Monster ACs too high?


Pathfinder Second Edition General Discussion

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Liberty's Edge

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Ravingdork wrote:

I remember one of the developers saying that things didn't stay linear, that things got easier as you grew in level. (Not a direct quote; paraphrasing from memory.)

Anyone got any math to back that up?

I think it'd be great if it was something like 55% baseline success at low levels and more like 75% baseline at higher levels.

As others note, Skills get better, so do some Saves if they go up more than once in Proficiency (so Reflex Saves for Rogues, Fortitude for Barbarians, and so on). Attacks, as a base number, remain more or less the the same, though you probably get more access to bonuses from Feat-enabled tactics, spells, and so on as you rise in level.

I mean, if we assume Heroism, your to-hit chance definitely rises.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Also while not many feats improve your raw numbers it's fairly obvious that the increased versatility of actions does improve your in game effectiveness.

Case in point. I'm a melee character and face a ranged for 60ft away. My hit chance this round is 0%.

Now I've levelled up, gone back and picked up sudden charge. In that situation my hit chance is now 55%.

Dataphiles

Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Ravingdork wrote:

I remember one of the developers saying that things didn't stay linear, that things got easier as you grew in level. (Not a direct quote; paraphrasing from memory.)

Anyone got any math to back that up?

I think it'd be great if it was something like 55% baseline success at low levels and more like 75% baseline at higher levels.

Simply against moderate guidelines for on level enemies, hit rates and save rates stay fairly consistent.

Hit rates (for the first attack) are 65% on 13/20 levels for martials, 60% on 4/20 levels (4,8,9,12) and 70% on 3/20 levels (5,13,17). +10% for fighters, ~-10% for casters (a bit muddier due to their key ability not being in a weapon stat).

Save rates are usually about 60% (failure) for low saves, 45% for moderate and 30% for high.

From the bestiary, most monsters tend to be about 1 AC higher than the moderate guideline. For saves, the low save is about 0.5-1 point higher than low guidelines, moderate is about the same and high save is about 0.5-1 point lower than the high guidelines.


Exocist wrote:

Simply against moderate guidelines for on level enemies, hit rates and save rates stay fairly consistent.

Hit rates (for the first attack) are 65% on 13/20 levels for martials, 60% on 4/20 levels (4,8,9,12) and 70% on 3/20 levels (5,13,17). +10% for fighters, ~-10% for casters (a bit muddier due to their key ability not being in a weapon stat).

How about against High AC? As the GMG guidelines suggest (& Draco18s data confirmed), the default AC for the majority of monsters seems to be High AC, not Moderate AC. So if you're trying to calculate hit percentages against on level enemies - it would seem more fair to compare attack against High AC and assume lower ACs have compensation elsewhere in their statblock.


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Charon Onozuka wrote:
How about against High AC? As the GMG guidelines suggest (& Draco18s data confirmed), the default AC for the majority of monsters seems to be High AC, not Moderate AC. So if you're trying to calculate hit percentages against on level enemies - it would seem more fair to compare attack against High AC and assume lower ACs have compensation elsewhere in their statblock.

The difference between High AC and Moderate AC is 1.

Exactly 1.

For every level.

level -1 High is 15, moderate is 14. level 5 22 and 21. level 24 51 and 50.


Henro wrote:
Thomas5251212 wrote:
If you don't look at what that majority seems to respond to and design around it, you're just fishing for failure.
This would depress me so much if I believed it was true.

It isn't true with every RPG, but Pathfinder isn't every RPG; its one of the largest in the market and they can't afford to aim to specialist tastes heavily.

Liberty's Edge

Ubertron_X wrote:
No I am not. However when an even leveled monsters second attack has equal chances of hitting like a party martials first attack, that does for sure not counter the "we are not feeling like heroes but incompetent fools" general mood and related threads that are surfacing in this forum on a regular basis.

An “even leveled monster” is worth 40 xp. One is a trivial encounter, two is a moderate encounter. The game assumes four PCs. So the PC party is generally expected to outnumber, and thus out-action the monster by a factor of two or a factor of four. That relatively high accuracy seems necessary to compensate for the action economy imbalance in a trivial to moderate encounter. When you start adding more copies of the monster, of course that high accuracy starts to get dangerous, but that’s the point.

