On the Road to Sombrefell Hall!

Monday, September 10, 2018

As of today, we turn our focus to Part 3 of Doomsday Dawn, "Affair at Sombrefell Hall," written by one of the many talented developers of the new edition of Pathfinder, Amanda Hamon Kunz. If you've already played Part 3 of Doomsday Dawn, you can find the surveys at the following links:

Player Survey | Game Master Survey | Open Survey

Before we move on, we'd like to look back at what we've learned from the first two parts of the adventure and talk about some additional changes we're making to the game based on your comments and feedback.

But first, a few important notes.

First off, you can still turn in survey results for Parts 1 and 2 of the adventure. Although we're moving on, your responses will still be counted and help us make further decisions about the game.

Second, I want to take a moment to stress that the various parts of Doomsday Dawn are meant to be tests that look at various parts of the game engine. This goal was more important to us, in some places, than creating a balanced play experience. This will make certain parts of the adventure a little challenging to run at times, but we hope you'll bear with us. We've tried to ensure you'll have a good time with the adventure, but the test goals have to come first. Thanks for understanding.

Finally, the rest of this blog may contain spoilers for Parts 1 and 2, so if you have not finished those chapters, you might want to go back and do that first.

Deconstructing Part 2: In Pale Mountain's Shadow

In case you missed the Twitch stream on Friday, Designer Logan Bonner sat down with Dan Tharp to talk through some of the things we've learned so far from the survey results from Part 2 of Doomsday Dawn. Here are a few of the highlights, along with a thing or two we might have missed.

As the first part of Doomsday Dawn to be set above level 1, Part 2 was our first chance to ask about archetypes. 15% of you took an archetype, and of those, most were arcane spellcasters picking up the fighter archetype.

This is also the first part of the adventure where characters start play with magic items. 62% of you chose magic armor as your 3rd-level item, but over 10% took a lower-level item or a consumable item instead. We might look into making changes in how you can select items in the future to accommodate players who want more flexibility.

It took players, on average, almost 10 minutes less to make their 4th-level characters that it did to make their 1st-level characters, which is great news.

Resonance continues to be a topic of discussion amongst players, and our surveys are just starting to give us a picture of how it is working in play. Only about 1 out of every 4 players ran out of resonance once during Part 2, and only 1 out of every 10 players failed their check when overspending resonance and became cut off during Part 2 (usually alchemists). Now, the important thing to note here is that this is not really showing us how resonance is being used, merely that players aren't running out very often, so be on the lookout for survey questions in upcoming parts that will delve a little deeper into exactly how you're using resonance at your table.

Finally, this part of the adventure was designed to test the game in situations with complex environmental and tactical challenges. Our results showed that players viewed these fights as a significantly greater challenge than the raw monster numbers—not counting the environmental advantages—would indicate. Players also rated the fights in this part as significantly longer and not quite as fun. Some of this was expected, but when we look at these results by class, things become really interesting, showing us which classes had the most difficulty with Part 2. Barbarians, monks, and paladins, for example, seemed to have a bit of trouble with the manticore fight, since they tend to lack ranged options. This shows us that there are adjustments to be made with these classes to ensure they have some way to contribute.

New Updates

With the start of a new part of Doomsday Dawn, we also have a number of changes to the game that we want to bring to your attention. All of these can be found in the download below (which includes all of the previous changes in one handy document). Here are a few of the highlights:

First up, we're changing the anathema for the animal totem barbarian to allow you to use whatever weapon you want while outside of rage. When transformed with fury, though, you still need to use those special animal unarmed attacks. Look for a few more barbarian updates as well.

Next, we're adding a longer range to soothe, the occult healing spell, allowing you to use it on targets up to 30 feet away. There's a bard update, as well; they now have a feat to gain access to 10th-level occult spells.

Finally—and this is the big change for the week—we're removing the concept of signature skills from the game. Now anyone can advance any skill up to any proficiency rank they want (assuming their level is high enough for them to do so). In addition, a number of classes are having their total number of starting skill choices increased to at least three, with each also getting one or more automatic skills, to represent basic class training.

This change also precipitates the need for a NEW CHARACTER SHEET! On top of removing signature skills from the game, we are also taking this opportunity to clean up a number of issues with the character sheet to make it a bit more intuitive and easy to use.

As always, none of these changes are final, but instead more steps toward the best version of Pathfinder we can make. Thank you for all of your feedback and assistance so far. We're looking forward to learning more from you in the coming months.

Jason Bulmahn
Director of Game Design

Join the Pathfinder Playtest designers every Friday throughout the playtest on our Twitch Channel to hear all about the process and chat directly with the team.

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Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

I can't seem to download it even after clicking the "having problem downloading" button


pixierose wrote:
I can't seem to download it even after clicking the "having problem downloading" button

Have you tried the 'mash the download button several dozen times in a row until it accidentally downloads it' method? It's the only way it's ever worked for me. The "problem" button only loops me back to the download button.

