...which makes it all the stranger that they eventually decided to do away with it in 5e. They certainly modified it, in that some classes still prepare certain spells each day but have more flexibility in what spells they choose to cast, but I think it's still Vancian at it's core. But even just that extra flexibility plays out differently, and I don't think it actually helps in the martial vs. caster "arms race." They have given more martial classes more tools, but I know that even my paladin can't do squat without her weapon, while the sorcerer in the group is a weapon. All he has to do is polymorph and the rest of us can pretty much take a smoke break. That doesn't make it a good system. I'm not sure if it is or isn't a good system, or if having it is good or bad for martial and caster balance. What I do know is that it is a core part of the D&D genealogy, just like levels, classes, or hit points, all of which have been around since 1974 and aren't likely to go away. They might change some to reflect changing player attitudes or styles of play, but they're part of what makes D&D, and Pathfinder, D&D and Pathfinder. I'm just saying don't get your hopes up.
I'll see Vancian magic die one of these days. I don't remember where I read it, I think it was one of the designers on D&D 5e in an interview or something, but somebody once pointed out that Vancian magic is pretty essential to what makes D&D, well, D&D. Nobody else has a system of magic like that. Of course, Pathfinder isn't D&D, and isn't necessarily beholden to those same traditions, but it is in the D&D genealogy, and as such I think Vancian magic feels "right" for it. Plus, removing it would require rebuilding the magic system from the ground up in order to keep it even remotely balanced with martial classes. Not that I necessarily love Vancian magic, it took me over 20 years to finally accept it, namely after I actually read the first two books in the Dying Earth series. While D&D and Pathfinder never really explained it in a meaningful way, Vance's description, that spells are essentially so complex that you have to do all the maths first, then basically just keep the solution to the formula in your head until you cast it, makes a lot of sense to me. Actually, having a better description, narratively, of how magic works might be a step in the right direction. Even in the 5e days of "Vancian magic is as D&D as classes and levels" it still hasn't been explained in a way that people who haven't read a lesser-known author can easily grok.
My biggest concern is in reference to the use of shields. As I understand it, it takes one of your actions to activate your shield, if you don't activate it, then you don't get the AC bonus. The problem is that this makes shield use another variable that the GM has to keep track of every round. Nothing slows down a combat more than the GM having to check once again on a player AC. From how it sounded on the Glass Cannon podcast, the shield doesn't actually add to the character's AC, but instead reduces the damage from an attack, based on the hardness of the shield. It may still have an AC effect, that didn't come up in the podcast. But having the shield "just" reduce damage, and require active use to do so, makes a lot of sense when we think about how shields actually work in real life, and I think makes them more interesting as well.
I get that, I absolutely love Pathfinder, and Golarion is my favorite RPG setting, but Pathfinder can get... crunchy, and as current there are so many abilities and classes and archetypes and etc. etc. That it can be pretty overwhelming. This is part of why I like D&D 5e as well, because (for me at least) it's a little easier to run (especially with less prep time). The sense that I'm getting from 2e so far is that it will be more streamlined and easier to run and prep (monster design, for example, seems to be taking a page from Starfinder, which I think it great), but still retain a lot of the fiddly options for characters, albeit somewhat truncated at first because we'll only have the core book for some amount of time. It's pretty exciting. As to the Paizo team seeing what's on the forums, they tend to be all over the forms, and pretty responsive, so I imagine they'll see most of what gets said (the good and the bad) and I'm sure some of it will be taken into consideration. When the actual playtest hits though, that's when we'll really have a chance to get our opinions across. I'm looking forward to it!
Though now, I realize, I am going to have a lot of difficulty wrapping my head around a system without the 5ft step. I think this is what was meant by a guarded step, which is the term used in Starfinder for a 5 foot movement which doesn't provoke an attack of opportunity. In Starfinder this is a movement action, whereas in Pathfinder 1e it occupied that nebulous "other" slot, in that it wasn't actually a move action, but prevented you from taking a move action. As a result, the guarded step of Starfinder (and, presumably Pathfinder 2e) is two sentences long, instead of the four paragraphs of the 5-foot step in Pathfinder 1e. So long story short, you should still be able to make a one square movement without provoking an AoO, but how it will interact with other actions remains to be seen.
I wholeheartedly agree! Imagine how pumped I was when I got to write a teahouse brawl for Paizo.
I'm so glad people are excited for this product! I hope you enjoy it!
I wrote my master's thesis on fanzines, and I can say that Wayfinder has more content and is of higher quality than those that I read (not that they were bad, mind you), and has been coming out consistently for a long time now. That's a ton of work, which for a great many fanzines is, traditionally, pretty much impossible to maintain. That Wayfinder has made it this far before paring down is super impressive. Paring down is a good call, because historically, the alternative is usually shuttering the zine, and that would be a huge loss for the community. I'm looking forward to contributing to and editing future issues!
Sent in a couple of pitches! I absolutely love kaiju so being able to work on such a project would be awesome (and buying a copy eventually even if I don't get in would be awesome too)! And uh, not to toot my own horn or anything, but my roommate owns just about every Godzilla and Gamera film ever made, so I can do LOTS of research. :D
While I find the idea of an obsidian gun super cool, it's a ridiculously fragile material. You'd literally be making a glass cannon. On the other hand, you'd literally be making a glass cannon (which is awesome). I honestly see them exploding on a critical. I don't normally go with "bad things happen when you roll 1" because it can turn into an absurd rabbit hole of possible effects, but since the rules already exist for guns breaking, I'm more okay with it. Maybe on a 1 they get the broken condition, and you could "confirm the crit" in some way to have it blow up and damage the user. I just can't see an obsidian gun working out. |
