All these TPKs. Curious:

[Laik]

All TPK and near-tpk situations i vewed 9not counting stuff I read, sicne mostly I do not have enough info what happened to these other groups), were not realted to attrition. They were related to monsters taking a good start. Goblin bowmens making a critical hit or two on te first round of fight; demons auto-winning initiative and crowd-controlling half of the group on the first round, etc. A deadly sea serpent fight I described in another tread was the group's only fight on the day, it was just as CR+3 boss.

I don't think TPKs currently have anything to do with attrition and lack of resources. They seem to be coming from stronger monsters getting good start, with crits and the like. Non-optimized groups are more likely to get this problem, suffering heavy debilitating hits at the start of combat. Players not remembering useful abilities of their charatcers and not using many options suffer too.

When monsters start with dropping/CCing a PC or two, rest of the fight is uisually desperate struggle for survival. On level 1 it is not much different from PF1 when you got a good crit form a bow or greataxe, that was very deadly too. In PF2, you are forver lvl 1 in this aspect.

When I read some scenario playtest feedbacks where people die on the very first combat encounter of the Arclod's Envy, it looks like they have very similar issues.

[Vidmaster7]

Jason S wrote:

Githzilla wrote:

Survey data for Chapter 1 was coming in at 6% character deaths and so far on Chapter 2 it was about the same so it doesn't sound like there is a huge TPK problem.

This is a case of what's called reporting bias.

Do you think the people who TPK or who don't want to play the game actually care enough to report on a survey? The answer is NO.

There is also the bias of the more organized players reporting, and being more organized typically leads to greater success.

So it's not 50%, but I guarantee it's also not 6%.

This is still very high compared to PF1. I've been playing PFS for 10 years and have rarely seen a PC death. In my playtest we had a PC death and almost a TPK.

Uh from a psychology perspective typically if the event actually upset them they are more likely to report it then not.

[Vidmaster7]

That said Its probably a bit over tuned right now. I think they need to fidget with the numbers on the monsters a bit. One of the things I would like to see is the monsters ac and saves not factoring in things like proficiency. Prof should be an advantage every thing remains the same instead of 50% chance of success you turn to 45% chance of success and eventually 35% as long as you keep up with all your other expected bonuses. It would make prof seem more awesome that way to which is what I thought the intent was anyways.

[Steve Geddes]

Jason Bulmahn just tweeted an interesting fact about the reported death rates that surprised me:

“...the percentage of PC deaths reported by GMs is very very close to the death rate independently reported by PCs.“

I would have expected the reported PC rate to be considerably lower. (They are lower, just not by much).

[Shaheer-El-Khatib]

Githzilla wrote:

Survey data for Chapter 1 was coming in at 6% character deaths and so far on Chapter 2 it was about the same so it doesn't sound like there is a huge TPK problem.

You can easily avoid tpk if you make one fight per day.

But is that the game we want to play ?
Not me.

[Vidmaster7]

Honestly 6% sounds too easy to me. I think it should be more like 20% but I figure a lot of play testers are seasoned vets so that's cool.

[Steve Geddes]

There’s clearly something worth unpacking. From forum reports it sounds like each
PC doesn’t have a 6% chance of dying. Rather, close to six percent of PCs have nearly a hundred percent chance of not making it out of the adventure.

PF2 is clearly serving some cohort of playtesters very badly (whether it’s a playstyle clash or a DMstyle clash, there’s something wrong).

[Joana]

I haven't had any player deaths, let alone TPKs, but I did have the main melee PC go to Dying in the first round of 2 different combats in The Lost Star.

In my case, it was the 3-action system that did it. One time, the barbarian had won initiative and moved in to attack; the other time, the enemy had successfully Stealthed until the barbarian was in range. The outcome, both times, was that the enemy got *three* hits on his turn.

After that, with the party's main combat threat out of the mix, it can become very easy for the whole party to die. They don't want to run and leave their friend behind, but they don't have a reasonable chance to succeed. Fortunately, my party had a back-up melee-er; without both a barbarian and a fighter, they would definitely have TPKed.