Liberty's Edge

1 person marked this as a favorite.
dnoisette wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:
There's a limited amount of blog space (and it's not just the author of the blog involved in getting these up there), so that would be tricky. I did post in a barbarian thread that covered most of these changes saying I had noted them and hoped to adjust them, but at the time, I didn't know when/if those would be included in an update.

I guess that answers my question then.

I totally missed your post about adjustments you hoped to make to the Barbarian class though. I do check the forums everyday but it's hard to keep track of everything, hence why I thought it would be a good idea to have a blog post or maybe a sticky thread with a list of features which you're working on.
I understand that this is not possible so I guess I'll just keep watching out for each new errata and enjoy the unexpected new features when they come out! :D
Thank you for taking the time to reply.

I regularly check the posts in the profiles of Deadmanwalking and Mark Seifter and from there I sometimes open a thread in which they posted if it seems worthwhile. Every once in a while I check the blogs too

I sometimes check the posts of other devs but they do not update that often :-)

Excellent job Paizonians. I look forward to your next batch of changes (with the date they appeared in the update document and the latest in red or blue font to be easier to differentiate, as you do for the FAQ on the website IIRC).

I will likely create a thread with my musings on multiclassing if I cannot find an appropriate existing one. Because someone out there IS listening :-D


3 people marked this as a favorite.
Doktor Weasel wrote:
And if for some reason they can't let go of resonance, they need to remove it's cost from all consumables, remove and all items that don't have limits in PF1 (Like Immovable rods, they wisely backed down on the Bag of Holding, but still have it on the Knapsack of Halflingkind, which would otherwise be a really cool item), decouple it from the Alchemist and remove x-times a day and charge limitations from all items.

100% agree on decoupling it. Not just from alchemist, from everything it is hardwired into. Make it optional, because it seems to tend to a minority of the playerbase playing in Pathfinder Society games. Make it mandatory to PFS then, but optional for the rest.

I admit, I never played PF1 except the beginner box (not that I didn't like it, it was my group's choice to stay with D&D) but was a fanboy of 3.5. I never ever encountered this christmas tree/CLW wand issue in my 30 years of every D&D version in existence.

I really like much of what I see in the playtest so far, the action economy is ingenious, I love it. But resonance is a real sore point for me, it restricts me because it tries to solve a problem, I never (and obviously the majority of non PFS players) had in the first instance. I was able to playtest a bit with my group, which had a lot of fun, but the resonance concept was disliked by all of them.

I really want to leave 5e for PF2, because it looks so very promising but if resonance stays like this until the final version it might proove to be a deal breaker.

Silver Crusade

Mekkis wrote:
Themetricsystem wrote:
Gorbacz wrote:
It's not insane. The DM takes the skill DC table and tells you what the DC is. It's pretty much like 1e/2e used to work. You all whippsersnappers are just spoiled by your "this is the DC for walking on a 4 inch wide slightly slippery ledge while the wind is 39 mph, the temperature is 211 F and the moon is in crescent phase" tables 3e brought.

Man, leave it to the Bag of Devouring to sum it up so perfectly.

Honestly, I'm not sure there is much value at all in listing dozens of different tasks in a table listing Static DCs anymore or even ones that are variable for conditions. We can just reference ANY DC versus it's level and difficulty from table 10-2 and you're set.

Say you're in a Level 5 Dungeon full of mooks, with trivial training, equipment, infrastructure, and expertise, BOOM, DC 14 out the gate. If you have 1 or more doors that may be locked of higher than average quality or more difficult circumstance, BOOM, DC 21. Oh, there is a room with a cliff-edge of average deadliness for the party, BOOM, DC 18, there you go.

Here's the problem. I've got a character with +11 to Nature. I'd like to know:

  • What can she do? This is somewhat achieved by reading the Skills section.
  • What are her chances of achieving this? This is completely undefined.
  • How good is she at 'Nature'?

a) What is she trying to “Nature” at the moment? Identify common plants and animals? Rare ones? Extinct ones?

b) No it’s not, that’s what the table is for. Hmm this is common in the area so the DC will be x but this is rare so it’ll be xx.

c) Depends on her roll and investment.

The Knowldge (Nature) section in 1st Edition doesn’t have a long list with set DCs for all sorts of random things. It has like 4 things that amount to “you can use Nature to identify certain things”. I like the openness for the new system.


Mark Seifter wrote:
Having surveyed the scope of many different possible changes, I would say that it is a substantially (by an order of magnitude) bigger and tougher change to propagate alongside the playtest than Signature Skills was (a more dramatic change likely involves errata in every, or nearly every item in the book). But in terms of things we can execute on overall? It is definitely in the scope of things we can change, and we are beginning to develop several ideas already that we can refine as we ask more nuanced questions moving forward. There's one I'm pretty excited about that I think fans and detractors of the current resonance system alike might enjoy, but it's also the one that requires the most changes to every item.

So giddy with excitement! Gimme, gimme, gimme!!! XD


4 people marked this as a favorite.
Meraki wrote:
This is especially glaring for knowledge checks to identify monsters, where it's not really indicated how common a monster is, what should be common knowledge about a monster, or even what skill should be used to identify a monster. For some monsters, this pretty obvious (religion to ID a skeleton), but for others, I have no idea what skill should be used (usually in cases where the corresponding PF1 skill to identify it isn't there anymore).

