What I intended was simply note that a +1 item in 5e is much more meaningful and impactful than a +1 item in PF2, and stating that 5e did "a better job" in terms of mandatory bonuses is just ignoring this key point.People keep saying this but can someone explain it to me?
On paper it seems like it would be the other way around where +1 in PF2 is much more important.Isn't a +1 (and soon thereafter a striking rune) in PF2 similar to getting Keen and double damage?
A +1 in 5e seems fairly insignificant since you already hit pretty often and at worst you might do half damage against some monsters with resistance to non-magical weapons which isn't that common and usually bypassed pretty easily with a Magic Weapon spell or lots of spell availability to most classes.
For one thing, with proficiency going from +2 to +6 over a characters entire lifetime, a +1 weapon is functionally equivalent to 25% of a characters entire progression in accuracy (I'm ignoring stats at the moment, but thats only another +1 for most characters unless I'm forgetting something - so 20%) for their entire life. A +3 weapon is as important to accuracy as 15 levels, and there's no way for a character without one to make up that difference.
In addition, 5e has FAR fewer ways to duplicate that +1, especially ways tied to tactics or combat statuses. If that +1 were just one factor among several (say, flanking, attack bonuses from circumstance or status, and ac penalties for fear or sickened) it would be less significant - instead, its fairly unique.
It may be less impactful than +1 in Pathfinder 2e, but its infinitely more precious.
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It may be less impactful than +1 in Pathfinder 2e, but its infinitely more precious.
I've never really understood that point of view. To me, rarity does NOT make something valuable in a game, utility does.
I remember in the early 4th Ed D&D days where a +1 was very rare and lots of people talked about how important it was. To me, it still felt very lacklustre, affecting (In general) less than one roll per session.
A +1 seems to me much more important in PF2 than 5th because it DOES mathematically mean more.
People bring up the "Starting Treasure for New Characters" table, but this table doesn't actually mesh well with the "Treasure By Level" Table, where a lv9 party is going to get some lv10 items (And just has more stuff in general). So characters that orghanically reach 10th might already have some lv10 items.
Since this is a very experienced PF1 party with a lot of items, the "Starting Treasure" one wasn't gonna cut it.
A +1 seems to me much more important in PF2 than 5th because it DOES mathematically mean more.
I mean, its potent, but its not the only game in town. Losing out on the +1 item bonus to hit hurts, but its not the only game in town. There are lots of ways to replicate it, and you only really will feel behind when swinging against higher level enemies.
In 5e, having a less potent weapon puts you "behind" against everything in a way you will notice given long enough.
I played in an "all the way to 20" campaign where I abandoned a barbarian for being unfun AND pointless after a randomly rolled Dwarven Thrower (or whatever the DnD equivalent is) made the Dwarf war college bard more relevant than me in combat - which would have been true until the day we randomly rolled a +3 weapon for my barbarian, or until the GM took pity on me and gave me one to replace my +1 weapon.
It feels bad. And doubly so because there are no standards for providing such items to players. In order to challenge the bards accuracy, my barbarian was struggling to hit reliably.
That seems less like a 5e issue and more like a your GM being shitty with loot and encounters issue by giving one party member a dramatically stronger weapon than another and then tailoring encounters to them.
You'd run into the same problem if your PF2 GM gave one party member a +2 major striking weapon while you were still running around with a +1.
That seems less like a 5e issue and more like a your GM being s~@%ty with loot issue by giving one party member a dramatically stronger weapon than another.
You'd run into the same problem if your PF2 GM gave one party member a +2 major striking weapon while you were still running around with a +1.
Sure you would - except that the Pathfinder GM would be explicitly and massively breaking away from the guidelines in the DM section about treasure and what sorts of items are appropriate for the players.
So long as characters in PF2 are equipped as directed, generally with items at or only slightly above or below the level of the character, you don't have significant item related balance issues.
The system provides solid guidance on what items the players should have access to at any given time.
People bring up the "Starting Treasure for New Characters" table, but this table doesn't actually mesh well with the "Treasure By Level" Table, where a lv9 party is going to get some lv10 items (And just has more stuff in general). So characters that orghanically reach 10th might already have some lv10 items.
(1) That's for the whole party not per-PC.
Table 10–9: Party Treasure by Level on the next page shows
how much treasure you should give out over the course of a
level for a group of four PCs.
That means that on average each PC will have one half of one 10th level item by the time they reach 10th level (and it may not even be an item they want).
Additionally
TREASURE FOR NEW CHARACTERS
...
These values are for a PC just starting out at the given
level. If the PC is joining a party that has already made
progress toward the next level, consider giving the new
character an additional item of their current level. If your
party has kept the treasure of dead or retired PCs and
passed it on to new characters, you might need to give the
new character less than the values on the table or reduce
some of the treasure rewards of the next few adventures.
