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And to which I state again, what games are going to be impacted from this rules change? How many tables actually come across interactions with these kinds of rules?
It's not just about how many tables (or lack theteof) that will be negatively impacted by the change to these rituals. It sets a terrible precedent of culling existing gane options, and so should be vehemently opposed on that basis alone.
Selling new books that take away existing options is a VERY BAD THING
The distinction between RAW and not is significantly blurred when the rules explicitly say "ignore these rules if you don't find them relevant to your game."
To provide an example within the system itself, one of the changes that was received very positively about the Remastered investigator was that a free-action DaS was made more or less as the default way of using DaS, though in reality its not a Remaster thing because that was already a thing in the APG version too. The Remaster only made the text more clear about it, but otherwise the class hasn't really changed in that aspect.
I think create demiplane having either the rare or mythic trait is in a similar category to the example above because nothing has really changed in grand scheme of things, but sets a precedent about Paizo changing arbitrary rules (because rarity traits are arbitrary in nature because are entirely setting-dependent) to make them more or less arbitrary but arbitrary nonetheless (not all parties would want to play mythic for example).
I think this would have been handled much better if the mythic trait was more like a higher rarity above rare that implies but not demands access to mythic power. Like, yeah create demiplane now has the mythic trait because it requires some world-shaping knowledge to create a pocket reality that works in a consistent way, though a mortal wouldn't necessarily need to be mythic themselves to create one either because magic themselves allows them to replicate divine power (the divine spell list exists after all) or because its one of the few things that has been studied to such a degree that there's formulas or rules you can follow to create one (represented through the knowledge someone has implicitly from having a high proficiency in a skill, which is required to cast rituals).
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To the people defending this choice, rather than debate RAW or how much impact this change has on lore, gameplay, etc., let me ask you this; what benefit does this change bring to GMs and players of PF2?
I feel as if RPG-Geek doesn't read this part of my posts and is directing that blind-item to me. It is, again, a counterproductive use of space. It's just not a particularly big deal. The one mandatory RAW-only play environment doesn't use it, and for every other table, GMs can and should make the call as and when it comes up.
It wasn't specifically aimed at you, though I did miss that you agreed that it was a poor use of page space. I guess I just don't see why you'd spend time telling people you agree with that this change isn't a big deal. We know this particular case isn't a big deal, but if we don't make our distaste known now we might see other changes in a similar vein that do impact things people care more about.
This is people speaking up to let the developers know that this isn't okay and we don't like it.
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It's brought up because it's really the only solution to "unmodified rules that nobody uses because they are garbage." And it's also used as the justification for why the setting has what elements it has; if X NPC in-lore has a demiplane, the GM doesn't need to care that he is Mythic or anything like that if it's not relevant to the story. At best it would be a neat Easter egg or a nice indication as to the gravity of NPC they are to the PCs, but the setting does not give two craps about it. All the setting cares about is X NPC has established a demiplane. The details behind it are irrelevant to the mechanics or the story/GM.
Right up until the players ask "hey that's cool, how did he do that and can we do it?" And then it matters quite a lot unless your answer is "I don't know and no you can't because arbitrary game mechanics."
This was actually pretty easy before: Karzoug had a Demiplane because he was a PF1 Wizard. He could have bigger/cooler demiplane stuff because he was an extremely strong ancient PF1 Wizard, but the basic building blocks for a PC that wanted to work towards it were already there and something they could work towards, even if they couldn't really match what he's done over so much time (and with the knowledge of Thassilon).
More importantly: a character with the skill to know how this stuff works could understand what it was and the theory behind how to do it. Likewise, a GM could readily convey that information without needing to go ask for advice or make something up, because the basic foundational game mechanics supported it.
In premaster PF2, the answer was something like "Karzoug has a demiplane because he's done a lot with very high level create demiplane rituals and some other magic." Okay, that's still something players can theoretically work towards given enough time and resources, even if they can never match what he's got in practical terms. But again, the GM has a clear way to convey what game mechanics are in use and how a player could at least work towards it.
Now? The answer is "Karzoug has a demiplane because MacGuffin, and you can't do that because he's an NPC and you're not."
One of these is much, much less satisfying from a verisimilitude perspective than the others. It's a straight up "this is a game, sorry" answer. That's the baseline answer the rules are giving now, and coming up with a better answer is just left to the GM to sort out on their own.
This is not an improvement.
And again, why complain about a rule change that most all tables never used, and even if they were used, it was most definitely affected by GM handwavium? You might as well complain about an old dusty toy you bought years ago going missing even though you never played with it and it rotted away up in the attic somewhere. (Probably eaten by rats, birds, and other insects.) It didn't matter to you when you got it and in the time you had it laying around in your attic, so why does it all of a sudden matter now? If anything, it did you a favor by saving you storage space for other, more important things.
So your defense of this rule change is actually not that the rule change is good or useful at all: it's that since not a lot of people use this, it doesn't matter? You've spent literally paragraphs of text talking about this that could be summed up as "I never use these rules so who cares?"
That is not the defense you seem to think it is.
I'm still waiting for people to share me their tables that used rituals by RAW on a regular basis. So far nobody has mentioned this happening whatsoever, which means that either the rule has never been used (meaning complaints regarding unused rules are invalid), or it has been handwaved far too differently from the RAW in an effort to make it work/more fun (meaning the relevance of the GM is more mandatory than usual).
Oh I tried to in SoT. It led to immense player frustration as rituals are too hard to do RAW at low level and a thread on this forum on what to do about it. That led to house rules.
