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I guess i'll also throw my hat in with generic options. I just think the generic options should be archetypes revolving around a fighting style. I really want an archetype that uses heavy armor offensively for instance.
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I guess i'll also throw my hat in with generic options. I just think the generic options should be archetypes revolving around a fighting style. I really want an archetype that uses heavy armor offensively for instance.
I'm totally on board with this. In many ways this sounds like the best of both worlds, with some flavor, but only inasmuch as 'this is how you fight'.
I mean, there's going to be a pirate archetype and probably also something like a "Gray Corsair" archetype and a "Shackles Free Captain" archetype.
So there's no reason we can't do a Hellknight Archetype, a Grey Maiden Archetype, and a [more general heavy armor user] archetype.
I'm with Helmic on the need for something more generic than 'Grey Maiden' and 'Hellknight' options. One option for all armor doesn't seem quite right, with more specific stuff necessary, but we need some non flavor-locked options for Armor Archetypes.
This was my concern about tying "best in Armor" to the champion class during the playtest, and something that felt like bad game design to me at the time, that Defender would be tied to religious devotion. I brought this issue up in the original pre-playtest blog post discussions about tying fighter to attack and paladin (turned champion) into defense because classes should be defined as something more mechanical and less flavor based, while archetypes and feats, and class features (like selecting a deity) would allow for more specific flavorful builds related to specific campaigns. And that MC dedications would be fine for the idea of accessing specific proficiencies.
But that ship sailed without much fuss, and as a result some classes are tied to specific flavor things and all proficiencies are tied to specific classes. The Autobosting of trained proficiencies to Expert proficiencies feels like the larger cause of the issue of people feeling like a character is much worse off picking up trained in something new, and it is possible that the decision to up proficiencies from +1 to +2 (which caused the auto boosting of trained proficiencies) was not cross evaluated against the MC dedications very closely as far as limiting armor and weapons to expert proficiency and how that would all work out in play.
There is a very good chance that non-class based Archetypes are going to essentially replace all MC proficiency boosters as well as general feat boosters because it looks like they will give characters the auto-boosting proficiencies in weapons (maybe not armor, if the the gray maiden archetype from the playtest was indicative of anything). But once you were trained in the armor, it does seem like archetype feats will allow for boosting to master and even legendary in armor (that was the "promise" of how legendary armor would eventually be available to characters outside of paladins/champions).
I strongly doubt we will get the best options for proficiency progression that are not tied to thematic builds.
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It's also entirely a thing a GM can do where they just strip out the flavor of a specific Dedication or Archetype if it doesn't fit with their homebrew world or whatever else.
I can't really fault Paizo for making things tied to their specific setting, when it's such an important part of their game.
It's also entirely a thing a GM can do where they just strip out the flavor if it doesn't fit with their specific world or game.
I can't really fault Paizo for making things tied to their specific setting, when it's such an important part of their game.
This is were I have been left as well.
Paizo wanted their game tied to their setting. They also made it really easy to mod for your own setting.Its not really what I wanted from the beginning, but it is clearly what they decided to go with and, at the very least, generic options are going to trail 1 to 2 proficiency levels behind thematic ones, so that thematic characters are always going to be superior choices when possible.
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A thing we keep coming back to is this:
It's always easier to remove something than to create a new thing out of whole cloth.
Like I prefer milestone advancement to XP advancement, but it would be an enormous amount of work for people who like XP to create an XP system out of whole cloth and it probably wouldn't be as good as the one that was made by multiple professional game designers. Whereas it's super easy to just ignore XP entirely and use milestones.
It's likewise easier to ignore rarity than to recreate it. It's easier to ignore or change how something fits in a setting than it is to work something into a setting with no context clues for how it should fit.
There has to be setting-neutral ways to get that proficiency without it mucking up the other setting.There is. It is called build your own, because the system is incredibly flexible and modular.
