Do you think they overestimated the DPR contribution of retributive strike at the table (which is either more reliable than AoO or never triggers, depending on your GM), and might've accidentally locked paladin into reach weapons to make it easier to proc?Not to spam, but one of my players was just trying to build a paladin and we realized the class is.... really really bad. And not just by a little bit.
We were looking at ways to increase damage by way of class features, and you simply can't do anything until level 14. Even then, you have to waste an action and a spell point to do Litany of Righteousness (which lasts 1 round and cannot be done to the same creature again) and another action to activate Blade of Justice, for the sole purpose of making a single attack that gets... 6-11 extra damage. If you have a holy weapon by taking the right feats, and take the other feat that gives you 1 good damage just cuz, then you can spend two actions for your one attack that round to do 1d6+ (7-12) extra damage based on how many weapon dice you already have.
Why would I ever waste two actions to get a damage boost that doesn't even come close to equaling my damage from just making an attack, and why do I have to waste 4 feats just to do it?
Action taxes, feat taxes, all for payoff so small that it's not even worth taking.
This is a serious problem with the design all over this book, my player told me he doesn't think we're going to be able to even play and I got told he doesn't even want to try this game.
This is bad.
I think they definitely locked it into a role that my player doesn't want, and the amount of work that goes into doing anything damage inclined is not worth the investment.
My player was also turned away by the fact that you have to spend a feat to upgrade your Lay on Hands to d6s. It's a feat tax to be still worse than you were in PF1, except you can LoH at level 1... yay.
How is Lay on Hands worse than PF1? 1d6 (avg 3.5) at level 2 vs 1d4+CHA (2.5+CHA) at level 1 is in favour of 2E, and it scales up by 2d4 (avg 5) every two levels compared to 1d6 (avg 3.5) every two levels.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
...
Mostly in action economy since it now cuts into your turn and prevents you from making more attacks, or moving, or whatever else you wanted to do with that action, in addition to the fact that your Spell Points are much more limited.
After reading Vengeful Oath, I've come to the conclusion that a Spellstrike [metamagic] feat that let's me deliver a LoH/any power/spell that can do damage through my weapon would be a good enough replacement for smite evil, and I'd be fine with the limitations on it, though I think Spell Points need more ways to expand them. I see myself taking extra power feats just for the spell points, even if I don't care about the Powers.
I also think it helps gish builds and negates the need for a magus, especially if I can multiclass wizard on this and change my spell points over to INT. This revelation makes me want a lot more work done on the paladin to make it a more generic half-caster knight class.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Also, reading into it some more, a bard with fighter dedication and some combat feats who takes lingering composition and inspire heroics may be the best combat build in the game, except maybe the barbarian, but probably not.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I really hope threads like these can survive the week un-buried until the devs return from gencon to actually see and think about these.
...Mostly in action economy since it now cuts into your turn and prevents you from making more attacks, or moving, or whatever else you wanted to do with that action, in addition to the fact that your Spell Points are much more limited.
After reading Vengeful Oath, I've come to the conclusion that a Spellstrike [metamagic] feat that let's me deliver a LoH/any power/spell that can do damage through my weapon would be a good enough replacement for smite evil, and I'd be fine with the limitations on it, though I think Spell Points need more ways to expand them. I see myself taking extra power feats just for the spell points, even if I don't care about the Powers.
I also think it helps gish builds and negates the need for a magus, especially if I can multiclass wizard on this and change my spell points over to INT. This revelation makes me want a lot more work done on the paladin to make it a more generic half-caster knight class.
Getting +1 to AC is also a decent bonus to offset that, but I do see your point.
Speaking on the subject of Spell Points, I do find it weird that Advanced Domain seems overly good just for the extra Spell Points - I'd be more inclined to take a higher-costing power just for the additional SP, and I saw at least one 3-point power in that list. I'd prefer that SP become more accessible (at least for the paladin), and that power become a little more standardized in how much it gives.
In PF1, most classes got pools equal to 1/2 level + relevant ability modifier.
