Claxon's page

Successfully integrated? Never.

As a GM, I'm not interested in having some romantic story and role play through the lens of our characters with my players.

And in my group, players aren't generally interested in spending significant table time with someone else's romances.

So the most "integration" you get is 2 players agreeing to be romantically interested with each other and maybe a few 1 liners throughout the campaign that goes back to that relationship. Or something similar between a PC and NPC, wherein the GM will confirm that the NPC is available for courting and interested in the PC and there may sometimes be some small relevant stuff as a result of having that relationship, but we don't allow it to significantly alter anything that would happen if the group didn't romance that NPC.

But I think all of that largely depends on how much playtime you have and how much spotlight you give each player, and how much your group prefers to focus on combat/tactical portions of the game versus roleplay. In my group we tend to have limited play time, and generally focus on moving through the APs as quickly as possible. And with combats taking an hour plus to get through on average, we'll have limited role play amongst ourselves if it isn't roleplay that addresses a specific scenario from the AP or campaign. Like if the players need to attend a soiree than we will roleplay saying "Oh, I talk to this person about a thing they're interested in based on my gather information checks, and oh we're wearing these kinds of clothes, or I regale them with tales of our exploits".

But that's it, surface level/high level without getting deep into descriptions.

Each groups tolerance for "speed of play/progress" versus Role play is going to be different and will probably be a bigger point than anything else. But secondarily, it's important to be mindful of what your fellow players are interested in. And generally getting in depth with someone else's romance isn't high on people's list, unless it's a TV show/movie level acting/drama.

Claxon wrote:

So a GM actually understand the level of challenge they're sending to the players.

You mean that the GM has less things to learn. Because it's a question of experience, not something you can't control ever.

A GM shouldn't have to learn that the system doesn't work the same at low levels as it does at high levels.

Claxon wrote:

It's better to have a game with consistent challenges

Why?

So a GM actually understands the level of challenge they're sending to the players.

SuperBidi wrote:

(I must admit, I have hard time seeing how I could sell PF2 to kids).

By introducing the complex rules set incrementally. Which is kinda the whole point here, right? You've got some folks saying make L1 encounters survivable without knowing all the tactics (i.e. allows for incremental learning) and others saying no no make it tactically full-game-on right from the start (no increments; know everything all at once or you're dead). Because (at least in one opinion) 'it's good to weed out the folks who can't handle it', though I suspect the more common reason for wanting full-on L1 encounters is 'because as an experienced player, I too want to enjoy those L1-5 APs...and I don't want to have to upgrade them.'

I was able to teach my kid Terraforming Mars at age 8. But I didn't do that by forcing him to know every detailed rule in the very first run through. The first run through used some of the rules. Then the second used more. Then by the third time, he got it all. So now we play tons of games together. Had I insisted on the full rules set and just focused on whomping on his a$$ that first game, I doubt we'd be playing complex board games together today as much as we do. There is good long term fun value in giving beginners a low slope learning curve.

It's just kids. While adults have a lot more experience to lean on and are "smarter" than kids, adults also have a lot competing for their time and attention to. Not everyone wants to start on hard mode when they're new to a game.

It's better to have a game with consistent challenges (moderate encounters all being roughly equal difficulty at all levels) than to have a change mid way through the game as you level (unless you choose to go from moderate to severe or extreme encounters). But the important part is making that choice, and not having bad math give you a different experience at levels 1 and 2.

Nice try characterizing anybody who likes a deadliest more realistic game as 14-year-old edgelords who likes Berserk. I like realism because it adds stakes and takes you out of the gamified, every combat is a puzzle, mindset people fall into. It's more interesting to play in a world where the best solution makes logical sense rather than existing solely because players like swords and want to hit stuff with them.

It's not nice or fair to mischaracterize or malign someone for their gaming preferences, whether that be for "hard Dark Souls like" experiences or "easy beer and pretzel" style games. All styles are valid, and it's about whatever each individual/group enjoys playing and running. The person you were responding to shouldn't do that, but I think I recall statement from yourself that weren't so far from that either.

Anyways, I don't know why people are so fixated on this point, PLEASE STOP with this. Whether the game is hard or easy and what we all prefer isn't important.

What's important is to recognize the incongruity in the challenge at levels 1 and 2, versus the rest of the game.

As I said before, the creatures that level 1 and 2 characters are expected to fight need to have their CRs reexamined and modified, and possibly modifying the expected damage (and abilities) of those creatures, and may even require writing new monsters better designed for low levels.

And obviously if you wanted a harder experience, you would simply build encounters with higher level enemies.

Right now the issue is the encounter building rules don't really work at level 1 and 2 because the monsters are too strong (have too much damage output relative to player HP) when compared specifically to say level 5 encounters of same theoretical difficulty (moderate to moderate).

It has some specific short lived use case, but I agree it's not a weapon you would keep around long term.

So I am not really offended by its inclusion.

To be clear, I'm not offended by it's inclusion, but insisting that you need to run it as traveling at whatever it's movement speed is (whether you count it as running, or using multiple move actions in a turn to set it's speed, or whatever) leaves you in a scenario where the thing is moving at like 12 mph (100ft/6 secs). Making it absolutely irrelevant in terms of a GM planning.

