dragonhunterq's page

It clearly differentiates between the attack roll and the roll to confirm - I suspect you and your fellow players are conflating the two..

So the feat is in two stages.
First your initial attack roll has to be a natural 20
Then if you confirm that critical - by any means - you increase the multiplier by 1.

I imagine the bracketed bit is to make it clear that the second step doesn't require a roll if you can confirm a crit by another method, to distinguish it from the first ste which requires a natural 20.

My contention is that a Buckler can be enchanted as a weapon. If the character has the ability to use a Buckler as a weapon then he can do so w/o penalty otherwise it is an improvised weapon.

Upsetting Shield style and Rondelero Swashbuckler give the ability to use bucklers as weapon.

But if you want RAW, just add the Folding enchantment to a shield bashing shield and turn it into a buckler

** spoiler omitted **

And since that ability is undeniably RAW it seems a little ridiculous to simply not allow a Buckler to be enchanted as a weapon w/o having to jump through this hoop

Once you turn iyour weapon-enchanted folding shield into a buckler it is no longer a weapon and therefore can't benefit from effects that only apply to weapons..

...and how many followers you can recruit. ...

...or follower you are trying to attract)...
.

You don'y have to recruit 'em.

Also worth noting that followers follow different rules to cohorts regarding death.

Followers have different priorities from cohorts. When you try to attract a follower, use the following modifiers.

...Caused the death of other followers -1...

There is no cumulative clause like there is for cohorts. Doesn't matter how many die - still just a -1 penalty..

Multipliers don't follow normal maths in Pathfinder.

Multiplying: When you are asked to apply more than one multiplier to a roll, the multipliers are not multiplied by one another. Instead, you combine them into a single multiplier, with each extra multiple adding 1 less than its value to the first multiple. For example, if you are asked to apply a ×2 multiplier twice, the result would be ×3, not ×4.

100* (10+9+1+1+1=)22 = 2,200

Still a lot of bodies...

link

It has no Strength score, so its Dexterity modifier applies to its melee attacks, ranged attacks, and CMB.

.

Yup, I'd take away it's strength score and replace weapon finesse with a another feat.

Only reason I can see for it to have a strength score is to interact with it's daggers and scrolls, but if you treat it's personal daggers and all scrolls (and writting based magic items - maybe) the same way a ghose treats "treasured items" - that'll cover that if you really need to cover the minutiae (i.e it just works and don't worry about it :)).

You have a lot of superfluous information there. Much of it is completely irrelevant..

First and most importantly, the rules do not distinguish between PCs and Monsters for how rules affect them (unless called out specifically) - the rules are exactly the same.for everything..

For DM1

You can make attacks with natural weapons in combination with attacks made with a melee weapon and unarmed strikes,

seems pretty comprehensive to me - explicitly you can mix weapons and natural attacks - the "pathfinder 2talon attacks or 2 attacks" is largely bad rules interpretation - especially the second answer.

For DM2

“Armed” Unarmed Attacks: Sometimes a character’s or creature’s unarmed attack counts as an armed attack. A monk, a character with the Improved Unarmed Strike feat, a spellcaster delivering a touch attack spell, and a creature with natural physical weapons all count as being armed (see natural attacks)

.A natural attacks is an unarmed attack that counts as armed - it is unarmed as you are not wielding a weapon, but it is counted as armed - so you threaten with it, you do not provoke attacks of opportunity when you attack with it etc.

For everyone

A character who can make more than one attack per round must use the full-attack action (see Full-Round Actions) in order to get more than one attack.

Unless you are taking the full attack action (or have another ability that explicitly permits it) Any character whether monster or PC can only make a single attack - even if it's entry lists (for example) 2 claws..

it will also produce situations where low level monsters stay threatening for longer.

This is one reason, to avoid this. Low level critters shouldn't stay threatenng for longer.

Wall|'''|

Wall|'''|
Wall|'''|
------+C|
>>> AB|
----------+

Consider the above very crude ASCII.

You have walked along a hall, and stopped just before a corner. This spot is marked as A. The square above is a wall, the square to your right (B) is the junction of the corner.

