Hey everyone, sorry for the delays. Life has just been a little full recently and I expect it to continue to be so this weekend with paizocon. I'm heading on vacation June 1-6 (should still be able to post but it may just be a little delayed) and then return to normal after that. I'd still like to play but let me know if I'm slowing things down too much and I can drop out and give my spot to someone else.
No worries, we aren’t even really getting going till next Tuesday and that will just be to start setting up the module.
Just an fyi to all, nothing happening in gameplay is actually in the module. This is just a 'meet the pc's' and 'hopefully somehow you all decide to follow a plot hook I dangle later'.
No worries! I'm kind of slow-rolling everywhere lately, but I do wanna see how this all plays out!
The Slides are up and ready for you all to fill in. I need Page 1 for eventual reporting and chronicles, though you can change your mind on who it is assigned to at the end of the module. Page 2 is the usual initiative, character image and group order.
All set!
I’m on vacation until Sunday. Will post if I can but may not have much free time until I get back.
No worries, primary mission won’t be pushed onto you all till Monday.
Hey everyone, sorry to slow things down. Back from vacation and catching up. Will try to get a post in gameplay tonight.
Jadren, Dev, Ellen? Just bumping to see if we are ready to go.
I'm ready! Just waiting on Jadren before I get rollin'.
Sorry everyone! Old friend arrived for a short visit. I’ll get something posted tomorrow after he leaves
Good to hear from you. We shall await your post with quivering anticipation! :P
Bless your heart, Top. XD
Finally got my character built. Sorry again for the long delay. Should be ready to go now.
Here we GOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
Woo! *dancedance*
Sorry again, everyone. Running out the door now but will dig into the gameplay thread when I get back in a few hours.
Yay!
Moved this to Discussion so I didn't clog up the Gameplay thread with more OOC stuff.
Okay, apropos the low-light vision discussion: I was only half right. As per CRB, p. 465:
A creature with low-light vision can see in dim light as though it were bright light, so it ignores the concealed condition due to dim light.
I thought it raised all light stages by one step, but it does not. I was thinking it worked like a lesser form of darkvision:
A creature with darkvision or greater darkvision can see perfectly well in areas of darkness and dim light, though such vision is in black and white only. Some forms of magical darkness, such as a 4th-level darkness spell, block normal darkvision. A creature with greater darkvision, however, can see through even these forms of magical darkness.
Pretty big difference! Darkvision got a huge utility bump from 1e in that it apparently no longer has a range, so that's pretty huge, but regardless I was very wrong about low-light. In fact, I would argue low-light is much less useful than in 1e because it no longer doubles the range of light sources. It just makes the ranges that already exist better-illuminated to you.
I'm just letting stuff play out, fyi. If you all want to get to some more 'meaty' content, I'm happy to push things along. As I see it though, after breakfast the ship will get moving towards the fishing camp. Which will probably be tomorrow unless you all run off on another tangent. :D
Yeah, I'm just havin' fun RPing at the moment :D
Ditto. Fine to advance the action or not as suits the GM.
No Sailing Lore so I dunno what you'd use instead for ship tasks. Maybe Athletics for swabbing and Acrobatics for the rigging? I actually need to think on this because I've been tossing around the idea of converting Skull & Shackles to 2e, and not all the crew jobs convert to something specific. (Rowing requires Con checks, for example, and 2e doesn't use ability checks--everything's based on skills now, so far as I can tell.)
That reminds me that I meant to give myself Sailing, but I’m running at a skill deficit at this point…
I put some thought into this. Athletics for most of the manual labor stuff. Perception for lookout. Survival for navigation. Acrobatics for a few tasks might work too. But Sailing Lore could be subbed in for any of them though so it would be the most versatile skill.
Most ship things would be low DC, but require two successes to accomplish (like docking). So running a crew of two is problematic, but a crew of four makes it pretty easy. Then when under way it might just be like one success per hour plus a navigation check to stay on course. More doable by even just one or two crew so the others could rest.
Well there's a couple reasons why, at least for Skull & Shackles, I wouldn't go with hourly checks, not the least of which being 12 checks a day would be wildly tedious when literally 80+% of the AP takes place on a ship lol. But I definitely like your reasoning for the various skill choices. Those all make sense. I will probably use them!
That's assuming I ever get the game off the ground. Fingers crossed on that one.
Schlorpin' this over here:
Re the question of the correct math for Ellen's Strikes, this is one of the criticisms of PF2 that I've seen: that despite the apparent large numbers of options that characters get to choose, many of the most crucial aspects of gameplay are baked in and also likely to be identical for every character. This is especially true at low levels: pretty much everyone is going to have a +7 attack at level 1 (+2 for trained, +1 for level 1, +4 for ability modifier which is almost always going to 18 in one's primary stat), +8 at level 2 (+2 for trained, +2 for level, +4 for ability modifier, etc.). This becomes a little less so as you get to higher levels (because different classes will advance their proficiency at different rates) but even then it will still be true that almost every - say - level 20 Fighter is going to have nearly the same attack roll as every other level 20 Fighter, and ditto for every Level 20 Monk, Wizard, Rogue, etc.
