graeme mcdougall's page

Organized Play Member. 120 posts. 3 reviews. No lists. No wishlists.


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I'm hoping for Grippli & expecting to be disappointed. I have a Griplli Inquisitor in my campaign & couldn't contemplate a conversion to 2E until those building blocks are in place. (though will definitely start any new campaign in 2E)
Anyway, I'll be buying this anyway, can't get enough of new races & sure the crunch/ fluff balance here will be to my liking, as it was in the 1st half of Character Guide.


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So obviously they are enough for a CRPG (Classic RPG) which is party-based a la Pathfinder Kingmaker or Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous.

But I'm talking about computer RPGs where turn-based battle is the main focus, like Shining Force, Final Fantasy Tactics & Fire Emblem.

The reason I ask is that I recently completed Fire Emblem 3 Houses. It was a fun game & I enjoyed it. But all the way through I was thinking:

- The action system is basically this: You get 1 standard action & 1 move. But your turn ends as soon as you do the standard action. If you want to move, you have to do it first.

And it struck me how antiquated & limited this is compared to PF2's 3-action system. Or even PF1's system.

I think there's enough in the PF2 rules to make a great Tactical RPG & I hope it's obvious that in terms of lore, items etc Pathfindr as a brand easily has what it takes.

Of course, there might not be any money in tactical RPGs, but I was just thinking out loud.


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Vallarthis wrote:

There is also an option intermediate between 3-level modules like Fall of Plaguestone and the three-part adventure path, that being the 6-level modules like the upcoming 128-page Dead God's Hand, or previously, Ire of the Storm (I just checked and it's 5 levels, but only 64 pages, which is some high-density adventure). These are effectively two-part APs. I quite like these, as it is long enough to feel worthwhile to really get invested in a character, while short enough to hopefully get through it before life dissolves the group, as so often happens.

Paizo seems unsure about trying more 3-part APs (understandably so: if it ain't broke don't fix it, especially when it's your bread and butter), but are demonstrably okay adding these 6-level adventures on the side. I just hope they do some mid-level ones, instead of always starting at 1st.

Ire of the Storm is also a truly excellent adventure - absolutely perfect mix of RP, combat, hexcrawl, sub-systems woven together.

These mini-campaigns are my favourite format, I've already pre-ordered Dead God's Hand to go with Ire, Dragon's Demand, Emerald Spire etc


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I'd imagine this is more for the 'Lost Omens' line, being more story-specific - they don't want the thing with PF1 where every mechanical option ever released was immediately stripped of all context & thrown into one giant optimisation blender.
I'm guessing that the Advanced PLayers Guide, for example, will have less rairity - restricted stuff than the very region/ organisation -specific Lost Omens line.
Additonally, don't forget that 'access' gives you a bypass to GM permission for Uncommon, only requiring that you be the class/ nationality etc that the option was designed for.


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This x1000.
Needs to be in the CRB. Saves so much time & hassle for so little space.


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I think I also prefer Starfinder's Hitpoints / StaminaPoints/ ResolvePoints to Playtest's HitPoints/ TreatWounds/ Hero Points.
Although I think both are decent & functional.

But more broadly, I find myself asking : Why isn't there more Starfinder in this ? If you took Starfinder, added 3-Action economy, sprinkled with some of Playtest's other ideas, trimmed here, expanded there, you'd have a pretty great system, I think. Starfinder seems to solve a lot of the traditional 3.x problems without throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

Some comments from 1 or more of the design team, seem convinced that the type of stories you tell in Fantasy & Science Fantasy are different enough that the same mechanics often can't work & I....I just don't see it myself.

I even think they should have considered Starfinder's route of making all spellcasters spontaneous & finding other ways to differentiate the spellcasting classes. Although I accept that might be a bridge too far for some people.


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For me it's Armour, especially heavy Armour.

I know this might be controversial but for me, unarmoured or lightly armoured characters should NEVER be able to equal heavily armoured characters in AC (given the same level of investment).

Instead, the lightly armoured characters should make up the difference elsewhere.

