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KingOfAnything wrote:
@Mathmuse, I expect having healing actually cost resources in PF2 will encourage many groups to try to avoid combat through investigation and negotiation like you describe.

But it doesn't cost resources if you simply walk away and rest overnight (or two nights) - assuming that someone is playing a cleric or other healing-focussed class.

Of course, if noone is, then you'll be spending heaps of money on healing items.

Now we have the "Force someone to be a healer" problem, combined with the "15 minute adventuring day" problem.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
ErichAD wrote:
Captain Morgan wrote:

I feel like these hiring scenarios make a lot of assumptions about both the quality of services available to follow you into dungeons and how much they will cost. It seems weird to make all those assumptions about an economy we know very little about, especially when those assumptions wouldn't have been true in PF1. By RAW and I believe RAI, NPCs casting for you isn't hirelings, it is spellcasting services.

"The indicated amount is how much it costs to get a spellcaster to cast a spell for you. This price assumes that you can go to the spellcaster and have the spell cast at her convenience (generally at least 24 hours later, so that the spellcaster has time to prepare the spell in question, though you may be lucky enough to find someone who has it prepared that day or a spontaneous caster who knows it). If you want to bring the spellcaster somewhere to cast a spell (for example, to cast dispel magic on a magical seal in a dungeon) you need to negotiate with her; the default answer to such requests is typically no, since most people don’t actually like to go on unexpected life-threatening adventures."

I can't imagine a scenario where paying NPCs to follow you around would be more cost effective than just buying a better wand or potion. By the time you can afford the sort of payment to get these clerics out in the field, the field is probably too dangerous for them to survive in anyway and you have better options available to you.

All we really know about wealth is how quickly it increases. If you can feed a 500 person city for a year without it making a dent in your gold, I bet one or two of them would come with you to use wands, feed your horses, probably even have your babies. Unless adventurer money isn't legal tender for non adventuring services, you'll be able to hire someone.

Those one or two people need to be capable of using the wand though-- if activating wands works anything like PF1 a very small percentage of the population can actually do it. You then need to pay someone enough money to make it worth the risk of losing their lives, and most NPCs are just explicitly not inclined to take those risks. And then you actually need to keep those NPCs alive long enough to heal you. All it takes is one AoE ambush strike to wipe them out. The more NPCs die on your watch, the less people will be willing to work for you no matter what you offer. And a canny hireling will demand some kind of life insurance family to be paid to their family in case they die Then you have the risks of NPCs running off with your wands and what have you.

I'm saying that you CAN hire people to come with you, but by wand savvy NPC rates will probably be more expensive than just buying a better potion. And by the time you don't care about that or whatever it is quite likely the adventures have gotten too dangerous to bother bringing dead weight NPCs on.


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Captain Morgan wrote:
ErichAD wrote:
Captain Morgan wrote:

I feel like these hiring scenarios make a lot of assumptions about both the quality of services available to follow you into dungeons and how much they will cost. It seems weird to make all those assumptions about an economy we know very little about, especially when those assumptions wouldn't have been true in PF1. By RAW and I believe RAI, NPCs casting for you isn't hirelings, it is spellcasting services.

"The indicated amount is how much it costs to get a spellcaster to cast a spell for you. This price assumes that you can go to the spellcaster and have the spell cast at her convenience (generally at least 24 hours later, so that the spellcaster has time to prepare the spell in question, though you may be lucky enough to find someone who has it prepared that day or a spontaneous caster who knows it). If you want to bring the spellcaster somewhere to cast a spell (for example, to cast dispel magic on a magical seal in a dungeon) you need to negotiate with her; the default answer to such requests is typically no, since most people don’t actually like to go on unexpected life-threatening adventures."

I can't imagine a scenario where paying NPCs to follow you around would be more cost effective than just buying a better wand or potion. By the time you can afford the sort of payment to get these clerics out in the field, the field is probably too dangerous for them to survive in anyway and you have better options available to you.

All we really know about wealth is how quickly it increases. If you can feed a 500 person city for a year without it making a dent in your gold, I bet one or two of them would come with you to use wands, feed your horses, probably even have your babies. Unless adventurer money isn't legal tender for non adventuring services, you'll be able to hire someone.
Those one or two people need to be capable of using the wand though-- if activating wands works anything like PF1 a very small percentage of the...

The solution is simple then.

Take the Leadership feat.

That is if it's in PF2. And if your DM lets you.


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Ecidon wrote:
KingOfAnything wrote:
@Mathmuse, I expect having healing actually cost resources in PF2 will encourage many groups to try to avoid combat through investigation and negotiation like you describe.

But it doesn't cost resources if you simply walk away and rest overnight (or two nights) - assuming that someone is playing a cleric or other healing-focussed class.

Of course, if noone is, then you'll be spending heaps of money on healing items.

Now we have the "Force someone to be a healer" problem, combined with the "15 minute adventuring day" problem.

Time is a resource too, do you really think the world should just pause when adventurers aren't looking at it? I would feel compelled to punish a party for assuming they could get away with blatantly metagaming.

Retreating means you've accepted defeat. When you get back the enemies will have had just as much time to heal, prepare for you, and find reinforcements to replace those you depleted, they'll also know about your tactics now, be on guard, and some might even gain levels (or otherwise advance) since you just awarded them a ton of experience points by letting them effectively defeat you.


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Deadmanwalking wrote:
I'm trying to argue for a system where there is a choice, not between healing and not healing (which is a non-choice, as you say), but between different methods of healing. With each having strengths and weaknesses.

I actually don't mind if there is a choice - what I see of resonance, however - is a system designed to make one type of choice uncomfortable at the very least if not outright detrimental - so as to make other choices palatable. I don't mind moving away from the wand - if there are other options that are decent - I don't even mind making the wand less useful as long as the end result isn't frustrating.

The problem here is that arguments about resonance always come back to 'the wand' - and if characters options to heal are as cheap as 'the wand' but keep up and supplement it, then the argument over the 'investment' is moot.

I appreciate we at least found common ground with the arrows even if we disagree over why it's annoying :) I'd like to posit a glimpse into the future - with some assumptions based on past systems and dev comments:

6-10 months after the rules come out - a guide to guides will be built, 3-4 builds for each class will exist and generally be accepted as 'best' - a baseline 'damage' line will be known and the math will generally have been crunched by the people who like to make graphs in their spare time.

At that time - the best way to heal between fights will be known. Be it a wand, feat, skill, whatever. If it costs gold the exact amount of gold needed to hold together for a party will be known.

If skills/feats/class abilities are the only way to keep up with healing - then those feats/skills/abilities will be *required* not optional. If they aren't required - no one will take them outside of people who *already like the healing role*.

I've played a life oracle - there is plenty of gameplay that is fun and meaningful as a healer now - with cure light wounds wands, even if between combat healing were free - there would still be a role for people who are healing focused (albeit less of one). So some people will still take those things - but the general player isn't going to invest in healing unless they have to.

We have real studies done with rigor that prove - most people don't enjoy healing - we *can* thank MMO's for this - real science has been done on the minds of gamers - which we are - just on paper not computers.

Knowing all that (here I go again) - there is no meaning in any system that replaces cure light wounds wands. The only ending to any change made to the wand is that the result will be more complex - it can't help but be, because cure light wounds wands are just a hair simpler than 'healed to full for free between fights' - anything more and we enter more complex.

Can we do with a bit more complexity to healing between fights? Sure - but how much do we really need? Does adding complexity really make a difference?

