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You're evaluating a CR 20 as if a Level 20 are the same thing. They are not at all the same and shouldn't be evaluated as "equals", they are a collective power that can at least provide some strife to four of you.CR doesn't exist in 2e, and this is not at all the intent. See PC Style Build in the GMG:
If you do choose to build an NPC fully using the PC rules, your NPC should generally end up being an appropriate challenge as a creature of their level. They will likely have lower statistics in some areas than if you had built them using the creature rules, but more options due to their full complement of feats and class features. This is best saved for important, recurring NPCs, especially if they’re meant to engage in social or exploration endeavors rather than just battles.An NPC built as a character has a level equal to their character level, and an NPC of that same level not built as a character has their stats determined the same way as any other creature - therefore, a level 20 monster is in fact meant to equal a single level 20 character, with potentially higher statistics in 'some areas' to make up for a lack of versatility.Except the book explicitly states the two are built with separate rules intentionally.
The fact is a CL even creature is meant to be a low threat boss to a party of 4 of that level. That’s explicit.
What’s also explicit, is that the rules for building a pc and a monster/npc are explicitly designed with different metrics. Level being a governance for one does not inherently mean it has the same value to the other.
We wouldn’t argue a level 10 spell is the same as a level 10 character in power right? We understand the correlation of power is spell x 2.
A level 20 Fighter with PC rules is not a CL 20, it’s more like a CL 18/19 when you compare them to a party of 4 of the exact same level. Enemies are designed with an...
I don't really understand this, if I'm being honestly. FowlJ's reference to PC Style Builds from the GMG is pretty conclusive for their intent, and the numbers line up to be similar. I can kind of see the argument by the time we get to creature level 20 creatures, as having ~three extreme modifiers is beyond the capabilities of most PCs. But for the vast majority of the game, this isn't the intent - I'll compare a monster to show it. I'll take the Dullahan as an example monster to compare. They're mostly built to fight things with a sword, so lets compare them to a human fighter (D vs F for ease of writing). The fighter starts at 18/14/14/10/12/10, going to 19/16/16/10/14/10 at level 5.
Perception: D - +14; F - +15, or +17 for initiative (7 level + 6 master + 2 wisdom)
Skills: Athletics: D - +15; F - +18 (7 level + 6 master + 4 strength +1 item)
AC: D - 28; F 26, can use a shield to go to 28 (10 + 7 level + 2 trained + 6 plate + 1 item)
HP: D - 95 (weakness 5 good, but a bunch of immunities too); F - 99 (70 fighter + 8 human + 21 con)
Attack: D - +18; F - +18 (7 + 6 master + 4 strength + 1 item)
Damage: D - 1d8+10 (14.5); F - 2d8+7 (16) (1d8 base + 1d8 striking + 4 strength + 3 specialization)
Ranged Attack: D - +14; F - +14/+16 (7 level + 4 expert if not in-group or 6 master if in-group + 3 dexterity)
So comparing like-to-like (roughly), our Dullahan has gotten slightly higher cha-based skill checks and AC (presuming both are TWFing), a Frightful Presence, their immunities, and their monster abilities. The fighter has much better initiative, better Athletics for combat manoeuvres, slightly more HP and damage, and potentially access to a better ranged attack, plus their class/ancestry/skill feats. I'm failing to see where the monster's significant advantage comes from here - certainly not enough to justify adding on another level or two, as you've suggested here :)
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I'm not trying to claim that my feelings about this are universal truth, but I really want to be able to set things up so that a specialist will probably succeed, but have a chance of failing and needing to go to Plan B, while a less invested (but not totally untrained) character can attempt and possibly succeed, but with worse odds. That specific space that I want is what really doesn't exist in that system.To be honest I never had a problem with guaranteed successes on skills checks happening for one player per skill.
For most anything that mattered you could make it such that the whole party (or at least multiple people) needed to succeed. Or you could provide a challenge where everyone got to showcase a different ability.
Except stealth. Stealth was always like...well the rest of the party is noisy so unless you want to go off alone (and probably die when you do get caught)...
I think it goes without saying, but we simply want to vey different systems and you got what you want....and I gave up on PF2.
We're all allowed to like different things, and for some of us that means giving up on Paizo's newest edition. I'm sticking around the boards, watching and waiting to see what develops. Maybe waiting for PF3, we'll see what happens in 10 years.
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So I keep seeing this "I wish I had 80% chance to hit on something I'm good at" being repeated.All of the monsters/enemies in the Bestiary that I can see follow the same level of hit chance as the PCs when on-level generally.
Changing it to where PCs have disproportionately better to hit chances than the same enemies they face isn't an option for balanced encounters obviously, so in order to achieve that "80%" ration, Monsters would also have to be buffed to the same hit range.
I seriously doubt feeling like every turn you're going to be walloped with 80% hit chances on first, and 50% hit chances on second would feel any better than current.
And on top of that, when you inflate the percentages of success on attacks up to 80% it makes doing anything but attacking a bad idea.
Like, why would I ever consider using Demoralize/Feint/etc. when I can just use my third action to attack again with a 25% hit chance (and still a 5% chance to crit). I really don't look forward to the "back to full attacks, but with extra steps" that it would entail, but that's me.
________________
That's even negating the fact that narratively the concept that "You suck if you miss" could easily be re-thought as "Everyone is pretty good at avoiding death,...
Well, no. Monsters don't need to have the same hit chance as PCss, and in fact they already don't. And they can be balanced in other ways to achieve the overall desired experience. Rather than boost the monsters attack, you can increase their HP to have them stick around an extra turn, or things to that effect. There are many options to create balance.
What I like in a game, if a specialist who almost never fails. And generalist (someone with at least some basic investment) who still has a moderate chance of success.
In any event, rather than discussing percentages, balance, and math too much I want to say I feel like you're trying to convince me the way I feel about the game and what I want out of it is wrong. As if you're trying to strongarm me into liking PF2. Perhaps I'm mistaken in the regard, as you say that's not what you want. But that's how your post comes across despite that disclaimer. However, let me state clearly that you cannot use logic to make me change my emotions or how I feel about the game.
Simply put, FOR ME, PF2 is a bad game. I do not like it and will not play it again.
So comparing like-to-like (roughly), our Dullahan has gotten slightly higher cha-based skill checks and AC (presuming both are TWFing), a Frightful Presence, their immunities, and their monster abilities. The fighter has much better initiative, better Athletics for combat manoeuvres, slightly more HP and damage, and potentially access to a better ranged attack, plus their class/ancestry/skill feats. I'm failing to see where the monster's significant advantage comes from here - certainly not enough to justify adding on another level or two, as you've suggested here :)
Dullahan he has:
(fast healing 5); Immunities fear, death effects, disease, poison, paralyzed, unconscious;
>.>
Come on. If you're going to devalue Frightful presence, Fast Healing, and immunities to Fear, Death effects, disease, poison, and paralysis AND their Monster abilities, the we're not doing a fair comparison.
Numbers are not the only things that go into the value of a creature, and that's obvious.
Like are you seriously going to argue that Athletics checks (worse Intimidate btw), Perception, and a "potentially better ranged attack" (not really true because they can't afford a weapon of value here and the Dullahan can throw the Hatchet) are on par with a DC 23 Frightful Presence, Fast Healing, and immunities?
As for "their class abilities and skill feats", I would point out that Reap, Head Hunter, and Summon Steed are at least as good as anything the Fighter could have picked up.
And they both have AoO, so that's not really a debate either.
Not to mention picking Fighter against Dullahan (a fear resistance Class) would be a far less fair comparison than say a Ranger.
Here's how I know they aren't equivalent:
Have a Fighter fight a creature of the same level as they are and if the Fighter can beat the encounter without losing over half its HP, then it isn't a standard encounter (and that would be extremely likely to happen in most scenarios).
We can't just shave off all the things that make the monster formiddable, compare a few statistics, and then call them equal. They are not.
A level 20 Fighter would either lose to a Balor or nearly die facing it. That's not a CL equal encounter, because CL equal encounters are not meant to be "by the skin of your teeth and certain death".
We all agree the creatures are designed to be challenges for a party of 4 right? In what world does the value of X/4 = X? (besides 0) It doesn't.
