Laik's page

Love to see it published!

This Handbook's materials partly derive from my homebrew games where I used the multilayered Shadow Plane to provide dangerous adventure environment in relatively peaceful lands. Umbral path and phantom mechanics are awesome to give players adventure and campaign clues otherwise nearly impossible to find or divine, while umbral treasure rules are a way to escape the ubiquitous "cloak of resistance +1" loot batches.

Hope other GMs and players find them useful and fun!

I love using Shadow Plane travels for my players, it adds a lot of mystery and extra dimensions for the game. Following a path leading deep into the the forest's past centuries, to get blocked midway by a hut of an umbral hag? Such things happen when GM uses this book!

I suspect Gobling scuttle should be level 1. NPC goblins do it at level 0.

So here's my two cents on the categories of bonuses and how they should stack:

1) Items

2) Class

3) Magic

4) Circumstance

5) Afflictions

I could think of some other meaningful modifier names such as size bonus/penalty or emotion bonus/penalty.

Bascially, "handy for use" bonus types are those that are narration-realted and easy to imagine (size! item! environment around you!) and "unhandy" are those that are too abstract and tend to break immersion (so what exactly counts as conditional?).

A human can easily guess that if a creature gets magically larger and equips a belt of might, it becomes stronger two times. But a human cannot use any kind of intuition for things like "conditional", stumbling every time.

Looks like raised DCs killed the clue system, that worked well before.

I welcome the new surveys) Love the way they are made, much better than previous ones.

That's very similar to a house rule that my group has been using with a number of d20 games (PF1 included): "each 5 points over success do something good". However, we survived by "something good" being arbitrary, at GM's discretion, to avoid extra tables and complications. This is particularly useful with Knowledge and Social skills, which can havce many-many degrees of success.

I know it works great, but I doubt I am going to ever see it in official rules.

It's no big deal, we played using shadow walk. Travel faster, still need a lot of time to actually search he hexes.

Voice of support.

Tighter math actually makes these items even MORE of a problem than in PF1.

Even if you are conscious, you do not need to jump up and start running around.
Just stay put and do not open your eyes. Worst case, an evil GM makes you attempt a Deception check to fools a particularly wary opponent.

How do you multiclass into Ranger and use its class feats when you can only Hunt Target once per day?

Guess you are stuck with feats that do not require Hunt Target, such as animal companion feat line.

Sounds great, congrats on the lake monster! This is the main PC killer in this adventure )

Yes, lots of good changes there. I definitely like the direction.

With groups above 3, I usually split them into subgroups - 2 or 3, whatever seems to be more convenient. Not only makes fights less swingy, it also speeds up combat rotation compared to the situation when one side makes many rolls at once and the other has literally nothing to do.

Obligatory group initiative is a bad idea IMHO.

Sounds like great changes! I love the way the mage is moving now.

Totally agree, the part 4 of DD looks best writen, has the most interesting extra mechanics and generally feels more like like a role-playing game compared to some wargame-based parts, like p3 and p5.

In my experience, best thing an arcane caster can do at low levels is to prepare magic missiles only, save spells on minor encounters (using only cantrips there), and using 3-action magic missiles in boss fights, such as the manticore case. In this case, a wizard/sorcerer is the group's lifesaver.
At higher levels, you have more options for even spell levels, but your odd spell levels need to be filled with magic missiles. For the same reason.

All other arcane tactics currently work on groups of weaker opponents, but of zero use for bosses.

Lol, now I see why players might survive such fights :) Giving around hero points freely between fighhts looks like the key trick!

(A really broken, completely metagamey mechanic to never use outside the playtest).

Also, survey on the backgrounds could use a part about what other stuff can be added to backgrounds: extra languages, access or proficiency with uncommon/exotic stuff, Adopted Heritage options etc.etc.

The adoption stuff SHOULD be a background thing, available at 1st level only - not a general feat that you can't get until lvl 3 minimum. What is it, you advance to 3rd level (or 11th elvel, for that matter) in an adventuring class - and suddenly elves adopt you? These mechanics are so much anti-rp.

The background survey misses an important thing: whether having only 1 feat choice is ok for a background.

For me, it is not. As of now, by choosing a thematic background I typically end up with a totally crap feat (such as Assurance) that I can't replace. Other backgrounds have good stuff. As a result, I typically choose backgrounds for mechanical reason, so the very idea of "background" actually gets dumped into numbers.

