ARRR we sure Pirates is a good playtest idea?


Prerelease Discussion

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PossibleCabbage wrote:

{. . .}

Since archetypes are no longer "get the entire package" but "get as much of the package as you want" I can see some people taking the pirate dedication feat and no other pirate feats explaining that they spent some time press-ganged on a pirate skip or whatever and picked up some things.

Problem is:

{. . .} Each dedication feat gives you some basic abilities and adds all the rest of that archetype's feats to your list of available class feats. The only catch is that you cannot take another dedication feat until after you have taken a specified number of archetype feats from the first one. So you can dip into a single archetype without too much trouble, but if you want more than one, you really have to put a fair amount of your character into the concept. {. . .}

The Dedication feats prevent you from taking another one unless you take 2 more Pirate archetype feats. So if you get press-ganged and then later escape, you can't just keep the abilities you learned while press-ganged and then get an archetype you want -- you HAVE to either retrain out of it (including losing any benefits you got for your trouble), or you have to double down on it 2 times.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

The other thing about archetypes in general (and thus is a boon to pirates) is if they feel an archetype should have something, they don't have to make a whole new one, bu just expand the list of feats available to an old one.

This removes the "but pirates should know how to use guns and cannons, so it is too early to put them in before we have mechanics for those things" because all it takes is them to add the following feat in the Gunpowder Ultimate book to solve it.

Powder Head: Archetype, Pirate 4
You become trained in three weapons with the Firearm trait. This proficiency improves to expert at 8, master at 13 and legendary at 18.


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MerlinCross wrote:

That doesn't feel videogamey?

I would take this argument more seriously if people didn't say it about literally everything.

Wizards and clerics are able to completely reset the majority of their class power (in the form of spells memorized) every single day. Fighters likewise get a feat they can change every day if they so choose. With both of those setting the bar, no, it doesn't seem videogamey. It seems like every class is playing the same game, although certain classes are more efficient about it in certain specific ways.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Did you know nearly every video game lets you pause it and come back later? The fact you don't have to play your RPGs in realtime is video gamey!

Silver Crusade

MerlinCross wrote:
AnimatedPaper wrote:
Charlie Brooks wrote:

I don't really buy the idea that retraining is videogamey. I can think of plenty of times in my life where I've basically reallocated my skills.

I stopped practicing card tricks so I could focus on balloon animals. I don't fence anymore but do run. I don't do much web design anymore but got more training in spreadsheets.

I forgot the 10 codes for dispatching, but I can pick it up in a hurry if I need to.

My dad switches in and out of what languages he knows annoying fast. Someone starts speaking French at him (or he decides he wants to watch TV in French today), and in a couple hours you'd never realize he hadn't spoken that language aloud in decades.

You don't spend spend X days and cash to forget Swim to get Climb because you suddenly need to now and don't feel like risking a bad roll.

And then go "Wait let me forget ALL that and get my Swim back"

That doesn't feel videogamey?

Fine. Whatever. Paizo give us reset tokens to streamline it.

... aren’t Climb and Swim the same skill now?

Silver Crusade

UnArcaneElection wrote:
PossibleCabbage wrote:

{. . .}

Since archetypes are no longer "get the entire package" but "get as much of the package as you want" I can see some people taking the pirate dedication feat and no other pirate feats explaining that they spent some time press-ganged on a pirate skip or whatever and picked up some things.

Problem is:

{. . .} Each dedication feat gives you some basic abilities and adds all the rest of that archetype's feats to your list of available class feats. The only catch is that you cannot take another dedication feat until after you have taken a specified number of archetype feats from the first one. So you can dip into a single archetype without too much trouble, but if you want more than one, you really have to put a fair amount of your character into the concept. {. . .}
The Dedication feats prevent you from taking another one unless you take 2 more Pirate archetype feats. So if you get press-ganged and then later escape, you can't just keep the abilities you learned while press-ganged and then get an archetype you want -- you HAVE to either retrain out of it (including losing any benefits you got for your trouble), or you have to double down on it 2 times.