This, 100%

I had no idea what skill should be used to identify the ooze, for example, which is literally the first monster you encounter in the playtest. Where did Knowledge (dungeoneering) go to?

Liberty's Edge

8 people marked this as a favorite.
Wandering Wastrel wrote:
Meraki wrote:
This is especially glaring for knowledge checks to identify monsters, where it's not really indicated how common a monster is, what should be common knowledge about a monster, or even what skill should be used to identify a monster. For some monsters, this pretty obvious (religion to ID a skeleton), but for others, I have no idea what skill should be used (usually in cases where the corresponding PF1 skill to identify it isn't there anymore).

This, 100%

I had no idea what skill should be used to identify the ooze, for example, which is literally the first monster you encounter in the playtest. Where did Knowledge (dungeoneering) go to?

The lack of clear guidance what skill to use to identify which monster is definitely an issue in need of solving. What that guidance is almost doesn't matter but there needs to be some.

Some more examples of varying tasks with DCs (based on the chart easily enough) for various skills would also be a very definite plus.


4 people marked this as a favorite.
Belisar wrote:
Doktor Weasel wrote:
And if for some reason they can't let go of resonance, they need to remove it's cost from all consumables, remove and all items that don't have limits in PF1 (Like Immovable rods, they wisely backed down on the Bag of Holding, but still have it on the Knapsack of Halflingkind, which would otherwise be a really cool item), decouple it from the Alchemist and remove x-times a day and charge limitations from all items.

100% agree on decoupling it. Not just from alchemist, from everything it is hardwired into. Make it optional, because it seems to tend to a minority of the playerbase playing in Pathfinder Society games. Make it mandatory to PFS then, but optional for the rest.

I admit, I never played PF1 except the beginner box (not that I didn't like it, it was my group's choice to stay with D&D) but was a fanboy of 3.5. I never ever encountered this christmas tree/CLW wand issue in my 30 years of every D&D version in existence.

I really like much of what I see in the playtest so far, the action economy is ingenious, I love it. But resonance is a real sore point for me, it restricts me because it tries to solve a problem, I never (and obviously the majority of non PFS players) had in the first instance. I was able to playtest a bit with my group, which had a lot of fun, but the resonance concept was disliked by all of them.

I really want to leave 5e for PF2, because it looks so very promising but if resonance stays like this until the final version it might proove to be a deal breaker.

Read the devs remarks too late. I'm very happy they are aware of the resonance issue and that they listen to the fanbase. I also want to emphasize how much I appreciate how the devs react respectfully to often harshly expressed critique.


3 people marked this as a favorite.
Rysky wrote:
Mekkis wrote:


Here's the problem. I've got a character with +11 to Nature. I'd like to know:
  • What can she do? This is somewhat achieved by reading the Skills section.
  • What are her chances of achieving this? This is completely undefined.
  • How good is she at 'Nature'?

a) What is she trying to “Nature” at the moment? Identify common plants and animals? Rare ones? Extinct ones?

b) No it’s not, that’s what the table is for. Hmm this is common in the area so the DC will be x but this is rare so it’ll be xx.

c) Depends on her roll and investment.

The Knowldge (Nature) section in 1st Edition doesn’t have a long list with set DCs for all sorts of random things. It has like 4 things that amount to “you can use Nature to identify certain things”. I like the openness for the new system.

You realise how little that response answers those questions?


pixierose wrote:
I can't seem to download it even after clicking the "having problem downloading" button

It took me a few tries. What I had to do was this:

1. Click to download it.
2. Wait a minute.
3. Click to download it again, unless "Ready" shows up on its own.
4. Wait until "Ready" shows up.
5. Click the first download link a third time.

Clicking the problem link actually sent me back to step 1 and didn't result in anything being downloaded. It took me 10 minutes to get the file.

I'd honestly prefer they change this so that when you request a download it sends it off to the personalizer in a queue, and then just sends you an email with the download link when it's ready.

Silver Crusade

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Mekkis wrote:
Rysky wrote:
Mekkis wrote:


Here's the problem. I've got a character with +11 to Nature. I'd like to know:
  • What can she do? This is somewhat achieved by reading the Skills section.
  • What are her chances of achieving this? This is completely undefined.
  • How good is she at 'Nature'?

a) What is she trying to “Nature” at the moment? Identify common plants and animals? Rare ones? Extinct ones?

b) No it’s not, that’s what the table is for. Hmm this is common in the area so the DC will be x but this is rare so it’ll be xx.

c) Depends on her roll and investment.

The Knowldge (Nature) section in 1st Edition doesn’t have a long list with set DCs for all sorts of random things. It has like 4 things that amount to “you can use Nature to identify certain things”. I like the openness for the new system.

You realise how little that response answers those questions?

That's because they aren't answers. You vaguely asked "what can I do?" I added "What do you want to do"?


If we haven't run through parts one and two yet, should we do it with or without the updates?

