N N 959's page

I've been playing both 5e and PF2 since PF2 came out.

I was never fan of WotC. I don't like their business ethics when it comes to D&D, particularly with their refusal to canonize the Revised Ranger after they "officially" released it. I won't give them an of my money. But I not a fan of PF2 either. I essentially refuse to buy 2e products where I had purchased a lot with PF1.

Both systems are trying to fill the same void of 1e D&D, albeit, from completely different philosophies. I feel Paizo made the wrong choice. I think they could have made a better version of 5e, just as they did with 3.5 But I think they sold themselves short. Instead, they decided to corner a smaller segment of the player base. In the short run, they reported that they've made far more money on PF2 than they did with PF1, but admitted they have a smaller market share. I see PF2 as akin to WotC's 4e. I'm hoping PF2 is a stepping stone to a much better game.

As far as the differences? I evaluate both games based on what they provided in terms of playing a Ranger. In that department, 5e's Revised Ranger blows PF2 out of the sky. PF2 can't produce anything even remotely close to the Revised Ranger. Even the "official" Ranger in 5e is better and has far more agency and is far more inspiring and flat out fun. But there's more.

To understand the reason for PF2, you have to understand that Paizo sees itself as primarily a content publisher. For Paizo, once the money started to fade with PF1, they had to abandon it because for Paizo's purposes--content publishing--PF1 was problematic. By about 5th level, PF1 encounters (skill checks and combat) become increasingly hard to balance. Anyone who has played PFS PF1 knows that very quickly, optimizers will start trivializing encounters and marginalizing other party members by lvl 5. By level 10, you know the halfway point for a character, the game is kind of a joke when it comes to balance. It's hard to write AP's when you can't reliably create balanced encounters. This is the reason why things generally don't stack in PF2. This is the reason behind the "tight math."

So the real purpose of PF2 is to create a framework that will do a better job of supporting Paizo's ability to create AP's that are still playable as you get into higher levels. The problem is you have to sacrifice a lot of character efficacy to do this. Of course, there are ways to disguise this. Give out lots of feats/skill that that seem like they do something, but are mechanically negligible. And in fact, the more skill and feats you give out, the less they can do because the ultimate goal of PF2 is to keep the math tight and the efficacy range between builds as narrow as possible. This is probably the only iteration of D&D where you can reliably know any class' Armor Class from 1-20.

Despite playing 5e nearly every week, for the last two years, I don't feel I have nearly the same insight into 5e (assuming I have any insight in to PF2). As a player, 5e, is instantly more fun and it is obvious why its such a big hit as compared to PF1 and PF2. 5e is not afflicted with the need for "balance" as is evident with PF2 and as such the game breathes and feels far more open. In contrast with Paizo, WotC seems to have placed its energies into making classes that are fun to play as written and put less design energy into expecting the player to figure out what is fun to play. For me, this what I prefer. I don't want to build a class. I don't want to spend hours trying to figure out how to avoid crappy skill/feat/class choices. I don't want to spend hours looking for a "build." I want to play game where professional game designers actually do that.

Obviously there are a considerable number of people who do love "builds." And PF2 is definitely going to scratch that itch far more than 5e. But even when I've been motivated to spend time on a build in PF2, I find the options in PF2 are mostly flaccid. PF2 gives out so many build increments, it cannot allow any of them to be that impactful and they can't stack. So for me, the PF2 approach feels more of a facade: How do we create the experience of customization without letting it really impact efficacy? For most people who are on the Paizo forums, it probably feels like PF2 pulls it off.

That having been said, I am far less inclined to play non-Rangers in 5e. If you don't like what 5e offers you in a class, its comparatively a lot harder to make it do something else. And despite the lack of efficacy in PF2, there is a psychological payoff to getting choices every level. Humans adapt. If all you play is PF2, then you become accustom to the minor bumps in efficacy and they can seem satisfying. If you've never played or liked a Ranger in previous iterations of D&D, then the PF2 Ranger may seem great to you.

Ultimately, I feel Paizo intentionally tried to create an alternative to 5e, and they succeeded. If you're on these forums, it's probably because you prefer Paizo's approach, or, you're simply working with what you got.

Not understanding the ranger hate all that much bc I was originally a abused martial player from 5e. PF2E's ranger and monk were the whole reason I switched when the system dropped. Even after all the new goodies they remain my two favorite classes to play

It isn't "hate" it's disappointment, frustration, dissatisfaction. The class could have been really good without making it substantively better at killing things.

The original 5e Ranger was equally abysmal. Then WotC came out with the (at the time) "official" Revised Ranger. Those changes were everything the class should have been. Natural Explorer and Primeval Awareness are inspired abilities that have mechanical benefits and narrative space for a GM to leverage. Comparatively, PF2 Ranger feels like the rules have a two-handed choke hold on it with a knee pinning one arm.

WotC unofficialed the Revised Ranger because they didn't want their PHB to have a dead class in it. The bean counters forced WotC to put optional feat replacements (which were better, but nothing close to the Revised Ranger) in another book and WotC tried to tell everyone these new feats "fixed" the Ranger--so go buy this new book. It was really transparent. WoTC also created the Gloom Stalker which was a subclass which can basically see in the dark and not be seen and this had everyone ignoring all the other issues with the class. This was a crit success on the Distraction roll. Still, there's a utube video of the WoTC guy explaining it and he rolls a combined 1 on his Persuasion/Deception. When asked about the "Revised Ranger" he says, "There is only one Ranger and that's the one in the PHB." Everyone I know who plays 5e uses the Revised Ranger.

, it is a very versatile (in how you can build it) class and it's not really lagging behind other middle-of-the-road options.

But that versatility is largely a facade. The "support' Ranger, the "snare" Ranger, a build which turns Outwit into something impactful....are all urban legends...at least in PFS. Versatility that lacks efficacy is not versatility. As someone said, it's really easy to build an ineffectual martial with the Ranger. If you focus all your build capital on combat, you can have your moments. But are other classes reduced to moments, or do they have more sustained impact/payoff? Outside of that, IMO, you never get close to what historically the class has been able to do...in any version, let alone PF1.

The Ranger's real contribution to PF2 is that it presents another bow martial, a crossbow martial, and a two-weapon-fighting martial. All of which are mediocre, unless you've burned a sufficient number of wood elves to the Dice Gods.

N N 959 wrote:

How do I start tracking?

Track p.252 CRB wrote:

You attempt your Survival check when you start Tracking

If you can find a rule or errata that says I'm "tracking" before I make a Survival roll, lay it on me.

That is exploration mode and it is talking about hours.

You are mixing up rules for exploration and encounter mode and insisting on tight timing. It is just the wrong approach.

That's right, Track is an exploration activity. Hunt Prey explicitly says you "must" be tracking "during exploration." I'm not mixing up anything.

If you want to set your prey while tracking it, you need to first be tracking it. It's black and white. If you want to play it another way, that's fine. But please dial down the gas-lighting

You are confusing the concept of a set of track and trail.

