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perception check wrote:

I could go on, but I need to prepare for today's PF2 session, wherein our martials will hit things, I the wizard will cast my boring, static-DC spells (and will likely resort to hitting things), and the baddies will hit us back. In terms of combat, grappling into submission as an alternate win condition is suboptimal at best. Control spells as an alternate win condition are nonexistent. It's all about damage now. We hit things, the enemies hit us back, and when the dice allow for it, one side wins. Long live my d20.

Harsh. Anyone have a response to this?

Doug M.

I somewhat agree, PF2 wizards were nerfed to below-parity and overall, spells are much less effective. Casters can be boring IME if the couple spells they memorized have little effect (monsters make the save, missed attack roll, move around the Grease/Web, incapacitation, immunities, etc.), then they are left spamming cantrips which are 'effective' - but not really, when compared to other PCs' headline powers, which can often go all day at max effect.

Then you're playing with s&*#ty GMs. Fudging to take away crits from the PCs is pretty much the definition of a bad GM, and not something wrong with the system.

Fudging can be fine if the whole group is on board with it, but doing so to take away PC successes? Absolutely not okay at all.

No disagreement here. But unlike the fighter critting, this roll happens behind a screen (usually), and it *will* happen that some DM will not want their set-piece encounter shut-down by a 5%-chance horrid crit fail roll on a good spell. Heck, fudging it might even make the overall adventure more challenging/fun for the group, at the expense of the caster's 'moment'.

Not saying it's happening everywhere or even frequently, just food for thought in this new edition where casters are hoping for crit-failed saves for the really good effects.

Interestingly, I consider spellcasters from levels 1-3 ish to be the star contributors to the party. Magic Weapon almost doubles the damage of your highest output martial pal - effectively for 2 actions and a spell slot, your contribution for the fight is already as much as your fighter friend. Everything else after that contributed via cantrips is gravy. You cast one level 1 spell per fight and then toss cantrips around.

Can't argue the effectiveness of that, just a boring role for some. Magic Weapon is a bit OP relative to other Lvl1 spells, and makes the fighter shine even more. It conjures the image of if, in PF1, the fighter's best 3/day power had been to grant casters +4 to their Spell DCs or somesuch ;)

Playing a Wizard I've found you'd better hope your DM rolls bad on saves and does not fudge crit fails (IME alot of DMs do this) - this way your few non-cantrip spells can have a worthwhile effect (e.g. lvl1 losing 1 of your 2 daily slots is IMO not a good trade for the boss losing 1 of his 3 actions for 1 round). Don't get me started on Incapacitate ;)

I can confirm you can't assume 4 foes in a fireball in the 'real world', all too often it's just 1. You usually don't know what you will face when memorizing that morning, and the tactical layout of terrain/cover & friendlies. I'd say my average is at best 3 foes/FB.

Wizard is good at mook-cleanup, which from a team perspective means the Wizard is very useful to the team if the DM uses mooks a lot (some prefer 'one big monster'); but mook-handling is not the most appealing role IMO.

I worry about how this wizard will do in marathon sessions - they (IMO) roughly keep up in the 3-4 encounter/day model, how will they do in marathons? Cantrips are fine but boring and weak. I've been lucky so far usually only facing 1 final encounter with just cantrips left, but yeah it's abundantly clear how weak cantrips are in those fights and super boring for me personally.

It's not a Pathfinder mini. Maybe somebody in this forum can help.

Thanks Vic, it may have been the jungle campfire from the latest wizkids 4d set - I saw it at a distance !

Weird question maybe, I was at a PFS event and noticed a mini with a lighted torch at another table, and was wondering if Wizkids has released anything like that? Did not get a chance to get any details but someone at my table said you could buy those now (i.e. no modding req'd).

TIA! :)

Do casters do enough damage now to justify waiting around an entire day to get back a handful of spells? With few encounter-enders, I'm thinking it might be a hard sell.

Bingo. I think this is the reason why encounters per day is not really a front-page issue anymore. From what I've seen & read, a nova-ing caster can roughly keep up with the fighter on damage (much better vs. mook crowds, worse vs. 1 boss), and as mentioned control/debuffs are very limited/situational and usually won't affect bosses in any significant way.

So the GM doesn't have to worry about a fresh caster dominating a solitary big/boss encounter. Conversely, damage cantrips mean the caster can fight all day long (granted it will suck so hopefully the GM isn't going overboard).

