I think that's it from Paizo. If you want the scoop from those following developments with bated breath though, try the PF2 forum.
That about sums it up. Also, conversion support will be, um, I dunno, good luck? Likely to be much more difficult than the 3.5 to Pathfinder RPG transition.
That about sums it up. Also, conversion support will be, um, I dunno, good luck? Likely to be much more difficult than the 3.5 to Pathfinder RPG transition.
Since it's the same company many of the monsters will be the same. You should just need to adjust the CRs and use the P1 vs. P2 stat block.
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The rules have changed sufficiently that the stat blocks won't have much meaning.
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The rules have changed sufficiently that the stat blocks won't have much meaning.
It depends a bit on what you're talking about. If you're looking at running an adventure, as long as the Bestiary has the PF2 version of the monster (or vice versa if you're trying to use a PF2 adventure with PF1 rules), then it's pretty drag and drop to swap things out. If you're trying to emulate a very specific character build, there's less one-to-one transferring that'll happen and you'll be looking at more of a rebuild, though this tends to go a lot quicker with NPCs since they don't have to use the same framework as PCs.
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I think it's a poor assumption that an adventure with a set of PF2 monsters as encounters would automatically be a good challenge (not a killer, not a walkover) if you swapped in PF1 monsters of the same names. Some thought would be required.
I guess it depends on how much the relative difficulty class of a given monster changes between games. Is a manticore in New 'n' Pathy the same level of threat to a 7th level party as a manticore in Pathfinder RPG?
The NPC thing, well, you'd certainly know better than me as a developer, Mr. Sayre, but I remain skeptical until I see the final rules and attempt some conversions myself. ; ) Prove me wrong!
I think it's a poor assumption that an adventure with a set of PF2 monsters as encounters would automatically be a good challenge (not a killer, not a walkover) if you swapped in PF1 monsters of the same names. Some thought would be required.
To be fair, I think it's always a good idea to adjust encounters to your specific party anyways. However, you do need to pay close attention to tactics since some combat tactics that work in 2E won't work in 1E, either because they just don't work in 1E ruleset or because there's an easy counter-measure to shut it down in 1E that doesn't exist in 2E.
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I guess it depends on how much the relative difficulty class of a given monster changes between games. Is a manticore in New 'n' Pathy the same level of threat to a 7th level party as a manticore in Pathfinder RPG?
There was specific thought and planning put into making sure that monsters in PF2 were of the same level (plus or minus 1 in a very few cases) as their PF1 version's CR. I have not yet run into a situation where a PF2 version of a monster wasn't able to perform the suggested tactics of its PF1 version, though there probably is some potential there in the case of extremely specific tactics (like something that involves specifically using a spell that has a different name in PF2, such as cure X spells becoming heal, or using an ability that functions a bit differently, like channel energy becoming a function of heal.) Pretty much any time an encounter says "You fight a dragon/wyvern/gryphon/etc." then that will still be an appropriate encounter regardless of which system you happen to be running the adventure in.
Monster substitution is generally the easy bit (speaking as someone who always run Paizo APs, regardless of system). It’s easy enough to just grab a similar statblock from the target system and describe it all for the players using flavour from the source system.
I think it’s going to be more awkward to convert PF2 skill challenges, especially on the fly. The introduction of UTEML is a second dimension to skills - it seems unlikely to me that there’s going to be a quick and easy way to convert that to a simple DC.
As ever in these discussions, the direction of conversion is relevant. I’m speaking about running PF2 adventures using PF1 rules.
I don't know that it is. The expected DC is about 10 + 1/2 PC level + 1-4, give or take. If you've been running Pathfinder 1 for any appreciable time, you should be able to eyeball a DC for a level appropriate encounter.
There is now the concept of gating though - you’ll have to come up with some ”reasonably easy DC but only for certain people” mechanic It’ll be easy enough to do, I suspect.
My point was that people tend to focus on monster stat blocks when discussing system conversions. In my experience, that’s usually the easy bit (provided the target system is robust enough).
I feel like the easiest thing to do will be to ignore teml gates for skill checks. It's an added dimension with some neat applications but it won't be terribly hard to just translate DC numbers. If certain skill checks are too easy, it's not a huge loss.
I feel like the easiest thing to do will be to ignore teml gates for skill checks. It's an added dimension with some neat applications but it won't be terribly hard to just translate DC numbers. If certain skill checks are too easy, it's not a huge loss.
