|
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
This is not correct. APL+4 is equal to the player level - an equal level CR was always weaker than the PC in Pathfinder.
That's just how the math was designed - and works in practice.
No, I'm precisely correct. As others note, I specifically referred to a single Level X PC being a match for a CR/Level X opponent. This is exactly what the rules say and mostly how they work. And results verys specifically in needing APL + 4 Encounters being a coin flip battle, just as you note (since four CR 5 foes are CR 9).
A CR 5 encounter isn't a huge deal vs. a party of four 5th level PCs largely because action economy is a hell of a thing, and invalidates single opponents, not because they aren't a match for 5th level PCs one on one.
No - but a brand new player character is only CR 0 - until they get player wealth they don't even rate - that's why low level monsters are all designed to be pushovers.
They're CR 1/2, actually. And this may be true in PF1, but in PF2 a level 1 PC is supposed to be at exact parity with a Level 1 monster.
Compare the first encounter of Rise of the Rulelords and Doomsday Dawn:
** spoiler omitted **
Firstly, your stats are wrong (at least for Pathfinder). Goblins do 1d4 damage, not 1d4-1 and only have +2 to hit in melee. Secondly, you're comparing apples to oranges, since PCs in the two systems have very different stats.
The RotRL encounter has a max damage of 9 hit points (or 18 if all three crit) and generally the threat drops by 1/3 every 6 hit points of damage done - which means even 3/4 classes should kill a goblin within 2 rounds solo.
A goblin, yes. But to properly compare, you should be comparing all three goblins vs. one PC (since all three together are CR 1), as compared to a Sewere Ooze vs. one PC.
The Doomsday dawn encounter has a max damage of 33 (or 54 if all three crit) - and had 40 hit points. It's immune to crits so the odds of it dying in the first round are small - giving it a huge damage output.
Eh. The Sewer Ooze will, vs. an AC 17 PC and assuming three attacks, averages 7.35 damage (including Crits). This will take three rounds to kill your average melee character. A Fighter vs. the same creature and also making three attacks (at +6, for 1d12+4 damage) averages 25.2 damage and will kill it in two, and have taken 14.7 damage (and a bit less than 3/4 of their HP in damage).
The Sewer Ooze can get lucky, but is a fair-ish fight vs. an optimal 1st level foe. Even a suboptimal one will likely be okay. Some other 1st level monsters might have issues, but the Sewer Ooze looks fine.
Meanwhile, the goblins in PF1, also vs. AC 17 (a similarly reasonable number for both editions, amusingly) average 2.975 damage per round, assuming two are flanking. Once they lose one it goes down to 2.15, and once they're down to one it's .825 damage on average. But at 1st level, a PF1 character has only 12 HP or so.
Now, examining how long it takes them to kill goblins provides the following picture: Assuming +6 to hit and 1d12+6 damage (a 1st level Fighter with Weapon Focus), they'll do an average of one dead goblin per round...but this is misleading due to it being overkill. In reality, they will kill a goblin every two rounds (slightly more, so we'll start with a kill on the first round), meaning they take about 10 damage (almost all their HP) before they're through.
So...no. This is an incorrect statement.
Both of these fights are considered 'level 1'.
I could put a first level fighter solo against the goblins - and they'd have a reasonable chance to live. I don't think there is a single 1st level build in PF2 that could solo that ooze.
A 1st level Fighter can casually solo the Ooze, as I demonstrate above (a less optimal character might have issues...but the Ooze, due to its low AC actually punishes suboptimal characters less than most things). If they win initiative, it gets even easier. A 1st level character has a rougher time soloing the goblins, really.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think my head just exploded. From my experience, successful completion of a graduate degree means you are literate in your field and can then begin engaging “experts” with some level of competency, but have hardly become one yourself before substantial work and publication.
yeah, my experience too. viz.:
trained = BA
expert = PhD
master = tenure
legendary = Nobel
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Firstly, your stats are wrong (at least for Pathfinder). Goblins do 1d4 damage, not 1d4-1 and only have +2 to hit in melee. Secondly, you're comparing apples to oranges, since PCs in the two systems have very different stats.
Firstly - I used the encounters out of the published adventure - so they were not wrong. Thank you very much.
A goblin, yes. But to properly compare, you should be comparing all three goblins vs. one PC (since all three together are CR 1), as compared to a Sewere Ooze vs. one PC.