Backgrounds are bad ways to force ppl pick useless feats such as Assurance or Forager. Players at least need to have some choice on that.

Waves 1 and 2 are nothing, same experience here.

Right now the power disparity between similar levels as such that gangs of weaker monsters are not real issue for PCs. Such opponets are not worth the 2030 XP they award.

On the oter side, higher level monsters become too much of a threat really fast. Party level+2 bosses do the same thing to PCs as PCs to PL-2 minions...

Btw, anyone already sorted out how do you adjudicate dying conditions from falling damage? Ground/falling objects don't have a level to use with table 10.2.

+1 to ditchinhg the 10.2 table. It does not do anything useful for GM or players.

Just.. as a random note for the heal skill portions

The First aid requires the kit and the kit is 50 gold
meaning most people won't have them
so most people can't even attempt to save a dying person right now.
.

It's 50 silver.

Moving upward (straight up or diagonally) counts as traveling through difficult terrain
Just occured to me that it might work buggy on characters and creatures who can move unhindered through difficult terrain thanks to feats or special abilities.

The last one you won't find in Paizo material, but it needed to be a "D
D should be details/description (anything from name to biography), and there sure is E section - Equipment!

Thanks alot for this post! A brain-saver for those who don't like watching videos.

As for Intimidate, it is currently better than many crowd-controlling spells, like fear etc.

That's what "cinematic" approach is worth.

The only thing this mechanic does is visuals of mosnters cinematically bursting through barricades.

In real life, barricades were built difficult terain that required some climbing checks, so attackers could be vulnerable and flat-footed while struggling through this terrain. Of course, this assumes defenders can get upper ground and good shot while standing on the far part of the barricade.

The adventure does not seem to take anything like that into account.

Planetouched (aasimar/tiefling)
Would also prefer planetouched to be the +Cha race, with goblins becoming +Dex +Con race.

Feels wrong for me seeing all those ubiquitous goblin paladins now, along with goblins becoming party faces in many groups.

You are better off using advanced alchemy for the life elixirs, not the Quick Alchemy, to pas them to your friends in advance. Less trouble with action economy, leaving only the resonance limitations.

Perception and Stealth matter even at the earliest levels. The Perception is used in every encounter at least once.

What bothers me is that Paizo still has not patched this issue, even though Mark has said that it is a problem. In P2, the difference between "best at hitting" and "good at hitting" is just 10%, and this is what the monsters are off by. The errors in the bestiary are basically invalidating all playtest experience.

Totally agree, this topic is worth bumping until we get some errata. Pretending that playtesting is going fine as it is now seems to be pointless.

Unless I am missing something, Ilvoresh doesn't have Haste.

Oh right, i used bestiary stats forgetting in-adventure stats might be different. No haste then, safer life for the PCs.

Thanks for the analysis!
I really hope all that gets addressed in official errata, playtesting currently goes wrong in many aspects exactly because of these bestiary faults.

Results for Laik.

Thanks!

I can't find a way to view results on return trips to the site, because all I get "you have already taken that survey". Is there any way for early birds to check what other people answered later?

Shade325 wrote:

So to add to this conversation... the new version of frightened as of Update 1.2.

Frigtened wrote:

You’re gripped by fear and struggle to control your nerves. The frightened condition always includes a value. You take a conditional penalty equal to this value to your checks, including your DCs (such as your AC or Class DC). Unless specified otherwise, at the end of each of your turns, the value of your frightened condition decreases by 1.

Bold emphasis mine.

So while there is next to no way to raise you Spell DC it can be lowered by effects that lower checks???

Or can this be read to say your DCs are to be treated as checks and thus Inspiring Courage would increase you Spell DC?

But frightened condition makes you run for your life right? Soo since

you wont be casting spells that requires a saving throw that

shouldnt matter. Right?

Not really. Currently, frightened condition does not automatically send you fleeing, it is just a debuff.

Almost wiping to every single encounter because it seems like attack bonuses are too low. Fighter has a +5 to hit (Str +3 and Prof +2). Does that seem correct? If so, then perhaps my dice are just cursed or the level 0 creatures are too difficult to hit.

Str+3 looks suspicious because the game is balanced about every character having 18 (mod +4) in their main class stat after ability generation process. While it is technically possible to make a character with a lower main stat, with the current game mechanics it is strongly unadvisable.

Thanks, lots of good and useful updates.

