Talk to Ashiel About Anything Mark II

[Zilrax]

Yeah I saw they posted a bit in March. Was a relief aye.

I'm just spending the time watching that of all the things that pathfinder 2e kicked up controversy over it's goblins being a core race that truly upended a lot of peoples carts.

[Tels]

The good news is that Ashiel last logged in April 6 2018--less than a week ago. So, she's well enough to use a computer, but probably just hasn't made time to post here.

Yeah, I've seen her logged in, even saw she posted recently. I figured she's just not ready to post here (little bit of a backlog) and that she's been really busy. I often use her profile to navigate around to some threads she's posted, especially the one about D20 Legends, as I've linked to a few posts in the thread to help explain it to friends some. Literally nothing P2E has posted so far has excited any of my gaming friends about (**** that resonance bull**** man, it's completely stupid). I've got a couple who are far more hyped to with the little information I've shared about D20 Legends than P2E.

[Zilrax]

Yeah not sure how I feel about Resonance yet. It's very Occultist and I like the Occultist. Seems like it's partly an attempt to make cha desirable. More cha = more reliable magic items. Cept the alchemist who gets to use int. I dunno. I don't get worked up over previews because paizo is **** at previews. So I wait til august. I'll get worked up then probably like I did over Starfinder.

It'll probably come down to the monsters again for me.

[Tels]

My issue with the resonance is that it screws over so much. For example, my understanding is that for items that are "always on," like magic swords, armor and so on, you have to invest resonance into them to keep them active all day, and the resonance scales with the power of the item. +5 sword? 5 points of resonance. +5 armor? 5 points of resonance. +5 shield? 5 points of resonance. This is awful because a 20th level character has 20 + Cha points in resonance, and using his armor, shield and sword just consumed 15 points of that pool. That's not even accounting for cloaks, or rings, or boots or any consumables like potions or wands and so on.

Even if 2E tries to go the way of 5E, where the game is built assuming you never get any magical items at all, this is still a bad assumption as most people, that I've seen, don't play it that way at all. But we can also draw a fairly accurate conclusion that 2E isn't designed to function like 5E where magic items aren't necessary (but actually are necessary), because they've made many references to use magical items in their blogs and comments so far. So it's a fairly safe assumption that 2E will be a similarly high magic setting, but now everyone has less magic items they can use due to resonance. Hell, it'll be and even larger stranglehold on magic items than the current system is. At least in the current system you can have the Big Six and still have cool magic items, in the 2E system you're going to have the equivalent of the Big Six draining all of your resonance so you can never use the cool items, ever.

Then you get to the alchemist who has to craft his alchemical items, like bombs, before combat even begins.

Not only does he gain more access to alchemical tricks, by way of advanced alchemy and the quick alchemy action, but he can also spend resonance to create alchemical objects on the fly, though such hasty concoctions are potent for only a short period... The alchemist's bombs are now the basic alchemical items you are familiar with: things like alchemist fire, thunderstones, acid flasks and so on. He crafts these items and lobs them...

However, if he is out of bombs, or didn't have time to craft any, he can spend resonance to instantly craft his alchemical items. The alchemist must get downtime in order to craft his bombs, if he doesn't, then he has to use resonance to make them. This means an alchemist likely cannot afford to rely on magical items much, if at all, because resonance becomes so important to him. Especially in a dungeon crawl situation where he can't just whip out an alchemy lab and spend the next several days crafting bombs. Granted, yes, the alchemist is able to craft larger batches of alchemical items than others, but that all still takes time. Time is the enemy here, and it's something the alchemist probably doesn't have in many scenarios.

[Zilrax]

I agree if it's that big a cost it can be a problem. That said they said they're doing away with stat items so there's that at least. But that strikes me as solvable by adjusting the Resonance cost, or the pool size, or both. It's not inherently flawed per say, so much as a number that needs tweaking perhaps. This is why I'm waiting to get up in arms over it. These previews give a lousy picture of the damn thing, not because it's inherently flawed per say but because it's disjointed from the **** that gives it context.

Yeah the Alchemist messes me up a bit, though it really depends how much downtime they need. If we're in the needs 1 hour to prepare spells ala wizard territory, well that ****s up most classes in 1e and I don't care too much. If it's I need hours, then yeah, might be a mess. also adjustable but we'll see. I'm more happy that alchemical stuff might be more useful past the first 5 levels besides tanglefoot bags and a few other notable exceptions. But if it's a mess I'll rake em over the coals too.

