Wizard

Tamago's page

RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16. RPG Superstar 6 Season Star Voter, 7 Season Star Voter. **** Pathfinder Society GM. 1,177 posts (1,185 including aliases). 5 reviews. 3 lists. No wishlists. 7 Organized Play characters. 2 aliases.


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Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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James Sutter wrote:
After 9 months of working on this, I'm so excited for folks to finally get to play it! Plus it's a huge thrill to see Nathan and Laura voicing some of the characters. :) Hope you all enjoy it!

Having played the pilot multiple times and been a beta tester for the premium episodes, I can confidently say that your script is the best part of this game. I love the color and detail you've added to the world of Starfinder, and can't wait to play the full version!

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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MagicSN wrote:

Why only english-speaking countries ? You know, people in non-English-speaking countries actually CAN speak english very often...

Here in Germany people got English at school from class 5 to 12. That's 8 years long.

What hinders you to offer the english Alexa-Starfinder on German Amazon ?

You ARE aware that the world does not only consist of the English-speaking countries ?

My guess is that this is an Amazon restriction, not a Paizo one. Especially since there was not a simultaneous rollout even for the English-speaking countries.

There are also things like royalties and licensing to consider, which might differ depending on what country the user is in.

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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Rather than using the massive damage rule as the trigger for what causes an injury, I'm planning to make it so if someone gets a natural 20, and then confirms the critical with another natural 20, they have to roll on the table. Should be rare enough to be exciting, while also being possible to happen at low levels.

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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GentleGiant wrote:
GM zebeev wrote:
kevin_video wrote:
And for anyone who can answer this, what is the design behind the AC? Is that a suit of armor? A shield? I can't tell.
GentleGiant wrote:
I believe it's from an existing piece of art, but I can't remember which.

I believe it's based on the suit of elven chain on p. 356 of the Playtest Rulebook.

Indeed. I just scoured the blogs to see if I could find it. Found it in... the playtest armour blog. ;-)

I feel like it would have been a good idea to use something a bit more recognizable as the backdrop. A nice, basic heater shield shape, for example would work well and be instantly recognizable.

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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I'm afraid I have to agree with most of the people here who don't like the new sheet.

The color version is way too busy. It's one thing for the sheet to pop, but all the bright colors draw the eye away from the important bits, which is what the player actually writes on the sheet!

I'm also miffed that there seem to be boxes for everything. That's helpful for knowing where to put stuff, but it also makes it very hard to be flexible. Even if there were a "misc" box to put stuff that didn't go elsewhere, that would help. But I'm in the camp that thinks character sheets should be a bit messy. There should be room to write in that your character has a +2 to bash open doors because she rolled nat 20s on three consecutive door-bashings and everyone decided she's somehow an expert at it. Or the extra feat that her god granted her after she did a particularly great service. Or a place to write the name of that one NPC in the margin who sold the PC her sword.

Having lots of little boxes for everything makes it hard to go "outside the box" (literally!) and also looks intimidating for a new player.

I also find that having a big blank space to write in class features/feats is much better than a bunch of little narrow boxes. Some things take up way more room to describe than others, and for most characters, you will never get up to level 20 anyway. I'd much rather just have a big blank column labeled "Class Feats" and let the player choose how much to write there (or not).

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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Looks great!

My only nitpick is that it comes with 18 PC magnets but only 4 condition trackers. It seems like it would be more useful to have, say, 8 PCs and 14 conditions. Since having multiple PCs with multiple conditions is something that often happens, but it's quite rare to have a Pathfinder table with more than 7 PCs.

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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Barnabas Eckleworth III wrote:
In Monopoly, every player but the winner has to eventually sit out while everyone else continues to play.

There's a reason why Monopoly isn't the game of choice for most of us here.

Personally, it's a big pet peeve of mine when I get taken out in an RPG, either by death or by some kind of "save or lose your turns" effect. If my character gets killed, petrified, or even stunned for 1 minute, then I'm going to have to sit out for the next hour or two until the combat is over and the Party can fix the problem. That's not fun.

Heck, I *vastly* prefer getting Dominated and ordered to kill my party than getting stunned or paralyzed, because then I at least still get to play!

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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DM_Blake wrote:
If you regain 1 or more HP for any reason, you become conscious.

