Pathfinder

The race to ancestry thing is, honestly, the dumbest thing they're doing. Like.... What the hell is the point of that?

Might as well just make everyone human with different stat bonuses, like Shadowrun does (BOOOOOOOOOORIIIIIIIIIIIING)

edited 16th Mar '18 8:22:53 AM by BlackSunNocturne

So, actually searching through the classes, I found there is a lack of a proper Warlock class, except as an archetype for the Vigilante.

@2801 From what I'm reading, "ancestry" mechanically works exactly the same as "race"; they're just using a different name for it. And honestly, given the ugly linguistic history of the term "race," I think it's a good call. It's honestly a cosmetic change, and complaining about that seems, well, to be a petty move.

@2802 You mean, a warlock a la 3.5? Well, honestly, it's not like they were all that good in 3.5 - that was definitely a "play for flavor, not for effectiveness" class. If you were looking for something that played in that style... hrm... I guess it depends on what you were looking for. A witch or shaman that loads up on hexes has those work much like invocations. The more buff-oriented warlock builds are better approximated with either magus or bloodrager. Eldritch Heritage is essential if the "touched by otherwordly forces" aspect is a must and you didn't take bloodrager (heck, even if you did take bloodrager, it's not a terrible feat line to consider - you can easily hit the prereqs). Heck, it's not out of the question to go really wacky and just build a straight-up sorcerer that rocks the right spells and bloodline abilities to do everything a warlock could do in 3.5, but better.

We're never going to see a proper PF conversion of warlock simply because you can put together a more powerful version of whatever warlock build you want with other classes and feat combos.

Yeah, it seems like a purely cosmetic thing: It's just that instead of 'race,' which in and of itself has some pretty loaded colonialist connotations, they've chosen 'ancestry,' which is far more value-neutral.

I just genuinely dislike changes that do utterly nothing. I swear, it's just because Paizo wants to be politically correct. I mean, you know what they could have called it instead? Species.

Heritage just sounds stupid to me, because it sound like everyone's playing a Human with the Racial Heritage feat.

You know what Paizo could have done that would have done more? Remove this from the Assassin PRC:

edited 19th Mar '18 9:20:53 AM by BlackSunNocturne

"Species" would probably be more biologically correct term, but it also sounds a bit... eh, dehumanizing? Reminds me of how non-human humanoids used to be called "demihumans" back in the day.

Please tell me we're not doing the 'political correctness' pish just because they changed a name to not use a term made up in the 19th century by European colonizers trying to justify their exploitation of most of the rest of the globe. It's tedious.

'Species' also isn't correct for half-elves or half-orcs. Or even tieflings or aasimar. Heck, aren't most of the part-elementals also humans with a different heritage? So species wouldn't be correct terminology there, either.

Tieflings, Aasamir and the Genie-kin are supposed to be of any race/species/heritage/whateverthefuckweshouldcallthem, but people tend to only depict them as half-humans.

Hell, the official description for Oreads mentions they're most commonly of dwarven descent, and yet the only two pieces of official artwork we have of them are human-descended Oreads.

edited 19th Mar '18 11:47:54 AM by BlackSunNocturne

@2805 Correction: it does utterly nothing for you. The game exists to cater to more than just yourself. I mean, changing the term from "race" to "heritage" (or if they had picked "ancestry" or something else) doesn't really matter for me personally. But it also doesn't hurt me, and I can see how it might be a welcome change to someone else. If it doesn't do anything bad anywhere but manages to make other people feel more welcome (and thus, expanding the hobby)? It's a good move in my eyes.

Also, there's going to inevitably be something that actually does make the game worse (nothing's perfect, after all); might as well just wait for that rather than complain about a change that doesn't affect you at all.

As for Warlock... well, yeah, the WOTC-copyrighted nature of the class also contributes to that issue, but it's worth noting that PF doesn't even bother writing around trademarks to make their own version, probably because sorcerer bloodlines (and, relatedly, Eldritch Heritage) already uses the flavor behind the warlock, and there are better ways (heck, even in 3.0) of doing what the warlock does mechanically.

@2806, @2807 There's also that.

There is also that if they are calling it Ancestry, they could give special stuff to different human ethnicity(rather than them being "race trait with prerequisite requiring ethnicity") from 1e/Golarion as well.

Also it could help them separate species and culture and allow mixing up by doing stuff like human who grew up in dwarven culture without having awkward terminology for it.

edited 20th Mar '18 12:02:18 AM by SpookyMask

Well, mostly, I had meant the "make a deal with a magical being" aspect of the Warlock.

I was kinda digging the 5e's Celestial Warlock fluff that they basically made the most cynical deal to be a good person in exchange for neat powers.

@2811 Well, fluff-wise, you can very easily fluff out the powers of a sorcerer, an oracle, or a bloodrager to come from a deal with a magical being. I did that, in fact - I made an oracle who got his powers by making a trade with a fae lord of some variety (the character never found out the exact nature of said lord). The lord absconded with his hearing, and he got to have spells and revelations. Heck, you can even justify taking the Eldritch Heritage line of feats by making such a deal partway through play (or in the background, if you're building at a higher level). It wouldn't take me too much effort to build it into a different background for a class (the most obvious and entertaining would be the Magical Child archetype for a vigilante), but those three are the ones where it's basically baked into the basic concept of the class.

