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Bought it just for Fist Full of Flowers adventure, which had somehow slipped under my radar You bought a humble bundle to get an adventure that Paizo offers for free? Man, don't run a business.
So how did revisiting the idea go?
Over 6k now, galaxy move there, Paizo.
Troubles in Otari, all the Free RPG Day free adventures, all good choices. I'd avoid Plaguestone, it has some major balance issues due to being drafted in parallel to the final rules and adventure writers not having yet the hang of the new system.
I hate 2nd especially for reducing the number of spells each level especially early level spells. If anything I think we should have more 1st level spell slots to start with, maybe +3. Now as for cantrips I would be fine if they just increased the dice damage by two steps and let you add your casting stat mod to damage. Cantrips in PF2 scale automatically with your level, so your Ray of Frost or Telekinetic Projectile remains a relevant spell for all 20 levels of your career. Next time try to get yourself familiar with the stuff you're "hating", because I've lost the count of times when your desires for fixes to PF1 are things that are actually addressed in PF2.
Yeah, no, no amount of further houseruling 3.5 in form of PF 1.675 would address the underlying issues of Ivory Tower game design and rewarding system mastery while punishing the lack of it. You can put more makeup on a donkey, but it still will be a donkey. It was a fun game if your idea of fun was running some obscene DPR Shikigami Style build and smirking as your fellow party members ran any hopeless "sword and broad fighter with Toughness, Skill Focus and Nimble Moves" PCs and watching as the math-challenged GM desperately tried to balance encounters to make sure we both have the equal amount of fun. Which, in the end, would always prove impossible.
(specifically, the radical change in class balance from PF 1E). You can't change something that doesn't exist.
"I love PF2 butttt I hate everything about it, the math is fundamentally broken, I made a melee sorcerer and it didn't work" is some take.
PF1 being written in natural language (and thus running into various issues out of that, such as "what action is this???") and PF2 being written in technical/legal language. ("Stride once and Strike twice") is probably the biggest barrier for somebody moving from one to another) Legal language a problem? Well, you should have studied law, like I did!
PF1 being written in natural language (and thus running into various issues out of that, such as "what action is this???") and PF2 being written in technical/legal language. ("Stride once and Strike twice") is probably the biggest barrier for somebody moving from one to another)
Best: Setting, stamina mechanic, setting, funky playable alien species Worst: Spaceship combat and a ruleset that's something of a weird half-step between PF1 and PF2 while having simultaneously the worst parts of PF1 (Ivory Tower game design, skill system, narrow class design) while not having the best parts of PF2 (action economy, auto-scaling cantrips, skill system).
The other was absolutely insistent that Paizo would be shuttering 2e within two years unless they made the changes he personally wanted to see to the system. Went so far as to make me promise to apologize personally to him for defending the system when it happened. I told him I would if he would do the same if 2e was a success. I have a list of "I think PF2 will flop within a year, maybe two" people somewhere :)
Pathfinder Facebook groups are full of people who swung from "Paizo is the best company ever, they saved D&D!" to "Paizo betrayed me just like WotC did when they put out 4e, not gonna buy anything from them ever again, have fun going bankrupt Mr. Bullman!!!!" to "Just bought all PF2 core books, Paizo is the saviour of the industry!". These people operate entirely on emotion and will throw their money at whoever they currently perceive to be respecting their "true D&D gamer" identity.
One of my favourite parts of this story is people (not necessarily referring to anybody in this thread) who, 3 years ago, swore Paizo off forever for betraying their feelings by publishing a new edition of the game but are now back cheering for the Purple Golem because it's the only entity that stands a chance of pushing back against legal action by WotC and hopefully preventing a de-authorisation of OGL 1.0a (and thus effective killing of any future PF1-compatible material).
The big leap that makes Chat GPT better than what came before it is the AI's ability to remember 15 messages worth of context. That number will likely grow as we learn to make this kind of AI more efficient alongside the inevitable upgrades in the hardware running the AI. Turns out ChatGPT made such a big leap only because it hired Kenyan moderators at 2 USD / hour to weed out all the paedophillia porn stories that sweaty American nerds tried to make it process. So much for "Artificial" intelligence.
