Corwin Icewolf, absolutely no offense to your preferred play style, but I can't even imagine a game where a solo character can be built with the basic rules and do everything they need to survive as an adventurer, and still have a game that presents a fun challenge for a group of players building characters by those same rules. The solo hero feels a lot more like the prevue of a video game than a collaborative role playing game.
Dual-class, and play at level+2 (so start, say, AoA at level 3 with the Dual-class option), or single class at +3, though you're more likely to hit a challenge you can't overcome that way. On the other hand, forcing yourself to use every option available to you to get any kind of edge might push you out of your comfort zone and be worthwhile in and of itself. Give XP as if you were at level, so a moderate encounter for a level 1 is still a moderate encounter for level 4 solo, and gets XP appropriately. You'll also have to take the magic market option or just do Automatic bonus progression (what I would up doing).
I ran the playtest classes through the +3 option as a way to quickly identify weaknesses and see how things affected both sides of the screen. My primal witch with alchemy training rolled through AoA1 with only a few difficulties (mostly just the first encounter actually), while my investigator died screaming in Plaguestone. I haven't tested the dual class option yet, but I might if we have another playtest this year.
There's actually a fair bit of advice out there, and some scenarios available that are properly balanced with soloing in mind. Here's one made by one of the PF2 developers The Duskwalker's Due.
Corwin Icewolf, absolutely no offense to your preferred play style, but I can't even imagine a game where a solo character can be built with the basic rules and do everything they need to survive as an adventurer, and still have a game that presents a fun challenge for a group of players building characters by those same rules. The solo hero feels a lot more like the prevue of a video game than a collaborative role playing game.Dual-class, and play at level+2 (so start, say, AoA at level 3 with the Dual-class option), or single class at +3, though you're more likely to hit a challenge you can't overcome that way. On the other hand, forcing yourself to use every option available to you to get any kind of edge might push you out of your comfort zone and be worthwhile in and of itself. Give XP as if you were at level, so a moderate encounter for a level 1 is still a moderate encounter for level 4 solo, and gets XP appropriately. You'll also have to take the magic market option or just do Automatic bonus progression (what I would up doing).
I ran the playtest classes through the +3 option as a way to quickly identify weaknesses and see how things affected both sides of the screen. My primal witch with alchemy training rolled through AoA1 with only a few difficulties (mostly just the first encounter actually), while my investigator died screaming in Plaguestone. I haven't tested the dual class option yet, but I might if we have another playtest this year.
There's actually a fair bit of advice out there, and some scenarios available that are properly balanced with soloing in mind. Here's one made that one of the PF2 developers The Duskwalker's Due.
I will have to check that out. This seems a little different than expecting the core game to be built so that anyone can build a character for solo play or group play by exactly the same set of rules.
I like feeling powerful and independent.
I think this statement hits on another of my early feelings about the game; it feels like it's built intentionally towards teamwork or the tighter numbers system naturally encourages/demands more teamwork. Is this true? I'm not judging this as good or bad, I'm just wondering (I actually might prefer this in a way, not sure). If it is the case, then having a PC that feels more powerful and independent will depend more on the campaign design than the pure PC design.
It is absolutely the case that PF 2 is designed for team play over independance. If you're idea of being heroic is being independant, then it's going to be a struggle to make that work.
That said, there are options.
First, higher levels bring resources and options that help here. While the math remains kind of static, your ability to influence the game world does not.
Second, certain classes support this better than others. Fighters especially work well as a centerpoint around which a group can function. Champions also can function somewhat independantly, as they bring all their mitigation and healing inside their own kit. A Champion with a Speed season can easily choose to hold a flank against a comparable enemy and win on his own.
But in general, it's worth keeping in mind that being independent is never optimal. Team play will always win out in PF2.
Champions are never independent, they get nearly all their power from a deity. Barbarians seem to get all their power from... Something outside themselves. I'm not sure what's enforcing barbarian anathema, but the rage doesn't come from you apparently, unless you go fury instinct, which is widely considered the worst. I feel like it really is impossible this edition.
