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You can have holy damage without it being alignment damage. D&D has radiant damage for example. Other systems have their own version of holy damage that isn’t tied to alignment“Good alignment/element hurt Evil magic/damage makes characters and story writing not work” is a ridiculous notion, a reaction you made up.
Holy damage is a fantasy staple that exists in numerous stories outside of Tabletop.
Alignment doesn’t work only if you operate on a black and white insanity type of morality that falls under “kill anything Evil, no exceptions”, which P2 does not advocate for.
“fine but since people can’t even agree on what alignment means what half the time”
That is applicable to any system of ethics/morals in a media.
Alignment is short hand, it’s an aesthetic mechanic that help make the game what it is, just like having Classes and Levels. Alignment isn’t the best moral system, its not a bad moral system, it’s A moral system with flavor that a lot of people like.
If you say it prevents a story honestly it’s because you’re using it wrong.
I’m side eying claims of games where holy =/= Good, it’s the exception, not the standard.
This feels like splitting hairs honestly, you don’t want good and evil damage, you want sacred and profane. Totes different.
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I asked Mark Reifter and he said ......Making up conversations with former Paizo employees isn't going to give your arguments any weight. Unless you can link to an actual post where we can see exactly what he said, no one is going to believe that you aren't just creating a story to make yourself sound authoritative.
Your demonstrated inability to read and interpret printed rules and to differentiate between rules and flavor makes you a totally unreliable narrator, especially when interpreting a private conversation that no one else was privy to.
[Like the last time a staff member had to publicly correct your overblown claims]
It is true that Captain Relyk messaged me about alignment, but also the paraphrasing misrepresented me, as you expected. Captain Relyk was sending me numerous messages complaining about alignment and various corner cases/issues he was experiencing, and asking why alignment damage exists, so I tried to give him a suggestion of how to avoid the problem in his game:
"Alignment damage exists because aligned damage has been a thing in previous editions. Alignment has lots of weird issues like that, so I would recommend if you run into them and want to avoid it, use the rules for removing alignment in the GMG."
That said, Captain Relyk, you were warned multiple times to stop trying to use my words to score points in online debates and arguments, and you clearly have not done so.
I will say that it cause a lot problem for the story when you can detect main antagonist with one cantrip that available on first levelThat's why you have more than one character that pings on that cantrip, or have the antagonist not ping on it, or have used options that prevent that cantrip from detecting them.
Unfortunately this doesn't work with alignment damage.
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I feel like pointing out that you can very much still run power fantasy in PF2e which becomes rather apparent at high levels. Main difference is that you can't make character who is never threatened by anything in practice because even if they have a weakness, there are four of equally over powered characters.
I feel like pointing out that you can very much still run power fantasy in PF2e which becomes rather apparent at high levels. Main difference is that you can't make character who is never threatened by anything in practice because even if they have a weakness, there are four of equally over powered characters.
CorvusMask, I'm sorry, but I cannot parse your second sentence. Who isn't threatened?
The complaints I have seen about power builds regularly failing in PF2 have been about the low-level modules of the PF2 Age of Ashes and Extinction Curse adventure paths. I think those players quit the campaigns, so their PCs did not reach high levels. I had not seen anyone post about power fantasies at high levels, so I did not realize the lack of power fantasy was level dependent.
And the characters of my own players get weaker at higher levels because they hate leveling up their gear.
I asked Mark Reifter and he said ......Making up conversations with former Paizo employees isn't going to give your arguments any weight. Unless you can link to an actual post where we can see exactly what he said, no one is going to believe that you aren't just creating a story to make yourself sound authoritative.
Your demonstrated inability to read and interpret printed rules and to differentiate between rules and flavor makes you a totally unreliable narrator, especially when interpreting a private conversation that no one else was privy to.
[Like the last time a staff member had to publicly correct your overblown claims]
It is true that Captain Relyk messaged me about alignment, but also the paraphrasing misrepresented me, as you expected. Captain Relyk was sending me numerous messages complaining about alignment and various corner cases/issues he was experiencing, and asking why alignment damage exists, so I tried to give him a suggestion of how to avoid the problem in his game:
"Alignment damage exists because aligned damage has been a thing in previous editions. Alignment has lots of weird issues like that, so I would recommend if you run into them and want to avoid it, use the rules for removing alignment in the GMG."
That said, Captain Relyk, you were warned multiple times to stop trying to use my words to score points in online debates and arguments, and you clearly have not done so.
I’m sorry
I will say that it cause a lot problem for the story when you can detect main antagonist with one cantrip that available on first level“Good alignment/element hurt Evil magic/damage makes characters and story writing not work” is a ridiculous notion, a reaction you made up.