Investigators do not need to use electric arc to stay functional. the class is just as functional as any other. Please tell me how it fails to function. Nooo they'll now spend twenty punctuation-deprived posts explaining how it has crap DPR and can't solo anything.
I'm playing a level 16 Investigator in Agents of Edgewatch, and I've never felt at any point worse than the other classes. You get to predict your rolls and adjust what you're doing based on that; you have a ton of detective feats that are exclusively yours and will make the GM sweat their brain to keep up with all the ways you can get to know things, you are the ultimate Recall Knowledge generator, there's plenty beyond raw damage that goes into the class. It's one of the funniest classes to play in the game, breaking the fourth/fifth wall and messing with everything in ways a clever GM can use to make the game so much more engaging. Above all, coming to a "what do we need more" thread to talk about what's bad and what you need less is a quintessential example that for some people, negativity is the easiest (and sometimes only) way they can express themselves.
Which is hopelessly outdated, doesn't include most rulebooks and has been for all practical purposes abandoned.
If Paizo is planning some power move as a consequence of the OGL kerfuffle - and whispers in the woods are that they are - Marketing and PR will be hands-on in getting a lot of work done very fast, as is the design team. See? This is me being correct because I am always correct. Talk to the hand.
If Paizo is planning some power move as a consequence of the OGL kerfuffle - and whispers in the woods are that they are - Marketing and PR will be hands-on in getting a lot of work done very fast, as is the design team.
I think that Paizo's resources are now mostly focused on the OGL situation, and some things will land on the back burner for a while, including previews.
The best part of that Reddit is that its aggressive moderation policies keep some people away, as evidenced by this thread.
The intent of the authors is one thing, and the intent of the organisation that hired the authors is another.
For some people, "I'm a free market small government liberal-conservative" ends with their first child; for some, with their first medical bill that requires crowdfunding; and for some, with the first attempt by a major corporation to take over their favourite game about pretending to be an elf.
Adventure hook, a successful Gnome adoption bureau "Flick-a-Family" used to flourish and took a lot of loans with Skeleton Crew Financing Inc. to help their business grow. But then a dramatic crash in gnomish adoptions leaves them unable to pay the mounting rates, and SCF CEO Boney Chilla comes to collect. With their last spare gp, gnomes hire the party to protect them from Boney's bone-crushing enforcer, Skullhead...
It's almost as if PF2 was written with the eventuality of WotC pulling off s!!~ like this at some point. Almost ... still would have to excise Tieflings and replace them with Fiendspawn ;-)
I haven't read this whole thread, but I've been following developments over on reddit. One thing that was mentioned was calling their customer service and telling them, politely and calmly, your complaint about their actions regarding the OGL. It can't hurt. To my best knowledge, Wizards ditched telephone customer service ages ago and now only do it via the website.
The proficiency system isn't based on 5e, it's actually more like 3.5/PF1 where you, heh, do a simple addition of your level (imagine having a rank in the skill at every level in 3.5, it's the same), stat modifier, proficiency (not unlike class skill bonus) and whatever bonuses from items you have. It's literally the same degree of math, except without all the obtuse 584 categories of buffs you get three. 5e has just proficiency + stat and not much else, and the proficiency goes up just 2 or 3 times, ever. PF2 backgrounds =/= 5e backgrounds, and while at it, PF1 had backgrounds too, they were called "traits" and "alternate racial traits", functionally the same thing. Spell scaling works entirely differently, in PF2 only cantrips scale automatically while everything else needs to be heightened in advance, with 5e you can switch around what spells you cast at what level cast them. If you would spend some time with games other than 3.5/PF1, you'd notice that PF2 has much more 4e/13th Age DNA than any other D&D variant. You'd get a cookie for calling that out, sure, since PF2 poached some of the best design ideas of 4e and didn't take the worse ones. So, no cookie. I get it, you're unhappy that PF2 exists, unhappy that people enjoy it, and feel betrayed and cast aside by Paizo. Cool. But you don't have to make up things along the way and imply that people who enjoy PF2 are "worse at math", you can just tell everybody how you feel.