This would be a problem if you were already at full health. Since then you would not be able to "regain" any HP.

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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Ninja in the Rye wrote:
Charlie Brooks wrote:
I'm fairly certain that one of the larger surveys covered the idea of tying damage to level instead of items. If you want that change (or want to make your voice heard in the other direction), I highly suggest taking that survey of you haven't already.

Which Survey, and which question?

The closest I could find was this "I would prefer no potency on weapons and armor at all. Attack roll bonuses and AC bonuses would come from item quality, damage would come from my character's inherent martial ability, and any necessary saving throw bonuses could come from elsewhere."

Which is the closest option they present to what I would want, but still isn't particularly accurate to what I want. I think that damage bonuses should come from level, is that "martial ability"? I don't know. I also see no reason for saving throw bonuses to be coming from "elsewhere" and I'm rather meh on the idea of attack and AC bonuses coming from item quality.

By lumping all of those statements in together it makes it very unlikely that I'd pick Extremely True or even Very True on it. But, apparently, it's what they're looking at to determine if they should keep runes or not.

I think you're spot on. I picked "Extremely True", specifically because I'd read the discussions on these boards and figured that was what they were trying to ask about. But if what they are actually trying to ask is, "Should you automatically get extra damage dice when you level up?", then I think a lot of people who like that idea would be led astray by the wording of the question and think they're talking about getting rid of all magic item bonuses.

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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You know, the ability in question was actually in the stat block for the monster. Instead of:
The weapon gains the deadly trait with three dice of the same die size as the weapon

Why didn't the ability just say,
On a critical hit, the weapon deals an extra Xd12 damage.

It's both shorter and clearer!

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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10 minutes is a little bit hyperbolic, but it still completely killed the momentum of the game.

We have the same problem with healing spells. Adding up 17d8 just plain takes a long time. Our group really misses the 1st edition Heal spell with its flat amount of healing.

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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Grave Knight wrote:
They need a way for us to amass more than 3 points, and clearly definitive rules on how acquire them base on our ancestry, background, and/or class. My Bigbelly Goblin, Goblin Renegade, Rogue should be getting hero points for eating strange and exotic things (like a sea serpent, a red dragon, the eyeballs of our enemies, a bag full of twigs, etc) and successfully stealing stuff from NPCs (but not players cause we don't want to open up the mess that's player versus player).

I'd personally be satisfied with a rule that allows you to earn HP for good roleplaying, rather than just "being heroic".

I am a big fan of the way Fate does it, where you get Fate Points for doing things that are in-character but are detrimental/make your situation worse. You can then turn those in to get bonuses when you really need to succeed at something.

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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We got confused about this last night. A monster has Greater Constrict, which on a failed save renders the subject unconscious.

All of the rules I could find for the Unconscious condition seem to assume that the unconscious creature has zero hit points.

Unconscious wrote:

When you’re reduced to 0 Hit Points, you fall unconscious...

If you return to 1 Hit Point or more, you become conscious.

So does that mean that a constricted creature immediately falls to zero hit points? That doesn't make sense. People don't wake up every morning and chug a healing potion because they only have one hit point left after waking up!

If it doesn't mean that you fall to zero hit points, do you immediately wake up, because you have "1 hit point or more"? If not, how can you awaken an unconscious creature?

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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Does anyone else feel like high level spells require rolling too many dice?

A player cast Meteor Swarm last night, targeting all of the meteors on a single target. Each meteor does 4d10 bludgeoning damage and 19d6 fire damage. All together, that's 16d10 + 76d6 damage!

The game completely ground to a halt for about 10 minutes while the player had to add up 92 dice. Not fun!

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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TheFinish wrote:
Tamago wrote:


The wizard and the cleric both cast Freedom of Movement, and thereafter didn't care about getting grabbed. The monk and rogues were both grabbed, but didn't really care; they just stabbed/punched the Kraken until its hit points gave out. Also, a DC 5 flat check is only a 20% chance of failure. I think there was only one point where it mattered, which is when one of the rogues tried to use a Necklace of Fireballs on the beast. He was able to do it again the next turn, so not a big deal.

The kraken was critting on a 12 or so, which had the players very worried. But since the Cleric wasn't grabbed, she was able to keep everyone healed up.