The theory goes that demons have a LOT More hit points than they should at their level, so if you don't take advantage of their weaknesses they are harder to kill. For example, the balor has 480 Hit Points while the pit fiend has only 335, despite both of them being level 20 fiends.

As for the environments on the Abyss... they're pretty much immune to those environments, as are any outsiders who dwell in deadly areas on the outer planes. (As detailed under the definition of "Fiend" on page 346 of the Bestiary, "Fiends can survive the basic environmental effects of planes in the Outer Sphere.")

Aha, super helpful thanks James. It's always a treat to get a peek behind the game design curtain.

Very stoked to use demons now. Looking fwd to expansion of the 'Possession' idea in future supplements.

- So Demons have very few resistances now, and many vulnerabilities. Not sure how they survive the various nasty environments in the Abyss now LOL. I'm wondering how a Demon like a Vrock will hold up with Cold Iron being pretty easy to obtain and it suffers +10 Dmg on every single hit. Their 'special vulnerability' added to that and I wonder if Demons will melt down fast?

- They mention Possession but I see no Demons having such ability, I guess it was just flavor text or future-proofing? Because I like the idea, would've been nice to have it written-in.

- No more Gating and it all happens via Ritual Pacts which take 1 day IIRC. I guess Gating was *really* hard to balance.

Overall I like the fun design aspects of the demons and I like that they still have spells. Just leery that with no damage mitigation and those big vulnerabilities, will they be the fearful encounter they should be (at-level)? This is all theorycraft, any thoughts?

Yeah, it sounds like they would go free on your next turn if you do nothing.

Yeah even for monsters with Grab, they must spend an action to maintain hold. Although for them no check is required.

There are definitely some significant deltas here, but the gap is never more than 4. Relative hp are much closer than in other versions of the game, but Vertigan has a definite although not huge advantage. AC is really close. These characters all have different strengths and...

True but as levels rise those gaps will widen plus martials will be focusing on melee/defense with all their items/feats and will be very hard to take down relative to the glass cannons.

I get where you're coming from, there isn't an absolute truth here, but especially when there are multiple monsters most GMs will send some at the back rank - that's easier to do in PF2. And for ex. Dex 16 Syria's AC16 will not hold up when a mere Goblin has +8 to hit IIRC.

Being in melee is also more fraught. Combat maneuvers like Trip, Grapple, and Shove are seriously good in this edition and just being in melee involves a potential chance to get knocked on your butt, grabbed, or pushed back.

Bear in mind that in PF2E casters are as likely if not more (if the GM is playing Int 10+ monsters tactically to prioritize the glass cannon) to be targeted by melee effects - PF2E's greater mobility works both ways, and shorter spell ranges force the casters closer-in.

Even if your not gaming the monsters saves, its generally a 50/50 shot against a CR equivalent monster on its strongest stat.

Unless I'm reading citricking's table wrong, it's more like 30-40% against a creature 2 levels below for Highest Save. Might be 10-20% at level equivalent i.e. 'don't bother'.

I'm less worried about hit/save chance than the nerfs to the spells themselves. Duration, Range, sustain, Incapacitation, and the spell effects themselves are usually weaker, subtly so sometimes like Obscuring Mist that now you can't hide beyond 5ft, it's only a 20% miss chance at any range. That is huge if your low-HP wizard is trying to avoid bowfire from 50' away for ex., or flyers.

Combine all this at a table where Wizards are held to account (by RAW, e.g. tight spell availability, components/spellbook dmg/loss, monsters targeting them bc they are glass cannons* and they know the martials will take many turns to bring down, etc.) Maybe it'll end up that Wizard roughly keeps up with martials when the GM is 'Wiz friendly', but they will struggle otherwise.

I need to see all this in play but that's what my eyes tell me rn. I had the same misgivings in 5e and it turned out to be true - since almost everything goes thru HP in 5e, the Barbarian that resists all damage is basically unkillable and so the monsters are best off killing the (low AC low HP) rogue and Wiz that are needling them from behind (which they can and do because like PF2 movement is much easier).

*glass pistols at least?

If the enemy spend actions attacking, moving in the web or to avoid the web instead of attacking a PC then the spell did the job.

An enemy attacking a web is an enemy that takes a negative 5 when it attacks you if it even gets to you at all.

LOL I just realized it's a 3 action cast. You all are free to take it but that is one weak spell and waste of a slot or spell known IMO.

Let's see...

10ft burst, difficult terrain, if fails the save -10 speed.

