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A 19th level general feat that allows a category to advance would be great.
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I'd like to see Uncommon and Rare take a hike, personally.
As a DM, I enjoy easy signposts that allow the DM to say "no" without singling themselves out as the bad guy. More knobs and levers for DMs is a good thing, not a bad thing. Maybe I don't want some blessed one/ reincarnated soul/ automaton/ contracted my soul to a devil/ anything saying "I wanna be the campaign protag, not a party member" type PC in my game. Uncommon and rare signals that they need permission, it's not a presumed right to be absolutely anything in the story that's trying to be told. Some might consider that a strictly session 0 issue, but I think tools to help session 0 run smoothly with fewer protracted arguments is a boon, not a hindrance. It also sets a framework for DMs to make custom tags for the classes, ancestries, backgrounds, and spells of their setting. All in all a great tool, no complaints
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| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'd like to see Uncommon and Rare take a hike, personally.As a DM, I enjoy easy signposts that allow the DM to say "no" without singling themselves out as the bad guy. More knobs and levers for DMs is a good thing, not a bad thing. Maybe I don't want some blessed one/ reincarnated soul/ automaton/ contracted my soul to a devil/ anything saying "I wanna be the campaign protag, not a party member" type PC in my game. Uncommon and rare signals that they need permission, it's not a presumed right to be absolutely anything in the story that's trying to be told. Some might consider that a strictly session 0 issue, but I think tools to help session 0 run smoothly with fewer protracted arguments is a boon, not a hindrance. It also sets a framework for DMs to make custom tags for the classes, ancestries, backgrounds, and spells of their setting. All in all a great tool, no complaints
In fact, it allows you to say Yes ;-)
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A 19th level general feat that allows a category to advance would be great.
The problem with a feat like this is that it's ridiculously strong on some classes (your Barbarian now has a Fighter's accuracy, your Fighter now has the Champion's defense, etc.) but pretty underwhelming on like a Cleric or Bard who already get legendary spellcasting.
I think it's unlikely they'd add this since they already advised against certain combinations (like fighter+barbarian) in the "Dual Class" variant in the GMG.
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I'd like to see Uncommon and Rare take a hike, personally.As a DM, I enjoy easy signposts that allow the DM to say "no" without singling themselves out as the bad guy. More knobs and levers for DMs is a good thing, not a bad thing. Maybe I don't want some blessed one/ reincarnated soul/ automaton/ contracted my soul to a devil/ anything saying "I wanna be the campaign protag, not a party member" type PC in my game. Uncommon and rare signals that they need permission, it's not a presumed right to be absolutely anything in the story that's trying to be told. Some might consider that a strictly session 0 issue, but I think tools to help session 0 run smoothly with fewer protracted arguments is a boon, not a hindrance. It also sets a framework for DMs to make custom tags for the classes, ancestries, backgrounds, and spells of their setting. All in all a great tool, no complaints
You always will be a bad guy everytime you say no. No matter what is written in any book.
Just accept it and become a bad guy!!! kkkk
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I'd like to see Uncommon and Rare take a hike, personally.As a DM, I enjoy easy signposts that allow the DM to say "no" without singling themselves out as the bad guy. More knobs and levers for DMs is a good thing, not a bad thing. Maybe I don't want some blessed one/ reincarnated soul/ automaton/ contracted my soul to a devil/ anything saying "I wanna be the campaign protag, not a party member" type PC in my game. Uncommon and rare signals that they need permission, it's not a presumed right to be absolutely anything in the story that's trying to be told. Some might consider that a strictly session 0 issue, but I think tools to help session 0 run smoothly with fewer protracted arguments is a boon, not a hindrance. It also sets a framework for DMs to make custom tags for the classes, ancestries, backgrounds, and spells of their setting. All in all a great tool, no complaints
I mostly agree, although I don't see a mechanical difference between uncommon and rare. Differentiating or removing Rare would be nice.
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On the player side as someone who spends a lot of downtime just making characters if I see uncommon or rare on an item, spell or feat then that means for me unless it's something I see as incredibly important for my character it just doesn't exist
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I mostly agree, although I don't see a mechanical difference between uncommon and rare. Differentiating or removing Rare would be nice.
Doesn't the GMG do this? Seems to spell out that Rare items are designed to be generally inaccessible without high effort or special circumstances while uncommon options shouldn't be too difficult for players to acquire.
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Yes general guidelines says that unless you want to ban something due lore reasons, usually uncommon and even rare options should be accessible if the player really wants.
