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I keep seeing a lot of posts, from both players and actual, real-life Paizo staff, that people need to play the game before providing any feedback.
To quote Paizo CTO Vic Wertz,
Tell us about your actual game play. Theory is all well and good, but everybody’s got theories, and we’ve probably heard most of them already. Tell us how things are actually working in play, not how you think things will work.
But we should all keep in mind that the playtest is a game; and if someone is not excited enough to play the game then that is a valid complaint.
We can all argue about whether someone's issues were real or perceived, and we can tell people that the problems they had go away in actual gameplay, but if a person chooses not to play a game because it seems to complex, boring, confusing, bland, tedious, or time-consuming, then that is a valid criticism against that game.
At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter what we argue about on the forums. What matters is how many people buy the rulebook at a bookstore and take it home; and if someone picks up the book and it looks boring, they're not going to reserve judgement until they've played a couple sessions. They're going to put it down, and just go with 5e.
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But we should all keep in mind that the playtest is a game; and if someone is not excited enough to play the game then that is a valid complaint.
Problem being that that complaint, while valid, isn't helpful at all as far as the playtest is concerned because it does nothing to tell the designers how to improve their game. That's why they want you to actually playtest the game, because that's the feedback they are looking for.
And Vic is probably too nice to spell it out, but most armchair theorists really overestimate theair ability to analyze a system just by reading it. Which, again, is why Paizo would prefer if you actively participate in the playtest by actually playtesting that game.
The Paizo officials have proven innumerable times that they are willing to listen to feedback, positive and negative, as long as it is constructive. They ask for your feedback so that they can put a book in the bookstore people actually want to buy. Again, "I'm not participating in your playtest", isn't a feedback that helps them achieving that.
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But we should all keep in mind that the playtest is a game; and if someone is not excited enough to play the game then that is a valid complaint.Problem being that that complaint, while valid, isn't helpful at all as far as the playtest is concerned because it does nothing to tell the designers how to improve their game. That's why they want you to actually playtest the game, because that's the feedback they are looking for.
And Vic is probably too nice to spell it out, but most armchair theorists really overestimate theair ability to analyze a system just by reading it. Which, again, is why Paizo would prefer if you actively participate in the playtest by actually playtesting that game.
The Paizo officials have proven innumerable times that they are willing to listen to feedback, positive and negative, as long as it is constructive. They ask for your feedback so that they can put a book in the bookstore people actually want to buy. Again, "I'm not participating in your playtest", isn't a feedback that helps them achieving that.
Some complaints are that simple and unhelpful. Others are actually valid. Some people are saying it's difficult to playtest the game because the layout of the game rules aren't intuitive enough for the players to understand, which is a good criticism that Paizo needs to take under consideration if one of their goals is to draw new players into their product.
Consider this: A badly designed rulebook that poorly conveys rules means you're getting at-best misleading playtest data (which means the results are skewed in an unintended manner), or worse yet, uninspired ex-players who will not recommend the game to their friends to play as a result of whatever playtesting (even if none at all) they provide.
I don't have to run a PF2 game to make this claim, because these are things I should know prior to running the game! I can't just run a game willy-nilly and expect to know all the rules, I have to read them first to properly understand the game! And if I can't properly understand the rules due to bad layout, then...there you go.
Not everything has to be playtested to be a proper criticism. This isn't a matter of saying if X option is overpowered or if Y option is underpowered, which I would agree requires actual playtesting to confirm. But complaining about rulebook layouts and uninspired text? Doesn't require a playtest to make a legitimate complaint about.
Keep in mind that Paizo spent a lot of time and energy developing what was created.
You can give impressions of your reading of the rules but to not even try the game is both disrespectful and hurtful to the developers. Imagine if you were one of the devs and read some of the opinions floating around these boards.
This is only one of a myriad of reasons you should try the game before giving feedback. When you respect others work, even if you don't like it, your comments will be respectfully listened too.
This is why the OPs comments are likely tuned out in this thread and there won't likely be a response by Paizo.
Director of Game Design
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Hey there folks,
Just to be clear, we are all over the boards reading and talking about threads (even if we are allowing some of them to brew without our direct input), this is one that I felt was important to talk about.
