Starfinder combat - more explosive rounds where you hit harder and with more accuracy, against enemies who do the same.
As opposed to grindier, defensive encounters.
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Starfinder combat - more explosive rounds where you hit harder and with more accuracy, against enemies who do the same.
As opposed to grindier, defensive encounters.
But that's exactly not what is happening - the enemies are hitting harder and with more accuracy, the party is not.
I'm curious about the change, too.
Edit - damn typos.
To balance out the higher hit points of low level PCs?
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Very low level foes (level 0 to 2 or 3) are intentionally designed with low end AC, much lower damage, and higher to-hit than PCs of the same level for math reasons. Specifically, it allows them to be used as threats (in groups, anyway) for longer level-wise (ie: 4th level PCs will have AC between 17 and 22, foes with a +5 to hit are a lot less viable as enemies for them than those with a +8).
This mostly evens out on higher level foes, though they still tend towards maximal Fighter to-hit and mediocre AC.
They've also rebalanced things so that a level 1 foe is actually more equivalent to a level 1 PC in terms of effectiveness (which the CR system said was true in PF1, but certainly wasn't of something like the wolf with AC 14 and +2 to-hit).
The system is predicated on four wolves being an equal threat to four PC Class Characters. A 1st level Rogue probably has +5 to-hit and 17 AC and does 1d6+4 damage, with 16 HP or thereabouts. The wolf's +7 to-hit, 15 AC, 1d6+1 damage, and 22 HP, is very comparable (and both have conditional 1d6 damage as well).
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They've also rebalanced things so that a level 1 foe is actually more equivalent to a level 1 PC in terms of effectiveness (which the CR system said was true in PF1, but certainly wasn't of something like the wolf with AC 14 and +2 to-hit).
In PF1 not every character needed to be maximized to be played.
To be honest, in the few different groups of PF1 i took part, i should have seen like 1 or 2 characters optmized at most. Many... MANY had like +2 to hit. (I am DMing right now an adventure where the bard was melee/ranged hybrid and his normal to hit, without performance, was +2 and he for sure was effective)
To me, te mentality of "everyone is maximized and optmized" is exactly what destroys a system. The system should try to make the difference of very optimized to "normal" character less impactful (as opposed to 3.X were the difference was of orders of magnitude) but would balance around non-optimized values.
For example, if they keep saying that 16, or even a 14 is a viable option at level 1 at the main attribute, they should balance the system around that. If you have a 18, you should really be a little ahead, if not, what is the point of having a max stat at all?
If they keep this thread of assuming everyone will have a 18, this game will be even more boring than 4E, and to some points, even more normalized.
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In PF1 not every character needed to be maximized to be played.
I'm not sure they need to in PF2, either. Characters inherently tend to have a bit more focused stats, but that isn't quite the same thing.
To be honest, in the few different groups of PF1 i took part, i should have seen like 1 or 2 characters optmized at most. Many... MANY had like +2 to hit. (I am DMing right now an adventure where the bard was melee/ranged hybrid and his normal to hit, without performance, was +2 and he for sure was effective)
The thing about that is that the Bard can do things other than roll with a +2 to-hit. The wolf cannot. Did you ever have a Fighter with only +2 to-hit? Because that's a better point of comparison.
To me, te mentality of "everyone is maximized and optmized" is exactly what destroys a system. The system should try to make the difference of very optimized to "normal" character less impactful (as opposed to 3.X were the difference was of orders of magnitude) but would balance around non-optimized values.
I agree with both parts of this to some degree, but especially the first. I think PF2, at the moment, actually does the first part pretty well (ie: it narrows the gap between optimized and unoptimized a lot), but tends to focus around the optimized rather than unoptimized
For example, if they keep saying that 16, or even a 14 is a viable option at level 1 at the main attribute, they should balance the system around that. If you have a 18, you should really be a little ahead, if not, what is the point of having a max stat at all?
