RPG Superstar 8 Season Marathon Voter, 9 Season Marathon Voter. Organized Play Member. 39 posts (619 including aliases). No reviews. No lists. No wishlists. 15 Organized Play characters. 7 aliases.
I'm very early in the process will do my first playtest on Sunday...
Since the first character I made in PF1 was a Cleric I'm deciding to make a Cleric in PF2 with my first character. Already it's way more tedious/difficult to make a Cleric in PF2 than in PF1 and I was a complete noob to d20 tabletop when I made my first Cleric in PF1. Everything you needed to build the Cleric was in the Cleric section in PF1 as opposed to PF2 I'm doing a lot of flipping through the book to get through it.
I hope we get a standard background (bonus to any two ability scores) that includes a small +1 bonus to a skill of your choice similar to Starfinder's themeless background. That's one less part to jump around on. I just don't see new players making a character easy enough as is, even with my help guiding them through it.
IMPROVED BRAVERY FEAT 6 - Fighter
Trigger Your turn ends.
Reduce your frightened condition by 2, rather than 1.
I can't think of a less exciting way to describe bravery. It says nothing to a new player at all, and hardly sums up the image of my fighter holding his steely nerve in the face of a fearsome demon as the rest of my party quakes in their boots.
Maybe it's just a case of having one of the writers who's very good at exciting superlatives to have a pass over the feats and spells and make them sound cool and desirable? Paizo has some outstanding creative writers there, this is something they can do comfortably within their capabilities. Crystal Frasier can't help but sound awesome whenever she writes anything down. Paizo can absolutely improve this.
It would mean accepting a few less feats in the main book, because *pagecount*. But that's the cost of flavour.
I definitely agree with you that the writing can make a big difference in how the game feels, and the playtest is very dry atm.
(I like your descriptions btw, maybe paizo needs a colorful description guy?).
But (i think) they are waiting to add those descriptions, which are a little harder to write, once everything is a little more finalized. At this point of the playtest they are trying to test things out without fully fleshing everything out.
IMPROVED BRAVERY FEAT 6 - Fighter
Trigger Your turn ends.
Reduce your frightened condition by 2, rather than 1.
I can't think of a less exciting way to describe bravery. It says nothing to a new player at all, and hardly sums up the image of my fighter holding his steely nerve in the face of a fearsome demon as the rest of my party quakes in their boots.
Maybe it's just a case of having one of the writers who's very good at exciting superlatives to have a pass over the feats and spells and make them sound cool and desirable? Paizo has some outstanding creative writers there, this is something they can do comfortably within their capabilities. Crystal Frasier can't help but sound awesome whenever she writes anything down. Paizo can absolutely improve this.
It would mean accepting a few less feats in the main book, because *pagecount*. But that's the cost of flavour.
You're making an excellent point here. Adding some salt and sugar will help this document a lot and I fully expect that to happen in the final.
The meat and potatoes here though are lacking for me (and I suspect for others). Taking a feat just to reduce the frightened condition by an extra 1. Not very exciting. It requires that your character has already failed at something to be relevant.
Shouldn't they be before character creation? I know that building a character is the exciting thing, but don't you have to know what the various actions and they like are to have a decent understanding of what many of the various feats and class features are actually doing for you.
This is what I found when reading through the rules, I was having a rough time wrapping my head around the avalanche of information, particularly the walls upon walls of different feat options for each class/skill. Actually stopping and reading the Rules of Playing the Game section made it much easier to read the rest of it.
Most books are structured this way. Pathfinder 1E, D&D 5E Player's Handbook.
I assume there's a reason the industry does it this way. I think it's to make it exciting, "Here's what you can be" as opposed to drowning you in rules right when you start.
In my opinion, PF2’s best version includes a mechanic for player character’s to perform certain skills more consistently than their party members, not just slightly better.
Modifiers have been reeled in to make the critical success/failure system viable. In PF1, to make a consistently successful character, players just blow the top off of their modifier to ensure a high likelihood of success in a d20 system. In PF2, the super specialization for modifier building goes away, but we retain the variability of the d20 system.
