[PaizoCon] "The Future of Pathfinder"


Pathfinder Second Edition General Discussion

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Here are my notes from the “The Future of Pathfinder” panel. I took these as I listened on the train home, with links added just now, and mostly tried to grab what sounded new to me rather than recreate the whole discussion. This is all paraphrase, so please listen to the panel itself before reading too much into anything. I’ve scattered timestamped links throughout to make it easier for you to find a particular bit you might be interested in.

### Panel Presentation/Discussion ###

[EM] What are you most excited about in the new rules?

[Designers] ... [Between the d20 basic and the 3-action system, it’s really easy to teach]

[EM] “Design space”, what’s that?

[Designers] ... [Heritages; magic items] We shrank the scale of [how much you need items]. Instead of 5 armor bonus it’s 3 now. We heard a lot of people saying, we want items to matter less. We heard you! [Archetypes]

Specific questions/discussion about wands, bc Erik has been watching the online chatter.

(1) Is casting a spell out of a wand always 1 action? No, no way. It’s the same as the spell.

(2) If you’re trying to cast beyond the 1/day, is it destroyed, just broken and can be repaired? You *always* get the second spell, and it’s about a 50/50% flat check whether or not the wand is merely broken (and can be repaired with a skill check) or whether it’s permanently destroyed.

(3) Special wands. E.g., a “wand of smoldering fireball”: when you cast fireball from this wand, the fireball also lights everyone on fire! (In the background, SRM: “There’s also a wand of widening.”) But remember, this is just the Core Rulebook! We only have so much space.

[EM] Just thinking about the launch slate: each of you reveal something that you think *nobody* knows yet.

[MS] World Guide. One of the archetypes in here is the Hellknight Armiger. So if anyone told you you couldn’t play a Hellknight in Hellknight Hill, that information is incorrect. This also introduces two new things. This archetype wants to become another archetype. It lets you enter another archetype before you’ve taken enough feats to satisfy its dedication. And, it has an “access entry”, a special way to get make an otherwise-uncommon choice common-for-you. Here, anyone who’s from the Old Cheliax region can choose Hellknight Armiger automatically at 2nd level.

[JB] The Fall of Plaguestone. Designed to be the adventure that tells the story of how your group came together. Opening scene. All of you in the back of a wagon travelling through Isger, with a one-eared Elven cook named Cookie, who can barely hear you, as you make your way to a tiny, tiny rural town known as Plaguestone, that is known for its turnips. You even have the opportunity to become a turnip cop in the adventure. — This also lets us show off how an adventure can give you access to things you couldn’t otherwise get by completing it. Things we won’t put in other products. This speaks to our rarity system. I want to be able to pick up your character sheet and know some of the adventures you’ve played based on the options you have on there. Because you can’t get it any other way. So there’s an option in here that, for some characters, will be super awesome and unique. And you can’t get it just by building a character from the Core Rulebook.

[LB] In the Gamemastering chapter of the Core Rulebook, we actually devote a fair number of words to creating a good, safe, fun game environment for everyone at your table [... more about the social contract of a gaming table]

[SRM] Bestiary. It turns out that Axiomites are actually a type of Aeon. That’s all I’m saying. Have fun!

### Open Q&A ###

Q: How much of a factor was society play in the design process? A: ...

Q: How many classes do or don’t have a class path option? A: 10 out of 12. The Fighter and the Monk don’t have this kind of option. Here’s why. They both have so many feats that build in so many different paths we wanted you to be able to build your own. So, e.g., when you pick a Monk stance, you’re kind of picking a path there. They just have so many feats, we wanted you to be flexible there.

Q: Difference between wands and scrolls? A: 1/day v. once ever. Also scrolls are a hell of a lot cheaper.

Q: Item slots; belts and headbands of physical stats; what’s up? A: ...

Q: What do we need to know about rituals? A: Anyone can perform a ritual if they’re good enough at the relevant skill. If a Fighter is very religious to Cayden Caliean, pour some ale over the dead Rogue and resurrect them.

Q: Could I play a mute spellcaster? A: ... Discussion of GM advice, need to be respectful of real persons with disabilities so it can’t just be a bare mechanic ...

Q: What do we need to know about combat maneuvers? A: Part of the Athletics skill. Resolved against Fortitude or Reflex DCs. That’s pretty much it!

Q: [Some question kind of about monster customization] A: ...

Q: Non-arcane Sorcerers seemed much weaker in the Playtest for ... reasons. Has the Sorcerer class been changed or improved to make it more even? A: Sorcerers have been changed a fair amount. We added a lot to Sorcerers overall. Feedback was: Wizard was very powerful but very boring; Sorcerer was very interesting but very weak. So Sorcerers have added a number of very useful features. Their bloodline focus spells are more powerful, more cool; new bloodlines that are cool. Whenever they cast any bloodline focus spell or other spell granted by bloodline, something else happens, that’s different by bloodline.

Q: Combat maneuvers for dex-based characters? A: Dexterity has enough! Let Strength have something! In the Core book we don’t really, but that’s ripe for exploration in future products.

Q: Resonance is gone. What replaces it? A: You can wear 10 “invested” magic items. Yes, your armor counts; no, your weapon doesn’t. It’s items you’re wearing on your person, so no, a bag of holding doesn’t count. The system is about worn items: you invest it, you put it on, you get the benefit, it counts against your limit. Generally, this makes magic items a more powerful part of the game—but that’s okay.