You cannot move diagonally from A to C because of the corner. You can go A B C, but this is not diagonal movement. If an obstruction was occupying B, say for example, a hostile creature, you cannot simply diagonal past them.

You can move diagonally past an enemy - explicitly.

You can move diagonally past a creature, even an opponent.

What you can't do is move diagonally past a solid object that runs along that border - such as a wall. Basically look at what is in your way. if you can step over it (such as a pit) or it doesn't fully fill the space (a small tree) then you can move past it diagonally.

If, however, you are trying to step around a big impassable object that either fills the square or runs along that edge such as a really big tree or a building (or a 'designated exception' type creature that fills the entire space - such as a gelatinous cube) then that's a big no.

For the record, even if a character was tied up and unconscious their reflex save remained the same in 3E/PF1

For the record, no. Your reflex save dropped by the difference between your current dex mod and -5 (due to your dex being treated as 0).

And with regard to the pits as pointed out, everything gets a reflex save, even if immobilised - I assume that the stats take into account the 0 dex...
Also the damage is to the trapdoor - the pit never takes damage - as per the hardness description and the reset condition

hardness 4(trapdoor) ...

Reset The trap still causes falling damage if anyone falls in, but the trapdoor must be reset manually for the trap to become hidden again.

Pramxnim wrote:

citricking wrote:

They want magic weapons to be important, I think they would still be important if they just had cool abilities and property runes. Items giving number bonuses makes them necessary to have to not fall behind.

This is how I'd prefer it as well. 5e made an attempt at this, but in the end they still deferred to a +1-3 hierarchy. If PF2 is bold enough to get rid of numerical bonuses from magic weapons and armour altogether and stuck to interesting powers / property runes, I'll be very happy.

I think it would be alright if specific Properties gave numerical bonuses under circumstances. I.e. Holy weapons are guided to smite down evil and thus are magically better at helping their wielder kill evil things. Or if Fire weapons did better against foes weak to fire, and so on.

Please no. Situational bonuses are not "interesting", nor are they fun.

The bigger problem some of you have with them changing it is people like me who want magic weapons to be important. They should matter and they should matter in every fight.

dragonhunterq wrote:

The rules should not need to tell you that you cannot walk through walls. Let me know of a game that feels the need to tell you this so I can avoid it.

Well, I suppose you are avoiding Pathfinder 1e, then: "On the other hand, some obstacles block movement entirely. A character can’t move through a blocking obstacle."

Well, that's embarrassing... I have never noticed that :)

MaxAstro wrote:

In fact, if you pop over to the "top three positives/top three negatives" thread, you will see that more than one person has listed +1/level in their top three positives of PF2e.

how reliable is that thread to mirror the larger group of gamers? does it include people too frustrated with the PF2 playtest to post on a regular basis anymore? or those so frustrated that they dropped out completely? what about those that would love to post in the thread, but can't find three positive things to post? because I know I love maybe three for ideas of PF2 as iodeas, but find the implementations of those ideas lacking enough that I wouldn't exactly describe my current feeling towards them as 'positive' but as 'meh' at best.

Well, it's reliable enough that you get people like me who love the +1/level and think that if you remove it I may as well go and play another game because it's just not the game I want to play. There is a lot I don't like about PF2, but the +1/level is not one of them.

If you gain multiple bonuses of the same type, only the highest bonus applies—you don’t add them together.

Item Bonus: Weapons and skill-boosting items of expert, master, and legendary quality add the listed item bonus to attack rolls with the weapon or skill checks using the item

A weapon potency rune grants two offensive benefits. The weapon’s wielder gains an item bonus to attack rolls with the weapon equal to the potency value. For instance, an expert dagger with a +2 weapon potency rune would grant a +2 item bonus to attack rolls with the dagger.

The rules should not need to tell you that you cannot walk through walls. Let me know of a game that feels the need to tell you this so I can avoid it. I will not play a game that is so patronising that they think their readers need to be told this.

Kyra can attack the ogre because she can see it. You can draw a line from the top left corner of Kyras square to the top right square of the ogre. That should be sufficient for precise senses to work. The ogre would need to take an action to hide to become 'sensed' to Kyra.