Average speed is 25ft, to move in difficult needs 10ft, so you can only move 2 squares in one action, to cross the spell area you need to move 4 squares so it needs to spend 2 actions to get out of the difficult terrain alone.

If the enemy fails the save it's -10 speed, meaning that together with the difficult terrain the enemy can only move 1 square, that means that even if they spend 3 actions they can't get out of the web area in that round.

75% of squares are on the perimeter anyway so no Difficult Terrain need be crossed - once out of the web you no longer even suffer the -10 speed penalty! *If* you got unlucky and failed your save and are at center, 1 action to do damage frees the next square over and away you go.

In a chase situation, you were better off running for 2 actions than casting Web to delay foes.

I mean you could contrive a circumstance where Web is useful but it ain't likely to happen and plus the saves go your way, Like for plugging up corridors and missile firing an extra round against stupid foes who won't wait a minute around the corner for the spell to end, don't have missiles themselves, aren't otherwise immune to the spell, fail their saves, and so on.

I am surprised the Conjurer gets so well off! Perhaps just in comparison to the others? I just worked through some signature spells from 1e. Web got heavily nerfed, even a success is not really a... success. What is -10 ft to speed good for? Stinking cloud got also hit hard. I mean, the ongoing sickness after leaving the cloud deserved to be banned. But there is no real sickness any more. Just a ridiculous -1 on a failure. And last but not least, tiny hut is gone. But that wasn't meant to be the combat spell it was always used as, right? :)

Web is just sad and nerfed in all dimensions. A tiny 10ft burst of difficult terrain that *if* you luck out and they fail their save reduces speed by -10 for 1 whole round? Wooo, look out I am the mighty quadratic Wizard! I can do this again tomorrow, so shudder in despair! ;)

Has anyone looked at the specialists so far? I think some of them really struggle because of heightening issues and not enough spell variety obsoleting their early bonus spells or making them just kind of suck.

Don't forget Abjuration. Speaking of which ... weirdly Protection (from Evil) is no longer Arcane, and is Uncommon. So ... strange, some of the decisions made. Overall, very few Arcane-only spells i.e. nothing very special about Wizard spells.

It's another one of those spells that sounds impressive until you realize, it is targeted mostly for mooks. At 17/18th level spending a precious 9th level slot, you are doing 50HP dmg against 1 foe of your level *if* it is affected by magic/auditory/mental/enchantment - the Ftr17 is probably doing that with one swing anyway, with a better than 50% hit chance.

Granted, if a level 14 PC (who left his ear plugs at home LOL) encounters this it sucks, but that should not happen. I suspect that alot of things 3-4 levels above PC level can one-shot a PC.

As an aside, it's tricky to tell what level anything is, especially a PC - so I wonder how DMs will handle the NPC caster: does he cast on the Ftr14 PC or the other Ftr16 PC - they would look identical in skill to a Wiz I would think (does PF2E have a skill to detect 'level'?)

Also note that Distintegrate is the best Spell Combination option for a 20th level wizard. An 8th level slot holds a 24d10 double disintegrate, a 9th level holds a 28d10, and a 10th level a 32d10. With True Strike and AC/save debuff you've got a decent shot at double damage on those numbers, or an average of 264 points for an 8th level SC slotted Disintegrate. A crit attack roll and a normal failed save (or a hit and a crit failed save) with a 10th level SC Disintegrate will do on average 352 points of damage. And you can use your arcane bond to try again.

Very cool find, haven't had a chance to look at all the level 20 capstones (which I assume are insane - in 5e the Cleric can summon his god basically!)

I was looking for other single target dmg spells in Arcane and realized how few there are - Scorching Ray is gone for ex. Polar Ray adds Drain to so-so dmg so hard to compare. Purple Worm sting swings depending on poison save and adds enfeebled. Obviously cantrips can't (shouldn't) compare to fighter DPR.

Not even complaining about the "Narrative Control" side of things. Been a while since I've seen them mentioned in this thread. I'm talking straight up numbers for killing stuff in combat: The damage of blasts, the power of summons, the duration/power of buffs/debuffs. Things you can quantify with other classes.

I can live with Knock and...

Speaking of spell dmg, the below DPR (if I'm reading it right) points to spell dmg being weak (considering limited spell slots, and the fact some require a hit *and* a failed save):

I realize that's single target so I'm more thinking the single target dmg spells like Disintegrate.

Invisibility makes any character sneak better or at least on par with any rogue.

