Is there any info out yet how many skills made the cut?


Pathfinder Second Edition General Discussion

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I'm fine with Perception being something of a god skill, as everyone has it and it's mostly determined by your class. It gives classes that generally haven't had the most agency and gives them a bit more.

Perception being able to do what Sense Motive does also makes sense to me, as it's meant to basically be your power of observation. Someone that's aware enough to hear a pin drop is probably perceptive enough to pick up on body language, even if they lack the social finesse to act upon it by themselves.

It gives everyone at least something to do during social encounters, even if they're not the face they can at least understand what's going or even contribute a little. Everyone has some important role in combat, everyone has at least some skills or utility spells, it's really only social encounters that might well and truly see some portion of the table falling asleep because they can't do anything mechanically meaningful.


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PossibleCabbage wrote:
When we're talking "hours to make a character" are we talking about level 1 characters, or like level 7 characters?

Either. It is certainly possible to make a 1st level character in around 15 minutes if that's the goal. Just pick stuff. That's just not what I've observed happening.

Some players look ahead at prerequisites.

The inexperienced players at the table get lost in the Feat descriptions.

I tend to have a conception in mind and then struggle to figure out how best to implement it using the rules. This often involves multiclassing and what-if'ing to see which base class works out best.

Picking magic items (if the adventure starts you with some) has been a significant bottleneck. You need the book for that as Hero Lab Online can't present you a list based on item level. Then you have to really read the items because there's a lot of useless duds on the list.


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One helpful tidbit you can use to lower newbie's creation time, if you like, is this:
"It's always possible to change your skills freely later on in the game, provided you have some time off between adventures".


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Chance Wyvernspur wrote:
PossibleCabbage wrote:
When we're talking "hours to make a character" are we talking about level 1 characters, or like level 7 characters?

Either. It is certainly possible to make a 1st level character in around 15 minutes if that's the goal. Just pick stuff. That's just not what I've observed happening.

Some players look ahead at prerequisites.

The inexperienced players at the table get lost in the Feat descriptions.

I tend to have a conception in mind and then struggle to figure out how best to implement it using the rules. This often involves multiclassing and what-if'ing to see which base class works out best.

Picking magic items (if the adventure starts you with some) has been a significant bottleneck. You need the book for that as Hero Lab Online can't present you a list based on item level. Then you have to really read the items because there's a lot of useless duds on the list.

I was looking over my wife's shoulder as she created her first character, a goblin mindquake-survivor paladin, for the Pathfinder 2nd Edition Playtest, serving as a human index to the rulebook. She has played characters in over a dozen different roleplaying systems, starting with AD&D in 1979.

The Playtest Rulebook was written in a minimalist style, requiring paging through it to understand what basic abilities mean. For example, one 1st-level paladin feat, Warded Touch, was written on page 108 as:

WARDED TOUCH feat 1
Paladin
Prerequisites champion power (lay on hands)
You cast lay on hands in a simple motion without any complicated gestures. The Somatic
Spellcasting action for lay on hands loses the manipulate trait.

In order to understand Warded Touch, the beginner player would have to look up the manipulate trait. Manipulate is not in the index, traits are pages 10 and 414–419. We find the definition of manipulate on page 416.

Manipulate You must physically manipulate an item or make
gestures to use this type of action. Creatures without a suitable
appendage cannot perform actions with this trait. Manipulate
actions often trigger reactions.

That still is not a clear explanation of why losing the manipulate trait on lay on hands is worth a feat. And does losing manipulate mean that lay on hands no longer involves the cheracteristic gesture of laying hands on a person? A 1st-level feat breaks the literal name of the champion power. That is quite unclear.

As an experienced Pathfinder player, my wife realized that that meant lay on hands would not trigger attacks of opportunity. She chose Hospice Knight as her paladin's 1st-level feat instead.

The Playtest Rulebook was too poorly written for a playtest player to create a 1st-level character within 15 minutes. The player could quickly pick feats without deciphering their details, but that would mean a delay in being able to play the character. I count that delay as character creation time.

As for designing around a concept, my wife ran into obstacles when trying that for her 7th-level elf noble bard. She wanted to create a jack-of-all-trades bard who knew diplomacy and healing. Polymath muse said, "Polymath: Your muse flits about to almost every skill and pursuit," so that seemed the muse for a jack of all trades. But the polymath gains Versatile Performance that replaced three different skill checks--one in Diplomacy, one in Intimidation, and one in Deception--with Performance checks. The Diplomacy replacement was not helpful for an expert in Diplomacy and the other two did not fit the elf noble concept. Furthermore, she wanted Inspire Competence to enhance her skill dabbling with magic. That composition required Lingering Performance, given by maestro muse. To properly play her jack of all trades without wasting feats, she abandoned the muse that said it likes almost every skill and pursuit.

This did seem largely a problem with the Playtest Rulebook rather than the Pathfinder 2nd Edition Playtest rules. However, the names not fitting the abilities was innate to the rules rather than the rulebook. Laying on hands is gesturing rather than manipulating. Versatile Performance was not versatile. When the ability names mislead the players, then character creation becomes a process of searching the index to see what the names really mean.

To tie back into the original skills topic, is Thievery skill still named Thievery? Will GMs forbid paladins from disabling traps because that requires a Thievery roll? I realized too late to suggest during the playtest that Thievery could be merged with Acrobatics into a single innocently-named skill called Coordination.

