Tremaine's page

Balkoth wrote:

"Wait, that's it? And I can't do anything more unless I crit succeed? And I have do this every round? And the champions can't help me subdue this guy beyond a +1/+2 bonus with Aid? This doesn't make narrative sense."

What? What did he expect? He narratively basically strongly grasped an enemy's clothes or a limb. Should the enemy have died from that? Or have lost ability to cast spells?

THIS is nonsensical, not Grapple.

There are some strangling abilities, but they are at higher level, specialized and strongly depend on GM adjudication to work for the most part.

I think it is how different people see grappling, to me it is like an MMA or Pankration grapple i.e, you are both on the ground, smashing each other with fists, trying to lock in the pin, or move to a ground and pound beat down.

In that scenario, yea complex hand movements and precise wording to cast don't make sense, I mean you could try, but as soon as you move your hands away from defence you get a thumb in the eye trying to kill you.

But that isn't what pf2e grappling is, it's more like a bouncer hold than a savage contest.

Here's hoping we get a war priest closer to the 1e version, reduced spell casting, more reliant on focus spells, and focused on enhancing their deities favoured weapons into usefulness. (Upping a weapon to 1D6 doesn't make it good, just makes it kinda useable).

But apart from that, like the description of the archetypes so far, and having the Slayer sort of back is welcome, while the Inquisitors name being changed makes sense.

I was inspired to write this after reading through the forums. Off the bat, please keep it civil. How do you define fun? Is it eeking out every last possible point of damage? Minmaxing your character to the peak of efficiency? Effortless role-play? What do you consider a must-have at the table?

I'll start. I'm easy. If my friends are there and having fun, I'm good. I'm not trying to create fine cinema at my table. I miss roles. My monsters take it easy on the players. Five adults sit around a table every other week and don't think about life.

What I find fun in a system (as opposed to hanging out with friends which works without needing an RP game), is blasting whether that is as a dpr Mage chaining lightning bolts and fireballs or a Paladin/Warpriests raining smites and judgement on the unclean,standing in someone's face and blasting out every action as an attack, outside of combat I like the figure out the plots and relationships side of RP.

I don't enjoy, not do I find interesting the buff/debuff (whether by spell or combat manuveur) cycle in RP games, I have wargames and Skirmish games for that.

Tremaine wrote:

Swashbucklers can't perform what I at least see as the core of that fantasy: lightning bladework that has crippled the target before a bond one liner and the coup de grace

This is a good description of the braggart swashbuckler's style. But, if you really prioritize "crippling" a target, I assure you that the thief rogue will fill the fantasy perfectly well.

Tremaine wrote:

Now they are a long setup single heavy attack class which is...a choice I guess?

No, they're not. The bravado trait makes getting panache much easier (and, hence, no longer dependent on potentially long and painful setups), and it's usually perfectly viable--indeed, often optimal--to use your finisher as your second attack in a round rather than your first.

. Still trapped in the 1 ok attack, 1 bad attack and think of something to do, which is guaranteed to be less fun than attacking regime.

Tremaine wrote:

Swashbucklers can't perform what I at least see as the core of that fantasy: lightning bladework that has crippled the target before a bond one liner and the coup de grace,for instance the rapier and dagger fight in Alariste, the saber duel in The Deluge, the Laurus Nobilis Messer fight on YouTube (some are more drawn out, but it is always blistering speed, and focus against a single target).

I see that as more a factor of designing a character in a TTRPG rather than writing a character's script for a manga, movie, or TV show.

If one of the classes in the game could reliably cripple a target at the same action cost as combat banter, then that class would be horribly, brokenly, OP.

True, but applying debuffs by strikes in exchange for reducing damage done could work, and 'crippling' was the same kind of hyperbole that has barbarians 'cleaving enemies in half'

Swashbucklers can't perform what I at least see as the core of that fantasy: lightning bladework that has crippled the target before a bond one liner and the coup de grace,for instance the rapier and dagger fight in Alariste, the saber duel in The Deluge, the Laurus Nobilis Messer fight on YouTube (some are more drawn out, but it is always blistering speed, and focus against a single target).

Now they are a long setup single heavy attack class which is...a choice I guess?

