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Colette Brunel: much like your other update, your In Pale Mountain's Shadow one is excellent and eerily similar to my experience with it.
Myself, I played a monk: I multiclass into wizard [dedication and basic casting]. This allowed me to cast both shield and mage armor for a much needed AC boost and some emergency damage reduction. I also took monastic weaponry so I could flurry with Shuriken and temple sword.
The trend seems to be: isn't your character better with casting?
Party: Druid [forced into healbot mode but full grown animal companion and tempest surge helped], ranger [other than animal companion took feats for crossbow so had a 1d10+ 1/2 wis ranged shot, reload with move], monk and rogue. Also 2 animal companions.
Different results:
Ranged combat: we did ok... nothing compared to the manticore but ok.
Manticore: knocked us ALL out and flew away. hero points allowed us to slink away because of a kind DM.
Elementals... yeah... chamber of the sunken stones tore us up. After murdering us all, the DM let us 'pretend' it didn't happen and let us go past it and try chamber of the burning sky... At least I died from a critical push into the lava and didn't have to let myself be beaten to death...
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Its pretty smart for an INT -2 creature! I guess it would have instincts.
Seems like a solid and easy to understand tactic. I wouldn't be surprised if I saw a DM use the tactic with a wolf or raptor with it's natural attack so I don't find it out of place for a foe with actual intelligence.
Do you have actual to-hit vs. AC numbers? I'm interested to see how the math shakes out.
The Manitcore is very tough, especially if played smart. Its a flying L6 creature with 20AC and +12 to hit with spikes, +15 with melee attacks. I can see it wrecking many a party of 4th level adventurers. The module even specifies it prefers range. Mainly due to a weakness with range attacks.
Typical adventurers AC will be 15 - 23? it will hit a lot. PC's will have +8 or +9 to hit, so they will miss a lot. But the PCs have action economy on their side.
I am interested to hear more. Especially as this is like a boss fight and some people have been concerned about those.
One last comment, the new adventure should be its own thread to highlight it. People may not realize you are doing updates. Maybe have the journal and one off reports for the adventures? Anyway, just a thought as this is the first report I've read for "in Pale Mountain's Shadow".
Is this really that good an idea? Intelligence 16 and two class feats are a steep price to pay. Bracers of armor do the job well enough, and if a monk has an extra action for shield, then they may as well make another attack at a -8 penalty with agile.
For me, the only hardship was the stat.
Class feats? I looked over them, went meh... and looked at multiclassing.-8 attack? I found out in the earlier adventures that there just wasn't a reason to even try. Most times I was happy to hit on regular non-penalized rolls. I don't think I had any 3rd attack hit and deal any noticable amount of damage.
Bracers: 1st level item only, so only a +1 AC which means -1 AC and -1 touch ac. This resulted in multiple misses or not getting critted.
I also wanted to try something a bit out of the box and see how it went. Looking back at the results, I don't straight monk with perfect stats would have shifted any outcomes. The few points of HP I lost to lower con were more than made up for with being hit/crit less and a few hardness reductions. It WAS a little rougher on the dying checks but once you're into them, things have already gone south.
So good idea? I don't know. Tanglefoot + flurry w/ Shuriken worked well at ranged and flurry + shield + move in melee.
Fighter Dedication opens up Combat Grab, and Rogue Dedication opens up Sneak Attacker.
With 2 animal companions, and one adult, I was looking for something that didn't have me up front all the time. Nifty melee options don't help when a 10' hall has animals covering it.
This is still better than no attack, and shield is not much marginal.
*shrug* The AC and hardness where the difference in a KO or not for a few attacks, mostly with crits. I know it saved me from going down in the first round with the manticore and an extra attack, even a crit, wasn't going to change that fight.
Bracers of armor 1st are a 2nd-level item, certainly available to a 4th-level PC. Casting mage armor with Basic Wizard Spellcasting costs a 4th-level class feat, and it produces the same AC result.
You're right, I must have messed something up. It got me an expert weapon though. In retrospect, I think I'd have been better off with a wand of some kind.
On the 4th level feat thing... none of the monk 4ths were exciting to me, and the dedication feats for fighter and rogue didn't do a whole lot for me. Fighter gets me a lot of proficiencies I'm not going to use and the bad guys go first most times, at least for our groups, so surprise attack isn't exciting.
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The only thing I can imagine limiting the manticore is that he only has 12 shots. But then I guess those are mostly enough to kill a Party without a Healbot.
After running out of shots, the Manticore still has melee attacks at +15 attack bonus, which will crit more often than an improved critical rapier in pf1e...
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So the manticore fight kind of concerns me. The 3 action economy which is supposed to give fights a more dynamic nature doesn't really do much when there's no cover. The party standing in the open and trading misses at range sounds very unsatisfying.
