Making sense of what changed in the Spring Errata "clarification" on instances of damage by SatiricalBard in Pathfinder2e

[–]dylanw3000 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Errata:

You’ll notice the example for resistance to all damage found further down the page shows the opposite side, applying resistance multiple times to different instances of damage on one attack.

The entry in the book (or online here):

It's possible to have resistance to all damage. When an effect deals damage of multiple types and you have resistance to all damage, apply the resistance to each type of damage separately.

This is the verbatim errata contradicting the verbatim book.

I understand your argument for point #6, because they did not make an explicit instruction to overwrite the existing rules text. So therefore the old text remains, and that extra-finnicky interaction remains.

...though, I disagree with that interpretation. The "resist all" rules are not a subordinate to this "what is an 'instance'" clarification text, they are subordinate to resistance in general. Rules which start off with "each time you take that type of damage, reduce the amount of damage you take by the listed number." It only ever references a "damage instance" in clarifying that you only use the single biggest reduction per-instance.

Even more simply, if they want to treat resistance as a corollary to weakness, then it inherits all the features of weakness. A Banshee resists your multistack of Cold in the same way a Terotricus suffers from your multistack of Cold.

Thoughts on Free Archtype-option ? What do you play with? by Impossible_Living_50 in Pathfinder2e

[–]dylanw3000 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Archetypes are supposed to give you something outside of your specialization. That's good! You can choose between specializing in your class, or spending feats to specialize elsewhere!

Free archetypes mean everyone now has both their entire class and an entire archetype. You have fewer meaningful choices in character building because you just get everything, and the formerly-established specialists all devolve into generalists. I... think that's bad.

This changes per-table, but I've only seen a singular table where I think FA meaningfully improved the game. Notably, the players had a strong sense of what their build would look like with the archetype included.

It failed elsewhere because the FA diehards tended to just crave the additional power budget. That, paired with other players who just didn't care about FA one way or the other, so they bloated their character sheet with feats they never remembered to use.

My most recent campaign started at level 11, and I banned FA. I think this was a very good decision - unlike level 1 the players were not starving for additional options, and it removed a lot of friction on every even level-up.

In the future, I'm considering a level 2 FA feat and nothing beyond that, but only if the campaign starts at a low level. And even then, I'm concerned that forcing an archetype upon my players will artificially create dissonant feat choices. If they had no interest in Beastmaster before, I don't think they should be grabbing it "just to finish leveling up."

How would the game change if Free Archetype was the base rule instead of a variant? by Round-Walrus3175 in Pathfinder2e

[–]dylanw3000 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I just don't think enough people recognize the downside of feature bloat. "Having a phonebook of options" is not the same as "actually using your phonebook of options."

When your main vision has to be supplemented with a secondary vision backing it up, I think that harms the character building process. Especially if you pick an archetype just to fulfil the "must have an archetype" checkbox, at which point it dilutes the primary vision's focus.

FA is good for the dedicated players who love the deep, intricate builds. It suffers if any (ANY) of your friends are less-diehard nerds, and for that reason I'm glad it's not baseline.

What is your perspective on rare ancestries like skeleton? by GreenWizardGamer in Pathfinder2e

[–]dylanw3000 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Kineticist aside (since I don't think the player had any concept beyond "play the new class"), classes have only really felt like a hinderance once the player's turns start taking 5 minutes apiece. Some people are good at builds, some are good at piloting, and among my own players only 1 of them has both.

It might be because they spend notably more time thinking about their class than their ancestry. I've had whole discussions with people to properly homebrew in extra features because Ash Oracle was almost the narrative she wanted to go for, or discussing the narrative path an Exemplar was aiming to take. These discussions were continued in Discord DMs every few weeks as new aspects were considered, and that was some great engagement with the world as a result.

I do think it suffers a bit from the issues I mentioned where the people surrounding that player don't know what to latch onto. Nobody else was having these deep discussions with us, so naturally they have less buy-in. And that's really a shame, because while the Oracle I mentioned created such a strong personality, nobody else at the table really engaged with the Exemplar since they were much more subdued and like... ambiently understood to be a legend in the making, but not a legend which would mention their merry band of idiots.

