New Details from Glass Cannon Podcast Pathfinder Playtest Impressions - Ability damage is gone, Magic Missile mechanics, crit / fumble discussion

[gbonehead]

My only concern is speed of play. I agree with the comment about how having to inspect every roll is not a good thing.

Typically after a round or two of combat, I'll simply say "the AC is X" once enough players have made attacks, just to speed things up. Now that appears to be irrelevant.

This is not a specious observation. I regularly run tables of 6-10 people and having to adjudicate every single roll (we're talking about potentially 30 rolls per round, just for the PCs) is going to be .... painful.

[Lady Firebird]

Makeitstop wrote:

ryric wrote:

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 sure you're not the only one, but I definitely don't. I don't like automatic crits on a 20, either. At the least, I'd rule it such that if you can only hit on a 20, for whatever reason, it's not a critical hit. But either way, whatever reduces the amount of dice rolling is good.

As someone below you said, this means that skilled warriors are going to be critting often against lesser foes and coming across as even more badass. That's great!

[Mark Seifter]

Lady Firebird wrote:

At the least, I'd rule it such that if you can only hit on a 20, for whatever reason, it's not a critical hit.

That is how it works in Starfinder as well.

[Lady Firebird]

Mark Seifter wrote:

Lady Firebird wrote:

At the least, I'd rule it such that if you can only hit on a 20, for whatever reason, it's not a critical hit.

That is how it works in Starfinder as well.

Gah, with Starfinder having some of the PF2 stuff that was in development, I should really try to find a game of it. Whet the appetite a little. Though I think I could scarcely be more impatient, er, I mean, eager!

I've done lots of work 'round the industry. Any chance you folks need some writers? :P

[the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh]

Volkard Abendroth wrote:

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+

I like that as a property of the system, but then I do DM in ways that very much discourage nova tactics, so the number of times I see this happening at my table is more "when it would be really necessary and dramatically cool" than "too much of the time for things to be as challenging as intended".

ETA: quotes added for clarity.