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I'm selfishly making my own thread for stuff that comes to mind.
About this whole thing:
I'm very happy about this. My friends play Pathfinder because it's what I like and run, but it's genuinely a struggle for them at times. A game that meets in the middle will be amazing, and I'm pumped about the chance for us all to help with the development!
"If I wanted to play 5e, I'd play 5e.":
Honestly, I do want to play 5e. It's a well-designed system that my friends can pick up quickly! But you can't customize your character hardly at all. Plus, the books are expensive and there's no discounted PDF last or PRD for players to use for online games. So even while my friends like it and I admire a lot of the design elements, I can't get into it because I can't represent my characters well.
Customization:
Not sure about the line that you'll have more customization in 2.0 than 1.0, unless you're only comparing with the CRB (which lacked archetypes and traits). The reason is that it sounds a little like "class feats" might be doing double-duty as "feats" and "discoveries/talents/etc.". However, I could be wrong there! I saw traits mostly get used for class skills, so I'm willing to consider that balancing with getting to pick some or all of your initial skill specializations, and there's also a background to boot. I don't know where bloodline-type selections fit into all this, though.
Pathfinder 1.0 to 2.0 customization equivalence guess:
- Race -> Ancestry
- Alternate Race Traits -> Ancestry Feat
- Class -> Class
- Class Archetypes -> Archetype(s) (Don't know what form yet.)
- Class Menu Options (sometimes) -> Class Feats (always?)
- Traits -> Initial Skill Specialization and Background
- Feats -> ???
What I'll miss:
- Easy access on getting charisma instead of wisdom for most will saves (just one trait!). Wise characters are less fun, but I still don't want necessarily murderate the party.
- Wolf companion on my arcane caster. We'll miss you, Waya.
- Tons of content, initially. Lots of races, lots of archetypes. Won't miss most feats, though. For those using online sources, there really wasn't a good way to avoid a firehose of feat options to have to sift through.
- Occult classes. I really felt these added a lot to the flavor of Pathfinder, and my games generally included them.
- Bloodrager. Coolest martial.
- Sneaky casting, even if it takes a lot of work.
The two things I'm sad to not get for Pathfinder 1.0 first party:
- Rakshasa bloodline for Bloodrager. I feel like it's a really natural combination.
- The Harrowed Medium. I know it had eventually fallen to "likely never happening", but still sad to see it go. That said, I got to play the playtest version, and that'll be enough.
Stuff I'm glad we get another shot at!:
- Rakshasa bloodline for Sorcerer. It was a little sad to have almost all the powers be spells.
- Sorcerers and Clerics. Maybe a little more in the skills department this time?
- Rogue. I would love the Operative's "decent with weapons" and "probably broken with skills, like, all of them, yes including every single profession at once if you build for it."
- New classes! As much as I want to see some of my favorite old classes show up, it'll be really cool to see what new ones we get.
- Magus. I hate Magus, but it's because every Magus just casts one spell. I don't even want to play it, I'm just looking forward to it not being annoying when it shows up.
- Familiars, at least the fluff bits. I want my cat to talk at first level so that I can give them a memorable and charming personality that overshadows my wizard. I don't want to have private chats that I have to wait until fifth level for.
- Sneaky casting. Really, just thinking about how that needs to work from the get-go would be really handy.
- Skill balance/stacking. The range of skill values a PC can have is ludicrous, as seen by the "Can I get +100 diplomacy?" type threads.
Stuff that excites me about the new system so far:
Setting aside the fact that my players will probably feel a lot more chill with the system,
- Illusions have built-in defenses against Detect Magic. All right!
- More interesting cantrips! Shield as a one-turn AC bonus cantrip is pretty neat, and an emergency option to reduce damage by 4 is nice. Would be cool if it scaled, but I get why it might not. Acid Splash is evocation (viva la school delineation and balance!) and actually hits a splash radius.
- Quick personal healing.
- The flexibility of the action economy.
