Anyway, I don't think that rules making an assumption that primary precise sense of humans and human-like ancestries will be the default sense for majority of typical cases is ableist or excluding. It does not prevent blind people from playing the game, it does not deny existence of blind people. It also does not handwave nor fetishizes their struggle by making it a trivial road bump that then can be turned into a cute gimmick. What can be argued to possibly be excluding disabled people in general is the fact that the main "course" of the game - adventuring - is very disability-unfriendly, basically being a game about either magically empowered individuals or individuals in top-notch physical condition overcoming physical and magical obstacles with skill and power. It is a very ufriendly occupation to people who are not equipped in one of above, and extra ufriendly to those actively struggling with the physical part of the equation. Pretty much the only way for such character to function is a) find magical way to substitute, or b) find magical way to functionally remove their disability, which has its own risks, including the afromentioned fetishization and trivialization. To be honest? I do not think that PF2, being pretty much a light-hearted beer and pretzel dungeoncrawl, is equipped to deal with respectable representation of struggles disabled groups have to live with. The best at this point the system has to offer is dodging the issue by offering the blind (or crippled, or...) character a way to be such only in name, and playing out the game as if they werent. And yes, pretending that disability is not a life-changing disability can be offensive, doubly so when it is fetishized into a superpower.
To be honest, while I understand trying to be inclusive, I also don't see the problem with atypical setup being exactly that - atypical and not the default. Not being default is OK - rules still are constructed in a way that allows you to get other primary sense, you just need to switch your perspective accordingly. I do not expect to see a game about, say, competetive biking to have core rules built around people who lack their lower limbs.
I'm new to the game, so I'm not really seeing the easily accessible ways to make your characters primary sense not-sight, at least not at chargen and then a bunch of levels further. I don't think the game is conductive to playing a character with physical disability until at least you get a chance to aquire some magical items that make such concept workable adventurer.
Snares feel pretty good to use so far, but that is probably because of high scouting high stealth approach, and provoking the opponents to be pulled into pre-snared terrain instead of walking into them. Which is fine with me, as that is the gameplay pattern that reinforces the stealthy ranger fantasy to me - scout, prepare, divide and conquer.
Alchemy_Dad wrote:
There is nothing in the rules of familiars that makes them cool storytelling devices or roleplaying outlets. Just saying that they are such doesn't make them function like so. They provide no structure for interesting narrative to emerge within the game. If it does, it is actively against the familiar rules, not thanks to them. And yes, narrative and storytelling can spring from codified rules, in fact, there are entire genres of roleplaying games that are focused on such experience. Familiars, in their current form, are all promise and no payoff. They are basically a bare-boned vestige of rules that throws its hands up in the air and tells you to figure it out on your own. Which is not exactly very good design for a tool envisioned as "interesting storytelling device".
Does it make the game bad? No, of course not. But it does not mean that the game should not be criticized. You can enjoy and like the game while being cognizant and critical of its flaws.
Retraining into a thing that wasn't possible to you when you were at the level that you are retraining is IMHO the only sensible way to do it, unless you want to riddle it with exceptions to exceptions to prevent stuff like "so I now retrain my sorcerer spells known and make most of them high level instead of sticking to what was pickable at a given level". I also don't have a problem with human-centric fighter-dominated cultural archetype being easier to get as a human fighter than when you are not. Then again, you might make a joke that this is actually a feature, as it protects you from getting into a bad archetype centered around a bad weapon : P.
Succeeding on the Learn a Spell activity as a non-wizard: A) You are a Sorcerer, Bard or other class with limited number of spells known:
B) You are a prepared caster, like a Cleric, who knows all the common spells of applicable level:
SuperBidi wrote:
Touche. Honestly, I'm not sure what fantasy are the Familiars supposed to emulate. They are not the mystical beings that teach you magical secrets in exchange for abiding a contract (they are way too dumb to be any sort of wisdom-dispensing companion, as their skills are miserable); they are not really a mystical beings offering magical assistance and service in exchange for something else either. They are basically pets that don't do anything and are a platform to pick extra spell slot once you can do that. Maybe it is because I'm a newcomer to the genre, but they do not map to anything I would expect from a "familiar", both from folk tradition and fantasy media.
A lot of touch spells do not include Attack roll, actually. I think the best use of spell delivery for the Familiar is - assuming that the command to deliver is a part of the spellcasting action itself - the ability to hand out *beneficial* touch spells without having to move to your friends. Throwing your squirrel at enemies, even with Lifelink, sounds disastrous. Though technically, with Lifelink, each attack that didn't trigger Lifelink but targeted the Familiar is actually wasted action on the opponent, so...profit? Sadly, with 5 hp per level, they will most likely be downed by a single hit anyway. Too bad there is no familiar ability to enhance their durability! So for offensive spells, I would rather take Reach Spell. For friendly spells that do not involve throwing a familiar at the enemies, Spell Delivery.