But if you're saying that 5E did a much better job of creating evocative and impactful magic items that come across much more as pure rewards rather than mandatory chores, then I agree.I played in a 5e game where all I wanted was a magic weapon. I never got one because the DM said 'You don't need them in this edition.' I have never forgiven 5th edition for this.
I am that guy.
All I want are plain, nondescript magic items that give me permanent, constant + numbers to my stats. Everything else is garbage unless it lets me fly, teleport, heal, or is a bag of holding.
Unique magic items are almost entirely useless. They get tossed into the bag and sold for something that is useful. It doesn't need to shoot rays of energy, sing, or glow when orcs are near or anything else.
I want stat upgrades frequently and regularly. If you can't give them to me, put a shop somewhere that will sell them to me.
The dice is the enemy and I strive the entire campaign to not be bound by its fickle desires.
Speaking as a long time GM, I feel this acutely, at least in the sense that I do feel like the 5e design does encourage a DM to limit magic items heavily, whereas 2e's encourage them to give out a lot, which can feel like a huge difference.
Granted, I think the hardline against magic items with novelty value is gratuitous, but I can certainly admit to feeling very frustrated that the community there seems to lean much more toward items that don't have any novelty other than a moment's curiosity when you find it. I think neat effects should be in addition to useful bonuses... or the system shouldn't offer or depend on useful bonuses from items.
Unless the system also has a way to establish some items as low value in a way that doesn't actually compete with stats, 5e's problem is that good items, situational items, and practically useless items are all on the same tables. It makes the treasure point variant in XGTE a real weird system, let me tell you.
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One thing to note is that not everyone who'd like magic items to have less numeric bonuses necessarily want less magic items. This is true for some people, and that's totally fine, but some (e.g. myself) really enjoy having games with a lot of magic items, but would rather have them give the characters more options or different ways to use their options, rather than math bonuses that are accounted by the system anyway.
Fortunately, PF2 with the 3-action system and other subsystems provides an amazing framework to be creative with magic items, and that + some ABP variations has supplied my group's needs very well. I hope the other people who had similar issues can come up with satisfying solutions as well.
Granted, I think the hardline against magic items with novelty value is gratuitous, but I can certainly admit to feeling very frustrated that the community there seems to lean much more toward items that don't have any novelty other than a moment's curiosity when you find it. I think neat effects should be in addition to useful bonuses... or the system shouldn't offer or depend on useful bonuses from items.
Unless the system also has a way to establish some items as low value in a way that doesn't actually compete with stats, 5e's problem is that good items, situational items, and practically useless items are all on the same tables. It makes the treasure point variant in XGTE a real weird system, let me tell you.
I'm sure I spoke with Hyberbole there, but PF1 has a real problem with littering the magic item tables with useless items that have either exceptionally niche uses or too low of DCs to be worth using. I've given out Decks of Many Things, Rods of Wonder, Instant Fortresses, Bags of Infinite Dairy Queen Blizzards (Actually, that one was frequently used) and none of it is ever appreciated or used as much as an upgrade on the ring of protection.
In PF2, I would never want any magic item in lieu of a fundamental rune for my sword or armor because To hit and AC is bought at a premium in the system. Worse, they doubled the itemizing of it by making +accuracy one item and +damage another.
So, this is kindof one of those things where I encourage you to try it as written and see if the scarcity you're worried about actually materializes. Or play one of the APs, and emulate how they do it.
Generally (non-specific spoilers), they're giving the party access to a single new tier weapon (+1, +1 striking, etc.) a level 'early'. Then, during the part of the adventure you're 'expected' to be picking them up (IE, level 4 for a level 4 item), they're giving you another 1-2. Then, well before you hit the next threshold, you'll have found several.
How it tends to work out is that the most damaging martial character receives that first 'early' one, then the next most martial character, and then generally for the remaining characters (unless you have a skewed party comp) are just filling in once you start to get extras.
Neither of my parties has struggled to fill things out by the time the next tier rolls up, and then its generally a similar resource management exercise. Who needs the items the most first, then gearing everyone else who needs them becomes the priority, etc.
If they're really worried about it, they use crafting to fill in the gaps and then inevitably kick themselves when it turns out they could have just waited two encounters.
After my last session this week, one of my Age of Ashes characters looked at the gear most characters were carrying, and realized they were almost exactly on track for the party items, plus a bunch of miscellaneous little things.
I'll note that while everyone likes an upgrade, they've yet to be endangered for lack of them.
And nearly all trinkets are garbage. Most of them I'd outright sell, and I'd never buy any of them.
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I'm sorry, but this claim doesn't hold up under even the slightest scrutiny.