It's up to GM to decide how difficult these items would be in the end you can create a quest to allow a player to get a rare item or maybe sell it in blackmarkets of Katapesh/Absalom or put it into a dungeon drop or even put one in some open store with a seller trying to explain how such value and rare that item is and the is belling selling for a bargain (and try to bargain a higher price with the player).
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I think the problem lies in the narrative role of locks in an RPG. They exist to be bypassed whether by tools or brute force. They're there as speed bumps.A change to the Pick A Lock activity.
Right now we have locks that require multiple successes ostensibly in order to make them harder, but the Pick A Lock action still allows you to essentially retry indefinitely, as long as you're able to pay 3sp per crit fail.
So a lot of locks end up being a matter of someone sitting in front of a door rolling dozens of times until the lock pops open.
If that is the case, a way for a single roll to represent not "if" but "at what cost" in terms of time, spent picks, etc, would make more sense here.
At the table, as it currently stands, it plays pretty clunky.
Property runes on Staves!
I swear there was a bit in the book about when to not roll, but now I can't find it to quote it.
If there's no consequence to failure, there's no point in rolling.
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It's my understanding is that the difference between rare and uncommon is that the player gets uncommon options by working with the GM, the story, and the setting to get them. The way a player gets rare stuff (other than top level choices like ancestry) is "the GM wants the player to have it."
There really shouldn't be any expectation that a player can get a rare option even if they work really hard at it. I see "rare" as signposting to the GM "this is something that would be exciting to find in a loot pile, since there's no other conceivable way you would get it."
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Doesn't the GMG do this? Seems to spell out that Rare items are designed to be generally inaccessible without high effort or special circumstances while uncommon options shouldn't be too difficult for players to acquire.
I mostly agree, although I don't see a mechanical difference between uncommon and rare. Differentiating or removing Rare would be nice.
I should have said "for players." As has been said before, for either case as a player my only way to get it is asking the GM. Actual methods of distribution might vary, but unless it has access requirements I can meet an uncommon thing and a rare thing are functionally the same.
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I should have said "for players." As has been said before, for either case as a player my only way to get it is asking the GM. Actual methods of distribution might vary, but unless it has access requirements I can meet an uncommon thing and a rare thing are functionally the same.Doesn't the GMG do this? Seems to spell out that Rare items are designed to be generally inaccessible without high effort or special circumstances while uncommon options shouldn't be too difficult for players to acquire.
I mostly agree, although I don't see a mechanical difference between uncommon and rare. Differentiating or removing Rare would be nice.
Not exactly : Uncommon are more a Yes with a few requirements while Rare is more of a No, unless.
Also GMs might want to put limits on how many Rare things are available for the whole party.
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I think it's good to have a set of spells, items, feats, etc. that the players have only because of "something that happened in the story" opposite of the set of things that the players can just choose to have (even if they have to work a little bit to get it.) That's what "rare" means to me.
It's exciting to learn like "a new way to fight" because you helped some hermit that mastered it than to just pick it up because you gained a level and got to pick something.
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I should have said "for players." As has been said before, for either case as a player my only way to get it is asking the GM. Actual methods of distribution might vary, but unless it has access requirements I can meet an uncommon thing and a rare thing are functionally the same.Doesn't the GMG do this? Seems to spell out that Rare items are designed to be generally inaccessible without high effort or special circumstances while uncommon options shouldn't be too difficult for players to acquire.
I mostly agree, although I don't see a mechanical difference between uncommon and rare. Differentiating or removing Rare would be nice.
But like I said, uncommon options are things you should be able to reasonably expect to access with some effort, while Rare options are largely kept off limits entirely. That does seem like a pretty significant distinction for players.
Common elements are prevalent enough, at least among adventurers, that a player is assumed to be able to access them provided they meet the prerequisites (if any).
Uncommon elements are difficult to access, but a PC can usually find them eventually with enough effort, potentially by choosing a specific character option or spending substantial downtime tracking them down.
Rare elements are lost secrets, ancient magic, and other options that PCs can access only if you specifically make them available.
Unique elements are one of a kind. You have full control over whether PCs can access them. Named NPCs are unique creatures, though that doesn’t mean their base creature type is unique. For instance, an orc named Graytusk is unique, but that doesn’t mean it would be any harder for a PC encountering her to tell she’s an orc—just to discern specific information about her.
But...
