The only PF1 products I have are the Bestaries, because I like the art.
Everything else? Physical or PDF, it's not worth it to me. Someone will make a wiki, or a tool, or an SRD, and that will be a better way to browse, reference, and find content for me since I've never much cared for the tactile nature of the physical products and PDFs are just worse to search.
PF's adventure paths are something that isn't online, which I used to like. But now I homebrew and, despite playing tabletop at least 6 times a week, I'm wondering if I'll put any money towards PF2. I'd like to. I'd like to support a cool system (if it pans out as well as I hope). The products offered just aren't anything I want. I'd feel like I'm donating to a charity.
The products I'd actually pay for are cool stuff integrated with Roll20 (other platforms are a nice idea, but in realistic terms I'll stick with that specific most popular one). It's digital tools. (Imagine if the monster building rules that have been talked about... came with a little widget to automatically adjust monsters, apply templates, etc? How awesome!). My players would like character-building stuff that lets them automatically level. What about an online resource where all the books I buy are compiled together, and when I search for a specific monster, it includes the art and a premade token? That's value to me, rather than Googling the art not on the SRD and then making a token manually.
There are many that still play with physical books, and Paizo will make good money there. There are many that still love the Adventure Paths, and Paizo will make good money there. There are many that just prefer the PDF presentation to the practicallity of an SRD. Paizo will also make money there. But there's a notable group like me that plays online, likes the power of an SRD, and doesn't play Adventure Paths. There's just... nothing to buy.
Yeah, on Spell Roll vs Skill, I think the main reason for that is the Sorcerer, who can definitely be really good at Spell Rolls with arcane spells and be Untrained in Arcane.
* Fixed Powers/Resonance system: I have no idea where this ended up, just that it changed. Hopefully Powers feel a lot more character-defining than in the playtest.
* General buffs to utility magic items. Making magic items less impactful on weapon-damage/ac/skills.
* General buffs to utility magic, buffs, and debuffs.
* General buffs to skill feats.
Most of these have been stated or implied, but without seeing the implementation it's tough to say if I'll be satisfied with where they're at.
Yeah, on the rare cases I built a character in PF1, I searched each racial traits for what could replace it and basically came up with 3 or 4 slots I could put a racial ability in, happy they made that the default assumption for PF2, although I do wish the level 1 race budgets were more interesting.
My groups tend to see things from a very party-focused standpoint. They have a toolbox as a group, more than as individuals. If the Wizard has less ability to scry, teleport, or conjure food, they all feel nerfed and like their adventure is less fantastic, I really hope PF2 casters still provide that high fantasy wonder of PF1.
Ok, but resonaance was long ago confirmed to be cut from the final product, why are you necro-ing resonance threads?
Really we don't have an up-to-date enough version of PF2 to provide meaningful feedback on many issues such as Resonance since so much is changing without us seeing, and the system was incomplete content-wise anyway.
Too late to significantly work this into core, but maybe for one of the first three splats as extra options:
I see the ranger's mechanical niche as a bit of a leadership role - I think 4E had a class called warlord that worked like that? - to expand, I see them literally leading the group as a trailblazer, with decent mobility, unmatched tracking, good stealth, and an intuitive understanding of every environ. During travel, they keep their finger on the pulse of threats - poisons and diseases in the air, creatures in the area, knowing nearby settlements. As combat starts their reactions and instincts allow them to sense enemies and advise allies, they can get around well, being adaptable here, possibly focused on support with buffs and heals and usually a pet, possibly focused on weaponry. After the fight, many rangers will use medical knowledge to patch up wounds and conditions, magical or not.
That's a lot in there! And some of it would be optional stuff relegated to class feats. Stuff I imagine as 'baked in' to the levels and unavoidable until some PF1 style archtype system comes in would be a bit of tracking, a bit of mobility in difficult terrain, a bit of instinct about areas and creatures, especially creatures being tracked, and in combat probably a fighting style choice, and then bonuses to the whole team's positioning and initiative from the ranger's understanding of the situation.
...How can it interact with the MAP? It has no roll at all. It automatically succeeds if the attack hits. There is no Grapple action happening, just applying the Grabbed condition, so it does not want to refer to Grapple. Grapple is entirely unrelated to Grab.
The crux isn't that many people want to play the full extent of every concept from level 1, but to have the full set of seeds for their concept. If my idea is a mage that throws meteors and turns into a fire elemental, I don't want that from level 1, but I might want fire magic so those things have something to naturally progress from. If I want to play a heavily armoured mage that uses magic super adamtine full plate, it might be reasonable that there's some armour option at level 1 for that to grow from.
where the line is drawn is the question. Is casting in armour too strong for level 1? What about limited flight as some races might get? A swim speed? Having an animal companion? What levels is it valid for these to come into play? If it's above 1, what seeds can a character plant early to grow ino them? Every option must be examined individually, and these answers might change as teh game evolves and splat books happen.
GM: "With your +24 untrained Computer Science skills, your Barbarian can fix the missing DLL problem of the alien spaceship AI by reinstalling, but he can't debug the mutex semaphore issue; that's Expert only."
Big agree! My biggest problem with 5E is that roll numbers remain similarish during levels, so expressing the high-level characters as extremely competent and veteran adventure heroes feels like a farce when I know they have non-negilable chances at failing low-level tasks (although outside of save-or-suck effects it's not as much of a combat issue due to HP/damage scaling). 2E solves this quite elegantly.
