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At this point, I'm pretty concerned about monster math and the seemingly baffling inequalities between player statistics and monster statistics. I know we only have First Contact right now to judge, but I'm going to assume the stats are not that far off from the final product in Alien Archive, since both the monsters from First Contact and the Goblin Monark showed off in the CRB are fairly similar. Which...like, I get that its a joke monster, but I think its stats seem somewhat consistent with First Contact at the very least? So I assume they were made with the same set of rules.
So my first point will be that maybe I'm making a mountain out of an ant hill. But I want to bring up concerns regardless. So to start, let's look at the Necrovite and break down its DCs.
Necrovite's highest spell is a DC 24. Let's assume that a given character increases Wisdom by a lot. So they're a Mystic. Let's use a realistic amount of Wisdom for them to have at around...level 13. Which is probably 23 with a Mk.2 personal upgrade in Wisdom (16 start, 18-5th, 19-10th, 23 from personal upgrade). That's a +6, and then a +8 from their good will save. So +14. Then, lets say they throw in Iron Will. +16.
So, assuming all of this, you fail on a 8. Which is...not too far from a coin flip. But without Iron Will it's a 50/50. And that's on a character that is increasing their Will as quickly as they can.
If we take a Soldier, who also has a good Will but less of a reliance on Wisdom, we can assume that our Soldier started with a very humble 10. They increase it both times with both of the stat increases they got, so 14. They didn't put in a Mk. 1 or 2 because they need that for other stats.
Without Iron Will or Spellbane, it's a +10. They fail on a 14.
With Iron Will, it's a +12. Fail on a 12.
With Spellbane, it's a +14. Fail on a 10. Literal coin filp.
How much of the monster stats are assuming PC's pick up these feats?
What does a Technomancer do when they can't choose Spellbane?
I will say, having a comparison to a level 4 PC with 14 Dex and Officer Ceremonial Plate against the Space Pirate Captain attacking in melee and at range. The results are largely a coin flip. I'm going to say coin flip a lot. It comes up.
Now lets look at skills. Opposed rolls are going to come up, but lets use the most obvious CR 20 creature we have. The space goblin monark! It has a +39 Stealth. That's...really high. And because the monster creation rules are probably based on some chart, this is the baseline for a CR 20 monster. Presumably*.
So let's pair this against a level 20 operative who has overspecialised into Perception.
This operative has decided to start with 16 Wisdom, and by level 20, has 22 baseline and a Mk. 3 personal upgrade. So, 28. That's a +9. 32 perception. 38 with Operatives edge. 40 with keen senses because they're playing an elf or something. This operative takes 10, since they also have Skill Focus but it's not contributing anything because Operative's Edge is insight. So they take 10 and have a result of 50, thanks to their freaky elven eyes being hypersensitive to movement. Against a DC of 50, that goblin will succeed against the operative on a 9. Another near coin flip. And that is a character dedicating literally everything to get that check as high as possible.
What happens when a character doesn't overspecialise? They probably fail. No, they definitely fail. Nothing even compares to something the goblin gets just because it's CR 20. How is a PC meant to mathematically compete with these opponents in something that PC has overspecialised in? What on earth is the point of increasing these statistics if you're not overspecialising? What are the PC expectations at a given level to justify these stats? Are there supposed to be more +1's the PC's are meant to acquire that I'm not seeing here?
I don't mean to be flippant, but high level play seems to quickly approach completely dysfunctional past a certain point, and in the complete opposite way it's dysfunctional for Pathfinder. Your characters, even at the peak of their potential, have no chance against an equivalent opponent. This, paired with the astonishing problem with higher level starship combat is not a good sign.
*This is based on stuff before the Alien Archive. Maybe that Goblin Monark is not indicative of the final product. They did warn us about First Contact being possibly inaccurate as well. But with two months out from Alien Archive, I am a bit worried about how PC's stack up to monsters and if the higher level content is straight up too dysfunctional to be enjoyable.