A set of tracks is any indication that a creature was in a location.
A trail is what you find when you succeed in a tracking roll. Now you know the direction of travel of the creature and can follow it.

I'm not confused.

You must be able to see or hear the prey, or you must be tracking the prey during exploration.

If I'm not already tracking the creature, I don't get to set it as prey.

In game play, at least with all the GMs I've played within PFS1 and PFS2, any time I've wanted to track a creature, I have to make a Survival check. Rangers don't get a bonus on that check. A Ranger has no inherent bonus to start tracking.

How do I start tracking?

You attempt your Survival check when you start Tracking

If you can find a rule or errata that says I'm "tracking" before I make a Survival roll, lay it on me.

Azu shakes his head at the notion of pocket bacon as he imagines a wild bear killing Itka all over some pocket bacon.

I think the main issue we face here is the Nirvana Fallacy not the wicked problem.

Close. I think it's not so much that people compare realistic to unrealistic, it's that the solutions are, to some extent, mutually exclusive. If I build a Ranger to excel at melee combat, I can't then argue the Ranger excels at ranged combat. An individual player has one build, not all of them. So while a class may be built to solve orthogonal problems to some degree or another, that isn't useful information for the player who has to choose one build.

Stepping back, congrats on having an interesting thread that hasn't devolved into nasty, especially given the polarizing nature of the Tier rankings paradigm. I realized that you've moved on from the original Tier paradigm, but I thought you might find it interesting to hear more background on it. To add what knowledge I have, I believe the Tier system was first discussed on Brilliant Gameologist by a poster named "Jared." I tracked him down about 10 years ago and exchanged emails and PMs with him. A couple of things to point out.

1. Jared claims his tier system was not about comparing classes to one another. It was intended as an aid for GMs to identify classes that were most capable of "breaking a campaign." It naturally follows that such classes would trivialize other classes, but the extent to which this is true was not the focus of his efforts.

2. It was my opinion that Jared's analysis suffered from the same logical flaw that has been brought up in the early part of this thread: perfect knowledge. In arguing his point, Jared discussed what a caster could do as compared to what a martial could do. But as has been pointed out, a caster would need to prepare spells in advance. If the caster did not know what to expect, the scope of what could be accomplished was not considered. Of course, the more spell slots a caster has, the more contingencies they can prepare for, where as a martial doesn't generally get that increase in flexibility. So while there was a flaw in the analysis, it was a matter of degree. A caster's ability to break the game is still going to increasingly outpace a martial's ability as they level.

3. Oddly enough, the trees get overlooked for the forest, imo (yes, I am reversing the idiom). The real culprit that gets overlooked is...spells. While that seems self-evident, since Tier 1 was essentially all casters, the problem is that fundamental design approach to spell creation on the part of the developers. Spells are inherently intended to break the rules, or to put it more accurately, spelll creation lacked a rigorous framework to keep them from overreaching. We can imagine a content creator sitting in their chair saying, "Wouldn't it be cool to have a spell do X?" For a non-caster to do X, or anything approaching X, might require various degrees of build capital. But for a caster, it was as easy as adding another spell. So, imo, the problem is a direct result of spell proliferation and the inherent design challenge in developers having any type of consistent framework for adding spells that don't overstep.

I think Paizo has certainly made a concerted effort in PF2 to curb spells, much to the uproar of the PF1 caster community. But it's a battle that is easily los because it must be continually fought over every new publication. New spells are easy to develop, but because this game lacks any closed form solutions, understanding their total impact is difficult

It's not gonna be perfect, no objective attempt at measuring a multi-subjective perceptoral concept is, but we've made some decent headway from the Original Post, that should be called ''the draft'' from now on.

I would argue that the would "perfect' is not applicable in this context. As I stated above, game design does not have a closed-form solution. This means we have no mechanical means of reaching an answer, a solution. Which is why someone compared this to a "Wicked Problem"

I submit that perhaps the goal isn't to find "the list," but to understand what factors influence a class' position on that list? What would move a Ranger from one ranking to another?

A Pf2e class tier compilation should have 2 stated goals

1 - To accurately represent the ability of each class to affect meaningful change to multiple areas of the narrative at broad, through only their core class kit, discounting archetypes, skill feats, general feats, items and ancestries as non-pertinent to the matter.

2 - In a broader sense, to accurately determine how these classes intermesh with each other in a party, so as to determine where a party, based on only their classes, might be weak or strong, and thus tailor further build options around that, if so desired.

I like that you're recognizing that a list must serve a purpose. Since it seems we've moved away from the Tier paradigm, what utility could a list serve for a player/GM? Why would I want to read the list?

1. [b]Purpose[b] Determine the extent two which a class serves a non-trivial purpose in nominal game-play/publish content. To what extent does the class contribute to advancing the narrative and overcoming the encounters typically presented in a nominal game. In other words, how important is any specific class to the party? Why would a party want this class as a a member?

2. What classes are most easily invalidated or rendered unnecessary in an average party? Do a Druid and Fighter totally negate the need for a Ranger? To what extent does an Investigator or Thief infringe on each other? Perhaps a corollary is exploring this with Dedications. Does Class A with Dedication X totally spell Class B?

Hey Farol. I can't think of anything you did that I was critical of. A well run game and look forward to the next one.

You're welcome. It's such a neat way to add ranged attacks to my TWF ranger without having to switch to the shortbow. A total gem of build design and makes me happier about playing my ranger.

Just some more context. I am using doubling rings with a sword and light mace. Originally, I was putting the runes on my sword with the gold ring hand, right? But now, I will put them on the light hammer and and gold ring, and hold the sword in the other hand. That way the hammer continues to benefit from striking while thrown, and the sword gets all the same benefits while in melee.

Regarding Party order, I've moved Azu to the front, behind the Reedemer on account of having the most HPs, but if someone really needs to be ahead of Azu, let me know. I've moved Azu's companion to the rear.

If a person were to try to play the game Mario Brothers without ever choosing to jump, of course they could play the game that way, perhaps even for hours, restarting after getting killed every time, attempting to run back and forth for as long as possible, and maybe they would even have fun exploring the mind space of a Mario Mario trapped in an endless loop of death and rebirth.

I think this is a disanalogy. The issue people are voicing is not that they refuse to use some basic mechanic, like Skill checks or using Weapons. I see there are some accusations that there is some contingency of players who "refuse" to use ranged weapons, followed by attempts to link that to some level of failure. That really has nothing to do with the OP's ask.

Paraphrasing the OP and some of the supporting posts, players are simply explaining that the change in paradigm/design is leaving an enjoyment gap which is not fulfilled by the available tools. That's going to be true on many varying levels and facets, depending on the player, when you have the type of paradigm shift that Pf2 employed. Players...customers, will like/idislike the changes to varying degrees. The best place for them to voice that displeasure is on the forums.

Paizo, and Jason Bullman himself, has specifically and repeatedly said they want to hear player feedback. Paizo has repeatedly asked for input from the players and in many cases, even the Ranger, they've changed the game as a result. Yes, most of those changes were made before launch, so certainly timing is a factor in when/if changes might be made. Nevertheless, I find it unfortunate that so frequently player complaints are invariably met with "this is the wrong game for you."

