Zorae's page

Honestly, just more variation. The arcane spell list at least feels like there's a variety of choices at each spell level (except for divination wizards). Not so much with the divine list.

Every spell level it's 1-2 offensive damage spells, 0-1 debuff spells, 1-2 heal/cure spells, 0-1 universal utility/buff spells, 1-2 extremely situational spells.

The various playstyles of cleric are all supported by the list: buffer/healer, nuker, debuffer, gish, but the choices all feel very set in stone for them.

At least give them back comprehend languages, give them a few more buff and/or utility spells at each level so there's at least a semblance of choice. Or give Clerics the extra spell slot they had from domains back and give them a new spell at every level. That really helped to round out the old PF1 list.

I would not want stamina introduced.

The game needs to meet a fine balance of being able to play with some non-dedicated healers, while allowing dedicated healers to feel useful (and not requiring dedicated healers to be just healbots).

I don't think there's a way to make dedicated healers (or non-gish clerics in general) playable with the stamina system as it, by nature, de-emphasizes healing. Especially with how weak buffs/control spells are, there really aren't good things for a dedicated healer to fall back on for 50-70% of the fight.

The old Control Weather also was only a radius of 2 miles and lasted for 4d12 hours (unless you were a druid in which case it was 3 miles and double duration). You can also now crit and affect a 5 mile radius for up to 16d12 hours (ridiculous!). It's also interesting to note that you get up to two effects at once. And as a 9th level ritual you can even do impossible combos of things like extreme cold and hurricanes and summon them from any of the lists - that sort of stuff was only achievable by high level mythic play. But it's now available to everyone!

Before you had to put it in a spell slot. A spell that takes 20 min to come online and is super situational. Unless you knew ahead of time what you were walking into, you usually didn't prep that spell. Which means that if you encountered a surprise weather phenomenon, it would take you just as long to do something about it with pretty comparable results (unless it was a Druid).

In PF2 I would absolutely hate devoting one of my very limited spell slots to this. Even if it was the old 20min to take effect spell.

Honestly, this spell specifically makes a lot of sense as a ritual. Even besides all the story/plot reasons for this, it's better for player power fantasies as well as it's not really that big of a nerf.

Technically Druids are in the same boat with Goodberry.

I would be fine with Alchemists being theoretically better healers than Clerics in this way as 7d6 is less than 9d8+5, so you do less healing in one go. Not to mention that Healing Domain/Healer's Hands would push the Cleric up above the Alchemist for healing (and they could have a staff of heal at that point). And, by doing the three action channel, they do have a potential to do a lot more healing. So I don't think this would make Alchemists strictly better healers than Clerics. Just better than non-invested Clerics (which is to be expected).

I don't think giving them the ability to use their elixirs at range or reducing the number of actions somehow has a risk of making them too OP.

3+Cha did not push Clerics over the other healers.

3+Cha + Healing Hands + Healing domain did. Which is kinda the point of taking those things (although admittedly it was vastly superior to what the other classes could do).

Otherwise you did just about as much as the old Goodberry healing.

This also shafts my 14 Cha caster cleric that was just barely keeping the party alive because I wanted to focus on non-healing feats.

And I love how they "helped" 2 handed and sword+board Clerics with the Somantic casting buff and removing Emblazon Symbol. So instead of a feat tax to 3 action channel - you have to let go of your weapon/drop your shield and get out your holy symbol, do the three action heal the next turn, and then put your symbol away and readjust your grip/pick your shield back up. But hey, no feat tax for 1-2 action channels right?

Zorae wrote:

I actually really dislike the Divine Spell list.

At least the Arcane and Occult spell lists feel like you have relevant choices to make when picking spells. Just about every divine spell level has 1-2 damage spells and 1 of a heal, buff, or universally useful utility spell.

I'm not taking See Invisibility as a second level spell because I want to, but for lack of better options. For third level I'm grabbing Fireball (from Sarenrae), Heroism.... And I guess another Heroism? I don't even know what I'd take if I was a non-Sarenrae Cleric (Searing Light is awful). Maybe Dispel Magic or Blindness if I was a battle cleric?

And every spell level feels like that. There just aren't a variety of good spells to pick from on the list.

well, clerics in Core books never had great attacking spells.

There are still enough spells imo that are meaningful to prepare.

stuff like enervation, spiritual weapon, circle, restoration, heroism, darkness, silence, bless, fear, command, sanctuary etc all in early levels.

I don't want more attacking spells. I want an actual variety of choice. Most of the things you listed are the only good spells at the levels they're at. They're the only spells to take.

Except Silence which is hot garbage now, circle is uncommon, Darkness (which has never been a good spell), and honestly I haven't seen a use for restoration yet (10 min cast time?) Although that's probably because we haven't encountered any conditions that don't go away quickly yet (maybe at higher levels it's more of a thing?). Plus, I'd rather just pick up a scroll or wand of that instead.

I want Comprehend Languages, Hold Person, Daylight (seriously, Darkness but no Daylight???), Prayer, Divine Favor, Tongues, Obscuring Mist! Those are all Core spells that were really good and helped add in some additional choices you could make. Domains used to give you an extra spell at every spell level, which really helped round out the list of things you could cast (assuming you weren't a boring healing domain cleric). Now you only get 3 more spells so the lacking spell list is much more painful.

I actually really dislike the Divine Spell list.

At least the Arcane and Occult spell lists feel like you have relevant choices to make when picking spells. Just about every divine spell level has 1-2 damage spells and 1 of a heal, buff, or universally useful utility spell.

I'm not taking See Invisibility as a second level spell because I want to, but for lack of better options. For third level I'm grabbing Fireball (from Sarenrae), Heroism.... And I guess another Heroism? I don't even know what I'd take if I was a non-Sarenrae Cleric (Searing Light is awful). Maybe Dispel Magic or Blindness if I was a battle cleric?

And every spell level feels like that. There just aren't a variety of good spells to pick from on the list.

