John John's page

Hello, I am considering picking a good antigrapple feat for a pc that has full bab.
What would the forums suggest?
I am basically looking for sth like close quarters fighting of 3.5 https://dndtools.net/feats/complete-warrior--61/close-quarters-fighting--36 5/
Does sth similar exist in pathfinder?

Or punishes those who don't play "well". It rewards and thus encourages a more loot focused style, which I'm not really interested in. I'd rather have players focused on beating the bad guys than on scavenging every last bit of loot.

Sure it depends on your playstyle both are viable IMO.

That definition of "well" also relies heavily on what the GM plants for them, so it's not all on the players: how much of the treasure is hidden and how well, how much happens to be things the players want to keep and use rather than sell, etc.

Well how much treasure could be stadarized and on some level is.

Also think that even if I was commited 100% to the way of playing I am suggesting, I would still adjust treasure depending to my party/setting/story a bit.
Simirarly anyone who is comfortable with adjusting the treasure would take issue if his players constantly bought and used consumables and spells with expensive components.
Ofcourse you can prioritize which of the two playstyles you prefer.

I see thanks, I was thinking wbl*1,5 should be about enough, but maybe *2 is closer to the target.

I think there is an arguement for not adjusting it.

It rewards parties that play "well". "Well" as in were able to find all the treasure and played in a way as to not lose too much on components.
Regarding the problem of having too much or too few gold, my personal solution is for parties that have too much I offer ways to exchange gold for xp and for parties that have too low I offer ways to exchange xp for gold.
Examples:
Outsiders in the service of Iomedae offer to train the players, but in exchange they must build her a temple.
A mysterious stranger can help you sacrifice some of your power(xp) to imbue your magic items.

What do you think? Do we have enough dragons in the game?

** spoiler omitted **...

Woa no need to include all age categories. Though I guess you could have include the whole dragon type entires.

Regarding ruling golarion aren't many of them in other planes and planents at least the escoteric and outer varieties? While the imperial ones are in golarion japan/china.

I like having some consistent rules about awarding treasure. Then I can deviate from them as much as me and the players want.

I also understand HOW treasure can be awarded, but my question pertains to how much and what kind is awarded. I understand that in an adventure the boss will have most of it and stuff like vermin and oozes will have very little if any of it.

Again my question is considering treasure is half sellable stuff at 100% and half sellable stuff at 50%, consumables, spell components and as Elterago and Meiril mentioned player wont always find all the treasure, how much more treasure than the wealth by level should you "drop" in a level?

Beyond adventure paths, how do you treat loot in normal games?
I want to award enough valuables, magic items and consumable so that my players have a chance to reach the WBL they are supposed to be in. I don't mind with them ending up with more or less than that though.

The encounter treasure awards average at around 30% increase from the wealth by level table or alternately the wealth by level table is about 25% decrease from the total treasure who have gained in gp. I have to say I am not a sure about these numbers so please correct me if I am wrong

However I find an only 25% decrease from the treasure you have found is a bit too low or better put too optimistic. See even if half your treasure is sellable stuff at full price and half of it is random magic items sellable at half price, you will want to sell most of them to have the items you want. At that point you end up with (50%+25%) the 75% of the found loot in wealth by level.
Two factors though complicate this.
1) You may keep some of the loot you find because it fits and so go a bit above wealth by level
2) Any consumables you use and any components for spell you use (like raise dead) will take you below wealth by level.
I think the second factor is much more stronger than the first one, so you end up with a lower wealth by level, unless you award more treasure sellable at full price and less magic items.

Has anyone calculated the treasure awards from a pathfinder adventure path? Has anyone who run the adventure path as is and found that it doesn't have enough treasure?

Thanks for the replies guys, I think you have cleared up the upgrading issue as much as you possibly could.

I 'll see now how to deal with it in my own campaigns!

Yes obviously time and money are the main factors, but if you have a system that limits purchasing items, which the settlement rules do, then what do you do about upgrading items?

Belafon said that the maximum spell level available, points to the max caster level spellcasters are capable of upgrading to in that city, after searching this it turns out its propably wrong, you can easily craft something of higher caster level if your skill check is good enough. So I think this confused me on the whole upgrading items thing.

But as has also been mentioned there isn't anything that points to what kind of casters are available for upgrading magic items (apart from available spell levels), I mean its pretty clear what you can and can't buy, but not what you can pay and wait to have upgraded. There are no guidlines for it, is what I am saying.

So how would you handle someone wanting to upgrade his item?
If item caster level doesn't matter anyone can upgrade anything to any level provided he knows the right spell(s)?

