medtec28's page

This seems to imply that there will be an in-person presence at Gencon, so I will call that a win.

I hear and feel all of this. NJ wasn’t thriving pre-pandemic, but it is literally impossible to get anything face-to-face here at all…

You can still share a PDF with people. Just don't be posting it publicly and it's totally fine for your friends to read your book.

Fairly certain that this is, in fact, discouraged. As I indicated above, most digital media only gives you the right to use it, not ownership of it. here is a post from 9 years ago supporting my position.

https://paizo.com/threads/rzs2q18r?Digital-sharing-questions

medtec28 wrote:

not happy to see this, and it will likely impact my future Paizo purchasing. For me, the issue is ownership. If I buy a physical book, I own it, I can read it, loan it to a friend, give it away as a gift, or sell it to someone when I am done with it. As a digital file, I own nothing, I purchase the ability t9 use data on my personal devices. I still feel like ownership has a value.

Confused... Why wouldn't you still be able to buy the physical books? Maybe I am reading your post wrong or you might have read the blog a little off? They aren't transitioning to PDF only, just adjusting prices for the PDF's.

no, but they are increasing the price of the digital product, a product which already lacks most of the perks of “ownership”. The difference in cost, in my mind, offsets the lack of “ownership”

I was only intend8ng to highlight one of the often overlooked differences in physical and digital media…

not happy to see this, and it will likely impact my future Paizo purchasing. For me, the issue is ownership. If I buy a physical book, I own it, I can read it, loan it to a friend, give it away as a gift, or sell it to someone when I am done with it. As a digital file, I own nothing, I purchase the ability t9 use data on my personal devices. I still feel like ownership has a value.

As far as the content of the PFS special, I very much enjoyed it. I do feel like they missed the boat on the mustering though, nothing quite says “COVID precautions” like the packed hallway outside of the Sagamore.

I was wondering if the last minute pull out resulted in this year’s loss of space…

I just wanted to jump on here and say that I very much enjoyed the interactive special last night and I very much appreciated how there was no pause to give Paizo their standing ovation like previous years. That had been a complaint of mine for years, so thank you for listening.

my interpretation is that you can
1) Earn income using diplomacy instead of craft/lore/performance
or 2) Use it to decrease the cost of an item, to represent finding a discount, using the same earned income roll

additionally you get 2 extra GP if you start with the feat

I am aware of Thurston's post, however can I point you to the very next post where

We know we won't please everyone. And that's okay. We appreciate your feedback, as it helps us make these decisions.

So I would say that not only am I trusting, but am also honoring this request.

Do you propose that they exclude tier 1-2?

As was expressed, they only have so much staff time that they can spend on the interactives as a project. That is probably what the 'feasible' means.

Do you propose that they ignore other projects or overwork their staff for your sake?

This is a level of argumentativeness that I have thus far consciously avoided in my posts. You asked for my opinion, and I have given it. How, or even if, Org Play chooses to accommodate my wishes is not up to me, it is up to them. I do not know what resources are available, and i doubt you do either. I simply want to show them that there might be more value than they have perceived.

Do I think they should exclude tier 1-2? Frankly and honestly, I do. I do however recognize that the specials are an excellent marketing tool. I do not, however, think that they are in any way welcoming to a brand new player, there are just too many moving parts. My first experience at a PFS table was at Gencon and it was a lousy one. If my second game was "Siege of Diamond City", I would have had n clue what was going on. But once again, it is not up to me, it is up to them. All I can do is make the experience for any new player at my table to have a better first experience than I did.

Either way me and my friends will likely be at a 3-4 table at in-person Gencon for the PFS special, and will likely have 2-3 empty seats. Feel free to join our table if you wish, I'm sure it will be an awesome game. I am however done pleading my case here.

This issue lies with the words “not feasible”. What does that mean? Not possible? Clearly not. Too hard? Likely, but how is that determined? Well, for me too hard means effort > value. What I, and I believe some others, are trying to do is emphasize the value as being greater than they perceive. That might alter the “Too hard” equation.

