necromental's page

Hey, I mean I cannot promise I will read and comment (as time is no longer available as it used to be when I hung out here) on the changes you are making, but I can promise you I certainly won't listen to a youtube video about it. Unless you are planning to publish an interactive video RPG, you have to have this stuff written down somewhere, either a google doc or something people can read.

PF1.

I mean, I started with DnD3.0, and just followed it there. So did the rest of my friends with who I play with.

I followed the PF2 playtest closely, and saw great potential, but also great flaws. We didn't care about turbo balance, as we were playing the game for years and knew to make similarly powered characters.
We adored 3-combat action system, and most of combat in playing PF2 but hated the whole skill system (even more so because PF2 shown what you could possibly do, but then held it out of reach with math, feats and tiers), total hatenerfbating of magic, and tightness of math that was very much against us (and we did optimize as much as we could).
Character building and layout were horrible to us (especially since we just started toying with Spheres of Power, so super strict vs super fiddly lost).

It's not that PF1 doesn't have glaring flaws, but we already know our way around them without breaking a sweat.

Greylurker wrote:

Generally Archetypes can't mix if they both alter the same things.

That said the Martial Controller does explicitly say it mixes with other Archetypes that replace magic talents but both it and the Resiezer give up the 1st level magic talent.

So as written you can't do it but you could talk to your DM to see if he'll give you an exception

The point is that there are two magic talents at first level.

Two bonus talents are a part of spherecasting class feature (and are also conditional). Bonus Talent is a separate class feature. The one which is altered by both archetypes. So by RAW, no, you cannot combine them.

I don't know, while some abilities are nice, and you can play a bit more of a gish thanks to the 3/4 BAB, there is still the fact that you cannot use almost any traditional wizard defensive spell (maybe some are in transmutation but most are illusions and abjurations). Lack of enchantment or necromancy also isn't helping. I don't get the notion behind Vital Strike (nothing says you can use spells with it), and it would be the first thing to get cut. You don't get extra metamagic feats but rather teamwork or combat which you are still not very competent to use. Would probably turn that back. Charged weapon could maybe be dialled down a bit like +1d6 for every 3 lvls rather than every 2. Maybe. It is limited.

I don't know, I would never play this over a standard evoker, because of lack of spell schools and arcane discoveries.

What are your specific grievances?

Would it help you in your games? Let us know.

Frankly, no. Just random table dedicated to CR and terrain I can extrapolate myself from d20pfsrd. I already have a more elaborate version with Random Encounters Remastered (series of 5) from Purple Duck Games. They have dispositions, some random terrain stuff... If I needed just tables, they would have to be specifically designed for campaign setting (and since I play Midgard interspersed with Vathak, Lost Lands and Thedas, there is no table that is going to be specific enough).

What I could use best is something like more random encounters the way Raging Swan does them, more like adventure seeds rather than just monster tables. You could still concentrate on monsters, but extra random columns with encounter ideas could work.

Quick question: does this product have rules for fleet battles (mass combat for ships)?

It doesn't. Only file in my collection that does is Legendary Games - Ultimate War

necromental wrote:

My problem with Dex to damage is too many things tied to Dex (it's not called God stat for nothing), and Strength not having anything to do (PF2 did some right there, having Str ignore armor encumbrance, and defaulting initiative to Wis (perception)). I wouldn't mind Dex to damage if we had Str to AC feat, too.

I'm fine with Str doing something like being allowed to be used for initiative. There was a series of 3PP feats like Muscle Reaction which added Str to initiative checks, or Battlefield Intuition which used Wis, or Presence of Mind which used Int. These stacked with Dex and Improved Initiative. All feats were done by the unfortunately defunct company, 4Winds Fantasy Gaming.

Adding as a bonus to Dex only exacerbates problems. Half of your complaints/wants for fixes would be unnecessary if they cleaned up the math. I don't want PF2 stuffled math, but cleaning up bonuses (less bonus types, assigning a bonus type to untyped bonus stuff), not having a ton of stackable stuff would go a long way in making a game less a chore.

I have faith in that because as it seems Corefinder won't be a monthly printing of character options (which would eventually cause problems for any system like it did for 3.x and then PF1. It killed PF2 for me in start because skill feats are envisioned as something to be printed with every publication, no matter how stupid they are).