John John wrote:

I guess crafting a custom item is either automatic if its within the base value of the settlements or yeah if its higher than that it gets iffy, mainly because there is no essential difference between crafting and upgrading, why can you upgrade to sth but can't really find it for buying? I guess the main difference here is waiting for the upgrade to happen. Also as you note it then becomes a dm sensibility thing of wether the wizard has the specific spells you want or not.

Its not I feel that big of an issue though.

Honestly allowing players to create custom magic items for the same cost as standard items is not a good idea. Worst example is Invisibility. By the straight rules a Ring of Invisibility comes out to 12,000 gp. Of course its quite a bit more valuable to have unlimited invisibility on demand so the price got pumped to 20k. There are lots of similar spells that are problematic if you have easy access to them.

As a rule of thumb I think using the Spell Research rules for players creating magic items is reasonable. It adds to the cost, but they can continue to produce it if they want to afterwards for a 'standard' cost. It also potentially gives you more time to think about how to adjust the finished item to not wreck your game.

Yes but that's another issue entirely. Here "custom item" is basically any item that's not available for sale and you want to create from zero.

Spell research rules? I haven't paid any attention to those, I ;ll check them out.

There are guidelines for both available magic items and available spellcasters based on settlement size in the GameMastery guide, as mentioned above.

Thanks for the link! So its basically as the one in the core rulebook+max spell level available.

For example, an otherwise unremarkable small town following these guidelines would have a 75% chance of a given item being available if said item's value is 1,000 gp or less. Some 3d4 specific minor items and 1d6 specific medium items above 1,000 gp would also be available in the same town if the PCs spend some time spent browsing. Finally, spellcasting services up to 4th level would be available for purchase.

Modifiers can raise or lower magic item and/or spellcasting availability as well. A prosperous small town will have more stuff available; a superstitious small town will have much lower spellcasting services; and so on.

I was going to say that I knew about the rules, but I had no idea about

I actually just found that in Planar adventures there is a planar hubs part that pretty much could cover for 100% of what a very high level adventurer wants. So that make sense, though its funny we had to wait for so long to get purchase limits for a planar metropolis.

As far as I know, the link above pretty much does it as far as shopping guidelines are concerned. If you're looking to hire a spellcaster to craft a custom item for you, there's no specific guideline for that, but you could cobble something together starting with the item's price and optionally adding in something to represent the time spent--likely somewhere above 3 gp/day and below 30 gp/day, based on the cost of other skilled laborers. You are also likely to be limited to items that can be crafted by spellcasters able to cast spells of the given level without too much trouble--even a dedicated crafter can only skip so many prerequisites, for example, and most NPC hires aren't as ptimized as a PC built for the same task.

I guess crafting a custom item is either automatic if its within the base value of the settlements or yeah if its higher than that it gets iffy, mainly because there is no essential difference between crafting and upgrading, why can you upgrade to sth but can't really find it for buying? I guess the main difference here is waiting for the upgrade to happen. Also as you note it then becomes a dm sensibility thing of wether the wizard has the specific spells you want or not.

I don't feel its that big of an issue though.

Hopefully that provides a starting point! Does this help, or are you looking for something specific not covered by these guidelines?

No I think you pretty much helped to cover everything I wanted. Many thanks !

Ah, so you're mainly interested in "what are the limits on paying someone to upgrade my items for me?"

Basically yes that's what I was asking. (And if there were any other rules for buying magic items apart from the Core.)

There aren't any guidelines for this. I'd use the spellcasting available for hire in a settlement to determine what upgrades can be done. With appropriate modifiers for qualities like magically attuned or superstitious. If a settlement has a spellcasting level of 7, they can upgrade to anything requiring a CL of 13 or less and that doesn't have an 8th or 9th level spell as a prereq.

That's a neat idea and it makes sense. I guess then the only issue is that even in a metropolis the maximum upgrade will be of 15th level. So items like belt of physical perfection will never be easily upgradable, which I don't especially mind actually.

If you're asking about costs, it's the difference between the old and new items. So upgrading from a +1 greatsword to a +2 greatsword is going to cost 6000 gp (3000 gp in materials and 3000 in labor). That's not explicitly spelled out but it's the only answer that makes sense. A craftsman isn't going to agree to upgrade your sword at a reduced price if he could just make a new one and sell it for more profit.

Oh yeah I know how that goes.

I actually I am asking because I was used from 3.5 to allowing players to buy whatever they wanted. I was thinking of using pathfinder purchase system if there was any and simply wondered if there was any version apart the one in the Core (turns out there is one in the game mastery guide).

In any case thanks for the help Belafon

Magic item purchasing is subject to in-world availability, and that is strictly situational--there's no rule guaranteeing that an item is available in a given campaign.

