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I wish I saw more GM centered PF2 youtube videos about how easy it is to utilize game mechanics on the fly to dial up or down the difficult to meet your...I've been enjoying the Agents of Edgewatch podcast on 'roll for combat' youtube channel. It has the GM doing an intro to each episode going over things from the previous and some that come up in that game and the whys and where fors of some decisions and house rules. It is an interesting insite in to that side of the game.
Alas, I hold out hope that I will still be able to join in some one's agents of edgewatch campaign as a player, so I have been avoiding watching anyone's playthrough of it just yet.
Another solution for parties feeling bored and getting stuck in a combat routine is to hand out consumable treasure, even fairly powerful consumable treasure that will really shine in the combat environment the party is in. Once you can get the party thirsty for pushing enemies off of ledges (that will result in them likely dropping weapons, taking decent damage and falling prone in a location that will take lots of move actions to get back from, etc), they are going to keep looking at the battlefield as a dynamic setting. Admittedly, this has been most easy in the game I homebrew, but the first two APs have plenty of opportunity for little things like a climb speed or a swim speed to completely flip the script on an encounter.
Doing this kind of thing with the occasional consumable works because if they try not using it and selling it later, it really doesn't disrupt anything. If the party is really slow on the uptake, have an enemy use one first to get a massive advantage against the party and have a second one in reserve.
The closest thing I have to a party member who slips into a routine is a staff acrobat rogue that generally chooses to jump over an enemy every round, just because she enjoys it. The more that I think about it, I think the biggest hang up for experienced players coming to 2E is figuring out how to take advantage of mobility and movement, instead of just trying to park the bus and attack a lot.
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If you haven't seen it yet, the Beginners Box and the follow up "Troubles in Otari" (especially this module) is very helpful about explaining tactics and presenting the best of PF2 throughout. I'm not 100% in love with Chapter 1 of "Troubles" but the rest of the module is super solid and I think the entire book is great for any player, new or experienced.
It's really sort of surprising the Beginner's Box took as long as it did to come out, since the core rulebook is really not a great tool for "teaching you to play PF2" (it's more of an technical manual for a well tuned and versatile, but somewhat complex, machine). But I guess economics and "you can only produce so many books so fast" are what they are.
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In response to one of the response videos, the Taking20 guy unironically tweeted the "destroy them with facts and logic" meme.
It's wild to me that a guy can complain about his group getting continuously TPK'd while also being absolutely certain that they have full mastery of the system
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It's so weird that "it's okay to be suboptimal" is his argument since PF1 was the game where you could really hurt your character by making bad choices, while PF2 sort of goes out of it's way to make it so no matter what you do your character is going to be basically competent at whatever their schtick is.
Like this is the version of this game in which Monks who multiclass into Bard are fine!
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Especially when he insists his Druid player was only taking the optimal path by always wild shaping into specifically a T-Rex... did he perhaps try casting other spells? This is a full caster and going Dino does limit your options.In response to one of the response videos, the Taking20 guy unironically tweeted the "destroy them with facts and logic" meme.It's wild to me that a guy can complain about his group getting continuously TPK'd while also being absolutely certain that they have full mastery of the system
The T-Rex isn't even the most optimal battleform either..
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Especially when he insists his Druid player was only taking the optimal path by always wild shaping into specifically a T-Rex... did he perhaps try casting other spells? This is a full caster and going Dino does limit your options.In response to one of the response videos, the Taking20 guy unironically tweeted the "destroy them with facts and logic" meme.It's wild to me that a guy can complain about his group getting continuously TPK'd while also being absolutely certain that they have full mastery of the system
There is in fact, nothing stopping you from opening up with a control or blast spell before shifting into dino-mode to clean up.
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Wanted to jump in real quick about The Beginner Box and likely why it didn't come out at launch. To say the system was young when the BB would have needed to be developed would be an understatement. I think a launch BB would have suffered from some of the same problems that AoA books 1 and 2 or Fall of Plaguestone did, difficulty-wise. I think that the BB benefited from development having more time with the system and encounter design.
While it's not great having this product come out after launch, it's also only been a year and change. I personally greatly enjoy it, especially with the tie-in module. We'll see what the Otari AP brings in with it next.
I can total understand and largely agree with all of the facts he states. Players do get into ruts and repetitively do the same thing. I can see and understand this complaint.
What I don't understand is.... how does he like 5e? 5e feels like FAR fewer choices and more much deeper and more entrenched ruts. Character builds are far more cookie cutter. To the point I almost never have to look at any players character sheet to know what abilities/spells they have.
What I do understand is 5e makes for better youtube content. Because you can easily identify the best options and tell people about them, and people largely agree with you.
What I think Pathfinder 2e does really well is... when a player takes a suboptimal path. They (probably) aren't totally worthless when sitting at table with optimized characters.
Yes players can get into a routine and get bored. At least PF2 with the current content gives players a lot of good choices for doing things in combat.
This is true for every TTRPGs I have played but I feel it is odd that he complains about this in 2e of all systems.
In our campaign an Alchemist stated it 2e was so boring because he would cast electric arc/through potion every round possible.
Admittingly we were all learning but I understand where this comes from. Since some players dont seem to want to add +1/2s and recall knowledge. They would rather just do damage because they feel other things are just bad.
So yes I see how this form of "optimal" rotations thinking comes from. Some players can easily get stuck in a rut.