That's a good formula, stick to it. Lay on Hands still needs the boost to make it worth competing with your other powers.
I want a way to do their new version of radiant charge through my weapon.
I think Retributive Strike should be the feat, and Divine Grace should be the class feature, and I firmly believe that reducing the amount of random modifiers means that the ability score will be able to be included more, not less. I want divine grace to use CHA mod, and have it be the choice between blocking an attack or a save. It costs your reaction, so it's once per turn.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
...Mostly in action economy since it now cuts into your turn and prevents you from making more attacks, or moving, or whatever else you wanted to do with that action, in addition to the fact that your Spell Points are much more limited.
After reading Vengeful Oath, I've come to the conclusion that a Spellstrike [metamagic] feat that let's me deliver a LoH/any power/spell that can do damage through my weapon would be a good enough replacement for smite evil, and I'd be fine with the limitations on it, though I think Spell Points need more ways to expand them. I see myself taking extra power feats just for the spell points, even if I don't care about the Powers.
I also think it helps gish builds and negates the need for a magus, especially if I can multiclass wizard on this and change my spell points over to INT. This revelation makes me want a lot more work done on the paladin to make it a more generic half-caster knight class.
Getting +1 to AC is also a decent bonus to offset that, but I do see your point.
Speaking on the subject of Spell Points, I do find it weird that Advanced Domain seems overly good just for the extra Spell Points - I'd be more inclined to take a higher-costing power just for the additional SP, and I saw at least one 3-point power in that list. I'd prefer that SP become more accessible (at least for the paladin), and that power become a little more standardized in how much it gives.
I didn't read all lv1 cleric domain powers, but for the ones I did I would not want to spend a spell point on any of them, they seem extremely weak. At least the advanced ones might be strong enough to want to spend on.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
lay on hands' big issue for me is the action sink required to use it: one action to take your hand off your weapon, one action to lay on hands, another action to put your hand back on your weapon, and paladins don't get quickdraw without multiclassing. thee's been talk of that one LoH feat removing the manipulate action tag, but I'm still not sure whether that actually helps, since you still have to touch the target.
retributive strike grinds my gears. as it is currently, it actively incentivizes you to not protect your allies (and to wield a reach weapon so you can have a wider pool of people to get hit for you), and holy smite is very underwhelming as an add-on for it.
that they took what was previously a 1st level spell (hero's defiance - immediate action spell, lay on hands yourself + an extra dice when an attack would drop you), nerfed it, and made it your capstone is also a bit of a kick in the gut as well.
lay on hands' big issue for me is the action sink required to use it: one action to take your hand off your weapon, one action to lay on hands, another action to put your hand back on your weapon, and paladins don't get quickdraw without multiclassing. thee's been talk of that one LoH feat removing the manipulate action tag, but I'm still not sure whether that actually helps, since you still have to touch the target.
It's actually one less action then that - taking your hand off your weapon is a free action, so it's just one to touch and one to regrip.
lay on hands' big issue for me is the action sink required to use it: one action to take your hand off your weapon, one action to lay on hands, another action to put your hand back on your weapon, and paladins don't get quickdraw without multiclassing. thee's been talk of that one LoH feat removing the manipulate action tag, but I'm still not sure whether that actually helps, since you still have to touch the target.
retributive strike grinds my gears. as it is currently, it actively incentivizes you to not protect your allies (and to wield a reach weapon so you can have a wider pool of people to get hit for you), and holy smite is very underwhelming as an add-on for it.
that they took what was previously a 1st level spell (hero's defiance - immediate action spell, lay on hands yourself + an extra dice when an attack would drop you), nerfed it, and made it your capstone is also a bit of a kick in the gut as well.