This makes for a very unsatisfying experience of player’s trying to build a character that’s good at “that”. Whether “that” is being stealthy, jumping, lying, whatever. It’s most apparent when the group is trying to stealth, the rogue rolls poorly while the cleric, with an abysmal DEX and heavy armor, sneaks by just fine. This happens more often than is fun due to RNG and the d20, as many who have played THE GAME THAT SHALL NOT BE NAMED can attest to. I believe a large portion of the player base likes to create characters that are good at “that”.
The Assurance Feat is there, and it’s ok, but I’d prefer something more universal.
Assurance Feat:
Assurance Feat wrote:
Even in the worst circumstances, you can perform basic tasks with your skill. Choose a skill you’re trained in when you first select this feat. You can forgo rolling a skill check for your chosen skill to instead receive a result of 10 (do not apply any of your bonuses, penalties, or modifiers).
If you’re an expert in your chosen skill, you receive a result of 15; if you’re a master, you receive a result of 20; and if you’re legendary, you receive a result of 30.
What are some solutions?
Ideas (some from other threads and posters):
Assurance feat comes 15/20/30 (or some variant) instead of 10/15/20.
Assurance feat is scrapped. Take 10 is reinstated.
Assurance feat is scrapped. You gain Assurance in Signature Skills.
Assurance feat is scrapped. Assurance becomes an automatic part of all skills, regardless of signature skill status, and connected to TEML.
My preference: Players can roll alternatives to a d20 in Signature Skills to provide for more consistent roll results. For example, an expert skill could choose to roll 2d10, a master could roll 1d10+2d6, and a legend could roll 4d6. This option provides for more consistent success while still making critical successes and failure possible. Players could still roll d20 if they want a better chance at critical success.
What else can we come up with? What would be more fun? Anyone willing to test out a different mechanic and report back?
Until a developer states something to the contrary, this is how I am going to rule it:
An attack hits a fighter with a raised shield (where H = shield hardness)
Attacker rolls X damage.
X - H = E, the effective damage dealt to the fighter as well as the shield.
If E > 0 the fighter subtracts E from their HP.
If E ≥ H the shield takes a dent
If E ≥ H x 2 the shield takes two dents
This is how the rules seem to work.
I really like, potentially, how shields will work in PF2. The rules had me confused, like many posters in this thread, and I ran to listen to the GCP play during PaizoCon just 3 months ago to get clarification. Jason Bulmahn's running the game, so one hopes he's got the rules right.
Fighter has shield raised, gets hit for 26 points of damage. Shield with 9 hardness (so hardness numbers have changed) takes off 9 points of damage. Shield and fighter both take 17 points of damage. Shield gets 1 dent since damage taken is higher than 9, but lower than double its hardness (18).
So with the rules "settled", we can return to the issue of whether or not shields are too flimsy.
A heavy-steel-shield wielder with an AC of 19 (with shield raised) battles against a CR 1 hobgoblin. The hobgoblin has +7 to hit and 1d8+2 damage with its longsword.
The goblin hits 40% of the time. It can only dent the steel shield (5 Hardness) on a max damage roll:
8+2=10; hardness shaves off 5, leaving 5 to equal the hardness and cause a dent
So with a 40% change to hit and a 1/8 (12.5%) chance of actually denting, there's just a 5% chance of receiving a dent without taking critical hits into consideration of the math. There's a 2% chance of the shield taking a dent on a -5 second attack.
Critical hits throw that math out the window, but even still I don't think the shield wielders are going to be getting dents too often when applying the rules as Jason did.
A CR 1 creature to a level 1 party is supposed to be a standard or low-threat boss. The math here seems reasonable to me at level 1 without breaking everything down even more. I'm not sure how this mechanic will scale though. Would be nice if somebody would look up some stats. I'm not sure at what level you're intended to have legendary equipment, shield of other materials, etc, and finally taking critical hit damage into consideration. I'd pop it into a spreadsheet and figure it out but I'm guessing that Jason and Mark Seifter, the other mad scientist, already have done that, and the math is passing my eye test.