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I can total understand and largely agree with all of the facts he states. Players do get into ruts and repetitively do the same thing. I can see and understand this complaint.
What I don't understand is.... how does he like 5e? 5e feels like FAR fewer choices and more much deeper and more entrenched ruts. Character builds are far more cookie cutter. To the point I almost never have to look at any players character sheet to know what abilities/spells they have.
What I do understand is 5e makes for better youtube content. Because you can easily identify the best options and tell people about them, and people largely agree with you.
What I think Pathfinder 2e does really well is... when a player takes a suboptimal path. They (probably) aren't totally worthless when sitting at table with optimized characters.
Yes players can get into a routine and get bored. At least PF2 with the current content gives players a lot of good choices for doing things in combat.
This is true for every TTRPGs I have played but I feel it is odd that he complains about this in 2e of all systems.
In our campaign an Alchemist stated it 2e was so boring because he would cast electric arc/through potion every round possible.
Admittingly we were all learning but I understand where this comes from. Since some players dont seem to want to add +1/2s and recall knowledge. They would rather just do damage because they feel other things are just bad.
The weirdest thing is he also thinks 5e has better combat. I tried to give suggestions but really he didnt seem to want to change anything about his character. There are a whole bunch of dedication and skill the player could take to make combat more interesting.
So yes I see how this form of "optimal" rotations thinking comes from. Some players just dont like fiddling with options to make fun characters.
To be honest, and this isn't necessarily an indictment on GMs, but if your players are capable of executing the same patterns in combat over and over again without meeting any resistance from the environment, enemies, circumstances, conditions, etc. then the issue is more likely with the way the game is being run.
I have some pretty standard routine Classes in a few of my games, but I almost never see routines executed identically nor do I really expose my players to "routine treadmills" that foster the choice of cycling through a routing.
To me, a Player's "routine" is a point of deviation from another Class/Path/Style, and from there as the GM it is my responsibility to force them to mutate that routine.
Not in a targetted way necessarily, but in a way that fosters their unique talents. The goal isn't necessarily to deny the full routine, but to deny it in part or only offer partial routines.
There are certainly instances where uninhibited routines are present, but in general, the "uninhibited routine" (if I'm doing my job right) should be a lower percentage than the "non-standard" routines.
And with conditions, creatures, and actions as rich in PF2 as they are, I have no trouble disrupting routines.
In fact, props to Paizo particularly on the work that goes into the Bestiary. The Bestiary monsters are seriously amazing. Every single one of the derives routine breaking behaviors that I have seen thus far, and I really appreciate that as a GM I can read a stat block and come up with a way to break my player routines simply by using the abilities at my disposal.
In short, if the only problems a GM presents are nails, then the Players are always going to try to be hammers. It's my job to make sure that not every problem they see is a nail, and that when it's not a nail to understand the most optimal thing is to identify the tools you can use to deal with it.
With brand new players, I've had no issues with "not everything is a nail", with older edition players, it's taken a few more adjustments (habits are hard to break) but in general I've seen them expand their sets of skills.
But I deliver Action Cheat sheets to all of them before the session even starts. Sometimes I think not knowing/remembering what you can do is the biggest thing that leads to the old "I guess I attack again".
If there is a problem, it's not what that guy is talking about it. If you do stumble on a "if I do x, y, then z on my turn, that works" then the only thing that's liable to get you to consider something else might be if that stops working, and you might find that frustrating.
If you're not self-motivated to "find additional things for your character to do" then the tools the game has to force you to find a new trick aren't the most elegant.
Partly I find this is a problem mostly with the class feat bottlenenck- the game might not give you new tricks as fast as the old ones stop being interesting/effective. But there are a lot of ways to solve this.
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It's so weird that "it's okay to be suboptimal" is his argument since PF1 was the game where you could really hurt your character by making bad choices, while PF2 sort of goes out of it's way to make it so no matter what you do your character is going to be basically competent at whatever their schtick is.
Like this is the version of this game in which Monks who multiclass into Bard are fine!
The person saying, "It's okay to be Sub-Optimal," is Nonat in his response video at A Response to @Taking20 Regarding Pathfinder 2e. And he means in Pathfinder 2nd Edition.
I myself am on record in Quora saying that being sub-optimal is fine if the character is good enough to handle the challenges: D&D: Does it make sense to play sub-optimally for the fun of the story and the pace of the game? I also claimed that min/maxing makes boring characters: How is minmaxing viewed by a dm? Does he think you’re trying to outsmart him? Does he make things up on the fly? I can provide stories about my players in both PF1 and PF2 dominating encounters despite their characters being sub-optimal as theorycrafting would measure it. They won because their characters were great at teamwork.
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I've witnessed the issue of players getting stuck on one combat routine in a set of three tournament-style combats with my Kingmaker group's Barbarian and Champion Paladin as a duo. Each fight the enemies had different abilities and prioritized different strategies - where Round 1's foes just ran up and exchanged blows, Round 2's relied on mobility and retaliation reactions to give the players headaches, and Round 3's specifically targeted the Paladin first to stop him from allowing the Barbarian to tank all the damage easily.
The players never really changed tactics from fight to fight, and while their tanking strategy worked well in the first round's all-out slugfest it suffered in Rounds 2 and 3 from being too inflexible and reliant on the Paladin's reactions to function. If they had gone for a Trip or a Grapple in Round 2 on the more mobile enemy the fight probably would've ended much sooner, and they really should've changed strategies in Round 3 to focus on debuffing an enemy to oblivion with some combination of skills to take out an enemy early on and lessen the damage they had to deal with. Their decision to commit to a single strategy wound up being a weakness in the long run.