Now, the update on the dying rules should help this somewhat: despite the cleric healing the barbarian to positive hp, the player couldn't make the Recovery rolls to regain consciousness. With the update, he would have been back in the mix. But the combination of being able to attack three times a round combined with the Playtest rules' original difficulty to get back in the fight after being dropped, I can absolutely see how a situation could quickly spiral out of a party's control.

[Damanta]

We haven't had any tpk or character deaths yet.

That said we've had everyone go down into dying in the level 1 part and 2 people go into dying in the level 4 part.

Level 1 was primarily because of action economy of enemies with bows and the fact that CR 0 monsters hit way too often on level 1s without maxed out AC.

Level 4 had 2 players go down because a certain flying boss monster focused itself on two of us (we were using our ranged option) while the other two were bumbling about trying to be cool. My ranger kept standing because I was able to maximize AC (22) while the cleric was less lucky with AC 20, and he went down. Once it finally landed and they came into melee it one round triple critted the AC 17 barbarian taking her from 77 to 3 hp, and knocking her into dying the next round.

Next week will see us go into the level 7 bit, with 2 clerics, 1 paladin and 1 divine sorcerer. Both my cleric and the paladin are maxed out on AC, and my cleric is also capable of channeling 12 times. We'll see how that goes :).

[DerNils]

I am not really surprised by the 6%. The System has built-in Hero Points to avoid Death, and GM's are motivated to give them additional ones for out of play activities.
On top ofthat, how many GM's do you think play towards a TPK? I rarely do, even if I am able to, and know that lots of GM's don't feel like that is their Task.

You need a dedicated GM that invests time into understanding the nitty gritty of new and complicated monster mechanics and does not stop at hitting downed foes and using the best tactics at hand.

That does not mean that the system is not really deadly, it's just that lots of GM's are used to pulling punches. And I do not talk about fudging dice, just not targetting the Cleric first, not focusing Players down, etc. Because killing your party is not fun.

[Dasrak]

Laik wrote:

I don't think TPKs currently have anything to do with attrition and lack of resources. They seem to be coming from stronger monsters getting good start, with crits and the like. Non-optimized groups are more likely to get this problem, suffering heavy debilitating hits at the start of combat. Players not remembering useful abilities of their charatcers and not using many options suffer too.

I'm a bit hesitant on this explanation, since my playtest of Pale Mountain was with only 3 players and they handled everything just fine. Having one player knocked out by unlucky rolls definitely happens, but even down a person the party should still be advantaged even in tough battles like the manticore fight. We only had one instance where a character fell below 0 HP (the wizard in the fire elemental fight) but he was right back up the following turn when the cleric healed him. This was the typical pattern: monster deals damage, cleric removes damage, everyone hits monster. Rinse and repeat until monster is dead, rest when cleric is out of channels (which, usually, was after one tough encounter. Understandable given the party size, but it made me feel the time allowance in Pale Mountain is way too generous. You shouldn't be able to get away with that much resting in a time-sensitive scenario)

Now I'm not saying TPK is impossible, but for a standard 4-person party you need way worse luck than just one person dropping to a first-round crit for it to happen. You'd need the person who dropped to be the cleric, and you would continue to need bad luck throughout the coming fight in order to lose. And, just in terms of my "gut feeling" on the odds (which, to be fair, is underdeveloped for PF2) that feels about like the 6% odds that Paizo's data suggests.

[nogoodscallywag]

Jason S wrote:

I've been playing PFS for 10 years and have rarely seen a PC death. In my playtest we had a PC death and almost a TPK.

I've also never, ever seen a player death in PFS at one of my tables I've played at; I have GMed a couple of deaths, but these were one-off players using pre-gens.

Part of the problem with the playtest (in the grand scheme) is that PF1 players are frnankly spoiled. They have options galore, incredibly powerful martials and casters, healing spam, no mid-difficulty encounters (either too easy or too hard).

Removing all knowledge of PF1 playstyle and rules knoweldge is nearly impossible, so playtesting has been biased a bit with that regard. Throw the new rules learning aspect in with this for those players who have limited or no PF1 rules knowledge and you'll get a bias for lack of knowledge and/or lack of combat strategy, all of which affect the outcome!