That is my intention here. I will tell you that every year for the gencon special, the high and mid tier tables sell out, and I can always find low level seats available. Seems like their is some demand. I am accepting of this in the now, just hoping it will not be a forever answer.

Well, in interest of full disclosure, my highest PF2 character is lv4 and I only had 2 PF1 characters at level 12, so there is that.

But, for me, the game of PF2 feels very same-y. My character diesn’t feel all that unique compared to others,that feeling decreases as I go up in levels because the composite of all my choices make things feel different. As to how high, I would say it should go all the way to 20, because why are those levels there if not to be played? And if they are meant to be played, than why not in the awesome multitable specials that are typically the highlight of my Gencon experience?

I don’t have the luxury of a home gaming group, or a stable schedule that would support one, so Org Play is literally all I have. I know it isn’t my game, but I intend to keep pushing to make it one I can enjoy as much as possible. I’m trying to do that in a more polite and dare I even say better way than the vitriol and venom I was know to spew on these same boards a few years ago, but my intentions have always been to make PFS the best campaign it can be.

So that is my answer to why? What is your reason for not having higher level content?

I thought one of the big selling points for this not-quite-so-new system was that it better supported high level play?

So I would ask Why Not?

It has nothing to do with trust or lack there of. If one is ignorant to a problem, one cannot address it, regardless of the amount of good will or good intentions. Most of the posts in this thread have been polite and respectful. If we did not trust the OP staff, why would we be wasting our time here at all?

medtec28 wrote:

...if we do not, than nothing will change

That is a curious assumption. How did you arrive at that conclusion?

in my experience change seldom happens without a reason. They made this change because it makes things easier for them. If everyone likes it, why would they change it again. If people respectfully object, we might get high level specials back. Then again we might not. If everyone appears to think that low level specials are the right decision, then low level specials will clearly be here to stay.

Level 1 is a necessity. A shorter range is all that is feasible. 1-6 level range for interactives is logical. It seems to have nothing to do with the ease with which 7+ play can be made.

Currently there are around 11 scenarios that can be played at levels 7+. There are just about 3 seasons. That makes around 4 scenarios per season that can be played at levels 7+. I do not consider that a bad ratio.

I would encourage folks to look at the stats and be reasonable.

I think most people have been reasonable, just not happy. If we share our displeasure, things might change, if we do not, than nothing will change

I’m going into this with a “We’ll see” approach. My initial reaction was negative, Gencon is typically my only real chance for high level play, but since I don’t even have a mid-level PC in PF2, I have no horse in the race. Let’s see what happens, Thursty has already said that they haven’t forgotten about those of us who want high level capstone adventures, let’s have a little trust,

Also, it’s nice to not be frantically trying to play all the metaplot before gencon

Considering that I have only played these Mega-Table games F2F I am wondering how (or even if) those of us that will be playing online during Gencon 2022 will play this game? Will, there be a single VTT used? Are VTTs even taken into consideration in the design? I could easily understand why it might be a huge amount of work to include it.

Oh, I am also wondering when I could pre-Order this game.

GregDC

played online the last two years, worked out pretty well, you play on you vet, and then tune in to twitch to watch the house announcements. The best part was not having them hold up the event so the C-Suite could get their standing ovation.

I'm sorry but the whole respiratory issue is a complete and utterly nonsensical excuse. You'd have to be in such a horrendously bad state that you'd couldn't even attend the convention in normally let alone live a normal life. Same goes for sensory issues.

Grumble.... Grumble....

With all due respect, i feel like this is a drastic oversimplification. I think masking should be encouraged, and as a matter of fact I am still wearing mine despite the lifting of the general mandate here, but they are uncomfortable and can definitely feel quite claustrophobic. I spent the better part of 2 years wearing a half face respirator for 12 hours each day, and that was only tolerable due to circumstances and the fact that I could walk out side to breath every few hours.

The point is, it's not for us to judge each others levels of discomfort. If yours is such that wearing a mask is a deal breaker, I'll keep a seat at the table warm for you next year.