One of my playtesters created a 1st-level halfing scout rogue and deliberately skipped training in Thievery to emphasize that her rogue was a scout rather than a burglar. And thus, the party ended up with no-one capable of opening locked doors.

Liberty's Edge

Malk_Content wrote:
I'll be honest I have no idea how it would take someone hours to make a character at level 1. Unless they had no idea what they wanted to play, at which point that takes a while in every system because "not knowing what I want" is a system agnostic problem. I could see it if they were concerned about certain build working out over the course of the entire game maybe, but then I had that same trouble trying to make a character in 5e working out what they would do in the future, until I realized that multiclassing doesn't work in 5e and stopped trying.

I think it might actually happen if you have not read the rulebook beforehand.

Come to think of it, I remember enjoying being able to dive into a new RPG and build a character right away while reading the creation process and then play right away and have my character be efficient at their appointed tasks.

But, truth be told, building a character without reading much of the rulebook beforehand was not really possible in 3.5 or PF1 or even the PF2 playtest, at least if you wanted to build a viable character. Too many rules and intricacies to understand and master.

I hope it will be possible in PF2 but I feel the much touted complexity and rich variety of possible builds will get into the way of such ease of access.


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The Raven Black wrote:
Malk_Content wrote:
I'll be honest I have no idea how it would take someone hours to make a character at level 1. Unless they had no idea what they wanted to play, at which point that takes a while in every system because "not knowing what I want" is a system agnostic problem. I could see it if they were concerned about certain build working out over the course of the entire game maybe, but then I had that same trouble trying to make a character in 5e working out what they would do in the future, until I realized that multiclassing doesn't work in 5e and stopped trying.

But, truth be told, building a character without reading much of the rulebook beforehand was not really possible in 3.5 or PF1 or even the PF2 playtest, at least if you wanted to build a viable character. Too many rules and intricacies to understand and master.

I starkly disagree with this. In fact 1/2 my playtest group DIDN'T read the book before making their first character. They knew what class they wanted to play, and the class table pointed them to everything else they needed and that was it. The characters we more than viable, you have to try to make an unviable character if you know what the classes "core" stat is. They didn't bother reading every single option available to them in the future, just the level 1 relevant stuff and it took less than an hour to do the mechanics bit (most of session 0 was talking about managing expectations due to the playtests special nature.)


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Malk_Content wrote:
I starkly disagree with this. In fact 1/2 my playtest group DIDN'T read the book before making their first character. They knew what class they wanted to play, and the class table pointed them to everything else they needed and that was it. The characters we more than viable, you have to try to make an unviable character if you know what the classes "core" stat is. They didn't bother reading every single option available to them in the future, just the level 1 relevant stuff and it took less than an hour to do the mechanics bit (most of session 0 was talking about managing expectations due to the playtests special nature.)

Quoted for truth. My playtest groups didn't read anything, we just created the characters on the spot. Maybe it's a matter of just not needing the character to be perfectly optimized, and/or having the gm helping you out. Although it took a group more because it was all total p&p noobsies.


Roswynn wrote:
Malk_Content wrote:
I starkly disagree with this. In fact 1/2 my playtest group DIDN'T read the book before making their first character. They knew what class they wanted to play, and the class table pointed them to everything else they needed and that was it. The characters we more than viable, you have to try to make an unviable character if you know what the classes "core" stat is. They didn't bother reading every single option available to them in the future, just the level 1 relevant stuff and it took less than an hour to do the mechanics bit (most of session 0 was talking about managing expectations due to the playtests special nature.)
Quoted for truth. My playtest groups didn't read anything, we just created the characters on the spot. Maybe it's a matter of just not needing the character to be perfectly optimized, and/or having the gm helping you out. Although it took a group more because it was all total p&p noobsies.

I think there's a mix here. I build characters to learn the rules. Just how I do.

However, if someone chooses to not read the rules (especially in a test document) and doesn't follow the prescribed char creation process, I don't think they have any business saying the process is written poorly or whatever. You chose to not follow the process and chose to not know the rules. /shrug


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Chance Wyvernspur wrote:
Bardarok wrote:
DnD 5e or even a Powered by the Apocolypse game might be better for those folks. Of course as long as everyone is still having fun that is what is important.
Hence the stress. What has been a coalition of DMs under PF1 is now uncertain where it will go. When the primary DM started looking at D&D 5e, I was very surprised. I've not played D&D 5e, so I don't know if it is a good choice. Oddly enough, I was thinking of Original D&D for a couple of sessions to see how it went.

I have a simplified 5E variant I have trotted out a few times when playing with some folks. There is no proficiency bonus just ICRPG style Hard/Easy rolls (+ or -3) and target numbers for areas.

It doesnt even use initiative. I use good ole ODnD Simultaneous Resolution. You win the initiative when you hit and the other guy misses.

Toss hordes of enemies at them with like 1 to 5 HP. Let them cast all they want with spell rolls just depower the spell if they succeed but roll low, always take into account bell curves when sussing out how much damage a spell should do and really lean in on spell misfire.

