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After accidentally stumbling on the fact that Wrath of Righteous, under PF2 rules, ends rather unceremoniously in the opening scene (death by Feather Fall nerfs), I thought it would be interesting to go all the way through an Adventure Path and see what other stumbling blocks I might find operating under the Playtest rules. It could help expose places where the Playtest rules are lacking, and it would help me better learn the Playtest rules.
I choose to look through Serpent's Skull. This was the best (read: most convenient) AP to look through for a number of reasons: I'd run it before, I own physical copies of the books (which are much easier to skim, imo), and it's a relatively old Adventure Path, having been coming out right around when the APG released. This last bit meant that the AP is operating largely under CRB and GMG rules, with one or two splats scattered about. Additionally... the campaign is pretty beat-sticky overall; it doesn't have huge amounts of magic required.
Before I start listing out my notes, I did have a few caveats. I didn't consider PC effectiveness in these scenarios, save one or two instances. I have mostly ignored skill challenges, pre-battle buff routines, and whether or not creatures actually exist in the Playtest Bestiary. I won't be counting these things as stumbling blocks, though there are a few exceptions here and there. But: skill challenges are easy to adjust DC-wise, and I frankly just didn't look closely enough to compare skill functionality assumptions. Pre-battle buff routines, while definitely something that can no longer happen, are partially mitigated by how enemies in PF2 are going to be built, aka they'll have all the stats they need for the most part. And dinging the game for not having a full Bestiary yet, well, would be too easy and just not helpful.
I'm going to provide a rating for each occurrence of how difficult it is to handle each situation, in my opinion.
Everything's going to be grouped in spoilers by book, so with that, let's get started:
In the Adventure Background: Yarzoth, an Advanced(not the template) Serpentfolk, uses periodic use of Suggestion on the ship captain to set up the adventure.
Rating: Hand-Waveable. There are some believability issues (Suggested for 1 minute vs hours), but ultimately, the GM can have the captain fail narratively.
Yarzoth uses Dominate Person to cause Captain Kovack to crash the ship on Smuggler's Shiv, and then to have him as her ally as she travels Smuggler's Shiv.
Rating: Somewhat Impossible. Even accounting for a lack of Advanced Serpentfolk rules, which aren't specific to this adventure, Dominate just does not last long enough and Failure vs Critical Failure is too a large difference for believable daily application.
Captain Kovack is infected and dies to ghoul fever, but before his death, Dominate Person runs out and he writes down a confession.
Rating: Somewhat Impossible (see above)
Side-note: Survival changes make finding food for the party actually difficult without the Forager skill feat. Not sure how I feel about that.
The PCs potentially need knowledge of Aklo to active the Tide Stone to enter the final area of this book.
Rating: Difficult. PF2 is much stingier with languages, making one having Aklo less likely. This is only a problem if the PCs additionally can't meet the alternative activation methods and lost favor with all their possible allies.
Yarzoth uses the Find Traps spell to avoid the traps in the Azlanti Temple, and thus make it the final dungeon of the book.
Rating: Hand-Waveable. Ultimately, narrative success is easy enough to grant even though Find Traps does not exist in the Playtest rules.
A trap in the dungeon also suggests use of Detect Magic to more easily find the 'stop the trap' button.
Rating: Difficult. This is still in theory possible, but Detect Magic and Read Aura are 10 minute castings. This makes reactive searching not possible.
Yarzoth herself is currently impossible, as there are no rules for adding class levels, a class template, or any template really, to creatures. And with creature math being separate from PC math, stitching classes levels onto creatures doesn't work that great. ...This is going to turn out to be a theme of these notes.
When encountering Umargo, a barbarian insurgent, he first is supposed to cut an NPC hostage's throat putting them at -1 and dying.
Rating: Hand-waveable/Impossible. Everything except PCs dies at 0, and there's not really an in-between state between being conscious or being dead. It is the thing that can be easily fiated, but I really don't think fiat should be necessary for this scenario.
Umargo is a TWF barbarian.
Rating: Difficult. By no means impossible, but it is the sort of thing that can't be done amazingly with pure barbarian right now. He's otherwise an easy conversion from what I saw.
Chirok the Stormbird's encounter can be bypassed via knowing Auren and using Diplomacy.