Honestly if they had written the entry to say "This thing can survive space travel without any additional precautions, but it's ability to travel space is incredibly slow, as such they typically will utilize a ritual or entreat with other creatures to find a way to cross the vast distances of space" would have been better (IMO) than what we got.

But it's all just opinion at the end of the day.

A creature's ability doesn't need to be efficient or combat related to matter for a story. They can be a plot device.

By the same extension, you don't need the ability exist to have the character become part of the plot device.

Trip.H wrote:

Mathmuse wrote:

Damn, thanks for bringing the math. That shows that even I was underestimating how long this one-shot potential lingers.

A PL -1 caster (solo!) still being able to one-shot the squishes at L 12 was outside of my expectation. I had presumed that a L12 one-shot would require something like a PL +1 caster w/ Never Mind or other non-damaging incap spell to bypass HP.

Considering that said NPC caster could /"should" have feats like Quickened Casting to open with yet more damage, yeah, I'm surprised and saddened to agree that the example I went to explicitly compare against low level rocket tag, itself definitely still qualifies as rocket tag (that the player can never shoot first in). Ooooof.

.

Honestly surprised to learn that there was outright one-shot potential on a high rolled crit fail, even my PC w/ 138 was not outside that danger.
Looks like a ~5% chance on crit to reach 138 & outright oneshot.
Comparing that 5% high roll to your average caster dropping to Dying 2 in their bed on a 56% likely dmg roll goes to show how quickly that oneshot danger vanishes with a small boost to HP though.

The notion that it's still published content to have sleeping PCs be subject to one-shot magic as an opener is such indefensible math, idk what to even say. The -4 & -1 of being asleep & armorless makes it that much worse.

Smallest of silver linings is that saves are rolled by players, and subject to hero points.

Though, considering that a 2nd chain lighting can be thrown when PCs only have time to stand + grab (+ 1A interact to get free of the bedsheets if your GM is of that kind), goooood luck surviving that fight if run "legit."

.

Oh, and I'm guessing the room is supposed to be fully dark as well. Thanks to Darkvision Elixirs being 24 hr, that was not a problem for us, but it would be yet another "holy shit, this is unwinnable" problem for some parties needing 2A to get some light while the foes are

...

I want to make a correction, I never asked for more HP as a solution.

I acknowledged that there is a mathematical problem in that enemies can 1 shot level 1 characters under the right circumstances.

Adding HP is one way to resolve that.

It's not actually my preferred way.

My preferred way would be to adjust the CR of some creatures, also in combination with potentially adjusting the damage down of other creatuers.

It might mean that at level 1 and 2 you fight a lot of "weak" enemies if you want safe moderate encounters, but fighting other "people" would end up being mostly CR 2/3 enemies which would quickly get a fight into Severe and Extreme territory.

I don't actually want HP to change, and I don't think I've said such at all. So please don't misrepresent me.

Also I don't necessarily want an easy game.

I want a consistent game.

Generally speaking a moderate encounter should have the same feel in terms of "how dangerous" it is at all levels. That's my issue. Because currently it does. The game feels much more deadly at level 1 and 2 because 1 wrong move or even none (but bad luck) can result in your character dying.

It is true that I prefer a more beer and pretzels hack and slash feelings of grandeur kind of game. But that's not what I actually care about in this discussion.

What I care about is that the game is inconsistently difficult between levels. And I really don't care for your misrepresentation of that. Or the insinuations that I'm somehow less for preferring an "easy fun game" rather than a Dark Souls like experience. Both are valid, depending on what any given group likes.

The problem is that people looking for an easy game at level 1 easily end up with a Dark Souls experience if the GM doesn't know how to (or that they should) change things.

Honestly, I really feel like you're arguing in bad faith. And I'm kind of upset about it.

So I'm not going to go any further on this post, because I'll likely say things in anger I regret. So I'm just going to stop for now.

You're right in the sense that overall encounter design is part of the problem, but it will shift the problem rather than mitigate it.

APs do tend to have encounters start at relatively close range. In part because of playability of encounters when using a physical battle map. In part because it can be quite lopsided in terms of encounters depending on the options each side has (ranged vs melee) and abilities that allow them to entrench of prepare against an approaching enemy, and part putting melee and ranged/spell casters on relatively equal footing. A melee focused character really hates life when the enemy is 500 ft away and is going to spend the next 10 rounds moving into position while dodging enemy ranged attacks.

A party (or enemy) with an Instant Fortress is in a very different position when the fight starts at 1000ft away vs 50 ft.

But if you think fixing the math of low level enemies isn't the solution, I feel like writing a in depth treaties on overall encounter design including physical space of the combat, distance between parties, etc is going to be way harder/more difficult than fixing the math part of enemies. You're not wrong that there is a lot more to it than math....but those other bits are A LOT more difficult to get right because there are so many variables.

Also agree with the above.

