Suggestion: Removing level bonus to proficiency etc. ie Bound Pathfinder


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Archimedes Mavranos wrote:
Igor Horvat wrote:

As I am 100% in bounded accuracy camp,

let me suggest one more thing for skills and also remove that assurance feat from the game.

Bonuses
untrained: +0
Trained: +2
Expert: +4
Master: +5
Legendary: +6

bonuses +0 per level or +1 per 5 levels(to match stat boosting)

now when you have training in a skill, your d20 roll will have minimum value that is higher than 1.
That is all numbers lower than minimum number will be treated as minimum number.

I.E.

trained, minimum roll on d20 is 5
Expert, minimum roll on d20 is 8
Master, minimum roll on d20 is 10
Legendary, minimum roll on d20 is 12

This way prevent huge number bloat, and also gives reliability on skills so highly trained individuals do not fail easy or average tasks.

Not sure I understand you minimum values, did you mean trained to be minimum 3?

when you roll d20 for your skill check in trained skill(or better) any roll on d20 that is lower than written number is treated as that number.

I.E. if your roll anything in trained skill under 5, it is treated as natural 5, then add your bonuses for proficiency and ability and level(if any).
Same goes for higher ranks but the minimal roll is higher.

That means for trained skill minimum check you can roll is 5(d20 roll)+2(proficiency) +X(ability modifier) +Y(level bonus).
With 18 in key ability minimum, at 1st levelcheck roll would be;
11 and max would be 26.

And if you are legendary in skill with 22 in key ability your minimum check roll would be 12(d20) +6(proficiency) +6(ability mod) +4(level bonus if we go with +1/5 lvl)
That is minimum check of 28 with maximum of 36.
Without any magic of high quality tools.


Archimedes Mavranos wrote:
Bardarok wrote:

I'm on a phone this weekend so I can't do long or involved posts. But another benefit to a more dramatically scaling system is that it acts to counter the advantages groups have in action economy. This helps with big monsters when it's four PCs vs a single monster the beast having a larger numerical advantage helps counter the fact it's outnumbered four to one and similarly helps the PCs vs groups of lower level foes. Of course in 5e they get around this by adding legendary actions and lair actions to monsters designed to be lone bosses. This is the more practical side of the army vs dragon anecdote. In a bound system action economy is proportionally steonger.

EDIT: I guess calling it a benefit is my own opinion. In a vacuum it is just a feature which may be good or bad depending.

But you don't need to add +level to everything to give the boss an advantage. You could add a template to a standard monster whose CR is equal to the party's level that give the monster +2 to everything and +X% hit points. It's EXACTLY the same encounter, but you get to use numbers that make sense.

In unbounded the boss rolls at +20. Is that good? I don't know, what level is he? If he is level 20 that a crappy bonus because standard AC at that point defaults to AC 30, but any reasonable PC is gonna have an AV closer to 36-40, which means the BOSS only has a 5-25% chance to hit.

In bounded, a boss with +20 to his roll is ALWAYS crazy. You know it just by looking at it. You can have easy, normal, or difficult challenges without the need to add level to everything.

What's more fun?
A.) High level characters that roll big numbers against big numbers?
or
B.) High level characters that have crazy feats like "Whenever you critically succeed on a Strike, you get a free Strike" or "Whenever an opponents fails to hit you with a melee attack, you may make a Strike against them with your shield as a reaction action."

Not saying these are balanced, but you can have character progression that...

Yes, number porn does not make things epic, for me.

As it stands now, a 20th-level Fighter (+20) with Legendary Proficiency (+3), a 22 Str (+6), and + 5 weapon has +34 to hit. A Pit Fiend has an AC of 44, so you need to roll a 10 to hit, and 20 for a critical success.

If you delete the +Level treadmill, the Fighter has a +14 to hit, and the Pit Fiend has an AC of 24, so, once agin, you need to roll a 10 to hit, and 20 for a critical success, how is the former more exciting?

Legendary is where I think PF2 could really distinguish itself from 5th Ed, without "bigger numbers are neat"; offer Herculean/Beowulf type stuff.


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Criticize bounded accuracy all you like, it does have it's flaws and I firmly believe 5e leaned a little too hard into it. The fact of the matter is it works. On a lot of levels it works much better than every version of the game that came before it.

