Warning: This is a long post with many numbers and opinions
I started running Heroes of Undarin last night and kept a round-by-round combat log. The primary purpose of this log was just to keep track of rounds between waves to help monitor the duration of spells and effects. But… my players and I have been worried for awhile now about combat scaling. We are not terribly happy with the seemingly low accuracy of PCs, especially against higher level monsters (and vice versa - the accuracy of monsters against PCs feels too high). I am the kind of person who needs hard evidence to back up my “feelings” (although, when playing a game for fun, “feelings” are almost MORE important), so I kept a straight up combat log to track hits, misses, damage, healing, spells, etc.
Below I will list the entire log, my narrative battle description, then have a section with some statistics and notes for each character.
This is only for the first two events in the Chapter (Slaver Demonsx4, Treachery Demonsx2). They took 20 rounds, about 3.5 hours of play.
The PCs:
Paladin (+2 holy flaming longsword [Holy added through Blade Ally class ability], +3 half-plate, Heavy Adamantine Sturdy Shield)
Cleric of Iomedae(Zeal) (+3 longsword, +3 Full Plate, Heavy Adamantine Sturdy Shield)
Barbarin(Giant Totem) (+3 Holy Greataxe[Holy rune from the communal magic item pool], +3 Hide Armor, +3 handwraps)
Ranger(+3 Comp Longbow, +3 Chain Shirt, +2 Frost Dwarven Waraxe)
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Combat Log:
(Damage listed includes the target’s weaknesses)
SLAVER DEMONS TELEPORT IN
Round 1:
• Paladin: Readied a Strike (eventually hits for 36 dmg), raises shield
• Slaver Demons: All 4 use their Enslave ability against PCs, but every PC succeeds on their save, 5 moves, 3 first attacks (hit for 30 dmg, hit for 19 dmg, miss)
• Cleric: First attack miss (gets disarmed by SD), picks up weapon, raises shield
• Ranger: Move(provoked, hit, took 24 dmg), Hunt Target, first attack hit for 16
• Barbarian: Rage, first attack missed, second attack missed
Round 2:
• P: Miss, Miss, Raise Shield
• SD: All 4 cast Haste, 1 move, 6 misses, 1 hit for 26(reduced by 18 from shield)
• C: Move, Move, Raise Shield
• R: Stow Bow, Draw Waraxe, Warden’s Boon
• B: Hit for 55, Hit for 50, Miss
Round 3:
• P: Miss, Miss, Shield
• SD: 11 Misses, 1 move, 4 hits (17, 29, 26, 30[-18 from Shield])
• C: Weapon Surge(Provoked, crit for 51, interrupted), Step, Shield
• R: Stow Waraxe, Draw Bow, Hit for 22
• B: Hit for 50(kills enemy), Miss, Miss
Round 4:
• P: Step, Miss, Shield
• SD: 7 Misses, 3 moves, 2 hits for 21(-18 from Shield), 23
• C: First attack Miss, second attack Hit for 18, Shield
• R: Hunt Target, Skirmish Shot Hit for 22, Hunted Shot 2 misses
• B: Hit for 44 (Fatigued so he declines other actions)
Round 5:
• P: Hit for 34, Miss, Shield
• SD: 12 misses
• C: Crit for 36, Miss, Shield
• R: Hunted Shot 2 misses, Favored Aim miss
• B: Rage, Crit for 138 between 2 targets, Miss
Round 6:
• P: Miss, Miss, Shield
• SD: 11 misses, 1 hit for 16
• C: Miss, Miss, Shield
• R: Favored Aim Crit for 52, hit for 22
• B: Hit for 53, Miss, Miss
Round 7:
• P: Crit for 67, Hit for 27(kills enemy), Shield
• SD: 5 misses, Crit for 36, 2 hits for 18, 29(-18 shield)
• C: Hit for 15(kills enemy), Shield
• R: Hunted Shot 1 hit for 18/1 miss, Third Attack Hit for 15, Fourth Attack Hit for 15
• B: Hit for 56, Hit for 66 (kills last enemy)
Rounds 8 and 9 Intermission:
• P: 3 Lay on Hands for 44, 42, 37, Raise Shield, Ready Attack (does not trigger)
• C: 2 Heals for 56, 60, Raise Shield
• R: 2 Moves, Draw Blessed Oil, Ready to Apply Blessed Oil (triggered - BOW IS NOW HOLY)
• B: Nothing
Round 10:
• Treachery Demons: Teleport in, spend actions to destroy a pillar so they can actually move in the map
• P: Move, Shield
• C: Cast Circle of Protection (Heightening, lasts 1 hour)
• R: Hunt Target, Hunted Shot 2 hits for 70 dmg, Miss
• B: Rage, Move, Miss
Round 11:
• TD: Mirror Image, Hit for 34 (reduced by 4 by Barbarian resistance)//Move, Confusion on Ranger (Crit fails save, uses Desnan altar to reroll, gets another crit fail, uses 2 Hero Points to reroll again, gets a regular failure - yes, I forgot that you can’t use multiple rerolling abilities)
• P: Move, Hit an Image, Shield
• C: Move, Cast Bless
• R: Crits ally for 32 in his confusion, Miss, Miss
• B: Hits an Image, Miss, Miss
Round 12:
• TD: Hit for 27, Grab, Rake 2 Misses//Cast Reverse Gravity
• P: (grabbed) Miss, Miss, Shield
• C: Concentrate, Ranged Heal for 48
• R: Hit Ally for 20, Hit Ally for 21, Miss (makes save at end of round)
• B: Move, Move, hit for 52
Round 13:
• TD: Hit for 22, Rake miss/crit for 37(-18 shield)//Move, Mirror Image
• P: (grabbed) Hit for 45(note: TD weak to fire AND good), Miss, Shield
• C: Concentrate, Cast Searing Light Hits an Image
• R: Move, Hunted Shot Miss/Hit for 40, Miss
• B:Hit for 47, Miss, Crit on Third Attack for 100 (kills enemy)
Round 14:
• TD: Move, Hit for 25, grab
• P: Move, Miss, Shield
• C: Concentrate, Miss, Shield
• R: Escape fail x3
• B:Rage, Move, Hit for 51
Round 15:
• TD:Hit for 24(-4 resist), Triggers the First Retributive Strike of the game (Miss), Grab, Rake Miss/Hit for 15
• P: Miss, Miss, Shield
• C: Concentrate, heal for 63, MIss
• R: Escape success, Move, Hit an Image
• B: Miss, Second attack Hit an Image, Miss
Round 16:
• TD: Miss, Rake Miss/hit for 22
• P: Hit and Image, Miss, Shield
• C: Cast Searing Light (hit for 51 [fire and good]), Shield (Bless ends)
• R: Hunt Target, Miss, Warden’s Boon
• B: Miss, Miss, Miss
Round 17:
• TD: Miss, Cast Mirror Image
• P: Miss, Miss, Shield
• C: Miss, Miss, Shield
• R: Hunted Shot Hit an Image/Miss, Miss, Miss
• B: Rage, Hit for 63, Miss
Round 18:
• TD: Crit for 86 (provokes Paladin reaction, Miss), Grab, Rake miss/miss
• P: Step, Miss, Shield
• C: heal for 53, Move, Shield
• R: Hunted Shot Miss/Miss, Third Attack Hit and Image, Fourth Attack Hit for 33
• B: Rage, Hit for 63, Miss
Round 19:
• TD: Hit for 41 (-4 resist), grab, rake Miss/miss
• P: Weapon Surge, Miss, Miss (NOTE: Did not Raise Shield)
• C: Hit for 21 (kills last enemy)
• R: Moves around
• B: Moves around
Round 20:
• P: Lay on Hands for 51, draw and drink potion for 35
• C: Battle Medic twice for 25 and crit 40
• R: Move, Seek, Draw Explosive Ammunition
• B: Draw, Drink Potion for 38
Blood Demons will attack in Round 21 - Session End.
Battle Narrative::
The Slaver Demons teleport into the Temple, and the Paladin reacts quickly, raising his shield and preparing to strike when the demons close in. The Demons attempt to Enslave the PCs, but fail, and just move in to attack with some success. The Barbarian rampages through the Demons rather easily while the Ranger provides some damage and assistance to the group. The Paladin remains engaged the entire fight but never gets a chance to use Retributive Strike and only lands a few good blows. The Cleric does the same, hitting more often but dealing less damage since his weapon does not have the Holy effect. The Cleric provoked an AoO when trying to Weapon Surge in melee and gets critically hit for his effort. The player is enraged that such a melee-focused ability would provoke. The Demons deal more damage than expected before they are all dispatched. Their 4 attacks per round with Haste were effective, but boring.