Dark Archive

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Fascinating discussion. Thanks to all, and on both sides.

For those GMs who see their PCs miss AC too often, have you adjusted monster ACs behind the screen? If so, by how much? And does that penalty differ at different level bands?

Thank you.


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Windjammer wrote:

Fascinating discussion. Thanks to all, and on both sides.

For those GMs who see their PCs miss AC too often, have you adjusted monster ACs behind the screen? If so, by how much? And does that penalty differ at different level bands?

Thank you.

I haven't adjusted AC, but it helps to help make sure your players are paying attention and know the enemies AC after a few swings.

Once players know what they need to hit, it makes it easier for them to make decisions to mitigate the targets AC and get into a range of to-hit values they are comfortable with.

It helps them know whether making a second attack is remotely worth it, and exactly how much spending an action Aiding will help.


Luke Styer wrote:
An “even leveled monster” is worth 40 xp. One is a trivial encounter, two is a moderate encounter. The game assumes four PCs. So the PC party is generally expected to outnumber, and thus out-action the monster by a factor of two or a factor of four. That relatively high accuracy seems necessary to compensate for the action economy imbalance in a trivial to moderate encounter. When you start adding more copies of the monster, of course that high accuracy starts to get dangerous, but that’s the point.

According to the encounter building guidelines perhaps, according to the actual encounters in the concrete path we are currently playing rather no. However as we have increased our party size to 5 since volume 2 I am quite sure our GM will add a additional monster here and there.

I actually only remember one "fun" and interesting encounter in one and a half volumes so far and this was when our group was outdoors and outnumbered by lower level foes. Being outdoors meant a lot of maneuvering from both sides and the enemy being of lower level meant you could actually do some role-playing stuff in combat without getting clobbered into oblivion immediately as the enemy had lots of actions and still hit well but the damage inflicted was rather low for each instance of damage (still added up of course).


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Thomas5251212 wrote:
It isn't true with every RPG, but Pathfinder isn't every RPG; its one of the largest in the market and they can't afford to aim to specialist tastes heavily.

But... Why? I'm serious; why do they have to do that? Do they have some kind of obligation to sell X amount of CRBs? Who will punish them if they fail? The Spirit of Capitalism?

As long as Paizo makes enough money to pay their workers and keep creating what they believe in, why do they need further success? I'm sure they would be happy that more people are playing their game of course, but there isn't some law demanding "Pathfinder has to be almost as successful as 5e, if it isn't it's a failure".

I'm also not convinced aiming for the broadest audience is even a good idea. 5e already does that, and I don't really see why trying to compete with that is a good idea when that'd mean going up against WotC and Hasbro's massive marketing money piles.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Draco18s wrote:
Aratorin wrote:
Was this in real life, or on Roll20? Because my group is convinced that Roll20s RNG is borked. We've had entire sessions where nobody rolls above 10.

Roll20 because of the apocalypse.

And yes, we're pretty sure its borked too, but when we've gone and analyzed it (doing things like chi-squared tests) it comes out fine. Values higher than ten DO get rolled, they just tend to get rolled on other things, like initiative, or monster attack rolls, etc.

Mind its been a while since we've done an analysis of it, but we have examined it before. And we're not the only ones. I've seen complaints on their forums that it never rolls BELOW ten for some people.

My experience after 6 years of playing on roll20 is that people who started recently and complain about rng don't really have dice that are 100% random :p Or don't realize that "small chance of never rolling over 10" IS entirely possible by statistics :p

Like, people never remember when they roll 8 or 12, but they remember it when they roll 3 20 in row or nat 1 or never roll over 9


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Henro wrote:
Thomas5251212 wrote:
It isn't true with every RPG, but Pathfinder isn't every RPG; its one of the largest in the market and they can't afford to aim to specialist tastes heavily.

But... Why? I'm serious; why do they have to do that? Do they have some kind of obligation to sell X amount of CRBs? Who will punish them if they fail? The Spirit of Capitalism?

As long as Paizo makes enough money to pay their workers and keep creating what they believe in, why do they need further success? I'm sure they would be happy that more people are playing their game of course, but there isn't some law demanding "Pathfinder has to be almost as successful as 5e, if it isn't it's a failure".

