Why would a wisp whose only speed is fly need to crawl or stand? That makes no sense.
You might make this argument for something like a wveryn or dragon, but some floating creature would not need to stand up.
They need to crawl or stand because Thems the rules. Whether those rules make sense or not is immaterial to the specific issue being discussed. You can't argue that "flying creatures aren't bothered by trip, because I don't think that the rule that says they very much are bothered by trip makes sense".
If you don't think it makes sense, sure, your group might decide to houserule it, but on the forums we kind of have to base our discussions on the rules that we all share rather than hypothetical house rules. We have to be generally discussing the same game for this all to work.
Otherwise one side of the debate is arguing that actually, you can stack +4 uno cards, while the other side is saying "no you can't stack +4 uno cards because this is a game of texas holdem, also, what are you doing in my house?".
The problem with generic tactics in PF1 Deriven is the specialty. Basically if you didn’t take the feats to make those good then they weren’t good. No one tripped in PF1 unless you had the trip feats. So unless you went for that feat line you just didn’t do it. Since most people went for the damage buffing lines it just meant you didn’t trip. PF2 allows characters to do things baseline with no feats at a much higher level than PF1, hence a character with no trip feats can still function at it.
Say look at trip. To do it in PF1 you needed improve trip to not provoke AoO. For that you needed combat expertise. For that you needed 13 int or you needed Dirty Fighting from a random splat book that came out years later. So yeah the 13 int was a hard no as a pre req on martials to a mostly useless feat that was a prereq to actually trip. Grapple the same thing.
It’s kind of a boggle that you’re comparing PF1 to PF2 here. We have a 200 post thread that Magus don’t work because 1/4-1/3 of the time they’ll eat an AoO on spellstrike if they cast. Well guess what in PF1 unless you took points in a mostly worthless stat and took a useless feat prereq then you took an AoO on every combat maneuver. Hence unless you were building for that feat line no one ever tripped or grappled. It goes back to specialization if you didn’t have the feats in PF1 you just weren’t good at things and thus didn’t do it. Maybe a fighter would have feats to burn but at a feat every other level certainly no one else did.
I could look at game after game and find a simple set of actions that every PF2 character does the vast majority of the time.
That's why you have people from PF1 on here or who analyze PF2 and claim it is far more specialized than PF1. Because some characters along with the addition of books were highly versatile in PF1. Some were not.
It's the same in PF2. Like a fighter in PF2 isn't encouraged to do anything but swing his weapon with the best accuracy over and over again because that is generally his best option.
A rogue wants to set up sneak attack because that is their best option.
You can work in other things as needed, but you don't need a group full of trippers or anything of the kind. Once the creature is tripped, it's tripped. What else you gonna do but hit it?
You keep listing stuff that was done in PF1. Plenty of characters used AoOs for grabs and trips when they weren't built for it if the encounter called for it. For example, no strength based fighter cared if the wizard was gonna AoO him because grappling the wizard was easy even if you weren't built for grappling.
And people bring up Recall Knowledge as a tactical use of an action, when this was a free action in PF1. It was used all the time.
There is a lot of stuff considered a "tactic" in PF2 when it was automatic in PF1.
You didn't need to specialized to grapple or trip. If you had a +20 BAB progression with a strength base, you were going to be pretty good at maneuvers.
No. In PF1 or 3E, you tripped and stomped the person to death. Trip was one attack, then you could continue to use your full attack routine to continue beating them. Why would you move away? Your AC was high enough to avoid getting torn up. You tripped and took away their full attack unless they wanted to attack while prone. Trip-Strike-Move Away wasn't necessary in PF1. Why use a tactic in a game that wasn't necessary?
I don't have players in PF2 trip, strike, and move away either. Not sure why you would do that unless you were engaging in a kiting strategy.
In PF2 we use trips to set up AoOs or force the use of an action to stand up to reduce attack actions for an opponent. This idea that trips automatically work is not what I have experienced. So all these players moving in, tripping easily, then moving away is not how PF2 works. You might get a trip on a boss monster, but you could just as easily move in, attempt...
If you put downsides on something that was previously automatic, then yes, it becomes more tactical. Instead of having a character that can trip, and full attack, and still have shield bonuses, having a cost on those forces deeper tactics. You have to consider whether attacking an extra time is worth it, or if you have something better to do instead. You have to consider if you want the shield bonus, or if you want the possible damage from an additional attack or the tactical potential from a move. Since you don't get the same number of attacks, tripping as your first action is now a different cost.
Similarly, if you know the opponent can't respond in a MTG game, the mana cost promotes tactics (or how you spend your resources) versus freely dumping your hand onto the field.
Having to make those mid-turn decisions creates a higher tactical requirement thanks to having limited resources.
No, it doesn't. There is literally no proof of this anywhere. This is purely your opinion.
People that were good tactically in PF1 will be good tactically in PF2 because the tactical play of PF2 is no more difficult than it was in PF1. It is just a different form of resource management.
I mean, tactics wise your are using the shield in both situations. The only difference is 1 costs and action and the other just happens. The mechanics of how they work are different, the tactic remains the same: You used a shield.That's uh, a pretty significant difference though. In one example you're making a round-by-round decision whether or not to use a certain ability for its benefits. In the other you're getting a bonus automatically just for showing up.
... It's okay to like PF1. There's nothing wrong with it. It's a fun game. You don't need to make all these huge leaps to try to justify why it was neat.
The same could be said about PF2.
I like both games. But I don't need to pretend one is more tactical than the other to make it seem better.
