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For the record, my disappointment with Starfinder was a specific reference to no clear numbers for how much Bulk is. I actually like Starfinder okay, though it could definitely stand some polishing. On to my next topics:
Weapons and Ranged Combat:
I'm deeply confused by the existence of Propulsive, and not best pleased with most ranged weapons requiring an action to reload. Longbows getting a serious penalty to shooting nearby targets (thus removing them from the game almost entirely in many campaigns) isn't super nice either. I'm legitimately worried that ranged combat will verge on not viable as a primary combat strategy, which would suck.
Really, the whole thing just feels deeply punitive for no reason. Yes, archery was probably overpowered in PF1, but almost all the things that made it overpowered involved the specifics of the action economy, and are gone in PF2.
This is one of the most math based complaints and I may well be proved wrong in the course of play, but I'm nevertheless skeptical of the whole thing. Why not just allow full Str to damage and remove some of the aforementioned penalties? I mean, I get that people should have a reason to use shortbows, but -2 to hit within 50 feet just reverses the problem for most adventurers (ie: instead of nobody ever using shortbows, nobody will ever use longbows). I see little reason slings should require a reload time, either.
I'm also not really sold on investing in Uncommon weapons being worth it. Like, at all. The Elven Curveblade, for example, is rather underwhelming, IMO.
Monster Stats:
Okay, the short version here is that I'm mostly very happy with the monster stats with one very large exception: Skills.
Way too many monsters are better than a PC of their level could ever be, not just at one skill, but a wide range of them. Specifically, those they are Untrained at. Many add their full level, rather than level -2, to all untrained Skill uses. A Frost Giant is as good at Arcana as an untrained person of the same level with Int 14. That's...distinctly off, thematically.
A few individual monsters having this issue would not be a problem assuming they were intended as especially skilled. The issue is that the vast majority of monsters appear to do this (in the A's and B's in the Bestiary only those of animal or near animal intelligence follow the Level -2 guideline). Heck, the Banshee has the untrained bonus of an 18th level character despite being 13th level and having only one Skill trained. This issue is an easy enough fix, as I'm not suggesting changing their trained skills (well, not primarily anyway those tend to be a little high for my preferences as well...'high skills' seem universally on par with PCs who are utterly maximal at the skill in question, which seems like it shouldn't be an ubiquitous thing), just their untrained bonus, but it's a pretty big problem for me from a 'world making sense' perspective.
Some of this might just be a conversion artifact, but if so it's a notable and bad one that needs to be taken care of.
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Fighters can get the point blank shot feat to negate that -2 penalty of the volley property on longbows. Just fighters; I'm not sure why. I'm fairly sure a poison-using rogue archer would work, though they might well want a fighter multiclass they wouldn't necessarily need it.
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Fighters can get the point blank shot feat to negate that -2 penalty of the volley property on longbows. Just fighters; I'm not sure why.
It'll probably get expanded at least to Rangers in the end, but that is more than a bit odd.
I'm fairly sure a poison-using rogue archer would work, though they might well want a fighter multiclass they wouldn't necessarily need it.
Poisons have the issue of costing money. And not small amounts of it, either.
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Fighters can get the point blank shot feat to negate that -2 penalty of the volley property on longbows. Just fighters; I'm not sure why. I'm fairly sure a poison-using rogue archer would work, though they might well want a fighter multiclass they wouldn't necessarily need it.
I plan to campaign for re-adding combat feats as an option for general feats, and having swathes of the fighter class feats turned into Combat Feats. Then give the fighter some actually interesting and unique class options, rather than repackage PF1e feats and abilities as fighter only
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I'm fairly sure a poison-using rogue archer would work, though they might well want a fighter multiclass they wouldn't necessarily need it.Poisons have the issue of costing money. And not small amounts of it, either.
The biggest issue with Poisons is that the class with the best access (Alchemist) can't apply the most common poisons (injury) faster than 3 actions, while the Rogue can do so as part of an attack but has to pay for theirs. I've read a bit on the Multiclassing though, and it looks like an Alchemist / MC Rogue could be a very strong poisoner.