Basically you can be standing, holding the alicorn lance one handed. In this configuration you can't use it as a weapon because you're not mounted.

You spend 2 actions to activate its ability, while holding it with one hand, and can charge and attack with it. I assume there is a level of "baked in" not needing to adjust your hand to go from "holding" to "prepared to use" through the magic of the ability that summons the mount under you. Honestly it's unclear to me if it would even be required, but normally changing the number of hands your using is an interact action...but you're not changing the number of hands, it's just that suddenly you have the right number of hands to use it as a weapon.

It's a hard balance to be sure. I do think that the threat of death really needs to be there, meaning PCs "should" drop dying every now and again. But, it's also true that PCs "should" be making big mistakes in combat, and that downs really need to be resultant of mistakes as much as possible.

One design rule I've come to learn is that a "theoretically perfect-play" party *should* win every (winnable) fight. The conceptual nature of "loss" should be fused into the concept of a "mistake."
However, a game with "perfect fairness" should be one where perfect play is beyond human expectation, so it'll still be normal for parties to loose due to expected errors/misplays.

I agree with this, that death needs to be a threat for it to feel like there are real stakes. But also that it should come from poor choices under the players control.

If the enemy goes first, moves into range and hits the PC and knocks them to dying 2 before they can even do anything....the player character had no opportunity to do anything wrong other than existing.

Even if the player goes first and moves into melee range to make an attack, but the enemy turn knocks them out on the first hit there's still not much (at low levels) you could expect a PC to do differently.

And that's why it's a problem at low levels. You don't even have an opportunity to assess "Okay I've been hit, I'm substantially damaged, I need to retreat and plan on how to mitigate this damage I've taken".

You just go from full health to dying.

Finally with someone advising people to ignore RAW in this forum surpassed my irony/sarcasm level to post.

Sometimes RAW really is just so uniformed bad, you shouldn't try to follow it.

This is one of those corner cases where the ability was written either without an understanding of the distances and speeds involved, or being worse at math than the people in this thread, or simply not bothering to investigate at all.

If an ability takes hundreds of thousands of years (or more) to be relevant there's no reason to even write the ability.

Claxon wrote:

...they did clarify that it travels at it's normal fly speed.....which would be absolutely worthless and I suggest ignoring the statement.

That's really cool for the Rules forum... 8^)

AS I pointed out - there's no Game Mechanic for them to accelerate. It's just a super simplistic handwaived rule like damage from falling.

it's essentially downtime travel and background.
Elder Thing CR5 The basic Elder Thing, like a first level PC.
Elder Thing on Pathefinderwiki
see also Strange Aeons AP where they are in lost Carcosa (Ha$tur). Bloch's Opener of the Way

I understand what you're saying....and I would normally agree with you.

The problem is that it makes limited starflight a worthless ability.

Like it takes so long for a creature to get from one place to another that basically the only reason they show up is completely unrelated to your story. It's pretty much "hey this monster showed up".

And at that point, why even bother including it.

Claxon wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

I don't want a "fix myself. I'm glad PF2 made the game deadlier again. I think a lot of...

It sounds like you find it a feature, and the rest of us find it to be a bug out of line with the rest of the game.

The rest of us in this thread? Yeah, I guess the majority in this thread are of this mindset.

I want a deadlier game all the way up myself. I think PF2 slightly moved the game back to slightly more deadly, but I'd like to be even more so. My entire group likes the game more dangerous with mortality being important.

It's hard to sell a game of dragons and demons and devils and other horrifying looking creatures as scary when you beat them easier than Mario stomps mushrooms or some other video game on easy mode.

I'm not quite sure why so many on this thread want easy mode and even easier mode at the lowest levels. It's pretty strange.

PF2 goes out of their way to make a game that is at least slightly more dangerous which I had heard people asked for as they were tired of PF1/3/0 the easy mode, crush everything game where they removed save or die spells and nearly every harsh ability in the game including making poison and disease almost a non-factor to a slightly more lethal game where poison, disease, traps, and monsters were more dangerous again.

You got Trip H saying he's having an easy time past the early levels where he and his group are sleepwalking through the game with the only dangerous levels being 1-4.

Now folks like yourself seem to want an even easier game at 1-4. I don't want that. It's not fun. Game should have the lethality increased more at the higher levels to mirror 1-4 play. I'd rather have that occur. That would make the game more dangerous and entertaining making the game more consistent, but the other way.

I'm still unhappy so many ask for the removal of save or die spells. That random dangerousness was fun.

The issue isn't necessarily about hard or easy though. The issue is that at level 1/2 if you follow the normal encounter building rules, you get a result that is significantly harder than if you attempt to follow those same rules at higher levels, because of the randomness of dice rolls allowing for 1 shots to happen. THIS IS A PROBLEM.

Liking a more challenging game is fine, there is neither a right or wrong associated with that, just a personal preference.

At higher levels you could consistently run Severe/Extreme encounters and achieve that kind of challenge you're looking for.

