WatersLethe's page

Don't wizards in the Harry Potter universe fire simple quick blasts with their wands?

That sounds similar, but with a staff.

Actually, from what I remember, they are always using their wands to cast what are considered full on spells in that setting.

The Gandalf/Saruman slugfest with staves from the movies might be a closer example from media.

In WoW classic some classes would auto-attack with a wand doing chip damage when they were out of mana, which is probably the closest flavor to what I'm proposing.

I actually kind of like the mechanic of getting tougher the more feats of a tough class you take. It is true, however, that it's really hard to get value out of, and I very rarely take it.

I would note that Toughness and Resiliency aren't competing with each other, and if you really want to get more HP you're going to get both, and General Feats are, for some reason, the designated boring but effective math increase pool.

When you look at the math, it seems like they hit on 3 HP per feat because it leaves you just under the base HP of the next higher HP die after 10 feats of investment. 4 HP per feat makes you match. The problem is that 10 feats of investment is ENORMOUS. Already, I strongly believe you could bump it to 4, and it would easily be fair for that level of dedication.

Twice level HP, as Teridax suggests, would be a one feat investment to go up a die size in HP. That might be on the too strong side, and I would see going out of your way for it on any class below d12 hit die. Though, it does have the benefit of being simple.

I could see a flat +1 hp per level, plus 2 for every dedication feat. You get a little weaker toughness off the bat, but it stacks with toughness and other options, so lots of HP optimizers would still love it. Then the 2 hp per feat leaves you off at a total +40 if you go 10 feats deep, which means you'd be equal to a die size increase.

I just want to chime in to say Resonance was a good mechanic for *one* of the many things it was trying to do, but making you unable to drink a critical potion because you wore a specific pair of pants that morning was why it failed.

Resonance as a consumable power source is well worth re-investigating. Just make sure you don't make it do too much.

Maybe you just do spell attack value, and there is no item bonus to be gained. So eventually it lags behind martial attacks. And maybe for a damage upgrade (psuedo-striking rune) you need a higher level staff.

Ooh, I've often complained that high level staves don't have all that much to offer if you're mostly after a bunch of casts of a low level spell. While that was more true pre-true-strike-nerf, having another feature that makes high level staves juicy sounds pretty good to me.

I'd be down with it. Are you intending the blasts to key off of Dex, or off of a casting stat?

The other question is, what kinds of damage are you thinking of? I'm assuming the damage type would be related thematically to the staff somehow, but how broad are you thinking of going?

I was picturing using Dex, because it's filling the role of an Air Repeater without the thematic clash. I'd be a bit worried about it being too no-brainer if it used their spellcasting attack.

For damage type, I was thinking it would be a best-fit to the staff theme, with maybe fire as a default fallback.

Well...I guess because it's a single action activity that is thematically better than using a crossbow.

That's the whole reason. I recently watched a video where someone opined that the system assumes low level casters fill third actions with simple weapon attacks, and that clashes with some people's fantasies about casters.

The staff thread in general also made me think about how much I like incentivizing casters to care about having a staff in hand.

How would you feel about a high-magic homebrew rule that lets people make a ranged weapon strike with a staff that's 1d4 and a fixed energy type with a ~30ft range, maybe in the sling weapon group like foxfire?

Kinda like the idea of doing some old school WoW style wand spam, and making it a bit cooler to have a staff handy.

Yeah I allow property runes on Staves except Shifting, mostly for the *aesthetic*

WatersLethe wrote:

I really wish they had removed the different grades of materials and also the rune-gating, and made precious materials a lot cooler. At least if the effects were awesome the wildly out to lunch prices could be justified.

I ignore rune-gating at my tables so no one has to bother with special materials if they don't want to.

As-is, precious materials are essentially another monetary loot drop that is hard to slot in anywhere it'd actually be exciting without unbalancing party wealth.

Have you experienced any issues with everyone having precious material weapons for dealing lots of bonus damage? IIRC that's the reason for the grades and rune-gating; precious material cost increases because the value of the weaknesses they trigger, and resistances they bypass, increase as the game progresses.

I dunno how much of an issue it'd actually be in play, and I'm interested in making precious materials more accessible in my games because I think they're neat, so I figured I'd ask. (Still need to come up with a new benefit for adamantine armor, too. Being built Tonka tough doesn't help a ton in a game where almost nothing targets your armor.)

