Argh, the layout.


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Please mark this as a favourite if you like that the skill feats are arrangend as they are now, together with the general feats


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Please mark this as a favourite if you rather would have the skill feats arranged with the skills in the skill section


Red Rabbit wrote:
Please mark this as a favourite if you rather would have the skill feats arranged with the skills in the skill section

Yeah, when making my first character I instantly wanted the Skill Feats to be moved to the Skill chapter, but I guess they did that because when you get a General feat, you can choose a Skill feat?


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Red Rabbit wrote:
As I have been reading through this I ran into a lot of posts that suggested more than one change ("I like this, but not that and that"). I would like to try something: a vote.

Forum votes are unproductive. Paizo have already started this. If they thought that this kind of view was useful, they'd have added a voting feature to the boards.


Red Rabbit wrote:
As I have been reading through this I ran into a lot of posts that suggested more than one change ("I like this, but not that and that"). I would like to try something: a vote.

i'm assuming it would be a more loose "these are things that everyone could agree on need addressing, though not necessarily on how" one?


Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

I love the trait bubbles; it is easy to tell quickly if a spell won't affect a creature just by looking here. I'm not sure this is the best place for spell school though since those tend to be referenced multiple spells at a time. I like the above suggestion for sorting spells by school, though that would require separating them from powers.

I like the 1/2/3 action icons, it makes it easy to tell at a glance what you can do in a round. It took me a bit to differentiate the reaction and free action icons and remember which was which, however.

I don't mind the cantrips, spells and powers all being the same chapter. It makes sense for future books to reference them here. But please consider changing the chapter title to something else, like Magic. They're all magic, but they're not all spells, though they may act like them. For this reason, the name Spell Point should also be changed. Power Point perhaps?

I dislike the colors for rarity. It's hard to tell them apart at a glance. It looks like there would be enough room to list them as Uncommon Spell 3, Rare Cantrip, etc. Anything common could be left without such a descriptor.

I really dislike the way success or failure for spell effects is currently listed. I know the reason given for why it is this way, but now that I have the book in my hands it is harder to parse than it would be if the order were changed to degree of success: CS-S-F-CF (or degree of failure, since the spells are almost always referenced from the point of view of the caster, and the caster is most interested in failed saves).


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Conditions in particular feel problematic. There's many issues of "Condition X: this makes you Condition Y for N turns, plus this", so you have to cross reference to other pages all the time.

The over reliance on key words fundamentally begs for hot linking. There's an argument for creating TTRPGs that are not meant to shackled by the limitations of printed paper, but I think PF2 is probably a decade too early for that.


Fumarole wrote:
I love the trait bubbles; it is easy to tell quickly if a spell won't affect a creature just by looking here.

I am not so fond of those, or the colour. but thinking of it that way, I can see it.


Vic Ferrari wrote:
Fumarole wrote:
I love the trait bubbles; it is easy to tell quickly if a spell won't affect a creature just by looking here.
I am not so fond of those, or the colour. but thinking of it that way, I can see it.

I think I will grow to like them, it's just right now, it's so outside my experience in reading a spell, that I often miss it. But I've got most of the playtest to try and see if I can teach myself to notice "Oh, this has the auditory trait"


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Marc Radle wrote:

I definately concur with folks who dislike the icons. In all honesty, I hate them. I find them to be an eyesore and counter intuitive. Instead of just reading the word Attack or whatever, now I have to look at a symbol and remember what it means? Why add this level of unneccessary complication to muddy up what used to be a clean, easily understood presentation.

I know the icons are pretty devisive, but please put me down as very firmly in the ‘Hate them - please remove for the final book’ camp

I was against icons to begin with, but I'm actually starting to like them. They are eye-catching and easy to find at a glance, easier than any given word. Although that might be replicated by doing Action or A in bold. And multiple actions could be done like: Action x2 or AA


Tholomyes wrote:
Vic Ferrari wrote:
Fumarole wrote:
I love the trait bubbles; it is easy to tell quickly if a spell won't affect a creature just by looking here.
I am not so fond of those, or the colour. but thinking of it that way, I can see it.
I think I will grow to like them, it's just right now, it's so outside my experience in reading a spell, that I often miss it. But I've got most of the playtest to try and see if I can teach myself to notice "Oh, this has the auditory trait"

Ah, of course, I was actually thinking about monsters, but the same applies to spells; I actually prefer it for spells, for some aesthetic reason, than monsters.


