glass's page

Thanks for the reply!

glass wrote:

The cost to add charges would also be linear with spell level rather than quadratic

This is a bad idea.

Possibly, but not because I am doing this....

You're analyzing this with the presumption that action economy doesn't matter.

I am really not. Making wands of CSW and CCW more usable both in and out of combat is very much the goal.

At the moment IME, one of two things happen if they find one: Either, it is immediately added to the "to sell" list with all the other vender trash, and liquidated at the earliest opportunity. Or, someone will say "I'll take it, we might need it in an emergency" and then never use it.

If balance your wand pricing around CCW, you're going to end up with overpowered Wands of Haste.

IME haste is just that good that most casters who can take it, will take it. And if you cast it yourself it will likely affect more targets and last longer.

And you typically only need to cast it once per fight, so even if you are using a wand, it will take a very long time before you start to see any savings - you could buy a normal wand for less up front and then be good for 50 encounters. That is at least a quarter of the campaign (more like half for many campaigns) before you even break even. Obviously, if you do shell out for a second conventional wand, then you will have spent more. But you will also be at a level where 45 gp instead of 225 gp per charge is nice but not earth shattering. And when you had to pay out money matters as much as the total spent at the end of the campaign.

There may be spells which break this idea, but haste does not appear to be one of them.

Maybe 500x the spell level, so costs would range from a nice round 1000 gp for CLW to 2200 for CCW (assuming minimum caster levels)

That was clearly not right. It was supposed to be 250 x SL, and 22000 for CCW. EDIT: Sorry for the triple post - I blame short edit windows!

Hi Teridax, thanks for responding, and humouring my madness...

The main risk I'd see with a wand having 30 charges and being able to recharge 4 a day is that this could make wand balance quite variable depending on available downtime: with sufficient downtime, you might as well cast that wand spell at-will, and even with no downtime that's 4 free casts of a spell per day.

Sorry I was not clear: That four wands, not four charges. The idea was that you can add as many charges as you like to a Chargeable Wand in that time, as long as you pay for them (up to the max, of course).

They're not free, but at higher levels they are deliberately fairly cheap.

Given that staves can do the same for lower-rank spells, perhaps that could be fine, though I'd probably get annoyed as a GM if a high-level party each got a wand of quandary or the like to casually poof monsters out of existence every fight without dipping into their spell slots.

I need to take another look at the higher level spells! I had not seen quandary - that's pretty cool, and I agree it was bad to have it spammed. Although 32 gp per cast is not nothing, is is massively less than the 1300 gp you'd pay for an 8th-level scroll.

OTOH, I am loathe to abandon the linear charge pricing that works so well with heal and sooth (and direct damage attack spells like fireball, AFIACT).

Maybe I should take a leaf out of PF1's book, and limit it to spells whose base levels are 4 or less. That would include heal and magic missile, while preventing quandary. Now I'm off to have another read through the spell lists....

Anyway, upthread I mentioned the idea of rechargeable wands but sorta brushed past it. That probably deserves it own thread, but I mention it here because part of the idea is that PF1-style charged wands might be convertible to make them rechargeable (possibly by sacrificing some of the charges). Although the differing spell lists would still be an issue.

Threads are up for Chargeable Wands in PF1 and PF2 in their respective Homebrew forums.

The sister thread over in PF2 Homebrew is now up.

In creating it, I thought of something I meant to say here: Although I have concentrated on spells which restore HP in the post, I was not intending to limit Chargeable Wands to those spells only. I don't think there are any spells that would be particularly broken under this paradigm, that would not be already with normal wands. Unless you folks can think of one?

On the subject of a retronym for normal PF1 wands, how about "battery wands"?

So how does making wands rechargeable help? It kinda brings back the PF1 "happy-stick dance" without the elements that made that annoying (ie, the supremacy of low-level wands even at the very highest levels, leading to huge numbers of charges being used). What I am currently thinking is this:

Chargeable wands are "spells in a stick" like PF1 wands were, except that a fully charged wand only has 30 charges. Actually casting a spell from one works like a standard wand, except there is no daily restrictions (there may be a once-per-round restriction). They cost quite a lot up front, but the a significantly less to add charges. Restoring any number of charges takes two hours (you can do four per day if you have nothing better to do).