While I think this as a suggestion is too late for PF2E, I'd like to throw out my ideal solution to this because throwing your opinions into the void of the internet is cathartic.
Personally, I love the fantasy of the super-powered world-altering high-level spellcaster. I want a game with Create Greater Demiplane, and Greater Teleport, and Plane Shift, and True Ressurection, and Greater Scrying, and Greater Invisibility, and (Overland) Flight, and Passwall, and Meteor Swarm, and Dominate Monster, and Dragon Shape IV and so on. All the things that can be absurd in some situation).
What I do not want is all of that to be the standard book filler for almost every wizard as he levels up because the opportunity cost for a wizard to get these massive utility options is negilable. For a cleric, the opportunity cost to have access to such things (if on the cleric list) is literally zero, as you can choose them on any given day without planning ahead for them or locking yourself permentantly out of other options.
I would like to see narrower options, with no 'universalist' wizard. Wizards would be specialized around a small number of schools, doing a number of awesome game-breaking things, just not all the awesome game breaking things in a single character. Clerics would be more wrapped up in their domains, possibly with no generic cleric list at all, sorcerers the same for their bloodline, etc. Just as awesome options, but not all of them at once.
It's mathmatically only 0.5 worse than rolling, and is more consistent. It makes play faster than roll-offs all the time and I really appreciate the system
The other way to have skills still scale up a lot and encourage specialisation, would be to increase the proficiency modifiers, for skills only, from -4/0/+1/+2/+3, to -4/0/+2/+5/+8 (or similar) - this gives effectively the same total bonus you have with items.
Pros:
* Characters are item independent
* Proficiency ranks in skills matter notably outside of skill feats
* Lets alchemist item bonuses stop clashing
Cons:
* Unevenly benefits extra skill increases, aka rogue.
* Breaks the symmetry of the system - skills would be the only thing with different bonuses from proficiency
The Three Oracles
The nearest geographical location was the cave of the three oracles. They wanted to visit here for a few questions, since it was an info-spot and that led to better decisions with the rest of their day (in theory). It's a reasonably tough climb up to the Oracles, with strange smoke rolling down the hill. For 14th level characters, probably pretty trivial DCs. The PCs decided to make it doubly trivial by all using fly, either the boots or the spell, and making it to the entrance which was covered by a wall of smoke. Yup. All had casual fly. High levels are awesome like that.
Miller took the lead, walked through the smoke, and called back that there was no immediate danger. The fumes were a bit heady, and Beetmul nat-1'd a fort save, being the only one to fail and get a -4 to Will saves for the day. They met the oracles, asked some basic questions, learned there was definitely a dragon, and it was a she. Learned there were primal druids on this island a long, long time ago that worshiped the volcano. Ol' Koot agreed to go on a vision challenge, dispite warnings he might die. The oracles throw magical powder into the bonfire they're sitting around and Koot's mind went elsewhere to have a vision.
He saw glimpses of the island, and of the fortress, and of the fortress' interior! He recieved many hints about what was to come, and eventually saw their goal: The Last Theorem, now finally knowing exactly what it should look like. But from the vision of this, a horrible creature made of pure thought, a type of Mindform called a Dream Devil broke loose, and Koot had a 1-on-1 battle in thoughtspace. Koot had few offensive spells, and at one point it looked like he might run out and die here, but a critical failure by the Mindform against Fireball had him defeated. It was probably more power level of a level 12 monster than the level 11 I had it down as. He got a reroll to use in the next week, decided after seeing the dice roll.
Finally, Miller asked what gift Whark would like, but managed to word it like a lawyer. He learned that besides gems, gaudy things, and Besmara's forgiveness, she would want revenge against the person who slighted her tomorrow. (there's going to be at least three chances at this). They left some food and good booze, and moved on.
The Three Oracles was the only bit of information about the smoker really given in Doomsday Dawn... and utterly failed to be fleshed out there! I set it as an easy answer to any question that wouldn't break the module, plus the dream fight and free reroll as a bonus for their exploration. Koot was the only one who saught a vision, and the least up for a 1-on-1 fight, so I figure I judged correctly with the stats of the opponent.
Lavatap
They headed right to the recently-burried-by-lava-burst tavern, Lavatap, and met Sissidhie, its owner, a nice fire giant lady. She gave them the basic rundown about an explosion from the rockface spewing out lava and revealing a very small cave with lava elementals that no one's scoped out yet. Rurtug used Stone Tell and got some background information from the hardened lava: They learned there was a staff on an altar generatin the lava. Playing talking lava was fun, it had an interesting view of the world, it liked other lava, didn't like having cooled down.
They planned a raid on the cave to steal the staff. Koot used Clairvoyance and learned the shape of the cave, and that the altar had old primal nature runes all over it. He gave Beetmul a Quicksilver elixer, someone Hasted Beetmul, Beetmul went invisible, and went to get the staff. It was secured in place by a runed, trapped, metal clasp. He nat-1'd his first attempt, causing a firey explosion he ducked out of the way of (Evasion for the crit succcess), but attracted the surrounding lava elementals. With his Quick Unlock feat, he managed to turn things around and finish getting the clasp undone with a single crit success! He grabbed the staff and, with his final action for the turn, began to bolt out of the room. The lava elementals sent waves of heat vaguely in his direction, but the whole group had taken Salamander Exlixers, because volcanic island, so they were fine. As Beetmul got out, Koot and Rurtug each threw up Wall of Stone spells to blockade the way and seal the lava elementals in.
