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Right now, I anticipate it being as PF1 in "oh, no one went completely out of their bailiwick to learn Nature? Okay, we have no idea about anything that's going on, so let's go back to plan A: break down the front door".Your opinion is perfectly valid, but I want to stress that this exact scenario is not only acceptable to me, but is *crucial*.
I strongly believe groups with different compositions and skillsets should solve problems differently. It is antithetical to my enjoyment of the game if every group is assumed to, for example, be adept in wilderness lore and every scenario assumes not only that competence but success at the relevent roll.
I would be if the same school of thought.
I really hope we don’t end up so that being an adventurer means never having to say Sorry.....
I also agree to this.
A team of 4 fighters will have different solutions than a party of 4 wizards. Heck two different teams of wizards will probably come up with different solutions.
PF to me(And table top in general) is a game of Solutions. Can you figure out how to solve the problem with what you have?
Any time you are expected to have the guaranteed only one Answer(Like you need Skill level X, spell Y, or item Z) feels cheap, gate keeping, and constrains character builds.
The fighter breaking down the door, the rogue picking the lock, the wizard casting a spell to move the door, or the bard charming a guard should all be viable solutions to the problem. Even if it's someone else suggesting it or even the Rogue charming, the bard casting, the Fighter charming, or the Wizard just summoning something to break the door down.
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'vocal people being silent'
For myself, I've been silent because there hasn't been anything to say really. Some good changes but with the entire playtest being JUST wildly experimental systems and not any real indication of the final product, it's hard to get excited.
1- Proficiency rework: Glad to see someone can be bad at something again.
2- Resonance: I'll happily do a jig on it's grave. Now if we can just dig 2 more shallow graves for bulk and rarity I might think about buying the new game when it comes out.
3- GM Resources: I'll have to see it. It sounds like something I'd want to playtest...
4- Chapter 1 Rework: *shrug* don't really care. I'd not buying the book or not based on this.
5- Add more flavor: Personally I'd rather have the bare minimum 'fluff' added. I'd like to see the base book as 'neutral' as possible to fit the largest number of groups without having to 'reflavor'.
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1 - Jason said that there will be more ways of getting decent at most things at higher levels.: sounds good.
2 - High proficiency will not be required to be level-appropriate. High proficiency will make you above the curve, eventually really above the curve.: also sounds good
3 - Magic is going to be buffed across the board.: I hope so when even prestidigitation was nerfed... :P
4 - By the way he said that, it doesn't seem like damage is going to be separated from potency, but it is going to matter a lot less than it currently does. Character skill will matter more.: I'll have to see... I'd rather see magic weapons = a bucket of extra dice to roll go the way of the dodo.
5 - Assurance is going to be reworked, but it is not going to become just a take 10 mechanic.: BOOOOO... To clarify, I'm happy to see it reworked but very dissatisfied that that rework isn't a take ten type mechanic.
6 - There will be more guidelines in the GM part about when asking for a check is unnecessary and about checks in which failure doesn't mean complete failure, just taking longer or having some kind of complication.: I'd rather the game just have checks that don't need rolled and/or partial failure baked in and a section for rule 0/houserules/ect if you want to ignore. "Guidelines" will lead to great variety on which rolls are actually checked for and how they are adjudicated based on the personal feelings of the DM and not the actual rules making it 'based on table variation'. As a person that sees a lot of different DM's I'd rather limit 'table variations' to a minimum so I know what I'm walking into without needing a 10 page checklist beforehand.
Overall: It all leaves me with the thought 'interesting... sounds like we should playtest... :P
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The holy & unholy symbols of all the major gods is something most peasants would know, and definitely player characters.
The fact that you have to destroy a lich's phylactery to kill it permanently is something most players know. Not something most people or player characters know.
People get that really confused.
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They're potentially good changes, but the devil is in the details. I wasn't going to write off PF2 until seeing the final version (despite the playtest looking inferior to many other games to me), likewise I'm not going to say this makes it a serious choice of game system for the people I know without seeing the final version.
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Right now, I anticipate it being as PF1 in "oh, no one went completely out of their bailiwick to learn Nature? Okay, we have no idea about anything that's going on, so let's go back to plan A: break down the front door".Your opinion is perfectly valid, but I want to stress that this exact scenario is not only acceptable to me, but is *crucial*.
I strongly believe groups with different compositions and skillsets should solve problems differently. It is antithetical to my enjoyment of the game if every group is assumed to, for example, be adept in wilderness lore and every scenario assumes not only that competence but success at the relevent roll.
That's great...up until a large portion of options are gated off by the entire party needing to be able to make a particular skill. Stealth is out, Bluff may or may not be out depending on the situation, and Acrobatics/Athletics is generally out.
It's basically either everyone accepts the skill tax, or you're left with very few options (or use magic to solve everything, as in PF1).
Skills don't lose their usefulness just because everyone hasn't invested in them.