My example was comparing all three - thank you for reading " RotRL encounter has a max damage of 9 hit points (or 18 if all three crit) " - but 1d4-1 x 3 = 9.
Eh. The Sewer Ooze will, vs. an AC 17 PC and assuming three attacks, averages 7.35 damage (including Crits). This will take three rounds to kill your average melee character. A Fighter vs. the same creature and also making three attacks (at +6, for 1d12+4 damage) averages 25.2 damage and will kill it in two, and have taken 14.7 damage (and a bit less than 3/4 of their HP in damage).
The sewer ooze can still crit for 18 and drop the fighter on a single hit. 3 times. The goblins (3 actions) have the same chance to crit but can only do 6 damage max on a crit. The average damage isn't what defines a first level encounter - the fact that the ooze can bring a fighter down with a single lucky hit is incredible - and horrible at the same time.
There is a reason no one gives light picks or other X4 weapons to all the NPC's - no GM is going to use monsters like that frequently if they want to keep people playing - because killing a character with a single hit is unfair and ridiculous. GM's that do this are considered to be ... it's a name that rhymes with Rick.
The fact that this is built into the game as a *trivial* encounter right off the bat is troubling - and the only reason that I can even see how anyone can think this is normal is they are buried under math formulas going 'well the average damage is fine' ..
No - if the entire game is mathed that hard without consideration for how it *feels* at the table then it is a system I won't touch. My table already had one person up and quit until the playtest is over because of the damn slime.
That's a first btw - we've played 4 different systems now together (we switch up on occasion for a month or two when stress and real life conspire against our regular campaign) and this is the first time a system was so harsh it made someone quit.
But I'm sure that the average damage works out on paper. I guess we'd wouldn't have noticed either if the GM didn't roll a crit - and didn't roll max damage - I guess if you ignore that they even exist then things look fine?
*edit*
You know I wrote all this because I agree with you right? I am not sure why we are arguing about this - the point of the slime is that someone has to be *totally maxed* on defense to survive the slime due to it's high attack and damage output. If that slime attacks a caster they are going to die - if someone wants wear leather armor - they die - I mean they *could* live - but PF1 was much more forgiving in terms of a level 1 player not having 'the best stats and gear' - PF2 design seems to expect that which - I thought - was your point - and why I was agreeing with it.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I’m not sure this contrast is as helpful as it appears. It’s not apples to apples. The devs picked the monsters they did for a specific reason - to stress test it and the system. The ooze may fit into a narrative, but the choice to place one in Lost Star is not narratively driven in the same way that goblins are in RotRL. The notion that they are both level 1 monsters is not the point. The point of the playtest is to determine how PF2 players fare against an ooze current statted as a level one beastie in the PF2 system. They are not measuring “ease.” They are looking for the ceiling.
Actually we went through the rest of the first adventure encounters, and they were all looking like +6 to hit or higher - it was pretty eye opening in terms of what the baseline expectation was supposed to be - considering that the group we had would have done just fine in any published AP to date and had a near TPK on the first encounter - and then a total TPK on the third.
Actually we went through the rest of the first adventure encounters, and they were all looking like +6 to hit or higher - it was pretty eye opening in terms of what the baseline expectation was supposed to be - considering that the group we had would have done just fine in any published AP to date and had a near TPK on the first encounter - and then a total TPK on the third.
I’m not sure this contrast is as helpful as it appears. It’s not apples to apples. The devs picked the monsters they did for a specific reason - to stress test it and the system. The ooze may fit into a narrative, but the choice to place one in Lost Star is not narratively driven in the same way that goblins are in RotRL. The notion that they are both level 1 monsters is not the point. The point of the playtest is to determine how PF2 players fare against an ooze current statted as a level one beastie in the PF2 system. They are not measuring “ease.” They are looking for the ceiling.
I...have absolutely no idea how you could nearly TPK on the first encounter. That thing got one turn before it died in mine, in which it did 1 damage.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
if it opens with the burst ability, it makes for a rather hairy fight.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Firstly - I used the encounters out of the published adventure - so they were not wrong. Thank you very much.
Uh...I just looked at the adventure. It's actually +3 to hit and 1d4+1 damage (they're under the effects of Inspire Courage). Which makes the encounter even more deadly to a single PC alone.
My example was comparing all three - thank you for reading " RotRL encounter has a max damage of 9 hit points (or 18 if all three crit) " - but 1d4-1 x 3 = 9.