Your lay on Hands requires a feat to get around this.
actually looking it (lay on hands+warded touch) and the rules for somatic casting over, there actually appears to be little reason to take warded touch, since even without the manipulate tag it requires a free hand to use.
i mean, it makes it not provoke AoOs anymore, but those are now FAR less common, and it makes you drown less while drowning, but i dont see much other point to warded touch now.
also jesus that's a lot of bouncing around the rulebook to actually see what the heck a manipulate action even means for that.
actually looking it (lay on hands+warded touch) and the rules for somatic casting over, there actually appears to be little reason to take warded touch, since even without the manipulate tag it requires a free hand to use.
i mean, it makes it not provoke AoOs anymore, but those are now FAR less common, and it makes you drown less while drowning, but i dont see much other point to warded touch now.
also jesus that's a lot of bouncing around the rulebook to actually see what the heck a manipulate action even means for that.
I'm pretty sure removing manipulate also is supposed to remove the free-hand requirement, from what people have said. That (or to be specific, one of the feats the pregen Paladin had, but that's the only one that qualifies) was explicitly the thing that lets you lay on hands with your hands full.
I'm pretty sure removing manipulate also is supposed to remove the free-hand requirement, from what people have said. That (or to be specific, one of the feats the pregen Paladin had, but that's the only one that qualifies) was explicitly the thing that lets you lay on hands with your hands full.actually looking it (lay on hands+warded touch) and the rules for somatic casting over, there actually appears to be little reason to take warded touch, since even without the manipulate tag it requires a free hand to use.
i mean, it makes it not provoke AoOs anymore, but those are now FAR less common, and it makes you drown less while drowning, but i dont see much other point to warded touch now.
also jesus that's a lot of bouncing around the rulebook to actually see what the heck a manipulate action even means for that.
ah, i see. that definitely could be clarified better if we get a playtest 0.1 (i really hope we do get more as tiem goes, rather than everything not included thus far just being an untested surprise etched in concrete on the full release) to jsut say "removes the free hand requirement from the somatic casting action" rather than the current, since like i said, the book just notes what things manipulate gets penalized by in the current version.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
ah, i see. that definitely could be clarified better if we get a playtest 0.1 (i really hope we do get more as tiem goes, rather than everything not included thus far just being an untested surprise etched in concrete on the full release) to jsut say "removes the free hand requirement from the somatic casting action" rather than the current, since like i said, the book just notes what things manipulate gets penalized by in the current version.
I think if they can somewhat slip it in so that it's clear that the hand-requirement is linked to manipulate, then it'll work out a lot better (and also future-proof any other things that require hand usage). Unsure as to how that would work while being clear, though.
ah, i see. that definitely could be clarified better if we get a playtest 0.1 (i really hope we do get more as tiem goes, rather than everything not included thus far just being an untested surprise etched in concrete on the full release) to jsut say "removes the free hand requirement from the somatic casting action" rather than the current, since like i said, the book just notes what things manipulate gets penalized by in the current version.I think if they can somewhat slip it in so that it's clear that the hand-requirement is linked to manipulate, then it'll work out a lot better (and also future-proof any other things that require hand usage). Unsure as to how that would work while being clear, though.
that's true, and would nip that issue in the bud later yeah.
I confess I don't have 12 d6s, without raiding board games for their dice, I think I only have 7 packed with my RPG stuff.
Never played a high level wizard I see (and by high level, I mean level 10).
I confess I don't have 12 d6s, without raiding board games for their dice, I think I only have 7 packed with my RPG stuff.Never played a high level wizard I see (and by high level, I mean level 10).
Or he rolled 5 dice twice...
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
So for the next chapted of this thread, I wanna talk about weapon proficiency distribution, and what it looks like across different characters to see how they might actually play vs how the devs told us they intend to play.
Hence, the purpose of this thought exercise is to compare the difference between playing a martial character and a non-martial character, and pragmatically weighing your options to see how big of differences you can expect to notice.
