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On a related note, though, dumb question: When Frightened mentions a penalty to checks, that doesn't include attacks, right? My knowledge of 1e says no, but I've learned that 2e is very much not 1e, and similar terms don't carry over.
That's exactly right. Frightened and sickened apply to all checks and DCs (including Attack Rolls, Maneuvers, AC and Spell DCs). Other debuffs are more specific, though.
Frightened also combos with several feats in the game (Dread Striker). If you're flanking and then you apply Frightened 1 on the enemy, you're applying a -3 AC penalty, this means higher chance to hit and crit. If your teammates are aiding you or giving you a buff (Magic Weapon, Inspire Courage, Bless, etc), that's a 4 point swing in your favor.
Against stronger enemies, the chance is slower, but they will be fewer in numbers, which means their actions are more valuable than yours, so spending your round trying to trip/grapple/Demoralize them may be preferable than just attacking once or twice. The numerical bonuses are in their favor, but the action economy is in yours, so failing something is expected against them, but at the same time every little bit helps (if they succeed against a Fear spell, they're still Frightened 1, which means everyone else going after the caster is going to have an easier time).
Of course, Dice rolls will always matter. Some sessions you roll high, others you roll low. That's why using Hero Points proactively is better than hoarding them to stabilize. Point out to your GM that the Gamemaster's Guide suggests giving out one hero point per hour of session. This is a good system to encourage spending and to get the party used to the hero points. It also significantly cuts down the bad morale that comes from subsequent terrible rolls when the players have a chance to shift the outcome.
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Frightened is a penalty to
Saves
Skill checks
AC
Attack rolls
Special power DC's
Spell DC.Basically anything that you roll or that is derived from something you roll.
So...
AC
is a DC
Huh.
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Yes, it absolutely is, which is very important for conditions like Frightened (mentioned above) or Sickened.
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Frightened is a penalty to
Saves
Skill checks
AC
Attack rolls
Special power DC's
Spell DC.Basically anything that you roll or that is derived from something you roll.
So...
AC
is a DC
Huh.
Against mooks grapple is great because it prevents them from running away/targeting the back line, so you can kill them faster with your superior numbers, while against stronger foes, trip is preferable, because they either burn an action or they remain flat-footed and with a -2 penalty on their attacks. Sickened is also valuable because it has an action cost and a DC attached to its removal (unlike Frightened, which goes down naturally at the end of the target's turn).
Assurance (Athletics) can be a great boon for martial characters when fighting mooks, because they can use it as their "last" attack action (which would incur -10MAP) and get rid of all their penalties (and bonuses), which means that against lower level enemies you can trip/grapple/shove them automatically (hit them with your full bonus then -5 MAP, and finish it off by instead of a -10MAP attack you use assurance and apply only your Level+proficiency bonus).
Another tip: AID sucks at early levels, but there will be a time when you'll critically succeed quite easily, turning it from a +1 to a +2/+3 bonus to an attack roll. The action economy cost is high (one action+reaction), but for certain character and situations it's well worth it.
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I think nobody's bothered with demoralizing or any other in-combat skill stuff because we just kind of figure we'll fail the check anyway.
The in-combat skill stuff really does have the option to make a significant difference in the difficulty of the encounter. If you're fighting an on-level enemy at level 4, they're probably around AC 20 or 21 (moderate and high for that level), and you've got +11 - a 55-60% success chance. Feint, Grapple, and Trip would all inflict the flat-footed condition, changing that to a 65-70% success chance. A successful Demoralize would change that to 70-75% success chance, which is a pretty big impact - and the nice thing about those ones I've listed is that they all target different defences:
- Feint targets their Perception DC- Grapple targets their Fortitude DC
- Trip targets their Reflexed DC
- Demoralize targets their Will DC
The chances that the enemy you're fighting doesn't have a weakness in one of their perception/fort/ref/will values is extremely small, so at least one of those should have a better chance of success than targeting AC. Even if you're not great at the skill, it'll normally be a better choice than attacking a third time for those that don't have the multiple attack penalty applied to them. As a monk, you get two attacks for one action - so you really don't get much out of attacking with your other two actions. Your fists will be a +3 to hit on that third attack versus their AC of 20-21; even if you're only 14 CHA and trained in deception or intimidate, you'll have +8. That's much more likely to succeed than the attack at +3. The difference in effectiveness between a turn that is "Flurry of Blows, Strike, Strike" and "Stride into a flanking position, Demoralize, Flurry of Blows" will be substantial.
(you're a monk, so you probably don't have 14 CHA - Battle Medicine if you have high WIS, or Recall Knowledge to help the party know what to fight if you have INT, or even just trying to do a combat maneuver that is more support-focused will likely be a boost in effectiveness)
So...
AC
is a DC
Huh.
Yup. You have a total armor bonus that is calculated the same way as every other bonus - using proficiency, dex modifier, and various typed bonuses (mostly the item bonus from armor). Then it is permanently converted to a DC because it is always used defensively. It has the special name for historical reasons.
You can also calculate an attack DC from your attack bonus if you wanted to. But that doesn't make any sense since you never use your attack bonus passively or defensively.
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Two notes. First, the rule of large numbers is a thing, i.e. it may very well be that no natural 1 has come up yet at any given table for a very, very long time.This is odd. Based on PFS standards, a PC goes through approximately 10 fights to gain a level. That makes 30 fights to get to level 4. If we make a hypothesis that you cast 2 spells with a save in each fight, that makes at least 60 saves that enemies have to roll. Likely more as many save spells have more than one target.
At least 3 of these save rolls should have been Nat 1, which is almost always a critical failure.
Zero critical failures on the enemies' side for 3 levels defies probabilities.
Pet peeve of mine, so pardon my being pedantic again.
This isn't the law of large numbers. It would either be binomial probability or poisson probability. I'm not entirely sure which, and I think it depends on exactly what you are wanting to calculate.
The law of large numbers is that if you roll a d20 a large number of times, the average of your roll results will closely match 10.5 - the average of the population of all d20 roll results (or the theoretical average or expected value of the d20).
But the point you make is fine. There is a possibility that a gaming table could have no nat-1's from the enemies in 3 levels of play.
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This isn't the law of large numbers. It would either be binomial probability or poisson probability. I'm not entirely sure which, and I think it depends on exactly what you are wanting to calculate.