I cannot see any reasonable argument that Kyra cannot see the ogre, Kyra can attack the Ogres top right square so she can attack the ogre. she cannot draw a line to the centre square so the ogre has cover.

It is that simple .

And if it's not defined, a term has it's usual English meaning. blocking terrain is terrain that blocks you - you cannot move or fire through it. If the book needs to define even basic stuff like this it will be too large to be practical.

Curtailing magic items never made magic items feel more special to me. They are either useful or they are not. It doesn't matter if I have one or twenty.

You can flair it up however you want, you can create this elaborate backstory. It can be the only item I get by the time I'm third level and I still won't use it unless it's actually useful.

I reckon resonance (in it's current form) will make magic less 'magical'. Now that permanent magic item is not only competing against every other permanent item, but also consumables that will keep you alive.

This doesn't strike me as an AoO type interruption, it doesn't even feel like a combat trigger to me. This is a preparing-to-cast social encounter chit-chat ("hi friend, I see you reaching for you component pouch, it's not really for me to say, but that may not be your best move in this place - if you still want to go ahead I'll just move myself over here" *walking off to the bar*). Unless the GM rules that the spell was lost (in which case you should definitely be in combat mode), the player still appears to have the option to persist against the friendly advice (which will then probably trigger the switch to combat mode).

Animal Companion - specialised companion RACER (page 286/7)
Currently grants Master rank in Fortitude, but companions get that by default just for becoming specialised companions, so it does nothing.

I'm a bit of an anomaly I fear. I like the +1's and +2's, and the stacking - I miss that. I want my feats and abilities to make me better at what it relates too and nothing does that quite like increasing my odds of succeeding.

Fancy new abilities are all well and good, but there are problems with that 1) someone will feel it shouldn't be locked behind a feat and everyone should be able to do it 2) if you have too many of them you can start to lose track of them and 3) most of them are so niche/situational that it really doesn't feel like you are gaining any benefit at all.

Also, iterative attacks are usually done via class levels while natural attacks are inherent to the creature type.

/cevah

This is inaccurate and could lead to a fundamental misunderstanding of the rules. Class levels have nothing to do with iteratives (beyond providing base attack, same as non class HD). The key distinction is manufactured weapons as seen with the Solar and Deva mentioned above that have no class levels and use iteratives.

There is nothing expressly permitting you to change the weapons. There is also nothing stopping the GM from changing the weapons either, but as the equipment is limited for a reason I would hesitate before doing so.

In fairness it seems the least impactful of possible changes, but still...

Captain Morgan wrote:

Vic Ferrari wrote:

Captain Morgan wrote:

KATYA OF VARISIAN wrote:

If you make any character under the current rules you will always have an 18 in one stat at first level.

Setting aside that none of this applies to NPCs, this isn't any more true in PF2 than PF1. You can absolutely build below an 18 at first level. It may not be advisable, but you can keep yourself from getting anything above a 14 if you determined enough.

PF1 characters tended to average an 18 in a stat at level 1, at least if they were at all SAD. You might have gotten a higher percentage of folks building below 18, but you also got lots of people min maxing and dump statting to get above 18.

This is a game of fantasy heroes. Let them be heroic.

Of course, but I don't think having all scores being 16+ necessarily makes one more heroic. I would prefer if the rate of advancement was just toned down a notch.

I wasn't trying to comment on the general rate of advancement, just what characters look like at level 1. Those are pretty separate things in my mind.

I generally like a cap of 17, after modifiers, for 1st-level characters. A 20 seems rather high for a 5th-level character. I know in previous editions you are able to start with a 20, depending on whether you roll or use point buy, I just prefer a slightly lower start. In AD&D, you really need higher scores (15+) to gain any benefit, but in the d20 system, a 12 Str is like a 17 Str.

Yeah, let's not go back to AD&D, that was really a terrible system for stats. I look back now and wonder how/why I stuck with it for so long! Most people I knew came up with a system to mitigate that (often one of the broken alt rolling systems) and it wasn't unusual to see characters with 3x 16-18 stats. Fighters never saw the light of day unless they had 18/XX.