Link

Call an area a target number 11 (for example). Anything easy is 8. Anything hard is 14. Throw a bunch of 1 to 5 hp mooks at them . As they progress to the boss, the target number climbs to 14 or so. The boss has like 20 hp. He maybe has a tough buddy with 10 hp. There could be some more mooks too. Everyone does one thing. Action is fast.

I have played a few sessions with it on beer and pretzels nights. It requires the dm to juggle alot and basically be the arbiter of everything but for players that dont give a darn about noodly rules, its fun.

Other suggestions:
ICRPG (Probably your best bet, steer clear of the recent magic book though)
Shadow of the Demon Lord (its 5e, but simpler, yet somehow more tactical and grittier)
DCC (uses weird and, therefore, pricey dice, otherwise super gonzo fun)

5e is OK but the above systems are better for your crowd. With DCC, just use the Crawler app on a phone to roll the random tables and even dice.

Another possibility is 13th Age. But its kinda noodly with some rules and you end up using HEAPS of dice.


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DataLoreRPG wrote:
Another possibility is 13th Age. But its kinda noodly with some rules and you end up using HEAPS of dice.

I don't think you can really accuse a system of using heaps of dice unless you have played a high-level Exalted game. Nothing quite like the feeling of rolling 53d10 for an attack. :P


MaxAstro wrote:
DataLoreRPG wrote:
Another possibility is 13th Age. But its kinda noodly with some rules and you end up using HEAPS of dice.
I don't think you can really accuse a system of using heaps of dice unless you have played a high-level Exalted game. Nothing quite like the feeling of rolling 53d10 for an attack. :P

Nothing's ever going to top GURPS Mecha for piles of dice. But the problem that 13A has is that you will plausibly be asked to roll like 7d8 for damage, and who keeps that many d8s around? Having a bunch of d6s and d10s is reasonable, but d8s?


PossibleCabbage wrote:
MaxAstro wrote:
DataLoreRPG wrote:
Another possibility is 13th Age. But its kinda noodly with some rules and you end up using HEAPS of dice.
I don't think you can really accuse a system of using heaps of dice unless you have played a high-level Exalted game. Nothing quite like the feeling of rolling 53d10 for an attack. :P
Nothing's ever going to top GURPS Mecha for piles of dice. But the problem that 13A has is that you will plausibly be asked to roll like 7d8 for damage, and who keeps that many d8s around? Having a bunch of d6s and d10s is reasonable, but d8s?

The above games are amateurs for heaps of dice. I have 180d6 bricks worth of dice for Mythender alone. It. Is. Glorious.


Saedar wrote:
The above games are amateurs for heaps of dice. I have 180d6 bricks worth of dice for Mythender alone. It. Is. Glorious.

I just used a computer for my excursion into GURPS Mecha, it's less about "owning dice" because dice are for sale all over, and more about "how long does it take to tally 180d6?"


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PossibleCabbage wrote:
MaxAstro wrote:
DataLoreRPG wrote:
Another possibility is 13th Age. But its kinda noodly with some rules and you end up using HEAPS of dice.
I don't think you can really accuse a system of using heaps of dice unless you have played a high-level Exalted game. Nothing quite like the feeling of rolling 53d10 for an attack. :P
Nothing's ever going to top GURPS Mecha for piles of dice. But the problem that 13A has is that you will plausibly be asked to roll like 7d8 for damage, and who keeps that many d8s around? Having a bunch of d6s and d10s is reasonable, but d8s?

Actually, I stockpiled d8s at one point only because detonate is one of my favorite spells. XD


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Since we're talking about heaps of dice, I suggest you ask your Amazon Echo... "Alexa, roll 1,000 dice." ;)


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Chance Wyvernspur wrote:
Since we're talking about heaps of dice, I suggest you ask your Amazon Echo... "Alexa, roll 1,000 dice." ;)

What sort of dice is she rolling o.o she gave me 54 and 690. For 1000 dice.


MaxAstro wrote:
DataLoreRPG wrote:
Another possibility is 13th Age. But its kinda noodly with some rules and you end up using HEAPS of dice.
I don't think you can really accuse a system of using heaps of dice unless you have played a high-level Exalted game. Nothing quite like the feeling of rolling 53d10 for an attack. :P

Reminds of another simple game to recommend. Why play Exalted when you can play Godbound? Plus, the free version is almost complete!

Liberty's Edge

It can be fun to roll an awful lot of dice, but the sum of the results will always be the same, plus or minus a few units that do not matter compared to the total number.

Liberty's Edge

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The Raven Black wrote:
It can be fun to roll an awful lot of dice, but the sum of the results will always be the same, plus or minus a few units that do not matter compared to the total number.

This is only true if you're adding them all together. Many games that roll huge numbers of dice don't do that. Exalted, for example, you just count how many are 7+, with each 7+ being one success level (okay, you also count 10s, which are two successes).

The number of successes on large dice pools using that system varies pretty widely.


Ediwir wrote:
Chance Wyvernspur wrote:
Since we're talking about heaps of dice, I suggest you ask your Amazon Echo... "Alexa, roll 1,000 dice." ;)
What sort of dice is she rolling o.o she gave me 54 and 690. For 1000 dice.

Alexa sucks, in my experience.

DataLoreRPG wrote:
Reminds of another simple game to recommend. Why play Exalted when you can play Godbound? Plus, the free version is almost complete!

