tenketsu's page

We appear to still be reading entirely separate essays, then, because you seem to be reading "entirely separate" where it clearly says "related".

Apparently we are.

There's a third concept that we took from Magic-style rules design, though. Only with six years of hindsight do I call the concept "Ivory Tower Game Design." (Perhaps a bit of misnomer, but it's got a ring to it.) This is the approach we took in 3rd Edition: basically just laying out the rules without a lot of advice or help. This strategy relates tangentially to the second point above. The idea here is that the game just gives the rules, and players figure out the ins and outs for themselves -- players are rewarded for achieving mastery of the rules and making good choices rather than poor ones.

Emphasis mine. I admit I missed the line about it being tangentially related at first, which lead to me overstating it as "entirely separate", but that's not nearly as much an overstatement as claiming something that "relates tangentially" is actually part of a singular idea.

Well, I did link to it, and here is another link if you're curious, but it does seem to relate exactly to what's being described. For instance, the bit about options that are intentionally not made to be good:

Monte Cook wrote:

There's a third concept that we took from Magic-style rules design, though. Only with six years of hindsight do I call the concept "Ivory Tower Game Design." (Perhaps a bit of misnomer, but it's got a ring to it.) This is the approach we took in 3rd Edition: basically just laying out the rules without a lot of advice or help. This strategy relates tangentially to the second point above. The idea here is that the game just gives the rules, and players figure out the ins and outs for themselves -- players are rewarded for achieving mastery of the rules and making good choices rather than poor ones.

Emphasis added in bold, and this is a paragraph following his description of Timmy-style option that look really strong but aren't great in practice, like the Toughness feat. This is, by the way, in an essay where Cook essentially recants this mode of design -- he admits it had problems and now prefers a mode of design that communicates its intent more clearly to the players. Ivory Tower design is bad design, and is a mode of design PF2e avoids as best it can, even if if its impact has influenced TTRPG design in many...

Right there in the bit you quoted from Cook, he's very clear that "Ivory Tower Game Design" refers SPECIFICALLY to the "third concept" they took from Magic, "laying out the rules without a lot of advice or help". That's it.

It's entirely separate from the earlier bit about underpowered options, the "second concept" which he refers to as "Timmy cards". As an ex-MtG player, I would've called it the "trash Rare" principle myself, but whatever.

I hope this clears up that "Ivory Tower", in the context of Monte Cook at least, really just means stating the rules and leaving it at that. And intentionally unbalanced content is, in the same context, "Timmy cards". And both are theoretically intended to reward system mastery.

That's all just getting the semantics/terminology correct.

Let me try to be clear about my actual value judgments.

I agree that "Timmy cards" are a very bad way to design anything, although I think the extent it even happened (intentionally) is way overstated.

"Ivory Tower" is a sliding scale, and the important aspect is matching how MUCH commentary the rules have with how much the audience needs, which is not trivial to get right.

Any game will naturally reward system mastery in proportion to how non-random it is, so artificially going out of one's way to make "reward system mastery" a design goal is absurd, unless by that you mean reducing randomness in the system.

I think PF2e displays quite a lot of "Ivory Tower" design, and I've seen firsthand how new players flounder because of it, but I also don't think it's as easy to fix as simply adding commentary pointing them in the intended direction of play because a significant number of those same players are resistant to reading the rules in the first place while also chafing against even basic character building advice.

I also think PF2e has a huge amount of functionally trap options (whether those are intentional "Timmy cards", accidentally underpowered, or simply ultra-niche options masquerading as normal choices)--and the ratio of trap options to decent options will only continue to get worse. This shouldn't be surprising--Paizo is still Paizo. If anything the surprise should be that they managed to release PF2e with such a relatively good starting ratio in the first place.

The only real way to fix the problem of character options that are substantially under- or over-powered would be moving to a digital-first source of truth, with something like AoN being the official up to date correct database of rules elements and releasing regular "balance patches" like an MMO, but not only is that very unlikely to happen given how attached people are to their printed media and static digital files (PDFs), but on the economic side it would be a ton of work for very little return. Paizo doesn't make their money from rules, they make it from APs. And even if they did, the correlation between games with GOOD balance and/or game design and popularity/profit is shaky at best, not unlike the very shaky relationship a movie's writing and acting quality has with its returns. Yes, there are some people who care a great deal, but most potential customers don't care hardly at all, if they can even tell the difference in the first place.