In my opinion, P2's level to everything approach just flat out doesn't work. Especially when combined with such a narrow proficiency range (-2 to +3). So much so that it almost completely trivializes the di roll. Level becomes more important than any other stat in the game the further along you get. More important than the whatever you roll on your d20. The only way it doesn't is if you continually artificially inflate the dc and ac of everything for no logical reason.

I don't care what level you are and how long you've been adventuring. A level 20 fighter shouldn't be better at crafting than the kingdom's royal blacksmith whose devoted their entire life to mastering their trade. In P2, not only is that level 20 fighter better at it but they can churn out masterpieces ten times faster than said royal blacksmith with relative ease and impunity while the royal blacksmith has to meticulously focus on every item.

To add more example, a level 20 wizard whose never trained his body shouldn't be able to beat the kingdom's best athlete in an obstacle course by parkouring his way up the side of a building in a narrow alley. In P2 however he does exactly that because to do that parkour he only needs to not roll a 1 because of his level while that athlete has to consistently roll above a 12+ even though they've been training their body for a decade.

Level to everything is bad but somewhat manageable for combat (AC/attack, etc). It is disastrously horrible for skills and certain saving throws, however. Bounded accuracy definitely needs some improvement and tweaking but at it's base level it is just an infinitely more functional system with considerably less unnecessary rules bloat.


RoninJT wrote:

Criticize bounded accuracy all you like, it does have it's flaws and I firmly believe 5e leaned a little too hard into it. The fact of the matter is it works. On a lot of levels it works much better than every version of the game that came before it.

In my opinion, P2's level to everything approach just flat out doesn't work. Especially when combined with such a narrow proficiency range (-2 to +3). So much so that it almost completely trivializes the di roll. Level becomes more important than any other stat in the game the further along you get. More important than the whatever you roll on your d20. The only way it doesn't is if you continually artificially inflate the dc and ac of everything for no logical reason.

I don't care what level you are and how long you've been adventuring. A level 20 fighter shouldn't be better at crafting than the kingdom's royal blacksmith whose devoted their entire life to mastering their trade. In P2, not only is that level 20 fighter better at it but they can churn out masterpieces ten times faster than said royal blacksmith with relative ease and impunity while the royal blacksmith has to meticulously focus on every item.

To add more example, a level 20 wizard whose never trained his body shouldn't be able to beat the kingdom's best athlete in an obstacle course by parkouring his way up the side of a building in a narrow alley. In P2 however he does exactly that because to do that parkour he only needs to not roll a 1 because of his level while that athlete has to consistently roll above a 12+ even though they've been training their body for a decade.

Level to everything is bad but somewhat manageable for combat (AC/attack, etc). It is disastrously horrible for skills and certain saving throws, however. Bounded accuracy definitely needs some improvement and tweaking but at it's base level it is just an infinitely more functional system with considerably less unnecessary rules bloat.

I'm picking up what you're putting down.

It really breaks down into two camp. those who want "high fantasy" with bigger numbers and massive gaps between lowly commoners and powerful heroes and those who want "low fantasy" with numbers that consistently mean something.

I welcome you to check out my play by post arena over at giantitp. I'm offering it Bound and Unbound and welcoming people to run through it both ways for comparison. Also, the format pbp and turn tracked spreadsheet map means we can deconstruct how it happened without needing to rely on just anecdotal memory.

Come and try it out. Hopefully will have the first person running through it in the next couple days.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
RoninJT wrote:

Criticize bounded accuracy all you like, it does have it's flaws and I firmly believe 5e leaned a little too hard into it. The fact of the matter is it works. On a lot of levels it works much better than every version of the game that came before it.

In my opinion, P2's level to everything approach just flat out doesn't work. Especially when combined with such a narrow proficiency range (-2 to +3). So much so that it almost completely trivializes the di roll. Level becomes more important than any other stat in the game the further along you get. More important than the whatever you roll on your d20. The only way it doesn't is if you continually artificially inflate the dc and ac of everything for no logical reason.

I don't care what level you are and how long you've been adventuring. A level 20 fighter shouldn't be better at crafting than the kingdom's royal blacksmith whose devoted their entire life to mastering their trade. In P2, not only is that level 20 fighter better at it but they can churn out masterpieces ten times faster than said royal blacksmith with relative ease and impunity while the royal blacksmith has to meticulously focus on every item.

