Pathfinder 2's Armor & A Preview of the Paladin!

It was a long bank holiday weekend here in the UK, and I sent most of it in the (rare) sun eating BBQ; there were two big Pathfinder 2 blog posts which went up in the meantime. The first dealt with armour and shields; the other was our first look at the new Paladin class!

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• Armor now affects Touch AC; each has a different bonus for AD and TAC.
  • Studded leather +2 AC, +0 TAC
  • Chain shirt +2 AC, +1 TAC, noisy
• Armor has traits, such as "noisy".
• Armor has a Dex mod cap to AC, penalties to STR/Dex/Con skill checks, a Speed penalty, and a Bulk value.
• Potency Runes -- Items can be enhanced with potency runes.
  • Bonuses to attack rolls, increase on number of damage dice (weapons)
  • Bonus to AC, TAC, and saving throws (armor)
  • Example studded leather with +3 armor potency rune gives +5 AC, +3 TAC, and +3 to your saves.
  • Potency runes can be upgraded.
• Shields -- requires an action to use and gain an AC and TAC bonus for one round.
• Other gear -- gear has quality levels (poor -2, expert +1, master +2)
• Interact -- this is a new action, used for grabbing objects, opening doors, drawing weapons, etc.

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• Paladins! Apparently the most contentious class.
• Core rules have lawful good paladins only (others may appear in other products)
• Paladin's Code -- paladins must follow their code, or lose their Spell Point pool and righteous ally class feature.
• Oaths are feats and include Fiendsbane Oath (constant damage to fiends, block their dimensional travel)
• Class features and feats --
  • Retributive strike (1st level) -- counterattacks and enfeebles a foe
  • Lay on hands (1st level) -- single action healing spell which also gives a one-round AC bonus
  • Divine Grace (2nd level) -- saving throw boost
  • Righteous ally (3rd level) -- house a holy spirit in a weapon or steed
  • Aura of Courage (4th level) -- reduce the frightened condition
  • Attack of Opportunity (6th level) -- presumably the basic AoO action
  • Second Ally (8th level) -- gain a second righteous ally
  • Aura of Righteousness (14th level) -- resist evil damage
  • Hero's defiance (19th level) -- keep standing at 0 HP
• Litanies -- single action spells, verbal, last one round.
  • Litany of righteousness -- weakens enemy to your allies' attacks
  • Litany against sloth -- slows the enemy, costing reactions or actions

[FONT=&quot]Save[/FONT][FONT=&quot]Save[/FONT]​

 

[Yaarel]

I want all of the ability scores to be comparably useful in power and frequency. Towards this, I prefer the abilities simplify into four clusters.

Athletics (Strength, Reflex, Gymnastics, Jump, Climb, Speed, Melee Accuracy)
Toughness (Size, Fortitude, Melee Damage, Heavy Equipment, Hit Points, Carrying)
Perceptiveness (Perception, Knowledge, Stealth, Steady Hand)
Empathy (Willpower, Charm, Social Skills, Esthetics, Luck)

In this arrangement, the Athletic defense covers all AC. Tough might allow a bigger armor bonus to that AC.

Athletic also handles all melee attacks, whether punch, dagger, sword, or greatsword. Tough adds damage, and might allow a heavy weapon.

 

[pemerton]

Concrete example: paladin opposes an evil law.

Just a thought: I think a paladin will be arguing that the evil "law" isn't really one, or has been misunderstood/misapplied.

 

[Parmandur]

Just a thought: I think a paladin will be arguing that the evil "law" isn't really one, or has been misunderstood/misapplied.

"Lex iniusta non est lex" seems a fairly Paladin-ish point of view, moreso than an odd programming language construct to avoid trolley scenarios.

 

[pemerton]

"Lex iniusta non est lex" seems a fairly Paladin-ish point of view, moreso than an odd programming language construct to avoid trolley scenarios.

To add to this: how is law "made", and "found", in D&D worlds? Given that they tend towards the pseudo-mediaeval rather than the modern, and are often fairly romanticised on top of that, ideas of cutsom, useage, tradition, etc seem more apposite than looking up the latest amendments to the statute book and the register of legislative instruments.

Which feeds into the possibility of arguing for misunderstanding and/or misapplication of the law. It's not about loopholes, which already presuppose a type of interpretive approach which seems out of place.

 

[Shasarak]

Just to continue the scenario...