There are guidelines for settlements that GMs can use to adjudicate whether a specific item is available in, say, a metropolis versus a small village. But that's no guarantee either--those guidelines are for streamlining purposes, and a GM may instead plot out item availability manually or use a different system entirely.

Yeah I was asking wether there are specific rules about purchasing magic items, beyond those in the Core rulebook.

As for upgrading, the CRB has guidelines for adding additional powers to existing magical items, both via crafting. The only limits on such crafting are time, funds, and the inherent limits of magic items themselves (e.g., you can't upgrade to a +12 dagger because +12 daggers can't be created using the magic item creation rules).

Yes but the issue as I mentioned in the post above is that there is no guideline for spellcasters (and their crafting abilities) available to upgrade your items.

Are you asking “how far can you upgrade your items?” The answer is “as far as your caster level, skill, and wealth allow.”

Well I generally agree, though I would add its only "your" but also any other spellcasters in town. There seem to be no guidelines for that. So that's why I am asking if I have missed any.

“What’s the most expensive item you can purchase?” - Depends on the size and qualities of the settlement you are in. Check out the Game Mastery Guide for rules on magic item availability.

Actually doesn't the Core have the same rules? In any case thanks because I had forgotten that the Game Mastery Guide could have info on this issue.

Of course your GM can restrict this, and PFS has its own rules (no crafting, Prestige limits on item values restrict you from pouring all your wealth into one item, but overall availability is high).

Yeah I find the rules in PFS the most detailed and complete. But unless you mess up your mission many many times you will have access to basically anything you want.

Both. Though I think am familiar with pfs rules unless they have changed in the last couple of years.

What is the latest iteration of the official rules about purchacing and upgrading magic items?

I know about page 460 in the core rule book and the rules using prestige points in pathfinder society.

Technically there are no limits I think to upgrading magic items in the core rulesbook, though I guess a dm could enforce the purchacing magic items limits on upgrades.

Are there rules about this anywhere else?

Inquisitive Tiefling wrote:

Vlorax wrote:

Colette Brunel wrote:

I am thinking that Constitution is actually tertiary for many characters. It grants nowhere near as much durability as in 1e, and characters may as well prioritize Dexterity for AC and TAC. Even if Dexterity is no longer the go-to initiative score (most of the time, anyway), that still gives a better deal on survivability than Constitution.

Even fighters look to prefer medium armor over the crippling penalties of heavy armor. Their heavy armor class features do not change this.

Did I miss some extra benefit of Constitution?

I've been thinking this as well, with flat health per lvl Con seems like it may not end up being all that essential for many character playstyles

Con still adds to your health, keep in mind. It goes like this:

1st level: Racial HP + Con modifier
2nd level and on: Class HP + Con modifier

So Con still helps to determine HP, just as it did in PF1e.

Yes but the danger of rolling low multiple levels in a row and having crap HP without a decent CON mod isn't there anymore.

Its not the rolling low its the average of the roll. A fighter got an average of 5,5 hp now he gets 10 per level. So a con of 20 was almost a 50% increase in his hp now is only a 25% in his hp.

So yes consitution isn't as important.

Ah that will teach me for not reading more carefully, though to my defense what confused me is grim reaper has a "level" of 21 in PF2, in PF1 its 22 CR. I missed he was talking about both editions being capped at level 20.

Arachnofiend is talking about 2nd edition

So as far as I understand if you save against quivering palm you can still be killed after 24 hours?

Is it a balance reason that a word must be spoken to kill the subject?

I assume monks can't get dex to damage then?

Not that it hugely matters the way abilities increase now scores can end up being much closer to each other.

The size of the fighter's numbers was never the problem,

Nitpicking a bit here, but in 3.5 the fighters numbers were a bit to low mainly due not being able to deal with many damage reduction at high level, but also because he generally was a bit lackluster. To add insult to injury the cleric could reach his damage numbers (without using spaltbooks). All of these problems were mostly fixed in pathfinder.

I like what I am seeing, the 3-1 rounds thing, the temporary hp bonus to damage, the anathema and the damage resistance con bonus.

However I am afraid the 3 rounds thing infinite times per day has a problem. Either you can use only in combat because reasons so it becomes a disascosiated mechanic or you can get its benefits outside of combat, so now you can buffer with temporary hp environmental hazards. Its not a major problem, but it still irks me a bit.

John John wrote:

Really, I am not a fan of Indiana Jones, so I have no idea about where this happens. I would never imagine indiana Jones making a straight fall 1000 feet on solid concrete and taking no damage.

He doesn't do that, but this isn't actually a hell of a lot more plausible (and he manages to bring people with him to boot).

How you justify something like Catfall in-story is a matter of personal preference. Indiana Jones justifies it with luck. Increasingly unlikely coincidences just save him. That seems a perfectly reasonable way to work that Skill Feat to me.

