neaven's page

Folks, this is not the thread to get into debating individual issues or rules or talking about individual rules or content that will prevent you from playing. The discussion raised here is about knowing the intent of the playtest or it's broader goals. You can get into discussions about the pros and cons of individual rules examples in other threads.

I was planning not to participate in playtest discussion any further* but I feel like I have to address the amusing irony of this post. The fact that a staff member can come in to keep this thread on topic but none come in to actually expound what they are trying to achieve is flatly hilarious to me. Of course, I would imagine that what Sara is doing is her actual role, being Community Manager, and that elaborating on design goals would be entirely not her wheelhouse, but still.

*As I feel like any feedback I have is not only ignored but actively unwelcome, in large part because it seems that what I want clashes with these unstated but clearly present design goals being discussed here.

Folks...

The hyperbole on resonance is getting a bit thick. There are a lot of parts of the game that we have not fully worked on yet because it's too early in the playtest for us to get good data. Resonance is one of those systems. We know a lot of folks dont like it. We hear you. We also know that until we get to mid and high levels, the system is not really doing any work at all, and we are just now getting to that in the playtest.

Have some patience. We are looking at the system, there is almost no chance it will make it to the final game in its current form, a fact I can say about as lot of systems. Changing things without data is what we've spent years doing. Play the game. Tell us how it played. That's how we make this better.

We have faith in you to give us honest, rational feedback. Have faith in us to get it right, given the right time and data.

Is it hyperbole if we just don't like it and see it as a pointless system that only serves to make players feel worse without actually solving any problems? It's not like there's no good arguments for that position, after all.

Because if so, I guess my feedback isn't welcome. In any case, I certainly don't feel like it is. PF2 isn't a game for me or a lot of people who like PF1 I guess. Bye all.

Resonance needs to stay. The reasoning for it justifies its existence. It could be tweaked a bit, but it should remain in the game for the reasons stated.

Hard disagree. The reasoning for it is fundamentally faulty. It aims to eliminate a solution (Wand of CLW) to a problem (out-of-combat healing is necessary but not fun to most parties). Or, alternately, it aims to "solve" a problem (player wearing too many magic items) that is already solved (limited slots). Or, alternately, it aims to "solve" another problem (swapping multiple copies of X-day items) that is already solved outside of PFS (GM controls flow of magic items in the first place).

Yeah, game design got better since Dark Ages of Gygax, so no one class is necessary.

From earlier in the thread, I think this point is extremely salient. You know what I like as a player? Being able to choose the class I want. You know what mandating certain roles does? Stops me from doing that. So long as you don't see "able to live through and contribute to combat" as a role (which I don't, all characters should be able to do that) then I see no reason that a party should have to have any given role at all, at least not in terms of "the underlying structure of the system expects x". Obviously in a specific game there's a negotiation among the players and the GM what sorts of characters are appropriate, but that's at the table level and not the system level. At the system level it should be blind to these concerns.

A core problem of this is that the game is telling us the difference between "untrained" and "legendary" is only +5. That is a miniscule competency gap, and inevitably leads to the perception that the very best are not that much better than the worst, no matter how trained they are. There are of course other ways to increase that gap further, but there still remains the implication that it's entirely possible that the gap between "Billy Two-Left-Feet" and "Dave the Nimble" is a mere 25% chance of success.

I also don't at all agree that every die roll needs to be tense. I think it's fine - and this is as players doing this to me as a GM before people accuse me of wanting to munchkin - for a character to trivially succeed on all but the hardest rolls in their specialisation. It's not like there's only one form of challenge that can be thrown at a party.

In general I think the die roll should be less important, not more, even in PF1e - although I recognise that this is a controversial opinion. Make the actual choices of the players the major determinant of success and failure. You can adjust the difficulty up or down by introducing extra complications - hidden information, time limits, risky vs safe routes, multiple ways to deal with encounters, encounters that are strong against preferred PC tactics but weak to other options they have, Morton's fork, and so on and so forth. I love to encourage player agency, not dice making their decisions for them.

D&D has always had the role of healer. I don't want that role removed. Its been part of the game since forever and their are people who enjoy playing healers. Its part of the genre.

I never said it should be removed. If people want to be able to play it, sure, and I'd go even further to say that they should explore ways to make healing just as engaging and interesting as the varying ways there are to deal damage. But it shouldn't be "someone has to play a healer or you're all doomed" either.

neaven wrote:

Should you have some form of healing in your party? Yes. Should a player have to spend some of the relatively limited choices they get each level up on healing? Very much no in my opinion - it's not healthy for a game to mandate a particular role in that way. It makes people less likely to enjoy playing, because either they have to stick someone else with the role or they get stuck with it themselves. It should be a "nice to have if someone wants to bring it, but not mandatory to proceed" type situation.

If only there was some sort of... reliable out of combat healing. Perhaps some sort of cheap reusable item? One that could be carried easily, but wouldn't be so efficient as to make it powerful in combat. Perhaps it replicates a low level healing spell?

Nah, that can't be right. Resonance knocks that one on it's head. Oh well.

;)

What you suggest removes the healer class and healing skill from the game entirely. Additionally its literally the games job to set roles for party member heck its a role playing game.

Your argument of why should a character spend limited resources on healing literally works for whatever you want to plug in their.
Why should a character spend their limited resources on trap finding, combat effectiveness, defense, lore, diplomacy, etc. etc.
A character invests into something and expects to use it. If I have a character that heavily invests in healing I expect it to be necessary and not over shadowed by a outside resource.