Escalating DCs. (for those who can't find this, the table is on pg 337 of the Playtest rulebook) This is what 4e did and it appears to be what PF2e is doing. So you want to climb that wall over there...great, that's a DC 14. Oh wait, your a level 12 character, sorry, that's a DC 30.
Sure, it's the same wall and all, but the DC just got that much tougher because you are a higher level...
Say WHAT!!!???
Yes, I know supposedly the task it represents gets harder, but that isn't necessarily how it gets played or seen.
I think you are misinterpreting the intent. The narrative would change to accommodate the increase in DC for the higher level challenge. The higher level wall has no handholds, is covered in grease, has thousands of wriggling worms coming out of it...whatever you want.
That chart on page 337 is great for coming up with DCs on the fly. If I think the wall is something that should be easy for someone at 12th level, I'd go with the trivial column.
The intent is to have the DCs escalate and the narrative behind the difficulty also increase to help the players feel "cooler".
Here's my go to character sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hJ0OqF7CQ54vD1y4uRwdMAwEGPbPlqZftrD thRRUvS8/edit?ouid=104945960420517135910&usp=sheets_home&ths=true
Some great automated GM tools:
https://www.sfrpgtools.com/
Magnetized clips and specialized pockets on your armor make it so you can reload with a free hand. You can also stick a gun under an armpit while reloading the other. Don’t overthink it gang, it’s a move activity to reload and that’s it. ^_^
These boots, made of a scaly hide, always smell like a can of rotten dog food. The interior material squirms from the dance of a horde of akata larva. When first equipped, the wearer must make a DC 10 Fortitude save or be infected with void death (Incident at Absalom Station, pg. 55).
By spending 1 Resolve Point, the wearer can make an unarmed strike with the boot. If it deals any damage, the target must make a Fortitude save (DC = 10 + the damage dealt) or contract void death.
These are all really great and I've loved reading through them all. Although now I am swamped with negative conditions, ability damage, and space termites. I need to go lay down.
I have no idea how I am going to survive all these but I still can't wait to see them employed in the show.
Thanks for helping grow the show and keep on being great contributors.
Ty/Edrass
While I'll be saddened by Edrass's demise, I anticipate Gnack turning him into a fancy pair of boots.
Kind of phoned it in on this one, but we needed an ability damage card to make the players extra miserable.
MELEE: “I Used to be an Adventurer Like You...” You aggravate an old injury, in your knee perhaps. Make a Fortitude save (DC = 15 + your base attack bonus) or receive 1d4 Strength damage.
RANGED: “Triggered Finger” The muscles of your trigger finger spasm painfully. Make a Fortitude save (DC = 15 + your base attack bonus) or receive 1d4 Dexterity damage.
SPELL: “Brain Freeze” Even your subconscious is confused as to your arcane ineptitude. Make a Fortitude save (DC = 15 + your failed spell’s level) or receive 1d4 ability damage to your primary spell-casting ability score.
MELEE: “Stumble and Side Step” Your clumsy attack allows your target to take a free guarded step and make a reposition combat maneuver against you with a +10 bonus. Please, oh please, be fighting near a ledge.
RANGED: “Collateral Damage” Whoops! Your aim is way off. If there’s a creature within 15 feet of your target, make a second attack against the nearest creature and hope it’s an enemy.
SPELL: “Watch Out for that...Dimension Door?” You’ve managed to cast dimension door. Make a Will save (DC = 10 + 1.5 x your caster level) or instantly transfer yourself 400 feet in the direction of your original spell’s target. Zoop!
I changed the bonus given to reflex to AC when in graviton mode. Thought being when in pho mode you are going all out to damage. When in grav mode you are controlling the gravity around you giving you a dodge bonus.
If you do the math only the beginning armor seems weak. If you do the math maxing out Dex and getting light armor is only on average minus -1 compared to heavy armor.