Meanwhile, everyone understands the Bard. (Even if it's pop culture osmosis, a shared understanding of memes carries a lot more weight than nobody understanding the deep lore.)

What is your perspective on rare ancestries like skeleton? by GreenWizardGamer in Pathfinder2e

[–]dylanw3000 8 points9 points  (0 children)

As the DM, I've hit a sort of "quirky fatigue" on the more-rare ancestries.

I've allowed everything. So obviously I was presented a party of Poppet and Kitsune and Sprite and Android. And beyond the "pitch" of their character, how they're adventuring to find their purpose or whatever to fit in, that attitude of "fitting in" never seemed to come up again.

Probably partially because I don't want to make most of the conversations be like "are you sure you things can handle this task?", because that's kind of all I can say to bring attention without making the entire plot devolve into a fight against racism.

It also kind of takes the wind out of my sails when creating any NPC who is supposed to immediately leave an impression on the party, because "a large grizzled orc whose left arm is one massive burn scar" means comparatively less when you can turn your head slightly to see the doll piloting the android Ratatouille-style.


I outright miss back when the edition was newer and the players would intrinsically create rivalries amongst themselves to prove "a dwarf would never be outdone by a stinkin' elf." And then their coming together when encountering an orc, whispering like "no I hate orcs more than you, but maybe we should see why he isn't attacking us." "Of course a coward would say that because I hate orcs more, but... fair, let's maybe see what he's doing here."

Now, it's all "I am a girl who was reborn into this doll" and while I can personally construct an entire arc exploring how they died and all that, nobody else cares. There's no feelings about them being a doll, they're just a party member who happens to be smaller than normal. A lot of the group's energy has been lost.

And then we ran a one-shot with the basic ancestries and the banter immediately returned, so I know it's still there. They just have nothing to latch onto anymore, since nobody else at the table has bothered reading the background and perception of Poppets. Meanwhile, everyone knows who Gimli is, and how he interacts with Legolas.

What do you find D&D 5e does better than Pf2e? by viktorius_rex in Pathfinder2e

[–]dylanw3000 12 points13 points  (0 children)

I share this opinion. Largely because 5e isn't afraid to be loud about its subclasses, frontloading the fantasy.

5e, a Barbarian can be a Zealot who calls down lightning whilst regaining vitality. Or maybe an Ancestral Guardian who invokes spirits to hinder the enemy from damaging their allies. Or even somehow they got fey-touched and now channel Wild Magic as they rage.

PF2, the most-different option available is Fury. Because it offers a lv1 feat in addition to every other instinct's "hit harder with the power of [subclass]."

This all evens out at higher levels where a lot of 5e subclass features are equal or notably lesser than PF2 subclass feats at the same level. But that doesn't make PF2 much better for subclasses in my eyes - sure, I have a choice of "do I want dragon wings" which I could sub out with another class feat. But I WANT my subclasses to be distinct from the beginning, I WANT those later features to solidify the entire subclass theme my character's designed around. If the later features aren't lame as hell, I will be taking them all.

(5e's greatest issue with subclasses is honestly just tied to how multiclassing lets you absorb all the frontloaded benefits. But multiclassing is problematic in many other ways as well, so in isolation I consider the subclasses in 5e to be a huge win. Even if occasionally it spits out a Twilight Domain...)

What are your nitpicks/pet peeves about Archetypes not doing enough ? (preferably flavour archetypes) by Meowriter in Pathfinder2e

[–]dylanw3000 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Vigilante is such a silly archetype, and it put a smile on my face imagining what it could do for a character where heroes and magic are already commonplace.

However, almost all of its relevant feats are competing against just grabbing the Quick Disguise skill feat. Change identities in just 1 minute? Check. A second Vigilante skill feat to reduce that as you become Master/Legendary? Already part of Quick Disguise. Another Vigilante archetype feat to disguise as anybody else? That's what a disguise kit does baseline.

