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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[Ancalagon]

The wand spam is not there in 5e because of the lack of cheap clw wands... but there are plenty of healing potions. Why aren't people spamming those? They aren't that much more expensive.

The answer is short rests.

 

[Charlaquin]

The degree by which I'm tempted to replace Cure potions with enchanted apples hidden behind candlesticks, and magic roasted turkey in chandeliers, is significant.

Nothing cures a stab wound like wall chicken.

 

[houser2112]

The degree by which I'm tempted to replace Cure potions with enchanted apples hidden behind candlesticks, and magic roasted turkey in chandeliers, is significant.

Nothing cures a stab wound like wall chicken.

Stop reminding me that I can't find my copy of Castlevania SOTN after my recent move.

 

[houser2112]

Charges make sense, if you draw a parallel to a gun or a battery-powered radio. Of course, when the battery dies in your radio, you usually don't throw out the whole device as worthless. You don't throw away the gun, when you're out of bullets (unless you're fighting Superman). Charges would make more sense, intuitively, if wands could also be re-charged (as in 5E).

Resonance makes sense if you think of the wand as something like a lense, for shaping your own internal energies. Wands are a re-usable lense, and potions or scrolls are a one-time use lense, but you still have a finite amount of internal energy either way. I can't really think of a good real-world analogy, unless you wanted to go with what Charlaquin said about food, but it still makes just as much sense as a potential way that magic could work.
The degree by which I'm tempted to replace Cure potions with enchanted apples hidden behind candlesticks, and magic roasted turkey in chandeliers, is significant.

I'm sure that no matter what rule is proposed, that a justification in the lore/mechanics could be pulled from one's posterior. In PF2's lineage, magic item use has never worked this way, so slaughter of this sacred cow needs to be justified for me to endorse it, and the justifications I've seen are so far very thin. If the traditional way has to be abandoned, I think 5E's charged item mechanics are more realistic than Resonance. Attunement can go die in a fire, though, for the same reason Resonance is bad (character-based resource for using magic items).

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I'm sure that no matter what rule is proposed, that a justification in the lore/mechanics could be pulled

It's a question of how hard you need to reach for it, though. Maybe it's from my background with Shadowrun, or maybe it's from some video game that I can't even remember, but Resonance (or Attunement) makes a lot of sense to me. The idea of a charged wand, that has a finite number of shots and then breaks, seems way less intuitive (as far as magic items go).

Granted, the vast majority of my experience with charged wands is with Cure Light Wounds spam in Pathfinder, and I distinctly remember thinking at the time that it was ridiculous. Any rule to get rid of that exploit is welcome in my book.

 

[houser2112]

It's a question of how hard you need to reach for it, though. Maybe it's from my background with Shadowrun, or maybe it's from some video game that I can't even remember, but Resonance (or Attunement) makes a lot of sense to me. The idea of a charged wand, that has a finite number of shots and then breaks, seems way less intuitive (as far as magic items go).

Granted, the vast majority of my experience with charged wands is with Cure Light Wounds spam in Pathfinder, and I distinctly remember thinking at the time that it was ridiculous. Any rule to get rid of that exploit is welcome in my book.

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?

 

[The Crimson Binome]

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?

When I played AD&D, we didn't play in high magic settings where you were likely to find those kinds of items. Magic items were rare, and powerful. (The AD&D experience was also expected to vary widely between tables, of course.)

Cure Light Wounds, in wand form, is an exploit because it trivializes all of the other healing mechanics. Hit Points are supposed to be a finite resource which you conserve and manage over time, and any class features which you can devote to countering that is supposed to be a meaningful choice. The wand changes that into a trivial GP cost, which restores you to full HP between every encounter. The game is more far more interesting if that wand doesn't exist, just as it was not available in earlier editions.

 

[houser2112]

When I played AD&D, we didn't play in high magic settings where you were likely to find those kinds of items. Magic items were rare, and powerful. (The AD&D experience was also expected to vary widely between tables, of course.)

Most of my AD&D experience was homebrew, high danger, and high magic Monty Haul, but strangely didn't include much cure spells on a stick. That DM liked handing out custom healing items in potion form, potions of super healing (heals to max for imbibing character) and ultra healing (heals to max all party members).

Cure Light Wounds, in wand form, is an exploit because it trivializes all of the other healing mechanics.

Sounds like niche protection. Do you feel the same way about the Staff Of Healing?

