Going Backwards

[dirtypool]

Planpanther wrote:

Its the level 10 being able to take on armies of level 1s. Trying to imagine level 20 beings in a world where thats true makes no sense to me how they co-exist. Thats the setting immersion part. I dont like the number treadmill part of it system from the game part. Bounded accuracy was the one thing 5E knocked out of the park. YMMV.

Thinking of the combat system with a parity between monster stat block levels and PC levels might be a bit of the stumbling block. Just like in 5e Monsters and PC’s are no longer built using the same math, though I think the term CR makes it a little easier to disassociate the two.

Bounded accuracy, frankly is the thing about 5e that I don’t like. Contributes to everything feeling a bit too same-y

[Planpanther]

Guntermench wrote:

I'll point you towards the first paragraph of the proficiency without level variant rule:

Yeap, if I ran PF2 its the first thing I'd use.

dirtypool wrote:

Bounded accuracy, frankly is the thing about 5e that I don’t like. Contributes to everything feeling a bit too same-y

That "same-y" feeling makes sense to me for setting and its inhabitants. It's the culture, lair, politics of beings that spice up the game for me. I prefer the math and system stay as much under the hood as possible.

[Iolaus, hopeless sidekick]

Guntermench wrote:

The base assumption of the game is you're basically playing Hercules, or Achilles, where yes you CAN take on an infinite number of random commoners. If that doesn't work for you, use this rule and it will work largely like 5e does.

Folks keep telling me this, but somehow the challenges stay the same and I never do feel like Hercules...

[Guntermench]

Iolaus, hopeless sidekick wrote:

Guntermench wrote:

The base assumption of the game is you're basically playing Hercules, or Achilles, where yes you CAN take on an infinite number of random commoners. If that doesn't work for you, use this rule and it will work largely like 5e does.

Folks keep telling me this, but somehow the challenges stay the same and I never do feel like Hercules...

Fight something you fought at lower level. It literally won't be able to hit you.

The math stays the same when fighting equal and above level enemies, true. But that doesn't mean you aren't basically a demigod by level 15.

Like... with Sudden Leap + Raging Athlete + Assurance (Athletics) you can jump something like 36 feet straight up in the air to hit something. How is that not heroic?

[dirtypool]

Iolaus, hopeless sidekick wrote:

Folks keep telling me this, but somehow the challenges stay the same and I never do feel like Hercules...

Go tell it to Salmoneus

[Deriven Firelion]

Planpanther wrote:

dirtypool wrote:

Planpanther wrote:

A GMs edition? IDK, maybe for some. I have had a hell of a time not slaughtering the PCs and making them look like absolute chumps. Also, with +1/lvl the world makes little sense to me. I dont want to run in PF2 again without significant modifications to the ruleset and world assumptions.

If you don’t mind my asking - what is it about +1/lvl that you find yourself not clicking with?

Its the level 10 being able to take on armies of level 1s. Trying to imagine level 20 beings in a world where thats true makes no sense to me how they co-exist. Thats the setting immersion part. I dont like the number treadmill part of it system from the game part. Bounded accuracy was the one thing 5E knocked out of the park. YMMV.

First, you don't really need those things to exist in the same world as some kind of static set of stats. That is what I mean about getting out of the mindset of D&D and PF1. The world works the way you want it to work. If you wanted an ancient dragon to trouble level 7 PCs in PF2, you can make the math work for that. And the story would be as fun, as challenging, and as interesting as it would be for lvl 20 PCs.

That being said Bounded Accuracy wasn't bad. It works for some monsters and creatures. I thought Bounded Accuracy was terrible at simulating ancient dragons or demon lords. An army of orcs shouldn't do jack squat to either of them no matter how good they roll, but for some reason a 100 basic orcs rolling d20s had a chance of killing a demon lord or ancient dragon because of average rolls.
That to me did not go with my expectations of what a Demon Lord or Ancient dragon should be like in a fantasy world.

5E didn't simulate epic fantasy very well. Then there is the bless spell which turned Bounded Accuracy on its head. Your maximum proficiency bonus was +6 and then this spell comes along that adds +1d4 to every attack roll and saving throw? And it's a lvl 1 spell. It was ridiculously overpowered in a game world with Bounded Accuracy.

5E had so many problems that only got worse when you added in feats and MCing. It felt terrible to DM. Ancient, incredibly powerful monsters harmed by lvl 1 characters because of Bounded Accuracy. I think some guy as a test designed a lvl 7 warlock to prove he could kill Demogorgon by kiting him. That was just terrible. A lvl 7 warlock killing one of the most iconic and powerful Demon Lords in D&D history. Just no.

I think they were figuring out how to kill the Tarrasque last time I was playing 5E with some low level character kiting it. Just because they could in 5E. The Tarrasque is a monster of destruction in PF2. If you aren't some high level hero don't even get in its way. Some creatures should be that way within the world.