There's still the point of being the best possible at that thing. That said, I do agree that balancing around a 16 in your prime stat seems much better. That allows deviation from the norm both above and below average while not assuming too much lower than normal on main stats.
If they keep this thread of assuming everyone will have a 18, this game will be even more boring than 4E, and to some points, even more normalized.
It's definitely a bit of an issue, though I'll note that the Str 16 Barbarian in my Playtest game did fine. That's only one character over one session so far, but it's worth noting.
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It's definitely a bit of an issue, though I'll note that the Str 16 Barbarian in my Playtest game did fine. That's only one character over one session so far, but it's worth noting.
I do believe its extremely possible at level 1, but i was building a level 13 monk for a session i will play in a few hours.
The main problem is that almost everything below "ultra optmized" was completely garbage. For exemple, since i had a reasonable Dex(16) and no armor penalty, i thought about getting some stealth.
Then i went to the bestiary to see how well i would fare against CR 10 to CR 13 monsters...
My best possible stealth was +17 if i bought expert in it. I didnt found a SINGLE monster of CR 10+ with less than +20. Every single monster in the bestiary have a perception bonus WAY HIGHER than their level should allow and the more the level, more the difference. They seems to be balanced around a MAX dex for level rogue with maximum possible item bonus for that level. I did a little math and that was the case, with some monsters "cheating" and having even higher than possible for that level.
That showed me another problem i wasnt even thinking in the beginning: Whats the point on doing a stealth rogue speciallist when everything level appropriate will always have at least 50% chance of detecting you? I am talking about the best of the best... the character made around it... it showed to me that the system now is "combatfinder" with rogues being "finesse light fighters" instead of rogues.
The days of scout missions with a main rogue and that monk/bard/other ligth armored assistant is gone.
Oh, and good luck winning initiative in a perception contest.
Some examples:
Frost giant:Level 9, +2 wis... somehow +16 perception.
Fire giant: Level 10 +2 wis... somehow +18 perception. (well, at least i lied and it is below +20, but without cheating it would be around +11 to +13, even a +5 item couldnt reach the value)
And that progress all the way to 20
Balor: Level 20, +6 wis... somehow +35 perception (not even with legendary perception, +5 item you can archieve so high, "cheating" is not a fun rules mechanic).
PS: Please note that the balor is exact matched to the number a level 20 rogue, with max dex, dex boosting item, +5 item would have... simple the best modifier possible in the game.
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I actually did a whole thread on monster skills dealing with precisely the issue you present.
According to Mark Seifter, who posted therein, the skills are, at least in part, a legitimate error (due to using an outdated monster creation guide) and 13th level ones should be down a flat -3 in all skills (and probably Perception) compared to where they are (probably more like -2 at 9th or 10th).
I think that even with that fact, the skills are still a little high (as I note in the linked thread), but it's an important piece of information worth noting.
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Ok, good to know, now just like 2 critical, 3 major, and a lot of minor issues to fix before a good playtest can start :)
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It's just a bit silly that their example for the new Prof. system was "The Rogue would have to go alone when stealthing because the party sucked too much at it, now they'll be able to participate!" Well, the odds of most characters at suceeding are still VERY bad for level-appropiate encounters to the point where it's still not worth trying. Hell, even the optimized Rogue will think twice about it now.
Many people complain that the new system makes characters too good at things, this is true if they're doing inferior level challenges. Other parts of the system, however, makes characters too BAD at things they're supposed to do (In level appropaite scenarios). Their party members are only slightly more bad I guess.
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Also that Bard with +2 example really made me reflect upon the game. Things were a lot simpler when designing PF1. I think the developers being too involved with PFS have them a skewed perspective of what the game actually was in some instances. Optimizers run rampant in that mode and make the CR system look extremely inadequate (It's not great in PF1, but usable if not optimizing).
