Jurassic Pratt's page

Adversarial GM much ?

This AP has some over-the-top encounters that should be fled when first encountered and come back with more levels, but those are not that.

The first attack of the Haunt is DC20. It can crit, but not that much. That said, poor luck is a thing.
But the doors do not shut themselves at all. In fact the one you have to break to enter the room from the inside of the building basically disintegrates when you do so.

The Wood Golem animates as soon as someone enters its room but does not leave it.
And with this attack being +16, I am not sure it should crit that much. I hope the GM did not make a single roll and applied it to all targets. It is 4 different Strikes.

Your GM made those encounters more lethal than they are supposed to be.

Huh that makes a lot of sense.

That said, I don't get the feeling the GM is adversarial. I think it's more likely he just isn't reading the full text of the encounters and thus we've just ended up unable to retreat from some things. Unsure where the shutting door thing would've came from tho.

As for the golem critting, we use a VTT for play and he rolls openly on it, so he was in fact just rolling very high.

I really appreciate y'all weighing in on this and I think I'll show him this thread so he realizes where some of the frustration of the party has come from.

Thanks again!

Hi everyone. I've been playing through Abomination Vaults with a new group and we're having some serious issues with the difficulty of some encounters.

So far we've TPK'd twice:

- Once to some Blood Haunt at level 1 on the first floor that is at the bottom of the lighthouse stairs. It went first and immediately crit half our party dropping them to dying. Also the doors shut themselves when the encounter started, so the rest of us were unable to drag our teammates to safety, resulting in us all dying.

- The 2nd TPK was to the wood golem on floor 3. It used its splinter volley to hit all 4 of us at once and was critting us about 50% of the time. We tried to run away thinking that maybe it only guarded the room, but it followed us out into the hall and killed us all.

Is this normal for this AP? Is it just crazy hard or are we missing something that should be making these fights easier?

We really don't need to have a discussion about slavery here.

What will the resolution of the pawns in the PDF be like?

I'd love to be able to buy the PDF and use the pawn art for online games, but in the past the resolution of pawn collections has been quite low.

Essentially gods don't generally do this sort of thing. Their help is usually limited to benefits granted by class features given to their worshipers such as spellcasting.

Hey James,

What would happen if a creature without an alignment (such as one with the Beyond Morality mythic ability) were to ascend to godhood?

To be more specific, would they suddenly gain an alignment or continue to have none?

Regarding Monk: Ki Rush is a great change, but strength based monks still have some serious AC issues. They have to pump up dex to raise AC since they can't wear armor and that still leaves them with much lower AC than any other class. And on top of that they need CON since they're a melee class. Which leave very little for WIS; meaning they will not be able to use defensive abilities like Ki Rush very often.

So str based monks still seem like they're just going to get crit out and die.

This is definitely a big step in the right direction.

However, some things like most half orcs suddenly not having darkvision by default and randomly gaining it when they take a feat at any level are still just bizzare and need to be changed.

Honestly the latter is much more of an issue than the former. I could accept most half orcs being 2nd generation or so and not having dark vision now. But randomly gaining darkvision from your race on level up just doesn't make sense.

Yes, the Padishah of Kelesh, well-known for producing... fair-skinned blondes?

It's highly possible there's a background reason for that.

Failing that, all sorts of people live all over Golarion. Why does he have to be a typical member of the populace? Most places in Golarion aren't known for having a large half-orc population, but that's never stopped me from playing one.

It seems a common theme in these playtest feedback threads is that parties without a cleric constantly teeter on the brink of death/die and and don't have fun, while parties with a cleric don't have much of an issue all survive while having a good time

Right now it seems the encounter math makes clerics necessary to succeed without deaths the majority of the time.

This type of conversation is exactly why this rule needs to be clarified.

It's actually completely up in the air exactly how much damage is needed to dent objects as the rule con be interpreted 2 different ways an needs to be clarified. I made a thread about this exact issue

page 354 (hardness) gives guidance how to destroy doors:

The Hardness for doors, reinforced
structures, and other durable constructions is usually
twice the Hardness listed on the table.