I know PF1 was as tactical as PF2. Which is why a bunch of folks making a claim I know not to be true who don't seem to know PF1 tactics very well at all makes for a very hard debate.
Because I seem to know tactics from both games, while some seem to know tactics only from PF2.
I think I have vastly different idea of what the concept of tactics even means from Deriven.
If Raising a Shield having an opportunity cost vs it being a passive in PF1 doesn't make the former a greater tactical consideration than the latter I have no idea what he is talking about.
You don't? Let's see what you remember about PF1.
How about this difference. Do you know that a defensive shield fighter might choose a feat like Combat Expertise choosing to forgo attack bonus for a bonus on AC? Was that a tactical option?
Or a Power Attacking fighter choosing to give up attack bonus for more damage against a weak AC target? Or choosing not to use Power Attack on a strong AC target?
Or having to choose where to use a large shield for maximum AC bonus or a buckler to ensure a hand is free for casting or shooting a bow or drawing some item you needed?
You don't remember all those little tactical choices that came with certain feats or items? Different mechanics, same idea of sacrificing something to gain something.
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How about this difference. Do you know that a defensive shield fighter might choose a feat like Combat Expertise choosing to forgo attack bonus for a bonus on AC? Was that a tactical option?
The defensive Fighter was using Expertise by default. Switching it off was the rare case scenario.
Or a Power Attacking fighter choosing to give up attack bonus for more damage against a weak AC target? Or choosing not to use Power Attack on a strong AC target?
This one's funny. I don't remember a case where a character with Power Attack didn't use it. It's always Power Attack.
Or having to choose where to use a large shield for maximum AC bonus or a buckler to ensure a hand is free for casting or shooting a bow or drawing some item you needed?
That's build phase. Build phase is extremely complex in PF1 and PF2. But once in combat, you were not changing anything about your setup unless you were built to change your setup.
Do I flank or do I raise my shield?
That's the kind of simple tactical decisions you will never have to take in PF1.There are 2 dimensions to "tactics", called, in mathematics, complexity and difficulty.
Difficulty is the amount of information you have to deal with. It's the sum of the game rules, basically. So both PF1 and PF2 are difficult.
Complexity is the thought process that the brain uses to deal with information. It's the time spent on decision making. In PF1, outside casters (and mostly full casters) it was close to 0: You were always doing the same thing. In PF2, it's higher (even if we are far away from chess and go on complexity).So, depending on what you like in tactics, you can consider that PF1 and PF2 are equivalent or that PF2 is tactical and PF1 isn't (outside full casters).
Personally, I quite like both complexity and difficulty. But that's me, and everyone can have a different point of view.
Completely false. You are either willfully ignoring PF1 tactics to push a preference or don't know PF1 tactics.
They existed for martials, but not to the same degree as casters.
I mean, tactics wise your are using the shield in both situations. The only difference is 1 costs and action and the other just happens. The mechanics of how they work are different, the tactic remains the same: You used a shield.
Also, adding a penalty does not make something more tactical, it just adds a penalty. Tactics are not defined by you taking more penalties, but by the type of options.
Let's say for the sake of argument that there's two RTSs. One has absolutely no resource use/gathering, and you can build everything at no cost (yes, this isn't really generally considered a RTS anymore, but bear with me). The other is a standard RTS, where you have to choose what you want to build with your limited resources.
Which of these two examples do you think is going to have more tactical gameplay?
Your example is not PF1 or PF2.
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Completely false. You are either willfully ignoring PF1 tactics to push a preference or don't know PF1 tactics.
They existed for martials, but not to the same degree as casters.
Well, maybe I'm wrong. But it seems that there's a majority thinking PF2 is more complex tactically.
So, maybe there's something that pushes us to think that way. Instead of trying to find who's right or wrong, maybe taking it into account would be helpful.| 12 people marked this as a favorite. |
A different character build isn't tactics, its strategy.
How you outfit, train, and which theatres you deploy your forces into is strategy. (In this case your forces is one adventurer, but the point still stands.)
The decisions your forces make in the moment to try and win the battle is tactics (such as whether to try and flank the enemy or try to trip them and so on).
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[I cut off the extra quotes so we could actually see what we're replying to]
You're cherry picking a particular class whose weakness was a low number of feats and a simple play style. You really didn't need to use maneuvers as a paladin. Everything was built into the class.A paladin would likely get Weapon Focus, Power Attack, and a bunch of simple feats then his main tactical focus was when to use Divine Smite, Lay on Hands, and the like. Champions in particular are more tactical than PF1.
This would basically be like me using a PF1 wizard to compare tactics to a PF2 wizard. It wouldn't be much of a contest as the PF1 wizard would easily beat any PF2 character for tactical capability at high level.
Cherry picking seems a particularly harsh categorization when I explicitly said it was based on an example from a recent session. That being said, nothing I talked about for the PF2 champion was an essential part of the class - which is part of my point: the base chassis of PF2 gives rise to more tactical decisions than PF1, at the very least for people who aren't actively casting spells. As you said, all the decisions the vast majority of paladins would make in a day are: when to Lay on Hands (and in my experience, the answer was normally 'whenever I'm more than a little wounded' past low levels, you had a lot); when to Smite Evil (normally pretty obvious which is going to be the scary enemies), and ... that's about it. Full-attack is automatically decided for you. You'd pick your spells to some degree, but I don't know many paladins who didn't just prep a few buff spells and cast them ahead of time.