AestheticDialectic wrote:

I personally feel the sorcerer should be the premier blaster caster if we are going to supply one for players and that a pf3 could use something like the mechanics for the kineticist, or a hybrid of it and casting as it is now, to replace spontaneous casting and create the power budget and thematics for people looking for this hyper specific, narrowly focused kind of caster. My only thing is that I don't think this should be the wizard, I think the wizard should just be an alright to decent blaster

Sorcerers are the supreme blaster caster. That's why you don't see many threads complaining about sorcerers. They're too busy being badass.

I've never played a disappointing sorcerer. Great at social skills like Intimidate or Diplomacy. Dangerous sorcery adds up as you level. Spontaneous blasting as needed, truly able to switch between types of blasts as needed for maximum efficiency. Decent focus spells to enhancing blasting. Blood magic.

Sorcerer blasters do tons of damage as they level.

Like I keep saying, mainly the wizard players are unhappy, maybe witches.

Most of the other classes feel super badass. You ever play a storm druid with an an animal companion and a weapon? You don't feel the slightest bit weak.

You ever played a cleric healing all day?

Or a sorc picking from 4 spells were level with sig spells and good feats and cool blasting focus spells?

It all feels great. Just that one class at low level that doesn't really standout for doing much of anything but casting spells is unhappy. Everyone else has stuff to do from level 1 on.

Spot the difference between these two characters Dr Finius Von Blastingham, has studied the application of fire magic since he was 10, dedicated hours to understanding the process, application and applicable concepts to the manipulation of mana to cause fire, as well as how normal fire acts, the various denizens of the plane of fire etc.

Fergal O'kaboom. Some guy whose ancestor had some multiplayer activities with someone who was more out of this world than they thought.

And number 2 is the better fire caster.

It would be pretty weird if you wouldn't notice the difference given the significant mechanical differences between how their damage gimmicks work.

Like even at a most basic level rogues want to land as many attacks as possible in a round while Swashbucklers are built around setting up one augmented attack.

I can't even fathom how you wouldn't notice that in play...

Swashs being set up for single attacks was always weird to me, the inspiration for them is characters famous for incredibly fast bladework, styling on the slow, brutal enemies...yet finishers make you that slow brute (Souls like dodge roll, then a single, powerful strike isn't very Errol Flynn)

But then a rogue with Twin Feint plays more like an historic swash

Tremaine wrote:

Again you list things that the guys wanting to play blasters do not want to be able to do, as reasons the only fun thing about combat in this game (doing damage) should be bared to wizards.

I also listed the advantages that they have while only blasting.

Unless you mean people that want to play a blaster wizard want to only cast Shocking Grasp?

Nope, but then the big thing that is usually saved against and gets done a few times a day compares ok with 'doing the thing that usually misses but we can do it every round". It's the teleporting plane shifting, mind controlling (yea gl.with that with the Incapacitat trait making it even worse than the save system does) etc stuff I don't care about anymore, I stopped caring about it in 1e, and haven't missed it since.

People who just want to play a blaster wizard that does nothing but damage really should be playing a Psychic instead of trying to crowbar the Everything Caster into something it's not.

And if psychic fitted the class fantasy we could but it doesn't, so you might as well have suggested a bow ranger.

Theaitetos wrote:

Guntermench wrote:

Theaitetos wrote:

What exactly can a Wizard who prepares only blasting spells do better than martials?

They can still prepare every other type of spell.

So instead of answering the question, you just change the premise.

Guntermench wrote:

They can use staves to round themselves out. They can absolutely demolish with area of effect spells. They can do damage and inflict a larger variety of status effects.

Again, the context was about a blaster caster who is not interested in "inflicting a larger variety of status effects".

You know, martials can also inflict a large variety of status effects (e.g. wrestler), or can be awesome healers (e.g. medic, lay on hands), without ever touching a weapon. Yet many martial players prefer "bonking" instead. Should we thus similarly remove all advanced & martial weapons from the game, so that no martial can ever again inflict good damage on enemies, you know, in light of all the other things they potentially might do?

Your comments always seem to be build like this: You pick a single sentence out of context, pretend that this context doesn't exist, and then make some statement about this sentence. That's not how you build a conversation. That's how you build a straw-man.

Not coincidentally it's the same straw-man that Deriven Firelion built: This idea that people who want to play a great blaster caster, just want to turn casters into omnipotent gods.