Let's say you are trying to infiltrate a party to get information. Some characters might sneak in. Others may bluff their way in. Others may need a distraction to climb the fence. Perhaps the caster has a spell for this situation? Maybe a character could use Diplomacy before the party to get an invitation? Someone could lure a guard out, knock him out, and steal his uniform.
Regardless, everyone doesn't have to follow the same plan.
I find it much more interesting to ask each party member how they plan to solve a given problem rather than have the whole group try the same thing.
As for climbing a cliff, the DC for climbing a knotted rope is pretty low, so all you really need is one guy who can climb a cliff and set a rope for everyone else to climb. Anyone who is THAT bad a climbing...
One thing I do have to say is really nice is the fact that presumably, Fighters will still start trained in Athletics/Intimidation. This, by default, stops the problem of Fighters not being able to jump terribly far, might get stuck at the bottom of a cliff, and can't swim to save their life.
Now, that might not save the rogue, but if they don't invest any of their 10+ trained skills in "not dying in a puddle", then that's kind of their fault at that point.
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Though I have severe misgivings from multiple angles about the playtest solution I don’t pretend there is a not a debate to be had about skills.
There is an inherent problem that every character class is designed to be able to make a reasonably satisfying contribution to combat but if the encounter is based on skills there are times a PC is so much baggage.
Yes: in a ruck the less skilled fighter is generally more effective than a skill monkey but both get to do stuff.
Of course there are fights where a certain class ends up making a minimal contribution (bards/enchanters vs undead or constructs) but rarely to the extent that a character with only physical based skills feels surplus to requirements in a social encounter or a ‘face’ character feels when presented with a rope climbing race.
Add in the possibility of crit failures it all gets rather fraught.
But....
Not getting to make a personal impact in every single encounter is not a problem that warrants making the challenges of the non adventuring world laughable to PCs with a few lvls under their belts.
I hope the finished product can square the circle and do so better than the other options out there particularly compared to PF1.
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You're right I received a few of those myself from a couple of the ones who we haven't seen in a while :P. Perhaps there's something else going on.
I know I got warned that any further moderation of my posts would result in a permaban. Which to my knowledge followed 6 months of zero posts of mine being moderated before 1 post was deleted. It certainly had a chilling effect for me, but then I went screw it and just posted what I want to and let Paizo ban me if they so chose.
My absence has largely been to moving on as a result of the developers themselves telling me directly that they thought PF2e would not be to my taste or to my group's taste.
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You're right I received a few of those myself from a couple of the ones who we haven't seen in a while :P. Perhaps there's something else going on.I know I got warned that any further moderation of my posts would result in a permaban. Which to my knowledge followed 6 months of zero posts of mine being moderated before 1 post was deleted. It certainly had a chilling effect for me, but then I went screw it and just posted what I want to and let Paizo ban me if they so chose.
My absence has largely been to moving on as a result of the developers themselves telling me directly that they thought PF2e would not be to my taste or to my group's taste.
Now, now. Just *one* permaban warning isn't exactly what I would call bragging rights around here.
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Right now, I anticipate it being as PF1 in "oh, no one went completely out of their bailiwick to learn Nature? Okay, we have no idea about anything that's going on, so let's go back to plan A: break down the front door".Your opinion is perfectly valid, but I want to stress that this exact scenario is not only acceptable to me, but is *crucial*.
I strongly believe groups with different compositions and skillsets should solve problems differently. It is antithetical to my enjoyment of the game if every group is assumed to, for example, be adept in wilderness lore and every scenario assumes not only that competence but success at the relevent roll.
That's great...up until a large portion of options are gated off by the entire party needing to be able to make a particular skill. Stealth is out, Bluff may or may not be out depending on the situation, and Acrobatics/Athletics is generally out.
It's basically either everyone accepts the skill tax, or you're left with very few options (or use magic to solve everything, as in PF1).
Full party success is mathematically unlikely with the tight math even assuming everyone is proficient. You have about a 6% chance of succeeding if everyone needs to roll above a 10. In order to get that up to 25% everyone needs to be able to succeed on a 6. Relaxing the tight math will help somewhat, but it wouldn't be enough without making solo stealth really easy. In PF1 you could work with the distance modifiers and have some of the party stay back a bit to even out the odds somewhat, but encounter mode doesn't address such strategies well enough to reproduce that effect.
Taking the best of all rolls and applying the individual's modifiers is a bit of a problem since that equates to a really high success rate. So, using the best modified roll of the group with a negative modifier for the size of the group is probably going to produce the cleanest results. It wouldn't punish the group for people without a bonus that much, while still rewarding the group for having multiple people good at sneaking. I'd be in favor of applying that as a universal rule on how exploration mode works honestly.
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While I love the updates and look forward to most of this, I cannot say this isn't concerning.
We have had months of dev posts warning us of the dire consequences of removing lv to untrained, of how the unified system allowed for more elegant design, and of how they'd have to make some pretty big edits if that went through, and now it went through.
While I understand P2 (Path2? SecondFinder? AP&F?) needs to be liked, I hope this doesn't result in a decrease in functionality.
