lordredraven's page

Looking at building an old character in PF2e that was a cold sorcerer, but their powers came from a divine connection. The coolest, pun intended, class i can find that is similar is the Oracle, specifically the Flames Mystery. How much of the math do you think it breaks if we just cross out fire and write in cold for all the effects? Instead of seeing flames and smoke everywhere, she as the daughter of winter would see frost and snow obscuring her vision. The heat shield becomes a crippling chill around her. Fire and Sun domain become Air and Cold. Thematically this seems perfect, but i am not sure if the energy changes makes it more powerful. Fire is resisted alot, but cold is as well. Any thoughts?

Can anyone think of a way to do the old 3.x style polymorph where you polymorph the fighter into something scary as all hell and let them loose on the monsters?

I see the appropriate form spells but they are self only. No way to enhance a party mate. Any Advice?

the only thing i don't like about the dedication is that it gives double slice at level 2. For the player that is a dual wielder, they probably already took that at 1st level if they are a fighter, so they would need to retrain it. At 4th level the dedication feats are dead to most, but the fighter class has twin parry, which is a nice chain to start. Seems like there is a decent choice for the fighter at least across most of the levels

I feel like this is doable by 9th level.

I think the range sniper ish feats are a bit of a trap here. If you want to simulate a 5e crossbow sniper all you need three things

1)Hunt Prey - you get it as ranger default
2) Hunter's Edge - Precision- extra damage
3) Crossbow Ace - Level 1 ranger feat

and probably
4)running reload-- its a great feat but it isn't a must if you don't move alot in combat. If you sit in the back and let your pet move about it's not a must have

So for support spells take the following

5) Druid Dedication - gives you 2 cantrips
6) Basic Druid Spellcasting - gives you a 1st, 2nd and 3rd level slot

and Lastly an animal companion

7) Animal companion - 1st level ranger feat
8) Mature Companion - 6th level ranger feat

So i would build a tengu something like this

Str 10
Dex 19
Con 14
Int 14
Wis 16
Cha 10

I'm not sure your background or character story
So I have assumed Hunter as background and some meta choices for ancestry

General feats
3) Adopted Ancestry- Human

This lets you take take Natural Ambition at 5th level. It gives you a first level ranger class feat

So your class feats end up looking like this

Class Feats
1) Crossbow Ace
2) Running Reload
4) Druid Dedication
5) Animal Companion (Bonus from Natural Ambition)
6) Mature Animal Companion
8) Basic Druid Spellcasting

Assuming you have normal weapon runes, you will have a +1 striking crossbow at level 9. So 2d8 damage. Add Crossbow Ace and Precision from hunter's edge, you are doing 3d8+2 damage. At this level you could also have a elemental weapon rune. Up to 3d8+2 + 1d6. The damage is highly swingy because its all dice damage, but it's respectable.

The mature animal companion can fight a little on it's own. and with three action economy, your standard turn will be shoot, move and reload, yell at your companion to fight...

And you will still have 2 cantrips, and a 1st, 2nd and 3rd level spells slot for support.

This hits all pòints of the character.

As you advance, alternate feats between the 3 things, animal companion, sniping, casting

10) Deadly Aim
12) Incredible Companion
14) Expert Druid Spellcasting
and so on....

You won't be a busted caster, or a one shot sniper, or a beast lord that savages monsters with his brutal pets, but he will do all the things he did in 5e.

Hope that helps a little

Love the new system. I've played every edition of D&D from OD&D to 5e.

Our group got back together for 3e. Played a 3/x campaign for 8 years. Played a 4e campaign for 4 years. Left us sour on long campaigns. Played 5e one shots twice a year for another 5. But now with PF2e, we are back playing twice a month.

Ironically, the quarantine has helped us with the new system and getting gaming again. We started playing on Roll20 and quickly switched over to Foundry. Not being able to meet in person, made it easier to switch to online. Also Foundry is downright amazing with the system.

