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So, yesterday Paizo gifted us with another blog post about the upcoming PF 2.0, and I had a few thoughts on it that I wanted to note down as well. It didn't feel right to post it in the blog post itself, as people were already digging far beneath the surface there (possibly mining what cannot yet be seen). So here's my own take on it:
Modes:
While I'm not keen on calling them "modes", I can certainly see where the distinction in game terms is handy. In effect, this has always been part of the game, in the various ways we explore our adventures. Encounter-mode is, more-or-less, straight up combat. The times where you're fighting your opponents, and where you can use your abilities there.
Meanwhile, Exploration Mode is the travel-time, the random NPC interactions, and (I think) the roleplaying aspects and situations of the game. It's likely where most people spend their time when playing Pathfinder (or indeed ANY roleplaying game, whether Tabletop or computer), so I'm happy to see it being called out specifically, especially with skill uses for this being useful. Another thing mentioned in this is the opportunity to use OTHER skills for Initiative. This makes sense to me, in a lot of ways. (And it's something that's been explored a bit already in Star Wars by Fantasy Flight Games, in terms of Cool / Vigilance). Using other skills than Perception (with Initiative defaulting to Perception) makes for interesting gameplay. Suddenly there's a very good reason for your rogue to be using Stealth when getting around, as he's more likely to get the drop on his opponent, your ranger might be using his Nature skill to try and read the angry bears next move and so on. There's a lot of potential here I think.
Downtime mode also looks interesting, and it's something that I've seen house-ruled in every single game I've played in, usually along the lines of "X amount of days passes and nothing happens", with only the merest nod given to skills and professions. Being able to use this, out of the core book, a bit more productively sounds good to me.
Other take-aways:
I'm still intrigued by the "3 actions + 1 reaction". It seems to simplify gameplay so much compared to the 6-7 different types of actions that are currently available. Combine that with being able to use more interesting abilities or feats (like the mentioned Fighter's Intimidating Strike, or the Barbarian's Raging courage) to trigger special events leaves me hopeful. I'll admit I'm not too keen on the Storm Retribution feat that's mentioned, but it'll depend on how devastating crits really are. If they're truly devastating then the ability to do damage and potentially push your opponent away could be invaluable.
What I am MOST excited though is COUNTERSPELLING as a reaction! That is something I've been looking for, for longer than I can remember, as it'll allow for some epic spell duels, rather than the current "I hold my action and wait, just in case he casts a spell". I am hopeful that this also means that we'll see counterspelling being simplified so that you don't have to use the same spell to counterspell (dare I hope that it'll be even better than the current Improved Counterspell, so that you can sacrifice a spell of the same level, rather than just of the same school? Perhaps even better, and put in opposing schools once more, so that you need to counterspell with an opposing spell!)
I'm also a fan of the mentioned Magical Crafter feat. Oh boy have I been waiting for this one! Finally, we'll get to see the "master craftsman" trope in our games, without these necessarily being spellcasters. Dwarves forging axes beneath the mountains, elves creating bows under the moonlight and people like Theros Ironfeld (from Dragonlance) or even fantasy equivalents to Masamune! Yep, color me in as being in favor of this one.
Finally, there's retraining. I think this is a good idea to implement, but I'm hoping there are some restrictions on it. While it'll cut down on the "oh, I'll just roll up a new character" syndrome that some people seem to have, I'd like to see some consistency on characters, and things that'll either take longer to retrain or which are impossible to do. (The mention of it being "as little as a week" leaves me hopeful that this is the case).
Anyways, that was my 2 copper. See you for the next post. :)