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Here are a few things that spring to mind:
- Attacks of opportunity: These are exceedingly rare. Go ahead, move through a creature's threatened space or cast a spell right beside an enemy! 95% of the time, you won't get punished.
- Shields: Your shield doesn't add to your AC automatically; you have to spend an action to Raise a shield, and it only lasts 1 round.
- Minions and pets: Creatures you summon or that follow you (familiars, animal companions) don't act independently. Instead, you have to command them on your turn by spending an action; this gives them two actions.
- Multiple spells in a round: You're free to cast as many spells in a round as you want, as long as their casting times add up to 3 actions. The vast majority of spells have a 2-action casting time, making 1-action spells like the shield cantrip quite useful.
- Heightening spells: Many spells can be heightened, i.e. have an improved effect by using a higher spell slot.
>> Cantrips: Cantrips are automatically heightened to your highest spell level you can cast.
>> Prepared casters: You automatically learn all heightened versions of a spell, but you have to decide which version will be used when you memorize them. For instance: "I'll memorize one 4th-level fireball and two 3rd-level fireballs today".
>> Spontaneous casters: You have to learn each heightened version separately, as if it was a distinct spell. For instance: "I know dispel magic as a 2nd-level and 4th-level spell".
- Recall knowledge on creatures (for PFS): In Pathfinder Society (1e) play, you would get a set number of questions about a creature's abilities, depending on the result of your check. Now, you'll a general overview on a success.
Recall knowledge on creatures (for PFS): In Pathfinder Society (1e) play, you would get a set number of questions about a creature's abilities, depending on the result of your check.
Was that really a PFS rule? I always understood it to be a popular way to handle it, but not as a hard-coded rule (not even a PFS one).
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One trap that was VERY hard for a few of my friends to shake was the idea that if you CAN attack more than once in a turn, that they SHOULD make another attack.
In PF2 that's just plain not true most of the time, the three Action Economy really REALLY shines when characters take full advantage of the dozens of different type of Actions available to them to stay mobile, apply buffs, debuffs, use maneuvers, manage equipment, or even *gasp* socialize with potential opponents on some level. The "Full-Attack" is no longer the king of plays and if the group finds they're falling into a groove when they're frequently "I move in and attack twice" or "I'm already standing here so I make three attacks and end my turn" then they're GOING to learn that the game does not favor this kind to tactic pretty quickly the hard way.
This isn't to say that making nothing but attacks is a BAD idea in all situations but I'd hazard an estimate to say that in at least 75% of situations (if you're not playing a Character that's intentionally specialized to maximize the number of attacks you get and reduce the MAP) then it's going to turn out to most often be resulting in one or even two wasted Actions.
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What the title says basically - I have been playing and running PF1 since Alpha, and 3.0 and 3.5 before that, and it would be fair to say I am very comfortable with it. Conversely, I can count how many PF2 session I have played on my fingers and I not sure I even need both hands. I am sure I would have played and run it more by now if the pandemic had not put paid to PFS for me, but we are where we are. Nonethless, I have enjoyed what I have played and most of what I have read. And when my current Rise of the Runelords game ends I am planning to run a short PF2 mini-campaign.
So where is my PF1 mindset going to lead me astray? What are the pitfalls to watch out for as a player, GM, and (perhaps especially) an adventure designer?
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glass.
Don't use a full attack routine unless you have major to-hit bonuses or have ways to reduce iterative penalties (such as using Agile Weapons, benefitting from Hunter's Edge Flurry, etc). The stronger the creature, the less likely this becomes a useful tactic. The weaker the creature, the less likely you actually need to burn all 3 actions to kill them on the spot.
Make use of your skills in combat. Feinting is awesome if you want to make your opponent Flat-Footed, making easier to hit them, especially if you don't want to risk Flanking (for Huge+ creatures and creatures with AoOs), or if you can't Flank them based on positioning and turn order. Demoralize via Intimidation is also awesome to apply a good -1 or -2 to an enemy, making easier to hit them, as well as making it less likely for them to hit or crit you on their turns. These are only one action, and combine better with your turn than, say, making a Strike at -10.