Wearing armor is only "useless" when you are untrained in it. Otherwise it might be less effective than another armor option but it is not useless, and what armor your character wears is a function of class first, by long standing tradition of the Fantasy RPG genre. What seems to have folks upset is that PF2 has loosened this up significantly, but doesn't have the pieces in place yet for all possible builds to make sense, and they won't waste their time trying to make builds work that are not going to fit into their campaign setting. Luckily, it shouldn't be hard to mod it for your own needs.
If your goal is to play a character that can use any weapon or any armor as well as anyone alive, there are specific classes for that.
It's kind of strange how people keep saying it's useless after 13th because something else that requires entirely different stats does a thing better. If anything, medium and heavy armor becomes better later on since they get more options for materials and specific armors. I agree the trained medium/heavy armor is weaker, but once you hit that AC cap from it, it stays the same until 20. The only thing 13th does is boost your numbers if you stick to the class' cookie cutter build path. The exception mostly shows in classes that go master proficiency or higher. A barbarian for example, gets much better medium numbers than heavy because he goes to master. But so far, only four classes hit master.
All the pure casters can focus on non dex or even non str/dex because they don't really need those stats outside AC/skills.
Non-optimal options, but if we stuck to that, we'd still be playing dex dervish with scimitars on everything that isn't using power attack.
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It's kind of strange how people keep saying it's useless after 13th because something else that requires entirely different stats does a thing better. If anything, medium and heavy armor becomes better later on since they get more options for materials and specific armors. I agree the trained medium/heavy armor is weaker, but once you hit that AC cap from it, it stays the same until 20. The only thing 13th does is boost your numbers if you stick to the class' cookie cutter build path. The exception mostly shows in classes that go master proficiency or higher. A barbarian for example, gets much better medium numbers than heavy because he goes to master. But so far, only four classes hit master.
All the pure casters can focus on non dex or even non str/dex because they don't really need those stats outside AC/skills.
Non-optimal options, but if we stuck to that, we'd still be playing dex dervish with scimitars on everything that isn't using power attack.
So the classes that hit master are left out. The wizard who wants to use a sling is left out. The strength rogue who wants medium armor is left out. And I still don't know why it's being deemed necessary, and what having auto-scaling general feats would break.
So the classes that hit master are left out. The wizard who wants to use a sling is left out. The strength rogue who wants medium armor is left out. And I still don't know why it's being deemed necessary, and what having auto-scaling general feats would break.It's kind of strange how people keep saying it's useless after 13th because something else that requires entirely different stats does a thing better. If anything, medium and heavy armor becomes better later on since they get more options for materials and specific armors. I agree the trained medium/heavy armor is weaker, but once you hit that AC cap from it, it stays the same until 20. The only thing 13th does is boost your numbers if you stick to the class' cookie cutter build path. The exception mostly shows in classes that go master proficiency or higher. A barbarian for example, gets much better medium numbers than heavy because he goes to master. But so far, only four classes hit master.
All the pure casters can focus on non dex or even non str/dex because they don't really need those stats outside AC/skills.
Non-optimal options, but if we stuck to that, we'd still be playing dex dervish with scimitars on everything that isn't using power attack.
There's a big difference between "not viable for everyone" and "Stops working at 13th." the 8 ac that a trained full plate gives doesn't change at 13th, it's just that another build that focuses on dex does AC better at 13th or 15th depending on what class you start with. A trained fullplate from level 7 to 20th stays at the same 8AC. A dex build from 7th to 13th stays one AC below it until it catches up at 13th and overtakes it at 15th for non dex classes.
I'm with you on the strength rogue kind of. I'm building a ruffian to test it, thief wouldn't work with medium/heavy armor anyway since those aren't building dex, and scoundrel works with anyone. If you want medium armor on a thief, then it's wiser to take ruffian and get master in it.
Scaling armor is already in game. For a rogue, it costs a main class feature, his Racket. For a dedication it costs 2 class feats or 1 ancestry + 1 class feat if human heritage. Even the warpriest uses their doctorine to get scaling light and medium armor.
Should the General feat give the same effect that 2 class feats/1ancestry+1class feat/Racket/doctorine give?