In case it's unclear, my post was a sarcastic reference to the Wand of CLW that is the boogeyman hiding behind every cleric's door. Except it's not, because you can still be a healing focused character even if there's another way to provide out-of-combat healing. Healing large amounts of damage in combat, condition removal, quick mass healing, and so on and so forth. None of that can be done by the wand.

And yes, actually I'd like it so there is never any role to be as mandatory as healing is in PF2e. I'd like anything that specific (because healing is much narrower than combat effectiveness and defense) to be "nice to have, but not mandatory in every party that likes being alive" because otherwise you might have to force someone to pick up something they don't want to. If everyone at the table has cool and fun concepts that just all happen not to involve a certain thing, I don't see why they should be punished by the game system for wanting to play in that way.

Should you have some form of healing in your party? Yes. Should a player have to spend some of the relatively limited choices they get each level up on healing? Very much no in my opinion - it's not healthy for a game to mandate a particular role in that way. It makes people less likely to enjoy playing, because either they have to stick someone else with the role or they get stuck with it themselves. It should be a "nice to have if someone wants to bring it, but not mandatory to proceed" type situation.

If only there was some sort of... reliable out of combat healing. Perhaps some sort of cheap reusable item? One that could be carried easily, but wouldn't be so efficient as to make it powerful in combat. Perhaps it replicates a low level healing spell?

Nah, that can't be right. Resonance knocks that one on it's head. Oh well.

;)

Why should PCs get +anything to everything for "free" when levelling up?

This is the question that needs to be satisfactorily answered rather than debating what the actual value of the increment is.

The issue with the "dead level" argument is that because the DCs are increasing at the same rate, any concrete improvement that your character receives is based on options they select. And given that - at least compared with Pathfinder - the options are pretty lacklustre, every level feels "dead".

Now this is easy, not that I agree with the reasoning. It's so that high level PCs are significantly and automatically better than lower level ones. I can even understand why it's as high as it is - they don't want the very flat competency curve their main competitor has.

Honestly though, the homogeneity (you get +x better at eeeeeverything, with maybe a small bump from a proficiency increase) and the closeness of everyone's modifiers when they have the same ability scores turns me way off still.

neaven wrote:

From the sounds of it, the rules themselves are what's putting these players off. These are barriers to your players playing the game the way they want regardless of if you had been on the forums or not. You will have a hard time as an alchemist due to double-dipping from the same pool that governs your equipment uses. TWF is locked behind the fighter. These two things are just true about the game.

Actually, I think your second example is a great idea and I am all for it.

Mind if I ask why? I can certainly understand wanting to play Fighter as a TWF-er specifically, but why should something as basic as "a fighting style using two weapons" be something that only that class can do to any actual advantage?

neaven wrote:

Yes, there was. You could get very high bonuses to either your attack rolls or skills such that you had a very low rate-of-failure in your chosen area of specialisation, which is not something that's currently possible in 2e.

But you have to admit that the number of ways to pump one's modifiers as high as can be have increased dramatically over the course of the product's lifespan. Like you could always take skill focus, but we didn't get that alternate racial trait for humans that gives you three different skill focuses for the price of your bonus feat. Once Ultimate Intrigue came out, we could put that on a Vigilante who takes Social Grace, so for two feat equivalent choices we could have +20 to 2 skills at level 10, and then you start adding everything else that's been added in the last 10 years into the equation.

And? Sure, the number of ways to do so increased, but you actually could do so from the get go in 1e. You can't in 2e. That's my point.

So besides the inherent unreasonableness of a prepared full caster who prepares all the right and most powerful spells, was there really very much for players who want to push the power envelope in PF1 when all we had was the CRB?

Like it took some time for powerful fighters, monks, and rogues of any type to exist last go around.

Yes, there was. You could get very high bonuses to either your attack rolls or skills such that you had a very low rate-of-failure in your chosen area of specialisation, which is not something that's currently possible in 2e.

Can a GM set up the players for high power play in a low power system? Absolutely. I can see many ways to offer "high power" campaigns using the playtest rules - the tight math actually makes it a piece of cake, especially with the critical set-up.

The need for the GM to alter or go outside of the ruleset in order to allow a playstyle contraindicates the possiblity of that playstyle in the first place. Although E6 and E8 are developed rulesets that also go outside of the base rules, the ability to merely finish a game at lower level accomplishes the majority of the same goals. There's no equivalent way to "play up" in 2e.

2e in it's current form does not cater to the desire of players who wish to play as powerful, effective characters. See Deadmanwalking's superlative breakdown on his issues with the underlying maths of the game, or magnuskn's discussion about the issues with playing as an arcane caster for some very good deep dives on these issues, or just about any other thread about the feel of the game. Maths is very tight, to the point where it becomes difficult to build a character that would be "highly competent" in-world due to high rates of failure for equal level challenges. Casting has been hit by nerfs to every aspect of spells - duration, effect and number of spells per day. Martials are still often (until quite high level with a tiny minority of skill feats) locked to the idea of "can someone do this in real life" while facing aggressive siloing of fighting styles behind particular classes. Healing is much harder to come by outside of clerics, which means that either combats are brutal and punishing and the party needs to rest a lot or that someone must choose to play a cleric, regardless of their own preferences.

