gnoams's page

S.L.Acker wrote:

PF2 is the definition of if everybody is Superman nobody is.

gnoams wrote:

Pf1 is a superhero game, while pf2 is more akin to something like the Die Hard movies.

PF2 is very much a high-fantasy, superheroic game. If a creature is just 3 or 4 levels higher than another, the lower level creature might as well be fighting Superman. In 2E. level determines power.

In 1E, character creation and system mastery determined power. It was fun figuring out how to beat the system and break the game, but that was only possible if the underlying system math was weak to begin with.

Individual play experience of course varies, but unless you're playing a homebrew in which your GM wants you to roflstomp enemies, you generally only face at level encounters. So the actual play experience is of your character not being any stronger then the enemies, and frequently of the enemies being stronger than your character. It is not uncommon to take four of you to take down one enemy, leading to the feeling that you (the pcs) are weaker then everyone else. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it creates a story of striving against overwhelming odds to succeed through sheer grit and determination, which is not at all what pf1 is. This is due to the heavy balancing that pf2 has, where it takes all of the party to succeed, while in pf1 experienced players can take turns soloing encounters due to their op superpowers. PF1 is the opposite of pf2, requiring heavy homebrew to make encounters that require all the players to work together to succeed.

These days almost all of them, as the only pf1 games I play now are full APs or other campaigns that usually last for a year or more.

Homebrew starwars- ongoing, currently 11
Ironfang- ongoing, currently 12
Ruins of Azlant- never finished, got to 14
Carrion Crown- finished at 15
Crimson Throne- finished at 16
Hells Rebels- finished at 20
Wrath of the Righteous- finished at 20
Legendary planet- never finished, got to 11
Homebrew fantasy- never finished, got to level 13
Homebrew steampunk- finished at 7

I remember high level 3e play being super deadly compared to high level pf1 play, but then again I was a lot younger and we played a very different game back then with less focus on story and more on making ridiculous encounters to challenge my players (I was almost always the GM back then). These days we're less focused on the combat challenge (and other people GM so I get to play a lot more).

I like to work in eldritch heritage into non-sorcerer characters for that little extra quirk and some unexpected abilities. My latest favorite is a halfling with the orc bloodline, who occasionally pokes other pcs and fills them with rage.

Ooh, I love a good edition war thread.

I think pf2 is great for all those who liked to complain about balance issues of pf1, and for those who played D&D and are looking for something a little more in depth. I think it's also great for new players, who aren't weighed down by preconceived notions from past editions of the game. For those who liked the ability to have different characters with different strengths, it's really hard to give up the variety of pf1 for the more constrained pf2 experience.

It's also a jarring transition as though they appear the same on the surface, pf1 is a superhero game, while pf2 is more akin to something like the Die Hard movies. This is entirely due to the math differences between the systems. So if you come from pf1, pf2 can feel awful because you fail (dice rolls) so often (compared to the previous edition).

I definitely understand the op's frustration. In a system with low success rates, it's natural to look for every bonus you can. Pf2 is not laid out in a way that all the bonuses are obvious, and there are many options that work at level 1, but don't scale well, and these aren't obvious either. Not that pf1 didn't have those same issues, but success rate was high so you didn't feel the need to hunt for all the extra bonuses, and bonuses were easy to come by so that even mediocre choices could usually be boosted up to acceptable levels of success if you realized they were falling behind. So coming from that pf1 experience, pf2 definitely has its disappointing moments.

It rolls on the ground, so don't be on the ground.

That's different. The usual point of adding oracle levels to a paladin build is so you can dump dex completely. Personally I'd stick to straight paladin for a dex build like you're doing there. The oracle levels are giving you some piddly 2d6 channels, low level spells, and reducing your paladin progression for loh and everything else. I'm missing seeing the benefit there.

Spellcasting is obvious. There are special abilities to suppress/hide spellcasting. There's whole prestige classes for it even. I still think that invisibility hides whatever magical effects that are passively created by spellcasting (so like if you cast shield you wouldn't see any glowy symbols appear in the air), but if you cast something like magic missile they appear right at your fingers and shoot out making it obvious where you cast it from.

As for the modifier "in combat or speaking" is the same modifier. One or both doesn't matter, it's -20 once. Performing multiple different things on that table do stack though, so if you cast your spell and then move, it's only a 10 to pinpoint your location.

