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So, I like a lot of things about PF2. The math is much cleaner, character creation is a breeze, and I enjoy a lot of the rebalancing between casters and martials (though I think martials still need more skills and other non-combat options). I also have many minor issues (content limitations, Ancestries being unequal, the whole way Signature Skills work), that I suspect will go away and are easily fixable with House Rules even if they don't.
But the more I think about it and run my playtest game, the more I come to realize what my core issue is with this game:
The game assumes absolutely optimal PCs have something around a 50% chance of succeeding at equal level challenges. And that's terrible.
It's terrible because it makes absolutely optimized characters feel adequate and other characters feel inadequate. That's not fun for people who optimize (who do so to feel impressive, rather than adequate), and not fun for those who don't optimize (since nobody likes feeling incompetent and inadequate).
With monsters, even knowing the math is screwed up, this takes the form of most monsters having to-hit on par with an absolutely optimal Fighter, and having several different Skills at the highest level a PC can possibly get even with items and a maxed stat...but it's true in other areas of the game as well. And it's an issue.
The ideal solution would be to pick a level of optimization that is relatively reasonable but not 'as high as possible' and set DCs and other things to make that the level that gets 50% success. A simple example would be assuming a starting 16 stat (rather than 18), a Skill +1 behind the maximum, and a maxed Item (assuming items are made more available). That makes a fully optimized character have a +2 over the assumed numbers, which is very good in this system, but not brokenly so.
This is not a situation I've run the numbers on, but is certainly a motion I could get behind.
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This is not a situation I've run the numbers on, but is certainly a motion I could get behind.
The numbers are a little more complicated than a pure 50% chance on everything (monster ACs are signioficantly lower than that, for example), but the math assuming absolutely optimal PCs is definitely a thing. And a big problem.
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I suspect this is something Paizo is monitoring very closely. The big thing that is unique to PF2 is the 3 action system.
I know that in D&D, their devs had the average numbers for success being around 55-65% of the time. But you only had one action. No one wanted to miss half the time and do nothing useful. The key difference here is that you have three actions. You can miss, and often, attack again. If you hit once, and miss with the other, you still had a productive round. I would guess the devs erred on lower numbers instead of higher numbers since it is possible to attack 3 times a round now.
At any rate, I feel this will be adjusted in time.
The last point I would add is this: Many editions seem to have under powered monsters in the first bestiary for the edition. Rather than under perform, their thoughts may be to have base line monsters higher. I don't actually know, but its a thought rattling around in my brain.
If you've run the numbers and this is the case, then:
*_^_WOW_^_*
That's a REAL problem.
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I suspect this is something Paizo is monitoring very closely. The big thing that is unique to PF2 is the 3 action system.
I know that in D&D, their devs had the average numbers for success being around 55-65% of the time. But you only had one action. No one wanted to miss half the time and do nothing useful. The key difference here is that you have three actions. You can miss, and often, attack again. If you hit once, and miss with the other, you still had a productive round. I would guess the devs erred on lower numbers instead of higher numbers since it is possible to attack 3 times a round now.
But this extends beyond combat. You only get once chance to cast a meaningful spell per round (and waste a scarce resource if they save). You only get one chance to deceive someone or sneak past them or to learn a spell (until next level) or...
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I suspect this is something Paizo is monitoring very closely. The big thing that is unique to PF2 is the 3 action system.
Absolutely. If I didn't think people were paying attention and things might change, I wouldn't even bother bringing it up. :)
I know that in D&D, their devs had the average numbers for success being around 55-65% of the time. But you only had one action. No one wanted to miss half the time and do nothing useful. The key difference here is that you have three actions. You can miss, and often, attack again. If you hit once, and miss with the other, you still had a productive round. I would guess the devs erred on lower numbers instead of higher numbers since it is possible to attack 3 times a round now.
The issue with this is that subsequent attacks take such large penalties that if your first attack is at a low chance, your second and third are even worse. And many skills (an area I often focus on) cannot be re-attempted in this matter (you don't get to try again three times per turn on Diplomacy).
At any rate, I feel this will be adjusted in time.
That's certainly my hope. It's why I'm bringing up the issue in its own thread.
The last point I would add is this: Many editions seem to have under powered monsters in the first bestiary for the edition. Rather than under perform, their thoughts may be to have base line monsters higher. I don't actually know, but its a thought rattling around in my brain.
I have no objection to competent monsters. But when every monster of the same level as the PCs is more competent than they are, it causes feelings of incompetence and unhappiness.
If you've run the numbers and this is the case, then:
*_^_WOW_^_*
That's a REAL problem.
I've run them on monster skills and examined common Skill DCs in the adventures and it's right around here anyway, yeah. Monster combat stats, as noted, are more complicated but still seem to assume a high level of optimization.
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Xenocrat, DMW
Good points all round.
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This would echo what I've seen on the boards that The Lost Star feel "random", and what I think they're getting at is how, even when experienced players are playing optimally, there is an unacceptably large window of possibility in which the bad guys win.
The good news is that this seems to be something that can be easily calibrated, and not require a reworking of the entire system. (Thanks by the way, DMW, for your criticisms and insights! I've been following them throughout the playtest.)
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Actually this would be easily fixed if MAP only applied after a hit, not on a miss.
I know Furious Focus exists. I am suggesting that if its effects were automatic and free for everyone, the issue would go away entirely.
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So, I like a lot of things about PF2. The math is much cleaner, character creation is a breeze, and I enjoy a lot of the rebalancing between casters and martials (though I think martials still need more skills and other non-combat options). I also have many minor issues (content limitations, Ancestries being unequal, the whole way Signature Skills work), that I suspect will go away and are easily fixable with House Rules even if they don't.
But the more I think about it and run my playtest game, the more I come to realize what my core issue is with this game:
The game assumes absolutely optimal PCs have something around a 50% chance of succeeding at equal level challenges. And that's terrible.
It's terrible because it makes absolutely optimized characters feel adequate and other characters feel inadequate. That's not fun for people who optimize (who do so to feel impressive, rather than adequate), and not fun for those who don't optimize (since nobody likes feeling incompetent and inadequate).
With monsters, even knowing the math is screwed up, this takes the form of most monsters having to-hit on par with an absolutely optimal Fighter, and having several different Skills at the highest level a PC can possibly get even with items and a maxed stat...but it's true in other areas of the game as well. And it's an issue.
The ideal solution would be to pick a level of optimization that is relatively reasonable but not 'as high as possible' and set DCs and other things to make that the level that gets 50% success. A simple example would be assuming a starting 16 stat (rather than 18), a Skill +1 behind the maximum, and a maxed Item (assuming items are made more available). That makes a fully optimized character have a +2 over the assumed numbers, which is very good in this system, but not brokenly so.
This is pretty well related to my accuracy thread from a week or two ago. This is also my biggest problem with the game.
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But this extends beyond combat. You only get once chance to cast a meaningful spell per round (and waste a scarce resource if they save). You only get one chance to deceive someone or sneak past them or to learn a spell (until next level) or...
I'd agree, and would go so far as to say these are where the issues are most acute. It makes spellcasters extremely swingy since it means their entire combat contribution could be riding on a single roll; flub that roll, and the party is effectively down a man. Skills are even worse, though. 1st level characters basically are incompetent at everything if they don't have at least a 16 in the associated stat. I want to focus on stealth in particular, because the way it's set up it's functionally impossible to succeed in any practical situation. Let's compare two equivalent 1st level characters for PF1 and PF2.
