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Design Manager quote from another thread

Mark Seifter wrote:

Multiple attack penalty applies. The CRB says "Striking multiple times in a turn has diminishing returns. The multiple attack penalty (detailed on page 446) applies to each attack after the first, whether those attacks are Strikes, special attacks like the Grapple action of the Athletics skill, or spell attack rolls." We're looking to push an update soon to explain this in the errata entry in question.

I see a new errata, but not this clarification anywhere in there. If anything, it became more confusing. This is not what it says in the new text.

I'm still not convinced about how MAP interacts with combat maneuvers. Is there a clarification on the RAW that doesn't require a lawyer studying 3 different explanations across the book? This is VERY confusing.

Errata wrote:

Page 446: Attack Rolls. There was some confusion as to whether skill checks with the attack trait (such as Grapple or Trip) are also attack rolls at the same time. They are not. To make this clear, add this sentence to the beginning of the definition of attack roll "When you use a Strike action or make a spell attack, you attempt a check called an attack roll."

This is how it is but I don't really like it. This creates some weird stuff like A Grapple not benefitting from True Strike but a Grapple with Telekinetic Maneuver doing so.

It also really means you can't make a DEX-maneuver character by using Finesse Maneuver weapons (which might be good, making STR more important).
I hope the balance is worth this exclusion.

Edit: While this might clear up some confusion about some rolls being both a skill check and an attack roll (which they are clearly not, now) it makes the trait name Attack now really badly chosen.

So are maneuvers affected by MAP now? It says any action with the Attack trait increases MAP, but it only applies a penalty to attack rolls specifically.

The more attacks you make beyond your first in a single turn, the less accurate you become, represented by the multiple attack penalty. The second time you use an attack action during your turn, you take a –5 penalty to your attack roll. The third time you attack, and on any subsequent attacks, you take a –10 penalty to your attack roll. Every check that has the attack trait counts toward your multiple attack penalty, including Strikes, spell attack rolls, certain skill actions like Shove, and many others.

So do you get a -5 on your grapple/push attempt?

I'd like for the Arcane schools to be revamped a bit, kinda like how DMW's house rules improves them. For example, Evocation school giving you the benefits of Dangerous Sorcery will have a positive impact throughout that char's career as they build for blasting and do less mediocre damage (still far from good damage). Changing the focus spells could be done like the specialized schools in 1E, so for the second edition in a row we can get rid of the useless single magic missile in exchange for something relevant.

Refining the idea of +1 proficiency jumps a bit, my group came up with a potential house rule to address these issues that would not require updating every statblock in the game:

If your character is a spellcaster, you get a +1 proficiency bonus to attack rolls. If you are a martial, you get a +1 proficiency bonus to all spell attacks and save DCs (for all traditions). This is in effect starting on level 1 (thought there's an argument to start at 5). No effect on Magus for now.

It seems pretty jank and backwards (It is a half-baked house rule, after all), but the goal is to make characters more competent at stuff that is already suboptimal for them, in case they want to build around it. Enemy stat blocks don't have to be adjusted (Hell, most NPCs already have something like this), and you can have Melee Bard, Melee Druid, Melee Sorc (after jumping through some hoops), and a very nasty Warpriest. On the flip-side, it also helps Martial-first gishes that want some offensive spells.

Will be playtesting some version of this in my games. I expect it might be too strong during the few levels where caster weapon proficiency overlaps with that of some martials (1-4 and 11-12), but that is yet to be seen.

I have started to believe that the PF2 playtest had it right with +1 for proficiency levels, rather than +2. At the time it really looked lame to have a +30 to-hit, of which only +4 come from being LEGENDARY in weapons; but by playing a lot of PF2 you realize that's just a perception issue. A +2 to hit compared to non-martials that is essentially insurmountable is HUGE and will be felt! It took until the game came out to realize how big of a difference a +1 is! Playtest multiclass combinations could achieve some really interesting things because proficiency wasn't so throttling. Those -2 or sometimes -4 differences are painful when enemies are benchmarked to challenge optimized fighters. It's compounded slightly by non-martials being unable to get a starting 18 on STR/DEX and usually not getting the potency runes as fast.