That being said, I'm not sure there is anything, at all, that can remove these biases.

[Barnabas Eckleworth III]

My post did exactly what I hoped- start a lively discussion with lots of thoughtful opinions and valuable input. Thanks, everybody, for your thoughts.

[Sanmei Long]

Dasrak wrote:

You'd need the person who dropped to be the cleric, and you would continue to need bad luck throughout the coming fight in order to lose. And, just in terms of my "gut feeling" on the odds (which, to be fair, is underdeveloped for PF2) that feels about like the 6% odds that Paizo's data suggests.

Chances are that much of the 6% is based upon the original Dying rules, where the cleric had no way to alleviate the problems experienced by a Dying character, thanks to not regaining consciousness or losing the Dying condition when your HP was brought above 0.

[WhiteMagus2000]

Barnabas Eckleworth III wrote:

I see post after post in the feedback about people having total party kills.

I'm wondering how many of the party deaths are from people making PF1 assumptions in their PF2 game.
When I ran part 1 of Doomsday Dawn, I lost count of how many times the players started to move their character's mini, then stopped and said, "Oh, wait... is that gonna incur an attack of opportunity?"
So, basically, they were doing or not doing things based on their perception of what would or wouldn't happen, because of what they were used to from the old rules.
I wonder if a fresh, clean slate of rules understanding would provide different outcomes?

.

I reminded my players of no AoO in the second to last fight. Then in the last one, against Drakkus, the rogue tried to circle around him one to be AoOed for 1/3 of her HP. " I thought you said no AoO". Yeah, well except for the ones that can. " How can you tell?" You can't. Then Drakkus used his action to crit her for the other 2/3.

The biggest issue for my players was just dumb luck. If I hadn't played a couple of the fights kind of dumb,they likely would have gotten a a death or two. The monsters had a hit bonus of +6 to +10, so they hit a lot. Two crits in a round and someone was going down.

[Tridus]

nogoodscallywag wrote:

Part of the problem with the playtest (in the grand scheme) is that PF1 players are frnankly spoiled. They have options galore, incredibly powerful martials and casters, healing spam, no mid-difficulty encounters (either too easy or too hard).

Removing all knowledge of PF1 playstyle and rules knoweldge is nearly impossible, so playtesting has been biased a bit with that regard. Throw the new rules learning aspect in with this for those players who have limited or no PF1 rules knowledge and you'll get a bias for lack of knowledge and/or lack of combat strategy, all of which affect the outcome!

That being said, I'm not sure there is anything, at all, that can remove these biases.

No need to remove them. The people they will be trying to sell PF2 will also have those same biases. That's an awful lot of the target market for the new game. If it can't deal with those people, it'll be a problem at some point.

[John Mechalas]

nogoodscallywag wrote:

Part of the problem with the playtest (in the grand scheme) is that PF1 players are frnankly spoiled. They have options galore, incredibly powerful martials and casters, healing spam, no mid-difficulty encounters (either too easy or too hard).

Removing all knowledge of PF1 playstyle and rules knoweldge is nearly impossible, so playtesting has been biased a bit with that regard.

This is an assertion, but what evidence do you have?

We almost lost a player on the very first round (dropped to 2 hp), on the enemy's very first turn. It was literally the first combat roll of the session. The ooze in Lost Star went undetected, and when a PC got within 10' of it, it made a move, then made two attacks on one PC, both of which hit.

What's the cause? A combination of things: the three action system, multiple attacks available at all levels and to all monsters, and the monster stats on average being about +2 above the PC's across the board (including Stealth/Perception, which affects detection and initiative). And it sure wasn't "bias" or "being spoiled" or any other nonsense.

I am sure there are some cases where players had not adapted their tactics to the new game, but there's a lot more going on here.

[Shisumo]

In two runs of "Lost Star" and one run of "Rose Street Revenge," I have only had two PCs even go to 0, and no deaths so far. In fact, neither dying PC even had to spend Hero Points to avoid death, thanks to having been healed before their turn came back up again.