For the setting, to make an example. Not that it's flawless, but it has a lot of very cool and incredibly poignant stuff. In general GB is much simpler (much, much, much simpler) and with some homebrewing would be the best system hands down, but, even though I despise most of the mechanics, Ex does have its own raison d'être, without a doubt.


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Roswynn wrote:
DataLoreRPG wrote:
Reminds of another simple game to recommend. Why play Exalted when you can play Godbound? Plus, the free version is almost complete!
For the setting, to make an example. Not that it's flawless, but it has a lot of very cool and incredibly poignant stuff. In general GB is much simpler (much, much, much simpler) and with some homebrewing would be the best system hands down, but, even though I despise most of the mechanics, Ex does have its own raison d'être, without a doubt.

Yeah, this. The Exalted system is such a mess that I basically houseruled almost every single mechanic at one point or another, but the setting is so fascinating that it was worth the work. And because of how strongly Exalted ties setting and mechanics together, it's hard to port the setting to other systems.

Never underestimate how much a well-designed setting can make a system attractive. Definitely something Paizo has going for it, also. :)


MaxAstro wrote:
Roswynn wrote:
DataLoreRPG wrote:
Reminds of another simple game to recommend. Why play Exalted when you can play Godbound? Plus, the free version is almost complete!
For the setting, to make an example. Not that it's flawless, but it has a lot of very cool and incredibly poignant stuff. In general GB is much simpler (much, much, much simpler) and with some homebrewing would be the best system hands down, but, even though I despise most of the mechanics, Ex does have its own raison d'être, without a doubt.

Yeah, this. The Exalted system is such a mess that I basically houseruled almost every single mechanic at one point or another, but the setting is so fascinating that it was worth the work. And because of how strongly Exalted ties setting and mechanics together, it's hard to port the setting to other systems.

Never underestimate how much a well-designed setting can make a system attractive. Definitely something Paizo has going for it, also. :)

I always find setting material to literally be the least important material as far as what is needed to hit the table and run. But to each his own.


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MaxAstro wrote:

The Exalted system is such a mess that I basically houseruled almost every single mechanic at one point or another, but the setting is so fascinating that it was worth the work. And because of how strongly Exalted ties setting and mechanics together, it's hard to port the setting to other systems.

Never underestimate how much a well-designed setting can make a system attractive. Definitely something Paizo has going for it, also. :)

Are we talking 1st, 2nd, or 3rd edition Exalted? Because I will disagree with you vehemently about 1st. That game was well put together and required almost no tweaking to make work. Everytime I feel the jitters about a campaign I'm running, my first instinct is to throw it out and just have my players wander the 100 Kingdoms again.


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dirtypool wrote:
Are we talking 1st, 2nd, or 3rd edition Exalted? Because I will disagree with you vehemently about 1st. That game was well put together and required almost no tweaking to make work. Everytime I feel the jitters about a campaign I'm running, my first instinct is to throw it out and just have my players wander the 100 Kingdoms again.

I played 1st Edition Exalted in my younger years, but the systems I ran were 2nd and 3rd. I have a lot of fond memories of playing in that 1e game, but honestly the 2e game I ran is my favorite thing I've ever run.

Even 1st edition had its... messy points, though. I remember my ST telling us that if we ever tried to grapple anything our characters would immediately be struck down by divine retribution rather than trying to learn the grapple rules. XD


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
MaxAstro wrote:


I played 1st Edition Exalted in my younger years, but the systems I ran were 2nd and 3rd. I have a lot of fond memories of playing in that 1e game, but honestly the 2e game I ran is my favorite thing I've ever run.

I wasn't really a fan of the "tick" initiative system used in 2e and in Scion 1e. Excellencies were a little wonky, so we stuck with 1e. 3e isn't a role playing game it's a weapon. That book just is way too big for table use.

Quote:
Even 1st edition had its... messy points, though. I remember my ST telling us that if we ever tried to grapple anything our characters would immediately be struck down by divine retribution rather than trying to learn the grapple rules. XD

I do not know what your ST was talking about because the grapple rules in 1e were simple Dex+Brawl or Dex+Martial Arts opposed checks. The writeup for it isn't even complicated. It was literally one paragraph describing the rolls to initiate a grapple and then half of the next page defining what types of grapple holds you could attempt (Clinch, Hold, Sweep, Tackle or Throw) and how damage was applied. Easy peasy


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dirtypool wrote:
I wasn't really a fan of the "tick" initiative system used in 2e and in Scion 1e. Excellencies were a little wonky, so we stuck with 1e. 3e isn't a role playing game it's a weapon. That book just is way too big for table use.

3e is such a good system, though! I mean, in a lot of ways it's terrible. XD But the core concept is so good. The combat basically being lifted from Discidia is amazing, and really does a wonderful job of creating the cinematic scenes Exalted is known for while avoiding rocket tag (or at least letting you see the rocket coming).

dirtypool wrote:
I do not know what your ST was talking about because the grapple rules in 1e were simple Dex+Brawl or Dex+Martial Arts opposed checks. The writeup for it isn't even complicated. It was literally one paragraph describing the rolls to initiate a grapple and then half of the next page defining what types of grapple holds you could attempt (Clinch, Hold, Sweep, Tackle or Throw) and how damage was applied. Easy peasy

To be fair, I've never actually read the 1e grapple rules, so I don't know what it was about them my ST hated. :)

Liberty's Edge

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Gods, I loved Exalted.