But at the very least, medium & heavy armour shouldn't be activly worse than light/ unarmoured.

They have done so well with all the cool weapon qualities that really make weapons visceral & meaty - let armour be the same, not just a series of punishments for using it.


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Also PF2 is using them as part of a 'degrees of success' system, so for save or die spells & the like, they actually smooth out the spikiness, allowing for more inbetween results between the previous extremes.
Now I'm not sure I like them being quite as universally applied throughout the system as they are but in spell results its hard to argue against them being an improvement, I think.


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I find the Condition cards in PF1 & Starfinder are very useful, easy to make your own if you want to save money.
I think it's worth printing out action cards for the most common actions & giving them to the players as well.
Add to that some post it notes/ print outs of other common things & it should help out a lot.


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I think some people are being a bit harsh on Colette here.
That style of extremely deadly, coldly adversarial game certainly isn't my preferred style but it IS a legitimate style that has a right to be considered. ESPECIALLY in the context of a Playtest where we're being asked to push the game to it's limits & break it.

Now, I don't think this kind of playstyle should be the main determining factor in the game design but it at least deserves a place in the discussions.

I think it will probably take until the 1st player-focused hardback in the real release for Characters to start to really have the versitility of PF1 characters but it's a decent goal.

And I don't see any reason to label people a 'dick GM' - their players are presumably more or less down with this style of game or they wouldn't be playing.


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'Sword & Sorcery' is only a narrow, well-defined genre to a niche audience of Fantasy Literature fans.
For the rest of the world 'Swords & Sorcery' means everything from Lord of The Rings, Harry Potter, King Arthur, Game of Thrones, Skyrim, Dark Souls - literally almost any Fantasy story.
Paizo are writing for a mainstream audience, so they're using it in the general sense.

PF2 may or may not end up being to a given person's taste but I don't think this throw-away phrase is telling us anything about any change of direction or tone for the game.


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A common problem.

The spell roll is actually explained much better in the glossary section on pg 423; but that page isn't referenced in the index & they don't bother to explain there that the spell DC is just the same modifier but with a flat value of 10 in place of the roll.

Obviously they are very happy with the consistant way that attacks & DCs are calculated throughout the game but that's no excuse for not spelling things out explicitly & in a sensible place.

They should explain Ranged & Melee Touch Attacks, Spell Rolls & Spell DCs all together, at the start of the 'spells' chapter and point out the differences between them.

You shouldn't give new players a bunch of general rules spread throughout the book & leave them to piece together what they actually need to do at the table from the general rules - you should give them the specific rules in the correct chapter & let them see the underlying similarity in their own time as they learn.


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Why are we still using aligment ?

Because it's a really useful tool for character & NPC building, a very intuitive & elegant 1st approximation/ rule of thumb for quickly fleshing out a character's motivation.

Just asking a player why they chose their alignment for their character often results in lots of great info.

I really think the anti-alignment sentiment some people have is just an inability to deal with ambiguity.
They can't stand that there are several different ways to be Lawful Neutral, or that a particular character might fall almost exactly between Chaotic Good & Neutral Good.
It's like they can't take the system for the flexible, approximate tool it is. If it isn't capable of unambiguously catagorising every character in existance then it has to be killed with fire.
I don't agree.

And I would defend Alignment as mechanics as well, as long as it doesn't become too overbearing. It's good to have limits sometimes. It helps to give classes & creatures an identity instead of just a bland anything can be anything mush.

Anyway, that was my 'in defence of alignment'


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There's been loads of feedback on this stuff already but it does seem to get lumped together, when really I think these are seperate issues.

1) Layout: This is just where things are located, how they're referenced & organised.
I agree with the majority; it's proper rough right now.
Location of powers, organisation of feats, lack of feat effect summary in the feat summary table.
I'm not really worried about this at all. It's a playtest document, with all the problems I expect. I'm confident Paizo know how to organise a rulebook come the final.

