Tridus's page

Nintendogeek01 wrote:

I will be happy if Shelyn is not the one to die next week. I mean sure there are others I could be bummed about dying but... please don't be Shelyn...

Unliking and re-liking this just so I can like it twice. Shelyn was the first love/beauty deity I ever saw in a major setting who wasn't overtly sexualized and who was unequivocally pro-queerness and beauty outside of accepted standards.

I will be ever so sad if we lose her

EDIT: Aaaaaa how did I forget to thank the immensely talented author for the last 10 weeks of suspense?! These stories were fantastic; no matter what happens, you've created some engaging and satisfying fiction, so thank you so much! <3

All of this. I really, REALLY hope it's not her because she represents something so important to a lot of us, and something important in general, especially with how things are in the real world these days.

(And yeah, the writing on these was awesome. It's been a ride!)

Just thinking out loud: but if the goal is to start a war, killing Rovagug is a way to do it. The alliance that imprisoned him includes Gods that don't really like each other, but a mutual enemy that you don't want to escape has a way of keeping people in check and from moving too aggressively against anyone else.

Remove that and the playing field opens up a lot. Plus it's not like he DOES anything in there, story wise.

Probably a long shot, but I'll go with pretty much anything because I don't want it to be Shelyn.

Calliope5431 wrote:

AceofMoxen wrote:

Arachnofiend wrote:

Shelyn definitely goes into the "more interesting alive than dead" category. Zon Kuthon is just an edgelord without her.

Unless Shelyn's death sets Zon-Kuthton back on the path of light. That creates lots of interesting stories.

True, but it's also a minefield.

"Kill the happy nice sister so her edgelord brother can be redeemed" gets justifiably panned on a regular basis.

Of course, if there's anyone I trust to navigate that arc well, it's Paizo. I'm just guessing the other way around (with pieces of Zon-Kuthon becoming part of Shelyn) is more likely.

I don't think it would count as a "frigding," because Shelyn wouldn't be forgotten, we had plenty of time with her, and she had other connections. Like, Desna's hair trigger would be pulled, setting up a great conflict.

Strictly speaking, "Fridging" in this context is any time a female character is tortured or killed with the purpose of spurring a male character's plot forward. So yeah, if the kill Shelyn because that allows them to do something with Zon-Kuthon, it's absolutely Fridging even though she got to exist in the story before that. (In the most infamous case, the writer flat out said he developed the fridged character before killing her specifically to try to increase the impact, so its not like this is strictly for characters that we barely know.)

At the end of the day it's a trope, and tropes can be used in effective ways, not all of which are bad... but this particular trope has a bad reputation for a reason.

And of course, there's the whole problem of "we're going to drive the story forward by killing off the Queer Goddess of Love" in THIS political climate has a serious "Agents of Edgewatch" vibe to it.

I don't have PC1 on hand to reference, but I understood that Lamashtu's anathema has changed (specifically to swap the mention of mental illness and deformity for a less loaded expression of the same concept).

It did. PC1:

Her description still paints a relatively evil picture, and the whole package isn't exactly rainbows and sunshine, but those anathema's are perfectly fine. Hell, the new anathema resonates pretty strongly with me as a nonbinary person.

In terms of "can a Cleric of this fit into an average adventuring party?" I suspect so, yeah.

Tridus wrote:

Still worried about Shelyn, here.

I’d be pretty pissed if they killed off Shelyn. She’s been used as a poster child of PF’s queer rep, and it’d be obnoxiously edgy to kill her off given her role in the pantheon. Plus it’d immediately make Zon Kuthon completely boring as a character. I’m against the move to kill off a deity in general, especially now that Asmodeus, the only one who felt like he’d contribute as much by his death as continuing to live, is marked as safe, but Shelyn would be the absolute worst choice for them to make imo.

Yeah, it certainly wouldn't be good representation wise, since the whole Prismatic Ray throuple really fill that. I'm not sure if that is reason enough to prevent it, and I'll probably be worried until I get an answer. (I was playing a Bard that went through a lot of crap with Shelyn and Zon-Kuthon while I was going through a lot of stuff in real life, so its not like this is entirely rational for me. It would hit hard for personal reasons.)

Its probably a tough balancing act since on the writing end you want it to be someone that will have some impact to drive future plots, but not so much that it effectively detracts from the setting.

"If you can convince enough people of the lie that you're divine, then you are" would be great news for Razmir.

Still worried about Shelyn, here.

Torn between being absolutely delighted by the exceptional writing of this piece and aggrieved by the EMOTIONAL DAMAGE this process is going to do to my poor little Shelynite heart. T-T

Seriously though, this is excellent, and I'm stoked to read more!

Same! Appreciate the artistry (as any Shelynite would) and also am terrified at the same time!

Going to be on pins and needles every week until we know She is safe...

Other than "you get to go to the Darklands" is there anything in Second Darkness that would be worth revisiting in a spiritual sequel? Like I know there are things in Serpent's Skull that would be interesting if done better (Jungle exploration/survival, the whole "Snakefolk want to resurrect their god" plot) but I haven't heard much positive about Second Darkness other than "it's the one with the Drow" and "it's got major writing problems."

I mean... the Riddleport part, maybe? In the game I was in there was players definitely interested in exploring Riddleport and trying to climb the ladder in it. I don't know if you could make a full AP of that without it getting tiresome, but the players that enjoyed it definitely hadn't gotten tired of it before the AP abandoned it. But in a sequel you'd need to swap this out entirely for something that is more connected to the rest of the AP to fix the problem of it feeling so disjointed and having the tone shift completely.

The book 3-6 parts... yeah it's pretty much "you get to explore the Darklands" and "the Armageddon Echo is a really cool idea". The rest of it did nothing for me and I consider book 5 the worst Paizo content I've ever played. So I don't really see what you'd use for a sequel, spiritual or otherwise.

Conceptually, the whole Elven part of this just didn't work for me. Like, the Drow are cartoon villains and not actually that interesting. "Elves turn into Drow if they get really angry" was less shocking and more "huh?". The entire Elven nation came across in this as both arrogant and somehow really incompetent. Like, the Queen can't run her government because of a shadow government, but that shadow government has been crippled for years because of an internal dispute, is trapped in its own base, and can't even arrange a freaking meeting without PC help.