I think we're defining things quite differently here. The claim I made, you seem to agree with. The claim you seem to think I made is not one I actually agree with myself.
If striking runes were half as potent as they were in the current edition, magic weapons wouldn't suddenly stop being mandatory, despite also having obviously not as large an effect on a character's total damage output, the thing you claim is impossible.
Uh...the fact that they would still be mandatory is my whole point. I don't know what you think I was saying, but you just said my actual point yourself.
To reiterate, perhaps more clearly this time:
With math as tight as PF2's, any math enhancer item will inevitably be mandatory. People wanted math enhancer items, thus some items are inevitably mandatory.
That's my entire point, right there.
Which makes your claim demonstrably false. Along with the entire fake binary you're trying to establish where the only choices one was allowed to make were between no magic items and the exact, specific implementation of magic items as they appear in PF2 is equally false.
What you're accusing me of saying? I didn't say that. Of course there are other potential design choices in terms of specific numbers, but I never said otherwise.
What I said was that any math booster would inevitably be mandatory. You seemed to be disagreeing with that, but if you don't, and just want to argue that items should have capped at +2 rather than +3, with PCs getting another +1 from inherent stuff, that's certainly possible. I think fiddling with the system to make it true is more trouble than it's worth at this point, but that's just a matter of preference and degree of effort involved.
If you like the system so much, just say it, but don't keep trying to invent these false narratives to prop it up.
I'm not inventing anything, and as I said in my first post, I'd actually be fine with ABP being standard. I'm not defending what you seem to think I'm defending, and I'm a bit confused why you think I am.
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And nearly all trinkets are garbage. Most of them I'd outright sell, and I'd never buy any of them.
There's a period where Potency Crystals are actually extremely efficient for use on alternate or thrown weapons.
Snapleafs are affordable at mid levels, and very good if you need to do something where falling is a risk, as are Feather Step stones.
At very high levels (15+), Swift Block Cabachon's are amazing for any shield user who doesn't always get to raise their shield and totally affordable.
As well, once you're at that point, Iron Medallion's and Mummified Bats also solve critical problems for a lot of characters at a price point that is quite affordable by that time.
Frightful presence is on a lot of high level monsters (IE, Ancient Dragons) and the Iron Medallion will straight save you from a bad roll.
Generally, I'm not looking at 'At-Level' Talismans for the 'good' ones I'm going to bank on using - once they're level -5 they become pretty affordable and many still offer bonuses that aren't level or roll based.
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Generally, I'm not looking at 'At-Level' Talismans for the 'good' ones I'm going to bank on using - once they're level -5 they become pretty affordable and many still offer bonuses that aren't level or roll based.
There's something seriously wrong with consumables if their utility is enhanced by waiting several levels. That is, the point where their cost as a fraction of wealth drops towards zero. What it tells me is that they're over-priced.
And if they're over-priced, then at-level, they are trash and I will sell them. Some of them (looking at you, Wolf Fang) I don't see as ever having utility. Wolf Claw is "do ~4 damage, for 4 gold (once) when tripping." Is it free damage? Sure, I guess, but is 4 damage really that valuable? Ever?
Or how about the Gallows Tooth vs. the Jade Bauble? Both worth 100 gold and both cause creatures to become flat footed. Sure, the gallows tooth is a free action to activate, but given how low-value a 3rd action is (and how valuable making a creature flat footed to your allies is) I can't see why Gallows Tooth is worth that much.
Vanishing Coin. 160 gp to be invisible (2nd level) for a turn. You can buy thirteen scrolls of it (and it lasts a minute) for that. Is it off-class? A bit. Is it a free action? Sure. But wow that price is a bit high. Oh AND you have to be a master at stealth to even use it.
I could find some more, but it really feels like every time I see a consumable (that isn't healing) I go "that's nice, how much is it worth if I sell it?"
Other solution: Transition to automatic bonus progression, as appears in the GMG, but when their free bonus accrues, award each of them participation trophies at the same time as well.
What is the general opinion on ABP?
Because in my 1E game ABP + 50% wealth seems to have resulted in far far stronger (or at least much more versatile) characters than 100% wealth
Mainly because they can use slots for things that the old mandatory items would have taken. It has literally saved two characters that would otherwise not be alive - one had a talisman that auto cast breath of life (neck slot) and another had the dimension door cape to get out of a certain death situation
So far more than the numbers - the extra options tipped the balance
Is this a risk with using ABP in 2E?
One of the main benefits of ABP in 1E is that it makes NPC's so much stronger against PC's, because they suddenly have all the mechanical bonuses which they were missing, due to how NPC wealth is handled. So I think it balances out with the increased PC versatility (which is limited by only having 50% of WBL, anyway).
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I mean, yes, monster AC goes up by 2 at 10th level, but that's to account for attack stats going from 19 to 20 due to level-up Ability points, not magic items improving.
