| glass |
Hi all,
My group finally managed get started on Doomsday Dawn on Thursday evening, which was my first opportunity to play (after the table to Rose Street Revenge I was signed up for at Shadowcon the previous weekend failed to fire). Based on making two characters, and playing one of them for one session, these are my initial thoughts:
The player of the Alchemist (who is new-ish to RPGs) found it rather confusing. Once I had time to sit down after the session and read through it in detail, I figured our how it was supposed to work (with one exception*) but it did take quite a lot of page flipping. Having figured it out, the class does still seem rather weak (even with the latest errata), but there is already a thread about that in Classes so I will post my specific suggestions over there.
There were a couple of things that none of use could figure out. The Arcana skill can be used to identify magic items (as we later realised can the other knowledgesque skills), but it refers you to table 4-2 which is only for identifying spells. Do you use the same DC for identiying items (in which case the tables should be renamed, and should gain some notes on how rarity factors into the DC - actually, it should probably have that anyway).
Feats seem to be of highly variable utility. My preference is for feats to be big chunky things, so that each feat pick really feels like something really worthwhile, and some of the feats rise to that standard, while others are considerably less impressive. I think that the class and archetype dedication feats are about right (although to be fair being only first level I have not had a chance to play with them yet). If the other feats were brought up to that standard, that would have the added advantage that the dedication requirements could be removed or at least reduced.
On that note, why are the dedication feats level 2? Would it really break anything to people multiclass or take archetypes from first level?
The other thing that confused us was putting out Alchemist's Fire. By default, it is a DC 20 flat check, which is brutal. The rules imply that you can take actions to reduce that, but nowhere could we find what those actions actually are or how they work. The monster failing to roll a natural 20 round after round and gradually burning to death was kinda OK, had it been a PC that was on fire it would have been considerebly less so...
The exploration mode strategies were a bit vague on what they were supposed to do, and were generally a bit underwhelming. We already knew that Sneaking allows you to use Stealth for initiative, but AFAICT that is actually the only way to use anything other than Perception.
Overall, my platest experience so far matches my initial impression on reading the rules. The principle are generally good, but the specific execution needs some work. I must have thought, "that really clever, I just wish..." about two dozen times.
This post has turned out rather negative, but just to be clear I am still largely positive about PF2. It is already a pretty good game, and it has the potential to be great!
_
glass.
| DerNils |
I think the actions to bring down the flat check are left intentionally ambiguous to cover a lot of different stuff. But I agree that clarification is needed what happens if you use one yourself you someone else, or even multiple people/actions. Right now even your whole group helping you the whole turn just changes the flat check from 20 to 15.
I will shut up here on exploration mode as we have multiple threads on it already.
| Nicodranas |
The other thing that confused us was putting out Alchemist's fire. By default, it is a DC 20 flat check, which is brutal. The rules imply that you can take actions to reduce that, but nowhere could we find what those actions actually are or how they work. The monster failing to roll a natural 20 round after round and gradually burning to death was kinda OK, had it been a PC that was on fire it would have been considerebly less so...
Each time you spend an interact action to try to end the effect, you can try a new flat check, if, therefore, you spend 3 actions of your turn trying to end the fire effect you get to have a total of 4 saves, 3 because you spent your action and a last one as per normal at the end of your turn.
| glass |
Each time you spend an interact action to try to end the effect, you can try a new flat check, if, therefore, you spend 3 actions of your turn trying to end the fire effect you get to have a total of 4 saves, 3 because you spent your action and a last one as per normal at the end of your turn.
Page 323 says that you "usually" get an extra chance for each action you spend, and that the DC is reduced to 15. It mentions dowsing a flame, but does not as far as I can see specify that that is an interact action. It also says "sucessfully" doings so, but says nothing about how you determine if you have sucessfully dowsed the flame (and Ctrl-F-ing "dowse" tells us nothing except that standing in the rain will probably help).
If we are to assume that dowsing a flame is one of the usual cases, where you do get the extra check, what are the unusual cases that don't?
_
glass.