Being more forgiving of bad luck and having more consistency of results leads to a lower chance of dissatisfied players. This applies particularly at low levels when your ability to mitigate bad luck is lower, and which coincidentally are the levels where you would most often give a new game a try.That's certainly a possibility. It's not much comfort when your dice are cold, though.Why should the encounter math provide comfort for those with cold dice? If the encounter design must allow for the comfort of people who are having bad dice luck - how challenging can an encounter ever really be?
Nothing that weak templates and/or lower leveled enemies can't make do nicely.
If the players want to breeze through all the fights, the GM can easily adjust the math to their liking with minimum effort.
Another good thing to mitigate poor luck is to start the session with more Hero Points and increase the cap if necessary. That way players can use them proactively without fear for their lives.
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Oh I dunno, for a level 7 party, a Frost giant and 2 polar bears is a proper Severe encounter, where the giant on his own would be moderate, with one of each being somewhere in between. Yes, the polar bear at that point would be a lackey or standard creature vs the moderate boss, but that does really make more sense-a frost giant should be harder to take out and be the much larger threat.
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65% at all levels for 5e assuming no magic weapons, magic weapons make that number go up.5e also has greater fluctuations for any given CR. For example, both hobgoblins and orcs have CR 1/2, but hobgoblins have AC 18 and orcs 13.
PF2 is also 65% (assuming all magic math items are gotten at the level of the item) vs moderate AC for martial characters at most levels (13/20), instead 60% at levels 4,8,9 and 12 (coinciding with striking and property runes) and 70% at levels 5,13 and 17.I haven't gone over the actual monster statistics, but I was under the impression that high AC and attacks were more-or-less the default for monsters, at least melee-type monsters. So those chances should be about a point lower.
Difference being that in 5e you get more attacks at that accuracy but barely any more damage while enemy HP balloons, and in PF2e you have MAP, so you only get 1 attack at that accuracy, but your damage goes up.Damage in 5e generally balloons on account of extra attacks and, to a lesser degree, damage-boosting abilities like Smite.
Another thing that occurred to me is that 5e's bounded accuracy means that it's easier to mix monsters. For example, 5e mentions that frost giants often have beasts like polar bears or winter wolves as "pets". In 5e, a frost giant is CR 8 and has +9 to hit, while a polar bear is CR 2 and has +7 to hit. In PF2, the frost giant is CR 9 with +21 to hit, and the polar bear is CR 5 with +15. Any PF2 encounter where the frost giant has a reasonable chance to hit, the polar bear will be pretty much ineffective, and in any encounter where the polar bear will be a threat the giant will be absolutely overwhelming. But in 5e they play on more even ground—sure, the giant has three times the hp and deal four times as much damage, but at least the polar bear will still have a decent chance of making their presence known.
Your frost giant and polar bear example is interesting here because the bear is essentially just getting a slightly rebuffed second attack for the frost giant. In an encounter with 8th level PCs it is actually a fine combo for 1 encounter or could be spread out over two encounters for a level 6 or 7 party if the frost giant is a serious and significant boss.
PF2 factors in characters getting multiple attacks for all classes from level 1 on. A +5 difference in monster attacks will largely shape whether this is a creature that will struggle to hit PCs at all or be a serious threat to the PCs that requires employing specific tactics to beat.
The idea that creatures 6 levels apart have a 2 point accuracy spread seems like level is a pretty meaningless category.
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5e encounter balancing is primarily designed around the notion that any enemy can be threatening if used well, so things don't need to just numerically scale upwards and use bigger numbers as the sole source of threat. AC as a whole is relatively low, typically capping around 17-20 without significant investment and/or magic items (AC 18 for plate mail (best heavy armour), or AC 17 with best light or medium armour, and add +2 if using a shield); the game essentially assumes that on average most attacks will hit, and thus makes HP & damage more of a balancing factor than to-hit. This has the effect that weak monsters can still be challenging if used well; Tucker's kobolds seem to have been the WotC's expectation once the usual minmaxers got their hands on the MM.
It also tends to separate challenge into tiers instead of individual levels (with tiers starting at Lv.1, Lv.5, Lv.11, and Lv.17), with each tier acting roughly how you'd expect a level to affect accuracy (which means that 5e effectively has four levels, each of which has multiple mini-levels inside it). Monsters in the same tier are roughly equivalent, with difficulty tier stepping up around when the party's offensive output grows. So, in the example of the frost giant and the polar bears, the giant is tier 2 and the bears are tier 1, which is reflected by the relatively small difference you see there.
PF2 approaches things very differently; it's a very tightly bounded system (honestly even tighter than 5e, I'd say), but the biggest balancing factor is that the bounds move on a rail instead of being stationary.