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To be honest the really screwed up thing about the change to longbows is that it doesn't make sense from a realism angle (it's not really that much harder to hit a man-sized target within 15 meters, maybe 10-5 but not 15) and it doesn't make sense from a fantasy trope angle. It's not as if Legolas had issues shooting someone at close range, I mean alright, they bobbed and weaved but it didn't really matter unless they got up in his face and tried to bash him.
It's the same for plate armor once again having the ridiculously high check penalty and slowing players to a crawl, really. I mean we've all seen the people in super heavy armour lumbering around with an axe the size of the player in RPGs, but that's not 'just' plate armour. That's like, stoneplate or something. Both of these things contribute nothing. It's not fun, it's not realistic, it's not adhering to tropes. Who is the nerf to longbows pleasing?
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It's the same for plate armor once again having the ridiculously high check penalty and slowing players to a crawl, really. I mean we've all seen the people in super heavy armour lumbering around with an axe the size of the player in RPGs, but that's not 'just' plate armour. That's like, stoneplate or something. Both of these things contribute nothing. It's not fun, it's not realistic, it's not adhering to tropes. Who is the nerf to longbows pleasing?
Plate Armor sort of needs to have penalties so everyone who can afford it doesn't wind up wearing it (which would have thematic problems). It's not good for realism but is good for game balance.
I have yet to be convinced that the longbow's problems present a similar advantage, Or not to the extent necessary to justify their harshness, anyway.
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Plate Armor sort of needs to have penalties so everyone who can afford it doesn't wind up wearing it (which would have thematic problems). It's not good for realism but is good for game balance.
I have yet to be convinced that the longbow's problems present a similar advantage, Or not to the extent necessary to justify their harshness, anyway.
So, they've moved away from having a "best" in each armor category? That's pretty cool.
It seems like they've gone overboard in dis-incentivizing plate though.
Full Plate versus Half Plate: At the cost of having a 14 dex rather than 12, you can have the same AC at about half the cost, lower weight, with a 1 lower ACP, and no clumsy trait.
That is pretty brutal, and that's just one step in the Heavy Armor category. It means if you *do* have 14 dex you *never* want to wear full plate.
All I gotta say, is that they better be careful about balancing Strength and Dex.
Speaking of signature skills, the wizard multiclass feat Expert Wizard Spellcasting requires master in Arcana. How can you get that if you can't make Arcana a signature skill?
Just to clarify for anyone that might've missed or misread it. You can get a skill to expert without it being a SigSkill.
Your character can use this skill increase to either become trained in one skill in which she’s untrained or become an expert in one skill in which she’s already trained.
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For further discussion on Monster Skills specifically, something I'm increasingly concerned about, and am really hoping to draw designer attention to, I have started a thread here.
Just an FYI.
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It's the same for plate armor once again having the ridiculously high check penalty and slowing players to a crawl, really. I mean we've all seen the people in super heavy armour lumbering around with an axe the size of the player in RPGs, but that's not 'just' plate armour. That's like, stoneplate or something. Both of these things contribute nothing. It's not fun, it's not realistic, it's not adhering to tropes. Who is the nerf to longbows pleasing?Plate Armor sort of needs to have penalties so everyone who can afford it doesn't wind up wearing it (which would have thematic problems). It's not good for realism but is good for game balance.
I have yet to be convinced that the longbow's problems present a similar advantage, Or not to the extent necessary to justify their harshness, anyway.
First off, the balance is that it costs a lot. "Wait, but that's not a lot of money!" Well yeah, it ain't, but then if it wasn't the best then why would it be the most expensive? Fact of the matter is that sometimes "nope it's just better" makes sense.
What thematic problems? In the first place, you're straight up worse off wearing full plate than half-plate if you have any sort of Dexterity to speak of - and considering the way that ability scores are off the wall, you most likely do. That's assuming you can wear heavy armor to begin with. It makes perfect sense that frontliners what the best protection available. When was the last time you saw a champion of the realm in scalemail during a duel (except when he was doing it to show off, or when plate armor didn't exist)?
