Pathfinder 2 Character Sheet #1: Fumbus, Goblin Alchemist

If you've been following along with the Pathfinder 2nd Edition playtest news, you're in for a treat over the coming days. Paizo has very kindly sent me the character sheets of all six of the playtest characters, and I'll be sharing them with you one at a time over the next week or so! We'll start today with Fumbus the goblin alchemist.

But first, before we delve into the first character, here's a quick word from Paizo's Mark Seifter:

"Since the announcement of the Pathfinder Playtest, we here at Paizo have been running demos of the game at select shows, using six of our iconic characters to showcase the new rules of the game. By now, countless spoilers have been uncovered from these characters, but we are pretty sure there are a few surprises left to be uncovered. Well, get ready to dig in, because for the first time ever we are going to show off the sheets for all six of these characters.

We have all your favorite familiar iconics, Kyra the cleric, Valeros the fighter, Merisiel the rogue, Ezren the wizard, Seelah the paladin, and of course, Fumbus the goblin alchemist… hang on there, Fumbus is actually brand new to the Pathfinder Playtest! Each of the characters comes with a new sketch by Wayne Reynolds and enough information to play the character in a demo. I should note that these sheets are early drafts and while a few things have changed, the rules are mostly correct, even if the layout and look of the sheets is nothing like what you can expect to find when the game launches on August 2nd. Finally, these sheets reference a lot of the rules we have already previewed in our blogs over at Paizo.com (which you can also find summarized right here on ENWorld), so if you are confused on some of the topics, hop on over and catch up on all the news."

And now... on with the show! First up is Fumbus, the goblin alchemist.

"As an alchemist, Fumbus is all about making and throwing bombs, though he can do relatively decent damage with his dogslicer when he catches the target flat-footed to take advantage of the backstabber trait, especially against foes like zombies weak against slashing. He’s chosen both of the bombs that deal persistent damage, which between the fire and the acid can stack up to quite the damage over time, particularly on a critical hit, which he’s fairly likely to achieve targeting touch. What is most interesting is that he can make a few extra alchemical items during the game, usually on-the-fly in the middle of a fight. This gives him the flexibility to be the star of nearly any encounter."

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Stay tuned, as tomorrow it's the turn of Kyra, the human cleric! And right at the end, I'll give you a handy PDF of all six, so don't worry about trying to turn these images into a PDF. I'll do it for you!

Thank you so much to Paizo for sending these along. You can read about my short playtest of the game here.

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[Charlaquin]

while the gold cost is less, there is a resonance cost instead. So you can buy 1000 acid flasks, but you still can't use them all in a single day.

I don't think that's true. None of the bombs on this sheet say they cost Resonance to use, in contrast to Quick Alchemy, which does.

Which is weird.

"Oh no, I used to many healing potions and now the acid in my flasks is no longer reactive!"

I'm pretty sure that's not how it works either.

Alchemy might feature dramatic effects, but these are powered by the reactions of powerful chemicals—and sometimes catalyzed by resonance—creating a type of fantastic mad science. Where magical power comes from the energies of a spellcasting tradition, alchemical power comes from the fusion of latent potential trapped within matter, released as energy through a reaction with a different potent material.

So notably, alchemy is only sometimes catalyzed by resonance, and when it is, it's simply the means of releasing the latent chemical energy stored within the elixer's, bomb's, or mutagen's constituent components. If acid flasks did cost resonance (which again, I'm pretty sure they don't), it wouldn't be potent acid in the flask. It would be some combination of inert liquids that require a jolt of magical energy to interact with one another, and when they do, they become corrosive. If you drank too many healing potions (which likewise aren't magically potent on their own, but react to the magical resonance of the drinker), it stands to reason that you might not have enough magical juice left to catalyze the acid.

EDIT:
Went back and reviewed the Resonance blog, and it looks like both of the elixers do in fact cost Resonance to use, but neither of the bombs do. Note that the elixers have a bolded Activation: (whatever) line, which the bombs lack. Activation costs Resonance. As the bombs do not require activation to use, they do not cost Resonance to use.

 

[Jester David]

I'm pretty sure that's not how it works either.

So notably, alchemy is only sometimes catalyzed by resonance, and when it is, it's simply the means of releasing the latent chemical energy stored within the elixer's, bomb's, or mutagen's constituent components. If acid flasks did cost resonance (which again, I'm pretty sure they don't), it wouldn't be potent acid in the flask. It would be some combination of inert liquids that require a jolt of magical energy to interact with one another, and when they do, they become corrosive. If you drank too many healing potions (which likewise aren't magically potent on their own, but react to the magical resonance of the drinker), it stands to reason that you might not have enough magical juice left to catalyze the acid.

Yeah, looking at the character sheet, those item’s don’t require resonance.

I just find resonance a clunky way of managing magic items. Like the magic item Daily power limit in 4e items. It’s a weird artificial limit that exists more for mechanics reasons. Literally there to cut down on cure light wound wands being overused.
The “flavour” is just a justification.

 

[Charlaquin]

Yeah, looking at the character sheet, those item’s don’t require resonance.

I just find resonance a clunky way of managing magic items. Like the magic item Daily power limit in 4e items. It’s a weird artificial limit that exists more for mechanics reasons. Literally there to cut down on cure light wound wands being overused.
The “flavour” is just a justification.

All limitations are artificial and exist for mechanical reasons, all flavor is "just" justification for those game mechanics. This mechanic seems less clunky to me than having to track the charges on every individual item separately (though I do wish they would remove magic item charges entirely if they're going this route instead of keeping them on a few items). The flavor change is a wash for me, though I can certainly see why some don't care for it.