This. This right here is what I wish they would not have done. The thrice-accursed threadmill. 'Oh, you got stronger now? Welp, seems like we have to make the monsters tougher then'.
So, in other words, the very thing that is supposed to make your more powerful, levelling up, doesn't. And no, it doesn't merely keep you 'adequate' either.
It actively makes you worse.
Why? Because if you improve your main attack stat, you are almost certainly not improving your other attacks stats. What do we have here: Melee wants strength, archers want dexterity and casters their casting stat. So unless you keep increasing all these stats at the same pace, you are going to fall behind. The sword fighter will get worse at shooting things instead of getting better at swording things, for the archer, it is the other way around.
At least with casters one could argue, their focus on their arcane or whatever skills leads to their martial skills atrophying, but that is a weak argument if you ask me.
I mean, looking at level 10, a high AC monster is AC 30. A martial PC of that level should hit that on a 10 with a +1 weapon. Going to 9 with a +2 is great, but being one behind would only make for an 11, which isn't the end of the world, and that's a high AC.
Why should it not be so that a noob hero starts out with needing a +10 or +11 to hit on average, presuming they start out with an 18 in their attack stat (Fighters having a head start obviously). But as they improve their stats and gear, that baseline shifts.
With a 20 in the stat, the baseline drops to +10, with the Apex Item to +9, and at lv 20, for what presumably will not see much play but the final fight, they enjoy a baseline of +8.
That also makes the decision to start with a 16 in your main stat a much more meaningful decision. Not critical, but hanging back a +1 for half the game, if it even goes to 20, is not something to ignore. Fighters enjoy a bit more freedom here I suppose.
As for items though, yeah, another +3 baseline shift would probably be too much. But it just irks me that characters don't get to enjoy the fruits of self-improvement. Bake the items into the math, fair enough, ABP is a thing. But robbing PCs of their improvements for levelling just rubs me the wrong way.
Pathfinders tight math and different proficiency progression is already doing strange things to your heroes if you want to stay somewhat competitive.
For example my Warpriest which in addition to not featuring optimized stats has to struggle with proficiecy progression:
* Levels 1 to 4: To-hit almost as good as a martial and DC as good as a caster, so you can do either.
* Levels 5 and 6: All martials get their proficiency up, so you really want to avoid attacking in melee and heavily rely on casting instead.
* Levels 7 to 10: You are as good as martials again, however your casting is behind now, so unless you don't mind getting resisted a lot, melee it is.
* Levels 11 to 12: Can do both again!
* Levels 13 to 14: Martials got you for good, back to casting.
* Levels 15+: You *are* behind. Cast some buffs and do cry internally.
If you have stats that are one or more behind and you are behind in proficiency as well that (at the minimum) is an easy -3 to-hit, DC and counteracting, which is huge.
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I mean, yes, monster AC goes up by 2 at 10th level, but that's to account for attack stats going from 19 to 20 due to level-up Ability points, not magic items improving.This. This right here is what I wish they would not have done. The thrice-accursed threadmill. 'Oh, you got stronger now? Welp, seems like we have to make the monsters tougher then'.
So, in other words, the very thing that is supposed to make your more powerful, levelling up, doesn't. And no, it doesn't merely keep you 'adequate' either.
It actively makes you worse.
Uh... no it doesn't. The things it took a 10 to hit at level 9, now get hit on an 8. The things that now require a 10 to hit are more powerful than the things that took a 10 last level, and you would have been hitting on a 12 a level ago.
You absolutely got better, and tangibly and demonstrably so.
It sounds like you're opposed to progression. Alternatively it sounds like you're suggesting that as you level, you should be able to hit all targets more easily, regardless of their level.
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Uh... no it doesn't.
It actively makes you worse.
Uh, you're both right.
You very much get better against the same opponents. And sometimes this is very evident. If you're, for example, fighting giants for a few levels then you'll see a giant go from a boss to a Mook.
On the other hand, if you're playing a series of unlinked adventures then you'll pretty much see yourself stay the same as, miraculously, your opponents advance in lock step as you do. And you'll see your secondary effects get gradually less effective.
Uh... no it doesn't.
It actively makes you worse.Uh, you're both right.
You very much get better against the same opponents. And sometimes this is very evident. If you're, for example, fighting giants for a few levels then you'll see a giant go from a boss to a Mook.
On the other hand, if you're playing a series of unlinked adventures then you'll pretty much see yourself stay the same as, miraculously, your opponents advance in lock step as you do. And you'll see your secondary effects get gradually less effective.
I'd still say there should be something to be said for "I hit the Orc Warrior on a 10." Vs. "I hit Smaug, the Ancient Dragon on a 10."