2 rounds of healing and preparation pass, although the Barbarian finds himself with nothing to do. The Treachery Demons teleport in and destroy the pillars in their way because Huge sized creatures don’t really fit in the Temple as mapped. One Treachery Demon casts Mirror Image and moves directly to meet the PCs as they charge in and the other stays back slightly, casting spells and he slowly moves up. It’s first spell was Confusion which landed on the Ranger, causes the Ranger to shoot the Barbarian in the back a few times, and it’s second spell was Reverse Gravity in an attempt to disrupt the PCs battle plans. Unfortunately for it, the PCs manage to embrace the wonky gravity and it’s not terribly effective. The Treachery Demon that closed into melee first gets a few good hits landed, but he spent his other actions Grabbing (which the PCs mostly ignored) and Raking (which almost never hit).
The Paladin has a pretty bad time in this fight; he only manages to land one solid hit the entire fight because of poor rolls, high Monster AC, and Mirror Image. The biggest tragedy is that the Paladin had a weapon that dealt both fire AND good, two damage types the Treachery Demons are weak too. He could’ve done serious damage if he could have landed more than one hit.The Cleric spent the first few rounds buffing the party with Circle of Protection and Bless and spent the rest of the fight cycling between Searing Light (fire AND good), healing people, and missing with his sword. The Ranger applied Blessed Oil to his bow, giving him extra damage against the Demons. He managed to hit and deal at least some damage every round (although sometimes that was to his ally because of his Confusion) until one Demon grabbed and he failed to escape despite the fact that it should not have been a difficult for him. After his escape, almost every single one of his hits were negated by Mirror Image. The Barbarian again showed his combat prowess, even despite the Mirror Image, hitting the real Demon more often than an image. When the second Demon made it to the melee, it did slightly better than the first, grabbing a few people and actually hitting with his rake attacks before he was taken done.
The PCs heal up and prepare as they see the Blood Demons approach.
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Statistics and Notes
Monsters:
Slaver Demons:
Total Damage Done: 320
First Attack Accuracy: 63% (12 of 19)
All Attacks Accuracy: 19% (13 of 70)
Damage per hit: 27
Notes: Despite the fact that they had Haste for most of the fight, getting more attacks, they only ever hit ONE attack that wasn’t their first attack of the round. 63% accuracy for monsters 2 levels below the PCs seems a little high, but when you consider how badly they did for anything OTHER than their first attack, I suppose its ok.
There was only one round when they did 0 damage, and their highest damage in one round was 102 (for reference, PCs had 150-200 hp)
Treachery Demons:
Total Damage Done: 333
First Attack Accuracy: 89% (8 of 9)
All Hits Accuracy: 48% (10/21)
Damage per hit: 33
Notes: Confusion was quite effective, but Reverse Gravity felt like a waste of the actions.
Mirror Image at will is PAINFUL. It made things quite unfun. You should’ve heard the uproar when I mentioned “It casts Mirror Image again because it can do it at-will.” Mirror Image negated 2 hits from the Paladin (could’ve been an avg of 97 dmg), 1 searing light hit from the Cleric (52 avg dmg), 3 hits from the Ranger (112 avg dmg), and 2 hits from the Barbarian (109 avg dmg). In total, Mirror Image negated an average of 370 damage between 2 demons. Almost like them having half again as much health.
Grab wasn’t nearly as scary a condition as I expected. It cost the monster an action, but allowed it to do its double Rake attack, which balances out. The melee just ignored being grabbed, and honestly I probably rolled lower than usual for the rake attacks.
89% accuracy for a monster only one level higher than the PCs seems just a tad high, although again, those second and third attack didn’t seem terribly dangerous. Never got a triple hit. It technically never had an attack at Third MAP because of how rake works.
There was one round when they did no damage (miss + mirror image), and their max was only 86 (one crit, two misses).
Paladin(Rant incoming):
Total Damage Done: 209
First Attack Accuracy: 37.5% (6/16)
All Attacks Accuracy: 29% (7/24)
Dmg per hit: 30
Total Healing Done: 209
Notes: This poor man. He made 16 First Attacks over the course of the battle. One of them was a crit, 3 of them hit and did damage, 2 of them hit a Mirror Image, and TEN of them missed. All his Second Attacks missed, save 1. This guy got to roll damage only FIVE times in a 20 round combat. Honestly, if this wasn’t a playtest, I’m pretty sure he’d be done with this system. Yes, he did roll badly. Theoretically, he SHOULD have a 65% accuracy on the Slaver Demons and 45% on the Treachery Demons.
But, let's take a look at that. This is a PALADIN. A warrior that is supposed to be on par with a Fighter or Ranger in terms of combat prowess. AND he was fighting DEMONS. And he’s a PALADIN. 45% chance to hit something one level higher than you feels pretty bad. In my opinion it should definitely be higher than that. A level 12 paladin in PF1e has a 70-95% accuracy against a 1e Glabrezu (again, one level higher) and chances are he can bypass their resistance AND do extra damage from Smite on top of that.
Look, I get it, balance is important but not at the expense of fun. THIS IS A PALADIN! Yes, I know the class is redesigned to be more of a protector. But this is a paladin fighting demons with a Flaming, Holy sword! Even if he had rolled his expected accuracy of 45% on First Attacks against the Treachery Demon, he still would’ve been a disgrace to Paladinhood. Is the goal really for characters to miss more of their FIRST attacks than they hit against creatures one level higher than them? How do you think that makes them feel about their SECOND attack? This PC was not the shining beacon of hope. This PC was not the ultimate front line combat protector (He missed ALL of his Retributive Strikes!!) This PC was not obliterating evil with the powers of Light and combat expertise. Something has got to give here. The Paladin needs some work.
And this isn’t even getting anywhere near my rant about PC accuracy vs monsters. Treachery Demons are 3 levels higher than Slaver Demons and have FIVE higher AC. This poor man had SIX rounds of where he had to say “Attack - Miss, Attack - Miss, Raise Shield, done”. Just look at the Combat Log above for rounds 14-19. NINE Misses with one Hit on an Image. We fought TWO Treachery Demons and he damaged only ONE of them, and only ONCE.
Cleric:
Total Damage Done: 141
First Attack Accuracy: 54.55% (6/11)
All Attack Accuracy: 40% (6/15)
Dmg per hit: 23.5
Total Healing Done: 345
Notes: This is a Cleric built by a player who prefers front line fighters. So, of course, he is Iomedaen. I think his contribution to the fight was reasonable, although I still think his accuracy was slightly too low. He never hit a single Second Attack, although to be fair, he only made 4 of them.
Being able to Heal and attack and/or raise shield is a fun dance of combat actions.
The biggest complaint from the player is that his Weapon Surge power provokes an AoO even though it only lasts that one turn and takes an action. Compare that to Shield, which does not provoke, and lasts the whole round.
Circle of Protection negated a couple hits, and Bless helped with a few hits. Helpful spells even though it doesn’t sound like they might be at first because they’re “just a +1”
Ranger:
Total Damage Done: 398
First Attack Accuracy: 71% (10/14)
All Attack Accuracy: 53% (18/34)
Dmg per hit: 22
Notes: This is my GMPC. This is the most fun I’ve had playing PF2e. It’s not necessarily the most powerful, but that’s ok. My Ranger has Hunt Target (1 action: gain bonuses when attacking multiple times), Hunted Shot (1 action: 2 attacks), Favored Aim (2 actions: 1 attack with bonus), Skirmish Strike (1 action: Stride plus Strike), Warden’s Boon (grant Ally the benefit of your Hunt Target). It feels like I have a class ability for every situation and that feels REALLY good.
Do I have to reposition but don’t want to lose my hit? Skirmish Strike. Am I using a special ammo or think I can take something out in one last hit? Favored Aim. Do I want to get three attacks off with the least penalties? Hunted Shot plus Favored Aim (0/-4/-6) Do I want to get as many attacks as possible? Hunted Shot, Strike, Strike (0/-4/-8/-8). Is attacking not the best idea for me? Warden’s Boon.
I feel like I have a loadout of cool abilities that I can combine to figure out the best option for each round. It’s almost like playing a card game with my suite of abilities being my hand, and I can choose to play whatever will work best.