Therefore a wooden door would have hardness 10 (5 doubled), and you would have to inflict either twice 20 damage or 30 in one go for it to be broken. It can then be discussed if a broken door is sufficient or if you need to go for destroyed.

Putting aside the discussion of the DCs, I believe you may have just found a contradiction in the rules. Page 354 on the CRB says that you should double the hardness of doors and other reinforced objects (Assumedly walls and such), but page 7 of the bestiary has an entire section on demolishing objects and even table with their hardness and how many dents they can take, yet and makes absolutely no mention of ever doubling hardness.

I'm curious which one is meant to go by. Especially since the doubling hardness rule for doors means they'd basically be impossibly to tear down until high levels.

There's also still the looming issue of exactly when an object takes a dent, since the rules for it can be read 2 different ways.

An item can be destroyed if it takes damage enough times. An item reduces any damage dealt to it by its Hardness. The Hardness of various materials is explained in the Materials section on page 354. If an item takes damage equal to or exceeding the item’s Hardness, the item takes a Dent. If the item takes damage equal to or greater than twice its Hardness in one hit, it takes 2 Dents. For instance, a wooden shield (Hardness 3) that takes 10 damage would take 2 Dents. A typical item can take only 1 Dent without becoming broken. A second Dent causes it to become broken, though it can still be repaired. An item that would take a Dent or become broken while already broken is destroyed beyond salvage. Some magical or especially sturdy items can take more than 1 Dent before becoming broken, as noted in their descriptions.

So there appear to be 2 equally common interpretations of the rules for items taking damage and the text is vague enough that either could be correct.

Position 1: An item takes a dent if the total damage before subtracting hardness matches or goes past it's hardness.

Example: A fighter hits a wooden door for 11 points of damage. It is reduced by the hardness (10) to 1 point of damage, denting the door.

Position 2: An item takes a dent if the total damage after subtracting hardness is equal to or greater than the objects hardness.

Example: A fighter hits a wooden door for 11 points of damage. It is reduced by the hardness (10) to 1 point of damage, which does not dent the door because the damage actually given is not "equal to or exceeding the item's hardness" of 10.

This has come up in multiple threads and is especially important for how shields work. The sooner this gets a clarification the better.

Thread 1
Thread 2

See, that kind of ambiguity is exactly my issue.

As an example, let's say a GM is designing an adventure and wants to put a mountain that the PCs have to get up. He decides that this is quite a substantial mountain and that it's crumbling, sloped, and slick so he makes it a lvl 6 DC.

Now when the players get there, they toss a grappling hook up to the top with a rope attached and decide to climb up. The GM thinks this makes it 1 category easier, so he shifts the DC from 22 (High) to 19 (low).

A player makes a 17 climb check and is shocked when the GM tells him he failed. He reminds him that climbing a rope is a lvl 1 task and he has the cliff to brace against, so the DC should be 12 or perhaps 14 or 15 since it is in such poor condition.

Who is right in this scenario? As the rules are currently written, I'm genuinely unsure.

The issue with that is that climbing a rope is already a lvl 1 task. The surface you're using it to climb up shouldn't suddenly make it a lvl 6 task.

It just doesn't make sense. Flat DCs were infinitely better than giving everything a level imo.

Basing the DC to break it down on the Thievery DC at all is problematic though. Because locks have diminishing returns and this makes it always harder to break down a door than pick the lock.

There's a point at which no matter what type of lock you put on your wooden door, it's still going to be just as easy to kick down because it's wood. and it's certainly not harder than picking it.

So when my group first ran the playtest we couldn't find any rules or guidelines on the DC to break down doors in the CRB, but I just recently managed to find it on Page 7 of the Bestiary of all places. And what I found was definitely......concerning.

For one, the DC to break open a locked door is equal to the unlock Thievery DC+5 which just doesn't make sense. Regardless of how fancy of a lock you put on a wooden door, it's still a wooden door. The DC absolutely should not be based on the Thievery DC at all, but the size and type of material of the door.