Everyone is different, I like the ease of getting an 18 at 1st - I just wish the latter levels weren't quite so limited.

You are not restricted to the treasure tables for low level items.

When assigning level 1 permanent items, your best options are weapons, armor, and gear from Chapter 6 worth between 10 and 20 gp.

Nope, let me be the voice of dissent. I want magic items to have a measurable and consistent effect. I don't want to sink significant resources into an item I'll only use twice a level, or when I do use it, it has no effect because of a bad guy saving against it. That usually means a numerical bonus of some sort.

I want to put on a magic item and immediately be better.

I don't want magic for PCs to be rare - it can be rare in world, but I want my characters dripping with magic. minor trinkets and major powerhouse items both.

I really don't give a gnats whisker what the other players are rocking, I don't care if we all have the same load out - I want this for my characters regardless.

What I want pretty much mandates a set of key items that are assumed - and I'm ok with that.

Really? actual, real people are confused by this? and it's not just internet hyperbole? Because I have never met, in over 30 years of gaming and personally teaching a lot of people, anyone confused by the different uses of 'level'. A simple explanation that class levels and spell levels are different has been sufficient to allay any concerns.

I don't think it's expressly covered by the playtest - it is GM discretion. There is nothing saying you can't grant access.
We are running two playtests locally with me GMing full access to all uncommon/rare and another GM not allowing any uncommon/rare unless permitted specifically.

I am also not a fan.

"Typically most will ignore" being interpreted as "none will ignore" is a bad faith interpretation of the rules - full stop.
The rules as written grant a degree of flexibility to allow the GM to make a call - this is a good thing. A GM deliberately misinterpreting that flexibility is not stress testing the system, it is wilfully stepping outside of the system.

This is not an area of the rules I would want to see straightjacketed - it needs that flexibility. Not every demon should be required to go for the jugular and sometimes the paladin needs to show no quarter.

"Typically most" sets an expectation that in "most" encounters the bad guys will not attack downed foes. whether that is 55% or 85% or not at all is at the discretion of the GM, but the bad guys should not be attacking downed characters in every encounter. The rules state that outright and clearly.

Also, you need to factor in the playtest goals for this chapter - which as a player you may not (and probably should not) be aware of*. And remember that this is a playtest, it is not a polished final product so noting how much is too much - well, this sort of feedback is important, so make sure you fill in the surveys. Completing the remaining chapters will be similarly useful, so please keep at it.

*That said, if there is one chapter that players should be aware of the goals - this might be the one.

One thing I am doing is letting my players know what the playtest goals are after we've finished (where they aren't so obvious)- so they can see why things happen the way they do.

Just because something can be dented does not mean you can interpose it between you and an attack.
Shields only get damaged in this way if you actively shield block.
There is no way to "armour block".

Armour and shields are still items and can therefore be damaged in other ways - although the lack of an explicit sunder manoeuvre makes it unlikely that that will happen in combat.

dragonhunterq wrote:

Far from 'across the board'. It is quite rightly LG only.

Also not a surprise, they spoke about this and if they do paladins of other alignments they want the time to do them properly and not just a lazy switcheroo of "evil" to "good" or "chaos" or "mercy" to "cruelty". Which can only be a good thing, because the only thing worse than a non-LG paladin is a non-LG paladin with bad and lazy mechanics.

because LG is ofc the one true alignment, the only one capable of empowered holy warriors, whose detect/smite subroutine and demands to dictate what everyone else plays aren't a huge malignant sore on the hobby at all.... Oh wait, honestly at this point they are, if paladins stay LG only, remove them from core, stop wasting valuable CRB pages on such a game distorting blight of a class, and drop war priest or Inquisitor into the holy fighter slot. Seriously they have been nothing but trouble, every edition they have been in, and the passionate defence of them remaining such a party dominanting class says alot about the people defending the current situation with party alignment and actions having to pass muster with the guy playing the paladin.

Ah! so of course we should all defer to your opinion, as you put it so eloquently...

Paladins are cool and deserve a place front and centre. If you don't like them, there are 11 other classes to play. It's all good. There are at least 4 classes I have no interest in (Alchemist, Barbarian, Ranger and Sorceror for those who need to know) and will never play - I'm not calling for their removal.