The problem is that the rest of are pointing out that those trying to build moderate or even low threat encounters at level 1 & 2 are still finding them very deadly when the players have a string of bad rolls and the enemy a string of good rolls, to the point where a single lucky crit from the enemy can knock a player down to like dying 2. And that pretty much can't happen anywhere else in the game. And it's a bad design.

If you want a hard encounter, run Severe and Moderate. It doesn't mean that at level 1 and 2 the encounter building portion of the game is broken because the enemies at those levels, relative to player values of AC and HP, are too strong and results in a kind of game play very different from what happens from levels 5-20.

So flatly, your desire for a challenging game doesn't matter (no offense) and you're ignoring the issue the rest of us are pointing. The game already handles your desire that by changing encounter type you're building for. We're talking about the inconsistency of the encounter building chart at low levels compared to higher levels.

I don't want a "fix myself. I'm glad PF2 made the game deadlier again. I think a lot of...

It sounds like you find it a feature, and the rest of us find it to be a bug out of line with the rest of the game.

A common level 20 bard spell grants Pied Piping, an AoE focus spell that inflicts controlled on a failure. Wait, actually it inflicts the minion trait. It might not be using the word controlled to refer to the condition.

I don't think controlled and minion trait are mutually exclusive to each another, but the minion trait would essentially lock down further what it takes to control the creature.

Another great point, dominate from a lower level character will never be as threatening because you don't have the risk of "permanently" losing control of your character, and would get a save every round.

Honestly when evaluate how powerful a spell is, I don't really care what the critical fail effect is, because they're very rare and I feel like the effects need to be profound to make up for the tame effect of most spells on a successful or failed save.

Sorry, to be more clear I'm expecting that the elder thing gets into space, starts flying (and due to no friction and the demands of plot) it spends a few years flying as fast as it can before it actually starts hibernating, gaining speed the whole time beyond what its normally reflected speed would be.

I don't think there's a clear right or wrong on that, it's just how I would run it as a GM to avoid the 120,000 year flying time that would be required.

It really just depends on how and where you want to apply "realism".

Somehow the elder thing can fly in space using wings (that doesn't work based on science, so it must be "magic"). But the descriptions says it doesn't work to reach "unusually high speeds". We don't know what that means. It could mean speeds exceeding the speed of light. The Starlight ability (not limited) says it takes 3d20 days for trips outside of a solar system, which would definitely require speed above light speed. For example, the nearest solar system to earth is over 4 light years away, so reaching there in 3d20 days would mean traveling several times the speed of light. (Max 60 days of travel vs 4 years).

Now, I did end up searching on AoN which has an entry for Elder Things in PF2, and they did clarify that it travels at it's normal fly speed.....which would be absolutely worthless and I suggest ignoring the statement.

Because if it's got to hibernate for 120,000 years....it's an irrelevant thing. I would suggest allowing it to accelerate to near the speed of light with Limited Starflight, and those with true Starflight exceeding the speed of light.

@Belafon, I probably would have assumed a buildup of velocity, but honestly it doesn't matter except as a plot device and how you want to justify things.

Whether the elder thing take 1 year, 10 year, 100 years, 1000 years, 10,000 years, etc....it's all pretty irrelevant except for how you want to craft your story.

Claxon wrote:

And I suppose I understand from a player perspective that you would much prefer to get a save on every attack you're forced to make against your allies, but I honestly can't abide that interpretation.

Woah, I wasn't suggesting that a crit fail allows more saves. The crit fail locks the repeat saves behind an additional Boolean condition. The save still happens at the end of each of your turns. It's just that you also need to have received a new order, or else you get no save.

Sorry, I thought that the natural consequence of "every action is an order and every new order can get a save (if it's against nature".

I still don't agree that every action is an order, but if a table decided that it was but that still only prompted 1 save at the end of a turn, I could probably live with that.

Yes dominate is powerful.

Petrify (also a 6th level spell) can leave someone permanently petrified with a crit fail followed by a fail.

Petrify is worse for the individual, while dominate is worse for the party (because of the action economy change).

But dominate is also uncommon. I don't know if there's anything that specifically gives access to it as a player option, but a GM could easily and simply say "I'm not going to give access to this spell, and I'm not going to use it against players". Uncommon/rare isn't supposed to mean increased power....but it some cases it does.

Some controlling effects apply the minion trait to the target, while others state that they rely on orders. Here are some examples.

Claim Undead: almost identical to Dominate, but with more harmful conditions and it only works on undead

Specter's Spectral Corruption: "The creature is controlled by the specter, obeying the specter's telepathic or spoken orders, though a spectral thrall does not obey obviously self-destructive orders."

Those are the only examples I was able to find. Spectral Corruption at least makes it clear that the control requires the specter to actually communicate with the target.

But Dominate doesn't give us much guidance on how the control works. There's no auditory or linguistic traits, so it's possible the orders are being broadcast directly into the target's mind, as though the target were an extension of the caster's body.

Then again, the controlled condition says the controller "dictates" how the target uses their actions. That's just a synonym for "order." Perhaps the spell doesn't need to say you control the target by ordering them since the condition already says that.

Actually, I'm an idiot. The spell outright describes "killing its allies" as a possible order, so it only makes sense that a general order could be used to direct multiple actions.