Shields require tactical use in combat. You must raise them each turn to benefit from their AC, and if you Block with them (which takes your Reaction, and requires it to be raised first), you risk Breaking the shield, which means its AC bonus it gives you when raised does not apply. You can still raise and Block as normal to absorb damage, but you risk Destroying it, which means it can't function anymore and must be reconstructed. Our Shield Fighter is careful not to break their shield, because that +2 Ac has saved them so many hits or crits, much more than the 10 or so HP they would have gotten if they blocked, but broke their shield as a result. Only Block hits if A. your shield can handle it without breaking, and B. if it prevents you from going down in combat. Sometimes a broken (or even destroyed) shield is better than a downed (or outright killed) character. The same is also true (and the point perhaps better demonstrated) with the Shield cantrip, which gives only +1 AC, but usually has higher Hardness, and a 10 minute cooldown timer if you Block with it.
Attacks of Opportunity are present, but not commonplace. Remind players of this, because a lot of PF1 players will be cautious of approaching creatures in general due to the original mentality of "Doing this always provokes." Which is still does, but not every creature can take advantage of this. These opportunities are usually reserved for highly martial-based creatures or NPCs similar to Fighters or higher level Barbarian/Champion types. The threat of AoOs do exist, but shouldn't be an everpresent threat by game design. Also note that creatures may have offensive reactions that don't follow Attack of Opportunity standards, meaning just because you don't trigger via Attack of Opportunity triggers doesn't mean they can't make you pay for things you do in combat.
Do not forget Critical and Armor Specializations if your players possess them, these can drastically change the tides of battle in your favor. Damage reduction from certain damage types and applying conditions or specialty effects to enemies can make fights easier for the players, especially if they're getting nickeled and dimed by enemies, or if they manage to land a solid blow on a formidable foe. Also note that Critical Specializations trigger differently based on the class that has them. Rogues only get Specializations from Sneak Attacks, Barbarians only get Specializations while Raging, and so on.
Doing Trips, Grabs, Disarms, and other skill options go against certain saving throws, and it's difficult to remember which saving throws apply to which maneuver. Try and get the correlations between the maneuver types down so you aren't having to constantly sift through the rulebook and killing the table immersion.
Recall knowledge on creatures (for PFS): In Pathfinder Society (1e) play, you would get a set number of questions about a creature's abilities, depending on the result of your check.Was that really a PFS rule? I always understood it to be a popular way to handle it, but not as a hard-coded rule (not even a PFS one).
As far as I recall, that was not a rule, only a simple way to implement it. In our area, you wouldn't get questions, though you'd get to choose which abilities to know about, generally "offenses", "special defenses", "how weapons interact with it" (covering damage types as well as special materials), though I'd often surprise GMs by asking about demeanor. Didn't want to get into unnecessary fights. :) People could ask more specific questions, but one wouldn't want to jam themselves up by asking a poor question.
And GMs varied from giving you one or two facts in that category to the whole list.As for PF2, there's no rule (though covid's prevented play, so take this as secondhand knowledge) that I know of to enforce only getting general knowledge about an enemy. In fact, there's an umbrella rule about knowledge rolls (not simply IDing rolls) that says a success should give at least one bit of useful knowledge. If the general knowledge isn't useful, i.e. for Orcs, then the GM might choose to tell the player about Ferocity.
In my limited play, players have found it very useful to do checks even though they don't get to specify what they want to learn about, even chastising themselves when they forget. Maybe because I made that answers useful (and often tuned to that PC's areas of interest if there wasn't some dominating important knowledge, i.e. Basilisk's blood).
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Separately, I'd be wary of saying 95% of the monsters don't have opportunity attacks because that's false! A lot of common monsters have them (i.e. militant humanoids and giants), so yeah, there's lot more freedom, but still have the tough guys test the Reactions first.
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What Tarik & TMS said.
I'll add overconfidence, which overlaps. In PF1, being offense-focused and putting all one's abilities into stacking numbers would prevail in a majority of battles, often solo or as a pair. That's so far removed from the experience in PF2 published adventures. Instead of most of the play being predetermined by one's build, in PF2 a LOT of the effort and game mastery has to be in team tactics and supporting each other, covering for each other because monsters will actually be effective.