To add more example, a level 20 wizard whose never trained his body shouldn't be able to beat the kingdom's best athlete in an obstacle course by parkouring his way up the side of a building in a narrow alley. In P2 however he does exactly that because to do that parkour he only needs to not roll a 1 because of his level while that athlete has to consistently roll above a 12+ even though they've been training their body for a decade.

Level to everything is bad but somewhat manageable for combat (AC/attack, etc). It is disastrously horrible for skills and certain saving throws, however. Bounded accuracy definitely needs some improvement and tweaking but at it's base level it is just an infinitely more functional system with considerably less unnecessary rules bloat.

For folks that want to remove +level to proficiency as a house rule system for your own games, more power to you, but please be careful critiquing the way that +level to proficiency system works, especially when you are not describing it correctly.

As far as craft goes, a level 20 fighter untrained in craft can repair their weapons, shields and armor more reliably than a lower level NPC royal blacksmith for sure. They do use those items day after day in life threatening situations and probably have a better sense of exactly what the balance of their sword should be and whether that hairline fracture on their breastplate is going to be a problem or not.

They can't even make a sword though. And even if they did train the skill, then they can learn to make normal quality swords and probably do it pretty quickly and routinely, but they can't make anything of higher quality than their proficiency.

And for that wizard, how is she or he getting to level 20, fighting monsters, dodging attacks, and never training their body?

Some video games track this and give you increasing skill in the things that your character does over the course of their adventures, but that isn't possible in a table top RPG. Keeping track of every time you attack with x weapon or try x skill is a nightmare. Table Top RPGs simulate that by having leveling up generally accomodate all of that stuff together.

PF1 had a lot of this baked into its level system too.
That wizard still got bonuses to reflex saves as they leveled up on a specific chart, even if they were supposed to be old and frail. a 20th level wizard would often be as nimble against area attacks as a spry young halfling rogue. Why?

Because that 20th level wizard is dead when the dragon shows up with a breath attack otherwise.

Now, what looks a lot different about PF2 than PF1 is that a lot of developer attention has gone into keeping numbers together within ranges that make a D20 meaningful within the same general level group, while making the threat and challenge of different level encounters swing every bit as much as they did in PF1.

Greater demons and ancient dragons are going to be the same unimaginable threats in PF2 just like they were in PF1. However, unlike PF1, Characters that are supposed to be the stuff of legends, are going to be roughly balanced with each other enough to all stand a chance fighting those highest level monsters, instead of potentially having defenses that could swing by as much as 20 points if they got caught off guard, or skills that could swing by even more.

Admitting that you don't like a system designed to accommodate close play at similar power levels and wide gaps in effectiveness between much different levels is ok. Looking for ways to see if that system can accommodate the style of play you think you are looking for is fine too.

But saying "the system doesn't work," because you have a different vision for what it should be doing is not useful analysis for whether the system is working for what it was designed to do.


I haven't read through all 105 posts on this subject, but I can point out right away that there is a fallacy to your calculations. First, a 10th level fighter should never be fighting either a single 5th level orc or a 20th level Balor. It would have been more appropriate to put him up against a CR that was within the range of acceptable challenges. That leads me to the second fallacy. The 10th level fighter would not be alone. He would have 3 other characters contributing. As much as the current rules favor fighters over all other classes, they still should not be a 1-man party (but you seem to be proving they can be). You have completely skewed your whole argument and invalidated your results by ignoring that fact.

I think the real shame here is that you seem to accept that a single fighter should be able to face these challenges, when no other class would be likely to have a chance. THAT is an imbalance that has been built into PF2 which I find unsettling. If a fighter can stand on their own then every other class should have the resources and abilities to do the same (albeit in a different way). Show me how a cleric or a ranger or a wizard would be able to face that challenge.

The thing is, as far as I can see, your method or Paizo's are not much different. Fighters are the obvious choice is both cases because the rules limit everyone else. But as complex as Paizo's rules are, they are still simpler and have fewer exceptions than yours do.

By all means, make your house rules. But I can see no validation for promoting such a change to the PF2 rules. Especially not at this point when playtesting has just begun.