However, this is about adding the option to specialize a caster into a non-generalist, in my case a blaster. I frequently made suggestions for a trade-off to this specialization as well (e.g. here and here), like giving up hit points or armor proficiencies, or restricting the spell-list (similar to how the Elementalist archetype does or the previous editions that had

...

Again you list things that the guys wanting to play blasters do not want to be able to do, as reasons the only fun thing about combat in this game (doing damage) should be bared to wizards.

To not have a quote wall: my take on Kineticists, they are basically a Xianxia/Xianhua cultivation based class, without the martial arts and alchemy (and several other things that wouldn't fit Golarion, like hitting the Heavenly/Immortal stages and having a decent chance at one shotting literal armies, or beating up gods, or in the more extreme examples, being able to shatter planets in a single strike.)

That is cool, it's a cool fantasy, it's not the Wizard/Mage fantasy.

For examples Cultivation aimed at the western audience: the Cradle series, He Who Fights With Monsters, Monsters and Legends (M+L has both class based and cultivation based characters, and the dynamic is interesting).

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Honestly, the argument of "Casters are good, you're just playing them wrong," only really highlights that Casters aren't a class that gives you much build versatility, and supports the "One True Build" idealism that PF2 has tried to go out of its way to demolish by enabling a lot of ways to build a character.

Generalist spellcasters have plenty of build versatility. They do not fill a role better suited to other types of spellcaster. That is not a failing of class design.

If you want a spellcaster that deals damage as constantly as a martial character swings a sword, play a Kineticist.

If you want a spellcaster that has some castings of damage dealing spells available for every battle during a day no matter how many battles there are, play a spellcaster that has damage dealing focus spells such as most Psychics, many Druid orders, and Elemental Sorcerer.

Kineticists aren't spell casters.

Easl wrote:

Tremaine wrote:

any issues with that are more than offset by how constrained and weak all PF2 characters feel, not unplayably so, but this game is such a slog, with no 'goddam I feel cool' moments that stand out to me,

Have you tried using more, lower level monsters? The idea that Level X characters should be fighting Level X monsters is kind of arbitrary. If your players want a more heroic feel and you want combats to last 1-2 rounds instead of 3-4, and have more combats per session, so that it feels like the PCs are crushing it, then set a different standard for encounters.

Yeah, the feel good moments of PF1 are easy to reproduce: Just reduce the difficulty to PF1 levels. So roughly build encounters as if the PCs were one level lower.

But the moment you explain someone the "feel good moments" are just because of very easy encounters, they complain that the game should give you the feeling that encounters are tough when they are actually trivial. Psychology...

Anyway, we hear the same complaints over and over. Sometimes, I'm close to answer like the basic video gamer: L2P!

Yes and no, if you find the buff/debuff cycle off fights fun, more power to you, you used to be able to build to do it, now at least most of the party has to, with no option to build away. Don't like doing the chores and watching monsters save/ignore what you are doing until something works? Sucks to be me I guess.

PF1 was usually easier, because it was heroic fantasy, something PF2 isn't anything like as much of, with no in universe explanation of how the heroes previously won events they now could not.

By monsters being untethered I meant that they used to at least pretend to use the same system as pcs, they got feats at a set rate, ability boosts same as pcs etc etc, it was far from perfect, but at least they pretended the universe had some consistency, now? They don't, most don't even have out of combat abilities, they are an animated target dummy, which has advantages as far as rapid usage, and on the fly adjustments, but the system did loose something to gain that

Although archetypes like the Captivator and Shadowcaster do encourage leaning into a specific theme, I still don't think it's feasible to commit entirely to those archetype's themes, as the player is neither compelled nor rewarded for doing so. If the player were to pick nothing but cold spells in the case of a cryomancer archetype, that would raise the question of how they'd deal with cold-immune enemies, which one such archetype would have to address in order to fully deliver on its theme IMO.

Because of this, I think the main obstacle to these kinds of dedicated builds is mechanical, rather than narrative: because a caster can opt into spells beyond their designated specialty, they need to be balanced as if they're making use of the full breadth of their spell list, even if they're not. If a specialized cryomancer archetype prevented you from preparing/learning any spells other than cold spells, that would remove that consideration and allow the archetype to be balanced like a proper specialist, including by dealing better with resistance and immunity. That, however, would also create its own knock-on effects: are there enough cold spells out there for this archetype to work well and be interesting? If this archetype is meant to be a blaster, what's it supposed to do with its lower-rank slots? How much power would you need to give, and of what kind, for such an archetype to be balanced and feel good to play?

