Zachary Herbert's page

Would it be possible to change a few conventions in the errata documents? As is, they are unnecessarily difficult to use...

1. Can we please use "replace [sample text]" instead of "replace the 5th sentence." Scanning and counting periods not only takes longer, it makes it much more likely that we replace the wrong passage!

2. Similarly, could we use "delete the sentence beginning with [sample text]" instead of "delete the final (or nth) sentence." Particularly in the case of "final," that gets difficult for those of us who are actually updating our pdf's.

3. Related to #2, would it be possible to separate or otherwise highlight errata from previous documents? (Or maybe * the new ones?) I know this one doesn't affect as many people, but for those of us updating our documents, it would save a TON of time since we wouldn't have to keep going back through the entire list. (Or wondering if we already deleted the "last sentence" of a passage!)

How about keeping the combined skill but gating each crafting specialisation beyond basic level with a skill feat?

That would work too. I think anything that makes it more granular and reintroduces a bit of realism would fix it.

I actually came up with a skill system fix that works perfectly for my purposes. It brings back verisimilitude and still gives the players the ability to do the existing "all the things" approach by making it an intentional character choice (instead of a worldwide default). And it doesn't require mucking with the math under the hood.

For those of us who value in-fiction realism, it turns out that the only two major issues with skills are (somehow) parceling out Craft and Perform to be more in line with Lore. And then controlling which activities are available untrained.

I just edited the skills summary table in Acrobat and moved the lines around to match the particulars of my game world. That, plus a couple feats literally fixes the whole thing!

The thread is here for anyone who's interested.

I just went through the Skill chapter again, and I think this will work really well. You just have to bump some of the untrained activities into trained. Add a few feats to allow untrained use of certain things (for characters who specifically CHOOSE to be Handy/Know-it-Alls). And require Craft and Perform have a type, just like Lore/1E. (That way you can't play EVERY instrument in the world, or craft EVERY item ever.)

It also lets you tailor to your setting. (For example, my campaign is an urban monotheistic setting. So I'll allow untrained Recall Knowledge for Religion, but not Nature.)

It seems like Paizo is going for something a little more gonzo. But for those looking for a bit more verisimilitude... this is looking like a solid fix!

At the very least, it could be so that a natural 1 that still succeeds should only fail normally and not critically.

It actually is that. A nat 1 that would have otherwise succeeded is just a normal failure. Not a crit fail.

One issue with "I can craft anything" is that really it's "I can craft anything provided I have someone's drawing and instructions tell me how to do it." You're not (without another feat) some creative genius making anything you can imagine, you're an extra skilled Ikea customer.

Yes, but you can reverse engineer anything to get the formula. So everyone is more a genius level tinker. (Give Dorothy, the master basketweaver, a master level katana, and she can break it down, create a plan and forge up a few new ones.)

And the alchemical identification use doesn't even require a formula. Every craftsman moonlights as a chemist. :P

So it seems that allowing untrained use of certain skills creates all kind of weird in-world side effects... (Anyone can Repair anything. Everyone Knows everything.)

I get untrained attempts at physical activities. (Anyone can try to Balance.) But it gets weird with specialized skills.

So what about taking away untrained use of those skills and gating broad-spectrum actions like Repair and Recall Knowledge behind general feats?

For example...

Handy: You can use an artisan kit and attempt to repair items as an untrained activity. The usual untrained penalties apply.

Know-it-all: You can attempt Recall Knowledge actions for untrained Lore skills. The usual untrained penalties apply.

At least that way it's a character design choice. "I want to play a handy/know-it-all character." Rather than some random default ability of everyone in the world.

Edit: And that also rebalances/grounds the whole +1/level thing... My handy character gets more handy... My know-it-all gets more know-it-all-y...

I'm in agreement. Too many things feel like function calls (over fiction). It creates all kinds of usability issues.

E.g. Bulk seems wholly unnatural. It removes a unit of measure that we instinctively understand and adds an abstraction that we need to constantly reference to figure out what it is. I get the "some things are extra bulky and that matters more than weight." But that's a corner case. And now I can't even answer how much a weapon weighs.

The choices on timeframes for many actions seem to be driven more by a sense of mathematical balance. Rather than by any kind of in fiction realism or facilitating enjoyable gameplay.

Identifying one potion takes an hour. Cleaning and bandaging wounds takes two seconds flat. (Battle medic.) Its all over the place.

For my game, I'm doing lower power, later era. So I'll just require dedicated craft skill like 1E. It's a pretty easy houserule.

Perform, I'll probably let each skill point do two (e.g. Guitar and sing).

The +1 per level untrained thing is just going to require constant gm intervention. Otherwise every high level person will be better at repair or recall knowledge than any journeyman/grad student. Perhaps I'll mark certain skills that you don't add your level to untrained actions.

Also just realized that literally everyone in the world who is trained at crafting anything at all--cobbler, painter, tailor, cook, blacksmith, everything--can identify any alchemical item in 10 minutes given access to an alchemists kit.