As one of those testers who were hoping in a decrease of things like Powerful Snares or similar (aka the "you finally can use your stuff that didn't have level scaling" feats), I would be really disappointed if we got more of them instead, especially if they become much more relevant and required.
ps. Thanks for gutting item bonuses at least :)
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Y'all are really pessimistic over changes you guys asked for huhActually a lot of the people who are pessimistic over the changes in this thread are the people who have been positive about the playtest generally. Me included. Strangely a good portion of the people who were asking for the changes and have finally got them are silent.
It’s no secret I’ve been one of the less satisfied with the playtest, I actually really enjoy the changes listed my big concern is how much it will change and how much work it will take,the Paizo staff are people as well regardless of how I feel about the final game I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being concerned.
I also think there’s plenty of shots fired on both sides it’s the nature of debate however I severely doubt the forums were a dealbreaker I highly doubt Paizo would of bothered with surveys if they were just gonna go use whatever the forums listed instead.
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Yeah, this was never clear before the playtest started, and it wasn't really until rather late in the game (like less than a month ago) that I saw any statement clearly pointing out that the playtest is not PF2 Beta and was never meant to be. I know my entire group assumed that it was, and were therefore very dismayed to see such...https://imgur.com/XCtPPeJ
This was page four of the playtest book. The book that also said playtest on the front.
I know that when I got my hands on a copy, I stood up in front of my group before we played and explained that this wasn't going to be a normal game of Pathfinder, that it was a playtest. The rules weren't going to look anything like this when it released, so it was important to note things they liked and didn't like.
I don't understand how this wasn't clear.
I think we may have dramatically different views on play tests and alpha and beta play test definitions.
MDC
Agreed. That is in no way clear. "Playtest" != "Experimentation". When I hear "playtest", I'm expecting a version of the system they intend to release to test. If you're doing any kind of QA, that is what you're doing. You don't test stuff you don't plan to release, go back in the lab and change everything, then release with no testing. That is in no way how professional testing works.
This was actually R&D. Which is fine, except they didn't spell that out and that's how people got the impression that we were playing PF2 when PF2 may not look anything like this.
Of course, Paizo seems to have a habit of using words outside of their actual meaning. See "inflammable" for "fire resistant" (when it actually means the opposite of that) and "bolstered" for other examples.
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Agreed. That is in no way clear. "Playtest" != "Experimentation". When I hear "playtest", I'm expecting a version of the system they intend to release to test. If you're doing any kind of QA, that is what you're doing. You don't test stuff you don't plan to release, go back in the lab and change everything, then release with no testing. That is in no way how professional testing works.
This was actually R&D. Which is fine, except they didn't spell that out and that's how people got the impression that we were playing PF2 when PF2 may not look anything like this.
Of course, Paizo seems to have a habit of using words outside of their actual meaning. See "inflammable" for "fire resistant" (when it actually means the opposite of that) and "bolstered" for other examples.
That's not really fair. It sounds like you're searching for reasons to complain. This is the Open playtest. They will still be testing it internally and with focus groups, but they won't be investing in the extra work it takes to share that testing with the entire world.
That's completely fair and reasonable on their part as well as professional. We've been lucky to have had so much interaction with them, so much exposure to where their minds are at this stage, and especially fortunate to have had the opportunity to contribute so much through this forum. Paizo has gone out of their way to put PF2 content in our hands, so much so that I'm able to run a (so far) really fun PF2 campaign with my friends.
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I am a little disappointed by the extreme disappointment on the simple mention of people by default not getting their level added to untrained skills. I say that I'm disappointed for a couple reasons. One, it is most likely super simple to house rule it back in relatively easily. All you might have to decide is if you start with -4 or -2 or 0 and have them add their level. Viola. Simple rule that they could even provide a recommendation for to help people who liked it the old way keep a certain regularity between tables.
The other, potentially more important bit. This sounded like a little teaser to let people what they have been working on, and skills was something that there was a lot of talking about, so it doesn't surprise me they were looking at it.
So here is the thing, most who were for the +1/level for everyone were for it to help adventures have situations where group members make rolls that can be challenging for people of their level, but won't leave a segment of the party behind because they either have absolutely no chance or negligible chance of succeeding. We have no reason to believe that they haven't already baked in a relatively simple solution for things like this. It was already mentioned that having someone skilled aid someone else, allow them the option of rather than the static circumstantial bonus, instead allow them to add their level to the check. Suddenly the skilled member is helping the less skilled ones through the situation, and the skilled member feels even more useful, and the less skilled individual isn't randomly seeming more useful than the expert. So I think most of those against +1 per level wouldn't be against that sort of solution, while those for it for adventure design can better estimate likely abilities.
As someone pointed out, ideally well designed published adventures should not presume that there is only one skill to overcome potential challenges, nor should they presume that the party succeeds at it, to be able to proceed. If necessary, and adventure that has a key item that has a significant cost to failure, that could potentially have a (reserve) DC and description for a party that doesn't have any appropriate skill. Some might not like that, but on the other hand, stories in books, those things the protagonists run across do tend to be something that someone in the band can always seem to have a way to overcome. That is plot design, and it good for stories. Doesn't have to be railroad-like, just fun story. Alternate options include running across an appropriate single-use magic item that can help someone overcome such an obstacle if the party isn't otherwise prepared for it.
