tivadar27's page

1. I like the change to unify damage around only using dice rather than caster stat. Caster stat gets factored in with the attack/save, and this simplifies things by not having a difference between cantrips/levelled spells.
2. I don't like the move away from stats being more of a choice for classes like cleric (Charisma no longer important). For me, those character choices were interesting ones. I think they could have found a medium ground by giving a base of 3 channels, then having a feat requiring 16 charisma at level 4/6 that would grant more scaling with level.
3. I like the move to have a single "spell proficiency", but I don't think they went far enough. A unified progression for all classes (including martial) to progress to master at 17 (similar to warpriest/magus), and then class features which boosted proficiency for particular classes would have been preferable to me, as right now, gishes are on the outside of all of this and that seems weirdly unnecessary. Yes, this system is "better", but if you're going to change something, you might as well change it all the way IMO, and right now fighter/caster MCs are weaker on the power scale.
4. I like the removal of alignment, but don't feel like I know enough about how sanctification works to say if it's overall simpler.
5. I like the removal of ability scores, and the renaming of spell level to spell rank. Both, to me, make things a lot clearer.

I hope this applies to noncasters too. A straight scaling of caster proficiency across the board would be nice. Wizards and the like could have boosts specifically for arcane spells. Otherwise this feels like an oversight for anyone wanting to make a gish who's not a magus.

ESIT: just saw ezekieru's post. That's really unfortunate. Combining class and spell DC would have been a great simplification and e.g. wizard could have had early access to expert, master and access to legendary for either arcane or all spells via a class feature.

How are people running this? Just looking at it, the Grand Archive mission is literally impossible if any party member has a speed of 25' and you use 16-17 days. That... definitely doesn't feel right. Heck, even the 26 day limit seems pretty close to impossible (there's ~7 days you need to spend just researching out of that...).

I'm leaning towards using the 26 day limit and at least making scrolls/wands available to the party, though not mounts, at the outpost. It definitely *feels* like mounts shouldn't be available, though I think light magical items are a lot more feasible. Then at least if someone shows up with some caster things like phantom steed and the like would be available (or Wanderer's Guide if higher level).

EDIT: This desert scenario feels like such a thirst trap!

So question for everyone, the elemental sorcerer blood magic reads:
"...or a target takes 1 damage per spell level..."

Do you all play this as the intent is to be "an affected creature"? Because if not, then that Blood Magic option works literally only for Elemental Toss, as none of the Granted Spells actually target anyone (minus resist energy, but probably not casting that to *do* fire damage...).

This strikes me as a clear mistake in the rules, but curious what others thought.

EDIT: Given the rules for base blood magic, I'm assuming it's the intended way: "If the spell has an area, you must designate yourself or one target in the area when you cast the spell to be the target of the blood magic effect. All references to spell level refer to the level of the spell you cast."

For the original poster: Flanking does not include a “to whom” consideration. If a foe has to deal with a melee threat from opposite sides, then it gains the Flanked condition. When it has the Flanked condition then its AC is 2 lower than normal. That’s it.

Everyone can then take advantage of that lowered AC for any purpose. There is no “flanked to me but not to him” state.

Forcing the Flanked condition though does require opponents on directly opposite sides that *could* make a melee attack though. So both flankers must have the foe in Reach, be able to act, and be wielding a weapon (or capable of making an unarmed attack).

This is not correct information. Flanking is a relative state based on positioning and an enemy may be flanked by some but not others:

I agree that it works, but have run into GMs who insist you must have a hand free even if making an attack with another body part because "Unarmed Attacks lists the statistics for an unarmed attack with a fist, though you’ll usually use the same statistics for attacks made with any other parts of your body." and Fist is listed as "Hands: 1". There's no dispute with any one-handed ranged weapon, and I think the other reading is obtuse and obviously not what was intended.

Re: whip/flickmace, I wish they'd say you flank if you are capable of attacking and an enemy is in your natural reach. You can use your reach with a reach weapon to determine if you provide flank to others, and for the purposes of attacks made with that weapon only.

I'm not sure what the point of that would be? You can still see the price of the boon after buying it, and it's not like they change the price of any boons (outside of pricing errors). Just compare what you have to the cost of the boon listed above.