In the player role, I personally like knowing what a given target number means - on level is a 10 gives a good target by which to gage expectations and understand where I am relative to the current challenge.
Why? Because if you improve your main attack stat, you are almost certainly not improving your other attacks stats. What do we have here: Melee wants strength, archers want dexterity and casters their casting stat. So unless you keep increasing all these stats at the same pace, you are going to fall behind. The sword fighter will get worse at shooting things instead of getting better at swording things, for the archer, it is the other way around.
Krispy already addressed the first part of your argument, but I feel like you're forgetting the fact that you increase 4 stats every 5 levels, not one. So the Fighter/Wizard who primarily uses a greatsword but likes to pull out a bow once in a while can increase their Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Intelligence every 5 levels.
I think you may be looking at it as "struggling to keep up" as opposed to "struggling to become equal to new challenges".
There's no point at which it becomes harder to overcome a level X challenge when you level up, but going from X to X+1 does require extra effort at some points.
Why? Because if you improve your main attack stat, you are almost certainly not improving your other attacks stats. What do we have here: Melee wants strength, archers want dexterity and casters their casting stat. So unless you keep increasing all these stats at the same pace, you are going to fall behind. The sword fighter will get worse at shooting things instead of getting better at swording things, for the archer, it is the other way around.Krispy already addressed the first part of your argument, but I feel like you're forgetting the fact that you increase 4 stats every 5 levels, not one. So the Fighter/Wizard who primarily uses a greatsword but likes to pull out a bow once in a while can increase their Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Intelligence every 5 levels.
Or rather, they have to increase these stats, if they don't want to fall off the treadmill. And that means they are less free to invest into WIS and CHA. But yes, this is still a huge improvement over 3.x and PF1, Tomes and Manuals notwithstanding.
Which looking at a basic view of attack bonus progression stacked up against the values on the AC table for building creatures it does appear that to keep the same "I hit on a die roll of X+" you've got to boost your attack-relevant ability score at every opportunity, add on your Apex item for it, and get the maximum item bonus... however, that's not necessarily showing that the game is "max out to keep up, so you don't have a choice" because I haven't evaluated what degree or frequency of temporary bonuses can be utilized, so maybe the game feel actually is that you feel like you get better and better if you max out your attack capabilities by way of having more access to buffs & debuffs to use at higher levels of play than you have at the lower levels.
There is that of course. Maybe my lack of mid-to-high level experience makes me discount the effects Bards and other buffs have on the outcome of fights. Still, it just feels like the 'betterment of the self' that stat increases represent should not be taken for granted by the game and actually result in an improvement.
As I said, it just rubs me the wrong way, but whatever works for you. Now I just have to convince our GM to go with ABP once we pick up our game again.
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"Max out to keep up" really only matters in extreme cases of DPR min/maxing where you are keeping track of your successes and failures over a long period of time. A lot of players, and especially character builders are into that, which is fine, but it is not incredibly necessary to enjoy playing the game.
Needing a 12 to hit instead of an 11 does mean that you will be missing more than 50% of the time, and rarely crit, but if you have a character built around doing other things than attacking, with making a strike as a secondary or even tertiary goal in a round, then the success of your strike really shouldn't be focus of whether your turn was successful or not. If you are not taking 3 attack actions, even if they all take die rolls of a 12 or higher to succeed, you are probably accomplishing 1 or 2 of the things you are setting out to do, which can make your turn feel a lot more productive than the character built to strike, who rolls a 7 on their first roll of the round and is probably not accomplishing much else this round.
PF2 is a lot of fun beyond striking as often as possible. Figuring out what matters to you as a player can take some adjustment in PF2 and doesn't necessarily line up with character roles of PF1. Maybe hitting consistently matters more to you than you realized, and you don't have fun if you aren't hitting?
If that is the case, unless the rest of the party is going to invest in buffing you, you probably should play a fighter or a flurry ranger instead of a Barbarian or a Precision Ranger.
Or if you are a caster, maybe picking magic missile as a spell instead of shocking hands will make you feel more like a reliable damage dealer.
Other players would rather swing for the fences and feel more useless doing a reliable 2x to 3x points of damage every round rather than doing 10x points of damage every 5th round.
Where players start to feel railroaded into picking up every +1, is when they feel like they have to pick the higher damage/high risk option AND hit with it every round to be playing effectively.
PF2 always makes trying to focus on this goal have a heavy cost, not be 100% reliable, and usually require the support of other party members to pull off.
I think the most frustrating experiences of playing PF2, at least for me, happen when 2 or 3 of the party members end up competing with each other to see which character gets to be the best at being the striker, spending their resources and character build in picking up every possible +1 for themselves, usually in a much less effective method than can be accomplished by finding ways to provide them for each other.
