Might sound like a silly question, but hear me out: at my tables (both as a player and GM), weapon property runes are super popular. People actively seek them out. They'll ask me for uncommon options (which make great side quests). They'll spend time crafting them if they can't buy them. They'll get exited to find a weapon with a cool one. etc.
Basically none of that happens with armor property runes. When I put one in, someone might use it, but not much more. Folks are very rarely actively seeking them out or asking about them. They're one of the least popular types of items in terms of player interest in my games.
Some of that I get, since a good weapon is key to anyone who is hitting things with it, and a lot of armor runes just don't work at all for someone using something like explorers clothing. But the near absolute lack of interest in armor property runes I see has me curious if it's a widespread thing or just in my groups.
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Sort of. My players will look up armor runes while shopping, especially if they have spare gold and no clear investment options.
But they're never primary goals like weapon runes or certain magic items... and I couldn't really name any property runes off the top of my head rn either.
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But they're never primary goals like weapon runes or certain magic items... and I couldn't really name any property runes off the top of my head rn either.
That's what I'm finding. I went through the list and there are a few neat options (Advancing), some "nice to have" (Aim-Assist), and a bunch of "well I guess that's okay but something else already does that." Then a lot of "meh".
The limits around who can use a bunch of them probably don't help, but nothing on the list exactly screams must have or super cool the way weapon runes do. (My son still finds the Extending Rune the best thing ever because it's so hilarious when he uses it.)
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The armor property runes that provide item bonuses (slick, shadow, etc.) or energy-resistant tend to be prioritized, unless it compliments a commonly used tactic for that character (such as dread for a character that invests in Intimidation to demoralize). Malleable can be useful for a character that gains armor specialization benefits.
Often, however, players may gravitate toward "cool" specific magic armor instead of property runes.
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People don't tend to care about armor runes until they find themselves swallowed whole by a monster. Suddenly those bitter and swallowspike runes become a whole lot more important.
Aka, hello Mr Purple Worm
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Size-changing rune plus aim-assisting rune can be quite handy if you have an aura ability, a reach weapon, or want to jam up doorways.
My players don't think that most armor property runes are interesting like weapon property runes especially due its passive situationality.
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No. They forget they even exist once they get the base fundamental armor runes. My players don't care for PF2 magic items much other than to get the base weapon and armor runes, then an occasional useful magic item here and there and an Apex item.
Due to the cost and the higher and faster progression, my players usually prefer the charms over runes. Once it is pretty rare for them to become full of invested items, I never saw them pressed to take runes over charms.
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Spellwatch (level 13, new save every round to end a harmful spell effect on you) is one of the few amazing ones.
Due to the cost and the higher and faster progression, my players usually prefer the charms over runes. Once it is pretty rare for them to become full of invested items, I never saw them pressed to take runes over charms.
I find people forget they have talismans all the time unless I remind them or it's something they deliberately work to get. One player literally had a Fear gem equipped for like 17 levels.
Spellwatch (level 13, new save every round to end a harmful spell effect on you) is one of the few amazing ones.
That is really nice, yeah!
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The problem I see with most armor property runes is that they're very situational. They're very good in their niche, but worthless most of the time. So players don't invest in them unless that situation comes up a lot.
Which is to say, armor property runes get ignored a lot compared to weapon runes.
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The problem I see with most armor property runes is that they're very situational. They're very good in their niche, but worthless most of the time. So players don't invest in them unless that situation comes up a lot.
Which is to say, armor property runes get ignored a lot compared to weapon runes.
One thing I did find is that when I pointed a couple out, players were excited. Advancing for example is something a lot of martials can make frequent use of. Aim-Assist was similar in another game, where the ranged Investigator saw that and said "I'll craft those for everyone myself."
That pointed to a discovery problem primarily: those players didn't know that existed. It's a big game, and think you're right that the armor runes are comparatively niche so they don't show up as often.
That suggests to me players who don't pore over the rulebook (and there are a lot of those) simply don't realize there are useful options in there. Talismans have the same problem in my games: unless someone is specifically going all-in on them, they just don't get used because there's so many of them which have hyper-specific requirements/usage that people don't know how to find the ones they actually want.
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The problem I see with most armor property runes is that they're very situational. They're very good in their niche, but worthless most of the time. So players don't invest in them unless that situation comes up a lot.
Which is to say, armor property runes get ignored a lot compared to weapon runes.
In fact, this is a general complaint that my players have about the vast majority of items in the game. That most of them are either situational, or are limited to 1x per day. For them, this type of item ends up becoming bloat in the books.
