mrianmerry's page

I hope that Paizo can use a network disk like Google Drive, otherwise your potato server will explode in an instant.

Vic already posted upthread that they'll be using AWS for downloads.

As of yesterday's website roll, all of our watermarking and downloads are being done via AWS.

Given the amount of system change they're doing, I'd rather they just go classless, or a "build your own class" system. I hate having to shoe-horn a character concept into somebody else's class framework. It never works out completely well, even with dozens of archetypes.

Harkening back to 3.5e a paraphrasing an actual discussion, "Oh boy, Healers get a Unicorn at high level. WTF? Its a normal, sane class and then wham, bam, a #$%*@ unicorn."

I would be... interested in knowing which class this is. And how any sane DM manages to include that narratively if they weren't already aware of it!

Why do you have dictionaries for the ancestry, background, and classes entries? Are you intending to have more data in those places? (Such as rules text, etc)

I looked through your pseudocode, and it's a lot more developed than you indicated! it looks pretty solid, too. I'll have a closer look another time when I get the chance.

---------
Also: nice work with the character sheets! I had a look at the Pathfinder one, and never have I seen a more pleasantly laid out sheet than the one generated by (I presume here that you're one of the main people behind the site) whatever API you've set up.
(And that's especially true for Monks!)

Azih wrote:

Honestly the Unchained Monk was pretty Brawler-esque too, with Full BAB, and Low Will Saves.

What does it take for people to stop being willfully wrong?

UnMonk has ridiculous Will saves. You are acting like 1E Wizards have little skills to use because of their low skill ranks (when they actually have a ton due to INT focus) or Rogues having high damage due to high sneak attack (when they are actually crippled by lack of venues to increase attack rating).

A class isn't their chassis only.

I think that this was in reference entirely to the chassis of the class.

Also - an UnMonk has only his Wisdom to bolster his poor base save, and no UnMonk without Guided will be raising their Wisdom stat as a primary.

What do you define as a ridiculous Will save?

Captain Morgan wrote:

I dunno, he still lacks the mobility of a monk. Really just seems like a fighter specced for unarmed.

Not all monks are mobile.

Oh man, I played one of these. Vow of Silence is... not good for party teamwork when you're playing an online game and can't act out your character's actions.

While the strength monk attacks at:

+0/-5/-10/-10 (w/ dragon tail style or a big damn temple pipe or something)

... I nearly spat my tea on my computer reading this hilarity. Excellent!

Of course, saying all that makes me want to veer off course and try to create a viable Halfling Monk w/ Str 8 / Dex 18 / Con 14 / Int 12 / Wis 16 / Cha 10

Would be getting lots of ki powers and strikes which cause conditions.

Slightly edited to be less lines - force of habit, sorry!

I'm with you on that! It sounds like it could be very interesting, so I'm hoping there are paths for Ki Powers that are all about debilitating the opposition to set up for others.

mrianmerry wrote:

So you don't have an issue with the actual trait, just that it's named after a class? That seems like a very simple houserule....

What if the trait was named Monastic to tie in with the unlock by the Monastic Weapon Training feat?

Hey, good idea, I would feel much better about that, thanks.

If that's not sarcasm - which I feel it isn't, but you can never tell on the 'net - I'm glad to have helped your head-canon. :)

Something that re-reading the blog post just brought to my attention:

At 19th level, the monk has developed perfected form, meaning that when he makes an unarmed attack, he can treat any die roll lower than 10 as if he had rolled a 10!

Does this include a Natural 1 roll? Because if it does... that's one hell of a great ability!

mrianmerry wrote:

There are certain weapons that are simply better suited for blending with unarmed strikes in combat, and those are what is represented by this trait.

Great (clubs/escrima sticks, etc), but there are ways to express that without a specific class-titled trait.

So you don't have an issue with the actual trait, just that it's named after a class? That seems like a very simple houserule....

What if the trait was named Monastic to tie in with the unlock by the Monastic Weapon Training feat?

I'm gonna ask a whole bunch of questions aimed at trying to understand your PF2 pseudocode. I hope you don't take offence, as I really am just trying to understand your reasoning!

I'm also interested in what language you usually use, as there is definitely a particular influence in what you've written....

Character:

• I wonder why you have both HD and Level properties?
  From what I've read, we're completely scrapping HD in favour of using Level.
  
• Is there a reason you list AC as the result of some method that also calculates TAC?
  I think it would be better to have a simple int representing these values, where the getter for the property computes the values instead of storing them.
  