My grasp on how to price them is less solid than in the PF1 version of this thread, largely because the relationship between rank and wand cost is not obvious to me. But I am leaning towards having the upfront cost the same as a standard magic wand. The cost to recharge would be linear with spell rank (maybe 4 gp per rank - same as a scroll at Rank 1). Because the HP restored per spell rank is linear (at least for heal and soothe), that conveniently keeps the cost per hp consistent across all versions (ignoring the upfront cost).

To charge the wand, you would probably need Magical Crafting, and would definitely need to match the spells level and provide a casting of the spell (from a slot). To make the thing in the first place, you would need all that plus an appropriate formula (and more time/castings, of course).

So what do you think? Any suggestions on price. Any flaws with my cunning plan that I have missed? Anyone want to weigh in on the costs? Any thoughts on a better name for the standard PF2 spell wand than "magic wand" (to differentiate it from this, and in general)?

EDIT: I meant to say, although I have focused on spells which restore hp, I was intending this option to apply to any wands. Are there any spells which would be particularly broken under than paradigm? I guess it would cut across the extremely restricted spells slots that PF2 caster have, but I am not sure how much of a problem I consider that to be!

So how does making wands rechargeable help? It allows higher-level wands to have a higher up-front cost, keeping them out of the hands of lower-level parties, while keeping the cost per hp around the same. This is an idea I have had before, but I could never figure out the specifics before - now I think I might have. What I am currently thinking is this:

Chargeable wands are still "spells in a stick" and work in exactly the same way when activated. But a fully charged wand only has 30 charges, and cost more upfront, but obviously it is possible to add charges to them. And the recharge cost is considerably less than the upfront cost. Restoring any number of charges takes two hours (you can do four wands per day if you have nothing better to do).

Initially I was thinking that the upfront cost should double the standard wand, but 42k for a level-4 spell feels like a tough ask even if it works out well in the long term. Maybe 500x the spell level, so costs would range from a nice round 1000 gp for CLW to 2200 for CCW (assuming minimum caster levels). That seems pretty reasonable to me.

The cost to add charges would also be linear with spell level rather than quadratic. Noodling around in Excel, SL*15 gives the same cost per hp as a standard wand for CLW (about 2.7 gp) falling to 2.4 for the higher level wands - that feels about right to me (although that's ignoring the upfront cost of the wand, of course).

The other question is who can add charges. At a minimum, you'd need the spell on your spell list and known/available to cast, and a CL equal to the wand. It feels like it should be a bit more restricted than that, but restricting it to people with Craft Wand seems a bit too restricted.

Making them in the first place does require Craft Wand, of course. And if you have that feat, you can also convert a standard wand into a Rechargeable wand by sacrificing 20 charges and paying the difference in price.

So what do you think? Any flaws with my cunning plan that I have missed? What do you think about the "who can charge" question? Any ideas what to call now to contrast them with these?

Thanks for pointing me at Healing Vapour, Tridus; I was not aware of it.

Now that I am aware - wow! That's really terrible at its listed price. Taking ten minutes to get 5 hp back each, when that'd usually be less than half you hp even at first level, let alone at a level where you can actually afford it. And it's capped at four people so it probably won't even heal the whole party!

IMNSHO it would be grossly overpriced at 2 gp, let alone 20. Maybe 2 sp?

Anyway, upthread I mentioned the idea of rechargeable wands but sorta brushed past it. That probably deserves it own thread, but I mention it here because part of the idea is that PF1-style charged wands might be convertible to make them rechargeable (possibly by sacrificing some of the charges). Although the differing spell lists would still be an issue.

I came here to make a similar comment: Apparently, there is one more post in the comment thread for the Vorpal Dragon post since I last looked at it (but presumably posted before the upgrade).

The comment thread still shows up in PF2 General, but if you click either the main thread link or the "1 new" it takes you to the blog post itself (which as the OP notes, no longer seems to be connected to its comment thread).

Quoting myself because the edit window is closed....

I have been playing her as Large, but I just checked the table to see when she would became Colossal, and I think she should actually be Medium at "Very Young" - I need to figure out how to fix that.

Since her Large size has been significant, and her exact age has not been really, I have suggested to the GM that I rejig things to make her Young rather than Very Young. It will cost her two levels of sorcerer, but she effectively gets one back since Young is when her built-in casting kicks in. And since I was about to level her up anyway, she can get the other one back at 15th level.

