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See there you are all doing it again saying that its bad because it not the most damage. The exact same thing I was talking about.
Does Vital Strike do less damage than a full attack where you have a chance of an extra hit? Sure. But a character that has move action feint or grapples makes great use of Vital Strike. Or 2h firearm user which normally gets 1 attack per round. Or someone using grappling who needs a move action to maintain. The limitation is not that other things arent viable, its that people (much like how you all did just now) dismiss then for not being the best.
The equivalent in PF2 is saying anything that isn't 2 attacks worth of damage is bad, thus power attack is bad. Or anything that is not as good as Scintillating Pattern is a bad spell.
*************
Thanks for proving me right.
Technically that option in PF1 exists, but it looks so bad compared to other options that exist. It's like saying "sure, you can run in the same race as Usain Bolt".
In the first example, you need Combat Expertise (or equivalent), Improved Feint, and Vital Strike. This compares badly to a person literally just attacking normally and to Improved Two-Weapon Feint, which isn't even particularly good! At least in the second case you get the rest of your attacks!
The second example requires Greater Grapple, at which point a person who's taken Throat Slicer is literally ending enemies single-handedly while you're stuck using Vital Strike for 4 turns in a row to take out one.
There's just such an immense disparity between these options, and the fact that in one you've spent three feats to be worse than a character who's spent zero is ridiculous. It's like having a PF2 class feat that reads "You do 4 less damage on this Strike" with absolutely no upside.
And the worst part is if you're in a game with someone who's taken options that actually make them better. While you're spending four turns slowly hitting an enemy with mediocre Vital Strikes, the other martial character has taken out the rest of the enemies.
Let me give another example. I built an aerokineticist in a game with a daring champion cavalier. At one point during the game, the cavalier's player reported of feeling useless, because my aerokineticist would handle basically everything his cavalier could anyways. Technically, there were situations in which my aerokineticist would look worse, but I'd generally planned these enough that they never really came up. (For those curious, he'd taken Order of the Cockatrice, Spring Attack, and Whirlwind Strike, which also ended up looking really bad compared to my chain electric blast - or other AoE options - against anything not immune to electricity.)
Kineticist is not exactly an example of a powergaming class, or one noted for high damage. Yet circumstances like this are all too common in PF1.
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Riffing off the Kineticist example, one thing that comes to mind is that the Kineticist was a very polarizing class. Less because of the flavor, and more because of the class. It was a high optimizing floor class, and a low optimizing celing class.
A lot of people hated it immediately because whatever they did, it would never be as good of a blaster as a fully optimized blaster sorc, since the sorcerer had a lot of other things they could do in addition to blast.
A lot of people hated it later because in games with generally low optimization, the kineticist would clean up since you didn't have to do anything except "make obvious choices" (like "pick the right stats") to make the class good at its job. So it got a reputation as "overpowered" at those tables.
PF2 solves the latter problem by making every class "good enough to carry its weight in its specific roles" almost by default. It solves the former problem by removing the "crossblooded orc/draconic sorcerer" but people who wanted that are left wanting.
Riffing off the Kineticist example, one thing that comes to mind is that the Kineticist was a very polarizing class. Less because of the flavor, and more because of the class. It was a high optimizing floor class, and a low optimizing celing class.
A lot of people hated it immediately because whatever they did, it would never be as good of a blaster as a fully optimized blaster sorc, since the sorcerer had a lot of other things they could do in addition to blast.
A lot of people hated it later because in games with generally low optimization, the kineticist would clean up since you didn't have to do anything except "make obvious choices" (like "pick the right stats") to make the class good at its job. So it got a reputation as "overpowered" at those tables.
PF2 solves the latter problem by making every class "good enough to carry its weight in its specific roles" almost by default. It solves the former problem by removing the "crossblooded orc/draconic sorcerer" but people who wanted that are left wanting.
Kineticist was a very PF2 class in general. It was also our first introduction to utility stuff being separated out from your power upgrades, later used again with the Vigilante and finally made universal with PF2 skill feats.
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PF2 putting different kinds of feats in different bins was something that was also really strongly built into a lot of PF1 classes- we just didn't call them class feats, we called them discoveries, or talents, or rage powers, or arcana, or phrenic amplications, etc. People really liked "you choose a class thing every other level" so it's in the baseline of the game.
What the Kineticist and Vigilante did though was create two separate tracks of class feats, one which was for fighting and one which was for not fighting, which sort of predicts the third bin of "skill feats."
I don't think anybody has a problem with how feats are structured in PF2 (though general feats are pretty meh, and class feats are a bottleneck). The majority of the real issues involve the tightness of the math (as a consequence of the +/- 10 crit system), and the expected level of success.
The "Exceed the target number by 10 and get a crit" thing was popular in the playtest (that's why it's in the game) but it does necessitate you can't let people get a +40 to their diplomacy modifier. The "expected success %" thing is a thing you can tune, but it takes a little finesse.
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Another thing to consider is that power stemming from build optimization in PF2 is significantly lower than in-combat optimization. You can take all the best build options and still be worse than a person that plays tactically, switching tactics to what will be most effective on the fly. This wasn't true in PF1, because you could drive number optimization to such a level that your in-combat tactics barely mattered.
I think that's significantly healthier for the game.
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See there you are all doing it again saying that its bad because it not the most damage. The exact same thing I was talking about.
Does Vital Strike do less damage than a full attack where you have a chance of an extra hit? Sure. But a character that has move action feint or grapples makes great use of Vital Strike. Or 2h firearm user which normally gets 1 attack per round. Or someone using grappling who needs a move action to maintain. The limitation is not that other things arent viable, its that people (much like how you all did just now) dismiss then for not being the best.