As stated above, my discussion or interest in the discussion is about how/whether/to what extent the requested changes are possible. Is it something Paizo is likely to do and if not, why? Is there a way for Paizo to address this gap? Could Paizo make those changes without undermining other aspects of the game? I think answering these questions is more productive than essentially telling players they don't get it.

Not trying to pick on your response, but it seems to be rather representative of a reoccurring response to people who voice issues with the game.

Not gonna lie, a lot of this later conversation just sounds like blaming/shaming people for playing the concepts they want to play.

I have definitely noticed that these forums have a minority of posters who have a low tolerance threshold for anything that sounds like criticism of PF2. You can complain a little, but after awhile, the pressure builds and you get far more resistance.

And I really think "X person is still in the 1e mentality" became the new scapegoat to dismiss any criticism of the game or want that differs a bit. Both me and my group have been acused of being in the 1e mentality when talking about some negative experiences and none of us ever touched 1e. Heck, half the group started playing RPGs in PF2.

Yup, there is definitely a mindset that anything that 1e did that 2e doesn't do is badwrongfun if people preferred the 1e approach.

Now, it may seem like I am part of that group, but my approach in this thread is aimed at clearly identifying the design/philosophy that 2e is using (at least as I see it) that directly conflicts with the desires expressed by the OP and others. My point is not that anyone has a 1e mentality, but to discuss how 2e has eschewed that approach. So I'm trying to explain why I think the OP isn't going to get what they want.

Yes, in some cases I think that some of the desired outcomes are part of the 1e and even D&D 5e mindset, and I'm not saying that preferring that is badwrongfun, at all. In fact, there are many things 2e does that I think make me enjoy the game less as compared to earlier versions. What I am trying to do in this thread is identify why Paizo did those things, I'm not trying to pass judgment on them as universally good or bad.

A good analogy is when Apple decided to go to USB-C and remove access ports for HMDI and media cards. Many people hated that change and certainly some people celebrated it. Now, Apple has done an about face and essentially conceded they made the wrong design choice.

Why should they be poor choices for the alchemist? I'm not saying that they should be amazing or anything, but making it even as good as a "reasonable" choice seems like it wouldn't break anything.

I think the problem is that given Paizo's deisgn objective, the choice is "reasonable."

The point of letting the alchemist take alchemist archetypes is the same as the point of letting a fighter take Dual Weapon Warrior - it lets them focus further in that direction.

I don't think that is what Paizo intends for Archetypes. The way I've interpreted the design, it aligns with what SuperBidi is saying. The Archetypes are not intended for focus, they are primarily intended to allow a character to do something that is otherwise or to some degree orthogonal to its Class. The more aligned you are with the archetype, the less benefit you are intended to receive. Paizo's trying to facilitate the Rogue who can make some bombs. They are not trying to facilitate the bomb-making Alchemist who is even better at making bombs.

I see two primary reasons for this. The first is exactly what SuperBidi identifies: Paizo absolutely wants to avoid players feeling compelled to take Archetypes to fulfill their class function. The second is simply the "balance"/tight math aspect of PF2. Paizo has gone out of its way to reduce benefits of stacking/synergy. The game design seems to advocate horizontal improvement over vertical improvement i.e. Robust vs Specialized. Paizo doesn't want the the Alchemist-Alchemist to be doing 15% more damage than the plain old Alchemist.

That having been said, I feel your pain. I think part of the problem is that imo, Paizo, once again tries to have its cake and eat it too. Rather than providing zero benefit from taking thematically associated Archetypes, Paizo insisted on putting some unique benefit. So an archery Ranger looks at the Archer and sees some benefit, but is uncertain if it is enough to justify the Archery dedication given how feat starved the Ranger feels.

What exasperates this problem is that some classes are more victimized than others. Some classes, like the Ranger imo, are having to use their Class feat currency to cover narrative, utility, and combat gaps. A class like Fighter doesn't really suffer from that dilemma, imo.

My guess is Paizo doesn't see a problem. Either the Archetype gives you want you want and you take it, or it doesn't and you don't. And as someone who doesn't play an Alchemist, it's kind of hard to understand the complaint other than a fundamental complaint about the Alchemist class itself. I guess I feel if you're wanting the Achetype to do more for you class, isn't that just wanting your class to do more for itself? Shouldn't the best way to improve an Alchemist be to take more Alchemist Class feats?

I'm with OP, here. While I love archetypes, a character's class is still the most important aspect of their functionality, and their subclass is usually that character's first foray into flavorful specialization. It doesn't make sense for a character's core to feel like the most boring part.

I personally don't like Archetypes and don't use them for any of my classes. Either the class is fun to play out of the box, or it's not. I don't want to spend time and effort trying to make the Class fun by digging through Archetypes as a solution.

That having been said, I recognize that Paizo would argue the Classes are fun, the Archetypes are for those people who want to build a Class, as it were.

I think Paizo is trying to have its cake and eat it to. They want a "Class" system, but they want lots of modularity for people who don't really like the class system. IMO, it suffers from the classic problem of being mediocre at two things rather than being really good at one. I would rather Paizo had baked far more functionality into the base chassis. But my preference is harder to future proof compared to what they've gone with. So I have to give Paizo credit for an solution to one of the design goals (of course I do not know if they borrowed the idea from some other system). The only questions is whether it's "fun?"

, but it required a little house-ruled leniency from the GM and picking up the Medic archetype.

And I think that's the drawback of Paizo's approach. You have to go pick up an Archetype to feel fulfilled.

Although, since so much of the class depends on piddling around with items, and that's the bit that's most obnoxious to work with, I don't know how exactly the class could be improved.

They probably should have given you feats with action economy discounts, exactly how they did with the Gunslingers. But they can't really go back and do that with this system.

I'd be content to wait until late 2022/early 2023 for a big core class update.

While I would love get a completely overhauled (did someone say "Revised") Ranger, I don't see that ever happening. Paizo put so much effort into the tight math, you're asking them to go through what has to be an extremely tedious effort again. I suppose they could try and limit it to a few classes, like they did with Unchained, but the risk is they end up making classes out of tolerance.

I suppose whether that happens will also depend on how successful PF2 is in the face of D&D 6. At the point, maybe Paizo just pushes on to v3.

For narrative puposes

As the group gathers around the ankh and discusses the relics, Ajax spends his time looking for obvious signs of fitment.

"It appears that each relic has been placed in the shrine many times before and the wood has been worn out in a way that fits the proper relic."

Ajax places the relics appropriately.

Yeah, I would agree. Confusion is one of those spells that works better against PCs than it works for them.

It's not affecting the developers in any way to addrees a really frequent question per week. Just not the best approcach towards the game.

Based on numerous statements I've seen made in youtube videos by the developers themselves, it turns out that many of the questions people have do involved a lot of discussion on the part of the developers.