A single 1d20 roll is a uniform distribution. A binomial distribution would apply to many d20 rolls if the numerical values were summed together, like in 2d8 damage from a striking longsword, but the d20 rolls are not summed. Instead, we are modeling how any roll are required before the first Natural 1 is rolled. That is the Poisson distribution, breithauptclan's second option.
I am easily tempted into math lectures.
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My group started our first 2E game a couple months ago. All but one of us are 1E vets, with myself having played from the very start all those many years ago. We're currently level 4, and I've noticed some patterns.
Enemies almost never miss.
Enemies deal considerable damage.
Enemies almost never fail saves.
Enemies NEVER critically fail saves.
PCs hit maybe half the time.
Yes, that is designed into the Bestiaries when fighting foes of the same level as the party. The PF2 Gamemastery Guide even has a section on Building Creatures for GMs who design their own monsters, and we can see the suggested numbers. For example, a 4th-level Str 18 fighter would have +12 to hit. A champion or ranger of the same strength and level would have +10. Table 2–9: Strike Attack Bonus in the Gamemastery Guide suggests +12 to +14 for monsters that exclusively rely on attacking, +10 for other monsters, and +8 for monsters that are bad at attacking. Thus, 4th-level melee monsters, such as a Tiger or an Owlbear, hit better than a fighter and much better than other martial PCs.
Why do the monsters have better numbers than the PCs of the same level? Because the monsters are worse at everything else. The tiger has only three trained skills: Acrobatics +11, Athletics +13, Stealth +13. It could try to Demoralize a PC with Intimidation, but that roll would have a -2 untrained Charisma penalty. It has the ability to pounce from hiding and gain some sneak attack damage from that pounce, it can grab a creature in its jaws, and it can wrestle a creature to the ground, but that is the extent of its special abilities. It has no ranged attack. It has no knowledge skills to figure out which opponents are the most vulnerable (though some GMs might carelessly roleplay the tiger with that knowledge). Unlike a fighter it has no attack of opportunity, so a fighter with a reach weapon would have an advantage against the tiger.
The reason that the monsters specialize in good numbers and a few special abilities is so that the GMs can roleplay them right out of the box. A complicated monster is hard to play. The humanoid enemies resemble PCs more, but the GM can roleplay them like soldiers or wizards and that is as complicated as the opponents get. And those humanoid enemies have numbers much closer to the PCs' numbers.
In order to defeat the monsters, the PCs have to exploit the monsters' lack of versatility. Use Demoralize. Use attacks of opportunity. Flank it for sneak attacks. Set it on fire with Alchemist's Fire and retreat. Shoot it from a distance. Heal in mid-combat with Battle Medicine feat.
At 3rd level, my players were clearing out evil xulgath cultists from a set of caves. I let some of the xulgaths retreat and group up into a force as strong as the party. And then the party had bad rolls in a encounter with a Gelatinous Cube that cost them half their hit points. The xulgaths were waiting on the other side of a door, planning to rush the party after the fight with the cube. The party rogue listening at the door and understanding Draconic heard them say, "Are they done yet? Let's wait half a minute to be sure." Yeah, this was GM fiat to make up for the bad luck and give the party had time to retreat. The xulgaths chased them, saw them finishing climbing to the upper cave, and threw spears at them.
Immediately, my players realized: the xulgath's only ranged attack is spears (and a xulgath sorcerer with 1st-level ranged cantrips). The party had bows that fire at twice the rate and 2nd-level cantrips. They had a big advantage in a ranged battle. They held their ground at the top of the ladder, focusing fire on any xulgath that tried to climb. Any party member hit by a spear and dangerously low on hit points retreated away from the edge to safety after one last attack. Finally, the two surviving xulgath ran away, and the party hunted them down later.
The key to victory was realizing when the opponents' tactics put them at an disadvantage. The opponents are terrible at switching to other tactics. Later my players learned to exploit terrain and surprise to put the opponent at a disadvantage from the beginning.
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There's not so much individual minmaxing in 2E because an 18 in your class's primary offensive stat fulfills 90%+ of your potential (that's how tight the power curves are). The stat system makes that cheap (unlike previous point-buy systems) so one doesn't need to min in order to hit that max. Grab a bread-n'-butter feat for normal use, keep boosting those save stats, and after that there's room to go hog wild on fun/less effective options.
Parties, on the other hand, can develop synergy that takes tactics to a whole new level (which is why the Bard, who inherently does this, is prized so highly in PF2). And since tactics are more important than build (which used to dominant) there can be system shock in transferring over.
Party composition can make or break a group. You have to know what your group can and can't do and devise tactics that work for your group.
You'll see a lot of people giving advice on how to build characters, tactics to use, etc. And while thats helpful, know that it is simply that sort of a game. Characters feel less heroic than in 5e or pf1, it revolves around teamwork or very specific combos for a party to excel. Some people like that balance (I prefer it in a lot of ways) but it's not for everyone.
Amusingly, my players followed these guidelines in Pathfinder 1st Edition. They discovered that building for good teamwork was more effective that optimzing the PCs in isolation. Teamwork also allowed more roleplaying.
Perhaps two PC show their friendship through tactics that let them fight back to back effectively. Perhaps the build reflects a personality. The gunslinger with the grapple gun in my Iron Gods campaign built for pulling flying robots into reach of the melee fighters rather than for massive damage like the typical gunslinger build. That let her show off her gadgeteering, a major character obsession. The magus in the same campaign was a high-Intelligence build rather than the more optimized high-Strength and high-Dexterity builds, because the character was supposed to be smart. Nevertheless, that gave him a large arcane pool for the times that he had to recall the same spell over and over again to hammer on an enemy weakness in high-threat fights when spellcasting really mattered. The other PCs dealt enough damage in ordinary fights that he did not have to optimize average damage.
Thus, when Pathfinder 2nd Edition relied on teamwork tactics rather than optimal builds, my players had no system shock that optimal builds were not overpowering. They had already abandoned that strategy. Instead, they delight in inventing better teamwork and roleplaying personalities in their characters' tactics.
Pathfinder 2nd Edition fits their style better, except when the rules block a natural development because a clever optimizer could supercharge a build with it. For example, the Iron Gods PCs loved crafting because of their curiosity about science and technology, but PF2 crafting is nerfed compared to PF1 to prevent optimizing through cheaper gear.
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Has anyone mentioned the value of RK checks yet in this thread?
