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Hero points.
Then, if Hero Points are meant to provide a Heroic Moment when needed/desired by the player, it could maybe provide not just a re-roll on an attack, skill, or save, but also provide a bonus to it. Maybe "Reroll with a +5 or +10 bonus". Then it feels more "Heroic"...
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This is mainly missing for casters, not martials. You don't get those caster nova moments you got in PF1 and other D20 system. Martials still have their big crits like PF1. Casters can have their moments with damage spells against lower level enemies.
But those caster moments when a caster pulls out the big guns against a boss encounter are gone pumping up a huge metamagic hit with a double save boosting their DC to higher levels is all gone. Casters against boss mobs pretty much are relegated to shifting probabilities to set up martial crits. But those moments when they end fights are gone.
If getting creative with hero points makes your players feel like they have more control over when their big moment to shine is, then by all means go for it!...As a house rule. Going with something like the +8 bonus before or +4 after will establish a super heroic tone to your game, and it will make your decision about when to hand out hero points a bigger factor in game play than many character's spells and abilities, but if you have a good relationship with your players, then you can probably find a balance for it.
In games at my table, I regularly see spells have massive effects on important fights. Both in games I have played with different GMs and in games I GM. Critical effects on spells are huge and they tend to happen much closer to 10% of the time than 5% of the time, even against bosses. My own unconscious character's life has been saved by a critical hit with a 1st level hydraulic push on a level 3 starving bear that had my character grabbed and was getting ready to feast on its next turn. At level 4 our sorcerer put a level 7 enemy (we didn't realize it was a level 7 enemy at the time) to sleep with a level 1 sleep scroll that it crit failed against. We then went and woke it up trying to put manacles on it, and nearly all died, but we had pretty much one shot it for the purposes of getting past it, if we hadn't have tried to get cute. Dispel Magic is regularly an encounter winner when it targets a devastating hazard or a powerful magic effect, and 4th level silence is every bit as encounter winning against higher level casters as it was in PF1. HINT: Cast it on a martial who can grab.
What is different is that the big critical "win" events with spells tend to happen about 10% of the time instead of 70% percent of the time, and thus often involve having to cast spells more than once against bosses, and survive through the rest of the 80% of rounds where the spell just does something, but not insta-wins the encounter.
As long as your Heropoint house rule can't be used to influence an enemies save by +/-8 or 4, I don't think it will be too disruptive to the game, but Disintegrate cast with a +8 to the spell attack roll makes that spell incredibly more powerful. Spells are definitely not balanced around getting that kind of boost. It probably wont matter too much in your own home game to allow it, your wizard will just become very much closer to the PF1 God Wizard controller that you are probably wanting them to be anyway, but be really careful about making sure that the rest of the party still gets to have fun and the game doesn't turn into the party basing every decision around figuring out how to make sure the wizard has at least one hero point going forward into the unknown, or a potential boss fight.
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If getting creative with hero points makes your players feel like they have more control over when their big moment to shine is, then by all means go for it!...As a house rule. Going with something like the +8 bonus before or +4 after will establish a super heroic tone to your game, and it will make your decision about when to hand out hero points a bigger factor in game play than many character's spells and abilities, but if you have a good relationship with your players, then you can probably find a balance for it.
In games at my table, I regularly see spells have massive effects on important fights. Both in games I have played with different GMs and in games I GM. Critical effects on spells are huge and they tend to happen much closer to 10% of the time than 5% of the time, even against bosses. My own unconscious character's life has been saved by a critical hit with a 1st level hydraulic push on a level 3 starving bear that had my character grabbed and was getting ready to feast on its next turn. At level 4 our sorcerer put a level 7 enemy (we didn't realize it was a level 7 enemy at the time) to sleep with a level 1 sleep scroll that it crit failed against. We then went and woke it up trying to put manacles on it, and nearly all died, but we had pretty much one shot it for the purposes of getting past it, if we hadn't have tried to get cute. Dispel Magic is regularly an encounter winner when it targets a devastating hazard or a powerful magic effect, and 4th level silence is every bit as encounter winning against higher level casters as it was in PF1. HINT: Cast it on a martial who can grab.
What is different is that the big critical "win" events with spells tend to happen about 10% of the time instead of 70% percent of the time, and thus often involve having to cast spells more than once against bosses, and survive through the rest of the 80% of rounds where the spell just does something, but not insta-wins the encounter.
As long as your Heropoint house rule can't be used to influence an...