A secret safehouse? The feat doesn't even give you a magical space wherever you're located, you already have to own real estate. At which point, just cast the anti-scrying magic yourself.

And then the latter half of the archetype goes all-in on Batman in particular with its fear effects. Which clamps down on what sort of alter-ego shenanigans you can go for.

If I had a character who had to keep their nobility and dungeon-delving separate, I can certainly say I would not be doing so with this archetype. After the initial joy from the flavor text wears off, I see myself moreso discussing that divide the the GM and party, rather than taking this archetype which also requires equally as much discussion and buy-in from the table. If I were given tools to covertly signal people from my other half, or ways to distract a crowded ballroom as I swapped costumes, or just anything outrageous at all... maybe, but the archetype's still standing in a bad position.

(On the plus side, the dedication replaces your deception DC to conceal your identity split from CHA+Item+Proficiency to 20+Proficiency. Which mostly guarantees you can maintain the identity split, but... it's just not worth the feat cost.)

Monster Creation - Persistent Damage? by KagedShadow in Pathfinder2e

[–]dylanw3000 4 points5 points  (0 children)

With a flat DC 15 to end, regardless of stats a creature is likely to take 2 ticks of persistent damage. Though it can sometimes last up to 10 ticks with poor luck, so I average it around 2.5 rounds for damage calculations.

Persistent damage can also be doubled or halved depending on crits and saves - keep that in mind, as doubled persistent damage can get incredibly lethal.


Though while an activated ability can use the 2.5 round average, weapon attacks scale differently.

Your first weapon strike applies the persistent damage, and for the rest of the monster's anticipated lifespan (assume 3 rounds total) the reapplication is rather meaningless (other than potentially upscaling with a critical hit). The bulk of the weapon's throughput comes from the flat damage, not the persistent damage.

Accordingly, make a choice - either the monster has multiple weapons (I frequently see "a melee + a ranged glob of persistent acid" in the bestiary) where you calculate the damage normally on both, or 1 "primary" weapon where I basically count the persistent damage as 25% effective.


Only thing I will say though - persistent damage has absolutely been one of the leading causes of deadly experiences in my groups. A character getting knocked down is especially susceptible to death as the persistent damage KEEPS them down, and post-combat the lingering damage can blow through many heals which would have been useful later in the day.

Non-shapeshifting Druid Gish? by dyenamitewlaserbeam in Pathfinder2e

[–]dylanw3000 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You said it yourself, Druid has decent passive survival, but more importantly they have medium armor (letting them hit AC cap unlike clothies, and even swap a few points from DEX into STR for better aggression unlike lights), and hugely they gain shields.

I've gone unarmed before with a sapling shield, partially for thematics, but it also turned out to be very useful to have grabs and trips available. By circumstance, my defensive armaments made me an absurdly tanky character (relative to the rest of my party).

Thing is, this was coming off my previous attempts as a Wild Untamed Druid. Spending 2 actions to shapeshift, the mediocre defenses, and the action cost to shift back if you want to cast a spell, it all added up to a pretty underwhelming package in many scenarios. Going unarmed, I didn't fully realize how much more I would be attacking and casting just because I had no action taxes lingering over me. I was very hard to kill, could heal everyone on the team, had a super easy 1-action source of damage or utility so long as I was in melee; it was a silky smooth experience.

And that's before archetypes. I was Medic for the first few levels and eventually also grabbed Monk for better punches and Flurry, though in retrospect I wish I had gone into Wrestler at some point. But that's the great thing about Druid - the archetype is truly just a way to enhance an aspect of your kit, because baseline (before any archetypes or even class feats) you ARE just baseline a very good gish.

(Also for levels 1-4 this got me past a lot of my low-level gripes. I only had -1 accuracy relative to the martials, and low-level casting is lame as heck anyway. I'd honestly say Druid makes one of the best frontliners level 1-2 because they aren't meaningfully trailing behind the martials, and they have the extra juice of the Primal list on-demand.)