Blasters (as a named sub class, not a setup by a normal wizard) should have something to allow them to 'combine' lower level slots, to keep them viable for mook clearance

"Because putting out new under-reviewed content at a fast and reckless rate is a big part of how RPGs become worse over time," right? I mean, that feels like an easy one.

hard disagree, especially with the ease of publishing erratas in blog posts etc, any issues with that are more than offset by how constrained and weak all PF2 characters feel, not unplayably so, but this game is such a slog, with no 'goddam I feel cool' moments that stand out to me, the fact that monsters are totally untethered from pc classes really doesn't help.

You could do Panache on a knowledge check, (see the duel between Westley and Inigo in the Princess Bride, calling out the styles and abilities the opponent is using and having the counter, then the counter to the counter etc), that could be expanded (according to Maestro Montoya of Cheliax Barbazu tend to over extend on the chop leaving them open to a thrust into the left elbow or w/e) People trained by the Taldoran Phalanx tend to do x.countered by y etc.

Tremaine wrote:

thenobledrake wrote:

Tremaine wrote:

...as to 'optimising the fun out of things' never understood that statement...

It's basically talking about the phenomena that happens where a person that is playing a game finds the thing that is the best in their view and as a direct result now feels trapped; they have to use that option, and all other options look like a complete waste of space because "no one" would ever take them.

And often that same person will then lament not having more options. They don't want to be limited to just that small list they've self-selected, but there aren't more things that feel worth taking.

So you end up with someone saying phrases like this one:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

I'm not looking for viable. I am looking for high performance.

That show a lack of perspective.

Deriven thinks they've got the game figured out better than everyone else, and doesn't even entertain the idea that they might actually be bending the game into an odd shape as a result of their extensive experience and penchant for "high-performance" play and as a result not actually realizing all the builds I was talking about in my earlier post are "high--performance" rather than just "viable".

Much like how a car built to win drag races doesn't feature quite the same things as a car built to win rally races, but it's not really a reasonable stance to say "the drag car is better." even if it does have higher top speed.

Yea, sorry if I wasn't clear: I know what it is supposed to mean, but it doesn't make sense to me, like I WANT to make a character that's good at one or two things and ride or die on that, (PF2 is good at allowing non-combat and combat builds to be mostly independent of each other, within the same character, so your skill feats aren't taking up combat feats space)

I don't enjoy the tactical aspects of this game, they are to shallow for me to get lost in, but to mandatory for me to ignore, so they just feel like

...

I was the opposite, PF I got, to the extent that other players were asking me how to build their characters, I was building what best followed what they wanted, not necessarily what was the best, but the best to do what they wanted to achieve, since I didn't have perfect system mastery, I am not going to claim they were perfect, but they supported character concepts pretty well.

Tremaine wrote:

...as to 'optimising the fun out of things' never understood that statement...

It's basically talking about the phenomena that happens where a person that is playing a game finds the thing that is the best in their view and as a direct result now feels trapped; they have to use that option, and all other options look like a complete waste of space because "no one" would ever take them.

And often that same person will then lament not having more options. They don't want to be limited to just that small list they've self-selected, but there aren't more things that feel worth taking.

So you end up with someone saying phrases like this one:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

I'm not looking for viable. I am looking for high performance.

That show a lack of perspective.

Deriven thinks they've got the game figured out better than everyone else, and doesn't even entertain the idea that they might actually be bending the game into an odd shape as a result of their extensive experience and penchant for "high-performance" play and as a result not actually realizing all the builds I was talking about in my earlier post are "high--performance" rather than just "viable".

Much like how a car built to win drag races doesn't feature quite the same things as a car built to win rally races, but it's not really a reasonable stance to say "the drag car is better." even if it does have higher top speed.