I'm also not convinced aiming for the broadest audience is even a good idea. 5e already does that, and I don't really see why trying to compete with that is a good idea when that'd mean going up against WotC and Hasbro's massive marketing money piles.

It would not be worth competing largely due to name recognition. It the roles were reversed and Paizo had come up with the more simple system and got a massive following then DND would find it logical to pursue the same approach and then win out on recognition.

Paizo can't do that. I guess people think back to a the time when Pathfinder was more popular than Dungeons and Dragons and see it as something they should be aiming for rather than an anomaly based a combination of factors that are unlikely to reoccur


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Lanathar wrote:

It would not be worth competing largely due to name recognition. It the roles were reversed and Paizo had come up with the more simple system and got a massive following then DND would find it logical to pursue the same approach and then win out on recognition.

Paizo can't do that. I guess people think back to a the time when Pathfinder was more popular than Dungeons and Dragons and see it as something they should be aiming for rather than an anomaly based a combination of factors that are unlikely to reoccur

Even 5e was a large combinations of factors that brought it up so high. From the popularity of Critical Role (they are great and make people want to try playing), the callback from Stranger Things, marketing from Hasbro, stupid simple rules, Brand recognition, etc. It literally was a perfect storm.

That is not to say I don't agree with you.

As proof, I am willing to bet there are many systems that are just as simple as 5e, but have few following them because people don't even realize they exist. That is the power of Branding and Marketing.


Temperans wrote:
As proof, I am willing to bet there are many systems that are just as simple as 5e, but have few following them because people don't even realize they exist. That is the power of Branding and Marketing.

To give an example, Savage Worlds is a very simple system. At it's base is "roll 4 to succeed" that's it. A really straight forward system. But few people even in RPG circles even know it exists. Why? b/c it's not D&D.


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Henro wrote:
Thomas5251212 wrote:
It isn't true with every RPG, but Pathfinder isn't every RPG; its one of the largest in the market and they can't afford to aim to specialist tastes heavily.

But... Why? I'm serious; why do they have to do that? Do they have some kind of obligation to sell X amount of CRBs? Who will punish them if they fail? The Spirit of Capitalism?

You do understand that running a business has costs, including writers, editors artists and such, yes? Do you understand why Paizo can afford a higher quality of physical product and art than most companies? Volume of sales is a big part of that.

Quote:


As long as Paizo makes enough money to pay their workers and keep creating what they believe in, why do they need further success? I'm sure they would be happy that more people are playing their game of course, but there isn't some law demanding "Pathfinder has to be almost as successful as 5e, if it isn't it's a failure".

Again, you understand that success is why they can pay all those folks decently, right? If not, ask people working for most RPG companies how much they get paid, if at all.

The RPG hobby business normally runs on a massive shoestring; often the only reason it runs at all is someone does it as a labor of love. A few people manage to make a living off of otherwise pretty specialized products, but they're the exception. This is not exactly a little known fact.

Quote:

I'm also not convinced aiming for the broadest audience is even a good idea. 5e already does that, and I don't really see why trying to compete with that is a good idea when that'd mean going up against WotC and Hasbro's massive marketing money piles.

Paizo has always been aiming for a pretty broad audience; its just historically that was the massive influx of D&D fans who came in/came back with 3e and were dissatisfied with D&D 4e. They can't very well suddenly go "Welp, was nice while it lasted but we'll go ahead and let our business implode." If anything they've been willing to be more risk-taking in some areas than I'd have expected (but new editions are kind of a catch-22 in that way; do too little and people wonder why the hell they're paying for a new edition; do too much and you lose too big a part of your extent fanbase).

Silver Crusade

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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Spoiler alert: most of the broad audience, including most of Paizo's former fanbase, is now with 5e.

Which is why Pathfinder is now a niche product aiming for a modest segment of the market which are people who are dissatisfied with the lack of rule options and first-party setting/adventure support for 5e but aren't interested PF1's baroque unbalanced system with a 6'2' Pole.


