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Ah, how shall I do it? Oh, I know. I’ll turn him into a flea, a harmless, little flea, and then I’ll put that flea in a box, and then I’ll put that box inside of another box, and then I’ll mail that box to myself, and when it arrives…I’ll smash it with a hammer! It’s brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, I tell you! Genius, I say!
Coup de grâce in its sleep.
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Launch a holy symbol at it out of a t-shirt cannon.
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Sounds like fun :-P
So, let's consider what happens when we pit PF1 Redcaps against PF2 Redcap. Each will use the attack and action rules from their respective editions.
For the PF1 Redcap, there's a complication: it cannot overcome the PF2 Redcap's superior fast healing. Its average DPR with power attack is around 12, which means it's barely making any progress at all. So regular non-critical hits effectively cannot kill the PF2 Redcap. However, its x4 critical modifier allows it to blow right through the PF2 Redcap in a single power attack. This makes crit fishing the obvious strategy for the PF1 Redcap.
Due to the PF2 Redcap not getting attacks of opportunity and having much more favorable iterative attacks, the PF1 Redcap has every reason to use a standard action attack, then move action to move away. Since the PF1 Redcap has slightly faster move speed, the PF2 Redcap must spend two move actions to close distance (attempting a boot strike is counterproductive, since it will give him an attack penalty on his subsequent and more important scythe attack). If it fails to immediately close distance it's just giving the PF2 Redcap more turns of fast healing. Unfortunately we cannot consider the tactic of tripping since we don't have PF2 trip rules.
So here's where the math gets tough. If the PF2 Redcap is at full health the PF1 Redcap needs to power attack to guarantee that the crit can kill. However, if it landed a hit the previous turn the damage won't be fully-healed and a non-power attack crit is now in killing range. So the logical approach would be to power attack if your last attack was a miss, and regular attack if your last attack was a hit. This is a lot of crunching for what is probably a relatively small effect, and since it's close to 50% accuracy (45% on a power attack, 55% on a regular attack) I'm just going to take the average of alternating between the two.
Now to look at the other side. The PF2 Redcap has a 50% chance to hit for 2d10+4 damage. This is reduced by 10 points, resulting in an average of 5.2 damage. The Redcap also has a 20% chance to crit for a whopping 5d10+8 damage due to the deadly property, which averages 25.5 damage. After accounting for the attack roll, this adds up to 7.7 DPR. Thanks to the PF1 Redcap's fast healing, that comes down to 4.7 DPR
This takes 13 rounds on average to whittle through the PF1 Redcap. So what's the chance of the PF1 Redcap getting his crit within 13 rounds? Roughly 28%, it turns out. So PF1 Redcap wins 28% of the time, while PF2 Redcap wins 72% of the time. (Notwithstanding trip, for which we don't have PF2 rules for.)
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Sounds like fun :-P
So, let's consider what happens when we pit PF1 Redcaps against PF2 Redcap. Each will use the attack and action rules from their respective editions.
For the PF1 Redcap, there's a complication: it cannot overcome the PF2 Redcap's superior fast healing. Its average DPR with power attack is around 12, which means it's barely making any progress at all. So regular non-critical hits effectively cannot kill the PF2 Redcap. However, its x4 critical modifier allows it to blow right through the PF2 Redcap in a single power attack. This makes crit fishing the obvious strategy for the PF1 Redcap.
Due to the PF2 Redcap not getting attacks of opportunity and having much more favorable iterative attacks, the PF1 Redcap has every reason to use a standard action attack, then move action to move away. Since the PF1 Redcap has slightly faster move speed, the PF2 Redcap must spend two move actions to close distance (attempting a boot strike is counterproductive, since it will give him an attack penalty on his subsequent and more important scythe attack). If it fails to immediately close distance it's just giving the PF2 Redcap more turns of fast healing. Unfortunately we cannot consider the tactic of tripping since we don't have PF2 trip rules.
So here's where the math gets tough. If the PF2 Redcap is at full health the PF1 Redcap needs to power attack to guarantee that the crit can kill. However, if it landed a hit the previous turn the damage won't be fully-healed and a non-power attack crit is now in killing range. So the logical approach would be to power attack if your last attack was a miss, and regular attack if your last attack was a hit. This is a lot of crunching for what is probably a relatively small effect, and since it's close to 50% accuracy (45% on a power attack, 55% on a regular attack) I'm just going to take the average of...
Heh, awesome! Assuming neither of them is trying to escape the fight, I think the PF2 redcap might be able to be annoying by forcing the PF1 redcap to come at it, which would allow it to get into a possible loop of Strike -> Strike -> Step back if it ever can start its turn next to the PF1 redcap, which forces the PF1 redcap to step in and be unable to disengage. It gets more complicated if either of them try to back off or some time for fast healing if they get an early disadvantage. The PF1 redcap's double move is far enough to force the PF2 redcap's only offensive response to be move -> move -> move/boot.
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Why would you make them fight each other? They’re in love!
