http://paizo.com/pathfinderplaytest?utm ... nouncement
Which ... yeah, that's not much, but there's a blog!
http://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dy ... r-Playtest
So, yeah.
That, well, right, OK. Um, that's a pain in the ass. Not much, but it's just slightly worse than having an initiative bonus and rolling that, for no obvious advantage at all. Because obviously what I do between combats is whatever gives me the biggest fucking initiative bonus, all the time, just in case, duh. That's worse than just rolling initiative because it's robbing me of all those other possible inputs into the pre-fight bit.If combat begins, the first two begin with their weapons drawn, ready for a fight, and they roll Perception for their initiative. The skulking character rolls Stealth for initiative, giving them a chance to hide before the fight even begins. The final adventurer rolls Perception for initiative, but also gains some insight as to whether or not there is magic in the room.
http://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dy ... ut-ActionsAfter initiative is sorted out and it's your turn to act, you get to take three actions on your turn, in any combination.
On which they expanded next up.
So attack at +0/-5/-10 or something, and using a shield at all is an action, maintaining a spell at all is an action, so, yeah, you have 3 action points and fucking everything costs at least one. Spellcasting costs two actions, except when it costs one. Charging is a feat that uses two actions, so most things can't charge.
That's a very pathfinder solution, have more actions in combat but then split up actions so you need more actions in combat. Maybe better anyway, in this case.
I mean, it's still basically a standard, move, swift, but they said people didn't get that, so OK, it's probably simpler and reasonably hard to fuck that up.
Yuck. Like, yeah, OK, it's a surprise when the Red Dragon reacts to redirect your fire attack, only no it isn't because they already spoiled that one. I think the Kobold shift reaction got old really quick in 4e D&D, special reactions are just annoying and so easy to break the game with. It's relatively easy to just not have them at all, but ah well.Many classes and monsters have different things they can do with their reactions, making each combat a little bit less predictable and a lot more exciting.
Are they seriously trying to appeal to 4th edition grognards? Like, there's all of two of them to appeal to? That reads like an interesting story, but in game it's constant unpredictable bullshit that doesn't mesh well with the players' abilities or standard game functions (seriously, 20' is big damage, compared to a T-Rex bite?), oh, but it's "freed them up to be creative."This also makes it easier for us to present monsters, giving us more space to include special abilities and actions that really make a monster unique. Take the fearsome tyrannosaurus, for example; if this terrifying dinosaur gets you in its jaws, it can take an action to fling you up to 20 feet through the air, dealing tremendous damage to you in the process!
See, standard game functions that the monsters use, it's good for the game, all this 2nd edition D&D era special case bullshit is something players eventually learn to work around but discovering how isn't actually any fun, it's just work, or study. Game designer wankery, really.
OK, late-3.5 and Pathfinder monsters are grossly verbose and the layout is colossally space consuming, but when you change that and save space, don't fill it back up with your wank, please, just put more monsters in the book, because that's actually more new stuff, or make a smaller and cheaper book.
If you want big monsters to have a bite for pick-up and grapple throw for damage, just make them standard fucking combat functions so everything can do them, including the PCs. If it works, use it; if it doesn't work, don't just hide it in one shit monster and say it's OK. Everything big enough chucks PCs around like ragdolls? Sweet! Go with it.
I will review the blog as it continues.