Guns & Gears will be Remastered

[shroudb]

Super Zero wrote:

A focus caster could use up to three, but would usually only use one. The Inventor could always use at least one, but sometimes could keep chaining them (especially if you have Searing Restoration and use it out of combat--used it five times in a row once, and then didn't need to stabilize after fully healing everybody).

Yes, they're different. Different is fun. They were about equally strong.

But focus points got a buff. So did Unstable, but a much smaller one. That is true.

Different is indeed fun, but in order to be "about equally strong" you need the average to come up to be about the same.

Now, the average is about 1.3-1.4 Unstable per fight vs 3 Focus per fight.

I would hardly call that "about equally strong".

If the DC was a reasonable one, like starting at DC 5-7 and going up the more you use it (which would make sense for something "unsatble") I would agree.

But not when the Unstable DC is as ridicusly high as it is right now.

The "buff" it received is laughably tiny compared to the buff of focus points and focus points were stronger to begin with!

---

In short, in theory you are correct, but in practice the numbers are WAY off to bring said balance.

[moosher12]

Yeah, while a Legacy Focus spell caster could burst up to 3 at a time. They could only use all 3 once per day, as they were only allowed to restore 1 focus spell (until they got the feat that unlocked it). So in practicality, most focus casters would be encouraged to only use 1 focus spell per battle, and save the second and third for a speculative boss fight (Which, following the Consumables in JRPGs Law, means that they might end up NEVER using that second and third Focus slot).

[exequiel759]

I could see a 10 / 15 / 20 DC progression, with Expert Overdrive, Master Overdrive, and Legendary Overdrive giving you a +1 (up to +3 with Legendary Overdrive) on the flat check to somehow guarantee at least 2 unstable actions in most scenarios. I would take a DC 5 / 10 / 20 even. If it would be too much I think it would be fair to somehow limit it to the amount of unstable actions you have. For example, if you have one unstable actions you can only make a flat check at DC 20. If you have two, you can make one check at DC 15 and then a second one at DC 20. And if you have three, you can make one check at DC 10, a second check at DC 15, and a third check at DC 20. This potentially would mean that if you are very lucky you'll be able to use 4 unstable actions in a combat, but in average you'll likely use 2 in most combats. That or if you fail the flat check you lose access to that unstable action but not the others.

[Zoken44]

I agree, the fact that usually you can only use only one unstable action per turn feels bad. But either a feat to lower the Flat DC, or a consumable Item (like a gadget) that could lower the Flat DC to make it more likely to succeed would be nice. I don't want to completely get rid of the chance of it blowing up... that's too damn funny. But I would like more of a chance of success.

[JiCi]

Perses13 wrote:

Unfortunately I think that particular ship has sailed since sailing ship is a vehicle from GM Core.

Oh... whoops...

I'd like to see a steam boat though, as a new vehicle... with a 20-passenger capacity, at least...

[MrDiceGuy]

Michael Sayre wrote:

MrDiceGuy wrote:

I would love the remastered gunslinger feats for firearms and crossbows to be expanded to work for slings.

This won't be happening but we do have sling-specific support planned for another upcoming book.

Thank you! I will buy the Pathfinder book that offers support for slings when it comes out.

[Captain Morgan]

JiCi wrote:

Really hope they review their vehicles...

Seriously, in P1E, the Sailing Ship could carry 200 passengers. This was downsized to only 10 passengers in P2E.

If I had to guess, I'd say they might be using two different metrics for passengers. The PF1 statblock of the same size as the PF2 statblock says "150 tons of cargo or 200 passengers." But treating the two as interchangeable makes me think they mean you could cram 200 people into the hold of the ship. That might be uncomfortably close to how ships treated people as cargo in the transatlantic slave trade.

20 passengers is probably closer to what you can comfortably fit on a boat for a long journey while still maintaining the dignity of those aboard. A little cursory googling on sailing ship capacities suggests:

Number of people that are dangerous onboard >>>number of people comfortable onboard>>>>number of people comfortable onboard while technically sailing >>>> number of people comfortable onboard while actually sailing

So it sound to me like they already did review their vehicles and came up with a more realistic number for how PCs would be intended to use it, instead of a more problematic number from the perspective of a slaver.

[JiCi]

I understand what you're saying, but... it's still shocking that from P1E to P2E, sailing ships now needs half of the required crew (20 vs 9) and can only carry 5% of people.

[TOZ]

Maybe the original estimates were unrealistic. We didn’t notice because it was all we had known.

[JiCi]

I'd need to check some ship maps...

Maybe the decks now feature bigger quarters for both crew and passengers, hence the reduction in capacity...

[PossibleCabbage]

I assume the "10 passengers on a passenger ship" assumes the passengers require quarters. I also assume that "passenger ship" is "a ship that can accommodate passengers" not "a ship that is primarily for carrying passengers" (i.e. they're still hauling cargo in the parts of the ship you wouldn't want to be in as a paying customer who wants to stay dry.)

[Perpdepog]

On the subject of vehicles, I'll be interested to see if the vehicles in Guns & Gears get immunity to critical hits and precision damage when the book is remastered.

I've always been curious if that was an accidental omission, or if the removal of the immunities was meant to reflect how much more complex and delicate clockwork vehicles are. I lean to the former, because having your cool clockwork vehicle instantly destroyed by a higher-level foe critting it isn't super fun, but I could see either.

[graystone]

Perpdepog wrote:

On the subject of vehicles, I'll be interested to see if the vehicles in Guns & Gears get immunity to critical hits and precision damage when the book is remastered.

I've always been curious if that was an accidental omission, or if the removal of the immunities was meant to reflect how much more complex and delicate clockwork vehicles are. I lean to the former, because having your cool clockwork vehicle instantly destroyed by a higher-level foe critting it isn't super fun, but I could see either.

There are magical, mundane and clockwork vehicles in sources other than Guns and Gears that only have object immunities like grand bazaar, modules and rage of Elements so it isn't limited to just clockwork.

[Ascalaphus]

My impression is that objects are not categorically immune to crits/precision. The only objects I know of that explicitly have that immunity are things like Wall of Stone that also come with AC 10. So you basically have four flavors:

- Objects with challenging AC, hardness, HP. For example, many hazards. They don't say they're immune and I don't think they should be.

- Objects with super low AC (who may have hardness and HP) such as various wall spells. By the time you start running into them, you basically can't miss them unless you roll a 1. Even your third attack probably hits. Makes sense that these explicitly say they don't do crits/precision.

- Objects that you usually can't target directly, like a weapon someone is wielding. For these it shouldn't really matter if you can crit them or not because you're not going to attack them.

- Objects that you could realistically want to attack, like a door that you want to destroy (not just Force Open with Athletics) or maybe a regular dungeon wall you want to tunnel through. For these I'm inclined to decide which of the first two flavors they resemble. If they're "can't miss" then they should also be "can't crit". I'd also be looking intensely at the clause where the GM can rule that not all weapons are suitable for attacking all kinds of objects. Tunneling through a wall with bow and arrow for example. Whereas doing it with a pick is a lot more plausible.

So for vehicles with item levels and all that, I'd be looking at whether they have competitive AC to see if they should be crittable. If the AC is so low that you will constantly crit, then they should be immune. If they're actually challenging to hit, then they can be crit.