Asking because, in our AoA game, my party just did two relatively challenging fights back to back that we were able to break into much more manageable chunks thanks to RK checks. Spoilering just in case. ** spoiler omitted **
It made us all feel really good to handle a difficult encounter like that relatively easily because we planned ahead and did our homework. Granted, APs don't always give you opportunities to do that.
Recall Knowledge is extremely GM dependent as the base rules for it are rather bad.
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I still find it incredible how many people ignore the value of teamwork in general when it comes to TTRPG. Specially in d20 games where you can get some crazy things if you work together.
But then again, not everyone is built to think throught tactics. Much less if they are play this in their off time after work. So I am able to see the value in a game being balanced towards the easy side vs the hard side. After all some people likes soul-likes or tactic RPGs, but many more people like action RPG were you just face stomp.
The thing about teamwork is, that there are a couple of different types of teamwork, not all of which apply to every TTRPG. When playing a future type of TTRPG (aka Shadowrun or Cyberpunk) I expect the weapons guy to carry the brunt of any fights, the hacker type character to deal with any computer stuff and the vehicle ace to deal with transport, escapes and chases. Specialists in their own fields working as a team, however probably not at the same time. And while we can have a similar split in PF2 when it comes to out of combat activities, everybody seems to need to contribute to a fight in almost equal amounts (via his 3 actions), which apart from 4E is more or less a novelty.
However many issues about PF2 are about recognizing the meta, which is something which almost threw our group of course after 30 years of TTRPG.
You have to recognize that its a game of the GM having to empower the players (reducing or increasing enemy levels, add more details to recall check results etc.) and perhaps also the players having to ask to be empowered (which apparently can be a problem for many players). You have to recognize that everybody has to contribute to a fight in almost equal amounts (actions). You have to recognize that any fight actually has to be solved by actions within the fight, not before (build or buffing). You have to recognize that while individual monsters may have the numbers advantage (which can be demoralizing in itself) the players usually have the action and/or flexibility advantage. You have to recognize that (early on) even specialists will have a 50% miss chance at on-level challanges. etc.
PF2's design paradigms of "solve the fight within the fight", "everybody in the group has to contribute to victory" and "the d20 has to always stay relevant" are not universal TTPRG concepts, which however need to be recognized and accepted by both GM and players in order to have fun with PF2.
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Lots of good advice here, much appreciated. There's a lot about the system I really like, at least on paper (particularly the three actions, Medicine actually being useful, and weapon and armor runes). But so far, I am just not really liking the combat. Maybe it is just a low-level issue, good to know we'll probably feel a lot stronger later on.
For clarity, our party consists of:
-A gunslinger and champion, run by the players with the most experience with 2E
-A wizard, played by our least-experienced tabletop player (Not sure this was the best choice, we never recommended spellcasters for first-timers in our 1e games). I don't recall if an enemy has ever failed a save against one of his spells.
-An inventor, who unfortunately is only around about half the time due to work/life schedule
-Myself, a Medic monk, formerly cleric of Zon Kuthon.
-Formerly, a fighter who had to drop out due to a new job, and who coincidentally got petrified by a cockatrice in his last session. I recall him lamenting that the petrify DC was inordinately high.I don't know if that's good party composition or not. Probably not.
So a couple notes:
1) Casters should generally expect that enemies will either only fail or succeed, not critical fail or critically succeed. Selecting spells based on that helps. And generally you're going to be looking at the enemies succeeding unless the party does things to debuff their saves. Debuffing the enemy right before casting a spell is pretty critical to the success of spell casters, and can make a huge difference in the fight.2) On the cockatrice, you're supposed to make checks to find out about enemies. And probably the most important piece of information that the GM should give you is how their calcification ability functions. Specifically, that once you're reduced to 0 actions you're turned to stone. That means your party needs to work together to split who the creature is attacking (it is a -3 intelligence modifier creature). It requires being careful and teamwork.
Basically 2E is all about teamwork. If you're party isn't actively planning and working together you're going to fail. And no, just all being in the same fight and each doing what you want isn't an actual plan.
That's how I played PF1 and loved it. But if you bring that s%$% plan to PF2 you will die and be unhappy about the game.
This game isn't about individuals shining at their one thing. It's about bringing the group together to overcome challenges that couldn't on their own.
Honestly, it terms of how the game plays it's only slightly similar to PF1 (which is basically that it's a d20 derived game, that's it). The lore and setting are generally the same, but you might as well pretend like PF2 has nothing to do mechanically with PF1 because it's basically true.
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You have to recognize that its a game of the GM having to empower the players (reducing or increasing enemy levels, add more details to recall check results etc.) and perhaps also the players having to ask to be empowered (which apparently can be a problem for many players). You have to recognize that everybody has to contribute to a fight in almost equal amounts (actions). You have to recognize that any fight actually has to be solved by actions within the fight, not before (build or buffing). You have to recognize that while individual monsters may have the numbers advantage (which can be demoralizing in itself) the players usually have the action and/or flexibility advantage. You have to recognize that (early on) even specialists will have a 50% miss chance at on-level challanges. etc.
Yes. The first houserule I made in PF2, because I had the same houserule in PF1, was tripling the amount of information given by Recall Knowledge over the suggestion in the Core Rulebook. And even before the Recall Knowledge checks, I like to warn the players about details that define their enemies. "The commander of the enemy camp carries two elaborate tri-bladed katars and a shortbow," was my warning that this 15th-level commander was a melee specialist and could make mincemeat of any of the 12th-level PCs. Actually, I was wrong about the mincemeat. With an upgrade to a greater sturdy shield stolen from the commander's storeroom (an item 13 I added to the module because it was a good opportunity for an upgrade) the champion in the party could resist the melee attacks of the commander.
But the key to victory against the commander was the rogue riding on the back of the sorcerer transformed into a dragon using Precise Debilitation to lower the commander's AC from 36 to 34 while forcing him to make shortbow attacks rather than using his special abilities with tri-bladed katar attacks. PF2 penalizes one PC riding another PC (Riding Sapient Creatures) but it was a winning tactic under the circumstances.
And admit it, which is more heroic and fantastic: a fighter being able to hit with 90% of his Strikes in stationary combat or a rogue riding a dragon keeping a high-level enemy flat-footed with her bow shots?
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I think nobody's bothered with demoralizing or any other in-combat skill stuff because we just kind of figure we'll fail the check anyway.
You figured you'll fail the check to demoralize, but did not think you'd fail the third attack with MAP applied?