For starters, classes:
[+0] Alchemist: Trained [simple, alchemical], no increases
[+1] Barbarian: Trained [simple, martial],lvl 3 [Critical Specializations] no feat, lvl 13 Expert [simple, martial, unarmed strikes], no further increases
[+3*] Bard: Trained [simple, short list], *Inspire Courage, lvl 8 Inspire Heroics (+2/3)
[+1] Cleric: Trained [simple, favored], lvl 14 Warrior Priest feat [Expert, Critical Specialization]
[+0] Druid: Trained [simple, scimitar],
[+3] Fighter:Expert [simple and martial] Trained [exotic], 3rd level [Critical Specializations], 13th level Master[simple, martial, exotics in chosen group] Expert [exotic] Legendary [simple and martial in chosen group], 19th level Legendary [simple, martial] Master [exotic] (no mention of the earlier exotic weapon, so exotics RAW do not seem to be capable of having legendary proficiency without taking the feat that becomes available at 6th)
[+2] Monk: Trained [unarmed attacks],1st level feat Monastic Weaponry [treat all simple and martial monk weapons as unarmed strike for proficiency], 3rd level Expert [unarmed strikes], 4th level feat Brawling Fury [Critical Specializations], 13th level Master [unarmed strikes]
[+2] Paladin: Trained [simple, martial],3rd level Righteous Ally (Blade) [Critical Specialization], 5th level Expert [simple and martial in chosen group], 8th level Second Ally feat [Critical Specializations if you didn't choose Blade Ally at 3rd], 15th level Master [chosen group]
[+2] Ranger: Trained [simple, martial], 3rd Expert [simple and martial in chosen group, Critical Specializations], 13th Master [chosen group] Expert [simple, martial, Critical Specializations]
[+1] Rogue: Trained [simple, short list], 2nd level feat Footpad's Focus [Critical Specializations], 13th level Expert [simple, short list]
[+1*] Sorcerer: Trained [simple Weapons], 4th level feat Magical Striker [+1 to weapon potency]
[+1*] Wizard: Trained [very short list], 4th level feat Magical Striker [+1 to potency]
*Of note, two sorcerer bloodlines include powers that scale up with giving you magical attacks, either claws or a bite, and they scale up to +4, or +5 with Magical Striker in effect after casting a spell.
Looks like most of the game you will have a +1 bonus over nonmartial characters, and only certain classes grant access to critical specialization effects, while some others gate their access behind feats.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Something dumb has happened, given my research it seems bards are the most effective melee combatants if they build for it. Fighter dedication means they can get to Expert proficiency in martial weapons at level 12, and by then they can already have Double Slice. Combined with Inspire Heroics and a decent Perform check, bards get the best attack bonus in the game, with consistent flat numbers added to both attacks being done at full bonus.
[A] Inspire Courage [F] Inspire Heroics for 1 Spell Point [AA] Double Slice
Bards are good at everything now, as full casters who also get the best bonuses to attack and second/third best to damage. Barbarians can get up there with +7ish from raging (before weapon quality added in) but the bard has access to the best attack bonus in the game except for maybe someone who multiclasses bard and picks up Inspire Heroics (something which shouldn't be allowed in the future methinks).
I also think after reading the cavalier archetype that several different combat styles could and should come as archetypes instead of class features. Take the dedicated fighter archetypes from PF1, like the Two-Handed Fighter, Two-Weapon Warrior, Archer, etc. and turn them into generic combat archetypes that anyone can take if they qualify for them. Then, give all the martial characters access to one for free without it interrupting their dedications. Fighters of course, should get access to multiple. This would let the generic combat feats exist outside of class lists, and let the class lists be more unique and not have to include the same feats repeated over and over again.
So for the next chapted of this thread, I wanna talk about weapon proficiency distribution, and what it looks like across different characters to see how they might actually play vs how the devs told us they intend to play.
Hence, the purpose of this thought exercise is to compare the difference between playing a martial character and a non-martial character, and pragmatically weighing your options to see how big of differences you can expect to notice.