If I was “forced” to pick up an ability to adapt (aka being pressganged) and then once I was free I’d be perfectly fine and capable of ditching said abilities into the trash and never having to think of them again. So Retraining makes perfect sense for this situation.

Liberty's Edge

Rysky wrote:
... aren’t Climb and Swim the same skill now?

They are indeed.

Personally, I think getting bent out of shape about the retraining rules before we even know how they actually work is a bit premature. Maybe they are verisimilitude breaking, but maybe they aren't. We have no real way to know.


Deadmanwalking wrote:
Rysky wrote:
... aren’t Climb and Swim the same skill now?

They are indeed.

Personally, I think getting bent out of shape about the retraining rules before we even know how they actually work is a bit premature. Maybe they are verisimilitude breaking, but maybe they aren't. We have no real way to know.

To be fair I'll admit I'm getting miffed by the current rules yes and if they are close to the same in PF2 I'll still be miffed at people that use it to meta game their character around challenges.

But I'll leave that line of thought alone now. Still unsure about Pirates


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On the topic of the pirate feats, they do seem bad.

The first feat's utility is likely based entirely on whether or not you have Acrobatics as a signature skill and whether or not you have/want proficiency in the listed weapons. Even in a seafaring campaign, you will likely spend at least half your time on land, and you may not have time to retrain.

Here's a scenario: Our crew has found that a deserted island is rumored to have treasure on it. We sail there and find a dungeon. Do we:

a) Spend days/weeks/months retraining our pirate skills, since they likely won't be useful in the dungeon and if so, how?

b) Go dungeon delving with sub-par skills because waiting to teach everyone how to do adventuring stuff isn't practical.

The level 6 option is essentially the Fighter's Sudden Charge(?) feat, except it can only be used situationally and grants +1 die of damage.

Even in a pirate campaign, how often are you going to be boarding ships in combat? Maybe once per day? Best case scenario I have is having both sides board each other at the same time so you can constantly go back and forth between ships to get your bonus damage, but this isn't terribly realistic. It would be counter productive to constantly switch between attacking the enemy ship and defending your own.

When game mechanics make you do something that you wouldn't normally do, there is a problem.

The next problem is that this is the 3rd feat in a feat chain, so even if you REALLY wanted it, you have to bleed 2 other class feats just to get it. If it's powerful, lock it behind a level prerequisite, but don't make us burn our other feats to get it.

The last problem I have with Archetype Feats in general is the lockout mechanic. What if I want a little bit of 2 archetypes? I get that I couldn't do that in PF1 either (unless they didn't conflict) but that was a flaw in the old system too.

On the topic of "video-game-y" mechanics, there will always be such things in TTRPGs because they ARE games. This does NOT mean that it's always desirable to implement game-y mechanics.

X is game-y, therefore Y can be game-y is not sound logic. X could be game-y out of necessity or because the game-y solution is more fun than a realistic one.

Balancing verisimilitude with fun/simplicity/game balance is a core aspect of making games. Too much or little of any of these can ruin a game, and the desired levels of these aspects are subjective.

Personally, I favor verisimilitude in my TTRPGs up to a certain level. I don't want to have to do physics equations on my arm muscles to determine the exact amount of newtons of force I just delivered with a punch, but there should nothing stopping me from attempting anything that I could imagine my character plausibly doing. The current ways these rules are being written has me seriously concerned that this is changing in favor of adding more widgets to the game.

This is hyperbole, but I don't want to have to grab a feat to pick my nose, if you get my meaning. I also don't want to have to burn all of my actions to scratch my butt while holding a greatsword.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

The boarding thing is a bit silly to me. If I take a feat, I start to look for ways to use it. Yeah boarding might only come up once a campaign if you don't care about it, but presumably if you are taking boarding feats you are going to try and do some boarding. This won't happen everygame, but I'd hope you know before you can get to pick this feat if "we are going to be actually pirates and steal ships" is actually something the GM will let you do. Yeah if I've already got Sudden Charge I won't pick this feat, but that goes for a huge amount of things.