The kid turns out to be an assassins in disguised, who poisioned the queens bath water. The queen is now dead because the paladin chose to ignore the law.
The king tells the paladin to hunt down and kill the assassin at all cost.

The paladin then tracks down the assassin, and finds the assassin on a rope bridge over a volcano with a new born baby on his back.
The paladin can cut the brige, sending both the assassin and baby to their doom, or let the assasin escape (the assasin will cut the bridge when he reaches the other side).

He has to act fast before the assassin escapes again. He can kill both, or let the asssassin escape. What does he do?

Well if there is a rope bridge over a volcano, and the DM has his rope bridge over the volcano flip map open on the table then I guess that means I am charging onto the bridge to have a climatic fight with an Assassin.

 

[Shasarak]

NG is something like CG-lite; and NE is something like CE-lite. I don't think they add much to the AD&D set-up.

Man, I would disagree with that definition. NG and NE are not lite anything. They are respectfully either the most Good or most Evil alignment because they dont need to worry about the Law-Chaos axis when asking "What is the most Good (or Evil) thing to do".

 

[pemerton]

Man, I would disagree with that definition. NG and NE are not lite anything. They are respectfully either the most Good or most Evil alignment because they dont need to worry about the Law-Chaos axis when asking "What is the most Good (or Evil) thing to do".

Well, this is an example of what I have in mind when I say that later ideas, and even aspects of the AD&D books themselves, undermine the coherence of what Gygax puts forward.

As Gygax presents it in the Alignment sections of the PHB (around about p 30) and DMG (around about p 20), LE and CE aren't commitments to anything, let alone commitments to two, potentially competing, schemes of value (Law/Chaos, and Evil). Rather, LE = I think that social organisation is the best way to ensure that I get what I want out of others, which is whatever I can get out of them; CE = I think individual self-realisation is the best way to ensure that I get what I want out of others, which is whatever I can get out of them. Both a LE and a CE are maximally evil, in the sense that neither accepts values such as rights, wellbing, truth, beauty, etc as a constraint on action. What they disagree on is social theory.

The approach you seem to prefer - that (say) a LE person is committed both to scorning/overturning truth, beauty, welfare etc and to pursuing promoting order - is something that I think is found in AD&D Appendix IV and then really comes into its own in Planescape.

I have to admit I don't really understand it. For instance, this approach implies that when a NG person says to a LG person, "You're not doing as much good as you good", the LG person has to agree: "You're correct - I'm trading off some good against some law". I'm not even sure what this is really meant to mean.

Whereas under the approach I've set out, when a NG person says to a LG person, "You're not doing as much good as you good", the LG person can retort: "On the contrary, your wishy-washiness about upholding social institutions undermines the good by reducing the extent to which welfare, truth, beauty and respect for rights are upheld and promoted." That makes more sense to me.

 

[Yaarel]

Heh, I hate to get sucked into the blackhole of alignment disputes. But,

Neutral Good is the purest Good possible, optimizing between Law and Chaos in order to prioritize Good at every opportunity.



Really, the alignments deserve to be called:

True Good, True Neutral, True Evil.
Chaotic Good, Chaotic Neutral, Chaotic Evil.
Lawful Good, Lawful Neutral, Lawful Evil.



Anyway, at this point, I will try escape the gravitational pull of the blackhole, and hope to avoid responding to any alignment debates.

 

[zztong]

Heh, I hate to get sucked into the blackhole of alignment disputes. But, Neutral Good is the purest Good possible, optimizing between Law and Chaos in order to prioritize Good at every opportunity.

I've always thought this way too, but it isn't the majority opinion in an alignment discussion. Yes, to me, it always seemed that if I were going to require an alignment for a Paladin, that NG seemed like the obvious choice.

 

[pemerton]

Neutral Good is the purest Good possible, optimizing between Law and Chaos in order to prioritize Good at every opportunity.

This analysis is premised on the notion that LG is false ie that social order/organisation is not the best way to realise human rights, welfare, truth, beauty etc.

If LG is correct, then it is the "purest" good possible! (And mutatuis mutandis for CG.)

I don't think it makes much sense for the alignment system to rest on a premise that most of the alignments are mistaken about what they claim. It should be possible to present the system in a way that doesn't such a premise. The AD&D framing that Gygax presents (ignoring Appendix IV) does this.