For starters, classes:
[+0] Alchemist: Trained [simple, alchemical], no increases
[+1] Barbarian: Trained [simple, martial],lvl 3 [Critical Specializations] no feat, lvl 13 Expert [simple, martial, unarmed strikes], no further increases
[+3*] Bard: Trained [simple, short list], *Inspire Courage, lvl 8 Inspire Heroics (+2/3)
[+1] Cleric: Trained [simple, favored], lvl 14 Warrior Priest feat [Expert, Critical Specialization]
[+0] Druid: Trained [simple, scimitar],
[+3] Fighter:Expert [simple and martial] Trained [exotic], 3rd level [Critical Specializations], 13th level Master[simple, martial, exotics in chosen group] Expert [exotic] Legendary [simple and martial in chosen group], 19th level Legendary [simple, martial] Master [exotic] (no mention of the earlier exotic weapon, so exotics RAW do not seem to be capable of having legendary proficiency without taking the feat that becomes available at 6th)
[+2] Monk: Trained [unarmed attacks],1st level feat Monastic Weaponry [treat all simple and martial monk weapons as unarmed strike for proficiency], 3rd level Expert [unarmed strikes], 4th level feat Brawling Fury [Critical Specializations], 13th level Master [unarmed strikes]
[+2] Paladin: Trained [simple, martial],3rd level Righteous Ally (Blade) [Critical Specialization], 5th level Expert [simple and martial in chosen group], 8th level Second Ally feat [Critical Specializations if you didn't choose Blade Ally at 3rd], 15th level Master [chosen group]
[+2] Ranger: Trained [simple, martial], 3rd Expert [simple and martial in chosen...
More on this, I feel as though Proficiency needs to be expanded and redistributed numerically, so that it affects more levels of play beyond the two classes that get master other than the fighter. Otherwise, the math says that feats that tax actions like Power Attack and/or Dual-Handed Strike are supposed to be better for you aren't. This comes from the analysis earlier about AC and the rate of critical hits as determined by monster design.
Above we have examples of your crit chance being somewhere like 10-15% on a primary attack with a fighter. With anyone else it'll be 5-10%. Most of the game, for the first arbitrary x levels you're ability to hit will be just as bad as everyone else, and playing a martial character really infers no bonus to landing crits more often.
When your math says you only have a 15% chance to crit on a primary attack, but a 40% chance to hit with a secondary attack instead of feats like Power Attack, then the risk/reward system of counting on crits to happen more often does not show up.
So, what happens to fighters who choose to go
[A] Primary Attack, [AA] Double Slice with Agile Weapons both at -4.
Since Double Slice lacks the [open] trait, it seems that on full attacks you might even be better off than Power Attack because you can make 3 attacks with minimal penalty by comparison, and have much better odds of landing crits 3 times over compared to twice.
The math doesn't work.
Full session zero report incoming with my discoveries from last night.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I did a math on Double Slice and on it's impact on the game.
In general, it's stronger than most other feats by virtue that it lacks the [open] tag and can be done as a primary or secondary attack, and in all cases it significantly boosts one of those attacks, by +5. (or 4 with agile)
When doing the math, this ends up increasing a dual wielder's damage potential by about 15% and thus when comparing feats that trade away actions there needs to be enough math there to make sure that when calculating the rate for critical hits in that you end up with about 15%. For feats like Power Attack, that is a +3 bonus to hit.
Not only does this make Power Attack more attractive an option because it improves your hits, but it also improves your chance to crit, by about double on average. This means your odds of landing a single crit with Power Attack go up enough to counter-balance the chance to crit with making multiple attacks, especially when calcing Double Slice.
Next thing I wanna bring up is the application of Ability Modifiers into the existing game more. To compare this, I want to look at
[A]
Trigger You are targeted by a spell that allows a saving throw.
You call upon your deity’s grace to protect you from harm. You gain a +2 circumstance bonus to the saving throw.
Seems okay at low levels, but as you progress, that +2 may not have the same returns on your weaker saves since paladins don;t really care for DEX or WIS given the new stat mechanics.
Speaking of which, since I'm on the topic, paladins do not get CHA as a class ability, they have to choose STR. This means that any paladin's starting CHA can never exceed 16, or +3. If Divine Grace used CHA and scaled with it in place of a flat +2, then it would scale with the character, not ever getting above +5 without items, at 15th level.
