Boumxyz's page

In my case I would allow to linger the "harmonized" composition, so that saves him 1 action per round for the next 3-4 rounds, which helps the bard do something else than play the guitar. The idea here is that the "harmonized" composition is till harmonized, while it lingers.

Unless the rules would be clearer, I would always go the player's way to give him more options than just "play the guitar".

Aratorin wrote:

A free action is listed as a type of action in the crb so yes I would say it counts as your action.

The Metamagic Trait actually calls this out.

Thanks for the answer! And I suppose it would be pretty busted if you could combo either of the things above with Inspire Heroics. I'm continually impressed by the lack of cheese/overpowered combos in this edition.

Unless I'm wrong, metamagic actions are not actual actions per se. They increase another action by 1 action.

So Yes lingering composition works with Harmonize.

Thanks for your answers.

I didn't intend to use returning runes. All I wanted was to have a ranged opener and then close in.

Something like " hunt prey ", hunted shot 2 throwing knife, close in to make a better use of flurry, as I wanted to make my ranger somewhat more "tanky syle" without having to waste too many actions. Worst case I can throw only 1 knife and then close.

Well thrown weapons cannot be "loaded"... So I'm wondering if this is a legit omission or if you as a gm would allow the use of hunted show if the person has 2 throwing weapons in hand and use "feats" that mention "weapon is loaded" as long as you have that throwing weapons in hand ?

As the subject says..

I want to know if I could use hunted shot with 2 hatchets for example.

You're being far too literal. Knowing the damage is akin to a skilled fighter judging how effective the enemy's blow is going to be.

For example, there are several instances in DBZ where Goku takes an enemy's blast on the chin, because he knows it won't hurt him (his Resistance is high enough to absorb the Damage). Why would he bother blocking?

I don't really think of manga/anime for combat simulations but ok sure if you think that's how combat works.

I was more of the school that in a real fight you don't really know what can happen and you have a shield to "parry" , you might as well block it because that is being careful and putting chances on your side.

Game elements nearly no one wants to use are "very bad design."

Maybe you're right, but as it is now I feel the way it is designed is counter intuitive and may work regarding the rules but regarding how combat works it is not.

here's the step :

- You raise your shield ( now because of action economy, this requires an action... Already a bad design if you ask me. If you have a shield, it should protect you all the time but this is a game so ok why not ? My character is stupid and unless I tell him to raise his shield he will not ! ).

- You get attacked, then you apply resistance instead of deciding to block it or not ? Doesn't make sense to me here's why :

- If I block the hit and my hardness is > than the damage, resistance which is based off whatever damage you receive, should not even intervene, I blocked it !

but in this game, it seems you need to "get the damage" then apply the resistance, and whatever is left then "you can shield block it"...

This is very counter intuitive relative to a real fight where, usually (maybe not in this game) if you (i will use parry word to not confuse it with shield block reaction) parry a hit with a shield, it means it's parried and you receive no damage and whatever magical resistance you had is pointless because you parried it.

Now the only "way" to make this work is to conclude that you parry it if your ac wasn't beaten.

if that is the case, then SHIELD block reaction is rather pointless because it is "included in the AC".

Boumxyz wrote:

Aratorin wrote:

The problem is that you can't do that. Shield Block definitively applies after Resistance/Weakness.

I'm sorry I don't see why...

If a normal hit comes my way ( not a flurry, twin strike, hunted shot ) and you decide to shield block... You apply resistance first before resolving shield block ?

Yes. The Trigger for Shield Block is

Quote:

Trigger While you have your shield raised, you would take damage from a physical attack.

CRB 450 wrote:

1. Roll the dice indicated by the weapon, unarmed

attack, or spell, and apply the modifiers, bonuses,
and penalties that apply to the result of the roll.
2. Determine the damage type.
3. Apply the target’s immunities, weaknesses, and
resistances to the damage.
4. If any damage remains, reduce the target’s Hit
Points by that amount.

You don't take Damage until Step 4. Resistance is Step 3.

If you are hit for 5 Fire Damage, and you have Fire Resistance 5, you wouldn't take any Damage, so Shield Block never triggers.

That is very counter intuitive !

I don't see why in this case, if you have resistance you would shield block it !

edit : Ah I get it, very bad design if you ask me but ok rules are rules

While you have your shield raised, you would take damage from a physical attack.

if resistance removes all dmg, I cannot use shield block.

