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A question has come up in our group. I had a hag cleric who critically hit with a Slay Living spell via her claw natural attack. This ended up doing 24d6+18 (slay living) + 2d6+28 (claw attack) on the PCs failed save.

So my question is this, which damage occurred first? I did just enough damage to drop him below his negative Con by combining both sets of damage. The claw is not a death effect, but Slay Living is. The party cleric was able to cast Breath of Life on him and the debate ensued.

Slay Living is a death effect and creatures killed by Death Effects cannot be raised by Breath of Life nor Raise Dead.

So, is this character unable to be raised by those spells, or could it occur? The combined damage was enough to kill him, but separately, neither could kill him outright.

Is there a required number of PCs to playtest with? If not, if we are playing with fewer or more than 4 PCs, should we adjust the adventure to make it easier or harder for the number of PCs outside of the 4 PC threshold. This came into question when I was trying to run the 2nd adventure for my 2 kids.

Is this something the Devs want to see? How 2 PCs do against an entire adventure? Or do they want to see how the scenario adjusts? How can this be reflected in the surveys released after each adventure?

I playtested a 7th level party vs a 3rd level group of Ogres and one of my players utilized intimidate (with a critical success) to force one Ogre to run away until the end of it's next turn. On the next turn, it came back and the character did it again, but with no penalty.

2 Opinions:

1) I'm not sure that a critical success on Intimidate should bestow Frightened 2 AND forced to run away. Seems like double penalty and a skill check can make battlefield control. The Fear spell is 1st level and it only forces an enemy to run away on a critical failure as well, but it is magic, while the other is a skill check that anyone can do. It reduces the specialness of Fear.

2) There are no penalties to intimidating an enemy multiple times. I would think that an enemy would steel himself against the object of his fear and the PC would get a penalty to his roll for every subsequent check. Also, since it's an action, a PC can do the same action over and over until he gets a success on the check.

Because PF2 decided to move all available feats to class feats, it's actually limited character concepts. For instance, no longer can you take Power Attack (which is actually Vital Strike in PF1) unless you are a fighter. I think that they've really made less choices for creating a character concept even though they've made more in-class choices available. Really, they've made the game much more class focused than ever before.

I have a suggestion that could help open up options to all classes that goes away from multiclassing. As a General Feat, let someone take a class feat from any other class at a lower level than your current level. Perhaps 2-4 levels lower. This allows someone who wants to play a blood rager or a warpriest with some arcane abilities without needing to multiclass. Really, you can pick and choose what you really want to be able to do as a character without needing to be restricted to a particular class. Leave multiclassing to get some of the core class abilities that don't come as feats (like sneak attack or channeling energy).

I am very concerned about the math of the game, specifically when it comes to comparison between 2 different characters and the DCs they need to roll to succeed. (Assume all stats increase by 1 every 4 levels)

1st Example:
Take the 4th level rogue with expert proficiency in Thievery and an 18 Dex. He wants to go pick a lock on a door to open it. He has a +9 in Thievery (+4 Dex, +4 level, +1 expert). For his level, he's pretty good. Then take the 9th level Wizard with a 14 Dex and untrained in Thievery. He goes to pick a lock on a door to open it. He has a +9 in Thievery (+2 Dex, +9 level, -2 untrained). Why is it that a higher level Wizard is just as good untrained at a particular skill as a Rogue who is considered an expert?

2nd Example:
Take a 9th level rogue with expert proficiency in Diplomacy with a 12 Charisma. He wants to go influence a merchant to give him a better price on a potion. He has a +11 in Diplomacy (+1 Cha, +9 level, +1 expert). Look at his little sister, the 9th level Sorcerer who is untrained in Diplomacy but has an 18 Charisma. She thinks she's better than her brother and tries to beat him on the check. She has a +11 in Diplomacy (+4 Cha, +9 level, -2 untrained). Why should someone who has a bit of an ability modifier make up for the difference in training? If the rogue is an expert, shouldn't that mean they are vastly better than someone who is supposed to be no good? Instead, the Sorcerer can make up for it by being so charming?

3rd Example:
Take 2 1st level fighters, fighting gladitorial combat against each other with mundane weapons and armor, skill agains skill alone. They both have 15 hp and swing longswords with a 15 ac and +5 to hit doing 1d8+3 damage. On average, they would kill each other within 4 rounds using 1 attack each round. Now look at 2 10th level fighters. They both have 80hp and swing regular longswords with a 26 ac and +16 to hit doing 1d8+5 damage. On average they would take 18 rounds to kill each other using 1 attack each round. Why is it that we are making it take a lot longer to kill each other just because they are higher level? What makes higher level combat go quicker than what is show here?

4th Example:
Take a 1st level wizard and a 10th level wizard. The 1st level wizard has a +2 to hit with his acid splash (+1 level, +1 Dex). The 10th level wizard has a +13 to hit with his acid splash (+10 level, +3 Dex). If you compare the impact between the Dex modifier of the 1st level (1 dex / +2 total bonus = 50% impact) to 10th level (3 dex/+13 = 24% impact), you see that abilities are more impactful to the lower level Wizard than the higher level. Why is level vastly more important than proficiencies and ability scores?

These examples just don't sit well to me at all. It seems as though each character is too close to each other and thus can all do effectively the same things resulting in all characters being very similar to each other just based on similar levels. And then when the math gets to higher levels, combat takes longer, items and proficiency bonuses become worse comparatively.