Q: Will Gunslinger be just an archetype? A: This worked really well for Cavalier. But a lot of classes have enough going for them that they could be a full class. You could do a full Gunslinger class. But the Cavalier was already just barely attaining full class status. [JB takes over ...] So if you look at classes that are way far out in the reeds. Well, maybe we’ll say, “maybe that’s just an archetype.” E.g., some classes in the Advanced Class Guide.

Q: Is the maximum bonus for weapons +3? A: Yes. The maximum bonus of items in the Core Rulebook is +3. That might not be true in the Bestiary. JB: The maximum bonus is not +3 written in the rules. But Jason will show something at the banquet that is beyond that cap.

Q: Vehicular combat? A: At some point in time. But it’s not in the core of the game. There’s a product we’re announcing at the banquet that will have vehicles in it.


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Thanks for getting this out! The only thing I think might be off, it was a bit jumbled in the wand discussion but I thought it was said that there is a flat check when overcharging and if THAT fails THEN there is a roughly even chance on whether it breaks or is destroyed. I wasn't certain though.


Edge93 wrote:
Thanks for getting this out! The only thing I think might be off, it was a bit jumbled in the wand discussion but I thought it was said that there is a flat check when overcharging and if THAT fails THEN there is a roughly even chance on whether it breaks or is destroyed. I wasn't certain though.

Sure, it's quite possible I jumbled that or other bits. That's why I threw in the links!


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Thanks for the good work. Both posts revealed a good bit of info for those that didn’t attend and provided additional interest to watch the twitch VoDs.

Liberty's Edge

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Dropping Weapons and Armor to +3 is good news and should result in some neat stuff. Including, probably, additional damage dice being built into the PCs themselves.


One of the spoiler card things shows a STRIKING RUNE which adds damage dice. So we're in the same boat as playtest.


ChibiNyan wrote:
One of the spoiler card things shows a STRIKING RUNE which adds damage dice. So we're in the same boat as playtest.

There's another thread for #MyPathfinderSpoiler.


Roswynn wrote:
ChibiNyan wrote:
One of the spoiler card things shows a STRIKING RUNE which adds damage dice. So we're in the same boat as playtest.
There's another thread for #MyPathfinderSpoiler.

Sorry, was replying to DMW who talked about the damage increases in here.

By the way, it's not like potency runes since it doesn't boost attack roll. This could mean that you have to pick between the damage or the to-hit rune now.

Liberty's Edge

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ChibiNyan wrote:
One of the spoiler card things shows a STRIKING RUNE which adds damage dice. So we're in the same boat as playtest.

Uh...no, we're not. Or at least not necessarily.

That caps at three bonus damage dice. Unless they change the fundamental assumptions of PC damage (which seems unlikely to me), that leaves two more dice for PCs to get somewhere...like from level.

Which was exactly what I was suggesting (ie: you get some of the dice inherently to go with the three from item).

Now it's also possible that this Rune just stacks on top of a Potency Rune for +6 damage dice, but I consider that wildly unlikely (it seems to me almost certain that the to-hit bonus is just from Expert, Master, or Legendary quality).

ChibiNyan wrote:
By the way, it's not like potency runes since it doesn't boost attack roll. This could mean that you have to pick between the damage or the to-hit rune now.

Well, they're separate (or at least are likely to be), but as I said above I suspect that the to-hit bonus is from Quality rather than a Rune.


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tqomins wrote:


(1) Is casting a spell out of a wand always 1 action? No, no way. It’s the same as the spell.

(2) If you’re trying to cast beyond the 1/day, is it destroyed, just broken and can be repaired? You *always* get the second spell, and it’s about a 50/50% flat check whether or not the wand is merely broken (and can be repaired with a skill check) or whether it’s permanently destroyed.

I hate this. The idea to push a wand to get more spells at the risk of breaking it is a cool idea. It sounded good at first, but I thought it'd be reasonable. But 50% chance of destroying it for getting a second spell? That's terrible. My group will almost certainly house-rule this to something not awful if we end up moving to PF2. Probably at least a 75% chance of it surviving the first attempt. A coin flip to permanently destroy a magic item probably worth hundreds if not thousands of GP will just make this an option that is never used except on the absolutely cheapest wands.

I'm sorry to get negative, but this is really worrying to me. Magic being worth using, versus garbage is a very big deal for me and my group. This is slipping into garbage teritory. It gives me flashbacks to the 1d4 round invisibility potion from the focus test. That wasn't just bad, it was almost insulting. I've been wavering between cautious optimism for PF2 and fear. If this is representative of their direction, I'm really being pushed into the later.


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Deadmanwalking wrote:
ChibiNyan wrote:
One of the spoiler card things shows a STRIKING RUNE which adds damage dice. So we're in the same boat as playtest.

Uh...no, we're not. Or at least not necessarily.

That caps at three bonus damage dice. Unless they change the fundamental assumptions of PC damage (which seems unlikely to me), that leaves two more dice for PCs to get somewhere...like from level.

Which was exactly what I was suggesting (ie: you get some of the dice inherently to go with the three from item).

Now it's also possible that this Rune just stacks on top of a Potency Rune for +6 damage dice, but I consider that wildly unlikely (it seems to me almost certain that the to-hit bonus is just from Expert, Master, or Legendary quality).

