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I have an Ironfang Invasion conversion thread over in the playtest's running trenchant section that I can't link to from my phone. But it has been working very well.
Wrath of the Righteous might be hard if you use mythic, but that is largely because mythic is already broken.
Yep, it is. Ideally we could try to fix it for 2e, at least partially. But I know it won't be easy...
I'm checking the playtest section for your conversion thread. Thanks!
Mythic feats rather than mythic levels.
Not saying anything more until I have a working ruleset.
Mythic feats rather than mythic levels.
Not saying anything more until I have a working ruleset.
Good thinking, though. But I too want to wait and have the finished books in front of me, first of all.
Oh, and found your conversion, Morgan - bookmarked, of course ^___^
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My rough idea for mythic would have a few parts.
Some Legendary proficiency stuff already feels a little mythic. Survival lets you skip needing food, water, or air. Intimidate lets you scare someone to death. So, bump everything up a proficiency once folks hit mythic, and keep that up. At first, that means all skills are trained or expert. Once you hit third level, though, then folks start getting master proficiency in skills. And at seventh, now they can start getting legendary stuff. Doesn’t bumping up the numbers on everything by +2 just kind of cancel out? For some things, yes. But when you go to treat wounds or roll for a Bard ability, they still assume a lower a lower proficiency in the DC. Plus, all those skill feats are giving abilities earlier. At high levels, you’ll need to start figuring out mythic proficiency. It gives +10 instead of +8, and should probably have some pretty amazing skill feats and automatic perks. (A decent general effect would be nat 1s don’t get treated differently than nat 2s, and 19s are treated like 20s.)
The other part to this is adding in some mythic flavor. There should be some fixed stuff that everyone gets. Automatic bonus progression so that any weapon or armor becomes powerful in their possession (so all items are cool ones), some extra health, maybe a d4 mythic surge that progresses to d6, etc. Then, a menu of flavorful mythic abilities to choose from that don’t mess with balance any further. Immortality, grant followers spells, access to everything uncommon (since in theory it’s balanced against common stuff), an intelligent item, some sort of aura that affects low-level commoners in a significant way (permanent level 1 Remove Disease cast in a 100ft. radius, that kind of thing), etc.
My rough idea for mythic would have a few parts.
Some Legendary proficiency stuff already feels a little mythic. Survival lets you skip needing food, water, or air. Intimidate lets you scare someone to death. So, bump everything up a proficiency once folks hit mythic, and keep that up. At first, that means all skills are trained or expert. Once you hit third level, though, then folks start getting master proficiency in skills. And at seventh, now they can start getting legendary stuff. Doesn’t bumping up the numbers on everything by +2 just kind of cancel out? For some things, yes. But when you go to treat wounds or roll for a Bard ability, they still assume a lower a lower proficiency in the DC. Plus, all those skill feats are giving abilities earlier. At high levels, you’ll need to start figuring out mythic proficiency. It gives +10 instead of +8, and should probably have some pretty amazing skill feats and automatic perks. (A decent general effect would be nat 1s don’t get treated differently than nat 2s, and 19s are treated like 20s.)
The other part to this is adding in some mythic flavor. There should be some fixed stuff that everyone gets. Automatic bonus progression so that any weapon or armor becomes powerful in their possession (so all items are cool ones), some extra health, maybe a d4 mythic surge that progresses to d6, etc. Then, a menu of flavorful mythic abilities to choose from that don’t mess with balance any further. Immortality, grant followers spells, access to everything uncommon (since in theory it’s balanced against common stuff), an intelligent item, some sort of aura that affects low-level commoners in a significant way (permanent level 1 Remove Disease cast in a 100ft. radius, that kind of thing), etc.
I'm not sure I would bump up Untrained, I like characters having blind spots even at their most powerful... but it might work. Otherwise we could keep 2 experience tracks, and try to fix the mythic one somehow. I'll really need to see how the finalized rules work in August, though: for instance the old mythic gives you bonuses to one or more ability scores, and I feel having one at superhuman levels has the right feel, but perhaps the normal level progression already gives you something like that.
On the other hand your method - essentially giving higher level stats at lower levels if I understand correctly - accomplishes much of the intended feel with great simplicity.
