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Duruid Example
Yup they nerfed the druid so it can't specialize on everything at once. You would still be a pretty good archer with just a high dex and the fighter dedication feat (leaving you free to take wild shape at lvl 4) but if archer focused for you means an archery specific feat then yes you can't do it. You could take point blank shot at 4 and use spell slots starting at level 5 to cast wild shape but again that's a level behind your pf1 version. On the bright side you don't need to spend a feat on precise shot and point blank shot is better but I see where you are coming from
That could probably be solved with a shifter class/archetype since what it sounds like you want is just a quick way to add shifting onto essentially an archer fighter (or ranger) since you didn't say you care about the druids primary ability of primal spellcasting but that won't be in the CRB.
A swashbuckler gish
Wizard
lvl 2 Fighter dedication (Magusish)lvl 3 general feat: fleet (highly mobile)
lvl 4 Basic Maneuver: Dueling Parry, helps alleviate the low AC and fits into the concept well (rapier focused)
That get's there as a concept pretty quickly AC is still a bit low but if you pump your dex and keep mage armor up and shield spell ready it's probably okay.
EDIT: Ninjaed, though I took so long to write it changing my mind a few times on things that a half blind ettin probably could have gotten there before me.
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In PF1, I could do both and even more importantly I felt like I was actually investing in my conceptThe feeling that you need to pay for something in order for it to have value is one that you might want to examine in yourself.
In PF1, you had to invest in a concept; in PF2, you can simply realize a concept.
This is going to be a point of contention.
In my opinion, RPGs are all about investing in concepts. It's one of the reasons I hated Diablo 3, since everything was equipment based rather than character build based.
If I build a character who has no mechanical reason to favor a particular weapon type or fighting style, I am under a constant conscious and subconscious pressure to select the most mathematically optimal weapon at any given time. It becomes very easy to talk myself into shifting gears for no other reason than because of numbers, even when I set out at character gen to play a certain kind of weapon user.
That's fine for people who want to play a character that's good with lots of weapons and doesn't particularly care, but it's irritating on many levels when my knife rogue has zero mechanical reason to argue against using the strictly better magical bow that just dropped. Until you get to town to trade it in, you're a bow rogue!
Mechanical weight is a big part of the game for me, and I like having rules behind decisions my character has ostensibly made.
I see both sides. I had a Paladin character a long time ago, (2nd edition of the old game if I recall correctly) who was built using a swashbuckling kit. Wore light armor and owned a rapier, if I recalled correctly. The party came across a magical flame tongue that was a two handed sword, and I was the only one who could wield it, and we were going to fight something that could only be hit by magical weapons, of which it was the only one we had at that point. My character to was in part this memorable because they had to choose to use a weapon they didn't prefer, but which they were competent with, in order to help the party to succeed. I still love remember loving the concept of my paladin tumbling down a hallway with other monsters in it, forcing their way to the boss, to keep it from being able to do whatever power it had against the other party members.
So having to use something that isn't your preference, is fine with me as a plot device at times. It can may your story stand out in the end if in the end it is enabling a benefit for you. I'd probably have hated it if I chose to intentionally prefer a rapier, and then have all my things taken from me, and never have the opportunity to recover or find another rapier. That would have been more upsetting. Having to be the one to use the party's magic weapon against the foe, that was a benefit, despite the reduction of effective choice.
However, there is a certain oddity that in this circumstance, the best knife fighter on the local block, isn't really just the best knife fighter on the block. They are really simply the best fighter on the block. If they picked up a longsword, they would be best at that, or a mace, or a warhammer, and so on. That is a bit of a loss to options at lower levels. Now at some of the higher levels, some of the weapon groups get to play a part and you can have someone better with swords, than flails, however. So at least there is some ability to protray that at the higher levels where it is perhaps more important a concept to have.
BTW: I appreciate reading those who at least feel that some/many concepts can catch up with options as they get higher level. I'll admit, I felt like one of the issues with PF1 multi-classing was how most classes were front-loaded too much. I'm imagining that my own impression of agreeing one would feel feat starved is tied more to the early levels due to that, and with how races have been cut back from many of their traditional bonuses and/or options. I'm rethinking some of my prior thoughts, thinking that I'd still like to see more early feats, it may not be as important to have more across all the levels.
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And also I don't really have a problem with combat style feats being class-specific either, because most combat styles work out of the box much better than in PF1.