Apply this logic to classes like monk, and I'm having a hard time understanding how incorporating ability scores into class statistics, knowing that they scale much slower and mostly without items results in a bad game. Rather than taxing characters extra feats at later levels to get measly +1s and 2s, having an initial feat that uses the ability score and lets the game scale naturally to improve these abilities seems much more elegant.
Apply this to something like Blade of Justice, so it adds CHA to hit/damage and it scales beautifully, deals with my action tax crit math concerns from above, and doesn't require a magic weapon to have significant scaling.
Consider the same thing with the barbarians, instead of a scaling conditional modifier to damage alone, why not enable them to add in CON to hit/damage instead?
These things to solve the math issues with the action taxes, and properly distributing proficiency among the classes would more or less solve most of the system issues that I have, aside from the level gating and the dead weight of some feats that add little value for their cost.
Any thoughts on this?
Caveat: +5 to any particular saving throw will visibly warp the game around it. +3 is generally about +50% effectiveness to a particular roll, so you can imagine how effective a +5 is.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Caveat: +5 to any particular saving throw will visibly warp the game around it. +3 is generally about +50% effectiveness to a particular roll, so you can imagine how effective a +5 is.
Okay, then let's figure out exactly how much, then stretch out and adjust proficiency accordingly, making the game run smoother. I'm not gonna lie, it influenced my player's decision making.
I really like the idea of different class features which trade an action for +[ability] to hit & damage. Spread them around so different classes get different abilities with different quirks.
Theory craft:
See, I got this crazy idea, because multiclassing lets us choose which ability score to use for spell points, it also changes your spell casting ability score for powers. I could see a paladin multiclassing wizard, changing a couple things around with said multiclassing, and essentially create an armoured magus. I like the idea of playing with those and being able to mix and mash spell casting classes with power classes, and making the ability score matter for anyone could make the proficiency thing work better.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
the deal was about stats that they only can have 1 stat go to them, so you can't add charisma since saves are already use another stat to figure them out. I think it was to make it simple and less varied.
Also a +2 is basically as useful lv2 as 20 since the numbers are always the same. Having a 25 increase by 2 against a 35 is the same as a 5 to a 15. And since we're playing with bounded accuracy, those are the number's you'll see show up in games
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I believe that no roll is supposed to have two attribute modifiers added to it in PF2, since that really screws up the math; this is a thing we've completely left behind in PF1 (RIP Water Dancer monk who can get 3xChaMod to AC, 4x if they are a ghost.)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Seems like a waste, it's got the balance built into it if we expand proficiency just a little bit.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
personally i'd be okay with more options to swap a stat for another, such as using int instead of cha for diplomacy rolls, or using wis or int instead of str/dex for hit and damage for things like the monk or alchemist, etc etc (there were several feats and class abilities to this effect in 1e, which even spawned an entire "X-to-Y thread")
if you dont want people double-dipping stats as a rule, just exchange them wholesale
What if proficiency scaled up to +6?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
What if proficiency scaled up to +6?
Hmm, -2/0/2/4/6 wouldn't be too bad personally, especially since it also smooths out the numbers to be even between the proficiency levels. Investment would mean more, and it'd expand the range of min/max from 17 to 20.
I'm just unsure about what it'd do to the math (especially fighter vs. not-fighter) and DCs, especially since I think part of the design goals were for the optimization to be more along the lines of utility rather than pure numbers.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'd wanna think of it more like spreading it out over the course of a character, and every two starting at 0 would make up the upper and lower tiers of that proficiency. Then someone other than the fighter can have a chance to crit.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
One comment I want to make about character options is that there is a weird dichotomy for me, as a long-time PF1E player, when reading through all the class options (which I finally did this night).
When reading the barbarian, cleric, fighter, rogue and monk I was actually quite excited about the options those classes had gained from PF1E to PF2E. They all seemed upgraded from before (except with the terrible superstition anathema of the barbarian, which is probably unplayable as written).