Pathfinder 1st edition, on the other hand, allowed powerful combos and high levels of competency for all characters, with the main disparities between equally well thought out characters being more of flexibility and options than outright numbers. This particular issue stemmed largely from a problem that I mentioned for 2e martials - an apparent desire to limit them to the world of the strictly mundane in terms of their capabilities. There are 3rd party supplements that address this - the ever popular Spheres of Might by Drop Dead Studios provides a mostly grounded take on it, and the Path of War content by Dreamscarred Press gives a much more over-the-top and flashy approach - but within core the options are relatively slim for a non-caster to have the same degree of problem-solving tools.

Yes, you may or may not like the style of play outlined as positive in this post, but that doesn't make it invalid. Just as if you prefer a low-power, gritty game my personal dislike of that style doesn't mean that it shouldn't be catered to. The two playstyles can even coexist in the same system - the (bafflingly, to me, obviously) popular E6 and E8 rules cater to a playstyle I personally find uninspiring.

To analogise, anyone who has worked in a field where measurement is important knows that it's better to be over measurement rather than under. If you want a piece of wood to be 500mm and you get one that's 700mm, you can shorten it. Nothing about the piece of wood being too long for your purposes prevents you from using it the way you want to. But if you need a piece of wood that's 500mm and you have one that's 300mm, you're out of luck. You can't lengthen that wood to 500mm. Too bad. Same for catering to both high power and low power play - low power play can take place in a system that scales to high power, but high power play can't take place in a system that only provides a low scale.

It is one of the strengths of 5E, where most activities are not condified and the Advantage/Disadvantage system can be used to quickly adjudicate any unexpected situation.

You see, that to me is a tremendous weakness of 5e from a player perspective. I have no idea whether A) my action will even be allowed to happen by the GM because there's nothing in the rules to cover that situation and B) my action will be interpreted in the way I intend it to be by the GM. On top of that, the "well you figure it out" irks me as a GM, because it means I need to invent the rules for far more stuff that could have just been codified to begin with. That sort of resolution mechanic should be for a small amount of corner cases IMO, not huge swaths of the game.

LuniasM wrote:

magnuskn wrote:

You'll get a lot of flak for this post from the people who usually disagree with the premise. I agree with the basic premise in the way that PF2E papers over character weaknesses with its universal level bonus system. That makes it very hard to pretend your character has those weaknesses. Which goes to the point the Sideromancer is making, you actually need to self-pretend much harder that your character is physically weak, who nonetheless is so good at magic that he can contribute to a party of adventurers. Somewhere along the way to level 20 that paradigm disappears, due to the way attribute distribution works in PF2E.

Pretending you have a weakness (ie "can't swim" or "is bad at directions") is as simple as saying you auto-fail on those rolls or writing a lower number on your sheet. The Voluntary Flaws sidebar on Page 19 already calls out this option for ability scores, so extrapolating to skills or other features isn't a stretch.

Lots of games use advantages/disadvantages, merits/flaws, positive/negative qualities systems for decades. Would it be out of the question here? Negative feats, you could pick, which give you some other benefit in return? Extra xp, extra other feat, something like that?

After playing a lot of those games, I actually miss opportunities like that, for reflecting negative character quealities in mechanics in a codified way. Having old characters, characters with disfigurements, characters who grew up in a dessert and can't swim, etc.

The trouble there is that there will just be cries of "minmaxing" and "powergaming" when people take disadvantages to get advantages. Even if the system is done well, there's a certain very vocal segment of any playerbase who won't be able to stand the idea of weaknesses providing any benefit whatsoever.

MerlinCross wrote:

Crayon wrote:

Based upon the contents of the pdfs and certain comments by Bulhman and company, I believe the primary goal seems to be making a system that's easy to publish canned adventured for.

This isn't a bad target to be sure and may prove a lucrative model for Paizo, but isn't really what I'm looking for as a player or GM...

This is a worry I have. It looks great to publish stuff for or at least okay. It also seems pretty easy to maybe run PFS games in.

At home? ....eeeeeeeeehhhhhhh....*Waves hand a bit*.

I actually think this is a good selling point.

"Pathfinder 2 is kinda meh, isn't it?"
"Ya, but its good enough and there is tons of content for it!"

That seems like a reasonable outcome. I mean, every game system has snarls.

If it got to the point where it was "good enough", maybe. But it's nowhere near that for me and many others, especially given 1e will still exist and have a decade+ worth of content anyway.

Wait, I thought the derogatory "Anime" cries originated from caster players who hated martial classes from climbing up tiers... Was I wrong?

Nah, not me - if making martials more quote "anime" unquote (which I cannot stand, it's such a dumb way to talk about it) gives them more engaging play in terms of in and out of combat options, then I'm all for it. The whole reason I play casters in the first place generally is because I like having options that aren't just "make a skill roll" out of combat and "full attack/use the one combat maneuver you're specialised in" in it.

<stuff>

I just wanted to say thanks for taking the time to explain to me what the issues you were having are - I feel like I understand your point of view a lot better and I can certainly sympathise. I think where you and I differ is that the problems for me are enough to entirely turn me off, regardless of what does work, where - and correct me if this isn't an accurate characterisation of yourself - you feel that although there are problems that the good of the system outweighs the bad, and you're disappointed that this isn't a view shared by more?

During character creation, one of our players wanted to play an Alchemist. My first word on that, as a result of my time in among the forums with the complaints and vitriol, was "you'll have a hard time due to the Resonance system". Another player asked about two-weapon fighting and I immediately went into trying explain many of the mechanics behind it were locked behind the Fighter class. Those two players nearly left the table because of the things I ended up saying about the game, before even having played it.