We'll take a character with 14 dexterity, 1 rank in stealth, a trait that gives a +1 bonus and class skill, for a total of +7 stealth. We'll take a group of three 1st level mook enemies with +0 perception. Because they aren't aware of your presence, they're just taking 10 on perception. If you keep 20 feet away (-2 penalty to their perception check) then you succeed even on a roll of 1. You can consistently sneak past these mooks, provided you have cover or concealment.
Now let's look at PF2 stealth. 1st level character, trained in stealth, and 14 dexterity. You have +3 to stealth in total. The 1st level mooks have +1 to perception, and each of them rolls separately (take 10 isn't a thing anymore). There are no distance penalties, either. So you need to beat all three of their rolls. The chance of doing that is... 37.5%
Ouch, this went from guaranteed success in PF1 down to a longshot. But it actually gets worse: you need to roll again every time you move. And since you're moving half your speed, that probably means you need to succeed three times per round. We're now looking at a chance of success so low that it no longer makes sense to even attempt it.
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This would echo what I've seen on the boards that The Lost Star feel "random", and what I think they're getting at is how, even when experienced players are playing optimally, there is an unacceptably large window of possibility in which the bad guys win.
That's very possible. I'm actually less concerned about combat than skills (my PCs have yet to succeed at a Stealth check, monster Perception scores are too high...by a lot), but combat certainly also has its issues.
The good news is that this seems to be something that can be easily calibrated, and not require a reworking of the entire system. (Thanks by the way, DMW, for your criticisms and insights! I've been following them throughout the playtest.)
Oh absolutely. And I'm very hopeful that they'll do precisely that.
And you're quite welcome. I'm pleased people find my commentary useful and interesting. :)
Actually this would be easily fixed if MAP only applied after a hit, not on a miss.
I know Furious Focus exists. I am suggesting that if its effects were automatic and free for everyone, the issue would go away entirely.
I'm actually not super concerned with PCs hitting in combat. That's one of the few areas this particular thing doesn't seem to apply in. I'm concerned about everything else.
Because its so easy to get conditional and circumstantial and item bonuses, having optimal PCs be balanced near to the 50+ % mark for at level challenges is essential because of the way that critical failures and critical successes work. From my play experience it seems to be working very well. So far I would consider this one of PF2's successes, and I'm looking forward to see how it plays out at higher levels.
The thing is, it isn't easy to get conditional or circumstantial bonuses at everything. You actually have something of a point on those where it is (though even there, you won't always get them, and having to be absolutely optimal to be at the point the game expects you to be is pretty unpleasant)...but what about the things where you can't get such modifiers?
And the majority of conditional or circumstantial modifiers (outside combat, anyway) are +2 at best. A 70% chance of success is great...right up until it's the chance the best guy in the world has of doing something under absolutely ideal conditions (a +2 bonus from two different sources). It's a lot less compelling then.
And I'm not arguing optimal characters should have a flat 90% chance at everything, either. I'm arguing that slightly less than optimal characters shouldn't all be stuck with less than 50%. It's really the percentage for non-optimal characters that's the problem here. It feels bad. Math-wise, you can make all sorts of arguments as to why it's useful (I even agree with some of them)...but it still feels bad. It feels like you suck. Very few people play RPGs to suck at things.
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Good thing DMW made the thread. If they're gonna listen to someone, it's this man <3.
And yeah, many of us realized this since the bestiary came out. I guess PF1 monsters seemed very weak because they were balanced around PCs being very suboptimal and weak (Look at 2009 pregens with 15 on primary stat). However, seems every RPG has some pretty weak starting lvl monsters, the lv0s in 5E are pathetic for example. Dunno why they thought PF2 thought this was some huge issue with the game.
But as you said, it's worse with skills.
Now let's look at PF2 stealth. 1st level character, trained in stealth, and 14 dexterity. You have +3 to stealth in total. The 1st level mooks have +1 to perception, and each of them rolls separately (take 10 isn't a thing anymore). There are no distance penalties, either. So you need to beat all three of their rolls. The chance of doing that is... 37.5%
Only the least perceptive lv0 mooks really have +1 on perception. Actual level 1 enemies have betwen +4 and +6, so some are the same as a 18 WIS guy with expert perception. I believe when sneaking past a group of enemies in PG2 they use a fixed DC of 10 + highest mod, so this character would need to succeed at a DC 14-16 stealth check. His chance of success is 40-50%, but with no way to further improve their chances besides increasing DEX to 18 to get a reliable 50% minimum (See thread title). Maybe the PF1 example was too easy, but this is still a huge difference in competency. Also, you should try this same analysis at level 5 or something, it gets a lot worse for the PC that isn't optimized.
Maybe the PF1 example was too generous, but this is still a huge difference in competency.And let's not talk about that Battlefield Medic feat. Seems it was designed for PF1 where DC20 is pretty doable at lv2 if you invest in the skill, but it's ridiculous in PF2.
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Now let's look at PF2 stealth. 1st level character, trained in stealth, and 14 dexterity. You have +3 to stealth in total. The 1st level mooks have +1 to perception, and each of them rolls separately (take 10 isn't a thing anymore). There are no distance penalties, either. So you need to beat all three of their rolls. The chance of doing that is... 37.5%
While I agree in general, you actually do generally sneak up on people who aren't paying close attention vs. their Perception DC...which is 10 + Per Bonus. Indeed, opposed checks are very rare in PF2 in general.
That's still a +3 bonus vs. a DC 11 for a 65% chance rather than the sure thing a PF1 character would have, but it's a relevant thing to mention.
Of course, level 1 monsters average more like +5 Perception than +1 (dropping the chance to 40%...I found seven monsters, out of 34, of level 1 with Perception lower than +4, most had +5 or higher). A +1 is possible (the animated dresser has it, as does the sewer ooze, but they're it), but it is not common. Which is sort of my problem in a nutshell given the likely PC Perception scores at 1st level...
It does appear that in many ways monsters are balanced around fighters with Monsters generally having a couple more HP, an extra point or two to hit and a couple points lower AC. Though, en aggregate they balance out.
This is true somewhat in combat. They are balanced very specifically around an optimal Fighter, however. It's the optimal part of that I object to more than the Fighter part.
It's also not true on skills, where many monsters with Fighter level combat prowess are also on par with Rogues in skills (or better).
This shouldn't be shocking, as an equal level monster solo is an extreme or toss up threat for a single character. It makes sense they balanced them roughly equal to the fighter, with the fighter often gaining their advantage should extra resources ie magic items and their feat selection.
An equal level monster is intended to be a coin flip situation for a single PC. This was true in PF1 as well, and I'm fine with it as a base assumption. My issue is that an equal level monster just wins over a PC who isn't absolutely optimized, and might well win even over the optimized one in terms of skills.
No, if we accept they balanced the game essentially off the fighter's assumptions and they tried to balanced the other classes to be equal to the fighter, this makes sense.
It really doesn't make the skills make sense. And once again, while I agree they balanced around Fighter, that isn't my issue. My issue is that they did it around an optimal Fighter.
Also, looking at how they constructed encounters, I think they are expecting most one on one fights to more likely be a character vs lvl -2 monsters. Straight up 1v1s with an equal level threat aren't expected very often, and often equal level threats are going to end up 2v1. Anything higher level is expected to be 2v1 or 4v1.
They do indeed expect most fights to be with lower level foes or one foe of equal or higher level. That was true last edition as well. However, a PC Class character, built as a PC, is also supposed to be able to sub in as a foe of their level. So...there's supposed to be parity there. And there isn't.
