Ruzza's page

I'm not sure that I agree that they're all that good with hit-and-run when you see it in actual play. Even in a white room scenario, the dragon spends its turn Flying towards a PC, attacking, then Flying away. 120 feet sounds like quite a bit, but that's 120 feet without ascending which treats movement as difficult terrain. Even if our dragon flies just above the ground, the party still has a full round to just... run in the opposite direction putting much more distance than the dragon has in flight Speed between them. And this is all so the dragon can utilize its least effective form of attack (and still put it at risk from ranged combat).

Spellcasting leaves it just as exposed and forces it to choose just when it will remain in range for ranged combat. It can Fly close from far off to cast a spell (within an easy range) or begin in close range, cast a spell, and then Fly away. These really don't end up being all that advantageous for the dragon since the space created just creates a buffer for the party. The dragon, as the aggressor, is only taking defensive actions for the party, letting them heal up and Ready actions for its return.

The multiple setting problem that TSR learned about. They watched new settings cannibalize the fanbase of other settings for little gain in customers. It seems like the most "Oh, obviously," moment in production. From the standpoint of the publisher, why would you create more worlds if they only oncrease production costs and compete with your own shelf space without increasing revenue? Think of all the settings we "lost" over years and you'll see that there was a concerted effort to get this problem under control.

I say this as someone who really enjoys multiple settings as a consumer. I also recognize it as bad business for publishers.

Ruzza wrote:

RPG-Geek wrote:

The fact that you don't get many highly specialised monsters, like extreme AC and HP, high saves, but weak damage and attacks. Something that's a wall even at PL-1, but that is best served holding the line and not as a solo threat.

There's a reason you don't see published creatures who exist only to be "walls." There's nothing stopping you from making one, but a creature with extreme AC, HP, saves, but weak attack and damage would only exist to make a combat stretch longer and be frustrating. I understand if the idea is "the PCs need the silver bullet to fight off this creature," but it also means that lacking said silver bullet makes any encounter with them frustrating and uninteresting. I mean, look at the golems before the Remaster as a good case study.

EDIT: There's literally nothing stopping you from making a creature like that and the rules are easy enough to do so without much work. You can even use a monster builder to mock it up quickly.

Walls serve a good role as bodyguards for squishy foes. They should have low damage, but be annoying with grapples and other abilities that make bypassing them difficult. They only suck as standalone foes or the focal point of an encounter.

These already exist and tend to follow the Soldier roadmap when building creatures.

The fact that you don't get many highly specialised monsters, like extreme AC and HP, high saves, but weak damage and attacks. Something that's a wall even at PL-1, but that is best served holding the line and not as a solo threat.

There's a reason you don't see published creatures who exist only to be "walls." There's nothing stopping you from making one, but a creature with extreme AC, HP, saves, but weak attack and damage would only exist to make a combat stretch longer and be frustrating. I understand if the idea is "the PCs need the silver bullet to fight off this creature," but it also means that lacking said silver bullet makes any encounter with them frustrating and uninteresting. I mean, look at the golems before the Remaster as a good case study.

EDIT: There's literally nothing stopping you from making a creature like that and the rules are easy enough to do so without much work. You can even use a monster builder to mock it up quickly.

Well, at this point just ignore the troll and report any inflammatory posts.

This is a tragic hill to die upon, but you have another thread for that, so I'll politely leave you with your capitalistic fantasies.

Are you arguing to me or to Paizo? I imagine that they have more experience in the realm of publishing than I do. You can grab your soapbox, but I fear you won't find too many on your side to adopt more WotC policies.

Ruzza wrote:

Using the rules, I would imagine.

There is an immense amount of lore and "fluff" for both monster families within the "fluff" books. There was a decoupling of the fluffier books and mechanical books back at launch.

Turns out that you ended up in the minority. There was a big thread about it years back.

Why should I have to buy two books to learn basic information about a monster? I'd rather pay more for a single book with a higher page count that gives me everything than a cut-back version with a required companion text.

Page count is indeed the problem here as are your personal preferences being an outlier. I was also a part of an out-group back during the time of fiction in the back of APs. I remember the announcement and while I do look back fondly on those times, I think it would be strange for me to argue that not having the fiction made it difficult for me to run the game.

The move to keeping the Core books mechanical and (for the most part) setting agnostic was a conscious choice and one informed by posters here on the forums and the consumer base. You can opine for the old days, but attributing an inability to correctly play the game to its loss is factually untrue.

Using the rules, I would imagine.

There is an immense amount of lore and "fluff" for both monster families within the "fluff" books. There was a decoupling of the fluffier books and mechanical books back at launch.

Turns out that you ended up in the minority. There was a big thread about it years back.

Ruzza wrote:

This is a bad tangent. Take a moment to think what point you're trying to make. "PF2 isn't 3.5" is not a radical statement.

How about PF2 has less fluff in its Bestiaries than 3.5 had in the Monster Manual? Is that better for you?

Okay. I'm not sure what that means. Like... okay, I'm a guy that loves fluff, but missing two paragraphs of fluff isn't relevant to anything?

The hill you die on seems to misunderstand how important that is for everyone else.

This is a bad tangent. Take a moment to think what point you're trying to make. "PF2 isn't 3.5" is not a radical statement.

It's hard not to read these responses without wondering exactly what the intended goal is. The OP explained the issues they had with the game and their expectations. After some back and forth, the OP agreed that it might not be the game for them, but it sounded like they'd give it another shot or at least might not have gotten the full impression.

But then it's just turned into a full on edition war five years after it's release. I mean, most of us here do really like both the PF2 and 3.X/PF1 systems, but repeating over and over that things were just better in the older systems just seems to come down to taste. And the shifting goalposts feels wild.

"In PF2, you need to optimize in order to succeed," versus "You can make a decent character in PF1 if you have a patient group and have a character build session during session zero, I see no reason that you need to optimize," is some pretty dramatic doublethink. Like, I LOVE PF1, but you'd have to have the most shallow experience with the game to say that it required no optimization and that any character could succeed. And that's not necessarily bad if that's the sort of game you're looking for.