I guess the fact that there is one repeat save even for a crit fail does give at least some reason to pick other incap spells of the same rank. I was just worried that wasn't enough. But in my search for controlling effects, I actually found a lot of things that remove controlled, provide a bonus against it, or are just flat out immune, so maybe it's not as big a deal as I thought.

I think we have to assume, because of the lack of auditory or linguistic traits that is effectively telepathic commands to the target that require 0 action.

Regarding additional saves...on a failed save you get a save at each turn.

So the part about on orders being relevant is only on a critical fail. And I suppose I understand from a player perspective that you would much prefer to get a save on every attack you're forced to make against your allies, but I honestly can't abide that interpretation.

Because on a failed save you wouldn't get that many additional saves.

I think Best case scenario (for players) on a critically failed save is that I would rule as a GM if you were forced to do something against your nature, you would get an additional save at the end of your turn.

I definitely would not give you a save "for each order with the interpretation that an order is each individual action". That's honestly worse than what happens on a failed save, and it shouldn't be.

Which really is how I conclude that individual actions aren't orders (unless "worded" that way). You could absolutely say "Kill your former allies" and that is an single order and you only get one save for it.

I guess my confusion is that there isn't much of a difference between the caster has to issue an order for each action, and the caster can issue a general order that will be followed until overridden, unless the caster is knocked out/unable to issue orders.

Because the controlled condition states that generally their is no action cost for the caster to issue orders.

So it only makes a difference if you knock out the caster, then the dominated person might stop acting, depending on your interpretation.

*Also I've ignored any orders that would be considered self destructive or against the creature's nature.

Do you agree?

The main usage would be if you want to pretend to be someone else and control them and experience whatever they're doing.

It's a pretty niche use I admit, but it has a use.

In combat? Dominate is better.

In many out of combat scenarios Dominate will be better.

However, as a GM I would still bring in the old bit of rules that noticing someone is under a dominate spell is a (relatively easy) check that can be made, making it unsuitable for subterfuge.

Unfortunately, the rules for dominate or controlled ignore the topic of how obvious or not the control is.

And I still maintain that if you can't or won't play with Pointed Question as it is intended, then be up front about that and ban it or the entire Investigator class from the table. Don't string along the player and let them think that the ability is ever going to be useful and then give the result of Failure (give no information) every time the dice hit the table.

I agree with you that I would definitely have a conversation with anyone interested in playing Investigator, I even stated that in my 3rd post in this thread.

I'm not a fan of banning classes, but NorrKnekten's previous post about "That's Odd" is another item that I take umbrage with, and it's making me reconsider my thoughts on banning.

As an in combat class it's arguably undertuned.

But it's narrative powers in terms of what I want to give the party as a GM really annoy me, at least the Empiricism and Interrogation methodologies.

I really hate these abilities that manipulate what the GM can and can't do, or rather has to do.

As a GM, I hate all of that

You're right that a refusal is covered by the ability, but tell me what the difference between: "I'll never tell you" and telling an obvious lie is for the party?

Nothing. Both are worthless. It's part of why I absolutely hate how this ability is written, it hamstrings GMs in some ways, but ultimately is irrelevant because it doesn't actually guarantee to get you anything.

The only exception is if you can come up with a question that is a yes or no only answer is important. But in an investigation that's not normally how things are going to go. By the time you can ask a yes or no question, you generally have a pretty good idea of what happened and why.

Where pointed question would actually be useful is in a "courtroom" when you already know what happened and you're questioning a witness or someone involved with the case to confirm facts you already know.

Claxon wrote:

I guess we have a difference of opinion then, as to what constitutes a direct answer.

Which goes back to the exact issue I was trying to highlight.

As a GM, I'd rather not ban a class, but I'll make a note in the future to let any potentially player know that how I interpret the ability.

Regardless we at least agree saying "I don't know" is a direct answer (and it doesn't matter whether that is truthful or not).

And thus arises the problem with this ability beyond simply making GM's life difficult, is that a character can say I don't know (whether true or false) and satisfy the abilities requirement, but that will get boring and annoying to say as a GM.

Now, as a GM I wouldn't do it all the time, be there are definitely situations where I don't want to give away information that easily. But if you limit the GM's ability to respond by only saying "I don't know" to satisfy the ability, I think it's harmful to the story and game.

And I think that any NPC that is hostile to the PCs is absolutely going to be as evasive as they can. Ultimately, I think it's a bad ability to have written.

Thats the whole crux of a pointed question and the design intent behind the investigator, Especially one specializing in interrogation, Any reasonable answer to a pointed question is going to yield information if formulated well enough. Its a means to fish for more information just a simple query.

You arent wrong that it is a badly written ability but its not because it allows players to gain a massive wealth of information,The answer can be as long or short as you want as long as it is touching the subject of the question.

They can still be evasive trough lies and deception, If the party is looking for a name of an accomplice the target can give the wrong name, And the investigator has no way of figuring out the actual name. Even if they figure out that it was a lie outside of effects that force the truth out of them.

