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Here it is for those who haven't seen it yet: [LINK]
Page 5:
OMG! Does this mean we're no longer limited to three focus points!?
If so, certain builds are going to get pretty crazy! Monks in particular are going to become a lot more playable I'd imagine.
This was immediately clarified by Luis Loza that they’re still capped at 3
Bummer!
Is there a link or some other source you can share?
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Those name changes in lore are going to be jarring. I mean the Abyss and City of Brass are not concepts that originated in D&D.
This is going to be very hard to cope with.
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If I'm not mistaken, the City of Brass originated in the tales of the Thousand Nights and a Night, AKA "The Arabian Nights", and was the title of a 1909 poem by Rudyard Kipling. The abyss? Well, there's Neitzsche, but it's even older than that -- the word goes back at least to the Septuagint, the first Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. IANAL, but I don't think anyone can legitimately claim either as intellectual property.
Um, is Psychic amp and/or focus cantrips counted as focus spells?
Psychic only has focus cantrips, and Deepest Wellspring could be removed if you don't know why I asking this.
I would expect that it is only counting focus spells that require a focus point to cast. So focus cantrips would not count. But Amps would, whether they are part of the cantrip or gained separately and then attached when cast.
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If I'm not mistaken, the City of Brass originated in the tales of the Thousand Nights and a Night, AKA "The Arabian Nights", and was the title of a 1909 poem by Rudyard Kipling. The abyss? Well, there's Neitzsche, but it's even older than that -- the word goes back at least to the Septuagint, the first Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. IANAL, but I don't think anyone can legitimately claim either as intellectual property.
I think this needs to be emphasized: Just because a single element is likely not to be challenged in a court environment, does not mean it wouldn't contribute to an overall issue of taking Paizo to court.
Paizo needs to change enough elements of their previously-OGL-infused game to make itself completely independent, without giving next to any room for WotC or Hasbro to take Paizo to court and drain them financially. So even if a single element doesn't make much sense to change, if PF2E still retains over 50% of the D&Disms found in the game originally, it wouldn't be difficult for WotC/Hasbro to point to that and say "Hey, this other company is copying us!" and go through the whole legal process.
It's basically Paizo's creative employees deciding which elements would change, and coming up with interesting alternatives to go with. Not everything needs to change (like Fireball, the Elemental Planes, the base class names, etc.), but enough of the game needs to change to make Pathfinder its own thing.
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Those name changes in lore are going to be jarring. I mean the Abyss and City of Brass are not concepts that originated in D&D.
This is going to be very hard to cope with.
I think the way to handle this is that in the diagesis people are going to have lots of different names for the same thing with regularity. So if Medina Mudii’a has tall brass-domed spires, then there are scholars of the planes who are likely to call it "the City of Brass". But Pathfinder 2e prioritizes "the local or insider name for things" (like "Ysoki" instead of "Ratfolk") and the denizens of Medina Mudii’a probably don't call it "The City of Brass" (but that doesn't mean that outsiders don't.)
"The Abyss" vs. "The Outer Rifts" is a matter of perspective, whether we're descending into something horrible, or this is just the borderlands of something even more horrible.
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Those name changes in lore are going to be jarring. I mean the Abyss and City of Brass are not concepts that originated in D&D.
This is going to be very hard to cope with.
Yeah, I already barely recall the renamed rat and lizard folk... With the new word jumble on renamed things in the remaster I foresee a lot of confusion. Darkwood to duskwood? No problem. Mithral to dawnsilver? less likely to recall. Marid to faydhaan... Say what now?
PS: as an aside, those new mephit designs are NOT to my liking... I liked the little humanoids.
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Yeah, I already barely recall the renamed rat and lizard folk... With the new word jumble on renamed things in the remaster I foresee a lot of confusion. Darkwood to duskwood? No problem. Mithral to dawnsilver? less likely to recall. Marid to faydhaan... Say what now?
I'm expecting that to be temporary. At least for myself. With time and exposure the new names should be as memorable as the old ones.