I (personally) would support just making cure spells not available on wands - or taking the ability to purchase magic items out of the game altogether - at least those would have actual 'game design goals' - instead we are getting a system who's stated goal is 'the same thing we have now - just more complex' - and complex it is - to the point that everything in the game now will be affected by the system.


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Resonance is downright counter-productive. It reduces all magical opportunity costs to "Is it better than this potion/wand that I might need to survive the next encounter?" The answer will almost never be yes, functionally reducing our viable equipment options to our primary weapon, armor, and whatever the math-magicians can calculate is actually worth having a very real chance of dying the following round to use...


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Cantriped wrote:
Resonance is downright counter-productive. It reduces all magical opportunity costs to "Is it better than this potion/wand that I might need to survive the next encounter?" The answer will almost never be yes, functionally reducing our viable equipment options to our primary weapon, armor, and whatever the math-magicians can calculate is actually worth having a very real chance of dying the following round to use...

This would be true if resonance was a scarce resource, but with 20+ at level 20 I can't see that being the case. Only at low level would it be scarce, but then so too would magic items, so I can't see it becoming much of a problem unless you spam cheap consumables.


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19-26 RP is not such a huge pool when you consider that it is a 20th level character's entire personal magical reserve... for everything. Potions, scrolls, wands, their weapons, armor, trinket, etc. Lots of items double dip, reserving a point of RP, as well as costing RP to use, and other deplete RP at an astounding rate.

2-6 RP is what a 3rd level character (who might actually have a few magic items) has to work with. That means you can generally afford to invest your magic armor and activate an item twice (such as a potion or wand) before suffering Resonance Depletion Syndrome; effectively ending your adventuring day until you rest for 8 hours.

The worst problem isn't how many RP you have, at any given level... it is that everything costs RP, everything. Its value it relative to your best use for it at any given time, and therefore almost everything that costs RP is comparatively a trap option regardless of it's short-term benefits. They could give us two or three times as many points and it would still be a problem since you are still basically trading long-term survival for short-term benefits.

It would be better if we Invested from a separate (and reasonably smaller) pool than we Activated from; which should still probably be about twice as large as it currently is. Such a change would have all of the same salient benefits with minimal extra book-keeping and a lot fewer akstance looks from players. The salient benefits to me being encouraging players to upgrade to level appropriate consumables, as well as providing an alternative to Item Slots as opportunity costs)


Captain Morgan wrote:
ErichAD wrote:
Captain Morgan wrote:

I feel like these hiring scenarios make a lot of assumptions about both the quality of services available to follow you into dungeons and how much they will cost. It seems weird to make all those assumptions about an economy we know very little about, especially when those assumptions wouldn't have been true in PF1. By RAW and I believe RAI, NPCs casting for you isn't hirelings, it is spellcasting services.

"The indicated amount is how much it costs to get a spellcaster to cast a spell for you. This price assumes that you can go to the spellcaster and have the spell cast at her convenience (generally at least 24 hours later, so that the spellcaster has time to prepare the spell in question, though you may be lucky enough to find someone who has it prepared that day or a spontaneous caster who knows it). If you want to bring the spellcaster somewhere to cast a spell (for example, to cast dispel magic on a magical seal in a dungeon) you need to negotiate with her; the default answer to such requests is typically no, since most people don’t actually like to go on unexpected life-threatening adventures."

I can't imagine a scenario where paying NPCs to follow you around would be more cost effective than just buying a better wand or potion. By the time you can afford the sort of payment to get these clerics out in the field, the field is probably too dangerous for them to survive in anyway and you have better options available to you.

All we really know about wealth is how quickly it increases. If you can feed a 500 person city for a year without it making a dent in your gold, I bet one or two of them would come with you to use wands, feed your horses, probably even have your babies. Unless adventurer money isn't legal tender for non adventuring services, you'll be able to hire someone.
Those one or two people need to be capable of using the wand though-- if activating wands works anything like PF1 a very small percentage of the...

That would make sense if gold gain increase was anything reasonable. Bring back a few survivors, have a parade for the fallen, and you could milk them forever. Sure, dutiful parents would hide their kids when you came through town, but less scrupulous sorts would probably raise(or steal) kids just for the insurance money from adventurer conscription.

It's not a terrible plot hook, but finding out you caused a mass kidnapping and child exploitation ring because of resonance may not be all that fulfilling a resolution.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
MerlinCross wrote:
Captain Morgan wrote:
ErichAD wrote:
Captain Morgan wrote:

I feel like these hiring scenarios make a lot of assumptions about both the quality of services available to follow you into dungeons and how much they will cost. It seems weird to make all those assumptions about an economy we know very little about, especially when those assumptions wouldn't have been true in PF1. By RAW and I believe RAI, NPCs casting for you isn't hirelings, it is spellcasting services.

"The indicated amount is how much it costs to get a spellcaster to cast a spell for you. This price assumes that you can go to the spellcaster and have the spell cast at her convenience (generally at least 24 hours later, so that the spellcaster has time to prepare the spell in question, though you may be lucky enough to find someone who has it prepared that day or a spontaneous caster who knows it). If you want to bring the spellcaster somewhere to cast a spell (for example, to cast dispel magic on a magical seal in a dungeon) you need to negotiate with her; the default answer to such requests is typically no, since most people don’t actually like to go on unexpected life-threatening adventures."

I can't imagine a scenario where paying NPCs to follow you around would be more cost effective than just buying a better wand or potion. By the time you can afford the sort of payment to get these clerics out in the field, the field is probably too dangerous for them to survive in anyway and you have better options available to you.

All we really know about wealth is how quickly it increases. If you can feed a 500 person city for a year without it making a dent in your gold, I bet one or two of them would come with you to use wands, feed your horses, probably even have your babies. Unless adventurer money isn't legal tender for non adventuring services, you'll be able to hire someone.
Those one or two people need to be capable of using the wand though-- if activating wands works anything like PF1 a
...

Leadership is broken for all sorts of reasons, and shouldn't be in PF2. But even leadership has controls for stuff like this. It doesn't say you get to build your own followers and cohorts, so it is up the GM if they can even use healing. It also applies cumulative penalties to your ability to recruit based on your people dying. And that's a real danger in high school level adventures.

By book 4, even the environments you are exploring can be deadly to low level characters. Heat that inflicts lethal damage. Altitude sickness. Freezing over night. By book 5, you are traveling to other planes with even crazier hazards that can infect people with Lovecraftian spawn or demonic diseases just by being around. By book 6, you may only be able to progress by using high level magic or finite artifacts.

Warding a whole mob of followers against this stuff costs a lot. It also runs into limits like how many features you can teleport, for example, which slows you down. It also means it is harder to hide your camp overnight.

Brining a mob of hirlings is going to be just as practical in PF2 as PF1. Which is to say, not very.


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Hirelings will continue to be an issue where your mileage may vary by campaign and GM. I could see hirelings working really well in a lower-level, slow-progression game. Especially so if the GM took liberties with the default economy to make it actually work mechanically.

One idea I've got involves repricing things linearly based on item level (for example, a Healing Potion that costs 3-5 gp per level), and then limiting the acquisition of more powerful items using simple availability instead of price/wealth ratio (you cannot buy or steal what they do not possess).


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Cantriped wrote:

19-26 RP is not such a huge pool when you consider that it is a 20th level character's entire personal magical reserve... for everything. Potions, scrolls, wands, their weapons, armor, trinket, etc. Lots of items double dip, reserving a point of RP, as well as costing RP to use, and other deplete RP at an astounding rate.

2-6 RP is what a 3rd level character (who might actually have a few magic items) has to work with. That means you can generally afford to invest your magic armor and activate an item twice (such as a potion or wand) before suffering Resonance Depletion Syndrome; effectively ending your adventuring day until you rest for 8 hours.