In addition to the Aid other method, it wouldn't be hard to allow untrained rolls be made as usual, save that if a critical failure is rolled, allow them to add their level and recheck. If it is no longer a critical failure, it results in a failure, not a critical failure. This means high level, untrained individuals will tend to fail at things, but it would remain rather rare that they would get critical failures. This is a simple solution. Apply it as a house rule, assume they haven't already inserted something like it in the new rules.
Using a skill as a defensive roll. Simple enough, define something as a Defense role, and specify that any Defense rolls always include their level in the roll. (or have Attribute defense rolls) that can be used in place of a skill roll for defense rolls.
Anyway, lets have some confidence that since adventure design seemed to an important goal for Second edition, that they have things in place where they aren't going to feel like they are giving up on the goal of being able to design better new high level adventures.
In any case, most of the information seems like things are being generally improved. The doubling of rank increases was a little surprising, and momentarily made me worry we were getting back to the misconception that the Number was supposed to be the comparative number on how skilled rather than rank, but I reminded myself to have confidence that they have thought the numbers through. Gotta take my own medicine there. I like the idea of a person's own skill in the end having more of an impact than an item though, so that kind of made sense then.
Weapon potency, sounds like they are likely to be coming out with something I'd like, although it was only vaguely mentioned. I honestly hated all the talk about magic items needing to be neutered, so people could be good. I agree people shouldn't NEED to have a magic item to be effective, but magic should be able to make someone better. [unless it doesn't exist in said setting] But obviously that is my personal preference and playstyle. I hope what they have done will be flexible enough that they can find a solution they would be happy with as well, even if it involves a (hopefully) simple house rule.
Interesting thought about the talk about critical failures. What if when making attacks with MAPenalties, if it indicates a Critical Failure, if they re-add the MAP and if it is no longer a critical failure it becomes a simple failure. This way each additional attack can still produce critical failures, but not more often than the first attack.
It sounds like they are taking in feedback, so I think that even if it isn't exactly how I'd have thought, it seems like they are being thoughtful and responsive. I look forward to hearing more of what they have in store for the game.
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Among other things, I hope the Quiet Allies feat lets nearby allies act as trained in Stealth.
I hope it also allows you to spend an action to let an ally you can see roll a Stealth check with your proficiency modifier. The party rogue can then peak down the hallway, motioning for allies to cross when it's safest. I think the group checks problem is mostly a Stealth problem, and surely that can be solved more directly.
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I don't think the continued discussion about who is or isn't toxic or whether Paizo is censoring people with permanent bans and all that nonsense is particularly helpful. We can talk about the changes themselves without calling into question the moral character of people with different preferences.
For me, I wasn't solidly in either "camp." I like having tighter math and it's a big reason I ended up swapping from PF1 to D&D 5e, bounded accuracy is a lot more fun and results in a lot fewer ridiculous "no, you can't do that" scenarios where a character couldn't do a common sense thing because their skill modifier was too low. +1/level sort of does this while allowing higher level characters to just style on lower level threats.
But it did lead to weird issues, including my shitposting about high level dwarven barbarians with an 8 in CHA being better at drawing a crowd with their singing than specialized but lower level bards. It was a weird quirk with the system, where skills that weren't something that most adventurers would plausibly want to know the basics of as part of going out and doing dangerous things. It's easy to accept that most adventuring wizards are actually decently fit and might pull off a backflip even if the situation calls for it, that barbarians might know some basics about magic and stealth because their lives very often depend on it. It's harder to accept that most adventurers would know anything about playing the bagpipes unless they cast magic through their bagpipes.
My dissatisfaction isn't that +1/level got changed, because I think it did need changing. My issue is that, at least based on what we currently know, the change was to like the worst possible solution that I think most folk, even those who were critical of +1/level, had kind of written off as not ideal.
If there's more to this change that de facto makes it so it's still basically +1/level or bounded accuracy, I'm fine with it. My idea of a good fix is one that still generally has all characters getting +1/level but does more to justify that happening I myself have suggested things where +0 for untrained is the norm, but where adventuring or socializing with someone who is trained in that skill bumps you up to level-4 as a result of sheer osmosis, of just watching someone who knows what they're doing do their thing and listening to them casually explain what they're doing. My idea of a good fix is one that still generally has all characters getting +1/level but does more to justify that happening.
Elsewhere in this thread, people are suggesting something like a feat that does the same, or certain actions that allow a trained party member to "lead" the group so that group checks aren't hell. I'm fine with a party doing absolutely nothing to invest in a skill not having that skill as a particularly valid option when addressing extreme situations, but I'm less fine with characters being unable to do things outside of their specialization since over-specialization was such a massive and unfun issue in PF1.
