Those insanely powerful on their own, but getting even more OP synergy with many class abilities.
Where whole idea giving bonus damage dice is interesting on it's own, and surely can benefit two-handed weapons (something that always were underpowered on high levels in previous editions), i feel like it's usage need to be limited.
Most obvious that come my head - just give 'flourish' trait to weapons with strike runes. With choice to wielder where he want to use strike rune on his turn, once, or other abilities with flourish trait.
As such even on it's own strike runes will remain good, but not overpowered. And it will prevent any overwhelming combos, like ranger using 'impossible flurry' with weapons, each having major strike rune, and similar abilities that provides extra opportunities to make more strikes.
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What, exactly, makes you think that there is a problem to solve here, when that striking rune enhanced damage is a key assumption to what the scaling of NPCs was designed around? Do you have some calculations to show multiple attack abilities overperforming?
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The only true problem with these runes are their very existence.
They're mandatory items and a such should've been added to the character's own damage. Sadly people cling to their illusions too tightly so they remain. Well, at least we have Automatic Bonus Progression already available.
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Those insanely powerful on their own, but getting even more OP synergy with many class abilities.
Where whole idea giving bonus damage dice is interesting on it's own, and surely can benefit two-handed weapons (something that always were underpowered on high levels in previous editions), i feel like it's usage need to be limited.Most obvious that come my head - just give 'flourish' trait to weapons with strike runes. With choice to wielder where he want to use strike rune on his turn, once, or other abilities with flourish trait.
As such even on it's own strike runes will remain good, but not overpowered. And it will prevent any overwhelming combos, like ranger using 'impossible flurry' with weapons, each having major strike rune, and similar abilities that provides extra opportunities to make more strikes.
The Game is designed with the assumption of players getting Striking Runes, there is nothing overpowered about a Ranger using Impossible Flurry with Striking Runes.
They're an intended part of the math of the game and there is no need to limit them unless you plan on refactoring the health of every monster.
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These things were hashed out during the playtest. As with anything, opinions vary. Personally I would have been happy with no striking runes and lower monster HP to compensate, but the feedback Paizo got prompted them to design the game the way they did, so my opinion is a minority opinion.
In the end, it's really not that big of a deal to me, so I let it go because there are so many other things about PF2 that I really like.
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Having them at level 3, and not having them at level 3 makes or breaks encounters based on the RAW encounter builder.But...they're level 4 items? You shouldn't have them available at level 3? So, the default case should be no striking runes.
Based on the treasure rules, a level 3 party can expect to find 2 level 4 permanent items. Finding items 1 level higher than you are is pretty standard.
No, you don’t, because you’re probably dead in two rounds. Three at the most. The boss can effectively tunnel each member to death at that point, as they are going to be doing literally half the damage the math says they should be. So, they’ll walk past your tanks, kill your casters, as they will be the only threats, and then pick you off, one a round, as you ineffectually plink away at them.
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Or that Rogues need to be nerfed.
(I should make a compilation every time one of these comes up)
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It’s kind of a drinking game, but one that will ultimately kill you.
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I've found that most of the real damage that a character tends to do comes from their flat bonuses for most of the game, with dice adding that classic touch of the random to a damage roll.
I would say that Striking runes are a necessary part of progression, not that they are broken or need a nerf. That's like saying that bonus spell slots for a caster are broken and need a nerf. The class is balanced around getting them at certain levels, and the challenge of monsters are also balanced around the same.
If you don't like them, I would recommend you take Lightning Raven's advice and try out Automatic Bonus Progression as it removes them entirely from the equation. My group is currently playing a Discord game using both Dual Classing (only 3 players currently so decided it was a good time to try it out) as well as Automatic Bonus Progression, and it's been pretty fun. The player's don't have to save up for the "proper" runes, I don't have to worry about including them as loot, and the combat is just as balanced as it ever has been.
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Based on the treasure rules, a level 3 party can expect to find 2 level 4 permanent items. Finding items 1 level higher than you are is pretty standard.Having them at level 3, and not having them at level 3 makes or breaks encounters based on the RAW encounter builder.But...they're level 4 items? You shouldn't have them available at level 3? So, the default case should be no striking runes.
Yeah, 2 of them.