Course, I fail to see how that is in any way relevant. The change we're talking about is not an attempt to fix the ritual rules. Far from it. It actually made things worse. So again, "not a lot of people use this so it doesn't matter that they took stuff away from it and threw it behind a mythic wall for no reason" is not the argument you seem to think it is.
If you don't care about it, that's totally fine. But "I don't care about it so it doesn't matter to anyone" is not a compelling argument.
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Once again, I have to point that "this rule is fine because you can ignore it" isn't an argument in favor of the rule. If the only quality of a rule is that it's easy to ignore, then it's not a good rule. Everybody know they can ignore any rule they want in their game, that's not the point here. The point is wether including this rule, tied to these rituals, in the first place was a good idea, from both a gameplay and a lore standpoint.You know what's not a difficult-to-balance, difficult-to-remember house rule? Deciding not to use content from a specific book, or a specific section of a book. That's how multi-book RPGs work. There are going to be people who don't own a copy of this rulebook who continue to play in this specific way for years, and it's not a houserule. It's just playing with the rules they have.
It's a very specific kind of gamer who doesn't play with a ruleset, but allows that ruleset to overwrite content from their existing game that they then have to throw out. That kind of gamer doesn't make for a great GM, however vigorously you white knight for them. You still own the official books that have the previous version in them. You can still play with those rules. Paizo publishing additional rules didn't take that right away from you by force. Just play with the rules you prefer, like you decided to do when you agreed not to use Mythic in your game.
Yeah, this. I can ignore this rule. I can also put it into my list of house rules that the mythic tag on rituals just doesn't exist and should be replaced with Rare.
The fact that I can do those things is not any kind of support for the rule. Far from it, because now I have a house rule for something that used to not have a house rule: the rarity system already handled it.
One of PF2's biggest selling points for me was always how few house rules I actually ended up with. The core rules worked quite well and we simply didn't feel the need to change that many things, especially compared to the pages of PF1 houserules we had to ban/fix the broken problem cases.
So while I can house rule this, the fact that I need to house rule something that used to not require a house rule is not a good thing. Especially when the change didn't actually accomplish much of anything: these rituals already only existed in a game if the GM wanted them to. They were already high level and difficult to pull off. Slapping a Mythic requirement on them just adds an extra barrier that wasn't necessary.
Hell, the number of tables that are mythic, at endgame level, gain access to these, and actually use them is probably so vanishingly small that it just feels like a waste of page space reprinting them in this state. The RAW version of these now will be used in so few tables that it's a rounding error.
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I have to say that Mythic is not only a 'game' or 'NPC' thing. It's hard to define, but it's a thing that does exist in-world. Forces of Fate that even more powerful than for 'normal' great heroes. Something that gives them a real chance to become really god-like.
Yes, mythic isn't only a gameplay abstraction, but Karzoug wasn't mythic, that's what the "he can do that because he's an NPC and not you" meant.
And to which I state again, what games are going to be impacted from this rules change? How many tables actually come across interactions with these kinds of rules?It's not just about how many tables (or lack theteof) that will be negatively impacted by the change to these rituals. It sets a terrible precedent of culling existing gane options, and so should be vehemently opposed on that basis alone.
Selling new books that take away existing options is a VERY BAD THING
It really doesn't. Using isolated incidents (if we can even call it an incident, I am quite sure this was a deliberate change) is not grounds for saying the sky is falling from Paizo's development square.
And again, it's taking away something people practically never used. Tell me you're mad about losing that toy you left in the attic without telling me you're mad about losing that toy you left in the attic. It's not like you planned on actually using the rule in the first place. Being upset that something you were never going to do is gone now is just being upset for the sake of being upset. It's a disingenuous reaction.
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And to which I state again, what games are going to be impacted from this rules change? How many tables actually come across interactions with these kinds of rules?It's not just about how many tables (or lack theteof) that will be negatively impacted by the change to these rituals. It sets a terrible precedent of culling existing gane options, and so should be vehemently opposed on that basis alone.
Selling new books that take away existing options is a VERY BAD THING
It really doesn't. Using isolated incidents (if we can even call it an incident, I am quite sure this was a deliberate change) is not grounds for saying the sky is falling from Paizo's development square.
And again, it's taking away something people practically never used. Tell me you're mad about losing that toy you left in the attic without telling me you're mad about losing that toy you left in the attic. It's not like you planned on actually using the rule in the first place. Being upset that something you were never going to do is gone now is just being upset for the sake of being upset. It's a disingenuous reaction.
You can admonish people for being disappointed in this removal of options, but the fact is not one person in this thread has been able to give an upside for this change.
It's brought up because it's really the only solution to "unmodified rules that nobody uses because they are garbage." And it's also used as the justification for why the setting has what elements it has; if X NPC in-lore has a demiplane, the GM doesn't need to care that he is Mythic or anything like that if it's not relevant to the story. At best it would be a neat Easter egg or a nice indication as to the gravity of NPC they are to the PCs, but the setting does not give two craps about it. All the setting cares about is X NPC has established a demiplane. The details behind it are irrelevant to the mechanics or the story/GM.Right up until the players ask "hey that's cool, how did he do that and can we do it?" And then it matters quite a lot unless your answer is "I don't know and no you can't because arbitrary game mechanics."
This was actually pretty easy before: Karzoug had a Demiplane because he was a PF1 Wizard. He could have bigger/cooler demiplane stuff because he was an extremely strong ancient PF1 Wizard, but the basic building blocks for a PC that wanted to work towards it were already there and something they could work towards, even if they couldn't really match what he's done over so much time (and with the knowledge of Thassilon).
