The tier listed for #10-13 Fragments of Antiquity is shown as 7-11 in the PaizoCon events, when it shows as a 5-9 in the listing for the scenario itself (and pfstracker, and other places I've looked): #10-13 Fragments of Antiquity
So on Monday a group of us (4+GM) got together to play Arclord's Envy.
Demographics & Background:
All of the players have been frequent (weekly+) PFS players/GMs for 4+ years (some much more/longer than others).
We created our characters from scratch, which included a Barbarian, Rogue, Bard, and Cleric.
GM was fairly new, but she did a great job running the scenario, adjudicating/clarifying rules, and just being a cool human being. :)
Pretty sure everyone's done the survey at this point, but the below issue wasn't really covered there.
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Our biggest complaint and dealbreaker for us moving to PF2 was that Proficiency was borderline meaningless, especially wrt skills/saves.
"Oh, you're Legendary at that? I'm 3 levels above you and I'm Trained, so we're basically the same!"
"I'm Expert in Reflex saves, so I have a 5% higher chance of not getting affected by this spell."
Basically, it becomes a game where the die roll is almost the only thing that matters.
Even the scenario we played with the level for all characters being the same (so DCs should be tuned perfectly to that level), we were frequently failing at simple tasks for skills which we were Expert *and* had the max ability mod for our level. While we weren't rolling crazy high, we also weren't rolling crazy low either (failing with a 6-8 on the die). On the saves side, your ability mod + level was really important, and the level of Proficiency was a minor footnote (I took Lightning Reflexes, and it wouldn't have changed anything of significance).
I totally get the reasoning behind driving down some of the crazy modifiers from PF1. Example case: "If you don't have a +25 perception modifier at level ___, you might as well not even bother having any bonus at all". It totally made sense to compact down the numbers so that folks who wanted to put a modest investment into a skill could still be effective sometimes, while someone who significantly invests in a skill should be great a vast majority of the time. I think the drastic reduction in conditional bonuses from mundane/masterwork/magic gear should have covered most of the problem here, so you might have over-corrected.
There were several instances in our playthrough where the characters with untrained and decent (not great) ability modifiers had to bail us out on our middling rolls (they still had to get in the mid/upper teens on the die). I can't imagine being 13th level, finally be "Legendary" at something, and have someone who's only done basic training outshine me 35% of the time. I took a bunch of math/science classes in high school and college, but I don't expect to ever get the better of someone like Neil deGrasse Tyson.
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Couple Suggestions:
Make the modifiers for Proficiency more pronounced: You could just double them (-2, 0, +2, +4, +6), another suggestion one of the other players had was a more Fibonacci-style bonus structure, or really anything that made investing the points and having skills as Signature Skills actually mean more (maybe -3, 0, +2, +5, +8). I think the key comment we had was that being Legendary at something should *feel* Legendary (or change the names of Expert/Master/Legendary to something else).
And/Or
Re-add Take-10: The ability to Take-10 (with all the usual caveats) solved the problem of "you should always be able to do this, given you're not rushed or in danger". That said, we like rolling dice too, so don't think we're just trying to avoid crit failures (we had a couple fun ones).
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Quick aside, since it's likely to come up in the follow-up discussions:
My opinion/analysis of the Assurance Feat:
The Assurance feat really isn't all that great. I was at a +10 for the Expert skill I had Assurance in at 5th level, so getting a result of 15 was pretty sad, especially when the GM mentioned (after the fact) that a bunch of the DCs were 16+. Right at 7th level, when I could have made the skill Master, there'd be a decent safety/advantage of being able to have a result of 20 vs a bonus of 13 (basically a Take-7). However, that advantage reduces as I further level up, especially if my level 10 Ability Boost gets the additional +1 to the ability mod it affects. At that point, I'd have a +17, so the result of a 20 is pretty low. The same effect happens for Legendary (starts out pretty nice, but as you level up the benefit reduces).