Rating: Difficult. Again, stinginess with languages makes this listed potential solution that much more unlikely. Also, the DC for Diplomacy would 100% be level-appropriate... which means a 50/50 at best for the peaceful solution to work.
The PCs can obtain a one-use magical item that can cast Dispel Evil, to potentially make a future encounter with a shadow demon easier.
Rating: Impossible. Honestly, the lack of the Dispel Alignment series (spells from the CRB) is a bit surprising. ...Unless they're under some different name now and I missed them.
Members of a rival faction ambush the PCs at the building that they are staying in. The leader of the ambush uses a wand of Glyph of Warding to set blasting runes at the doors to discourage the PCs from leaving.
Rating: Hand-waveable/Impossible. Glyph of Warding no longer has the option for blasting runes. Which is odd. I guess this could be replaced with snares potentially?
Lack of bane arrows make an encounter with lower level enemies relatively pointless.
Rating: Hand-waveable. This isn't too big a concern individually, but the lack of Bane and Slaying arrows surprised me. It's an odd omission, I find.
The PCs encounter three priestesses that have been dominated and tricked into accepting profane gifts by a succubus.
Rating: Impossible. Dominate just doesn't last long enough for the succubus to Dominate multiple people with a 1/day SLA. And then, the whole reason the priestesses haven't otherwise fled already is the threat of Cha Drain from the succubus removing the gifts; stupefied, while potent, doesn't have quite the same potential for cutting them off completely from their spells. Multiple profane gifts are impossible now anyway.
Charau-ka cleric. A creature with class levels.
Rating: Impossible.
Side note: Interesting that domains don't give any passive or class feature-esque abilities, only powers, now.
Permanent Magic Mouths.
Rating: Hand-waveable. Permanency is definitely something that wouldn't be included in the playtest, but I frankly can't be certain it will exist in the final version. Though, it would be cool if it was a ritual.
Side-note: Ability checks are apparently still a thing that exist, but are only referenced in Clumsy? What?
Advanced Serpentfolk Wizard. Creature with class levels, solo encounter.
Rating: Impossible.
Side-note: I really do wonder how solo-spellcasters are supposed to be boss encounters in PF2, if they aren't remotely gish...
Side-note: No creature templates other than Elite and Weak?
Side-note: Looking at encounters of low-level creatures designed to use magic items to boost their effectiveness makes item level seem a bit silly.
Side-note: The advanced aboleth in Saventh-Yhi is always going to surpass the PCs levels in this adventure, making using its presence more questionable. Also, we really don't have aboleths in the Bestiary? Dominate nerfs actually hurt them a lot from a story perspective...
Charau-ka with class levels as patrolling encounters.
Rating: Hand-waveable/Impossible. They only have warrior levels, elite adjustment would be fine.
Olujimi, an angazhani, is supposed to use dimension door to escape and then set up another encounter.
Rating: Difficult/Impossible. Dimension Door nerfs make escapes with it less likely. The distance nerfs really hurt.
Charau-ka cleric 7.
Rating: Impossible
Petrified Half-fiend dire ape revived with stone salve.
Rating: Difficult/Impossible No actual templates at the moment. And really, what an unlucky person you have to be to get petrified currently.
Boggard oracle 7. Long-term dominated by the aboleth.
Rating: Impossible. Creature with levels+Dominate being too short.
Green hag sorcerer. Sorcerer bloodline goes a long way to explaining her character.
Rating: Impossible. Creature with levels.
Side-note: The 'grandfathering' clause of the performance check that aids the party in allying with the Radiant Muse probably will be too difficult +/-10 rules.
The Radiant Muse is a lilend with class levels.
Rating: Impossible.
Boggard barbarians as a part of patrolling encounters.
Rating: Impossible
Boggard fighter.
Rating: Impossible
Troglodyte cleric as part of patrolling encounters.
Rating: Impossible
Troglodyte cleric/fighter.
Rating: Impossible
Serpentfolk ghast necromancer wizard.
Rating: Impossible
It's at this point that I was surprised just how many enemies had class levels in addition to creature HD.
Juliver is a Pathfinder hit with a Feeblemind spell. The PCs need to cure her affliction to continue the adventure. The adventure offers several ways of getting Heal(PF1) scrolls.
Rating: Hand-waveable. The lack of PF1 Heal and Limited Wish make this a bit less simple. A scroll of Remove Curse (7th) is required to guarantee a cure.