Perception checks happen automatically to stimulus, if they fail their free perception check, they can spend a move action to try again, but they will always get a free check to notice you.

Lich has time to prepare though since there's a fight just outside. So it's floating 40ft up with it's boots of levitation and has probably preset darkness. It may or may not use it's potion of invisibility, but it likely has a readied action to bomb whatever opens the door with circle of death or fireball. There's also the Ghost spamming it's Malevolence until it sticks to be wary of.

Was going only from the information listed by the op, which didn't say any of that.

It is not possible to ready outside of combat. As soon as the door opens, initiative is rolled as the PCs will see the obvious threat of skeleton horde, there's unlikely to be any possibility of surprise on either side of this encounter.

With powerful spellcaster bosses like this, a lot of how difficult the fight is swings on who wins initiative.

gnoams wrote:

You're assuming everyone is bunched up and the lich goes first. If the players get unlucky this could happen and they all fail their saves and die, but that would be really unlucky.

It could also happen that the players go first, the grappler ties the lich into a pretzel, the other guys destroy the ghost, and they take 0 damage and expend minimal resources.

Could be! Room is pretty tight quarters though. Seems unlikely since there are like 24 skeletons in the way and a ghost running interference.

The Tetori also can't grapple pin the same round they move so if the Lich permanently paralyzes them things can get dicey.

The OP's fear is the fight going extremely bad if the dice go in the lich's favor, I was pointing out the other end of the spectrum is equally likely. The actual play would probably land somewhere in between.

The monk doesn't need to pin in the same round. If we assume the sample CR12 lich from the bestiary, it has a CMD of 25. A level 8 grapple build could easily have a +20 to grapple (8bab +5str +2 imp grapple +2 greater grapple +1 armbands of the brawler +2 gauntlets of skilled maneuver. Could also have weapon focus grapple, a higher strength, etc). So assuming a +20, the monk has an 80% chance of successfully grabbing the lich. The lich can then either attempt to escape with his +5 cmb, so needing a nat 20. He can attempt to touch, again with +5. Even if we assume the monk has a terrible AC, it'll still be at least a 16 touch, plus the monk needs to fail a DC18 save which even if he has a 12 con and no resistance item is still at +7. So that's at best a 25% chance of paralyzing the monk, probably much less. If he tried to dimension door he'd need a DC34 concentration check and he has a +17, so that's only a 20% chance of success. Given an 80% chance to grab the lich and a 20% chance for the lich to escape, the odds are at 64% in favor of the monk.

You're assuming everyone is bunched up and the lich goes first. If the players get unlucky this could happen and they all fail their saves and die, but that would be really unlucky.

It could also happen that the players go first, the grappler ties the lich into a pretzel, the other guys destroy the ghost, and they take 0 damage and expend minimal resources.

I would have preferred a longer jump into the future as well. It would have made the changes to Golarion feel natural instead of retcons.

I understand why not to do that though, it's a whole lot more work.

I'm glad they didn't go the Forgotten Realms route. Having an apocalypse every edition change gets a little old.

The original product titled Dungeons and Dragons was printed in 1974 and said on the cover: "Rules for Fantasical Medieval Wargames Campaigns Playable with Paper and Pencil and Miniature Figures." It was straight up exactly a miniature wargaming system with added rpg elements.

but 1e d&d compared to pf2 is as different a rules set as comparing warhammer to either. RPGs don't exist in a vacuum. As pathfinder proved, players will jump brands.

So many people seem to have the misconception that a bard needs to do an actual performance in order to activate one of their magical "bardic performance" abilities like inspire courage. Bardic performances are magical effects (Su) with audible and/or visible components. With the exception of countersong and distraction, They require no ranks in any perform skill to do. You don't get a +1 to attack and damage because the bard is making you feel good with an uplifting song, you get that +1 because they are infusing you with magical power.

A bard is no more ridiculous in combat than any other spellcaster who waves their arms about and spouts ridiculous nonsense while brandishing a tiny fruit tart and a feather.

Now I want to make a Baad Necromancer who raises an army of undead sheep.