[pauljathome]

The new dying rules make a HUGE difference in how likely death is. I personally think that the new rules have gone to far, the whack a mole just seems silly to me (its far worse than PF1 due to ranged healing, hit points not going negative, and the way that people move in initiative when they go down)

The new rules also REALLY emphasize the need for that heal spell. Getting 2 or 3 characters up with one spell can be VERY significant in how things play out

[MostlyNope42]

Our group has gotten VERY familiar with the death and dying rules. Thus far we have not lost anyone, mostly due to not having a blood lusting DM and having multiple folk that can "heal", but many times have come close. Most of us do not play "optimized characters" or as we are coming to call them now... the minimum requirement characters... so at times things just feel, arbitrary. Beginning to wonder why even have stats for characters when the needed course has been planned out in "the balance".

[graystone]

Sanmei Long wrote:

Dasrak wrote:

You'd need the person who dropped to be the cleric, and you would continue to need bad luck throughout the coming fight in order to lose. And, just in terms of my "gut feeling" on the odds (which, to be fair, is underdeveloped for PF2) that feels about like the 6% odds that Paizo's data suggests.

Chances are that much of the 6% is based upon the original Dying rules, where the cleric had no way to alleviate the problems experienced by a Dying character, thanks to not regaining consciousness or losing the Dying condition when your HP was brought above 0.

Our game was using the original dying rules.

[Corradh]

nogoodscallywag wrote:

I've also never, ever seen a player death in PFS at one of my tables I've played at; I have GMed a couple of deaths, but these were one-off players using pre-gens.

Part of the problem with the playtest (in the grand scheme) is that PF1 players are frnankly spoiled. They have options galore, incredibly powerful martials and casters, healing spam, no mid-difficulty encounters (either too easy or too hard).

Removing all knowledge of PF1 playstyle and rules knoweldge is nearly impossible, so playtesting has been biased a bit with that regard. Throw the new rules learning aspect in with this for those players who have limited or no PF1 rules knowledge and you'll get a bias for lack of knowledge and/or lack of combat strategy, all of which affect the outcome!

That being said, I'm not sure there is anything, at all, that can remove these biases.

I've only played in one PF1 campaign (off and on for a few years now), and honestly have no idea what the dying rules are there because I don't think we've ever made it down to 0HP.

In the playtest, every one of us has had a chance to test the dying rules, some on multiple occasions. My monk got taken down by a goblin in the second room of part 1 who got a crit in the first round :|

Fortunately, when I'm GMing, it's AD&D 2E so they're used to more brutality from that.

[Ed Reppert]

Technotrooper wrote:

We almost had a TPK in part 2 but the PCs barely survived. One thing we did have was a lot of camping in the dungeon to recover from the previous one or two rooms in order to press on--even though the party had a cleric. It seems like spells kept running out and no one wanted to press forward without enough spells.

Is there such a thing as enough spells? :-)

[John Mechalas]

I sure would like to know what the motivation was for the new dying rules. One of the goals of the Playtest is to have a system that's easier to play with simpler rules. What could be simpler than "you die when your HP's reach -Con"?

[Snowblind]

John Mechalas wrote:

I sure would like to know what the motivation was for the new dying rules. One of the goals of the Playtest is to have a system that's easier to play with simpler rules. What could be simpler than "you die when your HP's reach -Con"?

Dying at -Con is completely inappropriate at higher levels when some monsters are dealing 40 damage a hit not including crits?

[Zman0]

I wouldn't be shocked in some of the TPKs are coming from misapplying the critical rules. As written it looks like pg 178 trumps pg 292 ie that any roll of a 20 is a critical. I they are goblins tossing out three shots in a turn, then you're looking at PCs dropping like flies.

If they use the rules as Devs have clarified, that if the 20 wouldn't normally hit it isn't a crit and is merely a normal hit might change things especially for the goblins with shortbows fight.

In our first scenario if we didn't have the cleric we would have needed to retreat at least once for a rest. We weren't very optimized and I was playing my PC in character which wasn't terribly smart. We had two PCs dropped to 0 in the last fight, but that was becasue I broke the door down and the big ole boss hid and lured us in. We were super depleted for that fight and had some unfortunate rolls.