This attack accuracy is almost exactly perfectly. Half of all attacks hit, 70% of all First Attacks hit. It gives you hope, but not surety, about your First Attack, and it makes the other attacks feel worthwhile. I had one round where I missed EVERYTHING… one round. Go look at the Paladin section above to see why that is important.
Barbarian:
Total Damage Done: 875
First Attack Accuracy: 75% (12/16)
All Attacks Accuracy: 48% (16/33)
Dmg per hit: 55
Notes: A Barbarian built entirely for damage, with a +3 two-hander, given the Holy rune, and he does a ridiculous amount of damage in a fight against Demons? Perfect! If only the Paladin didn’t watch him rampage his way through evil and feel so inferior….
Accuracy seems perfect, damage is really high. Maybe just a touch too high, but I think it’s fine. I like the rage cycling, but the player did mention it was a little hard to track (if I hadn’t been keeping a combat log, it probably would’ve caused some issues.)
For those interested, his attack line was +22, 4d12+15+d6good while raging
TL;DR: Monsters seem a little too accurate, and a little too hard to hit for their level. Combats were a bit too long and grindy. Paladin was a complete joke, couldn’t hit and had no useful utility or anti-evil abilities. Cleric was fine, but even though made to be a melee front-liner, still had accuracy issues. Ranger was a ton of fun even if low damage. Barbarian was the MVP; insane damage.
Cool write up. Would be curious what feats you took for the Ranger besides the one you listed. It seems you went straight combat abilities and didn't pick up any thematic abilities?
Dragonriderje wrote:
Skirmish Strike (1 action: Stride plus Strike)*** Do I have to reposition but don’t want to lose my hit? Skirmish Strike.
Skirmish Strike is a "Step" not a stride.
[quoteEither Step and then Strike, or Strike and then Step. Move You take a –1 penalty to the Strike’s attack roll
If you're moving more than 5' then you're not using Step.
Quote:
Is attacking not the best idea for me? Warden’s Boon
So how often did this result in one of your allies hitting your Target? Because you're only giving them a +1/+2 on the second and third attack.
Very nice write-up, just one question (and our table had the same discussion) what convinced you to the approach at an attack can trigger multiple weaknesses?
Page 294 wrote:
Weakness
When a creature has a weakness to a certain type of damage
or damage from a certain source, increase that damage by
the amount of the creature’s weakness. For instance, if a
creature takes 2d6 fire damage and has weakness 5 to fire,
it takes 2d6+5 fire damage instead.
If the creature has more than one type of weakness that
would apply to the same instance of damage, use only
the highest applicable weakness value. This usually only
happens when a monster is weak to both a type of physical
damage and the material a weapon is made of.
We came to the conclusion that the cold iron weapons and the good damage provided by the Paladin did not stack, but I am not too confident in that ruling right now.
EDIT: Agreed they way this the game works, mirror image at will, followed by an attack is really damn annoying.
My Paladin had a similar experience, the to hit chance really is too low.
Paladins are not expected to be as offensive in 2ed, with their focus more on defense. Paladins in 1ed vs. 2ed are very different.
Why does the Paladin only have a +2 weapon while all the others have +3 weapons? The highest plus available is basically mandatory for martial characters.
You also seem to be putting a lot of emphasis on a bad session. you stated he rolled poorly. It may help a bit to list each of the characters to hit and damage for comparative purposes vs using actual hit results.
Currently running this chapter as well, I have an unusually large party of 6 as opposed to my usual 5 so it was 6 slavers and 3 Glabrezu. Also worth noting the party knew they were going to be fighting fiends but little else, as per the background info they were to be given.
They actually had a pretty easy time of it against these enemies mostly, so I'm curious as to the discrepancies.
I'm planning to do a writeup on my own run of this chapter thus far but I wanted to stick in a basic summary here for comparison and contrast.
A quick list of my party and their key components:
Half-Elf Fighter wielding +3 Cold Iron Orc Necksplitter (I allowed him to sell his Ring of Energy Resistance to afford the Master quality cold iron weapon since I was unsure if the +3 Weapon item choice should be allowed as cold iron. I figured not given the situation). Key abilities are AoO, Duelist's Dance and Riposte, Intimidating Strike, Shatter Defenses, and Certain Strike.
Human Cleric wielding +3 Cold Iron Guisarme. Key abilities are Tripping focus and AoO from Fighter multiclass. He has Holy Castigation and Undead's Bane to be able to pull an AoO healing and damage combo but this hasn't come up yet.
Elf Paladin with +3 Longsword and Shield. Key abilities are Blade of Justice, Shield Ally and a Heavy Sturdy Adamantine Shield giving him a 20 hardness shield that can take 4 dents safely, and Retributive Strike.
Half Elf Monk with +3 Handwraps, strikes count as Cold Iron because Monk. Key ability is beating the freaking crap out of things with Dragon Tail attacks and seemingly unholy luck with the dice at times. He's also specced for intimidation (+0 Cha but Master rank, Intimidating Prowess, and a Demon Mask the party chipped in for), also having Dragon Roar. He also has Rage from Barbarian MC but hasn't been using it. I think he forgot.
Dwarf Wizard, has a Spell Duelist's Wand (I allowed this because it's on similar level to the other offered items but it made little sense that there weren't three viable items for a full caster on the on-level item list), main thing is having cantrips prepared for all 4 elements and a level 4 or 5 spell of each element as well so that she can target weaknesses. Is also a Master in Religion so she's been getting us info each fight. Is a Universalist with Conserve Focus so when things get hairy she can go all Energizer Bunny on the opposition.
Human Storm Druid, has a +2 Frost Longbow with 60 Cold Iron Arrows and plenty of regular ones. Also has Hunt Target and Hunted Shot from Ranger MC. Spells are mostly control and buff but he has 7 Spell Points to use with a few Storm powers including Tempest Surge and Storm Retribution. Has just been using Hunt Target and spamming arrows every round and seems perfectly content to do so. Has been using cold iron just for the first shot or two each round because he quickly realized how fast it'll go at 3-4 shots a round.
With that mess out of the way, a show of their accuracy and AC compared to the foes:
Fighter: +22 to hit, AC 35 TAC 31 assuming Duelist's Dance stance is active (it generally is)
Cleric: +19 to hit, +21 to trip, AC 32, TAC 28
Paladin: +20 to hit (Only has 18 STR), AC 35 TAC 31 assuming Shield Raised (Almost every round)
Monk: +21 to hit, AC 31 TAC 31
Wizard: +19 to hit Touch, AC 30 TAC 30
Druid: +18 to hit (Combination of a +2 weapon instead of +3, attacking with a non-class-key stat, and not being able to get Expert with the weapon has left him as the most inaccurate party member but his arrow spam tactics and the party's tactics have helped make up for it), AC 32 TAC 29
Slaver Demons: +20 to hit, AC 27 TAC 25
Treachery Demons: +25 to hit, AC 32 TAC 29
So at base, party hit chance on first attacks ranges from 80% (22 against 27) to 60% (18 against 27) on the slavers and 55% to 35% on the Glabrezu while enemy hit chance on first attack ranged from 30% (20 against 35) to 55% (20 against 30) for slavers and 55% to 80% for Glabrezu. As someone who both as player and GM has grown tired of "I hit on 2 for my first 2-3 attacks" Fighters (Not an exaggeration, I have had this) and the way AC could almost never keep up with accuracy to the high levels with the way AC advancement was split between various items vs. Accuracy being set to level and weapon and how it was easier to buff accuracy than AC, these numbers feel pretty good to me personally. Especially with how it worked in practice but I'll get to that. However I do understand how this would be a YMMV territory, understandable. So instead of focusing on my opinion of the numbers I want to focus on how my players dealt with the numbers.
One important note, the Cleric in our party spent some of his gold on some holy water and a couple scrolls of Sanctified Ground since it looked like a dope spell if we had any fights we could anticipate. Imagine his joy when he found we were defending a singular location. He ended up setting both scrolls so almost the whole temple was within the aura of the two castings he laid down. So throughout these fights we have almost always enjoyed a +1 conditional to AC, Saves, Accuracy, and Damage. He also had Bless prepared a few times, not expecting the spell to be so perfectly fitting. This spell will likely not last the whole adventure though because one of the fight 3 fiends figured out it was there (read: I remembered they could probably do that) and I plan to have him teleport away to warn others so they can try to dispel it since he wasn't having any luck (As a level 3 scroll it won't be too hard).