Throw in how severe the railroading is in this, and no, I don't really think there's much here worth saving. A better "explore the darklands" adventure is probably easier to write than fixing this is.

As was mentioned already, the biggest problem with this AP isn't that it has Drow in it: it's fundamental writing issues in the AP itself. The Players Guide and Book 1 set up one type of adventure, and then from book 3 on that's all abandoned in favor of a totally different adventure with a totally different tone and in which characters built for the first one may not really work motivation wise.

Then there's the issue of the Elves spending most of this adventure being wholly unlikable despite the fact they're the ones that we are supposed to want to help. Frankly, they suck and it's hard to get motivated to want to help them. This reaches extreme levels in book 5, and that whole book basically needs a total rewrite due to it railroading players massively with super unlikable characters (except the demon that inevitably betrays you) and the players being along for the ride more than being actively pushing the plot. None of those problems have anything to do with Drow at all and still exist with Serpentfolk.

Book 4 does need major rewrites to change Drow to Serpentfolk, and if you were publishing it today some of what goes on in this would need changing as well.

Some stuff does change by changing Drow to Serpfentfolk in every book, but book 4 is the only one where you actually deal with Drow in any real capacity other than fighting them, and of course the "Elves transform into Drow" thing would make no real sense with Serpentfolk... but later APs and Paizo largely abandoned that anyway even before the OGL problems.

If you really wanted to, you could do the swap and have that part of it be workable by changing the relevant plot points. The other problems all remain, though, so an actual remaster of this is more like a total rewrite and there's no real chance that happens unless some fans do it.

During this transition, how should GMs apply those champion abilities though? Many of their additional bonuses are good damage. We can translate to holy damage but it seems like unholy will be less common than evil was for foes. It feels like a champion's damage should apply to things it always has until they get remastered but I'm not sure that would be the case if we treated it as holy.

IIRC, what was alignment damage is now all Spirit damage. So the Champion's Good damage is now Spirit damage, which works on more things (anything with a spirit vs only Evil creatures). I think the Champion ones should also be sanctified holy, which means they would trigger weaknesses to that (something that was weak to good would now be weak to sanctified holy damage, so it'd still trigger).

I liked Pathfinder Training, but removing it is the right move. Frankly most players I see in PFS didn't know it existed and didn't tend to use it. It's an out of the way thing to know about and remember to use, unless you're using Hero Lab Online (which if you tell it you're making a Society character will actively prompt you to pick stuff from it).

That created this weird situation where my character has extra stuff than another players character just because I know to take them and the other person doesn't.

People also tend to forget the consumables in my experience and so while I remind them, we tended to default to "if you don't know what I'm talking about, you get X healing potion" (whatever the table says) rather than trying to explain at the start of a game what training options are available.

It was a neat idea that with the benefit of experience just hasn't gotten traction.

Hey everyone! I am new to Foundry and just bought this pack.

I wanted to use the images (tokens) for 5E but I am having issues. The only images when in the 5E game that show are the ones that are mapped to the SRD monsters, nothing else shows in the compendium page. How do I search and use the images themselves (minus the stat block and mapping) from directly in the Foundry VTT when the bestiary pack is enabled?
Thanks for any help.

If the module is installed (doesn't even have to be enabled), the token art resides in your foundry modules folder. For example, mine is here (your location will vary based on where you installed Foundry and set your data folder): C:\foundry\FoundryData\Data\modules\pf2e-tokens-bestiaries

Inside Foundry itself, when picking the art for a token/actor, you'll browse to a path like that inside foundry, then pick the image you want. The art is all images so you pick them the way you'd pick art for any actor.

My magnum opus, a collection of Harrowings by yours truly (featuring some REALLY cool character questions)!

That was great! :)

Leaving individual changes aside, I really love this new process. It's a much needed improvement. Good job. :)

I hope this means we'll see errata for Secrets of Magic, as there's a number of things in there that have been waiting a long time for it.

So this truly changes the portrait art and token art of every Bestiary entry in the Foundry VTT Pathfinder 2e compendiums for them?

Looks like it, yep! Everything I've tried from a Bestiary didn't have art before and does now.

It doesn't touch creatures already in the game, either because you already imported them or made them yourself. In that case you can bring it in from the compendium again, or assign art manually.

I'm struggling here, I bought the package and activated it on my Foundry account, but I can't find this module in Foundry at all. It's not in the install module listings, even as 'unowned'. I'm running an older version of Foundry (v9), is that the cause? i'm reluctant to update in case it breaks my current AV campaign.

The token pack requires Foundry v10.

I've migrated multiple campaigns, including Ruby Phoenix and Extinction Curse, both of which were brought in using Pdf2Foundry. As long as you import every book *before* doing the migration, it works fine out of the box now that v10 has a few fixes. (If your AV campaign is using the version you can buy on Foundry itself rather than an imported one, then just update that at the same time and it should be fine.)

There's a couple modules that didn't carry over (Token Auras is busted for PF2 in v10), but most are updated and working fine now. So unless there's a module you just can't live without that isn't updated, you should be fine at this point.

Do make a full backup first of course, as the upgrade instructions say. That way if it doesn't work you can roll back.

I'm so glad to see another high level adventure. Ruby Phoenix is great, and one of the reasons is that since you get to start at 11, you're already big important people and you can do absolutely any wild backstory you can think of.

With the Harrow worked in here too, it sounds really interesting.

I see, thanks. That's frustrating.

That's great! I love how the style is so bright and whimsical.

I mean, I don't feel that "I shouldn't doxx my customers" is holding anything up to a higher standard. If a freelancer or customer service person had done it, you'd have probably fired them. So that an executive can do it and just promise to not do it again is not any kind of high standard.

"I shouldn't doxx my customers" is an absolute minimum standard for anyone working at any company.