I think core to the issue is that, so long we're defining skills primarily as a % chance to succeed rather than the playtest's idea of defining skills by access to supernatural feats, that there's three fundamentally incompatible goals. If you want tight math, if you want characters to naturally outscale lower level challenges so that they feel like superheroes and demigods, and if you want characters to not scale things they're bad at, you're going to have to compromise on one of those three things.
5e has tight math and the ability to be bad at something and not just automatically get better, but goblins will always be a threat in sufficient numbers. The PF2 playtest so far has tight math and the ability to style on gobbos without them even standing a chance, but it means that some characters will get weirdly good at things they should be bad at. PF1 let us style on low level monsters with no issue and it was very possible to have a +0 to some rolls, but some people damn near have PhD's writing theses on how this breaks the math of the system and leads to extreme scenarios where people auto-succeed or auto-fail and shouldn't even try.
I feel like I agree with Edge that % chance to succeed is maybe not the best way to be defining how skilled a character is and that skill feats granting more spell-like capabilities would do more to establish a legendary character as truly exceptional at something than a 95% chance at success for level-appropriate challenges, and I think if skill feats were made to be more impactful then in combination with a +1/level system that justifies giving that bonus to characters I think most folk would actually be OK with that.
Yeah, being in the presence of an expert assassin might give you enough of a pointer to understand the basics of stealth, but the expert assassin has a feat that makes it so they can always count as sneaking no matter what they're doing so that assassin is still way better than you at stealth. They just can be way better than you at stealth without you having to have a 0% chance at success for them to feel like they're appreciably better.
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(plus more more crits are always great, and the second and third attacks really do appreciate the leg up from the added accuracy)
Isn't the idea that third attacks are supposed to suck, like a lot? If they don't suck, then we risk going back to full attacks being a thing, where moving means giving up a pretty significant chunk of damage. I'm OK with moving not always being the best option if it means that the best option is to instead use more interesting abilities that work around MAP, or using non-attack options to mix stuff up, but if doing 3 vanilla strikes is effective I'm worried things are gonna get dull again.
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Agreed. That is in no way clear. "Playtest" != "Experimentation". When I hear "playtest", I'm expecting a version of the system they intend to release to test. If you're doing any kind of QA, that is what you're doing. You don't test stuff you don't plan to release, go back in the lab and change everything, then release with no testing. That is in no way how professional testing works.
This was actually R&D. Which is fine, except they didn't spell that out and that's how people got the impression that we were playing PF2 when PF2 may not look anything like this.
Of course, Paizo seems to have a habit of using words outside of their actual meaning. See "inflammable" for "fire resistant" (when it actually means the opposite of that) and "bolstered" for other examples.
That's not really fair. It sounds like you're searching for reasons to complain. This is the Open playtest. They will still be testing it internally and with focus groups, but they won't be investing in the extra work it takes to share that testing with the entire world.
That's completely fair and reasonable on their part as well as professional. We've been lucky to have had so much interaction with them, so much exposure to where their minds are at this stage, and especially fortunate to have had the opportunity to contribute so much through this forum. Paizo has gone out of their way to put PF2 content in our hands, so much so that I'm able to run a (so far) really fun PF2 campaign with my friends.
No, I don't have any problem with what they wanted to test. Rather, my issue is simply this idea some people on the forum have that everyone was supposed to know that's what they were doing and that it's effectively player error for thinking that what was being tested was PF2.
Paizo did not do a good job of communicating what the actual intent was here, and specifically that what was being tested was not PF2. People had the entirely reasonable expectation that it was, based on what was said and what was in the book. It was only here and on twitch that you could find out what the real intent was (trying stuff out to see what should go into PF2).
Having dealt with players who now have a bad impression of PF2 because of stuff from the playtest that won't even be in PF2 simply because this process was not explained very well, I take exception to the idea that it's somehow the testers fault for not knowing something that was in no way adequately explained in the rulebook. (I only know because I read it on the forums, which most people do not do.)
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2- Resonance: I'll happily do a jig on it's grave. Now if we can just dig 2 more shallow graves for bulk and rarity I might think about buying the new game when it comes out.
I can understand Resonance being a deal breaker for people since the whole magic item system was balanced around it, but is bulk and rarity really what's stopping you from buying the game? Two things that could be house ruled out in 5 minutes?
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Thinking about it now, no level to untrained skills will be great as long as most normal things will be achievable with a +0 modifier.
For example knowledge of common monsters shouldn't scale with level much, just be a constant DC 5 or 10 or 15, and as characters level if they train/specialize in identification skills they will achieve greater and greater success.
So a high level untrained barbarian can still know a high level red dragon is a red dragon, but a high level wizard will be able to say lots of its weaknesses resistances and abilities.
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I can understand Resonance being a deal breaker for people since the whole magic item system was balanced around it, but is bulk and rarity really what's stopping you from buying the game? Two things that could be house ruled out in 5 minutes?
2- Resonance: I'll happily do a jig on it's grave. Now if we can just dig 2 more shallow graves for bulk and rarity I might think about buying the new game when it comes out.