Wizard (specialist) RGG - Grimoire Arcane Book of 8 Schools
Cleric RGG - Talented Cleric & More Cleric Talents

I think there are about three levels to this:

- FAQ: something is unclear and people keep asking about it, so explain it better in an FAQ entry.
- Errata: there's a mistake somewhere, such as a 20GP that should be 2GP. Or something is missing a trait. There was a plan, but what's actually printed isn't quite according to plan. Next printing, fix it. Meanwhile, have a list of "mistakes we found that will be fixed in the next printing" because it can take a while. This also covers fixing inconsistencies between things in different chapters seeming to contradict each other.
- Design changes: overhauling how something works because the original design is causing problems. This is basically Paizo saying "we changed our mind".

I would say that the first two categories are certainly desirable. The last category is sometimes needed, but preferably only if it really improves the game. I think it was this category that caused the most pain last edition when some option was found overpowered and nerfed hard in a next printing.

I agree. Especially on the third point. There should be some quality check for such errata, so we don't get things nerfed into uselessness.

Lanathar wrote:

gnoams wrote:

Everyone just sucks equally somewhere in the middle.

This is a rather “glass half empty” view of things...

Not the way I see it.

In Pathfinder 1, you are John Wick slaughtering your way through hordes of hapless foes. Only the badest enemies hold the slightest challenge for you and even then it is a foregone conclusion. You are the best, they aren't.

In Pathfinder 2, you are John McClane. You get the ever living @#%! beaten out of you over and over, but you die hard, you keep going, you get up each time they knock you down, and you persevere in spite of overwhelming odds.

Coming from the super heroes of PF1, it feels like your characters really suck in PF2. That's not necessarily a bad thing, the game mechanics just make for the telling of a different sort of story. At least, thus is my experience with the system so far.

This is pretty on spot. Level 1 is so far fun. I don't expect levels 8+ to be as fun as in PF1.

necromental wrote:

In having spells and options that were in "you can take them if I don't say otherwise" relegated to "they are forbidden if I don't say otherwise".

And how often did the former lead to things getting banned/tweaked mid-game/fight?

I frankly don't remember a single case in any campaign I played.

I think that rarity is a good tool, but not without explanations, I believe it should have had them NOW, not in some future book people will maybe read, maybe not, while everyone will read the CRB. I also think Paizo should have erred on the permissive side (with every explanation of certain types of uncommon things..."if you don't have a problem with this part you should make them common" or somesuch.

One more thing. I liked playing 3.x/PF1 because so many things were codified and clear to the player. Not necessarily clear in every case, but general assumption was that you could do things that the book said. In some (even many) things, PF2 is even more codified, but at the same time it opens many cans of worms that were never part of design philosophy of previous edition; like PF1 had paladin code and that stupid faq about take 10 (EDIT: which was clearly a step to PF2 since the take 10 rule wasn't clear and faq pushed it to "ask your GM"), and now we have anathemas in several classes, mother-may-I of rarity, and maybe other cases of GM-empowerment (EDIT: like skills vagueness in playtest, but that was pushed back iirc, still haven't gotten to skills) which are generally just additional workload for me as a GM and a player.

necromental wrote:

But it's a wrong-footed start for people who want to have new GMs and new groups (which is one of the things Paizo and everyone wants) who will just be unnecessarily penalized for having played the game before.

How are they penalized?

In having spells and options that were in "you can take them if I don't say otherwise" relegated to "they are forbidden if I don't say otherwise".

There are a couple of problems that I have with rarity.
First, it's one of many, many magic nerfs. Many spells that were staples in 3.x/PF1 (and other versions of DnD) and made the game high fantasy and basically magical are relegated to uncommon. I am personally not interested in playing Lord of the Rings with PF (there are several RPGs that are much more suitable), and this is another part that makes me feel like the PF2 CRB is saying that I was playing the game wrong.

Second reason is that it's so poorly explained.
This: "For instance, it might be more challenging to run a mystery adventure when a player can cast an uncommon spell such as detect evil." is the only example we have of why some spells were made uncommon. During the playtest there was already outcry of not giving explanations about "Why"s of uncommon things. We extrapolated and got a list in blog or dev posts iirc that said things like "breaks survival campaigns, breaks mystery campaigns, can trigger certain real world experiences (enchantments)" and maybe couple more. I really don't see the reason why this wasn't included in the sidebars about rarity. Giving new GMs reason why this tool was included in the CRB was much more important than a "reward" part of the sidebar. An herein lies my problem. New GMs won't know why are these things are seemingly excluded and many will just blanket ban everything uncommon.