Even fighters need their magic weapons. Though if you craft them yourself, it still counts, I guess. Monks kind of have the same issue.
Kineticist was always a...
That sort of independence isn't really supported, no. You'd need to change things in the game to accomplish that - its not really inside the typical range of character or design priorities.
Theres no real need to support the character-who-relies-on-literally-nothing-but-themself by default, especially when a common theme of sci-fi and fantasy is demonstrating that lone wolfs are stronger with friends and allies...
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When I think of heroic, I think of allies in peril, lives on the line, fighting through doom close to death, choosing to fight to the end instead of leaving a man behind. Those kind of nail-biters where there is resolve, or regroup rally, a clutch tide-turner, facing death and overcoming - that feels heroic to me.
Moving into next dungeon room and winning an encounter outright with a single CC spell, or downing the boss with a full attack or two, or winning by BBEG failing a 40-60% chance save or suck... I don’t see how that feels heroic, y’know?
This is not necessarily an "I agree" or "I disagree" comment, but I'm reminded of how Dungeon Defenders 2 was balanced at one point. It was balanced because "nail biter last minute clinch wins" was something that the developers thought players wanted.
Sure, those sorts of wins are exciting and are talked about because--hoo boy we thought were were done for!
But the problem is one of frequency.
Those kinds of fights, the ones where its down to the wire, choosing to fight to the end, barely winning. Those are boss fights. Those are the encounters that stress the PCs and push them to their limit, making the players bite their nails, having one person in the corner going, "oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit" and another saying, "I think I got this" and pulling the bacon out of the fire. Or they don't and someone else does.
You make ever fight that fight and people burn out. The perspective changes and now its not about being pushed to the breaking point in a last stand, its a series of laughably incompetent idiots just trying to survive for ten minutes. Constantly threatened with failure or death every couple of minutes, at every turn, and the characters start to lose competency.
You no longer have those big nail biting moments because your expectations of the characters are so low, that you actually expect them to die horribly. Your reward for surviving is just a delay of the inevitable.
That's not a heroic theme, that's tragedy.
I will have to check that out. This seems a little different than expecting the core game to be built so that anyone can build a character for solo play or group play by exactly the same set of rules.Dual-class, and play at level+2 (so start, say, AoA at level 3 with the Dual-class option), or single class at +3, though you're more likely to hit a challenge you can't overcome that way. On the other hand, forcing yourself to use every option available to you to get any kind of edge might push you out of your comfort zone and be worthwhile in and of itself. Give XP as if you were at level, so a moderate encounter for a level 1 is still a moderate encounter for level 4 solo, and gets XP appropriately. You'll also have to take the magic market option or just do Automatic bonus progression (what I would up doing).
I ran the playtest classes through the +3 option as a way to quickly identify weaknesses and see how things affected both sides of the screen. My primal witch with alchemy training rolled through AoA1 with only a few difficulties (mostly just the first encounter actually), while my investigator died screaming in Plaguestone. I haven't tested the dual class option yet, but I might if we have another playtest this year.
There's actually a fair bit of advice out there, and some scenarios available that are properly balanced with soloing in mind. Here's one made that one of the PF2 developers The Duskwalker's Due.
The proficiency system does a lot of the work for that. In a game where every +1 is valuable, getting a +3 or +2 off the bat smooths an awful lot of the difficulties for every character.
I'll also point out that this actually is part of the core rules + GMG.
Building Encounters is where I arrived at the +3 as a balance point, since encounters at your level -3 are naturally at 1/4 the encounter budget for your level, so the math has been done for you, while both Dual class and Automatic Bonus Progression are GMG variants. You're going to hit some rough spots even still, which is always a risk when you combine multiple variants not necessarily designed to work together into the same game, but all are ultimately in material from Paizo.