Definitely apply status penalties to foes when you can, as not only will you hit more often with strikes but the foes will also, you guessed it, critically fail their saves more often.
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In regard to my original point of PCs missing so often, it occurs to me that must be from us doing three attacks per round, so that makes sense.
It looks to me that it's mostly a lack of system mastery that leads you there.
From the things I've read in these boards since the release of PF2, the parties that struggle the more are the veterans from PF1. They want to use what was working in PF1, but it's no more the case in PF2.Beginners struggle also, but they learn faster what works and what doesn't as they try everything.
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In regard to my original point of PCs missing so often, it occurs to me that must be from us doing three attacks per round, so that makes sense.It looks to me that it's mostly a lack of system mastery that leads you there.
From the things I've read in these boards since the release of PF2, the parties that struggle the more are the veterans from PF1. They want to use what was working in PF1, but it's no more the case in PF2.
Beginners struggle also, but they learn faster what works and what doesn't as they try everything.
That and 5e veterans too, who are used to the ''move attack attack'' followed by ''attack attack'' mindset.
And 5e spells land MUCH more often than pf2e, and 5e attacks almost always hit (with things like bless and inspiration) so it creates a dissonance when shifting over to pf2e where a 7 is often a miss.
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This game isn't about individuals shining at their one thing. It's about bringing the group together to overcome challenges that couldn't on their own.
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You explained in one line what's the big difference between PF2 and many others D20 systems.
I have an experience example about this. One of my players that came from 5e during an encounter against an evil necromancer and some some skeleton minions + a hobgoblin ranger tried to surround alone the opponents using other way in the cave where the other players was fighting.
The more experienced players in PF2 said "don't do this, if something happen you will be by your own and this isn't 5e/3.5/PF1" but this player ignored the alerts and did this tactic anyway. Well in the end he was attacked by a hidden Tixitog surprised him and alone he wasn't unable to flee or win and started to cry for help when tixitog begin to eat it alive kkkkk
In the end the party succeed to save him sending reinforcements to him while the paladin and the other ranger keeped the rest of the opponents sufficient distracted until the rest of the party back kkk.
I know that does alone actions and bad decision can easily punish in any RPG but many D20 systems simply allows the players to do this more easily when you do a powerbuild while PF2 punishes a lot a bad decision in combat but also rewards a lot a good teamwork.
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Yeah, what someone else said earlier rings true in PF2.
PF1 was a game won or lost during character creation/build and no amount of creative play was going to overcome the challenge if it wasn't already close.
In PF2, your character build is really just about creating options. The only real system mastery from a character build perspective is making sure your ability scores are going to support the things you plan to do. Consider that you get to boost 4 out 6 ability score, and character creation ability score generation is pretty generous it's not too hard to make reasonable characters, unless you're trying to be bad.
The real system mastery and where you win battles in PF2 is by varying your strategy to your enemy, debuffing where you can, using knowledge checks to figure out what they can do so you can counter it. It's centered around working as a team, not a group of individuals who want to do things their way.
It's a huge change from the old ways. One that veterans of PF1 have a big problem adjusting to, myself included.
Recall Knowledge is extremely GM dependent as the base rules for it are rather bad.Has anyone mentioned the value of RK checks yet in this thread?
Asking because, in our AoA game, my party just did two relatively challenging fights back to back that we were able to break into much more manageable chunks thanks to RK checks. Spoilering just in case. ** spoiler omitted **
It made us all feel really good to handle a difficult encounter like that relatively easily because we planned ahead and did our homework. Granted, APs don't always give you opportunities to do that.
I proposed a system similar to how the Research rules work, as Recall Knowledge is similar enough for me, but was met with near universal “Nope”.
I think many find the rules appealing. Possibly more than dislike them.
If pf2 had more dragon age inquisiton sort of teamwork rewards•, I would be sooo happy *insert south park meme*
•DA inquisiton had alot of 'you freeze the target with X spell' another teammate can then explode that frozen target with Y ability. Which encouraged having a party with abilities that keyed off each others traits and triggers.
If we get teamwork feats/actions back into the game, my hope is that they follow along these lines. Just a bunch of Free actions and Reactions that trigger off stuff your party does.
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It is important to remember that successful tactics in PF1 were based on those specific things that PF2 was designed to avoid like the plague. Using PF1 tactics when playing PF2 is begging for a TPK.
To note : spells that end a fight before it begins do not exist anymore, full attacking does not work anymore, a +1 is important, losing an action is bad (especially for a BBEG), going against equal level foes is dangerous, a single enemy encounter is extremely dangerous, stacking multiple encounters together is the recipe for TPK.
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I still find it incredible how many people ignore the value of teamwork in general when it comes to TTRPG. Specially in d20 games where you can get some crazy things if you work together.
I think it's less ignoring and more a conditioned thing. Teamwork is always nice, but I think maybe Fate Core is the only other tabletop I've played that puts so much emphasis on stacking modifiers together to enable another character to make a winning move.
So it can be a bit of a culture shock to go from any other d20 game where teamwork is nice but characters are mostly self-sufficient to PF2e where that's much less the case.
Players at my tables who've never touched a tabletop before and come from a background of other games where support is hardcoded into the system (like MMOs) tend to 'get' that part of PF2 a lot faster.
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spells that end a fight before it begins do not exist anymore, full attacking does not work anymore
I'm with you but there are spells that end some fights before they begin. They are just not so broadly applicable anymore and they have limitations. Examples: Wall of Stone, Synesthesia, Calm Emotions.
Full attacking works, but it has diminishing returns and you are mostly better mixing things up.
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So from what I'm reading and my somewhat limited experience, when people describe 2e as tactical, it's not in the sense of "tactics and strategy will improve your odds of success," but more "if you don't employ in-depth strategy with your team, you will fail."
I... *really* do not like that. One thing I've grown to detest in 1e was when a player's turn would start, and the whole party would start strategizing out of character, telling who to go where and target which with what so they could optimize their own turn and the party would be most efficient. "The Quarterback," for those familiar with the trope/webcomic. This could happen, and it was admittedly effective, but it was almost never necessary. In 1e, you could just wing it most of the time. If your buddy happened to be flanking, cool. It feels like Paizo took some common player habits (some of them bad) and baked them into the system.
Also, in the way it's presented, Recall Knowledge feels less like identifying monsters in 1e and more like mechanically incentivized metagaming. IMO.