I'm very much on board with the menu of flavorful mythic abilities - as long as it doesn't directly interact with the math behind the system I think we could really go crazy here. An automatic bonus progression that completely frees you from dependency on magic item bonuses sounds great too. Extra health could lead to too long battles if applied to mythic monsters as well, so we'd need to give extra damage as well, with the payoff being that around the same combat duration you get to play with bigger numbers (but isn't that largely what level ups do?).
The mythic surge is at once something that excites me and worries me. It's that moment when you break the underlying math, with the proviso that it won't happen often (but it will happen when you most need it). At the same time I can see it totally destroy a game if not handled carefully. That said I don't have a clear idea about what really makes the mythic rules broken, so I'll need everyone's help if we'll decide to go on with WotR.
Which, btw, with all the new APs coming out, will actually be a difficult proposition. I'm already salivating at the idea of all the great new campaigns we'll get, but the fact I've officially missed out on all the old APs really saddens me =/
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Early access to legendary skill feats had occurred to me as well. You could also treat level as twice as high for class feats. Sneak Savant at level 6 and Implausible Infiltration at 10 feels pretty mythic for a rogue, as an example. The issue is there aren't that many high level class feats so I'm not sure what people will be picking by level 16. I suppose they can always multiclass?
Early access to legendary skill feats had occurred to me as well. You could also treat level as twice as high for class feats. Sneak Savant at level 6 and Implausible Infiltration at 10 feels pretty mythic for a rogue, as an example. The issue is there aren't that many high level class feats so I'm not sure what people will be picking by level 16. I suppose they can always multiclass?
That's a thought. Or we come up with even stronger feats trying to build on the back of 20th level feats without breaking anything.
In other news, I'm derailing this thread something fierce =/ I must thank you all for the feedback, ideas and links, but I feel I really should let all of you get back on track. We can always start a new thread to talk about possible iterations of the mythic rules for 2e...
... It just didn't occur to me when I posted, it was spur of the moment. Sorry!
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Eh it isn't like we are going to get anything else out of Garycon, you're fine.
Another boost you could consider is turning feat trees into single scaling feats. Honestly many should already be this way. That would leave even fewer choices by high level though.
Eh it isn't like we are going to get anything else out of Garycon, you're fine.
Another boost you could consider is turning feat trees into single scaling feats. Honestly many should already be this way. That would leave even fewer choices by high level though.Lol I'm already doing this to a degree in the Playtest game I'm running. XD
Your initial Druid order gives you all of its feats as they come, Monk styles give their enhancements, counterspell gives reflect spell, Bloodlines give all their powers, etc.
Aye, I've long considered such changes. I mostly haven't implemented them because I don't think my players really want the added complexity.
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So earlier on in this thread Mark was describing his experience in running War for the Crown with the latest rules.
I'm very interested in this. I'm running Wrath of the Righteous and we're loving it, but the 1e rules aren't helping =/ We've even tried different systems, but we really would like to continue the campaign with 2e, even if it will take months to get there.
How hard could it be to convert WotR to the new edition? I know we'll have a lot of monsters in the first Bestiary, which is great. How fast will we get non-common ancestries though? And most of all, does anyone know when (and if!) we'll get Mythic mechanics?
These are just some of the questions we're having. It's a truly great campaign and we're having a boatload of fun, but it would be so much better using 2e, we're quite sure...
I would describe it as very easy when you have an equivalent monster to use in the Bestiary. The two main things that take a bit of effort are converting encounters (monsters/NPCs) and rejiggering treasure a bit (though WftC in particular is pretty high on "Each PC gets a level-appropriate item as a reward for a job well done" rewards that I was able to use to great advantage during the playtest, since it sent my playtesters checking every single item of a given level and spotting all kinds of little mistakes while they were at it), and neither of those is particularly challenging. The rest I can run mostly as is, with some slight DC adjustments that are pretty easy to make. All the little victory point subsystems and RP situations can stay as-is (or at least, as much as-is as if I was running in PF1, since I tend to tweak these anyway).
