(How is defining a creature's stats for AMF any different then adding the Ex, Su, and Sp tags/flags? But I admit, it would mean more space used to write what ability is giving what bonus, which may means harder to read stats.)It isn't. This is just something that PF2 doesn't bother with, so you have to add it back in if AMF is gonna be common and you want to maintain balance between PCs and monsters.
Not exactly true that PF2 doesn't bother with that. Monster abilities can have the trait of a magic tradition (arcane, divine,...) or school (abjuration,...) by which they are marked as being magical. So those traits substitude for Su/Sp tags.
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Not exactly true that PF2 doesn't bother with that. Monster abilities can have the trait of a magic tradition (arcane, divine,...) or school (abjuration,...) by which they are marked as being magical. So those traits substitude for Su/Sp tags.
You're right, but they don't have it on stat boosts because those are just part of the base monster. Which was my original point.
Rarity is a blight on this game and I have no intention of ever using it or playing with anyone who does.The game is predicated on certain things, including Rarity in some cases. If you're gonna make Antimagic Field more widely available, you probably need to do several things to account for that (primarily, defining how much of monster's bonuses in general are magic), or the game will start having some issues.
Interesting how this points out a giant hole in the current monster design.
There's no reason for rarity to exist. It fixes a problem that was never a real issue, and it feels completely alien to a ttrpg. Next thing you know, they'll be putting in color coded lootboxes.
And Bulk is even worse.
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Rarity is a blight on this game and I have no intention of ever using it or playing with anyone who does.The game is predicated on certain things, including Rarity in some cases. If you're gonna make Antimagic Field more widely available, you probably need to do several things to account for that (primarily, defining how much of monster's bonuses in general are magic), or the game will start having some issues.Interesting how this points out a giant hole in the current monster design.
There's no reason for rarity to exist. It fixes a problem that was never a real issue, and it feels completely alien to a ttrpg. Next thing you know, they'll be putting in color coded lootboxes.
And Bulk is even worse.
So you have never had a GM bar Synthesist Summoners, Gunslingers with Advanced Firearms, the Leadership Feat, or the Blood Money spell?
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Rarity is a blight on this game and I have no intention of ever using it or playing with anyone who does.The game is predicated on certain things, including Rarity in some cases. If you're gonna make Antimagic Field more widely available, you probably need to do several things to account for that (primarily, defining how much of monster's bonuses in general are magic), or the game will start having some issues.Interesting how this points out a giant hole in the current monster design.
There's no reason for rarity to exist. It fixes a problem that was never a real issue, and it feels completely alien to a ttrpg.
LOL. Yes, no ttrpg has ever used rarity labels on monsters.
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I like rarity.
If gives a nice structure by which a GM can say 'you can assume easy access to any of these and theorycraft to your heart's content, but these things you'll need to work in game to get hold of'
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Rarity on monsters also creates an easy hook for knowledge difficulty variances.
It is a system that is easily ignored by those who don't want it, and useful to those who do want it.
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Interesting how this points out a giant hole in the current monster design.Rarity is a blight on this game and I have no intention of ever using it or playing with anyone who does.The game is predicated on certain things, including Rarity in some cases. If you're gonna make Antimagic Field more widely available, you probably need to do several things to account for that (primarily, defining how much of monster's bonuses in general are magic), or the game will start having some issues.
What hole does that point out in current monster design? That there's not a huge effort toward describing interactions with one spell? Here's the thing: There's still plenty of guidance in the statblock and the underlying system design.
- Nymphs Beauty? Out. Has primal trait.- Melee branch attack? Reduced, has magical trait. Does 3d12+8 damage, so is probably a +2 striking weapon and should be dropped to 1d12+8, and go from +27 to +25 to hit.
- Ranged leaves attack? Out. Has conjuration and primal traits.
- Primal prepared spells? Out.
- Primal innate spells? Out.
- Change Shape, Focus Beauty, Inspiration, and Tree Meld? Primal, so out.
