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Resonance blog for Monday! From the end of the archetype blog “And come back on Monday for a massive blog that I am sure will resonate with many of you!”
Resonance blog for Monday! From the end of the archetype blog “And come back on Monday for a massive blog that I am sure will resonate with many of you!”
Just Resonance? Or perhaps a massive blog about the Sorcerer and Resonance?
Goodbye Tacoma Narrows.
TBH, I see humans as +Con, +Cha, +any, -Wis. (...)I thought humans have no racial bonus or malus comes from the fact that humans serve as the baseline. Their common stats ARE what 10 in each stands for.
Because, well, the game will mostly be played by humans.
FYI -- There is no such word as "malus" in the English language -- and because it is too close in sound to "malice", there probably never will be. "Penalty" works fine as the opposite of "bonus".
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TBH, I see humans as +Con, +Cha, +any, -Wis. (...)I thought humans have no racial bonus or malus comes from the fact that humans serve as the baseline. Their common stats ARE what 10 in each stands for.
Because, well, the game will mostly be played by humans.FYI -- There is no such word as "malus" in the English language -- and because it is too close in sound to "malice", there probably never will be. "Penalty" works fine as the opposite of "bonus".
Resonance blog for Monday! From the end of the archetype blog “And come back on Monday for a massive blog that I am sure will resonate with many of you!”Just Resonance? Or perhaps a massive blog about the Sorcerer and Resonance?
I think it will be magic items and resonance
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and because it is too close in sound to "malice", there probably never will be.
Do... do you even speak English
This happens so often in our language we have a word for it
Language is a funny little collection of sounds, shapes, and movements linked to fairly arbitrary ideas. So strange that it makes for such a powerful tool. English is kind of entertaining.
MalusTBH, I see humans as +Con, +Cha, +any, -Wis. (...)I thought humans have no racial bonus or malus comes from the fact that humans serve as the baseline. Their common stats ARE what 10 in each stands for.
Because, well, the game will mostly be played by humans.FYI -- There is no such word as "malus" in the English language -- and because it is too close in sound to "malice", there probably never will be. "Penalty" works fine as the opposite of "bonus".
But note from that Web page that the word has a very precise financial definition and is hardly ever used by native speakers in the past several decades -- it is not the general opposite of "bonus" by any stretch of the imagination.
But I do stand corrected on the technicality that "malus" is indeed an English word, albeit a very rare and archaic one.
Wohoo archetypes.
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MalusTBH, I see humans as +Con, +Cha, +any, -Wis. (...)I thought humans have no racial bonus or malus comes from the fact that humans serve as the baseline. Their common stats ARE what 10 in each stands for.
Because, well, the game will mostly be played by humans.FYI -- There is no such word as "malus" in the English language -- and because it is too close in sound to "malice", there probably never will be. "Penalty" works fine as the opposite of "bonus".
But note from that Web page that the word has a very precise financial definition and is hardly ever used by native speakers in the past several decades -- it is not the general opposite of "bonus" by any stretch of the imagination.
But I do stand corrected on the technicality that "malus" is indeed an English word, albeit a very rare and archaic one.
Note that Collins described the definition in British. I don't think the words shows up in the much more common American English dictionaries. ;)
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I forget where I got this from, but I remember this quote:
Modern English is the result of Norman men-at-arms attempting to seduce Saxon barmaids and is just as legitimate as anything else that came out of that effort.
My favorite was always something like:
"People attempting to defend the purity of the English language need to remember that English couldn't be less pure. It's been known to wait in dark alleys and mug other languages for new vocabulary."
.
.
.
And yes, 'malus' is a perfectly acceptable, if slightly obscure, English word.
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Monday's blog will be Magic Items, Logan Bonner just said on the podcast/Friday live video (in a roundabout way).
Combat maneuvers is the obvious tie-in, as well as the human(ish) ancestries.
Spell powers might be one. We know how they work (mostly) thanks to the domain blog and a few other places, but there are a few lingering questions that can likely wait until the playtest itself, but may get a blog.