My players don't tend to pick out a bunch of backup weapons, so whatever their "main" weapon is made from is what they've got. Since they're usually just upgrading their favorite weapon from level 1, it's pretty rare that they even have special materials. Thinking back, I've thrown a number of enemies with Holy weakness and Cold Iron weakness that they never even found out about, and enemies with resistances the martials didn't have a way around that they just switch to support against with athletics, or try to crit through.

Our group is probably not a good one to draw conclusions from, though, because they get really into the story and spend gold on non-combat stuff rather than getting excited about new items.

I really wish they had removed the different grades of materials and also the rune-gating, and made precious materials a lot cooler. At least if the effects were awesome the wildly out to lunch prices could be justified.

I ignore rune-gating at my tables so no one has to bother with special materials if they don't want to.

As-is, precious materials are essentially another monetary loot drop that is hard to slot in anywhere it'd actually be exciting without unbalancing party wealth.

Part of the problem with the Exemplar is that it sought to be able to embody the stories of heroes from mythology, which in large part the entire D&D/Pathfinder paradigm already tries to do with every character. High level PCs are supposed to have legendary items, a big history of heroic acts, fame far and wide, and a shot at challenging the gods or rising to divinity. That's a really common way of playing high level characters since forever.

The Exemplar, narratively and mechanically, is sort of a redundant subsystem layered on top of some foundational heroic fantasy adventurer TTRPG assumptions. They mix and match abilities that ordinarily would be spread throughout a party because their inspirations were often solo-acts, they draw class power from items that would ordinarily show up later in the game because mythological figures normally start high level and they had to square that circle, and they go about their party roles in nonstandard ways to differentiate themselves from the classes that would otherwise represent their mythological inspirations.

It's not a bad class, I appreciate its variety, utility, and flexibility. I think it's unfair to compare them at face value and say another class does their schtick better. In total, I think they're pretty well balanced.

I do find it a shame that they're so item/ikon focused, and are more of a mythological hero, main character-lite class than a Godling class. It would have been nice if many items being kinda boring had been solved so that everyone could have cool items, instead of making a class that kind of hoards the cool item concept.

This is like when the chipotle guy loads you up with double scoops without charging extra

I think it would depend on how you're preparing to aid. is this a skill feat, General feat, Class feat, or Ancestry feat? Context is important.

It's a Shirren ancestry feat at 5th level!

Each action is tied to a specific form of prep for a specific ally. You’re either aiding two different things on one ally, requiring two different approaches to prep, or two different preps towards different allies.

I used it to spit distracting acid to aid my group's operative's ranged attacks against a single enemy. They shot twice, I aided twice, then I thought "That was very good..."

Eager Assistant: At the start of your turn, you gain one additional reaction, which you can use only to Aid.

Aid Trigger: An ally is about to use an action that requires a skill check or attack roll.

Aid Requirement: The ally is willing to accept your aid, and you have prepared to help (see below).

See Below: To use this reaction, you must first prepare to help, usually by using an action during your turn. You must explain to the GM exactly how you're trying to help, and they determine whether you can Aid your ally.

I don't see whether this requires you to use two Prepare to Aid actions on your turn in order to Aid an ally twice with your two reactions. Thoughts?

Looks like we are back.

Looks that way, but can we ever really be sure?

Oh, wait, yeah, I guess we can be sure in this instance.

Thanks for all the insight folks! I was building an NPC animist for funsies and I thought it sounded too good to be true. Glad to see it's just a cool feature that might come in handy once in a while.

How are you doing? How's the weather?

Is there a reason you couldn't burn two focus points to cast Earth's Bile twice, then each round thereafter sustain both?

Also, there are focus spells that let you stride or leap when you sustain them. Does that mean you could:

1a: Earth's Bile
1a: Circle of Spirits
1a: River Carving Mountains

1a: Elf Step
- Step, Sustain Earth's Bile for damage
- Step, Sustain River Carving Mountains
- Stride
2a: Cast a regular spell

Elf step lets you step twice for one action.

Liturgist gives you: "Dancing Invocation (9th) The movement of your body grants power to your magic. When you Leap, Step, or Tumble Through, you also Sustain an apparition spell or vessel spell."

Would this allow you to sustain two apparition spells or vessel spells for one action as long as you use Elf Step?

See you, space cowboy!