The equivalent in PF2 is saying anything that isn't 2 attacks worth of damage is bad, thus power attack is bad. Or anything that is not as good as Scintillating Pattern is a bad spell.
*************
Thanks for proving me right.
Quoting this one rather than your newer post because I think it's the more relevant one to what I'm about to say, not that I'm ignoring your later post. As you've acknowledged in the more recent post, there's a substantial difference between the effect of optimization in PF2 and PF1. I think that's fundamentally where the attitude you're condemning here comes from - I've often seen PF1 players who are happy to pick only-OK options, but that messes with their ability to contribute at the table and so they end up avoiding most of them. In isolation, one could theoretically pick Vital Strike with a Greatsword and have your move action free to do what you wish. Your damage would be at best acceptable for the guidelines, but that should be OK - lets say 4d6+8, averaging 22, when you get it at level 7, as you've used your other feats on interesting out-of-combat options, have 20 STR (from a magic item), and a +1 weapon. At that same point, the perfectly reasonable player of the Barbarian in your party has taken Power Attack and is going down the line towards pouncing - good options, but picking up a greatsword, PA, and animal totem is hardly picking the most effective possible options. They'll be attacking twice for 2d6+17 - averaging 23 on each hit, and they attack twice. This only gets worse as your campaign goes on, ending with you hitting for something like 8d6+15 while the barbarian is attacking four times for 2d6+ forty something. And that's not a player trying to optimize the barbarian heavily - they just picked a few good options, the rest of the build is entirely free. Sure, you CAN pick Vital Strike, but for you to pick Vital Strike, you're essentially saying one of three things:
1: "I'm OK with playing a character that is so drastically less effective than party members performing a similar role that I provide very little benefit to the table"
2: "I'm not OK with the above, and so my picking this path necessitates everyone else carefully controlling their level of optimisation to avoid outclassing me"
3: "My table has come to a rough state of equilibrium where we all get the relative power level of everyone else's character, and so we don't need to communicate to figure out if an option is viable/way too powerful"
Neither of the first two options is particularly fun at the table, and the third isn't something you really have control over. It's not that people are saying it's bad because it's not the most damage - people critique these options because they're legitimately hard to bring to the table and contribute on many tables. I think most ongoing tables end up with something approximating #3, but for most people on the forums, that relative power level is well above one where you could safely bring Vital Strike to the table. This essentially leads to vast swathes of PF1 content being written off not because the very best option needs to be selected, but because an option of vaguely comparable power needs to be selected.
Kineticist was a very PF2 class in general. It was also our first introduction to utility stuff being separated out from your power upgrades, later used again with the Vigilante and finally made universal with PF2 skill feats.Riffing off the Kineticist example, one thing that comes to mind is that the Kineticist was a very polarizing class. Less because of the flavor, and more because of the class. It was a high optimizing floor class, and a low optimizing celing class.
A lot of people hated it immediately because whatever they did, it would never be as good of a blaster as a fully optimized blaster sorc, since the sorcerer had a lot of other things they could do in addition to blast.
A lot of people hated it later because in games with generally low optimization, the kineticist would clean up since you didn't have to do anything except "make obvious choices" (like "pick the right stats") to make the class good at its job. So it got a reputation as "overpowered" at those tables.
PF2 solves the latter problem by making every class "good enough to carry its weight in its specific roles" almost by default. It solves the former problem by removing the "crossblooded orc/draconic sorcerer" but people who wanted that are left wanting.
You do know that Ninjas, Rogues, Qinggong Monks, etc. All used the same a bonus system to get both utility and combat? And all of those came before Kineticists. Specially Qinggong who was based around picking the utility ability you want.
Kineticist and Vigilante greatly expanded on the idea. But they were certainly not the first. Specially when you consider Kineticist utility talents had a lot of power upgrades.
I do think you've missed something here - Ninjas, Rogues, Qinggong Monks, and all the very many classes with in-built talent selection (alchemist discoveries, rage powers, etc) are doing what Kineticist/Vigilantes do. The classes you've mentioned allow you to pick between utility talents (e.g. Rogue's Canny Focus talent to help you spot stuff out of combat) and combat talents (e.g. Rogue's Weapon Trick to make you stab things better). Vigilante and Kineticist give you Social Talents and Utility Wild Talents respectively which are only for out-of-combat things (or at least are meant to be) - you cannot pick only combat options, you have to select some utility options, like the siloing of Skill Feats in PF2.
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Another thing to consider is that power stemming from build optimization in PF2 is significantly lower than in-combat optimization. You can take all the best build options and still be worse than a person that plays tactically, switching tactics to what will be most effective on the fly. This wasn't true in PF1, because you could drive number optimization to such a level that your in-combat tactics barely mattered.
I think that's significantly healthier for the game.
Maybe. But that's honestly what I liked.
Life often leaves me in a position where I don't have the energy to go BIG BRAIN tactics at the rpg table. I just want to smash s&*& like I'm godzilla and the enemy is regular citizens.
Having a character build that stood on its own was amenable because I could take the time (on my pace) to craft it. And you could get help from other people to optimize your character. But with PF2 you really have to optimize your actions in combat, which is way harder and requires much more thought because every situation is tactically different.
I just don't have the energy to deal with that s&+!.
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Another thing to consider is that power stemming from build optimization in PF2 is significantly lower than in-combat optimization. You can take all the best build options and still be worse than a person that plays tactically, switching tactics to what will be most effective on the fly. This wasn't true in PF1, because you could drive number optimization to such a level that your in-combat tactics barely mattered.
I think that's significantly healthier for the game.
Maybe. But that's honestly what I liked.