Since Beetmul had been unable to pass nature checks to understand the primal magic of the runes, and didn't have any society feats for interpreting lost languages, some secrets were missed, but they got a Greater Staff of Fire with no combat, which was neato. Discussing it, they decided it would make a better gift for Whark than their leftover funds could otherwise buy.
Perhaps I put too much description into the staff over the altar. Still, their ability to Blitz an item-retrival task was great to see, and a fun warmup for the vault raid ahead.
Final Prep
The group got back to town. Koot and Rurtug went to the brothel, Beetmul studied images drawn from Koot's vision and aced a few checks to gain some insight into what lay ahead, Miller purchased some rubies to bling up the staff to be more attractive to Whark, which he aced the crafting check on. The brothel-goes spent extra gold for a great time and some information on gala guests's brothel habits, however they plan to use that.
That night, Rurtug and Koot get home at 5am. Rurtug curls up with the newly decorated Greater Staff of Bling Fire since goblins like fire things.
Beetmul wakes up early, gathers the atmosphere of the day, learns a few anti-curse charms are circulating due to rumours of cursed gambling tables at the gala, and curses from sea hags or Besmara. Miller has a very greasy breakfast, during which he sees an adult red dragon heading in the direction of the fort. Eventually Koot and Rurtug get up, Koot makes drawings of all the flags for ships that have arrived, and sees what he knows about them. The group goes to the gala!
And we cut for the week.
Final prep maybe gave them too much time, they didn't do a ton here, but I'd rather give them too much time and have them feel at fault for preparations not made, than not enough and feel screwed over. Another fun session with good RP, Rurtug came more into his own this time and Beetmul was the star of the staff-snatching mission.
I feel Treat Wounds ia about in the right place, but might remove the crit failure condition. Bedrest might need a buff though. Would 100% not nerf Treat.
My proposal:
Embrace untyped bonuses. Barbarian rage bonuses are super core and should stack with everything. Untyped. Bards Inspire is core to it and shouldn't invalidate half the game's buffs. Untyped. Specific items, feats, and spells aren't that core to everything. Typed.
I really don't see the appeal of skill ranks at all. Like I've not played a PF1 character who put more than 0 but less than [Level] ranks in a skill, since it's pretty much pointless to do so.
I've frequently had 1 rank in class skills, or enough ranks in something to hit a threshold such as auto-passing a specific ride check.
I'm definitely on board removing potency runes entirely, and sticking to weapon quality for to-hit bonus, level for damage dice, and property runes stay as-is.
5/9/13/17 or 6/10/14/18 for extra dice might be okay, if 4/8/12/16/20 turns out to be on the powerful end.
Yeah. Taking someone from 4d12+5 to 4d4+5 is still over a 50% damage decrease, and that's before property runes like fire, keen, swift, etc. Disarming might need a really minor buff, but they can 100% fix that. I'm way more happy that the heroic fight can punch something for significantly more than the city guard, or actually deal damage in an anti-magic field, than I am worried about disarm.
Can... can we just give the dice based on level? An extra dice at 4/8/12/16/20?
I have no issue with the level 12 Wizard doing 4d8 with a mundane weapon. It's not far better than a cantrip. Especially if he's not boosted strength. Doubly if he's not an expert in the weapon and it's not an expert/master weapon. I can't possibly imagine it breaking everything.
It solves the fighter-gets-proficiency-early issue. Especially since when it's based on proficiency... fighters had no reason to be getting dice before barbarians, or monks, or rangers, or paladins - these would all be getting potency runes at around the same level. Just give it to them at that level.
Frankly, PF1 monsters didn't have statistics like PCs anyway.
Most monsters I saw had approximate stats decided out of nowhere, then hit dice, attributes, skill ranks, natural attacks, and feats picked to reach those stats as closely as possible, then arbitrary natural armour to get their exact AC target and special abilities PCs can't choose thrown on to to make the monster unique.
All PF2's system does is take out the 'hit dice, attributes, skill ranks, natural attacks, and feats picked to reach those stats as closely as possible' - you skip to having it matched without needing that fiddly middle bit. It's already how AC worked, due to natural armour being entirely arbitrary, and how the number/type of natural attacks worked for getting to DPR targets.
NPCs are a different argument, but I don't assume that's what people mean when they say 'monster'.
The weapon isn't magical, so 4d12 is the base weapon damage. I thought that's what the "dice of the same size as the weapon" was referring to. That is, use add three Gargantuan greatsword dice, or 3 x 4d12.
Yeah, nope, weapon size doesn't affect damage. Creature size apparently gives a +2 flat per size category, but definitely not more dice.
The Rune Giants are, effectively, using +3 weapons. They just don't say that because they don't want the PCs to loot the +3 weapons. It's yet another negative result of Potency runes being required for damage to keep up.
A level equivalent monster is meant to be roughly equivalent to a PC. Do you think that a monster should also be hitting you 70-80% of the time?
Yes. (Though... ffects, etc) being balanced around that.
So are you cool with only missing on a 1 for your first attack? Because once buffs and debuffs enter the equation, you're looking at a 90-95% hit rate easy. Maybe that's cool by you, but it does certainly take out most of the reason to roll dice. I guess how much that matters is really just an opinion, though.
? If you hit on an 2, then you crit on a 12, so it's absolutely still worth rolling, and on the second hit you're rolling with a notable 30% miss chance. I've absolutely had buff-stacked players rolling with 90%+ accuracy for first attack in PF1
I think the biggest wins for me in the system that aren't utterly trodden to death are:
1) Treat Wounds. Out of combat healing that is a clear part of the game instead of hidden in the item section, and doesn't end adventuring days too early like not having good out of combat healing at all.