Give the games their credit for what they do. Arguing 5 years into the game's lifecycle that the core math of the game isn't interesting is very much a subjective statement and it could just be a romanticization of a previous system. No one here can argue "I actually prefer a different game," but it is tedious to have a conversation with someone who says, "the game that you enjoy is worse because it stops players from exploiting the systems within it." There's not much that can be said when one is looking to remove something that has gotten so much acclaim over the years.

I want to point this out, in specific. I find encounters are so predictably constructed that I'm usually tabulating encounter budgets in my head and am basing my actions and targeting decisions on them.

I've been half-eyeing this thread with a slightly growing fear of saying "there's a awful lot of badwrongfun going on here," but I just have to step in here.

As someone who does a ton of encounter design, "predictable encounters" aren't a system issue (to me), but a play issue. If every encounter is as simple as mashing two sets of numbers against each other and seeing which ones are bigger, than I could see you walking away with that impression. But even in APs you see encounter that encourage different goals for the opposition, differing terrain elements, and ongoing hazards that alter how a group can approach a combat.

Even taking something as simple as a giant rat and having it Hide under tables and leap out to gnaw at PCs before climbing up onto a shelf throws a lot of the expectations out the window. From the thread, I can see you approaching things from a very numbers-based point of view, but the actual gameplay is so much more varied that you're giving it credit.

May finished up and it was a much less intense round of encounters than April! This month saw a ton of Extreme and Trivial encounters, which kept me on my feet as a looked to approach both ends of the spectrum with care.

Thinking of some level 20 content to finish off your campaign? Maybe a simple puzzle filled with Thassilonian traps? (Trivial 20) Let's go a bit more simple - a prison break for some reckless PCs. (Suitable for level 5 groups) Or hey, have you considered an encounter to throw a bone to all those darkvision-having PCs of yours? Well, now they may have to contend with jumping through the dark as they guide their allies blindly through an encounter (Low 5).

This was a really fun month for me and I was able to have some fun creating some special maps and homebrewing monsters to fit the concept best. I hope you all take a look as we're nearly halfway done this ridiculous concept.

Yeah, I think from a versimilitude standpoint, I would attach it as a rider to certain classes' feats or homebrew up new class feats that have a little more to them so that it isn't just a boring numerical change.

The Nature Speaker makes a lot of sense to me, but I do feel like it might need more oomph as a skill feat requiring a class feat. Maybe just make it an archetype skill feat? You don't often see skill feats that require certain classes, so it feels a little unwieldy. I do like it, though!

I definitely agree that "Dex to maneuvers" will never be an appropriate class feat and goes against a lot of the design ethos. As a rider to a class feat, it becomes more appealing however. Tossing it into something like the monk's box of Crane Stance feats could be interesting. "When a Strike misses you when you're in Crane Stance, attempt a Disarm, Shove, or Trip. In addition, you may use Acrobatics instead of Athletics for these maneuvers." (Obviously with cleaned up language)

I would disagree that many martials wouldn't be interested in the ability to take Acrobatics over into Athletics. I think it would just make those pure Strength builds less appealing. I think that many fighters, rangers, monks, and even rogues would be happy to build around something so simple.

If you were to throw this skill feat into a game currently running, yeah, I don't think you'd see a change, but offered up from the start of a campaign, it should color the opinions of the players somewhat. Beyond versimilitude, what are your design goals with these feats? I had assumed you had seen builds that weren't being catered to and were designing that way, but I might have been wrong.

Acrobatic Fighter Feat 1

General, Skill
Prerequisites: Trained: Acrobatics
You can roll an Acrobatics check rather than Athletics to when using the Disarm, Shove or Trip actions.
Special: If a feat relates to the Disarm, Shove or Trip actions, you may use your proficiency in Acrobatics rather than Athletics to qualify.

This is a tough one to me because it feels somewhat natural to make these DEX-based actions, but Dexterity is also so much more useful than Strength. Athletic maneuvers are something that STR-based characters have going for them.

I'm wondering if the barrier to entry is too low? That is to say, level 1 is the perfect place to have these feats, but as skill feats they're... awkward. To begin you somewhat want to have these at level 1 and that won't be happening unless you're a skill monkey or you pick it up from a background. But after that, it's pretty free game for something that rolls some fairly important and powerful actions into a single powerful ability score. (Actually, the restraint in putting in only Disarm, Shove, and Trip, I think is very well-thought out.)

I can't help but wonder if these would work more as riders to class paths or class feats. Something like "As a gymnast swashbuckler, you may use Acrobatics in the place of Athletics for the Disarm, Shove, and Trip maneuvers." As skill feats they feel slightly restrictive while also being wildly accessible to the point of being "most martials should get this skill feat" - (and also, Acrobatics has some really decent skill feats already; hello Cat Fall and Kip Up.)

Whew, little late on this update, but April is in the bag and it was quite the month of encounters. As promised, I went with a different idea in April and made a month of Proficiency Without Level encounters! This necessitated a small setting to place things in, of which I've made a quick and dirty introduction to.

What sorts of encounters await you? A murder investigation with a shapeshifting suspect! Once the PCs track the killer down, they'll have to contend with the murderer's partners-in-crime. A little too cloak and dagger? Perhaps a nighttime assault on sleeping civilians lead by sekmin infiltrators and their anaconda watchdog? We've got dungeons, too! As the PCs navigate the resting place of a Spawn of Rovagug, they'll have contend with a horde lich who seeks to stymie their advance.

And, as always, much more within! The encounters continue and we're well past the first 100 days. I look forward to seeing what else comes of this project!

I live overseas where Pathfinder and most roleplaying games are quite hard to come by. I was essentially living in a little bubble and dreamed of times gone by with TTRPGs, never wanting to try and teach PF1e to a new group of players (in a foreign language no less). By sheer coincidence I happened to take a trip back to America when the PF2e playtest was starting and happened to pick up a physical copy to peruse - y'know casually.

I fell in love with a system that gave me a lot of the character building options of PF1, but mechanics that encouraged the use of the full suite of tools at your disposal. In PF1, I could make some gimmicky characters around forgotten bits of rules, but PF2 felt like everything in the toolkit was viable and encouraged. It was exactly what I'd been looking for from PF1 (and often tried to force in - "Come on, guys. My character is SO good at Aiding, it's a good build!")