Yea, sorry if I wasn't clear: I know what it is supposed to mean, but it doesn't make sense to me, like I WANT to make a character that's good at one or two things and ride or die on that, (PF2 is good at allowing non-combat and combat builds to be mostly independent of each other, within the same character, so your skill feats aren't taking up combat feats space)

I don't enjoy the tactical aspects of this game, they are to shallow for me to get lost in, but to mandatory for me to ignore, so they just feel like chores I have to do before the fun face smashing/melting commences

Also the fact that the maths just assumes you have level appropriate magic items, so they don't actually make you kill stuff faster or get hit less often just feels meh.

@thenobledrake thanks for the examples, but as to 'optimising the fun out of things' never understood that statement, becoming incredibly good at one or two things is what I want an RPG system to let me do, if I want multilayer complex interactions and conditions other genres of game do that way, way better. (Mind you I am a recovering EVE Online player, so spreadsheeting up builds and strategies is my thing)

Ryangwy wrote:

I really wonder what your standard for strong is in this edition.

Nothing, I think. Says right there "this is the edition of you suck."

Sounds like a total character power thing. Like even though Fighters are relatively high up the food chain in PF2 you can't snap together the right combination of options to do hundreds of damage in a full attack and drop bosses on the first round like you could in PF1 (and I guess ostensibly not being able to do that is supposed to be a bad thing now).

Yup, that time when you absolutely destroy the boss is *chefs kiss*. Helly group still talks about the frog-o-lich a decade later (sorcerer landed a Polymorph on the BBEG, which then failed both saves) Vs forgetting the bosses name in a month or 2 if it's the standard multi round grind

But then I love 'if veterans were in horror movies'. Shame black rifle are a bunch of a-holes.

Tremaine wrote:

Given how weak martials are, they don't hit pretty good, let alone the shift spells. But then that's true of every class, this is the edition of you suck, do your huge pile of chores to mitigate that, better hope against hope that the target actually crit fails some saves,and you have no feats that boost you, only add more boring (I know, ymmv) options or take an archetype, if.you wamt to be even weaker. A Fighter with no feats is as likely to hit as often as a fully 'specialised' fighter... that's just pathetic.

Given that casters are mathematically less likely to hit than martials, I really wonder what your standard for strong is in this edition. Also, Double Slice is right there at level 1 as an accuracy booster. And also martials don't care about crit fails so I really don't know what you're talking about...

double slice, literally the only feat that actually works, and doing chores and praying for crit fails was a comment on the team mechanics.

Tremaine wrote:

Given how weak martials are, they don't hit pretty good, let alone the shift spells. But then that's true of every class, this is the edition of you suck, do your huge pile of chores to mitigate that, better hope against hope that the target actually crit fails some saves,and you have no feats that boost you, only add more boring (I know, ymmv) options or take an archetype, if.you wamt to be even weaker. A Fighter with no feats is as likely to hit as often as a fully 'specialised' fighter... that's just pathetic.

... I don't think that the most accurate class in the game not needing to buy into mandatory feats in order to have the best attack bonus in the game is quite the take you seem to be implying. In fact, it would feel quite foolish to me for Paizo to fix the game math only to throw in a flat math booster that's too good not to take on every build. You can complain about boring Fifhter feats all you want, but maybe not in the same breath as complaining about the lack of even more boring stat stick feats.

hence ymmv. I want to be great at one thing, not terrible at 10

HeHateMe wrote:

It's pathetic imo that 2E is so inflexible and restrictive that it can't support as common and popular a concept as "shapeshifter". I mean, almost every genre of fiction, not to mention RPGs, has shapeshifters. Everything from fantasy to superheroes to sci-fi has shapeshifters.

Why do you think it's a 2e limitation? It's not like PF2e lacking this kind of class is somehow missing something essential to the fiction, D&D lineage games have never cared much for dedicated shapeshifting.

Like, shapeshifters are really cool and I wish there was more mechanical support in PF2e, but it's bizarre to talk about the failures of PF2 and "common and popular" concepts when the thing people in this thread are asking for has literally never existed in any edition of Pathfinder or D&D.

Quote:

It's sad that 2E limits that concept to those awful battle form spells.

This is an especially weird take, imo, since battle form spells are probably one of the best implementations of the mechanic we have in d20. It solves the SRD problem of relying on innate physical statistics for shapeshifting, which undermined both the mechanics and the fantasy of the concept, without running into the overhead and jank that something like 5e's shapeshifting does.