Will you be able to split the responses into "before" and "after", to see if the changes make a significant difference to people's responses? or will they all get lumped together, so that the fact that there are actually two different things being measured potentially blurs the results?

Designer

3 people marked this as a favorite.
Philip Turner wrote:

If we haven't run through parts one and two yet, should we do it with or without the updates?

Will you be able to split the responses into "before" and "after", to see if the changes make a significant difference to people's responses? or will they all get lumped together, so that the fact that there are actually two different things being measured potentially blurs the results?

The survey asks which update file you used.


3 people marked this as a favorite.

Isn't "no one is using Resonance Points as it should be used" enough to decide that it's useless and/or not very received/welcome and need to change drastically?

I guess resonance is more restrictive in lower levels than in medium to higher levels, so, when it really matters, it's excessively punitive to player characters.


4 people marked this as a favorite.
Rodrigo Lasmoreira wrote:

Isn't "no one is using Resonance Points as it should be used" enough to decide that it's useless and/or not very received/welcome and need to change drastically?

I guess resonance is more restrictive in lower levels than in medium to higher levels, so, when it really matters, it's excessively punitive to player characters.

They need data to determine that, rather than the vocal minority on the boards. They have been fine with my group, and generally well received.


6 people marked this as a favorite.
Rysky wrote:
Rob Godfrey wrote:
The 'big 6' and the 'magic utility belt' are a large part of what makes PF mechanically fun, they aren't a 'problem' that needs fixing they are a core and interesting feature. That for me is the disconnect here, Paizo are introducing a system to 'fix' what makes high magic, high fantasy games fun.

You will find this position highly debatable.

Having magic items is fun. Having to have certain magic items so you don’t fall behind which means you’re cut off from using other fun magic items, not so much.

Well, that is even worse in PF2, no?

By merging the cloak of resistance with +armour and making +weapons more powerful, and the new crit system making +bonuses far more important, those items feel far more required than they ever did in PF1.

Changing the math to try and keep you near the 50% mark, also means that if you don't get the upgrades at the exact right levels, you fall behind the expected curve incredibly fast (thanks again to the crit system)

And they even set the skill DCs to include +skill items, making those mandatory too. While there were +skill items already in PF1, those never felt mandatory in actual game play, since you didn't need to absolutely max your skill bonus, but you have to in pf2 to hit the 50% success mark.

It also feels like you'd be running around with far less magical items thanks to resonance and the new WBL system.

-----
And then there is the second part of the post you quoted, the the 'magic utility belt'. It feels like this part was hit incredibly hard by the PF2 changes, even though this was the fun part of magical equipment.

Many of those magical items already weren't very good in PF1, because of the required math items and because the items were usually very overpriced with incredibly low DCs at the levels you could get them at.
Thus the heavy handed nerfs to them in PF2 feel really bad to me.

Liberty's Edge

5 people marked this as a favorite.
Rikkan wrote:

Well, that is even worse in PF2, no?

By merging the cloak of resistance with +armour and making +weapons more powerful, and the new crit system making +bonuses far more important, those items feel far more required than they ever did in PF1.

If it were armor and weapons alone it would actually be fine. Two items that don't take up any body 'slots' and only one of which costs Resonance to invest are much more workable than the cornucopia you needed in PF1.

Unfortunately, the absolute requirement to have a large number of skill items to meet the skill benchmarks actually does make the problem worse in PF2 as you level (or does if you care about skills anyway), but the armor and weapon alone would be fine.


5 people marked this as a favorite.

PF2 Big Six:
- Magic Weapon (required, or you fall below that 55%)
- Magic Armour (required, or the enemies will crit you too often)
- Potent ability booster (required for the above reasons)
- Magic skill boosters for the three skills you want to be good at (You're not really going to get master/legendary in more than three, but the DCs assume that you have both master/legendary and the skill booster in order to avoid falling below that 50%).

Grand Lodge

16 people marked this as a favorite.

I think all DCs should be based on "no magic items involved".
Magic Items should make things easier, not be necessary to keep up.

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

Mark Seifter wrote:
Philip Turner wrote:

If we haven't run through parts one and two yet, should we do it with or without the updates?

Will you be able to split the responses into "before" and "after", to see if the changes make a significant difference to people's responses? or will they all get lumped together, so that the fact that there are actually two different things being measured potentially blurs the results?

The survey asks which update file you used.

One question about this: If an update comes out partway through a scenario, would you rather have us wait to apply the errata until we begin the next part of the adventure? Or should we apply it at the next possible session?

If the latter, which version should we say we used in the survey?


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Tamago wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:
Philip Turner wrote:

If we haven't run through parts one and two yet, should we do it with or without the updates?

Will you be able to split the responses into "before" and "after", to see if the changes make a significant difference to people's responses? or will they all get lumped together, so that the fact that there are actually two different things being measured potentially blurs the results?

The survey asks which update file you used.

One question about this: If an update comes out partway through a scenario, would you rather have us wait to apply the errata until we begin the next part of the adventure? Or should we apply it at the next possible session?

If the latter, which version should we say we used in the survey?

Right now, errata is released at the start of a new part. This is an issue that shouldn't come up.


Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

The issue would come up if people are late at getting to various sections -- and my guess is that that should be a relatively common situation.

Designer

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The clean answer is to use the same one so you can report that one. The best answer, if feasible, is to update and then report the one that was most impactful (if you can figure that out). For example, if you just ran a few easy intro fights in the older update but then all the impactful fights where the characters actually went to 0 were under the new update with a different death and dying, the new one would make most sense. If you do a partial split and can't really decide, you could also potentially report that you used an update but didn't know which one.


5 people marked this as a favorite.
Aristophanes wrote:

I think all DCs should be based on "no magic items involved".

Magic Items should make things easier, not be necessary to keep up.

Bingo; helpful, great, but not mandatory.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
David knott 242 wrote:
The issue would come up if people are late at getting to various sections -- and my guess is that that should be a relatively common situation.

I think you misunderstand what I was trying to say. PF2 errata release is scheduled for when new chapters begin. It is never released halfway through a chapter (so far). So groups on the standard pace will use the current errata for that chapter. Faster groups will use earlier errata (as they played that chapter before the current update was released). Slower groups will use a newer errata (because more updates would have been released by the time they reached that chapter).

In all cases, the survey asks what version of errata you are using. It accounts for group speed in this manner and is fact the control for the answers provided in the survey so that the devs can compare the answers using the same rules.

IME, chapters take 1-2 sessions to complete, but I suppose a group that is REALLY REALLY slow (due to scheduling constraints, or session length constraints) might wind up noticing a new errata release prior to finishing the chapter and wish to make use of it. This is the situation where I think Mark's advice is useful, but I still don't see it coming up all that often. Still, in these situations, playtest feedback has to fit into the results of a specific errata version so the devs can weigh the answers with results of other groups using the SAME errata version.

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Strachan Fireblade wrote:
David knott 242 wrote:
The issue would come up if people are late at getting to various sections -- and my guess is that that should be a relatively common situation.

I think you misunderstand what I was trying to say. PF2 errata release is scheduled for when new chapters begin. It is never released halfway through a chapter (so far). So groups on the standard pace will use the current errata for that chapter. Faster groups will use earlier errata (as they played that chapter before the current update was released). Slower groups will use a newer errata (because more updates would have been released by the time they reached that chapter).

In all cases, the survey asks what version of errata you are using. It accounts for group speed in this manner and is fact the control for the answers provided in the survey so that the devs can compare the answers using the same rules.

IME, chapters take 1-2 sessions to complete, but I suppose a group that is REALLY REALLY slow (due to scheduling constraints, or session length constraints) might wind up noticing a new errata release prior to finishing the chapter and wish to make use of it. This is the situation where I think Mark's advice is useful, but I still don't see it coming up all that often. Still, in these situations, playtest feedback has to fit into the results of a specific errata version so the devs can weigh the answers with results of other groups using the SAME errata version.

If your group is perfectly synched to the playtest schedule, that would be fine. But I think that won't happen in a lot of cases. For example, my group started a week ahead, but is now "on schedule" due to Pale Mountain taking three sessions to finish instead of two. I wouldn't be surprised if higher-level content takes longer to get through as well, due to the PCs having more options. (Hopefully not as bad as in PF1, but still...)

Add to that the fact that Life Happens and we will certainly have to cancel a session or two over the course of the playtest, and we are certain to get out of sync with the ideal timeline.


4 people marked this as a favorite.
Aristophanes wrote:

I think all DCs should be based on "no magic items involved".

Magic Items should make things easier, not be necessary to keep up.

Yeah, some support for low-magic and rare magic items campaign. What if I don't wanna just give them the +1 Sword at lvl4? They'd be screwed! In PF1 you could get away with it until enemies started getting big DRs.


Rysky wrote:
Mekkis wrote:
Themetricsystem wrote:
Gorbacz wrote:
It's not insane. The DM takes the skill DC table and tells you what the DC is. It's pretty much like 1e/2e used to work. You all whippsersnappers are just spoiled by your "this is the DC for walking on a 4 inch wide slightly slippery ledge while the wind is 39 mph, the temperature is 211 F and the moon is in crescent phase" tables 3e brought.

Man, leave it to the Bag of Devouring to sum it up so perfectly.

Honestly, I'm not sure there is much value at all in listing dozens of different tasks in a table listing Static DCs anymore or even ones that are variable for conditions. We can just reference ANY DC versus it's level and difficulty from table 10-2 and you're set.

Say you're in a Level 5 Dungeon full of mooks, with trivial training, equipment, infrastructure, and expertise, BOOM, DC 14 out the gate. If you have 1 or more doors that may be locked of higher than average quality or more difficult circumstance, BOOM, DC 21. Oh, there is a room with a cliff-edge of average deadliness for the party, BOOM, DC 18, there you go.

Here's the problem. I've got a character with +11 to Nature. I'd like to know:

  • What can she do? This is somewhat achieved by reading the Skills section.
  • What are her chances of achieving this? This is completely undefined.
  • How good is she at 'Nature'?

a) What is she trying to “Nature” at the moment? Identify common plants and animals? Rare ones? Extinct ones?

b) No it’s not, that’s what the table is for. Hmm this is common in the area so the DC will be x but this is rare so it’ll be xx.

c) Depends on her roll and investment.