I won't have the problem with this in my game, because if my GM of 10 years tries to say that I should ask him about uncommon things, I'll just hit him with a chair. We've been playing this game for basically 18 years. But it's a wrong-footed start for people who want to have new GMs and new groups (which is one of the things Paizo and everyone wants) who will just be unnecessarily penalized for having played the game before.

How the system pushes a personality onto your character. In 1st edition I can't tell you how many PC's made by my friends didn't have a background or personality. Now you have to choose a background as well as have spaces on your character sheet to talk about yourself which I will definitely be making my players fill out each time

Players whose characters didn't have background or personality won't have them now either. "Background" in PF2 is mechanical choice similar to traits, not a "super-pill-of-instant-roleplayer".

The Fahrenheit and Celsius thing, the conversion is really gibberish, but the thing is we never thought about what temperature it exactly is. Adventurers don't go out with thermometers and check, they care if it's Severe Heat or Extreme Cold, so we used that jargon rather than the exact temperature.

Michael Sayre wrote:

Anguish wrote:

Is it possible to order a hardcover of this somewhere?

The PDF is excellent but this is something that absolutely needs to be on my shelf.

It's currently available directly from Lost Sphere's website.

I'll ping Christen and see if he has any additional information.

Thanks much. $48 USD in shipping, but:

a} I'm getting used to that insanity and
b} the darned thing's worth it.

I haven't quite figured out how I'm going to introduce the setting into my game reality, but have been chewing on it for a bit.

WOah on the shipping. I got it for 16$ shipping, in Croatia, where I'm used to having 48$ and up amount if it's not Amazon.

And I'm also having problem in incorporating into my CS (which a version of Kobold Press' Midgard), and I think I'll just not include it. Themes are excellent but just don't mesh with my CS. I'll just run it as a separate thing.

On that last note, when are the adventures in Hyraeatan coming :D?

I would say that Intelligence is more powerful since we're having fewer skills.

Sense Motive was rolled into Perception, so it's under Wisdom.

Strength is still dumpable if you don't use it, but bulk and reported reduction of speed penalties for heavy armor make it useful.

Cydeth wrote:

if the art starts veering back toward what I've seen for the new iconics, I'm going to drop PF2.

This is a completely alien perspective to me. I'd have an easier time understanding if it was the book layout or something, but not using a system because of the style of the character art in the book would simply never occur to me. I even use the Paizo art assets for my game (as digital tabletop tokens), but I can always look online for a different piece of art if I don't like the existing one (I do that sometimes, especially when there's a variant/leader monster or NPC). If I somehow ended up hating every piece of PF2 art, I'd just...not use it, and keep the system. Even if I couldn't stand even occasionally seeing the art, I'd just use the SRD or something. Hypothetically, if the books depicted a bunch of incredibly objectionable content (the kind of stuff that Paizo would say violates the Pathfinder baseline), I could see not wanting to see the book or even indirectly approve of its content by using it...but that's a pretty out-there scenario, and that's as close as I can get. For context, I couldn't have even told you the names of any of the iconics a couple of months ago, despite playing PF1 since launch and owning all of the PF1 rulebook line, and even now I only recognize the names because of the various videos and blogs since the playtest announcement. I'd still recognize them as the characters from the class section of the books, though.

Anyway, thanks for the interesting reminder that people have different requirements and priorities, and I hope PF2 ends up being a good fit for both of us.

While it won't stop me from using the system, it certainly reduces the number of hardcovers I'll buy. I find WAR's art and Paizo hardcovers some of the ugliest in my collection. All IMO of course.

Heavy armor felt super good to use! I am on the last session with a defence oriented paladin, and there are rounds I mitigate 100 points of damage.

You can feel good all day long, but when someone who invested in Dex and wearing a light armor has the same AC while suffering none of the penalties you do, it sucks.