This is fair. And to be honest I hadn't really thought about it from the other perspective all that much. Yes, it's easier for me to stomach ignoring mathematically superior weapons to stick to my roleplay than it is for people who just want to be able to pick up and use various weapons at all effectively to shell out feat taxes.
Also do Druids get bow proficiency at base? If not then I'd argue that grabbing that proficiency constitutes an investment making you different from a base druid. And I feel like most (if not all) classes that DO get bow proficiency have feats within their own class to expand.
They do not, and I glossed over it for a couple reasons. 1. I was conceptually using elf weapon familiarity for all these characters because that's just the race I happened to pick while making these characters. 2. Weapon Familiarity gives you longswords and rapiers so it's hard to think of it as specifically a bow investment. 3. The premise of the discussion doesn't matter what weapon we're talking about, if I wanted to make a crossbow focused druid it's the same sort of thing.
To be more brief, I'd argue that actually getting the proficiency with that bow (which can be gotten via General Feat) and the baseline system letting you be competent with just that still constitutes that sense of maming a customizing choice to distinguish from other Druids. Getting that proficiency by itself is like the PF2 equivalent of getting PBS and Precise Shot in PF1. Speccing out to get more via Fighter Dedication would be like the PF2 equivalent of grabbing stuff like Manyshot and other archery feats, that is to say much more of an investment.
Does what I'm saying make sense? I'm not certain if I'm veing clear.
You're quite clear, but it doesn't help in all cases. For example, if I wanted to be a dagger focused druid, having no dagger based in-class options while actually having access to the all-around better scimitar makes things even more mathematically weighted toward dropping my original concept.
The ideal solution in my mind would be to have a set of character resources dedicated to adjusting how you approach combat from a class agnostic perspective.
If absolutely every class has options in-class for every conceivable combat concept, then we'd also be good.
My middle ground is granting extra feats which slightly increases the power of my games (which I'm fine with) while giving people more breathing room in customization. If those extra feats still aren't enough, I'm going to open up combat style customizing feats to wholesale poaching without class dedications and see how that goes.
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You can do a reasonable job with an elf monk/wizard: Take the elf ancestry feat for rapiers, monk gets your unarmored proficiency at expert and locks in your mobility as you level up and a 2nd level multiclass starts your spells.Oh, very cool. :-) Thanks!
Also consider houserule: monastic weapons + racial prophiciency = racial weapons with monk tag
this allows some potentially powerful combos but I think some cases (like rapier) wouldn't upset the balance too much and be really fitting and cool
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You used a druid and a zen archer in that example. You have acknowledged that the druid had too much in PF1, and the zen archer is a an option printed specifically to allow monks to use a weapon path their class doesn't otherwise support. There's no reason why an option couldn't be made to make druids better with bows the same way in PF2. As you yourself point out, this could be an archetype, or it could just be a feat. For example, we already know Clerics and Sorcerers got weapon specific feats you could apply to a bow to make them feel like a more distinct archer than Point Blank shot would. We don't know if druids got such an option, but there's no reason they couldn't.
Also, you need to spend ancestry or general feats to use a bow at all as a druid, so you're already ahead of the curve there. That's a feat you spend to be better at something than normal folks. You didn't spend two feats on Point Blank Shot and Precise shot, but... You didn't need to either. You have about the same baseline competency with a bow in either version.
And elf could take weapon elegance at 5th and have a specialization that sets them above other archers, as well. (Also, why did you take Savage Slice if you wanted to be bow focused? It only works with weapons, and I'm pretty sure your claws don't fit that boat.) The druid can also turn into a tiger at level 5 regardless of feats-- Animal Form comes online as a normal spell you can cast.
Oh, also, the Wild Claws playtest power has been replaced with something called Wild Morph, according to #mypathfinderspoiler 49. Obviously it is a little early to know for sure, but that certainly sounds like the "buy in" cost of Animal Shape will probably be lowered, and perhaps Wild Claws will become the optional power instead. (That would be nice for Dragon Claws, too.)
What is the situation with armour spell failure? Is it gone and just a case of getting the proficiencies ?
Does that mean earlier heavy armoured gishes (say for something like a signifer hellknight) than in 1E
Or have I missed something?
