Twilight2k's page

Goblin Squad Member. Organized Play Member. 53 posts. 1 review. No lists. No wishlists. 4 Organized Play characters.



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The new crit for crossbow is weird. Realistically, an arrow wound would bleed far more than a bolt wound - they almost feel backwards to me.


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If Cloak of Shadows is countered by simple low-light vision, what is the point? The VAST majority of enemies seem to have low-light or darkvision. This makes Cloak of Shadows EXTREMELY weak for a focus spell.


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Makes me really wish they offered a PDF subscription. I don't have the room for a hardback subscription but would pay for a PDF subscription (probably anyway - depending on exact terms).


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keftiu wrote:

Ah, the timeless Paizo confusion.

Subscribers - those with a paid subscription to a product line, like Rulebooks or Lost Omens - receive their PDFs when their hard copies ship, as a part of that subscription. Once the hard copies are out for general sale to the public, so too does the PDF go up for purchase.

There’s also a number of streamers given advance copies to drive marketing hype, which is a standard industry practice.

Thanks for the explanation. It would be nice if Paizo made sure that the reviewers gave the PDF release date (and not just the subscriber shipping date). The hype worked... until I went to actually look at the book and buy it Monday (and found I can't) - that causes disappointment which is basically the opposite of hype.


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Squiggit wrote:
Twilight2k wrote:
Squiggit wrote:
The second bullet point you posted seems pretty abundantly clear.
I agree it is clear on intent. However, that is just descriptive fluff referencing the mechanics in Negative Healing (which does not say what that descriptive text says it does).
We're not talking about intent, although I agree intent is clear, we're talking about what that line of rules text says, which is also pretty clear.

But that line is NOT a rules line. In full, it says:

Quote:
You have the negative healing ability, which means you are harmed by positive damage and healed by negative effects as if you were undead

"which means..." is an (incorrect) description of what Negative Healing does - not a rule. A rule would have been "The Dhampir counts as undead for purposes of positive damage and negative effects".


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Gortle wrote:

One of many things Paizo should clean up.

1) Heal has its own rules. Technically a Dhampir is targeted as a willing living creature. So the spell tries to heal but Negative Healing says that a Dhampir is is not healed by positive healing effects.
So nothing happens.
2) If you cast Harm on a Dhampir at least is doesn't have to be willing. But a Dhampir is protected by Negative Healing again as it does not take negative damage.

So neither work.

Personally I house rule it and ignore the targeting resrictions on ALL these sorts of spells and effects. I treat all creatures with negative healing as if they were undead. That is how I think it should work.

The rules remain totally stuffed. The latest errata didn't even do a decent job of fixing Soothe. Paizo keep dropping the ball on this. They just don't seem to see how broken it is.

I agree with you on all points (how it works RAW, how it should work, and that Paizo really needs to clean it up).


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Squiggit wrote:
The second bullet point you posted seems pretty abundantly clear.

I agree it is clear on intent. However, that is just descriptive fluff referencing the mechanics in Negative Healing (which does not say what that descriptive text says it does).


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Fumarole wrote:
Twilight2k wrote:
Leon Aquilla wrote:

I believe it's been explained that the places where the PDF is provided gratis are boutique outfits. They certainly don't have near the level of output that Paizo does.

All the places I can think of off the top of my head (Modiphius, Free League) all maybe produce 1-2 books in a product line in a year.

That being said, you do get the PDF gratis, if you pre-order from them.

Really? Boutique outlets? Some of the largest European publishers give free pdfs with all physical book purchases (from their web store - I don't think any do it everywhere). 1-2 books in a product line per year is irrelevant when they operate close to a dozen product lines.
And who hosts the infrastructure for these PDFs? Near as I can tell, mostly a third party like DriveThruRPG. This isn't true for Paizo. There is overhead associated with providing and supporting this infrastructure, which Paizo charges for and companies like DriveThruRPG are happy to absorb in order to drive users to their site (it is their business model, after all).

It varies. Quite a few companies used to host things themselves but determined it was easier (and presumably cheaper) to use DriveThru. Paizo could just as easily use DriveThru (or another service) for their PDFs.


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Leon Aquilla wrote:
Twilight2k wrote:


Shadowrun is usually $20. There are a ton of places that charge less for pdfs than Paizo.

Have you ever read a Shadowrun sourcebook written after about 2001? They don't playtest or edit. At all.

Quote:
I agree with everyone regarding not getting a PDF when you buy the book. I understand they want to use it as an incentive for their subscriptions, but I would be willing to pay an additional $5–10 for the PDF when I purchase the book.
If you want to write a check to Paizo gratis for 200$ out of some sense of guilt, feel free. There is no incentive for me to buy hardbacks brand new without the free PDF.