More importantly: a character with the skill to know how this stuff works could understand what it was and the theory behind how to do it. Likewise, a GM could readily convey that information without needing to go ask for advice or make something up, because the basic foundational game mechanics supported it.
In premaster PF2, the answer was something like "Karzoug has a demiplane because he's done a lot with very high level create demiplane rituals and some other magic." Okay, that's still something players can theoretically work towards given enough time and resources, even if they can never match what he's got in practical terms. But again, the GM has a clear way to convey what game mechanics are in use and how a...
The player can ask. The GM can give whatever answer he wants, because the option was originally gated by rarity beforehand, and changing it to Mythic at most changes the reason the GM gives for why the player can't do it. Either way, the GM has full control and can tell the players to stuff it if he wants, or how he wants to run it. Plenty of other rules in the game are arbitrary like this, I don't see this as an appropriate hill to die on, and I've chosen some pretty silly hills before.
Given that PFS play capped at 12th, APs capped at 17th, and most players never got past 15th level or so due to game balance or IRL, the idea that players would always regularly know these things is not the commonality you think it is, nor do I think of it as a common aspiration for players/PCs. It's not impossible, but again, the average player wouldn't think of these things.
Even so, you kind of already hinted at the problems of the mechanic it's involved in. If a player wanted to recreate these things mechanically, he is at a severe disadvantage and will probably be more upset at the mechanics than the actual concept, in which case gating it behind one thing over another doesn't matter when the mechanics are trash.
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Tell me you're mad about losing that toy you left in the attic without telling me you're mad about losing that toy you left in the attic.
You really need someone to tell you why it's bad that someone is stealing stuff from your home???
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Tell me you're mad about losing that toy you left in the attic without telling me you're mad about losing that toy you left in the attic.You really need someone to tell you why it's bad that someone is stealing stuff from your home???
This is sort of a bad analogy, because you can just play with those Rituals as they were before WoI - Paizo isn't actually coming into your game and telling you 'no'.
Which is true, of like, everything that people do in their home games.
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Tell me you're mad about losing that toy you left in the attic without telling me you're mad about losing that toy you left in the attic.You really need someone to tell you why it's bad that someone is stealing stuff from your home???
Is Paizo breaking into your house and changing your ritual rules in your books? No? Then it's not even an apt comparison to begin with. The point is that something you've never used and valued being changed into something else you've never used and valued doesn't change the fact that you aren't using or valuing the thing being changed, before or after the fact, so getting upset about it happening makes no sense.
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Is Paizo breaking into your house and changing your ritual rules in your books? No? Then it's not even an apt comparison to begin with. The point is that something you've never used and valued being changed into something else you've never used and valued doesn't change the fact that you aren't using or valuing the thing being changed, before or after the fact, so getting upset about it happening makes no sense.Tell me you're mad about losing that toy you left in the attic without telling me you're mad about losing that toy you left in the attic.You really need someone to tell you why it's bad that someone is stealing stuff from your home???
Yeah, and a lot of discourse that occurs these days on the internet is people being mad or upset about things they didn't care about before they were told to be upset about it - or are upset about something they don't even have or use.
So I don't blame people for questioning reactions, especially with such a small change in the grand scheme of things - and, no, I don't think it's the start of some big trend.
You can admonish people for being disappointed in this removal of options, but the fact is not one person in this thread has been able to give an upside for this change.And to which I state again, what games are going to be impacted from this rules change? How many tables actually come across interactions with these kinds of rules?It's not just about how many tables (or lack theteof) that will be negatively impacted by the change to these rituals. It sets a terrible precedent of culling existing gane options, and so should be vehemently opposed on that basis alone.
Selling new books that take away existing options is a VERY BAD THING
It really doesn't. Using isolated incidents (if we can even call it an incident, I am quite sure this was a deliberate change) is not grounds for saying the sky is falling from Paizo's development square.
And again, it's taking away something people practically never used. Tell me you're mad about losing that toy you left in the attic without telling me you're mad about losing that toy you left in the attic. It's not like you planned on actually using the rule in the first place. Being upset that something you were never going to do is gone now is just being upset for the sake of being upset. It's a disingenuous reaction.
Because changes always have to have an upside to them? It doesn't always come from a position of positivity. Sometimes changes happen just to happen. Maybe Paizo feels being able to make demiplanes should be relegated to Mythic beings instead of just something some high level lucky person can do. At best any upside change to this comes from a position of speculation, which is no less speculation than the slippery slope counter argument of "Paizo changing rituals means our entire game is going to fall apart" that the other side keeps constantly flailing around at the wall hoping for it to stick.
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Because changes always have to have an upside to them? It doesn't always come from a position of positivity. Sometimes changes happen just to happen. Maybe Paizo feels being able to make demiplanes should be relegated to Mythic beings instead of just something some high level lucky person can do. At best any upside change to this comes from a position of speculation, which is no less speculation than the slippery slope counter argument of "Paizo changing rituals means our entire game is going to fall apart" that the other side keeps constantly flailing around at the wall hoping for...There is a very good reason the phrase 'don't fix it if it isn't broken' exists. Also, you can't argue taste with people; if they think something is bad, then they think it's bad. Even if you don't agree with them, that doesn't make their criticism any less valid.
This implies that the rituals in question weren't broken until they were made Mythic. To me, all rituals are broken unless you grossly outlevel the mechanics to essentially "handwave" it. I agree that making them Mythic doesn't fix the inherent problem behind them, but this assumes Paizo was going to fix the inherent problem behind them.