All of that is even more reason why this is a bad ability (that I didn't mention previously but thought about).

Because the best case scenario (with a hostile NPC) is that the player asks a questions and the NPC lies to them and the players know they lied.

"Where is the culprit?" "On vacation in Hell"
"Who did this?" "Your mom"
Etc

Those are valid direct responses, which are lies, but give the players basically nothing.

I guess we have a difference of opinion then, as to what constitutes a direct answer.

Which goes back to the exact issue I was trying to highlight.

As a GM, I'd rather not ban a class, but I'll make a note in the future to let any potentially player know that how I interpret the ability.

Regardless we at least agree saying "I don't know" is a direct answer (and it doesn't matter whether that is truthful or not).

And thus arises the problem with this ability beyond simply making GM's life difficult, is that a character can say I don't know (whether true or false) and satisfy the abilities requirement, but that will get boring and annoying to say as a GM.

Now, as a GM I wouldn't do it all the time, be there are definitely situations where I don't want to give away information that easily. But if you limit the GM's ability to respond by only saying "I don't know" to satisfy the ability, I think it's harmful to the story and game.

And I think that any NPC that is hostile to the PCs is absolutely going to be as evasive as they can. Ultimately, I think it's a bad ability to have written.

Also responding "I'll never tell you!" or "I don't want to tell you" is also a direct answer which is truthful.

I was under the impression that every action the target is forced to do is an individual order. If someone were able to keep following the same general order for a long period of time, then the crit fail effect of Dominate would seem to make the spell better than Possession (which is one rank higher and available to fewer traditions) in almost every way.

Not that this is a strong argument, but I guess I look back to Dominate Person in PF1, which included verbiage that the afflicted individually continues to carry out commands, but the spell also had a much longer description including how it requires additional actions to change commands, how being dominated was noticeable due to strange behavior, etc.

My personal interpretation of Dominate it PF2 is that you can issue the afflicted an open ended command (defend me) and it will attempt to follow that order for as long as it is afflicted. Alternatively you could get very specific for issue commands, controlling action by action. Since the description of controlled says that it usually takes no action by the caster to control the afflicted, it doesn't make much of distinction except in a case where the controller wouldn't be able to issue new commands (which would pretty much only be in the case of being unconscious).

As far as comparing it to possession....yes possession is generally worse unless you specifically want to use the victim's body for a specific purposes (imitation, or perhaps their immense power). I don't actually think that's a problem, to me they're spells with different purposes.

Here I thought the question was going to be "what does directly answer" mean.

Cause that's a part that trips up both players and GMs.

As a GM, it is completely valid for a character to say "I don't know" regardless of whether or not it is a lie as that is a direct answer whereas something like "Screw you!" is not.

I bring this up simply because some players like to imagine this ability as absolutely providing the answer to whatever question they'd like to ask when GMs would prefer to feed information in drips and drabs as a sort of investigation.

I think it depends on how control was established.

The controlled condition is written as though it assumes some sort of mental control that is as effortless as thinking and doesn't even require speaking to command the enemy.

Generally speaking, I think effectively Charlie has control over Alice indirectly, at least if he's aware that Bob has control of Alice....if he's not aware I could see Alice continuing to act on whatever her last orders were.

Ah oh I meant the 1 per int was an additional tactical skill feat, it wouldnt take your normal skill feats to select one.

Probably though the deciding factor of whether or not this is even a good idea is in how the tactical feats are actually designed.

Yeah, it would be completely dependent on the feats available and what they did. But the idea that you could get a free feat that "levels up" with you (meaning the effect grows as your character levels) and that the number of them you can have is dependent on Int isn't a bad idea. But a lot of variability depending on how you craft the feats.

If the effect of the feat you received was only ever good for an effect on par with a level 1 to 4 feat, I would say that would still never get me to invest in int.

Alternative idea, maybe (and this might be too good) it can give you additional skill (that scale up) and additional skill feats. Actually even just additional skills that scale up would at least make me consider increasing my int. But only getting an additional trained skill just isn't worth it (to me).

Claxon wrote:

Some year on, coming back to this idea and I actually think the alternative scores are worse balanced than the original.

I kind of agree. By which I mean I agree with the conclusion that the rule wasn't worth using because it doesn't reduce overall number of problems with ability score appeal to different characters, it just changes what they are - even though I disagree with some of the exact problems you state.

I think the only thing that would actually improve ability scores without introducing a new problem is to revise the set and not be beholden to their being 6 of them.

Like, just to give a knowingly poor example, leaving Dexterity a singular score as it is in the default rules but then altering the other scores as stated in this variant to produce 5 scores that each have enough important to most characters to at least consider not leaving one at a 10 (or 8) rather than having each character have a score or two that are foregone conclusions "safe to ignore".

I agree with your conclusion, and I don't think you really disagree with mine very much.

The big problem with the rules as they exist are that unless your class requires intelligence or charisma, you can pretty safely ignore them (you'll also be bad at those associated skills).

