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I finally managed to persuade my friends to try out PF2e and I’m interested to hear what challenges, issues or instances of edition shock other GMs and players have run into.
For context I’m running Fall of Plaguestone on Roll20. It’s the second time I’ve tried GMing and the first time any of us have used Roll20. The party consists of a goblin bard, a halfling wizard, a human ranger.
Overall player response has been positive. The GM (bard) for the “main campaign” (currently on hiatus) has been the most positive about 2e and made the most effort in learning the new rules. They did get a bit salty upon learning that small ancestries no longer get bonuses to stealth checks; they’ve always had a fondness for playing small stealthy characters and feel that Paizo has made the small ancestries worse than medium due to the size limits on combat manoeuvres.
The wizard is enjoying 2e. I have to keep reminding them that they can do more on their turns. The player even expressed that the new action economy felt like they were “cheating”. The player got really excited about the changes to familiars; as we were creating their wizard they expressed that they really liked the idea of playing a halfing wizard with a rabbit familiar but had resigned themselves to having a bird “because it would probably be more useful having a familiar that could fly”. They were overjoyed once I explained that familiar abilities were for the most part separate from their familiars form and that they could have a flying rabbit should they wish.
The ranger has yet to voice much of an option on 2e but seems to getting to grips with it. They’ve started changing their tactics to better suite 2e instead of trying to apply the some old 1e ones. For example, they struggled more in the first combat encounter as they approached it with the 1e mind set of ‘stand there and make multiple attacks against the thing’ which left them feeling ineffective as two or three of their four attacks would usually miss. Fortunately by the second combat encounter they had adjusted and have started using more complex tactics e.g. move in, make two attacks, and then move away.
The druid has expressed a dislike for 2e, opining that 2e feels “board-gamey” without elaborating on what this means. To be honest I’m inclined to disregard this player’s criticism as they have long had a tendency to dislike any kind of change that they themselves didn’t initiate.
As a GM what I’m finding difficult is to impress upon my players the greater number of options available to them in combat encounters, the wider variety of tactics this allows, and the need to apply those tactics. The ranger seems to be gradually getting it, but on the whole my players just comment on enemies having high AC etc. but make no adjustments to their tactics. I think this stems from the way the 1e campaigns we were playing for the most part allowed players to get though encounters while playing their characters in very individualistic ways. I think it might also be a case of a +1 bonus or -1 penalty not being valued as much as it should. In retrospect I should have had an arena fight session for a consequence free combat tutorial before starting the campaign.
Thanks for sharing DD! I have just started to prepare my first 2e campaign, and I have found small simple combats with one or two characters and a couple NPCs has been extremely helpful to get a feel for the way the mechanics work during actual play.
The 3-action round structure does need some getting used to. I've found that having a default 1-action maneuver is usually better than a third attack, whether that's raising a shield or Recalling Knowledge.
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Getting used to the action economy can take a bit. I’m glad to see your ranger, who was most likely to fall into the habit of just full attacking has been trying more. I might suggest printing out an action list of what the generally available actions are for each player. And adding some of the skill actions as the characters gain access to them(based off of training). Having the details for how to do something and what it does at their finger tips might help them experiment more. Including the list of status effects can also help with that as it’s not necessarily apparent how much they do.
Perhaps add an enemy who specifically does some of those things to you next few fights. Showing that the minus one has a similar and stacking effect to the plus one they’re already using from the bard may help them follow suit.
As to the board gamyness complaint? Fairly valid actually, IMO. The system is much more specific about what you can do and how, and what you can combine(in so many ways to its own benefit and playability). Similar in several ways to D&D 4ed which had that complaint. It’s all handled much better and is much more free from than that was but their are definite similarities and some people will pick up on those. I certainly haven’t had anyone I know of actually make that complaint but I can also see where some could. How much weight you want to give that though as opposed to it just being someone grumbling about change is your call though.
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The wizard is enjoying 2e. I have to keep reminding them that they can do more on their turns. The player even expressed that the new action economy felt like they were “cheating”.
How?
PF1 you could move and cast a single spell.PF2 you can move and cast a single two-action spell.