You can also see how much ACP you earned by looking through your sessions, as it's reported per session on the very right.

Multiple boons change price, and seeing what you paid for something lets you verify the cost you paid for it. Verification is part of the point, especially when the system is buggy in general.

It's me, I'm "players", but yes, I've got a lot of adventures under my belt and am trying to double-check everything. I realize it still won't be perfect showing the costs, but it'd help to find potential errors on that end.

So I am up to 10 PF2 characters, and I had planned to do a rebuild of one of them later to be able to take eldritch archer at 6 then later rebuild so I'd take it at 8 but have a caster dedication before that. In the meantime, I decided to rebuild another character that I just wasn't feeling happy with.

Anyways, I noticed that the boon cost went up independent of the character I'm buying it for... While it does indicate the increased cost, my assumption had always been that was a per-character cost increase, not an overarching one tied to me as a player... If I'm wrong, that's unfortunate but I'll deal with it, but wanted to check to see if this was the intent before I go and purchase the second.

The wording for the hazards in the jungle trek are a bit confusing:
"if they earn a number of successes equal to than half the number of PCs (rounded up) or fewer, the PCs fail."

First, I assume equal to "than" is extraneous, and it's "equal to half the number of PCs rounded up or fewer". Second... For a party with an odd number (5), this means 4 successes to succeed... that seems rather steep, but could be correct.

Bumping this as I haven't heard anything back on either front yet... The codes still aren't working.

1. Every scenario has a table for the gp value per treasure bundle by level in the back

2. Scroll Down

Fair point on #1, but #2... Well, to start, the link given is currently broken. I'll assume it was valid at the time you posted, as the link to Game Master Basics in the guide is also broken. Either way, the treasure tables for everything besides 7-11 were not present in the guide at the original time of posting.

I repeat my original question. Perhaps the answer is "no", but is it possible to keep the original guide up while the new guide is under development? It seems like there would be a lot of value in that currently.

EDIT: Ohhh, it's back now! :-P

Umm, what's going on? The site says things have moved, but the new site... seems broken in a bunch of ways. Is it impossible to keep the old site up in some form until the new site is actually ready to launch? As it is, I have no way to figure out treasure bundles for scenarios as a GM.

I've also sent an email, but it was suggested I post here as well. I recently received a couple of gift certificate codes from playing at a convention and they aren't redeeming properly (Seeing: "That code not recognized"). The event organizer spoke to Alex and he suggested reaching out to you. Please let me know how to proceed.

"Use the rules for upgrading magic items on page 535 of the Core Rulebook."... Is this incorrect? There don't seem to be rules for that there unless I've missed it.

EDIT: This is from the FAQ for upgrading magical items on the FAQ page.
EDITEDIT: I need to re-download more often... was working from first printing.

I'd give my left arm for a dev to just tell us explicitly how many hands you need free to use Battle Medicine. I was pretty sure I understood how it worked before this errata but now I'm even more confused than launch when you RAW didn't even need a healer's kit...

Yes, but if you gave your left arm, would you still be able to use Battle Medicine?

Would also be nice to have clarifications around flanking/unarmed attacks. Such as can you flank with a bow/does kicking an enemy require a free hand...?

CrystalSeas wrote:

tivadar27 wrote:

So you're saying Battle Medicine is now a reaction rather than an action as it is in the CRB? It seems as if there are differences between the BB and the CRB, and we'll have to see which is correct...

Yeah, that's an unfortunate new conflict that needs staff input.

But what the paragraph does seem to clear up is the issue of "how many hands".

I'm still confused. Don't healers tools require 2 hands per page 288 of the Core Rulebook? How do you have a free hand if the tools require 2 hands to use?

I'm going to suggest we stick to the OPs request to keep rule debates to a minimum. For reference, I'll try to get some of the threads discussion battle medicine (in its newest form) and edit this post with them, but in the meantime, they're reasonably easy to find.

EDIT: Honestly, just look at the discussion here: Battle Medicine in Errata document starts

Any word on the Acid Splash cantrip (maybe I missed it)?

Curious about this as well. I'll dig a bit, as I know that splash rules got changed... But looks like it's not substantial changes. Believe it's still an open question.

The Penecontemporaneous One wrote:

And there is still confusion regarding Battle Medicine as relates to number of hands required to use healer's tools in conjunction with this feat.