2) Rarity system. Great filter for content.
3) Multiclassing. Being able to be a X/Wizard that is not a horrific joke at both is great. By far the best multiclass system I've seen for its goal (mix 2 classes) rather than the 'plunder class for 1 feature' style of 1E
But also of note, in some cases the NPCs won't be classed/leveled people, they may be human monsters with particular abilities defined. That will likely be the most signifigant change. [some NPCs being monsters of a certain level, rather than class members of a particular level]
So and so, is a 5th level blacksmith, 50hp, capable of crafting a master quality sword in a weeks time(as a reward), if you rescue his son who was captured by the evil priestess Settina whom plans to sacrifice him on the new moon.
NO, just no... Sorry either have creation rules or don't bother, this 'just plain make stuff up' bugs the hell put of me, monsters having stuff for no reason? No. If you can't give a reasonable explanation as to why and how, laid out in clear rules, don't do it (and to fit an arbitrary challenge chart is not a good reason)
You mean like 90% of natural armour values ever? Or monster special abilities? Or the number of hit dice chosen?
PF1, 3.5, 5E, others, they all fundamentally operate on pulling numbers out of nowhere for monster design, bad monster design systems like PF1E (as much as I loved the game its monster building guidelines were attrocious) just had extra baggage that meant increasing accuracy by upping HD gave you baggage of hp, save, skills, feats, or you'd have to buff their attacking attribute past what made sense for the creature. It was not a good system.
NPC design is often stricter, and if you want to use PC rules for them in 2E nothing stops you, it will be interesting how often they use PC rules for NPCs in published 2E content.
To put another view on it, I don't think D&D5E would benefit from the rarity system.
I do think PF1 would.
Because 5E has very minimal content, and auditing 'all of it' is... not painless or easy, but do-able without driving yourself insane.
PF1 made content at a much more rapid pace, and auditing 'all of it' is basically impossible.
If PF2 is planning to release a large breadth of content, as I really hope they do as it was a major benefit of PF1, then the rarity system is a godsend for that.
Spoiler for what I'm doing here. tl;dr - running part 6 like I would a non-playtest module.
Spoiler:
My players have really not enjoyed Doomsday Dawn. To the point six players have left, and two remaining players were not enjoying PF2. GMing them, I've seen the bits that have caused negative reactions:
* The sections are dry. They lack character. The story overall is disconnected and not that interesting as presented.
* The sections are short. There is no character progression, loot has lost meaning when you have so short to use it. People don't get used to their abilities, and don't even bother developing character personalities as they move on so quickly.
* The maths is off. Monster maths is confirmed as wrong in skills, and probably saves too. DCs are frequently absurdly high for what they represent. The maths is almost universally wrong towards players failing more often, this is not fun.
* Focusing on playing RAW is great for data, not for fun. When players come up with creative enough ideas, I've felt pressure to turn them down on occasion, as it twisted data and didn't fit into any good survey results.
I know there are reasons for these things. But I wanted to win my players over to 2E, and recharge our batteries for the last section (after part 5 put us all near burnout). So! I decided to submit no feedback for part 6, and instead re-wrote the entire module, more than doubling its page count, swapping out every monster, and so on. This thread is not pretending this is the 'right' way to play Red Flags, or that Paizo wrote the adventure wrong. This is exploring how PF2 changes when not played in a Playtest format, and hopefully giving something some people enjoy reading.
Intro
With the Night Heralds making progress, and the White-Axiom-saving-party out of commission, the Order of the Palatine Eye calls in some of its best covert operatives for a top priority missions. Elite agents, each of which was fundamental in dismantling at least one cult during their service. One by one, these four heroes are teleported to a secret HQ of the Order, on a tropical island from which no other land can be seen. It's exact location a mystery, and its vaults holding many evil treasures of defeated cults. Who teleports in?
Miller. Half-orc. Acquisition Expert. Osirion native. Gained notoriety after infiltrating and dismantling a cult of Dawnflower heretics. He's become a top travelling agent versed in just about every skill set required by the Order. A jack-of-all-trades. And by this point, master-of-many.
Rurtug the Shadowflame. Goblin. Puppetmaster. Varisian native, Rurtug is an ex-pathfinder who turned a cult controlling monstrous races inside-out, unleashing the races against the controlling cult. A love of fire, powers over the mind, and a master of sneaking and shadows.
"Ol' Koot". Goblin. Insane. An alchemist with a love of explosions and good booze. Very elderly. A bit dotty in the head. Koot is a genius in his own way, a mad inventor, and able to plan like no other, as long as someone else supplies the common sense. Retired after defeating a group of blood cultists, but here for one last job.
Beetmul. Goblin. Infiltrator. Necerion's nemesis. Beetmul has spent many years fighting the sorcerer, racing him to old items, assassinating his lackies, and has built up quite the rapport with the evil leader as he is instrumental in keeping the Night Heralds slow.
Yes. Three goblins. My players know I hate goblins and decided to troll me. Thanks guys. At least it's not four.
They meet Kelari on a small hill that overlooks a sandy beach, surrounded by coconut trees, with the bright sun bouncing off perfectly blue waves. She informs them of the mission, reveres their experience, and shows them the intercepted missive. They bandy about questions, get some answers, make some plans, brew up Salamander Elixers because volcano, and teleport to the Smoker.