In my case shield block should be used BEFORE rolling dmg to make it a guessing game. Now it's just a fix to the fact that shield just give a measly 2 ac, so they added use to it.

( I say measly 2 ac, because over history the main protection for warfare has been either reach/range or shields more than armor itself).

The problem is that you can't do that. Shield Block definitively applies after Resistance/Weakness.

I'm sorry I don't see why...

If a normal hit comes my way ( not a flurry, twin strike, hunted shot ) and you decide to shield block... You apply resistance first before resolving shield block ?

I consider flurry of blows from the wording as 2 strikes for 1 action with the added bonus of the purpose of resistance to add together before applying it.

This means I can shield block the first strike only or the second strike only

and shield block is " not a resistance " either.

so I would add up whatever is over the hardness + the second strike together then apply the resistance.

Boumxyz wrote:

I know this thread is about tiger monks... but why would people pick assurance if you have 16 str ?

Assurance states

10 + your proficiency bonus (do not apply any other bonuses, penalties, or modifiers).
see https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=756

but proficiency bonus doesn't include stats bonus in it.

see :
https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=35

Are people just picking assurance to remove any chance to crit fail by rolling 1 ( but still crit fail by having 10 below DC ) ?

in his case having +3 str he has 65 % when rolling equal to or greater than assurance equivalent. Stats wise this is highly probable

It's mostly about the lack of penalties. Assurance lets you make a trip or similar attack as your 3rd action without taking any multiple attack penalty.

Ah now I get it.

I know this thread is about tiger monks... but why would people pick assurance if you have 16 str ?

Assurance states

10 + your proficiency bonus (do not apply any other bonuses, penalties, or modifiers).
see https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=756

but proficiency bonus doesn't include stats bonus in it.

see :
https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=35

Are people just picking assurance to remove any chance to crit fail by rolling 1 ( but still crit fail by having 10 below DC ) ?

in his case having +3 str he has 65 % when rolling equal to or greater than assurance equivalent. Stats wise this is highly probable

Sir Longears wrote:

Shield Block wrote:

[Reaction]

Trigger While you have your shield raised, you would take damage from a physical attack.

You snap your shield in place to ward off a blow. Your shield prevents you from taking an amount of damage up to the shield’s Hardness. You and the shield each take any remaining damage, possibly breaking or destroying the shield.

Flurry of Blows wrote:

[1 Act]

Make two unarmed Strikes. If both hit the same creature, combine their damage for the purpose of resistances and weaknesses. Apply your multiple attack penalty to the Strikes normally. As it has the flourish trait, you can use Flurry of Blows only once per turn.

The trigger from Shield Block is not "from 1 physical attack", but is instead "from A physical attack". The difference is small but there is a difference. "A" is more in line with "at least 1". In most cases, this is not relevant, since the Shield Block is a reaction and you only get 1 each round. If you are still in doubt about the difference between "a" and "one", HERE you'll find many examples.

The Flurry of Blows act is A physical attack, even if they are composed by 2 Strikes. Notice that the description of the Shield Block ability doesn't care anymore about the number of attacks, just about the damage that would be dealt.

Actually, it's not. I was going to post something similar, but then I noticed that Flurry of Blows doesn't have the Attack Trait. Flurry of Blows is not an Attack, each Strike that makes it up is. This makes it a valid question with an unclear answer.

Flurry of blows is not an attack but strikes are... ( since you guys are correcting me on other stuff (which is fine by the way, helps me understands the rule ) I figured you may want to consider this an attack or 2.

Would this shield block only apply to 1 attack of the 2 ? Because the trigger mention 1 attack...

Trigger While you have your shield raised, you would take
damage from a physical attack.

and flurry of blows consider this to be 2 strikes.

Make two unarmed Strikes. If both hit the same creature,

citricking wrote:

That is unfortunate.

I think it would be best if the rules didn't give a benefit to building a new character rather than keeping your old one.
Selling items does not give enough. I think it would be best if every level you could sell you items for as much as a new character would get starting at that level.

Whether its worth making a new character or not depends on if the GM is following the treasure by level guidelines and new character build, as well as the general advice in the treasure section. If the GM is contemplating allowing a player to create a new character due to wealth, there should be other options to correct the problem.