The GM has not replied to my email yet, but I am fairly confident he will agree with me that that is the best route forward.

One slight side effect of the realisation is that it does cast doubt on my suggestion upthread to use GitP LAs. I have started a thread over there to talk about whether the differences should actually make any difference.

I am, accidentally, playing a full-on dragon right now in Curse of the Crimson Throne, specifically a very young Gold Dragon named Swiftgleam. The "accidentally" part is because Swiftgleam started as a Cohort to my original character. But I thought (and the GM agreed) that a whole freaking dragon for a single feat was OP. Swiftgleam was more fun, so I kept her and retired the original PC.

We are using the 3.5 rules for powerful species, but with the revised Level Adjustments they have hashed out over at GitP. Which means Swiftgleam has 10 Dragon HD, and LA of +0, and four class levels (about to be 5 - I need to level her up).

I have been playing her as Large, but I just checked the table to see when she would became Colossal, and I think she should actually be Medium at "Very Young" - I need to figure out how to fix that. Either way, she is not going to be Colossal until well after the campaign is over.

Armbands and bracers are remaining different slots.

LTTP on this, but I have always thought that armbands were worn on the upper arms. So I am not surprised they have remained separate from bracers.

Their only use is to be used for a in person table were you use a TV set into the table as a battle map.

That's not their only use. My main group has played online since COVID, with battle maps in Google Slides, and I use the interactive maps extensively when GMing.

You can't use them in VTT or adjust them in Gimp or photoshop.

Why not?

Are you set on copying PF1E wands exactly as-is over to PF2E?

I am not really set on anything, just idly musing - it would be nice if that were feasible, but it does not look like it is.

It sounds like you are saying in your world you have first edition and second edition heroes all coexisting in the same world and you use the rules related to the heroes for things except for things that can't fit which you just have not work for them.

That's about the size of it, although I try not to be too fussy about it - for example, scrolls are close enough to the same that I don't have separate scroll types even though the mechanics are not identical.

Although now that I say that, an issue for both wands and scrolls is that (especially post Remaster) there is not that much overlap in spell lists, so for even if wands in general were usable with no restrictions, the iconic wand of cure light wounds would still need Trick Magic Item. And then where there are spells with the same name, they often work drastically differently (heal vs heal being a particularly extreme example), which is a whole other can of worms.

I tend to give each system its own continent, so it's not like it comes up all the time.

I'm also a little curious about how you handle the pricing of things, since Second edition moved to a Silver Standard, so things that used to cost 1gp were normally costing more like 1 sp. So unless you made your first edition gp worth about 10x as much, you their stuff would probably be super expensive in your world.

This is an example of something I don't worry about (I have pondered saying that Tamvaran coins are heavier, but I decided it didn't really work).

(Tamvara is the "PF2 continent".)

Pretty sure that should be 120 GP, or double the price of a PF2 wand.

You're quite right; I have no idea how I managed to come up with the 60 figure. I should probably stop trying to create house rules or setting rules until I have brushed up on basic arithmetic.

I guess I should explain what why I was even considering this. There were two reasons:

The first is my homebrew world, Pelhorin. When I use it with a new system, I try to only add stuff rather than subtract: So those charged wands from 3.5 and PF1 campaigns still exist (except the ones that were fully expended, of course). It is actually a thing in-universe, that different people have different item affinities, and cannot use items which do not match their affinities (or in some cases they work differently). Conveniently, those affinities tend to map to whichever systems are used to represent the characters.

Which means, PF2 characters could find a PF1-style wand, and sell it to someone who could use it. But it would be nice if they could use it themselves.

The second reason was, as much as the "happy stick dance" could get annoying in 3.P, the Medicine checks after every fight is not much better. And even with Free Archetypes, it is annoying for someone to be stuck as "The Medicine guy". It would be nice to offer some alternatives, of which charged or otherwise reusable wands might be one.

Thanks again everyone.

It is looking like my initial idea is not going to fly. A first-rank wand with the same relative pricing to scrolls as PF1 would be 60 gp, which seems totally out of the price range of any character for which it would be relevant. Which it turns out is exactly the same pricing as a normal PF2 wand - I knew they were expensive for their limited utility.