Yup, Merisiel (and the author) is bisexual. And thank you so much for the kind words, folks! This is a story I've been wanting to write for a LOOOONG time, and when I was doing the initial art brief for the APG and saw that heartbond was in there as a ritual, the way I wanted to illustrate it was a no-brainer... love how it turned out! (insert a long line of heart emojis here)

EDIT: Reading the responses has me weepy eyed too! In a good way!

Oh man, heartbond is in there? That's awesome! Definitely something I'd love to have in my games.

HLO is immensely frustrating, since they had something that worked in HLC and abandoned it for the new thing. Okay, fine, that happens. The new thing is worse than the old thing in a lot of ways (no custom content, doesn't work offline, etc).

The new thing is also more expensive than the old thing, with the double-dipping subscription model and relatively high price for minor things like AP player content that used to be free.

So lets summarize this. It's more expensive for less functionality. It is not shocking why HLC users would be balking at this. I totally agree that things like family plans and an all-in single subscription would help significantly, but until that stuff is actually delivered, it's meaningless to talk about it.

I don't think it should ruin anything for a group, simply because Hero Lab isn't nearly as necessary in PF2 the way it was in PF1. The math in PF2 is much simpler, you aren't going to have to try to figure out how seven buffs interact with each other, and in general it's a simpler game to run. It'd certainly be hard to let it go when you're used to having the toolchain (like I am), but PF2 is far easier to play with paper and pencil, so it's a thing you can adapt to.

Maybe HLO will one day become better than HLC and get a pricing model that's more palatable. But right now it's just not there, and I'm not sure if it ever will be.

IMO, it has nothing to do with the how wide the gap is: You're ALWAYS going to have one big enough to cause an issue if you try and it'll just get worse as more options come out.

No you won't. You will always have a gap, because if people can make choices some people will make better ones than others. It is in no way set in stone that said gap will be big enough to cause issues. It was just that wain PF1 and it's ancestors because those systems had wild power disparity between options, or even classes.

Hell, we had a guy in the PF1 game I'm in remake a character because his first one was just ineffective in our group. His new, far more effective one? A ranged Slayer with the "standard archery feats everybody has to take to make archery work". Not exactly some broken or OP build. That's how ineffective his first character was. Same guy, no particular attempt to break the game. Wild disparity.

There's all kinds of room to close that up without them being equal. It's not that big a deal if one character is better than another so long as both feel useful and contribute to the group. It is a problem when one character so totally eclipses another that there's a question as to why the second one is even there.

(The d20 system is riddled with those kinds of issues, which is why we need all these social conventions about trying to match power levels to each other in a party.)

quote]If people ignore the social contract and knowingly make characters that don't fit in with the rest of the group, it isn't a game issue...

If the game requires a social contract or it fundamentally breaks because people use the same rules and come up with characters that can't form a functional group due to one being a sword waving guy and the other being a demigod... then that is absolutely a game issue. It's a failure of the game to make such a situation even happen as a standard outcome of following the rules normally.

Maybe you should try 'twinking' out a normally bad/sub-optimal character to make it workable so you can work on na wierd build AND not put out other people as the total power level isn't blown.

That still requires knowing what everyone else is doing, because if he does that and the rest of the table shows up with the most OP things they can make, he's now the one on the wrong end of it. Which isn't better.

You know what I never needed to ask in the playtest? "Hey, are you guys using totally broken builds or low power ones, so I can make something to try and line up?"

That I never had to do that is a huge positive.

Look folks.

You are missing the point.

You can have different flavours of pulp adventures, you can have different flavours of super hero adventures.

When you do pulp superhero stories ala old school superman/batman and the afore mentioned Doc Savage you are dealing with something outwith traditional heroic fantasy even relatively high fantasy.

High jinks and craziness are all par for the course. Being homo superior by level 1 or 6 or 20 isn't.

Anyway as I keep saying we'll see what the final product is like but the fundamental break with tradition that the +1 per level to every thing for every member of the adventurer super species with addition of the UTMEL to differentiate between the supers who have left base humanity so far behind is noticeable and deeply felt.

No, we get the point. We disagree with it. Those are not the same thing.

Right now I'm playing a Cleric who can literally walk on air, conjure enough food for 324 people a day with only a single level's spell slots, banish relatively strong demons to their own plane by uttering a few magic words, imprison a champion of a big bad wielding an artifact sword into my scimitar (true story, was great), bring the dead back to life, and call down literal Miracles. I can do all those things at more or less the same time in one day, and still have enough power left over to wield fire and lightning, heal impossibly grievous injuries, cure nearly any disease, engage in diplomacy with nearly anyone successfully, sing a pretty great aria...

I mean, this isn't an exhaustive list. This is stuff on my spell list from two game sessions ago and a couple of skills that are jacked right up (although I haven't had to feed an entire town lately). And that's not even a particularly powerful character, I built a healer because they're fun. :)

So I mean, if you're trying to say that +1 somehow breaks tradition because PCs aren't world altering forces at high level... my not so optimized Cleric wants to say hi. And so does the God King Wizard who actually did try to become as powerful as possible, because that guy is beyond superhero.

And since they changed it so untrained doesn't get that +1 anymore, my Cleric even gets to keep his comic ineptitude at Stealth!

What needs to happen is everyone has to be on the same page. If you're playing a casual game, you know you're a jerk if you hyperspecilize. If you know you're playing a tooth and nail epic fight for the universe, you as much a jerk for bringing in a casual character. If you build a character to actually fit your group, it's not an issue.

In order to know that you're going into a tooth and nail epic fight for the universe and that you shouldn't bring in a "casual character", you need to know that much about the game, and also need enough system mastery to know what a "casual character" is, and how to avoid it.

Anyone relatively new to the game or with low system mastery is incapable of doing that. And that's where the whole mess gets going and the DM has a bunch of extra work to do.

The system mastery power gap in PF1 is massive. It's so huge that it necessitates groups figuring out this stuff in advance, sometimes with players who have no understanding of what the problem even is or what they're supposed to do about it.

It seems to me that a better solution is to reduce the size of the system mastery power gap so that groups don't have to do this, because there's no lack of systems where it isn't necessary but there are still differences between character power. They simply don't allow one person to build Superman while another builds "Varkon the mall cop" and expect them to be in the same group battling the same foes.