A character following the traditional path of leveling up normally should have more wealth than a new character purchases exactly what they want initially, so the incentive shouldn't be there. Its explicitly told to the GM to keep an eye on it to make sure characters don't end up behind, even in APs. If your martials have 3,000 gp worth of equipment each at 9th level, and the casters only have 1,600 gp worth of equipment, then the GM needs to add more treasure the casters want.

Take as an example, the GM has an adventure on a boat and the martial loses their +2 Striking Bastard sword of shock overboard on an ocean voyage. The GM is supposed to make provide more treasure in the very near future to make up for it, not have the character retire because they just lost 33% of their wealth. The same goes in an AP if treasure is provided that isn't usable by the party. If the GM is allowing a new character, the GM can also simply hand the party more treasure to fix the problem.

A new 9th level character, according to table 10-10, either starts with a lump sum of 1,600 gp or an 8th (~500 gp), 7th (~360 gp), 6th (~230 gp) and 5th item (~160 gp) and 250 gp, which is only 1500 gp.

A party of 4, leveling from 1-9 (thus earning up level 1-8), should each have split up 3021.25 gp in value. Assuming the party sold everything they found...

This is what I have a hard time to grasp in this Pathfinder 2e game.

Why should character be So much equipment dependent ( and I say this regardless of the class). I understand more for martial, but caster should not be as gear bound as martial classes ?

I myself as a caster usually not use debuffs, or damaging spells because I learned a long time ago you're just wasting resources if the monster saves. So I usually stick to summon and buffs and wish the gm will not use dispel magic and banishment spells (which they rarely do).

Unless I'm mistaken, the game is designed to use a lot of lower level monsters than player for normal combats, so those saves are more likely to be missed.

Those fights where the monster is of higher level, then I Would stick to buffs and summons. It is usually a sound strategy to avoid resistances ( summon + buffs ).

As a gm I hate monty haul games where like computer games you find 18 + 1 sword and sell them to the merchants. This is not "reflecting" any "rareness" of magic but this is purely a preference.

Boumxyz wrote:

Draco18s wrote:

You're free to rule it that way at your table, Boumxyz, but objectively Rules As Communicated you are wrong.

Sure, as I said let's agree we disagree and RAW, I consider an attack is not a manipulate action ( regardless of somatic ).

This is factually wrong though. You may not like it, but any action with the Manipulate Trait is a Manipulate Action. There are no rules stating otherwise.

You are certainly entitled to your own opinions. You are not entitled to your own facts.

Quote:

manipulate (trait) You must physically manipulate an item or make gestures to use an action with this trait. Creatures without a suitable appendage can’t perform actions with this trait. Manipulate actions often trigger reactions.

Well factually speaking, I don't see any "manipulate" traits on spell. I see only somatic component ( which has a general rule of : somatic = manipulate )

But then I Can use a "specific rule" to supersede a "general" since there is no "explicit manipulate".

Rules are there to have them Bent in a way that is more fun for those around the tables. I prefer to have my "fighter dedicated wizard" try using his spells in melee ( and also have the same for npcs) then have him not use his tools.

But that said it's a matter of preferences.

Boumxyz wrote:

I actually despise AOO mechanics in which something prevents something else to act, there is no fun in this regardless on which side of the AOO you're on. But that is just a preference.

GM: "He pulls out a potion and drinks it"

Fighter: "I'm standing RIGHT HERE. I smack it out of his hand."
GM: "You can't, that would be an attack of opportunity. Anyway, he gets healed for *rolls dice* uh..back to full health."

That is true if you keep the "AOO" trope in your mind. In different game, there are no AOO and those games are not broken either.

The fact that I like or dislike it doesn't mean it's broken. I feel that it is bad overall because it prevents actions. You can do the reverse in your example and my Monster would not be able to interrupt your 1hp pc to heal itself with a potion, and as a player you would be thankful right ?

You're free to rule it that way at your table, Boumxyz, but objectively Rules As Communicated you are wrong.

Sure, as I said let's agree we disagree and RAW, I consider an attack is not a manipulate action ( regardless of somatic ).

But this is my house rule then and it makes combat faster paced. I don't have to have my caster waste an action to step.

I actually despise AOO mechanics in which something prevents something else to act, there is no fun in this regardless on which side of the AOO you're on. But that is just a preference.

Boumxyz wrote:

Well nothing in the AOO says that Attacks do trigger AOO unless it's ranged.