Oh no! Where are all the crypto spammers going to hang out while the site is down? Did anyone think of the crypto spammers?!

I'm going to be here, doing a long salute, as the server goes dark.

Definitely looking forward to the new shiny!

Also am ready for the challenge of remembering a new password. o__o

Just do what I do and use 12345, I haven't forgotten it yet!

That looks really sharp! I'm looking forward to the new digital content manager because it was so hard to sort out what I have or have not downloaded and backed up!

I want to take this opportunity to ask about new puzzles when??

Bigger = better is dumb.

If we're talking about having more mass, you can already make normal sized weapons nigh-unwieldable by adjusting the balance and materials. If more mass = more better, weapon design would already account for it. Essentially, you want to have a usable balance between mass and speed to convert your muscle power into damaging strikes that have a hope of hitting their target.

If we're talking about size, as long as a face, edge, or point is sufficient for lethality, extra size is only a detriment. Spreading your force over a larger area or introducing more surface area for friction during a cut is just not helpful.

Bigger creatures deal more damage because they're stronger, and can handle swinging around more mass at an effective speed. The increased size of their weapons is about durability and comfort.

So a regular sized human, who is supernaturally strong enough to effectively wield a giant's sword, would be better off using that strength on a weapon sized for themselves, with a mass distribution that maximizes their muscle effectiveness.

I get that some people are still going to be like "but my cool too big sword!" and want a mechanical benefit for using one. If giant instinct barbarian isn't enough, slap on a house rule +1 bludgeoning damage per die to go along with the clumsy condition.

You can make all of your "boss" fights puzzles instead. Your party has a lot of problem solving capability, so complicated situations, complex hazards, alternate win conditions, and large exploitable weaknesses could make these challenging but fun, and stand out from your regular battles.

One of PF2's strengths was the siloing of many options to reduce the cognitive load of making selections. The different feat buckets is the main example.

However, item selection is not siloed, and the reduction of slot based itemization from PF1 means you don't generally shop from a selection of rings, then a selection of boots, then a selection of cloaks, etc. It's easy to get lost looking into what you should buy.

If things were categorized better, and with a more clear reference to the ABP chart that tells you what you're supposed to have when, it could make the itemization much more approachable.

As far as food, the inner bark of certain trees, such as pine, birch, and willow, is edible and contains carbohydrates, fiber, vitamins (e.g., vitamin C), and minerals (e.g., potassium). At 500-600 calories a pound, you'd only have to make @5 pounds per person. So 2 uses of Base Kinesis covers 1 person.

LOL! Adventurers listening are absolutely sweating bullets right now.

"They're asking us to eat eat 5 pounds of tree bark now? I thought the jerky was bad enough"

Wouldn't PF2 classes being options unlocked via whatever their play credit system is called an ideal solution?

I'd like to reiterate that the "Pay to get the new version that actually works" isn't a solution to the problems a lot of people are raising. It seems like those saying that we just need to make sure there are enough upgrades throughout the level range are ignoring this.

Players will *still* disdain items without scaling DCs because they don't want to get on the stupid upgrade treadmill. It doesn't matter if there are plenty of upgrade steps along the way. It's the same reason lots of people don't like consumables, a non-scaling item is just saying "Don't get attached."

Pouring money into a hole doesn't feel good and it's not weird that people prefer items that don't require you to do that.

Even if full automatic scaling isn't desirable, there are ways to give DCs that are at least relevant. Like my earlier suggestion, or like: "Use the item's DC or an Easy DC for the Character's level, whichever is greater"

One decision point I think really kind of sucks here is how SF2 sort of silo'd off melee builds into their own space. The fact that you can't be a melee ghost operative because Paizo decided to make your abilities not work unless you took the melee quarantine subclass hurts build variety a lot, and maybe contributes to that feeling of restrictiveness.

I loathe it when they do this. It's easily my biggest pet peeve when they design new classes.

Let the options breathe!

If you want resource consumption to matter, you could just work with the players to come up with a suitable explanation for why it doesn't work. Maybe the effort required to summon the elemental energy burns enough calories to make it a wash.

If I had to wait another got dang year to get SF2 out just to have a couple extra classes on launch I would have rioted. The starting lineup is plenty to get started, and that's not even considering the PF2 compatibility. I am quite impressed with what we got, and could see myself playing every class multiple times.