I made the same change. I feel like it balances it out better, and most players seem to be picking photon over grav.
MELEE: “I’m Too Old For This…” Your strike is blocked, but causes both you and your target to strain your back or other age-enfeebled muscle group. You both must make a Fortitude save of 10 + ½ of your character level or be staggered for 2d4 rounds.
Oh boy, I can't wait to get this one during a 1-on-1 Gladitorial combat in front of a huge crowd where both combatants fail and take like a 30 break and are like *Pant*Pant* "Just give me a minute" *CoughCough*
They'd share pictures of their kids and discuss their incomplete bucket lists before resuming to slaughter each other.
Battle maps themselves are not very large, making melee viable just as a nature of the business
Narrow corridors and confined rooms, common in sci fi, are likely design features in most space ships and stations
Cover is going to make ranged combats frustrating for both sides, so having a shock trooper move in and force ranged soldiers into uncomfortable situations will be a useful strategy
In response to shock troopers and cover, I could see readying actions to fire when enemies leave cover to be a common tactical action
Magic will be more useful to close distances
Melee with space weapons still has that cool factor
Guarded steps are not going to save a ranged fighter that's flanked on either side.
I kept your item because it was simple and had a minor effect that was still interesting.
Formatting: aura should be faint enchantment, Weight should be followed by an EM dash (annoying little detail) instead of a dash.
I'm torn about the mechanics. Really, every party should have a character always holding this Coin of Chance because a 50% chance of a +1 bonus for 3 rounds is way better than a 50% chance of a -1 penalty for 1 round.
+1 bonuses on attacks and saving throws is useful all the way up to level 20. So even at level 20 we're flipping coins around...it just seems silly. BUT I could see a low level rogue or something flipping their lucky coin before each battle. Maybe a neat little character thing.
Not sure of how to improve it. Maybe if it only worked once per day?
I liked this item, upvoted it plenty, and eventually threw it into my item list.
No DC on the sickened effect?
2nd person should be switched to third to conform to Paizo's style.
In the end, using a move action(that basically gets you attacked since it provokes), to steal an opponents move action (maybe) and give it to an ally just doesn't seem worth the price.
Neat idea. I think some altered version of this item would definitely be top 32 worthy.
I kinda wish I thought up several ideas rather than going with the first thing off the top of my head.
Twin Star Breastplate Aura strong transmutation; CL 13th
Slot armor; Price 42,110 gp; Weight 30 lbs.
Description
Two glowing circles slowly orbit each other on this +3 breastplate. When activated, once per day as a standard action, the circles collide and form a black void, generating a gravitational pulse. All creatures and unattached objects in a 60-foot radius are immediately pulled up to 30 feet closer to the wearer.
Affected creatures can remain stationary as per the reverse gravity spell with a DC 20 Reflex save.
One allied creature that shares a teamwork feat with the wearer can then perform a single standard action to take advantage of the battlefield’s new layout. Only one ally can choose to act. If more than one allies are eligible then the one with the highest initiative modifier, rolling for ties, chooses first.
Construction
Requirements Craft Magic Arms and Armor, reverse gravity, any teamwork feat; Cost 21,230 gp
They discovered one of the Top 32 was submitted by President Obama. The Secret Service has taken over the Paizo office.
The delay is just to give the President extra time to work on his map. He's doing an aerial flip map for all those awesome, high-level sky battles complete with floating rocks.
Game on, Mr. President.
FYI, Michelle ALWAYS plays a rogue. She doesn't care that they aren't optimized.
Will there be a way to get the writeup of your item back? I had a bit of a harddrive crash recently and realized I never bothered saving my item on the cloud. Sadly, it was culled the first round, apparently.
Hmmm, you are like my item from last season. You avoided my pitfalls and then improved upon the writing and the item's imagery. I can't help but hate you.
Hey Jason. First, let me say that I agree with a lot of what you said.
Some of the snark posts are way too close to identifying the specific item, and some snarks describe just 2-3 items.