Anyway, you say I'm cherry picking, but I think my points stands for basically all the martials - antipaladin/paladin, barbarian, cavalier, fighter, gunslinger, monk, ranger, rogue, samurai, slayer, and swashbuckler all seem like they fit this pretty well. You could build one to focus on maneuvers or things that aren't full-attacking, but you're still so heavily invested in your niche that you very rarely take actions you've not invested in, and it's difficult to make an effective build with a wide variety of actions. Brawler and Shifter are the two martial classes that I saw with the most variability in-combat if the player wanted to go for it (though I only saw Adaptive Shifters). Casters cheat on this by making their action 'cast a spell', which is a really varied action - but even they're not a silver bullet here. I've seen plenty of pigeon-holed casters; I've seen a sorcerer that was so focused on Illusion spells both in their feat choices and their spell choices that when creatures were immune to them, they just had one spell per level they could cast that did anything. I'm not saying that build was optimal, just that it was definitely a sort of gameplay that was easily encouraged by the feats to boost specific spells/schools of magic. There was definitely a trend with pure martials on one end and 9th-level prepped casters on the other end for the tactical options they'd bring to the table when optimized, not doubting that.
To put it simply, outside of casting spells, there were very few mechanics built into PF1 that required you to evaluate what you were doing on a round-by-round basis; most feats were automatic, either with flat numerical bonuses (weapon focus) or benefits that you always wanted on (power attack). Outside of casting spells, most classes and archetypes incentivized building a character in such a way that the only decision you needed to make was if this combat was worth using a limited resource (Smite Evil, Martial Flexibility, Rage rounds at low level, etc, etc) to get a benefit.
The defensive Fighter was using Expertise by default. Switching it off was the rare case scenario.
For you maybe, but may players made the decision based on what they were fighting. If they were fighting something with a high AC, they didn't use expertise.
This one's funny. I don't remember a case where a character with Power Attack didn't use it. It's always Power Attack.
I made enemies where they had to make that choice. Maybe you played with DMs where that choice was never required. Doesn't mean it wasn't a tactical choice.
That's build phase. Build phase is extremely complex in PF1 and PF2. But once in combat, you were not changing anything about your setup unless you were built to change your setup.
How is that different in PF2? My double slice player is built for two weapons. He gets upset when he doesn't get to use double slice because he is demonstrably worse when not using double slice.
My shield user is built with a shield in hand and a sword. To take off the shield requires an action to take it, an action to stow it, and and action to get it and an action to put it back on. So the choice not to use his shield is a build choice. Once committed to doing so, it's hard for him to do otherwise. With a shield and weapon in hand in PF2, he's locked in unless he wants to spend actions to adjust which can take quite a while. He can drop it as an action, but then he loses that shield option.
In PF1 they could make the same choice. I often had characters who did not rely on weapon builds like a paladin choose to carry a shield and use it on occasion. They chose often simple feats like Power Attack and Weapon focus bastard sword. The cost of them switching from one to two hands or back wasn't as feat intensive because they weren't locked in since their main combat power was Divine Smite.
Because you did not use something or see something done doesn't mean it wasn't at many tables. It was still very much a tactical choice.
Is this tangent still ongoing? Yikes, guys.
Obviously first edition had plenty of requirements for and benefits to smart tactical decisions. Obviously second edition has plenty of requirements for and benefits to smart tactical decisions.
No, the way it works does not play out the same way, to my understanding. That doesn't diminish the depth of play in either.
I guess I just don't get why we've had several pages of this pissing contest ongoing.
I will say that my primary campaign is at level 20 finally, and I hate it. Part of it is the module and part is their build decisions and spell selections, but they are virtually unkillable. They do hilarious damage and don't take it in return. Without it being a significant challenge here, it almost feels like busywork to the players.
PF2 just feels less and less lethal the further into the game you get. It's bugging me. I'm really excited to get back to low-level play when creatures with Swallow Whole, hefty attack bonuses, or aoe effects were scary.
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I think I have vastly different idea of what the concept of tactics even means from Deriven.
If Raising a Shield having an opportunity cost vs it being a passive in PF1 doesn't make the former a greater tactical consideration than the latter I have no idea what he is talking about.
You don't? Let's see what you remember about PF1.
How about this difference. Do you know that a defensive shield fighter might choose a feat like Combat Expertise choosing to forgo attack bonus for a bonus on AC? Was that a tactical option?
Or a Power Attacking fighter choosing to give up attack bonus for more damage against a weak AC target? Or choosing not to use Power Attack on a strong AC target?
Or having to choose where to use a large shield for maximum AC bonus or a buckler to ensure a hand is free for casting or shooting a bow or drawing some item you needed?
You don't remember all those little tactical choices that came with certain feats or items? Different mechanics, same idea of sacrificing something to gain something.
Serious question - how often did you see people changing these things? My experience was certainly that Combat Expertise or Power Attack were turned on automatically, built into their stats, and never turned off or really even thought about again. The numerical effect of Power Attack was so strong, you'd need to be missing on something like a 15+ for it to be worth turning it off, and Combat Expertise was almost always accounted for with other options to make it worthwhile. You chose to use a large shield vs a buckler when you were upgrading your items and now you were locked in - if you've already got the +4 steel shield, you're not going to change to your masterwork buckler unless things have gone very wrong. Again, the definition almost everyone but you seems to be working with is that tactics are the choices you have to make inside a combat - but if you don't like that being the definition, feel free to call it something else. The advantage we're talking about for PF2 here is that you have opportunity cost to your decisions, but the cost is not so large that you're forced into one set of actions - Double Slice may be your most effective two actions, but it's easy for that to get disrupted and you to have a different set of actions that's more effective for a specific situation. That just doesn't exist for the vast majority of martials I've encountered in PF1, in several hundred sessions with a diversity of players. It's not me forgetting anything; the last time I ran PF1 was a session that finished 30 minutes ago.