I've now been running PF2 since the playtest and truly love what the system has done.

That's March in the bag! Like last month, I went with a bit of a longer project, this time creating a series of wave encounters within a siege set for a group of 5th level PCs.

Of course, that's not all! I put together a battle on the rooftops with a Daggermark assassin-mage (Moderate 8), a tricksie imp playing as a talking dog offering wishes (Low 2), and even a quest to snatch a phoenix feather while scaling the side of a volcano (Low 17)!

Next month, I'll be trying something a little different and might not be everyone's cup of tea, but I'm looking forward to seeing how it comes out. It's something I've kicked around in my head for awhile, so I hope that the community likes it!

Something important that I often see groups who come into PF2 neglect is penalties being applied correctly. I’ve had groups that would frighten or sicken a target, but still have trouble hitting it when it turned out that the GM wasn’t applying the penalty to the target’s AC (or their spell DCs). Don’t forget that AC is a Difficulty Class, too!

Beyond that APL+1 or APL +2 opponents do tend to edge out the party in terms of mechanical numbers, but that tends to be overcome on the tactics side of things. Playing against a creature’s strengths doesn’t benefit the party - like standing in melee range with a more powerful opponent or remaining out in the open against an archer. To steal a quote from myself…

Against level 1 PCs, an ogre warrior can actually be an amazing encounter. Its got low Perception, meaning it's quite easy to Hide and Sneak around (heck, an entire party could Avoid Notice and skip the encounter entirely). Its Reflex and Will are lagging, making them susceptible to being Tripped and Demoralized. However, the ogre's damage output is insane and can easily take out a PC without doing anything special. This means a group that's paying attention would need to actively keep the ogre from getting to them through movement and debuffs. This will also quickly dissuade groups from the "tank and spank" strategy as even a shield-focused champion is going to eventually take a crit that blows through their shield and sends them to dying. All this while the massive HP pool of the ogre keeps them up a bit longer to acts as their combat teacher (and that 17 AC prevents any non-20 crits unless the PCs actually start inflicting conditions on it).

I can’t be certain, but my guess is that there are some tactical expectations that aren’t being met or that some numbers are being forgotten. Both pretty common problems, actually!

To expand on this, as a GM who returns to older material often (as many of us do), I don't think it's much more on our plate to go over that quickly during a session zero. "This game is set in a the Mwangi Expanse and a large variety of students come into the school. I would push you towards these ancestries, while these might feel a bit out of place. Likewise, there will be plenty of emphasis on magic, so classes like the gunslinger may not get the feeling they're going for."

Personally, I would dissuade the use of Anatomy Lore in that way. Instead, I would apply it more towards investigative and forensics work ("The killer was intelligent, it aimed towards vital areas."). If I were to use it as a Recall Knowledge, it would be specifically for creatures with anatomies that are strange or unusual, like proteans or jah-tohls - things that have distinct anatomical features that feature heavily into their design.

Otherwise, you have a skill that you can use to the exclusion of all others and that ends up being unfun design.

In my limited experience, having the wizard do no damage over two rounds of mid tier spells (4th and 5th) is a huge morale hit.

I have to ask, what level are your PCs and what level did you all start playing at? I understand that PF2e has a learning curve, but it's also one that gets a lot trickier to explain and understand if your experiences are at levels that most groups don't even get to play in. You've mentioned white dragon encounters, frost giants, and now 4th and 5th level spells and it sounds like your group is quite high level.

We played Thursday and I started by listing out other options, as @Ruzza had, such as Hide, Sneak, Feint, Recall Knowledge, and other skill uses. One of the things that can be bad about having a lot of actions defined is looking for them instead of saying what their character will do. We talked about that as well. Bob World Builder had a good video on this, which is almost anathema to PF? He says to Be Direct. Don't ask how strong the rope is but instead say you want to tie it to the leg of the ogre and bring them down like an AT-AT in Empire. He does suggest the GM have an open mind as well, unless the players ideas are out of tone for what the group is doing. The bad part of this is the player having a good idea but by the rules, it's too many actions for one round. Not sure what to do in that case.

This is where system knowledge from both sides of the screen will come in handy, and I appreciate that you're keeping an open mind. If something ends up being "too many actions" then as a GM it can be very important to ask the players "What's your goal with doing that?" I've had players break down their turns into strange monstrosities when it could be solved much more easily. "I want to jump onto the table. One action! Then I leap over the head of the first opponent to avoid his Reactive Strike. Ooh, that would be two actions, huh? But I want to Feint the other guy and Strike him. That would be... five actions."

"What's your goal?"

"I guess my goal is to hit that guy without being hit, but I still want my Sneak Attack damage." To which I can say, you may have to make some sacrifices with your turn. You can always Long Jump over the opponent, sure, but you won't get that Feint before you Strike. You could play more risky and possibly get hit with the Reactive Strike to be able to Stride there, Feint, and Strike.

And once players grasp more of the rules and dig in deeper, these become less of issues at the table. Really, you typically only need one other person who has a bit more game knowledge at the table to help offer up some ideas (so long as they don't turn into the quarterback issuing orders). It sounds a lot like your players have looked at PF2 as "a game we know, but with slightly different rules" rather than "a quite dramatically different ruleset" and they haven't dug too deep into the Player Core/Core Rulebook. And it sounds like you're coming at this from a general game design theory standpoint, but aren't really connecting with the much more specific design elements at play here.

This can be tough in Pathfinder when so much is defined. I find that's good; rules over rulings, but it can feel restrictive.

This is a sentiment that gots tossed around a lot, which I understand when you look at a book full of rules and feats and see them all as exceptions or unknowns that you have to study, when it really isn't like that. At the end of the day, the game is always going to be "set a DC, roll to beat the DC," and the rules just make that easier. I'm not sure what sorts of things your group is asking to do, but generally most actions can be answered with an "Hmm, okay, give me a (skill) check," even if that's not entirely correct by the rules. I had a group set up a trap once where they tied a rope to a rickety joist in an crumbling building and stated they were going to "bring the house down" as soon as the enemy crept into the room. And just as in every edition of every TTRPG, I stared with dumbfounded shock for a moment before saying, "Okay, give me an Athletics check to see if this plan works." As always, the Level-based DCs chart and Simple DCs are your friend.