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Some very cool ideas for that kind of character. And I'm seeing just how flexible PF2 is. :)
PF1 I used Kensai Magus + 3pp (SoM/SoP), so like I said I wouldn't have been surprised if it was difficult/impossible. The fact that is possible in multiple ways makes me even more excited for PF2, even though I plan to continue playing the PF1 version of this particular character for quite some time. :-)
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(Also, why did you take Savage Slice if you wanted to be bow focused? It only works with weapons, and I'm pretty sure your claws don't fit that boat.)
I understood the feat that it was designed to work with (natural) slashing weapons like claws to supplement shapechangers
correct me if I'm wrong
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What is the situation with armour spell failure? Is it gone and just a case of getting the proficiencies ?
Does that mean earlier heavy armoured gishes (say for something like a signifer hellknight) than in 1E
Or have I missed something?
We technically don't know (only playtest info), but I would be very surprised if it came back when Touch AC went the way of the dodo.
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(Also, why did you take Savage Slice if you wanted to be bow focused? It only works with weapons, and I'm pretty sure your claws don't fit that boat.)I understood the feat that it was designed to work with (natural) slashing weapons like claws to supplement shapechangers
correct me if I'm wrong
It might have been the intent, but I'm not sure it actually does that by RAW. That feat had problems that never seemed to be addressed.
Oh, and the druid has every reason to use a dagger if they invested in dexterity but not strength. A wild druid very well might have good strength, but then why did they bother getting a melee weapon in the first place, you gotta wonder. ;) The general goal is that simple weapons are worse than martial weapons, but generally speaking equipment within the same gradient is going to be better suited to some characters than others.
Ranger, cleric, and Champion all had options to make simple weapons more competitive in the playtest, though, and Halfling's got a sexy new version of Titan Slinger in PF2. I think we will probably get something like that for most martial classes eventually.
A druid equivalent of Divine Weapon or Bespell weapon would work for a crossbow, BTW. The advantage the shortbow has would be offset by needing to spend a feat to gain it at all. (And I don't think poaching Running Reload would really offset this, as the caster is spending their other actions to cast, not move.)
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Armor spell failure is probably gone, but it seems heavy armour proficiency requires either to have it in your class, or to multiclass into Champion. So to have a heavy armored spellcaster, you either need to play as a Fighter or Champion and multiclass into a spellcaster, or start in a spellcaster and multiclass into Champion, each of which has their limitations.
Did they say that they removed the armor profocincy feat?
Armor spell failure is probably gone, but it seems heavy armour proficiency requires either to have it in your class, or to multiclass into Champion. So to have a heavy armored spellcaster, you either need to play as a Fighter or Champion and multiclass into a spellcaster, or start in a spellcaster and multiclass into Champion, each of which has their limitations.
Probably a bit easier than 1E for the arcane casting hellknighf I mentioned . I think you need three feats in 1E for a full plate Signifer
Because the suggestion is that you would only need the one dedication feat? Is that right ? (If you started as a spellcaster). Or is that wrong ?
Starting as a martial class seems like it may take more investment to build up the casting but that is probably not the route to take
And this is without knowing what the hellknight prestige archetype does
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Oh, also, the reason feats are silo'ed isn't just to create an individual version of each feat for style's sake. Some feats would be worse on other classes, and some would be way better. For example, Double Slice would be worse on a barbarian who needs to move and rage their opening round, but would be way better for the Rogue than the fighter. The rogue already had to use smaller weapons for sneak attack, where the fighter gave up those d12 weapons or using a shield. So the rogue can either spend a single feat to gain something not as good, or two higher level feats to let them really pop off. Meanwhile, the barbarian player doesn't have to wade through combat feats that don't work well with Rage.
Or see this post from Mark explaining why Barbarians would want Certain Strike so bad..
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Oh, also, the reason feats are silo'ed isn't just to create an individual version of each feat for style's sake. Some feats would be worse on other classes, and some would be way better. For example, Double Slice would be worse on a barbarian who needs to move and rage their opening round, but would be way better for the Rogue than the fighter. The rogue already had to use smaller weapons for sneak attack, where the fighter gave up those d12 weapons or using a shield. So the rogue can either spend a single feat to gain something not as good, or two higher level feats to let them really pop off. Meanwhile, the barbarian player doesn't have to wade through combat feats that don't work well with Rage.
Or see this post from Mark explaining why Barbarians would want Certain Strike so bad..
This is a good point. By restricting a feat to a specific class, it frees up the designers from needing to know every possible corner case exception. They can just make fun toys instead of worrying how this fun thing can be exploited to break the game by a class the designer never even considered likely to take this feat.