Life often leaves me in a position where I don't have the energy to go BIG BRAIN tactics at the rpg table. I just want to smash s@%~ like I'm godzilla and the enemy is regular citizens.
Having a character build that stood on its own was amenable because I could take the time (on my pace) to craft it. And you could get help from other people to optimize your character. But with PF2 you really have to optimize your actions in combat, which is way harder and requires much more thought because every situation is tactically different.
I just don't have the energy to deal with that s&&%.
I think that's definitely a fair position. But I'd also submit that as a game, with a GM that understands that, you're more likely to get that experience with PF2.
The problem is that PF1 is closer to a simulation than a game, and most of the problems that come up from it are things that theoretically fall within the bounds of the simulation but end up breaking it. Things like how touch AC interacts with the system, monster design, and number scaling in general (particularly the fractional math) all stand out in that respect. The main thing here is that while you can get a more smashy experience by knowing where to break the bounds of the simulation, a thing that does that in its own right - shadows and seugathi are probably my big picks here, but there are tons of known problems with CR - are a lot more likely to accidentally destroy you in turn. I probably would also highlight our good friend the pale stranger for another example. This can potentially create an inconsistent experience from week to week, because the system isn't amazingly consistent with itself with regards to balance.
PF2 is significantly better balanced, and thus it's a lot easier for a GM to create that godzilla smash experience, and maintain it from week to week. Because things stay a lot more consistent in regards to power, a GM who wants that can just plan around it and it'll be a lot more likely to stay smashy.
This reminds a lot of my wargaming hobby as well. Some people prefer Warhammer/40k, in which the list building and deployment is everything and after that the game might as well play itself. Most modern games in the last decade have moved away from that with more situational abilities, freer movement, objective based scenarios etc (Warmachine, Malifaux etc) and I think thats better but Warhammer is still massively popular.
It's actually pretty funny you mention Warhammer 40k, because I think 9e is trying harder and harder to move away from list building being the be-all end-all. While list building definitely still plays a massive part (especially controlling what you're able to do), timing things like strategems and primary/secondary objective control is much more likely to carry a game nowadays. Can't really just win by just blowing your opponent off the table anymore.
Having a character build that stood on its own was amenable because I could take the time (on my pace) to craft it. And you could get help from other people to optimize your character. But with PF2 you really have to optimize your actions in combat, which is way harder and requires much more thought because every situation is tactically different.
Wow.
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Having a character build that stood on its own was amenable because I could take the time (on my pace) to craft it. And you could get help from other people to optimize your character. But with PF2 you really have to optimize your actions in combat, which is way harder and requires much more thought because every situation is tactically different.Wow.
Oh hey, you trying to shame me because I don't want to have to use tactics?
Most people in this thread have been willing to have an amicable discussion about differences in the systems and personal preference.
While your post doesn't actually say much, I do feel it carries a tone of condescension and dismissiveness, which I do not appreciate.
If I've misunderstood your intention I apologize.
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Life often leaves me in a position where I don't have the energy to go BIG BRAIN tactics at the rpg table. I just want to smash s#%% like I'm godzilla and the enemy is regular citizens.
Having a character build that stood on its own was amenable because I could take the time (on my pace) to craft it. And you could get help from other people to optimize your character. But with PF2 you really have to optimize your actions in combat, which is way harder and requires much more thought because every situation is tactically different.
I just don't have the energy to deal with that s%%!.
Claxon, I think I finally get where you're coming from. I also like "easy mode" games, because sometimes I just like feeling like a badass. I totally get that.
In PF1, though, if I don't nail character creation and level-ups, I'm stuck. If I made a bad choice anywhere along the lines, I'm boned. My character is bad and I will never feel like a badass.I like PF2 because it takes that choice out of my hands and puts character creation and level up into easy mode. I can take the choices that sound cool and be confident that my numbers will be where they need to be. And combat becomes challenging through tactics, and not through numbers.
But there's a super easy solution to making PF2 combat easier if, like me, you want to play on easy mode -- just give everyone an extra level. Or two, sure. Now you're 5% more likely to hit. 5% more likely to crit. Harder to take down due to a tactical mistake. The difficulty ramps down in a predictable way.
Disclaimer: I love both PF1 and PF2, and I don't think there's anything wrong with your preference. :)
Having a character build that stood on its own was amenable because I could take the time (on my pace) to craft it. And you could get help from other people to optimize your character. But with PF2 you really have to optimize your actions in combat, which is way harder and requires much more thought because every situation is tactically different.Wow.Oh hey, you trying to shame me because I don't want to have to use tactics?
Most people in this thread have been willing to have an amicable discussion about differences in the systems and personal preference.
While your post doesn't actually say much, I do feel it carries a tone of condescension and dismissiveness, which I do not appreciate.
If I've misunderstood your intention I apologize.
That's because making choices while in combat and assessing from moment to moment what you should to is playing the game. That's what every system should strive for. It just baffles me that someone would want the opposite.
If you want to just attack and see stuff die without any kind of input on your part other than rolling dice, then the perfect playstyle for you is fighting against lower leveled enemies, you can just charge them down and use everything you have without concern because you'll be crushing them.
I was just surprised to see someone arguing for NOT having options in combat and having them was viewed as a negative.
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Tbh if the issue is just missing too much just have your GM lower enemy levels. You’ll get all the fun balance and builds of PF2 and you’ll be able to hit at similar percentages to PF1.Tbh, that simply doesn't work for me. I want to be the one in control of my character's performance, not have to beg the GM to give out extra levels or give us fights against weaker enemies.
I agree that sort of adjustment you suggest might accomplish creating enjoyable game play for me. I can't be sure since I haven't tried it. But it's easier for me just to go back to PF1 where I don't have ask for these kind of things.