I don't disagree that things are bad, but I disagree with what makes it bad. Rituals suck because their mechanics and incentive for them are terrible, not because they are Mythic locked. It would make more sense if the rituals were commonly used/sought after and it was a part of countless tables' gameplay. But it's not. So relegating something of uselessness to another something of uselessness should have elicited the same disinterested/disappointed reaction as before. It's just interesting to me that making things Mythic is more rage bait than it simply being useless and undesired.
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Because changes always have to have an upside to them?
Any change that doesn't have an upside risks alienating people for no gain.
Maybe Paizo feels being able to make demiplanes should be relegated to Mythic beings instead of just something some high level lucky person can do.
That's sure a change when for approximately two decades it hasn't had such requirements. As such, you'd think there would be a better explanation justifying such a change.
At best any upside change to this comes from a position of speculation, which is no less speculation than the slippery slope counter argument of "Paizo changing rituals means our entire game is going to fall apart" that the other side keeps constantly flailing around at the wall hoping for it to stick.
They've locked rules, at least by RAW, behind a supplement. This is a thing that has factually happened and thus suspecting that it might happen again is a reasonable thing to suppose.
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Because changes always have to have an upside to them? It doesn't always come from a position of positivity. Sometimes changes happen just to happen. Maybe Paizo feels being able to make demiplanes should be relegated to Mythic beings instead of just something some high level lucky person can do. At best any upside change to this comes from a position of speculation, which is no less speculation than the slippery slope counter argument of "Paizo changing rituals means our entire game is going to fall apart" that the other side keeps constantly flailing around at the wall hoping for it to stick.
Where is this "other side" you speak of that apparently think the entire game is falling appart because of the ritual change? All I've seen in this threads is people criticising this change, people expressing disapointment about it, and people hoping that this kind of change won't be a reoccuring thing, but no one claiming that it's "the end of Pathfinder" or anything. Criticism isn't a death sentence, it doesn't mean you consider the entire thing to be worthless, it just mean pointing out what you think are flaws so that they can be improved upon.
Truthfully, I find this whole counterargument to be bizarre. I'd understand if people disagreed with the criticism because they found the new rule to be a positive for whatever reason, I can understand a difference of opinion or priorities, but you don't even seems to like the new rule, at best you're neutral about it. It seems that you disagree with the criticism merely because it's criticism and criticism is intrinsically bad somehow.
Because changes always have to have an upside to them?Any change that doesn't have an upside risks alienating people for no gain.
Maybe Paizo feels being able to make demiplanes should be relegated to Mythic beings instead of just something some high level lucky person can do.That's sure a change when for approximately two decades it hasn't had such requirements. As such, you'd think there would be a better explanation justifying such a change.
At best any upside change to this comes from a position of speculation, which is no less speculation than the slippery slope counter argument of "Paizo changing rituals means our entire game is going to fall apart" that the other side keeps constantly flailing around at the wall hoping for it to stick.They've locked rules, at least by RAW, behind a supplement. This is a thing that has factually happened and thus suspecting that it might happen again is a reasonable thing to suppose.
As I said before, unless Paizo comes out and speaks on the matter, it's all speculation, but acting like changes don't get done just to get done (such as nerfs to an existing option, nuking options into oblivion, etc.) is absurd. It's all a part of game balance. Sometimes you have to make the harsh decision nobody likes.
Again, it's a slippery slope. Suggesting changes to rituals that most nobody used means they are gunning to make Fighters a rare class in a reprinted book or that spells are going to be affected next (just for examples) is a serious stretch of the imagination.
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As I said before, unless Paizo comes out and speaks on the matter, it's all speculation, but acting like changes don't get done just to get done (such as nerfs to an existing option, nuking options into oblivion, etc.) is absurd. It's all a part of game balance. Sometimes you have to make the harsh decision nobody likes.
Again, it's a slippery slope. Suggesting changes to rituals that most nobody used means they are gunning to make Fighters a rare class in a reprinted book or that spells are going to be affected next (just for examples) is a serious stretch of the imagination.
They did, back on page 1:
The problem I have with something like Create Demiplane being mythic only is that its effects are effectively 100% a flavor thing. The idea of a wizard having their own pocket dimension were they go to study or whatever is really cool, but doesn't make the characters stronger for having access to it. I do get why it would be mythic because you are literally shaping a mini-reality, but I feel casters can already do stuff that's comparable with their spells already.For me, personally, this is why I think create demiplane, imprisonment, and freedom make sense as mythic rituals. They might not be THAT much more powerful, but the effects in the world should be significant things that not just anyone can do. In particular for imprisonment... making it mythic really helps to create narratives about ancient evils being locked away that not just anyone can let out.
For homebrew games, of course, it's always easy enough to house rule, but for Golarion, having these particular effects be more rarefied than the norm is good for narrative reasons.
Some folks have expressed concerns about us making most new rituals mythic too... that won't happen. There'll be some, yes, but as with the vast majority of what we'll continue to publish, it will expand on the core game experience, not on a specific rulebook.
Because changes always have to have an upside to them? It doesn't always come from a position of positivity. Sometimes changes happen just to happen. Maybe Paizo feels being able to make demiplanes should be relegated to Mythic beings instead of just something some high level lucky person can do. At best any upside change to this comes from a position of speculation, which is no less speculation than the slippery slope counter argument of "Paizo changing rituals means our entire game is going to fall apart" that the other side keeps constantly flailing around at the wall hoping for it to stick.Where is this "other side" you speak of that apparently think the entire game is falling appart because of the ritual change? All I've seen in this threads is people criticising this change, people expressing disapointment about it, and people hoping that this kind of change won't be a reoccuring thing, but no one claiming that it's "the end of Pathfinder" or anything. Criticism isn't a death sentence, it doesn't mean you consider the entire thing to be worthless, it just mean pointing out what you think are flaws so that they can be improved upon.