How would it have affected things if moving at least your speed during your turn grants you a bonus to AC versus ranged attacks for the round?
What if there as a way to spend actions to prepare to dodge a ranged attack?
I'm trying to think of ways to make being out in the open at range slightly less of a shot show.
Imo +1 ac is much better than an attack at - 8 unless the target is heavily controlled.If you really want the +1 circumstance bonus to AC that does not stack with other circumstance bonuses, I would aim for Cleric Dedication, since Wisdom is at least somewhat useful for monks.
Is it more useful? Maybe if you spend MORE class feats for spell points but why would you ever do that when you have the option for actual spell slots? Or cleric spell point options. I'm not really seeing MONK wisdom options standing out. Secondly, going wizard added an arcane caster that the group lacked, so if we found a wand/staff/scroll/ect I could use it.
PS: Our group at least isn't trying to make the most effective possible characters but characters we want to play. I'm sure there is a mathematically better character I could have played but I don't think that if we did, that we could have survived the manticore for instance.
PPS: I think it boils down to a difference in opinion and it's getting us off track on the point of the thread: how often we TPK in the adventure... ;)
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Oh, goodness. I was handling something incorrectly for the first group group. The party needs to be using the Wandering exploration tactic in order to travel at full speed. Yes, that means that if the party wants to travel at a good clip, they cannot simultaneously be Investigating (remembering information with Recall Knowledge) or Searching (keeping an eye out with Seek), because apparently, people's brains and senses turn off when they are traveling at a brisk pace. Worse, depending on how the Defending tactic actually works, characters cannot have a weapon drawn if they want to travel at full speed, either.
Exploration tactics really need a revision.
The rulebook empowers you as GM to allow characters to split time performing fatiguing and nonfatiguing tactics to avoid fatigue. As well as make up entirely new tactics as necessary. I suggest going by five-minute increments for exploration for ease of time keeping.
By alternating between Wander, Hustle, Wander and [Another Fatiguing Tactic] in five-minute increments each character gets five minutes (out of every 20) of investigation or looking out without impacting their 'average speed'.If four characters stagger Looking Out; the party can travel at full speed and always have a look-out. It is much like setting up shifts for resting in the wild; it just requires a little logistics.
Similarly a pair of characters can alternate between Hustling and either Looking Out or Searching to keep up with the rest of their Wandering Party.
There are some logic problems that can arise if you look at it like encounter rules and try to handle things precisely (especially the movement rate aspects). The exploration rules are intentionally very abstract.
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The whole "you get fatigued after 10 minutes of X activity", with the Fatigued condition needing a whole 8 hour rest period to get rid of, seems really arbitrary.
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The PCs did their best to recover. They spent Hero Points, and the cleric doled out healing, but unfortunately, neither automatically pops a character back into the fight in 2e. The janky dying rules still demanded Fortitude saving throws to regain consciousness, and even when that did happen, the characters lost an action and had to spend two actions picking up a weapon and standing from prone. There was absolutely, positively whack-a-mole going on during this process; the fighter dropped to 0 hit points a staggering three times during this battle, and they got to make an attack exactly once, whereas the barbarian dropped to 0 hit points four times, and received absolutely no opportunities to make any attacks. This was what prompted the barbarian's player to ragequit; I took control of the barbarian from there.
•...
The way I would handle this situation is require the the goblin NPCs to make a challenging medicine check to notice that the formerly dispatched player was in fact still alive. If the failed they would move on thinking they had conquered their foe. This would give the players a chance to regroup.
The whole "you get fatigued after 10 minutes of X activity", with the Fatigued condition needing a whole 8 hour rest period to get rid of, seems really arbitrary.And in the same passage as exploration it also says that if you split the time between relaxing and fatiguing tactics, you can go on fine.
The 10mins limitation is just so that you can't keep them on forever, because every fatiguing tactic is double the actions of the nonfatiguing ones.
IIRC, it also notes that a 'combat-time tactic' (taking 3 actions per round), fatigues you after about 2 minutes.
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Hope you feel better soon! Don't push yourself too hard; you're already ahead of schedule with both of your groups, so you can definitely afford to take a break if you need to stay healthy.
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Especially Noteworthy Recurring Problem #6: Erroneous Knowledge is Not That Fun: Erroneous knowledge from critical failures might work for a beer-and-pretzels, light-hearted game, but it simply has not been a hit with any of my players thus far. Indeed, erroneous knowledge has sown nothing but annoyance, mistrust towards the GM, and feelings of resentment. Furthermore, I personally find it quite difficult to present erroneous knowledge that is actually plausible and actionable without it being too contrived
I don’t know if anyone else has mentioned this yet, but erroneous knowledge can be trivial to implement in a useless manner.