And something that really draws a lot of people to PF2e is that there are rules for that super cool thing they want to do. If that aspect feels like it's restraining your gameplay, you might be thinking too much about it or it could be a tough sticking point.

Dragons, high level planar creatures, liches, and other similar creatures should have options on the player's turns. I want Freezing Blood to be once per turn, not round as an action. I want other dragon's to have a similar ability. I would be fine if some of them don't start until the creature is bloodied. I want a lich power that instead of counterspell, they can take control of any targeted spells with an Arcana check. Something that shows their high INT. (Are there liches for divine and the other magic types? I would like that as well!) I'm surprised that dragons don't have a damaging aura. Something like Armor of Flames but no save and only damage, not persistent damage. I see these abilities as easily overcome with Resist Energy if they don't have items that give resistance.

Feel free to go wild with homebrew, there is literally no one stopping you. However, as someone who writes a lot of homebrew monsters, items, hazards, spells, and more... don't.

Yet.

Don't do it yet. Like I said, you're looking at this from a general game design perspective when PF2 does come from a different perspective. Already looking at what you're proposing and it's a sort of meshing of 4e and 5e ideas which are very much their own separate games. It's a bit like saying, "I really enjoy the pepporoni on pizza, so that might work out great on this chocolate sundae." And hey, it might work and be a unique taste that your group really digs, but if you're really digging into the design of the game I would sit down with the GM Core and go over encounter and monster design. Use the Combat Threats section and design some encounters in Low, Moderate, and Severe for your party. See how differently a Severe encounter versus a solo PL+3 opponent feels versus a Severe encounter with three PL creatures. Make a Low encounter that still forces the players to think strategically, even when their opponents are a PL-1 mook and its two PL-3 lackeys. Look up a rule you don't understand a put it in a game so you get to understand it better. (Worked with me and Stealth mechanics, and now my players know when it's time to start Seeking,)

To echo Errenor somewhat, you are still learning the system from the sounds of it, but it sounds like you're trying to force a square peg into a round hole. It doesn't matter that a PL+2 dragon doesn't feel like it deals a lot of damage - that's a Moderate encounter. Shift that dragon up a level (either by rebuilding it or adding the elite template) and suddenly the players are critically failing those saves more often and you'll see that the damage is where it needs to be.

Another month down and another 28 encounters finished up! I went off-script and made a short dungeon out of level 1 encounters just so that anyone could pick up what I'm doing and take it to a table right away (and because sometimes it's just fun designing little dungeons. Speaking of level 1, though - I happened to roll up an Extreme 1 encounter which I'm usually pretty against! After some fineagling with story, however, I did come up with something pretty satisfying.

But if you're looking for more high level encounters, I ended up making quite a bit! A battle against the armies of Hell (Severe 20), the defense of a number of Irorian monks from quelaunt invaders (Low 17), and even a particularly nasty trap within a sekmin fortress (Moderate 15).

The Master List and Google Drive remain unchanged and slowly fill up by the day! As always, if anyone has any sort of encounter they would like to see - let me know! It's always good to have an idea to build off of when my own start to dry up.

So speaking on tactics and the mechanics of PF2...

As several said, looking at tactical options and some of them don't make sense. With Off Guard via Flanking, and Flanking only coming from being opposite each other (I think there are exceptions to this by creature or feat), I think it's insane that a player would move their character to the other side of a creature. Yet the system seems to "demand" it to get that bonus. The rogue has done this a lot, because it "makes sense" for their abilities, but it also left them open to being flanked themselves.

I wouldn't say that the system "demands" the bonuses, but it does make higher-level encounters more manageable (and survivable) for PCs. That is to say, if your group is having fun and enjoying the mechanics that they are engaging with then there really isn't anything you need to change up. However, neglecting buffs and debuffs can make Severe and Extreme encounters slogs that can drag the pace of the game down. It's also important to note that flanking is good but, like every option in PF2, it has its drawbacks so players should consider their actions before committing to them.

For example, if I'm a rogue, I would obviously want an off-guard opponent and aim to get that whenever possible. A fellow melee martial makes that easy with flanking. However, maybe my opponents could just as easily flank me or my ally, making that an unattractive option. Or maybe we just don't want to end adjacent to this powerful creature! I have other options - each coming with their own drawbacks. I could Hide and Strike with ranged attacks. I could Sneak up and get my sneak attack that way. I could Feint before Striking. I could even Create A Diversion. Hey, I could even talk my fighter friend into specializing in swords or flails or just have a martial who loves to Trip an opponent. All of these provide ways to get what I want - some are selfish, but expose no other allies to danger. Others require more teamplay. Some are great for groups of enemies, while others require me to find cover or have outside assistance. And that's just the tip of the iceberg, really. Not every option will be perfect in every situation, which is why PF2 characters are encouraged to have a wide array of skills and abilities instead of hyper-focusing down one avenue. If the single strategy you employ is somehow made difficult, you need to be able to adapt.

On top of those issues, action economy and using actions "well" is definitely a thing with my players. They don't like Ready an Action costs two actions. (side question, can a caster never Ready an Action to cast a spell due to that? That's how I have been playing it but it really penalizes the casters.) I do agree that Delay needs to delay their entire turn, so glad it can only be done at the start of their turn, but my players don't like that. They want to delay during their turn because if they would get the rest of their actions later, it's better than Ready. I think non damaging actions having the Attack trait limits options as well. This could be my players not having success with Trip and not using it that much, if at all. They understand they have cost their opponent an action to stand up but their low success rate means they would rather attack to do damage, especially since it's about the same bonus.

First up, no you can't Ready a two-action spell (but you could Ready a single-action spell - like jump or even heal). I can understand casters feeling limited by this, but I have a funny example of why it's pretty necessary. I had spellcaster player who also hated the rule and petitioned against it. I tried out a session or two with his homebrew suggestion and before I knew it, he was shutting down the encounters with easy rank 1 spells. He could effectively double his range and turned spells like grease, hydraulic push, and tangle vine into full turn enders. It trivialized encounters. It's been discussed before and it's almost universally agreed to be a poor idea in terms of game design.