Of course it is important for us to know that you don't find our game exciting enough to play.
There just isn't a lot of direction we can take from that other than "make it more exciting". Which is, of course, something we are always striving to do anyway. Later on in this process we are going to be releasing a swarm of surveys that are not directly tied to the playtest. While many of those will be about specific game systems and engines, there will be one about our layout and information design. This too is important to us, even though I do not suspect we will get too many answers on it, as survey about user design interface is probably not too interesting to most, but that wont stop us from trying.
Just thought I would toss that out there. I hate to see enthusiasts so distraught that they cannot even bring themselves to play. Rest assured that we will be looking into that once we have things rolling here.
Hey there folks,
Just to be clear, we are all over the boards reading and talking about threads (even if we are allowing some of them to brew without our direct input), this is one that I felt was important to talk about.
Of course it is important for us to know that you don't find our game exciting enough to play.
There just isn't a lot of direction we can take from that other than "make it more exciting". Which is, of course, something we are always striving to do anyway. Later on in this process we are going to be releasing a swarm of surveys that are not directly tied to the playtest. While many of those will be about specific game systems and engines, there will be one about our layout and information design. This too is important to us, even though I do not suspect we will get too many answers on it, as survey about user design interface is probably not too interesting to most, but that wont stop us from trying.
Just thought I would toss that out there. I hate to see enthusiasts so distraught that they cannot even bring themselves to play. Rest assured that we will be looking into that once we have things rolling here.
that's good to hear!
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Keep in mind that Paizo spent a lot of time and energy developing what was created.
You can give impressions of your reading of the rules but to not even try the game is both disrespectful and hurtful to the developers. Imagine if you were one of the devs and read some of the opinions floating around these boards.
This is only one of a myriad of reasons you should try the game before giving feedback. When you respect others work, even if you don't like it, your comments will be respectfully listened too.
This is why the OPs comments are likely tuned out in this thread and there won't likely be a response by Paizo.
I'd believe it. Major changes like that can't just happen overnight.
But if a game is too confusing or not exciting enough to warrant the effort of giving it a try, it too is still a valid criticism, even if it's a heartbreaker to those involved; the truth hurts sometimes, but pain is necessary in life, and helps us move forward.
The system might be really amazing if properly understood and executed, but for some people the learning hurdle might be too steep to properly jump in the way that Paizo wishes for them to (as houseruled playtesting isn't really widespread or accurate enough), or it might be done poorly and not grant the positive reaction that would entice players to further invest in the game.
Presentation and simplicity are very important things when it comes to drawing in and entertaining a crowd, and 5e excelled quite well in this regard, tributing to its great success (maybe not as well in presentation, but the simplicity certainly pulled ahead based on other commentary, which gave it the edge compared to PF1). I'm of the opinion that Paizo still has much work to do on both of these fronts if they want to be the power house they aspire to.
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This is tue of course but still, a lots of people are judging the game and the mechanics of it without actually testing it, and it seems a little easy for me. After our tests so far we discovered that we have a loooots of issues with the game, and the fun/cool factor, but we were actually surprised in a good way by many new rules.
...Later on in this process we are going to be releasing a swarm of surveys that are not directly tied to the playtest. While many of those will be about specific game systems and engines, there will be one about our layout and information design. This too is important to us, even though I do not suspect we will get too many answers on it, as survey about user design interface is probably not too interesting to most, but that wont stop us from trying.
Just thought I would toss that out there. I hate to see enthusiasts so distraught that they cannot even bring themselves to play. Rest assured that we will be looking into that once we have things rolling here.
That’s awesome to hear; for all I’ve enjoyed it, layout is an area that I’ve found impeding my learning curve. It could however be due to years of experience and just bad habits I’ve picked up from design tropes in common with other RPGs over the years.
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Most of my complaints came from session 0 and having the opinions of gamers experienced in Unchained RAE for direct comparison.
Math also matters, system competence matters, I doubt Mark would have his current job if this weren't true.
If there's mathematical hiccups that make some options better than others by a lot, and no other choices get tested then I see a problem.
