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

AbdulAlhazred · Jul 18, 2018

houser2112 said:
Really? Spells-on-a-stick-with-limited-charges have been around IIRC since at least 2E. Wands of lightning bolt, fireball, and magic missile in particular. Why would wands of cure light wounds be an exploit? Is it niche protection for the cleric?

They were around in 1e as well. In both editions they required use of the Enchant An Item spell, a level 6 spell that required a level 12 caster to use. They also required some entirely GM-determined additional materials and other constraints/costs. 1e had modestly permissive guidelines in the DMG which made creating some items like maybe a Wand of Fireballs reasonably attainable, if not cheap enough to be done routinely. 2e has extremely punitive guidelines, at least potentially. One possibility being that items require absurd and normally non-existent components (IE the legs of a snake or a good man's spirit, or something like that).

So, in 1e these charged items were feasible but rare, in 2e they were, at best, feasible but rare, and at worst non-existent. As for CLW wands, it isn't niche protection, it is simply that a fundamental conceit of the game is that healing has fairly strict per-day limits. There's also the tone argument, turning physical damage into something you trivially stock up on 'heal sticks' to overcome undermines a lot of the genre space of D&D.

Shasarak · Jul 18, 2018

mellored said:
I'm not sure what goals they had, but I don't mind resonance. It's 1 number to keep track of, rather than 20 different wand and item charges, let's a DM give out a few or many items without affecting overall power much, and helps reduce low level wand spam. (Though you can still spam all your ressonance on a single item.)

What I do mind is having both resonance AND items that have charges. Pick one or the other.

If you really want to know about the design goals then you could have a look at the OP.

But in any case, yes in the examples given we now have Resonance, Charges and x times/day restrictions. So it is not remembering one number it is one more number.

I don't see who this is any more meta-gamist than any of the other x/day things. Which are ubiquitous is D&D and PF.

"Magic item's draw their power from the user.". Easy.

That said, I wouldn't mind if items and spell points were the same pool. That way it's more about adding versatility rather than extra power.

Sure you can say that. I mean no other edition of DnD nor literature works like that but sure in this one items run off your quick wit and sunny personality, why not.

Tony Vargas · Jul 18, 2018

AbdulAlhazred said:
. There's also the tone argument, turning physical damage into something you trivially stock up on 'heal sticks' to overcome undermines a lot of the genre space of D&D.

Cheap & easy between combat healing let certain characters do cool stuff other than just heal all the time (to the point of CoDzilla, since they were given enough resources to heal, too).

And, it's not like D&D has ever occupied much of the genre - it's prettymuch been clinging to Raskolnikov's "square yard of space" the whole time.

The Crimson Binome · Jul 18, 2018

Shasarak said:
Sure you can say that. I mean no other edition of DnD nor literature works like that but sure in this one items run off your quick wit and sunny personality, why not.

No, they run off of your internal magical strength, which is what Charisma has meant for nearly twenty years.

And there is plenty of literature where wands are tools for shaping the internal magical energy of whoever is wielding it. It's also how items work in the default magic system for GURPS (although you can also build a wand with its own power source, it's just a lot more complicated).

Shasarak · Jul 18, 2018

Saelorn said:
No, they run off of your internal magical strength, which is what Charisma has meant for nearly twenty years.

If internal magical strength was important then the two most magical classes in the game would use it.

And there is plenty of literature where wands are tools for shaping the internal magical energy of whoever is wielding it. It's also how items work in the default magic system for GURPS (although you can also build a wand with its own power source, it's just a lot more complicated).

So now GURPS is the basis of magic use?

Aldarc · Jul 18, 2018

Shasarak said:
If internal magical strength was important then the two most magical classes in the game would use it.

I would say "natural magical knack" instead. And as I said before, I don't think that a wizard's magical power level would necessarily be a metric for their magical knack, just what they can achieve through their training. Some people may simply have a greater reservoir of magical knack than others, and I honestly don't think that it should necessarily be a wizard. It comes across as typical wizard supremacy entitlement.

mellored · Jul 18, 2018

Shasarak said:
Sure you can say that. I mean no other edition of DnD nor literature works like that but sure in this one items run off your quick wit and sunny personality, why not.

sorcerer, paladin, and bard magic run off quick wit and sunny personality, so i'm not seeing much of stretch to include item magic.

But a flat number would also work.

Kurviak · Jul 18, 2018

Shasarak said:
Sure you can say that. I mean no other edition of DnD nor literature works like that but sure in this one items run off your quick wit and sunny personality, why not.

So according to your interpretation of Charisma, All undeads have quick wit and sunny personality traits

The Crimson Binome · Jul 18, 2018

Shasarak said:
If internal magical strength was important then the two most magical classes in the game would use it.

Only if those classes worked through internal magical strength, rather than channeling energy from the inner or outer planes.

Granted, that explanation is a shaky post-hoc rationalization, but that doesn't make it less true. As ridiculous as it may be, the designers worked themselves into a corner in their attempt to make Charisma into less of a dump stat, but they have been pretty consistent about it since then. As it stands, Charisma is your internal magical strength.

If you think that's dumb, then you may be right, but correcting it would involve drastic changes to the Sorcerer, Bard, and Paladin; and the end result is that Charisma would be even more of a dump stat than it already is. Tread carefully.

Shasarak said:
So now GURPS is the basis of magic use?

It's certainly an authority on what makes sense in terms of internally-consistent systems that impact the real world. It is more widely-used as a common reference points between various fictional worlds and the real world than it is used as a game.

Shasarak · Jul 18, 2018

Kurviak said:
So according to your interpretation of Charisma, All undeads have quick wit and sunny personality traits

You have heard of Vampire the Gathering, yes?

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

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

AbdulAlhazred

Legend

Shasarak

Banned

Tony Vargas

Legend

The Crimson Binome

Hero

Shasarak

Banned

Aldarc

Legend

mellored

Legend

Kurviak

Explorer

The Crimson Binome

Hero

Shasarak

Banned

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