Why would a wisp whose only speed is fly need to crawl or stand? That makes no sense.
You might make this argument for something like a wveryn or dragon, but some floating creature would not need to stand up.
They need to crawl or stand because Thems the rules. Whether those rules make sense or not is immaterial to the specific issue being discussed. You can't argue that "flying creatures aren't bothered by trip, because I don't think that the rule that says they very much are bothered by trip makes sense".
If you don't think it makes sense, sure, your group might decide to houserule it, but on the forums we kind of have to base our discussions on the rules that we all share rather than hypothetical house rules. We have to be generally discussing the same game for this all to work.
Otherwise one side of the debate is arguing that actually, you can stack +4 uno cards, while the other side is saying "no you can't stack +4 uno cards because this is a game of texas holdem, also, what are you doing in my house?".
So you prone doesn't work with swimming only. Odd.
Regardless it's not as good a tactic if you're moving away as stated here. It's much better used to set up AOOs.
Knocking something prone and moving away just takes you out of AoO range and allows the creature to use spells or other ranged attacks or move away without penalty. There is nothing that indicates it must stand up and rush you.
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How is that different in PF2? My double slice player is built for two weapons. He gets upset when he doesn't get to use double slice because he is demonstrably worse when not using double slice.
In PF2, you can build characters who use the same thing over and over again. It's the case of my Barbarian (and actually it's bugging me, but that's my issue). But it's not enforced by the game. The Double Slice Fighter is not so much better than the free hand Fighter who has way more tactical depth.
In PF1, you had to specialize your character if you wanted to be effective. If you didn't, then your character would be subpar and it would be a bad tactical choice. And that's all I'm saying: PF1 choices were made at character build, not during combat. Grappling and Tripping without the feats? Nope, never ever.The very last round I played with my level 3 Paladin I used Grapple. Of course, I could have attacked instead and it would not have been that bad. But I had the choice of Grapple.
In PF1, I have never used Grapple (as a PC) against a monster.
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This one's funny. I don't remember a case where a character with Power Attack didn't use it. It's always Power Attack.I made enemies where they had to make that choice. Maybe you played with DMs where that choice was never required. Doesn't mean it wasn't a tactical choice.
It's entirely possible, and you've mentioned you spent hours crafting these enemies, but it's actively working against the maths of the game. An on-level enemy for a 20th level fighter like a Balor has an AC of 36; a fairly moderately optimized fighter has an attack bonus of +36 trivially easily (+20 bab + 10 strength + 5 enhancement + 1 competence ioun stone + ...). I've seen inquisitors with attack bonuses of +34 at level 10 (+7 bab + 10 dex + 2 size + 4 enhancement + 2 bane + 3 studied target + 2 morale + 4 outflank). It's possible to painstakingly make enemies that have ACs that would challenge optimized late-game martials, but don't imply that's the GM's fault; that's squarely the fault of the system, and is a fair critique of the system.
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There is a lot of stuff considered a "tactic" in PF2 when it was automatic in PF1.
You didn't need to specialized to grapple or trip. If you had a +20 BAB progression with a strength base, you were going to be pretty good at maneuvers.
The first point you're making is part of our point - if tactics are the decisions you have to make in-combat (as opposed to on the strategic level of building your character/levelling them up/equipping them/etc), making something have an opportunity cost IS making it tactical. Disagree with the wording if you want, but address the actual point being made.
The second point is just actually laughable - that's just not how PF1 works. You say if you've got +20 BAB and good strength, you can do maneuvers without specializing. Let's compare it against the Balor I still had up from a previous post here - their CMD is 54. Your bonus to grapple as a 30 STR character with 20 BAB is +30 - you'll only succeed on a 20, and you'll get an attack of opportunity for doing so. That's not even looking at larger creatures than Large, where it gets even more difficult. It's somewhat true at the beginning of the game, but very quickly becomes false. At level 10, a Derakni (CR 10) has a CMD of 36; your CMB of +17 (+10 bab + 7 str) is going to succeed on a 19 on the dice - and an on-level enemy is generally pretty weak in PF1 by that point. Investment is required for maneuvers to be at all functional after the early game.
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Serious question - how often did you see people changing these things? My experience was certainly that Combat Expertise or Power Attack were turned on automatically, built into their stats, and never turned off or really even thought about again. The numerical effect of Power Attack was so strong, you'd need to be missing on something like a 15+ for it to be worth turning it off, and Combat Expertise was almost always accounted for with other options to make it worthwhile. You chose to use a large shield vs a buckler when you were upgrading your items and now you were locked in - if you've already got the +4 steel shield, you're not going to change to your masterwork buckler unless things have gone very wrong. Again, the definition almost everyone but you seems to be working with is that tactics are the choices you have to make inside a combat - but if you don't like that being the definition, feel free to call...I think I have vastly different idea of what the concept of tactics even means from Deriven.
If Raising a Shield having an opportunity cost vs it being a passive in PF1 doesn't make the former a greater tactical consideration than the latter I have no idea what he is talking about.
You don't? Let's see what you remember about PF1.
How about this difference. Do you know that a defensive shield fighter might choose a feat like Combat Expertise choosing to forgo attack bonus for a bonus on AC? Was that a tactical option?
