The fact is that PF2e spellcasters only have problems because they are playing with old hardware. By that I mean they are using vancian casting on a new system.
Unlikely, given that the non-Vancian Psychic is pretty clearly less well regarded than the Vancian Cleric or Druid.
benwilsher18 wrote:
Spellstrike is an activity that includes casting a spell, so it does not meet the requirement of the new amp wording "if the next action you take is to cast a psi cantrip" as your next action is not to cast a psi cantrip, it is to Spellstrike. The rules are pretty clear on this.
You may be correct, but that quote is not persuasive and neither are any of the other arguments posted in the thread so far. Absent a stronger argument to the contrary, I have to agree with Angwa.
The quoted example refers specifically to a "Strike" and is analogous to the wording of Spellshapes which require Cast a Spell. However it is disanalogous to the text of the new Psi-Amp as quoted in this thread, which does not care which particular activity you use to cast a spell, only that you do in fact cast (small "c"). And you cannot appeal to its saying "action" rather than "activity" because casting Imaginary Weapon is already an activity even with Cast a Spell.
As The Raven black said, this has been the operation of things for a long time. Since 1E, even.
That might be the issue though - they are applying PF1 logic to PF2, but they are not the same. In FP1, resistances with very common but vulnerabilities were much much rarer. So a rare damage type is almost always an advantage. But in PF2, weaknesses to particular damage types is much more common - if not as common as resistances, then not far behind. More things resist Bludgeoning than Force, but more things also take extra damage from Bludgeoning than from Force. So it is no longer as pure an upgrade.
Without doing any in-depth analysis, I would guess Force is probably still an upgrade over Bludgeoning, due to incorporeals if nothing else. (It does still help against Incorporeal, right?) But I doubt it is enough of one to offset the reduced base damage, especially at higher levels.
Might be time to find a system that better serves your needs
There are no other systems. PF2E is better than D&D5E and pointing out what doesnt work mathematically for PF2E to change for PF3E and you coming in here telling me to find a diff system is as dumb as me pointing out what problems our gov has and some random person saying, "if you dont like america the way it is, leave." Lol
There are literally dozens of other systems besides PF2E and D&D 5e
Thousands, probably. But Verzen was clearly not being literal when they said that there were no other systems. Not everyone has the luxury of being able to find a group to play whatever their first choice would be - they get to choose from the 2-3 most popular systems (at best).
Blades in the Dark exists, but if everyone you know will only play D&D or PF it's existing doesn't do you much good.
The direct answer is that Wild only helps with armour bonuses (and implicitly shield bonuses, although it forgets to actually say that) and enhancement bonuses thereto. Wild does not help with activated abilities, so they still do not work. And it also does not help with bonuses of other types, but they would generally continue to apply anyway so it does not need to. So far, so good. However, by explicitly allowing most types of bonuses and explicitly disallowing activated abilities, the part of the quote you bolded leaves any armour properties which are neither (such as energy resistance in your example) undefined.
It is clear that Wild does not change the effects of such properties, so if they worked for normal amour they would work for Wild armour. But it is not remotely clear if they work for normal armour.
EDIT: Just realised that the post I quoted was from 2017 so the OP may no longer care. Oh well, I've typed it up now. You've given me something to ponder, at least.
rsbrehm wrote:
What about Wild armor even working with, lets say, Wizard Polymorph spells? Does it work or not? I haven't found any definitive answer other than some who say "armor of the wild only works with druid wild shape because the enchant only mentions druid wild shape."
That is the definitive answer. The Wild property says it helps people using Wild Shape, so that's what it does. Things do what they say, and don't do what they don't say.
It doesn't say it allows you to benefit from the armour bonus when under the effect of a wizard's Polymorph. It also doesn't say that it allows you to benefit from the armour bonus when you have left the armour at home. So it does neither of those things.
I was going to link, but it wasn't loading the other day when I tried to find it so I went with Tarondor's guide instead.
Tridus wrote:
Quote:
How many could you play through with the same characters?
The older ones all go from level 1 to high level (16 to 20), so you really can't with those because you need a level 1 character again.
You could theoretically play two in parallel with slowed advancement, but it would create a lot of work for the GM to make them hang together without getting in each-other's way.
Tridus wrote:
Quote:
Are they all set in the Golarion setting?
Pretty much, yeah.
If we're talking Paizo adventure paths and ignoring Starfinder (reasonable, given where we are), then there are three exceptions (the first three, from the Dungeon-magazine era). If we go beyond that then obviously there are a few more.
Tridus wrote:
Quote:
What are some of the pros and cons to adventure Paths?
The big pro is a lot of work is done for you. There's a story, characters, traps, monsters, treasure, and such. It's all there, ready to go. This is a massive time saver if you can run the adventure, even if you change some stuff.
IMNSO there is another big pro which does not get talked about enough: IME, having a campaign with a fixed-but-distant end point is great for campaign longevity.
Before APs, I tried for years to run campaigns that started at level 1 and continued to high levels. I literally never succeeded. Every campaign stalled out after five levels, tops.