There is no game balance. Not everything needs to be balanced if it's something you can get anyway since everyone's going to get it. It'd be like arguing that Prismatic Spheres needs to be balanced with Magnificent Mansion, well MMM is more or less just a way of showcasing that you're damned cool - it doesn't actually do anything, unlike the sphere of screw you you're dead.
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About skills for NPCs and monsters and players, an issue that has really started nagging me is that without general feats to increase skill proficiency, it becomes impossible to believe that anyone in world would be more than trained in anything without a lot of PC class levels. Signature skills are a very strange mechanic for regulating what players can advance in, because they are so inflexible and character get so few skill points anyway that, with the possible exception of the rogue (I haven't really dug into it yet), having 5 signature skills doesn't really matter because no one is getting mastery, much less legendary status in all of them anyway.
With so much stuff gated behind skill feats that require expertise or better, it is definitely feeling difficult to have character concepts that involve doing more than one or two things with skills for any character outside of the rogue.
About skills for NPCs and monsters and players, an issue that has really started nagging me is that without general feats to increase skill proficiency, it becomes impossible to believe that anyone in world would be more than trained in anything without a lot of PC class levels. Signature skills are a very strange mechanic for regulating what players can advance in, because they are so inflexible and character get so few skill points anyway that, with the possible exception of the rogue (I haven't really dug into it yet), having 5 signature skills doesn't really matter because no one is getting mastery, much less legendary status in all of them anyway.
With so much stuff gated behind skill feats that require expertise or better, it is definitely feeling difficult to have character concepts that involve doing more than one or two things with skills for any character outside of the rogue.
To be entirely fair, this has more to do with the skill system as a whole. In 3.5 and PF you famously end up with the problem that a cook with +20 to Profession Cooking (making 30 on a take 10 and therefore being essentially globally recognized in his field) and 18 Wisdom (so one of the top members of society in this stat) most likely has a base attack bonus of at least 4 (+3 class skill, +5 Wisdom, +3 Skill Focus, you need 9 more ranks minimum), making him superior in fighting skill than the town guard.
Ancestries:
...
Now, on to problems: The chassis for different Ancestries are wildly unequal. I'll go into some contributing factors in a moment, but some are easily two feats or more worth of abilities ahead of others, and they aren't the ones with the worst Ancestry Feats, either.
...
Just as a note, on a closer reading, I think the ancestries aren't balanced by their base abilities entirely, and strength of their feat lists actually figure in. Halflings, who you've noted look pretty bad on paper, actually have a stronger set of feats to take, and the same can be said for humans. The exception here might be dwarves, who look to both get a good set of abilities as well as a good feat list.
That being said, I don't particularly *like* this way of balancing things. It means that at level 1, certain races will be stronger than others, and at level 20, things will be flipped. That feels like a poor way of doing things.
Well it sounds a bit like Wizards vs. Fighters, don't it...
It’s true, he’ll hath frozen over, the crossbow - a ball buster of a weapon in reality finally get some love in PF fantasy.
Sadly, after running the numbers, this doesn't seem to be true.
Crossbows and slings look to be strictly less viable in PF2 than in PF1, where you had some feat options (e.g., rapid reload) to mitigate their problems.
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It's the same for plate armor once again having the ridiculously high check penalty and slowing players to a crawl, really. I mean we've all seen the people in super heavy armour lumbering around with an axe the size of the player in RPGs, but that's not 'just' plate armour. That's like, stoneplate or something. Both of these things contribute nothing. It's not fun, it's not realistic, it's not adhering to tropes. Who is the nerf to longbows pleasing?Plate Armor sort of needs to have penalties so everyone who can afford it doesn't wind up wearing it (which would have thematic problems). It's not good for realism but is good for game balance.
I have yet to be convinced that the longbow's problems present a similar advantage, Or not to the extent necessary to justify their harshness, anyway.