Are Potency and Property runes even a thing anymore? This just said Weapon Rune, and is basically the Potency Rune from the playtest but on a 1 to 3 scale instead of 1 to 5.

Deadmanwalking wrote:
ChibiNyan wrote:
By the way, it's not like potency runes since it doesn't boost attack roll. This could mean that you have to pick between the damage or the to-hit rune now.
Well, they're separate (or at least are likely to be), but as I said above I suspect that the to-hit bonus is from Quality rather than a Rune.

I'm guessing that each level of the Striking Rune will require one of the item qualities. Expert for Striking, master for Greater Striking, Legendary for Major Striking. So if weapon quality still gives to-hit bonuses, getting them from runes would be redundant. I figure that the reason they chose a max of 3 instead of the old school 5 is to match up closer to the item qualities.


I'm not happy about wands.
Since they are still 'spells in a stick', albeit with something extra, I would have made them require investment like permanent items, but with charges (like 5, or 10). So, consumables can only spam, but only to a degree.

Runes, I may like them instead. I still hope that what replaces the old Potency now competes with other options instead of being mandatory.


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Megistone wrote:

I'm not happy about wands.

Since they are still 'spells in a stick', albeit with something extra, I would have made them require investment like permanent items, but with charges (like 5, or 10). So, consumables can only spam, but only to a degree.

Runes, I may like them instead. I still hope that what replaces the old Potency now competes with other options instead of being mandatory.

Little projection I worked on. To get a backup weapon (something that deals just one dice less damage), you spend about 1/4 of what you spent in the playtest. That is, 5% of the cost of a main weapon rather than 20%. And weapon quality is much more important than Striking runes.


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Doktor Weasel wrote:
tqomins wrote:


(1) Is casting a spell out of a wand always 1 action? No, no way. It’s the same as the spell.

(2) If you’re trying to cast beyond the 1/day, is it destroyed, just broken and can be repaired? You *always* get the second spell, and it’s about a 50/50% flat check whether or not the wand is merely broken (and can be repaired with a skill check) or whether it’s permanently destroyed.

I hate this. The idea to push a wand to get more spells at the risk of breaking it is a cool idea. It sounded good at first, but I thought it'd be reasonable. But 50% chance of destroying it for getting a second spell? That's terrible. My group will almost certainly house-rule this to something not awful if we end up moving to PF2. Probably at least a 75% chance of it surviving the first attempt. A coin flip to permanently destroy a magic item probably worth hundreds if not thousands of GP will just make this an option that is never used except on the absolutely cheapest wands.

I'm sorry to get negative, but this is really worrying to me. Magic being worth using, versus garbage is a very big deal for me and my group. This is slipping into garbage teritory. It gives me flashbacks to the 1d4 round invisibility potion from the focus test. That wasn't just bad, it was almost insulting. I've been wavering between cautious optimism for PF2 and fear. If this is representative of their direction, I'm really being pushed into the later.

Your making some very large jumps from 1 thing you don't like, we still don't know what dynamic staffs provide to the magic item paradigm. they specifically said this was the basic wand and name dropped special wands like the smouldering fireball.

Wands were never worth the money you put in them in 1e anyway unless it was cure light wounds, this allows you to have a one off clutch spell up your sleeve everyday aswell as scrolls and your daily allotment.


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Going to complain about wands again... I hate 1/day items in general (annoying to track, limited, use limit is meant to feel powerful/special - but can't be too powerful or people want to wait a day after using) and I hate items which are basically "Item X but better+more expensive" so naturally I hate what I'm hearing about basic wands (special wands might be okay, but I'd rather only have wands be special rather than basic ones just being multi-use scrolls).

Pricing in particular seems to be something I'm worried about. They say scrolls are way cheaper, but how expensive will a wand actually be? After all, a wand can't be too expensive or players will, A) complain about their expensive toy got permanently destroyed & B) create wealth issues within the party if one player's wand is destroyed and their equipment value is now significantly lower than the rest of the party. On the other hand, if wands aren't expensive enough, then they're just a pure upgrade to scrolls. This seems like it leaves a narrow range to actually get the pricing right, especially once the community starts crunching numbers after the release. What I'm most worried about seeing is one option becoming objectively better in 90% of common situations due to how much mechanical overlap there is with price/use(s) being the only difference.

Silver Crusade

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tqomins wrote:

[JB] The Fall of Plaguestone. Designed to be the adventure that tells the story of how your group came together. Opening scene. All of you in the back of a wagon travelling through Isger, with a one-eared Elven cook named Cookie, who can barely hear you, as you make your way to a tiny, tiny rural town known as Plaguestone, that is known for its turnips.

”Oh good, you’re awake.”


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

1/day items are super easy to track. Have a card, penny with some paper cellotaped to it or something similar. Flip or tap when used, unflip/tap at start of day. I do this for my caster players anyway.


Charon Onozuka wrote:


Pricing in particular seems to be something I'm worried about. They say scrolls are way cheaper, but how expensive will a wand actually be? After all, a wand can't be too expensive or players will, A) complain about their expensive toy got permanently destroyed & B) create wealth issues within the party if one player's wand is destroyed and their equipment value is now significantly lower than the rest of the party. On the other hand, if wands aren't expensive enough, then they're just a pure upgrade to scrolls.