Channel itself is really not that strong. It's the healing domain+healing hands feat that really pushes it into ridiculous territory. A high-ish Cha Cleric that isn't focused on healing gets about the same amount of healing as a Leaf Order Druid that took the feat to increase the number of focus points they have.

I would much rather nerf the healing domain and healing hands feat slightly, while also giving Druids/Bards/Sorcs/etc some more 'healing' class features. Because nerfing Channel outright really hurts battle clerics (who are already struggling) and will instead force all Clerics to focus on Healing - which is definitely not good.

+1 for unburden to remain a heritage feature.

I also am displeased that "standard gnomes" get "discerning smell" which is pretty weak.

It's not mentioned anywhere in PF2, but a good trick as a PF1 prepared caster was to not prepare all your spell slots. Then, if you got into a situation you didn't prepare for, you could spend 10min to prep the needed spell.

Again, it's not mentioned anywhere in PF2... But it's also not mentioned that you have to prep all your spells either. If you have a lenient GM they may allow it.

This seems like an oversight to me. How is my Cleric supposed to read ancient tomes about various religions in old languages? Or bring their Religion to other cultures with a different language. It should, at the very least, have Tongues as Truespeech is a pretty common ability of most Good Outsiders.

Hey, let's make it a 4th-level feat for Wizards, Sorcerers and Druids:

Empowering Magic (Feat level 4)
Traits: Metamagic, Druid (or Sorcerer, or Wizard, as appropriate)

You gain the Overcast power which you can cast at the cost of 1 Spell Point. Increase your Spell Point pool by 1.

Overcast (Power level 2)
Casting: Somatic Casting free action
Trigger: You cast an evocation spell that deals acid, cold, electricity, or fire damage.

You cast the triggering spell as if it were heightened to the highest spell level you can cast.

Now I really want this in the game.
Here's hoping Mark is lurking around this thread. :D

This is Blaster Cleric erasure.

That may be a bit too strong. Maybe highest level -1 or -2 to not make it unreasonable and to make sure high level spells can keep the damage they have rather than needing to be lowered to compensate for being cast more often. Otherwise I like it.

I don't think Colette has done anything to break RAW. But they definitely aren't following RAI, simply making them not what they assume to be 'the average gm style'.

The rules should be loose enough to play whatever style you want - but made clear what the 'expected' way of running monsters should be in order to keep the game at 'average' difficulty. I think the rules accomplish that balance well as they are now.

Zorae wrote:

I think it's less "we shouldn't need a healer" and more "We shouldn't need a specific a dedicated healer that does literally nothing but heal" and "The Healer shouldn't have to save all their resources for out of combat Healing instead of doing cool things in combat".

Because blowing limited resources for out of combat Healing isn't fun. Saving people in combat is great and part of the fun/power fantasy of being a healer. Being the party's CLW wand isn't.

Could you imagine if detect magic wasn't a cantrip? Or if a fighter could only repair their shield one time per day? Or if you were only allowed to shoot x arrows per day?

I get that, but I never felt that way about Pathfinder. With Clerics getting Channels, and the proliferation of magic items via item creation feats (wands/potions/scrolls), I feel there is plenty of available out of combat healing. It just might cost you more. You cant choose not to have a type of character in the group and then complain about the gaps, imo. I definitely do not subscribe to the philosophy group make-up shouldnt matter.

Detect Magic wasnt a cantrip, back in the day (there was no such thing!). Buy/Create a wand of it via group loot if that was the case.

In PF1 it wasn't really an issue. Because out of combat Healing was so prevalent and eventually became as negligible as arrows are for archers. I played a 11+ game where our only healing was my summoner summoning things with healing abilities+umd wanding people. It was incredibly difficult/stressful - but still doable.

In PF2 out of combat healing has become vastly limited by resonance (which is still a thing until it gets changed) and the nerfing of wands to only 10 charges; and in combat damage has spiked due to the extreme nerfing of control spells, multiple actions available from low levels, and the new crit mechanic. The lack of out of combat healing before treat wounds made a healbot character necessary to avoid single encounter days.

Maybe treat wounds swings too far the other way, but some sort of out of combat healing that isn't heavily tied to class resources is definitely needed to make the game more fun. And I think it's a step in the right direction.

BPorter wrote:

Nox Aeterna wrote:

If anything i think it is too weak and it still takes too long to fully heal the party after a fight, in a rushed dungeon this might aswell be forgotten.

Well, will give it sometime before i judge it, could be it works better than it looks, but if anything to me right now it still doesnt look strong enough.

If anything less than "full strength before every fight" is "too weak", why even call it Treat Wounds or Medicine? At that point just call it "health bar regen" that occurs after every fight and call it a day.

I agree. I also get that's a play style choice and ultimately there is going to be a group of people who "lose out" on this debate.

So, what I am about to say isn't a condemnation of one playing style over another (to each their own), just an honest inquiry...

I'm curious where the "we shouldn't need a healer" movement comes from. Is it the younger crowd, accustomed to video game-esque mechanics where everything rapidly replenishes? I feel as if older generation players (with roots in 1E or maybe 2E) are less likely to feel that way. I might be wrong, I have no real data to back this thinking aside from other 1E/2E people I talk to who don't seem to mind the need for a dedicated healer (or a spread of classes that give you the same thing).

I think it's less "we shouldn't need a healer" and more "We shouldn't need a specific a dedicated healer that does literally nothing but heal" and "The Healer shouldn't have to save all their resources for out of combat Healing instead of doing cool things in combat".

Because blowing limited resources for out of combat Healing isn't fun. Saving people in combat is great and part of the fun/power fantasy of being a healer. Being the party's CLW wand isn't.

Could you imagine if detect magic wasn't a cantrip? Or if a fighter could only repair their shield one time per day? Or if you were only allowed to shoot x arrows per day?

I really love all of the changes. Heal Wounds, the Alchemist changes, and making bloodline powers not mandatory (although I'm sad there weren't any additional feats at those levels created) are all really wonderful.

I do wish that archetypes would only require a 14 in the stat rather than a 16 because sometimes it's really difficult to have that much at lower levels. And all it does is punish you sub 5 and force a retrain.