All of SR4[a] and some of SR5. The playtesting in SR4 was not bad. The layout and editing definitely got worse with SR5 (but I didn't play enough to really be clear on playtesting but some things did seem out-of-whack (both over and under powered)). If you had said, SR5 and after, I would have agreed.


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Leon Aquilla wrote:
ShadowDrakken wrote:
Seems like predatory pricing. Products people want are going up in price, products people don't want are going down in price, and in both cases there's no reason for it because it's not a limited resource where supply and demand could actually be possibly excused as an actual thing. There's literally infinite supply and limited demand.

Faeries just show up and place the AP's and books on Paizo's doorstep in little woven baskets, just like my momma told me babies were delivered. They should be paying us to download them, I say.

Living in the United States is getting more expensive. 8% inflation annually last year and we're on track to have the same again this year. Authors, artists, office managers and support staff all gotta eat and a square meal costs 16% more than it used to this time in 2020.

You would have to have been living under a rock the past 2 years if you didn't see this coming.

Mostly true (US inflation was 6.8% in 2021). However, rulebooks are going up 33% (Starfinder by 100%), small adventures by 66%, (most) sourcebooks by 20%. A lot of the increases are significantly higher than inflation or production increases.

I don't have an issue with prices going up but I do think a lot of the increases seem way more than justified by increasing costs.


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Rysky wrote:
Twilight2k wrote:
Leon Aquilla wrote:

I believe it's been explained that the places where the PDF is provided gratis are boutique outfits. They certainly don't have near the level of output that Paizo does.

All the places I can think of off the top of my head (Modiphius, Free League) all maybe produce 1-2 books in a product line in a year.

That being said, you do get the PDF gratis, if you pre-order from them.

Really? Boutique outlets? Some of the largest European publishers give free pdfs with all physical book purchases (from their web store - I don't think any do it everywhere). 1-2 books in a product line per year is irrelevant when they operate close to a dozen product lines.
Like?

Free League for one (1-2 books per year per line but 14 (soon to be 15) different game lines = a lot of books). Similarly Modiphius - I don't know if they are all active lines but they have 20 lines by my count.

Ulisses Spiele has made books+pdfs available but is not their norm on their website. I know there's another I've gotten it from before but can't remember right now.


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Richard Lowe wrote:
emky wrote:

Odd. Paizo was already (from my perspective) at the top-end of PDF pricing for books, especially when buying a hard copy doesn't include the PDF gratis like basically everywhere else. This was the single biggest thing that kept me from adopting PF1 until the last couple years of its life.

As opposed to who? PDF Rulebooks for D&D on Beyond are $30-50, Critical Roles Tal'Dorei setting is $25, Call of Cthulhu is $23-$28, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is $30, Blades in the Dark is $20-30, etc.

Paizos pdfs are consistently some of the cheapest in the ttrpg industry.

Shadowrun is usually $20. Free League is $10 for adventures and $15-25 for rule/setting books. DSA is $17.50 per book. There are a ton of places that charge less for pdfs than Paizo.


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Leon Aquilla wrote:

I believe it's been explained that the places where the PDF is provided gratis are boutique outfits. They certainly don't have near the level of output that Paizo does.

All the places I can think of off the top of my head (Modiphius, Free League) all maybe produce 1-2 books in a product line in a year.

That being said, you do get the PDF gratis, if you pre-order from them.

Really? Boutique outlets? Some of the largest European publishers give free pdfs with all physical book purchases (from their web store - I don't think any do it everywhere). 1-2 books in a product line per year is irrelevant when they operate close to a dozen product lines.


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I know this thread is asking for fans of the sci-fi elements but I thought I'd add a counter-perspective. I would have preferred no sci-fi (androids, guns, gunslingers, etc) in PF2 and, if it is emphasized, it will decrease my liking of the game.

As a caveat, I would be fine with guns if they handled them realistically for early firearms (high damage but multiple rounds to reload) but few fantasy RPGs do that.


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Things can definitely fall through the cracks. However, if a product is delayed, the very first place it should be updated is the product page before any announcement anywhere about it (then announcements explaining what happened are a good idea).


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Maybe it's just me but isn't $25 for an online con expensive?

There's no physical venue (generally by far the highest cost of putting on a con). Without that, there are some expenses of course but not much. I've been to physical cons (pre-COVID) that were only $20-25 for the weekend (and that had to cover venue costs).


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Maybe it's just me. I've never had an issue with out-of-combat...
Would this character have thought to look there or brought up that conversation thread?

On the other hand, I've definitely seen players abuse meta-knowledge on replays (no idea if it was the player intentionally doing so or the player being incapable of separating player vs character knowledge).