There may be RAW confusion, but the Beginner Box Hero's Handbook makes RAI pretty clear. Paizo has been stressing that the BB does not have any rules that are different from the CRB.

Beginner Box Hero's Handbook, pg 24 wrote:

In the Cleric chapter, 2nd-Level Cleric Class Features

Battle Medicine
You know how to quickly heal your allies with Medicine. Write "Battle Medicine" in the Level 2 box in the Class section of your character sheet.

Battle Medicine [reaction]
You can patch up wounds with your healer's tools and a free hand. Attempt a DC 15 Medicine check to heal yourself or an ally for 2d8 Hit Points. If you become an expert in Medicine, you can instead attempt a DC 20 Medicine check to heal for 2d8+10 Hit Points. You can heal a particular person only once each day with Battle Medicine.

So you're saying Battle Medicine is now a reaction rather than an action as it is in the CRB? It seems as if there are differences between the BB and the CRB, and we'll have to see which is correct...

As a note they also fixed Animal Skin to an item bonus as well... with similar wording.

Unicore wrote:

Moving attacks to strikes and away from skills seems to make it where you can trip, or grapple as a third action without suffering MAP since it only applies to attack rolls.

Mark has already stated on a discord that is not true.

The Attack Trait specifically says MAP applies, and all of the maneuvers have the Attack Trait.

Thus creating even more confusion, clearly.

Yep, map applies to the attack roll you make as part of the maneuver... But you don't make an attack roll as part of the maneuver... so, umm, yeah, even more more confusion, I concur.

EDIT: Just found the bit under skills that states you apply map. So guessing it's specific trumps general, but it's still all sorts of confusing.

Quick analysis: 20th level rogue who needs a 10 to hit on their first attack against a flat-footed opponent:
4d6 striking runes +
4d6 sneak attack +
3d6 damage runes +
7 dexterity to damage +
6 greater weapon specialization
---------------------
49.5 Average damage
(0.55 + 0.35 + 0.15) * 49.5 regular damage
(3 * 0.05) * 49.5 added critical damage
---------------------
59.4 average damage over 3 attacks

Eldritch Archer:
4d6 striking runes
4d6 sneak attack weapon
4d6 sneak attack spell
3d6 damage runes
1 strength to damage (assuming strength of 14)
5 charisma to damage (assuming charisma of 20)
6 greater weapon specialization
10d6 spell damage
---------------------
99.5 average damage for 1 eldritch shot
(0.55) * 99.5 regular damage
(0.05) * 99.5 added crit damage
------------------------------
59.75 average damage on an eldritch shot.

So yeah... these are pretty much identical. There's no huge advantage over a melee rogue. Sure, you might do better than an archery rogue, but you're sinking a dedication into this, and you could have also sunk a dedication into actually going archer for potentially similar/better results.

tivadar27 wrote:

@shroudb: I realize this is old-ish, but curious if this leads you to the conclusion that sneak attack works for both the spell and the attack for Eldritch Shot or not?

Requirements of magical trickster: "When you succeed at a spell attack roll against a flat-footed foe’s AC and the spell deals damage".

Eldritch shot: "using your attack roll result to determine the effects of both the Strike and the spell."

I'm unsure here, as you're using your attack roll result to determine the effects, rather than using the attack roll result as your attack roll for both the spell attack and the weapon attack, though maybe they're logical equivalents?

I still stick with my original analysis. Getting sneak attack dice twice on the same attack roll is very strong, and considering that most other double attack feats only apply precision once, the argument that Eldritch Shot should be different is even weaker.

Can you back up the second statement here... Every double attack feat outside of Double slice that I know of can apply sneak attack multiple times. Double slice says it doesn't do it explicitly. Swipe and Quick Reversal, for example, would both apply sneak attack to both targets.

The question here is what the rules state, not whether or not it's strong, unless it's overpowered. What "analysis" are you providing that this falls into that realm? A rogue could, for two actions, attack twice and assuming they hit on both, do as much damage as an eldritch shot for 3 actions. The obvious advantage is not having MAP, but that's also balanced against the fact that this is using 3 actions. You mention having a ranger that does this, but we're looking at Rogue here, and I'm curious how this compares when looking at an actual build... I haven't run those numbers, I don't know if anyone has...

