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I actually can't think of many stories where that's the case. It's much more common for fiction to handwave away language barriers.darkvision ... is an important dimension of some stories but for many groups and most adventures it just gets lost in this game.In fairness, there are LOTS of things that are important dimensions of stories that don't work well in gaming.
My favourite example is the ability to speak lots of languages. This can be pretty much the central contribution of a character in a story. But after a few minutes of linguistic fun language problems are generally just boring as all XXXX in a role playing game.
But there are many others.
Off the top of my head, David Brin's Uplift Trilogy and CJ Cherryh's Channur series. (Both *highly* recommended, by the way.) Oh, and Janet Kagan's novel Hellspark which has probably faded into obscurity since she died so soon after writing it, but is an absolute *joyful* romp of a novel.
I will stop derailing here, but linguistic differences having strong story effects is very much a thing in sf&f fiction, even with Tolkien tied behind your back.
ETA: Removed unecessary Offtopic statement
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For me I think Darkvision would be at least 70% fixed if only Darkvision treated pure darkness as concealed. That way creatures could still hide in the shadows and no one without a light source could ever be truly sure that they were safe unless maybe they had some monster greater darkvision, which I would recommend never be a player option before high level.
For me I think Darkvision would be at least 70% fixed if only Darkvision treated pure darkness as concealed. That way creatures could still hide in the shadows and no one without a light source could ever be truly sure that they were safe unless maybe they had some monster greater darkvision, which I would recommend never be a player option before high level.I admit I do like complete blackness, no darkvision at all. It's very scary.
I could also accept this for players, albeit it would leave some pretty open questions about how dwarves and orcs and other former and current subterranean peoples manage at all short of inventing all manner of natural lighting sources in the depths.
In another world, perhaps, but for my money, 'limited darkvision' is more functional for "this species should have incredible night vision" than letting no species have any vision better than low-light.
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One thing I don't like:
The Changeling and Nephilim heritages are still dead choices for ancestries that already have darkvision built in (like Dwarves,Goblins, and Orcs). Since there's the clause to upgrade low-light vision to darkvision, and fully 3/8 of the ancestries in Player Core 1 have Darkvision, you'd think they'd have a clause for "what happens if you take Changeling as a Versatile Heritage on an Ancestry that has Darkvision already."
Alternatively, for ancestries with built-in darkvision, they could create 1st level ancestry feats that let them trade darkvision for other cool features.
That way you could trade out your automatic darkvision for something cool, then take a versatile heritage that gets your darkvision back.
That would also give options to people who don't care about innate darkvision and also don't want to take versatile heritages that grant it.
For example, a blind character might be able to trade out their useless darkvision for something more relevant to their build.
It would be nice to know how "darkvision" actually works. I can remember old discussions, though I don't remember the game system (pre-PF though I'm pretty sure) where it was suggested that creatures with darkvision actually see farther into the infrared part of the spectrum than humans do. That makes sense to me, and it suggests that darkvision isn't literally black and white, but more shades of red (ish). It also suggests a viable tactic against darkviewing critters -- if you can heat the walls of a room, or a big rock in a cavern, enough to cause it to radiate heat, that might blind the critters. But I've never seen a suggestion of that in PF. So I dunno. It just seems to me that there should be more and better ways to counter darkvision than a fourth level darkness spell.
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It would be nice to know how "darkvision" actually works. I can remember old discussions, though I don't remember the game system (pre-PF though I'm pretty sure) where it was suggested that creatures with darkvision actually see farther into the infrared part of the spectrum than humans do. That makes sense to me, and it suggests that darkvision isn't literally black and white, but more shades of red (ish). It also suggests a viable tactic against darkviewing critters -- if you can heat the walls of a room, or a big rock in a cavern, enough to cause it to radiate heat, that might blind the critters. But I've never seen a suggestion of that in PF. So I dunno. It just seems to me that there should be more and better ways to counter darkvision than a fourth level darkness spell.
You might be thinking about 1st edition AD&D where, before darkvision existed, there was both Infravision (letting you see into the infrared part of the spectrum) and Ultravision (letting you see into the ultraviolet part of the spectrum).
Darkvision is quite useful. It's why my two Alchemists that are L8+ devote a Batch of Reagents a day to get it (and give it to a friend, as Advanced Alchemy makes two.)