More interesting stuff for Specialists and Universalists Wizard. I'm really sad that they shoot themselves into a foot by making Hand of Apprentice a requirement for some of Universalist options; I really don't like that Focus Spell and I would much prefer to get something more interesting as the Universalist Focus power. Why give me a free feat on level 1 and then browbeat me into spending it on a power that I do not like because it unlocks more of my "schools" stuff? And yes, more metamagic that is actually interesting would be thrilling. I was super excited about the possibilities that three action system opens up for metamagic, but after reading through them I'm kinda bummed.
Archetype for Wizards that allows to specialize in their school further, including interesting stuff like poaching school-appropriate crosstraditional spells. Class Archetype for Wizard that switches them to Occult spell-list. Some interesting Intelligence-focused archetypes that allow that stat to do cool stuff that is not casting wizard spells. Let my Fighter show off their Tactical Brilliance and my Rogue to unleas their Mastermind schemes! Poisons and Sickness focused necromancy archetype for casters that allows you to get some fun with the Poison and Disease subsystems from the player side of the table. "Gadgeeter" (Artificer?) aimed at Rogue, Alchemist and to lesser extent Fighter that is all about doing interesting thing with magic gear. And for love that is all unholy, an Armor-proficiency providing archetype that isn't lore locked behind a specific organization so you suddenly won't have everyone who doesn't want to put Dex as their second highest stat but does not get Medium/Heavy Armor proficiency expertise from their class lining up their Hellknight applications. One of things that people told me about PF2 was that I can do my plate-encased wizard fantasy in this game and while it is true, it isn't exactly easy or friendly or even "good" to do.
Will there be support for Philosophy-Oriented, not necessarily God-Worshipping Clerics and Divine Sorcerers? Is there a chance for removing the veil and exposing the transparency on how weapon profiles are built, helping us create our own simple/martial/advanced weapon while sleeping safely knowing that balance is preserved? Guns! Anything on guns? What is the philosophy towards the firearms this time around? Anything you can share or tease? Any love for magical clothes instead of armor, so my Pretty Magical Girl Soldier Of Justice can engage with different set of equipment choices (including runes, etc) than a plate wearing juggernaut? What player-facing options players, not GMs, can be excited about when buying this book?
What Chirurgeon needed was an Injection Gun/Spear that uses vials of potions and poisons as ammo and allows you to preload them with like 3 charges of such items and then deliver them to foes and friends with an action. Or, perhaps, instead of preloading, make them a viable ammo so you load them in as part of reload action, preserving your action economy. Should have been either a Field Research ability, or a lvl1 feat, or just a generic equipment anyone can get but they start with.
Because by the point you are using Disintegrate, you are actually excited about having a chance to shoot a Spell Attack, because with abundance of attack bonuses that one can get from friends and beneficial spells, combined with True Strike, you are asking less "Did I miss or did I hit?", and more "Did I hit or did I crit?". So it is basically a chance to degrade opponents Fort save, which is huge.
While I am hard-pressed to play a Sorcerer instead of Wizard, I don't think they are that bad. You pick one spell per spell level that you want to heighten, while you pick your other spells to make sure they are useable even without heightening. Grease is as good at level 18 as it was at level 1, as your DC scales up without heightening (in fact, you might argue Grease will be better than it was, because many foes - dragons included - will be large, so easier to walk into a space containing the oil, and have more dangerous multi-action activations). This is true for so many spells that if it wasn't my unhealthy desire for having all the spells all the time, I would probably totally do with just a bunch of useful signature spells and then a bunch of ever-green universally spells that do not require heightening to remain viable. Spell Substitution Wizards are silver-bullet seeking casters that want to have THE best spell for specific situation. Sorcerers are all about maximum efficiency spell picks that will reward you for versatility, not weakness exploitation.
Even if you could literally spill the contact poison on the touch-range opponent (turning them into interesting take on Touch spells but with alchemical items), 99% of them has onset time that makes them pointless to use.
vagabond_666 wrote:
How should the correct 30 and 60 cone look properly? Could you provide a correct image? Cones were already hard for me to wrap my head around due to certain visual and geometric disabilities, and this is only making them worse.
