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hyphz posted:This is one of the things that's dogged PF2e since it came out - that it gives the player a huge amount of choice, but too many of those choices are either irrelevant or have a single best option in practice. This I honestly agree with, having tried out the builder a few times, I sure do constantly come across points where it's like "Choose one of these!" and then presents me with a list of seven things I genuinely don't care about and can't imagine I ever would. Like not even one of them is the obvious good option, unless one of the options on the list is "Go pick from a different list."
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Jan 10, 2024 18:32
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theironjef posted:This I honestly agree with, having tried out the builder a few times, I sure do constantly come across points where it's like "Choose one of these!" and then presents me with a list of seven things I genuinely don't care about and can't imagine I ever would. Like not even one of them is the obvious good option, unless one of the options on the list is "Go pick from a different list." Yea, there's those as well. If you have PF2e munchkins you'll find that every character has mysteriously adopted the Dwarven culture in order to take Unburdened Iron (you can wear heavy armor with no speed penalty) because it's so much better than other Ancestry feats..
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Jan 10, 2024 18:37
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Oh, come on. Next you're going to tell me my 4e players aren't excited about playing sohei with radiant weapons. They're obviously fascinated by medieval Japanese monasticism.
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Jan 10, 2024 18:42
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of the two i'd actually prefer the set of flavor/mechanical incentives from Pathfinder, because the idea of Dwarves as the setting's version of America, with a (presumably alcohol-serving) Dwarven McDonald's in every city and Dwarf Hollywood pumping out movies that everyone else in the world watches is pretty funny, while encouraging D&D players to be weebs is just redundant
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Jan 10, 2024 18:45
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hyphz posted:This is one of the things that's dogged PF2e since it came out - that it gives the player a huge amount of choice, but too many of those choices are either irrelevant or have a single best option in practice. As I said, the choosing-between-ribbon-abilities aspect is definitely one of the system’s biggest problems. (The Remaster makes some improvements to skill feats, but the basic problem is still there.) Though one thing I do like is that while it has a lot of bad options, it doesn’t have a lot of trap options. There probably aren’t many players choosing Approximate/Eye for Numbers under the illusion that it’s likely to be useful.
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Jan 10, 2024 18:47
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My group has been playing Kingmaker in PF2e and you don't HAVE to go for optimal builds, and it feels like there aren't nearly as many trap options as there were in previous versions. The only real system flaw we've felt like we run into is that the numbers are a little too tightly bound, and you'll either wipe the floor with the enemy, or barely make it out without someone getting pasted with very little in between.
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Jan 10, 2024 18:49
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Silver2195 posted:There probably aren’t many players choosing Approximate/Eye for Numbers under the illusion that it’s likely to be useful. That’s the other side of the problem - the D&D3.5 style feat creep where the GM now has to remember that any PC without that feat can’t accurately estimate numbers. The Lost Omens books are terrible for this, technically making you take a feat to be allowed to ask the GM to remind you about in game facts you’ve forgotten.
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Jan 10, 2024 19:00
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theironjef posted:. Like not even one of them is the obvious good option, unless one of the options on the list is "Go pick from a different list." This is a huge plus in my book and one of the biggest improvements from 5E.
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Jan 10, 2024 20:03
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Really? I think one obvious good option is better than 7 completely irrelevant options. Hell, I think having NO options is better than that.
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Jan 10, 2024 20:44
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I think what they're saying is that in PF2e if you don't like any of your options at level you can pick options from lower levels because damned near everything is a Feat.
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Jan 10, 2024 20:46
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hyphz posted:That’s the other side of the problem - the D&D3.5 style feat creep where the GM now has to remember that any PC without that feat can’t accurately estimate numbers. The Lost Omens books are terrible for this, technically making you take a feat to be allowed to ask the GM to remind you about in game facts you’ve forgotten.
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Jan 10, 2024 20:53
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YggdrasilTM posted:Really? I think one obvious good option is better than 7 completely irrelevant options. Having one obvious optimal choice makes it a non-choice. Pf2 doesn't give you irrelevant options, you just don't have to worry about building a useless character because the gap between an optimized build and an unoptimized build is a lot smaller. You can actually pick things based on the character you want to make and not the math.
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Jan 10, 2024 21:03
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For the record I was never concerned that pf2e characters are either over or underpowered or hard to keep balanced. A lot of level options are just boring and hard to care about is all, and that is a sort of bad design in and of itself.
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Jan 10, 2024 21:11
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CitizenKeen posted:RIP Jennell Jaquays. Genuinely a tragedy, Jaquays was one of the great ones. It's a goddamn shame that her cohort is full of hateful liches instead of, you know, people with basic human decency, let alone tireless LGBTQ activism paired with high-end game design chops.