General feat is obviously worth less, so it makes sense it doesn't scale. Same with weapon proficiency and ancestry weapons. Ancestry is worth more, so it's more narrow but scaling. Tbh, I'd prefer if they just remove armor proficiency all together and you decide what you wear depending on what ability scores and path you want to go. Want to not deal with bulk and armors, go dex. Give everyone expert Defense and some Master and Legendary?
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In the name of protecting the sacred casual newbie, we must assume they only care about optimizing around one single AC stat, and anything else they could do with other stat builds (whether STR, WIS, etc) just doesn't count because the max DEX mac AC build can't do that so it's not fair to consider. No, nobody could find value in other builds, certainly not newbies happy to enjoy any and everything they can achieve with system, they only care about cold miserable competition with minmax freaks. That one single potentially valid Heavy Armor Wizard is just so narrow and particular compared to universal truth of max DEX max AC, from which nobody else could diverge at all, no Sorcerors, no Bards, no Cloistered Clerics, no STR Scoundrel Rogues. And only "builds" defined from level 1 and continually linearly adhered to are valid, characters who change their combat style/gear at different levels are breaking the rules, they just gotta suck up being worse in other stats and give up that fantasy of using gear until they grow out of it into something else. It's fine if Barbarians think an AC penalty in trade for damage mitigation/resilience is fine trade from Rage, but heaven forbid anybody think gear/stat-derived vanilla AC discrepancy is acceptable trade for Fortification and at least 3 stat-boosts freed up to apply to other stats (more if 10 STR not sufficient for desired gear, necessitating some STR boosts). Oh those CHA build characters, thinking they could reduce their disproportionally broader demand on stats by using alternative for decent AC with lesser stat demands. And remember, Trained-as-Pre-Req is only some salvation in the future, we can't acknowledge Hand of Apprentice as Trained-as-Pre-Req feature (that fully scales anyways), since of course that would make our 10 STR max DEX Wizard jealous when they look at puny Dagger they use with HoA because they couldn't even carry heavier gear even if they were Trained in it. And of course, we also can't acknowledge the devs' own shining example of intentionally AC-dumped STR/WIS Monk who nonetheless had no problem in actual play whatsoever, leveraging their other stronger stats, because we all know minmaxing DEX/AC is the one true way to play.
In the name of protecting the sacred casual newbie, we must assume they only care about optimizing around one single AC stat, and anything else they could do with other stat builds (whether STR, WIS, etc) just doesn't count because the max DEX mac AC build can't do that so it's not fair to consider. No, nobody could find value in other builds. That one single potentially valid Heavy Armor Wizard is just so narrow and particular compared to universal truth of max DEX max AC, from which nobody else could diverge at all, no Sorcerors, no Bards, no Cloistered Clerics, no STR Scoundrel Rogues. And only "builds" defined from level 1 and continually linearly adhered to are valid, characters who change their combat style/gear at different levels are breaking the rules, they just gotta suck up being worse in other stats and give up that fantasy of using gear until they grow out of it into something else. It's fine if Barbarians think an AC penalty in trade for damage mitigation/resilience is fine trade from Rage, but heaven forbid anybody think gear/stat-derived vanilla AC discrepancy is acceptable trade for Fortification and at least 3 stat-boosts freed up to apply to other stats. Oh those CHA build characters, thinking they could reduce their disproportionally broader demand on stats by bypassing DEX investments with alternative for decent AC. And remember, Trained-as-Pre-Req is only some salvation in the future, we can't acknowledge Hand of Apprentice as Trained-as-Pre-Req feature (that fully scales anyways), since of course that would make our 10 STR max DEX Wizard jealous when they look at puny Dagger they use with HoA because they couldn't even carry heavier gear even if they were Trained. And of course, we also can't acknowledge the devs' own shining example of intentionally AC-dumped STR/WIS Monk who nonetheless had no problem in actual play whatsoever, leveraging their other stronger stats, because we all know minmaxing DEX/AC is the one true way to play.
I'm now building a half-elf STR scoundrel rogue with elven curve blade and trained proficiency Breastplate >:(
Wait, do we still get bonus str modifier to two-handed attacks?
I'm now building a half-elf STR scoundrel rogue with elven curve blade and trained proficiency Breastplate >:(
Wait, do we still get bonus str modifier to two-handed attacks?