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Kelseus wrote:
Temperans wrote:
As proof, I am willing to bet there are many systems that are just as simple as 5e, but have few following them because people don't even realize they exist. That is the power of Branding and Marketing.
To give an example, Savage Worlds is a very simple system. At it's base is "roll 4 to succeed" that's it. A really straight forward system. But few people even in RPG circles even know it exists. Why? b/c it's not D&D.

And at that, SW is better known and widely played than a lot games.

I don't think people realize how steep the slope of success and awareness is in this hobby.


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Gorbacz wrote:

Spoiler alert: most of the broad audience, including most of Paizo's former fanbase, is now with 5e.

Which is why Pathfinder is now a niche product aiming for a modest segment of the market which are people who are dissatisfied with the lack of rule options and first-party setting/adventure support for 5e but aren't interested PF1's baroque unbalanced system with a 6'2' Pole.

Its a struggle, but I'm trying to capture interest.

But even with things like "PF2 addresses every single concern you just voiced about 5e, allows you to build encounters and content infinitely more easily, and comes with a steady stream of ready to run content while still feeling like DnD." People still just say, "Well everyone else is used to 5e and won't want to change.

Overcoming inertia is hard.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Matt Mercer plays 5E and actually switched to it after he and his group found PF1 too fiddly and that's enough of a recommendation for most people.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Just goes to show that the influencers don't always know best! :P

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I think he could be convinced to give PF2 a shot!


Gorbacz wrote:
Matt Mercer plays 5E and actually switched to it after he and his group found PF1 too fiddly and that's enough of a recommendation for most people.

Was it generally finding it fiddly or just too fiddly for their show? I thought it was the latter ? Still enough to convince people


Lanathar wrote:
Gorbacz wrote:
Matt Mercer plays 5E and actually switched to it after he and his group found PF1 too fiddly and that's enough of a recommendation for most people.
Was it generally finding it fiddly or just too fiddly for their show? I thought it was the latter ? Still enough to convince people

There is a reason our party jokingly called DnD 3.0 and all its successors the "search for the +1" editions. However in PF1 you were looking for them during the downtime stages, in PF2 you are looking for them during combat.


Lanathar wrote:
Gorbacz wrote:
Matt Mercer plays 5E and actually switched to it after he and his group found PF1 too fiddly and that's enough of a recommendation for most people.
Was it generally finding it fiddly or just too fiddly for their show? I thought it was the latter ? Still enough to convince people

That's what I recall hearing as well. That they liked Pathfinder well enough, but trying to play pathfinder on a stream was deemed too difficult and not entertaining enough for the broader audiences they were shooting for.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

I'm not sure I'll ever understand the argument against a company trying to design their product to appeal to the broadest possible audience.

"Why do they want to ruin my experience by making changes that will raise their profit margins?"


dirtypool wrote:

I'm not sure I'll ever understand the argument against a company trying to design their product to appeal to the broadest possible audience.

"Why do they want to ruin my experience by making changes that will raise their profit margins?"

Some people assume, usually incorrectly, that whatever their own preferences are happen to be objectively better than other peoples, in line with the majority of people's preferences, or both.

As a result they don't see "raise profit margin" as a possible result of the company's changes, or if they do see that possibility they think it's time to bring up that popular does not mean good (which isn't actually relevant when the purpose of a thing is for people to have fun with it, because games don't have to be good to be fun)


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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I feel like if there was a "Discussion thread derailment BINGO," moving the conversation to talk about market comparisons with 5e has to be one of the most called numbers/indicators that the thread is probably never coming back.


That is kind of sad but true Unicore.

There was a lot of good discussion in this thread too.


But it’s totally related to monster AC because...!

Hm, no, I think my beef with a particular line of reasoning may have lead to some major thread derailment. I apologize, I’ll drop the matter entirely.

Maybe this thread can still be salvaged of the market comparisons to other systems got its own thread? It seems quite a few people had a mind to speak about that for whatever reason.


And because I feel an obligation to at least try to get things back on topic; assuming it is true that most bestiary monsters have an average AC that's higher than moderate, that might have some implications for caster characters trying to target low saves.

It might be that casters targeting low saves are actually ahead of most martials in that case in terms of accuracy. I'm not entirely sure of the implications of this, but it's interesting.