I play online with different DM all the time. When you see "house ruled out in 5 minutes", I see something that I have to have a debate over EVERY SINGLE TIME I start up a game and that's 2 houserules I want added before I even start talking to the DM about a character...
If the new game doesn't have a built in way to accurately replace every instance of bulk with actual weights and a way to murder rarity, or at least have it make sense by not trying to track both actual difficulty to find AND power, it's not the game for me. Both lead to nonsensical results that ruin my enjoyment of the game.
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Looking at these changes, I think I’ll just keep playing the 1.6 update of the rules. Before this news, I was solidly in the “I’m definitely going to buy PF2e and all of its supplements” camp; however, with the changes that skew so much toward PF1e, I see no reason to waste my money on a product that will have many of the same issues that drove me away from the first game. I wish for all characters to potentially participate in all areas of play; I wish for balance in combat; I wish for martial to be balanced with casters without reliance on magic; I wish for an easy to use system that makes balancing easy from low levels to high levels without any players being completely overshadowed. Of course, I know my wishes do not amount to everything, and as such, I will probably be opting out of Paizo’s games from now on. Maybe I’ll go back to Wizards of the Coasts’ D&D 5e or try to fit some other game in to what I want from in a game.
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The weirdest thing I've been seeing is that every change, every update, every word out from the developers makes the most knee-jerky reactions ripple across the forums.
We hear: "Here are some things we're planning to put into the game." We don't know how that interacts with the rest of the system yet, but we know it's going in.
Forum reaction: "I will now buy this game."/"I will never buy this game."
It feels so strange to be a part of a PLAYTEST with rules that are being written and we don't know about and making such sweeping statements without seeing the end product.
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I play online with different DM all the time. When you see "house ruled out in 5 minutes", I see something that I have to have a debate over EVERY SINGLE TIME I start up a game and that's 2 houserules I want added before I even start talking to the DM about a character...
Do all of your online games actually consistently and accurately track encumbrance?
If not, I don't see why it would be any different with bulk. Like I have never seen a game where everybody is doing "by the book" encumbrance at all times either online or off.
I can understand Resonance being a deal breaker for people since the whole magic item system was balanced around it, but is bulk and rarity really what's stopping you from buying the game? Two things that could be house ruled out in 5 minutes?
2- Resonance: I'll happily do a jig on it's grave. Now if we can just dig 2 more shallow graves for bulk and rarity I might think about buying the new game when it comes out.
I play online with different DM all the time. When you see "house ruled out in 5 minutes", I see something that I have to have a debate over EVERY SINGLE TIME I start up a game and that's 2 houserules I want added before I even start talking to the DM about a character...
If the new game doesn't have a built in way to accurately replace every instance of bulk with actual weights and a way to murder rarity, or at least have it make sense by not trying to track both actual difficulty to find AND power, it's not the game for me. Both lead to nonsensical results that ruin my enjoyment of the game.
I don't see a meaningful difference between Bulk and Encumbrance except the name change and the fact that anything that is of non-neglible weight that still weighs less than 1 instead weighs 0.1. It's basically the same thing as Encumbrance, and will also generally be ignored at most tables because no one in their right mind is going to track that unless they're using a VTT to automatically keep tally.
I mean, I guess the name makes things more a bit more sense, since bulk factors in more than just the raw weight in why a particular item might be difficult to lug around, but it's basically just Encumbrance with some values changed around. They might as well just get rid of the L for Light and replace it with 0.1 Bulk for clarity's sake, since that's basically what it is.
As for rarity, it codifies something that was considered a best practice in PF1 anyways, which was to restrict access to problematic spells and items. You might not be able to immediately get your hands on a katana if a katana isn't setting appropriate, you might not get access to Zone of Truth to immediately solve a murder mystery and optimize the fun out of an entire adventure, but so long the core rulebook gives the GM proper guidance on how to use rarity you should still get things that aren't going to cause issues.
I think the largest issue with rarity is how it interacts with mutagens for Alchemists right now, as they're the only example of where something build-critical is actually gated behind rarity. There are no builds that will fall apart if you don't have access to Detect Alignment at level 1, most of the uncommon spells are Divination or things like Wish. that aren't relevant to combat and are more about having a potentially problematic amount of narrative agency, that allow you to magic around interesting problems.
If you could give an example of something that's uncommon that you think you absolutely need for a character to work, it might be easier to tell whether that nervousness is warranted I personally feel that aside from mutagens and maybe some class or feat-specific things that there's nothing rarity gated that shouldn't be rarity gated.
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Do all of your online games actually consistently and accurately track encumbrance?
No, but it's a rare game were I never pick something up and don't have to figure out what I or a mount can carry. Even having to figure out bulk once in a game is enough to kill my enjoyment. I normally track my encumbrance/weight in games even if it's not brought up often so when/if it's needed I'm not screwing around with last minute calculating and/or accidently holding to much.