In other words, there is no one person who has the authority to make rulings, or even if there were, that is not how Paizo wants to handle it. The developers have also discussed an awareness that any ruling can adversely affect some subset of players and that seems to be a basis for why they just don't crank them out.

Your PCs will have to do more total damage, but it'll be a very different type of Severe encounter - though not necessarily less difficult. I've found that this second sort of Severe encounter tends to be a lot more enjoyable to players seeking difficulty if you're using harder encounters regularly

So it sounds like you're saying that you can change the nature of the combat encounter to make it more enjoyable, without changing the difficulty?

I have to say, that sounds familiar.

After playing 2e pretty much since release, I can't believe I'm just now noticing this. Without being able to Step at least 10 feet, Feather Step actually doesn't do anything.

It only removes the limitation on being able to Step into difficult terrain, it critically doesn't change the movement cost associated with it. And since it costs 10 feet of movement to go into a square of difficult terrain... you need another feat for it to actually do anything.

Thoughts? Errata?

I do not understand the issue.

The only reason to Step is to avoid triggering an AoO. Normall, you can't Step into diferent terrain. Feather Step, thus allows you to move 5' in difficult terrain and avoid an AoO. What is the confusion?

It seems irrelevant whether it cost you 10' of movement or 5'. You use up your entire Action to Step into difficult terrain...which is what Feather Step says you get to do.

Feather Step actually doesn't do anything.

It does. It lest you move 5' in difficult terrain without triggering an AoO. A 10' Stride does not give you that.

What am I missing?

. I played PF1 for ages. And it was a highly tactical game...

Not really wanting to get pulled back into this thread, but the idea that PF1 wasn't tactical is demonstrably not true. What may be be true is that certain individuals may have experienced the game in a narrower context, or it could be that people are dismissing facets of tactical combat in PF1.

My goal in this response is not to judge one version vs another, but simply to talk about the games. In that vein, I will say that PF2 has been no more tactical through the same levels, and honestly, feels a lot less tactical with the same results. The victories are the same, the combat success is statistically equivalent.

The fact that essentially all creatures in PF1 had attacks of opportunity and the 5' step was Free, created a tremendous emphasis on position, movement, and timing that is largely absent from PF2, in my experience. Dealing with Reach and AoO of large or huge creatures created all kinds of battlefield/tactical headaches and challenges that, on my end, felt like chess. In PF2, I can move where ever I want unless the NPC has an AoO, which is certainly rare at lower levels.

For reference, 95% of my games have been PFS played via Play-by-post. That may change the dynamic. I do notice that when playing face-to-face, there is less willingness on the part of players to communicate about tactics do to the inherent time constraint of a live game. I've also noticed that there is a large subset of players who do not want to talk tactics OOC because it some how ruins the game for them. When you play PbP, you have much more time to consider the options and, at least in my case, look at everyone else's build for options that can help. As a matter of standard operating procedure, I would review everyone's build in PF1 to make sure I knew what abilities they had so that we I could bring it up in moments of desperation. I haven't had to do that in PF2 at all.

Another example of the tactical diversity of PF1 was in the use of equipment. PF1 has lots of ammunition options: blunt, thistle, smoke, trip, dye, etc. PF2 has none of that. In PF1, you had all kinds of reagents to use with spells to add rider effects. I guess I haven't seen that in PF2. Unchained Rogues and Investigators had abilities to stop AoO attacks and I can't tell you how many times I've used those to great effect to help players reposition or escape. These are available by level 4-5. Is there a comparable way to deny AoO's at low level? I don't know.

There have been PFS games where I literally sat up at night trying to figure out how our party was going to survive the adventure and having to come up with sequenced tactics that proved crucial.

There's been much ado about you can't play PF2 like you play PF1. I haven't found that to be true and as mentioned, with the exception of the adventure Lucy discussed, all my tables have completed all objectives in PF2, just as we did in PF1. The only difference is the experience of whack-a-mole in melee and a slightly higher propensity for players to want to flank. But that is at low levels where you don't have other ways of making targets flat-footed. At higher levels, you actually need less positional flanking.

What some people have countered with is that you win at chargen or that you have one tactic and it trivializes the encounters. Both of those statements are broad generalizations that are false in totality. When you play PFS, you get the full spectrum of players. The vast majority of those low level games do not involve min/max players. As you get higher levels, the players lose interest in their characters and start over. So lower level games are filled with builds that are based on concept and roleplay, not combat.

Yes, at around 7th level, you see some builds that can solo some encounters, but not all. Yes, casters can dominate and if you play with optimized builds, tactics aren't as much of a factor. There's no denying that PF1 had issues at higher level. But from 1-7, tactics have been a huge part of my PFS PF1 experience, for more so than PF2. And I don't see any propensity or penchant of PFS PF2 players to coordinate any more than they did in PF1. Most players have this thing they want to do and they do it.

Conversely, through the first three levels of a PF2 AP I've been playing, the Fighter has totally trivialized half the party. Fighting -1's and -2s, the Fighter kills anything in reach within two rounds and easily could have soloed most of the encounters at this point.. Sure, he's face planted, then he got back up, and went back at it. So from my perspective, this guy won at chargen.

Is PF2 more tactical game then PF1? I think that's the wrong question What matters is whether you enjoy the tactics in PF2 or not. If you look at the game design and the presence of things like Battle Medicine and Continual Recovery, that tells me that the Paizo designers expected a very different combat experience. ThoughI haven't seen a change in player philosophy.

But the idea that PF1 wasn't tactical isn't true from my game experience, at all. And while i haven't gotten as high in PF2 as I did in PF1, I haven't found PF2 to be more tactical than PF1 or requiring the PFS players to exhibit any more tactical acumen for the same level of success.

To define a term, then. When I say normal play, I mean the game operating in the standard manner where there is no entity above the GM, who is available for the players to communicate with directly, making the call. Not suggesting some kind of standardization in the least. The standardization IS the abnormality.

Well I definitely thought you meant something different. But, IME, this is normal play in PFS. After Michael Brock left, there has been a distinct change in philosophy that PFS, the OOC aspect, has no power to control GMs. As such, the GMs have been given way more latitude than under the old head of PFS. If you complain to OOC officers, they tell you there is nothing they can do and won't step in unless a PC dies and it's unequivocally an illegal action by the GM.

While I absolutely tell people myself that normal play and PFS aren't really the same thing, this post seems to be saying some things that aren't quite accurate.

I'm sorry, but if anyone has been paying attention to forum discusions, the idea that there is such a thing as "normal" play is a fallacy. Non-PFS GMs insert all manners of house rules and modifications and adjustments that are idiosyncratic. Not to mention that many GMs do just as considerably does, "pull punches" because they don't want to kill off players in a steady campaign.

It has to be run as written... EXCEPT that when they PCs don't act as written, the GM actually is expected to account for the way the PCs are approaching things. The GM can't decide "This monster is too much for this party, I will adjust it's stats" but there is no PFS rule suggesting that if the party has a clever plan for how to scope out the dangers ahead, prepare in some unexpected way, go around the expected path, or what-have-you that you should prevent them from doing it.