The worst problem isn't how many RP you have, at any given level... it is that everything costs RP, everything. Its value it relative to your best use for it at any given time, and therefore almost everything that costs RP is comparatively a trap option regardless of it's short-term benefits. They could give us two or three times as many points and it would still be a problem since you are still basically trading long-term survival for short-term benefits.

It would be better if we Invested from a separate (and reasonably smaller) pool than we Activated from; which should still probably be about twice as large as it currently is. Such a change would have all of the same salient benefits with minimal extra book-keeping and a lot fewer akstance looks from players. The salient benefits to me being encouraging players to upgrade to level appropriate consumables, as well as providing an alternative to Item Slots as opportunity costs)

I'm sorry but that would just remove pretty much all the point from the system. Having to make hard choices does not make most of them trap options. If you give everyone so much resonance you'd be easier just house ruling it out because you've made the restriction functionally meaningless.


Cantriped wrote:

Hirelings will continue to be an issue where your mileage may vary by campaign and GM. I could see hirelings working really well in a lower-level, slow-progression game. Especially so if the GM took liberties with the default economy to make it actually work mechanically.

One idea I've got involves repricing things linearly based on item level (for example, a Healing Potion that costs 3-5 gp per level), and then limiting the acquisition of more powerful items using simple availability instead of price/wealth ratio (you cannot buy or steal what they do not possess).

It may be easier to give a flat price for everything and give them varying effects based on user or target as appropriate. You'd have a sword that was magic or not that was more powerful in the hands of more powerful characters. Potions would scale to the level of the drinker. Lower level characters wouldn't be able to see or unlock the potential in higher level magic items and would use them as their lower level version till they could. With the runic system, it's pretty easy to restrict rune use to those a character is powerful or knowledgeable enough to emblazon on their weapon/armor/shield.

It does result in a bit of weirdness were a salesperson may not really know or understand the power of things they're selling. And a character could be walking around with a Rod of Lordly Might using it as a magical ladder, but that's sort of fun too.

It saves the effort of the weird economy, all that stuff is handled well enough with resonance and item level, so why not take the opportunity to make the economy work out better?


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Except that the system doesn't adequately serve it's purpose in the first place.
It didn't replace item slots. Examples show they still exist.
It didn't replace the tracking of limited-use items or individually consumable resource pools (Charges, potions, scrolls, etc). Examples show both of those things still exist too.
It doesn't prevent Potion/Wand use for healing. Developer Comments have assured us those are still viable tactics. All that appears to have changed in this regard is which level of these items we are expected to be using.

Resonance is trying to do too many different things at once, and failing at all of them. Choosing between investing in a Ring for a passive bonus, or Activating a Potion for an active bonus isn't a "hard choice", it's a resource trap that encourages metagaming and downright cheating. Plus, if you thought preparing spells took too much extra time... just wait until everyone is taking that much time deciding what to invest (in addition to preparing spells)... and then again every time they have to consider whether Activating an item is worth the risk.
As one is consumable, while the other is permanent, any cost-benefit analysis is going to be inherently flawed because the comparison is apples to oranges. Which of any given options isn't actually a trap will vary from moment to moment, based on your GM and the Adventure they are running. The longer you have to go between rests, the less activated items (other than direct healing) are worth compared to invested items.

So far, all it really does is extend the 15-minute adventuring day to every PC, give NPCs a huge leg-up (since the enemy can spend their RP without restriction or frugality), and make the acquisition of wealth functionally pointless: No amount of wealth will ever let you use more than a given amount of it per day (based on your level), so beyond needing to upgrade whatever the new "Big-Six" is (your weapon(s), suit of armor, primary stat-boosting trinket, and potion/wand cache?) you don't really need any treasure at all. Since there are fewer must-have items, and they will generally always be the same regardless of who/what you play... most of those upgrades will be found as loot anyway.


I have never played a character at level 20, but from memory my level 10 character hardly used any consumables outside of clw (actually as a synthesist summoned he hardly ever took personal damage, most of it came off the temporary hp from his eidolon). He had 4 permanent items, and loads of scrolls and wands, but he would typically use maybe 2-3 of them. That's only 6 or 7 rps in pf2. Granted other characters would have more items (he didn't use armour as it would get absorbed by his eidolon), but even so a careful character could get by with just 9 rp; that's assuming he dumps cha and never invests (which is unlikely).


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Quote:

just wait until everyone is taking that much time deciding what to invest (in addition to preparing spells)... and then again every time they have to consider whether Activating an item is worth the risk.

As one is consumable, while the other is permanent, any cost-benefit analysis is going to be inherently flawed because the comparison is apples to oranges. Which of any given options isn't actually a trap will vary from moment to moment, based on your GM and the Adventure they are running. The longer you have to go between rests, the less activated items (other than direct healing) are worth compared to invested items.

That all sounds like a series of variables that contain different worth to different players at different times that leads to hard choices. There isn't a hard choice in PF1 at all, which is why this might seem limiting. I mean yes at the end of the day there are going to be expenditures that were objectively better choices than others, but the only way to know that is through perfect knowledge of all possible timelines and the same can be said for literally every choice you make in the game.

And of course wealth helps. Having broader options, even if you can't use them all in one day doesn't make those broader options worthless. I mean I don't use all my magic items every day in PF1 because some of them are situational and the benefit in PF2 over 1 in that regard is i'm not using up a slot on an item that didn't get used that day, I just didn't spend the resource.

I think, outside of clunky language, Resonance is solving a few problems and outside of that is giving interesting choices with drawbacks.

Still I would like a sidebar talking about giving players more or less resonance to suit the tone of you game, and for that to be explicitly a RAW option.


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Deadmanwalking wrote:
Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
I have plenty of evidence based on scaling of other magic items.

No you don't, because we have absolutely no data on WBL.

Also, who says you need the highest possible level to be workable?

The third highest healing potion is only 60 GP a pop and, at 5d8+12 heals an average of 34.5 HP. A 12th level character could be completely healed by maybe five or six of those.

Assuming a cost break for an equivalent Wand (say, 50 GP per charge for a 4th level Wand of Heal, which might be 7d8+5 or so and the same single target healing), then you can heal 185 HP from each PC for only 10 charges by using the area healing option. That's 500 GP. 5000 GP in PF1 terms. For 740 HP healed assuming a four person party. That's higher than the price via a Wand of CLW in PF1...but it's just under 7 GP (7 SP in PF2) per HP, as opposed to the Wand of CLW's north of 3 GP per HP healed. Or a bit more than twice as expensive. And that assumes a much smaller cost break than Wands gave in PF1.

Assuming equivalent WBL, that sounds perfectly workable. It's a bit Resonance heavy as an option, but given that the party as a whole in unlikely to need 185 HP each in a single day, I don't think it's an unworkable Resonance cost by 12th level.

Now all those numbers (except the healing potion cost) are entirely speculative, but they're quite plausible and would fit the design goals, so I wouldn't be surprised at all if I'm in the right ballpark, and you shouldn't be either.

Frankly, it seems likely that by using items a few levels lower and making use of the area healing effect, Wands of Heal are very likely an entirely valid out-of-combat healing methodology...if one with a high Resonance cost.

Yeah, but one thing we can say for sure is that, if the math is supposed to work out, the WBL would have to be quadratic (or at the very least, multiplicative) to match the sort of numbers I've projected. A linear progression is outright impossible due to breaking math.