Or a Power Attacking fighter choosing to give up attack bonus for more damage against a weak AC target? Or choosing not to use Power Attack on a strong AC target?
Or having to choose where to use a large shield for maximum AC bonus or a buckler to ensure a hand is free for casting or shooting a bow or drawing some item you needed?
You don't remember all those little tactical choices that came with certain feats or items? Different mechanics, same idea of sacrificing something to gain something.
Often. I saw lots of tactics.
I am the primary DM of the group. I set things up so the players would have to make such decisions.
I've already stated that I understand the default difficulty game level of PF1 was not very challenging past lvl 7 or so. When a game isn't challenging, you don't really have to use tactics. But that doesn't mean tactical options don't exist in PF1.
I designed the encounters requiring tactical decisions to win in PF1. Thus tactical decision making was required when best to use and not use feats or what not.
That's why I know tons of PF1 tactics. I DMed it for years. I built encounters meticulously for years to force tactical decision making.
I moved from PF1 to PF2 not because PF2 offers superior tactical options, but because it maintained the tactical gameplay I enjoyed with 1/10th the work I had to put in to make the game challenging in PF1.
Making PF1 challenging enough to make players play tactically was like writing a 10 page term paper every major encounter. I burned out on that.
PF2 default level is challenging. Thus it naturally encourages tactical play to win rather than having to build everything up to challenge the numerical superiority players could obtain in PF1.
If you want to argue that angle that makes PF2 more tactical, I can agree with that. PF1 started off levels 1 through about 7 as fairly challenging with tactical decision making required, then went off the rails with each additional level of progression requiring ever greater work to challenge the PCs.
PF2 that doesn't happen, so you can challenge the PCs with monsters as written up to level 20.
My group has had zero trouble adjusting to PF2 tactics. PF2 mathematical norms they had some troubles adjusting to, but tactically they have built for tactical efficiency as they learned the system. PF2 tactics are no more complex to them than PF1.
I don't hate PF2, so I'm not sure why it is so important for some to prove that PF2 is more tactical than PF1 as a selling point. It just isn't. It isn't necessary to sell PF2 as a superior tactical game to make the game enjoyable.
Players who played challenging PF1 games will know that PF2 isn't more tactically interesting than PF1. I don't see the point in telling them otherwise.
PF1 was a very tactical game in my experience. I had a blast learning all the tactical options in that game just as I'm enjoying having tactical options in PF2.
I'll leave it there with the dead horse thoroughly beaten.
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I designed the encounters requiring tactical decisions to win in PF1. Thus tactical decision making was required when best to use and not use feats or what not.
I see what you mean, now.
But it also means that you were tailoring the tactical aspect to your party. Because you had to sometimes raise AC to the point of making Power Attack a bad thing and to sometimes lower CMD for some tactics to be viable. Even if the game, per its rules, allows it, it was highly uncommon and asking for crazy work. In my opinion, it's not the gaming experience most of us got.|
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I can see it's possible that a particularly committed GM, such as yourself, could create PF1 encounters that do require the potentially tactical options to be used in a tactical manner. I think it's such a huge workload on the GM that the vast, vast majority of GMs wouldn't have been doing so, and so I'd be pretty comfortable telling someone who is experienced with PF1 that the move to PF2 will lead to a more tactical combat. I agree that it's a tangent that has been thoroughly discussed at this point, so I'll leave it there too :)
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Though in my personal opinion I've never considered options like "do I want to use Power Attack or not" super tactical as it is just a spreadsheet problem that says "yes, this does more expected average damage now". More interesting to choose between offense or defense or between different conditions.
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So PF1 having tactical play on par with PF2 is like ignoring all the bad design.of Skyrim because someone could just mod it to be something completely outside of the unmodded experience.
Considering that this whole discussion is about how difficulty is easily modified in PF2, I think I'll answer you: Yes!
It's important to recognize the difference in experience. PF1 can be made tactical with a lot of work on challenges and monsters. Which is kind of true, actually. The rules per se are tactical, it's just that we have learned to exploit the system making most rules useless. But it's not a problem inside the rules but with our experience.
The same way PF2 is not "difficult" as the rules allow you easily to change the difficulty. PF2, as a ruleset, doesn't have a stated difficulty. What is difficult is APs and some PFS adventures. They do have a stated difficulty and as such can be considered difficult.
I will say there is a world.of difference in the suggested tweaks being either a one of change at character gen or making encounter adjustments that take less than 30s against spending hours rebuilding creatures.
Also notable is that the difficulty mods we have been suggesting have all been to male the game easier and less reliant on strong tactical player rather than the PF1 problem being the exact opposite.
Well, you can draw a line in the sand stating that such level of modification is "expected" by the system and such level isn't. But you'll have hard time convincing everyone. I'm pretty sure the issue some have with difficulty is that, for them, it's too much of a change.
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I'm not drawing a line. I'm saying if we are evaluating which game is baseline more tactical, it isn't the one suggesting a need to spend hours tweaking it to force a need to use tactics.
I trust Deriven when he says he was pushing PF1 to its limits in terms of difficulty to provide a challenging experience to his players. That's not tweaking, it's just playing with the difficulty setting. I agree it was way harder in PF1, but it's still the same thing we are suggesting for those people that have hard time with PF2. And Deriven is pretty overt about PF2 difficulty being easier to change.
And I also agree with you that Deriven experience is not the common one (neither the one I've experienced). But I can understand his point of view. There's nothing bad in recognizing different points of view because of different experiences.