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Alternatively, for ancestries with built-in darkvision, they could create 1st level ancestry feats that let them trade darkvision for other cool features.One thing I don't like:
The Changeling and Nephilim heritages are still dead choices for ancestries that already have darkvision built in (like Dwarves,Goblins, and Orcs). Since there's the clause to upgrade low-light vision to darkvision, and fully 3/8 of the ancestries in Player Core 1 have Darkvision, you'd think they'd have a clause for "what happens if you take Changeling as a Versatile Heritage on an Ancestry that has Darkvision already."
Alter-alternatively, the heritages in question could say "if you already have darkvision, you get an extra 1st-level ancestry feat instead."
We know that upgrading low-light to darkvision is supposed to be balanced vs 1st-level ancestry feats because there are 1st-level ancestry feats that provide it. So this should be fine balance-wise, and doesn't require inventing a batch of new trade-in-darkvision ancestry feats.
I noticed that some of the old injury poisons were nerfed substantially, cutting their damage almost by half (e.g. Wyvern Poison). I am a bit confused about that change, given that using poisons was a very niche strategy already. This could mean that they are trying to bring things in line a bit for a substantial Alchemist/Toxicologist buff (in which case, thumbs up), but in a vacuum I dislike this change.
Seriously!!??!!
That's just... so sad. Poison could have seen a buff without a compensating nerf. And pointless as poisons from the Treasure Vault have the extra damage...I have the feeling my Alchemists will die on the remaster. It's sad, I love them so.
No one is saying darkvision isn't useful but it can cut a lot tension from being in the dark because the character with darkvision can still just see stuff.Yeah it's sort of the equivalent of walking into a haunted house with night vision goggles. Now, admittedly, haunted houses are less of a good analogy because jump scares exist, but still.
Not really that creepy if you can see everything bright as the noonday sun.
I mean, just think of the poor will o' wisps!
Yeah not PF2e but when I ran curse of strahd the second time around I made it human only and had the PCs be from Victorian era England (debated going arthurian to allow for magic, but being magicless was more fun)
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I am guessing poison is more often a thing used on the players than used by players. they may have been looking at its damage from that angle.
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I am guessing poison is more often a thing used on the players than used by players. they may have been looking at its damage from that angle.
Given that a lot of enemies are immune to poison, it always felt more like a GM tool than a PC tool.
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Alchemist's Poison are near exclusively used by players. GMs don't care about items, they can just say the monster's weapons are poisoned and give them whatever numbers they want.
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I am guessing poison is more often a thing used on the players than used by players. they may have been looking at its damage from that angle.
But most of the time when a GM poisons a player, it's from a poison in a monster statblock, not an item designed to be used by players.
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I noticed that some of the old injury poisons were nerfed substantially, cutting their damage almost by half (e.g. Wyvern Poison). I am a bit confused about that change, given that using poisons was a very niche strategy already. This could mean that they are trying to bring things in line a bit for a substantial Alchemist/Toxicologist buff (in which case, thumbs up), but in a vacuum I dislike this change.
They're not even in the book and they still managed to get nerfed. My sides hurt from all this laughing.
I've looked at all the injury poisons in the GM core and many of them have been nerfed in damage while a few of them have very strong debuff (Fatigued, Frightened 3, Sickened 3, the debuffs are now absolutely excellent). But debuffing poisons are mostly for Toxicologists, the other types of Alchemists use the highest level poison they can get as they can't change the poison DC.
I've looked at all the injury poisons in the GM core and many of them have been nerfed in damage while a few of them have very strong debuff (Fatigued, Frightened 3, Sickened 3, the debuffs are now absolutely excellent). But debuffing poisons are mostly for Toxicologists, the other types of Alchemists use the highest level poison they can get as they can't change the poison DC.
Technically they can via powerful alchemy... Not exactly ideal, but it is there.
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I missed this one earlier, huh.
"Paizo nerfs alchemists" was not on my Remaster bingo card.
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It could be that the developers are rebalancing injury poisons with the notion that the alchemist will be passing them out to the whole party.
Maybe alchemist poisons will use their class DC, or have some other buff(s) from the class?