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Nothing that weak templates and/or lower leveled enemies can't make do nicely.If the players want to breeze through all the fights, the GM can easily adjust the math to their liking with minimum effort.
Being frustrated by odds and wanting to breeze through encounters aren't the same thing, though.
Being frustrated by odds and wanting to breeze through encounters aren't the same thing. Dunno why people keep implying they're equivocal.
Nothing that weak templates and/or lower leveled enemies can't make do nicely.If the players want to breeze through all the fights, the GM can easily adjust the math to their liking with minimum effort.
Yes, but what do you want to change within the system when it's built with "characters have the tools to adjust the odds" in mind. Lowering ACs and DCs either throws that out of the window or makes it so the players who are engaging with that system will be breezing through encounters.
To expound on what I just posted, the way critical hits work mean that a baseline assumption of a 65% chance to hit is actually a 50% chance to hit and a 15% chance to critically hit. An Inspire Courage and Demoralize suddenly turn that into a 25% chance to crit with two actions and still keeps a second attack comparable.
While one could return to those baseline assumptions a lot of things would have to change. Hit Points, Spells, even minor actions like Take Cover would likely have to be looked at. It's a much bigger change system-wise than it is for a GM who knows their table would prefer to plow through their fights.
Now, if you really want to take the time, you could remove the crit system and dial back ACs, saving throws, and the like. I think it would make spells like fear, grease, and the like less attractive, but it seems like that could put it more in line with what you're looking for.
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Like I said, you could do away with the crit system, but you would have to remake so much that you would essentially be replicating another game that already exists. At that point, the question becomes what draw you have to playing PF2 and not that other game.
I can only speak for myself and my groups, but we enjoy PF2 especially because of our ability to alter probabilities through gameplay. It feels good when our monk flurries into a frightened 3, flanked enemy. They like when the shield block kept them away from being crit.
How does your group feel about the math, Temperans?
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What is wrong with people who are competent at something having an easier time doing that thing? If a character has an ability that makes them better at hitting they should be rewarded for using it, not punish everyone else for not having it.
Also every single time the PF2 crit system is brought up the image of it as nothing but shackles intensifies. Instead of designing for what is fun, everything has to bend to the crit system. Oh a monster that has low to-hit but huge AC? Nope that creature is useless. A creature who has high to-hit but low AC? Nope that creature is too swingy. Abilities that let you hit better? Nope too many crits. Abilities that make your AC better? Nope not enough crits.
Every balance point revolves around crits.
PF2 has enemies with high and low abilities. It has ways to increase accuracy and defenses. All by margins that become significant in play. It might not have the massive swings in those of some games, but it doesn’t need them to have those large impacts.
I and the people I play with, love seeing critical die rolls matter, especial good die rolls. The critical success effects of PF2, and your ability to double and even triple the likelihood of experiencing them in play with tactics is an incredibly fun and dynamic element of the system. Sometimes, that burns you as a player when a powerful enemy cries you on the first turn of an encounter, but the fact you can get burned is what makes the game have stakes. It is up to the table (players and GM communicating with each other) to dial in game variables to balance those stakes at the place that is most fun for everyone.
The GM has a ton of power in PF2 to control the effective power level of enemies. Tactics matter and the GM is the only player with full access to both sides of the screen. Learning how to use that to everyone’s benefit and not detriment takes time with each group.
Right, like I said, you can do that. Presumably you're doing that to increase the success rate of attacks, which brings me right back to...
Now, if you really want to take the time, you could remove the crit system and dial back ACs, saving throws, and the like. I think it would make spells like fear, grease, and the like less attractive, but it seems like that could put it more in line with what you're looking for.
EDIT: This is in response to Temperans, since I don't like getting involved in the whole "quote-ception" thing too often over little things.
Hey, congrats on getting to finally play! What'd you run? Or homebrew?
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Yeah, I've definitely felt what Temperans is saying. Extra specially for spellcasters. Critical failure effects on spells are usually "you re out of the fight" in one way or the other (which imo is a problem on its own, but a different discussion), so spellcaster odds pretty much have to be bad. If you could buff your spell DC with anything other than status penalties to the enemy and one or two outliar circumstance penalties like Catfolk Dance, or it was just baseline higher, you'd be looking at too high chances of a fight ending anticlimactically.
In some ways the crit system ends up being like shackles, since, as again Temperans already said, you can't increase hit chance to make people feeel better about missing without also increasing crit chance.
Why not introduce the chip damage Verdyn proposed in one of these threads and see how that plays? Relabel "Miss" as "Graze" or "Glance" and critical miss as miss? The designers felt that didn't work for the game at large, but for your individual tables that might be appropriate.