Side-note: Remove Curse is irritatingly vague and sends you off to a section to read just to understand it. Counteracting Conditions isn't a very clear read. It took far too much effort just to figure out how to cure a Feeblemind effect. Especially when Feeblemind doesn't list what fixes it.
Side-note: Wish and Miracle no longer have their condition removal text. Doesn't actually limit them, but slightly odd.
Side-note: No Limited Wish?
Going to ignore the usage of insanity rules in this adventure for the sake of my sanity. I don't want to go back to Counteracting Conditions.
The Gorilla King presents the PCs with three tests. The PCs have to succeed on two of three to proceed without having to fight the Gorilla King (who vastly out CRs them) and his retainers.
Rating: Difficult/Impossible. The Test of Strength is maybe still possible? A single PC has to beat a strength ability check, but can be magically aided. But ability check rules are non-existent? The Test of Storytelling would maybe be possible. As a DC 35 Diplomacy, Bluff or Perform check, it's intended to be relatively difficult for the 10/11th level PCs. Does end up running a bit counter to the new aid another rules in its suggestions, however. The Test of Combat is impossible. 10/11th PC vs CR 14 creature in single combat. You may not need to kill him to win, but the Gorilla King is going to curbstomp any PC.
Gorilla King is an awakened animal with fighter levels.
Rating: Impossible.
Shaitan Rogue.
Rating: Impossible.
Advanced Serpentfolk fighter/sorcerers.
Rating: Impossible.
Vampire Rogue.
Rating: Impossible.
Templated Boggard Fighters.
Rating: Impossible
Corpsespinner tactics include using Plane Shift to flee the encounter.
Rating: Impossible. Plane shift is now a 10 minute casting.
Charau-ka barbarians.
Rating: Impossible
Ogre Mage Monks.
Rating: Impossible
Boggard fighters.
Rating: Impossible
Charau-ka cleric.
Rating: Impossible
Intellect Devourer sorcerer.
Rating: Impossible
Side-note: We don't have portable holes?
I'm, uh, not going to list ratings for creatures with class levels in this one...
Cloaker Rogue.
Morlok Barbarians.
Morlock Ranger.
Morlock Oracle.
Urdefhan fighters.
Mummy fighters.
Drider sorcerers.
Side-note: Rings of invisibility are mentioned in the Perception section, but aren't actually in the Playtest. Huh.
Urdefhan cleric.
Degenerate serpentfolk fighter.
Side-note: Has this really just become listing monsters with class levels?
Side-note: The fortress in this adventure actually accounts for use of Teleport. Various areas are affected by Forbiddence and Dimensional Lock.
Lots of serpentfolk fighters.
Selaxasp is a succubus rogue/master spy that was called via a Gate spell to keep an eye on BBEG's underlings.
Rating: Hand-waveable/Difficult. Gate doesn't have a calling use now, only a planar travel one. Planar Ally is strictly deity-sent servitors, and well, given that this whole AP is about Yderius resurrection, it doesn't work. Planar Binding works, but is horribly vague.
Selaxasp uses Greater Teleport to report to the BBEG, if not killed by the PCs.
Rating: Impossible. Demons just don't get Teleport of any kind in the Playtest Bestiary, for some reason?
Urdefhan fighter.
More serpentfolk fighters.
Advanced Serpentfolk fighter/duelist
Yet more serpentfolk fighters.
Advanced Serpentfolk evoker with contigent teleport as an escape.
Rating: Impossible. Even Heightened Contingency doesn't let you cast a contigent Teleport. The casting time is too long.
Even more serpentfolk fighters.
Serpentfolk rogue.
Again, with the skipping...
Urdefhan fighter/rogues.
Meladaemon sorcerers.
More urdefhan fighter/rogues.
More meladaemon sorcerers.
More urdefhan fighter/rogues.
Cyclops fighter.
Urdefhan ranger.
Serpentfolk use a Reincarnate-like process to inflitrate PCs camp with little chance of detection.
Rating: Hand-waveable There's no Reincarnate spell in the Playtest, and I'm honestly unsure if would be in final game. But, it frankly doesn't change that this can be hand-waved.
Sorcerer/assassins that use Teleport to escape and attempt to kill the PCs again later.
Rating: Impossible. This is common thread #2 it seems...
Morlock barbarian/rogues
Serpentfolk cleric/fighters.