What other topics do we think they'll bring up, not just this week but for the rest?
*The remaining four classes of course.
*Human, Half Elf, and Half-Orc ancestries (could be combined into one, might be split if humans are now multiple ancestries)
*Magic Items and Resonance
*Ritual casting-including specific examples of it and how they work
*Multiclassing (and whether or not prestige classes exist). Archetypes could probably use its own blog or be touched on again in a multiclassing blog
*Combat Manuevers
*Exploration modeAny other missing items, or topics that are spread out over multiple sources but not yet combined (and probably should be)?
Edit: I know there's interest in an animal companion blog, but I don't really see that happening. Perhaps as part of the druid?
+1 for guessing that, archetypes weren't even on my radar and they should have been. Would have been +2 but you were throwing an awful lot of spaghetti at the wall with that post. ;)
Monday's blog will be Magic Items, Logan Bonner just said on the podcast/Friday live video (in a roundabout way).
Oh man, I forgot about those. When was the last time we had one? I need Joe M's breakdowns.
Monday's blog will be Magic Items, Logan Bonner just said on the podcast/Friday live video (in a roundabout way).
YES!!!
+1 for guessing that, archetypes weren't even on my radar and they should have been. Would have been +2 but you were throwing an awful lot of spaghetti at the wall with that post. ;)Combat maneuvers is the obvious tie-in, as well as the human(ish) ancestries.
Spell powers might be one. We know how they work (mostly) thanks to the domain blog and a few other places, but there are a few lingering questions that can likely wait until the playtest itself, but may get a blog.
What other topics do we think they'll bring up, not just this week but for the rest?
*The remaining four classes of course.
*Human, Half Elf, and Half-Orc ancestries (could be combined into one, might be split if humans are now multiple ancestries)
*Magic Items and Resonance
*Ritual casting-including specific examples of it and how they work
*Multiclassing (and whether or not prestige classes exist). Archetypes could probably use its own blog or be touched on again in a multiclassing blog
*Combat Manuevers
*Exploration modeAny other missing items, or topics that are spread out over multiple sources but not yet combined (and probably should be)?
Edit: I know there's interest in an animal companion blog, but I don't really see that happening. Perhaps as part of the druid?
In fairness, I had no idea that archetypes would be covered today. I wouldn't have guessed it if pressed either. That post was my guess as to ALL the blog topics from here till the end.
We should have only 11 more blog posts between now and the playtest. And there's no guarantee they won't skip some days.
I think someone said on one of the twitch streams that they might do Wednesday bonus blogs occasionally as well. Though obviously that hasn't happened so far .
They also said that if they were to do any Wednesday bonus blogs, it would be non-crunchy stuff like art previews.
So is this thread an appropriate place to speculate in unrevealed classes and what they will look like? Because I have been speculating on the Ranger.
So is this thread an appropriate place to speculate in unrevealed classes and what they will look like? Because I have been speculating on the Ranger.
So have I... What are your thoughts?
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So is this thread an appropriate place to speculate in unrevealed classes and what they will look like? Because I have been speculating on the Ranger.So have I... What are your thoughts?
So the monk's had it's mystical flavor become optional. And we now have these thematic archetypes that can get grafted onto any class...
So what exactly makes the Ranger its own class? Let's start with what the PF1 Ranger had going:
1 Animal Companion
2 Good skills, particularly stealth, survival, and perception
3 Ways to cheat combat feat trees
4 Very light spellcasting
5 Lots of nature themed stuff
6 Favored Enemy
7 Favored Terrain
1 seems still a thing from comment Jason made about animal companions and Rangers, but I feel like it can't be THAT hard to get a pet on another class with the new modular approach.
2 seems subsumed into skill feats, with perception no longer even being a skill. (Rangers will almost certainly get some of the best proficiency in perception though.)
3 doesn't seem as needed anymore since feat trees are less common outside of archetype stuff.