The book doesn't say "equivalent" the book says "generally appropriate encounter". Anything that's between the range of -4/+4 is in the "appropriate encounter range", and more than likely it refers to anything between -2/+2.
Let's just agree to disagree here, if we're just going to cherrypick monsters to prove our point and ignore half their abilities, we're talking past each other to prove our points and not really engaging. I do not think it's reasonable to assume an 80% hit chance against an on level creature makes an encounter "even level".
Just lower the CL of creatures you fight or offer more Exp for lower level fights. This seems like an issue with progression, not with the monsters as they are designed.
What I like in a game, if a specialist who almost never fails. And generalist (someone with at least some basic investment) who still has a moderate chance of success.
I can respect not liking the game. That's your prerogative.
That said, why would anyone ever want to be a generalist in your proposed situation? For the marginal opportunity to fail more things? Because per your statements there is no value in being "good at a lot of things".
I guess what I'm saying is that even if all of the things you said about the game magically warped to be that way, all it would do is inverse the problems you have with it.
If you decrease monster AC/Defenses so PCs hit all the time, those monsters have to become lower CL creatures or PCs level too quickly.
If you make it to where Specialists always succeed, everyone will just choose to be a specialist because being "generally good at things you never plan to do" isn't as valuable in a game where you can choose to do your specialist activity.
Why would I ever try to Trip/Grapple when I could just Feint with 100% success for FF. Sure no action tax, but I'd rather have guaranteed FF than a possible FF/action tax and also MAP.
I just don't think there was a way to satisfy "specialists never fail" and "generalists are good", because the latter is exactly how PF1 worked and generalists were bad by comparison (and other party members could even over-shadow you).
If you can 100% succeed at actions, then there is no point in being good at a lot of things, especially in a team game where everyone has skills/abilities spread out.
If you have a person who can 100% succeed at Recall Knowledge, one who can 100% succeed Demoralize, 100% succeed Feint, and 100% succeed Athletics, then the generalist who can do all 4 is never going to feel like they matter.
Eh I digress.
The book doesn't say "equivalent" the book says "generally appropriate encounter". Anything that's between the range of -4/+4 is in the "appropriate encounter range", and more than likely it refers to anything between -2/+2.
The book literally says one PC vs one at level creature is an Extreme Encounter, and describes an Extreme Encounter as "likely to be an even match for the characters". I don't know what more proof you want. Even Jason Bulmahn himself has said that building an NPC with PC rules should make them roughly equivalent.
All the points you're making about how monsters are stronger than at-level PCs are actually the exact same points I'm making. They aren't equivalent, but the game treats them as so.
(Also, my original point with the Balor and Pit Fiend thing wasn't even this, it was just saying monsters having 80% to hit players wasn't any absurdity compare to what we have now because that can happen already)
Dullahan he has:
(fast healing 5); Immunities fear, death effects, disease, poison, paralyzed, unconscious;
Ah, right, death effects, those things 7th level characters toss around all the time.
The most relevant of those immunities by far is probably fear, which while the fighter does not share they do, in fact, have a pretty strong resistance against.
As for "their class abilities and skill feats", I would point out that Reap, Head Hunter, and Summon Steed are at least as good as anything the Fighter could have picked up.
Well, you would be wrong. If a PC had Reap and Headhunter they may be pretty good, but that's entirely because PCs generally kill things when they reduce them to 0 HP. The main thing they get out of it, unless things are already going way south for the party, is an unimpressive weapon rune.
Here's how I know they aren't equivalent:
The book says they're equivalent. The designers of the game, on this forum, have talked about them being equivalent. Creature levels were unchanged from 1st edition, where the assumption made by the rules (despite often not being true) was that they are equivalent. If they aren't equivalent, that is in fact the exact thing people were complaining about.
We all agree the creatures are designed to be challenges for a party of 4 right?
Nobody agrees with that, including the rulebook. A single level X creature is worth 40 XP to a level X party. It is supposed to be trivially difficult, to the point where it isn't even worth anything to the party:
Trivial encounters don’t normally grant any XP, but you might decide to award the same XP as for a minor or moderate accomplishment for a trivial encounter that was important to the story, or for an encounter that became trivial because of the order in which the PCs encountered it in a nonlinear adventure.
The book doesn't say "equivalent" the book says "generally appropriate encounter".
No, it is quite a bit more specific than that. It says " an appropriate challenge as a creature of their level.", not "of some level in the general area of their level".
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I suppose it was inevitable but this is certainly getting into the edition war territory. Pretty sure people should just address the OP's questions and not each other's opinions, otherwise this thread is just gonna get locked.
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Dullahan he has:(fast healing 5); Immunities fear, death effects, disease, poison, paralyzed, unconscious;
>.>
Come on. If you're going to devalue Frightful presence, Fast Healing, and immunities to Fear, Death effects, disease, poison, and paralysis AND their Monster abilities, the we're not doing a fair comparison.
Numbers are not the only things that go into the value of a creature, and that's obvious.
Like are you seriously going to argue that Athletics checks (worse Intimidate btw), Perception, and a "potentially better ranged attack" (not really true because they can't afford a weapon of value here and the Dullahan can throw the Hatchet) are on par with a DC 23 Frightful Presence, Fast Healing, and immunities?
As for "their class abilities and skill feats", I would point out that Reap, Head Hunter, and Summon Steed are at least as good as anything the Fighter could have picked up.
And they both have AoO, so that's not really a debate either.
Not to mention picking Fighter against Dullahan (a fear resistance Class) would be a far less fair comparison than say a Ranger.
...
I wrote quite a long post below getting into the details of the example, which I mostly stand by. However, after having finished writing it, I don't think it's actually that important. I'll put it behind a spoiler, if anyone is interested to go further into it. What I really want to reply to is this part:
Have a Fighter fight a creature of the same level as they are and if the Fighter can beat the encounter without losing over half its HP, then it isn't a standard encounter (and that would be extremely likely to happen in most scenarios).We can't just shave off all the things that make the monster formiddable, compare a few statistics, and then call them equal. They are not.
A level 20 Fighter would either lose to a Balor or nearly die facing it. That's not a CL equal encounter, because CL equal encounters are not meant to be "by the skin of your teeth and certain death".
We all agree the creatures are designed to be challenges for a party of 4 right? In what world does the value of X/4 = X? (besides 0) It doesn't.
Honestly, I'm not quite sure why this would be a reasonable comparison to make. A single level 7 fighter in combat with a standard level 7 dullahan would certainly not end in the fighter above half HP, and it certainly wouldn't be a standard encounter. I agree with that. But a standard encounter for a level+0 creature is for a party of 4 PCs. A single level 7 PC vs a single level 7 monster is the equivalent of 4 level 7 PCs vs 4 level 7 monsters: i.e. beyond extreme by the encounter guidelines. Certainly not standard. A level 20 fighter should nearly lose to a Balor, or die trying, because a CL equal encounter is meant to be by the skin of your teeth and certain death". It's the equivalent of an Extreme threat encounter, defined in the CRB as:
Extreme-threat encounters are so dangerous that they are likely to be an even match for the characters, particularly if the characters are low on resources. This makes them too challenging for most uses. An extreme-threat encounter might be appropriate for a fully rested group of characters that can go all-out, for the climactic encounter at the end of an entire campaign, or for a group of veteran players using advanced tactics and teamwork.
This isn't me making it up or anything like that - the Different Part Size rules state that "If you have fewer than four characters, use the same process in reverse: for each missing character, remove that amount of XP from your XP budget". If you have three missing PCs, your Extreme encounter budget is 40XP - the same as an APL+0 creature. As you say, the challenges are for groups of 4 - which means a level + 0 encounter vs 1 PC is an Extreme encounter. It should be by-the-skin-of-your-teeth difficult, as the stats are (and should be) essentially the same.
I did forget to mention the Fast Healing - that's certainly a significant point in their favour. The dullahan's defences are clearly substantially ahead of the fighter, with both the +2 AC and the fast healing, no contest there. The intent was not to say that the better skill check, perception, and ranged attack (they can also get a thrown weapon, so depending on weapon group it's certainly possible) is better than 'a DC 23 Frightful Presence, Fast Healing, and immunities', but that the Fighter has a variety of abilities that holistically can be comparable. Though it's a level early for a fighter to get it, something like the War Cry skill feat is a PC attempt of catching up to Frightful Presence, and the Fighter has 3 skill feats, two ancestry feats, and 2 general feats to add to their initiative, athletics (the intimidate gap could be patched with a +1 item and Intimidating Prowess, for example), and ranged attack option in that comparison. Which one is more helpful is situation-dependent, but broadly leads towards slight advantages towards the monster in its specific niche, and better generalist capabilities for the PC rules.
