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The issue is that the specialist who puts everything into being the best at something has maybe a 60% chance of succeeding in 2E. Someone with less investment (Plus penalties due to ACP) has realistically no chance of succeeding currently.I see nothing in the rulebook that says I can't set a DC for a challenge where the specialist has a 90% chance of succeeding, but the non-specialist has a significant chance of failure.
Like someone really specializing in a skill at level 7 in PF2 will have a modifier of +4 (stat) + 2 (proficiency) + 7 (level) + 2 (item) = +15.
Someone who is not remotely invested in a skill has a modifier between +1 (a full plate wearer untrained in stealth with 10 dex trying to be stealthy) and +9 (untrained in the skill but with 18 in the stat in question).
So if you set a DC 15 challenge the specialist will succeed 100% of the time while the "horrible at this" character has only a 30% chance to succeed while the "untrained but competent" character succeeds 75% of the time. A DC 20 challenge it breaks down to 20% chance of failure, a 90% chance of failure, and a 50% chance of failure for these same folks.
The problem with your math is that a DC 15 skill check is one point less than "trivial" per the standards of the Playtest rules (pg. 336) . This means your hyper specialized example will always succeed at a less than trivial check (ok seems reasonable) a character with a genius level attribute related to that skill but untrained will fail this less than trivial check 25% of the time and the non-invested character (in full plate) will fail this less than trivial task 70% of the time.
DC 20 is considered a "low" level of difficulty. This will break down as follows:
* Hyper-Specialized: Fails at a low-level challenge 20% of the time.
* Genius attribute with no training will fail a low-level challenge 50% of the time.
* The full plate cartwheeler will fail 90% of the time on a low-level challenge.
Should someone in full plate with average dexterity fail a less than "Trivial" acrobatics check 70% of the time? What is a less than trivial acrobatics check? It seems like even an unskilled person should have a fair chance to pass a "Trivial" check much less a check that is less than trivial.
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How exactly does making my character hit on a 3 constitute auto-winning an encounter? At higher levels that's just basic competency. Monsters by that level have DR, SR, SLAs, and all sorts of nasty surprises such that hitting them easily doesn't exactly trivialize things. If martial characters need 10s to hit, then 3/4 BAB characters have basically no chance whatsoever unless they are in fact super optimized. It also make iterative attacks fairly worthless.Hitting on a 3 should not be the baseline in a new system. That should be for trivial encounters that showcase just how powerful the character has become. You should also note that there are no more 3/4 BAB characters to be obsoleted.
True, but that goes for who the party is fighting as well. Plenty of foes in first edition can hit characters within their CR range on a 2 or 3.
Also, this was a reasonable result of iterative attacks. On attack one you may only need a 3 to hit (90% chance of success) but attack 2 needs an 8 (65%), attack 3 needs a 13 (40%) and attack 4 needs an 18 (15%).
And this is no longer first edition, so I would expect the baseline to be different.
Right, but we still have that mechanic
Right now it's like 55% to hit with 1st, 30% to hit with second and 5% to hit with third.And right now as in 1e monster's HP scale faster than damage so it takes more hits to bring down higher level enemies.
So really most of the combat math of iteratives and MAP are the same.
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A core problem of this is that the game is telling us the difference between "untrained" and "legendary" is only +5. That is a miniscule competency gap, and inevitably leads to the perception that the very best are not that much better than the worst, no matter how trained they are. There are of course other ways to increase that gap further, but there still remains the implication that it's entirely possible that the gap between "Billy Two-Left-Feet" and "Dave the Nimble" is a mere 25% chance of success.That's ignoring all the factors though.
There's skill, which ranges from -2 to +3.
Then there's talent (ability score) which ranges (sans magic) from -1 to +6.
On top of that is also gear, which I think is -2 (improvised gear) to +3.
Finally there's level, but that really only matters when dealing with disparate levels, so I'll ignore it as a factor.
I might be forgetting some bonuses, but the above are at least most of the reliable, big ones.
So the untrained cleric with some CHA that picked up an item to help compensate for his penalty is now back to like -6 from this legendary performer.
With the 4 +2s and slowed progression a lot of stats get high.So sure IN THE MOST EXTREME cases there is a significant difference.
In MANY of usual cases for many skills the difference is like -7, perhaps swapping proficiency for the item aka trained no item.
Now this also causes other issues though. If the success is set for 55% for the best guy then the backup is 20%. Like sure I guess he has a chance, but not one I'd expect to feel good trying.
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That's ignoring all the factors though.Then there's talent (ability score) which ranges (sans magic) from -1 to +6.
Except that it very probably doesn't range from -1 to +6. Unless someone's deliberately nerfing their character, it'll range from +0 to +4 and then by less than that, because of all those +2s you get every 5 levels that become +1s after 18. And the magic item that bumps it by +2 or to an 18. So a high level character's stats actually look more like 20 19 18 18 18 16, not the 30 25 20 16 12 8 you'd see in PF1.