• I think you can probably represent the AdventurerClass object better
  Some kind of list of Key-Value pairs (such as a dictionary, map, or hashmap, as your chosen language prefers) would likely be better, to accommodate multi-classed characters
  
• I don't see a reason to have separate arrays - at the Character level - for General Feats.
  Feats should be a single array, where the type is some kind of abstract superclass or interface, which the specific feat types can inherit?

Category:

• I presume the repetition of the properties of the superclass are repeated for verbosity's sake, but would not actually be redefined?
  
• I like word-choice here, instead of Class, but I think it might be a keyword for some languages!
  
• Hit Dice for this level is presumably in regards to HP per level?
  
• What do you expect the Class Feats array to hold?
  
• No Class Features Array?

Fighter:

• FighterStances and FighterCombos could likely be considered part of my proposed Class Features in the superclass.

mrianmerry wrote:

graystone wrote:

No one can dump a stat anymore: their only option is to not invest in a stat which is a different thing.

I suppose there will be an Ancestry released at some point that has a Strength Flaw.

Perhaps when they release PF2's Kobold Ancestry.

Don't gnomes and halflings already have Strength Flaws?

Excellent! So we can indeed dump Strength (and even prioritise Wisdom) very effectively straight outta the CRB.

I've never played a Halfling or Gnome - largely being put off by the reduce damage die and not being a fan of finger-wavers - so this gives me some hope for making a fun Monk from these guys.

If you could get dex to hit (which I guess is a thing right?) then str would be just higher damage but the frequency of crit chance would be the same yeah? so the dex build advantage would be better AC (mostly TAC I imagine) and reflex saves versus more damage.

I was under the impression that finesse weapons give the option for using Dexterity for accuracy - is this not the case?

Captain Morgan wrote:

Which is what they are doing. The weapon quality is called monk.

Ha, I mean qualities such as Agile, or Finesse, or maybe a classification/grouping such as Simple, not a trait that is named after this one class. Also, if you are playing in a campaign setting with no monks, it's kind of lame for all these weapons to have a trait for a class that does not exist in this world; I know they are infusing more of Golarian in this edition, but many PF campaigns are home-brew.

I do not see any feasability for a custom world where there are not esoteric martial artist practitioners.

It's simply human nature to fight each other - and that means that people will make a sport of it, and as such it follows that people will dedicate themselves to attaining perfection in that art. This is the beginnings of what the Monk class represents.

So... I think the Monk trait is going to be as commonplace and quintessential as any other weapon quality.
There are certain weapons that are simply better suited for blending with unarmed strikes in combat, and those are what is represented by this trait.

No one can dump a stat anymore: their only option is to not invest in a stat which is a different thing.

I suppose there will be an Ancestry released at some point that has a Strength Flaw.

Otherwise, with the stat-up options, I suppose a 10 is to be considered a dump stat in PF2?
RIP the days of Point-Buying myself into a 5 wisdom score....

I know we haven't had the multiclass blog yet, but I have to wonder - are archetypes even still linked to classes?

From the Archetypes for All blog:

We also wanted to open them up a bit, so we could build archetypes allowing more than one class to access their features and feats, as opposed to having to recreate a concept for every applicable class with an entirely new archetype. This doesn't prevent us from creating more specific archetypes as well, but it opens up the design space further.

So what it seems like to me, from reading this, is that Archetypes will be split into Class-Specific Archetypes, and Universal Archetypes.

I can't imagine how they're planning to make the distinction here, but it sounds interesting!

If not, then it seems to me like archetypes should be renamed.

Preferably to something starting with 'D'.

Try as I might, I can't come up with something for this!

mrianmerry wrote:

By rolling a Failed Save, and being struck by a Critical Hit - as intuited clearly by nearly all readers.

Given the split seems if not even at least pretty close to it, I'm not sure "nearly all" is quite accurate.

I was referring here to the manner in which the Critical Hit degrades the save result, so that a rolled Fail becomes a Critical Fail, and not the implications for when Stunning Fist activates.

Barbs get what is basically evasion with fort saves.

They treat Success rolls as Critical Success rolls from Master proficiency. I think this is 7th level?

Would you be okay if the FAQ page was renamed to "Updates and Clarifications"?

I think this is both more representative of the function given to FAQs and Errata at the moment, and more professional.

Quote:

If your strike is a critical hit, the target's saving throw result is treated as one category worse, and if it critically fails its save it's stunned for 1 round!

So this only happens when you critically hit and they critically fail by base.

I don't think that the distinction of requiring the base save to be a Critical Fail is implied by the blog post at all.

Consider the order of events;

• The monk Criticall Hits some mook with Stunning Fist. We know at this point that the mook's saving throw will be one stage worse than rolled.
  