Kind of. Sound is a thing, Rog can get Invis pretty easily too and is better than Wiz by far if so, at hi levels See Invis is super common on monsters (etc.)

Save or Suck spells can end encounters quicker than any martial ever could etc.

Yes true but it does have to pass the gates of Save, Spell Resistance, Immunities, and ofc the caster can't be disrupted. IME this happened but was not the norm and bosses usually had protections.

I've seen just as many times where e.g. a Paladin will crit for like 175 pts of damage and 1-shot a boss, no one ever really said that invalidated the wizard.

Anyway I don't deny caster supremacy happened (although IME CoDZilla was the real problem not Wizards, talking CRB here don't own all splats), but I am leaning on they overnerfed the Wizard in PF2E - will know for sure after some solid game-time with it.

Part of the reveal for Bestiary 2 claimed that it will fill in the missing slots for every single summon spell, so you should have at least one option at every spell level next spring.

Ah super! Fingers crossed!

I was expecting to see Flesh, Alchemical Golem (etc), man that "Common" stipulation subtly nerfs summon spells. Sneaky feeling that Bestiary 2+ monsters will tend to be Uncommon and won't help flesh these lists out much :( Hope I'm wrong.

and some form of breath weapon, which is going to have bad DCs for your level.

Thanks for the outline! Can you elaborate on the quoted, it's your Spell DC so why bad for your level?

Cheers

Edit sorry was thinking of Dragon Form

I can't quite figure out why it exists at all. Just... wear studded armor and bump Str to 12. Costs less and has no penalties at all. And at 5th, bump dex again and switch to leather.

Armor in this edition is a little strange. There isn't much point in wearing something you aren't built for, or buying a more expensive version of the same statline.

Well, there is the Flexible trait that helps

What effect does the Noisy Armor Trait have on Stealth Check?

I couldn’t seem to find it in the rule book.

Thanks.

Yep this looks like an error. Also it only references Noisy in Exploration mode, which makes no sense as players will try to Stealth in combat too!

I may have this completely wrong, but isn't the material component the only one with the "manipulate" trait? So it's the only bit of casting that would provoke an AoO.

(I know AoOs aren't anything like as big a deal as in PF1 but still nice to avoid)

Like I said, still going through the rules so I may be completely off here (I also did the playtest so my head hasn't caught up with the changes yet).

Somatic also has the Manipulate trait :(

Yeah I was indeed looking at this as a way for the Wiz to survive early levels, for those (hopefully rare) occasions that foes break through the front line.

BTW, this is the 1st version of D&D to accurately mechanically represent Eric from the D&D Cartoon! I mean, my hypothetical Wiz character would be whimpering from behind his shield as the ogre strikes in exactly the same way ;)

Realistic to be used this way, hard to say, but I don't think cantrips are that rare. If it did just a minor amount of damage to others it might be a bit better.

(Sorry for the rant the actual question is regular evil or supernatural evil).

This will be so annoying LOL, designers didn't think of how cunning players can be ;)

Arachnofiend wrote:

Yes, wizards got nerfed. This is fine because the 3.5 Wizard ranks towards the top of classes in any RPG that really needed a nerf.

Don't play wizards much huh? Lowest hit points, little to no armor, worst saving throws, no useful weapon skills, no skills for that matter, and every GM aiming for thew wizard first. Far from needing a nerf they need some boosting to be on par with other classes. A low level wizard should be able to at least come close to damage and defense when compared to a cleric or fighter of similar level. At 2nd level a 1ed wizard does around 1d8 in a round IF they use a crossbow, a 2nd level fighter has a d10-d12 plus several bonuses from stat and feats. Once we get into the mid range and up the wizard is only powerful IF the martial characters DON'T run up and stand toe to toe with the enemy, making it a choice of doing nothing or blasting your own party in the bargain.

This is interesting to me because I've seen such variance on how GMs run Wizards (how they do/don't gun for them, grapple/disrupt spells, hold them accountable to rules, threaten vs. spellbooks, control scribing time, etc.) So I've seen Wizards be insanely powerful when 'left to their own devices' at some tables, and back-benchers next to the martials when pinned down (using RAW) by GMs that have the time/inclination. Across all 3.x/PF and different groups and years of gaming. Now, I'm talking Core here.

What I will say is IME CoDZilla was definitely nuts. Wizards had more weaknesses. Druids walking in with a Huge Companion Spinosaur as good as the fighter, plus spells almost as good as the Wiz, plus Wildshape into whatever convenient animal/elemental form or just turn into a flea to get anywhere ... tough to GM that ;)

Well in PF1 your touch attacks were made with your attack roll, which was much lower than a full BAB martial.