The exception of course is for spells which you usually only want to cast once per day anyway, like mystic armour, for which the pricing seems much more reasonable - maybe still a little on the high side, but close enough that blanket dropping the price of standard wands is iffy.

Which brings us back to "nobody is going to pay 60 gp for a rank-1 consumable". By the time you could justify it, rank-1 spells are not relevant any more. And while 50 charges is quite a lot, the USP of this kind of wand is that you can use a bunch of charges in a row if you want to, so you're going to burn through them. But them costing less than that would make scroll and normal-wand costs ridiculous (and while I am not too worried about overshadowing the latter, I don't want the discrepancy to become too blatant).

Thanks folks! I was thinking that a discount compared with X scrolls would be appropriate (albeit probably not a 50% discount like in PF1), depending on how big X was. But I had not considered the action economy of a wand compared with scrolls, so that does give me pause. Balance with scrolls is a concern.

I would not want to give them a once-per-minute limitation, for reasons I cannot adequately articulate (once per round seems fine, though).

Maybe there should be some kind of upfront buy-in, like a General Feat to be able to use them? Or make them rechargeable for cheap (but not free), but give them a higher upfront cost than the initial charges would imply.

As in X charges, use them until they are used up, then buy another one (X was 50 in PF1, but need not be). Obviously, nobody would want to buy PF2-style wands, but that is hardly different from now. Aside from that, what would happen?

glass wrote:

...

℟

I still have no idea what you're getting at - at least you are consistent, I guess.

Apologies for the double post, but I just noticed Azothath's last paragraph. I tried to edit a response into my previous post, but the window close just before I could submit.

You should review Full Attack actions as there are several options. This is about one of those, thus debunking 'whenever' in general context.

Once again you include a cryptic final paragraph, and once again I skipped over it initially. And once again, now that I have actually read it, I have no idea what you are getting at. There are "several options" for what?

Debate may not be your forte.

That certainly appears to be the case for one of us!

I have laid out a clear argument for why I think the extra attack from blessing of fervour can be taken at any point during a full attack. You have responded with an unsupported statement that I am "incorrect" and cryptic insinuations that I do not know I am talking about, but no actual counter-arguments.

glass, you're quoting Toshy not Azothath(me).

At least get it staight as you are repeating my point(s) without understanding or insight and ignoring my previous post...

No, I am quoting you and indirectly, myself. The quote tags are a bit mangled, but AFAICS there is nothing from Toshy in there (and of course, the edit window is now closed so I cannot fix it myself).

Unless the post directly above mine, which I am quoting and responding to is by Toshy, not you. In which case it was, and still is, mislabelled by the forum software on my screen.

I mean, if were talking real world history, the whole thing is inspired by /taken from a poem by Lewis Carrol, which is literally about a creature called the Jabberwock that is slain by a "vorpal blade" that went "snicker snack".

Since it's inception "vorpal" came to mean a keen blade capable of decapitating it's target. And so Golarion having lore the a creature called the Jabberwock being killed by a vorpal blade in the primordial days of Golarion and birthing a kind of dragon...is honestly pretty good lore in my book.

I am pretty sure that, like a lot of words Carol used, it was meant to sound cool and did not mean anything in particular. The poem does not actually specify that he kills the beast by decapitation (in fact "and through and through" implies stabbing to me).

Even with odd-level casters, Mystic Theurge is pretty awful without early-entry shenanigans (which might not be allowed, but should be). Even-level casters make it two character levels worse. Personally, if I wanted a single-stat Mystic Theurge, I would probably go for Empyreal Sorcerer plus either Cleric of Druid.

That rule only applies to iterative attacks; extra attacks for any other reason can be taken whenever.

It is not incorrect. If you do your +7 iterative before your +2 iterative, you have done them in the correct order and complied with the RAW, even if you do your blessing of fervour attack in between.

Not that it really matters - there is no practical difference AFAICT between +7/+7/+2 with the iterative first and +7/+7/+2 with the iterative second. But if you wanted to do the former, you could.

EDIT: I have no idea what you mean by your last paragraph - of course we are talking about Full Attacks. That is the only way you get iteratives, and the only way to get an extra attack from blessing of fervour or haste.

glass wrote:

EDIT: Pizza Lord, why do you say "some GMs might not care about the order". Why would any?