Maybe it's bc my players have terrible luck, poor tactics, or are playing inside published aps, but I've never seen these huge caster moments you're talking about. Caster attack rolls seem too low and monster saves seem too high. If a crit or crit fail actually manages to happen with one of my casters it was against a cr -2 or below creature.....a mob the martial could've taken care of in short order. As far as I've seen casters are meant to solely contribute to combat, not have any defining moments within it.
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If the bonuses are the best option for being flashy why don't you use them?...
I kept the PF1 hero point system in my PF2 campaign, except for dropping the +8 and +4 options (PF2 shuns numerical bonuses) and buying an action is just an action in PF2. Those +8 and +4 are really the best option for being flashy. The PF1 hero point rules say, "Although hero points do not drastically increase the power of the PCs, they do grant the PCs the ability to greatly increase their chances of success during critical moments."
I don't use the +4 and +8 bonuses from hero points because translating them to PF2 hero points would be unbalanced. A +1 bonus in PF2 is around 50% more powerful than a +1 bonus in PF1, due to its effect on critical successes. Thus, to scale the +4 and +8 to PF2 at the same power level, I would have to trim them down to +3 and +6. But the smaller the bonuses, the less likely the bonuses will matter. If the roll is short by 7, then a +7 bonus matters and a +6 bonus won't matter.
Also, would it be a circumstance bonus, status bonus, or item bonus? A fortune effect does not fit those categories. Instead, my players and I would want the +3 and +6 to stack with all other bonuses. Introducing a 4th bonus type, such as fortune bonus, would be a bigger houserule than simply adding options to hero points.
Furthermore, I asked two of my players. One said that her character has his flashy moments without the bonuses.
My experienced players mastered teamwork while playing Dungeons & Dragons before Pathfinder 1st Edition was invented. Teaming up is a great way for two or more players to shine. Teamwork works well in both editions of Pathfinder, too. The newer players learned from the experienced players.
I would have suggested teamwork as another solution to increase moments of glory, but some players don't want to share their glory. And effective teamwork takes practice.
The other player, my wife, explained that in PF1 she used the +8 bonus from spending a hero point as a crutch. It was to handle a character being too weak to attempt something that would fit the story well, such as a rogue attempting an important sneak attack against a well-armored foe where the rogue's 3/4 BAB falls short. PF2's tight math limits those deficiencies, so she does not need the outside bonus to have a reasonable chance of success in PF2.
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Hero points.Then, if Hero Points are meant to provide a Heroic Moment when needed/desired by the player, it could maybe provide not just a re-roll on an attack, skill, or save, but also provide a bonus to it. Maybe "Reroll with a +5 or +10 bonus". Then it feels more "Heroic"...
In live streamed games like things in space or crits and giggles where the viewer can pay to give the PCs or GM +1 bounces to rolls, or double damage, or take an extra attack, has a really interesting effect on the game. The viewers are acting as the gods in many ways rewording PCs for good RP or helping them with difficult situations. I games like this PCs tend to have more bounces saved up.
One thing I've noticed is it seems much more dramatic or heroic when a PC decides to use up all of their small +1 bounces stacked at one time than spending a single +10 bounces. The number might be the same but spending all your +1 bounces feels more like I give it all I have, vs I have a winning lottery ticket I've been saving.
So I think having more hero points on the table makes player's choices more heroic or dramatic if you had to spend all 5 of your hero points to save yourself from near-death or if you were allowed to spend x hero points to reroll x dice keep the highest, or spend x hero points to reroll one die with +x
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If your tables rest after every single encounter that doesn't have some sort of time pressure, that's fair enough...
Don't you have to stop and take a moment after every time you murder someone? You know, just to catch your breath and say "That just happened?"
Lord knows I do!
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This is mainly missing for casters, not martials. You don't get those caster nova moments you got in PF1 and other D20 system. Martials still have their big crits like PF1. Casters can have their moments with damage spells against lower level enemies.
But those caster moments when a caster pulls out the big guns against a boss encounter are gone pumping up a huge metamagic hit with a double save boosting their DC to higher levels is all gone. Casters against boss mobs pretty much are relegated to shifting probabilities to set up martial crits. But those moments when they end fights are gone.
But casters can even easily crit in this game. They are the only that can be Legendary in attacks besides the Fighter and this also affects their Magic DC.
An experienced caster can Recall Knowledge (or ask for a party member to Recall Knowledge if the enemy creature is from a different nature than caster most dominated skill and you don't have Unified Theory skill feat), than after knowing the most weakness save or AC of the enemy. If the enemy AC is the most weak point they can focus on it with True Strike or using a Hero Point to try a crit.
Ex.: A lvl 19 wizard can roll their knowledge against a Terotricus to know that their Weakness is against cold attacks and their most weak save is reflex to use a Heightened Cone of Cold to damage it.