If all your loot is weapon runes, you're running a pretty boring loot table. Mix it up, and if none of them happen to be striking runes, your players will buy one eventually.You're not expected to *have them* until lv5ish - ABP gives them at lv4, but you can live without for one level and still make it out okay.
At later levels, it's much less of a deal.
ps. oh and mandatory items are bullshit but you heard me enough on that topic I believe :P
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Look, I don’t particularly *like* Striking Runes, and I think their power should be a baseline ability that every class gets, like in ABP, but that’s not really the issue at hand. If you remove them, or tag them with Flourish, like the OP wants to do, you are going to end up VERY quickly with a situation where the enemies have more health than you, hit harder than you ever can, and hit you more often. This swiftly leads to dead groups.
I don’t enjoy needing the damn things, but the entirety of combat above level 5 is predicated on you having them.
Look, I don’t particularly *like* Striking Runes, and I think their power should be a baseline ability that every class gets, like in ABP, but that’s not really the issue at hand. If you remove them, or tag them with Flourish, like the OP wants to do, you are going to end up VERY quickly with a situation where the enemies have more health than you, hit harder than you ever can, and hit you more often. This swiftly leads to dead groups.
I don’t enjoy needing the damn things, but the entirety of combat above level 5 is predicated on you having them.
OP was very quick to seek change without actually thinking about the system as a whole. It seems like he went straight to the "change the underlying system part" of the discussion without ever coming across the important part of "mandatory items" or at least "what are the big six?", both of these discussions would tell OP that his analysis is royally wrong and misguided and probably has this impression because of some misinterpreted rule somewhere breaking things.
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The only true problem with these runes are their very existence.
They're mandatory items and a such should've been added to the character's own damage. Sadly people cling to their illusions too tightly so they remain. Well, at least we have Automatic Bonus Progression already available.
Yeah, this is my only gripe with them. The runes for attack and damage shouldn't exist, they should just be part of the character's progression, but thankfully they've released ABP so we can just pretend that's always been the case.
The striking and potency runes are factored into the hp and AC of enemies as level increases, it's part of the treadmill of progression.
You know, the one that makes you feel like you're getting better even though you absolutely need to have this to stay relevant because the game assumes you have them and if you don't you WILL ALMOST CERTAINLY fail and compensates by increasing the relative challenge of enemies as you level up? This allows you to outclass low level enemies hardily, but on level enemies and higher to remain threats (the alternative being that low level enemies remain threats, but also that if you lucky low level PCs could be high level enemies because the math differences between levels aren't significant).
Casters don't get to share into that fun. There are no striking runes for spells. Since low-level casters have power concerns already, what's up with that? Why don't they get to hope for a lucky drop? Why can't they save up their money for a huge power-up?
Casters have a mechanic called "heightening" that lets their spells do more damage.
Also, I also love and support ABP, but even then, striking runes aren't exactly hard to come by, though I know Extinction Curse book 1 gives them out weirdly late - but that's an outlier. Even PFS scenarios give them out plentifully at subtier 3-4.
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Getting a rune or not is a big power swing, but I would argue that is precisely the intention of the game designers. If you look at how wealth by level works, you're always getting a few higher-level items every level - stuff that you could find as loot, but can't just buy yet. That makes that loot better than going to the mall.
If you look a bit more at how the power progression of just about every class is built (and taking the expected runes into account), you don't see a smoothly rising line. You see something more like a stair, with bigger and smaller steps.
The AC of monsters goes up by more than 1 at the same level that most martials get a better weapon proficiency, but of course much of the time you're fighting monsters that are 1-2 levels above you. So when you're almost at a better proficiency, you're actually in a relatively bad spot, and then you level, and suddenly you're in a quite good spot again.
And it's the same with AC, monster to-hit of the monsters that you're fighting will seem at their biggest just before you hit an increase to AC from L5 ability boosts or armor proficiency boosts.
And the same for spell DCs and saving throws. They all increase with fits and starts, not in a smooth curve, and that's what makes it feel like every level you're getting better at something.
The way getting a rune or not upsets the equilibrium is also intended to feel this way. The character who gets the first rune should feel much more powerful than her compatriots (until they get some too, a level or so later).
Carefully managed and alternating imbalances are key to this game, not treadmill-like smooth progression curves.