Love the modular nature of it. It feels tactical in every way in combat, but not the same repetitive tactics that 4e power system brought. Character creation and options are already light years ahead of 5e. Whenever a new system comes out, I teach myself the system by going back and building the parties of our 20 plus year campaigns. With most systems, it takes a lot of reflavoring or close approximation to make the characters work. With PF2e I was able to build very satisfying versions of 90% of previous characters on day one. With the release of the APG, it will go to 98%.(Last Character is an ancestry that won't ever come officially to the PF2e. But if i take the Kobold and move a few things around, make it taller etc etc, it should work well)

Overall super pleased with where the game is a year in.

Can you be a Marshal archetype as a bard if you use warrior muse?

From the reveals it looks like they can, they get martial weapons training and the skill should be no problem

Ezekieru wrote:

I've already sunk a lot of money buying the books on Roll20 and paying the sub as a Plus member. But at this point, even with the great new update to the sheet today (adding buttons on Strikes for 2nd and 3rd attacks, and a button to roll Critical damage with the formula that helps calculate the Deadly and Fatal traits), I'd probably ask people to check out Foundry or Fantasy Grounds Unity instead.

I have not sunk as much as you, I'm very sure, but there's a decent amount of cash in Davy Jones' locker - and it'll stay that way. I'm on Foundry. A few feats are missing and there's errors in a couple spells, other than that I have everything in drag&drop updated to the GMG.

No extra cost.
Even Shoonies.
As for features, to put it in my players' words, it seems to be designed to make roll20 jealous. Typos can be manually corrected and missing stuff can be added in half a minute.

...they don't have the APs but then again I run old converted APs, so that part doesn't matter to me.

I can't Second this post enough! Just moved from Roll20 to Foundry. It's amazing. Super Slick. Amazingly easy. And getting more info every day. Simply the best program out there.

About to run this for my group starting saturday via Roll20. I'm worried about a sufficient hook for the party members. Most of the players have played in Crypt of the everflame that i adapted for 2e and i am thinking about using the opening encounter in Mask of the Living god to start the PCs in Kassen and have them meet the pathfinder agent. Instead the agent will arraign for them to meet and gather Andoran traders who are smuggling arms into Nirmathas (per the clandestine support that Andoran offers per Lands of conflict). They have to take the arms to Phaendar to the market festival to meet drop them off to Aubrin when all hell breaks loose. The PCS would be a new formed militia group from Kassen, and i want to emphasis that Nirmathas is taking a lull in the war with Multhane to re arm up and recruit (As best as a country of libertarian militas can). I like this as it is not so abrupt and it ties into what my players know of the world in real life. However, I am worried that not making them from Phaendar itself will weaken their connection to trying to save the town. Any thoughts on opening scenes to flesh out play before all hell breaks loose? Thanks

dirtypool wrote:

Zapp wrote:

You are welcome to discuss and critique my specific suggestions.

We are welcome to discuss those suggestions and very much more. This thread is allowed to migrate and deviate in any way that the natural discourse flows. You broached a topic, that topic can now be explored in myriad ways.

With the broad topic of "The Gamemastery Guide" this thread can become a conversation about the art in the book, the appropriate methodology for laying out the appendices in a book of this kind, comparisons with the 1e GMG or even the other guys DMG's

All of that is perfectly allowable. You are not a moderator, you do not set rules on how that communication happens on this forum and in this thread.

I don't agree with all the antagonism on this thread, but I totally agree with this. The title is just "GameMastery guide", not the negative connotations that the OP want on it. So I will say my first impressions after a VERY quick first glance...

I like the options for dual class and free archetype, very possible those end on my table. I also like the Automatic Bonus Progression, but the fact that the damage from the runes is not included seems a bit problematic. I hoped to see some options to return some power to spells, as this book seems a perfect place for it, but I suppose that would take too much space.

The damage bonus you get from runes on weapons is included in the automatic progression. It's called devastating attacks and you get an extra die at 4, 12 and 19. Am I missing other damage you are mentioning?

I'm in the process of converting some npc codex NPCs to pf2. The issue I have run into is the level conversion. My understanding is pf1 level should convert to pf2 monster level basically 1 to 1. However the NPCs in pf1 of course we're built on cr = level -1. So should I convert them as cr of pf1 = creature level of pf2, or convert them as pf1 level = creature level of pf2? The cr= pf2 level seems to match up better that level to level in terms of stats. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Lunchbox3000 wrote:

Ravingdork, What do you use for those character sheets?

