| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Building NPCs like PCs is a perfectly RAW method in PF2.
Only for ancestries that a player could also use. You can't run a dragon the same way, but you could give a dragon class levels in PF1 if you so desired. You could also run one as a player, too something that PF2 also disallows.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Building NPCs like PCs is a perfectly RAW method in PF2.Only for ancestries that a player could also use. You can't run a dragon the same way, but you could give a dragon class levels in PF1 if you so desired. You could also run one as a player, too something that PF2 also disallows.
I believe there's actually a 3PP for that now. Does anyone know if it's any good?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I believe there's actually a 3PP for that now. Does anyone know if it's any good?Building NPCs like PCs is a perfectly RAW method in PF2.Only for ancestries that a player could also use. You can't run a dragon the same way, but you could give a dragon class levels in PF1 if you so desired. You could also run one as a player too, something that PF2 also disallows.
I don't run 3PP, and I think I misspoke on players being a dragon in PF1 (outside of a half-dragon template), that was a 3.x thing that never got an official port over.
| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
If you want to do that, you’d need to pick out Ancestry Feats, General Feats, Skill Feats, & Class Feats for Every. Single. Monster.Yes, that is how monsters were built back in 3.x and PF1. You also had to assign skill points, pick spells, give them equipment, recalculate saves and HP if a feat interacted with that, but it's part of the job under such a system. Even then, a lot of it can be automated by picking a specific set of feats for certain types of monsters. If you've only built encounters in PF2 it's daunting, but it's how I started out.
I never liked that in PF1. It made NPC creation tedious and redundant.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Building NPCs like PCs is a perfectly RAW method in PF2.Only for ancestries that a player could also use. You can't run a dragon the same way, but you could give a dragon class levels in PF1 if you so desired. You could also run one as a player, too something that PF2 also disallows.
Not sure what version of PF1 you played, but I never saw rules to run a dragon as a PC as other than a DM making some house rules. Must have either come way at the end of PF1 when they were just putting stuff out to put stuff out that they hadn't done yet. It certainly wasn't an option in the first five or so years of PF1.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I so want to respond but this is the griping echo chamber! I must refrain!
Here's another gripe instead:
It's annoying that it's currently very hard to go "all in" on an ancestry. I'd love to be able to expand Ancestry options at the cost of Class options.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I so want to respond but this is the griping echo chamber! I must refrain!
Here's another gripe instead:
It's annoying that it's currently very hard to go "all in" on an ancestry. I'd love to be able to expand Ancestry options at the cost of Class options.
If Mark knocks it out of the park with Dragons, I have no doubt more will follow the architecture. (Heck I'd be down to clown on that space!).
I was already contemplating if something would be possible for say a true vampire, demons, angels, and djinn.
EDIT: oh god! This opens up the possibility for Prestige Ancestries. Maybe Master Vampire or Lich? Food for thought.
| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
Speaking of ancestries. I hope we get more feat support for newer ancestries.
Right now I feel almost compelled to take a versatile heritage with an ancestry like fleshwarp just because your internal feat options are so limited. Doubly so if you're playing ancestry paragon.
I'd also really like to see more feats added to existing archetypes. There are some really neat ones that are disappointingly thin in terms of options.
As much as I love the rush of new content PF2's been getting, it feels like there are a lot of existing options that feel as though they could be fleshed out more and just haven't been yet.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Speaking of ancestries. I hope we get more feat support for newer ancestries.
Right now I feel almost compelled to take a versatile heritage with an ancestry like fleshwarp just because your internal feat options are so limited. Doubly so if you're playing ancestry paragon.
I'd also really like to see more feats added to existing archetypes. There are some really neat ones that are disappointingly thin in terms of options.
As much as I love the rush of new content PF2's been getting, it feels like there are a lot of existing options that feel as though they could be fleshed out more and just haven't been yet.
I second this.
And also, a minor gripe, you can't just be like "hey what if we give them like Intimidating Glare but Ancestry specific" like 5 times across the Ancestry guide and not expect me to feel a smidge cheated.
There's quite a few ancestry feats/heritages where it's fairly recycled content, and while I know there has to be some consistency, compared to the CRB ancestries, there's just nowhere near the level of diversity I would have hoped to see in terms of flavorful and unique options for those ancestries.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I believe they are referring to the Monsters as PCs rules, which would naturally include dragons.