This was a nice intro. Characters had personality, especially Koot carving notes into the table, because they knew I'd make this long enough to enjoy the characters and really get into them. No rolls needed, but I think there was a decent sense of the power of the PCs and the scale of the event/situation.
Info Gathering
They've just over two days to learn about their mission and explore. They split up. Ol' Koot goes to a gambling den, speaking to the bartender, Miller goes to the shops, asking about in public-facing establishments, and Beetmul asks about the streets. They turn up a lot of information:
* There's three oracles in a cave to the west. They could be a source of information.
* There's a bar to the east, out of town, called Lavatap, which was recently damaged by an explosion from the side of the volcano. It's run by a Fire Giant named Sissidhie.
* There's a ship graveyard to the north of the island, definitely haunted by pirate ghosts
* The gala's been held in honour of the sunken Blackguard's Revenge.
* Someone called Ellysaganor is attending, and definitely important.
* The gala will include most important people being part of processions out of the fort to throw valuables into the sea. Great time to be sneaky buggers.
Miller moves on to question those near the docks, and gets a whole bunch of information!
* Khadabit is happy where he is, and extorting his father.
* There's a devil named Kasabeel under Whark.
* Tarqin Sorrinash, son of Avimar Sorrinash, is the highest ranking pirate attending besides Whark, and a slight rival to her.
* There's a dragon on the island, in the volcano
The others gather some more information, and Ol' Koot goes to a table in the den with a large crowd. A weird fish person, who he learns is called Dagruth, is playing against a pirate captain in a complicated and strategic card game. Koot picks up a large amount in only minutes of watching, being a genius, but annoys Dagruth in the process, especially when he points out a suboptimal play. He will later learn Dagruth is Whark's right-hand man/man-fish. Whoops.
The information gathering here was great fun. The DCs were frequently 15+ points below those recommended, and the game benefited hugely from it. These are top agents, if they look for specific information, they get it, and frequently crit succeed, surpassing expectations in basic tasks like rumour recon. Interestingly, they didn't ask about Necerion, but they certainly ended up with a variety of leads to go on. Miller's feat to gather twice as much information definitely was nice.
The Ship Graveyard
They rested, then woke up with a full free day between them and the gala. They planned for a bit, and with disguises and stealth headed north to the Ship Graveyard as it had piqued their interest. Their scout found signs of supernatural activity, and decided to approach confidently, as a group. The ghosts haunting a shipwreck here tried to scare them! They all passed the DC 14 Will Save, including one person passing on a 2. That felt awesome. They're top agents, and this is just your average pirate ghost. Realising they're not easily scared, the ghost talked to them, laughed, got on, and invited them all in. Ol' Koot used his Inventor Feat and Alchemy Reagents to make Ghost Touch Booze. There's no rules for this... but of course I allowed that? What a cool use of class features. With this, the ghosts were extremely open with information and chatting. They're actually not from here or bound here at all - they're visiting too! They're rare passengers aboard the Kelpie's Wrath, on the island while it circles about, until the Gala is ended and the Kelpie goes elsewhere, and then eventually has enough of them and they find a different ship to haunt. The pirate ghosts in the ship here mention two ghosts that aren't present: Rotten Gokkle, a no-good scoundrel who's trying to steal Whark's loot by floating through the volcano, and his opposite, Sir Reginald, a ghost who believes things like hiding form sunlight, floating, and passing through walls are unseemly, and considers himself a perfect gentleman to the extent he's inviting himself to the Gala - where fancy people belong. After much fun roleplay, the group leaves to find Reginald who they were told is nearby, practising running through patches of sunlight.
Tons of good stuff happened here. The players felt strong, they used class features in interesting ways, the RP was good, and it advanced things. Also, lots of puns and wordplay.
They find Reginald. He's dressed as fancily as can be. Twirly moustache, tricorne, big old naval officer coat covered in medals and ribbons. He speaks in the most absurd attempt at being dignified, and sounds a prat for it. The group sees through the fact he's not a natural noble, but respect he's putting effort into it. They talk to him for... a long time. They get information about Gokkle, and about Reginald's plans for the gala. Eventually, they convince Reginald to go to Whark and get her to stop Gokkle sneaking in and stealing anything. Reginald is mercilessly mocked without ever noticing it, and at one point begins pulling out his poorly written, entirely falsified, and incorporeal memoirs out of hammerspace. These can be interacted with thanks to Mage Hand existing, which I found amusing. After deciding to meet back later, so someone could make a novel of his fantastic life, the group leaves Reginald for the day, and heads towards the oracles.
At this point, just over 4 hours IRL have passed, and we call the session. Reginald was fun to play.
Result?
It's super fun, people are looking forward to the next game rather than dreading having to push through more Doomsday Dawn. People were excited to roll dice because they knew they were playing really competent characters, and could do they thing they wanted to do most of the time, sometimes do it super well with a crit. This is compared to before, where dice felt like they usually served to show how incompetent your expert in ranks and backstory character really was. No combat happened, which felt fine for this section, and I've added at least 5 combats that still might happen. PF2 definitely benefits a lot from leaving playtest land.
Animal companion way too feat intensive You talked about "telling the same stories" in PF2. My PF1 Ranger used ONE feat on his companion and it was integral part of what he does. In PF2, I've got to dedicate my entire build to the Companion and I'm not even an Animal Druid. The companion takes like 7 feats out of 11. That's just ridiculous.