First off, the balance is that it costs a lot. "Wait, but that's not a lot of money!" Well yeah, it ain't, but then if it wasn't the best then why would it be the most expensive? Fact of the matter is that sometimes "nope it's just better" makes sense.
What thematic problems? In the first place, you're straight up worse off wearing full plate than half-plate if you have any sort of Dexterity to speak of - and considering the way that ability scores are off the wall, you most likely do. That's assuming you can wear heavy armor to begin with. It makes perfect sense that frontliners what the best protection available. When was the last time you saw a champion of the realm in scalemail during a duel (except when he was doing it to show off, or when plate armor didn't exist)?
It's also not just plate armor. The top armor of every armor category has a negative trait. Breastplate makes you clumsy. Chainmail and chainshirts make you noisy. And I can't find a way to get rid of those negative traits, either. Who was asking that the better armors be worse?
I didn't mind breastplate or chain shirts just being good, but I can understand people wanted more variety in their armor selection. I just don't think giving the most expensive armors negative traits makes sense.
Seriously though, why is Half Plate just better than Full Plate? What even is Half Plate by the way?
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Half-Plate is only better if you have Dex 14 or higher. Clumsy doesn't do anything if your dex is only 12 to begin with. Full plate does what it has always done, allowing Str characters to invest in things other than dex a bit. If your going to invest in dex you will wear lighter armor and get the same AC.
EDIT: Really they just removed the obvious bad options by making splint and half-plate armors better.
What even is Half Plate by the way?
It's the historical forerunner to full plate. Basically, it's a breastplate and then some.
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More with the basic concept of the level system than anything else. Everything's linked to level, so to be really good at anything you need to be high level and thus wind up good at many things - fighting first among them, since this is a game about fighting.
Mind you, it's not hard to give the town guard a few levels and with their focus on fighting they still should be able to come out ahead of the cook.
Well no, I disagree, because one of the many things they could have done, considering they're already doing skill proficiencies, is make the skill proficiencies matter. Say that being Expert is a solid +5, or even +10 (and increase DCs commensurately). Suddenly, even the 1st level Chef who as a bonus gets Expert proficiency is a very good chef and more importantly doesn't get a load of bonuses to everything else. It'll also help fight the level bloat that absolutely decimates worldbuilding in most settings. Am I supposed to believe that hungry people even exist when five NPCs could pool their money and build a magic item of at-will Create Food and Drink? A magic item of at-will prestidigitation isn't expensive either so it's not as if it would taste bad. It'd be easier to explain away with 'no, PCs are rare you see' but the Dungeon Master's guide and even the NPC Codex what with its 10th level Commoners says otherwise. What the hell is a 10th level commoner? Hardly common.
What even is Half Plate by the way?It's the historical forerunner to full plate. Basically, it's a breastplate and then some.
You say that, but every result of half-plate I can pull up in a search only redirects me to D&D or Pathfinder discussions about what it is. The majority of images that come up for it are from fantasy games. I don't think there's been a proper description of it in a Pathfinder book. I don't think there's one in a 3.5 book for that matter.
Maybe it's a coat of plates. No, not this. I'm talking about something like this
What even is Half Plate by the way?It's the historical forerunner to full plate. Basically, it's a breastplate and then some.You say that, but every result of half-plate I can pull up in a search only redirects me to D&D or Pathfinder discussions about what it is. The majority of images that come up for it are from fantasy games. I don't think there's been a proper description of it in a Pathfinder book. I don't think there's one in a 3.5 book for that matter.
Maybe it's a coat of plates. No, not this. I'm talking about something like this
Something like this is half-plate.. It's essentially just the top half of full plate, plus a little for the legs.
I've mentioned it a million times, but Splint Mail is the best Heavy Armor out there.
If you have 14 DEX, you get:
1. More TAC than Full Plate.
2. Less ACP than Half-Plate.
3. Cheaper than both.
4. Clumsy doesn't matter as long as you have 14 DEX.
I've mentioned it a million times, but Splint Mail is the best Heavy Armor out there.