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Jan 10, 2024 21:13
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hyphz posted:That’s the other side of the problem - the D&D3.5 style feat creep where the GM now has to remember that any PC without that feat can’t accurately estimate numbers. The Lost Omens books are terrible for this, technically making you take a feat to be allowed to ask the GM to remind you about in game facts you’ve forgotten. It doesn't let you accurately estimate numbers, it just lets you do it poorly very fast. The feat/spell is quote:Eye for Numbers quote:Approximate The "power fantasy" behind this would be Rain Man, I guess? But this doesn't make you Rain Man. Or the kind of vampire that has to stop and count if someone throws seeds might think it would be handy, but it's not. It won't even help you win the "guess how many jelly beans are in the jar" contests. It rounds to one digit, which is near useless at higher amounts. Suppose there is a pile of 1495 coins. The master approximator comes along and proclaims: "It is about 1000 coins." Somebody tosses another 10 on the pile. "It is about 2000 coins." Divide the treasure into 4 roughly equal looking piles, the counting sage confirms "They are each about 400 coins, it is equal" but any give pile could could have dozens of coins more than the one next to it. So what does the cantrip/feat do? It very roughly estimates almost instantly. People can still have "guess how many jelly beans are in the jar" contests but manual estimation takes more than 6 seconds. You can either make a random rear end guess instantly, or spend a minute being a try hard nerd who counts that the jar is x jelly beans tall by y jellybeans in circumference and therefor the volume must be near z -- and if you do it right your guess will be closer than the feat/cantrip guy. Unless the GM is kind and goes as written this is dumb, you can estimate to within the nearest 10.
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Jan 10, 2024 21:29
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Reddit had a good story about this cantrip "Years at wizard school have led to this moment. Walking down the dirt road, fresh from battle. Covered in blood and gore, you and your party just want to make camp and tend to their wounds. You're on fire duty; the barbarian said you had to find enough kindling to get a good blaze going. You've never been outside before, you barely know what a stick is. What did they think you did at wizard school? See the sun? Look at trees? Touch grass? Preposterous, you spent your time doing things that mattered, like transcribing all 17 volumes of Mongothor's Study of Elemental Magicks or cross-referencing the entire catalogue of the late 10th century output of the Arch-Wizard Caelian into one succinct treatise. But, the barbarian told you that if you didn't find enough, about 10 sticks, you'd end up like the bandits about a half mile back. So when you see a pile of 7 sticks, you breathe a sigh of relief. You've prepared for this moment. You dedicated weeks of your first year at wizard school perfecting this spell, knowing it would come in handy one day. Exhale, center your spirit, form the gestures, and make reality bend to your will. You tap into the knowledge gleaned from ancient tomes. You wield the power of creation, delving into the fabric of the universe to glean meaning unknown to the common person. You learn: There are about 10 sticks. Thank the gods, you'll live another day."
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Jan 10, 2024 21:38
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Terrible Opinions posted:This is one of those bad design elements that has popped up in nearly every system that allows for perks/merits/feats of any-kind. Where being reminded of in character knowledge is for some reason something that requires a character resource. I know there were a few feats like this in 3.5 and Wod, nad would bet money there is something like that buried in a 5e supplement. I don’t remember PF2 having a feat like that, though. Unless you count Eidetic Ear, which is for remembering exact sounds (and also being a more consistent performer) - weird and situational, yes, but I don’t think it’s meant to be a prerequisite for being reminded of things your character has already found out.
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Jan 10, 2024 21:43
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I don’t think cherry picking a silly cantrip is really illustrative that PF2 gives players no meaningful or interesting choices.
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Jan 10, 2024 21:51
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They need to put arithmancy into PF2 and give you a bonus on your attempt to beat the digital root based on how many "count things up quickly" rules toys you've bought into. EDIT: And the cantrip should give you one more digit of precision per spell level, such that a powerful wizard could quickly determine that a bundle contained 7.0000 sticks. Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 21:58 on Jan 10, 2024 |
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Jan 10, 2024 21:53
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Silver2195 posted:I don’t remember PF2 having a feat like that, though. Unless you count Eidetic Ear, which is for remembering exact sounds (and also being a more consistent performer) - weird and situational, yes, but I don’t think it’s meant to be a prerequisite for being reminded of things your character has already found out.
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Jan 10, 2024 22:07
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Ferrinus posted:They need to put arithmancy into PF2 and give you a bonus on your attempt to beat the digital root based on how many "count things up quickly" rules toys you've bought into. That way lies Sacred Geometry, and we don't talk about Sacred Geometry.
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Jan 10, 2024 22:11
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I used to play in a group where a guy would roll a handful of dice, played that one segment of Countdown against himself in about 15 to 30 seconds and then an enemy or two would disappear. I'm assuming that's Sacred Geometry.