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The value vs. boredom factor of repetitive actions is something the design team has had some interesting conversations about.
Anecdotally, I had an interesting experience Seifter and I were talking about recently where a crossbow ranger I was playing had a really diverse set of actions he was taking for the first three rounds of combat (usually one of either Running Reload or Skirmish Strike with a Hunter's Aim or Deadly Aim thrown in alongside the occasional Hunt Prey, but it was always a new rotation) but about round 3 of the fight I was hasted and suddenly rounds 4 through 8 were consistently Reload (Crossbow Ace) > Deadly Aim > Reload (Crossbow Ace) > Quickened Strike. A big part of what allowed that to happen was the nature of the fight itself; we were in a huge ballroom in a shootout with other crossbow wielders, with the two ranged party members fighting from a covered bannister while the enemies were fighting from flipped over tables. There was kind of an interesting flip where as soon as the ranged characters settled into our fixed routine, the melee characters started using a lot more action combos because our covering fire was giving them the run of the battlefield. I think that steady state routine for the shooters was actually kind of appropriate, as it happened when the fight turned into a proper shootout and the party and enemy dynamics naturally chose the tactics that made that steady state routine the right move, but it's always interesting to see how other people view different interactions in the game.
I saw a comment earlier that one thing PF2 doesn't do a great job of is explaining how to do the things that really make it pop, and I can totally see that. The meta for PF2 is completely different than the meta for e.g. 5E and PF1, which focus more of the system mastery levers on the character creation phase rather than in the tactical phase of an encounter. One of the things we would do a lot when planning adventures for organized play was to plant adventures in the season that show GMs and players how to do (or not do) certain things in the game by presenting situations designed to encourage you doing (or not doing) those things, and I think that could be an interesting angle to explore at a more granular and advertised level.
It might be neat if there was like, a "Journeyman's Box" set of adventures that was just a bunch of different types of encounters with little sidebars that say things like "This encounter is full of sprites who are deadly at range but easily overcome with combat maneuvers if the players use the cover scattered around the battlefield to get close to them. [InsertNPCHere] attempts to do exactly that while encouraging the players to follow her, using her actions each turn to Strike with her bow before Striding to the next closest tree and Taking Cover. Once she's one Stride away from the nearest sprite, she moves up and Grapples it[...]" you get the idea. Showcasing what the system can do in adventures might be a good venue for helping players expand their preconceptions about what they should do and help open up the possibilities that PF2 has on offer. Another avenue could potentially be something like a web series that tackles the places where tactics and character building intersect, like a video talking about how many bespoke actions and reactions vs. static or situational effects open up the "best" varieties of play.
Anyone else have success stories about their players picking up group tactics that elevated their game experience? Any particular events that caused lightbulb moments for the party where suddenly the player who wasn't using their shield realized what they were missing out on, or where a player noticed that they actually massively changed the battle state for the better by using their 3rd action to move instead of attack?
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For me it was giving recall knowledge checks liberal information to really encourage not only tactical play but action diversity.
The rules for it are pretty open in the book, so I grant large returns for actions used on it (also notably the book does not deny retrying).
I personally give exact values sometimes too, because I find it fosters changes in tactics and feels like a better reward (I usually couple it with flavor text “he seems like he’s heavy on his feet Reflex DC is 23”).
Knowledge changes PC perceptions of what’s “optimal” and rewarding players for using Recall knowledge in combat is a great way to do that. It’s also really great because some classes get knowledge skills others don’t, so some people might lean on each other for attempting knowledge checks or multiple knowledge checks against the same targets producing lots of knowledge.
Knowledge also provides safety, and safety makes it feel okay to try something riskier or out of the norm.
Once a player achieved a good recall knowledge check, others continued to attempt them. During the secrets of magic playtests I ran, it ended up being the thing that changed my players tactics mid fight, and in two cases drastically changed their tactics.
It was like Pandora’s box since recall knowledge always lead to other actions being chosen since the knowledge changed the player perception of what’s optimal.
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The value vs. boredom factor of repetitive actions is something the design team has had some interesting conversations about.
Anecdotally, I had an interesting experience Seifter and I were talking about recently where a crossbow ranger I was playing had a really diverse set of actions he was taking for the first three rounds of combat (usually one of either Running Reload or Skirmish Strike with a Hunter's Aim or Deadly Aim thrown in alongside the occasional Hunt Prey, but it was always a new rotation) but about round 3 of the fight I was hasted and suddenly rounds 4 through 8 were consistently Reload (Crossbow Ace) > Deadly Aim > Reload (Crossbow Ace) > Quickened Strike. A big part of what allowed that to happen was the nature of the fight itself; we were in a huge ballroom in a shootout with other crossbow wielders, with the two ranged party members fighting from a covered bannister while the enemies were fighting from flipped over tables. There was kind of an interesting flip where as soon as the ranged characters settled into our fixed routine, the melee characters started using a lot more action combos because our covering fire was giving them the run of the battlefield. I think that steady state routine for the shooters was actually kind of appropriate, as it happened when the fight turned into a proper shootout and the party and enemy dynamics naturally chose the tactics that made that steady state routine the right move, but it's always interesting to see how other people view different interactions in the game.
