Vition's page

I have to say that overall, I really like a lot of what I see in PF2, but I have a couple of concerns I would like to see changes to. Since the game's already out, they are now potential house rules. I bring these up primarily to see if I've missed any potential snags or brokenness.

The (mostly) binary nature of weapon-based combat is something I'd like to see changed, especially with some of the generally higher defenses many of the monsters have. The second is expanding action economy to work with spellcasting. Ideally, both these would be implemented at the same time, as individually, I think they provide too much of a buff to one type or the other.

Weapon-Based Combat
Miss
The attack roll is below the target's AC by 6 or more. The attack misses, causing no damage. Automatically happens on a roll of a natural "1" (may also include a fumble chance).
Near Miss
The attack roll is below the target’s AC by 5 or less. This attack causes some harm to the opponent but does not truly injure them. The damage done is halved and damage modifying abilities are not included in the damage roll.
Solid Hit
The attack roll hits the target’s AC or exceeds it by less than 10. This attack causes normal damage with the proper damage modifying abilities being applied.
Critical Hit
The attack roll exceeds the target’s AC by 10 or more. A solid hit to a tender area, normal critical hit conditions apply. A natural 20 on an attack roll will also cause a Critical Hit.
Deadly Hit
The attack roll exceeds the target’s AC by 15 or more. For every 5 above 10 the attack roll exceeds the target’s AC the multiplier for the critical hit is increased by 1 (x2 -> x3, x3 -> x4, etc.).**

**I may also just decide that hits succeeding by 15 or more just immediately kill the target, but I include the rules so that the players are aware of how high level enemies might do even more damage to them than they'd otherwise expect.

Spell Casting Action Economy
-Spellcasting is inherently limited in the three action economy. To allow for spellcasting to more directly interact with it, I am including options to decrease and increase the number of actions to cast a spell.
-For damage dealing spells, you can decrease the spell’s action to a single action, but the total damage done is halved (quartered on a successful save). This does not decrease the components needed to cast a spell.
-For non-damage dealing spells, you can decrease the spell’s action to a single action, but the result is always a result below the two-action version.
For all offensive two-action spells, you can increase the number of actions to three in order to increase the DC of the spell by +2.
-Casting multiple spells per round is possible, but at least one of the spells must be a cantrip.
-Haste and other spells, abilities or effects which increase the number of actions can interact with this system. Anything which allows the extra action to be used for a Strike action can be used to interact with the Spellcasting Action Economy.

I'm not entirely sure how to work buffs into this. It might simply be increased duration, or whatever numbers can be increased by some amount. I'm open to suggestions if anyone has any.

Thanks all in advance of looking this over.

A couple of ideas have struck a chord with me about how to redo some of the weapon oriented ideas. In particular the massive decrease in power of primarily weapon using classes when they no longer have access to their higher level weapons. While I liked the idea of making damage be based on the level of training/expertise a character had in a particular weapon I didn't feel like it worked as the 'whole story' so-to-say. Overall, the idea is to decrease the reliance on the "magical" part of the leveling treadmill, a non-magical weapon will be quite effective and the magical portion will be a nice bonus rather than a requirement. This is an idea I came up with (and of course pulled from other suggestions on this forum, sorry for not referencing you, I read posts a couple days ago and can't remember the handles of those who I'm borrowing parts of this from).

Weapon effectiveness comes from 3 different aspects of the weapon and the character wielding the weapon: Skill level, quality and potency. In this suggestion the only part that double dips is the skill level.

Skill level determines the number of dice rolled to determine the overall damage of the weapon. (not sure if the strength mod should be multiplied as well, nor the potency, though I'm leaning towards yes for the strength mod and no for the potency damage)
Untrained weapon damage is equal the the weapon die -2 plus strength modifier damage. (So a longsword would do 1d8-2 + str mod damage)
Trained weapon damage is equal to the weapon die plus strength modifier damage. (Longsword: 1d8 + str mod damage)
Expert weapon damage is equal to two times the weapon die plus strength modifier damage. (Longsword: 2d8 + str mod damage)
Master weapon damage is equal to three times the weapon die plus strength modifier damage. (Longsword: 3d8 + str mod damage)
Legendary weapon damage is equal to four times the weapon die plus strength modifier damage. (Longsword: 4d8 + str mod damage)

The quality of the weapon determines the ease of use of the weapon being used, effectively adding a small bonus or penalty to the attack roll.
Poor (or crude) quality weapons levy a -1 penalty to the attack roll.
Normal quality weapons do not effect the attack roll.
Expert quality weapons grant a +1 bonus to attack rolls.
Master quality weapons grant a +2 bonus to attack rolls.
Legendary quality weapons grant a +3 bonus to attack rolls.

The potency of a weapon is a magical effect that increases the damage the weapon deals. (My intention with this is that it isn't entirely necessary for magic weapons to keep up with the AC of enemies, but the damage is potent enough to make up for the change)
Tier 1 +1 damage
Tier 2 +3 damage
Tier 3 +6 damage
Tier 4 +10 damage
Tier 5 +15 damage

Good ideas? Bad ideas? Too much? Too little? Too different?

I'm currently GMing a Carrion Crown campaign and in one encounter I replaced a couple of mooks the party would just run through with a couple more challenging creatures. One of the creatures I brought in was a Graveknight Anti-Paladin 7 (The changes I made to the encounter brought it up from a CR13 to roughly a CR13.5). The party eventually overcame the encounter but was unable to identify the Graveknight (there was a Paladin with +15 Knowledge religion who rolled a 1, and a Barbarian 10/Cleric of Pharasma 3, who also didn't roll high enough). I described the armor as particularly unsettling but due to the surrounding environment, detect evil didn't give them any extra information. The armor promptly went into a bag of holding. I rolled 3 days on the regeneration time which is almost guaranteed to pass by before they are able to get rid of the armor.

My question is: How should I play this out? Should the graveknight attempt to pull the first person to reach into the bag into it? Would the graveknight consider simply rupturing the bag (admittedly this would really be a dick move on my part considering how much loot is currently in the bag)?

Thanks in advance for suggestions and advice.