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One of the main complaints I've noticed is the rulebook layout. You have to search all over the book to find stuff tied to your class. I feel the book needs better organized.
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Can we get an online resource?
This, I should add, has been my own personal experience as well.
I'm sorry, can you please clarify what you're referring to here?
Because if you are referring to the post before yours, by SteelGuts, then that would mean that the Chief Creative Director just said that his personal experience with the game has been that it has lots of issues and is not as fun as it should be.
Which...seems like an odd thing for a Chief Creative Director to say...
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So, after reading the rules, my group has chosen not to participate in the play test.
The change to the action system, the way skills are being handled, and the way races have been modified have contributed to this choice.
If the lore is well done, we might buy some books to intigrate with our ongoing 1st edition game.
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Yes, PF2 could be a lot more popular initially if it did certain things, but in order to be sustainable long term (not just in play value, but for Paizo to create new product for), it needs to do certain things to foster that. Ideally, both of those should be compatible, and I'm not saying that one should be sacrificed for the other. But as we saw from GenCon, a lot of the problems with getting people to look at the system can be solved in a non-mechanical way: assisting GMs in promoting the game, useful learning aides, ads in relevant places, exciting adventures!
This, I should add, has been my own personal experience as well.
I'm sorry, can you please clarify what you're referring to here?
Because if you are referring to the post before yours, by SteelGuts, then that would mean that the Chief Creative Director just said that his personal experience with the game has been that it has lots of issues and is not as fun as it should be.
Which...seems like an odd thing for a Chief Creative Director to say...
I would be more worried if a creative type had absolutely no problems with the work they are making, or if a publisher wasn't constantly trying to maximize their biggest release in a decade.
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Here are some quotes from the thumbnail class descriptions:
Barbarian: [You likely] punch anyone who says this conflicts with your distaste for patience and tedium.
Paladin: [Others probably] believe you an inflexible martinet devoted to every rule and unwilling to compromise. Worry you secretly despise them for not living up to your impossible standard.
Rogue: [Others probably] think they know better than to trust you.
Sorcerer: [Others probably] assume you're as unpredictable and chaotic as the magic you bring forth, even if your personality proves otherwise.
Wizard: [Others probably] think you're an arrogant snob who thinks you're smarter or better than others.
My immediate reaction on reading this is "I don't really want to play this game. It sounds unpleasant." Paladin is particularly bad. I know a lot of groups discourage or ban paladin PCs precisely because they may fit this description. Why encourage a stereotype which makes the game less fun?
I feel as though these passages will be used by disruptive players as cover for their disruptiveness: "But it says right here that--" And I feel they will discourage players I'd actually enjoy playing with from trying the game, because just in reading the class summaries, you're primed to think about the PCs as being unpleasant, abrasive people.
This kind of writing is found at other places in the rules, too, but these really stood out. My overall impression in reading the rules is that I'm not going to feel happy or welcome at the table, because there is a systematic pressure to play impulsive, thoughtless, low-planning PCs who get along poorly. (Many of the class descriptions say that the character is like this. None say that they aren't.) My spouse lost interest in playing PF2 when he read the spell duration section on p. 330, which communicates to him that the GM should strongly discourage parties from pre-planning and from efficient use of spell durations. (Parties that learn to work together like a well-oiled machine are the main joy he plays for, and here is the system text telling the GM to prevent that from working.)
Rules matter, but flavor text matters too.
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This, I should add, has been my own personal experience as well.
I'm sorry, can you please clarify what you're referring to here?
Because if you are referring to the post before yours, by SteelGuts, then that would mean that the Chief Creative Director just said that his personal experience with the game has been that it has lots of issues and is not as fun as it should be.
Which...seems like an odd thing for a Chief Creative Director to say...
...unless of course, the game in question is at the beginning of its playtest and is still very much being refined.
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Keep in mind that Paizo spent a lot of time and energy developing what was created.
You can give impressions of your reading of the rules but to not even try the game is both disrespectful and hurtful to the developers. Imagine if you were one of the devs and read some of the opinions floating around these boards.