If we look at monsters with more of an expected lvl -2 as our benchmark, it "fixes" a lot of what you're talking about. Essentially, Monsters are generally optimal at most things for that level to make them an equal threat to a character of that level, and they generally need a little boosting up to in part make up for the characters more diverse and powerful feats, spells, magic items, etc. If they constructed monsters differently, you'd just see a different encounter scale that would shift the 1v1 vs equal level moving from extreme to hard etc.
I'm not advocating vastly powering down monsters, particularly not in combat. I'm advocating a slight reduction to the baseline so that truly exceptional monsters at X can still be on par with optimal PCs at that, but run of the mill ones are on par with slightly less optimal PCs.
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I am beginning to wonder whether "hit on a miss" -- yes, a controversial topic! -- should be more of a thing.
I don't know who else on these boards is into board games, but the #1 game on Board Game Geek right now is Gloomhaven. It is an RPG campaign in a box of sorts, and the unit of play is a mission that usually consists of 3 to 5 combat encounters. In that game, you can impose status effects on enemies, even when you miss -- effects such as persistent damage, disadvantage, being stunned etc.
Well anyway, it makes you feel like you didn't waste your turn because you had some impact on the battlefield, even when you miss. It seems like, with the 4 degrees of success, that this can be explored more in PF2 without overly breaking verisimilitude.
EDIT: I see that DMW's experience has been that this has more been a problem when it comes to skills. Still, maybe this could make combat more interesting? And perhaps be a good way to make skills more meaningful?
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I am beginning to wonder whether "hit on a miss" -- yes, a controversial topic! -- should be more of a thing.
I don't know who else on these boards is into board games, but the #1 game on Board Game Geek right now is Gloomhaven. It is an RPG campaign in a box of sorts, and the unit of play is a mission that usually consists of 3 to 5 combat encounters. In that game, you can impose status effects on enemies, even when you miss -- effects such as persistent damage, disadvantage, being stunned etc.
Well anyway, it makes you feel like you didn't waste your turn because you had some impact on the battlefield, even when you miss. It seems like, with the 4 degrees of success, that this can be explored more in PF2 without overly breaking verisimilitude.
I'm not against this. I'm not 100% sure it's the right move, but I'm not categorically against this or anything. Monster AC is also the area I feel this is least a problem in. Save DCs and Skills are both larger issues.
EDIT: I see that DMW's experience has been that this has more been a problem when it comes to skills. Still, maybe this could make combat more interesting? And perhaps be a good way to make skills more meaningful?
My problem is that, at the moment, most skills actually aren't that meaningful because monsters are better at them than you are, and the static DCs are really higher than you can make reliably unless you're hyper specialized. Often by a lot. The only ones you can be good enough to matter with are those based on your primary stat, that you also level up at every possible opportunity, that you also get items for.
For non-Rogues, that's a max of three skills you can actually be good at enough to matter vs. on-level opposition.
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To the people that are saying "you run the number":
People, its VERY easy to do, just build a character of X level and compare.
I've said this problem literary 1 day after the playtest released. Its VERY EASY to figure out.
My first suspicion was seeing that ALL the monsters had perception WAY ABOVE (ranging from +3 to +5 or even more in some specific monsters) than their wis and level could allow. There are some MONSTER LITERARY CHEATING... not even with +5 item and +3 from legendary they could have that values.
They i started building players... after a little while, 2 or 3 characters, you realize that all classes are just standarlized to 4ed levels, and everyone has exact the same MAX at something at said level. There is literary no choice... well, you can choose to be unoptimized, but that means that you will ALWAYS be behind the values of monsters.
And another IMENSE problem i realized after also playing a session: most monster are literary made to challenged everyone at what they are THE BEST... that means that all monsters fight like the best fighter, scout like the best possible to challenge the optimized rogue stealther and when they do anything else they are always good enough to beat a player optimized to do that thing.
So while the players specialize, monster are good at everything.
Have a diferent opinion? Open bestiary and do the math, its actually very easy after a while.
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The devs have said that monster skills are too high and are looking to adjust them. Mainly this applies when a monster is performing a maneuver on PCs, since when you need to use a skill to affect a monster, it’s usually you rolling a check vs. one of their saves.
This is true to some degree. Their Perception remains relevant however, and it remains an important thematic issue if you're flatly worse than everyone else of your level at things. And I'm well aware that the folks at Paizo are gonna fix monster skills somewhat. But only somewhat. Last Mark Seifter said to me, at 13th level we were talking -3 to all Skills. All my complaints in this thread assume that adjustment will occur. That adjustment just gets them down to 'optimal PC level'. Not below it.
Additionally, this issue also pops up in static DCs in the adventures and other places. Monster skills, while my own pet peeve, are only part of the problem.
My first suspicion was seeing that ALL the monsters had perception WAY ABOVE (ranging from +3 to +5 or even more in some specific monsters) than their wis and level could allow. There are some MONSTER LITERARY CHEATING... not even with +5 item and +3 from legendary they could have that values.
I don't think 'cheating' is the best way to look at it. Monsters are not designed in the same way as PCs and their stats not correlating with their Perception and Skills is part of that, and a perfectly reasonable one.
The fact that most monsters have +5 or more Perception when that's the absolute max for a Wis-heavy PC is a problem not because of what their Wisdom scores are, but because most monsters wind up with Perception notably higher than most PCs.
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Yes.
In summary, there seem to be two levels of performance in the game: functional & maximum. Tuning the adversaries to the maximum by default (and above it for exceptional creatures!) makes for arguably dysfunctional gameplay.
In detail, there's the baseline of minimum performance that all PCs can get to: Expert in Saves, Expert in Skills & Perc, & Trained in whatever Weapons & Armor they equip. PCs are (it seems) expected to advance to +7 in their "armor bonus/dex max", before magic. Getting +2 in save stats (Dex/Con/Wis) by 5th or 10th is a modest investment, w/ +3-4 by 15th, so those are likely expectations of the system.
Also +1 magic armor when 3rd & +1 every 4 levels after that, and a +1 weapon at 4th & +1 every 4 levels after that. Add a +2 Potency item around 14th, as Paizo said there'd be 3 must-have items in PF2.
While I wish magic weapons & armor were more special, I can understand how their ubiquity requires gameplay to balance around them.
Getting to these functional norms is simple, but getting beyond is hard! It usually requires a specific class or Dedication Feat, and afterward a significant g.p. investment to excel. I do not mind the meta of such a baseline mechanic, but it's a norm that the monsters seem to ignore. Their norm seems to match the invested/Dedicated PC.
Yes, monsters do work off a different system, I understand that. They quite often trade lower AC for higher h.p. (-3 for +50% seems the pattern) and higher attack rolls for lower damage. This is fine as both adjustments favor PCs by reducing fluctuations (assuming the encounter is balanced for the PCs to win). And weaknesses increase h.p. while resistances & fast healing lower h.p., which all seems fair in its own way, as does NPC weapon and/or strength damage multiplying to suit their level rather than their stats & equipment.
And DMW's thread about skills already revealed how the current Bestiary has a +3-ish error throughout.
So even after accounting for all that why are monsters still skewed beyond PC standards? Why do they all seemed to be tuned to maximum?
(Is this some type of future-proofing against power creep?)