Jeff Deaner wrote:
Red Rabbit wrote:
As I have been reading through this I ran into a lot of posts that suggested more than one change ("I like this, but not that and that"). I would like to try something: a vote.
Forum votes are unproductive. Paizo have already started this. If they thought that this kind of view was useful, they'd have added a voting feature to the boards.

Yeah, I have a feeling there was a reason that there are no votes when I made it... Do you happen to know what Paizo said were the reasons for not having votes in general? I understand why they don't do it for rule that need be balanced against each other, but for the small changes in layout we are discussing here I don't see a problem


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Agreed with what other have said in this thread. Redundancy seems to take an enormous part of the book. This ties in to an idea of having pools of class feats organized by theme: such as different Weapon style feats for martial classes, Metamagic feats for spellcasters, Evasion/Mettle feats for classes that improve on saves, etc. That could be referenced on a separate chapter for feats.

Also, I think powers should be on different section from spells. And spells should have at least on line to which spell(s) list(s) it belongs to (ie. Primal, Divine 2, instead of just Spell 2). It helps when reading through the spells chapter a lot.

Also, count me in as one person that wants the following formatting:
- Critical Success
- Success
- Failure
- Critical Failure


Pedro Sampaio wrote:
Agreed with what other have said in this thread. Redundancy seems to take an enormous part of the book.

Yeah, not sure the need for separate stats (taking up space) for the longsword and katana.


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The Gold Sovereign wrote:

Those are the suggestions for changes in the layout regarding the Spells section and powers.

1) Powers should go in their own section.

2) There should be a list o powers, sorted by class or class feature and ordered by power level.

3) There's no need for the redundant "Casting" in all actions required to cast the spell, as the description section is already called "Casting".

3.5) If casting a spell requires two or three actions, why aren't the two actions and the three actions icon being used? In favor of space economy, it could go like this: "[[A,A,A]] Material, Somatic, Verbal", instead of this: "[[A]] Material Casting [[A]] Somatic Casting [[A]] Verbal Casting.

4) Spells should get the magic traditions from which they hail in their description. Maybe among their traits.

These are exactly my concerns, and I wholeheartedly agree with these fixes.


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  • Icons:
    I have to say that I really enjoy the action icons (free, reaction, 1,2,3 actions). I find them easy to read and really helpful in quickly knowing which feats require actions to use (and how many). I am not stating this to belittle the posts of those who find them hard to read (a modification making it accessible for everyone would most likely be quite welcome), but simply to weight in on the icon comments.

  • Statement of major mechanics (degrees of success) early in the book:
    Also, I might misremember, but I do not think that the levels of success as well as the training levels are mentioned at the beginning of the book or referenced early for that matter. For someone who starts reading at chapter one and making their way through character creation, that poses a problem in understanding many of the class feats or abilities. I think it might be helpful for new players (who haven't read the blogs) to state these general mechanics (if only vaguely) at the beginning of the book to give context.


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    Fumarole wrote:
    I love the trait bubbles; it is easy to tell quickly if a spell won't affect a creature just by looking here.

    Agreed.

    Fumarole wrote:
    I like the 1/2/3 action icons, it makes it easy to tell at a glance what you can do in a round. It took me a bit to differentiate the reaction and free action icons and remember which was which, however.

    I like the choice to have visual icons. Sure the icons could use some improving, but I HATED the over-reliance on paragraphs-to-describe-everything in PF1 (like having to find within each barbarian rage power what level you had to be to qualify for it). And... why not have the best of both worlds: an icon for those of us who process information visually, and words for those of us who prefer that? Similarly, the rarity colors can be expressed by color AND a word.

    Fumarole wrote:
    I don't mind the cantrips, spells and powers all being the same chapter. It makes sense for future books to reference them here. But please consider changing the chapter title to something else, like Magic. They're all magic, but they're not all spells, though they may act like them. For this reason, the name Spell Point should also be changed. Power Point perhaps?