4 is pretty much guaranteed to use spell points instead of spell slots, and I'm thinking will probably be optional like the monk since rangers without spells were so popular in PF1 and they don't have a basic power like Lay on Hands.
5 really seems like it could just get covered by an archetype adding a "Survivalist" option to all classes. (Counter Point: The Druid leaned further into Primal stuff to make it more than just a Nature Cleric.)
6 and 7 are basically the only thing left but were always wonky AF because of how metagamey they were.
So what does that leave the Ranger with?
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Prediction: Rangers get Studied Target as their attack/damage booster.
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Prediction: Rangers get Studied Target as their attack/damage booster.
That would probably be my guess, but I also think they'll get some sort of system like druid orders or Barbarian totems (though perhaps not as hard-defined). One would be focused on animal companions, making them and druids the defacto masters of animal companions, even if other classes get them, another would focus on spell points, possibly even pushing the boundaries of 1e Rangers, to give them a feel possibly closer to 1e Hunters than Rangers, another would emulate favored terrain, but not in a 1-to-1 sense, but more of a "you gain bonuses in the wilds" sense, and then there'd be some of the common martial feats, not necessarily as an "Order" or "Totem" equivalent, but as other options for the ranger. Like Druids, you aren't shut out of other options, but you might be rewarded for picking certain ones matching your grouping.
Edit: also, I could see some of the non-rogue skill-focused (i.e. mostly 6+Int) classes getting a limited version of the 2e rogue's extra skills/skill feats, but maybe only half as many of them. As someone who digs fighters, I'd like fighters to be in this camp along side the usual suspects, but I don't expect it.
I'd have thought so too, but then Monks didnt wind up with monastic orders or schools. Which is REALLY weird. Why would barbarians wind up with totems but Monks allowed to run wild? I don't even mind totems, but it was a surprise. And there would have been significant lore backing if monks were sent to school, and they didn't go with that.
So I don't know what to expect. But studied target seems like a good guess.
Magic items sounds interesting but I really like to see sorcerers or bards. Also we still have humans, half-elves, and half-orcs left as well.
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Ranger abilities like Favored Enemy and Favored Terrain which are highly situational and depend on the GM warping the game around you to make you effective will probably be drastically changed, being made broader and less dependent on specific choices.
I agree about Studied Target being very likely for the Ranger. That will either replace Favored Enemy entirely, or should Favored Enemy reappear it will be in the form of broader and more thematic abilities like 5E's Hunter ranger subtype, rather than necessarily focusing on specific creature types.
Favored Terrain may potentially disappear in favor of more general abilities while "out in the wild" instead of abilities that only work in specific terrains or climates. Numerical bonuses are likely to be de-emphasized in favor of actual abilities, like ignoring difficult terrain or ignoring the debilitating effects of being underwater. However, there is a lot of potential overlap here with probable Survival, Athletics etc skill feats so I'm not entirely sure on this. It may well be that the Ranger now reflects its old boatload of skill points by getting bonus skill feats in these skills.
What magic they get will definitely be an optional subsection of their feats that grant spell point abilities.
Trapper will cease to be an archetype and instead be folded into the Ranger's feat tree.
Hunter's Bond will move to 1st or 2nd level. The animal companion will be as a druid of the Ranger's level, rather than level -3. The bond with companions is now where a lot of the Skirmisher archetype abilities will live.
There is likely a third Hunter's Bond with "Nature" that gives you a lot more magical abilities, to emulate and absorb the old Hunter class.
There may be a fourth Hunter's Bond that emphasizes and benefits you being a "loner" with no ally adjacent to you in combat. This may have the feel of and abilities similar to a PF1 Slayer and/or 4E Avenger. More self focused Skirmisher abilities too.
I think being able to emphasize fighting styles like TWF or Archery will still be a thing, since that's a core identity of the class. They will likely share the Fighter's feats in this area without getting access to the Fighter's stance and combo system. So the Monk shares stances with the fighter, the Ranger shares styles with the fighter, but combos and "gear boosts" remain the fighter's bailiwick.