In PF2, I've experienced far more table variation than I did in PF1. Many GMs do not understand where the line is between adjudicating unforeseen PC actions, and straight house ruling. Nevertheless, I'd be willing to wager my life that there is far more consistency within PFS than there is without.

Recall knowledge is also extremely variable between tables as the rules do also say to give useful information and tightly formal rules on recall knowledge results don't exist so no one can be required to follow them.

Exactly. So calls to use Recall Knowledge as some sort of grossly overlooked boon to the party are misplaced. As graystone points out, just because you or your GM makes this consistently useful, doesn't mean it works that way in nominal game play. And as you astutely point out, there is no hardcoded rule for what information to hand out and this dramatically undermines any perceived benefit from consistent use of RK.

The same goes for any tactic. GMs can, and will, counter player tactics or find ways to force players to burn actions. This is more likely when you're getting a different GM who thinks they need to up the difficulty (via monster actions) to make it "fun."

Conversely, there is a lot of softballing in PFS. Perhaps more in PF1 then PF2 because PF2 is more driven by dice outcomes. Probaby less than what happens in home games, but GMs will occasionally bend the rules or the plausibilty to try and save PC lives. I can't say I've ever truly come across a PFS GM who was clearly out to kill players (knock on wood).

Can the encounter be beaten? Sure. Was it designed well? Absolutely not.

I haven't read the scenario. I can only go by how the GM ran it. From my end, it was not the "design" of the encounter that was the issue. I didn't feel like we were in an unfair position for a boss fight. It was the fact you can have a +3 boss who can so easily crit and kill a PC every round. As for "suite of abilities" I don't see that creature has any more than any other boss typically has. Most bosses have extra mechanics.

Our party just made some bad decisions. We could have done a LOT more in terms of preparing ourselves, which I won't go into for spoiler reasons. But when you have one PC dying a round because of mechanics, you're not given much room to recover.

What I will agree is that for 1st level players who may have been used to PF1 (though I do not really know if they were PF1 players), we weren't prepared for a boss who can just one shot PCs every round.

I liken it back to the PF1 scenario, First Steps, with Lem, that halfling, battle-axe wielding barbarian. That guy insta-killed a few PCs during that scenario's run. The pre-combat set up was way more egregious, imo. But you knew statistically, Lem wasn't going to kill the whole party. Statistically, this boss was likely to do it.

You can try and pin this on design, but if you put that "LEGAL" boss in any combat encounter, I think you'l get the same result unless you essentially handicap it and make the encounter a LOT easier to offset the inherent mechanics.

Even after I tried to lay out some ways in which we could possibly win, refresh our spells, come back the next day, no one wanted to face that Boss again.

Yup. That scenario, specifically, is the single worst case I've seen of scaling encounters being done poorly. At the high end of low tier, the results genuinely are absurdly deadly, and Lucy isn't wrong that there is a high chance of that creature dropping or even outright killing 1-2 characters before anyone can even act.

I have no idea where this encounter ranks, but I've played some others that seemed arguably just as dire: PCs getting crit left and right and it's looking like a TPK.

I will admit this is the one scenario where I saw a Ranger and two companions die. That Ranger had Toughness, by the way. The only reason we avoided the TPK is the GM clearly, and I mean clearly, went out of his way to allow us to creative solution our way out of it. We failed to kill the creature, but we only had one permanent casualty, if we ignore the two companions. We probably should have lost another player, if not two, but the GM mercifully moved the boss away.

That having beens said, we might have prevailed, despite having party full of Rangers, had the caster not put Magic Weapon on the worst built combatant - a Ranger with no Hunted Shot and a bird companion?

It is a serious failure of encounter balancing

I can't say I completely agree with that. Formulaically is it not legal? It's +3 encounter solo NPC, is that not a legal difference in PFS?

It's not much different than other PFS boss encounters, IME. We just happened to be caught unprepared and one or two bad decisions and we were ill-suited. I'm sure other optimized 1st level parties have beaten that encounter.

What really makes the encounter deadly is the high-crit/one-shot ability of the boss. As Lucy says, there is was no escaping that creature moving anywhere in the room and it getting to hit at least one PC and essentially one shot that PC with a crit. We lost two players to that thing and two companions. No one was going to tank it.

It's also such a large failure of encounter balancing that using it as an example for discussion of how the system plays in general does not work, because encounter guidelines will tell you that setting up the encounter that way is creating a TPK machine.

What guidelines? Is it an illegal encounter by budget?

From where I set, whoever designed that encounter had to know full well and good that with the to-hit bonus, it's going to crit insta/kill the vast majority of 1st level PCs. The problem with us is we got a couple of bad rolls, made some less than optimal decisions, and simply lacked the fire power to kill it before it killed us. I personally thought that had we rested, we might have come back and finished it off, even despite being down a PC and two companiosn. But the rest of the party was totally demoralized and gave up.

I'm not sure you've understood the problem, here.

He doesn't. Nevertheless, people insist that you're using the wrong tactics, or you need to be using Demoralize....lol.

The translation is that you need to hyper-optimize your entire party's build in PF2 just to survival nominal game play. In other systems, one or two optimized PCs could carry the party and leave the door open for more indulgent builds. IME, the crit mechanic asymmetry has reduced that kind of margin.

Again, after two years of PFS and some APs the most reliably way to win encounters is to simply out damage the NPCs. And that becomes easier at level 4. I haven't seen any use of non-damaging technicals that has had any demonstrative effect in PFS or can be the basis of why we win. So far, in my AP and PFS encounters, it always comes down to who kills faster. I'm not trying to discount peoples love of Trip and Grapple and Demoralize, but IME, it is not a difference maker as compared to hitting with weapons/spells.

I dont't think it's coincidental that PF2 has Hero Points and one of their functions is to automatically stop you from dying.

Frankly I think we're really having trouble understanding your point, so cut us some slack here. I'm going to do my best, but maybe consider if you aren't explaining it very well or that perhaps you might be mistaken before attacking folks.

I don't see you claiming I think my position is universal when nothing in the example is predicated on my having a preference nor do I imply I have any preference.

Go read Malik's posts. It's clear he doesn't like A as design choice, so he's using an asinine forum tactic to claim I think "my preference is universal." Only, I didn't offer a preference because my preference, even had I offered one, is wholly irrelevant to the discussion. None of his reasons for not liking A necessitates him accusing me of thinking everyone agrees with my preference. He doesn't like A, so he's trying to associate me with A and present me as having this offensive believe I think everyone thinks like I do, so A will be less attractive. He does this despite my explicitly stating I don't know how the majority of people think. Then he tries to double down on it.

Does he apologize for it? No. So yeah, I'm gong to call that crap out and the forum mods should remove posts based on false and wholly indefensible attribution.

That's.. obvious? I didn't know I needed to explain that point.

Well, you're trying to criticize Sherlock's suggested approach for reasons that apply to your own suggested fix. That seems hypocritical. You're even agreeing that it's obvious lowering the difficulty causes these problems when it's not obvious a change to the encounter which keeps the difficulty at the same average will do these things.