In PF1, a PC like a gish or hybrid could be top-tier in multiple areas. Class matters more in PF2, and you can invest a lot of effort (feats & stats) into doing something your class does poorly and only get to moderate-tier in ability (and still perhaps have major holes, i.e. hit points on that melee Wizard).
A team of four gishes trying to do everything for themselves would be weaker than two martials + two casters who've coordinated their roles.
Of course, this makes PFS much different!
I'll add it's inadvisable to play a pure support PC. Every PC should have some personal offense they can contribute, and expect to need to contribute. Support's still valuable, but with less stacking, fewer buffs, and shorter durations one needs other tools too.
ETA: Minions are just that now, and cannot be one's primary strength. I guess a good rule of thumb is there are no ways to make one's PC worth more than one PC (assuming people aren't handicapping themselves).
More versatile, yes, but even that has a cost somewhere else.
This also means it's hard to build a poor PC if trying to build a good one. Just make sure the class supports what you think it does (i.e. Barbarians are more skirmishers at baseline.)
And another thing. Focus on the class that gives you the Proficiencies you want because "Trained" matters only through the early levels and later there are only a few ways to get above Expert Proficiency.
Skills being an exception.
As for GMing and adventure design...I haven't done so myself, and I'd suggest reading the appropriate sections, but.
Encounter building math is actually accurate for the most part, so stick to it. Keep in mind that single higher-level opponents are more difficult than advertised at low levels, and lower-level opponents are more difficult than advertised at high levels. Vary the difficulty of encounters, lest players grow fatigued.
Manage the time pressure you provide and be mindful of how attrition changes difficulty -- characters can opt to heal indefinitely with enough time, and that's usually fine.
There's all sorts of environmental traversal stuff like squeezing, difficult terrain, climbing, crawling, and jumps that you can use, as well as weather conditions and hazards and the like -- while spamming these things could be more irritating than interesting, sprinkling them in can provide a lot of color to areas and scenarios.
If you need the entire party to be able to do a thing, don't leave it to chance and prepare a number of ways to do it. The level-based DCs table gives you a solid idea of what numbers to assign to significant challenges, simple DCs (U 10, T 15, E 20, M 30, L 40) are your friend for off-the-cuff or environment-based rolls.
Gauge the interests of your table and try things out if you're unsure. Some mechanics that simply weren't viable, relevant, or fun in PF1 are in PF2, and should be given a shot. Others are simply not going to provide any interest to some types of people, but you won't always know until you try (especially since PF2 puts a lot more emphasis on in-play decisions than character-building decisions).
At the same time, just like in PF1, houserule at your leisure. A lot of things are better-designed, but nothing is perfect. A good understanding of the system makes it quite easy to boost undertuned things, which will probably be the most relevant consideration -- Deadmanwalking's houserules cover a lot of trouble spots with a fairly light touch and seem like a good starting point.
Check out the Gamemastery Guide for lots of good advice, variant rules, and other things. Avoid the alternate ability scores, probably.
That's all I've got for now!
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Remember that sneak attack and similar things multiply on a crit. Some people forget that one.
Pay attention to keywords on feats and class abilities. (Flourish, incapacitate, etc).
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Pay attention to Traits. Many things are not explained in most os abilities.
Ex.: All verbal magics includes Concentration trait, the Polymorph trait explain that a Polymorph spell can be adjusted only by circumstance bonuses, status bonuses, and penalties, prevents you from casting spells, speaking, and using most manipulate actions that require hands and that your gear is absorbed into you; the constant abilities of your gear still function, but you can’t activate any items.
Is common to misunderstand something because some unknowledge of some Trait.
A good sugestion with you have easly access to internet is use the Archives of Nethys, they hyperlink most things, specially the Traits. If your table is completely off-line remember to check every unknown trait in the glossary. Don't try to just understand I trait just because you it of other games, some times they have rules and explanation of how something works.
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Well, it's funny. Not feeding trolls, in general, is good advice. There is actually a tiny nugget of something worth saying buried in the hyperbolic whining, though.