PCs can buy what they want where they want. You gloss over the details of markets. PCs can sell whatever they want for half the Price and buy any item to which they have access at full Price. This approach is focused on expediency over verisimilitude and is likely to reduce the number of unusual or distinctive items the PCs have, as many players seek out the ones that most directly support their characters’ strengths. This still means there’s a limit on purchasing uncommon or rarer items, but you could even do away with rarity if your group wants, or add a surcharge instead (depending on your group’s play style, that could be anywhere from 10% to 100% for uncommon items, and 25% to 500% if you also want to open up all rare items).
PCs can buy what they want but must put in additional effort. If they want to sell or buy items, PCs must be in a location where the markets can support that. They can usually sell a single item for half its Price, but the Price for something already plentiful on the market could drop lower, typically to 25% or 10%, or be refused entirely if there’s a glut. Buying an item usually costs the full Price; buying higher-level items (or uncommon items if they’re available at all) requires seeking out a special vendor or NPC and can take extra time, representing a real investment by the PCs. They might be unable to find the item at all even after their time investment, based on the settlement’s parameters. This approach allows PCs to determine some of their items, but forces them to really work to get more powerful items and discourages looting every enemy to sell off fairly ordinary armor. This can be the most work for you but can make the world feel diverse and complex.
Magical markets are rare or nonexistent. PCs get what they find in adventures and can Craft their own items, if you allow them to get formulas in some way. If you have magical marketplaces at all, their selections are small. They sell items at full Price and have difficulty attaining the funds to buy more items. They might purchase items for half of the Price but are far more selective about what they take. If you use this approach, PCs are far more likely to use strange items they find but might be dissatisfied or even underpowered depending on what items you give them. Even in this style of game, you might want to allow them to get weapons and armor with fundamental runes fairly easily, or make sure you award those on a regular basis.
The main problem with rarity is that many GMs simply ban or restrict too much the availability of some items just because the rarity tag but without think about it. Some GMs even ban some ancestries based in this.
So as much as I like this system, and even argue that it should be expanded even further. On the other hand every day I feel that the damage it does to some over-restrictive GMs is sometimes greater than the benefit.| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
I mean, an over restrictive GM who wants to keep you from accessing something doesn't need rarity to do it. They can ban common items if they want too.
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The problem isn't about an restrictive GM that wants to ban something but the GMs that shutdown the brain and banned things only because of rarity tags without thinking why it's there.
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Which is why I ban or restrict nothing accept by level. If a player has gone to the extent of chasing a particular item up they can have it. Level and price is all I enforce.
There aren't problematic items. If I see one I will ban it.
For me the rarity tags have little meaning.
The problem isn't about an restrictive GM that wants to ban something but the GMs that shutdown the brain and banned things only because of rarity tags without thinking why it's there.
I ban GMs who don't bother to do any of their campaign homework or think critically about the games they're running, so it ultimately works out for me anyways.
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Just a small thing I just thought up after a session: maybe get rid of vancian casting altogether
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Just a small thing I just thought up after a session: maybe get rid of vancian casting altogether
A small and easy change that would make PF2 a lot better.
Just a small thing I just thought up after a session: maybe get rid of vancian casting altogetherA small and easy change that would make PF2 a lot better.
*Blows a raspberry.*
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Just a small thing I just thought up after a session: maybe get rid of vancian casting altogether
I'm not convinced it makes it to 3rd edition.
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The tables I play with tend to assume uncommon options are available without much fuss but rare may not be. I've noticed that rare ancestries tend to be kind of problematic. Not for crunch, but for flavor or how the flavor and crunch intertwine. I'm just sick of explaining to players why their automaton takes poison damage or isn't more resistant to fire or what have you. If a player doesn't understand the crunch enough to not get hung up on these balance considerations, I'd rather just not have those things in the game. Which seems to be the rare tag working exactly as intended.
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This isn't really a question of rarity, but rather how Paizo decided to balance the non-living ancestries.
In my opinion it's a flaw in the PF2 ancestry system due to the lack of space to exacerbate options and the lack of courage to force dangerous options on these ancestries.
The problem basically lies in the fact that CRB ancestries do not receive enough benefits to be sacrificed for the benefits of non-living ancestries. For example, for an automaton to be able to receive the benefits of being a construct, it would also have to receive the penalties/difficulties of one, such as not being able to be healed, only repaired, being broken when it reaches 0 HP and not being able to heal itself, be immune to poisons and etc. But in exchange for that he wouldn't get the level 1 feat and for ancestries like that to work in a balanced way, humans, elves, halflings... would have to receive more benefits from the first level, without needing things like level adjustments.
