o n's page

What has changed directly:

-No longer possible to provide huge to hit buffs
-Stacking AC actually required investment in first edition

As DM I could easily harass the squishy back line using relatively weak monsters and some creative thought.

So... you no longer can easily kill things that were supposed to be difficult, and now can spend brain power and resources on other more interesting things besides maxing AC, which you were gonna do anyway. Sounds like fixes to me, honestly.

I'm pretty sure you can still harrass the unarmored 'squishies' with something. Not all wizards will have maxed dex and athletics, and if they have built for that, they're not quite 'squishies' are they? In our game there was around 4 AC difference between 2 characters, which is a big number now, so...

But, beyond my possible issue blindness, I think Zman0 has the right of it. Why not both, indeed.

The way system is built currently is that you could be utterly surrounded by low level creatures and not care at all, because their only hope is to roll a nat 20 to hit you and even if they did they would do insignificant damage because damage dice also scale with levels.

I hate that in previous D&D editions. I hate it now with PF2e. It breaks down all immersion.

I haven't been playing PF1 for as long as some people here, but... is PF1 (unmodified!) actually capable of telling the story you guys speak of? Unless you stoped at like, level 4, I don't think so. In a couple levels the ole goblin guys were just irrelevant anyway. I'm not sure what has actually, directly changed that's causing all this outrage. As far as I've played and read, PF1 should already be immersion breaking for you. I mean this in a completely honest way, but I don't get it.

Having actually played now (RL finally cooperated), my lvl 9 competent but not super optimized char has a difference of 10 between her best (+15 without armor) and her worst skill (+5). That's a whole crit range. Should she regularly use her worst skill? Probably not, but she also probably won't instantly explode if she tries, which I like. I'm fine with that amount of variance, tbh.

So, my opinion on the whole +1 lvl... it doesn't make me scream I LOVE IT at the top of my lungs, but I consider it a perfectly valid way to build the game, and so far it has worked. So yeah.

Edit: To clarify, if someone comes up with a better Skill system I'm down with trying it out. But if the current system is the system that comes out with PF2 I' won't cry either.

And there is nothing wrong with thinking that way. Its the great divide, bound vs unbound (accuracy). I prefer it the other way, but I understand people wanting it this way.

Must resist urge to argue.....

And I appreciate it! I don't dislike the feel of being, in the end, human after all when divested of all the magic extras. I just like the other option a bit more, at least in magic heavy fantasy.

It's indeed down to preference. I just like the feeling of inherent competence, even if you never get to exercise it ingame. I get to imagine my PC in shorts and suglasses having a good time in a dangerous enviroment.

That's fine. I'm not passing judgement one way or the other, just pointing out that there's a glaring difference between systems. Adding level to everything has several implications that have to be taken into account, not all of them good.

I mean even discounting the absolutely headscratching attack bonuses on enemies in the PF2 bestiary (seriously, look them up. All of them are super optimised fighters, it seems), adding level to everything means you're always on a very fine...

I feel obligated to mention that, they are indeed dangerous, deadly monsters that eat people or each other. It doesn't exactly break my SOB that they are optimized fitghers.

ENHenry wrote:

O. N. wrote:

Vic Ferrari wrote:

It can lead to some interesting scenarios, like your 15th-level character, having a drink at the bar, and a bunch of ghouls burst in and attack everyone, and they just sit there, drinking, while the occasional ghoul hits them, to their annoyance.

That got a irl laugh. Love that image, thanks.

Ghoul from PF1:

Melee bite +3 (1d6+1 plus disease and paralysis) and 2 claws +3 (1d6+1 plus paralysis)
AC of a 15th level Fighter in PF1: 28 (+4 Full Plate, 12 dex, and +4 Ring)

This happens under PF1, too. :-)

The difference is the PF2 character can be stark naked (or just unarmored) in the bar and be AC 25, still completely untouchable by the ghouls. Meanwhile your PF1 15th level fighter, if stark naked (or just unarmored), only has an AC of 11. And he'd most likely get demolished.

I'll be honest, I like that there's some way to show a character is powerful and skilled beyond just how much magic armor they have. They're just straight better at it (you could argue this should apply to weapon dice too, but that's another thread). The lvl 14 character I made had, naked, a minimum skill bonus +12 and maximum +21. I find that to be perfectly acceptable. He sneaks amazing, and while arcana is not his field, he's seen enough s#&* to recognize magic when he sees it. A ghoul tries to bit them and they just dodge without thinking about it, because ghouls are chumps. Seems fine to me.