Life often leaves me in a position where I don't have the energy to go BIG BRAIN tactics at the rpg table. I just want to smash s@~$ like I'm godzilla and the enemy is regular citizens.
Having a character build that stood on its own was amenable because I could take the time (on my pace) to craft it. And you could get help from other people to optimize your character. But with PF2 you really have to optimize your actions in combat, which is way harder and requires much more thought because every situation is tactically different.
Is it fair to say that you, Claxon, want a low level of difficulty without having to ask someone for it? I'm being completely sincere, in case it's not obvious.
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That's because making choices while in combat and assessing from moment to moment what you should to is playing the game. That's what every system should strive for. It just baffles me that someone would want the opposite.
If you want to just attack and see stuff die without any kind of input on your part other than rolling dice, then the perfect playstyle for you is fighting against lower leveled enemies, you can just charge them down and use everything you have without concern because you'll be crushing them.
I was just surprised to see someone arguing for NOT having options in combat and having them was viewed as a negative.
People love games like diablo, or adore mobile gacha games where they can throw money at it to be more powerful. There are people who like grinding out level after level to make their experience as easy as possible in RPGs.
I don't ascribe to this mentality, but I understand that people like it.
In the same way that Claxon has also admitted that they feel comfort in knowing that PF1e characters can be optimised past the point where a GMs desire matters when it comes to RAW.
What they love about PF1e I hate about PF1e. And visa versa, I do think that their playstyle is supported by PF2e... But their lack of wanting to put trust in a GM or confirming a style of play means it will never be that game because the developers chose not to make it that game with its default balancing.
That's because making choices while in combat and assessing from moment to moment what you should to is playing the game. That's what every system should strive for. It just baffles me that someone would want the opposite.
If you want to just attack and see stuff die without any kind of input on your part other than rolling dice, then the perfect playstyle for you is fighting against lower leveled enemies, you can just charge them down and use everything you have without concern because you'll be crushing them.
I was just surprised to see someone arguing for NOT having options in combat and having them was viewed as a negative.
People love games like diablo, or adore mobile gacha games where they can throw money at it to be more powerful. There are people who like grinding out level after level to make their experience as easy as possible in RPGs.
I don't ascribe to this mentality, but I understand that people like it.
In the same way that Claxon has also admitted that they feel comfort in knowing that PF1e characters can be optimised past the point where a GMs desire matters when it comes to RAW.
What they love about PF1e I hate about PF1e. And visa versa, I do think that their playstyle is supported by PF2e... But their lack of wanting to put trust in a GM or confirming a style of play means it will never be that game because the developers chose not to make it that game with its default balancing.
That kind of playstyle can easily be achieved if the battles feature many Party Level-3 enemies at once most of the time, they still can challenge the party, but the advantage is certainly on the PC's side. Crits happen a lot more often and the class' abilities are all more likely to succeed, making the players feel a lot more powerful because whatever they choose to do will most likely succeed regardless of set up or tactics. Sadly, this kind of playstyle isn't something intrinsic to PF2e and requires the GM going out of his way (just a little bit) to tune the encounters, the good thing is that this can be easily achieved by changing monsters or simply applying a weak template (since the math is more reliable).
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I do kind of miss the theorycrafting parts of making a PF1 character that manages to do something much earlier or much more efficiently than was probably intended. Like how early can I outslug style working on a brawler who is using a polearm modified with versatile design to be in the close weapon group. That kind of thing is fun.
However, it's a much healthier thing to have in a 10 year old game than in a 1.5 year old game. PF2 has like one especially crunchy player focused book under it's belt (the APG), so there's no way it can appeal to people who want to tinker with characters the way PF1 did.
I do find some of my desire to tinker with characters can be satisfied by "tinkering with the system" since PF2 is extremely modular and you can change quite a bit without having unintended side effects. Like in PF1 "double feats" would get silly in a real hurry, but in PF2 it's not unreasonable at all and you might have more fun doing it.
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Is it fair to say that you, Claxon, want a low level of difficulty without having to ask someone for it? I'm being completely sincere, in case it's not obvious.
Yeah, I think that's one way to phrase it.
Although, I wouldn't frame it quite that way. The difficulty in PF1 was making the right choices during character creation. Something done away from others when I could take lots of time to think and through and do research, and ask the internet for the best course of action within a set of parameters. None of that is doable in PF2, or at least it doesn't have the same level of effect that it did in PF1. Optimization is about making the absolute best choices in combat. About always getting into flanking. About demoralizing, at just the right time. Not whenever, because you wont be demoralizing that enemy again.
PF1 could also be a hard game, if you didn't build the character right.
PF2 is a hard game even if you build you character right, and now you have to make very tactical decision that often involve telling your friends to do something in a combined effort. Team work is now required, rather than rewarded, for success.
That's because making choices while in combat and assessing from moment to moment what you should to is playing the game. That's what every system should strive for. It just baffles me that someone would want the opposite.
If you want to just attack and see stuff die without any kind of input on your part other than rolling dice, then the perfect playstyle for you is fighting against lower leveled enemies, you can just charge them down and use everything you have without concern because you'll be crushing them.
I was just surprised to see someone arguing for NOT having options in combat and having them was viewed as a negative.
People love games like diablo, or adore mobile gacha games where they can throw money at it to be more powerful. There are people who like grinding out level after level to make their experience as easy as possible in RPGs.
I don't ascribe to this mentality, but I understand that people like it.
In the same way that Claxon has also admitted that they feel comfort in knowing that PF1e characters can be optimised past the point where a GMs desire matters when it comes to RAW.