Unless I'm misunderstanding what was said above in the first post, isn't the wand 'broken' if you fail the flat check not 'destroyed'? In Pathfinder lingo broken is more of a temporary state until repaired?

i.e. Fighter's shield takes more damage than it had it in HP, it becomes 'broken'. During the next rest(In the playtest it took 10 mins) the fighter made a skill check and repaired it.

It seems like wand might be very similar to this, right? Then it dosn't upset the whole WBL problem you are describing.

Dark Archive

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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
Asurasan wrote:
Charon Onozuka wrote:


Pricing in particular seems to be something I'm worried about. They say scrolls are way cheaper, but how expensive will a wand actually be? After all, a wand can't be too expensive or players will, A) complain about their expensive toy got permanently destroyed & B) create wealth issues within the party if one player's wand is destroyed and their equipment value is now significantly lower than the rest of the party. On the other hand, if wands aren't expensive enough, then they're just a pure upgrade to scrolls.

Unless I'm misunderstanding what was said above in the first post, isn't the wand 'broken' if you fail the flat check not 'destroyed'? In Pathfinder lingo broken is more of a temporary state until repaired?

i.e. Fighter's shield takes more damage than it had it in HP, it becomes 'broken'. During the next rest(In the playtest it took 10 mins) the fighter made a skill check and repaired it.

It seems like wand might be very similar to this, right? Then it dosn't upset the whole WBL problem you are describing.

Pathfinder Spoiler #98 describes the wand rules. If you overcast, there's a 55% chance it's merely broken (unusable until repaired) and a 45% chance it's completely destroyed


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It seems like "you are good at getting a little extra out of wands" is a fun design space one could fill. In case you want to be a Magical MacGyver or a Sorcerous Scottie. Sort of like how in PF1 people with specific options (e.g. gunslingers) were better at managing misfires and broken firearms than others.


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Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

In the Treerazor statblock they have his Blackaxe which is a +4 greater corrosive major striking great axe that grants a +4 item bonus to attack rolls, deals an extra 2d6 damage to plants and has the properties of adamantine.

That implies the +4 item bonus is not directly linked to the +4 part of the weapon.

In his stat block
Melee: Blackaxe +47 (acid, chaotic, evil, magical, reach 15 feet, sweep)
Damage: 4d12 + 15 slashing plus 1d6 acid, 1d6 chaotic and 1d6 evil and 2d6 slashing vs plants.
Melee: Jaws +45 (agile, chaotic, evil, magical, reach 15 feet)
Damage: 4d10 + 18 slashing + 2d6 chaotic and 2d6 evil.

It’s the best other information we have.


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Charon Onozuka wrote:

Going to complain about wands again... I hate 1/day items in general (annoying to track, limited, use limit is meant to feel powerful/special - but can't be too powerful or people want to wait a day after using) and I hate items which are basically "Item X but better+more expensive" so naturally I hate what I'm hearing about basic wands (special wands might be okay, but I'd rather only have wands be special rather than basic ones just being multi-use scrolls).

Pricing in particular seems to be something I'm worried about. They say scrolls are way cheaper, but how expensive will a wand actually be? After all, a wand can't be too expensive or players will, A) complain about their expensive toy got permanently destroyed & B) create wealth issues within the party if one player's wand is destroyed and their equipment value is now significantly lower than the rest of the party. On the other hand, if wands aren't expensive enough, then they're just a pure upgrade to scrolls. This seems like it leaves a narrow range to actually get the pricing right, especially once the community starts crunching numbers after the release. What I'm most worried about seeing is one option becoming objectively better in 90% of common situations due to how much mechanical overlap there is with price/use(s) being the only difference.

Pricing it as a permanent item only makes sense. As said before, a 1/day use of a single (likely commonly used) spell versus 8-10 single-use only of different spells that aren't commonly used but are important when needed are two entirely different things.

That is to say, wands and scrolls coexist because you want them for entirely different spells. Wands are good for common spells and scrolls for situational spells for the most part. So it works fine. You don't usually want scrolls of common spells because burning them regularly will add up, you don't want wands of situational spells because paying 8-10 times as much as a scroll for every situational spell you want to prep for will be EXTREMELY impractical.

And so wands and scrolls can coexist just fine.

As to not being able to price wands too high because players will complain about losing them, that's not really a valid complaint because you will never lose it permanently unless you deliberately choose to risk it.

For the WBL concern, a good party would probably be willing to chip in to help them recoup the loss assuming they don't make a habit of stupidly blowing up wands. A loss like that split 4+ ways instead of one quickly becomes negligible.


Also wands likely require Investment which is limited. Not sure though.


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Edge93 wrote:
Also wands likely require Investment which is limited. Not sure though.
Q: Resonance is gone. What replaces it? A: You can wear 10 “invested” magic items. Yes, your armor counts; no, your weapon doesn’t. It’s items you’re wearing on your person, so no, a bag of holding doesn’t count. The system is about worn items: you invest it, you put it on, you get the benefit, it counts against your limit. Generally, this makes magic items a more powerful part of the game—but that’s okay.

If weapons don't count as worn, I imagine wands don't either.


3Doubloons wrote:


Pathfinder Spoiler #98 describes the wand rules. If you overcast, there's a 55% chance it's merely broken (unusable until repaired) and a 45% chance it's completely destroyed

Thanks 3Doubloons,

I had missed that one.