Did the Kraken just grab them when they were adjacent to it and never repositioned them? Because Grab doesn't have the same rules as it did in PF1, and the target is not moved to an adjacent square. Which means the Kraken can grab people anywhere within it's reach and keep them there. And if your players don't have the Kraken in reach, they can't attack it.

Also do note that freedom of movment doesn't protect you from being grabbed, it just lets you autosucceed when you try to escape. The PC still has to use one of their Actions, which might impact the rest of the turn (no 3 action Area healing, for example).

The kraken repositioned one of the rogues in order to get a beak attack in, but that wasn't super effective, so I didn't repeat the tactic. (It's more effective to just do another one-action double attack, even at -10, than to reposition and bite a single target.)

The PCs didn't move, but if they are being grappled by a thing, then surely it's close enough to attack! The idea that a character wouldn't be close enough to swing their sword at the giant tentacle that is literally touching them seems frankly ludicrous and didn't even cross my mind.

I can't remember for certain, but I think with respect to Freedom of Movement, the grappled casters did spend an action to automatically escape, and the kraken at that point realized that they were not going to be able to stay grabbed, and didn't spend a lot of actions trying to get at them.

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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Just to add a contrasting experience...

My group played Red Flags this weekend, and here's how it turned out:

The Kraken was indeed a tough foe! But they did eventually manage to beat it, with only one PC down and zero deaths.

The one-action double Strike was formidable, but since the Kraken has to take a second action to Grab, it can't do that combo twice in one turn.

The Grappled condition really isn't that bad. For a melee character, it basically doesn't matter. My group had a wizard, cleric, monk, and two rogues. They all got grappled at some point during the battle.

The wizard and the cleric both cast Freedom of Movement, and thereafter didn't care about getting grabbed. The monk and rogues were both grabbed, but didn't really care; they just stabbed/punched the Kraken until its hit points gave out. Also, a DC 5 flat check is only a 20% chance of failure. I think there was only one point where it mattered, which is when one of the rogues tried to use a Necklace of Fireballs on the beast. He was able to do it again the next turn, so not a big deal.

The kraken was critting on a 12 or so, which had the players very worried. But since the Cleric wasn't grabbed, she was able to keep everyone healed up.

Was it a tough fight? Absolutely! But it wasn't a foregone TPK as I'd been lead to believe by reading these posts. In fact, it probably wasn't even the hardest fight in the Playtest so far! (Not counting chapter 5, of course!)

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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In my group, we play at one couple's house, so they each get 2.

One person chronicles the adventure and writes the recaps, so he gets 2.

One person brings snacks, so she gets 2.

One person drives in from out of town, so he gets 2 in recognition of the extra effort it takes him to get there.

So, basically, everybody gets 2.

I might only give 1 if someone showed up really late/didn't level up their character/wasn't a "team player" for some reason. But so far that hasn't happened yet.

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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Charon Onozuka wrote:
Tamago wrote:
Personally, I'd rather swap the costs so that spending 1 Hero Point gives you a reroll, and two brings you back from dying.
That's what my group has been thinking. We normally only have about 2 hero points per session, mostly since I forget to give more out. But players don't think much about the higher uses of Hero Points because the 1 point use to come back from dying is already so strong. They'd rather just save their points in case they go down (even though that hasn't happened much yet).

I feel this too. No one wants to spend 2 HP to reroll, because that's two get-out-of-death-free cards they are giving up. Even if the reroll was for a critical failure on a saving throw or something, most of the time my players would be like, "eh, if I die because of this, I'll just spend one hero point and still be up, which is better than wasting two on the chance that I'll make the save the second time."

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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So, obviously the design team is doing a whole lot of work on the death and dying system, given that they have released multiple updates changing/fixing that system. However, in my games, despite the players going down fairly frequently, they don't really care about the death and dying rules at all because of Hero Points.

Let me explain:
Because anyone can spend 1 Hero Point to come back from dying, there's no tension in the death saves. If the party is doing badly, the player will spend a hero point to come back and take her turn normally. If the party has the situation in hand, she'll go, "Eh, whatever, I guess I'll roll. If I crit fail or whatever, I can just spend a hero point to come back."