What they love about PF1e I hate about PF1e. And visa versa, I do think that their playstyle is supported by PF2e... But their lack of wanting to put trust in a GM or confirming a style of play means it will never be that game because the developers chose not to make it that game with its default balancing.
Yeah, I think you absolutely get where I'm coming from.
I appreciate that.
Edit: FYI, I am absolutely one of those players that grinded classic RPGS like Final Fantasy until I was 20 levels the enemy content and killed things in one hit. And when I stopped killing things in one hit I would grind again.
Dont know if "feeling weaker" is just about the numbers crunch. There are a lot of game elements that really feel less powerful than in PF1 (and many of them tied to spellcasting), for example due to PF2's "everything has to happen during the encounter" and/or "everything has to have a chance of failure" philosophies. Don't get me wrong, I am not talking about not leaving the house until you have finished your daily alotment of long term buffs, but about strategically used thematic buffs before entering the not-really-dormant volcano lair or decending into the haunted crypt. And I really don't like the new counteract mechanics and how they are used so often, especially during low levels play where your opponents / challenges always seem to have a numbers advantage.
PF1 could also be a hard game, if you didn't build the character right.
PF2 is a hard game even if you build you character right, and now you have to make very tactical decision that often involve telling your friends to do something in a combined effort. Team work is now required, rather than rewarded, for success.
Unless you tune the game at a difficulty level such that team work is no longer required (and of course it's still rewarded).
I mean, imagine if Pathfinder 3rd edition would come out and be identical to PF1 in every way, except for one thing: the developers realized that the encounter balance is off, and so they have lowered every monsters' CR by 3 points.Would you enjoy the game? Would you feel bad when you fight the same enemies you are fighting in PF1, because now they are tagged as 'lower level'?
Edit: FYI, I am absolutely one of those players that grinded classic RPGS like Final Fantasy until I was 20 levels the enemy content and killed things in one hit. And when I stopped killing things in one hit I would grind again.
Really, there's no reason you can't play PF2 like this (you still get XP for fighting people like 4 levels below you) and you can just pick fights with people exactly 4 levels beneath you if that's what you want.
It's just that APs aren't really structured that way; this is really more of a sandbox style game.
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PF1 could also be a hard game, if you didn't build the character right.
PF2 is a hard game even if you build you character right, and now you have to make very tactical decision that often involve telling your friends to do something in a combined effort. Team work is now required, rather than rewarded, for success.Unless you tune the game at a difficulty level such that team work is no longer required (and of course it's still rewarded).
I mean, imagine if Pathfinder 3rd edition would come out and be identical to PF1 in every way, except for one thing: the developers realized that the encounter balance is off, and so they have lowered every monsters' CR by 3 points.
Would you enjoy the game? Would you feel bad when you fight the same enemies you are fighting in PF1, because now they are tagged as 'lower level'?
No, I don't think I would because it would still be the same expected encounter. The "average" expected difficulty would have remained the same, even if it was now considered CR-3 or whatever.
Edit: FYI, I am absolutely one of those players that grinded classic RPGS like Final Fantasy until I was 20 levels the enemy content and killed things in one hit. And when I stopped killing things in one hit I would grind again.Really, there's no reason you can't play PF2 like this (you still get XP for fighting people like 4 levels below you) and you can just pick fights with people exactly 4 levels beneath you if that's what you want.
It's just that APs aren't really structured that way; this is really more of a sandbox style game.
I get that, but that's just not how my group really works.
The GMs tend to run APs because we have busy lives, infants, hustling at our jobs, etc. None of us really have the mental bandwidth to do it from scratch anymore.
So while it's possible and feasible to do, it's simply not realistic for my group. And I expect I'm not the only one in this sort of position, where as a player, you can't expect a GM to lower the difficulty of pre-written adventures to support your play style.
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I get that, but that's just not how my group really works.
The GMs tend to run APs because we have busy lives, infants, hustling at our jobs, etc. None of us really have the mental bandwidth to do it from scratch anymore.
So while it's possible and feasible to do, it's simply not realistic for my group. And I expect I'm not the only one in this sort of position, where as a player, you can't expect a GM to lower the difficulty of pre-written adventures to support your play style.
I would say it takes the GM almost no effort to do this sort of gameplay though. For APs all you have to do is raise player level by a certain amount and give out the same XP. I would say with how XP works in PF2 this is super easy.
The real deterrent "some GMs just don't want to lower the difficulty". Like one poster mentioned when playing video games if a game has easy/normal/hard vs normal/hard/very hard some people will select normal instead of easy because of their perception. Kind of the same thing for PF2 where people don't want to play below "normal" even though they might enjoy it more and it would fit the group better.
I really haven't GMed other system but for PF2 it seems super easy to change difficulty based on what players want. If players want an easier game just raise the players level by 1 or 2. The truth is maybe the GM actually likes it being a decent challenge for players. They have to have fun too, I actually am not sure how PF1 GM's even have fun at all. When monsters have like a 5-10% hit change and a 90% chance to get hit.
For a comparison I have played in a few APs as written and my experiences have been...
PF2 Extinction Curse: I really felt there was a lot of challenging fight and enjoyed it's difficulty. Some fights were tough but it was nice that monsters always had a chance to do something.
DnD 5e (3 APs): I found the APs all super easy and never really was in a threat of death unless GMs decide to put players against things way over their level.
PF1 (Iron Gods): We were 3 new players to PF1. Difficulty has just been super weird. Early on things regularly killed players in one round, then there was the Fighter who basically got hit on a 20 only for most the game. Any monster that could be tripped easy was super easy. Then there was just random things where if you didn't have an answer to the game is super difficult. Swarms, Freedom of Movement trivializes so much and so many disabling effects. So many monsters in the campaign are just immune to lots of small attacks. Things just dies so fast and overall most fights are easy for 3 new players. I can't even imagine what it is like for people who know what they were doing.