Because first, going from highest to lowest is RAW:

Full-Attack

If you get multiple attacks because your base attack bonus is high enough, you must make the attacks in order from highest bonus to lowest.

(Bolding mine.)

That rule only applies to iterative attacks; extra attacks for any other reason can be taken whenever.

Sadly metamagics don't increase DCs except for Heighten and a few that explicitly say that in their description.

Not for an actual caster, and not directly for an item either. But I think Taja was assuming the DC for the Quickened version would be indirectly increased because it would be worked out based on a minimum stat of 14 rather than 10.

I am honestly not sure if they are right or not.

Two attacks when you already had two attacks is hardly an "extra attack". You get an extra attack at +7, in addition to the +7/+2 which you already had, which can be taken at any point during your full attack.

EDIT: Pizza Lord, why do you say "some GMs might not care about the order". Why would any?

I won't speak on behalf of exequiel759, as I think they're more than capable of stating their position, but I personally believe it is valid to want Vancian spellcasting to no longer be the default mode of spellcasting, even if it is equally valid to still want Vancian spellcasting as an option and thus not see it excluded.

They did not ask for it to be "not the default" (it already isn't), they asked for it to be "removed":

[...]so I feel vancian should be tweaked or removed in a future edition to streamline it a bit.

That or offer an alternative for those that don't like vancian like I do.

Admittedly they said "tweaked or removed", but given Flexible Spellcaster was deemed inadequate I am confident that "tweaked" was a redundant synonym for "removed" in this case.

They did go on to say "or offer an alternative" but there are already many alternatives (probably more than actually-vancian classes by this point), and they are apparently not good enough.

-----------------

The following (approximately) was an edit to my previous post, but it got eaten. Trying again:

Re wands: IMNSHO, wands are terrible in PF2, with the specific and weird exception of spell you usually only want once per day anyway (like the few remaining all-day buffs). EDIT: I have toyed with the idea of adding back PF1-style 50-charge wands, but that might be a bit of an overcorrection.

Re "Ivory Tower" design: ISTM that, in the article, Monte was using the term to refer to the intersect between not providing much in the way of guidance alongside the rules, and deliberately designing in imbalance. Although ISTM that common usage these days is more about the latter (even though the term itself is more suggestive of the former).

Anyway, whatever you call it, deliberately designing in imbalance is a bad idea, because it will always be on top of the imbalance you design in accidentally. When they were designing in 3e, they thought that if they aimed for say a 20% imbalance, they would end up with 20% imbalance. But instead they ended up with 20000%.

If you want 20% imbalance in a system as complicated as D&D or Pathfinder, you have to fight tooth and nail to get eliminate as much imbalance as possible.

I would like playing a non-vancian caster because I like playing the kineticist, which for the record, I wouldn't consider it a caster in the same sense as a wizard or sorcerer because a kineticist is pretty limited flavor-wise while your average caster is much more flexible.

I still do not understand this. You would like to play a non-vancian caster, because you like playing the kineticist, which by your own definition (and mine too, FWIW) is not a caster.

And if the Flexible Spellcaster archetype doesn't work for you, that's fine. I could quibble about that 90% estimate, but if you don't like it you don't like it. You can still play a sorcerer or an oracle - 100% non-vancian, plays exactly 0% like a vancian class. Why is that not good enough?

I feel its as valid for me to ask for something I want because I don't like the current system than it is for you to want to keep what already exist, isn't it?

When "something you want" is not an option for yourself, but for an option to be taken away from other people, it becomes a lot less valid.

Non-casters were always easier to play than casters but the excuse used to be that casters were more complex but also stronger. That isn't the case (necessarily) in PF2e anymore, so I feel vancian should be tweaked or removed in a future edition to streamline it a bit.

I never understand this attitude. You don't like playing caster anyway, so removing vancian casting would make no difference to you. Do you feel that those who do like it need to be punished?

That or offer an alternative for those that don't like vancian like I do.

They already do offer alternatives - you mentioned the Kineticist yourself. There are also non-vancian casters like the sorcerer and oracle, plus normally-vancian classes coverted via the Flexible Spellcaster archetype.