I know it's not very germane to this thread, but I would love to see a feat that allows the addition of the non-lethal trait to spell combat.

medtec28 wrote:

I will tell you that i have been told twice at society tables that dying rules are only used for PC's, so clearly this isn't widely distributed or hasn't quite caught on yet.

The CRB says to use dying rules for NPCs when appropriate. If it comes up at your table, show them page 459.

See, it's that line "when appropriate" that means if the GM says they die, they die. Even if there is someone to cast stabilize on them on the very next action

I will tell you that i have been told twice at society tables that dying rules are only used for PC's, so clearly this isn't widely distributed or hasn't quite caught on yet.

I wish to echo this sentiment. Perhaps the term access needs to be further characterize, as it seems if a gunslinger has "access to all firearms" I assumed that included the clan pistol. Using my retrospectoscope, I can see that this was likely a mistake as a clan pistol is a half-price dueling pistol with an ancestry trait.

medtec28 wrote:

CrimsonKnight wrote:

i just hope there is no boon point tax on the new classes like there is for most ancestries.

my fear remains that gunslinger will be permitted, but firearms will be gated behind acp. I am not really interested in playing a gunslinger with a crossbow.

Let me modify my above statement then: Inventor and Gunslinger will both cost a grand total of 0 AcP to play as intended. Part of what we have to sort through with G&G is "okay so which guns does any gunslinger get."

But we're not going to nickel-and-dime you to play a gunslinger who actually shoots guns.

thank you for the reply.

i just hope there is no boon point tax on the new classes like there is for most ancestries.

my fear remains that gunslinger will be permitted, but firearms will be gated behind acp. I am not really interested in playing a gunslinger with a crossbow.

You cannot expect every leave 1-4 scenario to be targeted at n00bs. Experienced players play them too and would like to be entertained as well.

If a player at my table referred to me, or anyone else, as a "N00B' I would leave and never come back. That comment seems intended to diminish people with less experience than the speaker. Do we need to perpetuate that? Aren;t we better than that?

The Inheritor wrote:

Someone said wrote:

their abuse at the tables by people who aren’t interested in representing adventurers of all capabilities"

Im sorry, what?

The person who wrote that material got death threats and a bunch of fascists had temper tantrums over similar material.

Seriously, sometimes I truly hate people

I'm hoping that not only will have access to the classes, but the gear as well. would stink to have access to a gunslinger, but not access to a gun.

okay, fair enough on the level bump discussion.

with regards to the toxicity of playing up for more rewards, do you truly think the playing up for more pain is the better solution? perhaps 3ven something simple like “if you play up you receive no fewer than 8 treasure bundles” or a small increase in ACP when playing up. Although with the difficulties already present in the reporting software, that second one is unlikely.

medtec28 wrote:

Just an off the cuff idea here, would giving everyone playing up a”level-bump” to the minimal level for the tier be an option that is not too disruptive, but might make things more enjoyable? ie in the prior stated example of 1,1,2,2,2,4, the two level 1’s would be playing at +2 and the three level 2’s would be playing at +1

You would almost *certainly* overshoot the scaling in the other direction.

I could see an argument for allowing mentor boons to apply to all low tier characters. But honestly anything beyond that would definitely break the math in favor of the players.

I think you are going to have to clarify how this is true. if the DC's are set with the expectation that all players are level 3-4. raising the effective character level for all those playing up would make them slightly less effective than level 3 characters?

Also, how is applying mentor boons to all low tier different than my suggestion?

In an extreme case, I've even seen a public table suddenly become a private one in order to deny a particular player a vacant seat.

If I ever saw tis happen at a shop, I would walk away and never go back. I don't understand how anyone can consider this to be acceptable.

As I understand the level bump concept, you don't actually get extra levels, you just get an effective bonus on all of your rolls

Mentorship and PC Level Bumps

To provide low level players a more fun and fair experience, PCs whose level equals the adventure’s base level (such as a 3rd-level PC playing in a Level 3–6 scenario) gain a temporary boost when playing in the higher level range called a level bump to represent the higher-level PCs’ mentorship and support.

