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It's a major step forward in game design. I hope that comes across loud and clear in your August play test and you keep it.
Bloodrealm has the right idea. Basically your character might have an ability that allows you to capitalize on an enemy's critical failure in some way. You might also have an ability that gives partial effects on a failure (or when the enemy succeeds a save) and no effects at all on a critical failure (or an enemy critical success), in which case you also do care about failure vs critical failure but not because something laughable and bad happens to you.This is true, and it's why there is normally no worse effect of critically failing with your weapon attack roll; you just miss, same as failing. It's not just attack rolls: when it didn't make sense or caused problems, there isn't always a separate critical failure effect (and not everything has a separate critical success effect if a success already gets you what you want from the action).While it's funny when the random bugbear fumbles, it's incredibly frustrating for a highly skilled fighter to drop his weapon every third combat.
To clarify, are there monsters wherein missing their AC by 10 or more will cause a 'fumble' event to occur. Can we get an example of the fumble effect, and how it would effect you when swinging a sword, shooting an arrow, and casting a spell with an attack roll?
I really like this idea and am looking forward to using this both as a GM and a player.
I figure the solution to "we dislike bad things happening when the PCs roll poorly" is basically "don't run a lot of baddies with abilities that trigger in response to critical failures".
Like the example given previously was something like a PC might get to riposte as a reaction if they are missed by 10+. Which is probably a better riposte mechanic we had in PF1, but nobody's saying to put the PCs against a bunch of riposting baddies.
Will the riposte work against a ray of disintegration or is this only a rule to punish the fighter and rogue?
How people actually have experience playing and running games with fumble rules? It was either a comedy of errors or a nightmare as the fighter repeatedly failed at the one thing the player tried to be good at.
You're essentially kicking people who are already down, rubbing salt in the wound. Meting out an extra awful punishment for a bad die roll is the poster child of bad game design, this is basic psychology.
Give team monster something cool to do on their turn, having all these one off special reaction and fumble rules is going only slow down play immensely as people interrupt each other and do math out loud and try to shoehorn in every possible reaction ability they may have.
Characters can make decisions to try and protect themselves from a special ability like a breath weapon or gaze attack, but there's nothing that be done about a bad die roll besides playing a sorcerer, which so far appears to be the best character class.
I mean, the Riposte mechanic already exists- it's "Upsetting Strike" and it's "Miss by 5" and it works against spells.
Giving the "miss by x" a name that can be referred to means we can print "Upsetting Strike" with fewer words.
I pretty much like all of these things.
Jury is still out on the spell scaling thing, but I like the idea of it, so it's really just a matter of how it's balanced for me. Also, depending on how hard it is to cast past damage, the fact you can cast Magic Missile as a single action makes it a pretty decent alternative to Dispel Magic if you feel like "Counterspelling." Hmmm actually that might be a bug. But then, I don't think I've ever seen anybody actually try to counterspell, because it's always seemed like an extremely weak option to my groups, so...can't say as I care if other options are better, because they pretty much always have been.
As far as I'm concerned, ability damage and level drain are two of the worst mechanics ever introduced to D&D, and I would very much enjoy seeing them gone.
Fumbles I'm actually okay with, and the way they seem to be implementing them actually sounds kind of cool. Personally I love HackMaster (4e) and they have some of the craziest fumble rules. They also have spell mishap tables though, and those are brutal too, so spellcasters are NOT immune. 3:D
Incidentally, if you can crit on a saving throw for significantly reduced effect, that's pretty much the equivalent of a caster fumbling, so from the sounds of it casters will not be exempt. Also I believe an example was given of a monster with a reaction that triggers in response to spellcasting, iirc something like a dragon that could use his reaction to take control of fire spells cast near him and turn them back at the caster?
Personally, I like the idea of varied reactions, I think it will make the flow of battle much more dynamic and interesting.
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Well, it's a major step back in game design. I hope that comes across loud and clear in your August play test and you roll it back.