Okay, yeah. Making their bond the equivalent of patron diety, druid school, or barbarian totem would work for me.
This really should be a separate thread, for visibility reasons. Bring EVERYONE in here to discuss rangers.
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Some good guesses there. Another thematic feat they might have is the ability to quickly identify enemies without needing actions or treating successes like critical successes. Wrapping Favored Enemy, Studied Target, and Monster Lore up into one ID boon feature would be neat, and making rangers the best at figuring out what enemies have reactions and what not could be a powerful niche. Would also be easier to make Rangers good at this since not all knowledge checks will be linked to intelligence anymore.
Some good guesses there. Another thematic feat they might have is the ability to quickly identify enemies without needing actions or treating successes like critical successes. Wrapping Favored Enemy, Studied Target, and Monster Lore up into one ID boon feature would be neat, and making rangers the best at figuring out what enemies have reactions and what not could be a powerful niche. Would also be easier to make Rangers good at this since not all knowledge checks will be linked to intelligence anymore.
This would work very well. The base benefit could be reducing the DC to identify a creature by 5, since they loved abilities like that in Starfinder with the various themes. Then a bonus to attack and damage against creatures you've successfully identified.
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Some good guesses there. Another thematic feat they might have is the ability to quickly identify enemies without needing actions or treating successes like critical successes. Wrapping Favored Enemy, Studied Target, and Monster Lore up into one ID boon feature would be neat, and making rangers the best at figuring out what enemies have reactions and what not could be a powerful niche. Would also be easier to make Rangers good at this since not all knowledge checks will be linked to intelligence anymore.
At first I was thinking this might be better for when the Inquisitor comes out, but since they're doing class feats that aren't unique to one class, this would actually work nicely as a shared feat if they wind up doing the inquisitor again.
Man, they better do the Inquisitor again. Definitely one of the best classes Paizo made.
Man, they better do the Inquisitor again. Definitely one of the best classes Paizo made.
I agree, but I don't know how 6 level spell casters will fit into the design paradigm in 2e. Maybe they will exist, largely unchanged, but it seems to me that 2e is designing more around Full casters and designating 4-level casters to Spell-points. Bards are likely the Occult Full caster based on some cryptic designer comments I've seen, so it leaves me to question what they'll do with 6 level casters.
I feel like it would be a mistake to get rid of the Inquisitor, but given that the Alchemist has been changed to no longer have a spell-equivalent system, and It appears that we won't have 6-level casters in the CRB, I'm not sure what they'll do with the inquisitor. And that's my only hesitation on saying "if they do inquisitors again"
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6th level casters were largely the "sweet spot" for Paizo where you got classes that could do interesting stuff all their own but didn't go all the way to breaking the game over their knee. It would be a very odd choice to remove such a successful aspect of their PF1 writing.
I think there is still room for partial casters in the system. This could go three ways.
The first way is you have a progression similar to PF1, except instead of stopping at 6th tier at level 16 you get 7th tier slots at level 19. These classes have less "blasting," except via cantrips or spell point abilities, since that is much more dependent on using higher level slots. But control works fine, since save DCs are based on your level now rather than the spell tier. And utility also works out fine this way.
The second and perhaps more obvious way is that you use the standardized 10 tier progression, but only advance along it at half level. So you get your 1st caster level and 1st tier slots at 1st or 2nd level, your 2nd tier slots at 5th or 6th level, your 3rd tier slots at 9th or 10th level, your 4th tier slots at 13th or 14th level, and your 5th tier slots at 17th or 18th level.
The third way is that you give the full 10 tier progression, but the upper echelons are slots for heightening spells, and they divorce when you can learn a spell from when you get slots of that tier. In this case, they may potentially say that while you get all the 10 tiers of slots, you can't actually start learning 3rd tier spells until level 7 (when you have 4th tier slots), 4th tier spells until level 11, 5th tier spells until level 15, and 6th tier spells until level 19. This might be harder to explain to players in a way they don't screw up, though.
