Has anyone heard how a characters base attack bonuses work yet? I was thinking about it and how they are simplifying and streamlining rules where they can, such as merging several things under the feat umbrella, and it occurred to me that your base attack bonus represents nothing more than your skill with weapons.
With that in mind, will it work like other skills? Will everyone have the same bonus before modifying it with proficiencies, etc. (i.e. a base attack bonus equal to your level)? Would that be a bad thing if it does work like that?
I had a momentary, knee jerk reaction that I wouldn’t like it, but then I started warming up to the idea a little. I don’t believe that a character that does not invest in the appropriate feats, etc. will never be so good that overshadow one that did and allowing it could make for some interesting builds.
For example, a wizard that invested their skill feats in weapon proficiencies and took appropriate class feats could potentially make a good fighter/wizard or magus. What does everyone else think? Would it be too good if it did work like that, or would it just open up more possibilities for character builds?
I believe that when they said "unified proficiency system" they meant that "all the rolls will be Attribute modifier + Level + Proficiency Modifier". So the fact that Fighters are better at swordfighting than Sorcerers will have to be established with how much more quickly a Fighter advances in weapon proficiency and in how the Fighter has many class features that improve one's acumen for swordfighting and the Sorcerer has none.
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If BAB goes the way of THAC0, I'll be happy
BAB is level. Everybody has a character level, which for all intents and purposes means that they have the same BAB.
Presumably, there will also be other things that modify your attack roll, like being skilled, expert, master and legendary, or whatever they've been calling the different levels of proficiency, not to mention various feats that will probably give stuff on top of that, so the 10th-level fighter is far and away a better combattant than the 10th-level wizard.
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I wish they had gone with +1/2 level; +level will lead to bloat, rolling d20+35 and what-have-you.
The main "benefit" of 1/2 level is that it enables low level monsters to still be effective to some degree against high level characters. I don't personally view that as a benefit, mind; high level characters should be dealing with more rarefied challenges. In the cases where a high level party needs to contend with an army of invading orcs, this is what mob / troop rules are for.
The main benefit of full level, aside from separating the cream (high level characters) from the chaff (low level mobs), is that it separates PF2 further from 4E's own 1/2 level mechanic. Quite a lot of people here have strong knee-jerk reactions about anything that "feels" like 4E, so having it be full level instead of half level is an intrinsic benefit in itself if only because it staves off some of the complaints.
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Why is "add your level to your attack rolls" a problem when Fighters, Rangers, Paladins, Barbarians, Bloodragers, Swashbucklers, Slayers, Unchained Monks, Avenger Vigilantes, certain Occultists, Shifters, etc. have been doing that for a while?
Why is "add your level to your attack rolls" a problem when Fighters, Rangers, Paladins, Barbarians, Bloodragers, Swashbucklers, Slayers, Unchained Monks, Avenger Vigilantes, certain Occultists, Shifters, etc. have been doing that for a while?
It's not, unless you WANT lower-level threats to be threatening for longer as in D&D 5e. Largely, the same people who find D&D5's bounded ranges more appealing found it a problem with PF1, and would like to see it changed to a more D&D5-like model.
Me, I prefer D&D5's model of threats remaining threats longer, but as I also play PF1, I can appreciate having a model which rewards players forging through lower levels to be able to get to levels which can dominate lower threats occasionally, because it does live up to certain fantasy tropes of the hero being called in to deal with the truly fierce foes, and wading through hordes of minions to get there, who not long ago would have posed serious problems.
Will weapon proficiencis grant the same modifier as skill proficiencies? And how many types of weapon proficiencies are there?
I believe they give the exact same modifier. So -1 for untrained, +3 for Master, etc.
What we don't know is how many other things are going to be there that add to attack rolls, but I believe they will be scarcer than in PF1 since a +1 is more valuable due to the >=10 crit threshold.
Will weapon proficiencis grant the same modifier as skill proficiencies? And how many types of weapon proficiencies are there?I believe they give the exact same modifier. So -1 for untrained, +3 for Master, etc.
What we don't know is how many other things are going to be there that add to attack rolls, but I believe they will be scarcer than in PF1 since a +1 is more valuable due to the >=10 crit threshold.