The numbers on battle forms are generally tuned to only be pretty good rather than full martial, but that's a mechanical concession to the nature of the spells, not some fundamental systemic failing.

Given how weak martials are, they don't hit pretty good, let alone the shift spells. But then that's true of every class, this is the edition of you suck, do your huge pile of chores to mitigate that, better hope against hope that the target actually crit fails some saves,and you have no feats that boost you, only add more boring (I know, ymmv) options or take an archetype, if.you wamt to be even weaker. A Fighter with no feats is as likely to hit as often as a fully 'specialised' fighter... that's just pathetic.

I was thinking a similar thing. I don't see "teleporter" being a concept that could be a class on its own. An archetype or class archetype is more fitting.

Please no, the archetypes are so bad, if it's not worth a class don't do it...

I think there needs to be a tacit acceptance of the premise of the thread for those that largely agree with the premise. Regardless of teamwork aspects, there is a value in identifying mechanical approaches to combat and effectiveness.

Personally it isn’t my cup of tea. And I would give serious side-eye to any Fighter “just happening” to wield a pick. It’s pretty ridiculous. “Oh great Black Fang, I had you from my father and he from his father and he from his father before him. Ever have I had your happenstancily awesome mechanical greatness at my side, and truly you are a not-at-all-ridiculous looking weapon, sung about in many many ballads and depicted countless times in popular culture. Yea, though thou be niche, thy fell rulings mean I should swing you with abandon. Find the weak spots in yonder dragon. Swing mightily Black Fang!

But folks like to wrap pretty convincing and playable verisimilitudinous stories about…all manner of things. So, where they want to chat about combat and effectiveness, I say let them have at it.

Military Picks were real weapons, for instance the Bec du Corbin or the Horseman's Pick, also most Warhammers had a spike on the reverse to use as a pick against armour, as did polaxes, and some pole arms.

Big spike on a stick is a pretty widespread solution to your battlefield can opening needs.

An Inexorable Iron magus landing big critical spellstrikes seems to be to best fit for this. Stacking status effects also feels Timmyish. A wrestler fighter landing supplexes, trips, shoves, and Fearsome rune criticals is big and flashy.

And that right there shows me I'm not that kind of Timmy, coz that wrestler sounds boring xD, and buff stacking is chores, an option to have in the ge for sure, but please don't make it the core loop

shroudb wrote:

you don't understand timmy mentality.

I very much understand it. You can be a Timmy/Spike, Timmies can care about effectiveness. Timmies care for big numbers more than optimization, it doesn't mean that they will play underpowered characters without feeling bad about it. They'd prefer Timmy abilities to be balanced.

The only thing Power Attack has going for it is it crits into big numbers, the fact that you would nearly always, even against resistance (because of miss/crit chances, making 2 attempts even with MAP) be better off not using it, doesn't stop it critting biggly

If you care about effectiveness, don't get it, if you want big numbers, it can do that sometimes

Tremaine wrote:

Out of interest what is the feat support for crit fishing? I know certain weapons mean you can do it (pick for instance) but how do you double down on it?

Coz if it is just 'use a pick' and then do all the same conditions chores, that's not great.

Access to True Strike and feats like Sniper's Aim that grant circumstance bonuses in exchange for actions. Runes like grievous to enhance the crit damage portion.

Otherwise feats like power attack that again you sacrifice actions to increase single hit damage as well fit a crit fishing build.

Power attack does fit Timmies, while it is almost always a 'bad' choice, it does spike hard, so that one fits, so we have e couple of feats available. Not great but not none existent

Out of interest what is the feat support for crit fishing? I know certain weapons mean you can do it (pick for instance) but how do you double down on it?

Coz if it is just 'use a pick' and then do all the same conditions chores, that's not great.

I think the concept of the inquisitor as-is in PF1e isn't really feasible in PF2e because the class did a lot of everything and didn't really focus on anything. It also had archetypes to poach features from literally everyone, so it was a really good jack of all trades. Also, if you were to make a conversion for the inquisitor into PF2e, I think the most logical thing to do would be to mix it with some concepts of the 4e avenger (since it seems Paizo wants to bring some 4e content over to PF2e), which would effectively be the very requested Wis-based support martial that everyone asks for.