As for it not being the highest possible level, let's take a Dwarf Ranger. Let's say he has an 18 Strength, 16 Dexterity, 14 Constitution, 12 Wisdom, 10 Intelligence, and 8 Charisma (easily possible with proper choices), he has 22 HP at 1st level, gaining 12 HP at each level, but he has zero Resonance until 2nd level (meaning potions or any form of magic is practically impossible until then). The third highest healing potion is cast at 5D8, meaning it is a 5th level spell slot, making it 8th level at the minimum (which is the item level of the potion), putting him easily at 118 HP, not including any level-up bonuses from 5th (which can make it even higher, to 126). With the 5D8+12 HP, he heals an average of only 34 hit points, or ~35% of his maximum, and this is with the highest potion he can consume (remember, items above your level are unavailable to you to use), meaning that he has to consume ~3 of them to be at full Strength. Counting outliers, he can be required to consume as little as 2, or as many as eight potions before he is at maximum health, meaning he has to burn an equivalent amount of Resonance just to heal up from a brutal fight.

At 8th level, he will only have 7 Resonance at the maximum (again, not including level up bonuses, which could change this to an 8), and he will probably invest in magic weapons, armor, and a wondrous item or two (depending on treasure and item selection). If he uses the previous tier, he only heals an average of ~20 HP, which means he needs to consume six of those to be at maximum HP. So yeah, comparatively speaking, not using the highest level will end up costing you more resonance for the same raw effect, meaning not burning highest level consumables leaves you less resonance for the day for other things you may want or need to do.


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Gavmania wrote:
I have never played a character at level 20, but from memory my level 10 character hardly used any consumables outside of clw (actually as a synthesist summoner

I stopped reading this post by the bolded point because it's not a typical character experience whatsoever. A broken class using an even more broken archetype that should have never seen the light of publishing day is not really a great or accurate measurement of what players can expect for magic item usage.


I agree with you completely Cantriped. I see no value in the resonance system at all. But since the current system of resonance+item level makes gold pointless, we may as well do without gold. I won't be a fan, but being forthright about what system failure they're addressing would help players make sense of the new system.

It may also help them notice why flat resonance pricing between permanent effects, temporary healing and temporary damage boosts doesn't make any sense.


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Captain Morgan wrote:
MerlinCross wrote:
Captain Morgan wrote:
ErichAD wrote:
Captain Morgan wrote:

I feel like these hiring scenarios make a lot of assumptions about both the quality of services available to follow you into dungeons and how much they will cost. It seems weird to make all those assumptions about an economy we know very little about, especially when those assumptions wouldn't have been true in PF1. By RAW and I believe RAI, NPCs casting for you isn't hirelings, it is spellcasting services.

"The indicated amount is how much it costs to get a spellcaster to cast a spell for you. This price assumes that you can go to the spellcaster and have the spell cast at her convenience (generally at least 24 hours later, so that the spellcaster has time to prepare the spell in question, though you may be lucky enough to find someone who has it prepared that day or a spontaneous caster who knows it). If you want to bring the spellcaster somewhere to cast a spell (for example, to cast dispel magic on a magical seal in a dungeon) you need to negotiate with her; the default answer to such requests is typically no, since most people don’t actually like to go on unexpected life-threatening adventures."

I can't imagine a scenario where paying NPCs to follow you around would be more cost effective than just buying a better wand or potion. By the time you can afford the sort of payment to get these clerics out in the field, the field is probably too dangerous for them to survive in anyway and you have better options available to you.

All we really know about wealth is how quickly it increases. If you can feed a 500 person city for a year without it making a dent in your gold, I bet one or two of them would come with you to use wands, feed your horses, probably even have your babies. Unless adventurer money isn't legal tender for non adventuring services, you'll be able to hire someone.
Those one or two people need to be capable of using the wand though-- if activating
...

Well first I thought Leadership allowed you to give them some levels/stat ups. As a player, not the DM. OR at least train them in certain areas so you could probably teach them how to use wands. The point I was getting at was you CAN get around the whole "But you might not find someone to follow you" issue.

That said, and we'll have to see just how it WILL work.

Summon. Pull forth Creature that use wands. Have creature use the wand. You used 1 spell to have something cast another spell 3-4 times probably. At least.

Now do I hope this is something you Can do in PF2? No of course not. But if it is possible, how often will we be seeing this seemingly low cost solution?

Hmm actually I just want more info on Summon Creatures now. Cause if there's something early on in that list that can cast Cure Light Wounds I can see that seeing some spam.


Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
Gavmania wrote:
I have never played a character at level 20, but from memory my level 10 character hardly used any consumables outside of clw (actually as a synthesist summoner
I stopped reading this post by the bolded point because it's not a typical character experience whatsoever. A broken class using an even more broken archetype that should have never seen the light of publishing day is not really a great or accurate measurement of what players can expect for magic item usage.

In defense, and off topic but I keep seeing it played to min max in comments, I've seen that archetype twice. At low levels(Highest was level 4).

Now I can see how it's busted, being able to really min max and then slap all kinds of buffs on top of that.

But he didn't do that. Maybe a little with the spells but the reason he did it? He just made a Kamen Rider. Complete with Henshin effect.


ErichAD wrote:

I agree with you completely Cantriped. I see no value in the resonance system at all. But since the current system of resonance+item level makes gold pointless, we may as well do without gold. I won't be a fan, but being forthright about what system failure they're addressing would help players make sense of the new system.

It may also help them notice why flat resonance pricing between permanent effects, temporary healing and temporary damage boosts doesn't make any sense.

Magic items have prices, but there might be regulations against magic mart that will do this anyways. A lot of things play different in such a system, but even gold is still valuable.


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MerlinCross wrote:
Hmm actually I just want more info on Summon Creatures now. Cause if there's something early on in that list that can cast Cure Light Wounds I can see that seeing some spam.

I personally expect this one easy line to be in there: Summoned creatures have no Resonance. There may be a creature that you can summon that casts Cure Light, but I also expect it to be a mid-level slot, used more for utility (and backup healing) than to spam it.


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Malk_Content wrote:
And of course wealth helps. Having broader options, even if you can't use them all in one day doesn't make those broader options worthless. I mean I don't use all my magic items every day in PF1 because some of them are situational and the benefit in PF2 over 1 in that regard is i'm not using up a slot on an item that didn't get used that day, I just didn't spend the resource.

I never meant to say the options themselves were worthless.

What I was trying to say is that the act of acquiring wealth itself will be pointless because it can't ever provide you with a better use of your RP than "not dying this round", and most of your viable uses for RP (invested items better than your own, and potions/wands) will be found not bought.

The reason is simple, the items you purchase are almost never higher than the level you were when you bought them. Meanwhile items you find will be of a level the adventure expects you to be, find useful, or that the enemies need to function (the same stuff you do, but less of it and better because it's just them against all of you).


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Cantriped wrote:
... It would be better if we Invested from a separate (and reasonably smaller) pool than we Activated from; which should still probably be about twice as large as it currently is. Such a change would have all of the same salient benefits with minimal extra book-keeping and a lot fewer akstance looks from players. The salient benefits to me being encouraging players to upgrade to level appropriate consumables, as well as providing an alternative to Item Slots as opportunity costs)

And PF2 provides another pool, called spell points. Since activating a wand or a staff or many wondrous items casts a particular spell, using spell points for the activation would be thematically appropriate. All it would take is one little rule, "If an activatible spell in a magic item is on the spell list of a character's class, then that character may spent a spell point instead of a resonance point to activate the spell."

I am not sure how many spell points a character would have. They are granted by the class of the character in order to power class abilities. Many martials might lack them, but they lack spell lists, too. Wizards and witches having more spell points to use on wands fits the folklore around such characters. They are the wand-users.