Heh...
No 2h bonus directly AFAIK, but you get weapon die (multiplying with striking runes) and qualities, and you have high 1x STR mod.Some Monk UAS are also interesting Agile/Finess option.
Not Scoundrel, but Ruffian using Heavy Armor early on seems decent approach allowing other stat priorities, putting bonus into DEX later when switching to Medium.
I'm now building a half-elf STR scoundrel rogue with elven curve blade and trained proficiency Breastplate >:(
Wait, do we still get bonus str modifier to two-handed attacks?Heh...
No 2h STR bonus directly AFAIK, but you're getting increase from weapon die (multiplying with striking runes) and qualities.
Some Monk UAS are also interesting Agile/Finess option.
Not Scoundrel, but Ruffian using Heavy Armor early on seems decent approach allowing other stat priorities, putting bonus into DEX later when switching to Medium.
I'm a lil on the fence with ruffian but gonna stat out one of those and a thief who doesn't use finesse weapons because I hate myself. Sometimes you gotta damn the rollplay for the roleplay. One of the starfinder or pathfinder adventures had this really cool android with a spiked fist on the cover and now I gotta use that weapon to sate the aesthetics.
Ruffian rogue isn't too relevant to the topic since he gets master medium/light, and while I disagree with trained medium/heavy vs expert unarmored/light, I don't feel like trained heavy can compete with Master light/medium.
Well, I think it's relevant to the topic, because transient utility is no less valid then permanent dedication. Yeah, it doesn't compete with Master, but you don't even get Expert until 13 and you only need one boost to fill the Medium Dex Cap so using Heavy Armor early on just lets you put bonus somewhere actually impactful instead of waiting on it while not having any better AC. In case of Scoundrel, any dedication to CHA means you now have 1 more relevant stat, so delaying putting boost into DEX (say, @15) certainly seems welcome IMHO.
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Well, I think it's relevant to the topic, because transient utility is no less valid then permanent dedication. Yeah, it doesn't compete with Master, but you don't even get Expert until 13 and you only need one boost to fill the Medium Dex Cap so using Heavy Armor early on just lets you put bonus somewhere actually impactful instead of waiting on it while not having any better AC. In case of Scoundrel, any dedication to CHA means you now have 1 more relevant stat, so delaying putting one boost into DEX certainly seems welcome IMHO.
Personally I'm for trained via General feats, scaled but narrow from Ancestry feats and the best scaling from class dedications/expert, but that's just me. I will be testing and playing without min-maxing the dex. Because frankly, that's what you /must/ do to keep dex as relevant ACwise as people base things on. If you don't get 16(18*) at level 1, then dex lags behind.
Might be just me but I'm fine with some build paths being more viable for one class than the other, and one path excelling at things the other doesn't. I'm taking a low-mid level AC hit with a wizard because I want the fullplate options. And from there I can even branch out. Dump str/dex and raise every mental skill, or pump up str and use buff spells such as Enlarge and Haste as steroids. Heck, could even rush an enemy caster with dimension door, then sustain an antimagic field while you smack them around. I don't know if that's optimal. But it's options and variety to everyone who doesn't start with medium/heavy armor being ninjas in explorer's clothes.
*Dex starting classes like rogue should be able to start with 18 and have 20 by 10th, everyone else doesn't overtake most trained armors until 15th, not 13th since at 13th they won't have the +5Dex to AC to overtake a trained higher class of armor.
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post defending an auto scaling
General feats and class feats are not the same and should not be treated the same at all. Giving general feats the same or more power would create an imbalance. As class feats are worth a lot more than general feats, and yes, the system is built on feats, but that does not mean that they are all equal, especially among different types, which can be seen if characters who are built differently, one with rules as they are and one with the ability to take class feats with general feats. If the latter option was available, I can almost guarantee that humans would be by far the most popular race.
As for non-scaling armor, they do not just become useless when proficiencies are increased. For heavy armor, the character is equal in AC to his or her counterparts until dex 20. For medium and light armor, the character is one below, unless dex and str are just dump stats, which would allow the character to have a higher AC with the appropriate armor.