I accept it if the Demon Lord of Assassination has the equivalent of Legendary Stealth & a +5 Item bonus, but that should be an exception. His Arcana shouldn't be similarly high even if his Dex & Int bonuses match. Paizo revealed (also in DMW's skill thread) that monsters get the equivalent of item bonuses to their skills and from what I can tell, it's not limited to a monster's specialties. So it's like they have an arsenal of items a PC could not afford, as many Signature Skills as they'd like, and Master+ levels in saves, weapons, Perc, & armor.
Perhaps being on the outside I'm missing some pieces here. Maybe monsters already have a similar system to PCs which limits the availability of higher end abilities so they have to be selective about where they excel. I'm a decent layman cryptographer, yet I'm not seeing it.
In my mind (and genre norms) a sneaky thief should bypass legitimate combat threats via Stealth w/ relative surety. I could see some Fey or shadowy creatures doing the same to PCs. As it is, a monster doesn't have to have particular notoriety for its Perception in order to thwart this, but PCs better have max Wis & some item bonuses to have a chance.
Hmm...
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Here's a related thing - finding some high level traps is completely impossible for most classes, no matter what your build choices.
Among the bestiary's simple traps, there is a level 15 and 17 trap that require Master proficiency in Perception to even attempt to spot them in advance. There's also a level 21 trap that requires legendary Perception. For complex traps, you have a level 14 that requires master, and a level 18 that requires legendary. These all look exceptionally deadly on paper and are not something you want to trigger.
Alas. Only Fighters (7th level) Rangers (7th), and Rogues (7th) can become masters at Perception. Only Rangers (15th) and Rogues (13th) can ever be legendary at Perception. You can't improve your perception past expert via any method such as a feat or archetype feat.
One of the later playtest adventures has one of these quite nasty Master only traps, I'll be interested to see how many deaths result simply from party composition.
Low level summons or bullied captives sacrificed to the trap gods seem like a very good use of resources at high levels for parties lacking a trap finding specialist. Heck, your familiar is good for 1/week detection of the really bad ones.
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This is not a situation I've run the numbers on, but is certainly a motion I could get behind.The numbers are a little more complicated than a pure 50% chance on everything (monster ACs are signioficantly lower than that, for example), but the math assuming absolutely optimal PCs is definitely a thing. And a big problem.
I'm taking stock of all these math threads for a math-up to be performed later in the playtest. For your other threads, you each time discovered a problem with our modeling that I now know how to correct. This one has been a bit vaguer in theme than the last ones that presented more data, so I'd like to ask a few questions to help refine the scope. Most rolls the PCs make will be attack rolls, saves, and skill checks, and you've said you were not finding this to be the case for attack bonus vs AC, so no need to ask that.
*Was this the case for a PC's highest possible saving throw vs monster spell and ability DCs?
*Is this the case for PC skills vs the Low or High skill DCs of their own levels (these are the ones we use most often in the rules; I'd expect Severe should be the ones at this difficulty because they are severe, the parallel to a max boss encounter in encounter difficulty)
*Assuming the monster skills are currently too high and would get an across the board reduction as discussed in your skills thread, was this the case for optimized PC skills vs the average of skills across all monsters of their level, or was it the case for optimized PC skills pitted against a typical monster of their level in that monster's strongest skill?
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Even something like the fighter ability to do minimum damage on a miss by default feels like a good idea, I'd agree. Having no effect >50% of the time on your first attack is bad...I am beginning to wonder whether "hit on a miss" -- yes, a controversial topic! -- should be more of a thing.
I don't know who else on these boards is into board games, but the #1 game on Board Game Geek right now is Gloomhaven. It is an RPG campaign in a box of sorts, and the unit of play is a mission that usually consists of 3 to 5 combat encounters. In that game, you can impose status effects on enemies, even when you miss -- effects such as persistent damage, disadvantage, being stunned etc.
Well anyway, it makes you feel like you didn't waste your turn because you had some impact on the battlefield, even when you miss. It seems like, with the 4 degrees of success, that this can be explored more in PF2 without overly breaking verisimilitude.
EDIT: I see that DMW's experience has been that this has more been a problem when it comes to skills. Still, maybe this could make combat more interesting? And perhaps be a good way to make skills more meaningful?
Very early on, I put in this idea that the failure of a Strike was a glancing blow for half minimum damage and a critical failure was the way to deal no damage. There were some class features involving it (fighter and paladin shield ability to shield block a certain number of glancing blows without using the reaction, barbarian got resistance specifically to glancing blows). A few people liked it (and I thought it was a good idea at the time), but all in all, early playtesters strongly disliked this, it slowed things down a lot, and characters without anti-glancing blow abilities (usually casters who got ambushed) suffered high attrition. It was actually when we removed glancing blows that suddenly the very lowest level monsters started becoming whiff-fests that usually did nothing even if it was supposed to be a Hard or Severe encounter, which led to lowering damage and upping accuracy a bit for those.
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16
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I am beginning to wonder whether "hit on a miss" -- yes, a controversial topic! -- should be more of a thing.
I don't know who else on these boards is into board games, but the #1 game on Board Game Geek right now is Gloomhaven. It is an RPG campaign in a box of sorts, and the unit of play is a mission that usually consists of 3 to 5 combat encounters. In that game, you can impose status effects on enemies, even when you miss -- effects such as persistent damage, disadvantage, being stunned etc.
Well anyway, it makes you feel like you didn't waste your turn because you had some impact on the battlefield, even when you miss. It seems like, with the 4 degrees of success, that this can be explored more in PF2 without overly breaking verisimilitude.
EDIT: I see that DMW's experience has been that this has more been a problem when it comes to skills. Still, maybe this could make combat more interesting? And perhaps be a good way to make skills more meaningful?
Hmm, interesting. So, for example, Fighters could have an Feat like this:
Sure Thing Fighter 1
Make a Strike against an opponent.
Critical success: You deal double damage, as normal
Success: You deal damage as normal
Failure: You deal damage equal to your key ability modifier
Critical Failure: no effect
I really like that as a concept! :-D
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This is pretty well related to my accuracy thread from a week or two ago. This is also my biggest problem with the game.So, I like a lot of things about PF2. The math is much cleaner, character creation is a breeze, and I enjoy a lot of the rebalancing between casters and martials (though I think martials still need more skills and other non-combat options). I also have many minor issues (content limitations, Ancestries being unequal, the whole way Signature Skills work), that I suspect will go away and are easily fixable with House Rules even if they don't.
But the more I think about it and run my playtest game, the more I come to realize what my core issue is with this game:
The game assumes absolutely optimal PCs have something around a 50% chance of succeeding at equal level challenges. And that's terrible.
It's terrible because it makes absolutely optimized characters feel adequate and other characters feel inadequate. That's not fun for people who optimize (who do so to feel impressive, rather than adequate), and not fun for those who don't optimize (since nobody likes feeling incompetent and inadequate).
With monsters, even knowing the math is screwed up, this takes the form of most monsters having to-hit on par with an absolutely optimal Fighter, and having several different Skills at the highest level a PC can possibly get even with items and a maxed stat...but it's true in other areas of the game as well. And it's an issue.
The ideal solution would be to pick a level of optimization that is relatively reasonable but not 'as high as possible' and set DCs and other things to make that the level that gets 50% success. A simple example would be assuming a starting 16 stat (rather than 18), a Skill +1 behind the maximum, and a maxed Item (assuming items are made more available). That makes a fully optimized character have a +2 over the assumed numbers, which is very good in this system, but not brokenly so.
Same here in my statistical analysis for my Arcane Spellcasters - Quo Vadis? thread.