In your opinion, which not everyone shares.
Honestly, even though this is just a game, I sympathize with the Paizo designers as if they were doing God's work here. The amount of negativity based on crumbs of information barely worthy of the term "incomplete picture" is breathtaking. I mean, I know it's the Internet but sheesh, folks, take a breath.
I am/was firmly in the "PF1 Forever!" camp and I'm intrigued, if not genuinely interested in what's been teased thus far.
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So I’m usually very against fumble mechanics because they unnecessarily punish martial characters.
However I think the nomenclature of fumble is probably what’s tripping some people up. What we’re seeing here are degrees of success and failure. This was used really well in Mutants and Masterminds, it really helped with more potent effects that could immediately end combats becoming more rare. It also really adds value to a debugging new strategy as that increases your chances of a foe fumbling to end the fight if hp attrition is a difficult option.
Well, it's a major step back in game design. I hope that comes across loud and clear in your August play test and you roll it back.In your opinion, which not everyone shares.
Honestly, even though this is just a game, I sympathize with the Paizo designers as if they were doing God's work here. The amount of negativity based on crumbs of information barely worthy of the term "incomplete picture" is breathtaking. I mean, I know it's the Internet but sheesh, folks, take a breath.
Very much agree.
Well, it's a major step back in game design. I hope that comes across loud and clear in your August play test and you roll it back.In your opinion, which not everyone shares.
Honestly, even though this is just a game, I sympathize with the Paizo designers as if they were doing God's work here. The amount of negativity based on crumbs of information barely worthy of the term "incomplete picture" is breathtaking. I mean, I know it's the Internet but sheesh, folks, take a breath.
I am/was firmly in the "PF1 Forever!" camp and I'm intrigued, if not genuinely interested in what's been teased thus far.
I’m fine with the action economy. I’m fine with the critical, the backgrounds. Skills worry me greatly as it looks like they have been gelded. And resonance, I am having extraordinary trouble seeing a way it’s going to be a positive thing with the seemingly inevitable side effects it’s going to have.
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Why do skills look weaker? Per Seifter the goal is to allow people to do impossibly awesome things with skills you are good at. Since we haven't yet seen "what skills let you do" I don't think basing anything on "how high the numbers get" is reasonable.
Like who cares if you can't get more than like +14 to your athletics skill if the DC for a legendary athlete to run up a wall is 20?
Why do skills look weaker? Per Seifter the goal is to allow people to do impossibly awesome things with skills you are good at. Since we haven't yet seen "what skills let you do" I don't think basing anything on "how high the numbers get" is reasonable.
Like who cares if you can't get more than like +14 to your athletics skill if the DC for a legendary athlete to run up a wall is 20?
And the next athlete down from legendary will be only a hairs bredth below the best in existence.
Yeah, I think Mark mentioned that ability damage/drain were replaced by progressive conditions that do the math for you. You don't need to recalculate your strength score and bonuses when the shadow hits you, you just apply a penalty to the things that the enfeebled condition affects.
I love this mechanic! Recalculating attributes is a pain. I curious to see if any of the buff spells have changed in a way that don't require you to recalculate your attribute bonuses.
And the next athlete down from legendary will be only a hairs bredth below the best in existence.
Unless "run up walls" is an action you need the legendary skill proficiency to attempt. Remember, these things function like Skill Unlocks in Unchained.
It's a major step forward in game design. I hope that comes across loud and clear in your August play test and you keep it.
Agreed. I like where they seem to be going with crits and fumbles and dumping ability damage for effects that make more sense story wise (and are easier to apply in game).
Well, crits sound like they will definitely encourage people to do things that they're good at. EXCITING SUPER SUCCESS BRINGS MUCH JOY!
It also discourags people from trying things that their character don't mechanically have the numbers for. SHAMEFULL FAILURE BRINGS PHYSICAL PAIN!
Action economy sounds alright. Depending on how they set up maneuvers, you can probably John Wick it up on the battlefield.