I'd actually object to saying that Head Hunter/Reap/Summon Steed are better than what the fighter gets. For the specific example, the Frightful Presence hardly affects the fighter with Bravery, but that is getting a little lost in the weeds of the specifics. Keen is an expensive enchant, but likely has very little effect for a level+0 or higher creature except on their 3rd attack (their second attack at +13 still crits the fighter, and will crit most any on-level enemy, with a 19 on the dice regardless), so is unlikely to hugely change the battle. Reap is nice, but honestly fairly unlikely to trigger in a standard fight against PCs - if one PC is permanently dead, that's already a pretty strange fight. Summon Steed spends two actions to get an AC 19 36 HP creature; it'll be crit on a 10, and doesn't threaten most of the party past maybe a small chance on its first attack. The fighter build isn't as set in stone, but can be picking up something like Double Slice to get 2 attacks without MAP, or Shatter Defences if there's someone consistently demoralizing enemies (maybe them; they could go for a CHA build if they wanted to, or use something like Intimidating Strike to add it on), essentially locking in a +3 to hit. Lunge could be used with a reach weapon for more hit-and-run tactics, forcing the dullahan to waste actions. They could leverage their better athletics to go for Dazing Blow, and potentially play more crowd-control. It's harder to compare, but I do think the Fighter's 4 feats outweigh the Dullahan, at least in a 1v1 of a level+0 creature.
As to picking a Fighter, it wasn't to pick a fear-resistant class; it's to compare like-to-like. The dullahan is a High (i.e. roughly max a PC gets) attack creature with Attack of Opportunity and feats primarily focused around attacking creatures without minimizing MAP, making one big hit, etc. Fighter is the most direct comparison, and I hadn't even mentioned Bravery in the post you'd quoted. My posts here have certainly not been an effort to talk past anyone; I legitimately think the Dulahan is a reasonable example for comparison and demonstration that a PC of the same level and a monster of the same level are similar in their capabilities. One might prefer the set of abilities a monster gets, or one might prefer the abilities a PC gets - IMO, that's more about preference for specialization or generalisation.
Tl;dr of the spoiler is basically that PCs get more, lower power abilities. Monsters get more, high-impact abilities. It might not perfectly add up for some monsters/PCs, but they're broadly comparable - certainly not equivalent to a full level of difference, in my opinion :)
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Not a GM myself, but when looking at the encounter building rules posted earler it looks like the moderate 50% health left encounter you are all looking for in a one-on-one situation is character level minus 2, not character level.
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I really think a sticking point for a lot of players is that they just don't fundamentally agree that equal level should mean equal odds of winning. They think equal level should mean appropriate odds of winning, and appropriate for them means probably in the 80% to 90% victory range.
The problem with that is that it makes game balance all around more difficult to manage because level x doesn't mean level x evenly. It makes home brewing and adventure writing much more difficult.
And it is a problem exacerbated by the reality that many of the early PF2 adventures and modules were written to be more challenging than PF1 ones were. Whether that was deliberate, as I think was the case with Fall of Plaguestone, or not, which might be the case with some of the Age of Ashes encounters, is a fair question for debate, but it doesn't make it universally true that encounters in PF2 have to be more challenging, and we are seeing that as more and more material gets released.
For GMs worried about players that don't take having their character's lives threatened well, I recommend either leveling your players up to level 2 exceedingly quickly and then letting them stay a level ahead of the written material (perhaps by adding a few moderate encounters against lower level enemies early on so they feel like they earned it), or applying the weak template to most of the solo monsters that are level +3 that the party might encounter. If you do that, the odds of a full TPK will go down drastically.
Also if you remove encounters, be very careful about removing the ones with lots of lower level enemies. If you do that, you heavily skew the game away from your casters and towards your fighter as having the most useful character.
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The book doesn't say "equivalent" the book says "generally appropriate encounter". Anything that's between the range of -4/+4 is in the "appropriate encounter range", and more than likely it refers to anything between -2/+2.The book literally says one PC vs one at level creature is an Extreme Encounter, and describes an Extreme Encounter as "likely to be an even match for the characters". I don't know what more proof you want. Even Jason Bulmahn himself has said that building an NPC with PC rules should make them roughly equivalent.
All the points you're making about how monsters are stronger than at-level PCs are actually the exact same points I'm making. They aren't equivalent, but the game treats them as so.
(Also, my original point with the Balor and Pit Fiend thing wasn't even this, it was just saying monsters having 80% to hit players wasn't any absurdity compare to what we have now because that can happen already)
Again though, a balor and pit fiend are both pretty specific enemies and you are only comparing them on base hit chance, by level 20 there are so many elements at play it isn't funny. Even stuff as simple as rogues having debilitating strike changes the effective attack rolls of melee enemies.
They are iconic foes that have been given extreme values, partially because the developers are sane and know that the sheer number of abilities a player has by level 20 will change the playing field dramatically.
While the level system is trying to approximate a power tier at each level milestone, it is not trying to make every melee foe an equivalent to a martial of the same level. The party being averaged out in combined power is what gives its equivalent level status.
Again, a level 20 player has so many abilities, magic items and other elements in play that just comparing attack values and noting that the balor is +1 higher than a fighter or +3 higher than a martial is only a small part of the picture.
The balor will tear bad matches to pieces, or struggle vs a pc better designed or prepared to fight it.
Regardless, it is one of the strongest level 20 foes and not a great tidemark imo.
I absolutely don't want monsters to be too homogeomised, it creates complacency and boredom in players ime.
(Back to the babu, it is a great example where someome thought it clearly came out ahead comparing it to a rogue but missed abilities that make the fight much harder for the babu)
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The book doesn't say "equivalent" the book says "generally appropriate encounter". Anything that's between the range of -4/+4 is in the "appropriate encounter range", and more than likely it refers to anything between -2/+2.The book literally says one PC vs one at level creature is an Extreme Encounter, and describes an Extreme Encounter as "likely to be an even match for the characters". I don't know what more proof you want. Even Jason Bulmahn himself has said that building an NPC with PC rules should make them roughly equivalent.
All the points you're making about how monsters are stronger than at-level PCs are actually the exact same points I'm making. They aren't equivalent, but the game treats them as so.
(Also, my original point with the Balor and Pit Fiend thing wasn't even this, it was just saying monsters having 80% to hit players wasn't any absurdity compare to what we have now because that can happen already)
Again though, a balor and pit fiend are both pretty specific enemies and you are only comparing them on base hit chance, by level 20 there are so many elements at play it isn't funny. Even stuff as simple as rogues having debilitating strike changes the effective attack rolls of melee enemies.
They are iconic foes that have been given extreme values, partially because the developers are sane and know that the sheer number of abilities a player has by level 20 will change the playing field dramatically.
While the level system is trying to approximate a power tier at each level milestone, it is not trying to make every melee foe an equivalent to a martial of the same level. The party being averaged out in combined power is what gives its equivalent level status.
Again, a level 20 player has so many abilities, magic items and other elements in play that just comparing attack values and noting that the balor is +1 higher than a fighter or +3 higher than a martial is only a small part of the picture.
The...
High level play in PF2 is about so much more than numbers. Many fighters in a 1 on 1 situation against a level 20 enemy are in deep trouble because they rely on their allies to help get them into position to be effective. When they get that support, their combat abilities are much better than equal level enemies.
You just can't build monsters to assume that they will recieve the support of equally strong allies who have spent 19 levels learning how to fight together and exploit enemy weaknesses. In fact, if you do that as a GM, your players will get very, very angry at you. At a certain point, some times extra numbers become ways around trying to explain how the martial is going to trip the big end boss necromancer, while the target of a level 4 silence spell, and the big end boss is never going to be able to cast a spell for the entire encounter.
