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How It's Played's interview with Michael Sayre just dropped and in it we got a teaser for how the "new" damage types will work. As a twist, holy and unholy are not damage types, they are "traits that can apply to certain types of damage". More is to follow at the panel at PaizoCon.
Sayre you tease XD
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So... similar to Nonlethal, Splash, and Area. They aren't damage types themselves, but creatures can still interact with them for things like weakness, resistance, and immunity.
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I figured that's how it would work.
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bring on the unholy fire!
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How It's Played's interview with Michael Sayre just dropped and in it we got a teaser for how the "new" damage types will work. As a twist, holy and unholy are not damage types, they are "traits that can apply to certain types of damage". More is to follow at the panel at PaizoCon.
Sayre you tease XD
Cool I like.
Cautiously optimistic about that. It certainly sounds like a good method to roll with!
Me too but looks like we will no-more have a large range of immunity like we had with alignment damage.
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I wonder if they'll get rid of holy/unholy runes entirely or have them deal positive/negative energy damage instead.
Although that would step on the toes of the disrupting rune a bit.
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So there is basically two ways I see this going. One - we'll see the 4 alignment damage types being renamed and given a tag that has (for some reason) a different name. Or two (as breithauptclan implied) - all sources that now deal alignment damage are changed to deal a "normal" damage type and just have a tag or "modifier" on it, e.g. like alchemist's fire deals fire splash damage.
The first one would require the least changes to existing content, so it would be easier. On the other hand - what's the point? Especially as you would have to have different names for both parts (damage and tag), which is just silly. And also the tag would be superfluous. All that just seems incredibly weird.
The second one would require a lot of changes to existing material - spells in particular - looks like a much better solution. Unlike before, stuff that deals alignment damage would now be generally useful, getting rid of one of the biggest complaints about the divine spell list and similar options. It would also do the thing it already does - trigger weaknesses on stuff that should be weak to it from a story perspective. The only problem I see would be if it was a damage type a creature was immune to - e.g. holy fire damage vs devils. But that could be solved via just having the trait say that they aren't immune to it or that it still triggers the weakness. Personally, I'd prefer holy fire being able to damage devils fully, because that sounds cool, but hey ^^.
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That works better for balancing because having "+XdY alignment damage" adds fluctuations re: expected DPR/threat level. Plus often an investment to gain 1 point of Good damage paid off due to Weaknesses which will be the only variable, one rare among PCs, and accounted for with higher hit points w/ NPCs/monsters. (I suppose Resistances & Immunities could factor in if they're ever a thing re: alignment damage.)
The absence evens this out though I expect a damage boost to account for this. Except not all fiends (et al) are being Remastered...
That was also a reason to gravitate toward Neutral, yet while there'll be no Good, there's no penalty for being good. Cool.
Makes me wonder what the Persistent Damage for Champions will be/do...
A Condition instead? A type that can harm Neutrals?
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I wonder if they'll get rid of holy/unholy runes entirely or have them deal positive/negative energy damage instead.
Although that would step on the toes of the disrupting rune a bit.
Maybe they can just remove the current alighment runes and add holy and unholy as a low level runes that just add the Holy/Unholy trait to attacks, same option for blade ally (or not maybe the remastered champion can receive holy/unholy passively via smite).
I'm also wondering how this is going to interact with beings who are whatever the new form of neutral is.
The first thought off the top of my head is that the actual damage of spells will be changed to be more typical damage types than aligned damage, and the aligned traits will be appended to the end, so everyone takes damage from something like a Divine Wrath spell, but those opposed to you might take more from a weakness, or some other nasty effect, while the trait might stop those who are aligned with you from taking as much damage?
Probably will work like Silver and Cold Iron. Some opponents will have weakness vs holy/unholy while have resistance or even immunity to the opposite.
About spells like Divine Lance and Divine Wrath if these spell wont be heavy change they probably goes to force + holy/unholy trait.
If works this way the neutral characters will no loger immune to this damage it's just not so effective like vs holy/unholy creatures.
If works this way this could make divine casters being way more versatile and competitive to other traditions in order to do damage.
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Sounds like how it worked in PF1e. There wasn't good/evil damage, you just had things that could make damage also count as good/evil, mainly for bypassing DR [which also meant it was only relevant to be placed on weapons, where this version would apply to more].
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What I think will also happen is that attacks with one of those traits will not deal damage to a creature with the same trait.
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There is also a weird third way this could play out - instead of 4 alignment damage types you just have the singular "aligned damage" that interacts with the new traits. That could be why Sayre said "[traits] that can apply to a cetain type of damage". But I don't think that's likely or desirable.
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I will be kind of sad that true neutral characters no longer get to avoid some of the most awful affects of enemies by nature of not being aligned to anything.
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I will be kind of sad that true neutral characters no longer get to avoid some of the most awful affects of enemies by nature of not being aligned to anything.
To be fair, it was always a bit weird that neutral characters were just... IMMUNE to aligned damage. They should have at LEAST taken half damage or something.
Hells, sometimes being on-the-fence or in the middle of a spectrum of ideals could get you even MORE targeted by the people on either side for various reasons, so there's even an argument for neutrals taking full, opposing taking double, and allied taking half.
