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To put it simply, they just missed feeling badass.
I understand. Some suggestions:
Try Proficiency without Level, and maybe Automatic Bonus Progression. That will get rid of the to hit penalty and success penalty they constantly run into.
Really cut down on the number of level +2 monsters you use.
Use some of the seriously different monsters out there and take a bit more time with working out the right way to use them. The variety of monsters is one of the really good features of PF2. If the game play seems too repetative try to use the monsters in different ways, so as to give the players inspiration.
I think some people can get stuck in a rut with one or two optimal builds. Get convinced it is the best and don't branch out. I think for example that there are 5 different Fighter builds that work well just in single class Fighter, but most people get stuck on one. Have a look at some of the other classes. Have they played a Magus yet? Have they tried a more mobile party? Encourage them to not take Bards or Fighters and see what else they can do.
Tweak a couple of the rules that are holding the weaker classes back so they become viable. I know you have done a few with the Swashbuckler.
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I second switching up encounter types. There is a lot more variety than simple base-to-base beatfests to explore. A variety of terrain and encounters will highlight different characters.
This week my party went from a vertical combat filled with obstacles (where my Athletic cloud jumper excelled), to a labyrinth (where the Overwatch sniper with Spyglass modification got to shine).
Power in PF2 is not measured in numbers, but in options. You can't really break the whole game with a build, but you can sure trivialize particular encounters with the right tricks up your sleeve.
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To put it simply, they just missed feeling badass. We call that overpowered in PF1 and it was hard on a DM. Which is why my compromise was point buy, when I used to let them roll generous stats. I hope it goes ok.
Honestly, a gaming table where the GM has a hard and frustrating time just so a bunch of nerds can enjoy their power fantasy of roflbbqing every encounter is not a good table. This game is supposed to be fun for everyone involved, not frustrating/taxing.
Having to spend hours carefully customising encounters so that my players who min-max AND my players who are casual snoozes that play Dwarf fighters with axe and shield ALL have equal levels of fun was an unrewarding chore and frankly a Sisyphean task given how PF1 works. This is why we switched to PF2, the power level variance between characters is far smaller, and my players all enjoy a challenge.
Power fantasies are fine in roleplaying games. Being the powerful hero who shows up to save the day from a threat beyond regular villagers is a classic fantasy story and a great boost to the player's ego.
I had a few players into power fantasies in my campaigns. Fortunately, the teamwork players knew how to mesh the powergaming character into their teamwork tactics, so it all worked out. A powergamer who would want to be more powerful than other party members would have been greatly disappointed, because teamwork builds are more effective than power builds in both PF1 and PF2.
And as a GM I am entertained by watching teamwork. My players indulge me and say, "If it [a wild scheme for victory] amuses the GM, then it's more likely to work."
There problem is the characters just feel very rangebound. They can tell what's going to happen each character each time.
They know every full caster will advance their casting proficiency and DC at exactly the same pace with the same DC no matter what feats they take or what they do.
They know they will need a striking and greater striking weapon by around level 12 and all Master Proficiency Martials will have the same hit roll at the same level using the same type of weapon with only weapon die mattering. ...
In my current campaign, the monk Ren'zar-jo uses his Tiger Claw unarmed strike, the ranger Zinfandel uses his longbow unless he pulls out his twin kukris, and the champion Tikti wields a shortsword but her real weapon is her velociraptor. For the rogues, Binny uses a shortbow and Sam uses his Dargon Claws sorcerer bloodline ability. Both spellcasters, Honey and Stormdancer, cast from the primal tradition, but they select different spells.
My wife teaches teamwork through example, so all parties in my campaigns use teamwork tactics. I have to increase the difficulty of the encounters in the modules to challenge them. If they became more powerful through optimized builds or better gear, then I would increase the difficulty even more. Optimization is not a path to victory.
The players realized that they had no reason to optimize their characters beyond enabling good teamwork. They would rather design characters that are amusing to play: Sam with his secrets and lies, Zinfandel with his family background and career hopes, Honey with her sweet naïveté hiding her ruthlessness, Ren'zar-jo with his can-do attitude dashing to trouble spots, unflappable Tikti stopping to read a book or repair her shield, Stormdancer tending her adopted roc, and Binny disappearing from sight regularly in shyness.