For magic items, they sometimes carry magical trinkets or wear enchanted clothing or jewelry. There's really only one type of bonus to skills granted by items, so we only need one. Item bonuses to skills pretty much top out at +3. Maybe she has a ring of lies, which is a +2 (there isn't a greater ring of lies or anything for a +3, but those bonuses usually show up around level 17 anyway), so at most you're probably dropping Deception from +30 to +28 on the item bonus.
Maaaybe there's some other +2 status bonus or something from some magic, so you could possibly drop it another 2, but whatever. There you have your "dryad queen in an antimagic field" adjustment.
There's no reason for rarity to exist. It fixes a problem that was never a real issue, and it feels completely alien to a ttrpg. Next thing you know, they'll be putting in color coded lootboxes.
And Bulk is even worse.
This is objectively untrue (based on observable evidence of subjective experience). How can you read post after post by people saying, "Wow, rarity is a great tool to solve this problem I had" and come away thinking it was never a real issue? I'm happy it was never an issue for you, because that means you've got a group that fits you, but that's just not true for everyone. As a GM, it's nice that rarity serves as a little bit of warning that an option might have consequences or implications on adventures beyond a simple statblock. Ring of sustenance is a life-changing item; never needing to eat or drink and only needing 2 hours of sleep per night would fundamentally alter even my mundane existence. By setting the item to uncommon, it's a good indication to random players that they can't assume they'll be able to just get one, it's a good indication to random GMs that they should think about whether they should make them available to GMs, and it's a crystal clear indication that the world does not assume that there is an effort to mass-produce rings of sustenance as some effort to increase economic productivity.
Bulk is trading one imperfect system for another, but it's still easier. I get why some people don't like it, and there are some edge cases with bulky kits and low strength where it's kind of painful, but it's not a problem for me, just a thing to be a little mindful of and maybe houserule around certain elements (coin weight is terrible and bulk helps but doesn't completely solve the problem).
Anyway, on the topic of the actual value of the Deception/Diplomacy DC; it's right there with the level 13 DC + 10 for the "incredibly hard / unique" modifier. If this is the extreme example it sounds like people have identified it as, then that shows even the extreme examples still fall within the ranges.
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I hate that its being used as a GM crutch for iconic spells and abilities that change how the game is played.That's a pretty good justification for them right there honestly.
On the other hand, when you have one player who is really good at finding niche items, enchantments, and the like, its useful to be able to say that its unavailable without having to ask 'What book is that from? Who even made this?'Very much this.
What bothers me the most about it though, is that you can buy a Paizo product with character options that you then can't use because of rarity, essentially wasting a fraction of your purchase.
Only if the GM reads Rarity as "something the players can never have". Which it isn't. If players want something you work it into the campaign if it fits, and if the GM flat out doesn't want the option then it's the same as 1e. They ban it to begin with or they ban it when they find out about it.
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That the game changes as you level up and gain more powers is a benefit of the system, not a flaw."I upgraded to a +2 sword" is very different than "I can resurect people now so we don't have to worry about dying anymore".
When a GM prepares a lengthy wilderness adventure and that work is obviated by the party teleporting past it, the GM should have learned the valuable lesson 'This party hates wilderness travel/adventure' not 'Teleport is ruining my game and I need to fix that.'If it was just travel then yes but if the GM had an adventure(s) set in there then yeah that kinda does ruin stuff.
Based on my experience, I fully expect "something the players can never have" to be the default expression of rare items unless the adventure specifically rewards it. That could just be my cynicism talking though.
I'm sorry that's your experience, as mine doesn't agree with that.
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I'm not sure in that scenario the GM learns a valuable lesson. They're probably just frustrated their players jumped over all their plans. The players are probably frustrated the GM ended up wasting time setting up so much stuff they perceive as pointless.
Fundamentally that scenario seems less like a rules issue and more like a disconnect between what the GM and Players are expecting to get out of the campaign. Something that should be talked about between the players.