We also did trigger the Imps, and got swarmed by the centipedes, and blew a lot of resources fighting the skeletons.

We also skipped the goblin cave trap by chance. That might have got us, or we would have had to retreat for a rest.

IMO the first adventure leaves a lot of opportunity for parties to get themselves in trouble, especially if they try and do it in one without resting. I know we actively tried to avoid retreating and had a cleric to facilitate that.

[John Mechalas]

Snowblind wrote:

John Mechalas wrote:

I sure would like to know what the motivation was for the new dying rules. One of the goals of the Playtest is to have a system that's easier to play with simpler rules. What could be simpler than "you die when your HP's reach -Con"?

Dying at -Con is completely inappropriate at higher levels when some monsters are dealing 40 damage a hit not including crits?

Fine. Then make it -Con - ConMod*level or something (with a minimum of 1 hp/level if you have a low Con).

Any formula would be easier than what the Playtest has now.

[Malk_Content]

I'd also note every time I (or have seen others) ask if the TPK reporting players tried anything but "we hit it" they've gotten defensive about how all the other core options couldn't possibly have helped even though they didn't try them. Although this is anecdotal, my group did a lot better when I informed them of their other combat options (as a GM to people playing a new game for the first time SHOULD be doing in my opinion.) It's amazing how much of a difference readying, grappling, intimidating makes. Demoralize outright won two fights in the first module.

[Vidmaster 1st edition]

Really if noone TPK'ed I would think the game might be to easy. In fact I think the numbers should be higher maybe not old school I went through 5 characters high but still

[Vic Ferrari]

John Mechalas wrote:

Snowblind wrote:

John Mechalas wrote:

I sure would like to know what the motivation was for the new dying rules. One of the goals of the Playtest is to have a system that's easier to play with simpler rules. What could be simpler than "you die when your HP's reach -Con"?

Dying at -Con is completely inappropriate at higher levels when some monsters are dealing 40 damage a hit not including crits?

Fine. Then make it -Con - ConMod*level or something (with a minimum of 1 hp/level if you have a low Con).

Any formula would be easier than what the Playtest has now.

Yeah, for 3rd Ed/PF1, I house-rule death at negative your Con score + level, 20th-level fighter with a 16 Con dies at -36 hit points. I like the idea of Con mod x level, really beef it up for high level.

[thorin001]

As a GM I am 1 for 1 on TPKs.

[John Mechalas]

Malk_Content wrote:

It's amazing how much of a difference readying, grappling, intimidating makes. Demoralize outright won two fights in the first module.

I still haven't mastered the art of Readying an action. Since it costs two actions to Ready, it seems valuable only when you are repositioning away from any active engagement.

I am also frustrated that Grapple is locked behind Athletics.

[Vic Ferrari]

John Mechalas wrote:

I am also frustrated that Grapple is locked behind Athletics.

Me too, grappling/shoving should not be tied to skills, 5th Ed made this mistake, now too have high level bards and rogues (due to Expertise) that can pin ogres and pit fiends to the ground with impunity.

[Corradh]

Malk_Content wrote:

I'd also note every time I (or have seen others) ask if the TPK reporting players tried anything but "we hit it" they've gotten defensive about how all the other core options couldn't possibly have helped even though they didn't try them. Although this is anecdotal, my group did a lot better when I informed them of their other combat options (as a GM to people playing a new game for the first time SHOULD be doing in my opinion.) It's amazing how much of a difference readying, grappling, intimidating makes. Demoralize outright won two fights in the first module.

Definitely, once we started employing flanking and demoralizing, it was very helpful.

[EberronHoward]

It's my experience as well that playing smart (universal combat tactics as well as edition-specific strategies) pushes a party from "always risking a TPK" to "Rarely TPKing". It's a lot like optimal play in AD&D.

[Ed Reppert]

Or any other similar game, really.

A question: what, from the playtest rulebook, should players read before starting a game?