When I think of heroic, I think of allies in peril, lives on the line, fighting through doom close to death, choosing to fight to the end instead of leaving a man behind. Those kind of nail-biters where there is resolve, or regroup rally, a clutch tide-turner, facing death and overcoming - that feels heroic to me.
Moving into next dungeon room and winning an encounter outright with a single CC spell, or downing the boss with a full attack or two, or winning by BBEG failing a 40-60% chance save or suck... I don’t see how that feels heroic, y’know?
This is not necessarily an "I agree" or "I disagree" comment, but I'm reminded of how Dungeon Defenders 2 was balanced at one point. It was balanced because "nail biter last minute clinch wins" was something that the developers thought players wanted.
Sure, those sorts of wins are exciting and are talked about because--hoo boy we thought were were done for!
But the problem is one of frequency.
Those kinds of fights, the ones where its down to the wire, choosing to fight to the end, barely winning. Those are boss fights. Those are the encounters that stress the PCs and push them to their limit, making the players bite their nails, having one person in the corner going, "oh s!*+ oh s~+& oh s&$* oh s#!%" and another saying, "I think I got this" and pulling the bacon out of the fire. Or they don't and someone else does.
You make ever fight that fight and people burn out. The perspective changes and now its not about being pushed to the breaking point in a last stand, its a series of laughably incompetent idiots just trying to survive for ten minutes. Constantly threatened with failure or death every couple of minutes, at every turn, and the characters start to lose competency.
You no longer have those big nail biting moments because your expectations of the characters are so low, that you actually expect them to die horribly. Your reward for surviving is just a delay of the inevitable....
The "ideal" you've presented been a pretty good summation of the notably hard encounters I've encountered in Age of Ashes and early Extinction Curse. The majority of encounters range between routine and easy to solidly manageable, with a few notable bosses skewing toward desperate and scary.
After a certain point in Age of Ashes though, it ceased to be the final bosses that were an issue - as early as the second book, access to low risk scouting via Invisibity Circle and Clairvoyance meant that any fight that could be scouted ahead was predictable, and well managed. Prying Eye and a Legendary Stealth character eventually made this strat The scary ones were rhe ones that featured strong foes, with the element of surprise.
Examples of encounters that proved more difficult than expected -
The Greater Bhargest
The Vrock
A Hazard Featuring Phantasmal Killer
A Shadow Giant in LOS of many friends
Some Sea Serpents from the party bizarrely unprepared for water-combat
Some copies of a legendary spawn of Rovagug
Giant Viper
The Church
Other than these though, most encounters have been pretty well managed. Not to say they were all easy, but they didn't elicit feelings of panic or unclarity like, "What are we going to do?" Many are open enough that I've had players do things like challenge the main foe in a group to single combat and get away with it.
Just wanted to add another thought - do people really find dominating encounters, crushing enemies with OP abilities, winning outright on a mobs failed save, etc to be heroic?
When I think of heroic, I think of allies in peril, lives on the line, fighting through doom close to death, choosing to fight to the end instead of leaving a man behind. Those kind of nail-biters where there is resolve, or regroup rally, a clutch tide-turner, facing death and overcoming - that feels heroic to me.
Moving into next dungeon room and winning an encounter outright with a single CC spell, or downing the boss with a full attack or two, or winning by BBEG failing a 40-60% chance save or suck... I don’t see how that feels heroic, y’know?
To be heroic in RPG games you need to be doing something effective in a mechanically measurable way that has a dramatic effect on the outcome of the primary conflict in a given scenario, most often that is combat.
Meaning if you build a character to do damage, then they should be doing enough damage to feel like they added substantially to killing the monster.
If you are a healer, you should feel like your healing was essential to victory.
If you are a defensive type, you should feel your defensive abilities were essential to victory.
This is in general how you measure heroics in an RPG with the usual caveat of personal views may vary.