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I do think the druid did need to be less broad. In recent iterations the druid had a huge pile of class features, and when fixing an overpowered prior version of the druid we didn't so much "reduce what the druid can do" we just made specific features less powerful.
Ideally I think a druid should be able to choose between all of the druidy things, should be good at whatever they decide to focus on, but should not be good at all the druidy things at once.
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On druid: didn't they have a bunch of incredibly situational class features?
Some that given the campaign are either amazing or useless. So moving them to choices (and presumably improving them) seems like the right way to go
I mean the bonus on saves against Fey is relevant for more than one combat in maybe 2 published adventure paths
The moving through forests unimpeded is great for kingmaker, ironfang and small parts of other APs. Useless in Crimson Throne, Council of Thieves and Hells Rebels.
In a similar way not all Rogue's should be trap finding experts.
And if it was it's own class (which it won't be) I would have liked Cavalier to have the Order and Tactician chassis (of say a "Knight") with the mount being optional since it is a hindrance in many campaigns. I made a cavalier because I the level 2 cockatrice power was perfect for the character I had and we were only allowed to use the first two books. So I had a useless horse that was a wasted class feature in an urban game.
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Somewhat random, but I have 2 copper pieces on the “Order of Cockatrice” being reimagined as a Champion Cause. That’s the natural class to absorb the good cavalier bits.
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It feels like a knightly (or some other kind of) order is the perfect thing to do with a dedication, since you are literally dedicating yourself to the order.
True, but that also describes, what, 4, maybe 5 different base classes in core alone?
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True, but that also describes, what, 4, maybe 5 different base classes in core alone?
True, a druid dedicates themselves to nature for instance.
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As someone who played Star Wars SAGA Edition, where pretty much everything was feat (or "class talent") as well, I can say that the concept makes for a lot of modularity, but also narrows down your choices a ton. Since you have only a limited amount of resources to customize your character, you often get locked down to the most effective stuff, instead of taking the more flavorful options.
I would be happy with either route. A lot of people say their favourite part if Cavalier was tactician (despite it being overly limited) and I have already stated I like the chassis but not the mounted stuff
My favourite part is the thematicness of the orders - despite cockatrice never really making sense as an “order”. “Cause” is actually the perfect word for it
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I am not sure if this is the correct thread for this. I have read a few thing on this thread and the new blog on character design thread (so this should either be here, there or it’s own one):
Without calling anyone out I have seen lots of “I can’t make multiclass x and y” build. But an awful lot of those mentioned multiclasses seem to contain things like:
- Paladin 2 (which we all know is just for charisma to saves)
- Rogue 1 or 3 (for minimal hit to BAB, a bunch of skills and some sneak attack)
- Fighter 1 or 2 (for loads of proficiencies and some bonus feats)
So basically a load of purely mechanical choices designed to plug holes in character build numbers. And the design intent of this edition is to make that not be something to worry about - notably on saves
You don’t need these often weird dips just to be viable
Now the counter argument from some will be that dedications are kind of like dips and certain abilities are locked behind them. But :
- many would have already been locked but behind taking an entire level instead (biggest complaint is potentially that whole level dips are not explicitly locked behind a stat ore-req)
- there are some that are locked like AOO that represent a fundamental change in how the system operates
- as has been discussed the baseline of what 2E characters can do looks higher - multiple attacks, cast and attack, move-attack-move in a pseudo spring attack
So I quite like there aren’t going to be weird nonsensical dips. There may become a meta for nonsensical dedications that every build of a certain type takes but that is surely inevitable
(I guess I just really am not a fan of 1 level fighter dips and 2 level paladin dips in 1E - despite doing the former myself)
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Honestly, I felt more feat starved in PF1. I’m that person who has a particular concept I like to try first in every single rpg I play, a dual-wielding elven rogue (read: sneaky, sneaky stab, stab assassin) despite each iteration being role played differently. The thing is that it didn’t really work in PF1 for me, ever. Before unchained (and even with it), I was outclassed completely by my party: a non-full BAB didn’t even allow me to get a hit in until level 3, and I had not gotten a kill until level 5 (this was my first game), I rarely able to survive a round in combat, and every single feat I used was geared toward being better at dual-wielding and landing attacks: weapon finesse, weapon focus, two-weapon fighting, and eventually two-weapon feint. My gripe was that two-weapon feint wasn’t really that helpful to my vision of stabbing enemies a lot to take them down, as the extra attack from dual-wielding is just used to make sure I can hit (maybe) and use sneak attack. My character wasn’t fully online until level 9 or so, and by that point, I was behind again on to-hit, making the whole point moot.
