I built a character with my wife tonight...


General Discussion


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Background: I'm sorta plugged in on PFP and very familiar with PF1 and SF, but my wife found PF1 to be completely overwhelming and is generally more old school (read: most of her RPG experience comes in the form of being at Dave Arneson's table as a sub for some sessions). She's literally looking only at the things that catch her eye and hasn't read the whole book, but said she'd be willing to play a level 1 playtest adventure at an upcoming con. She said Ranger to start, so we started building a Ranger. Here's a short list of things that sent her down the spiral a bit:

  • Lore skills don't make any sense, especially since you could have something like Lore (Pickles). This also means that authors could reasonably put things like Lore (Pickles) into an adventure.
  • Backgrounds feel too complicated. Tying a skill feat into the Background, while thematic, caused every single one to be a page flip. Tying a Lore to each one made her question the value of any Lore skills because, again, Lore (Pickles).
  • Speaking of Backgrounds, Animal Whisperer was super confusing to her, particularly whether Train Animal (the skill feat that comes with the Background) wasn't particularly clear as to whether it did anything for her Animal Companion or if it was required for her Animal Companion to do anything worthwhile. WAAAAAAAY too many page flip rabbit holes came from this.
  • Still on Backgrounds, there's no label for it on the chapter section (that thing on every odd numbered page). Adding it to the Ancestry header would help with that.
  • Ancestry: "Hey, Gnomes can get an animal. Can I have 2 animals? Wait, it's a Familiar and they suck. F*** it, just go Dwarf." -Actual quote when reviewing this section. This was then followed by a thorough review of Rock Runner vs Weapon Familiarity. There's a feeling of TOO MANY THINGS.
  • Traits: intuitive to hardcore gamer husband, not so much to RPG luddite wife.
  • There's just a lot of page flipping and it feels like too much.

That's as far as I got with her in about an hour. No ability boosts, no skill selections, the only feat selection was the Ancestry Feat. We're using Hero Lab Online to build this level 1 character, so I'm not sure how much that adds or detracts from the process, but she has been primarily looking at the book itself for the process.

Liberty's Edge

My daughter was building a Gnome character and liked the animal whisperer but found it confusing when she also took the Animal Whisperer background. I am wondering why there would be two different instances of character enhancements with the same name. Anyone else feel that is awkward?


Tom Green wrote:
My daughter was building a Gnome character and liked the animal whisperer but found it confusing when she also took the Animal Whisperer background. I am wondering why there would be two different instances of character enhancements with the same name. Anyone else feel that is awkward?

Pretty sure I remember one of the devs acknowledging this. I wouldn't stress on it too much, considering the ease of changing either one of the names.

EDIT: Mark's post.


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It's crazy how people can be different cause I feel like this book should have about 50% more then it has now. More Ancestry, Backgrounds, Class and Skill Feats. Then it would be good.


Rameth wrote:
It's crazy how people can be different cause I feel like this book should have about 50% more then it has now. More Ancestry, Backgrounds, Class and Skill Feats. Then it would be good.

Eh. Only if they took about 75% of the current stuff out for permanent removal or heavy re-writing. There are a lot of traps and pure junk, and a few 'Yes, obviously' options.

And your 50% would need to match the 25% that's worth keeping, and not the junk, a prospect I find dubious, given that design direction is being over-written and contradicted as updates come out [Resonance is to control consumables: No, to control slots, consumables are fine. No free healing from overly cheap wands: free healing for everybody!].


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Voss wrote:
...given that design direction is being over-written and contradicted as updates come out [Resonance is to control consumables: No, to control slots, consumables are fine. No free healing from overly cheap wands: free healing for everybody!].

Please don't say that like's it a bad thing. The designers changed course because of player feedback.

Changing your mind when presented with new evidence is laudable, not scornworthy.


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MaxAstro wrote:
Voss wrote:
...given that design direction is being over-written and contradicted as updates come out [Resonance is to control consumables: No, to control slots, consumables are fine. No free healing from overly cheap wands: free healing for everybody!].

Please don't say that like's it a bad thing. The designers changed course because of player feedback.

Changing your mind when presented with new evidence is laudable, not scornworthy.

It depends how its done, but this isn't simply a matter of a change of mind. And debatably evidence based, it seems more like they gave into the tide of emotion, though I think that emotion was justified.

During the previews we were presented with a lot of BadWrongFun arguments for wands and out of combat healing, with little justification. What little was given was that fights were supposed to consume resources and gold, and wands were too cheap to do that.

Treat Wounds and decoupling resonance from the only point it actually had actually doubles down on free healing that doesn't consume resources, but also does it in a mechanically worse way [a terrible DC chart with poor results], a terribly gamey mechanic [level*con in healing], and a huge hit to verisimilitude- layering bandages on people for an hour doesn't make sword wounds vanish.

So it's worse in every possible way it could be, all to solve something that wasn't even a problem. And the mechanic they introduced to do it in the first place is being repurposed to solve a different non-problem. [Don't want a christmas tree effect? Hand out fewer permanent booster items that are worked into the math as necessary]

Except we know from the revised skill DC charts and talk, we're going to be getting even more mandatory booster items so that the math for skills can work out. Sigh.

They're solving every problem with more junk, rather than reducing the mess that's causing the problems in the first place. That they're also disrupting working systems by problematizing them in the first place is just icing on the cake!

Really, ALL the numbers need to be reworked, so a skilled and talented specialist can expect success, and average folks can succeed reliably, and aren't told to sit in a corner and shut up so they stop risking failure. Boosters from items, spells and whatever random effects classes give out shouldn't enter into it at all, let alone be required for success.

Grand Lodge

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This is why I keep saying that all DCs should be based on the assumption of a starting value of 14 at 1st level in the attribute, and no assumption of magic. Make that a 50/50 chance and work from there.

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