1) “The monster is vulnerable to cold.”
2) “The monster is not vulnerable to cold.”
By definition, one of these is true and one is erroneous, and there’s no way to differentiate which is which, so the feat is satisfied. It’s also useless information as-is, which makes the feat useless, but at least the GM doesn’t have to stress about making false stuff up on the spot.
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Erroneous Knowledge can also be obviously worthless even if accurate.
Rob (Dubius Knowledge; Fail): "I remember 'master telling me black dragons hatchlings like pickles... here fluffy!"
Joe (Crit Fail): "Gran'ma says Dragons ain't real. Dat's just a giant winged lizard."
Phil (Success): "Ten silver says Rob gets his fingers bitten off by that hatchling black dragon.
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During this session, I ran into various janky oddities concerning exploration tactics, the transition into encounter mode, and Perception vs. Stealth.
There were multiple times wherein members of the party were in Searching mode and should have been able to Seek hidden enemies... but all that did was trigger the usual Perception vs. Stealth initiative roll regardless, meaning that the Searching tactic accomplished absolutely nothing. I really did not know any other way to handle this.
How have other GMs been trying to rationalize the rules for exploration tactics, the transition into encounter mode, and Perception vs. Stealth? I have been struggling. Has anyone else been scratching their heads over this?
I just treat successful stealth ambushes like I treat complex hazards. Their prepared reaction goes off, and then you roll stealth vs perception for initiative. So if a goblin is sneaking up on a PC, it goes like this:
1) Goblin rolls stealth against the PC's perception DC. (Sneak action?)
2A) If the Goblin fails, the PC sees the goblin and you roll initiative, goblin using stealth and PC using Perception.
2B) If the goblin succeeds on the stealth check, it can move into position, and ready a reaction with a specified trigger. "I will shoot the first longshank to come around that bend."
3) Longshank PC comes around the bend, triggers the readied reaction of the goblin, who fires the short bow.
4) Now we roll initiative, stealth for goblin and Perception for the Longshank.
I believe this is how such situations are meant to be run, but I could be wrong.
Oh, goodness. I was handling something incorrectly for the first group group. The party needs to be using the Wandering exploration tactic in order to travel at full speed. Yes, that means that if the party wants to travel at a good clip, they cannot simultaneously be Investigating (remembering information with Recall Knowledge) or Searching (keeping an eye out with Seek), because apparently, people's brains and senses turn off when they are traveling at a brisk pace. Worse, depending on how the Defending tactic actually works, characters cannot have a weapon drawn if they want to travel at full speed, either.
Exploration tactics really need a revision.
That isn't really true. Investigating and Sneaking is specifically taking the time to thoroughly examine your surroundings, which means you (and potentially your whole party) get to roll checks to see if you uncover something hidden. Otherwise, I think you need to hope your perception DC.
When you are Wandering, you still notice anything below your perception DC automatically. So you are indeed seeing things, and noteworthy stuff may be brought to your attention. That's what happens when a goblin fails it's Stealth check. I don't see why a DM wouldn't inform you if there is something immediately eye catching along the way. You just aren't likely to uncover anything especially well hidden because you aren't looking that hard. An object in plain view seems to have a stealth DC of 10, making it almost impossible not to notice unless you have negative perception modifier.
I believe that you also auto-detect hazards below your perception DC as well. (I actually am having a little trouble finding this in the rulebook, but it seems supported by the blog post ..) So as the party's perception DCs go up, it won't take long before they don't even need to be Searching to notice things like the DC 16 Hidden Pit trap.
Hey everyone, I have a question regarding the Manticore (because my group is going up against it next): Should Spike Volley be a double action? If not, why would a Manticore ever use the normal ranged strike action?
The whole "you get fatigued after 10 minutes of X activity", with the Fatigued condition needing a whole 8 hour rest period to get rid of, seems really arbitrary.And in the same passage as exploration it also says that if you split the time between relaxing and fatiguing tactics, you can go on fine.
The 10mins limitation is just so that you can't keep them on forever, because every fatiguing tactic is double the actions of the nonfatiguing ones.
I believe a 6 second break every 10 minutes is adequate to avoid fatige. All you have to do is not use the tactic for 10 minutes solid, so the timer restarts after the break.
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The fourth battle was against a group of gnolls by a precipice. The fight opened up with the gnolls' leader shoving the paladin off a cliff, the paladin failing to Catch an Edge, the paladin plummeting downwards (albeit softened by a Feather Fall from the druid), and the gnolls' leader critically Demoralizing the druid. The party surrendered from there, and we ended the adventure.