When reading the paladin, druid, sorcerer and wizard, however, I felt very strongly negative about their class design, since they all felt less cool than their previous versions. All their abilities as related to class feats seemed nerfed from before. I appreciate that sorcerers have been made more "skillful", though (and I already know that they only get 5+INT skills, which is totally enough).
Bards left me a bit confused if they had gotten better or worse.
Alchemists are obviously currently terrible and feel like a gigantic downgrade from the elegant and exciting PF1E version. I strongly suggest either going back completely to the drawing board or scrapping them for the core rulebook.
My point is that if you come in as a long-time PF1E player, depending on which class you like most, you can come back from reading your favorite class for the first time with an excellent or terrible impression of the new edition.
I am currently playing a sorcerer, which is my favorite class since D&D 3.X/PF1E, and aside from more skill points I came away with a terrible first impression of PF2E. Which of course colored my commentary in the first week. I don't know if there is a good solution to this problem I perceive, since the new mechanics make sense in the context of the new design parameters. But it goes to show that "your entire favorite class is now less awesome" will make players of the current edition angry and anxious.
I wouldn't say overall I don;t like the system, I just think there are some bits and pieces that need to be cleaned up.
I trust our guys in the skills forums to get that right, so I wanna make sure we get the discussions for class builds and combat in a good place.
|
I'll most likely be...
Spoiler:doing a few threads over the next couple weeks to talk about the entire system as a whole, but as I skim through the pages to find something I want to discuss, all I keep finding is more and more reasons to be skeptical of this release. (Or excited to really get to work on solving some issues I see, optimism notwithstanding)
this is easily the ugliest character sheet I've seen across most editions. Landscape? Gross. I don't like how much space having four bubbles takes up, and I especially don't like that they are four separate bubbles, I think a 4 tiered radially symmetrical shape that you can fill in as your proficiency improves for that particular aspect of your character is a much better, more concise, and more efficient way to organize it. I don't like my stats being in the bottom corner, seeing as all my other numbers factor them in, they seem more important to have up top.
I don't mind the bare bones nature of each ancestral chassis, I enjoy the fact that each race is more or less just a baseline and that what was once a large character building exercise which slowed down character creation, however most of these options seem and feel very weak to me. This is where I learned that you don;t gain access to critical specializations without investing feats into the weapon(s) you want to use. And you have to use a feat to gain access to them in the first place. That's a really effing bad start. Dwarves remain the superior race, with darkvision and the inability to be encumbered by armor as far as speed goes along with stat boosts in the two most important stats (maybe not if you count DEX, but they can have that too).Here's where I'll throw in my desire for orcs to not only exist, but they round out the medium sized characters for stat distribution, since there is no medium race that gets a bonus to charisma.
Yuuuuuck. For starters, why are there class...
Landscape character sheets are actually a great way to reduce table clutter and increase playing room. I do not like, however, the symbols, abbreviations, and layout in general
A lot of your opinions hinge on "best," "better," "superior" but you fail to realize that's not the correct way to look at things. Everything is a trade-off and not everyone wants to do dps.
Agree with you on the class symbols, no idea why they've been included say all.
My main push here is the reason to include the same stuff on each class listing is because it's better to keep everything involving that class WITH that class's section. Several other aspects of the book suffer for not doing so.
Yes, during a play test and a game in general I like to understand the decisions I make.
Just because you don't play the game that way doesn't make my opinion less valid than yours. My goal is to get all the options in a good place compared to the base system. Feats should make you better, not worse. Feats should open up more utility, not lock you down. I'll be posting a sessions 0-1 report in the next couple days with some new thoughts.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Feats should make you better, not worse. Feats should open up more utility, not lock you down. I'll be posting a sessions 0-1 report in the next couple days with some new thoughts.
Seeing this reminded me of one of my concerns about the class feat system, specifically solid but thoroughly unexciting passive effects like "you have evasion" competing for the same sort of slot as "you have a new option in combat, or can apply an existing thing in a new way."
It feels like questionable demand to ask players to balance the sensible, responsible choices versus the fun ones, considering this is, after all, a game.