What I find most astonishing is that the IG experience for low level play (by myself) and high level play (e.g. by @KrispyXIV) are completely different. So while our group can't seem to hit the broadside of a barn others seem to have no trouble connecting their first attack on very low target numbers.

Liberty's Edge

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Henro wrote:

And because I feel an obligation to at least try to get things back on topic; assuming it is true that most bestiary monsters have an average AC that's higher than moderate, that might have some implications for caster characters trying to target low saves.

It might be that casters targeting low saves are actually ahead of most martials in that case in terms of accuracy. I'm not entirely sure of the implications of this, but it's interesting.

It's mostly around High, which as someone else mentioned is always precisely a single point above Medium.

So it's really a much smaller difference than people are making it out to be, IMO.

Dataphiles

Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Henro wrote:

And because I feel an obligation to at least try to get things back on topic; assuming it is true that most bestiary monsters have an average AC that's higher than moderate, that might have some implications for caster characters trying to target low saves.

It might be that casters targeting low saves are actually ahead of most martials in that case in terms of accuracy. I'm not entirely sure of the implications of this, but it's interesting.

Part of the reason Electric Arc is so good is that even though Monster AC is consistently High, monster reflex is consistently low-moderate. It comes out pretty decently ahead even against single targets vs produce flame or telekinetic projectile because of that.


Ubertron_X wrote:
What I find most astonishing is that the IG experience for low level play (by myself) and high level play (e.g. by @KrispyXIV) are completely different. So while our group can't seem to hit the broadside of a barn others seem to have no trouble connecting their first attack on very low target numbers.

Low level play does struggle a bit more to find modifiers as several options that provide them do progress outside the AC progression curve. Heroism isn't online from level 1 and not all parties have a Bard. Frightened 2 is harder to get than Frightened 1, and Aid checks take several levels to become reliable. And there's that area around level 4-5 where the first classes are hitting their proficiency increase, but others aren't, where swinging uphill is actually really really bad if you're going up against level 7 or so creatures.

So there's not exactly nothing to that observation - low level is admittedly harder to get to good numbers at than higher. 'Bad rolls' are going to be exacerbated low levels, where you have narrower options for mitigation.

Luckily PF2 is way better about mid and high level play than PF1. And if Age of Ashes is any guide, you'll legit spend decent amounts of time at higher levels if you can stick with it, including spending at least as much (if not more) time at level 20 as you do level 1 or 2.


KrispyXIV wrote:
Luckily PF2 is way better about mid and high level play than PF1. And if Age of Ashes is any guide, you'll legit spend decent amounts of time at higher levels if you can stick with it, including spending at least as much (if not more) time at level 20 as you do level 1 or 2.

Very happy to hear that as I was just coincidentally discussing PF2 late game with another player of my gaming group and there was a lot of back and forth about "finishing" your build by level 15 or 20 (due to stat increases), respectively that it would really be a cool idea to actually be able to play at level 20 for quite some time and be able to use those cool abilities more than once in comparison to just reach level 20 one room before the final fight and the conclusion of the path.


Ubertron_X wrote:
KrispyXIV wrote:
Luckily PF2 is way better about mid and high level play than PF1. And if Age of Ashes is any guide, you'll legit spend decent amounts of time at higher levels if you can stick with it, including spending at least as much (if not more) time at level 20 as you do level 1 or 2.
Very happy to hear that as I was just coincidentally discussing PF2 late game with another player of my gaming group and there was a lot of back and forth about "finishing" your build by level 15 or 20 (due to stat increases), respectively that it would really be a cool idea to actually be able to play at level 20 for quite some time and be able to use those cool abilities more than once in comparison to just reach level 20 one room before the final fight and the conclusion of the path.

I certainly wouldn't wait to level 20 to have a build that works and is fun, but its worth looking forward to getting to use those abilities for a bit.

Level 8 and 9 spells are a bit more mundane than they used to be because you actually get used to having them, but I feel thats better than them coming up maybe once because as you noted, you got them for the final boss fight.

What I wouldn't do is sleep on whether or not someone is going to build for level 15-16 abilities, like Scare to Death. You'll have tons of time to use stuff in that range, and plenty of opportunities to do so and get some great moments from it (Scare to Death in particular. Have I mentioned how much I love/hate Scare to Death?).