Then don't use them. They aren't mandatory - the rules couldn't be more explicit about that.

Conversely, the GM can let the players roll any or all of their checks even if they would usually be secret, trusting players not to make choices based on information their characters don’t have.

Ah! the miscibility table - I remember that less than fondly. (albeit there was that one time a player rolled 00 on a potion of speed - permanent haste, but he aged a year every hour or so).

... against the DC of the target effect. ...

If the dispel magic level is higher than the level of the effect you dispel it automatically. If the dispel magic is the same or lower level make a dispel check at a cumulative -5 penalty for each level lower than the effect your dispel is. The DC is that of the effect.

I don't think shield block is clear at all with the current wording. Since the PC gets the extra damage after the hardness the shield only gets damage up to its hardness so with the current RAW the shield can only get one dent per shield block.

Thats kind of how it looks like it should work - you really don't want a shield being destroyed in one hit.

dragonhunterq wrote:

For a shield to take multiple dents from a single hit you have to a) ignore that shield block rules says the shield only prevents damage up to it's hardness and you take the rest and b) double count the overflow damage. It's patently nonsense.

Yet that's exactly what the rulebook does on page 175 with its example.

I agree entirely that the Shield Block interpretation is better. It's silly that shields can explode in a single hit and you also take all the damage from it. That's just silly and you have to really question how worth it a shield is when you have to constantly grab new ones or repair them.

A single shield should at least be able to last a combat when it's used more than once, wouldn't you think?

This really needs some clarification. It's just confusing and not intuitive right now.

Page 175 is an example of damaging an object - not an example of what happens when you shield block. There is a difference. When you damage an object the object takes all of the damage. When you shield block the object only takes damage up to it's hardness and you take the rest.

They certainly don't need fewer skills. There needs to be a class that focuses on skills. Rogues are it.

It has not been my experience that they are the highest damage - even when sneak attacking - that honour goes to a barbarian with a great axe.

They don't have the incombat durability of a fighter (who will also crit far more often) or paladin.

they don't have spells or alchemy.

So no, I disagree. They need 'something' and skills are it.

I really do object to it being referred to as an ethical violation or cheating. Its the g-d rules, it quite literally by definition cannot be cheating.

As part of your introducing PF1 players to PF2 just inform them that the system is asymmetric - social contract met.

Cheats will cheat no matter what the system.

GMs can already just alter monsters to suit their whim or to provide a more suitable challenge to their players (or attack their weaknesses) without explanation. There is no rule stopping them. The reality is the custom creation 'rules' are just guidelines. I tweak monsters all the time.

I have seen plenty of adaptations of monsters to PC playable that reduce their size, remove racial HD or remove some of the more egregious abilities or scores to make them playable - not everything that is available to monsters is available or suitable for PCs - asymmetrical rules for PC races and monsters is not a new concept.

But when you have a rule that can be read two ways and one way it's a workable mechanic that's actually quite cool and the other a worthless waste of ink isn't it reasonable to assume that the former reading is the right one?

until it's FAQ'd into oblivion anyway!

For a shield to take multiple dents from a single hit you have to a) ignore that shield block rules says the shield only prevents damage up to it's hardness and you take the rest and b) double count the overflow damage. It's patently nonsense.

CLW wands always felt like a problem with PFS, where you get 2 Prestige Points after your first adventure that can be spent on the wand. I'm in 3 Adventure Paths (Kingmaker, Giantslayer, Hell's Rebels) and we've never had easy access to a wand.

Why not make wands cost more Prestige in PFS?

For a start parties are essentially random in PFS. There is no guarantee you will have sufficient healing (or pretty much sufficient anything) without access to wands (and scrolls).

Pick a monster from PF1, let's say a hill giant - it's pretty basic - please explain how it is built using the same rules as PCs.

Because at some point someone sat down and said* "it needs to be large, more HD than an ogre, we'll need some kind of rock throwing as all giants have that ability and it needs to be CR7", and someone else telling them "well it's AC needs to be about 21, how much of that should be natural?", "well if we give it 8 dex, so increase it's natural AC by 1, let's not worry about the hit to init. now it needs to be doing nearly 20 damage on average how do we want to break that down?"