They should make a movie where characters break straight-facedly shout stuff like, "I am Throan Thunderbeard, Stone Dwarf Cleric level 6, and I cast flame shield!" or "I will disable this trap, I have the Master Burglar feat!". This way, at least some of the middle-aged fans would feel like this is a true D&D movie that respects their feelings (but just some, others would launch into a war over which edition of the game is being depicted and why all other editions are insults to the game and killed Gary Gygax).
Probably would have been more a 1.5 than what we got with lots of aped features from 5e. If you can name three 5e features "aped" by PF2, you'll get a cookie.
In a completely not-surprising turn, WotC just forbid any discussion of OGL 1.1 on the official D&D Discord. They really want to burn the bridge they are standing on, I'm having the feeling that some boomer exec who doesn't understand the hobby came down on Wizards and told them to shift things up and get rid of that Paizo thing, this will be a fun catastrophe to watch.
You don't know if I've ever had a problem with that. What a massive assumption.A 20cm tall Sprite is hitting with a Greataxe for exactly the same damage as 120cm tall Ratfolk, but you never had a problem with that. You've been around for at least 2 years and haven't raised it even once. So, yeah, I'm making an easy assumption that you never had a problem with that - likely because your actual problem is not WHAT changes are being made, but WHY are they being made. Game balance thing that results in Small and Medium weapons doing the same damage is fine with you because game balance doesn't trigger you; a change that comes from a societal thing sets you off. Predictable.
the outrage among DnD fans is likely to be muted at best. Depends on what D&D fans you're talking about. Old grognards who cling to their OD&D copy will likely not care. But sensitive, centre-leftist anti-capitalist kids who got in the game through the Critical Role/cosplay/"I can be a trans nymph here, and nobody will judge me" pipeline? WotC might be severely underestimating how toasty and quick to self-ogranise against a corporate cash grab these rainbow folks are. If they/them fairies of colour end up bringing the house down on Hasbro overlords and saving Pathfinder (and other games) in the process, some of the more conservative fans (including ones clutching their pearls this week over bioessentialism right now) might feel a bit awkward :D
I'm amused by the timing of that PBS hit-piece on the OSR community that just so happened to drop right in the middle of this growing OGL situation. WotC doing a little media battlefield prep, if I'm not mistaken. Wizards really must be worried about the optics of this whole thing if they're already thinking along those lines....What they want is for everything to be handled by a license that is more draconian than the GSL was and may try to accomplish it, but their own words about the OGL would rise to the level of contract in a court and their attempts would be thrown out. The FAQ was used to make business decisions more than 20 years ago and they clearly state that every version of the OGL would always be permanent. I wonder if Hasbro even knows that FAQ exists as it has subsequently been removed from the WotC web site, but as we all know the internet is forever. Nothing in law is forever. People get divorced (despite promising publicly to be together till the end), contractual clauses get thrown out by judges, obligations - even one you've imposed on yourself - get voided. That's what courts are for, among others, to untangle yourself from legal situations you did not foresee 20 years ago. WotC has a VERY long shot here, but it has a shot. And in American law, where business-to-business litigation is brutal and frequently more about who has the money than who is right, a long shot might be all they need to win.
You only noticed the weapon size thing because I pointed it out; it's been like this for three years. This means, it never really was a problem for you because if it were something important, you'd notice and raise it sooner.
This being the American legal system, Paizo could win but lose - an ultimate victory in the court followed by going bankrupt because legal fees are a beach. So, they might decide to ditch OGL and rework the game as a less expensive and disruptive proposition than a protracted legal battle. We might end 2023 with Pathfinder 2.5e where your attributes are Might, Agility, Stamina, Smarts, Wits and Personality, you lose Life Points if an attack beats your Protection Class, and you cast Arcane Missile at a Birdbear. We might also see a TTRPG market where anguished sensitive fans who bought into the open-minded 5e era WotC abhor the corporate money grab by Hasbro lords of boards and decide to explore other RPGs, which wouldn't be that bad.