And then the much-vaunted cooperation goal of PF2 doesn't help much, because there are only 3 types of bonuses which don't stack, so even with the whole party helping you'll be lucky to get +5. Or less because someone will critfail and drop that to +3.
Armour sometimes makes a difference, but only for certain things.
In a PF1 game, I had a 3rd level rogue stealth up to a small castle, throw a grappling hook over the wall, climb up it, stealth along the battlement, waste the guard and open the postern gate. I can't imagine that working in PF2 as the numbers stand.
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And this is no longer first edition, so I would expect the baseline to be different.Right, but we still have that mechanic
Right now it's like 55% to hit with 1st, 30% to hit with second and 5% to hit with third.
And right now as in 1e monster's HP scale faster than damage so it takes more hits to bring down higher level enemies.
So really most of the combat math of iteratives and MAP are the same.
What that tells me is that combats will last longer and allow all participants more chances to take actions to contribute. With the adjustment of spell effects to have more than pass or fail end states, this reduces the possibility of single full round actions to take out opponents, reducing rocket tag effects.
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What that tells me is that combats will last longer and allow all participants more chances to take actions to contribute. With the adjustment of spell effects to have more than pass or fail end states, this reduces the possibility of single full round actions to take out opponents, reducing rocket tag effects.And this is no longer first edition, so I would expect the baseline to be different.Right, but we still have that mechanic
Right now it's like 55% to hit with 1st, 30% to hit with second and 5% to hit with third.
And right now as in 1e monster's HP scale faster than damage so it takes more hits to bring down higher level enemies.
So really most of the combat math of iteratives and MAP are the same.
And it my play experience it has led to upset people that they feel so ineffective that they are missing so much. And casters upset that their spells time out before the fight is swung so their spells feel ineffective.
Like the rocket tag is already gone due to damage potentials Vs HP.
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I agree that PF1 allowed for far more optimization of characters. However, I don't see it as necessarily a good thing because I see it as exclusive to other styles of play entirely - because if the ability exists to hyper-optimize, then characters invalidate their own ability to coexist beside other characters who either do not hyperoptimize, nor to coexist with others who hyperoptimize in a different way.
I agree with this 100%. The reduction in hyperoptimisation opportunities (the huge reduction in different stackable bonus types for example) is a great leveller for the game. This is a good thing overall: for party balance, for scenario design, for Paizo's new content creation, and for speeding up play.
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Question, if you hit enemies of the same level 90% of the time, then for them to be accurately assessed as the same level, they would have to hit you 90% of the time. Is that something that's really wanted?
I'd honestly say you'd be better off with something like Shadowrun if your jam is those types of heists/infiltrations. Pathfinder is just too...rudimentary I guess is the right word for it in matters beyond staving in people's heads in a fight and is also held back by the implied premise that everyone will be crawling through dungeons as a unit and environmental obstacles are typically solved with a lone dice roll/spell.In the infiltration example you assume that every opponent involved is at the same level as the party is. And if that is the case in would be madness to attempt such a thing. Not just because the opponents are very skilled but also because if something goes of the rails the group will certainly die.
However a carefully planned infiltration will look for weak spots, engage the lower level opponents. Find out first who is competent and who is not, scout the opponents in low stake area's, talk to a couple of mooks in a tavern with no possibility to fail. Try to avoid contact with higher ranking lieutenants or potential bosses. And if it is inevitable keep those encounters to a minimum and leave them to the specialist. Or let the non competent characters prepare a distraction for those the lieutenants.
Which I find way more challenging and rewarding than rolling dice on which you cannot fail but to each their own.
Thank you I rather play PF at my table. What you tell me is people that complain about infiltration being impossible is that they do not want to infiltrate but they want to roll well fair enough. Just rolling dice is not good enough anymore.
Question, if you hit enemies of the same level 90% of the time, then for them to be accurately assessed as the same level, they would have to hit you 90% of the time. Is that something that's really wanted?
I guess they do not want to have competent opponents based on the level. At times it sounds as if it was solely about numbers, arbitrarily raising the level of all monsters might do the trick while leaving the stats untouched.
The issue is when you can hyper specialize the opponents can do so too, especially if they are more resourceful. Have countermeasures in play to mitigate your high stealth roles. Have a +50 stealth rogue track the party.
Yes, that's kinda the idea, if I sacrifice my armor gold for weapon gold I want to be able to hit reliably. If I use all my feats for combat and not skills then I want my combat to be more reliable than skills. combo this and I should get to like 90%+ on my attacks.
So the baseline is the 65% for a normal paladin build but special builds can get the 90%
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If I use all my feats for combat and not skills then I want my combat to be more reliable than skills. combo this and I should get to like 90%+ on my attacks.