The entire reason many people may choose to have an easier encounters is to to be able to beat those encounters without needing complex tactics...

Great, but has nothing to do with what Sherlock is talking about. I'm not understanding why that isn't obvious.

Sherlock is pointing out that there are many ways to make things challenging, some of these are more enjoyable than others. He post is predicated on the idea that there is some percentage of people who do not like the feeling of the asymmetrical crit mechanic. That as NOTHING to do with difficulty.

To put it another way, some of us believe an encounter can be more difficult and yet more enjoyable if it didn't include asymmetrical critting. I don't know why that's hard to understand. or why you keep trying to frame this as "easier encounters."

Another way to understand it is like this, I have two choices to increase difficulty:

A: The PCs are fighting in noxious air and have to make Fort saves every round or suffer damage.

B: The PCs are fighting with weapons that get magically greased and every round they have to roll Reflex to avoid having the weapons fly across the room.

Assuming the numbers are tweaked the so difficulty is the same, some people will prefer A and some will prefer B. That's what Sherlock's post is addressing. Why not offer a B to the high crit frequency of A? That suggestion comes from many posts I've seen like OP's which bemoan the swingingy-ness of the game and the fact that the crit mechanic makes it feel like its more about getting lucky/unlucky. Yes, there are tactics that improve survivability, but that's not the complaint. It's not about beating the encounter. It's about how it feels to be in combat.

The game recommends you should have some easy encounters, all I'm saying is have more of them if that's what you want!

Again...Sherlock's point is not about difficult vs easy

So I want to make sure we're on the same page, so to restate: the core of your argument is that is that you can make some changes to hit ratios, and yet somehow the difficulty would be the same, as long as you give more HP/resistances/healing.

Almost, but you're conflating the argument with specifics about HP/resistance/healing. There are innumerable techniques Paizo can use to shape the experience without affecting the average challenge.

However, if you get hit less or hit more often, the game is easier.

No. The difficulty of an encounter is determined by many things. Environment, Magic Items, Numbers of Mobs, Tactics, Pacing, Resistance, Stats, Action taxes, etc. A Boss can be highly accurate and do little damage. Or, they can have low accuracy and do lots of damage and both will have the same expected damage. So getting hit more or less when combined with other variables, is not the sole determinant for difficulty.

I still think Paizo is in a no win situation. There will always be people upset about the direction...

Really? You honestly think people would have complained because they weren't getting crit more by bosses if Paizo had followed Sherlock's advice at the start?

Yes when you claim that a vast majority of people prefer something, without any statistics to back it up, you are elevating your opinion to fact without basis.

I didn't make any such claim, nor did I even I identify what my preference would be.

I don't actually have a preference, because the "illustration" isn't about my preference . It's about how difficulty can stay the same and you can tailor the encounter so that a majority of people won't like it. It is irrelevant which side you think the majority will fall on, the example works in either case.

Accusing me of believing my position (one I have not even asserted) is "universal" amounts to little more than forum baiting and ad hominism, a decidedly asinine tactic.

Sorry, asking the poster to theorize on how how the majority of the player base feels about an illustrative does not allow one to assert I think my "preference is universal." Not even remotely. You're entitled to your opinion, of course.

Yes, it's about a certain number of rounds to defeat. But the core math of the game is about more than that - it's about providing value to characters who are focused on debuffing the enemies defenses, removing actions, being defensive, and so forth.

1) No, it's not about the number of rounds. Rounds are just one metric of difficulty that is meant to be kept equivalent.

2) You're making a flawed/unsubstantiated assumption/assertion that keeping the average difficulty the same but reducing the crit rate has any impact on debuffing, removing actions, etc. Asserting those things are connecting doesn't mean they are. I understand you believe that to be true, but your basing that on pure supposition.

You're acting like it's so simple we should just make stuff easier to hit

It feels like you're missing the point. That was an example how difficulty is the same but the experience and player preference will change based on the stochastic set up. And at no point have I talked about how easier or hard it would be. Ironically, you've been telling everyone it's easy to lower the "difficulty" and you're not addressing how that impacts all the things you insist will be affected when the difficulty stays the same, but the dynamics of the encounter change.

but if we somehow did like you imply and figured out some calculation to make it "take some similar amount of rounds", you're still devaluing other mechanics which exist in the game.

Your logical argument is perplexing. If anything is going to devalue other mechanics, it would be changing the difficulty, a path you're advocating. Yet you are asserting that if we keep the difficulty the same and the rounds it takes to defeaet said creature, we would be devaluing the other mechanics. That doesn't follow.

If the creature has a ton of hit points and fast healing, what's the point of playing a support character who's focused on disrupting the enemy action economy?

If the combat lasts the same number of rounds and consumes the same amount of resources, then said support characters impact would average out to be the same.

You seem to be under the impression, from my example, that there is only one way to modify an encounter and it always had to be the same way. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are lots of way beyond lots of hit points and fast healing. The creature could have Resistances, it could have no fast healing more hit points and Weakness. The alternatives to High AC and Low HP encounters that produced the same difficulty are probably inexhaustible.

What about the feats that apply effects on a miss, or spells with powerful riders even if the creature saves? Who cares, you just need to beat down the beanbag's hitpoints and overcome that fast healing.

Easily handled by giving the creature its own method of debuffing PC accuracy or raising its AC periodically. There is no restriction in Paizo's ability to invent mechanics to achieve desired outcomes. It just becomes a question of what experience does Paizo want the player to have.

What about the implied suggestion in the title of this very thread, which is inverse of what you're saying.

Yeah....once again, my example was an illustration that this is not about "difficulty" which you and others keep repeating. I am not descriping the OP's problem I'm explaining to you that two things can have the same average difficulty and generate completely opposite reactions. But when you keep referring to "difficulty" It comes across as a way to denigrate the OPster and others who dislike the getting hit/crit dynamic.

At the end of the day, what you're proposing would require a complete overhaul of the rules to the point of being almost a different game.

Uh...no. It would not require a complete overhaul of the rules. It can be done with the rules that are in place. How different a game would it be? Well, the point is to make the encounter experience different....ideally more enjoyable. That's the point of all changes Paizo would be willing to make. I can't speak to how other players would perceive the level of "different." Nobody can, not without experiencing it and getting feedback.

I have not taken a stance on whether the difficulty is "too easy", "just right", "too hard"

You mean outside of accusing posters (myself included) that they want the game to be"easier" when they (I) don't?

All that to say, I don't think you're wrong for wanting adventures to be easier.

lol. And there we go again. At no point have I said I want the game to be easier. This is the second time I've pointed this out to you and yet you're still tryin to push that agenda.

I firmly do not believe there is any core problem with the system, but rather the difficulty presented vs. the difficulty expected. So either the GM makes difficulty adjustments, or Paizo decides to make difficulty adjustments.

And I'm tryin to explain that it's not about "difficulty." If you keep framing the problem as one of "difficulty" you're not going to solve the problem, let alone understand it.