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Having wands not be invested opens up design space for like "magical tattoos" which function as wands, but require investment. In exchange, they don't need to be held.


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I always liked the eternal wands of fill-in-the-blank in Eberron. I think those were usable twice or three times per day. I think something like that would be okay. But I'm good with it either way. Maybe staves will be better versions of wands? Who knows.
So, not sure if I understand it correctly. Pluses to hit on your weapon will come from weapon quality still? Like expert quality, master quality, etc. And more damage comes from runes? Or do I have that totally wrong.
I really liked all the rules reveals.
Super excited. Just over 2 months to go!


Not sure if I got it right, it sounded like at least alot of Wands that apply X spell with special rider effect Y, also apply that rider effect Y to any of your own normal spellcasting if you are wielding the wand...? That seems notable effect to me. Over-all I do like the direction they've gone with them.


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Quandary wrote:
Not sure if I got it right, it sounded like at least alot of Wands that apply X spell with special rider effect Y, also apply that rider effect Y to any of your own normal spellcasting if you are wielding the wand...? That seems notable effect to me. Over-all I do like the direction they've gone with them.

No, though Jason mentioned something like that as a possibility for the future. See this post in another thread where I covered that discussion:

tqomins wrote:

I went back to double-check what was said about "special" wands that go beyond the basic "cast a spell once per day" model. It's a little less detail than I'd hoped, but you can catch it here. Here's what Jason says:

Jason wrote:

So one of the things that I love about it is that it opens up a lot of design space for us. The most basic wand is just that: you cast it once per day out of the stick, that’s it—you get it once per day. You can try and overcast it, you might break it, you might get more, that’s it.

But it opens up design space for us to treat these like interesting magic items. So there are wands out there that do their thing but then do something special on top of the spell, right? And in the future we could do even crazier things that are, like, every time you cast this spell period if you have this wand in your hand ...

The discussion then moves on to emphasize that most people didn't care about the "cast a spell 50 times" model, and we don't get any more detail.

(Bolded the part relevant to this discussion for emphasis.)


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BTW, I don't know where to ask this, and don't feel like starting a thread :-)

...Is CHA getting anything 'extra' with Resonance gone?


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Quandary wrote:

BTW, I don't know where to ask this, and don't feel like starting a thread :-)

...Is CHA getting anything 'extra' with Resonance gone?

If the Demoralize action has stayed the same, I'd say THAT counts as all the 'extra' t needs... :P


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Davido1000 wrote:
Doktor Weasel wrote:
tqomins wrote:


(1) Is casting a spell out of a wand always 1 action? No, no way. It’s the same as the spell.

(2) If you’re trying to cast beyond the 1/day, is it destroyed, just broken and can be repaired? You *always* get the second spell, and it’s about a 50/50% flat check whether or not the wand is merely broken (and can be repaired with a skill check) or whether it’s permanently destroyed.

I hate this. The idea to push a wand to get more spells at the risk of breaking it is a cool idea. It sounded good at first, but I thought it'd be reasonable. But 50% chance of destroying it for getting a second spell? That's terrible. My group will almost certainly house-rule this to something not awful if we end up moving to PF2. Probably at least a 75% chance of it surviving the first attempt. A coin flip to permanently destroy a magic item probably worth hundreds if not thousands of GP will just make this an option that is never used except on the absolutely cheapest wands.

I'm sorry to get negative, but this is really worrying to me. Magic being worth using, versus garbage is a very big deal for me and my group. This is slipping into garbage teritory. It gives me flashbacks to the 1d4 round invisibility potion from the focus test. That wasn't just bad, it was almost insulting. I've been wavering between cautious optimism for PF2 and fear. If this is representative of their direction, I'm really being pushed into the later.

Your making some very large jumps from 1 thing you don't like, we still don't know what dynamic staffs provide to the magic item paradigm. they specifically said this was the basic wand and name dropped special wands like the smouldering fireball.

Wands were never worth the money you put in them in 1e anyway unless it was cure light wounds, this allows you to have a one off clutch spell up your sleeve everyday aswell as scrolls and your daily allotment.

It's not so much of a jump considering this isn't the only data point indicating this. The tendency of the playtest was to make magic bad, and some of the other choices revealed since then seem to continue this trend. Resonance being just the first draft of how to reign it in, it was abandoned after people rebelled, but it seems like the idea continued. Especially with the focus test where to compensate for the lack of resonance they made many items utter garbage without spending a Focus, like the 1d4 round invisibility potion that really bothers me. Are they going to make all items that bad to compensate for the lack of requiring a resource? These crappy wands really seem to reinforce the idea that they might. It feels like they're so against magic items being potentially too good, that they're going to get nerfed hard. The reduction of weapons and armor from going to 5 to 3 is another possible indicator. I'd be much happier with this if wands were simply 1/day an left at that. 1/day items are annoying, but that's done thing. But the terrible risk to reward ratio feels almost insulting. Why even give the option if it's a sucker's bet? It's like the potential is being dangled, but you have to be punished for being greedy and wanting to have 2 spells in a day. That's why this bothers me so much. It just feels punitive, and it's not the first thing to feel that way. The risk of losing somethign feels worse than not getting it in the first place. It's basic loss aversion.

I hope I'm wrong. I hope magic items are still good, and it's just wands that are junk. But I do see a trend of a mindset that magic use needs to be punished. And that's a deal-breaker. And no, smoldering fireball doesn't make up for the bad taste in my mouth for self-destructing wands. It just means the risk to reward ratio will be even worse for those wands.