Overall my favorite games go PF2>PF1>5e. When it comes to difficulty I am very surprised people praise PF1 for it. I love the character creation but combat difficulty has been strange to say the least. There are just so many instant disables and even bosses dies super quick.
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I think "difficulty" is a pretty problematic concept to tie to the "challenging" aspect of the game.
Wanting "more convenient and less strategic individual success without making the game break and become unchallenging for anyone playing it using collaborative tactics" is a fine position in theory, but it is not actually what was possible in PF1. Without the right guides and access to the various expanded content of the game, PF1 was often every bit as challenging to casual players as people are insinuating PF2 has become. Heck just choose to be a rogue out of the box and you will quickly find that being good at skills without class features to really exploit them leads to far more trap options than useful ones.
As a GM, it is far easy to adjust PF2 to fit the sweet spot for your players than any such activity was in PF1. There are lots of regular posters here that utilize variant rules like Dual-classing, free archetypes and even just starting APs at level 2 or 3. These are all one time changes that "fix" the game for players looking for a different kind of challenge.
The developers very much support that style of play and it is very easy to make happen in PF2. The trick is very clearly to communicate the importance of checking in with players often about what their expectations for the game are, and if it seems like they are feeling overwhelmed by the need for tactics after a couple of encounters, leveling them up early, or giving them access to free archetypes are all good ways to right the ship before it tips into the players blaming an incredibly flexible system for not anticipating their desires for adjustment.
It is funny, 5e for me as a GM has probably the biggest player death count of any D&D esque system bar AD&D or B/X.
Later levels still get out of hand, but thanks to bounded accuracy big combats with lots of lower level foes and a long adventuring day can really wear a party down.
Because being downed had players take 2 failed death saves per hit, and those hits were being made with advantage and attacks that usually have a 70% success rate. Multiattack and ill planned melees tended to really rip through backlines if players weren't careful.
And that isn't taking into account stuff like magic missile. My players were very very cautious with spellcasters when they found that a level 1 magic missile instantly kills anyone who is downed (3 failed death saves as in 5e each missile is treated as a unique damage source).
PF2e I have had one death and 3 near misses (zero uses of a heropoint to avoid it though). (that death was from attacking a downed player)
PF1e I have had a number of deaths, but that is more because of the amount of time I ran it for. I don't expect any optimised team to die or be at risk most of the time unless I am directly building encounters to counter their abilities.
Just how the system works.
(And before anyone gets mad that I attack people when they are downed, all my players agree to this playstyle and are used to it. I am not saying that everyone should run dangerous games but I find it adds a level of tension to mine)
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(And before anyone gets mad that I attack people when they are downed, all my players agree to this playstyle and are used to it. I am not saying that everyone should run dangerous games but I find it adds a level of tension to mine)
It's your table. But I think your experience can be wholly explained by you attacking downed PCs, and not by the difficulty of the various game systems.
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To clarify my point above, this is an issue about whether the thought on play is mostly during character generation and advancement or in play. D&D3 (and presumably PF1e) leaned into the first; PF2e leans into the second.
You can see the same dynamic in card games. A game like Yugioh is all about the pre-game, where you collect cards, build various decks, work out strategies to achieve win conditions or interfere with your various opponents, all before sitting down to play. Conversely, a game like Ascension starts every player with the exact same 10 cards, and as the players react to the various monsters, heroes, and constructs that pop up in the center row, their decks get built as the game progresses.
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(And before anyone gets mad that I attack people when they are downed, all my players agree to this playstyle and are used to it. I am not saying that everyone should run dangerous games but I find it adds a level of tension to mine)It's your table. But I think your experience can be wholly explained by you attacking downed PCs, and not by the difficulty of the various game systems.
I attacked downed PCs in all three systems though? In PF1e characters just didn't go down or they had the ability to reverse the state very quickly.
5e has downed state rules for a reason (as does PF2e), while some people don't like running dangerous games. I am not sure the default assumptions of a system should be ignored when considering its lethality.
It is about how often a player going down occurs and what sort of scenarios a system encourages / allows for. 5e having no MAP, split movement and bounded accuracy while also having PF1e style HP progression but not its sheer number of options to mitigate threats means encounters can be quite dangerous if the party doesn't have the option of short adventuring days.
I attacked downed PCs in all three systems though? In PF1e characters just didn't go down or they had the ability to reverse the state very quickly.
5e has downed state rules for a reason (as does PF2e), while some people don't like running dangerous games. I am not sure the default assumptions of a system should be ignored when considering its lethality.
It is about how often a player going down occurs and what sort of scenarios a system encourages / allows for. 5e having no MAP, split movement and bounded accuracy while also having PF1e style HP progression but not its sheer number of options to mitigate threats means encounters can be quite dangerous if the party doesn't have the option of short adventuring days.
I decided to edit my post since you already answered my original question. Out of curiosity were you following encounter building rules in all systems? I just find it super odd that 5e was tough at all compared to PF2 unless you really were putting them against tougher enemies than they should have been fighting.
I played 3-4 campaigns on 5e and the only time I ever went down was because one of our allies did something stupid. Other than that I found most the battles super easy when GMs used the CR rating. Except for some broken monsters like intellect devours that just were super powerful for their rating.
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I am curious, for PF2 did you play this way too? I feel if you attacked down players in PF2 then it would have easily been just a lot more difficult with both games following encounter building.
Of course in every game if you put monsters way more challenging it can be dangerous. In my experience 5e you kind of had to do this unless the players really messed up their characters. There were some rare monsters (intellect devourer) that were just way too powerful. I really find it super strange that even...
