Syndrous's page

I believe that PF2e has the potential to be a good system for all, I really do.

I believe the chief cause for concern right now, for myself, is that the classes are too homogeneous due to a combination of proficiency being too weak as a system at this time and magic being overly nerfed.

I want it understood that overall, the direction that Paizo is going is good in my eyes, simply because it is removing the splat-books from contention for a while and I genuinely hope they slow down splat-book publishing to ensure balance.

The flip side to that is they really need to move away from the equal level challenges should be a 50/50 win chance thing they have going on. I personally find the easiest solution being a buff to the proficiency system, not adjustment of the DC table, that coincides with additions to the objective DC tables so we have some mile-stones and examples of high level activities for design of our adventures. I truly believe it is up to the GM to determine the DC's of challenges in his world, so long as there is a baseline chart with 1-2 examples of a given DC at various levels, this gives the GM creative balance and the player a baseline to figure out how to be good at what.

The other issue I see needing a correction is the utility level of magic. Utility magic needs to be buffed. Save DCs are way too high to hit with the number of spell slots casters have.

Blasting is an issue, I agree to a point, but it is one I don't know how to solve, because I don't believe a caster needs to be dps focused.

Ultimately, Paizo will handle this as they wish, I merely want to be heard and considered as a customer, since this is a product I plan to invest heavily in.

I would play as the system is right now, but only because I do a lot of very heavy world building and can fix the things I don't agree with. But I'd really rather they fixed a few of the numbers balance issues they have, that are working against players having fun right now.

ereklich wrote:

Quote:

Nope, they really want you to have a 50% chance to succeed an on-level Hard Task, because, well they are hard, and require a GM to put some actual thought into designing them.

But if a *fully optimized* character only has a 50% chance? That's not hard, that's insane. Because that means the rest of the party is screwed if they have to make the check too.

That is NOT the intent of the system as we level.

The intent for Hard is clearly stated to be as follows:

Quote:

A character who’s really strong in the skill starts at around a 50% chance of succeeding but ends up almost certain to succeed at higher levels.

I have been working on a larger post, but it shows that even with the current 1-3 chart, on the Hard column fully optimized you start at 55%, but as you level you slowly improve over the 20 levels to succeed 80% of the time. While I do not think that is quite enough improvement, there is definitely character growth and your character does improve. I am hoping to get it posted Soon(TM)

Unless you factor in items you don't actually become more likely to succeed. Your chance to succeed only increases from items, magic and feats.

The level 20 Hard DC is 39. A character that is naked, because the DC is designed to challenge specifically ability and proficiency optimized characters, has a Legendary Proficiency (+3) and a max ability score for level 22 which gives us (+6).

This gives us a total of level (+20) + proficiency (+3) + ability mod (+6) for a total modifier of +29, so you succeed on a 10.

The whole description clearly states that Hard DC challenges those who keep up with ability investment and proficiency investment.

You get to 80% because of items (both mundane and magical), feats, magic and ancestral feats.

This means that yes, the intent of the chart is to keep a naked barbarian with Legendary Athletics and Maxed Ability Mod at a 50/50 shot to climb an on level task. Key thing here is naked.

I do think they need more varied magic items to boost the various skills that are available at different level, and much better magical and feat support for this whole concept.

I think Paizo needs to give us more examples in the Ordinary Tasks list. Once we have some appropriate tasks to compare with, determining it will become easier.

I also think we need some rules about how weather would effect checks.

I think the answer here is to make lower leveled spells become at will, as GwynHawk suggested.

The primary issue I have with Casters is they are forgettable, and don't really do anything well without running out of spell slots. Maybe bump them to have 5 of each slot, and then allow them to designate up to their casting ability modifier times their proficiency mod ((0/1/2/3)+1) of spells per day as at will spells. Limit it to half their highest level spell slot, and give it the free heightening feature like cantrips.

This would mean a 11th level wizard should typically have their cantrips, 5 level 4, 5 level 5 and 3 level 6 spells AND 5 total spells level 3 and under that are automatically heightened and cast at will.

I think that would allow for some interesting caster tactics to pop up, and make for a more diverse magic system.

I usually preroll initiative when I build the encounter for each individual monster, then add my own circumstantial modifier to the initiative if my players get creative with tactics. Or if my players do something really dumb, like throw the rogue face first through a door that had a bunch of goblins on the other side. Not even joking, that happened.

From the same party that figured out how to work in tandem to allow the barbarian to throw gnomes into battle as his weapons.

I still want to know why the system calls out Hard as the typical DC you should default to in almost every situation. I would think Medium would be the default for non-trivial tasks that actually call for a check. Easy would be when there are favorable circumstances, Hard shouldn't happen unless there are unfavorable circumstances.

I am actually confused about that as well, because Mark Seifter has mentioned using the table values too often in Doomsday Dawn.

That statement implies that the DC's used for future adventure paths may not align with the values present in this chart as well.

My purpose in these discussions is to try and make sure we are considering this from all angles, it's what I do, I am a debater type personality. I'll take a position I don't agree with and defend it just to make sure we cover everything.

So far, that's a great thing, because folks have been ignoring the rest of the picture which is the Ordinary Task charts (10-3/4/5/6) and how they relate to Chart 10-2. Chart 10-2 gives an arbitrary list of DC's and tells use what level they are appropriate to. It gives us no idea of the tasks we will have at those levels. That's where the other charts come in, and believe me they still need fleshing out.

I don't necessarily disagree with you guys re:hard not needing to be the default difficulty, but someone has to make sure we are understanding this right, and right now there is a lot of misunderstanding happening.

My reading of this section of the book is that the GM assigns a task a level and difficulty, as it relates to the example tasks in charts 10-3/4/5/6, and then determines the DC's. Then the GM has a baseline to work with, that baseline is modified by the circumstance when the PC's get to that particular task.

Are they being chased by bandits when they find the collapsed bridge that requires 3 Athletics checks to jump across the remaining supports? Is there detrimental weather? These are all things that will modify the DC against the party. You could shift the DC to the right as needed.

Does the wizard have levitate, could the wizard bypass the challenge completely with a teleport.

Everyone is so focused in on Chart 10-2 that by and large the rest of this section is being ignored.

Using the other charts as a reference makes chart 10-2 make a lot more sense.

A Cliff is a Level 2 challenge, if it has no modifiers, a bleeding Cliff! Discounting modifiers, climbing a cliff is really one of the more dangerous things a character can do. That means that your level 18 PC's scaling a cliff, even the piddly wizard if he so chooses not to waste a spell slot on it, are still rolling against the level 2 Hard DC, unless you as GM add some awesomeness to that cliff, and therefor, likely don't need to even roll, because they are over the level where the task becomes trivial. This is the kind of stuff people are missing in this discussion.