This is only one of a myriad of reasons you should try the game before giving feedback. When you respect others work, even if you don't like it, your comments will be respectfully listened too.
This is why the OPs comments are likely tuned out in this thread and there won't likely be a response by Paizo.
I would love to try the game but don't have a group to play with. My job at the moment is exhausting and I don't have the energy to find one. Don't appreciate being labelled disrespectful because of that. All I can offer is my opinion on understanding the rulebook. I'd like to think that's worth something.
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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This, I should add, has been my own personal experience as well.
I'm sorry, can you please clarify what you're referring to here?
Because if you are referring to the post before yours, by SteelGuts, then that would mean that the Chief Creative Director just said that his personal experience with the game has been that it has lots of issues and is not as fun as it should be.
Which...seems like an odd thing for a Chief Creative Director to say...
Specifically, I was responding to this comment:
After our tests so far we discovered that we have a loooots of issues with the game, and the fun/cool factor, but we were actually surprised in a good way by many new rules.
There ARE a lots of issues with the game as currently presented. It's an unfinished game going into playtest. I'm confident that the version we put out based on collecting feedback from thousands and thousands of gamers over the course of the better part of a year will result in a much better game.
I also agree that I've been surprised in a good way by many of the new rules.
Is that controversial?
The way I look at it, that's part of the purpose of a playtest.
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I'm in the distraught camp. :(.
I'm plenty old and have plenty of other options, and I've been around the block enough times, that I'm not going to lose sleep or have trouble moving on. So "distraught" isn't truly fair.
But PF has brought me a hell of a lot of joy over the past decade. And I really *do* want to be part of it going forward. And there are parts of it that look AWESOME. And I'm sure there are also surprises.
But I also know a lot about how I play, how I enjoy the game and what does and does not work for me. There is one core foundation that breaks the narrative from the mechanics for me. I'm not closed minded. I'm just not someone who repeats the same thing expecting a different result.
I was going to start converting characters and I barely made any progress on that before the issues were gnawing at me. There is no point in playing the game as written for me.
So "distraught" isn't fair. But within the context of really wanting to be onboard without context of "life in general", yeah, I'm distraught.
There have been some many comments from you guys over the years that really expressed the core idea of narrative driven gaming and building everything up from being true to character concept. I've loved that. I want to love that some more.
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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What's the "core foundation that breaks the narrative from the mechanics" for you?
I spent a fair amount of time converting old characters this weekend, and although I struggled with some of the information flow in the character creation section, I was pretty pleased with the results.
Heck, I think I like level 1 Ostog the Unslain better in second edition than I did in first.
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+level to everything.
I could go on at length, though I think it would be better to leave that out of this specific thread.
Suffice to say that for skills, for example, I already had a houserule in mind where I would cap bonuses for skill based on Tier (untrained is level or 5, whichever is less, trained caps as 10, etc...)
But as I looked at characters, there was no way to make AC and attacks fit with monsters because it is so baked in.
I'm not saying I couldn't do the conversions. The conversions were easy. I was dismayed by how their mechanical translation was dominated by their abstract level rather than the narrative description of what made them exactly who they are. How the sorcerer and the fighter were different from each other and each were different than an orc and a town guard didn't capture their characters as people nearly so much as game pieces.
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What's the "core foundation that breaks the narrative from the mechanics" for you?
I spent a fair amount of time converting old characters this weekend, and although I struggled with some of the information flow in the character creation section, I was pretty pleased with the results.
Heck, I think I like level 1 Ostog the Unslain better in second edition than I did in first.
You are probably more familiar with the guts of PF2 than a lot of posters.
For example our group dropped out of Pathfinder circa 2012, at that point we had put in 12 years of 3.X and had been playing Star Wars Saga as well which was another d20 spin off.
So we missed late PF1 and Starfinder. Play test gets announced a few months ago, semi excited. Cool we might get that fixed 3.5 game we wanted back in 2008. Download it and print out the 1st 140 odd pages.