I attack players when they go down in PF2e as well, but I find it just doesn't happen all that frequently (them going down that is). And when it does the next attacks miss or the target only gets hit once more before getting healed up and not allowed to go down again (god I love the dying/wounded system)
Being able to get back up to full HP before nearly every fight helps as well in PF2e imo (as it did in PF1e). It stops HP attrition from being as big of a threat as it can be in 5e across a long adventuring day.
You have options like healer warlock or the healing spirit cheese. Both came after I had already run my longer campaigns by the time Xanathars released.
That said I did houserule healing spirit as 40d6 healing for a level 2 spell is stupid, especially the visual of how players have to act to get it (obvious an exploit rather than intended ability).
I have run to completion for 5e
- Hoard of the Dragon Queen (only a half adventure technically, but long enough)
- Princes of the Apocalypse (actually run the first half two other times too)
- Out of the Abyss
- Curse of Strahd
- Tomb of Annihilation
(and waterdeep dragon heist and lost mines of phandelver although both are only to level 5).
I have also run other published adventures but not finished them.
There also tend to be oh so many ways to mitigate enemy actions or reduce their effectiveness in some way in PF2e. And stuff like evasion to improved evasion boosts their surviverbility even further.
Don't get me wrong I am not playing ruthlessly to counter and kill my PCs in any system, but in normal play I just found that 5e characters tended to get hit more, chipped down and had less options to bounce back from it reliably compared to either PF1e or PF2e.
In a single combat I would agree PF2e is more dangerous than 5e, but over a full adventuring day (and all my players push for narrative progression if there are time sensitive elements).
I am curious, for PF2 did you play this way too? I feel if you attacked down players in PF2 then it would have easily been just a lot more difficult with both games following encounter building.
Of course in every game if you put monsters way more challenging it can be dangerous. In my experience 5e you kind of had to do this unless the players really messed up their characters. There were some rare monsters (intellect devourer) that were just way too powerful. I really find it super strange that even...
I attack players when they go down in PF2e as well, but I find it just doesn't happen all that frequently (them going down that is). And when it does the next attacks miss or the target only gets hit once more before getting healed up and not allowed to go down again (god I love the dying/wounded system)
Being able to get back up to full HP before nearly every fight helps as well in PF2e imo (as it did in PF1e). It stops HP attrition from being as big of a threat as it can be in 5e across a long adventuring day.
You have options like healer warlock or the healing spirit cheese. Both came after I had already run my longer campaigns by the time Xanathars released.
That said I did houserule healing spirit as 40d6 healing for a level 2 spell is stupid, especially the visual of how players have to act to get it (obvious an exploit rather than intended ability).I have run to completion for 5e
- Hoard of the Dragon Queen (only a half adventure technically, but long enough)
- Princes of the Apocalypse (actually run the first half two other times too)
- Out of the Abyss
- Curse of Strahd
- Tomb of Annihilation(and waterdeep dragon heist and lost mines of phandelver although both are only to level 5).
I have also run other published adventures but not finished them.There also tend to be oh so many ways to mitigate enemy actions or reduce their effectiveness in some way in PF2e. And stuff like evasion to improved evasion boosts their survivability even...
Ah sounds like your players were just playing more risky in 5e and you had a lot of encounters in the day, which I know 5e is balanced around but I have never had that happen in any games. I played a bit of Curse of Strahd and found the amount of encounters a day were super low and played Storm King's Thunder and there were maybe 2 instances where we had more than 2 fights in a day.
Normally players tend to rest a lot in the games we played which imo makes 5e super easy. PF2 we do this too but feel the game is much more balanced with lots of resting.
It is interesting that you had such experiences in 5e. Since I just never thought of it being hard in the least. Admittingly I was always some multiclass caster who had the shield spell. Since playing a pure martial just seemed super boring in 5e. Also arcane casters were super powerful in 5e.
Biggest thing is probably the resting thing since if players rest every 2 battles the games difficulty way favors casters.
Personally I am not a huge fan of "time sensitive" making the game more difficulty. I just find it not fun losing battles because you had a large amount of encounters and are out of slots. Especially since DnD/PF it is super easy to just say "I want to rest".
I really do enjoy how PF2 battles are quite tough when everyone has full life and a good amount of spell slots. I hate when battles are balanced around..
Having Slots = Super Easy Battles
No Spell Slots = Hard to impossible battles
It is nice how PF2 most battles are quite challenging in all circumstances. Even PF2 casters out of spell slots are quite good with skill actions + focus spells + okay scaling cantrips.
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(And before anyone gets mad that I attack people when they are downed, all my players agree to this playstyle and are used to it. I am not saying that everyone should run dangerous games but I find it adds a level of tension to mine)It's your table. But I think your experience can be wholly explained by you attacking downed PCs, and not by the difficulty of the various game systems.I attacked downed PCs in all three systems though? In PF1e characters just didn't go down or they had the ability to reverse the state very quickly.
5e has downed state rules for a reason (as does PF2e), while some people don't like running dangerous games. I am not sure the default assumptions of a system should be ignored when considering its lethality.
My point is a major house rule that interacts with different systems in unpredictable ways. Certainly it's not the intended experience in 2E (don't know about 5E).
Adversaries usually don’t attack a character who’s knocked out. Even if a creature knows a fallen character might come back into the fight, only the most vicious creatures focus on helpless foes rather than the more immediate threats around them.
So even if the "Ruthless" variant rule is more deadly in 5E than in 2E, I don't think that says much about the vanilla systems.