I think this style of thing is a major issue. Feat chains are very problematic when we have a bottleneck like that one described in this thread. Not only does it eat one of your customization slots that are competing for multiclassing and most interesting things you can do, but it competes for 7 out of 11 of those slots. Animal Companion rangers are going to feel pretty similar if they're all taking 7 of the same feats.
Death to feat chains. Oracle revelations in 1E had it right: Some revelations are restricted by level, others are stronger at high levels, but if you select that revelation at a low level it automatically upgrades. You don't usually need to spend another revelation to have it keep up.
So... I've noticed this topic talk about bows str-to-damage ratio, and I've also seen conversation about Dex to damage in general in other places.
With the fact you get a smaller attribute bonus in 2E (in 1E you could get... +13? Higher with extreme builds), and more weapon damage dice, I feel attribute-to-damage in general is devauled past level 4. At level 14, how much of a difference does +2 damage from half-strength make to your 4d8+<elemental damage> bow attacks?
This leads to the strange situation where a bow-character built at a low level wants Str for propulsive, and at later levels would rather have those points in Cha for Demoralize, or some other such situation. For melee this is a non-issue because they still use Str to hit (okay, non-rogue dex melee is a bit odd), but for ranged weapons should Propulsive scale with potency? It's potentially adding... +10? Damage at the top end. That doesn't feel utterly busted, since they have lower damage dice. Some weapon abilities already scale with potency.
I believe Pathfinder Adventures in 1E are too easy by a landslide. By the time games hit level 10ish, I am frequently swapping monsters out with monsters 5-7 levels higher to challenge well-built PCs. Comapred to this, my PCs found Doomsday Dawn reasonably challenging, although I was more hardball than normal. If Colette's players do decently against PF1 adventures, that tells us nothing, no matter how hardball Colette plays them, as PF1 adventures are not in the same dimension of difficulty as Doomsday, especially older ones when PF1 has had option & power creep.
Now, I want published content to be fairly challenging under reasonable play conditions. Reasonable play conditions for me mean RAI, RPing enemies including morale and limited knowledge, allowing rule-of-cool, encouraging RP and creativity. I do not want those options to be like putting kiddy gloves on. Conversely, this means in 'unreasonably difficult' conditions, (where everything is RAW, ambiguity is against the PCs, enemies are a metagaming hivemind, creative solutions are shot down) I expect things to be 'more than fairly challenging', and if all of those happen at once... I would generally want a TPK fest? Because you're pushing the difficulty up so much from what I consider a reasonable play environment, that if you still weren't TPKing often, it says the reasonable play environment (for me) is way too easy.
If Paths are made universal, and they're getting close to it, that basically replaces Archtypes outright. Class feats & the anemic remaining 'core' features seem good enough to replace old Class Features.
Frankly, I think we're close to what we need. And I think the remaining puzzle piece is combat styles.
Tangent about why investment is required: Let's take the bold assumption that, with PF2 math, any trained character that maxes the relevant attack stat and keeps up with weapon enchantments is competant in combat. They are effective enough to feel that they are meaningfully contributing. Feats like Double Slice are entirely 'extra' little bonuses that don't upset balance.
I do not think that assumption is correct, but if it is: Are combat styles in a good place? People can access various styles easily! - My answer is that no, I don't think that would mean they're in a good place. People don't want to 'happen to be mathmatically competant at Archery', they want to be invested in Archery. Yes, PF1 Precise Shot was a horrible feat tax for every Archer, but it also let you feel like an 'Archer' instead of 'Giuy using bow'. There should be an option to invest in a combat style, for anyone, because that basic level of investment feels good, even if it doesn't mathmatically change what you can accomplish. /Tangent
I propose to do this by making a basic Combat Style option for every Combat Style - they'd be things like Double Slice - and each character gets 1 at character creation. 2 for the Fighter because Fighter. It's a bit of power creep, sure. It locks people into a style a bit, sure. But people changing from sword & shield, to two-handed, to dual-wielding, to bow, to unarmed, to sword & free-hand for spellcasting? That's very rare. 2 styles is the most I can imagine most characters using, and I'd include a general feat to get another.
Combat Style Ideas (that have not been detailed or balanced):
Spoiler:
* Double Slice,
* That thing that's basically double slice at range that rangers got in an update.
* Simple & improvised weapons up a damage dice.
* Step as part of a cantrip.
* Strike as part of Raise Shield
* Look these are basically all a specific way to gain an action each turn.
* Maybe put the Ride feat here for people interested in basic mounted combat?
I believe that the Kraken fight, specifically, is poorly designed. It's got too much HP for its level/saves/AC, partially a relic of the weak template not removing much HP from high level creatures. This fight might be unreasonable to win anyway for the expected 'social party', but is not typical of the playtest.
During HoU, my players utilized spells like those I've mentioned: Heal, Soothe, Wall of Force, Collective Transposition, Inspire Courage, Dirge of Doom (extensively), and dropped a Chain Lightning when it could hit 8 Mummy Retainers at once, vaporizing them. By using spells that do not require a save, they got to, and probably could have killed, the Demilich against a GM playing hardball. That felt like effective play.
In Mirrored Moon, we saw more save-or-suck spells, mostly Phantasmal Killer, and that worked okay entirely on the basis nat-1s kept getting rolled against it, but even then felt not required since the rest of the party was playing very effectively.
Okay, so, it's fun to say that everything's a coinflip and investment doesn't matter.
That's usually a reference to equal-level challenges, which is not uncommon to encounter.
Did you read the rest of my post?
I then went on to talk about that. That investment does matter, it just matters in bringing you up to par, and that the challenges appear to be set incorrectly.