Terotricus Refl save = +28 (29 if you don't have Spell Penetration)
A lvl 19 Wizard with an 22 Int (2 from Ability boosts 2 from a Apex item) : 10 + 19 (lvl) + 6(int) + 8(legendary) = 43 Magic DC
So the monster has to roll a d20 + 28 against 43. If it roll a 5 or less is a magic crit!
Hero points.Then, if Hero Points are meant to provide a Heroic Moment when needed/desired by the player, it could maybe provide not just a re-roll on an attack, skill, or save, but also provide a bonus to it. Maybe "Reroll with a +5 or +10 bonus". Then it feels more "Heroic"...In live streamed games like things in space or crits and giggles where the viewer can pay to give the PCs or GM +1 bounces to rolls, or double damage, or take an extra attack, has a really interesting effect on the game. The viewers are acting as the gods in many ways rewording PCs for good RP or helping them with difficult situations. I games like this PCs tend to have more bounces saved up.
One thing I've noticed is it seems much more dramatic or heroic when a PC decides to use up all of their small +1 bounces stacked at one time than spending a single +10 bounces. The number might be the same but spending all your +1 bounces feels more like I give it all I have, vs I have a winning lottery ticket I've been saving.
So I think having more hero points on the table makes player's choices more heroic or dramatic if you had to spend all 5 of your hero points to save yourself from near-death or if you were allowed to spend x hero points to reroll x dice keep the highest, or spend x hero points to reroll one die with +x
In my table the players usually was too "economic" with Hero Point, they usually only uses them basically to avoid certain death than to create heroic situations (eventually the monk use for Quivering Palm more precisely, but since the wizard starts to use True Target he nows combine with the Wizard.
So to allow them to use hero points in more situations I house ruled the hero points. And now instead of give to them 1 point per session +1 per hour and +1 each good interpretation (i don't give hero point for brave actions, this simply doesn't fit to some chars alignment and personalities). Now I use a different system:
- Every one starts with 3 hero points
- The player can use a hero point to re-roll a d20 [b] after know if it was or not a success [/ b]. If he chose to roll after know that was a success (to try a crit for example) he has to use the second roll.
- Each hero point give the GM a re-roll against this player (to re-roll an attack against it or a save against his saves)
- After a GM re-roll the hero point is returned to that player.
* The re-roll is after know the success because as GM I know their stats and is not fair to this against them when they don't know their enemy stats.
Until now they like this system because it is predictable for they and they started to use the hero points specially for focus and press attacks. The main problem at moment is that this is more usefull to combatants (that has more attack rolls) than for casters (that has more save DC attacks). But this happens with vanilla hero points too. I thinking in to allow they to add the hero points as circumstance bonus / penalty too (+1 for each hero point) or allow then to force an opponent to roll twice and use the worst roll as unfortune trace.
You are assuming that the GM will tell you the monster's saves, that the saves will line up with the creatures look, that you have learned the spell, that you have it prepared in the right slot, that you have every one of those feats you mentioned, and that they are close enough to hit with the spell you are using.
If all of that is right, then maybe they can crit.
Not to mention that you are comparing two level 19 creatures. When we know casters are better vs creatures of equal or lower level.
Btw most martials have a +35 to hit, meaning they hit the Terotricus on an 8 and crit on an 18. Fighters can hit on a 6 and crit on a 16. Assuming that they are not getting buffed by a Bard, in which case the values are the same.
How have casters fared in your games? Mine are doing well, but also we have a "dedicated damage" caster who the group expects to be dishing out damage. The other two casters (three casters, one martial team) support the damage caster with debuffs. Two sorcerers, a cleric, and a barbarian. Casters have been just fine in my game, but also my players did take the time to grok the system, even if we had a few hurdles.
How do you GM Recall Knowledge? Or how does your GM handle it?
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You are assuming that the GM will tell you the monster's saves, that the saves will line up with the creatures look
Yes I'm assuming the GM will tell something of the monsters saves, not the numbers but a Recall Knowledge roll allowing to know the general information of a monster that your can remember/studied/experienced, just a "you remember/analyzed that this monster has slow reflex but have a strong body and insane mind that can afraid most mind specialists" this is not like a meta game and is good example of a easily obtainable knowledge.
that you have learned the spell
Yes I assume that a experience caster already has a large number os spells for different situations.
that you have it prepared in the right slot
This is not the PF1/3.5. Even the prepared casters like Wizard at high level has some tricks that allow them do change a prepared spell slots, or have some scrolls, wands, staffs that allow them to become more versatile.