Holy damage is a fantasy staple that exists in numerous stories outside of Tabletop.
Alignment doesn’t work only if you operate on a black and white insanity type of morality that falls under “kill anything Evil, no exceptions”, which P2 does not advocate for.
“fine but since people can’t even agree on what alignment means what half the time”
That is applicable to any system of ethics/morals in a media.
Alignment is short hand, it’s an aesthetic mechanic that help make the game what it is, just like having Classes and Levels. Alignment isn’t the best moral system, its not a bad moral system, it’s A moral system with flavor that a lot of people like.
If you say it prevents a story honestly it’s because you’re using it wrong.
1) what Cantrip would that be?
2) if it’s detect evil your story just sucks since you apparently have only 1 evil person in the entire setting.
1.Divine lance
2.No he is not the only one obviously but its remove lot of tension in morally ambiguous situation when you can just found out that person is evil by using one spell
I can share what convinced me: the setting is much more considered now thanks to the diversity of staff, without losing any of the old Pathfinder theme park fun. You couldn’t pay me to engage with the Darkest Africa “cannibals and headhunters everywhere” 1e approach to the Mwangi, while the 2e book on it is one of the finest setting supplements in the d20 sphere.Definitely, I had no desire to visit Mgwani before beyond, I'm pretty sure it's the last place the Tarrasque was seen? And there was a floating city there once? Is there an adventure path that explores those ruins that would be awesome.
But in 2e: that magic school AP looks really, really fun. I'm not even a Harry Potter fan.
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The Mwangi Expanse book was more or less where I onboarded myself into PF2E. I had some books before that, but I bought that one after looking at the artwork previews on Amazon and was absolutely amazed at the quality of the book.
Years ago in video games I had a similar moment when Guild Wars 1 did it's expansions - they did a fantasy Asia and a fantasy Africa that were both NOT rooted in stereotypes and yet also felt genuine to the themes and cultural norms. For video games, and at the time also tRPGS it was the first time I had ever seen anyone do a "non-Eurocentric" setting without it looking very badly stuck in tropes.
The PF2E Mwangi Expanse book did that for me with tRPGs. I'd been away from tRPGS since about 2005 or so, other than buying but never using PF1E, D&D 4E, and then D&D 5E - those books are all on my shelf without having even been read. So... maybe I missed someone else doing justice to a non-European culture before that. Or maybe it was all still books with Ninjas and Samurais up until PF2E.
But when I got Mwangi Expanse it was just... done right.
That book alone, for me, was enough to say it wasn't just time to get with PF2E, it was time to try gaming again.
Unfortunately for Guild Wars 1 its final expansion was basically "Cardboard One-Dimensional Stereotypes of Nordic People: the MMO" - they "lost the plot" of doing cultural themes right before they'd even finished with GW1...
So... I am dreading the risk of seeing Ninjas and Samurais in the coming sourcebooks, as some people still rooted in that negative cultural mindset keep asking for it. But hopefully Paizo will again do things right.
What I did find after Mwangi Expanse had drawn me in was that so far, all of the other books have been of similar quality, or at least of good quality. In PF2E - the books just seem to go from good to great. There are 2 setting books I've yet to get that have bad reviews - but those are badly reviewed not for their quality but for being too niche (the monsters of myth book, and I forget the other one). Which really isn't a deterrent for me.
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2.Well when universe itself point that guy is evil is pretty hard to debate it unless you taking position that universe is itself wrong in its judgment.Its not necessarily prevents complex antagonists but remove ambigity around them
Bruh, if you're lancing them in the face with an energy beam you're specifically starting a fight. Possibly with the wrong person too, if there are multiple evil NPCs around.
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So... I am dreading the risk of seeing Ninjas and Samurais in the coming sourcebooks, as some people still rooted in that negative cultural mindset keep asking for it. But hopefully Paizo will again do things right.
Hey, I agree with post overall, but I don't think there is anything wrong with ninja archetype or such even if its called mystical assassin or such x'D Like I get ye are talking about people who are like "asia = japan = ninjas!", but having pop culture inspiration in itself isn't bad thing. Plus we already have Conan the Barbarian, pop culture druids, knights and vikings, so I think what they should do is to also bring up interesting things from other asian countries to limelight as well rather than just focus on making tian xia ninja/samurai land.
2.Well when universe itself point that guy is evil is pretty hard to debate it unless you taking position that universe is itself wrong in its judgment.Its not necessarily prevents complex antagonists but remove ambigity around themBruh, if you're lancing them in the face with an energy beam you're specifically starting a fight. Possibly with the wrong person too, if there are multiple evil NPCs around.