My main problem is with amount of available content. Has a phased approach been considered? I mean where all content is replayable until there are enough repeatable content to get through a tier and then content is shifted to non-repeatable (4 levels per tier, 12 xp per level, 48 xp needed per tier). It could be either all-or-nothing (all content is replayable until there is 48 xp worth of repeatables and then all of the "should not be replayable" isn't) or a hybrid approach (where all repeatables plus "marked" adventures are replayable to come up with 48 xp and, as more repeatables are brought out, adventures are made non-repeatable).

It seems bizarre to me that Paizo wants to limit people to only playing their game (via PFS) a little bit per month. I would think they would want as many people to play it as much as possible.


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First, one thing I've never understood about PFS - why are only some adventures/quests repeatable? Many other organized play have all adventures repeatable. Yes, I know some are written with random bits to make it not exactly the same.

Is there a solution to non-repeatables rarely being run (other than making everything repeatable)? For instance, at ConCurrent, 1-04 is not being run at all and Quest #6 is being run only once because no other GMs signed up (presumably because they would not get xp/etc) - there are clearly plenty of players that need it (I signed up the instant Warhorn went live and, by the time it refreshed, I was 7th (3rd on the waitlist) and that was 1 minute after it opened).


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Fighter has Str or Dex as key attributes but Fighter Dedication requires Str *AND* Dex. Ranger has the same key attributes but requires only Dex for Ranger Dedication. Monk is another case where the key attributes are Str or Dex but Monk Dedication requires Str *AND* Dex. It would seem both should require Str or Dex.

Similarly, but possibly even more odd, Barbarian Dedication requires Str *AND* Con but Con is not even a key attribute for the Barbarian.


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Vidmaster7 wrote:
It really probably in their for the mechanics to work. like cabbage was implying. It's to keep someone from making a bad character I imagine. Getting options that wouldn't help them. that and maybe also making is so you can't do the dip thing for a single ability.

Dipping is (somewhat) restricted by requiring 3 feats (dedication + 2 others) before you can take another dedication. If I read it right, there's a few non-multiclass dedications that require 4 feats (dedication + 3 others). If you only want to dip into a single dedication, that still works (just take the dedication plus one other feat).

To me, the dedication is usually the barrier to getting the useful abilities (though there are some exceptions like Lastwall Sentry and some other dedications are good for some characters).

I tend to prefer classless systems so one thing I dislike with PF2 is that you MUST be a Cleric to be good at magical healing (Font of Healing is not available via archetype feat at any level), you MUST be a ranger to be the best possible at two-weapon fighting (their class feature for really low MAP isn't available at any level as archetype feat either). I thought the Monk was done well where you CAN get Flurry of Blows but not until level 10 (9 levels after a Monk).


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We'll have to agree to disagree on the logic of ability prereqs for Dedications generally.

However, can anyone explain to me why an 18 Dex, 10 Str character can't take Fighter Dedication? They would make an excellent ranged fighter or decent melee fighter (excellent if Thief). Or an 18 Str, 10 Dex (who would make an excellent melee fighter)?

Fighter and Ranger have the same primary attributes (Str or Dex) but the Dedication feats are 14 Dex AND Str for Fighter but only 14 Dex for Ranger. Honestly, I don't understand why both aren't "Str or Dex" but I really don't understand why Fighter needs both but Ranger only needs one.


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That's the logic I don't get. If enforcing flavor for the dedication feats, why not for the class itself?

I plan on ignoring (or at least reducing to 1 attribute) in any games I run and I expect most GMs will be willing (if I'm a player).

I guess I was wondering if anyone knew the "logic" behind having dedication prereqs that differ from the key attributes for the class (or having prereq attributes at all).

Given that the multiclass archetypes are VERY paired down versions of the classes, I fail to understand the need to add attribute prereqs...


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D&D 5e has the same issue (but even worse)...

Why can I play a Fighter with a Str and Dex of 10 each but I can't take Fighter Dedication with the same attributes? It makes no sense.

Why do Fighter and Barbarian Dedication have two attribute prereqs when every other martial has only 1? Champion and Monk at least make sense historically as they've always been attribute-heavy. The Fighter in particular makes no sense - it's trivial to build a Str-based or Dex-based fighter with no use for the other attribute (either single or multiclass).


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Personally, I refuse to support any product that has a subscription fee or that is online only (so I will never consider either HLO or D&D Beyond (at least beyond has (or is supposed to get) offline support). I was all set to get HLC for PF2 until I found out that Lone Wolf were not releasing PF2 content for HLC.

5e is simple enough that I don't really need tools. At least for now, I'd like a PF2 chargen but I'll keep looking until I find something other than HLO (and I don't have Android so Pathbuilder 2 is out)...


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Paizo doesn't update the pdf with errata regularly? That's highly disappointing. That's always one of the things I like about pdfs of rules - many companies update them with errata regularly (so no looking at separate errata).