Pf2 is a system where a monster with +10 to its rock throw attack entry gets published, but never gets any form of official correction. Not even an acknowledgment of error. That is not a "red flag," that is simply proof positive that Paizo sell an incomplete and erroneous product.

I am not seeing why "a monster with +10 to its rock throw attack entry" is a problem on its face. It could be a problem if the bonus should be more like +2 or +20, based on Level, but it is far from self-evident. What monster, and what should the bonus be?

More generally, I think you are severely underestimating how difficult quality assurance is. The presence of mistakes does not indicate that they do not have people and systems trying to avoid them - such people and systems will never be perfect.

That said, they really should publish errata in a more timely manner. I agree with you on that.

Everyone wants [vancian magic to be killed off], though.

I promise you, "everyone" does not want that. For example, I don't.

1) But then how does the GM continue to provide treasure that interests the players?

Maybe by items that have interesting effects?

2) What does the higher-level item even do in cases where you might not care about the item bonus it grants to a skill, or if the spell it mimics doesn't have a functional Heightened effect?

I have no idea what you are trying to say here: Items which grant bonuses to skills are not going to have Saves, surely?

You've reintroduced a problem that was previously solved by static DC's

Impossible, since no problems are solved by static DCs.

glass wrote:

Where are they getting the extra actions to activate "a bunch" of lower-level items?

I mean, that's the point. The lower-level items need to have some opportunity cost so that someone is disincentivized from using the lower-level item version.

It's my point, which is in opposition to yours. Even if a lower level item which has a relevant DC, its affects on any given save result is still commensurate with its lower level. But it still costs the same actions.

glass wrote:

Where are they getting the extra actions to activate "a bunch" of lower-level items?

Combination of prebuffs, no/free action items, action compression items, and sometimes just actually spending your limited actions.

Spoiler:

No/free action items like the collar of the shifting spider just give you something always active or close enough to it. The collar is a free action at the start of every fight. So you can sink a good chunk of gold into that and some mutagens to use (typically moderate are best bang for buck, but greater juggernaught mutagens are great and that's certainty a gold sink). Echo receptors are another good example, you don't need to activate them or anything. You just get the precise sense.

Action compression items are abilities that just do something you wanted to do as an action better. Spring heels are the best example here, instead of striding once as an action now you can stride twice. Get to an enemy that's further away for less actions. Spider chair is also an example here.

"just using your limited actions" is stuff like dust of disappearance and quickness potions. These do just eat your actions, it's just that their effects are good enough to be worth it (and quickness potion kinda gives them back). You can easily sink like 10k gold into just dust of disappearance and let me tell you that is money well spent. Trudd's strength daggers are another example.

Prebuffs are self explanatory, you did use actions on it just at a prior time when it didn't cost much of anything. There are a bunch of different wand buffs, mostly split into 8 hour/day buffs and 10 minute buffs. 8 hour or day buffs you generally want the whole day (which can take 2-3 wands depending on how much you care on having it during the rare night ambush), these are things like mind blank (which really boosts your dust of disappearance), longstrider, and darkvision.

10 minute buffs you want to buy enough of that you can use them at the drop of a hat. If you think that there's even a 5% chance of combat or important skill roll in the next 10 minutes, you pick up your heroism wand and use it. For this purpose you have like 10 of the damn things and additional backup scrolls to boot. Never be moving around in a dungeon without your heroism. Some other examples include second rank invis (buys you time to use your dust of disappearance if you lose initiative) and clairvoyance.

There will of course be times where you do just get ambushed, and your 10 minute buffs aren't active, and for those times you can go harder on spell slot usage and other resources to compensate. Or just use your spring heels to run away and come back buffed.

With all these strategies combined you can comfortably spend your treasure by level without ever picking up a fixed DC item for it's fixed DC effect, and get great value for each and every GP you spend.

I am pretty sure none of those examples even have save DCs, so would be completely unaffected by the OP's proposal.

1) In such a theoretical system, you get this issue where you can't really give players meaningfully new items. They'll just stick with their existing items, and sell the new items.

If making the DC non-terrible means that players stick with older items, then that just shows that they were not excited by the new items' effects. So it is a good thing that they were not forced to change to them! EDIT: IOW, they will be selling them either way, even if only to buy upgraded versions of the items they already have.