I know the idea was to simplify the game. But this really just needs to keep the "pick a craft" aspect of 1st edition.

Same with perform. Anyone who can play ANY instrument can play EVERY instrument.

Easy to houserule, but still...

Another consideration for those who dig the "high level people have learned a lot in their travels" explanation for why characters in 2E seem to know virtually everything...

The players are PLAYING through those levels. And the things that they encounter along the way become immediately accessed knowledge. Meaning, you've already fought a blue dragon back at level 7. You don't need to roll to know what its breath weapon does.

So really, the only things you need to roll Lore for... are the things you've never actually encountered on your path to higher levels. Yet you seem to know them all anyway.

Untrained use isn't the issue. I'm actually okay with that part. Any untrained person can attempt to repair something. But they probably suck at it. (Though this is another place where +1/level starts to creep in to weird effect, since a high level person can suddenly make better repairs to any object in the world.)

The big problem is that once you are trained, you are trained at EVERYTHING. They gated item quality behind proficiency rank. Which helps a little. But it also highlights the absurd side...

Consider this:

During an adventure, I find the formula for a Master level katana.

Back in town, we have a swordsmith, Hattori Hanzo. He's an expert with 30 years experience forging katanas.

Unfortunately, Hattori can't help. He's not a master. He can't forge that sword.

But all is not lost, because Dorothy lives down the street. And she is a master level basketweaver. She's never made a sword before. Can barely lift a hammer.

Not to worry. She's a master. So I hand her the plans, rent a forge, and she whips up the master level katana of my dreams.

Step aside Hattori. Dorothy is gonna show you how to make a TRUE samurai weapon!

Ok you seem to be confused about one thing which I now finally realize. The rules about how survival skill works won't be found each feat about survival. It will be found in the general rules, presumably in the how to play section. That's where the how is.

OMG finally. THAT actually makes sense. You are absolutely right. "The HOW is there. Just not THERE." And the how IS there.

And you don't get to make crap up to auto-succeed. And you can't forage where there's nothing to forage. And you can't just *poof* make something alien and purely toxic, suddenly nontoxic. And it doesn't require legendary handwaiving. And it isn't magical.

You are absolutely right on Planar Survival. The HOW is there. It just isn't THERE.

** spoiler omitted **

Ultimately, I agree that some of the points could be better worded to prevent odd rules interactions. But some of the points brought up are just matters of taste, and I don't think we'll fully reconcile it all.

Lol to Dorothy!

I know. I'm arguing at too meta a level I think. I should have just questioned the time and resources of battle medic and suggested a different wording that made it clear that you are "cleaning and bandaging the wounds of living creatures."

I pointed out the underlying design philosophy and now everyone is freaking the f out.

1. creating a game with no inconsistencies that is also playable is factually impossible.

I'm not advocating the creation of a game with no inconsistencies.

I'm saying "don't print math blocks without an in-fiction explanation."

The explanation doesn't need to be perfect and corner-case free. But it should provide some context to how something works in-fiction. And in so doing, provide some realistic expectation of what circumstances might countermand that action.

If all it says is "spend one action and your target regains 2d8 hit points," there's no grounding in the world at all. It's just a video game function call. Subtract one action - add extra hit points.

It's not impossible to add explanations to the game. They already did it with 99% of the book! Is it really that unreasonable, that in part of the process of getting feedback, to make changes to the game, that they might make THAT change? And add the missing 1%?

Lucid Blue wrote:

Why not? If the objection isn't rooted in in-fiction realism.

The objection is rooted in in-fiction realism.

The tree changing DC breaks it.

Planar Survival doesn't.
Abstract hit points don't either.

So if I have a gaping swordwound. Nearly enough to drop me dead. And a naked first level medic spends two seconds attending to me. With no gear, tools, magic or equipment. And suddenly the gaping swordwound is gone and I'm in perfect health. What would be the in-fiction explanation for how that happened?

And what would the explanation be for why THAT medic can't heal my next sword wound until the following day? But his buddy could do it now?

I guess I'm genuinely baffled that so many people support the Dissociated Mechanics.

So are you all also in favor of Planar Survival feat allowing people to forage for food on planes of existence that don't have food? Where the act of searching poofs the food into existence?

And if so, are you against letting the DC10 tree be DC10 for everyone? And believe the same tree should have higher DC for higher level characters?

Hit points are not a direct measure of wounds.

They haven't been since D&D first edition.

Then why not give clerics unlimited healing? If a first level medic can heal 40,000 HP per day on the battlefield, with no magic and no equipment. Shouldn't clerics, who are magical healers, be able to do at least that much?

Personally, I love what you call "dissociated mechanics" since I always ask players to "tell a story about how they did that" when something is suggested as possible by the mechanics without any clear idea how it works, and I get some of the best improv moments from this.

Huh. Different philosophies I guess. So would you be opposed to just letting players erase any damage after each combat? Or assuming that they always have enough food and water, even in locales that don't have food and water?

If not, is the objection purely math/balance related rather than in-world-fiction related?

Maybe I'm the odd duck here...