Spell-Blending is probably way more useful in a high paced adventure where you don't have time to scout ahead and tailor your spell selection to exploit intel you just got from your scout.
Well you are buying both, but then you can go to rune-jacker and ask him to transfer the magical rune/software into your other thing. He then etches some basic runes for your magical sparks to "jump into", and because the actually hard part is figuring out how to make the magical sparks, it takes him a day instead of a week. You can have fancy runes all you want, but without that certain magical energy, they wont glow and turn your sword on fire. You are transfering that potentiality from one rune to another. Does that help to make it sound less weird?
Because other classes can use this Spell Activity to make it possible to make an Uncommon spell a viable choice to add to their repertoire next time they level up. For example, if your GM gave you as a quest reward a teacher willing to teach your Sorc a Rare tradition-flipped spell (like Phantom Pain but for Arcane, or one of the Uncommon Arcane spells), this skill activity allows to make it a viable choice for your future level ups. Arcane Evolution Sorcs can also use it to add spells to their spellbooks they then use to take advantage of the Evolution. The Wizard Spellbook feature guides you to Arcane Skill on page 241, which is kinda silly, because that section then ping-pongs you to the Learn Spell activity, so I cut the middle man when answering your question. But technically, the wizard-class description does point you there, in the end.
I imagine that the actually expensive, time-consuming part is the magical spark within the runes, not the physical vessel of runes themselves. So you are probably using some sort of process to quickly jump one rune from one "vessel" to another. Basically, the hardware (physically carved runes) are irrelevant if you don't transfer the software (the magic part of the runes).
I personally value Charisma higher - while Intelligence gives you more skills, they will never catch up, remaining Trained. None of them have direct combat applications, either, so your utility is mostly restricted to being a Knowledge-Bot. So while Charisma has technically less skills, each of them is higher impact both in combat and in exploration mode, IMHO. One of the best things about Sorcerers is that, unlike a Wizard, you can manage to soften a target with a good Demoralize to make them Frightened, and follow up with a spell within the same turn, making your ability to stick spells better than that of average wizard. Intelligence might get better once we will get stuff that triggers off successful Recall Knowledge and more Rituals to actually use the Int Based skills in an impactful way. Intelligence gets better if your GM is OK with using it to Aid your friends Deckard-Cain style, but that is pretty GM dependant.
Page 580, transferring runes. It also has a note where you can find a Runestone.
So if you find a Flaming Greatsword +1, you can give it to your Crafter and within a couple of days, you will have Granny's Flaming Sword +1.
Yes. And that's why you can absolutely start the game with your grandmothers sword and not cry in frustration when you find a better +1 Flaming Greatsword.
Sorcerers get a better spellcasting stat than Wizards (though Recall Knowledge being a basic action slapped on so many things makes Intelligence still a real fun to use), so while you might have less varied spell selection, it is much easier to expand both your combat arsenal (intimidation, athletics stuff with a whip if you go Dex for AC) and out-of-combat prowess (all the fun Charisma skills are yours to take). Sorcerer looks actually good. Due to auto-scaling DCs, you don't need *that many* signature spells - if you picked signature Burning Hands, odds are you don't need another Cone spell for a long, long time, and even when you pick say Cone of Cold, it is absolutely sensible to drop Burning Hands as a Signature because you already have a "Cone" covered in your arsenal, and your "Fire" niche is probably now filled with Fireball or Flaming Sphere. Again, casters really want to cover wide range of elements, saves, and shapes; if you try to play a Sorcerer that picks "all and only fire spells", you will feel lacking, as there are no feats or tools to reward you for purposefully restricting your options, which as far as I understand was a thing in previous games where you had to invest into specific type of spells to make them competitive.
Has anyone figured the "budget" for different weapons categories? After some basic glancing, it feels to me it could be really easy to create new weapon stat-blocks by simply moving a few points of the "budget" around, but I'm having a really bad headache this week and my brain refuses to combine all this together and grokk it. One of our players wants a really really big sword that has the reach (and is still a sword, "polearms look lame"), so either removing a Versatile from Greatsword and adding reach or dropping its damage dice to d10 and adding reach seems really simple and intuitive.
Shifting the points within the same category seems easy, as it is generally "a trait for a trait, or a trait for a damage dice size", but for some reasons the crossbow transcending two groups and still keeping reload 1 makes my brain fry. I guess that is because there much more moving parts for ranged weapons, with range and reload beings a factor too? I also have no idea how to evaluate Bulk or negative traits - the player in question wants a crossbow that makes them Clumsy if they moved this turn, to represent "nesting up" with it and sniping dragons out of the sky.