It is true that there's a big adjustment in setting thing up from the GM side, because in PF1 sane DCs are effectively autosuccess for characters that built toward the relevant skill. In PF2, the Level Appropriate DCs are DCs that will give a real chance of the PCsfailing, and lower level DCs are sometimes what you actually want to use for the kevel of difficulty you're trying to set an obstacle at.
It is also true that the value of character building system mastery is not the same. Optimization at a party level, trying to make you're abilities and tactics synergize is much more important. You really don't want to stand in front of monsters and play a stationary "my math vs your math" slugging match style, because you will likely fight things that will win that.
Those are things worth being aware of.
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Coming from a similar background:
Never end your turn in reach of an enemy. Prone and slowed are the best conditions to put on an enemy. Both of these reduce the number of enemy offensive actions.
Don't mess around with your stats. You get lots of ability increases, but if you don't max your main stat and push your saves, you'll fall behind in the game's math.
As I'm sure you know, casting is nerfed. As a player, if not a caster yourself, beg your party caster to focus on buffs and non-incap debuffs. Having played a caster 1-8, the first 4-6 levels are absolutely awful. Encourage them that things get better eventually.
Some things in the game, like disarming traps, have minimum proficiency requirements to succeed. Make sure somebody specs into thievery.
The game (or at least APs) expects you to full heal between combats. Make sure somebody maxes out medicine and takes all related feats.
Exploiting weaknesses is nice in concept but mostly boils down to fire, cold, good and silver.
You can roll initiative with things other than perception but I've never seen it done in practice. Don't count on it.
Lots of people talk up the success tiers. Generally speaking, it applies more to enemies than players, and mostly so that bosses can more easily crit players (this is why you limit their actions).
Lose the mentality of walking in and full attacking. Grab a meteor hammer or guisarme, attack and maybe trip or shove them out of reach and/or move away yourself if you need to (for the 3rd time limit actions).
In terms of encounter design, caster types are more threatening when at a higher level than the players and less threatening at a lower level. Also, combining enemy groups can quickly send an encounter over budget. A horde of -2 or -3 enemies is negligible, but at -1 and above things can get very dicey.
Another design note is that it is actually very hard to kill players since they go to wounded 1 instead of keeping their dying value. Feel free to give a downed player that will get healed a quick tap to add tension.
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This also remembers me that the skills system is far different from PF1.
The class no more has class limited skills. Now the class gives you 1 or 2 mandatory skills and a number of free skills of your choice plus some extra skills equals to your int bonus and some from background.
So no more needed of a rogue to disable the traps, anyone can do it just needs to learn Thievery and keep improving it.
Talking about skill improvement don't worth to add int to just add more skills, the char have a fixed limit of how many skills it can maximize:
Rogue: Can has at maximum 6 Legendary skills and 1 expert.
Others: Can has at maximum 3 Legendary skills.
Taking this limit in mind talk to the players to combine what skills they will have and improve for the late game. But if you plan to play a low level game only they don't really need to worry about this. Is also good to ask them to take a look in the skill feats before chose what skills they will focus, there's a lot of incredible feats there that requires high proficient skills.
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PF2 is an amazing game. Most complaints I hear either come down to a matter of taste or are from the uninformed, meaning the game is just despite the perception of a vocal few.
It's not always going to be a walk in the park though.
In PF2, the Level Appropriate DCs are DCs that will give a real chance of the PCsfailing, and lower level DCs are sometimes what you actually want to use for the kevel of difficulty you're trying to set an obstacle at.
A simple series of DC 14 Athletics checks to climb up a ramp nearly TPK'd my players' 3rd-level party in one adventure.
(Only one person trained Athletics and most kept crit failing and falling off the ramp while flying monsters were able to focus on the one good climber who quicklydistanced himselffrom the rest of the party.)
Though they didn't lose the fight, by the time they made it to the top, they were certainly defeated.
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Why does a ramp have Climb checks?
Because it was steep I guess? You'll have to ask the developers who wrote it.
And if it was so difficult, why did they keep fighting while climbing?
Because they're idiots. Also, they were ambushed at roughly the halfway point.
Even untrained and with 8 Str, that's wildly poor luck to roll that many crit failures. Or a lot of people with armor check penalties and even then, that's still bad luck.