Dumping ability damage in favor of effects has me worried that I'm going to have to remember a whole new set of 1001 effects. Not that that's a huge problem, since you can just print a cheat sheet. But now how does a vishkanya slowly reduce opponents to convulsing lumps on the floor after repeatedly using maneuvers to kiss them on open wounds?
Yeah, yeah, not core, but it's going to come up eventually.
Backgrounds... I'll wait until I know what they mean by that. I can say that I didn't like the what it meant in 5e, and I didn't like Themes in SF. Too restrictive in who players could be.
I really don't know enough about skills to form any opinion on them, and the way they sound like they're going with magic items is... Interesting. I haven't liked what I've seen of it, but I also recognize that I haven't seen very much. I'll wait till I can cut into it before I write it down as a vivisection or an autopsy.
I've seen a lot of people use the term, "cautiously optimistic," but I'd say that I'm optimistically cautious about this. I'm surprisingly ok with the announcement that they're going to stop all core support for the game I've been loving to play for ten years in favor of something different.
It's certainly exciting, and excitingly uncertain!
Traps already had this feature of "fail by X" in PF1, though it was by 5. Actually, failing by 10 in PF2 is more generous to the rogue than failing by 5 in PF1.What rogue will want to search for traps or attempt a disarm traps when. Fumble rules are on the table?
I'm assuming the new rules include natural 1s for the rogue though, which the old ones did not. That's a big deal because it means that once you hit a 50% chance of disarming the trap, the risk of fumbling stops going down, and no amount of skill can make it safer. It makes me far less interested in investing in trap disarming, and much more interested in demolitions or magical means of bypassing traps altogether.
I'm ok with a reasonable amount of negative consequences for missing some DCs by a wide margin. And I'm ok with some auto failures on a natural 1. But in my opinion, these are not two great tastes that taste great together. Adding extra negative effects for rolling a 1 with no regard for what's on my character sheet makes me feel like my character doesn't matter, and I am being punished for a bad roll rather than getting unlucky after making a risky decision. Once character ability ceases to become reliable, you might as well add a 5% chance to fall flat on your face every time you take a step.
Why do skills look weaker? Per Seifter the goal is to allow people to do impossibly awesome things with skills you are good at. Since we haven't yet seen "what skills let you do" I don't think basing anything on "how high the numbers get" is reasonable.
Like who cares if you can't get more than like +14 to your athletics skill if the DC for a legendary athlete to run up a wall is 20?
Depending on how the DCs are calculated, I'm guessing that either everyone will be good at skills or everyone will be middling/bad at skills.
They're also going to need to think very VERY hard about what things they gate behind skill unlocks and which are open.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Looks in the case of skills like an example of “when everyone is special, no one will be.”
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I'm waiting to see the skill rules before I emotionally commit to a position on them. I am concerned about nat 1/ nat 20 being auto-failure or success with skills, because therein lies madness. In fact, I'm not really a fan of nat 20 being an automatic crit on an attack roll - I think it should still have to hit by 10.
I'm waiting to see the skill rules before I emotionally commit to a position on them. I am concerned about nat 1/ nat 20 being auto-failure or success with skills, because therein lies madness. In fact, I'm not really a fan of nat 20 being an automatic crit on an attack roll - I think it should still have to hit by 10.
Sometimes it seems like I am the only person who actually likes confirmation rolls. Aside from having a much smoother mathematical progression than +10, they also make crits more exciting because there is a set up and pay off.
I'm waiting to see the skill rules before I emotionally commit to a position on them. I am concerned about nat 1/ nat 20 being auto-failure or success with skills, because therein lies madness. In fact, I'm not really a fan of nat 20 being an automatic crit on an attack roll - I think it should still have to hit by 10.Sometimes it seems like I am the only person who actually likes confirmation rolls. Aside from having a much smoother mathematical progression than +10, they also make crits more exciting because there is a set up and pay off.