On the minion trait - count me as one who hated summons and minionmancy in general in 3.x/PF1, not so much because of overpoweredness but because of the time it took to resolve those things on the table. So I don't mind summons and stuff getting the shaft, but I do understand that for someone coming from PF1 it's one more thing (and a big thing) that was nerfed.

Off-topic question for those who use Charisma for Will saves in PF1: What do you do about the Circlet of Persuasion?

** spoiler omitted **

"Except Will saves."

tqomins wrote:

Rage. Flat 1 minute; when you're done you aren't fatigued but can't rage again for a while.

Oh, thank god. It seems like every time news comes out for the new edition something that made me give up on the playtest entirely has been removed. Next you're gonna tell me that Barbarian anathemas have become less hardline and more like the general roleplay suggestions originally advertised.

Word. Here's to hoping.

Edit: wand stuff doens't sound bad, but I hoped that wands will be weapons for casters (raising attack/DC for spells).

Personally one of the reasons I want wands and staves to do different things is exactly because I like the image of a wizard with a staff in one hand and a blasting rod in the other. :)

Harry Dresden FTW

On the other topic: Super awesome to hear Mark say... basically everything he said. Four degrees of success is one of my favorite features from the playtest, and I'm really glad to hear that the focus isn't just on "nerf the OP one-turn-win spells" but also very much on "reduce how often the caster feels like they wasted their turn".

4 degrees of success for save-or-something spells was absolutely one of my favorite additions of playtest. Balance wasn't always where I wanted it but basic idea was very solid, and I hope it just got refined. 4 degrees of success in skills, on the other hand, should die a fiery death (critical failures on natural 1 especially).

Setting difficulties so as to appropriately challenge your PCs is not "making PC bonuses irrelevant"*, and I should specify that I often design adventures not knowing what PCs will be tackling them. So it's not "I want this DC to be hard-but-possible for the dragon specialist I know is in the party" so much as "I want this DC to be hard-but-possible if the party happens to have a dragon specialist."

But even aside of all of that, usually more what I want to know is "if the party happens to have a dragon specialist, how likely are they to make this check?" One of the really nice things about the playtest table was being able to take a DC, look at the table and say "okay, this DC is in the Very Hard column, so I know that I shouldn't expect the party to make it even if they have a specialist".

*EDIT: Unless, of course, every encounter is designed to challenge the specialist. I know that is a thing that some people feel the need to do. I've encountered GMs like that: If there is a highly skilled lock picker in the party, then suddenly every lock has a super high DC. I consider that bad GMing, but it does happen, and it's one of the reasons I understand Mark's reasoning for not keeping the playtest table.

So (someone correct me if I'm wrong), there are two differences in playtest table and future PF2 table:

I'm gonna be honest, all your posts seem as if you dislike the new math, and better liked the old one and just don't want to admit it. Maybe you want something in-between. Because all of your examples can use the table the same way they used the old one except PCs just have a better chance now. Like your above example of dragon lore, why can't you use appropriate level and almost impossible modifier to gain the wanted DC?

I probably won't back anything for second edition for the foreseeable future. I don't want to have to do a bunch of work to convert it to the proper edition. But, the publishers have to go where the money is. Would have been nice to see this before the edition change.

I'm hoping there will be an option for PF1 version. I'm not backing anything PF2 because even if I eventually play in the new ruleset, PF1 will remain my main system for years more (the one I'll GM in).

You are not actually supporting PF right now. I don't care about PF2 since it's not out. I'm pretty sure there's a 5e sub-forum somewhere here, putting 5e adventures in PF-compatible sub-forum, seems like bad form. I actually went and put adventures in my shopping cart and then realized they are 5e.

I see this debate as a problem of communicating between two editions. In PF1 skill were a lot of times not crucial to anything, especially in combat. Also, other than a subset of classes, most characters didn't have all, or even many skills. Now in PF2 importance of skills is increased (that's nice) and playtest assumed you're gonna have ALL skills. Also PF1 didn't have crit failures in (most) skills, while playtest did in all of them. The paradigm shift is that you're supposed to get bigger reward and bigger risk for using skills in PF2. In such context, take 10 is a bit offending the sensibilities PF2 is trying for.

I like success rates and reliability better than PF2 playtest, but not necessarily those of PF1. If I end up using PF2, I'm removing natural 1&20 for crits in skills (only +/-10 of the DC), and giving Assurance to all Experts in a skill.