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When I think of heroic, I think of allies in peril, lives on the line, fighting through doom close to death, choosing to fight to the end instead of leaving a man behind. Those kind of nail-biters where there is resolve, or regroup rally, a clutch tide-turner, facing death and overcoming - that feels heroic to me.
Moving into next dungeon room and winning an encounter outright with a single CC spell, or downing the boss with a full attack or two, or winning by BBEG failing a 40-60% chance save or suck... I don’t see how that feels heroic, y’know?
This is not necessarily an "I agree" or "I disagree" comment, but I'm reminded of how Dungeon Defenders 2 was balanced at one point. It was balanced because "nail biter last minute clinch wins" was something that the developers thought players wanted.
Sure, those sorts of wins are exciting and are talked about because--hoo boy we thought were were done for!
But the problem is one of frequency.
Those kinds of fights, the ones where its down to the wire, choosing to fight to the end, barely winning. Those are boss fights. Those are the encounters that stress the PCs and push them to their limit, making the players bite their nails, having one person in the corner going, "oh s!@@ oh s#$~ oh s%+* oh s&#&" and another saying, "I think I got this" and pulling the bacon out of the fire. Or they don't and someone else does.
You make ever fight that fight and people burn out. The perspective changes and now its not about being pushed to the breaking point in a last stand, its a series of laughably incompetent idiots just trying to survive for ten minutes. Constantly threatened with failure or death every couple of minutes, at every turn, and the characters start to lose competency.
You no longer have those big nail biting moments because your expectations of the characters are so low, that you actually expect them to die horribly. Your reward for surviving is just a delay of the inevitable....
In my PFS2 and Fall of Plaguestone experience, the key is tactics.
Most fights are challenging but still forgiving of a few tactical mistakes.
Some are pretty easy and can be won even though you make several mistakes.
And finally boss fights are really demanding. You should not think you will easily survive making more than one or two mistakes in those.
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Yes. This. Psychologically, it's a different experience. Don't get me wrong, I'll still feel awesome that my action lead to a cool result but it is a different awesome than the fighter awesome.
Thanks for highlighting that, it definitely puts into words a chunk of what wasn't sitting right with me.
There's another part that aligns with this in terms of how things feel emotionally.
Buffing and debuffing are supposed to be major roles for casters now.
We all know in our heads that with the tight maths of PF2, that a +1 or a -1 is a big deal.
However in my heart I can't ever imagine myself thinking "Wow I'm looking for to next week's game night so much. Giving my buddies +1 to hit last time was epic!"
However in my heart I can't ever imagine myself thinking "Wow I'm looking for to next week's game night so much. Giving my buddies +1 to hit last time was epic!"
For a bard, its probably fine (because you know that that's why you're there, plus you get to do other stuff too). For a class like a wizard, its much more difficult to justify being excited about.
Its also not terribly heroic when you make the BBEG curl up on the floor (Prone) crying (Frightened) and puking his guts (Sickened) out while the champion kicks him in the ribs.
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I think its important to note that wild a Solo Character should not be better than the party together. They should be able to do their core ability well.
This is an example from my PF1 campaign. We have a Monk who is extremely hard to hit and has survived ~40 continuous rounds vs multiple enemies. Meanwhile, the Fighter/Wizard has managed to survive by luck and tactics for the same amount of rounds.
Those are the types of Characters I think of when I think "Heroic". When they are together there is few things that can stop them. But just because they are seperated, does not mean they suddenly are bound to die.
Your Monk is obviously completely overpowered. He's able to survive 40 continuous rounds because he faces enemies that are just way too weak to hurt him. In PF2, it would be the equivalent of having 4 extra levels.
It's the case I was speaking about: PF1 gave you the illusion of difficulty, but there was not. And you are recreating it: by increasing the efficiency of the buffs, you are obviously buffing your whole party. But instead of doing it officially, by giving them a few extra levels, you lie by giving them indirect buff. So, at the end, they think they are heroic when the dice are heavily loaded.
Heroism is just a matter of Perception.