Sure, but not in terms of how long it takes a PC to kill them, which is what I was talking about there. Or at least it didn't appear so.
The sewer ooze can still crit for 18 and drop the fighter on a single hit. 3 times. The goblins (3 actions) have the same chance to crit but can only do 6 damage max on a crit. The average damage isn't what defines a first level encounter - the fact that the ooze can bring a fighter down with a single lucky hit is incredible - and horrible at the same time.
The Sewer Ooze can actually crit for 22, I believe. But the Goblins can actually crit for 10 (8 without Inspire Courage), which is actually almost as bad comparatively (given the respective HP totals of around 20 in PF2 and around 12 in PF1).
There is a reason no one gives light picks or other X4 weapons to all the NPC's - no GM is going to use monsters like that frequently if they want to keep people playing - because killing a character with a single hit is unfair and ridiculous. GM's that do this are considered to be ... it's a name that rhymes with Rick.
This is a totally valid point. It is not, however, specific or unique to PF2. Heck, to pick a random example, the CR 1 Giant Weasel can crit for 18 damage in PF1 (and given the HP disparity, that's actually much worse than 22 in PF2). The crits do get more numerous per round (because attacks are more numerous per round) in PF2, but that just reduces the number of rounds it takes place over, it doesn't really change the equation too much (though it can feel like it does compared to situations where the enemy only gets one turn in PF1...but those situations weren't ideal in their own right).
The fact that this is built into the game as a *trivial* encounter right off the bat is troubling - and the only reason that I can even see how anyone can think this is normal is they are buried under math formulas going 'well the average damage is fine' ..
I disagree. I basically disagree because such things were common in PF1 as well (as the Giant Weasel example above demonstrates...let's not even get into Orcs with Greataxes).
I'm not really arguing that this is a good thing. I'm arguing that it is not a problem new to PF2, nor one that is easily solved, or, really, has much of anything to do with the problem of PCs needing to be optimized to function properly in many areas.
No - if the entire game is mathed that hard without consideration for how it *feels* at the table then it is a system I won't touch. My table already had one person up and quit until the playtest is over because of the damn slime.
That's very unfortunate, and you have my sympathies. I agree in general that how an encounter or game system in general feels is super relevant. I don't think that the Sewer Ooze in general feels much worse than most other Level 1/CR 1 monsters tend to vs. a PC group.
Your particular experience with it may well have been worse than usual, but that can always happen in any game with dice rolls. In contrast, my group's experience with the Sewer Ooze was fine, and the math seems to back me up as far as I can tell.
That's a first btw - we've played 4 different systems now together (we switch up on occasion for a month or two when stress and real life conspire against our regular campaign) and this is the first time a system was so harsh it made someone quit.
A lot of things can contribute to a system feeling harsh. In this particular case, I'd need a lot of information as to the specific situation, but I don't think the Sewer Ooze is a particular problem in isolation (it could use some adjustment, but only a -1 here and there).
But I'm sure that the average damage works out on paper. I guess we'd wouldn't have noticed either if the GM didn't roll a crit - and didn't roll max damage - I guess if you ignore that they even exist then things look fine?
Everything with even decent damage tends to look scary when it crits. I'm just not sure this is any scarier than many things in PF1. Really, to me, this just seems a commentary on how fragile 1st level characters are (something that's gone slightly down if anything) than it does on PF2 as a whole.
You know I wrote all this because I agree with you right? I am not sure why we are arguing about this - the point of the slime is that someone has to be *totally maxed* on defense to survive the slime due to it's high attack and damage output. If that slime attacks a caster they are going to die - if someone wants wear leather armor - they die - I mean they *could* live - but PF1 was much more forgiving in terms of a level 1 player not having 'the best stats and gear' - PF2 design seems to expect that which - I thought - was your point - and why I was agreeing with it.
To clarify: I think that straight combat (ie: attacks vs. AC) is the area in which this is least true. It absolutely is true to some degree and in some cases (especially in regards to needing the highest AC possible), but I'd feel more concerned about it with the Sewer Ooze specifically if its movement weren't so terrible (meaning people almost have to approach it intentionally in order to wind up fighting it in most cases).
I honestly think that most enemies could probably use a -1 to hit or so, reducing the need for optimal AC, but I feel like you're arguing for way more than that in terms of changes, and I don't think those are necessary.
I certainly appreciate you agreeing with me on the main point, and am glad we are in accord there, but I actually pretty strongly disagree on this specific smaller issue, and I'm not gonna fail to comment on something I disagree with simply because I agree with the person saying it on other issues.
if it opens with the burst ability, it makes for a rather hairy fight.