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Right. Exactly. But people blame the system and not the contrary expectations and look for a systems based solution.I'm not sure in that scenario the GM learns a valuable lesson. They're probably just frustrated their players jumped over all their plans. The players are probably frustrated the GM ended up wasting time setting up so much stuff they perceive as pointless.
Fundamentally that scenario seems less like a rules issue and more like a disconnect between what the GM and Players are expecting to get out of the campaign. Something that should be talked about between the players.
I don't entirely disagree, but after a certain point, divination and teleportation essentially turn a campaign into a series of plot bullet points rather than an actual adventure. Unless the GM throws arbitrary or contrived restrictions on those things after the fact which then feels bad for everyone. Building those restrictions into the system changes player expectations of the game.
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Right. Exactly. But people blame the system and not the contrary expectations and look for a systems based solution.
That's fair, but a lot of times what I see is... the players teleport past an obstacle and so the GM builds anti-teleportation stuff into their next obstacle so the players find another way around it and you just end up with both groups being increasingly frustrated either at the number of countermeasures every encounter needs or the number of hoops someone needs to jump through just to get to the 'good part'.
There's nothing really wrong with either approach, or even the approach I described above, but ultimately the players and GM need to figure out how they want to handle it together.
There's no reason for rarity to exist. It fixes a problem that was never a real issue, and it feels completely alien to a ttrpg.LOL. Yes, no ttrpg has ever used rarity labels on monsters.
Thank you for that, it made my day.
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Right. Exactly. But people blame the system and not the contrary expectations and look for a systems based solution.I'm not sure in that scenario the GM learns a valuable lesson. They're probably just frustrated their players jumped over all their plans. The players are probably frustrated the GM ended up wasting time setting up so much stuff they perceive as pointless.
Fundamentally that scenario seems less like a rules issue and more like a disconnect between what the GM and Players are expecting to get out of the campaign. Something that should be talked about between the players.
Rarity is, in many ways, less of a mechanic and more of a communication tool to allow discussions of these sorts of issues. It gives a common language to talk about what kind of world the players and GM are each expecting, and allows for real communication when those assumptions don't line up with each other.
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Rarity is, in many ways, less of a mechanic and more of a communication tool to allow discussions of these sorts of issues. It gives a common language to talk about what kind of world the players and GM are each expecting, and allows for real communication when those assumptions don't line up with each other.Right. Exactly. But people blame the system and not the contrary expectations and look for a systems based solution.I'm not sure in that scenario the GM learns a valuable lesson. They're probably just frustrated their players jumped over all their plans. The players are probably frustrated the GM ended up wasting time setting up so much stuff they perceive as pointless.
Fundamentally that scenario seems less like a rules issue and more like a disconnect between what the GM and Players are expecting to get out of the campaign. Something that should be talked about between the players.
THIS.
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Of course, in 2nd edition, they also nerfed raise dead into a ritual, you lose an entire day bringing someone back to life and could lose the adventure now, but well, that happens.
You don't lose a day with Raise Dead + Restoration in 1e, but you do have to wait a week to use the second Restoration spell to remove the second negative level. -1 on all ability checks, attack rolls, combat maneuver checks, Combat Maneuver Defense, saving throws, and skill checks and -5 HP for a week is no fun.
Having said that, the varying degrees of success/failure for the ritual in 2e could leave you much better or worse off than the 1e version. :)
I like the concept of rarity as a DM, but will wait to see how it works out in practice.
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So you have never had a GM bar Synthesist Summoners, Gunslingers with Advanced Firearms, the Leadership Feat, or the Blood Money spell?Rarity is a blight on this game and I have no intention of ever using it or playing with anyone who does.The game is predicated on certain things, including Rarity in some cases. If you're gonna make Antimagic Field more widely available, you probably need to do several things to account for that (primarily, defining how much of monster's bonuses in general are magic), or the game will start having some issues.Interesting how this points out a giant hole in the current monster design.