Now, when it comes to the Ready and Delay actions, like flanking, they are not universally the best choice at all times. Again, PF2 does not have a "winning strategy" - it has strategies that should be used to succeed. For instance, I very rarely have to Ready actions in your average combat. However, in situations where I can't effect things typically - like, say, fighting a quickling who can Stride 100 feet, Strike, and Stride away - then having a Readied action to put myself in a position where I can effect things is key. The same goes for Delay - though I would argue I use this more frequently because I might be playing a character who wants more set-up. Let's say I'm a hasted flurry ranger who happens to have a flaming rune on my blades. I might Delay so that my group can impose a fire weakness and Shove the enemy into range so that I can get the most out of my turn (inspired by true events). But that's an extreme example - PCs can even just Delay so that the bard can toss up a courageous anthem before Demoralizing the opponent, already swinging the math at least 2 points in their favor (or an increased 10% chance to hit/crit).

On the topic of players not engaging with these mechanics, they might not have a reason to. I'm not sure what level you're playing at, but you already pointed out that you could have played a dragon in such a way as to harass the group who had no recourse, but didn't (to keep the game fun). But they do have the ability to engage with the dragon, they just either didn't consider those actions, considered such a thing impossible, or assumed you would allow them to perform "their routines" as normal. I would say that one of the strengths of PF2 is forcing PCs out of their comfort zone and having them still be able to contribute meaningfully by playing smarter. "We're losing on action economy" stifles design here because if there's only one way your PC wants to approach an encounter, then there's very little need to engage with any of the other systems within the game. "This attack will fail, so I would rather attempt to deal damage - i.e. Death is the best condition" has been stated numerous times since the release and it's a big hurdle for those coming from PF1 or other systems. Death is the final condition, but it's not all that great if you can't actually get there. The +10/-10 crit system showcases just how important it is to focus on accuracy more than raw damage. Getting that -1 AC on an opponent from a whiffed fear spell can be the difference between a 10 damage hit and a 20 damage hit followed up by another 8 point hit. Athletics maneuvers are fantastic, but they still need to be used tactically. When I watch PFS players attempt to Grapple high Fortitude giants or Trip high Reflex skeletons, I always feel a little taken aback. I understand wanting to "do what my build excels at," but if the chance of failure is high, it does feel like a waste. Another reason why players give a lot of praise to the Recall Knowledge action.

Aid is also seen as a bad option or at least they don't use it often. I don't like how it's defined at all. Maybe it shouldn't be used in combat? If the DC scales, and they are already finding it tough to hit the opponent, they don't want to risk the penalty, even if it requires a critical failure. If it doesn't scale, I suppose it's a question of what the player thinks is the best use of their character's reaction. I guess in my mind, Aid has to scale with the difficulty of the task, or it should be a flat modifier they can give rather than rolled. I'm spending too much time thinking about Aid as I write this. There is something about it I don't like but can't quite figure out what.

The Aid DC doesn't really scale - it's nearly always 15. You can certainly make it scale up, but then players lose incentive to actually use it. It's also an action that is situational (again, like everything) and often forgotten. When I have players looking at their sheet with an action left and not wanting to make a -5 MAP attack, I tend to suggest setting up an Aid. It's typically a +1 bonus to an attack or skill, but at higher levels this is a +2. I mean, consider that you're bumping someone's proficency up a level, which is a massive boost. If that isn't a good visual, it's giving someone another 2 levels of accuracy at the cost of an action and a reaction. Again, something that doesn't look effective on paper, but is dramatically more useful when you think about it. "I could spend my last action on low-odds of accomplishing something, move away to get into a better position, or give my ally a bonus 10% chance to crit."

At the end of the day, if your group is enjoying the game without going deeper into the mechanics that make encounters more tactical and less luck-based, then... mission accomplished. Fun is the goal. But if players (yourself included) are left feeling like your choices don't matter, then you need to look at what choices you can make. As a GM, we can incentivize diversifying choices through our own encounter design. Against level 1 PCs, an ogre warrior can actually be an amazing encounter. Its got low Perception, meaning it's quite easy to Hide and Sneak around (heck, an entire party could Avoid Notice and skip the encounter entirely). Its Reflex and Will are lagging, making them susceptible to being Tripped and Demoralized. However, the ogre's damage output is insane and can easily take out a PC without doing anything special. This means a group that's paying attention would need to actively keep the ogre from getting to them through movement and debuffs. This will also quickly dissuade groups from the "tank and spank" strategy as even a shield-focused champion is going to eventually take a crit that blows through their shield and sends them to dying. All this while the massive HP pool of the ogre keeps them up a bit longer to acts as their combat teacher (and that 17 AC prevents any non-20 crits unless the PCs actually start inflicting conditions on it).

Actually, the more I think about it, a Moderate 1 encounter versus a single ogre warrior is a pretty good explanation of PF2 design in a nutshell. This is an easy fight that will absolutely kick the ass of a group who doesn't play tactically. Showcase even a bit of strategy and it suddenly becomes a cakewalk.

Ruzza wrote:

The math is tight, but both monsters and PCs can adjust that through their various actions. If it feels like everything comes down to a die roll, I would encourage you to look at more tactical options and how to design with those in mind.

Can you expand on what you think of as the tactical options? Are you talking about dragon as solo? Are you talking about within dragon as solo? (And yes there is no concept of solo monsters in PF2.)

"Tactical options" is a very vague term from me because it covers such a broad range of possibilities. I'll focus in more on what I said about die rolls feeling more important (which they are, of course, but coming from other editions, that's something I over emphasized as a knee-jerk reaction to the math).

First, I'm okay with calling things "solo" monsters because while there is no classification for them, they certainly exist. The GM Core even calls it out in the Combat Threats section. A solo monster is technically any monster that faces off against the group solo (typically a PL+2 or PL+3 creature), but what we really want is a creature that functions unsupported and can make for an interesting and deadly encounter on their own. And that's where the math feels like it comes down to luck - i.e. With a PL+3 creature having an AC that can only be hit on a roll of a 14 or higher or something akin to that, why wouldn't it just be a numbers game of how often we can roll to get above that 14?