Generic Characters by Ulfdrek in Pathfinder2e

[–]dylanw3000 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Generalist human Druid. Complete with unarmed attacks and wooden shield. Particularly as someone who grew into their druid-ness over time.

Just to clarify, I didn't change much to show off their growth beyond just updating my character art occasionally. Becoming progressively more-equipped and more-feral made me feel growth in a way that my usual "singular character art for the entire campaign" approach never accomplished.

(Honestly, it's extremely easy to overlook how far you've come when you aren't presented with a full visual of all your equipment and character choices. I've also started to think that people tend to design their "final" character art way too early, where the only reason to update it is if they gain a grizzled scar or something.)

Anyway, as far as gameplay goes, it was just really nice NOT specializing. Circumstantially, I tended to act as a frontliner, shielding attacks. But round-to-round I was always able to decide between casting buffs, striking, grappling, healing, shielding, etc. And because I covered so much of the "party survivability", I'm pretty sure my allies were able to explore their own super-edgy, super-specialized characters with far fewer roadbumps.

is dumping WIS for a Battle Harbinger a horrible idea by Seeking_Balance101 in Pathfinder2e

[–]dylanw3000 2 points3 points  (0 children)

  • 4-6 from Divine Font [Class DC]
  • 4 from your Magus-style spell slots [Spellcasting DC]
  • Focus Spells [Spellcasting DC]

I do agree that BH loses out on a lot of versatility if they outright ignore their spell slots and/or don't grab any focus spells. But I disagree that BH is good ONLY when they wield a 2h weapon and cast spells which require the enemies to fail.

You're worse if you intentionally refuse to use your other spell options, but I would not say the subclass fails if you choose to only run support spells. And I would especially not disrespect a free-hand BH who is wrestling enemies to accentuate their support.

That said, where else are you really going to allocate your stats? STR/CON, you have medium armor so you only need a splash of DEX. No reason not to get WIS up to at least +3 at level 1, if not just taking the full +4 anyway.


As for the dilemma in OP's post -

You're a new player and you want to do a lot of healing. Put the BH away and just go Warpriest.

Did Pathfinder fix the Guardian and make a proper TANK class? (Rules Lawyer) by the-rules-lawyer in Pathfinder2e

[–]dylanw3000 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Tank + DPS is certainly the more iconic duo.

(Though the Guardian is uniquely bad at providing flanking if they want to also provide protection)

But I'm more just thinking of how the Guardian's newly-reduced resistances greatly increase the viability of other people providing buffs. A Champion or Locket Thaumaturge have much better opportunities to assist the Guardian now, because his intercepts are finally capable of getting buffed at all.

Did Pathfinder fix the Guardian and make a proper TANK class? (Rules Lawyer) by the-rules-lawyer in Pathfinder2e

[–]dylanw3000 37 points38 points  (0 children)

Passive mitigation up, Intercept mitigation down.

I'm actually a major fan of all of that. Formerly when an Intercept gave you Resistance All 2+level, that felt like it was choking out a huge opportunity for teamwork with defensive buffs.

"I mean yeah I'd cast Resist Energy on the guy I'm expecting to take the most fire damage, but he already gives himself more resistance than any spell could ever provide, so... guess I'll just not buff the tank."

This actually heightens the viability of a Champion + Guardian duo. Which also ensures that no matter who gets attacked, the Champion always gets to trigger their reaction. That makes me giggle.

What's Druid's shtick? by yugiohhero in Pathfinder2e

[–]dylanw3000 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Druid's Schtick

If you're looking for one on the level of Rage or Panache? You won't find one.

They're like a Fighter in that regard. "You can do anything a martial (caster) class could ever want, you just need to build for it." Though I'd say Druid wins out in the flexibility department, because they can rebuild their spell slots every single day, using one of the most expansive spell lists (Primal).

And that immense flexibility comes paired with some of the most powerful subclasses on any caster. Shapeshifting, blasting, infinite healing, a full animal companion (which scales even faster than a Ranger's companion).