Of course, as noted, Indiana Jones would probably not actually be Legendary (and could maybe pull those falls off with Catfall and Master...maybe).

Maybe its just my personal preference and the fact I like supernatural pc's but luck doesn't cut it out for me, at least for an ability that's repeatable without any cost.

I am reaching pinnacle thread derailment status but the comments lead me to this (though its once person instead of 3). Also it seems the whole scene with the nuclear explosion is pretty controversial in the Indiana Jones fan community.

It was mostly a joke cause he actually did that thing I mentioned. And uh maybe? depending on the director... I would I actually say John Mcclain (die hard) could do it then go on to kill some thugs barefoot shortly there after.

That's what I assumed to be case, that it actually did happen in some movie. John Mcclain has a good bleed resistance for sure.

To me most these things seem to be the hit points mechanic in action.
With which I have no real problem.

Now if we are talking Hercules or some like really epic mythological hero then yeah probably without being facetious.

I am actually a very big fan of how they are treating legendary levels and one of the main reasons I am ready to give this edition a go is their very existance.

@ John john

What about hiding in a old lead refrigerator and being close to ground zero for a nuclear bomb thus flying and bouncing around tens of thousands of feet?

I assume the shock wave could destroy the refrigator and not bounce it around. Its sounds more like courage and ingenuity allows for lady luck to help you out big time kinda thing, than anything else really (which I like to see in movies and actually has a kind of connection to real life, buts that's not what legendary abilities seem to be about).

Are you saying Indiana Jones could survive lets say 3 repeated 1000 feet free falls on concrete?

Indiana Jones demonstratably has the Catfall Skill Feat and Legendary Acrobatics, to provide a concrete 'down to earth' example.

Really, I am not a fan of Indiana Jones, so I have no idea about where this happens. I would never imagine indiana Jones making a straight fall 1000 feet on solid concrete and taking no damage.

Anyway, here's a chart:

1st: Background granted Skill Feat, Ancestry Feat, Class Feat, starting Skills.
2nd: Skill Feat, Class Feat,
3rd: Skill Rank, General Feat,
4th: Skill Feat, Class Feat,
5th: Skill Rank, Ancestry Feat, Ability Scores Raise
6th: Skill Feat, Class Feat,
7th: Skill Rank, General Feat,
8th: Skill Feat, Class Feat,
9th: Skill Rank, Ancestry Feat,
10th: Skill Feat, Class Feat, Ability Scores Raise
11th: Skill Rank, General Feat,
12th: Skill Feat, Class Feat,
13th: Skill Rank, Ancestry Feat,
14th: Skill Feat, Class Feat,
15th: Skill Rank, General Feat, Ability Scores Raise
16th: Skill Feat, Class Feat,
17th: Skill Rank, Ancestry Feat,
18th: Skill Feat, Class Feat,
19th: Skill Rank, General Feat,
20th: Skill Feat, Class Feat, Ability Scores Raise

That's beautiful.

Now for inevitable discussion of which legendary skills belong to which class.

The problem I have with batman and this short of comic book characters in general is that their powers and abilities aren't really consistent. When being with his JLA friends batman becomes essentially superhuman but when ambushed from some thugs in gotham he actually faces the danger of getting knocked out. Contrary to that dnd pc's are pretty consistent in what they can do.
I believe the new rules do require some short of explanation for pc's higher than 7th level. At the very least you can say their constant struggle against monsters and use of magic equipment is rubbing of on them and pushing the beyond their human limits. For pc's higher than 15 level you can say they are awakened to fundamental and essential nature of reality and conciousness within them which allows them to perform tasks clearly impossible to mortal men. This can be different from your typical arcane magic since its something much more fundamental.

Another option could be to say they only get their level bonuses above 6th level to attack, ac and saves if they have an appropriate armor or weapon. You could say only if the have at least a +4 armor or weapon can they enjoy the full 20th level bonus. Though this makes them more dependant on their equipement, its also essentially makes them awesome human beings that can perform godlike tasks only because of the excellence with which they use their powerful magic items.

Malthraz wrote:

I think the maths does bear it out. A redcap is only +4 level above a party of level 1, yet it has +13 on it's scythe attack. It is going to be critting 25% of the time with it's first attack against AC of 18.

That's 4d10+4 (I think). 2d10 for the scythe, 1d10 for deadly, 1d10 for crit (or 2d10?), is the strength added twice on a crit? So, 4d10+4 or 4d10+8 or 5d10+4 or 5d10+8, help me out. Anyway, adventurers are going to be dying even with 4d10+4 (average 26 damage crits are not nice).

Standard hit is still 2d10+4 for 15. That's still pretty brutal.