Character concepts I'm going to try to represent with core classes:
- Mover and shaker whose firm and trustworthy handshake is actually how he delivers charm effects. (Currently: Enchanter Wizard, Charm subschool, into Enchanting Courtesan.) Preferably with a tabby cat familiar named Tuna. Bonus points if Tuna can call him "Boss" in an endearing manner.
- Comedic actress and effortless expert at more or less everything (at least when it's funny). (Currently: Operative, Spy specialization. Alternatively, Kitsune Phantom Thief Rogue with Bard VMC and all the tails.) Preferably with the ability to change her face on a whim.
- Misanthropic alchemist and actual fire-eater. (Currently: Tiefling Alchemist.) Preferably with at least fire resistance of five without being a goblin.
Those are just my human-looking core class characters that aren't overly dependent on a really specific archetype. There'll be a few more characters I can port once we get some more races, and I'll probably be making some more from scratch once I see the mechanics.
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I'm really appreciating the devs chiming in now and then on the boards.
It's sounding like there are skill feats, ancestry feats, and class feats. Backgrounds give a feat (or unlock feats?), but it's been implied (but not stated) that there aren't background-exclusive feats. You get a skill feat at second level, and an ancestry feat at first, as far as I can tell. So, thoughts on progression.
(Note that this is speculation.)
First level is a big deal for customization. You get a class feat (taking the place of a regular feat), an ancestry feat (taking the place of alternate racial traits), and a background feat (taking the place of both traits). That leaves background.
My initial guess is that background feats let you get a head start on some category you want fo focus on, or splash something you wouldn't normally get. Now, if you could simply get a feat from any class or ancestry, that would result in everybody taking a few options pretty quickly. What if you could instead get a "mixed ancestry" feat, or a "broad studies" feat, allowing you to select from another ancestry or class for your regular ancestry and class feats? That would mean there are backgrounds for ancestry (get a second ancestry feat in your ancestry, or grant yourself access to another ancestry's feats), skills (get a skill feat at first level, before anybody else does), or class (get a head start on your in-class build, or save yourself a dip by getting access to another class's class feats). The least convincing part of this is getting access to another class's class feats, since we've seen some class feats wouldn't do anything without certain features. The advantage to this design would be that backgrounds would come in categories, such that all backgrounds of a category offer a similar useful thing, and could have some minor perk attached to it to differentiate between backgrounds in a category.
Moving on from level one, there's a skill feat at level 2. It seems a plausible progression would be class feats at every odd level, skill feats at 2, 6, 10, 14, and 18, and ancestry feats at 1, 4, 8, 12, 16, and possibly 20. Ancestry capstones would be interesting, but level 20 might be left off as it could be seen as just a distraction. In any case, every character gets a choice at every level even before even getting to the specifics of their class.
(By the way, I don't mind if people chime in on here, assuming folks get far enough down to see this.)
Well, the blog on feats came out, and I'm pleasantly surprised to find that I'm wrong! Second level (at least for Cleric) is a class feat and a skill feat! Third level gives you a general feat (as well as a skill increase and second level spells).
So we also have general feats, and you can get skill feats at the same level as another feat. Looks like a lot more customization than I expected!
Resonance stuff-
I'm on board. While the potions bit feels funky, I also get that it's a reasonable balancing point. It'll just be nice to have my Sorcerer be better than a Wizard at something. (To be fair, Sorcerer could get better enchantment DCs and transmutation duration, but getting spells a level late kind of hurt that a bit.) More generally, I'll get something out of charisma that I wouldn't get out of advancing Int. With six charisma skills, by the time you reached level six, increasing Int would give you the skill points to bump every charisma skill by that much, while also giving every Int skill the same boost.
But now, my Sorcerer can be awesome. A wellspring of magical power, he'll have tons of magical bling, using wands left and right. It'd be really cool to have a bloodline that focused on that, actually! Might be something to wait on until Occultist comes out, but having Impossible bloodline make a reappearance would also work.
Well, given the blog post about leveling up, we can piece together a little more of what levels look like.
Taking Cleric-
1: Ancestry Feat, Background Feat, Class Feat, Skills, Channel Energy, Spells (First Level), Cantrips, Domain(s?)?