Truthfully, I find this whole counterargument to be bizarre. I'd understand if people disagreed with the criticism because they found the new rule to be a positive for whatever reason, I can understand a difference of opinion or priorities, but you don't even seems to like the new rule, at best you're neutral about it. It seems that you disagree with the criticism merely because it's criticism and criticism is intrinsically bad somehow.
You kind of already explained how it's a slippery slope. People are expositing that changes to these rituals means there will be changes to other existing options that will negatively impact the game. The same thing happened during the Remaster, everyone is still here playing the game. Not only does their actions undermine their premise, but it also undermines that something that is far more relevant to gameplay was negatively changed, and guess what? Game still functions, and the players haven't abandoned the system. It's a position of disingenuity to make the criticism because it is essentially hypocrisy.
It is literally criticism for criticism's sake, not because they seek actual/genuine change for something better. If it came from an experienced and/or informed/relevant position, then the criticism becomes (more) legitimate, and I probably would be more inclined to agree with it. But I don't agree with it because it is criticizing the wrong thing (or now at the very least, something else that needs to be criticized along with it). Even when these options weren't gatekept by Mythic, their criticisms failed to hold up for practically identical reasons that their complaints wouldn't hold up even back then.
As I said before, unless Paizo comes out and speaks on the matter, it's all speculation, but acting like changes don't get done just to get done (such as nerfs to an existing option, nuking options into oblivion, etc.) is absurd. It's all a part of game balance. Sometimes you have to make the harsh decision nobody likes.
Again, it's a slippery slope. Suggesting changes to rituals that most nobody used means they are gunning to make Fighters a rare class in a reprinted book or that spells are going to be affected next (just for examples) is a serious stretch of the imagination.
They did, back on page 1:
The problem I have with something like Create Demiplane being mythic only is that its effects are effectively 100% a flavor thing. The idea of a wizard having their own pocket dimension were they go to study or whatever is really cool, but doesn't make the characters stronger for having access to it. I do get why it would be mythic because you are literally shaping a mini-reality, but I feel casters can already do stuff that's comparable with their spells already.For me, personally, this is why I think create demiplane, imprisonment, and freedom make sense as mythic rituals. They might not be THAT much more powerful, but the effects in the world should be significant things that not just anyone can do. In particular for imprisonment... making it mythic really helps to create narratives about ancient evils being locked away that not just anyone can let out.
For homebrew games, of course, it's always easy enough to house rule, but for Golarion, having these particular effects be more rarefied than the norm is good for narrative reasons.
Some folks have expressed concerns about us making most new rituals mythic too... that won't happen. There'll be some, yes, but as with the vast majority of what we'll continue to publish, it will expand on the core game experience, not on a specific rulebook.
Okay, so if the idea is that Paizo now feels demiplanes are Mythic-specific powers, then it's at-worst a retcon of power capabilites, meaning Karzoug would have actually been a Mythic entity (or used a Macguffin like you said). It's not any worse than the retcon of the Darklands, which was met with a lot more backlash by comparison.
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You kind of already explained how it's a slippery slope. People are expositing that changes to these rituals means there will be changes to other existing options that will negatively impact the game. The same thing happened during the Remaster, everyone is still here playing the game. Not only does their actions undermine their premise, but it also undermines that something that is far more relevant to gameplay was negatively changed, and guess what? Game still functions, and the players haven't abandoned the system. It's a position of disingenuity to make the criticism because it is essentially hypocrisy.
It is literally criticism for criticism's sake, not because they seek actual/genuine change for something better. If it came from an experienced and/or informed/relevant position, then the criticism becomes (more) legitimate, and I probably would be more inclined to agree with it. But I don't agree with it because it is criticizing the wrong thing (or now at the very least, something else that needs to be criticized along with it). Even when these options weren't gatekept by Mythic, their criticisms failed to hold up for practically identical reasons that their complaints wouldn't hold up even back then.
Dude, this is not a "problems with rituals" thread. It's a "problem with this change" thread. I don't know why you insist that people shouldn't have a problem with this because they should really have a problem with the thing you want them to have a problem with, or that you think people can't have more than one problem at once... but enough.
You're not engaging in anything even remotely resembling good faith. You're arguing with people based entirely on the premise that you want then to think that some other problem is a bigger problem than this one.
Go make a thread for that. Because if you want to talk about ritual problems, I'll happily join that chorus. I already did, several months ago, in fact.
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Okay, so if the idea is that Paizo now feels demiplanes are Mythic-specific powers, then it's at-worst a retcon of power capabilites, meaning Karzoug would have actually been a Mythic entity (or used a Macguffin like you said). It's not any worse than the retcon of the Darklands, which was met with a lot more backlash by comparison.
Also on page 1:
Does that mean that Karzoug is retroactively mythic now, since he did have his demiplane?
I get why it's done, but I feel that completely gating these rituals off for nonmythic play isn't the right move, especially for rituals like freedom or emprisonment. The heroes having to find a way to free an emprisonned something so that it can help them in some way, or to seal away a great evil at the end of their journey is a pretty fufilling plotbeat, and now one that's locked for any nonmythic party.