It is completely disingenuous to say that armor does not provide any meaningful benefit, however. An increase in AC for all levels taken, even if only 1 AC, reduces damage taken by a significant amount, especially as AC defends against normal to-hit and critical hits. Doubly so, it is hypocritical to say that armor is useless or that characters suck when armor proficiency is at an equal or lesser amount by only a point when you also say that an AC boost is not useful.
As for aesthetic tastes, I have another viewpoint on the matter. When I play rogues, I like the image of an evasion specialist, someone who dodges attacks by the minutest of seconds but rarely is struck, yet there is no option to realize that, as the only available AC boost is through armor; with an armor scaling method be increased, the character would be less functioning, as heavy armor would be the best possible way to increase AC. And with scaling armor, there would be no reason whatsoever for casters not to armor proficiency, making it so all casters would be hulking tanks walking around in armor.
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If we're making general feats be as potent as ancestry/class feats, I'd like one with cantrips and fighting styles. Why should ranger and fighter be better at two-weapon fighting or archery. Rogue can get some cantrips via class feats, everyone can get casting via class feats. The best proficiencies come from 2 class feats or 1/1 ancestry/class feat. The second best weapon proficiencies come from 3 ancestry feats and have scaling. The worst of both is general feats. But if those scale, then they're clearly on par with class/ancestry and we might as well move the line until everyone gets what they want via general feats.
Might as well make them all general and we're back to PF1
When it comes to AC, I think the worst part is that we're comparing everything to the baseline of min-maxed dexterity characters. Unless you powergame and get 16 or 18 dex at start, you won't have dex 20 until 15/10 respectively and won't have more AC that trained light/medium/heavy with Expert unarmored/light/medium.
But "think of the new players" who clearly know to powergame Dex so they can hit 20 as soon as possible to overtake trained proficiencies with the base expert ones.
I also like Trained Martial with weapons that allows "Maneuvers", with full skill proficiency viable for everybody.
Although looking at it, I was surprised Shields/Shield Boss/etc don't have Shove trait, despite their Crit Specialization being free Shove.
I also like Trained Martial with weapons that allows "Maneuvers", with full skill proficiency viable for everybody.
Although looking at it, I was surprised Shields/Shield Boss/etc don't have Shove trait, despite their Crit Specialization being free Shove.
Anyone being able to use maneuvers is kind of amazing. It might not always be optimal but it's nice to have a choice now that pushing someone doesn't get you murderer first. Especially for a sword and board fighter.
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...Personally as a gish player,...Can someone please tell me what 'gish' means?
(I THINK)
Gish comes from D&D monsters called Githyanki who live on astral plane, and Gish was their specific name for fighter-wizard.
Elf's schtick back then was also fighter-wizard but I guess they didn't have specific name for it, so Gish stuck.
The traditional distinction of arcane VS divine magic was arcane was most powerful outside of healing AND physically vulnerable and not martially skilled.
So a gish was "extra special" in that sense.
Paladin and P1E Inquisitor were "martial divine casters" but earlier D&D and P1E default for Clerics and Druids
was they had decently good martial capability and physical resilience as a default, so "not so special" at least in same sense.
EDIT: Obviously ninja'd by gish striking from astral plane...
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I think the real travesty here is that wizards and sorcerers get to be experts in unarmed defense in the first place.
It's mathematically necessary. They reduced the total bonuses that can be granted by items by 2 from the playtest, and moved that power onto actual character abilities. This necessitated pretty much everyone getting at least Expert in attacks, AC, and all Saves for the math to still work the same way (which was needed since that's the math they playtested and what they knew how to change properly). So that's what happened.
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Yeah I think if it had stayed with the 1,2,3,4 instead of 2,4,6,8 it would of been ok.
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2,4,6,8 fixes the "monks are super fragile before they get magic bracelets" problem though.
True.
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I don't know where else to put this, sorry DMW... but after playing around for a bit I'm starting to get a little frustrated with the way conditions tick down in PF2.