 

[Staffan]

So notably, alchemy is only sometimes catalyzed by resonance, and when it is, it's simply the means of releasing the latent chemical energy stored within the elixer's, bomb's, or mutagen's constituent components. If acid flasks did cost resonance (which again, I'm pretty sure they don't), it wouldn't be potent acid in the flask. It would be some combination of inert liquids that require a jolt of magical energy to interact with one another, and when they do, they become corrosive. If you drank too many healing potions (which likewise aren't magically potent on their own, but react to the magical resonance of the drinker), it stands to reason that you might not have enough magical juice left to catalyze the acid.

My impression is that "regular" alchemy does not use resonance, at least not for bombs and utility items. That's the old-fashioned way of doing it via the crafting rules, or buying bombs from the alchemy store. But the alchemist has an ability that lets them "cheat" and make items quickly and for negligible cost, but requires them to spend resonance - this would usually be done at the same time as the party casters prepare their spells.

 

[Charlaquin]

My impression is that "regular" alchemy does not use resonance, at least not for bombs and utility items. That's the old-fashioned way of doing it via the crafting rules, or buying bombs from the alchemy store. But the alchemist has an ability that lets them "cheat" and make items quickly and for negligible cost, but requires them to spend resonance - this would usually be done at the same time as the party casters prepare their spells.

Well, we can see from this Fumbus sheet that his Elixirs require Activation, and we can see from the Resonance blog that Activation Actions cost Resonance Points. So it’s pretty clear that some alchemical items always require Resonance to catalyze. It’s just that Alchemists also have the ability to spend Resonance to make alchemical items on the fly. We can also see from the Fumbus sheet that alchemical items made this way have the Infused trait, which means they can be Activated without spending Resonance, but lose potency if not used within the round.

 

[mellored]

Which is weird.

"Oh no, I used to many healing potions and now the acid in my flasks is no longer reactive!"

No weirder than any of the other magic. "Oh, I cast too many magic missiles, so I can't cast cure wounds".

But yea, looks like I was wrong about both the cost and the resonance.

Which means I could play an acid assassin (monk?). Sneak up, throw a flask, and run away. Come back a minute later to loot and buy another flask.

 

[Jester David]

All limitations are artificial and exist for mechanical reasons, all flavor is "just" justification for those game mechanics. This mechanic seems less clunky to me than having to track the charges on every individual item separately (though I do wish they would remove magic item charges entirely if they're going this route instead of keeping them on a few items). The flavor change is a wash for me, though I can certainly see why some don't care for it.

One of my biggest problems with 3e/ PF1 was the magic item Christmas tree and how magic item's weren't wondrous things with a story and history, or the spoils of battle and rewards from quests. But were instead mechanical build choices with 90% of the magic items you found being reduced to gold. I spent a lot of time trying to find hacks and ways around that for my PF1 games.
You can see that design in the RPG All Star advice, where they literally tell designers not to include history or backstory with magic items because anyone can make them.

So I'm sad that PF2 isn't trying to get away from that, but instead offering resonance as a "rules patch" to cap the number of items you can have. So you can only have a couple at low levels and a high level, you can either have a couple high level items that use a lot of resonance or lots of small consumables.

But it feels awkward that the magic item you paid money for (one cost) and the action to use (second cost) doesn't work because of a third cost. It'd be annoying if you can't use a potion when dying because you used another potion earlier that adventure.
But that also makes it harder to give out fun, cool items or award artifacts to low level parties for fun. I gave a PF party a wand of wonder once, and that was glorious and more memorable than half of the rest of the adventure, but it wouldn't have work at all in a by-the-books Pathfinder 1 game as it would have been reduced to gold for a +4 belt, and likely wouldn't be worth the resonance cost in PF2...

 

[houser2112]

I can't stand Wayne Reynolds, and, quite frankly, I can't understand why Paizo didn't choose to change its illustrator. It just doesn't make sense to me. If you want new players to your game, you gotta change not only the rules, but the whole visual ID.

I disagree with you specifically regarding PF/WAR, and in general. I still miss the art of Jeff Easley, Clyde Caldwell, and Larry Elmore gracing the pages of my D&D books.

 

[mellored]

So I'm sad that PF2 isn't trying to get away from that, but instead offering resonance as a "rules patch" to cap the number of items you can have. So you can only have a couple at low levels and a high level, you can either have a couple high level items that use a lot of resonance or lots of small consumables.

I haven't noticed them saying that high level items took more resonance.

At the very least all potion only cost 1 RP, no matter what their level. Thus high level potions are more effective, at the cost of higher gold.


Though really, I feel a universal system would be better. Everyone gets X points and can spend it on items, spells, prayers, rages, potions, etc... With a mix of cost scaling and class features to parent spamming and to specialize.

I.e.
Cure wounds:
Cost: 1 mana + 1 mana each time you cast this +1 mana to increase the spell level.

Life Cleric: reduce the final cost of healing spells by 1/4 (round down). Increase the final cost of damage spells by 1.

 

[Jester David]

I haven't noticed them saying that high level items took more resonance.

I'm making an educated guess.

IIRC resonance is Charisma + level. So it goes up pretty fast. Once you hit all the major slots at level 5 or 6, every extra point is just another consumable used. Once you pass level 9 or 10, the resonance limit might cease to have any impact. You longer have to worry about hitting your cap and is not a meaningful limit unless better items cost more resonance.

Yeah, it still prevents you from getting a low level magic item and using it a dozen times. But if the sole purpose was fixing wands of cure light wounds, there had to be a better way...