@shroudb: I realize this is old-ish, but curious if this leads you to the conclusion that sneak attack works for both the spell and the attack for Eldritch Shot or not?

Requirements of magical trickster: "When you succeed at a spell attack roll against a flat-footed foe’s AC and the spell deals damage".

Eldritch shot: "using your attack roll result to determine the effects of both the Strike and the spell."

I'm unsure here, as you're using your attack roll result to determine the effects, rather than using the attack roll result as your attack roll for both the spell attack and the weapon attack, though maybe they're logical equivalents?

Just played this and had a general question if I go to run it: How would it be obvious that Cyclops, who don't overly care about/speak modern languages, might include a puzzle that's only solvable by looking at the translation into a modern language... Is there maybe some way to/should people warn the players that this is a bit of a meta-puzzle, in that respect?

I've had a lot of issues with PFS changes, bugs, and announcements of changes, but I actually appreciate this post, which gives a clear indication of the timeframes for these things occurring, and also overlaps periods for people who want to purchase boons they may have been saving for. Thank you for this.

Okay, regarding digitalization, I really don't know where to begin here...
1. The system does *not* work: I'm unable to download boons for characters who have played adventures. It seems to be saving a default character I selected the first time I visited, then not updating when I update the character.
2. And more importantly. Previously, when I finished an adventure, I got a chronicle sheet that said I had a boon and said what it did. Now, when I finish an adventure, I can go online, find the adventure I played by scrolling through multiple pages, select my character, choose "purchase", and assuming it works, I can then click on another link to access a pdf which.... is a chronicle sheet that says I have the boon and what it does. Why?

This has been asked a few times in the context of other boons, but is probably more relevant for chronicle boons as they don't appear anywhere else... but it would be *extremely* helpful to get the full text of a boon prior to purchase rather than a summary. We have to choose how to assign these to characters, presumably, and doing so without knowing what specifically a boon does really doesn't feel good/could lead to purchasing boons you can't actually use on a character. Even some sort of external site with the text of the boons being linked would be fine.

EDIT: I had been operating under the assumption that moving things online would also expand how boons are potentially assigned to characters (e.g. you wouldn't have to assign to the character that played the adventure). It's been pointed out to me that that might not be true, which makes this much less of an issue.... Still, it sucks to get a good boon that you can't use just because you played with a character that can't use it.

My comment was based solely on the proposed language as suggested by JTT. Since he’s the lead for the Guide team, I give his posts a bit more weight than the rest of us. His does not suggest anything to do with overland or exploration mode. If that was his intent, then my objection is much less applicable.

Quote:

With an AC, definitely 2. I am trying to see if we can get an exception in for "purchased mount just to move around battle field." We will see if that happens.

Ahh okay, yes, we misunderstood each other then, sorry about that. I'd agree, having an exception for mounts used for in-combat movement seems inappropriate.

tivadar27 wrote:

I don't think this is really an exception

If the rule is "no player can place more than 2 pawns, except a purchased mount just for moving around battle field," then it is clearly an exception. Again, that creates a hierarchy of value. Whatever reasoning used to justify a mount as an exception to the standard rule could be used to justify other purposes for an additional pawn.

This is not what the rules say/the suggestion. A pawn is a something placed in combat. The suggestion was that creatures used exclusively for overland travel be called out as not-pawns, which they, by definition, are. This just clarifies that if combat breaks out, you're allowed to ignore your mount and assume you've dismounted. Were you referring to a suggestion different from the one directly above your original post?:

Not a fan of exceptions because it places a hierarchy of value. Why do you get a mount that doesn’t count as a pawn, but I don’t get that treatment for my pack animal? It carries some of my gear that I need access to in combat

I don't think this is really an exception. A pawn is something that's placed on the map for combat. This just clarifies that mounts used outside of combat are legal and don't count as pawns, even if combat does spontaneously break out.

EDIT: Though the wording here is highly confusing... "no character can place more than 2 pawns." Characters don't place pawns, players do. Does this count the character, as it's stated above "each PC is typically represented by a pawn"?

pjrogers wrote:

Ally A boon with the Ally trait often places a Pawn. An Ally boon that places a Pawn cannot be used if the PC has already placed a second Pawn this game.