Having conditions tick down on the victim's turn is definitely nice from a bookkeeping perspective, but I feel like it makes initiative order way too important. Conditions end up being significantly more or less effective pretty much entirely on how soon after I act can my target. Especially level 1 conditions that go away after the opponent's turn. Demoralize can be a penalty on one or two attacks on one extreme, or it can be a penalty on one or two attacks plus all of the enemy's defenses for a whole round at the other.
It just feels weird to me that turn order ends up being part of what I have to factor into my considerations when deciding who to debuff.
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I don't know where else to put this, sorry DMW... but after playing around for a bit I'm starting to get a little frustrated with the way conditions tick down in PF2.
Having conditions tick down on the victim's turn is definitely nice from a bookkeeping perspective, but I feel like it makes initiative order way too important. Conditions end up being significantly more or less effective pretty much entirely on how soon after I act can my target. Especially level 1 conditions that go away after the opponent's turn. Demoralize can be a penalty on one or two attacks on one extreme, or it can be a penalty on one or two attacks plus all of the enemy's defenses for a whole round at the other.
It just feels weird to me that turn order ends up being part of what I have to factor into my considerations when deciding who to debuff.
Have you considered delaying until after that enemy acts? I'll admit, not a great solution, but that should get the absolute most out of demoralize.
This happened in PF1e as well (specifically when it came to dying). Its not great, but delaying until immediately after the enemy can be a good tactical decision.
Delaying to make sure that your party's desired tactics can go off in the best possible order is a pretty strong and worthwhile tactic as long as you are not in a position of getting destroyed by a boss monster in 1 round, ie playing a wild game of rocket tag, which PF2 has cut down on significantly.
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I don't know where else to put this, sorry DMW... but after playing around for a bit I'm starting to get a little frustrated with the way conditions tick down in PF2.
No worries. This sounds like a pretty reasonable issue, though as others note it seems like you can work around it. That can be a tad counterintuitive, though, which is less than ideal.
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It's really a balance element too, like 1 round summons before.
To get maximum 1-round debuff benefit vs enemy, enemy must act first, you can't act first AND get full 1-round debuff. Imagine enemy winning Init vs PCs and getting tough debuffs off that persist even past target PC's turn (allowing other enemy's to benefit further).
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It's really a balance element too, like 1 round summons before.
To get maximum 1-round debuff benefit vs enemy, enemy must act first, you can't act first AND get full 1-round debuff. Imagine enemy winning Init vs PCs and getting tough debuffs off that persist even past target PC's turn (allowing other enemy's to benefit further).
Yeah the more I think about it, the more I like this application of condition tracking rather than having it reduce at the beginning or end of your own turn. It really encourages collaborative play at the point when the players realize that just thinking about their own possible actions instead of coordinating them with the team will result in less effective play.
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To get maximum 1-round debuff benefit vs enemy, enemy must act first, you can't act first AND get full 1-round debuff.
Not exactly. The only thing that matters is the distance between the two of you. Yes, if you act right after the enemy you get more benefit out of the skill, but if you act first and the enemy acts last, you essentially get full benefit too. If you act before them but one or two of your allies act after you but before them as well it gains a lot of benefit. Conversely, if the enemy acts first and you act last you'll never be able to get more benefit out of your actions unless all your allies delay after you.
I get what you're saying, it just feels really janky to me that having your whole team delay action makes your debuffs last longer, or that if there are two identical enemies debuffing one of them might be much more effective purely based on turn order.
I wouldn't put this in the same category, simply because nothing in the Fighter Class even suggests you should attack unarmed. The fact that you jump from Expert to Legendary is weird, but it's not a trap option since prior to that attacking unarmed is not actually encouraged in any way, making it much less of a trap.
I disagree. The fighter has a whole feat chain that is based on having a open hand.
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I disagree. The fighter has a whole feat chain that is based on having a open hand.
I wouldn't put this in the same category, simply because nothing in the Fighter Class even suggests you should attack unarmed. The fact that you jump from Expert to Legendary is weird, but it's not a trap option since prior to that attacking unarmed is not actually encouraged in any way, making it much less of a trap.