How did we.go from 'holy intelligence agent/assassin' to 'wisdom based support martial'?

I think the concept of the inquisitor as-is in PF1e isn't really feasible in PF2e because the class did a lot of everything and didn't really focus on anything. It also had archetypes to poach features from literally everyone, so it was a really good jack of all trades. Also, if you were to make a conversion for the inquisitor into PF2e, I think the most logical thing to do would be to mix it with some concepts of the 4e avenger (since it seems Paizo wants to bring some 4e content over to PF2e), which would effectively be the very requested Wis-based support martial that everyone asks for.

I still don't understand why Paizo want to cross pathfinder with the thing that it was created to reject.

If Paizo want to do '4e done right' then spin it off into its own thing.

Meet Axes McSlash. Greataxe fighter I threw together in a handful of minutes with nary a condition in sight.

There is absolutely feat support for what you're describing.

Thanks actually, that's an alright build.

@Arcaian: Thanks for trying, but those just sound like the style of builds I am resigned to making, not that I actually want to play, the irony being I used to complain about 'doing the same thing over and over' until I realised I vastly prefer that style of play.

I am a simple player it seems, give me that big damage number dopamine hit, if I want skirmish wargames, I can play (and do) actual skirmish wargames.

Tremaine wrote:

A character that just focuses on striking, and has feats to support that, not 'striking and applying conditions/debuffs' just focuses on applying the dead condition by pure damage.

My friend. Barbarian and Fighter are right there. Rogue? Gunslinger? Weapon Thaum?

What are you looking for that isn't supported by existing options?

Feat support for that build. Power Attack is a trap outside of extremly narrow situations, and most other feats are to do with applying conditions, which I don't enjoy, or movement, which is useful I admit, or tanking which is again, not something I enjoy.

A character that just focuses on striking, and has feats to support that, not 'striking and applying conditions/debuffs' just focuses on applying the dead condition by pure damage.

Tremaine wrote:

Are there systems to play into Xianxia style characters? (Cultivation, enlightened martial arts etc?).

For a quick definition Xianxia is Immortal Hero to Wuxia Martial Hero, in media Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Forbidden Kingdom are arguably lower end Xianxia.

That would all be Character Guide stuff, out in a few more months.

Thanks. Here's hoping then.

Are there systems to play into Xianxia style characters? (Cultivation, enlightened martial arts etc?).

For a quick definition Xianxia is Immortal Hero to Wuxia Martial Hero, in media Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Forbidden Kingdom are arguably lower end Xianxia.

A big good dying off would 'balance' the Redeemer Queen turning good.

Power attack is one of the better tuned feats in the game. It does exactly what it is supposed to do without being too strong or weak.

There is no point in arguing that it does less damage than attacking twice, that is the point. It is a sidegrade.
Also I wish to point out that you can power attack and then attack again just fine with furious focus if you want to go full out damage in a turn.

so all feats should be straight downgrade traps?

My goblin cleric coordinated an international freedom fighting network across 2 continents with dream messages in our Age of Ashes campaign. Non-detection is absolutely vital for narrative adventure writing purposes and is a very well-written version of this spell for PF2. I enjoy getting it for free with my magic warrior wizard in PFS.

Have you even read ooze form? It feels like that is a list of spells you haven’t even fully read, you just dONT LIKe the sound of what they do.

Which Is great, the type of caster you wanted to play is supported, a lot of people's isn't,.or not very well.

You don't actually want to sit there just yelling encouraging things when you're fighting a fire elemental, I imagine.

ah yes the buffer/debuffer playstyle :p

Well, you will have to choose what you want from a blaster:

- Staying power
- Damage potential

The Kineticist is was designed, way back in 1st edition as the "all-day blaster". That has always been its nature. In your 30th combat of the day, the kineticist can keep pace with all the martials who don't have resources to track, while the Wizard and cleric ran out of spells 20 fights ago.

What the kineticist cannot do is "reach into the toolbox and grab anything off-theme"(if you're a pure geokineticist and a problem can't be solved with rocks, it can't be solved by you) and it probably can't hit the same peaks for damage as a slot casting blaster in the 2-3 fights where the slot casting blaster decides to go all out.