I know this sounds weird, but I'm sure someone will get what I mean when I say this system feels "too much like a game."
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So from what I'm reading and my somewhat limited experience, when people describe 2e as tactical, it's not in the sense of "tactics and strategy will improve your odds of success," but more "if you don't employ in-depth strategy with your team, you will fail."
I... *really* do not like that. One thing I've grown to detest in 1e was when a player's turn would start, and the whole party would start strategizing out of character, telling who to go where and target which with what so they could optimize their own turn and the party would be most efficient. "The Quarterback," for those familiar with the trope/webcomic. This could happen, and it was admittedly effective, but it was almost never necessary. In 1e, you could just wing it most of the time. If your buddy happened to be flanking, cool. It feels like Paizo took some common player habits (some of them bad) and baked them into the system.
Also, in the way it's presented, Recall Knowledge feels less like identifying monsters in 1e and more like mechanically incentivized metagaming. IMO.
I know this sounds weird, but I'm sure someone will get what I mean when I say this system feels "too much like a game."
As far as I'm aware it being gamey was the point, same as d&d 4e. Not something I mind one way or the other, but it does require a different mindset.
Once the group finds their ideal combat strategy/rotation 99% of combats play out the same way, so it's nothing too difficult to push through. You'll pick up new tricks every few levels but those don't take long to incorporate in my experience.
Oh, and don't ever use recall knowledge unless it's been heavily houseruled. Either the enemy is a mook and it doesn't matter or the enemy is a boss or has a rarity tag or you guess the wrong skill to use and you're all but guarenteed failure or wrong info. Use common sense with enemy descriptions or a token picture for saves and good old fashioned experimentation for the rest.
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So from what I'm reading and my somewhat limited experience, when people describe 2e as tactical, it's not in the sense of "tactics and strategy will improve your odds of success," but more "if you don't employ in-depth strategy with your team, you will fail."
I... *really* do not like that. One thing I've grown to detest in 1e was when a player's turn would start, and the whole party would start strategizing out of character, telling who to go where and target which with what so they could optimize their own turn and the party would be most efficient. "The Quarterback," for those familiar with the trope/webcomic. This could happen, and it was admittedly effective, but it was almost never necessary. In 1e, you could just wing it most of the time. If your buddy happened to be flanking, cool. It feels like Paizo took some common player habits (some of them bad) and baked them into the system.
Also, in the way it's presented, Recall Knowledge feels less like identifying monsters in 1e and more like mechanically incentivized metagaming. IMO.
I know this sounds weird, but I'm sure someone will get what I mean when I say this system feels "too much like a game."
The thing is, while not fully untrue, PF2 feels as much as a game as your group of players *including* the GM wants to feel it like a game. Same is true about difficulty and teamwork dependent success.
If you have a rather antagonistic and probably also competitive GM, who never changes encounter difficulty, never matches loot to suit the group and who plays every monster, encounter and challenge to the best of its mechanical ability, like a chess player would, then yes, the game will feel very much like a game as your only "counter" to this as the players will be to game the metagame yourself.
If however you have a lenient and benevolent GM, that is not afraid of adjusting difficulty to the playstyle of his group, never afraid of providing more information about events, places and creatures than the rules indicate, never afraid of changing things on the fly if they better suit the party needs and narrative and who actually roleplays the various monsters the party is likely to encounter, then welcome to the wonderful world of RPGs.
And dont get me wrong, we are not talking an evil friend / GM here, however even a GM that mostly tries to play "by the book" can easily fall into the first category, especially if inexperienced.
Our gaming group had this exact experience when we started Age of Ashes with both GM and players being new to the system and having a really bad time in volume one, just by trying to follow the letter of the law. Things got a lot better by the end of volume 2 however, once our GM (and we the players) had figured out how to best avoid all the pitfalls that playing by the book might include.
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I will say that most of my games give players the space to make their own choices. Imo it's less stratagizing what everyone should do and instead thinking like a team player. What can you do to not only help yourself and team. If it's using your first attack to try and trip or grapple to restrict a monster and provide flat foot. That's great. An ideal gaming group shouldn still leave your turn to be your turn. But your chances will improve if you(and others) think about how can I make this fight easier. You don't have to be 100% in synch.
For an in play example. For awhile I played in a living world game with a kind of tight knit group that would also play with others. We wouldn't plan or pause the game but we knew what we were capable of and had a flow. The champion moved into the front, the summoner moved her eidolon into position and enlarged herz and the rogue weaved in and out of combat, rolled recalled knowledge checks and made use of inspired stratagem as a reaction, to let key attacks roll twice. My role was as a cleric healer who everyone else protected. On turn I gave them healing, buffs, and threw out the occasional damage spell.
These weren't nessecarilly optimized characters and they weren't nessecarilly optimized mechanical choices. But we knew how to build off of each other's actions and how to be flexible.
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One thing I've grown to detest in 1e was when a player's turn would start, and the whole party would start strategizing out of character, telling who to go where and target which with what so they could optimize their own turn and the party would be most efficient.
That's more of a PF1 thing than a PF2 thing. In PF1, you can really screw with your allies actions, ending up with people screaming at you because you are giving them -6 to their attacks (archer thing) or just because they can no more step and full attack because of you.
In PF2, it can still happen, but you need convoluted circumstances to do so.
So from what I'm reading and my somewhat limited experience, when people describe 2e as tactical, it's not in the sense of "tactics and strategy will improve your odds of success," but more "if you don't employ in-depth strategy with your team, you will fail."
That has nothing to do with the system but with the difficulty.
Even if it may feel bad, there's no shame in reducing the encounter's difficulty in PF2. PF2 is an extremely balanced game, and the basic difficulty is quite high. Giving an extra level to the party is an extremely easy way to get a lot of fun for players who prefer things to be simple.As a side note, the first levels can be tough, but you should feel better when leveling. So the game should be easier and easier the more you level (even if it will never end up being trivial).
I find that it is less about building a detailed tactics strategy above board. Typically just knowing a general idea of what the other characters usually do in combat is enough for me to decide what I am going to do.
The main goal that I try to do is to spend all three of my actions in productive ways. One for offense, one for defense, and one for ally assistance. Sometimes the lines between those blur a bit, and different types of characters will focus more on two of them than all three.
Champion:
Stride (offense, ally assist by staying in range of champion's reaction)
Strike (offense)
Raise Shield (defense)
Fighter:
Demoralize (offense, assist)
Strike (offense)
Strike (offense)
Cleric:
Sustain Forbidding Ward (ally assist)
Expand Bless (ally assist)
Stride (defense)
And so on.