I also really dislike that you only count as half your level for the purposes of meeting MC feat prerequisites. My gnome Cleric wound up picking up Cavalier dedication because we all became emotionally attached to the pack pony (I blame bulk for this). And I was super excited for the Druid MC coming out because it's really more thematically appropriate for my character... But the MC Druid animal companion is worse than the Cavalier mount. It doesn't get nimble/savage until 16 and can never get a specialization. I also vote for half your level or level-4, whichever is higher. Or at least a level 16 Dedication feat to let you pick a level 10-16 class feature.

You can counter spell heal! Which makes a divine sorcerer one of the most reliable ways to kill clerics.

What a horrifying thought. How dare you mention that where GMs can see it and make enemies that use that strategy.

I know that I personally have a lot of issues with PF2 as is. But there are a lot of good new ideas and it seems like most of the things I don't like can definitely be changed (although the issues with magic being over nerfed would require quite a lot of work to fix).

So while I may say things like "I hate resonance" or "I hate bulk" or "I hate the new Paladin/Sorcerer/Ranger/Alchemist" or "the monsters are way too strong to be playable". That doesn't mean that I hate the whole system.

The fact that they completely ripped out signature skills has given me some confidence that they are listening to the player base and that PF2 will be in a much better state by the time they release it (or at least a state with only minimal house rules needed).

I think there are some out there saying that they hate the system as a whole, but I think they're pretty small minority and most just have (many) specific problems with the game. And that small minority may even change their mind as the playtest continues.

Low stats in (points buy) PF1 weren't real handicaps. They were the token drawbacks players took in order to maximise their power. We didn't give our Fighters Int 7 Cha 7 because we had a burning desire to role-play a dumb obnoxious brute. We did it because we wanted to be better at killing things.

So is dump-stating a fun challenge or do you just want to be able to min/max some more?

I, for one, am really happy dump stats are gone and that the attribute process is what it is. Now I can make a gnome Cleric with 18 wis and 16 cha with only needing to leave my str at an 8 (and still having a 12 dex and 14 con!). That stat array for a gnome is flat out impossible in PF1. Just to try to get my Wis and Cha to those levels I'd probably be forced to dump str to 5, which is absolutely not fun or smart (1 hit from a str damaging undead and I'd be dead).

Seriously a 10 Strength is a totally average guy. Very few people who adventure probably have a 10 strength. Certainly most of the people in Golarion develop greater than a 10 strength just from working fields and such.

Gnomes and Halflings are people too!

Right now Channel Smite only works for melee strikes.

Could you possibly change it to a 2-3 action ability and allow the 3 action version to use a ranged strike? It's still the same action amount as doing a bow attack+ranged heal attack, but you get to tie them to the same hit and takes the saving throw out of the equation (still no more damage than the 2 action melee version though).

Just want to include Clerics of Erastil with the ability.

Zorae wrote:

They need to fix the rules for minions. By RAW you can't actually use your familiar to scout because you need to spend an action each round telling it what to do. Which means you either need to shout at it (not really conducive to scouting) or go with it (which defeats the whole purpose).

I'd also prefer if the base abilities for familiars was 2 for the familiar and 1 for the Master. So you can get a talking owl familiar if you want, while still getting some sort of mechanical benefit from it.

Don't you get an empathetic link to your familiar? If you are spending actions to communicate through it, I'd definitely let you silently command the thing at a distance.

Empathic bond is just feelings/emotions. I suppose you could set up a system where x feeling means do y (and that could allow for some fun situations where the master gets distracted and reacts to other things and confuses the familiar). But it seems like that'd be up to GM ruling.

There's really no reason that familiars or animal companions (which have the same problem but no empathetic bond) should need constant prompting like that in such low stakes situations.

Honestly, in exploration mode animals/familiars should just do the last thing you commanded them to do until commanded otherwise. With the high tension of combat making them nervous and needing more direction (as I assume the system was created for combat balance).

Zorae wrote:

Just because the rules have a lot of support for combat, doesn't mean role-playing isn't allowed as an option for circumventing it.

Did someone claim that the game didn't allow role-playing?

Tiona Daughtry's last three posts have made such claims. Alas, I am on mobile and doing quotes of multiple posts is more work than I'm willing to do. You'll have to scroll up some to read them.

They need to fix the rules for minions. By RAW you can't actually use your familiar to scout because you need to spend an action each round telling it what to do. Which means you either need to shout at it (not really conducive to scouting) or go with it (which defeats the whole purpose).

I'd also prefer if the base abilities for familiars was 2 for the familiar and 1 for the Master. So you can get a talking owl familiar if you want, while still getting some sort of mechanical benefit from it.

I don't mind bulk as a concept, I just don't like the scaling of it. And there's no easy way to fix it to allow people to carry as much as they did in PF1. Because even if you doubled or tripled the amount of bulk you could carry as a high str character, because of the way it works, you still wouldn't be able to carry as much as you used to.

The only way I could see it working is maybe that idea that items inside containers no longer apply to bulk, or at least had their bulk reduced. Because then high str characters could conceivably carry out the 10 longswords and 20 clubs, if they had they had the containers for it all. While low str characters would still probably be limited to just 10 or so more items than their armor, weapons, and whatever kit/spellbook they might need.

Here's the issue:

In PF1, the ONLY stuff that was +1 to level was BAB for a few classes, and Skills that players CHOSE to max out.

In PF2, EVERYTHING is +1/level. Saves, BAB, Spellcasting, etc. You don't have a choice.

It causes 2 problems.

1) Players that want to have weaknesses can't have weaknesses. A level 20 character that wants to role play being unable to swim has a +17 to Athletics.

2) Characters that narratively have no reason attempting a particular skill check, still attempt such skill checks, because the difference between them and the party expert is +3.

In a different thread, someone mentioned a Goblin Alchemist that was untrained in Religion knowing more about a particular deity than a Cleric of that deity, just because they rolled better. This shouldn't happen outside of nat 1s or nat 20s.