Now that said, that's related to what was a big key to my party's success. Buffs and debuffs. Between the monk's intimidation, the Fighter's feats, and the Cleric's tripping we very often had foes Flat-Footed and/or Frightened 1. Combined with the above buff, the first attack hit chances went from 80-60 against the slavers to about 95-70. Many crits were rolled. The Glabrezu went from 55-30 to 75-40 (The new ranges spanning best-case of Fighter with buff against flat footed and Frightened 1 to worst case of Druid with buff against Frightened 1).
What I'm getting at is that while my party started out with what might seem like a bit low chances to hit, the little bonuses and penalties you can throw around with smart playing REALLY add up. Like seriously. And I feel like that's a big part of how this edition is designed, giving kind of a nuanced measure of expertise (Like you may not have stellar chances if you just go in weapons swinging but the more martial classes have better access to tools to enable strategy to get those great chances).
So their experience ended up definitely being a bit different than your party. Unfortunately I didn't keep a detailed log like you did but I can give a general idea.
As an initial point, the Slaver fight ended in round 5 and the Glabrezu in round 6. With the two in-between rounds we took 13 rounds for the two fights all told.
So the Slavers start out by teleporting in in positions to charge attack each player one for one. Funnily the init order almost fell into a perfect ally-enemy-ally-enemy-etc order. But anyhow, they mostly called their targets and attacked. All players succeeded against the enslavement ability and most of the first attacks missed. For the first half or so of the fight everyone 1v1'ed their foes. The fiends all laid down Haste on their second turns, but one of them lost it to an AoO.
Paladin did well with a Blade of Justice-Attack-Shield routine, hitting most of the time and almost never taking a hit. The exception was when the fiend yelled that he was getting tired of this before running away a few feet, pivoting and coming back in for a charge hit. I fully expected this to be a case of failed bluster due to his crap accuracy so far but he rolled a Nat 20 and actually backed up the bluster. Shield block held off about a third of the damage but it still hurt.
Fighter had a great time, going either attack-certain certain strike-certain strike or intimidating strike-shatter defense each round. Rarely got hit due to same AC as Paladin but he did take a few licks.
Monk had fun, just wailed on enemies and threw in demoralize attempts, fared great overall.
Cleric was interesting, had terrible luck hitting attacks but tripped his foe every round successfully leading to a lot of wasted actions (Especially with Cleric step-kiting with his reach weapon).
Wizard had a rough time due to enemy AoOs, took some pain and a disrupted spell or two while trying to get to safety but managed to get clear about halfway through combat. Was trying to avoid using valuable spells while in AoO reach and we both forgot she had Shield which would've actually helped a lot as Shield Block would have reduced AoO damage enough to prevent disrupted casting (Which is actually a strategy I only just now thought of while writing this).
Druid just gave no fricks. Ended up in a space where enemy placement and rubble prohibited him from moving or attacking without taking AoOs so for like three rounds he said screw it and tanked the AoOs while filling his target with arrows point-blank.
So in the third round I believe some enemies started finally falling (They had surprisingly high HP but their low AC and out ability to target their weaknesses let us chew through it at an appreciable rate) so we ended up doubling up on them to finish it. Though a round or two prior they had showed some strategy themselves by having one or two whose foes had successfully disengaged teleport around to flank more troublesome foes like the Paladin. We mopped them up with little incident and a lot of impressive kicks by the Monk (Whose 60 foot move speed allows him to traverse the temple almost with impunity).
Overall fight 1 was a bit of a slog but that was due in part to us trying to conserve resources because it was clear we could harm them perfectly well with at-will abilities and they couldn't do much to seriously hurt us. The only limited resource used in-fight was a level 4 Acid Arrow.
Between battle we patched up. There was a Level 3 Heal used from the wand we got, a couple Master-level Battle Medic uses by the Fighter (His backstory includes a wartime role of field medic/skirmisher), and a Greater Healing potion drunk by the fighter. Thanks to the blessing on the temple (Which I almost forgot) that left us borderline fully healed for the next wave.
The three Glabrezu ported in as close to the listed locations as I could manage and attacked. Despite taking about a round longer in the end this fight actually felt easier. Though a bit of this was my fault as I'll get to explaining.
The Glabrezu all won init due to good rolls and their severely high Deception bonus. (They actually would've won even if it was just Perception) I had them immediately all cast Reverse Gravity as the AP says to do. This had interesting results. I tried to catch as many PCs as possible in this, which ended up with two fields mostly filling the central chamber and one sticking off in the East end where the window is. The central chamber had the Paladin, Monk, Wizard, and Cleric. The east end had the Ranger and Fighter. The Monk, Wizard, and Cleric all were able to grab hold of something while the Paladin floated up due to full hands and an eh Acrobatics check. I derped here, forgetting the Wizard was also full-handed with two wands but she critted on the Acrobatics check so it didn't matter. The Ranger and Fighter floated up, the Ranger didn't care because that just put him at far enough distance to use his bow properly. The Monk adapted fine, finding an anchor point close enough to the Glabrezu to just hang on and kick it. The Paladin ran off of the field and landed on the Glabrezu. The Fighter ran off of the field, grabbed the edge of a broken staircase to weaken the fall (Together with Cat Fall) and used Rapid Mantel to climb straight up. This put him in reach of the Glabrezu. The Cleric found a safe spot and started tripping the Glabrezu (I derped here because I forgot that wouldn't work while holding onto an anchor and using a two handed weapon but looking back he could've easily moved out of the field, picked up from the fall, and gotten to tripping in one round anyway). The Wizard just held on for dear life and chucked Produce Flame.
So here came the reason why this fight felt so much easier. The Glabrezu started spread out and it's bloody hard to get around the place for huge creatures. This led to my players all surrounding one Glabrezu and taking it out in about two rounds DESPITE it using Mirror Image successfully. Between the Fighter keeping it Frightened and the Cleric keeping it Flat-Footed (Its Reflex DC was no match for the trip checks) the players landed blow after blow. And even though the Glabrezu have much better AC than the Slavers, due to the fact that altogether they had much less total HP (Each one has a time and a half as much but there were only half as many of them) it felt like we were doing much better.
The second and third Glabrezu did a bit better. One used Dimension door to maneuver into position to throw Confusion spells but this didn't work well. The other started trying to bust pillars to make space but then I instead had him teleport into the main chamber with the gravity fields and attack the Monk. This is where the most damage was done. The Monk tried soloing him at first while the rest of the party went after the other fiend (Who went down fairly quick with the same tactics as the first, again Mirror Image didn't help too much due to a couple crits shattering images and doing damage).
The Glabrezu facing the Monk showcased the most effective tactics. Attacking the Monk and getting off a grab and a couple rakes he managed to bring the Monk down to about half. However the Monk was honestly returning at least as much damage. And once the second Glabrezu was well in hand the party left him to be finished by the Paladin and Ranger while the others went and helped the Monk finish his foe.
So in the end there was a very large expectations vs. reality gap here. My intent was for the Glabrezu to warp in, turn the field upside down with reverse gravity, and throw the party into disarray with a few Confusion spells and putting up Mirror Image as was prudent before switching to melee. But in reality the arrangement of the map, the limited range of Confusion, and the size of the fiends made the required maneuvering near-impossible. They kinda shot themselves in the foot straight off with reverse gravity which was my bad. by filling the main chamber to attempt to ensnare the most characters they also filled the only space where they could move somewhat freely. If the fields hadn't been there two of them would have warped in and really caused some trouble. I was gonna have them warp in anyway but then I realized that at the top of the field they couldn't reach the ground with Confusion. So yeah, if i redid the fight I'd do it differently probably, maybe use the gravity fields to fence the players in before crowding in and attacking. It would've likely been harder but I'm sure the players would've still won judging from how they did. Oh, and when the fiends all died I had the gravity fields fail as well. Laughably the resulting falls did almost more damage than the fiends managed to inflict the entire fight. (Almost everyone was in a field because that's where the fight with the last Glabrezu went down)
Again they escaped this fight with little resource use. Only at-will abilities were used in-battle with the exception of the Fighter using his Fear Gem at some point, though we needed stronger healing after this battle between the falls and the bashing our Monk took. In the round we had our Cleric used one of his channels (While still lying on his back from the fall) to mostly heal everyone except the Monk who chugged a Major Healing Potion as well to recover.