I think that at the very least there need to be some "loophole" that would allow a fully nonmythic party to cast mythic ritual in some circumstances. Like some special and rare consumable that wave the mythic point cost if it's used. Or a rule that say that if one use an artifact as the focus of a ritual, it count as spending a mythic point. This way, it would make mythic ritual more exciting for everyone since you could do it even in a nonmythic game, but finding what you need for the ritual would be a quest in itself (while mythic party would have the advantage of being able to cast those as freely as normal rituals).
No. NPCs use their own rules and can do things that are different than what PCs can accomplish. In Karzoug's case, in order to create the Eye of Avarice, he first had to create his runewell. He's also centuries old and has an entire nation of resources. And more.
The mythic create demiplane ritual is not the only way someone can create a demiplane. It's just the only one we've currently published for PLAYERS to access in 2nd edition remastered rules.
The position on this is literally "NPCs follow their own rules so they don't have to be Mythic because reasons."
Which is exactly what people are complaining about, because having such a wild double standard for what PCs and NPCs are capable of doing is extremely bad for verisimilitude compared to what we had before, and doesn't actually accomplish anything practical since those options were already GM gated.
This wasn't a problem that needed fixing in the first place, let alone made worse like this. And it kind of baffles me that a company that literally sells stories for a living (the entire AP line) has such a casual attitude towards verisimilitude and suspension of disbelief.
(As for the Darklands changes... I mean, the OGL forced them to do something there. Some folks may not like the "something", but I think people generally understood that it was a forced situation they hadn't planned on. This is not that.)
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I will say, one of the benefits of coherence between what PCs and NPCs can do (and specifically coherence, not simulationism or running by the same rules) is that it makes it easier for players to set aspirations based on a powerful NPC and eventually meet those to some degree -- certain APs do exactly this by letting us gain the iconic ability of a notable NPC, usually one we'd just fought. This is the reason why players want to play monster ancestries too -- it is inevitable for players to see a NPC do something really cool, and think "I want to do that too."
For some monster types, this may be more difficult to achieve (there's no truly balanced way to gain the full abilities of a vampire or a ghost at level 1 in 2e), but when it comes to stuff like rituals or spells, this is something we can already do, and have been doing for a long while. A player can learn about Karzoug and the Eye of Avarice, think "gee, wouldn't it be cool if I could create my own demiplane?", and a willing GM had all the tools they needed to tell them: "well, if you do enough research on Thassilon and go to the right places, you just might uncover the secret to a ritual that would let you do just that!". This is a benefit 2e provides with its rich customization systems, and even without a rare ritual, players can do something similar with the uncommon planar palace spell. You might not have the vast wealth, time, and breadth of knowledge as Karzoug, but you still get to have the "we have the Eye of Avarice at home" ritual nonetheless, and that is enough to satisfy most players aspiring to that kind of power.
To bring this to mythic: mythic rules, in my opinion, ought to be about going the extra mile, and generally just being extra in every possible way. It would've been trivially easy to state that you need a Mythic Point to target mythic creatures with any ritual, not just the ones that got gated behind mythic rules, just as it would've been fairly easy to add mythic-exclusive options to existing rituals so that you can do even more narrative-bending stuff. In the case of Create Demiplane, it could've been really easy to add mythic-exclusive traits and features like really intricate environmental effects or vastly increased dimensions, while keeping the base ritual available to all, which would have benefited everyone and at worst impacted no-one negatively. There could have been similar things done for other rituals too, like causing creatures who leave a settlement protected by a Fantastic Facade to forget it and its inhabitants' existence as with a 6th-rank Rewrite Memory, or having a Seed of Mercy generate a Garden of Wonder instead of a single fruit on a critical success. In general, there's a lot of existing stuff that could have been upped a notch just for Mythic while still existing as regular rituals, and that instead a few rituals were just walled off behind this new thing feels like the developers took the easy route instead of going the extra mile like they usually do.
Yeah, and a lot of discourse that occurs these days on the internet is people being mad or upset about things they didn't care about before they were told to be upset about it - or are upset about something they don't even have or use.
So I don't blame people for questioning reactions, especially with such a small change in the grand scheme of things - and, no, I don't think it's the start of some big trend.
So here's a thing that happens a lot in this kind of discussion: although some players do launch into hyperbole unprompted, some people instead express much more moderate criticism that is proportionate to the impact a change might have on their gameplay. Even so, other people like you still try to push back against that moderate criticism, usually by trying to invalidate it entirely along with dismissing the person who made the criticism. When that person has to then repeat themselves and state, politely but firmly, that their criticism is in fact valid, with arguments in support, it then becomes very easy to accuse that person of being unreasonably upset, disproportionately critical, or otherwise obsessive, overly emotional, or even downright malicious in their criticism, when all they've done is restate their position in the face of truly unreasonable, obsessive, and often malicious pushback.
This pushback is itself an attrition tactic that, from what I've seen, is specifically deployed to try to dominate discussion, invalidate dissenting opinions, and exhaust the people simply trying to make themselves heard, while shifting the blame for any pointless argument this creates onto the critics. It does not contribute positively to discussion, nor does it aim to, because its intended goal is expressly to cover up critical feedback. It does not contribute positively to the community, because it is a major source of heated arguments, is destructive rather than constructive in its intent, and in my opinion is just flat-out disrespectful. It certainly does not contribute positively to Paizo or the game's development, because it generates a lot of noise that makes it more difficult to parse the actual feedback that gets posted, which the developers are more than competent and emotionally mature enough to decide whether or not to take on board (strangely, a lot of people posing as defenders of Paizo or the game on these forums don't seem to trust the devs or anyone else to even that bare minimum level). While some people are certainly overreacting, many people aren't, and most of the heat in this thread has come specifically in response to the people trying desperately to dismiss any and all criticism. Were we to perhaps spend less time pontificating over whether or not it is valid to criticize these changes at all, and more time trying to find common ground and constructive ways to move forward, this entire discussion and its tone would improve significantly, and the only people who wouldn't benefit are the ones who thrive on conflict and pointless drama.