So the baseline is the 65% for a normal paladin build but special builds can get the 90%
The problem is, this kind of thing tends to lead to a game where all-combat no-skill builds feel mandatory; published adventures are either too easy for combat-optimized groups or too hard for unoptimized groups. Especially in a game where 90% hit chance means 40% critical chance.
The problem is, this kind of thing tends to lead to a game where all-combat no-skill builds feel mandatory; published adventures are either too easy for combat-optimized groups or too hard for unoptimized groups. Especially in a game where 90% hit chance means 40% critical chance.If I use all my feats for combat and not skills then I want my combat to be more reliable than skills. combo this and I should get to like 90%+ on my attacks.
So the baseline is the 65% for a normal paladin build but special builds can get the 90%
Plus the first optimized encounter will kill any group, especially when they dump their defenses to hit all the time. Especially if the encounter is ranged and why wouldn't it.
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To those people who want to hit 90% of the time on their optimized rolls... "Why?"
It sounds like what you want is a complete power fantasy. Do you also like your having your critical hits described by the GM as eviscerating your enemies with their bowels spilling out or their heads being flung across the field after being decapitated?
If you want that, your GM can run you through really easy encounters. They can give you a chance to dominate. But if you can only feel really good about yourself if everyone else in the party can only fail challenges in your area of expertise, that's not a good experience for the table.
There also seems to be a presumption that equal-level challenge means equal level enemy, but as others have done the research on it, we see that the enemies are often lower level than the players.
The difference at high-level between no investment and full investment isn't 7, its more like 17. Moderate vs. full investment puts it closer to 10. That's still significant. Even the 5 range between Untrained and Legendary is significant in relative terms.
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To those people who want to hit 90% of the time on their optimized rolls... "Why?"
I like to achieve something at least 70% of the time I attempt to do anything that I'm supposed to be competent at.
Wasted actions are frustrating. Anything less than 70% and I start to feel actively incompetent. Imagine if Legolas sent arrows flying off in all directions...
The problem with iterative attack penalties is that if you're hitting 75% of the time on the first attack, you're missing 75% of the time on your last attack, and that doesn't feel good.
I think I'd rather attack with the same attack bonus for half damage than attack with half the hit chance...
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To those people who want to hit 90% of the time on their optimized rolls... "Why?"
It sounds like what you want is a complete power fantasy. Do you also like your having your critical hits described by the GM as eviscerating your enemies with their bowels spilling out or their heads being flung across the field after being decapitated?
If you want that, your GM can run you through really easy encounters. They can give you a chance to dominate. But if you can only feel really good about yourself if everyone else in the party can only fail challenges in your area of expertise, that's not a good experience for the table.
Your post eviscerates the straw man, spilling its bowels in a room-temperature pile at your feet and flinging its head twenty feet in a random direction! Roll a d8.
This isn't about feeling good about oneself; nor is it about domination fantasies. The ideal is that a character build to perform a certain activity really well should be able to succeed at that activity more often than not.
The target percentage is up for debate, but I personally think a 70% to 80% success rate for an optimized character is superb.
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To those people who want to hit 90% of the time on their optimized rolls... "Why?"I like to achieve something at least 70% of the time I attempt to do anything that I'm supposed to be competent at.
Wasted actions are frustrating. Anything less than 70% and I start to feel actively incompetent. Imagine if Legolas sent arrows flying off in all directions...
The problem with iterative attack penalties is that if you're hitting 75% of the time on the first attack, you're missing 75% of the time on your last attack, and that doesn't feel good.
I think I'd rather attack with the same attack bonus for half damage than attack with half the hit chance...
Which is fair in general and no pressure scenarios, however if you compete against equally skilled opponents, as in combat you should not be successful 70% of the time. Or this would imply that defending is just a hell lot harder than attacking, to stay in the combat scenario.
That however would go both ways. This would make the already pretty deadly surprise encounter extremely lethal.
Against equally skilled opponents it is wise to not just swing like a mad man, which the current rules reflect nicely.
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To those people who want to hit 90% of the time on their optimized rolls... "Why?"
Cause when I say my PC is good at X, i expect him to show it.
One of my current games show this pretty well actually.
One player tends to roll low dices on some of his skill checks, by this point then entire party doesnt trust him to roll it at all. So buff,diplomacy... routes are denied to him, unless no other option is present. The party quite literally will not even give the NPCs a chance to speak if possible.
Ultimately, nobody cares if you say you are good, if you cant deliver, then it is worthless.
And no plan can be made with a bunch of maybes.
So it is best to have 4 PCs that know they can do something, than 4 PCs that kind have an idea that they could possibly do everything.
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Whenever someone's justifications for their opinions on game mechanics is that some players "tend" to roll higher or lower I just roll my eyes. Give them new dice or something. Rolling isn't some skill that people can be good or bad at. If you're "good" at rolling that means you're literally cheating and rolling it in a way to get high numbers or your dice is unbalanced. Same goes for people who are "bad" at rolling.