Microsoft Word.

Was the stat block hand made or from something like Hero lab online?

I remember reading that the extra dice from magic weapons was in part being split up with your proficiency to prevent the absolute need for magic items. I can't find anywhere that proficiency affects extra dice. Is the extra damage just the weapon specialization damage? So is the best you can get 4 weapon damage dice (+3 rune) and +8 from legendary specialization? I'm fine with that if that's true as that's functionally the average of 2d6 more but I'm unsure if in reading it right. Anyone know the answer?

Can we please get a copy of the character sheet that doesn't make you show the math to get to the numbers? It's like your math teacher making you show all your work. People have already begun doing this and it looks great

https://twitter.com/WinghornPress/status/1154814826419564544?s=19

What does the rogue feat Scared to death do?

Lanathar wrote:

caps wrote:

Grimmzorch wrote:

Bardic Dave wrote:

ikarinokami wrote:

Lanathar wrote:

On elemental bloodline / primal spells - is there any way to play a water power focused caster? Or would their powers be based off of ice like the old elemental bloodline ?

Water is specially the damage type not ice now.

Am I understanding you correctly that water is its own damage type now? Interesting!

So if you are a sorcerer with the elemental bloodline can you use spells from all four elements?

I believe so. However, some of the granted spells (like produce flame or burning hands) are modified to do damage of your element type instead of the type specified in the spell.

But I don't think water is its own damage type. For this effect, water, earth, and air all do bludgeoning damage.

So does burning hands become “soaking hands” and unleash a torrent of water doing bludgeoning damage ?

Yes.

And it gains the Water trait.

Is there a way to give it cold trait and damage? As silly sometimes as water/cold admixture was in days of yore cold sorcerer is kinda of a staple. (Glances around nervously for Disney ip police)

So if I grok the meaning of power attack, since it is two attacks, if it's your first attack it's most likely at -5 to hit in exchange for an extra die? Extra die is good but in a system where -5 real drops your crit burst damage not sure it is a fair trade off

Anyone know if we are getting a preview blog today? Thanks

Classes with solid heavy armor proficiencies, such as fighter and champion, will not skimp on proficiency with the lighter armors.

So happy about this. Favorite pfs character of the past decade was a dervish style paladin of Sarenrae. Glad to see that might be possible out of the box

Building a mechanic for a one shot at level 3 and i notice that the example themes in the book that take exocortex get 2 mechanic tricks at level 2. I can't seem to figure out why. any advice in pointing me in the right direction would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

lordredraven wrote:

If we are talking radical rewrites of the spell system why not tie it into the proficiency system. Make every spell or power tied to a school/sphere Ala 2nd edition. You have a proficiency rank in every school appropriate for your spell list. The spell level of the spell is the base level for someone trained in that school. If you are untrained, the spell requires a spell slot of higher. If you are an expert it requires a spell slot lower. And that reduction continues until legendary. But getting to legendary in a spell proficiency requires specialization. So a legendary necromancer at 17 would make all 1-3 level necromancy spells into cantrips. Animate dead at the snap of a finger... Sure... You are a freaking legendary necromancer.... Seems about perfect to me. The legendary evoker could hurl fireballs all day. But at 17, that's hardly an issue. Your epic level... Be epic...

This would require a paths of power style rewrite but it would be super flavorful and reward specialist.

That being said I doubt we will see anything that radical.. I'll settle for arcanist. I think this is basically a modern assumption in New rpgs. Too much arcanist/5e/computer rpgs to put the vancian spell slots on a good place in light of these systems used elsewhere

This seems like a really neat idea for Wizards, for whom spell schools have long been a big deal, thematically. I'm not sure it applies as well to something like Clerics, where the school is largely irrelevant thematically because I'm pretty sure a god can figure out how to grant both Conjuration and Evocation spells effectively.

Neat idea, though! Lots of interesting ideas in this thread. It's hard to really know how ambitious to get without an idea of just how much Paizo's willing to alter at this point in development.