I would much rather see level play a role, but a much smaller role. Perhaps reducing the level bonus to 1 every 4 or 5 levels to let proficiencies, items, and ability scores play a larger role in the definition of a character.

I'm considering running an adventure with only 2 players and no NPCs or secondary PCs to act as the 3rd & 4th PCs. Encounters could be a lot more challenging due to numbers of bad guys and spells that could take one or more PCs out of commission, but I think that may be an acceptable risk. In addition, the action economy would be pretty low and would be another challenge that would need to be overcome.

In order to balance the game without adding or subtracting monsters from encounters, I'm considering giving each player a secondary class that levels up at the same rate. Essentially, multiclassing without losing any levels.

Here are my rules:
Abilities: 30 point buy, or roll 4d6 and cumulative reroll 1s for each stat.
Saves: If at least one of the classes has a Good Save, then the character has it as a Good Save. If both classes have a Bad Save, then the character has it as a Bad Save.
BAB: The class with the highest BAB uses it's BAB for the character.
HP: Combine HD of each class to roll (maximum value at 1st level) for the character. Apply Favored Class HP once and Constitution modifier once.
Skills: Combine base skill points of each class and add Favored Class Skill Point, Human Skill Point (if applicable), and Intelligence modifier once. All base skills for each class are class skills for the character.
Favored Class Bonuses: Each character gets both Favored Class HP and Favored Class Skill Point. May substitute one for Racial Favored Class Bonus.
Feats: No change
Ability Point: Gain 1 ability point every 2 levels.
Class Abilities: All class abilities gained at a particular level are gained at the same character level.

Let me know what you think! I think it can work, and is not exponentially powerful as they level up. I suppose the goal is to have one character fill multiple roles in the party without becoming overpowered or getting swamped by monsters.

For my next campaign in my own custom setting, I plan to reduce wealth completely. I don't like how the average wealth per level of an adventurer is extraordinarily different than the average wealth of a commoner. Sure the adventurer should be more wealthy, but IMO the economy shouldn't be based on magic item prices.

Magic Items are very rare in this campaign too. I want to make magic items mean something again, not just something to throw around or sell when you get it. Now in order to purchase a magic item, you need to go to the one guy in the whole country that can actually create one and he tells you to go find the material component he needs to make the item. That could be the gall bladder of a Chimera, so you need to go find a chimera and kill it to harvest the gall bladder. So magic items are now fueling story instead of being something that is handwaved when the party gets back to town.

Anyway, the advice I'm looking for is what various pitfalls or benefits you see to this type of campaign? If you have gone through something like this, what have your experiences been?

Below is a list of changes to the system that I see would need to be made in order to pull this off:

Characters:
Characters gain maximum hit points every level.
Characters start with 25 point buy.
Characters start at first level with 1/10th the wealth.
Character Wealth is computed differently. There is no scale of Wealth per level. Adventurers typically have more wealth than common folk, but it is not extravagant.
NPCs are not typically high levels.

Equipment:
All prices of basic equipment, weapons, and armor are reduced in price by a factor of 10. For example, a dagger costs 2sp while a longsword costs 15sp and a chain shirt costs 10gp.
Masterwork Quality component for a weapon is computed as 400 * original cost of weapon.
Masterwork Quality component for armor is computed as 200 * original cost of armor.
Masterwork Quality component for item is computed as 100 * original cost of item.

Skills:
Craft Skill to compute weekly progress is computed as DC * Result in copper pieces. If the value exceeds the price of the armor, weapon, or item, then it is completed in one week. If the value is double or triple the price, it is completed in ½ or ⅓ the time. If the value is below the price, it is not completed, but progress is made.

Magic Items:
Magic Items are extremely rare. Almost no one can make magic items. Magic items have non-ordinary components which are hard to come by. A quest is typically needed to get the components to forge the magic item.
Magic Items have no price as they are so rare and are typically bartered for.

Coinage:
Gold pieces are uncommon and Platinum pieces are rare and commonly mistaken as Silver. An appraise check must be made to identify a coin as Platinum.
Governments mint only copper, silver, and gold pieces. Unknown coinage is weighed by the merchant.
Monsters:
CR for monsters is increased by 2. This makes various monsters much more dangerous.
CR for Humanoid NPCs is typically not increased. They rarely are given magic items to be dangerous.
Encounters must be designed carefully to ensure that the party is not put arbitrarily into a TPK situation. A wraith should not be a random encounter if the party has no magic weapons.

Spells:
Detect Magic cannot be used to identify items but can be used to determine if an item is magical.
Identify can determine what an item is, but it costs 100gp to Identify one Item.
Fabricate can be used to make a permanent item from existing materials, but it requires a Craft or Spellcraft check to make a complex item.
Minor Creation or Major Creation can be used to make a temporary item no materials, but it requires a Craft or Spellcraft check to make a complex item.
Raise Dead, Resurrection, and True Resurrection require material components which are rare. Diamond Dust is not easy to come by, let alone finding enough to pay for the spell. Death is typically a permanent event, while only the ultra rich can afford to pay for it.
Restoration can be paid for with uncommon components, not Diamond Dust. In addition, no matter the usage, it costs 100gp of said component for each casting of Restoration.