I'm not sure where the additional action economy is coming from for your group.
The party consists of a goblin bard, a halfling wizard, a human ranger.
Downgrade every fight heavily. Use the rules for player adjustments and assume you only have 2 PCs instead of 3. Plaugestone is brutal if the players are up against anything above their own level. My group has come within spitting distance of TPKs without adjusting upwards for 6 PCs.
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The wizard is enjoying 2e. I have to keep reminding them that they can do more on their turns. The player even expressed that the new action economy felt like they were “cheating”.How?
PF1 you could move and cast a single spell.
PF2 you can move and cast a single two-action spell.I'm not sure where the additional action economy is coming from for your group.
The party consists of a goblin bard, a halfling wizard, a human ranger.Downgrade every fight heavily. Use the rules for player adjustments and assume you only have 2 PCs instead of 3. Plaugestone is brutal if the players are up against anything above their own level. My group has come within spitting distance of TPKs without adjusting upwards for 6 PCs.
If I were to guess then perhaps it is just looking at the options and seeing that you can cast shield and another spell in one round. Things like that
Regardless of how often you actually would
Also, I don't know if it is just me, but in 1E when you had warriors with AOOs and potentially reach it was by no means guaranteed that the caster would even need to move in a round.
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As a GM what I’m finding difficult is to impress upon my players the greater number of options available to them in combat encounters, the wider variety of tactics this allows, and the need to apply those tactics. The ranger seems to be gradually getting it, but on the whole my players just comment on enemies having high AC etc. but make no adjustments to their tactics. I think this stems from the way the 1e campaigns we were playing for the most part allowed players to get though encounters while playing their characters in very individualistic ways. I think it might also be a case of a +1 bonus or -1 penalty not being valued as much as it should. In retrospect I should have had an arena fight session for a consequence free combat tutorial before starting the campaign.
Having enemies demonstrate the efficacy of a different approach by using new tactics against the party is one option, though you run the danger of upping the difficulty level for your group. Another option would be to have an allied NPC join them in an encounter or two and demonstrate the benefits on their side: using a 3rd action to Intimidate and give the enemy -1 to everything for a round, or to Take Cover and get a +4 to their own AC, or opting to Stride-Strike-Stride away again and making the enemy use an action to follow them instead of standing there and taking 3 attacks in the face.
A lot of the tactics we all internalized in P1e, like get your melee brute toe-to-toe with the enemy as quickly as possibly then sit there and exchange attacks until one side is dead, are detrimental now, and it takes some time to unlearn those habits.
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My group has been running a campaign of AoA since September (over PbP, so we're only through the end of book 1, but still) and some of my party-mates are still having a hard time remembering that most enemies don't have AoOs anymore.
The wizard is enjoying 2e. I have to keep reminding them that they can do more on their turns. The player even expressed that the new action economy felt like they were “cheating”.How?
PF1 you could move and cast a single spell.
PF2 you can move and cast a single two-action spell.I'm not sure where the additional action economy is coming from for your group.
The party consists of a goblin bard, a halfling wizard, a human ranger.Downgrade every fight heavily. Use the rules for player adjustments and assume you only have 2 PCs instead of 3. Plaugestone is brutal if the players are up against anything above their own level. My group has come within spitting distance of TPKs without adjusting upwards for 6 PCs.
Only just realised I forgot to list the leshy druid.
As for how, the wizard can cast a 2-action spell and follow it up with a weapon strike with their dagger, fire their crossbow, cast Shield, use Hand of the Apprentice or demoralise an enemy. All things they couldn't have done in PF1e.
My group has been running a campaign of AoA since September (over PbP, so we're only through the end of book 1, but still) and some of my party-mates are still having a hard time remembering that most enemies don't have AoOs anymore.
I noticed that the ranger's tactics changed from 'stand still and strike-strike-strike-strike' to 'stride-strike-strike-stride once they double checked that universal AoOs were no longer a thing.
Only just realised I forgot to list the leshy druid.
That'd do it. I'd still recommend checking the difficulty. Plaugestone is well known for being over-tuned.