The other casters like sorcerers have their tricks too. But I admit that for a Cleric and Druid is little harder, but these casters ca summon the right monster or can face the situation in many different forms (literally).that you have every one of those feats you mentioned, and that they are close enough to hit with the spell you are using.
The only feat I mentioned in the example was the Spell Penetration a useful feat that allow to ignore some extra saves from strong monsters. This is a good feat since PF1/3.5 but is far weaker in PF2 but still help to diminish a little the saves.
Not to mention that you are comparing two level 19 creatures. When we know casters are better vs creatures of equal or lower level.
Yes, but the same for combatants, because the high level creatures of Bestiary has a incredibly high AC that also allow just the most proficient fighter do crit! (this example creature has 42 AC, but even in this situation the caster has a better chance to crit because the save is lower, but if instead they are face an Ancient Dragon both of them only can natural crit for both! But the dragon still has an elemental weakness to be exploited by caster 😝)
Btw most martials have a +35 to hit, meaning they hit the Terotricus on an 8 and crit on an 18. Fighters can hit on a 6 and crit on a 16. Assuming that they are not getting buffed by a Bard, in which case the values are the same.
No the Fighter has +35 to hit because they are Legendary. And the Terotricus AC is 42. 42 - 35 is 7 not 6, if you roll a 6 + 35 you have 41. So this ex. Fighter crit is rolling 17, if you play with other combatant will be 19. The crit rate still low and you can't exploit the monster weakness to increase your damage and still have to face the monster regeneration.
Another thing is, I used an area effect magic to show that a caster can exploit even a low save. But I never said that they are limited to it, if we add an extra state bonus to hit like cited bard buff the caster can also use the same strategy to attack using a Polar Ray instead and also use a True Target to help not just him, but all the party to hit and crit.
Sorry but once again for me you are underestimating the casters and the strategies in this game.
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I'm also weirdly running a bizzaro-version of the 3 caster team through The Slithering right now with a witch, storm druid, summoner, and champion. The witch happens to be an 18 Str orc with a meteor hammer who spends combat debuffing enemies before beating them with said meteor hammer. Meanwhile the summoner gets to play pseudo-martial with his pet dragon and give flanking (and lightning breath) to all. The real damage on the team comes from the storm druid who has landed so many crits with her spells (and critical fails on my part) that battles rarely stretch past two or three rounds.
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Nah, it's really not. You are perfectly able to prepare a variety of different spells targeting different stats and selecting them based on the obvious traits and the results of recall knowledge.
The greatest tactic is watching your allies use their abilities on the targets you are considering and seeing how their numbers succeed and fail.
How do casters fare in your games, Temperans? Please, you seem to be very passionate about this.
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Nah, it's really not. You are perfectly able to prepare a variety of different spells targeting different stats and selecting them based on the obvious traits and the results of recall knowledge.
The greatest tactic is watching your allies use their abilities on the targets you are considering and seeing how their numbers succeed and fail.
Wait, you don't totally zone out when it's not your turn? Man, I thought everyone did that.
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Wait, you don't totally zone out when it's not your turn? Man, I thought everyone did that.Nah, it's really not. You are perfectly able to prepare a variety of different spells targeting different stats and selecting them based on the obvious traits and the results of recall knowledge.
The greatest tactic is watching your allies use their abilities on the targets you are considering and seeing how their numbers succeed and fail.
Having a player ask, "Wait, where am I standing?" before pointing down at the map is a reminder that... Yes, this still happens. Oh, the pain.
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Wait, you don't totally zone out when it's not your turn? Man, I thought everyone did that.Nah, it's really not. You are perfectly able to prepare a variety of different spells targeting different stats and selecting them based on the obvious traits and the results of recall knowledge.
The greatest tactic is watching your allies use their abilities on the targets you are considering and seeing how their numbers succeed and fail.
Zone out? You mean just hop on their phones or laptops until it’s their turn?
I sooo enjoy re-explaining what happened so far this round at the beginning of each person’s turn.
Nah, it's really not. You are perfectly able to prepare a variety of different spells targeting different stats and selecting them based on the obvious traits and the results of recall knowledge.
You're understating the issue of preparing spells correctly, imo. It's not just a matter of guessing the correct save, but for a wizard/cleric/druid you need to prepare the correct spells in the correct quantities as well. That's far from a guarantee like a number of the comments here seem to suggest.
It's admittedly a bit easier for spontaneous casters, since you can use signature spells to cover your bases more consistently.
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To go back to an earlier point that Arakasius brought up, scrolls, wands, and staves are so often forgotten that it shocks me. More so when spellcasters don't have to spend much of their gold on runes for their weapon.