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What Ubertron_X said is true. Even if you don't consider building for minmaxing accuracy something necessary, some characters (usually gishes) end up feeling like they get worse at both things as the game progresses, because of proficiency.
One thing I wish they did was treat AC similarly to skills: scale the DCs slightly slower than the bonuses. And... I think that's something that was mentioned in one of the post-Playtest streams, actually? I remember someone saying they listened to the feedback on the treadmill effect and now a high level fighter could hit 80-90% with their first attack against on-level creatures. Apparently the idea was dropped before the final game was printed :/
I think you may be looking at it as "struggling to keep up" as opposed to "struggling to become equal to new challenges".
There's no point at which it becomes harder to overcome a level X challenge when you level up, but going from X to X+1 does require extra effort at some points.
I'm talking about the way a player can feel if they start out with the game saying 10+ on the die gets the job done, and that doesn't change even if they put every choice they can put into "I want my character to be the best at this category of things"
"Getting the job done" is not an in game activity. Players do not fight "Monster" every encounter, and getting to be higher level is not measured by being able to hit equal level monster better.
The game assumes that, if you want to be able to use specific skills and strategies to overcome the most difficult challenges, you will be putting someone with some expertise in the role of leading that challenge. And gives you a lot of ways, especially by higher levels, for not so specialized characters to have many ways to help boost their specialized allies.
Thinking, well my character invested one skill boost in deception at level 1 and bought a disguise kit, I should be good to impersonate the emperor at level 15 of the campaign, hasn't really invested enough in their character pull this off without incredible luck. But the ways to invest in this plan are many, and magic items give players a lot of temporary ways to be much better at the things they are lightly invested in, for single situations. Instead of investing in a melee weapon with runes, and armor with runes, a caster who finds.themselves in a situation where they need to be able stand their ground in Melee about once a day, might want to consider investing in a top level polymorph spell, or a summon spell, or a means of getting out of that situation quickly.
Making sure your defenses are not falling too far behind is important, but is so built into the math of PF2 that it is really difficult to fall more than 3 or 4 points behind on any defense. Fortitude/Con is the only one that that creates real intense chances of instant death, although Wisdom/Will can sometimes be even worse than death. These are examples of things that characters will want to consider contingencies for, at least as a party. A lot of people write off feats and items that give bonuses to other people's saving throws or allow saving throw rerolls, but those really are the most likely situations where a single die roll determines life or death.
Attacks are not as important in comparison, but feel more important because many characters make those rolls more often. However, unless you are a martial character building your entire identity around attacking with every action possible, it is good to make sure you have other things you can do in a round that feel like they are vitally contributing to the party's success. (I'd argue martial characters should have this too, especially melee focused ones, because having to spend many actions moving, without posing any threat to your enemies, makes you an easy character to write out of combats). Attempting to intimidate requiring a 13 or 14, moving into a supporting position for an ally about to attack, and then attempting an attack with a 11 or 12 to hit (because you are probably now flanking as well), can often be better than being a character who attacks twice, needing a 11 to hit on the first attack and a 16 to hit on the second. Sometimes this can also require delaying your action to be able to make sure your tag team works out, and failing to realize that can make you feel like those actions spent moving are useless if the enemy moves away.
One thing I wish they did was treat AC similarly to skills: scale the DCs slightly slower than the bonuses. And... I think that's something that was mentioned in one of the post-Playtest streams, actually? I remember someone saying they listened to the feedback on the treadmill effect and now a high level fighter could hit 80-90% with their first attack against on-level creatures. Apparently the idea was dropped before the final game was printed :/
I'd need to examine the actual underlying maths that have gone into it, but this actually does match my experience with the fighter in my group. She often hits things on 4-5, where it used to be 7-8.
Its probably due to a combination of things, but some external bonuses (Heroism, Inspire Heroics) do get better over time (+2/+3 instead of +1). As well, some penalties are a bit bigger (Synesthesia is -3 AC instead of say, -2 from a Fear spell on a failed save).
I think the main progression track is roughly on pace all the way through, but the extra bonuses do scale a bit faster than target ACs rise.
I very much dislike striking and potency runes. The game is balanced around them, with the gap getting larger the later into the game you get. Its just not realistic for PC's to always have magic weapons. Say the campaign is one where you don't get to see a merchant very often, or the party gets put in jail, etc. There are tons of situations where PC's wouldn't have their weapons, but you can't really do them because it totally screws up balance.
Weapons or items with cool active effects are so much more exciting. All the runes that aren't fundamental are cool enough in my opinion, and enough to get excited about. Fundamental runes make you feel like a crappy character if you don't have them, and normal if you do.
Changes to this aren't going to happen anytime soon in any official capacity. My hope is that there are at least character options through feats or otherwise that let you get bonuses equal to fundamental runes. There are a few now - concentrating on polymorphing or spellcasting gets around needing weapons to some degree.