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Jan 10, 2024 22:38
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CitizenKeen posted:RIP Jennell Jaquays. I worked with Becky a lot years and years ago when I was still in the video games industry. She's an incredibly awesome person and I feel so bad now.
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Jan 10, 2024 22:57
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LashLightning posted:I used to play in a group where a guy would roll a handful of dice, played that one segment of Countdown against himself in about 15 to 30 seconds and then an enemy or two would disappear. I'm assuming that's Sacred Geometry. Yeah it's metamagic you get to apply for 'free' if you manage to use the dice you rolled to make an equation that matches the right numbers.
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Jan 10, 2024 22:57
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bewilderment posted:Yeah it's metamagic you get to apply for 'free' if you manage to use the dice you rolled to make an equation that matches the right numbers. And of course there were calculators for it.
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Jan 10, 2024 23:38
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Silver2195 posted:I don’t remember PF2 having a feat like that, though. Unless you count Eidetic Ear, which is for remembering exact sounds (and also being a more consistent performer) - weird and situational, yes, but I don’t think it’s meant to be a prerequisite for being reminded of things your character has already found out. Also, unburdened iron???? Seriously??? Like I don't deny it's a solid feat but I've never heard of it being ridiculously prevalent MadScientistWorking fucked around with this message at 00:07 on Jan 11, 2024 |
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Jan 11, 2024 00:01
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Hunter Noventa posted:That way lies Sacred Geometry, and we don't talk about Sacred Geometry. I mean, not within earshot of the uninitiated.
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Jan 11, 2024 00:04
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bewilderment posted:Yeah it's metamagic you get to apply for 'free' if you manage to use the dice you rolled to make an equation that matches the right numbers. this is the best thing I've ever heard about Pathfinder Hunter Noventa posted:And of course there were calculators for it. not this tho. this sucks
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Jan 11, 2024 00:07
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bewilderment posted:Yeah it's metamagic you get to apply for 'free' if you manage to use the dice you rolled to make an equation that matches the right numbers. https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/sacred-geometry/ Holy poo poo who ever thought this feat was okay?
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Jan 11, 2024 00:11
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Kurieg posted:https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/sacred-geometry/
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Jan 11, 2024 00:14
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the intended use case for sacred geometry is for the gm to roll some dice behind the screen, spend a few seconds pretending to shuffle them around, then go "oh yeah the evil wizard is totally able to use a quickened empowered fireball with a 3rd-level spell slot"
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Jan 11, 2024 00:15
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theironjef posted:Man way to kill your whole point, now everyone knows you didn't try a game and just tried to sneak in a nonfunctional dig against it anyway. Classes in 4e play wildly differently from one another, they just use a similar organizational structure. Why not go ahead and say "weeaboo fightin magic" or "tabletop WOW" while you're in there. What a way to say you've no idea who the posters on these boards are. Huge 4e fan and defender here - and even currently running my own retroclone. I just don't think it's a flawless system. (I'll even defend the Slayer because I saw at my own table how much a player responded to the scout and the slayer when they'd been faffing round and getting confused with the pre-Essentials classes). They in some ways play differently to each other. In others? You think the same way to play them and they use the same resource management. Structural similarity is an important type of similarity.
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Jan 11, 2024 00:23
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Kurieg posted:https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/sacred-geometry/
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Jan 11, 2024 00:26
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That actually rocks lmao. Would not be for like a long going campaign, but that seems like it'd be fun with like a group of wizards oneshot. It's Educational 
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Jan 11, 2024 00:32
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neonchameleon posted:What a way to say you've no idea who the posters on these boards are. Huge 4e fan and defender here - and even currently running my own retroclone. I just don't think it's a flawless system. (I'll even defend the Slayer because I saw at my own table how much a player responded to the scout and the slayer when they'd been faffing round and getting confused with the pre-Essentials classes). Fair enough, I'll retract and reevaluate why I'm so trigger happy on defense of my baby edition.
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Jan 11, 2024 00:45
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theironjef posted:Fair enough, I'll retract and reevaluate why I'm so trigger happy on defense of my baby edition. Because it deserves it.
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Jan 11, 2024 00:59
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Dexo posted:That actually rocks lmao. The lovely part is if you can't make the target number with the rolled dice, the spell is expended and you lose your turn.
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Jan 11, 2024 01:17
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We all love 4th edition here and vie for its affection like high school students in a dating sim.
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Jan 11, 2024 01:18
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Nuns with Guns posted:We all love 4th edition here and vie for its affection like high school students in a dating sim. 4e was totally smiling at me in the hall. (I smelled its hair!)
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Jan 11, 2024 01:20
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The jock lazylord smiled at me and Immediately attacked the guy at the next locker as a free action.
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Jan 11, 2024 01:26
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