Though that isn't saying much since I would have to look up what a Marid is...
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I think it's fine to call things by the "the old/wrong" name. Since in the diagesis people are going to have a lot of different names for stuff.
Someone is going to call it Mithril, Darkwood, The Abyss, the City of Brass, etc. It's just that the official name in Paizo's "omniscient authorial perspective" is going to be something else.
If your character you're speaking of isn't someone who lives in the City of Brass, you don't have to call it Medina Mudii’a. It's like when people from other places pronounce something different from how the locals do- it's not weird, it just marks you as an outsider.
The more common problem may be people who are using the new names that others have to spend time looking up. Or at least being worried that they are missing something that should be obvious common-knowledge lore rather than something specific or even unrelated to the game at all.
For example, I just had to go check to see if 'diagesis people' is a culture or nationality that I should know but am suddenly not recognizing the name of.
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I'm expecting that to be temporary.
Not for me. I STILL have to look up the name for rat/lizardfolk as they haven't stuck and that's been 10+ years. It's taken 40+ years of d&d/pathfinder to get the funky names we HAD in my brain to stick. I can honestly tell you I'm never going to recognize a Jaathoom is/was a Djinni... Add to that that they have things like Efreeti changing to Ifrit, but Ifrit already existed and they are changing to Naari...
It's going to be a LOT of gobbledygook where my eyes glaze over: it's going to be like keywords but for actual names...
'What the heck is that'
*flips through book*
'Ok, it's an ifrit, I mean 'Naari', but what is this' vs "
*flips through book*
Recall how annoyed people were with nested keywords? Yeah... Nothing pulls me out of a game like having to pause and look up a bunch of names to figure out what they are, especially for things I already know and have a name in my head for. 'Oh, you mean a lizardfolk... just SAY lizardfolk...'. I'm not looking forward to the new wordsalad it seems we'll get.
We'll see though.
Yeah. I joined a game mid-flight that had one of the characters with an Ancestry entry of 'Iruxi'. I had to go look up what that one was too.
But I recognize the name now.
In competitive bridge (a card game) your partner is supposed to explain the meaning of your bids if the opponents ask. It is in most jurisdictions illegal to "explain" by giving the name of a convention. Yet you'll often see players who ask, and ask follow-on questions, and at some point in the discussion one of them will say "sounds like <name of convention>" and when you say "it's not, quite, because…" the other opponent will said "you should have just said <name of convention>" even though doing so is illegal and they're supposed to know it's illegal.
You can't please everybody, no matter what you do.
I think having the option for a larger pool would really revolutionize build options for characters. ... even a Monk that can cast Ki blast 6 times will likely not out perform a sorcerer that casting fireballs and chain lightning.
Not sure why you are using Monk for the comparison. Run that comparison again with a Druid throwing out Tempest Surge or a Sorcerer using Elemental Toss or Dragon Breath. Even a Cleric with Moonbeam would suddenly be a better blaster caster than a Wizard or Sorcerer using spell slots.
Because those focus points would never run out during a battle. Most combats last about 4 or 5 rounds. Using spell slots for dealing damage will only work for two or three battles before needing to end the day and rest.
Being able to refocus repeatedly to refill your entire focus pool up to the cap of 3 is already a huge buff. Again because combat doesn't normally run more than 5 rounds, and it will start snowballing after about 3 rounds. 3 rounds of having a renewable spell to cast is enough for that character to contribute meaningfully to every fight all day long. No matter how long that day is.
I actually might ask the same question, 'why the cap on focus points?' but for the opposite reason. What does having the cap actually do any more after changing how refocus works? What is the practical difference between having 3 focus points and having infinite focus points?
But at the same time, that isn't a huge buff either. The feats that let you refocus all three points already existed from the very beginning. That is why focus point casters generally make better blaster casters than ones trying to use spell slots for it.
Sure he can get his focus back with a 10 minute rest now if he takes the 12th level feat. But most groups and campaigns don't have encounter after encounter
One, speak for yourself.