Untrained is -2, I believe.
The weapon quality will also add to attack.
Why is "add your level to your attack rolls" a problem when Fighters, Rangers, Paladins, Barbarians, Bloodragers, Swashbucklers, Slayers, Unchained Monks, Avenger Vigilantes, certain Occultists, Shifters, etc. have been doing that for a while?I don't know who said it's a "problem", but I have never dug full or 3/4 BAB.
Easy to houserule PF1 to 1/2 level.
how does that even work? In that system why doesn't everyone just play a full caster? because playing any kind of martial is going to be a pretty miserable experience I would have thought.
The same reason why everyone doesn't play a full caster in 4th Ed and 5th Ed.how does that even work? In that system why doesn't everyone just play a full caster?Why is "add your level to your attack rolls" a problem when Fighters, Rangers, Paladins, Barbarians, Bloodragers, Swashbucklers, Slayers, Unchained Monks, Avenger Vigilantes, certain Occultists, Shifters, etc. have been doing that for a while?I don't know who said it's a "problem", but I have never dug full or 3/4 BAB.
Easy to houserule PF1 to 1/2 level.
Yeah! but the entire maths is based around certain expectations - I mean, do you reduce the AC of all your critters? what other adjustments do you need to make? why even play pathfinder at that point when 4e and 5e do what you want without having to adjust everything?
EDIT:Also with 4e and 5e the classes are balanced around the lower BA, if you make that change do you give anything back to the martials?
The same reason why everyone doesn't play a full caster in 4th Ed
Is it because almost nobody is actually playing anymore?
The same reason why everyone doesn't play a full caster in 4th Ed
Aaah. But they do. They just turned everyone into a full caster!
The same reason why everyone doesn't play a full caster in 4th Ed
Wait. 4th ed? What's 4th ed? We talking about GURPS? Because Dungeons & Dragons certainly never progressed beyond 3.5e. Such a shame, the branding was great. At least we have a successor in Pathfinder.
I'll show myself out the door now.
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... I don't think words means what you think it means.I don't think you realise how old, tired, embarrassing, and obnoxious this Inigo Montoya quote/reference is.
How dare you. The Princess Bride is timeless. Timeless.
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But also, and more seriously, its use here is entirely appropriate, since you are referring to an increasing power level (what is usually referred to as 'power creep') rather than increasing options to the point of not being able to keep track of them all (often referred to as 'bloat').
In short, bloat was, in fact, actively the wrong word for what you meant at least in the common vernacular used by gamers in general.
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Those numbers aren't necessarily inflation either, since they establish certain paradigms of the game world. If a high level adventurer is adding level or 1/2 level to skills/saves/atks/etc., then it creates a paradigm where a high level adventurer is akin to a Greek demigod when it comes to their interactions with lower level creatures. There will come a point where 1st level orc warriors, for example, simply aren't a concern for higher level adventurers.
That's one of the biggest differences between 5E and Pathfinder (both editions, based on the information that's been shared so far): in 5E, a high level fighter wandering through the woods who gets jumped by a big gang of bandits may still find himself in a fair bit of trouble, but in Pathfinder a high level fighter who gets jumped in the woods by bandits is going to leave behind a bunch of thrashed bandits.
Numerical scaling based on level establishes a fundamental framework that informs what kind of game you're playing. If you have an expected progression based on level then you know that a level represents a fixed progression in power and that enough levels creates a fundamental separation between what is expected of a character at levles 1, 5, 10, etc. In a game using 5E's bounded accuracy, you're looking at something akin to Lord of the Rings, where enough orcs can still be dangerous to a high level character, and high level characters can be struck down by a lucky blow from a low level mook. In a game like Pathfinder (current edition or otherwise), Pippin tries to backstab the Witch-king and the Witch-king turns around, laughs when Pippin's blade can't even pierce his armor, cuts Pippin in half, and goes back to routing Gondor until Gandalf or Aragorn shows up for a challenge on equal footing. The Pathfinder framework assumes that high level adventurers are so fundamentally different from "normal" people that they have entered the realm of angels, devils, and truly legendary beings that are so powerful the only thing stopping them from wiping out a village or town is a lack of interest in doing so (or another high level creature intervening on the town's behalf).