I'm getting all nostalgic for the Exalted 1E game I ran in High School, now. That was a fun time.

Sadly, 1E really shows its age these days (so much more complicated than necessary, among other issues), 2E was always a mess, and 3E is both lacking in material (only two kinds of Exalted out so far) and just feels weird to me. Maybe I'll run another game of it someday anyway...


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MaxAstro wrote:
3e is such a good system, though! I mean, in a lot of ways it's terrible. XD But the core concept is so good. The combat basically being lifted from Discidia is amazing, and really does a wonderful job of creating the cinematic scenes Exalted is known for while avoiding rocket tag (or at least letting you see the rocket coming).

Don't get me wrong, I like 3E. It restored some of the 1E flavor that 2 jettisoned and turned combat back into something epic. However, I'm approaching middle age and so is every member of my game group. We've tried using digital resources, but we're all just too stuck in the old "we need a book" mindset. And given how frequently players have to consult charm writeups and spell writeups in any edition of Exalted - it is just not feasible for us to play without having multiple unwieldy 700+ page books to pass around.

The size of PF2 may be near comparable, but far less of that text is going to be necessary to constantly revisit. If OPP put out a stripped down Players Handbook, or just a collection of all the charms, or hell both - I think a group like mine would jump right in.

Silver Crusade

Deadmanwalking wrote:
The Raven Black wrote:
It can be fun to roll an awful lot of dice, but the sum of the results will always be the same, plus or minus a few units that do not matter compared to the total number.

This is only true if you're adding them all together. Many games that roll huge numbers of dice don't do that. Exalted, for example, you just count how many are 7+, with each 7+ being one success level (okay, you also count 10s, which are two successes).

The number of successes on large dice pools using that system varies pretty widely.

Uh no, not really.

Once you get into the silly numbers people are talking about (100+) you're going to get very close to the expected .5 successes per dice. If the difference between 48 and 52 matters then roll, otherwise just say 50.

Liberty's Edge

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pauljathome wrote:

Uh no, not really.

Once you get into the silly numbers people are talking about (100+) you're going to get very close to the expected .5 successes per dice. If the difference between 48 and 52 matters then roll, otherwise just say 50.

Yes, really. I mean, sure, the more dice the closer you get to the mid point, but it's a vastly lesser tendency if trying to get 7+ than if just adding all the numbers rolled.

Summing the results of 100 d10 will get you a number between 500 and 600 or so the vast majority of the time. Checking them for successes expands the likely numbers to between 37 and 63. That's a pretty huge difference in how wide the variance is.

Drop those to 50d10 (the number I was actually talking about, see below) and the numbers become 236 to 316 for summing them, and 16 to 34 for checking for successes. That's, again, a pretty big difference, and what I'm talking about here.

Also, the highest actual listed dice pool that was seriously suggested was 53, not '100', and was intended to represent the high end (most high end Exalted pools are more in the realm of 30-35 dice, for example). So you're exaggerating away from the relevance of the difference I describe.

Also, and just as importantly, in Exalted (and most other games like this I've played...Shadowrun, for example), assuming equal level opposition, the difference between 48 successes and 52 successes is, in fact, extremely high.


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Also while I do appreciate a good statistical debate over what will happen on dice rolls - I would like to point out that statistics gives you a predictive model and not a measurable outcome. The quirkiness of that little thing called chance can drastically swing any way it wants.

I once had a player in Exalted 1E with a 26d10 combo roll zero successes. It can and does happen.


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dirtypool wrote:

Also while I do appreciate a good statistical debate over what will happen on dice rolls - I would like to point out that statistics gives you a predictive model and not a measurable outcome. The quirkiness of that little thing called chance can drastically swing any way it wants.

I once had a player in Exalted 1E with a 26d10 combo roll zero successes. It can and does happen.

I think the most soul-crushing roll I've ever seen was one of my players rolling 13 0's on 18 dice... on a damage roll, the one kind of roll where 0's only count as a single success. XD


MaxAstro wrote:
dirtypool wrote:

Also while I do appreciate a good statistical debate over what will happen on dice rolls - I would like to point out that statistics gives you a predictive model and not a measurable outcome. The quirkiness of that little thing called chance can drastically swing any way it wants.

I once had a player in Exalted 1E with a 26d10 combo roll zero successes. It can and does happen.

I think the most soul-crushing roll I've ever seen was one of my players rolling 13 0's on 18 dice... on a damage roll, the one kind of roll where 0's only count as a single success. XD

Reminds me of seeing players Crit in Pathfinder, only to roll minimum damage. I've certainly seen my wife Crit with a rogue and deal a whole two damage.


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Ramanujan wrote:
Reminds me of seeing players Crit in Pathfinder, only to roll minimum damage. I've certainly seen my wife Crit with a rogue and deal a whole two damage.

When I ran Jade Regent, one of the players was a very non-combat bard. In one of the early goblin fights he ended up (in a wonderful moment of roleplay - this was a character that had never been in a fight in his life) desperately bludgeoning a goblin to death with a rock.