Last month we watched the animated show The Legend of Vox Machina, based on the roleplaying game by Critical Role. My PCs are like that, though with less drunkenness and panic.
These characters don't have unhittable ACs and when Zinfandel fights with two weapons his damage is average. But they know that when their character does get hit because their AC is not sky high, the rest of the party will have their back and protect and heal them before the damage matters. And when their damage dealing does not take down their foe, another party member will add more damage.
They are not lone badasses. They are a badass team. I think that that is the solution to feeling weak in PF2.
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In any case the complaint against PF1 was never that you didn't have choices or that everything feels the same. It was always, "this is too broken compared to an unoptimized build". The complaint was that there was too much variety in power.
Might wanna take off those rose-tinted glasses and get back to full attacking every round
I get the alure of pf1e, one of my regular players is saying he doesnt like pf2e.
I think its because he's lazy and used to hitting stuff on a 2, but his feelings are still valid.
He's currently reading to reboot our skulls & shackles pf1e game, Ill see how it feels to go back to pf1e. We were level 8 and I play an aeromancer arcanist with spell focus evocation and greater spell focus evocation.
The captain is a kensai magus with the frosbite/demoralize combo and a cruel estoc. When she hits something they become fatigued, shaken, sickened and entangled.
Soon as we hit level 10, i'm going to start casting some DC 29 Ice prisons on people that take -7 to reflex saves if they got stabbed by the captain. A CR 20 monster has a listed +22 to reflex saves if it is his good save. Provided the captain stabbed it with a true strike frostbite, it would require a 14 to save agaisnt icy prison, and I can just cast it again.
I expect to be bored of encounters really fast, but at least I like our crew so we'll see how it goes.
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If players want to build the Ultimate broken PCs, level by level, there is certainly no way to do it in PF2 since it was specifically designed to prevent this so that newcomers and heavy optimizers could adventure side by side while feeling relevant.
Feature, not bug.
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They are not lone badasses. They are a badass team. I think that that is the solution to feeling weak in PF2.
There is indeed a lot of people who enjoy the fantasy and gameplay of being a badass team. But there's also a large amount of people who enjoying being a team of badass people instead. And by that I mean, instead of being a well-oiled machine like a SWAT squad, simply being a team of people who are baddasses at their individual, different areas of expertise in a way that complements one another.
I think PF2 leaves the second group sucking on their thumbs a little too much as of now. I already get to be a virtually nameless part of a larger whole on my dayjob. For my character, I want it to feel like their individual actions (and those of my companions as well) matter.
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Using critical role really isn't a good example. Most people do not have the talent or training in entertainment to make characters like that or be a GM like Matt. Expecting or even requiring that level of skill is a recipe for some real bad time for everyone involved.
Also, I am pretty sure that they use the 5e rules as basis even in the show given how they switched to that system beforr they started streaming and have stayed with it for every streamed campaign. (Not counting one shots).
I am not up to Matt Mercer's level as a GM. That's why I rely on Paizo modules for the story. And my players are ordinary smart people, such as a retired biophysicist, two computer programmers, a museum salesclerk, and a high-school student.
Yet their characters act out stories as well as the professional voice actors in Critical Role. The combat in Pathfinder is an interesting game to my players, but the storytelling opportunities really excite them.
This is the first Pathfinder game for Binny's and Ren'zar-jo's players and they learned the storytelling skills quickly. They also mastered tactics better than Matt Mercer's players.
The exact rule set does not matter for storytelling. My wife added a lot of storytelling to a Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition campaign, where the character classes are difficult to individualize.
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They are not lone badasses. They are a badass team. I think that that is the solution to feeling weak in PF2.There is indeed a lot of people who enjoy the fantasy and gameplay of being a badass team. But there's also a large amount of people who enjoying being a team of badass people instead. And by that I mean, instead of being a well-oiled machine like a SWAT squad, simply being a team of people who are baddasses at their individual, different areas of expertise in a way that complements one another.
I think PF2 leaves the second group sucking on their thumbs a little too much as of now. I already get to be a virtually nameless part of a larger whole on my dayjob. For my character, I want it to feel like their individual actions (and those of my companions as well) matter.
I feel PF2 provides this by ensuring no character can be good, or even average, at everything. You need the others to do their part so that you can all succeed together.