In PF2 you have to hit the full AC but you roll with spell attack, which is based on your spell profiency,...

Good point, but Touch ACs were SO low (14 or lower often, at high levels) that it was usually an auto-hit IME. I haven't run the numbers but I don't think (purely head-simming) the improvement in Wizard 'BAB' vs. PF1 makes up for going against PF2 ACs in the 30-40s.

Disintegrate is actually really strong, because the assumption is you're casting True Strike first on a hopefully debuffed target (flat-footed for -2 circumstance to AC is easy, another -1 or -2 status penalty isn't hard), and if you crit you bump up the success level on the save (which is hopefully suffering at least a -1 or -2 status penalty). So on a crit hit a successful save is turned into a failure, and a failure is turned into a critical failure (and double damage). You can whiff, but the potential is there for mega damage if you take the time to maximize it.

I guess maybe they balanced these spells assuming True Strike (lvl1 slot), Disintegrate is worth it but not Ray of Enfeeble.

But good suggestion on the TS+Dis, that is good gravy (although I wish TS still gave +20 for the crits!) I wonder how that compares dmg-wise to Fighter offense at that level with similar buffing (i.e. a lvl 1 slot).

Tangential to the conversation but I've been snooping the spells and some options that jump out as really bad are the 'hit with a spell attack vs AC and then target gets a save (usually Fort)'. Eg. Ray of Enfeeble or Disintegrate.

Unlike PF1 you are trying to hit full AC here not touch. Then defeat the best save in the game. Then, the effects even if both those gates are crossed don't look impressive enough to justify the <20% (my guesstimate) chance to pull it off.

Like for Enfeeble, you'd be lucky to just hit and get Enfeebled 1 on the target for 1 min., which is worse than Bane which can hit multiple foes and no attack roll required.

It almost seems like they balanced these spells *assuming* a hit (like in PF1), whereas that is far from given vs. full AC. Just some thoughts, I haven't played it out yet.

In PF1e, a spellcaster needed a minimum casting stat of 10 + the level of the spell she wanted to cast. I'm still working my way through the rules, but does this requirement no longer exist in PF2e?

For Focus spells I found this, nothing else so far

"You can’t cast a focus spell if its minimum level is greater than half your level rounded up, even if you somehow gain access to it."

Hopefully we'll get the spell in the GM guide or soon after. So many missing spells, Simulacrum, Displacement, etc. etc. :(

I just noticed that although the Grapple weapon trait is described in the CRB, there are no weapons that have it - future expansions I guess!

given that there's early access to feats like "combat grab" i think it'll be more fun and interactive than simply readying attacks to hit while they are casting.

Great point! My reading of Grapple is you need Restrained (which requires a crit) to stop casters (assuming S/M component). Although Grappled gives a 20% chance of spell failure.

If you are just talking about the basic AoO yes, someone needs to crit to disrupt the action.

But there are many different AoO actions from martial classes.

Disruptive Stance (fighter) level 10, just disrupt the action on a regular hit with their AoO (doesn't need to crit).

In general, tho, yeah there aren't many creatures or npcs with AoO.

Good to know thanks - generally find it surprising that persistent damage and Readied attacks have no general effect on PF2 casters. These were the bread and butter of how to stop casters in PF1 so will require a change of thinking.

Since the spells have all been nerfed I suppose it's fair though that casters can at least get them off more reliably.

My 1st reading of the CRB leaves me with the impression it is much harder to disrupt casting.

From what I see, only an AOO *which crits* can disrupt an action.

So, while the Sustain action (e.g. summon animal) makes it seem like casting is easy to disrupt, the text specifically says you must disrupt the sustain *action* not just damage the caster when your turn comes.

So, did I miss something or is it true to say that:

- a Readied bowshot for when a caster starts casting/sustaining has no chance to disrupt?
- Persistent damage (e.g. acid arrow dmg) does not affect casting?

In other words, in the CRB the only way I see to disrupt a caster is by a crit-AOO.

And AOO are apparently rare now, so it seems that casters could *usually* cast in a monster's face without fear? If true it's a great system for Ftr-Mages.

Anyone who tries to argue wizards are just as good as fighters hasn't done the comparison.

It looks like Casters are the low-level mook-killers now. Rules like Incapacitation and Sustain, Save-every-round, etc. are all working to make spells limited to lower level foes or easily disrupted. The higher dmg on some spells I believe just paces higher PF2 monster HP.