So basically both of these fights were a bit of a slog but still had plenty of fun moments with the ways the players play their characters (The Wizard taunts pretty much anything and the Monk makes over the top speeches and quips all the time, while he and the Fighter have a bit of a friendly rivalry brewing over their battle prowess). And the slogginess was willingly accepted by the players as they sought to avoid unnecessary resource expenditure because while they have no idea what they're in for in the end they do know they've been told to hold out for an unspecified amount of time (Specifically they were just told "as long as possible" as per the AP's guidelines) so they tried to minimize resource use in these relatively easy fights at the cost of slower fights.
One thing was odd in this fight. The AP mentions the ceiling is 50 feet up and how if you fall to the ceiling you take damage accordingly. But Reverse Gravity is only a 40 foot high cylinder and if they fall to the top they stabilize where the gravities meet. The AP suggests ceiling falls were intended but the spell doesn't allow it. I went with the spell not reaching the ceiling but I'm unsure of the intention here. Though it did have a nice effect in that it floated players out of their Sanctified Ground aura.
Our group has gotten partway through the third fight as well but that's beyond the scope of this post but I'll suffice to say it's been a blast, a bunch of much lower level enemies is a fun power trip with feeling untouchable and throwing crits everywhere.
Okay, so I think this post ended up FAR longer than I intended, but I wanted to give a good summary of my experiences so as to provide comparison and contrast with yours. One of my big takeaways from these fights and also the fights my group did in Part 4 is that getting bonuses and penalties from spells/tactics/etc is VERY important. I see a lot of people claim that the small bonuses and penalties don't matter but they really do. In Part 4 in one fight I saw 4 attacks in the space of 2 rounds JUST hit that would've missed without a fear effect from Demoralizing. In these two fights I saw probably one two two dozen times a hit, crit, or enemy miss happen that would have not done so if any of the modifiers in place had been absent (Usually this was our Sanctified Ground buff and one or both of Flat Footed and Frightened).
And the existence of buffs and debuffs is the big reason I'm such a proponent of how the math seems to be arranged in 2.0, especially with the +/-10 crit system. As a player (And this sentiment seems to be shared by most of my group) I appreciate starting with middling chances against on-level foes because it puts me in the position to claw upward by using positioning and feats and spells to push my numbers up and my opponents' numbers down to where I'm now in a favorable position compared to my foe. It feels great to me to pull off a couple of changes and gain a 15-20% or more increase to my hit chances, especially when it translates to increased crit chances or reliably accurate sequential attacks! It really feels like I fought for my advantage and earned it. It also increases the feeling of superiority over lower level foes when I already start with higher accuracy and 10+% crit chances, getting buffs and debuffs only increases that advantage. I wouldn't feel nearly as satisfied if I started with a notably higher success rate and boosting things just made attacks all-but-guaranteed to hit. I judt got bored with that in PF1 and I feel it'd be the same here. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea but I love it.
Long-winded chatter over, I hope your group is able to have fun with the playtest and hopefully have a bit better success in their fights!
Paladins are not expected to be as offensive in 2ed, with their focus more on defense. Paladins in 1ed vs. 2ed are very different.
Why does the Paladin only have a +2 weapon while all the others have +3 weapons? The highest plus available is basically mandatory for martial characters.
You also seem to be putting a lot of emphasis on a bad session. you stated he rolled poorly. It may help a bit to list each of the characters to hit and damage for comparative purposes vs using actual hit results.
The AP offers choice between a +3 weapon or a +2 weapon with one elemental property rune. The property runes are reasonably comparable to the potency runes with their added crit effects so while it hurts his accuracy and damage just slightly it has other perks.
Thanks. Paladin's attack line was +19 3d8+4 slashing +1d6fire +1d6good. (level 12+4(str)+1(expert)+2(magic weapon))
N N 959 wrote:
Cool write up. Would be curious what feats you took for the Ranger besides the one you listed. It seems you went straight combat abilities and didn't pick up any thematic abilities?
Yes, that was on purpose. Here was my rationale:
-For the last 4 chapters of the playtest, I have been playing characters that were either pure support (Bard) or attempts to cover multiple roles (Druid balanced between blasting and shifting with some healing added in, Alchemist/rogue who buffs, bombs, stabs, disables, heals). So I decided this character was going to be my "total combat machine."
-I knew Chapter 6 was an inappropriate time to try that, and Chapter 7 brings me back to my Druid.
-I wanted to see what a completely ranged damage focused character is like in the playtest (because they can be a bit broken in 1e)\
-Ranger, at that point, was the only class no one has run in my playtest yet.
It is convenient that Chapter 5 is the "grueling combat test" chapter but I felt justified enough with my reasoning to call it a coincidence.
It's true that he's not much a Ranger the way they are classically portrayed and he doesn't have any of the more flavorful feats (he can still do tons of Ranger-y things through his skill feats), but that wasn't my goal in building the character.
I wanted a tough-as-nails, hard-to-pin-down, harder-to-kill dwarven ranger.
N N 959 wrote:
Skirmish Strike is a "Step" not a stride.
Oops! I totally misread that feat! Thanks for the correction.
N N 959 wrote:
So how often did this result in one of your allies hitting your Target? Because you're only giving them a +1/+2 on the second and third attack.
In this game of parallel scaling, +1 and +2 to attack can actually matter a great deal. But mostly my strategy was "is this -8 attack that might do 4d8+2 damage worth more than giving the raging giant barbarian a +1/+2 to do 4d12+15+d6(and probably 10+ more dmg because of weakness)?" It certainly was one of the feats I decided on last and wasn't overly confident of, but I wanted to try it out.
Sebastian Hirsch wrote:
Very nice write-up, just one question (and our table had the same discussion) what convinced you to the approach at an attack can trigger multiple weaknesses?
Honestly, I just assumed that was the way it worked. I was not aware of that line (and also didn't know it works a similar way for resistances. You learn something new every day! (And today I learned TWO things)
Kerobelis wrote:
A couple of thoughts...
Paladins are not expected to be as offensive in 2ed, with their focus more on defense. Paladins in 1ed vs. 2ed are very different.
Why does the Paladin only have a +2 weapon while all the others have +3 weapons? The highest plus available is basically mandatory for martial characters.
You also seem to be putting a lot of emphasis on a bad session. you stated he rolled poorly. It may help a bit to list each of the characters to hit and damage for comparative purposes vs using actual hit results.
The primary reason the paladin went for the +2 Flaming weapon instead of a +3 is that the PC is a follower of "Saint Kushiel" who was that same player's paladin from our successful Wrath of the Righteous campaign AND who was famous for wielding a flaming sword.
And yeah, I know the paladin is more defensive in this playtest but I think it's important to report on how that kind of design change "feels" to a player. They could turn around and decide that Rangers can't dual wield anymore, and even if they had a good reason (e.g. it was only established because of a different game's novel's character) it would still be important for them to know their community's reaction to it because those are the people that would be buying their game!
I disagree with the idea that a +3 weapon is mandatory for a martial character, especially at level 12. Even if it IS the case, it is my opinion that it should not be, and is poor design if it is.
All attack lines:
Paladin: +19, 3d8+4+d6+d6 (+10 or +12 dmg from weakness)
Cleric: +19, 4d8+4
Ranger: +21, 4d8+2 (temporarily had +12 from weakness)
Barbarian: +22, 4d12+5+d6, +10 dmg when raging (+10 or +12 dmg from weakness)
The to hit seems wrong if the barbarian is the highest? How did he get +22? Paladin is an expert, while Barbarian is only trained. Barb also gets a -1 from using the big weapon. Something seems off...
The to hit seems wrong if the barbarian is the highest? How did he get +22? Paladin is an expert, while Barbarian is only trained. Barb also gets a -1 from using the big weapon. Something seems off...
I was thinking the same thing. 12+5+3-1 = 19 is what I clock the barb should be at. Meaning he is now just as accurate as the paladin that had a hard time hitting.
Also factor in his AC is is likely far less than the paladin and I'm surprised he didn't get killed by getting hit so much. I see 12+7(dex/armor)+3-1-1 = 20 AC while raging assuming dex maxed. That means assuming these numbers for enemies
Slaver Demons: +20 to hit, AC 27 TAC 25
Treachery Demons: +25 to hit, AC 32 TAC 29
That he is auto-hit by the slavers and critted on a 10, meaning their last attack only needs a 10 to hit.
And the Treachery needing a 5 to crit and to hit their 3rd attack should have had the barb getting ripped to shreds by all their crits. Did that happen and he was just healed as fast as he was hurt or was something else missing here?