As for how, the wizard can cast a 2-action spell and follow it up with a weapon strike with their dagger, fire their crossbow, cast Shield, use Hand of the Apprentice or demoralise an enemy. All things they couldn't have done in PF1e.
Gotcha, more of a "use that third actions for things other than movement."
Flurry rangers, especially bow centered ones, are actually the one class where 4 strikes is probably the way to go a decent chunk of the time. 3 strikes and twin Parry with a parrying weapon is probably better for melee once that is possible, though.
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As for how, the wizard can cast a 2-action spell and follow it up with a weapon strike with their dagger, fire their crossbow, cast Shield, use Hand of the Apprentice or demoralise an enemy. All things they couldn't have done in PF1e.Gotcha, more of a "use that third actions for things other than movement."
Good if your players see it this way, especially if they have access to a couple of meaningful 1-action spells, which enables them to cast twice in any given round. My warpriest still feels butchered/action starved in the new action economy as I can no longer use my "move or step, use a shield for AC and cast a spell routine" in addition to potentially making some knowledge checks for free. Also use of meta-magic, while not increasing spell level anymore, will now turn even a prepared caster into a spell tower and end your 3-action turn in just a single character action (e.g. "I cast heal, range 60, 13 points, next"). Note that I have come to terms with the new action economy, however my first impression was not the described "can do more" but rather "can do less" in the new system.
Good if your players see it this way, especially if they have access to a couple of meaningful 1-action spells, which enables them to cast twice in any given round. My warpriest still feels butchered/action starved in the new action economy as I can no longer use my "move or step, use a shield for AC and cast a spell routine" in addition to potentially making some knowledge checks for free. Also use of meta-magic, while not increasing spell level anymore, will now turn even a prepared caster into a spell tower and end your 3-action turn in just a single character action (e.g. "I cast heal, range 60, 13 points, next"). Note that I have come to terms with the new action economy, however my first impression was not the described "can do more" but rather "can do less" in the new system.As for how, the wizard can cast a 2-action spell and follow it up with a weapon strike with their dagger, fire their crossbow, cast Shield, use Hand of the Apprentice or demoralise an enemy. All things they couldn't have done in PF1e.Gotcha, more of a "use that third actions for things other than movement."
Admittedly it does help martials more than casters. Being selective with your spells can help a bit, but for the most part yeah, spells still take most of your action economy. That said, with Quickened Casting once a day a Wizard can cast any quickened two-action spell, Shield, and a 1-action Magic Missile all in a single round. Or a spellblade-type Wizard could cast True Strike, attack, and cast Shield all in a single round. A bard can cast Magic Missile, Inspire Courage, and Shield all in a single round, and at highest level with both the Polymath and Maestro muses and the right feats could even cast single-action Cure, single-action Magic Missile, Shield, and Inspire Courage all in a single round.
Single-action Magic Missile is a waste, unfortunately.
I like that the spell can be cast as a single action, but the spell-slot-usage often ends up more valuable than the single action trait.
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Wanted to chime in agreement to be careful with Plaguestone - unfortunately it ended up being not the best introductory adventure because the later parts are quite difficult.
Remembering that most things don't have attack of opportunity is definitely something that took my players time to get used to... I think one thing that helped is that one of my players is a fighter and I would keep having enemies be surprised by attacks of opportunity. Seeing foes get caught off guard and thwapped by an AoO because they weren't expecting one did a nice double duty of reminding the players that AoOs are rare and making the fighter feel more useful (not that she's not useful; she's probably the strongest character in the group. But the player has never played a fighter before and is used to the "fighters suck" mindset of 1e). I'd make a point of saying "well, he's not expecting you to be able to take attacks of opportunity, so he tries to dart past you, and... attack of opportunity, please."
I took a similar approach to helping my players learn that every bonus matters - whenever Inspire Courage turned a miss into a hit or a hit into a crit, I would announce "hits because of bardsong", "crits because of bardsong". Makes the bard player feel good and helps the players see how often +1 bonuses come up.
Single-action Magic Missile is a waste, unfortunately.
I like that the spell can be cast as a single action, but the spell-slot-usage often ends up more valuable than the single action trait.
