Travis Enright's page

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I think the thing is, though, that "fun" is a holistic quality not an atomic one. We want to see if the game itself is fun, or if a specific way of playing it is fun, but we can't answer "is it fun" by drilling down and looking at specific isolated mechanics, since "fun" comes from the interplay of those mechanics.

Exactly. For instance, character creation may not be "fun" but is that because of the books layout? Which has nothing to do with mechanics. Or is it because the specific character options are poorly designed? Or is it because the character sheet is awful? Or is it because some players like learning new systems and think that's "fun", but other people do not like to learn new systems and do not think that's "fun". Or is it based on the class or ancestry? Or the player's skill level?

Not that having "fun" isn't important but polling that doesn't provide actionable data. It's like asking, "Is something wrong with the country?" You'd probably find out that a lot of people think something is wrong with the country but that doesn't provide any actionable data on how to rectify that. More specific questions built around data points, not opinions, can tease out commonalities that the respondents were not even aware of.

I just want to chime in about how much I love this post. I agree on a lot of points:

• Survey writing is difficult
• It's hard to notice what you aren't asking
• Actionable data is important

and I think they tie into the issue of forum feedback:

• Forum posts provide answers to unasked questions but
• Forum posts are often not play-informed and
• Often not constructive

I worry that Paizo might be best served by recognizing how ambitious some of this is, and spend more time getting player feedback, asking questions and taking answers, delaying release. It's really easy to ask vague questions with the assumption that they give more information than they do. The forums could be a great place to get an idea of what questions to ask and to ask long-form response questions and watch the discussion unfold.

A new edition is a great opportunity and I think it would serve Paizo to really take the chance to include the community in the final stages of development. I think Paizo timed all this for a reason, and I don't know what those reasons are exactly, but I think it's worth considering tapping the break and taking the amazing opportunity they have here to bring d20 into the contemporary age while keeping true to Pathfinder's identity. I don't think that can be done without heavy, constructive, and highly facilitated community involvement in the discussion. Paizo has the opportunity to channel so much passion and experience from the community, but that will take time. I honestly believe it would lead to the best product, though, and the best returns in the long run.

Travis Enright wrote:

A party of four sorcerers, two divine, two arcane is pretty powerful right now. Aside from being able to cover both arcane and divine casting, with 2nd level Fighter Dedication, 4th level Magical Striker and 8th level Fighter's Resiliency they can pretty much cover the important bases of an adventure party, with two divine sorcerers and two arcane sorcerers.

With the Divine Sorcerers wielding a shortbow, having a free hand except when attacking, they can cast two-action heal (heightened to any spell level needed) to heal an ally at range, and empower their single bow strike. If there's no one to heal, they can throw down banes and blesses, deepening crit ranges and padding ACs with -1 attack penalties. There's very little need for any other divine spells, since this is effectively a martial build that can heal, so they have, in effect, 4 heals at each spell level, per day, times two sorcerers of this build.

With the Arcane Sorcerers wielding a d12 weapon, casting True Strike (which is Verbal only, single action) then attacking with advantage. Either they have a high crit chance on one attack, or they're rolling an average between 13 and 14 on 2d20High, with an extra +1 bonus, practically overtaking the -5 Multi-attack penalty. In addition to True Strike, at second level spells they get Mirror Image, third level Haste and fourth level Weapon Storm.

That really only works if you like 5 minute working days. Good luck maintaining anything like that on your 5th encounter of the day - where the true warrior keeps on trucking. Well, once you add enough clerics, otherwise everyone's long dead by then, of course, but that's a whole different discussion.

So far this party has run everything up to Heroes of Undarin no problem. Cleared out both the whole tomb and the boss in for In Pale Mountain's Shadow, without a rest. Affair at Sombrefell also doesn't offer a rest, and was no problem. Heroes of Undarin is the real test of staying power, and that's the next encounter we're running.