[Deriven Firelion]

Guntermench wrote:

Iolaus, hopeless sidekick wrote:

Guntermench wrote:

The base assumption of the game is you're basically playing Hercules, or Achilles, where yes you CAN take on an infinite number of random commoners. If that doesn't work for you, use this rule and it will work largely like 5e does.

Folks keep telling me this, but somehow the challenges stay the same and I never do feel like Hercules...

Fight something you fought at lower level. It literally won't be able to hit you.

The math stays the same when fighting equal and above level enemies, true. But that doesn't mean you aren't basically a demigod by level 15.

Hercules never really fought enemies the same level as him. He fought the Nemean Lion and a Hydra as basically a fighter with no real magical items, just super strength. I'm pretty sure you can easily simulate that in PF2. And you'd probably do it better than any edition of D&D because you could make the lion and the hydra strong enough to be a problem for Hercules.

[Guntermench]

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Guntermench wrote:

Iolaus, hopeless sidekick wrote:

Guntermench wrote:

The base assumption of the game is you're basically playing Hercules, or Achilles, where yes you CAN take on an infinite number of random commoners. If that doesn't work for you, use this rule and it will work largely like 5e does.

Folks keep telling me this, but somehow the challenges stay the same and I never do feel like Hercules...

Fight something you fought at lower level. It literally won't be able to hit you.

The math stays the same when fighting equal and above level enemies, true. But that doesn't mean you aren't basically a demigod by level 15.

Hercules never really fought enemies the same level as him. He fought the Nemean Lion and a Hydra as basically a fighter with no real magical items, just super strength. I'm pretty sure you can easily simulate that in PF2. And you'd probably do it better than any edition of D&D because you could make the lion and the hydra strong enough to be a problem for Hercules.

More like strong enough to be a huge problem for random soldiers, but not high enough to seriously challenge a level 15+ barbarian.

Hilariously, most of his challenges are actually in the game and around level 6, so you can reasonably simulate his trials at about level 8 for a solo game. I may or may not have this set up in Foundry...

[Planpanther]

Deriven Firelion wrote:

That being said Bounded Accuracy wasn't bad. It works for some monsters and creatures. I thought Bounded Accuracy was terrible at simulating ancient dragons or demon lords. An army of orcs shouldn't do jack squat to either of them no matter how good they roll, but for some reason a 100 basic orcs rolling d20s had a chance of killing a demon lord or ancient dragon because of average rolls.
That to me did not go with my expectations of what a Demon Lord or Ancient dragon should be like in a fantasy world.

5E didn't simulate epic fantasy very well. Then there is the bless spell which turned Bounded Accuracy on its head. Your maximum proficiency bonus was +6 and then this spell comes along that adds +1d4 to every attack roll and saving throw? And it's a lvl 1 spell. It was...

Again, im not defending 5E (nor the bless spell), just the concept of BA. I see the 100 orcs kill a demon lord or ancient dragon argument. Usually, this one is framed as why dont the towns people just band together and kill the dragon? Who needs adventurers when they can kill the dragon themselves? Well, they could, but they also would lose 70-90% of the towns folk doing it. Sparing everyones lives seems like a good reason to hire a band of adventurers that do this kind of thing. More importantly, it explains why an ancient dragon or demon lord doesn't just go around wiping out communities because; who could stop them?

All that aside, stories about a band of orcs taking on an ancient dragon and a few of them living to talk about it sounds fricken epic to me. Thats the kind of lore I love to drop in my games.

I do thank you for your insight as I try and give PF2 a fair shake. Im trying out the system to see how it plays despite some of my distaste for its conceits.

[thenobledrake]

Guntermench wrote:

I have a habit of rolling an unreasonable number of crits and somehow haven't killed anyone yet. It's kinda weird considering the number of posts I see about how hard this system is.

I have that same luck with dice. As does my buddy that is now GMing and I get to play. We have a joke between us about how when we are player our dice go bad, but when we GM the dice refuse to roll low.

No dead characters though, and definitely not experiencing any measure of "hell of a time" to make it not happen.

I think there are just some folks that don't realize they are creating or increasing the lethality with other constraints that they are placing on themselves, rather than it being an intrinsic quality of the system that characters get "slaughtered" or "look like absolute chumps."

Planpanther wrote:

Also, with +1/lvl the world makes little sense to me.

Maybe check out the troop type creatures in Bestiary 3? Seems like the kind of thing that covers the large group of otherwise low-threat creatures working in tandem to be a signficantly greater level of threat.

[Iolaus, hopeless sidekick]

Guntermench wrote:

Iolaus, hopeless sidekick wrote:

Guntermench wrote:

The base assumption of the game is you're basically playing Hercules, or Achilles, where yes you CAN take on an infinite number of random commoners. If that doesn't work for you, use this rule and it will work largely like 5e does.