Well what we know about monster creation is that it's based on just applying grafts to a base. It's entirely possible that the goblin in the CRB is just stacked with a load of stuff and crazily overpowered so actual CR 20 monsters might not be like that. It might just be that the system now encourages you to build encounters from multiple lower CR creatures rather than single equal or higher CR creatures. Of course this is just my optimism speaking and the math might just be really broken at high levels but until we see what Alien Archive says we don't have huge amounts of info to work with. Have you compared the math from the monsters in the back of the first AP volume?
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It could also be that CR 20 creatures can't be defeated with a simple sword or gun.
They require other solutions.
It could also be that CR 20 creatures can't be defeated with a simple sword or gun.
They require other solutions.
Is it time to set off the doomsday device...
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It could also be that CR 20 creatures can't be defeated with a simple sword or gun.
They require other solutions.
Except that at level 20 it isn't just a simple sword or gun, it's the very best sword or gun that mortal minds can conceive and craft, the same way in PF you can't really call a +5 keen impact heartseeker training impervious greatsword just a sword.
Except that at level 20 it isn't just a simple sword or gun, it's the very best sword or gun that mortal minds can conceive and craft, the same way in PF you can't really call a +5 keen impact heartseeker training impervious greatsword just a sword.It could also be that CR 20 creatures can't be defeated with a simple sword or gun.
They require other solutions.
Doesn't matter how fancy it is, it's still just a gun. You can add on how ever many additions, spells, pluses, whatever. It's still just a gun. A fancy, expensive gun. But a gun nonetheless.
The point is that you can't defeat them by going head to head in straight up combat.
You have to find some other method.
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It could also be that CR 20 creatures can't be defeated with a simple sword or gun.
They require other solutions.
Actually, given how the math works for accuracy and enemy AC, killing it with fir-I mean, shooting it dead IS the best solution.
But yeah, maybe this IS blatantly OP by monster standards (but lol at the +3 attack with the ranged weapon) for funsies, and frankly I'd be happy if so...
I mostly wouldn't mind some Dev feedback about it to assunge my fears, but I'm not pushing for it either. Particularly not to just quell my anxiety about something I might not ever play...because honestly, most of my games end at the 12th-13th level mark anyway, and high level play has always been speculatory or for fun.
I mostly wouldn't mind some Dev feedback about it to assunge my fears, but I'm not pushing for it either. Particularly not to just quell my anxiety about something I might not ever play...because honestly, most of my games end at the 12th-13th level mark anyway, and high level play has always been speculatory or for fun.
Is this based on actual game play testing, or is it a thought experiment?
I agree. I would love to see the feats section again showing what feats a monster usually has so I can do the math. Also, some of the damage bonuses for the monsters seems off. Do all monsters get weapon specialization at 3HD like a PC does at level 3rd? And if they do, what weapon groups does each monster have weapon specialization with? Also, the monster stats does not included how many HD they have which causes issues with certain spells that affect certain HDs only.
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I agree. I would love to see the feats section again showing what feats a monster usually has so I can do the math. Also, some of the damage bonuses for the monsters seems off. Do all monsters get weapon specialization at 3HD like a PC does at level 3rd? And if they do, what weapon groups does each monster have weapon specialization with? Also, the monster stats does not included how many HD they have which causes issues with certain spells that affect certain HDs only.
Monsters are put together using a variation of the PF Unchained monster creation rules, so their numbers aren't actually based off of stats and come more from a series of grafts and CR standards. Basically the numbers are somewhat independent of feats or stats so it's pretty much impossible to work anything out until we see the final ruleset.
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Keep in mind the monsters you've mentioned here are more or less "solo-encounters" - they're meant to challenge a whole party of characters with levels similar to their CR by themselves. If the DCs were then easy to save from constantly, that wouldn't make challenging fights (I know from experience creating my own NPC's/Monsters).
DCs from Pathfinder monsters weren't too different - the difference there was that you could easily stack on things like Cloak of Resistance, or had immunities, or a paladin, or similar such things.
The design philosophy for monsters so far (and, indeed, for Unchained Monsters) seems to be "Easier to hit, more HP" and "Deal their damage more consistently". Having relatively difficult DCs for difficult enemies makes sense in that regard.