A party of four Giths, I am so stoked that this is going to work can't wait. Here is what you need to keep in mind. Everything you explained, took up resource(spells), and actions. Also that its an action to re grip a d12 weapon after casting as somatic or material casting action. Also the party does have some weaknesses, they seem strong to you now, they lack shield usage, and they also rely a lot on melee prowess, I understand that one of them used a bow, but its pretty much a d6 damage weapon, because I doubt any of them picked up point blank to overcome the longbow volley penalty. You think the healing is overpowered, think in terms of how much damage creatures do now in a short amount a time, the other day in a game I was in the Manticore crit a character at knocked him down to 0. If the Gm wanted to he could have had the Manticore kill the character with its other attacks, but he pulled punches, that means if no one heals that character he dies when he rolls a crit fail on his recovery roll. And the recovery roll is a pretty difficult save, don't think of the healing in a vacuum, or in the lens of PF1. Those two divine giths are going to need those healing spells desperately. Have the intelligent monster focus the healers. Now you have a gith with an archer build in melee and thats never good, yes I realize that you can do archery in melee with no penalty, but that is going to get house ruled out my games as soon as this play test is over. Firing off bows in the middle of a melee skirmish with no drawbacks doesn't even make sense. I degress.

I can see where you're coming from, though there are some things to note. I didn't forget the action to re-grip. The spells I mentioned were True Strike (V), Mirror Image (Preparatory), Haste (Preparatory) and Weapon Storm (V, S, but: "Your Somatic Casting action for this spell is a swing with one weapon you’re holding that you’re trained with, so you can use the Somatic Casting action even if you don’t have a hand free."). All spell slots are dedicated to these spells, so re-gripping is a nonissue.

The non-spell rounds for each of these characters is okay, not great, but passable for how quickly they barrel through major threats when using spell slots. The melee sorcerer's mundane attack has a bonus 1 less than that of a fighter, and deals the same damage, until Weapon Specialization at 13th when they fall behind by an additional 1, and again at 19th, as the fighter's proficiency rises. Given the hugely negative reaction to proficiency caps via Signature Skills we'll see if the final cut still lacks a way for other classes to get better with those things. The melee sorcerers also lack Fighter Feats until 14th, though 14th and 18th level feats can be dedicated to fighter feats, one level 1/2 and one level <9. I'd go for Furious Focus or Opportunity, and either Quick Reversal or Swipe. The falloff over levels is mitigated by having full sorcerer casting. This opens up tactical tools like walls of x and black tentacles at 5th, devastating ways of mitigating high-value targets like Baleful Polymorph and Flesh to Stone and nasty burst like Phantasmal Calamity at 6th, at 7th you have Reverse Gravity, combined with Fly. Essentially, as you fall behind the fighter, the fact that you're a full-casting sorcerer takes the fore, but you're also still a competent if not optimized fighter. And lets not forget that cantrips cast at your highest levels, so you have decent no-cost ranged options, and effects like Tanglefoot lasting a minute when you have 4th level casting.

Two of them use bows, the divine casters. They use shortbows because of the range limitation on Heal. The bow is an underwhelming weapon, but it means having a double heal line (providing more heal than a single cleric) and that heal line still puts out consistent damage, if underwhelming in its numbers. With those bows being magical, though, and one higher than they should be after healing, it's still a good number of d6. The healing is more than a cleric at most early levels, and the sorcerers don't need to dip into two stats to get more heals (cha) and larger heals (wis) like a cleric, they get more heals from spell slots. I posted the numbers in an earlier post, but by having two healers with 4 slots per level each, instead of 1 with 3 slots per level + 7-ish flat the number of heals available outscale the cleric by a lot. Each time one of them heals they also get an extra d6 to their attack, and a +1 to hit which, in 2e, contributes to crit range.

It's not as good healing as 2 clerics (until higher levels as a cleric would need 24 charisma to get 9 channels to make up for the +1 spell slot per level Sorcerers get), but it's better output.Those sorcerers also have a reasonable AC because they're Dex focused for their bows, and since they don't need Fighter's Resilience nearly as badly they have more fighter feat slots, allowing them to assisting shot, point blank shot, and double shot, or even skip point blank shot and grab triple shot later. Assisting shot is an interesting situation, because both archers can use assisting shot, one to lower AC, one to give an attack bonus, providing a total +4, extending the crit range on the striker instead of firing their weapon.

Travis Enright wrote:

Hastur! Hastur! Hastur! wrote:

Counter point:

3 Fighters with Furious focus and a healing cleric. Which also has the advantage of not burning spells on every attack.

Jokes aside I am happy that your unusual group seems to be working. :)

A fighter only benefits from Furious Focus if they miss their first attack, and only has a +1 to-hit advantage over a sorcerer (expert vs trained with the weapon)

A fighter gets no benefit from Furious Focus on their first attack, as it has the Press trait and so the failure condition only applies on an attack with at least -4 Multiple Attack Penalty.

