In PF1 there was an restricition that GM's could put on players so that they maxed out at level 6 and would get feats everytime they leveled up after that. The point of that was to keep the PC's not overpowered, inside the realm of reality and keep everyone on the same power level. With PF2 working towards a lot of balance, and with casters being nerfed a bit, is Epic 6 going to be something higher, like 10 maybe?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
A numeric bonus isn't what pulls mid/high level Pathfinder outside the scope of The Lord of the Rings, it's the caster's increasing ability to break low level narratives with a single spell; if you see this as a problem then its only going to get worse for you in PF2 when even the martials are running around with exceptional abilities far beyond what you or I could ever imagine doing with any amount of training.
I'd like the differences in levels to be a bit more codified and obvious, with a small section devoted to cutting levels into sections and informing readers that if you want a certain type of story you should be playing levels X-Y.
I think a story about normal human(oids) has to end at a much lower level, actually; Master proficiency is basically the best that is physically possible to be. At Master proficiency Usain Bolt isn't exceptional, he's the expectation.
Legendary is more than just another +1 over Master.
From the Feats of Skill - Blogpost
Prerequisites trained in Acrobatics
Your catlike aerial acrobatics allow you to cushion your fall. Treat all falls as if you fell 10 fewer feet. If you're an expert in Acrobatics, treat falls as 25 feet shorter. If you're a master in Acrobatics, treat them as 50 feet shorter. If you're legendary in Acrobatics, you always land on your feet and don't take damage, regardless of the distance of the fall.
Some bolding from me.
I think it’s the hope of this edition that it will train players to look away from “optimizing for pluses” because those are going to be fairly consistent, and start looking at what cool special abilities they can work towards. While one can still “grind for pluses” they won’t get as much out of it for PF2.
Heck, maybe we’ll see a game where high-level play is as viable as low-level (still won’t be as common, though, because people are people).
|
E6 translates pretty directly to E6. That's the level before Master Skills as well as 4th level spells and seems to remain a good break point. I'll bet you can do the same basic things as PF1 E6 pretty readily via direct conversion. You'll probably want to enforce taking a Skill Feat for every two non-Skill Feats at a minimum, and may want to give Rogues free Skill Feats every two non-Skill Feats as well, but that's a fiddly detail, not a core assumption change.
Ditching +Level gives you bounded accuracy instead (and is certainly interesting), but that's a pretty different thing from E6, IMO.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'd probably say then limit it to Level 12. You stop just before Legendary becomes generally available.Due to the extra +1, +2 is okay, but +3 is too much?
I wasn't asking you, and which poster "wanted to limit capabilities" and in what way?Nothing. I suggested it because the other poster wanted to limit capabilities more than just the numbers.What does any of that have to do with BA?Legendary is more than just another +1 over Master.
From the Feats of Skill - Blogpost
Some bolding from me.Prerequisites trained in Acrobatics
Your catlike aerial acrobatics allow you to cushion your fall. Treat all falls as if you fell 10 fewer feet. If you're an expert in Acrobatics, treat falls as 25 feet shorter. If you're a master in Acrobatics, treat them as 50 feet shorter. If you're legendary in Acrobatics, you always land on your feet and don't take damage, regardless of the distance of the fall.
You asked if that extra +1 (from legendary proficiency being 1 better than Master) is too much.
I replied that legendary doesn't just increase the bonus by one, but also grants access to some abilities (like the legendary cat fall ability to ignore all falling damage).How you see any connection to BA (I'd guess that's bounded accuracy?) I don't know.
In PF1 there was an restricition that GM's could put on players so that they maxed out at level 6 and would get feats everytime they leveled up after that. The point of that was to keep the PC's not overpowered, inside the realm of reality and keep everyone on the same power level. With PF2 working towards a lot of balance, and with casters being nerfed a bit, is Epic 6 going to be something higher, like 10 maybe?
E6 makes a lot of sense in PF2. Level 7 is when Master-level skills and abilities start to come online. Capping things at 6 limits skills to world-record levels. (It also gives the Fighter a more impressive niche- instead of just getting Master early, Fighter is the only class to get Master in anything.) Casters are limited to third-level spells, Alchemist has access to mutagen, and the low-level archetypes are available.
E6 should also be much more interesting than in PF1. As you continue to "level" in E6, you get feats. PF2 has a lot of different types of feats, which means you can rotate between them. Skill, class, ancestry, skill, class, general, repeat. If you run out of skill feats you want, you can spend them to improve more of your skills. If you run out of class feats you want, you can take archetypes. Ancestry feats, yeah, you'll run out of. General feats, we'll see.
I'm not so sure a bastardized progression (a.k.a. this E6 buisness) is actually worth the effort of trying to balance it in play.
Objectively, feats were actually pretty close to worthless throughout most of d20's history, and came in long chains, so giving them out like candy wasn't a problem. Conversely, feats appear to be where much more of our progression actually comes from in PF2 (including basically all but our core class-features). So even though a 6th(+2) level character doesn't have the numerical values of an 8th level character, that doesn't mean they still have the CR of a 6th level character either.
Personally, I would prefer to play in a campaign without the expectation of 'leveling-up during play' at all over playing an 'E6' campaign from 1st to 6th level*. At least in that case I can focus my attention entirely on the story, without having to consider how to budget my even-more limited options for progression.
*Especially considering that by the end of the campaign, said "6th level" enemies might have upwards of 10 extra feats granting them new Actions, Reactions, and Proficiencies a 6th level character would normally never have.
|
|
Conversely, feats appear to be where much more of our progression actually comes from in PF2 (including basically all but our core class-features).
This is really not true.