I was thinking of that, but I was also mixing in the very D&D only Savage Species.
| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
If you want to do that, you’d need to pick out Ancestry Feats, General Feats, Skill Feats, & Class Feats for Every. Single. Monster.Yes, that is how monsters were built back in 3.x and PF1. You also had to assign skill points, pick spells, give them equipment, recalculate saves and HP if a feat interacted with that, but it's part of the job under such a system.
Except it's not supposed to be a job. It's a game, meant to be fun for everyone.
I strongly suspect that antiquated paradigm is one of the main reasons there was such a huge disparity between players and GMs that continues to persist today.
| 11 people marked this as a favorite. |
Yeah, to be honest I always cheated when making NPCs, monsters, etc. in PF1. Having to chase down every single feat or whatever for every antagonist was just a pain in the butt I didn't want to do, so I faked it.
I thought my time was better spent designing, plots, settings, scenarios, personalities, etc. than math.
| 10 people marked this as a favorite. |
I used to be a big fan of symmetry personally until I spent more time analyzing it and realized that it's... kind of a lie. They're "built the same" but then there are monster specific feats and monster specific unique abilities and monster specific adjustments to saves and stats that end up making the whole notion that the creatures are built with the same rules feel kind of performative. It feels really apparent if you compare a true NPC against a bespoke monster.
In some respects I think PF2 didn't go far enough in that direction, which is why it's pretty common to see complaints about the game's math feeling coin-flippy at times.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Except it's not supposed to be a job. It's a game, meant to be fun for everyone.
Honestly, I'll take the work if it means playing by what I feel are fair rules. I've always been a low prep, seat of the pants, GM though. If you need to plan every last detail I can see where that time requirement explodes.
I strongly suspect that antiquated paradigm is one of the main reasons there was such a huge disparity between players and GMs that continues to persist today.
Nah, even the easiest to GM systems are still waaay more work to run that to play. You always have the hardest job at the table as the GM.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I used to be a big fan of symmetry personally until I spent more time analyzing it and realized that it's... kind of a lie. They're "built the same" but then there are monster specific feats and monster specific unique abilities and monster specific adjustments to saves and stats that end up making the whole notion that the creatures are built with the same rules feel kind of performative. It feels really apparent if you compare a true NPC against a bespoke monster.
In some respects I think PF2 didn't go far enough in that direction, which is why it's pretty common to see complaints about the game's math feeling coin-flippy at times.
A lot of the 'cheats' were done in the racial hit dice, size modifiers, and a few monster only feats. The feats especially weren't that bad as there were like 10% the number of monster only feats as there were feats anybody could take and some players could build to use monster only feats too. It's true the monsters were never exactly like a PHB-built character, but they were close enough that things felt okay.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Except it's not supposed to be a job. It's a game, meant to be fun for everyone.Honestly, I'll take the work if it means playing by what I feel are fair rules. I've always been a low prep, seat of the pants, GM though. If you need to plan every last detail I can see where that time requirement explodes.
I strongly suspect that antiquated paradigm is one of the main reasons there was such a huge disparity between players and GMs that continues to persist today.Nah, even the easiest to GM systems are still waaay more work to run that to play. You always have the hardest job at the table as the GM.
I much prefer NPCs and monsters to do their job in the story.
And if you're a seat of your pants GM, you certainly did not design NPCs using the PF1 rules. There was no seat of your pants involved. You wanted them to be challenging, you had to plan them carefully usually spending hours doing so.
My players would rip your encounters apart if you designed them using PF1 rules by the seat of your pants.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I believe they are referring to the Monsters as PCs rules, which would naturally include dragons.Not sure what version of PF1 you played, but I never saw rules to run a dragon as a PC as other than a DM making some house rules. Must have either come way at the end of PF1 when they were just putting stuff out to put stuff out that they hadn't done yet. It certainly wasn't an option in the first five or so years of PF1.Building NPCs like PCs is a perfectly RAW method in PF2.Only for ancestries that a player could also use. You can't run a dragon the same way, but you could give a dragon class levels in PF1 if you so desired. You could also run one as a player, too something that PF2 also disallows.