Do the Task charts need fleshing out, yes. They do. I unequivocally accept that, as there isn't a way to gage certain tasks because the charts all stop well before level 10. Is chart 10-2 the problem? Nope, they really want you to have a 50% chance to succeed an on-level Hard Task, because, well they are hard, and require a GM to put some actual thought into designing them.

This is probably best solved by giving benchmarks at each level milestone with appropriate DC's and the conditions that caused them in the skills section.

Move tables 10-3/4/5/6 to the skills section and add an example at levels 5, 7, 10, 12, 15 and 20.

These types of tables should exist for the physical ability skills.

Diplomacy/intimidate/deception are best handled as being against an NPC's stats.

The Arcana/Occultism/Religion/Nature/Lore skills need their own specialized sections, because determining those is a right pain in the kaboose because we don't have any context for how they work and I have found very limited uses for then outside of recall knowledge.

Syndrous wrote:

ereklich wrote:

...

The design is to literally keep an ability and proficiency appropriate PC at 50% success. Not factoring in mundane or magical items or spell effects.

If they adjust to make proficiency increase the chance of success that is the medium DC track.

In what way is keeping the chance of successat 50% "ends up almost certain to succeed at higher levels"?

I think I'm just asking their DCs to live up to their own guidelines. If you think that's me asking for a change, then I am.

Because it's failing to capture the fact that the vast majority of DC's are never going to use the chart. Chart 10-2 is for odd-ball things. Because of the way the ordinary task tables are set, it's highly likely that you will never set a task above level 10. This means that the High DC checks that we are afraid of are going to be outliers.

Things like your 12 Barbarian attempting to scale a castle wall, naked, during a thunder-storm while warding off a giant bat.

That's what chart 10-2 is for. Because of the way they preset some of the examples, they established that many cliffs are a level 2 task and that tracking the average creature over hardstone is a level 4 task.

Yes there will be outliers, such as tracking a tiny or diminutive sized creature over hard stone or my Barbarian example but they will be exactly that.

They provided us a set of examples for figuring out the frame of reference for deciding the effective task level, and I can honestly say that I don't forsee many tasks being set as level appropriate. Many of them will be off level tasks, and a large amount of that many will be lower level.

They even give examples of circumstances that could make it easier or harder.

This section of the book is a tool-kit.

Their design objective was to keep the Hard DC at ~50% success across all levels for at level, strong ability modifier, highly proficient characters that don't have items or magic for boosts, as stated in my quote and they have done that well.

You want the table to not account for proficiency at the Hard DC, but that is the whole point of the Hard DC, per Paizo's stated rules document. To argue that is against design intent is to ignore the printed description of the Hard DC, which lays out the design intent.

Now, if your suggestion is that Hard DC checks should not be a 50% success/fail rate, that's a whole different conversation than the chart not meeting their stated intent.

...

The design is to literally keep an ability and proficiency appropriate PC at 50% success. Not factoring in mundane or magical items or spell effects.

If they adjust to make proficiency increase the chance of success that is the medium DC track.

I feel like the current setup is punishing failure to optimize rather than rewarding optimization.

You say you want my base %chance to be 50% far an at level challenge and difficulty? That's fine and dandy. But taking Expert, Master, and Legendary should then slide that up to 55, 60, and 65%. Spending my gold/feats/skill bumps/etc should improve my odds of success, not simply prevent them from going down.

This is where we disagree. You are arguing that against an at Level, HARD DC (the one we have been discussing), you should have a greater than 50% chance of success from skill bumps and ability increases. This goes directly against the stated intent of Hard Difficulty Challenges. Hard challenges are by design supposed to be a challenge for the specialist. It says so in the description:

A hard skill DC, the most common in the game, represents something that an average commoner might not try but that adventurers attempt frequently. This DC challenges even characters who have strongly focused on the skill and can often be overcome by a character who has increased their modifier or proficiency rank. A character who’s really strong in the skill starts at around a 50% chance of succeeding but ends up almost certain to succeed at higher levels.

Asking to ignore built in ability bumps and skill proficiency increases for the DC set to challenge your specialist character seems counterproductive. At that point they should make the default DC medium, which is what you are asking for, even if indirectly.

Scythia wrote:

Syndrous wrote:

I think the chart is fine the way it is, due to the interaction with the ordinary tasks charts.

Since ordinary tasks fall to the point of eventually not being rolled, I don't think that Table 10-2 is even going to effect us as often as we thing it is.

Climbing a Cliff is the best example of this. It's a level 2 task according to chart 10-4. Depending on the adjustments that you apply the DC can range from Easy (9) to Ultimate (19).

At level 8, the task of climbing a cliff become trivial meaning you are no longer required to even attempt the roll.

The act of Climbing the Cliff requires a mostly static check, adjusted by circumstances. It doesn't use a scaling DC.

If that's the intent then they didn't present it very clearly. You're the first person I've seen mention this ordinary tasks chart in all of the discussion about skill DCs.

I've see it come up before and mentioned it myself. It's a good chart, and Syndronus is right about how it's to be used.

That doesn't make the current odds of success vs. on-level challenges okay though. Those are the DCs to be used when going up against equal level opposition, and the current odds of success an average PC can achieve on them are, frankly, pretty bad in many cases.

Now, Mark Seifter has said that they're probably gonna redo skill items (and/or make them more available) rather than change the chart, and that's fine if it works to change the odds of success (which it very likely will on the Medium DC level at least), but regardless of how the change is to be achieved, a change to odds of success on most PCs seems necessary.

I believe making the proficiency array - 4, 0, 2, 4, 6 will fix it.

Though a hard difficulty being capped at 50% +/-15% success rate seems fine, as that leaves us with two harder and two easier difficulty levels to use as circumstance dictates.

Treat this as an exercise in problem solving. Your players guide you through the way they solve an issue, based on their discriptions you determine the final DC, if their approach warrants a DC reduction, maybe you use the medium DC, maybe the hard or severe. The running the game section seems to be built more along the lines of general guidelines and a toolbox to allow GM's some wiggle room. We are all jumping on the DC's like they are static things, but there are a lot of role play opportunities that can be used to make some of them much easier from Aid Another to kits or items, to weather, magical shenanigans or out of the box solutions, we have been given tools that encourage our players to be creative in character to help over come problems. In fact, there are very few skill checks that I can foresee players having excessive issues on. Stealth is probably the worst offender in my minds eye.

I do want to note that Mark Seifter also mentioned specifically, in my other thread about this exact set of tables, that they used more of the difficult DC's in the table in Doomsday Dawn, which leads me to believe a normal AP will have considerably lower DC's.

I think the chart is fine the way it is, due to the interaction with the ordinary tasks charts.

Since ordinary tasks fall to the point of eventually not being rolled, I don't think that Table 10-2 is even going to effect us as often as we thing it is.