The problem I see with most armor property runes is that they're very situational. They're very good in their niche, but worthless most of the time. So players don't invest in them unless that situation comes up a lot.
Which is to say, armor property runes get ignored a lot compared to weapon runes.
One thing I did find is that when I pointed a couple out, players were excited. Advancing for example is something a lot of martials can make frequent use of. Aim-Assist was similar in another game, where the ranged Investigator saw that and said "I'll craft those for everyone myself."
That pointed to a discovery problem primarily: those players didn't know that existed. It's a big game, and think you're right that the armor runes are comparatively niche so they don't show up as often.
That suggests to me players who don't pore over the rulebook (and there are a lot of those) simply don't realize there are useful options in there. Talismans have the same problem in my games: unless someone is specifically going all-in on them, they just don't get used because there's so many of them which have hyper-specific requirements/usage that people don't know how to find the ones they actually want.
For sure there are a few gems in there, but unless players are looking at the description of each rune in depth it can be easy to overlook.
Advancing and aim-aiding are both good as you mention are not situational. They're not amazing on their own right, but if you're melee or have an archer in the party someone is going to benefit from those runes probably every battle. The reason why they're attractive is because they're not niche, they're something that's going to come up a lot.
I agree with the above sentiment that we need less niche items, and more items that are generally useful even if the effects are "great". Because players really have to read through a lot of niche options they're going to overlook the few gems there are. I myself forget about advancing, even though it's something that would be beneficial to basically every melee character (and maybe even archers).
Some magic items could really stand to work on something like a focus pool. Some rune features are thematically wonderful but not worth auch a limited resource. There's a need for some additional system for lesser features or more boosts like ghost touch->astral.
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This was a topic on the /r/pathfinder2e sub-Reddit a couple of days ago. So I guess I'll just chime in on my favourite armor property rune: Ready. I've had a few too many middle of the night ambushes I guess.
I can't say this is a huge change from PF1. In PF1 the main armor property runes everyone bought was Fortification runes. They maxed out their fortification runes before they maxed out their enhancement runes. I'm glad they can't do that any more. Almost no one cared about any runes but Fortification in PF1. Now fortification is so weak, they don't care about any armor runes.
This was a topic on the /r/pathfinder2e sub-Reddit a couple of days ago. So I guess I'll just chime in on my favourite armor property rune: Ready. I've had a few too many middle of the night ambushes I guess.
What's interesting, is the Sentinel archetype has a class feat that allows you to sleep in armor. In PF1 you had the comfort magical quality that could be added...in PF2 I don't think there are many ways to replicate this. So depending on your GM and campaign this could be absolutely required, or never come up.
I think this is one of those items (like it was in PF1) that you should be able to buy, without it courting against other runes. (In PF1 comfort was a flat cost and not a + equivalent cost, meaning you could easily fit it in once you had enough money). In PF2...despite having a hard time finding runes I want I probably still wouldn't buy Ready because I wouldn't want to spend a rune slot on it.
Shadow and dread are ones I look for on many of my characters, because they help with things my characters tend to do. The majority of other runes, and indeed many other items in general, do not. Most niche items aren't worth keeping around and remembering to use in their rare situation they would be useful. Most groups I've played in tend to sell things that aren't readily useful.
Most bonuses and effects are so small that you have to use something 10-20 times to have it actually effect a roll or a situation. So it's far better to have something your going to use every day then something you might use once or twice ever.
Speaking o this type of stuff is any magical item even that good? I been curious about this for a while but nothing really ever pops out at me to be fair.
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This was a topic on the /r/pathfinder2e sub-Reddit a couple of days ago. So I guess I'll just chime in on my favourite armor property rune: Ready. I've had a few too many middle of the night ambushes I guess.
That was me crossposting. :) And yeah, Ready is nice in the right campaign. We had that come up a LOT in Kingmaker.
In fact, this is a general complaint that my players have about the vast majority of items in the game. That most of them are either situational, or are limited to 1x per day. For them, this type of item ends up becoming bloat in the books.The problem I see with most armor property runes is that they're very situational. They're very good in their niche, but worthless most of the time. So players don't invest in them unless that situation comes up a lot.
Which is to say, armor property runes get ignored a lot compared to weapon runes.
I definitely agree to this. It's part of the discoverability problem I found. If there's too many niche items, or just too many items in general, most players can't really find what they want amid all the "stuff". It becomes lost in the noise as lots of players simply aren't going to look through a huge list of mostly irrelevant items in the hope something in there is good. So they need someone to point out those items exist (such as dropping as loot, or by pointing it out, or by reading a guide).