I might be experimenting with that as a house rule to see if it makes people become able to play things like melee focused Bard/Druids/Oracles without making the dedicated martials feel unimpressive (which can be fixed with more feats or something). It could also make martials with MC spellcaster or some other form of spells with bad scaling become more palatable. Should allow more "dabbling"!

Think 5E kinda had it right making the underlying math be equal for everyone, with the actual abilities from your class being the main differentiators. Fighter has the same to-hit as the Wizard at every level, but they have better weapons, better class support for weapons and multi-attacks, so they're still top tier fighters.

I've been GMing Second Edition for almost a year now (going great!) and my #1 problem has been that whenever there's a loot drop, the game just grinds to a halt.

By the core rules, it takes 10 minutes to TRY to identify the properties of a magic item using Arcana/Occultism/Religion/Nature. Often, multiple small magic items drop in 1 encounter/treasure room, after that, the all items have to be individually checked for magic and then identified, usually taking over 30 minutes of in-game time and a buncha dice rolls. This has started to annoy my players as well, since they want to ID everything as soon as they find (otherwise they'll forget to do it later). This takes longer at the table than I'd like to admit, with 4/5 chars just twiddling their thumbs (They say they'll refocus or something).

I realize there's some value in not immediately telling them what each magic item is, so they can fail to ID an item and either experiment with it (they'll never do this) or be unable to use until they retry the next day. Sometimes this just feels like a relic of old school D&D and it's not adding a lot of value... If they don't ID the item on the first try, it just gets ignored, possibly forever.

Do any of you house rule this? How? I remember IDing was automatic in the playtest. I'm looking for ideas of what to do with this slow system. Perhaps only high-level items should require Identification, or maybe IDing takes just a few seconds if the item is low level.

Everyone keeps saying there's not enough Spells that use spell attacks. You are right, however, there are 3 important cantrips: Produce Flame, Ray of Frost and Telekinetic Projectile, that do use spell attacks, and they are a staple of most spellcasters. People in this forum probably don't know those spells exist because they use Electric Arc instead, but they're real.

You'll see a lot more spell attacks than you'd imagine just because those spells are very spammable! They start of pretty decent, but become kinda unhittable later even for the low damage they do. +1 to spell attacks is worth having in the game if only to keep the power level of cantrips a bit more consistent.

Just throwing this out there, but I don't think a Non-Fighter can 1v1 an on-level opponent in a lot of occassions. I was running a lv10 party the other day (Champion, Rogue, Bard, Cleric, Ranger) against Stone Giants and Bulettes (level -2 enemies) and those monsters had higher to-hit, higher damage and higher AC (except champion) than anyone in the group. It took over 2 hours to resolve that battle.

It balances out when the party is working together and the enemies are dumb. Haven't had a chance to GM enemies that have the tools/INT to do smart tactics (Humanoids seem to always be low level in books compared to monsters).

It was mentioned that Beastmaster would be able to get temporary Animal Companions depending of their current environment and in some occasions (focus spell maybe?) even being able to have two animal companions at the same time.

I hope it isn't like PF1 where you some archetypes allowed more than 1 animal companion, but they were ultra low level. There's no room for anything underleveled in a PF2 party.

Note that some posters wish for a Medium ancestry that is considered Large for some purposes. The Giant instinct for Barbarians might provide a good basis. But in itself it is problematic: if your character is Medium but considered Large for this instinct, they can wield Huge weapons. Which starts sounding awkward.

Can't small races wield large weapons with this? Seems like a similar comparison: 2 sizes larger.