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graystone wrote:
Quandary wrote:

BTW, I don't know where to ask this, and don't feel like starting a thread :-)

...Is CHA getting anything 'extra' with Resonance gone?

If the Demoralize action has stayed the same, I'd say THAT counts as all the 'extra' t needs... :P

Demoralize crits now only frighten things of a lower level. (May be same level or lower, I'd have to check it again.)


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Doktor Weasel wrote:
Davido1000 wrote:
Doktor Weasel wrote:
tqomins wrote:


(1) Is casting a spell out of a wand always 1 action? No, no way. It’s the same as the spell.

(2) If you’re trying to cast beyond the 1/day, is it destroyed, just broken and can be repaired? You *always* get the second spell, and it’s about a 50/50% flat check whether or not the wand is merely broken (and can be repaired with a skill check) or whether it’s permanently destroyed.

I hate this. The idea to push a wand to get more spells at the risk of breaking it is a cool idea. It sounded good at first, but I thought it'd be reasonable. But 50% chance of destroying it for getting a second spell? That's terrible. My group will almost certainly house-rule this to something not awful if we end up moving to PF2. Probably at least a 75% chance of it surviving the first attempt. A coin flip to permanently destroy a magic item probably worth hundreds if not thousands of GP will just make this an option that is never used except on the absolutely cheapest wands.

I'm sorry to get negative, but this is really worrying to me. Magic being worth using, versus garbage is a very big deal for me and my group. This is slipping into garbage teritory. It gives me flashbacks to the 1d4 round invisibility potion from the focus test. That wasn't just bad, it was almost insulting. I've been wavering between cautious optimism for PF2 and fear. If this is representative of their direction, I'm really being pushed into the later.

Your making some very large jumps from 1 thing you don't like, we still don't know what dynamic staffs provide to the magic item paradigm. they specifically said this was the basic wand and name dropped special wands like the smouldering fireball.

Wands were never worth the money you put in them in 1e anyway unless it was cure light wounds, this allows you to have a one off clutch spell up your sleeve everyday aswell as scrolls and your daily allotment.

It's not so much of a jump considering this...

If you're going to complain at any possibility of the risk of losing them, don't ever use the extra function. Simple.

It's not like you have to use them every day - it's the "I desperately need another copy of this or I die" sort of scenario that you'd want to use it in. Either that or carry around an extra scroll of each wand you have.

Liberty's Edge

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Doktor Weasel wrote:
It's not so much of a jump considering this isn't the only data point indicating this. The tendency of the playtest was to make magic bad, and some of the other choices revealed since then seem to continue this trend.

I strongly disagree with the second part of this. Every spell revealed thus far seems to have gone up in power at least somewhat since the playtest.

This includes Wands (though we don't know how their price has changed). Once per day is a lot better than a consumable.


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Doktor Weasel wrote:
Davido1000 wrote:
Doktor Weasel wrote:
tqomins wrote:


(1) Is casting a spell out of a wand always 1 action? No, no way. It’s the same as the spell.

(2) If you’re trying to cast beyond the 1/day, is it destroyed, just broken and can be repaired? You *always* get the second spell, and it’s about a 50/50% flat check whether or not the wand is merely broken (and can be repaired with a skill check) or whether it’s permanently destroyed.

I hate this. The idea to push a wand to get more spells at the risk of breaking it is a cool idea. It sounded good at first, but I thought it'd be reasonable. But 50% chance of destroying it for getting a second spell? That's terrible. My group will almost certainly house-rule this to something not awful if we end up moving to PF2. Probably at least a 75% chance of it surviving the first attempt. A coin flip to permanently destroy a magic item probably worth hundreds if not thousands of GP will just make this an option that is never used except on the absolutely cheapest wands.

I'm sorry to get negative, but this is really worrying to me. Magic being worth using, versus garbage is a very big deal for me and my group. This is slipping into garbage teritory. It gives me flashbacks to the 1d4 round invisibility potion from the focus test. That wasn't just bad, it was almost insulting. I've been wavering between cautious optimism for PF2 and fear. If this is representative of their direction, I'm really being pushed into the later.

Your making some very large jumps from 1 thing you don't like, we still don't know what dynamic staffs provide to the magic item paradigm. they specifically said this was the basic wand and name dropped special wands like the smouldering fireball.

Wands were never worth the money you put in them in 1e anyway unless it was cure light wounds, this allows you to have a one off clutch spell up your sleeve everyday aswell as scrolls and your daily allotment.

It's not so much of a jump considering this...

A key point to all this that I feel like is getting overlooked.

The second cast per day is NOT there for "being greedy and just wanting another spell". As you say, that's a silly risk to take. The wand is intended, by and large, to be one free spell per day, quite possibly with additional unique effects. And general dislike of 1/day stuff (which I do get) notwithstanding, that's some decent stuff, especially the unique ones.

The overcharge option is something extra above and beyond the base of the wand. It's something you will ideally never use, but it's there for a moment of desperation where your hurting for options and need an ace despite the potential cost.

Out of good attack spells, the Lich is about to kill the Cleric, but one more Disintigrate/Magic Missile/other should do him in? Overcharge, save your friend and hope for the best. Maybe the wand holds, maybe it's lost as a heroic sacrifice and hopefully your allies will help you recoup the loss.