... I don't think words means what you think it means.I don't think you realise how old, tired, embarrassing, and obnoxious this Inigo Montoya quote/reference is.How dare you. The Princess Bride is timeless. Timeless.
.
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But also, and more seriously, its use here is entirely appropriate, since you are referring to an increasing power level (what is usually referred to as 'power creep') rather than increasing options to the point of not being able to keep track of them all (often referred to as 'bloat').In short, bloat was, in fact, actively the wrong word for what you meant at least in the common vernacular used by gamers in general.
Nope you blew it, with the passe reference (and I am a Princess Bride connoisseur), and your disingenuous interpretation (not surprised, boards like this are rife with it).
This has nothing to do with power creep/level, simply number bloat/number porn; like in 4th Ed: just strip out the completely useless 1/2 level from everything, and go with inherent bonuses, and the only thing that changes, is instead of rolling 1d20 +17, you roll 1d20+7.
It's a smidge more complicated than that. If you aren't also reducing all the associated DC's saves ACs CMDs etc by a like amount you are making it increasingly difficult to succeed.
and if you are reducing all the impacted numbers then you are doing a lot of work for no material change.
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The main benefit of full level, aside from separating the cream (high level characters) from the chaff (low level mobs), is that it separates PF2 further from 4E's own 1/2 level mechanic. Quite a lot of people here have strong knee-jerk reactions about anything that "feels" like 4E, so having it be full level instead of half level is an intrinsic benefit in itself if only because it staves off some of the complaints.
Honestly... those people need to suck it up.
4e is gone. That edition ended in 2012, over 6 years ago. That edition war is long over.After this much time, even the people who actually *played* 4e (rather than just skipping the book) and then switched to Pathfinder will have vague indistinct memories of the details of the mechanics.
We shouldn't limit game design forever by avoiding "4e-isms". The good bits can work the bad bits can be forgotten.
The main "benefit" of 1/2 level is that it enables low level monsters to still be effective to some degree against high level characters. I don't personally view that as a benefit, mind; high level characters should be dealing with more rarefied challenges. In the cases where a high level party needs to contend with an army of invading orcs, this is what mob / troop rules are for.
The thing is, if you never face low level monsters apart from them being mobs/troops... does it matter if they are still effective enough to hit?
If you want more "rarefied challenges" then than's based on throwing different monsters. The numbers don't matter. It's irrelevant if lower level mook monsters can still hit. Increasing the numbers is just making the numbers bigger just to make the numbers bigger.
Conversely, if you do want to have a bunch of mooks, such as the fight against a dozen orcs like in Lord of the Rings, that gets tricky if the numbers increase with level, because low level monsters are ineffective. And monsters at your level have too much hp and do too much damage. You need to invent all new monsters (like minions).
Meanwhile, the element of bounded accuracy that is missed isn't that the bonuses increase slower. It's that the DCs seldom increase. You don't find harder and harder locks, walls don't get harder and harder to climb, traps don't get harder and harder to detect, and monster AC doesn't get higher and higher. Instead, YOU actually get better. You hit more often, fail less often, and succeed more often.
That's a HUGE difference from 4e (and to a lesser extent 3e) where your odds of success largely stay the same as your opponents increase in difficulty at the exact same rate you gain bonuses.
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Those numbers aren't necessarily inflation eitherYes they are, 17 is higher than 7.
That's not what inflation means. 17 is only "inflated" over 7 if you could achieve the exact same effect with 7 and the 17 is in place for the sake of appearance only, which as I explained is not the case. Scaling numbers by levels helps establish the value of a level and creates specific structural truths about the game world. If my saves/skills/atk/defense/etc. scale on level, then low level threats quickly scale naturally out of relevance. A naked, 10 Dex fighter who reaches 10th level is fundamentally a different being by virtue of being a level 10 fighter, which is a fundamental assumption of games like Pathfinder that use a scale-by-level metric instead of a bounded accuracy system like 5E. There will be things that eventually are so much weaker than you and on such a lower level than you that they simply stop being a threat, which is the paradigm Pathfinder operates under.
