sutusa's page

Hello Support,

For the time being, I would like to cancel all of my subscriptions. I might re-enable at a later time.

Thank you.

@Mathmuse

This can be a problem for min-maxers. They might have sacrificed all their good abilities for running away or hiding to gain more combat abilities, instead. I call this overspecialization. Then I have to give them a humiliating way to escape, such as a peasant hiding them in her manure wagon, to teach them to prepare for encounters that combat will not win. Or they die

I literally laughed. I'll definately keep this in mind.. because you're right, they have over specialized for combat. I really appreciate the ideas for how to counter a 15-minute day. I want to discourage it.

@MaxAstro @The Rot Grub
I will note this down too (with everything else this thread has helped me with). Seems like a great idea. Thank you.

Thank you all for your responses. Last night I was frustrated in the middle of my planning, I just ranted somewhat and went to bed. I feel better today overall about continuing to GM. hah. I couldn't really reply to everyone, but I wanted to comment back to many of you. Thank you.

@Franz Lunzer
That is a shame to hear, but I hope that there is a change of heart and they re-release the APs (just PDF, no printing) with the update stat-blocks. I'd happily pay to get a stat-block update for the older APs that I still wouldn't mind running.

@ericthecleric
I actually started with the beginner box for the 1st session I ever GM'd with my group. It was so much fun, that I couldn't wait to play again. But everyone was level 1 so I didn't have power imbalances to deal with yet.

@Dire Ursus
Yeah, I don't feel they are cheating either. Honestly, I don't even manage their character sheets or anything. I heard advice somewhere that a player should be their own master of their class. So, a lot of times, I look to them for what is legal or not. I don't think they abuse it, or at least I hope they don't.

@rknop
"I don't think the players minded as much, but by the end I was freaking happy it was over."
That is kind of where I'm at right now, but it took a year for me to get to chapter 4. I got one year to go! But, if I can get the hang of managing my OP group, I'll feel better. I'll continue working on it.

@Mathmuse
I really appreciate giving me a real-world example of how to handle my upcoming chapter in terms of tactics and such. It helps to see what others have done specifically. I tried finding advice such as this online and didn't really find much. Thanks for taking the time.

Xanesha is already dead in my campaign. I really like the idea of not letting them feel safe in Magnimar and attacking them there when they don't expect it. Especially since the took up the old Foxglove Townhouse as their base at the moment.

I also agree on the Crafting and Healing aspect somewhat. My default stance is that I want to give them the freedom to craft what they need, but I have trouble understanding what items are game breaking. Most magical or wonderous items simply state what they do, but not how difficult or rare it should be to obtain on average.

@Nox Aeterna
Yeah, I guess it shows that the ruleset can be many things to different people and we all get something different out of it.

Honestly, I probably wouldn't mind the min-maxing so much if the AP was geared for it or at least gave me advice for each encounter on how to handle stronger PC groups in addition to the standard non-optimized group. I might be better off looking at harder adventures for my party, like Frog God Games adventures, where the difficulty of the adventure is expected to be somewhat "old school" in difficulty.

@Leafar Cathal
I can relate. I've got a family, full-time job, I also started my own business on the side. I'm busy. I like the game enough that I'm willing to give some time for prep. But... it does suck to work the night before to build improve an already weak encounter (for my group) just to have them continue to steam roll. It can be demotivating. I can get better with more experience at GM'ing but I do feel that PF2 is giving me a better core to help with my shortcomings.

@Pandora's & @Lausth
I didn't feel disrespected, though I can see how some of the comments up to the point could feel that way. I freely admit that I have A LOT of areas I can improve upon myself though. I've been watching a lot of Matthew Colville's videos on how to GM

With that said, I really do wish the core system of PF1 didn't allow for such a wide difference in power of the party vs encounter CR. I feel the CR number is simply inaccurate and unreliable when trying to judge difficulty for my group.

@Mark Seifter
Thank you for commenting and understanding that it really has been a barrier for newbies like me. I do need to better my ability to adapt, but I'm glad that PF2e seems to help me.

@MaxAstro
Yeah, I’m learning that powering-up encounters is simply a normal thing I have to do in PF1. I'll need to work on my creativity though. My first instinct is to simply fudge numbers, increase HP, add more enemies. I have trouble pairing unique monsters from the bestiary that complement the normal encounters in the AP and not let them feel they are out of place.

@Pramxnim
Thank you for linking some resources that might help me carry over some of the stories/AP that I wouldn't mind playing through in the future on the newer edition. I really appreciate it and will continue to be more talkative and ask for advice.

@PossibleCabbage & @Davor Firetusk
I do hope that the difficulty spikes in RotR in the last third and gives me more fun tools to use. I do agree that over another 10 years, that even PF2 will probably start to lose the balance a bit, but I'm hopeful.

@Zman0
I agree on character creation not being easy for new characters. I remember my first PF1 character took me hours to do by hand. By comparison, the PF2 character took less than half a session. I am hopeful that the only changes to PF2 from the playtest are quality of life changes and nothing major at this point. I like what I see as it is.

@Boojumbunn
I appreciate all of your advice, especially on combat tactics. I feel I am already doing some of what you describe, (like treating intelligent monsters as just that, intelligent). Though, I could improve on especially controlling personality of followers (#7) and side adventures (which I have not been doing at all).

First off, I want to give a bit of backstory about my current PF1 game and then talk about what I like about PF2 Playtest in comparison. I really want the game developers to consider my struggle with PF1 when thinking about PF2. Additionally, I'm happy for any advice (form anyone) as well.

WARNING! SMALL RISE OF THE RUNELORDS SPOILERS!