Backgrounds stat choices are only a problem if you are trying to be 100% optimal. You can always boost what you feel is the most important stat and the only stat combinations that might be 100% useless to your character is if your background offers Strength or Charisma. Literally any other stat will be beneficial to you.

And because the system rewards and punishes more than PF1, 100% optimal is what people will try to do.

I'm totally with Weasel here, if backgrounds don't give unique abilities, they are better as giving stat boosts, skill feat an Lore of your choice. But considering Paizo is in the business of printing character options, I'm pretty certain they will be as in playtest. Well, at least it's easy to house rule.

PDFs:
DriveThru
Open Gaming Store
Paizo
Publisher stores (some, like those that don't charge VAT)

Books:
Amazon
Book Depository
AbeBooks
Paizo

Paizo is last because I don't remember when it was last time they gave a discount for 3pp pdfs or books. For physical books, the most important part for me is shipping (I live in Croatia) hence those stores. I used to take more stuff on Kickstarter but now my wishlist is just too large and I don't have the patience to wait for a book if I can buy one now. Also if it will be available on Amazon/Bookdepository, I can get discounts.

Basically, I buy things where there are discounts and affordable shipping.

necromental wrote:

So, if I do something that's suboptimal and boring, I'll last longer? I mean I usually play magic-martials, but if I want to play the casting-caster it's not because I want to cast cantrips all day long.

Let's take a look at this from a game design perspective:

1) Spells are limited in uses per day, while most martial abilities are not.

2) Given that, spells need to be more powerful than typical martial abilities to justify their limited uses

3) However, this dynamic then causes what I'll call "the Nova Problem". The Nova Problem is this: If a caster has enough spells to cast a spell every round of combat, then for that combat everything they do is more powerful than the martial characters. If the caster has enough spells that they don't have to worry about running out until the party rests, then they are effectively more powerful than the martial characters all the time.

4) The Nova Problem really only has two solutions: Either spells must not be meaningfully more powerful than martial abilities, or casters must have few enough spells per day that they have to not use spells on some rounds, so that there are rounds of combat in which the martials are more effective than the caster to balance out the rounds in which the reverse is true.

PF2e seems to be heading in the direction of the second solution, because they would like to keep spells more powerful than martial abilities.

I don't disagree with your analysis, but the thing we were discussing was that casters last longer in PF2, and the answer to my NO was : "yes, they do, they can do this boring and suboptimal thing all day long instead of casting a spell whole fight/every fight." So it's still a: "no, casters don't last longer in PF2".

necromental wrote:

But it did, you have approximately half the spells you had, and they are worse to boot (yes, they are buffing them, but you'll never convince me they'll get back to PF1 levels), if nothing because of need for heightening. You also have less in wands (or not at all considering latest news). Cantrips are just not enough to make up for the loss from PF1. The only thing that now lasts longer is hp healing for no-magic parties which can potentially go indefinitely thanks to Treat Wounds (since magic ones got by with wands of CLW).

As MaxAstro notes, it depends on how you play. Generally speaking, you need to cast spells less often in PF2 than PF1, since your cantrip and other non-spell options are comparatively superior (both because the spells are less powerful and because the cantrips and other options are more so).

If you cast a spell every round, yes, you'll run out quicker...but that's a terrible and suboptimal tactical choice, rather than something the system encourages.

Spellcasters are certainly less powerful than in PF1, but how powerful you are and how long you can go between rests are very different things and, played at all optimally, PF2 casters can go significantly longer while still contributing every combat round.

So, if I do something that's suboptimal and boring, I'll last longer? I mean I usually play magic-martials, but if I want to play the casting-caster it's not because I want to cast cantrips all day long.

I was stating the difference between PF1 and PF2, which was that the '10 minute adventuring day' became longer rather than shorter over the edition change. The point I responded to said it got shorter, and I disagreed with that.

But it did, you have approximately half the spells you had, and they are worse to boot (yes, they are buffing them, but you'll never convince me they'll get back to PF1 levels), if nothing because of need for heightening. You also have less in wands (or not at all considering latest news). Cantrips are just not enough to make up for the loss from PF1. The only thing that now lasts longer is hp healing for no-magic parties which can potentially go indefinitely thanks to Treat Wounds (since magic ones got by with wands of CLW).