Did ANYONE in this thread actually READ the linked Monte Cook essay where he described, in hindsight, some of his work on 3e as "Ivory Tower Design"? Because so far not one single usage of the term in this thread has matched what he actually said about it there, instead of what people came to "know" he said the term meant via subcultural osmosis.

It's not a long essay. You might consider giving it a look.

Naturally...

Magic Dance, by David Bowie (the Goblin King), in the movie Labrinth.

Yeah, mechanically lycanthropy is a great option. I prefer the idea, however, that this is something she learned how to do, chooses to do, and could stop at any time, but doesn't--because she likes it.

Thanks for the great suggestions, guys. Yes, as mentioned, I'm the DM, but house ruling is extra work and also I don't want to break the game too badly (especially since this NPC is a PC ally, as long as they don't anger her TOO badly). Still, it does seem like the best option to do what I want, here.

I'm leaning towards either

6 Druid (Plains Druid)/14 Ranger (Natural Weapon combat style)

or

6 Druid (Plains Druid)/14 Rogue (Scout)

In both cases I'd give up the Animal Companion/Domain for returning the Plains Druid's lowered Wild Shape back to normal, and create a custom feat of Extra Wild Shape. I'm also already letting most things that go up every class level to go up based on character level (so, for example, a 10 Fighter/10 Barbarian would have 44 base rounds of rage, like a 20 Barbarian, but the rage would only be +4 instead of +8 and would still cause fatigue since those are separate class features the 10 Ftr/10 Bar didn't get), so Wild Shape duration would be the same as a full Druid, but still restricted to Beast Shape 2 and only twice a day.

I'm torn between the two, though.

plains druid archtype, lion shaman, lion of talisid (spelling?) from book of exalted deeds re-flavoured evil all spring to mind.

Plains Druid has some cool stuff for the idea, wouldn't have thought to check that out. But it looks like, RAW, it can't be combined with Lion Shaman? I did look at Lion Shaman, and mostly liked it, but it seems like you can't Wild Shape at all with it until level 6, right? Which means a pretty long wait until she can do her main trick (she's going to be level 2 to start). Don't think I'd ever looked at Lion of Talisid before, and it has a lot of nifty bits, but sadly it seems like the best parts of it are redundant if she's actually in a Tiger form already.

Phasics, I did look at Beast-Bonded, but the low duration was the main thing holding me back there. That, and it seemed criminal to single-class Witch and then focus primarily on physical stats.

I guess I should explain that I'm looking for something to play kind've like Treantmonk's "Spirit of the Beast", but specifically sticking to feline forms and not really caring about the casting except for buffing and healing herself. One of the goals would be being able to be in cat form all day, every day if the situation called for it. I'm just having a hard time figuring out how to alter that guide to apply under those constraints, because he puts a lot of stock in the general casting abilities (which of course, from a pure efficiency standpoint, he should, but don't help me much).

I have an NPC in a game I'm running that's a follower of an evil nature god. She was raised by evil elves, and her primary thing is turning into a big cat (cheetah, tiger, whatever), using Stealth and Perception to stalk prey, then running them down and tearing them to shreds. The problem is actually building that. I can't seem to come up with a build that is decently effectively while staying true to that. First I wanted to build it as a Witch, then a Druid/Witch, then a Druid, then back to a Druid/Witch (going Arcane Hierophant)... She has a 10 point buy, 3.5 and even 3.0 options are fine... I'm using some house rules that might help some, particularly I'm letting caster levels from different sources stack and non-casting classes add 1/2 per level to caster level also. Maybe I should build her to go Druid until she can Wild Shape into the cats, then Fighter/Ranger/Barbarian/Rogue to focus on the combat abilities?

Any builds or suggestions are appreciated.

What about this?

Weapon Precision (Combat)
Benefit: With a finessable weapon made for a creature of your size category, you may use your Dexterity modifier instead of your Strength bonus on damage rolls, but a Strength penalty still applies. An off-hand attack applies only half your Dexterity modifier instead. When attacking with a single weapon and carrying or wielding nothing else in your other hand, apply one and a half times your Dexterity modifier instead. If you carry a shield, its armor check penalty applies to your damage rolls. This damage is precision damage, and does not stack with sneak attack damage.

You can't dump Strength, because a penalty still applies, just like bows. Getting 150% with a single weapon might make non-TWF Finesse builds more viable. The damage being precision damage means it's not 100% reliable, and not stacking with SA means while it'll still give Rogues something to do when not able to SA, it won't make TWF Rogues into gods.

I think this will open up many new builds, while not overpowering anything that's already good. Is there anything I'm not taking into account?