There will be a solution. (My instint is to just boost the DC per tier by some amount - or to import a gating system along the lines of “expert tasks can only be attempted by people with 7 ranks” or something). I think this is where the effort is going to lie. There’s other issues beyond DCs encapsulated within UTEML.
There’s going to be a loss in translation i suspect. Orcs, ogres, frost giants... will be easy enough to port over. Portraying the difference between Tasks with DC30 ungated and DC10(Master) will be where the effort is, imo.
I think fightinga PF2 dragon will feel like a fighting PF1 dragon. I’m not sure a scene involving the rogue stealthily leading their party through the castle is going to feel the same.
I have not yet run into a situation where a PF2 version of a monster wasn't able to perform the suggested tactics of its PF1 version, though there probably is some potential there in the case of extremely specific tactics
I was thinking more in terms of PF2->PF1 conversion. You have the 3-action economy which doesn't really translate back very well, mobility is a lot more free in PF2 and it's harder to lock someone down, effects that trigger on critical success or failure don't have good analogues, combat tends to be faster paced so strategies that take time to execute are virtually always disrupted, and you're much more likely to run into "hard stop" effects that can't be overpowered without the right abilities.
In terms of PF1->PF2 conversion, the big thing I see is that buffs and debuffs cap out at much smaller values. In PF1 if you've got a mid-level bard or some other class that's good at buffing/debuffing, you can give him really low CR mooks and they'll still be threatening because of the support he can give. In PF2 playtest buffs didn't swing quite that hard, and unless there were some big changes in the final version that kind of force multiplier tactic just isn't possible in 2E, at least not to the same extent as it was in 1E.
In any case, I suspect that an experienced GM could modify any such encounter to at least keep to its spirit, even if substantial overhauls are necessary to make it work with the edition mechanics.
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I have not yet run into a situation where a PF2 version of a monster wasn't able to perform the suggested tactics of its PF1 version, though there probably is some potential there in the case of extremely specific tacticsI was thinking more in terms of PF2->PF1 conversion. You have the 3-action economy which doesn't really translate back very well, mobility is a lot more free in PF2 and it's harder to lock someone down, effects that trigger on critical success or failure don't have good analogues, combat tends to be faster paced so strategies that take time to execute are virtually always disrupted, and you're much more likely to run into "hard stop" effects that can't be overpowered without the right abilities.
In terms of PF1->PF2 conversion, the big thing I see is that buffs and debuffs cap out at much smaller values. In PF1 if you've got a mid-level bard or some other class that's good at buffing/debuffing, you can give him really low CR mooks and they'll still be threatening because of the support he can give. In PF2 playtest buffs didn't swing quite that hard, and unless there were some big changes in the final version that kind of force multiplier tactic just isn't possible in 2E, at least not to the same extent as it was in 1E.
In any case, I suspect that an experienced GM could modify any such encounter to at least keep to its spirit, even if substantial overhauls are necessary to make it work with the edition mechanics.
One thing you might consider checking out if your plan is to continue to use PF2 adventures with Pf1 rules is the 3pp supplement Spheres of Might. When I was working on that with Adam and the team at Drop Dead Studios, we actually had the same goals of mobility and cinematic combat that PF2 does really well, but bolted onto the PF1 chassis. The GM Toolbox section with rules and templates for martial monsters could be particularly useful. You can also always consider adopting Pathfinder Unchained if that has any interest for you, since the alternate action system in there is very similar to the PF2 action economy.
I'm not actually sure how much of that is necessary though? It's pretty rare for a published adventure to use tactics entries that aren't going to be compatible with either edition. Probably the most likely place that would come up is tactics blocks that specify certain spells that may or may not exist with the same name/function. The two biggest hindrances to skill check functions are probably going to be PF1 skill entries not being set up to account for critical successes and failures (but that ought to self-balance out since PF1 would snap like a dry twig if you tried to implement critical success/failure mechanics; when going PF2 to PF1 you'll probablyjust want to make the Critical Success condition probably a a base DC+10 function of the check) and not having all of the weirder mechanics like Chase rules and such available during the first couple months.
I question will how PF2 handles monsters with Class levels.
Also while Pazio might not make anything else for PF1, pretty sure 3rd parties are going to stay. How many is unsure but they'll probably see some more prints while PF2 fleshes out.