It only bears a resemblance in the results to the system the players use.

PF1 pays nothing more than lip service to following the same rules. In some respects Starfinder is much more open and honest than PF1.

*possibly :)

dragonhunterq wrote:

Ludovicus wrote:

--) Each monster would remain a relevant challenge for longer.
--) High-level PCs would not have to routinely face immersion-breakingly fantastical tasks in order for skill tests to be meaningful.

--)So low level monsters become as irrelevant as they should be.

--)So I can accomplish fantastic tasks.

There is a well loved and popular RPG which gives players monsters that stay relevant and tightly bound skills, I'd like PF to be different. I want heroic fantasy.

Again. I agree.

For the reasons you gave, PF should have a much steeper rate of advancement than 5e. But it still would.

Under the current system, an optimized PF2 character's bonus increases from +6 (+4 ability modifier, +1 expert proficiency, +1 level) at 1st level, to +20 (+5 ability, +2 master proficiency, +10 level, +3 item) at 10th and +35 (+7 ability, +3 legendary proficiency, +20 level, +5 item) at 20th. At the reduced rate, the improvement would instead be to +15 at 10th level and +25 at 20th. That's still a huge difference! Basically, a 10th level character succeeds whenever their first-level counterpart would fail, and critically succeeds whenever their counterpart would succeed; a 20th-level character can always succeed at a task a 1st-level character never could have. (It's also more than twice the rate 5e, wherein a 1st-level fighter probably has a +6 attack bonus (+4 ability, +2 proficiency) that increases to +14 (+5 ability, +6 proficiency, +3 item) at 20th level.

Or, more concretely: I think a good DC for a truly fantastic task (opening the hardest lock in the world, impressing Shelyn and her entourage with a musical performance) is 35. At +1/2 levels, that's something a 1st-level character could never dream of, a 10th-level character could do on a natural 20, and a 20th-level character could do on a 10 or better. Doesn't that seem about right to you?

Nope - a 20th level character with legendary training should be accomplishing those tasks relatively easily.

In my mind the 50/50 mark for a high on-level task should be aimed at being achievable by an expert level and a secondary stat with minimal equipment. If you are legendary with maxed stats and maxed equipment these tasks should be easier to achieve.

Whether that 'high level 20' task turns out to be DC35 or 45 doesn't really matter to me. I'm more interested in the sense of progression and the difference between levels.

dragonhunterq wrote:

Gorbacz wrote:

Bjørn Røyrvik wrote:

Because roleplaying is not the same as acting. Roleplaying is creating a character and making decisions based on their personality, not making a convincing speech. You could be an excellent actor but a s&&+ roleplayer because you are incapable of thinking of anything that someone else hasn't written for you. Now are you finished insulting people for Doing It Wrong?

I'm not saying that you're doing it wrong, I'm saying that there are better ways of spending time with other people while rolling dice and killing monsters than a game which explicitly expects you to act things out. Descent, Gloomhaven and all the other dungeon crawler board games are just that, D&D without having to feel silly because the other person at the table is channeling Matthew Mercer while all you can do is state "I say something nice, can I roll for this because I really don't like acting it out?".

Square pegs, round holes and all that.

This is a particularly toxic attitude, also it's fundamentally flawed. There are a lot of things to enjoy about RPGs without requiring actual acting. There is nothing about an RPG that 'explicitly' requires you to act things out or speak in the third person. You can interact quite happily in the third person and still be telling a story.

Maybe we're disconnecting at some fundamental level, but for me, interaction in third person is game-breaking. Short of time-saving interactions of negligible importance ("We tell the innkeeper that we'll be back by midnight") I expect everybody to sweat it and act in first person, even if they're not the world's best actors. And yes, I do act out all NPCs in first person.

To me, interaction in first person is a core element of RPGs as opposed to board games/video games and I don't do groups that don't share this view. Fortunately, all my current groups do.

Thats fine- its right for you and your players. Doesn't make it universally right, and doesn't mean those doing it differently shouldn't be doing it that way. RPGs are wonderfully versatile things and there are more ways to enjoy them than just yours.