Hit Points are supposed to be a finite resource which you conserve and manage over time, and any class features which you can devote to countering that is supposed to be a meaningful choice. The wand changes that into a trivial GP cost, which restores you to full HP between every encounter. The game is more far more interesting if that wand doesn't exist, just as it was not available in earlier editions.

Cost of cure wands and the number of charges contained therein are details that are easy to tweak and don't require the introduction of a whole new controversial dissociated mechanic .

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Sounds like niche protection. Do you feel the same way about the Staff Of Healing?

No, because the Staff was never cheap. It's thirty thousand gold for ten charges of Cure Serious Wounds, or ~135gp per HP. A wand of Cure Light Wounds gives you more healing (~250 compared to ~220) and only cost 750gp.

It's not niche protection, because a cleric isn't the only source of healing. There are all sort of feats, magic items, and class features which can let you recover HP; each of which is balanced against the others, and against other feats and magic items and class features. The wand trivializes all of them.

Cost of cure wands and the number of charges contained therein are details that are easy to tweak and don't require the introduction of a whole new controversial dissociated mechanic .

Changing those numbers is not as easy as you might think, because GP cost is the only real limiting factor on item availability, and HP-by-level does not scale the same way that wealth-by-level does. (Making it so that they did scale similarly would be infeasible, for other design reasons.) As an additional wrinkle, the general audience for Pathfinder hates the idea of house rules, which means the designers have one chance to get the math right before it becomes permanent for the rest of the edition.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I think 5E's charged item mechanics are more realistic than Resonance. Attunement can go die in a fire, though, for the same reason Resonance is bad (character-based resource for using magic items).

Actually, a character based resource for using magic items is /more/ realistic than charges. Charges are a very modernist idea. Traditions that believed in magic /might/ get an idea like having three wishes or some other counting attribute, but it won't be because there's only so much juice in a wand, but because that's a condition of the spell or curse or whatever. Magical thinking tends to be cause-and-effect, but highly conditional to the point of arbitrary. The house of a rival you vocally cursed burns down. Wow, the curse worked. Why didn't it work the other times you cussed him out? Well, maybe the stars were right, or an evil spirit was listening, or ...
Perform the steps of a ritual at the right time, with the right (hard-to-impossible-to-obtain) materials, in the right sequence, with perfect pronunciation, and if some supernatural being approves, you might get what you want. With a magical item, it might be more about knowing how to use it. A wand could turn people into a frogs, but it would be by touching them & saying a rhyming couplet or stirring their wine with it before they drink it or something - not shooting rays at them until the battery ran out.

D&D magic is just goofy, even for magic. Better playable goofy than broken goofy.

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.

All the way back, AFAIK. Just not /every spell/, and not make/buy at affordable prices like in 3e. Fireball for instance, but not Cure..Wounds... there was a Staff of Healing back in the day (heck there was a Rod of Resurrection), though, but rare & few charges...

Why would wands of cure light wounds be an exploit? Is it niche protection for the cleric?

Considering they'd be making/using the Wand, and it leaves them plenty of slots to CoDzilla out with? I doubt it. ;P

Cost of cure wands and the number of charges contained therein are details that are easy to tweak and don't require the introduction of a whole new controversial dissociated mechanic .

Not as easy to tweak as you might think. 3e make/buy was pretty nifty in a lot of ways, the ballooning costs made low-level items, like low-level slots easily affordable utility, while high level items (& spells) remained limited-availability & high-impact - but when a low-level spell could have a cumulative effect equal to a much higher level one, and the time to apply it repeatedly wasn't an issue, well, it could be 'exploited.'

To just solve the CLW problem, for instance, you could make healing non-cumulative. Say, by tracking wounds, and requiring each be healed by its own Cure..Wound spell, with only the highest result to a give wound counting (you take 40, 8, 8, 16, 4, & 4 - sure, that's 80 damage, but it's 7 wounds - you can't just blow 10 CLWs and probably call it a day, CLW will cure the 4-hp wounds, maybe the 8-hp ones if you roll well, but the 16 will take Cure Moderate at least and the 40 some serious mojo... if all you had was CLW, you could keep at each wound until you rolled a 9, but you'd still be down 38 hps, @ one 40-9 wound & one 16-9, each needing 10+ hp of healing magic to make at better...). Of course, that'd be a PitA.