Folks keep telling me this, but somehow the challenges stay the same and I never do feel like Hercules...

Fight something you fought at lower level. It literally won't be able to hit you.

The math stays the same when fighting equal and above level enemies, true. But that doesn't mean you aren't basically a demigod by level 15.

Like... with Sudden Leap + Raging Athlete + Assurance (Athletics) you can jump something like 36 feet straight up in the air to hit something. How is that not heroic?

Sounds super heroic, actually. Hopefully, I live to see it someday because my party contains Salmoneus and Joxer.

[Guntermench]

And that's at level EIGHT.

[dirtypool]

Iolaus, hopeless sidekick wrote:

Sounds super heroic, actually. Hopefully, I live to see it someday because my party contains Salmoneus and Joxer.

I’ve heard that Joxer the Mighty is very tidy.

[Telebuddy]

In two games at the moment, BESM, and Werewolf the Apocalypse until enough of my two tables can get together for a Pathfinder 2nd ed game.

[Temperans]

This is why half level proficiency is great. You don't have the weird case of a 100 level 1 creatures killing an ancient dragon or demon lord. But you also don't have the weird case where an army of low level creatures can't do anything.

[fanatic66]

A lot of the problems with bounded accuracy can simply be solved with giving epic level creatures immunity to non magical weapons. 5E already does that with certain creatures and really should have done it for more like powerful fiends and older dragons. This could even match the DR of earlier editions with a demon lord only can be hurt by a +3 weapon (using PF2e as an example). this is difficult in 5e because magic items aren’t a built in assumption technically.

[Planpanther]

fanatic66 wrote:

A lot of the problems with bounded accuracy can simply be solved with giving epic level creatures immunity to non magical weapons. 5E already does that with certain creatures and really should have done it for more like powerful fiends and older dragons. This could even match the DR of earlier editions with a demon lord only can be hurt by a +3 weapon (using PF2e as an example). this is difficult in 5e because magic items aren’t a built in assumption technically.

I'd be happy with just cold iron or silver or some other item that is hard to find. What are the chances a 100 orcs could all get those weapons? Im cool with the death of +1,2,3,... items. I prefer magic items to do cool things as opposed to do more numbers.

[fanatic66]

Planpanther wrote:

fanatic66 wrote:

A lot of the problems with bounded accuracy can simply be solved with giving epic level creatures immunity to non magical weapons. 5E already does that with certain creatures and really should have done it for more like powerful fiends and older dragons. This could even match the DR of earlier editions with a demon lord only can be hurt by a +3 weapon (using PF2e as an example). this is difficult in 5e because magic items aren’t a built in assumption technically.

I'd be happy with just cold iron or silver or some other item that is hard to find. What are the chances a 100 orcs could all get those weapons? Im cool with the death of +1,2,3,... items. I prefer magic items to do cool things as opposed to do more numbers.

You should really take a look at two variants for 2E: proficiency without level (bounded accuracy), and automatic bonus progression (the +1-3 bonuses from magic items are built into your character). I do agree that +1-3 items are boring.

[Unicore]

The thing that makes the + item bonus weapons and armor interesting in PF2 is that they limit and control your ability to add runes to your gear, but the trick there is you don't really get to start playing with that stuff until higher levels so magic weapons and armor just feel like +1 items for more than a 3rd of the game.

It is especially sad when adventures give you cool armor property runes as low level treasure that you won't be able to get armor you can put them on for 4 or 5 levels.

I guess automatic bonus progression gets rid of that, but you then have to come up with some way to control for players getting the cool property runes.

[Verdyn]

thenobledrake wrote:

Verdyn wrote:

It could lead to gross imbalance and headaches for the DM, but that should be solved by having a chat with your players to figure out some builds that fulfill character fantasies and work for that particular table.

I am amused by that your complaint in another thread came down to having to put in work to make the game do what you wanted to (homebrew and house-rules), and in this thread are complaining that the game doesn't just throw in everything and the kitchen sink and leave it to each group to make it do what they want it to (by having these allegedly headache- and gross imbalance-alleviating chats with the players).

None of that requires changing any rules or house ruling anything. It's just common session zero stuff with an extra emphasis on power level and what people's expectations are.

[dirtypool]

Verdyn wrote:

Even accounting for the age of each system PF1 launched with more content than PF2. It also had a massive pool of stuff just waiting to be ported over to your home table. PF2 is working with a far smaller starting pool, releasing new content fairly slowly with a massive focus on APs, and has tight math that might not even let certain concepts work.

I want to address this one, because I've seen this argument a lot, from more than a few different posters.

Pathfinder 1 launched with 8 races, 11 classes, 10 prestige classes, 39 skills, 177 feats and 628 spells.

Pathfinder 2 launched with 6 Ancestries (with two heritages for Half Elf and Half Orc to match 8 for 8,) 12 classes, 12 archetypes, 19 skills, 762 feats 557 spells.