(That is to say, we know Cleric gets Domains, but we don't know when or how many. There's a class feat for an extra.)
2: Cleric Feat, Skill Feat
3: General Feat, Skills, Spells (Second Level), (Channel Energy Improves)?
We also know that you can use general feats for skill feats, and that the total is 15. Presumably, five of one and ten of the other. I would assume 10 general and 5 skill feats, but what we've seen from the playtest characters, there's no mention of a 1st level general feat, and it's hard to make that progression work if the first one is at third. So, for now I will assume it's one of three things: general feats are rare and precious (you get five), they are every odd level and you can trade one for an extra class feat (hence playtest sheets having a class feat at first level), or I am simply extrapolating poorly from too little info.
We'll be getting the Fighter preview soon, which I bet will really help flesh out the details on classes more!
It sounds like fixed features (such as spells) advance at odd levels. Good news for Sorcerers on their spells. Tricky news for (former?) partial casters, who advanced every three levels.
I also wanted to give a shout-out to the proficiency system, which also had a blog. The gist is that pretty much all your stuff will get better every level. No fractional BAB, no skills that that stay locked at a useless modifier, no falling further and further behind in your bad save(s). Skills have a special deal going on in how proficiency levels work.
The thing I like most about this is that PCs are designed to not be irrelevant at basic things. They can be bad or good compared to the other PCs, but should generally not run into auto-failure with the crushing regularity of mid-to-high level PF1. (Rogues will probably get tolerable saves, yay!)
The other cool thing is that level is a big deal now. What Pathfinder is to 5e, this is to Pathfinder. Wizards advance like they're full BAB, saves advance two to three times faster, and skills are amazing. Somebody like Razmir taking over a country sounds a little more legit now.
I'm a fan of Overlord,
It'll be cool to get that kind of game and really have a massive difference between level bands. E6, but mithril and adamantite adventurers range from 7 up to 9 or 10, with the world containing a handful of level 11s. Either playing in that setting as it is, or strolling through as level 20.
Well, the Rogue blog told us that it's normal to get 10 skill feats. That means 5 general feats. I also haven't seen anything about backgrounds giving feats recently, so I'm holding off on assuming anything there.
So, non-Rogues probably get:
1: Class feat, ancestry feat, skill increases
2: Class feat, skill feat
3: General feat, skill increases
4: Class feat, skill feat
5: Ancestry feat, skill increases
… and then just repeat levels 2-5. At level 20, replace "class feat" with "capstone choice".
I'm guessing each level with skill increases gives you two, and first level also gives you a number equal to your intelligence mod.
All right, it's been a while since I updated this, so let's go!
Alchemist seems pretty interesting, being able to make free items. Paizo has some interesting scaling/balance challenges there, since out of all the martial classes, Alchemist is the one that competes most directly with casters.
- Bombs seem bad for AoE blasting, but lightning comes with a free no-save -2 to AC (and Rogues get sneak attack). So long as we don't see the return of dazing metamagic or the like, bombs might have a damage/debuff niche. And, while bombs aren't as good as full-level blasting, an Alchemist can make more bombs than casters have top-level spells. Maybe more than top two level spells?
- Tanglefoot bags are a non-damaging bomb. They require a class feat to scale the DC on, it sounds like. Meanwhile, Tanglefoot is also a cantrip, and cantrips have a scaling DC. Unless it's producing a regular tanglefoot bag for use that round (costing extra actions), it looks like casters win that particular fight.
- An Alchemist's creation uses Int-based resonance. That scales as 1/level automatically. Spending resonance at the start of the day gives you more efficiency than using it on the fly. If resonance spends just as efficiently on high-level stuff as low-level stuff, then Alchemist probably has few things per day than casters, but with better average power (and more flexibility on a given day) than the casters.
- Alchemist looks like they need to invest a lot in whatever they want to do. To be a bomber, it seems like you need to spend three class feats: one to draw two at once, one to increase splash damage, and one to protect your allies from friendly fire that now actually matters. (If you can't decide at the time of throwing whether or not to apply the bonus damage, I'm going to go ahead and call "bad design" for making Alchemists and their party suffer through two levels of obnoxious behavior.) I'd rather not have an Alchemist pay another feat just to play nicely with the group, and putting it at the same level as a tempting debilitating bomb… bleh. I'll be making sure to playtest that.
