Off-guard will take some getting used to, but it kinda makes more sense - being flat-footed to a particular creature was always a bit of a weird concept.
this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2023
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Pathfinder 2e General Discussion
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"Ability scores have been removed" YES! FINALLY!
Except now we've lost the ability to slowly invest in attributes over 18. Not good imo, and having ability scores didn't raise problems
Paizo originally wanted to get rid of ability scores and just use modifiers with 2nd Edition, but they were afraid of a D&D 4th Edition schism happening and didn't make the change when they were releasing it. Now they have the perfect opportunity to make the shift without angering the playerbase.
What I have heard is that they haven't quite finished working out how the change from attributes to modifiers will be implemented, but it is something being handled with the official changes of the remaster. What they have said so far is that we will still have the ability to raise ability modifiers above 18, we just don't know how it will work yet.
If anything I think it'd be an improvement if the text just said "you can't raise an ability modifier over +4 until lv10, and over +5 until lv20." It'd free up an ability boost at levels 5 and 15 too, which would be nice for more MAD builds.
There will still be the ability to do this, I don't know the exact mechanic, but it was asked and answered when Paizo was doing their Livestreams regarding the remaster
Instead of gaining +1 ability point, could just gain +0.5 modifier, with fractions rounding down on rolls. That would require that people spend two of them in the same ability to see a mechanical benefit though.
Oooh, wish is a ritual now? Interesting...
Honestly, I think that makes more sense now that Paizo has proposed the adjustment.
Not sure I'm familiar. What's the adjustment?
Mostly flavor, but some mechanical. You won't be casting wish in combat any more.
From the Ritual entry on AON (emphasis mine to highlight the changes from Wish as a spell):
A ritual is an esoteric and complex spell that anyone can cast. It takes much longer to cast a ritual than a normal spell, but rituals can have more powerful effects.
When you take charge of a ritual, you are its primary caster, and others assisting you are secondary casters. You can be a primary caster for a ritual even if you can’t cast spells. You must know the ritual, and the ritual’s spell level can be no higher than half your level rounded up. You must also have the required proficiency rank in the skill used for the ritual’s primary check (see Checks below), and as the primary caster, you must attempt this skill check to determine the ritual’s effects. The primary skill check determines the tradition. Rituals do not require spell slots to cast. You can heighten a ritual up to half your level rounded up, decided when the ritual is initiated. A ritual always takes at least 1 hour to perform, and often longer. While a ritual is a downtime activity, it’s possible—albeit risky—to perform a ritual during exploration with enough uninterrupted time. A ritual’s casting time is usually listed in days. Each day of casting requires 8 hours of participation in the ritual from all casters, with breaks during multiday rituals to allow rest. One caster can continue a multiday ritual, usually with some light chanting or meditation, while the other casters rest. All rituals require material, somatic, and verbal components throughout their casting time.
Considering that Wish is supposed to be the end-all-be-all of spells, it makes sense that it would be a ritual rather than just a quick "wave my hands and say mumbo jumbo" cast as an afterthought. It now takes at least an hour, requires gathering other spell casters, multiple checks, and it fits the description of a ritual in that it can have more powerful effects than a normal spell.
Edit to add: I may have misunderstood your question. The adjustment I was referring too was the change from a spell to a ritual, not that rituals had been adjusted.
I'm assuming they're also changing the wish-like spells for each tradition like alter reality then? I'd like to see if outside of that they'll put back a joker style spell (the cast any spell of a lower level part of wish) or if it's something they're moving away from. It feel like a good option to have as a caster, one way or another, and I'm not sure I'm a fan of seeing it fully go away
I think I'd be fine with Wish proper being a ritual, but the arcane wildcard spell being renamed. I like the niche of "whatever spell you want" as a max level spell, and would be sad to see it gone.
Ah thanks for the breakdown. Turns out I misunderstood your original comment, thinking there was already a rewritten wish ritual out there from paizo.
Vitality and void, huh? I approve of the alliteration.
I'm not sure about vitality for positive though, "vitality damage" doesn't sound to me like something that only affects undead
I agree. While I do like some changes I disklike some others. Though I am very much not angry at Paizo, I don't want to know how difficult it was to find everything potentially copyrighted and then come up with sensible alternatives.
Most of this is good, but I think renaming the geniekin heritages is a bit much. The old names are older than D&D and common enough in culture that there's no way there's a copyright issue
It's more an issue of if there is a risk of litigation, or potential avenues of it. Having less things potentially be targets helps differentiate a products identity more and have less 'weight' if it is used in court as evidence thereof.
Another benefit is this allows them to deviate from past/common tropes that people would expect from a "Shaitan" or any other renamed creatures based on knowledge from other systems or analogous creatures of myth in future writing - even if they still borrow from the latter in most creatures cases.
As far as I can tell the only geniekin with a name change is ifrit. All other changes are to the actual genies. And at least in principle I think the changes are good: ifrit and efreeti are just different ways to transliterate the same Arabic word, as are (and this is much worse) djinn and genie. AFAIK there is nothing relating to earth in the word Shaytan or to water in the word Marid. I don't know much about the new names, but at least the duplication was surely only there for continuity reasons (which are now a detriment rather than a boon).
Anyone know what's the meaning of the spell schools one?
The 8 spell schools are very D&D so they have to go in the Remaster. For specialist wizards, they'll instead have actual schools that they studied at, with various themes like the "School of Battle Magic", with a predefined list of spells they specialise in.
Spell schools were invented for Dragonlance in the lead up to the 2e era. The idea of an Illusionist is probably demonstrable enough outside of D&D, but the rest are pure TSR lore.
Other fantasy worlds slice up magic differently. I personally would like to see the concept of magic schools stick around in some form but the D&D schools always felt a bit arbitrary in their divisions.
I feel like necromancy could definitely be split up into "actual NECROmancy" and "Restoration is a perfectly valid school of magic, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise!"
Enchantment also feels like it could stay, though maybe with a different name; although realistically it's already kinda covered by the [Mental] trait. Anything that previously referred to "enchantment spells" could be changed to refer to "mental spells"
Abjuration, Conjuration, Transmutation, and Evocation were always the ones that felt the weakest in terms of having well-defined boundaries.
I agree that the schools always felt a little arbitrary. Abjuration in particular always felt kinda weak to me, even in concept.
I think they could probably just leave it to a potentially open-ended set of traits. Some could even have multiple, which helps with the arbitrariness. Characters could specialize in spells that have particular traits.
Agreed. My two cents is also that "Glamour" would be a way better word for Illusions, but it sounds like that won't be changing
It would depend on the type of illusion for me, but yeah Glamour could absolutely be a trait that someone could specialize in.
As far as I can tell the only geniekin with a name change is ifrit. All other changes are to the actual genies. And at least in principle I think the changes are good: ifrit and efreeti are just different ways to transliterate the same Arabic word, as are (and this is much worse) djinn and genie. AFAIK there is nothing relating to earth in the word Shaytan or to water in the word Marid. I don't know much about the new names, but at least the duplication was surely only there for continuity reasons (which are now a detriment rather than a boon).
@TheOrs @SenseiRat After doing a 2 minute read on Wikipedia about the name marid, my guess is the water aspect comes from people with a Western European background conflating it with the Latin word for sea which is mare. That’s what I did when I saw the word. It’s definitely a false cognate though.
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