However, this page also held something perhaps even stranger. It also provides DCs for climbing up walls of various materials, and they absolutely do not seem to match up with the CRB. On page 338 of the CRB we can see that climbing a cliff is a level 2 activity, which when we check the DC chart makes it DC 15. Now the bestiary puts climbing wood slats as a level 5 activity which is a whopping DC 21 and is harder than climbing a Masonry Wall apparently. Something is definitely wrong when climbing wood slats is significantly harder than climbing a cliffside and even slightly harder than a masonry wall.

Overall, it seems that quite a few of these DCs were decided without it being considered whether they logically made sense. I think it would definitely be a step in the right direction to revisit these rules and change the Break DC for doors to not be based on Thievery, and make the climb DCs more sensical for what surface you're climbing.

Well upon checking there are more in depth actually guidelines for climbing and breaking down doors in the bestiary of all places.

However, they have some serious issues.

The climb examples contradict the ones in the CRB by being significantly higher. Climbing wooden slats probably shouldn't be DC 21 for example.

Also confusing, the break open DC for doors is equal to the Thievery DC+5 which seems very strange. A wooden door is still a wooden door regardless of how good of a lock you put on it.

Edit: Going to make this issue it's own thread for visibility.

I'm talking about things like climbing a cliff with a rope, having a wall to brace against, swimming in calm water vs stormy water, breaking a wood vs metal door down, etc.

Tables 10-3 through 10-6 list the level some of these ordinary tasks should be and at what level they become trivial, but make no mention of their starting Difficulty, just some factors that can affect their difficulty.

Also, the table is completely missing any guidelines on how to handle using Athletics to Break Open doors, chests, etc. It would be really nice to have example DCs or at least level/difficulty for things like "Flimsy Wooden Door", "Solid Wooden Door", "Solid Iron Door", "Adamantine Lockbox" etc.

However, Breaking Open objects is an Athletics check with default DC = unlock DC+5 for doors.

Where is the rule saying this is the DC located? I haven't managed to find it anywhere and it seems absolutely nonsensical that breaking down a door is harder because the lock is harder to pick.

A wooden door is still a wooden door regardless of what type of lock is on it.

The only thing Assurance is really useful for is Athletics for climbing once you hit expert, since a playtest blog mentioned that the DC for climbing a cliff with a rope is a static 14 or 12 if you have a wall to brace against.

Part of the reason it's so poor is because it scales so slowly, but the bigger issue imo is that so many things that had set/known DCs in PF1 are now complete GM Fiat.

For example, in part 1 of Doomsday Dawn there is a door described as being made of ancient wood. We didn't have anyone to pick the lock, so I decided to force it open with Athletics. The GM decided that my roll of 19 wasn't enough on this "ancient wooden door" because the DC to pick it's lock was higher. His logic being that clearly the door must be meant to be an equally hard challenge to pass regardless of the skill used or any logical sense.

No one has been arguing that you can take any feat best I can tell. Look at the OP's original post. It's talking about taking natural ambition and then using it to gain an archetype feat.

Enemies have attack bonuses that start at +6 as a minimum for a lvl 0 creature and only increase from there. Additionally, they can attack up to 3 times per turn now. Making these proposed changes would be suicide.

Trust me, it's plenty deadly. Try playing part 1 of doomsday dawn without a cleric and you'll get gritty pretty fast.

Am I reading this correctly that all magic items require 1 hour to identify now unless you take a feat? We didn't even bother identifying any of the magic items we found in the playtest because it didn't make sense to stop for an hour.

Overall, I feel like the time for Quick Identification should instead be the normal time, and Quick Identification should instead allow you to do it in 1 minute or less.

Can't comment on the Goblin fight as we had a Goblin in our group(myself) roll a nat 20 on a diplomacy check to avoid the fight.

You specifically cannot use diplomacy on the goblins as long as Drakus lives. I'd hazard a guess the Drakus fight would've went a lot different for you had you fought that extra combat and the GM had remembered to give Drakus his Sneak Attack damage.