Since each of my players has been getting 2-3 hero points per session, that essentially means they have to be taken out three times before actually being at risk of dying. And since combats are taking so long, there are only 2 or 3 encounters per session, so there's practically zero risk of any one PC dying unless there's a TPK.

I really do like Hero Points! But I am worried that the way they interact with the death and dying rules makes the latter irrelevant.

Personally, I'd rather swap the costs so that spending 1 Hero Point gives you a reroll, and two brings you back from dying. Or maybe make 1 point count as a crit success on a death save, and two points come back with 1 HP and clear the Wounded condition.

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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marvin_bishop wrote:
In many cases it's not even worth adding the bonuses. If the dice show 4, the check fails and if the dice show 17, the check succeeds.

It is actually necessary in most cases to add up the bonuses, because it could make the difference between a failure and a critical failure.

I love the concept of the four tiers of outcome, but in practice I've seen that it does slow down gameplay. Because now instead of just rolling a 3 and saying, "Nope, I failed that", it's now "Hang on... I rolled a three, so that's... 16. No, wait, I'm enfeebled 2, so 14. Oh, wait, but the bard song makes it 15. Is that a critical failure?"

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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My group talked it over and decided ahead of time to skip adventure 5. We were 2 weeks behind the playtest window already, because Mirrored Moon took so long. I didn't reveal to the group what Undarin would be testing, but the group was just plain tired and grumpy from all the playtest and just didn't care to continue.

So we decided to skip to part 6. I'm extremely glad we did! After the group made our decision, I outlined what they would have done in chapter 5, and read the opening and closing flavor text. Everyone in the group immediately said that they would have hated playing it! So I think we bypassed a lot of grief at the table.

I'm sure my group will like Red Flags better. Though whether they will *like* it at all is a bit up in the air; most of the sessions so far have been mixed-to-negative.

*sigh*

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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This came up in my game and I ruled a minimum of 1 damage. Otherwise things like monsters that deal 1d4-1 damage don't make sense.

Sczarni 4/5 RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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My biggest comment:

Regardless of the layout, I really think we need to have one-line spell descriptions (and for that matter, feat and ability descriptions as well)! For a new player, reading the entire description for each spell gives you information overload and makes it very difficult to decide what to do on your turn. Being able to read something like, "Lightning bolt: Deals 4d12 damage in a 60-foot line", is a lot easier for someone to hold in their head at the table while deciding what to do than reading the whole six-line spell description.

For the record, I think this is a problem in the main rulebook, too. Selecting feats and spells during character creation is a huge pain because there's no easy way to skim the available options and decide which ones look interesting. You have to slog through the entire text before knowing if something fits your character concept or not.

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Draco18s wrote:
Kerx wrote:
Likewise, I've already provided all the instances in which the rulebook grants the player the ability to take feats for which they qualify when dictated by their class. Player's don't stop being qualified for feats once they possess those feats.
Then why have "special: this feat can be taken more than once" at all?

That is, indeed, the question we are trying to figure out.

Either
a) the intent is that, in general, feats can be taken more than once (in which case the "special" text is unnecessary and can be removed), or
b) the intent is that, in general, feats cannot be taken more than once (in which case the rulebook should say so).

As written, I think Kerx is onto something. From just reading the rules, nowhere does it state that taking a feat disqualifies you from taking the same feat again later. Unless we are missing something.

Sczarni 4/5 RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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Alex Augunas wrote:

Just finished my survey!

For Options 2, 3, and 4, have you considered that none of these options will fit neatly between more than one ring in a 3-ring binder? Many people use 3-ring binders to store Chronicles with their characters (myself included), and these tiny chronicle sheets would be a real pain to carry places because they couldn't be stored in what is arguably the most common paper-storage device.

If this were the format, I would probably have to buy a set of clear sheet protectors to store the sheets in a binder. But I could see it getting problematic if they are all loose in the pocket -- it would be very easy for them to fall out and get all mixed up.

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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The Once and Future Kai wrote:
I think the Action Economy just needs some polishing for things like drawing a weapon or pulling out a potion or switching hands. Just make them free aspects of the usage actions. I don't think that's unbalancing. We haven't really had the leftover action problem.

I feel like that eliminates a lot of the simplicity that makes the 3 action system so attractive.

