Resonance, Potency, & Potions: A Look At Magic Items in Pathfinder 2

Paizo has been delving into the way magic items work in its latest previews of Pathfinder 2nd Edition. Last week they spoke about Resonance, a resource that characters have for activating magical items; and on Friday they blogged about Potency, which is linked to the power of a magical weapon.

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Resonance is measured in Resonance Points (RP). Activating an item costs 1 RP, and your RP total is your level plus your Charisma modifier. Paizo points out that "We expect Resonance Points to be a contentious topic, and we're really curious to see how it plays at your tables. It's one of the more experimental changes to the game, and the playtest process gives us a chance to see it in the wild before committing to it."

They also preview a few magic items - cloak of elvenkind, floating shield, staff of healing, and some trinkets such as a fear gem, and vanishing coin.

When it comes to weapons, Resonance is not required; weapons have a "potency" value, which is roughly equivalent to its "plus" -- it gives you a bonus to attack, increases damage by a whole damage die per potency point (i.e. a +1 longsword gives +1 to hit and +1d8 damage). Potency and special qualities are limited by a weapon's quality - standard, expert, master, legendary.

Quality	Max Potency	Max Properties
Standard	+0	0
Expert	+2	1
Master	+4	2
Legendary	+5	3

Potency and properties are contained within transferrable magical runes, often found on a runestone. Some examples shown are disrupting, and vorpal.

Amor similarly has potency and properties. Potency affects AC, TAC, and saving throws. Some properties include invisibility and fortification.

This takes us on to potions. Potions can now have high level effects, and they don't have to be tied to the spell lists. Examples including healing potions, invisibility potions, dragon's breath potions, and oil of mending.​

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[Imaculata]

Activating an item costs 1 RP, and your RP total is your level plus your Charisma modifier.

People sure are going to love Paladins now.

 

[fjw70]

I like the scaling of weapon damage but would like to see it as a class feature and not through magic weapons.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

It definitely favors classes dependent on Charisma, as well as races (ancestries) with inherent bonuses in that characteristic.

On the other hand, classes with less reliance on Charisma as a primary stat, like rogues and fighters, tend to have less use for magical items except weapons and armor. So maybe Paizo knows what they're doing. Best way to find out is to join the playtest and let them know about your experience.

 

[Ghal Maraz]

Strength gives bonus to Athletics skill, to-hit and to-damage and determines carrying capacity; Dexterity gives bonus to a bunch of Skills, to AC, to Reflex Saves, ranged (or Finesse weapons) to-hit and to Initiative; Constitution gives bonus to Hit Points and to Fortitude Saves; Intelligence gives bonus to initial Skill proficiency points and to a bunch of skills; Wisdom gives bonus to a bunch of Skills and to Will Saves; Charisma gives bonus to a bunch of skills and to the number of Resonance Points.

While I find the use of Resonance and the magic items rules the part of the playtest I'm liking less, I still consider it interesting that there will be a real disincentive for every class in dropping any one skill without thought. Ok, perhaps Wizards and Sorcerers will probably keep Strength quite low and Alchemists won't invest so much in Charisma, but that's still a good idea.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

[MAP][/MAP]

People sure are going to love Paladins now.

And with Righteous Ally, they have one less thing to have to spend RP's on.

 

[Jer]

It definitely favors classes dependent on Charisma, as well as races (ancestries) with inherent bonuses in that characteristic.

Well, in the sense that a character with a high Charisma will have 2-3 more resonance points per day than everyone else, I guess. But since you're adding the level of the character to the bonus, it seems like it would mostly be a problem at low levels and wash out once you hit mid levels unless you have a lot of magic items in your games (though the fact that healing potions cost resonance to use means that you might hit that limit even if you don't have a Christmas Tree of magic items that cost resonance on you, if your table is used to chugging healing potions to keep your adventuring day going).

I'm still not quite sure on what problem Resonance is trying to solve though. The four bullet points on the Resonance blog don't really make much of a case for something this complex - it doesn't really seem to simplify things all that much (especially with the new action economy that PF2 proposes), and while you may have "less to track" in the overarching sense of individual pools for individual items, you now have one big pool where spending a point to activate a vorpal weapon on a crit now might impact whether you can heal after the battle - leading to some complex tradeoffs at the table that might make option paralysis worse.

The one piece where I can see it solving a problem is bullet point 3 - having adventurers stockpile a cord of wands of healing because it's cheaper and more effective to do that than to buy one high level wand seems like the kind of meta-gaming move you might want a rules fix for, but this seems like a heavy handed fix for something like that (and outside of healing I don't see that kind of magic item tradeoff as usually being worthwhile, so maybe it's a problem with the healing rules and not so much with the magic item rules?)

(I will say that this continues to cement for me the idea that PF2 wants to be the version of D&D that caters to people who really like the resource management subgame. Have they previewed any encumbrance rules yet?)

 

[Lord Mhoram]

The thing I found nice were Runes. Can just be special abilities for weapons you already own for treasure. Made me think of Bladerunes from Rolemaster 2nd, and Materia from FF.
I made my peace with resonance a while ago.

 

[Kurviak]

... Have they previewed any encumbrance rules yet?)

It's based on strength via encumbrance points. Just like Starfinder's encumbrance

 

[mellored]

I'm still not quite sure on what problem Resonance is trying to solve though.

It allows a DM to throw out hundreds of magical items or dump tons of gold, and not have to worry about overpowered characters.

Have they previewed any encumbrance rules yet?

I don't think so, but that's basicly just resonance with Str instead, and a lot easier to get around (horses, wagons, etc...)