Scrolls further your number of upper level spell slots, making them perfect for your "big spells". Throwing out one a combat (unless you want to burn the action of reaching into your back pocket for another scroll) doesn't break the bank and gets you a great deal more potential spell casts.
Wands fill in all of your utility spells for lower level castings, letting you have just the spell ready for free every day. Heck, have a few spells and swap 'em out between combats (or again do the wand shuffle with your action economy).
And finally staves. My god, staves just give you a nice focused selection of spells combining the reusable nature of wands with the potential might of scrolls.
All spellcasters should have all three of these items on hand at all times, swapping out as needed between combat. The difference between a wizard coming prepared and one not is absolutely night and day (something I know from experience what with my two sorc party). It does remind me of martials with and without trinkets, though the difference is much less stark. Perhaps a martial with property runes and one without? Seems too broad a brush even for this.
EDIT: As for the "spellcaster three" not being unique to PF2, they do function quite differently than their PF1 counterparts, especially given the way that spellcasting works now. Getting to use your DCs for them is wonderful and having wands be simply extra spells that remain relevant makes for a very different dynamic.
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The problem is you just don’t play the game so your assumptions on white room math are quite insufficient. Also the answer to every ruling in the game doesn’t have to be the most restrictive ruling that punishes the players. You know what happens to DMs who run games like that? They soon aren’t DMs since their players will go elsewhere. We’re not asking for the DM to just give in to the players and make it all easy for them, but the DMs job is to be fair and balanced. And part of that job is making an environment where the players do actions having those actions be reasonably effective. The DMs job is not to make recall knowledge useless.
The thing is that not every group has a grandfatherly, benevolent GM and most of them are probably still playing. Going from my own experience, most GM's are not outright antagonistic in the sense of wanting to put you to the ground at all costs (which would for sure make their players abandon them), however many have the desire to not make things too easy for the PC's (especially if they played PF1 before). A challenge that somebody has put into his adventure still has to be a challenge, not a totally meaningless walkover. As such, being restrictive with the information given by Recall Knowledge or playing even stupid monsters surprisingly smart are nothing unheared of. Rats and Skeletons flanking for to-hit bonusses? Monsters avoiding Fighter or Champion reactions by attacking or conducting actions out of their reach whenever possible? Been there, done that...
To add something to the original post, it’s part of the DMs job to know their players. And if their players have certain tendencies and such then it’s in everyone’s best interest to give them a chance for them to shine doing it. Don’t give it to them for free but let them try it out. For example my players had a fight where they were stuck in separate rooms against equal or lvl -1 foes. The player against the rune giant got killed but there was a player with new level 8 spells against an ancient white dragon. The player cast divine aura and I totally could have just used spells and breath only against the oracle player but I had the dragon try to physically attack. He crit failed and was blinded for the rest of the fight, which went very one sided for the equal level flame oracle who hurled one action flame cantrips into the white dragon for the rest of the fight.
There is a reason why the thread title asked about player-driven flashy moments. We all know that players can really shine if the GM allows them to, but what active tools do players have apart from rolling good (or the GM rolling bad on saves)? Currently the main (only?) tool in the players box is the unimpressive (in terms of flashiness, not in terms of effect) ability to manipulate numbers in order to need to be less lucky.
And regarding hero points I agree that the current interation is much better at avoiding bad rolls than creating good rolls (and their corresponing flashy moments) and thus 95% of all hero points I have seen used by my party are to either cheat death or to reroll critical fails (spell attacks, critical skill use or most importantly saves). Might consider giving Mathmuse's variant a try though.
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Personally, I tell my players a general description and tell them they recall X pieces of information based on their roll: Asking them what it is they recall. The GM for my Sunday campaign tells us general information about the monster that is useful, but no stats.
In your, and I'd like to stress this, PF2 game?
Also, Arakasius, I am the one who is telling people not to base everything on white room math.
Not to be a broken record about this, but your experiences come from... your PF2 games, correct?
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On a sidenote about "white room math" and flashiness...
While following the individual threads I seem to have noticed that despite their best efforts Paizo apparently has not been able to keep the play experience & capabilities of individual classes constant over 20 levels (not blaming them, just stating). As such there seems to be an abundance of players struggeling with to-hit rates, skill success rates or some classes at lower levels vs more experienced (and/or white roomy) guys arguing that everything will even out and be fine at level 20. However even when keeping in mind that the new adventure pathes are really, really meant to play to the maximum level the problem with this is that I assume that most players & groups will rarely make it beyond level 10.
