On a clear day, with no obstacles, you can see to the horizon. Barbara Streisand will tell you that On a Clear Day You Can See Forever. Roger Daltrey will tell you that he can see for miles and miles, and miles and miles, and miles. Oh yeah. Weather conditions . . . can limit your sight range. Mine, sure. But Johnny Nash can see clearly now, the rain is gone. There's a lot to this topic.
The target would almost certainly consider "being robbed" a hostile act. If you don't believe me: try it on the PCs and see how they react. Thinking about the point you’re making, I'm wondering whether the intent of the acting character matters at all. Putting aside dealing damage and imposing negative condition, both of which I’m satisfied are clear cut, maybe the perspective of the target should control. Basically, if the target doesn’t want whatever the acting characters is doing done to them, it’s a hostile action. I’d probably limit this to direct actions that involve the target’s person. Stealing a key from a hook on the guard’s belt would count, stealing a key on a table next to the guard wouldn’t.
If you're arguing that you can take an L3 general feat and use every lore skill that exists to lower the DC of your RK checks, that is quintessential rules lawyering. That's not what I'm arguing. I'm arguing that using a relevant Lore skill to Recall Knowledge generally reduces the DC, and that you can make untrained Lore skill checks to Recall Knowledge. I am further arguing that neither of those rules depend in any way on the existence of Untrained Improvisation. Again, all that Untrained Improvisation does is improve your proficiency bonus on untrained checks you are, independently, explicitly allowed to attempt. It doesn't give you any new actions, it only improves your chances at actions you could already attempt. It also doesn't affect the DC of those checks in any way; the DC is either reduced or increased by dint of the skill you're using. It's too good to be true, but you're pretending it's an RAW/RAI discussion. It's not reasonable. First off, I'm not pretending anything. I think it's pretty clearly RAW, and I am unconvinced it's not RAI. I am unconvinced that it's not RAI because I strongly disagree that it's too good to be true. One, I've been GMing PF2e since release, having completed several adventure paths, a number or modules, and a couple original campaigns, all using this interpretation of Recall Knowledge. My primary player group is fairly focused on optimization, and Untrained Improvisation is only occasionally selected. Second, outside of combat, Recall Knowledge checks are a great avenue by which to convey information about the world to players. The Gumshoe RPG exists based on the premise that it is rarely interesting for PCs in an investigative game to fail to get a clue. In Pathfinder, I think it's rarely interesting for the PCs to not learn about the world, and while I think there's value in the tension of a check to Recall Knowledge, I think the game is improved by the players, collectively, having a pretty good chance to succeed at knowing facts about their world. It's a great vehicle for communicating all that cool background stuff written into published modules that the players are unlikely to ever learn unless the GM just "breaks character" and exposits. Third, in combat, so we're talking about creature identification, I just don't see being good at Recall Knowledge as a worrying power boost. It's useful, but it doesn't directly make you more effective in combat. It helps the PCs use other abilities more efficiently, and is a nice boost for a support-oriented character. And because it's not all that uncommon to fight above-level creatures, and DCs scale with the expectation of proficiency boosts through training, Untrained Improvisation isn't some sort of reliable "I win" button on Recall Knowledge. Characters who select campaign-relevant Additional Lore are going to shine. That said, why do you think it's too good to be true? "It makes you better" isn't enough to be too good to be true, that just makes it good, which I don't disagree with. What's actually too good about it? What aspect of the game does it disrupt?
Grappling a spellbound farmer to stop him from walking off a cliff isn't [hostile]. That's an interesting example, because I'm really not sure whether I'd call that hostile or not. I guess it sort of depends what you mean by "spellbound." If the farmer is being magically influenced to want to walk off the cliff, I'd say grappling him is hostile. But if the farmer is being compelled to walk off the cliff but (even in his "spellbound" state) doesn't want to, I'd say grappling him is not hostile.