I will continue to say that Bestiary Monsters have more "awesome" than any available PC option!!! Body Strike and Whirlwind Throw from Dropillu are so amazing! Please release these as high level Barbarian feats! My players always wanted to do this in PF1 and now we have a cool example of how it looks.

ChibiNyan wrote:

I don't think it'd be too crazy to have one token "Large-size" ancestry, at least as a novelty. I mean, yeah, it will make the gameplay different and not fit into adventure design assumptions. I don't think this is necessarily bad! It'll at least spark player and GM creativity and be "different". Better than another ancestry just being "Humans but X" and playing the exact same.

It would probably need to be banned from PFS though, which is understandable. Could be a good candidate for the "Rare" keyword to keep it from appearing much.

Right! It might need adjudication at a table by table basis (it's almost as if there's a built in mechanic to enable this...), but what would the harm be with Paizo trying it out? They clearly are about to try out tiny ancestries. As long as it's just one of a number of ancestries released at one time and not like a "Lost Omens Giant People" book, I see absolutely no harm in giving it a try.

Though I think the biggest downsize in a large ancestry is that none of the current maps and materials in the APs and stuff are built to accommodate that. I can think of one battle in Fall of Plaguestone that medium creatures struggle to get to, so a large PC would have to just stand outside and wait...

Smash your way in or try to pull enemies out! A non-PFS Group will always figure a way around things. If the entire thing is a narrow dungeon then it'll take more work, perhaps re-designing, shaping the stone or finding an alternate way in... But it's not impossible.

Jank is in the spirit of roleplaying games! PF2 might be one of the most conservative games so far, but it can still try silly things.

Witches have reportedly gotten the following:

• - Specialized Familiar mechanics along with special familiars and unique interactions (also the introduction of "pet cache" for safety). They lose a spell at every level for this, so it's likely to be powerful.
• 
  
• - Cantrip hexes, so hexes are all day
• 
  
• - Cackle removed as a default ability, now a Class Feat
• 
  
• - All four divine spell lists
• 
  
• - Loose Patron identity that highly depends on the GM
• 
  

I can't speak for everyone, but this version of the Witch sounds amazing to me.

I hope Cackle actually does something now. Imagine using a Class feat to change the concentrate trait for auditory on sustains...

I don't think the baseline %s are bad in PF2, but what I think could be improved are the ways you can hedge the odds in your favor. Circumstance bonuses are so ubiqutous that most of the time you can't do much to improve your odds further. Think status bonus are fine, though!

Melee martials can flank, that's -2 Flat-Footed which is pretty good. But if you try to flank a prone opponent while your ally is grappling them and you still get that same -2 AC. -2 is not bad, but a very tactical party in PF1 could engineer much more favorable situations with their tactics when the party all worked in tandem. To get any better, you need a status penalty, so demoralize is allowed to stack, but not prone.

A lot of weapon traits can allow a random +1 circustance to hit, which also won't stack with, say, the Aid action for some reason. Again, getting multiple party members to contribute giving diminishing returns.
You need Inspire Courage or Heroism to do any better.

If you're a caster? lol, Frightened condition is basically all you got. (Clumsy/Stupefied/Enfeebled for 1 specific save I guess). If you're the only caster vs a strong enemy your debuff spell is gonna run out before you can leverage it next turn (they're making the save).

There might be some value in allowing circumstance bonuses to stack in some scenarios if the party is going out of their way to "set up" for one big roll. There is a lot of options in this game, but a lot of times you can't actually squeeze anything out of em.

Right now, I feel playing smart is more about mastering out the stacking rules and getting the right combo than actually doing things that seem smart from an in-game perspective.

And don't get me started on drinking a mutagen and getting only the penalties because you happen to have a magic sword.

I think house ruling a sturdy rune can work out, just be aware that shields were not designed to work like weapons and armor and thus you will probably have to mess around for a while to strike the right balance of what levels are appropriate for giving out the different kinds of runes and how much HP bonus they should grant on top of shields of different materials, as well as figuring out how to create level sensible limits to how many runes you can put on a shield since there is no such thing as fundamental runes for shields.