"Everything you do takes an action" is very easy to explain.

"Everything you do takes an action, except these things, which don't take an action and this other thing you can do for free but only once per turn, etc., etc." gets complicated very quickly.

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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PCScipio wrote:
@Tamago: You can get a once/day AoO if you have 16 strength.
Fighter Dedication wrote:
You can use the Attack of Opportunity reaction (see page 87 of the Pathfinder Playtest Rulebook) once per day.

If you have a 16 strength AND you are willing to drop 2 class feats (realistically three, assuming you want to be able to do it more than once/day) AND your character concept supports being a multiclass fighter AND you don't want to take any other archetypes or multiclasses... you can get attacks of opportunity.

I don't think that's a realistic expectation.

If it were a single General feat that let you access Attacks of Opportunity or something, I'd be much more inclined to think it was viable for non-Fighters to do this.

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Rycke wrote:
sherlock1701 wrote:
I really don't like the lack of AoOs. It makes combats ridiculous. To follow up on your metaphor, it's as if the offensive line are unable to block for the quarterback.
At this level, the lack of Attacks of Opportunity is not the fault of the game system but the players. They've all had ample opportunity, regardless of what class they are, to acquire this. If they don't have it, then they've just prioritized other feats ahead of this.

How exactly is this? From what I've read, only Fighters and Paladins have the ability to get an Attack of Opportunity (and the latter is a 6th level feat, so it's definitely not a given). I suppose it's theoretically possible to multiclass fighter in order to get an AoO, but expecting most players to spend two of their class feats to multiclass, which likely won't fit their character concept, just so they can have a reaction seems a bit of a stretch.

Am I missing something?

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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Ascalaphus wrote:
dragonhunterq wrote:
Really? actual, real people are confused by this? and it's not just internet hyperbole? Because I have never met, in over 30 years of gaming and personally teaching a lot of people, anyone confused by the different uses of 'level'. A simple explanation that class levels and spell levels are different has been sufficient to allay any concerns.

I surprised myself by making this mistake. At first I thought the scaling on cantrips was nice. I thought it related to character level. When I realized it related to spell level it was too late and I was trudging through level 4 achieving nothing in particular with cantrips. But it must be because I've only been gaming for 21 years. Maybe in 9 years I'll be immune to such mistakes. By that time Paizo's probably dancing around the question of whether they're working on v3.

Yes, you could explain that the two terms mean something different. Eventually everyone will get it. But what good reason is there for actually using almost the same name for different things that work differently? So we can pat ourselves on the back for being able to work through unnecessarily obscurantist nomenclature?

One of my players made the exact same mistake, seeing the heightened text and thought it referred to character level, not spell level. We didn’t realize it until halfway through the adventure!

The fact that people are actually getting confused by this in real play indicates to me that we should consider changing the terminology.

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Captain Morgan wrote:

An interesting conversation here on item bonuses, and it has sparked a couple of ideas for me I want to throw out there. Special nod to Quandary who I think got my brain rolling on this. These changes don't all need to be put into effect but I think many of them would work well side by side.

1)Move skill items, skill feats, and other skill boosters to skill chapter. T
...

2)Cut back on magical item bonuses and have more special Resonance activated abilities.

...

3) Every skill feat now adds a +1 cumulative "feat bonus" to its skill.

I LOVE these ideas, especially #2 and #3. Skill-bonus items always seemed a bit weird to me even in 1st edition, especially when they tried to make them for skills that don't normally use tools, like Diplomacy. It always really irked me in PFS when people were trying to come up with generic "masterwork Bluff tools" or whatever. I'd much rather see them get de-emphasized in this edition than try to force everyone to buy +x skill items for every skill they want to be decent at.

And the idea of adding a +1 "feat bonus" for taking skill feats is AMAZING! It would really add a nice bit of complexity to the skill feat selection process to not only decide which extra skill use to pick, but also which skill to get a bump in. And for PCs who really want to specialize, it gives them a way to do so (by taking all the skill feats for a particular skill).

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shroudb wrote:
Tamago wrote:

I'm disappointed that there is no way for a multiclass rogue to get more sneak attack. I think Sneak Attack is the quintessential Rogue ability, and only getting +1d6 really feels watered down.