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Cantriped wrote:

I never meant to say the options themselves were worthless.

What I was trying to say is that the act of acquiring wealth itself will be pointless because it can't ever provide you with a better use of your RP than "not dying this round", and most of your viable uses for RP (invested items better than your own, and potions/wands) will be found not bought.

If that happens, then I think the system will have been badly set up. If nothing you buy can be compared well to a Xd8+Y heal, then there has been a grave mistake in design.


Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
Gavmania wrote:
I have never played a character at level 20, but from memory my level 10 character hardly used any consumables outside of clw (actually as a synthesist summoner
I stopped reading this post by the bolded point because it's not a typical character experience whatsoever. A broken class using an even more broken archetype that should have never seen the light of publishing day is not really a great or accurate measurement of what players can expect for magic item usage.

Fair enough, I had a quick look at my fellow adventurers (I ignored the Sorceror as his Cha would be too high). The Wizard and Inquisitor had 9 each, the Monk/warpriest had 8 and the Magus had 7. These all included the big 6, which has now been put down to 3 so in Pf2 terms that's 6,6,5 and 4. They all had at least 10 Cha, so would have enough left over for 4-5 consumables before hitting problems, and they would never have invested in Cha during level ups (which is easily doable now with 4 stats being levelled up at 5 and 10 in pf2 as I understand it). Outside of clw spam, 4-5 is plenty. Even with 2-3 healing potions (or whatever), that still leaves a couple of rps for other things/activations. This is assuming they attune all of their items every adventure

The only problem I see is where a cleric (or other character) is expected to do the healing for all the characters via a wand; there would not be enough rps for that, but with channel healing being stronger and (possibly) ritual magic being available out of combat, sufficient healing should be manageable; only if you expect to meet every encounter at full hp (or close to it) would you possibly run into rp problems, the answer would then be to approach encounters with less than max hp.


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Cyouni wrote:
If that happens, then I think the system will have been badly set up. If nothing you buy can be compared well to a Xd8+Y heal, then there has been a grave mistake in design.

That is my fear. The way I see it:

Invested Items give persistant benefits at the cost of reserving RP, this is almost always going to be worth it over the course of your career! Especially considering that +2 CHA = +1 Investment Slot.

Magic Weapons and Attack Spells don't normally cost RP, so using RP on consumable damage is just plain stupid. So no magic bombs or attack wands unless they're a class feature. Considering that every use of RP this way costs you an Invested Item or Healing (see below)

Short-term Utility spells don't normally cost RP, so spending it to replicate them is inefficient at best (but worthwile circumstancially, like if you are a barbarian that needs to fly). Even so you lose the benefits long before you get back the RP you spent.

Healing and Condition Removal however, is instant, but with lingering effects on the adventure, and the group's overall resource management. Regained HP are the only use of RP (besides Investment) that I currently know of that persists beyond the encounter it is spent. Additionally, the rules can severely punish you if you don't keep at least 1 point in reserve per expected future encounter that day in case you need to use a wand or be fed a potion in an emergency.


Deadmanwalking wrote:

For the record I'm actually deeply displeased with the Resonance system as it currently stands. It's fiddly and unintuitive in several ways, and makes things more complex rather than less.

But I don't think it's an inherently bad idea, nor do I buy that it somehow makes the game not function. I just have issues with the current implementation (or what we know of the current implementation, anyway).

For me, it IS "an inherently bad idea" then on top of that it's "fiddly and unintuitive". In an effort to do too many thing, it does them all poorly. It could work as a limit of slot but it reached too far in trying to also cover consumable item use and that make it inherently untenable IMO. The fact that it in fact didn't get rid of slots, charges and/or per day uses and the ONLY thing is seems to do is tamp down on the thing I didn't want it to do: mess around with wands and consumables.

So IMO, it really needs walked back and actually fixed to target 1 specific thing. If it's slots, just make it slots. If it's charges and/or per day effects, JUST target them by making it a pool JUST for those kinds of items.

Cantriped Made a good post, IMO, about how it makes wealth worthless and transforms the 'big six' into your 'set' of equipment you upgrade but never really change.


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I loathe item slots and do not in any shape way or form want them back.

I guess you could have separate limits for "you can wear this much magic stuff" and "you can use this many magical consumables" and they don't have to be the same though.

Liberty's Edge

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John Lynch 106 wrote:
The game functions perfectly fine for some groups that do not use wands of healing at all. The game functions perfectly fine for some groups that use wands of CLW after every encounter. "makes the game not function" is a pretty low bar given PF1e can function just fine with widely different playstyles. I agree that resonance will not cause the game to "not function" for some groups. It could introduce a drastically different platystyle for other groups, but even then I'm sure it will "function".

I'm pleased to hear it. A lot of people seem to ythink it won't function, however. That bit was mostly for them.

John Lynch 106 wrote:
Whether or not resonance enables more enjoyment from the game is the bar I set. I look forward to seeing resonance in full to see if it actually achieves that goal.

That's my general standard as well, and even if the playtest version doesn't manage it, I have high hopes that the final one will.

Ckorik wrote:
6-10 months after the rules come out - a guide to guides will be built, 3-4 builds for each class will exist and generally be accepted as 'best' - a baseline 'damage' line will be known and the math will generally have been crunched by the people who like to make graphs in their spare time.

Sure, this is true to some degree. And such exercises are useful, but people aren't all gonna follow the guide. Indeed, almost nobody will follow the guide perfectly, and the closer 'non-optimal' builds are to the 'optimal' ones the less people will follow them.

The gap between optimal and less optimal characters generally seems a lot narrower in PF2, which is all to the good.

Ckorik wrote:
At that time - the best way to heal between fights will be known. Be it a wand, feat, skill, whatever. If it costs gold the exact amount of gold needed to hold together for a party will be known.

This is not true if there are Feats, Spells, and Consumables all available to manage this situation. Because people put different values on those different things. Some people will say that investing 2 Skill Feats and some skill ranks is a tiny investment and thus better than the other options, and others will say it's a huge investment and they'd rather burn the gold on consumables, because optimizers disagree on things like that.

A 'best' version for each strategy will certainly exist, but which strategy you use will not be agreed upon any more than there's a consensus regarding the highest DPR build in PF1 (which there isn't, because there are so many ways to get high DPR).

Ckorik wrote:

If skills/feats/class abilities are the only way to keep up with healing - then those feats/skills/abilities will be *required* not optional. If they aren't required - no one will take them outside of people who *already like the healing role*.

We have real studies done with rigor that prove - most people don't enjoy healing - we *can* thank MMO's for this - real science has been done on the minds of gamers - which we are - just on paper not computers.

I'd be very interested in seeing that study, all the articles and such I can find disagree with it completely, but none are scientific papers, so I'm interested.

But even assuming that's correct, what's the percentage are we talking about? Are we talking 10%? 25%? 30%? Because if it's 25% or more, most player groups might well contain someone who'd enjoy it, and even at 10% it's gonna be almost half of groups who do.

And again, I'm not arguing that a dedicated healer should be required, and don't think that's how things will work out at all.

Ckorik wrote:

Knowing all that (here I go again) - there is no meaning in any system that replaces cure light wounds wands. The only ending to any change made to the wand is that the result will be more complex - it can't help but be, because cure light wounds wands are just a hair simpler than 'healed to full for free between fights' - anything more and we enter more complex.

Can we do with a bit more complexity to healing between fights? Sure - but how much do we really need? Does adding complexity really make a difference?

More complexity is in no way inevitable, nor the goal. More options are the goal. I guess the mere fact that there are options is more complex on some level, but each option can easily be made dead simple, especially if most of them work the same way (Spells and Wands, for instance).