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High level play in PF2 is about so much more than numbers. Many fighters in a 1 on 1 situation against a level 20 enemy are in deep trouble because they rely on their allies to help get them into position to be effective. When they get that support, their combat abilities are much better than equal level enemies.
I think this is a totally fair point. In fact, at this point, it becomes a more subjective and personal thing. Some people like that it works this way because it's easier to challenge the players. Some players dislike it because their characters being individually weaker than monsters feels bad for them, or unheroic (a complaint I got from a lot of my players and I totally understand where they come from).
In my case, personally, I'm in the third field of "I don't like that this is done this way because it assumes a level of coordination, tactics and optimization that not every party will have, and I'd rather see things being balanced from the most accessible side". I think balancing the game around veteran players with sound tactics and leaving the new GMs with barely any system mastery to rebalance encounters down for their newbie players is... pretty backwards logic. You should put the burden of change on the people more likely to be able to handle it.
Anyway, the initial comparison I made with the Balor and Pit Fiend got completely lost in all the context and discussion, but it was basically me saying "no, PCs having 80% accuracy is not that absurd because there are things in the game that already do that", in response to Toker's response to Claxion's opinion that he'd like to see more accurate PCs.
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I can respect not liking the game. That's your prerogative.
That said, why would anyone ever want to be a generalist in your proposed situation? For the marginal opportunity to fail more things? Because per your statements there is no value in being "good at a lot of things".
I guess what I'm saying is that even if all of the things you said about the game magically warped to be that way, all it would do is inverse the problems you have with it.
If you decrease monster AC/Defenses so PCs hit all the time, those monsters have to become lower CL creatures or PCs level too quickly.
If you make it to where Specialists always succeed, everyone will just choose to be a specialist because being "generally good at things you never plan to do" isn't as valuable in a game where you can choose to do your specialist activity.
Why would I ever try to Trip/Grapple when I could just Feint with 100% success for FF. Sure no action tax, but I'd rather have guaranteed FF than a possible FF/action tax and also MAP.
I just don't think there was a way to satisfy "specialists never fail" and "generalists are good", because the latter is exactly how PF1 worked and generalists were bad by comparison (and other party members could even over-shadow you).
If you can 100% succeed at actions, then there is no point in being good at a lot of things, especially in a team game where everyone has skills/abilities spread out.
If you have a person who can 100% succeed at Recall Knowledge, one who can 100% succeed Demoralize, 100% succeed Feint, and 100% succeed Athletics, then the generalist who can do all 4 is never going to feel like they matter.
Eh I digress.
Don't get me wrong, I never said you should play a generalist in this paradigm.
And you're right, it is the paradigm PF1 had. I liked that. That's why I would want it back. I don't care the being a generalist was a bad idea because if anyone else did the same thing (as a specialty) you would be comparably bad at it. To me that's a feature, not a bug. The specialist should be that much better (at least after a certain point, not at level 1).
Which is not that players should always get to do their primary thing either.
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Back to topic here is my take on PF2 after two volumes of AoA (so keep in mind that I might be biased) and after we decided to take an extended break (which I do not know if we will ever recover from).
What do I like:
I really, really, really like the character building rules in PF2, with its many pillars and up to now not overly many opportunities to game or break the system. Yes, there are pitfalls like not maximizing your main attributes or chosing the wrong base chasis (for hard stats or mechanics), however the amount of customization is simply stunning.
What I do not like:
The thight math and for many reasons. Skill checks usually require at least average rolls and/or specialists. Counteract checks usually require the correct spell at the correct level at the correct time and at least average rolls. Monsters often feel superior to player characters by hard stats like to-hit or spell DC, with even same level monsters often severely outclassing the Fighter or Wizard. Note that nobody of our group wants to play Superman, however winning by surviving is not what we would call heroic high fantasy either.
Also the thight math seems to provide too few leeway for both extravaganza or streaks of bad rolls thus impeding immersion at least for our group of avid wargamers. When you are not fighting a dragon but a huge creature with reach x, special abilities y and attack bonus z, while thinking about actions economy, hit & save probabilities and how to improve them the roleplaying element gets lost way to easy. And don't get me wrong, the tight combat math and relative difficulty is excellent from a wargamers point of view, however not from a roleplayers game of view.
Some of the encounters seemed overtuned to the point that we could tell by end of round one that this would be TPK without our GM not playing our enemies to the fullest, showing mercy or some other deus ex machina shenanigans. And any such victory is a bitter, hollow victory because deep down you simply know that you were never once able to outskill, outsmart or outroll your opposition. Not that we are afraid of individual character death or TPK, however we try to avoid it if anyhow possible for the sake of a coherent story. Have a character die and join with another character will usually kill a lot of past experiences and colourful back story and a full TPK usually annihilates the entire campaign.
So - so
New Action economy. Martials seem pretty fine and fun, especially once they have one or two action enhancing feats. Caster gamplay seems very static (on the game board, not choices), especially as meta-magic feats usually eliminate actions.
Back to topic here is my take on PF2 after two volumes of AoA (so keep in mind that I might be biased) and after we decided to take an extended break (which I do not know if we will ever recover from).
What do I like:
I really, really, really like the character building rules in PF2, with its many pillars and up to now not overly many opportunities to game or break the system. Yes, there are pitfalls like not maximizing your main attributes or chosing the wrong base chasis (for hard stats or mechanics), however the amount of customization is simply stunning.
I did want to say this is the number 1 reason I enjoy PF2. It is just so fun being able to make such wacky fun viable characters with easy and having players be somewhat balanced is just amazing. Just going Witch / (Herbalist/Alchemist + Familiar Master) you can actually have your familiar run around giving out items is just great to me and 100% RAW!
I have never felt this way playing any other game yet. It is just so easy to make a fun viable concept that is super unique. I love my Draconic Tripping Sorcerer (horsechopper) and I barely put thought into it.
I really feel the archetype + feat system is AMAZING! Just want to reiterated this point even more but with the APG character options is just crazy. You can take a Monk like 100 different ways that all feel different. I am really looking forward to playing a "healer" Monk, who runs around healing people with Lay on Hands + Battle Medicine + runs at lightning speeds using flurry of blows in between :)
What I do not like:
Monsters often feel superior to player characters by hard stats like to-hit or spell DC, with even same level monsters often severely outclassing the Fighter or Wizard. Note that nobody of our group wants to play Superman, however winning by surviving is not what we would call heroic high fantasy either.
I am very surprised so many people seem to dislike that "on level" enemies have higher number than players. It is just a number they gave for encounter building rules after all. By the encounter building rules it is quite clear that a player isn't supposed to be fighting 1 on 1 with monsters their levels for like 90% of fights. So you should be fighting 2 monsters at your level as a 4 party for a moderate encounter or 4 -2 monster levels. Of course GMs can ignore this and have mostly severer/extreme encounters, sometimes I feel like the APs do this...
They could have easily raised all the monster level by +2 and all the encounter building rules by +2 and I guess these players would be happy because "I am better than an on level monster".
I admit I even more surprised that any players would even care or notice. I have never played a TTRPG and compared my stats to monsters 1 to 1... I have played through 5e/PF1/PF2 and just killed the monsters without much thought if "I was better".
Some of the encounters seemed overtuned to the point that we could tell by end of round one that this would be TPK without our GM not playing our enemies to the fullest, showing mercy or some other deus ex machina shenanigans. And any such victory is a bitter, hollow victory because deep down you simply know that you were...
Are you talking about in the Adventure Paths? If so I have just played Extinction Curse and 100% agree. The game seems to be written to be unforgiving to new players starting an AP. Ironically PFS is so much better in this regard.
I feel it will actually be super easy to make fun encounters for a homebrew campaign because you could have the encounters mostly be in the trivial-moderate difficulty which imo is how PF1/5e really feels for most fights.
I haven't got to play yet but I heard the Beginner Box really solves this issue and helps players learn. We chose to start with an Adventure Path and really feel like it was a bad intro to PF2.
Ok, PF1 at level 1-4 is crazy difficult at least in Iron Gods, but once we got to 5 it felt much more like I was a hero.
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I think balancing the game around veteran players with sound tactics and leaving the new GMs with barely any system mastery to rebalance encounters down for their newbie players is... pretty backwards logic.
I don't see this at all in my games and I play with almost exclusively new players.