That said, it's something for sure we'll have to check out when the Alien Archive arrives. I agree it shouldn't just be a coin-flip - that's not interesting. But even while specializing, these things are meant to be challenging.
I assume my anti-antipodean bretheren are optimized for spells and the goblin is optimized for stealth. So it seems entirely appropriate to me that it should be a coin flip for an optimized same CR opponent. Coin flip on initiative, coin flip that whoever goes first is successful. It's going to be worse than a coin flip if it puts an unoptimized ability against an optimized same level defense, and it's going to be better than a coin flip if it puts an optimized attack against an unoptimized same level defense.
For spells this is balanced by limitations on save or lose (Hold Monster gives additional saves and you have to move into position to do a CdG, doesn't work on many creatures at all) or maximal effect (I took maximum damage from 5th level Mind Thrust, ok, it's maybe like getting hit by a heavy weapon that beat my AC, not unfair).
I just don't see that problem that in a 4 party level 13 vs. single CR 13 that the CR 13 creature has a really good chance to seriously hurt or hinder one enemy before getting mobbed by the other three. If it survives to take an action.
Now do the Necrovite's saves vs. optimized PC abilities.
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It could also be that CR 20 creatures can't be defeated with a simple sword or gun.
They require other solutions.
This is literally the opposite of what she's pointing out. It's easier to just use a "simple sword or gun" than it is to employ "other solutions". Straight-up combat is the only choice.
Personally, I'm fine with it -- Save DCs have been too poor against saving throws of super-optimized characters for quite some time now. If there's only a +5 or +6 difference between super-optimized and "normal", (as in the case of the OP's Mystic vs. Soldier comparison above) that's still a very respectable range. As a 15th level character with a 26 casting stat and Spell Focus, I've faced off against Outsider-types that, against my highest-level spells, fails saves on a 5 or less. Why even cast it if you have 1 hope in 4 of succeeding? Same thing from an NPC perspective -- not every NPC should need to be built as a specialist to even have a hope of causing harm to the PCs at high levels.
I'm all for more even chances between PCs and monsters facing off and letting the dice fall where they may.
I'll revisit this thought after our first game, but just skimming what I've seen so far, I'm cool with NPC vs. PC being a more near-thing.
Snipped for brevity
Any chance you could do a comparison with the monsters in the first volume of the AP? I'm hesitant to have too much faith in First Contact as they've stated those rules weren't final. Honestly, while I'm fully prepared for the whole thing to be a mess once you get past a certain level, I'm hesitant to be overly negative until we've seen the monster creation rules in full since we don't know if or how they differ from the PF conversion rules and First Contact monsters. It wouldn't surprise me if the PF conversion ends up creating more powerful monsters than those made by the Alien Archive rules but that's just me being optimistic.
Snipped for brevityAny chance you could do a comparison with the monsters in the first volume of the AP? I'm hesitant to have too much faith in First Contact as they've stated those rules weren't final. Honestly, while I'm fully prepared for the whole thing to be a mess once you get past a certain level, I'm hesitant to be overly negative until we've seen the monster creation rules in full since we don't know if or how they differ from the PF conversion rules and First Contact monsters. It wouldn't surprise me if the PF conversion ends up creating more powerful monsters than those made by the Alien Archive rules but that's just me being optimistic.
Honestly, I really feel like this is the right attitude to take. I see the number crunching within a lot of these threads as being pretty disheartening if things really are going to be that difficult, but it's so much easier to sit around and mathcraft problems instead of playing the game and actually seeing what comes up and around. A theoretical problem here may play very differently on the table once characters have literally been built and grow more authentically over the course of a campaign than they are theorized to play before the game has even launched in its entirety.
I think the effective way to go about this problem is to note that, in theory, there exists a problem which may need fixing, but to also understand that these practices aren't yet set in stone, and things may shift as the game is finally released to the public and people start playing it.
If there's a problem, then not only will the community address it, but I believe in Paizo's commitment both to their community and to the game, and it will be fixed. But I'm not sure we need a fix *right now*, when most people haven't even seen the game yet.
I'm not trying to be sarcastic or anything here what examples are there in which this is going to have a big impact on a fight? I might be missing something but I can't see too many examples of when you need to use these DCs in a way that's meaningful to the combat other than identifying creatures.