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To those people who want to hit 90% of the time on their optimized rolls... "Why?"
Because the game is/can-be about things you can do.
If I build a character who is highly optimized to reliably succeed on say... Climb checks, that adds to the list of things the party can do. When faced with physical challenges, I can offer solutions. "Klarpreet can climb up that 200 ft statue, and scout things from there." "Klarpreet can climb up the mast of the ship, hide and wait for the dragon to swoop down onto the deck then try to drop a net on it from above." "Klarpreet can free-climb down that pit and bring a potion to save the princess."
What gets seen from scouting position has chance of failure. If the net catches the dragon has chance of failure. Rescuing the princess has chance of failure.
But the climbing? If it's reliable, or mostly reliable, knowing its in the tool-kit opens up possible solutions that have their own chances of failure.
If climbing has a 50/50 chance, Klarpreet's not volunteering to fall off the statue, fall off the mast, or enter the deep pit. Because it's a bad gamble. Find another way. Get a familiar to deliver the potion, drill a hole in the wall by the statue, or dive off the ship so the dragon's flyby attacks don't work.
Point is, if you know you can succeed at Use Magic Device, you can start safely incorporating scrolls or wands into your tactics. If you know you'll probably succeed at Bluff, you can include elaborate, sustained, clever lies into your roleplay. If you know your armor class is abnormally high (at the cost of say... saving throws), you can incorporate otherwise risky positioning when you don't think you're up against spells or poison.
Being able to mostly-reliably do X lets you use X to try A, B, and C. If your ability to do X is unreliable, including A, B, and C in your planning is dumb, because you stand a good chance of having screwed things up before you get to enact the plan.
Put one final way, if you can't reliably Enter A Building, all of the activities you might do inside a building are off the table. Don't bother.
This isn't about extreme extremes, such as "can't ever miss making an attack" or "can't be harmed". It's about being good at Bluff but being crappy at Sense Motive. Sure, you get to con NPCs, but boy oh boy, the day you meet your match... she's going to steal your heart.
So. Awesome.
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The whole point is that even if you're the same level, you are not 'equally skilled' as the specialist.To those people who want to hit 90% of the time on their optimized rolls... "Why?"I like to achieve something at least 70% of the time I attempt to do anything that I'm supposed to be competent at.
Wasted actions are frustrating. Anything less than 70% and I start to feel actively incompetent. Imagine if Legolas sent arrows flying off in all directions...
The problem with iterative attack penalties is that if you're hitting 75% of the time on the first attack, you're missing 75% of the time on your last attack, and that doesn't feel good.
I think I'd rather attack with the same attack bonus for half damage than attack with half the hit chance...
Which is fair in general and no pressure scenarios, however if you compete against equally skilled opponents, as in combat you should not be successful 70% of the time. Or this would imply that defending is just a hell lot harder than attacking, to stay in the combat scenario.
That however would go both ways. This would make the already pretty deadly surprise encounter extremely lethal.
Against equally skilled opponents it is wise to not just swing like a mad man, which the current rules reflect nicely.
Why would the opposing fighter not be a specialist? Is that a thing only PC's can be?
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To those people who want to hit 90% of the time on their optimized rolls... "Why?"
It sounds like what you want is a complete power fantasy. Do you also like your having your critical hits described by the GM as eviscerating your enemies with their bowels spilling out or their heads being flung across the field after being decapitated?
If you want that, your GM can run you through really easy encounters. They can give you a chance to dominate. But if you can only feel really good about yourself if everyone else in the party can only fail challenges in your area of expertise, that's not a good experience for the table.
Your post eviscerates the straw man, spilling its bowels in a room-temperature pile at your feet and flinging its head twenty feet in a random direction! Roll a d8.
This isn't about feeling good about oneself; nor is it about domination fantasies. The ideal is that a character build to perform a certain activity really well should be able to succeed at that activity more often than not.
The target percentage is up for debate, but I personally think a 70% to 80% success rate for an optimized character is superb.
Fair enough. 80% seems too high to me personally. I guess 65% (or a 8 or higher) for the optimized character is good, which is where the 2e fights have been that we've done. Taking a look at the current playtest where you're level 7:
You fight some Ghasts wit their 18 AC.
At this point the fighter is likely to have at least an 18 STR, level 7 with expert proficiency and a +1 weapon (master which would be available, gives an additional +1).
So you're looking at a +13 to hit an 18 AC. Meaning you need a 5 to hit (75% success), and crit on a 15+.
Or we could look at Vampire Spawn Rogues with their 19 AC. Where you would need a 6 to hit (70%) and a 16+ to crit.
Or the Poltergeist with its 19 AC.
The only two things in the entire piece that are any kind of challenge are the Greater Shadows with their 22 AC (55%) and the boss with a 25 AC (40%).
And that's before buffs.
So in more than half of the fights, the fighter is, in fact, hitting about two thirds of the time without any buffs.