Untrained with -1 (for low Strength) in Athletics means a 25% chance of critical failure. Having that happen on multiple characters is definitely the dice hating the team.
Even untrained and with 8 Str, that's wildly poor luck to roll that many crit failures. Or a lot of people with armor check penalties and even then, that's still bad luck.
Untrained with -1 (for low Strength) in Athletics means a 25% chance of critical failure. Having that happen on multiple characters is definitely the dice hating the team.
Yeah, the ramp was pretty high up, zig-zagged, and said that you'd fall 10 feet down the ramp on a crit fail. Due to the zig-zag, that meant half the time that occurred you'd slip right over the edge of a sheer drop, taking quite a bit of falling damage.
Imagine only being able to move one or two squares per action, with a decent chance of losing ground or getting yourself hurt, all while a highly maneuverable enemy impervious to your plights performs drive by attacks from above (possibly knocking you off).
It was absolutely brutal. The adventure doesn't even give a warning as to how nasty it is. There's also another fight waiting at the top of the ramp, so after getting totally trashed under the best of circumstances, you can't really rest. I let my PCs rest anyways.
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This does bring me to a mantra that I like at my tables: "Don't spend your actions on things you're likely to fail."
Taking that second attack against an enemy proven to have a high AC, throwing out spells on enemies that haven't been debuffed, even raising a shield when there's no chance that you will be attacked. Throwing out your actions is like pulling the lever on a slot machine: the odds are in the house's favor. Changing those odds or playing to your strengths will make combats go much smoother.
Like TOZ brought up, if I had a character with poor Athletics asked to make them every time I tried to move, I'd stop moving. Sounds like RDs players still had a 50% chance of failure, even without being concerned about the crit failures.
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And if it was so difficult, why did they keep fighting while climbing?Because they're idiots.
The one DC no one can mitigate...
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At low levels, I'd stick with low and moderate encounters, with maybe a single severe boss fight. After a session or two, I'd review how that was going - if my party are tactical geniuses, then you can step up the difficulty a bit; if they're really struggling, then you probably want to dial it down.
When making these fights, avoid solo encounters, as they'll be overly difficult at low level. For your moderate fights (80XP budget) it's better to have one at-level monster (40XP) and two -2 monsters (20XP each) than one +2 monster (80XP by itself). In practise, this will tightly constrain your available monster range to level -1 to level 2 foes, with perhaps the level 3 monster being saved for a boss fight.
As the party level up, you get access to a wider range of monsters as the lower part of the table comes into play (e.g. for a level 14 party, level 10 foes make good cannon fodder). I'd still stay away from level+4 monsters, but a higher level party will have a much easier time coping with these than the level 1 party.
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What the title says basically...
PF2E is really no different than any edition change. There are a lot of things that will be familiar, a few things that will be confusing because they contradict what you are accustomed to, and a few completely new things. With a little prep reading you'll be maybe 75% knowledgeable about the system. At least enough to play and enjoy yourself. Expect it to take a couple of months to become thoroughly familiar with the rules and perhaps another couple of months if you want to be a competent rules lawyer. Course those time frames will continue to get longer as time goes on and Paizo releases more content. Good Luck!
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I have quite a bit of GM experience at this point with PF2, and my biggest piece of advice is pay attention to your PCs. There are a lot of mistakes newer players make in PF2 that can quickly lead to them assuming the game hates them.
Martial characters SHOULD have ranged weapon options and plans for the first round of combat that don’t involve spending 2 or more actions moving way far ahead of the rest of the party, and outside the range of their healing support. But players are players. You can either let that character learn their lesson the hard way, probably by dying or at least getting KO’d quickly, But you have to be careful of the Lee Roy Jenkins effect of the rest of the party rushing in to save them, down their tank, and then the momentum of the game getting crushed because the whole party died because of one players bad choices. If only 1 player seems to want to build a character that can’t do anything from range and always wants to rush ahead, then you probably want to encourage the team to help that player find something else to do on the first round when they go early, than rush ahead and attack. This can be as simple as delaying until enemies move closer, moving to put yourself in the path of the enemy but still close to your party, and taking a defensive action, or something similar. If you have half or more of the party wanting to rush ahead, you might want to start taking that into consideration with your encounter design and have the enemies make more choices to take cover and seem to expect the party to be more cautious so the blitz attacks will feel disruptive to enemy plans. The party will still likely get themselves killed eventually if they don’t have exit plans, but hopefully they will have fun doing it.
