What Would You Like To See from a Pathfinder Unchained?

[Kobold Catgirl]

Hi, all! So we've all been in a pretty creative headspace lately thanks to the Remaster, and I thought it would be fun to brainstorm the kinds of variant rules we've had on our minds these last few years.

So, for me:

Variant spell components
I got really excited when I heard they were "getting rid" of these, even though it turned out to be a misunderstanding. I've long felt frustrated that every single spell, no matter who's casting, has to involve incantations and gestures. It's very flavorfully limited, even if it's obviously important from a balance perspective. It also makes certain spells like message somewhat confusing.

I'd love a system where maybe you could get more control over how your spells manifest, or where different spells would each have their own unique components. Maybe witches would all rely on raw materials, while wizards would be more dependent on the verbal and manipulate traits, and druids could cast a lot of their spells, like Wild Shape, "stilled".

Would that be hard to balance? Definitely. Extremely. Probably untenably. But the heart wants what it wants.

Bringing back the old consumables system from the playtest
From what I've heard, this original system was really cool, and I think we missed out on it. Like, I love the idea of consumables that are actually powerful in their own right, balanced around not being able to benefit from them an infinite number of times per day. it sounds like a man that got scrapped for realism reasons, but it sounds like a good system in a mechanical sense. This would take up a high page count, of course.

Variant proficiencies
I would love to see a system in which simple weapons could be wielded as martial or maybe even advanced weapons, gaining more traits or more damage as a result. The idea of it going the other way, of weaker versions of martial/advanced weapons being wieldable as simple weapons, could also be cool, though that would obviously cheapen access a little bit in a flavor sense.

So, what would you like to see? There aren't really any wrong answers--we're not talking about how the game itself should be changed, we're talking about variant rules that could be fun to explore

[Saedar]

I've been wanting Paizo to go harder on mechanics tied to narrative since PF2 playtest. Give more things to do with Hero Points. Turn them into a currency that is really supposed to be exchanged actively throughout a session. We are getting broader Edicts and Anathemas, right? Seemed like people in another thread wanted non-class Edicts/Anathema to have mechanical weight since they are using mechanical terms.

I say combine the two: If an Edict/Anathema complicates your life somehow, get a Hero Point. Then have rules that let people do something punchy (literally or not) with said point. Back and forth.

To head off one critique, at least: in this scenario, they should include text talking about not being disruptive, etcetc.

[The Raven Black]

I agree with the Hero points idea and also with having a single list of weapons with abilities that are unlocked with advancing complexity, ie any weapon could be used as Simple, with stats likely shared with several other weapons, and then Martial proficiency opens some traits and/or increases the damage die, and Advanced proficiency takes it even further (though likely with additional traits only).

[Karmagator]

Changes to spellcasting would be one of my top issues. The metamagic system is decent enough, but for the most part it means that you are only really doing one thing a turn. In my eyes that makes spellcasters feel far more limited, turret-y and overall boring than they should. Not having it automatically be so that everyone with eyes notices you casting would be great as well, so as you pointed out, certain spells like message or charm are not entirely pointless as-is. Plus, alternative systems to spellslots would be cool - though that is more a 3E issue. I'm certain that there are better ways to limit resources than just having you progressively running out of your cool stuff while everyone else just keeps performing at 100% (or close enough to it). Lastly, I think many spellcasters (particularly the 6HP crowd) could stand actually having proficiencies besides spellcasting.

To boil this down to its core, for me spellcasters do not evoke the same degree of satisfaction in fulfilling the fantasy as most martials do. Even high-level casters often feel rather pedestrian to me. Some of it is due to the type of game - you are usually only meant to face a handful of creatures or affect a small area - but I think there is more to be had here.

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As usual, I call for a rebalance of how reload weapons and their related feats/features are treated. They are supposedly balanced, but it certainly doesn't feel like it. To be clear, I don't want bows nerfed, I want everything else buffed.

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I'd also like to see more variant rules and variants of those variant rules. Make it so that new players can feel safer using them and us veterans have some more guidance on how to spice things up. For example, we are playing with a variant of Ancestry Paragon that just adds a second 1st level ancestry feat slot. This adds some cool flavour at level 1, but doesn't lead to the "what the hells do I pick" problems later on. Another example is Automatic Bonus Progression - we found that for us the important part is getting the fundamental runes automatically, everything else should stay the same. Things like that.

[Jacob Jett]

Personally I'd love some alternate versions of classes like Fighter, Monk, and Cleric that make different design choices for path build toggles. That could fir into an "unchained" style book or a game mastery guide 2 type book.

[Unicore]

If we are really talking about variant rules, isn't pathfinder infinite and third party publishers the right people to be supporting? Especially when Paizo is so friendly towards 3pp and many of the designers and developers make content that is 3rd party, the system is being published in an incredibly content creator friendly license, and it is modular enough to really support a wide range of changes?

I feel like one of the greatest stumbling blocks currently is that pathfinder players are holding a little too closely onto Golarion"Canon" = PF2 Mechanical superiority, instead of just, these rules best facilitate the stories the developers want to be able to tell with their setting.