I actually did a lot less work converting WftC to PF2 than I did for any of my previous PF1 APs running them in PF1 (For instance, in my previous campaign, a PF1 Jade Regent game, it took a lot of time to write a brand-new caravan combat minigame based on the Harrow deck, a bunch of mythic oni and other revamped versions of most of the major opponents in the AP, extra types of mooks for some of the dungeons that relied heavily on many encounters with varying sets of the same few mooks (adding a mook oracle and bard to the lineup of fighter/rogues really made those encounters pop nicely, but I had to build 'em), and so on. Building something custom just takes a lot of time in PF1, so for instance converting a whole volume's worth of encounters is probably less time than building an accurate statblock in PF1 for a mid-level oracle and bard (even though those were good investments of my time by a PF1 standard as I was able to use those stats many times).
So if you're a GM who tends to make a lot of adjustments to the adventure anyway, running a PF1 AP in PF2 may save time. It adds a bit of time if you normally don't do that, though.
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The two main things that take a bit of effort are converting encounters (monsters/NPCs) and rejiggering treasure a bit (though WftC in particular is pretty high on "Each PC gets a level-appropriate item as a reward for a job well done" rewards)
I believe one of my players referred to this as "we're bankrolled by royalty". The adventure offers so many chances to just tweak party wealth that any mistakes I make can probably be fixed within two sessions :D Perfect for getting used to things.
And having ran this campaign in both systems... Yeah, it takes me almost the same time to prep either. Minus the extra time I had to take to figure out what custom changes I had to make for the P1 party. P2's system helps a lot!
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The two main things that take a bit of effort are converting encounters (monsters/NPCs) and rejiggering treasure a bit (though WftC in particular is pretty high on "Each PC gets a level-appropriate item as a reward for a job well done" rewards)I believe one of my players referred to this as "we're bankrolled by royalty". The adventure offers so many chances to just tweak party wealth that any mistakes I make can probably be fixed within two sessions :D Perfect for getting used to things.
And having ran this campaign in both systems... Yeah, it takes me almost the same time to prep either. Minus the extra time I had to take to figure out what custom changes I had to make for the P1 party. P2's system helps a lot!
Ah great, glad to have a more controlled A/B test, since it was always possible the change of AP influenced my prep time and I want to be forthright and realistic about the timing (though if anything, I read on the GM threads that WftC is a bit tougher to prep than the other APs I ran).
The bankrolled by royalty is a big plus for training wheels with treasure, and the AP is just a lot of fun overall with lots of RP opportunity and cool situations, so I recommend it for anyone looking to dip their toes into running converted PF1 APs in PF2, other than that it does eventually have some occult adventures stuff (I designed the main thing I'll need for OA, though, so converting that is comparatively easier for me).
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I'm currently running WftC myself with PF2 rules. We will wrap up the second book this week. I've largely left the modules as is. When it comes to monsters, I snip the PF1 stat block from the book, then find an appropriate monster from the PF2 bestiary for that level and paste beside the PF1 stat block. This lets me retain the PF1 vision, abilities, and feel of the monster, while using the proper numbers for a PF2 monster of the correct level.
The process is pretty simple and works fine. It's really not a lot of work. Most things convert easy enough, some require some hand-waving.
The only thing that I got hung up on, and I'm still not sure I'm doing it right, is the PF2 equivalent of Sense Motive. I've basically been having players make a Perception check against a creatures Will DC (Will Save bonus plus 10) if they want to sense that something is wrong or off. I suspect I should be using the Deception (Lie) but that doesn't seem right either in some cases.
Mark, if you are still around, I'd appreciate an answer on how that should work in PF2!
I'm currently running WftC myself with PF2 rules. We will wrap up the second book this week. I've largely left the modules as is. When it comes to monsters, I snip the PF1 stat block from the book, then find an appropriate monster from the PF2 bestiary for that level and paste beside the PF1 stat block. This lets me retain the PF1 vision, abilities, and feel of the monster, while using the proper numbers for a PF2 monster of the correct level.
The process is pretty simple and works fine. It's really not a lot of work. Most things convert easy enough, some require some hand-waving.
The only thing that I got hung up on, and I'm still not sure I'm doing it right, is the PF2 equivalent of Sense Motive. I've basically been having players make a Perception check against a creatures Will DC (Will Save bonus plus 10) if they want to sense that something is wrong or off. I suspect I should be using the Deception (Lie) but that doesn't seem right either in some cases.
Mark, if you are still around, I'd appreciate an answer on how that should work in PF2!
I recall it's supposed to be Deception vs Perception DC in the playtest, but that could 100% have changed in the final version with the change to untrained skills.