With deadly cleave there is going to be another attack when he downs someone, and he will.
Even the boot attack is fairly nasty if it wants to move and attack.

I think +5 to attack looks likely for martial characters at level 1. That means they only hit 25% of the time against AC 20. With 1d12+4 damage per successful attack it is going to be hard to outpace the fast healing 10. Sure they can knock the hat off, but adventurers are going to be dead in this encounter and it is only level +4.

If they have cold iron, and controls spells they might get lucky, but the damage output on this little bastards is really strong vs. level 1 adventurers.

Oh, it's a nightmare for a PC group, I totally agree. But that's not a world building issue. It becomes a world building issue if it's a nightmare for the local militia as well...and it isn't. It's ugly, but the Redcap's gonna die and do so quickly.

With 10 people making full attacks with bows with a +5 (a pretty crappy local militia, actually), you're gonna get a crit and three hits a round or so. Assuming cold iron arrows (not hard to get) that's gonna be 46 damage or so to the Redcap in round 1, followed by death in round 2.

Can the Redcap kill one 1st level foe a round, maybe two if it gets lucky? Absolutely. But the militia is gonna outnumber the Redcap by enough to absorb the losses and still bring it down and, if they have a healer, most of the people brought...

This kind of assumes dex 16 and expert with bows or level 2-3 maybe? Or am I missing sth? Makes me wonder if base stats are higher in pf 2.0 for npc's and even if npc classes exist.

I also think they hit for less than 3 and a critical. 10 normal attacks are sth like 3 hits of which half is a critical. Then the 10
+0 attacks give another half critical or anyway 50% for a crtical hit or no hit. So you are at two normal hits and a critical. And then the last -5 10 attacks give you half a hit with zero chance for a critical. So you end up with 2,5 hits and one critical or 4,5 hits total. Very close to what you said.

What damage do these longbows deal? If they deal 1d8+5(vulnerability) average 8,5. So 8,5*4,5=38,25 damage per round, pretty certain death in two rounds.

I wonder if we had an exploding d20 rule, instead of a automatic hit and critical (if the dc is reached) at 20 rule, the results would have been the same.

Note the redcaps can be frightened by a simple holy symbol so that makes the kill it with arrows scenario easier.

So in the end I like the fact that if the town is prepared it can deal with it just with its militia, but if its not prepared the redcap can deal some pretty horrible damage, but still not even come close to destorying the town.

John John wrote:

Maybe if you have a witch or sth? I haven't experimeted that much with running multiple scenarios for level 1 pc's. I remember a kind of chance encounter with a barghest causing huge problems for 1st level party of 4 and it wasn't like the barghest was especially lucky or that the fighter didn't have magic weapon oil. Even a giant phantom armor could end up being really dangerous at these levels. As for CR 6 I am really having trouble imagining a mudlord losing from a 1st level party.

A barghest is a particularly nasty CR 4 due to Blink and (vs. 1st level PCs) DR. A Grizzly Bear or Slicer Beetle or Harpy or Minotaur or Firbolg (just to pick a few at random) are much smaller issues for a properly optimized 1st level party (though I wouldn't call any of them easy, personally).

CR 6 is a much harder row to hoe, though even there I'll note that a Mudlord's DR makes it a much worse foe for a level 1 party than a Lamia or Cave Giant or something.

I have seen a lot of people investing in magic weapon oils even at level 1 due to allips and stuff. I guess not everyone in the party will necessary have it though. Still I am not sure even if the main damage dealers can penetrate the dr you would have much chance against a mudlord or even a barghest with a party of 4. I mean I could be wrong because there is some weird spell or cheap item in a companion book, but baring sth like that I think its highly unlikely.

In any case my point was that's its generally harder for 1st level party of 4 to deal with cr 4 creature than its for a 19th level party of 4 to deal with a CR 22 creature?

John John wrote:

Malthraz wrote:

It is also partly about the strange coincidence that adventures always seems to be lucky enough to face encounters +/-3 the level. With the +1 scaling, an encounter 3 levels above you now is very dangerous, whereas with less extreme scaling it is not so dangerous.

With reduced scaling there are far more encounters that could be considered challenging. With the standard +1 scaling things have to be far more fine tuned for the party, which I find breaks the suspension of disbelief.

Sorry, I don't want to spam your posts and say the same thing to boot, but isn't this the case with pathfinder 1.0?

Actually I guess it depends on the level as a 1st level party will find a cr 4 encounter super deadly. While a 20th level party will propably find it a 23 cr encounter normal.
However level+4 encounters are theoretically at least deadly since 3rd edition dnd and I am not certain an encounter 3 level higher than you will be deadlier for a party of 4 pcs's in pathfinder 2 than it was in pathfinder 1.