My bigger questioning is why consumables need a limiter. I guess they didn't like the wand healing method from cheap consumables, and want to give you a reason to use costlier more expensive versions but don't want the suck of it burning out... but I dunno, I'm not sure this helps... Maybe if they give better out of combat healing methods... rest an hour to regain like half your level, not sure it cuts it but we'll see I guess. Might be Starfinder method where it's easy to go down but hard to be kept down.

[Tels]

Well the spells preview showed that problems with oncombat healing might be lessened at the cost of resources. Apparently, you might be able to cast a spell up to 3 times a round, depending on it's action cost. The Heal spell can be cast as a touch range spell for 1 action, a ranged touch spell for 2 actions, and an AoE for 3 actions. Thing is if you is the spell to heal a single target, it basically doubles the health healed. Using a 5th level slot let's you heal, if I recall, 9d8+casting stat in hp, and, since it costs only 1 action, you can do it three times in a round. Or at least that's what the comments were indicating in the blog.

[Zilrax]

Indeed. I'm curious to see how that bit plays out, the whole three action thing. Being able to triple tap fireballs would be pretty derp for example. So I'm curious to see what it'll do.

On the flipside casting triple heal spells in a turn would blow through spells pretty darn quick I'd imagine.

[Tels]

So today's blog just straight up confirmed my concerns for the alchemist.

[Zilrax]

Aye. Though there's two kickers. How big the resonance pool ultimately is compared to costs. And how hard it is to craft stuff. Like that lightning bottle costs 3 gold. If the craft rules didn't change at all, the alch can still make one bomb a day taking 10 with the penalties. And the craft skill has almost certainly changed.

There's also the possibility this is intended balance, that martials can use more permanent magic items while casters have to use their reonance up more often and thus have less. It's really hard to be certain.

[Tels]

So, a few things I learned from the comments on the blog.

1) Bombs can crit, and with the new crti mechanic (if you exceed a DC/AC by 10, you crit) means criticals are likely to occur more often.

2) Bombs target touch AC, which, like Pathfinder, means it's easier to hit than normal AC. This means more likely to crit too.

3) Multiple bombs can be used each round.

4) It is hinted that there may be higher level bombs that deal.more damage than the ones in the blog.

5) Alchemists will get a much larger resonance pool than others.

Assuming all of the above is true, it's possible Alchemists are going to be stupid powerful when it comes to dealing damage. Especially the auto-crit if.you exceed by 10 rule. That makes it highly likely that bombs will very frequently crit for double damage, and at 3 possible bombs a round...

So, I guess right now they are either trash, or op as hell. Seems like just another day at Paizo, to be honest.

[Zilrax]

Time will tell, but I suspect they're using touch ac like Starfinder does, so the difference will probably be only 2-3 AC really.

It's one of those things. Alchemist was always strong for it's versatility, so we'll see if it kept it. That will be the real kicker.

[Zilrax]

So. The paladin excerpt. Some of this I don't need further context to rail on.

Evil spells evidently are now officially hard coded as Evil Acts.

Paladin Code is now Asimov Laws. My SS13 AI experience finds this intensely amusing for all the wrong reasons.
Paladins also now need a diety who will include even more code in a sense.

Possibility of other alignment paladins, though antipaladin will happen at least eventually they won't be in the playtest book evidently.

Also the evil spell thing is the highest law area so it can't reach a supercede area. It is the highest law, so while you can ignore laws (the lowest priority), protect the innocent and so forth, protecting your personal alignment is always the most important law than the protection of others.

[137beth]

My favorite part of the Paladin blog post is the first sentence:

All it takes is a cursory browse of the Paizo forums to see that paladins are not just the most contentious class in Pathfinder, they are the most contentious conversation topic.

So, apparently, the Paizo staff do not believe that the forums are "just a VOCAL MINORITY that in no way represent the wider Pathfinder fan base!"

[Zilrax]

Yeah that was always dumb.

But meantime I'm still amused by Asimov's Paladin so I wanna make a game out of it. Let's see how far we can twist the paladin code before it's head pops off. They wanna reduce Paladin traps, I wanna see if they instead made paladins dainty courtiers who don't dare do anything lest they get their doublets slightly dirty.

So here's the code, in order of operations.

• You must never willingly commit an evil act, such as murder, torture, or casting an evil spell.

• You must not take actions that you know will harm an innocent, or through inaction cause an innocent to come to immediate harm when you knew your action could reasonably prevent it. This tenet doesn't force you to take action against possible harm to innocents or to sacrifice your life and future potential in an attempt to protect an innocent.

• You must act with honor, never cheating, lying, or taking advantage of others.