I could see an argument for picking up Assurance on a skill where you're never going to have a good ability modifier (ideally something where you have a -1 ability modifier). At 7th level with Master proficiency, you'd have a +8 modifier and would be able to guarantee a result of 20 (take 12). So maybe my use of Assurance above was the wrong way to think about it, but it also is weird since it is a pre-req for Automatic Knowledge. Given that most Knowledge Signature Skills typically use your class's primary ability modifier, that just seems weird.
(Apologies if I'm off by 1 or 2 on the math above - it likely shouldn't invalidate my point)
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All that said, we *did* have a fun time, there were plenty of other rules we liked, disliked, were confused by, didn't have enough exposure to have an opinion, etc. It's just at this point, we're likely not going to go out of our way to sign up for Playtest material, as we'd rather play the PFS1 scenarios we haven't yet played using PF1 rules. I'll probably try to find some time to get more detailed on the rest of our/my feedback in the appropriate sub-forums (already done for the Arclord's Envy scenario feedback). Most of us agreed that we'd be waiting for some major change in this space before really committing to PF2, though maybe a couple of us might try out the 10th level scenario just to see what higher level play was like.
Overall the scenario was solid. Felt like a "normal" PFS1 scenario (which was good), enabled us to experience several different mechanics of the new system, and generally felt tuned to the new system's difficulty. I have lots of comments on the PF2 mechanics posted elsewhere, but the scenario felt about right.
However, one particular (likely unintentional) recurring theme in the encounters for this scenario bothered me - and it's something I've seen in a variety of scenarios over the years. So the below is a recommendation for all scenario authors. :)
Make sure you consider the "standard fantasy/rpg tropes" when building your encounters, especially when reviewing them together. I fully expect that a given character's schtick might be unusable in a given encounter, or even half of them, but when you accidentally/intentionally nerf a good chunk of one of those standards in all of your encounters, it feels punishing. There are certainly some times you might expect this to happen (traveling to another plane where everything is immune to X, doing a construct-only scenario as a rogue who depends on sneak attack, playing a enchantment-based character against mindless/immune creatures, etc.), but there's nothing about this scenario that would scream "____________ is going to be completely ineffective in Nex" to someone.
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Let's look at the encounters...
Encounters and Particular problems:
and how fire is a bad choice for pretty much every one of them.
1. Flesh Golem Encounter: Cool, the Golem *does* take damage from fire. However, do you want to further damage the crime scene and obscure evidence? I don't know if there was a specific mechanic built into the scenario, but basic logic dictates that it likely would damage that. Additionally, in such tight quarters, it might be tough to get anything other than a Burning Hands, Alchemist Fire/Bomb, or Flaming Sphere off (without damaging your party), but with the potential risk to the evidence, most folks are likely to hold off blowing things up. I guess it's possible to taunt the golem outside, but you're basically asking your entire party to do something unnatural for them so you can do your schtick (likely only once).
2. Ambush from Ifrit/Fire Elementals: Need I say more? Now, we didn't try to make a check to know whether the Ifrit just had resist or straight up immunity, but even with resistance it would have been heavily nerfed. Fire Elementals were obviously straight immune, so no point even trying.
3. Fight with Arclord and Apprentice: Giving him the ability to Counterspell spells he knows - like, ya know, Fireball - just adds the insult to injury. While certainly it requires a Counteract check, it's just another example of making a particular build ineffective.
I think it's perfectly reasonable (especially for a newer player - which we're trying to encourage...) for someone to want to bring a Fire-focused Wizard/Sorcerer, with Burning Hands, Flaming Sphere, and Fireball. I also think it's perfectly reasonable to not expect that to work in every fight (due to immunities, positioning/space, etc.), but at level 5 it should at least work solidly 1/3rd of the time without special caveats. Actually having it not work in at least 1 fight encourages folks to be versatile, and teaches new players to not depend on a single strategy to win all fights - which is good.