I do not have to change balance at all for new players, it's the veterans that require coaching because they haven't adjusted to the new system.
In fact, one thing that I think needs to be mentioned specifically is that the frequency of critical hits and critical successes went up between editions. And for my tables, criticals are very much where the "heroic moments" come online.
Not to mention, the heroics I've seen that weren't even possible/things in PF1:
- Shoving enemies off cliffs/ships, tripping to deny actions, grappling to stop movement, etc. These were not actions people were taking in PF1 without significant investment, and certainly not by joe-schmo the barbarian.
- Recall Knowledge mid combat, offering new tactics and insight into the monsters themselves
- Critical Successes on skills actually being a thing in and out of combat. Previously if you were giving players "critical successes" on skill checks, that's a house rule. You can't even get "critical" successes in PF1.
- Providing debuffs in combat for your other allies as a martial, which was pretty much impossible previously
- Actually being able to be good at Skills as a Fighter/Barbarian to the point where your character actually has things worth succeeding at besides an attack roll
and the list really continues to go on. Tiers of success derive more "heroics" than PF1 ever did for me, because they actually exist. The only "critical" that existed in PF1 was a Strike, and to be honest, in PF1 they weren't nearly as impactful (see Weapon Specialization effects).
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8 people who've never played a TTRPG, 5 people that have played one or two, and 3 veterans (besides myself) thus far that I've played with and the veterans are the ones having trouble because it's a different meta they had to learn.
The tiers of success system is what derives heroics in this system, and previously that didn't even exist.
If you want to feel heroic without tactics, here's the good news: You absolutely can. It's just going to be more luck based than if you use tactics.
And players get lucky far more often than monsters do almost exclusively because they are rolling more often.
Claxon's critiques feel bizarre to me because I cannot imagine being disappointed that enemies continue to be dangerous. It's not like it's the same sewer goblin that you fought at level one that continues to be a threat, you leveling up means you can match more dangerous foes - things that would've mopped the floor with you a couple levels earlier.
I guess I'm coming from the perspective of being a huge fan of famously difficult RPG's. Different strokes and all.
I guess it's because after you fight those sewer goblins, you never (or at least rarely) get an opportunity to flex on someone and feel like a superhero.
In PF1 I felt like a superhero, even when playing a non-magical character. And even when facing monsters above my level.
In PF2, you basically always fight on level monsters or higher, and they're always challenging. So I always felt like a bumbling, incompetent, only alive through luck, schmuck. I detest that.
As a point of comparison, you sound like someone who likes Dark Souls. That kind of game isn't what I'm looking for.
I want to feel like a superhero, kicking ass and taking names. PF2 doesn't fit that play style, unless you rewrite adventures to mostly face level -2 (maybe level-1) creatures and bosses are on level or level +1.
Interesting. Hnn.
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I am very surprised so many people seem to dislike that "on level" enemies have higher number than players. It is just a number they gave for encounter building rules after all. By the encounter building rules it is quite clear that a player isn't supposed to be fighting 1 on 1 with monsters their levels for like 90% of fights. So you should be fighting 2 monsters at your level as a 4 party for a moderate encounter or 4 -2 monster levels. Of course GMs can ignore this and have mostly severer/extreme encounters, sometimes I feel like the APs do this...
Well it is an AP thing for sure (too many too severe encounters) and playing PF2 using a VTT system and the GM rolling in the open does not help either. When you proudly throw your first Fireball at level 5, only to be returned a Fireball with a 2 to 3 points higher DC or when your fighter has +17 to-hit at level 6 and his same level enemy has +20 you begin questioning yourselves...
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Well it is an AP thing for sure (too many too severe encounters) and playing PF2 using a VTT system and the GM rolling in the open does not help either. When you proudly throw your first Fireball at level 5, only to be returned a Fireball with a 2 to 3 points higher DC or when your fighter has +17 to-hit at level 6 and his same level enemy has +20 you begin questioning yourselves...
Enemies with higher attack bonus than Fighters is a lot rarer (though 99% of them have higher attack than all other martial classes), but in the case of spellcasters it's really sad. It's so common for monster casters to have higher DCs than PC casters can, that I've seen a bunch of Gish monsters with higher spell DCs than at-level full casters.
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Not sure about the "pc-style build" thing, but in the encounter building rules, an at-level creature is worth 40 experience points in a moderate encounter, while a PC only increases (or decreases) the budget by 20. Monsters two levels lower are worth 20 experience points, from experience, I think that if you want a 1 to 1 challenge, you would use those-- thats the point where you would use the same number of monsters as there are players for a moderate encounter.
Of course, its not really a fair fight, since the PCs would stomp that encounter, I think the real takeaway is just that monsters are built for their role in the game: as interesting creatures to fight.
Interestingly, PCs are worth the same amount of EXP, if the encounter is meant to be extreme.
Very, very few monster spell casters live to cast 4 or even spells in their lifetimes as the parties adversaries. If they are the focus of the adventure, they should wield power that scares everyone around them, especially the PCs.
But when the casters are minion support creatures, it is very rare for a level -2 caster to have a Save DC that is much of a threat against all but the weakest party saves. Plus all of their incapacitation spells and effects are no longer that frightening. Switching that up on players so that they don't ONLY encounter higher level casters is an important adventure writing note to pay attention to.
Lets look at a real example:
Level 3 Mage for higher DC 20
A wizard at level 1 has a likely save DC of 17 and saves in the +4 (or 5) fort/+ 4(or 5) ref/ + 5 (or 6) will range. It is a brutal enemy for the spell cast.
A level 5 wizard likely only has a save DC of 21, but their saves are likely +9 (or 10) fort / +11 (or+12) ref / +10 (or +11) will, range and they have likely picked up 2 class feats, an ancestry feat and a general feat to give them options that don’t really translate to things NPCs get. The wizard might be capable of casting spells from stealth with a +11 or +12 vs the Mage for hire’s perception DC of 17 if that is the focus they went for, or they might have MC’d into sorcerer and picked up dangerous sorcerer so their spells do even more damage. Not to mention they are bringing level 3 spells to the party and that mage for hire has one flaming sphere and a level 1 magic missile for offense before they are spent and using electric arc. Having that DC20 for their spells is so that their one trick isn’t a total dud. That +12 to spell attack rolls is for…? They don’t even have a cantrip that uses spell attack, making their true strike extra useless.
If you only look at the numbers, sure the Mage for higher is daunting foe, but in practice, each level the PC gains makes the match up less and less scary by quite a bit.
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The tiers of success system is what derives heroics in this system, and previously that didn't even exist.
If you want to feel heroic without tactics, here's the good news: You absolutely can. It's just going to be more luck based than if you use tactics.
And players get lucky far more often than monsters do almost exclusively because they are rolling more often.
The thing that irritates me most with PF2 is that game experiences can be so radically different in between groups as I can recall exactly ONE heroic moment and just a handful of critical successes on anything we have ever tried in 2 volumes and 8 to 9 levels of play (and which mostly required rolls of natural 20 anyway). I don't want to blame this on entirely subpar rolls either because when I looked up our rolls after some especially nerve wrecking sessions the overall median always seemed fine, however apparently we were very good at rolling low on important rolls and only being able to roll high on unimportant rolls.
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I mean that's not to say PCs didn't have "bad sessions" from time to time. One of the Ranger's in my group had a rough go of it as a Flurry Ranger with more misses than hits in a particular session.
But at the same time, that same Ranger had an excellent follow up session with multiple crits from herself and her wolf companion.
Now that same Ranger had good rolls on other things, but if she was measuring her "day" by how many hits she had on enemies, one of her days would have felt "bad".
But, she's also making the most attacks (with the most minuses) out of all the other Players.
