Our sneak peek of the Pathfinder 2E Gamemastery Guide is tomorrow at 4 p.m. Pacific! Have any questions?

[Syri]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Perpdepog wrote:

I wonder if this means we'll still be seeing monsters in the 21-30 range like in PF1E, or if they are going to trim it down to 25 or simply ax higher-level threats entirely.

Treerazer in the Bestiary is a level 25, and he's a demon lord (grants spells and everything). I'm not sure there's going to be anything you're ever going to be supposed to fight that's tougher than a demon lord.

He's a nascent demon lord. PF1's CR 26-30 range was perfectly well populated with higher demon lords, archdevils, empyreal lords, Great Old Ones, kaiju, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Achaekek, Leviathan, and more. I can totally see there being demand for statblocks so we can fight Belial and Baphomet like we could in PF1, and it wouldn't do them justice to reduce them down to 25th level.

[Syri]

I'm not 100% sure on which chapter every bullet point falls in, so for some of these I just placed them based on my best guess.

- They're still making the Advanced GM Screen, so Logan asks you to post on the forums or the A-GM Screen product page and tell them if you have ideas about things you don't need from the basic screen, or things you think would be useful to have on the advanced screen! A lot of the info on the basic GM screen is useful to inexperienced GMs but isn't necessary for GMs who are really well-versed in the game, like the key that tells you what the action icons look like.

Chapter 2: Tools
- How to build a world, deities, nations and settlements, and read their statblocks
- A lot of details about the planes, an overview of the planes of the Lost Omens campaign setting, the traits and mechanics of planes and advice on creating your own
- Downtime advice like what groups downtime is good for and how to run it so it stays interesting
- Artifacts like the deck of many things, sphere of annihilation, and an alchemical artifact that can make alchemical items
- Advice to GMs on roleplaying intelligent items, making them distinct characters. Also there's an orb.
- Relics start with a 'seed', with a couple themes tied to it; your grandmother's hunting axe might have the Beast theme, with its own set of abilities, and the book has suggestions on how you might discover it, how to integrate it into your backstory, and what are good moments for your GM to introduce its new abilities as it grows into a more primal relic over time. Categories of relics' manifestations include Beast, Celestial, Plant, Fire, and Water.
- Monster creation: Noting that monster building is an art, not just math, lots of advice on best practices: Just like Paizo developers do when creating a monster, you should compare its spells and abilities to those of existing monsters and see what's similar, and see if your monster makes sense in the game's ecosystem--and of course, give your monster stuff that's evocative and specific to that monster.
- Monsters' abilities are broken into four categories: 'extreme', like the Deception&Diplomacy of a dryad queen, only the absolute best, so it's something most monsters don't have; 'high' for what a monster's really good at (Most monsters have at least one high save); 'moderate'; and 'low', like a wizard's attack bonus
- A little different from Unchained and Starfinder, PF2 doesn't have tables for expert, combatant, and caster arrays; it goes into a little more depth explaining how to decide on stats based on what you want your monster to do, so that monsters won't be as similar to one another. It'll also have these details for deciding on the stats and class features of NPCs who are meant to be a PC class, and discuss how NPCs made using the GMG will differ from ones made using the normal PC creation rules.

Chapter 3: Subsystems
- Chapter opening art has Valeros and Lem on a crashing airship!
- Subsystems include influence, research, and infiltration rules; a heist can represent the legwork you do in preparation, and reskin Victory Points to enemies' Awareness of you, like how most subsystems put some kind of spin on Victory Points

Chapter 4: Variant Rules
- Proficiency without level, just flat +2/+4/+6/+8, and advice on how it makes the game play differently, you have to build encounters differently, the number of enemies someone can take on is different, etc.
- May possibly let you "do backgrounds differently"? Logan may have been referring to deep backgrounds, a section on"generating backgrounds from components and picking which parts you want so it ends up looking a lot like the backgrounds from the Core Rulebook, but you've told a little more of the character's backstory through this process".
- Three main ways to change alignment: Remove it from your game altogether, remove it from mortals and only have it affect aligned outsiders like celestials and fiends, or expand on alignment with a more granular Unchained-like sliding scale that lets you follow the progression of a drift toward Evil instead of falling to Evil instantly
- Automatic bonus progression
- Skill ranks as an alternate skill progression system
- Feats & Features section, how to run a gestalt campaign, how to give everyone in the party the Pirate archetype, etc.