Wait, does this mean that my ranger with an animal companion cannot have a hireling?

It depends on if hirelings will place a token. I don't believe that's been specified yet, but I'm hoping the answer is they don't.

At a higher level, you might want to specify a transition period/state when this goes live. Perhaps this will come out in a blog, but some official policy would also be nice. It's unclear, at least to me, whether this being online implies everyone must immediately switch over (ignoring the fact that how to switch is not obvious for many things), or if there is some period where GMs/players have to update/adapt to the fact that there's been significant rule changes.

A couple of high-level things:
1) Give the Field-Commissioned agents access to some feats that *don't* have to do with Lore, Diplomacy, or Stealth. I'd imagine there are plenty of crafters or Performers that want to do FC, and the list of feats are extremely narrow.
2) Yes, make regional languages non-uncommon. It's pretty ridiculous that my human can speak Elven or Draconic, but not Osirioni for example.
3) For spells, I understand moving away from auto-heightening for the full list, but maybe include a set of solid level 1 spells, and allow only those to be heightened? Magic Missle, Heal, Soothe, and Summon Animal are 4 that probably give enough versatility if nothing else works.

So we're a year+ into second edition, and had printing with a bunch of regular archetypes as well as a couple new classes already added and a couple on the way. When the CRB originally came out, I saw the 2 or so sentences on class archetypes and though "oh that'll be a good way to add some additional customization".

However, at this point, Paizo's shown that even things like Swashbuckler and Magus, which could have very easily been class archetypes (for Fighter and Wizard respectively most likely), are going to be put into their own classes. At this point, adding class archetypes likely introduces a lot of additional complexity without really providing much additional potential for customization that isn't gained by adding additional archetypes and base classes as necessary.

...

To point one: No, there's no reason not to announce before releasing. I don't care what's going on behind the scenes. End of argument here. If you disagree, then I, personally, don't want to participate/be involved in any product you release.

To point two: You contradict yourself here. You state both that everyone had the same knowledge, and that you both noticed the lack of fame in season 2 scenarios which only GMs who have run season 2 might notice (I personally haven't played any yet), and you mention the late nights put in getting this system ready... perhaps that's rhetorical?

To point three: Wrong, as I said, multiple venues, both local and remote, as well as conventions. This, at a minimum, requires me (or someone) to sift through 70 tables of data, and then reach out to contact... I believe at least 4 or 5 people individually. It's not "easy".

Yeah, I'm not against this change at a conceptual level, but... Three points:

Announcing a change prior to implementing it, and implementing it prior to releasing it would seem to be the way to go. This was just done in an extremely blundering manner, and there's literally no good reason for that, and it unfortunately speaks, for me, to Paizo's competence on a whole on implementing things like this. The exact same thing happened with ACP, and apparently no lessons were learned. Can someone at Paizo address this? Issue some sort of statement as to their approach on these issues?

Beyond this, if there's any plan to grandfather in boons, I *highly* suggest some overlap between this announcement and people's ability to earn these boons. There were obviously people outside of Paizo more aware that *something* was happening here, and they've had at least some time to plan/come to grips with this, and... that is also pretty terrible. Not to mention people who were saving/building for something that now can no longer purchase it, but if they had just 2 more Fame could have had it grandfathered.

Finally, what's to be done about the plethora of incorrect reporting out there. For the record, I have 70 tables under my belt. I've ensured my chronicles are correct on all of those. However, basically each character I have with multiple factions are reported incorrectly. Namely two characters:
* One should have a 30/22 split, and has a 47/4 split.
* One should have a 31/59 split, and has a 53/33 split.
Like, these aren't even *close* to correct. You're giving me two options here, try to spend hours trying to reach out to lots of GMs across multiple venues/conventions to get this fixed... or lie and just say I have boons I don't "qualify" for. Let's be honest here, I'm doing the second, because this mistake isn't on me, it's on Paizo. Was there *any* effort to gauge the accuracy of chronicles relative to online reporting prior to releasing this? I have trouble believing I'm an anomaly in this regard, though it is possible.