Increase every DC the PC has by 1.
Increase the attack modifiers, attack damage, spell damage, saving throw modifiers, skill modifiers, Perception modifiers, and AC of the PC by 1.
Increase the Hit Point totals of the PC by 10 or by 10%, whichever is higher.
These adjustments are less beneficial than gaining a level, yet they provide the PC more survivability and opportunity to contribute to the adventure experience, reducing the degree to which higher-level PCs might overshadow these less experienced Pathfinders.

Just an off the cuff idea here, would giving everyone playing up a”level-bump” to the minimal level for the tier be an option that is not too disruptive, but might make things more enjoyable? ie in the prior stated example of 1,1,2,2,2,4, the two level 1’s would be playing at +2 and the three level 2’s would be playing at +1

Design only goes so far. The crit attack system, crit failures, and the more refined scenario scaling system puts more responsibility on the GM and players than e1 did.

When I see the DC 21 for a level 1-2, my assumptions are: the party was playing at a higher difficulty, and the GM made an error of some type.

GMs need to be better prepped. More than once, I have pulled e2 scenario because I wanted to review the stats for a very difficult encounter, hazard, or skill check. Then I discover that the GM used the wrong DCs or ran the encounter/hazard incorrectly. In PFS1, PCs were capable of powering their way through these type of errors. In PFS2, these type of errors turn lethal

Players and GMs need to watch and manage the level mix. Don't bring a level 1 into a party of lvl 4s. The bump to the level 1 will not always be enough. Don't bring a lvl 4 into a party of lvl 1s. The level 4 might not have any trouble with increased difficulty, but it could crush the level 1s.

I didn’t br8ng up the whole playing up debate initially because it is a separate issue. However, I do agree. Playing up never feels good to me. I have resolved to avoid it as much as possible. Twice I have played in a game where someone has dropped their level 4 character on the board at a last moment to pull us up. Both times we had a level range of 1,1,2,2,2. 13 Challenge points, no question you are playing low level, then someone within 10 minutes of the start time pulls out his level 4. all of a sudden we jump to 19 challenge points, high tier. if I know in advance, I walk away. did so multiple times at Gencon. I find this example truly frustrating because by the old APL system we would be playing down with an APL of 2, nice and easy math there.

The “Playing Up Problem” is exacerbated by the fact that you get nothing for the increased risk. Playing unused to reward more gold, but now it rewards less because you are more likely to miss treasure bundles, and it doesn’t feel good to get one-shot to dying 2 in every combat.

playing up just feels bad.

Oh. I left off a very important part of my way-to-long post during one of its rewrites: there are some really great scenarios out there. I appreciate the time, energy, and care that each author and the development team puts into the work.

I wanted to echo this, I have had fun with alot of scenarios over the years, and even the ones I might not have enjoyed are beyond my abilities as a writer. I see nothing wrong with trying to push things to be better, but please understand that I appreciate what you are already doing.

I have sent yo7 a PM, I am intentionally no5 posting the scenario, even in spoiler, as it would generate the usual, “My table had no problem with that one.” posts. I feel like that does nothing to generate conversation.

medtec28 wrote:

The rulebook has deemed that a standard DC for a level 2 check should be a 16, a “hard” check an 18 and a “very hard” check a 21. It was apparently decided that a tier 1-2 scenario needed to have multiple “very hard” challenges per encounter.

Group Attempts

Source Core Rulebook pg. 504 2.0

The DCs in this chapter give an individual character a strong and increasing chance of success if they have some proficiency. On occasion, though, you’ll have a task that only one person in the group needs to succeed at, but that everyone can attempt. The number of dice being rolled means that there’s a very high chance at least one of them will succeed. Most of the time, that’s perfectly fine, but sometimes you’ll want the task to be a challenge, with some uncertainty as to whether the party can succeed. In these cases, make the check very hard, or incredibly hard if you want it to be particularly difficult or at high levels. At these DCs, most of the party will probably fail, but someone will probably still succeed, likely a character who has heavily invested in the given skill, as is expected for specialized characters.