When he rolled a crit, we had to figure out whether negative damage gets multiplied... We decided it did, and his critical hit resolved as 2d3-4 for a whole 1 nonlethal damage. XD


Helmic wrote:
I'm dead serious when I say it took my players hours to create level 1 characters for Doomsday Dawn, while I'm consistently able to help rush out level 5 martial characters in 20 minutes or less in 5e.

20 minutes sounds really slow for a first level 5e character. Really slow.

Midnightoker wrote:
It's not a matter of lack of experience, or even a fault in the system. We take our time, we joke and catch up, we rummage for feats and concepts.

Well yeah, but there's a serious difference between it taking someone two hours to make a character and someone spending two hours making a character because they're talking over concepts and hanging out with their friends.

I've spent hours talking character ideas in a simple d6 game before. That doesn't mean simple d6 is a game that takes hours to make a character in, however.

You're basically talking two entirely different activities.


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
swoosh wrote:
Helmic wrote:
I'm dead serious when I say it took my players hours to create level 1 characters for Doomsday Dawn, while I'm consistently able to help rush out level 5 martial characters in 20 minutes or less in 5e.
20 minutes sounds really slow for a first level 5e character. Really slow.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
First World Bard wrote:
swoosh wrote:
Helmic wrote:
I'm dead serious when I say it took my players hours to create level 1 characters for Doomsday Dawn, while I'm consistently able to help rush out level 5 martial characters in 20 minutes or less in 5e.
20 minutes sounds really slow for a first level 5e character. Really slow.

Also “hours” feels even slower for a first level PF2 character.


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I feel like "hours" for a PF2 character is based on "I need to read all the options, and weigh them, and account for interdependencies" a process which if applied to PF1 would take approximately 1 month to make a character.

But just like you can make a PF1 character by "Human Fighter- point blank shot, precise shot, weapon focus, ..." and just go from there, the same thing works for PF2. I mean, there are a lot fewer feats which require other feats now.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
PossibleCabbage wrote:

I feel like "hours" for a PF2 character is based on "I need to read all the options, and weigh them, and account for interdependencies" a process which if applied to PF1 would take approximately 1 month to make a character.

But just like you can make a PF1 character by "Human Fighter- point blank shot, precise shot, weapon focus, ..." and just go from there, the same thing works for PF2. I mean, there are a lot fewer feats which require other feats now.

To add to this, even when there are 42 sourcebooks out there. When making your level 1 fighter you still only have to look at the Feats with Fighter 1, rather than every single thing ever printed, to get a handle on your options.


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PossibleCabbage wrote:
I feel like "hours" for a PF2 character is based on "I need to read all the options, and weigh them, and account for interdependencies"

IMO "hours" is because of the truly horrible setup/layout of the playtest book. Almost every entry required you to go to another entry which then required you to look at another entry... Add to that, things got all thrown together like powers and spells, making it even more of a struggle to plod through it.

PossibleCabbage wrote:
But just like you can make a PF1 character by "Human Fighter- point blank shot, precise shot, weapon focus, ..." and just go from there, the same thing works for PF2. I mean, there are a lot fewer feats which require other feats now.

You have an Ancestry feat and background to look through too along with buying equipment, armor and weapons. So it's a little more than 'grab your class feat and go'...


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
graystone wrote:
IMO "hours" is because of the truly horrible setup/layout of the playtest book.

I keep reading this complaint and I’m not sure what the issue is. Walkthrough of character creation, followed by Ancestries, followed by Backgrounds, followed by Languages, followed by Classes, followed by Skills, followed by Feats, followed by Equipment, followed by Spells is pretty linearly laid out. Unlike 1E which breaks from character creation for 58 pages to offer up Combat and Additional Rules.

Quote:
Almost every entry required you to go to another entry which then required you to look at another entry...

I don’t recall it happening that often, examples?

Quote:
You have an Ancestry feat and background to look through too along with buying equipment, armor and weapons. So it's a little more than 'grab your class feat and go'...

It is a little more than grab and go, but it’s not hours of backbreaking toil.


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dirtypool wrote:
graystone wrote:
IMO "hours" is because of the truly horrible setup/layout of the playtest book.

I keep reading this complaint and I’m not sure what the issue is. Walkthrough of character creation, followed by Ancestries, followed by Backgrounds, followed by Languages, followed by Classes, followed by Skills, followed by Feats, followed by Equipment, followed by Spells is pretty linearly laid out. Unlike 1E which breaks from character creation for 58 pages to offer up Combat and Additional Rules.

Quote:
Almost every entry required you to go to another entry which then required you to look at another entry...
I don’t recall it happening that often, examples?

I gave an example in this thread 4 weeks ago in comment #54.

For another example, look at proficiency. As of Rules Update 1.6 in the playtest, the Alchemist starting proficiencies said:

Rules Update 1.6, Alchemist, changes to page 45 wrote:

Trained in Crafting

Trained in a number of additional skills equal to 4 plus your
Intelligence modifier

The character does not have an Intelligence modifier yet, because that depends on the final ability score boosts to four ability scores. Fortunately, we can rush ahead to that step, figure out the Intelligence modifier, and then return here. We can assume that the player sees all the skills listed on the character sheet, so he or she does not need to read Chapter 4, Skills, first.

But what does Trained mean? That is summarized in the glossary on page 8, but it does not show up as a full rule until page 290 in the Chapter 9, Playing the Game, far away from the character creation chapters.

dirtypool wrote:
Quote:
You have an Ancestry feat and background to look through too along with buying equipment, armor and weapons. So it's a little more than 'grab your class feat and go'...
It is a little more than grab and go, but it’s not hours of backbreaking toil.