I think the problem is that people are comparing their to-hit not against what they will actually be fighting, but against equal level opponents which you will rarely encounter in your typical adventure. For the most part the adventures seem to be building out more fights with more lower-level enemies.
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Proficiency gated tasks and assurance, with high proficiency levels, do exactly that. You can attempt what no one else can. And you achieve reliably what almost no one can do.
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Like compare this to sports teams Many people are familiar with American football
In football
Some teams have really good thrown plays and not so great running plays.
Some have good thrown defense while some are better at rushing defense.
These throwing teams in this highly competitive sport have a good success against a team with a normal throw defense and only reach the coin-toss against a team that specializes in their counter.
Or another comparison in sports is that an athlete is actually quite good at many sports, but they are super good at their main sport. So like a soccer pro wins 80%+ against a football or basketball pros at soccer. The football and basketball player probably win 50% against semi-pro soccer people.
So yeah, I want my stick swinger to be able to hit more enemies because that's his main job. The backup hitters can have a harder time but my training makes it easier. Against an enemy with high AC I'll be at the 50% while the others miss a lot because that's what I do, hit things that are hard to hit, but I'm probably getting hit a lot in return.
I mean this concept was really well done in PF1. Barbs at lv1 can get +2 accuracy and +3 damage over the lv1 fighter. But they had lower AC and were frontloaded, the fighter scaled better and would ultimately get bigger numbers.
Sword and shield prioritized defense over offense and not being able to two hand.
Bows did less damage by having their attributes split and needed much feat support to reach parity with the base of melee damage, but the advantages was not needing to move as much or be in as direct danger.
Or look at rock paper scissors as another example of this concept.
Rock specialized to beat scissors and does so, Rock v Rock is a tie, no clear advantage. Rock v paper is disadvantage rock. What pathfinder feels like is rock, rock pretending it's scissors, rock pretending it's paper. All the matchups are basically ties since everyone is pretty much a rock.
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Whenever someone's justifications for their opinions on game mechanics is that some players "tend" to roll higher or lower I just roll my eyes. Give them new dice or something. Rolling isn't some skill that people can be good or bad at. If you're "good" at rolling that means you're literally cheating and rolling it in a way to get high numbers or your dice is unbalanced. Same goes for people who are "bad" at rolling.
It is irrelevant that he is good/bad at rolling.
What is relevant is that he fails his checks and thus gets the party is trouble by doing so.
Thus the party doesnt trust him anymore to roll said checks and when ANY option is given about allowing him to roll or not, the rest of the party moves to deny him to chance to even try.
Again, words are meaningless if you can show when it counts.
If a PC says he is good at X, but keeps failing, well, then he clearly isnt good at it.
Why would the opposing fighter not be a specialist? Is that a thing only PC's can be?
If he was a specialist at hitting by sacrificing his defenses he'll go down really fast as now our baseline hitters will be hitting often, especially if he doesn't have a capable team to cover for him, and it's not taking advantage of the low defenses of our fighter.
So he'll maybe be wanting to be a generalist, good armor and a normal weapon. This makes it so that the fighter is the biggest threat, the others have average chance to hit while I have average against them, but this fighter looks easy to hit and is good at hitting me. I'll go for him and see if the team can stop me from dropping this guy before going to them.
Or perhaps it's the turtle approach and adds a shield, Great AC but iffy on the attacks. Now the fighter has the coinflip and the rest of the party are iffy as well, and the iffy attack is still pretty good against the fighter's sacrificed AC
Or maybe the enemy is a ranged guy, He'd drop the fighter before he reaches him, but if the fighter's party can get him there safely that ranged guy has no hope.
Here are 4 "specializations" that the players and the enemies can do that show there's lots of times things aren't coinflips against an equal opponent. Or at least the actions in the encounter. Sure it's maybe a coinflip for the first of who out damages the other faster, but the actions of "I'm going to hit since I'm accurate" are not coinflips, in the first they are guaranteed, in the second they are likely and only in the third, when going up against your counter are they at coinflips.
To those people who want to hit 90% of the time on their optimized rolls... "Why?"Because the game is/can-be about things you can do.
If I build a character who is highly optimized to reliably succeed on say... Climb checks, that adds to the list of things the party can do. When faced with physical challenges, I can offer solutions. "Klarpreet can climb up that 200 ft statue, and scout things from there." "Klarpreet can climb up the mast of the ship, hide and wait for the dragon to swoop down onto the deck then try to drop a net on it from above." "Klarpreet can free-climb down that pit and bring a potion to save the princess."
What gets seen from scouting position has chance of failure. If the net catches the dragon has chance of failure. Rescuing the princess has chance of failure.
But the climbing? If it's reliable, or mostly reliable, knowing its in the tool-kit opens up possible solutions that have their own chances of failure.