Which to me just means that you should really have 4 ability scores, and my initial thought was oh, just roll all the mental ability scores into 1. But that feels awkward to have 3 physical and one mental, and then I said, well combine physical. And was debating on what it should look like, but have phyiscal and mental offense and defense seems like it might be the best way.

You're both right.

If you look at early APs and the encounter building rules, you wouldn't conclude that you should run it as I suggest. But from running the PF2 playtest back in the day, my group quickly learned and internalized that "hey, this isn't working" and tweaked it ourselves.

But it is something that isn't established anywhere but from experience or being told by someone experienced.

I just figured at level 1 it was understood a level 1 party should mostly be facing level -1, or level 0 creatures, maybe with a level 1 boss (because damage to HP ratio be swingy).

For giving something more to int what if a number of "tactical skill feats" were introduced that represented using Int with a skill to take advantage of terrain or surroundings or leverage something to gain a circumstance bonus to something and you could only pick 1 per int bonus?

introduce a level 1 feat and an advanced feat for each skill?
any character with an int bonus would have a choice of these and advanced ones might have a prereq of a certain level and the first one in the line for that skill.

I'm not a fan, only because you're having to spend other limited resources to get the benefit out of intelligence.

I'd really prefer int give you something on its own.

An idea that's floated around before is letting someone choose between int, wisdom, and charisma for will saves.

Ignoring class specific abilities or desires/preference for specific skills, the mental abilities only increase perception and will saves both of which by are assigned to Wisdom in the default system.

Allowing someone to choose out of the mental scores which to use for will saves could help. It might mean you have a character with relatively poorer perception, but I think that might be acceptable to many people.

Ultimately I think a better but very different type of system might be to only have 3 or maybe 4 "ability" score.

Physical offense, physical defense, and mental for 3 ability version. Or the same but splitting mental into offense and defense for 4 ability.

With physical offense doing all ranged and melee attack rolls and damage rolls. Phy Defense doing all AC and HP, fort saves, and reflex saves. I think you can see where I'm going with this, but it's a complete overhaul of the base system and not something you could just bolt on.

Some year on, coming back to this idea and I actually think the alternative scores are worse balanced than the original.

Strength becomes essential as it absorbs constitution, giving it fort saves and hp.

Dexterity mainly about ranged attacks and fineese attacks (although it does allow fineese user to ignore strength for damage, but they still need strength for HP and fort saves, in the way they used to need con)

Agility controls AC and reflex saves, so is needed by everyone.

Charisma gets will saves, whereas before it wasn't essential now it is.

Wisdom keeps perception checks...it sucks to have low perception checks, but splitting off will saves now means I actually have 2 semi essential abilities instead of one.

Intelligence continues to get shafted, it has always been the worst ability score (IMO) in PF2, and really would be nice if it added more skills (including scaling beyond trained). The fact that it adds skills, but trained only makes it disappointing.

Overall strength, agility, charisma, and wisdom all become essential, where before it was only dexterity, constitution, and wisdom were essential.

Making it much harder for any class that didn't rely on those essential abilities.

A melee focused character would invest in strength, agility, charisma and wisdom. They honestly come out ahead I think under this system, except when they need to switch to ranged combat.

I think classes that require Int or Wisdom are worse off.

Charisma based classes are slightly better off.

I mean, if the hydra gets up and "accidentally" starts running away (regardless of how you rule consciousness it wouldn't have any sense of sight, hearing, smell, or taste to rely on and could only move in a "random" direction) that could be inconvenient.

And that movement is more inconvenient to some characters than others.

Of course, that issue basically exist for every creature the party encounters, so while it's an issue it's a pre-existing issue, and one that remains basically the same with or without heads.

My goal wasn't to facilitate a headless hydra running around. While the imagery is funny...I don't think that's how it would play out.

You could rule that the headless hydra became mindless.

Claxon wrote:

There's also the interesting question of, if a hydra's head is cut off, and the rest of the body is destroyed via something like disintegrate (which would turn the body to dust) does the head start to regenerate the rest of the body? Does the pile of dust start reknitting into a headless body?

Interestingly, Disintegrate doesn't have Death trait (though it's logical as it should work on undead too). But still I'd rule the same: dust is dust, no regeneration.

And yes, death trait also beats regeneration. So simple Vampiric Feast is enough to stop worrying about all this hassle with heads and cauterization. Death magic for the win!

Disintegrate is interesting because it doesn't have the death trait, that's specifically why I chose it.

I wouldn't say it's invalid for a GM to say it outright kills if reduced to 0 hp, but as it doesn't have the Death trait there's an argument that it doesn't stop regeneration. That's why it was interesting to me.

I agree the Death trait beats regeneration, but that's also why with Disintegrates lack of death trait there is room for argument.

Claxon wrote:

I would say consciousness is questionable. It's "conscious" in the same way a headless chicken is conscious, which as far as we've been able to deduce with modern science is more just nerves firing randomly (and in some cases bits of brain that weren't actually removed with the head). I would say that a hydra with no heads probably shouldn't count as conscious.