That's exactly what happened with my group, except three people saved, and it rolled 1 on the damage. Group had saves of +2/+2/+4/+6 vs DC 15, so slightly above average results, but even so they just finished shredding it the turn after. Even -10 is pretty likely to hit when your opponent has AC 5, so it never got a second turn.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
if it opens with the burst ability, it makes for a rather hairy fight.That's exactly what happened with my group, except three people saved, and it rolled 1 on the damage. Group had saves of +2/+2/+4/+6 vs DC 15, so slightly above average results, but even so they just finished shredding it the turn after. Even -10 is pretty likely to hit when your opponent has AC 5, so it never got a second turn.
In my group almost nobody saved and everyone thus took around 3 damage...but the Elf Ranger was already in melee with it (and had used Double Strike for some solid damage), the Rogue was the one who saved, and the Barbarian had Sudden Charge. Which meant that nobody who needed to be in melee had any problems getting there.
They proceeded to pretty casually dismantle it. I mean, it did some solid damage to the Ranger before it went down (it hit her once on top of the burst), but that's to be expected occasionally from on-level encounters, and it never got a second turn.
|
Everyone talks about the ooze.We killed it in 2 rounds.It seems like no one but us had major problems with the boss.It was realy close to tpk us.At last round i critted with acid splash and killed it.Then i slaped everyone so they could return to 1 hp.(that was before the erretra)It is wierd that nobody talks about that encounter.
Everyone talks about the ooze.We killed it in 2 rounds.It seems like no one but us had major problems with the boss.It was realy close to tpk us.At last round i critted with acid splash and killed it.Then i slaped everyone so they could return to 1 hp.(that was before the erretra)It is wierd that nobody talks about that encounter.
People certainly talk about that encounter. Drakkus can kill any party member from full HP to 0 in one round on a crit followed by a successful iterative attack. He did nothing but whiff hilariously against my party for some reason, though. C'est la vie.
|
|
Everyone talks about the ooze.We killed it in 2 rounds.It seems like no one but us had major problems with the boss.It was realy close to tpk us.At last round i critted with acid splash and killed it.Then i slaped everyone so they could return to 1 hp.(that was before the erretra)It is wierd that nobody talks about that encounter.People certainly talk about that encounter. Drakkus can kill any party member from full HP to 0 in one round on a crit followed by a successful iterative attack. He did nothing but whiff hilariously against my party for some reason, though. C'est la vie.
In our fight our paladin couldnt hit the drakkus.Our rogue hit it once or twice.It was me(wizard) and the sorcerer that killed it.
EDİT:Sorry about missing the talks about drakkus.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Everyone talks about the ooze.We killed it in 2 rounds.It seems like no one but us had major problems with the boss.It was realy close to tpk us.At last round i critted with acid splash and killed it.Then i slaped everyone so they could return to 1 hp.(that was before the erretra)It is wierd that nobody talks about that encounter.People certainly talk about that encounter. Drakkus can kill any party member from full HP to 0 in one round on a crit followed by a successful iterative attack. He did nothing but whiff hilariously against my party for some reason, though. C'est la vie.In our fight our paladin couldnt hit the drakkus.Our rogue hit it once or twice.It was me(wizard) and the sorcerer that killed it.
EDİT:Sorry about missing the talks about drakkus.
No need to apologize, my dude x3
But yeah: I think Drakkus gets less talk because he is explicitly supposed to be a "severe" encounter and the last boss. I think players feel a little bit better being ravaged by the dungeon's "last boss" rather than its "tutorial encounter". Also, I think groups with spellcasters know to blow a lot of their daily resources on that fight.
|
|
We didnt blow a lot of resources on that encounter.I didnt had a lot of resources to blow in that encounter.It was like one magic missle with 3 actions.Sorcerer spamming electric arc.2 attacks from the rogue.I tried my necromancy school power twice and failed both times.Than at last round i critted with acid splash and if i hadnt i would have died and it would be TPK.It was just sheer luck that saved us.
Drakkus was a hard fight for my players. He got a critical and dropped the rogue in the 2nd round. The cleric, wizard, and barbarian all took hits (I think the cleric and barbarian were about 5HP). The wizard got lucky with a magic missile and shocking grasp, dealing 27/40 HP. Next round he would likely have KOed the barbarian and maybe the cleric too.