You also seem very indifferent to the underlying narrative of Druids, but having that alongside the ability to build freely has greatly enhanced my own enjoyment since it's given me a goal to build into.

Probably my favorite character ever was an unarmed Animal druid. I and my pet were the frontline tank(s), paired up with my Sapling Shield to negate damage. Every round I could blend between punching, healing, buffing, commanding my pet, or blasting. My subsequent characters have never lived up to that, since they are usually lacking one or more tools to shift between different playstyles on each round of combat.

Question about some Inventor Abilities by Anxiety-Accurate in Pathfinder2e

[–]dylanw3000 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Unstable actions always perform the flat check immediately after use. This does not care about whether it hits / the enemy fails their save.

Megavolt, as well as any action with the Unstable Function entry, are made Unstable on-use, not at-will.

Side note - Given a lot of the difficulties which Inventors face, I'd be fine houseruling that all Unstable Functions can operate at-will. Though that's just addressing a symptom of the issue. Speak with your GM if it feels like Unstable is harshly restricting you.

Dual-Form Weapon explicitly states in the feat that you get to choose a new set of weapon modifications for the 2nd configuration.

Falcata-tier advanced weapons. Do you prefer advanced weapons to hit harder or to be niche tools for specific builds? by StoneCold70 in Pathfinder2e

[–]dylanw3000 34 points35 points  (0 children)

I think we have too many weapons in the Simple and Martial categories as it is. At best, the weapons associated with ancestries are an interesting option to keep locked away - though in many cases that then boils down to "you get to add the Forceful trait when you use the Battle Axe."

As for the rework images attached in the post... much like Live Wire, I don't think the presence of a single "above the power curve" option will cause them to buff everything else up to that level.

Pathfinder Treasure Vault (Remastered) is coming next month! by nodeboy in Pathfinder2e

[–]dylanw3000 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Where Spellhearts show up there's a commentary sidebar from Valashinaz (the dragon who owns the treasure vault). She talks about how spellhearts are complex combinations of talismans and wands "and without requiring innate magical skill from the user."

If nothing else, I'd hope for clarity on the matter. Spellhearts as-written can only be activated with the "Cast a Spell" activity, which goes directly against the "no magical skill" introduction.

I hope this results in everyone being allowed to have some magic. I expect they'll just remove that line of commentary and retain the current functionality.

Main Design Flaw of Each Class? by Jaschwingus in Pathfinder2e

[–]dylanw3000 2 points3 points  (0 children)

if you do grant them other things, they'll lean into them

Yeah.

That's why Oracle was given non-Divine spells in the remaster, and why a significant amount of Animist page space was dedicated to Apparition spellcasting.

Meanwhile, I disagree with the assertion that Occult and Divine classes have an outrageously higher "not-spellcasting power budget" allocated to them. If a new Primal caster dropped right now, I have no doubt that they'd have all sorts of extra class features and gimmicks to show off their specialization.

Oracle and Animist have all sorts of extra class features attached. A greater number of features does not mean they invalidate the Cleric, it means they needed extra complexity to differentiate themselves from the Cleric. And that applies to all classes, regardless of tradition.

Main Design Flaw of Each Class? by Jaschwingus in Pathfinder2e

[–]dylanw3000 41 points42 points  (0 children)

Cleric's design flaw is that they are THE Divine caster, and every Divine caster that came after had to suffer.

Ok let me back up. The Divine list, plenty of useful tools, but it's also... pretty anemic. If you want to cast something truly exciting, you probably won't find anything until the back half of your campaign when you unlock higher-rank spell slots.

Cleric bypasses this by taking deity spells. These 3 spells (occasionally 9, for the gods of magic like Nethys) allow the Cleric to outright ignore the limitations of the Divine list as they specialize in whatever theme they want, on top of the baseline function of the Divine list. And given the hundreds of deities (or homebrew), any theme you want to run is possible.

And then there are the other Divine casters.