Unicore, unless the system was designed so that only adventurers and monsters are capable of doing anything then it's not doing what it's designed to do. So my examples weren't specific. I was trying to illustrate a fatal flaw in a direct and understandable way. The point of the matter is, in P2 with the rules as written a high level character will be flat out better at not just the things they've trained with and done repeatedly in their adventures but be better at absolutely every task that isn't expressly gated by proficiency tier. A 20th level wizard will be more athletic than a non-adventuring NPC whose spent their entire life working hard day in and day out in some form of manual labor. More agile and acrobatic than an NPC who was raised and performed on the high-wire since they were a little child. The 20th level fighter more knowledgeable about society than the 60 year old noble whose been educated at the highest level since birth. A 20th level adventurer could pick up a lute and perform better than a minstrel NPC whose made his living performing with one for 20 years.

The only way that's not true is if you adjust the DCs for the exact same task for the NPC for their lower level. If you're adjusting DCs for level like that though, what's the point in adding the level to the check to begin with? All it does is add extra numbers and math for the sake of adding extra numbers and math. This design philosophy complete eschews the sense that you are playing in a living breathing world and boils it down to the only things in the entire world that matter are the actions performed by the PCs. That's putting a very hefty emphasis on the 'game' in RPG and ignoring considerably the 'role' aspect of it.

Now, if you don't care about playing in a complete and functional world in your games then that's fine.


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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
RoninJT wrote:

Unicore, unless the system was designed so that only adventurers and monsters are capable of doing anything then it's not doing what it's designed to do. So my examples weren't specific. I was trying to illustrate a fatal flaw in a direct and understandable way. The point of the matter is, in P2 with the rules as written a high level character will be flat out better at not just the things they've trained with and done repeatedly in their adventures but be better at absolutely every task that isn't expressly gated by proficiency tier. A 20th level wizard will be more athletic than a non-adventuring NPC whose spent their entire life working hard day in and day out in some form of manual labor. More agile and acrobatic than an NPC who was raised and performed on the high-wire since they were a little child. The 20th level fighter more knowledgeable about society than the 60 year old noble whose been educated at the highest level since birth. A 20th level adventurer could pick up a lute and perform better than a minstrel NPC whose made his living performing with one for 20 years.

The only way that's not true is if you adjust the DCs for the exact same task for the NPC for their lower level. If you're adjusting DCs for level like that though, what's the point in adding the level to the check to begin with? All it does is add extra numbers and math for the sake of adding extra numbers and math. This design philosophy complete eschews the sense that you are playing in a living breathing world and boils it down to the only things in the entire world that matter are the actions performed by the PCs. That's putting a very hefty emphasis on the 'game' in RPG and ignoring considerably the 'role' aspect of it.

Now, if you don't care about playing in a complete and functional world in your games then that's fine.

I am asking out of honest ignorance here, but have you read through the whole section about skill checks and proficiencies in the play test? Because the rules call for GM arbitration for what any character can accomplish from a skill check based upon their proficiency. This is very different from PF1. Instead of saying it is a X DC to learn this specific fact, with the new system, the GM is perfectly within her right to decide that that untrained society check to learn something could have a higher DC for the untrained fighter vs the local diplomat. She could also decide that the information the fighter wants can't be determined from an untrained check alone. Maybe that untrained check can find them the person who might know, but that check may be much harder because the person who knows is a criminal who is trying to lay low.

The concept of this task = this DC is a very limited system, especially when expressed in a D20 system where your check has such a large range of possible outcomes. There is a reason why setting DCs for things like tying your shoes is a terrible idea, because for a lot of tasks, the bar needs to be so low the chances of failure are negligible (which is impossible if a 1 is always a failure because 5% is pretty high).

I am glad that the developers are trying to get out of the mindset of "set a DC and make a check to succeed or fail" as the basis for determining the outcome of all actions. Proficiency and tiers of success give a lot more room for that.

Now the play tests application of these ideas is incredibly rough at the moment, so it looks choppy. Especially when you try to compare it to 20+ years of the 3.x model of DC vs check = success or failure. That system was a mess at the beginning and is still pretty messy now, with some issues that it just can't fix. I for one am excited to explore and learn this new system, even as I recognize that it is a lot different, might take some getting used to, and in the end may not even work. But I am pretty sure that it plays different then it looks so I hope a lot of people are committing to play testing it as it is and figuring this out in practice so a potentially innovated idea doesn't get tossed before it has time to develop.


Unicore wrote:


I am asking out of honest ignorance here, but have you read through the whole section about skill checks and proficiencies in the play test? Because the rules call for GM arbitration for what any character can accomplish from a skill check based upon their proficiency. This is very different from PF1. Instead of saying it is a X DC to learn this specific fact, with the new system, the GM is perfectly within her right to decide that that untrained society check to learn something could have a higher DC for the untrained fighter vs the local diplomat. She could also decide that the information the fighter wants can't be determined from an untrained check alone. Maybe that untrained check can find them the person who might know, but that check may be much harder because the person who knows is a criminal who is trying to lay low.