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I'll also point out that the argument against using DPR as a measure is wrong, is itself wrong. Or at least, misguided.
DPR/hit rate is an easy thing to compare things against. The "everything else" (spell success rate, skill success rate, not-getting-hit, etc) all uses the same rules with the same threshold of success: 10+ on the die roll if you're good at that thing.
No really, go compare a spec'd out rogue's Stealth skill versus enemy Perception. Its going to work out to "about 50%" across the spectrum.
The advantage of PF2 and the TEML system is that EVERYTHING uses the same sliding scale on target numbers. Everything is balanced around having improvements come at approximately the same rate, just that different classes get their bonuses in different places. No, the wizard isn't going to see an improvement in their ability to smack things with pointy things, but they are going to see an increase in their spell attacks and spell DCs.
What monsters get hurt by what things is going to likewise be variable. On in general we can average things out, take the "moderate DC" for a given level, and compare to a specialist's maximum output. Whether that be a fighter hitting AC, a monster failing a save against the wizard's DC, or a rogue's skill check against a hazard, all of them have approximately equal statistical variance.
And that statistical variance is what contributes to "game feel."
And the "game feel"...feels bad, man.
Because rolling a 10+ to succeed means that half the time I'm not rolling a 10+ and feel useless.
As soon as the party is going up against a creature above their level (or worse, two levels) its no longer a 10+ but a 14+ and the first significant damage that gets dealt to the one enemy comes from having failed a save against the other enemy just REALLY puts a damper on the feels-good.
Changes to this aren't going to happen anytime soon in any official capacity. My hope is that there are at least character options through feats or otherwise that let you get bonuses equal to fundamental runes. There are a few now - concentrating on polymorphing or spellcasting gets around needing weapons to some degree.
Automatic Bonus Progression is an official, although variant rule. You should take a look at it (in the GMG) if you haven't. Since ABP is already a thing, I highly doubt they'll print character options to let you ignore the rune requirements. You'll probably always depend on your GM deciding to use those rules or not.
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There are tons of situations where PC's wouldn't have their weapons, but you can't really do them because it totally screws up balance.That's what I call "Reason #17 I use automatic bonus progression"
That's a fair conclusion, but I think what some people are getting at here is that they're kind of in the middle and feel like they don't have an option.
ABP is good if you want to completely eschew power-enhancing magic items, but there appear to be a number of players who want some kind of magical enhancement, but don't like how overboard PF2 went when they made those magic items more important than ever before.
There are tons of situations where PC's wouldn't have their weapons, but you can't really do them because it totally screws up balance.That's what I call "Reason #17 I use automatic bonus progression"That's a fair conclusion, but I think what some people are getting at here is that they're kind of in the middle and feel like they don't have an option.
ABP is good if you want to completely eschew power-enhancing magic items, but there appear to be a number of players who want some kind of magical enhancement, but don't like how overboard PF2 went when they made those magic items more important than ever before.
That's a fair sentiment. How close to that do you get if you just remove Potency runes from weapons?
Armor isn't quite so important to "feeling" good about your character, and guaranteeing accuracy will keep your character hitting regardless. Striking is less obviously "needed", so keep that as your general magical weapon.
Skills are similar to armor, in that your maxed out skills won't need item bonuses to stay relevant but items make them feel really good.
My initial thought was to make a Level 20 rune that worked as a Striking Rune. You could just add an extra weapon damage dice at higher level as a choice with a trade off, rather than a 100% no-brainer. For example, the cost of having a general +1 dice bonus would be to Command the weapon to activate that lasted on 1 minute increments that required a cooldown timer (the usual 10 min. Not too cumbersome normally, but an issue in time-constrained situations).
Everything else would be magic items that gave you cool stuff to do. When this discussion was being had during the playtest time, I not only gave my opinion, but I also offered a lot of ideas of what kind of good items I would like to see.
While there's still a lot of good items (My monk is currently sitting at 9 invested items, only the armor and handwraps are mandatory and even so, my handwraps have two property runes) that can do cool stuff while offering some small bonuses. Granted, none of the items I've seen so far have been as cool as the one I mentioned, but a lot of them made me want them, which didn't happen that often in PF1e.
Regardless, it is what it is. People thought that having the illusion of buying power was a good thing, so they voted and the designers rightfully obliged, I'm just glad to have the ABP in the game, even though my current campaign is not using because the book was released after we started. But I'm pretty sure we will be using it in the future.
There are tons of situations where PC's wouldn't have their weapons, but you can't really do them because it totally screws up balance.That's what I call "Reason #17 I use automatic bonus progression"That's a fair conclusion, but I think what some people are getting at here is that they're kind of in the middle and feel like they don't have an option.
