New Details from Glass Cannon Podcast Pathfinder Playtest Impressions - Ability damage is gone, Magic Missile mechanics, crit / fumble discussion


Prerelease Discussion

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Glass Cannon Patreon subscribers can now listen to the post-playtest discussion between Erik Mona, Jason Bulmahn, and the GCP crew.

  • Dex damage is confirmed to no longer be in the game (assumedly, this also means all other ability damage is also removed.)

  • Magic Missile does 1d4+1 for every action you use to cast it. For every two levels you enhance the spell, it gets twice as many missiles (not specified whether this uses "regular multiplication" to go 3 -> 6 -> 12 or "Pathfinder multiplication" to go 3 -> 6 -> 9.)

  • There was also a discussion of the new >10< critical mechanism.

Jason Bulmahn wrote:
It adds drama to the rolls that are like, "That's pretty high... is that high enough? That's pretty low... is that low enough?" And there's real value to that, because it makes the rolls that aren't, like, you know, before people would just roll a 19 and they would just go "I hit." Well there's no drama to that, there's nothing exciting to that. But if you're like, "I got a 27... is that enough?" And that automatically adds a lot of agency to the player action. And to be honest, it's gonna take a little retraining, there's a little bit of a learning curve there about understanding that you can't just go "yeah, yeah, I miss. Yeah, yeah, I fail the saving throw, that's fine" because the GM will go "Well what did you get? I'm gonna need you to tell me, because it might be really important." Because let me tell you there are some spells at higher level that if you fumble, you are in a really bad place. Some of those spells that you consider "save-or-suck", right, you know, the like, "If you fail the save, you are basically out of play", most of those are now if you fumble the save you are out of play, and if you just fail the save you are heavily inconvenienced.
Jason Bulmahn wrote:
Attack rolls don't have an automatic fumble effect. But, some monsters can add a fumble mechanic if you fail an attack against them. And let me tell ya that really sucks the first time it happens, it's like, "Oh, he just ripped my weapon away. Aw, crap! Oh that's really not good I needed that." So, the great part is that it allows us to just be like "If it doesn't list, it's just nothing, it's just whatever you expect it to be." A fumble is just a fail if nothing is listed. A critical success is just a success if nothing is listed.

My concern about the >10< system remains it may slow the game down, because NOT having to do math+communication is always quicker than HAVING to do math+communication. Jason Bulmahn may say there's no drama or excitement to rolling a nat 19 and saying "I hit", but at least there is speed. By adding >10< crit/fumbles, now there's a lot of rolls where you could previously just see the die number and move on, and now you have to go through the entire roll resolution process of "look up mod, add mod to die roll, tell GM the result, GM looks up DC, GM tell you how it resolves" which is significantly more time per roll than just being able to assume the results from the natural die result. Anyway, we'll see how that shakes out in the playtest, it's just my concern about whether the system may be compromising speed and momentum.

Silver Crusade

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I'm okay with the added outcomes, will have to wait for the final numbers but I don't think it will add that much more of workload for anyone.

And I especially like that they're being applied to "formerly" SoD effects :3


So with proper investment I can rain down 48d4+48 force damage on an unlucky critter? How tempting...


the shadow they fight deal str damage then gives them a condition.

so I don't think ability damage is removed


I hope a few SoD spells stay in, though. Stuff like Flesh to Stone, I really don't want only part of the victim to transform if they fail. It undermines a lot of narrative power when, "the commoner speaks out against the mad wizard-king and, with a single movement and an arcane symbol, he is nothing more than a statue" means they have to fail by more than 10 for that to actually happen. Assuming a 1 HD commoner with 10 Con, if the spell DC is 20, while before the commoner had a 5% chance of being turned to stone, now he has a coin flip chance of becoming a statue or his limb becoming granite.
Or something like Plane Shift. If I take a functionally -10 to my DC to try and send someone to Hell, it's really not that powerful narratively.

Basically, I hope that we keep a few all-or-nothing spells, but I am quite fine with spells that have a devastating effect if you really biff the Save, a bad effect if you fail, a partial effect if you save, and no effect if you crit it. But leave at least a few where you can take the gamble of, "well, I waste my turn if he saves. But if he just barely fails, he's a goner"
But make it a gamble worth taking.