The curious thing, even though I couldn't do all this, because as I said there is no room for much exoticism due to the limits of the CRB's ancestry, I don't know why Paizo didn't at least do what she herself did with the spellcasting classes and not simply remove the level 1 feat access to give a little more personality to these ancestors, even though I still can't reach the ideal.
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Speaking of cantrips I would like to see acid splash scale less horribly because to me it feels very underwhelming.
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I want light armor to get specializations, and give more classes armor spec due to this. Even if it's a measly 1+potency DR, it's still something that makes your choice in armor mean something compared to other pieces of armor with the same AC/Dex cap stats. Also more thrown weapons, they're too cool for us to have so few!
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This isn't really a question of rarity, but rather how Paizo decided to balance the non-living ancestries.
In my opinion it's a flaw in the PF2 ancestry system due to the lack of space to exacerbate options and the lack of courage to force dangerous options on these ancestries.
The problem basically lies in the fact that CRB ancestries do not receive enough benefits to be sacrificed for the benefits of non-living ancestries. For example, for an automaton to be able to receive the benefits of being a construct, it would also have to receive the penalties/difficulties of one, such as not being able to be healed, only repaired, being broken when it reaches 0 HP and not being able to heal itself, be immune to poisons and etc. But in exchange for that he wouldn't get the level 1 feat and for ancestries like that to work in a balanced way, humans, elves, halflings... would have to receive more benefits from the first level, without needing things like level adjustments.
The curious thing, even though I couldn't do all this, because as I said there is no room for much exoticism due to the limits of the CRB's ancestry, I don't know why Paizo didn't at least do what she herself did with the spellcasting classes and not simply remove the level 1 feat access to give a little more personality to these ancestors, even though I still can't reach the ideal.
I don't think there's an ancestry feat in the game which would make up for all the immunities you'd gain from being treated as a full construct. Nor do those penalties you mention sound like effective balancing tools.
1. Being repaired instead of healed isn't a much of penalty if your party accounts for it. Out of combat healing is as simple as advancing Crafting (a great skill anyway) and taking the Quick Repair feat, and suddenly you can be patched back to full quicker than a humanoid. The only actual loss is for in combat healing, which isn't as mandatory as people make it out to be. And they'd probably just print a construct healing spell at that point anyway.
2. Constructs aren't broken at zero HP, they are destroyed. If you don't make PC adjustments you will likely just lose the character.
3. You're comparing that risk to the following immunities: bleed damage, death effects, disease, healing, necromancy, nonlethal attacks, poison, and the doomed, drained, fatigued, paralyzed, sickened, and unconscious conditions. That's an awful lot of stuff to dodge.
4. A good player will figure out how to account for those differences and exploit them while mitigating the downsides. A bad player won't, and will just discover their character is effectively dead the first time they try to heal.
I think Paizo did the right thing with undead: give them a balanced set of abilities by default, but inform GMs they can hand ignore those restrictions and just accept that certain challenges and stories won't work anymore. And rarity is a good lever for just ducking the whole headache to begin with.
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I don't know how big this would be but something like simplified ancestries where you don't need to pick feats but you get something for your ancestry where you would pick a feat for your ancestry
That feels unlikely to me. There aren't a lot of ancestry feats that are universally relevant for all builds, and they seem unlikely to put the effort into creating such stuff when modularity is such a big part of the experience. Also, ancestry feats aren't thaaaaat hard to choose if you aren't trying to optimize. There aren't that many, especially for newer ancestries. Skill feats are a much worse contender for additional complexity for limited impact.
Honestly, you can build perfectly functional characters without any feats besides toughness, fleet, and your class feats.
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...I think Paizo did the right thing with undead: give them a balanced set of abilities by default, but inform GMs they can hand ignore those restrictions and just accept that certain challenges and stories won't work anymore. And rarity is a good lever for just ducking the whole headache to begin with.
Yet due these design decisions/restrictions construct ancestries don't feel like constructs and undead ancestries don't feel like undeads.
I hope that in a distant future when they release a PF3 they consider to reserve a design space to monstrous, construct and undead creatures to be like they are for players too instead of do a base human centric ancestry socket that don't have space to something different.
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...I think Paizo did the right thing with undead: give them a balanced set of abilities by default, but inform GMs they can hand ignore those restrictions and just accept that certain challenges and stories won't work anymore. And rarity is a good lever for just ducking the whole headache to begin with.Yet due these design decisions/restrictions construct ancestries don't feel like constructs and undead ancestries don't feel like undeads.
