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.

Exemplar was super fun! I had a blast with it and being able to do things like the sandals ikon so everyone else gets to move at the start of a fight with a speed boost? Great fun. I had a guisarme with the feat to make immovable and that had all kinds of uses.

The idea of granting yourself a domain was really neat, though it wasn't as exciting in play to use it as some of the other features were. I played two PFS scenarios and only cast the domain spell once, and even then I didn't really NEED to but it was kind of "well its relevant now and it's the one thing I haven't used yet."

Overall just a really fun class to play.

I didn't have a lot of time to playtest and the animist looked WAY more complex, so I didn't get to try that one. But I'm glad other people liked it.

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.

Tridus wrote:

My GM is looking at this but is a bit confused on how it works. If he already has a subscription for the season adventures in PDF, does he get a discount on the package like the APs do?

Or does he need to buy the second option that doesn't come with the adventures? And in that case, does he then need to set up the adventures in Foundry with steps that would already be done in the more expensive package?

Because we're selling each entire multi-scenario season (or half of one) as a single pack instead of selling individual scenarios, we don't currently offer a discount for owning the PDFs the way we do with our Adventure Path modules. The idea is that if you already own or plan to purchase the Society PDFs, or if you're a VO who gets them for free, you can buy the cheaper Asset Pack instead of the Deluxe Edition and just load your PDFs into Foundry using one of the various PDF reader modules available (or just have them open on another screen).

In any case, the Asset Pack still includes all of the tokens, maps, and macros as the Deluxe Edition, so all of the setup is still done for you. The only thing you're missing from the Deluxe Edition are the benefits of having the adventure content integrated into journal entries inside Foundry: cross-linking with system compendium entries, one-click skill checks, that sort of thing. Nothing you can't do manually if you've got the PDFs handy.

Thanks, that helps clear it up!

My GM is looking at this but is a bit confused on how it works. If he already has a subscription for the season adventures in PDF, does he get a discount on the package like the APs do?

Or does he need to buy the second option that doesn't come with the adventures? And in that case, does he then need to set up the adventures in Foundry with steps that would already be done in the more expensive package?

Thanks. I'm just unclear on if the two are the same thing in Foundry and one just also comes with the adventure PDFs, or if the cheaper one doesn't have things set up and you'll have to do that work yourself?

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.

This one comes with a boon, but I can't find what that boon actually does anywhere.

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.

Hi. A group of players I GM for just finished book 1 of Fists of the Ruby Phoenix. I gave them their chronicles, and when looking at the list of boons in my organized play page, this is listed as one of them:

Fists of the Ruby Phoenix: Despair on Danger Island - Expanded Summoning

Gain access to new creatures to summon. Must have played Despair on Danger Island to download.

What I can't find for the life of me is a list of what those creatures *are*. Is there anywhere that explains what this boon actually does? Do you have to buy it before it tells you or something?

Thanks.

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

So as someone who got into Golarion with 2E I basically know nothing about Korvosa and what happened there before, will this adventure be suitable for such a group?

They usually include enough info to make it work, but I doubt it'll land with as much as impact as it would if you had played Curse of the Crimson Throne.

We just finished that one and the preview of this makes me want to dust off my Bard and dive right back in.

That's correct. Spellhearts have no rule about needing the spell to be on your list.

Great, thanks! Think I'm going to have a happy player.

Yes, it's not tradition specific so you can use your best spell attack roll, or your best DC too.

I'm more surprised it would allow them to cast a Cantrip not on their list(s), but if so, they're good to go.

I never even considered that might be a problem, since they don't say anywhere that you need the spell on your list (unlike wands and staves, which do say that). It reads like "you can activate this thing to cast this spell".

So I don't think that part is an issue.

Hi. One of my players is a True Neutral Divine Caster, and thus has a severely limited selection for damaging cantrips. Looking at Spellhearts, I came across this:

"Spellhearts are permanent items that work similarly to talismans. You affix a spellheart using the Affix a Spellheart activity, which is otherwise identical to Affix a Talisman. The limit of one talisman per item remains—an item can have one spellheart or one talisman, not both. When casting a cantrip from a spellheart, you can use your own spell attack roll or spell DC if it's higher."

Being able to make spell attack rolls isn't tradition specific AFAIK, so the way this reads, a Divine caster could say use a Flaming Star to get Produce Flame, while using their normal spell attack roll (because they have a spell attack roll). The other spells in it don't work that way, but I'm specifically focused on the cantrip.
Is that right? Because I can't find where in the rules it says otherwise but that seems much stronger than I expected.

Thanks! :)

This is awesome news! Only thing I'm disappointed by is that I'm currently running both Extinction Curse and Fists of the Ruby Phoenix and would love some of the extras here (like the ambient sound and fancy maps), but they're not available for purchase yet.

And I 100% understand that. It's impossible to do everything at once, and it makes total sense to focus on the new stuff coming out. When I run one of those, I'm really excited by this.