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They are not lone badasses. They are a badass team. I think that that is the solution to feeling weak in PF2.There is indeed a lot of people who enjoy the fantasy and gameplay of being a badass team. But there's also a large amount of people who enjoying being a team of badass people instead. And by that I mean, instead of being a well-oiled machine like a SWAT squad, simply being a team of people who are baddasses at their individual, different areas of expertise in a way that complements one another.
I think PF2 leaves the second group sucking on their thumbs a little too much as of now. I already get to be a virtually nameless part of a larger whole on my dayjob. For my character, I want it to feel like their individual actions (and those of my companions as well) matter.
I feel it's more a problem of difficulty. If you give every character an extra level, the feeling of being badass as individuals comes back. With 2 levels, you end up with nearly untouchable Paladins, always hitting Fighters, encounter-shutting Wizards and such.
I think there's a great deal of perception. In PF1, a level 20 monster can be handled fine at level 10 and it feels badass. If this level 20 monster was called a level 13 monster, it would feel less badass despite the exact same scenario.
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Jokes on you I am into vital striking and feint builds.In any case the complaint against PF1 was never that you didn't have choices or that everything feels the same. It was always, "this is too broken compared to an unoptimized build". The complaint was that there was too much variety in power.Might wanna take off those rose-tinted glasses and get back to full attacking every round
You spend your move action to feint and your standard action to make one VS attack while the person next to you is firing a volley of arrows or swinging a greatsword multiple times?
That would explain a lot.
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But that's OK and that's the strength of the system because it means GM can prepare challenges without having to constantly keep in mind that one person has +40 Perception at level 10 while others are at +11 at best and monsters/NPCs work as intended.
This was a huge problem in the last PF1 campaign I got to play. One of our party members had a perception modifier so high that in order to create traps and enemies that could have any expectation to hide from him, it was actually impossible for anyone else in the party to succeed, even though some of those characters had max ranks and some reasonable investment in Wisdom.
... That said I can see why it might be a bit of a bummer that PF2 doesn't let you go all in on something. It might be nice to see a few more feats that let you go in a certain direction, even if the benefits aren't huge.
One small example, I'm running a kind of abnormally large game (which is my own problem I don't blame Paizo too much) and our martials end up feeling like they don't have a lot of room to define themselves, because even though they're different classes a lot of their options boil down to the same mix of damage, maneuvers, and occasionally demoralization.
Which admittedly is still a lot better than PF1's martial paradigms (aka stand completely still attacking), but something imo with room for improvement.
They are not lone badasses. They are a badass team. I think that that is the solution to feeling weak in PF2.There is indeed a lot of people who enjoy the fantasy and gameplay of being a badass team. But there's also a large amount of people who enjoying being a team of badass people instead. And by that I mean, instead of being a well-oiled machine like a SWAT squad, simply being a team of people who are baddasses at their individual, different areas of expertise in a way that complements one another.
I think PF2 leaves the second group sucking on their thumbs a little too much as of now. I already get to be a virtually nameless part of a larger whole on my dayjob. For my character, I want it to feel like their individual actions (and those of my companions as well) matter.
I feel it's more a problem of difficulty. If you give every character an extra level, the feeling of being badass as individuals comes back. With 2 levels, you end up with nearly untouchable Paladins, always hitting Fighters, encounter-shutting Wizards and such.
I think there's a great deal of perception. In PF1, a level 20 monster can be handled fine at level 10 and it feels badass. If this level 20 monster was called a level 13 monster, it would feel less badass despite the exact same scenario.
I have evidence that an extra level won't help. After my player's finished the 3rd module of Ironfang Invasion, Assault on Longshadow, with a high xp reward due to their Great Victory, they jumped ahead to a scenario from the 6th module. I toned it down a little, but at 12th level they still battled 15th-level Commander Stabvistin after defeating his army. They earned more experience points on this side quest. So they began the 4th module, Siege of Stone, one level higher than expected.
I raised the difficulty of some challenges, yet I left the challenges in Part 2, The Long Walk, unchanged. They were traveling through the Darklands and I let them see the Darklands as the author intended. Thus, they were a level too high for those challenges, in addition to having an oversized party. It was a series of cakewalks.