As a player, I can alter those numbers through circumstance and status buffs and penalties. The most obvious of these are inflicting off-guard through flanking (unadvised when facing off against a creature that can spend its turn ripping apart anyone adjacent to them), making it frightened (not as reliable to do without magic or abilities), or getting it prone in some way. On the extreme end of things, you could swing the odds up to 8 points in your favor, but more realistically, you should aim for a 2 to 3 point swing on average. This means rolling scoring a hit with an 11 or 12 becomes more likely - more so if the effect lasts longer than a turn.

But that's just the raw numbers of hitting something. More importantly is actually considering what your actions do in an encounter. A solo creature like a white dragon can rip apart an adjacent opponent with a Draconic Frenzy before lifting off to fly away. Why should PCs let that happen? Players can also impact how effective an opponent is by simply moving away from enemies or positioning in ways that make attacking them beneficial to the group in the long run. I'm actually going to point at one of everyone's favorite actions in the game and ask people to consider what it does. Shield Block. Shield Block is good! But, after running PFS for years, I can't tell you the number of times I've seen it used inappropriately. Standing next to a solo opponent and that Shield Block comes up and... I suppose you might have prevented a critical! But it's just as likely that a PC could have moved into a better position to force the creature to spend actions moving and potentially put it in harm's way.

To say nothing of players stacking up their turns effectively using the Delay and Ready actions! Nothing like running around a corner to Ready an action to Trip an opponent who comes around the corner only to have your entire Delayed party leap out of the shadows!

This ended up being longer than I intended, and I was going to talk about how tactical thinking should look from the GM's side, but I think I can sum it up more easily. As a GM, it enhances the experience of everyone involved if you build encounters with these considerations in mind. Give PCs cover to Hide behind when the monsters have ranged attacks. Throw in difficult terrain that can be bypassed by carefully Balancing over a fallen tree. Add in areas of darkness so that PCs (or monsters) can exploit it to catch opponents off-guard. Play with line of sight to keep combat fluid.

I hope that doesn't sound preachy, but what I hope my core message should be is "The dice matter, but tactics matter more."

Let me phrase this another way. Are there game mechanics to bring down a flyer other than Trip? Called Shot? Damage to wings? I'm willing to allow my players to use a ranged weapon to inflict a status that stops a flyer from flying until they fix it. I'm wondering if it already exists.

As Maxim D'Ahmagge mentioned, there are a few ways to ground fliers through class feats. But I would call that an unsatisfactory answer because the follow up question will always be "What if they don't have that feat?" So more accurately, is there a general action that PCs have access to to bring down fliers?

The best answer here is that fliers can actually be brought down in a multitude of ways, it's just that it requires a little doing. Importantly, Fly has the Move trait, and if you can't Move, you can't fly. This means that any action that grabs or restrains a flier will cause them to fall if they do not escape the condition by the end of their turn. This includes Grappling, plenty of spells, and the occasional item. Heck, even a well-placed shot from a bow with the critical specialization can restrain an opponent (but not for long).

Also, while it's a bit of a cop-out answer, I have always enjoyed putting my melee characters into positions that forced fliers to engage with me in only one direction, such as in a cavern entrance, before Readying attacks to bring them low. But I also haven't seen too many players go in this direction because it feels like a bad trade off of action economy. However, after watching several PFS players spend their turns waiting rather than pulling out ranged weapons or moving into more advantageous positions, I would be willing to admit that it can be tricky to consider alternative tactical options in the moment.

It doesn't require the Trip trait. All it needs is a non-finesse two-handed weapon.

EDIT: Weapon in two hands. That does change things a little.

Just an addon. The idea is not only Breath and Fly. But Breath fly then Fly (going down), Strike, Fly (going up)... with only if the players have move reactions or ranged weapons/spells the dragon lands and fight them on land.

I should say that I consider this a non-issue as the Ready action does fine work here - even if PCs are just prepping Strikes and don't have access to Titan Wrestler. It's also a pretty awful trade-off in terms of action economy that we go back to "the PCs are given plenty of time to form countermeasures - even if that's just running and hiding." Three actions to hit once versus the party's - at worst - two actions to Strike once. That's assuming there's truly no one with any ranged capabilities.

Mainly, a medium, or small, sized creature being able to trip a dragon to bring them down! Again, that's the trade off for a fun game and so something I have to work to overcome in my mind.

That's definitely your perogative, but I would say that grappling or tripping larger creatures was possible in older editions, just difficult. Now in PF2, you do require a skill feat to be able to do so.

Something I'd like to add, as someone with a similar background spread across multiple decades and multiple systems, is to approach game design from a different angle. There are many in-grained habits that we as GMs have accumulated over various games, and trying to replicate them can slow a game down. Your example of multiple PL+2 giants (I'm assuming multiple) with the PCs having a PL-2 dragon ally is a good example - the dragon wouldn't be able to effect the giants with much at all with the level difference and the PCs are left with an (at least) Severe encounter in which a dragon occasionally comes to take a hit or two before going down.

That is to say, there are design sensibilities, but if you create encounters that don't showcase them or work counter to them, you may take away an impression of trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. The math is tight, but both monsters and PCs can adjust that through their various actions. If it feels like everything comes down to a die roll, I would encourage you to look at more tactical options and how to design with those in mind.

Alright, I couldn't help myself re:Dragon talk. I've been making a ton of encounters lately and this idea got stuck in my head: Could a dragon just Fly and use its Breath Weapon only for an entire encounter?

So I sat down and made an encounter, not to show that a dragon could do that, but rather to show how both the dragon and the PCs are better off for that not being the optimal playstyle and how that happens mechanically.

Ooh, I love encounter design talk. Well, it’s monster design, but what we’re really looking at is how encounters involving dragons should be designed. Like you have correctly said, Pathfinder doesn’t have “solo monsters” in the sense of having a specific classification for them. However, nearly anything can function as a solo encounter - it’s just really a matter of it would make an interesting solo encounter. There’s nothing inherently fun about fighting an ogre who just spends the entire combat Striking and nothing else - they lack a lot of the interesting abilities to make such a big encounter actually worthwhile.

Dragons are, of course, interesting. While the topic at hand seems to be the white dragon, I do want to note that they’re from the “Premaster” days of chromatic dragons and we do have a nice new slew of dragons that are quite different from the color family and have stronger niches. But let’s stick with the white dragon to keep things simple - it’s not like they’re obsolete now!