2) The wealth disparity between high- and low-level characters means that high-level characters are incentivized to buy a bunch of lower-level magic items that have very useful activated abilities.

Where are they getting the extra actions to activate "a bunch" of lower-level items?

Presumably someone thinks this is actually a good idea. Since it's definitely not better for small conventions, process of elimination means there must be a benefit at large ones, right?

The benefits are pretty obvious: The scenarios are easier to write because there is less/no need for multiple statblocks fr the same encounter (and probably a little easier to read for the same reason). And there will never be a situation where a level 1 character gets stuck with a bunch of level 4s and cannot really contribute much.

It's just that that last situation is being traded for the table not firing at all.

Hence my "let's wait and see" stance.

Your stance has not been "wait & see". You have been actively defending the decision to the point of making up reasons it will be okay that directly contradict the announcement. And here's the thing: A couple of months of no tables firing could easily kill off a small lodge - by the time they can say "I told you so" it will be much too late.

If the PFS leadership has further information that will cast this announcement in a different light, then by all means they can provide it. Unless and until they do, I am going to assume that they meant exactly what they said. Unless we kick up enough of a fuss that they change direction, what they have announced is what is going to happen, and a lot of lodges will be gone.

I am not sure it is possible to kick up enough fuss to make the PFS leadership take note (they didn't re clerics of gorum, or oracles), but assuming everything is going to be fine based on nothing is not doing anyone (including the PFS leadership) any favours.

Let's have a little dream and imagine there is a level 7-8 scenario with additional rules to include a level 9 PC.

Why are we dreaming about a 3-level band when they have explicitly announced that it will be a 2-level band.

Something I do not understand : why do people think the 2-levels band will be better for big conventions than the current system ?

I don't think anyone thinks it will be better for big conventions; only that it will not be worse, or at least not as much worse as it will be for smaller cons and game days.

I am not currently running any PF1 campaigns, and the one I thought be starting soon (Iron Gods) got pushed back a bit. But I will still talk about the two (soon to be three) PF1 campaigns I am playing in:

On Sunday night, we wrapped up chapter 8 of Savage Tide rather abruptly: In the final "dungeon" we managed to go straight to the one encounter that could give us the info we needed, gained said info, and left. We had been alternating Savage Tide with my PoA game, but we finished that, so another player is stepping up and running Strange Aeons starting this coming Sunday.

On Thursdays, we are continuing with Curse of the Crimson Throne, exploring Scarwall. Without getting spoilery, that's an interesting place!

Personally, I will take "legible" over "beautiful" every day of the week.

There are three stats for an item that are based on level: effect DC, effect power (damage dealt, healing given, etc), and cost.

You can't change just one of them and then still claim that the item is balanced.

At best, that line of reasoning only works if the items in question are currently balanced. Since they fairly clearly are not (fixed-DC items are and always* have been vendor trash), it does not apply.

(* Well, for 25 years anyway.)

I wanted to argue that it works, but based on the arguments in the thread I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that it does not by RAW.

It will still work IMC, though!

@Trip.H, Reactions can certainly preempt the thing that triggered them (otherwise a whole bunch of stuff would break), but that is not the problem here. The problem is when it triggers you are unconscious, so you cannot take Reactions (or cast spells).

Re Decimals: I can see how it could be confusing if you don't think of light bulk as 0.1, and as far as I can tell the rules never actually refer to it as a decimal. But if you are treating it as a decimal already (as Tridus explicitly was), then ISTM "round down and then compare" is the most natural thing in the world!

Re Large & Tiny Creatures: If I ever read that part of the rules, I don't remember it now, but as I said it has never come up IMC. TBF it is kinda wonky.

Yeah, it's getting a Rulebook, a Lost Omens book, two Adventure Paths (One 1-10 level, another 11-20), a novel, and some PF Society stuff (assuming no extra stuff which hasn't already been announced taking place during the event, which is I guess possible); plus the Shining Kingdoms book obviously having been released to help set up for the event. Quite a fair sized thing.

A novel? I didn't think Paizo did those anymore. Did I get the wrong end of the stick?

Bulk takes the problem of "you have add up a bunch of numbers and the total can get to 3 digits" and replaces it with "you have to add up a bunch of numbers except the decimals don't work like you expect, the numbers are extremely arbitrary and hard to estimate on the fly, and the whole system becomes extremely confusing once large or tiny PCs are involved."