Soo, it was in constantly shifting plans, but nobody was really working on it beyond constantly shifting planning! Tangentially, what a different Paizo (and universe) would have been if PF2 had launched in 2015 or 2016.
Why didn't they use Follow the Expert to have people Expert+ in Athletics "pull up" the stragglers? Unless that was very early levels and nobody was Expert in Athletics yet, that is.
A 20cm tall Sprite is hitting with a Greataxe for exactly the same damage as 120cm tall Ratfolk, but you never had a problem with that.
As for mechanical reasons to play humans: Natural Ambition, Natural Skill, General Training, Clever Improviser. Human ancestry feats are some of the most versatile and powerful in the game.
Humans were already a minority at many gaming tables (at least at all the ones I frequent); this will make them all but extinct. Who cares about what happens at a gaming table or two in America? I don't.
Technically, the flickmace doesn't need any ancestry feats if you just ask your GM if you can use it. Technically, you can cast wish as an at-will spell with no material components if you just ask GM nicely.
They weren't released, they were in development. Or do you think it just takes a couple of weeks to design, playtest, write, and edit a rules system (even simple ones)? Even the AP's had around a 1 year development cycle that was always on going. Nice ad hominem strawman there, but so it happens that we have more or less a good idea when the development of PF2 started. Wayne Reynolds got heads-up that a new edition is coming (and his skills will be needed) in late 2015. 5e took 3-4 years to make (first playtest doc in 2012, release in 2014), 4e took 3 years, PF1 took 2-3 years (decision in 2006 when 4e came out, full product in 2009) so it's safe to assume that in 2014, PF2 wasn't even in the plans and Starfinder was likely at very early stages - and done by a separate team. The quality issues of PF1 softcover books like this one came not from parallel development, but from the quantity > quality publishing model. The playerbase cared more for getting 53490 feats/archetypes/spells monthly, less so about the quality, and Paizo followed suit.
Pain Taster is from Occult Mysteries, it's a 2014 book, from back when neither Pathfinder 2e nor Starfinder was a thing for Paizo at any rate.
The REAL BIG MEANINGFUL change to Golarion that this errata brings will be a dramatic fall in the number of people of all ancestries who were adopted by gnomes. I'm all for diversity and having fewer "every Paladin was found in the wild after being raised by fey" situations as we had in PF1.
The REAL BIG MEANINGFUL change to Golarion that this errata brings will be a dramatic fall in the number of people of all ancestries who were adopted by gnomes.
There's no need to. Literally nothing in the "Physical Description" of Elves suggests they are frailer than other ancestries, or of Fetchlings that they are in some way more dexterous. Fragile grace could be +Cha or -Str, the "immense talent and knowledge" line is about how others see Elves, and honestly, we're in the "all X are Y" stereotype territory which is what Paizo likely wanted to ditch. That guy above with his rant about supposedly universal American traits, is a great example of why this kind of stuff belongs in the trashcan.
This is one of my favorite PnP modules. Wish it wasnt so darn hard to locate online, old as it is, it at times feels like it's been buried! It's not. The compilation you linked includes Hollow’s Last Hope, Crown of the Kobold King, and Hungry are the Dead, but not other Falcon's Hollow-related modules.
I have no problem with max-maxing. Min-maxing, where you try to weaken your character in one area to strengthen it in others, tends to end in two ways - it's either optimisers who know exactly what they're doing and end up with that one true optimal ancestry/class/flaw combo OR folks who think they're making the game more interesting by playing an STR 14 melee Fighter, but it doesn't really work. I know that you can't eliminate those situations entirely due to how PF stat generation works, but in an ideal world, I'd have a system that mandates at least a 16 in your key ability and doesn't let you go below 10 in anything. I'm weird like that.
So you either wanted to play a frail Human for purely roleplaying reasons with no mechanical representation, which means you're not affected at all, you're good to go with telling everybody how sickly and tired you are every half an hour, or you were trying to minmax/shoot yourself in the foot, in which case I'm glad you can't.
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