GM Fiat is a bad place to have to hide your systems answers in a game that is historically all about crunch.

It always works, I will grant you. You can handwave the players' into a much more believable world at any time.

But if this is the intention of the system.... to determine what a player or NPC can do by virtue of their proficiencies and NOT their numerical bonus to the Skill Check, then lets see THAT system. Because PF2 is currently NOT that system in the way that it is actually written or expressed.

Of course there will always be an aside that establishes that the GM is the ultimate arbiter of what can or cannot be done, but if you have to rely on that, then you are not relying on the system they created and it begs the question: "Why have the system at all?" or "Why not change the system so that it CAN be relied upon to be the arbiter of what a character can and can't do?"

And this is the crux of this particular argument. The systems, as written, describe the way the world functions. All of the athlete-wizard and poet-laureate-barbarian examples are hyperbolic, but point toward a bad system for describing actions and characters in the world... unless you abandon that system and turn it over to GM fiat, which you are free to do, and will make for a better game.... but it does not excuse the system for requiring such intervention.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Lord_Malkov wrote:

GM Fiat is a bad place to have to hide your systems answers in a game that is historically all about crunch.

It always works, I will grant you. You can handwave the players' into a much more believable world at any time.

But if this is the intention of the system.... to determine what a player or NPC can do by virtue of their proficiencies and NOT their numerical bonus to the Skill Check, then lets see THAT system. Because PF2 is currently NOT that system in the way that it is actually written or expressed.

Of course there will always be an aside that establishes that the GM is the ultimate arbiter of what can or cannot be done, but if you have to rely on that, then you are not relying on the system they created and it begs the question: "Why have the system at all?" or "Why not change the system so that it CAN be relied upon to be the arbiter of what a character can and can't do?"

And this is the crux of this particular argument. The systems, as written, describe the way the world functions. All of the athlete-wizard and poet-laureate-barbarian examples are hyperbolic, but point toward a bad system for describing actions and characters in...

When it comes to social challenges and skills, I think GM fiat has been best hardcoded ruleset there has ever been for RPGs. Games that try to codify social interactions down too far into mathmatical formulas of choices between A or B are the domain of video games and restrict player creativity.

Now good systems help train GMs into navigating the nebulous and difficult waters of more freeform encounters, which is what social and skill challenges are at their best, and that can be difficult.

Personally, I don't think the PF2 system is there yet. It is trying to hard to feel the same as PF1 and not taking advantage of the creative space that blowing open the old formula of task = DC vs roll+bonus, with a pass/fail outcome, but it has the potential to as long as it doesn't get derailed by the comparative optics of what characters look like in PF2 vs what they looked like in PF1.


Lord_Malkov wrote:
Unicore wrote:


I am asking out of honest ignorance here, but have you read through the whole section about skill checks and proficiencies in the play test? Because the rules call for GM arbitration for what any character can accomplish from a skill check based upon their proficiency. This is very different from PF1. Instead of saying it is a X DC to learn this specific fact, with the new system, the GM is perfectly within her right to decide that that untrained society check to learn something could have a higher DC for the untrained fighter vs the local diplomat. She could also decide that the information the fighter wants can't be determined from an untrained check alone. Maybe that untrained check can find them the person who might know, but that check may be much harder because the person who knows is a criminal who is trying to lay low.

GM Fiat is a bad place to have to hide your systems answers in a game that is historically all about crunch.

It always works, I will grant you. You can handwave the players' into a much more believable world at any time.

But if this is the intention of the system.... to determine what a player or NPC can do by virtue of their proficiencies and NOT their numerical bonus to the Skill Check, then lets see THAT system. Because PF2 is currently NOT that system in the way that it is actually written or expressed.

Of course there will always be an aside that establishes that the GM is the ultimate arbiter of what can or cannot be done, but if you have to rely on that, then you are not relying on the system they created and it begs the question: "Why have the system at all?" or "Why not change the system so that it CAN be relied upon to be the arbiter of what a character can and can't do?"

And this is the crux of this particular argument. The systems, as written, describe the way the world functions. All of the athlete-wizard and poet-laureate-barbarian examples are hyperbolic, but point toward a bad system for describing actions and characters in...