I have just run the numbers at level 7, and it looks like you are correct for attributes up to +3. I don't know what Wis my player's PC has OTTOMH, but they're a bard so I very much doubt it is higher than that (without then Medic boosts, +3 is ahead of Assurance but only by a fraction of an hp per roll).
When I ran the numbers, I was forgetting the bonus for an expanded healers kit. So attributes up to +2 where Assurance is ahead, not +3. Which quite likely still includes my player's bard.
glass wrote:
Whether or not there actually is a treadmill is not what matters (practically speaking, there is always going to be for level-appropriate challenges - that's what makes them level appropriate). What matters is how much it feels like one.
Now that's subjective - maybe the way things are staggered in PF2 does not help how it feels for you. But I think it does for me and, I suspect, quite a few other people.
Just to be clear, when I said this I was defending the principle of proficiency increases being staggered, not the specific implementation with regard to Spell Attacks.
The Raven Black wrote:
So great that people want spell attacks to hit as easily as a martial's Strikes but do not consider the access to save spells, the free heightening of damage and all the other tricks a caster takes for granted that a martial lacks.
Actually, I am pretty sure everyone is considering Save spells - they are precisely what makes Attack-roll spells such a trap. If all offensive spells had attack rolls, the the internal balance would be much better (external balance is another question, of course).
D&D 4e had attacker roll for every kind of attack, and it worked great. PF3 should do that IMNSHO. And then rebalnce from there as necessary.
OceanshieldwolPF 2.5 wrote:
All of this discussion of spell attacks vs. saves is quite pertinent to my current experience. I get the feeling the casters in my game find the “vs. save” spells kinda deflating merely due to not rolling to attack - I’m rolling the opponents saves behind a screen…I guess it really affects a sense of agency.
Good point, and another reason to make everything "attacker rolls".
The only ability that ghost touch confers on incorporeal creatures is to pick it up, move it around, and attack with it. Hitting objects is an attack, and so is a Combat Manoeuvre, so they can do those (provided it is Combat Manoeuvre you can normally do with a weapon). So that covers 2 and part of 1.
As for 3 and the other part of 1 (moving small objects around without attacking them), that depends on how much weight the GM puts on "Essentially, a ghost touch weapon counts as both corporeal or incorporeal." Personally I would allow them to do anything that a corporeal creature count reasonably do with their sword, but conversely would not allow then to, for example, take it through walls. So that covers A and B (albeit somewhat vaguely).
C at least has a fairly concrete answer - the description of the Incorporeal quality states "It has no Strength score, so its Dexterity modifier applies to its melee attacks, ranged attacks, and CMB."
EDIT: I am not sure what you mean by the last line. PF1 is long out of print; the only "official word" you're likely to get at this point is what was printed in the books back then. I cannot even find the PF1 FAQ any more! (Does it still exist somewhere?)
Medicine is one of the skills that assurance is wonderful for. If you do the math (and ignore hero points) you pretty much NEVER want to roll a healing check if you're just looking at average HPs healed.
I have just run the numbers at level 7, and it looks like you are correct for attributes up to +3. I don't know what Wis my player's PC has OTTOMH, but they're a bard so I very much doubt it is higher than that (without then Medic boosts, +3 is ahead of Assurance but only by a fraction of an hp per roll).
OTOH, he already has five feats and two Skill increases (counting Trained but not counting the free one from Medic Dedication) invested in this. Telling him he needs to spend yet another feat (which isn't even part of the Medic Archetype, so could not come out of his FA slots) to make it slightly quicker is not something I am interested in doing. Much better to house rule it to be significantly quicker without any further investment. And, to bring this back on topic, hope it is less fiddly and investment heavy in PF3 when it finally arrives.
Teridax wrote:
While I'm not super-keen on [keeping attributes but not applying them to attacks], I suppose the main reason why is because I'm personally struggling to see what attributes bring to the table that other mechanics don't already.
As I think I said upthread, I am in favour of keeping attributes, but I also kinda agree with this. I would much rather they be gone entirely than be hanging around cluttering things up, while not applying to important rolls that you would intuitively expect them to apply to. That seems like the worst of both worlds.
Squiggit wrote:
I'm a little skeptical of this. The 'treadmill' never stops being a treadmill because of staggered proficiency, it's just that certain classes become uniquely bad at things at certain level brackets.
Whether or not there actually is a treadmill is not what matters (practically speaking, there is always going to be for level-appropriate challenges - that's what makes them level appropriate). What matters is how much it feels like one.
Now that's subjective - maybe the way things are staggered in PF2 does not help how it feels for you. But I think it does for me and, I suspect, quite a few other people.
At low level? Because a specced out Medic should never take that long once they have Continual Recovery, Ward Medic, and Assurance. (One of my problems with Medicine is that Continual Recovery just feels like a feat tax and I plan to house rule it into the skill itself next campaign I start.)
My AbV group is 7th level IIRC. They definitely have Ward Medic and Continual Recovery (along with a couple of other feats). I don't think they have Assurance because that seems to be a reliable way to just miss DCs most of the time.