The playtest did go a long way to alleviating that.

I really and sincerely do not understand why a 10th level Wizard having a minimum AC of 22 or so is more immersion breaking than them having the 100+ HP they often do in PF2. I am honestly befuddled.

I mean...all the complaints about the lack of realism/explanation for the AC bonus apply even more to increasing hit points, so objecting to one and not the other makes absolutely no sense to me.

I mean, even in PF1 with a Raging Power Attacking 1st level Barbarian critting them for around 57 damage on average, most 10th level Wizards I've seen would survive that. That's a full on greataxe to the face kinda situation, and they're basically fine (indeed, even absent magic, they'll be fine in less than a week). I find them learning to dodge better a lot more plausible than them gaining that level of physical durability ever was.

Seriously, when people can block greataxe blows with their face, other minor feats of superhuman physical prowess seem par for the course.

Because if you go there, you're also going to have to explain why ANYONE can block greataxe blows with their face. Human skulls do not become more durable by training with swords, so there's no logical explanation for why Fighters are more likely to survive a direct headshot from a greataxe than Wizards are. It makes no sense whatsoever.

Which of course, it doesn't have to. HP are an abstraction. Always have been. They have always represented more than how many direct greataxe hits to the face you can take without dying.

I mean, are we talking Fighter feats? Sure. Playtest Fighter feats are generally pretty cool. Lots of them do interesting things. I found more than one I might want to have at some levels. They're an improvement over a lot of feats from PF1 for Fighters.

But that isn't true for all classes. Cleric feats are... not that. So much so that it often makes sense to dump them into getting Paladin feats instead. Because yes, you can make the case that Channel Life is better than all the Cleric feats it costs to get.

Skill feats were all over the map, general feats were largely uninteresting even if they are good (the "add +1 to a thing" feat did exist, it just bumped your proficiency in a save, and Fleet with it's +5 movement was certainly useful but not what I'd call inspired).

I kind of feel like you two are talking past each other simply because you're talking about something so broad that you can both be right at the same time depending on what specific subset you're looking at. :)

I think it's important that something resembling it exists. That is: Wizards/Clerics have access to a wide variety of spells, can only use so many at one time, and have to generally speaking decide that when preparing for the day, barring scroll/staff usage.

It's been an iconic part of the game for a very, very long time, and by losing it entirely I think you're losing something. That said, there is no requirement that it work exactly the same way, and something like the often discussed arcanist casting (where you pick a set of spells but don't have to assign them to individual slots during prep, so you can cast two Create Food spells without specifically preparing two of them) would make the classes generally more accessable and less prone to being so swingy power wise, without taking away from the setting.

Mostly it just solves stuff like "oh I only prepared one Restoration today and two people got crippling effects, so I guess we're done adventuring for the day despite having all these free slots".

(I also don't think this is the same conversation as the mechanics discussion in the other thread.)

MaxAstro wrote:

Those are fair points.

Personally I have a lot of faith in Paizo, and I also strongly feel that the success or failure of PF2e is going to be in the Adventure Paths, which have always been the flagship product. I don't think what PF2e looks like even matters that much as long as Paizo continues to be the only company regularly publishing quality prebuilt adventures.

But I also don't play PFS, so I can't speak to the trepidation there; I can understand worrying about that, though.

This is a topic of discussion a group of us has, if the AP's or adventures are good to excellent but the main system is less than that, will people buy the AP's or adventures? Is there or has there been any example of this from the past? And does it apply today?

MDC

Some people will, for sure. Some others will buy and then convert the mechanics to a system they like more. But on the general market, if the system itself is unpopular, content for it tends to not resonate that well. It turns into a problem where even if the AP itself is good, people who don't know that see the system name on the cover and immediately move on. That makes APs a much tougher sell.

Hopefully the system is popular because it makes the whole question moot.n

Megistone wrote:

I don't get why a wizard becoming better at attacking (even physically) is ok, but a wizard becoming better at defending is absolutely not.

The only explanation I can think of is: because it used to be so.

Why does every character become more skilled with their weapons when their BAB increases, including the ones they aren't even proficient in? Why does the spellcaster who never casts a single necromancy spell turn out to be able to cast them perfectly when there's an 8th level one they like? Why does killing goblins make you better at opening locks because you level up and that's where you put your skill point(s)? It's all a great mystery.

The assumption was that during downtime you were practicing whatever you put your skill points into/researching the spells you'd learn/practicing the new feat you got/etc, which handwaved all that away.

Which is fine, and can still do that. There just has never been a justification for "your ability to hit goes up but your ability to avoid being hit doesn't" except "because game mechanics." Which means game mechanics can absolutely change that so they do both improve.

Starfox wrote:

As it is the sorcerer isn't really a viable class. Hopefully, we'll see the sorcerer go through a lot of evolution, including adding multiple beefed-up bloodlines.

Wut

I'm a bit skeptical about how well it the divine bloodlines function as written, and to a lesser extent the aberrant bloodline. But the primal and arcane spell lists are great, and any class with access to it is perfectly viable. Having great charisma also makes them amazing with Demoralize as a third action.

Yeah. My wife played a Silver Dragon Sorcerer in Mirroed Moon and loved it, while she was a useful member of the party too. That's pretty good for "not a viable class".

Tridus wrote:

You don't try to balance class power by making the OOC game mechanics obtuse and complicated to use to their full potential. That simply gets you a wide disparity...

I guess I don't see how selecting one's spells at the start of the day as prepared casters do is "obtuse and complicated." It seems fairly simple and straightforward to me.

I think people have described their feelings on that in the other thread. :)

And for those who'd refer not play prepared/Vancian casters, there are numerous spontaneous caster options - oracles, sorcerers, etc.

Those aren't really the same as they move the issue to level up instead, and leave you without the same versatility. I like picking spells, I don't like "well I took X and Y because I thought we were doing one thing, but now we're doing something else so 2/3 of my highest level spell slots don't exist today." With how much magic was nerfed in the playtest, the power level loss caused by that simply hurts too much to make vancian casting tenible for me.