That certainly was a side rule at best requiring a great deal of work by the GM to facilitate. Not at all what I would call "allowing" in the game.
| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think it's a matter of taste. "Everyone follows the same basic rules" systems are a lot more work for the GM, but can be extremely rewarding. Sort of like GURPS, it's neat, but it's not for everyone. It can be fun to feel like everyone's following the same rules--like the PCs aren't special heroes handed their powers on a silver platter, they had to work to be this badass, and they're still small fish in a big pond. It lends itself well to settings like Greyhawk, where adventuring is a commonly understood job and the most powerful individuals in the world are themselves just ex-adventurers who used to be just like the PCs. It makes you feel average, which has the ironic effect of making you feel even more remarkable. You're not a chosen hero; you're just very good at your job.
It's also a ton of work, and I get why Pathfinder 2.0 moved away from it. A part of me misses it, but it's really nice to be able to make monsters special and unique. I'm a fan of fantasy settings where not everything is explained and quantified, where some things can remain mysterious or magical, and I think "everyone follows the same objective ruleset" can run counter to that theme.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I much prefer NPCs and monsters to do their job in the story.
Mine seemed to do that.
And if you're a seat of your pants GM, you certainly did not design NPCs using the PF1 rules. There was no seat of your pants involved. You wanted them to be challenging, you had to plan them carefully usually spending hours doing so.
Only if you played beyond level 12 or so. Under that, it wasn't too hard to get roughly what you want, plus you just save your work and recycle things that work in later campaigns. My players enjoyed funky builds more than the peak of optimization though.
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
In some respects I think PF2 didn't go far enough in that direction, which is why it's pretty common to see complaints about the game's math feeling coin-flippy at times.
Id like to say that one of my strongest gripes is with a certain blonde juvenile NPC from Agents of Edgewatch book 1. For his stats, his savings and skills makes zero sense.
For me, this creates the following problem:
This makes the math that players use to calculate their saving throws, skills and heck, even starting attributes seens nonsensical.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
In some respects I think PF2 didn't go far enough in that direction, which is why it's pretty common to see complaints about the game's math feeling coin-flippy at times.Id like to say that one of my strongest gripes is with a certain blonde juvenile NPC from Agents of Edgewatch book 1. For his stats, his savings and skills makes zero sense.
For me, this creates the following problem:
This makes the math that players use to calculate their saving throws, skills and heck, even starting attributes seens nonsensical.
Not if the character did the job in the story. Then it doesn't matter and never did.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Yeah, like if an NPCs job is there to "give the party some information" or "provide an impediment to the PCs" I don't need to know how good they would be at other stuff. If the PCs just want to murder the mayor because they don't like the reward offered for their heroism, that's the sort of thing I will just narrate a la "you run him through, he slumps to the ground, dead" because the mayor's combat acumen isn't really relevant to the story. The local guards who want to apprehend these malefactors have relevant combat stats, sure, but I don't need to know how good they are at crafting or juggling or diplomacy.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
my biggest one would be that with all the streamlining, spell slots sort of feel out of place. they are very nearly the only resource functioning on a "per day" limit anymore and so while everything else can focus and refresh and function at 100% casters now have to play a resource managment game trying to stretchc their spells as long as they can. I dunno i just long for the alternative reality where paizo was just a little more inspired by 4e and removed daily limits entirely, balancing everything around per encounter restrictions and action costs.
|
| 10 people marked this as a favorite. |
Is it such a shock that different people can have the same opinion? But it's only fishy when it's not your opinion.
And all that over the term "job"
This reminds me - another gripe: sometimes the worst thing about pathfinder is the other people playing pathfinder. I'm sure most of you are decent folk, but boy do we have a talent for aggravation.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Is it such a shock that different people can have the same opinion? But it's only fishy when it's not your opinion.
And all that over the term "job"
This reminds me - another gripe: sometimes the worst thing about pathfinder is the other people playing pathfinder. I'm sure most of you are decent folk, but boy do we have a talent for aggravation.