Two, the game balance is intended to be balanced regardless of play style. So it is going to use the long adventuring day as the baseline for balancing with.
Three, it seems like you missed the part about being able to refocus repeatedly to fully refill your focus pool. Which, I'll admit is a bit subtle of a change. It doesn't say that you can refocus repeatedly - it simply removed the part in the original rules that prevents it. So noticing that missing rule text is hard to spot.
Also in a somewhat surprising turn of events, this will make Oracle the worst focus point caster. Because unless there is some change made to how Oracular Curse works, the Oracle will only be able to use 2 focus points in the first battle of the day until level 11 - the curse will limit them to 1 point only from then on until the last battle of the day. And they will only be able to use 3 focus points every battle starting at level 17.
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Also in a somewhat surprising turn of events, this will make Oracle the worst focus point caster. Because unless there is some change made to how Oracular Curse works, the Oracle will only be able to use 2 focus points in the first battle of the day until level 11 - the curse will limit them to 1 point only from then on until the last battle of the day. And they will only be able to use 3 focus points every battle starting at level 17.
They work fine, you just ignore the curse and get a non-revelation spell: you can do his as early as 1st level and get yourself a 3rd focus. For instance, an ancient elf oracle takes Psychic dedication as their free multiclass feat and that nets them Telekinetic Projectile they can amp and 3 focus points per fight if they can get a 1/2 hour between them.
Now if you're actually playing the class as intended, sure it's an issue: luckily for myself, I'd never do that.
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Can I ask why have the cap?
For multiple reasons in my opinion:
- Some classes (Psychic) have so many focus spells (well, Amps, but they will count like Focus spells for sure) that they would automatically end up with an incredible number of Focus Points without any investment.- Being unable to spam Focus Powers is a balancing factor for them. Take something like Fey Disappearance, it's an excellent spell but it won't allow you to stay invisible during a whole fight unless you entirely forget about other Focus Powers. With an unlimited number of Focus Points, you can be permanently invisible during fights. It's not a small feat. So the whole balance of Focus Powers had to be reviewed.
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I think the reason for keeping the cap is the same reason the cap was instituted in the first place, TBH.
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Can I ask why have the cap?For multiple reasons in my opinion:
- Some classes (Psychic) have so many focus spells (well, Amps, but they will count like Focus spells for sure) that they would automatically end up with an incredible number of Focus Points without any investment.
- Being unable to spam Focus Powers is a balancing factor for them. Take something like Fey Disappearance, it's an excellent spell but it won't allow you to stay invisible during a whole fight unless you entirely forget about other Focus Powers. With an unlimited number of Focus Points, you can be permanently invisible during fights. It's not a small feat. So the whole balance of Focus Powers had to be reviewed.
Because there are excellent free action, single action and reaction focus point powers. They would be too powerful if you could have 4, 5 or more focus points. It would be a total rebalancing of the spell slot system.
Because there are excellent free action, single action and reaction focus point powers. They would be too powerful if you could have 4, 5 or more focus points. It would be a total rebalancing of the spell slot system.
Well there are great focus spells and truly awful ones so it's a pretty big swing in effectiveness: some builds could have 20 focus points and it wouldn't really move the needle. Hopefully we'll see them evened out so they are closer in power/usefulness.
I actually might ask the same question, 'why the cap on focus points?' but for the opposite reason. What does having the cap actually do any more after changing how refocus works? What is the practical difference between having 3 focus points and having infinite focus points?
I know you asked this rhetorically, because as a witch main you already know the answer and Gortle already said it, but to say it for others: because one action or less focus spells exist. By the end of his first turn in combat, my battle oracle may already have used Call to Arms, Vision of Weakness, and a follow up choice of Dragon's Breath or Debilitating Dichotomy. With Free Archetype, at level 10 I have seven different focus spells. When I first read the rule about your focus pool being the same number as how many focus spells you know, I audibly gasped and scared my wife.
Also you new avatar keeps throwing me for a loop. You're supposed to be purple my dude.