Zautos' wrote:

the shadow they fight deal str damage then gives them a condition.

so I don't think ability damage is removed

I don't think it did Str damage, it did normal damage with the attacks and gave them the Enfeebled condition when it drew out their strength.

Dark Archive

RumpinRufus wrote:
Zautos' wrote:

the shadow they fight deal str damage then gives them a condition.

so I don't think ability damage is removed

I don't think it did Str damage, it did normal damage with the attacks and gave them the Enfeebled condition when it drew out their strength.

Indeed, which has many similar effects to strength damage but is not the same. Your character is not suddenly unable to stand up anymore, but their attack rolls and strength checks are significantly hampered. I kind of like this approach better personally. I think it was also easier for them to get rid of after the battle than ability damage has been in the past.

Sovereign Court

Pathfinder Starfinder Society Subscriber

Yeah, I think Mark mentioned that ability damage/drain were replaced by progressive conditions that do the math for you. You don't need to recalculate your strength score and bonuses when the shadow hits you, you just apply a penalty to the things that the enfeebled condition affects.


Dαedαlus wrote:

I hope a few SoD spells stay in, though. Stuff like Flesh to Stone, I really don't want only part of the victim to transform if they fail. It undermines a lot of narrative power when, "the commoner speaks out against the mad wizard-king and, with a single movement and an arcane symbol, he is nothing more than a statue" means they have to fail by more than 10 for that to actually happen. Assuming a 1 HD commoner with 10 Con, if the spell DC is 20, while before the commoner had a 5% chance of being turned to stone, now he has a coin flip chance of becoming a statue or his limb becoming granite.

Or something like Plane Shift. If I take a functionally -10 to my DC to try and send someone to Hell, it's really not that powerful narratively.

Basically, I hope that we keep a few all-or-nothing spells, but I am quite fine with spells that have a devastating effect if you really biff the Save, a bad effect if you fail, a partial effect if you save, and no effect if you crit it. But leave at least a few where you can take the gamble of, "well, I waste my turn if he saves. But if he just barely fails, he's a goner"
But make it a gamble worth taking.

I think spell DCs and saves both scale harder, so by the time you reach Flesh to Stone, that low-level commoner is at more like a 75% chance of turning into a statue.


RumpinRufus wrote:
Zautos' wrote:

the shadow they fight deal str damage then gives them a condition.

so I don't think ability damage is removed

I don't think it did Str damage, it did normal damage with the attacks and gave them the Enfeebled condition when it drew out their strength.

listened to that part again. one of the glass cannon podcast people mention strength damage right before the attack.

I think you are correct


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Oh boy...

As someone who had people take minutes over minutes to just get the math of their PCs right... EVERY SINGLE TURN, with buffs and so on, this makes me tremble at the idea of playing with certain people.

But i also get that if you are playing with only a well oiled machine, it can be interesting.


Nox Aeterna wrote:

Oh boy...

As someone who had people take minutes over minutes to just get the math of their PCs right... EVERY SINGLE TURN, with buffs and so on, this makes me tremble at the idea of playing with certain people.

But i also get that if you are playing with only a well oiled machine, it can be interesting.

It sounds like the categories of bonuses will now be things like “item bonus” and “spell bonus”, so I’m hoping that there’s minimal on-the-fly math. (If there’s no Power Attack, fighting defensively, and so on, I’ll be glad.)

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32

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If the >10< mechanic is going to be a thing, hopefully there will be significantly fewer circumstance-specific bonuses in the game.


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QuidEst wrote:
Nox Aeterna wrote:

Oh boy...

As someone who had people take minutes over minutes to just get the math of their PCs right... EVERY SINGLE TURN, with buffs and so on, this makes me tremble at the idea of playing with certain people.

But i also get that if you are playing with only a well oiled machine, it can be interesting.

It sounds like the categories of bonuses will now be things like “item bonus” and “spell bonus”, so I’m hoping that there’s minimal on-the-fly math. (If there’s no Power Attack, fighting defensively, and so on, I’ll be glad.)

There are also players who even with the same bonuses every round STILL take forever to add roll+modifier. It's a lot easier just to see their die and say "nat 17, OK you hit."


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

In my experience as a GM, I always have the spell DC / target AC in mind before the roll is made. I want to know if the spell / attack hits once I see the result, and since the Crit / Fumble mechanic is just +10 / -10 it's really easy to tell what happens once I see the die.

Really killing it with the forward slashes, huh.