I saw a comment earlier that one thing PF2 doesn't do a great job of is explaining how to do the things that really make it pop, and I can totally see that. The meta for PF2 is completely different than the meta for e.g. 5E and PF1, which focus more of the system mastery levers on the character creation phase rather than in the tactical phase of an encounter. One of the things we would do a lot when planning adventures for organized play was to plant adventures in the season that show...
One thing my group noticed was that when one of our party members made a habit of actually using trips. It changed the enemy action economy so massively that it's been the most notable improvement we've noticed in our party over the months. It was like night and day. This was some time ago, and we've also found that as our casters started to focus more on debuffing enemies as well makes a massive difference.
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Some major changes in PF2 versus PF1 that may affect the feeling of repetition:
1. Casters were far more diverse and powerful in PF1. Now you are more limited by incapacitation, short duration, lack of buffs, lack of spell slots, magic items being weaker, and a general major nerfing of magic.
In PF1 at higher level, a wizard could pretty much do whatever he wanted for as long as he wanted. I know when I was playing wizards, I would go in and scout with an invisibility or mind blank with little to no fear anything could touch me. Or summon a creature to investigate or mind control some weak will save minion to do what I needed him to do.
My choices as a caster at higher level were immense, powerful, and game changing. A wizard in PF1 was nearly unassailable at high level and could do almost anything. Nothing felt repetitious as a wizard as the only limitation was the spells in the books which were so varied and powerful you were basically limitless.
2. Magic items were more diverse and powerful in PF1. Magic items don't feel worth pursuing in PF2. My players get the standard necessary upgrades, but then don't see much worth getting. They barely use consumables. They don't seem necessary or even desirable.
A lot of the repetitious feel has to do with the math that made the game balanced. If you want a balanced game, you have to have the math in a tight range. PF1 allowed players to manipulate the math to insane levels in their favor. There seemed to be very little concern for the math in the class design process given the sheer number of bonuses you could stack that created a wide math range that heavily favored the players.
Of course a game with PF2s level of balance is going to have a repetition feel. If it didn't, you would have the same problem as every other imbalanced version of RPGs.
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One thing my group noticed was that when one of our party members made a habit of actually using trips. It changed the enemy action economy so massively that it's been the most notable improvement we've noticed in our party over the months. It was like night and day. This was some time ago, and we've also found that as our casters started to focus more on debuffing enemies as well makes a massive difference.
I still remember the lightbulb moment for my buddy and his fighter when we were playing and I turned to him and asked "Dude, that thing obviously has double our move speed and an extra Stride action, why haven't you just grappled it yet, aren't you Master in Athletics?"
He said he hadn't taken any feats for it and I just spun my CRB around to him opened to the Athletics page of the skills section. The evil Grinch smile that split his face was just great and I think he might have torn a muscle in his cheek the next week when he realized that we were fighting enemies he could successfully grapple just using Assurance. Kind of like the look on my wife's face in a different game when she realized that any time she wasn't sure what to do with her 3rd action, Goblin Song was always going to be useful for improving the odds of half the party doing what they wanted to do on their next turn.
One of the moments for me when I realized what PF2 was really going to let me do was actually during the playtest while we were playing Doomsday Dawn. There's that encounter with a bunch of deadly goblin archers in a rough, circular room and I thought for sure my monk was screwed until I double-checked the cover rules and started using grappled goblins for light cover and ducking into the niches and using the Take Cover action for even greater effect. Those goblins were beast mode but that AC bonus changed enough crits into hits and hits into misses that it changed tactics for everyone at the table. The champion started raising her shield every round and positioning herself to pop her reaction against as many goblins as possible, the rogue started Taking Cover and looking for more opportunities to Hide and Sneak instead of just always going for the flank with the champion and taking a beating from the goblins, and the sorcerer finally crawled back into the doorway they had run from half-dead to start mopping up the fight :P
The goblins also had to start spending actions to Step or Stride into positions where they could get around cover, and when we noticed how much the action economy difference was changing the flow of the fight all of the players started looking real close at the grapple and trip rules to see if those would help their character speed things along.
I think that a lot of tables probably have that one moment or encounter, if they didn't already know that they needed to be looking at tactics and generic actions for fleshing out their options, where someone realizes what a big impact adding this one little action has on the fight and then everyone kind of starts trying to figure out what their character's version of that is, whether it's Raising a Shield, Striding or Stepping to change the range of engagement and force the enemy to follow, Recall Knowledge to identify a weakness or ineffective tactic, or some other random option like parrying with a clan dagger.
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Or thing I realized with martials that's probably pretty obvious to many is how much more diverse simply keeping your athletics high can be in combat. My barb with attack of opportunity, reach, and furious bully could do a ton. First off he basically had legendary athletics at level 8 (master, then +2 with furious bully) and he also used a meteor hammer to add an item bonus to trip. So his first trip almost always hit, or I could grab if their reflex was super good, making flat footed for the next attack and all allies, and potentially using up the monsters actions. And I had aoo to punish even further. I had such a good time even though I thought I'd basically be doing nothing but hitting stuff, controlled the battlefield in a really fun way.
Also had an awesome time with my druid - I concentrated on wide shaping and animal companion both (some might not agree you can command an animal while shifted, we rules that even though you can't talk, you can still growl or what have you as an animal. Thought it was silly that as a wolf you couldn't communicate with a wolf) and medicine. With full casting, good martial prowess when needed, a companion when I had a last action to spare, I felt like a perfect character capable of anything.