Don't have any Channels or prepared Heal spells left and the Fighter is about to bleed out? Overcharge that Heal and save his backside.

I REALLY don't think this Overcharge is meant to be any kind of commonly-used functionality, it's a back pocket Ace for a cinematic and desperate moment. And I like the option being there personally, because I think the wand functions perfectly serviceable without it and as such it's an extra for a rare occasion.


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Deadmanwalking wrote:
This includes Wands (though we don't know how their price has changed). Once per day is a lot better than a consumable.

Ignoring the extremely risky overcharge thing, a wand is basically a pearl of power. It does come with more and less flexibility. More because it allows you to cast a spell you haven't prepared and less because you can't use it for different spells like you could when using a pearl.

Kind of makes me curious to see what they did with staves...

Anyway, if pearls of power are any indication, wands of low level spells are probably a good and cheap-ish option to get some more spells per day, while wands of higher level spells (5th level+) quickly become very expensive.

But yeah, other than the as of yet unknown pricing, I agree that once per day is A LOT better than consumable.


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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber
Doktor Weasel wrote:


It's not so much of a jump considering this isn't the only data point indicating this. The tendency of the playtest was to make magic bad, and some of the other choices revealed since then seem to continue this trend. [...]

I hope I'm wrong. I hope magic items are still good, and it's just wands that are junk. But I do see a trend of a mindset that magic use needs to be punished. And that's a deal-breaker. And no, smoldering fireball doesn't make up for the bad taste in my mouth for self-destructing wands. It just means the risk to reward ratio will be even worse for those wands.

One of the complaints about D&D and related systems is that their character felt like a coatrack; that vast majority of their character stats and capabilities came from the hoard of powerful magical gear they were wearing, and not so much from the character itself; this is especially true of melee characters. Spellcasters were their own problem, as spells that scaled with level made them vastly more powerful at high levels than a non-caster.

So it looks like, to some degree, spellcasters and magic items are less powerful than in PF1 or earlier games. In the grand scheme of things, I think that's not a bad thing. Martial and skill-based characters can be cool because they have cool abilities and amazing skills, not because they've managed to hunt down all the best +stat and +skillmod magical gear, or the best enchanted items to give them access to magic. And spellcasters are still VERY powerful at high level... Just not quite as game-dominating as they used to be. There are relatively low level spells that summon dragons or shapeshift you into a dinosaur; and that can be cast at higher levels to become more powerful as you level. It's just that now they cost a 8th or 9th level spell slot, instead of still being 4th level.


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Doktor Weasel wrote:
Davido1000 wrote:
Doktor Weasel wrote:
tqomins wrote:


(1) Is casting a spell out of a wand always 1 action? No, no way. It’s the same as the spell.

(2) If you’re trying to cast beyond the 1/day, is it destroyed, just broken and can be repaired? You *always* get the second spell, and it’s about a 50/50% flat check whether or not the wand is merely broken (and can be repaired with a skill check) or whether it’s permanently destroyed.

I hate this. The idea to push a wand to get more spells at the risk of breaking it is a cool idea. It sounded good at first, but I thought it'd be reasonable. But 50% chance of destroying it for getting a second spell? That's terrible. My group will almost certainly house-rule this to something not awful if we end up moving to PF2. Probably at least a 75% chance of it surviving the first attempt. A coin flip to permanently destroy a magic item probably worth hundreds if not thousands of GP will just make this an option that is never used except on the absolutely cheapest wands.

I'm sorry to get negative, but this is really worrying to me. Magic being worth using, versus garbage is a very big deal for me and my group. This is slipping into garbage teritory. It gives me flashbacks to the 1d4 round invisibility potion from the focus test. That wasn't just bad, it was almost insulting. I've been wavering between cautious optimism for PF2 and fear. If this is representative of their direction, I'm really being pushed into the later.

Your making some very large jumps from 1 thing you don't like, we still don't know what dynamic staffs provide to the magic item paradigm. they specifically said this was the basic wand and name dropped special wands like the smouldering fireball.

Wands were never worth the money you put in them in 1e anyway unless it was cure light wounds, this allows you to have a one off clutch spell up your sleeve everyday aswell as scrolls and your daily allotment.

It's not so much of a jump considering this...

Magic and casters sorely needed a nerfing from 1e and i'll even admit they went a little overboard in the playtest but that's what a playtest is for, it has become very clear from the spoilers and the panels that almost everything across the board has been buffed and refined, magic and magic items look to be in a much better place than they were on the playtest so yes i will call it a big jump.


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Rysky wrote:
tqomins wrote:

[JB] The Fall of Plaguestone. Designed to be the adventure that tells the story of how your group came together. Opening scene. All of you in the back of a wagon travelling through Isger, with a one-eared Elven cook named Cookie, who can barely hear you, as you make your way to a tiny, tiny rural town known as Plaguestone, that is known for its turnips.

”Oh good, you’re awake.”

MY TIME TO SHINE IS FINALLY HERE! {restarts crafting of Turnip Bruiser Mates for crossbow}

Shadow Lodge

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I just hope the price scaling formula is more forgiving. When was the last time anyone paid for a 5th level pearl of power or page of spell knowledge?

Magic item DCs need to scale properly and affordably too. So many (especially mid-high level) cool items are wasted in PF1 because the DCs are calculated at the minimum.


