Hey all,
As I read more and more into 2e I notice certain tables and mechanics are missing. In particular with perception (love everyone gets it now btw), in 1e there was a whole litany of things that affected the perception DC, for instance, each 10ft added +1 to the DC, high imho, but somewhat realistic, as well as hearing being obscured by doors, walls etc. however I no longer see any of these mechanics. Are we to believe that Perception is a flat dc regardless of situation? a goblin hiding 5ft away is just as hard to see as one 100ft away? seems...wrong. Or is there a unspoken rule that the GM is supposed to narratively assign penalties based on the hard, really hard, ridiculously hard +2, +5, +10 sorta way? My concern with the later is with no baseline to know when to assign those it will make checks vary alot from GM to GM and game to game. Did I miss something or is this something that is coming out in the game mastery guide out in February?
thanks,
You can actually see the sun now, which was impossible per default PF1 rules for distance affecting Perception DC.
Very True, lol. Alot of things where impossible (RAW). for the poor perceptionless wizard seeing the or hearing that flying roaring dragon at 200ft was nat 20 or bust.
You can actually see the sun now, which was impossible per default PF1 rules for distance affecting Perception DC.Very True, lol. Alot of things where impossible (RAW). for the poor perceptionless wizard seeing the or hearing that flying roaring dragon at 200ft was nat 20 or bust.
Dunno what you mean by dragon. All I heard was the wind...
Jokes aside though, I'm pretty sure the DC adjustments and special circumstances cover most of these well enough.
This particular sort of thing comes down to a difference in design philosophy: PF1 had these tables because the design philosophy at the time was the maintain maximum compatibility with D&D 3.5, and D&D 3.5 had those tables because the design philosophy was to try and represent real life via game mechanics (which did not even kind of work, as evidenced by the rules having silly results if actually applied).
PF2 design philosophy is focused on making the desired game play experience happen, so it doesn't have any need of these tables.
And thus the difficulty of finding a goblin is not primarily determined by how far away it is hiding, but by factors like the relative ability between the character and the goblin and whether or not the character is looking in the right place (the Seek action is a 30-foot cone, or a 15-foot burst within line of sight - so if the goblin beat your Perception DC with it's stealth check, you actually have to deliberately look for it, and your roll isn't going to matter unless you're checking the right place)
thanks for that, answers much of my question.
Cover bonuses are a thing for stealth checks and DC, actually. Works about the same as cover bonuses to AC. There's nothing for distance hard coded in, IIRC. However the weather chapter says things like fog or rain might apply a perception penalty without defining how much it is. So I think the GM is just meant to adjust circumstance bonuses as they see fit.
Kinda circling back to this, I get the simpler design philosophy, but guidelines from the devs would be nice. Case in point, the piece of equipment "Spyglass" explicitly says "A typical spyglass lets you see eight times farther than normal"...8 times farther than what? that's awful specific to not be tied to a hard number. If it was a more narrative flavor text like "allows user to see much farther than normal" I would dismiss it. just feels like there is a mechanic there they have yet to release, maybe in the Game Masters Guide.
Kinda circling back to this, I get the simpler design philosophy, but guidelines from the devs would be nice. Case in point, the piece of equipment "Spyglass" explicitly says "A typical spyglass lets you see eight times farther than normal"...8 times farther than what? that's awful specific to not be tied to a hard number. If it was a more narrative flavor text like "allows user to see much farther than normal" I would dismiss it. just feels like there is a mechanic there they have yet to release, maybe in the Game Masters Guide.
I think the utility of something like a spy glass isn't necessarily tied to exactly what the distance you can normally see is, just that you can see farther than that. Having a spyglass means you can spy on an enemy camp or fortress from such a safe distance that they will pretty much never spot you.