For me it was the company's awful community interaction that killed 4e, nothing to do with the rule set. Wotc cut all ties with the fans who organized games and wrote scenarios for their living campaign, putting an end to the rpga (an organization that had been operating for over 30 years). Then for the final nail in the coffin, they axed the Greyhawk campaign setting completely. They couldn't have done a better job at alienating their fan base if they tried.

The advertising for 4e was also a slap in the face to me, featuring a tiefling murdering a gnome and laughing about how they were the hero now and gnomes were monsters (there was no gnome race in the first 4e phb). It felt like a personal attack. Like this game isn't for you any more, us popular kids own it now, gtfo nerd. To this day, I have a strong distaste for tieflings due to that ad.

I stopped playing. For 2 years I didn't touch an rpg. When I came back, I found a welcoming community in pathfinder, a fantastic living campaign program, and a company that felt like it cared. I'm currently still playing pf1, but I'd say that's just because it's what the groups I'm in are playing. When we finish our current campaigns, maybe we'll try a different system for the next game. Personally, there's aspects that I like about both editions of pathfinder, and neither are my all time favorite rules set (I'd rank Hero system, L5R, and WOD higher).

If you purchased a chair 20 years ago and tried to find that exact same model of chair new today, you probably wouldn't. Making new versions of things to drive sales isn't exactly a rpg specific issue. It's pervasive throughout every business as one of the fundamental ideologies of capitalism.

That said, there are thriving second hand markets for everything, including rpgs. Pick any rpg and go troll some forums and you'll find people playing every edition that was made for it. Pf1 was a popular game with a long run of publications. There will be people playing it for many years to come.

So animal ally says "If you later gain an animal companion through another source (such as the Animal domain, divine bond, hunter’s bond, mount, or nature bond class features), the effective druid level granted by this feat stacks with that granted by other sources."

Do we just ignore that? How do we justify getting multiple companions with this feat? Does that line of text not mean that our animal ally gets wrapped into our other animal companion progression and we still only get one companion?

We live in a world run by capitalism. There's more profit in making new versions then there is in sticking with the same thing. There's also an underlying cultural belief that newer = better

That aside, I also thing pf2 had a lot to do with the people at Paizo wanting to do their own thing. They'd been the guys who revamped D&D 3.5 for a decade. They probably wanted to move on, create something new, create something their own, not just a derivative of other peoples' work. I think you can see this reflected in how they doubled down on integrating their game setting into the rules for pf2.

And lastly, there's a ton of content for pf1. Even for those of us who play an excessive amount, there's still many many more years of games to be played with the system without needing new material released.

If you look at the greater world of rpg publications and other tabletop gaming, no company goes back to a previous edition. Ever. It's always move forward and make a new edition.

D&D has had 6 editions over 46 years (8 editions if you count revised AD&D and 3.5e).
Vampire the Masquerade had 5 editions over 20 years.
Shadowrun had 6 editions over 31 years.
Warhammer 40k had 9 editions over 33 years.

Pathfinder 1e had a long run compared to many other games. Baring the company going under, we can expect many more editions of Pathfinder to come.

As for similarities between various editions of D&D and Pathfinder, go take a look at the list of authors on various products from both companies and you will notice there's some of the same people who've worked on both.

Reading these posts, I feel like there are people here who have only ever played published content and don't actually understand just how different a good home brew game can be.

An AP has an ending; the players can either make it to that ending, or fail and the game is over. While a home brew game could be written in the same format, it doesn't have to be. It's certainly not how I run the game.

When I write a home brew campaign, I write up plots, factions, settings, and goals, not endings. Nothing is pre-ordained. Players won't try to stop the evil cult from resurrecting and ancient demon lord because I (the GM) told them to. They'll do it because they uncovered that plot and decided to pursue it. When players actions are driven by their own agency, they become much more involved. They feel like they have a stake in the outcome, it's their story, and their actions will determine the outcome. When they fail, they live with the consequences and the story goes on. The ending is the culmination of their choices, not written by someone else before we even started. Imo, a good home brew rpg campaign is the pinnacle of entertainment. Pre-written games can be fun, but it's not the same thing. There's really nothing else like it.

And yes, a good home brew game takes a lot more effort to pull off.