Do note that these are examples and fairly generic ones at that.
Also note that each round will have different tactical 'best' actions. The Cleric can't sustain Forbidding Ward or expand Bless if the character didn't cast those spells earlier in the battle. The Fighter might have no one available that they can demoralize, or have to Stride to be within Strike range. Things like that. Picking one routine and stubbornly sticking to it is not going to go well.
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Context: Playing Braggart Swashbuckler in Extinction Curse, Storm Druid/Wizard in Strength of Thousands, just started a Spirit Barbarian in Agents of Edgewatch, and running Night of the Gray Death.
The only time I feel particularly weak is when I encounter something that specifically exists as a counter to my abilities. This has been most visible for my Swashbuckler with immunities/resistance to fear/precision/bleed. Even then, though, I'm still able to contribute decently.
A big part of the "play tactically" bit is that there are other people on the team who can compensate for your weakness just as you can compensate for theirs. It isn't about crafting an impenetrable, gigabrain strategy. It is about roughly understanding how the party fits together and what you do well. Sure, positioning is important, but it isn't like you need a planning meeting to say "we should flank" or "giving that thing frightened 1 is good".
Likewise: Most of the people in my groups make tactically unsound decisions a lot of time. It makes the game more difficult than if everyone was a hive mind but not impossible.
If you do all the above and stuff still isn't clicking, either the game isn't right for you/your group or your GM needs to reevaluate what they are prioritizing in their adventure planning.
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So from what I'm reading and my somewhat limited experience, when people describe 2e as tactical, it's not in the sense of "tactics and strategy will improve your odds of success," but more "if you don't employ in-depth strategy with your team, you will fail."
I mean, a lot of that comes down to fight design. Judging from your anecdotes, it seems like your GM is throwing extremely difficult fights at you, so you're experiencing a lot more pressure to optimize as a result.
Even in 1e you'd run into a similar issue if the GM overstacked fights against you, especially at low/mid levels when it's harder to brute force problems.
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So from what I'm reading and my somewhat limited experience, when people describe 2e as tactical, it's not in the sense of "tactics and strategy will improve your odds of success," but more "if you don't employ in-depth strategy with your team, you will fail."
I... *really* do not like that. One thing I've grown to detest in 1e was when a player's turn would start, and the whole party would start strategizing out of character, telling who to go where and target which with what so they could optimize their own turn and the party would be most efficient.
My experience with PF2 (and with PF1) is the opposite of that. The tactical nature of PF2 lets the players build their character around the character's personality and then roleplay the personality in combat. The tactical element of PF2 combat means that one or two character's individual combat style will be especially effective against the enemy, so the other PCs switch to supporting those characters.
The gnome rogue Binny is a sniper. She likes to shoot her shortbow from hiding for sneak attack damage. Hiding is fairly easy if she can find a tree or crate 40 feet away from combat, but if the opponents close in on her, then she is in trouble. As a rogue with thief racket, she gains a Dexterity bonus to melee weapon damage, and she has used that ability exactly once in the last ten levels (out of 14 levels. She was in melee more often at low levels). She can stay far from the opponents because other PCs will engage the foes in melee. At 10th level, she gained Precise Debilitation, which lets her keep a flat-footed foe flat-footed even if she is no longer hidden, but she still prefers to Hide at the end of each turn for defense. The other players love her Precise Debilitation because it makes the foes flat-footed to them, too, for -2 to the opponent's AC.
The halfling rogue Sam is an arcane trickster. With his high Charisma from scoundrel racket he multiclassed to Sorcerer, gaining two cantrips and up to 3rd-level spell slots, but mostly he wanted the focus spells from Draconic bloodline. With the rogue Arcane Trickster feat, he can deal sneak attack damage to flat-footed opponents with spells, but getting them flat-footed to spells is difficult, so he prefers to flank and attack with flaming dragon claws. But his true preference is to talk to opponents and make peace, either through common ground or through outright lies. Thus, he has taken Multilingual feat twice. He once made peace with some Korreds by pretending to be fey of a made-up race called Chergl, and he has kept up that lie ever since. As the only arcane caster in the party, he is the only party member trained in Arcana and Occultism.
Goldflame Honeysuckle Vine, Honey for short, is a leshy fey-blooded sorcerer. She is the other highly diplomatic party member. Though Harmlessly Cute, she is also quite ruthless. She is the party healer, using spells and Medicine feats, and also spell support. Her signature move is casting Haste at the beginning of combat, these days 7th-level Haste that affects six people, but she also knows a few area-of-effect spells to use against armies and likes Dragon Form for mobility. However, she is good at covertly using Read Aura to find disguise spells and dispel them. In her backstory she was awakened to be a familiar to a druid healer, and now that that druid is dead, she decided that she ought to be the familiar of the monk Ren. She will massacre anyone who hurts Ren--and Ren is usually in the thick of battle.
Ren'zar-jo, usually called Ren, is a catfolk monk. His specialty is mobility, moving quickly across the battlefield, up walls, and over crevasses to help others. He has picked up Honey and run her across the battlefiend for emergency healing. He also hits well, is hard to hit, and took Untrained Improvisation, so he and Sam handle Recall Knowledge for arcane and occult monsters.
Stormdancer is a gnome stormborn druid. Her specialty is destroying armies with metamagic-enhanced area-of-effect and multi-target spells. She has a Large fledgling roc as an animal companion adopted from a defeated enemy. Stormdancer had to keep Roxie as a mere pet for a few levels before gaining the feats that allow an animal companion. A houserule lets him ride Roxie while buoyed up with her Stormwind Flight spell.
Zinfandel is an elf ranger with flurry edge. He had been a two-weapon fighter, but abandoned that for archery when the party adopted an emphasis on attacking from the forest or from walls. He sets up snares before those forest ambushes, so that enyone entering the forest will be taken out by the snares.
Tikti is a tailed-goblin champion of the liberator cause serving Grandmother Spider. She is high-Dexterity, to be able to sneak with the rest of the party, and thus wears only light armor and relies on Shield Block for defense. And that is a very good defense, so she serves a barrier to any enemy lower level than her. For offense, her animal companion is a velociraptor. As a champion of a crafter god, repairing her shield after combat also Refocuses her focus pool.