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A few people liked it (and I thought it was a good idea at the time), but all in all, early playtesters strongly disliked this, it slowed things down a lot
May I ask what was the thing slowing down combat? Minimum damage per swing seems like a rather easy box to fill on a character sheet for a weapon/spell/ability.
It doesn't sound like it would slow combat down anymore than the actual roll. If you made it a static number, it wouldn't even require calculation.
characters without anti-glancing blow abilities (usually casters who got ambushed) suffered high attrition.
That seems like something that should happen.
Sad to see that early playtester dislike potentially shelved a really interesting concept. I hope that the test sample size was at least relatively high to merit removal.
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A few people liked it (and I thought it was a good idea at the time), but all in all, early playtesters strongly disliked this, it slowed things down a lotMay I ask what was the thing slowing down combat? Minimum damage per swing seems like a rather easy box to fill on a character sheet for a weapon/spell/ability.
It doesn't sound like it would slow combat down anymore than the actual roll. If you made it a static number, it wouldn't even require calculation.
characters without anti-glancing blow abilities (usually casters who got ambushed) suffered high attrition.That seems like something that should happen.
Sad to see that early playtester dislike potentially shelved a really interesting concept. I hope that the test sample size was at least relatively high to merit removal.
It was all the little hits; they came in with great frequency and caused a subtraction from HP each time, even if the person with the glancing blow was quick to say how much it dealt. There was also a much higher mental load per round on the shield guy to remember how many glancing blows he had blocked than in remembering whether he used a reaction. Like I could do it quickly, but I'm also probably the mathiest guy on the design team of the game, and Linda could do it quickly, but she has a math degree from MIT (not that it's the same math really, but still). With most groups, all the little subtractions were a death by a thousand paper cuts to the game's flow, unfortunately. I did like that one other than it being a major play flow problem. It's why I added back some abilities like it to the fighter, but stronger versions and as higher level abilities and only for that one character. They seem to have worked out pretty well so far (great for forceful weapons!).
It was all the little hits; they came in with great frequency and caused a subtraction from HP each time, even if the person with the glancing blow was quick to say how much it dealt. There was also a much higher mental load per round on the shield guy to remember how many glancing blows he had blocked than in remembering whether he used a reaction. Like I could do it quickly, but I'm also probably the mathiest guy on the design team of the game, and Linda could do it quickly, but she has a math degree from MIT (not that it's the same math really, but still). With most groups, all the little subtractions were a death by a thousand paper cuts to the game's flow, unfortunately. I did like that one other than it being a major play flow problem. It's why I added back some abilities like it to the fighter, but stronger versions and as higher level abilities and only for that one character. They seem to have worked out pretty well so far (great for forceful weapons!).
Fair enough.
As a side note, this interaction would make possessing a Shield for Shield Block use much stronger even in its current form because of the number of glancing blows it would likely be able to prevent.
I'd be curious to hear whether Shields were designed in the current capacity before or after the removal of said mechanic.
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Modeling play around assumptions of a 16 in the relevant stat seems reasonable to me, for what it is worth. I've been running the game for a lot of people, including new players, and while I haven't seen anyone wind up with lower than a 16 in their primary stat, lots of them don't wind up with 18.
We'll take a character with 14 dexterity, 1 rank in stealth, a trait that gives a +1 bonus and class skill, for a total of +7 stealth. We'll take a group of three 1st level mook enemies with +0 perception. Because they aren't aware of your presence, they're just taking 10 on perception. If you keep 20 feet away (-2 penalty to their perception check) then you succeed even on a roll of 1. You can consistently sneak past these mooks, provided you have cover or concealment.
Now let's look at PF2 stealth. 1st level character, trained in stealth, and 14 dexterity. You have +3 to stealth in total. The 1st level mooks have +1 to perception, and each of them rolls separately (take 10 isn't a thing anymore). There are no distance penalties, either. So you need to beat all three of their rolls. The chance of doing that is... 37.5%
Ouch, this went from guaranteed success in PF1 down to a longshot. But it actually gets worse: you need to roll again every time you move. And since you're moving half your speed, that probably means you need to succeed three times per round. We're now looking at a chance of success so low that it no longer...
I think you actually have the rules flipped. As DMW noted, you roll stealth against the perception DCs in PF2. The enemy only rolls if they actively take a seek action. Even someone on watch duty isn't assumed to be doing that.
PF1 doesn't actually have any rules on taking 10 for perception checks vs stealth. What the rules say is "Your Stealth check is opposed by the Perception check of anyone who might notice you." So in your example, all 3 monsters get rolls, which drastically cuts the odds of success. (My math skills aren't sophisticated enough to tell you by how much, but it isn't good.)
The Perception DC rules are actually one of the best changes to PF2, and I'm dabbling with house ruling them into my PF1 game. The big problem is that the stealth scores for a specialist in PF1 can be so high there's like a 0% chance of failure, where as with opposed rolls there was at least a chance the unaware creature could roll high and the sneaker could roll low.
The big problem is the math for PF2. Monster perceptions seem over-tuned, and the lack of distance penalties (or other perception penalties) is kind of a problem as well. But the core rules for removing opposed rolls are really good for sneaking in this situation.
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I'm taking stock of all these math threads for a math-up to be performed later in the playtest. For your other threads, you each time discovered a problem with our modeling that I now know how to correct. This one has been a bit vaguer in theme than the last ones that presented more data, so I'd like to ask a few questions to help refine the scope. Most rolls the PCs make will be attack rolls, saves, and skill checks, and you've said you were not finding this to be the case for attack bonus vs AC, so no need to ask that.This is not a situation I've run the numbers on, but is certainly a motion I could get behind.The numbers are a little more complicated than a pure 50% chance on everything (monster ACs are signioficantly lower than that, for example), but the math assuming absolutely optimal PCs is definitely a thing. And a big problem.
Absolutely correct. PCs seem to hit enemies okay, IME. They miss, but not to an extent where they feel incompetent.
*Was this the case for a PC's highest possible saving throw vs monster DCs?
This actually hasn't come up yet in my own games, it's just a bit of analysis from looking at Saves and Save DCs. Weirdly, I have yet to run for an offensive spellcaster. The casters in my Doomsday Dawn game have been a Cleric and Divine Sorcerer (both focusing on buffs/debuffs) and a Bard (multclassing Fighter and doing buffs and healing).
Looking at Saves as compared to Save DCs it certainly looks like a maximal Save DC of 18 at 4th level would mostly run into 4th level monsters with Saves in the +6 range or higher (so a 55% chance of success at best). Several have +10 Saves making the odds of them actually failing those Saves very low indeed.
*Is this the case for PC skills vs the Low or High skill DCs of their own levels (these are the ones we use most often in the rules)
Well, let's examine this. Based on my 4th level Doomsday Dawn group, skills a PC focuses on are mostly in the +6 to +8 range, with a +9 possible in a single skill at this level. Secondary skills, however are in the +4 or +5 range.
This means that only those skills the PC focuses on heavily can, on average, make low Skill DC checks (never mind high ones)...and having too many skills that fall into that bracket is rare.
Indeed, in armor, the Fighter's highest skill is a +6 Diplomacy (she has a +8 Athletics outside armor), with everything else +5 or less. The Bard and Alchemist do better with several skills each in that category (I believe five for each, four for the Bard in armor) and the Monk has two (+7 Acrobatics and +9 Athletics).
So, in play, anyone who had less than a +6 had real trouble succeeding and a lot of people tried Aid Another rather than their own checks, which was effective in its own way, but left their ability to succeed very shaky when such checks were unavailable.
