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Is there something not mentioned about monster perception bonuses? All monsters in the playtest bestiary have perception bonuses WAY higher than their wis modifier + level. Am i missing something? In most cases the bonuses are more than +5 the expected number.
Hello everyone, after using the last week to read every single post about the devs that had any information about the mechanics of the game, just the mechanics, i think i can analyse it with enought reliability. Whats know(about gameplay mechanics, not class abilities, just the part of the system that is universal to everything): - You keep all PF1 six stats.
I will try to analyse all of those informations at the same time, i though about doing it in parts (like armor analises, stats, but to really try to preview the impact of a mechanic in a game, specially the most fundamental mechanics of the came, you have to analyse the whrole thing together). The first part will not include ANY personal taste, like or dislike, just a cold translation of what a mechanic actually do. First: The plus level and the new skill system. At first, +1 in a D20 roll may sound like a 5% increase on the odds of doing something. In fact, +1 is ALWAYS more than 5% increase. If you roll without bonuses against an AC 11, you really have 50% chance of acomplishing your task. There is 10 numers (11-20) that make you successful. If you add 1 to the roll, there are 11 numbers now that make you succeed(10-20), thats EXACTLY 10% increase in the odds, or on a damage chart, an 10% damage increase over an infinite long fight (not including crits). If you hit on a 6-20, the next +1 will only mean 6,6% increase on your chance of sucess, or your damage over a long fight. So, your to hit suffers dimishing returns as it increases. Since your damage mitigation is exactly to opposite, your damage mitigation suffers increasing returns. Every +1AC means more than the previews poinst. This means that the most important thing to your survivability is your level. Your defense increases in an exponential way, since your damage mitigation rises and your HP also rises. On an offensive view, your level serves better to mitigate the increasing defense of the opponent, than to increase your overall offensiveness. Of course your offensiveness, ie base damage increase, will be covered by class abilites. Armor factor: Since your armor, specially heavy armor, is denying your dexterity bonus, but giving you a bigger bonus to AC, you can look at armor as an extra dex bonus. If you can use heavy armor, dump your dex and get the bonus from armor, leaving your stat bonuses to another stats. Since there is a previewed armor at +7AC +0 Dex, that means your armor can take place of 24 dex. To figure out how hard or easy will be to pass or hit, its better just to analyse the level difference: Everyone is adding their level, so a level 10 vs level 10 would mean the same as a level 1 vs level 1 by bonuses alone, with the level difference increasing or decreasing the chance of success. You hit with you Str, or dex, plus skill, against the oponent skill plus dex or armor. Considering this system makes almost mandatory to everybody to max out their attacking stats, by the same level, you will be seeing that what matters in the end is the skill difference. If someone has +1 skill and the other has +3 skill, the one with +3 has a clear advantage, but in the end the die roll will determine the outcome, but the one with +3 will win 60% of the time. That said, its clear that anything more than 1 level of difference, will make VERY hard for the lower level to even have a chance, even more so if the difference cross the level 5, 10, 15 or 20, where stat increase can sharpen the gulf even more. By 3 levels, if the higher level character or monster in defense oriented, someone who has like an AC 2 points higher than the average for their level will be almost impossible to damage, and fumbles will be more common than hits. Depending on how critical is to fumble, the best choice could be not fight at all and go home... and thats just a 3 level difference. It really soulds a lot of difference when youre investigating a lv2 vs a lv 5... but should be so great of a difference when youre analysing a lv 12 vs a lv 15? The numeric difference is the same. Lets view some popular informations released about a level 3 specialized lawyer, against a level 15 dumb barbarian but who got basic "trained" at "law": The lawyer somewhat used all his feat, options, enhancments, bla bla bla, to get 18 int(+4) and legendary law by level 3. The barbarian has 8(+1) int but is trained in law. The total "law" roll of the lawyer is +10 The total "law" roll of the barbarian is +14 On opposed rolls the barbarian will win 70% of the time... being dumb, having just basic training, against the best possible (and maybe legendary isnt even possible at level 3) lawyer in the world(why a lawyer would be level 10, i cant imagine). Of course the devs said that you will have a LOT of abilites based on your skill level to compensate... but unless there is an ability saying "your have +4 or more on all your opposed rolls", he will lose. And the barbarian had to invest nothing, just a basic level skill, at 15 levels, to attain this, i image that if it is possible to attain legendary in one skill at level 3, it will take all your resources and choices by that level, that dont leave too many room to buy abilites to work from the skill. Lets say both are at a trial, and the law is just