The Knowldge (Nature) section in 1st Edition doesn’t have a long list with set DCs for all sorts of random things. It has like 4 things that amount to “you can use Nature to identify certain things”. I like the openness for the new system.

What openness? PF2 gives you "Here's what your Nature can do". The book tells you just what you can do so what openness is there with this?

I don't see a difference.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Tamago wrote:
Strachan Fireblade wrote:
David knott 242 wrote:
The issue would come up if people are late at getting to various sections -- and my guess is that that should be a relatively common situation.

I think you misunderstand what I was trying to say. PF2 errata release is scheduled for when new chapters begin. It is never released halfway through a chapter (so far). So groups on the standard pace will use the current errata for that chapter. Faster groups will use earlier errata (as they played that chapter before the current update was released). Slower groups will use a newer errata (because more updates would have been released by the time they reached that chapter).

In all cases, the survey asks what version of errata you are using. It accounts for group speed in this manner and is fact the control for the answers provided in the survey so that the devs can compare the answers using the same rules.

IME, chapters take 1-2 sessions to complete, but I suppose a group that is REALLY REALLY slow (due to scheduling constraints, or session length constraints) might wind up noticing a new errata release prior to finishing the chapter and wish to make use of it. This is the situation where I think Mark's advice is useful, but I still don't see it coming up all that often. Still, in these situations, playtest feedback has to fit into the results of a specific errata version so the devs can weigh the answers with results of other groups using the SAME errata version.

If your group is perfectly synched to the playtest schedule, that would be fine. But I think that won't happen in a lot of cases. For example, my group started a week ahead, but is now "on schedule" due to Pale Mountain taking three sessions to finish instead of two. I wouldn't be surprised if higher-level content takes longer to get through as well, due to the PCs having more options. (Hopefully not as bad as in PF1, but still...)

Add to that the fact that Life Happens and we will certainly have to cancel a...

So let me ask this. Are you guys applying new errata halfway through the chapter? If not, I don’t see the issue. If so, why? Are you changing character abilities and using the new rules because you feel it will improve your game experience? Genuinely curious.


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MerlinCross wrote:
What openness? PF2 gives you "Here's what your Nature can do"....

It's the 'openness' of an empty lot or an abandoned field. There's nothing there and you can sit back and watch the tumbleweeds bounce by. I mean you can close your eyes and imaging that it could be ANYTHING.

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

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Strachan Fireblade wrote:
So let me ask this. Are you guys applying new errata halfway through the chapter? If not, I don’t see the issue. If so, why? Are you changing character abilities and using the new rules because you feel it will improve your game experience? Genuinely curious.

Yes, for two reasons:

1) Presumably the point of the errata is to make the game better and eliminate problems. So we want to be using the latest, best version of the game because it should be more fun.

2) Once a change is made, the design team needs feedback about how it works. If we delay applying an update for the 3 weeks (or whatever) it will take for us to get to the next part, that's time that we are testing an old, obsolete rule that won't be used anyway. It's wasted effort to not be testing the newest version of the system.

Of course, if it's more of a problem for the design team for us to switch mid-adventure, then we could just say, "we're not applying any new errata until we get to the next scenario." That's why I was asking Mark what would be the best way to approach this.


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Aristophanes wrote:

I think all DCs should be based on "no magic items involved".

Magic Items should make things easier, not be necessary to keep up.

Totally agree. As long as the bonus aren't too big to make skills trivial to succeed.


For Pathfinder 2 they should give attacks of opportunity with -2 to atk to all classes and all monsters. Fighters can be better than the other classes and ignore the -2 penalty.


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ICE NINJA wrote:
For Pathfinder 2 they should give attacks of opportunity with -2 to atk to all classes and all monsters. Fighters can be better than the other classes and ignore the -2 penalty.

For us, the scarcity of op attacks is working phenomenally to make combats more dynamic. Characters were running from place to place so dynamically I thought I was playing 1st Edition AD&D or D&D 5e. It’s also making fighters very ‘sticky’ in melee in our games.


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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I agree with ENHenry that Opp Attacks have hit the sweet spot. I really hope the number of creature/characters that get them don’t increase all that much.


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With Opportunity attacks, I'm a bit torn. I do like the dynamic nature of combat now, however I think something does need to be done with how easy flanking is/firing while in melee/ect. I don't know what that is, maybe squares in someone's threatened radius are difficult terrain, or maybe make you flat footed unless you step, while threatened by them (could make reach weapons too strong, so maybe only if you start your move in their threat range?), and have a -1 (-2?) penalty on ranged attacks while threatened by an enemy. Something to get some of the benefits of the old system, without disincentivising movement as much as 1e did.


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Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

The idea my group was discussing tonight regarding AoO, was what if any class could give up an action to take an AoO. (So it costs a non-figher/inate-AoO class an action and a reaction) -- Its still "cheaper" than spending two actions to ready an attack and a little more flexible, but it would also be "obvious" to an opponent that you're able to AoO that round.