Seems to me a GM should be looking at a couple of things before deciding to attack downed players:
1. Is this a tactically sound decision?
2. Is the situation such that the critter doing the attacking would ignore sound tactics?
3. Might the critter(s) choose an alternate path of action?
4. What's the best thing to do from the point of view of the story you're trying to tell?
From my point of view, a story that goes "a bunch of adventurers walked into a dungeon and didn't come out" seems pretty boring. :-)
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Seems to me a GM should be looking at a couple of things before deciding to attack downed players:
1. Is this a tactically sound decision?
2. Is the situation such that the critter doing the attacking would ignore sound tactics?
3. Might the critter(s) choose an alternate path of action?
4. What's the best thing to do from the point of view of the story you're trying to tell?From my point of view, a story that goes "a bunch of adventurers walked into a dungeon and didn't come out" seems pretty boring. :-)
I'm not disagreeing with you, but if The Gleeful Grognard's group is fine with it then I don't see the problem.
If the group's okay with it, that's fine. To each his own.
To me it makes sense to kill a downed player in one action if that's possible and if the creature can identify that it can do so.
Wasting any more actions on a downed enemy is wasteful when there's other combatants still around that are threatening it.
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I do kind of miss the theorycrafting parts of making a PF1 character that manages to do something much earlier or much more efficiently than was probably intended.
I mean in a sense, yes that was something unique to PF1 and I get the feeling has a great "reward".
But, PF2 also has this same feeling to me, but it's about starting with a concept first instead of starting with the Feat you just stumbled upon in the "great big section of feats" in PF1.
Example:
I wanted to build a hatchet Ranger who could use Snares and be kinda a rugged type, you know, the whole "the most dangerous game" style of character.
My level was 2, so I had to decide what's the best way to make that work and get the most "oomph" out of my character.
Eventually, I stumble down the MCD Alchemist pipeline, realize that the two synergize super well and I can be a Trap/Bomb bad-ass if I pull it off.
Problem is INT right? Oh but Elf looks appetizing, and Ancient elf saves me a Feat at level 2 so that I can grab Quickdraw instead!
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Anyways, my point is now being able to craft your concept does come with a lot of fun "off the table" style building if you're looking for it. One of the most flavorful characters I've built was in the most recent playtest and I loved the build.
Was it more powerful than another person just because of my combos?
Not necessarily.
Was it perfectly sculpted to be amazing at what I wanted and hitting all the right notes (and being unique and flavorful to boot)?
Absolutely.
And that's why PF2 is actually great. You don't have to be amazing at the off-table portion of the game in order to make a great character, there is a certain floor of power you will always be at.
And, IMO, that applies to at the table as well. You don't have to be miraculously great at tactics to succeed, though they of course help.
But in the latter case, if your GM is using tactics better than players, then it becomes a bit one-sided.
Now personally, as a GM, I think trying to "out-perform" your players tactically is kinda antithetical. There are times when it makes sense to play the monsters that way, if they are particularly crafty or if the encounter is designed to be really involved, but at the same time the GMs job is to adjust to the game they are playing.
Now on the argument of "I just wanna smash stuff and not worry about trying at the table, but I want you to have to try really hard and be an expert off the table", I can't really say much other than I heavily disagree. This mentality only works if everyone in a group feels that way.
In PF1, most people were not optimizing together IME, and some weren't even optimizing at all. One end of the table brought real min-maxed characters and the other brought something akin to level-1 (at least).
And even in the cases of characters that were optimized, there were plenty of instances where the Gnome Sandman Bard tried to grapple a creature because it was "what his character would do". If that's not "bad tactics being punished" then I don't know what is. Bad tactics were absolutely punished in PF1.
With that much difference between characters strengths and tactics in play, it forces me as the GM to drastically alter encounters anyways or I'll have the non-optimized person dying every single session (which quite frankly regardless of how you want to play, is excessive).
To me, most of the arguments being made about the positives of PF1 aren't really "positives", they are positions being held because of the system mastery the person has of PF1. There were 100% bad tactics in PF1 that would get you killed. It was Ivory Tower design at its worst. There were instances where on level creatures would wipe your whole party (Shadow).
But those were things players that have been in the system for a while knew how to deal with it. In PF2, it's a brand new meta and a brand new game. That doesn't mean it doesn't have some of the same flaws even or some of the same strengths as PF1, but lets not look back on PF1 with rose-tinted glasses and say it "didn't have the issues that PF2 has!" because it does have almost every single issue that people are saying PF2 has right now, with the exception being experience curbed the problem.
I would wager experience would curb the problems with PF2 as well, but alas, I am biased.
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To me it makes sense to kill a downed player in one action if that's possible and if the creature can identify that it can do so.
Wasting any more actions on a downed enemy is wasteful when there's other combatants still around that are threatening it.
There's another layer to it that as far as a creature knows, the dude that has been whacked is done for and is not an immediate threat. That's how I GM. There's no reason to believe that someone, even a "smart" enemy, would assume that after a hit landed and the enemy went down that it would need another as soon as possible, specially when there are more pressing matters at hand such as angry adventurers trying to kill you that are in a healthier shape.
When it's been established that players can pop back up after magic, then that's another matter entirely, intelligent enemies will be more inclined to finish the job, but even so this is also very debatable, since focusing on the source of healing is more productive than a threat that can come back yet again if you don't deal with the source of your trouble.
Simply put: Creatures downing them finishing off players is nothing than pure metagame from the GM's part if it's done so without any regard for circumstance or reason, just as a "general" behavior.
Sometimes I like to have a predator creature try to grab a down PC and run off with it, especially if it feels like it has the speed to do so. Usually this will prevent a TPK, but it will also light a fire under the party to not let the creature get away with their ally and it can even turn into a fun chase sequence or a cat and mouse, the creature tries to hide and sneak away.
PF2 makes doing this a lot of fun.