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It could be that the developers are rebalancing injury poisons with the notion that the alchemist will be passing them out to the whole party.
That was already the case. Poison really doesn't need a nerf. Also, the change will be pointless as the poisons from outside sources, the main one being Treasure Vault, will still be accessible.
The list of changes:
Level 1 from:
Saving Throw DC 17 Fortitude; Maximum Duration 6 rounds; Stage 1 1d6 poison damage (1 round); Stage 2 1d8 poison damage and flat-footed (1 round); Stage 3 1d12 poison damage, clumsy 1, and flat-footed (1 round)
to damage is 1d4 at each stages and Flat Footed is replaced by Fatigued.
Fatigued is roughly equivalent to Flat Footed. So it's a heavy damage nerf.
Level 2 from:
Saving Throw DC 18 Fortitude; Maximum Duration 3 rounds; Stage 1 1d8 poison damage (1 round); Stage 2 1d10 poison damage (1 round); Stage 3 2d6 poison damage (1 round)
to damage is 1d4, 1d6 and 1d8.
Massive damage nerf with no compensation.
Level 3 from:
Saving Throw DC 19 Fortitude; Maximum Duration 4 rounds; Stage 1 1d10 poison damage (1 round); Stage 2 1d12 poison damage and stupefied 1 (1 round); Stage 3 2d6 poison damage and stupefied 2 (1 round)
to damage is 1d8, 1d10 and 2d6, no change on the debuff.
Slight damage nerf.
Level 4 was rather bad and they added a Poison that inflicts Frightened condition up to Frightened 3.
Massive debuff poison, a must have.
Level 5 from:
Saving Throw DC 21 Fortitude; Maximum Duration 6 rounds; Stage 1 1d10 poison damage and flat-footed (1 round); Stage 2 1d12 poison damage, clumsy 1, and flat-footed (1 round); Stage 3 2d6 poison damage, clumsy 2, and flat-footed (1 round)
to +1 to save DC, Sickened added to all stages (up to Sickened 3).
Massive buff in both DC and effects.
Level 6 from:
Saving Throw DC 22 Fortitude; Maximum Duration 6 rounds; Stage 1 1d10 poison damage and enfeebled 1 (1 round); Stage 2 2d10 poison damage and enfeebled 1 (1 round); Stage 3 2d10 poison damage and enfeebled 2 (1 round)
to damage is 2d6, 2d8 and 2d10.
Damage has been reviewed, no real change.
Level 8 from:
Saving Throw DC 26 Fortitude; Maximum Duration 6 rounds; Stage 1 5d6 poison damage (1 round); Stage 2 6d6 poison damage (1 round); Stage 3 8d6 poison damage (1 round)
to damage is 3d6, 3d8 and 3d10.
Massive nerf in damage.
Poison has been changed to deal less damage overall with some crazy debuff ones. It'll be good for the Toxicologist who can always default to a lower level poison (once it reaches a good one, level 4 seems to be that level). For non Toxicologists, it means some dead levels and strong levels, it's extremely weird. But because the poisons of Treasure Vault are still accessible and balanced around the old damage values, it should stay quite similar.
I really don't get that change. I hope they know what they do and we won't end up with Poison being worse for non-Toxicologists as I really like to use Poison.
The Rogue feat Poison Weapon is a trap. So I hope they won't balance Poison around it.
I hope they'll add Poison based feats that don't rely around Additive as in that case it would bar them from non-Toxicologists (technically, there's Potent Poison at level 10, but it's rather late).
The Rogue feat Poison Weapon is a trap. So I hope they won't balance Poison around it.
Well, the free daily poisons aren't nice, but the first half of the feat is good. It's up to a 3>1 action economy condenser if you're drawing and applying an injury poison, which makes applying poisons mid combat significantly more viable.
Though obviously the poison nerfs kind of undermine that a bit.
Hey, I'll take lower damage poisons if it means toxicologists get inventor accuracy
It's up to a 3>1 action economy condenser if you're drawing and applying an injury poison, which makes applying poisons mid combat significantly more viable.
Honestly, anything other than free action/reaction seems way too expensive for Poison application. I use Poison since day 1 and I never ever even thought about applying it in combat outside a Poison Reservoir Familiar (preferably with Independent).