Scarab Sages

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Sounds like Save or Suck is gone? Is it gone completely?

I mean that mechanic is one of the most irritating as a player, especially if you always end up rolling poorly are getting targeted by them and end up out of encounters for an entire play session.

If its only suck if you fail the save by a certain amount, then that will make me a happy camper! This seems to be a rather elegant solution to the problem. I mean some of the save or suck spells are iconic to the game, and it would suck to remove them. But to make it a function of how badly you fail the save, now that's nice!

EDIT: And a lot less as a GM: Dangit, guess that 3 hours of prep for this complicated final combat didn't matter!


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Sounds more like all the Save-or-Dies are now Save-or-Suck-or-Get-Friggin'-Obliterated.


Bloodrealm wrote:
Sounds more like all the Save-or-Dies are now Save-or-Suck-or-Get-Friggin'-Obliterated.

I think the definition of “suck” in that no longer includes the adjacent martial character killing you at full health with a CDG, though.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I’m already in the habit of training my players to always add up their rolls. Due to bonuses from buffs, circumstance bonuses from height, charging bonuses and flanking bonuses even a poor roll can get turned into a hit.


Removing ability damage and putting a condition instead sounds awesome, is like when negative levels replaced level loss from 3.5 Again a good improvement that removes the need to have to recalculate half your character sheet.


Hey, this all sounds pretty good! Ability damage can be easily replaced by penalties and conditions to simulate the same thing. I like that save-or-suck is being mitigated somewhat because it was also a huge problem, and if you're going to have it, this way is the best way to do it. Should also help the bounded accuracy crowd a little if the low-level guys can do something interesting on a player fumble.

Once again I'm quite encouraged by what we have found out!


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You know one of the reasons we got in the habit of saying "3 its a miss" and "19 its a hit!" is because we have gone through this a hundred thousand times. The drama of >10< is going to wear off quick and folks like myself will be looking for a quicker alternative. YMMV.


The only thing that really bugged me is that he had to stop in the middle of the game to look up a rule. That right there was the biggest time waster of PF1.


I'm not sure that the reduction in capability of SoS spells is good. Moving to D&D3.0 (Monsters got constitution) was a huge nerf of blasting spells. If SoS is Nerfed as strongly, that really focuses effective caster designs into battlefield control builds - and I think a diversity of options is better.

Scarab Sages

When you say no more Dexterity Damage, do you mean no more damaging Dexterity, or no more Dexterity modifier to damage? I got real excited there for a moment, and then the context seemed to imply that it was just no more ability damage.

I think Dexterity should never be furnishing its modifier to damage.


Is Magic Missile a Cantrip? How many times can be augmented given 10th level spells, four (3, 5, 7, 9) or five (2, 4, 6, 8, 10)?


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I don't really buy that "drama" argument. Drama is predicated on highs and lows, and I can think of few things that are as high and low as Natural 1 fumbles and 19-20 Crits.

The progression of thought he talks about already exists in PF1e.

This:

Quote:
"I got a 27... is that enough?"

Versus this:

Quote:

Player: "I got a 19 on the die."

GM: "Roll for crit."
Player: "14 on the die... 21. Is that enough?

In my opinion, the latter is a much more effective dramatic vehicle. Especially for those of us who use the crit and fumble decks. The >10< mechanic is going to make crits/fumbles much more commonplace, and in effect less dramatic.


edduardco wrote:
Is Magic Missile a Cantrip? How many times can be augmented given 10th level spells, four (3, 5, 7, 9) or five (2, 4, 6, 8, 10)?

Cantrips are not level 0 spells anymore. They should be like 5e in that they can never be used in spell slots or with metamagic.


Ability Score Damage Removal
I'm sort of iffy on this one. While they were a pain to track, they were also some of the most interesting and insidious ways to weaken a foe due to how many mechanics they could interact with. I'd be interested to know if any new or similar mechanics are replacing them.

Magic Missile
Well, 3d4+3 damage (avg 10.5) is pretty darn good at 1st level, roughly on par with what an optimized magic missile would be doing in PF1E. While you do essentially have to spend a full-round action to get that effect, you also don't need to invest feats or class features to do it so it looks about even with its PF1E counterpart. However, this isn't PF1E, and from what we've heard so far there is going to be some HP inflation in PF2E. So 10 damage won't go as far as it used to. We'll have to wait and see all the numbers before we can judge, but this one could go either way.

