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Apparently it's harder to recover from being downed by a boss than a mook.
This is both true and misleading. They've clarified that your Death Save DCs are based on the Level of the monster who downed you.
So, in practical terms, yes bosses are harder. But not because they have some metagame 'boss' trait, it's the same reason they do more damage with attacks or have better Saves: They're higher Level.
I'm okay with monsters not following rules, because it becomes easier to target certain ranges of values so that the CR system can actually work better, which in 3.X and PF1 were kind of crap shoots.
Besides which, with racial HD and special abilities, bonus feats, etc monsters haven't ever really followed PCs. Now they're just making it more obvious.
Yeah, but we don't know the ogre's racial HP modifier. If they use those rules for monsters as well as player races.
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Yeah, but we don't know the ogre's racial HP modifier. If they use those rules for monsters as well as player races.
Comparing Redcap and Ogre, I don't think it's possible that they are. The math wouldn't make much sense and it's completely counter to the stuff they've revealed about their monster design standards.
Monsters have never followed the same rules as PC's. They have pretended to, but the reality is they simply haven't.
"Oh! this critter needs an extra feat, we can't give it 2 more HD without messing with the planned CR. I know, we'll just give it a bonus feat..."
On the flipside there is "This monster still needs 3 feats? Just give it toughness, alertness and weapon focus."
I feel the 3rd edition monster creation rules were unnecessarily limiting. For PCs it makes sense to have bonuses and abilities tied into level progression, so that all players build from the same basis and you don't end up with someone (willingly or unwillingly) much more powerful than the others.
For NPCs and monsters, all this is entirely unnecessary, they just need to have the necessary statistics to be able to interact with all the rules outside of character creation. But these have no obligation to be tied together in ways that PC abilities do. That NPC over there is a blacksmith. She has 4 ranks in Craft (Blacksmithing), 2 in Diplomacy and 2 in Sense Motive. Her BAB +0 because she has no combat training and she has 10 hit points, because she's still fairly tough. Her ability scores are STR 12, DEX 10, CON 13, INT 10, WIS 11, CHA 11 and her AC is 10 because she has no armor on. Her NPC level (which replaces her number of hit dice for things that interact with that) is 1, based on on her average damage output/hit bonus/hitpoints/AC.
I know im using rules elements that arent a part of PF2e, but this is just meant to show that it could be this easy to make a non-player character.
This, in essence is how Savage Worlds and 5e handle NPCs and monsters and it makes custom creating them worlds easier (Savage worlds has no levels or CRs though, and in 5e npcs/monsters actually still have Hit Dice probably only because those are used for recovering HP during short rests, and PRoficiency is tied to their CR to maintain bounded accuracy)
Bosses
I'm a big fan of legendary monsters in 5e. Because it's not just a case of "boss monsters get extra actions" but "creatures of legend get more actions". It's as much tied to story. It's not some monster gaining special powers because of its role in the adventure, like minions or elites in 4e.
Yeah, 5th edition isn't that bad, ideally I should have picked a 4th edition example to support my point.
I wonder if Con actually has any effect on monster HP at all. It is hard to tell considering how monsters stats are done now.It doesn't seem to. Ogres have HP on par with max Con 3rd level Barbarians but only a +2 Con Mod.
I'd be surprised if we get too many high Con monsters without decent HP for thematic reasons, but I doubt it's a relevant concern mechanically.
Is there a possibility the monsters size playes a role?
Yeah, monster size could effect HP.
I wonder if Constructs and Undead still have no Con score.
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Yeah, monster size could effect HP.
I wonder if Constructs and Undead still have no Con score.
The Grim Reaper shown during the banquet had a Constitution bonus, but it was the same as his Charisma. Could it be that they just copied the bonus in the off chance you would need it in some way? Or is the rule changed for that and Undead now have CON? Or they decided this one in particular would be different (even if it's not in PF1)?
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I just need to know what happens if I give an ogre a battleaxe and chain mail instead of the club and hide it gets in the Bestiary. In 1e you had to guess.I don't recall any guessing in PF1E to that effect. Swap damage dice, remove one armor value and apply the other instead.
Sheesh. Children. I was talking about AD&D 1e.
The Grim Reaper shown during the banquet had a Constitution bonus, but it was the same as his Charisma. Could it be that they just copied the bonus in the off chance you would need it in some way? Or is the rule changed for that and Undead now have CON? Or they decided this one in particular would be different (even if it's not in PF1)?Yeah, monster size could effect HP.