They sound like a party built for fun roleplaying in character. And this is exactly what they are. Yet the players are tactical masterminds who play their characters effectively in combat without breaking character.
Consider Friday's game session. The module, Siege of Stone converted to PF2, put 4 gugs in a side room to the entry hall in the dwarven vaults. I increased that to 2 in the entry hall and 8 in the side room. That was still an easy 57-xp-per-PC encounter given the 7-member party. The party did not need to roll Recall Knowledge (DC 27 Occultism check) about the gugs, because they had asked the local dwarves what fighting the gugs was like. The party knew that the gugs had Attack of Opportunity, 15-foot reach, and rend with their claws for 2d8+13 slashing damage.
They entered the entry hall, spotted the two gugs, and advanced. 14th-level Tikti and 12th-level NPC dwarf paladin Colga led (the dwarves were not letting the party into their ancient vaults without an escort), moving slowly because Colga has speed 20 and Tikti took a Raise a Shield action. Binny branched off right to hide behind a support column. Ren branched off left to guard that side. Sam, Honey, and Stormdancer stayed between those defenders: Sam being stealthy and Honey casting mass Haste. Zinfandel lagged behind because he really hates the within-30-feet -2 volley penalty on his longbow and keeps his distance. 11th-level NPC minotaur Ekhinos (long story) charged the nearest gug for a horn Strike while it lacked a reaction for its Attack of Opportunity, and he missed.
And the gugs charged. Not just the two in the room, for they hollered, "Fresh meat" in Undercommon to alert the eight in the adjacent room to the left. Those more distant gugs lost an action due to listening for the alert, but gugs are fast, so they all reached the entry hall and the closest attacked. But a pair of champions meant three champion's reactions to reduce damage (Tikti has an extra reaction from Divine Reflexes).
Binny, at the top of the initiative, hit the rightmost gug with a sneak attack and left it flat-footed. Sam cast Produce Flame on the flat-footed gug. The champions attacked the gugs that had attaked them. Stormdancer cast Chain Lightning hitting all the gugs for over 600 damage total and retreated further from the gugs. Honey cast Visions of Danger on six gugs. She had to leave the three gugs on Ren out of the effect, but Zinfandel targeted one of them with Hunt Prey and two arrows. Ren entered Tiger Stance and hit another gug with three Strikes. Neither gug went down. Ekhinos, seeing his previous target unconscious at his feet, the nearest alternative targets in the Vision of Disaster, and within reach of three gugs, carefully Stepped away to stand by the champions.
Some gugs in the Vision of Danger dropped unconscious, others stayed in the Vision to attack the champions, others moved out to the right. One moved far enough to spot Binny, moved again, and hit her. The three gugs adjacent to Ren attacked him three times each. The one Strike that would have hit Ren he nullified with a Prevailing Position reaction by giving up his stance.
Binny Stepped backwards from the gug who had hit her, hugging the support column to gain cover again. She Hide and then shot that gug for more sneak attack damage and flat-footed debilitation. After some individual attacks, Stormdancer cast Chain Lightning again. Only the flat-footed gug by Binny was still standing, so Tikti sent her velociraptor after it and Colga's Retributive Strike reaction let the velociraptor gain an extra attack.
This was a conventional battle with no innovative tactics; it's my example because it's fresh in my memory. But we can see basic tactics: the champions and monk who could resist damage formed a barrier to protect the others from the gugs. Binny's Precise Debilitation left a gug vulnerable to Sam's arcane-trickster sneak Produce Flame cantrip. The primary spellcasters had multi-target and area of effect spells ready to fight groups of enemies. The ranged attackers focused on the enemies threatening their allies in order to protect those allies. Ekhinos could have charged deeper into battle a second time, but he played his second turn safe because he had learned to not overextend. Several PCs did not use their specialties this combat, for example Ren was not dashing around the battlefield, because those specialties did not fit obvious anti-gug tactics.
If the two rogues had relied on flanking for their sneak attacks, as many rogues do, then they would have been out of luck. Trying to flank a gug would be suicidal. Closing off one tactic to the party left them plenty of alternatives because they were versatile.
The gugs could have slipped past the monk and champions via Eerie Flexibility to attack the spellcasters. But that would have swapped out a Strike for a Stride and they did not know whether the defenders had Attacks of Opportunity (Ren had Stand Still, the monk's version). I did not use GM knowledge to maximize the threat from the gugs. I instead roleplayed them like hungry gugs, voraciously seeking the nearest meat. High-level gugs in later rooms will be more wily.
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So from what I'm reading and my somewhat limited experience, when people describe 2e as tactical, it's not in the sense of "tactics and strategy will improve your odds of success," but more "if you don't employ in-depth strategy with your team, you will fail."I mean, a lot of that comes down to fight design. Judging from your anecdotes, it seems like your GM is throwing extremely difficult fights at you, so you're experiencing a lot more pressure to optimize as a result.
Even in 1e you'd run into a similar issue if the GM overstacked fights against you, especially at low/mid levels when it's harder to brute force problems.
Agreed, but in all fairness a player could make it reaaaally hard to stack against them by virtue of PF1's lack of power ceiling. You could get into an arms race with your GM and actually win.
But yeah, the thing to know about encounter difficulty is that the tables actually work now. The system doesn't require things to be difficult, but if you make a severe encounter than it will be severely difficult. The power ceiling is such that you can't just optimize yourself out of ever being challenged.
I've run early PF2 APs and PF1 APs converted to PF2. The latter was much more forgiving if you kept all the challenge ratings/levels the same. I'm also running two parties through Abomination Vaults right now. The veteran group gets the game as written. But my other group includes my 13 year old sister whose only Pathfinder experience is the beginner's box, and they got about a level and a half head start on the AP. Both groups are doing fine with about the same (small) number of harrowing encounters. The poor tactics of the second party offsets the level advantage.
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So from what I'm reading and my somewhat limited experience, when people describe 2e as tactical, it's not in the sense of "tactics and strategy will improve your odds of success," but more "if you don't employ in-depth strategy with your team, you will fail."
I... *really* do not like that. One thing I've grown to detest in 1e was when a player's turn would start, and the whole party would start strategizing out of character, telling who to go where and target which with what so they could optimize their own turn and the party would be most efficient. "The Quarterback," for those familiar with the trope/webcomic. This could happen, and it was admittedly effective, but it was almost never necessary. In 1e, you could just wing it most of the time. If your buddy happened to be flanking, cool. It feels like Paizo took some common player habits (some of them bad) and baked them into the system.