If climbing has a 50/50 chance, Klarpreet's not volunteering to fall off the statue, fall off the mast, or enter the deep pit. Because it's a bad gamble. Find another way. Get a familiar to deliver the potion, drill a hole in the wall by the statue, or dive off the ship so the dragon's flyby attacks don't work.
Point is, if you know you can succeed at Use Magic Device, you can start safely incorporating scrolls or wands into your tactics. If you know you'll probably succeed at Bluff, you can include elaborate, sustained, clever lies into your roleplay. If you know your armor class is abnormally high (at the cost of say... saving throws), you can incorporate otherwise risky positioning when you don't think you're up against spells or poison.
Being able to mostly-reliably do X lets you use X to try A, B, and C. If your ability to do X is unreliable, including A, B, and C in your planning is dumb, because you stand a good chance of having screwed things up before you get to enact...
And, yet, Assurance, as a feat, has been met with a lot of disgust from the player-base. Perhaps if it was about 5 higher. But it's a good way to guarantee your climb checks as long as they aren't insane.
I'm reminded of the most recent Mission Impossible trailer where Tom Cruise was climbing a rope while on a helicopter. In the trailer he falls, but survives because he catches himself. If I were creating a similar situation, I wouldn't set the DC so low that the climbing check didn't have a reasonable chance of failure. My point about power fantasies isn't that they're inherently bad, but that if they're the baseline all sorts of stories become difficult to tell.
After Tom Cruise managed to do his climbing check, he still had to incapacitate the crew of the helicopter. In your case this would be like setting up the net.
I get that players get attached to characters. I do myself, but there's also a fear of failure in adventuring tasks. That if there's a reasonable chance to fail you don't try. That's one way to play, but it's kind of near an extreme. And I've seen that plenty in my multiple decades of play. One player I've gamed with a lot gets frustrated if the chance to fail exceeds 1%. They think that 90% success is a baseline. And it's kind of frustrating to watch when the rest of the players have a 60-70%. We fail, we try again. I can tell you that when players have a 90% chance of hitting, the tension is gone (at least for everyone I've ever talked to). It's just not the baseline assumption I want 2e to make.
Whenever someone's justifications for their opinions on game mechanics is that some players "tend" to roll higher or lower I just roll my eyes. Give them new dice or something. Rolling isn't some skill that people can be good or bad at. If you're "good" at rolling that means you're literally cheating and rolling it in a way to get high numbers or your dice is unbalanced. Same goes for people who are "bad" at rolling.
Our you're the statistical outlier.
I had one of those nights. I started keeping track because it was so absurd. On 11 d20 rolls, I rolled seven nat 1s. In a world of auto fail, that sucks. In a world of auto crit fail, I'm literally better off not showing up for that session.
Eventually the numbers even out, but in a given period of time, with how many players there are, someone will be the outlier on either end of the spectrum. Although I do tend to agree that a lot of the time these perceptions aren't really accurate.
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Whenever someone's justifications for their opinions on game mechanics is that some players "tend" to roll higher or lower I just roll my eyes. Give them new dice or something. Rolling isn't some skill that people can be good or bad at. If you're "good" at rolling that means you're literally cheating and rolling it in a way to get high numbers or your dice is unbalanced. Same goes for people who are "bad" at rolling.Our you're the statistical outlier.
I had one of those nights. I started keeping track because it was so absurd. On 11 d20 rolls, I rolled seven nat 1s. In a world of auto fail, that sucks. In a world of auto crit fail, I'm literally better off not showing up for that session.
Eventually the numbers even out, but in a given period of time, with how many players there are, someone will be the outlier on either end of the spectrum. Although I do tend to agree that a lot of the time these perceptions aren't really accurate.
While that's statistically possible, I would check your dice for weighting due to manufacturer defect. This is especially common in opaque dice as their opaqueness conceals internal defects.
There's a salt-water trick you can use (or really anything that's more dense than the die) to test to see if your dice are weighted. Most dice have at least some minor bias, but some can be really bad.
That said, balancing a system for people with crap dice or crap luck isn't a good starting point.
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Wasted actions are frustrating. Anything less than 70% and I start to feel actively incompetent. Imagine if Legolas sent arrows flying off in all directions...
It's worse in a group activity, because if one person failing causes the group to fail and the odds are a coin flip... someone's going to always fail. Thus, that thing isn't even worth attempting.
70% is a minimum where if you have to succeed multiple times to do something, you might have a reasonable enough chance of success to attempt it. Below that, you're just setting yourself up for failure.
The problem with iterative attack penalties is that if you're hitting 75% of the time on the first attack, you're missing 75% of the time on your last attack, and that doesn't feel good.
I think I'd rather attack with the same attack bonus for half damage than attack with half the hit chance...
This, for sure. The game gives you three actions and says you can attack with more than one, but if your first attack is a coin flip, the second one is far worse, and the third is a hail mary.