I was lucky that that was *not* my character - rather I was a Cleric of Sarenrae. So while it was annoying to have a Fireball in my prepared spells that I couldn't use effectively, it ultimately wasn't as crippling as it would have been for the Fireball Sorc/Wiz.
Whenever we go to the plane of Fire, I fully expect the Fire Sorcerer/Wizard to be nearly useless, and rely solely on backup spells. However, when we are in Nex, I don't see any reason why every combat would need to punish these players/characters for that choice.
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To be clear, this is not the only scenario that I've seen written like this. There was a recent low level repeatable I played where *every* creature in it was immune to mind-affecting, basically making classes/builds like Mesmerist (that I *was* playing at the time) nearly useless (not level 3 yet - so no access to Psychic Inception). There was another scenario that had a heavy darkness theme, and *was* advertised in the blurb, making Light-based characters seem like a good thematic choice to counteract the dark, but instead made Fire/Light spells require hefty CL checks to function at all (and not just for 1-2 encounter, but rather for all of the encounters). I'm sure I could come up with a few other "there's no reason why ________ shouldn't ever work, but it didn't in any encounter" scenarios, but I think you get the point. :)
Like mentioned above, other than this particular issue, the scenario was solid, and felt great for getting into PF2. Thanks!
(Latching onto this thread as well, since I'll be playing alongside Tony on Monday and have similar questions)
What defines "permanent items"? I can't seem to find a specific reference. Is a wand a permanent item? My initial guess was 'no', but given that there are so few items that can't be consumed at various levels, I'm starting to second guess that opinion.
Also, is there a way that item levels are calculated based on materials/quality? You've got two specific weapons listed (Cold Iron Warhammer, Silver Dagger) that are Item Level 2 - is it possible to have a different weapon instead of one of those?
Lastly, do you need a +1 to attach a property rune (flaming or whatever)? I see that the weapon needs to be Expert quality or better. I can't seem to find a reference for such a thing, so I'm assuming the answer is 'no'.
Couple edge-case questions regarding chronicles, GM'ing, and playing pregens in Core games and converting a character to Standard campaign...
1) For a given set of Core GM applied to a "character" that hasn't been played at level 2+ (still a "blob"), can I turn the character into a Standard character using the full Standard set of approved content (Standard campaign classes, feats, etc.)?
For example, I GM 10 Core scenarios (1xp each, level 1-5 scenarios) and apply those chronicles to a "Core character PFS -number" character who I haven't ever played. I decide I want to use the xp for a Standard character (creating a Shaman or whatever). Am I allowed to build this character directly in the Standard campaign without needing to retrain or whatever?
2) If a Core character was converted to Standard before a higher level Core Chronicle is applied (but converted well after it was played), can I still apply that Chronicle? What happens to that chronicle?
For example, I play a Core 3-7 Scenario using a level 4 Core Pregen. During level 3, I decide to switch my character to Standard by playing at a Standard table. When I hit level 4, do I still get to apply the chronicle as normal?
Question on the Blundering Defense though: Using this, will you provide your adjacent ally with 1/2 of your total dodge bonus, or only 1/2 of your dodge bonus originating from Fighting Defensively/full defense (including cautious fighter)? What I'm thinking of is other sources of dodge AC e.g. combat reflexes or from monk/duelist abilities etc. Consider a halfling monk with high wisdom and combat reflexes (perhaps a sensei archetype) - he could pump the AC provided to your ally considerably if the feat gives 1/2 of your total dodge bonus...
It's 1/2 your Dodge AC gained solely by fighting defensively, not 1/2 your Dodge bonus overall. Basically, what's the difference in AC between fighting defensively and not (assuming all other things are the same, Combat Expertise etc.)? That's what you provide 1/2 of to adjacent allies. However, things like the Aldori Caution trait, Shielded Fighter's Active Defense, Crane Style feat, taking 3 ranks in Acrobatics (see Acrobatics skill description - 3 ranks increases Dodge bonus from 2->3 when fighting defensively) all apply to this feat.