[EberronHoward]

Pages 316-317: Exploration Mode. I know a lot of people dislike being locked in a role, but it's good for players to think about what they're doing out of combat, just like they should in-combat. I don't think it's intuitive that high INT/WIS characters can use "Investigate" to gain knowledge about their situation, and that the system is giving them a chance to prepare for trouble. Also, stating that "Detect Magic" and "Covering Tracks" as options is a subtle clue to PCs that they might be running into magical traps or be followed by monsters, and work to prevent it.

I'd also point out the "Leap" action. It helped explain why using Athletics for jumping is so difficult.

[erik542]

I really don't know how parties were getting wiped in the first adventure. We ran Fighter, Sorc, Bard, Rogue. As the Rogue, I made sure to stealth ahead to preview the various rooms and disable traps. Once the fighter remembered to actually use his shield (which are immensely OP), he was able to just tank everything once the the fight actually broke out which was usually on our terms due to my scouting. Then the bard's healing was enough to get us of the way through the dungeon on one day. Oh and the sorc was useless. Everything was pretty smooth sailing until the boss where we suddenly remembered hero points existed because of him getting 3 crits in one round to drop 2 people and nearly a third.

[Corwin Icewolf]

Vic Ferrari wrote:

John Mechalas wrote:

I am also frustrated that Grapple is locked behind Athletics.

Me too, grappling/shoving should not be tied to skills, 5th Ed made this mistake, now too have high level bards and rogues (due to Expertise) that can pin ogres and pit fiends to the ground with impunity.

... I have no problem with that whatsoever... W00T for dragon wrestlers!

erik542 wrote:

I really don't know how parties were getting wiped in the first adventure. We ran Fighter, Sorc, Bard, Rogue. As the Rogue, I made sure to stealth ahead to preview the various rooms and disable traps. Once the fighter remembered to actually use his shield (which are immensely OP), he was able to just tank everything once the the fight actually broke out which was usually on our terms due to my scouting. Then the bard's healing was enough to get us of the way through the dungeon on one day. Oh and the sorc was useless. Everything was pretty smooth sailing until the boss where we suddenly remembered hero points existed because of him getting 3 crits in one round to drop 2 people and nearly a third.

Well, in doomsday dawn part 1 I was a wizard, and there was a cleric, bard, alchemist, and a barbarian. Even with the alchemist using a bunch of resonance for extra heals,

Spoiler:

we kept nearly getting killed by goblins, and had to retreat back to town every two combats. I didn't find my first level wizard spells particularly useful(grease and color spray, iirc), and changed them out for two nightmare tendrils which also was not particularly helpful. The only time I was really useful was when we nearly got tpk'd and I yelled "You goblins are really stupid!" And ran in an attempt to lead the goblins away, allowing other people to be healed.

This did not make me feel like a wizard. It made me feel like a desperate idiot more than anything, but it worked.

In part 2 I played a rogue, but forgot to note down a ranged weapon, which I will admit fault to. We nearly tpk'd at one point due to a ridiculous bad luck streak where no one could seem roll above a 5 for over 2 hours.

Spoiler:

Then we tpk'd between certain critters being immune to certain sneaky attacky class features the rogue has, and how horrifying persistent damage is. Even with people realizing the third attack was impossible and trying to help with other people's persistent damage instead.

So bad luck, pain and hurt, and forgetting to bring certain things.

[Tunewalker]

In_digo wrote:

breithauptclan wrote:

Scythia wrote:

Sanmei Long wrote:

From what I've heard, it isn't what people do or don't do that kills them, it's the fact that monsters have a relatively high chance of hitting, critting, and sometimes even killing the PC in one blow -- and that's if they're optimized. Battles are very swingy when optimized (apparently the average chance for a fully optimized character to land a blow or a spell against a same level opponent are never better than 55%) and tend to flatten you if you're not.

I agree. While I didn't have a TPK, I did have to use the dying rules in the very first battle I ran. An enemy had gotten an easy first hit on a PC, then crit on the second.

Any battle since that lasted beyond the first round has involved a PC falling to five or less HP. Enemies are basically stronger and better than PCs, including free magic bonus damage despite not having magical gear.