Sad there is still no errata for the monster skills. These make big difference.

Yes, I believe healing is a valuable part of gameplay and resource management. Whether a group has a focused healer or 2-3 off-healers, it should need to use one of these options. Neither PF1 nor PF2 has healers that "can only heal", they unavoidably have other character abiltites and options, so there is no problem wirth it, except with immature players who want to dps only and without any resource limits.

I am also in favor of balanced groups and believe that groups tactically matching should work better than pick-from-the-street groups. This is a cooperative, tactical, resource-management game, where "noone wants to be healer" attitude should result in miserable death of the party.

I don't play PFS, predictably :)

Guys, what you discussing is a scenario problem, not a system problem.

The guards have no stats, we can't say if they actually could subdue the golem. They are plot devices who tell their stories as if they are "competent enough to deal with the situation", - and useless when fight breaks up. Worse than useless, considering how they waste the adamantine blanche. Very bad way to trick the group into beleiving the situation is under the guards' control.

Trap effect description and golem condition do not match. Would not be much of a problem ina hack-and-slash scenario, but this is supposed to be investigation! The very genre expects the author to check for such things.

When monster starts combat in some unusual circumstances, i would expect its first actions described mechanically for the GM (like, "1 action to break bonds, 1 action to stand up, 1 action to do as it pleases"). Without that, the GM does not have much useful info about what an enemy has to do to start the fight. Instead, the scenario drowns important things in irrelevant and not matching information, like 'what players are expected to do'.

What you end up with is not game system testing, it is fighting poor narrative structure and author's wrong assumptions.

All TPK and near-tpk situations i vewed 9not counting stuff I read, sicne mostly I do not have enough info what happened to these other groups), were not realted to attrition. They were related to monsters taking a good start. Goblin bowmens making a critical hit or two on te first round of fight; demons auto-winning initiative and crowd-controlling half of the group on the first round, etc. A deadly sea serpent fight I described in another tread was the group's only fight on the day, it was just as CR+3 boss.

I don't think TPKs currently have anything to do with attrition and lack of resources. They seem to be coming from stronger monsters getting good start, with crits and the like. Non-optimized groups are more likely to get this problem, suffering heavy debilitating hits at the start of combat. Players not remembering useful abilities of their charatcers and not using many options suffer too.

When monsters start with dropping/CCing a PC or two, rest of the fight is uisually desperate struggle for survival. On level 1 it is not much different from PF1 when you got a good crit form a bow or greataxe, that was very deadly too. In PF2, you are forver lvl 1 in this aspect.

When I read some scenario playtest feedbacks where people die on the very first combat encounter of the Arclod's Envy, it looks like they have very similar issues.

If you aren't playing as written, then it would be hard to test what is presented to a new playergroup with a new GM who'll have an easier time following something as its written up instead of adding too much of their personal touch, especially so if they would not be confident in doing so just yet.

I see all that as testing the game system, not as testing the "PFS scenario usage rules" . I am not a PFS member and not planning to be one, exactly because I know how PFS official rulings diminish potentially fine game experience. Why having bad games when you can have good ones?

So I strongly distinguish between game rules (that I need for home games, preferably modular and moddable) and PFS scenario-use rules (that I am not particularly interested in testing or using). Rules on Acrobatics, recalling knowledge etc. both in and outside combat is what attracts my attention when I do playtesting here: can characters use them when they want, do I have game rules to model things players are inventing on the fly? This is what I consider to be part of game system.

But using suggested monster tactics, forced solutions, dialogues with limited options? No. This is not a part of game system, this is poor narrative, a completely different thing that does not need any extra testing.

I have GMed 2 groups through this scenario (both succeeded) and have some thoughts to add.

The challenges provided are really tough, as long as the GM and the players adher to the tactics suggested in the scenario itself (AFAIK, GMs in PFS are obliged to follow instrctions exactly). Meanwhile, all successful behaviors and solutions I saw result from both GM and players NOT following the scenario suggested tactics, while not breaking the game rules or anything.

For instance, both groups I GMed used telekinetic maneuver to get the corpse out of the golems feat. It is not an option listed in the scenario description, but I felt free to allow it (as I would in any of my house games) because it works much like a typical Athletics check to "move something an enemy carries around". This use is way safer, yet omitted by the writer. Knowing my players, I doubt they would even try provoking that 20th level creature - corpse would not be worth it to them.