I have been proven wrong here, and I like it! You're right! Random nerves firing isn't the same thing as consciousness. Headless hydra with stumps that are not cauterized is not conscious, but it's not dead, and I'm still crossing my fingers for it lol

I wouldn't say you're wrong, it depends on how we want to define conscious, and also how we want to define it within the game, cause those aren't necessarily the same thing.

But my gut reaction is to say a headless hydra is unconscious, unless a situation arises where that result doesn't make sense.

There's also the interesting question of, if a hydra's head is cut off, and the rest of the body is destroyed via something like disintegrate (which would turn the body to dust) does the head start to regenerate the rest of the body? Does the pile of dust start reknitting into a headless body?

If a creature with regeneration doesn't die is the brain in the cut off heads functioning, but unconscious?

Does the regenerated head of a hydra have the same memories and personality as an previous head?

Lots of interesting questions we could start asking

Yeah, it's important to know that outside of combat, you don't want to use spells (not counting focus spells) for healing.

The medicine skill is much better at it with a few skill feats. And even the main healing focus spell Lay on Hands (at least that's what I think of) isn't as good at out of combat healing as someone with Medicine skill, Battle Medicine, Continual Recovery, and Ward Medic is probably the most proficient "healer" in your group. Add in Godless Healing or Medic dedication to make battle medicine usable once an hour and at that point magical healing is only for emergencies.

Here's more food for thought.

The wizard is grabbed by a hungry Cave Worm and tries twice to Escape. He crit fails the second time so he can't try again. For his third action, he attempts to Reposition the adjacent fighter.

As a GM, just nah. I'd say that rule doesn't kick in, it's super gamist and I'm just not going to let that work at all.

In my opinion this is a corner case the rules weren't written to account for, and this is where a GM needs to step in.

Claxon wrote:

I would say consciousness is questionable. It's "conscious" in the same way a headless chicken is conscious, which as far as we've been able to deduce with modern science is more just nerves firing randomly (and in some cases bits of brain that weren't actually removed with the head). I would say that a hydra with no heads probably shouldn't count as conscious.

Does it mean it has mental immunity when headless?

Honestly I don't know what I'd rule for sure. I'm not going to worry about it until it actually comes up.

But likely, yes I would rule you can't affect it with things that require a functioning mind/consciousness until one of the heads grows back.

I agree with the above poster you should basically treat it as a limited form of Air Walk spell.

How does it differ (IMO) it only functions while you are striding, meaning you fall at the end of your turn. However, it doesn't have a set duration and you can do it each turn as often as you want.

All of which is to say, you can ascend or descend at a 45° angle, and I think going up would count as difficult terrain.

The heal spell is actually good at healing now in PF2, and it replaced cure light wounds form previous editions and the Heal spell of old.

Keep in mind costing 2 actions is kind of steep, when you only have 3 actions per turn. And it's also one time healing (per spell slot). And if you're not using on level spell slots the effective relevance decreases (ratio of relative amount healed to total HP).

So yeah, it should be good.

Also remember, someone trained in Medicine can use Battle Medicine to restore HP as 1 action activity that restores 2d8 hp (trained) up to 4d8+50 depending on your proficiency level and the DC you target. Now this is touch range, so you would generally need to move next to your ally so you'll likely spend 2 actions.

Anyways, overall point here is that healing is actually good in this edition, and while it (IMO) still shouldn't be the main focus of a character it is absolutely competitive in terms of outcomes compared to dealing damage or inflicting conditions on the enemy, as it should be, to actually make people want to do it in combat.

Another point of comparison, being able to heal 1d8+8 (average 12.5 hp) for a spell slot isn't actually that good, when you consider that it's basically the amount of damage an enemy could inflict in 1 to 2 hits.

Basically if an enemy is focusing on your friend, healing them is basically just a stalemate situation, but you'll run out of spell slots before the enemy will stop swinging (unless someone else gets involved and takes out the enemy).

NorrKnekten wrote:

Can it attack? Well.. presumably not since it doesn't have fangs.

Can it see? well... it has no eyes..
Can it smell or hear? again.. no heads.
Is it even concious? Again, this isnt answered.

I'd say the sole goal of a headless hydra where none of the stumps are cauterized is to try to grow heads, and it can't do anything else really until it does that. It can move (though it would be random), and roll to check Fortitude, and that's it. It cannot attack, since as you said it doesn't have fangs due to lack of heads. It cannot see, smell, or hear, also due to lack of heads. It's conscious since they can't die unless expressly killed as written, but it's not doing a great job of that (consciousness).

I would say consciousness is questionable. It's "conscious" in the same way a headless chicken is conscious, which as far as we've been able to deduce with modern science is more just nerves firing randomly (and in some cases bits of brain that weren't actually removed with the head). I would say that a hydra with no heads probably shouldn't count as conscious.

You now need an Athletics check to Grab.

Really? I was just looking at the ability on AoN and the description didn't mention it, but maybe it was an older version of the ability.

When would a monster ever use its own Fortitude DC to immobilize a target?

I think grab is an appropriate time. The monster didn't make an athletics check to cause the immobilized condition, it was the result of the strike possessing grab.