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in PF1e, you can create a character that will compete in their chosen ‘PC Olympics’ event and be able to demonstrate their prowess, likely winning a medal or even gold (and not even think of entering any of the other events because they’d fare poorly, or even very very poorly)
in PF2e, the character you create, any character you create, could enter a scatter shot of events, many events, hoping the dice god will smile on them at least once and they’ll get a medal
in PF1e, those events are all won by someone who said, “I dedicate everything I have, from every aspect of my life to [excel at this one thing I elected to excel at]”
in PF2e, the events are won by ‘rolling better’
some like the one way over the other
I prefer “skill against skill alone”, to borrow a phrase from a giant (literally and figuratively)
that is, when I create a character, I like to think of them as an Olympic level entrant, not a random jack-of-all-trades (unless that is the character design I am going for)
in my opinion, the PCs should be the best of their lot (humanoids) and only a higher level NPC should be better; i.e., I dislike it when the PCs should meet a humanoid NPC whose [fill in this blank] stat is better than any PC could achieve, unless they are like a god is disguise, a shapeshifted dragon, or some such
similarly, a ‘push the party to the edge’ encounter I’ve had more than once, in various system incarnations:
- the party fighting their exact duplicates
in most cases, this is simply a question (for each player) of
- can you fight with your character better than the GM can fight with your character?
if yes, advantage the players
if no, advantage the GM
and then which side had more net advantage from those answers usually won
yes, random luck could make a difference though the times this happened luck was maybe weighted as 10-20% of the factor of victory
we had this encounter earlier this year
as listed in the CRB, that is an Extreme threat level encounter - aka the hardest fight the game suggests
it was like the Olympics analogy above - and ‘roll better’ won the day
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Monsters usually have higher DCs than PC casters, yes.
Monsters also don't usually have evasion, or juggernaut, or resolve. Not to mention the legendary versions.
Monsters usually have higher DCs than PC casters, yes.
Monsters also don't usually have evasion, or juggernaut, or resolve. Not to mention the legendary versions.
Neither do most casters. They only get normal Resolve at level 17, and are even worse on the other saves.
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Neither do most casters. They only get normal Resolve at level 17, and are even worse on the other saves.Monsters usually have higher DCs than PC casters, yes.
Monsters also don't usually have evasion, or juggernaut, or resolve. Not to mention the legendary versions.
Except cleric or bard, who gets resolve at 9. Or druid at 11.
But by level 17+ everyone has at least one good save, martials two (usually with one at legendary).
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And monsters very rarely have allies who grant bonuses to saving throws or abilities to reroll failed saving throws and have 0 hero points for when they critically fail their saves.
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The argument for parity with on-level monsters is lost on me, player characters and monsters are fundamentally different, PCs are meant to be played, monsters (mechanically) are nothing but roadblocks in a fancy suit, they exist for the challenge they impose (they can be elevated to greatness through roleplay, but by statistics alone monsters are meant to be simpler, scarier foes).
PF2e is built from the ground up with teamwork in mind, not single player monster combat. The system assumes that PCs are heroes that work in parties, so much so that running adventures for a single player often presumes downgrading the difficulty by upwards of two levels and being generous with consumables, and that's not only because of action disparity, but also because players are supposed to win the overwhelming majority of the time; no player is having fun by constantly facing 50/50 (more-than-extreme) odds unless that's specifically what they signed up for.
While it's true that a level 6 Rogue can't compete with a Babau in combat prowess alone, why would they have to? Monsters are shmucks that live for 4 to 5 rounds if they're lucky, they need to be tough and scary, but just enough to pack a punch and maybe use an unique ability or two that's hopefully memorable, they'll regularly get action economy cheats simply to have a chance at doing something before being blasted off the face of Golarion; the Rogue is cunning, agile and resourceful, they can stack the deck by planning ahead, researching the enemy, buying a cold iron weapon and most importantly relying on their allies to set the stage by rendering the enemy flat-footed and exposed.
This whole discussion about a monster-pc head-on clash is a complete mismatch with the game's expectations (and personally among my players the sentiment of being outmatched by monsters never came up, it's simply another indicator that they're going against a tough customer/punching above their weight class, you don't become a hero by beating people the same standing or lower than you).
Well they just posted an NPC that is a level 2 Fighter, albeit I’d call the axe above their level in wealth, so it’s at least closer at the earlier levels.
And I think maybe it’s a bit relative. Like a level 2 Fighter to a group of level 1s probably totally feels like a legit CL2. But I’d wager that a CL2 like a PC would feel much worse than some other CL2s on level.
Nonetheless.
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It sounds to me like most complaints are about the swinginess of the d20. The heroic feel of PF1 that many speak of was the game mechanics giving the ability to almost completely ignore the d20 because your static modifier was high enough.
PF2 has brought it back to focus on the d20 once more. No longer can you hyper focus to ignore the d20. No longer can your attack modifier be so high that a nat 1 misses..because it is a nat 1, not because the result is not high enough. No longer can you have a high enough AC that enemies must roll nat 20s to hit you...because it is a nat 20, not because the result is high enough. No longer can you have a DC that has a 5-10% success chance. No longer can your bluff modifier be so high that, mechanically, you can say whatever you want and everyone believes you. PF2 is balanced away from that.
I get it. I dislike d20 systems purely because of that. I do not like the d20. Heck, I'm not a big fan of RNG at all in my games.
This is in no way the fault of the system. In fact, fault would be an inappropriate word, for there is no fault. PF2 is a very (not completely) balanced system. So much so that I have not experienced such a system before. It is impressive. It is also impressive that, with such tight math, it is very easy to adjust to make it easier or harder.
To me, complaints about this system not being more balanced is like eating the most delicious meal I have ever tasted and then hearing other people complaining that it isn't even more delicious. You are right, it could be more delicious, but I will choose to bask in the deliciousness of the meal.
Comparing PCs to NPCs seems very arbitrary given that NPCs can easily be changed to suit their purpose. Don't like that the CL2 fighter has better stats than your PC fighter? Change it.
As always, I feel that there is an important distinction between "That is a flaw" and "I don't like that aspect". Props to Claxxon for making that distinction.
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in PF1e, you can create a character that will compete in their chosen ‘PC Olympics’ event and be able to demonstrate their prowess, likely winning a medal or even gold (and not even think of entering any of the other events because they’d fare poorly, or even very very poorly)
in PF2e, the character you create, any character you create, could enter a scatter shot of events, many events, hoping the dice god will smile on them at least once and they’ll get a medalin PF1e, those events are all won by someone who said, “I dedicate everything I have, from every aspect of my life to [excel at this one thing I elected to excel at]”
in PF2e, the events are won by ‘rolling better’some like the one way over the other
I prefer “skill against skill alone”, to borrow a phrase from a giant (literally and figuratively)
that is, when I create a character, I like to think of them as an Olympic level entrant, not a random jack-of-all-trades (unless that is the character design I am going for)
in my opinion, the PCs should be the best of their lot (humanoids) and only a higher level NPC should be better; i.e., I dislike it when the PCs should meet a humanoid NPC whose [fill in this blank] stat is better than any PC could achieve, unless they are like a god is disguise, a shapeshifted dragon, or some suchsimilarly, a ‘push the party to the edge’ encounter I’ve had more than once, in various system incarnations:
- the party fighting their exact duplicates
in most cases, this is simply a question (for each player) of
- can you fight with your character better than the GM can fight with your character?
if yes, advantage the players
if no, advantage the GM
and then which side had more net advantage from those answers usually won
yes, random luck could make a difference though the times this happened luck was maybe weighted as 10-20% of the factor of victorywe had this encounter earlier this year
as listed in the CRB, that is an Extreme threat level encounter - aka the hardest fight the game suggests
it was like the Olympics analogy above - and ‘roll better’ won the day
This is a good summary of my feelings on this too. And the post below, further explains it too when talking about RNG.
And you analogy really hits home, because while I never would have worded it as Olympic entrant it is that kind of idea for how I think of my characters. They're dedicated to X, and so the idea that anyone who isn't as dedicated to X can beat me out of sheer luck is absolutely detestable to me.
It sounds to me like most complaints are about the swinginess of the d20. The heroic feel of PF1 that many speak of was the game mechanics giving the ability to almost completely ignore the d20 because your static modifier was high enough.
PF2 has brought it back to focus on the d20 once more. No longer can you hyper focus to ignore the d20. No longer can your attack modifier be so high that a nat 1 misses..because it is a nat 1, not because the result is not high enough. No longer can you have a high enough AC that enemies must roll nat 20s to hit you...because it is a nat 20, not because the result is high enough. No longer can you have a DC that has a 5-10% success chance. No longer can your bluff modifier be so high that, mechanically, you can say whatever you want and everyone believes you. PF2 is balanced away from that.