Climbing a Cliff is the best example of this. It's a level 2 task according to chart 10-4. Depending on the adjustments that you apply the DC can range from Easy (9) to Ultimate (19).

At level 8, the task of climbing a cliff become trivial meaning you are no longer required to even attempt the roll.

The act of Climbing the Cliff requires a mostly static check, adjusted by circumstances. It doesn't use a scaling DC.

So, we've seen the DC's on the newly adjusted table 10-2. Many of our contemporaries are enraged that a Hard DC to climb a rope at level 1 (DC 15) has scaled to to DC 20 at 5th Level.

I've got a solution.

Ordinary Tasks

The Ordinary Tasks tables on page 338 list common
tasks that don’t increase in level. You can use them as
benchmarks when deciding the levels of similar tasks. Each
entry is followed by the task level, examples of factors that
could impact difficulty, and the character level at which the
task becomes so trivial that you can usually assume a PC
succeeds rather than spending time on a roll.
For most tasks that low-level, everyday NPCs might
attempt, the level of the check is 0–2. For example, using a
log to cross a river is tricky but still reasonable for a normal
person, so it’s a high-difficulty level 1 check (DC 14). Based
on that, you might decide that Balancing across a rickety
bridge, which is easier for an ordinary person, is a highdifficulty
level 0 Acrobatics check (DC 12). If the bridge
or log were covered in moss, you might adjust to severe.
The Difficulty Adjustments column includes factors
that might alter the challenge. These are factors inherent
to the task or the environment. Factors under the PCs’
control, like gear grant them bonuses instead.
Ordinary tasks become trivial at a certain level, listed in
the final column so you have some idea when these tasks no
longer present even a minor challenge for the characters.
Some tasks are always trivial and have no need to be rolled,
like climbing a ladder in ordinary circumstances. You can
allow automatic successes at lower levels than listed if that
makes your game run more smoothly.

The reason that scaling DC's is a thing is that they expect us GM's to scale certain tasks down. That is, while a Level 4 character might find scaling a cliff difficult, a Level 8 character could find such a task trivial and not even need to roll against a DC for the task.

The CRB gives us some general guidelines, but in reality, would require too many pages to give us all the answers, so they give us a general idea of how to scale these challenges.

The scaling DC's are not for every day adventuring needs. They are for the shenanigans your players come up with, they are there to help you decide what DC's are appropriate. Certain tasks though, such as climbing a cliff (level 2 task according to the CRB) become considerably easier as you level up.

I already liked wondering monsters and guards. This gives me more reason to bring them out to play.

I imagine Paizo will bake more patrols, and time sensitive missions to prevent the spam.

The issue with CLW wands were actually the speed of healing, not just the reliability.

I think I saw this suggestion on the other thread, and I liked it. The DC should be based on the level of the creature you're healing, rather than your own level. For most cases this would be the same thing, but it would allow for high-level NPCs being able to easily heal the party, or low-level PCs struggling to save a high-level creature. That seems more interesting to me.

After having re-read the activity a few times and considered it throughout my work day, I agree. Though I do believe that this may also require a limitation be put in place to prevent the abuse of hirelings should they ever gain the ability to be above level 0.

I think Paizo's insistence on a negative status effect after you recover from dying needs to go out a window though. Being unconscious and losing turns is enough, there doesn't need to be a rider effect.

I like the idea of the Alchemist having a feat that allows the Alchemist to utilize Craft Alchemy to mix alchemical concoctions to use the Treat Wounds action as well.

As for Battle Medic, maybe have it allow Treat Wounds during combat at the cost of causing 1d4 points of persistent bleed damage until you have time to treat the bleed out of combat?

I really don't see this issue going anywhere. No matter how they resolve this it's not going to make the entire player base happy.

Most of the player base wants to not be forced to have a Cleric in a party, that much seems for certain. They added a way to avoid the Cleric at a reasonable rate of investment, they gave us a nifty skill use that can heal. They simultaneously uncapped the Alchemist as a healer option, due to the change with resonance and how it reacts with an Alchemist creating an elixer. This gives us 1 great in combat healer (Cleric) and 2 decent in combat healers (Paladin via Lay on Hands and Alchemist via Elixers).

They then give us a method of out of combat healing that is somewhat strong but requires a roll, buffing a skill which normally most parties would ignore.

They do this because the data that they have indicates the game is extraordinarily lethal, and we need the healing.

We, as a player base indicated we wanted this or something similar.

Stepping off of my soapbox to provide an actual idea to solving this.

Making a meaningful fix to this is actually easier than one would think. They partially provided it to us already. Paizo made the Wounded condition, but implemented it in a way I do not like.

I don't like the current iteration because being unconscious is already a penalty and should not have a status effect that is automatically added when you recover. Instead, Paizo should consider redesigning Wounded.

My version for home-brew games becomes the following:

Wounded - when the Treat Wounds activity is used to restore HP, the target of gains the Wounded condition. Wounded causes physical damage to cause 1 additional point of bleeding damage. Each application of Treat Wounds increases the threshold by 1 (to 2, 3, 4, etc). At Wounded 5, the severity of this condition worsens, causing your character to become Fatigued. At Wounded 10, you become unconscious.

Resting for 8 continuous hours reduces the Wounded condition by 1 severity level. Resting 24 continuous hours removes the Wounded condition completely. Using Alchemical Elixers, Magical Healing and Potion Healing can prevent your Wounded condition from increasing beyond Wounded 5. Only resting can fully remove the Wounded condition.

This creates a reasonable daily cap for Treat Wounds, adds a level of severity to injury and causes parties to heavily weigh whether to expend resources to heal, consider resting, or heal.

This then shifts the ability from an unlimited use heal to one which allows a GM room to press the team, create tension from injury and use the narrative to prevent the party from wasting time.

Sanmei wrote:

Syndrous wrote:

Mundane healing should be in no way comparable to magical healing. Level 20 channel rolls 20d6 or something like that. Level 20 treat Wounds has a 30% chance of restoring 240 hp, effectively doubling the best magical healing available.

I feel like that's more an indictment on the inefficient and often insufficient restoration amount of magical healing.

Another item to factor in is high level alchemists with the Perfect Medicine feat. Alchemists are hard to play for a good chunk of the game, but once they get that, I'm pretty sure it makes them the best HP healers in the game.

Of course, alchemists can't raise the dead unless they reach level 20 and take Philosopher's Stone, and then only once each month.

Not sure where you're getting 240 HP but I'm curious. I'm going to assume the 30% you cite isn't the theoretical crit chance for a Legendary rank maxed out Medicine user? Even though that seems like a ridiculously high crit chance I'll go with it. Cure wounds heals Con Mod (minimum 1) times level. A crit heals an additional 3x level (important to note it doesn't triple the healing, it adds triple your level. There's a big difference depending on your patient's Con mod).