This is what happens when you get a very small group of fans of something in a space that forms an easy echo chamber. Anything that does match the echos sounds harsh and grating and everybody who doesn't love the game as they do is out to destroy the thing they enjoy with their wrong, inexperienced, bad fun.
| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
Unless the imaginary shared holder of this account signed up back in 2018 and saved the account until now, you're flatly wrong. I do find it amazing that people think I'm both Temperans and Verdyn, it's like I took some very good disguise skills or all of you keep rolling 1s on sense motive.Some people who don't play the game show up just to stir the pot. They'll use alt accounts when their main account is getting ignored because they like to stir the pot. I'm pretty certain Norade is you. Same criticisms. Seems like same level of experience as in nearly none and commenting with similar criticisms of PF2 and similar arguments as to why PF1 was fine.
Just started posting November 30.
Just ridiculous.
Apologies for starting that witch hunt. The timing was the deciding factor for me. Verdyn stopped posting when you started. Your style of writing coupled with the content of your posts led me to believe verdyns account had been banned and he started a new one. True or not, persecution is no valid response so I'm sorry for starting a Red Scare on you.
| 8 people marked this as a favorite. |
Apologies for starting that witch hunt. The timing was the deciding factor for me. Verdyn stopped posting when you started. Your style of writing coupled with the content of your posts led me to believe verdyns account had been banned and he started a new one. True or not, persecution is no valid response so I'm sorry for starting a Red Scare on you.
This pandemic sucks, we're all tense, and things happen. Honestly, I'm not even mad, more bemused by this whole thing.
Thanks for the apology. No hard feelings on my end.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Thanks to everybody who's helped to keep this thread on-topic and refrained from attacking others' playstyles.
TTRPGs are an incredible medium because they are designed to corral fun, to steer it in various directions, even though everyone has a different competing idea of what "fun" is. It's like herding cats, and there will always be different styles of fun developing, and it's easy to feel attacked when someone doesn't not find your style, well, fun.
I think it can be really interesting to try to understand what other people enjoy, as long as we keep it from getting judgmental. It's fair to dislike a system for corralling players away from what you find fun, as long as you recognize that this corralling isn't an accident of bad design, but a conscious choice that differs from the choice you would make. I dislike the new ability score generation. I think it runs counter to the kind of game I enjoy. Other people felt stressed by the potential for picking the "wrong" abilities, or hated point buy on principle, and the new ability score generation feels less fidgety to them.
Obviously, it's not all about playstyle. I do also feel that the new ability score generation is bad design for what it was intended to do, and that's where arguments start. But it's really useful to be able to differentiate "this media is trying to do something that isn't to my taste" from "this media is failing at the thing it's trying to do".
That being said, I do also think that the new ability score generation system is bad design. It's my opinion, but I think it's an opinion backed up by facts. I think that starting out with six core numbers that define your character is very useful for players--it helps to fill a blank canvas with six basic abilities that everything else will be drawn from. "Okay, my character is strong and tough and sensible, but dumb." I think it's way better for new players.
I also think the zigzaggy approach is... disastrous. The system tells you to "start with abilities", but why? We don't get our abilities until the end. Wouldn't Class, Ancestry and Background make more sense to start with? In my opinion, it's counter-intuitive, and it comes across as a relic. First edition had you start with abilities, so 2.0 will, too, even though it no longer makes sense because they aren't the building blocks anymore.
I can see why they went for it, but I don't think it's as fun or user-friendly as "abilities up front" would be, or even "class/ancestry/background first, and only then start calculating your abilities in one fell swoop".
I get the appeal of eliminating trap options, but in this case I'm not sure it's worth the confusion or what was sacrificed to make room for it.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think I went over why I think past iterations' approach to ability score generation was (at least in the sense of intuitiveness) more suited to new players, so I won't repeat myself. Agree to disagree. :)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I feel like any confusion around ability scores could just be solved with a table at the end of the character-building section. First show a table of what each ancestry gives, then each background, each class, and a final reminder that you also have 4 free boosts. Toss in a couple of examples for how it works and you're done.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Would've helped, that's for sure. Like, I think the change itself is misguided, but I also think there are simple technical failings in how it's conveyed.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
There are people out there who don't use Pathbuilder to generate your characters? Crazy.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
If a game system requires a third-party any app to run smoothly, that's a design flaw. :P
| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
Honestly, I always advise people to use paper and a pencil, instead of any kind of app, for their first character or three in any system, to understand where everything is come from, and how things are presented.