If you have 14 DEX, you get:
1. More TAC than Full Plate.
2. Less ACP than Half-Plate.
3. Cheaper than both.
4. Clumsy doesn't matter as long as you have 14 DEX.
Which gets to the point that lighter armor is always better if you have the dex. Better TAC, better speed, lower armor check. I would prefer if by taking all the penalties of heavy armor you would actually be like a heavily armored hard to hit character but no the best tanks are dodge tanks. Or at least that would be the case except they only give out the better proficiency for heavy armor via the paladin and fighter class.
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I'm generally concerned about how class choice locks you into specific play styles. Want a Paladin who *doesn't* go for heavy armor and a shield? Congrats, you're wasting a big chunk of your class features. (This one inspired by my desire to create a spear-wielding fighter and trying to think about how each martial class would handle it.)
Especially since you can't swap out core class features with archetypes, and can't multiclass away from or retrain out of your initial class choice, the spine of your character is completely fixed, and has built in some pretty specific choices. And this is everywhere! Key ability score, signature skills, class features. It feels pretty restrictive coming from PF1.
I am glad someone else noticed this as well. Specific to the Paladin, the design seems very restrictive, such that the range of paladins one could make is much much less than what would have been possible with the 1e handbook. Many of my friends complaints have come from comparing what 2e has now (a fraction of a book) to all the options available in 1e. However, I can't defend the paladin class in the same way.
The core of 2e generally seems very capable of expressing unique character ideas, more so than 1e, but that makes the paladin example all the more glaring. An archery focused paladin, or a skirmisher, or switch hitter or a more supportive paladin all function using the 1e core rulebook. With 2e, designing the paladin around retributive strike seems to not only not allow these options, but prevent future books from allowing such options unless we get the ability to trade out core features of a class. That could be neat, but I would rather not have to rely on that for 90% of my paladin character concepts.
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I mean, I'm 100% down with the paladin being excised from the CRB to give them time to do it correctly during a later release. If the current chassis is too restrictive and can't be salvaged, we're better pulling it rather than it being the new Rogue or Monk.
Passing legendary armor skill to fighters would make sense as well. Revised-Paladins can share it as a selectable option, but they don't have to be forced into it.
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Aside : can we please allow the characters to increase our weapon and armour proficiency's as easily as we increase our skills. a simple system that allows you to upgrade one weapon type or armour type at level x would be nice. (arcane casters gain a increase in weapon or armour type at every 6 levels would allow them to increase their unarmoured defence as they level or maybe they really want to hit something with their staff). Then you just allow only certain types of classes to advance above expert just like skills... also why can a fighter who has used a dagger all his life suddenly pick up a great axe and be just as good with it? would it not be cool/more realistic to have classes give training levels for armour and weapons just like they give out skills? then you can pick large blades, small blades and bows for your level one fighter to be trained in and just those.
- just my two coppers.
Fully against this.
Weapon profs is how martials do combat better than spellcasters, similarly to how spellcasters do spells better due to DC proficiencies.
Well, some martials. You'll note that a Barbarian only ever gets to Expert at the same rate that a Cleric does with her deity's favored weapon, and any Wizard who picks up the Fighter multi-class can get there a level faster.
Kinda bugs me that the Barbarian's Cool Thing is supposed to be getting the crit specialization for their weapon for free when the Barbarian has essentially zero ways of increasing their accuracy and making crits anything close to reliable, but it's not like any of the other non-Rogue martials are in a better spot.
Which gets to the point that lighter armor is always better if you have the dex. Better TAC, better speed, lower armor check. I would prefer if by taking all the penalties of heavy armor you would actually be like a heavily armored hard to hit character but no the best tanks are dodge tanks. Or at least that would be the case except they only give out the better proficiency for heavy armor via the paladin and fighter class.I've mentioned it a million times, but Splint Mail is the best Heavy Armor out there.
If you have 14 DEX, you get:
1. More TAC than Full Plate.
2. Less ACP than Half-Plate.
3. Cheaper than both.
4. Clumsy doesn't matter as long as you have 14 DEX.
I think that's the structural benefit of heavy armor – it's easier to get higher proficiencies.