The problem that +1/level is supposed to solve is letting everyone contribute, but I have yet to find ANY story involving a group of people working together, where everyone is able to "contribute" to everything.

Interesting characters have strengths and weaknesses. The reason PCs form parties is because they need people to cover weaknesses.

No level 20 character should be unable to swim. They're practically a demigod. It was always so dumb that my practical avatar of Iomedae Cleric could be thwarted by a little bit of water. Or my Halfling Monk capable of jumping 15 feet straight up being worried about climbing an unknotted rope.

And there are plenty of cases where smart people know way too many things and then can't remember a relatively simple detail about their field of expertise because of it.

In PF1 there were tons of times the 20 Str fighter tried to break down a door, rolled a 4, and then the 8 str gnome wizard rolled a 17 and did it. Or the +10 perception ranger rolls a 3 while the bumbling paladin rolls a 15 and finds the very obvious loot. That sort of thing is always going to be around if the rolls decide so.

Zorae wrote:

HWalsh wrote:

Stop the hyperbole. If you're running into bulk problems get a bag of holding or bump your strength a little.

You fight 3 bandits on the way to the dungeon. They each have a short sword, hide armor, and 2 javelins. That's 15 B of loot.

You now have to turn around and go back to town to go sell your loot because everyone is now at their max load, overencumbered, or can only carry 2 more things before becoming so.

Unless you have a packmule (possibly multiple), someone who doesn't mind losing 10 feet of movement (and a decent str), a dwarf who doesn't mind losing 5 feet of movement (so not wearing medium or heavy armor), or a bunch of str based monks, there is no reasonable way to store loot before getting access to bags of holding. Which is unobtainable until level 3-4 (probably not 3 as weapons and armor will be the priority).

Alternatively, you could not loot low-grade equipment you have no plans of keeping or using and proceed on to the adventure, instead of bogging yourself down with the act of taking everything you could get even a single copper for selling.

I know that probably sounds alien and strange, but it has worked for my campaigns for quite some time now.

Not taking everything to sell? That is very alien and strange. You claim hoarding is unnecessary? Unheard of!

In all seriousness, that is a very different way of playing and would need to be agreed upon by the GM and the players to work - players agree not to try to sell everything that isn't nailed down, GM agrees not to include that sort of behavior when determining gold rewards.

I accept that way of playing is less headache and probably more realistic... But it has been quite fun to come back to town with a dozen shortbows, 8 sets of armor, and 10 longswords to sell. And I am saddened that the hoarder playstyle is no longer feasible until higher levels (when hoarding is less relevant to the amount of gold made).

Stop the hyperbole. If you're running into bulk problems get a bag of holding or bump your strength a little.

You fight 3 bandits on the way to the dungeon. They each have a short sword, hide armor, and 2 javelins. That's 15 B of loot.

You now have to turn around and go back to town to go sell your loot because everyone is now at their max load, overencumbered, or can only carry 2 more things before becoming so.

Unless you have a packmule (possibly multiple), someone who doesn't mind losing 10 feet of movement (and a decent str), a dwarf who doesn't mind losing 5 feet of movement (so not wearing medium or heavy armor), or a bunch of str based monks, there is no reasonable way to store loot before getting access to bags of holding. Which is unobtainable until level 3-4 (probably not 3 as weapons and armor will be the priority).

Slavery is definitely evil. Unless it's a fringe/special case where you are actively trying to stop owning said slave, then it's evil. Such a fringe case may be owning someone as a slave in name only because if they were set free the Law would just capture them and enslave them somewhere else and you are actively working on a way to get them their permanent freedom (and that is a pretty contrived case).

Now, not owning any slaves but being complacent with the institution of slavery existing? I'd say that's neutral. Which is probably why Abadar is labeled as such (he is, in fact, a jerk). So it's just a question of whether Asmodeus is okay with you being complacent (and occasionally enforcing the local law) with it, without participating. Given that slaves are expensive and not necessarily helpful for adventuring - one would think he would be.

Of course, they may update his edicts to include "try to introduce slavery into other civilizations you visit" or "enslave people you defeat". In which case all of his Clerics would be unequivocally evil. (Until/Unless they release some sort of thing you can take to ignore that specific part of him)

There is actually a Cleric domain power called "Soothing Words" that does counteract an emotion effect on an ally.

So it is definitely unintuitive.

Some of the anathemas have become a lot more restrictive as well.

Erastil, Sarenrae, and Torag now have "Lie" as anathemas. Most GMs will hopefully let you get away with some if it ultimately helps some of their edicts, but it's going to be like playing a less strict vow of truth monk. (I'm kind of upset about this)

I'm also not sure how Paladins of Torag are even supposed to function now. Since Torag has "show mercy to the enemies of your people" as an anathema, which seems to be in direct contradiction to the Paladin code (as there must be "innocent" enemies of your people out there). I know the higher tenets take priority, but you're also supposed to lose your deity's favor if you commit their anathema too much.

Abadar now prohibits stealing and undermining a law-abiding court, and Pharasma prohibits tomb robbing. So lots of PFS scenarios are out for Clerics of those deities. As well as certain adventure paths

With Gozreh's "bring civilization to intrude on the wild" anathema, all of Kingmaker is out.

Gorum's "prevent conflict through negotiation" anethma will probably make his Clerics unwelcome/possibly banned in PFS.

Iomedae's "Refuse a challenge from an equal" and Calistra's "let a slight go unanswered" are going to make some PFS scenarios.... Interesting. (Lord help Clerics of Calistra when faced with Drendle Dreng or Grandmaster Torch).

-2 to all monster attack rolls
-2 to all monster skills for monsters below level 13, -3 for monsters above

Possibly -1 or -2 to monster saving throws and AC

Double shield hardness (since hardness no longer reduces damage taken by shields)

Riding an animal without the Ride feat/that's not an Animal Companion doesn't fatigue you in exploration mode.

Let Animal Companions/Familiars be capable of functioning semi-independently in exploration mode - follow a given command until it's finished rather than following it for one turn and then needing the command again.

Some homebrew animal training options (there currently are none and there's no simple way to just house rule it).