I helped my players optimize to help increase their accuracy. On a typical round they usually had an extra +1 to hit while the enemies had -3 to AC. They had plentiful uses of the haste spell for buffing, a healer with nearly boundless capacity to keep them on their feet, and the fighter/paladin and paladin/fighter were both sporting retributive strike and attack of opportunity to punish the demons pretty much no matter what they did. The fighter also had certain strike to guarantee a certain baseline of damage. Even with all of this the combat was still a slow and arduous slog and we only made it through two waves before we had to call it quits for the day. I can only imagine how painfully slow it was with characters like a paladin with only +19 to hit.
The to hit seems wrong if the barbarian is the highest? How did he get +22? Paladin is an expert, while Barbarian is only trained. Barb also gets a -1 from using the big weapon. Something seems off...
I was thinking the same thing. 12+5+3-1 = 19 is what I clock the barb should be at. Meaning he is now just as accurate as the paladin that had a hard time hitting.
Also factor in his AC is is likely far less than the paladin and I'm surprised he didn't get killed by getting hit so much. I see 12+7(dex/armor)+3-1-1 = 20 AC while raging assuming dex maxed. That means assuming these numbers for enemies
Slaver Demons: +20 to hit, AC 27 TAC 25
Treachery Demons: +25 to hit, AC 32 TAC 29
That he is auto-hit by the slavers and critted on a 10, meaning their last attack only needs a 10 to hit.
And the Treachery needing a 5 to crit and to hit their 3rd attack should have had the barb getting ripped to shreds by all their crits. Did that happen and he was just healed as fast as he was hurt or was something else missing here?
The accuracy assumption sounds right on but for his AC ypu forgot the base 10. You had level+armor and Dex+enchantment-sluggish-rage but it should be 10+ all that. So the slavers would hit on 10, crit on 20, Glavrezu hit on 5, crit on 15. Much less harsh but still he could use some protection. Suppose that's what the 12+Con Temp HP every 4 rounds is for.
I helped my players optimize to help increase their accuracy. On a typical round they usually had an extra +1 to hit while the enemies had -3 to AC. They had plentiful uses of the haste spell for buffing, a healer with nearly boundless capacity to keep them on their feet, and the fighter/paladin and paladin/fighter were both sporting retributive strike and attack of opportunity to punish the demons pretty much no matter what they did. The fighter also had certain strike to guarantee a certain baseline of damage. Even with all of this the combat was still a slow and arduous slog and we only made it through two waves before we had to call it quits for the day. I can only imagine how painfully slow it was with characters like a paladin with only +19 to hit.
This sounds similar to my party, most of them are at least decently optimized and while they don't have a lot of Haste uses available they have been smart about working their accuracy up and enemy AC down, and we have a Fighter with a Cold Iron forceful weapon and Certain Strike (that combo is mad good here), but it still took 5 rounds for the slavers and 6 for the flatbread. Though we have a 6 character party this time and with the number of different enemy types I'm having to learn to fight as as GM we've been slower than usual. Our fights have taken 2-2 1/2 hours or so each, I feel like they'd be much quicker with a smaller party and if I were a little more comfortable with the enemies. That's something I'm trying to put some extra study time in to rectify before my next session.
It's true that he's not much a Ranger the way they are classically portrayed and he doesn't have any of the more flavorful feats (he can still do tons of Ranger-y things through his skill feats), but that wasn't my goal in building the character.
He's got one more trained skill than a Fighter and the same amount of skill feats. How does that make him feel more Ranger-y?
Quote:
N N 959 wrote:
So how often did this result in one of your allies hitting your Target? Because you're only giving them a +1/+2 on the second and third attack.
In this game of parallel scaling, +1 and +2 to attack can actually matter a great deal. But mostly my strategy was "is this -8 attack that might do 4d8+2 damage worth more than giving the raging giant barbarian a +1/+2 to do 4d12+15+d6(and probably 10+ more dmg because of weakness)?" It certainly was one of the feats I decided on last and wasn't overly confident of, but I wanted to try it out.
The benefit of a Hunt Target (0/+1/+2) has been greatly exaggerated by many on these forums. Warden's Boon is only valuable if the ally actually takes a 2nd and 3rd attack. And then, it's only giving you a hit on 1 more number. That's going to come up 5% of the time you roll a d20, so 1 out of 20 rolls, that +1 will make a difference. On the 3rd attack it's a 10% difference, but then only if you can hit on a 12. If you need a 13 on the 3rd attack then you're not getting any benefit from Hunt Target.
The reason I ask is because I am curious if you actually perceived a benefit versus the feeling you're making smart tactical decisions. Based on your post/response it sounds like like it has more value in hype than substance. You feel like you're making a good decision, but that doesn't necessarily mean you're getting much of any benefit.
Thanks again for this and for answering our questions. I'm in the middle of playing this chapter and had a hard time deciding between +5 or +4 dex on a monk, there was several attacks that I just hit or just missed be due to that +1 bonus.
I was thinking the same thing. 12+5+3-1 = 19 is what I clock the barb should be at. Meaning he is now just as accurate as the paladin that had a hard time hitting.
It is entirely possible that the player did not calculate his stats properly. I will ask and report back!
Edge 93 wrote:
The accuracy assumption sounds right on but for his AC ypu forgot the base 10. You had level+armor and Dex+enchantment-sluggish-rage but it should be 10+ all that. So the slavers would hit on 10, crit on 20, Glavrezu hit on 5, crit on 15. Much less harsh but still he could use some protection. Suppose that's what the 12+Con Temp HP every 4 rounds is for.
Yeah he took a pretty good beating. He was the only guy in melee with no shield, and he did the most damage. The demons are no dummy! He was something like at 30% health after the Slaver Demons and 20% after the Treachery Demons (AND he got healed midfight vs the Treachery Dmeons)
N N 959 wrote:
He's got one more trained skill than a Fighter and the same amount of skill feats. How does that make him feel more Ranger-y?
Well, his automatic class features help (wild stride, nature's edge) I suppose. But you're right, I could have taken all the same skill feats on a fighter to make a nature-y fighter. But that wasn't my goal, my goal was to make a fighter-y ranger :)
N N 959 wrote:
The benefit of a Hunt Target (0/+1/+2) has been greatly exaggerated by many on these forums. Warden's Boon is only valuable if the ally actually takes a 2nd and 3rd attack. And then, it's only giving you a hit on 1 more number. That's going to come up 5% of the time you roll a d20, so 1 out of 20 rolls, that +1 will make a difference. On the 3rd attack it's a 10% difference, but then only if you can hit on a 12. If you need a 13 on the 3rd attack then you're not getting any benefit from Hunt Target.
The reason I ask is because I am curious if you actually perceived a benefit versus the feeling you're making smart tactical decisions. Based on your post/response it sounds like like it has more value in hype than substance. You feel like you're making a good decision, but that doesn't necessarily mean you're getting much of any benefit.
Yes, it most definitely has more value when looking at it theoretically. So does something like Bless. Maybe no one hits the exact AC and then the +1 didn't help at all. 0 actual value But I generally evaluate things on potential benefit because dice are random! You never know.
Looking back at the log, I used Boon the round I drew my melee weapon because I was tangled in the melee (which makes some sense, since my melee is worse than my ranged) and I used it once when I did Hunt Target, then Miss, then Boon. My guess is that I just threw up my hands, looked at the barb and said "you kill it" - not sure what my strat was there
A thought on the supposition that +1 is only a 5% improvement because it just adds one success every 20 tries, consider that the effectiveness of a +1 actually depends on how likely you were already to succeed.
Let's take for example two Fighters with and without Bless. One hits his current foe on 10, 15, and 20. This is a 50% success and 5% crit, 25% success and 5% crit, and 5% Crit. With Bless this becomes 9, 14, and 19. So now it's 50% success 10% crit, 30% success 5% crit, and 5% success 5% crit.
The other hits his current foe on 5, 10, and 15. This is 50% success and 30% crit, 50% success and 5% crit, and 25% success and 5% crit. With Bless it becomes 4, 9, and 14. Now it's 50% success 35% crit, 5% success 10% crit, and 30% success 5% crit.
Now we measure how many hits each Fighter will land every 20 uses
of each of his attacks statistically speaking, and how many he would land with Bless. Crits are counted as two hits since almost everything doubles on a crit and to keep this simple.
Fighter a, his first attack will hit 10 times and crit once in 20 uses. So 12/20. Second attack will hit 5 times and crit once. 7/20. Third+ will crit once. 2/20.
With Bless Fighter a will first hit 10 times and crit twice, 14/20. Second hit 6 times and crit once, 8/20. Third+ hit once and crit once, 3/20.