I just asked two of my players about it. My wife said that it set up the party for overconfidence. They needed to get back into their best game to handle the gugs in the reliquary when I resumed increasing the difficulty. A housemate said that his character Stormdancer never stopped being cautious during the easy challenges, which might explain why Stormdancer was quite effective against the first wave of gugs. Neither felt especially badass during the cream-puff challenges.
An extra level in PF2 grants +1 to AC. It does not grant +5 to AC like PF1 can. The PF2 character will be hit 5% less for a smaller fraction of their hit points and will hit back 5% more accurately. If the player thinks not being hit is strong and being hit at all is weak, then the player will still feel weak.
The problem is the base chance of success is too low. So it just feels frustrating having a 40% success rate instead of a 60% success rate.
We need some more higher hitpoint but lower level monsters as options to mix it up.That's Starfinder way of dealing with monsters. Monsters have quite low AC compared to characters. But hitting a lot and dealing a small portion of the enemy hp doesn't feel more rewarding than hitting rarely but dealing a significant portion of the enemy hp.
The advantage of Pathfinder 2 way of dealing is that you can shine through tactics: If you manage to grab a significant advantage during a round thanks to buffing and debuffing or just an intelligent party tactic, you can get to a point where it is decisive. When, in Starfinder, nothing is really rewarded and you just roll dice to roll dice.Its the D&D way as well - many monsters have very poor AC, and its so easy to get advantage its broken.
The problem with the way you are suggesting are that many of the ways to debuff or to stack bonuses and penalties against enemies, run into that same problem of very high DCs so they don't work. Quite frankly I don't want everyone feeling they need to take a Bard with Synesthesia into every boss fight. Most of the ways should still work reasonably in a good range of circumstances.
Obviously rewarding tactics is better. Its just frustrating when your tactics which should be Ok run into high defences over and over again.
interesting viewpoint.
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Jokes on you I am into vital striking and feint builds.In any case the complaint against PF1 was never that you didn't have choices or that everything feels the same. It was always, "this is too broken compared to an unoptimized build". The complaint was that there was too much variety in power.Might wanna take off those rose-tinted glasses and get back to full attacking every roundYou spend your move action to feint and your standard action to make one VS attack while the person next to you is firing a volley of arrows or swinging a greatsword multiple times?
That would explain a lot.
Actually a minmaxed feint build could theoretically create an infinite amount of attacks...
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You were making infinite attacks while the person next to you was simply stopping time and dropping a briefcase nuke of explosive runes under C'thulu while piloting a simulacrum body from a personal demiplane?
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That being said I do agree the math is very swingy. I have started to do away with +4 monsters entirely. Instead I use something I got from... I think AngryGM?... and I put two CL+2 creatures that occupy the same square.
They have the same cooldown on recharge skills (Like breath weapon) but otherwise have two initiative tracks and independent actions (can't act back to back). Once my players take out the first stack of HP I describe the creature as being ''bloodied but committed to defeating you''
If the creature heals itself above its max the second ini comes back. This feels very ''Raid boss'' for the players and they get it, the monster has like a ''two phase'' system, but you can gain momentum after one of its phases is down.
You can even work in special reactions that trigger when one of its blocks dies, such as ''rage mode, this creature becomes quickened and gains +2 status bonus to damage. Trigger: This creature is reduce to its bloodied state, lasts 1 minute or until the bloodied state is negated (such as through healing).
Level +2 creatures have fierce attacks but they feel less like cheating, you still have some good chances of connecting, and this mechanic makes it so you can even have a half of the monster focused on defense and the other on offense (like for angels or demons that have good buffs and abilities but rarely have time for them).
This also allows you to keep that ''hyped up big boss'' feel like for dragons or war leaders, or uber liches or what not. It just feels less unique if you're fighting 2 BBEG at the ultimate showdown. ''This is Vordakai the 9000 year old lich cyclop and his.... twin brother...!!!''
So far its been very enjoyable. My stream group...
Do you watch Knights of Lastwall's content? This sounds like something Derick does.
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But are YOU having fun running PF1? Taking into account all the work you need to put in to make PF1 adventures made for baseline non-optimised characters remotely challenging for charop folks.
We'll see. I ran PF1 for years. Back then I didn't mind putting the work into make things challenging. So I had fun.
I was enjoying running PF2 because I could just read the module and run the game, no real extra preparation required. Everything was pretty much balanced and a challenge out of the box.