Chapter 5: NPC Gallery
- NPCs are presented in fourteen or fifteen 'families' like 'Courtiers', 'Criminals', and 'Devotees'. The Healers category includes statblocks for an apothecary (-1st-level creature, 3rd-level challenge in medicine or alchemy), physician, plague doctor (cleric 5), and surgeon (2nd-level creature, 6th-level challenge in medical matters).
- The GMG presents only human NPCs, with advice on how to modify their statblocks to reskin them as other ancestries.
- There are some other special templates you can apply to NPCs.
- NPCs like the librarian and the judge can literally throw the book at you as a ranged Strike.

They showed us this two-page spread image of the Healer NPCs on the livestream! Good ol' surgeons with +11 to hit with a scalpel, and the physician's Bedside Manner ability gives them a +2 circumstance bonus on Diplomacy checks to Make an Impression on or Make a Request of a diseased, poisoned, or wounded creature.

Another note on creature creation: Mark Seifter tells us on his twitch stream's Discord server that a 'high' skill for a 3rd-level monster is about +10, and somehow, the Bestiary's doppelganger ended up with only high Deception, a +11; he feels the doppelganger ought to be extreme at disguises, or else the hypothetical doppelganger player would feel sad about getting outdone at his own specialty by the party rogue or bard!

[Perpdepog]

Syri wrote:

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Perpdepog wrote:

I wonder if this means we'll still be seeing monsters in the 21-30 range like in PF1E, or if they are going to trim it down to 25 or simply ax higher-level threats entirely.

Treerazer in the Bestiary is a level 25, and he's a demon lord (grants spells and everything). I'm not sure there's going to be anything you're ever going to be supposed to fight that's tougher than a demon lord.

He's a nascent demon lord. PF1's CR 26-30 range was perfectly well populated with higher demon lords, archdevils, empyreal lords, Great Old Ones, kaiju, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Achaekek, Leviathan, and more. I can totally see there being demand for statblocks so we can fight Belial and Baphomet like we could in PF1, and it wouldn't do them justice to reduce them down to 25th level.

Got to the point before I could, lol.

Though honestly I can see an argument for either or. Either they keep the true demigods in their 26-30 range as they used because it shows how powerful they are and is honestly fun stat candy, or they reduce them down to CR25, operating on the assumption that PCs will be needing divine/epic/mythic assistance to take them down regardless.
We are already seeing a blurring of the lines between what made a demigod and a full god, with all deities offering four domains now rather than an amount based on their divine status, so they may be further condensing all our epic foes into a similarly narrow CR range.

Personally I'd prefer that our CR30 Cthulhu stay CR30, but I can see the logic both ways and won't grumble over much should he suddenly lose 5 CR.

[MMCJawa]

I imagine that mythic in some form will return, but there is no need to rush it. Doubt we will get any demon lords until then (and we shouldn't...unique high level outsiders and Kaiju are pretty low on the list of missing monsters needed in PF2E

[Syri]

Syri wrote:

Mark Seifter tells us on his twitch stream's Discord server that a 'high' skill for a 3rd-level monster is about +10, and somehow, the Bestiary's doppelganger ended up with only high Deception, a +11

Oh wait, this may not be so much an issue because Change Shape gives the doppelganger a +4 status bonus to the DC of seeing through its disguise, and "The monster’s transformation automatically defeats Perception DCs to determine whether the creature is a member of the ancestry or creature type into which it transformed".

[The Gleeful Grognard]

MMCJawa wrote:

I imagine that mythic in some form will return, but there is no need to rush it. Doubt we will get any demon lords until then (and we shouldn't...unique high level outsiders and Kaiju are pretty low on the list of missing monsters needed in PF2E

I am not sure mythic rules really need separate creature design now that creature design is decoupled from standard characters.

All we really need is an adjustment to average level based on the current mythic tier and some more fantastical creatures spattered throughout the books.

That is, a level 3 character taking mythic feats/options/spells might be by default taking on creatures 2-3 levels higher than them.

Who knows though.

[Frogliacci]

Are mythic rules really necessary in Pathfinder 2e? Pathfinder is an extremely high powered game already. Mythic didn't feel necessary in 1e and I don't feel like it's worth it now either.

I would expect rules for gestalt classes to easily cover the niche of "more powerful than average" heroes. I'd also rather see options for extending the game beyond 20 levels, which should be fairly easy given how modular classes are, rather than trying to balance high level abilities for low level characters.

Both of those options would be automatically supported as more materials are released. The existing mythic rules are pretty much abandoned once it's out, and I hope 2e doesn't create subsystems only to badly maintain them.