I'd suggest that the Rogue Dedication feat should grant the +1d4 sneak attack instead of Surprise Attack. Then the Sneak Attacker feat could grant the level-based increases of +1d4 at levels 5, 11, and 17, just like the base rogue.

+4d4 sneak attack is way more satisfying than +1d6 at high level, and I feel like staying at d4s instead of d6s makes you still feel like you get to throw a lot of dice around, while also making full rogues the best at sneak attack.

That would be a 4d4 increase in weapon damage for 2 class feats (in most occasions).

Waaaaaay too powerful.

That's a 4d4 increase in weapon damage for 2 class feats at level 17. By that point, your +4 weapon is going to have 5 damage dice already, so it's a relatively small percentage of your total damage.

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Deadmanwalking wrote:
I feel like Battle Medic and Natural Medicine, instead of their current rules, which are odd and not especially good, should interact with Treat Wounds. Maybe just allowing it in-combat but only a certain number of times per day (once per target, for example), or something like that.

Natural Medicine could very easily just become, "You can perform the Treat Wounds action using the Nature skill instead of the Medicine skill."

No need to reinvent the wheel, and characters who are better at Nature than Medicine will find it quite useful.

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Draco18s wrote:
I noticed that Treat Wounds doesn't remove/reduce the Wounded condition.

In the description of the Wounded condition, it says, "The wounded condition ends if someone attends to you with Treat Wounds, or if you are healed to full Hit Points and rest for 10 minutes."

That said, it would probably be a good idea to call this out in the Treat Wounds ability description as well.

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I think I saw this suggestion on the other thread, and I liked it. The DC should be based on the level of the creature you're healing, rather than your own level. For most cases this would be the same thing, but it would allow for high-level NPCs being able to easily heal the party, or low-level PCs struggling to save a high-level creature. That seems more interesting to me.

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It seems weird to me that critically failing bolsters the target only against "your Treat Wounds", rather than just Treat Wounds in general.

I feel like the critical fail is a decent way to keep it from being just guaranteed healing for the whole party, but being able to tag in another character to heal just feels off to me for some reason.

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I'm disappointed that there is no way for a multiclass rogue to get more sneak attack. I think Sneak Attack is the quintessential Rogue ability, and only getting +1d6 really feels watered down.

I'd suggest that the Rogue Dedication feat should grant the +1d4 sneak attack instead of Surprise Attack. Then the Sneak Attacker feat could grant the level-based increases of +1d4 at levels 5, 11, and 17, just like the base rogue.

+4d4 sneak attack is way more satisfying than +1d6 at high level, and I feel like staying at d4s instead of d6s makes you still feel like you get to throw a lot of dice around, while also making full rogues the best at sneak attack.

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In response to the 1/day abilities... I wonder if it would help to instead make them once per 10 minutes.

That would effectively make them usable once per encounter, which I think really helps them be more relevant while at the same time still limiting them enough that it's worth picking up the later feat to use them at-will.

Sczarni 4/5 RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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One thing I'd like to see with the new tiers is more flexibility when it comes to playing up or down. I've seen some wonky edge cases before, such as a table of 1, 1, 3, 4, 4 being forced to play up, and it being *really* hard on the new players.

I would really like to see more table discretion in terms of what subtier is played. Some groups really want a tough challenge; others just want to have a casual good time. Both ways of playing are valid.

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Strachan Fireblade wrote:
So let me ask this. Are you guys applying new errata halfway through the chapter? If not, I don’t see the issue. If so, why? Are you changing character abilities and using the new rules because you feel it will improve your game experience? Genuinely curious.

Yes, for two reasons:

1) Presumably the point of the errata is to make the game better and eliminate problems. So we want to be using the latest, best version of the game because it should be more fun.

2) Once a change is made, the design team needs feedback about how it works. If we delay applying an update for the 3 weeks (or whatever) it will take for us to get to the next part, that's time that we are testing an old, obsolete rule that won't be used anyway. It's wasted effort to not be testing the newest version of the system.

Of course, if it's more of a problem for the design team for us to switch mid-adventure, then we could just say, "we're not applying any new errata until we get to the next scenario." That's why I was asking Mark what would be the best way to approach this.