Carefully managed and alternating imbalances are key to this game, not treadmill-like smooth progression curves.
Good point, it's not a treadmill, it's a stair machine
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Carefully managed and alternating imbalances are key to this game, not treadmill-like smooth progression curves.Good point, it's not a treadmill, it's a stair machine
Yeah, you get a much more intense workout that way :)
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My point was that casters don't have anything nearly as significant to look forward to (in loot or in spending gold). That's not fun.
Staves, wands and scrolls. They aren't always on like a striking rune is but they aren't chopped liver and are a big part of expanding a caster's options.
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I'm afraid that's irrelevant regarding my point.
My point was that casters don't have anything nearly as significant to look forward to (in loot or in spending gold). That's not fun.
I'm afraid that's irrelevant regarding the gist of the thread.
That has nothing to do with a discussion regarding whether or not striking runes need a nerf. Can't nerf what doesn't exist so no real point in even making the point. That whole point should probably go in another thread.
The Game is designed with the assumption of players getting Striking Runes, there is nothing overpowered about a Ranger using Impossible Flurry with Striking Runes.They're an intended part of the math of the game and there is no need to limit them unless you plan on refactoring the health of every monster.
I find that bit hard to believe.
But to prove me wrong, can you provide example of similar consistent damage can be done, without using strike runes?After all, if such insane damage is intended, there should be multiple sources to achieve it.
Sure. Examine every monster above level 5 in the books, and notice the steady progression of damage increase. Especially take note of any creature that uses a weapon.
Now, compare that to the hit points expected of a PC at the same level, vs the hit points of an even-leveled monster, or a solo one level above. It becomes very quickly apparent that hit points on monsters rise at a rather extreme rate, as does their damage. If the PCs are supposed to be stuck with a single die of damage, plus what their Specialization gives them, they will be swiftly overwhelmed in the damage and HP department to the point where they will be totally ineffectual.
I mean, if you’re going for a classic Gothic Fantasy feel where the heroes don’t win, so much as they don’t lose horribly, I guess it could work, but that’s not the core assumption of the game.
Casters have a mechanic called "heightening" that lets their spells do more damage.
And they are limited how many times you can do that. Especially with heightened mechanics. Even in earlier edition, where damage scaled automatically, without needed to use higher level slots, casters still were subjects to how many time you can do that. And if party caster would go on solving trivial combat situations with most powerful spells they have - GM pretty much obliged to bring such player in situation where he/she will greatly regret not saving their spell slots.
With strike runes i can't see why player possibly wouldn't use then as many times as he/she possible can.
And realizing how powerful they are - adjust build for even more overwhelming synergy.
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I find that bit hard to believe.
Why do you find it hard to believe that the game's math is built around the game's math? That seems like just about the most basic principle of designing a numbers based game to begin with.
With strike runes i can't see why player possibly wouldn't use then as many times as he/she possible can.
I mean, they're a passive damage modifier. So... yeah. Players are expected to use them. You're acting like this is some shocking revelation that players will use things that they have, but again, that seems like a pretty basic principle of playing a game.
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It’s not overwhelming damage, it is literally expected by the level design of the game that player damage increases as it does, or combats become a slogfest for the characters while the monsters tear them apart doing double to quadruple their damage every hit.
The Game is designed with the assumption of players getting Striking Runes, there is nothing overpowered about a Ranger using Impossible Flurry with Striking Runes.They're an intended part of the math of the game and there is no need to limit them unless you plan on refactoring the health of every monster.
I find that bit hard to believe.
But to prove me wrong, can you provide example of similar consistent damage can be done, without using strike runes?
After all, if such insane damage is intended, there should be multiple sources to achieve it.
So... are you saying that you DON'T have a mathematical comparison between different types of martial characters and their opponents before proposing huge changes to the math of the game, but expect people to provide one to for you?
That's a pretty weird approach.
Casters have a mechanic called "heightening" that lets their spells do more damage.And they are limited how many times you can do that. Especially with heightened mechanics. Even in earlier edition, where damage scaled automatically, without needed to use higher level slots, casters still were subjects to how many time you can do that. And if party caster would go on solving trivial combat situations with most powerful spells they have - GM pretty much obliged to bring such player in situation where he/she will greatly regret not saving their spell slots.