Ckorik wrote:
I (personally) would support just making cure spells not available on wands - or taking the ability to purchase magic items out of the game altogether - at least those would have actual 'game design goals' - instead we are getting a system who's stated goal is 'the same thing we have now - just more complex' - and complex it is - to the point that everything in the game now will be affected by the system.

The current system is, indeed, overly complex. I don't think that's inevitable, though, just an unfortunate result of this particular system.

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
Yeah, but one thing we can say for sure is that, if the math is supposed to work out, the WBL would have to be quadratic (or at the very least, multiplicative) to match the sort of numbers I've projected. A linear progression is outright impossible due to breaking math.

Yes, this is correct. But what sort of multiplicative progression? If it results in more net spending ability, purchasing more consumables is more reasonable.

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
As for it not being the highest possible level, let's take a Dwarf Ranger. Let's say he has an 18 Strength, 16 Dexterity, 14 Constitution, 12 Wisdom, 10 Intelligence, and 8 Charisma (easily possible with proper choices), he has 22 HP at 1st level, gaining 12 HP at each level,

For the record, this example has many factual errors, which I will correct along the way. The point it proves (that potions alone are a bad method of healing) is true, however. But that isn't quite what I was saying.

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
but he has zero Resonance until 2nd level (meaning potions or any form of magic is practically impossible until then).

Resonance, like most stuff, has a minimum of 1.

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
The third highest healing potion is cast at 5D8, meaning it is a 5th level spell slot,

Nope. Heal adds 2d8 of healing for every level you add. 5d8 is what the 3rd level version does. The healing potion in question has much higher static bonuses, explaining why it is 8th level rather than 5th.

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
making it 8th level at the minimum (which is the item level of the potion), putting him easily at 118 HP, not including any level-up bonuses from 5th (which can make it even higher, to 126).

Uh...8 x 12 + 10 = 106 (114 if Con goes to 16). You're adding an extra level's HP here.

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
With the 5D8+12 HP, he heals an average of only 34 hit points, or ~35% of his maximum, and this is with the highest potion he can consume (remember, items above your level are unavailable to you to use),

What? No they aren't. You can't make them, but you can certainly use them. Hell, evidence is that you can even buy them.

They're not a great investment, money-wise, but this restriction is nonsense.

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
meaning that he has to consume ~3 of them to be at full Strength. Counting outliers, he can be required to consume as little as 2, or as many as eight potions before he is at maximum health, meaning he has to burn an equivalent amount of Resonance just to heal up from a brutal fight.

Which is indeed punitive, and why I suggested a Wand (or Scroll) of Heal, which can heal the whole party for the same Resonance cost.

Let's take a level 3 Heal Wand, which will heal 2d8+4 HP per use in an area.

8 uses of that (for 104 HP to everyone), and both the Ranger and everyone else in the party are at full health, for a net of 2 uses per person assuming a 4 person party.

That area use is what makes lower level Wands a reasonable consumable for party healing.

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
At 8th level, he will only have 7 Resonance at the maximum (again, not including level up bonuses, which could change this to an 8), and he will probably invest in magic weapons, armor, and a wondrous item or two (depending on treasure and item selection). If he uses the previous tier, he only heals an average of ~20 HP, which means he needs to consume six of those to be at maximum HP. So yeah, comparatively speaking, not using the highest level will end up costing you more resonance for the same raw effect, meaning not burning highest level consumables leaves you less resonance for the day for other things you may want or need to do.

Except that's not true because you're ignoring the multiplicative advantages of using slightly lower level Wands as an area effect.


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PossibleCabbage wrote:

I loathe item slots and do not in any shape way or form want them back.

I guess you could have separate limits for "you can wear this much magic stuff" and "you can use this many magical consumables" and they don't have to be the same though.

Myself I never really thought about slots one way or another: they were just part of the game. So if enough people want them gone, I don't mind.

That said, the least I'd want to see if a seperation between consumables and other items. Add to that that I enjoy collecting a bunch of minor items. Maybe some Sleeves of Many Garments, Tengu Drinking Jug, Slippers of Scampering, Antiquarian's Monocle, Apprentice's Cheating Gloves, Robe of Infinite Twine, feather tokens, ect.

Can you see a situation where a feather token is used with it costing Resonance? A Robe of Infinite Twine? Tengu Drinking Jug? I can't and that alone makes me think the whole thing "an inherently bad idea".


Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I feel like people are glossing over one particular situation where wands of CLW have a real practical benefit: in an organized play situation where you have a different table of players every game they enable each player to be responsible for their own healing while requiring a super minimal investment of any particular character's resources. You don't need to have a dedicated healer at the table, you just need one or two characters who can activate a wand of CLW. Since the ability to activate a wand of CLW is a pretty low-effort thing to build into a character any given table of PFS players probably has a few that can do it.

The fact that my non-healer fighter CAN buy a Wand of Mid-Level Heal or something doesn't matter if he can't actually activate it, since the one or two people at the table who can activate it are going to be resonance limited if they need to heal the whole table via those wands. That's assuming that they don't also have to invest in the wands to trigger them at all, in which case everyone bringing their own wand is just a total non-starter.

Now I get that PF2 has been built such that you CAN have a non-caster as your primary healer, but if that requires a non-trivial investment of your character's resources then it still doesn't solve the problem. It's nice that I don't need a dedicated heal-bot cleric if I can instead have a dedicated heal-bot barbarian, but what I really want is to not need any dedicated heal-bot at all. That's what the wand of CLW brought to PFS, and I'm concerned that there doesn't seem to be an equivalent in PF2.


Aren't "PFS specific problems" best fixed with PFS specific rules, since PFS is, in essence, a shared set of house rules?

I'm still not sure what exactly a non-caster needs to take in order to use wands, but I imagine there's way (a skill feat say.)

Liberty's Edge

Cantriped wrote:
Resonance is downright counter-productive. It reduces all magical opportunity costs to "Is it better than this potion/wand that I might need to survive the next encounter?" The answer will almost never be yes, functionally reducing our viable equipment options to our primary weapon, armor, and whatever the math-magicians can calculate is actually worth having a very real chance of dying the following round to use...

The problem with this analysis (and it's a very real one) is that it assumes only consumables can heal you or prevent your death. Indeed, it presumes that only healing consumables can do so, which we know from how offense/defense worked in PF1 is likely to be factually false (offense was better than defense most of the time in PF1, and seems to remain so point for point in PF2).

If other healing is used, and you thus weren't gonna die anyway, then the Resonance can and should be used for something else. If the Resonance can be used to kill an opponent before they can attack you again, then again the Resonance should be used.

Really, the situation where you want to save your Resonance for healing only exists, but it isn't the norm, it requires specific circumstances.

Cantriped wrote:
So far, all it really does is extend the 15-minute adventuring day to every PC, give NPCs a huge leg-up (since the enemy can spend their RP without restriction or frugality),

This is probably untrue of most NPCs. Given that PCs and NPCs are now non-symmetrical for the most part they need not have Resonance on quite the same scale as PCs do. The ones built with PC rules will, but those are the exception, not the rule.

Cantriped wrote:
and make the acquisition of wealth functionally pointless: No amount of wealth will ever let you use more than a given amount of it per day (based on your level), so beyond needing to upgrade whatever the new "Big-Six" is (your weapon(s), suit of armor, primary stat-boosting trinket, and potion/wand cache?) you don't really need any treasure at all. Since there are fewer must-have items, and they will generally always be the same regardless of who/what you play... most of those upgrades will be found as loot anyway.