Getting a DC break on lore/RK checks is not in the description of UI. Why would it be “in the description of UI?” UI isn’t what is causing the DC reduction. The DC reduction, if it applies, is a function of rolling an applicable Lore skill to Recall Knowledge, whether you roll it with untrained, trained, expert, master, or legendary proficiency. Rolling a D20 as part of the check when you use UI “is not in the description of UI,” either, but we all know to do that. The rulebooks are long enough without insisting that every rule be repeated every time it’s relevant.. it’s not what UI was made for. What UI is “made for” is changing your proficiency bonus when you make an untrained skill check. That’s literally all it does. If Lore checks to Recall Knowledge enjoy a reduction to DC without UI, that isn’t changed by UI. If they don’t, that also isn’t changed by UI. It also strikes me as a "too good to be true" thing. Is an improved chance to make Recall Knowledge checks at the cost of one of only five general feat selections over a 20 level career really “too good to be true?” Also, it’s a third level feat, so we should expect it to be better than such mainstay first level general feats as Toughness, and Fleet. But do you sincerely believe that it’s so much better than either of those that, even two levels higher, it is too good to be true? it's still decent. I should hope that a third level general feat would be better than decent.
You don't find it problematic that every character that takes a single general feat can suddenly have hyper specific knowledge on literally everything in a way that is better than a class feat and an archetype designed to do the same thing? Not really. For one thing, one only gets five general feats over the course of a career, while one gets ten class feats, so if a “single general feat” is stronger than “a class feat,” I can live with that. But the class feat eventually “wins out,” because at some point the special Lore skill advances to Expert, and Level + 4 vs DC -2 is better than Level vs DC -5. So I’m not sure Untrained Improvisation is necessarily better for this purpose, though it has other uses, too. Honestly, though, I think the “special Lore” class feats could use a boost, so if I were to address this problem with a house rule it would be to improve those feats rather than to nerf “normal” Lore skills. At the very least, I think Bardic Lore should just be advanced when Occultism is advanced, likewise Loremaster Lore. Honestly, though, I think it’d be fine if they both automatically advanced on the rate of Additional Lore. It's not like anything is even being taken away here since they can still roll it, they just have to do it with the general skill applicable to the purpose instead of claiming they have specialized knowledge/training in literally everything. That’s definitely something being taken away.
Untrained Improvisation is applicable for everything, every skill. Recall Knowledge is not even its main use as people who like and take the feat say. At tables I GM, Recall Knowledge seems to be its most common use, but as I’ve said many times, my players tend to make a lot of Recall Knowledge checks. That said, Athletics checks to climb or swim are fairly common, too. It sees a little use for Stealth, too, but that seems to come up less often in combat for characters who aren’t Stealth-focused, Follow the Expert serves the same purpose in Exploration.
However this is largely solvable by just making people guess what to use instead of just assuming they use the most appropriate thing. Outside of weird corner cases like “Is this Osyluth an undead or a fiend, that seems SUPER antagonistic GM behavior to me, and I say that as a GM. I honestly don’t understand the why so many GMs seem to want to make Recall Knowledge checks harder or less efficacious. I love when my players make Recall Knowledge checks, so I like almost any option that encourages it.
My interpretation? You don't get the right to roll any lore skill with that feat. You don’t “get the right to roll” any skill “with that feat.” You just have the right to roll any untrained use of any skill, including Lore skills by operation of the rules. Untrained Improvisation changes your proficiency bonus when you attempt a Lore check untrained, but it doesn’t “allow” you to make the check. You use the generic skill most fitting for the situation. If you wanna RK about a dog, you can't roll dog lore, you just make a nature check. That’s a fine house rule, but it’s just that, a house rule, not an “interpretation.” In fact it’s counter to RAW:
If you're making a check and multiple subcategories of Lore could apply, or a non-Lore skill could apply, you can use whichever skill you prefer. If there's any doubt whether a Lore skill applies to a specific topic or action, the GM decides whether it can be used or not. “You can choose whichever skill you prefer.” And “the GM decides whether it can be used or not” based on whether “there’s any doubt whether a Lore skill applies[,]” not on whether you’re trained with the Lore skill. The rules for Creature Identification also state that “Using the applicable Lore usually has an easy or very easy DC (before adjusting for rarity).” Again, the rules don’t specificy a “trained Lore skill,” but there’s enough wiggle room in the word “usually” to justify a ruling that only trained Lore skills enjoy the reduction to DC. Any other interpretation would just lead to problematic player behavior. I am almost exclusively a GM, and I don’t find anything problematic about my players taking Untrained Improvisation and then attempting a lot of Recall Knowledge checks. I love when my players make Recall Knowledge checks, so encouraging it is more of a feature than a bug for me. In fact, even if you don’t give the DC reduction to untrained Lore checks to Recall Knowledge (independent of Untrained Improvisation), I strongly support allowing untrained Lore checks to Recall Knowledge because it opens up possibilities. At low levels, for instance, even without a DC reduction, a Wizard is likely better off attempting an untrained Animal Lore check than a trained Nature check to identify an animal.