I hope that in a distant future when they release a PF3 they consider to reserve a design space to monstrous, construct and undead creatures to be like they are for players too instead of do a base human centric ancestry socket that don't have space to something different.
I feel the problem would lie in designing adventures for PCs who have the usual immunities of undead and constructs.
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I would like a kind of variant rule for it like how there's the sidebar for giving winged ancestries base fly speed but also I would understand if the effort put into making it somewhat balanced just wouldn't be worth it
Small Changes:
* Clarification on the height reached by a LONG jump.
*Disarm to work like the Swashbuckler's Disarming Flair as baseline. It would work like trip and grapple, requiring the enemy to spend actions to remove the debuff.
*Clearer examples of creating activities to smooth movement edge cases.
*Aid has a lower DC at early levels. Setting up a rule such as "either target DC or DC 20, whichever is lower" might be a decent change.
What I'd love to see is better magic item scaling.
I hate when magic items are only usable for 2 levels, then become useless.
That's why I defend an MP variant to avoid the spellslot numbers per level limitation. Many people complain abou vancian magic but forget that have up to 10 spellslot level even for expontaneous casters to manage add even more complication to an already complex system like magic and that the current spell progression that requires that you have to heightening many spells forces this complexity even more.
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I hope they clarify snares* and make them more practical/functional. As written they take too many actions (often from multiple characters) to be useful only to have subpar effect, such as reduced DCs.
Can you Craft a snare, and if so, what do you have, a snare, or snare components? If I spend days crafting a snare in my workshop, can I then set it up in the field, or do I need to tread more lightly in my workshop? Asked another way: when crafting for a discount, do I have to spend days crafting my snare at the site of deployment?
I have loads more questions regarding snares, as do many other GMs and players.
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I think Snares should have more interesting shapes as well. Having everything be basically a 5ft effect sucks. The investment/reward is heavily skewered towards investment with little pay off, when it should be the other way around because it's a playstyle that is already situational.
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I never considered to use a snare as a player.
Snares aren't bad but are too defensive. Due players usually are the ones who is exploring and advancing snares ends in a subpar situation where most players don't want them because they usually are situational and you can get something better in place.
I never considered to use a snare as a player.
Snares aren't bad but are too defensive. Due players usually are the ones who is exploring and advancing snares ends in a subpar situation where most players don't want them because they usually are situational and you can get something better in place.
The ranger in my campaign learned the 4th-level Snare Specialist ranger feat. The snares ended up as a weird combat strategy. My players like weird strategies, so that is okay, but it makes snarecrafting a niche ability.
At 4th level the party planned an ambush on a hobgoblin garrison. Their first offense was snares. The ranger set up four snares in a clearing in the forest. Then the champion party member pretended to be a traveler who had just spotted the hobgoblins and run away in fear. Four hobgoblin soldiers gave chase. The champion ran through the clearing right between the hidden snares and the soldiers ran into the snares. The snares took out most of the soldiers' hit points and archers hidden in the forest finished them off in one round.
It was effective, but it does not fit a kick-in-the-door style of dungeon delving. On the other hand, my party liked ambushes against enemy patrols, and they usually laid down snares as part of the ambush.
For ambushes, setting up snares in a round rather than a minute is unimportant. Nevertheless, the party did have one case where the ranger laid doen snares in a tunnel to catch anyone trying to chase after the party. Speed was helpful there.
As for Ravingdork's comment about finding snares as a treasure, at 3rd level I let the ranger find a pre-crafted snare on a dead hunter so that he could try out snares before committing to the Snare Specialist feat at 4th level. The ranger set it up in a fork in a dungeon in case enemies came out of the left passage while the party was exploring the right passage.
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I hope they clarify snares* and make them more practical/functional. As written they take too many actions (often from multiple characters) to be useful only to have subpar effect, such as reduced DCs.
** spoiler omitted **
While I agree the rules need cleaning up, and agree with Lightning Raven's suggestion that some should have wider trip zones, Snares are SUPER strong if you spec for them. They just require scouting and prep so you aren't setting them up in combat. Snare Expert feats are basically "win one encounter per day without fighting" buttons. You just set all your snares up in contiguous path the enemy has to take to reach you. If they value their survival, after the first or second snare they will stop and start Seeking others, at which point their action economy is screwed and you can snipe them. If they don't value their survival, then they will plow through four and just die because Snare damage is huge.