one of the many rolls... diplomacy, deception, perform, are all rolls that you can make to enhance your audience opinion of your case. Well, you burned everything at law, even untrained the barbarian will massacre you at all other rolls. It may look a biased judment of my part, but its only math. Thats the consequence of level bonuses being much higher than everything else. Skills and character choices matter, but only if youre even leveled, anything more than 2 levels appart, be low or high level, start to deviate to much, and that is not including the fact that at higher levels you will have much more opportunities to get higher level skills. Now i will add my opnion(of course biased): - As a system, it will work, but i really think that every character will be defined by class and always "be the same" on the character sheet, only looking different on roleplaying. Every rogue will have Dex 18, every fighter 18 Str, after the third adventure everybody will know by memory the character sheet of the other person just by knowing the class, with some fluffies here and there (i have +4 athletics and +3 oratory in this instead of +4 oratory and +3 athletics) - Everyone is too much SAD. The above observation is a consequence of this. - The action system appear to be ok and a good move. 3 is a good number, could be more, but 3 works, 4 or more would be problematic both for time consuming and evaluating the true action cost of each action. - The proficiency system is very lackluster. Again level trumphs everything. I dont foresee having fun trying to do a very good blacksmith in a system where total level matter more than choices. - I dont know why the devs chose to not take this opportunity to finally make armor work like armor? As true damage mitigation. The way it works, they have to create rules just to trie to not make the system break itself (like capping the dex bonus so armor dont make you unhittable) - All that said, i like most thing about the new system, but the problems above IMO will really break the system. Level up loses a lot of flavor when it is just cosmetic, since everybody have to be exactly the same level to the system even work in first place. Suggestion i would like to be playtested at some point: - Your level bonus is half your level(+0 to +10), you skill bonus is Untrained: -4 Trained: 0 Expert: +2 Master: +4 Legendary: +6 or +8 - Skill in armor adds to AC, as usual, as the level bonus, there is no distinction beteween ac and touch ac. - Your armor gives your a mitigation die, increasing the heavier the armor. When you take damage, you roll the mitigation die and subtract from the damage total. Critical hits and reduce the armor mitigation (so dagger will have a hard time damaging a full plate user, but a master in dagger can do that. And that will be very consistent with some historical reports of plate knights are walking tanks on the battlefield, and also aleviate a lot of the problems with bounded accuracy since most peasant could not damage a dragon even if they hit). If desired, the mitigation die can be different for some damage types, making armor less or more effective against different attacks. - If mitigation die slows down the game too much, armor could just give resistance and thats it. Since crits probably will already have a way to reduce resistances. - Everybody is MAD (this section is VERY IMPORTANT): All stats will do the same to everyclass: - Strength increases carry, lessen armor penalties, melee, throw and bow damage. Physical related DC.
Fighters will want more strength than charisma, caster will want more charisma than strength, everyone want everything.
The complain a lot of people do about 4ed being "everyone is equal" occurs exactly because of everyone being SAD, to the point of every attack repeating the same roll with another attribute for each class. If every class do something with each of the attributes you create a reason for six attributes to exist, or your could just crease one attribute called "class power" and everyone start with it at 18. As promised, i kept all my analyses to the core of the system, that was already revealed, and left what is still unknow (like the abiliteis or detail of each class untouched). I would love to read what people around here think of my proposal. PS.: Keep in my that i am not a native english speaker so probably there will be a LOT of gramatical mistakes.
I was reading the Magus Spell Combat(MSC) ability and the Unchained Flurry of Blows(UFoB). Since now UFoB isnt a special Full-Round action anymore, is there anything preventing it from being used with Spell Combat? Spell combat says you do a full attack with your main weapon as part of a full round action and the text of the UFoB allow the same being part of a full attack action. Is there anything not obvious preventing then from being used together or by RAW they can be? Thanks for any help.
Combat Style Master says you can change styles as free actions as often as you like. Not restricted by 1-turn as long as you only take free actions on your turn. I can take a free action any time, many effects are used as free actions before or after an attack roll. So the question: Can i use Combat Style Master just before an attack roll to say get the improved -1 only to hit from fighting on defensive with crane style chain, then after i hit i change to dragon style chain to get the bonus on the damage rolls? Like creating a mini MoMS that only works on your turn. I would really appreciate an official ruling so i can use on PFS play. Thanks :) |