One of my regular games is with a group of friends that most of us have known each other for 20 years or more. The people in that group aren't likely to change any time soon. We're all adults, everyone has jobs, families, lives outside of gaming. Some of us put a lot of time and effort into the game. Some don't even think about the game outside of game sessions. In the end, it's just a hobby. I'm not going to demand that my friends spend more time on this hobby if they don't want to.

Part of my spiel that I give players when I start a new campaign (as a GM) is that I will do my best to match your investment. I really like this hobby and put a lot into it. If you get into it too, then you'll get more out of it. If you just want to ride along that's fine, but I'm not going to spend my time catering to you if you're not reciprocating.

The freedom of playing an open ended game also means that sometimes you will fall off of one of those open ends. A pre-written adventure doesn't "take care of these kinds of issues," it removes them by removing player choice. If you allow true player choice in an AP, then you have to let them go off the rails. Not only will you will run into the exact same issues then, but it is often harder to improvise because you don't have the understanding of the story that you do when you wrote it yourself.

Many times my execution of an idea doesn't come out the same as I envisioned it. I try to embrace that and keep moving ahead. So you executed the mechanics poorly, who cares, totally irrelevant to the story. So you didn't get across the information you wanted to? Again, oh well, not every encounter adds to the story. Sometimes a fight is just a fight. I guess you'll just have to design a new encounter that does give the players the info you wanted.

We (GMs) often try to be overly consistent. We write up some story and say this is what happened, then we accidentally get two characters confused and tell the players the wrong npc's name. You know what? That sort of stuff happens all the time in real life. Historical accounts are full of inconsistencies. Things are remembered incorrectly and people lie. When I realize I did something like that, I try to lampshade it. Have another npc tell the PCs, well that's not how I heard it went down, and give a different version of the story.

In general, when I GM, it's up to the player to convince me how their aid helps. Usually it's obvious, but if they can't say how they're assisting, they can't assist.

I don't allow aid on knowledge checks to recall information, only on knowledge checks made as part of research. I also don't allow aid on sense motive, or perception.

I limit the number of people who can aid depending on what makes sense. 6 people talking over one another trying to convince someone with diplomacy is going to be detrimental to the attempt. On the other hand 6 people shouting at one person is great for intimidation.

Each attack roll takes a –2 penalty, and its attack damage cannot be modified by precision damage or damage-increasing feats such as Vital Strike.

That's an odd one, I never noticed that line before. So a fighter with +1 weapon training firearms would get +1 damage, but not the +2 from weapon specialization? As long as the damage bonus doesn't come from a feat it works? How arbitrary is that?

Aboleths

Sometimes we make concessions. As a longtime GM, who knows the rules very well, sometimes I ignore them. Sometimes it's just not worth getting into an argument over something that doesn't make a whole lot of difference in the long run. In the end, we're all just there to relax and enjoy socializing and playing a game. I would prefer if nobody cheated, but it's also a complicated game and if I stopped to point out every time a rule is misinterpreted, misused, forgotten, etc. That would actually detract from, not improve the overall enjoyment of the experience. It's often better to let things flow incorrectly then to halt the game to call out rules.

Players who are going to try to exploit things exist, regardless of the quantity of things you allow them to draw from.

What gets complained about the most in pathfinder? The core rulebook wizard.

There is no correlation between roleplaying and optimization.

Players with a lot of system mastery can make extremely powerful characters regardless of the restrictions you put on them. Just the CRB has plenty of options to make your GM cry OP! I would postulate that the reason for drawing from numerous obscure sources is that such players have been there done that and are looking to play something different.

We really got off on a tangent here.

Change shape- most hags have an ability to alter and/or disguise self. Its kind of a signature part of what makes a hag is being able to disguise as a beautiful young woman to fool people, then revealing themselves to shock and terrify.

Unless you're swimming in gold with nothing to purchase, the 10% cost for ammunition is the reason I always want gunsmithing with any character that uses firearms.

You'll want deadly aim for damage, plus one class feature. This class feature could be dex to damage, or it could be many other different things like bane, weapon training & specialization, sneak attack, studied target, favored enemy, etc... Stacking multiples can be great, but one is generally good enough.

The funny thing with touch AC is that it tends to be high at low levels and low at high levels. At first level, shooting a low level enemy like a kobold or goblin and their normal AC is 15 with touch of 12, but at level 20 you shoot a dragon and their normal AC is 38 while their touch is 5.