Random thoughts:
Snark Thread
While the snark thread does little to add to the overall community, it's a fantastic resource to see what people like and don't like. I entered for the first time last year and my item had both the words "rune" and "attune". If I would've thrown in filigree then I would've nearly filled up someone's bingo card with one item.
But by reading last year's snark thread, I learned why my item didn't stand a chance. It's just the nature of the competition. Some words are annoying over and over.
A lot of people don't like derp effects. So someone could read the snark thread, learn from it, and then submit something that doesn't derp the next year.
Competitions
Competitions are just for fun and they aren't designed to perfectly select the best of anything.
Is the Super Bowl winner really the best football team every year? Not necessarily.
This comes down to what's the best way to define what is best when subjective measures are all we have, and the reality is there is no perfect way to do this.
Workshops
As for the workshop groups, I tend to agree but it would be difficult for Paizo to enforce a "no workshopping" rule. Meanwhile, many of the former winners and finalists of the competition have used workshoppers to help them every step of the way.
Anyway, using a workshop, especially with random folks on the internet, is a huge risk for the contestant. If someone get's into the top 32 and then another poster shares some private messages with Paizo that show that they had a lot of input on the item then the contestant that places could be disqualified.
Voting Cadres?
I think Paizo has released total number of votes in previous seasons. I think a single Champion voter (5000 votes) had a pretty insignificant impact on the total.
A group of 10 or so Marathon voters (1000) would have little impact.
Get to your point, JJ
In short, the competition isn't perfect. Maybe Paizo could cap voting at 500. Maybe they could discourage workshopping and the snark thread.
But the voting is still more fun then some judges combing through the items behind a curtain and telling us what the best items are. At least the community has some control over defining what's a cool item for this game.
Back in 2007, Paizo accidentally summoned a demon that feeds on imagination.
They plopped it in front of a never ending stream of youtube videos but that wasn't enough to sate its appetite.
So they started this competition. They shovel our items down its throat until its belly is full and distended.
The demon, however, grows more powerful every year. That's why they had to move up the competition to August. Pretty soon, they'll be hosting two RPG Superstars a year. Then three. Then four.
Eventually, with its hunger growing exponentially, all of mankind will be unable to form enough creative material for the demon to feed. It will swallow the universe whole and live for eternity in loneliness.
This has already been said but I just feel like getting it out there...I'm saying to my future self as much as any contestant.
Wealth is built into the core of this game and there are assumptions regarding where the wealth is distributed in the items.
The item's price is supposed to be a direct reflection of its power, especially compared to the Big 6.
So if your +1 Magic Weapon of Awesome has a CL of 7 with a price tag of 20,000 gp, that's most of a character's wealth at level 7. Even then, only about 25% of a character's wealth should be in weapons (plural, so 2-3 weapons, not just 1).
At the point a 20,000 gp weapon becomes a realistic option, the character is level 13 or so. They can now afford to choose between your +1 Magic Weapon of Awesome and a +3 vanilla one.
Is your +1 Magic Weapon of Awesome worth losing out on the +2 to hit and damage? For full BAB characters maybe. Most of the 3/4 BAB folks are having a hard enough time hitting, so they need the extra chance to hit over whatever special effect the item offers.
These same principles apply to armor and wondrous items taking up slots in neck, shoulders, ring, and belt/headband. You're up against the Big 6. So think about your item's price and power as it relates to these.
Anyway, there's a reason that slotless wondrous items take up basically half of all submissions and that's to avoid this problem altogether.
I think we need to consider the whole DQ+Cull percentage, as this was the target number the host likely aimed for. And I believe the number of votes was sufficiently high that we can rely on the time needed for the first cull to extrapolate the time needed for the second cull.
We started from 700 items, we are now around 550 items post-cull and I believe we will finish a bit over 100 at the end of the voting. Not sure how it translates in the time required for the next cull though.
I think they have to leave enough items up that the people who are left can't reliably vote for their own items. So 100 would be too low, I would think.