Kobold Press:
Courts of the Shadow Fey
Halls of the Mountain King
are two great big ones, or you can link ones in
Tales of Old Margreve

TPK Games:
Tomb of Caragthax
Bleeding Hollow
The Fen of the Five-fold Maw
pretty deadly

JBE:
9 lives for Petane
Dragon's Dream
Chaosfire Incursion
higher levels

AAW:
Snow White
Wrath of Jotunn
these are also big ones or
Shattered Heart AP

Frog Gods' shorter one from the Blight:
Bloody Jack
The Crucible
Children of the Harvest
horror

Kobold's Press Midgard. A great dark fairy tale setting. Kobold know how to write fantasy, they just get the tropes while being original . And world is cohesive rather than hodge-podge of themes.
I use it as my base setting although planes are done a bit differently.

And I also combine Fat Goblins' Vathak with Midgard's Wasted West area to create a horror setting (and Church of the One True God that spreads in other parts of Midgard), and Storm Bunny's Rhune in the western ocean as kind of higher technology but not really on the same plane island ("a shadow away" to use Zelazny). For East I use Lost Lands as wide swathes of uninhabited, monster filled area with lower magic. (there is no China/Japan/India equivalent in my version).

Edit: While not a PF 3pp setting, I use a lot of themes from Dragon Age computer game setting, Thedas. It blends nicely with things above.

..feats that shouldn't exist because they limit what you can do without them

...or "let" you do things that any human being should be able to try

I'm hoping that the gatekeeping feats won't be necessary now that we don't add level to untrained skills.

Oberyn lost that fight because he's an idiot, not because of insufficient armor.

As much as I agree with this statement, I think that Mountain would have cleaved him in half if it was a realistic battle, if super dexterous warriors in little or no armor weren't romanticized so much.

necromental wrote:

If we're talking about creativity, it's still you letting me do something. If I say I don't wanna do this combat let's just teleport away, then it's my power that lets me go away, or my diplomacy modifier that lets me persuade attackers to go away. If I just talk through my PC and have no mechanical justification for anything that happens later, then you are letting me do something, I am not doing something because I can.

Yes, you need mechanical options in order to achieve things in games. But frankly, most of those things are achievable in PF2, and those that aren't in the playtest almost certainly will be in the final game, since most are spells and they're explicitly gonna be powering up utility spells.

necromental wrote:

I really don't care about "empowering the GM" aspects of PF2 (secret rolls as default, rarity as it's been written, extra nerfed utility magic, the vague skill DCs and uses). I get why they're doing it but it's not what I liked about PF (or 3.5 before that).

Almost every single thing you list is being changed for the final version of the game. Secret rolls are becoming optional, as mentioned utility magic is being powered up, and Skill DCs are changing radically.

So...most of this seems to be going away. Leaving, in terms of restrictions, mostly the math stuff other people have been talking about.

That's why I'm still here, rather than somewhere else. I won't stop complaining about the playtest things until I see they're not doing it again, though :D

The thing about empowering the GM is that in PF1e GMing is by far the hardest job and has such high skill and time requirements that almost no one wants to do it. Being a player is easy.

Saying you want to derail campaigns is all well and good, but you could at least have some sympathy for the person who is going to have to double their volunteer work to continue to provide you with free entertainment.

GMing is a job as much as it's a hobby, and I'm all for Paizo making it an easier job. Especially since maybe then someone else will be willing to do it in my group and I'll be able to actually play this game occasionally. :P

I found that people who want to GM will GM, people who don't want, will not. Across a lot of easier systems. I'm all for reducing the workload (which is why I don't complain about monster creation, even though I do find some things jarring), but empowering to reduce player agency really irks me.

Again, this creates a paradigm where there is no point in having magical boots when I can just replicate those effects in a jewelry item. Boots of Speed is now obsoleted by Ring/Necklace of Speed, which is precisely why the "you can only wear 2 rings and 1 necklace" rule was in place: To make non-jewelry slot items more valuable. It's the same reasoning why, in PF1, you couldn't TWF with spikes and a greatsword; arbitrary balancing.

I'm not following why someone having an effect on ring is a problem compared to having the same effect on boots? EDIT: greatsword and spikes is apples to oranges, because it has quantifiable effect - more damage. I really don't see how is it gamebreaking to have fly on ring instead of boots.