*points to the Redcaps reinacting the spaghetti scene from Lady and the Tramp, except the spagetti is soaked in blood*
See, all Love is beautiful and precious to Shelyn in whatever form it may take, and-
*Redcaps see my Holy Symbol of Shelyn and flee*
WAIT NO COME BACK!!
Heh, awesome! Assuming neither of them is trying to escape the fight, I think the PF2 redcap might be able to be annoying by forcing the PF1 redcap to come at it, which would allow it to get into a possible loop of Strike -> Strike -> Step back if it ever can start its turn next to the PF1 redcap, which forces the PF1 redcap to step in and be unable to disengage. It gets more complicated if either of them try to back off or some time for fast healing if they get an early disadvantage.
I considered this, but the problem that the PF2 Redcap faces is that allowing both sides extra turns of fast healing is more favorable for the PF1 Redcap. The PF1 Redcap is always one lucky roll away from its win condition regardless of how many HP are remaining, so it really doesn't care much if the PF2 Redcap gets to heal. The PF2 Redcap, on the other hand, needs to whittle through the PF1 Redcap's HP the old fashioned way and thus has every incentive not to allow it a chance to heal. So I think that the PF2 Redcap is ultimately forced to fall into the PF1 Redcap's fighting retreat rather than the other way around.
Both sides can definitely be annoying and standoffish here under different circumstances, though.
The PF1 redcap's double move is far enough to force the PF2 redcap's only offensive response to be move -> move -> move/boot.
Actually that's a very good point. If the move/move/boot DPR isn't enough to outpace the PF1 Redcap's fast healing, it can play keep-away for a hard reset any time it gets too hurt, but since it can 1-shot the PF2 Redcap on a crit this would mean it would eventually win if those skirmishes played out enough times. 50% chance to hit and 20% chance to crit on 2d4+8 damage comes out to 12.7 DPR, which is reduced to 2.7 by DR, which is just enough that the PF1 Redcap could - at least in theory - slowly heal up while being repeatedly kicked in the face. Of course, that's pretty close to neutral so it would take a long time for law of averages to do its work, and it's plausible that a killing streak is more likely to happen along the way.
PF1 Wand of Fireball is DC 14 for 5d6 damage. The PF2 Redcap has a 90% chance to make that save, which means the average DPR of the wand after accounting for saves is 9.6, meaning it's healing faster than the wand can damage it on average. While a damage streak could in theory kill the PF2 Redcap, the sheer number of failed saves required in such a short period of time makes this seem very unlikely. So it doesn't change anything, the wand of fireball isn't worth using and the PF1 Redcap is still crit-fishing with its scythe.
If I recall, the blog also mentioned that getting the red cap away from the Redcap took a lot of his defenses away. Since we aren't positive how steal and sunder will work, I assume pf1 redcap has the option to take pf2s cap right off his head and then beat him senseless at his leisure, while per your consideration of trip the pf2 redcap is unable to do the same favor in return. How does that work for your math?
Seemed a bit unfair to me to allow the PF1 Redcap to use combat maneuvers when the PF2 Redcap is being restricted due to our lack of knowledge of the rules governing them. But sure, let's calculate how it would change it if the PF1 Redcap had this tactic at his disposal.
The PF2 Redcap doesn't have a CMD or CMD, but we can easily calculate ones for it (level 5 = 5 BAB, +4 str, +4 dex, -1 size gives us +8 CMB, 22 CMD). The PF1 Redcap has a CMB of +7, meaning he needs a roll of 15 or better to succeed on a combat maneuver. That's basically a 50% chance of stealing or sundering the cap within two turns, which is pretty good. The PF2 Redcap also cannot take attacks of opportunity, so it can't punish these attempts either.
On average the PF1 Redcap will kill after seven turns (two turns to steal the hat, five turns of power attacking). This is much faster than the 13 turns the PF2 Redcap needs to kill the PF1 Redcap, and that's without considering how its DPR plummets after losing its cap. This strategy like turns the entire engagement into an easy win for the PF1 Redcap.
But again, that's pretty one-sided to allow this tactic for the PF1 Redcap and not the PF2 Redcap.
We actually do know how disarm works in PF2. It's an Athletics check vs. Reflex Save +10 (ie: 'Reflex Save DC'). It does not provoke AoO (even if you have them).
This gives the PF2 Redcap's disarm a 70% chance to succeed. He would need to subsequently pick up the opposing Redcap's scythe (otherwise the PF1 Redcap can just spend a move action to pick it back up) but at that point he's basically won by default.
So yeah, it looks like PF2 Redcap can just disarm his opponent with ease.
Oh, I wouldn't kill a red cap, I would make it my faerie kingdom's Warden and call him Papa Smorte (that is a pun in portuguese, which would equate to Papa Sdeath). I actually wanted to make him a my Royal Executioner, but one of the other players wanted that office, so it went to him. My elven gestalt fey sorcerer/wizard/arcane savant was the Ruler of a kingdom to the south of the Stolen Lands, near Kyonin.