Alexander Augunas wrote:
The removal of signature skills is a good change. The signature skills system felt like it took away a lot of the, "Make your character your own" feel of PF1 because it reinforced classes taking certain skills in ways that PF1 never did.

That was exactly the thing I liked about it.


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Shaheer-El-Khatib wrote:


My issues :

- Insane table variation. Endless discussion about "are you sure ?"

- Immersion Breaking because players Will ask ten times per minutes "What is the DC again dude ?" And won't be able to decide if an action is worth it on their own.

Like he want to handle his war horse in front of a dragon. How could he known how the GM Will rule it ?

Maybe the GM Will say "The horse is level 1 so it is Level 1 DC but Extreme because of the dragon" (18)

Maybe the GM Will say "Well it is the LVL 10 dragon that frighten the horse so High level 10 DC" (27 !!!!)

Or "Let's look at the Intimidation DC of the dragon" (25)

Or ANY NUMBER between 18 and 27 because the GM may be like "level 1 horse, level 10 dragon so difficulty 5 Extreme (25) ... No. 7 but just High !" (23)

And the player can't possibly know without asking each freaking time

This, as you describe it and without considering any additional information, is only a problem with players who do not trust their GM to make an appropriate decision for the game in the moment. in which case, why on earth are you playing together?


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That's quite w bit eztreme. We trust each other in my group and often a DM will say "Sure you can do that. Someone check what the DC should be from the CRB". Now the DM has to say "Sure. I didn't consider that. Let me make up an arbitrary DC for you... away screw it. Your level 10. It's a level 10 extreme dc. Someone look that up."

Different playstyles does not mean a lack of trust.


Strachan Fireblade wrote:
I agree with ENHenry that Opp Attacks have hit the sweet spot. I really hope the number of creature/characters that get them don’t increase all that much.

Me too, I like that hedgehogs are no longer battle savvy enough to be looking for opportunistic strikes, and always take a swipe at you when you bail.


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John Lynch 106 wrote:
That's quite w bit eztreme. We trust each other in my group and often a DM will say "Sure you can do that. Someone check what the DC should be from the CRB". Now the DM has to say "Sure. I didn't consider that. Let me make up an arbitrary DC for you... away screw it. Your level 10. It's a level 10 extreme dc. Someone look that up."

The DM has to make arbitrary decisions all the time, whenever you get into areas the rules don't cover. It does not make a great deal of sense to me to be good with that to the extent of playing the game at all, but then to object to a relatively minor shift in that due to rules moving. There are definitely benefits to "here, have a number to beat based on my experience of DMing and what feels right in this particular context" over "let's interrupt the flow of things to look something up", sometimes.


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ICE NINJA wrote:
For Pathfinder 2 they should give attacks of opportunity with -2 to atk to all classes and all monsters. Fighters can be better than the other classes and ignore the -2 penalty.

Oh heavens no. Restricting attacks of opportunity is one of my favorite changes in the system. It results in a fun guessing game tactically and movement heavy dynamic combat. Give other classes their own fun flavorful reactions, don't spread AoO everywhere again.


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The Once and Future Kai wrote:
ICE NINJA wrote:
For Pathfinder 2 they should give attacks of opportunity with -2 to atk to all classes and all monsters. Fighters can be better than the other classes and ignore the -2 penalty.
Oh heavens no. Restricting attacks of opportunity is one of my favorite changes in the system. It results in a fun guessing game tactically and movement heavy dynamic combat. Give other classes their own fun flavorful reactions, don't spread AoO everywhere again.

Guessing game, once. Per creature. Ever see that creature again you'll know they have AoO or not.

I don't see this magical moving combat people keep talking about. Stay in the way of the squishies, bottle neck the enemy, swing as many times as you can if you can hit and or crit.

What are people doing with their movement? Step, swing, step? Yeah that's moible combat. And not at all annoying when the enemy also starts doing it.

Good lords, I'm thinking of Tuckers' Kobolds now. Give a few of them Fighter level 1. Non fighter step up, swing, step back into AoO halberd coverage. And keep doing that.


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MerlinCross wrote:

I don't see this magical moving combat people keep talking about. Stay in the way of the squishies, bottle neck the enemy, swing as many times as you can if you can hit and or crit.

What are people doing with their movement? Step, swing, step? Yeah that's moible combat. And not at all annoying when the enemy also starts doing it.

I think people are still policing their movements as if everyone had AoO. When people get used to it, or have a GM who constantly pushes their foes towards the weakest PCs, you'll see some changes.

Quote:
Good lords, I'm thinking of Tuckers' Kobolds now. Give a few of them Fighter level 1. Non fighter step up, swing, step back into AoO halberd coverage. And keep doing that.

Well, the Kobold Warrior has 6 HP before becoming a Fighter. I think part of enforcing a wall of AoO is that the wall needs to be more durable than that.


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EberronHoward wrote:
MerlinCross wrote:

I don't see this magical moving combat people keep talking about. Stay in the way of the squishies, bottle neck the enemy, swing as many times as you can if you can hit and or crit.