I do hope the other 2e APs get the same treatment at some point, though. :)

Yeah I'm baffled that this hasn't been clarified yet. Just because there's a bunch of different pieces of text that don't all line up well in what they say. My interpretation is "mundane tools are fine" but you can make a case that it's not based on the wording.

It seems like such an easy thing to clarify that I don't understand what is taking so long.

Any word on when an errata/clarification is coming for SoM?

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.

Completely agree that healing downed allies in the hope that they contribute to the fight is a bad tactic (doing the bare minimum so they don't die is not though, this is still a role playing game and unless you are playing a douche I think most people would try to save their comrades).

Healing so another ally can take 1 more hit is okay, but instead of that, I would prefer to focus on contributing to the progress of the fight and remove the need of in-combat healing in the first place. On average one wall spell will do 10 times more than any heal spell of the same level.

I think this specially applies to the early levels, if you are likely to be downed in 1 hit, there is no reason to put you in your feet so you go down again.

Probably depends on edition. In PF1? For sure. In PF2? I find my Medic Cleric pretty surprisingly routinely in severe PFS encounters is bringing multiple martials back up from down in a single turn (Doctors Visition Battle Medicine one, two action heal another), and that's enough HP that each can typically take a hit and stay up afterward. Turning my 3 actions into 6 party actions is IMO way more effective at getting a severe encounter down than most of what the frankly pretty weak Divine spell list can throw at it. It doesn't seem like enemies should be downing multiple people in a single turn, but a couple of crits from them can really wreck someone's day and this happens far more than I'd expect it to. Maybe it's less of an issue in an AP where we're all the same level.

My experience has a DM is that unless I throw lots of AoE mook encounters at them, blasters feel weak. My 8 year old son plays a greatsword fighter (which isn't even an optimal fighter) and can outdamage any blaster on a single enemy encounter easily, and it's not close. But casters doing other types of magic can really hinder enemies or help the party a lot, and while some people just don't like the more support caster playstyle, it's really effective in this system.

If you really want to play a blaster, you need to have ways to target weak saves or teammates doing things like Demoralize to lower saves so you can land your spells. Because those boss type enemies are probably not failing their good saves very often. (A lot of players also don't use Recall Knowledge enough to find enemy weaknesses, when it's very rewarding to do that in PF2.)

The eidolon trait states that the eidolon can ONLY use items with that trait, but all other text - including in the same trait - implies that only refers to magic items. Can this be clarified either way?

This is what I want clarified as well, since with one version an Eidolon can use nonmagical items (like tools), and with the other one it can't.

Both of them mention investing, so it seems like both mean magical items, but it's not very clear.

Eidolon: A creature with this trait is an eidolon. An action or spell with this trait can be performed by an eidolon only. An item with this trait can be used or worn by an eidolon only, and an eidolon can't use items that don't have this trait. (An eidolon can have up to two items invested.)

Your eidolon can't wear or use magic items, except for items with the eidolon trait. An eidolon can have up to two items invested.

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!

Ah! So you're saying we can treat HP as an abstraction rather than actual damage done to your physical body? Excellent.

Going by that line of logic, we can likewise treat AC as an abstraction rather than merely how good at dodging you are in-universe. It's a combination of that, and luck, and plot armor, and a host of other things both in-world and out. Just like HP is.

I mean...what's the difference between a greataxe that hits you for 1/10 your HP and one that misses entirely due to your level-based AC narratively speaking? It's not a large one, and in both cases can be attributed to almost the exact same list of causes.

The argument that somehow level-based HP makes sense while level-based AC does not is what bewilders me, since the same justifications that are used for HP almost universally also work for AC even more easily.

Yep. I'm not sure if you thought I disagreed or was just using my quote to reply to someone else, but I agree with that entirely. :)

Level based AC scaling makes perfect sense if we have level based other stuff scaling (which we do).

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.)

I believe that's correct. Cost may be listed elsewhere. For example, Cleric Domain powers work like that. The Cleric section is what says "all basic domain powers cost 1 spell point, the advanced ones cost the listed amount."

For me it isn't the lack of "narrative justification", but the lack of one that explains why EVERYTHING advances at the exact same rate: attacking the same as defending. Mental strength the same as reflexes. Skills the same as all the above...

That's only true if proficiency never changes. When it does, the gap between things grows further.

But even then, there is also no narrative explanation for the inverse: when I'm dodging fireballs all day, why do my reflexes still advance at half the speed of the fortitude I'm never really being tested on?

There's no real narrative explanation that explains those rules either. The rule came first, and the narrative that "oh, Clerics are just bad at dodging fireballs and never really get better at it" followed.

This is not trying to change something at the narrative core of the game at all (as opposed to removing divine magic from the game entirely, which would be a huge narrative shift). Clerics are still worse than Rogues at dodging fireballs in the new setup, and Monks are still better at not getting hit than Wizards. The narrative hasn't changed all that much, and it wouldn't be hard to come up with a narrative explanation for how the new rules work after the fact, exactly like what was done with the old ones.

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.