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I really liked the concept of the Mystic Theurge, Eldritch Knight, and Arcane Trickster in 3, 3.5, and Pathfinder, but in practice they always seemed to suck, because the spellcasting fell so far behind.

This sounds like it could fix that problem. I plan to put the rules to use extensively in the playtest.


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The Sideromancer wrote:
Also, RIP sheylinite Bard/Paladins.

They didn't say there will only ever be four multiclass archetypes, just for the playtest.


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Mark Seifter wrote:
Charon Onozuka wrote:
edduardco wrote:
What about Research? There will be a Downtime option to Research Spells and Formulas similar to Crafting items? And if yes, would a PC able to Research Rare Spells and Formulas?

With the way rare is defined, I'd probably guess "no." Rare stuff seems to require explicit interaction with the GM, rather than being something you can do on your own as part of a general rule.

And to be fair, I personally kinda like that. After all, it lessens how special a rare spell is if any wizard can spend a week in the library and just happen to perfectly recreate the secret spell of an ancient runelord which has been lost for ages...

This is fairly accurate. Now, if you found a few rare scribbled notes that weren't the whole lost spell but enough to begin the process of research? That's a whole different animal!

Why should it be inherently more difficult to recreate a rare or unique spell? Finding a scroll or a copy in a spell book? Yes. Finding descriptions of it or notes about it in the texts of the church of Nethys? Sure. But recreating a rare spell should be no more difficult than creating a new spell.

I see the following situations:

Second hand experience
The character hears about the spell in stories, reads about it in an old text, etc.
This should be no different than if the player decides to research a spell that does the same thing as the original spell without hearing the legends first. It might not exactly replicate that spell, but it should be limited in its fidelity only by the accuracy of the records.

First hand experience
The character observes the casting and/or effect of the spell.
The character should be able to analyze the somatic, verbal, and/or material components used and gain insight to the spell. If the character can see or experience the effect of the spell it should be easier to replicate it. Seeing the spell cast multiple times should make it easier to replicate, while seeing it cast in the heat of combat, or other stressful situations, should make it harder. It should be possible, with enough observation, to exactly replicate the spell.


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Voss wrote:
kwiqsilver wrote:
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.

This discussion is in the context of creating magic items in the Pathfinder 2 game, not an earthly cemetery. Creating a magical rune of potency or sharpness on a scimitar is a magical process. Removing that rune is a magical process. Transferring that rune to another item would also be a magical process.


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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.

Etching a rune is a magical process, I'd assume removing one is also a magical process. This is just a preview, the full rules should have a flavor text description of what's going on.

Quote:
Dents? And repair? Oh, yeah. This is a level of micro I never wanted in Diablo and WoW, let alone in a table top RPG. Especially when any skill involved can just be erased by 6 gold bottles.

Agreed. If we have to start tracking HP, dents, or other values for gear any more than we do in PF 1 (where it really only comes up when you fight that bad guy who took the sunder feats), it's going to be annoying.


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willuwontu wrote:
Interestingly, the lesser potion is the most cost efficient of the 6.

Gold cost: yes, resonance cost: no. That's part of the idea behind resonance.


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Rather than:
Success
Critical Success
Failure
Critical Failure

I think it would be more logical to list them in best -> worst (or worst -> best based on your POV) order:
C S
S
F
C F


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I don't think it's very clear what the costs are for each ability of the cloak. In particular, it's not clear if I have to spend resonance for each of those benefits, or just to don the cloak.
It might be better for items like this to describe the powers sequentially, e.g.:
Invest a point of resonance to don the cloak to gain X benefit.
Once donned:
Perform X action(s) to gain Y benefit(s).
Perform A actions(s) to gain B benefit(s).
...


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Captain Morgan wrote:
Quote:

I like this type of archetype, because it expresses specializing in a an aspect of that class (similar to a wizard selecting a school). Two examples that come to mind are the Armor Master and Polearm Master fighter archetypes from Pathfinder 1. In these, the fighter skips some training in weapons to focus on defense, or skips some training in weapon variety to focus on a type of weapon.

The old system allowed two fighters to be very different, almost as different as a fighter and a ranger, even at first level. The new system sounds like all fighters will have the same generic base

I think you are missing that PF2 classes are already way more modular, and lots of base class features have now become optional feats (and you get a lot of feats.) Base Monks don’t even get ki powers unless they opt into them, for example.

Also, we have been assured that feat trees will be way less of a thing, so you can really throw together some wacky combinations.

I remember the Rogue and Monk preview stressing how flexible the two classes are, but the Fighter didn't strike me as more flexible than the Pathfinder 1 version, maybe because that class is the most flexible in the Core book. I reread the preview and there are phrases like "the fighter has the largest selection of feats out of all the classes" and "a conscious effort to give fighters a number of paths...These paths are pretty open". The Pathfinder 1 fighter has the largest selection of feats, and gets the most feats in the game, but still has several baked in class abilities that assume the tank style. And the second phrase sounds almost like Ranger styles, which are customization, but not at the level of a P1 archetype. If the description had been more like the Monk, where they expressly stated Monks don't get ki powers or any weapon proficiency without spending feats, it would have been more clear.

I know the feat trees are getting pruned. These archetypes are basically trees of dependent feats, so the analogy to the Pathfinder 1 feat trees (graphs technically) seemed appropriate. Having wasted feats on Mobility and Spring Attack in D&D 3.0 (when you only got character feats every third level) to get Whirlwind Attack to become a Weapon Master, I appreciate the pruning.