Feats are good in PF2, but they aren't anywhere close to as good as many effects of leveling (higher level spells, +14 to everything you ever roll for the difference between 6 and 20, huge HP increases, Proficiency increases).
Meanwhile almost all truly core Class Features distinctly remain Class Features rather than Feats (Rage, Spells, Lay on Hands, Sneak Attack, and so on).
I'm not so sure a bastardized progression (a.k.a. this E6 buisness) is actually worth the effort of trying to balance it in play.
Objectively, feats were actually pretty close to worthless throughout most of d20's history, and came in long chains, so giving them out like candy wasn't a problem. Conversely, feats appear to be where much more of our progression actually comes from in PF2 (including basically all but our core class-features). So even though a 6th(+2) level character doesn't have the numerical values of an 8th level character, that doesn't mean they still have the CR of a 6th level character either.
Personally, I would prefer to play in a campaign without the expectation of 'leveling-up during play' at all over playing an 'E6' campaign from 1st to 6th level*. At least in that case I can focus my attention entirely on the story, without having to consider how to budget my even-more limited options for progression.
*Especially considering that by the end of the campaign, said "6th level" enemies might have upwards of 10 extra feats granting them new Actions, Reactions, and Proficiencies a 6th level character would normally never have.
It should be pretty easy. After the first full round of feats (2 skill, 2 class, 1 ancestry, 1 general), treat them as +1 level for determining appropriate challenges. That expects them to have +1 to everything and a new spell level for any casters, which they don’t. You should be fine with that jump for the rest of the campaign.
Suggested limits, if you’re concerned:
You can’t improve armor category more than one step, or you can’t take consecutive armor general feats.
Cap the increase to spell points. You can get as many options as you want, but the pool should remain limited to avoid overly favoring Cleric.
But since most class feats seem to be ways to spend your actions, I don’t think it’s a big problem.
Meanwhile almost all truly core Class Features distinctly remain Class Features rather than Feats (Rage, Spells, Lay on Hands, Sneak Attack, and so on).
I am not so sure, but that is why I used the qualifier of "appear".
For one thing, if you've lowered the max player level to 6, the benefits of being 7th level are no longer relevent to players, just the benefits of being 6th(+1) over 6th. So it no longer matters that a 20th level character is generally 70% better at EVERYTHING than a 6th(+14) level character, because they'll never occupy the same party/design space.
Regardless, I've seen feats that grant scaling Powers, feats that grant tactic-defining Actions, Feats that grant multiple Proficiencies. Feats that are as good as many 1-level dips in Pathfinder Classic.
Consider for a moment the fact that Archetypes (and their Prestige variants) are also just Feats; and all 'E6' is really doing is trading a Class-Based Progression for an Archetype-Based Progression beyond a certain point. Oh, that and significantly restricting their ability to meaningfully use their added wealth, since their Resonance pool will stagnate swiftly.
Maxed out at level 6? Hell, most of my games don't even start til levels 3-5. I can't imagine never going higher than that, wow.
Maxed out at level 6? Hell, most of my games don't even start til levels 3-5. I can't imagine never going higher than that, wow.
I know, right? 6th level is where things start to get interesting.
People are strange :)
Maxed out at level 6? Hell, most of my games don't even start til levels 3-5. I can't imagine never going higher than that, wow.I know, right? 6th level is where things start to get interesting.
People are strange :)
I usually start Pathfinder campaigns at 2nd level, I reserve level 1 for youths and extra weak NPCs.
On the other hand though I do understand the desire to play within a limited range. I find my favorite power level to run is between 5th and 7th level in PF1. Players have options, and they make it through an actual adventuring day; but cannot yet ignore the consequences of death, and a village full of orcs can still put them down if they aren't careful.
Maxed out at level 6? Hell, most of my games don't even start til levels 3-5. I can't imagine never going higher than that, wow.
It's usually done as a way to have a lower-powered world. Getting feats after you hit level 6 means you still have things to look forward to. I think for Pathfinder, E8 is also popular, getting many classes their nice level 7 features and then balancing out the spell levels between prepared and spontaneous casters.
Maxed out at level 6? Hell, most of my games don't even start til levels 3-5. I can't imagine never going higher than that, wow.
It's just a means of keeping the story genre locked. I personally prefer capping it at level 4 and having players increase through gestalt leveling. That gives you a good darkages/Conan feel to the game. A game designed for the full 20 ends up with increasingly bizarre planar adventures being the norm.
Or encounters with increasingly out of place monsters:
'How did this Beholder wind up in the middle of the road in the river kingdoms?'
Maxed out at level 6? Hell, most of my games don't even start til levels 3-5. I can't imagine never going higher than that, wow.It's just a means of keeping the story genre locked. I personally prefer capping it at level 4 and having players increase through gestalt leveling. That gives you a good darkages/Conan feel to the game. A game designed for the full 20 ends up with increasingly bizarre planar adventures being the norm.
That is a really interesting structure for a TTRPG, my dude. That could be/should be the basis for its own game rather than a kind of jury rig for Pathfinder. I'd buy that game for sure.
I have absolutely no idea what rule this post is talking about.
I have absolutely no idea what rule this post is talking about.
That's because there really isn't one---Epic 6 has never been part of PF itself, it's just a popular house rule (which actually predates PF). The essence is that once you hit 6th level you stop levelling up but keep gaining feats.
Levels 1 to 6 was the period where a character comes into his own, where a crash course in action and danger transforms them from 1st-level commoners into capable fighting men (or corpses). Once transformed by their experiences, a character’s growth is no longer a continuous, linear progression. There are still major differences between the master warriors and the veteran mercenaries, but it's not a change of scale.