Untrained Improvisation only allows you to roll the dice. Incorrect. Untrained Improvisation never “allows you to roll the dice.” All that Untrained Improvisation does is alter your untrained proficiency. In fact, the text explicitly states that it “doesn’t allow you to use the skill’s trained actions.” If you want to use Dog Lore, it's fine, but then you don't use Untrained Improvisation as Untrained Improvisation doesn't grant you Dog Lore or any skill, just the right to roll with a fixed bonus. As it happens, Recall Knowledge is not a trained action, so if you want to roll Dog Lore to Recall Knowledge about a dog, you can roll it untrained whether you have Untrained Improvisation or not, the only difference will be your proficiency bonus to the roll.
1 and 2 are clearly not the state of the rules. As for 1, there's no procedure for voluntarily allowing allies' maneuvers to automatically succeed, let alone automatically critically succeed. There's an optional rule that allows one to voluntarily push an ally's check result up by one step or to voluntarily reduce your save result against an ally's effect by one step. That makes critical results fairly likely, though. Your GM may just have a house rule that creatures can grant an ally a critical success on maneuvers. That'd presumably allow the PCs to do it, too. 3, M2 could chain two repositions together to move B 20 feet south I don't know what "chain two repositions together means, so I don't understand exactly what you're asking. That said, Reposition is one action, so any creature can make as many attempts in a round as they have actions, and with what appears to be your GM's houserule, two attempts would automatically result in 20 feet of movement. Based on my understanding of the map, though, the first Reposition attempt would leave B stopped in an already-occupied space, and so it wouldn't work. Perhaps this is what you meant by "chain two attempts together" like move 20 feet at once, so that he moves through the ally's space and then "lands" in the unoccupied spaces beyond. 4, since M2 was moving B, B did not provoke a Reactive Strike from me Technically this is correct, as forced movement doesn't trigger reactions. But that's pretty busted if you're using a house rule that allows allies to automatically critically succeed as repositioning. So I'd probably take one of three paths with this rules interactions: 1) If allies can freely maneuver allies, then only movement triggered by enemies' maneuvers would count as forced movement. 2) Make allies check normally for maneuvers "against" allies in all instances, and the results are truly forced movement, so i have no problem with that movement not provoking. or 3) Allies always check for maneuvers "against" allies, and the target can decide (for free) whether to cooperate, which allows the ally to improve the degree of success by one, but does not result in forced movement, or not to cooperate, in which case ally uses the result as-is, but the result is forced movement. Did that make any sense?
I am wondering if the intended way is to have players prompt the associated rolls themselves and if the skill they rolled doesn't apply, they get nothing regardless of the result. I don't think that's what's intended, and I doubt I'd run it that way even if that were how it worked. I like that my players make a lot of Recall Knowledge checks, so I don't want them to feel that it's likely to be a wasted action.
I think Foil Senses is overpowered, but that it functions as you say. And to be fair, I'm not sure I have given it enough thought for my opinion that Foil Senses is overpowered to amount to much more than "This seems weird," and I have no real thoughts on how I'd alter it if I decided to.
Starting with the assumption that you’re using the Remastered rule set, are there any Premaster rules elements that you’ve made a conscious decision to hang onto, be they feats, monsters, spells, magic items, or whatever? I’m mostly thinking of “Core” content here, since there are dozens of Premaster books, but if something else that “feels Premaster” comes to mind, chime in with that, too. A couple from me. While I wouldn’t take the trouble of changing a published adventure, in my non-AP campaign, if I use Ghouls, I’ll probably use the old style. I’m a mark for Owlbears, and buy nearly every Owlbear mini I come across, so I’ll continue to work them in where they fit. I like the flavor of Continual Flame a little more than that of Everlight, though not to the degree that I’d push it, more just allow either version.