Options two and three work better with multiclassing if they do it like 5E, where you have a universal caster slot progression but the actual tier of spells you can know is limited by your level in the class in question.
6th level casters were largely the "sweet spot" for Paizo where you got classes that could do interesting stuff all their own but didn't go all the way to breaking the game over their knee. It would be a very odd choice to remove such a successful aspect of their PF1 writing.
It was the sweet spot in PF1e, but if spellcasting is getting toned down for 2e, to reign in the full casters, then sixth level casters might not feel comparable to that in 2e. And with their design goals including giving everyone, even full casters, access to interesting class feats across the whole spectrum of play, that means sixth level caster feats and features have to pull double duty in that respect, since they'd otherwise just fall behind full casters, which could lead an issue with asymmetric feats when archetypes get involved.
I like 6th level casters in 1e, too, but it feels like there's less room for them in 2e
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One of the things that made 6th level casters so popular/effective in P1 was early access. Even when they eliminated the bloated summoner spell list for the PU summoner, the hallmark of their lists was always early access. Since it appears that Paizo is leaning towards unified spell list for all classes, I would expect this to be SIGNIFICANTLY curtailed in P2. This makes me lean against Paizo reintroducing 2/3 casters in P2.
The second thing that makes me think that 2/3 casters are out is heightening spells. It seems that getting full utility out of your spells known requires access to higher level spell slots. This is particularly likely since they have tried to tone down the "I no longer have to have this skill" spells, meaning knock 2 is great at level 3 but by level 7 you really need knock 4 to be effective.
I hope to be wrong, because I love the Inquisitor and Magus and hope we can keep them around.
I don't have much to add to the Ranger dialogue, (or the Inquisitor mind you) but I do expect this:
1. Ranger will be Legendary at Perception. If it's anyone, it's the Ranger.
2. Favoured Enemy will be turned into Studied Target as was mentioned. That way it can be less restrictive. It will be a Class Feature.
3. Favoured Terrain will be revamped and also made into a less restrictive. (Fuzzypaws suggestions are on the money) I also think that the skills will be directly tied onto here. This will be a Class Feature.
4. Everything else will be folded into Class feats. These include Fighting Styles, Animal Companions, Spell Points, and hopefully a Trap Master...
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Hmmm. Would it be crazy for Inquisitor to become an archetype? Handling the wet works of a church doesn't seem like a job that only one class progression would be necessary for. Their spells, judgements, etc could all become archetype feats.
I'm not sure what to think they will be as a class until we see how bard magic works.
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Back on the topic of upcoming blogs. We know Monday is Resonance and Magic Items. Call me a pessimist, but I foresee that it's going to be Paladin Blog Redux and will probably get locked after an extended flame war and a lot of hurt feelings. So I'm calling that Friday will be Humans / Half-Orcs / Half-Elves as something almost completely safe to try to calm things going into the weekend, as well as a natural setup for the following class blog.
After that, we'll be in July, and will only have 4 more weeks (8 blogs) until the 5th week, where we get the playtest. The order of the weeks may be switched around in almost any order. However, week S (is for Sorcerer) is virtually guaranteed to happen before week B (is for Bard) because the Sorcerer is the baseline benchmark for spontaneous casting. I have them listed in the order S, B, R, D because our last two class blogs were martial, so Ranger is going to likely wait a while so casters get a day in the sun again. Also, sorcerer is most likely of all the CRB classes besides the already-covered Alchemist to have some Resonance-related abilities, hence probably being the first class blog after Resonance.
* Week S (is for Sorcerer) - Monday: Sorcerer; Friday: Spontaneous Magic in-depth. Sorcerer is the main spontaneous caster, so has to be discussed before Bard happens. Monday will be more about the class, Friday will be more about spontaneous magic generally. Bloodlines may potentially get expanded on in the Friday blog as well. Of all the Fridays in my list I feel this may be the most likely to be some random curveball. Maybe they don't talk any more about spontaneous magic at all and instead it's talking about the Planes (a frequent source of Sorcerer bloodlines) as an advertising tie-in to their new Planar Adventures book.