KrispyXIV wrote:

I certainly wouldn't wait to level 20 to have a build that works and is fun, but its worth looking forward to getting to use those abilities for a bit.

Level 8 and 9 spells are a bit more mundane than they used to be because you actually get used to having them, but I feel thats better than them coming up maybe once because as you noted, you got them for the final boss fight.

What I wouldn't do is sleep on whether or not someone is going to build for level 15-16 abilities, like Scare to Death. You'll have tons of time to use stuff in that range, and plenty of opportunities to do so and get some great moments from it (Scare to Death in particular. Have I mentioned how much I love/hate Scare to Death?).

It was less about feats or abilities and more about stats, e.g. if you start with a 10, 14 or 18 and will have your final ability score by level 20 or if you start at a 12 or 16 and will have your final ability score by level 15 already.

Scare to Death will fall to our barbarian as our fighter and ranger both dumped CHA, our wizard is not particularily great at scaring either and my cleric - while probably having the best stat - is more of a diplomacy guy.

Liberty's Edge

Ubertron_X wrote:


According to the encounter building guidelines perhaps, according to the actual encounters in the concrete path we are currently playing rather no.

Is that a system issue or an adventure design issue? It’s my understanding that Plaguestone and at least the early volumes of Age of Ashes are acknowledged to be overtuned.


Luke Styer wrote:
Is that a system issue or an adventure design issue? It’s my understanding that Plaguestone and at least the early volumes of Age of Ashes are acknowledged to be overtuned.

On an objective level it is more of an adventure design issue of course and no system issue.

On a subjective level however, especially if you are a player who just likes to play without giving the game's meta extensive consideration (and/or surfing the forum looking for answers like I do) it is a system issue because in your personal but of course limited game experience the adventure and the system are more or less one and the same.

Having said so if you would take a survey within our group 4 of 5 people would probably state that in comparison to their own player character stats monster AC and to-hit are too high in PF2.


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I haven't done Plaguestone, but have run Age of Ashes early game twice and played Extinction Curse book one (75% complete) and my opinion on this most recent point agrees that Age of Ashes is overturned early on, full stop.

Extinction Curse so far has just had one fight that felt extremely scary-hard, and even that was more legitimately over-your-head-but-still fair than some of the early AoA encounters.

Still got at least one dungeon to go though, but I'm optimistic my position won't change.*


KrispyXIV wrote:

I haven't done Plaguestone, but have run Age of Ashes early game twice and played Extinction Curse book one (75% complete) and my opinion on this most recent point agrees that Age of Ashes is overturned early on, full stop.

Extinction Curse so far has just had one fight that felt extremely scary-hard, and even that was more legitimately over-your-head-but-still fair than some of the early AoA encounters.

I feel the same ( talking about EC, I think I got what you mean ).

KrispyXIV wrote:


Still got at least one dungeon to go though, but I'm optimistic my position won't change.*

"That" is going to "really" depend on your party rolls.

However, EC first chapter needs some adjustments in my opinion ( some fights are definitely too easy. I found ok the hard ones, and also the fact a TK could have happened 2 or 3 times. My group was composed by 5 characters but no healer ).


HumbleGamer wrote:
My group was composed by 5 characters but no healer.

That sounds rough. I'm playing a healer Cleric, and despite my constant vocal complaining that I would have been better support as a Bard, theres no way a Bard could have kept our party on their feet.

Of course, we have two monks and a non-shield using Fighter and everyone involved had never played without a Champion in the party before - so incoming damage has been a bit more than we really expected.


KrispyXIV wrote:
And there's that area around level 4-5 where the first classes are hitting their proficiency increase, but others aren't, where swinging uphill is actually really really bad if you're going up against level 7 or so creatures.

I wonder how many people's problems with casters in this edition would be fixed by just having them hit expert at level 5 like everyone else and not changing anything else.


Salamileg wrote:
KrispyXIV wrote:
And there's that area around level 4-5 where the first classes are hitting their proficiency increase, but others aren't, where swinging uphill is actually really really bad if you're going up against level 7 or so creatures.
I wonder how many people's problems with casters in this edition would be fixed by just having them hit expert at level 5 like everyone else and not changing anything else.