It also meant that the party simply had several skills where nobody had even a 50% chance to succeed at those DCs (notably Medicine, Nature, Religion, Survival, and Thievery, though Aid Another worked fine to enable group Survival checks since they had a few people with +5s or so).
And that's low checks. High checks get a lot more onerous, with people tending to only have a handful of skills they can succeed regularly on...the PC group covered less than half the skills in the game at that level. Really, the group felt adequate at getting stuff done in terms of skills...but just barely.
Now, the important thing to remember is that all of the above is with a relatively optimized group. One where people took 18s in their main stats and then took skills that actually went off of said main stats. A group with 16s as their maximum in their main stats winds up looking a lot worse. And is my primary concern, in many ways.
My PC group mostly did fine on the skill stuff...but just barely. They squeaked by. I'm deeply concerned about parties that are not optimized not being able to squeak by. As well as by squeaking by in things you're supposed to be good at not being super fun long term.
*Assuming the monster skills are currently too high and would get an across the board reduction as discussed in your skills thread, was this the case for optimized PC skills vs the average of skills across all monsters of their level, or was it the case for optimized PC skills pitted against a typical monster of their level in that monster's strongest skill?
Well, this is difficult to analyze properly, since by what you said, how much skills are off for monsters will vary by their level (with 13th level's -3 being higher than usual, I got the impression). I've been assuming 1st level monsters were correct, and then assuming -1 on low level monsters a bit higher than that...but I have no idea how correct that is.
With that as a barometer, the DC to sneak up on the (3rd level) Elite Gnolls, would be an 18. That was basically impossible for most of the PC group, and even the Alchemist's +6 (the highest Stealth in the group) would only succeed on a 12+. A truly optimal Stealth person would've had a 60% chance...but they're 3rd level foes, not 4th level ones, and described as barely paying attention to boot. Expert scouts should probably not have a 40% chance of failing to sneak up on people who are busy fishing and arguing rather than on-guard.
Trying to sneak up on Zakfah (the 4th level Gnoll) would run into DC 19 and a 55% chance at best even assuming -1 to all her Skill numbers. And she's not exactly a legendarily perceptive character in the story (indeed, she got most of her warband ambushed and killed).
Perception is also a definite issue. The highest Perception in this PC group is +6...and while it's decently low Perception group (no Wis characters), the level 1 Hyenas had a +5 and everything else had even better than that on Initiative. Everything should not have better Initiative than the Wis 12 party members (of which there were several).
The issue isn't that the bonuses monsters have are completely unbeatable or anything, it's that they are way more impressive than the monster descriptions indicate as appropriate, often by quite a bit. Random Gnolls being as perceptive as the most perceptive possible PCs of the same level (like Druids who took the alertness Feat levels of Perception) and the like is the real issue with Skills.
And that holds true across monsters and levels, for the most part. A few exceptional creatures have particular skills where you go "Yes. That should be that high." but most have several other skills around the same level, which tends to devalue that expertise. It's a problem.
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*Was this the case for a PC's highest possible saving throw vs monster DCs?
This actually hasn't come up yet in my own games, it's just a bit of analysis from looking at Saves and Save DCs. Weirdly, I have yet to run for an offensive spellcaster. The casters in my Doomsday Dawn game have been a Cleric and Divine Sorcerer (both focusing on buffs/debuffs) and a Bard (multclassing Fighter and doing buffs and healing).Looking at Saves as compared to Save DCs it certainly looks like a maximal Save DC of 18 at 4th level would mostly run into 4th level monsters with Saves in the +6 range or higher (so a 55% chance of success at best). Several have +10 Saves making the odds of them actually failing those Saves very low indeed.
I'm sorry, I didn't get my question across well enough. I'll try again. Was this the case for a PC's highest possible saving throw vs monster DCs? By which I mean, the PC is rolling against the monster's saving throw DC (so the monster cast a spell, used a breath weapon, etc).
Also, can we look at skills for the skills analysis and not Perception? Perception goes up at a different rate that needs to be examined and probably changed to scale like a scale. (I mentioned obliquely in the skills thread that Perception was a little different; but this means the changes need to be different than the skills)
I also didn't quote the right post, but I am also specifically looking at your main thesis from your first post:
The game assumes absolutely optimal PCs have something around a 50% chance of succeeding at equal level challenges.
I can help with this somewhat: Here's what it should be (I'm not saying it is, we might need to adjust, but these are what we hope they will be).
PC best possible optimized saving throw vs monster save DC: should be higher than 50%. I think it can eventually go up to 80% but am not looking at my math right now.
PC best possible optimized skill (doesn't count e.g. Virtuoso Performance) vs low/high: Definitionally should be higher than 50%. Severe is supposed to be defined at nearly that rate (also doesn't count e.g. Virtuoso Performance), and these categories are always lower.
PC best possible skill (doesn't count e.g. Virtuoso Performance) vs. adjusted down monster skill : A few world-class monsters should be better, like doppelganger (more akin to someone with something like Virtuoso Performance). A typical monster's best skill, like say a giant's Athletics, should be about the same, so the best Athletics person possible at a given level is equal to a giant of the same level. Otherwise, the optimized PC should definitely be better.
Again, we might not have achieved these benchmarks, but that's what the answers should be.
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I believe when sneaking past a group of enemies in PG2 they use a fixed DC of 10 + highest mod, so this character would need to succeed at a DC 14-16 stealth check.
While I agree in general, you actually do generally sneak up on people who aren't paying close attention vs. their Perception DC...which is 10 + Per Bonus. Indeed, opposed checks are very rare in PF2 in general.
I think you actually have the rules flipped. As DMW noted, you roll stealth against the perception DCs in PF2. The enemy only rolls if they actively take a seek action. Even someone on watch duty isn't assumed to be doing that.
*Goes back to the rulebook, rereads the skill, jumps down to the index, flips through every chapter that references perception*
There it is, page 291. I must have missed that. Whew, so they functionally are taking 10 on passive perception. Okay, that raises your chance of success substantially since the number of mooks you're sneaking past doesn't change anything, just the highest perception DC of the lot of them. Still, even without that error it still just takes "practically zero" odds and brings them up to "longshot" level odds.You still need to make a separate stealth check for each sneak action, which will be three per turn. If you need to succeed three stealth checks in a row, even an 80% chance of success on an individual roll is only a 50% chance of success after three successive rolls. But 80% is unrealistically high by PF2 standards. Basically if you need to make more than one sneak action to get where you want to go, the chance of success is very bad.
Of course, level 1 monsters average more like +5 Perception than +1 (dropping the chance to 40%...I found seven monsters, out of 34, of level 1 with Perception lower than +4, most had +5 or higher). A +1 is possible (the animated dresser has it, as does the sewer ooze, but they're it), but it is not common. Which is sort of my problem in a nutshell given the likely PC Perception scores at 1st level...
I'd concur; I was being generous there with that +1 perception on the presumption that the GM was inviting stealth as an option. Monsters very often are bringing much larger numbers than that.
I don't think 'cheating' is the best way to look at it. Monsters are not designed in the same way as PCs and their stats not correlating with their Perception and Skills is part of that, and a perfectly reasonable one.
I'm sort of on the fence on this one. In a sense, the difference between PF1 and PF2 for monster building is that the author doesn't need to do the accounting for all their monster's stats. If there's a 3rd level creature with +2 wisdom and a perception score of 7, we know there's a hidden +2 somewhere. In PF1 the author would need to make up the difference by explicitly stating a racial bonus, while in PF2 they do not. But that +2 is still there.