I suppose that would be fine but the nature of PF is that *every* class murders low-level mooks (beat AC by 10 crits, multi-attack MAP vs. low AC, etc.) So it's not really a fun niche to be relegated to IMO.

It looks like HL fighters can average like 60+ dmg/hit, based on other threads, which is like Disintegrate *if* opponent fails save, for 2 actions and a 7th lvl slot.

Anyway, bears testing out, it may be the arcane casters are best in a utility role, buffing the martials in combat and staying out of the way.

Dominate: The change to target and dropping it to a 6th level spell means you can control monsters as early as level 11. With the 4 degrees mean even if the enemy makes their save they're still stunned until you prepare spells again.

Stunned 1 just means lose 1 action (of 3) and it's gone, I believe.

Good finds although I caution that (I think, based on PCs having more HP) HP are much higher in PF2, so the small increased damage to many spells might just be treading water. Not sure.

The Shield cantrip solves these issues if you can accept 1 less AC bonus and only one shield block per fight but also get your hand free and no maintenance or expense involved.

Riiight, didn't get to reading Shield yet - Cantrip now? And Clerics get it ;)

Seems like a good deal, and makes what I was suggesting less appealing, although 1 shield block per 10 min. is a significant limit.

Good point on the maintenance of shields!

Seems like no Prof is required for Raise Shield, and a Human Wiz can easily get Shield Block Gen Feat.

A wizard can use a shield with 1 free hand to cast, using Raise Shield (+2AC) then a 2 action Cast, then Shield Block as a reaction. Seems pretty good for staying alive?

Am I missing something? I've only quickly skimmed my brand-new CRB ;)

Definitely nerfed. But in a non-linear way that will take alot of playtime to get a handle on. For ex. Sleep , which on the surface is much weaker in combat, but now has no HP limit so has more longevity and utility use. Ditto no more Charm Person /Dominate Person - it's any creature now.

On the plus side there is no more spell resistance so that's one less gate to surmount to push a spell thru.

Slightly tangential, but having played 5E for a couple years I found the system to be really elegant and simple, with one major flaw that has me looking at PF2 with excitement: the monsters. 5E is easy To DM and the classes are cool & balanced, but I found the monsters really mostly ... boring. Almost everything is a bag of HP that does x HP damage, like even poison does HP damage etc., with only a few exceptions. When everything goes through HP ablation combat gets predictable as the Barbarian slowly sees his health bar melt and paces himself accordingly etc. I found myself missing those surprises and wonky effects that can force the party to switch tactics in a scramble or even flee despite being at decent HP levels.

The conditions under debate in this thread are a part of that and what I’ve seen of the monsters so far in PF2 looks promising indeed. I still feel like I have to go page by page in the 5E MM and add spells/abilities, especially to demons and the like - totally doable but a bit of a chore.

So it says “immunities ... magic” and then golem antimagic tells you what fire or lightning does - but I’m not clear on if this means non elemental magic affects them normally, or not at all (like previous editions)?

It says this is answered in faq, anyone know how i can find the answer there ?

Q: I was trying to stat up a horse animal companion when I realized under druid animal companions, the advanced horse section says special ability: war trained (see Bestiary). I looked, but did not see anything. What exactly is this referring to in the bestiary?

A: (James Jacobs 11/25/09) War trained is actually detailed under the description of the Handle Animal skill. Of course, there it's called "Combat Training. " It's one of the "general purpose" trainings you can give an animal. Horses in particular gain a special benefit once they're combat trained-their hooves are from that point treated as primary weapons, not secondary ones. [Source]

Orthos wrote:

He might mean more that PF's CMB/CMD mechanic streamlined the way Combat Maneuvers work, so we don't have incidents of stopping the game for an hour to look up how Grapple rules work and similar situations.

I know, why do that when you can spend 2 hours doing it in PF.

Hence the complaints.

:)

Superdupersecretstuff: Grapple is not really that complicated. It was just less so in 3.5 than it is now. :)

** spoiler omitted **

Not my experience, from a decade of 3.x + PF as DM/player. CMB/CMD system easier for us to run- which is not a comment on more/less powerful for PCs. But yes there are some cut/paste inconsistencies.

He might mean more that PF's CMB/CMD mechanic streamlined the way Combat Maneuvers work, so we don't have incidents of stopping the game for an hour to look up how Grapple rules work and similar situations.

This ;)