It's also true for spells. Make a touch attack with a coin flip and they get a save at a coin flip is awful. You don't feel powerful in that case, you feel like a incompetent nitwit pretending to be a powerful spellcaster because barely anything you do works the way you intend.
I mean, it makes Heal really attractive because it's guaranteed to work every time, but I would like to have some spells that work reliably on offense too. When failure burns the resource in the spell slot, failure can't be that common if you want your players to feel powerful.
Why would the opposing fighter not be a specialist? Is that a thing only PC's can be?If he was a specialist at hitting by sacrificing his defenses he'll go down really fast as now our baseline hitters will be hitting often, especially if he doesn't have a capable team to cover for him, and it's not taking advantage of the low defenses of our fighter.
So he'll maybe be wanting to be a generalist, good armor and a normal weapon. This makes it so that the fighter is the biggest threat, the others have average chance to hit while I have average against them, but this fighter looks easy to hit and is good at hitting me. I'll go for him and see if the team can stop me from dropping this guy before going to them.
Or perhaps it's the turtle approach and adds a shield, Great AC but iffy on the attacks. Now the fighter has the coinflip and the rest of the party are iffy as well, and the iffy attack is still pretty good against the fighter's sacrificed AC
Or maybe the enemy is a ranged guy, He'd drop the fighter before he reaches him, but if the fighter's party can get him there safely that ranged guy has no hope.
Here are 4 "specializations" that the players and the enemies can do that show there's lots of times things aren't coinflips against an equal opponent. Or at least the actions in the encounter. Sure it's maybe a coinflip for the first of who out damages the other faster, but the actions of "I'm going to hit since I'm accurate" are not coinflips, in the first they are guaranteed, in the second they are likely and only in the third, when going up against your counter are they at coinflips.
Ah, I understand he is not a specialist in fighting but a specialist in hitting things much like kamikaze. I wonder how is that even a concept for a fighter, gets into one close combat fight after the other and does not know how to defend himself but somehow survives?
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So if you have sequences which are somewhat challenging for non-specialists, this lets you provide opportunities for the specialist to feel "I am good at this" and when you have truly heroic challenges (like the aforementioned frozen waterfall clock) only the specialist has a realistic chance of succeeding so if they do, they feel *awesome*.
And then they roll an 8 and fail. And not only do they feel absolutely terrible about missing their obvious opportunity to be the hero, they also feel like every resource they spent on that skill was completely wasted.
So if you have sequences which are somewhat challenging for non-specialists, this lets you provide opportunities for the specialist to feel "I am good at this" and when you have truly heroic challenges (like the aforementioned frozen waterfall clock) only the specialist has a realistic chance of succeeding so if they do, they feel *awesome*.And then they roll an 8 and fail. And not only do they feel absolutely terrible about missing their obvious opportunity to be the hero, they also feel like every resource they spent on that skill was completely wasted.
Or the task is proficiency gated only a master can even attempt it and the DC is 20 so with assurance he automatically succeeds.
Your avatar changing while I tried to answer was really awkward :D
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The DC table is not to be read as "Your character is level 10, and this is a Hard challenge, so you get the Hard Level 10 DC"
Climbing the statue ain't CR10 unless it's some mountain sized statue, and a single roll doesn't work for that anyway.
So your level 10 master climber rolls against a Hard...CR 5 DC, just because it's 200 ft. He can go slower or faster to shift the DC if he wants. And then he basically auto succeeds, because he's level 10 and that's not even a challenge to him.
Or, we could go back to the PF1 paradigm where climbing the statue is, say, DC12 no matter what level you are.
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Or, we could go back to the PF1 paradigm where climbing the statue is, say, DC12 no matter what level you are.
If the DC to climb a given statue at level 1 is 12, then the DC to climb that statue (assuming nothing changes about it) is always going to be 12. All that table 10-2 is saying is that a DC 12 challenge for level 10 characters isn't very interesting, so you don't really need to roll.
I mean, any roll in which you would only fail on a 1 is kind of a waste of time to actually roll.
Ah, I understand he is not a specialist in fighting but a specialist in hitting things much like kamikaze. I wonder how is that even a concept for a fighter, gets into one close combat fight after the other and does not know how to defend himself but somehow survives?
It's what a lot of barbs do. A lot of them play the DPR race. I'll kill you before you kill me. Hence the lower armor proficiency and the AC penalty of rage with options to reduce it further tied with the largest hit die and some DR, and some build to embrace it, having 4 raging AC while having blur/displacement and tons of HP draining a full wand or two in some fights.
For an example that some are familiar with in Sword Art online the main hero takes on a boss solo with his special TWF technique and wins the fight with like single digit hit points.I agree that it's not an OPTIMAL plan but the idea that doing so makes you really good at your thing is fun. Like with that kind of guy someone on the team is likely a controller that helps him fight 1v1 and not get swarmed by enemies, and also provides a big draw so that a squishy rogue doesn't get noticed and can get into positions.