I can handle it more easily in PF1 simply because with so many more spells per day (and generally stronger spells, and less need to heighten things to make them effective, and longer durations, and scaling...), getting one or two wrong simply doesn't hurt as much.

Helmic wrote:

Ninja in the Rye wrote:

Five months and was there not a single question on whether we should keep or remove Vancian style prepared casting?

I think of all my criticisms of PF2, this was the biggest. I think it had a knock on effect that made every casting class feel subpar.

Personally, I'm very happy they're keeping Vancian casting for prepared spell casters (one of the very few things in what we know about PF2e that I am happy about). For me, it's a fundamental part of D&D writ large.

Except for the most popular version of D&D ever released, by a huge margin?

This next bit is not a criticism of the folks I'm quoting but a more general observation. I find it odd/interesting that there is both concern about the alleged "caster-martial gap" (something that I don't think is all that real) and also unhappiness about Vancian casting which would seem to be a limit on caster effectiveness.

It's not a limit on caster effectiveness. If anything, it enables the disparity in the first place, because it makes caster power so widely variable.

The power spread between a vancian caster played by someone who gets their spell selection perfect and one who doesn't is huge. It's effectively impossible to balance against martials who aren't doing it, because which point do you balance for? If you make a near perfect vancian caster balanced, anyone falling well below that on a given day's spells will be at a severe disadvantage relative to the party. This is where the playtest came closer to, and it made magic feel awful for people who simply didn't get those perfect spell selections.

If you make a suboptimal spell selection what you balance for, then the perfect one becomes far more powerful than everyone else and you have the very problem we've had in the past.

You don't try to balance class power by making the OOC game mechanics obtuse and complicated to use to their full potential. That simply gets you a wide disparity between people playing the same class.

Man, I hope they don't use Twitch as the primary means of getting information out. The last thing I need is an hour long video to cover something that can be done in 2 minutes of reading.

Repeatedly trying to escape from ropes seems like the sort of thing that would occur in gameplay often enough that it would be good if the rules could handle it. Something along the lines of "natural 20 counts as a +5/+10 bonus rather than auto-success, a certain number of failures / critical failures in a given hour / day fatigues you".

This would make more sense in general. Instead of auto-success, treat it as +10. If that's enough to make it a success, then it is. If not, then you simply can't do it. That'd also push anything that was already a success into crit success territory, so it's working on that front too.

That's fairly elegant, and provides an easily understandable situation of "no, even a nat 20 doesn't let you succeed on a DC 50 check with your +3 modifier" without any DM fiat required.

Tridus wrote:

Vancian asks the same question, but instead asks them to do it by going systematically through every slot and picking exactly what they want to do with it, at every level. Metamagic? Figure it out in advance. Think you might need a second one of something? Better decide with no idea what's actually happening tomorrow. These three slots are special and can only hold certain spells from some other list? Gotta track that.

Playing requires the full list, all the time. My current PF1 level 18 Cleric has such a list: it was more than a page long in Notepad++ before I transferred it into Hero Lab (trying to do it manually with pencil and paper just wastes so much table time everytime I need to change the list that I long ago abandoned that).
...

One trick experienced players learned was to leave some slots unprepared. Then, if the party had a need for a particular specialized spell, the wizard could take 15 minutes to prepare that spell in the empty slot and then cast it.

Yeah, I do that. The other caster in that group (a Mystic Theurge) does it a lot more because they have so many spell slots. There was a stretch where they missed several sessions and I was playing both characters at once. Let me tell you, playing two high level Vancian casters and having three spell lists was not a fun experience. It was just exhausting to keep track of that much stuff.

Leaving slots empty isn't an option for Clerics in the playtest as there's no way to fill them later, and I missed it. Of course, with half the slots we had in PF1, it's also somewhat more expensive to leave a slot empty.

The last time I played a prepared caster as a PC (I GM mostly these days) was a D&D 3.5 cleric. That cleric had no channeling but could spontaneously convert prepared spells into a Cure X Wounds spell of the same level. Thus, I decided how often I would need to cast a Cure spell and filled those slots with specialized spells. As I healed people during the day, I gradually lost the specialized spells. I worried in which order I should lose them, since I would be embarrassed to throw away a spell right before a hazard where I needed that spell, but that was my only worry.

Yep, I do that too, although I also have so many spells now that if a couple of them wind up being not needed, it's not a disaster to my effectiveness. I have lots more I can use.

The playtest really exacerbated that aspect, as with half my spell slots gone, any badly chosen one (especially the higher level ones) was severely painful and specialized stuff was hard to take on the off chance it might be useful. You just don't have the resources.

Honestly, the playtest soured me badly on Vancian casting because of this. It's the first D&D style system I've ever played in (since 1990 or so) where I enjoyed Fighter more than the caster classes. That has never happened before. So, kudos for making a fun Fighter, but damn.

I had asked yesterday about using spell points to recall spells. However, today's posts seem to be about the problem of predicting which spells would be needed. What if Pathfinder 2nd Edition developed a system to overwrite prepared spells? The wizard had prepared Fireball, but the party needs Water Breathing, so he pulls out his spellbook, gestures for 5 minutes, and rewrites the spell slot containing Fireball as Water Breathing? Technically, that is very slow spontaneity, but it should be enough to make the wizard feel different from the sorcerer, especially since it puts the spellbook front and center. What do you think about that?

I think someone mentioned Quick Preparation already does that for Wizards. Would help if Clerics and Druids also got that, I think. It's certainly a helpful option for those narrative and restorative spells that come up surprisingly in an adventure and this option helps avoid the "oh we need X and can't get it, we're camping for the day" problem.

If it's costing spell points, it should probably be more of an in combat thing: I need it right now, so I spend 2 spell points and can cast it directly out of my spellbook/prayer/etc.

Of course, you might want that option even in an arcanist casting world, but with how limited the playtest is casting wise, it feels desperately needed.

This is the overnerfing part almost everyone was complaining about. I didn't mention it that much because it is already being fixed, but I still think removing /caster level scaling was a good move, they just need to buff other things. Personally, I'm not sure if increasing spell slots is necessary, I'm most inclined on buffing the effectiveness of each spell and increasing versatility in how to cast them as solutions.