Which is why that change is not likely to happen at an official level. Shields were not designed to have HP in the playtest and were a completely different item than weapons and armor until late enough in the playtest that trying to change them that much probably was too much work to get done in time.

I think it would be amazing if shields could have Potency runes (hardness and HP) that let you stay competitive with sturdy shields, and also property runes that let you add cool abilities to the shield similar to what we have or even more generic things like "Hardness is doubled vs Fire damage".

Actually balancing this would be really easy, PF2 abounds with tables and examples of what any equipment of a given Item Level should be able to do and how much of it PCs should have.

Count me in with the group that thinks it was unwise to make Sturdy Shield a unique type of Magic Shield instead of an enchantment that can be placed on OTHER shields via a Rune System.

That said, if you're looking at this from the perspective that you should be able to block 3+ attacks per combat against a foe who is an Extreme Encounter on their own then I'm afraid you're trying to squeeze WAY to much value out of ANY given Shield.

The damage reduction component of Shield Block is the cherry on top for the Shield Rules but lots of folks here seem to be treating that function as the main event. At the end of the day when you make the decision to Block you ALSO get to know immediately if choosing to do so will break your Shield so if that hit won't kill you or put you in mortal danger but would break your Shield then I think the intent here is PROBABLY that you need to make a difficult choice, risk v reward and all that. It's supposed to be something that you can use once or twice a combat to help curb some damage that's incoming or to save your life when there is a massive hit incoming, not function as free Resistance against all Physical Attacks permanently.

If Sturdy Shield is bad for the game, it's bad because the number crunchers and min-maxers want to perfect their spreadsheets and Action Rotation for whiteroom simulations, not actual play.

Pretty much every Shield Feat and special ability works off the "Shield Block" reaction. It's not like some obscure bonus rule that only jank characters use, it's baked into Fighters, Cleric Champions as the main way the engine allows them to make defensive builds.

Shield system was designed so people would block with it, it's the only way to use all of the shield abilities or to distinguish shield specialists from random people with a shield.

If anything, the +AC is the throwaway part because you already get the best possible value from a lv1 metal shield and it cna never improve from there.

Just the concept that is is the first RPG I've sever seen (and probably ever) where shields are not meant for blocking attacks is silly. This goes beyond game mechanics and more about the theme of Pathfinder: The most heroic high fantasy game with no grittyness, but shields break in one hit if you try to use them. I realize the shield mechanics were to make them more interesting, but it just doesn't mesh with the rest of the game. Everything should be breaking, then? Or maybe items should be used in the same way they are in any other game/movie/story.

ChibiNyan wrote:

Ravingdork wrote:

Shinigami02 wrote:

Spell Attacks technically have their own proficiency, but a spellcaster's Spell Attack proficiency and Spell DC proficiency for their tradition pretty much universally (so far) increase together. It's theoretically possible they may someday have a class that increases one but not the other, but it seems unlikely.

ETA: Also, since all main-class casters eventually get Legendary in their casting, that means that the only class they end 3 points behind is Fighter. Any other martial they wind up 1 point behind, thanks to the +2 from Legendary. On the other hand though, they don't reach Legendary until level 19, and get all other proficiencies (except Trained of course) later, so they do spend most of their careers a fair bit behind.

Anybody got a side by side comparison of the fighter attack modifiers, versus other martial modifiers, versus the spell attack modifiers?

Don't forget the Item bonuses at 4, 10, 16 that applies to Martials only. At level 13, for example, they're gonna be 4 points behind a Non-Fighter Martial, for example. non-Fighters already have like 50% chance to hit same-level enemies (or less), this puts Casters at 25-45% chance to hit (depending on level) any time after level 4.