With regards to scaling, I calculated in the numbers for both "pathfinder" and "regular" multiplication. Pathfinder multiplication, unsurprisingly, falls behind the curve in its march towards irrelevance and never looks back. It might work well with metamagic (for instance, combine with a metamagic that adds an effect to each missile) but on its own it's not going to be useful at all. Regular multiplication, on the other hand, plays catch-up and looks like it might be viable at high-level play. Here are the damage averages by character level (Pathfinder multiplication / regular multiplication):
1st: 10.5 / 10.5
5th: 21 / 21
9th: 31.5 / 42
13th: 42 / 84
17th: 51.5 / 168

Again, exact analysis will depend on what kind of HP inflation we're looking at. Given that we're talking something without an attack roll or save (only SR stops it) a total of 48d4+48 damage at 17th level for an average of 168 damage looks like it might be usable. Support in terms of class features and feats is also a big consideration, and a few good options could easily push this into excellent damage territory. However, it's still using your highest-level spell slots and there is the looming threat of HP inflation, so it's hard to predict how that would turn out.

A big part of the attraction of blasting strategies in PF1E is that they didn't use your highest-level spell slots, so if PF2E is going to require you to go nova to be effective with direct damage then our expectations will be a bit higher.

critical success/fail
I want to see it in play before I judge. I can see both the angle it's coming from and the counter-points. There are a lot of things I feel that I can number crunch effectively, but this is one of those things that's going to be more of a qualitative "how does it add/detract when we're actually sitting down and playing" sort of things. So I'll wait until I've done that to comment.


I loathe the trend I'm seeing of trying to play up crits. There's nothing worse than playing a game where there is a 10% chance of all logic going out the window and something stupid happening every time you make a roll. But wait, now it's a minimum of 10% because most of the time you will either be able to go over or under by 10 or more.

Things work great with only critical successes adding effects on attacks, and only after hitting both threat ranges and confirmation rolls. That way, you have a relationship between character ability and the likelihood of success, but not a sudden steep jump. Crits stay special because they aren't a guaranteed thing, and the set up of the threat allows for anticipation which can be payed off by the confirmation.

The d20 is not precise enough to be trusted with extreme effects. If your paladin has a godlike save, and the fighter has a crap save, they both have an equal chance of rolling a 1. Making it have an extra effect that screws you over in those cases does nothing to make the game better. It's more random, less fair, and not particularly fun.

The game is more dramatic and satisfying when it reflects what is supposed to be happening in-universe, not some "lol! So random!" shenanigans which occur a dozen times a session.


How are you boosting Magic Missile to be a 13th or 17th level spell?
Also, it's practically confirmed that blasting is only effective with your highest couple of spell levels and that you'll have to use your lower ones for control and utility.

Silver Crusade

Makeitstop wrote:

I loathe the trend I'm seeing of trying to play up crits. There's nothing worse than playing a game where there is a 10% chance of all logic going out the window and something stupid happening every time you make a roll. But wait, now it's a minimum of 10% because most of the time you will either be able to go over or under by 10 or more.

Things work great with only critical successes adding effects on attacks, and only after hitting both threat ranges and confirmation rolls. That way, you have a relationship between character ability and the likelihood of success, but not a sudden steep jump. Crits stay special because they aren't a guaranteed thing, and the set up of the threat allows for anticipation which can be payed off by the confirmation.

The d20 is not precise enough to be trusted with extreme effects. If your paladin has a godlike save, and the fighter has a crap save, they both have an equal chance of rolling a 1. Making it have an extra effect that screws you over in those cases does nothing to make the game better. It's more random, less fair, and not particularly fun.

The game is more dramatic and satisfying when it reflects what is supposed to be happening in-universe, not some "lol! So random!" shenanigans which occur a dozen times a session.

Uh, the mechanics as presented thus far are doing the opposite of what you're claiming.

Silver Crusade

Bloodrealm wrote:

How are you boosting Magic Missile to be a 13th or 17th level spell?

Also, it's practically confirmed that blasting is only effective with your highest couple of spell levels and that you'll have to use your lower ones for control and utility.

I doubt this.


Bloodrealm wrote:
How are you boosting Magic Missile to be a 13th or 17th level spell?

I said character level, not spell level. So a 17th level character has access to 9th level spell slots. I did this instead of spell level because all damage is relative to the hit point totals of your enemies, which requires you to look up bench marks or CR-appropriate foes for the character level in question for context.