The open hand feat chain is designed for 1-handed weapons like the rapier. Some of them work with no weapon equipped but the majority require a weapon in one hand and nothing in the other.
The open hand feat chain is designed for 1-handed weapons like the rapier. Some of them work with no weapon equipped but the majority require a weapon in one hand and nothing in the other.I disagree. The fighter has a whole feat chain that is based on having a open hand.
I wouldn't put this in the same category, simply because nothing in the Fighter Class even suggests you should attack unarmed. The fact that you jump from Expert to Legendary is weird, but it's not a trap option since prior to that attacking unarmed is not actually encouraged in any way, making it much less of a trap.
Generally the reason to have an open hand is to be able to do combat maneuvers like Trip, Grapple, and Shove. This is also the reason why some 2 handed fighters would prefer the bastard sword. If you need to do a combat maneuver you can shift to one hand as a free action and still have a weapon you can use. With a great sword if you shift it to one hand you cannot attack at all until you take an action to shift it back to two hands.
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DMW,
What do you think about the balance between the Spellcaster MCD feat chains, specifically as regards to the disparity in spells known for the Bard and Sorcerer as compared to their Cleric, Druid, and Wizard counterparts?
(Bards and Sorcerers get one known spell per spell level, Wizards get two, Clerics and Druids get all)
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Like I prefer milestone advancement to XP advancement, but it would be an enormous amount of work for people who like XP to create an XP system out of whole cloth and it probably wouldn't be as good as the one that was made by multiple professional game designers. Whereas it's super easy to just ignore XP entirely and use milestones.While I absolutely agree with your general sentiment, I think your chosen example is rather unfortunate.
I haven't seen a clumsier xp system than the one in PF2 since... actually, I can't remember seeing a worse one in recent years. In this particular case, just anyone actually could create a better one than that was made by multiple professional game designers.
But yeah, your larger point stands. :)
The xp system in PF2 is far better than any do system I’ve seen in other games. It easy, doesn’t require a lot of bookkeeping, and makes complete sense.
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DMW,
What do you think about the balance between the Spellcaster MCD feat chains, specifically as regards to the disparity in spells known for the Bard and Sorcerer as compared to their Cleric, Druid, and Wizard counterparts?(Bards and Sorcerers get one known spell per spell level, Wizards get two, Clerics and Druids get all)
I think it's a legitimate and existing disparity. I'm also not sure how to fix it and am less concerned than I am with the various issues with the Alchemist.
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Bloodline Breadth and Occult Breadth increase the number of spells in your repertoire, so sorcerers and bards end up with two spells available at each level, just like wizards, druids and clerics.
Well, Wizards, Druids and Clerics have Breadth options too. Sorcerer Breadth is a little bit better for them, because it actually gives them a little flexibility, but not that much.
What frustrates me is that before you get Breadth, you aren't even a spontaneous caster at all. You get one spell known and one slot you can cast it in per level. So somehow you're even more locked in than a Wizard, Druid or Cleric. That feels like the antithesis of spontaneous casting.
To put it another way, you could add the line "Each day you may swap any number of spells in your repetoire for new spells of the same level" and it'd basically be equivalent to what MC Druid or Cleric gets to do. That's kinda crazy.
It's also really weird that MC Sorcs can never heighten anything, when that feels like a basic mechanic of spontaneous casters too.
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I think it's a legitimate and existing disparity. I'm also not sure how to fix it and am less concerned than I am with the various issues with the Alchemist.DMW,
What do you think about the balance between the Spellcaster MCD feat chains, specifically as regards to the disparity in spells known for the Bard and Sorcerer as compared to their Cleric, Druid, and Wizard counterparts?(Bards and Sorcerers get one known spell per spell level, Wizards get two, Clerics and Druids get all)
I would add that the problem further compounds the Charisma disparity - specifically as it relates to the similar but opposite Wisdom disparity - when comparing the six ability scores.
Too, I suspect that most folks' Alchemist worries will be remedied in the short term with errata and in the long term with additional content. The class's identity is too important - even iconic - not to be treated with such a degree of attention.