"Attack of Opportunity

Source Core Rulebook pg. 142
Trigger A creature within your reach uses a MANIPULATE action or a move action, makes a ranged attack, or leaves a square during a move action it’s using."

It's the somatic spellcasting component that triggers. Attacking doesn't figure into it.

Boumxyz wrote:

Why would you put Attack keyword on spells in this CASE. What would be the use besides calculating MAP ?

There IS no use to it beside calculating MAP. Next.

Boumxyz wrote:

I consider that if those cantrips/spells that has attack keyword can suffer from MAP, then they should not trigger AOO as a regular attack does. You're already spending 2 action for it.

That's your opinion and you are entitled to it, but in my opinion, you are just trying to cheat martials out of their AoO class feature.

Which is silly, since you should not be fighting your own party members, and very few monsters actually have the ability to perform AoOs. That's a thing PF 2 changed, remember. ;)

You're entitled to your own opinion which is fine.

And also, you mention monster don't have AOO, but most of the monster I have put so far did because they're mostly NPCs fighter. Story wise, in my game, there is no sense to put monsters that aren't humanoids yet.

I'm trying to help my fighter dedicated wizard Here because his cantrip/spell has MAP but trigger AOO. It feels wrong to me.

And this makes Casters not Forced into the boring "Step, cast combo" once it is in melee range.

Boumxyz wrote:

Queaux wrote:

Boumxyz wrote:

Exocist wrote:

Boumxyz wrote:

I disagree... Some cantrips have the Attack keyword, which removes the AOO when it is cast. AOO specifically mention that RANGED attacks and manipulate or move action triggers AOO. In that regards, to give the caster a chance, I consider these cantrips to be "actual attacks" and not actual spells, unless I missed a rule that contradicts this. But then again, the "specific" tromps the "general" rules usually.

Somatic is manipulate, hence why it triggers AoO.

Right, but does Attack supersedes manipulate ? That is the point where Specific, trumps generalist ( generalist is somatic = manipulate, but attack is specific here ).

EX : Electric Arc would trigger AOO, but Chill touch would not. It has attack keyword.

With my house rule,

Ray of Frost and Produce flame would not trigger AOO if you include the "target that would have AOO on you" has a target, because they have attack keyword.

This makes some cantrips much more interesting from a dedication point of view, where you would have this warrior, dedicated to sorcerer or wizard, using Ray of Frost for long range and having produce flame to try to get persistent damage on it ( Although I agree 2 actions is not great for meleer, but if you don't want to use ranged weapon, this would be your ranged attack ).

The attack trait does nothing to prevent an AOO. Here's the wording:

https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=8

If a melee attack had the manipulate trait, it would also trigger an AOO.

Again I repeat, usually a specific rule ( in this case attack keyword ) trumps and supersedes a " general one " ( which is all somatic spells are manipulate actions )

Otherwise, if we can "disrupt" those and still get a MAP on it, those spells are quite underpowered.

Myself I feel those spell with attack keyword are to be used for melee dedicated caster ( warpriest, or any fighter with a dedication )

...

Yes because these are not attacks, so having only verbal means they can't be interrupted.

Otherwise I feel that AOO would have the following wording :

and spell attack rolls in it, but they specifically mentioned ranged attacks.

Regardless, let's agree we disagree.

Boumxyz wrote:

Exocist wrote:

Boumxyz wrote:

I disagree... Some cantrips have the Attack keyword, which removes the AOO when it is cast. AOO specifically mention that RANGED attacks and manipulate or move action triggers AOO. In that regards, to give the caster a chance, I consider these cantrips to be "actual attacks" and not actual spells, unless I missed a rule that contradicts this. But then again, the "specific" tromps the "general" rules usually.

Somatic is manipulate, hence why it triggers AoO.

Right, but does Attack supersedes manipulate ? That is the point where Specific, trumps generalist ( generalist is somatic = manipulate, but attack is specific here ).

EX : Electric Arc would trigger AOO, but Chill touch would not. It has attack keyword.

With my house rule,

Ray of Frost and Produce flame would not trigger AOO if you include the "target that would have AOO on you" has a target, because they have attack keyword.

This makes some cantrips much more interesting from a dedication point of view, where you would have this warrior, dedicated to sorcerer or wizard, using Ray of Frost for long range and having produce flame to try to get persistent damage on it ( Although I agree 2 actions is not great for meleer, but if you don't want to use ranged weapon, this would be your ranged attack ).