I think for Clerics spells you need to look at 2e D&d. Specialty Clerics could only cast spells from their gods domains called spheres. Your God didnt like fire.. You didn't get flame strike... Etc etc. I think you could divide gods domains into spheres for spell purposes. If you have the domain you are expert in it and it goes up as you level. Spells are one level less. The spheres related to the other domains in your gods portfolio that you didn't select you are trained in and go up slower.

Honest I think limiting cleric spells based on what your God does is a good way to limit the CoDzilla nonsense of yore. When D&d got away from that is when Clerics became busted beyond belief. And I think it is super thematic and a nice way to differentiate your cleric from another.

If we are talking radical rewrites of the spell system why not tie it into the proficiency system. Make every spell or power tied to a school/sphere Ala 2nd edition. You have a proficiency rank in every school appropriate for your spell list. The spell level of the spell is the base level for someone trained in that school. If you are untrained, the spell requires a spell slot of higher. If you are an expert it requires a spell slot lower. And that reduction continues until legendary. But getting to legendary in a spell proficiency requires specialization. So a legendary necromancer at 17 would make all 1-3 level necromancy spells into cantrips. Animate dead at the snap of a finger... Sure... You are a freaking legendary necromancer.... Seems about perfect to me. The legendary evoker could hurl fireballs all day. But at 17, that's hardly an issue. Your epic level... Be epic...

This would require a paths of power style rewrite but it would be super flavorful and reward specialist.

That being said I doubt we will see anything that radical.. I'll settle for arcanist. I think this is basically a modern assumption in New rpgs. Too much arcanist/5e/computer rpgs to put the vancian spell slots on a good place in light of these systems used elsewhere

Can you cast the spell on the ammo ahead of time? How long will the spell hold on the arrow?

Question on interpretation of hunted shot and returning rune on a spear. The returning rune says the weapon comes back to your hand after the strike action. Hunted shot says take two strikes. Does the spear return after each attack or after the whole hunted shot resolves?

Thanks

Can you add a potency rune to a shield? Thanks

Had anyone figured out a way to build an alchemical archer? Want to build an archery that shoots bombs via bow etc? Thanks

Shields appear with armor but seem by the wording to be separate from them. It mentions if you want a higher defense than your armor provides try adding a shield.

This really only matters for the monk. I'm trying to build a spear and shield monk and I want the fast movement if I'm only carrying a shield. What does everyone think?

Stream announced they are cleaning up dents. Your shield can't take more than one dent per hit. Period. Rule will read if the hit takes more than hardness you take the extra and it takes one dent. All stop.

Frozen Yakman wrote:

3) cleric bonus spells will be adjusted so that none of them are divine

How do you mean? Like allowing Clerics to get domain spells that they couldn't get as normal spells?

Some domains gave spells that were already on the divine list so they actually got nothing

They also announced that not in the next update but the update afterwards we are getting multiclass archetypes for the other 8 classes!

It ensures that character creation methods produce similar ranges. The default character building doesn't alow for the possibility of over 18. You get four set of raises and the best you can get to is 18. By putting in the cap it allows the potential option for other build methods( rolling dice etc) without breaking the hard limit the default method imposes based on the math

They seem set on these 12 classes.

I'll want those classes cleaned up, and the feat lists to be robust so I get actual choices.

they have mentioned that witch will get their own class so I think we will get more. And I think the increase in class Feats to class lists will make this options happen given time. That increase is sort of a given

Has anyone found a way for a monk to use a spear with their flurry/unarmed proficiency level? I can't seem to find it and I'm trying to build something akin to an aiel from wheel of time. Seems like spear is a very traditional weapon a monk might be able to learn. Thanks

Can't agree with this more. Always liked stun/body split in champions and while this doesn't have the same problem ie unconscious foes it's even better. Allows for interesting options such as a party that's injured pushing forward on few hp but full stamina points. Simulates injured but heroic effort that straight hp doesnt

1) all casters become arcanist style. Can heighten on the fly. Sorcerers can use their limited special ability to heighten to raise a spell one level higher than effective than they can cast.