The Golarion-set ones (which is all except the three published in the Dungeon-Magazine era, which are set in Greyhawk) are all assumed to happen in chronological order, but with a few exceptions it doesn't really matter what order you play them in - you should probably play the Runelords APs in order, but aside tat most of them are fairly standalone (there are call backs which could constitute minor spoilers, but nothing major).
I mean, once PF1 characters had triple digit HP the "happy stick dance" was exceptionally clunky. If you're using CLW you're burning on average half a wand to heal someone back to full. If you're actually rolling that as the rules tell you to, it's a stupid amount of rolling to see how many charges you use. I'm honestly convinced people who prefer how this works in PF1 just aren't running it RAW
Y'know what, that's fair. We do "bulk CLW use is 11 hp per 2 charges" - something so common that I forgot it was technically a house rule (it usually worked that way even at PFS tables, which weren't supposed to use house rules).
Tridus wrote:
If you're just averaging it and skipping the rolls... well you can do that in PF2 as well except you need fewer rolls because each one is healing WAY more health.
You could average the healing amount as a house rule, but you cannot average a check - you cannot skip the rolling in PF2 without completely reworking the subsystem and everything that depends on it. Which is a rather tall order.
Ascalaphus wrote:
It's far, far from the only option?
* Lay on Hands (champion, blessed one)
* Animist has some focus spell for it
* Water and Wood kineticist have options
* Thaumaturge (chalice) has an (awkward) option for unlimited healing
* Exemplar can heal themselves (no scar but this)
* Alchemist can make soothing tonics every 10 minutes
I am not going to look up the details of all of them, but the ones I am familiar with are not remotely enough to keep up with the hp attrition in a reasonable timeframe. For example, Lay on hands is 6 hp per rank to one target every ten minutes. That's at best half of one first-level character's hp, and characters will gain at least as many hp every level as LoH gains every two levels. So (apart from spikes when you get your second & third focus points) it will start slow and get slower.
Maybe your PCs do not take as much damage as mine, but IME it can easily take an hour to 90 minutes of in-game time for a fully specced out Medic to get everyone back on their feet. For an LoHer you could at least double that.
pauljathome wrote:
In my experience unless there is a time crunch or the like after battle healing for most groups becomes something like
Player: Can we heal up?
GM : Yes. You're all healed up.
Saying the GM can ignore a bad rule does not make that rule any better (and is a classic Oberoni fallacy). Especially in this case, where handwaving in this way invalidates a big chunk of one players build (a chunk that they may not have wanted in the first place, but got stuck with).
I like PF2 (seemingly more than the OP), but there are a few issues I hope PF3 addresses when it eventually shows up.
Personally, I hope that PF3 does not get rid of attributes. However, I do think that a class's attack attribute should go from effectively baked in to actually backed in.
My biggest issue with PF2 casters is the way their spell slots scale. PF1 casters started with a few, and then scaled up to so many slots that there was barely a restriction (which was lucky because the cantrips were terrible). PF2 tried to fix the huge number of spell slots at higher levels, by starting even lower but still scaling up quickly. Whereas I think the number of spell slots should start more generous, but scale up much less.
Then there are feats...you pick a lot of them, sometimes two or more per level, and they are often pretty small individually. They are well siloed, so it's not as onerous as it could be. But I would still like there to be slightly fewer feats that were each slightly chunkier.
Then there is the rigmarole of Medicine checks after each fight. Which is more annoying than PF1's happy stick dance, because it takes longer at the table and distorts the character build of which unlucky player drew the short store more. Don't get me wrong, I like that Medicine is a viable option now; I just wish that a) it was a bit less fiddly, and b) it wasn't the only option.
That ties into my last issue (that I can think of OTTOMH): Magic items are underwhelming, especially consumables (and consumable adjacent things, like wands).
Regarding the whole oracle thing: I had not played PFS since before COVID (for various reasons largely unrelated to PFS itself), and I was looking at getting back into it a little while back. That notion coincided with, in fairly quick succession, the oracle debacle and the similar screwing over of players with legacy clerics of Gorum. There was also the gutting of Campaign Mode for no discernible reason, which I became aware of at the same time (not sure when it actually happened).
As a result of those things, I did not get back into PFS, nor will I any time soon (definitely not under the current leadership, possibly not ever).
In my case, it did not put me off Pathfinder entirely (although I can see how it could for others). But "not put[ting] me off" is way too low a bar - PFS is supposed to encourage me to play and buy stuff (and through me, other people), not merely avoid driving me away.
My Thursday group is still going through Curse of the Crimson Throne. We decided to stick with it until we are done exploring Scarwall (at which point we will rotate back to my PF2 Abomination Vaults game).
On Sundays, we finished the first chapter of Strange Aeons (we're still not much the wiser about what's going on, but we have a target for further investigation next chapter), a couple of weeks ago. So we rotated back to Savage Tide, with an extra player). We have had one session so far, in which we basically had one fight, and met the new character. In the Abyss!
Each impact is one instance, and applying the highest res/weakness among all 3 kinds, trait, type, or custom, literally covers all possible edge cases.
Pretty much. You'd probably want to call out a few specifics/exceptions (like persistent damage should probably create new instances each time it fires). But it is almost certainly less text than the current mess.