2) Graphic Design: I actually think this is a big step forward, even in it's rough state. It's finally incorporating some of the Beginner's Box presentation.
The way you go to a class & everything is there at a glance - you can see what's for level 1 & what's for later.
Much better than the 'giant wall of text' paradigm of PF1 CRB.
Action icons work really well in practice - I don't mean that these particular icons are especially great vs any of the other possible alternatives but that action icons generally work great.
Again, I have a lot of confidence in Paizo about this.

3) Tone/Language: This is my biggest worry for the book & in fact for the whole PF2 project.
A huge amount of people have remarked how dry, technical & clunky the book is right now.
The excess of traits & keywords is a huge problem. It's a manual that feels like it prioritises machine-readability so much that it actively obstructs human-readability.
The final version of this book will be the 1st & for many, only point of contact with the game for the next 10 years to come - it MUST be instantly inspiring & readable.
I kind of feel like after a decade of putting up with all the inherited jank of 3.5, the designers are trying to pin down & pre-empt all the possible future stesses on the chassis, at any cost.
Right now all the scaffold is showing on this game.
I just think that a good system (and I think this IS a good system, at it's core) WILL fail if it's presentation is so far off what is comfortable for the ordinary punter.

TLDR:
Layout - They'll sort it by final
Graphic Design - Good & will get better
Tone/ Language - Pretty worried


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I think you're completely right, Tamago.
When traits are used to append additional rules to a rules structure like an action or feat, they act as a barrier to comprehension & understanding.

The aim should be for these types of rules blocks to be free-standing as much as possible.

When it's the other way round & it's a way for more general rules & spells to refer back to the rule block, it's much better.

And if they're going to use traits to parachute in rules, they need to be a lot less than the 150-170 they have now.


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Yeah, 'adventurer's kit' etc definitely need to be in the final CRB, with the total cost & bulk pre-calculated.
I can JUST ABOUT be bothered to buy all the bedrolls, pup tents, flint & steel etc but it's unreasonable to ask that of a beginner who just wants to get in & play.
1 kit per class would be great - with thieves tools for the thieves, alchemist's kit for the alchemists etc.

'Overall, I'm pretty happy with the playtest. This is the direction I want to see Paizo go. It's still going to have more rules than D&D, but to some degree, Pathfinder needed to be slimmed down to grab other players as well. '

Agreed with the overall impression. There are many, many things to be fixed & tweaked but this is the basis of a good system, in my opinion.


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OP, I agree with your case against Charisma, although I could live with it.
Since we accept they need a mental stat boost, I would also vote for Int. I see it as a combination of 'low cunning', 'mechanical ingenuity' & 'diabolical imagination', rather than academic intelligence.


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Jason Bulhman confirmed on one of their Gencon panels (I watched the twitch video after the fact) that it was an oversight - all classes should be 'Trained' in 'Unarmoured' by default.
Said it's #1 on their errata list.

1:54:00 in this stream:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/293043872


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I like the change a lot.
In PF1, silver & Copper were basically pointless - now at least silver is real money.
Additionally, I think that the wealth of adventurers vs commoners stays a bit more under control, at least for the first few levels.


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Just watching Paizo's gencon video on Twitch - there's going to be a Starfinder Beginner box, following the same format as the Pathfinder one.
Very welcome.


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Pg 10 : The uncommon rarity indicates an element available
only to those who have been initiated into a special kind
of training, grow up in a certain culture, or come from a
particular part of the world. A character can’t take these
options by default.

Pg 31 : WEAPON FAMILIARITY (GOBLIN) FEAT 1
You are trained with the dogslicer and horsechopper.
In addition, you gain access to all uncommon goblin weapons.
For the purpose of proficiencies, you treat martial goblin weapons
as simple weapons and exotic goblin weapons as martial
weapons.

Pg 86 : Fighter Weapon proficiencies - Expert in all simple and martial weapons. Trained in all exotic weapons.

I'm building a Level 1 Goblin Dex Fighter.
Am I correct in thinking I need to take Weapon Familiarity (Goblin) in order to use a Dogslicer ?
As a fighter, I already have Expert prof with Melee martial weapons, which the Dogslicer is. Nor do I need the change in status for Martial Goblin Weapons to Simple, or Exotic Goblin to Martial.
Do I need Weapon Familiarity (Goblin) just to overcome the (Uncommon) trait, or is my fighter Expert Martial prof enough ?