I get it. I dislike d20 systems purely because of that. I do not like the d20. Heck, I'm not a big fan of RNG at all in my games.
This is in no way the fault of the system. In fact, fault would be an inappropriate word, for there is no fault. PF2 is a very (not completely) balanced system. So much so that I have not experienced such a system before. It is impressive. It is also impressive that, with such tight math, it is very easy to adjust to make it easier or harder.
To me, complaints about this system not being more balanced is like eating the most delicious meal I have ever tasted and then hearing other people complaining that it isn't even more delicious. You are right, it could be more delicious, but I will choose to bask in the deliciousness of the meal.
Comparing PCs to NPCs seems very arbitrary given that NPCs can easily be changed to suit their purpose. Don't like that the CL2 fighter has better stats than your PC fighter? Change it.
As always, I feel that there is an important distinction between "That is a flaw" and "I don't like that aspect". Props to Claxxon for making that distinction.
In fact in this discussion, I thought the poster was about to say they also didn't like PF2...and although that doesn't seem to be the case Leo also understand the aspect that I liked about PF1 and what I dislike about PF2. And that is in fact, the removal of RNG as a relevant factor for the thing you choose to be good at. It wasn't a complete removal in PF1, as you could still roll a 1 (or a 20) but it was mostly gone by level 7 or so (you would succeed at your thing on like a 5 or more) and by 10 it pretty much seems like you only fail on a 1. I like that. PF2 killed that. And I understand why that's balanced and why some people like it better.
I used to think I'd like it to...until I played it. And then realized it didn't have the right feel for me.
For me, and continuing the above food analogy it's a bit like hearing "Hey have you tried this wine, it's the most balanced well rounded wine that's ever existed. It's very good". But your not a wine connoisseur. You drink Mogen David on the high holidays but cut it with seltzer water (it's a little too sweet on it's own) but you like that taste and a couple cups gets you tipsy just the way you like. And then you go and try that perfectly balanced wine. And for you, it's awful. Because you like your Mogen David wine spritzer.
There's no objective right answer, there's just personal opinion and taste.
Monsters having stats that are higher than PCs of equal level -- and on par with those of the Fighter -- sounds about right to me. The Fighter's shtick is that he hits and crits more often. Meanwhile, Monks have the ability to cheat the action economy with Flurry of Blows and forcing monsters waste actions to move and reach them, Rangers get more damage in with their Hunter's Edge, Barbarians get more damage per hit, etc.
As for maintaining the importance of the d20, PF2's approach is my personal preference. After years of GMing high-level PF1, I was delighted to see that the d20 remained important at Level 20 when I did a Level 20 one-shot. It meant that results were not a foregone conclusion, and we continued to roll each d20 not knowing what would happen next. With the +10/-10 crit/fumble system, it meant that every +1 from an ally not only increased your hit chance, but significantly increased, perhaps even doubled, your crit chance. It meant that teamwork and finding ways to mitigate luck stayed important at high levels.
Another thing that's worth mentioning is that PF2's ability to make encounter balancing work is entirely dependent on every marginal increase or decrease of 1 having a predictable statistical significance. For example, once you get monsters that are 4 levels below the party, you start finding that further decreases in level start to run against monsters needing a 20 to hit the party and PCs only failing on a 1. By that point, marginal changes in level have an unpredictable effect on the math. If PCs were able to affect the math so as to near-guarantee success against same-level monsters, then we start getting into 5e territory when you can no longer use Level to predict the difficulty of challenges reliably. (And encounters truly DO become a crapshoot like they can in 5e: encounters become mostly too easy, leaving the game design to have to compensate by introducing powerful monster abilities, harboring the possibility of things going way south if the PCs get a couple of really bad rolls, tactics be damned).
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Malk Content I think you took the Olympian analogy a little too literally.
This isn't about jumping, swimming, running, or climbing specifically.
For me, PF2 doesn't support being a specialist. Because it my mind, a specialist shouldn't have the opportunity to be outdone by anyone who isn't a specialist at their thing (so basically no d20 roll can outdo them).
You're getting into what skill feats can let you do that someone who doesn't can't...but it misses things like the "legendary swordsman" who will only ever be +6 better than the "trained swordsman" in terms of being able to hit an enemy. So the trained swordsman has a pretty decent chance of beating the legendary swordsman (at hitting a tagret AC value), thanks to RNJesus.
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For me, PF2 doesn't support being a specialist. Because it my mind, a specialist shouldn't have the opportunity to be outdone by anyone who isn't a specialist at their thing (so basically no d20 roll can outdo them).
Okay sure, but like what about Skill Feats?
Skill Feats are specialization and they allow you to do things that literally other people can't do, and once again, Skill Feats weren't really a thing in PF1 (although I did add in some of the Skill Tricks from 3.5 as a homebrew once).
Intimidating Glare, Cat Fall, Assurance, Battle Medicine, Quick Jump, Pickpocket, etc.
Those are all things that set you apart from other people with the same modifier.
A Pickpocket can steal as a 2 action ability and doesn't take a -5 to stealing objects on a person.
Intimidating Glare removes a -4 language penalty, which is another huge boost.
Quick Jump effectively removes penalties and improves action economy.
Wouldn't these qualify as "specialist" since by definition not even other people with training in the skill can even do them?
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Another thing that is pretty common on these forums is that there's (at least) two different definitions of "heroic". The ones I see most commonly are:
1. "My character feels heroic when they are performing incredible feats of might/skill/magic, and doesn't feel heroic when they're not doing well."
2. "My character feels heroic when they are facing difficult odds but come out on top anyway, even if it's by the skin of their teeth. My character doesn't feel heroic when what they are facing doesn't challenge them."
PF1 definitely caters to the first definition better, while I feel PF2 caters to the latter one (which is why I prefer PF2). No one view is better, but I don't think it's possible for a system to cater to both, at least with the D&D-esque d20 framework.
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For me, PF2 doesn't support being a specialist. Because it my mind, a specialist shouldn't have the opportunity to be outdone by anyone who isn't a specialist at their thing (so basically no d20 roll can outdo them).
Okay sure, but like what about Skill Feats?
Skill Feats are specialization and they allow you to do things that literally other people can't do, and once again, Skill Feats weren't really a thing in PF1 (although I did add in some of the Skill Tricks from 3.5 as a homebrew once).
Intimidating Glare, Cat Fall, Assurance, Battle Medicine, Quick Jump, Pickpocket, etc.
Those are all things that set you apart from other people with the same modifier.
A Pickpocket can steal as a 2 action ability and doesn't take a -5 to stealing objects on a person.
Intimidating Glare removes a -4 language penalty, which is another huge boost.
Quick Jump effectively removes penalties and improves action economy.
Wouldn't these qualify as "specialist" since by definition not even other people with training in the skill can even do them?
Yes and no. Remember this only an analogy, and I think it's being taken too literally in some respects. The heart of the problem for me is success rates. It's true that some skill feats allow you to do things that others can't without similar investment, but there are many things that can be done without skill feats where a trained person has a decent shot of out performing a specialist. It's a weird place, where PF2 is actually at it's strongest in terms of skills.
But specialist refers to a lot more than skills, really for me it's primarily about things other than skills. The skills system (with feats) is probably the best polished thing in the whole of PF2 (for me).
I mean things like saves DCs for spells. Attack rolls. AC.
The difference between a trained and legendary person in the system is a small gap (IMO). With exceptions for some skill feats that make it harder to analyze and compare.
The heart of the whole discuss it still success rates. I want my specialist to basically always succeed at their chosen task, and that's simply not how PF2 works.
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Malk Content I think you took the Olympian analogy a little too literally.
This isn't about jumping, swimming, running, or climbing specifically.
For me, PF2 doesn't support being a specialist. Because it my mind, a specialist shouldn't have the opportunity to be outdone by anyone who isn't a specialist at their thing (so basically no d20 roll can outdo them).
You're getting into what skill feats can let you do that someone who doesn't can't...but it misses things like the "legendary swordsman" who will only ever be +6 better than the "trained swordsman" in terms of being able to hit an enemy. So the trained swordsman has a pretty decent chance of beating the legendary swordsman (at hitting a tagret AC value), thanks to RNJesus.