I recall it's supposed to be Deception vs Perception DC in the playtest, but that could 100% have changed in the final version with the change to untrained skills.
I suspect you are right but I have had situations where players want to detect if someone is being influenced (whether by drugs, possession, or the like) and no active lie is being told. It just didn't feel right to use Deception in those cases, so I wound up using my own method which so far, seems to work fine.
Still, thanks for the reply, as I can no longer recall the actual PF2 playetest rule!
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Yeah, my PF1 campaigns included a lot of house rules and tweaks already that I'm not actually sure I'm losing time for PF2. The biggest issue was balance. If one of my players built an overly strong character, I had to either ask said players to nerf themselves or help all the other players make characters about as powerful, or something in between. Then I needed to adjust the encounters to whatever that new balance point was.
Level and the encounter building budgets just feel soooo much better tuned than CR ever did. It is really nice.
I recall it's supposed to be Deception vs Perception DC in the playtest, but that could 100% have changed in the final version with the change to untrained skills.I suspect you are right but I have had situations where players want to detect if someone is being influenced (whether by drugs, possession, or the like) and no active lie is being told. It just didn't feel right to use Deception in those cases, so I wound up using my own method which so far, seems to work fine.
Still, thanks for the reply, as I can no longer recall the actual PF2 playetest rule!
I'd say it would depend on the effect. If it is possession, you would definitely be using a Deception DC if the creature is trying to play off that it isn't possessed. If they are dealing with some sort of effect with a save DC, that's always a pretty safe target number. Seems to work for a variety of other things already.
Otherwise, I'd just pick an appropriate level challenge and use table 10-2.
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One of my PF2 players is a Vinmark, so I had to be very clear on this - it’s never a check. At times, players might tell me they’re suspicious, and it’s up to me to roll a Deception vs Perception DC (occasionally that’s a void roll with no reason). Speaking of which, I’ll make a macro for it...
(The only exception would be curses, enchantments or similar effects, in which case yeah, it’s Perception vs a DC)
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I would describe it as very easy when you have an equivalent monster to use in the Bestiary. The two main things that take a bit of effort are converting encounters (monsters/NPCs) and rejiggering treasure a bit (though WftC in particular is pretty high on "Each PC gets a level-appropriate item as a reward for a job well done" rewards that I was able to use to great advantage during the playtest, since it sent my playtesters checking every single item of a given level and spotting all kinds of little mistakes while they were at it), and neither of those is particularly challenging. The rest I can run mostly as is, with some slight DC adjustments that are pretty easy to make. All the little victory point subsystems and RP situations can stay as-is (or at least, as much as-is as if I was running in PF1, since I tend to tweak these anyway).
Yes, with equivalent monsters from 2e Bestiary it should be quite easy, I agree, and there are so many in there (I don't think there's all the varieties of demons in the AP, but once I get a little practice I can come up with stat blocks myself, I think). Treasure doesn't worry me, I can just insert a 2e magic item fitting for the new economy, or at most convert those unique devices littering the AP.
I actually did a lot less work converting WftC to PF2 than I did for any of my previous PF1 APs running them in PF1 (For instance, in my previous campaign, a PF1 Jade Regent game, it took a lot of time to write a brand-new caravan combat minigame based on the Harrow deck, a bunch of mythic oni and other revamped versions of most of the major opponents in the AP, extra types of mooks for some of the dungeons that relied heavily on many encounters with varying sets of the same few mooks (adding a mook oracle and bard to the lineup of fighter/rogues really made those encounters pop nicely, but I had to build 'em), and so on. Building something custom just takes a lot of time in PF1, so for instance converting a whole volume's worth of encounters is probably less time than building an accurate statblock in PF1 for a mid-level oracle and bard (even though those were good investments of my time by a PF1 standard as I was able to use those stats many times).
So my takeaway from your observations is that 2e is much better balanced and easier to build things with. Which is pretty awesome. I really can't wait to have the finalized system in my grubby grabby little hands.
So if you're a GM who tends to make a lot of adjustments to the adventure anyway, running a PF1 AP in PF2 may save time. It adds a bit of time if you normally don't do that, though.