Goblins: The Mudchewer goblins who remain loyal to

Drakus are no friends of Talga, and she understands they
will need to be fought and perhaps killed by the PCs. She
suspects (correctly) that as long as Drakus lives, diplomacy
is not an option in dealing with the goblins.

Against Draxus, we were able to enter the fight with full health after the barbarian used some potions that she purchased with her starting gold.

PURCHASING GEAR

The PCs begin with 150 sp each. They
can purchase any common gear found
in Chapter 6 of the Pathfinder Playtest
Rulebook, along with any other options
they gain access to from their class and
feat selections.

Having played a monk, the AC is a serious issue at low levels at least. I was crit far more times than anyone else in the party which resulted in me spending most of the session lying on the floor rolling to wake up.

Unique monster reactions are definitely very cool from what I've seen.

I like rolling my own dice for my character's actions. I dislike anything that requires someone else rolling for my character. It's as simple as that for me.

Gonna quote myself here on this issue.

I think at it's core it's a design issue. We've seen developers talk about how it's okay that there's a feat tax to play a half race because they're actually going to end up more powerful than a human, essentially human+.

Meanwhile, you've got fans of those races saying "I don't want to be a human+, I just want to play a half race and have a variety of Ancestry choices like everyone else at level 1".

Why not simply make them the same power level as the other races and not require a feat to balance?

I do have to wonder why monk only has 3 skill ranks while the paladin gets 4 and the ranger gets 6. It seems extremely limiting to put a class that was at the 4+ skill point level in PF1 to only 3 skill ranks while elevating Paladin from 2 to 4 and leaving Ranger at 6 in PF2.

I can't imagine it's an issue of balance since the Ranger (another full martial class) was left at 6 just like in PF1.

But maybe I'm missing something here. Thoughts?

The CR 2 Bat Swarm isn’t a lot of fun for low level characters either.

It has a fly speed better than most character’s move speed, enough hit points to take multiple hits, and a touch AC high enough that characters are going to have trouble hitting.

Seoni has a single scroll of Burning Hands, Ezren has it in memory so he could cast it twice (using his Arcane Bond for the second casting), Amiri has a single flask of acid, Lini has a single flask of acid, Valeros and Merisiel each have both alchemist fire and acid,

Burning Hands has a Reflex Save of +7 for half damage, just to add insult to the situation.

PF2 has Alchemist as a core class, so we could add in Damiel and their seven bombs. That class is able to take it out all by themselves. Without him, you’ve got problems.

Oh, and writers usually give some indication there are undead allowing you to adjust your preparation. I can’t recall any scenarios that warn of swarms.

In 3.0 you could use a torch to injure swarms. I’ve been told that rule exists in 3.5 as well. That change alone would make them much more manageable.

Using the iconic's gear isn't a good way to evaluate whether something needs to be changed as they're extremely suboptimal. Just look at poor Harsk who shoots a crossbow every other round at all levels.

CrystalSeas wrote:

Vic Ferrari wrote:

Of course not, it simply is fact.

Smaller numbers is all, and monsters being a threat over a wider range of levels (which is a good thing, IME), which again, has been discussed at length.

Did you even bother to read what staff wrote about your idea?

Yes, this was all explained by Deadmanwalking weeks ago, of course it changes monster CR, but the math does work out right.

You have an actual Paizo dev in this very thread saying that it will change the math to the point where your feedback will not be representative of the system.

Here, I'll even pick out the exact part for your convenience:

you are in fact changing numerous underpinnings of the game's expected math, particularly as it affects encounter design.

I think at it's core it's a design issue. We've seen developers talk about how it's okay that there's a feat tax to play a half race because they're actually going to end up more powerful than a human, essentially human+.

Meanwhile, you've got fans of those races saying "I don't want to be a human+, I just want to play a half race and have a variety of Ancestry choices like everyone else at level 1".

Why not simply make them the same power level as the other races and not require a feat to balance?