I would suggest that you don't want a tower shield at low level, because that -2 will make you miss, but pick it up as you get to mid levels when your attack bonus is good enough that you're hitting on not a missfire.

My stance is this (Assuming I am playing a game using their Golarion setting):

I consider there to be a big difference between an option like varisian tattoo and an option like aboleth's lung. The first only has flavor text that attaches it to the setting, so anyone can take that feat. The second has rules text that restricts in to only a specific race can use. So only characters of that race can use that spell. Exceptions should be possible, but would be up to the GM to allow.

Would you tell a player they can't take the magical aptitude feat because they aren't a spellcaster? The flavor text says "you are skilled at spellcasting." Imo, it is a GM's purview to enforce rules text, not flavor text.

Another good one is the Black Marketeer's Bag which is a more expensive handy haversack that is much smaller (but holds the same amount), radiates no magic, has hidden compartments, and compels would be thieves to give you stuff if they try to steal from you.

I did a similar idea as a tiefling ranger (divine tracker). My goal was to be able to assassinate people from long distance with one shot. Vital strike (imp, greater), devastating strike, deadly aim, stacked all my favored enemy into human (using instant enemy for going after other targets), gravity bow, and named bullet.
We played all the way to 20 in that campaign. This character also gained mythic 1, and she took the mythic vital strike feat, which is the single largest damage bonus you will get for this build.

I had no problem spending my time to set up a shot, that was kinda the point for me. Climb up to the top of a building and shoot someone from 4 blocks away (limitless range (mythic) + distance enchantment for range increments of 1,100ft). She also used phantom arrows (they disappear after hitting, leaving no evidence behind).

So she'd take a single shot at +40 to hit, which automatically threatened a crit. Damage = 12deadly aim + 6str +5enhancement +10 favored enemy. Multiplied by 4 with mythic vital strike. +6 for devastating strike.

That is (8d6+138)x3 because it probably confirmed the crit, +20(named bullet) +2d6bane +1d6holy. For an average damage of 528.

Note that without mythic vital strike, that average drops to only 97 damage (so yeah, it pretty much only was good because of mythic).

I have one player who is convinced my dice hate him and that they more frequently roll higher against him than against anyone else at the table.

On that aside topic. I have a problem with anyone trying to enforce setting restrictions on game options like that. Let other players write their own stories please, don't try to force your own interpretation of the lore on someone else.

Did... did this thread just get necroed by an underwear advertisement?

i'm not sure there's anything preventing you from taking a favored class bonus to increase the effectiveness of a revelation you don't have yet. it's certainly a reasonable thing for GMs to rule, but i don't recall seeing anything in the RAW that prevents it. that would be where the other +2 comes from i imagine.

I'm assuming you took 18 levels of the fcb.

1/6th. That means 18 levels of FCB makes you count as 3 levels higher for the purpose of calculating that oracle revelation. Every 3 levels gives a +1 inherent bonus. So all 18 levels of fcb = 1 inherent bonus.

That discovery is min level 7, +1/3. so it goes up to +5 at level 19. Those favored class bonuses increase your effective level by 1/6. So that would give you another +1 for a total of +6. Where are you getting the extra 2 from?

Why would you do this to yourself? Wouldn't a boring character leave you bored with the game? Why shoot yourself in the foot like that?

An ability that works as enlarge or reduce person but gives you 2 more stat is clear. Once you try stacking with other polymorphs it gets muddled.

The problem is that all polymorph effects change your size. Someone casts beast shape 1 to turn into a leopard. A human changes size from medium to medium, an ogre changes from large to medium, and a gnome changes from small to medium. All gain the same effects of +2str and +2natural armor. So when does your ability work and why?

Consider splitting the ability into separate parts, something along the lines of:
1- you can activate this ability to gain the effects of enlarge person or reduce person.
2- While under a polymorph effect, you can increase or decrease your size category by 1 to a maximum of large and a minimum of small. If the effect grants a size bonus to strength or dexterity, increase that bonus by 2 to a maximum of +4.

and of course there's Lindsey Stirling if you're looking for dance/acrobatics while playing the violin.

The pair of assassins from kung fu hustle playing a guzheng is another good one.