Now, as in my experience with the play test, I don’t have to wholly focus on trying to keep up with BAB, especially if I want to dual-wield. In the play test, I went rogue, took the fighter dedication and twin slice, and played out another concept of being a disguise master in addition thanks to skill feats. I was able to stay in combat as a front liner without being smashed into the floor on a single hit, and I could still feint without wasting an “extra” attack (which everyone got in 1e by picking up a second weapon). If I wanted, I also could have taken all the utility rogue feats as well and still be a valuable addition to the team instead of being an extra damage sponge for an attack, which I felt like most of the time in 1e and which could have been served with a hireling.
Honestly, I felt more feat starved in PF1. I’m that person who has a particular concept I like to try first in every single rpg I play, a dual-wielding elven rogue (read: sneaky, sneaky stab, stab assassin) despite each iteration being role played differently. The thing is that it didn’t really work in PF1 for me, ever. Before unchained (and even with it), I was outclassed completely by my party: a non-full BAB didn’t even allow me to get a hit in until level 3, and I had not gotten a kill until level 5 (this was my first game), I rarely able to survive a round in combat, and every single feat I used was geared toward being better at dual-wielding and landing attacks: weapon finesse, weapon focus, two-weapon fighting, and eventually two-weapon feint. My gripe was that two-weapon feint wasn’t really that helpful to my vision of stabbing enemies a lot to take them down, as the extra attack from dual-wielding is just used to make sure I can hit (maybe) and use sneak attack. My character wasn’t fully online until level 9 or so, and by that point, I was behind again on to-hit, making the whole point moot.
Now, as in my experience with the play test, I don’t have to wholly focus on trying to keep up with BAB, especially if I want to dual-wield. In the play test, I went rogue, took the fighter dedication and twin slice, and played out another concept of being a disguise master in addition thanks to skill feats. I was able to stay in combat as a front liner without being smashed into the floor on a single hit, and I could still feint without wasting an “extra” attack (which everyone got in 1e by picking up a second weapon). If I wanted, I also could have taken all the utility rogue feats as well and still be a valuable addition to the team instead of being an extra damage sponge for an attack, which I felt like most of the time in 1e and which could have been served with a hireling.
This is interesting. In all this discussion the point you are making has been missed - how two weapon fighting rogues, regardless of how you got there, were usually rubbish in 1E until about level 10 and only with greater invisibility or the like cast on them
(I listened to a podcast where a kobold rogue crept up to a Roc whilst invisible and got all their attacks (both weapons had damage boosters on them, one flaming and one vicious) on a flat footed creature - it died in one round )
But in general they need so many feats
There is a player in the homebrew game I play in who had similar desires - two weapon rogue. And we have had to try unsuccessfully to talk him out of it because of how ineffective it will actually be (especially as he isn’t full rogue so doesn’t have combat trick etc but that is another story)
As someone who played Star Wars SAGA Edition, where pretty much everything was feat (or "class talent") as well, I can say that the concept makes for a lot of modularity, but also narrows down your choices a ton. Since you have only a limited amount of resources to customize your character, you often get locked down to the most effective stuff, instead of taking the more flavorful options.You just described PF1 in a nutshell. You have limited resources and you basically have to spend most of them keeping up with the maths. Even less rigid games still have restrictions.
In PF2 at least you have freedom to explore more flavour options as 1/2 of the resources you get are specifically dedicated to that space.
No, I think I did not. Since in PF1E you are locked down to certain character options due to them being hardcoded into your class, you have to take the good with the bad and you build around that. In PF2E, you only have options and that will lead, at least with players of a certain mind-set, to as much optimization as possible.
I am sure that there are enough players who take flavor options albeit more powerful stuff is available. But there is certainly a pull for a lot of other people to make your character as good as possible over the more roleplaying flavored stuff.