One for people trained in simple weapons, one for Martial, one for advanced
I am not sure I'd go quite that far, but I could certainly see two out of the three for most weapons. Maybe all three for spears? The seem to scale from simple to advanced.
(My homebrew system, which I am very slowly developing in the background, does something equivalent. For the five-ish weapons which currently exist in the system.)
ETA: (Forgot I had another reply open in another tab.)
Sibelius Eos Owm wrote:
If you need to hide what you are planning to do from the GM in order to make use of your abilities, you are playing with a level of adversary player-GM relationship that is almost certainly outside the range accounted for by Paizo designers.
I think the point with Brace is that it is not just obvious to the GM, it is obvious to your opponents in-character too. Their reacting to your obvious preparation is not adversarial GMing.
OTOH, for a larger party the longer you spend waiting for your next turn, so the more potential there is for people wasting time to be galling.
The counter to that is if you are in a large party (largest I have experienced is 8), having one player say ‘I do nothing, next person’ speeds things up and is less of a wait than the guy who laboriously counts up every bonus on every attack to see if he hit (‘Dude, you missed on a 12 on your last attack, of course an eight misses, you don’t need to go through the flanking/prayer/bard/heroism arithmetic on your fingers for the third time this round…’)
IME, that happens very rarely.
It is generally the people who contribute the least to ending the fight that take the longest over their turns (either because they are the ones re-adding-up their bonuses every turn, or because they are desperately trying to find a significant contributions, but failing).
Like someone else upthread, one of my groups has a summoner that mostly casts haste on the first rounds and then usually does nothing thereafter (he does even waste time with acid splash). But that is just the summoner himself...the eidolon is contributing plenty.
Make sure you are retraining your lvl 1 feat for that. Pretty sure it is only available then.
Since it has no prerequisites, I am pretty sure it is available any time you get a feat slot. What am I missing that suggests otherwise?
Tom Sampson wrote:
The only thing the increase in caster level does not count for is progressing your spells per day for spellcasting.
It also doesn't count for spells known (or anything else which is a function of class level rather than caster level).
Dasrak wrote:
Now, there is some ambiguity about how this would stack with other caster level bonuses. For instance, if you also had an Orange Prism Ioun stone, which one is applied first? If Magical Knack is applied first if you're a Wizard 10/Investigator 2, you go from 10->12, then the ioun stone raises you to 13. However, if the ioun stone applies first then Magical Knack's cap kicks in and you cap out at 12.
I would argue that if you count the ioun stone first, you are applying Magical Knack's cap to the stone. But the stone's bonus should not be capped, only MK's. So you should apply the stone's bonus after applying the cap (for a final CL of 13 in the case of the example).
However, I agree that it could be better spelled out.
I also think you highlight a good point that immunities tie into two aspects of the game that are in tension with each other here: there’s immunity as flavor, i.e. “this monster has X immunity because it makes sense for them to have it,” and then there’s immunity as a mechanic, i.e. “this monster has X immunity to force the player to use different tools at their disposal.”
They certainly can be in tension with each other, but IMNSHO the devs give out immunities to creatures where not doing so would make more sense from both points of view.
The red dragons from my previous post is such an example. They are flesh and blood creatures; they are not made of fire like a fire elemental. Sure they are fire themed and heat adapted; resistance (likely quite-high resistance) is appropriate, but they don't need to be immune from either a game play or flavour PoV.
But someone at TSR decades ago decided that "fire breath = fire immunity" and nobody seems to have questioned it since.
benwilsher18 wrote:
At least critically hitting them is easy, and that can debuff the enemy with critical specialization and rune effects.
Just checking: I think oozes are immune to the extra damage from crits, but can still suffer other effects triggered by it. Is that correct?
IMO, the existence of immunities (including precision) is fine in principle, they should be given out extremely sparingly.
Unfortunately game designers tend to dish them out way too generously. Which is understandable - if you're designing a monster on a particular theme, it kinda makes sense in the moment to give it immunities related to that theme. Which is fine on an individual-monster basis, but scales horribly. What you need to do, for the game as a whole, is fight that tendancy, hard, and only give immunities where not doing so would be utterly non-sensical.
In more recent games (like PF2), designers have realised that they need to fight against that tendency, but they still are not fighting hard enough IMO. For example, PF2 red dragons are still immune to fire, despite being flesh-&-blood creatures (TBF I don't have the new dragon book, and I could not find cinder dragon stats on AoN, so that might be changing).
As a side issue (not really applicable to swashbucklers), I also think that a Fire Kineticist should be great at fighting fire elementals, not near-helpless against them. She is a master of fire, and they are literally made of the thing her whole class is all about! However, I seem to be the only one who thinks that.
I'm personally not a fan of both making a staff's attacks work like casting a spell and also making runes apply to those attacks; that feels like it's stepping on the toes of martial classes. I would definitely apply runes to the staff's attacks if the attacks keyed off Dex, however, or even if they worked like normal weapon attacks but used the casting stat to hit.
I don't understand what the difference between "work like casting a spell" and "work like normal weapon attacks but used the casting stat to hit" would be, in any practical sense.