The problem comes when there are unwritten rules on the upper bounds of bonuses allowed for PC's. If a 3rd level PC is restricted to no more than a +1 bonus to perception, that monster effectively have a bonus that is outside of what is achievable by PC's. This monster is, indeed, breaking an unwritten rule on the maximum level of power allowable at that level. Allowing monsters to break the rules isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it should be something special that is offset by substantial weaknesses elsewhere and central to the monster's concept. Basically, monsters that exceed the maximum level of PC power at their level in any category should be very rare, and have compensatory weaknesses. If not, their level should probably be raised to reflect their strength.
Alas. Only Fighters (7th level) Rangers (7th), and Rogues (7th) can become masters at Perception. Only Rangers (15th) and Rogues (13th) can ever be legendary at Perception. You can't improve your perception past expert via any method such as a feat or archetype feat.
I have to say, I really dislike this. One of the things I liked about perception not being a skill was that it was necessary. You absolutely need perception to be a functioning party, and the more perception checks you had going the less likely the party as a whole was to flub their checks. Having perception just be a thing everyone is trained with removes that problem... but class-locking master and legendary just brings the problem right back but even worse. Now many classes can't even make these checks to begin with.
PF1 doesn't actually have any rules on taking 10 for perception checks vs stealth.
Take 10 is a general rule in PF1. So long as you aren't threatened or distracted, and there's no rule expressly prohibiting it, you can take 10. There was no rule requiring NPC's to take 10, but it's common convention since it speeds up play substantially and lets stealth work consistently in circumstances with large numbers of observers.
The big problem is the math for PF2. Monster perceptions seem over-tuned, and the lack of distance penalties (or other perception penalties) is kind of a problem as well. But the core rules for removing opposed rolls are really good for sneaking in this situation.
Bringing back the distance penalties would go a long way to solving this problem, although it's still very difficult to get a decent stealth check on a 1st level character in PF2 and on a skill where you need to make checks repeatedly and a single failure sinks you that's a problem.
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It would be nice for there to be some kind of difference between a critical miss and a regular miss more often. That would make the significance of bonuses at the bottom end more valuable.
When I read the OP, my first thought was that the playtest was intentionally skewed to "difficult" because most of the people playing it would be somewhat proficient in the game system and that the difficulty was likely to scale back a little as the playtesting went on. My playtesting is all coming in the form of play by post so it is slow going, but strings of terrible rolls (75% under 5) have made it difficult to judge if things like skill checks are coming up too difficult.
I do strongly believe that non-combat skills DC should probably not be built around the assumption of having items that boost skills, so that those items can feel special and worth investing RP in, on occasion, rather than absolutely necessary for a character to be competent.
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When you miss a character who's AC is completely derived from being dodgy, then a glancing blow makes no sense. There aren't glancing blows vs characters that exclusively dodge. You either hit or you miss.
The best fix for this would be to implement armor as some form of DR and just have AC be a measure of how dodgy you are, but that's easier said than done.
I disagree since HP is an abstraction anyways. You do not actually "physically" take any "damage" to your person, as there are no lasting consequences for any blows you take that do not drop you to 0 HP.
That said, even in the context of your scenario where damage is a literal "blow", you could just as easily argue that the "bending moves/twists" the person makes to avoid the blow are taxing on the body, and as a result drain HP.
To each his own.
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I'm sorry, I didn't get my question across well enough. I'll try again. Was this the case for a PC's highest possible saving throw vs monster DCs? By which I mean, the PC is rolling against the monster's saving throw DC (so the monster cast a spell, used a breath weapon, etc).
Ah! That...actually hasn't come up much either. I think there were two Save DCs in Chapter 1 and absolutely none so far in Chapter 2. I don't remember them being a problem, but must admit that I'm more concerned with the PCs ability to achieve things rather than resist monsters doing things (Skills aside, anyway), simply because PCs tend to be proactive, and while failing every Save sucks, it's also a problem likely to be found and addressed in the playtest, while I'm less certain things like skills will be addressed.
In short, I wasn't examining those. Eyeballing them, I'm a bit concerned given that my PCs mostly have +6s or so in Saves (+5 to +8, but tending on the low end) and the DCs tend toward 18, but I haven't seen enough to comment in terms of stuff that's actually happened.
This does make me concerned that low level monster Saves are too good, given that they're a lot better than the PCs have, though.
Also, can we look at skills for the skills analysis and not Perception? Perception goes up at a different rate that needs to be examined and probably changed to scale like a scale.
That's fair, but it often directly runs up against Skills (particularly Stealth and Deception), and at the moment seems to be determined identically to skills (it seems to pretty universally use the same bonus as Skills).
Which means that, at the moment, the math is the same as for comparing skills.
I also didn't quote the right post, but I am also specifically looking at your main thesis from your first post:The game assumes absolutely optimal PCs have something around a 50% chance of succeeding at equal level challenges.
Right, I figured that. :)
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I think many here dissected the bestiary enough to have a decent grasp of the mosnter building rules (Which are pretty straightforward anyways) and I think this process could be revisited a bit, and how it affects the rest of the game. I won't consider the changes Mark Seifter has proposed since those only apply at higher levels.
I think part of the issue comes with monsters being "too" disconnected with PC rules in some aspects (Let's say HP/AC issues are balanced despite the difference).
But when it comes to skills, I think things should be seen more in the perspective of Player Characters. It's not based on following PC "math", but a more high level "design" disconnect.
Let's take, for example, the Level 1 monster Goblin Dog. Not the most "generic example" of an enemy, but it shows some things.
The Goblin Dog's perception has a +6 bonus, which is on the higher end of lv1 monster perception.
For a PC to get this bonus, he would need 18 WIS and Expert proficiency on Perception, but it just has +1 on WIS. There is no class that will let you achieve this, so it's out of the realm of PCs entirely.
It is understandable, however, that being some sort of canine, the Goblin Dog would have keen senses that exceed human capabilities and account for the arbitrary +3 it is getting to the skill (assuming expert). By PF1 standards, that +3 for being a dog doesn't seem too crazy, but in PF2 it's gonna be very significant since PCs interact with this number and it's out of their reach.
So what else has keen senses like a dog? perhaps an Elf with their legendary eyesight and hearing that can match animals. Should a lv1 super percpetive Elf be able to match the Goblin Dog? You could certainly do this in the previous edition, but it's different now.
The Elf ancenstry does have a feat that works with perception, but it's a very limited qualitative boost that they have to pick. It doesn't come even close to being comparable to a +3 bonus, it's not even compatable to a +1.
What I figure happened here is that you didn't want to give monsters such complex abilities to account for their natural talents, so it was simplified as "just boost the skill". In this game, however, +1s are king, so this disconnect becomes extremely noticeable. So the Goblin Dog was made in the PF1 style (Give it +X to their natural things), while the PCs were made in the new style (Avoid +X at all costs).
If I am wrong, then the way it was made likely involved using Table 10-2 (Skill DCs by Level and Difficulty). A Goblin's Dog Perception DC is 16. On the level 1 row this is higher than "Severe" difficulty, but lower than "Extreme" (So the 16 is not even on the table), so sneaking by this monster is supposed to be tough challenge even for a specialized PC. A 18 DEX Rogue trained in Stealth for a +5 bonus (max possible and expected of all Rogues I suppose) has a 50% chance to succeed, so maybe this corresponds to the table.