Instead of going right into the laboratory, they started long detailed talks to the gaurds, as well as using their recall knowledge skills, relying on the guard's description of the golem. Not limited by time at this stage, they could make a few attempts. Made some mistakes on the critical fumbles, but at least they recalled the fire vulnerability. I typically feel generous about giving "1 piece of information" , since the rules do not really describe what IS one piece, so I give info which seems coherent and most likely reliant to the character's expertise (sorcerer rememeberd stuff about fire and overall magic immunities, while fighter remembered about the golem's DR/adamantite).

Etc., etc. This is not the only paizo scenario that looks playable only when you play it freeform instead of following the scenario scripts: from my experience, the more must-use instructions for GM the scenario has, the worse is the average result. Any survey results on Arcolor'd Envy should be extremely messy, because survey offers no way to tell what exactly the palyers did, whether GM was actually playing it "strictly as written" or not, etc. I expect unusable statistic results in this case.

At that point, you had might as well just bring along an NPC cleric, because most people get bored with such a limited role pretty quickly.

This.

I have already seen ppl asking at forums about how much resonance NPCs have, whether familiars and summoned creatures have RPs, and the like. In DD3, our group seriously considered calling up the hiding friendly NPCs and handing them our wand of heal to use right away, between fights. Just in case we need these resonance points for something else.

Resonance system does nothing to solve the wand-of-clw "problem" (in fact, the wand of clw economical solution).

Remember, the party likely wants to come to it anyway, so feel free to fire from afar.

Depends on the party, really. We had no melee-oriented charcacters, all casters and blasters. If our group had a chance of fighting this guys at distance, we could keep beating it with maggic missiles and spiritual weapons at our leisure - would be way safer for us and more trouble for boss.

Laik wrote:

Replace the "1 per level" with "+1/2 per level".

What is cool about the +Level deal, is how easy it is to play with (I generally like +0, but +1/4, and +1/2 level is good, too), depending on the vibe you are going for, you could even go for +2 per level, so your 20th level fighter has an AC of 50, naked.

Ye, the system is highly modular, with many independent subsystems, which is great for modders who love to houserule a lot. Easy to revise, easy to bloat-up later. A game system made for designers, lol.

Too much at this tsage :(

I would have to ditch exploration and resonance rules, since they are not really working. Replace the "1 per level" with "+1/2 per level". Replace magic weapon bonuses with level-related bonuses, rewrite lots of monster statistics, rewrite many spell statistics, change sorcerer bloodline/class feat rules, add many skill-related and a number of class feats to fill the holes (i expect to see it in the full-version anyway, looks like all that was just removed from the playtest). Ditch trinkets a as kind of magical items, make a lot of new magical items to fill the gaps properly. Make ways to enhance spell DCs (feats and items). Fixed a number of feats like battle medic etc; scratched some feats I would rather allowed anyone "trained" to use (forager and survey wildlife etc. - I am looking at you). Rerwrite companion and snare-making rules completely, they do not look really playable now.

Overall, I believe devs would make most of that work themselves by the spring, saving me all that :)

I have been on the PC side in this battle, so had some experience of that survival horror.

The monster's true strength are poisonous physical attacks, and its spells are best used for buffs.

So buffs before combat: invisibility and haste. Then get into melee, using invisibility as a means to surprise; start with flying PCs if there are any.

Ideally, you have 4 actions: one to move to your (next) target,then use 2nd action to attack and 3rd for true strike, then 4th one to attack again. When having a choice between several melee targets, hit the one who is not poisoned yet, or then one that looks almost down.

Cast other spells only if unable to effectively melee for any reasons. Spells are inferior option. Well, maybe mirror image if you have time (like, 2 actions to cast mirror image+2 strikes)

A brain collector is avery strong opponent for a level 7 healer group )

From what I see, resonance should be an optional rule (maybe used in PFS, I don't care, I don't play PFS). It is zero use for most home games just more bookkeeping. When you play kingemaker-style like my group typically does, you do not run out of resonance any way. And healy characters have been popular around here for ages, partly for RP reasons. We are not video game players, we do not need clicklickclikneverrest mechanics and then artificial means of limiting this clickclickclick. Kills narrative, adds nothing.

As for "slot problem solution": I absolutely prefer the slot system. Under the current PF2 rules, I created a monk wearing 3 pairs of bracers because there were too few reasonably fitting items in the limited treasure lists. It looks way worse than slot system, so no improvement at all.