Another aspect of PF 2 E's Ancestry system is that its not a static choice; as you advance, your ancestry will change in that you might start as a dwarf and double down on dwarven options, or might branch out as you level up. I wonder if it's gonna be a shared resource with the class feats... an interesting idea if they make it worth it, but Paizo's history doesn't give me hope.

The things I am looking forward to the most in 2E are the action economy (3 actions sounds so much simpler and smoother, and how the other aspects are being incorporated into the system are promising, like healing spells having three different modes depending on how many actions are used, reactions being the only thing giving me pause) and the Resonance system, which appeals to my desire for complexity and making magic items simpler. And making Charisma have a core use for everybody.

There were at least a couple of races with things of that nature as was. Kobolds had a feat tree that eventually made them closer to bipedal dragons, with wings, breath weapons, the whole shebang.

I don't have an opinion one way or another on the whole ancestry terminology but I don't think any kind of racial feat trees mean much differently than 1e unless they don't take away from your general feats.

Aasimar also had options for feats that added stuff like metallic skin and wings.

So, now that the adventure path has been wrapped up, does anyone have any opinions on Ruins of Azlant? I'm roughly halfway through reading it. Love the concept and setting, the first two adventure paths were great, the third one seems to drop the ball a bit. Granted, I haven't read it fully yet.

And has anyone taken a look at the War for the Crown? I'm pretty excited for a more politics/intrigue -heavy AP, personally.

Ruins of Azlant is pretty great, though I'm weirded out you think 3rd book is let down, thats the 4th book I do find it pretty awkward how fifth book is pretty much just a whole dungeon(it really tries to skim the "let's travel to the dungeon" part) and I'm unsure how sixth book feels in practice, but I'd still say its overally great.

War for the Crown is hypest thing I know It has great mix of drama/tragedy/intrigue/mystery/comedy if you ask me. You could very easily run first session of first book without any combat and in second book assuming players take their time and don't get caught, if they do everything well they can just make big bad's guards be like "Okay, we are fucking out of here" and convince main opponent to surrender peacefully by convincing his methods are wrong.

I haven't read the fourth one yet. And I'm not saying that the third one is disappointment really, I just felt like that the whole 'searching for clues and following the trail' part was implemented in a bit half-assed way.

And based on that, the War for the Crown sounds like something that would work with my current group. They've been doing a pretty good Pacifist Run in the current game, engaging in combat only when there's no other option.

oh lord they're making crit failures an official part of the game

Rules that will be getting disregarded for 500 Alex!

^^To be more accurate, they are making spells have scaling effect based on how well you succeed or fail at the spell. So instead of save or die spells, the die effect is just if you fail dc by 10 or more, mean while if you succeed with ten or more you don't get any effect. So basically, if you just fail, not that bad effect, if you just succeed, mild effect.

Neither of you didn't really read that blog right? <_< The change is actually much better than 1e stuff.

Decided to pick few posts on comments that I thought demonstrate stuff well. If ye think this is bad change, we really need a discussion

(and to note, skill wise its not different from "If you fail climb dc by 5 or more, you fall" except in 1e that 10 is much more merciful than 5 :P And to clarify, nat 1 isn't auto crit failure, just auto failure)

edited 31st Mar '18 8:58:52 AM by SpookyMask

It's both. Exceed the DC by 10 or more or get a nat 20 and it's a critical and/or automatic success. Fail by 10 or more or roll a nat 1 and it's a critical and/or automatic failure. I personally think failing a roll by virtue of rolling the absolutely lowest value possible is punishment enough.

edited 31st Mar '18 9:09:27 AM by Hashil

Nope. Here is contrary, there is nothing in blog post that says nat 20 is critical success and nat 1 is critical failure. Its just auto success and auto failure, but not crit success/failure

I don't know why blog post bothers to say it, but it says "or if you rolled a natural 20 AND met OR exceeded the target DC"

edited 31st Mar '18 9:47:57 AM by SpookyMask

... except for the parts where they explicitly name them as "Critical Success" and "Critical Failure" in the 3rd paragraph.

"Examples

Let's start with a fireball spell. In Pathfinder First Edition, if you succeed the Reflex save, you take only half damage, and evasion allows you to take no damage on a successful save. In Pathfinder Second Edition, here are the degrees of success for fireball (and many of its old friends like lightning bolt and cone of cold) in the playtest.

• Success Half damage
• Critical Success (bolding mine) No damage
• Failure Full damage
• Critical Failure Double damage

Any character who critically succeeds takes no damage, and characters with evasion count their successes as critical successes. What about someone legendary at Reflex saves with improved evasion? They count critical failures as failures and thus can never suffer the deadliest effects of a Reflex save, even on a natural 1!"

Maybe you should read the article before you start excusing other people of not doing so.

edited 31st Mar '18 9:52:42 AM by Hashil

Umm, no. Crit Success in 2e is when you exceed dc by 10, thats what the blog says.

I do concede on one thing, it says "if you rolled a natural 1 and didn't meet the target DC, then you critically failed" so I was wrong about that one since if I now understood it right, if dc is 10, you roll nat 1 and result is 9 in total, you crit fail while if you had 11 as result with nat 1 it would have been regular fail

edited 31st Mar '18 9:57:05 AM by SpookyMask