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Anyone else have success stories about their players picking up group tactics that elevated their game experience?
I actually have my lightbulb moment from a PFS game that was ran somewhat incorrectly (wasn't for Society play, just a casual game). That does mean spoilers to come, however.
Our party was not uh, good. I was playing an animal barbarian along with two other players (an alchemist and a monk). In Sandstone Secret, you have one encounter and it's quite a taxing one. Our GM decided to see how this group of three would do against two encounters. After fighting a swarm (difficult with a monk and an unarmed barbarian, but made much easier with the alchemist), we discovered and bypassed a pit trap before we found ourselves in an open room against an animate statue.
I was still newish to the system (this was back in... November of 2019?), so I won initiative, Strode into the room and Raised my shield. Our alchemist followed up with two shortbow Strikes that bounced right off.
Uh oh.
The statue plodded up to my barbarian (spending two actions to do so) and crit him, nearly laying him out right there. I realized suddenly what we were up against. High AC, physical resistance, and a heck of a right hook to boot. But I also knew that it wasn't that fast. I asked the two other players to follow my lead and when my turn came back, I Tripped the statue and ran back to where the pit trap was. After the statue spent all of its actions Standing and Striding after me, the monk Aided me as I managed to (very fortunately) critically Shove the statue into the trap.
What followed was the monk and alchemist alternating fire while I Readied another Shove if it managed to clamber back out. Thankfully, it didn't.
That's when I truly began to appreciate the system. It let me solve what was, more than likely, an impossible situation. Though I suppose we could have just run away.
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One thing my group noticed was that when one of our party members made a habit of actually using trips. It changed the enemy action economy so massively that it's been the most notable improvement we've noticed in our party over the months. It was like night and day. This was some time ago, and we've also found that as our casters started to focus more on debuffing enemies as well makes a massive difference.I still remember the lightbulb moment for my buddy and his fighter when we were playing and I turned to him and asked "Dude, that thing obviously has double our move speed and an extra Stride action, why haven't you just grappled it yet, aren't you Master in Athletics?"
He said he hadn't taken any feats for it and I just spun my CRB around to him opened to the Athletics page of the skills section. The evil Grinch smile that split his face was just great and I think he might have torn a muscle in his cheek the next week when he realized that we were fighting enemies he could successfully grapple just using Assurance. Kind of like the look on my wife's face in a different game when she realized that any time she wasn't sure what to do with her 3rd action, Goblin Song was always going to be useful for improving the odds of half the party doing what they wanted to do on their next turn.
One of the moments for me when I realized what PF2 was really going to let me do was actually during the playtest while we were playing Doomsday Dawn. There's that encounter with a bunch of deadly goblin archers in a rough, circular room and I thought for sure my monk was screwed until I double-checked the cover rules and started using grappled goblins for light cover and ducking into the niches and using the Take Cover action for even greater effect. Those goblins were beast mode but that AC bonus changed enough crits into hits and hits into misses that it changed tactics for everyone at the table. The champion started raising her shield every round and positioning herself to pop her...
that's so cool to hear.
Another massive thing I realized reading your post was how much shields can help casters. For so long I was completely ignoring shields, but +2 AC, especially on an unarmored caster really , really helps. Shield block is also one of the most underrated abilities in the game especially at low level imo. Can really make or break a fight if you can avoid going down by allowing a shield to break.
I really love that about pathfinder 2e and it's part of why I wanted to make the switch to it. There are so many little things you can do that massively affect fight outcomes. Instead of taking that third swing sometimes its better to take a step or use the assurance trip/shove etc.
OMG. I also forgot how much I love demoralize from intimidation, and battle medicine. Things that I think a lot of people may overlook. Intimidation is such a powerful debuffing tool.
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A big moment for me was when an enemy caster lit us up with a devastating flaming sphere from atop a large landing at the top of several stairs. He then moved it to the stairs to deter people from coming up after him.
As a sorcerer who specialized in identifying magic of all kinds, I knew what spells the enemy caster was casting as he cast them. First, I successfully used dispel magic on his flaming sphere to give the party some breathing room (having used the spell myself, we all knew how dangerous it could be if left to linger). Then I used my last action to cast a single magic missile against him knowing he had cast shield on himself earlier in the conflict. As I predicted, he blocked the magic missile and lost his precious AC bonus just as our party martials got to the top of the stairs to bring some serious smackdown.
Earlier in the same encounter, we tried to rescue a unicorn from a bunch of tieflings (which is what started the whole conflict in the first place). We ambushed the tieflings and fought our way to the unicorn, which was manacled to a stake in the floor at the center of a ruined tower in which they resided. Once we freed the unicorn from its chains, the enemy caster showed up, targeting it with magic missile. I immediately moved to and cast invisibility on the unicorn to protect it from further harm, while lying to the tieflings that I had sent it away, far from their vile reach. Our party enjoyed the benefits of several mysterious healing effects during the battle. XD
The whole thing made a lot of people realize the importance of strategy and thinking about more than just yourself.
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Aaand now I realized there IS "hide a thread" button, I'm gonna use that since following this thread is kinda upsetting, not just because video's arguments sound baffling but also because there is lot of genuine "and now we fans are angry" speech here which get dangerously close to being insults even if I agree with them about the video itself xD So better just to hide the thread to avoid bad feelings in this case
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If it makes you feel any better, the thread seems to have pulled up before crashing and has become a positive space.