Casters have a lot of save-based spells too, which martials don't. Comparing one segment of their arsenal (attack spells) to martials' attack rolls seems very incomplete. Casters probably should be less effective on their attack rolls, all things considered.

Yes and No. Save spells are indeed much better than Attack spells since they can actually hit enemies sometimes. This doesn't mean attack spells deserve to be bad. That'd be like saying that Fighters should get a -2 to range attacks because their melee attacks are good. There should be scenarios for a class to use all of their different tools at their disposal, and there is no scenario for spells that never hit and aren't even stronger than the saving throw ones.

Scorching Ray but only if they fix the spell-attacks being impossible to land without True Strike.

I'm running Class Feats every single level and it has made basically no difference in power level yet. Action economy and the very careful wording of these feats prevents them from being used in powerful combinations.

Classic Pathfinder 1st Edition. I can never make it to the Teen levels for the same reason, the game just falls apart. There is not much to do that will truly improve the game experience when players are good. It'll just become Rocket tag.

Am doing my best to move all campaigns to Second Edition mainly because of your problem and that 2E entirely fixes this.

Of we do get Magus, they better get Master on both Weapons and Spells, otherwise the whole thing falls apart at higher levels, like Warpriest. Compunding not getting a favorable "primary" stat with lesser profiency makes the new 3/4 BAB fall off harder than they would in PF1.

I also noticed this and was kinda annoyed. Gods & Magic is a cool book, but this really was like 3-4 additional lines for the core deities. Gods & Magic is kinda unusable on it's own.

As said, might as well just go to Nethys every time, the only place where you can find all the info for playing a Cleric of the Main 20.

Inner Sea Gods (PF1) is one of the best books ever, and it has everything. Even just having some table summarizing all would be cool.

Here's a shameless self-promo... Maybe it will help you.

Lorefinder - Core Races

You can publish your own adventures using Golarion and other setting IP by using both the OGL and the Community Use Policy, although unlike DM’s Guild you will be unable to charge for them.

Never seen a 3PP use Golarion, I'm preeeetty sure that's off-limits. All you get with OGL is the engine and some monsters, I think.

An updated map was the biggest hurdle for me when I tried this. It was very annoying as the GM to have to repost it multiple times per day. And players had to use Chessboard movement (Fighter to F8!) to position properly.

Grid combat may not be the best fit for Play-By-Post unless there's a better solution out there.

ChibiNyan wrote:

Filthy Lucre wrote:

Will they create one? Should they create one?

Will not be required. As opposed to WOTC, Paizo actually writes RPG books pretty often, and they get released as PDFs too!

That's not quite an apples to apples comparison. DMs Guild lets authors use WotC IP to write material, and then serves as the publisher. It's not the source of digital WotC 5E books, that's DnDBeyond.

I meant it as like "A solution to get more content for the game out there" because WOTC publishes 1 book a year, so players get bored.

But getting basically free money for doing nothing is also a strong business model.

Will they create one? Should they create one?

Will not be required. As opposed to WOTC, Paizo actually writes RPG books pretty often, and they get released as PDFs too!

Hi! Welcome to the Hobby!

1) If the items are hidden in any way, they must specifically declare to be searching or looking around before you roll their Perception checks. Depending on their exploration activity, however, they could have this happen automatically. (They are Searching as they move).

2) Seek is only to detect unseen enemies. It's similar to the above "Searching for stuff" activity. Seeking out of combat is still 1 action to spot creatures that are in your line of sight, but actually searching for items is more time consuming since you have to open containers and rummage around. Probably at least 1 minute if searching for treasure.

3) You do not tell them these times unless they ask (see below), but you also don't need them to specifically declare they're searching 30 minutes. They just have to convey that they plan to search thoroughly or that they'll be searching while someone else is doing Treat Wounds or some other 10 minute activity.

If they say they want to search, you should tell them that "There's a lot of rubble here, it will take at least X minutes for a thorough search". Then if they agree you can let them find the stuff.