Exactly this! I actually like the concept of a tiered proficiency system a great deal. Level to proficiency unbalances the focus entirely to the point where most common tasks rely far more on the character's level than they do on their level of training or even the roll of the di. Why artificially inflate the bonus if you have to artificially inflate the difficulty to keep it from getting out of hand? Why should the roll the PC needs to make for a specific task be any different than the roll an NPC needs to make for the same task?

My main problems are pretty simple. The numerical difference between someone who is legendary at something is fairly negligible from someone who has never trained at it in their life. I understand the idea is to gate certain more difficult tasks behind the proficiency tiers but the playtest as-is does barely anything to support that. For one, there's a feat tax to do any of those tasks beyond the simple trained level of proficiency. That's fine for PCs since they get a decent number of skill feats as they level. For everyone else in the world though, it requires DM fiat and tinkering to allow them to be capable of anything since there aren't currently rules for NPC skills. The DM is expected to create everything to suit their game world.

I'd propose a different fix from the TC. For starters, define a lot more specific skill uses gated behind proficiency. Put some of them under the skill by default as opposed to locking them all behind skill feats. Second, I'd make it so the level bonus is different if you are trained vs untrained. For untrained things add only half your level to your proficiency. Trained, you add your full level. Personally I'd like to separate them further but it would create too much math for every tier of proficiency to confer a different percentage of your level to your proficiency bonus. It could get too confusing for some to add say, one fifth of your level to untrained and one quarter to trained and one third to expert, etc till you reach +level at legendary.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Just to be clear, the developers have addressed your concern about how NPCs get the ability to do things by completely separating PCs from the rest of the world as far a mechanics go. A lot of folks are not happy about that, but it is pretty clear that if a GMs game needs a NPC who has forged a Legendary blade for the sake of the story, the GM only needs to flesh that character out as much as is necessary to make that happen. In this case, probably assigning a level to give a sense of what the DCs would be for dealing with anything they have created.

PF2 is not setting itself up to be easily converted into a video game.


Unicore wrote:

Just to be clear, the developers have addressed your concern about how NPCs get the ability to do things by completely separating PCs from the rest of the world as far a mechanics go. A lot of folks are not happy about that, but it is pretty clear that if a GMs game needs a NPC who has forged a Legendary blade for the sake of the story, the GM only needs to flesh that character out as much as is necessary to make that happen. In this case, probably assigning a level to give a sense of what the DCs would be for dealing with anything they have created.

PF2 is not setting itself up to be easily converted into a video game.

Yeah, but arguing that the design is somehow "objectively bad" because "destroys immersion" or that it's "disastrously horrible" sounds better than just saying "I don't like it."

Person A: "I like this."
Person B: "huh. I don't."
/thread

See? Not nearly enough drama. ;-)


Unicore wrote:

Just to be clear, the developers have addressed your concern about how NPCs get the ability to do things by completely separating PCs from the rest of the world as far a mechanics go. A lot of folks are not happy about that, but it is pretty clear that if a GMs game needs a NPC who has forged a Legendary blade for the sake of the story, the GM only needs to flesh that character out as much as is necessary to make that happen. In this case, probably assigning a level to give a sense of what the DCs would be for dealing with anything they have created.

PF2 is not setting itself up to be easily converted into a video game.

Having rules for capable NPCs makes it more of a video game? NPCs in video games are wholly incapable of doing anything outside the narrative. They have no place in the world or story beyond being periphery filler. Giving rules to them gives them things to do in the world independent of the adventuring PCs which makes it a more deep and engaging world. You'd rather play in a world where it's only inhabitants are those expressly created by the DM for players to interact with. In my experience that creates shallow experiences at the table that players get bored with under the average DM.

You must have been exceptionally lucky with DMs to not see how big a problem it is to put all that work on the DM versus being part of the system. Most of the DMs I know would lose interest in DMing incredibly fast knowing they have to handcraft every NPC their players interact with if they want them to not be completely hollow skill-less shells. Yes it's important for DM fiat and adjudication to be encouraged. To make it necessary for every non-combat social interaction.