For example my current group has just finished AoA volume 2, reached level 9 after the final showdown and was called to a halt because of our GM getting tired (and it is most unclear if we will ever resume). As such I can only report my findings and observations up to that level and will not even try to argue with people who have first-hand high level experience. The thing is that high level advice or experience often does not apply to low level play either and it does not help a struggeling level 4 to 6 spellcaster that he will become a legendary caster by level 19.
Having said so during 8 levels of play flashy moments have been scarce, mostly due to the necessary numbers crunch and combat always felt very mechanical despite our GM doing his best to describe it vividly. The one and only thing I do remember is our Ranger rolling a nat 20 while using a Vine Arrow on a BBEG trying to escape which had us all cheering. Our Barbarian did land a couple of big hits on mostly half-dead mooks, our sword and board Fighter was slow and steady throughout the two volumes, our Wizard was resisted or critically resisted on every single non-AoE spell I can remember and my Warpriest was mainly occupied with his duties as a support caster which is non-flashy by definition.
PCs function in response to the world around them, they could have a guaranteed max damage crit per rest and it wouldn't matter if the GM never introduced a single combat encounter the entire campaign; any reasonable Game Master adjusts specifics of encounters to accommodate their group and let players shine (extra traps if the group has an expert at disarming, a religious puzzle involving the cleric's knowledge, etc.), even if they have to do so on the fly.
This entire topic seems to be fixed on "PCs don't have enough ways to nullify the importance of dice rolls on demand X times per Y timeframe", which is a bitter part of the deal on a system built on the high-variance d20, but isn't improv based on the unpredictable results the point of the whole thing? Resource expenditure for big effects isn't the be-all end-all, and actually incentivizes less risk-taking by rewarding shorter adventuring days. Also, from the viewpoint of a player, big moments that come from dicerolls are much more memorable than "That time I used my button" to overcome an obstacle, so the "big push, but not outright win" nature of hero points align with the level of efficiency I think they should have, with a single caveat that I would allow the PC to use the higher result instead of risking a downgrade to a crit fail after expending a resource.
On the topic of smart enemies things such as master strategist pixie guerilla squads and 16 INT skeletons with battle formations do nothing but frustrate players and bog the game down, if you want players to roleplay their flaws and act in a manner their character would in combat then you should abide by the same rules when controlling their enemies, every humanoid that doesn't have a deathwish/ heavy dose of fanaticism/ isn't being forced will attempt to flee before being reduced below 10% HP and unintelligent enemies will attack the closest target unless some sort of provocation or order is given. If you want to pit your players against specialized, smart enemies (bounty hunters, war parties, assassins, mercenaries), then by all means do so, but don't go around turning every single mook into a trained soldier with no explanation.
Going back to "once per day" abilities, I think one game that does it very well is Lancer, a high si-fi Mech RPG. Each Mech Frame has a special Core ability, which can be used once per Mission (Lancer entirely seperates Downtime from "working" like Blades in the Dark). These Core abilities are very cool and quite powerful, but not game-breaking. It is important to mention that Lancer balance has no "xp per enemy" and strict values, so it is much easier to balance in a case of a power-spike.
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Also, from the viewpoint of a player, big moments that come from dicerolls are much more memorable than ...
Debatable and likely one of the major reasons for this very discussion. For some players a cliche Bard "I want to seduce the dragon and rolled a nat 20" event might be most memorable, other players might prefer a "I prepared my whole life for this, I don't need luck to prevail" type of scene for their character much, much more.
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I see several problems with such 'I win' buttons.
The first problem is how to balance them. If they are widely applicable (like optimizing combat DPR) they simply delete all challenge from the game. If they are powerful but niche, you could build your character that way and then never (or rarely) have the occasion to use your special ability. If you put a cooldown on them (like 1/day usage), the players will just retreat to rest everytime they are able to; yes, there are ways to punish this behavior, but it still means that you have a problem that has to be solved, and in many situations, solutions like repopulating the dungeon don't make much sense.
The second is that such abilities push the game towards rocket tag. Is it really good to obliterate the BBEG in a single round, or to be obliterated if somehow your flashy thing doesn't work (or you just lose initiative)?
PF1 has plenty of that at mid-high levels. Two sessions ago my character went from almost full to dead (not really, thanks to hero points) during the surprise round, while the two martials of the group lost about 90% and 30% of their HP. And the encounter wasn't even that hard, on paper.
To me, rocket tag is no fun.
Third thing, if PCs specialize in one or two things and they always win at them, while they suck at all the rest, this means that they become one-trick ponies. After all, the only thing they can do to have success is trying to apply their one big bonus to every possibile situation. If the bard can seduce everything with little effort, they will use that tactic all the time. Doesn't it get old fast?