I can vouch for it not being PF1 assumptions, I didn't use AoO in PF1.

This was our experience with the Lost Star scenario. We never TPK'ed, but it was close a couple of times. Enemies would regularly knock out at least one of our party every encounter. This was even with retreating from the dungeon and healing up in town several times.

For our party healing we had one Paladin with the improved (d6) Lay on Hands. Which is not nearly enough.

We also weren't poring over the rule book trying to build the most optimized characters either. We like to play characters based on them being cool and interesting characters. So we pick skills and feats based on what interests us.

As a result, Drakus could one-round KO any one of our characters. And did so twice. Two hits in the same round, no crit needed. Once was after being hit with enfeebled(2) by the Paladin. That guy was seriously unable to miss our player characters.

I was part of a group that TPK'd during the Lost Star and a lot of this was similar to our experience. One of our members felt we could have beat...

Oops double post. didnt write anything except to quoting going to do so now.

Update for this week our rogue did not show up this week since we were a player down the GM created an NPC wandering Cleric. It was determined that rest was not a possibility because the town was a week away on foot and the woods are dangerous and the rest of the goblins were not going to just sit around while we rested and did nothing.

With cleric healing npc though we killed elite goblins with little difficulty, and skeletons died super easy as well. Traps have been a bit of an issue... also finding anything. We have called our barbarian players dice "murder dice" ironically it does not appear to matter which dice he is rolling give him a die and ask him to do a skill check 70% it will be lower than 10, ask him to hit something with a hammer 70% it will be above 14 the barbarian doesnt do skills he only smashes.

We are still good health cleric STILL has more healing (dear lord the difference between a cleric healer and any other kind of healer is insane.... must have 1 cleric if you are not planning on resting every couple of fights).

So far I believe the best way to go about things with a group of 4 is 1 Cleric, 2 martial classes (doesnt matter which ones) and one member that is capable of big AOE stuff for dangerous things (alchemist with bombs, or wizard, or sorc or what ever) is ideal for longer adventuring days, but you will have to know that the AOE person will only be able to contribute in a couple fights outside of cantrips. If your group has a lot of casters rests will be required a lot.

[Vic Ferrari]

Corwin Icewolf wrote:

Vic Ferrari wrote:

John Mechalas wrote:

I am also frustrated that Grapple is locked behind Athletics.

Me too, grappling/shoving should not be tied to skills, 5th Ed made this mistake, now too have high level bards and rogues (due to Expertise) that can pin ogres and pit fiends to the ground with impunity.

... I have no problem with that whatsoever... W00T for dragon wrestlers!

Ha, that's not the problem (I wish they had a class feature and/or Feat that lets you grapple Huge creatures), it's that Expertise is exclusive to Bards and Rogues, so, welcome to 5th Ed, where Bards and Rogues are the best wrestlers in the multiverse!

[Tunewalker]

Vic Ferrari wrote:

Corwin Icewolf wrote:

Vic Ferrari wrote:

John Mechalas wrote:

I am also frustrated that Grapple is locked behind Athletics.

Me too, grappling/shoving should not be tied to skills, 5th Ed made this mistake, now too have high level bards and rogues (due to Expertise) that can pin ogres and pit fiends to the ground with impunity.

... I have no problem with that whatsoever... W00T for dragon wrestlers!

Ha, that's not the problem (I wish they had a class feature and/or Feat that lets you grapple Huge creatures), it's that Expertise is exclusive to Bards and Rogues, so, welcome to 5th Ed, where Bards and Rogues are the best wrestlers in the multiverse!

Expert is not in any way exclusive to bards or rogues. Every single class I have read so far gets to increase their proficiency from trained to expert or pick up a new skill as trained at 3rd level and can upgrade again every 2 levels (5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19) and are able to get their signature skills (Athletics is not a Signature skill for bard) up to Master or Legendary at levels 7 and..... 15 I think.... respectively.

[Ed Reppert]

There are no signature skills any more.

[Dasrak]

Corwin Icewolf wrote:

This did not make me feel like a wizard. It made me feel like a desperate idiot more than anything, but it worked.