Not necessarily you could just ask a person test his evil via divine lance if he refuses then it pretty obvious that he is aware of his evilness
2.Well when universe itself point that guy is evil is pretty hard to debate it unless you taking position that universe is itself wrong in its judgment.Its not necessarily prevents complex antagonists but remove ambigity around themWat.
If you go to the king, and think they are corrupted or evil, and cast divine lance on them, you'll get probably killed right away, to say one.
I recognize that "sometimes" there "might" be peculiar situations where the possibility to slightly harm a potential suspect would allow you to save several lives, but:
- They are kinda rare ( and extreme ).
- APs ( and the majority of home made campaigns ) are not meant to push you to indiscriminately cast divine lance on anybody.
- It's still not clear whether a spellcaster might downgrade their cantrips ( they are auto heightened, but we don't know for sure whether they might be de-heightened or not ).You'll probably never find a situation where you have to harm other people, not knowing whether they are evil or not, to protect others.
In addition to thit, to make a quick example: An evil person is not necessarily the BBEG, or even a menace.
Being a selfish merchant who doesn't care about poors and just want to make some moneys using the laws at their own advantage, have the right to do what they do, until they break the laws ( in many situations, you'll find out that having the law as a personal shield is a typical approach from evil characters ).
If you want to use divne lance for detection you can simply make wands staff and scrolls with first level version or apply non-lethal metamagic or give target additional hp by some means.
You example with king is heavily depends on country for example if country strong faith in good gods then it would be very strange for it king to afraid of divine lance.I can easily find situation where use divine lance would be appropriate for example there is a demon that hide in ranks of your army normally he would be able hide his alignment with spell but he cannot simply hide from divine lance by same way
In your situation with trader there is no ambiguity he is evil just not big evil so its up to party to deal with him or ignore in favor of more important tasks
Not necessarily you could just ask a person test his evil via divine lance if he refuses then it pretty obvious that he is aware of his evilness2.Well when universe itself point that guy is evil is pretty hard to debate it unless you taking position that universe is itself wrong in its judgment.Its not necessarily prevents complex antagonists but remove ambigity around themBruh, if you're lancing them in the face with an energy beam you're specifically starting a fight. Possibly with the wrong person too, if there are multiple evil NPCs around.That’s b**+!#@ insane.
“Here let me stab you.”
“Uh, no.”
“EVIL!”
Divine lance literaly deal zero damage to anyone who is not evil and is already been said there is means to make it non-lethal to evil person as well
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1 I am not necessarily saying that there be no consequences i am just pointed out that there is a tool that bypass defences against alignment detection and its avalible since first level so you need to make ajustment to your game specifically to avoid it use for detection
2.Well when universe itself point that guy is evil is pretty hard to debate it unless you taking position that universe is itself wrong in its judgment.Its not necessarily prevents complex antagonists but remove ambigity around them
1) Divine Lance to figure out alignment is not a tool it’s a meme. Secondly, you’re pointing out absolutely nothing, finding out someone’s alignment is not this word shaking story derailing revelation you think it is. It’s not a shortcut, it accomplishes nothing storywise. Finding out someone’s hair color is more of a story reveal.
2) debate what? He’s evil, okay? WHAT HAS HE ACTUALLY DONE THOUGH? There’s plenty of ambiguity unless you’re murderhoboing and just killing people on sight cause they ping as Evil and no other information, in which case, yeah, you’re playing the game wrong.
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You example with king is heavily depends on country for example if country strong faith in good gods then it would be very strange for it king to afraid of divine lance.”Hello king it is I random spellcaster let me blast you lethal magic it won’t you hurt I totally promise.”
I can easily find situation where use divine lance would be appropriate for example there is a demon that hide in ranks of your army normally he would be able hide his alignment with spell but he cannot simply hide from divine lance by same way
So you’re going to execute swathes of loyal soldiers just because they’re evil and you can’t think of a competent plan of identifying a demon?
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I think it would be better if we move into thread that
CaptainRelyk made specifically for alignment debate
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You example with king is heavily depends on country for example if country strong faith in good gods then it would be very strange for it king to afraid of divine lance.”Hello king it is I random spellcaster let me blast you lethal magic it won’t you hurt I totally promise.”I can easily find situation where use divine lance would be appropriate for example there is a demon that hide in ranks of your army normally he would be able hide his alignment with spell but he cannot simply hide from divine lance by same waySo you’re going to execute swathes of loyal soldiers just because they’re evil and you can’t think of a competent plan of identifying a demon?