This is what I mean by the toxicity, this negativity born on the forums that has bled out into my other interactions with the game. I want to run it, but I feel like there's a six page obligation based just on my own forum posts and the threads I've read to say "some things may be bad or hard". Monsters overtuned, the game built for PFS, TPKs, magic weapon dependency, bad spells, on and on and on.

From the sounds of it, the rules themselves are what's putting these players off. These are barriers to your players playing the game the way they want regardless of if you had been on the forums or not. You will have a hard time as an alchemist due to double-dipping from the same pool that governs your equipment uses. TWF is locked behind the fighter. These two things are just true about the game. The things that are bad for you and your group about the game will be bad whether you read about them here, worked them out by reading the rules, or simply just ran up against them in play.

Simply put, the forums are negative because there's a lot to be negative about. That's it. If the playtest didn't have the issues that people are complaining about, they wouldn't be complaining about those issues. I really don't mean to be rude, but complaining that people are complaining doesn't get anyone anywhere. Especially if you aren't debating the validity of the complaints, just saying that you don't like the fact that they are affecting your enjoyment of the game.

The best way to facilitate true role-playing is to get rid of all those numbers and dice and rules.

I know people who believe this unironically and would be happy if that was the case, but still claim to like RPGs. I dunno how you can like RPGs if you don't want them to be Gs in any way and want only RP, but hey, I don't have to play with them at least.

I certainly have some misgiving about the PFe2 rules. But the main reason I have stopped reading and positing on the forums because it is an ocean of immature nerd rage.

I will likely be back once the seas have calmed.

Everyone I don't like is an immature neeeeeeerd.

Feel free to ignore this bit.

[rant]
Seriously, this kind of smarmy high-horsing is exactly what I keep seeing all the time, and I don't like saying it but I'm not exactly seeing it come from both camps. In fact, this thread is about how the community "killed the game" and has complains about "toxicity", "not understanding the rules", "minmaxers", and "nerd rage", with calls for more bans and thread locks.

And they're all coming from the camp that dislike criticism of 2e, which I have to pretty firmly distinguish from the camp that likes 2e. There are quite a few people that like 2e that I have found to provide refreshing and clear statements on what they like about the new rules and why, even if I don't agree with the reasoning, and have generally added to my experience on the forum. But I had to put that bit in because I feel like if I don't specify that I don't hate people just because they like 2e I'll get accused of it by the same sort of person who has been complaining about this non-specific, nebulous and impossible to actually pin down "toxicity" because other people have opinions they don't like.
[/rant]

Sorry, that's been bothering me for a little while.

There's no use case that I can work out. If people want an easy to pick up or easy to run RPG they'll play 5e. If they want character customisation, they'll run PF1e. PF2 does ease-of-use worse than 5e and character customisation worse than 1e, so why run it over either of those games at this point? Its not like it strikes a good balance, with clunky "mode" rules for out-of-combat and in-combat seperation and class siloing (which has been partially addressed by the removal of signature skills)

Hell, for ease of pickup and character customization, I'd recommend 13th Age as doing what PF2 thinks it's doing.

And that's assuming you specifically want a class-and-level based fantasy RPG. If you want anything else you're probably going to be looking elsewhere in the first place.

neaven wrote:

What bad behaviour? Where? Most I've seen on the forums is frustration and some self-censored naughty words (or maybe they're auto-censored, I don't actually know or particularly care).

Well, that and more than a few people making disingenuous insinuations that people who don't like 2e "haven't played enough" or "just don't understand the rules" or "just want to minmax" or are nebulously "toxic" rather than trying to actually provide any counterargument at all for any of the genuine reasons given for disliking it.

There's several threads in August where people said they made up their opinion about the system, proudly declaring that they didn't need to play the game to know that. We've had threads where people bemoan the system for their PCs failing skill checks, when no character in the party was trained in it or had an ability bonus for it greater than 1. And we've had several threads that decry this playtest and predict the new edition's failure, with no constructive criticism on where to go from except "Start all over".

There has been constructive criticism, and those have been helpful, but the unconstructive criticizers have been too visible to miss.

I hadn't seen the threads you mention, and I'm hesitant to cause them "bad behaviour" - perhaps "unhelpful behaviour" but in my mind "bad behaviour" implies some sort of harm like forum members being threatened or harrassed, which I've not seen.

In which case it seems silly to call the boards toxic, given the lack of locked threads and bans handed out

This. I'm fairly certain that for cultural reasons (being an Australian, rudeness or pigheadedness below a certain amount doesn't even really show up on my radar) that Paizo would have a more sensitive trigger than myself, so if they aren't handing out many (or even any as far as I can tell) bans or locking threads left and right then toxic is pretty hyperbolic. I know there was that one politics thread that got locked, but politics is the ultimate flame bait on any forum, so that's hardly a surprise.

Beware of dreams of rapid response locks and bans, for you might find the targets don't align with your desires.

Crackdowns on opinion sound fun until the person doing the cracking down doesn't like yours.

That's mainly the point - once you add a wand of CLW into the scenario, any HP damage that doesn't kill someone becomes completely irrelevant. The actual threats in the two scenarios you've presented are likely to be stat damage (which takes more resources to fix) or a set of enemies. That's a pretty important problem.

Hard disagree on that. You're still using resources from the wand that can't be used later. The attrition that was applied to the HP is instead transferred to charges on the wand.