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Can we stop for a second and realize that what is being discussed here is that there are groups that "just aren't playing the game right"?
If there are entire groups of people who are otherwise genre savvy that aren't getting it, than that points to a fundamental problem of the system and its presentation.
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Does it? This might be a strange question, but how many veterans skimmed the book rather than read it?
A lot of my PF1 players jumped right to character creation and into their first game. It's purely anecdotal, but it's a bad habit I had moving from 3rd to 3.5 to PF1 as well. I knew "the basics," and that'd gotten me far enough. But "the basics" have changed quite dramatically from first edition to second.
Participating in the Playtest forced me to really dig in deep to the rules and see just where things were different. All the innards of first edition are there, but the design was an entirely different experience. My first combat immediately spelled out to me that Striking, even a second time, was a bad gamble. It lead me (and my players) to ask, "If we aren't encouraged to spend all three actions on Striking, what are we supposed to do with them?"
I've said before that understanding combat and encounters in PF2 should flow naturally from seeing what does and doesn't work. But I could be wrong. I believe Jason said that one of the goals of PF2 was to allow you to learn the basics of your character quickly and then add in complexity as you see fit. Unfortunately, one of the basics is... Moving. It's an amazingly simple action that many PF1 players (and D&D players of any AoO edition) have been hardwired to avoid doing. Getting away from enemies is just part and parcel with understanding the basics of the game, I feel.
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I think there is a massive difference between saying, "if you don't have your character do x,y, and z, you are a terrible player and playing the game wrong" and saying to a GM that is frustrated by the fact that their players are frustrated with the difficulty of the game, "This is a game system that has a lot of variable controls that both players and GMs can dial in to make the things that are frustrating your players not so much of a problem."
Now, if it is too late and those players and GM leave PF2, that is too bad, but I think there have been a lot of threads I have seen turn around into more of brainstorming and experience sharing threads rather than "X person is wrong and I am right" and I think that is a very positive thing for the game.
PF2 as a game system has an incredible amount of potential to make encounters that are memorable and dynamic and full of potential for player and GM creativity. Helping unlock that is a positive thing. I am seeing a lot of people sharing examples of player strategies and GM strategies for having interesting and compelling encounters that do not feel repetitive. I highly recommend that GMs that feel like the encounters are getting dull or repetitive, or have players doing so, try adding some dynamic elements to them. Moving scenery that has to be dealt with, neutral parties in the middle of other situations (especially fun in urban combat situations), etc. There are so many little things that can be done, like even having enemies decide to hide in tall grass and play cat and mouse with the PCs that will get them thinking more about how powerful the hidden condition can be and how you hide then sneak and it can be really, really difficult for enemies to find you. I also highly recommend getting your party to have encounter on a moving boat if you get the chance, it really turns into a fun situation.
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Does it? This might be a strange question, but how many veterans skimmed the book rather than read it? *Snipped for space*
I'd say that it absolutely does yes.
Any RPG is going to expect some level of optimization in order to really play it, that's all well and good when it's spelled out explicitly by the game. Anybody that wants to have a character that "hits things with a sword good" is going to gravitate towards the martial classes, because that's where all the support for hitting things with a sword good is, and there are narrative conventions, archetypes and tropes that support this.
Where you get into the weeds is when the game expects you to do something while presenting other options as equally as valid, 1e is supremely guilty of this. One example is power attack is so ubiquitous that the game expects you to pick it, even going so far that an archetype has a feature that doesn't work without it (Two-Handed Fighter). There are no indicators like high level abstracts to guide a player to this decision like there are with classes, and there isn't anything in any of the books (Outside maybe the strategy guide, but I'll admit that I haven't read that) that spells out, "Hey if you don't get power attack, the monsters that you'll face will outpace you."
2e has pained itself to try to remove some of this from the character creation process (IMO I don't think it worked, and I think they made making characters a blander task), but it has doubled down on the expectation of players optimizing their action economy. Why should there be trap options in action economy? I'm not talking about legitimately poor decision making, like trying to use a fire spell to kill a fire elemental, or walking up to an enemy and actually doing nothing, but why should taking a strike past the first one even be an option if its a bad gamble? Why is "Ulric rains blows down upon the beast before him! I make three strikes against the foul creature!" a bad idea if its something that, narratively, isn't a bad idea?
That's not something that I think that reading the rules would imply.
I think there is a massive difference between saying, "if you don't have your character do x,y, and z, you are a terrible player and playing the game wrong" and saying to a GM that is frustrated by the fact that their players are frustrated with the difficulty of the game, "This is a game system that has a lot of variable controls that both players and GMs can dial in to make the things that are frustrating your players not so much of a problem."
2e has enough of these frustrations that I think it merits a look at the system. 2e cannot hope to have players enter it without expectations about what they can and can't do in the game, it is the new edition of the game and not an entirely new game itself, so it MUST be able carry the conventions of its predecessor, which I don't think its doing, and I think a growing number of people are coming to that conclusion.
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They also aren't universally bad choices, they're situational choices. Which... is a good thing. The game would be pretty g&@%%~n boring if using Strike three times in a row was ubiquitously optimal. Reminds me of some other system...
Genuinely, I get the idea that sometimes it's unclear what's optimal or not and that can confuse and frustrate some people. I think PF2 could do a better job presenting options and tactics.