Sorry, but what you call BASE PFX is an attempt to raise your experience as more than an experience and to dismiss Deriven experience.
You can acknowledge Deriven experience and keep your point of view. Something like: PF1 may be tactical when you push the difficulty, but otherwise it is not as tactical as PF2.
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You can acknowledge Deriven experience and keep your point of view. Something like: PF1 may be tactical when you push the difficulty, but otherwise it is not as tactical as PF2.
You're completely right here and this was a point I made many, many pages back. A reason that PF2 is such a deep game out of the box is inherently because if you make suboptimal decisions in battle you're going to get slapped around. You're not doing enough to shift the dice in your favor, basically. This is why the core idea in the thread title ("why don't we make enemies hit less and therefore easier") is flawed, it would inherently make the game easier and therefore less interesting.
Yes, you can make PF1E more difficult and you can make DND5E more difficult, and that adds depth to those games, but that's not really the out-of-the-box experience. It requires a lot of GM work, as Deriven did. Comparatively, PF2E requires zero work to give a solid tactical experience, but if you do want an easier dice-and-beer game, you can just put Weak templates on enemies and boom: you have that too. Very little work for a VERY flexible experience.
Well tuned difficulty is not the only thing PF2 does well in terms adding tactical depth. I think others have made good points about how PF2E's action economy and the interplay between PCs to set each other up is an improvement over other games, but the very fact that monsters are powerful and aren't just walked over by PCs is significant reason that the game is interesting tactically.
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Intimidating Glare is situationally necessary depending on campaign. If your campaign is very Common-centric, then it's not as needed.
Sure, but you'll still have things like guard dogs, mounts, ect even in a primarily humanoid campaign: while less necessary, I've never felt it a wasted feat no matter the game so now when I make a Cha character with Intimidate it feels needed.
That said, anyone who wants to Demoralize in combat definitely wants to pick up Intimidating Glare, probably wants Battle Cry, and likely wants Terrified Retreat. Then again, that's true of any skill you want to focus on.
Yep, and that was the point I was making: You'll be spending feats and increase your skill ranks/proficiency on your preferred skills/maneuvers in both PF1 and PF2.
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Sure but the feat chains are smaller so the investment needed to max something is smaller.
My point was that they existed at all and that PF2 didn't do away with taking feats to improve your ability to use maneuvers/skills.
PF1 you might have had space for two if lucky but some like demoralize or some teamwork chains took most of your build choices till level ten or so.
That just isn't true, especially those classes with bonus feats: now of course you could always find more feats to take, but to make them viable you weren't limited to 2.
PF2 you probably have space for 3-4 specialization a depending on choices.
Do you though? You could easily spend 4 skill feats and some class/ancestry feats on a single one [like demoralize]. Then you have a limit to how many skills you get to legendary, so that limits most classes to 3 there. Now if you mean not going all in on them, then you could so that with WAY more in PF1: you could get the basic in for all of the maneuvers there since you could be working with as many as 23 feats you can spend on them.
If you would be knocked prone while you're Climbing or Flying, you fall (see Falling for the rules on falling).The only move actions you can use while you're prone are Crawl and Stand.Being knocked prone while flying is pretty devastating. You are knocked to the ground and prone (so melee attackers can now all reach you), you take fall damage and you have to waste an action to stand up before you can fly again.
Also, there is this.
The rules for flight say that a creature might need to attempt an Acrobatics check to Maneuver in Flight to pull off tricky maneuvers. You can generally use the same judgment you would for calling for Acrobatics checks when someone’s moving on the ground. Trying to dive through a narrow space, make a sharp turn, or the like might require checks, usually with a simple DC.Flying enemies aren't intended to just be able to easily fly wherever they want. They have to pass an acrobatics check to do things like sharp turns or to do stuff like flying in narrow spaces (such as between trees). Some really basic things like flying against the wind or hovering in midair are listed as examples under the expert sample tasks of maneuver in flight - that is a DC 20 Acrobatics check.
A lot of GMs don't run it that way (because they don't necessarily read the aerial combat and maneuver in flight sections and just assume it works like other movement types), but ignoring this stuff isn't RAW or RAI.
You move through the air up to your fly Speed. Moving upward (straight up or diagonally) uses the rules for moving through difficult terrain. You can move straight down 10 feet for every 5 feet of movement you spend. If you Fly to the ground, you don’t take falling damage. You can use an action to Fly 0 feet to hover in place. If you’re airborne at the end of your turn and didn’t use a Fly action this round, you fall.
There is no roll required to Hover, just an action cost.
That is RAI and RAW.
I don't have any intention of increasing the number of rolls required in PF2. My players are already suffering dice rolling fatigue from everything you have to roll for in this game every monster you fight.
Once they are flying, they can move while flying per the rules without rolling. I will only be having them roll for flight if they are doing a maneuver that isn't already covered in the rules.
I'm not even sure why listed those maneuvers as examples when the flying section already covers much of how you run the rules for flying. Seems like another example of contradictory rules in different parts of the books.
I'm going with the specific rules given, not the examples.
Hover is an action.
Moving through wind is like difficult terrain or greater difficult terrain if moving upwards.
Downward movement 10 feet per 5 feet down.
Upward movement is difficult terrain.
You can fly your speed with an action an stay aloft.
No stepping in flight.
If you don't take a flight action, then you fall.
I'll use the prone rules for flight requiring them to stand up first before taking a flight move.
I don't believe what you wrote about rolling every time to be RAI or RAW when the fly rules are more clear than that. I think a flight roll is for a difficult maneuver, not something already spelled out in the rules.
