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.
Every party ever has always had it's martial members focus on getting either the +1s (if PF2) or the potency and striking runes in PF2. Unless it's was some poor misguided soul who didn't understand the game.
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.
Though the two aren't mutually exclusive by any means.
1) That is only true of potency runes. Striking and resilient runes have nothing to do with property runes and are still fundamental.
2) Even if that was the case, runes are the only way to get magic weapons outside of specific named weapons which usually have runes anyway. So this is basically saying "fundamental runes are only fundamental for magic weapons in so far as you can't have magical weapons without them." Which... while sort of true isn't really a point worth making. And as it applies the OP, the argument would then be that the game doesn't assume you use magic weapons at all.
That's probably the "In Universe" explanation of the name, as the characters in the story aren't aware of game balance.
They probably don't call +1 runes +1 runes in universe either.
People always forget that maxing out the Big 6 was not something that was needed, just nice to have. The math in PF1 was a lot looser so even if you kept each of the Big 6 at 50% it would still be fine.
That's really only true if you assume a baseline difficulty and equal optimization between characters though. The issue in PF1 was that properly milking the Big 6 and then other AC sources like the Jingasa of Fortunate Soldier/Fate's Favored combo would exacerbate optimization gaps, which has all kinds of consequences.
I agree that in PF1 you could allow your weapon enhancement to be a point or two behind and still succeed, it certainly wasn't as fun to do so if your other party members did have them, but you could still do your job. However it was still necessary, if you didn't have at least a +1 by level 10 you were going to start to feel it, and there was really no reason not to have at least a +2 at that level.
In PF2, you are allowed to pickup potency +1 as early as level 3 but you should really have one no later than level 5 to keep up with the math curves.
I agree that in PF1 you could allow your weapon enhancement to be a point or two behind and still succeed, it certainly wasn't as fun to do so if your other party members did have them, but you could still do your job. However it was still necessary, if you didn't have at least a +1 by level 10 you were going to start to feel it, and there was really no reason not to have at least a +2 at that level.
In PF2, you are allowed to pickup potency +1 as early as level 3 but you should really have one no later than level 5 to keep up with the math curves.
Earlier levels the +1 mattered a lot in PF1e, but after level 10 AC started to fall off really hard, which was one of the factors of the famous "rocket tag".
Earlier levels the +1 mattered a lot in PF1e, but after level 10 AC started to fall off really hard, which was one of the factors of the famous "rocket tag".I agree that in PF1 you could allow your weapon enhancement to be a point or two behind and still succeed, it certainly wasn't as fun to do so if your other party members did have them, but you could still do your job. However it was still necessary, if you didn't have at least a +1 by level 10 you were going to start to feel it, and there was really no reason not to have at least a +2 at that level.
In PF2, you are allowed to pickup potency +1 as early as level 3 but you should really have one no later than level 5 to keep up with the math curves.
True, but a lot of classes had built in ways to get attack bonuses, so unless you were playing say a rogue or monk chances are you were getting some sort of bonus to your attack rolls.
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.
It's not a physics (or any other science), to say: "hey, that's how it is, scientifically proven, you can't just deny it!".
Games made by ppl, and (surprise!) ppl do make mistakes.Both D&D 3.5 and PF1e had insanely huge errata at the end of their "lives".
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Striking runes were in since the very beginning of the playtest, so their inclusion is not a mistake. The whole math of the game is designed around martial classes getting more dmg due to striking runes while casters get that through heightening.
Removing striking runes would have the same effect as taking PF1 weapons and eliminating + to dmg from +X weapons and kicking any other damage enchants (flaming, holy etc) away. Meaning: weapon-based damage output would fall off drastically and no sane person would play a non-caster.
Striking runes were in since the very beginning of the playtest, so their inclusion is not a mistake. The whole math of the game is designed around martial classes getting more dmg due to striking runes while casters get that through heightening.
Removing striking runes would have the same effect as taking PF1 weapons and eliminating + to dmg from +X weapons and kicking any other damage enchants (flaming, holy etc) away. Meaning: weapon-based damage output would fall off drastically and no sane person would play a non-caster.