I think people try to do the wrong (suboptimal) things with warpriest/the subclass is misnamed. If "Battle Medic" wasn't already taken, I think that would be a better name. Particularly after the release of APG, I see a lot of the upside to warpriest, given their easy access to both Sentinel and Bastion (and to a lesser extent Marshal and Medic). This allows them to move up and defend their allies while healing/buffing them. While it *sounds* appealing, and despite the name, I think a warpriest is at their best when they're *not* making attacks.

You typically take your primary stat as far as you can get it, though I'll admit, after getting it to 20 @10, if other things are more valuable, they'll probably give you more mileage. There are classes where their primary ability isn't their class ability (as was mentioned above), and for those, starting at a 16 and going to 20 @15 makes sense.

So yes, always 20, though 22 is probably not necessary unless you plan on actually adventuring at level 20 a lot.

EDIT: Your second ability boost comes 4 levels after your first, and I kinda wish they kept this pacing and did 1, 5, 9, 13, 17 for boosts, so you actually got to play with your final ability boost a bit.

This is basically the flip side of the same question as "can I use a metamagic fear to set up for next turn?"

You can find some of that argument here:

https://paizo.com/threads/rzs42rj7?Does-Metamagic-cleric-feat-Reach-Spell-h ave#1

Or here

https://paizo.com/threads/rzs434z2?Can-you-use-metamagic-to-prep-a-spell-ne xt-turn#1

There isn't a universal consensus. Discuss with your GM in advance.

If I recall correctly, you can find similar arguments about Grab.

Thanks, right, I thought I had remembered seeing this debated before but all I could come up with was splitting a spell across turns. I think it was the metamagic discussion. Thanks for the links!

EDIT: Note that the first argument focuses somewhat on the "directly after" wording in metamagic, which doesn't appear for Flensing Slice.

I wasn't able to find this anywhere else, but the requirements for Flensing Slice are: "Requirements Your last action was a Double Slice, and both attacks hit the target." Can you Double Slice on one turn, end your turn, and assuming you don't take any sort of reaction/free action, then Flensing Slice at the start of your next turn?

That's kinda fun :). I don't think it's earth shattering because, as someone pointed out, it's pretty easy to get a free attack from a reaction with Marshal, and that's probably the better route to go anyways. Sure, that one's at a net -2, but doesn't force your ally to waste their last action firing at you... and doesn't run the risk of a Nat 20 (or a 19 for that matter...).

Oh good. I see we now have a third thread discussing the same issue. I'm sure this will be the one that solves it!

Sarcasm aside, Twilight Knight was correct: Unless/until Paizo acts, PFS table variation is here to stay. Which is a damn shame, but such is life.

Pathfinder 2.5, anyone? ;-)

Yeah... this wasn't intended to be that, but people can't seem to stay on topic in a thread, so oh well. Really was just looking to consider the suggestion of making Healer's Tools 1-handed to begin with. This goes beyond Battle Medicine, though it would obviously have implications for it.

I really don't think that's a sound assumption. Especially since while there is a standard time frame for PFS sessions, there is no standard for the length of home game sessions in general.

In short... "yes there is". I'm not saying every game runs this long, but 2-4 hours is pretty typical session length for *any* tabletop rpg game I've played. You're mileage may vary, sure, but that doesn't mean there's not a length of time that's far more typical than others. I think this largely evolves because of expected reasonable attention span/interest in a single activity, along with scheduling concerns when things start to go much longer than that (particularly around weeknight after work gaming sessions...).

EDIT: Looking at online suggestions/quorums, it seems like 3-6 hours is a bit more typical, so I might have been on the shorter end of things. Here's an interesting survey on what an ideal session is: preferred session length

PFS scenarios are kind of their own thing, if we're looking for encounter/day expectations. Their length is constrained by real world hours, not by adventuring party endurance.

... I disagree in some ways here. Yeah, these are limited by real-world time, but I also feel like PF2 was designed around feasible real-world time blocks. Assuming PCs can "wrap up" a concrete set of things and have a night's sleep before the next in-person session, even outside of PFS play, is extremely desirable. Half the times as a player by the time we meet for another session, I've forgotten if I've used a particular spell/lost a record of who's been Battle Medicined/... As a GM, this pretty much happens to at least one of my players always. Making an adventurer's day the same length as a player's block of gaming makes a lot of design sense, and I get the impression that's what Paizo was aiming at with PF2. Pacing really does matter.