This gives a Crit a minimum of 80 HP (if they have a Con mod of 0 or 1), a likely value of 120 or 140 (+3 or +4 Con mod) and a MAX of 180 (+6 Con mod, requires maxing the stat and putting your +2 magic item towards it.). None of that reaches 240 and all of that is crits which again I feel like 30% crit isn't happening but I'd be happy to see the math that gets it if you're sure. Non-crits drop all of the aforementioned values by 60, giving likely values of 60-80 and max of 120 over 10 minutes of healing while a Heal spell at top level averages about 93 (assuming you don't have the Healing Domain power added on) for 1 action.

And it's worth mentioning that Treat Wounds doesn't reach these levels of comparability with heal until very late levels because it jumps hard...

I'm going to have to state that I misread that then. I read it as 3x total on a crit, and yes that was for a legendary medicine 20th level character.

Unfortunely I'm working right now and haven't had the time to double check or do further analysis.

A static DC requires a massively reduced amount of healing to remain balanced.

Remember, we are talking about a core rulebook ability. It can be home-brewed however we like, what is being discussed now is the no-nonsense RAW approach.

Personally, I'll be removing wounded from the being raised from dying and moving it to any time you have your wounds treated. Wounded 1 takes 1 additional point of damage, 2 takes 2 so forth. Sleeping 8 hours reduces wounded by 1, having First Aid while you rest a full day fully removes the wounded condition.

Mundane healing should be in no way comparable to magical healing. Level 20 channel rolls 20d6 or something like that. Level 20 treat Wounds has a 30% chance of restoring 240 hp, effectively doubling the best magical healing available.

What they gave us is a decent compromise so that a cleric is not a mandatatory party member in the base rules. Anything else should be homebrew.

The DC scales on level because level is used as a modifier to multiply natural healing. This ability is letting you increase natural healing. A level 20 healer means that you multiply natural healing by 20, thus the DC is based on being level 20.

The scaling DC means that the DC for a 20th level healer to treat a 1st level patient is higher than for a 1st level healer to treat a 20th level patient. That makes absolutely no sense.

The nature of the ability also scales the damage you heal, assuming the wounds from higher level creatures will be more severe.

That's why it's not static, it makes really good sense.

Person healed con mod * healers level. At 20th level that is most likely going to be 80 HP on Frontliners, or more. 240 on a critical success, which is actually the hard part. At level 20, for a character that invests your looking at +32 to the check, which means you crit on a 14 or higher with a 5% critical failure rate. That's a 30% critical success vs 5% critical failure rate.

Treat Wounds is not there to be as effective as a full blown Cleric. The medium DC is probably a good target considering that the only way to critically fail the roll is to nat 1 so long as you invest in it. Also consider the circumstances it will most heavily be rolled in: a party without a Cleric.

Treat Wounds is designed to enable a party to not have a cleric, which means more than one person takes it. If one person critically fails you have a backup, if the second fails, unless you are on a time-crunch you have, or should have, potions, elixirs, a wand, or resting. Yes, resting isn't always available, but a 5% chance of failure is more than fair.

It gives you between encounter healing, at the cost of changing the way you build a character. Not a bad trade all things considered.

I think the crossbow, much like the Firearm from PF1e, needs to target TAC. The crossbow is designed to punch through armor.

Additionally, can you fire a short or longbow while prone?

I would think that for a stealth encounter, a heavy crossbow would be prefered in instances where you can move move attack, or sneak sneak attack. The reload feats tied to movement can make a crossbow a good enough weapon.

But otherwise, in stand up fights, the shortbow wins at shorter ranges and the longbow at excessive range.

This is why I stole an idea I saw on EN World that was a wooden GM screen with a dice tower built into it. I designed mine a bit differently, the top is wider and I just have my players chuck a d20 in. If they wish to use a reroll ability they throw in 2 and tell me which is the primary die. If the primary die succeeds, they are TOLD they don't lose a use of the reroll ability, if the ability triggers, they lose the point or use of the ability and I work it into the narrative. Let's them roll their dice and provides me the secret check I need, while also improving everyone's aim a bit at die chucking.

They would have known something was rolled regardless, because noise.

Syndrous wrote:

The lack of a confirmation roll means that there is a significantly higher chance to crit, coupled with the +/-10 shenanigans, means they cannot give you a significantly higher chance to hit monster AC without also increasing your chance to crit.

While I agree with this I think that it is worth pointing out that crits are also somewhat less, uh, crippling than in PF1.

In PF1 a crit by a major damage dealer generally finished off its opponent. Heck, crits by charging cavaliers or the like often killed their opponent in a single shot. That is less true in PF2 where everybody has lots and lots more hit points. It is almost expected that a boss will take at least one crit in a fight.

I disagree on the lack of impact from critical hits. Fatal, Deadly and the critical specializations make up for the lack of pure awesomeness in the damage department. Paizo doesn't care about letting us one shot enemies, criticals appear to have been rerolled to make them interesting.

I will agree that they are somewhat weak right now, critical specializations that is, but they have potential. Three of them knock you prone (-2 ac, - 2 attack rolls, +1 ac vs ranged), one makes you flat footed, one pins you in place, one enfeebles you, slows you, knocks you back, moves you 5 feet or causes persistent bleeding. Those are not useless effects, and while they don't necessarily end the combat, they are significant boosts.

I like riders over pure damage numbers.

Actually I think crit chance needs to be decoupled or more loosely coupled with hit chance.

The lack of a confirmation roll means that there is a significantly higher chance to crit, coupled with the +/-10 shenanigans, means they cannot give you a significantly higher chance to hit monster AC without also increasing your chance to crit. This means, that until we have better support systems in place for casting and inflicting penalties, we are held into a tighter hit chance that has to hover between 40-65% chance to hit, or our crit chance also jumps.

The availability of those items means designers have to balance around them at some point. The question is whether you should account for them in the CRB and base beastiaries or in individual AP's with the inclusion of rebuild rules or alternate stay blocks.

You should also consider that they are in fact listening, not to the forums, but to the actual data they are getting from the player base at large rather than the vocal minority they see here on the forums.

They may see our anger here, but the survey data may indicate that other issues are higher up the priority totem. I actually thought that the issues with DC's becoming lower in 1.3 was very likely for casters in addition to the skill benefits.

It may be that wizard, bard and sorcerer balancing may be coming after they get martial dialed in where they want them. I don't have a heavy horse in this race as I can build a fairly effective gish no matter how I slice it.

I think Paizo is right to relegate caster balance to the backend though. Not because full spell-focused casters need to be last, but because they are so bloody complex. Barb, fighter, pally, Ranger and rogue are easier to balance, and easier to fix if they break something. Casters meanwhile have a multitude of options, so much so, that all of the things that could cause issues with a pf1e game were caused by magic.