I am not sure what you are trying to say in your post. I know most challenges are on-level. I have acknowledged what I feel is the issue there (DCs too high) and argued against a different percieved issue presented in the thread (that arguement that investment doesn't change the math - it does change it. It just brings it from 10% success to 60%, and that's terrible.)
Okay, so, it's fun to say that everything's a coinflip and investment doesn't matter.
But if you're expert, +5 attribute, and +3 item to a skill, you're at +10 compared to someone with just +3 in the attribute, no training, no item. That's a big difference (and they could be as low as -1 in the attribute, you could be legendary with a +5 item and +7 attribute, etc). This very-achivable +10 changes results by an entire category: their failures are your successes, their successes your critical successes, etc. This is noticable and not an issue.
The issue comes from published numbers. Notably, the bestiary and 10-2. They give invested characters a 50/50 chance, or close to it, for on-level challenges, often impossible for uninvested characters.
So yeah, investing matters and affects the math. Unfortunately, investing brings you up to baseline competence for your level, and everyone else is a complete failure at it. The math works very well for under-leveled challenges. The on-level numbers are the issue. They've acknowledged this already for the bestiary, and I wouldn't be surprised to see 10-2 numbers lower in the final print.
Ursus' claim isn't that outrageous. I've been in these forums, on reddit, on two Pf2 related discord servers, and on an entirely unrelated discord server that's had PF2 come up frequently in its RPG channel. Throw Facebook and a popular forum over the discord servers and you've got most the popular discussion forums covered
I've indeed found that, besides the writing of Doomsday, the bestiary numbers are the biggest weakpoint in 2E. In my homebrew games, I traditionally use 0 offical monsters, only running homebrew monsters. The games I've done this for 2E have gone great.
1. How much are you focusing fire on individual PCs?
As much as possible, unless the monster would be unaware of a PC, or focusing that PC would have extra costs (such as taking 3 actions to reach them, rather than using 3 actions to attack a closer PC, or they know about an Attack of Opportunity and prioritize avoiding that over focus fire).
Snowblind wrote:
2. How much are you giving metagame hints to the players?
Where possible, none. I avoid giving monster names, and try to have damage descriptions be vague enough that it's not entirely clear if a hit was weak due to the rolls on their damage dice, the HP of the monster, or an actual resistance. My players do make Recall Knowledge checks reasonably often, though, and I'm moderately generous with information given there. (I don't give specific numbers, and make sure to miss out one or two details, but on a good roll they know most things, although other players can't act on that if they fail to communicate it)
Snowblind wrote:
3. When rules are ambiguous, are you ruling in favor of the PCs or in favor of the monsters?
Generally, I try and rule in the 'most reasoanable reading' - this might be using the more specific of two contradicting rules, using a ruling that has the fewest absurd consequences (for example, you cannot walk through rules regardless of if it's mentioned explicitly). Where I really couldn't make a ruling from reason, I go against the players.
Snowblind wrote:
4. How aggressively are your NPCs exploiting the rules system when you run them?
They were using it as 'efficiently' as I could justify, trying to get every +1, avoiding being flanked, flanking, spreading out to avoid any AoEs they expect, smart opponents predicting AoOs or Retributive Strikes, using Demoralize before attacking if it was a 3-attack action otherwise and the 3rd had no hope of hitting. I never felt they were 'exploiting' things, just using the reality of the world to its full extent.
Snowblind wrote:
I have skimmed through Colette's writeups, and I think I can answer for them.
1. Constantly as much as possible unless the situation or written behavior rule it out or make it tactically inadvisable.
2. Absolutely never.
3. Colette leans towards ruling against the PCs.
4. Unless there is a good reason to do otherwise, Colette has the NPCs exploit the rules to the best of their abilities. In other words, Colette runs them like Colette is a player and each NPC is a PC.
None of these are unreasonable in a playtest when you are trying to find flaws in the system rather than run a fun campaign for the PCs. However, they do dramatically raise the difficulty of each adventure, which would explain why Colette can get so many TPKs.
So... a lot like me in all regards, which is why I find it so interesting.
Personally, I think this might be a player/PC tactics issue.
I've played the first 5 modules fully. To the extent of shutting down some player creativity to skip fights because 'We are playing this RAW and testing as many encounters as possible'. I have had issues challenging the players, dispite my best efforts. I've been using demoralize, combat maneuvers, having them flank (sometimes giving them 5ft extra movement to flank in a single action). Heck, I know I've frequently treated several 2-action spells used by Ivorlesh and the bosses of section 4 as 1-action spells accidentally, effectively giving them a ton of free Quickens on their top level spells. I have been going all-out doing my best to murder PCs within the rules. I've even attacked downed PCs.
So far? Only PC death at all, let alone TPK, was in Heroes of Unidarn on the Demilich. And he was down to 30 hp, they might have overcome him if they hadn't basically given up and just wanted the session to end.
Wait, no, also had one in my first ever session to the centipede room. Poison hurts.
My players are almost all experienced Pathfinder veterans who optimize pretty well, and know their way around tactical combat. While I'm probably still a smidgeon less brutal than Collete, I'm not much less burtal than that, the 1 TPK in over 200 hours of play with 8 groups vs the swath of TPKs Collete is getting is really confusing to me. The only reasons I can see are some fundamental difference in a specific rule understanding, or the players.
Good news is Paizo is trying to make skill martials more narratively fun. Emphasis on trying unfortunately. For 'every walk through walls' rogue ability there's three supremely banal options like 'get climb speed' or 'add 5 ft to jump height!'