People said similar things about Cat Fall. Oh how often do you actually fall of things. Yeah not much because you avoid it. If falling was actually advantageous to you, you look for ways to use that. E.G bypassing enemy walls by jumping off the cliff face the castle is built up against. Tackling enemies off rooftops because you don't care about going with them and so on.


Malk_Content wrote:

The boarding thing is a bit silly to me. If I take a feat, I start to look for ways to use it. Yeah boarding might only come up once a campaign if you don't care about it, but presumably if you are taking boarding feats you are going to try and do some boarding. This won't happen everygame, but I'd hope you know before you can get to pick this feat if "we are going to be actually pirates and steal ships" is actually something the GM will let you do. Yeah if I've already got Sudden Charge I won't pick this feat, but that goes for a huge amount of things.

People said similar things about Cat Fall. Oh how often do you actually fall of things. Yeah not much because you avoid it. If falling was actually advantageous to you, you look for ways to use that. E.G bypassing enemy walls by jumping off the cliff face the castle is built up against. Tackling enemies off rooftops because you don't care about going with them and so on.

Cat's Fall also has prerequisites of DEX 13 and Acrobatics 1, not 2 Feats and level 6.

There's also the issue that I don't have to lose 3 of my class abilities to get Cat's Fall.

Cat's Fall is also MUCH more likely to be used. Things to climb on and jump off of are fairly common. Attacking someone as you board or disembark a ship does not, even in a seafaring campaign. In fact, I would say Cat's Fall would be MORE useful than the pirate feat tree even in a seafaring campaign.

Cat's Fall also doesn't make it tactically advantageous to constantly jump off of things against common sense. The Level 6 pirate feat makes you do stupid stuff, like constantly jump from ship to ship or carry a canoe with you to cheese the RAW.


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thflame wrote:

Personally, I favor verisimilitude in my TTRPGs up to a certain level. I don't want to have to do physics equations on my arm muscles to determine the exact amount of newtons of force I just delivered with a punch, but there should nothing stopping me from attempting anything that I could imagine my character plausibly doing. The current ways these rules are being written has me seriously concerned that this is changing in favor of adding more widgets to the game.

This is hyperbole, but I don't want to have to grab a feat to pick my nose, if you get my meaning. I also don't want to have to burn all of my actions to scratch my butt while holding a greatsword.

I share this concern entirely. There were quite a few feats in PF1 that were along the lines of "You've been doing this just fine the entire time just by virtue of being trained in the skill, but now it's locked behind a feat." I don't know a way around that though.

Liberty's Edge

Jason Bulmahn wrote:

I think this is a fair criticism, but not everything in the playtest rulebook is there for the Doomsday Dawn adventure, some parts are just there for folks to play around with and get a sense of what we might do with these in the future.

I admit that pirate is pretty niche is its utility, but the concept is pretty universal. If the mechanics work for folks, then that tells us a lot about what we might be able to do when we are finally ready to sink a lot of space into them as a rules element.

Alternately, you could do me a solid and squeeze Gunslinger into the Playtest and CRB. You won't have a better chance to test Firearm Rules for PF2 than you'll have by making this call NOW.

My 2c


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

I wasn't trying to compare the efficacy of one feat to another. I think Cat-Fall is probably stronger.

And you aren't really incentivize to jump between two boats. Taking your entire turn (Action to move back to your boat at best probably more than one Action, then two actions for the Boarding action) to gain +1 Damage Die isn't tactically sounds at all. You could stand next to your enemy and attack three times or move the once and attack twice. You'd be pretty dumb to keep cycling between boats even with the feat.

Cool carry the 6 bulk canoe around with you and hope the enemy lets you stay within 30 feet of it. Then see that the GM laughs at you for trying to be a pendant with the rules.


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I wish they'd gone with vigilante for the playtest general archetype. That would have opened up a lot more characters sooner than pirates.