The more wealth the higher quality items you can have. Yes, keeping your magic weapon and magic armor up to snuff is necessary, but so are various non-consumable stuff (particularly including skill-boost items, a Cloak of Elvenkind is something every sneaky person wants), and the more money you have the more such things you can afford, along with the better they will be. Resonance certainly caps them somewhat, but not as much as you imply here, I don't think.

Cantriped wrote:

What I was trying to say is that the act of acquiring wealth itself will be pointless because it can't ever provide you with a better use of your RP than "not dying this round", and most of your viable uses for RP (invested items better than your own, and potions/wands) will be found not bought.

The reason is simple, the items you purchase are almost never higher than the level you were when you bought them. Meanwhile items you find will be of a level the adventure expects you to be, find useful, or that the enemies need to function (the same stuff you do, but less of it and better because it's just them against all of you).

Uh...who says the items you find will be better than the ones you purchase? That's not true in PF1 most of the time and nothing about PF2 seems likely to change it.

graystone wrote:
For me, it IS "an inherently bad idea" then on top of that it's "fiddly and unintuitive". In an effort to do too many thing, it does them all poorly. It could work as a limit of slot but it reached too far in trying to also cover consumable item use and that make it inherently untenable IMO. The fact that it in fact didn't get rid of slots, charges and/or per day uses and the ONLY thing is seems to do is tamp down on the thing I didn't want it to do: mess around with wands and consumables.

I'm not pleased with the remaining 'slots' at all, I must agree. But I'm not necessarily against the idea of one system for both of these things.

graystone wrote:
So IMO, it really needs walked back and actually fixed to target 1 specific thing. If it's slots, just make it slots. If it's charges and/or per day effects, JUST target them by making it a pool JUST for those kinds of items.

I can actually see something like this working, but I'm worried you'd need too many different resources to make it work properly.

graystone wrote:
Cantriped Made a good post, IMO, about how it makes wealth worthless and transforms the 'big six' into your 'set' of equipment you upgrade but never really change.

I disagree with that for reasons I went into above.


PossibleCabbage wrote:

Aren't "PFS specific problems" best fixed with PFS specific rules, since PFS is, in essence, a shared set of house rules?

I'm still not sure what exactly a non-caster needs to take in order to use wands, but I imagine there's way (a skill feat say.)

I believe classes not normally available to use wands or other magic consumables was revealed in the "Feats of Skill" blog post, with the "Trick Magic Item" Feat, requiring training in the relevant discipline.

Shadow Lodge

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PossibleCabbage wrote:
Aren't "PFS specific problems" best fixed with PFS specific rules, since PFS is, in essence, a shared set of house rules?

Going off of precedence I'd said Paizo doesn't think so.


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Deadmanwalking wrote:
-snip for brevity-

That's not really an answer we can expect. Just because you make more gold doesn't mean that you will be expected to purchase more with it if the prices for things you need are likewise scaling in a similar fashion. (I suppose that would be linear scaling by technical definition, but I meant that it wouldn't increase in factors of 5 or 20 in such short spans of levels, as well as having completely different levels of scaling between item types, so even if it wasn't linear, it's still all over the place and needs to be fixed, hence why I"m going with the Placeholder theory.)

It shouldn't matter that potions are terrible or not, the point is that consumables will end up running your Resonance one way or the other, instead of being able to activate cool things you want to use, like your Fireball Blade (which, if the existing weapon entries are any indication, would suck nuts after 2 levels of being able to have it, and even then against tough monsters, will be worthless), you're instead forced into activating consumables (usually healing ones) or you just die, even with those 14 Constitution PFS builds, not having HP to fight with just makes you worthless on the battlefield. Not only did they fail at making freeform choices, they shoehorned your choices to where, if you don't invest Resonance in healing, you'll just die and have to create a character that does. GG Paizo.

I don't remember them ever clarifying that Resonance always has a minimum of 1 in any blog post I've read. It's better than having 0, though I still think that's wishful thinking for them to grant a minimum of 1 for something that they clearly wanted people to pay for just for neglecting it.

That's not really relevant here. An 8th level item means it's built for 8th level PCs to use. Characters who have much weaker (or much stronger) items are going to be very rare, if not impossible, with this current system since at some point, something is going to break. It shouldn't matter if it gives more static HP or not (which is better design for consistent healing, I don't know why the spells don't work like that), especially since potions are no longer "spell in a can," meaning spell comparisons are worthless.

Oops on the HP. It does skew my results a bit, but not so much that the original point doesn't stand anymore.

Being able to buy them =/= Being able to use them. There's nothing in the rules that says you can just pick up a Holy Avenger and start swinging at 3rd level just because it's there, item levels exist both for crafting and for weapon availability. Not high enough level? Can't use the weapon then.

So now, instead of having a Wand that one person uses to stick everyone up, you have a Wand that everybody shares Resonance with to heal everyone up. Or hell, how about that person with 18 Charisma can start using all the Wands and such now, because he has the Resonance to spare. GG Paizo, you even failed at nullifying CLW wands from being the most effective, nice job side-grading the problem into something still completely unintended. This also assumes Wands can be used to cast a spell in any way you want; spells with variant cast times probably aren't something Paizo considered in their initial design, which means they either need to nerf Wands hard by locking in an action type (or limit the number of actions you can do with a Wand; maybe it can only be used for 1 action activations?), or completely revise how they work to disallow this broken BS. Either way, I will just houserule Resonance out of my PF2 games, and just stick with the old PF1 system for magic items. If I'm just getting more of the same BS, there's no reason to include a pointlessly complicated system to make it worse.


Wait I don't get this not liking item slots thing? people are ok with a character wearing 12 sets of gloves or 5 cloaks, 3 helms etc. I frankly won't be allowing an infintie number of rings at some point your hands are gonna be to clunky! Mister T level amulet wearing I'll have to think about just because it does sound amusing.


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So part of the issue with slots is that they are completely arbitrary. One can wear a robe, a shirt, a cape, a belt, and a suit of armor that are all magical and that's fine, as well as a magic hat, headband, and goggles and none of this magic conflicts but no way can you wear two necklaces or three rings (even though toe rings are a thing.)

Other big problem with item slots is that it encourages people to scour magic item listings because "well, I gotta get something for the eyes slot" since leaving a magic item slot empty (as opposed to filling it with anything) is an opportunity cost. So it exacerbates the "you are a magical christmas tree" problem.


Aye but I still think allowing a person to only wear one helm one cloak one set of gloves etc. makes more since then being able to throw gloves over gloves over gloves.


Cabbage mentions a good bit of the issues with the slot system.

I like the idea of a partial slot system, where investing controls the max number you can have, and you have loosely assigned slots that make sense based on your character, 1 set of pants, but you can wear 10 rings, and so forth.


I feel like even though there will be table variation, a GM saying "no, you cannot wear six hats, they will blow off in the wind" and the like is sufficient to check on any of the really ridiculous item stacking.

Unless of course the table thinks that Albain Sixhats is funny and wants to roll with it, which is as it should be.

Liberty's Edge

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Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
That's not really an answer we can expect. Just because you make more gold doesn't mean that you will be expected to purchase more with it if the prices for things you need are likewise scaling in a similar fashion. (I suppose that would be linear scaling by technical definition, but I meant that it wouldn't increase in factors of 5 or 20 in such short spans of levels, as well as having completely different levels of scaling between item types, so even if it wasn't linear, it's still all over the place and needs to be fixed, hence why I"m going with the Placeholder theory.)

But my point is that it doesn't necessarily scale at exactly the same rate as PF1 so any analysis based on PF1's WBL is critically flawed.