Presumably the target audience for these kind of staves is typically going to have better proficiency with Spell Attacks than Weapon Attacks?
I am! I am still reading through it, so I have not got to the new stuff yet, but I am enjoying enjoying the recap.
However, I do have one fairly minor complaint: You rather oversell the length of the Dungeon-era APs. Saying that they are twelve chapters rather than six without without clarifying that the chapters are much shorter implies that they are twice as long, when the reality is much less than that. They cover 21 levels, as against 16-20 for the PF1-era APs. They are longer, but in some cases only by 5%.
(Unless you did clarify that and I missed it, in which case apologies.)
Witch of Miracles wrote:
True story: how much you like the back half of Curse is 1/3rd determined by how much you enjoy playing Castlevania in your PF game.
I am currently exploring Scarwall in CotCT (as a player), and I am enjoying it. I have heard of Castlevania, but I have no idea* what it is.
(* Well, not literally "no idea". I can guess from the name that it involves castles and vampires, which might or might not actually be in Romania.)
Obviously, if they were giving X/level, they cannot stack. But their not stacking would also be a potential problem if we are making investment in relevant archetypes count again. Because a Wizard with 5 Champion feats and 5 Fighter feats is just as invested in being a front-liner as someone with someone with 10 of either, but under some of the revised proposals would have a lot fewer hp (obviously, that matters a lot less if we cap the number of feats that can contribute fairly low, but that seems unsatisfying to me).
I think that for better and for worse, Pathfinder 2e is a game that aims to prevent a Wizard from becoming as much of a frontliner as a Fighter, even if the Wizard opts into lots of Fighter feats. I'd thus be okay with capping the benefits of resiliency feats and preventing them from stacking, such that a Wizard could get partway there but not all the way.
Nor should they be, but that is orthogonal to the comment you quoted. A wizard with lots fighter feats is served fine by many of the proposals, whereas a wizard with that many feats taken from two or martial Archetypes has the same amount of "martial investment" but significantly fewer HP. That was what the counter-proposal at the end of my post sort to address.
This is a valid point. I think the issue of stacking martial archetypes can be addressed simply by making resiliency feats not stack
Obviously, if they were giving X/level, they cannot stack. But their not stacking would also be a potential problem if we are making investment in relevant archetypes count again. Because a Wizard with 5 Champion feats and 5 Fighter feats is just as invested in being a front-liner as someone with someone with 10 of either, but under some of the revised proposals would have a lot fewer hp (obviously, that matters a lot less if we cap the number of feats that can contribute fairly low, but that seems unsatisfying to me).
I would be inclined to make a single feat called Martial Resiliency which is shared by the relevant Archetypes. Then it could give X hp per level, plus Y hp per feat from any Archetype which includes it (with X possibly being implemented as granting Toughness, partially or wholey).
If we made X=2 and Y=4 for other feats, then with ten feats invested you'd get 40 + 9*4 = 76 extra HP, or an average of 3.8 per level. That seems like a reasonable ROI on a normally 6 HP class, but is obviously too much on an 8 HP class. It also removes the Barbarian's special handling.
Oh, how about this:
Martial Resilience grants Toughness, and if your main class is 6 HP per level, the HP benefit of Toughness if doubled. In addition, for each other feat you take from a relevant Archetype (to a maximum of 9), you gain a number of HP equal to the difference between the Archetype's class's HP and your own class's (counting 6 as 8). If you already have Toughness, you can immediately retrain it for free.
Keeps the max HP just below the class you are borrowing from, and keeps the barbarian special without messing with prerequisites. In fact we don't need the max HP prereq at all: Pure martials can take it, and it is basically just an alternative way of getting Toughness, unless they Archetype into Barbarian. Which makes sense - they are already invested in being Martials, so Archetype feats do not represent any extra investment.
Thanks everyone. I was looking for a simple list, not feats written out in full with an asterisk. In my defence, the the paragraph I mentioned in the OP does not say they are denoted by asterisks (because where it comes from, they aren't).
As the title says. Based on a not-terribly-random sampling, it seems like about 2/3 of the Archetypes on AoN repeat the paragraph of rules text about Additional Feats, seemingly taken from Player Core p.215. But none of the one I looked at actually seemed to have any Additional Feats listed to go with that text.
So are they actually as rare as they appear to be, or am I just missing where they are listed?
Like, nobody does this and there's no RAW or RAI anywhere to suggest you should apply the same resistance ten times to a single attack or whatever. It's not a thing.
It very much does seem to be a thing in at least some cases. Hence the thread.
Tridus wrote:
I'd rather have some examples instead of errata, because the errata would have to be really long to actually cover every case and they won't do that due to it being impossible to fit into the book's current layout.
Examples only help if they are correct to the RAW. And deriving correct example when the underlying RAW is inconsistent is impossible. There's no easy way out of this, unfortunately.
yellowpete wrote:
Trip.H wrote:
(btw, I still have had no one claim to resolve what happens with flurry-combine attacks and mis-matched bonus elementals. )
This doesn't seem that complicated, no? You just treat it as you would a single attack that has both rune effects on it.
Which means what, exactly? What exactly "a single attack" means with regard to instances of damage (if anything at all) is the crux of the question.
