First Impression Playtest

[GM_Starson]

Alright, so I just got finished with my first Playtest PFS game (Rose Street Murders) and I wanted to get my thoughts down before I let to much leak out of my ears. Hopefully this can be helpful in the metadata gathering.

Pros

- Character building and creation: I liked the modular feel of being able to select the different feats and mix and match things to make something more like what I wanted. It felt like all the best parts of mixing Archtypes without any of the restrictions and helped make my character feel more custom. I can only imagine this part getting better with more options.

- Raise Shield: Oh holy cow was I ever wrong about this system. I thought it was silly and boring when I first heard about it, but having played a martial character now, being able to raise and lower your shield and interpose it adds so many new dimensions to being a martial fighter. Do I raise my shield for more defense? Do I sac my defense for increased mobility or extra attacks? If I have raised it do I risk reducing damage and possibly breaking my shield? Since it takes up my reaction, is it more important for me to use it to stay alive or keep it available for my other abilities? I loved this far more than I thought it would and it kept me engaged in every round of combat.

- 4 part range of success: Rolling attacks and getting crits on 16+ against mooks and then having the big bad only be critable on the nat 20 really sold how much stronger than the mooks he was, and made me feel awesome when I chewed through low level mooks to get to him. But it also made skill checks and saves much more tense and interesting, because having that 18-19 come up wasn't just "Oh, well, it's not a crit but I probably succeeded" but instead "Oh man, how tough was that? Maybe I even crit!" The same thing happened for failures. 1 and 2 and such wasn't just "Oh, crud, failed" but turned into "OH man! let me check my stats, maybe I won't critically fail!"

- Mundane Skill Usage: I love battlefield medic and quick repair and all the other skill feats that made making mundane skill checks seem important and interesting.

Cons-

-Ancestral Feats: These are good in concept, but feel weak and like they don't fit very well. They should be flavored in a way that it makes sense that someone picks them up later in life, not something that they just "Suddenly" realized about their body. Prime example is goblins. I can start with razor teeth, and then at a later level suddenly I'm resistant to fire? Because of my "History with fire"? This is more than a flavor complaint than anything. (Also, small complaint about razor teeth, as written they do non-leathal damage. Which is just kinda silly.)

- Out of combat healing: I know we're trying to get away from wand spam with the resonance system, but in particular for pathfinder society we often get randomly paired with folks and certain roles, like healer, are just absent. While it shouldn't be as crazy as wand spam, there should be a way, even if it's based on a skill, for folks to heal up without taking a week off to heal. Perhaps a version of the battle medic feat that's open to everyone as a untrained skill that's not as powerful?

- Secret rolls: From a meta standpoint, these make sense and are good for Roleplaying. From a in game stance? It stinks that the GM did all the dice rolling for the first 20 minutes of the game, and there where large chunks where the GM did all the dice rolling and we didn't get to do anything. Yes, it solves the meta problem, but it's just kinda boring not getting to roll things. I think at least stealth should not be hidden, cause you generally know when you've screwed up stealthing.

That's all I can think of for now. I'll make some more gathering posts as I get more chances to play.

[andyrhi]

What bothers me the most about the proposed rules is that I get the feeling that PCs, while supposed to be heroes out to save the world, are just a bunch of high school kids thrust into the chaos around them.
1. I usually play rogue characters. My current favorite is an unchained Swashbuckler/Scout. Rogues in the current system get many skills and can raise each of them every level. In the playtest, rogues get many skills but only get to spend their skill points at first level. True, they get their level add, but in Pathfinder 1, the character gets +3 to his class skills to begin with. Thus, only upon reaching Legendary status at 15th level does a rogue get 1 skill at the level he would have had much earlier for many skills. Furthermore, Skill Focus is gone, which exacerbates this discrepancy. What's the point of having a skill-oriented character if his skills are dramatically restrained?
2. According to the rules on recovery, my characters recovery from near death is based on who put him in that situation rather than on his own ability to handle damage (ie. CON). This makes no sense to me. Suppose some powerful monster knocks me down to 2HP and then a punky associate who couldn't normally lay a hand on my character rolls a 20 and brings him to 0. According to the rule, my recovery is based on the punky NPC's Class DC. But if the exact same thing happens, but in reverse order (my PC is brought to 0 by the powerful monster)even if it is exactly to 0, I have to roll vs. the powerful monster's DC.
3. The skill feats are horribly limited in what they do. For instance, Awareness only gives you Expert Perception. Since a Rogue starts at that level, it is totally useless to him. Indeed, the entire concept of Perception seems to me to be screwed up. Going back to my Rogue, his starting Expert Perception implies that, as a class, Rogues tend to be perceptive. Why, then, is there no way for him to raise his Perception? According to the Index, Perception is discussed on pages 17 and 301-303. One has to read each class to discover that advancing a PC's perception is a class characteristic. So what is the rationale for giving a Fighter automatic advancement for Perception and denying any advancement to the Rogue, even though they both start with Expert Perception?
Rogues traditionally have been extremely varied in the way they specialize in their skills. The skill feats, however, place dramatic limitations on what a Rogue can do with his skills.
4. Because Rogues generally did not have a lot of HP, in Pathfinder 1 they got Evasion at 2nd level and could get Improved Evasion at 10th level. In Playtest, he must wait till 7th level to get Evasion and 13th level to get Improved Evasion.
5. The Squeeze rule is ridiculous. Why would it take 10 rounds to go through 5'? Even Quick Squeeze only reduces this to 5'/round. Imagine how restrictive a space must be if it takes 10 rounds to move 5'. Can a PC even wield a weapon or cast a spell in such a situation? An entire party could be wiped out by a swarm of rats nibbling them to death!
6. It is clear that I think that the playtest dramatically weakens the Rogue, and I have heard from other members of the group that spellcasters also suffer. I randomly checked some monsters from the new bestiary: a 1st level, 5th level and 10th level. I found that in each case, the monster had more hit points, a better (or at least the same in one instance) attack and did more damage than the 1st edition version of the monster. Clearly, there has been a radical shift in the danger level of adventuring.
Beanpole

[andyrhi]

I need to make a correction. Apparently the Perception advancement for the Rogue is in the Evasion progression.
I also would add that the Rogue's Sneak Attack ability has been cut in half.
As to the Character Sheets, I have the following comments.
1. The TEML presentation is too bulky and causes the format to be landscape. My suggestion is to use simple boxes with a heading at the top of the column with TE over ML. If the skills then were placed in a single column instead of two, the format could easily be changed to portrait.
2. There is no place to show ones armor. A line should be just below Armor Class so that the type of armor worn can be input.
3. Move the Weapon and Armor Proficiencies one above the other below Ability Scores, which should be rearranged so that STR, DEX & CON are in one column and INT, WIS & CHA are in another.
4. Reformatting the TEML as above for the Melee & Ranged Strikes sections would enable them to be placed below the Skills section. Even so, the lines on which the weapon descriptions go are too small. How does one fit +1 expert rapier on the tiny line provided? Not to mention any other characteristic the weapon may have. The same can be said for the Traits line.