Everyother class in the game has a something they cannot do as well as others. I hate to be the one to go there, casters need to join that sphere. Casters need a definable weakness. Maybe each needs a different weakness.

Personally? Casters don't need to be nearly as strong as they were last go around. Do I have the solution to the problem? Nope, experience tells me that casters shouldn't have utility, cc and blasting in spades. Maybe split between them but certainly not on one chassis like they did last time.

Paizo has a super unenviable job right now. They need to give casters an identity, without making reality shifting casters a thing again. You wanna be a utility mage, great, your damage is going down the tank then. You wanna blast the opponent to kingdom come? Goodbye cc spells. There needs to be a trade off. At level 20 there needs to be room for the other characters to do something other than buying the wizard/socerer time, assuming the maxed out caster doesn't go first and just break reality and win.

I really don't think casters are going to be even 60% as effective as they were in pf1e and that is totally okay, because that puts them in line with the rest of the classes for ability to shift a narrative.

Are they lowballed right now? Sure, we can agree to that, but I sincerely hope casters don't get as much as they had going last time.

I think a system that spreads the ability increases out would also have the advantage of filling dead space, especially in the cases of classes that seem to have lame feat choices in their silo's. You still have the feat choice but now you have an ability bump that combines to make it feel better.

Spreading them out is fairly simple, just make the limit to break the 20 threshold level 10, and add a "natural" ability cap of 22-24.

It would allow slightly more specialization while keeping the diversified ability arrays that the new skill system seems to be build upon.

Edit: I do want to point out that I am 100% against an ability cap that is in the double digits modifier wise (so mods greater than +9) as that seems to make the spread between non-optimized and optimized characters pretty much insurmountable.

Syndrous wrote:

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I would prefer rogues get better sneak attack and nobody gets dex-to-damage.

Rogues Sneak Attack progression was not nerfed because of dex to damage. It was nerfed because Sneak Attack dice multiply on critical hits now.

Sneak Attack is no longer classed as precision damage as precision damage was entirely removed from the game.

No, I mean my preferred solution to "rogues should be doing more damage" is "rogues get enhancements on strikes" not "rogues get to substitute dex for str."

From the stream today it sounds like dex-to-damage is no longer a mandatory part of being a rogue, so that's good.

I agree. Rogues should have the option. I also want to note that even if they don't have dex to damage and use dex attack rolls only, a rogues damage doesn't fall that far behind. Due to the capped nature of the ability modifiers it's that hard to stay within a point or two of the fighter. Rogues loss out on big damage dice though which is what sneak attack makes up for

I would prefer rogues get better sneak attack and nobody gets dex-to-damage.

Rogues Sneak Attack progression was not nerfed because of dex to damage. It was nerfed because Sneak Attack dice multiply on critical hits now.

Sneak Attack is no longer classed as precision damage as precision damage was entirely removed from the game.

Just because something can be dented does not mean you can interpose it between you and an attack.

Shields only get damaged in this way if you actively shield block.
There is no way to "armour block".

Armour and shields are still items and can therefore be damaged in other ways - although the lack of an explicit sunder manoeuvre makes it unlikely that that will happen in combat.

I believe some forms of persistent Acid damage also apply damage to armor but I'd have to double check.

Additionally, your first sentence is factually, and physically incorrect. Armor, by the very definition of it being worn, is interposed between you and an attack. I'm OK without armor reducing damage, but I see where the OP is coming from.

I believe that the confusion is caused by the existence of verbiage that implies armor can take damage, with no mechanical method of damaging armor outside of specific spells.

I think resonance could be useful but its current incarnation has negative gameplay value. Either you are not hitting it at all in any meaningful way and it winds up just being one more book keeping task when using consumables or you are an alchemist and you have to fight and game your way around it as best you can and its all hindrance with no real feeling of benefit.

The fact that items still have per day usages and charges to track after adding resonance baffled me. It would have been simplier to do the more limited things per day having higher resonance cost. Overall it is a system that just needs to be sat down and think what they actually want it to do.

I think they should stick with attunement for permanent items, drop the resonance cost on Alchemical Elixers and then remove the other set of healing potions. Finally, you make wands function by spending Resonance to activate it, and removing the number of charges.

This let's high level characters decide what items they want, allows Alchemists to provide out of combat healing or utility, and still makes Resonance a meaningful resource because it governs wands, staves and permanent magical items without harshly penelizing Alchemist or your 1 hp fighter who needs an emergency heal when the cleric died earlier in the dungeon.

Syndrous wrote:

master_marshmallow wrote:

I had another solution, instead of nixing proficiency as is, I'd see the martial inclined builds take on abilities which supplement their attack roles using a secondary ability modifier.

It scales in the exact mathematical way that balances the attack rolls problem. It just needs a sufficient cost to feel balanced, something like an action or a limitation on the target or what have you.

Hmmm. I vaguely recall it being mentioned before that they were hard against adding two ability scores to the same roll, whether it be an attack, skill or damage roll.

And the game is worse for it.

Not necessarily, I wonder if they would loosen up on that stance in Pf2 because my recollection was that hard no was for first edition..which made tremendous sense due to insane ability scores.

With the hard limit on ability scores being a +7, without item involvement, I believe there is room for it. The question is how to determine what ability score to add.

A general mission statement does not make detailed design goals. A valid question would be "Why were spells so heavily nerfed in all respects (duration, effect, range, targets)?".

While there are enough forum members who will posit their individual opinion with great abandon about this (myself included), this does not equal an official statement by the developers in that regard. We don't know why they went this far, we don't know if a step back from this is even negotiable or if their decision is already cast in iron. All in all, we need more detailed information, on this topic and on many other topics of contention. In the absence of developer feedback, rampant speculation and discontent both grow unchecked.

Exactly so.

Paizo is taking a strange, to my eyes, stance on this. They are having us do a partially blind playtest, and feeding us just bare snippets of information we need to understand what direction they want to move the system in.

Magnuskn provides a great example, because we don't know the reason the power floor of pure casters was dropped its hard for us to brainstorm viable alternatives, we don't know more than a general mission statement.

I am in the military, I've learned that sometimes you have to hand out information to get an accurate result. The biggest example of this was the US Air Force recently had some issues with Gate Runner scenarios at multiple bases.

Big Air Force gave us a general mission statement, then a list of end goals for new systems were dropped by our unit commanders, then they asked us for solutions. This allowed us to evaluate what the good solutions were that fit both the mission statement and individual goals for our units.

Paizo needs to do the same thing here, we need the big picture and then we need some specific goals or objectives and we need to be told what is and is not on the table.

Right now we are dividing into small groups and tilting at windmills that might not be relevant.

