| Fuzzypaws |
A number of the design decisions with respect to nerfs, especially re blasting, have been stated to be from concerns of a bunch of enemies (or PCs) ganging up on a single target and murderating them. But maybe it's ganging up itself that is a problem, and that can be addressed without nerfing individual abilities?
Regardless of how on the table the game is turn based, with everyone frozen in time so characters can neatly move around and unload without interference, this is representing a more complex context. You wouldn't actually get to have eight people surrounding a target without them interfering with each other. You wouldn't be able to have eight people use Aid Another without them tripping over each other. And I can easily imagine a bunch of spells cast into the same space causing magical interference with each other, much like multiple music sources clashing and creating a cacophony. There is even some in-game precedent with the rules for making a ranged attack into melee.
So maybe every attacker or caster who picks on a single target in a turn after the first or second starts taking a cumulative -2 penalty to their attack rolls or save DCs, and to each die/unit of damage they do. Maybe each person who Aids a single action after the first takes the same cumulative penalty, increasing the chance they'll critically fail and actually impede the action by getting in the way. So even in the absurdly unlikely scenario where you have 4 high level wizards in an encounter all casting spells at the same targets, or 4 raging barbarians all closing on the same target, they interfere with each other and it isn't instadeath rocket tag.
Something to think about, anyway~
| BluLion |
A number of the design decisions with respect to nerfs, especially re blasting, have been stated to be from concerns of a bunch of enemies (or PCs) ganging up on a single target and murderating them. But maybe it's ganging up itself that is a problem, and that can be addressed without nerfing individual abilities?
Regardless of how on the table the game is turn based, with everyone frozen in time so characters can neatly move around and unload without interference, this is representing a more complex context. You wouldn't actually get to have eight people surrounding a target without them interfering with each other. You wouldn't be able to have eight people use Aid Another without them tripping over each other. And I can easily imagine a bunch of spells cast into the same space causing magical interference with each other, much like multiple music sources clashing and creating a cacophony. There is even some in-game precedent with the rules for making a ranged attack into melee.
So maybe every attacker or caster who picks on a single target in a turn after the first or second starts taking a cumulative -2 penalty to their attack rolls or save DCs, and to each die/unit of damage they do. Maybe each person who Aids a single action after the first takes the same cumulative penalty, increasing the chance they'll critically fail and actually impede the action by getting in the way. So even in the absurdly unlikely scenario where you have 4 high level wizards in an encounter all casting spells at the same targets, or 4 raging barbarians all closing on the same target, they interfere with each other and it isn't instadeath rocket tag.
Something to think about, anyway~
I think what paizo is doing isn't quite targeting the strategy of focus firing enemies (which is only a huge factor in fights with singular enemy boss fights, because action economy), but the whole rocket tag that happens with mid-high level game-play from high powered full-round attack actions and spells. By making hp higher, monsters will actually be able to survive for longer. Unfortunately it looks like it will nerf blasters more than control wizards, but I wonder if crit failures will make up for it to some extent. I also want to know how strong the high level blast spells (past lvl 5) will be, or about ray spells.
That being said, I don't think punishing players for ganging up on a dangerous enemy is the right solution.
Yuri Sarreth
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think to change or discourage this you would have to change the very nature of the way combat in PF works. Since you have the exact same chances to hit and cause damage to something whether you have 1hp or 101hp people are almost always going to 'gang up', 'focus fire.'
After all one dead enemy and one fully healed enemy is always a lesser threat than 2 wounded enemies.
Deadmanwalking
|
Monster HP isn't actually going up at high levels. It's probably going down.
Monster HP are being normalized with PC HP of the same level. This gives them more HP at low levels (PCs range from 11 to 26 HP at 1st level), but the PF1 Chart makes 370 the standard HP for a 20th level monster and easily double what most PCs will have at that level in PF1. In PF2, PC HP at 20th will likely be a bit higher than they were in PF1 (ranging between about 126 and maybe 410, with the vast majority between 200 and 300), but monster HP will be within the same range, which is lower than they would've had in PF1.
And any penalties for ganging up are so verisimilitude breaking and gamey that they'd drive a lot of people (especially new players who want the system to make some sort of in-world sense in regards to tactics) screaming for the hills, and I wouldn't blame them. I'm pretty sure Paizo knows this and it thus isn't happening.