[Kobold Catgirl]

Feel free to post and promote third-party products that have these sorts of variant rules, Unicore! That said, I'm not sure I understand why what we're doing is problematic. We're just talking about new material we'd like to see.

[Perpdepog]

I'd like to see special materials get a re-looking over. Some materials, especially the ones in the core book (I'm looking at you, adamantine.) feel lackluster, and I'm not a big fan of the system that requires you to pay more to upgrade a special material on your weapon or armor as you increase in runes. I know it'd have pain points if that were removed, but that's just what I'd want out of a possible PU2E.

Also, even with magical handwavium having to upgrade your weapon's materials by using increasingly pure forms of the material feels weird to me from a narrative standpoint.

[Unicore]

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

Feel free to post and promote third-party products that have these sorts of variant rules, Unicore! That said, I'm not sure I understand why what we're doing is problematic. We're just talking about new material we'd like to see.

Totally fair! I over emoted there. It is not problematic, just a reminder that this space does exist for PF2 and should be supported. I still long to play as a Pnoll.

[Jacob Jett]

Unicore wrote:

If we are really talking about variant rules, isn't pathfinder infinite and third party publishers the right people to be supporting? Especially when Paizo is so friendly towards 3pp and many of the designers and developers make content that is 3rd party, the system is being published in an incredibly content creator friendly license, and it is modular enough to really support a wide range of changes?

I feel like one of the greatest stumbling blocks currently is that pathfinder players are holding a little too closely onto Golarion"Canon" = PF2 Mechanical superiority, instead of just, these rules best facilitate the stories the developers want to be able to tell with their setting.

For this to happen, I think Paizo would have to do two things:

1) Make an AP set somewhere in the multiverse other than Golarion.
2) Reuse some 3rd party content in an official Golarion centric AP.

Ultimately, one of the secret sauces to D&D's success is the portability of it's overarching ruleset (along with the mutability of various subsystems) across multiple settings. If the ruleset evolves in such a way that Golarion is the breadth and depth of it, then PF2's growth will be substantially stunted.

Edit: Note that I'm not sure I believe that is direction of PF2's evolution vector. IMO, loss of certain things is just more make work for GMs and nothing that can't be patched through house rules.

[The Raven Black]

Unicore wrote:

If we are really talking about variant rules, isn't pathfinder infinite and third party publishers the right people to be supporting? Especially when Paizo is so friendly towards 3pp and many of the designers and developers make content that is 3rd party, the system is being published in an incredibly content creator friendly license, and it is modular enough to really support a wide range of changes?

I feel like one of the greatest stumbling blocks currently is that pathfinder players are holding a little too closely onto Golarion"Canon" = PF2 Mechanical superiority, instead of just, these rules best facilitate the stories the developers want to be able to tell with their setting.

What IMO would help this would be making select Infinite material allowed in PFS. Because it would mean it has been cleared for not being disruptive to the game by people far more knowledgeable than the average GM.

[Unicore]

I think a union of 3pp content creators running online and/or in person spaces for this content to be used could help a lot too.

[Kobold Catgirl]

If they allow some Infinite material into PFS, they have to review every Infinite publication in order to be fair. That's too much work.

[Jacob Jett]

Another possible avenue is that the 3td party creators get together and form their own PFS for organized play.

Honestly though. Now that the games mechanics are being more deeply interwoven with Paizo's IP (i.e., Golarion) I'm more pessimistic about the outlook for third party content. It's no longer clear to me what parts of Paizo products will actually be safe for reuse and/alteration by third parties without eventually running into a situation where licensing or a similar partnership becomes necessary. To me, it increasingly seems that ORC may be more similar to WotC's attempted OGL2.0 than to the original OGL. Which makes perfect sense, so that it can protect Paizo's IP. It will be interesting to see how this impacts third party development, like with Rollforcombat's Indigo Isles setting.

[Rysky]

3rd party content creators will be able to continue on as they have been, that’s the entire point of the ORC.

[Unicore]

Paizo isn’t owning the ORC. They are collaborating with other developers to define it and it is going to cover a broad range of stuff that isn’t even necessarily going to apply to pathfinder specifically. It is going to take time for all of that to first get codified, so that it can then get used, and then explained effectively with documentation.

[The Raven Black]

Note that the ORC, like OGL before it, covers the content that the creator agrees to share with others. So, I would expect Paizo to share with the ORC the exact same things they felt comfortable sharing with the OGL.

So, no change I think.

[Martialmasters]

my desire is its purely optional and i can freely ban it from my table

but this is going by what pf1 unchained was, pf2e unchained might be much better

[Velisruna]

My pick for an unchained option would be having more proficiency tiers at only +1 apart, and use that to replace the weird staggered proficiency some classes have now. If you had six proficiency tiers going from level+1 to level+6 you could do things like have wave casters be one tier lower than full casters, rather than having them be on par some levels and -2 at others. It could also work for things like warpriest's weapon proficiency since having them at full martial progression is seen as too much, but as they are now, they slide around from completely fine to "why am I doing this to myself?".

[Terevalis Unctio of House Mysti]

Unchain the drow! ;)