I'm a GM who tends to use other systems to play the APs, truth be told, because 1e never really convinced me even though I came to like many aspects of it (classes, archetypes, Unchained and optional rules, the list goes on). So in a way I'm used to adapting adventures. I really hope I'll be able to do the same for WotR, since from what I'm reading finalized 2e is a pretty great system, or at least that's my impression (and not so secret hope. Anyways if we now have a single DC for each level instead of 5-6 as in the playtest I'm already much happier!).
Thank you Mark, it's always great to see you swoop down into a thread and lend a hand or give us the straight dope about some new development.
If I can bother you further, can I ask how you would convert mythic levels for WotR, very very loosely? Only if you have the time and inclination though. Thanks again and all the best for your work (not really a selfless wish!) ;)
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I'm currently running WftC myself with PF2 rules. We will wrap up the second book this week. I've largely left the modules as is. When it comes to monsters, I snip the PF1 stat block from the book, then find an appropriate monster from the PF2 bestiary for that level and paste beside the PF1 stat block. This lets me retain the PF1 vision, abilities, and feel of the monster, while using the proper numbers for a PF2 monster of the correct level.
The process is pretty simple and works fine. It's really not a lot of work. Most things convert easy enough, some require some hand-waving.
The only thing that I got hung up on, and I'm still not sure I'm doing it right, is the PF2 equivalent of Sense Motive. I've basically been having players make a Perception check against a creatures Will DC (Will Save bonus plus 10) if they want to sense that something is wrong or off. I suspect I should be using the Deception (Lie) but that doesn't seem right either in some cases.
Mark, if you are still around, I'd appreciate an answer on how that should work in PF2!
Cool! You, Ediwir, and I can share tips. I'm on Book 4 right now and going strong. One of the best parts for me is how much easier it is to adjust for my 6 highly-skilled players.
Anyway, on Sense Motive, everyone here is correct. However, they are also right about that sort of bespoke nameless "Perception check vs. weird behavior that isn't lying" being a thing, so for the final, we wound up calling that thing "Sense Motive" and giving it reverse success conditions of Lie when used against Deception, kind of like how Seek and Hide/Sneak have reverse success conditions.
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I would describe it as very easy when you have an equivalent monster to use in the Bestiary. The two main things that take a bit of effort are converting encounters (monsters/NPCs) and rejiggering treasure a bit (though WftC in particular is pretty high on "Each PC gets a level-appropriate item as a reward for a job well done" rewards that I was able to use to great advantage during the playtest, since it sent my playtesters checking every single item of a given level and spotting all kinds of little mistakes while they were at it), and neither of those is particularly challenging. The rest I can run mostly as is, with some slight DC adjustments that are pretty easy to make. All the little victory point subsystems and RP situations can stay as-is (or at least, as much as-is as if I was running in PF1, since I tend to tweak these anyway).Yes, with equivalent monsters from 2e Bestiary it should be quite easy, I agree, and there are so many in there (I don't think there's all the varieties of demons in the AP, but once I get a little practice I can come up with stat blocks myself, I think). Treasure doesn't worry me, I can just insert a 2e magic item fitting for the new economy, or at most convert those unique devices littering the AP.
So my takeaway from your observations is that 2e is much better balanced and easier to build things with. Which is pretty awesome. I really can't wait to have the finalized system in my grubby grabby little hands.
I'm a GM who tends to use other systems to play the APs, truth be told, because 1e never really convinced me even though I came to like many aspects of it (classes, archetypes, Unchained and optional rules, the list goes on). So in a way I'm used to adapting adventures. I really hope I'll be able to do the same for WotR, since from what I'm reading finalized 2e is a pretty great system, or at least that's my impression (and not so secret hope. Anyways if we now have a single DC for each level instead of 5-6 as in the playtest I'm already much happier!).
Thank you Mark, it's always great to see you swoop down into a thread and lend a hand or give us the straight dope about some new development.
If I can bother you further, can I ask how you would convert mythic levels for WotR, very very loosely? Only if you have the time and inclination though. Thanks again and all the best for your work (not really a selfless wish!) ;)
Your observations and guesses seem right to me. If you were typically running PF1 APs in another system, there probably can't really be a better "other" system to run them than PF2, which was built to be compatible with the stories and world, if not all the mechanics.