I do use the single action version when I'm activating my Wand of Manifold Missiles. The most important thing is getting it going in that case.
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Wanted to chime in agreement to be careful with Plaguestone - unfortunately it ended up being not the best introductory adventure because the later parts are quite difficult.
Remembering that most things don't have attack of opportunity is definitely something that took my players time to get used to... I think one thing that helped is that one of my players is a fighter and I would keep having enemies be surprised by attacks of opportunity. Seeing foes get caught off guard and thwapped by an AoO because they weren't expecting one did a nice double duty of reminding the players that AoOs are rare and making the fighter feel more useful (not that she's not useful; she's probably the strongest character in the group. But the player has never played a fighter before and is used to the "fighters suck" mindset of 1e). I'd make a point of saying "well, he's not expecting you to be able to take attacks of opportunity, so he tries to dart past you, and... attack of opportunity, please."
I took a similar approach to helping my players learn that every bonus matters - whenever Inspire Courage turned a miss into a hit or a hit into a crit, I would announce "hits because of bardsong", "crits because of bardsong". Makes the bard player feel good and helps the players see how often +1 bonuses come up.
I'm hoping to turn the difficulty of Plaguestone into an opportunity to showcase magical items, in particular wands, staves and talismans. With any luck the additional items in conjunction with starting them at level 2 should balance things a bit.
I think the long ingrained fear of AoOs might be contributing to the reluctance of the spell casters to get into a flanking position with the ranger. While it does put them in more immediate risk I think they'd have an easier time overall.
I wholly agree that GMs should make it explicit when an attack hits or misses due to a buff or debuff. I played a witch in our 1e game with a focus on debuffing and often had a hard time being able to tell if I was making a difference and felt useless as a result; communication from the GM can really make a difference.
For getting players used to things other than just making the maximum number of attacks all the time, it's also useful to put hazards onto battlemaps to complicate positioning and for PCs to Shove enemies into (or risk being Shoved into themselves!). The APs seem to be leaning pretty hard into this, since about 40-50% of the encounters I skimmed through included at least one triggerable hazard as part of a fight.
Yes! My Age of Ashes players had a lot of fun defeating the boss of book 2 by
Making battles more interesting than just an open field is huge.
I think the long ingrained fear of AoOs might be contributing to the reluctance of the spell casters to get into a flanking position with the ranger.
Flanking position for wizards (and other clothies) is suicide against an enemy two levels above you. While it might only hit the ranger on a 8 to 10, the wizard's AC is another 5 points lower, meaning hits on a 4 and crits on a 14.
A single crit from a level+2 creature at level 3 is going to drop the wizard to zero from full health.
That is not worth giving the ranger a +2 to hit.
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It's risky, certainly, but there are plenty of situations where it could be worth it.
For one, many Wizards will have 16 Dex and Mage Armor, meaning AC20 vs the Ranger's likely AC21 - only one point less, not five.
For two, Wizards have defensive options like Mirror Image that can make them actually pretty safe flankers.
It also depends on the creature. A basilisk, for example, is only likely to attack one per round because it wants to use its gaze. And its average crit damage of 26 only barely drops a 24HP Wizard - and that's a Wizard with a low-HP ancestry and a Con of 10, which is obviously not advisable.
A more robust wizard - say human with a Con of 14 - has 32HP and usually survives a crit. If the party is facing a tough fight, taking that risk for a round could be very worth it to let the ranger get their full blender on.
Especially since the basilisk might not even attack the wizard; why attack the guy in a robe with a knife when the other guy is dicing you up with his scimitars?
vs the Ranger's likely AC21 - only one point less, not five.
That's still using up an entire spell slot, plus another spell slot per fight for Mirror Image (plus a round to cast it in).
Oh, and because you're fighting level +2, the ranger is getting hit on 8+ as it is.
As for the 5-point difference I was looking at higher level numbers than I meant to be. If we're talking level 3ish, then yes, the wizard is only going to be behind by ~2 points. I also don't have Mage Armor accounted for in my tool, I'll fix that, that might make up the difference.