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I believe they are referencing the Maneuver in Flight action and it's expert difficulty sample maneuver - hover midair.
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They're almost certainly referencing that. It's not a great example, because it contradicts the Fly action in the CRB.
Fly
Single Action
Move
Requirements You have a fly Speed.
You move through the air up to your fly Speed. Moving upward (straight up or diagonally) uses the rules for moving through difficult terrain. You can move straight down 10 feet for every 5 feet of movement you spend. If you Fly to the ground, you don’t take falling damage. You can use an action to Fly 0 feet to hover in place. If you’re airborne at the end of your turn and didn’t use a Fly action this round, you fall.
The bolding is mine.
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I believe they are referencing the Maneuver in Flight action and it's expert difficulty sample maneuver - hover midair.
That is what I am referencing - it is a gray area because it does contradict the fly action - I think it is something that needs an errata to clarify which is which. Until then, it is the GMs call which to use.
But my point was that you can't argue that flying creatures are unstoppable in all/most games just because in one group's game the GM just ignores the existence of maneuver in flight and the aerial combat section of the rules. Arguing that flying just wherever you want in any way you want without skill checks is the RAW or RAI requires ignoring 3 paragraphs of rules and an entire action.
If you want to ignore those things at your table, that is your prerogative (I believe that the rules exist solely for the purpose of giving the GM tools to adjudicate things - all rules are optional tools for the GM to use to run a fun game). But we have to be discussing the same game when debating stuff like the topic of the thread.
Cherry picking which rules to follow and which rules to ignore can be constructive in a game (if done responsibly by the GM in service to making the game fun and challenging) but it isn't constructive in the context of this thread. We have to include the aerial combat rules and maneuver in flight in this discussion, whether they make sense to a particular poster or not.
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They're almost certainly referencing that. It's not a great example, because it contradicts the Fly action in the CRB.
The bolding is mine.Fly
Single Action
Move
Requirements You have a fly Speed.
You move through the air up to your fly Speed. Moving upward (straight up or diagonally) uses the rules for moving through difficult terrain. You can move straight down 10 feet for every 5 feet of movement you spend. If you Fly to the ground, you don’t take falling damage. You can use an action to Fly 0 feet to hover in place. If you’re airborne at the end of your turn and didn’t use a Fly action this round, you fall.
It's not actually a contradiction: it says "You can use an action to Fly 0 feet to hover in place", not 'You can use the Fly action to Fly 0 feet to hover in place'. Therefor, the action, Maneuver in Flight, fulfills "You can use an action to Fly 0 feet to hover in place". While it's understandable people would read Fly's mention of taking action as a Fly action, it never actually says that.
It's not actually a contradiction: it says "You can use an action to Fly 0 feet to hover in place", not 'You can use the Fly action to Fly 0 feet to hover in place'. Therefor, the action, Maneuver in Flight, fulfills "You can use an action to Fly 0 feet to hover in place". While it's understandable people would read Fly's mention of taking action as a Fly action, it never actually says that.
You're literally using an action to Fly 0 feet, an action that is listed under the Fly description. In what world is that not a Fly action?
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It's not actually a contradiction: it says "You can use an action to Fly 0 feet to hover in place", not 'You can use the Fly action to Fly 0 feet to hover in place'. Therefor, the action, Maneuver in Flight, fulfills "You can use an action to Fly 0 feet to hover in place". While it's understandable people would read Fly's mention of taking action as a Fly action, it never actually says that.You're literally using an action to Fly 0 feet, an action that is listed under the Fly description. In what world is that not a Fly action?
Where does it say the action is a Fly action? It just says that there is an action you can use to hover, but does NOT say that action is the Fly action. It even uses "a Fly action" in the next sentence, so why not in that one?
So there is a way to read it where it works and one where you can read it so it contradicts... There is one issue though: Maneuver in Flight doesn't count as a Fly action so only using Maneuver in Flight causes you to fall at the end of your turn. This is a problem even if we ignore hovering: if means that you'll ALWAYS fall if you're flying into a wind or make a steep ascent or descent without doing a regular Fly action in a completely different direction for some reason.
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It's not actually a contradiction: it says "You can use an action to Fly 0 feet to hover in place", not 'You can use the Fly action to Fly 0 feet to hover in place'. Therefor, the action, Maneuver in Flight, fulfills "You can use an action to Fly 0 feet to hover in place". While it's understandable people would read Fly's mention of taking action as a Fly action, it never actually says that.You're literally using an action to Fly 0 feet, an action that is listed under the Fly description. In what world is that not a Fly action?Where does it say the action is a Fly action? It just says that there is an action you can use to hover, but does NOT say that action is the Fly action. It even uses "a Fly action" in the next sentence, so why not in that one?
So there is a way to read it where it works and one where you can read it so it contradicts... There is one issue though: Maneuver in Flight doesn't count as a Fly action so only using Maneuver in Flight causes you to fall at the end of your turn. This is a problem even if we ignore hovering: if means that you'll ALWAYS fall if you're flying into a wind or make a steep ascent or descent without doing a regular Fly action in a completely different direction for some reason.
It all really badly needs an errata to clarify it. I think the maneuver in flight action should probably be errata'd to explicitly count as flying for the purposes of not falling.
I also think it is better from a game balance point of view for maneuver in flight to be used more - it helps to balance out how overpowering flying enemies can be in certain situations and to give characters options to avoid flying enemies. If the enemy has to pass an acrobatics check to do sharp turns/hover/fly through narrow/cluttered places, it gives the party the option of moving into locations/places to make it hard for flying creatures to maneuver.