I love crit confirmation rolls. :)
I do like the +10 to AC though as well. It means that high level martials can utterly thrash low level threats possibly criting several times per round. It helps rogues going against flat footed AC(if that's still around) as now your AC is lower so they can crit easier.
I don't think a crit confirmation roll is needed with +10 AC.
I don't want nat 20's to auto crit either though. I'd hate that! :(
Depending on how the DCs are calculated, I'm guessing that either everyone will be good at skills or everyone will be middling/bad at skills.
They're also going to need to think very VERY hard about what things they gate behind skill unlocks and which are open.
I feel like the majority of things locked behind proficiency unlocks will be the truly impressive things someone good at it can do. Anything that "obviously you can try that" shouldn't be locked, the unlocks should tell you which implausible-yet-awesome things you can do.
So even if my trained athlete is only a half-dozen behind your legendary athlete in terms of the numerical modifier, that just means we're both pretty good at jumping over 10' pits, but the legendary athlete can do it without a running start or just run on walls, whereas I have to jump like a sucker.
I think crits on a twenty are valuable so that there’s a chance to crit against hard-to-hit bosses. Having no chance of critting takes away some excitement.
I think crits on a twenty are valuable so that there’s a chance to crit against hard-to-hit bosses. Having no chance of critting takes away some excitement.
Do we know for sure that there isn't something special that happens on a 20 or a 1? I imagine that will be a common house rule, at least.
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I'm not a fan of crit confirms. I love seeing the excitement on my players faces when they roll a Nat 20, and I hate seeing the disappointment when they fail a confirm.
And even when they do confirm, it just isn't as exciting as the Nat 20.
"Roll more dice so things aren't so swingy" is certainly an inelegant kludge for smoothing out the math. "Comparing to a threshold" is going to be a lot faster in practice, which is nice.
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I'm not a fan of crit confirms. I love seeing the excitement on my players faces when they roll a Nat 20, and I hate seeing the disappointment when they fail a confirm.
And even when they do confirm, it just isn't as exciting as the Nat 20.
I feel the exact opposite. Rolling a 20 is ok, but nothing special. Rolling a 19, and then getting a shot at critting gets me excited. Sometimes you fail. Sometimes you succeed. But that moment is engaging either way, and it is the possibility of failure that makes the successes so special.
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I think crits on a twenty are valuable so that there’s a chance to crit against hard-to-hit bosses. Having no chance of critting takes away some excitement.
Any boss you can hit on a 10 in this system can be critted, and there's no need to confirm. (I have no idea what typical attack and AC numbers will be in this system, so I don't know how common uncrittable bosses will be...)
Higher AC bosses in PF1 could be critted, but if they're that hard to hit, the confirm would usually fail.
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I think crits on a twenty are valuable so that there’s a chance to crit against hard-to-hit bosses. Having no chance of critting takes away some excitement.Do we know for sure that there isn't something special that happens on a 20 or a 1? I imagine that will be a common house rule, at least.
I was pretty sure that 1 and 20 were still things, just that +/- 10 was also a critical success/failure.
I think crits on a twenty are valuable so that there’s a chance to crit against hard-to-hit bosses. Having no chance of critting takes away some excitement.Any boss you can hit on a 10 in this system can be critted, and there's no need to confirm. (I have no idea what typical attack and AC numbers will be in this system, so I don't know how common uncrittable bosses will be...)
Higher AC bosses in PF1 could be critted, but if they're that hard to hit, the confirm would usually fail.
Depending on the character, confirmation rolls in PF1 could be significantly easier than the roll to crit.
Even the best weapons in PF1 needed at least a natural 15 to hit. Higher if you needed a higher number to hit. If you had bonuses to confirm, you could do so with a lower roll than what you initially needed to hit.
My magus, for example, had a 15-20 crit range and a +10 bonus to confirm. If I needed a 17 to hit, it always threatened a crit and I could confirm on a 7+.