• The mook now rolls his save: he can only Succeed, Fail, or Critically Fail.

If he Critically Fails, the monk has already Critically Succeeded, so the mook is stunned.

De difference is getting the Stun result depend on 1 favorable roll (for the monk), or two:

I.e., the difference between:
critical hit -> failure that become a critical failure -> Stunned
and
critical hit -> unmodified critical failure that become a quadratic failure -> stun

Clearly the issue here is coming from the unclear representation of the states of failure against Stunning Fist the blog made.

So how do you stun the target? If your strike is a critical hit, the target's saving throw result is treated as one category worse

So, pretty straightforward: Critical Hit means a Failed Save becomes a Critically Failed Save, and we can presume the target is Flat-Footed and Stupefied without any contention.

and if it critically fails its save it's stunned for 1 round!

How does the target critically fail its save?

• By rolling a normal Critically Failed Save; a natural 1, or failure by 10 or more.
  
• By rolling a Failed Save, and being struck by a Critical Hit - as intuited clearly by nearly all readers.

So by logical deduction, I see the Stun effect as happening on either a Failed Save or a Critically Failed Save, only when struck with a Critical Hit.

So I'd expect to see Stuns being a lot more common than feared by some.

ROGUE:

Offense: Sneak Attack (easier in PF2) & debuffs, also believed only Dex-to-damage class, but w/ smaller weapons

Is this still being speculated? I thought I'd read somewhere confirmation this isn't happening. Happy to be wrong, though, as it helps with my plans for Rogue :)

In the wake of the Monk preview....

I'd change my planned character to my typical Human Monk, going for 16s across STR/DEX/WIS, which should nicely allow me to pick and choose from whichever Background I feel is most appropriate at the time of creation.

There were a lot of big changes to Monk, so I want to see how that feels compared to the frustration of low-mid levels back with the 1E CRB Monk.

MER-c wrote:

I do wonder if Style Strike will make a return, it was a fun aspect of Unchained Monk for me.

From what people wrote who actually played the new monk, stuff like Flying Kick is now a class feat. So yeah, at least this one is back (which was arguably the best one anyway). Most likely, you will see the others as well, but you will have to pay for those with class feats.

As they were an active component of levelling up, you were pretty much doing the same thing there anyway, except you weren't given the option of spending that level up on something that wasn't a Style Strike.

As a martial artist, monks use weapons and are quite deadly with them especially with double hook swords and other weapons.

You don't pour my cereal!

But seriously, that's your way of playing a monk, and for you there is the Monastic Weaponry class feat that allows you to use monk weapons with all the improvements to unarmed strikes that being a monk gives you.

This feat represents your monks dedication to training with a weapon.

The lack of proficiency with Simple weapons from the get-go is a matter very different to what you propose, and I do think monks should have some manner of ability with them

Paizo should adjust weapon damage to be one to 3 die above the current level unarmed strike depending on the light, medium, and two handed weapon or adjusted to make weapons more deadlier than natural but not so OP.

Are you advocating for a monk to be more deadly with a weapon than a Fighter? That does not feel, in any way whatsoever, like a good idea.

I am.. actually quite glad that Monks will no longer have approximately 75012 attacks in a full routine.

It takes... too long to roll all of that out, and add up all your damage.

Streamlining that down to a simple [A] Run to enemy, [A] Flurry enemy, [A] Take defensive stance, really works for me.

... Especially if there re ways to double-down on action-cost attacks with Flurry of Blows.

I can easily see flavouring the Verbal component of the Ki Powers to be controlled breathing and forced exhalation, which plays into what Ki is supposed to be, for those characters who want to be more Iron Fist than Goku.

As a long-term fan of Monks, and fighting unarmed, I won't personally be affected by the lack of weapon proficiencies by default - I typically play defensive and use blocking tactics to protect my party members when ranged combat comes into play anyway - but I can see why this may present an issue to most other styles of play.

Ideally, I think simple monk weapons at least should be trained at the start.

The rest of this is sounding really good! I'm a big fan of the modular approach, as it really allows me to build the monk I want to play.
Well, so long as I have enough Class Feats, that is! :wink:

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Does it hurt your eyes, too? Especially with white text on black?

Having had the (mis)fortune of working as an iOS developer on projects using Objective-C... I'm quite familiar with the endless square brackets, so I manage it pretty well.

That said, I do think there are enough unicode characters that a symbol can be found to represent what is desired.

These should be easily readable by both human readers with slight impairments, due to appearing to be a graphical symbol, and by screen readers, due to having metadata that has a plain-text name.

For example: ☰ is called Trigram for Heaven which may be a slightly too fanciful name for a symbol, but you get the idea.