Advanced Serpentfolk transmuter.
Side-note: Even with heightening, the new Form spells seem really hard to have enemies use in similar ways to PF1, due to forms just not being relevant at that some levels. Also no earth glide for earth elemental form?
Another advanced Serpentfolk transmuter. This one with Teleport escape tactics...
Rating: Impossible. Teleport nerfs are not only a PC problem, I guess.
Said transmuter also attempts to gather up various artifacts, scrolls, and texts into bags of holding before the PCs get there.
Rating: Difficult? It seems like you might have to hold open bags of holding with two hands now? Or am I just reading that wrong?
Serpentfolk fighter/ranger.
Advanced Serpentfolk cleric.
Troglodye fighter.
The Avatar of Yderius has regeneration and can only be killed by decapitation, either by vorpal or by coup de grace.
Rating: Hand-waveable.
Side-note: Not only does regeneration not actually have a description in the Playtest outside of the Regenerate spell, why the heck is it "to the GM's discretion" whether creatures with regeneration not die at 0 HP?! It's kind of the point that they don't!
In summary, this AP didn't have a whole lot of its story that heavily relied on PF1 magic, thus, it should be relatively easy to run it in PF2. However, I did find that:
*Creatures with class levels or templates make conversion difficult, if not impossible. We definitely need some rules for this.
*Teleport nerfs hurt everyone equally.
*Regeneration combined with the "dies at 0" rule is stupid.
*Some scenarios that were easy to set up in PF1 just aren't possible in PF2.
To be perfectly fair, I fully expect the first one will be solved in the final release. We just don't have a lot of tools for building creatures at the moment, which, I guess, for a play focused Playtest is fine; it's not what's being tested. But it does make conversion rather difficult and improvised.
In summary, this AP didn't have a whole lot of its story that heavily relied on PF1 magic, thus, it should be relatively easy to run it in PF2. However, I did find that:
*Creatures with class levels or templates make conversion difficult, if not impossible. We definitely need some rules for this.
*Teleport nerfs hurt everyone equally.
*Regeneration combined with the "dies at 0" rule is stupid.
*Some scenarios that were easy to set up in PF1 just aren't possible in PF2.To be perfectly fair, I fully expect the first one will be solved in the final release. We just don't have a lot of tools for building creatures at the moment, which, I guess, for a play focused Playtest is fine; it's not what's being tested. But it does make conversion rather difficult and improvised.
From my memory, part of the change in creature-building ends up being that you can just add class levels to a monster by literally just giving them class levels. I believe this was mentioned in either the monsters preview blog (unlikely) or in the comments of that blog post (more likely).
Playtest regeneration is effectively "you actually have to run it by PC dying rules", which is even listed in the entry for regeneration:
- "It can’t die from damage or the dying condition; its dying condition never increases beyond dying 3 as long as its regeneration is active."
From my memory, part of the change in creature-building ends up being that you can just add class levels to a monster by literally just giving them class levels. I believe this was mentioned in either the monsters preview blog (unlikely) or in the comments of that blog post (more likely).Playtest regeneration is effectively "you actually have to run it by PC dying rules", which is even listed in the entry for regeneration:
- "It can’t die from damage or the dying condition; its dying condition never increases beyond dying 3 as long as its regeneration is active."
Well, from both memory and skimming through the designer comments on both monster blogs, there aren't any mentions of what the custom monster rules are, or suggestions of those rules will be, unless they're buried pretty deep in the comment threads. Now, what is mentioned is that monster math should be closer to PC math than PF1. Which is and isn't true. They certainly get +level like PCs, but monsters also get their, compared to PCs, free advancement on skills, to-hit, and damage dice. Without knowing the actual guidelines on such things it's difficult to advance something rather significantly. We can try to reverse-engineering certainly, but again, that comes with difficulty beyond slapping class levels on the creature.
I pointed it out, less because the Playtest is lacking in such rules (as we've already been told they won't be in the Playtest), but more to make the point that those rules really need to work well if there's any hope of emulating a PF1 AP, especially when it comes to adding classes to monsters.
As for regeneration, well...
Villains, powerful monsters, enemies with healers or regeneration, and any other NPCs at the GM’s discretion are knocked out like a PC as well.
Yeah, it's kinda dumb right now.