Mount trait on more of the monsters.

Some homebrew version of Smite, Divine Grace and Retributive Strike switch places, Retributive strike allows a free step before the attack and works with bows, Aura of Justice no longer tied to Retributive Strike (maybe tied to smite?), and a feat to give Paladins more reactions. This should "fix" Paladins with the least amount of work

Paladins can be any good (with slight changes to the 'respect lawful authority' part of their code to make sense for NG and CG Paladins).

Give the ranger access to basically all the fighter bow feats. They should get unique stuff, but at least this would allow bow rangers to exist properly.

Clerics can be 1 step within alignment provided their reasoning is good if it's not one of the listed alignments.

Possibly make a weaker version of the Cleric channel available as a Cleric Archetype feat. I'd prefer the other healing focused classes to get their own thing, but this would be easier/faster to implement. But this way all classes could provide adequate healing.

Possibly some homebrew multiclass archetypes (at it's limited to just the 4 right now).

Possibly give monks more class feats (or roll some of the feats into the base class) as it's sad they've got to essentially pick between 'classic monk situational utility' option and 'really useful' option every level.

Fuzzypaws wrote:

Rameth wrote:

I don't see how carrying stuff is in any way a problem. Backpacks can carry 4 bulk and don't weigh you down at all. Sacks can carry 8 Bulk and are only L bulk when carried. Plus Satchels can carry 2 Bulk and also don't weigh you down at all. Carrying stuff is super easy now.

Note that none of these actually increase your carrying capacity. A backpack is simply a container that holds up to 4 bulk of items so you have somewhere to keep them; if fully loaded, it still counts 4 bulk against your limit.

Are you sure? I assumed that wearing a backpack made carrying the items easier and would therefore increase the bulk you are able to carry. It makes sense, as trying to carry 40 pounds in your hands vs putting it in a backpack are two very different experiences. Even if you weren't able to physically carry 40 pounds you'd be able to carry a backpack with said amount.

That... Is an unintuitive interpretation of the rules. Bulk limits the amount you can "carry". And I just assumed that meant "have on your person in some way". Since even if my groceries are in bags, I'm still "carrying" them. There's nothing that says that once you've put something in a container, you're no longer "carrying" it.

I will say, that according to the wording for the description of backpack:

If you are carrying or stowing a backpack rather than wearing it on your back, it has light Bulk instead of negligible.

Which does seem like it could imply that 'carrying' and 'stowing' are two different thing and that bulk functions as you say it does. That would make the 8 Bulk Snare Kits no longer insane (they'd fit perfectly in a Sack). And would allow a significantly larger number of items carried (provided you had the storage for it all) that would actually be comparable to the number you could hold in 1e.

However, the description of bag of holding says:

The Bulk held inside the bag doesn’t change the Bulk of the bag of holding itself.

Which seems to indirectly mean that the bulk inside of regular bags does increase the bulk of the bag itself - so even if you are no longer "carrying" the items, they still add to your bulk.

Dire Ursus wrote:

Ediwir wrote:

No.

Just finished running part 2.
The lv4 Dwarf Cleric healed for over 250 hp before DECIDING to rest. He didn't NEED to, he DECIDED to because he didn't want to run into a fight without Spiritual Weapon (which was the only thing he used his lv2 slots for).
An Alchemist, Bard, Druid, Paladin or Sorcerer wouldn't be able to make half that much even by burning all their resources and a good chunk of money. This guy did it on the side.

Mind explaining in depth how this happened? I had a cleric in our party and he died lol. He had no where near the capabilities to heal that much. Was this just with channels?

channels = 3 + cha = 5

each channel is 3d8 + 5 (healing staff) + 1d8 healing hands = 23 average
channels = 115
6 spell points = 3 second level heals = 69
2 first level heals prepared + 2 staff charges each day = 56 (with healing hands)
total = 240 average.
So 250 with lucky rolls.

Had an unused wand of heal and 5 resonance left to use it.
Also used battle medic and natural medicine outside of combat, but the 50% success chance and the low healing makes those feel terrible to use or take.

Not just with channel, but channel is way better than what any other class gets. I think just getting Cha mod channels might be a good start.

So, a dwarven healing domain cleric that took two healing focused feats and had as many channels possible they could given their dwarven heritage? That's only 1 channel away from being a completely optimized healing cleric. It seems pretty natural for them to do a ton of healing.

Same cleric without healing hands but keeping healing domain (subtract 12*4.5 from the total as it adds 4.5 avg channel to each casting):
total = 186 average

Same cleric without the healing domain but keeping healing hands:
total = 171 average

Same cleric without healing hands or healing domain:
Each channel is average 18.5
channels = 92.5
2 first level heals prepared + 2 staff charges each day = 38
Total = 130.5 average

A Druid that picks the leaf domain (because it gives them goodberry and heal animal is bad), but picks the animal companion (because familiars are less useful than hp sponges when healing), and grabs the only level 2 ability to increase spell points (because again, what else would they pick?):
Spell points = 14 good berries, each healing 1d4+4 = average 6.5 each
Spell points = 91 hp
Animal Companion: 34HP damage sponge (picked a 6hp animal to be average, could be 32 or 36 instead)
2 first level heals prepared + 2 staff charges each day = 38
Total = 163 average

It seems like Druids are almost par with a non-healing domain cleric, and definitely better than a non-healing domain cleric that didn't specialize in healing (i.e. a non-healing focused cleric). If they actually had some better alternative than using two feats to get a 34HP damage sponge and one feat for the ability to use spell points to cast summon nature's ally just to get 2 more good berry castings, then who knows how comparable they could be? Especially since a cleric without the advanced domain feat or the healing hands feat would, in fact, be healing around 130.5 on average with those listed resources (and a Druid without the companion or the two extra castings does 103). It doesn't take too much to drastically increase the numbers.

Zorae:

So, Heal shouldnt be a spell then. There should be no heal spell to hear you describe it. If its not worth a slot, it shouldnt be a spell. Instead now we are talking of giving all these classes special pools of healing juju they can pull from...