The attack trait does nothing to prevent an AOO. Here's the wording:

https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=8

If a melee attack had the manipulate trait, it would also trigger an AOO.

Again I repeat, usually a specific rule ( in this case attack keyword ) trumps and supersedes a " general one " ( which is all somatic spells are manipulate actions )

Otherwise, if we can "disrupt" those and still get a MAP on it, those spells are quite underpowered.

Myself I feel those spell with attack keyword are to be used for melee dedicated caster ( warpriest, or any fighter with a dedication ) for that specific purpose in mind, not trigger AOO and still get the cantrip/spell to be launched.

Boumxyz wrote:

Exocist wrote:

Boumxyz wrote:

I disagree... Some cantrips have the Attack keyword, which removes the AOO when it is cast. AOO specifically mention that RANGED attacks and manipulate or move action triggers AOO. In that regards, to give the caster a chance, I consider these cantrips to be "actual attacks" and not actual spells, unless I missed a rule that contradicts this. But then again, the "specific" tromps the "general" rules usually.

Somatic is manipulate, hence why it triggers AoO.

Right, but does Attack supersedes manipulate ? That is the point where Specific, trumps generalist ( generalist is somatic = manipulate, but attack is specific here ).

EX : Electric Arc would trigger AOO, but Chill touch would not. It has attack keyword.

With my house rule,

Ray of Frost and Produce flame would not trigger AOO if you include the "target that would have AOO on you" as a target, because they have attack keyword.

Nothing in the the Attack trait says that things with that trait don't trigger attack of opportunity.

Well nothing in the AOO says that Attacks do trigger AOO unless it's ranged.

Why would you put Attack keyword on spells in this CASE. What would be the use besides calculating MAP ?

I consider that if those cantrips/spells that has attack keyword can suffer from MAP, then they should not trigger AOO as a regular attack does. You're already spending 2 action for it.

Boumxyz wrote:

I disagree... Some cantrips have the Attack keyword, which removes the AOO when it is cast. AOO specifically mention that RANGED attacks and manipulate or move action triggers AOO. In that regards, to give the caster a chance, I consider these cantrips to be "actual attacks" and not actual spells, unless I missed a rule that contradicts this. But then again, the "specific" tromps the "general" rules usually.

Somatic is manipulate, hence why it triggers AoO.

Right, but does Attack supersedes manipulate ? That is the point where Specific, trumps generalist ( generalist is somatic = manipulate, but attack is specific here ).

EX : Electric Arc would trigger AOO, but Chill touch would not. It has attack keyword.

With my house rule,

Ray of Frost and Produce flame would not trigger AOO if you include the "target that would have AOO on you" has a target, because they have attack keyword.

This makes some cantrips much more interesting from a dedication point of view, where you would have this warrior, dedicated to sorcerer or wizard, using Ray of Frost for long range and having produce flame to try to get persistent damage on it ( Although I agree 2 actions is not great for meleer, but if you don't want to use ranged weapon, this would be your ranged attack ).

Boumxyz wrote:

Unicore wrote:

What does it mean for a spell attack roll to be a melee spell attack roll or a ranged spell attack roll? The game is silent about this ( do ranged spell attack rolls follow any/some/all of the rules of ranged attacks, and how does a new player figure that out?)

Not to mention that one of them is supposed to "trigger an attack of opportunity" while the other doesn't.

In my case I have house ruled that a spell has the "attack" keyword is casted in melee and does include the "opportunist" in the attack does not trigger an attack of opportunity as any normal attack would, regardless if it's a RANGED being used in melee or not.

Casting a spell generates an attack of opportunity unless it's a purely verbal one. So both do most of the time.

I disagree... Some cantrips have the Attack keyword, which removes the AOO when it is cast. AOO specifically mention that RANGED attacks and manipulate or move action triggers AOO. In that regards, to give the caster a chance, I consider these cantrips to be "actual attacks" and not actual spells, unless I missed a rule that contradicts this. But then again, the "specific" tromps the "general" rules usually.

What does it mean for a spell attack roll to be a melee spell attack roll or a ranged spell attack roll? The game is silent about this ( do ranged spell attack rolls follow any/some/all of the rules of ranged attacks, and how does a new player figure that out?)

Not to mention that one of them is supposed to "trigger an attack of opportunity" while the other doesn't.