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Or, we could go back to the PF1 paradigm where climbing the statue is, say, DC12 no matter what level you are.If the DC to climb a given statue at level 1 is 12, then the DC to climb that statue (assuming nothing changes about it) is always going to be 12. All that table 10-2 is saying is that a DC 12 challenge for level 10 characters isn't very interesting, so you don't really need to roll.
I mean, any roll in which you would only fail on a 1 is kind of a waste of time to actually roll.
But you have to roll it, because that nat 1 is not just a failure but a crit failure, so you must have your 5% chance to look like an idiot. If you don't make rolls that would normally succeed on a 1, there's no reason to even have a special rule for a nat 1.
I'm not sure anybody can climb a 200 foot anything, unless the DC is under the pathetically low Assurance threshold. For most climbers we're looking at 40 consecutive Athletics checks, less a few for critical successes. Your chance of making 40 rolls without a single 1 is only 12.85%, so you're quite likely to fall no matter how simple the climb.
Somebody asked above if I'd like enemies to hit 90% of the time too...well, yeah. That's the inverse side of things. I'd rather have that then have everything stay an incompetent miss-fest. Honestly it's the situation we have now in PF1e...characters can build for attack easier than they can for AC - so your initial attacks hit very easily, and AC starts to matter more with iteratives. Dismissing our views as we just want the game to be "easy mode" is a strawman - check my posting history and you'll find some Obituary thread entries- rather we want to create characters that feel like they get better over time, and feel competent once they get going.
With skills, what I don't understand, and would honestly fix a lot of problems, is why we even have that DCs by level and difficulty table. Just give us the DCs for things outright like in PF1e. The table is awful because as we see, people will misinterpret it and scale everything, and it has no clear mathematical basis so you have to actually reference it every time instead of just knowing a formula. I'd much rather have something like, for climbing, knotted rope with wall, DC0, rope with wall, DC5, tree, DC10, rough rock wall, DC10T (where T means you have to be trained in Athletics), brick wall DC15T, and so forth. Heck, feel free and list things like wall of force at DC35L or something. Once you have a scale it's easy to set other DCs for things not included, and it makes the whole affair seem much less arbitrary.
Creating a system where no one can reliably do the things they are good at doesn't create an interesting challenge. Interesting challenges are ones where you can do something to surmount them - good tactics, a good plan, something. Failing your supposed best stuff on an 8 isn't interesting, it's just frustrating. It's like being level 1 for your entire career.
Or, we could go back to the PF1 paradigm where climbing the statue is, say, DC12 no matter what level you are.If the DC to climb a given statue at level 1 is 12, then the DC to climb that statue (assuming nothing changes about it) is always going to be 12. All that table 10-2 is saying is that a DC 12 challenge for level 10 characters isn't very interesting, so you don't really need to roll.
I mean, any roll in which you would only fail on a 1 is kind of a waste of time to actually roll.
But you have to roll it, because that nat 1 is not just a failure but a crit failure, so you must have your 5% chance to look like an idiot. If you don't make rolls that would normally succeed on a 1, there's no reason to even have a special rule for a nat 1.
I'm not sure anybody can climb a 200 foot anything, unless the DC is under the pathetically low Assurance threshold. For most climbers we're looking at 40 consecutive Athletics checks, less a few for critical successes. Your chance of making 40 rolls without a single 1 is only 12.85%, so you're quite likely to fall no matter how simple the climb.
Somebody asked above if I'd like enemies to hit 90% of the time too...well, yeah. That's the inverse side of things. I'd rather have that then have everything stay an incompetent miss-fest. Honestly it's the situation we have now in PF1e...characters can build for attack easier than they can for AC - so your initial attacks hit very easily, and AC starts to matter more with iteratives. Dismissing our views as we just want the game to be "easy mode" is a strawman - check my posting history and you'll find some Obituary thread entries- rather we want to create characters that feel like they get better over time, and feel competent once they get going.
With skills, what I don't understand, and would honestly fix a lot of problems, is why we even have that DCs by level and difficulty table. Just give us the DCs for things outright like in...
It is only a critical fail if your result is too low to succeed.
Also:
The Ordinary Tasks tables on page 338 list common
tasks that don’t increase in level. You can use them as
benchmarks when deciding the levels of similar tasks. Each
entry is followed by the task level, examples of factors that
could impact difficulty, and the character level at which the
task becomes so trivial that you can usually assume a PC
succeeds rather than spending time on a roll.
Table 10-3 could certainly list more benchmarks. But lets get back to the statue, climbing a cliff is a level 3 task, lets assume climbing said statue in general is a level 5 severe task. Which would make it DC 22, too much for a master with assurance, however it becomes an ordinary task at level 13. Depending on the statue, you might find a lot of natural footholds making it a Level 4 Task at which the master with assurance automatically succeeds. And an athletics legend with assurance would climb both without rolling anyway. He could also swim through an ocean while there is an ongoing storm.