Naturally this should be for both spell attack and weapon attacks. The feats and abilities that give chip damage should add to whatever minimum you decide on.
Now that you put it in these terms, AnimatedPaper, it made me remember that that's exactly how the combat in Pillars of Eternity plays out. They created their own system (which was also adapted in a tabletop).
In that system, both spells and attacks can miss, graze, hit and crit.
Yeah I've mentioned before that I would enjoy that kind of thing, but I definitely sympathize with those that do not.
A problem that comes to mind is alchemists, but no reason alchemists bombs can't also graze in addition to their splash damage. Depending on how you go about it, this would also naturally make bows weaker (since bows and crossbows normally get no ability modifier on a strike) relative to other ranged options.
Edit: again, this is not a general recommendation for all tables. But it might be something to try for tables that would rather have increased "hit" chance without simultaneously increasing crit chance.
Now that I'm thinking about it, I'm a little surprised it's not a GMG variant. Perhaps in GMG2. (Assuming they do one, and I hope they do!).
Why not introduce the chip damage Verdyn proposed in one of these threads and see how that plays? Relabel "Miss" as "Graze" or "Glance" and critical miss as miss? The designers felt that didn't work for the game at large, but for your individual tables that might be appropriate.
Naturally this should be for both spell attack and weapon attacks. The feats and abilities that give chip damage should add to whatever minimum you decide on.
Or maybe take a page from the Shock mechanic in Worlds Without Number?
Looking at that now, and it seems like workable enough phrasing. Not quite sure it translates well to PF2 though.
Shock Damage
Some melee attacks inflict Shock, the inevitable harm that is done when an unarmored target is assailed by something sharp in melee range. Shock for a weapon is listed in points of damage and the maximum AC affected. Thus “Shock 2/15” means that 2 points of damage are done to any target with AC 15 or less. More heavily-armored targets are immune to the weapon’s Shock.
Assailants add their weapon’s attribute modifier to Shock, along with any magical bonus to the weapon and any damage bonuses that are explicitly noted as adding to Shock. Other damage bonuses do not increase Shock.
An attack never does less damage on a hit than it would do in Shock. Thus, if an attack that would normally do 4 points of Shock to AC 15 hits a target with AC 13 and rolls a 3 for damage, 4 points are done instead.
But having an explicit "graze" "glance" or "shock" value seems like a good way to talk about it, as well as rewrite the various press feats or even new runes and abilities that can add to it.
Oh, you misunderstand. The "fix" from my point of view is bows just dealing less damage. I would like that a lot, given they deal so much more damage than any other ranged option. This would help balance that out, and make them not the best weapon for every reasonable situation.
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I think thats a matter of the other ranged weapons not being designed too well. Also doesn't help that ranged weapons havent gotten much support. You have a few archetypes, compared to the countless melee archetypes.
If every other option in the game (cantrips included) fits a certain mold, and these 4 specific weapons do not, then I'm more inclined to think that bows are the ones not designed well.
Edit: and yes, I understand bows are the only ranged weapons that come within earshot of the damage a melee weapon can do. That just suggests to me that no ranged weapon was intended to do so without heavy feat support, and it's a quirk of design that bows do.
Edit edit: That's kind of why I like the idea of bows naturally dealing less grazing damage. That would even out the damage curve for all ranged weapons, plus give bows a definite niche where you use them when you can more reliably hit.
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Edit: and yes, I understand bows are the only ranged weapons that come within earshot of the damage a melee weapon can do. That just suggests to me that no ranged weapon was intended to do so without heavy feat support, and it's a quirk of design that bows do.
I can't really agree with this idea at all. Bows are essentially the primary ranged weapon in the game. Consider that in the CRB only one class gets any crossbow support (and it's like, what, two feats total?) and there exists no internal support for weapons like slings. Consider Paizo's historical stance on those weapons compared with bows.
It seems to follow a lot more easily that slings and crossbows are just... afterthoughts because that's really how they fit into the rest of the game as a whole than that Paizo somehow just missed how bows work entirely.
I could buy that for crossbows or slings, but those and bombs and cantrips and thrown weapons and guns?
I don’t think they missed anything. But within the design constraints of single damage die, getting all the pieces that would make a bow feel like a bow (decent range, reload 0, hard crit, the composite trait) and still leave room for lower damage but other trait weapons in the same tier, they wound up with something a bit more powerful than intended. And then let it go because sometimes they just decide to keep the stronger option if it fits thematically. That’s why I said “quirk” and not “mistake”.
Edit: I’ll admit though that “not designed well” is an unfair characterization. More accurate that these simply did not hit the same benchmark as the other weapons.