So potential playtest group. I was really struggling with it it took me a while to figure out double slice+ two weapon flurry worked. Now I have to reference several other p[ages and add up a heap of numbers to figure out how it works.A fighter is always the 1st class I look at. A level 11 5E fighter basically gets all that for free (3 attacks level 11 + bonus action off hand attack, 1 weapon style to get off hand damage to weapon).
My wife beelined for the bard its basically her favorite class going back to 3.5, Pathfinder and 5E if she doesn't beeline for a Bard its a Rogue. I could actually see her enthusiasm die right there once she started reading. The other players are either not enthused for similar reasons or they will wait for a more up to date, easier to play playtest version.
There is also plenty of things that are jsut annoying now like the 3 acion system which while an improvement is still the old iterative attack thing from 3.5 warmed up. Instead of BAB +16/+11/+6/+1 why not just just allow 4 attacks at +16. PF2 you still have to wrestle with the rules and math to make something that should be very simple.
A Star Wars Saga Soldier for example is 5 pages and has lots of ways to build it to be effective and its easy to understand. The PF2 fighter is nine pages.
Races are not much better off erm I mean ancestry. To many people are familar with races though and are still calling them that, its just clunky and then you don't really have a half orc or half elf ists just an ancestry thing for humans.
This has been tried before BTW in AD&D 2E which in effect let you have point buy races in Skills and Powers, the PF2 version is not to drastically different. You don't have races as such just a selection of racial powers/blocks/abilities or whatever.
Consider if you played B/X for example you have 7 options at character creation. If you have 10 races, 10 classes, and 10 feats you have 1000 variable to digest. In PF2 you have to figure out racial packages, boost, complex back grounds and then a 9 and 10 pages of character classes and then you go have a look at the feats with 10+ subsections of what types stuff you can pick from that you have to cross reference with the classes.
Most of the options also have all sorts of fiddly and annoying minor abilities or +1 whatever or some sort of reduction to some penalty or removing some restriction that I now have to go and look up and find out what it is. Its actually more complex than 3.5 and Pathfinder one with virtually none of the advantage of those systems as its mostly just "more options" and most of those options are complex, suck and are uninteresting.
This is where you are getting stories of 2 and 3 hour character creation from. You can compare this with 10 minute character creation from older D&D or half hour or so in 5E. Session 0 is going to be character creation. Another contrast would be the 5E playtest the packet sizes were a lot smaller and easier to digest.
You have also changed the 3.5 round structure, why not just keep it and instead of fluffing around with 3 actions tweak it to Move, standard, and swift actions and let full attacks happen on standard actions.Note that 3 action system is not drastically different from 4E's minor, move, standard action or 5E move, action, bonus action system. You basically made it more complex than it needs to be for no discernible reason and as an added "bonus" you can go and learn some new rules that are annoying to boot.
yeah sure its great in a way if you like Starfinder but what if you have never seen Starfinder or have never played it? What if you want to pitch PF2 at new players, if I am struggling to grok it after playing 3.X for 12 years how are they going to cope? Did anyone actually slow down and think "Is a 9 page fighter a good idea".
All that complexity, cross references, a new round structure, changing races to ancestry and then making ancestry mostly not matter by turning it into a pick what you want buffet has added up to a few people not wanting to actually play the game as its to complex and frustrating as well. They already know they don't like it they don't have to play it. I'm willing to play it, probably can't get any of my players to have a go.
Also seems you have not figured out the fundamental problems of 3.X. For example you are rewriting spells and putting in things like resonance which is a band aid to the fundamental problem of easy access to magic items. An easier solution to some spells is just buff other classes and things like defences so fighters don't get hosed by save or sucks. You're actually creating new problems to fix old problems when the solution is very simple and could be done by buffing saves and nerfing DCs. Wands of CLW a problem just remove them from the game simple solution. Rewrite or remove the magic item creation rules.
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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Well, to be clear I haven't tried to convert over a ninth-level character yet, and have been focusing most of my free-time character creation on first-level guys for now. It'll be interesting to see if my general satisfaction level with the conversions holds true at higher levels. I'm excited to find out.