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I mean, why not, if they've got the page count ?
Personally, I'd rather have Kobold, Tengu or Ratfolk but I certainly wouldn't object if Orcs turn up in the eventual CRB.


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Most intersting thing here is the Adoptive Ancestry general feat; this seems to be the answer to 'what if I'm a dwarf raised by elves' or 'what if I'm a goblin adopted by gnomes'.
Overall, I really like their approach to race in this new edition - the only potential problem being how much more work it will take to invent new ancestries compared to PF1 races. I think it's a problem that will be overcome as 3rd parties get used to it & maybe with an Advanced Race Guide later on.


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Seems really good.
The classes along with the 3-action economy are my favourite parts of what has been revelaed so far.


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The Armageddon Orb & Spinning Blade Pillar are really cool - I like the rules presented here.
Once again, I think the presentation could use work.

I wish they would de-emphasise the keywords attached to actions & emphasise the base action.

Instead of saying:

"That creature can use the Grab Edge reaction to avoid falling."

I wish it was more like:

"That creature can use a Reaction (grab edge) to avoid falling."

Or something like that.


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Late to the party but, I like it. As I've liked most of the class previews.
It's cool that PF2 is moving away from everyone being traditional casters - it helps to give it it's own flavour and forces there to be more good non-spell options.


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thflame wrote:

Here's an idea:

Drop the strange action names and just tell us how many actions it takes to do something and any other mechanically noteworthy attributes of the action.

This.

At the risk of banging on about it - I understand the designers want to add some keywords to things so they can target them with other rules later.
Like you could see a 'smooth operator' feat that would target operate actions or something.
But PLEASE don't bury us under so many clunky keywords attached to every little thing, it feels almost like reading computer code at points.


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Voss wrote:
graeme mcdougall wrote:
Voss wrote:
kwiqsilver wrote:
Voss wrote:

Right, so, first and foremost.

Etched runes. Just... just for the record, you know etching involves cutting designs into, say... metal, yes? This isn't a process that is erased or 'copied' just by licking your thumb and wiping it away.

Etching a rune is a magical process

>.>

No, it isn't. Etching is a normal thing mundane people actually do with metal and stone work.... unless you want to claim that anyone's great-great grandparent's headstones are magical objects.

Its great for decorative arts, maker's marks and monuments and markers. I'd expect to see a lot of mundane etching in Golarion, especially in Ulfen lands, where they're explicitly using runes for mundane communication and land claims.

You deserve a rolleyes for that.

I mean Etching in the context they've just presented. It's blatantly obvious I did.

Then you don't understand the problem I have with it. It's a continuation of the ongoing Terminology Problem, which encompasses all sorts of mechanical and in-game things that are anachronistic, inappropriate, awkward and/or mean something completely different than what the chosen term actually means.

That they're also treating etching metal like wax pencil marks and magical items like temporary tattoos just grinds it in deeper.

Further, given that PF2 is even more entrenched in Golarion as a setting, this is yet more things that... don't exist in that setting. Well established characters have legendary items that aren't Orihalcuzwhatsit with temporary sticker decals slapped on them.

Fair enough, I suppose. I do agree the Playtest has plenty of terminology problems.

Etching doesn't seem like one to me - I can actually picture the character sitting by the campfire carving the magic rune into their weapon & when they're done - the rune glows on the new weapon & falls away on the old.
It doesn't get on my nerves like all these action operation activation things.


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Voss wrote:
kwiqsilver wrote:
Voss wrote:

Right, so, first and foremost.

Etched runes. Just... just for the record, you know etching involves cutting designs into, say... metal, yes? This isn't a process that is erased or 'copied' just by licking your thumb and wiping it away.

Etching a rune is a magical process

>.>

No, it isn't. Etching is a normal thing mundane people actually do with metal and stone work.... unless you want to claim that anyone's great-great grandparent's headstones are magical objects.