[Tender Tendrils]

Will there be rules for building out the devotee benefits of deities?

Will there be rules for sentient magic items?

[Rysky]

Frogliacci wrote:

Are mythic rules really necessary in Pathfinder 2e? Pathfinder is an extremely high powered game already. Mythic didn't feel necessary in 1e and I don't feel like it's worth it now either.

I would expect rules for gestalt classes to easily cover the niche of "more powerful than average" heroes. I'd also rather see options for extending the game beyond 20 levels, which should be fairly easy given how modular classes are, rather than trying to balance high level abilities for low level characters.

Both of those options would be automatically supported as more materials are released. The existing mythic rules are pretty much abandoned once it's out, and I hope 2e doesn't create subsystems only to badly maintain them.

With the Playtest I got the feel that Mythic/Epic was condensed into levels 16-20, what with the Devastator showing up in the Playtestiary.

[PossibleCabbage]

I think Mythic in the sense of "you can gain a mythic rank for this" just as an aside in the continuing the campaign part of an AP exists a just part of the higher levels. But Mythic as "whatever happened to the Wrath of the Righteous party, that lead to them being able to murk Baphomet in a single round four volumes later" is something entirely different.

[Albatoonoe]

I like that the upper levels feel appropriately super human, but I do want to see something like mythic where it bends or breaks the existing rules at all levels. It had a lot of fun ideas, even if the execution wasn't perfect.

[PossibleCabbage]

Albatoonoe wrote:

I like that the upper levels feel appropriately super human, but I do want to see something like mythic where it bends or breaks the existing rules at all levels. It had a lot of fun ideas, even if the execution wasn't perfect.

I'm definitely a fan of the "through some quirk, you are infused with high octane godstuff" as a set of optional rules.

[Tender Tendrils]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Albatoonoe wrote:

I like that the upper levels feel appropriately super human, but I do want to see something like mythic where it bends or breaks the existing rules at all levels. It had a lot of fun ideas, even if the execution wasn't perfect.

I'm definitely a fan of the "through some quirk, you are infused with high octane godstuff" as a set of optional rules.

Me too - I like the idea of gaining divine essence from various creatures, locations, rituals, etc independent of your usual levelling process.

I also love the design of many of the mythic creatures from the mythic adventures books as amped up versions of regular monsters

[Frogliacci]

To be fair, the default inclusion of +level to all trained rolls already feels like characters start developing their superhuman abilities fairly early. Compared to the more "realistic" range of results in 5e, for instance.

If course, if mythic rules are less a whole new subsystem and more a set of rules to allow low level characters limited access to higher level abilities through blessings and artifacts, then that's wholly welcome.

[CorvusMask]

I mean, the problem with 1e mythic was that best options were just "you get even huger numbers" options while the flavorful options like running through walls or throwing boulders DID exist, they just weren't as good.

Like mythic's purpose should be allowing to do stuff like what Hercules does in that disney movie when he definitely still has npc class at start of movie before retraining with Phil :p

(mythic spells who had fun flavor were also more interesting than mythic spells which were just "this fireball does more damage AND ignores fire immunity)

Like, I think people who say mythic didn't bring anything to 1e think of the options people picked rather than the more flavorful options <_< Because its frankly true that mythic allows for stuff that is similar to legendary options in 2e, but they aren't exactly the same, they are still step above in sense of "holy s!~!" than legendary skill options were.

[The Rot Grub]

Honestly, I don't know if mythic characters will need a whole new subsystem. The feats system already allows for "plugging in" new abilities. They could release "mythic feats" that can be chosen instead of CRB feats, for example.

Already, the GMG will present options for allowing characters to have more feats. Perhaps opening up Level 20 feats to low-level characters could be a variant?

The new feats system is very flexible and opens up a lot of possibilities!

[Klaam]

Im really interested in possibilities of NPC/Monster creation, Templates and Archetypes creation. Maybe new feats....

[AnimatedPaper]

Tender Tendrils wrote:

Will there be rules for building out the devotee benefits of deities?

Will there be rules for sentient magic items?

Not really. Logan said they only really had to be balanced at a system level, for homebrew you can go nuts. If you want to be balanced, just model off the existing options, and avoid Advanced weapons as a favored weapon.

Yes.

[Frogliacci]

The Rot Grub wrote:

Honestly, I don't know if mythic characters will need a whole new subsystem. The feats system already allows for "plugging in" new abilities. They could release "mythic feats" that can be chosen instead of CRB feats, for example.