Man, how far this rabbit hole will we go before we just make the heal spell worthy of a slot and nix that OP cleric ability?

How hard can it be to make a decent healing spell?

Channelling is heal though? That's what it does - it casts heal.

You've only got 2-3 slots per level. Even if heal was some broken "Everyone in the party is now at full health" spell. You still wouldn't be able to do 4 fights with just it (unless they were very very short fights) because you can only cast it 2-3 times!

And even if it somehow, was magically strong enough to fix the 5 min adventuring day problem, are you saying clerics shouldn't be using their spell slots for what meager buffs/utility spells they do have?

That spells other than heal shouldn't exist? That seems much stranger than just letting classes get access to abilities that will let them keep their party alive/stem the 5 min adventuring day problem without requiring them to do nothing but heal.

You do know that PF1 Clerics had the same amount of things right? They had 3+Cha channels, domain abilities (usually Wis/day), and spell casting? I don't remember anyone complaining about how OP they were then (well aside from the normal power disparity between casters and martials, but they definitely weren't stronger than other full casters). And that was when CLW wands existed and archetypes existed to give other classes access to channeling.

What you're doing is like complaining about how OP AoO attack is, and instead of saying we should either give every martial AoO or give every martial some unique ability that's comparable to AoO, you're saying we should just remove AoO from the game and make fighters hit slightly harder instead.

But, honestly, why play something other than a cleric? I can think of nothing as fearsome as a party of 4 clerics in this edition. They get tons of healing through channel, have great armor/shields and can toss out some decent spells too. Heck, take Fighter Dedication and some feats, then you can be decent in melee too. Its Channel that puts them over the top, though.

Because healing is super inefficient. You need it when you need it so the party doesn't wipe, but it doesn't actually move the combat forward.

They don't have great armor/shields. Having it trained =/= being great at it. Fighters are great at it, Paladins are great at it, and Monks are great at it. Clerics just aren't terrible at it.

All spells have been made pretty terrible now (as many people have been saying). They're not really the big deal they were in 1e. Especially since most buffs are now concentration spells which means they're easy to lose and you can't do the 3 action heal while keeping them up. Heck, you can't even cast spells at all with Righteous Might now.

Honestly, I think the "best party" right now (combat wise) would be a 2 weapon fighter (all hail double slice), a 2 weapon fighter (for resistances), a ranged fighter (for someone with more focused range), and a cleric. With possibly a paladin instead of one of the melee fighters in case you were super scared about healing but still wanted damage/tankiness (because they definitely do both better than Clerics, but they have a harder time fixing diseases and the like as that's tied to their healing pool and gated behind high level feats).

But some people like to play classes they think are fun or for the flavor rather than because they're the strongest. It's why people weren't just Clerics/Oracles, Druids, or Wizards in PF1.

And again, as I've said so many times, other healing classes need a serious buff. Preferably one that gives them additional healing options without necessarily taking away resources from their current capabilities. Give Alchemists a feat that gives them a separate pool specifically for elixirs of life (and make them not terrible and not require resonance of the person using them). Give Bards/Druids an option to give them access to their own special pool to let them do their own healing thing. Angelic sorcerers also have terrible spell point pool abilities, so buff those and then make divine evolution 3-4 times a day as well.

Healing should be a separate thing for all of the classes. So no one is forced to just be a healbot and not enjoy any of their other class abilities for fear of taking away from their potential healing ability.

17: 3 action Heal doesn't increase with your level. 1 and 2 action heal recovers HP equal to 1d8 plus spellcasting modifier, and that increases to 2d8 when heightened. 3 action heal does not gain a benefit from being hightened.

At first level the 3 action heal only does Spellcasting modifier in healing, Heightened it does an additional d8 per level:

You disperse positive energy in a 30-foot aura. This has the same e ect as the two-action version, but it targets all living and undead creatures in the burst and reduces the amount of healing or damage to your spellcasting ability modier.

The amount of healing or damage increases by 1d8, or by 2d8 if you’re using the 1- or 2-action version to heal the living.

Basically, buff Heal and nerf Channel Energy.

Why??? That's effectively maintaining the exact same power level as before.

why not improve the heal spell itself and make channeling a sensible thing based on spell points (again like 3.X heal conversion)?

It doesn't make sense to combine it with the Spell Points they already have for domains. They do different things. Have you even looked at the domain abilities?

Healer's Blessing is a free action power that triggers when you cast heal to add 2 points per dies rolled. If it uses the same pool as your healing spells, why would you ever use it?? The advanced power lets you spend 2 points to cast heal without using up a channel. Well that doesn't work. Or the protection domain lets you direct damage to yourself instead of an ally. Or the Magic domain that lets you give a single target of a buff spell a +1 bonus to saves? There are so many domain abilities that would need to be completely rewritten to ever make them something you'd rather spend that point on than healing.

There are fun damaging powers to help battle Clerics maintain some semblance of relevance to other martials' damage if they decide they want to swing their weapon around. Or to flame clerics if they want to have a ranged attack that's fairly equivalent to most cantrips (remember, they don't actually have any offensive cantrips outside of Chill Touch/Disrupt Undead). If your tie their ability to provide healing support to that, then they'll never get to use it because healing is so vital right now. It's the same problem Alchemists have with their resonance points being tied to their stuff - you feel like you can't do the fun parts of your class because it's tied to the necessary parts.

How about this: Clerics start with Charisma modifier plus one casting of Channel Energy (minimum of one).

Every four levels they gain an added use of Channel Energy, meaning at level 20 a Cleric could have between four and 10 uses of Channel Energy (assuming they don't burn any Feats to buy more Channels).

This would allow Clerics at higher levels to be progressively better Healers while keeping the adventuring group in battles for longer. It also makes sense that Clerics gradually gain abilities in Channel Energy.

I'm not sure if it needs to scale like that, since at higher levels characters will have more resonance points. Nor do I think it needs nerfing at lower levels since those are the levels where the channel ability is needed most.