Adjusted, that keeps the discrepancy at 2-3 points across most levels (level 5 has a drop, but Wizards don't yet have 6th level spells and the Ranger picked up a shield effect--either an actual shield, twin parry, or similar), but still, fighting a critter 2 levels above you is crazy dangerous. Wizard is going to get crit on 16s.
A more robust wizard - say human with a Con of 14 - has 32HP and usually survives a crit. If the party is facing a tough fight, taking that risk for a round could be very worth it to let the ranger get their full blender on.
Getting a Con of 14 and a Dex of 16 on a wizard without sacrificing both Int and Wis. (Con 14 requires 2 boosts, Dex requires 3, the four free boosts can only apply one each, meaning that ancestry and background both providing one to Int, there's only 2 boosts that can be applied towards the required 3 desired, assuming zero are spent on Wisdom).
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Wizards have great Will out of the box; I definitely see Con as a higher priority than Wis, personally.
And I went with level 3 because you mentioned level 3 in your post. :)
I'm certainly not saying flanking is always a good idea - it's obviously going to be very dependent on your build and the circumstances of the fight. But it's definitely not never a good idea.
In my Age of Ashes campaign, the very squishy bard has run into flanking a couple times, despite having the lowest AC and HP in the party, because giving the warpriest a better chance to land his best attack on a hard target was more important than keeping herself safe.
Usually she comboes it with a casting of Vampiric Touch, which is a great way to give yourself a little extra resilience to survive the tactic.
If we're talking level 3ish, then yes, the wizard is only going to be behind by ~2 points.I also don't have Mage Armor accounted for in my tool, I'll fix that, that might make up the difference.
Adjusted, that keeps the discrepancy at 2-3 points across most levels (level 5 has a drop, but Wizards don't yet have 6th level spells and the Ranger picked up a shield effect--either an actual shield, twin parry, or similar), but still, fighting a critter 2 levels above you is crazy dangerous. Wizard is going to get crit on 16s.
I think it depends. A non-armored caster who ups their DEX to 16 and casts shield can be just 1 AC point behind. By the time other party members get their armor proficiency up, the caster probably has more spell slots/consumables/wands/staves to help them.
Wizards have great Will out of the box; I definitely see Con as a higher priority than Wis, personally.
And I went with level 3 because you mentioned level 3 in your post. :)
Yes, which is why I said "oops, my bad" because the later post I was not remembering that context. :)
I'm certainly not saying flanking is always a good idea - it's obviously going to be very dependent on your build and the circumstances of the fight. But it's definitely not never a good idea.
It gets less dangerous as you level up, but I can tell you that as a spellcasting class in Plaguestone there was ZERO reasons for me to get closer than 30 feet of The Sculptor and about five for me to stay further away.
Not that even that saved me in the actual final boss fight, where I took a crit acid flask to the face from 30 feet.
Why yes, me and my 27 hp will just wait for that 4d6 per round to wear off on its own. Good plan.
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Lower levels are more dangerous... and Plaguestone is a madhouse. I think the optimal range for engaging the Sculptor is from some other adventure entirely, because screw that noise. :P
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Honestly we are having issues with rules. It seems like rules are really being jumbled between the editions. I feel like the game would be easier for people without Pathfinder or D&D experience.
Here are some random examples in our last sessions that I had to correct the DM and other players about...
Flat-footed doesn't happen if a creature doesn't act unless you are a Rogue or have the surprise attack .
1 player and the DM both thought every character had attack of opportunities. This was after the DM mentioned that if you prone someone you can make an attack of opportunity on them when they get up...
Overall it has been a worse experience than I was hoping. We are only on our second session but I really expected my DM to have a better understanding of 2e and just expected it to run smoother overall. It doesn't help 3 of the players are new to Fantasy Grounds and complain about the UI constantly...
To be fair, standing up from prone DOES trigger an attack of opportunity (Stand has the Move trait), but obviously only from people who actually can make attacks of opportunity. :)
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That is the other probably, I never imagined how complicated all the traits are and how hard things would be in game.