With how many spells require heightening to be effective as you level? Yes, more slots are seriously needed.

Right now we have so few spells that most casters don't feel like the pure casters of old. They feel like hybrid classes.

I have never found wizards confusing to play. I have been playing them since 1st edition. The people who talk about how confusing it is to play a wizard... I don't know what it is they don't get.

I mean, I don't "get" people that find a command line interface confusing to use, but I recognize that the vast majority of people do. Get immersed in something long enough and it's pretty hard to see it from the outside with fresh eyes.

That said, "confusing" probably isn't the right word. It's not that confusing to explain, it's just overly complicated, especially as you get to higher level. "Obtuse" is the word I'd go with.

Fundamentally, Arcanist style casting asks a caster every day to answer the question "what do you want to be able to do today?" They answer that by picking the X spells they want to have access to from some list (the spellbook, Cleric list, whatever), and that's it. When playing, all you need is your list of "I have these X spells today, and I have the following slots left."

Vancian asks the same question, but instead asks them to do it by going systematically through every slot and picking exactly what they want to do with it, at every level. Metamagic? Figure it out in advance. Think you might need a second one of something? Better decide with no idea what's actually happening tomorrow. These three slots are special and can only hold certain spells from some other list? Gotta track that.

Playing requires the full list, all the time. My current PF1 level 18 Cleric has such a list: it was more than a page long in Notepad++ before I transferred it into Hero Lab (trying to do it manually with pencil and paper just wastes so much table time everytime I need to change the list that I long ago abandoned that).

One of these is much more cumbsome, tedious, and unwieldly to handle than the other. The tradeoff for putting up with all that was that you could do almost anything with the right spells, thus we have this silly situation where people complain about casters being too powerful but they're so annoying to use that lots of people just flat out won't play them despite the power.

That all made lots of sense, once. But we've seen from experience that game design has improved since then and we can make a better system.

Tridus wrote:

"Thievery" doesn't cover all of its uses either:

Which does it miss?

Pick pocket? check
Shoplifting? Check
Bypass security? Check
Open a lock? Check

To me, it covers all 4 actions. Please point out where it fails as I don't see it.

Literally any use that isn't "theft", as evidenced by the first two pages of this thread. That's the whole problem.

Raylyeh wrote:

Yes, thievery has obvious negative connotations that all of its uses don’t deserve but it gets across what it does pretty well.

The point is that Thievery is but one use for the skill set.

In practice, if you look at all of the APs and modules, the skill is almost never used for anything approximating theft.

Rather, it is a standard dungeoneering skill used to circumvent or manipulate the mechanisms of a site (locks, traps, machines, etc.) -- and the site itself is usually the lair of a villian or monster and/or a long abandoned ruin.

Sure, NPC thieves use this skill for their profession, but adventurers generally use it for something else entirely.
So a name that captures the Indiana Jones and Lara Croft and MacGyver type skill use would be better.

"Dungeoneering". I like it!

My point is that after over 100 posts no one in this thread has come up with an alternative that covers all of thievery’s uses satisfactorily without being even more problematic in their own way.

"Thievery" doesn't cover all of its uses either: all the non-thievery related ones are excluded. So it's not like we need a flawless replacement when the thing being replaced is itself flawed.

I am 100% onboard with a *BETTER* solution. But it is a complete non sequitur to jump from "there must be a narrative REASON for the math" to "the items we have are boring". Fine. Give me a better solution.

Right now I have a GREAT game that certainly has areas where improvement is called for an would be welcome. But the same 'ole same 'ole logically fallacy keep coming around that just because *SOME* change is welcome it must be true that *ANY* change is an improvement.

+1 Rings are boring. They are a boring thing in a great game. Number pointlessly dropping out of the air are a bad game. That is WAY worse than a great game with some boring blips.

Lets work on actual improvement.

"You level up, so in addition to the other stuff you spontaneously already get better at, you now also get better at dodging" seems like an improvement to me?

That's how everything else already worked, and it eliminates the need for the AC boosting rings and such entirely.

(As for the ‘contributing to the discussion’ bit, try this out - I can follow your maths fairly easily, but what is your design intent? What does your game gain from the calculation? Why is it important that level progress depends on monster kills? If something else is involved, isn’t that just the GM deciding he wants players to level early because of the story? If these are avoided, what does the story gain from the players being a lower level than expected? Would you change the encounters because of it? Why?)

That's why I stopped using XP as a DM the moment I was reading the Fate Core rulebook and was introduced to milestone levelling. What a revelation.

There was always this inherent problem around my campaigns because they are with an RP heavy group and involve lots of talking. If the PCs get sidetracked and I spend two sessions creating a side quest on the fly because of what they decided to do... how much XP is that worth? I have absolutely no idea.

If they do that several times and outlevel stuff, is it okay that all their random investigating made them better at fighting for some reason and makes encounters much easier? If they don't do it next time and I expect them to, are things now too difficult for them? How do I set the XP for these things so the PCs don't feel like I'm punishing them for choosing one path over the other?

It's so much easier to simply say "they'll level up at this plot point" in my notes, ditch the math entirely, and tell them that there are no XP numbers and thus there is no difference in how they go about doing things or much side exploration they want to do.

Before the PF2E announcement, I was generally in the camp of folks who wanted a 1.5 style minor revision. Since the playtest I have come to see the merits of a greater revision.

Why?

Well, say prior to the playtest, if you polled a ton of folks who were actively playing PF at the time (or only recently went away from the game), some of those folks would say no to ANY revision, but I think most of them would see the merit of a 1.5. However, if you were to ask them WHAT A 1.5 REVISION actually entails, I don't think you would get absolutely any agreement.