I don't mind that, necessarily. I think it's a neat way to balance it out –
1. Heavy armor is good if you are a potato sack.
2. Heavy armor is needlessly restrictive if you are nimble.
3. If you are a proven warrior, you'll get more mileage out of Heavy Armor than anything else.
My only issue with this is that I'd like medium/light armor Fighters/Paladins not to miss a class feature.
Perhaps light/medium armor users could choose to trade Expert/Master/(Legendary) Heavy Armor proficiency for Expert Reflex/Expert Light and Medium/(Master Light and Medium).
Aside : can we please allow the characters to increase our weapon and armour proficiency's as easily as we increase our skills. a simple system that allows you to upgrade one weapon type or armour type at level x would be nice. (arcane casters gain a increase in weapon or armour type at every 6 levels would allow them to increase their unarmoured defence as they level or maybe they really want to hit something with their staff). Then you just allow only certain types of classes to advance above expert just like skills... also why can a fighter who has used a dagger all his life suddenly pick up a great axe and be just as good with it? would it not be cool/more realistic to have classes give training levels for armour and weapons just like they give out skills? then you can pick large blades, small blades and bows for your level one fighter to be trained in and just those.
- just my two coppers.
Fully against this.
Weapon profs is how martials do combat better than spellcasters, similarly to how spellcasters do spells better due to DC proficiencies.
Well, some martials. You'll note that a Barbarian only ever gets to Expert at the same rate that a Cleric does with her deity's favored weapon, and any Wizard who picks up the Fighter multi-class can get there a level faster.
Kinda bugs me that the Barbarian's Cool Thing is supposed to be getting the crit specialization for their weapon for free when the Barbarian has essentially zero ways of increasing their accuracy and making crits anything close to reliable, but it's not like any of the other non-Rogue martials are in a better spot.
STR/DEX Monks are in a pretty good spot (that is, Monks who keep roughly equal STR/DEX).
Problem is that they are basically the only viable ability score distribution and build choice is a little iffy.
Talking of which, I'm planning to do a Monk Class Megathread with all my comments: should I do it after GenCon is over or just get it out there?
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Hey DMW! I dug my nose out of the book for the first time today to check the forums because I was confused on a couple of things, but then promptly decided it wasn’t worth general browsing yet. Did a quick post search on you though figuring you would have some signal over all this noise, and was pleased to see I was right. Some considerations on some of your thoughts:
On Ancestry chassis: I agree they seem off. But I think ancestry feats may play a role in the balance. Dwarf ancestry feats leave me feeling rather unimpressed, comparatively, despite having a great chassis. The problem with this of course is that it is a balance point that doesn’t kick in until high levels much of the time, as more ancestry feats are accumulated. Much like some of the benefits of being a half-elf or half-orc. (Edit: tivadar27 hit on this already, I see.)
On Bulk: I actually had my eyes peeled about the carrying a party member thing because of your previous complaints about this in Starfinder. Check out page 323 for Petrified. From the text there we can extrapolate that a medium creature is typically 8 bulk, and a small creature is typically 4. (I assume this is includes their gear.) Obviously, this should be an easier fact to find.
On Signature Skills: I hadn’t gone through and seen the lack of signature skills yet. Have you CTRL F’ed through the PDF looking for them? It is weird if skill feats can’t grant access to them like I assumed. If so, yeah, I agree with you. Edit: Yeah, looks like nothing. That is bananas. So many previewed feats gave another signature skill I assumed it had to be much easier than this.
On martial skills: Yep, that is bizarre. I mean, good for clerics and sorcerers, but why the martials got to lag so far behind?
On Heavy armor: Has anyone mathed out max dex caps scale with level compared to those heavy armor proficiencies? I haven’t seen anything that can raise the Dex cap like mithral could before, so it looks like the armor bonus +dex cap bonus for everything is +7. So that doesn’t seem like a relevant balance point. HOWEVER… it might have something to do with how stats scale. At a certain point getting 18+ in both dex and strength seems rather easy to accomplish if you want it. And at that point… Why would you take the speed reduction and armor check penalties of heavy armor? (I don’t see anyway other than the Armor Proficiency class talents t reduce movement speed.)