I was pretty sure that 1 and 20 were still things, just that +/- 10 was also a critical success/failure.I think crits on a twenty are valuable so that there’s a chance to crit against hard-to-hit bosses. Having no chance of critting takes away some excitement.Do we know for sure that there isn't something special that happens on a 20 or a 1? I imagine that will be a common house rule, at least.
It seems so. And I don't like it very much.
I like the logic of +10 and -10, but having a flat 5% chance of critical success/failure together with that kind of breaks that logic.What I would do is that natural 20s and 1s require confirmations, but it complicates the rule a bit.
I think crits on a twenty are valuable so that there’s a chance to crit against hard-to-hit bosses. Having no chance of critting takes away some excitement.Any boss you can hit on a 10 in this system can be critted, and there's no need to confirm. (I have no idea what typical attack and AC numbers will be in this system, so I don't know how common uncrittable bosses will be...)
Higher AC bosses in PF1 could be critted, but if they're that hard to hit, the confirm would usually fail.
Right, but that means that (getting rid of the nat 20 rule), no boss you need an 11 to hit could be critted. That’s a bad situation.
Think about the implications of True Strike on a melee/caster hybrid.
With +20 on the roll, anything he could hit without True Strike he now crits on a 2+
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Right, but that means that (getting rid of the nat 20 rule), no boss you need an 11 to hit could be critted. That’s a bad situation.I think crits on a twenty are valuable so that there’s a chance to crit against hard-to-hit bosses. Having no chance of critting takes away some excitement.Any boss you can hit on a 10 in this system can be critted, and there's no need to confirm. (I have no idea what typical attack and AC numbers will be in this system, so I don't know how common uncrittable bosses will be...)
Higher AC bosses in PF1 could be critted, but if they're that hard to hit, the confirm would usually fail.
I'd much rather have that situation than the potential skill situation of "my only options are critical failure (a 1) or critical success (anything else)." Imagine someone with a +17 rolling against a DC 5 check. And you have to roll because of the crit fail chance, whereas in PF1e you could just handwave it as easy and move on.
Think about the implications of True Strike[i] on a melee/caster hybrid.
With +20 on the roll, anything he could hit without [i]True Strike he now crits on a 2+
If I had to guess, True Strike will show up as a spell that lets you ignore miss chance, similar to the old heartseaker weapon property. Being able to attack the same turn you cast will probably help it out a bit.
I'd much rather have that situation than the potential skill situation of "my only options are critical failure (a 1) or critical success (anything else)." Imagine someone with a +17 rolling against a DC 5 check. And you have to roll because of the crit fail chance, whereas in PF1e you could just handwave it as easy and move on.Right, but that means that (getting rid of the nat 20 rule), no boss you need an 11 to hit could be critted. That’s a bad situation.I think crits on a twenty are valuable so that there’s a chance to crit against hard-to-hit bosses. Having no chance of critting takes away some excitement.Any boss you can hit on a 10 in this system can be critted, and there's no need to confirm. (I have no idea what typical attack and AC numbers will be in this system, so I don't know how common uncrittable bosses will be...)
Higher AC bosses in PF1 could be critted, but if they're that hard to hit, the confirm would usually fail.
I think you’re jumping to conclusions here. Skills crit fail if you fail by 10 or more, just like how failing Disable Device, Climb, or Diplomacy by 5 or more had consequences in PF1. Nothing they’ve said indicates that rolling a 1 counts as a crit fail for skills. “I don’t think you should have common situations where critting the boss is impossible” doesn’t mean I want or expect always needing to worry about crit-failing a skill check.