As far as percentage married, according to a quick web search ~45% of the adult population of the US is married, which is pretty close to the same in groups of adults I've played with.

The overall issue with pathfinder rules is/has always been in the numbers. Since modifiers scale higher than the dice roll, then DCs and modifiers need to be within the same boundaries to matter. If a player has +30 then the DCs need to be between 32 and 49 for his bonus to matter, which is all fine except one player can have +30 while another has +10. Then no matter what you set the DC at, one of those players' bonuses doesn't matter. The more you move away from the assumed curve with treasure, stats, etc, then the larger the gap between players' numbers gets, and so the harder it is for the GM to set balanced DCs.

Add to that, not everything scales in the same fashion. This is most evident with saving throws. Say you use enemies 3 levels higher to compensate for your players' overpoweredness. Fine, the PCs who hit things with sticks are still going to be able to hit them with sticks. There's lots of monetary ways to increase hit chance, and hit chance is high to begin with, like around 75%. However the PCs who cast spells vs saves are going to have a lower chance to hit because save DCs don't really scale with wealth or build very much. Save chance is also lower, around 70% (success for attacker) targeting low saves and only 50% targeting their good saves. Save DCs are easy to max out with a 15 point buy as much as a 30 point buy. There's a couple feats to boost your DCs, but any power level of character can have those. There's basically one item to buy to boost your stat, and every caster will max that as soon as they can as well.

In my experience, this translates to spellcasters being far more powerful in low powered games than they are in high powered ones, as they are essentially getting a -15% chance to hit. Add spell resistance on top of that, which also scales up with the higher level enemies, but doesn't scale up with wealth or ability scores, and casters fall even farther behind against higher level foes.

For pfs, I had a priestess of Horus with her sacred falcon. She was a divine hunter (hunter archetype). I put most of my stuff towards making her bird more powerful. Human for eye for talent. Animal domain for another +2 to stats. Feats- animal affinity, andoran falconry, huntmaster, and totem beast.

I got her up to level8. Her celestial falcon had AC32, 60hp, saves of +8/12/8, 3 attacks at +14 (1d4+12), DR5/evil, resist acid, cold, electric 10, and smite evil 1/day for +8 damage. The priestess was only an ok archer with +12/7 (1d8+5) with her bow, but she mostly just supported with buffs and heals.

As others have said- ranger can be the better archer. Inquisitor can also be a really good archer with bane and judgements. Hunter can have the best pet.

For an alternative, check out the Iroran Paladin archetype from inner sea combat.

Variation on that idea, you could go with antithesis. Look at each PC's stats and class and choose the opposite. So lets say your PC barbarian is a classic brutish guy, then have your anti party version be a cultured wizard.

It could be a fun exercise to look at their stats, dump whatever their best stat is and max whatever their worst stat is and see what sort of build you could make with it.

That said, I'm 100% with SheepishEidolon. I build all my npcs using the bestiary monster creation rules, not pc classes. Makes for far more balanced encounters, is quicker, and has less irrelevant fiddly bits.

Don't forget the super expensive up to +5 from inherent bonus you could theoretically get to every stat if money is unlimited. Again though, it's not just exceeding wbl that matters. It's exceeding wbl added with access to purchase anything you want that really messes with encounter balance.

When I was little, like grade to middle school age, I played in a group of all kids my own age. Since then though, I've always played in groups with a wide spread of ages. My current home game groups range from their 20s to 60s. Some are married, some are divorced, some are single, some have kids, some don't, others have grand kids. Gender wise though, predominantly male.

Bagpipes. Drums. All manner of horns, bugles, and trumpets. Singing and chanting. Or just banging your sword on your shield and shouting in unison. There's a long history of music being employed on the battlefield.

Bloodywood. Indian metal. He also rocks out with a flute.

If your GM allows weapon modifications from adventurer's armory 2, you could use versatile design to make a starknife that counted as part of the monk weapon group (it's kind of shenanegans, so check if your GM approves first). Then you take ascetic style, form, & strike feats to use monk damage progression-4 for your starknife . You get to count all your levels in determining the number of stunning fist attempts you get per day, and can deliver your stunning fists through your starknife. You could then take other feats like elemental fist or dispelling fist and use them with your starknife attacks as well.