Now do the Necrovite's saves vs. optimized PC abilities.
Sure.
Assuming it's the same Mystic against the Necrovite, ignoring the undead trait immunities, the Necrovite has a +12 to it's bad saves and a +18 in it's good. This is honestly looking to be a no-contest from the get-go on those will saves, and this is even similar to Pathfinder. DC's are and always will be the hardest thing to increase to compete with enemy saves. This isn't such a big deal either if it's the case. But let's keep going.
So the Mystic we made at 13th level has, using their highest level spell, a DC of roughly 15 (base) + 6 Wisdom + 2 Spell Focus. That's a 23. Short of any debuffs already applied to the Necrovite (good luck with that against an undead creature...), the Necrovite only fails on a 5 if the save is Will, and fails on a 11 if it's either Fortitude (which it is immune to because undead) or Reflex.
So...coin flip. Sorta. This is not an unreasonable build to have in addition to the heavy amount of save bonuses, thanks to a reduced need for feat trees. Our Mystic could have grabbed both Spell Focus and Iron Will with ease. I suppose if the idea was to keep monsters competitive and make sure they have some strengths, this is working as intended. So clearly the math, by this point, hasn't gone haywire.
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I'm not trying to be sarcastic or anything here what examples are there in which this is going to have a big impact on a fight? I might be missing something but I can't see too many examples of when you need to use these DCs in a way that's meaningful to the combat other than identifying creatures.
Stealth? Getting information? It seems pretty important for the game for non-operatives to be able to accomplish tasks.
This actually looks like the same problem 4e D&D ran into with skills. The DCs just weren't functional for the majority of classes. And that got revised multiple times without actually being fixed.
I'm not trying to be sarcastic or anything here what examples are there in which this is going to have a big impact on a fight? I might be missing something but I can't see too many examples of when you need to use these DCs in a way that's meaningful to the combat other than identifying creatures.Stealth? Getting information? It seems pretty important for the game for non-operatives to be able to accomplish tasks.
Isn't stealth just setting the DC for the opponent's perception check though? As far as I can tell perecption bonus doesn't scale with the 1.5*CR rule (though I might not be doing the math right as I'm only quickly doing it in my head.) As for gathering information on monsters, the DC is definitely pretty crazy at higher levels but you can mitigate that by falling back and researching the creature (take 20 and takes 2 minutes if you have access to an infosphere.) Of course that's not a perfect solution but it's still the only situation I can think of where these skill DCs could screw a party over.
I think Starfinder has basically done away with the idea that a CR equal creature is a fair challenge, it's more of an epic challenge now, with multiple lower CR enemies being the only time you can expect to be able to sneak/talk your way past or use skills against. Which kinda sucks because talking the boss down can be pretty interesting.
EDIT: I know the difficulty chart says otherwise, but the DCs follow this idea well.
Isn't stealth just setting the DC for the opponent's perception check though? As far as I can tell perecption bonus doesn't scale with the 1.5*CR rule (though I might not be doing the math right as I'm only quickly doing it in my head.) As for gathering information on monsters, the DC is definitely pretty crazy at higher levels but you can mitigate that by falling back and researching the creature (take 20 and takes 2 minutes if you have access to an infosphere.) Of course that's not a perfect solution but it's still the only situation I can think of where these skill DCs could screw a party over.I'm not trying to be sarcastic or anything here what examples are there in which this is going to have a big impact on a fight? I might be missing something but I can't see too many examples of when you need to use these DCs in a way that's meaningful to the combat other than identifying creatures.Stealth? Getting information? It seems pretty important for the game for non-operatives to be able to accomplish tasks.
Okay I just saw that diplomacy also uses the CR*1.5 rule which is pretty dumb, I'll probably just use the 10+Diplomacy or relevant score for my games, not that it actually fixes the problem but it certainly doesn't make much sense that the checks are so high to me.
Those numbers seem reasonable for a specialist character without using any expendables. Other characters need to gear up to achieve what Operatives can do with relative ease.