I'm not a fan of +level to proficiency, I believe it invalidates other choices we make with our characters, but if Mark came in here and flat out posted that that bit was non-negotiable, I'd shush my opinion on that and move on to the next relevant problem in my eyes. I don't have to like every individual piece of the system, as long as I enjoy playing with the overall system, right now, I have a spiral notebook with around 100ish small to medium sized issues I have, and 10 or so big ones, but many of the smaller issues will resolve themselves if the larger issues are correctly handled, and 1 or 2 of the larger issues will balance correctly if a handful of smaller ones are corrected first.

I had another solution, instead of nixing proficiency as is, I'd see the martial inclined builds take on abilities which supplement their attack roles using a secondary ability modifier.

It scales in the exact mathematical way that balances the attack rolls problem. It just needs a sufficient cost to feel balanced, something like an action or a limitation on the target or what have you.

Hmmm. I vaguely recall it being mentioned before that they were hard against adding two ability scores to the same roll, whether it be an attack, skill or damage roll.

Syndrous wrote:

Vic Ferrari wrote:

Syndrous wrote:

The second part of this is dropping the +level pseudo-BAB we currently have attached to proficiency and recalculating values to match. I'm a fan of Proficiency bonuses as a flat scale that doesn't completely overshadow ability scores. We have ability scores, they should matter, the entire idea of adding level to a roll is numbers porn, and can make tracking difficult for folks like those I play with who can be rediculously bad at math

Yes, I am playing with and without the +Level treadmill, I enjoy it more without, and I still find the 4-Tiers of Success deal to be somewhat of a time-sink.

Did removing +level require much math on the Monster/Skill DC side of things, and does the proficiency bonus then feel like it is supporting your ability scores rather than overshadowing them like it currently does?

I assume you lowered the DC's/AC/hit bonuses by the creature rating or hazard rating for traps.

Yes, level is omitted from everything (monsters, etc), it opens up the threat range, you don't auto-crit as much on lower level monsters, and have a chance to hit higher level monsters without needing a natural 20, etc.

Your ability scores feel more impactful (and E, M, L proficiency); I do not like item bonuses and extra weapon damage dice, to keep up, coming from magic.

Hmmm I'm going to need to keep this in mind in the event the system squeeks through as it is.

Did you stick with - 2, 0, +1,+2,+3 or did you jump to -2, 0, +2, +4, +6?

Syndrous wrote:

The second part of this is dropping the +level pseudo-BAB we currently have attached to proficiency and recalculating values to match. I'm a fan of Proficiency bonuses as a flat scale that doesn't completely overshadow ability scores. We have ability scores, they should matter, the entire idea of adding level to a roll is numbers porn, and can make tracking difficult for folks like those I play with who can be rediculously bad at math

Yes, I am playing with and without the +Level treadmill, I enjoy it more without, and I still find the 4-Tiers of Success deal to be somewhat of a time-sink.

Did removing +level require much math on the Monster/Skill DC side of things, and does the proficiency bonus then feel like it is supporting your ability scores rather than overshadowing them like it currently does?

I assume you lowered the DC's/AC/hit bonuses by the creature rating or hazard rating for traps.

As a disclaimer, I’m of the opinion that the ruleset that has been put out to playtest is around 90% of the way towards being a great system that I am eager to play. My interest is primarily in improving the game that is being developed to get it the rest of the way.

On Touch AC: Running the numbers of the first few hundred entries in the Pathfinder 2 Playtest Bestiary, 97% of creatures have a touch AC between 0 and 4 points less than their regular AC, with the average being around 1.95 less. For game balance, this makes sense; having too low a touch AC means a creature can be not only hit more, but crit much more by touch attacks. Thematically… the fact that a colossal dragon has the same difference between touch and regular AC as a gnoll is a little weird.

I am not sure of how the math for determining monster AC vs Touch AC works, as that hasn’t been published yet, but for PCs it is derived from the two separate AC values granted by armor, which yields difference of 0 (for unarmoured characters) and 4 (for fullplate). In essence, the same spread as we see in the overwhelming majority of monsters.

I have to ask the question: Is the added complexity of deriving touch AC from equipment and other modifiers adding to the game, or would the simple statement of “Your touch AC is 2 less than your regular AC” be sufficient? Incorporeal creatures could simply have the special rule that their touch AC is equal to their regular AC, and anything that is particularly ungainly, could simply have the “Ungainly” special quality to cause their touch AC to be 4 points lower than their regular AC.

On Armor: Given that medium and heavy armor costs more, is bulkier, requires additional feats (if it’s not a class proficiency), slows movement, penalizes a broad array of skills and at times even limits saving throws, it offers disturbingly little in return – offering only equal AC (and lower touch AC) than a high-Dex light armor character without fighter or paladin (heavy only)...

I find this preferable to the current system for TAC. Having ran a bit of the Playtest using armor as DR due to a mistake in reading and some confusing wording, I find that armor as DR works well here and agree that targeting TAC has largely gone the way of the dodo. Sure some spells target TAC and TAC is a great way to approximate Firearms, but I think there is a more elegant solution in the case of Firearms.

Firearms ignore item bonuses to AC, assuming we see Firearms again.

Syndrous wrote:

master_marshmallow wrote:

Syndrous wrote:

Vidmaster7 wrote:

Ocean and syndrous you guys got it on the nose. Its what I've been trying to express we are most definitely not playing the finished product.

If your group can't handle the play test it might be best to just wait till the final product comes out.

I think about testing D&D next before it was officially 5th edition and I was ready to burn that thing.

My issue is I want to playtest, even if I am a player rather than DM and my players want to get out of what they see as a sinking ship at this point. One of my guys is a straight 5e enthusiast, he only played because I am one of 5 English speaking DM's where we are stationed. He worships the ground Matt Mercer walks on and believes that any DM style but Mercer's is badwrongfun. He has convinced them to move on to 5e, and revisit Pathfinder in 2-3 years if Paizo is still publishing.

I don't mind that, I really don't care for 5e, and half of my group just wants to play. Combined with me moving in December, I am mostly going to be building and running playtest with just myself and my wife. We both prefer PF1 and want PF2 to turn out well, we don't mind slogging through a broken system.

My only real gripe is that I don't see the point of play-testing a bestiary that is based off of design decisions that were a mistake, and that they had moved on from. We are providing them data that agrees that they were smart to move away from an iteration that was never meant to be published. They could correct that, any data they collect using the flawed bestiary is less useful, because it wasn't what was intended for the test.

This last part upsets me so much because classes that add in a second ability score, or otherwise get a scaling bonus that goes from +3 to +6 over the course of 20 levels literally fixes all the math and has no consequences for the 4 tiered success system because attack rolls don't have critical failures.

Adding

...

I'm the last poster in the thread.

Getting back to the topic at hand, of class-gated feats, I really feel they should consist more of in-combat tactical abilities, role-fulfillment abilities and thematically appropriate feats.