1.More like greetings king i am devouted priest of your diety today our god send me towards his faithful servant to test his righteous i will strike you with you with is power if there is no evil in you then you will be unharmed you may refust to take it but then it would mean that you start stray away from rigth path
2 I simply narrow down the circle of those who suspected in demonhood via divine lance and then just use other methods to find which of them is real demon no one need to die| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Anyway, Vasyazx, you should definitely understand that being evil is not a crime, while stating that you are good, allowing yourself to indiscriminately cast divine lance on people is more evil than being greedy and not caring about the poors that lost their job because of you.
You can always ask people before you use it most people who aware of the nature of spell would agree on it usage because aware that it will never hurt good people
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Anyway, Vasyazx, you should definitely understand that being evil is not a crime, while stating that you are good, allowing yourself to indiscriminately cast divine lance on people is more evil than being greedy and not caring about the poors that lost their job because of you.You can always ask people before you use it most people who aware of the nature of spell would agree on it usage because aware that it will never hurt good people
No they would not. Fictional or real life, people do not act as this delusion your pushing dictates.
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I'd like to see this kind of demon detection be attempted at a Hellknight chapter. That would go well for the caster
One issue I take with the whole "him being Evil is not an excuse to attack him" is that, if we ascribe alignment to be applied for a purpose, then them pinging Evil (i.e. taking Good damage) should have precedence behind it. That is, he isn't Evil just because of a spell being able to do damage to them, it's because they have legitimately done something morally wrong.
Yes, he isn't doing anything now, but the idea that having an Evil alignment shouldn't be cause for either alarm or retaliation doesn't hold up if the concept is that the universe ascribes these alignments to people for a reason. Unless we want to accept that Golarion decides somebody who hasn't done anything should be Evil, but we have those rules for things like Fiends and Undead and Celestials. For Joe the Average down the street, those rules don't apply (unless Joe the Average is a fiend in disguise, for example).
In short, characters with an alignment tag on them need to serve a purpose, otherwise it's just a tag, and people who use spells to root out Evil that isn't actually Evil is where the real issues lie. Evil needs to have both definition and existence. Me simply writing Evil on my character sheet's alignment entry is not enough to warrant a Good spell dealing damage to me.
Well I see there are already 3 pages worth of responses, so what I'm about to say may already be covered but I'm going to give you my take.
Please see bolded statements below as response.
I've been reading and rereading the rules to 2e for years now. Every so often I start watching a ton of 2e content creators on YouTube and generally I'm of the opinion that its probably the most well designed system to date, but I have a growing list of oddities, barriers to entry, or general silliness that make me hesitate.
I'd love feedback on any or all of the following issues:1) Default character sheet is baaaaad.
This is pretty subjective. That said, I suggest using Pathbuilder. It helps build your character and can generate a PDF, the design of which I like. Pathbuilder is mostly free, but if you want familiar or animal companion support it is $5. As tools go, it's pretty great for the price. To be clear though, it is not a Paizo product.
2) Backgrounds are neat but just seem "extra" and unnecessary. Just get a stat boost and skill+lore of your choice. They're so unimportant why make me go through a list of "none of this is what I want"
I don't understand why you think they're extra or unnecessary. You do definitely want those skills, skill feat, and ability score bonuses. If you don't find any progenerated background appealing, ask your GM if you can generate one for yourself. You can also look at the alternative rules for deep backgrounds.
3) Stat generation is neat, but hard to track in practice. I'd rather take the "standard array"
Hard to track in what way? It's pretty straight forward, and after you're done making the character at level 1 there's nothing really to track. Again though, Pathbuilder can make building character much easier.
4) Every player needs a rulebook. Real DnD 4e energy on this one.
Patently untrue! All the mechanics a player needs can be accessed on Archives of Nethys for free. That said, when learning the game it would be good for a player to have access to a core rule book (either print or pdf) because the rules are easier to learn there before using AoN as a reference. Hopefully if you have friends who are playing someone can loan you a CRB. Paizo also doesn't encrypt their pdfs, so nothing prevents someone from giving you a copy of the CRB.
5) Trick Magic Item is a silly name, it's like your class doesn't actually let you know how to activate an item, the item just has a rule against letting you use it unless you pull a fast one on it.
I think you don't understand how this works. You only need trick magic item if you don't have a spell list. Casting a spell from a scroll or wand works for any spell on your spell list. Only classes that don't have spell list, or are trying to cast a spell from a tradition other than their own need trick magic item. In which case yes, you are literally trying to pretend you have the required magical abilities.
6) Stronger enemies are more vulnerable to damage than weaker ones. Makes some sense mechanically, the vulnerability needs to scale with attacks at their challenge level to stay relevant, but seriously big bag dragon is so weak to cold that 3 damage becomes almost 30? That's SOME vulnerability.