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Tarik Blackhands wrote:

In other words, people unironically enjoyed being Angel Summoner and take exception to Paizo making the adjustments to clarify that the BMX Bandit is meant to be the norm.

Just to play Devil's Advocate for a moment...

What's wrong with wanting to play Angel Summoner? Since this is a fantasy anyway, I like being able to really shine on something.

There is a place for a grim & gritty roleplaying game, but that's definitely not what Pathfinder is now.

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Strachan Fireblade wrote:
David knott 242 wrote:
The issue would come up if people are late at getting to various sections -- and my guess is that that should be a relatively common situation.

I think you misunderstand what I was trying to say. PF2 errata release is scheduled for when new chapters begin. It is never released halfway through a chapter (so far). So groups on the standard pace will use the current errata for that chapter. Faster groups will use earlier errata (as they played that chapter before the current update was released). Slower groups will use a newer errata (because more updates would have been released by the time they reached that chapter).

In all cases, the survey asks what version of errata you are using. It accounts for group speed in this manner and is fact the control for the answers provided in the survey so that the devs can compare the answers using the same rules.

IME, chapters take 1-2 sessions to complete, but I suppose a group that is REALLY REALLY slow (due to scheduling constraints, or session length constraints) might wind up noticing a new errata release prior to finishing the chapter and wish to make use of it. This is the situation where I think Mark's advice is useful, but I still don't see it coming up all that often. Still, in these situations, playtest feedback has to fit into the results of a specific errata version so the devs can weigh the answers with results of other groups using the SAME errata version.

If your group is perfectly synched to the playtest schedule, that would be fine. But I think that won't happen in a lot of cases. For example, my group started a week ahead, but is now "on schedule" due to Pale Mountain taking three sessions to finish instead of two. I wouldn't be surprised if higher-level content takes longer to get through as well, due to the PCs having more options. (Hopefully not as bad as in PF1, but still...)

Add to that the fact that Life Happens and we will certainly have to cancel a session or two over the course of the playtest, and we are certain to get out of sync with the ideal timeline.

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HWalsh wrote:
Tamago wrote:

What bothers me is that there are several places where the rules say, "The GM sets the DC", but there's no guidance on what sorts of DCs should be used. Even if they would say something like, "This should be an Easy DC based on the level of the opponent" or something, it would help.

Ideally, I really think there needs to be some examples of the DCs of common tasks listed with the thing that calls for them. Having to flip back and forth to find the skill DC chart all the time is maddening. And it's large enough that there's not really any hope of memorizing it.

For example, the Track skill really ought to have some example DCs for things, like:
Track an animal through fresh snow - 5
Track a large animal across soft ground - 10
Follow game through a dense forest - 15
Identify a type of humanoid based on its boot-prints - 20
Track a bird that passed across open water on a cloudy moonless night - 40

They didn't do that because they don't want Players to be able to reference a chart and inform the GM that they automatically succeed at something. That is something I saw in pfs/pf1 all the time.

If they really could succeed on a 1, then why is that a problem? Seems like it would save time at the table.

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Rebecca wrote:
vestris wrote:

Just wanted to add that neither of my groups had a cleric so far, adventures on lvl 1 and 4 have been fairly easy.

For Healing we had an alchemist and a paladin on level 1, a wildshape druid and a divine sorcerer on 4 the sorcerer was competent enough on his own to heal the group, natural healing helped in between fights to take on a couple of encounters every day.

On my own encounter testing optimized clerics made most fights/adventures almost trivial in the damage department, they had some healing spells prepared which seemed almost unnecessary especially with a second healer (paladin or druid) on board.

Curious about this - in our level 1 group we were all (3 fighters and a bard) at about half hp after the first doomsday dawn fight, and one character used a hero point to not die in fight two. Then we rested overnight, got back to half hp (adding about 3 each, as I recall) and promptly went to fight three, where another fighter had to use hero point and we went and rested. We put out lots of damage, but the monsters did this as well, and the non-cleric healing we had was totally insufficient (sooth doing d6+4, as I recall, and the level * con overnight).

My current position is that every party needs a cleric, perhaps an alternative healer as well (for when the cleric is beaten up) and I sense a problem in society play, where the table composition is "random."