I realized that maybe an actual example of variant approaches should help. This references one of the games I myself am running, a copy of the original Temple of Elemental Evil updated to PF1 rules. We have the Earth Temple, which has 4 earth elementals who rise up, but don't go hostile unless players enter specific parts of the room or try to steal the items on the altar. Meranthryl, our sorcerer, who is focused extensively on charm and diplomacy, decides that he'd like that chest, contents unseen, but doesn't fancy fighting the elementals, which he has already figured out likely would attack if he just 'tries to take it'. Instead, he recognizes that he'd just picked up a lodestone (literally, he was the party member who actually succeeded in the strength check to do so). He carefully goes as close as he imagines is safe, and attempts to find a language in common with the elementals. This part is entirely outside of the original module's 'script', so, yes, I do have to wing it. One of the elementals rolls high enough to seem to understand at least a bit of abyssal, and, discovering that, Merahnthryl begins negotiations, offering the lodestone, which is an elemental earth magic, in exchange for the chest. He has significant bonuses, which overcome the difficulty in communicating in what amounts to a pidgin dialect, and convinces the elemental to trade. Yes, this is completely *not* the intended scenario for the adventure. But that does not make it wrong, or bad in any way. I reward creativity like that. So do all of the other dms I play with. Finding alternate solutions to a situation is always cause for at least a compliment, if not other rewards. The problem I see with PF2, is that your chances for success in much of anything are terrible, and characters do not have enough chance for a 'personal niche' to pull something like this off. And these are the sorts of problem solving we do pretty much *Every* game session in our group. Being told that we just don't have the ability to alter a...

Nothing in the current rules prevents this type of interaction - there is nothing in the current rules that prevents you from proposing a course of action and the GM setting some appropriate skill checks. The only thing preventing you from finding alternative solutions to encounters and going 'off script' is your GM.

I fail to see any substance to your perceived problems with PF2.

Bjørn Røyrvik wrote:

Because roleplaying is not the same as acting. Roleplaying is creating a character and making decisions based on their personality, not making a convincing speech. You could be an excellent actor but a s&&+ roleplayer because you are incapable of thinking of anything that someone else hasn't written for you. Now are you finished insulting people for Doing It Wrong?

I'm not saying that you're doing it wrong, I'm saying that there are better ways of spending time with other people while rolling dice and killing monsters than a game which explicitly expects you to act things out. Descent, Gloomhaven and all the other dungeon crawler board games are just that, D&D without having to feel silly because the other person at the table is channeling Matthew Mercer while all you can do is state "I say something nice, can I roll for this because I really don't like acting it out?".

Square pegs, round holes and all that.

This is a particularly toxic attitude, also it's fundamentally flawed. There are a lot of things to enjoy about RPGs without requiring actual acting. There is nothing about an RPG that 'explicitly' requires you to act things out or speak in the third person. You can interact quite happily in the third person and still be telling a story.

Grandlounge wrote:

It seems to me this is a problem for organized play but in any home game or in the system in general, you can just make the consumable items much harder to find. Though economical from a GP perspective healing a level 10 barbarian twice take a whole wand and game time.

This article seems to be missing key aspects of game design. Does this make the game more fun, more immersive, or more easily adopted. I would say from the tone of the article the answer is no. The most frequent 1st ed complaint about items was that some were mandatory and filled slots that can be used for more fun and interesting items. It is the reason the company wrote the automatic bonus progression, which became a highly utilized rule system.

This is an answer to a problem very few people had. Look at the success of Borderlands and Diablo people love loot and magic items make them fun and helpful but not mandatory that is how you fix the problem.

Ding ding ding. Resonance sounds completely devised for PFS play.

I haven't read all of this to the end, so someone might have covered this - but I can't agree with this. It seems terrifyingly bad (to me) for organised play. When you can't know who you are playing with then these kinds of restrictions will lead to a lot of dead players and/or inability to complete scenarios.

Not knowing who or what capabilities your fellow players will have necessitates a batman-like approach to magic and items - you need multiple low level solutions to a wide range of challenges just in case you don't have the requisite skill or ability amongst you.