In my case I have house ruled that a spell has the "attack" keyword is casted in melee and does include the "opportunist" in the attack does not trigger an attack of opportunity as any normal attack would, regardless if it's a RANGED being used in melee or not.

In that regard I feel the attack of opportunity or cantrip tag are not clear enough ( Unless I missed something ) to know if they trigger AOO or not.

But I digress this is not the op question.

Quick question, when you say the party has two on-level NPCs with them... Are these fully statted allies? Because those could be throwing off the encounter balance a lot too. My rule of thumb is that NPCs should always be at least one if not two or three levels lower than the PCs if they accompany them into battle. Your players clearly don't need any help.

When things are stale, I like to mix stuff up with complex multi-layered combats. Rather than one giant nasty encounter, make it potentially one unwillable combat that they can break down into sections with stealth or with environmental factors, whatever. And if they just charge in and don't care? Wipe em out, yay!

What I usually do

I remove the 2 npcs and 2 same level monsters I added for the combat to keep them busy and simulate the fight. I set all those aside and
because I don't want to play with my own "monsters vs npcs".
I roll 1 D20 per round and based on results decide what happens to speed up combats for those asided npc because I find pf2 fights sluggish. But that is just a preference and also the fact that I play on roll20 where you have to open the sheet, dig for the attack roll and find it is probably not helping on the speed of the combat.

As a player, I can't be bothered to take up table time interacting with the environment when everything I need to defeat the encounter is on my character sheet.

Sure, I could swing off X to do Y for maybe Z bonus...or I could do something useful. The bonus is never worth the actions taken to set it up. And if the bonus is worth it, then every fight devolves into players scrambling around looking for strange environment bonuses instead of just attacking the monster 3 times and killing it.

So, either you don't need to interact with the environment to beat the encounter, so why bother, or you have to interact with the environment to beat the encounter in which case its a puzzle and not a real fight.

Also, I don't care how cool your monk is Bob, I

Well you probably will not enjoy the Swashbuckler which is about that mostly and how to get panache..

Lead by example. Have enemies use things you'd expect in the environment that arent explicitly on the map.

I do. They don't that is the problem.

Thanks everyone for your insights.

Do you have trick to get players to ask questions during combats ?

let me explain :

I have the feeling ( maybe a wrong assumption ) that using battle maps reduces the number of questions from the player.

I'm much from a theater of the mind approach where my player ( these are not my usual group they're great online player, which I never played with ) used to ask something along the lines of :

me : Ok you're in a street and these bullies are attacking what do you do ?

player1 : Is there a lampost I can use to do a round house kick to the first assailant coming up to me ?

Me : Yes please roll acrobatics, depending on result this will give you +x to your attack roll.

* player rolls *

player2 : Is there any trash can I can use TElekinetic attack on ?

me : Yes ! please roll...

I`m using player's input to fill up my combat area. Now I feel using battle map removes that. ( At least these players don't ask questions, they just assume what's on the map is what's there).

Most of the maps I don't do them, because I just use a map. I keep telling them, maps are just there for the sake of positioning. Please ask any questions. But nothing comes up.

So any trick you have up your sleeves for this ?

Heck I even tried this approach :

- you can have max 3 hero points
- I give you hero points for cool descriptions, overcoming obstacles.
- If you're saving your ass from death using Hero Point, you lose all of them ( the reason is to avoid them keeping them, I Want them to spend it to have them come up with more cool descriptions, moves to have more)

So I’m hearing that the party is taking “long rests” after each fight, and I am hearing that fights aren’t hard enough.

Stop letting them take long rests so often. Have some random encounters ready to go. If they want to camp, make camping dangerous. Make it MORE dangerous than pressing on.

Or, if they are in a dungeon and they want to go to sleep for the day, pull the nearest room's encounter in on them.

The game more or less accounts for the party taking a 10 minute break between most fights, but sleeping/getting back all spells and daily resources? Nah. If a dungeon has around 9 encounters and you're supposed to do that with 1 or maybe 2 days worth of resources, and the party is doing it with 9 days worth of resources, of course it will be very easy.

My Pcs are rebels attempting to raise a revolt against Cheliax Theocratic Rule. There's been no dungeons and dungeons would have served no purposes towards the general story with current state of the world I've set up.

My consequences of them taking too many long rest was the main leader of their revolt which got abducted was executed because they didn't arrive in time.