• You must respect the lawful authority of the legitimate ruler or leadership in whichever land you may be, following their laws unless they violate a higher tenet.

I'll take the most obvious one to me out of the running first. Your first priority is to never do evil acts, so you can never kill the innocent person mind controlled into letting loose the demon lord without punishment.

As an aside, part of me is like, does this prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that paladins were humorless robots all along?

[Lemmy]

And here I thought Paizo couldn't make Paladins and alignment even dumber and more unfun...

I should've known better. Paizo never fails to disappoint.

[Zilrax]

Paladin Law 2 is a bit hard to understand as written. The most sane interpretation of it I can make is that the Paladin can't intentionally harm an innocent or by not doing something personally cause someone harm, like ignoring your blades going to fall off a roof and hit a peasent and do nothing about it. But they don't have to actually protect innocents from the harm caused by others or to sacrifice themselves for others.

I can assume this law was designed to make it so paladins can't be revealed just by threatening an innocent, or make them try to block a volcano with their bodies or fight a lost cause just to save someone rather than run away. Obviously they're actually allowed to do that still, but don't have to do it.

It feels... Off to me a bit. I sorta get the long view, save a few now at the cost of more later isn't a good deal. So long as they're not the ones hurting them. At the same time though this is all opening up a different box.

As a Paladin, I don't have to save the innocent. I only don't have to hurt them by action or inaction. I cannot do anything evil. I can be as dishonorable as I want as long as one of those two laws take precedence. And I only have to obey the law as long as those three don't take precedence.

So I can be a paladin and only save people from things I might cause, and only if doing so wouldn't be evil somehow. I can throw the world in a pit if it means I wouldn't do something evil. And I can throw everyone in with it.

And even if there's no evil involved I don't have to actually help anyone. I only need to act if it is immediate harm and only if I can stop it. If a meteor will hit in a week I can ignore it. I only need to spring to action if it's about to land on everyone. To run away because I don't have to kill myself saving others.

I WILL BE SIR ROBIN

[Tels]

What do you guys think the odds are that Paizo will release the Paladins of other alignments and they'll do something like the Gray Paladin: a pathetic and terrible downgrade of the normal Paladin.

It really annoys me that the, from their own blog, they implied that the majority didn't agree on anything except that the Paladin shouldn't be restricted to Lawful Good anymore. So what do they do? Only playtest Lawful Good.

I can almost guarantee that LG Paladin will be the base class, and everything else will be some terrible archetype, or archetypes, that weakens everything.

It wouldn't really be that hard to just make the base class do different things based on the alignment. Pick an alignment, then, if necessary, pick positive or negative, and/or, pick Good/Evil or Law/Chaos for one's opposition. This means a Lawful Good Paladin could be focused on opposing Chaos, granting Smite Chaos and stuff, or she could be more opposed to the denizens of Evil and Smite Evil as per normal. You could have a Chaotic Neutral Paladin who automatically chooses Law as her opposition, but, since she is neutral, she can choose to wield positive, or negative energy, like a neutral Cleric.

You could apply the above change to the current Paladin right now, swapping out the opposed alignment for Evil where necessary, and you would have a far more flexible Paladin class without really having to change much with the class at all. It doesn't lose any of the flavor, but it gains so much more. Like Paladins opposed to Chaos because they grew up in areas touched by the First World and the fey that inhabit it. Or Chaotic Good and Chaotic Evil Paladins who both work together to stamp out the armies of hell, despite being of opposed alignments.

The only downside is no Paladins of Neutrality because you can't have someone who is capable of ROFLstomping the entire Bestiary because just about everything is aligned in some fashion.

It really doesn't take that much effort to create an unaligned Paladin. Paizo is just being lazy, or they're going to go the greedy route and sell the Paladins of other alignments via splat books. It's be just like.playing video games!

Cut content from the finished release and resell it to me for more money. I swear, if they somehow manage to implement loot boxes...

[Zilrax]

Pathfinder gacha, now there's a thought :p.

Yeah it's not too hard. I'd say the Neutral Paladin would probably get a nerfed smite that can hit anything, or at least only non neutral component enemies. Reducing the power in exchange for more usability would be a fair route once tweaked enough, it's already only got a few uses a day.

In any case, it very well could be that or it could just be page count. If they intend to make each dramatically different, I could get it. Evidently the antipaladins gonna be a thing still at least.