If people are barely getting through the scenarios even with the Cleric as it currently is, I can't imagine what it'd be like if you nerfed them and then only brought other classes up to that nerfed power level. You'd need 2 dedicated healers per party and that's no fun. You should only need either 1 dedicated healer (of any healing capable class) or 2 off healers per party (any class with healing that isn't focused on it).

Zorae wrote:

Oh yes, he is indeed vastly less sympathetic. I was just being cheeky about how being a main villain and ruler of hell doesn't make it impossible to be worshiped by non-evil people (hence the wink).

Well, as far as I can tell there are precisely no restrictions on what alignments can worship what deities, there are merely restrictions on what alignments can serve as clerics (i.e. be endorsed as official representatives thereof via granting magical powers, contingent on correct behavior).

Like there might be some people in the Church of Asmodeus who are LN, they just don't get invited to the human sacrifices and don't get spells.

He said:

as the ruler of Hell itself he should NOT be someone that you worship without being evil.

And I responded with a joke pertaining to the literal wording of his statement. It wasn't meant to be taken seriously; not sure why you're getting hung up on it.

I just don't see why they wouldn't get spells. LN guy wants to makes a contract with Asmodeus to get his blessings and in exchange will uphold his edicts, avoid his anathemas, and even spread the word of him to others (again, none of which is inherently evil so shouldn't result in an immediate alignment change), and Asmodeus is like, "Nope!" When his whole schtick is temptation/corruption through dubious contracts? That just seems really weird.

I mean, I know many GMs will probably be willing to make a house rule for it if you've got a unique character concept and can argue it well enough (or will just allow evil characters in general). I just feel bad for the PFS guys you know?

Why do people think Asmodeus is "less evil" than anyone? Like other than like Rovagug and some of the especially icky demon lords, I would put Asmodeus on the very top of Evil Mountain. Definitely moreso than Norgorber, Urgathoa, Zon-Kuthon, and Lamashtu at the very least.

Is it because of all the people playing LN clerics of Asmodeus in PFS? Or just because some people mistakenly conflate "civility" with "good intentions"?

I don't really conflate "civility" with "good intentions". I just personally think if it's possible to have "civil" dealings with one God and impossible to do so with another, then the God that "civility" is even possible with is the lesser evil. Doesn't mean not evil, just less so.

Remember, Asmodeus helped with the imprisonment of Rovagug; he's willing to do what are technically "good" things, if they suit his ultimate goal. And he's mostly about contracts, ruling over the weak, and gaining power. Which aren't really inherently evil (besides the slavery thing which again, is totally cool with Abadar the LN God), he just takes them over the top. You can't really say that about any of the other evil Gods.

Urgathoa and Lamashtu basically want us to wipe out all life and replace it with Undead/Monsters, so they're pretty high on the evil scale.

Zon-Kuthon is about torture and self-mutilation, so maybe I could see the argument about him being less evil since his stuff has a lesser impact on the world? But you couldn't really get him to do any "good".

Didn't know too much about Norgorber (fitting). But he is the God of murder and poison (again, pretty inherently evil). Now that I've looked him up he does seem tolerably evil to interact with. Assassins vs Corrupt Politicians is a pretty close call on who is "more evil"; but since he's okay with just caring about secrets then I'd say he's probably slightly less evil than Asmodeus. However, since he's all about betrayal/trickery, I don't think you could really trust him the way you can Mr "I <3 Contracts".

I also want to complain that he is apparently the only God where it's okay to worship only part of his domain. I get that it's part of his "aspects", but that's still a bummer you can't do similar things with other Gods.

I definitely read him as vastly less sympathetic than Satan in the Miltonic tradition.

Oh yes, he is indeed vastly less sympathetic. I was just being cheeky about how being a main villain and ruler of hell doesn't make it impossible to be worshiped by non-evil people (hence the wink).

To me this just suggests we screwed up on presenting Asmodeus's Edicts and Anathema. Glancing over them now, yeah, we should make them pretty obviously more evil. Asmodeus is intended to be one of the game's primary villains, and as the ruler of Hell itself he should NOT be someone that you worship without being evil.

Tell that to satanists ;)

I am sad that the (arguably) least evil of the evil Gods is being constrained to Evil worshipers only.

Demonskunk wrote:

Every single one of my party members and I hate bulk.

Everyone in my party can hold about 1 weapon, 1 piece of armor and maybe a shield and then they're at the limit of their bulk.

Back in PF1 you could easily carry a couple of weapons, armor and some adventuring tools without hitting encumbrance if you have a 12 strength.

The carrying capacity needs to be at least doubled.

A weapon: 1 bulk

Armor: 1-2 bulk
A heavy steel shield: 1 bulk

That is hardly at 6 bulk (str 12) it just means you can't ignore strength in PF2 like you could in PF1.

You forgot

Rope (pretty important adventuring gear): 1 bulk
Ranged weapon + 10-20 ammo: 1 bulk + 1-2L or 2-3L if you go for a sling

Then, for some classes:
Alchemist tools: 2 Bulk
Repair kit: 1 bulk
Healer's kit: 1 bulk
Spellbook: 1 bulk

And again, even if you decided to go adventuring without any rope, means to attack at range, any L bulk items like rations or torches, and without one of those kits you'd only have 2-3 bulk left (depending on your armor). Which means you get to carry 2-3 B worth of loot and that's it. Your big fighter friend who also doesn't bring anything else helpful? Only 5 B worth of loot.

My issue with it is that it only scales +1 bulk per modifier. In PF1 it didn't have 1-1 scaling as your str went up, which meant that really strong people could carry considerably more than not strong people. And could serve as "the carrier of stuff" for the party.

Now, an 18str character can carry 4 more bulky items than a 10str character (rather than 67 more lbs)... It doesn't feel good.

Especially if you aren't playing pfs style where any loot you find doesn't count towards your carry limit. It means you've most likely only got room for 0-4 pieces of loot per party member (unless you've got a str based monk I suppose). The party is practically required to get a pack mule if they want to be able to carry loot.

I realize it may be a bit more realistic that a single character can't carry 10 longswords and 20 clubs out of the dungeon without any problems. But it's certainly less fun to not be able to do so.