Relatedly, make sure you broadcast the challenging fights. A level +3 monster doesn’t need to be walked into out of the blue, especially not in the middle of a long string of encounters. It will have about a 50/50 shot at winning the encounter. That doesn’t mean it has a 50/50 shot of killing the party, unless it has a major environmental edge and no one can escape. Occasionally the scary monster turning into an escape chase is a fun encounter. If that becomes the encounter, play it like a chase instead of a combat. It will be more fun for everyone.
Pay attention to wether your players are treating consumables as wealth to always be sold, or are willing to use them to win tough encounters. Figure this out by giving them useful consumables early, even if they are a level ahead of what the book recommends. See what happens if they find a level 2 scroll at level 1 agaist a monster that spell will really help fight, like maybe a glitter dust against a higher level solo enemy that can turn invisible. Players are expected to get bonuses in combat fairly often. That has to come from tactics, magic buffing or items. Consumables are a good way to make up the difference on parties not getting circumstance bonuses enough and struggling with their tactics or buffing game, but only if the party uses them. If they don’t, then again, higher level solo monsters are going to be a more serious threat.
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One thing that I cannot quite get my head around encounter design
The CRB and the GMG do a fairly good job of helping you build encounters, but the biggest change in 2E over 1E is that the monster rules are much, much less defined. Now, you can basically slap anything you want on a creature without having to justify why it can do said thing. However, it becomes very challenging to judge how powerful that specific ability really is in relation to the PCs and how the creature's value changes when its added. You can read the basics, but a true feel for the system can really only come from trial and error. Even combining monsters right out of the Bestiary can be a challenge. Its not as easy as a simple math equation like it was in 1E. Now, that same math is just an estimate and could be very wrong depending on a lot of factors.
My advice is that if you are apprehensive, try running some preprinted adventures for a time before trying your hand at design. Get a feel for the new level system and how to evaluate the strength of an encounter. Good luck!
I have quite a bit of GM experience at this point with PF2, and my biggest piece of advice is pay attention to your PCs. There are a lot of mistakes newer players make in PF2 that can quickly lead to them assuming the game hates them.
Martial characters SHOULD have ranged weapon options and plans for the first round of combat that don’t involve spending 2 or more actions moving way far ahead of the rest of the party, and outside the range of their healing support. But players are players. You can either let that character learn their lesson the hard way, probably by dying or at least getting KO’d quickly, But you have to be careful of the Lee Roy Jenkins effect of the rest of the party rushing in to save them, down their tank, and then the momentum of the game getting crushed because the whole party died because of one players bad choices. If only 1 player seems to want to build a character that can’t do anything from range and always wants to rush ahead, then you probably want to encourage the team to help that player find something else to do on the first round when they go early, than rush ahead and attack. This can be as simple as delaying until enemies move closer, moving to put yourself in the path of the enemy but still close to your party, and taking a defensive action, or something similar. If you have half or more of the party wanting to rush ahead, you might want to start taking that into consideration with your encounter design and have the enemies make more choices to take cover and seem to expect the party to be more cautious so the blitz attacks will feel disruptive to enemy plans. The party will still likely get themselves killed eventually if they don’t have exit plans, but hopefully they will have fun doing it.
Relatedly, make sure you broadcast the challenging fights. A level +3 monster doesn’t need to be walked into out of the blue, especially not in the middle of a long string of encounters. It will have about a 50/50 shot at winning the encounter. That doesn’t mean it has a 50/50...
All excellent points!
I cannot stress the importance of this advice enough!
Yeah, Unicore has made good points about the use of consumables, and MCing into alchemist on my playtest characters has made good points all on their own. I still would rather have renewables instead of consumables, like wands or staves, or something like an infusion pool at base. I just really dislike using consumables.
I may have to homebrew something along those lines, like an autorefreshing scroll or something. I mean, it's basically just a differently shaped wand, so it shouldn't be too hard.