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I am approaching the end of chapter 2 of Mummy's Mask using the playtest rules. I have encountered a number of the issues that you have mentioned, although thus far the balance seems to have swung in the favour of the players.
The new healing rules have really helped them to move through the encounters quite quickly, and having cantrip attack spells which scale up has allowed the casters to manage spell resources a little better.
Detect Magic has proved to be a real annoyance (far to easy to find hidden things if they are magical).
I have encountered a couple of monsters which I had difficulty converting. I eventually changed them to equal level similar monsters from the playtest bestiary.
I will say however, that I am running the official play-test adventure in my other session and finding this less entertaining (although I understand why it has been written how it has).
I'm assuming the final version of class levels to creatures will work like it does in starfinder.
You'd use the appropriate spellcaster array at the right CR, fill in the lessened list of spells per day for that CR (ignoring spells 3 levels below their max unless they affect combat) And then give them one or two thematic class features.
It's not perfect, but it allows you to handle the monster with class levels conversion. I would have thought that ruleset would have been in the play test bestiary.
Detect Magic has proved to be a real annoyance (far to easy to find hidden things if they are magical).
This one's interesting. Have you noted the changes in Detect Magic from 1E? At most (even heightened to 4th level) it should only make them aware of the existence, school of magic, and location (5-ft square) of the highest-level spell within 30 ft.
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I'm gonna be converting Ironfang Invasion, and I'm interested to see how other folk's conversions go.
I'm pretty firmly in the "PF2 Golarion is PF1 Golarion" camp. I don't think many of the mechanical changes represent some sort of fundamental changes in the stories told by APs and what have you.
I have come upon one notable exception: Charm spells. There are several monsters in APs that have NPCs charmed for longer than PF2 Charm allows for. Days on end, with the monsters making sure to re-cast the Charm before it expires. This is rather integral to the plot of some of the earliest APs, in fact. I think there might be some examples with Dominate as well, though I can't point to one right now and Dominate can last 24 hours.
This one's interesting. Have you noted the changes in Detect Magic from 1E? At most (even heightened to 4th level) it should only make them aware of the existence, school of magic, and location (5-ft square) of the highest-level spell within 30 ft.Detect Magic has proved to be a real annoyance (far to easy to find hidden things if they are magical).
To add to this, most magical traps will probably be hidden from detect magic and illusions can only be detected if they are lower level.
If we skip the monster w/ class level bit that I assume will be addressed by the time the new game/full bestiary is published, it seems the primary problem is the difference in duration for enchantment type magics.
I'd be curious to here from the dev's on how they see this aligning with "Can we still tell the stories we want to tell?" given how common these long duration charms/dominate/etc are in many APs.
If we skip the monster w/ class level bit that I assume will be addressed by the time the new game/full bestiary is published, it seems the primary problem is the difference in duration for enchantment type magics.
I'd be curious to here from the dev's on how they see this aligning with "Can we still tell the stories we want to tell?" given how common these long duration charms/dominate/etc are in many APs.
Yup. That's pretty much my take on it along with teleportation nerfs being an issue. Half the books here have plot points of various sizes dealing with long-term enchantment magic (and I didn't list anything Book 3 recommends doing with the aboleth), four out of six have monsters of varying plot relevance using teleportation magic to escape encounters.
Though there is one thing that I did forget to mention in my summary in the original post; there is other one semi-big issue: ability checks. They're mentioned in Clumsy, but... How do ability checks actually work, if they're supposed to exist in this ruleset? d20+Ability mod? d20+Ability mod+Level? It's not listed anywhere that I could find.
I feel like teleportation is an easy work around. Heightened Dimension Door gets you a mile away, and assuming a reasonable amount of terrain to hide in should provide more than 10 minutes before folks can find you again to cast teleport. Having to add a second spell to an escape plan doesn't feel like a huge change to me. (I do sort of think Dimension Door should be a single action now, but that has less to do with story and more balance with stride actions.)
Enchantment may actually require some rules adjustment, although it COULD be done by giving critters in the bestiary unique enchantments effects rather than changing the rules of the player available spells. While I'm cool with monsters and PCs not following the same rules, I think for something this common might chafe me the wrong way. I can dig if the occasional succubus or other master of enchantment type has some unique powers, but I don't think every Tom, Dick, or Fairy should wind up with better enchantment than a wizard or bard could ever hope to possess.