What are people doing with their movement? Step, swing, step? Yeah that's moible combat. And not at all annoying when the enemy also starts doing it.

I think people are still policing their movements as if everyone had AoO.

This is key, I found the psychological impact of AoO to have a negative effect on the game. I have never really seen one, because just the mere idea of receiving one seems to make everybody go so far out of their way not to incur one (even if it would most likely miss, or be negligible) that it makes combat too static (the full attack action doesn't help, either, just encourages standing still and whacking away).

Funny, when the 5th Ed playtest started, they dropped AoO, completely, we were having a blast, then they added them back in, to everything, at least PF2 is reining it in.


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MerlinCross wrote:
Guessing game, once. Per creature. Ever see that creature again you'll know they have AoO or not.

Sure. If you always field vanilla monsters. In Pathfinder First Edition, certain players were so familiar with the bestiary after years of 3.5 and Pathfinder that I almost always made adaptations. My impression of the playtest is that it's even easier to do so now.

The question of whether or not that Hobgobin has AoO will be a relevant one in my sessions, at least. I'll also have unintelligent foes walk into the party's AoO again and again...while intelligent foes will adapt different tactics after realizing that a PC has AoO.

MerlinCross wrote:
...swing as many times as you can if you can hit and or crit.

The game design decentivizes this tactic. Criticals triggering off accuracy and Multiple Attack Penalties incentivize landing "one good hit". That means that the first one or two actions are best used to Flank, Feint, or otherwise lower armor class/boost accuracy with the goal of landing a high accuracy hit that turns into a Critical.

MerlinCross wrote:
What are people doing with their movement? Step, swing, step? Yeah that's moible combat.

(Engagement) An example from a session on Friday: The Barbarian used Sudden Charge to close the distance on an enemy (two actions for double movement/one strike) and then used his last action to stride around the foe to flank. The Rogue used two actions to stride into melee and then attacked the flanked foe.

(Pursuit) Another example from an earlier session: As the last ally fell, the Goblin turned and ran - using all three actions to move. The Fighter darted after the Goblin using three actions and the Rogue was shortly behind using two actions to move and one to throw a dagger that missed. Next turn, the Goblin used one action to jump over a stream and two more to move. But the Fighter closed the distance with two actions to move and finished it with a strike. It seems may seem minor but the described chase wasn't possible in Pathfinder First Edition. The Goblin would have full retreated and a Fighter wouldn't have been able to catch it unless positioning allowed for a charge.

(Defense) An example from my second session running the playtest: The Sorceress attempted to sneak ahead but rolled a Natural 1. She was swarmed by Goblins and left at just a couple of hit points. She managed to kill one with a cantrip (she was glad the Goblins didn't have AoO). The Fighter rushed forward and stepped onto the dead Goblin - blocking the Goblins from attacking the Sorceress. But the remaining Goblins circled around and attacked the Sorceress from the sides and behind. The rest of the party rushed in to assist. Long story short - the "squishies" had to move constantly and adapt hit & run tactics, while the others fluidly engaged the mobile enemy.

MerlinCross wrote:
And not at all annoying when the enemy also starts doing it.

I'd rather have annoying foes than boring ones. Stand there and get hit isn't very interesting.


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the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh wrote:
John Lynch 106 wrote:
That's quite w bit eztreme. We trust each other in my group and often a DM will say "Sure you can do that. Someone check what the DC should be from the CRB". Now the DM has to say "Sure. I didn't consider that. Let me make up an arbitrary DC for you... away screw it. Your level 10. It's a level 10 extreme dc. Someone look that up."
The DM has to make arbitrary decisions all the time, whenever you get into areas the rules don't cover. It does not make a great deal of sense to me to be good with that to the extent of playing the game at all, but then to object to a relatively minor shift in that due to rules moving. There are definitely benefits to "here, have a number to beat based on my experience of DMing and what feels right in this particular context" over "let's interrupt the flow of things to look something up", sometimes.

I've played games with a DC setup much like PF2e has. It was nowhere near as fun as having PF1e's guidance on DCs. My first bug complaint on Starfinder was difficulty in finding guidance on DCs for what my players were trying to do.

People can keep saying "it doesn't make sense that you don't like this" but many of us have played with the very rules being shown in the playtest for anywhere from 1 year to 5 years. We know exactly what impact has on the game and we don't like it.

Shadow Lodge

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Mark Seifter wrote:
The clean answer is to use the same one so you can report that one. The best answer, if feasible, is to update and then report the one that was most impactful (if you can figure that out). For example, if you just ran a few easy intro fights in the older update but then all the impactful fights where the characters actually went to 0 were under the new update with a different death and dying, the new one would make most sense. If you do a partial split and can't really decide, you could also potentially report that you used an update but didn't know which one.

Thanks for weighing in! Request on format of any future update documents if you're still here.

Could we have some version of the document that separates updates by date? I've been adding annotations to my pdf and I expect it will become increasingly time consuming to go through the list checking which ones are actually new and which are from a previous set of updates.

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