Hey, I'll take lower damage poisons if it means toxicologists get inventor accuracy
Losing on Alchemist abilities to get generic bonuses doesn't look like a progress in the good direction to me.
Yeah it's a good pickup for an actual alchemist too, since toxicologist still has to pay to draw their poisons even if application is cheaper.
Still, it's my contention that toxicologist is one of the better alchemists, because they can hand out toys to their high-powered friends and be utterly brutal.
Handing Poisons to allies is, currently, available to all Research Fields (I do it with all my Alchemists). The Toxicologist just produces more Poisons so it's slightly less expensive, but it's hardly a big asset.
True, somewhat. Though the DC boosting is helpful at dead levels (or if your GM hates you and sticks to Common rarity poisons only).
With the Poisons from Treasure Vault, there are 3 dead levels if you stick to Common Poisons. It's hardly a big issue.
It's up to a 3>1 action economy condenser if you're drawing and applying an injury poison, which makes applying poisons mid combat significantly more viable.Honestly, anything other than free action/reaction seems way too expensive for Poison application. I use Poison since day 1 and I never ever even thought about applying it in combat outside a Poison Reservoir Familiar (preferably with Independent).
Hey, I'll take lower damage poisons if it means toxicologists get inventor accuracyLosing on Alchemist abilities to get generic bonuses doesn't look like a progress in the good direction to me.
Losing alchemist abilities? I'm confused
I'm only just starting to get into the changes, but my wife and I are looking over the new character sheet, and I'm actually pretty disappointed by the redesign. It's not accessible for me at all. I have ADHD, and therefore have a terrible memory for numbers, feats, spells, etc. The original PF2E design had space for me to take notes (at least in places) so I could write down penalties, what a spell did, what an ability did. That way I don't have to look it up EVERY TIME I USE IT. Now look at the spell list design. As someone who plays a lot of casters, this design is very inaccessible to my needs as a player. Is there any advantage in using the new character sheets versus the originals (or even 3P)?
You've missed that the sickened from the new Spider Venom (level 5) replaces the current flat-footed, so it's not a strict buff (though, given how easy FF is to apply, it still comes out ahead for sure)
I consider Sickened, especially up to Sickened 3, to be massively better than Flat Footed. Not a strict buff but a buff nonetheless.
The new level 4 fear poison looks quite okay on paper, but one should keep in mind that the reduction of Frightened is done after rolling saves for ongoing afflictions at the end of the turn, making it so that the stages are effectively closer to being (0-1)/1/2 frightened rather than 1/2/3.
You're right. It's silly then as we don't know if it's intended or not...
I see poison mostly interesting for role-playing concerning things. I.e. a host poisoning guests (players) in a feast, or bitten by a poisonous creature (spider, snake) when sleeping in a bad place, or affected by a strong poison from a monster and then try to survive.
Poison and disease rules on PF2 are vastly superior to D&D with real affections than can even lead to death.
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I am kind of sad so many ancestries still have 'low light or darkvision' as their thing. I would rather Paizo have moved away from almost every ancestry has better sight than humans trope. Its lazy and boring.
Seems like a clear majority of ancestries have low light vision and not having it is the exception.
It never made sense that low light vision was arbitrarily upgraded to dark vision if both your ancestries (for mixed heritage) had low light vision in some cases.
I feel if they ever get around to PF3e or even a proper .5 edition they should rethink low-light and darkvision as a default for so many ancestries - they are no longer shackled by DnD so they can reinvent things a little. They seem to do this with some things and not others.
Also maybe the nerf to poisons means Alchemists will get other buffs. Regarding TV poisons being stronger they can easily errata them down once player core 2 gets released. My hope is more of the class power for alchemist goes into the alchemist - even if it is the alchemist gets more power from items than others. Part of the issue of the alchemist is everyone else gets more benefit from their stuff then they do. Being a class that can provide 70% of its contribution to the party during daily preparations (creating and handing out consumables) and then can be replaced by another character is not a good feeling for a class.
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Mixed Ancestry Ancestry options would be a great move away from here's better sight.
It would be interesting to see an ancestry show up with noticeably more limited vision than humans. Like how Astomoi in 1e could perceive the world with perfect accuracy within 60' and had no ability to perceive further than that.