Again, all this is speculative because PF2E will have different target numbers, but right now the best can do is judge by PF1E standards.

Bloodrealm wrote:
Also, it's practically confirmed that blasting is only effective with your highest couple of spell levels and that you'll have to use your lower ones for control and utility.

As a practical matter, this means the vast majority of casters will use all their spell slots for control and utility.

Blasting is very spell-slot intensive, because you can't stop casting once battle is winding down. A controller wizard can sit back and let the fighters clean up, a blaster needs to keep up the pain to eliminate the foes. This means blasters typically burn through spell slots faster than controllers. Good blasting builds in PF1E worked because they were effective even when using mid-level spell slots, letting them better manage resources throughout the day.

It remains to be seen how blasting will work in PF2E, but the balance will necessarily be very different because of this.


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One of the great advances of 3rd edition was the removal of most fumble checks.

While it's funny when the random bugbear fumbles, it's incredibly frustrating for a highly skilled fighter to drop his weapon every third combat. PCs roll so many more times, they are really going to notice all the fumbles. And to have rumbles scale vs DC is... Frankly bad design, there's really no excusing such a poor decision. The people at Paizo should maybe sit at more game tables and observe game play if they thought this was a good idea.

And will fumbles apply to skill checks, saving throws? Again this is likely to hurt martials more then casters as martials make more attack roles and combat related skill checks. Unless the rules include fumbles for concentration checks.

I will wait to see the actual play test rules but if that's how fumbles work... So incredibly bad, just wow.

Designer

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Trimalchio wrote:

While it's funny when the random bugbear fumbles, it's incredibly frustrating for a highly skilled fighter to drop his weapon every third combat.

This is true, and it's why there is normally no worse effect of critically failing with your weapon attack roll; you just miss, same as failing. It's not just attack rolls: when it didn't make sense or caused problems, there isn't always a separate critical failure effect (and not everything has a separate critical success effect if a success already gets you what you want from the action).


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I just want to emphasize, missing your attack roll already sucks, to further double down on punishing players is not fun for anyone, I never been at a table, and with over 20 years I've been at lots of tables, where players wanted to play with fumble rules.

Does the wizard casting magic missle get a fumble chance? How many monsters with fumble rules will hurt the wizard catching scorching Ray, or have fumble rules just another way to punish players who made the mistake of playing the fighter or the rogue.

What rogue will want to search for traps or attempt a disarm traps when. Fumble rules are on the table? Just have the Uber sorcerer with resonance to spare use the monster summoning wand to trigger the trap.

I really can't get over what a colossal design mistake bringing back fumble rules are. Find another way to give monsters cool reactions. All you're doing his making people feel even worse when they roll badly.


Mark Seifter wrote:
Trimalchio wrote:

While it's funny when the random bugbear fumbles, it's incredibly frustrating for a highly skilled fighter to drop his weapon every third combat.

This is true, and it's why there is normally no worse effect of critically failing with your weapon attack roll; you just miss, same as failing. It's not just attack rolls: when it didn't make sense or caused problems, there isn't always a separate critical failure effect (and not everything has a separate critical success effect if a success already gets you what you want from the action).

To clarify, are there monsters wherein missing their AC by 10 or more will cause a 'fumble' event to occur. Can we get an example of the fumble effect, and how it would effect you when swinging a sword, shooting an arrow, and casting a spell with an attack roll?


Trimalchio wrote:
And will fumbles apply to skill checks, saving throws? Again this is likely to hurt martials more then casters as martials make more attack roles and combat related skill checks. Unless the rules include fumbles for concentration checks.

Making the heroes more fallible, less godlike is always going to be a plus for me. There are a lot more interesting stories to tell with gritty characters who can make mistakes.


Our table will do fumbles, but we run it entirely by feel. No fumble table to roll on, just GM discretion. We also try to have a general feel of "On a 1, something interesting probably happens. It's almost definitely not as good of a thing as if you had succeeded, but it's not necessarily horrible, either." I remember once someone got a natural 1 and what happened was they clocked the enemy behind them for unmodified weapon damage on the backswing, which caused their attack to miss the target. Sometimes, though, it's just a missed attack, but maybe it misses in a visually amusing way. Or sometimes if the situation isn't too dire, then yeah, they dropped their weapon.
All that said, it is absolutely something that should be a left as a house rule.