I think a more apt equivalent would be removing Power Attack, Deadly Aim and +X weapons without changing the monster's HP.
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.
It's not a physics (or any other science), to say: "hey, that's how it is, scientifically proven, you can't just deny it!".
Games made by ppl, and (surprise!) ppl do make mistakes.
Both D&D 3.5 and PF1e had insanely huge errata at the end of their "lives".
What does that have to do with anything? You're arguing that striking runes aren't a fundamental assumption of the game, not that they shouldn't be. Other people in this thread have said why they don't think that was a good decision, but it was still a decision that was indisputably made.
Agreed. There are a lot of strong opinions about how much value striking runes add to the game as a mechanic. But I think it's pretty clear looking at the way monster HP scales and comparing striking rune damage progression to the damage progression of monsters, spells, battle forms, bombs and etc. that that scaling as is is definitely part of the game's math. That's indisputable.
The suggest change of making them a 1/round ability also ends up significantly devaluing things like the flurry edge and other mechanics that encourage attacking a bunch and I'm not sure they really need to be. Dumping all your actions into attacks is already a specialized thing.
The op has yet to explain his stance on detail beyond not believing a core aspect of progression and gold sink in the game is the striking runes.
A good example as to why they are considered balanced and fundamental is if you compare it to monster damage and hp levels in comparison to the expected levels to aquire said runes.
Another is a variant rule where you do away with the runes yes, instead you naturally progress your damage dice and +hit without said runes but as part of you leveling up. This is for lower magic setting.
Wich if you have common sense you should be able to extrapolate from that variant rule that the increase in number of dice is entirely intended.
I'm still not clear on what the problem with striking runes is. Of course they're more important than other weapon runes- they're supposed to be.
There was a deliberate intent in the playtest (which made it through to the game) for making weapon die size meaningful, a thing it often was not in PF1 where you could stack like +60 in static damage mods so it didn't matter if you were rolling a d4 or a d12. The playtest actually pared things back from the starting point where a +5 greatsword did 6d12 damage.
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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.
You're still operating from the assumption that the game doesn't expect everyone to use these weapons, which is what "literally balanced to use strike runes" would mean.
And striking runes work for ranged weapon users, too, so I'm not sure why you think that's only for melee builds.
Casters can get away with skipping them, because spells have heightening, which automatically happens for cantrips. Cantrips are a really good example of another way that the game assumes you will be doing more dice of damage as you level - telekinetic projectile, for instance, does 1d6 more damage for each spell level and doesn't cost any limited resources. If you're level 5, your projectile will do 3d6+ability modifier damage per cast. As a two-action spell, it's balanced against martial characters getting multiple attacks to do similar damage.
Your conclusion that every party would have a character with striking runes is close, though. Every character that relies on weapons for damage should absolutely prioritize maxing out their striking runes. The game truly does assume that they will, and that's part of why striking runes don't compete for rune slots with property runes. There are other items that are assumed to be collected, too, including the fundamental armor runes and some skill bonus items for characters' most-used skills.
It is totally reasonable to not like that design choice and think it's silly. Plenty of folks in this thread do (personally I don't really mind it), and that's why they mentioned the Automatic Bonus Progression (ABP) rules from the Gamemastery Guide (GMG).
ABP rules on Archives of Nethys
These variant rules spell out when and where you would need to increase the bonuses for player characters to remove the need to purchase items, and since the economy expects players to be finding or buying these, there are guidelines on how to adjust items and treasure, which should be taken into consideration. If you don't, you'll end up with really skewed party wealth by level, because the game assumes that characters are spending their money on these items.
Yeah, the ABP rules are a pretty good spoiler sheet for determining what the games core Math is based around. You can't remove Striking without wrecking the challenge systems basic assumptions.
Damage die progression is also notable in pretty much all scaling everywhere for weapons and non-spell attacks. Alchemist bombs and NPC damage also follows similar progression.