Glade wrote:
One comment to the golden legionnaire is that even at high levels he's often going to have to make a choice of which buffs to give. United defense and Authorative command are swift/move actions, and Aid another is a standard action you are limited to a 5 ft step in terms of movement to position yourself for use of the bodyguard feat. Also, without the harrying partners feat the bonuses from aid another will only apply to the first attack done by/received by your ward. Still a very interesting build for sure. Hope you have fun playing him in PFS - would be interesting to hear what your experience with him is :)
Yep, basically the AC of my allies will go up and down throughout the fight based on whether I need to move or not, initial positioning, etc. For low Int monsters, I expect this to work reasonably well since they'll just come at us and we can make a line and hold the line. For smarter enemies, it will take more effort, and likely won't be able to do all of the abilities every round.
I was recently building a helpful Halfling Bodyguard for PFS, so I figured I'd share it as well for inspiration.
Build:
Spoiler:
Halfling Shielded Fighter 3, Brawler 2, Golden Legionnaire 6
Level 1, post-racial Attributes:
Str: 10
Dex: 18
Con: 16
Int: 10
Wis: 12
Cha: 9
(Add to Dex when getting attribute increases for extra AOOs to Bodyguard)
Alternate Racial Traits:
Fleet of Foot
Low Blow
Minimum Skills (required for Golden Legionnaire and max Fighting Defensively):
Intimidate (5 ranks)
Diplomacy (5 ranks)
Acrobatics (3 ranks)
(spend the rest of the skill points in various skills that you can aid another on outside of combat)
Traits:
Helpful Halfling
Indomitable Faith
Feats:
1st Combat Reflexes
F 1st Bodyguard
F 2nd Weapon Finesse
3rd Cautious Fighter
B 5th Blundering Defense
5th Combat Expertise
7th Butterfly Sting
GL 7th Stand Still
9th Iron Will
GL 9th Critical Focus
11th Desperate Swing
GL 11th In Harm's Way
Required Equipment:
+1 Keen Kukri/Rapier (~8,300g)
+3 Benevolent Mithral Agile Breastplate (20,400g)
Ring of Tactical Precision (+1 on Aid Another)
Belt of Dex (More AOOs)
Resistance Cloak (shore up saves)
Wayfinder with Clear Spindle (4,250g)
So the focus in combat is Bodyguarding (AOOs), Fighting Defensively (Standard Action granting adjacent allies AC via Blundering Defense), Golden Legionnaire's Authoritative Command (Move Action), and Golden Legionnaire's United Defense add AC to adjacent allies (although Authoritative Command grants a bunch of other benefits too). With all of these in place, you can grant an ally a +18 Bonus to AC (all the AC Bonus types you're providing stack), and all other adjacent allies get a +14 Bonus to AC.
In addition, using a Keen Kukri/Rapier with Butterfly Sting pretty much means you have a 25% chance to grant someone an automatic melee crit (since you get +8 to Crit Confirmation Rolls from Crit Focus and Desperate Swing, and you're full BAB classes all the way). So that greatly helps your allies do damage. You also have Martial Flexibility, so you get some additional flexibility (maybe a Critical Feat?).
Outside of combat, try to get as many skills as possible so you can try to aid (+5 on Aid Another with the Ring of Tactical Precision).
With level 13, you'll probably have a few more things
The downsides of this build (compared to yours):
Low Will Saves (helped by Iron Will and Clear Spindle, but only just)
No spellcasting (or ability to use Scrolls/Wands)
Less Skill Points (big downside for being Helpful outside of combat)
Less Aid Another on Attack Bonuses (although can you do that for more than one)?