PAIN!
how does that even work? In that system why doesn't everyone just play a full caster? because playing any kind of martial is going to be a pretty miserable experience I would have thought.Why is "add your level to your attack rolls" a problem when Fighters, Rangers, Paladins, Barbarians, Bloodragers, Swashbucklers, Slayers, Unchained Monks, Avenger Vigilantes, certain Occultists, Shifters, etc. have been doing that for a while?I don't know who said it's a "problem", but I have never dug full or 3/4 BAB.
Easy to houserule PF1 to 1/2 level.
I think the intention is that the class feats and proficiencies will make up for it. I personally can't see that happening however since despite the lack of prerequisites feats seem to come later than they did in 1e
I wish they had gone with +1/2 level; +level will lead to bloat, rolling d20+35 and what-have-you.
Congratulations, you understand the system!
Semantics aside, this exact problem you cite is the intent of the designers with their new four-degrees of success system being incorporated into their new d20 engine.
As you progress, it becomes easier and easier to achieve critical success (dx > DC+10) which means measuring how well you do against low encounters eventually falls into the realm of "don't bother rolling, unless you want to risk a 1" which honestly is how a lot of things worked in PF1, at least with regards to skill checks and incredibly lower CR encounters.
I believe the idea behind this design is not to have to reinvent the wheel, but to have a better road for that wheel to roll on.
For example: In PF1, one could stagnantly stop investing in things like attack bonus once you mathematically got to a point where your ability to land a hit against an appropriate CR encounter reached equilibrium. (This is why people say things like Furious Focus are wasted feats, as the math behind the system supports this). With the new rewards system being in place for the d20 roll to exceed the DC by 10, it gives you much more incentive to continue to invest in such abilities, especially when you consider how failures in the new four tier system interact with proficiency, which can in some cases negate failures entirely as we've seen in the spoiled version of evasion.
I wish they had gone with +1/2 level; +level will lead to bloat, rolling d20+35 and what-have-you.Congratulations, you understand the system!
Semantics aside, this exact problem you cite is the intent of the designers with their new four-degrees of success system being incorporated into their new d20 engine.
As you progress, it becomes easier and easier to achieve critical success (dx > DC+10) which means measuring how well you do against low encounters eventually falls into the realm of "don't bother rolling, unless you want to risk a 1" which honestly is how a lot of things worked in PF1, at least with regards to skill checks and incredibly lower CR encounters.
I believe the idea behind this design is not to have to reinvent the wheel, but to have a better road for that wheel to roll on.
Yes, I am not so thrilled with the 4 tiered action so far (obviously to get the most out of the swingy d20), it's cool for spells like flesh to stone, but not sure if all fighter attacks should be something like:
Critical Miss: No damage.
Miss: Minimum damage.
Critical Hit: Double or max damage.
Hit: Normal damage.My favourite part of PF2 so far is the Action Economy, and that's already a thing in PF1 (Unchained worth it, just for that).
That's fair skepticism, my own stems from other elements of the new engine, but I personally like where they are going with the d20 engine part of the game. It's all the other dice that are throwing me off.
Their goal is for the d20 engine to all function off the same set of rules, so you calculate your bonus the same way for all d20 rolls, and you determine success the same way, by 4 tiers of success with respect to a difference of 10 in relation to the DC.
This applies universally to the entire game space. You now know how most of PF2 works just in this basic understanding, which is somewhat elegant, but still has lots of room for depth and variance.
Not to be that guy, but I appreciate this a lot more than I appreciate 5e's oversimplification of small modifier combined with a d20 roll and a bunch of mechanics to reroll that d20 until you get what you want. PF2 still appears to be a game of invested decision making as far as your character concept goes, and the degree of success that you can expect is now more easily gauged, mathematically speaking in respect to the design of the game engine.
But not in combat, but that's for another thread.
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One thing I appreciate about numbers getting big is that it does render lower level antagonists largely incapable of posing a legitimate threat to great heroes. If I'm far enough out there that archdukes of hell should tread lightly around me, I should fear no number of axe wielding villagers.