On the one hand: valid. On the other, though, different people will still build differently. Ellen, for example, prioritizes having a more even spread, so her attack stat (Dex) is only at a +3, and her damage stat (Str) is only at a +2, even.
And then you've got weapon differences-- Agile ones, for example-- and feat choices that change up the way you MAP, or the way you deal damage, or both.
It's easy to say "well, obviously everyone's going to have an 18 in their primary stat," but honestly, when I first read the rules, I didn't see any reason to do it that way. I think, to some extent, forums tend to lean a little bit toward people who optimize, and if everyone's trying to optimize the same way, you're gonna start seeing a lot of the same math.
It is actually a minor criticism I have of 2e that while I like that the math is so tight, I don't like that they geared it so high in difficulty. The game's math assumes an 18 in your primary stat (for spell saves, attack rolls with your main weapon, etc) and having even 1 modifier less than that +4 can really sway the math. The math in Starfinder is tighter than PF1, but they didn't gear it quite so high in difficulty, assuming a 16 in your primary stat (which I feel is still kinda high considering the ability score spread they give you, but eh).
I'm listening to an actual-play podcast of the Age of Ashes AP and I'm noticing that stuff that doesn't scale much (e.g., the Class DC of the rogue and champion) has bitten them in the butt multiple times. This mostly comes from the crit/fumble cards they use, because the save DC for crit card effects are based on the attacker's class DC; at 9th level, those two characters have garbage class DCs that almost always let the opponent save against the crit effects.
I still think that overall, it's a phenomenal system and frankly I'll take about a hundred minor complaints like this just to have the 3-action economy, but I agree with Jacques in the sense that it does lead to a bit of sameness in stats. The important thing there is to flavor your character how you want them in order to make them feel unique, rather than in their numerical values.
Them there's me 2 cents. Yarr. (Since we're pirates now! I think. Are we pirates? O_o)
(We're pirates!)
Honestly, yeah, my biggest complaint about PF2 is just: it is absolutely balanced wonky and maybe I'm biased from my FoP run, but PCs getting their teeth knocked all the way out of them and having to have them re-inserted every single combat gets old!
That said, so far, this particular run (including Sundered Waves) has felt about right!
Oh yes, that's basically every single game. They kinda went back to OG D&D in the sense that 1st level characters feel like 1st level characters. Nobody is safe from horrific fates for the first few levels. That being said, FoP is also a Bulmahn adventure, which are notorious meat grinders. I ran my son through Crypt of the Everflame and we got a little over halfway through before he was like, "I don't want to play this anymore. It's just depressing." So we switched to a 2e homebrew that he liked a lot better. XD
The Weeble-Wobble play of low-level PF2 does seem to lessen as time goes on, and it's especially helpful if you have more than one source of healing (a champion or cleric and a Medicine specialist seems to work best, esp. if they're two different PC's).
One of the reasons I limited this group to four players is that when you start bumping up enemy stats to counter five and six players, it gets really wonky. The group starts facing much higher ACs and DCs and the enemies crit constantly. Sure you have more players and actions and it sorta balances, but it gets very frustrating when you need 15 to hit on the first swing and 20s after that. Makes you feel useless over time. Plus a lot of the skill conditions are 'half of the group needs to succeed' which is a lot harder when you jack up the DC.
Agree with everything that's been said. I haven't played enough PF2 yet to feel that sense of things being so deadly but overall I'm glad they brought back the sense of the game being challenging. By the end of PF1 most of the games I played in were just too easy. Admittedly, in my area there are a lot min-maxers (maybe including me :-) but it was just too rare for us to ever feel like we might fail a scenario. Or even risk some difficulty.
That said, I also love the 3 action economy and so much else of the elegance of PF2's design. I just wish that they had found a way to keep the tight math of the game without imposing the level of sameness that it seems like they have. I guess what I'm saying is that if the assumption is everyone is going to have an 18 in their main stat (with some players occasionally having a 16), why even bother with the stat at all?
That is absolutely one of the big criticisms of PF2, is the necessity of an 18 key stat. There was a great episode of Know Direction where they talked about house rules for PF2 and how to rectify that and some of the other system flaws they found (don't get me started on spontaneous casters; they address that in the ep too).
It's a great rundown of some really useful house rules. I'll see if I can't find the link and post it here.
EDIT: That was surprisingly easy! Here is the video.