Just had to laugh there for a second. Cr 4 at level 1 is by no means deadly. You can take down Cr 5s and 6s at level 1 if you play right and optimize. Cr 4 is if you don't optimize.

Maybe if you have a witch or sth? I haven't experimeted that much with running multiple scenarios for level 1 pc's. I remember a kind of chance encounter with a barghest causing huge problems for 1st level party of 4 and it wasn't like the barghest was especially lucky or that the fighter didn't have magic weapon oil. Even a giant phantom armor could end up being really dangerous at these levels. As for CR 6 I am really having trouble imagining a mudlord losing from a 1st level party.

It is also partly about the strange coincidence that adventures always seems to be lucky enough to face encounters +/-3 the level. With the +1 scaling, an encounter 3 levels above you now is very dangerous, whereas with less extreme scaling it is not so dangerous.

With reduced scaling there are far more encounters that could be considered challenging. With the standard +1 scaling things have to be far more fine tuned for the party, which I find breaks the suspension of disbelief.

Sorry, I don't want to spam your posts and say the same thing to boot, but isn't this the case with pathfinder 1.0?

Actually I guess it depends on the level as a 1st level party will find a cr 4 encounter super deadly. While a 20th level party will propably find it a 23 cr encounter normal.
However level+4 encounters are theoretically at least deadly since 3rd edition dnd and I am not certain an encounter 3 level higher than you will be deadlier for a party of 4 pcs's in pathfinder 2 than it was in pathfinder 1.

I like the direction of the new system a lot. A lot, a lot. Many issues I have with the old system have been addressed in some fashion. However, the +1 to almost everything each level does give me (and several others) cause for concern.

I deny there is a treadmill. If everything is leveling up at the same rate you are (did anyone played Elder Scrolls IV, disaster!), then you have a poor DM with incredibly poor world and encounter design. The fault does not lie with the system.

My concern is the steep power scaling from the +1 per level. Any monster that is a challenge for a part of level 10 adventures, is going to be brutally dangerous for the general populace. This makes world design more difficult. Now, this scaling is not such a bad thing if you want high powered heroic fantasy where adventures are the populace's only hope, but if you prefer a grittier game then it does not really work.

However the way PFe2 has been designed, such that it is very streamlined, presents and obvious solution. Decrease the speed of scaling. Rather than +1 every level, +1 could happen every two levels. Then the power difference between level 5 creatures and level 10 creatures becomes much closer. Level 10 creatures are still going to be deadly for the general populace, but a militia of low level characters could possibly hold one off, rather than be totally destroyed by them. +1 every second level also means that the other bonuses (stats, equipment, magic) become more significant.

So, I think there is definitely legitimate concerns regarding the scaling, but I also think the system has been designed very well and so presents an elegant solution. Heroic fantasy games should play with the standard scaling, but it is very easy mechanically, to tone it down for grittier fantasy.

This was always a problem for pathfinder, remember pf 2 doesn't have as many numeric stat adders while pathfinder does. I haven't done the math but I don't think normal militia can do much against CR 10 critiers from pathfinder 1.0 either.

I think the solution appeared in one adventure path with devils? They has some short of swarm rules for companies of men.

Another solution that I have never actually tried in pathfinder but worked well in old school dnd, was this. You get +5 to your attack but you halve your damage (rounded down) and for +10 you dealt a quarter of your damage, this helps low level creatures still contribute to combats. I also had a rule for high level creatures usually fighters actually that went like you can take a -10 to your attack to make twice the amount of attacks, -15 for 3 times the attacks and -20 for quadruple attacks (attack roll can't go below +1).
Again I am not sure this can be done in pathfinder.

I didn't mention the obvious that the levels dont add to ability checks. At least I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere that they do.

As in my other thread I am trying to get a better feel on what a +1 per level to basically all rolls boils down with regards to the internal logic of the game world. Again I should mention that obviously pathfinder isn't life simulator and edge cases will always give weird results, but I still think its interesting to think about those things.

So I was thinking a 20th level guy with all abilities at 10 has basically the same stats with a 1st level guy with all his abilities at 48, that is str 48 dex 48 con 48 int 48 wis 48 cha 48! So they have the same ac, attack bonus, saves, skill modifiers and resonance. Their only difference is in hp, damage and proficiency ranks increases.
However if the 20th level character gains skill increases for level they are basically the same in that aspect. (Also if the 20th level one has +5 longsword they will be very close damage wise)

Note that his stats are compared to a 20th level pc that has his abilities at 10. If his array is sth like 22 20 20 18 16 10, then the 1st level equivalent will be 60 58 58 56 54 48.

I think that this on some level at least demonstrates how much heavier and dense the new level bonuses are and what they actually represent.