ABP is good if you want to completely eschew power-enhancing magic items, but there appear to be a number of players who want some kind of magical enhancement, but don't like how overboard PF2 went when they made those magic items more important than ever before.
I think this is where I currently stand after this thread. I'll probably wind up making some sort of half-ABP for a future campaign.
"Getting the job done" is not an in game activity. Players do not fight "Monster" every encounter, and getting to be higher level is not measured by being able to hit equal level monster better.
The game assumes that, if you want to be able to use specific skills and strategies to overcome the most difficult challenges, you will be putting someone with some expertise in the role of leading that challenge. And gives you a lot of ways, especially by higher levels, for not so specialized characters to have many ways to help boost their specialized allies.
Thinking, well my character invested one skill boost in deception at level 1 and bought a disguise kit, I should be good to impersonate the emperor at level 15 of the campaign, hasn't really invested enough in their character pull this off without incredible luck.
I don't so much mind the treadmill when it comes to fighting, but I do mind it with skills because unless you're a rogue, you probably won't see more than two skills above trained until 11th level (at which point you get a third). That means that a four-person party can only cover half the skills in the game, and that's with no-one doubling up.
Having a trained skill should be enough to keep up with on-level challenges, and having the skill at higher levels of proficiency should make things easy for you, or make things that were otherwise extra difficult (e.g. knowledge about uncommon/rare creatures) merely challenging.
That said, I sort of see your point. There could be a different track for "common" versus "challenging" tasks, and the DC for challenging tasks could increase slightly faster. For example, Recall Knowledge should always be a common task. Trained should be enough there. Same thing with using social things against something not optimized for social stuff. Negotiating passage through the territory of 9th level frost giants and negotiating an alliance with a 9th level duke might both be 9th-level challenges, but the frost giants should use the common...
But that is the point. Keeping up, past level 7, should probably mean having some consumables on hand to give you a bump where you need it, when you need it for the skills you are no longer boosting. I think the game math assumes expert proficiency as "keeping up" by level 11. It is only skills like stealth that really require the entire party to be able to "keep up though," by level 10, trained is enough to aid another pretty reliably and if you add that bonus and a item boost, most skills are passible by a party of 4.
I do think that parties with less than 4 need to have some kind of allowance made for how they will fall behind on skills, but consumables is really a fine way to do so.
But for 4 person parties, skill coverage and choosing party specializations is a worth while thing. Assuming 4 characters can all just be trained in stealth, never pick up stealth skill feats (terrain stalker in particular can be a real problem solver), and expect sneaking around more than the lower level guards and mooks is just trivializing the choice to make stealth a team choice.
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I don't so much mind the treadmill when it comes to fighting, but I do mind it with skills because unless you're a rogue, you probably won't see more than two skills above trained until 11th level (at which point you get a third). That means that a four-person party can only cover half the skills in the game, and that's with no-one doubling up.
To be honest I do mind the treadmill when it comes to fighting as well, but I agree with the general sentiment here. In many parts of the game, instead of feeling like someone being Trained in something is being okay at it, and being a Master is being, you know, masterful, it feels like being Trained is "barely enough that you can actually attempt this and have some chance of succeeding", and being a Master or Legendary is being okay.
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In Age of Ashes (AP reference again), there are a lot of skill challenges in multiple forms where the whole party gets to roll, and the people who are merely Trained in things generally do have a harder time with things. But they're still totally competent to roll those checks, and even if their absolute chance of success has gone down, the stakes have gone up and things work out well.
One of my parties is now on the tail end of Book 5, so I'm looking at how skills work at 15-17.
Things are structured so that the rolls of 'Trained' skill users do still matter. They still have a reasonable chance of success (25% with not a single stat point, generally closer to 40-45% with 3 stat boosts behind them, with another 10% from items possible, and generally the APs provide another 5-10% worth of possible circumstance bonuses) at a lot of things, but failure is more common, and there has to be a play decision as to whether or not to roll so as to avoid unneeded critical failures. Having to make risk-based decisions is good game design... but they succeed often enough that its often worth the try.
On the other hand, Master/Legendary skill users are generally rolling looking for Crits on a good roll. They're fearless when it comes to their focused skills, and often succeed dramatically and almost never fail.
...that sounds like what is intended, to me.
Getting the numerical bonus items early is a way to get ahead of the curve. That provides an outlet for the GM to adjust difficulty. If you use downtime/exploration activities that use those skills to award the skill items, you also add another outlet for expression for your players. I would use combat to award the combat centered items ahead of curve most of the time.
The loot tables essentially ask you to provide for windows where players get to be heroically effective to the tune of 2 items ahead of level at each level. That's not something I would have picked up on without thinking about the system a good bit.