Powerful Leaper actually makes your jump height 5ft. It's 3ft by default. The feat adds 2ft, not 5ft. It is 60% worse than the example you used as a bad, dissapointing feat.
Yep. I know Doomsday has different goals and development pipeline than a normal published adventure. But I know at least a few people who won't look at PF2's full release based on their experienced with Doomsday. I know several in my current group that will end up that way if I don't entirely re-write Red Flags to show PF2 has a nice system under it, and Doomsday itself is the worst of the problem.
That is Kind of the Point - if it is not described in an interesting way why the rabbit/wall/child is suddenly a Level appropriate challenge, it breaks down the illusion.
That is why we Need more Guidelines as to what Level appropriate challenges are. In the Frozen Oath, this should have been some strange fey creatures known to be incredibly twitchy by nature or something, not some rabbit stand-ins. (There's lots of other stuff wrong with that Encounter, but that's neither here nor there)
Otherwise we, and expecially newer GM's, will fall into the trap of "That wall is now randomly Harder to climb than the same wall 5 Levels ago."
So while I don't hate 10-2, it Needs to be significantly better supported by it's buddies 10-3 and following, and it either Needs to be directly in the skill section or referenced there, to help with Player expectation.
I agree it needs to be better supported by the other tables, but I don't really have a problem with that aspect of the encounter.
It's different enough it can't really be used as an example of the "same wall being harder to climb".
Minor Red Flags Spoilers
Spoiler:
DC 31 check: Basic information about the local god, cursed on a crit failure. Your average Joe getting a nat-19 is cursed for a week for asking what's going on.
DC 31 check: Ask why there's a party the entire town is talking about. It's a public gesture to appease a god. The gala host is going out of her way to make this public. DC 31.
DC 36 check: Get information so basic it starts 'Well, I guess it’s no secret...'. Not a secret. Common, public knowledge from locals at the tavern. DC 36.
DC 36 check: Move through a mundane crowd of unasuming party guests. Average folk, not actively against you. Just kinda there. Passively being DC 36.
DC 31 check: Move on a flat pillar that has a mixture of rough and smooth surfaces. For reference, I grew up on a beach and would say I had about a 90% success rate moving across things like the described slippery pillars. At age 8. DC 31.
That room is also full of DC 31 swim checks and DC 29 checks to not be knocked off a pillar by water by waves, but the water is magic so I can imagine it having enough strength to do that. Probably over-DC'd, but by Red Flags standard, it's acceptable.
Those DCs are not acceptable or excusable. They're absurd, insulting the idea that the players have competent characters - more than that, they're just about the top super agents of a secret order. The DCs do not respect that at all.
So, in re-writing Red Flags, I'm also making new DCs from scratch. I find I'm not using 10-2 at all. I pick the tier of character that might attempt the check, "Okay, gathering information about a party everyone in the town is talking about... yeah, anyone can do that" - easily low tier of level 1-5 characters. Or "convincing the ghost pirates to tell you about the party hosts dark secrets... they're talkative, but this is not a normal person challenge." Adventurer tier of 6-10.
Then I figure out for someone good at that type of thing, at that tier, what success chance do I want?
"Hm, skkilled guy, asking about... probably succeeds most the time, almost never bogs things up entirely and ruins his reputation. DC... 14" sounds good.
"Lesse, someone talking to ghosts can definitely stumble in a few ways, and they're hardly easy conversation partners at that, being pirates. That adventuerer gets info... 75% of the time. DC 18." Yep, the level 14 PCs are going to wreck these DCs. Awesome. They're the Order's top dog super agents, they really ought to. There'll be some tough DCs, but only the sections that have earned it, when interacting with the Kelpie's Wrath, or the Kraken, or Necerion, etc. The DC for tricking the contract devil is very tough, but diplomacy less so. Etc
Overall I've had no issue setting DCs at a high level without even blinking at 10-2. For all its flaws, the tight math helps a lot here, as I can have a good handle on what a DC actually means to each tier of play.
I really like the idea of casters regaining lower level spells on a short rest, or preparing different spells in slots of those levels. The type of spell they can quicken. It gives them a neat option for 10 minute downtimes, opens up flexibility, helps avoid silly-short adventuring days, etc.
But I do want their top spells to be the big bombs that mean something when spent and are hard to regain.
It's wrong. There's no nice way to say it at this point. This idea that the system resolves to always have a 50% chance of success is wrong, and continuing to say so is blatantly misleading, evident of either a fundamental lack of understanding of the system or an intentional desire to throw shade.
"Most if not all of the game's goals would be accomplished by throwing a coin" does not bear any resemblance to the system in theory or in play.
The thread's obviously inflammatory and exaggerating, but I do feel the math is too tight, and it's a common complaint I've seen: On-level challenges assume you've optimized, meaning you don't feel you particuarly excel in your specialty.
Ye gods that's the absoloute worst possible way for table 10-2 to be used in my eyes. I'd be mortified at using it that way. I understand it's different for other tables, but for me:
Doing it like that implies everything the PCs try and do is an on-level challenge, rather than part of a world that has a variety of levels. If you're judging the level of a challenge, then looking it up, neat! It's a usable table. But assuming the PC's level is the right row of the table is how you make it feel like characters don't progress in skills at all as they level up. The devs doing that with Doomsday Dawn and making many DCs of relatively mundane tasks pointlessly high beause the PCs were higher level has been the biggest complaint at my table.