For example just this one feat
"You enter the stance of a wolf, low to the ground with your hands held like fanged teeth. You can make wolf jaw unarmed attacks. These deal 1d8 piercing damage; are in the brawling group; and have the agile, backstabber, finesse, nonlethal, and unarmed traits."
If you’re flanking a target while in Wolf Stance, your wolf jaw unarmed attacks also gain the trip trait.
This is just some random stance that a new player picked and lets look at all the key words
stance
agile
backstabber
finesse
nonlethal
unarmed
trip trait
flanking:
I asked everyone to at least look over their class but having to explain every trait and option in combat has been rough. Especially having them remember them next week... I feel like as a player I am going to have to read over every class since so many issues came up with them playing wrong.
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Biggest pain points for my parties I'm running for early on -
Just because you can attack three times, doesn't mean you should. Swinging at -10 is generally not as effective as Preparing to Aid another character.
Just because you can attack a second time, doesn't mean you should. Moving to flank or set up flanking will pay dividends for your whole party.
The above contributed to things feeling really hard due to hitting on worse than a 10 on a first attack - but once those started to be intuited and applied, accuracy skyrocketed and people felt a lot better about what they were doing.
Small numbers are a big deal. +1 to hit/-1 AC are a big deal, and worth working for. Understanding how Degrees of Success affected the math is most easily achieved through observing it in play.
Players felt like things like Stunned 1 weren't "doing alot", until I flipped around a monster stat block and walked them through exactly how crippling that Stunned 1 was, because it turned off nasty 3 round activities and disabled the ability to use 2 action activities after moving.
That one I honestly regret a little - I have an archer fighter who now makes it his life's mission to make sure the biggest threat to the party is never not slowed via Debilitating shot. And now that they know exactly what that prevents, they know exactly how big a deal it is.
Concealment from Dazzled, etc. is a big deal and worth working for. Which is a change from Dazzled being kind of a joke debuff. Its apparent right away that bosses are rolling to see if they crit on their first attack more than to see if they hit, but Concealment is a cruel mistress that impartially robs them of 20% of their hits right off the top. Mistform Elixirs from the party Alchemist became standard issue after a while.
There's still a hidden spellcaster heigharchy that replaced the old 6th level / 9th level paradigm. While the spells per levels progression is fewer spells than previous, the reality is most spellcasters are about as well off as before. All the spellcasting classes other than bard (who gets compositions) get some sort of expanded spellcasting mechanic to give them extra high level spells - school + bonded item, just plain extra slots, channel energy, or really good focus spells.
Don't sweat the inability to modify the numbers in battle forms. Someone did the math to make sure they're relevant for the level you're casting them at.
Out of combat healing and recovery got easy, and in combat healing (or equivalent damage mitigation) got real important. You're going to get hit and its gonna hurt.
Parties really do need to coordinate skills and skill progression now. Try and set up developed coverage for most checks between the party, and make sure everyone understands that only Critical Failure is generally super terrible (ie, Failing a Sneak check reduces you to Hidden, not fully detected). This generally means that while you may not have the best chance to succeed at merely trained later on, you're unlikely to hurt progression by trying and are massively more likely to eventually succeed than critically fail in situations where you can try again.
Don't discount consumables. A lot of them are cost prohibitive At Level, but still have exactly as much utility in 5 levels when the cost has become trivial. Some notable examples I can recall off the top of my head include the Snapleaf, Switch Block Cabachon (I think), and the Iron Clasp or whatever it is that makes Frightening Presence auras less terrifying in the late game.
Uh... I think thats most of the list of things I can think of to share for edition change pains. The last, nonspecific and most important item though is to stick with it. A lot of the advantages of the system aren't apparent at first read, and will become apparent through play.
Swinging at -10 is generally not as effective as Preparing to Aid another character.
I'm not sure you can actually do that. While the book lists Aid as a reaction, it isn't, its more like a wrapper around Ready.
It says "by spending an action" but it isn't clear if that's [one-action] or an [action activity]. The closest comparison is Ready, which costs [two-actions].