How critical/fundamental is PCs getting crit with frequency to the roots of PF2? I do not know. I doubt Paizo truly knows. It's a facet of the game that results from how the monsters are stated for accuracy. Can you lower their accuracy and do other things to keep the difficulty the same? I am of the opinion the answer is yes, but it would take playing and player feedback to get deeper insight. Would it take resources on Paizo's part? Yes. Is it worth the effort? It would be for me, but I can't speak for anyone else.

The problem is NN you are talking as if your preference is universal.

.... would more people enjoy the game? I don't know,...

I certainly don't have access to any statistics which shed light on how big or small a problem this is

There is no legitimate or even good faith reading of my post that justifies your blatant attempt to misrepresent my position on this matter. As such I'm flagging your post. But misrepresentation of posters who take contrary positions is a tried and true method of tryin to "win" forum debates, at least here.

They had to pick a baseline difficulty..

I'll point out that the fact that you talk about "difficulty" says you're fundamentally not grasping the issue.

But that's fine.

The implication is that something is wrong with the math. The math is fine.

For the sake of discussion, I don't think you're understanding the underlying issue and the point Sherlock1701 was making. It's not a question of math, but of game design and intent.

Let's try an illustrative example.

We have two encounters A and B.

A) Low AC creature with tons of hit points and fast healing.

B) High AC creature with low hit points.

Paizo maths out these encounters so they both take the same average number of rounds to defeat and both average the same resource drain. Translation, they have the same expected difficulty. Now ask yourself, which encounter do you think the vast majority of people will enjoy playing?

What I believe people really have an issue with is the cadence of difficulty.

The cadence of difficulty is a reflection of how Paizo thinks the players should experience the game. That cadence is what Paizo wants the game to be. IME, that nominal game experience involves a lot of crits on party members. It doesn't matter what happens in other games, if people playing this game find it unenjoyable, then its unenjoyable. I doubt Paizo knows how that experience is affecting its player base and bottom line. If Paizo used other methods of making encounters difficult that didn't involved what feels like incessant and asymmetrical critting, would more people enjoy the game? I don't know, I can only point out that I empathize with the sentiments being expressed.

Telling GMs to turn down the difficulty manually, is treating the symptom not the cause. If I design a car where the driver has to push a button on the dashboard to re-start it every ten minutes to save gas, it doesn't matter how easy I think it is to push that button. If my consumers find it annoying some of them aren't going to buy my car. Sure, I can talk about how great my car is compared to the others, but I'm not fixing the problem, I'm ignoring it.

I certainly don't have access to any statistics which shed light on how big or small a problem this is. But the only avenue players have is to talk about it on the forums in the hopes their concerns are acknowledged. Alternatively, they simply quit playing and quit supporting the product. That latter is certainly more likely when other posters refuse to acknowledge the issue and engage in victim blaming.

Getting hit and getting crit is part of the experience Piazo is expecting players to have. Posters on here, accusing players who don't enjoy it of badwrongfun, or "trying to save face' isn't helping Paizo in this regard.

So you want easier adventures, at the end of the day. There's nothing wrong with asking for that, but just remember that lots of people have no problem with the adventures exactly as written. The fact that you and OP are struggling does not mean that it is too hard. Difficulty is entirely subjective.

Once again, you're taking my statements out of context. I never said I wanted "easier" encounters or that I was having difficulty. What I said is that getting constantly crit by NPCs is demoralizing, it has nothing to do with difficulty, it has to do with game-play and the associated tactics that one has to adopt to deal with it.

I haven't been a part of any TPKs in PF2 (knock on wood) and I've only seen a fellow PC die at level 1 or so in PFS (yup, crit killed by a boss and then failed a Dying save). That doesn't change the fact that I really don't enjoy the overwhelming asymmetry of the +10 crit mechanics given the way PF2 codes the creatures. As Sherlock pointed out earlier on, there are other ways to make fights more difficult.

I've experienced near TPK's in PF1 and 5e and those were some of the most enjoyable encounters.

I have zero issue with difficulty. It's the nature or type of experience that makes me turn down some invitations to play PF2.

Quote:

If the players don't enjoy the encounters without the GM changing the encounter level, then Paizo is requiring the GM to do something to make it fun.

Okay, and?

GMs having to adjust published material to suit their players is not really a novel concept. It's existed as long as published material has.

I've never felt required to adjust difficulty to make players enjoy published content. Nor have i ever felt it was needed.

YMMV.

N N 959 wrote:

You're painting a false narrative. A GM does a host of things to prep an AP. The more things you "require" a GM to do, to compensate for the game design, the more GMs you are going to lose.

But adjusting difficulty is nearly always required.

Not in my experience. Never have I purchased content and adjusted difficulty and certainly never given the PCs an extra level.. Never happened in any version of D&D that I've played.

The material is rated for characters of a certain level and that is the level we play it at.

PFS Society as has endured nearly 10 years of GMs running scenarios as written. The scenarios are already written to adjust for the PC level and number. If I had to do that analysis myself, I wouldn't GM.

Of course we know that there were plenty of GMs who loved to make changes to scenarios in the early days of PFS1, and it was a total disaster. So much so, PFS made it an ironclad rule that GMs could not alter the difficulty level of encounters beyond what was contemplated.

Ideal difficulty varies depending on the party and players. So it's impossible to nail it for everyone (or extremely complex).

I don't see any expecting that the difficulty be "nailed." Players expect some encounters to be hard and some to be easy and a range in between.

What's important is how hard it is to do these things.

What it's important to me is how much time I have to invest in GM prep. The ONLY reason I run published content is because I want to dramatically reduce the effort I need to prepare.

When it comes to difficulty, PF2 makes it extremely simple to modify it.

This statement only makes sense if we are comparing systems. In PF1, I never had to modify it. I don't think it gets easier than that. But I'm not trying to compare systems.

I don't think the people complaining about difficulty are really putting any work into adjusting it.

Consider that the people complaining are proving the point that no matter how easier you think it is to "fix" the problem, it requires effort that isn't being made by the associated GMs. Hence....you have a problem. Whether Paizo thinks it needs to be addressed is a question that I cannot answer.

In my opinion, many people don't want to tune down difficulty as it gives the impression that they don't play well or are bad. If the game was too easy, these people would have no issue to tune the difficulty up. It's a problem of pride, not one of difficulty.

So now it's okay to make a "badwrongfun" analysis?

Regardless of why, it's undeniable that GMs are not making the adjustments and it's affecting player experience.

The adventures do not require or even recommend that you be a level higher. No one is saying that. Folks are recommending simple tweaks that can be applied by a GM for a party who is struggling (for whatever reason).

You're taking my statement out of context.

I am not saying that the "adventure" is making any explicit requirements. I'm responding to everyone saying that you just need to do X to make it fun. Graystone's point, the one I agree with is the more X the GM feels is needed, the fewer APs you're gong to sell.

No part of that assertion is dependent on comparative difficulty to GM between versions of PF.