As for the ranger, one of the fairly obvious changes to me after looking it over is that it's missing a lot of stuff for archery builds. So I'd expect archery to play a much more significant role in the final version than it does in the current version. I wonder if that will help with the discrepancy between, say, the damage output of your ranger vs. that goblin fighter.
As for your specific ranger criticisms, I think you raise some fair questions. My general sense is that ranger is one of the classes that could use more attention and improvement. I think that's probably the observation of the design team as well.
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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As for the _whys_, I'd expect to see some of that stuff in blog posts, but I think the best space for some of that is the Paizo Friday twitch shows we'll be doing weekly. A big portion of each show (as with the first one from last Friday) is a live Q&A. I think Jason took every question on Friday, so if you've got something like "please explain why you add level to everything," it might be easier and more instructive to ask it on Friday and let Jason (or whichever designer is on) go off on a tear about it.
Your point about cunning is an interesting one. It's a fun exercise to determine a key word for each class, and then evaluate the design in light of that.
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Later on in this process we are going to be releasing a swarm of surveys that are not directly tied to the playtest.
Hmm... That could be a problem. I am pretty sure answering a survey is a single target effect, so it will have no effect on a swarm. And I don't have any area effect buttons on my mouse.
How many hp does a survey swarm have? I am going to need to go stock up on digital alchemist fires.
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Well, to be clear I haven't tried to convert over a ninth-level character yet, and have been focusing most of my free-time character creation on first-level guys for now. It'll be interesting to see if my general satisfaction level with the conversions holds true at higher levels. I'm excited to find out.
One of the things which hit me most deeply when reading the rules was the realization that several classes undeniably now have a much worse power level in almost every regard than their counterparts in PF1E, meaning Alchemists, Druids, Paladins, Rangers, Sorcerers and Wizards. Coming in as an aficionado of five of those six classes (and especially the Sorcerer), the question immediately came to my mind "why would I ever want to play those classes in PF2E, if they are so much cooler in their prior version?" So far I haven't found a good answer to that.
The thing is, when I changed from 3.5 to Pathfinder, every class felt like it had received a huge upgrade and was cooler than it was before. Now the contrary is the case for many of them and that leaves a really bad first impression. I'm fighting to get that out of my system and judge the new edition on its merits, but there really is only very little "wow" factor to the new design to tide me along.
Well, to be clear I haven't tried to convert over a ninth-level character yet, and have been focusing most of my free-time character creation on first-level guys for now. It'll be interesting to see if my general satisfaction level with the conversions holds true at higher levels. I'm excited to find out.One of the things which hit me most deeply when reading the rules was the realization that several classes undeniably now have a much worse power level in almost every regard than their counterparts in PF1E, meaning Alchemists, Druids, Paladins, Rangers, Sorcerers and Wizards. Coming in as an aficionado of five of those six classes (and especially the Sorcerer), the question immediately came to my mind "why would I ever want to play those classes in PF2E, if they are so much cooler in their prior version?" So far I haven't found a good answer to that.
The thing is, when I changed from 3.5 to Pathfinder, every class felt like it had received a huge upgrade and was cooler than it was before. Now the contrary is the case for many of them and that leaves a really bad first impression. I'm fighting to get that out of my system and judge the new edition on its merits, but there really is only very little "wow" factor to the new design to tide me along.
had an issue today/yesterday (wee hours of the morning here) where a couple of hopefuls pretty much dismissed paladin out of hand due to not having any stripe of smite evil.
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had an issue today/yesterday (wee hours of the morning here) where a couple of hopefuls pretty much dismissed paladin out of hand due to not having any stripe of smite evil.Well, to be clear I haven't tried to convert over a ninth-level character yet, and have been focusing most of my free-time character creation on first-level guys for now. It'll be interesting to see if my general satisfaction level with the conversions holds true at higher levels. I'm excited to find out.One of the things which hit me most deeply when reading the rules was the realization that several classes undeniably now have a much worse power level in almost every regard than their counterparts in PF1E, meaning Alchemists, Druids, Paladins, Rangers, Sorcerers and Wizards. Coming in as an aficionado of five of those six classes (and especially the Sorcerer), the question immediately came to my mind "why would I ever want to play those classes in PF2E, if they are so much cooler in their prior version?" So far I haven't found a good answer to that.