I bet that Bard would actually have fun versus those wolves! I know he's probably not the "average" character, but maybe he should be? Part if the reason things got out of control was by raising the baseline to a 20 point buy. This wasn't done with the purpose to "power up" characters, but simply because the point buy math heavily favored/disfavored some classes with 15, which 20 smoothed out. The power increase was a negative consequence of this. It escalaed to where the CR system got out of control since it still used the old parameters, not to mention the release of superior options that further allowed guys to widen the gap.
What's wrong with 14-16 on primary stat if you're trying something silly? The baseline for the game in PF1 was the iconics pritned on the back of the early adventures, the cringeworthy Sajan from COTC and tear-inducing Ezren from Crypt of the Everflame (Both made with 15 point buy); what about the Beginner Box? That is one of the most fun products Paizo has ever made and look at those characters!.
I think the game has a lot more potential if you assume those weak characters as a baseline, It's easy to increase difficulty by picking higher CR encounters, what's not easy is going under the lvl0 assumptions in PF2. (Would need negative level for the above characters to succeed at anything when they're low level). The Bard in the playtest get's a free +1 BAB, so porting the same guy would result in hitting at a humble +3 (MAAAYBE +4 with inflated stats)... Is there room in the game for that right now?
For the current playtest, I believe the devs have managed to reduce the gap betwen optimal and suboptimal characters quite well, the problem is that they are not encouraging suboptimal characters at all because the game is balanced only versus the very best. It's only them that get to play and enjoy the intricate math and balance you've worked so hard on. It was probably correct to assume the super hardcore players in this forum would just play the best chars they can make, but that is a very bad assumption to make for the general public (And some hardcore silly-build players) that you intend to attract.
sooo with the background dwon to my question: Is there any known reasoning behind why the former +4 for many CR 1 creatures is now +7?
Yeah I said that too, the creatures are glass cannons. It's really about who goes first.
I would like to see all attack bonuses as 2 less. At least then the monster attack bonus would be 1 less than your best martial.
sooo with the background dwon to my question: Is there any known reasoning behind why the former +4 for many CR 1 creatures is now +7?Yeah I said that too, the creatures are glass cannons. It's really about who goes first.
I would like to see all attack bonuses as 2 less. At least then the monster attack bonus would be 1 less than your best martial.
Then the monsters would need higher damage, which in turn would make battles fluctuate more. Variableness favors NPCs, not PCs.
Look at the level 1s who do more damage and you'll see they do have lower attacks.
And you can just use PC rules to make monsters (even w/ tweaks for monsters), but then you might get a greataxe at +5 hitting for 1d12+6 (Barb)!
I prefer lots of minor attacks hitting, especially with PF2's crits & shields, to iffy major damage.
The opposite is true too, with monsters often having lower ACs again lessening fluctuation, but getting more h.p. to make it up. Average seems to be -3 AC for +50% h.p. w/ Trolls, oozes, and Zombies being extreme examples.
Since +3 to attack yields about +50% damage (w/ crits), this works out.
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If you don't think a wolf should be a fair match for a 1st level PC, then you don't think they should be level 1. And arguing that wolves should be level 0 monsters is definitely an argument you could make...but not really the point of this thread.
Now, whether they should be as much a match for an optimized PC as they are is another question, but whatever you consider 'default PC optimization' a level 1 monster should be about on par with it.
As for the party of 14 attack-stat people with AC 12...how? I'm honestly and legitimately confused by how that can even happen in PF2. I mean, a Wizard can easily wind up with terrible AC, sure, but a Fighter or Paladin? You basically have to be trying to not be good at your job to wind up with less than Str 16 and Dex 12 (on a melee character) and that should make for an easy 16 AC with medium armor.
And finally, no wolves had a +2 to hit in PF1.
In 4 combats with lvl 1 chars I noticed it is killing at least one pc if I go 1:1 with wolves vs chars (even some optimized ones inside). If I got 1/2 wolves and 1 chars (thus 1 wolf for 2 chars) the chars have a good chance to survive with only half hp lost.