    I found it jarring as well, that Powers are considered a subcategory of Spells. My instincts tell me it should be the other way around. Maybe it won't go over well to have a chapter called "Powers" -- so maybe they can be separate chapters as people suggested? For purposes of game design, I see no advantage to having Powers being a subcategory of Spells. They seem to be differentiated by their traits, anyway -- NOT by the fact that they're a Power or a Spell.


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    Disagree with one of the suggestions above - I LIKE having the chart for each class incorporate all the advancements you get for your character. I think this is better than have to look in different places for when you level up.

    That said, I would prefer a more visual way of presenting this information, with columns that tell you when you get a particular type of thing.

    For example:

    BARBARIAN

    Level--Class Features---------Ancestry Feat--Class Feat--General Feat--Skill Feat--Skill Increase--Ability boosts
    1------initial proficiencies-----x--------------------x
    --------rage, totem
    2-----------------------------------------------------------x-------------- ----------------------x
    3------critical brutality-------------------------------------------------x---------------- -x
    4-----------------------------------------------------------x-------------- ----------------------x
    5------deny advantage---------x-------------------------------------------------------- --------------x--------------------x

    ... and so on. (And backgrounds would not need to be in the chart, either. They're already choosing their Ancestry and Background as a part of character creation.)

    Also the descriptor "class feat" is more appropriate than "barbarian feat," since you can use class feats from archetypes as well.


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    The trait bubbles should really be ranked by importance, rather than alphabetically, e.g. Outsider Evil Chaotic for demons or Enchantment Emotion Mental for the charm spell.


    I would like to chime in that going through the powers and spells is annoying and that there is far too much cross referencing. I don’t mind the icons personally.


    DJMerDur wrote:
    I would like to chime in that going through the powers and spells is annoying and that there is far too much cross referencing. I don’t mind the icons personally.

    Yes, powers mushed into spells, bad move, people.


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    Arakhor wrote:
    The trait bubbles should really be ranked by importance, rather than alphabetically, e.g. Outsider Evil Chaotic for demons or Enchantment Emotion Mental for the charm spell.

    I miss the grouping together of alignment with the type (subtype), the way they are in 1E. Sometimes I just want to know one of these things and it's helpful to have them grouped together somehow, instead of having to scan through a list.

    Dark Archive

    Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

    I would also like to throw my hat in for class powers being with the classes, not with the spells. Also, a short description of what spells do, as its helpful for both newcomers as well as players form 1e (some spell names are changed, such as now having 'heal' versus 'cure light/moderate/serious wounds).


    Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

    1) I prefer the current S, CS, F, CF layout. The alternative CS-first layout is clunkier and would take up more space.

    2) Ordering traits by something other than alphabetical might be nice, but determining import might be difficult.

    3) Rarity needs to be more clearly identified. Color-only is a problem as it not defining color.

    4) Spell traits need to be described, especially ones that matter. We had a horrid time figuring out if the Mental trait meant it couldn't be used on animal companions. This needs to be in the CRB and not just the Monster Manual

    5) Action icons are good. Though actions along with rarity and other common concepts maybe should be covered in a short chapter that goes over them all.

    6) Background is a little too muddy. It feels old and tattered, but it also feels old and tattered. A little more color and a little less brown would be nice.

    7) I would be okay with powers being separated from spells like rituals, but please keep them alphabetical. I understand that people want them organized by class, but when other classes pick up those same powers finding them is going to be a nightmare. I'm okay with them being together because then I don't have to remember if something is a spell or power and you don't have to specify which is which when you mention them.

    8) The treasure section is a little hard to navigate. It's difficult to figure out where each sub-section begins and ends (e.g. alchemical items vs. magic weapons).

    9) The effect of various things on item level is too spread out. This combined with potency runes meant I had no idea what level things were. Eventually I figured it out, but it was spread across different sections. Also charts help here. I understand that that intimidates certain players, but it shouldn't take hours of looking to find and parse something that would be a three-line table.

    10) The traits block is wonderful, but traits should be defined in a special glossary.

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