It can lead to some interesting scenarios, like your 15th-level character, having a drink at the bar, and a bunch of ghouls burst in and attack everyone, and they just sit there, drinking, while the occasional ghoul hits them, to their annoyance.

That got a irl laugh. Love that image, thanks.

Yeah, when you said you guys usually did political intrigue, I thought of Part 6. It also has some combat, but mostly interactions and some puzzles. I thought it sounded really interesting.

Though, I have to ask... AC 12? Where they all naked? I usually don't play particularly optimized, but I don't think I've ever dared go that low.

Edit: I'm glad they took it well though. Hopefully the next one is more entretaining.

To be fair, Quasits were f#@@ing deadly in PF1 too. I still remember that part of Rise of the Runelords. Who will win? 3 lvl 2 PCs or 1 demon pixie thing? The answer might surprise you.

MaxAstro wrote:

Actions and Reactions: Though exploration’s not broken into rounds, the exploration tactics assume the PCs are spending part of their time taking actions. If they have specific actions they want to take, they should ask you, and you can decide whether it’s relevant and whether to switch to encounter mode for greater detail. PCs can take any relevant reactions that come up.

If you can just mix in Recall Knowledge and Seek actions as you please, purely as an example, then there is no point at all in having exploration tactics.

The way I read that section, the whole thing is mostly a guide for GMs about how to handle that part, not a straighjacket. Sure, experienced GMs may not need it (it IS basically the same thing as before, but more codified), but if you've never mastered before it may help.

"Ask your players what they want to be doing. Being sneaky? They have to go a bit slower and can roll Stealth for Initiative. They want to go extra fast? They'll get tired sooner. They are on alert? They get to start weapon in hand and shield up. Looking for magic? Walk slowly and go full radar with Detect Magic. They are trying to walk with a high level spell constanly going and f+@&ing up your perfectly good encounters? Tell them they are getting tired. Remember, in the end is up to you, use your judgement!"*

Is this what they intended? If it was, was it well expressed? I don't know, but this is how I read it, and maybe the reason it's not working for you is that it's being applied a touch too rigidly.

*Please note I don't have the book with me right now.

Edit: I'll agree that the examples are kinda bad. My guess is that two people wrote that and didn't proofread as well as they ought to.

O. N. wrote:

Honestly, if you don't have the baggage of PF1 experience, there's no reason to feel like you're not getting enough.

I think that's a bit of an unfair expectation. This isn't a new TTRPG. This is a new edition of a pre-existing one. People will come in with certain expectations. IMO those expectations should be met unless there's a good reason to net meet them.

I suspect we're actually getting as many options in PF2e as PF1e, they're just coming from different sources. So if we increase ancestry feats we might need to decrease something else.

I actually think that a lot of the difficulties people are having with accepting some of the changes and conceits of PF2 is exactly that. I've been trying to consider it as a whole new, unknown game and I think it's helped me a lot to see it for it's own merits. Granted, it does have its problems that have to be fixed, but they're certainly less distressing that way.

I would perhaps allow a General Feat at first level instead of more ancestry ones, to add to the 'personal' part of ancestry->background->personal.

Did either of them pick Half-Elf, Half-Orc, or Adopted Ancestry at 1st level? If they didn't, I can see why they would have been content with the options given.

"The 1 veteran player and 1 that had played 5e before both made half-orcs."

Honestly, if you don't have the baggage of PF1 experience, there's no reason to feel like you're not getting enough. I've played games where the only difference was basically appearance, and generally you just roll with it.

What I would like is higher level ancestry options. 2-3 really cool high level things that you can choose at lvls 10+. They don't even need to be mechanically powerful, just novel.

So, since 2E reduced the penalties and raised the lower limits of carry capacity, Bags of Holding should be considered *more* valuable?

I'm having trouble following that line of thought. Doesn't that mean characters are likely to more frequently shrug at the Bag of Holding and keep their Resonance reserve for flashy stuff since their carry capacity isn't an issue?

Just because you don't NEED one for everyday use doesn't mean you can't WANT it. It IS still useful (how can you rob dragons without one?) but it's no longer an unavoidable expense to actually do stuff.

How I read it, is that, assuming a Hardness of, say, 10, ANY damage BELOW that would actually be... resisted by the shield, and not dent it. It's when it's a lot of damage at once that shields die. I suppose it would be like having really conditional DR.

I'm not sure what's actually intented here, if we are supposed to track the shield's "HP" or not, but it's also true that you can spend time repairing it every morning while the magic dudes do their prepaprations, so I wouldn't mind too much if that were the case.