Let’s start with encounter difficulty. You went with a Party Level + 2 (PL+2) creature versus your party, which makes this a Moderate encounter - difficult, but definitely doable. I would say that you get into the territory of “someone might go down here” in the Severe category of difficulty. This would mean a PL+3 solo creature - though that comes with a caveat that your players should have a good handle on the rules and their characters because the numbers are not skewed in their favor (even though the action economy is). They should be ready to buff up, debuff, and think tactically to overcome the opponent.

Which brings me to flight. I love flying enemies, even when I’m on the player side of the GM screen. However, this is where encounter design comes into play. If your group is walking through a flat plain with nothing around it, what can they do about a flying enemy who harasses them from afar? Why doesn’t the dragon just stay in the sky waiting for its Breath Weapon to recharge and blasting them while they run - especially if the group has no recourse (such as a ranged martial or spellcaster). That is a valid strategy and as a GM, I would run a creature that way, but I would never design an encounter that way.

A PL+3 creature is already a difficult challenge for a group, so I would give the group chances to solve the puzzle that is the dragon. Give them terrain to Hide + Take Cover behind. Give them chances to Climb up trees, ledges, crumbling masonry, whathaveyou and Ready actions to Leap onto the dragon as it gets close. Heck, have the encounter take place near an old ballista they can operate or even scatter a few nonmagical longbows on the ground.

I can be a bit of a brutal GM from time to time, and believe that if you’re at the level to fight dragon, you should have options for taking care of aerial enemies. That doesn’t mean, however, that I can’t provide the group with (less optimal) options.

But players can also use the system to their advantage as well! As an example, I was playing a level one Sparkling Targe magus in a PFS game against a number of flying opponents who would swoop down, attack me, and Fly away. I had no ranged options and was a sitting duck. When my turn came around, I ran away before Readying an action to Trip an enemy when they attempted to leave a space adjacent to me. The group, who Delayed, would then rush in to deal with the downed enemy.

I would 100% play dragons as the cunning, intelligent creatures they are - even the dumb ol’ bestial white dragon, that overgrown labrador - but I would also expect my players to showcase their talents and cunning as well, making certain that I don’t stack the deck against them.

Like I said, who wants to have an encounter against a boring opponent? Or the inverse, who wants to play as the boring PC who doesn’t have to think about the encounter?

https://paizo.com/threads/rzs5u49g?EncounterADay-2025

Check out Ruzza’s encounter a day thread. Its pretty neat.

Thanks for the shoutout! These have been fun putting together and are still coming out every day!

Edit: I want to add that I try to make sure that each encounter is more than just "creatures in a room," and give GMs some interesting ways to approach how the encounters play.

It's 2025 and I thought I'd try out a bit of a fun challenge for myself for the new year. Ive always enjoyed sitting down and putting things together for Pathfinder - conversions, homebrew, and adventure, but to be entirely honest, my time is stretched thin as a dad with two kids, full time job, running four PF groups, and being there for my family. So I decided to take what I love and turn it into a bite-sized challenge: one encounter a day!

The goal here is create one encounter (of a random level and difficulty) every single day for 2025, and it's been going well so far! I've put together a battle versus a very addled and confused dragon, a snipers' roost of hyrngar, and even an airship battle. Of course, that's just the start as we've had thirty-one days of encounters in January and more coming in February.

There's a link to the Google Drive collection here as well as the "Master List" of encounters created so far here. I hope that there's something here for everyone and that you can find something to pick up and use in your games, even if it's just an idea that you'd prefer to rewrite into something better and well-written ...more suited to your tastes!

And if anyone has any encounters they'd like to toss in, I'd love to make something like a "Community Folder" of encounters to share as well!

Yeah, I think I'm siding with the thread when the topic shifts from "here's a great way to deal damage" to "here is an optimal way to deal damage (and why you shouldn't do X)". It's tough when you run a game, especially in Organized Play, and someone tells another player that they made their character wrong because it's not good enough. The recent thread on Fury Barbarians is a pretty good example of that. I recently had a new player join a group of mine and say "I wanted to play a sorcerer, but I read that spellcasting was bad for damage, so I decided on a fighter instead." It was a little disheartening.

Super Zero wrote:

You can do pvp single encounters (like an arena game--I've done that), but I can't see how anything else would be possible. They'd have to be entirely separate games for everything but that one encounter. With pbp games especially, the passage of time is going to diverge wildly between the two campaigns.

Just wanting to read a pbp where the “monster” side was truly playing to survive.

Thought it would be interesting and a more pure “realistic” pbp

While certainly not fitting into your criteria, my Play-By-Post server does regularly save all of our completed games as PDFs and I think our GMs do a good job of playing monsters realistically.

Here's one of our games from way back in 2022 - spoilers for PFS Year of Shattered Sanctuaries.

Phew, that sounds like one heck of a project if someone has undertaken it.

I primarily run Play-By-Post games and while a similar idea has crossed my mind, the logistics get pretty messy pretty quickly. In these sorts of games, roleplay tends to go fast and furious without players needing to worry about turns or permission, but slows down dramatically when it comes to round-by-round encounters. Across five players, this isn't terribly bad with one player handling the bulk of the encounter math, but I imagine the logjam gets much worse with nine or more.

There's also the issue of how involved saving throws, adjudicating rules, map placement, and the like could get. When running these long form games, there's definitely times of "oh, we need to retcon that - I wasn't aware things worked that way," which can be tough in a slow format, but lessened when the impact is typically limited to the GM's creatures. Having that happen with to other players could be another thing altogether.

Sorry! I don't mean to come off as a negative Nancy, but it seems like a very simple idea at first that is surprisingly more difficult than it looks. I really wish you the best in finding this!

Thank you Charon. My group uses this sheet a lot and it's great to see it is being updated still.

Wanted to also add on that this is both my favorite sheet and that we have an entire server that runs off of Charon's sheet and it's so good to see it still going strong.

That's actually a great question.I feel like you somewhat have to push players to invest into the subsystem. My knee-jerk response is to say item bonus, but the case for circumstance is more compelling just because it would apply more and we want to encourage the PCs to use their base.