The thing is, when I changed from 3.5 to Pathfinder, every class felt like it had received a huge upgrade and was cooler than it was before. Now the contrary is the case for many of them and that leaves a really bad first impression. I'm fighting to get that out of my system and judge the new edition on its merits, but there really is only very little "wow" factor to the new design to tide me along.
It's called holy smite, and they get it at level 9 now.
Given the number of players who dipped paladin to get smite and CHA to saves, I am not sad about this.
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It's called holy smite, and they get it at level 9 now.
Given the number of players who dipped paladin to get smite and CHA to saves, I am not sad about this.
Let's prevent players who like smite from enjoing it for close to half their campaign otherwise some clever character builder can have some fun breaking the game. This way we are going to show both of them. There is going to be no fun on my watch!
Well, to be clear I haven't tried to convert over a ninth-level character yet, and have been focusing most of my free-time character creation on first-level guys for now. It'll be interesting to see if my general satisfaction level with the conversions holds true at higher levels. I'm excited to find out.
I have been pretty critical of various design choices. However I did convert over a 11th level knight (bard/dragon disciple/steel falcon/fighter?) and other than not having the steel falcon prestige class my bard came out pretty darn close. I was quite impressed.
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Let's prevent players who like smite from enjoing it for close to half their campaign otherwise some clever character builder can have some fun breaking the game. This way we are going to show both of them. There is going to be no fun on my watch!It's called holy smite, and they get it at level 9 now.
Given the number of players who dipped paladin to get smite and CHA to saves, I am not sad about this.
... Smite Evil was a first level ability.
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had an issue today/yesterday (wee hours of the morning here) where a couple of hopefuls pretty much dismissed paladin out of hand due to not having any stripe of smite evil.Well, to be clear I haven't tried to convert over a ninth-level character yet, and have been focusing most of my free-time character creation on first-level guys for now. It'll be interesting to see if my general satisfaction level with the conversions holds true at higher levels. I'm excited to find out.One of the things which hit me most deeply when reading the rules was the realization that several classes undeniably now have a much worse power level in almost every regard than their counterparts in PF1E, meaning Alchemists, Druids, Paladins, Rangers, Sorcerers and Wizards. Coming in as an aficionado of five of those six classes (and especially the Sorcerer), the question immediately came to my mind "why would I ever want to play those classes in PF2E, if they are so much cooler in their prior version?" So far I haven't found a good answer to that.
The thing is, when I changed from 3.5 to Pathfinder, every class felt like it had received a huge upgrade and was cooler than it was before. Now the contrary is the case for many of them and that leaves a really bad first impression. I'm fighting to get that out of my system and judge the new edition on its merits, but there really is only very little "wow" factor to the new design to tide me along.
It's called holy smite, and they get it at level 9 now.
Given the number of players who dipped paladin to get smite and CHA to saves, I am not sad about this.
wrongo, friendo. smite evil is a direct choice the player makes to say "this evildoer is going down" and let's tham actually go through with that, be it via extra damage, bypassing DR, or other effects--but all generally make you better at, well, smiting that evil.
holy smite is a bleed effect for your retributive strike. i would go so far to say that it is nearly the opposite of smite evil altogether. you have to let the enemy commit that evil act (of say, harming the innocent behind you) to make use of it in the first place, and since it costs a reaction to use, you can't even make use of your AoO from 6th level to try and dissuade them from passing you to do so.
edit: personally, short of the kineticist, I haven't seen a class with a core combat ability that makes the player actively seek to avoid using it, or that runs to entirely contrary to the class' apparent goal--for paladin that being punishing evil and protecting their allies from harm, as evidenced by lay on hands, shield warden and similar feats (which, fun fact, ALSO require your reaction, making them also mutually exclusive!), their several protective auras, and so on.
double-edit: after doing some further searching through the paladin abilities, the closest i can find to a smite evil-like ability is the level 6 "blade of justice" feat, which is for sword-spirit-only characters, and grants a small damage bonus based on how high your weapon runes are. it's just shameful.