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Nobody held a gun to the designer's heads and made them go with single damage dice for weapons. 4e showed that you could just designate a unit for base weapon damage and treat that as singular while giving yourself actual design space to balance weapons. I have no clue why Paizo would ignore this for a less flexible system.
Cantrips don't really function in the same design space as weapons and both thrown weapons and bombs hold up reasonably well, so yeah.
This is a company that once said they didn't think crossbows needed to be viable for the same reasons they didn't think Pathfinder needed a water balloon specialist. PF2 weapon design just follows that paradigm for the most part.
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Paizo: Look at how balanced our game is!
Also Paizo: Meh, who cares if weapons are balanced.
Maximum Paizo: Just ship the book, who cares if half the shields in the game are almost totally non-functional and untested.
This is a company that once said they didn't think crossbows needed to be viable for the same reasons they didn't think Pathfinder needed a water balloon specialist. PF2 weapon design just follows that paradigm for the most part.
Right, I agree. But I think that manifested in bows being more powerful at 25’ or more range and equitable at anything lower, without the specific feats and runes that push the other options higher.
Nobody held a gun to the designer's heads and made them go with single damage dice for weapons. 4e showed that you could just designate a unit for base weapon damage and treat that as singular while giving yourself actual design space to balance weapons. I have no clue why Paizo would ignore this for a less flexible system.
I wouldn’t word it quite so strongly, but yeah they definitely had that example of “2[w]” formatting to draw on. Perhaps they go into why they didn’t take that approach on one of their AMA threads. At least one of the designers of 4E was also a main designer for PF2, so there might be a specific reason they went a different direction.
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I wouldn’t word it quite so strongly, but yeah they definitely had that example of “2[w]” formatting to draw on. Perhaps they go into why they didn’t take that approach on one of their AMA threads. At least one of the designers of 4E was also a main designer for PF2, so there might be a specific reason they went a different direction.
Based on other design choices I'm going to guess ease of use and simplicity. That or trying to avoid looking too much like 4e even while embracing a lot of its design ethos.
They've made a few odd choices and used that justification for it. The other go-to for explaining design choices is fan reaction but given how short the beta was and what changed and what didn't it seems like they had a specific design philosophy in mind from day one. They made some tweaks to no core systems, fixed a few math errors that never should have made the beta, but otherwise made very few changes to the core game.
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I'm gonna guess you weren't there for the playtest if you don't remember how much of a kerfuffle resonance was
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I'm gonna guess you weren't there for the playtest if you don't remember how much of a kerfuffle resonance was
I can read the threads. It doesn't seem like Paizo changed at a fundamental level outside of resonance and shield dents. They mostly just did the same thing they already wanted to in a different way in response to feedback.
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Recalling the playtest and still having my playtest rulebook with me here, the overall goal of PF2 (capping bonuses, making every choice feel as impactful to reduce "optimal builds," encouraging action diversity) is very unchanged from playtest to release.
But god no, the game we have now is absolutely not what the playtest was, even if you just ignore resonance and shield dents. There was quite a lot that changed and it wasn't "Paizo is justifying these choices for reasons," but based on a lot of feedback. Like a lot of feedback.
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Reason they didn't go with multiple weapon dice is because it messes with the math for Striking. Instead of 1d8 to 2d8 its 2d4 to 4d4.
Basic striking runes increase your weapon's damage to 2[W], more advanced versions of these runes will increase it to 3[W] or even 4[W]. This is just as easy to parse once you understand that [W] equals your weapon's damage.
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Recalling the playtest and still having my playtest rulebook with me here, the overall goal of PF2 (capping bonuses, making every choice feel as impactful to reduce "optimal builds," encouraging action diversity) is very unchanged from playtest to release.
But god no, the game we have now is absolutely not what the playtest was, even if you just ignore resonance and shield dents. There was quite a lot that changed and it wasn't "Paizo is justifying these choices for reasons," but based on a lot of feedback. Like a lot of feedback.
I wasn't there but I can read the playtest forums.
A lot of the same issues people have now were expressed from day 1 of the playtest. So they didn't change anything that was actually core to the game which is unlike what happened with D&D 5e where WotC was happy to keep iterating until they found what worked best for the players.
EDIT: Specific examples of things mentioned right at the start of the playest were things like Ranger's snares being useless, focus spells being lackluster, intelligence feeling like a weak stat. All things that still come up on the forums now.
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EDIT: Specific examples of things mentioned right at the start of the playest were things like Ranger's snares being useless, focus spells being lackluster, intelligence feeling like a weak stat. All things that still come up on the forums now.
Just because it's said on the forums does not make it correct.