I think that if inspire courage gives a +1 (and eventually higher) to attack to all allies, it is going to take an action every round to maintain.

And with an archer Bard, that could mean their turn is something like:

[A] Inspire Courage, [A] Ranged attack. [A] Single-Component Spell

Now that'd make for a priority target in a fight!

Feels like Monk might have similar anathema options as the Barbarian instead of alignment restrictions.

I can see that happening, and I'm all for it presuming they come bundled in a similar way to the Barbarian Totems.

Schools / Orders of Monks each with a particular Anathema (including the possibility of a religious Order who take their Anathema from their Deity), who focus on some particular tree of whatever the Monk encompasses.

I also agree that three rounds feels a little arbitrary and unless a lot of other short buff spells and abilities last three rounds it could get messy to track if barbarians rage for three rounds, Bards inspire courage for 5. Cantrip shield lasts for 1, etc. I would much rather the bonuses be balanced out so that these 1 action buffs last the same amount of time for ease of tracking.

But the fun of having buffs from different sources having different durations comes with strategizing the optimal time to active them all, so that you have both the longest uptime with them active, and the most efficient uptime.

... doesn't it?

As of now, angry, drunk, Superstition Barbarian, that detests magic so much, he not only refuses magical aid, but destroys all magic items, or tries, even those belonging to other characters "Grr, give me that!" *grabs magic item and starts trying to angrily break it*

I can immediately see the TWF-specialist becoming incredibly paranoid going to sleep around this barbarian....

Until we have the Monk preview....

Goblin Barbarian, with the Suspicious Totem to reflect and couple with her ingrained suspicion of non-goblinoid people, probably with a background catering to survival in the wilderness.

Wizard, human enchanter, cat familiar taking speech as one of the two dailies. I also really want to take Rogue for a spin, but I think testing that Wizard is no longer a dull and unrewarding slog at first level is higher priority.

Testing the more drastic changes should take priority, I agree. (After all, that's why there's a preliminary release of the new edition!)

Put me down for being confused about somatic components being the only one that doesn't require concentration... So speaking words and... having a material component can't be done when angry, but you can perform [gestures]?

Chanting specific words I could imagine being quite difficult whilst overcome with battlerage, and in the midst of battle.

Reaching into some manner of pouch to remove specific items without ruining everything else there, whilst in the midst of a battlerage... I honestly cannot imagine.

But swinging my arms in a specific manner... I can see that. It makes sense that I'd have the mental acumen to make rude gestures, and swing my arms belligerently in a pattern that I've keyed to some manner of magical effect.

somatic components being ... subtle gesturing

Do they have to be subtle? I mean, iconically, a wizard would make subtle hand gestures, sure. But is that strictly necessary...?

Except there is no reason for that restriction to be on everyone that is trained to wield massive weapons.... -.-

If you're gonna shoe-horn a group of Barbarians into a Knightly Order, along with all the training and whatnot, you're already ignoring fluff in the class anyway...

You delight in carving through your enemies using powerful weapons and wreaking havoc without needing complicated techniques or rigid training, and you rely on your astonishing durability to get you through a fight.

Really happy with everything here except for anathema, but it'll probably be easy to just ignore that in my home games once the playtest is over.

I'd suggest considering making them optional, instead of ignoring, and leave it up to the players to choose to have those roleplay hooks be a part of their character in-world.

Remember that "as if x size categories larger" do not stack.

Makes it hard for a PC monk to hit with gargantuan dice.

So what if they were under the influence of Mythic Enlarge person, hence making them a Huge creature, and had the Titan Strike Mythic Feat?

Aye, that reasoning is pretty much in-line with what we were discussing.

I've no issue with the vows remaining, it's actually the rest of the party that are frustrated with them, so just wanted to find a more concrete source than our own discussion. Cheers!

So this recently happened, and me and the DM and team were having a brief discussion.

My monk died, and had taken vows of celibacy and fasting, as well as a vow of silence he was atoning for.

The party is planning to get him reincarnated next session, perhaps a few days post-mortem.

The questions I'd like clarification on are thus:
a- do his vows still bind him when he is reincarnated or is there some manner of choice going on?
b- for the vow of silence, does the month-long timer to retribution continue to count down whilst he is dead?

Sorry if I ask a common question, I couldn't find anything with a cursory google.

My question is: is it legal RAW to have a crafter upgrade, for example, a Belt of Mighty Constitution +2 into a Belt of Physical Might/Perfection +2?

As far as I see it, it should be ok, as you would still have access to the spells needed for the original item, and would use the original item as part of the material cost for the newer item.