I meant exactly what gwynfrid and Mathmuse eloquently clarified - I love having my campaigns derailed, but I want it to be because of player creativity, not because someone found a build that does 200+ DPR at level 10 or whatever.

At the end of the day, I see it the opposite of how you do, necromental: Character build options are the developers telling my players what they can do. True creativity comes when they come up with awesome stuff outside of that.

If we're talking about creativity, it's still you letting me do something. If I say I don't wanna do this combat let's just teleport away, then it's my power that lets me go away, or my diplomacy modifier that lets me persuade attackers to go away. If I just talk through my PC and have no mechanical justification for anything that happens later, then you are letting me do something, I am not doing something because I can.

I really don't care about "empowering the GM" aspects of PF2 (secret rolls as default, rarity as it's been written, extra nerfed utility magic, the vague skill DCs and uses). I get why they're doing it but it's not what I liked about PF (or 3.5 before that).

While I generally dislike the forcing of more flavor in core rules, I feel this one was done ok. Although I also think it limits some things in what certain spell lists used to be and what spells they have.

D@rK-SePHiRoTH- wrote:

The game is designed to make written adventures go as planned no matter what the players build.

That's it.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

I want my games to go off-rails because of my player's choices, not their builds.

Character power gives them choices. I get that people don't like to get their games derailed, but it's not a choice if you told me what I can do. It's an illusion of one.

The only question that matters is:

Will casters be able to make martial characters obsolete AGAIN?

Because that is what we kinda want to get away from, isn't it. So if we want casters NEEDING martials around, what exactly DO they need from them?

Right now, THE ONLY THING martials can do is damage. Ergo, casters CAN NOT have a damage potential that allows them to ditch the beatsticks. And limited spell slots mean that you will want all those utility and battlefield control spells, ESPECIALLY when blasting is underwhelming and you inflict more damage upon the enemy by helping out your sword guys.

If you want casters to be able to emancipate themselves from needing bodyguards, then you must also enable the non-casters to be able to function WITHOUT CASTERS.

I would really like to hear how any of you think that is supposed to work...

Path of War, Spheres of Might, Kirthfinder are things that come of the top of my head where non-casters could do something more than damage and use a skill or two. I was hoping that PF2 will embrace those kind of solutions, instead we got super-mega-extra-nerf to casters. Yes, they said they are rolling some of it back, but I'm not holding my breath for it.

Put me at +1 for arcanist casting being the base. That way I would actually play prepared casters. Also I don't see any continuity problem there. Spontaneous casters should get a boost in casting stamina either through spell slots or spell points.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think it's just this one. All the smaller ones are of a later date and don't think they're in Ultimate. EDIT: Also, a lot of those small pdfs are compiled in Psionics Augmented Vol.2

Brother Fen wrote:

And the little known "Freeing Nethus" from Kobold Press

Where can you buy it?

I don't think you can, it was a kickstarter exclusive. The same with Return to Castle Shadowcrag (which was not clear it will be exclusive, and I'm still a bit salty about that because I was a part of that kickstarter).

necromental wrote:

Woo-hoo, blast from the last! Now lets just hope Jason doesn't roll something I already have :D Thanks, guys.

Let's find out!

… roll roll roll…

Looks like you get a copy of the harrowing horror adventure Hero's Blood!

Contact me at makeyourgamelegendary@gmail.com for a download code!

You went through my wishlist somehow, didn't you? Woo-hoo, I got me a nice one!

Woo-hoo, blast from the last! Now lets just hope Jason doesn't roll something I already have :D Thanks, guys.

necromental wrote:

necromental wrote:

completely coincidental wrote:

necromental wrote:

Well, dang, two days too late. Congratulations to the winners.

necromental: you’re not too late - there are still unclaimed prizes (see this post above). If you reply with your choice of prize package, I’ll purchase it for you…

Package 4 looks nice. Thank you very much.

Just seen that 4 has been claimed...No.3 then.

You can select a package that someone else has also chosen!

necromental: I’ve purchased Package 4 (Masks) for you - it should be available to download from your Paizo account now. (Let me know if this hasn't worked.)

Merry Mikazemas!

Got it, thank you very much!