So what PF1 has more of are listed skills and spells at launch. Everything is in relative parity - so I'm not sure what the "far smaller" starting pool is.

Next let's look at the argument that PF2 is releasing content slower than PF1.

PF1 released its CRB in August of 09, and three months later in November 09 released Bestiary 1 featuring a total of 312 monsters. So it only launched with one book.

PF2 released its CRB and its first Bestiary featuring 414 monsters in August of 19, no three month wait for the second book.

In the year from August 09 to August 10 PF1 released a total of four core or setting books: CRB, B1, Gamemastery Guide and The Inner Sea World Guide. This does not take into account the AP's

In the year from August 19 to August 20 PF2 released total of nine core or setting books: CRB, B1, GMG, B2, Advanced Players Guide, Lost Omens World Guide, Lost Omens Character Guide, Lost Omens Gods & Magic and Lost Omens Legends.

During the second full year of production PF1 put out the APG, B2, and Ultimate Magic bringing the release total to seven books (with Ultimate Magic coming out at the same point that Secrets of Magic will come out)

During the same period thus far in PF2's release cycle PF2 has added the Pathfinder Society Guide, the Lost Omens Ancestry Guide and Bestiary 3 and soon both The Mwangi Expanse and Secrets of Magic bringing their release total to fourteen books.

TLDR; PF2 actually launched with more content and is releasing content at a faster pace.

[thenobledrake]

Verdyn wrote:

None of that requires changing any rules or house ruling anything. It's just common session zero stuff with an extra emphasis on power level and what people's expectations are.

My point was that you are basically saying you don't mind doing work to make the game do exactly what you want, unless that work is called "house ruling" and then it's a problem.

And I think you're being inconsistent in your definitions of "changing rules" and "house ruling" when you imply that neither were required to arrive at a balanced and functional game-play experience from the starting point of cracking open the PF1 core rulebook.

[thenobledrake]

dirtypool wrote:

So what PF1 has more of are listed skills and spells at launch.

And those numbers are actually misleading, because many of the 39 skills PF1 are contained within the 19 Skills PF2 has rather than just not something you can have a character do anymore.

Similarly, it's not just 71 fewer spells in the book and that's that, because PF2 has heal and the heightening rules covering the function of cure light wounds, cure moderate wounds, cure serious wounds, cure critical wounds, mass cure light wounds, mass cure moderate wounds, mass cure serious wounds, mass cure critical wounds, and heal, and other cases of what used to be numerous spells that are now a singular spell but just as (and in some cases more) functional.

[Cyouni]

Verdyn wrote:

thenobledrake wrote:

Verdyn wrote:

It could lead to gross imbalance and headaches for the DM, but that should be solved by having a chat with your players to figure out some builds that fulfill character fantasies and work for that particular table.

I am amused by that your complaint in another thread came down to having to put in work to make the game do what you wanted to (homebrew and house-rules), and in this thread are complaining that the game doesn't just throw in everything and the kitchen sink and leave it to each group to make it do what they want it to (by having these allegedly headache- and gross imbalance-alleviating chats with the players).

None of that requires changing any rules or house ruling anything. It's just common session zero stuff with an extra emphasis on power level and what people's expectations are.

I'd say "requiring players to lock themselves down such that they don't bring a CRB wizard to the same game as a CRB rogue" is not - or at least should not be - common session zero stuff.

[Reckless]

I run several 2e games and one 1e game simultaneously. A couple of my players prefer 1st, several prefer 2nd. Pretty much everyone will play whatever as long as I'm running it.

I prefer running either sub-10th level PF1 or PF2. I vastly prefer some of the 1st edition APs over anything put out for 2e so far, so I'm running a homebrew Kingmaker aftermath based game and a converted Rise of the Runelords in addition to Extinction Curse.

I'm running Return of the Runelords in 1e and we're in the final chapter. Some encounters are completely trivialized by the Pcs, especially if it's the only thing they encounter in a given day (the last book was full of these).

By now, I have a better feel for what challenges a given PC group in 2e after two years than I have after all the years with PF1 and 3.5 combined.

[Planpanther]

Reckless wrote:

I run several 2e games and one 1e game simultaneously. A couple of my players prefer 1st, several prefer 2nd. Pretty much everyone will play whatever as long as I'm running it.

I prefer running either sub-10th level PF1 or PF2. I vastly prefer some of the 1st edition APs over anything put out for 2e so far, so I'm running a homebrew Kingmaker aftermath based game and a converted Rise of the Runelords in addition to Extinction Curse.

I'm running Return of the Runelords in 1e and we're in the final chapter. Some encounters are completely trivialized by the Pcs, especially if it's the only thing they encounter in a given day (the last book was full of these).

By now, I have a better feel for what challenges a given PC group in 2e after two years than I have after all the years with PF1 and 3.5 combined.