- Poisoners are going to need the item DC increaser, and probably a way to apply poison faster than three actions plus the action to draw it. Two feats isn't bad, though.
- One final concern: mutagen has a lot of fiddly numbers. I know the idea was to spell out the equivalent of raising/lowering ability scores, but it seems messy with its long bonus list and long penalty list.
Lots of cool stuff, though.
- Mutagen seems to have earned its place at fifth level, being a special buff that Alchemist can make for anybody in the party. Invest some feats in it, and you can provide everybody with a special concoction suited to their build.
- On-the-fly alchemy is very cool, and it sounds like that's what will give Alchemist its distinction from casters, leaving resonance free to make anything from their formula book.
- That 18th level ability to make potions intrigues me… what powers do they contain that making them for free is a pseudo-capstone? We know they don't just replicate spells.
- D'aww, mini golem familiar! (I'm sorry that you'll never replace a hairless flesh-tumor raccoon mauler familiar in my heart.)
I hope Alchemist still some low-level body-mod class feats! It'd be pretty cool if Hyde builds got their start with some physical mutations before slamming down some mutagens at level 5.
Casters! We got our first look at last!
I really hope there's a class feat for extra low-level spells at high levels, or that the utility cantrip are greatly expanded. "Casual" casting is pretty important to me!
Ahem, now that that's out of the way, everything else about Cleric sounds pretty great. Ties to deities are stronger and more meaningful. Lamashtu can heal, and Pharasma is no longer passing out healing for undead.
Actually, time for some heal/harm predictions!
Zon-Kuthon: Both. But it better at least include healing to keep folks alive. The Amulet of Euphoric Healing also seems like a relevant effect to have available.
Asmodeus: Harm. Maybe healing for selling or winning people over? But Asmodeus claims to be the first murderer and everything.
Urgathoa: Harm. She's tied with Rovagug for "least reason to grant Heal".
Norgorber: Harm. Poison and murder don't really speak for a warm bedside manner.
Lamashtu: Both (confirmed). She's the mother of monsters and emergency midwife deity if "impartial goddess waiting to collect that baby's soul" doesn't cut it and you need to make a deal, so healing makes sense. Still a demon lord, though, so she's gonna help you murder those civilized folks.
Rovagug: Harm. One might even say the harmiest. Is there a way you can cast Harm on buildings? If so, he's the one handing it out.
Calistria: Both. Along with Nethys, the deity who really needs a way to switch back and forth between the two, just to reinforce that "don't get on a Calistrian's bad side" thing. If you're stuck with one, Harm is probably a better fit for her.
Gorum: … Both. Harm was pretty tempting, but Heal has buffs, and charging gloriously into battle is kind of his deal.
Pharasma: Heal (confirmed). She hates the undead. Why on earth would she be handing out fuel for them?
Nethys: Both. He embodies the duality creation and destruction, so of course he'll hand out both. Like Calistria, he should probably have a way to flip-flop on that.
Gozreh: Both. They are another dualistic deity, and nature's pretty fickle. It's possible that negative energy will be counted as too unnatural for them, though, and it'll just be healing.
Abadar: Both (confirmed). A fair guy, only concerned about law. Just don't go handing out those heals for free to strangers, you hear?
Irori: Healing? I dunno, he's the Monk deity. Can you channel punches instead?
The good deities: They're all just healing because the smitey ones tend to hate undead. Exception for Torag, god of dwarven stereotypes, who needs some orc-murderin' magic along with that healing.
We've got a deities and domains blog today. I'm hoping that the corner alignment deities no longer have fewer meaningful domains because the slots are taken up by generic alignment domains. Maybe some domains of balance?
I had a dream that a friend got a playtest copy. It included Spiritualist, which had an archetype called Bone-Sworn Mystic. The archetype traded out the phantom for a skeleton animal companion.