Does the Rogue feat "Minor Magic" grant the user access to the entire chosen Tradition's Spell list?
hey argue that because the feat specifically calls out gaining the "Cast a Spell" activity, they should have access to the rest of the spell list, and gain the "Learn a Spell" activity as well. “Cast a Spell” and “Learn a Spell” are distinct activities. Having either does not grant the other. They also advocate that Cantrips are functionally different from Ranked Spells, They are correct about this premise, but their conclusion does not follow. they shouldn't need the "Cast a Spell" activity to Cast only the cantrip Incorrect. the activity grants them access to the list. Incorrect, but I’m curious as to their (incorrect) reasoning. the feat "Minor Magic" grants ONLY the 2 chosen cantrips Correct. Cantrip are functionally identical to Ranked Spells, Incorrect. including the necessity to use the "Cast a Spell" activity prior to (or as part of) actually using thr cantrip? This part is correct, though.
I was wondering if people actually liked this kind of adventure. As someone who has been just shy of a “forever GM” for about 35 years, I like the opportunity to sit down at a table and play a session of my favorite RPG. 1) There's little to no RP involved - because the clock is ticking, and nobody cares you're doing this impassionated speech, they just want you to "roll diplomacy" because that's what's written, I’ve played at tables where this is true, and I’ve played at tables where it isn’t. That may be what you’re calling “bad GMs,” though I’d probably just call it “a different style” even though I prefer PFS tables where RP is embraced. and anyway what's the point of befriending this barbarian you'll probably never meet again - or maybe in four or five games. That’s just a questions of roleplaying, I think. My character doesn’t know he’s in a one-shot, so befriending people is just befriending people..Honestly, it seems a little odd to both complain that roleplaying isn’t emphasized and ask what is the point in roleplaying, but sure. 2) There's little to no strategy involved. Since the adventure is supposed to be done with any kind of classes AND not last too long, all fights are insultingly trivial and there's absolutely no sense of danger or accomplishment. I have a little more sympathy for this “complaint.” The intended universality can undercut tactical play..
I wasn’t aware of it, or if I ever was. Had forgotten. Thank you for that link.
Wouldn't the easy fix just be to errata stuff that targets a "living creature" and "undead creature" to instead be "creature with vitality healing" and "creature with void healing"? That’s largely the same issue written with more words. I still couldn’t target an undead with Void Warp because it wouldn’t meet the target conditions. The easiest fix would probably be to add a line in the class ability that states that the Necrimancer can ignore the targeting restrictions on effects that deal void or vitality damage. A better fix, in my opinion, would be to just get rid of that kind of target restriction entirely. The immunities involved seem sufficient. Fire spells work just fine without a targeting restriction that prevents their being cast on creatures with immunity to fire damage, after all.
Way b ack in 3.X, there was the Book of Exalted Deeds, which had the Vow of Poverty feat, which granted a bunch of bonuses in exchange for not carrying magic items. In PF2e, do you think giving the Automatic Bonus Progression, in an otherwise standard campaign, would be workable for a “Vow of Poverty” character? If so, how would you implement it?
Good find!
The change to Whispers of the Void to target any creature shows another way that this problem could be resolved. Simply don't have spells change their targeting based on undead/living status. I don’t really see what the targeting language even adds. Fireball doesn’t read “dealing 6d6 fire damage to creatures who aren’t immune to fire damage.”
If we do not get an official answer for this even with this dedicated thread, will people accept that it means it is not an error and will not get an errata ? We just don't get "official answers" other than in the form of errata often enough for the lack of an "official answer" to be a clue. I'm not even sure that the devs pay enough attention to these forums for the existence of a dedicated thread to signal that there's an outcry. As for the class feature itself, it seems out of whack to me, but not so out of whack that it falls into "too good to be true," so unless there an errata, I think it's safe to conclude it was an intentional change.
It seems some people criticize these games based on what they want rather than looking at what it is. Yeah. That’s what nearly every criticism boils down to. “X has Y characteristic, and I would prefer that it have Z characteristic.” There’s nothing inherently invalid about that sort of complaint. And, yeah, for games you can literally always respond to any complaint with “play it that way then.” But there’s no particularly good reason to let that keen insight shut down conversation.