Regardless of the build, you might want to either get someone else to get Harrying Partners, *or* get a Ring of Tactical Precision that you imbue with Harrying Partners and hand it to an ally you expect to Bodyguard often.
The old feat can't be one you used as a prerequisite for a feat, class feature, archetype, prestige class, or other ability
So you can't retrain it if you used it as a prereq.
Oh dang, you're right. Well I guess if I can't find a good enough faq/source that avoids table variation on using the Torc's Diehard to qualify, then I might be out of luck...
The retraining rules specify that if you train away a feat that is prerequisite to another feat that you possess, you lose the USE of the follow-on feat as well. You don't get free retraining on the follow-on feat. (You still have the feat, it just won't work.)
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I don't know for sure if the temporary, but inherent ability, such as your diehard counts as a prerequisite, I would say it does, but I would also rule that the fast healing would only be active while the rage power granting you Diehard is active.
Right, my assumption is that my "backup plan" would be to take Diehard directly, then take Fast Healer, then retrain Diehard to something else. Then, my Fast Healer would only take effect when I was raging and my Torc was granting me Diehard, which was what my intent was. In-between combat, I can certainly live without Fast Healer, but I'm hoping to capitalize on Fast Healer (with my bonus Con from raging) + Skald's Vigor.
So I've seen a bunch of the threads on this topic, but my situation is slightly different than the ones I've seen already...
For example, I know that qualifying for a feat with a stat requirement using a belt/headband is do-able since the stat improvement becomes "permanent" after 24 hours. There are also items (Ioun stones I believe) that grant you 24x7 access to certain feats, which can then be used to qualify for feats.
I also know that if you lose one of the items (or really no longer qualify for the feat in general, through stat drain etc.), you lose access to the feat until you re-establish your access to the pre-reqs for the feat in question.
My question is: Can a feat granted *sometimes* enable you to take another feat that depends on it? My specific example:
I'm a Skald that has the Endurance feat, and I wear a Torc of the Primal Song, can I qualify for Fast Healer (requires Con 13, Endurance, Diehard)?
I can activate Diehard using my rage rounds every day, but it's obviously not permanent.
Alternatively, I could always grab Diehard as a feat myself, then grab Fast Healer, then retrain out of Diehard, but would obviously like to avoid the cost if possible.
This is for PFS, so pointers to FAQ or other Paizo dev posts that I could reference would be helpful in case it comes up at the table.
Feast of Dust Organized Play document has "Legal Character Levels" as 11-13, 12-14, 13-15 for Parts 1-3, but the chronicles have them as 10-12, 11-13, 12-14, then the "special" is 13-15. Misprint?
The problem was that the FAQ system was down, plus a lot of the PDT were out for cons or vacation or whatever, just as this thread really got rolling. Also, while this one is a pretty high FAQ count and is bumped to stay near the top of the list, it's also more difficult to answer than the last 3 FAQs we got. The first was something they already "knew" the answer to and could phone in a vote. Making pack flanking a combat feat is a pretty easy maybe intended change that doesn't alter the power much. The stacking FAQ we got most recently was also something I imagine they pretty much already "knew" the answer to.
This question though has some pretty big implications. If you can do them at the same time what is the worse abuse case (probably the bard with a familiar and the shadow bard spell?) and how bad is that? If they can't when would you ever get or use them (only when you're a bard that gives up inspire courage?) And potentially 100 of the FAQ requests are people that want it to work at the same time, how many people does that actually represent and can we do something to make them a little happy if we have to say no? I imagine we'll get this FAQ'd by the end of the year at least because of how popular and how explosive it was getting all the FAQ requests.
This post might not be exactly right everywhere (you'd have to be a mind reader to have perfect accuracy), but overall, Chess Pwn is very insightful. We've seen this thread. The underlying question of the minutiae of multiple performances is actually harder than the initial question posed about masterpieces; it must be answered to answer this question, and it potentially has ramifications even for bards with no masterpieces, so we need to get it right.