I've heard a few folks say the PF2 APs are a underwhelming. Is that because the themes have not been great, the mechanics dont highlight PF2, or some combination of the two?

[Unicore]

A lot of people felt like Age of Ashes was too brutal, and were not really interested in themes of being the police or running a circus. I am slowly playing through Agents of Edgewatch in PbP format and there are definitely some seriously cringy moments in that book, so I get why so many tables want to avoid it.

I am running Extinction curse and it is great for a more light hearted fun AP. I think Age of Ashes is great, but there are just some brutal encounters that have caused some folks to end up rage quitting.

Abomination Vaults on the other hand is an absolute master piece that is the first AP to really feel like it needed PF2's rules to exist in order to tell the story it has to tell.

This has been my experience with the FP2 APs. I am enjoying all of them, but I see the problems in the first 3.

[Guntermench]

Planpanther wrote:

Reckless wrote:

I run several 2e games and one 1e game simultaneously. A couple of my players prefer 1st, several prefer 2nd. Pretty much everyone will play whatever as long as I'm running it.

I prefer running either sub-10th level PF1 or PF2. I vastly prefer some of the 1st edition APs over anything put out for 2e so far, so I'm running a homebrew Kingmaker aftermath based game and a converted Rise of the Runelords in addition to Extinction Curse.

I'm running Return of the Runelords in 1e and we're in the final chapter. Some encounters are completely trivialized by the Pcs, especially if it's the only thing they encounter in a given day (the last book was full of these).

By now, I have a better feel for what challenges a given PC group in 2e after two years than I have after all the years with PF1 and 3.5 combined.

I've heard a few folks say the PF2 APs are a underwhelming. Is that because the themes have not been great, the mechanics dont highlight PF2, or some combination of the two?

Extinction Curse the big draw for a low of people was the Circus, but it's mostly just a vehicle to move the players around and get the ball rolling at the start. It's basically a minigame that has no bearing on anything.

Age of Ashes and Fall of Plaguestone (not an AP but still) suffer from being the first out of the gate and so the balance is a bit rough. AoA is also both fairly generic and tries to cover a little of everything mechanically from what I've read so it's just a bit scattered and generic fantasy.

Agents of Edgewatch what I've read of it is decent, it had the bad luck to come out during the police protests. So the themes for that one put some people off.

I don't think I've read anything negative about Abomination Vaults.

[Salamileg]

Planpanther wrote:

Reckless wrote:

I run several 2e games and one 1e game simultaneously. A couple of my players prefer 1st, several prefer 2nd. Pretty much everyone will play whatever as long as I'm running it.

I prefer running either sub-10th level PF1 or PF2. I vastly prefer some of the 1st edition APs over anything put out for 2e so far, so I'm running a homebrew Kingmaker aftermath based game and a converted Rise of the Runelords in addition to Extinction Curse.

I'm running Return of the Runelords in 1e and we're in the final chapter. Some encounters are completely trivialized by the Pcs, especially if it's the only thing they encounter in a given day (the last book was full of these).

By now, I have a better feel for what challenges a given PC group in 2e after two years than I have after all the years with PF1 and 3.5 combined.

I've heard a few folks say the PF2 APs are a underwhelming. Is that because the themes have not been great, the mechanics dont highlight PF2, or some combination of the two?

I'd say some combination of the two. I'm currently running Age of Ashes and have played book 1 of Extinction Curse, so I haven't played the 2e APs too extensively, so my answer will be a mix of my own experiences and what I've heard.

For one, all of the APs released before Abomination Vaults are notoriously difficult, especially in the early stages. Age of Ashes in particular was written while the system was in development, so some of the encounters as well as monster/hazard stats don't match what the rules recommend. Plus, since the books are designed with experience in mind, they're just kind of packed with encounters that don't matter or big bosses that the party will struggle to defeat.

And from my experience with Age of Ashes, the plot just isn't that interesting. My players love roleplaying with each other, love the setting, and are in love with the NPCs that Paizo created (Nketiyah is one of their favorite NPCs from any game I've ever run) but they really don't care about the overarching plot. It's very standard and, from the player's perspective, doesn't have a lot of moving parts. But, they follow it because they enjoy the game anyways.

That said, we're still having fun with it and it's incredibly easy to run, so I wouldn't call them bad by any means.

[Planpanther]

Im going through Abomination vaults as a player but the group is pretty mechanical driven. The GM just said, "your in town and the old ruin dungeon a few miles away has been giving off weird lights go investigate". Since its been a trek back and fourth and wonton murder. We havent even met a single NPC yet.

Im not complaining, I joined this group solely to get some PF2 experience. Though, damn if I don't miss some good old fashioned RP...

[Unicore]

Planpanther wrote:

Im going through Abomination vaults as a player but the group is pretty mechanical driven. The GM just said, "your in town and the old ruin dungeon a few miles away has been giving off weird lights go investigate". Since its been a trek back and fourth and wonton murder. We havent even met a single NPC yet.

