If there is one thing that felt like cold water in the face, it was reading the new terms used in the rulebook. It’s too early to judge whether the new terms are needed and facilitate getting the information out of the rulebook and into the mind of the reader, but either way, we need to get accustomed to them. Here’s a crib sheet for things that required frequent flipping to different parts of the book, particularly the front:
Actions: The Pathfinder Playtest uses a 3 action economy per turn. Instead of writing 1 action, there is a symbol that looks like a diamond with sideways chevron over it. Instead of touting this new symbol, one of these could have worked: >.
I digress. The new system uses diamond and sideways chevron for one action, two sideways chevrons for two, and you guessed it, three of those things for three actions (or full-round action in old Pathfinder-speak).
Traits: In the original Pathfinder Core Rule Book, a trait was one thing. In later books, it was basically a mini-feat. And now for something totally different: it’s a characteristic of a “rules element”, which can be a characteristic of a feat, an item, a monster, or whatever has some special indication that describes how that particular action or thing interacts with the other components of the game.
Stride: a move action up to your speed. If you are a human, your unadulterated speed is 25 feet. That’s one Stride, costing one action (yes, those weird symbol, things). You can take Stride as an action up to three times per turn, so movement has been opened up in some ways even though some races, like humans, have been hampered on their base speed.
Strike: an attack. Although the rulebook doesn’t elaborate, this seems to refer to melee and ranged attacks with weapons, manufactured or natural, and not necessarily spell attacks. Spells often have two or more components to cast, so that ray of frost cantrip takes up two actions to cast. More on that in a bit…
Bulk: carrying capacity. Items now have a “bulk” as opposed to weight. A character’s Bulk is equal to all of their items. If you have Bulk equal to or more than 5 plus your Strength modifier, you are encumbered. You can’t carry more than 10 plus your Strength modifier in Bulk. If an item is “Light”, it takes 10 of those Light items to make 1 Bulk.
Proficiency: Full disclosure, this has replaced Base Attack Bonus (and apparently skill ranks?) for Pathfinder and has caused me some confusion because the BAB, a clear number, has been replaced by varying degrees of proficiency. If a character is:
Untrained as their proficiency in a skill, weapon, armor, etc., their proficiency modifier is equal to their character’s level minus 2.
Trained proficiency is equal to the character’s level, i.e., level one PC’s have +1 proficiency modifiers to add to their rolls, along with the other modifiers, usually ability modifiers.
Master proficiency is equal to character level +2.
Legendary proficiency is equal to character level +3.
Perception: this ability score is now the usual modifier for initiative rolls. To calculate the Perception modifier for a character, add their Wisdom modifier to the proficiency modifier to their Perception modifier.
Critical Hit: no longer need to be confirmed. Natural 20 d20 rolls are critical hits, and so are any attack roll where the attack roll beats the target’s AC by 10. If a weapon hits critically (i.e., a Strike), it does double damage, that is you roll twice the usual damage dice for the attack and apply all damage modifiers twice, generally. There are some weapon traits that enhance this damage on a critical hit. More on that later.
More terminology to come. Stay tuned!
Gamer at Law 