While I think that Scare to Death is a really nice idea PF2 had, it suffers a bit from this: once you have that ability, you will likely try to spam it against everything that moves, before considering any alternative. Luckily, trying an alternative in this system doesn't mean that you are rolling with a comparative -30, and could actually work.
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I see several problems with such 'I win' buttons.
I fully agree and can't even think of any mechanical solution that does not take power from the GM apart from upgrading the use of hero points, preferably to more active uses as I don't think that things like acting out of initiative order or adding an extra action once will go crazy on balance.
What I would like to see even more would be a narrative solution that also does involve the GM, something like trading in your hero point for a cineastic moment with both player and GM working out the details of what is mechanically acceptable and how it could look like in play.
So for example a player could propose a daring and heroic action that would still require a critical success on one of his signature skills and either risk his luck or - if both GM and player agree - spend a hero point for the action to succeed.
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I see several problems with such 'I win' buttons.I fully agree and can't even think of any mechanical solution that does not take power from the GM apart from upgrading the use of hero points, preferably to more active uses as I don't think that things like acting out of initiative order or adding an extra action once will go crazy on balance.
I think this might be where you are talking past one another (this may be due to the 2nd edition vs 1st edition thread bleeding into my memory though). They WANT a moment where they are taking power from the GM. More accurately, they want a moment where they are taking power away from the dice and can assert as much control over the battlefield as a GM fudging dice rolls.
I've come to the conclusion that what some players want, what makes them happy, is the ability to "beat the game" so to speak by making dice irrelevant. That the wide variance on a d20 is useful, but they'd really like to be so good at a thing on occasion to be more powerful than any roll on that d20.
Which is why hero point rerolls might feel unsatisfying; you're still at the mercy of a die roll even if you have an advantage over it.
Edit: to clarify, I am not criticizing this viewpoint or desire. I don't share it, but this is a game and we all should get what we want from our hobbies.
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I think Hero Points are a good solution for the OP's problem. For home games, I recommend giving out 2 Hero Points at the start of the session, giving each player 1 every hour, reducing the costs of avoid death to 1 hero point, and letting players spend a hero point to make an enemy re-roll a d20. These changes also make hero points more valuable to casters.think my in my But as others
But casters can even easily crit in this game. They are the only that can be Legendary in attacks besides the Fighter and this also affects their Magic DC.
An experienced caster can Recall Knowledge (or ask for a party member to Recall Knowledge if the enemy creature is from a different nature than caster most dominated skill and you don't have Unified Theory skill feat), than after knowing the most weakness save or AC of the enemy. If the enemy AC is the most weak point they can focus on it with True Strike or using a Hero Point to try a crit.
Ex.: A lvl 19 wizard can roll their knowledge against a Terotricus to know that their Weakness is against cold attacks and their most weak save is reflex to use a Heightened Cone of Cold to damage it.
Terotricus Refl save = +28 (29 if you don't have Spell Penetration)
A lvl 19 Wizard with an 22 Int (2 from Ability boosts 2 from a Apex item) : 10 + 19 (lvl) + 6(int) + 8(legendary) = 43 Magic DCSo the monster has to roll a d20 + 28 against 43. If it roll a 5 or less is a magic crit!
As others noted caster's don't get Legendary Proficiency until late in the game, so that doesn't help in the majority of cases.
As a PFS player with an 8th-level Wizard, I can tell you using Recall Knowledge to exploit enemy's Weakness and low Saves isn't a good idea outside of white-room theorycrafting, for a variety of reasons. There is also extraordinarily high table variation when it comes to the info gained by Recall Knowledge, and Unified Theory may not effect Recall Knowledge at all. You as a player have no control over what types of enemies you're facing, so you can't rely on an enemy having a certain Weakness.
The nature of Vancian casting means you might not have just the right spell prepared or in your repetoire, or you might have already cast them and therefore lost them.
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Damn, this thread got more traction than I expected. Anyway. There's one thing that's being wildly misinterpreted about my original point, a lot of it being my fault for not explaining it as well as I could. Let me clarify now.
The point is not and never has been about having the ability to negate the impact of luck. If you look at the examples of abilities that do this well in 2e I gave, none of them have any meaningful impact on luck. Ki Strike improves your success rate by 5%. Dance of Thunder and Path of Iron have zero extra chance of success compared to other things you could be doing. The point is not luck being meaningful or not, but luck (a.k.a crits) being the only way to have an above-average cool moment. You as a player have no significant control over them.