I mean I made a character last week (we postponed the game to just wait for PF2 in the end) At level 8 all of my choices were around just getting the numbers right.As someone who played Star Wars SAGA Edition, where pretty much everything was feat (or "class talent") as well, I can say that the concept makes for a lot of modularity, but also narrows down your choices a ton. Since you have only a limited amount of resources to customize your character, you often get locked down to the most effective stuff, instead of taking the more flavorful options.You just described PF1 in a nutshell. You have limited resources and you basically have to spend most of them keeping up with the maths. Even less rigid games still have restrictions.
In PF2 at least you have freedom to explore more flavour options as 1/2 of the resources you get are specifically dedicated to that space.
No, I think I did not. Since in PF1E you are locked down to certain character options due to them being hardcoded into your class, you have to take the good with the bad and you build around that. In PF2E, you only have options and that will lead, at least with players of a certain mind-set, to as much optimization as possible.
I am sure that there are enough players who take flavor options albeit more powerful stuff is available. But there is certainly a pull for a lot of other people to make your character as good as possible over the more roleplaying flavored stuff.
Pf1 I take it?
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PF1 was built on DnD 3.0 which inherited the MTG mentality that folks with system mastery deserved to be better at the game than a newbie. It makes it rewarding for those who have figured the game out but punishing for new players.
PF2 is trying to move away from that mentality
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I'll point out you can't actually minmax as hard in PF2. That cavalier player from my other game is a notorious minmaxer who did encounter ending damage on a charge and was useless when he couldn't charge. His new version still has the highest single hit damage in the party, and he tried to minmax it as hard as possible, but he is still pretty balanced with the other party members and couldn't help but pick up some versatility along the way.
As someone who played Star Wars SAGA Edition, where pretty much everything was feat (or "class talent") as well, I can say that the concept makes for a lot of modularity, but also narrows down your choices a ton. Since you have only a limited amount of resources to customize your character, you often get locked down to the most effective stuff, instead of taking the more flavorful options.You just described PF1 in a nutshell. You have limited resources and you basically have to spend most of them keeping up with the maths. Even less rigid games still have restrictions.
In PF2 at least you have freedom to explore more flavour options as 1/2 of the resources you get are specifically dedicated to that space.
No, I think I did not. Since in PF1E you are locked down to certain character options due to them being hardcoded into your class, you have to take the good with the bad and you build around that. In PF2E, you only have options and that will lead, at least with players of a certain mind-set, to as much optimization as possible.
I am sure that there are enough players who take flavor options albeit more powerful stuff is available. But there is certainly a pull for a lot of other people to make your character as good as possible over the more roleplaying flavored stuff.
Forgive me but I am confused by the “only have options” line. Is that negative ? Or was a word missing?
To me your negatives and criticisms apply more closely to PF1 based on the understanding we have so far . Especially the leading to as much optimisation as possible part
It has been mentioned many times on here that it is often seen that if you don’t take the feats to “optimise” (read : keep up with) the maths then you fall far behind
I know this far too well by accidentally creating a monster out of one of my players. They pitched a character for a savings throw heavy level 4 module with +1 fort and +0 will. So I shared with them the “bench pressing” benchmarking spreadsheet that is out there and it has resulted in a slavish obsession to playing by the numbers. Thematic choices are jettisoned in favour of those that get the right numbers. If 2E cuts down on this kind of thing I will be delighted (and it seems like that is will do)
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PF1 was built on DnD 3.0 which inherited the MTG mentality that folks with system mastery deserved to be better at the game than a newbie. It makes it rewarding for those who have figured the game out but punishing for new players.
PF2 is trying to move away from that mentality
MTG?
Edit : Oh - Magic
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magic the gathering
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I do think a big difference is still "If players feel limited by an insufficient number of feats so they can't take the fun stuff" (an experience I have had) in PF1, you have to be extremely careful in terms of giving people extra feats, since so many feats are straight up math fixers that stack with other math fixers.
In PF2 I can hand out extra feats without vetting them.
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I do think a big difference is still "If players feel limited by an insufficient number of feats so they can't take the fun stuff" (an experience I have had) in PF1, you have to be extremely careful in terms of giving people extra feats, since so many feats are straight up math fixers that stack with other math fixers.
In PF2 I can hand out extra feats without vetting them.
Is this because they generally just add things you can do rather than be maths things ?