With strike runes i can't see why player possibly wouldn't use then as many times as he/she possible can.
And realizing how powerful they are - adjust build for even more overwhelming synergy.
You're not going to find other sources of damage bonuses for characters outside of the class weapon specialization damage bonus and striking runes because Paizo very tightly controlled the proliferation of both attack and damage bonus sources, but the fact that it's in the core rule book, plainly written as something that applies to every attack, makes it fairly obvious that the designers intended for martial characters to have them (they even specify at what levels they should get them with item levels) and if you break down the math it's very obvious that they included in the monster's hp and defense values adjustments for increases in damage by the PCs which include the striking runes.
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The Game is designed with the assumption of players getting Striking Runes, there is nothing overpowered about a Ranger using Impossible Flurry with Striking Runes.They're an intended part of the math of the game and there is no need to limit them unless you plan on refactoring the health of every monster.
I find that bit hard to believe.
But to prove me wrong, can you provide example of similar consistent damage can be done, without using strike runes?
After all, if such insane damage is intended, there should be multiple sources to achieve it.
Then you better believe it. Because not matter you don't, these are a fact, which is not open to interpretation (by its very nature). There's a very good reason why I don't like Potency, Resilient and Striking runes.
They are mandatory items. But it's more complex than that, because it is built upon a vicious cycle of players' desires and game balance. Here's the situation:
The Big 6 (Stat boost items, +X runes, rings of deflection, amulet of natural armor, cloak of resistance) from PF1e, and now the Big 3 (Potency/Resiliency, Striking and Apex items) in PF2e are items that offer unconditional bonuses, they are items that don't require specific situations to be good, neither have limited uses, so it is only natural that players will gravitate towards items that always grants benefits (even if other items provide better bonuses in certain situations). Given this obvious inclination, the game system accounts for their existence by boosting the monsters' stats in appropriated moments. Of course, this compensation is not static neither readily apparent, because otherwise it would be too obvious.
Now, the worst aspect of these items is that they reward players that want to optimize for combat and greatly punish those that want to buy creative items. This was a much bigger problem in PF1e than it is in PF2e (and you don't know the amount of people that took and discussions that happened at the time of the playtest to achieve this lessened, but still not ideal, state) because now most items are interesting and you actually have money to buy actually magical items after having the mandatory ones covered(my level 11 Monk is sitting on 9 invested items, most of them utility stuff).
So yeah. You are wrong and I'm not being rude, I'm just using the correct words. Your assumption is that the system isn't working as intended based on a wrong observation. The striking runes do not need to be nerfed in any way because the game accounts for them, the monsters are not reliant on them, so your combats will become slogs and the monsters will significantly out damage theplayers (they already do if they're higher levels, so you're looking at an one-sided slaughter).
I mean, they're a passive damage modifier. So... yeah. Players are expected to use them. You're acting like this is some shocking revelation that players will use things that they have, but again, that seems like a pretty basic principle of playing a game.
i mean... if game literally balanced to use strike runes, then it would be silly, as every party would rely on at least one character going for that, and that character would carry anyone who would prefer not to use weapon melee build.
i mean... if game literally balanced to use strike runes, then it would be silly, as every party would rely on at least one character going for that, and that character would carry anyone who would prefer not to use weapon melee build.
I mean, they're a passive damage modifier. So... yeah. Players are expected to use them. You're acting like this is some shocking revelation that players will use things that they have, but again, that seems like a pretty basic principle of playing a game.
Or ranged weapons. Or unarmed attacks.
...how is it silly to expect that a party would have any members that don't try to rely on spells for everything?
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i mean... if game literally balanced to use strike runes, then it would be silly, as every party would rely on at least one character going for that, and that character would carry anyone who would prefer not to use weapon melee build.
You can argue over whether or not it's good design, but... yeah, that's the idea.
If you plan on fighting with a weapon (or unarmed), you're supposed to get striking runes.
It's not about 'carrying' people though, because the only people who don't buy striking runes are people who get their damage from other sources (i.e. leveled bombs for alchemists, spell scaling for casters, static damage dice from wild shape) or characters who aren't planning on dealing damage at all.