So one of my favorite things about PF1 was that it was completely feasible to make a strength based rogue rather than a dexterity based one. I found it fun to work against the assumption and play a burly half-orc rogue with a greatsword and power attack, sneak attacking their foes.

However, it seems PF2 is sorta doing away with this concept or at least discouraging it.

The enworld iconic character sheet preview for Merisiel lists sneak attack as only working on agile and finesse weapons and a redditpost from someone who had played a demo mentioned a class feat that expanded it to work for clubs as well.

I for one am incredibly sad that now you are pushed towards being a typical dex based rogue who uses lighter weapons if you want to be able to use one of the class's most iconic abilities. At best it seems you'll have to pay a feat tax in order to be able to use sneak attack with other weapons, but it seems likely that many won't be possible to use with it at all.

I'm just hoping this will change in the playtest so that strength based rogues don't simply become a thing of the past.

Milo v3 wrote:

Everyone still automatically having Common makes it difficult to have language matter much.

Get rid of that please.

Can't. It's tied into the lore of the world. Taldor covered most of the continent at one point which led to most of the humans in the world speaking Taldane (Common).

Most humanoid races are gonna want to understand humans, so most are going to know common. You can't just suddenly have most races stop speaking common without a drastic lore change.

Jurassic Pratt wrote:

Cha to damage? I dunno, something about resonance? Charisma apparently makes you magical.

It's easier to strike a vital spot when they're distracted by your GORGEOUS THIGHS.

....I'm now completely sold on Charisma to damage.

Honestly the way it looks right now I'd rather just not take the half elf/orc feat and just say I'm "half x" without any mechanical benefit of it.

That's better in my mind than a feat tax to play the race you want.

You can make a good argument to use just about any stat for any purpose. For damage it's especially easy

Str to damage? I hit harder.
Dex to damage? I hit more accurately.
Con to damage? I easily ignore the enemy hits on me and thus find it easier to hit vital points.
Int to damage? I can calculate the best way to hit my enemies.
Wis to damage? I can read my opponents moves and hit where they leave open.
Cha to damage? I dunno, something about resonance? Charisma apparently makes you magical.

But obviously for balance reasons the game doesn't let you easily use any stat for any purpose, regardless of whether you can logically justify it.

I'd really like to get concrete rules for what happens to an Animal Companion when the master dies in PF2. Because in PF1 it's a bit of a mess.

In PF1, since they're a class feature of a dead character, they technically should lose all benefits of being an animal companion, but that makes 0 sense.

A few items have this two-part listing because they're hard to wear multiples of. Multiple cloaks, multiple boots... not practical. Multiple rings or amulets? No problem.

Not sure how multiple cloaks is impractical or hard in any way. I regularly wear multiple coats while skiing.

Seems weird to not have formal item slots and then start suggesting that we not be able to wear multiple cloaks.

It's just that I'm still used to the PF1 setting where martials couldn't do cool things and were boring, so this stuff feels like it needs more of an explanation.

I'll just quote myself here.

Things PCs could do in PF1 without magic:

*Gain resistance to energy
*Deflect bullets with your hands
*Snatch bullets out of the air with your hands
*Smash spells out of the air
*Survive a fall of any distance
*Survive being immersed in lava
*Take no fall damage regardless of distance because you were next to a wall
*Jump humanly impossible distances
*Flying Kick around 90 degree corners or even 360 degrees in a circle.
*Punch so hard it bypasses all DR and Hardness
*Rip out multiple vital organs with your bare hands without killing someone
*Roar so loudly people take damage as if you punched them
*Have Daredevil style vision while blind
*Empower your fists with elemental damage
*Pin a creature regardless of it's size compared to your size.
*Learn up to 40 languages overnight
*Become a master at any profession overnight
*Become an expert in any subject overnight

Things NPCs could do in PF1 without magic:
*Literally become a god.

I don't think PF2 is really changing what kind of things are possible without magic in the setting.