This is because monsters are overtuned. Their attack bonus are too high, but their skills are especially too high. My BEST skill at that level is +9, why is his +11?? Why are the monsters so much better than our best PCs??
In your case, his Athletics and Intimidate skills were too high and made those situations possible. Oh man, I'm glad I didn't use Demoralize with the manticore, but then again it works only within 30', my manticore stayed at 70'.
I had the overhang go 15' deep, so it would have been fairly hard to push my PCs off the cliff. This is what happens when designers don't include maps, you get a LOT of table variation.
I only have one group going through Pale Mountain and this was a very hard fight for them as well, it made us rest for the day. If I used Intimidate+Demoralize with that absurd bonus, they probably would have TPKed.
Water elemental almost TPKed us and I didn't even play it right. The PCs are now resting, we've spent 7 hours (real time) and we're not even done yet.
"As it turns out, according to page 331, if multiple PCs are using the searching tactic, only the Searching PC with the highest Perception modifier gets to make a roll."
What? OK I was running it wrong too. I don't like this, at all.
It's very tempting to houserule at this point, but then it wouldn't be a good playtest.
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Those are some pretty scary numbers.
Counting out the 2 that left due to technical issues / scheduling, that means only 1 in 3 of the signed up players is enjoying it enough to keep playing - the rest either put off by the rulebook or the experience of play.
Colette - did any/many of them say what it was that was putting them off?
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This thread deserves somewhat of an update. I am recovering from a surgery I had last week, and it has been sapping my stamina to no end. The recent website downtime has also been making it difficult for me to keep myself updated on 2e. Thus, I am lacking in the motivation and focus necessary to write up reports.
We may often disagree, but I admire your capabilities as a playtester. I hope Paizo appreciates your reports too, because I find them exceptionally informative and well written. They indicate just how much effort you're putting into this.
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I cannot substantiate this claim, but I think the Whack-A-Mole quality of gameplay has more to do with every NPC being significantly overtuned for it's level. Even on paper, your average PC is just too easy for your average NPC to drop.
The way healing interacts with dying does allow for it, but the penalties (in combat time) for being dropped over and over are pretty severe; and I like it that way... The problem is Criticals are terribly swingy in this edition, and in favor of the NPCs (who often have statistics equal to or better than the best PC).
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The new dying rules are still whack-a-mole.
Yes and no. It's no more whack-a-mole than PF1 was, and I think PF1 is a great game. In PF1, if you get healed you regain consciousness. It was never a problem.
The problem is PCs are getting dropped too often. I've never had a PF1 game (in 10 years) where the PCs were dropped as much as it happens in any PF2 playtest so far.
But yeah, it's whack-a-mole in the sense that magic healing helps you regain consciousness and it's hard to kill a downed PC. My PCs were dropped 31(!) times during our Pale Mountain session and it was only possible because magical healing. Then again, without magical healing, the PCs would be dead. And if the PCs kept the Dying condition when the regained consciousness, they would also be dead (because opponent's would immediately hit them down again).
I was good about imposing the slowed condition, but I kept on forgetting to implement Slow 2+ when they were Dying 2+. Then again, they needed all the help they could get.
I think they should remove ranged single target healing. We have ranged Stabilize, I think that's enough if you want to save a PCs life. I think touch healing is where the heart of this game is, ranged healing is D&D 5E. Yes that makes it harder but I think it will be better.
Mostly, the monsters need to be toned down though in terms of attack and skill bonuses.
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your players have the worst of luck
Not the OP, but it wasn't lack of luck for us. The rolls were pretty average: it's just that often those 'average' rolls crits far more often for monsters than players even though the numbers rolled where about the same.
those are some depressing numbers
Myself, I lost the other 3 players in my group and the DM...
Colette - did any/many of them say what it was that was putting them off?
I know for my group it was that the games were pure meat grinders. No matter what we did, the bad guys were just better and we spent more time on the ground than fighting. It kinda felt like we were sidekicks fighting supervillians: some Jimmy Olsens fighting Darkseids... By the end it was more like work than playing a game. It never felt like 'heroic combat' even in our best fights but more 'the bad guys happened to get 'unlucky'. Then add skill use in: ended up destroying lock picks, gave up and chopped down the door...
To quote a leaving player: "childbirth was less painful that playing this." :P
This thread deserves somewhat of an update. I am recovering from a surgery I had last week, and it has been sapping my stamina to no end. The recent website downtime has also been making it difficult for me to keep myself updated on 2e. Thus, I am lacking in the motivation and focus necessary to write up reports.We may often disagree, but I admire your capabilities as a playtester. I hope Paizo appreciates your reports too, because I find them exceptionally informative and well written. They indicate just how much effort you're putting into this.
I'd also like to compliment your determination.