The first attack sees a 1/6 increase (about 17%) in damage output, the second a 1/7 (about 14%) increase, and the third+ a whopping 1/2 (50%) increase! Interestingly the first attack gains a bigger relative boost due to gaining one crit every 20 strikes instead of one hit every 20. But in any case this is far more than a 5% or 1/20 improvement.
Fighter b, his first attack will hit 10 times and crit 6, 22/20. Second attack hits 10 times and crits once, 12/20. Third attack hits 5 times and crits once, 7/20.
With Bless his first attack hits 10 times and crits 7, 24/20. Second attack hits 10 times and crits 2, 14/20. Third attack hits 6 times and crits once, 8/20.
So here we see that the bonuses have diminishing returns when your success rate gets much higher, the first attack only having a 1/11 increase (about 9%). The second has a 1/6 increase (about 17%) and the third a 1/7 (about 14%), these are the same as the first and second attacks of Fighter a because of the specific example numbers I chose.
As an aside a Fighter with 50% accuracy (9 hits and 1 crit, 11/20) getting a +1 sees a similarly small increase to Fighter b's first attack here, going to 10 hit 1 crit, 12/20, a 1/11 increase or 9%. This is a blip in the math due to being the highest success rate where a +1 gives you an extra hit rather than an extra crit.
So all that said, the whole point of all this is to illustrate how a +1 is much more than a 5% boost. It's a 5% objective, that is it will take a 55 to a 60 and an 80 to an 85, but the effect it has on your actual damage output (Or your successes and critical successes on other rolls) definitely varies but is much more than 5%.
TL;DR, an extra success (or critical success) every 20 tries means different things depending on how many times you were succeeding and critting out of every 20 tries in the first place. It means more going from 5 successes to 6 than 9 to 10 for example. Which generally also means that buffs and debuffs are more effective when you stand in an underdog or middle ground position than if you're already ahead. But again, usually more than a 5% increase.
Yes, this exactly. It seems that Paizo is aiming for parity with the new system: Saves, skills, attacks, AC, spells all use the same formula so your success/failure chance will be much closer to 50/50 than you might see in the first edition.
Just consider things from 1e like, rolling Acrobatics via CMD, or attacking vs AC. There's no parity there (which I don't think is WRONG, it's just very different from this system). A +1 isn't going to help the high-level fighter much when using a standard action attack against, say, a giant of his level. Nor is it going to help the dwarf cleric use Acrobatics to avoid an AoO. Because the first has such a high success rate and the second has a low success rate.
But when the bonuses and DCs narrow and the difference between their maximum and minimum possible values are reduced, like in this playtest, that +1 can actually matter. (not too mention the new crit rules adding value to "overkill")
Yes, this exactly. It seems that Paizo is aiming for parity with the new system: Saves, skills, attacks, AC, spells all use the same formula so your success/failure chance will be much closer to 50/50 than you might see in the first edition.
Just consider things from 1e like, rolling Acrobatics via CMD, or attacking vs AC. There's no parity there (which I don't think is WRONG, it's just very different from this system). A +1 isn't going to help the high-level fighter much when using a standard action attack against, say, a giant of his level. Nor is it going to help the dwarf cleric use Acrobatics to avoid an AoO. Because the first has such a high success rate and the second has a low success rate.
But when the bonuses and DCs narrow and the difference between their maximum and minimum possible values are reduced, like in this playtest, that +1 can actually matter. (not too mention the new crit rules adding value to "overkill")
Oh gosh, Acrobatics vs CMD. Around 3 years of playing Pathfinder and I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen that work. XD
And on the topic of overkill and crits I wanted to share a moment from my group's play of battle 3. The last turn before we stopped for the night actually. Our Monk moves into position in reach of two books demons and uses Flurry of Blows, one attack at each. Freaking rolls two Nat 20s and proceeds to roll stupidly well on his 8d12+19 damage for each, getting around 80 and 70 damage on the fiends who had 40 and 50 left respectively. We flavored this as just jumping up and doing a Split Kick of Doom. XD
And I agree that the lack of parity in 1e isn't wrong as well, I can see why people would like it but it's grown old in many ways to me so this Playtest has felt like such a breath of fresh air for me personally. I mean there's plenty of edges to file but the core concepts and base math just feel so good in practices and polished on a conceptual level, at least for me.
And I agree that the lack of parity in 1e isn't wrong as well, I can see why people would like it but it's grown old in many ways to me so this Playtest has felt like such a breath of fresh air for me personally. I mean there's plenty of edges to file but the core concepts and base math just feel so good in practices and polished on a conceptual level, at least for me.
Yup. My favorite part of this playtest is the core mechanics chassis. The 3 action system and the formulas for rolls and DCs, specifically. My issues lie more in the character design issues. They just don't seem "cool" enough; they're not utilizing the mechanics in good, fun, unique ways. (like, why are there only 3 spells in the whole game that let you choose # of actions? why are skill feats so incredibly boring?)
And I agree that the lack of parity in 1e isn't wrong as well, I can see why people would like it but it's grown old in many ways to me so this Playtest has felt like such a breath of fresh air for me personally. I mean there's plenty of edges to file but the core concepts and base math just feel so good in practices and polished on a conceptual level, at least for me.
Yup. My favorite part of this playtest is the core mechanics chassis. The 3 action system and the formulas for rolls and DCs, specifically. My issues lie more in the character design issues. They just don't seem "cool" enough; they're not utilizing the mechanics in good, fun, unique ways. (like, why are there only 3 spells in the whole game that let you choose # of actions? why are skill feats so incredibly boring?)
Yeah, I can see that. I do wish we had more action-toying spells, and maybe we could have some more unique combat actions for other Martial classes like we get with the Fighter feats (though if we do that Fighter probably needs more nice things as well).
Also I think this is the better problem to have. If we had all the cool options in the world but a core that left us with a huge mess I feel that'd be a problem but with a solid core and options that perhaps don't utilize its potential we are in the perfect position to go straight upwards in quality.
And I'd like to see 1/2 and 2/3 action spells too, not just 1/2/3. I don't think trying to make 1/2/3 action options for every spell is necessarily wise, it seems like it'd be a bigger to come up with good and balanced options for every spell and I feel like we'd end up with a meta of fishing for being in a place to do 3-action casts to at the most out of spell slots or where you nova by spamming 1-action uses like you potentially could with Heal or Harm now. But I do want more spells like this. And one interesting thing to note is that any 3-action say can't use Metamagic.
One example I saw in the Bestiary for a clever action-change effect that could be used as a base for others is the Banshee's wail ability. It takes two actions and ignores level 3 or lower silence effects but the Banshee can make it three actions instead and bypass level 6 or lower silence effects. I love that idea, that adding more actions can let you burrow past certain defenses against your spell. I'd love to see more clever stuff like that that isn't necessarily just a buff to the soell's power.
I personally have enjoyed Skill feats, especially because the fact that we have several slots for skill feats only makes me feel like I can pick situational or niche things and not feel like I'm hurting my character, unlike in PF1 where the flavorful but weak or situational feats were vying directly with all the super useful feats you needed. And I feel like a lot of them give cool effects that I think would come into play in longer and more diverse campaigns than a single DD chapter. But I can see how many could seem boring and I do agree with people who say that at least some should be folded into skills automatically at certain proficiencies, giving automatic boons for proficiency tiers other than trained.
And I admit I've had trouble a couple times finding enough good skill feats but that's usually when I specialize in skills that don't have many skill feats period, but that's a problem that I feel is inevitable in a Playtest.
TL;DR, an extra success (or critical success) every 20 tries means different things depending on how many times you were succeeding and critting out of every 20 tries in the first place. It means more going from 5 successes to 6 than 9 to 10 for example. Which generally also means that buffs and debuffs are more effective when you stand in an underdog or middle ground position than if you're already ahead. But again, usually more than a 5% increase.
Yes...and no.
There are two ways to talk about a static increase to a fixed amount:
1) Absolute
2) Comparative.
Let's set aside criticals
What many people using your argument are doing is talking about the the comparative or relative increase. If I have $1 and you give me $1, then you've increased my net worth by 100%. If I have $100, then you've only increased my net worth by 1% But in all cases, you're only giving me a $1
So the question is which perspective is most informative?
Now, the effect of a bonus in PF2 increases the value beyond 5% only if you can hit on 10 or lower. If you can't hit on a 10 or lower, then +1 does not improve your crit and only gives you that 5%. If you can hit on a 10, then every +1 is actually adding a crit chance and that's 5x Crit Multiplier.