I figure if they do release crappier versions of the straight paladin and antipaladin for the other alignments, we just play reverso with the "feats" for the paladin. Really hate the feats for everything thing more I think about it. Not the concept per say, though I think it's going to be like triple bloat rate of traps now, but am praying I'm wrong. Just that when I say feats now everyones going to be all, "Wait you mean me, my son, or the planet?" If one get's the reference.

Meantime monsters. Hoping they don't muck up with the npcs like in Starfinder in ways that annoy me. Still kinda annoyed that Starfinder was made just using half baked ideas from pathfinder 2. Though who knows, maybe PF2 will be so bad that Starfinder looks amazing by comparison :p.

[137beth]

Cut content from the finished release and resell it to me for more money. I swear, if they somehow manage to implement loot boxes...

Lootboxes in video games were popularized by Puzzle and Dragons, which is a Japanese game. That makes them TOO ANIME FOR PATHFINDER!

[Zilrax]

I need to take a moment for everyone to appreciate this was a feat that was designed and published.

Peace of Mind (Conduit)
The blissful peace of Nirvana is never more than a thought
away from your mind.
Prerequisite: Knowledge (planes) 3 ranks.
Benefit: As an immediate action when you fail a saving
throw against an emotion, fear, or pain effect, you can
ignore the effect and instead become dazed for an amount
of time equal to twice the duration of the original effect. Any
nonlethal damage you would have taken from the original
effect is reduced to its minimum value (as though a 1 had
been rolled on all dice). You cannot activate this ability if you
are currently dazed.
You can use this feat’s benefit once per day, plus an
additional time per day for every 5 ranks you have in
Knowledge (planes).

You may instead of take penalties, elect to just not do anything for twice as long. If it was like, compulsion or charm, I could see this being niche but maybe useful. Better to be dazed than to have to murder the party wizard. But fear? Emotion? Pain? All of these mostly deal penalties, and Fear makes you at worst leave the are or do nothing. And it has uses per day.

I mean there's a fair few decent feats in here but that's just... Why would I ever want this?

[Lemmy]

Sounds like typical Paizo material.

It's one of the reasons I have zero excitement for PF 2.0.

[Tels]

Every blog post that comes out for P2E makes me think to myself, "Man, it's too bad Paizo isn't making a 2nd edition." Kind of like how I wish a film company would adapt the Jumper novels to film, or the Percy Jackson novels. It's a shame no one ever did that.

I reject your reality, and substitute my own!
- Adam Savage

I was absolutely horrified at the magic item blog they just published. "Let's make staffs more accessible and less complicated." Proceeds to make staffs require investing resonant points, then require sp nding a resonant point, a charge from the staff, and a spell slots to use the staff, or a charge from the staff and a bunch of resonant points if you don't have any slots.

Yeah. Sure Paizo. Bloody company is just a bunch of monkeys banging away at keyboards at this point.

[2D8HP]

.....Bloody company is just a bunch of monkeys banging away at keyboards at this point.

"In 2003, lecturers and students from the University of Plymouth MediaLab Arts course used a £2,000 grant from the Arts Council to study the literary output of real monkeys. They left a computer keyboard in the enclosure of six Celebes crested macaques in Paignton Zoo in Devon in England for a month, with a radio link to broadcast the results on a website.

Not only did the monkeys produce nothing but five total pages largely consisting of the letter S, the lead male began by bashing the keyboard with a stone, and the monkeys continued by urinating and defecating on it."

Need more monkeys for increased productivity now!

[Zilrax]

Yeah seems dumb. I'm hoping they have one of their rare moments of listening and decide not to do that. I'm going to give it a go either way cus I'm pessimistic but I like being wrong when I am. And at worst I can still learn what not to do from it.

[Some Android]

Hello Ashiel. First time poster in this thread. How are you? I am fine. Here are some questions:

-What do you think of Duran Duran?
-What if your favorite class in your favorite tabletop RPG?
-What should I draw next? And may I kindly ask the answer not be "Whatever you feel like." I need ideas, and I kindly as you.

[Tels]

Not Ashiel, obviously, but I vote for a reformed demon, rising into the heavens, casting away it's sin and depravity.

[Lemmy]

Not Ashiel, obviously, but I vote for a reformed demon, rising into the heavens, casting away its sin and depravity.

...And halfway through his journey, he sees a fallen angel, descending into heavens, casting his grace and goodness aside... Each one going a different way on the same karmic road.

[Zilrax]

Well three more days before I start going over the playtest. Cus I can I'll give my initial thoughts on this beast. I'm sure I'll be cranky over several aspects as has been tradition.

But then again Starfinders really only annoyed me on a few things, so who knows.

[Zilrax]

It Begins.