I had a huge success with Strength 20, Dex 18, Con 16, Int 12, Wis 16, Cha 10. If I was a dwarf, I could have had Cha 8 and 18 in either Con or Wis, which would have been even better.

Mark, what would this monk's stats look like at first level and at what level did he achieve what you listed here out of curiosity?

Count me in as another seriously worried about the AC of the monk compared to other classes. If a level 1 dex based monk can't even match the AC of a rogue in a chain shirt then I'm struggling to see how a strength monk isn't just going to get destroyed.

3. I don't like, the gonzo level of stuff presented in the Legendary feats blog. The fact that some of it may have existed in PF1 is immaterial because I didn't like it there, either. Despite the fact that it would be logical for that to be the case, and that an edition change would be an opportunity to adjust, these kind of arguments keep being presented.

The reason these kind of arguments were brought up repeatedly was because you were insisting that PF2 was essentially changing the setting and suddenly allowing these impossible things when it simply isn't true:

And I think I've discovered the reason for the Gap in Starfinder. PF2 enabled all high-level adventurers to become demigods without an in-universe explanation and the resulting campaign-breaking paradox required Golarion to be retconned out of existence.

Booyah!

Hell, giants may only exist because of millenia of exposure to magic which caused them to adapt to having this extra source of energy. In my setting, magical beasts are natural evolutions of creatures exposed to magic over generations.

Giants aren't magical beasts though. They're just humanoids. Also, there's nothing in the PF lore of giants even beginning to suggest that magic is what makes them big.

BPorter, I highly suggest you take a look at my list of impossible things you can do without magic I made earlier on in this discussion.

Legendary Skill Feats (at least the ones we've seen) are not allowing PCs to do anything more impossible than what can already be done in PF1 without magic.

Now it's perfectly fine to want more realism in your game and to dislike them because of that. But it's simply not true that these legendary skill feats are suddenly making the impossible possible in the setting. The impossible in our world has been possible without magic throughout PF1.

Things PCs could do in PF1 without magic:
*Gain resistance to energy
*Deflect bullets with your hands
*Snatch bullets out of the air with your hands
*Smash spells out of the air
*Survive a fall of any distance
*Survive being immersed in lava
*Take no fall damage regardless of distance because you were next to a wall
*Jump humanly impossible distances
*Flying Kick around 90 degree corners or even 360 degrees in a circle.
*Punch so hard it bypasses all DR and Hardness
*Rip out multiple vital organs with your bare hands without killing someone
*Roar so loudly people take damage as if you punched them
*Have Daredevil style vision while blind
*Empower your fists with elemental damage
*Pin a creature regardless of it's size compared to your size.
*Learn up to 40 languages overnight
*Become a master at any profession overnight
*Become an expert in any subject overnight

Things NPCs could do in PF1 without magic:
*Literally become a god.

I don't think PF2 is really changing what kind of things are possible without magic in the setting.

Jurassic Pratt wrote:

BPorter wrote:

Jurassic Pratt wrote:

BPorter wrote:

I never said he did. I said he was the exception, not the rule.

Good thing the PC's are exceptions to the normal populace of lvl 1-5 commoners right?

Good thing they can eliminate the speed bump that was the Test of the Starstone, right?

Once again, you can do extraordinary things that don't make sense in our reality without needing the test of the starstone.

Also, if you have an issue with these legendary skill unlocks, you must've really hated rage powers in PF1. You know, the things that let you resist energy damage or even swallow people whole without using magic.

Weren’t some Su abilities? They used magic.

The two I mentioned are Ex. Completely mundane.

Jurassic Pratt wrote:

BPorter wrote:

I never said he did. I said he was the exception, not the rule.

Good thing the PC's are exceptions to the normal populace of lvl 1-5 commoners right?

Good thing they can eliminate the speed bump that was the Test of the Starstone, right?

Once again, you can do extraordinary things that don't make sense in our reality without needing the test of the starstone.

Also, if you have an issue with these legendary skill unlocks, you must've really hated rage powers in PF1. You know, the things that let you resist energy damage or even swallow people whole without using magic.