The following example might help: Let's say I'm a Fighter, and there's this BBEG Wizard that has been making my life hell for the whole campaign, and always manages to escape and get away with it. I finally track him down and combat starts. After a grueling battle, I manage to run past the remaining enemy lines and get to the Wizard before he teleports away. I'm finally face-to-face with my nemesis, and I... Strike. The same way I've been striking enemies for the last 16 levels. Maybe with a metastrike to also knock him prone if I hit, supposing I have the actions for that. Not anything different from what I always do either.
If I want this thematically special moment to also be mechanically special, my options are:
1 - Roll really high and crit
That's... it.
If I was a Monk with Ki Strike, I could be saving it for this moment. Even if I end up missing, my character did something different and more powerful, and I had the power to do that. Missing sucks, but at least something let me try and create that moment. Such abilities in PF2 are so rare that I can count them in one hand, so I'm asking if we can please have more, and on other classes too.
Not that I don't agree that luck plays too much of a role in 2e unless you force your whole party to optimize your tactics to hell and back. I do wish character success rates were higher. But this really isn't the point I was trying to make, at least not for this thread.
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Try having your cleric cast level 4 silence on you, and then grab the wizard and see how epic it feels when he has to, at the very least, spend 1 action to escape, and a second to move.
Teamwork is what makes those magic moments really stand out in PF2. Alone you might have one cool extra ability, but if you combine it with that cool ability your ally has, suddenly you have flipped the script on the battlefield.
Fire oracles with flame focused friends can be another example of this, anyone demoralizing and making flat footed the enemy right before the barbarian goes, these options really do exist from level 1 to level 20.
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That's some good teamwork, Unicore, but I'm not sure the Cleric casting Silence to shut down an enemy spellcaster really works out to be a flashy moment for the party Fighter who really just used a Stride action.
This entire topic seems to be fixed on "PCs don't have enough ways to nullify the importance of dice rolls on demand X times per Y timeframe"
This is putting words in people's mouths here. None of the mechanics OP specifically brought up are automatic rerolls or free successes and the sentiment from a few of the critics here has been specifically that hero points aren't a good solution on their own.
They WANT a moment where they are taking power from the GM. More accurately, they want a moment where they are taking power away from the dice and can assert as much control over the battlefield as a GM fudging dice rolls.
Who is 'they'? As said above, this directly contradicts the sentiments of the OP and a number of other posters here.
Not that I don't agree that luck plays too much of a role in 2e unless you force your whole party to optimize your tactics to hell and back. I do wish character success rates were higher. But this really isn't the point I was trying to make, at least not for this thread.
Oh, I wasn't including you when I said "they" upthread. I think Unicore nailed it last page; what it sounds like you want is maneuver/sphere of might abilities on martials, which isn't really too complicated or outrageous. One method for that is shifting die rolls to the point where dice are no longer a factor, like a limited assurance (which actually might be a valid ability now that I think about it), but that's only one method.
I think that might be a thing that happens sooner or later. We already see some that were added to the Ranger. Cooldown abilities that are explicitly not spells might be something they look at if we ever do a low-magic AP.
Who is 'they'? As said above, this directly contradicts the sentiments of the OP and a number of other posters here.
The people Ubertron was talking about in the quote I directly replied to, like his fellow players that have little recourse in combat aside from getting good rolls.
Calmate. Not everything is an attack.
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I think this might be where you are talking past one another (this may be due to the 2nd edition vs 1st edition thread bleeding into my memory though). They WANT a moment where they are taking power from the GM. More accurately, they want a moment where they are taking power away from the dice and can assert as much control over the battlefield as a GM fudging dice rolls.
I've come to the conclusion that what some players want, what makes them happy, is the ability to "beat the game" so to speak by making dice irrelevant. That the wide variance on a d20 is useful, but they'd really like to be so good at a thing on occasion to be more powerful than any roll on that d20.
I agree that this is what a lot of players want for many different reasons, however this is not what I had in mind. And keep in mind that at least from time to time I want to remove the variance of the d20 too, however for narrative reasons and less for any powergaming effects.
Don't get me wrong I am fully behind the GM having unlimited narrative power, however sometimes, just sometimes I want a tiny fraction of this narrative power for my own character and without having to rely on chance. And my guts feeling is that PF2 would see a lot more heroic and flashy action if players were given the chance to control their characters narrative once in a while.
However I have to admit that depending on player, group and GM your mileage may vary and any non-absolute system will probably be open to some sort of abuse.
Which is why hero point rerolls might feel unsatisfying; you're still at the mercy of a die roll even if you have an advantage over it.
I think hero points have been severely limited because you can not have any shift in narrative power in a PFS party without wasting time discussing.
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I think hero points have been severely limited because you can not have any shift in narrative power in a PFS party without wasting time discussing.
This makes no sense at all.