Did anyone else notice that the monsters had a hit bonus of +6 to +10, (while I think all my players were +4 or +5)?
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Did anyone else notice that the monsters had a hit bonus of +6 to +10, (while I think all my players were +4 or +5)?
Yep. Their ACs tend toward mediocre at best compared to those a PC can achieve, however, which makes it less bad than it looks.
Still, as this thread discusses, it's probably a tad high and dropping them by a point seems a solid call.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Uh...I just looked at the adventure. It's actually +3 to hit and 1d4+1 damage (they're under the effects of Inspire Courage). Which makes the encounter even more deadly to a single PC alone.
Yep - my eyes saw -1 - I admit that was a mistake - however the odds of the goblins critting are a static 10% vs the Ooze that has a flat 5% chance on everything and a sliding increased chance on everything with less than 16 AC.
Sure, but not in terms of how long it takes a PC to kill them, which is what I was talking about there. Or at least it didn't appear so.
Yes - with the goblins every 6 hit points done reduces the combat effectiveness of the encounter by 1/3 - with the Ooze it's the same strength from 40 hit points to 0.
The Sewer Ooze can actually crit for 22, I believe.
Can it? I assumed the acid damage wouldn't multiply. That's worse.
But the Goblins can actually crit for 10 (8 without Inspire Courage), which is actually almost as bad comparatively (given the respective HP totals of around 20 in PF2 and around 12 in PF1).
I disagree - the goblins don't get a better chance to crit against a lightly armored foe.
This is a totally valid point. It is not, however, specific or unique to PF2. Heck, to pick a random example, the CR 1 Giant Weasel can crit for 18 damage in PF1 (and given the HP disparity, that's actually much worse than 22 in PF2). The crits do get more numerous per round (because attacks are more numerous per round) in PF2, but that just reduces the number of rounds it takes place over, it...
I disagree again - because of the to hit bonuses and the +10 crit rules - and the fact that in PF1 large crits are a static number. Even with all that light picks and other high crit monsters are generally avoided due to the 'cheese' factor.
I argue that in PF2 because of the 10 over is a crit - that high damage monsters are much more deadly than PF1 and this is a huge paradigm shift. This really explains why they left 'arcane spell failure' out of the game - everyone is expected to be in full plate to avoid being crit by trivial encounters? I speculate but enhanced hit points don't make up for it - no one in my group had 20 hit points.
but I'd feel more concerned about it with the Sewer Ooze specifically if its movement weren't so terrible (meaning people almost have to approach it intentionally in order to wind up fighting it in most cases).
The ooze has a +6 to stealth - when it pop'd out it was in the middle of the party - no one saw it. The +6 is also it's init. That beat everyone. First round - first hit - sorcerer down - none of us had acted yet. Second hit - took our fighter down by over half (AC 16 - Ooze got a 18 to hit -5 on the second attack is still +2 overall) we all hit the ooze - but the two crits did normal crud damage (immune to crits) - mind that we are down to 3 people before we had a chance to go.
Actions were not 'attack attack attack' - oddly we all felt that the -5, -10 were stiff enough not to use all 3 actions for attacking - this might be a GM thing but we didn't know the ooze was as easy to hit as the broad side of a barn - knowing that 'stand and hit 3 times' is the best way to kill it might have made a difference.
2nd round - Ooze does it's aoe - everyone but the fighter fails - fighter goes down to the first +7 attack (23 to hit... yeah my AC is 16) now two people down - the party managed to finish the fight - but all the alchemist healing, all the druid healing (he only took heal spells - he played PF2 previously) and all the sorcerer healing (divine spell list) gone - first encounter.
Then the GM says - wow they called this trivial.
The goblins were actually easy, I'd guess this is because every time we did 6 damage they reduced in number - but I could be wrong.
I should also point out that the ooze explicitly is supposed to pop out when the party comes within 10 feet, not "in the middle of the party". If both the fighter and sorcerer are still in the frontline, then it's still possible for that to happen, but it's a lot less likely.
Drakus was pretty scary for my party, critting the paladin T1, with him only not dying due to using his hero point. Nearly took the rogue unconscious, and only missed due to frightened 1. Him failing his save against Color Spray let the rogue pull off 21 damage on him, though, with the revived paladin's Retributive Strike finishing him off before his blinded attack took out the rogue.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Yep - my eyes saw -1 - I admit that was a mistake - however the odds of the goblins critting are a static 10% vs the Ooze that has a flat 5% chance on everything and a sliding increased chance on everything with less than 16 AC.