The Big 6 (Stat boost items, +X runes, rings of deflection, amulet of natural armor, cloak of resistance) from PF1e, and now the Big 3 (Potency/Resiliency, Striking and Apex items) in PF2e are items that offer unconditional bonuses, they are items that don't require specific situations to be good, neither have limited uses, so it is only natural that players will gravitate towards items that always grants benefits (even if other items provide better bonuses in certain situations).There's a big difference between the way it works in PF1 and in PF2, though. In PF1, the only qualifier on buying magic items was money. That meant that until you had a full set of maxed-out Big 6, you would pretty much always be better off spending money on improving one of them than getting anything else (except wands of cure light wounds and maybe a skill booster for a key skill).
But in PF2, level is also an effective limitation. Let's take a 13th level character who wants maxed-out armor (+2 resilient) and a maxed-out weapon (+2 greater striking). That'd cost 3,400 gp, which is a little over half the lump sum you'd get if making a character. That's a lot more room for customizing your gear than in PF1. Or if you're choosing items by level, it's one item for each of level 11 and 12, leaving you an additional two 9th level items and one each of level 10 and 11.
Although in PF1e there were a number of ways to cheese the system and acquire a lot of money, it was still a very hard cap on what you could have since the prices got really high. Unless a GM was comfortable handing out lots of expensive items to the party, things we're pretty much implicitly gated by level through money, in PF2e things are explicitly restricted (although the GM can more easily hand out some higher level items because they often offer utility rather than power).
So yeah, you still have nigh-mandatory items in PF2, but they make up a much smaller part of the assumed stuff.
They're still mandatory and Striking runes are way worse than +X weapons were. There's a lot less items to buy and you have a lot more money for cool stuff, but in PF2e Striking runes are a much greater source of your damage as you level up than +X ever was in PF1e, thankfully their impact was reduced since before they went up to +5, which made martial characters just lucky thugs with lots of cash at higher levels (they still are, sadly, even if to a lesser extent).
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Striking runes are in the section called FUNDAMENTAL runes.
fun·da·men·tal
/ˌfəndəˈmen(t)əl/
adjective
forming a necessary base or core; of central importance.
No one should have to prove they are necessary. That is literally what they are called.
Although in PF1e there were a number of ways to cheese the system and acquire a lot of money, it was still a very hard cap on what you could have since the prices got really high. Unless a GM was comfortable handing out lots of expensive items to the party, things we're pretty much implicitly gated by level through money, in PF2e things are explicitly restricted (although the GM can more easily hand out someThat's not exactly what I meant. In PF1, the total amount was limited only by available money, which in turn was limited by level. But there was nothing stopping you from spending all of your money on Big 6 items – the question was only how far that would get you.
For example, a 13th level PF1 PC is supposed to have about 140,000 gp. You can spend 139,000 of those on armor +4, weapon +3, stat boost +4, amulet of natural armor +4, ring of protection +4, and cloak of resistance +5. The exact split might vary, but the point is that until you've maxed them out at 461,000 gp (around level 17-18 somewhere, maybe higher if you pile on more stat boosters), you can always sink more money into Big 6.
But in PF2, the Big 2 cost about half your money, or two out of your six item "slots". That leaves a lot more room to play around with the rest. You can't really go "Oh, we found a Ring of the Ram, I'll sell that and put the gold toward increasing my Ring of Protection from +1 to +2."
Beyond representing a lower portion of your wealth overall, another factor I would say is that the sharper increase in cost from one tier of item to another makes it so that even if you try to sell all your loot to upgrade your core items, it doesn't really work that well. It doesn't not work at all, you'll get your core upgrades a a little earlier with a couple hundred extra gold in your pocket, but the difference is so relatively small that what you are losing from not using all those extra items becomes relevant.
Striking runes are in the section called FUNDAMENTAL runes.
fun·da·men·tal
/ˌfəndəˈmen(t)əl/
adjective
forming a necessary base or core; of central importance.No one should have to prove they are necessary. That is literally what they are called.
To play Devil's Advocate for a moment, I will note that the name could simply stem from Fundamental Rune's being required for Property Runes, rather than them being centrally important to the balance of the game as a whole.
That's probably the "In Universe" explanation of the name, as the characters in the story aren't aware of game balance.
Though the two aren't mutually exclusive by any means.