Bee tee dubz, if you listen to a lot of podcasts (I listen to them pretty much constantly at work; I clean by myself and I have tinnitus so silence really, really sucks) this is a fun one. Lots of backlogs to muddle through and unfortunately they just throw all their shows on the same feed, but if you pick and choose your shows and just delete the others it's not so bad. I listen to the main PF show, Know Direction Beyond (their Starfinder show), Legend Lore, and Digital Divination, and skip Unboxing and all their actual plays. Very good source of Paizo news and interviews, and because they're not sponsored by Paizo they can offer honest reviews of their products (they're usually very positive anyway--Paizo makes good stuff).
No worries at all. In my experience these things ebb and flow. Also sometimes I find it takes me awhile to find a character's personality. In the last game I found it pretty hard to figure out who Jadren was and why I (or anyone else) should care what happened to him.
Exploration Mode Stuff!
Alright, so everyone designates a general exploration mode for... exploring. Search is common. Scout is nice for at least one PC to do (grants a +1 to everyone's Initiative). Detect Magic sometimes. Avoid Notice is useful for specific characters who either actively use stealth or are able to get sneak attack in that first round like rogues.
So most of you knew that shiz. But once there is no immediate danger present, all of you might wish to do something else. So you open a room and nothing attacks or is visible, then anyone can go in and look for stuff or take a nap or do calisthenics or whatever. The exploration activities are pretty much only there for the possibility of initiative, then stop, then resume when exploring again. If that makes sense.
I also only roll once per room on that initial search roll. That includes the door and anything inside. I could do a lot more rolls, but I think that would bog us down a ton. Everyone could also be constantly rolling their own perception and then get bored with rolling or miss a day of posts and then miss something obvious and I definitely don't want that.
Any thoughts?
Yep, the way that you are doing this works fine for me. Jacques' default exploration activity will be Search unless I think of something else that would be useful or would make sense in character - so far haven't thought of anything.
I'm good with it! Akimi is willing to swap spots with Ellen or Dev if they want a go at being first. Akimi does better after they can dig in and take a full minute to inspect an area anyway, since that gives them their +1 bonus from Pursue a Lead, so the initial Perception bonus isn't as important. I'd suggest Ellen swap with Akimi rather than Dev, simply because using Avodi Notice can be clutch in that first round of combat for a rogue.
But also if people want to keep it as-is, I'm good with that too! Aside from the horrifying ettercap fight, I think we've been meshing pretty well combat-wise.
I don't mind going first; Ellen isn't the beefiest possible PF2 character, but she's tied for the highest HP and maybe the best saves, so!
Jacques is always happy to be in the front.
Correct! You and Jacques are tied at +22 total saves while Dev and I are tied for 2nd place with +20
As Jacques mentioned, Electric Arc is very good for a cantrip. I know quite a bit about it because it is the primary damage on my level 6 alchemist. I've been using it since level 2.
Dev, I had to reroll your damage because it looked like you had a typo in there and only did 1d3+1 instead of 1d4+1, so that worked out nicely.
Your DC is 15 because you add your Charisma Bonus (+1) to your Trained Proficiency Bonus (+2 and +2 for level 2).
If you ever have a spell attack roll under that feat it would be +5 (Cha + Proficiency Bonus).
I completely get the mistakes though. This is your first pfs2 PC and there are a lot of concepts that take a bit to get used to. I've been playing since it started and I played a TON, so all these terms seem pretty intuitive to me. But I also started playing in a home group that is running a PFS2 AP (first time playing pfs2 for almost all of them) and they are like 'OOOOH THAT'S HOW THAT WORKS?' very regularly. We recently learned the two casters were shorting their cantrip damage by half for the last 2-3 sessions.
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You mentioned 'basic saves' before. These are used about 90% of the time for spells and other effects. It boils down like this.
Crit = No Effect
Succeed = Half Damage
Fail = Full Damage
Fumble = Double Damage
Thought I might as well move the convo over to Discussion so as not to clog up the gameplay thread with more OOC stuff.
While it's true that basically all rules are up to GM fiat, the default here is to roll once and double the result, and so far as I can recall (which doesn't mean much, my memory is a dumpster fire) we hadn't discussed using the variant rule. It's important to lay out variant rule usage as soon as possible to avoid confusion. If we want to use that rule going forward, that's fine by me, but we should establish it now so we know how to roll our crits in the future.
I can confirm, the GM did mention that it’s player’s choice—but also that each player should stick to that choice to avoid cheesing.
I'm also ok with whatever works for the group and it seems like it might be simplest if we are all doing the same thing. Since it sounds like the GM's preference is that we roll rather than double, my suggestion is that we all do that (including monsters).
Well hey! Secrets of Magic just dropped and the magus looks super rad. (I am bouncing off the walls to play one!) And it has a ranged option with the Starlit Span, allowing you to make your Spellstrikes with a ranged weapon.