The thing I'm struggling with is remembering higher level offensive spells are better used against mooks than bosses. Finger of Death is great for blasting that minion out of the fight to let the group focus on the boss rather than try and hit the boss with it hoping for a 1
Yeah I'll probably need to come up with a different overcharge mechanic. I shall ponder.
Or you could have an NPC who the party saved grant the party one x level spell scroll a day/week/etc. what ever works best for your pacing. Scrolls in particular are good consumables to give out this way because there is very little extra wealth to be gained by selling scrolls 2 or 3 levels behind, but there are plenty of spells that are worth casting as a 2nd round follow up spell that you can have in an off hand.
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-Alchemist, bard, and cleric can't just be played as martials who can buff. Bards and Clerics are still just as good at their support roles (I'd argue the cleric is a much better healer in 2e than 1e, actually), and the alchemist is now a party support character vs mostly a self buffer and blaster, but they all have the same proficiencies as wizards and sorcerers. That said, all three are still pretty capable classes, if you know how to use them
-summoning got nerfs pretty hard. Don't expect your beasts to completely crush encounters like they used to. Instead, utilize summoning as a battlefield control and support tool, or an exploration mode swiss army knife. They are still pretty useful if you're clever.
-don't horde your gold and resources. It's just not worth it. With how much the cost of higher level items scale, it's rarely worth it to horde small items in the hopes of buying the big item; just use your gold and consumables
-don't try to lone wolf it. In pf 1e, it was pretty easy to make a perfectly self sufficient character, and while you should try to make a character that can do their stuff without relying on any single ally, pf 2e is just build around the idea that people cooperate. Like, in my party, the rogues kind of hemmed and hawed at dread striker until they realized that they aren't always the ones who have to set up frightened; my dread ampoules (tossed by both me and the investigator) and the witch's fear spells can all let them get their sneak attacks without burning actions to feint, hide, or move to flanking, with offered a lot of flexibility.
-to keep on with the teamwork thing, dont forget about your trained skills. Even if you aren't focused on them, at lower levels, you'll still have a decent shot at succeeding, and at later levels, dont be afraid to toss aid checks; that DC 20 is really easy to hit by the time you're high enough level for your trained skills to start sucking
-always have something you can do both up close and at range. Even if it's just your ranged charactet having a way to slip away from a meleer, or your sword guy carrying a bow as a side arm, you dont want to get stuck just being strafed into oblivion by the dragon who thinks it's just great fun to fly, breathe, then fly way away until their breath is back, then repeat ad nauseum. Alternatively, have some way you can force people play by the rules you want; a ranger with a bow could huck a tanglefoot bag at the boss they are hunting to keep them at bay until the fighter gets in their face to cave their skull in, for example
Designer
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What the title says basically - I have been playing and running PF1 since Alpha, and 3.0 and 3.5 before that, and it would be fair to say I am very comfortable with it. Conversely, I can count how many PF2 session I have played on my fingers and I not sure I even need both hands. I am sure I would have played and run it more by now if the pandemic had not put paid to PFS for me, but we are where we are. Nonethless, I have enjoyed what I have played and most of what I have read. And when my current Rise of the Runelords game ends I am planning to run a short PF2 mini-campaign.
So where is my PF1 mindset going to lead me astray? What are the pitfalls to watch out for as a player, GM, and (perhaps especially) an adventure designer?
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glass.
1) The encounter building system actually works. It's a really bad idea to just bump all the monsters up a level or two to make the combat more challenging and exciting in this system. Where in PF1 the equivalent of an "extreme" encounter meant "an optimized party might actually have to try to win", in PF2 it really does mean that one of the most likely scenarios of your party getting into an Extreme difficulty fight is that they get their teeth kicked in.
2) Standing still and full attacking is generally a bad idea for the party but it's still a pretty good idea for boss monsters. Monsters are more likely to have big 3-action abilities that act as force multipliers, so they're rewarded for getting to spend all their actions whooping on the party. The party, conversely, will almost never get the better out of such an exchange, so it behooves them to use 3rd actions that can take the sting out of the boss's attack routine, either by forcing the boss to spend actions on things other than attacking or by boosting their own defenses to weather the boss's assault.