If you look around online, people are giving an answer about mythic that I gave somewhere a long time ago during the playtest as a spitball when asked about mythic, either because it's passed around the telephone game or they invented it themselves. If the latter, even better! But basically you could have a mythic character reach one higher proficiency rank than normal for their level in their key mythic attributes, reaching a mythic (+10) proficiency when they would have been legendary. Then you can also make new things that require mythic proficiency. No idea what we'll actually do when it comes down to it, but that's at least a good way to crib it for now!
I'm also hoping for the best. All I can ask is to check it out, see if you like it, and if you do, remember to speak up and get out the buzz. There will be people who love it, people who like it, people who don't really care one way or the other, and people who don't like it. All with valid opinions. But the people who don't like it are guaranteed to be likely to speak up because not liking something just moves us more to talk about it. If people who like it speak up too, it can help energize all the folks here at Paizo!
Mark, I don't know if you can tell us about this yet, but are there any news you can share about Spell Heightening? It is a very cool concept but the feedback from most of my players was that it felt a bit too restrictive in its current state, so I would love to know how you guys handled it for the final game.
Also, great news about Sense Motive. This is not a change in mechanics but clarity can be equally as important.
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Mark, I don't know if you can tell us about this yet, but are there any news you can share about Spell Heightening? It is a very cool concept but the feedback from most of my players was that it felt a bit too restrictive in its current state, so I would love to know how you guys handled it for the final game.
When I first was jiggering around with heightening four years ago, we actually had a version that was much more freeform, for instance you might have something like:
Sample Spell (Level 2)
This spell gives 1 target 1 SampleThing for 1 minute.
Heighten +2: Increase the number of SampleThings the target receives by 1.
Heighten +4: Increase the number of targets to 6
Heighten +3: Increase the duration to 10 minutes
When you decipher all that, you can see that this could lead to a bunch of different combinations depending on what heighten choices you made.
The problem was, even most people at Paizo found it pretty complicated to handle, so we're going to stick with a simpler throughline of one path of heightening per spell, at least for now. A spell like the one above is not disallowed by the game system, though, so a more complex heightening spell could still show up down the line in a more advanced product, it just won't be on a more basic spell.
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Oh, that's nice to hear, but that's not exactly what I was talking about. Actually I didn't even think of that, this is... pretty cool. But my point is not on the spell effects themselves but more about the way heightening as a mechanic works. Especially Spontaneous Casters having two Spontaneous Heightening slots and having to learn the same spell more than once with their already small-ish repertoire if they want more (or buy more with a feat if they are a Bard).
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Oh, that's nice to hear, but that's not exactly what I was talking about. Actually I didn't even think of that, this is... pretty cool. But my point is not on the spell effects themselves but more about the way heightening as a mechanic works. Especially Spontaneous Casters having two Spontaneous Heightening slots and having to learn the same spell more than once with their already small-ish repertoire if they want more (or buy more with a feat if they are a Bard).
Oh, gotcha, you mean heightening for spontaneous casters, rather than heightening in general for everybody. Logan and I had a long chat about this topic, and we think we found a way to do it that gives you a lot more leeway than spontaneous heightening did, without bringing back the analysis paralysis of the time when I first wrote it with free heightening and without causing issues where spontaneous casters have pressure to stock up on only heightenable spells and bloodlines with non-heightenable spells have a problem. Anecdotally, the spontaneous casters seem pretty happy with it. Hopefully for your group too!
Oh, gotcha, you mean heightening for spontaneous casters, rather than heightening in general for everybody. Logan and I had a long chat about this topic, and we think we found a way to do it that gives you a lot more leeway than spontaneous heightening did, without bringing back the analysis paralysis of the time when I first wrote it with free heightening and without causing issues where spontaneous casters have pressure to stock up on only heightenable spells and bloodlines with non-heightenable spells have a problem. Anecdotally, the spontaneous casters seem pretty happy with it. Hopefully for your group too!
Yeah I should have explained this better before, sometimes I forget people can't read my mind, sorry. But I'm very happy about that, can't wait to see the new solution! I'm known for not being a big fan of vancian casting, but with that and hopefully something like Quick Preparation for everyone (a man can dream), I'll be able to have a lot of fun with casters even with that fact. My party will certainly love this news!
I’m reiterating what you spitballed earlier because I was part of that conversation! I just tried to flesh it out a bit.