Im not complaining, I joined this group solely to get some PF2 experience. Though, damn if I don't miss some good old fashioned RP...

I am very sorry to hear that. The first book is full of wonderful NPCs. My party has made "friends" with probably 30% of the creatures encountered in the top floor. The material is present in the book to make the campaign include a lot more role playing than none.

[Reckless]

Well, so far, we've had a AP where you take over a castle and then ignore it for most of the rest of the game, a circus themed one where somehow you're supposed to care about the circus AND go around fighting dinosaurs and trogs, and a police one.

The first suffers from both thematic and design issues having been written during rules development. Really, thematically it isn't any worse than many 1e APs but it doesn't stand out as any better either. Some DCs are out of wack to make them a challenge in later books. In order to introduce a bunch of locales, each book is somewhat disjointed from the rest (a fairly common issue)

Extinction Curse suffers from an identity crisis of sorts and still has a few mechanical hiccups.

Overall, though, the main thing is I've yet to run across things that shine a light on the game's strengths, and most things are designed on "hard" mode which makes a longer campaign a bit of a tiring exercise. By comparison, converting RotRL, I have been able to show how Goblins go from menace to nuisance in a few short levels, managed to turn Tsuto a real threat, and generally had a lot more fun running it, for the sixth time, with the new rules.

I like the Varisian APs the best, so that colors my perception of APs set in other parts of the world in general.

[Perpdepog]

Planpanther wrote:

Im going through Abomination vaults as a player but the group is pretty mechanical driven. The GM just said, "your in town and the old ruin dungeon a few miles away has been giving off weird lights go investigate". Since its been a trek back and fourth and wonton murder. We havent even met a single NPC yet.

Im not complaining, I joined this group solely to get some PF2 experience. Though, damn if I don't miss some good old fashioned RP...

Have you asked your GM about it? The first AP volume has a gazetteer of Otari in it, Paizo wrote flash fiction about the town, and there are also blogs of some of those flash fiction characters being statted up as NPCs, so it's not like there aren't people to meet or roleplay to be had.

[voideternal]

Planpanther wrote:

I've heard a few folks say the PF2 APs are a underwhelming. Is that because the themes have not been great, the mechanics dont highlight PF2, or some combination of the two?

I've played/GM'd PF1e Council of Thieves, Kingmaker, Carrion Crown, Reign of Winter, and Strange Aeons, as well as a few modules.

For PF2e, I was both a player and a GM for Age of Ashes (also starting extinction's curse).

I think it's a matter of taste. On these boards, the loudest criticism for Age of Ashes is the difficulty, but my group didn't have too much trouble. Books 1 and 2 were a touch difficult, but the rest were more or less standard difficulty. (I also suspect the first books were difficult because everyone at my table was a PF2e system novice)

One other thing to keep in mind is that PF1e has a ton of APs with a bunch of different themes. Gothic horror, cosmic horror, oriental, pirate, sci-fi, kingdom building, etc. etc., and PF2e isn't there yet in theme variety. If a given group likes horror adventures, there's a bunch of PF1e APs with emphasis on horror, so it would be no surprise if such a group said PF1e APs are better.

For the record, I really liked Age of Ashes. I don't consider it generic themeless fantasy. Some PF1e AP themes felt external and obvious. Like Carrion Crown was about gothic horror, undead, vampires, and werewolves. It's like you can wear these themes for Halloween. But the theme for Age of Ashes felt more internal and subtle. It's about celebration of cultural diversity. It's about free will, and how far one should go to achieve it. It's not a theme that can be easily advertised on the front cover of a book, and part of why I really like Age of Ashes.

[thenobledrake]

As a person that finds it easy to have issues with the way adventure products are, whether it be the themes, the writing, the encounter design, the organization, or some other detail that rubs me the wrong way when I run them - but has spent a few years running them because I just wasn't in the mood to make up my own adventures, I have some comments on the PF2 APs (and Plaguestone) that may be useful to others, divvied up by category:

All of Them: there are points where the organization is a mild annoyance. Things like boxed-text not even hinting at the presence of creatures that are in the room even when that's the main thing going on in the room, or otherwise puting the details you'll need now in a later paragraph, so you've got to either memorize things or read a lot more on the spot or you might have to go "wait, I miss this detail, so actually..." more often than never. This is greatly improved over other adventures I've run in the past, though, since each area description carries a difficulty next to it's name if there's any kind of encounter there so I at least have a signal telling me to read the whole description before doing/saying anything.

Plagestone and Age of Ashes: These have rough encounter design, which is a natural consequence of being the first adventures written for a new rule set, as the guidelines may not have even been finished and even if they were adapting to using them requires time/practice/a lot of deliberate effort. Besides that complaint, they are decent adventure products.