Alright let's see now. Well first thing I notice is they've added a whole thing to the start about not playing demeaning characters and such or making others uncomfortable. Okay.

Alright hm... Layout needs some work but playtest booklet, I can ignore that, though I'm not a fan of the aesthetic choices, that's kinda meaningless in the grand scheme.

So next is bunch of glossary of things. Makes sense. Okay so Rarity. Basically it's enforced gm curating. Common things anyone can have. Anything else you can't have unless the gm says so. Uncommons you may be able to start with with permission, rares don't even exist unless the gm says so. Uniques are basically artifacts and such and can basically be ignored.

Alright character creation stuff... Nothing too noteworthy here... Oh alignment is in here, let's see. Looks like they went away from any hard stops to sorta fluffy vagueties and dm has final say. Evil hurts and victimises others for own gains and enjoys hurting things, good puts protecting others over themselves, even people they don't know and puts their lives on the line. Chaos is spontaneous and lawful is organised by the books.

Huh, Hero Points are back. You start every game session with 1 then can earn more. So the 5e method I guess.

Alright ability scores. Nothing weird here. Stat gen is the starfinder method basically. All scores are 10, apply racial, apply background, apply +2 to four scores, none of which can be in the same score and no score can be over 18 at level 1. The only change is you also get an ability score boost from your class at the end too. There's heavy implication having an 18 in your primary score is expected. There is the option of random rolling but there's good odds you'll end up completly inferior to the baseline. Like REALLY good odds.

Ancestries aka races. Most races got most their original race features cleaved off and turned them into feats, which you only get one of at 1st level. Seems to get bonus languages you get 1 if your int is 14 otherwise you get none. Much like starfinder, race is part of your starting hp determiner. 6 hp is the most common, gnomes and humans get 8, and dwarves get 10.

Alright Dwarves. All dwarves get darkvision, and now instead of ignoring speed penalties for encumbrance/armor, they just reduce the penalty by 5, making them as fast as a human in full plate, but no longer can a dwarf pick up something absolutely enormous and run off with it. Dwarves move at 20 by default, so 5 slower than the base.

All the other dwarf class features are feats and for the most part aren't too diffrent. Hatred is now a pick one target for the bonus damage, but giants and duergar are now options for it too. Their racial against magic now takes up their Reaction action, so only once a turn and they can't do other reactions with it, so dwarven paladin can't have both divine grace and racial boost for it. Also the dwarven racial actually reduces their resonance pool by 2 if you take that antimagic feat. The only real new ones in here are level 5's Boulder Rush that is basically bullrush except better cus it deals damage and it's a fort save so bullying a wizard into a pit is pretty likely, and Rock Runner that let's you ignore stone based difficult terrain and be super good at balancing on stony things.

Elves, aka somehow less durable than goblins and halflings because of their con penalty. They have low-light vision no matter what, but are the fastest race at a full 30.

Most of the old elf racials are feats again, but also many more new ones, like a floating skill proficiency rank, and an anti-demon ability.

Gnomes, gnomes have 8 hp like humans but move at 20 like dwarves. Low-Light Vision.

Most of the old gnome racials are here, as well as new ones like a free familiar, and being able to speak to all animals.

Goblins... Oh god this fluff, it's not quite Kender bad BUT IT'S CLOSE. There's some one for one ideas between those two entries that make my skin crawl and I know exactly which of my players will gravitate to this. Ugh.

6 hp, but average 25 move speed, have Darkvision.

Since goblins didn't really have racial traits before, these basically are all new. They get to add half their item or spells level to damage if they do fire damage, can ride jsut about anything regardless of class, get fire resistence and can make items out of junk.

Halflings, 6 hp, same speed as the goblins. No other free traits.

Gotta say, most of these feats are a bit lame, so halflings as usual got the short stick (heh). The luck thing is a once a day roll twice take better that eats a reaction. They can use people bigger themselves as cover for hiding. And the rest is mostly minor boosts and such.

Human. 8 hp. 25 base speed. No other free traits other than getting to pick their extra free language.

Feat wise, humans have the most because the half breeds are racial feats for humans, which unlock the half breeds racial traits too. One big thing to note is they can trade the racial for a general feat. And they can take this at every level now. You can also get a level 1 class feat for your class, though that is a one time thing. Or become trained in two skills of your choice.

Backgrounds, basically are like the Starfinder ones but they don't scale with level, they give it all to you at once.

I'll continue more of this later.

[Lemmy]

So... They wanted elves to be quicker, but instead of buffing their speed, they nerfed everyone else's?

Typical Paizo...