Having finally got AoN to load so I can see what they currently do, I think I mostly agree.
I do think it would be nice if the number of feats in that archetype has some influence, but I obviously we don't want the barbarian archetype to end up with more HP than a actual barbarian, and there is also the issue of different martially-flavoured archetypes on the same character. So I am not sure how to implement that cleanly and fairly.
Firstly, could you unpack the first line a bit; I do not get the reference at all. Although I do want some butterscotch Angel Delight now (do they even still make it?)
Secondly, I disagree with basically everything that Azothath said: They seem to be trying to blunt the impact of your changes. Whereas I think that, if anything, they are not impactful enough. For example, I don't think Fighters getting fewer skill ranks than Rangers is justifiable, so I would set the minimum at 6 (to spend as they like).
Thirdly, Move Action rather than Swift Action for re-saving against Fear effects is an upgrade if you're running away. You get two extra goes at the save, and don't go anywhere (and the two extra goes applies even if you're not). I would leave it at a Swift (but still make it At Will).
Fourthly, I am not sure I follow Weapon Training. Are you saying Weapon Spec (and GWF/GWS) are deleted, or just don't stack? And Weapon Focus provides scaling benefits rather than the normal +1? If so, that is not a bad idea, but I think it could be implemented/presented more cleanly. I would just say that each Weapon Focus applies to a whole Group now, and the bonuses scale with Fighter Level (and you can immediately retrain and redundant Weapon Focus feats for free).
Alternatively, fighters could count as having Weapon Focus (and subsequently GWF, WS, and GWS) with every weapon with which they are proficient.
IMO, the Fighter's theme compared with more specialised martials like the barbarian and paladin should be broad & deep competence. Ever since WS was introduced in AD&D 2e, it has been contrary to that theme, and it only got worse with 3.P trip builds and the like.
_
TLDR: I think your proposal is a good start, but I don't know what butterscotch has to do with anything.
ISTM that the whole thing is a big old mess, and it needs errata whatever the devs originally intended. Both to confirm what an instance of damage is, and fix the rules that only work with the other definition (of which there appear to be examples in both directions).
I will also say that, even if they originally intended "type as instance", they should probably change their minds and define it as "attack as instance". Fewer worms in that can than the other.
Combat makes up a significant part of the typical campaign and session. As such IMO, each character needs to be able to contribute meaningfully in combat. That does not necessarily mean dealing a bunch of hp damage to the enemy, but it mean doing something which matters.
As I see it, the acid test is "is the effect worth the table time needed to handle it".
Aaaargh. Making a spelling error, copying-&-pasting it a bunch oftimes, and spotting it after the Edit window closes is not my idea of a good time. I meant "worn" not "warn". And someone introduces some other kind of wand... in the footnotes.
Anyway, moving on. Defining categories of feats by name is kinda "low tech". A more PF2 approach would be to give the approriate feats a Resonate keyword and refer to that, and that would also give me more flexibility in naming that. So pretend I did that in the above post.
As a Free Action you may spend Resonance Point on a magical or alchemical†† Healing Consumable that you have in hand. If you do so, and then use the Consumable before the end of your turn (or start using it, if it would take longer than a turn), the amount of hit points restored is increased: Any die rolls are maximised, and static values or modifiers are doubled. Additionally, if the item is alchemical, it also counts as magical if it is beneficial to do so.
Note that, unlike most other items you could spend Resonance Points on, Comsuambles do not need to be Invested.†††
As a Free Action, you may spend a Resonance Point on an Aeon Stone which is Invested and orbiting you. If you do so, you gain the benefit of its resonant power for the next five minutes (or until it ceases to orbit).
Footnotes:
† I dislike referring to restoring hp as "healing". HP are not meat points. So I am not going to do so when I don't have to (obviously I need to use the Healing keyword where appropriate).
†† Just working on magical consumables seemed a bit limited, so adding alchemicals seemed like a reasonable scope for the feat. Also, it's a nice nod to the playtest Alchemist.
††† Not sure if it is better to have this line in or not. It doesn't formally change anything (the other feats say they require investment, and this one doesn't). But sometimes calling out a change in a pattern can avoid misunderstandings, even if it is not strictly necessary.
†††† I really like Ioun/Aeon stones, and have done all the way back to AD&D 2e, so I like things which interact with them. I especially like things that unlock the resonant powers in other ways (since hiding them away in a Wayfinder removes the cool orbital aesthetic. Plus there's the name thing!
Somehow I completely misses this post yesterday....
Claxon wrote:
I think this is your first problem. When making changes to the game system, it's much better to use prevision like a scalpel, than to use a shotgun approach. Trying to hit a bunch a birds at once means you might hit a lot of other stuff (unintended consequence that are disruptive to other parts of the game).
I disagree, obviously. Every change has consequences, potentially including unintended ones. If you can fix multiple things with one change, that's fewer changes overall and therefore fewer opportunities for unintended consequences, not more.
Of course, this is not so much a change as an addition, but the principle still holds.
Claxon wrote:
Allowing wands to function as 30 uses and rechargeable, even when limited to 4th level spells, means casters effectively have unlimited (low level) spells.