(although in 2 of the 4 combats I had to retreat the wolves after THEY lost half hp...else they would have squashed the party still!)And in all honesty that feels completely wrong vs a WOLF.
A quick glance at the encounter builder suggests that four wolves vs four PCs is an Extreme encounter, aka about 50/50 on each side. Three wolves vs six PCs is a little under a High encounter.
In 4 combats with lvl 1 chars I noticed it is killing at least one pc if I go 1:1 with wolves vs chars (even some optimized ones inside).
Isn't that roughly what CR1 is intended to mean? A CR1 enemy is supposed to be a threat to a level 1 group on its own; two CR1 enemies at once is about the limit of what they group is expected to be able to take on.
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In pf1 I understood that CR 1 means threat to a single party member.
That's not how the design was supposed to work.
Refer to Table: Encounter Design to determine the Challenge Rating your group should face, depending on the difficulty of the challenge you want and the group’s APL.
Table: Encounter Design
Difficulty Challenge Rating Equals
Easy APL –1
Average APL
Challenging APL +1
Hard APL +2
Epic APL +3
The idea was that a CR 1 monster was an average/routine threat for a level 1 group, one that uses up a percentage of their daily resources but was unlikely to kill them. A CR 2 enemy was a challenging threat. A CR3 (or two CR1s) was a significant threat. A CR 4 was an epic threat. A CR 5 was a deadly threat, one that had a good chance of wiping out the party.
Given the ability of players to optimize and co-operate, they could often overcome far more than they were supposed to.
It's possible that in PF2 they've followed the same design goal, but this time they've actually succeeded, making same-CR threats much harder than in PF1.
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That is the question. In pf1 I understood that CR 1 means threat to a single party member.
This is not correct. A CR 1 was, officially, a fair fight (ie: a 50% chance of winning) for one PC, meaning a group of equal numbers of equal CR foes will TPK the PCs 50% of the time.
That was true in PF1 and remains true in PF2.
IF its CR 1 = threat to a WHOLE 3-6 man group of lvl 1 chars then........I honestly don't get how the hell civilizations in Golarion survived. I mean 6 wolves are enough to squash a whole village.......... gg civilization. Food time for wolves and similar.
Aka from a fluff and setting perspective some of the CR 1s then make absolutely no sense at all as the setting would not be possible at all.
Not really. Most people are level 0 (certainly many guards are), meaning you need two of them to fight a wolf, but most towns have more than 12 people in them, and city guards might easily have some level 1 members (a fair fight for a wolf) among them. 6 wolves thus might kill some people but would all die...and wolf packs are not suicidal.
It's possible that wolves should indeed be level 0 (indeed, the fact that leopards are level 1 is a strong indication of this...a wolf vs. a leopard is not a fair fight), but that's a separate issue from how good level 1 monsters are.
For +2: Yepp one of the posters mentioned +2 thus I corrected it to +4.
My apologies for the confusion (I screwed up the punctuation, as Matthew Downie notes). I meant that wolves do, in fact, have only +2 to hit in PF1. Follow the link and see for yourself.
For the stats: As I mentioned my groups are going mostly for non opzimized realistic chars. For example one of the fighters was renowned for her beauty and gave up on becoming a cleric after having to hit her admirers in the face too often (peaceful god so it was a problem). Thus str 14, dex 14, con 14, int 10, wis 10, cha 16
I mean, with that backstory, why not Str 16, Dex 12? Or Con 12? Both options actually sound more appropriate.
I'm not saying its impossible to have a 14 in your main stat, I'm saying it seems rare for everyone to have only that. Indeed, of the five characters you list it sounds like at least two have 16+.
ac 17 due to breastplate (she is one of the higher ac ones but as mentioend I talked about avg not the highest AC).
Sorcerer: Has 14 dex and leather armor thus 14 AC
Cleric: has AC 15 due to chain mail (and str 16)
Another cleric that is not a combat focused one: str 10, dex 14, con 12, int 14, wis 14, cha 14 has leather armor thus also below 15 with AC (she is an all rounder).