It is expected that some of these "hard to find" items will just be missed and never obtained. If the players enter a room and don't make any effort to find them, you have no obligation to help them. If the players are newbies you should probably remind them "Remember there may be hidden loot if you search carefully" a few times during the first dungeon.

Do you guys really play in games where monsters are exclusively 1 to 4 levels above the party?

Because really, an encounter of 3 at levels for a group of five was harder for my players than the single +4 was for a group of six, and could've been worse with smarter tactics on my part.

People don't really care about Level -2 enemies when there's a fighter in the group. Contrary to what an above post says, these tend to really be just a "speedbump". Can easily cover the HP loss from them with a 10 minutes treat wounds, but you can't get your spells back.

Is it just me who aren't interested in taking abilities that help only against trivial mooks?

When I play D&D games I'm a big game hunter. I'm interested in abilities that help me kill monsters higher level than myself.

My ability to kill mooks just come with the territory, no optimization necessary.

Yes, this is why Blaster Wizards complain. You don't need to optimize to kill level -2 enemies, you just need to give your martial 3 turns. Save your feats and slots for when they need to make a difference.

The issue I had with the grades of special materials is that, even though the book describes the material as being a larger part of the weapon or armor's make-up, becoming more pure rather rather than plating or an alloy, it doesn't actually do anything differently. Adamantine doesn't cut through stuff more easily, mithril weapons don't become lighter or less bulky, etc.

This is a good point. The current price feels bad because you end up paying a lot just to stay the same as you were before. A High-Grade Silver weapon doesn't feel that impressive anymore. It just has the obligatory runes you need at high level.

Did you consider that the disparity with martials is... intentional? Just to remind you: Doing damage is the purview of the *martial* classes.

Worse, it is the *only thing* they have going for them. And seeing that casters ALREADY get to alter reality at their whim, they simply DON'T GET to be as good at damage dealing as the martials.

So that, you know, there still is a reason to even *have* martial classes in the game.

But what if I want to build a spellcaster that only focuses on damage? This is most people new to the hobby. Shouldn't be discouraging a playstyle that's advertised for them. Nobody wants to fight better than a martial, but maybe equal for 3-4 turns when you unload your highest spell slots.

Plus, the utility gap has been narrowed a lot. It's still there, though, mainly because of Fly/Teleport/Water Breathing.

Looking at the prices for some of these special materials I think they may go from a "automatic have" in PF1 to a huge no-no at higher levels. A high grade Cold Iron weapon is over 9000 GP. A +3 greater striking weapon is 10,000 and it's a decision you'll have to make at level 16. It doesn't sound like such a good deal in that context... +3 item bonus on attack rolls and triple dice versus +20 damage per hit on Balors.

I agree that if you want them to stay special at higher levels they should scale, but at their current pricing they are very unattractive for what they end up doing.

Been reading about "Precious Materials" for weapon and armor. Some of them offer multiple grades (low, standard, high). Increasing the grade of a material does two things: It increases the Hardness and BT (good for shields, useless for everything else ) and it allows you to put higher level runes on the item (useless for shields); but it also increases the cost exponentially.

So for a weapon or armor (not a shield), the main benefit is being able to put better runes on it, right? Does this mean that regular steel or wooden weapons and armor can't have runes higher than 8th level? Or does this rune restriction only apply to equipment made of special materials? In the latter case, why in the hell!? Precious materials are super overpriced for what they provide already (level 11-12 for a bit less bulk) and with the price scaling, they become extremely unattractive compared to just basic materials.

On shields, they're worse than equivalent sturdy shields regardless of material.

Uh, you mean you don't normally look at other creatures of the same type to identify key traits and adapt as necessary, such as if you were to make a Marai Rakshasa or some sort of river serpent like the Goldpebble?

(yes, I have about 20 or 30 monster statblocks in my work folder at any point in time, just ask - there's more of them in the GitHub database but they're not all mine)

edit: the Marai uses the Sniper guidelines, while Goldpebble is set as a Soldier but with a few oddities here and there.