This has been my experience with traditional caster builds, as well. I'd go so far as to say that a "dedicated spellcaster" build is borderline unviable in PF2. If you don't have a decent weapon attack to fall back on, you're a liability to your party.

[Barnabas Eckleworth III]

I mean, I thought scaling cantrips were pretty good. Especially for saving on big bang spells for later.

[ErichAD]

Tunewalker wrote:

Vic Ferrari wrote:

Corwin Icewolf wrote:

Vic Ferrari wrote:

John Mechalas wrote:

I am also frustrated that Grapple is locked behind Athletics.

Me too, grappling/shoving should not be tied to skills, 5th Ed made this mistake, now too have high level bards and rogues (due to Expertise) that can pin ogres and pit fiends to the ground with impunity.

... I have no problem with that whatsoever... W00T for dragon wrestlers!

Ha, that's not the problem (I wish they had a class feature and/or Feat that lets you grapple Huge creatures), it's that Expertise is exclusive to Bards and Rogues, so, welcome to 5th Ed, where Bards and Rogues are the best wrestlers in the multiverse!

Expert is not in any way exclusive to bards or rogues. Every single class I have read so far gets to increase their proficiency from trained to expert or pick up a new skill as trained at 3rd level and can upgrade again every 2 levels (5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19) and are able to get their signature skills (Athletics is not a Signature skill for bard) up to Master or Legendary at levels 7 and..... 15 I think.... respectively.

They're talking side chat about 5e.

[Barnabas Eckleworth III]

I just hope a lot of it gets figured out. This is our chance, right now, to get the best game possible. I love PF1. My only thing I don't like about it is.. while I understand it very well, and have zero problem tracking bonus types or understanding spell descriptions, not all of my friends are as well-read.
I don't know how many times I have heard someone talking about an "absolutely broken/overpowered build," only to look at their sheet and they are stacking things that don't stack, and applying spell bonuses wrong.

[Dasrak]

Barnabas Eckleworth III wrote:

I mean, I thought scaling cantrips were pretty good. Especially for saving on big bang spells for later.

Cantrips take 2 actions, and attacks take 1 action; you can and should be doing both in the same turn. The problem isn't the comparison of cantrips vs weapon attacks, it's cantrips vs cantrips+weapon attacks. Weapon attacks (presuming you keep your weapon potency up to par) deal about 50% more damage on average than a cantrip, so you're more than doubling your DPR by mixing a weapon attack into your routine over just cantrip spam.

[Vic Ferrari]

Tunewalker wrote:

Vic Ferrari wrote:

Corwin Icewolf wrote:

Vic Ferrari wrote:

John Mechalas wrote:

I am also frustrated that Grapple is locked behind Athletics.

Me too, grappling/shoving should not be tied to skills, 5th Ed made this mistake, now too have high level bards and rogues (due to Expertise) that can pin ogres and pit fiends to the ground with impunity.

... I have no problem with that whatsoever... W00T for dragon wrestlers!

Ha, that's not the problem (I wish they had a class feature and/or Feat that lets you grapple Huge creatures), it's that Expertise is exclusive to Bards and Rogues, so, welcome to 5th Ed, where Bards and Rogues are the best wrestlers in the multiverse!

Expert is not in any way exclusive to bards or rogues. Every single class I have read so far gets to increase their proficiency from trained to expert

Expertise, in 5th Ed, not Expert proficiency, ala PF2.

[Malk_Content]

John Mechalas wrote:

Malk_Content wrote:

It's amazing how much of a difference readying, grappling, intimidating makes. Demoralize outright won two fights in the first module.

I still haven't mastered the art of Readying an action. Since it costs two actions to Ready, it seems valuable only when you are repositioning away from any active engagement.

I am also frustrated that Grapple is locked behind Athletics.

Big example is the Quasits fight. Ready to disable when they reveal themselves.

EDIT: I also like that Athletics is used to Grapple (I wish more skills had valuable in combat uses) especially now that Signature skills are dead. It lets any character invest in it regardless of Class (as opposed to tying it to something like unarmed proficiency.)