DM_aka_Dudemeister wrote:

I would like to see options for self-healing or recovery, something like the short rest mechanic would be great. Especially when Battle Medic takes such a high check to be effective, and only functions once a day.

Goodness, I hope this will never happen! As one of seemingly many healer fans (both in RPGs and MMOs), we do *not* want more self-healing, as it will convince people healers are pointless. Instead, can't we please get more pro-active abilities? Temp hits points (and significant amounts per action, please - at least as much as current heals of the same level), reaction-based AC or DR buffs, more support for Shield Other type playstyles, and so forth. Please?

Some different offensive-support tactics would be good, too. Maybe some ranged debuffs that target TAC, rather than saving throws?

I fully support self-healing/recovery if it's non-combat. It's not really fun to be blowing your limited resources out of combat. If they introduce such a thing, healers will still be super necessary for fighting the bbeg, or for any fight where people are rolling poorly/the GM is rolling well. And if they do actually gave them some reasonable buffs, then they definitely won't want to be forced to decide between using their resources on those (fun) vs saving them to use out of combat (not really fun but necessary when there are no alternatives).

I really enjoy playing healer. And honestly, reactive healing isn't that bad. It's only bad when you're playing the type of Cleric/Oracle that only focuses on healing and thus doesn't have anything to do until they can reactively heal (and I suppose the nerve wracking higher levels of play where you have to constantly heal and worry that you either won't be able to keep up with the damage or run out of healing).

Otherwise, you do can still contribute by either smacking enemies, shooting enemies, blasting enemies, or buffing/debuffing and still be able to save your party's butts from death. It's really fun to keep people alive by the skin of their teeth, knowing the only reason they managed to down the big bad is because you were there. Or to have the party take a fireball (or multiple fireballs) to the face and just say nuh-uh and wipe that away. I mean, those old Mercy play of the games in Overwatch where she brings her whole team back for a massive turn around are super awesome and really exemplify 'ultimate healer power fantasy'.

I will say however, that it's not cool if every healer is the same cookie cutter build with some mild flavor differentiations on top (gosh Life Oracles were boring). Which is why they really do need to make Druids, Bards, Paladins, Divine Sorcerers, and Alchemists capable of supporting a party (without necessarily reducing themselves to solely healbots to do so). I hope that means giving those classes some stronger healing abilities and adding some better out of combat healing so nobody has to be reduced to being a healbot.

I also hope that they keep an eye on Clerics. I know their heals are really good and they're practically a required party member. But I do worry that they'll get reduced to doing nothing but healing with the current system. Especially with how nerfed buffs and summons are - which did need some nerfs, but not to the extent Paizo took it. Those used to be the bread and butter of Clerics, but now most of the good buffs (and all summons) require concentration; which means you can't contribute with buffs/summons and get to do your big cool AoE channel at the same time. At least not until level 14, but waiting until almost 3/4 of the way through your character's career for that does not seem acceptable.

I also don't see why Asmodeus no longer allows LN characters.

Nothing in his Edicts/Anathema are inherently evil... Aside from not allowing you to free slaves; which is kinda iffy but also an anathema to LN Abadar if you're in a country where slaves are legal.

Abadar has a commerce slant that makes him feel different to Asmodeus. If you want to be a fairly unscrupulous lawyer type trying to rise in political power by twisting the law to your needs, then Asmodeus is the god for you. And that sort of ambition and ruthlessness isn't necessarily evil. Plus, since Asmodeus is all about corruption, you think he'd be completely fine with LN clerics because he assumes they'd eventually become LE anyway.

Pharasma's alignment restrictions also seem really strange.

Just wanted to point out that Feather Fall is actually much much worse since it's single target now. You never really needed a full minute of falling (unless you're falling a ridiculously large distance), it was really helpful to eventually allow the whole party to get down a large cliff/hole without worrying about fall damage.

Do you honestly think that sort of thing has changed in PF2? Hell no. Unless classes come built in with passive healing on certain conditions (such as falling unconscious), this will not have changed in the slightest. Even then, outside healing in PF2 is not instant-gratification under the original rules, which was a matter of being healed still made you unconscious and you still retained the dying condition. On top of that, being 1st level, you only got 2 or 3 ways to heal per day per class that has such an option (sans cleric, but let's be realistic here, that's gonna get nerfed soon). Compared to being -6 and being healed with a Cure Light Wounds to bring you back to positive, so you can take actions to stand up and swing on your turn, is much more gratifying than having to wait two rounds (one to make a check at the start of your turn, not getting actions or reactions whatsoever, then to have reduced or non-existent actions for your...

No, the 'natural healing' behavior shouldn't change, it's similar to PF1 and that's a good thing.

Not everyone wants to murder-hobo and some people actually like leaving bad guys alive to question/turn in to the authorities. If the only way to keep something down is to kill it, then that's a bad thing.

I have no idea where you're getting this thought that you have to make 2 checks to get up. It says,

If you return to consciousness, you'll need to wait until the start of your next turn to get your actions and reaction again

So as soon as your turn starts after waking up, you have your actions! It goes: you get healed, you become conscious, your turn comes up and you are slowed that turn. That's all the penalty there is. And now you don't die immediately upon taking 20 damage.

I have no idea what you're talking about. In PF1 there was no way to get back into a fight without some form of outside healing. It took a minimum of an hour to get back to consciousness after stabilizing. And then you had to make a check after 8 hours of rest to start healing naturally again (which was only 1 hp per level).

You don't want a quick way to get up on your own or else there's no easy way to capture bad guys because they've got the chance of doing it too. If you go down and don't get any healing you should stay down for a while.

The new rules make it much much harder to die. In PF1 if you got a tiny bit of healing at later levels that was usually a death sentence (because you'd get hit for 40 or something and die) unless you played dead and waited until you got some really substantial healing. Now that it's actually harder to be killed they need some sort of penalty for yo-yoing between unconsciousness and consciousness. And I personally think being slowed for an amount relative to how close you were to dying is pretty reasonable.