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there is at least one classless high fantasy system GenIsys - which builds kind of on the 3.x rules (and uses its monsters) and is completely modular and xp based in progression (you buy stuff from xp)
some interesting design decision in there
But I think that PF2 is not exactly the right system for that
This is a fantastic discussion, but it makes me feel like my insanely crazy idea isn't so crazy. I wonder if PF2 was a missed opportunity to make the first high fantasy classless system. This way combat styles aren't gated, almost everyone already multiclasses, and PF2 is already so modular it's already easy to trade feats between classes. I know it's a terrible idea, but I'd love to see a major developer tackle a classless high powered system.
There is more than just class feats though
Each class has proficiency levels on saves and weapons and they also have other class features such as attack of opportunityIf it was just class and skill feats that were all plugged into an empty chassis then the idea could work.
You could always lessen the restrictions on the dedication feats to mostly achieve what you are saying
I remember seeing something suggested for a cleric rebuild for 1E where it started with a basic chassis of weak BAB , d6 HD, no proficiencies (or limited ones) , strong will only and the spells (and maybe one domain)
Then everything else was purchasable with a certain number of slots be it boosting armour, domains , BAB or saves. It was a way of making it so every cleric didn’t feel like they were wasting their “moderate” abilities in armour , BAB and HD if they chose not to be supporting melee character. This seems to be closer to what this edition is trying to do. But your idea would be for a more general blank slate
It could probably be worked out once it is apparent what everyone gets outside of “feats” - that is how the balance could be worked out
The base chassis would be no proficiencies , trained in al saves, 6 HP I think? But how many extra slots you get after that and how much each cost cannot be worked out at this stage. And probably isn’t really worth it anyway
Also do Druids get bow proficiency at base? If not then I'd argue that grabbing that proficiency constitutes an investment making you different from a base druid. And I feel like most (if not all) classes that DO get bow proficiency have feats within their own class to expand.They do not, and I glossed over it for a couple reasons. 1. I was conceptually using elf weapon familiarity for all these characters because that's just the race I happened to pick while making these characters. 2. Weapon Familiarity gives you longswords and rapiers so it's hard to think of it as specifically a bow investment. 3. The premise of the discussion doesn't matter what weapon we're talking about, if I wanted to make a crossbow focused druid it's the same sort of thing.
Something has bugged me about this hypothetical since yesterday, and I finally put my finger on what it was. Specifically: it kind of goes against the class flavor if you're a druid that focuses on weapons at all. The PF2 version of the class is about being one with your primal self, and who cares what weapon you use on the way, be it bow, knife, scimitar, spear, whatever.
You can do it, of course, but it should (and does) take a signifigant investment out of your druidness to pick those options up, because your basic druid learning does not involve weapons training beyond the basics.
I'm not saying you're playing wrong, and it doesn't take away from the larger points of class feats and what they are meant to do now, but maybe you need to take that change on board when you're coming up with your character concepts. Some characters just aren't meant to be tied to a fighting style that involves weapons, and have little to no in-class support for those options. At least not yet; I'm sure the Lost Omens Ultimate Combat (or whatever they decide to call it) will have class archetypes and dedication archetypes meant to allow those kinds of characters.
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This is a fantastic discussion, but it makes me feel like my insanely crazy idea isn't so crazy. I wonder if PF2 was a missed opportunity to make the first high fantasy classless system. This way combat styles aren't gated, almost everyone already multiclasses, and PF2 is already so modular it's already easy to trade feats between classes. I know it's a terrible idea, but I'd love to see a major developer tackle a classless high powered system.
It wasn’t a missed opportunity. A good portion of the player base isn’t looking for a classless system and would not find it as interesting. Changing from a hard coded class based system to a classless one would also be something not many would consider as an expanded edition rather that a new game altogether.
Open Legend looks like a pretty good classless high fantasy system if you’re interested in one.
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Some characters just aren't meant to be tied to a fighting style that involves weapons, and have little to no in-class support for those options. At least not yet; I'm sure the Lost Omens Ultimate Combat (or whatever they decide to call it) will have class archetypes and dedication archetypes meant to allow those kinds of characters.
I mean, I know where you're coming from and it's not your fault, but I categorically reject the notion that some classes are inherently not meant to be built a certain way. I would sooner burn down the whole game than tell a player they can't seek to gain capabilities in whatever weapon style they want. The general feat is a good way to get proficiency and goes a long way towards avoiding the "your class can't" problem. The ability to pick up one or two more weapon style feats of absolutely any kind without multiclassing is extremely important, and would be just about the only thing that would get me to abandon my extra feats house rule.
There's also GURPS Fantasy, which dates back to the '80s.