Adding +level to everything does not make the game fun and playable. Gating swathes of skills behind proficiency levels and feats does not make the game easy and simple.

Initially I didn't like adding +level to everything, but I after thinking about it in the context of the other rules we learned about, I can see it working great. It can make level progression numerically much more predictable, which can have certain benefits. These benefits include easier monster design and the ability for add more diversity in the classes through focusing the design on their exclusive class features.

I also seriously doubt Paizo decided + level to everything for no reason at all. I assume they did playtest this among many other things and that's the best they came up with. Now its quite possible they made a mistake, but they propably perceived that the benefits outway the costs. Ofcourse they may also have had different priorities than you, hence my comment about gaining sth loosing sth.

Regarding gating uses of skills we will see how this works out in game. Its really difficult to predict if it will become unwieldy on the table without actually giving it a try. Something can read complicated but actually play simple.

Now the above won't be true for everyone. But it's true for at least some people. It's why we had the automatic +half level to everything was removed from 5th edition.

I am actually part of the people that are very against to everyone getting half or whatever part of their level to all their skills. I really disliked this about 4th edition and the only reason I leave myself open to accepting it in PF 2 is the 4 level gating of the skills.

Sometimes I do want to play the "good at everything" character (but only great at a smaller group of things). Paizo could still allow character builds that capture that without forcing it on everyone.

Yes but these builds propably couldn't do it to the degree it will be achievable in PF 2 and even if they did it to a satisfying level they propably belonged to a specific set of classes or they had severe drawbacks in their main function in the game.

While you might need to playtest this system yourself, I already have in another game. There is little to no material difference in how Paizo has structured this rule compared with the other game so I see no reason for the reaction for my group to be different. But we will playtest just to be sure.

I actually wouldn't need to playtest a dnd system that simply adds bonus to skills, I know I am so against it that I won't bother. I just find the idea of tiered skills fascinating. Again "fascinating" or "sounds nice" is a long way from "I actually like it".

I think the Lvl10 might know a few tricks that help him kill weak opponents in drove. Either with one attack fully affecting several enemies (a bit like PF1 Cleave) or unleashing a martial AoE low damage attack

Ofcourse that is why I mention that I am interested only in the pure effect of the level's bonuses.

Ah thanks Deadmanwalking. So I was pretty close in my example with all abilities at 10, I pinged it at 10 people but it was 8. So around 16 people total would bring him down?

Umm why do you count the Joe's as having +0 attack bonus? Are you treating them as level 0s?
Also as far as I understand in the second example the 10th level guy has chain mail right? And the total number of people that can bring him down is 23 (15+8)?

So I was thinking about how much stronger a high level character is, than a low level one based only to their number of levels, so I was thinking of running a scenario to find out about it.

But before I do, I would like to say, I dont expect any roleplaying system to give normal results especially in scenarios that essentially will never happen in them. This is NOT a thread about wether if PF 2 can simulate real life its about me (and you?) having fun with a kind of thought experiment and maybe getting a better feeling of what level actually represents in the new edition.

So on one side we have awesome Joe a 10 level warrior?, it doesn't matter he gets no class features and 8hp per level for a total of 88hp, 8 bonus from being human. He has only a longsword and all his abilities are at 10 to keep things uncomplicated, though if this messes up the results I am ok with changing it and people are free to make their own examples. Ok so he has 88hp, attack+10 and ac 20.
How many average Joe's are necessary to defeat him? Average joe's also have longswords and all their stats at 10, so 16 hp, attack +1, ac 11.
I don't take into account critical hit failures and flanking bonuses.

I am not good at calculating damage per round with the new rules but I think its somewhere at 6,75 for awesome Joe and 3,6 for the Joe's if all 8 Joes are attacking. I am not using iterative attacks because I am not sure if they change anything.
So the Joe's needs around 25 rounds to get awesome Joe down, during which time he has felled around 10 of them(according to my calculations, which are propably wrong). So around 18 average joes are enough to do the job. Seems beyond what is humanly possible especially for a person that has no greater natural abilities than others, but that's level 10 for you.

What do you think? Also if anyone cares enough to do the actual math you have my thanks!

So... 30 feats chosen over 20 levels. So you're picking through a giant list of feats every single level, and doing it twice every other level.

:/
Man, half my table is going to love that and the other half is going to hate it.

As mentioned the idea is that you pick from 4 lists and everything is level gated, so every individual choice you make is much more straight forward than it initially appears.

Huh. Just though that animal companions will propably not have feats, which is a very good thing.

The issue with that is the +level to everything requires everyone to be at least at the batman level. If you want to play a different character (such as someone who has more weaknesses) you're out of luck/stuck at low level/forced to not roll dice for certain checks/have to create houserules in PF2e. That's a problem for people who don't want to always play Batman or better.