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Antony Walls wrote:
kwiqsilver wrote:

So are the archetypes that remove some abilities in exchange for others gone?

...

I suspect that the PF1 class specific archetypes can be replicated by a simple collection of class feats (or a class feat tree) - or the Dedication feat could have a class as a prerequisite if the archetype feats change a core part of the class

But that's not quite the same. For example:

Currently, a fighter gets all martial weapons, all armor, and all shields as proficiencies. What if you want to play a gladiator type, or a fencer type, or a dervish type? You're still getting those proficiencies that don't fit your character (e.g. heavy armor or tower shields), and possibly even getting later abilities that expand on those, like full speed in full plate at Fighter 7.

One way to fix that might be to give the fighter N combat feats to choose at first level, and turn class abilities like armor training and weapon training into class feats. Actually...that sounds pretty cool. A fighter class that is just a blank slate with "class feat" as the only abilities gained. Consider that my first playtest feedback. :)


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So are the archetypes that remove some abilities in exchange for others gone?

I like this type of archetype, because it expresses specializing in a an aspect of that class (similar to a wizard selecting a school). Two examples that come to mind are the Armor Master and Polearm Master fighter archetypes from Pathfinder 1. In these, the fighter skips some training in weapons to focus on defense, or skips some training in weapon variety to focus on a type of weapon.

The old system allowed two fighters to be very different, almost as different as a fighter and a ranger, even at first level. The new system sounds like all fighters will have the same generic base abilities and then just advance separately. This doesn't seem much different than feat trees, like the Pathfinder 1 Critical Focus tree, Blindfight tree, or Feint tree.


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I don't think I like the idea that a 10th level fighter who has never touched a piano before is going to be a better pianist than a low level bard with training.

It also seems like the difference between untrained and legendary (5 points) is low enough that it'll be stuck in the shadow of the large die roll variation at lower levels or of the large level bonus at higher level.


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My group just finished Kingmaker, and after the fight with Nyrissa, I was wondering how other groups handled it.

My group consisted of a barbarian 16 wielding Briar, a monk 16, a cleric 16, and a sorcerer 16.
When we first encountered Nyrissa, nobody had any protection against the blindness effect (is there even one possible?). The sorcerer had the blindsense ability from the dragon bloodline, and entered the fable eyes shut.
The cleric went blind, wasted a turn removing it, then spent the next few rounds not doing much with his eyes closed, because he couldn't target anyone.
The monk tried to fight with his eyes closed, but with her high AC, the monk's lowish attack bonus, and the concealment miss chance, he was rolling 8 misses a round.
The barbarian averted his gaze, and swung away, only scoring one hit per round, but luckily staggering her.
The sorcerer (my character) had greater arcane sight running at the beginning of the fight, so I knew all of her magic defenses (barkskin, shield, displacement, *FIVE* resist energy fire spells--my sorcerer was capable of 200+ point of fire damage per turn with a 33 DC). I also did a decent job guessing at what her magic items did from the auras. The sorcerer spent the first few rounds casting a quickened dispel on her, followed by preparing a greater dispel to counter her spellcasting.

The fight would have probably gone slowly in her favor (the sorcerer would eventually fail a counterspell roll against maze on the barbarian, the barbarian would eventually not avert his eyes, and fail a save), and we were only scoring one moderate hit per round. The cleric player and I were discussing how we could negate her spellcasting better (which would allow the sorcerer to target her with greater dispel, removing all those protections), when our session ended. Before the next session, I was trying to figure out how we could prevent her spellcasting, and stop that blindness effect. The cleric didn't have silence ready, but the sorcerer had limited wish.

When we reconvened, I spent a round syncing up the initiative order, so it would be sorcerer, other allies, then Nyrissa, and used a limited wish to create an anti-magic field. After that, she lost her blinding effect, her AC went down to the teens, and the combat was pretty one-sided.

But not every party is going to have anti-magic field, or a wish effect. So I'm curious how others defeated her, particularly how they dealt with the blindness effect.


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So we all know there's a character tracker out there for macOS, iOS, and Windows. But there's nothing good for Android/ChromeOS, despite their overwhelming popularity. So I figured we could either wait for that other tracker to possibly get ported to Android some day in the future...maybe, or we could create our own (and make it not suck like that one does).

So who's with me? I've got some good Java skills and some ideas for how to design the engine and datastore. What I don't have are the front end skills, or the time to type in all the details about what every feat or magic item property does.

I'm looking for at least a few more developers, preferably some with Android UI experience, and some data entry volunteers.
I figure in the spirit of the OGL, we can host the project on GitHub, and release it under the GPL.

If you're interested in helping out, post here with your skill set, interest level, and contribution potential. If we get enough interest, I'll set up a github project that everybody can join.

My idea so far is to have all the game content and character sheets be json data that we store in Google Drive. The character sheet would just be a list of levels, feats, items, curses, spell effects, diseases, etc. that are currently active on the character. The character would be a singleton that has a bunch of methods to query things (e.g. Will save). Each time the player adds an active item, spell effect, level, etc., it adds its bonuses to the character singleton (if better than any existing ones of that type). Each time the player removes one of these, it removes all bonus associated with that source. (And would need to trigger a UI redraw, most likely).
That should make it fast, scaleable, and easily customized for house rules. The design is fairly easy to implement, just a LOT of typing.