Also with online session using roll20, I feel like random encounters as you say are much more difficult to come up on the fly as I would want.

( battle map required, which I never used before, and never had to use,
Monsters stats needs to entered etc..)

Hiruma Kai wrote:

I'm pretty sure Boumxyz is referring to 2nd edition Dungeons and Dragons energy drain, not pathfinder 1st edition energy drain, given his opening post.

Ah, that's fair. Yeah, you won't find those kinds of mechanics in most modern RPGs, largely because they're just not widely popular anymore. PF2 is in many ways more deadly than other modern RPGs with raise dead being uncommon and a higher level spell than in PF1, as well as other adjustments along those lines, but "I beat you into a lower level" type effects just don't come up much anymore in "mainstream" (such as it is) modern RPGs.

I must be too old school then. Thanks for your feedback. This means I need to change the xp budget scale, it doesn't work for my party as stated here :

Extreme-threat encounters are so dangerous that
they are likely to be an even match for the characters,
particularly if the characters are low on resources. This
makes them too challenging for most uses.

An extreme threat
encounter might be appropriate for a fully rested
group of characters that can go all-out, for the climactic
encounter at the end of an entire campaign, or for a group
of veteran players using advanced tactics and teamwork.

Even match to non veteran, but usually a team oriented party will have no issues with that extreme threat if well rested ( Which happens in most cases because I rarely run more than 1 fight a day so far ) .

I don't see the point in running trivial fight which would be for team oriented fight with full resources moderate and lower.

Still I'm not the most experienced with this system.

Thanks all for you reply,

Alright I did this encounter they were level 1

1 Duergar Task Master
1 Duergar Bombardier
4 Duergar Sharpshooter

I managed to get 1 pc to 7 hps

Besides that they did expend all their spells and 1 consumable. ( They have a lots of healing )
(2 have medecine, 1 of those having medecine has battle medecine, 1 is a cleric, 1 is a bard ). But then they kept doing 1 fight, long rest.

So my question this should have been difficult. So extreme is 50 - 50 odds ?

Now they're level 4 5 players, 2 (level 4 ) npcs with them

How do you think they would fare VS

2 Guards ( from DMG Palace guard, changed a bit, added shield removed halberd )
2 Zealots of Asmodeus ( from DMG )
4 Elite Hell hounds

?

Combat Changing abilities I'm looking for :
in 2e some undeads could drain level if they hit. That always brought a OH crap from the player. That`s what I`m looking for.

Thanks

Best Regards.

1 - No you don't count animal companion in the budget.

2 - That will be very opinion based, I at least find stuff like skeletons throwing their heads screaming and zombies full of pustules or are weak to "headshots" interesting.

3 - Encounter building in PF2 works, if you make an extreme encounter it will be 50/50 to either side and players WILL DIE and should be reserved as end bosses. If you want normal bosses do severe instead, something like a monster +2 with two lackeys -2 will do wonders per example.

And I would not underestimate the -3 or -4 monsters, in numbers they can be pretty deadly, specially if they are used basic tactics.

Thanks for the reply.

I'm not saying their abilities aren't interesting I just meant, combat changing. Something that the player would say : Oh s##& !

I haven't seen anything yet. I might have to come up with my own monster then.

HI,

I'm an experienced GM but mostly not at Dnd. I haven't gmed Dnd since 2nd edition.

That being said,

I'm checking the "rules" regarding severe, extreme, encounters

I have a group of 5 pcs playing PF2 doing some homebrew stuff. Now, I must admit that 1 npc died because they kept doing long rests between fights. ( Maybe that means these are actually challenging ? I don't know ) But they seem to complain those fights are not.

So my question to you is :

1 - Should I count Animal companions when I budget encounters xps when using the budgetting system.

2 - I find monsters in the bestiary have very non interesting abilities. They either emulate PCs abilities or they're kind of meh... Nothing is " combat changing ".

3 - I'm not really interested in putting 1 big monster ( like I did once and they fled which was what I wanted ) because this makes fights boring to them.

Mob was level 6 they were level 2 ( Encouter boss + 4 level mean extreme ) . They keep missing because of High AC and getting hit by monster, I feel this is wrong way to do things.

Also do you have tricks to do mooks ? I mean I'd like a more pulpy feel without putting Level -3 or -4 monsters that don't hit the PCs.

Something more threatening but fall quickly.

Please share your advises/experience.

Thanks

Best Regards