Just look at the topics endlessly debated in PF 1E

Caster-Martial Discrepancy
Alignment
Setting versus Setting neutral
Vancian vs other systems
Role of GM
Paladins
High Level Play
Magic

etc

some people may only see revisions to a couple or even none of those things as necessary. Some people may agree there are problems with these specific areas, but then have WIDELY different ideas of how to fix them or what degree of change is needed. Caster-Martial discrepancy is a great one to point out. I think most folks acknowledge an issue here, but some don't find it significant, and some consider it a plus. Other folks find it a major problem and want to nerf spell casters, while other folks find it a problem and think it requires a major buff to martials. Any decision you make on how to address these changes is going to alienate some core group of the existing audience, while at the same time losing the folks who want NO CHANGES IN ANYTHING.

So really, any revision at all is going to cause problems with your existing customer base. You might as well go for broke and do a more substantial edition change, and hope that any loss of existing consumers is made up by bringing back former players and attracting new players, either from 5E or folks who are completely new to the game.

Exactly this. Fundamentally, if you put ten people from ten different gaming groups in a room and ask what a hypothetical PF 1.5 should look like and what the top things to change/leave alone are, you will get ten different answers. Take one of them and use it, you have at least one other one that will say "you changed something that didn't need changing and broke the system!", and just lost a sale.

The obvious example is magic and caster/martial disparity. You hear that complaint a lot about how unfairly disadvantaged martials are. Yet, when the playtest dropped a nuclear nerfbomb on the casters... no martial players in my group went "yay!"

That's because no casters in my group are breaking the game or totally hoarding the spotlight. We're actually both playing largely support casters, favoring buffs, debuffs, heals, walls, and things like that. Most of that stuff has the effect of "make the martials better able to do their job", and nerfing my ability to buff the Fighter didn't make the Fighter happier. (Fighters themselves being really cool in the playtest did, though!)

So if you go ahead and listen to a group that feels overpowered casters are a problem needing fixing, you're also alienating my group where the "overpowered casters" are not a problem in the first place. Do you think that's going to make us buy the new edition, especially since if it's "1.5" we can likely adapt any APs we want to play back to 1.0?

If you keep backward compatability, you are shackled to some things that simply can't be changed. If you ditch it, people complain that you have a mostly similar revision that doesn't work with the old stuff "so you can sell us the same books again".

If someone can figure out how to make a 1.5 that doesn't alienate half the target market, that would be great. I suspect that's much harder than it initially sounds though, because while PF1 isn't perfect, it's quite good. Improving it without breaking what some people like won't be that easy.

It also doesn't give you the same option to draw in new people, or draw back people that got sick of it to go play 5e because it's got a more modern design instead. I think it's kind of a non-starter. If it turns out that's not the case, some 3pp could make it.

I think you're in the same boat as a lot of people. Without anything new to test and not much to discuss, stuff will quickly become about rehashing the same topics over and over again, which is pointlessly frustrating for everyone.

Hope to see a lot of folks back when the PF2 CRB hits. :)

Right, cuz who really wants those narrative things like magic items, right? This isn't about telling a story. It is just a math exercise. As long as "the math works" who cares if it ties into what is happening, right? Oh, wait, a lot of people *DO* care.

Rings of Protection, Amulets of Natural Armor, and Cloaks of Resistence were not interesting items at all. They're just gold/slot taxes everyone pays because the game expects you to have those stats or your get crushed.

I'm perfectly okay with being able to take an interesting cloak instead of the mandatory stat booster one, because the math was fixed to not require the mandatory stat booster one anymore.

Nettah wrote:

I (and hopefully others including Paizo) sees the issue with all my 3 examples and why a limit is needed for a better game. If you think all my 3 examples is equally valuable or that the ring of swimming is just as good as the combination of the other 7 rings from your example, then fine you don't need any limitations on magical items in your game.

No, I don't think any of your examples showed a combination that broke the game without an item limit or were relevant to the question of the thread.

I'm legitimately looking for examples that make me think, "Oh yeah, you know if there wasn't an item limit, a player could afford to do... xyz... and that would be ridiculous." If you have an xyz that fits in this question, I would like to hear it. Otherwise, like the rest of you, I'm curious what systems the final rules use, and in the meantime I won't be using a slot or resonance limit.

Fundamentally, you've asked a question and then systematically dismissed every single answer given to you. You're not looking for discussion. You're looking for people to agree with you, by changing your criteria to be so vague that no answer can possibly actually meet it.

Because really, if you don't think having 35 rings of Counterspell active simultaneously as opposed to increasing your AC by +1 is a problem, there is no possible thing that will and continuing this discussion is a waste of time.

The idea that this is an "unattainable amount of gold" is nonsense. It's clearly attainable, unless increasing your Armor rune is unattainable. They cost the same. This is entirely expected within the standard wealth rules of the game.

MaxAstro wrote:

Honestly, even though it doesn't perfectly cover picking pockets, Security is kinda my favorite suggestion to far. It also works for actual thieves on an ironic level. "I'm a... security specialist, you might say." :P

But nothing is stopping the current master of thievery of framing it that way in game. Thievery is an OOC term for the selection of skill uses, so I don't see the reason why the name should in anyway dictate anything in-game. Security to me fails to cover Palm an Object and Steal an Object and to some extend Lockpicking as well.

That's the point, really. "Thievery" is an OOC term, but we have this entire thread devoted to "Paladins can't use it because Thievery is inherently unlawful."

That perception is exactly the reason why the name should be changed. It's strictly an OOC problem.

I'm trying to understand why Paizo didn't even leave a question on the surveys about this, classic Vancian x other systems (Arcanist, most probably). I mean, is it so set in stone that they aren't willing to get feedback on this? If so... why? I'm gonna talk a little bit about my experiences with it but this one single thing has been the biggest roadblock for new people to get into PF2 from what I've seen. By pretty far, actually. Well, here are some of the reasons I think Vancian casting is bad and should be replaced by Arcanist or other more modern spellcasting system:

Can I like this like 50 times? I don't know why it didn't come up, but surely they must see how well it's worked out for that other game to abandon a system that said game itself made iconic.

Vancian casting is not a sacred cow. It absolutely can be improved and/or banished.

- As I've said, it really turns new players down from trying the game. I have commented about this in other threads, but almost every person I pitched PF2 to and didn't want to try it was because of this. And, also, from the 20 or so people that I've DMed to, this was a dealbreaker for like... half of them?