If you look at my emphasis, you will understand why I feel this does not apply to the aggregated checks minigame.

They have graduated levels of success tat are predicated on tallying the number of successes made. This is a mechanic that, while prevalent, seems limited and is something I am becoming more and more dissatisfied with each time I see it, and was proposing a different way of proceeding.

Also, not sure why you would equate this to a fortune effect.

A fortune effect beneficially alters how you roll your dice. You can never have more than one fortune effect alter a single roll. If multiple fortune effects would apply, you have to pick which to use. If a fortune effect and a misfortune effect would apply to the same roll, the two cancel each other out, and you roll normally.

Doesn't seem like my example applies to this at all, I may lack the insight of a rules designer, but I cannot find a way to equate these two concepts.

I agree as well, and these last few posts have been awesome, thank you. I was struck with an idea for what might be a better way to handle s9me of these skill challenges, and I wonder wha5 people might think.

What if instead of the standard PF2 skill challenge, the one where everyone roll twice and get successes = to the number of players, we went to the everyone who wants to roll (be it survival, diploamacy etc), we used the same levels of graduated success we have for recall knowledge during the info dump session at the beginning. Then gave a bump for anyone who is expert/mater, etc.

example: You five intrepid adventures need to cross the scorching desert to secure the magic fin of awesomeness before the evil apocalypse society gets there first. You will be rolling survival to determine if you get there safely and quickly. Amiri, Lini and Harsk roll their checks. I consult my chart, if they fail to hit a threshold they arrive after the opposing group, and are fatigued, if the succeed at the threshold they arrive just after the other group, a little better, just before, if they blow the check out of the water they are there and can fortify their position. Oh, wait, Harsk is an expert in survival, even if he wasn’t the highest check, his expertise moves the dial one step better along.

All three players get to roll what could be a meaningful check, and Harsk, who put a skill boost into survival, gets to feel awesome regardless of what the dice say at the end, because his expertise matters.

What do you all think?

The point where players don't have fun is when -nothing- happens.

I'm not sure I totally agree. Most, if not all, of the skill challenges I've participated in thus far have had stakes, if you fail things get worse, if you succeed they get better. So, by the definition above "Something Happens". But I'm not sure that makes much of a difference. I would argue that there needs to be some degree of forward momentum. This is often how I feel when I am forced to play up, I fail nearly every skill check, and I wonder, "Why am I even here, I am contributing nothing to the table." And now that we're virtual, I can't even say I brought the donuts.

But this might also be a little tangential to my original point.

Another scenario author here, reading everything with interest. At some point, I may take off my author hat, and come in wearing my GM hat and offer my own opinions on this. But for now, I am here, listening and learning so that I can be better next time.

Yours,
Hmm

I, for one, would love to have the insight of an author here, as we are clearly attributing thoughts and motivations to y'all without evidence.

Math might not be the whole of the answer, you are right, but I still maintain that, at least with respect to the recent low-level releases, the math is suspect. As I said in my initial post, a critical failure on an 11 at level 2 means that the DC is set at least at 21. Standard DC, in the book, generated by he developers for the system, and not an arbitrary number selected by me, is 16. The "Very Hard" adjustment is +5. Why does an introductory scenario need to have multiple very hard checks. If there isn't a narrative reason for this, then the game is not following it's own rules at this point.

Particular before any of these characters have any way to mitigate these difficulties. Aid another is now effectively a high level option, Item bonuses are not available until higher levels, and these mythical circumstance bonuses seem to be dependent on if the GM stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

So we are left with two options here.

1) We can do nothing, say everything is fine here, no need to improve, there are no problems here.

2) we can say there is a problem and do something, anything, to try to fix it.

Soup seems to be in the first camp, I am firmly and squarely in the second. My suggestion is to start by makin the math align with the math suggested in the rulebook, and seeing if that works. Seems reasonable to me. If it doesn't work, then I'm wrong, and maybe nothing is wrong with setting level 1's and 2's up to fail.