I'm a relatively new to tabletop games and being a GM as I have only been playing for 1 year. I run a game at work currently. I am running the (classic) Rise of the Runelords AP and have just reached chapter 4. My friends are currently having fun (and I'm glad they are, I really do), but to be honest, I'm not anymore and have considered giving up GM

The PCs:
- Player1 - Fighter, is impossible to hit due to high AC and will destroy anything he hits. At level 10, he basically 1-2 shot Barl Breakbones.. and his stone giant guards via a cleave for example. End of chapter finale became meh.
- Player2 - Shadowdancer feels impossible to find (due to the absurdly high stealth) with the bad guys provided to me (goblins,trolls,ogres,giants) and the shadow minion mostly has free reign without worry of retaliation.
- Player3 - Spellcaster (with a focus on Divining and Summoning) - Makes it difficult to surprise the party with anything. Combat slows with summons.
- Player4 - Spellcaster with high damage output like the fighter. I allowed the Leadership feat without fully understanding the impacts. Is now basically playing 2 characters, the cohort is the healer.
- Player5 - He is the utility in the party, he is the only character that is trying to play a character that isn't min-maxed. I appreciate it.

My major issues:

(1) Min-Maxing characters has made encounters trivial:

Their characters are hyper-optimized and there is no challenge anymore. I don't need to challenge them every fight, I'm happy to make them feel like heroes.. but for me, I get enjoyment in providing a challenge and watching heroes overcome adversity. I would prefer that the world actually present a danger to them.

I started the game by limiting the rules to the Core Rulebook only, it was enough rules to learn as is. But, I will pull an encounter from the AP and they simply roll it. Rinse. Repeat. Improving encounters is quite difficult for me. Maybe I'm unimaginative.. I don't know. I feel the AP doesn't give me much in the way of magic users to counter with. (again, the AP gives me goblins,trolls,ogres and giants to work with).

(2) Minion hell:

It was too late to save my game's speed when the party has a bunch of minions every fight: a shadow, follower, summons. I have a hard time keeping the flow going when some of my players are taking 2 turns per round basically. I feel it almost isn't fair to the others playing, but they haven't complained and the rules allow for it.. I'm not sure what to do about this now, after the fact.

(3) Crafting:

Players obviously want magic items, but it is hard for me to understand what is game breaking and what isn't. It is hard for me to understand what they should reasonably be able to craft.

(4) Healing and 15 minute adventures:

I would not mind the players rolling over encounters if eventually they became weaker in doing so, if I could wear them down over time to where encounters became challenging, but the party literally brings along Cure Light Wound wands that they spam or teleport back to town after 15 minutes of questing if I manage to challenge them. Not sure how to handle these problems either.

I guess all of my struggles as an amateur GM boil down keeping the party's overall power from growing too quickly and out of control... how on earth do I manage keeping a sense of danger and overcoming difficulties occasionally?
- Am I at fault for allowing my players freedom to craft and choose feats like Leadership? Not finding creative solutions for encounters?
- Is the AP I'm running too easy? (I see players stating how hard this AP is and I just can't imagine it right now)
- Are the PF1 rules simply broken in terms of power scaling?

This finally brings me to the Playtest.. and I love it.

(1) Min-Maxing seems to be under better control from my perspective.
(2) Leadership appears to be gone and shadowdancer isn't mentioned. I glad too, as I feel that anything that allows playing another character should be add-on supplemental rule/materials, not part of the core rules.
(3) Crafting might still need clarification or at least guidelines on what is appropriate per level, or maybe I just don't understand.
(4) I like that healing wands appear to be addressed.

Other things I like:
- Melee classes feel more useful than before
- There was a lot of love (and it shows) with all the unique feats (aka: you can ride a wolf vs. +1 to a skill check)
- I like you can take multiple attacks even at level 1 at a penalty, my players liked it too
- Actions per round are easier to manage than trying to determine what is a free,quick,move,standard,swift,whatever.
- It seems harder to die in PF2 with the hero tokens given every session, but I think that is okay when healing is a little harder to come by. It offsets.

Quite frankly, I really want the developers to know that I like the current PF2 playtest rules better than PF1 from what I've seen so far. My only concern is that in my excitement as a new GM, I purchased a lot of PF1 books and APs... it does make it hard to jump to a new edition without bringing some of that along with me. I REALLY want a guide for converting from PF1 monster stats to PF2 monster stats. Something official, maybe an online tool, or re-releases of the APs in PDF form with nothing but the stack blocks changed at a discount. Nothing would get me on PF2 faster than some help making the transition.

Thank you for reading my wall-o-text/rant (at 4am!) and any advice you might give.

No, it was not from a different email address. I sent the email from the email address listed on my account. I did not receive a bounce back and there was no reply in my spam folder.

If you want to get technical, here is the email's header information to help you find it:

----
To: <Customer.Service@paizo.com>
Subject: Starfinder Armory Book
Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2018 22:17:27 -0400
Message-ID: <00f201d42f87$3919ce70$ab4d6b50$@sutmail.com>
----

I just forwarded the email I had sent to 'Customer.Service@Paizo.com' again.

Thank you

I sent an email with a picture to Paizo on 8/8/2018 and never received any kind of response back. Can I have an update on a replacement of my messed up copy?

Thank you

As requested to those above, I sent an email with a picture showing duplicate pages (pg.78) in the same book. Like ladydragona described, my book matches every issue in the same order. Some pages appear missing, some out of order, etc.

My book has this problem too...

Considering how much I spend on Paizo subscriptions, I'm disappointed that the playtest I am scheduled to run tomorrow has not arrived yet.

I have the PDFs but was hoping for the flipmats and the ability to pass around a book during character creation with my group.

May I please have a status update on where my order is at? As I don't have any tracking information, customer support is my only path to updates.

Thank you.