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P.S. The combat lasted that long because the monk went of alone. He can't easily kill the creatures, but they can't easily kill him. PF2 doesn't allow that much. A creature that is 4 levels below is easy to kill via critical hits and much lower HP.
I agree on that point. I think the developer have been rather conservative with the Extreme and Low values on monsters. Oozes excepted, there are not many monsters with some extremely low values allowing the players to play on them, like a monster which is extremely bad at hitting but otherwise a perfectly legitimate enemy, or a monster with atrocious Will Saves.
I hope the next bestiaries will go on this direction. I find that a bit annoying that 75% of the monsters have Monster Guidelines High AC. Like if all monsters have to be hit with the same result on the die...
People who want to play a solo character... that doesn't work well for tabletop RPGs; it is why there are so many "how to share the spotlight in combat" and "such and such overpowered character is dominating how do I let other players feel valuable" threads/posts for pf1e and similar.
It doesn't matter the system, the more powerful a character is solo, the more powerful it is as a part of a team.
Examples of heroic actions from my group
- cast fly on the rogue letting them get up and disable hazards that were otherwise out of reach/dangerous
- used their champions reaction to proctect a barbarian from going down to a melee strike the round after being crit with a breath attack (which would have resulted in them losing rage). Hitting with their strike and triggering the rogue's opportunistic backstab.
- cast earthbind and crit the target who was then unablr to fly for another minute and forced him into capture.
- elemental motion to escape a collapsing building.
- many clutch uses of heal two actions and lay on hands
- Dispel magic uses
- fireball catching 5 enemies
- dinosaur form to break through a clay wall (end of book 2 AoA) where the barbarian had struggled/failed.
- freedom of movement to force successes on escape attempts for a npc.
- crit grappled a npc and had them restrained
- faerie fire on an invisible foe being the determining factor allowing two crits to get through.
- terrain stalker underbrush making all the difference in safely scoping out a target location, multiple times so far
- barbarian with all of the jump feats using them in multiple scenarios that have allowed them to do things no other character could and be incredibly helpful/heroic.
- The alchemist providing movement speed buffs, locking foes in place with tanglefoot bags, stacking persistent damage and being a source of knowledge.
Couple that with big rolls, crits and general in play heroic roleplay where the group took risky actions that paid off in big ways.
I cannot agree that it is inherrently "unheroic", teamplay is expected, but the teamplay feels heroic as you know it is because your actions are why it was possible.
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I really think that the best thing you can do as a spellcaster is have the best Arcana, Nature, Religion and Society checks you can. Note that the spellcaster doesn’t need all of these themself, but these are excellent skills for the party to prioritize. First round of combat everyone likes to rush in and get big damage, but the spellcaster loves some recall knowledge checks to identify the weak points in the enemy defenses. And the party would also benefit from staying back and taking defensive actions as well, but that's a different discussion.....
Every enemy has some weakness, whether it's AC, Fort Ref or Will. If you know it, you can exploit it.
As a GM I constantly watch spellcasters slinging spells vs a monster's better saves and getting mediocre results, and I just can’t take the “wizards aren’t impressive” arguments seriously when I know that my save roll +their weak save would have resulted in a much better result had the caster opted to choose a spell that targets the weak save.
That's my 2 cents at any rate.
Depends on framing. Mechanically you've just described ** spoiler omitted **
You mean the first time?
Or the second time when it took a whole extra movie?
Either really, both make the point. The modern popular conception of hero involves working with others and pulling out all the stops to save the day.
The first one is so hard the antithesis of "heroic" that even the characters themselves question their actions over those events.
The second one is a lot less 'that' than you imply. Oh, and also involved a heroic sacrifice of a sort that most PCs can't actually do.
...And the prone, sickened, and frightened conditions?
My cleric of Sareneae blew up quite a few baddies on one blast in AoA, ended an encounter with Wall of Fire, and regularly heals people 70ish damage. Just hit level 11, so Righteous Might just became a thing. Fairly heroic!