sized structure. The Temple can be leveled up to offer Cleric specific feats up to 1st, 2nd, then 3rd tier.

The Cleric support structure is called the Graveyard. It is a SMALL sized structure. It too can be leveled up to support Cleric specific feats to 1st, 2nd, then 3rd tier.

The building that trains Cleric (and paladin and likely druid/ranger/oracle) orisons/spells is called the Seminary. It is a medium sized structure. It can be

...

We are getting further and further away from the original blog so I'll do a quick run down on this but it will otherwise need to wait for a bigger settlement post I'm afraid. This is really a discussion about post-towers settlements to be honest.

Feat schools train sets of feats. An example is the Skirmisher school. It trains light weapons, archery skills, and feats one would expect characters wearing leather armor to want (dodges, evades, etc.)

The Thieves Guild trains rogues. It will have all the ROGUE specific skills like things related to sneak attack/uncanny dodge/etc.

So if you want to train rogues you'll need both the Thieves Guild to support rogue specific stuff AND most likely the Skirmisher school, since rogues will also want to learn light armor skills and light weapon skills.

The Skirmisher school will also cover lots of skills that light armored fighters, rangers, bards, and archers will want. So it does double/triple/quadruple duty on that end. If you want to support the primary class features of those classes, however, you will also need to build the specific structures required for those classes/roles.

Clearer?

Thanks for the clarifications Tork, it alleviates one of my two concerns. Personally, I'd love to see nation-level support structures that can be used for broad strokes of multiple-class support for its member settlements. In fact, I'm going to go toss that up on the idea board.

I'm liking this as a concept, but it does conflict somewhat with our overall design goals. The danger with nations is that they are already inherently VERY powerful and the best levers we have for 'control' are at the settlement level. The reason for both the division of classes/roles among settlements and the fealty systems (companies and settlements) is to to encourage friction and conflict even within alliances. Settlement level is where are best social and mechanical 'controls' come into play. Nations have the potential to seriously shift the powerbase in The River Kingdoms so we need to make sure their mechanical benefits are significant but different from the mechanics of settlements. What we dont want is for a player nation to be able to circumvent the restrictions placed on settlements.

But YES pop it up there and we can thrash it out down the line!

Tork Shaw wrote:

Yes its true that you will not be able to be in a settlement with EVERY class. This is a deliberate design choice.

2 questions, if you don't mind:

1) How do nation-level structures impact this?
2) Is there any power level disadvantage at all between a character who can train their class in their settlement, versus a character who trains with an ally and has a support structure in their settlement? Meaning, can support structures support the entire range of abilities that can be trained?

Thanks

Quick answers, sorry, I'm just doing some bug writing!

1) TBD. In principal the only advantage nations have is that they can freely move between/train between/and gain preferential training rates between associated settlements. Each settlement will still need to provide support structures for their members.

2) A quick example : The Cleric training facility is the Temple. It is a medium sized structure. The Temple can be leveled up to offer Cleric specific feats up to 1st, 2nd, then 3rd tier.

The Cleric support structure is called the Graveyard. It is a SMALL sized structure. It too can be leveled up to support Cleric specific feats to 1st, 2nd, then 3rd tier.

The building that trains Cleric (and paladin and likely druid/ranger/oracle) orisons/spells is called the Seminary. It is a medium sized structure. It can be leveled up to offer Wizard specific feats up to 1st, 2nd, then 3rd tier.

The support structure for the Seminary is called the Mission. It is a SMALL sized structure. It too can be leveled up to support Seminary skills (including all the classes the seminary supports) specific feats to 1st, 2nd, then 3rd tier.

SO - a settlement who wants to fully trains Clerics needs a Seminary (medium) and a Temple (medium).*

A settlement who wants to fully SUPPORT clerics needs a Graveyard (small) and Mission (small).

In both cases to support them fully they would need to upgrade those buildings with tier 2 and 3 facilities.

The only way there would be a power disadvantage would be if your Settlement was too stingy to spend the DI on the upgrades to support your class all the way.

*Note there are also large structures that can train clerics but I'm keeping this simple for now!

FMS Quietus wrote:

We had a discussion about this already. We will be offering support outside of our focus absolutely. Specifically the Rogue was mentioned to alleviate concerns on that front. Since details are few and far between, it's a very fluid conversation. We can't make any promises now on what priority will take place at this point.

That being said my understanding is that Tier 1 and 2 are available even in NPC towns for training. 3 and 4 require settlements with more advanced training. I could absolutely be wrong about this, but that is what I thought. I also thought they said we wouldn't get to tier 3 and 4 until a significant amount of time has passed. Well past the Tower War thing would of ended.

The thing that has me curious is the support structure not allowing access to players full range of skills. I thought when you trained somewhere else and had a support structure at your settlement- you were good to go. What disadvantage would someone be placed at?

Having people buy services for lesser results than having training in their own settlement seems counter productive. It discourages you to sell training and encourages settlements to do it themselves. That doesn't encourage commerce or interaction with other groups of people.

That may be true after the WotT, possibly. But during, it will be something like this:

Lee Hammock wrote:

For example, Torkville controls 6 towers and is a cleric/fighter settlement. It can train up to level 8 fighter and cleric related skills, feats, etc. It cannot train any wizard or rogue skills, but can support them up to level...say 5 (note I am pulling approxmiate numbers here, so if anyone tries to hold me to them in six months I will laugh and laugh). So people in the settlement can train and use up to level 8 skills for fighter and clerics, and if they train wizard and rogue skills somewhere else they can only use up to level 5 of those skills while being a member of that settlement. This is to stop people from...

A quick note on this... The level of support offered by the 'kit' settlements is still a little in flux. It is very possible that in fact support will be to the full level of the trained classes in each settlement. In fact I think it is likely. As Lee mentioned he was still spit-balling a bit about exactly how that would work and we're still hammering out the deets. I've been drawing up the sample settlements and it seems likely we will end up with full support for non-trained classes.