Extinction Curse: While I felt it was clear this would be a relatively typical campaign of heroics and the like, with a side of circus gimmick, a lot of people seem to have been convinced (probably by the aesthetic more than anything) that the circus element would be far more prevalent. Besides that complaint, and some moments of narrative suggesting no time to rest but adventure content being a bit too much to actually tackle all of without resting, I think the campaign is great.

Agents of Edgewatch: I like the story, the themes, and even the style... but the 1st book has too much stuff happen on a single day, and easily could have split it up to 2 days which would have removed the most common complaint I've seen about the adventure path so far. And the 2nd book has been driving my GM up the wall because he keeps reading things the author has written that don't make any sense, like a mention in one part that if the party has enough XP to level up it's a good idea to do that before they go into the next area, but there's no opportunity in the adventure to actually have that much XP by that point - so it sent him looking for something he thought he may have missed, when the author was really just, for some reason, tossing a line out for GMs that were already altering the course of the adventure to go ahead and alter it further at that point.

And it presented a mystery in a completely unsolvable way, like the author was insistent on writing a unique and unpredictable caper even if it meant (which for me it did) that the end result was more of an annoyance than an entertainment. The fun, for me at least, of a mystery story is the solving of it... not the final scene where the reveal happens and it is made clear that there was no way you could have known what would happen, not because you didn't catch all the clues or didn't understand them, but because the clues just plain didn't point at the actual answer.

And then there were some custom creatures made for the adventure that were very poorly designed (because it's one thing to have the NPC spellcasters have higher DCs than my wizard even though they are lower-level, and another entirely for them to also have as much sneak attack damage as the rogue in my party, oh and to be called "illusionist" and be thieves/smugglers but prepare quite a variety of battle magic instead of just spells that would enhance their ability to thieve/smuggle).

But the "lumps" of this book are not so unforgivable to me that they've spoiled my excitement to see Book 3 and beyond of the AP.

[vagrant-poet]

Unicore wrote:

Planpanther wrote:

Im going through Abomination vaults as a player but the group is pretty mechanical driven. The GM just said, "your in town and the old ruin dungeon a few miles away has been giving off weird lights go investigate". Since its been a trek back and fourth and wonton murder. We havent even met a single NPC yet.

Im not complaining, I joined this group solely to get some PF2 experience. Though, damn if I don't miss some good old fashioned RP...

I am very sorry to hear that. The first book is full of wonderful NPCs. My party has made "friends" with probably 30% of the creatures encountered in the top floor. The material is present in the book to make the campaign include a lot more role playing than none.

We've finished Volume 1, and with the exception of some animal/no intelligence creatures, you can talk/think your way through an awful lot of that book. So it may just be a table/GM style thing the endless meat-grinder feel.

[Planpanther]

Perpdepog wrote:

Planpanther wrote:

Im going through Abomination vaults as a player but the group is pretty mechanical driven. The GM just said, "your in town and the old ruin dungeon a few miles away has been giving off weird lights go investigate". Since its been a trek back and fourth and wonton murder. We havent even met a single NPC yet.

Im not complaining, I joined this group solely to get some PF2 experience. Though, damn if I don't miss some good old fashioned RP...

Have you asked your GM about it? The first AP volume has a gazetteer of Otari in it, Paizo wrote flash fiction about the town, and there are also blogs of some of those flash fiction characters being statted up as NPCs, so it's not like there aren't people to meet or roleplay to be had.

I did a little at launch. GM just said, "It's a megadungeon, so dont expect a lot of roleplay." I spoke to the GM a bit before the game launched and both of us wanted to give PF2 another run. Mostly, we wanted to kick the tires and try out the system. The GM wanted a second opinion. His long time gaming group got wiped out repeatedly and swore off the game. I playtested, and dont mind PF2, but I do have a lot of reservations about its design decisions. I wanted to give it a fair run before making any final opinions on PF2. So far, its shaping up to be a system I wont use, but would play with the right GM.

One thing I did want to try, which looks like I wont get to, is exploration mode. I asked the GM and he said there not really any written into the AP material. He would add some if I wanted. Another player in the group chimed in with, "there aint no three pillars, there is only two. Fighting and role playing". After that comment, I didnt expect to get any explo-mo experience in the right spirit out of this group. So I let it slide. Though, I would love to hear about how the system makes it interesting, and if it is in fact written into the AP materials.

[nephandys]

Planpanther wrote:

Perpdepog wrote:

Planpanther wrote:

Im going through Abomination vaults as a player but the group is pretty mechanical driven. The GM just said, "your in town and the old ruin dungeon a few miles away has been giving off weird lights go investigate". Since its been a trek back and fourth and wonton murder. We havent even met a single NPC yet.

Im not complaining, I joined this group solely to get some PF2 experience. Though, damn if I don't miss some good old fashioned RP...