This was my initial simple request. Both Pathfinder and Starfinder have guidelines for encounters that the respective organized play programs ignore. The tight math of PF2 makes it more egregious in my opinion. I just wanted to ask for us all to follow the same rulebook.

You are correct that I was unaware of the clarification, but I still think it is a bad rule in this case. I would prefer that there be a static DC established at each subtier, this would allow cooperation and have the effect of reducing table variation. We have already had one author indicate they will consider setting aid DC’s in their future adventures

To be fair, sometimes it is hard for a player to judge what was dictated in the text of the scenario versus what the GM brought to the table themselves without reading the scenario. And I would bet, without supporting evidence, that most players do not purchase scenarios.

But I am not clear on how to quantify the effect of hero points. I tend to hoard mine until late in the scenario, as I always want to have at least one to avoid dying. If I have more than one, I might be willing to use one on a skill check, particularly when I know I have rolled poorly. It probably helps when the dice have turned against me, but when I have failed on a ~14, I am unlikely to spend one to reroll. I have also seen multiple hero points turn fails into crit fails, and we all know the pleural of anecdote is data, right?

The point is, we don't have any control about the setting of DCs in the scenarios. If the trend towards unreasonably high DCs is an indication that Paizo is not listening to the consistent complaints that have been levied over the past two years (and it appears they aren't), then its time to focus on the things the community does have control over, that being events at our own tables.

Explore! Report! Cooperate!

If we all truly feel this way, then why are we even here having this conversation? Instead of having a living organized campaign where I can drop into a table anywhere, let’s just all play our own games with our own rules?

I came here to start an open and honest conversation, but if we feel like advocating for change here is pointless, let’s all just agree to that, close this thread and walk away. However, it does not seem like Jocelyn, John and Eric believe all is lost.

Pathfinder Society exists because people play these games. I see no harm in asking, not demanding, changes. I am not saying, “Do this or I will leave”, because next week I am going to be on Warhorn looking for my next game. I just do not see the harm in asking for things to be better, and least better from my perspective.

medtec28 wrote:

Wei Ji the Learner wrote:

One of the 'mitigators' to higher DCs in PF1 (and PFS1) was that players had the capability to 'aid' a roll to help boost the party chances at success.

There's really not a mechanism for that in PF2 -- if anything, trying to *help* someone can sometimes (especially at L1) have a higher DC than the actual task being *helped* at.

I understand the math is supposed to be 'flat' and just allowing any ol' 'aid' is potentially unbalancing, but perhaps that is part of the issue with the DC numbers -- they work if a party can work *together* on a thing, but when it's just random roll + skill mod...

This is not an argument to completely revamp the system to make it more approachable for PFS2, but more... food for thought.

it doesn’t really need to be revamped, just needs an org play clarification. The CRB says the DC is usually 20, but the GM can alter it based on circumstantial, it could easily be set lower for lower tier scenarios.

Unfortunately, after requests for that sort of clarification, there IS an org play specific rule, and it says to always use DC 20 unless a scenario says otherwise. If the normal CRB rule, where 20 is a guideline and not a hard number, was used, there would be more leeway for Aid to work well at low levels. The GM can apply a circumstance bonus to an Aid attempt that comes with a particularly appropriate plan.

Pathfinder Society FAQ

things the FAQ says wrote:

Do table GMs have the ability to adjust the DC of a check to Aid, or is it set to the typical DC of 20, listed in the Core Rulebook?

Use DC 20 unless otherwise stated in the adventure. For particularly effective means of Aiding, the GM should consider giving the PCs a circumstance bonus on the check to Aid.

Can GMs apply circumstance bonuses and penalties based upon the PCs' actions (for example, to reward creative solutions, or to reflect a particularly

...

Then why can’t we tell leadership we feel like this is a bad idea, and ask it to be changed? they have listened before, haven’t they?

medtec28 wrote:

Characters never feel heroic.

I read this a lot on the forums, and I think it would help if you clarified what you meant by it.