I allow coercion to prevent fights. Coercion works with 1 round of interaction. Normally a round only occurs in encounter play with initiative which some might see as just combat. I don't think that is how it works. The Coerce action is tagged Exploration, so without the Quick Coercion skill feat, it's not really intended to be used in encounter mode whether combat is going on or not, which makes sense considering that by default it takes a full minute of conversation, which is kind of awkward to play out in encounter mode. That said, I don't see why it would be necessary to drop into encounter mode for a PC who didn't have Quick Coercion to try to prevent a fight with Coerce.
There is honestly a bit of a tension in the DnD lineage between combats against monsters and combats against NPCs, anyways. Many of the stories fantasy d20 systems emulate narrate combat against creatures and combat against humans in different ways and give each different moral considerations, but the games treat them completely the same. When we think about the lineage of D&D, though, it's worth remembering that the original "Little Brown Books" included a morale system that, if used, made creatures at least somewhat less likely to just stand there and fight to the death, presumably a remnant of D&D's war game roots, where morale checks were fairly baked in. I'm not sure how long the morale system stuck around through the various later editions, though. See this blog post for some thoughts on the early morale system
I'd be happy with an unrealistic-but-maybe-better-for-the-game change to make it no penalty at all. That way players don't have to feel like they're being penalized for trying to save enemies. Then it really becomes just a matter of choice. I don't think it's an unreasonable house rule to allow nonlethal damage to be freely selected. Like I said, I did that in Agents of Edgewatch. I do think the choice to deal nonlethal is less interesting when it carries no cost, but that doesn't necessarily make it less desirable. In the AoE, I felt that the unfortunate implications of incentivizing police to kill strongly outweighed giving up an interesting choice. In a more "traditional" campaign frame, I like that nonlethal involves a trade-off. That said, If a table collectively told me, as GM, they'd rather just have noon-lethal freely available, I'd go easily go along with that, and I'd happily play at a table where that rule was in effect.
Sounds about right. If something cannot see you, you are hidden by default from that specific thing. Which means that if you have the movement speed to do so, you can Action 1: move out of view (assuming vision as the only precise sense), giving yourself the Hidden condition, and Action 2: Sneak to wherever you wanted to end up in the first place. Same action cost, but only one Stealth Check to risk failing.
That definitely changes a lot the value of buffing and debuffing. Between 4 and 7 players, these tactics are nearly twice more interesting. So I understand why you are interested in these new spells. The action sink involved in casting multiple of these spells may not be quite as punishing with 7 PCs.
I mean, that's great if you happen to have a bard in the party. And these spells are great if you happen to have someone in your party who can cast them. In most Pathfinder games in which I have participated the players have a great deal of influence over the question of what classes they have in their party, and someone who wants to boost their allies, who is weighing the ability to cast some combination of Bane, Benediction, Bless, and Malediction against Bard songs can choose their class according to their conclusion.
However, there's an interesting quirk to Tandem/Empowered Onslaught, which is that Tandem Onslaught applies its benefit automatically on your first Strike that hits and deals damage, and only the first, whereas Empowered Onslaught only triggers if you critically hit and sustain a battle aura. This is a good point, and changes the math (or at least the practical application of that math) that Squark did above. Across their career, the average martial hits on average of an 8 for their first attack*, and an average of 13 for their second. So if we get a chance to make two attacks, their chance of critting is (1-.15)*(1-.05). That's a 19.25% chance. But Empowered Onslaught only triggers if the crit is on the first attack, or is on the second attack and the first strike either missed or failed to deal damage. I'm not math-savvy enough to figure out the odds of one or the other of those circumstances occurring, but it has to be less the 19.25% chance of simply critting at least once on either of the strikes. If you get to do that 4 times (So we're in round 5, which is often the clean up phase of the fight), you have a 1-(80.75%^4) chance to critically hitat least once, or about 57.5%. The odds of getting one of the specific sets of results that trigger Empowered Onslaught, at least once over the course of five rounds also must, necessarily, be lower than the odds of simply critting at least once over those same rounds, which also means the odds of a 5 round combat in which Empowered Onslaught never triggers is some amount greater than 42.5%
You can be a barbarian with only fighter-levels, you can be a rogue with only wizard levels, you can be whatever you want. How competent you are depends on the mechanical choices, but the text you write on your character sheet in the "class" entry means nothing to your played persona. I generally agree with this position, but I think the connection between Deity and Champion that is inherent in the Champion class makes it at least a partial exception. That said, I also think that a Fighter who grabs the Champion dedication establishes that link and is a Champion.