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As I said before, unless Paizo comes out and speaks on the matter, it's all speculation, but acting like changes don't get done just to get done (such as nerfs to an existing option, nuking options into oblivion, etc.) is absurd. It's all a part of game balance. Sometimes you have to make the harsh decision nobody likes.
So what balance issue was a high-level rarity gated ritual causing? You're suggesting that this was a harsh decision that needed to be made for the sake of balance, so what exactly was the old version of this ritual breaking?
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Does that mean that Karzoug is retroactively mythic now, since he did have his demiplane?
I get why it's done, but I feel that completely gating these rituals off for nonmythic play isn't the right move, especially for rituals like freedom or emprisonment. The heroes having to find a way to free an emprisonned something so that it can help them in some way, or to seal away a great evil at the end of their journey is a pretty fufilling plotbeat, and now one that's locked for any nonmythic party.
I think that at the very least there need to be some "loophole" that would allow a fully nonmythic party to cast mythic ritual in some circumstances. Like some special and rare consumable that wave the mythic point cost if it's used. Or a rule that say that if one use an artifact as the focus of a ritual, it count as spending a mythic point. This way, it would make mythic ritual more exciting for everyone since you could do it even in a nonmythic game, but finding what you need for the ritual would be a quest in itself (while mythic party would have the advantage of being able to cast those as freely as normal rituals).
No. NPCs use their own rules and can do things that are different than what PCs can accomplish. In Karzoug's case, in order to create the Eye of Avarice, he first had to create his runewell. He's also centuries old and has an entire nation of resources. And more.
The mythic create demiplane ritual is not the only way someone can create a demiplane. It's just the only one we've currently published for PLAYERS to access in 2nd edition remastered rules.
The position on this is literally "NPCs follow their own rules so they don't have to be Mythic because reasons."
Which is exactly what people are complaining about, because having such a wild double standard for what PCs and NPCs are capable of doing is extremely bad for verisimilitude compared to what we had before, and doesn't actually accomplish anything practical since those options were already GM gated.
This wasn't a problem that needed fixing in the first place, let alone made worse like this. And it kind of baffles me that a company that literally sells stories for a living (the entire AP line) has such a casual attitude towards verisimilitude and suspension of disbelief.
"NPCs follow their own rules so they don't have to be Mythic because reasons," was my initial reaction. But after thinking on it, wouldn't it be more fair to say that James Jacob's position is that "There should be a plausible in-story reason for why an NPC might be an exception?"
As I said before, unless Paizo comes out and speaks on the matter, it's all speculation, but acting like changes don't get done just to get done (such as nerfs to an existing option, nuking options into oblivion, etc.) is absurd. It's all a part of game balance. Sometimes you have to make the harsh decision nobody likes.So what balance issue was a high-level rarity gated ritual causing? You're suggesting that this was a harsh decision that needed to be made for the sake of balance, so what exactly was the old version of this ritual breaking?
Sometimes in game dev, decisions made by one designer may not have been something agreed upon by another, and when one has a chance to alter that decision, they do so.
Not saying that's the case here, but sometimes its just "because we/I/my team wanted to" and that's completely within their prerogative to do so. The results vary with how they are received but sometimes its nothing more than that. I've encountered it a whole lot in my job.
(Or there's some heretofore unknown material coming in the future that does something more with Rituals and gives non-Mythic reprinted/slightly altered versions of those or what not, and this is just preplanning for that.)
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"NPCs follow their own rules so they don't have to be Mythic because reasons," was my initial reaction. But after thinking on it, wouldn't it be more fair to say that James Jacob's position is that "There should be a plausible in-story reason for why an NPC might be an exception?"
There should be plausible in-story reasons for everything that happens. The fact that you can handwave a reason into being retroactively doesn't mean that it's good storytelling to do so.
Sometimes in game dev, decisions made by one designer may not have been something agreed upon by another, and when one has a chance to alter that decision, they do so.
Not saying that's the case here, but sometimes its just "because we/I/my team wanted to" and that's completely within their prerogative to do so. The results vary with how they are received but sometimes its nothing more than that. I've encountered it a whole lot in my job.
So your hypothesis is that a random dev didn't like these rituals being available without even more hoops to jump through and thus pushed through a change with little upside just for the lulz... This is not a strong argument for why we should be cool with this change.
So your hypothesis is that a random dev didn't like these rituals being available without even more hoops to jump through and thus pushed through a change with little upside just for the lulz... This is not a strong argument for why we should be cool with this change.Sometimes in game dev, decisions made by one designer may not have been something agreed upon by another, and when one has a chance to alter that decision, they do so.
Not saying that's the case here, but sometimes its just "because we/I/my team wanted to" and that's completely within their prerogative to do so. The results vary with how they are received but sometimes its nothing more than that. I've encountered it a whole lot in my job.
Notice I said 'results may vary' but yeah sometimes that's what happens. Design is often a feels based discipline - and it can play out that way more often than you think. I've been in numerous situations where game directors are just like 'feels bad, change it' and the design team just has to tweak it until they get a 'feels good, ship it'.