I actually agree with you, but I also understand why Paizo is doing this.

Also now can easily play the typical sword and sorcery hero, who is good at everything, which in former editions wasn't that easy and for some classes impossible.

For me ultimately, only playing the game multiple times, will allow me to decide if Paizos decision was a smart one.

Franz Lunzer wrote:

So, skill points per level are gone the way of the dodo?

I'm still not sure I understand how to train skills at level up though.

I get that at level X, your bonus to skill Y is:

level + proficiency + ability mod + item bonus

This is correct!

Franz Lunzer wrote:

Also, from the wording in the blogs, I get that a fighter is peaking his proficiency in 3+INT skills of his choice, and gets a skill feat every odd level.

This is incorrect!

What happens to a Fighter is as follows:

At 1st level, he gets a number of skills at Trained equal to 3+int Mod (4+Int Mod in the final game, probably). So an Int 12 Fighter would pick 4 skills (5 in the final game) and they are now Trained.

At 2nd level and every even level thereafter he gets a Skill Feat (on top of the one from Background at 1st level).

At 3rd level and every odd level thereafter, he gets X ranks in skills. He can use those, on a one for one basis, to buy new skills at Trained, or to upgrade existing skills by one rank (so Trained to Expert, or Expert to Master, or Master to Legend). He cannot buy skills to Master before 7th level, or to Legend before 15th.

The only part of this we don't know is what X is, though it seems to probably be 2 (it could be 3), and the same for almost everyone, with only Rogues getting extra and nobody adding Int Mod.

Franz Lunzer wrote:

So... Are there 'virtual skill points' you gain every level?

Like: it takes 1 vsp to be trained, 5 to be expert, 10 to be master, 15 to be legendary?

There are not. There are ranks. They work in a very straightforward fashion, you just don't get huge numbers of them or get them every level.

I am going to go ahead and just assume that if you raise you intelligence it will grant you extra proficiency rank increases (ha! technically the correct term).

So assuming 2 skill ranks per odd level and ending up with an intelligence of 16. We have 4 basic +3 int+18 from levels= 25 increases.
So at 20 level a fighter can be:
Legendary in atheltics, intimidation, crafting, lore(warfare) survival and pereception ( which needs only one increase).
Trained in diplomacy, society, medicine and another skill.
To add to this he has 11 skill feats.

Not bad at all when compared to the the old unskilled fighter.

I did wonder on what the different proficiency levels would grant you, apart from the bonus, since skill feats must also be doing something AND certain class features affect skill usage too from what I remember about the rogue.
It will be interesting to see how all of this shakes out.

I do really like that everybody gets to make lots of choices as they advance now. A lot of my favorite classes in PF1 got to choose from lists every other (or even every) level, and it's not like we couldn't differentiate the Kineticist from the Vigilante (a choice at every level) or the Magus from the Rogue (a choice every other level), so I'm not worried about homogeneity really.

If anything, since the majority of one's feats come from their class, we might end up with a lot less homogeneity since you may not be able to build a huge number of classes around the same suite of archery feats.

Me too, I also like the way class feats seem to work. You make a lot of choices over your career, but due to level gating you pick from a list of 3-4 each time, which helps avoid the analysis paralysis of too many options.

First of all yeah, having an informed opinion right now is impossible. This more like fun speculation really.

Having said that I think in a weird way its homogenised nature allows for more pronounced or maybe meaningful? differences between classes.
Also class feats seem to be quite different between classes so maybe me mentioning that in the class structure is a bit of misleading.

So the new basic class structure in PF 2 is 10 class feats, 10 skill feats, around 20 skill proficiency ranks plus whatever you get from intelligence, 5 general feats and 5 ancestry feats. Also plus level to basically everything for everyone.
Notable stuff:
Class feats have level requirements up to 20 and those of the highest level seem more powerful.
20+ skill ranks equals to at least 5 skills at legendary and this combined with skill feats means skills will play a heavier role in this edition at least regarding the pc's power level.

All this means that all classes start with a pretty potent basis, contrary to former editions where some classes had weak basic stats like the wizard and others strong like the ranger.
But it also means that all that left to differenciate them are their class features (and the 10 class feats, but everybody gets those in some sense).
Hence now full casters get fewer spells because they basically get everything everybody else does and non casters have to get more stuff because, apart from more hp, their unique class features have to compete with 9th level spellcasting.

I think I can see this working. What do you think?

But I think they only have two actions whether obeying commands or not.

I didn't say so in my post, but that's also kinda weird to me. I can see it maybe working if they need less than 3 action to do certain things, like full attacking for example.

So if you dont spend a command action they do nothing?
I mean I can see the logic balance wise, but otherwise I don't see how this makes any sense.