2) all players get 3 Ancestry Feats at 1st and when they would get an Ancestry feat they get an extra class feat

3) remove magic weapon bonus dice and make it tied to level 4/8/12/16/20

4) add heal to occult list

5) simple hand waive the lawful good restriction on paladins. Any pc playing a non LG paladin I would refer them code wise to the code of conduct found in the 1e Champions series of splat books

6) make up new Mc Feats and homebrew prestige chains

But I'm pretty happy over all with it. I think the core math is better than most. I like dangerous combat and the economy reminds me of what was right with 4e without the duldrum of the power system

Ps. Make a hero lab style character sheet... The old 1e hero lab sheet is simple but it's so easy to read.

It is my sincere hope that in Pathfinder 2nd edition we at some point get a straight up spontaneous casting druid. Like "can't wear metal armor, friends with a bear, wild-shaping" druid who casts spontaneously rather than a Primal Sorcerer (who could run around in full plate kicking puppies if they wanted.)

Since I love Druids, I feel like I grok them thematically in a way that I do few other classes, and I have tons of character ideas for them, but I don't play them since I just can't handle prepared casters. I mean, I can do it but the analysis paralysis of "what spells do I prepare" just makes the game unfun (since I'm always sure I picked the wrong ones.) So I just play anything else.

So anything that reduces the emphasis on "make the right decisions at breakfast; you cannot take them back" is welcome.

True Story... Our cleric's player in our 8 year 3.5e game had a spreadsheet that selected spells for him based on questions he would ask during an augur with his God every morning. He'd burn a 5th level spell to speak to his God and ask generic questions like will I be leaving the plane or confronting the undead. Based on the gms answer the spreadsheet filled in his spells..... Super flavorful but obviously any system that requires an algorithm to select your spells is busted at the core.

This is essentially what I was asking for in my other post;

THREAD

Obviously, I am all for Arcanist style casting for prepared casters. Especially with having fewer spells per day (3 per spell level max) I cannot imagine wanting to play a character who has to decide "how many magic missiles do I want to prepare?" or "do I want a 3rd level magic missile or three fireballs?" Honestly, this has been a problem for me ever since I was introduced to the alternative casting method as I first discovered in 5e.

I feel that sorcerers do need a bit of an overhaul as presented. I have no specifics in mind, as none of my players have shown any interest in the sorcerer as is, which in itself can be seen as a problem. One of their strengths, as is, is that they can choose which type of magic to use via their bloodline, but there has to be a reason to want to play Sorcerer vs Wizard for arcane spells, Sorcerer vs Cleric for divine, vs Druid for primal, and vs Bard for occult, otherwise there is no point of a sorcerer. I think bloodline based abilities and bloodline powers that use Spell Points will be the answer to this (as long as each bloodline gets some neat powers to make use of that are both interesting and viable for regular use in game). I feel that sorcerers should get more powers as opposed to other full casters, but that's only my own opinion and I have no real playtest data to back that up.

In the end, all options need to be fun and interesting while still being distinct from one another. This is a tall order, but I feel that it is well within the scope of what Paizo can do.

Your thread reminded me to ask this. This thread is more of a poll style thread. Would you like this or not

Another post reminded me to ask this: does anyone else think that the prepared casters should look more like the arcanist from 1e or casters from 5e D&d? Seems a logical and elegant solution to simplifying the game while keeping the flavor of memorizing/praying for spells. It allows easier heightening of spells a d allows those classes to still have access to huge amounts of spells to choose from each day, but the player needs to choose wisely.

For those that don't know how this is done in 5e, casters memorize x spells a day, but don't memorize them into spell slots. When they are cast they choose the slot to cast it in so long as it's at least the minimum level of the spell.

I know this would require at least the sorcerer to be reworked a little, but I feel the real flavor of the sorcerer comes from the bloodline options and maybe having more spells known than a wizard could memorize in a day.

What does everyone else think? If you would like to see this please post below saying so. If not or you have concerns please post as well. I'd like to take the pulse of the crowd on this as I think it might be something that we still have time to change without requiring the design team to reinvent the wheel so to speak.

Thanks.