Its great for decorative arts, maker's marks and monuments and markers. I'd expect to see a lot of mundane etching in Golarion, especially in Ulfen lands, where they're explicitly using runes for mundane communication and land claims.

You deserve a rolleyes for that.

I mean Etching in the context they've just presented. It's blatantly obvious I did.

Edit, but leaving my original comment so as to not confuse:
My bad, you weren't replying to me, just to someone who said exactly the same thing.


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No matter what angle I squint at it, Resonance just squats over the things it touches, adding an extra layer to items that already have enough layers. It's just not simplifying anything. I would prefer item slots.

Runes are cool, potencies & properties are cool, terminology remains pretty horrible & clunky overall (but this last can be easily revised for final release).


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Voss wrote:

Right, so, first and foremost.

Etched runes. Just... just for the record, you know etching involves cutting designs into, say... metal, yes? This isn't a process that is erased or 'copied' just by licking your thumb and wiping it away.

Some in-world justification for how they're easily removed of transferred would be nice. Something that isn't just wave another medium (a runestone) at it, so copying it twice.

It's a magic process. I see it like this: You etch into the new weapom with the old one by the side, as you finish the etching, a blue glow flows from the old rune to the new & the old one dissolves to powder with that special effect you've seen in every fantasy film of the last 30 years. It just doesn't seem a stretch at all.


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I'm pretty sure that the new Archetype system CAN be use to make the kind of Archetypes we enjoy in PF1 - I just hope the designers are interested in doing that.
For me, the good archetypes have been made by a designer who has a laser focus on basically making a subclass for 1 of the classes. They know exactly what they're removing from the base class & why, they have a goal in mind & all the flavour & mechanics are pulling towards that vision. Even the name matters.
There's no mechanical reason the new system can't achieve the same, but it seems to have much broader goals, that personally, I'm less interested in.
The Prestige Archetype bodes well in that they clearly have in mind that this basic structure can support different types of Archetype. I just hope they get what it was about PF1 Archetypes that most people liked.

Although we haven't had any confirmation, I would be surprised if they don't consider Archetypes that swap out Class Features as well as Class Feats, which would allow for PF1-style Archetypes.


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Lucid Blue wrote:

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

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

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


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Although not related to this blog, I'd also change 'Somatic' to 'Gesture'. 'Somatic' means absolutely nothing to 99% of the population.


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Mark Seifter wrote:
graeme mcdougall wrote:
Fuzzypaws wrote:
Wandering Wastrel wrote:
Paizo Blog wrote:
A potion requires you to spend an Operate Activation action to drink it. A necklace of fireballs requires you to spend 2 Operate Activation actions

Urgh.

It's possible that I'll get used to this sort of phrasing, but right now it just seems... no.

The wording definitely cast Induce Greater Headache on me, yeah. >.>

Seriously, what's wrong with saying "A potion requires 1 action to drink" or "A necklace of fireballs requires a total of 2 actions to use: 1 to pull a bead loose and 1 to throw it."

Do we seriously have to overdefine every single possible action in the game? This isn't a computer program which requires that sort of thing for the machine to understand your intent.

If you really really have to define the actions, say Use Action or Operate Action instead of Operate Activation Action. Say Focus Action instead of Focus Activation Action. Etc

100% agree. It's really destroying the elegance of the 3-action economy. If Resonance requires this over-definition, then it's Resonance that should go.
The wording is completely unrelated to resonance, it's all a question of style and clarity. We originally had it as Operate, Focus, and Command, but Activation was added during editing to make it clearer. If people think it doesn't make it clearer, that's good feedback and it's easy enough to change if that's widespread.

I must admit, I can't wrap my head around this particular blog at all (I have generally liked almost all the other blogs).

If, as others have speculated:

Focus Action = Free Action
Opperate Action = 1 Action (Somatic), generates Attacks of Opportunity.
Command Action = 1 Action (Verbal), doesn't generate Attacks of Opportunity

Why are things not being expressed in terms of actions & free actions ?