Edit: Gunslinger would have been even more ideal, but if we can't get them, then Vigilantes would have been my next most desired choice.


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Even just renaming pirate to sailor would open up around 99% more of the nautical based professions out there!


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
mach1.9pants wrote:
Even just renaming pirate to sailor would open up around 99% more of the nautical based professions out there!

That only matters for wierd folk who point at the feat on your character sheet and say "see it says Pirate there, so no I don't think the navy would enlist you!"


mach1.9pants wrote:
Even just renaming pirate to sailor would open up around 99% more of the nautical based professions out there!

I figure a Lawfully inclined character with the pirate archetype could just point out that they are a privateer, as they have (for example) a Writ of Marque from Andoran to raid as many Chelish ships as they can.

Whereas the overwhelming number of jobs that "sailor" applies to involve being handy with ropes but very little fighting, and Pathfinder is still largely a combat oriented game. Also PCs are generally "free agents" and not officially part of any official military chain of command, so in terms of maritime jobs not part of any formal military structure which involve a bunch of fighting you're left basically with "Pirates" and "State Sponsored Pirates".

After all the difference between a background and an archetype is "What you used to do/what your training is in" and "what you are still actively doing." I figure "being trained in sailing lore" will qualify you for almost any maritime job by itself.


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thflame wrote:
This is hyperbole, but I don't want to have to grab a feat to pick my nose, if you get my meaning. I also don't want to have to burn all of my actions to scratch my butt while holding a greatsword.

This. And it isn't that much of a hyperbole.


mach1.9pants wrote:
Even just renaming pirate to sailor would open up around 99% more of the nautical based professions out there!

But Sailor's already a background (that you'd probably have if you were trying to be a Pirate).


Themetricsystem wrote:
Alternately, you could do me a solid and squeeze Gunslinger into the Playtest and CRB. You won't have a better chance to test Firearm Rules for PF2 than you'll have by making this call NOW.

I believe the playtest rules have been at the printers for a while, so that ship has sailed (if you'll pardon the pun).

I was going to make a comment about the previewed feats being more "sailor" then specifically "pirate", but the point about non-naval/non-pirate sailors being less combat-oriented than you average PC is a good one.

OTOH, that may be true in real life (although in real life sailer often could not swim either), but real life does not have krakens and lacedons and sahuagin!

_
glass.


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While i'm sure its not to everyones taste, the pirate is a pretty standard fantasy staple, and has a significant chunk of spotlight in golarion. I'm for it being in, it makes sense.


As someone who doesn't care for pirates, swashbuckling, Treasure Island, Jack Sparrow, or gimmicky accents, I think pirates are just a horrible thing to include in any game.

But hey, that's just me.


MidsouthGuy wrote:

As someone who doesn't care for pirates, swashbuckling, Treasure Island, Jack Sparrow, or gimmicky accents, I think pirates are just a horrible thing to include in any game.

But hey, that's just me.

You can still use the Pirate archetype for a grittier Somali Pirate or a naval officer ;3


Themetricsystem wrote:
Jason Bulmahn wrote:

I think this is a fair criticism, but not everything in the playtest rulebook is there for the Doomsday Dawn adventure, some parts are just there for folks to play around with and get a sense of what we might do with these in the future.

I admit that pirate is pretty niche is its utility, but the concept is pretty universal. If the mechanics work for folks, then that tells us a lot about what we might be able to do when we are finally ready to sink a lot of space into them as a rules element.

Alternately, you could do me a solid and squeeze Gunslinger into the Playtest and CRB. You won't have a better chance to test Firearm Rules for PF2 than you'll have by making this call NOW.

My 2c

I believe they mentioned early in the discussion that they're specifically holding off on firearm rules specifically because in their opinion they will get a better chance to test firearm rules by giving it it's own dedicated playtest rather than having it competing with the rest of the system as a whole.

Shadow Lodge

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Now if only they'd done that with the two archetypes shown as well....

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