I don't see a meaningful difference between Bulk and Encumbrance
*shrug* And I see a HUGE difference. With bulk I have no meaningful way to estimate what bulk an item is and various ways of adding up items causes silly results, like a small 5 pound item encumbering you more than 9 large pound items or loosely held items encumbering the same as carefully stored ones. IMO, bulk is a big mess that breaks down with the least amount of scrutiny. If I want to track encumbrance, why wouldn't I want an accurate way to do so and if I don't, I don't need a made up unit to not do so... It's like it's a solution looking for a problem IMO.
As for rarity
My issue with rarity is that it tries to do everything and because of that it doesn't do anything well. It tries to simulate how hard it is to get an item [katana], while also trying to simulate how powerful or game affecting it is. For instance, teleport or detect alignment isn't hard to find but it might cause issues in the game. So this leads to a situation where you never know WHY an item has a rarity. Is it because it's from a limit area/race? Is it more powerful than other options? Is it affecting an area of the game I'm not worried about? Who knows?
I'd much rather see rarity dead and keywords replace the whole thing. If teleport spells are an issue, keyword them [teleport] and sidebar explain why they might be an issue. If a katana is hard to find, tag it with a [tian] keyword and explain that: it also makes it easier to gain access to items as you only have to look up the keywords instead of looking for every uncommon+ items and see if they mention tian.
So my problem with bulk/rarity is IMO they don't work very well and seem like they cause more issues than they fix IMO and can be dealt with much better in different ways. And they actively make the game less enjoyable for me.
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The weirdest thing I've been seeing is that every change, every update, every word out from the developers makes the most knee-jerky reactions ripple across the forums.
We hear: "Here are some things we're planning to put into the game." We don't know how that interacts with the rest of the system yet, but we know it's going in.
Forum reaction: "I will now buy this game."/"I will never buy this game."
It feels so strange to be a part of a PLAYTEST with rules that are being written and we don't know about and making such sweeping statements without seeing the end product.
It doesn't sound strange to me in the least. If you know there is something you like/dislike, you don't really need to how it interacts with the whole to know how you feel about it. If you don't like anchovies and KNOW you don't like them, you don't have to find out how they interact with the rest of the pizza to say 'I don't want a pizza with anchovies'. IMO, it'd be strange to say otherwise.
It doesn't sound strange to me in the least. If you know there is something you like/dislike, you don't really need to how it interacts with the whole to know how you feel about it. If you don't like anchovies and KNOW you don't like them, you don't have to find out how they interact with the rest of the pizza to say 'I don't want a pizza with anchovies'. IMO, it'd be strange to say otherwise.The weirdest thing I've been seeing is that every change, every update, every word out from the developers makes the most knee-jerky reactions ripple across the forums.
We hear: "Here are some things we're planning to put into the game." We don't know how that interacts with the rest of the system yet, but we know it's going in.
Forum reaction: "I will now buy this game."/"I will never buy this game."
It feels so strange to be a part of a PLAYTEST with rules that are being written and we don't know about and making such sweeping statements without seeing the end product.
This is more like saying, "I don't like eggs," and someone says, "Well, I'm baking a cake and eggs are going to be involved in that process."
This is more like saying, "I don't like eggs," and someone says, "Well, I'm baking a cake and eggs are going to be involved in that process."It doesn't sound strange to me in the least. If you know there is something you like/dislike, you don't really need to how it interacts with the whole to know how you feel about it. If you don't like anchovies and KNOW you don't like them, you don't have to find out how they interact with the rest of the pizza to say 'I don't want a pizza with anchovies'. IMO, it'd be strange to say otherwise.The weirdest thing I've been seeing is that every change, every update, every word out from the developers makes the most knee-jerky reactions ripple across the forums.
We hear: "Here are some things we're planning to put into the game." We don't know how that interacts with the rest of the system yet, but we know it's going in.
Forum reaction: "I will now buy this game."/"I will never buy this game."
It feels so strange to be a part of a PLAYTEST with rules that are being written and we don't know about and making such sweeping statements without seeing the end product.
Hence why it took me two days to say I was concerned, rather than two minutes to say I won’t buy it. Most of my update reactions are written in conditional for a reason.
Also, who doesn’t like anchovies?
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there's a special place in hell, as I strongly believe, for people who put anchovies on otherwise perfectly fine food.
*starting the big anchovies war of 2019*
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This is more like saying, "I don't like eggs," and someone says, "Well, I'm baking a cake and eggs are going to be involved in that process."It doesn't sound strange to me in the least. If you know there is something you like/dislike, you don't really need to how it interacts with the whole to know how you feel about it. If you don't like anchovies and KNOW you don't like them, you don't have to find out how they interact with the rest of the pizza to say 'I don't want a pizza with anchovies'. IMO, it'd be strange to say otherwise.The weirdest thing I've been seeing is that every change, every update, every word out from the developers makes the most knee-jerky reactions ripple across the forums.
We hear: "Here are some things we're planning to put into the game." We don't know how that interacts with the rest of the system yet, but we know it's going in.
Forum reaction: "I will now buy this game."/"I will never buy this game."