Barbarian: str 18, dex 14, con 14, int 10, wis 10, cha 8 AC 14 with leather and 16 with fur.First attempts we overlooked that arcane spell failure is no longer and thus sorcerer, wizard had no armor at all.
There actually are penalties if you aren't trained in the armor (-2 AC as compared to someone trained in the armor). They aren't worse for a Sorcerer or Wizard, but they exist.
Also, that's a 14, 13, 15, 17, 14. That averages 14 or 15 rather than the 12 you noted. My disbelief was that the average would be 12, and seems to be borne out by your numbers.
Still though normal non opzimized chars don't ahve AC 16+ they are around 12-15 normally. thus avg. 13. And 1 fighter in the group.
This is basically not true. Anyone in Medium Armor has a 15-16 at a minimum, and those in Heavy a 16 or 17. Only those in light or no armor even go below that, and you only have less than 14 if
And even most CR 1 creatures are not dumb....."my teeth dont get thorugh this hard shell...the one with the less hard shell looks more tasty".
Besides even the fighter with AC 17 has only ac 12 when she wasn't on guard duty when the wolves attacked (else she is quite fatigued the whole fight and day).
She should have 13 stark naked. Remember to always add level.
But forcing everyone to fight without armor will absolutely make encounters much harder. The more I hear about this fight the less I'm surprised it was very difficult.
As for the stats: Like I mentioned they went with realistic stats according to what the chars did. I mean "Scholastic", trained to fight and purely str 18, dex 14 making much sense?
Well, firstly, this is a fantasy game. People can be pretty impressive. Secondly, I can easily create a Cha 16 (or Int 16) character with Str 18. It's not even hard, and not exactly 'optimal' on a Fighter.
I'm not trying to argue you should always be 'perfectly optimal' or anything, I'm just saying that actually investing in the things you want to be good at, stat-wise, seems like a reasonable and common thing to me.
Also that Bard with +2 example really made me reflect upon the game...
...I bet that Bard would actually have fun versus those wolves! I know he's probably not the "average" character, but maybe he should be? Part if the reason things got out of control was by raising the baseline to a 20 point buy. This wasn't done with the purpose to "power up" characters, but simply because the point buy math heavily favored/disfavored some classes with 15, which 20 smoothed out. The power increase was a negative consequence of this. It escalaed to where the CR system got out of control since it still used the old parameters, not to mention the release of superior options that further allowed guys to widen the gap.
Yep, that simple fight... with 3 wolves, gave the characters(3, a bard, an alchemist bomber and a barbarian) a lot of fun.
I play with 25pt buy... but with a special rule, they can use 20pt wichever way they want then i spend the last 5 "adjusting" acording to their background and things i knew will be useful to the campaign. The bard is the most average cause the player wanted to play a support character that was like a "secondary everything"... a secondary melee when needed, secondary ranged, secondary caster, secondary healer...
So he ended with Str 14, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 14, Wis 10, Cha 18 half elf. Note that he is pretty strong overall, but any optimizer could have changed his stats to something like lots of 7s and a 20 in CHA.
He works extremely well in what the player envisioned and i am very statisfied on how the game is playing.
See, a 25pt buy with only a +2 to attack.... this is BLASPHEMY! since many power builds archieve +5 or higher at 1st level with 15pts... i imagine the frustration of playing a +1 character with 15pts characters if the system were designed around the munchkins.
That said, the barbarin,fights much better but not enough to make the Bard feels useless...
As a funny side note the bard was the one who landed the killing blow on the Bear at the Temple of the Elk... one of the "miniboss" of the Kingmaker AP that is very popular.
I really prefer a game that focus on the unoptmized, just taking a few steps to garantee that the optimized is better, but not enough to break the game.
As a last observation: I really few that all the "brokeness" of some optimized builds are due to lame design on some aspects of the games that are not inherent to the system, like OP feats or class features, not ineherent things like stat modifiers, how weapon works, so on.