The Fighter for instance is supposed to be a master of in your face and tactical combat. Give the fighter feats that allow him to assume a tactical position and provide his allies with an increased benefit when they flank enemies that he is also flanking. The increased pool of reactions is a great baseline for Fighters, focus on more feats that expand on that concept, allowing more AoO's, or reactions to knock your teammates out of harms way. Hell, even the archery, dual wield, open hand, sword and board, and two handed stylistic abilities they have could be expanded on, if the classes focus was less as a weapon master.

Syndrous wrote:

Vidmaster7 wrote:

Ocean and syndrous you guys got it on the nose. Its what I've been trying to express we are most definitely not playing the finished product.

If your group can't handle the play test it might be best to just wait till the final product comes out.

I think about testing D&D next before it was officially 5th edition and I was ready to burn that thing.

My issue is I want to playtest, even if I am a player rather than DM and my players want to get out of what they see as a sinking ship at this point. One of my guys is a straight 5e enthusiast, he only played because I am one of 5 English speaking DM's where we are stationed. He worships the ground Matt Mercer walks on and believes that any DM style but Mercer's is badwrongfun. He has convinced them to move on to 5e, and revisit Pathfinder in 2-3 years if Paizo is still publishing.

I don't mind that, I really don't care for 5e, and half of my group just wants to play. Combined with me moving in December, I am mostly going to be building and running playtest with just myself and my wife. We both prefer PF1 and want PF2 to turn out well, we don't mind slogging through a broken system.

My only real gripe is that I don't see the point of play-testing a bestiary that is based off of design decisions that were a mistake, and that they had moved on from. We are providing them data that agrees that they were smart to move away from an iteration that was never meant to be published. They could correct that, any data they collect using the flawed bestiary is less useful, because it wasn't what was intended for the test.

This last part upsets me so much because classes that add in a second ability score, or otherwise get a scaling bonus that goes from +3 to +6 over the course of 20 levels literally fixes all the math and has no consequences for the 4 tiered success system because attack rolls don't have critical failures.

Adding in 8 or so abilities to the classes that need the hit chance,...

I actually like this but I would prefer a full restructuring of the Proficiency system.

For weapons and armor your proficiency should be more than a bonus, I love the idea of taking some of the feats that are class gated and locking them behind your proficiency with a weapon. I.E. Locking Power attack behind expert proficiency with Heavy Blades. This takes the onus of providing weapons/armor related feats off of classes, allowing the class feats to provide thematically tactful abilities to differentiate classes. You follow up with feats that you can take in place of a class feat, a general class feat if you will, to increase weapons proficiency with that class of armor/weapons (providing you meet basic ability score based pre-reqs) and you now have a proficiency system for weapons and armor that feels like a proficiency system. You can now have club wielding rogues and axe swinging wizards who sacrifice some of their wizard class feats to create the character they want.

The second part of this is dropping the +level pseudo-BAB we currently have attached to proficiency and recalculating values to match. I'm a fan of Proficiency bonuses as a flat scale that doesn't completely overshadow ability scores. We have ability scores, they should matter, the entire idea of adding level to a roll is numbers porn, and can make tracking difficult for folks like those I play with who can be rediculously bad at math.

Ocean and syndrous you guys got it on the nose. Its what I've been trying to express we are most definitely not playing the finished product.

If your group can't handle the play test it might be best to just wait till the final product comes out.

I think about testing D&D next before it was officially 5th edition and I was ready to burn that thing.

My issue is I want to playtest, even if I am a player rather than DM and my players want to get out of what they see as a sinking ship at this point. One of my guys is a straight 5e enthusiast, he only played because I am one of 5 English speaking DM's where we are stationed. He worships the ground Matt Mercer walks on and believes that any DM style but Mercer's is badwrongfun. He has convinced them to move on to 5e, and revisit Pathfinder in 2-3 years if Paizo is still publishing.

I don't mind that, I really don't care for 5e, and half of my group just wants to play. Combined with me moving in December, I am mostly going to be building and running playtest with just myself and my wife. We both prefer PF1 and want PF2 to turn out well, we don't mind slogging through a broken system.

My only real gripe is that I don't see the point of play-testing a bestiary that is based off of design decisions that were a mistake, and that they had moved on from. We are providing them data that agrees that they were smart to move away from an iteration that was never meant to be published. They could correct that, any data they collect using the flawed bestiary is less useful, because it wasn't what was intended for the test.

I keep seeing people refer to "multiclassing". Under the current playtest rules, you can't.

You can take feats that give you a different class' abilities, but you do not have "two" (or more) classes. It's disingenuous.

I want to be able to multiclass. I want archetypes that are changes to a class to broaden their concepts.

I did like the post that essentially compared hexes/talents/revelations/ki powers etc with "feats", and that mollified me a little. But not a lot. In PF1e, those powers/suites/choices still had feats to assist/change/provide choice to them.

I am no munchkin. I don't use the words chargen or char op or develop "builds" 20 levels in advance. I make characters. I make them interesting, and interestingly. Often they are "underpowered" or "weak" on paper. Here's the thing - it's how you use what you've got. And how you get through the game. I like choice. Paizo says choice is their mainstay. And I had choice.

With this edition, they've mauled multiclassing, erzats'd archetypes and gated feats hodgepodge all over the place. The magic has gone away. Sure it's early, it's a playtest, but having gone through a session 0 I'm really disliking it. It will suit a segment, but many will be more than disappointed, they will be put off.

Look at the way multiclassing and archetypes were revealed on the blog. Right near the end. Up until then, except for Resonance, I liked it. Now, I just don't.

I've resigned myself to the playtest not being about building concepts, or characters and am assuming it's more about stress testing the barebones rules, the playtest isn't necessarily designed to be fun, it's designed to provide feedback.

What reinforces this for me is that they haven't republished the bestiary despite a glaring error throwing off everything in it, to the point that skill item boosts seem to be baked into the DC math on everything.

I would prefer this system to be honest. Tie some of the Feats that add functionality to weapons to proficiency and create a few feats that increase proficiency. This allows distinctive chatacter choices that increase both in game function and the individuality of a character.

They spent the time to add a proficiency function to the game, they should remove the pseudo BAB they have by adding level to rolls. Utilize the proficiency system itself by combining a proficiency multiplier to level or something similar to create distinctive modifiers that do not overshadow our ability modifiers (which seem to be capped at +6) and other bonuses we have access to. Or even just a flat systems: - 2, 0, +2, +4, +6. This would make proficiency matter more, as well as avoid overshadowing our other modifiers. They already have to rework a considerable amount of the bestiary so I don't think it's out of the question to adjust things like this at this stage.

Data Lore wrote:

Creatures are OP at present. Look at Goblins - they have like +6 to hit! The devs have hinted at this.

