keftiu wrote:
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.
Squiggit wrote:
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".
Gortle wrote:
I agree with you on all points (how it works RAW, how it should work, and that Paizo really needs to clean it up).
Fumarole wrote:
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.
Leon Aquilla wrote:
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.
Leon Aquilla wrote:
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.
Rysky wrote:
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.
Richard Lowe wrote:
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.
Leon Aquilla wrote:
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.
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.
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).
Maybe it's just me. I've never had an issue with out-of-combat...
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.
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).
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.
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).
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.
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...
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).
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)... |