Being honest my currently PF2 is the opposite from what you describe.
When I played 1E/3.5 mostly players usually tries to "show what they can do" basically playing the game alone and without care too much with the other party members. Is more like "See know I show how my big cleric will erase such creatures from the face of the earth" and starts to use it's main strategy stacking some amount of abilities and use them against opponent without think too much about how this will affect the rest of the party and the other player "I will show how my undetectable shadow thief can easilly flat-foot and kill this enemy" while other "I will unleash the true power of my magic" and so on. And was common that someone beging to complain how about the other party member is getting in the way and begin a discussion about how each player are playing in a "wrong way" from each one point of view until the GM interfere.
And now after played PF2 I notice that's a natural result from a game that stimulated a power race many times.
While in PF2 the players just naturally started to see each other strong points and weakness. After some encounters the paladin started to be positioning himself in the best place where he can protect his allies and started to enjoy this, to enjoy how good he can be to protect the others, the alchemist noticed that his persistent damage are good against strong opponents (in early game) helping to weaken it to being more easily killed by other players. The healer liked the he can know fight and heal at same turn making him fell more useful to party at same time that he is no more limited to be a healing tower, the fighters enjoyed that they are now a relevant DPT and yet can push/intimidate/prone and do many other things than just strike, strike, strike.
The player type that was more harder to have fun with the game was the spellcasters. But after they understand better how some spell works they noticed that they can be more useful using spells to help the allies than direct attack. The recently noticed how fun could be to use simple low level spells like command to indirect attack the opponents near to the fighter forcing them to prone and take AoO while loose 2 actions.
And the better they almost never combine strategies and tactics everything just started to work naturally during gameplay and they stoped to complain about they allies are using tactics that harm their gamplay.
Also, in the way it's presented, Recall Knowledge feels less like identifying monsters in 1e and more like mechanically incentivized metagaming. IMO.
I know this sounds weird, but I'm sure someone will get what I mean when I say this system feels "too much like a game."
I don't think that RK is a "mechanically incentivized metagaming" instead, just think that a experienced adventurer is no more completely ignorant about the world.
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I will say, I think the difficulty is being overstated a little, I've seen the party regularly take on extremes and a little over without needing unusual luck.
Though, I suppose healing makes a big difference to that, because it lets you extend a combat you haven't gotten sufficiently lucky in.
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Has anyone mentioned the value of RK checks yet in this thread?
Asking because, in our AoA game, my party just did two relatively challenging fights back to back that we were able to break into much more manageable chunks thanks to RK checks. Spoilering just in case. ** spoiler omitted **
It made us all feel really good to handle a difficult encounter like that relatively easily because we planned ahead and did our homework. Granted, APs don't always give you opportunities to do that.
The actual power of the RK action (which normally involves a player attempting to recall a specific piece of knowledge, and then the first line of each success says get that knowledge) short circuits people for whatever reason so some people use Creature Identification and only Creature Identification, even if they already know what the creature is.
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I am a GM for my group for almost a year now. They are level 8 soon to be 9. Milestone leveling. Home brew. All that.
I have not experienced what you have. They have repeatedly shown capable of taking on difficult odds.
I suspect it's a combination of lack of system knowledge (you really shouldn't just full attack outside of a few builds as an obvious example) but also lack of system knowledge with the gm.
If you throw a lot of severe or extreme encounters, build wide, not tall. Try to, as often as you can, to never provide an enemy more than 2 levels over the party. Build wide, offer more enemies. Terrain, traps, etc.
You will enjoy the system of you take the time to learn it. But you have to be willing to do so.
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The actual power of the RK action (which normally involves a player attempting to recall a specific piece of knowledge, and then the first line of each success says get that knowledge) short circuits people for whatever reason so some people use Creature Identification and only Creature Identification, even if they already know what the creature is.Has anyone mentioned the value of RK checks yet in this thread?
Asking because, in our AoA game, my party just did two relatively challenging fights back to back that we were able to break into much more manageable chunks thanks to RK checks. Spoilering just in case. ** spoiler omitted **
It made us all feel really good to handle a difficult encounter like that relatively easily because we planned ahead and did our homework. Granted, APs don't always give you opportunities to do that.
That's because the RK rules are vague, ambiguous and confusing. Could be much improved.
it's not in the sense of "tactics and strategy will improve your odds of success," but more "if you don't employ in-depth strategy with your team, you will fail."
I think this is more a failure of adventure design. As is common with new systems, early adventures are often written before the game has been fully written or understood. Early PF2e adventures used too may encounters on the high end of the difficulty spectrum for sure.
There is also perhaps an issue how they named the encounter building guidlines. Psychologically, perhaps people don't like to fight "Low" and "Moderate" encounters when I think there should be quite a few of them in a adventure because they do create a different dynamic. Yes, all the advice listed helps people beat Severe and Extreme encounters but it is also fun to have some Low and Moderate encounters where monsters are failing saves more often and melee PCs are criting more often.
Seems like later adventure paths are mixing it up a little better.
The thing with moderate and weaker encounters though is that spending any resources on them is generally a waste. Maybe once or twice a campaign you'll need to expend something to deal with a weird circumstance but other than that, you'd be accomplishing nothing of value.
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The thing with moderate and weaker encounters though is that spending any resources on them is generally a waste. Maybe once or twice a campaign you'll need to expend something to deal with a weird circumstance but other than that, you'd be accomplishing nothing of value.
You rarely know beforehand the difficulty of an encounter. So it's better to use resources and just make sure to last the whole day.
You rarely know beforehand the difficulty of an encounter. So it's better to use resources and just make sure to last the whole day.The thing with moderate and weaker encounters though is that spending any resources on them is generally a waste. Maybe once or twice a campaign you'll need to expend something to deal with a weird circumstance but other than that, you'd be accomplishing nothing of value.
You know a creature's threat level after the first round just based on attack roll results and incoming damage numbers. Couple that with some mental math based on number of the same creature in the encounter and you shouldn't have much issue estimating encounter difficulty. It's not exactly often that you have wildly diverse encounters after all.
I've never considered known values like that as metagaming so I've never had an issue with it but that might just be me.
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If you're only throwing cr+2 and up at your party then your purposely depriving your casters of their aoe/cc niche. Your encounters should run the gambit of cr-2 to cr+3 in terms of creature comp