Either way, getting the system launched earlier rather than later was such a good call that I will forgive a LOT of foibles.

I could see some kind of Starsinger/Xenoempath type class that communes with creatures and environments in a kind of druid way, but ends up being like a space Steve Erwin / Bear Grylls who uses a deep understanding rather than magic. With the amount of handwavium it might be similar to thaumaturge.

We've been trying to reach you about your starship's extended warranty.

WatersLethe wrote:

They probably wanted to leave open a means for reloading to be a part of the game that matters.

It's possible, but that just makes it weird that laser weapons get bigger rather than the other way around.

I speculate that they wanted it to matter for some weapons so you can engage with that fantasy by choice of weapon. Also in my games so far, laser weapons were the "idk just give me something to shoot between spells" weapon type.

Not saying that's a super compelling design choice or not.

I love the Wiki map!

They probably wanted to leave open a means for reloading to be a part of the game that matters. I would speculate that we might see some interesting bullets that make the lower number of shots more worthwhile. They may have just wanted to hang onto the idea that bullets take up physical space.

I treat hard anathemas like for clerics, druids, champions and barbarians as roleplay guidelines. If the player is following their character concept they're mostly irrelevant.

They have yet to come up in any meaningful way in my games.

Never used items with set DCs. Never will I ever touch items with set DCs as I do not wish to be stuck in the loop of liking items then it becomes useless then I see it then buy a new one and repeat. It feels sooooooo useless to me.

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Also... Banana phone.

Take-a-look o' sire
Your market's all on fire
Ashes! Ashes!
All across the town!

The King has sent his daughter
To fetch a pail of water
Ashes! Ashes!
All across the town!

Fire burns the thatches
Pockets full of matches
Ashes! Ashes!
All across the town!

etc

99 phials of fuel from the haul, 99 phials of fuel

hear that sound? burn it all down!

98 phials of fuel from the haul!

Just as a heads up, the actual scaling of DCs by level "skips" levels every so often.
So this formula to +1 for each gap level does help, but all item DCs would still fall behind. This could be seen as an issue, or a good thing to encourage upgrades (but that's often not possible).

https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2627

It looks like these DCs are skipped:

17, 21, 25, 29, 33, 37,
and last that should be player relevant is DC 41 being lost between levels 20 & 21.

So exequiel759's mention of looking at the base item's "On level DC comparison" to then apply to the scaled level is the best for being accurate.

Basically, look at your item and compare to that chart. If it's +1 for it's base level, than it should always be +1 for its scaled level.

It falling behind is intentional, I mathed it out to ensure higher tier versions usually give a boost in accuracy at minimum.

A level 7 item has a ~35% chance to land against an at-level enemy at level 20. A level 17 item has a ~55% chance.

35% is a hail mary, 55% might be worth the actions.

If Shifter gets spell slots, it's already failed.

Justnobodyfqwl wrote:

Ravingdork wrote:

Individual responses to everyone

To be honest man, if you can argue against everyone in the entire thread at once like this, I don't really know what anyone is supposed to do to change your mind. Do you, like, WANT to argue about it? Or do you think someone has an answer that will satisfy you, and it just hasn't been said yet?

Making controversial topics and then argueing them to death seems to be one of RD's favorite pasttimes.

To be fair, sometimes it feels like Ravingdork is carrying forum engagement on his back.

Auto succeeding on an athletics maneuver against a foe is like finding out a cheat code. It's such a rush to be able to bully enemies with impunity.

It's a great tool for a smaller party. It's easy to fall behind in skills when you only have 3 non-skill-monkies in a party.

I would like to point out that "upgrading to level appropriate DC at an appropriate gold cost" has it's own issues. It's a bunch of annoying book keeping just to make items not suck, doesn't help in low down time situations, and still frequently results in unsatisfying stories. It makes loot sheets not only a list of expiry dates, it also asks you to reup your subscription to keep using them.

I recommend the [New DC] = [Old DC] + [Char Level - Item Level].

Then warn players not to try to cheese old low cost items.

The lack of 1h weapons is bizarre.

Designated Operative Rifle
Range: 100, 1d10P, Deadly D6, Volley 30ft, Unwieldy, Tech, Magazine: 5, Expand: 1

Not yet familiar with the feel of SF2 weapon balance, but this statline doesn't seem out of place to me.