Also, separating PCs from the rest of world in terms of mechanics makes it more like video games than anything else. It says both that the rules that apply to PCs don't apply to the rest of the world and vice versa. It makes PCs in a sense not part of the world you're playing them in. I've met a couple of DMs I'd trust to run that sort of game. The majority I've met would be too quick to abuse the 'because I'm DM and I said so' approach because they didn't have rules in place to use for everything. It gives DMs carte blanche to just say 'You can't do X interacting with NPC Y' because they don't want to put in the work to determine how possible it would be so decide it would just be impossible. Or conversely just say 'Yes, you just do X when interacting with NPC Y' so they don't have to determine how easy or likely the task might be. That doesn't feel like fun to me or the vast majority of people I've gamed with over the years but that's exactly what most gaming parties will get if the system doesn't give the DM tools for adjudicating those interactions. I'd much rather the system have those tool and still encourage DM adjudication when they feel it's appropriate than it give us no tools and tells the DM 'just handle this aspect of the game however you think it should work'.


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I observed a game where a DM had a ship battle and he spent about a full hour rolling attacks etc. for every npc involved. He persumably had every NPC stated out. Did this make the game feel more immersive? not in my opinion. In fact it bored the tar out of me. They asked if I wanted to join their group and that was a hard pass let me tell ya.

As a DM I don't feel the need to write up every NPC I in fact hardly ever write up anything past stuff I know I will directly need and ad lib any surprises.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
RoninJT wrote:


Having rules for capable NPCs makes it more of a video game?

Again for clarity, PF2 does have rules for adding any relevant statistical numbers you need as a GM. In fact it is 100 times easier than in PF 1 becuase all you need to know for 90% of the interactions the PCs will have with NPCs is their level and and whether it will be something that they are good at or not. You then use their level (not the PC level) to find what feels like the right DC on the chart on 337, subtract 10 and you can know what their bonuses are without having to select skills, feats, assign attributes and give them any equipment (since equipment is a huge part of how PCs will have their bonuses, this is a big deal).

Non-protagonist characters in all story telling media are "periphery filler," as in the story should not revolve around them. They bring the story-world to life and move the narrative along upto the point that they hand it off the protagonists/PCs. PF2, because of the +level to proficiency bonus, gives you a really easy method for introducing as much "crunch" as you need for any given NPC without having to do a lot of work as a GM. That is a major advantage of letting level play first chair in determining power level. It is not a problem.

Now the exact numbers on the dials might not be perfectly calibrated yet, but as a GM, designing adventures for PF2 looks like a walk in the park in comparison to PF1. The trick that will come later, with something like a DMG, is helping GMs not fall into repetitive traps of making all challenges = PC level. Hopefully the Playtest adventure avoids this, and if the basic mechanics are there, they can address building your own adventures once the Core rulebook is out.


Vidmaster7 wrote:

I observed a game where a DM had a ship battle and he spent about a full hour rolling attacks etc. for every npc involved. He persumably had every NPC stated out. Did this make the game feel more immersive? not in my opinion. In fact it bored the tar out of me. They asked if I wanted to join their group and that was a hard pass let me tell ya.

As a DM I don't feel the need to write up every NPC I in fact hardly ever write up anything past stuff I know I will directly need and ad lib any surprises.

Amen to that.

As a GM I have much better things to do that work on infinite stat blocks. Especially at higher levels. I'm currently in the middle of preparing some homebrew to end off a campaign: material for level 19 characters. It's a good job I have a 2 week holiday to prepare it - customising monsters at that CR and doing it to actually get the challenge between 'walkover and wipeout' whist being interesting and novel is incredibly time consuming.

I'm a huge fan of systems that let you spec your enemies 'just enough' to do the job they have to do. FATE core comes to mind. I can create NPCs as fast as my players take unexpected detours.

The +6 on attack for level 0 monsters i'm not so keen on at all. But that's a separate issue.


Vidmaster7 wrote:

I observed a game where a DM had a ship battle and he spent about a full hour rolling attacks etc. for every npc involved. He persumably had every NPC stated out. Did this make the game feel more immersive? not in my opinion. In fact it bored the tar out of me. They asked if I wanted to join their group and that was a hard pass let me tell ya.

As a DM I don't feel the need to write up every NPC I in fact hardly ever write up anything past stuff I know I will directly need and ad lib any surprises.

Absolutely, I had fun building in the early days of 3rd Ed, still do, but to spend 3-hours on an NPC, only to have him/her go down in less than 3 rounds, taught me a few things, ha. Of course, some NPCs never really need actual stats, just doesn't come up in the encounters they feature in.

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