Have you asked your GM about it? The first AP volume has a gazetteer of Otari in it, Paizo wrote flash fiction about the town, and there are also blogs of some of those flash fiction characters being statted up as NPCs, so it's not like there aren't people to meet or roleplay to be had.

I did a little at launch. GM just said, "It's a megadungeon, so dont expect a lot of roleplay." I spoke to the GM a bit before the game launched and both of us wanted to give PF2 another run. Mostly, we wanted to kick the tires and try out the system. The GM wanted a second opinion. His long time gaming group got wiped out repeatedly and swore off the game. I playtested, and dont mind PF2, but I do have a lot of reservations about its design decisions. I wanted to give it a fair run before making any final opinions on PF2. So far, its shaping up to be a system I wont use, but would play with the right GM.

One thing I did want to try, which looks like I wont get to, is exploration mode. I asked the GM and he said there not really any written into the AP material. He would add some if I wanted. Another player in the group chimed in with, "there aint no three pillars, there is only two. Fighting and role playing". After that comment, I didnt expect to get any explo-mo experience in the right spirit out of this group. So I let it slide. Though, I would love to hear about how the system makes it interesting, and if it is in fact written into the AP materials.

For what it's worth any time you're not in combat and not in down time you're technically in exploration mode; that's usually quite a bit of time. So moving around the dungeon, while not in combat, is exploration mode. Given your GM/play group I'm not sure if that will let you get your fix, but it's there.

[Unicore]

Planpanther wrote:

Perpdepog wrote:

Planpanther wrote:

Im going through Abomination vaults as a player but the group is pretty mechanical driven. The GM just said, "your in town and the old ruin dungeon a few miles away has been giving off weird lights go investigate". Since its been a trek back and fourth and wonton murder. We havent even met a single NPC yet.

Im not complaining, I joined this group solely to get some PF2 experience. Though, damn if I don't miss some good old fashioned RP...

Have you asked your GM about it? The first AP volume has a gazetteer of Otari in it, Paizo wrote flash fiction about the town, and there are also blogs of some of those flash fiction characters being statted up as NPCs, so it's not like there aren't people to meet or roleplay to be had.

I did a little at launch. GM just said, "It's a megadungeon, so dont expect a lot of roleplay." I spoke to the GM a bit before the game launched and both of us wanted to give PF2 another run. Mostly, we wanted to kick the tires and try out the system. The GM wanted a second opinion. His long time gaming group got wiped out repeatedly and swore off the game. I playtested, and dont mind PF2, but I do have a lot of reservations about its design decisions. I wanted to give it a fair run before making any final opinions on PF2. So far, its shaping up to be a system I wont use, but would play with the right GM.

One thing I did want to try, which looks like I wont get to, is exploration mode. I asked the GM and he said there not really any written into the AP material. He would add some if I wanted. Another player in the group chimed in with, "there aint no three pillars, there is only two. Fighting and role playing". After that comment, I didnt expect to get any explo-mo experience in the right spirit out of this group. So I let it slide. Though, I would love to hear about how the system makes it interesting, and if it is in fact written into the AP materials.

I don't want to sound like I am speaking badly about your GM, but running this book, I can say with certainty that exploration mode activities are written into the adventure and there is a lot of backstory information that is designed to be slow to discover. There are really good reasons for returning to previous rooms throughout the whole AP and there are definitely passages written into room descriptions that specify what could happen if a party member is investigating, or seeking. It seems like maybe your GM is more interested in "Kicking in the tires" of the combat system of PF2 that running an AP.

[Planpanther]

Unicore wrote:

I don't want to sound like I am speaking badly about your GM, but running this book, I can say with certainty that exploration mode activities are written into the adventure and there is a lot of backstory information that is designed to be slow to discover. There are really good reasons for returning to previous rooms throughout the whole AP and there are definitely passages written into room descriptions that specify what could happen if a party member is investigating, or seeking. It seems like maybe your GM is more interested in "Kicking in the tires" of the combat system of PF2 that running an AP.

I just recently met this GM. Though, he has been a regular poster on some sites for a long time. The GM tends to be more OSR in their approach to games. Though, they are genuinely interested in newer systems and gaming styles in general. Our styles are a lot different but we have great discussions in general. I get the feeling the GM is a very busy person and might be cutting corners to make the game go. Who knows?

I did raise an eyebrow when the GM mentioned no explo-mo material in the AP. That didnt seem right to me, but after another player made it clear they were going to dook in the punch bowl on explo-mo, I let it go. So far this has been a straight up learn the PF2 system experience for me, so some of the RP and explo=mo shortcuts dont bother me since im getting a direct course in the system mechanics.

I do want to make clear, im not making judgements on PF2 AP material from this experience. I have run many PF1 APs and know what to expect. So, I understand im getting a slim AP experience here.

[Unicore]

Not having players have to consider 500 feat choices at every level up,90% of which would make your character worse for having taken it, was an intentional design decision to cut down on the decision paralysis of building and developing a character.