Saw something similar. The people who played spellcasters in 1e were good playing it. The people who don't didn't show a whole lot of interest in starting aside from the spontaneous casters.

- It makes prepared spellcaster's power level fluctuate very hard between adventuring days. If you prepared the correct spells you are going to contribute a lot or even auto-win the encounter (although the latter was reduced a lot in PF2). If you prepared the wrong spells you can sit down and pull your popcorn, because you aren't going to contribute at all.

So much this. I play support casters in D&D and PF1 all the time. This turned me off PF2 Clerics so much.

It's a problem in PF1 as it is, but you get so many spells and they're generally so strong that a couple of bad decisions don't cripple you past very low level. PF2 took away half the spells per day Clerics had, made the non-Heal ones much weaker, but kept the preparation limitations in place. A bad choice was utterly awful.

It strongly reinforced "skip stuff that might be interesting and might be garbage, take what you know will work" because you simply can't afford to have dead slots with so few of them. It also reinforced "focus as much as you can on Channel, because that is always awesome without fail."

It would help a lot to take some of the other, potentially wasted spells if I know I can turn them into a second cast of something else should it not come up, and would make casters in general much more player friendly to play.

- A little bit of an extension of the last point, but this makes people afraid of preparing cool and different stuff. You could prepare some castings of Bind Undead to enter the Necromancer's tower, but what if he has non-undead minions first, or his minions are already binded by him? Well, guess it's better to just prepare 3 Fireballs then. People end up just preparing their generic spells over and over again because any other thing could go to complete waste.

Yup. Exactly. It's worse than it was in PF1, both due to fewer slots making each incorrect one that much more punishing, but also becuase in PF1 a Cleric could turn an otherwise wasted slot into healing. Which while not a super awesome thing to do a lot of the time, did turn an otherwise dead slot into something that would help the party continue on for the day.

- It even hurts spontaneous casters as well. How? Because now their advantage is just not using this terrible system. If prepared casters used Arcanist-style casting, Bloodline Powers and Compositions could be a lot stronger without making Sorcerers and Bards too powerful in relation to the rest of the casters.

Agreed. This is the main reason my wife wanted to play a Sorcerer (although the dragon claws didn't hurt). Vancian casting is simply too much bookkeeping and work than she wants to put into the game.

Paizo, I'm here to sincerely ask: You don't need to just go and change the entire spellcasting system with no data, but please, at least consider letting people give feedback on this in the surveys. I've seen so much people both in the forums and IRL manifesting that they want this system gone. Even some diehard PF1 fans have said that if one thing should actually change, it's this.

At this point it seems too late for surveys in the playtest cycle, unless they plan to do a post playtest one. But yeah. They could always ask about it on FB and Twitch and see what the feedback looks like. They could look at the reaction to 5e removing it and seeing how positively that was received.

I'm not sure it even needs a survey to come to the conclusion that it's something that can be removed.

Then it makes no sense that a Paladin who is trained in Thievery never actually used Thievery in its obviously intended usage, since now you're justifying Paladins being Legendary Thieves, which is an absolutely ridiculous character concept. An Antipaladin, sure, because they don't have any moral quandaries and might actually have insidious uses for the skill, but a Paladin? What's next, Paladins being full-fledged Wizards or Alchemists? (And no, Dedication feats don't count.)

There's no reason whatsoever that a Paladin who winds up picking a lot of locks is a "ridiculous character concept" unless you're being overly judgemental on other people's character concepts for BadWrongFun. We've already shown how easy it is to get the skill on a Paladin. There's no reason whatsoever they can't train it after that to get better at it, just like any other character can train in anything, even if they aren't always using it.

Unless you want to apply this across the board and tell me my Cleric can't get better at Perform at a given level up without actually using it. Because you can't apply these kinds of extra restrictions to Paladins and nobody else because reasons.

It's only a problematic word choice because people want to justify being a thief as being a Capital LG thing that Paladins should have every right to do. And they don't. It's an unrealistic standard to suggest that Robin Hood is a Paladin, because he's not, no matter what amount of piety he may seem to possess. He might be Good, but he's also a Vigilante, sparking Chaos in an otherwise Lawful land, and in the service of legitimate authority, a Paladin would have qualms with that kind of person because the Paladin isn't a lawbreaker. He wouldn't kill him unless he had to, obviously, but a Paladin should, at the very least, be on the side of bringing him to justice and instead finding a better way within the laws of the land to support those less fortunate unless he finds the authority to no longer be legitimate. But for the sake of argument, it is in this case, so if that Paladin wants to aid and abet a criminal, he should suffer the consequences of what that does to his Paladinhood.

No, it's a problematic word because of exactly what you're doing: you're so hung up on the word that you're dismissing every possible usage of the skill as "not something a Paladin would do".

You can't really suggest an alternative simply because they are two completely different skill sets by nature. The ability to set and disable traps, the ability to pick and create locks, the ability to steal and hide objects on your person, these are all things that iconic Thieves do. But you know what? I got a better name than anyone else does, and it fits with the existing concept. Roguery. There. Now it's not Evil and Paladins can justify their Robin Hood-ness via Roguery. Problem solved, everyone go home and be a family man and all that silly nonsense.

Seeing as how several alternatives have already been suggested, it's pretty clear that people can suggest them. But hey, lots of iconic Necromancers are good at Arcana, so should Paladins also be banned from that because it's clearly not Paladin like to know about arcane magic?

[quoote]The long and short of the thread is this: I won't agree to a change on the word Thievery unless we also agree to a change on the word Necromancy, a word that similarly exists with heavily evil connotations that Capital LG characters would have qualms with.

Considering how often I run into people confused by Necromancy (enslaving and animating the dead), Necromancy (negative energy/curses/etc), and Necromancy (healing)? Sure. I'd be perfectly happy splitting off the "this is always evil because the Gods have declared it so" one from the other two, where that isn't true.

Until then, you're not convincing me to let Paladins play like Rogues and Thieves, because if they wanted to play Rogues and Thieves, there's a class for that already.

Believe it or not, there are people who want to play Paladins differently than you, and they don't need your permission to have BadWrongFun.