What's a good standarized format to write monster stat blocks? Is there some sort of tool? I need to write many for PF2 conversions.

Am amazed at how expensive and high level "special materials" are. Most don't seem to do much of anything and bump even the most basic weapon or armor to level 8-12+.

I don't really have the answer. So I'm gonna make one up.

PCs typically do battle in groups. Monsters may do battle in groups, or in pairs, or by themselves.

AoE attacks will be more effective the larger the enemy group is. A spell like Fireball can perform amazingly against half a dozen monsters, then be underwhelming against one monster, both using the same encounter budget.

Spells are designed around this variability, being overall balanced across different scenarios.

But monsters rarely face solo PCs. Monsters almost always face PC parties, which is a stronger use case for AoE spells than single target.

AoE spells often operate through saves. Single target spells favour attack rolls. To compensate for monster attack roll spells seldom facing a single target, or even a "boss" amongst mooks, the attack roll bonus gets buffed.

This post sponsored by unproven speculation.

This is the most compelling argument I've seen so far, though still not 100% with it. Solo monsters are usually +1 or +2 levels over the party so they shouldn't have much of an issue hitting anyways without these "free" boosts.

Maybe they just realized that Spells that require a spell attack roll suck. Seriously, we don't have a big selection but there's legends like Snowball and Polar Ray competing for worst offensive spells in the game. Then the often overhyped Disintegrate that probably does less damage than those 50% of the time. I find these spells are just worse than save spells because they don't fully interact with the 4 degrees system of PF2. One of the main reasons Casters still function decently is being able to get some sort of effect even on a succesful save, which these spells don't allow and they don't have a power boost to account for this downside. Not to mention they are also, by design, single target spells, so you want to save them for vs "strong" enemies, except you never hit them. You're targeting their full AC, which is benchmarked for a Martial using the best equipment available (and has equal or better proficiency than you until like lv19)

Maybe it just expects every caster to use True Strike before one of these spells, spending a low level slot and an action?

Guess what I'm saying is that the reason enemies get a +2 could also be used to justify the PCs getting a +2. Don't think anyone is gonna say "Oof, that would make these weaksauce spells too OP".

One idea is to use it to create fire! Like pretend it's a wall of fire or something of the sort to scare enemies out of some area. Nobody will be foolish enough to try and interact with it to get a save! The lv1 version won't get it realistic enough to work imo.

Could also use it to make a magical portal, or maybe something that would attract enemies to a dangerous spot. It should be enough to make believable water too.

The most straightforward uses work just fine with the lvl1 version, though. Namely creating pits, walls and boxes.

This does matter! An monster's level is used to calculate their challenge. Imagine a scenario where it comes down to a 1 v 1 battle with some enemy. If the enemy is the same level as you, it should in theory be a deadly 50/50 encounter. In practice, this is probably a losing fight since the monsters are stronger than you in every way until you have many class feats and supplemental items, which isn't gonna happen at low levels.

I suppose it's balanced around a party of 4, then..

I'd have to recheck, but I recall determining that at the highest levels, these Strike attack bonuses do seem to arise as if the monsters had a Heroism spell.
Plus you get Fighters using one Weapon Group at that max, while monsters might mix and match ranged, melee, unarmed, and so forth at the same proficiency level.
Monsters have a lot more breadth to their power, and it is reflected in their spell attack rolls too. I do not know why such a bonus is restricted for PCs, but maybe we just need better teamwork?
Maybe there's an X factor we're missing that would make such default bonuses too strong in the hands of PCs, like Dangerous Sorcery or Overwhelming Energy.

The yet-unseen Magus might be able to get the "Fighter level" bonus with their spell attack rolls. I think that'd be an excellent niche for them, though it couldn't be purely through proficiency because that raises all the spells.