This mirrors my experience as well. At level 1, we had a bard who was totally unable to keep up with the healing demands by himself. This was exacerbated by the fact that "go back to town and heal up at the temple" is almost as expensive as chugging healing potions!

At level 4, they have been doing better, with a druid as the primary healer. But it still feels like they are running on fumes healing-wise after one or two fights. We are playing the our third session of Pale Mountain tonight, and I'm seriously worried that there will be a TPK because the group's healing resources have been completely exhausted and they are about to hit the adventure's climax.

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Danbala wrote:
Tamago wrote:

I do want Clerics to be the best healers in the game, . . . .

I agree generally with your sentiments but I'd like to challenge you a bit on this one point. Why -- other than tradition -- should clerics be the healer? I agree that they should be among the best. But I think the game would benefit if other classes were equally good.

And it might also encourage more variety in cleric builds since you wouldnt feel that you were letting the party down everytime you chose an option that didn't optimize healing.

Good question. I think tradition is really the main reason. And I absolutely *do* think that other classes should be able to be great healers.

In my opinion, it should be possible to build a bard, or druid, or sorcerer or whatever who is a better healer than a "standard" cleric. But if someone takes a cleric and really optimizes them for healing more than anything else, I want that to be the best healing in the game.

But again, there's no particular reason clerics should be the ones who are the best, aside from tradition. As long as a cleric doesn't feel required in order to have a prayer of surviving the dungeon (pun intended), I'll be happy.

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David Silver - Ponyfinder wrote:
I want to put in my two copper to say can we not nerf clerics? I want everyone to be this awesome. Raise the others up. Cleric does not need to be lowered. Everyone should shine this bright. They don't. Can we fix that?

This!

With increased hit points and nerfing wands, the need for healing in PF2 is greater than ever. We need lots of classes to be good at it in order to have PCs keep going for more than a couple of fights at a time.

I do want Clerics to be the best healers in the game, but right now they are almost the only ones who can keep a party on their feet. I think that's a problem, because it means parties can't have a diverse composition, since someone will be "stuck" playing the Cleric.

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Just chiming in here to say that everyone in my group also didn't get that Soothe was a healing spell (I didn't know until I made a similar post in the forums a few weeks ago!).

Based on the name, we thought that the spell would be some kind of calm emotions-type thing.

Might I suggest changing the name of the spell? Perhaps something like "Soothe Wounds" or "Succor" would better convey what the spell does?

I agree with Mekkis that having short descriptions of spells/feats/powers will be essential in the final rulebook!

Thanks!

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Personally, I've always played that you could move diagonally through soft corners (e.g. past a pillar or tree or pit or whatever), but not through hard corners (e.g. a door, a wall, etc.)

But that is something that should be clarified one way or the other in the rules.

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So, what can we do about it? Here are a couple of suggestions:

a) Eliminate traits that have additional rules associated with them. Require the rules text to be printed in the ability it modifies. This is the simplest solution, but it would involve a lot of reprinting text, and use up room that could be used to put more content in the game. So not ideal.

b) Call out the feats that have special baggage attached to them. Maybe with bold or an icon of some kind? It might also be useful to provide a page number reference for where the player needs to go to look up what that trait does.

Do any of you have other ideas that would help with this situation?

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Xenocrat wrote:
Page 195, “Summoned,” second paragraph, first sentence. They act when you cast.

Aha! That makes sense. They probably ought to call that out in the spell description, since it's non-obvious from the text of the spell itself that says they get to act right away.

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So, in part 2 of Doomsday Dawn, one of my PCs was a druid with a Large-sized bear companion. However, many of the passages in the Tomb of Tular Seft are only five feet wide.

The only reference I could find in the rules for how to handle this was the Acrobatics "Squeeze" activity, which on a success allows you to move 5 feet per minute of squeezing! That seems incredibly harsh to me, and basically meant that it was impossible for the druid to bring his bear into the dungeon with the party in anything close to a reasonable time.

I think that use of Squeeze makes sense if you are talking about a creature trying to fit through a really small space, like a human contorting themselves through a 1-foot-wide crack in a wall or something. But for a Large creature to take a full minute to move five feet down a five foot wide passage seems really out of whack.

Am I missing something? Or does this need to be addressed somehow?

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