TBH one of the things I really loved about early PF2 coming from PF1 was the lack of stuff. It's not like it was a small game in its first year, but you could actually find things in lists because they were generally not that huge. And from there if you're following every new book release you'd scan a few new items, maybe find one neat thing, and file it away.
But coming at it now? There's just piles and piles of stuff and if you don't know what you want, it's a challenge. Niche items contribute to that because they're not relevant most of the time but add to the list of stuff, and people will only read through so much of a list of niche stuff before they throw their hands up and move on. Talismans suffer massively from this problem.
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Speaking o this type of stuff is any magical item even that good? I been curious about this for a while but nothing really ever pops out at me to be fair.
I don't have this problem with some types of items.
1. Weapon runes. Players actively seek them out. Lots of ones on the list don't get used, but there's enough that people do want that when I drop one as loot, folks are excited.2. Skill boosters. People tend to know getting an item to boost their primary skills is a good thing. AoN happens to have a list on each skill that narrows down what you're looking for, so they're largely straightforward to find. I don't think they're terribly exciting except a few of them (people always find things to do with the Lifting Belt, narratively) and I suspect some players don't even realize they have activate abilities because several of them are useful for such a brief period of time, but the skill bonus is at least always wanted.
Otherwise, though? I mean, casters tend to like Staves & Wands, everyone knows they need fundamental armor runes, and when you get to apex items they tend to be fun. But beyond that there's tons of stuff people don't generally get excited about. Anything that gives you a 1/day ability with a fixed DC feels worthless because you'll only use it a handful of times before you leave it behind DC wise, if that. Some of them literally never get activated because the situation doesn't come up before its obsolete.
If there was a way to boost those items to use a scaling DC so they weren't made obsolete, it would help a lot.
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Speaking o this type of stuff is any magical item even that good? I been curious about this for a while but nothing really ever pops out at me to be fair.I don't have this problem with some types of items.
1. Weapon runes. Players actively seek them out. Lots of ones on the list don't get used, but there's enough that people do want that when I drop one as loot, folks are excited.2. Skill boosters. People tend to know getting an item to boost their primary skills is a good thing. AoN happens to have a list on each skill that narrows down what you're looking for, so they're largely straightforward to find. I don't think they're terribly exciting except a few of them (people always find things to do with the Lifting Belt, narratively) and I suspect some players don't even realize they have activate abilities because several of them are useful for such a brief period of time, but the skill bonus is at least always wanted.
Otherwise, though? I mean, casters tend to like Staves & Wands, everyone knows they need fundamental armor runes, and when you get to apex items they tend to be fun. But beyond that there's tons of stuff people don't generally get excited about. Anything that gives you a 1/day ability with a fixed DC feels worthless because you'll only use it a handful of times before you leave it behind DC wise, if that. Some of them literally never get activated because the situation doesn't come up before its obsolete.
If there was a way to boost those items to use a scaling DC so they weren't made obsolete, it would help a lot.
This.
And fundamental armor runes.
Apex items.
Items that boost movement.
Items that give a useful ability like invisibility.
Besides armor and weapon property runes, those suck up so much of the actual cash on hand that shopping for anything level relevant is almost a non issue.
What items actually boost movement?
What items actually boost movement?
Boots of Bounding are the main early level item.
My players also liked (almost) daily usage spell wands like Wand of heightened Tailwind (it's just a name that we gave to rank 2 Magic Wand with Tailwind spell ).
Once that trick such wands is pretty easy and safe for anyone, it becomes a mandatory item to all my players characters and stacks with Boots of Bounding.
Yeah if Paizo stopped printing items in new books I would be very okay with that.
As a GM one of the reasons I run APs is that I only have to pick out loot for my party when one of the AP items doesn't make sense for my party. I'd be very happy if there was a robust random loot generator for folks running homebrew campaigns to make giving out loot easier. Also gives a chance to highlight underseen items like armor property runes.
Yeah if Paizo stopped printing items in new books I would be very okay with that.
As a GM one of the reasons I run APs is that I only have to pick out loot for my party when one of the AP items doesn't make sense for my party. I'd be very happy if there was a robust random loot generator for folks running homebrew campaigns to make giving out loot easier. Also gives a chance to highlight underseen items like armor property runes.
I don't know about no items, but if they drastically reduced the number of items to give us better items that scaled as the character levels, and were generally useful instead of useful in a niche that would be great.
A system that allowed you purchase a low level magical item, and then influence/choose how it grows as your character levels (while somehow justifying it using up your gold [maybe it's rituals to increase its power]) would be amazing.
But I do agree they really need to stop printing niche items.
Possibly print them in APs or adventures where the niche item is relevant to a specific situation happening in that adventure.