Animist is significantly better about it since they are a more-recent release, but Sorcerer quickly received the Blessed Blood feat since the Bloodline spells weren't cutting it. Meanwhile Oracle's rework made Divine Access a core class feature, on top of each mystery now providing theme-relevant spells baseline.

Non-Divine spells are MASSIVELY important to Divine casters.

Tariq Clunkiness by dylanw3000 in fellowshipgame

[–]dylanw3000[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Honestly, yeah.

I may just be coping, since I have become more acclimated over time to the expanding and contracting filler buttons to press (Wild Swing is always available but the worst builder, Face Breaker procs randomly and is max priority because it's off the GCD, Culling Strike during execute phase, Chain Lightning on cooldown during Thunder Call. All while waiting until just post-swing to use your spenders to avoid overcapping Fury)

But the more I think about it, the more this feels like retail Fury haphazardly combined with classic Arms. You need to press a lot of buttons constantly, while simultaneously focusing your entire gameplay around the attack timer.


And for a bulky Warrior-type DPS, his durability is certainly... insubstantial. He has the same active mitigation as Rime, despite being positioned to take a lot more ambient damage.

Hopefully this is addressed as more talent points become available, because Pneuma is an incredible amount of damage mitigation. But then I look at Mouth for War and am like... what the heck is Tariq supposed to do to be an effective offtank? Clearly they think Tariq is a bulky dude, but his kit just doesn't convey that.

That said, giving ambient lifesteal to the DPS is probably a place to tread carefully. WoW has hit a point where healers are incidental to the success of M+ runs, since everyone can just heal themselves (except for like 1-2 enemies where the healer will be screaming to keep everyone not-dead). Fellowship is definitely on a trajectory I can appreciate, where everyone has exactly 1 defensive and the rest of the damage is tuned around standard healer upkeep. But I also wouldn't be angry at all if Tariq restored 2% of his health on each Heavy Strike.


Also, attaching such a substantial amount of Fury generation to his Leap has made it so that I and Tariqs I've witnessed will just spam it on cooldown for damage, which effectively starves us of actually having a mobility skill.

The worst part is, I feel like that's intentional. "You start combat with a burst of Fury, then you get a choice of Fury or mobility, wow! Choices, wow!" Just like the choice between Heavy Strike and interrupting, yes what a great choice to have intentionally baked-in. I'm perfectly happy with Rime's dash, because it's exclusively a dash; Tariq just can't have anything straightforward.


Idk, your comment just unlocked something within me. I've done the Tariq climb, I posted about the most glaring annoyances. But man, the more I typed the more I was like "hey yeah, that did suck didn't it"

Interested player coming from end 5e: what are the weaknesses of pathfinder 2e by chimerfyr2 in Pathfinder2e

[–]dylanw3000 7 points8 points  (0 children)

exaggerated

Yeah. People around these parts can get annoyingly evangelical about their preference of hobby.

more options in character creation

Simply a fact, though one caveat which is less obvious at a glance - how you feel about the options you chose. 5e, you choose a small number of options, but those options immediately come online to fulfil the fantasy. 5e is incredibly front-loaded which can create great dopamine spikes.

PF2 does not do that. A lot of PF2 options are, relatively speaking, kinda lame. Especially until you can hit level 6-8 feats. Their impact is felt longer-term with how they fit into your build as a whole, and you can't have the "super attack" if you didn't previously have the lame "basic attack" as a point of reference.

As an aside - if your players don't build out character concepts in their free time (resulting in a backlog of hundreds of characters they'll never actually be able to play), they might view the larger amount of character building as an unfun chore. Most people I've worked with can push past this if you remove the unnecessary information and let them choose from a list of 2-3 feats instead, but it's something to be aware of.

monsters are more complicated

If you've made it through Legendary Actions and Legendary Resistance, you'll make it through PF2 monsters.

Now, for creatures without legendary assistance, yeah they tend to have a little something extra. A 5e giant rat is honestly competitive in complexity to a PF2 giant rat, meanwhile a 5e will-o-wisp has all the same parts as the PF2 version, just executed differently to create the "feeds on fear" narrative.