And if you're another player in the game rather than a GM, then it's put up with a game style you don't like or leave.

I haven't seen a good explanation of this issue, so can someone please explain to me what the issue is with a Wand of Cure Light Wounds? And why this issue is drastic enough to warrant taking a sledgehammer to entire classes to "fix"?

There are people that believe that in order to "truly" challenge PCs, you must specifically wear them down through attrition and that that attrition must specifically be of HP. Limited spell slots? Pah. Timed missions? Boo. Enemies having more time to prepare for PCs? Yawn. Players actually not liking the 15 minute adventuring day? Whatever.

I apologise if that sounds bitter, but I have debated this subject long and hard on Reddit against people who refused to concede that any of the mentioned factors could be used by a GM and stuck super hard to "only HP attrition really matters" in the face of overwhelming arguments to the contrary.

Ryan Freire wrote:

Toxicity is the single most overused term in existence right now and holds no more meaning than "attitudes and opinions I don't like"

Wrangling about rules, themes, feel of a game is not toxicity. Even heated arguments about it is not toxicity.

I have an alternative explanation. From how I see it, the real phenomenon is that "bad behavior" has been so thoroughly normalized on the internet these days that people think it's unreasonable to be called on it.

But that doesn't make it acceptable or desirable.

What bad behaviour? Where? Most I've seen on the forums is frustration and some self-censored naughty words (or maybe they're auto-censored, I don't actually know or particularly care).

Well, that and more than a few people making disingenuous insinuations that people who don't like 2e "haven't played enough" or "just don't understand the rules" or "just want to minmax" or are nebulously "toxic" rather than trying to actually provide any counterargument at all for any of the genuine reasons given for disliking it.

You can't have an ability score over 18 at level one. But why?

I've played in a few groups where a character started with a 20 (or even 22 in the case of an Orc character whose lucky player rolled an 18) ability score right out of the gate. It wasn't game breaking, and the other characters weren't left in the dust thanks to the fact we were all limited by level one hit points and equipment. With the measures PF2 is putting in place to make the game more balanced, capping ability scores at level one seems less like a way to ensure a balanced game, and more like a way to enforce the new character creation method. As a big fan of rolling for stats and opponent of capping ability scores at any level, if this stays in the finished product of PF2 (which I'm sure it will) it's going to be one the first things I houserule out of the game, if I bother switching to PF2 at all.

Anyone else have thoughts, comments, enraged outbursts, or vehement objections they would like to share on the subject?

Bound accuracy by level. That's why. It's one of quite a few ways to ensure that all characters will have numbers within a certain range for each level, which makes encounter design easier for developers - if AC, saves, DCs and to-hit will always be in a certain range, it's easier to dial monster numbers in. Pity it comes at a cost of character customisation.

Signature skills going is a big shot in the arm for customisation across literally all characters, it's a great idea! Allows for more varied concepts without the "multiclassing" to have to get them.

N N 959 wrote:

Now, maybe Paizo there is a lot Paizo is willing to reevaluate, but it would behoove them to be straight up with the customers about where this game is going.

That sound like really good advice for the Paizo devs. If we'd know in advance what is negotiable and what is not, it would be much easier to judge if we should even invest energy and time into further arguments. And that applies to both sides of the debate.

125% this. If they came out and said "we aim for a low-powered, low-magic experience where every die roll is tense" I'd pack up my account and not talk about PF2e any more, because I directly oppose all of those things - I want high power, high magic, and I think it's okay for die rolls to lack tension because it's hardly good for player agency if even level-appropriate tasks depend on a die roll more than their choices in making their character.

But on the other hand, if they came out and said "we aim to evolve from 1e by trimming the fat and tightening the maths without sacrificing the it's magic or power" then I'd still participate because that's a goal I can get on board with. I very much doubt this is the goal, as there are lots of little things that point towards not just a willingness but an outright desire to sacrifice both magic and power at the altar of Balance.

"or replace the mechanic": boy, am I hoping for replace. So far, playing the game has not lead to anything good to say about the mechanic. As such I'm, glad to hear it's on the radar and options are being looked at.

QFT. Every person I've spoken to in real life about the playtest, whether they liked or disliked the playtest overall, hated resonance.

3. Removal of Take 10/Take 20 - These aren't a character power, they are a wonderful (and very logical) tool to speed up gameplay. It is much better to be able to skip quickly over low-stakes encounters than to try to force stakes in with irritating crit fail effects. Assurance adds insult to injury by asking you to spend a feat in order to skip uninteresting rolls.

I totally forgot about this - the feat "assurance" has "ass" in it for a reason. I can take 10, but literally only 10, on one and only one skill. Sure, it scales, but not anywhere near enough to make it feel like anything other than a waste of a pick.

Probably much of this would die down and many of us who are negative about this system would leave if the devs simply came foward and gave a list of design goals they think are going to happen for sure, since this would mean there wouldnt be change to certain things.

Precisely. While I don't know for sure, I certainly have a suspicion that there are design priorities that directly contradict what I would like. If such a list came out, I could just sigh relief and avoid the playtest forums entirely, as there'd be no reason for me to try and give feedback if I know it goes against a stated design goal. Same with many others.

Like

1. Scaling cantrips - making cantrips actually worth considering spending an action on in combat rather than just fun-but-not-terribly-impactful minimagic is a good thing.
2. Rogue being a well-designed class - we all know the trials and tribulations of the 1e rogue, but within the framework of 2e, rogue is perhaps one of the most interesting options.
3. Higher 1st level HP - 1st level in 1e is borderline unplayable for me because it's too easy to go down to even a couple of weak attacks.

