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.
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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: Elf Step
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.
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.
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. Your subscription has expired. Please enter your updated payment details to continue enjoying our item member benefits. Thank you in advance!
Also... Banana phone.
Take-a-look o' sire
The King has sent his daughter
Fire burns the thatches
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!
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.
Making controversial topics and then argueing them to death seems to be one of RD's favorite pasttimes.Individual responses to everyoneTo 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? 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.
Not yet familiar with the feel of SF2 weapon balance, but this statline doesn't seem out of place to me.
I think it turned out quite well, especially as a base class that beginner players will be interacting with.
An area weapon that can shoot farther than you can throw things by hand. Come on, be realistic
I have an animal instinct barbarian shirren with Eager Assistant. I also have a Sniper Specialization operative on my team. I am planning on doing some combination of bite, grab, and aid. I'm really wondering what's the optimal combo.
Signed up for the Starfinder 2E Core Rulebook subscription back in mid-July, but this is still sitting in my sidecart. I reached out to CS 3 days ago, but still haven't gotten a reply. I'm fine waiting, but I'd appreciate a response. I'm not customer service, but my assumption is that you missed the window for the regular Player Core shipment, and thus your sidecarted items are waiting for the regular scheduled shipment for GM Core. I am also in the same situation, but I half-expected it given my prior experience with subscriptions.
I haven't seen it mathed out, and I'd like to see someone do some detailed round by round math before making statements like it does less damage. I'm not the math guy, but it seems like sniper crits are massive and there are a surprising number of damage bonuses (kickback, sniper critical specialization, backstabber, fatal/deadly). Doesn't seem straightforward to me, especially with how few directly comparable weapons there are.
You son of a lich, I'm in.
For what it's worth, during the playtest I gave players plenty of Pathfinder weapons with grades, it worked fine. As long as it's in line with ABP it's no big deal.
The contemplative is all about the brain. The tiny eyestalks that should hang out somewhere around the neck do not equate to a face, and shouldn't be were you would default to focusing for characterization. Doing so kind of misses the point. This is likely why the art neglects adding the eyes from the description. Most other characters aren't depicted with their head gear active. I think it's fine to just assume a hardlight shield covers their brains.
I played a mystic who threw on resist elements and walked around a laser shootout impervious to harm, being able to regenerate more innately per round than all the enemies focus firing could get through. There are a lot of situations where that HP pool makes you more survivable than the game necessarily expects. I think the HP reduction is an attempt to make it feel a tad bit more even.
Really looking forward to finding out more about the project and team! I hope they don't make the mistake of launching the Kickstarter without building up to it on the youtube/reddit interview circuit.
And lastly, Vanguard is probably not gonna be a Vanguard perse. Frankly, it's name is misleading, and will become especially misleading when Pathfinder classes join the mix, as vanguard does little to invoke its actual abilities. So it would likely be due for a name change. I vote Entropath. Same. Vanguard was a giant set of off-putting mistakes to me. I could easily see something similar mechanically and flavor-wise show up as a Solarian class archetype. Hopefully the name can be reclaimed by a more fitting class fantasy.
Let me introduce you to a little thing called "lying to your GM" /s But seriously that scenario came up a few times in playtesting and it was THE WORST
Otherwise, it seems weird that you could fire at an enemy for free except if you're aware of its existence. You're firing an extra bullet for every target. Just justify it as one of those hitting them. It's really not very hard to sweep under the rug. Much easier than, say, robots and undead being susceptible to diseases. I'm actually REALLY surprised this is the one that gets you.
I like that it retains the ability to throttle back the amount of ammo spent depending on number of targets. Feels right. I'd be fine letting a player expend ammo based on the number of targets they intend to hit, and letting the allies and unknown invisible enemies in the area get hit for "free".
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