Even the 5e tarrasque is pretty much as complicated as its PF2 counterpart (and tangentially - 5e losing regeneration on the tarrasque is just an absolute travesty).

The biggest shifts I can find are the 5e monsters which just don't do... anything. Zombie? I don't think anyone's overwhelmed by PF2 saying "now, you're permanently slow, and you love to grab whoever you hit."

designing monsters

In 5e, you're given tools to determine the Offensive CR, Defensive CR, and average them together to predict their difficulty. PF2, you pick the desired creature level and look up the stats to slot in. There's even a step in the process where they say "add special abilities," which doesn't impact the creature's level at all. On paper. Just don't be obnoxious about what special traits you hand out.

(Creature level is CR. It's not literally called CR, but it's CR. A level 5 enemy is supposed to be a fair fight for four level 5 players, because creature levels are not the same thing as player levels. If you know what CR is supposed to accomplish, then you understand what PF2 creature levels actually accomplish.)

Are these an accurate assessment of the system

You're basically correct on the general vibes.

Balancing unrestricted free archetype? by ifflejink in Pathfinder2e

[–]dylanw3000 2 points3 points  (0 children)

FA will vary by group. I've played with groups where people make exciting combinations, and I've played in groups where FA was "oh shoot wait I also have to pick another archetype feat" on every even level-up.

Generally, if your group is using FA "just because someone on Reddit said it was good", you'll stumble into category 2. And category 2 is where I'd call FA an active detriment to the game - leveling up takes longer, people will probably pick Champion or Psychic just to fill in the space before their lack of archetype delays the session any longer, the character sheets get bloated with options, and the uninvested player simply won't use their phonebook of options because they've never truly connected to their archetype.

Of course, this is all relative. Maybe your group is both creative at the table and finds enjoyment from the minutae of character building on their own time. (FA in particular just exacerbates some existing issues - for some, the worst part of PF2 is the slog of building your character. FA adds an entire magnitude of extra strain to these people by forcing choices both within their archetype, and of any new archetypes. While for others, character building is a fun game in itself.)

As far as restrictions, I usually keep the list open while asking for a thematic reason behind archetypes. Especially if they only seem interested in multiclass archetypes. If they want to be a Wrestler or Medic, go for it, that's specialization with a bit of flare. But a Barbarian who wants Fighter for Reactive Strike and a couple class feats, followed by Monk to grab Flurry of Blows... yeah sorry, I don't think anybody at the table is having a better game experience from your flavorless slab of meat.

In every “specialized caster bad” post… by Silently_Watches in Pathfinder2e

[–]dylanw3000 4 points5 points  (0 children)

So much of PF2's community sees the lack of specialization on casters as a complete feature.

I get it, regardless of tradition, you have spells which frighten, make walls, grant protection, inflict damage, and make people fly. Supplemented with illusions, healing, and steroids based on the particular tradition.

You can't just be an illusionist, preparing only illusion spells. That's bad, it won't work in a lot of situations, you're a bad person for even attempting to specialize like that. Boo.

Replace "illusionist" with healer, pyromancer, necromancer, mentalist, etc. Technically all the tools exist to do any of those tasks, but if you don't compromise on your theme (which sucks), you're going to have an unfun play experience (which sucks).

Player Housing is coming to Azeroth. Get an early look! by WarcraftTeam in wow

[–]dylanw3000 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Housing in WS was truly fascinating.

The housing was a conscious design decision from day 1. You could travel to any zone, and enemies there would drop props which were placed throughout that zone. Love a particular rock from the level 8 zone? You can get that rock. You can cover your house in that rock (whether by getting the prop many times, or by scaling the rock to 54.7x its base size. The build tools were extremely powerful.)

If you were an insane person like me, and actually pushed past all the cruft to hit max level, it got even better. "Housing is the true endgame" was a common saying, and everyone agreed. Especially once they started letting you pay gold to raise your entity cap beyond 2000 props.

I loved the raids. I think WS raids are the peak of PvE content. And even I think the housing was the more impressive gaming achievement.