In the example items, I see a Focus Activation being both an action (Cloak of Elevenkind) & a free action (Fear Gem).

I'm afraid I don't get what any of the new words attached to the actions actually mean: Not Focus, Operate, Command or Activation.


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Fuzzypaws wrote:
Wandering Wastrel wrote:
Paizo Blog wrote:
A potion requires you to spend an Operate Activation action to drink it. A necklace of fireballs requires you to spend 2 Operate Activation actions

Urgh.

It's possible that I'll get used to this sort of phrasing, but right now it just seems... no.

The wording definitely cast Induce Greater Headache on me, yeah. >.>

Seriously, what's wrong with saying "A potion requires 1 action to drink" or "A necklace of fireballs requires a total of 2 actions to use: 1 to pull a bead loose and 1 to throw it."

Do we seriously have to overdefine every single possible action in the game? This isn't a computer program which requires that sort of thing for the machine to understand your intent.

If you really really have to define the actions, say Use Action or Operate Action instead of Operate Activation Action. Say Focus Action instead of Focus Activation Action. Etc

100% agree. It's really destroying the elegance of the 3-action economy. If Resonance requires this over-definition, then it's Resonance that should go.


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Resonance is the one part of the previews so far that I've had serious doubts about & I'm afraid this blog only heightens them.
It's a confusing mess of unintuituve gamey-sounding terms, multiple resource tracking with very little payoff. I just think it's harder to understand than what it's replacing - I'd rather each item have it's own usage limits in plain english, like PF1 than atempt to 'unify' them in this clumsy way.
Furthermore, the problems it's solving aren't even very big problems. For me, the cure is worse than the disease so far. I will give the system a fair go on the playtest though & I'm ready to admit I'm wrong if it plays much better than it reads.

On to the positive: I like the concept of trinkets a lot - fire & forget cool 1-use items for martials to get in on some of the caster's magic item fun. I think they should work well with or without the resonance system.


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The coolest thing for me about this blog is what's omitted - If fortress-building rules are absent in the playtest but planned, then they may well be in the Core Rulebook.
That would be really nice - it's been too long that stuff has been absent from the core 1st party game.


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The Unfortunate Pumpkin wrote:
Joe M. wrote:
The Unfortunate Pumpkin wrote:
I just hope there are enough backgrounds in the final version for me to write whatever backstory I want for my character and still be able to find a background that fits it. One of my favorite things about character creation is thinking out and writing my characters backstory, so I hope the backgrounds don't limit what I can create as a backstory.

Well, with 19 backgrounds in the Playtest book and 6 in the Playtest adventure, you're starting with 25 options. And I would expect that the eventual PF2 Core will have more than 19.

But more to the point—it should be pretty easy in this system to write a new background and just follow the same mechanical pattern of the published ones, or to flavor or reflavor a published background's mechanical package to fit the precise story you want to tell with your specific character. I mean, "urchin" or the "Pathfinder" background are both very, very broad and can be filled in with a lot of different stories as long as there's some loose connection to the theme.

yeah I guess you're right, however I'm very lazy so I'd rather just have that stuff already available for me rather than having to spend time actually making something for a very specific purpose.

I like these backgrounds a lot. I agree with you guys - off the top of my head I thought 'we want 20 of these for the playtest & 40 for the eventual CRB' - 5e backgrounds were cool but there were so few it was stupid. I hope PF2 sprays them about like champagne - Over later books & expansions I wouldn't even mind ones that repeated the same bonuses but with different flavour.


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Unicore wrote:
I feel like, at this point, most people are drawn to Pathfinder by the content of their adventures, adventure paths, modules and Scenarios.

Absolutely this but *also* huge amounts of character customisation. And all the comments from the devs seem to indicate they're aware of these things (plus being a 'tactical rpg') as being the core strengths of the system.

I'm optimistic they can make the game easier to get into without sacrificing these strong points.


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Some really interesting posts people are making - if I'm honest the level of system mastery is a bit over my head but it makes for very interesting reading.
I wasn't really suggesting adding extra rules sub-systems (although who am I to say ? If enough people think they're fun enough then why not ?) & I was quite clear in my OP that common should remain for convenience purposes.
I just wanted to make additional languages a bit more valuable & yes, we would probably have to nerf magical language comprehension a bit as well.