From what I have seen, I think creatures basically need to take like -2 to every save, attack and spell/effect dc (at early level anyways). That would make them save less, hit less, crit less and screw you less. AC seems mostly OK.

Jason seemed to say in that stream that player characters were in general not hitting the target numbers for attacks that they anticipated; I wonder what changed in the rules (player side) for this to be the case?

I just started the stream, I am currently stationed in Japan, so my time zones mismatch a bit and I work a funky schedule.

My belief is that it is the monster design, wherein they are attempting to keep a level appropriate critter a threat. This means a CR 6 critter should pose a threat to a level 6 party. The same level 6 party that is adding a bumped proficiency, 2 levels and an ability score increase to its rolls, saves, Dc's and AC in some cases.

I'll let you guys know how my other groups higher level players handle chapters 4 and 8. I am a bit interested in that myself, as the group doesn't have a healer. They have a Cleric of urgathoa who wants to go full blown necromancer, a rogue, a sword and board fighter and a wild shape Druid. Honestly I am expecting a party wipe but we shall see.

Syndrous wrote:

Dire Ursus wrote:

What spells did he cast specifically? The more specific you are the better it will help Paizo.

Glitterdust, heightened Burning Hands, sleep and Gust of Wind.

He used a cast for Magic Weapon on the rogues shortbow when the rogue got pinned by a volley as well.

My primary point here is that a Wizard was completely invalidated by the saves of the creature. Save DC's are too low or creature saves are way too high. My Wizard had a spell DC of 18. That means the beastie beat Fort saves on a 5, reflex on an 8 and will on an 11.

Please note that 18 is the absolute highest spell DC you can have at lvl 4.

It really wouldn't matter what spell it was, targeting saves vs that critter was something that would go against the player very often.

Glitterdust is a weak level 2 spell if not used on an invisible creatures. Gust of Wind could have been good but the creature's best save is fort so unlucky. Sleep should have worked but the rolls weren't in his favour and Burning hands is an AOE spell but still should have dealt SOME amount of damage unless he crit saved which would have been unlucky. None of this stuff is indicative that the system is broke, just unlucky prepped spells and rolls. In fact this system is better if your rolls are unlucky because more spells still have effects attached to them even when you make a save.

He did do some damage on the burning hands, the sleep the critter made the save by 1, and it did crit save the Glitterdust.

My point here, is do we consider a 55% of success at best, an appropriate level of success for a Caster with only 2-3 spell slots per day of each level?

Truthfully, I would full stop say he over-reacted if the Casters got more than 3 spells per day (+1 in some cases, I'll grant you) if the Casters got 5 per day or 3 + casting mod per day of each level spell, I'm right there with you, that a 55% chance for a boss type encounter is acceptable.

But this isn't the case. My players rested after the Gnoll camp, he had everything available to him, and I honestly think that a few more slots would have made a big difference in how he felt, and how the Casters are performing.

I understand why he felt bad, and I typically don't play full casters, I'm a gish man through and through and have played every 1e varient of Magus I could build, including some esoteric combinations (here's to you spellslinger/gunslinger/magus combo). And I genuinely feel that 3 per level per day is waaaayyyy to few with the save severity we are playing with.

In my eyes, a 55% chance of success when optimally built is OK, if we have access to more spells per day.

My other gripe is that cantrips should either be a single action per turn or they should use the same system as Heal/Harm do, where adding actions adds range/# of targets/burst just to add some additional use to them.

He got up and WALKED OUT over ONE difficult combat? In a scenario meant to stress-test the system?

He was already upset because of how poorly his casting focused Druid handled in chapter 1. I didn't once claim the fellow was rational, or I agreed with him,

I am merely making the point that between his own reading of the rulebook and his in game experience with casters so far he was not impressed. Hell, of the 4 sessions I've played playtesting.

I had one group clear chapter 1 with no primary healer and almost no damage, then proceed to get demolished in chapter 2 but barely survive.

And then this guys group, who barely survived chapter 1 and didn't survive 2.

He was very unimpressed with the performance of the Wizard, and the overall utility and power of the spells in pf2e.

What spells did he cast specifically? The more specific you are the better it will help Paizo.

Glitterdust, heightened Burning Hands, sleep and Gust of Wind.

He used a cast for Magic Weapon on the rogues shortbow when the rogue got pinned by a volley as well.

My primary point here is that a Wizard was completely invalidated by the saves of the creature. Save DC's are too low or creature saves are way too high. My Wizard had a spell DC of 18. That means the beastie beat Fort saves on a 5, reflex on an 8 and will on an 11.

Please note that 18 is the absolute highest spell DC you can have at lvl 4.

It really wouldn't matter what spell it was, targeting saves vs that critter was something that would go against the player very often.

My group failed to finish because my wizard player got up and walked out of the session. A certain flying murder machine saved on every single spell that allowed a save and shrugged off the 3-5 damage per round from his cantrips. Meanwhile, it murdered the Cleric from range and then pinned the rogue with its final volley, before it proceeded to maul the sword and board fighter with no trouble.

This is the second party I have ran through chapter 2 and is mostly ttrpg experienced players. I want to point out that I followed the paths specific advice for the beastie... It prefers to fight at range.

The wizard player got up and left, and told me he'd be back if Paizo got its act together. All in all, my first group was the better experience.

I think the bestiary being dialed into hard mode might cause some issues.

Else magic is weak and both casters and martials are going to suffer for it.

Anyone else had a similar experience?

I'll be finished with the playtest this coming Saturday, due to my group breaking apart because it's prime moving season for my mostly military play group. We are going to run chapters 4 and 8 back to back because they want to finish the stories for their characters we started with. Emergency orders can be such a pain.

I actually credit the way Shields work as the reason I screwed up and made armor provide and AC bonus and hardness as DR. I read the rules for damaging items, didn't realize it was exclusive to Shields and was like, well if they are taking damage regardless my players can have reduced damage to compensate.

Out of curiosity, would using a proficiency system where proficiency level was both a threshold for a specific action as well as a multiplier to determine bonuses?

In example, you must be trained in Athletics to grapple, this is a specific action that requires some basic training to do well.

In order to determine bonuses instead of level + prof modifier, would the system work better as:

Untrained = - 2

Trained = 1/4*Lvl

Expert = 1/2*Lvl

Master = 3/4*Lvl

Legendary = Lvl

This gives you the following spread for proficiency modifiers at 20th:

-2, 5, 10, 15, 20

You then add your ability modifiers and bonuses.

A system like this also allows additional Feats to help with your attack routines or damage, to improve proficiency, and really differentiates the different levels of proficiency. If you prefer smaller numbers, in my head I really like: - 2, 2, 5, 8, 11.

It would require some major math adjustments, but personally I want proficiency to really matter.