Cyouni wrote:
graystone wrote:
Quandary wrote:

BTW, I don't know where to ask this, and don't feel like starting a thread :-)

...Is CHA getting anything 'extra' with Resonance gone?

If the Demoralize action has stayed the same, I'd say THAT counts as all the 'extra' t needs... :P
Demoralize crits now only frighten things of a lower level. (May be same level or lower, I'd have to check it again.)

Even then, it's still more than enough to make cha a tempting stat. Taking an action, that doesn't trigger multiple attack penalties, to pass out a -1 - -2 to all checks and saves is great: if you can get some to run, that's icing on the cake IMO.


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Are pearls of power/pages of spell knowledge still around? Both of those were items I never really liked conceptually, so wouldn't mind seeing them effectively replaced with wands.


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A reminder:
Economy in P2 seems to be linear - items are priced within a restricted range determined by their level (with consumables having their own, much lower price). So a wand of lv6 spell and a lv12 ring of whatever would be very close in pricing.


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber

Love the new wand rules. Easy to manage, much more interesting conceptually, and the risk/reward approach to overcharge adds a touch of excitement, not to mention another good reason to have a good repairman in the party.


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Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

Let's not forget that the 1/day spell type wands are going to be the basic type. In addition to there being wands with specially modified spells, there could be other, weirder ones.

Also, I would generally agree that wands are cooler and more representative of the fantasy than pearls of power and pages of spell knowledge.


Elorebaen wrote:
Love the new wand rules. Easy to manage, much more interesting conceptually, and the risk/reward approach to overcharge adds a touch of excitement, not to mention another good reason to have a good repairman in the party.

I can't say I'm a huge fan of either 1/day or the overcharge. IMO, 1/day just makes them mini-staves instead of wands... The overcharge roughly leaves you with a 25% chance to blow it up and for me that's not something I think I'd ever risk with a permanent item.

I can see where you might find it interesting and exciting but for me it's kind of... meh.

WatersLethe wrote:
Let's not forget that the 1/day spell type wands are going to be the basic type. In addition to there being wands with specially modified spells, there could be other, weirder ones.

I'm curious to see what these special wands do. If they do other things on a constant basis, like allow you to modify your casting of the same spell the way the wand does, then that's kind of cool. If if just a funky version of the spell 1/day then... meh.

Paizo Employee

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Couple random things that might not have been in the recording properly, from memory. Please don't hold the designers responsible for any of this, it's just my recollection.

Quote:
[Designers] ... [Between the d20 basic and the 3-action system, it’s really easy to teach]

I thought the question here was actually a great one. It was specifically what they learned at PaizoCon weekend that they liked most about the rules.

So, yeah, examples about players who never played P1 (for example, coming from Starfinder) getting on board in ~2 minutes. And combat being faster to the extent that Mark ran a game with 11 combats in a 4 hour time slot with the last combat being at level 14 or 15.

Quote:
[EM] “Design space”, what’s that?

The answer to this was that design space is the space that they leave in the rules to build cool stuff. The example they used was that archetypes in general had a ton of design space (see 100s of archetypes) but, because of the way archetypes were structured to swap out class abilities, there wasn't much room for cleric archetypes. Monks, on the other hand, could basically swap out their entire class and got a lot of interesting archetypes and builds as a result.

Quote:
Q: How much of a factor was society play in the design process? A: ...

It was talked about. PFS was a huge source of feedback right from the start of the design process.

There wasn't anything they wanted to do but couldn't because of PFS but, for example, the designers worked with the PFS team to get reasonable crafting numbers that should work for everyone.

Quote:
Q: Item slots; belts and headbands of physical stats; what’s up? A: ...

Ten worn items. If that means ten rings, great. Weapons, wands, and other used items like bags of holding don't count against that number.

Items that boost attributes are too iconic to not do, but each of them also does something extra. So while there's one of each in the core rulebook, there might be more later that do other cool things.

There was also a fair bit of talk about how little use items like cloak of the bat got in P1 because they conflicted with cloak of resistance. Removing the slots and combining/removing a lot of those assumed items have opened up a lot of item choices.

Quote:
Q: [Some question kind of about monster customization] A: ...

There was a mention of customizing them to match certain factions fairly early on. Like a Nessian Hellknight Hound.

Also, some monsters have powers you can select. Some skeletons collapse on crits, taking less damage but having to gather themselves together and stand back up. Others can throw their skulls and are blind(?) until they roll back. And so on.

Not sure if it was this question or another question, there was also a bit where they talked about the monster numbers being a bit looser in the final Bestiary than the Playtest, because they needed to make sure the average numbers actually worked in the Playtest.

Cheers!
Landon


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I only worry about a high level item's price insofar as calculating treasure drop values. I don't care about it being "affordable" because I don't let my players shop out of the magic chapter of the core rulebook. There are tinkerers and the occasional entrepreneur who has located a few items of power. But there is no Magic Walmart. They can't go in and put a cloak of the montebank on layaway.


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Landon Winkler wrote:
Items that boost attributes are too iconic to not do, but each of them also does something extra. So while there's one of each in the core rulebook, there might be more later that do other cool things.

This reminds me of AD&D's girdle of giant strength which, in addition to giving you superhuman Strength, allowed you to hurl rocks just like a giant of the appropriate type. That would be an awesome, well, throwback.

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