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I think you’re jumping to conclusions here. Skills crit fail if you fail by 10 or more, just like how failing Disable Device, Climb, or Diplomacy by 5 or more had consequences in PF1. Nothing they’ve said indicates that rolling a 1 counts as a crit fail for skills. “I don’t think you should have common situations where critting the boss is impossible” doesn’t mean I want or expect always needing to worry about crit-failing a skill check.I'd much rather have that situation than the potential skill situation of "my only options are critical failure (a 1) or critical success (anything else)." Imagine someone with a +17 rolling against a DC 5 check. And you have to roll because of the crit fail chance, whereas in PF1e you could just handwave it as easy and move on.Right, but that means that (getting rid of the nat 20 rule), no boss you need an 11 to hit could be critted. That’s a bad situation.I think crits on a twenty are valuable so that there’s a chance to crit against hard-to-hit bosses. Having no chance of critting takes away some excitement.Any boss you can hit on a 10 in this system can be critted, and there's no need to confirm. (I have no idea what typical attack and AC numbers will be in this system, so I don't know how common uncrittable bosses will be...)
Higher AC bosses in PF1 could be critted, but if they're that hard to hit, the confirm would usually fail.
I very well may be jumping to conclusions. The situations seem analogous to me is all. I guess we'll see.
I believe it‘s a wash when it comes to critical hits. Both pathfinder 1e and 2e systems have intersting ideas and consequences. The 1e system worked well if you wanted to do additional damage, like roll another 20 on the conformation roll for an even greater hit or a death blow instead (in addition too). That's a lot of rolls, but the 2e sytem is cleaner and faster. You could still make a chart for the 2e system, but you just made a degree of difficulty system, and roll on the chart system.
Hate to say it but I can see many people about 2 or 3 years from now begging for it to back to 1e‘s method since AD&D 2e skills and powers tried the whole chart thing and people (at least as my group where concerned) didn't like it. Hopefully I'm wrong.
More concerning to me is facing some high AC monster will a 'fumble' reaction where you turn into butter fingers or a member of the three stooges because you rolled under a 7. Meanwhile master class sorcerer laughs at the mundanes even using attack rolls.
Paizo’s been doing this for a while. They’re not going to bake in a chance of a level 20 Rogue not being able to sneak past a drunk sleeping first level commoner. Saves and attacks have possibility-of-failure and possibility-of-success baked in because NPCs use those against PCs and vice-versa pretty regularly, and putting PCs in truly hopeless situations is bad gameplay. Skills are mostly something PCs use, though. There’s no narrative value in guaranteeing chances of failure.
More concerning to me is facing some high AC monster will a 'fumble' reaction where you turn into butter fingers or a member of the three stooges because you rolled under a 7. Meanwhile master class sorcerer laughs at the mundanes even using attack rolls.
There are going to be monsters with reactions to screw with casters, too. It’s like going up against a Swashbuckler NPC. The mundanes probably pull out a bow and arrow. If miss reactions are super common, though, that’ll be a pain, I agree.
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There is no monster with a "fumble" reaction. There are a few PC (and thus NPC) abilities that trigger on an attack roll critical failure, but those aren't reactions to make the NPC who rolled the critical failure act like a goof; they are reactions where the PC with the reaction does something awesome like make a riposte.
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I think the issue might be that everyone Paizo has privately playtest things are people who either always unconditionally like everything they're shown or are too nice/polite/nervous to point something out.The people at Paizo should maybe sit at more game tables and observe game play if they thought this was a good idea.
Basically playtesting in a bubble mentality.
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There is no monster with a "fumble" reaction. There are a few PC (and thus NPC) abilities that trigger on an attack roll critical failure, but those aren't reactions to make the NPC who rolled the critical failure act like a goof; they are reactions where the PC with the reaction does something awesome like make a riposte.
Until some dastardly GM gives a monster some class levels. Who would do such a thing? Me, that's who.
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There is no monster with a "fumble" reaction. There are a few PC (and thus NPC) abilities that trigger on an attack roll critical failure, but those aren't reactions to make the NPC who rolled the critical failure act like a goof; they are reactions where the PC with the reaction does something awesome like make a riposte.Until some dastardly GM gives a monster some class levels. Who would do such a thing? Me, that's who.
Sure, but even then, it doesn't make the PC act like a goof. It lets the monster make a riposte or do some other cool thing.
I like it conceptually. Is a combat blog post in the near future? I won't tell anyone.