They're not unlimited, they cost gold. And gold, like seemingly everything else, is very tight in PF2.
It is intended to be an amount of gold that you can sustainably pay if you choose to. But not without making compromises elsewhere. The rest of the gear list is not going anywhere, and the gold supply is not increasing.
Claxon wrote:
Bear in mind that spell casters are meant to use their cantrips at time, and not always be casting from their limited spell slot.
Yes, and they still will.
Claxon wrote:
Modifying wands in the way you propose also has the consequence of making scrolls a "why bother" unless it's something you only expect to cast a couple times while playing the character.
Scrolls are already like that.
Claxon wrote:
Yes, the aesthetic issue is a big reason I dislike your proposal honestly.
But my proposal largely removes the aesthetic issue, by encouraging fewer uses of higher-level items.
Interesting. Is the idea that this is something that is just added, or something that has some kind of buy-in (apart from buying the staff, of course)? If the former, I agree it should be Dex. If the latter, your casting stat is fine.
I don't think Dex is too out there - after all, rays used Dex in PF1, and nobody thought it was too weird. (Or did they?)
Anyway, it seems like you would need to review each staff to give it an appropriate attack. Or at least, every staff anyone in your game is considering buying/keeping (which to be fair might be much smaller number).
_
Resonator Dedication (Feat 1*)
[Archetype][Dedication]
Archetype: Resonator
Prerequisites: Trained in Arcana, Nature, Occultism, or Religion; Int or Cha +1**
You gain a pool of Resonance Points which can be used to activate Resonate Feats (Feats from this Archetype whose names begin "Resonate"). The number of points in your pool is 12 plus the higher of your Intelligence or Charisma, and gains two additional points for each other Feat you have from this Archetype. You refill the pool back up to its maximum number of points during your daily preparations.
Additionally, you gain one Resonate Feat of your choice, for which you meet the prerequisites.
You may take a second Dedication*** Feat before taking two feats from this Archetype provided the second Archetype is a Class Archetype for a spellcasting class, or is an Archetype which grants spellcasting. If you do so, you must have two additional feats from Resonator, and typically also from the other Archetype, before you can take a third Dedication.
You may Invest one or more Blasting Rods as part of your daily preparations (even though Blasting Rods are not warn). You may make an attack with an Invested Blasting Rod that is held in your hand. The cost is one Resonance Point, unless the Blasting Rod's level is higher than your level, in which case the cost is equal to the difference in levels.
_
Resonate Wand (Feat 1)
[Archetype]
Archetype: Resonator
Prerequisites: Resonator Dedication, ability to cast spells from spell slots
You may Invest one or more Daily**** Wands as part of your daily preparations (even though Wands are not warn). When you have a wand Invested in this way, instead of activating it once per day (or twice by damaging the wand), you activate the wand by spending Resonance Points. There is no limit to how many times you can activate the wand other than the number of points you are willing and able to spend, and you never risk damaging the wand. The cost is one Resonance Point, unless the wand's level is higher than your level, in which case the cost is equal to the difference in levels.
Aside from the Resonance Point cost and number of uses per day, the wand functions as normal.
If anyone else uses a wand you have Invested, it counts as the second daily use (regardless of whether or how many times you have actually used it), and therefore they must roll to see if the wand is broken or destroyed.
_
Resonate Staff (Feat 4)
[Archetype]
Archetype: Resonator
Prerequisites: Resonator Dedication, ability to cast spells from spell slots
When you prepare a Staff as part of your daily preparations, you may also Invest it (even though Staves are not warn). When you have a Staff Invested in this way and Cast a Spell from it, you may spend Resonance Points on the activation in one of two ways:
-If the spell uses charges, it uses a number of charges equal to one third of the spell's Rank (rounded up), rather than equal to the Rank.
-If the spell has an attack roll, you may apply any Weapon Potency Runes on the Staff to the Attack roll (but not any other Runes).
In either case, the cost is one Resonance Point, unless the wand's level is higher than your level, in which case the cost is equal to the difference in levels.
Aside from applying one of the above-described benefits, the Staff functions as normal.
_
Extra Resonance (Feat 6)
[Archetype]
Archetype: Resonator
Prerequisites: Resonator Dedication, Int +1, Cha +1
You add both your Intelligence and Charisma to your Resonance Pool, rather than one or the other (this is in addition to the two extra points you gain because this is a Resonator Archetype feat).
_
Extra Feats: Trick Magic Item, Incredible Investiture
Footnotes:
* I cannot think of any Dedication feats which are Level 1, but some classes get a Class feat at level 1 so there is no reason why they cannot exist.
** I thought about making spellcasting a prerequisite, but decided to leave it out of the Dedication (although several of the other feats will have it in one form or another).
*** The modification to the Dedication restriction is to allow people to get spellcasting from an archetype while also taking this, and also to allow compatibility with class archetypes like Flexible Spellcaster.
**** By which I mean a standard PF2 magic wand. The qualification is only necessary if [URL=https://paizo.com/threads/rzs7d4yq?Chargeable-wands-in-PF2#44]someone introduces some other kind of wand...[URL]
Someone else made a thread about using wands to do a weak one action attack. Could be a good collaboration idea. A Resonator channels his inner well of power and shoots out a bolt.