Resonance makes that much harder to achieve.

Pramxnim wrote:

Remedies to the problem in actual play:

However, these chances, even for spells that require saves, can be improved.

Flat-footed is a common condition that gives a -2 penalty to enemy AC. For someone who used to hit 50% of the time, this ups their accuracy to 60%, or a 20% increase in accuracy.

There are also buff spells like Bluff and Heroism that increase your chance to hit, making even fights against equal level enemies much easier.

For Spells that require saves, a common condition in Frightened lowers the enemy's save, and can be applied judiciously...

The fact that situational buffs exist does not imply that a base 50% chance is good. Flat footed requires another person in the right position, which is not possible on all battlefields or with all parties. Buff spells require someone to be playing someone who hands out buff spells as well as them spending a limited resource to do it. And frightened only applies to enemies that can be frightened.

On top of that, all those "remedies" require the spending of actions in combat to use.

Not "remedies" - design. Part of the idea is to encourage you to do stuff other than "hit it, hit it to death". That is one of the reasons for the multi attack penalty - they want that third attack to look unattractive and for you to do something else to impact the battle - even if it's to move into a better position (which the lack of AoO encourages too) - make things a little more dynamic.

Whether it succeeds at that...?

I like the simpler format - but I'm a fan of keywords/terms.

Standard would get my vote over basic.

This might be an unpopular opinion, but i think restricting Paladins to Lawful Good is outdated, unnecessary, and makes them far less interesting.

One of my favourite books in D&D 3.5 was the Unearthed Arcana, which introduced the Paladins of Slaughter, Freedom and Tyranny, of alignments CE, CB and LE respectively. Just like the LG paladin, they are living embodiments of their respective alignments carried pretty much to the extreme, and, to me, that's what being a paladin means.

I do not see a reason we can't have that as part of the base class of the Paladin, all Paizo would need to do is remove the restriction for the base class (or change so it can be LG, CG, CE or LE), change some powers and feats to work differently depending on the alignment of the character (like we have for clerics) and maybe create alignment restricted feats (for instance, maybe they can have feats like "Aura of Fear" which would require you to be Evil, while others like "Oath of Freedom" need you to be specifically CG).

Sure, this means revisiting and tweaking the whole class, but it makes for much more interesting paladins, and, therefore, much more interesting characters, as we can now explore how those characters with extreme unfaltering alignments interact with the world.

Adittionally, given the current archetype system, implementing it at a later date would be pretty much impossible unless they are released as separate base classes. For all those reasons, Paizo, please consider allowing paladins of different alingments.

No, No and No. First Paladins are LG. This is their Right and Proper alignment.

dragonhunterq wrote:

Monsters have never really followed the same rules as PCs except in a token manner.

Except... the token manner was formulaic. The base chassis predicated off the same rules a PC had. BAB implied attack abilities and basic saving throw progressions. Yes, a designer could bolt on things like natural armor bonuses or DR, but players had a world-building immersion, knowing that wizard-like monsters would have high Intelligence, non-agile massive beasts would have terrible Dexterity stores, and so on. It let players anticipate the nature of their foes in a very realistic fashion. Now a designer can just decide that a monster has a high TAC without earning it mathematically, without regard for if it makes sense.

Yes, it's a matter of degree. But "worse" isn't the direction design should take, despite DM effort. This, from the mouth of a DM who has spent a LOT of time tweaking and adjusting challenges, and yes, I'd always make sure I had the right number of skill ranks, etc, etc.

A thing worth doing is a thing worth doing right.

If you just increased a monsters intelligence by 2 to 'officially' give it the extra skill ranks you want it to have why not just give it the skill ranks?

Once they get the monsters operating on the same numbers as the players (an error they have admitted to) you still have the non-agile beasts having a lower dex score, but now you don't have to give it +16 natural AC to make up for the lack. There is no reason for creatures not to make sense just because you skip the middle 'justification step' and give it the appropriate and realistic stats for it's type from the outset.

As a DM who also spent a LOT of time tweaking and adjusting challenges and spending a LOT of time making sure critters had the right number of skill ranks, this seems to make my job a LOT easier.