AP pacing is sometimes hard to analyze, because they're generally designed to allow PCs to stop almost as often as they want.

That said, based on the seeming plot beats, Age of Ashes seems to assume 4 or 5 encounters a day or so.

Curious as to how you're getting this number. There's some anomalous areas, but... yeah, it seems like "areas" we've been in have assumed 3ish, sometimes 4. I don't recall, outside of early first book, ever really doing 5. On the other end of things, there was the hexploration, where the number was pretty much 1-2 every day... though those were more challenging for balance reasons.

Agreed, though, that being able to break whenever makes this harder to measure. Still, this goes back to a discussion of "using your spells". I think it's safe to say using 1 of your highest or second highest spells per combat (minimum 5) is perfectly reasonable, and if you're playing on the lower end of encounters per day, then the rule of one spell per level generally is a good one (particularly for sorcerers and wizards...).

Mathmuse wrote:

We have seen only 2 Adventure Paths, one stand-alone module, a free RPG Day module, and a few PFS society scenarios written for Pathfinder 2nd Edition. The description of the APs I have seen in the forums is that their combat is harsh. I bought Fall of Plaguestone and see a lot of Severe-threat combat encounters. My guess about content written for PF2 is that the players have to limit themselves to two or three encounters a day because those encounters are brutal.

Fall of Plaguestone is not representative. I believe even the designers have admitted that it's overtuned and more difficult than modules are usually intended to be.

That's certainly true in comparison to the other published PF2 content thus far.

Agreed, but it doesn't change the fact that for everything we've seen so far (actually, 25 scenarios is more than "a few"), the expectation is 2-3 combats per day...

tivadar27 wrote:

...3. Don't use lower-level slots for damage spells. Remember to swap them out/memorize different things as you level up. Debuffs and buffs typically perform well at lower levels later in the game, but damage spells need to be higher level to do reasonably (outperform cantrips).

...

So for point 3 is the suggestion that if a sorcerer picks a damage spell then when they gain their next level of spells they should either make it signature (which doesn’t sound worth it by your logic) or retrain it and if they want to keep it learn the higher level version?

Which I suppose leads to a question on sorcerers about when it may be worth learning a higher level version of a lower level spell as opposed to just a higher level spell....

Actually no, Let's look at 9th level or so? Damage spells of 4th and 5th level are probably good, those of 3rd are mediocre at best, and anything lower (1-2) is bad IMO. That being said, having damage types around is important, so while Signature Spell Shocking Grasp might not be good unless you cast it 4th or 5th level, that doesn't make it not worth taking as a signature spell, it just means you want other things to cast at 1st level in your repertoire that are good.

I think the best way to look at it is what are the other non-damage spells that are not heightenable that you *definitely* want, make sure you take those, and then select spells that can do different energy damage types as your Signature Spells at various levels, possibly some which are AoE, some not, and possibly targetting different saves/AC. That gives you a lot of versatility.

EDIT: My sorcerer (primal) took as signatures Heal, Shocking Grasp (at 2nd), Fireball (does bludgeoning), and now Searing Light (at 4th). They've also taken flaming sphere, first at 2nd, then swapped to 3rd (not yet 4th). Beyond this, they have cantrips for damage. Right now their gotos outside of damage are 1st: Feather Fall, Endure elements (a bit situational), 2nd: Restoration, Faerie Fire, 3rd: Slow, Earthbind, 4th: Freedom of Movement and Air Walk. First level is a bit tough, but Primal kinda hurts that way I think, but outside of that, they have a good range of things they can cast for most situations.

My players once finished a 14-room dungeon in an AP module nonstop. 11 of those rooms had threats at moderate or severe level. I suspect that the module writer expected the party to clear the dungeon over 2 separate days. The party's official reasoning was that they did not want to give the enemies time to get organized and put up a resistance together. The player's reasoning was that they wanted an difficult challenge. The party did have the advantage of coming in fully rested with 4 PCs and 4 NPCs.

Even across 2 days, that would have been 5 or 6 significant combat encounters per day.

** spoiler omitted **

You're quoting a first edition module, which I'll omit due to spoilers.... We're talking second edition here. This doesn't remotely apply. In first edition, a single spell of any level could oftentimes end a fight, that's not true in second edition.