This is true. The Ooze has definite advantages. The PCs also have almost double the HP they have in PF1, though, which is no small advantage, and the goblins also have advantages.
Yes - with the goblins every 6 hit points done reduces the combat effectiveness of the encounter by 1/3 - with the Ooze it's the same strength from 40 hit points to 0.
True. Of course, the Ooze is vastly easier to hit, which balances this somewhat. My math showing the goblins as nastier takes this reduction into account, for instance.
Can it? I assumed the acid damage wouldn't multiply. That's worse.
I'm pretty sure everything multiplies on a crit in PF2.
I disagree - the goblins don't get a better chance to crit against a lightly armored foe.
True. On the other hand, they have a better chance vs. a well armored one if flanking, and can flank (since there's more than one of them). Both have advantages.
I disagree again - because of the to hit bonuses and the +10 crit rules - and the fact that in PF1 large crits are a static number. Even with all that light picks and other high crit monsters are generally avoided due to the 'cheese' factor.
Crits are definitely a bigger factor in PF2 than PF1. I'm just not sure that's a huge problem most of the time.
I argue that in PF2 because of the 10 over is a crit - that high damage monsters are much more deadly than PF1 and this is a huge paradigm shift. This really explains why they left 'arcane spell failure' out of the game - everyone is expected to be in full plate to avoid being crit by trivial encounters?
High damage monsters are definitely more deadly than in PF1, yes. Or at least can be. And I actually do think dropping their to-hit by -1 or so woyuld help a lot with this issue, but it's not as bad as you're making it out to be, since the abilities of the PCs to take them out usually keep them from utilizing this more than once or so.
This apparently didn't happen in your Sewer Ooze encounter, which is unfortunate, but it's also atypical for reasons I'll go into below.
I speculate but enhanced hit points don't make up for it - no one in my group had 20 hit points.
Then your group were below average. 'Standard' Human Fighters, Paladins, Monks, or Rangers will have 20 HP at Con 14 (a typical number). Barbarians will have more, as will Dwarves of any of those Classes (Dwarves in general will also usually have 20 or so HP). That's 5 out of 12 Classes likely to have around that, and one whole Ancestry. Now, Goblins, Halflings, and Elves will be less than that, but still, a Fighter averages very close to 20 HP. Now, Gnome Barbarian aside, my PCs were also below average and did fine vs. the ooze, but we'll get into that below.
Also, while HP may not make up for it at 1st level (and they may not), they go up faster than damage does, and definitely work out at higher levels. A 7th level character will have between 60 and 90 HP most times (most often in the 70-80 range), while their damage is only gonna be averaging 17 or so at most, with a general cap of no more than 30 (meaning a normal crit will take out half to one third of their HP, and even a maxed one will usually leave them standing).
The ooze has a +6 to stealth - when it pop'd out it was in the middle of the party - no one saw it.
This is incorrect. The Ooze is mindless and explicitly attacks as soon as the first person gets within 10 feet of it. Your GM had a mindless creature use good tactics, which is usually a mistake.
Also, +6 Stealth is beyond PC levels and thus explicitly part of the skills problem that's already being fixed.
The +6 is also it's init. That beat everyone. First round - first hit - sorcerer down - none of us had acted yet. Second hit - took our fighter down by over half (AC 16 - Ooze got a 18 to hit -5 on the second attack is still +2 overall) we all hit the ooze - but the two crits did normal crud damage (immune to crits) - mind that we are down to 3 people before we had a chance to go.
Okay, this is a good example of why using good tactics matters, and why mindless things shouldn't use them.
Actions were not 'attack attack attack' - oddly we all felt that the -5, -10 were stiff enough not to use all 3 actions for attacking - this might be a GM thing but we didn't know the ooze was as easy to hit as the broad side of a barn - knowing that 'stand and hit 3 times' is the best way to kill it might have made a difference.
It really would have. You basically reduced your damage to less than 1/2 of what it should've been (which obviously makes the fight harder). And yes, I'd say your GM should probably have noted that it's amazingly easy to hit (or at least noted that you crit on a 15+...even with zero bonus damage, that's a distinct clue to low AC). That's something your characters can casually observe, after all.
But even if you weren't told...what else were you doing? -5 and -10 attacks have a hard time hitting most foes, but at 1st level only people with shields or spells tend to have much else to even do with their actions.