I'm all for this change. I firmly belive that 5e/arcanist got spell slots right for the first time in D&d. It allows for memorizing/praying to be part of the rote while aligning with the fictional narrative more. It's very hard outside of gamist theory and Vance actual stories to justify memorized spells into certain slots.

err. didn't realize Mark answered it right above me...lol, should read to the end of the forum first....

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Dante Doom wrote:

4) Class Feats and general feats

There is no plan currently to make class feats into general feats

They kind of already did this design space with the archetype/multiclass feats. It makes no sense to include further class-poaching rules. If they were gonna do that, they'd make building a character entirely freeform, with characters only being "classes" in name only, and you building them with whatever mechanics you want that the rules provided.

"Class poaching" is kind of a strong phrase. Most of the push I've seen has been for giving the Fighter and Barbarian actual class feats and letting other people get some combat-focused feats without a tax.

I watched the show. What Mark said was they weren't going to make things like Double slice free to everyone to take, because they don't think a one size fits all option is right. He mentioned they need to add more options, and will, like a rogue 2 weapon attack. He also mentioned that the ranger 2 weapon attack might be different from double slice to be more flavorful. Basically, once they add more content in the class feats, we will see support for more combat styles spread out among the classes, but not necessarily the same way for each class.

Alot of complaints I have seen so far involve "I can't build x anymore". Part of my learning of any new system has been to build characters from other systems to see what can and can't be done. So I'm suggesting that we kick the modular nature of the new system by seeing what niche character types can be built.

Here is the challenge. Post a theme/archetype/trope that you'd like to see pointed out in the playtest or that you think is missing in the playtest. I'll post a version of what I could work up. I encourage others to post versions as well.

I'm aiming most characters for 5th level as that seems reasonable, as many complex characters in pf1 didn't really come online until at least a few Feats were gained. Obviously some character tropes might need higher levels but I think 5th is a good starting point.

Let's see what we can do with the modular system as it is at the moment.

Hythlodeus wrote:

So, the bastard sword is still piercing damage only?

I was positivly sure that was an honest mistake, now it seems just like another one of the weird design choices

The 5th level Barbarian pregen indicates Bastard Swords are actually Slashing, with Versatile P and Two-Hand d12.

Can you tell me where you found the 5th level pregens? I've been looking everywhere for them?

Personally I'm OK with it being tied to level as well. 13th age does this and it's pretty efficient. I'd just like to tie more things to the proficiency. In particular I'd like there to be more benefit for being legendary than just +1 more.

I know some have mentioned that magic weapons are crucial to the game as is because you can't keep up with damage levels otherwise. What is the increase to damage was tied to your proficiency. Base damage is trained, 2 dice at expert, 3 at master, 5 at legendary(or possibly 4, but 5 feels more legendary). What does anyone think this would do to the math?

The casters get expert in spells as a class feature at 12.

Were there 5th level pre gems for the other two pfs adventures?

I like it quite bit. Think it has potential to rise above the issues that 3.x system had and really be a fun system

I think alot of this maybe a function of the playtest having limited options. Yes each of the class Feats basically leads the players through the archetypes, but I sense that there will be more Feats etc in the full book/splat books that allow for more varied paths than the clearly layed out character arc. They mentioned this in the paladin blog that other styles etc would be included or coming shortly after release but the playtest only has a limited space so they are choosing the strongest archetypes to represent. Yeah they are tropes at this point but from a playtest standpoint the first thing you need to know is can you represent the stereotypes before you ask can I build the outliers.

Not sure on how ac is calculated. I know each character has proficiency in armor types that gets added to the item bonus. Are we just adding the plus or because it's a proficiency do I add my level as well?

For example a 10th level fighter in +1 chain shirt and 18 dex he has master in light armor, is his armor class 18 (+2 for armor, +1 for magic, +1 for master and +4 for dex) or is it 28 (+2 for armor, +1 for magic, +4 for dex and +11 for master proficiency)

Thanks.

I think it looks great so far. So much customization. And all the reaction to "x class only does this..." need to remember this is a playtest with limited options compared to 20 years of expanding splat material for 3.x/pf. Hard to be upset that I can't do X in a playtest that took them years to create in the previous editions.