Because, from what I can see, what it means is that "every time my character gets better, the challenges get tougher." And I simply don't see why that's a negative thing.

this is not at all what I mean, what I mean to say is that my character seldom feels like his success is due to my agency, but rather due to the dice. The scenario I am discussing was one of the newly released “intro” scenarios. And when my character is hit on a roll of 6-7, and cannot succeed without a 15+ roll, where has all of my agency gone? Aren’t my choices supposed to matter? I put my 18 into dex because I wanted to be good with a bow and to be hard to hit, but the math invalidates those choices.

I, for one, never saw a problem with a scenario being written in a way to let the PC’s succeed, if the character stacks his perception so high he cannot fail, who cares? He wants to succeed, let him. Why is that such a problem? Don’t we want the players to succeed after all?

Other words I see a lot? "Slog" and "same".

The "slog" feeling is basically appropriate scaling. Your character gets better, the challenges get tougher. It's designed to be that way from Level 1 to Level 20. You're always getting pushed to your limit. It's a feature, not a bug. Slogginess is overcome by imparting urgency/importance to the task, not by succeeding at the task. It's supposed to be narrative.

The "same" feeling is an unfortunate byproduct of the math. The way the scaling works, you don't actually need to know your modifier a lot of the time. On-level challenges are set so that nat 10-11 succeeds and only nat 20s and nat 1s crit; easy challenges are set so that nat 7-8 succeeds and there's an expanded crit success range; hard challenges are set so that nat 12-13 succeeds and there's an expanded crit fail range. It kind of sucks...

Thank you for understanding and proving my point here. Goes back to the whole choices matter idea that was allegedly part of the core mechanics. If you refer back to my original post I made the point that on-level challenges, at least low level, are supposed to be a 10-11 on the die for a stat bonus of 2 and trained proficiency, they are not. When these are enemy AC’s I am somewhat forgiving as there are some, though limited, ways to mitigate this, but for skills and saves, these characters have not had any opportunity to start shoring up, or ignoring, weaknesses yet.

If we are to step away from the meta for a moment, and put ourselves into the story here, why would the Pathfinder Society continually send undertrained, underequipted, and under experienced agents into situations and hope they succeed. There should come a point in the story where it feels like they are in the deep waters, but if that point is the initial survival roll, then why were they sent in the first place.

Soup, you and I will not agree, your features are my bugs and vice versa. I just want the scenarios to be written according to the adventure design guidelines in the core rules. Standard DC’s succeed on 10-11 for the average character, if you are better than average, good for you, you get to win more often. I just don’t understand why winning more often is viewed as so problematic.

One of the 'mitigators' to higher DCs in PF1 (and PFS1) was that players had the capability to 'aid' a roll to help boost the party chances at success.

There's really not a mechanism for that in PF2 -- if anything, trying to *help* someone can sometimes (especially at L1) have a higher DC than the actual task being *helped* at.

I understand the math is supposed to be 'flat' and just allowing any ol' 'aid' is potentially unbalancing, but perhaps that is part of the issue with the DC numbers -- they work if a party can work *together* on a thing, but when it's just random roll + skill mod...

This is not an argument to completely revamp the system to make it more approachable for PFS2, but more... food for thought.

it doesn’t really need to be revamped, just needs an org play clarification. The CRB says the DC is usually 20, but the GM can alter it based on circumstantial, it could easily be set lower for lower tier scenarios.

Eric,
I am going to disagree with you in a few points.

First of all, there is more to success than "The luck of the dice", the luck of the dice is inherently influenced by the tuning of the math. Yes, the opportune 20 on the die can turn the scenario, but if the math is not tuned against the PC's, it shouldn't be necessary. In the example I cited, we were critically failing will saves and skill DC's on rolls of 10 and 11. There is only so much one can count on "hot dice."

Second, there is only so much your allies can do to increase your allies, can maneuver into a flank, I can attempt to demoralize the enemy once per encounter, and maybe I can knock them prone(But I will unlikely be able to both demoralize and trip). If I am having trouble hitting AC 20, I will have the same difficulty hitting the Aid DC of 20.