My playtest players discovered that the new system for starting equipment is more complicated than buying it. It gives out equipment by equipment level. By Table 11-2 on page 348, a 7th-level character starts with one 6th-level item, two 5th-level items, one 4th-level item, two 3rd-level items, and 125 gp cash. Of course, the players wanted the highest level weapons and armor that they could afford, but weapons and armor were upgraded only once every 4 levels, so they started with 6th level, saw that it had no weapons, went back to 5th level, saw that it had only a few specialized weapons, went back to 4th level and found the generic +1 magic weapons. The +1 magic armor was at 3rd level.

The Playtest Rulebook was written with a ridiculous amount of lookups and backtracking.


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dirtypool wrote:
I keep reading this complaint and I’m not sure what the issue is.

Mathmuse said it quite well. There was a large amount of keywords that were used before you knew what they meant because that section wasn't covered yet. There was all the cleric domain powers [and Bloodline Powers/druid order power/wizard school power] dumped into spells what made making an informed pick even if you knew what god you wanted. JUST making hyperlinks to power/keyword descriptions could have shaved off a 1/2 hour of digging.

dirtypool wrote:
It is a little more than grab and go, but it’s not hours of backbreaking toil.

I wasn't timing it but it was at least a very painful hour and I still wasn't confident I did everything right or that I was satisfied with my picks. Now can you just grab things randomly and get started in a few minutes? Sure you can, but if you don't care about making informed choices then you might as well just take a premade iconic...


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Well, I feel like there's a pretty big difference between "playing a premade iconic" and "just picking stuff because it sounds interesting." Like you could just pick like rock dwarf, the dwarf feat that makes you know about dwarfy stuff, and the circus performer background because you want to play a dwarf who was raised to be the clan lawspeaker, but you instead ran away to join the circus.

Ideally, whatever weird combination of first level options that sound fun to you should be more or less as good as any other combination of first level options. Since, like, people are going to take that gnome feat that lets you change your skin/hair color at will for reasons that have nothing to do with game mechanics.

Liberty's Edge

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PossibleCabbage wrote:
Since, like, people are going to take that gnome feat that lets you change your skin/hair color at will for reasons that have nothing to do with game mechanics.

That's actually a Heritage, not a Feat. This is relevant inasmuch as Heritages seem much weaker than Ancestry Feats.

I tend to agree with the general point, though. One of the big advantages of PF2 is that 'put an 18 in my main stat and go' optimization is a lot closer in power to more detailed and methodical optimization than it was in PF1.


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Deadmanwalking wrote:
PossibleCabbage wrote:
Since, like, people are going to take that gnome feat that lets you change your skin/hair color at will for reasons that have nothing to do with game mechanics.

That's actually a Heritage, not a Feat. This is relevant inasmuch as Heritages seem much weaker than Ancestry Feats.

I tend to agree with the general point, though. One of the big advantages of PF2 is that 'put an 18 in my main stat and go' optimization is a lot closer in power to more detailed and methodical optimization than it was in PF1.

From a design perspective I feel like "the choices you can't take back" should be the ones that you can't really screw up, short of "I decided I want to play an entirely different character" which there isn't a way to prevent.


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PossibleCabbage wrote:
Well, I feel like there's a pretty big difference between "playing a premade iconic" and "just picking stuff because it sounds interesting." Like you could just pick like rock dwarf, the dwarf feat that makes you know about dwarfy stuff, and the circus performer background because you want to play a dwarf who was raised to be the clan lawspeaker, but you instead ran away to join the circus.
Dungeon Novice in My Pathfiner Spoiler wrote:

# 11: Rock Dwarf Your ancestors lived and worked among the great ancient stones of the mountains or the depths of the earth. This makes you solid as a rock when you plant your feet. You gain a +2 circumstance bonus to your Fortitude or Reflex DC against attempts to Shove or Trip you. This bonus also applies to saving throws against spells or effects that attempt to knock you prone.

In addition, if any effect would force you to move 10 feet or more, you are moved only half the distance.

I couldn't find a Circus Performer background, but the playtest's Acrobat background mentions a circus.

Playtest Rulebook, Backgrounds, page 38 wrote:

ACROBAT Background

In a circus or on the streets, you earned your pay by performing
as an acrobat. You might have turned to adventuring when the
money dried up, or when you learned to put skills to better use.
Choose two ability boosts. One must be to Strength or
Dexterity, and one is a free ability boost.
You gain the Steady Balance skill feat, and you’re trained in
the Circus Lore skill.

Steady Balance is a feat on page 172 that prevents being flat-footed while balancing and make it harder to fail an Acrobatics check on a Maintain Balance reaction. Both the Balance action and Maintain Balance reaction are on page 144.

Rock Dwarf and Acrobat work together to create a character who resists falling. That unifies character traits, perhaps good for a character concept. However, steadiness in a character does not give me a sense of a lawspeaker who ran away to join a circus.