Not for 'lulz' either, but a sincere belief something is better the way they envision - most devs don't do their jobs in bad faith, and even when it isn't received well, there is more often than not genuine intent behind it.
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Notice I said 'results may vary' but yeah sometimes that's what happens. Design is often a feels based discipline - and it can play out that way more often than you think.
Not for 'lulz' either, but a sincere belief something is better the way they envision - most devs don't do their jobs in bad faith, and even when it isn't received well, there is more often than not genuine intent behind it.
If that is how it happened then this was a poor choice by the designer in question. It literally adds nothing to the game and 2/3rds of what was changed could have been achieved by adding a +5 to the ritual DC to free/imprison mythic beings that us counteracted if the ritual's leader is mythic themselves. This is a case of design without thinking of the psychology of loss and how much people are hardwired to dislike losing things.
As I said before, unless Paizo comes out and speaks on the matter, it's all speculation, but acting like changes don't get done just to get done (such as nerfs to an existing option, nuking options into oblivion, etc.) is absurd. It's all a part of game balance. Sometimes you have to make the harsh decision nobody likes.So what balance issue was a high-level rarity gated ritual causing? You're suggesting that this was a harsh decision that needed to be made for the sake of balance, so what exactly was the old version of this ritual breaking?
The change wasn't done because it was broken; the option still functioned (poorly as it did). It just functions differently now because Paizo feels it better reflects its power scaling. That's it.
The change wasn't done because it was broken; the option still functioned (poorly as it did). It just functions differently now because Paizo feels it better reflects its power scaling. That's it.
If that's what they wanted there are more elegant ways to accomplish that. I also feel like changes that take things from players should probably be accompanied by a developer commentary. I'd like more developer commentaries from Paizo in general, because every once in a while they release either a total banger or a complete headscratcher and I'd like to understand the thought process that can lead to such opposite outcomes from the same team.
The lack of transparency from Paizo is one of my least favourite things about the company.
"NPCs follow their own rules so they don't have to be Mythic because reasons," was my initial reaction. But after thinking on it, wouldn't it be more fair to say that James Jacob's position is that "There should be a plausible in-story reason for why an NPC might be an exception?"There should be plausible in-story reasons for everything that happens. The fact that you can handwave a reason into being retroactively doesn't mean that it's good storytelling to do so.
While I happen to agree with the reasons given for Karzoug specifically, your statement is still true. Tropes are tools and execution counts for a lot.
Dude, this is not a "problems with rituals" thread. It's a "problem with this change" thread. I don't know why you insist that people shouldn't have a problem with this because they should really have a problem with the thing you want them to have a problem with, or that you think people can't have more than one problem at once... but enough.
You're not engaging in anything even remotely resembling good faith. You're arguing with people based entirely on the premise that you want then to think that some other problem is a bigger problem than this one.
Go make a thread for that. Because if you want to talk about ritual problems, I'll happily join that chorus. I already did, several months ago, in fact.
Wait, so a change that just so happens to involve rituals now no longer involves rituals as a mechanic themselves anymore? They are so intertwined you can't talk about one without referencing or discussing the other. Really, the relevance of rituals in the game (not necessarily the setting) is precisely the scale at which this change in particular truly affects the game, which is, once again, "little to no tables are significantly affected by this change." And when the question of "Why is that?" becomes posed, the mostly unanimous answer is "Because 90%+ of tables don't use these rules/options whatsoever, or hate using them, so they houserule it into something else instead."
The thing is, all of these cries of badwrongfun on Paizo's part comes from a position that practically has no benefit from reverting these particular changes because the tables never used them (meaning they get no benefit), or houseruled them anyway (meaning Paizo's reversion does nothing for those tables). Nobody loses or wins by any change here, so the reaction being posed is practically nonsensical.
And really, if we are trying to fix things, it's far more important to fix rituals as a whole than just one specific ritual in particular that Paizo just changed because they felt it better reflects the setting's expectations of both PCs and NPCs. It's missing the forest for the trees.
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Isn't the answer "well, he was one of the leading experts on Thassilonian Rune Magic, something you know very little about" a satisfying answer to "how did Karzoug do that?"
Like a major theme of Pathfinder is that the various states and empires before Earthfall were much more advanced than the ones that came after it. There's no expectation that a PC should be able to recreate the flying cities of the Shory Empire, the golems of the Jistka Imperium, or any various wonders of the Azlanti Empire since the knowledge of "how they did that" simply isn't available to the PCs. I think it's much the same with Karzoug.
Wait, so a change that just so happens to involve rituals now no longer involves rituals as a mechanic themselves anymore? They are so intertwined you can't talk about one without referencing or discussing the other. Really, the relevance of rituals in the game (not necessarily the setting) is precisely the scale at which this change in particular truly affects the game, which is, once again, "little to no tables are significantly affected by this change." And when the question of "Why is that?" becomes posed, the mostly unanimous answer is "Because 90%+ of tables don't use these rules/options whatsoever, or hate using them, so they houserule it into something else instead."
The thing is, all of these cries of badwrongfun on Paizo's part comes from a position that practically has no benefit from reverting these particular changes because the tables never used them (meaning they get no benefit), or houseruled them anyway (meaning Paizo's reversion does nothing for those tables). Nobody loses or wins by any change here, so the reaction being posed is practically nonsensical.
And really, if we are trying to fix things, it's far more important to fix rituals as a whole than just one specific ritual in particular that Paizo just changed because they felt it better reflects the...
Why not campaign for both? We can desire both a revert to this poorly received change and a general revamp of the entire ritual system. This is not a zero-sum game.