Don't discount consumables. A lot of them are cost prohibitive At Level, but still have exactly as much utility in 5 levels when the cost has become trivial. Some notable examples I can recall off the top of my head include the Snapleaf, Switch Block Cabachon (I think), and the Iron Clasp or whatever it is that makes Frightening Presence auras less terrifying in the late game.
This tells me that they over-priced consumables or tagged them with a lower level than they really should have. If a level 3 item isn't really worth its benefit until level 8, then it should have been listed as "level 8" (with the same gold cost).
Does that mess with alchemist and other crafting? Yeah, but not in a way that can't be fixed. Quick alchemy is only good for items that are going to be used Right Now with zero gold cost, and daily-prepped items only last the day, so adjusting for it is basically "you can use your alchemical reagents to create items up to 5 levels above your own."
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I'm not sure you can actually do that. While the book lists Aid as a reaction, it isn't, its more like a wrapper around Ready.It says "by spending an action" but it isn't clear if that's [one-action] or an [action activity]. The closest comparison is Ready, which costs [two-actions].
I'm not sure how you got to that conclusion.
Aid is extremely clear - you must spend An Action (no way to confuse that for "a 2 action activity" or "Ready an Action") on your turn to prepare to aid. That's it, its not ambiguous at all and never refers to the Ready action ever either implicitly or otherwise.
On consumables, I'm pretty sure their level is the level at which that consumables effect is considered to be "precious". A level 5 item is available at level 5, but not THAT available. If you want it then, you can get it at a significant cost - and likely not in multiples.
I'm not sure how you got to that conclusion.
Aid is extremely clear - you must spend An Action (no way to confuse that for "a 2 action activity" or "Ready an Action") on your turn to prepare to aid. That's it, its not ambiguous at all and never refers to the Ready action ever either implicitly or otherwise.
Then why is the Aid action listed as a Reaction and Ready is listed as a two-action activity?
Aid isn't a reaction if you have to spend action(s) on your turn preparing. Ready works the same way: spend actions now, get a reaction later. So why are the two written into the book differently?
On consumables, I'm pretty sure their level is the level at which that consumables effect is considered to be "precious". A level 5 item is available at level 5, but not THAT available. If you want it then, you can get it at a significant cost - and likely not in multiples.
Maybe, except that if I'm going to go through looking for "stuff to buy" I'm going to look at "stuff that's about my level." This applies to magic items, runes, wands, and scrolls. So why are consumables different?
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That is the other probably, I never imagined how complicated all the traits are and how hard things would be in game.
For example just this one feat
"You enter the stance of a wolf, low to the ground with your hands held like fanged teeth. You can make wolf jaw unarmed attacks. These deal 1d8 piercing damage; are in the brawling group; and have the agile, backstabber, finesse, nonlethal, and unarmed traits."
If you’re flanking a target while in Wolf Stance, your wolf jaw unarmed attacks also gain the trip trait.
This is just some random stance that a new player picked and lets look at all the key words
stance
agile
backstabber
finesse
nonlethal
unarmed
trip trait
flanking:I asked everyone to at least look over their class but having to explain every trait and option in combat has been rough. Especially having them remember them next week... I feel like as a player I am going to have to read over every class since so many issues came up with them playing wrong.
I cannot recommend this site enough: Pathfinder 2 easyTree
It has been the single greatest resource for running 2e I've ever found. Not only is it easy to find anything you might be looking for (just type "wolf" in the search and Wolf Stance will come up quickly) but it's aggressively cross-linked. The description for Wolf Stance underlines every trait and will give you the full description of that trait with a click. It also tells you that the feat is a prerequisite to Wolf Drag, and links to THAT feat.
If anything, it's almost too aggressive - it probably doesn't need to link to the wolf creature entry. :P
But for situations like you describe, easyTree is a massive boon.
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If you use Aid with an Attack Roll does is use MAP?
No. Attack rolls out of turn don't suffer MAP unless they say they do - such as under the Readied Action description..
If you use Aid with an Attack Roll does is use MAP?No. Attack rolls out of turn don't suffer MAP unless they say they do - such as under the Readied Action description..
Are you sure about that?
Because Attack of Opportunity specifically calls out that it DOESN'T suffer or affect MAP.
Thank you, I missed that.