Thanks for the answers! it was a fun stream. I'm sad I missed it and had to watch a VoD, but I'm really grateful for the TLDR on the various regions and iconic personalities - I'm a total newbie when it comes to this setting and getting such kind of passionate, but condensated and on-the-point review of various places gave me a good starting point to plan out my strategic reading of it when I raid my friends place and get my hands on the book.
Magic books that are similar to staves but give access to spells unique to them [including a special attack cantrip] would be really fun. I like the imagery of a wizard with oversized eldritch book. The idea of fire weapons still cant give me a rest, mostly because one of the things that dissapointed me about Alchemist was that "Bombs" feel more like throwing fluids at opponents than bombs/grenades. They lack the oomph and explosive shake I expected from the name.
I don't mind some hextech or alchemical pseudo science weapons, but I would prefer to maintain the ratio of authentic weapons - silly weapons at about 3:1. Gnome Flickmace novelty factor lasted for exactly a week.
I guess the "weirdest" weapon I would want is wuxia-style meteor hammer. EDIT
Hag looks cool, but I haven't wrapped my head around it yet. Would probably work well with a Redeemer bodyguard who slaps Stupefied on people so you can wreck them with Occult will spells. Imperial is my favorite flavor-wise, but I still need to find a good use for Ancestral Surge. The bloodline power I warmed up to after realizing it can be pretty good with Dex-Athletics Trip and some good Intimidate. Both are easy to get and keep up, as Dex is your physical attribute of choice. Tripping a foe with a whip or glaring at them menacingly is a fun use of your third action. The spell list is universally good. I would love Undeath if it wasn't Divine. I dislike Divine spell list a lot and I wish there was a way to play it Occult or Arcane. If I was forced to play Divine Sorc, it would be Undeath one. Elemental Bloodline looks cool. The Primal spell list is interesting, so when I decide to try it out, it all depends wheter my most recent character before that was Charisma heavy or not - don't want to play two charismators in a row. Rest of the bloodlines are a hard meh for me. I like the Sorc, but I find the choice to prioritize the Divine spell list a strange one, especially with the weird Deity-problems mentioned in a different thread. I would prefer one extra Arcane and one extra Occult bloodline instead of Demonic and Diabolic, or instead of Demonic and Undeath - especially since some of their Focus powers have Evil trait, and from what I've heard, Evil tagged options are banned from Organized Play?
Another broad question: This book probably had an interesting design dilemma. While a lot of initial PF2 playerbase is probably the PF1 returnees who know and love the setting already, there is also the non-trivial playerbase that has little next to no exposure to the previous iteration of the game and Golarion.
Agreed. I think it was just unfortunate move to do the "ask your questions!" thread, because due to the phrasing it had, it hyped up people for immediate answers next Livestream, and now each time the stuff won't be answered, there will be some unfortunate betrayal of expectations.
My experience with Save and Suck magic so far is that it is the niche of Arcane list, specifically the Wizard, and even more specifically, the Spell Substitutor. This playstyle heavily rewards scouting ahead and having good monster lore and recall knowledge. Instead of pumping your DCs skyhigh, you Scout ahead / Investigate to figure out what type of opponents is likely to be fought soon, and use your incredibly vast arsenal of known spells to find the silver bullets that exploit the weak points of given opponents.
My feel is that Arcane spell list is largely balanced around the ability to have an insanely wide coverage of damage types, shapes of effect, and targeted Saves, and due to that, individual spells are more specialized and less suited for cookie-cutter use.
To be fair, a lot of Wizard Gish Problems could be solved with a different Mage-Armor style spell that trades upfront AC for lesser Dex Bonus, and flavor it as gravitational force field that or other jargon.
Think about religion and patron deities less in term of philosophical organizations fighting about unconformable ideals and competing ways to live and more about supernatural political parties slash mob families that have semi-immortal super powerful leaders that reward the most devoted party members with special benefits. It's not that you don't "believe" in the fact that gods exist, or you deny them being gods, picking a god as your patron deity is basically applying for a membership in a divine political party, and if you are a cleric, you are a member who observes the rules so well that the leadership rewards you with magical powers as long as you stay complacent and don't go against the party line. It is not a matter of blind faith into something that may or may not exist. It is a matter of pledging yuor loyalty to one of the very palpable movers and shakers of the universe hoping that you will get protection and other carrots the divine party uses to get believers.
Thats cool! One of reasons why I think it is absolutely OK to not answer this kind of questions on stream is exactly what you said, especially since it is better to be silent than then need to correct the correction.
Anyway, less rigid question:
|