Dislike

1. Ranger - Hunt Target is the discount store version of the slayer's rather more impactful Studied Target, and god does it improve slow. By the time you can do it as a free action, you're almost capped out level-wise.
2. Resonance - a solution to a problem I never encountered. Consumable abuse was never an issue in my games, and characters pimped out with too many magic items never was either.
3. Alchemist - ties into the above. A whole class built on a system that was wonky in my eyes from the start.

Hate

1. Arcane spells - arcane casters just look unfun to play with spell effect nerfs on top of duration nerfs on top of reduced spell slots, and it's hard to imagine why a party would bring one along over another character, especially...
2. Cleric - also ties into resonance via consumable healing. Want healing? Cleric or basically nothin', bucko. Even worse that the underlying damage maths seems to believe you'll always have one - which means that someone in the party might have to play a character they don't want to play if they want to prevent TPKs.
3. +5 Bat of Mighty Nerfing - what's wrong with having powerful characters, exactly? Sure, not everyone wants epic power, but why cut out those that do? That's like levelling a skyscraper because some people don't like heights.

I think the sheer amount of bad faith criticism for PF2 has really made this place unpleasant. Like the amount of people who will rail on how a thing is bad, without attempting to see any way it could be made better without completely reverting it to the way that it used to be.

Like I understand that people are inclined to dislike change, but people around these parts take it to an almost absurd degree.

Like I get that literally every gaming community that's more than like 6 people is toxic, but this place just makes me sad.

Firstly, that's not bad faith criticism. Bad faith implies an intent to deceive, which your example doesn't give. Unhelpful criticism? Maybe. Bad faith? No. Besides which, you don't need to provide a solution to be able to criticise - I can't cook coq au vin, but I can still know when the chicken is raw.

Furthermore, there is absolutely bad arguments on the pro 2e side - just look further up in this thread where someone was claiming that negativity is from "not understanding the rules" or "wanting to min-max" when they would know full well otherwise by reading almost any negative thread or even other comments in this one. I actually don't think that it's representative of people who like 2e - the vast majority are simply people who have different priorities to me in what they want out of a game. So why should the odd bad argument against 2e invalidate all other arguments against it?

It's not just a matter of disliking change - there are certainly good changes that could be made from 1e. It's that we think the changes are not good changes. If I took your favourite videogame and made a sequel that changed or removed most what you liked about it, would you not say the same thing? And then the shoe would be on the other foot, with people complaining that you're being "overly negative" and "toxic". while you're sitting there thinking "but... I don't like what they're doing with this property I am invested in" having done nothing actually wrong.

A lot of the "oh this community is so negative" looks to me like complaining about people not liking the game. And what are we supposed to do if we don't like it? Just not give any feedback that might be negative?

Overnerfed magic, lack of healing options outside of a cleric, many monsters being as good generally as an optimised PC will be at one thing, replacement of actual multiclassing with a system more like VMC in P1e, no granular customisation of character skills, untrained and legendary being only +5 apart, aggressive siloing of character options, characters getting more skilled as they level at everything even if it doesn't make narrative sense, optimised characters having almost coin-flip success chances in many cases, and an overall lower-power feeling to the game are all reasons I've seen cited and backed up with both evidence and arguments as to why people dislike the game.

Now many may not agree that all of those are bad (or as bad), but that doesn't mean that myself and many others aren't seeing these problems as major turnoffs, especially since P1e exists as a point of comparison. Heck, if someone gave me a choice between 2e as it stands and not playing anything, I'd go right for not playing anything.

This would certainly explain the number of 'this is not the same game' / 'this is not the style of game I wanted from Pathfinder' reactions I've seen from passionate fans of 1st edition.

It certainly explains my feeling. If I wanted a low-fantasy, swords and sorcery game, I'm sure there's a lot of great ones out there. I could play E6/E8 in PF1, or play a noncaster in 5e, or play one of any number OSR games. The reason I don't do any of those things is because I actually like high fantasy.

The very reason I play and GM Pathfinder is to tell tales of mighty heroes changing the fates of cities, nations, even worlds. I want my players to feel like their characters are special, and I want to feel special when I play. I'm already a small cog in a big world in real life, so when I play a fantasy TTRPG I don't want to replicate that.

I know there are people that do want that "grim and gritty high RP low power" type game, but why does it have to be Pathfinder? Why does the one game that I find properly scratches my itch for high-fantasy play have to brought down to sword and sorcery? Especially glaring given that variant rulesets like the aforementioned E6/E8 cater to that style of play already. Why should the existence of people who would prefer S&S mean that the whole game be cut down to that for everyone, as opposed to what already worked in 1e?

breithauptclan wrote:

There are some who want to remove +1/level from everything. Make it so that characters only get the feat and ability and HP increases, but don't get any other increases

Misinformation, aside, that is not what the not digging the treadmill deal people want or are talking about.

Irresponsible, silly and vulgar, come to mind.

Emphasis mine. There definitely are people who want to take the +level out and leave a flat competency curve relying on the other bonuses in the system, similar to D&D 5e. There are also other people, like myself, who would prefer a 1e-like system where you can chose what you get good at and how good at it you can get in a granular fashion. And, of course, there are people who don't want to remove it at all.

Every point of diffrence in 2e is equivalent to two points in 1e since in 2e it gets you a 5% better chance to succeed AND to critically succeed while in 1e it was only a flat success.