There's no reason for rarity to exist. It fixes a problem that was never a real issue, and it feels completely alien to a ttrpg. Next thing you know, they'll be putting in color coded lootboxes.
And Bulk is even worse.
I appreciate you bringing up Advanced Firearms specifically, because Firearms essentially already had the Rarity system in PF1. Certain types of firearms were understood to either be uncommon or nonexistent in different settings, and how accessible they were was strictly put in the GM's control.
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I appreciate you bringing up Advanced Firearms specifically, because Firearms essentially already had the Rarity system in PF1. Certain types of firearms were understood to either be uncommon or nonexistent in different settings, and how accessible they were was strictly put in the GM's control.So you have never had a GM bar Synthesist Summoners, Gunslingers with Advanced Firearms, the Leadership Feat, or the Blood Money spell?Rarity is a blight on this game and I have no intention of ever using it or playing with anyone who does.The game is predicated on certain things, including Rarity in some cases. If you're gonna make Antimagic Field more widely available, you probably need to do several things to account for that (primarily, defining how much of monster's bonuses in general are magic), or the game will start having some issues.Interesting how this points out a giant hole in the current monster design.
There's no reason for rarity to exist. It fixes a problem that was never a real issue, and it feels completely alien to a ttrpg. Next thing you know, they'll be putting in color coded lootboxes.
And Bulk is even worse.
Np, had to deal with that in one game hehe
And I think UC went one step further and basically said what amounted to "you probably don't want to put these in your game unless they're everywhere".
Right. Exactly. But people blame the system and not the contrary expectations and look for a systems based solution.That's fair, but a lot of times what I see is... the players teleport past an obstacle and so the GM builds anti-teleportation stuff into their next obstacle so the players find another way around it and you just end up with both groups being increasingly frustrated either at the number of countermeasures every encounter needs or the number of hoops someone needs to jump through just to get to the 'good part'.
There's nothing really wrong with either approach, or even the approach I described above, but ultimately the players and GM need to figure out how they want to handle it together.
That is the 'good part'. I love setting up complex defenses you can't bypass the usual ways and seeing how players get around them, and appreciate other DMs who do the same.
That is the 'good part'. I love setting up complex defenses you can't bypass the usual ways and seeing how players get around them, and appreciate other DMs who do the same.
It definitely can be! But I've also seen a decent share of games where stuff like that just generates hard feelings from one or both parties, which is why I think communicating expectations is important.
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So, now that I have the Bestiary, let's examine this.
PC Max Bonuses (not including Spells or Mutagens...Mutagens can better these bonuses by 1 when available at the right level, spells are variable) are as follows, by my reading:
1: +9 (PCs can get this in Perception via Expert, and this is clearly the number used by the Bestiary designers)
2: +10 (Rogues can have Expert)
3: +12 (+1 Item)
4: +13
5: +14
6: +15
7: +18 (Master kicks in)
8: +19
9: +20
10: +23 (+2 Item, Ability boost)
11: +24
12: +25
13: +26
14: +27
15: +30 (Legendary kicks in)
16: +31
17: +34 (+3 Item, Apex Item)
18: +35
19: +36
20: +38 (Ability Boost)
So, let's see what creatures exceed those and by how much. I am ignoring conditional bonuses (like a Survival bonus to tracking only, or a Stealth bonus 'in the woods'), as PCs can acquire such conditionals as well. This is a list of monsters, not skills, so one who exceeds three skills by +1 is listed only once.