But at the same time, if you go into a game and have say, five or six different things you can do on your turn and you choose to only do one thing every single time and then:
A) Complain that the game is boring because you're only doing one thing.
and
B) Complain that the game is broken because that one thing isn't always the best solution.
At what point should the onus be on the player to maybe show a bit of curiosity and willingness to experiment with the system?
Would a sidebar saying "yes you probably shouldn't just Strike all the time try using some of these other things" really help? Would people like the video maker even read or pay attention to it? Judging by his attitude it doesn't seem likely.
This dates me a bit, but I'm sort of reminded of playing arcade games as a kid and you'd often see someone on a Street Fighter machine just doing the same attack over and over and when someone beat them, they'd get tend to get upset and comment on how cheap, unfair or broken the game was (and then usually leave angrily). Of course, we were like, six back then...
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2e is, in fact, a very different game from 1e. While I think the destination for both designs is very similar (a d20 system with high complexity where players get to feel powerful and threats escalate rapidly) the route it takes to get to that design goal is wildly different.
I dunno, maybe there should be a PF1 vet's guide to PF2. "Combat maneuvers are really good now, even with the bare minimum of investment" is something that only someone coming from a system where uninvested combat maneuvers suck would fail to realize. The CRB certainly isn't the place for that, page space isn't infinite after all.
I think there's a world of difference between "Don't use all 3 actions to Strike," and "Don't always use all 3 actions to Strike."
Flurry rangers and anyone going toe-to-toe with an ooze can prove the first statement incorrect. I'm glad the system allows for me complexity, but it is saddening to see people (GMs and PCs) not wanting to engage with it. But, you don't have to, like I said. A person retracts their hand went burnt, just like an adventurer would likely move away from a creature that is caving their skull in.
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They also aren't universally bad choices, they're situational choices.
I'm not complaining that the game is broken because some options are sub-optimal, I'm complaining that the game is balanced around you taking the optimal options. Which leads to frustration for players when they fail, and when they ask how to fix it, they get "Were you using your actions well? No? Ok, here's how you do it." which leads to a lot of repetition, which leads to a lot of A. You can mitigate that through encounter design, but that's tautological because you can do that for any system.
No, not all options need to be equally valid all the time ever or the game is super trash, but there are playstyles that need to be catered to because of the genre and legacy of the game. Clearly its not working for some people.
Yes a sidebar that goes into the expectations of combat would clearly be helpful because that's a lot of what is discussed here. I assume (Again I haven't read it) that's why Paizo put out a strategy guide for 1e.
It's kinda like if you were new to street fighter and you liked Dan Hibiki, but nobody told you he was a joke character.
The CRB certainly isn't the place for that, page space isn't infinite after all.
Why not? I'd argue game fundamentals are more important than Golarion lore, since there's no expectation that you'll be using that setting.
I think there's a world of difference between "Don't use all 3 actions to Strike," and "Don't always use all 3 actions to Strike."
Flurry rangers and anyone going toe-to-toe with an ooze can prove the first statement incorrect. I'm glad the system allows for me complexity, but it is saddening to see people (GMs and PCs) not wanting to engage with it. But, you don't have to, like I said. A person retracts their hand went burnt, just like an adventurer would likely move away from a creature that is caving their skull in.
There it is again, that's the "You're not playing right" mindset, and you're just assuming people are too dumb engage with a system. What I am saying is that the system assumes that all players are playing optimally, it has no time for players that aren't who might be doing so for narrative or stylistic reasons, which isn't great for their ability express themselves or their characters. There isn't enough wiggle room in 2e, that is my point.
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MAP isn’t new to P2, it was in P1 and DND.
All P2 does is let you have your extra attacks earlier.
I think a big difference is that taking those MAP attacks actually has a cost, instead of "I stand still". Because of that cost, the fact that you're losing hit chance every time you swing means that the latter attacks are worth less.
That's a pretty big difference. Imagine, for example, that if you took the third MAP attack in PF1 you had to pay your swift action as well. I suspect you'd see less people using that attack.
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I'd argue game fundamentals are more important than Golarion lore, since there's no expectation that you'll be using that setting.
There kind of is in PF2. I mean maybe not an expectation but making the flavour more integrated with the rules was one of the conscious choices they made with the new edition.
In PF1 they kept lore out of the core rules as far as possible but found that stifling in some situations. With PF2 they decided to treat the game being played in the world of Golarion as the default assumption.
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As a small anecdote of unique actions pf2 let me carry out, I had a Liberator of Kurgess that used a shield as his weapon, Captain America style, in combat. When dealing with some wrecker demons, one landed two crits on my shield and obliterated it and then moved to an ally. I cast the Athletic Rush spell to charge at him, trip him (with my new bonus), and stomp the crap out of him with a melee attack. He had shifted the balance of battle and I grabbed it and shifted it back in a turn.
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There it is again, that's the "You're not playing right" mindset, and you're just assuming people are too dumb engage with a system. What I am saying is that the system assumes that all players are playing optimally, it has no time for players that aren't who might be doing so for narrative or stylistic reasons, which isn't great for their ability express themselves or their characters. There isn't enough wiggle room in 2e, that is my point.
There's nothing there saying that someone isn't playing right or even playing sub-optimal. I would argue that there isn't a set "optimal" in PF2 with the breadth of options and situations within any given encounter. I'm saying that someone doesn't need to understand every bit of the game in order solve their problem of "I get hit often."