They would specifically have to be a trained swordsman of the same level as the legendary swordsman (somehow avoiding becoming an 'expert'), with the same investment in ability scores, to have a 30% lower chance of hitting the target.
Then, the legendary swordsman has feats and other things that explicitly represent techniques they have mastered, which over the course of multiple strikes, further outpace the theoretical 'trained' swordsman (because if you take for granted they're doing the same techniques that would represent additional fictional investment on the part of the 'just trained' swordsman,) all in a game where +/- 1 is agreed to make a big difference. This goes doubly for skill actions which are tiered by proficiency anyway, meaning that your legendary athletics lets you cloud jump, when the trained athlete can't even do that.
An 'olympic tier' social build not only has high numbers, but has levers only they can pull to influence rumors, or get into any party they wish. High tier knowledge builds are dropping DC's by 2 to 5 with Lore skills, or simply get useful information and can't be lied to (Unmistakable Lore + Dubious Knowledge) or can explicitly apply their knowledge to any subject (Loremaster's lore / Bardic Lore)or really, all of the above.
You're asserting that investment isn't worth enough, meanwhile like half the boards are convinced anything below master with a fully invested primary is worthless for any number of attacks at all (see critcisms of the warpriest, alchemist.)
Then on top of that it should be observed that this does exist, in that every difference in level between the two characters would be to the better trained swordsman's disadvantage. It makes sense that if the legendary swordsman and trained swordsman have both been subjected to countless battles against incredibly powerful and skilled foes, the trained swordsman might be able to do something unexpected and get a hit in where the legendary swordsman wouldn't quite manage, over a sufficiently large sample of situations. Experience Levels, are levels of experience, for lack of a better way to put it, so that should be factoring in as well.
Finally due to the way crits work, that 30% the legendary swordsman has is magnified, they will destroy a target much more quickly (and therefore much more safely) than their 'simply trained' counterpart.
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Yes and no. Remember this only an analogy, and I think it's being taken too literally in some respects. The heart of the problem for me is success rates. It's true that some skill feats allow you to do things that others can't without similar investment, but there are many things that can be done without skill feats where a trained person has a decent shot of out performing a specialist. It's a weird place, where PF2 is actually at it's strongest in terms of skills.
But specialist refers to a lot more than skills, really for me it's primarily about things other than skills. The skills system (with feats) is probably the best polished thing in the whole of PF2 (for me).
I mean things like saves DCs for spells. Attack rolls. AC.
The difference between a trained and legendary person in the system is a small gap (IMO). With exceptions for some skill feats that make it harder to analyze and...
Especially at higher levels, success rates on a D20 are only about a third of the picture of specializations.
Where I really think some people have a strong disconnect is how much level moved into the picture of specialization, but only for PCs. For PCs character level defines how much of a specialist you really are in comparison to the world. Beyond PCs, level is not necessarily a real thing. An NPC Chef could be legendary in their cooking lore and be the equivalent of a level 15 social challenge, and not even qualify as a 1st level character or combat threat.
Some people are just really going to balk at a system designed around around the players existing at the center of the world. They did not in 3.x to PF1 and that made it possible to imagine how specialization happens in world, but it stopped being true in PF2.
In PF2, Only the PCs and the people and things they really interact with exist within the gamist system. In that regard, how heroic the PCs are is entirely resting on the GMs shoulders, not the game system's shoulders. I very typically throw in flat DC 5, 10 and 15 environmental features to my campaigns. Those numbers stay exactly the same (climbing on a table, or scaling a rough wall) from level 1 to level 20. The players get much better at them. Most of the monsters they fight do to, because they go from fighting a couple of thugs in an ally way to fighting demons and dragons. But the difficulty of doing things in the world doesn't change.
I too was pretty resistant at first to how much level specifically defined power in the play test. I would have probably preferred the whole system have no level bonus and be built for grittier play all around with even more resting on skill feats and abilities for being able to be more powerful than lower level characters, but having tried to build that game, I can say that it gets very complicated very quickly if you want it to be robust and as full of options as PF2, and that gritty wasn't the tone of the stories that Paizo wanted to tell. For their APs and the projection of character growth that the adventure writers wanted, the +level system was the right choice all around.
As a consequence, it is completely wrong to leave level out of the equation of what makes a character good. In PF2, characters have absolutely debilitating weaknesses in the skills they don't train, but any character who invests in an activity at all is going to have a decent chance of success at most challenges that are rated up to their own level. Few characters are going to be good at facing challenges that are balanced at higher than their level, but a true specialist might have a number of features to make failure not so bad, or avoid succumbing to critical failure, even against those tougher challenges.
In the world of Golarion, your PC is absolutely a larger than life character, even at level 1, but growing more and more so over time. proficiency and bonus vs at level challenges is only a relatively minor part of that story. At level just really means it is a challenge that should generally be a 50/50 challenge unless you have specialized in that type of challenge.
This base math level = level makes the whole system work very very efficiently, but it is such a big shift from PF1 and D&D that GMs and adventure writers are still needing to learn how to balance the scale so that players with varying play styles can all have fun.
PF2 is actually much easier to balance towards the "heroes feeling more capable" by giving players more lower level challenges and less higher level ones.
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I feel like if every AP was a box dinner you'd just have a section that reads "add mooks to taste".
I love throwing just a small subset of mooks, especially as an "appetizer" for a larger encounter (almost like a warning).
I am really thinking of running Abomination Vault on slow XP progression specifically so I can add a lot more encounters to the AP (including a bunch of social encounters in town). I feel like PF2 is a better system if you don't try to rush it and only focus on the extreme, higher level encounters.
The APs are limited for space already so they don't need to add these things themselves, but they are how GMs bring their specific game worlds to life. Don't just throw nameless goblins at the party. Have them harassed two or three times by goblins wearing clown make up in the woods on their way too or from a dungeon, especially if it will eventially makes sense as to why in a later encounter.
Wrath of the Righteous did this really well on their Hex Crawl books, and monsters off of random encounter tables who end up folding themselves into the story become amazing fun for the PCs.
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One of the dealios with the different tiers of training was that some things the GM won't let you attempt without being of the appropriate skill level.
I think this kind of fell to the wayside as I haven't heard people doing it much in practice, relying on the unlocked feats at certain levels providing that gating, but the way I run it is that some things are just too difficult to even attempt without being Expert/Master/Legendary. Not a ton of things, but some.
Like particularly esoteric knowledge checks, advanced locks, climbing totally smooth surfaces, etc.
I am really thinking of running Abomination Vault on slow XP progression specifically so I can add a lot more encounters to the AP (including a bunch of social encounters in town). I feel like PF2 is a better system if you don't try to rush it and only focus on the extreme, higher level encounters.
The APs are limited for space already so they don't need to add these things themselves, but they are how GMs bring their specific game worlds to life. Don't just throw nameless goblins at the party. Have them harassed two or three times by goblins wearing clown make up in the woods on their way too or from a dungeon, especially if it will eventially makes sense as to why in a later encounter.
Wrath of the Righteous did this really well on their Hex Crawl books, and monsters off of random encounter tables who end up folding themselves into the story become amazing fun for the PCs.
I havent read this AP but as a player I can say at early levels I much prefer faster leveling. Even though PF2 is much better in this regard pretty much every character I make really starts to shine at 4. Then once I get past the level 1-3 I really wouldnt mind slower leveling.
I know PF2/PF1 likes the "flat" leveling but it is such a strange phenomenon to me still.
Otherwise once we are a decent level I really wouldn't mind slower leveling. PF1/PF2 I have no idea why but I feel I am leveling super quick. Maybe I am just having more fun but in my PF1/PF2 games I feel like I just got a level then all of a sudden I am up another level.
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I was gonna post about some of my experiences with my transition into 2e but it seems that the discussion has moved to other avenues.
With that said, having consistent math between higher enemies and lower makes encounter design way easier on us GMs.
Concerning the growth as a character, I actually really like how the character growth is more focused horizontally compared to vertically. Vertical growth (being "numbers get bigger") is a really boring way of demonstrating character skill. Horizontal growth is expanding your tool box and giving you new ways to approach a situation. Same with Monsters having more unique abilities and higher levels. Sure, the match and and probability doesn't change much, but what you can do absolutely does.