This is a reasonable way to differentiate these classes and was, in fact, the same way they were distinguished in PF1. Back in PF1 the Blood Arcanist with Spell Perfection on Delayed Blast Fireball did more damage than the Kineticist did, but it could only cast Empowered Intensified Maximized Fireball with 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th level spell slots and you only got so many of those.

It's not a bad idea to have two classes have different strengths and weaknesses when it comes to doing the same thing. Like a fighter with a greataxe and a barbarian with a greataxe play differently. A monk with a bow and a ranger with a bow play differently. This is, in fact, a good thing.

What the kineticist shows is if you're going to get a themed specialist then the difference between "that thing" and "a wizard" is that the wizard is a toolbox character which has options that the themed specialist doesn't have. This is by design and not wanting to use those options is like a fighter not wanting to use the best weapons.

Except the Wizards 'best weapons' are the utterly boring debuffs, that turn them into a sidekick to the main characters...It's even worse for elemental/dragon themed sorcerers, who don't get to do the one thing they were born to do very well.

But for all of these damage cantrips, they are mostly just damage. How often do you remember that Ray of Frost could potentially impose a speed penalty? Or that Produce Flame might add persistent fire damage?

What percentage of the time would your choice of damage cantrip actually make a beneficial difference in the outcome of a combat? What is the percentage if we omit the scenario where an enemy has a weakness to the damage type?

Now consider: If we had a new version of Ray of Frost that was on the 2d4, heightened +1d4 scale, but added a one-round clumsy 1 on a successful attack roll and clumsy 1, -10 speeds on a critical - would that be a trade that you are...

Nope, I wouldn't.

The tradeoff is supposed to be that spellcasters, who are casting spells to do damage, can attack any of a target's defenses (Armor, Reflex, Will, or Fortitude). The Kineticist gets the gate attenuator primarily because it doesn't get that- some impulses attack reflex, a couple attack fort, none attack will.

. Unless I am really misunderstanding something and wizards can memorise the same spell multiple times, that arguement works once, with the only spell the caster has that targets that save, at highest level and heaven forbid you want to play a single element caster....

I don't think I agree with the notion of partial boosts being bad design. The way the system stands, it keeps players from being hosed if they don't absolutely min/max their scores from the get-go. That's especially beneficial to new players, which I appreciate.

There are pros and cons, but partial boosts solve some problems without requiring a whole lot of new words to explain the rules, and I don't see that they will be much of a problem moving forward.

My played experience is that the maths hoses you if you don't min max straight out the gate (I can't remember a crit against a foe that mattered on for instance, most fights are whiff fests already etc). Well unless you build a party as 'main character who does the fun stuff and his minions who debuff the enemy'

The Raven Black wrote:

I wonder who the consultant with expertise in matters of DEIB is. With all the name-dropping, it feels weird to me that their name was not mentioned.

They've already gotten into enough trouble doxxing customers, I don't think they have any interest in doing this to a legal professional they've hired.

We've already seen how nasty twitter warriors can be in all of this and I am confident that if Paizo started releasing the names of individuals who will be doing this work at the firm with X or Y specialty that they'd instantly have 5-20 activist twitter stans spending hours if not days aggressively researching anything and everything that named individual has ever done in order to try to pick at each and every seam, thread, and post they've very personally shared publicly or in some cases privately. That is not "accountability" at all, it's encouraging harassment and pointless dirt-digging.

we have seen how dishonest, untrustworthy and evasive Paizo management are. Only deeds will help now.

Eye witness accounts are evidence, but not very reliable. I can't speak to the reliability of victim statements, but I think generally they should be accepted at least until investigation verifies them... or doesn't.

Hence 'evidence' rather than 'proof'.

keftiu wrote:

I don’t feel comfortable monetarily supporting Paizo until the specific allegations about the treatment of trans employees are addressed.

The allegations are meritless, have no evidence, and fundamentally cannot ever be disproven by way of the nature they are presented... you might as well just stop posting here because this is a nothing-burger and if you expect concrete info on it you're going to be left waiting just like the USA waiting for news of WMDs in Iraq.

.

So you don't regard witness/victim statements as evidence?

Maybe someone should put together a list of gaming companies they won't give money to. They could even color code it with the companies being either red or green based on whether they're woke or unwoke.

It's called voting with your wallets, something conservatives have claimed for years we should do in the market..then they scream and cry about cancel culture when we do.