Except they don't look reasonable. Having a 50% chance of success on most skills and needing to roll a 19 or higher to succeed at stealth is not reasonable for an overspecialized skill monkey, those are numbers for the average character.
The d20 system works on idea that if you can succeed at a roll of ~10 then it's a CR appropriate challenge, with specialized characters needing to roll less and weaker characters needing to roll higher.
In Starfinder anyone that's not an operative needs a roll of 16+ to succeed at CR appropriate checks, and being overspecialized in that skill barely gets you to needing ~10 on your check.
Decent game design says normal characters (someone whose skill ranks are equal to their level) should have a decent 50% chance at succeeding a check in that skill, and that specialized characters (those who take additional boosts besides ranks and who get decent scores on that skill's ability score) should have a ~75% chance or better of succeeding a check in that skill.
But in Starfinder the average character has a 0-25% chance of success (making skill investment virtually useless), and overspecialized characters have a 50% chance of success, and that's after making sure they get every possible bonus to that skill.
I just want to bring up that literally anyone who was badmouthing the envoy has a bit of bad news. It seems like the envoy provides a quite substantial difference to their ally's success. Since an envoy can simultaneously apply flat-footed (-2 enemy AC), Improved Get 'Em (+2 morale bonus to attack rolls), and attack in the same round, their own attack will probably succeed and so will everybody else.
Basically, if you want to really overwhelm your enemies, you need an Envoy. Maybe with some debuff grenades too.
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I just want to bring up that literally anyone who was badmouthing the envoy has a bit of bad news. It seems like the envoy provides a quite substantial difference to their ally's success. Since an envoy can simultaneously apply flat-footed (-2 enemy AC), Improved Get 'Em (+2 morale bonus to attack rolls), and attack in the same round, their own attack will probably succeed and so will everybody else.
Basically, if you want to really overwhelm your enemies, you need an Envoy. Maybe with some debuff grenades too.
Last I checked, your team needs to have like 5 or 6 attackers each turn before it's more efficient to have an Envoy than another gun, and they're almost never going to be relevant if one of those guns was already an Operative.
Maybe there were some details I missed, but it seems unlikely.
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I just want to bring up that literally anyone who was badmouthing the envoy has a bit of bad news. It seems like the envoy provides a quite substantial difference to their ally's success. Since an envoy can simultaneously apply flat-footed (-2 enemy AC), Improved Get 'Em (+2 morale bonus to attack rolls), and attack in the same round, their own attack will probably succeed and so will everybody else.
Basically, if you want to really overwhelm your enemies, you need an Envoy. Maybe with some debuff grenades too.
Last I checked, your team needs to have like 5 or 6 attackers each turn before it's more efficient to have an Envoy than another gun, and they're almost never going to be relevant if one of those guns was already an Operative.
Maybe there were some details I missed, but it seems unlikely.
If my soldier is debating whether or not to take the full attack penalties, I'll gladly make that choice easier for them than miss twice with my laser pistol.
Snipped for brevityAny chance you could do a comparison with the monsters in the first volume of the AP? I'm hesitant to have too much faith in First Contact as they've stated those rules weren't final. Honestly, while I'm fully prepared for the whole thing to be a mess once you get past a certain level, I'm hesitant to be overly negative until we've seen the monster creation rules in full since we don't know if or how they differ from the PF conversion rules and First Contact monsters. It wouldn't surprise me if the PF conversion ends up creating more powerful monsters than those made by the Alien Archive rules but that's just me being optimistic.
Without going too much into copy/paste territory, the following CR and skills breakdown is present in the AP (found in the Alien Archives in the backmatter; there are more than this -- I just chose one creature of each CR present. Names omitted due to being spoilery since many of the creatures in the back are encountered in the adventure itself from a quick glance):
"ability save DC" means that it has one or more abilities which have saving throws to negate/reduce/whatever, and this is the DC of that saving throw.