1: 1 (+1 over)
2: 2 (+1 over, A), 1 (+2 over, A) 1 (+6 over...I suspect a typo),
3: 2 (+1 over),
4: 6 (+1 over, AAAA),
5: 3 (+1 over), 1 (+2 over),
6: 4 (+1 over, AA), 3 (+2 over, A), 2 (+3 over, A)
7: 3 (+1 over, AA), 6 (+2 over, AA),
8: 3 (+1 over, AAA), 5 (+2 over, AAA),
9: 5 (+1 over, AAAA), 2 (+2 over, AA), 1 (+3 over, A)
10: 2 (+1 over, AA), 2 (+2 over, A, L)
11: 1 (+1 over, A), 2 (+2 over, AA)
12: 2 (+1 over, A), 1 (+2 over, A), 2 (+3 over)
13: 2 (+1 over, A), 2 (+2 over), 4 (+4 over, AA, L),
14: 3 (+1 over, AA), 3 (+2 over, AA)
15: 2 (+1 over, A), 2 (+2 over, A), 1 (+3 over, A)
16: 2 (+1 over, A), 2 (+2 over, A), 1 (+4 over),
17: 1 (+1 over),
18: 1 (+1 over, A), 3 (+3 over, AAA),
19: 2 (+1 over, A), 1 (+2 over), 1 (+4 over, A)
20: 2 (+1 over), 1 (+3 over, A),
It seems worth noting that a very large percentage of these bonuses, especially the super high ones are in Athletics specifically. These are noted above with an 'A' (multiple As if there are multiple examples). A couple are also Lore, and noted similarly with an 'L'.
Neither of these notations is present if the monster also exceeds other Skills (an Adult Green Dragon is +1 over on both Athletics and Occultism, for example, and so listed without an A indicator).
There are 12 more level one creatures on the list (10 at +1, 2 at +2, the one already listed becomes +3) if you assume a max of +7 on PC Skills at 1st (though many are over only in Perception...ie: the thing PCs can get at +9).
So that's a total of 99 creatures out of however many there are (I'm not counting that...it's over 400 we know) who exceed PC numbers. Of those 54 are only Athletics, and 2 are only Lore, leaving 43 and just over 10% who exceed PCs in anything but Athletics or Lore.
In fact, let's look at that table without the 'A' or 'L' entries:
1: 1 (+1 over)
2: 1 (+1 over), 1 (+6 over...I suspect a typo),
3: 2 (+1 over),
4: 2 (+1 over),
5: 3 (+1 over), 1 (+2 over),
6: 2 (+1 over), 2 (+2 over), 1 (+3 over)
7: 1 (+1 over), 4 (+2 over),
8: 2 (+2 over),
9: 1 (+1 over),
10:
11:
12: 1 (+1 over), 2 (+3 over)
13: 1 (+1 over), 2 (+2 over), 1 (+4 over),
14: 1 (+1 over), 1 (+2 over)
15: 1 (+1 over), 1 (+2 over),
16: 1 (+1 over), 1 (+2 over), 1 (+4 over),
17: 1 (+1 over),
18:
19: 1 (+1 over), 1 (+2 over),
20: 2 (+1 over),
The +4s, for the record, are the Hamadryad Queen's Diplomacy and Deception and the Lesser Death's Stealth. The +6 is the Faerie Dragon's Perception (and I'm pretty sure a typo of some sort).
That's a few more creatures above PC level than I was hoping for, honestly, but within acceptable numbers for me. Others may make their own judgments.
This list was done manually, so I could've missed something, but it's certainly close enough to give a general idea.
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Looking at magic items in more detail, it looks like the +2 from Item should kick in at level 9, dropping the total number of monsters who exceed PC limits to 94 (50 only Athletics, 2 only Lore, 42 otherwise). So my numbers are slightly off to begin with.
Also, reading over Mutagens, debatably almost all my numbers should be one more in the PCs favor, as truly maximal characters can use Mutagens and get one better than the Item bonuses listed above at every level but 9 and 10 (where I give a +2 based on permanent items, but the +3 Mutagen only kicks in at 11th).
Which would leave only 51 total Monsters at higher bonuses than PCs can achieve, 29 of them only Athletics, and 2 of them only Lore, leaving only 20 actually higher than a PC can achieve in theory in anything but Lore and Athletics.
That is with a limited duration consumable, and an expensive one sans Alchemist, so it's also debatable that my above table (bearing in mind my level 9 'errata' above) remains more useful in practice.