It feels so strange to be a part of a PLAYTEST with rules that are being written and we don't know about and making such sweeping statements without seeing the end product.
However you want to frame it, there are people that know their own likes/dislikes well enough that they can say if they want a particular thing. For instance, a vegan in your egg example doesn't want the cake made with eggs, no matter how well done it is. You aren't going to get anywhere telling them that they should taste the cake first before they decide.
Also, who doesn’t like anchovies?
*raises hand* Me. :P
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All analogies aside, I think it's incredibly premature (from both sides) to post incessantly about "I will now not buy this game because of X." or "Now that X is in, I will buy this game."
The big point here is that we don't know what we're going to be getting until it is released. We have a general idea of the shape of it, and can be constructive towards that. "Oh, man, not a fan of X change. Here's what I would like to see and why. Oh, look, here's some testing I've done to that shows what my group enjoyed."
Groups from either side coming in shouting, "This is the end!" or "Give them an award for the best roleplaying game!" are the least constructive elements of this playtest forum.
We talked about this earlier, and there STILL seem to be some people under the assumption that once something is spoken aloud once, it is set into stone. I remember people throwing aside the playtest because Resonance was in.
Remember that we're still in "playtest time" and until the holidays are over, we aren't going to be seeing real updates about the progress and honestly... I wouldn't say we're going to get solid information right out of the gate, either.
So join us in placing an order for your pizza, and make sure you explain why you don't need an anchovies. Just remember that you're going to have to share.
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Groups from either side coming in shouting, "This is the end!" or "Give them an award for the best roleplaying game!"
I don't think anyone believes this will be the best roleplaying game ever. personally I'm just glad that at the moment the game doesn't look as bad as it looked a week ago
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I am personally more than willing to still give it a good hard look and avoid rushing to conclusions.
As long as they don’t put pineapple on it.
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Too late for me, I went all in on PF1E (got every hardcover, planning on buying all the pawns). I will look at the end product, but unless it is a ginormous improvement on the playtest document, I'm still out. I got enough PF1E AP's to run until the third edition comes out, anyway. And I'm not putting away a few thousand euros of materials for a system I half don't like.
As for why I haven't been posting much, first off I gave up on the playtest some months ago, when Jason started locking threads en masse he didn't find agreeable to the discussion he wanted to have.
Secondly, I didn't want to deal with the harassment from a certain pro-playtest rules forum member anymore. No, not Gorbacz, who actually behaved admirably well during the time I gave up on keeping up with the playtest (not implying he hasn't done so recently, I really haven't kept up with the forum the last months).
BTW, merry christmas, Gorby! And to the rest of y'all as well!
The latest update + announced changes convinced me to check PF2e... I don't know if I'll like the final product, but I at least have some hope that it might be a good game... A few weeks ago, I saw PF2e as nothing more than a waste of paper.
Now... If they manage to make character abilities more impactful and fun, make magic in general decent, erase or completely revise exploration mode and, most importantly, fix their vile errata policy, I might actually enjoy PF2e.
I won't say I'll definitely buy the game....But I will certainly check it out and try a few games.
Errata policy?
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The only thing from the stream I kinda dislike is the change to untrained, but honestly, this was such a huge problem for so many others players that it is likely a good chang for everyone (though I kinda hope to see many affordable options to get trained in skills).
Everything else looks good (I have players who have been asking for a proficiency boost very similar to this one since the playtest began) but it is, unfortunately, impossible to judge without seeing the entire ruleset.
In the end, the final book will tell us, if we math works out though I would not mind a new Errata policy for the next edition - waiting for actual reprints is really not my preferred solution.
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For those lamenting things like "group Stealth is now impossible!" well, it never was very possible even with the +level added untrained...
In the Manticore encounter in In Pale Mountain's Shadow, there was a line that said this:
Two-thirds of the way up the mountainside to area B5, the manticore notices the PCs unless the entire party is stealthy in their exploration.
I'm not sure if this was intentional, but I read this to say that if the entire party was in Stealth encounter mode, the manticore would not see them, no check required. This is a sort of take-20 situation; over the distances typical of outdoor encounter mode play, a team that moves at half pace in order to remain hidden is more or less automatically hidden.
I like this ruling so much that I generalized it into a table rule: Anything that can possibly succeed in encounter mode is automatically successful in exploration mode, and anything that is possible to do in exploration mode is automatically successful in downtime mode. I would require that someone in the group is trained, or I'd consider the task impossible.
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6 - There will be more guidelines in the GM part about when asking for a check is unnecessary and about checks in which failure doesn't mean complete failure, just taking longer or having some kind of complication...
The playtest document seem to think a GM is empowered by a rules being replaced by recommendations. A lot of "the GM sets the difficulty" and things like this where the GM can say no roll required. In my not so humble opinion this all belongs in the "play the game" chapter, as strong recommendations. As a GM, I feel alot more empowered by having a distinct rule that i can then choose to ignore, than by having to muddle trough a "recommendation" that means nothing to me as a GM, but means the world to the player. The bardic cantrips that need Perform checks are prime examples.