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The ability to let a specific monster to act outside his initiative is something that, imho, needs to be implemented asap. Absolutely awesome feature. Look at D&D 5th edition for more details.
That stuff + the action economy of path2.0 will make this edition perfect...!
Pls - ^__^;
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This was one of the big things I actually liked in 5.
I'm not sure it's required here though, as the 3-action system, auras, and unique monster reactions and free actions seem to be doing a lot of the stuff I thought legendary actions contributed anyway.
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I agree with Elleth... and not just because I just realized she shares a name with one of my favorite PCs... :P
I much prefer a system where monsters and PCs run off the same action economy but monsters have abilities that let them do more with their actions. It's still cheating to make boss monsters work, but it's cheating in a more subtle way that's less likely to break immersion for players.
I agree with Elleth... and not just because I just realized she shares a name with one of my favorite PCs... :P
I much prefer a system where monsters and PCs run off the same action economy but monsters have abilities that let them do more with their actions. It's still cheating to make boss monsters work, but it's cheating in a more subtle way that's less likely to break immersion for players.
Some monsters already have stuff like this in PF2, like the Marilith. I would be happy to see it expanded on and show up on more critters, though :)
Yep, some of them have a reaction, but is really limited one, usually an extra attack.
No repositioning/escaping/utlity ones.
Expand, expand! ^^
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I cheat the action economy all the time in Pathfinder 1E for boss-monsters (I just tell my players its mythic).
In 2E with its much tighter action economy, I'd prefer monsters have powerful reactions and multiple activity actions. The Sea Serpent (despite its bad math), had a plethora of interesting things to do that could keep a whole party occupied on its turn. It would definitely be a legendary encounter.
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Some monsters already have stuff like this in PF2, like the Marilith. I would be happy to see it expanded on and show up on more critters, though :)I agree with Elleth... and not just because I just realized she shares a name with one of my favorite PCs... :P
I much prefer a system where monsters and PCs run off the same action economy but monsters have abilities that let them do more with their actions. It's still cheating to make boss monsters work, but it's cheating in a more subtle way that's less likely to break immersion for players.
Ngl, I really like how the marilith handled "has a bunch of swords and can hit things in different ways". As a general point on monster design.
Yep, some of them have a reaction, but is really limited one, usually an extra attack.
No repositioning/escaping/utlity ones.
Expand, expand! ^^
The actions symbols definitely helped with skimming that.
Free actions actually seem often even better for this at a glance.
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The Bestiary has a lot of greatness in it. I don't think they need to include Legendary actions. The monsters have a lot of flare and feel to them. More so than other games of the same genre.
just my thoughts :)
I can't stress this enough.. but a full party aiming to kill a single boss is way too overpowered imho. 1 reaction for an aoo isn't enough; 1 control/escape that trig before dmg is flying to him, could be ok! - i don't see the problem with a normal party of 4 players, really...
The problem is more obvious with a party of 5+ players, where a single boss is usually (if you follow the rules) less and less effective when the numbers of players goes up. More players = more reactions/turn needed to keep it dynamically alive.
Sure, as DM we can tweak here and there to keep the balance (more hp on it, hazards, etc... ;P), no problem with that, but could be useful a list of legendary actions (reactions) to put as "add-on" to single monsters, scaling with number of players in the party, to let the "bunny" become "THAT Bunny that could jump from the darkness BigBadBoss" xD
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The different reactions of some monsters already go in this directions. Legendary monsters could have more than 1 reaction or free actions (with specific triggers) - that would siffice for me as another take on legendary actions.
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pf2 doesn't do well the 1vs many boss encounter.
the reason is not action economy or anything like that, the reason is Accuracy.
a hard boss encounter vs a single boss would end with casters only applying their spells 1/5 times, martials hitting just once very 2 rounds, and etc.
on the boss side, it will totally demolish what it strikes, but it strikes not too often.the end result would be an encounter that's not enjoyable from either side:
a monster that acts way too little (comparatively) and players that do too little on the monster regardless of their abundant actions.
True, really true. A party+4 threat numbers needs to be adjusted..
ehi, we can create a "reaction/free/ability action list that costs xp with each option appended on the boss, of max party lvl+3 or +2! (more hp=10xp, movement reaction=20xp, and so on)
that could be a good compromise between a dynamic encounter and numbers balance ^^;
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pf2 doesn't do well the 1vs many boss encounter.
the reason is not action economy or anything like that, the reason is Accuracy.
a hard boss encounter vs a single boss would end with casters only applying their spells 1/5 times, martials hitting just once very 2 rounds, and etc.
on the boss side, it will totally demolish what it strikes, but it strikes not too often.the end result would be an encounter that's not enjoyable from either side:
a monster that acts way too little (comparatively) and players that do too little on the monster regardless of their abundant actions.True, really true. A party+4 threat numbers needs to be adjusted..
ehi, we can create a "reaction/free/ability action list that costs xp with each option appended on the boss, of max party lvl+3 or +2! (more hp=10xp, movement reaction=20xp, and so on)
that could be a good compromise between a dynamic encounter and numbers balance ^^;
I feel like this sort of thing would work better as a template, and if it alters the difficulty to simply adjust the effective level (much like Elite) of the boss, the template in part scaling with the original level of the boss.