Search Posts
From the recent Warpriest discussion, I'm left wondering if there is enough space for a divine class that gets: Heavy Armor proficiency advancing to Master at martial rates
Can this be made to fit?
Given that pathfinder is already using paper cartridges, already has precursors to proper repeating arms in the form of slide guns, and that revolvers were successfully made in the 16th century IRL; would you allow an inventor to create revolver based repeating arms in your game? If so would you allow for revolving rifles or would you limit things to pistols? Would you consider allowing tube-fed lever actions or pump shotguns if you were already allowing revolvers? If you wouldn't allow an inventor in your game to develop a revolver would it be for strictly balance reasons or do you have some logical reason why the necessary technological groundwork hasn't been laid to allow for a single adventurer to make that breakthrough? I ask because it feels like Golarion should be very close to things like revolvers and Gatling guns based on what they already have. Not to mention literally having access to gods of the forge and other magical means to gain advanced technological secrets.
The design of the Psychic seems doomed to create boring patterns of play, here's why: 1) The class trades a spell slot per level for a bunch of lackluster class features and objectively weak class feats. 2) The limited spell slots per day and the limited selection of spells known will force this class into only ever picking the best spells as the cost for carrying an inefficient spell is exceedingly high. 3) The amps, and the very limited selection of cantrips they buff, are currently not worth the spell slot per level you pay to access them. 4) If you buff the amps and/or the cantrips you create a class that will often feel locked into a cycle of using cantrips and unleashing battle after battle with extremely limited flexibility. 5) They struggle to replace the classes they compete with being objectively worse than the Bard at all levels while being worse than the Witch and Sorcerer once those classes gain access to second-level spells and staying at a disadvantage thereafter. 6) Even if the above wasn't true the class is then saddled with the need to jump through hoops to Unleash and even after doing all of that they're stuck with a buff with downsides that still don't make their cantrips and amps good. The disclaimer for all of this is that it's first look white room analysis coming from somebody who doesn't particularly like PF2 from a ground-up design standpoint.
In an effort to not drag another thread off-topic as this forum has a distinct sensitivity to such, I'm going to try to continue a discussion about what makes for a good AP here. My personal criteria for what makes for a good paid adventure are as follows: 1) It has to have solid art. I don't need to be blown away but I want to have a good feel for the character of the region and a face for all the important NPCs and baddies. 2) Maps should be clear, but they don't need to be detailed down to the five-foot square*. Use your descriptions to tell me what the character of the room is, what the disposition of the enemies is like, and if there are any surprises. I can easily do the rest. 3) Give me interesting systems I can easily repurpose. Show me your mastery of the game's mechanics and the ways you've expanded upon them. 4) Take care of the hard work for me. Give me stats, give me encounter tables, give me tokens and stands. If you're going to detail maps to the square give me those too. 5) In addition to 4, if your game is a dungeon crawl tell me how you expect the dungeon to respond to changes the players make. Is that owlbear likely to move into the cave the goblins are currently in if the PCs clear them out and then go off to rest? Are the orcs likely to come running to the aid of the ogre when he bellows for aid, is the ogre likely to aid the orcs if they do the same? I'd also like to see details of routines, what might break said routines, and the reactions or lack of reactions to the invasion of the dungeon by the PCs. Make it feel real and alive not just in static design features like sources of water and kitchens but in how the occupants actually live their lives and what the complex ecosystem would look like even if the PCs never showed up. 6) Make the story broad and changeable. I'm here to cut down on prep and appreciate the mechanical side of things been done for me but I know my players better than you do and will likely change a lot of details. The less I have to rewrite the better. 7) Design things as if the players will fail. I know that Paizo's bread and butter sales come from APs, but as a GM I want to open a book and have it feel like the players have a real shot at not seeing the end of the adventure. This doesn't mean I want the most killed dungeon you can devise, it means setting the tone and writing bad guys that play for keeps. That Lich isn't an idiot, so write him as if he was your personal character and you want him to succeed at his plan. That's my list. I suspect that many will tell me that this isn't PF2 or point out that company X that I'm known to like doesn't write adventures this way. I don't care, I know what I like and I'm interested to see if PF2 and Paizo can meet those needs. *For use at a real table where I'm likely to hand draw them. Adventures designed around VTTs need different touches and likely shouldn't have the same design process as those for play at a physical table.
It's not uncommon to see people on these boards pointing out that the optimal way to distribute your stats is to maximize your primary stat and then put your other 3 boosts into your saving throw-related stats. Not only does this promote very same sets of stats for any character building within a particular niche it also needlessly punishes any build that needs to push more than one non-save stat. It also impacts how wide the gap between the six stats is. In this edition intelligence drew the short straw as it does nothing to grant you more skills, doesn't interact in combat the way all other stats do, and it doesn't even pump a save. If you divorced stats from saves and instead tied them to another mechanic it would open up design space for more interesting stat arrays without unduly impacting how mechanically sound your character's build is. Has anybody tried changing how stats impact saves or is it something that people are content to live with as a legacy feature?