Saying "first attack" was an error, should have read "the attack", but the meat of the argument remains. Furious Focus won't allow you to get more hits in at a similar attack bonus, just affords you one chance to recover from a miss and swing again at the same bonus. True Strike lets you average the almost the same total on a second attack, regardless of the first. That is to say, if a fighter hits twice furious focus does nothing, and their third attack is at a -10 (barring modifiers). If the fighter misses their second attack their round of combat is still an attack at -0 and an attack at -5. A strike-> true/magical striker -> strike affords an attack at -0 and an attack at -4 with advantage, rolling an extra damage die on a hit.

One of my players discovered this combo with the universalist wizard. True strike, magical striker and strike with hand of the apprentice. It has been pretty effective. Generally it seems easier now to build effective Gish builds. Full casters maybe need a little more boosting.

I think the biggest problem with full casters is that the spell lists are pretty disappointing, but I figure that's just because of the page limit for the playtest. I'm sure the fleshed out lists will make them much better.

Counter point:

3 Fighters with Furious focus and a healing cleric. Which also has the advantage of not burning spells on every attack.

Jokes aside I am happy that your unusual group seems to be working. :)

A fighter only benefits from Furious Focus if they miss their first attack, and only has a +1 to-hit advantage over a sorcerer (expert vs trained with the weapon)

If the sorcerer casts true strike the +1 magical makes their attack as good as a fighter's attack with the same stat line, and rolling twice on top of that. Yeah it costs spell slots, but Sorcerers get so many, 3 or 4 per day at each level as opposed to the 2 or 3 other casters get. And since this is basically a martial build Spell Strike is the only spell you're using in most cases.

A healing cleric with 18 wis, 18 cha, has 9 heals at 1st level, 10 at 2nd, 12 at 3rd, 13 at 4th

Two sorcerers with 18 cha have 6 heals at 1st level, 8 at 2nd, 14 at 3rd, 16 at 4th.

At 5th with the attribute increase the cleric can spend 2 boosts to get one more heal per day.

At 5th the sorcerers can spend two boosts to get +1 to each heal, and a bonus to their save dcs and spell rolls.

At 5th the cleric has 16 heals, 17 at 6th, 19 at 7th, 20 at 8th, 22 at 9th.

At 5th the sorcerers have 22 heals, 24 at 6th, 30 at 7th, 34 at 8th, 40 at 9th.

The Cleric starts out better, by a little, then gets outscaled hard by the Sorcerer's extra slot per level and getting to have a second divine caster (since both pull weight as damage dealers)

Also funny side-note, a sorcerer can wield a weapon two hand and still shield block with the shield cantrip. Haha.

A party of four sorcerers, two divine, two arcane is pretty powerful right now. Aside from being able to cover both arcane and divine casting, with 2nd level Fighter Dedication, 4th level Magical Striker and 8th level Fighter's Resiliency they can pretty much cover the important bases of an adventure party, with two divine sorcerers and two arcane sorcerers.

With the Divine Sorcerers wielding a shortbow, having a free hand except when attacking, they can cast two-action heal (heightened to any spell level needed) to heal an ally at range, and empower their single bow strike. If there's no one to heal, they can throw down banes and blesses, deepening crit ranges and padding ACs with -1 attack penalties. There's very little need for any other divine spells, since this is effectively a martial build that can heal, so they have, in effect, 4 heals at each spell level, per day, times two sorcerers of this build.

With the Arcane Sorcerers wielding a d12 weapon, casting True Strike (which is Verbal only, single action) then attacking with advantage. Either they have a high crit chance on one attack, or they're rolling an average between 13 and 14 on 2d20High, with an extra +1 bonus, practically overtaking the -5 Multi-attack penalty. In addition to True Strike, at second level spells they get Mirror Image, third level Haste and fourth level Weapon Storm.

What kinds of characters are people running in the playtest? (Just to get a feel of which options are popular, and which are being ignored by the player base.)

Four Sorcerers,

All take Fighter Dedication 2nd level
Arcane use Bastard Swords, two-handed, with True Strike and Magical Striker.
Divine use Composite Shortbows with Heal and Magical Striker.

With Crafting, and selling two staffs from starting 3rd level treasure everyone can afford a +1 Magical weapon.

The party one-rounded Henah, on top of having up to 16 castings of Heal available, not all of which were used.