* Week B (is for Bard) - Monday: Bard; Friday: Social encounters and social skills. This is a natural pair. Pretty much anything Paizo does with social encounters will be better than the "basically nothing" of PF1's CRB, so that should be a safe goodfeels blog. I think they would make a lot of people happy if it turns out some of the stuff from Ultimate Intrigue makes its way to the CRB for PF2. As for the Bard, well as I mentioned it's almost guaranteed to get shown AFTER Sorcerer. They could flip it but that would be kind of weird.
* Week R (is for Ranger) - Monday: Ranger; Friday: Exploration Mode. Animal companions will get a subsection in the Ranger blog. Exploration mode will talk about the changes they've made, the "turn" structure, reiterate how Initiative works, and talk about exploration skills like Survival.
* Week D (is for Druid) - Monday: Druid; Friday: Golarion. Druid already got revealed at Paizocon, so its actual blog is probably going to be the very very last of the class blogs. I expect polymorph magic to get a subsection in the Druid blog, since it's always been a thorny issue that changes form (har har) in every edition of the game, and is relevant to Wild Shape. Druids are "of the world," so thematically Friday would make sense to talk about what has actually changed about Golarion, what results from which adventure paths are canon, and where they intend to focus more of their time looking at in the early years of PF2.
Then there's the 5th week, the week the playtest comes out. Monday will be a discussion of the playtest schedule, survey process and so on. Thursday, the day the book theoretically hits the street, will be a discussion of Doomsday Dawn. These could get reversed but would be unlikely to do so.
Interesting thoughts Fuzzypaws,
Though I wonder what about Multiclassing? That one is pressing, and maybe General Feats blog?...
Interesting thoughts Fuzzypaws,
Though I wonder what about Multiclassing? That one is pressing, and maybe General Feats blog?...
We won't get a general feats blog. I'm not sure if we'll get a multiclassing blog. Multiclassing actually seems like Monday Blog fare rather than Friday, so if it happens at all it may replace Druid, which could potentially not get a blog at all due to already being revealed. (Or could be moved to the Friday after Sorcerer.)
Alternately, Multiclassing is the week of the playtest release, and they combine "talking about the playtest schedule" and "talking about Doomsday Dawn" into one mega-blog on the Thursday the books drop.
Yeah, I don't think there will be General Feat blog either. But I'd like to know more myself...
Multiclassing is too much of a question mark to be not addressed in a blog. And yes, I think it would take a Monday blog. But then again I remember Mark (at least I think it was Mark, one of the designers anyways) mentioning that he doesn't count the Druid as being done yet... SO anticipating a Druid blog as well.
The main thing is that if multiclassing happens as a blog at all, it will be after every class is revealed that they're going to reveal. And it's contentious so will be on a Monday. So it pretty much has to be either the last or second to last Monday. I mean, I guess it could go on the week of the release but I would tend to think they would want all good feels on the forum on their release week. So if it's not the last week it is the second-to-last and displaces Druid. I guess it could go Sorcerer, Exploration, Ranger, Druid, Bard, Social, Multiclassing...
Yeah, I don't see Spontaneous Casting as a blog, so I see that last list as more likely. Though I still maintain that Paizo loves to throw curveballs... ;-)
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I'm not sure if we'll get a multiclassing blog. Multiclassing actually seems like Monday Blog fare rather than Friday
Agreed. Multiclassing at this point is most likely going to be the most controversial thing in the playtest given I 100% expect them to remove PF1e style multiclassing from the game. So I wouldn't be surprised if they let that flame war wait until the full playtest is revealed so people's passions are split into different directions rather then the entire playtest forum giving multiclassing their full undivided attention.