So the spread between Untrained and Legendary is really the equivalent of a +12 in 1e. That's pretty good!

That's not necessarily true though. If getting a critical success has a benefit that is double or more that of getting a regular success, then perhaps, but in terms of the difference between succeeding at all or not succeeding at all the spread is the same as it always was.

Rikkan wrote:

Yeah, that is exactly my point. Casters get class features to deal with those problems, while non-magical martials have to sit around / plead with their DM to fix those problems for them.
Because non-magical casters usually don't or barely get non-combat class features

A character is not a bag of class features.

Why do the class features need to be the solution?

Let them call on characters from their background, characters they've made freinds of business partners with, characters in their debt. Let them utilize knowledge from their adventures, or the treasure therefrom. Let them use cool racial abilities. Let them use legendary and mythic skill feats to rend the universe to their will and solve these problems.

Let them be a character with depth and connections and utilize that. God knows none of my groups had issues with martials feeling useless in 1E, and that's through some 8 groups in 20 different campaigns. Can we stop making wizards unfun or forcing martial characters to get their narrative power via class?

I mean... why not give martials more codified options to impact a narrative? That doesn't preclude using your non-class-feature solutions either - people can still call in favours, use racial abilities, skill feats, etc.

Spheres of Might, my favourite 3rd party supplement for 1e, was all about that. Instead of the average martial character being a machine for inserting bits of metal into your various enemies, using it opened up a lot of narrative and roleplaying opportunities for my players.

Our Techsmith is bringing steam power to Golarion, not just because I as a DM merely said "yes you can invent that" but because there was a codified set of rules that allowed myself and the player in question to agree how it would be represented in game mechanics as well as story.

Our Armiger on the other hand is playing a "right tool for the right problem" character. His fighting style and some of his out-of-combat skillset changes depending on the weapon he is using, and he can provide varying levels of out-of-combat non-skill utility as well via his investment in the Alchemy sphere.

Both of these examples have been more interesting for me as a GM and for the players in question than other martials they had previously played, because the features their classes and the system gave them allowed them to have a reliable, immediate and enjoyable effect on the story and the world.

Elleth wrote:

Personally I think that, for attack rolls at least, 50% on the first hit, 25% on the second, and 5% on the third for a same level challenge sounds like the right number -two attacks gives you a (1-0.5*0.75)*100% % chance of hitting, which sounds pretty good to me. I'll admit that it is potentially more of a problem with 2 action attack roll spells that miss on a fail.

I have less strong opinions on skill DCs etc. here, but I think attack rolls seem good.

I think 50/25/5 is fine for low levels. But in my opinion, by level 5-7 it should be more like 75/50/25.

Yes, I think that by level 5ish the first attack of an optimized attacker should only miss on a 5 or lower and I think the second attack should only crit fail on a 1 (I know there are no crit fails for attacks, but in principle) against most enemies, only the enemies that are actually higher level should the fail rate be as high as 50/25/5. I am ok with there being no advancement on to-hit rate past that, barring teammate buffs and special circumstances (which does mean that with allies helping and getting favorable buff/debuff the rate could be 95/75/50)..

On Skills, if someone focuses on a skill, I still don't see why, outside of combat, most tasks involving that skill are not just auto-succeed by level 7. Only the extremely hard uses of a skill should be something that requires rolling and even then only if there is a tight time constraint or noticeable penalty for failure.

Conversely, if you have spent no resources on a skill, I believe you should fail all but the most trivial of tasks and in most cases not even bother trying.

This is precisely my issue with the bounded accuracy, which PF2 seems to have across characters of the same level. It makes it very difficult for characters of similar level to be radically different in their capabilites, and I think that's a negative - why should the untrained be so close to the legendary if their stats and level are the same?

This would be ameliorated somewhat if some of the skill feats were folded into the proficiency system, however, as that would mean proficiency will always automatically provide more uses at every point.

Unfortunately, I don't know if Paizo's vision for PFS is compatible with the sorts of changes you are asking for. PFS seems to be engineered to cleave as close to RAW as possible in order to give a consistent experience from table to table. Allowing GMs to make changes to the material on the fly creates inconsistencies between play experiences, which is against a stated goal of PFS.

While the goal of the Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild is to provide an even, balanced experience to all players, doing so would require all PCs to be exactly the same and all GMs to be restricted to a stiflingly oppressive script. We understand that sometimes a Game Master has to make rules adjudications on the fly, deal with unexpected player choices, or even cope with extremely unlucky (or lucky) dice on both sides of the screen.

Scenarios are meant to be run as written, with no addition or subtraction to the number of monsters (unless indicated in the scenario), or changes to armor, feats, items, skills, spells, statistics, traits, or weapons.

Requielle wrote:

*blink*

*goes and reviews huge bookshelf of D&D materials, dating back decades*

*is unable to find a +1 system in those books*

Let's go back ten years. Pathfinder Alpha. V1.1 March 2008. The initial release had +1/level for trained class skills, +0.5/level for trained cross-class skills (remember them?) and +0 for untrained skills.

This was removed by Alpha 1.2.

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2hylq?Keep-Skill-Points

It would be interesting if Jason could explain why, if it was a bad idea then, it's a good idea now.