That and giving Alchemists Master Unarmed (for Mutagenists), Master Bombs (for Bomber) and ramged healing potions (for Healer Alchs) on the Martial Schedule.

That's a more dramatic house rule than I'm really apt to try, but I agree that its a good question.


KrispyXIV wrote:
HumbleGamer wrote:
My group was composed by 5 characters but no healer.

That sounds rough. I'm playing a healer Cleric, and despite my constant vocal complaining that I would have been better support as a Bard, theres no way a Bard could have kept our party on their feet.

Of course, we have two monks and a non-shield using Fighter and everyone involved had never played without a Champion in the party before - so incoming damage has been a bit more than we really expected.

Our party was

- Goblin Alchemist ( bomber )
- Halfling Rogue ( Scoundrel )
- Gnome Wizard ( Illusionist )
- Human Fighter ( dual wielding daggers )
- Dwarf Barbarian ( Dragon Barbarian )

This should also explain, at least in part, why they had some issues.

At some point ( 3rd part, second half ) they replaced the Gnome Wizard with a Elf Druid ( healer, the one with goodberries ), and starting from 4th part, the scoundrel swapped with a Half Orc Ranger ( precision 2handed melee ).

It went smooth after that ( I modified the encounters, but even by adding +1/2 ac and 30hp to each enemy I had no chances at all ).


HumbleGamer wrote:


It went smooth after that ( I modified the encounters, but even by adding +1/2 ac and 30hp to each enemy I had no chances at all ).

I'll keep this in mind next campaign I run (agents of edgewatch, most likely) - for AoA, I didn't modify anything for my 5 person party over the 4 person party and everything worked fine.

Ironically, the 5 person party actually consistently had a harder time. They also lacked a bard, and thus lacked a reliable status bonus to hit. Hmm.


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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

My EC party has a bard and

EC chapter 1 encounters:
had a terrible time with all of the poisoning...until we realized that 2 of the players had forgotten to add in their proficiency bonus to Fort saves (new players).

Since then, they haven't even really broken a sweat with any encounter since. Bards do make a massive early game difference to party effectiveness. I have been trying, as a player in AoA, to replicate that boost as a cleric using bless, but it just takes too long and too many actions to get rolling. I have just hit level 5 and got access to Heroism, so I think we'll see a massive shift moving forward.

There is an incredible shift in game balance when you can get flanking/make your opponent flat-footed, and get a +1 status bonus to your attack rolls. Everyone seems to agree that any accuracy issues that folks are experiencing are boiling down to a +1 to +3 difference, and the question is really, "should players have to work for that, or get it as a default progression?"

As a GM, I think you have a lot of power and responsibility in helping your players realize that, AND in making sure that the encounters your party face match your players abilities/desires to play the game tactically. At the GM level the PF2 makes it incredibly easy to make these adjustments on the fly.

As a player you really only have the choice of developing better team strategies to get those bonuses. All of the "Cheese" ways to get your opponent flat-footed, to get status bonuses, or to lower enemy defenses cost actions, and usually multiple actions to set up. Most of the frustration I see voiced about accuracy comes from players who don't like that this is the games default power level, and there is no way, through system mastery, to make those bonuses apply to your character automatically.

Keep in mind, for many players, this is a beautiful and intentional choice the developers made to make combat more tactical. However, it is also something that can be resolved by talking to your GM, if "playing more tactically" doesn't feel like it is something your table is interested in. If your GM doesn't know how easy it is to adjust encounters based upon the way players are responding to encounters, then it is a good idea to refer them to these boards and the threads that specifically look at that.


I have run Plaguestone, and I will tell you that it is HARD! The second fight of the book is a bunch of peasants in a bar fight and they hit like a ton of bricks, nearly killed the party.

There are also several encounters that are severe/extreme difficulty but ALSO have environmental concerns that make it much harder.

Plaguestone:
Crawling into the tunnel to fight the blind wolves is a hard choke point allowing them to focus fire on each PC as they come through.
The acrid pool in front of the pen can really jump up the fight difficulty with near constant Fort saves.
Likely fighting both the Sculptor and the blood ooze together.

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