Even if people hate me for saying this, if a game needs to ask players to adjust their expectations, it indicates underlying issues with the game itself. "Issues," maybe, but not necessarily problems. If I'm watching a drama, but looking for a comedy, I probably need to adjust my expectations. That's an issue with the movie, but it's not a problem with the movie. It's fine to want the game to be focused on balance, but we shouldn't invalidate others' opinions simply because they expect a product to align with established norms. It's like an ice cream store deciding to drop chocolate, strawberry and vanilla to make only lemon mint and then complaining when customers expect chocolate, strawberry and vanilla. "Sir, this is a Wendy's" isn't an invalid response if a customer orders a Big Mac.
I understand what you're saying, but I would reword the statement to say it is bounded, as constrained feels overly negative. I hear that, but when I'm feeling it, I'm usually feeling pretty negative. It's true, you're going to have a bad time if you try fitting the square peg in the round hole. I think the bigger issue is when there is no hole that accommodates the desired peg. I think the problem is too many people come in and they're like "Oh I wanna make this class do this thing it shouldn't do" instead of saying "I want this character that fights with their hair or other natural weapons" and seeing what the best way they can represent that concept is. But because we're in a class-based system, often the class that best accommodates a concept doesn't actually accommodate it, and the mechanical experience of playing the character is disappointing, which is especially frustrating in PF2 because the mechanical experience is what we're buying.
Yes, PF2 is a class based game and not a pure construction set. But there are a lot of possibilities to approach the game "from unexpected angles". Let me preface this by repeating that PF2 is my favorite RPG, but character generation sometimes feels pretty constrained even to me. I think critics often exaggerate the issue, but I can’t deny it is an issue.
How is that idea so crazy that it is stated as being 'absurd'? Maybe your position has moved. You earlier wrote:
The “cheap bomb using Quick Alchemy” option is one that was just added, and your reading is that it gives no benefit. That seems absurd to me, that the devs would intentionally devote both design time and page space to an option that gives no benefit. The alternate reading I keep seeing, that “cheap bomb using Quick Alchemy” gives a lower-quality bomb at no Versatile Vial cost seems less absurd to me because it offers a meaningful choice.
It's not perfectly phrased, but when there are two ways to read a rule, one of which produces a functional game mechanic and the other causes the text to make no sense and do nothing at all, you can't put it entirely on Paizo when you actively choose the latter interpretation. Not to sound like a rules lawyer, but in statutory interpretation, there’s something called “the absurd results doctrine,” which says that if the plain language of a statute gives rise to an absurd result, it should be read in a way that doesn’t produce that result. In this case, I don’t think that the plain language even produces the result that Finoan is putting forth, but even if it did, that would be an absurd result, so I think it’d be pretty reasonable to disregard it.
I think he just expected to be able to try to do something more without necessarily restraining/pinning the person. Like spending all 3 actions to increase the spell failure chance or increase the AC penalty or something. With the tight math of PF2, increasing the AC penalty might be a game breaker, but it’s probably not unreasonable to want to have some additional options for grappling. The thing is, we’re talking about a first level character who has only invested a single skill increase in Athletics. PF2E is a level-based game, so a first level character isn’t going to be able to do absolutely everything. PF2E is a feat-based game, so there are going to be options that a character who hasn’t taken the right feats isn’t going to have. He expected that three PCs with Str 16+ standing next to a physically weak caster could do more than hold him in place with a 20% spell failure chance and -2 AC penalty. Without actually attacking the caster with normal Strikes, to be clear, which is where I think his hope and the PF2 system diverge. That’s sounding like a “wrong system for this player” issue, and there’s nothing wrong with that. PF2E is my favorite RPG, but there are kinds of RPG experiences I enjoy for which PF2 absolutely isn’t the right choice. "But then to be completely frank there is zero reason ever to invest in an interesting character with any kind of meaningful story as opposed to a mathematically perfect robot that just metaphorically mashes buttons on its turn to maximize damage." I don’t think that’s a fair characterization of PF2, but I have to admit it’s more of an exaggeration than a make-‘em-up. Again, though, that points to “wrong system for this player.”