I suppose I understand the complaint, but it's necessary due to the mechanics of the game. If the dragon only had cold weakness 5 it might even be worth switching to get cold damage because your backup weapon or alternative attack might only deal 5 cold damage vs the 20 your main attack option does. The weakness needs to deal enough extra damage that it makes sense to swap from your main attack.
7) I thought we were tryna go away from Save or Suck mechanics in modern TT? Why would Treat Wounds be save or suck? I got stuck by a goblin so a trained medic stitched me up. I got stabbed by two goblins and an master medic was like "I may have doubled the roll of the last medic but I'm sorry, I've completely forgotten how medicine works and can offer you no benefit. Like I get that you're trying to heal twice as much in the same amount of time but a medic isn't going to go "I can either try to stitch one of these stab wounds in 10 minutes, or try to rush through 2 in the same time." They're going to go "I have 10 minutes, lets see how many of these stab wounds I can sew." No fail forward at all?
Treat wounds isn't a save or suck. Sure, there is a chance you could fail if you choose (it is a choice) to go against the higher DC for more healing. It's a trade off, a necessary one due to game mechanics. Unless you're near death, the chance of failing for 1d8 damage isn't a big deal (and only happens on a crit fail). It's also why people commonly take assurance on medicine.
8) Direct Damage cantrips are just terrible early on. Sure better than 1d3 ray of frost from 3.5 but still.
They're not meant to be amazing, but it it does deal like 1d4+4/5 all day for free and scales up over time. It's better than using a crossbow.
9) Cantrips quickly become more powerful than 1st level spells in terms of blasters. What are those slots for after that?
Utility
10) Focus spells add a needless layer of complexity and could have been wrapped into cantrip rules.
Not really, because the intention was to limit them to at most 3 times per combat for any and all focus spells you might have.
11) Math is far too high. Everybody is full base and also gets up to +8 beyond that before bonuses. It feels like 2e was made with VTTs that roll everything for you as the standard.
Is this a complaint that the math is hard to do? I guess that's valid, but it's just a basis of the game. You could also play the alternative rule set of proficiency without level, but it plays out as a very different game but the numbers are lower, which you may like I guess.
Sorry, at this point I've run out of steam for answering your question but hopefully my comments have helped.
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, otherwise it's just a tag,
Always has been. It’s short hand.
Because it can cover a wide range of motives, morals, and personalities.
This is a combat game, not a philosophical debate squad. If the sheet has Evil on it, they are in some way evil, either they have done something or have evil thoughts and mindset but don’t act on it, or rather don’t act on Good/selfless acts and despise them.
You can be Evil without being the Big Bag or haven’t murdered anyone.
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Not necessarily you could just ask a person test his evil via divine lance if he refuses then it pretty obvious that he is aware of his evilness2.Well when universe itself point that guy is evil is pretty hard to debate it unless you taking position that universe is itself wrong in its judgment.Its not necessarily prevents complex antagonists but remove ambigity around themBruh, if you're lancing them in the face with an energy beam you're specifically starting a fight. Possibly with the wrong person too, if there are multiple evil NPCs around.
How do you prove to them that the damage is an evil character taking good damage and not a lawful character taking chaotic damage?
How do you prove to them that the damage is an evil character taking good damage and not a lawful character taking chaotic damage?Not necessarily you could just ask a person test his evil via divine lance if he refuses then it pretty obvious that he is aware of his evilness2.Well when universe itself point that guy is evil is pretty hard to debate it unless you taking position that universe is itself wrong in its judgment.Its not necessarily prevents complex antagonists but remove ambigity around themBruh, if you're lancing them in the face with an energy beam you're specifically starting a fight. Possibly with the wrong person too, if there are multiple evil NPCs around.
Divine lance have specific tag depending on alignment type that been chosen for it so i suppose damage type you use is perfectly recognizable for anyone who have some knowledge of religion
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Divine lance have specific tag depending on alignment type that been chosen for it so i suppose damage type you use is perfectly recognizable for anyone who have some knowledge of religionHow do you prove to them that the damage is an evil character taking good damage and not a lawful character taking chaotic damage?Not necessarily you could just ask a person test his evil via divine lance if he refuses then it pretty obvious that he is aware of his evilness2.Well when universe itself point that guy is evil is pretty hard to debate it unless you taking position that universe is itself wrong in its judgment.Its not necessarily prevents complex antagonists but remove ambigity around themBruh, if you're lancing them in the face with an energy beam you're specifically starting a fight. Possibly with the wrong person too, if there are multiple evil NPCs around.
that is a big assumption you are having there.