On the layout of the feat chapter: Yeah, that leaves much to be desired. I have barely touched it because of how cumbersome it is.
So is it possible that while a light or medium armor fighter (or paladin) has comparable performance to their heavy armored counterpart, trading a point of AC for the added mobility? Just a thought. Haven’t ran the numbers yet, but you’ve probably got a better head for that than I do anyway. (Issues that jump out at me though are that ranged paladins seem like they suffer and Armored Fortitude only applying when wearing Heavy armor.)
On Longbows: I’m still trying to wrap my head around the affordability of having multiple maxed potency weapons. But if it is reasonably affordable for TWF folks, shouldn’t having two bows be reasonable for archers too? Having a solid longbow for picking off ranged targets and then dropping it and drawing a shortbow for when they close doesn’t sound unreasonable. I’m also sort of interested at seeing how this plays with Hunt Target. A Ranger sniping from 200 feet away with Favored Aim seems really deadly, and he can quick draw a short bow or melee weapon if they survive to close.
All that is to say, the Longbow might wind up back up weapon for folks usually fighting in cramped dungeons, but I think it can murder people just fine when you bust it out. Which strikes me as strictly an improvement over PF1, where there was zero reason to use a shortbow if you could use a longbow.
Now if I may share a complaint of my own: While I think the sorcerer has gotten some really massive improvements this edition, I am a little perplexed at how much the wizard seems to pull ahead. Quick Preparation as a level 4 feat seems rather broken, and seems to go a long way to offsetting the biggest disadvantage a wizard had. (I suppose it isn’t THAT much different from leaving slots open last edition though.)
Part of this might be I’m still a little fuzzy on the exact mechanics for retraining spells and adding new spells to spellbooks, but if I’m understanding it right the sorcerer has the same cost to retrain a spell as a wizard does to permanently add it to the spellbook. Which seems… Rather unkind. I mean the sorcerer is still better off than they used to be, but I feel like learning a spell should be easier for the sorcerer in exchange for not being able to have as many in reserve.
Maybe I am just a little confused if “learning a spell” only applies for rare spells or if all common spells fall under this umbrella. If it is the latter, clerics seem to have it way nicer than the divine sorcerer, for example.
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I'm also not really sold on investing in Uncommon weapons being worth it. Like, at all. The Elven Curveblade, for example, is rather underwhelming, IMO.
My first character attempt was an elf noble fighter. The elf weapon selection looked like a cruel joke, especially in the context of Weapon Familiarity (Elf) giving benefits with uncommon elf weapons and exotic elf weapons.
We get... the elven curve blade. Which is martial, and if you're not a finesse character, not really beneficial at all. Thanks, guys. Feels worth it.
(This wouldn't be so noteworthy if the other ancestries weren't practically dripping in weapons. With, I think, the exception of gnomes? Come on, y'all. We had plenty of elf weapons.)
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It looks like multiclassing is the built in method to pick up a signature skill. Rogue gives you options, the others a fixed skill. Presumably full multiclass options will fill out most missing options.
It’s kind of amazing how many times the details to a developer’s “you can totally pick up this options as a different class!” claim turn out to be multiclassing. Signature skills, power attack...
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I just want to note that I agree with pretty much everything DMW has said. Signature skills are terrible.
My opinion on Resonance is that it needs to go away or be majorly revamped; right now the design expectation seems to be have only 1 buff/spell/potion/power per combat, or have only 1-2 combats per day. Opening a Bag of Holding requires a point of resonance - an out of combat, non-time bound activity. What? If I want to open it, pull something out, and put it away twice a day thats 4 points of resonance, gone. A 1 minute alchemical elixir requires a point of resonance. Casting a spell from a staff requires a point of resonance. I thought the alchemist feat to dabble would be interesting, liked some of the formulae I saw, and then realized they all needed resonance.
Edit: I also think you should be allowed to spend General feats on archetypes.