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
It shouldn't matter that potions are terrible or not, the point is that consumables will end up running your Resonance one way or the other, instead of being able to activate cool things you want to use, like your Fireball Blade (which, if the existing weapon entries are any indication, would suck nuts after 2 levels of being able to have it, and even then against tough monsters, will be worthless), you're instead forced into activating consumables (usually healing ones) or you just die, even with those 14 Constitution PFS builds, not having HP to fight with just makes you worthless on the battlefield. Not only did they fail at making freeform choices, they shoehorned your choices to where, if you don't invest Resonance in healing, you'll just die and have to create a character that does. GG Paizo.

Except that, as I noted, you can manage full healing for an entire party for 8 or 9 Resonance total, with below level consumables. That's as much healing as most parties need most days and a workable amount of Resonance to manage (though more than would be ideal, providing an incentive to have other healing methodologies).

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
I don't remember them ever clarifying that Resonance always has a minimum of 1 in any blog post I've read. It's better than having 0, though I still think that's wishful thinking for them to grant a minimum of 1 for something that they clearly wanted people to pay for just for neglecting it.

It was mentioned in some individual post, not a Blog, but it's been mentioned. Also, it means you avoid one issue of low Charisma at 1st level only. At 2nd level you still start having one less Resonance than the Cha 10 guy. And do so from then on.

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
That's not really relevant here. An 8th level item means it's built for 8th level PCs to use. Characters who have much weaker (or much stronger) items are going to be very rare, if not impossible, with this current system since at some point, something is going to break. It shouldn't matter if it gives more static HP or not (which is better design for consistent healing, I don't know why the spells don't work like that), especially since potions are no longer "spell in a can," meaning spell comparisons are worthless.

The fact that you can use a Wand (via area effect) and dramatically reduce the Resonance cost (and necessary item level) to heal similar amounts of damage is, in fact, super relevant and the main point I was making here.

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
Oops on the HP. It does skew my results a bit, but not so much that the original point doesn't stand anymore.

No it doesn't, and I noted as much.

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
Being able to buy them =/= Being able to use them. There's nothing in the rules that says you can just pick up a Holy Avenger and start swinging at 3rd level just because it's there, item levels exist both for crafting and for weapon availability. Not high enough level? Can't use the weapon then.

This is factually untrue. They've specifically said that you can use over-leveled items if you find the, So yes, you can pick up a Holy

Avenger at 1st level...your GM probably just won't give one to you that early.

There's also no evidence they effect availability. They do so in Starfinder, but that's a very different setting and no such mention has ever been made in regards to PF2.

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
So now, instead of having a Wand that one person uses to stick everyone up, you have a Wand that everybody shares Resonance with to heal everyone up. Or hell, how about that person with 18 Charisma can start using all the Wands and such now, because he has the Resonance to spare. GG Paizo, you even failed at nullifying CLW wands from being the most effective, nice job side-grading the problem into something still completely unintended.

Uh...spending 8 Resonance a day (plus the money on the Wand) on healing to get the same amount an on-level Cleric can get for free (actually, a Cha 14 Cleric at 8th level does significantly more healing than the Wand I mentioned), is not remotely optimal. It makes a Wand the best consumable for healing, but that's not the part of that equation that's an issue, it's consumables being better than dedicated healers and having no meaningful cost. A Cleric is better, and 8 Resonance is a meaningful cost.

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
This also assumes Wands can be used to cast a spell in any way you want; spells with variant cast times probably aren't something Paizo considered in their initial design, which means they either need to nerf Wands hard by locking in an action type (or limit the number of actions you can do with a Wand; maybe it can only be used for 1 action activations?), or completely revise how they work to disallow this broken BS.

Your argument is that professional game designers didn't take into account a basic building block of how their own system works? That's a deeply odd assumption given that the version I describe still meets their design goals.

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
Either way, I will just houserule Resonance out of my PF2 games, and just stick with the old PF1 system for magic items. If I'm just getting more of the same BS, there's no reason to include a pointlessly complicated system to make it worse.

Making house rules before you even try a system to see how it works is almost always a terrible idea. I'm not best pleased with Resonance as it stands myself at the moment, but I'm still gonna playtest with it.


PossibleCabbage wrote:

So part of the issue with slots is that they are completely arbitrary. One can wear a robe, a shirt, a cape, a belt, and a suit of armor that are all magical and that's fine, as well as a magic hat, headband, and goggles and none of this magic conflicts but no way can you wear two necklaces or three rings (even though toe rings are a thing.)

Some of that looks to not to be the case anymore, since the Trinkets and Treasures blog calls out boots and cloaks for not layering multiples (which... makes sense), but specifically not amulets and rings:

Blog wrote:
A few items have this two-part listing because they're hard to wear multiples of. Multiple cloaks, multiple boots... not practical. Multiple rings or amulets? No problem.
Quote:
Other big problem with item slots is that it encourages people to scour magic item listings because "well, I gotta get something for the eyes slot" since leaving a magic item slot empty (as opposed to filling it with anything) is an opportunity cost. So it exacerbates the "you are a magical christmas tree" problem.

Eh. That reads like supposition, and not a real problem (especially after the previous bit). The Christmas Tree is also a specific set of must-haves. Many are just going away, like cloaks of resistance, as saves bonuses are built into armor. I don't expect natural armor amulets (unless its the sole source of armor, or providing a bonus like magical armor does), or rings of protection or much of the the other bits and bobs that allow Voltroning up to an unreasonable number past the RNG.


PossibleCabbage wrote:

I feel like even though there will be table variation, a GM saying "no, you cannot wear six hats, they will blow off in the wind" and the like is sufficient to check on any of the really ridiculous item stacking.

Unless of course the table thinks that Albain Sixhats is funny and wants to roll with it, which is as it should be.

See at some point I think are you really wearing it or is it just strapped to you?


Vidmaster7 wrote:
PossibleCabbage wrote:

I feel like even though there will be table variation, a GM saying "no, you cannot wear six hats, they will blow off in the wind" and the like is sufficient to check on any of the really ridiculous item stacking.

Unless of course the table thinks that Albain Sixhats is funny and wants to roll with it, which is as it should be.

See at some point I think are you really wearing it or is it just strapped to you?

Let the person who wants to wear six hats figure out the logistics and explain them to you, they are guaranteed to want to think about this harder than the GM does.

I feel like "wearing capes upon capes" or "my entire dress is belts" or "I am Mister Tiefling and I pity fools" is every bit as valid an expression of an aesthetic valued by a player as like "oversized anime style swords."


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I don't know about six hats, but you can (and in fact should) wear a skullcap or arming cap under your mail coif, under your helmet, since that's what helmets are designed for. And then a crown over your helmet just because you're gangsta like that and the kingsmen aren't powerful enough to say anything to you about the inappropriateness of wearing a crown when you're not the resident royal. ;3


It wouldn't be a problem at my table but I can see people up in here arguing about RAI vrs RAW. Hey the rules don't say I can't wear 13 pairs of lenses.


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Vidmaster7 wrote:
It wouldn't be a problem at my table but I can see people up in here arguing about RAI vrs RAW. Hey the rules don't say I can't wear 13 pairs of lenses.

I feel like this is why a hard limit on the amount of magic swag you can equip without really caring about "where or how" is preferable to slots. If you have 13 resonance, if you want to have them all be magic lenses set in some intricate steampunk articulating frame where you stack and swap them... go right ahead, but maybe you want some armor or something.

And having to leave a few for consumables keeps the number down even lower. So I'm willing to tolerate resonance with all of its issues just to kill item slots.

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