Pathfinder 2 Character Sheet #4: Seelah, Human Paladin

It's time for the 4th of our six reveals of the Pathfinder 2nd Edition pregenerated playtest characters. Today, we'll be looking at Seelah, the human paladin. This sheet covers some of the shield mechanics we saw in Valeros' sheet, along with various paladin powers such as Lay on Hands, Hospice Knight, Warded Touch, and Retributive Strike.

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"Seelah has a few things on her sheet that might surprise you, depending on how well you know her backstory. She grew up as a pickpocket before she stole from the paladin of Iomedae who changed her life, and so she actually has Thievery, the Pickpocket feat, and Underworld Lore (I like to think that when she uses it to Practice a Trade, she’s working as a white hat consultant who helps businesses defend against criminal activity). Beyond that, her Retributive Strike punishes enemies for attacking anyone but her, and her lay on hands not only heals a target (avoiding Attacks of Opportunity and the like and usable with her shield thanks to her Warded Touch feat), but when she uses it nonselfishly to protect her allies, it also provides a boost to AC to help prevent the ally from just taking the damage again in the next round."

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Keep an eye out for tomorrow's character, Merisiel, the elf rogue!

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[Kobold Boots]

Hey there all,

So, I just wanted to make a thing clear here. Seelah has the Pickpocket skill feat from her background, as it reflects her history. None of the background feats are meant to be game-changers. They are a flavorful aspect of your character that you might sometimes get some use out of. Now, if you make a rogue and grew up a Street Urchin, it might be more useful to you, but it is not going to give you any great advantage over another character in the group if that works out for you.

I wanted to address another issue as well. The discussions about the playtest are bound to get passionate, sometimes even heated. This sort of back and forth is not going to be for everyone and that is perfectly okay. This playtest is going to utilize a lot of surveys to give a voice to those who do not want to battle out their points on various threads, while also giving us a more scientific way to look at the results from the table. If the boards and arguments are not for you, I would encourage you to work with us on the survey side of things. The more data we get the better.

Thank you Jason.

KB

 

[Tony Vargas]

Yes.

Don't get too comfortable, he's never stayed away before.

Is character customization a sham because in reality it will only allow a the "most optimized" character to be built the majority of the time, so there's really no customization?

Only if the gap between optimal and slightly-sub-optimal is so huge as to make everything else functionally non-viable.
So, in the case of PF2, time will tell.

 

[Kobold Boots]

Don't get too comfortable, he's never stayed away before.

My intention wasn't to annoy him to the point where he'd stop posting so there's no comfort to be had. End of day, there's too many people making assumptions and getting riled up about rules previews. It's a bit more sane to wait until there's something to actually play test before talking about the play test.

No way for me to know if my common sense is the last straw for anyone, until it happens. By the time I felt something was off I wasn't trying to talk down to him as much as talk him down off a cliff, but without being face to face, it's hard to judge things.

But if someone asks me if I will enjoy a victory, I'm going to say yes. Doesn't mean that my victory is his loss.

 

[Shasarak]

I just do not understand the fuss over a background feat on a 1st level character.

 

[Charlaquin]

I just do not understand the fuss over a background feat on a 1st level character.

Seriously.

 

[rmcoen]

Kyra's Sling does d6+1, average 4.5 damage. Shield Hardness blocks all the damage with no dent. Fundus's dogslicer does d6+2, average 5.5 damage. Shield blocks all damage with no dent half the time. Putting your shield up to block Seelah's or Valeros's hit is probably tossing away your shield - but it is still 5ish more HP than you would have had. Plus you can easily model different types of shields and materials - perhaps a stout oaken shield is Hardness 3, but can suffer 2 Dents, while Stonejaw's unique crystal shield has Hardness 10 instead of AC 3 (i.e. "shield +1").

 

[houser2112]

First the bit about actually being able to use your shield costing you an action, and now these fiddly rules about shield durability, and then how a heavy steel shield is only good for one hit, it's not really inspiring the warriors to deviate from the tried and true 2H style. One would think that Paizo would want to make the S&B style MORE attractive, not less.

 

[rmcoen]

Maybe playtest feedback will result in Shield-Block-enhancing feats, like Seelah's Lay-On-Hands-enhancing feats. Like "+3 to the effective hardness of your shield", or "Make a skill check / save / whatever to negate a Dent as it is applied to the shield". If they do "Potency Runes" for shields like they do for weapons, maybe a "+1 shield" has Hardness 10 and 2 Dents; +2 has Hardness 15 and 3 Dents, etc. Sign me up for negating 15 damage 3 times in a fight!

Also, I meant to reference the Pickpocket skill -- the paladin tenets, as they are outlined on the character sheet, do seem to nearly completely eliminate any situation where she can actively use the skill. Particularly the catchall "follow the laws". However, Seelah *could* have a flexible definition of what "an innocent" means, stealing from corrupt folk (rich or otherwise) and giving to the poor, for example. And the OP mentions that she could use the Pickpocket skill as a downtime activity as a "Security Consultant", showing people how to avoid being pickpocketed ("those who can't, teach" ?).

It is interesting to have a background ability. It is exciting when you get to use that background ability in a useful way. It is not quite as exciting or interesting to use the ability... and suck at it. Other than perhaps - once! - a self-deprecating chuckle as you fail, followed by a "and *that's* why I'm a [insert different occupation] now!" I point to the bookshelves I built - tucked away in the basement, mind you - and say "And *that's* why I'm a programmer, not an engineer."

I had a character with a very similar background to Seelah [I was first! was 2e!], but my character became a cleric, not a paladin. Except, when the time came for me to use my "old training", *I* was good at it - an actual level of Rogue, specialized in the couple skills I wanted for my background, plus a good DEX. Not a single feat, based on a dump stat...

 

[mewzard]

I had a character with a very similar background to Seelah [I was first! was 2e!], but my character became a cleric, not a paladin. Except, when the time came for me to use my "old training", *I* was good at it - an actual level of Rogue, specialized in the couple skills I wanted for my background, plus a good DEX. Not a single feat, based on a dump stat...

There is absolutely nothing stopping someone using a character set up like that at level one from becoming more proficient at thievery over time, taking skill feats to improve said abilities, or boosting one's Dex to further help (you get four +2 every 4 levels, it's not that difficult). I think the armor is hurting it, but given you add your level to your skills, you can eventually become quite the thief, even if it's not your main skill feature.

Plus, when you get to raise your proficiencies, you can choose which skills to do (whether that's getting trained at all, or going up the proficiency scale, Expert, Master, Legendary). you could absolutely use your X+INT number of starting skills plus starting skill and general feats to start as someone who trained as a thief, and use your future feats, skills, etc to reflect your changed life priorities.

This is just for one of Paizo's characters at level 1.

Also, I'm surprised the post about the Playtest Bard isn't up yet. I guess they wait a bit before posting it?

 

[Argyle King]

I feel as though I don't have a very clear idea of what playstyle PF2 is attempting to achieve.