Already, the GMG will present options for allowing characters to have more feats. Perhaps opening up Level 20 feats to low-level characters could be a variant?

The new feats system is very flexible and opens up a lot of possibilities!

That's basically what I'm hoping for. I don't see myself ever using mythic rules at low levels, but I really want to see mythic feats or abilities that can also serve as useful options in high level play.

So mythic feats or archetypes could be released with a disclaimer that they're available to mythic characters starting at level 1 (or 2 if archetype dedication), but the minimum level requirement is increased by 10 for "normal" play.

[PossibleCabbage]

I imagine mythic as a thing for low level characters is going to work via a new metacurrency (i.e. "mythic power") that characters can spend to do things like "gain an extra action" or "reset the MAP to 0" or "regain the use of expended spell slots"... stuff like that.

[Vidmaster7]

I mean I'm down for mythic but this would be WAY to soon to reintroduce it.

[The Rot Grub]

I assume this is the best place to make sure the devs see this...

The preview image of the Gamemastery Guide misspells the title of the book! It says "Gamemaster Guide" instead of Gamemastery Guide. (See the upper left corner in this image)

It would suck to have this mistake appear throughout the book!

[Bandw2]

Frogliacci wrote:

The Rot Grub wrote:

Honestly, I don't know if mythic characters will need a whole new subsystem. The feats system already allows for "plugging in" new abilities. They could release "mythic feats" that can be chosen instead of CRB feats, for example.

Already, the GMG will present options for allowing characters to have more feats. Perhaps opening up Level 20 feats to low-level characters could be a variant?

The new feats system is very flexible and opens up a lot of possibilities!

That's basically what I'm hoping for. I don't see myself ever using mythic rules at low levels, but I really want to see mythic feats or abilities that can also serve as useful options in high level play.

So mythic feats or archetypes could be released with a disclaimer that they're available to mythic characters starting at level 1 (or 2 if archetype dedication), but the minimum level requirement is increased by 10 for "normal" play.

idk I liked the notion of how nonmythics were effected by mythic stuff. If they do add mythic stuff they should probably simplify it and simply have rules that make stuff work different for different tiered people.

Like imagine 4 tiers of mythic(0-3), where each tier you simply behave all your rolls as 1 degree of success higher for every tier you have over them, and enemy rolls are 1 degree of success lower(or lower degree, such as 1 tier difference critical failures are just failures, 2 tiers enemy critical successes are successes, 3 difference successes are critical successes). etc. maybe an extra round of ability boosts per tier and then maybe to even things out have optional mythic archetypes for people who want to lean into particular tropes of mythicism, maybe an archetype for each attribute? at least as a simple starting ground.

[Vidmaster7]

Bandw2 wrote:

Frogliacci wrote:

The Rot Grub wrote:

Honestly, I don't know if mythic characters will need a whole new subsystem. The feats system already allows for "plugging in" new abilities. They could release "mythic feats" that can be chosen instead of CRB feats, for example.

Already, the GMG will present options for allowing characters to have more feats. Perhaps opening up Level 20 feats to low-level characters could be a variant?

The new feats system is very flexible and opens up a lot of possibilities!

That's basically what I'm hoping for. I don't see myself ever using mythic rules at low levels, but I really want to see mythic feats or abilities that can also serve as useful options in high level play.

So mythic feats or archetypes could be released with a disclaimer that they're available to mythic characters starting at level 1 (or 2 if archetype dedication), but the minimum level requirement is increased by 10 for "normal" play.

idk I liked the notion of how nonmythics were effected by mythic stuff. If they do add mythic stuff they should probably simplify it and simply have rules that make stuff work different for different tiered people.

Like imagine 4 tiers of mythic(0-3), where each tier you simply behave all your rolls as 1 degree of success higher for every tier you have over them, and enemy rolls are 1 degree of success lower(or lower degree, such as 1 tier difference critical failures are just failures, 2 tiers enemy critical successes are successes, 3 difference successes are critical successes). etc. maybe an extra round of ability boosts per tier and then maybe to even things out have optional mythic archetypes for people who want to lean into particular tropes of mythicism, maybe an archetype for each attribute? at least as a simple starting ground.

Hmm not a bad idea. I think it is to soon still like lets see the mechanics play out for a bit and what feats and abilities they come out with. Then maybe mythic will be a bit more obvious.

[Albatoonoe]

Ah man, I just thought of a good question to ask about the book way too late. Ah well, might as well put it out in the world.

Are there rules for reintroducing resonance?