Critical fumbles just punish the martial characters, and the more attack rolls they make, the more it punishes them.

TWF builds become pariah with fumble rules in place.


Trimalchio wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:
Trimalchio wrote:

While it's funny when the random bugbear fumbles, it's incredibly frustrating for a highly skilled fighter to drop his weapon every third combat.

This is true, and it's why there is normally no worse effect of critically failing with your weapon attack roll; you just miss, same as failing. It's not just attack rolls: when it didn't make sense or caused problems, there isn't always a separate critical failure effect (and not everything has a separate critical success effect if a success already gets you what you want from the action).

To clarify, are there monsters wherein missing their AC by 10 or more will cause a 'fumble' event to occur. Can we get an example of the fumble effect, and how it would effect you when swinging a sword, shooting an arrow, and casting a spell with an attack roll?

I believe they said that sometimes the enemy could have a reaction they can take when you fumble, and that the Rogue has one like that they can get that lets them attack the person who fumbled.

Designer

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Trimalchio wrote:

What rogue will want to search for traps or attempt a disarm traps when. Fumble rules are on the table?

Traps already had this feature of "fail by X" in PF1, though it was by 5. Actually, failing by 10 in PF2 is more generous to the rogue than failing by 5 in PF1.


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Trimalchio wrote:

I just want to emphasize, missing your attack roll already sucks, to further double down on punishing players is not fun for anyone, I never been at a table, and with over 20 years I've been at lots of tables, where players wanted to play with fumble rules.

Does the wizard casting magic missle get a fumble chance? How many monsters with fumble rules will hurt the wizard catching scorching Ray, or have fumble rules just another way to punish players who made the mistake of playing the fighter or the rogue.

What rogue will want to search for traps or attempt a disarm traps when. Fumble rules are on the table? Just have the Uber sorcerer with resonance to spare use the monster summoning wand to trigger the trap.

I really can't get over what a colossal design mistake bringing back fumble rules are. Find another way to give monsters cool reactions. All you're doing his making people feel even worse when they roll badly.

Your experiences and others are different. I have played multiple games where we use fumble rules and love them! It adds a lot of fun. Have a weapon snatched out of my hands because I biffed a roll seems awesome. Now I have to think and react with my next action or turn.


KingOfAnything wrote:
Yeah, I think Mark mentioned that ability damage/drain were replaced by progressive conditions that do the math for you. You don't need to recalculate your strength score and bonuses when the shadow hits you, you just apply a penalty to the things that the enfeebled condition affects.

That's the first new mechanic that's struck me as a bit dubious, depending on the details of how these conditions work; not sure I'm seeing much middle ground between "ability damage by another name" and "not doing the particular cool things ability damage does".

Designer

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Trimalchio wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:
Trimalchio wrote:

While it's funny when the random bugbear fumbles, it's incredibly frustrating for a highly skilled fighter to drop his weapon every third combat.

This is true, and it's why there is normally no worse effect of critically failing with your weapon attack roll; you just miss, same as failing. It's not just attack rolls: when it didn't make sense or caused problems, there isn't always a separate critical failure effect (and not everything has a separate critical success effect if a success already gets you what you want from the action).

To clarify, are there monsters wherein missing their AC by 10 or more will cause a 'fumble' event to occur. Can we get an example of the fumble effect, and how it would effect you when swinging a sword, shooting an arrow, and casting a spell with an attack roll?

Bloodrealm has the right idea. Basically your character might have an ability that allows you to capitalize on an enemy's critical failure in some way. You might also have an ability that gives partial effects on a failure (or when the enemy succeeds a save) and no effects at all on a critical failure (or an enemy critical success), in which case you also do care about failure vs critical failure but not because something laughable and bad happens to you.

Silver Crusade Contributor

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It wouldn't surprise me if the caryatid column had one of those fumble effects.


Well, it's a major step back in game design. I hope that comes across loud and clear in your August play test and you roll it back.


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I figure the solution to "we dislike bad things happening when the PCs roll poorly" is basically "don't run a lot of baddies with abilities that trigger in response to critical failures".

Like the example given previously was something like a PC might get to riposte as a reaction if they are missed by 10+. Which is probably a better riposte mechanic we had in PF1, but nobody's saying to put the PCs against a bunch of riposting baddies.

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