I wonder if Constructs and Undead still have no Con score.
I really, Really hope this means Constructs and Undead have Con scores, insomuch as monsters have Con scores in PF2 ed.
The lack of Con score "because they're not alive," has always made golems and other constructs... not... work right, and the bonus hit points based on size don't make it better. It's especially visible when you compare low CR Constructs with high CR constructs. The Caryatid Column (CR 3,) whose 3 HD & 20 bonus hit points for being medium put it at 36 hp, right between the average hit points for a CR 3 & CR 4. Meanwhile the stone golem (CR 11), with 14 HD and 30 bonus hit points for being large has 107 hp, right between the average hp for a CR 8 & CR 9. The higher the hit dice a construct has, the more of a glass jaw it has. And that's before we talk about Fort saves.
And creating beastly, meat-wall, brute undead is tough unless you to give them a high Charisma just for the sake of their HP & Saves.
I just need to know what happens if I give an ogre a battleaxe and chain mail instead of the club and hide it gets in the Bestiary. In 1e you had to guess.I don't recall any guessing in PF1E to that effect. Swap damage dice, remove one armor value and apply the other instead.
Sheesh. Children. I was talking about AD&D 1e.
Actually the AD&D1 statblocks weren't too bad for weapons!
Ogre's damage is 1-10 or by weapon, and then it adds the note:"(If weapon type is used to determine damage/attack, give a standard bonus of +2 hit points to ogres and leaders/chieftains gain an additional +1/+2 bonus.)"
So normal weapon damage +2 for the mooks.
EDIT: AC is harder though. Armor is listed in many cases, but not all.
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Right on, thanks for this, so, ability scores of non are no more. And with no more ability damage/drain, there is no danger of dying when you hit 0 Con.
The latter isn't necessarily true. There are definitely things that mimic Ability Damage (the Enfeebled Condition gives you a penalty on all Str-based stuff equal to its level, for example), and having one kill you when it takes your bonus down to a -5 penalty is totally possible (indeed, given that Shadows inflict Enfeebled, this may well be what happens at some point with them).
It would probably be a specific ability that does that though, not an automatic result of the Condition.
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Ah, so you can be enfeebled to death once you hit -5. So they are keeping non-HP death in the game, just stalled out.
We actually don't know this. Shadows do HP damage now as well as inflicting Enfeebled, so they could just kill you that way.
But they could have the Shadows also kill you if they make you Enfeebled enough. It's a rules interaction that could exist. We don't know that it does, since nobody took more than Enfeebled 2 or 3 in the Shadow encounter during the Glass Cannon Podcast (which is all we've seen of Shadows), but my point was that we also don't know it doesn't. And that even if Shadows don't do that, something else could.
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I just remember Jason detailing the death and dying rules on a Paizocon panel and gleefully declaring "There is no dying 4!" :)
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I just remember Jason detailing the death and dying rules on a Paizocon panel and gleefully declaring "There is no dying 4!" :)
This is true. The Condition beyond Dying 3 is Dead (which now specifies that you are unable to act!). :)
Other Conditions may have different limits and consequences, however.
I just remember Jason detailing the death and dying rules on a Paizocon panel and gleefully declaring "There is no dying 4!" :)This is true. The Condition beyond Dying 3 is Dead (which now specifies that you are unable to act!). :)
Guess it's time to retire that old joke.
Rest in peace sweet prince...
We got in-depth rules for that debuff now:
The other issue with monsters not following PC's rules.
Picture this:
The party is about to face off against a monster. But then they are able to sort out their differences with it. Now it agrees to help them.
Suddenly the non-PC aspects become much more important. Does that "reasonable in a single combat" ability remain balanced when it's switched sides?
I think this is why they moved off the Starfinder system, where it would be a problem. Don't think monsters in 2E are gonna be wildly different from PCs in power.
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The other issue with monsters not following PC's rules.
Picture this:
The party is about to face off against a monster. But then they are able to sort out their differences with it. Now it agrees to help them.
Suddenly the non-PC aspects become much more important. Does that "reasonable in a single combat" ability remain balanced when it's switched sides?
This is a problem if things like enemy AC or to-hit are outside PC ranges, not if they're built differently but wind up with the same totals.
This is thus not a big issue in PF2.
Can't we solve the "reasonable in a single combat, but not all day" abilities monsters have by limiting them via uses per day (or other periods of time) like we've always done?