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What I am saying is that the system assumes that all players are playing optimally, it has no time for players that aren't who might be doing so for narrative or stylistic reasons, which isn't great for their ability express themselves or their characters. There isn't enough wiggle room in 2e, that is my point.
Does the system really make these assumptions? Or is the GM that runs encounters and the creatures in them in ways that are grating heavily against the players expectations for difficulty, because they are all acting in a coordinated fashion in which the players don't want to match?
When you GM, and you realize you have a player that wants to spend two actions dramatically moving and leaping/tumbling into position to make 1 attack, and you consistently punish them for not being singly focused on moving into position as quickly as possible, attacking and then using an additional action to gain a tactical advantage for themselves or the party, then you player that wants cinematic and dramatic combat is going to grow bored and frustrated and stop looking for ways to take advantage of how movement and positioning can create a dynamic fight.
If your enemies are regularly capable of TPKing your party, then they can probably afford to have more complex and interesting objectives in an encounter than "kill all the PCs as quickly as possible." The same goes for PCs in reverse, if the PCs are regularly rolling over enemies that are only level +1 or lower, then start introducing things like hostages, collapsing environments, and other non-slayable challenges into encounters. Even if there are no hostage or rare treasure that will explode if it is mishandled, but the enemy sells that there is, the dynamics of the encounter will change and become more interesting very quickly as the party seeks for mcguffin or decided to take someone alive for questioning.
I think it is fair to say that one area where PF2 has room to grow forward is in helping GMs modify their games to help everyone at the table have as much fun as possible. If the players feel like they are optimization masters and the game is just too difficult for them, and that is what is ruining everyone's fun, then maybe the GM should just try something as simple as letting the PCs use the free archetype variant rule from the GM. Build focused characters will probably love the addition of a bunch of new options, and the GM really has to do very little to counter balance. It won't fix the problem of players digging themselves into combat routine boredom on its own, but it might give them enough power and versatility to let the GM start small with throwing in a little more complexity to encounters than "kill or die" outcomes.
Alternatively, if, as a GM or whole table, you identify specific rules that are preventing you all from playing the game how you want to play it, change that rule. PF2 is incredibly transparent in how it works and the developers packed the GMG with ideas for making changes to your game that will make the experience of playing it uniquely fun for your table.
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What I am saying is that the system assumes that all players are playing optimally, it has no time for players that aren't who might be doing so for narrative or stylistic reasons, which isn't great for their ability express themselves or their characters. There isn't enough wiggle room in 2e, that is my point.Does the system really make these assumptions?
I find PF2 system has the best of both world. There is no need to play optimally to get a proper result. When, in PF1, you could have a level of magnitude between 2 characters in terms of efficiency, this isn't true anymore in PF2 unless you build your character with a complete lack of common sense (like a Barbarian with no Strength). But, at the same time, experienced players with a love for strategy can really get more out of their character without completely imbalancing the game.
In general, criticisms about PF2 come from beginners who think they have system mastery (in general from previous systems). And that's exactly what I think of Cody right now as his examples scream "lack of system mastery".
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I find PF2 system has the best of both world. There is no need to play optimally to get a proper result. When, in PF1, you could have a level of magnitude between 2 characters in terms of efficiency, this isn't true anymore in PF2 unless you build your character with a complete lack of common sense (like a Barbarian with no Strength). But, at the same time, experienced players with a love for strategy can really get more out of their character without completely imbalancing the game.
In general, criticisms about PF2 come from beginners who think they have system mastery (in general from previous systems). And that's exactly what I think of Cody right now as his examples scream "lack of system mastery".
It is interesting that this particular video makes it sound like everyone is just do the "boring optimized turns every round" and still having trouble in fights.
I think a lot of people that love PF2 love the strategy element. I have no idea if they were beginners or just stubborn people honestly. There are people that play games for longs periods of time and just never learn. DOTA is a huge example of this.
I think where the problem really stems is there are quite a few players that love to do damage. I will give an example of some fun tactics we did but still the players decided it was bad to not just attack.
We had a boss caster knocked down and grappled. So she was in a horrible position. So she had a 20% to fail every spell cast and actually failed one spell. So in the combat we had the character fighting at a severe disadvantage.
So I explained the next round you had to grapple the target again and the conclusion of the players seems to be athletics actions are bad... why trip/disarm/shove/grapple when it effects map and uses one of my actions when I could attack.
The most disheartening thing was when I was explaining to a player the fun athletics actions he could do but they effected MAP. His immediate reaction was I am never going to use them because they are "bad".
Personally I think it is great that it is super tough to tell if an athletics check is better than an attack in certain situations. Sadly though non attacks are very hard to tell how impactful they compared to doing damage.
A player wanted to be a Bard so I decided to switch to a Eldritch Archer Champion with a focus on Diplomacy/Intimidation/Athletics so I can hopefully show all the players all the fun things you can do.
So I explained the next round you had to grapple the target again and the conclusion of the players seems to be athletics actions are bad... why trip/disarm/shove/grapple when it effects map and uses one of my actions when I could attack.
And that's fine. Because only attacking will give honorable results. So beginners can play the way they want and tactical characters can play the way they want and both will be pleased about it.
The only problem is that you have a tactical player in the middle of a bunch of beginners. In my opinion, instead of trying to prove something, you should just play a character that fit into the party. If it's the case of your Champion then everyone will be happy.