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Oh, gotcha, you mean heightening for spontaneous casters, rather than heightening in general for everybody. Logan and I had a long chat about this topic, and we think we found a way to do it that gives you a lot more leeway than spontaneous heightening did, without bringing back the analysis paralysis of the time when I first wrote it with free heightening and without causing issues where spontaneous casters have pressure to stock up on only heightenable spells and bloodlines with non-heightenable spells have a problem. Anecdotally, the spontaneous casters seem pretty happy with it. Hopefully for your group too!Yeah I should have explained this better before, sometimes I forget people can't read my mind, sorry. But I'm very happy about that, can't wait to see the new solution! I'm known for not being a big fan of vancian casting, but with that and hopefully something like Quick Preparation for everyone (a man can hope), I'll be able to have a lot of fun with casters even with that fact. My party will certainly love this news!
Nah, you're good. Even though you didn't say it directly, I actually should have realized due to the use of the word restrictive, which most people were using to refer to Spontaneous Heightning during the playtest, instead of my mind going to "It could be that complex freeform heightening thing that nobody knows about, but our playtesters include a lot of talented amateur designers so maybe dmerceless figured out about that possibility while playing around with the possibilities for heightening."
Anyway, on Sense Motive, everyone here is correct. However, they are also right about that sort of bespoke nameless "Perception check vs. weird behavior that isn't lying" being a thing, so for the final, we wound up calling that thing "Sense Motive" and giving it reverse success conditions of Lie when used against Deception, kind of like how Seek and Hide/Sneak have reverse success conditions.
Thanks for replying Mark, although I'm a little confused. Is Sense Motive a use under Deception or a use under Perception.
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Anyway, on Sense Motive, everyone here is correct. However, they are also right about that sort of bespoke nameless "Perception check vs. weird behavior that isn't lying" being a thing, so for the final, we wound up calling that thing "Sense Motive" and giving it reverse success conditions of Lie when used against Deception, kind of like how Seek and Hide/Sneak have reverse success conditions.Thanks for replying Mark, although I'm a little confused. Is Sense Motive a use under Deception or a use under Perception.
Perception, so it's a basic action rather than a skill use.
Perception, so it's a basic action rather than a skill use.
Perfect! Thanks!
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Your observations and guesses seem right to me. If you were typically running PF1 APs in another system, there probably can't really be a better "other" system to run them than PF2, which was built to be compatible with the stories and world, if not all the mechanics.
Of course! If I had started playing PF when it first came out I would probably be playing 1st edition even now - but this time around I'm giving 2e my full attention, and I can't wait to run Age of Ashes for my peeps!
If you look around online, people are giving an answer about mythic that I gave somewhere a long time ago during the playtest as a spitball when asked about mythic, either because it's passed around the telephone game or they invented it themselves. If the latter, even better! But basically you could have a mythic character reach one higher proficiency rank than normal for their level in their key mythic attributes, reaching a mythic (+10) proficiency when they would have been legendary. Then you can also make new things that require mythic proficiency. No idea what we'll actually do when it comes down to it, but that's at least a good way to crib it for now!
So nudging the proficiency rank up, huh? That's so simple and elegant, but I shouldn't be surprised, you're an excellent game designer... Feats requiring Mythic proficiency will probably seem entirely supernatural, I reckon, and that's mostly as it should be... If I do manage to continue WotR in 2e, before the new mythic rules come around (if they do, of course!), I'm gonna follow your advice!
I'm also hoping for the best. All I can ask is to check it out, see if you like it, and if you do, remember to speak up and get out the buzz. There will be people who love it, people who like it, people who don't really care one way or the other, and people who don't like it. All with valid opinions. But the people who don't like it are guaranteed to be likely to speak up because not liking something just moves us more to talk about it. If people who like it speak up too, it can help energize all the folks here at Paizo!
You bet I'll check it out! I've started to put some money away to buy the dead tree version of the core rulebook, plus the Bestiary and Age of Lost Omen pdfs... oh, wait, there's also Druma and Age of Ashes... yes, well, I'll need to figure out a budget, that's for sure. I love Golarion, its characters, the Adventure Paths... and this edition of Pathfinder seems so great, streamlined yet customizable, simple, coherent, exciting! I'm almost sure my table will end up liking it - and when I love something it's very difficult to get me to shut up XD
Will 1-6 casters, like the War Priest and Magus return? Multiclassing really did not feel like them, to much of what made them interesting was missing (though Eldritch Knight was mostly covered), for instance the Fervor/Arcane Points mechanics, the more focused spell lists, the reduction in casting (really made a War Priest 'feel' more like the ADnD Cleric bought forwards and updated, rather than the Divine Mage that full 1-9 feels like) Given that War Priest is turning up as a Path name I am not hopeful that the partial casters will return, but some of my favourite classes are in that category, and without being able to change it day to day Spell Powers don't have that vibe, while 1-9 is to much emphasis on magic.