N N 959 wrote:

The OP said he's getting hit too much and critted too much from published content. Most agree it's because that's the nature of the game. Regardless of what the fix is for the GM, every "fix" you require a GM to make in your published content so that it is "fun" is reducing your success with the product.

'require' is a misnomer though. It's more like "here's an easy suggestion if you're having trouble."

It's not a "misnomer" the word is used intentionally. There are many requirements to GM. The more requirements of the GM, the harder it is to GM.

If the players don't enjoy the encounters without the GM changing the encounter level, then Paizo is requiring the GM to do something to make it fun.

I don't understand.

The standard difficulty setting is what it says on the tin. If you want it to be easier, add a level. What's "counter-intuitive" about that? It's the most intuitive thing I can imagine.

The OP said he's getting hit too much and critted too much from published content. Most agree it's because that's the nature of the game. Regardless of what the fix is for the GM, every "fix" you require a GM to make in your published content so that it is "fun" is reducing your success with the product.

So? It’s still far better than PF1 where most GMs quit because of the difficulty and amount of work required. There is no argument that holds that PF1 is easier to GM. It can be a very good game with the right GM but balancing, tuning and making PF1 campaigns fun is a ton of work. Like DF has said PF2 is a lot more GM friendly.

No part of my post brings up PF1. Whether PF1 is easier or harder is wholly irrelevant to my follow up on graystone's point.

N N 959 wrote:

If I have to *constantly* change the difficulty level of the encounters to compensate for the +10 crit mechanics, then I'm not going to GM.

The most common suggestion is to give the players 1 extra level. Done. No further adjustment required.

The average person who buys an AP is not going to search the forums to find out that they need to add a level to any random AP. The overwhelming majority expect to play level 1 at level 1, as they should. When the AP says level 1, expecting a GM to know that's level 2 is nonsensical.

The more burden you put on GMs to have to figure out counter-intuitive changes like adding levels at the start of a level 1 AP, the less people will want to GM.

Well, we are heading into the dangerous badwrongfun direction

Not at all. There's nothing in my statement that even hints at "badwrongfun" analysis. It's about GM expectation and reality. Everyone is going to have a point on that plane where they lie and as soon at the preparation moves past that point. You lose another GM, or a whole lot of them.

but if "adding one level to the PCs when the difficulty is too high" is too much preparation for the GM,

You're painting a false narrative. A GM does a host of things to prep an AP. The more things you "require" a GM to do, to compensate for the game design, the more GMs you are going to lose.

GMing asks for a lot of work, even when the adventure is fully written.

That's right.

Giving the false impression that a game can be run with close to no preparation...

At no point has anyone suggested that. Please don't march out a straw man army.

Well, between giving an extra level to the PCs and making one's own adventure, there's a big difference in terms of work.

Preparation has always been part of the GM job, even with an AP.

As you partially acknowledge, there is a huge range in terms of how much a GM can prepare for any published content.

It's obvious that we can graph the hours of preparation vs the complexity of preparation vs the willingness to GM. That graph will give us an asymptotic plane. As you approach zero preparation and complexity required, you'll get the highest number of willing GMs. But as you increase the hours of preparation and the complexity of that preparation, your willing GMs steadily declines.

Me personally, I am in agreement with graystone. If I have to constantly change the difficulty level of the encounters to compensate for the +10 crit mechanics, then I'm not going to GM. I don't have infinite time or interest in re-kajiggering an off-the-shelf product and i certainly don't have the time to do homebrew. Ether my players will enjoy the combat dynamic of PF2 or they wont. I'm not investing in a game system that doesn't work out of the box.

There's no more definitive feedback for Paizo than players who aren't having fun.

I don't think it's an issue with difficulty....

Basically, having the "difficulty" be implemented primarily by using RNG (since it depends solely on whether you have good rolls) makes for a frustrating game. Other methods are less painful to play.

I am also quoting this because it's on point, from my perspective.

The reality of PF2 is that the nominal game play involves PCs getting critically hit with high frequency. I've been playing PFS for about the last two years and perceptually, PCs get critically hit in 75% of the encounters and sometimes more than once per encounter. During boss fights, it's essentially every round and sometimes twice a round.

I agree with with those that fnd this aspect of game play less enjoyable. As PCs, you're going to get hit in melee and you are going to get crit. Expect front-liners to go down and expect to have to get them back up...sometimes twice in the same fight. All the talk about tactics and what not is little more than shifting deck chairs on the Titanic. If you don't like getting crit, you're not going to like PF2.

This is a fundamentally different approach to combat on the part of Paizo. And as such, I agree with the OP and someone else that it essentially undermines the the concept of a Dex fighter. You 're going to get hit and hit hard. Having played AD&D, 3.5, PF1, and 5e, combats in this game tend to feel demoralizing. Getting crit repeatedly is demoralizing for people and it's one of the reasons I stopped GMing PF2 for younger players.

I have yet to experience the critical hit/critical failure system really working in the players favor but have seen how the monsters can use it.

It never plays in the "party's" favor and IME, only Fighters really get to leverage it. The math in this game has been so matrixed out, that I'm noticing characters still essentially need 20's to crit against Bosses. Sure, maybe if your GM runs a crew of -1's and -2's against you, you can crit. Maybe you get an encounter where you can stack bonuses and flank, but on balance, it's a decidedly asymmetric benefit to Creatures. So you'll find GMs tend to like it.

As I see it, Paizo could have decided to make the fights more challenging by making them last longer, just as Sherlock observes. Instead, they went with critting PCs as the method of choice. I am curious how much this was intended. I feel like Paizo really wanted the +10 mechanics as a core feature of the game and maybe they underestimated the way this impacts the player experience in combat. Or maybe they didn't underestimate it, maybe this is exactly how they wanted the game to feel.

Yeah, I would tell them it's a ghoul or ghast or a flesh golum. None of that should tell them anything about how to fight the creature unless they have fought the creature before, right? And if that were the case, I would want them to draw on that knowledge and that happens if they know what it is. If I force them spend an action to possible ID the creature, then I undermine any benefit they get from actual combat history if they don't want to spend the action and or fail the roll.

And I ask again, where is the mechanic for "identification"? Recall Knowledge unambiguously says it's about "remembering" information, not about ID'ing the creature. So I honestly get the sense Paizo expects a GM to simply to offer the name of the creature they are fighting. I've come across many PFS GMs who do that.

Granted, I can see where figuring out what type of creature it is might be an integral part of the story, but 99% of the combats, it's just a creature and giving it's Bestiary name isn't going to spoiler the narrative.

Again, look at a series like the Witcher. Does he ever not know what he's fighting? What about Castlevania, or any other movies/series where monster hunting is at play? The reader needs to know what the creature is called, and I see that applying to the players as well, for a variety of reasons.

I can tell you that when I'm GMing for new or young players, giving out the name of the creatures is a really helpful way for them to anchor the encounter in their memory. Being unable name the creatures they fought disrupts their ability to talk about it OOC. I don't see that as a win for the game or the players. Telling them at the end of the combat could be a compromise, but I would not wait until the end of the scenario.