He's got one more trained skill than a Fighter and the same amount of skill feats. How does that make him feel more Ranger-y?
Well, his automatic class features help (wild stride, nature's edge) I suppose. But you're right, I could have taken all the same skill feats on a fighter to make a nature-y fighter. But that wasn't my goal, my goal was to make a fighter-y ranger :)
Did you have an opportunity to use Wild Stride or Nature's Edge? I have been highly critical of the Ranger on account of the thematic abilities are not useful, or rather so rarely come up as to be essentially worthless.
Quote:
So does something like Bless. Maybe no one hits the exact AC and then the +1 didn't help at all. 0 actual value But I generally evaluate things on potential benefit because dice are random! You never know.
The difference is Bless doesn't cost you a feat. ;)
On a general note, it was cool to see you play a Ranger devoid of a companion and all thematic class feats. Given that a companion locks you into 5-8 feats I'm starting to wonder if the Ranger is better off not taking one, especially if you want to actually feel like a Ranger and take thematic feats. The Companions are crit bags and Rangers have no way to heal it in combat. Also, by taking away its natural progression table, the animal is just a combat mechanic and feels two dimensional.
All attack lines:
Paladin: +19, 3d8+4+d6+d6 (+10 or +12 dmg from weakness)
Cleric: +19, 4d8+4
Ranger: +21, 4d8+2 (temporarily had +12 from weakness)
Barbarian: +22, 4d12+5+d6, +10 dmg when raging (+10 or +12 dmg from weakness)
I calculate the to hits as (making a few assumptions about attack stats):
This doesn't take into account any buffs or feats or other magic items you may have. Perhaps the Barbrian added an extra +3 due to have the +3 handwraps (which do not help him in any way). These new to hits would make a major difference, especially for the Barbarian.
To make your Paladin even better, I would take that +3 weapon instead of +2 flaming. As per what Edge posted, each +1 means a lot.
All attack lines:
Paladin: +19, 3d8+4+d6+d6 (+10 or +12 dmg from weakness)
Cleric: +19, 4d8+4
Ranger: +21, 4d8+2 (temporarily had +12 from weakness)
Barbarian: +22, 4d12+5+d6, +10 dmg when raging (+10 or +12 dmg from weakness)
I calculate the to hits as (making a few assumptions about attack stats):
This doesn't take into account any buffs or feats or other magic items you may have. Perhaps the Barbrian added an extra +3 due to have the +3 handwraps (which do not help him in any way). These new to hits would make a major difference, especially for the Barbarian.
To make your Paladin even better, I would take that +3 weapon instead of +2 flaming. As per what Edge posted, each +1 means a lot.
Those numbers sound about right, though he stated somewhere that the Paladin has 18 Str, hence the 19 instead of 20. Ironically this is the same Str that the Elf Paladin in my current party has.
All attack lines:
Paladin: +19, 3d8+4+d6+d6 (+10 or +12 dmg from weakness)
Cleric: +19, 4d8+4
Ranger: +21, 4d8+2 (temporarily had +12 from weakness)
Barbarian: +22, 4d12+5+d6, +10 dmg when raging (+10 or +12 dmg from weakness)
I calculate the to hits as (making a few assumptions about attack stats):
This doesn't take into account any buffs or feats or other magic items you may have. Perhaps the Barbrian added an extra +3 due to have the +3 handwraps (which do not help him in any way). These new to hits would make a major difference, especially for the Barbarian.
To make your Paladin even better, I would take that +3 weapon instead of +2 flaming. As per what Edge posted, each +1 means a lot.
Those numbers sound about right, though he stated somewhere that the Paladin has 18 Str, hence the 19 instead of 20. Ironically this is the same Str that the Elf Paladin in my current party has.
Hmm, I see that now in the damage modifier. Well, that is another lost bonus to hit. I do feel it sucks how PF2 severely punishes you if you do not max out on your to hit (crit wise, accuracy on secondary attacks, etc.).
All attack lines:
Paladin: +19, 3d8+4+d6+d6 (+10 or +12 dmg from weakness)
Cleric: +19, 4d8+4
Ranger: +21, 4d8+2 (temporarily had +12 from weakness)
Barbarian: +22, 4d12+5+d6, +10 dmg when raging (+10 or +12 dmg from weakness)
I calculate the to hits as (making a few assumptions about attack stats):
This doesn't take into account any buffs or feats or other magic items you may have. Perhaps the Barbrian added an extra +3 due to have the +3 handwraps (which do not help him in any way). These new to hits would make a major difference, especially for the Barbarian.
To make your Paladin even better, I would take that +3 weapon instead of +2 flaming. As per what Edge posted, each +1 means a lot.
Those numbers sound about right, though he stated somewhere that the Paladin has 18 Str, hence the 19 instead of 20. Ironically this is the same Str that the Elf Paladin in my current party has.
Hmm, I see that now in the damage modifier. Well, that is another lost bonus to hit. I do feel it sucks how PF2 severely punishes you if you do not max out on your to hit (crit wise, accuracy on secondary attacks, etc.).
Yeah, this is honestly something I've been a bit torn on. I've been giving it a significant pass because of two main things, one being how it's honestly not very difficult to maximize attacks and the other being that even if you do end up a couple points behind it still feels like you're really able to contribute. Whereas in PF1 little differences meant less but there tended to be much larger differences which would result in characters seeming outclassed by others at times to a far greater degree (even between two different characters built with combat as their focus) than what happens with a 1 or two point difference in PF2, even with the tight math.
For me the simplicity of getting the max for your class is why I've been so lenient towards it. In PF1 you could make what seemed like the best decisions you could find and still be miles behind someone else because they knew a better way from somewhere. Here the way to max accuracy within your abilities is much clearer.
All attack lines:
Paladin: +19, 3d8+4+d6+d6 (+10 or +12 dmg from weakness)
Cleric: +19, 4d8+4
Ranger: +21, 4d8+2 (temporarily had +12 from weakness)
Barbarian: +22, 4d12+5+d6, +10 dmg when raging (+10 or +12 dmg from weakness)
I calculate the to hits as (making a few assumptions about attack stats):
This doesn't take into account any buffs or feats or other magic items you may have. Perhaps the Barbrian added an extra +3 due to have the +3 handwraps (which do not help him in any way). These new to hits would make a major difference, especially for the Barbarian.
To make your Paladin even better, I would take that +3 weapon instead of +2 flaming. As per what Edge posted, each +1 means a lot.
Those numbers sound about right, though he stated somewhere that the Paladin has 18 Str, hence the 19 instead of 20. Ironically this is the same Str that the Elf Paladin in my current party has.
Hmm, I see that now in the damage modifier. Well, that is another lost bonus to hit. I do feel it sucks how PF2 severely punishes you if you do not max out on your to hit (crit wise, accuracy on secondary attacks, etc.).
Correct. The paladin has 18 strength.
I talked to the barbarian player and we confirmed that he made a math error. He should be at +19 to hit, as this thread has calculated.
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Another thing, Mark Seifter confirmed how Weakness works in this thread. So I actually was correct in applying both of the Treachery Demon's weaknesses when hit by the Flaming, Holy Sword. Each energy type is an "instance" of damage. The only time you wouldn't apply multiple weaknesses would be for physical damage (e.g. cold iron AND slashing weakness with a cold iron longsword) because the physical damage is one instance. I haven't run into any DnD4e-style damages that say "2d6 damage that counts as both Fire and Good" although there is still a pretty clear ruling for something like that - it's only one "instance" of damage.
So let's say the paladin hits the Treachery Demon. He rolls 3d8+4 for 18 physical damage. He rolls 1d6 for 3 fire damage but the demon takes 15 because of weakness. He rolls 1d6 for 3 good damage, but the demon takes 15 because of weakness. So in total, the Demon takes 48 damage.
Lol I'm a few hours late to the party! I saw that thread a few minutes ago and came right here to link it because I remembered that had come up here. XD
I'd have never guessed weakness could proc multiple times in a hit but there it is.
As if our Monk weren't cracking the heck out of demon heads enough already, now his Holy Dragon Tail attacks are gonna proc weakness for Cold Iron AND Good. XD This may be altering my predictions on how some things will go. XD
Oh gosh, I wish our Fighter had taken a +2 Frost Cold Iron Weapon now. Certain Strike proccing two weaknesses on certain foes would've been a sight to behold. XD