At launch? Seems like no. Later on? Who knows?
I think a good mental position to take is that while you won't be able to perfectly duplicate all character builds like they were in PF1, you will likely now be able to build new things that weren't even remotely possible before.
It is a new game with a new system. If what you want is PF1, keep playing PF1. If you want to keep playing the new APs? Take a little extra time to adapt them, where possible.
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If you look around online, people are giving an answer about mythic that I gave somewhere a long time ago during the playtest as a spitball when asked about mythic, either because it's passed around the telephone game or they invented it themselves. If the latter, even better! But basically you could have a mythic character reach one higher proficiency rank than normal for their level in their key mythic attributes, reaching a mythic (+10) proficiency when they would have been legendary. Then you can also make new things that require mythic proficiency. No idea what we'll actually do when it comes down to it, but that's at least a good way to crib it for now!
So is there currently any intention to bring back Mythic rules in PF2 at some point, or is it too early to tell? I rather liked mythic myself, but there certainly were some balance issues and PF2 would give a chance to do it over and remedy those. I do like the concept you've got here, with Mythic bumping up proficiencies, adding a new Proficiency and feats requiring that proficiency. Would the concept of Mythic Tiers still be around in this concept, and what form would it take? Would it increase the proficiency scaling, or allow more things to benefit from the proficiency bump? I'd probably recommend that there be some Mythic feats that don't require Mythic Proficiency. I rather like how Mythic wasn't like the old Epic rules, instead of adding on to the end, it was a parallel advancement track. If those mythic feats were all gated behind the highest proficiency, then it would kind of be going back to end-game content instead of parallel. Getting proficiency ranks faster would still be a nice boost for lower level characters, but lacks some of the flavor of the weird unique abilities. Of course balancing the lower end abilities would be very tricky.
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I like the idea of spontaneous heightening getting the equivalent of Quick Preparation, switching their selected spells with 10 minutes of meditation. It would remove the decision paralysis in combat issue. It WOULD be very strong, albeit not especially better than quick preparation. It seems like some thing that should maybe go to sorcerers only. It would help them regain a lot of ground on bards, clerics, and druids with the same spell list.
I'm currently running WftC myself with PF2 rules. We will wrap up the second book this week. I've largely left the modules as is. When it comes to monsters, I snip the PF1 stat block from the book, then find an appropriate monster from the PF2 bestiary for that level and paste beside the PF1 stat block. This lets me retain the PF1 vision, abilities, and feel of the monster, while using the proper numbers for a PF2 monster of the correct level.
The process is pretty simple and works fine. It's really not a lot of work. Most things convert easy enough, some require some hand-waving.
The only thing that I got hung up on, and I'm still not sure I'm doing it right, is the PF2 equivalent of Sense Motive. I've basically been having players make a Perception check against a creatures Will DC (Will Save bonus plus 10) if they want to sense that something is wrong or off. I suspect I should be using the Deception (Lie) but that doesn't seem right either in some cases.
Mark, if you are still around, I'd appreciate an answer on how that should work in PF2!
Cool! You, Ediwir, and I can share tips. I'm on Book 4 right now and going strong. One of the best parts for me is how much easier it is to adjust for my 6 highly-skilled players.
Anyway, on Sense Motive, everyone here is correct. However, they are also right about that sort of bespoke nameless "Perception check vs. weird behavior that isn't lying" being a thing, so for the final, we wound up calling that thing "Sense Motive" and giving it reverse success conditions of Lie when used against Deception, kind of like how Seek and Hide/Sneak have reverse success conditions.
I'm curious how the DC looks if you are rolling Sense Motive on someone that is genuinely trustworthy. Theoretically the more charismatic they are the easier it should be for them to convince you. Some kind of flat DC which subtracts the NPC's Diplomacy score?