2nd round - Ooze does it's aoe - everyone but the fighter fails - fighter goes down to the first +7 attack (23 to hit... yeah my AC is 16) now two people down - the party managed to finish the fight - but all the alchemist healing, all the druid healing (he only took heal spells - he played PF2 previously) and all the sorcerer healing (divine spell list) gone - first encounter.
I really feel like this is mostly down to the GM having the creature use smart tactics it's not supposed to and then not telling you basic information your characters could easily observe more than it is anything to do with PF2.
Now, the GM might not have done those things due to being new to the system (which always causes some screwups, I know it has for me), but it remains a 'new system' problem rather than a 'PF2 specifically' problem in many ways.
Then the GM says - wow they called this trivial.
'Trivial' doesn't have quite the same game meaning it does in casual language. It's actually a bad piece of terminology that should be changed, IMO.
It's used to refer to 'on level' encounters...ones that should eat resources but not be overly difficult. This one was something beyond that due to various factors, but it was never intended to be 'trivial' in the colloquial sense of effortless.
The goblins were actually easy, I'd guess this is because every time we did 6 damage they reduced in number - but I could be wrong.
They were easier than the Ooze for my group as well. I think it has more to do with their low damage output than the numbers going down, personally.
My talk about goblins above was PF1 goblins vs. a PF1 group, not PF2 goblins, for the record.
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.
But if you have three actions, a competent character (say: a fighter) should have a small but significant chance to hit even with the third attack. They should have a chance to crit from time to time. So, maybe hit on 7 or better for the first attack, 12 or better on the 2nd attack, 17 or better on the third? That would be in the ballpark of what I personally would expect.
Ranger, monks etc. could then be 1-2 points worse then the fighter, bards, clerics etc. still 1-2 points worse (and would hit with ~10 or better on the first attack).
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
"you'll be fighting enemies 1-2 levels below your party most of the time" that's certainly news to me, given that the entire point of CR scaling is that it's appropriate for your level, and generally your usual encounters will fall at THAT number for a given level (dipping lower for more numerous mooks, or higher for numerous at-level or boss encounters).
flatfooted yes, frightened requires maximum skill investment, use in actions, and high chance of failure (player skill bonus vs monster will save). i'm curious, what are the "etc" mundane debuffs beyond those? trip/prone requires another, even harder skill check (athletics vs fort), and is littered with monster bonuses (many legs) or outright immunity (no legs, flying/levitating). what else?
and such buff spells demand either specific class (bard or bard-minus/sorcerer, which is rough given that the system seems to expect a mandatory cleric as well), heavy resource investment (gold+extremely limited resonance for majority of classes) for magic item/consumable versions and spending one of their precious few kneecapped spells if not, and generally a whole turn to apply via action costs.
during which those monsters are just skipping the whole issue and killing you directly. no muss, no fuss, no trickety tricks to make their numbers work. AND they can benefit form the same buffs and debuffs you can, as well (plenty of enemies have grab or trip as an action-free rider effect on their melee attacks, for example, with much higher bonuses to back them up)
do you see the issue?
we'll have to agree to disagree on demoralize then (perhaps your players are quite lucky on those coinflips, or are fighting particularly weak monsters)
FF is in fact the most common debuff to apply because most things now just give flat-footed instead, yes.
i haven't taken a look at 5e at all.
i hadn't seen that section. that news is... troubling, since what's teh point of the CR number if it's no longer actually to-scale with the party? seems like something in need of explanation/clarification by the devs in the full release. this also may be the cause of some of the monster stat consternation, if all the book's "level appropriate" level = CR monsters are in fact supposed to be counted as level+2 = CR, and someone may also wish to inform the design team themselves of this, what with the playtest using that same numeric (and causing all this hubbub in the first place).
"during which those monsters are just skipping the whole issue and killing you directly."
is the detriment.
the entire point of the whole super-saiyan strategy is to buff up while you're safe (such as before combat, or behind various layered defenses during), and while the former may still be available--albeit FAR less viably--the latter certainly isnt.
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
CR/Encounter Level has not notably changed in meaning as far as I can tell. Nor are lower level opponents necessarily more common in PF2 than in PF1.
The adventure in particular focuses on large groups of lower level adversaries rather than single on-level fights, but that's not actually new. Many adventures have done that previously. Assuming it represents a sea change of some sort in expected enemy levels strikes me as deeply odd.