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Claxon wrote:

Considering that magic makes learning languages of very little value, making it more difficult is a terrible idea.

Who cares if it's not realistic that you can learn so many languages with so much ease, there's magic. The world isn't realistic.

Ampersandrew wrote:
Comprehend languages anyone?

This is more an argument that those spells that trivialise language *also* need re-visiting than anything else.

Personally, i can think of no end of ways that trying to communicate with intelligent humanoids who don't speak your language can be entertaining.

None of them involve specific rules support beyond the odd skill-check - they'll just be naturally funny, like so much of D&D already is.

I mean, honestly - none of you think trying to negotiate with a tribe of goblins via gestures & ad-hoc sign language wouldn't be hilarious ?


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graystone wrote:
Well because they've stated that the old lore remains intact. That means EVERYONE Remembers that for endless generations, goblins have been just the worst kind of monsters. Something has to fill in that gap or it just doesn't make any sense.

I expect that will be a fairly flexible value for 'intact'.

The first adveture I ran in Pathfinder (in fact in any RPG) was Blackfang's dungeon from the Beginner's Box.
The players are encouraged to negotiate with the goblins in room 8 & come to an agreement with their leader, whose main motivation is his missing sister.

Pretty far from the psycho-murdering Goblins, right ?

The truth is, Goblin's portrayal in PF1 has been a bit inconsistant for many years. They are probably going to emphasise the more sane portrayals & downplay the more extreme ones.

My point was, they will probably provide some lore to nudge it towards the interpretation that better suits Goblin PCs but that's a courtesy really, they could just wave their wand & change it with no explanation, that would be perfectly legit.
At the end of the day, it's a tiny piece of their setting, nothing major.


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I don't see why it even needs an in-lore explanation. If Paizo decides that Goblins are no longer quite so unbelievably mentalist and future writings reflect this change, then that's all that's necessary.

They might (and it's hinted probably will) include some kind of lore-based justification which all the angry people will no doubt be completely dissatisfied with - regardless of how good it is or isn't.

Me, I welcome their inclusion, for no more reason than I would welcome the inclusion of Tengu, Grippli, Kobold, Orc - I like as many playable races as possible.


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I agree, Pathfinder doesn't need to beat 5e - 5e is massively bigger than 4e, 3.5e, 3e & maybe even 2e.

If Pathfinder can maintain or expand on it's historical sales it will be:
1) By far the 2nd biggest game in the market.
2) Doing quite nicely thank you very much.
3) Far, far beyond what anyone would have imagined they could have achieved when they brought out Pathfinder.


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Maybe re-name the Cavalier to 'Knight' then ?
But keep all the orders and banners and cool things that people like about the class.


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I also don't like the Starfinder Archetypes (Though I like the game in general).

I get that they want to avoid repetition but the PF1 class archetypes are so much more flavourful & easy to understand than the generic Starfinder ones. Even not having cool class-specific names takes a lot from them.

I hope the PF2 ones are significantly different.


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Erik Mona wrote:
ulgulanoth wrote:
I would hope that the first bestiary contain at least the vast majority of the monsters from the first 3 bestiaries, otherwise the game is going to be too lean.

I'm guessing a truly credible version of that book would be at least 600 pages.

Are you willing to pay $60-70 for such a book?

I'm genuinely interested in people's answers, because to tell you the truth I am strongly considering a base monster reference that is significantly larger than Bestiary 1's 320 pages.

So... don't be shy about your opinions, please.

For me, no. I don't like gigantic hardbacks - they're uncomfortable to read & a pain to transport.

When you brought out the pocket editions, I sold my hardbacks to buy them because I much prefer the format. To be honest, I would over-pay for a pocket-version of the CRB at launch but I know that won't happen & that's OK.


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I think it's great they're in there - I'd throw in Kobolds, Tengus & Grippli too. Kick out Dwarves if they need to make room.

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