Rhetorical question: How do decimals not "work like you expect"? They round down, just like everything other time you end up with decimals in Pathfinder.

Non-rhetorical question: How does it get confusing with large and tiny creatures? (I have never had any large or tiny PCs in my games).

This is definitely a case where reading the rules is important, as others mention in the thread already. Because it's a Unique DC to recognize whats unique about that person, but not their common ancestry/etc. People who just use the unique DC verbatim wind up in silly situations where you can't recognize an Orc because that Orc has a name.

While it is definitely a good idea to write it down, hopefully most of us would realise that the DC to identify an orc as an orc would not go up by 10 just because one has a specific named stat block (after all, the orcs using generic statblocks have names too in-universe, even if they are not written down anywhere).

AoN is great as a reference, but I think the books work better for seeing the overall structure of the rules. With AoN you can dive right to the part you're looking for, but you might miss the stuff a little further around it that you should also know exists.

I would phrase it as AoN is great for content, but not for rules structure.

AoN is generally great, yes, but it has created this false understanding of how knowledgeable DCs (and even relevant skills) work. As Hammerjack pointed out at the beginning.

I do not understand - in what way?

The weakness in the Archives of Nethys DCs for identifying creatures is that they are based solely on level with no consideration for the creature being familiar, common, uncommon, or never before seen

Wait, really? They don't include the Rarity in the AoN DCs? That's really unhelpful if true. EDIT: It does not appear to be true, or at least not universally so (I have only checked one example): The Tarrasque correctly gives the DC for a Unique level 25 of 60 (it would be 50 without the +10 Rarity modifier).

glass wrote:

Cori Marie wrote:

But the thing is, when someone tells you they're reading and having internal discussions about it, you still don't believe them.

Has anyone said that? If so, please link it so I can decide how much I actually believe it. If not, why bring it up?

???

It's the seventh post above yours (by James Jacobs)...

Our favourite dinosaur is of course great. But the post you refer to says nothing about PFS, which is not surprising because AFAIK he is not part of the PFS team. Which makes the reference to it rather unsatisfying, when it comes in response to my saying this:

Nobody is asking for a "debate" - only that PFS team acknowledge that the changes are unpopular (and preferably reverse them).

EDIT: I get that we are on Paizo's own forums, and there are some passionate fans of the company here. But trying to shut down criticism does not help Paizo - if anything, it hurts them.

But the thing is, when someone tells you they're reading and having internal discussions about it, you still don't believe them.

Has anyone said that? If so, please link it so I can decide how much I actually believe it. If not, why bring it up?

glass wrote:

... false premise ...

yes, I could have phrased it better to avoid your pedantic reading on the onset. It's making a valid point on "how do you interpret this paragraph" and that there are two ways to go given the text.

First, why are you quoting me as saying "false premise" when the actual words I used were the much less inflammatory "faulty premise". Secondly, that it is not an AnO is not my being "pedantic" - it is fundamental to the question at hand. At the very least, you are begging the question by characterising it as such.

All the text is important, you cannot ignore any of it.

Exactly. Your reading requires ignoring a bunch of text; mine does not.

Second if you read the full text of the deed, I posted above you will see that it does not mention any type of action. Therefore, it does not override the action type.

And Azathoth called me "pedantic"! Yes, strictly speaking Attacks of Opportunity are not "Actions" so you are technically almost correct (which, contrary the meme, is not the best kind of correct). Nonetheless, it is clearly stated in the text you just re-quoted that the Parry part of OP&R costs an AoO not a Standard Action.

(Only almost, because the Parry part requires an Immediate Action.)

Making a melee (or ranged) attack is in fact listed as a standard action in the book.

The Attack Action is a Standard Action, but I never said it wasn't. There are umpteen ways to make a melee or ranged attack that are not the Attack Action (some of which are other Standard Actions, but many are not). This is surely not news to you?

Paizo learned long ago, the hard way, not to come and debate with irate posters.

Nobody is asking for a "debate" - only that PFS team acknowledge that the changes are unpopular (and preferably reverse them).

Also, characterising people who are unhappy with the announced changes as "irate" when it has been remarkably calm considering is not cool.