That is an interesting idea. I would not do it with wands, but maybe make a new category of item (call them "blasting rods" or something). Spend a point of Resonance and an attack comes out the end. I'd probably treat more like weapons than normal magic items (runes and all).
Kilraq Starlight wrote:
Allow the player to inscribe fundamental runes (but not property runes) into the wand or staff.
You can already do that, at least for staves. Do you mean to allow them to be applied to spell attacks from that staff or wand?
Kilraq Starlight wrote:
Basically adds another way for them to use the pool and gives them more choices on behavior.
I was thinking there would be a one-to-one mapping between categories of affected items and ways they are effected. But that's not hard-&-fast (nothing is, at this stage).
Kilraq Starlight wrote:
As a side idea, one possible way to add an extra handcuff (since people think this needs one apparently) could be to pull a card from PF1E Kins and make resonance act like Burn. It takes your own life force to power the magic, costing you some amount of HP do it.
That's not a bad idea in the abstract, but it's not going to fly in my group. A couple of them really disliked Burn!
The impression I got is that your Resonance pool is split off from your Investiture (I always think I'm talking about Cosmere when I use that word), and it applies to all magic items, I think.
That was the general idea. It interacts with Investiture in the sense that you have to Invest something before you can spend Resonance on it (even if it is not something you would normally need to Invest, like a wand). Otherwise, Investment and Resonance are separate.
Perpdepog wrote:
I do agree with Teridax that getting to use a wand a ton of times each day is probably more trouble than it's worth.
That does seem to be the prevailing opinion across the three threads (and weirdly, in the PF1 thread too). I still think the idea has enough merit to at least warrant testing.
Perpdepog wrote:
Are you thinking only wands, for example?
No, I am hoping to find five to six categories of items to spend it on. Although other than wands, I need to figure out which categories and what Resonance will do for them.
Perpdepog wrote:
Also, on the subject of wands and Resonance, I think the way I'd implement would either have Resonance be equal to half your level, rounded up, or maybe turn all your unspent Investiture points into Resonance, so there is a choice between wearing lots of permanent items or triggering temporary ones.
I think half levels is probably a bit fast scaling - I would rather start a bit higher and scale up slower. OTOH, using left over Investment as Resonance (which is pretty much how Resonance worked in the playtest) scales negatively with level, that's probably a bit too far in the other direction.
Aside about playtest Resonance:
WatersLethe wrote:
I just want to chime in to say Resonance was a good mechanic for *one* of the many things it was trying to do, but making you unable to drink a critical potion because you wore a specific pair of pants that morning was why it failed.
I don't think Invested and spendable Resonance coming out of the same pool helped, but IMNSHO the things that killed it were:
1. Being needed for consumables, especially potions (which previously worked for anyone who was capable of drinking).
2. Being another layer on top of other requirements *which, at the time, were basically the same as in PF1). So vorpal weapons still needed to crit to activate but needed a point of Resonance too. And wands still had charges to track, in addition to Resonance.
Item 2 was made worse by dev statements in the run-up to the playtest which seemed to suggest that Resonance would be instead of wand charges rather than instead.
Yup. Tiamat for the vast majority of gamers is the D&D version; a five-headed devil dragon (who they renamed Takhisis for Dragonlance). And that version also happens to be my favorite version of her as well, so it always felt a bit disappointing and lame to me to NOT be able to feature that version in Pathfinder. Tiamat's inclusion in Golarion crept in a little bit under the radar in those early days before we even started the actual Pathfinder RPG... and we probalby shouln't have ever done any of that stuff in the first place since that whole element of her is in a shady gray area of the OGL content (which focuses on the rules side of things and not so much the lore side) that has, as we've moved further and further away from 3.5 SRD/OGL rules over the decades, become an increasingly fraught proud nail that, when we shifted over to 2nd edition, we decided to wrench out and leave behind.
Ah, I think the reason I thought that Tiamat was never in PF1 was that I either misunderstood or misremembered a previous post from our favourite disnosaur, similar to this one.
When Glass wrote this, I think he was saying you could recharge your 30 charges by spending 2 hours of time. And he was saying "if you had nothing to do all day (8 hours)" you could spend your time (discharging and) recharging the wand 4 times.
Well, I was mostly thinking of recharging up to four different wands on your day off, rather than the same wand four times (although I guess you could do that too, unless I decided to specifically prohibit it). But other than that, you have correctly divined my intention.
ScooterScoots wrote:
Some characters don't care much about losing 2 skill feats (though they might care a bit more about having to lose those right at level 2 and 4), but if you don't happen to have a character like that already on the team it really sucks to have to contort around the tax feats.
Most Skill feats are kinda rubbish, so if it were just those two feats it would not be so bad.
But as I said upthread, you need to invest a lot more feats than that to keep pace IME. And even if that were not the case, the skill increases are a much bigger cost than the feats. Unless you are a Rogue or Investigator, you only get to scale up a tiny handful of skills. One of those being locked to Medicine is very limiting.