Inspired by this thread I was wondering if some players would like the game more if the game's balance was focused around melee attacks interacting with the 4-degrees of success system. I could envision something like: Critical Success: The same as it is now.
In reality, that little bit of extra damage won't change combat math very much but it opens up space for weapons, feats, and archetypes that focus on grinding our a higher damage floor in exchange for a lower damage cap. It also means that a miss isn't binary and a failure still comes off as a glancing blow rather than a failure to even land a touch. If this was implemented and balanced do you think it would enhance the feel of the game?
Let's say you're wanting to run a game where magic items are pretty much limited to consumables, artifacts, and utility items. Let's further decide that our purpose for doing so is to emphasize items and to put the power of the character front and center. This means that a character could very well use their starting gear for the entire campaign and not fall behind where the game expects them to be. How would you square this desire for gear to take a back seat in the story with allowing shields to progress and gain traits such as sturdy? How would you then want them to upgrade or change these traits the way a character which gained multiple shields over the course of an adventure might? Would you be concerned that characters may no longer fear having their shields smashed to bits as any base-level shield will, in theory, be just as good as the one they just lost? I have a few ideas of my own that I'll share later, but I'd be interested to see what others might come up with. ----- In case anybody is wondering why I'd even care, I'm considering seeing if my current group may be receptive to PF2 so I can see if my anti-PF2 bias comes from running it via a VTT (which I don't find a particularly enjoyable way to play) or if I actually just dislike the way the system works. As I may have said, I want to like the system as I thought it looked mechanically interesting when I first read the rules but my experience at the table and some of what I'm hearing on these forums have put me off of the system. I'd like to give it a fairer shake before I make a final judgement on it.
The character I had the most fun with in D&D 5e was Dwarven Cleric of the Forge Domain. I enjoyed how his AC was among the best in the game given his bonus magic item, heavy armor and shield proficiency, and soul of the forge ability. I also didn't focus much on healing with my character often using the phrase, "I'm not that kind of Cleric!" in response to requests for anything other than mission-critical in battle healing. His favored spells were Guiding Bolt, Command, Silence, Hold Person, Spiritual Guardians, and Shape Stone. The use of Channel Divinity to turn gold into tools with a ritual was also handy for creative RP solutions to problems. I liked being able to open up with a hold person attempt or guiding bolt before wading into melee with spiritual guardians up and rarely taking hits that forced a concentration check. Is anything remotely similar possible in PF2? I'd ask about my Loxodon (Humanoid Elephant) Warlock but I'm pretty sure that entire playstyle is off the table in PF2.
The rephrase the question, can the alignment of a diety in Pathfinder 2's world ever shift? Can an LE or CE good be converted to neutrality or even good either via their own changing view of the universe and their role in it or by external factors such as rhetoric delivered by a sufficient charismatic mortal? If they can be redeemed do we then punish them for the evil they've caused? If they can't can we condemn them for something fundamental to their very nature? This is to say is an Asmodeus who cannot be redeemed actual evil if he has no choice in the matter? For that matter can one be good when they only do good acts because they are literally under a supernatural and immutable compulsion to do so? If Asmodeus could be so compelled to do good against his will even if it caused him mental anguish to so go against his nature would compeling him to do so be a good act?
I have this idea for a cantrip-based casting class that focuses on casting damage and debuffing cantrips on alternating rounds. On ebbing rounds, they'd get a malus to their damaging cantrips and on flow rounds, they'd debuff their own save DC. You'd want to give them a decent selection of cantrips on each side, maybe 6 for each, and let them start with 2 and 2. They could have other effects that let them do things like ebb, ebb, flow to keep them somewhat flexible and could have a focus spell that swaps between a heal and a self-buff based on their current state. It's a very rough idea that I think might have some merrit.
I've seen a lot of people saying that they don't think the Alchemist fills the same niche as it did in PF1. I've also seen concerns that the playtested versions of the Summoner, Magus, and Gunslinger all feel clunky and limited compared to what they were in PF1. I know those playtest classes could be improved but so could the unchained Monk and Rogue and those classes still sucked in PF1 even after playtesting, so... yeah... So as not to be entirely negative I'd also like to invite people to suggest ways to make things others claim won't work fit within PF2's tight math. I'm interested in exploring the limits of PF2 design as the system itself interests me in ways actually playing it simply doesn't. |