On the flipside, the Goblin Dog also has +6 Stealth on a +1 DEX mod, also out of anyone's reach, including small-sized races. Some PCs can get a +5 bonus in Perception if they pick a class that doesn't use Wisdom but pushes it to 16 anyways, so let's say it's gonna be a +4 at best in real scenarios. Now you need to roll a 12 to match a passive stealth challenge (does this exist?), so this is a lot more comparable to an "extreme" challenge. The same happens with Saving Throws for this monster... Coin Flips at best. It's "low" AC of 15 is still a 50/50 at best for most characters too.
A level 1 enemy should not represent a challenge for the entire level 1 party and needs to be comparable to a normal PC of that level, with their own strengths and weaknesses as well as comparable abilities (Monsters do have far better "feats" too). I don't think the game needs to be balanced on the "Severe/Extreme" side of the chart. What's wrong with medium? (somehow medium doesn't exist, just Low and High). Most of the rolls PCs make are on the highest sides of the chart for some reason. Are they meant to fight just lower level stuff than them all the time? What is a Wizard supposed to do vs level equivalent stuff?
I may be wrong to assume that PCs are "Heroic" examples of their species that exceed the average joe. By that token, a specialized one would be able to match if not exceed run of the mill creatures at their own game.
What does a normal town guard look like in this edition? I believe if you are going to maintain current the monster-building philosophy, those should be the baseline.
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I can help with this somewhat: Here's what it should be (I'm not saying it is, we might need to adjust, but these are what we hope they will be).
Okay. This is excellent information to have, thank you very much. :)
PC best possible optimized saving throw vs monster save DC: should be higher than 50%. I think it can eventually go up to 80% but am not looking at my math right now.
At level 4 you max out at a +10 Save (4 Stat, 4 Level 1 Expert, 1 Item). That's a 65% rather than a 50%...but this gets back to the more complicated math thing.
The best a Halfling Rogue (or Monk) of that level can theoretically have in Saves is around +8/+10/+9. That's a 55%/65%/60% chance on Saves and probably the best Saves in the game (since a Save stat is their Class stat, and they can get bonuses to all three Save stats from Ancestry). A melee Fighter or Barbarian, meanwhile, is probably stuck with more like +7/+7/+7 at most (a Dwarf can technically get a +8 or two...but only with difficulty) and that's a flat 50% in all Saves. Most characters fall more on the fighter side of that than the Rogue one.
But those are really optimized. A 'decently optimized' Rogue or Fighter probably has more like +6s in some Saves. The optimal melee Bard (Str 16, Dex 12, Con 12, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 18) winds up with straight +6s. Several other Classes fall into the same scenario or worse. Really, only Clerics, Druids, and Dex-based characters can come close to getting better than +7s in Saves in most cases. That's less than half the Classes.
A Paladin can have Divine Grace, or a Dwarf their Save Booster, but in practice those are mostly gonna be found on lower Save classes and don't add much to this maximum.
Now, that goes up a bot at higher levels, but only for those Saves that go up from Class....which is usually one Save at most, leaving your other Saves stuck in the 50% area.
And my main point is that all of that is assuming someone who invests into Dex, Con, and Wis as much as they can reasonably manage on their Class. Which is what I mean by optimized. An optimized Fighter probably hits 50% in most Saves, and no more.
What happens to the unoptimized characters? Even the ones who are just a little unoptimized? With margins that thin...nothing good.
PC best possible optimized skill (doesn't count e.g. Virtuoso Performance) vs low/high: Definitionally should be higher than 50%. Severe is supposed to be defined at nearly that rate (also doesn't count e.g. Virtuoso Performance), and these categories are always lower.
It technically is. Including items, Resonance, and Proficiency. A +35 at 20th level does indeed mean you'll hit that DC on a 6+. However, +9 of that +35 is not readily replicable across more than a few skills (+2 from stat, +3 Legendary, +5 Item). Sure, you may hit 75% chance in as many as three skills (more for a Rogue)...if they happen to be Skills based on your highest stat.
In practice, most of your skills, even ones in your main stat, are gonna be more like +27 to +30...which makes for a 50% chance at most on any Skill Check other than those you have absolutely optimized for.
And that's stuff within your area of specialty. Say you want to dabble in a skill and have a stat of 18 at 20th (reasonable, but not focused). That's a +24 at most and hits the High DC only on a 17. Assume you grab a +3 item and invest in being Expert. Your +28 still only hits on a 13, for a 40% chance of success at best.
Or assume that you are not an optimal character, have only a 22 main stat, only a Master Skill, and only a +3 Item. We're at +31 and barely a 55% chance at that point (it's worse at lower levels...much worse at very low ones).
Thinking about it, I believe I've misstated the issue, what I should've said was:
The game assumes only absolutely optimal characters ever get better than a 50% chance at something.
And even that isn't technically true, I acknowledge. But it's very close to true and it sure feels true while playing. Especially at low levels, where the problem appears to be more severe in some ways.
PC best possible skill (doesn't count e.g. Virtuoso Performance) vs. adjusted down monster skill : A few world-class monsters should be better, like doppelganger (more akin to someone with something like Virtuoso Performance). A typical monster's best skill, like say a giant's Athletics, should be about the same, so the best Athletics person possible at a given level is equal to a giant of the same level. Otherwise, the optimized PC should definitely be better.
Several monsters have five or more 'best Skills' (more than anyone but a Rogue can ever have...some have more than the 6 a Rogue can have as well). Often plus Perception. Many PCs also don't have a 'best Skill' by this definition, simply because they wanted to, say, take Expert in a skill that wasn't tied to their prime stat. Which makes this policy problematic, IMO.
Indeed, the assumption that all monsters should have a Skill at the maximum an optimal PC should have at a specific level is exactly what I'm objecting to (well, in terms of skills, anyway). That makes all monsters absolutely optimized at their best skills and makes them flatly better than an unoptimized PC group who all have 16s in their prime stat.
Again, we might not have achieved these benchmarks, but that's what the answers should be.
Again, thank you so much for this information. It's excellent to know what's being aimed for so we can give appropriate feedback (both on how well the current system hits those numbers and on whether those numbers seem like good ideas).
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[only mild sarcasm]
golarion has become a land where not much stuff actually gets done--everyone, everywhere, finds even menial tasks much harder to do now, for some reason. the homes and streets are dirtier now that trained cleaning crews only succeed half the time--because of this, disease is running rampant, with higher saves and more virulent effects!
construction crews and schooled architects fail to rebuild after disaster and monster incursion, leaving cities near-defenceless against the onslaught!
what fell magicks have been worked to render a whole world incompetent in the face of evil's growing might? surely this is the work of none other than rovagug himself! the end times are upon us!
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A maximally skilled and geared (for his level) fighter that walks up and swings at an equal level opponent should hit about 75% of the time. Not a with a flanking buddy, not because the bard is singing, not because the wizard cast haste on him or slow on the opponent. Just using that characters pure skill. Otherwise it just doesn't _feel_ fun. The math can be adjusted to make any hit rate _work_ what is more important is to make the character's _feel_ competent to play.
I really think that the new action economy makes numbers like this very difficult to use. 75% on your first attack means 50% on your second and still a 25% on your third attack. (assuming the fighter is not using agile weapons or other feats to get lower penalties) I don't think first level characters need to have a 50% chance of hitting 2 times or more. I especially don't know how you balance the idea that every level 1 enemy will probably hit at least once a round and often hit 2 or 3 times. Parties that don't really optimize tactics that minimize # of enemy attacks and maximize their own are going to be in a lot of trouble.