Throwing together names to build a character concept does not work when the names give other abilities than the obvious ones. Rock Dwarf does not make a dwarf familiar with rocks or dwarfy stuff. Acrobat background gives a feat that uses an Acrobatics check and it could give a bonus to Dexterity, but it would make a character better on the high wire or trapeze only through that boost in Dexterity, which could have just as easily come from Hunter or Sailor background.

The slight mismatch between names and abilities slows down character creation because players have to read the details to see what the abilities really do.


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Mathmuse wrote:
My playtest players discovered that the new system for starting equipment is more complicated than buying it. It gives out equipment by equipment level. By Table 11-2 on page 348, a 7th-level character starts with one 6th-level item, two 5th-level items, one 4th-level item, two 3rd-level items, and 125 gp cash. Of course, the players wanted the highest level weapons and armor that they could afford, but weapons and armor were upgraded only once every 4 levels, so they started with 6th level, saw that it had no weapons, went back to 5th level, saw that it had only a few specialized weapons, went back to 4th level and found the generic +1 magic weapons. The +1 magic armor was at 3rd level.

Yeah, I liked this system at first. I think for the second adventure of the playtest, it was nice and easy and seemed to streamline things. But later it just seemed to get in the way. And the fact that at certain levels there really weren't many good choices, so it meant eventually settling on a 'least bad' option. These 'consolation prize' items mostly just stayed unused, because they weren't really wanted in the first place. This did lead to gear picking taking up a significant amount of time trying to fill out the items by level as best as I could.

And character creation did take quite a bit. I spent several hours on each character throughout the playtest. In some cases, I spent more time creating the character than playing it in the end. This was pretty common throughout my group, and one of the reasons the Playtest was so rough. It will probably be easier with more familiarity with the system, as well as making 1st level characters instead of higher level ones. A better book organization will help too. I have to agree with Graystone, the book layout was atrocious.


Mathmuse wrote:
PossibleCabbage wrote:
Well, I feel like there's a pretty big difference between "playing a premade iconic" and "just picking stuff because it sounds interesting." Like you could just pick like rock dwarf, the dwarf feat that makes you know about dwarfy stuff, and the circus performer background because you want to play a dwarf who was raised to be the clan lawspeaker, but you instead ran away to join the circus.
Dungeon Novice in My Pathfiner Spoiler wrote:

# 11: Rock Dwarf Your ancestors lived and worked among the great ancient stones of the mountains or the depths of the earth. This makes you solid as a rock when you plant your feet. You gain a +2 circumstance bonus to your Fortitude or Reflex DC against attempts to Shove or Trip you. This bonus also applies to saving throws against spells or effects that attempt to knock you prone.

In addition, if any effect would force you to move 10 feet or more, you are moved only half the distance.

I couldn't find a Circus Performer background, but the playtest's Acrobat background mentions a circus.

Playtest Rulebook, Backgrounds, page 38 wrote:

ACROBAT Background

In a circus or on the streets, you earned your pay by performing
as an acrobat. You might have turned to adventuring when the
money dried up, or when you learned to put skills to better use.
Choose two ability boosts. One must be to Strength or
Dexterity, and one is a free ability boost.
You gain the Steady Balance skill feat, and you’re trained in
the Circus Lore skill.

Steady Balance is a feat on page 172 that prevents being flat-footed while balancing and make it harder to fail an Acrobatics check on a Maintain Balance reaction. Both the Balance action and Maintain Balance reaction are on page 144.

Rock Dwarf and Acrobat work together to create a character who resists falling. That unifies character traits, perhaps good for a character concept. However, steadiness in a...

This hasn't been fixed, unfortunately. Some options still have pretty random names that don't fully reflect what they do, though did they get rid of some like "Bolstered".


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Mathmuse wrote:


I gave an example in this thread 4 weeks ago in comment #54.

You give in example a feat write up that mentions a trait and the trait is not indexed and requires looking paging through to find. I submit if that is “poor writing” that turns you off from a game - you shouldn’t even be here debating it because that issue existed in PF1 and should have driven you away a decade ago

Quote:

For another example, look at proficiency. As of Rules Update 1.6 in the playtest, the Alchemist starting proficiencies said:

Rules Update 1.6, Alchemist, changes to page 45 wrote:

Trained in Crafting

Trained in a number of additional skills equal to 4 plus your
Intelligence modifier
The character does not have an Intelligence modifier yet, because that depends on the final ability score boosts to four ability scores.

Yes, the character does have an intelligence modifier because the alchemist correctly applied the clearly laid out steps of applying their boosts and applied their four free ability boosts before turning to the Alchemist pages in the classes chapter to determine what their final class boost would be before assigning skills. It isn’t bad writing if you ignore the written instructions.

Quote:
We can assume that the player sees all the skills listed on the character sheet, so he or she does not need to read Chapter 4, Skills, first.

Just as we assumed the same of PF1 without complaint for a decade because the “Skills” chapter has followed the “Classes” chapter since this game had a completely different name. Not a bug of PF2 but a feature of 3.0/3.5/PF1. How is this a proof of the bad writing of PF2?

Quote:
But what does Trained mean? That is summarized in the glossary on page 8, but it does not show up as a full rule until page 290 in the Chapter 9, Playing the Game, far away from the character creation chapters.

You mean it’s summarized before it appears in the creation descriptions, referenced in the creation chapters and then the application of it is explained in the area later in the text about how to apply what you built? That’s called scaffolding and it’s an element of instructional design.

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