Hence the battlefield scenario. One tap per soldier. But 10,000 soldiers get 10,000 taps.

And they're only bolstered against YOUR taps. Your Battle Medic buddies can still tap in turn. 10 medics, 10 taps, times 10,000 soldiers.

Wanted to point out bits of Dissociated Mechanics that show up here and there in the playtest.. The Planar Survival feat is the worst offender I've seen. But there a few others as well.

There's been a lot of talk about whether 2E is/isn't like 4E D&D. Whether or not you think that's a good thing, with class powers and such, I'd argue that the main thing that made 4E unpalatable to a lot of people was it's fetishization of balance and reliance on Dissociated Mechanics. Meaning, mechanical game effects that had no grounding whatsoever in the fiction of the world.

Balance and options are all good. But a lot of 4E mechanics were simply bits of math that got applied to the world, without ever explaining HOW or WHAT was going on. It was just a catalog of powers that applied math to a situation.. Which made it feel very video-gamey because it lacked any explanation or way to mitigate the effects. (But what kind of damage is it? How did I take it? What if I was protected situationally? Doesn't matter. Math is math. World be damned. Mark it on your sheet.)

For the most part, it seems that Pathfinder has taken pains to avoid doing that. (eg. A DC10 tree is a DC10 tree. It doesn't get harder to climb as the PC's gain levels. Making the tree adjust it's DC for the climber feels video-gamey because there's no in-world explanation for why it should change.)

But then we get to things like Planar Survival... Where "you can forage for food [on another plane of existence] EVEN IF THE PLANE LACKS FOOD THAT COULD NORMALLY SUSTAIN YOU."

I can't think of a worse example of Dissociated Mechanics.. And it's exactly the DC10 tree issue. The plane DOESN'T EVEN HAVE FOOD. But you can forage for it anyway. The plane suddenly has food BECAUSE THE PLAYER LOOKED FOR IT. "Elemental plane of fire? No problem. I have Planar Survival! Let me scrounge up some berries. Negative Energy void? Pfff. There's small game around here somewhere."

Combat Medic is another. I can literally wipe away severe sword wounds in two seconds flat with a bit of gauze! How? Who knows? The math said I can do it.

Legendary skill feats are basically ALL dissociated. But they're also intended to be a little silly. And at least they're well-grouped and easy to disallow.

Really, it's all stuff that can be houseruled away. (Which I will.) But I wanted to call it out as a problematic design philosophy. It appears so infrequently that it can still be resolved.

So can we please reconsider? And limit Dissociated Mechanics to the gonzo legendary feats? Let the DC10 tree be a DC10 tree always. In every incarnation.

Magic is magic. But it PALES beside the power of dissociated math blocks. And I can't think of a quicker way to ruin the spirit of an otherwise excellent rpg.

Yeah I saw that too. But hey... If you're a woodworker, you "only" get +1 to forge the head of that morningstar. Ugh. This is houserule #1.

Am I understanding correctly that Craft no longer has subcategories like Lore? So if I'm trained in Craft, I can forge armor and weapons and work leather and blow glass and bind books and build bridges and do woodwork and make boats and bows and horseshoes and houses and absolutely anything else anyone has ever thought of...?

Lucid Blue wrote:

The action economy would benefit from separating the mechanical from the narrative elements. This is a usability issue. You NEED to know how many actions right up front. What those actions ARE is a contextual narrative thing that often doesn't matter. Right now, the occasionally needed info is mixed into the essential info and it forces us to parse it out. My vote is: don't bury the relevant information in action categories that the 3 action system was designed to remove.

Actions: 2 (Verbal, Somatic)
Actions: 2 (Focus, Activate)
Actions: 1 (Drink)

Yes, that's an improvment. We should be able to easily ignore the keywords attached to the actions except for the occasional cases where they're relevant. They might need another line for 'Free Actions : 1 (Focus) for example.

It wouldn't even have to be a new line:

Actions: 1 (Drink), Free (Uncork)

The action economy would benefit from separating the mechanical from the narrative elements. This is a usability issue. You NEED to know how many actions right up front. What those actions ARE is a contextual narrative thing that often doesn't matter. Right now, the occasionally needed info is mixed into the essential info and it forces us to parse it out. My vote is: don't bury the relevant information in action categories that the 3 action system was designed to remove.

Actions: 2 (Verbal, Somatic)
Actions: 2 (Focus, Activate)
Actions: 1 (Drink)

Erik Mona wrote:

I'd also very much like this, but this also adds pages if you don't want it to come at the cost of more options and stat blocks.

Sometimes it is worth it, and 5e has shown me with volos guide that there is a lot of inspirational value in monster fluff.

I think that's a core, but under-acknowledged, role of a good bestiary... It's not just giving a us a stat block so we CAN use a monster. It's inspiring us TO use a monster. Cool artwork, interesting tactical roles and abilities, and fluff text to get our imaginations moving.

Personally, I don't need quantity over quality. And I'm pretty excited by the prospect of being able to pay more to have both!