My guess would be changing market conditions. To give an example, 5e is skill-point-less, and is the most popular edition of any tabletop RPG. I don't think these two factors are correlated in the slightest, but then again that's speaking from my personal perspective and preference and not from a market analysis point of view. It may very well be that the removal of granular systems like skill points provides a higher uptake rate of new players. Whether the uptake would be sufficient to replace those driven off by the changes remains to be seen, especially since there's the 800 pound gorilla of 5e sucking up a lot of new entries into the hobby too.

Rikkan wrote:

while being able to walk to a cave and slay your enemies is perfectly fine at level 1, as you go up in levels that is no longer adequate for an adventurer.

This is why bus drivers are national heroes - not very often. Having to rely on your caster or a magic item to get you there is about as demeaning as having to rely on a car made by someone else at a factory. The caster then has to rely on the martials to win the actual fight - the heroic part. This was so in PF1 and looks to be even more so in PF2.

The issue I - and many others - have with this is that the spell nerfs seem to make it "even more so" to the point of "why did we bring you over someone else?" for arcane casters. The opportunity cost for someone playing an arcane caster is that they are not playing a class that can contribute in more useful ways (as spells are much weaker) for a longer period of time (as spell durations are lower and number of slots is smaller).

I more meant enemies that are successfully frightened - outside of Dirge of Doom it's not like it's a guarantee to work. On rereading though, I definitely think it comes across more as you read it, so that's totally fair. Sorry for being unclear!

As for flanking, it requires two melee characters in a party - something that is not guaranteed to happen at all. If you're a paladin, and there's a bow fighter, a wizard and a cleric, you're out of luck for flanking unless you want the squishies to wade in.

In my opinion, if a buff is situational it shouldn't be mandatory to get decent accuracy, and if it's mandatory to get decent accuracy it shouldn't be situational. Same reason that a cleric shouldn't be the only viable source of healing, as not every party will have someone who wants to play a cleric.

Remedies to the problem in actual play:

However, these chances, even for spells that require saves, can be improved.

Flat-footed is a common condition that gives a -2 penalty to enemy AC. For someone who used to hit 50% of the time, this ups their accuracy to 60%, or a 20% increase in accuracy.

There are also buff spells like Bluff and Heroism that increase your chance to hit, making even fights against equal level enemies much easier.

For Spells that require saves, a common condition in Frightened lowers the enemy's save, and can be applied judiciously...

The fact that situational buffs exist does not imply that a base 50% chance is good. Flat footed requires another person in the right position, which is not possible on all battlefields or with all parties. Buff spells require someone to be playing someone who hands out buff spells as well as them spending a limited resource to do it. And frightened only applies to enemies that can be frightened.

On top of that, all those "remedies" require the spending of actions in combat to use.

neaven wrote:

Alchemaic wrote:

Indeed. Perhaps some kind of modular or granular point-based skill system would work, where investment into a given skill is what gives you bonuses instead of a flat per-level boost.

Ah, if only Paizo had had some exposure to this idea before starting development on PF2 they might have thought to include it! Perhaps they could also have a similar system for attack bonuses, where classes that are more adept at combat would have a higher likelihood of their attacks hitting, where classes that are less adept would have a lower likelihood?

If only Paizo had made such a system instead of copying it from someone else, warts and all.

If only there were some sort of system in this new edition whereby at certain intervals, say every two levels, there were ways of specalising in chosen skills. This hypothetical feature could open up new uses for the skills or making you better at existing features of the skills. If only Paizo had thought of such a novel feature for their new edition of their game, to tie in with the rest of it playing by different rules.

That sounds nice in theory, but... that doesn't actually address my criticism of it - the fact that two characters of similar level are rolling at relatively close bonuses even though it doesn't narratively make sense that that should be the case. Skill feats allow new uses - although some like Pickpocket would be better folded into proficiencies - but that doesn't change the fact that everyone gets better at all skills as they level no matter what.

Indeed. Perhaps some kind of modular or granular point-based skill system would work, where investment into a given skill is what gives you bonuses instead of a flat per-level boost.

Ah, if only Paizo had had some exposure to this idea before starting development on PF2 they might have thought to include it! Perhaps they could also have a similar system for attack bonuses, where classes that are more adept at combat would have a higher likelihood of their attacks hitting, where classes that are less adept would have a lower likelihood?

If bounded accuracy means that the lowest and highest bonus are not super far apart then yes PF2 is bounded around the idea that the spread from highest to lowest bonus between equally leveled PCs/monsters should end up around 10-15, enough that the die roll still has a chance to make the worse of the two win a straight competitive check. This ends up being pretty similar to 5e for equally leveled characters.

Yes, that is what I meant in this case, thank you. I wasn't even aware of the other definitions, actually.

I personally am not a fan of the idea outside of combat, especially in opposed rolls, as it breaks my suspension of disbelief that there's such a (relatively) large chance of a non-expert beating an expert at a roll. I often see the sentiment expressed that large differences in bonuses "marginalise the dice", but I don't see that as a negative. I like when my character's success or failure is determined by my choices, not the whims of a d20.

In combat its more palatable, as combat by it's very nature is chaotic and unpredictable in a way that non-combat situations aren't.

If this were the final version of the game, I wouldn't houserule anything.

I'd just not play it.

I'd stick to playing PF1e, use the Unchained action economy, ABP, and skill unlocks as well as the 3rd party Spheres of Might/Power from Drop Dead Studios. There's nothing I like from 2e that isn't done better with this framework, especially with the unbounded modifiers across same level characters - I actually like that characters of the same level can be radically different in their likelihood to pass or fail certain checks, especially skill checks.