It doesn't feel great if you run into a cave with only a 15 or 20 foot ceiling, or you run out of the open area into the forest, and the flying enemy can still fly in after you and be just as effective. The same goes for seeing a dragon flying towards you at high speed, and doing the smart thing by moving to the side of their flight path to make them have to turn doesn't make them have to slow down at all. Flying enemy encounters(especially at low levels) really need these limitations to avoid players feeling powerless against them.
It all really badly needs an errata to clarify it.
Oh for sure: Even if I'm correct in my reading it's needlessly misleading and I agree to both for allowing Maneuver to count as Fly and to see a push to use Maneuver more: it'd be nice to see AP's and adventures that have encounters with flying creatures note DC that might occur in them to get people to note and use them. It's interesting that Tumble Through and Balance get the spotlight quite often but Maneuver in Flight gets pretty much forgotten by most people. Maybe it's because flight for PC's gets pushed quite a bit higher in level for PF2.
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"Use an action to Fly 0 feet" has the same meaning as "use the Fly action to fly 0 feet."
Hmmm... Now that I'm home and on my computer, I can see you're right. I didn't think it said Fly [with a capital], and I missed that when using my mobile device. So, yeah it's totally contradictory. I'd still go with Maneuver in Flight for hover if I was picking one.
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It's not actually a contradiction: it says "You can use an action to Fly 0 feet to hover in place", not 'You can use the Fly action to Fly 0 feet to hover in place'. Therefor, the action, Maneuver in Flight, fulfills "You can use an action to Fly 0 feet to hover in place". While it's understandable people would read Fly's mention of taking action as a Fly action, it never actually says that.You're literally using an action to Fly 0 feet, an action that is listed under the Fly description. In what world is that not a Fly action?Where does it say the action is a Fly action? It just says that there is an action you can use to hover, but does NOT say that action is the Fly action. It even uses "a Fly action" in the next sentence, so why not in that one?
So there is a way to read it where it works and one where you can read it so it contradicts... There is one issue though: Maneuver in Flight doesn't count as a Fly action so only using Maneuver in Flight causes you to fall at the end of your turn. This is a problem even if we ignore hovering: if means that you'll ALWAYS fall if you're flying into a wind or make a steep ascent or descent without doing a regular Fly action in a completely different direction for some reason.
It is all the text listed under the Fly action. Everything you can do with the Fly action. It's all clearly spelled out with no contradictions.
You basically say I use a Fly action to hover. It's a move action that provokes AoOs.
I've always used Maneuver in Flight, which existed in PF1, for difficult flying maneuvers such as in wind or in a tricky maze or something similar.
You can't step while flying, so no way to fly and avoid AoOs. That's enough of a penalty to be able to stay aloft.
They usually don't include Hover as a Maneuver in Flight. The text under Aerobatics Mastery indicates hovering in gale force winds would require a Maneuver in Flight difficulty check, which I usually use for such maneuvers.
The main thing I'm not used to is flying creatures having trouble being knocked prone or oozes for that matter. But in some ways it makes sense as a dragon knocked off its feet would have to stand and right itself to start flying. Doesn't make huge sense for a wisp which is a naturally floating creature by magic.
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Maybe if you were a specialist. Otherwise what you did was usually fail. And that was if it was your first attack.
Depends on if you were facing off against a full BAB class or a lower BAB class. People seem to have forgotten how vast the difference was between a full BAB class using strength versus a lower BAB class or monster who did not use any of these abilities.
Trip disrupted a full attack, not just one move action.
And that's a bad idea because--?
Because of the following:
1. You move yourself out of range for reaction attacks.
2. You make it so the creature can focus its attack on whoever is still within melee reach. A -2 isn't a huge penalty for boss level monsters. They don't have to stand up to attack. They can full attack the remaining PC and rip them apart.
Not sure why everyone thinks knocking someone prone forces them to use a move action to stand up or the initiative is set up so well you all get to move after the trip happens.
3. You may set yourself up or the party for breath weapon, special attack, or spell attacks. You have zero trouble casting a spell while prone without standing up.
4. Sets you up for reaction attacks moving in and out. A tripped monster can do reaction attacks with a -2 penalty.
Moving out of range after tripping would be a tactic for a specific enemy fight if that tactic helped you win. If it just sets the party up for a fail, then it's not a good tactic. My players have found that to be the case in almost every instance. Moving away from a creature once you have it engaged is rarely a good idea.
It isn't automatically successful. But it can be successful on targets that you're doing little damage to because of damage resistance, and set up someone else for an improved chance of a crit or to leave them subject to precision damage when you can't get into a flank.
I liked Trip in PF1 and I like it in PF2. I have a fighter with the Knockdown Feat and another fighter who uses a maul. Knocking someone down has been a good tactic in both PF1 and PF2.
I do recommend trip to people, especially with reaction attacks that can trigger when they stand.
But it's not a better tactic than it was in PF1. And it's not a new tactic that makes the game more tactical. PF1 had all these combat maneuvers in them and even more since Overrun is now something the DM has to rule on.
Disarm was also better in PF1.
They don't even have Sunder now which was also a good tactic. Though I have to admit I'm glad it is gone because losing magic items to Sunder really pissed off parties. Some of the two-hander fighters and barbarians didn't care as long as they robbed their opponent of their shield or weapon.
There were as many or more tactical options in PF1 that I guess a lot of people weren't using.