3) More weaknesses and resistances, significantly fewer immunities. Be sure to actually double-check the monster's weaknesses, resistances, and immunities going into a fight. They're usually pretty predictable but they come up a lot more and they matter a lot. A creature with weakness 50 to cold damage who takes 1 point of cold damage from a splash weapon takes a total of 51 points of damage, so the ways these effects interact with the battlefield are much more pronunced.
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Tanglefoot bags are still incredibly solid. The -10ft movement penalty stacks as far as I could tell. Against slow moving foes, you don't even need to crit, just hit them twice. A stride, throw, stride style spring attack can force the enemy to spend more actions closing the distance.
Tanglefoot bags are still incredibly solid. The -10ft movement penalty stacks as far as I could tell. Against slow moving foes, you don't even need to crit, just hit them twice. A stride, throw, stride style spring attack can force the enemy to spend more actions closing the distance.
I could be wrong, but Tanglefoot bags apply a status penalty and penalties of the same type don't stack.
'When you hit a creature with a tanglefoot bag, that creature takes a status penalty to its Speeds for 1 minute.'
'Like bonuses of the same type, you take only the worst all of various penalties of a given type.'
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Likewise, the tanglefoot cantrip gets significantly better at higher levels when the enemy will have to choose between wasting actions trying to break free or moving slowly.
With only a little bit of speed reduction/tripping enemies, you can make for very annoying situations for solo monsters. Props to Michael Sayre for inspiring me to think about how movement can work as defense in PF2.
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Or you could have an NPC who the party saved grant the party one x level spell scroll a day/week/etc. what ever works best for your pacing. Scrolls in particular are good consumables to give out this way because there is very little extra wealth to be gained by selling scrolls 2 or 3 levels behind, but there are plenty of spells that are worth casting as a 2nd round follow up spell that you can have in an off hand.
Unicore, I know you mean well, but when I say I dislike using consumables, I mean I dislike using consumables. Flat out. I am genuinely able to see the value in using them and still not like doing it.
It is not required that you understand this, but please at least believe me when I'm talking about my own personal taste.
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Well, it's funny. Not feeding trolls, in general, is good advice. There is actually a tiny nugget of something worth saying buried in the hyperbolic whining, though.
It is true that there's a big adjustment in setting thing up from the GM side, because in PF1 sane DCs are effectively autosuccess for characters that built toward the relevant skill. In PF2, the Level Appropriate DCs are DCs that will give a real chance of the PCsfailing, and lower level DCs are sometimes what you actually want to use for the kevel of difficulty you're trying to set an obstacle at.
It is also true that the value of character building system mastery is not the same. Optimization at a party level, trying to make you're abilities and tactics synergize is much more important. You really don't want to stand in front of monsters and play a stationary "my math vs your math" slugging match style, because you will likely fight things that will win that.
Those are things worth being aware of.
This is important so I want to quote it.
Because in a very reactionary way, I agree with Sherlocke and I'm sure many members of the board already recognize me for that.
But getting past the hyperbole and initial reactions, there are legitimate issues from a player perspective, especially when switching between editions and being used to the PF1 paradigm.
PF2 does not at all have the same feel as PF1. In PF1 you were a BigDamnHero after about level 5, and almost nothing could touch you unless your GM modified it to make it a more credible threat.
In PF2, the monsters are better than you (unless they're like CR-2) in a head on stat comparison. If you do not use intelligent tactics, you will loose and get slaughtered in the process. You can't approach PF2 the way you did PF1. In PF1 you won or loss the game at character creation, and your actions in combat mattered relatively little. You were going to do the thing you designed your character to do, you were going to succeed, and the enemy was going to die.
In PF2 your tactics have to change in response to the enemy's actions. You have to cooperate as a group, get flank, use intimidate (at the right time), use Bon Mot, use every little thing you can to debuff the enemy and buff yourself (but be careful because they don't last long and usually give immunity aferwards).
PF2 is very hard in comparison to PF1. To the point that if you're looking for an experience like PF1, you are likely to find PF2 frustrating and unfun (unless you reduce the CR of enemies by 2 all the time).