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IMO more than immunity for general neutral chars, the worse part is that possible to make neutral clerics that follow some non-neutral aligned deity and use the deity alignment damage while keeps the complete immunity to any alignment opposed creatures.
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They could have something where if you have the matching trait, you either are immune or highly resistant to the damage. Weaknesses would still exist.
Then the Divine Lance could do d4+modifier damage and inherit traits from your deity.
Iomedea could give Honor and Holy, Pharasma could give Positive, Lamashtu could give Unholy and Positive.
You would generally want opposing traits (Holy/Unholy or Profane, Positive/Negative, Honor / Deceit, etc) but it means that Divine Lance could now work for any deity.
The Holy Warrrior of Iomedea might have Resist 10 Holy so that they wouldn’t generally take damage from a Divine Lance with the Holy trait.
I suspect that edicts will be required of Clerics and Champions but available to other classes. Confirming to the edicts would give you the resistance to damage with the corresponding trait.
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I'd like it if they just gave Champions Holy/Unholy tags for all strikes, like monks get for cold iron and silver. But preferably not having to wait until 9th level or spend feats on it. I'd be pretty happy with them getting demon busting built into their kit from the beginning.
I will be kind of sad that true neutral characters no longer get to avoid some of the most awful affects of enemies by nature of not being aligned to anything.
Not to me, I hated that crap. It made damage tracking harder, especially with VTTs like Foundry. And narratively I don't think the game should incentivize being amoral more than it already does via murder hobo and looting assumptions. And in actual play I've found the difference between how a neutral character and a good character are roleplayed to be shockingly small.
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My greatest axe to grind with Neutral was the counterpart : when the BBEG was Neutral just because. They could just as well (and more interestingly) been Evil.
It felt like Paladin-gotcha.
I am extremely happy that BBEGs will now have their true personality rather than one the writer twisted away from Evil just to avoid pigeon-holing or to grant them protection from Good damage.
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So... similar to Nonlethal, Splash, and Area. They aren't damage types themselves, but creatures can still interact with them for things like weakness, resistance, and immunity.
I hope this also means that splash is getting cleaned up as well, because it definitely is a trait (that only can be applied to splash weapons), but also separately a damage type. I hope holy/unholy do not work like splash does currently. I would love for all of the damage-adjacent traits to work cleanly and the same way though.
My greatest axe to grind with Neutral was the counterpart : when the BBEG was Neutral just because. They could just as well (and more interestingly) been Evil.
It felt like Paladin-gotcha.
I am extremely happy that BBEGs will now have their true personality rather than one the writer twisted away from Evil just to avoid pigeon-holing or to grant them protection from Good damage.
...
That's not a Paladin gotcha, its just a "hey not all bad guys are evil".
Yeah, I honestly find non-evil antagonist to be much more interesting than flavor of evil #37. Sure, the PF1 paladin's smite evil didn't work, but there are plenty of enemies where that could be true.
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Yeah, I honestly find non-evil antagonist to be much more interesting than flavor of evil #37. Sure, the PF1 paladin's smite evil didn't work, but there are plenty of enemies where that could be true.My greatest axe to grind with Neutral was the counterpart : when the BBEG was Neutral just because. They could just as well (and more interestingly) been Evil.
It felt like Paladin-gotcha.
I am extremely happy that BBEGs will now have their true personality rather than one the writer twisted away from Evil just to avoid pigeon-holing or to grant them protection from Good damage.
...
That's not a Paladin gotcha, its just a "hey not all bad guys are evil".
Except much of time they are evil, even if not Evil/pro-evil. That's an appreciated distinction IMO in the Remaster, but was problematic before when it simply muddied what alignment even meant. One PF1 AP had a LN NPC willing to kill those who stood in his way...financially. Yuk, but he was a potential long-term associate/link to a faction option so they couldn't tag him evil despite him being evil.
I generally have to agree that murder tends to be capital E evil, although I typically argue one act of evil doesn't make you Evil. Although murder is usually one of those things that I say does otherwise.
There could be some mitigating circumstances possible...but I find it hard to imagine what mitigating circumstance there could be when it was done for personal financial gain.
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There could be some mitigating circumstances possible...but I find it hard to imagine what mitigating circumstance there could be when it was done for personal financial gain.
That, I would agree with. The motivations for the killing is primary for me in the determination.
I generally have to agree that murder tends to be capital E evil, although I typically argue one act of evil doesn't make you Evil. Although murder is usually one of those things that I say does otherwise.
Because we can go completely morally gray here.
How many things to adventuring PCs end up killing during the course of a campaign? And yet a lot of them are aligned Good...
And it isn't always just self defense either.
When I first heard that they were eliminating the alignment system, I was Neutral on the issue, but the more I've thought about it the more I've become convinced that getting rid of it is Good.
When I first heard that they were eliminating the alignment system, I was Neutral on the issue, but the more I've thought about it the more I've become convinced that getting rid of it is Good.
Agreed; it seems that the "Anathema/Edict" system, as well as the traits system for these sorts of things, will make the game much more fluid, consistent, and flexible for tables of all kinds.
Unfortunately, I don't think it will remove all of the issues, but I will agree that I find it to be a step in the correct direction.