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Just to point out, if Retributive Strike takes the Target down then their attack doesn’t go through. And if I don’t get to use it because enemies know I have it and thus stay away from my allies and/or focus on me then I’d say that’s a great ability for a Protector/Avenger/Hero.
so the enemy needs to be a mook to count as protecting an ally (killing them before their attack), or if they're metagaming you don't get to use your core combat ability at all.
sounds like great design!
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... Smite Evil was a first level ability.Let's prevent players who like smite from enjoing it for close to half their campaign otherwise some clever character builder can have some fun breaking the game. This way we are going to show both of them. There is going to be no fun on my watch!It's called holy smite, and they get it at level 9 now.
Given the number of players who dipped paladin to get smite and CHA to saves, I am not sad about this.
And the actual replacement for Smite Evil is not Holy Smite (9) but Blades of Justice (6), the point of this phylosophy still stands, and permeates this entire playtest.
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Just to point out, if Retributive Strike takes the Target down then their attack doesn’t go through. And if I don’t get to use it because enemies know I have it and thus stay away from my allies and/or focus on me then I’d say that’s a great ability for a Protector/Avenger/Hero.so the enemy needs to be a mook to count as protecting an ally (killing them before their attack), or if they're metagaming you don't get to use your core combat ability at all.
sounds like great design!
Anyone's a mook if you hit hard enough.
And it's not metagamining to see a person immediately lash out faster than they had been whenever someone attacks their allies and realize it might be a bad idea to repeat that.
Legitimately great design for the Paladin.
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And the actual replacement for Smite Evil is not Holy Smite (9) but Blades of Justice (6), the point of this phylosophy still stands, and permeates this entire playtest.... Smite Evil was a first level ability.Let's prevent players who like smite from enjoing it for close to half their campaign otherwise some clever character builder can have some fun breaking the game. This way we are going to show both of them. There is going to be no fun on my watch!It's called holy smite, and they get it at level 9 now.
Given the number of players who dipped paladin to get smite and CHA to saves, I am not sad about this.
(I'm not sure what your response has to do with my response)
My response was pointing out you didn't need a "clever character build", a 1 level dip netted you an attack that overcame all DR and let you add your CHA to your attack and AC vs 1 enemy until they died. That's an obscenely strong ability.
Just to point out, if Retributive Strike takes the Target down then their attack doesn’t go through. And if I don’t get to use it because enemies know I have it and thus stay away from my allies and/or focus on me then I’d say that’s a great ability for a Protector/Avenger/Hero.so the enemy needs to be a mook to count as protecting an ally (killing them before their attack), or if they're metagaming you don't get to use your core combat ability at all.
sounds like great design!
Anyone's a mook if you hit hard enough.
And it's not metagamining to see a person immediately lash out faster than they had been whenever someone attacks their allies and realize it might be a bad idea to repeat that.
Legitimately great design for the Paladin.
monsters' hp and defenses have been pretty much entirely retooled to last multiple rounds now (and generally to keep in mind that weapon dice scaling is now a thing).
on the second point, i'll grant you that--so you get to use your core combat ability maybe 3 times in a combat (short of an enemy just tanking the one retributive strike a round and continually attacking the ally anyway, especially since you can't exactly stop them from leaving afterwards if that's their intended goal), before it's then ignored for the rest.
(pardon the doublepost) one could potentially get something resembling smite evil as a paladin/cavalier multiclass (sword spirit -> cavalier dedication -> challenge -> blade of justice), but that's passing up on your level 2 and 4 class feats and locking out any other multiclass options in order to get something you should by all rights already have.
edit: it also leaves you with a young animal companion that requires a level 6 feat (conflicting with blade of justice's acquisition and putting you behind the curve for your class feats) to actually make use of. it's also completely incompatible with the steed ally feats (loyal warhorse, imposing destrier, etc), as that class feature requires you not having chosen blade ally (thus barring blade of justice until level 10+ via the second ally feat), gives you an entirely separate mount, and all those feats are specific to the "mount you gain from the steed ally ability".
actually, this sounds like something for the errata questions thread, as it seems like a pretty big oversight.