And the champions can't help me subdue this guy beyond a +1/+2 bonus with Aid? It’s hard to mechanically subdue a foe in Pathfinder while avoiding hit point damage, for sure, but with that as a guiding principle, throwing another debuff on can be a good complement to Aid, reducing the opponent’s Fort DC and boosting the Monk’s next Athletics check. Maybe a Demoralize would have been useful. That said, a level 3 wizard would have 3 (level) + 2 (trained) + 2 (con) = 7 fortitude, and a level 1 monk with 18 str has 7 athletics (1 level + 2 trained + 4 str) so you'd still need a nat 20. A level 3 Wizard, on his own, with no allies is a Moderate encounter for four PCs, and the player is surprised that he can only reliably shut down the Wizard’s spell casting with a single action using a Trained skill into which he has made no additional investment, and uses an ability he hasn’t even maxed out on a nat 20? Your Wizard has a Fort. DC of 17, and your Monk has a +6 Athletics, so the Monk will at least succeed at a grapple check 50% of the time, and imposes a 20% chance of spell failure, again, at the cost of 1 action by the Monk. This just doesn’t seem like reasonable expectations.
we have no guidance on what "ceases to function" means. It doesn't necessarily mean that the extradimensional space ceases to exist If every effect with the Extradimensional trait “creates an extradimensional space” then there’s a reasonable argument that “ceases to function” necessarily means the extradimensional space ceases to exist because “creates an extradimensional space” is the function. But in the case of the spacious pouch, the rules text reads that the item “opens into a magical space,” so that is the spacious pouch’s function. And your interpretation creates a lot more issues than it solves. This I agree with. So I’d just go with “lose access” even if that’s not technically right. I think the easiest solution to the nested spacious pouch problem, (other than just not worrying about it), would be to rule that the total contents of all bags apply against the capacity of the every bag “higher” in the chain.
Sparky the Electric Bard took in the Dubious Knowledge feat as it seemed like it would be a lot of fun. After the third time I used it, the Judge (my local VC/5 star judge) asked me to change it out for something else. It was becoming a burden to him to come up with semi-believable false facts and slowing him down. I popped in to say that Dubious Knowledge is the only mechanic I’ve hard banned. It’s such a pain in the neck to adjudicate. I also use a house rule for Recall Knowledge that moves a critical failure on a Recall Knowledge check is a lock-out for the encounter, and not incorrect info. I like to encourage Recall Knowledge in combat, so I let the players ask fairly broad questions, and making stuff up in response to a question on the fly isn’t fun.
I figured now's as good a time as any to ask for general tips when running hexploration in general. I’m running Kingmaker right now, and the impression it’s left me with is that PF2E is probably the wrong system for hex crawling, at least on any large scale, because of the tight math. There’s a hex-crawl segment in Fists of the Ruby Phoenix, and it worked a lot better than Kingmaker seems to be working. I believe that’s because the whole section took place over a couple levels, so the party wasn’t massively outclassing almost everything they encountered, as they are in Kingmaker. This is frustrating me because I like the idea of hex crawling, and I love PF2E. I’ll be curious to see the replies to this thread. I’d love some useful advice.
I really would be guessing because as a GM I almost never keep very good track of this, but I have some vague thoughts. First off, there’s a strong focus on out-of-combat healing in the groups I GM, so unless everyone is at very nearly maximum hit points and actually at maximum focus points, the default is at least ten minutes to catch breath. My players tend to pretty heavily invest in out-of-combat healing, so beyond very low levels, they tend to be pretty efficient about it, anyway. In the absence of diegetic time constraints, I just say “you took the time it required, and everyone is healed up.” If multiple focus points need renewed, we usually say “Okay, I guess it was [20 or 30] minutes.” I hate the feeling of the “15 minute adventuring day,” and assuming that the party takes time to regroup between fights mitigates that feeling. |