I took this into account too, after a few levels the PCs have a lot of feats and stuff that could help overcome the math deficiencies (nothing can overcome +1s fully though), so I figured high level monsters would just get some +1s to compensante.

It does kinda happen? Indirectly? It tells you to use more "extreme" column enemies after level 15 for example. But if you're just following the "high" column for example, it increases almost fully linearly from 1-20. The monster has this +2 to spell attacks starting from level 1 and it carries all the way to around level 20. Same thing for most other statistics.

Low level characters in general have a tougher time because they don't have many feats to compensate. I noticed this when I saw the Level 4 NPC called "Burglar". This guy has higher stats than any level 4 PC Rogue could possibly achieve: higher ability scores, higher to-hit, higher HP... And even has like 2 Rogue class feats + all the class features.
This would be acceptable at like lvl 8+ when the Rogue has a lot of combat tricks, but all they have over the Burglar is like 3 SKILL + 1 Ancestry feats that may have 0 combat application.

Another example is the NPC "Acolyte of Nethys" that is supposed to represent a Level 1 Cloistered Cleric: Spell DC 17, Spell Attack +9 and has the Domain Initiate feat and extra Heal spells from CHA. Identical to a level 1 PC Cloisted Cleric except it has +2 to spell attacks in exchange for skill feat + ancestry feat. I'll take the +2 any day.

In Summary, I think that during the levels PCs have less class feats, monsters should not have that much higher statistics than them. This spell attack thing is just the most noticeable case since it begins from level 1.

The above posts would make sense if this also applied to Strike rolls, which doesn't. Monster attack rolls are generally pretty high but rarely exceed a fully "optimized" Fighter. Like every other creature and PCs, they may use flanking, buffs and debuffs to improve their odds so they don't need some artificial increase to "catch up" with PC tactics. It is an even playing field.

Is is worth nothing that the Spell Attack Roll columns are identical to the Strike ones, which gives spellcasting monsters the same odds of hitting as their melee brethren. But for saving throws, it seems that having PC-equal DCs is "acceptable".

Sure would be nice to have Fighter-tier proficiency on spell attacks, but it doesn't seem like this will ever exist for PCs, helpful as it would be for anemic classes like Wizard.

I usually don't feel bad when my players dodge some nasty spell from a monster (everyone is excited), but I sure as hell get disappointed when the party mage never lands their 40% success rate spell attack. It's pretty unfair how unreliable these spells are for not even being stronger than basic saving throw ones.

It gets silly if you don’t use common sense.

Minion rules for animals aren't common sense either (I can buy it for summons), but we apply them because it's the rules, set there to ensure balance over realism.

I'd also love for animals to not become SF drones as soon as someone tames them, but alas.

I'd also like an explicit clarification of how minions are supposed to work outside of combat, because this is all pretty inconsistent and a GM would be fair to rule it either way.

Also reminds me of how riding a horse in exploration would be very exhausting because you're spending multiple actions on "Command an Animal" every 6 seconds.

Minions just get really silly outside of combat, it's a mess.

The current 'Weapon Familiarity' Ancestry Feats give very little stuff to Martial chars right now. It's about time we add some of the Advanced weapons!

All I know is the characters that are supposed to use that scarf are high Dex lightweight Dancers. The main reason why it's a scarf is for stealth purposes too, and you can't even Sneak Attack with it... High STR characters shouldn't be the ones desiring this weapon. Don't mind if it's weakened in other ways but it really needs finesse.

The Starknife probably has less justification, that thing is huge and gets all Agile, finesse and L weight...

I'm going with the "forgetting finesse on bladed scarf was a mistake" and thinking they'll add it in an errata. So am making it finesse. People may think it has too many traits, but that's just how this weird weapon is supposed to be. Should probably go back to 1d6 damage, though.

Make Scrolls available from level 1 again, and not requiring a week+ of work! Would go a long way in making them fun at the early levels.