CR 1: skills of +5 and +10, saves of +3, ability save DC 10
CR 2: skills of +7 and +12, saves of +3 and +4, ability save DC 11
CR 4: skills of +10 and +15, saves of +3, +6, and +7, ability save DC 13
CR 5: skills of +11 and +16, saves of +6 and +7, ability save DC 13
CR 6: skills of +13 and +18, saves of +7 and +10, does not have any abilities that force saving throws (although it has an ability that needs a DC 30 Acrobatics check to escape)
It seems to follow the general rule of 4 or 9 + 1.5 times CR for skills.
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Last I checked, your team needs to have like 5 or 6 attackers each turn before it's more efficient to have an Envoy than another gun, and they're almost never going to be relevant if one of those guns was already an Operative.
Maybe there were some details I missed, but it seems unlikely.
But the Envoy can attack while handing those bonuses out. He is a gun.
Lets take a 6th level Envoy, with Improved Get 'Em and Clever Attack. Lets say he took Weapon Prof: Long Arms, Weapon Spec: Long Arms, and Weapon Focus: Long Arms
As a move action they can provide +2 to hit, and then as a standard they can attack with a Long Arm weapon and get the benefits of Clever Feint (making the target flat-footed for the turn for allies). So that Envoy has a +4 BAB + 6 Dex + 1 Weapon Focus + 2 Improved Get 'Em +2 effective flat footed = +15 effective to hit.
Long arm at the level is probably 2d8 + 6 damage = 15 average damage. If we assume the enemy is 25 KAC, thats a 55% chance to hit for 8.25 average damage.
The same level operative is down +2 to hit from that: +13 effective to hit.
They're using small arms with a trick attack, so 2d6 + 3d8 + 3 = 23.5 damage, with 45% chance to hit, or 10.575 average damage.
So the +2 to hit buff just needs to make up 2.325 more damage.
Let's take a soldier full attacking at 6th vs 25 AC. With 2d10 + 6 +2 = 19 damage average. 10% more likely to hit times 2 attacks is 19 * 0.1 * 2 = 3.8 damage.
An Envoy and a Soldier at 6th level vs KAC 25 averages more damage than an Operative and a Soldier. And that is without spending an RP, at which point it starts getting sillier (+2 damage per attack). Which at 8th level this build could do after every rest for "free".
Edit: In regards to the DCs, I'll point out high level Solarians can trivially make DC 45 Acrobatics and Athletics checks at level 20 (Gravity boost can provide +12 which is not an insight bonus when attuned). 20 ranks + 3 Class + 7 stat + 3 Skill Focus + 12 Gravity boost = 45. Doesn't even fail on a 1. Thats starting with 14s in Str and Dex and only a +4 personal ability increase, so it can go higher at level 20.
I just want to bring up that literally anyone who was badmouthing the envoy has a bit of bad news. It seems like the envoy provides a quite substantial difference to their ally's success. Since an envoy can simultaneously apply flat-footed (-2 enemy AC), Improved Get 'Em (+2 morale bonus to attack rolls), and attack in the same round, their own attack will probably succeed and so will everybody else.
Basically, if you want to really overwhelm your enemies, you need an Envoy. Maybe with some debuff grenades too.
Last I checked, your team needs to have like 5 or 6 attackers each turn before it's more efficient to have an Envoy than another gun, and they're almost never going to be relevant if one of those guns was already an Operative.
Maybe there were some details I missed, but it seems unlikely.
The detail you missed is everyone missing and hitting on a literal coinflip unless someone like the envoy or operative is there to increase those odds. This thread is here to point that fact out. (The coinflip bit, not the envoy and operative bit)
While the operative does provide a benefit, the envoy provides the most. I don't know what you are basing your assumption on but it definitely isn't what I'm seeing. As it stands, having more, less accurate attackers over a few more accurate attackers probably leans heavier to the more accurate group's favour.
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Here are the free mini-adventures for Starfinder Society, which contain a handful of monster statistics:
http://paizo.com/products/btpy9u7x?Starfinder-Society-Roleplaying-Guild-Que st-Into-the-Unknown
To nobody's surprise, the monster math has changed not one bit from First Contact. At CR 1 and above, monsters still use 4 + 1.5 times their CR for "good" skills and 9 + 1.5 times their CR for "master" skills, and Perception is always a "good" or "master" skill.
I hope nobody wanted to play the sneaky sort...