As someone who makes a lot of NPC stat blocks (and made a ton more in PF1), building out an NPC like a monster is so very much more freeing. Like...

But there is a weird niche use that's in between, where I might want to make a loyal NPC companion, say a traveling chef that levels up with the party, perhaps a few levels behind, or even a few levels ahead.

This is just an NPC that I stat out like a monster. I can even have some fun with it and give them an ability like "[Reaction] I've Eaten You Before! Trigger: An ally within 30 feet uses a Recall Knowledge check on an animal you have cooked with. Effect: Roll Cooking Lore to Aid the check."

Like, I can't remember the last time I've built an NPC using PC rules because I have never, ever needed the multitude of options that a PC has on an NPC. To make an NPC stand out, I've only ever needed one or two abilities to sell their personality along with a handful of skills. This is something that's already handled beautifully in the system. I can't really imagine there would be dedicated page space for "a class that PCs should not use" because that's fairly antithetical to how PF2 has been designed.

I wrote a few too many words about some of my experiences in the past and a rough outline of how this could take shape. I have the doc set so that anyone can comment, and would love to see more ideas!

(Also I wrote this hours ago and I think it's funny that both you and I considered Irrisen having a problem with nobility).

LINK

You've pretty much described the plot of Lodge of the Living God (which takes place in Razmiran), so if you haven't checked that out, I'd give it a read through! To summarize, PFS agents are asked to establish diplomatic relations with Razmiran and build a lodge near one of their small communities (complete with suspicious NPCs you have to win over).

There are twists to the adventure and, overall, it's a fantastic idea, but one that feels constrained by Organized Play more than anything. At the table, a lot of the adventure felt like making repeated Crafting checks with little rising tension. So something like this would be a great idea to revisit, take the framework of, and write to pace better.

I've run the scenario a few times and it's given me a few opinions on how I would expand this out if you don't mind me tossing up an outline sketch sometime after work/dad-time.

Well alright then, it sounds like a great idea then! I don't know about how you set things up when you plot out adventures, but if you need to spitball ideas, I'd love to contribute!

It's all really good, honestly - you just have to make sure that all of these systems work to the benefit of the game and the story. When I did this (once for Abomination Vaults and then another small attempt for Strength of Thousands), my players all went "Hey, this is neat!" and then... well, they went ahead with the story because that part of the game didn't really hold their interest or I couldn't really tie it close enough to the story we were telling.

It was like offering up a side dish to a meal that they already enjoyed. "Hey, this is great, thank you for it, but I'm already really digging this main course."

I mean, there are - you know your group best. But I wouldn't consider that a large enough portion to change or alter how much of the game handles PCs and NPCs.

A sort of campaign where the PCs act as the heroic owners and defenders of a trading post? Build up a community, undertake work to defend it, slowly unravel the plot of a rival group (Aspis Consortium, perhaps?), all while making trade deals and negotiating with powerful forces.

I mean, I could totally get behind something like that.

Yeah, I suppose I personally don't like the "Look I've built this NPC using the same rules as all of you!" especially in the case of Lady Aldori. My players don't want their limited play time spent watching me show off by having my NPCs fight other NPCs. I describe the action, but keep the spotlight on my players.

Thinking more on it, such a system would probably end up firmly in the realm of Downtime and revolve around that system.

• Allowing you to create facilities that make Retraining easier/faster.
  
• Creates opportunities to Earn Income using alternative skills.
  
• Speedier or less costly or perhaps more reliable Learn A Spell activities.
  
• Even facilities that could impact your starting attitudes to NPCs who are brought to the location.
  

I think this could be a fantastic subsystem, but one that likely has its place in a very specific type of game. I actually would love to take another stab at something like this using a lot of lessons I've learned over the years (I think my previous attempt was when Abomination Vaults came out). I think the best way to get the idea off the ground, though, is to introduce a type of game or setting where this is desired.

We actually have a few systems like that, though they could certainly stand with being fleshed out more. Lodge of the Living God in Season 1 PFS is perhaps a great (if egregiously unfun) example of this as is the fortress mechanics of Age of Ashes.

I've done some of my own with homebrew, but something concrete could take shape with some effort.

So after talking about effective characters for far longer than is actually necessary, I thought it'd be fun to hear what sort of "terrible, awful, no good" builds that we've got out there. You don't necessarily have to have played these characters, but it would be nice if you could tell us a bit about how they work so we get an idea.

To get the ball rolling, I've pretty much always been a wizard fan and have played around with so many numerous wizards at this point that I have practically abandoned any reasonable way to approach the class, so here is my "muscle wizard."

Ancestry: Hold-Scarred Orc

We're going to want hit points and that Diehard feat. Part of this build is going down, but not staying down. We can grab up ancestry feats like Orc Ferocity, Defy Death, and Undying Ferocity to just stay in the fight as well as survive when our terrible plan goes sideways.

Class: Wizard

I really like the wizard when viewing them as a massive toolbox of tricks. Since the release of the game, one of my favorite tricks has always been Jump and plenty of ways to hamper enemy movement. Especially if they're lacking spell saves! Because...

We're not really using our Intelligence.

We're grabbing up Strength to 16, maxing out that Athletics at every turn and dumping Intelligence to the wayside. Who needs opponents to fail saves? We're just going to use spells that work regardless! This means throwing up walls, creating difficult terrain, and buffing ourselves (or even those smaller, less-strong people that sometimes join us for adventures).

We go with Staff Nexus so that we can churn those higher level spell slots into batteries for our "jump stick" (or, I suppose you can consider it a staff overflowing with charges used for jumping around). We grab up the Mauler Dedication so that we can eventually get Slam Down so that we have an option to heroically jump into battle and knock an enemy prone to protect our incredibly squishy armor-covered champion. Until level 4, of course, we can just keep a hand free so that we can play around with all sorts of little Athletic shenanigans as we utilize our mobility to outfox our opponents.

Generally, this is a character that works best with a group that wants someone to control the battlefield, but may need that bit of magical assistance as well. Being able to change the rules to the encounter and then break those very rules the next is really quite fun and - with the right group - can actually trivialize certain opponents.

Just make sure to keep an extra trick or two up your sleeves to deal with flyers (or as we call them - cheaters).