I used to let them roll crazy generous stats. 4d6 seven times, reroll 1s, roll two characters take the best one. We were powergaming for quite a while. So we had starting stats that were 40 to 50 plus point equivalent characters in many campaigns.
So when they wanted to go back and do PF1 again, my compromise was 25 point buy. The stats are far lower and more balanced than they used to be. I'm hoping that will make things easier as stat inflation was a big part of power-gaming in PF1.
We'll see how it goes. If I hate it, then maybe we'll have to look at some other compromise.
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I do not, but its a suggestion made by AngryGM and I think I'm not unique in using it.
But are YOU having fun running PF1? Taking into account all the work you need to put in to make PF1 adventures made for baseline non-optimised characters remotely challenging for charop folks.We'll see. I ran PF1 for years. Back then I didn't mind putting the work into make things challenging. So I had fun.
I was enjoying running PF2 because I could just read the module and run the game, no real extra preparation required. Everything was pretty much balanced and a challenge out of the box.
I used to let them roll crazy generous stats. 4d6 seven times, reroll 1s, roll two characters take the best one. We were powergaming for quite a while. So we had starting stats that were 40 to 50 plus point equivalent characters in many campaigns.
So when they wanted to go back and do PF1 again, my compromise was 25 point buy. The stats are far lower and more balanced than they used to be. I'm hoping that will make things easier as stat inflation was a big part of power-gaming in PF1.
We'll see how it goes. If I hate it, then maybe we'll have to look at some other compromise.
Yeah this is just screaming for X stat to Y bonus exploitation. I ain't judging though, I did the same.
I'd be interested in knowing how it will work, Deriven. If the assets of PF2 will be made more obvious when going back to PF1.
The one thing all the players are already talking about missing reading the PF1 rules is the 3 action system. They still prefer that over the locked in PF1 action system.
Maybe if I get some experience in both systems, I can blend some of these ideas.
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They kind of feel like they're making the same character time and time again with a different cosmetic appearance. They're using the same tactics. They just kind of play the same campaign over and over again.I really don't understand how this concerns specifically PF2e comparing to any other TTRPG when everyone knows the system perfectly. If you can't wrap the mechanics in imagination and have fun in one game you'd probably end up like that in other games too. Or you've just burned out. Happens.
You can build different things in PF1.
You really can build an unhittable or nearly unhittable character in PF1.
If you build a greataxe two-hander fighter power attack guy, you will substantially more damage using that greataxe.
If you build up to use evocation spells in PF1 as a wizard, you will notice that you are doing substantially more damage and effect using evocation spells.
There is a lot more meaningful customization in PF1.
Apparently for my players the math of the game impacts how they view the effectiveness of their character in their imagination. I can't really tell them that's wrong as that's more of a personal subjective viewpoint.
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So I just gave in. I'm going to run them power gaming for a while and hope point buy is enough of a throttle to not make my life completely miserable. We'll see how it goes.Where are you setting the point buy? Cause too high and you'll hit the same stumbling blocks. Too low and the players may feel cheated.
25 points. I was playing the Kingmaker video game and 25 points let's you make a decent character.
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They kind of feel like they're making the same character time and time again with a different cosmetic appearance. They're using the same tactics. They just kind of play the same campaign over and over again.I really don't understand how this concerns specifically PF2e comparing to any other TTRPG when everyone knows the system perfectly. If you can't wrap the mechanics in imagination and have fun in one game you'd probably end up like that in other games too. Or you've just burned out. Happens.That's not really true, and even if I really love PF2, I also think there's something missing from PF1.
In PF1 (and 3rd edition) you can create nearly anything. Untouchable AC, auto-hit attacks, irresistible spells and such exist.
They are part of the complaints against PF1: with enough system mastery, you can just break the game. But if your pleasure is to break the game, then you should be happy about it. It becomes a super hero game.
This is pretty much what happened. They want to feel badass again, superheroic fantasy. They don't want to care if the other player tripped the character to make him easier to hit. They just want to be able to hit the enemy regardless of whether he's flanked or tripped or debuffed. They want to feel like the badass in an 80s action flick, less like the team mate on a basketball team giving them the assist.
I am going to have to watch the casting. I still remember casters ruining martials fun times at higher level. Lower level not as bad, but higher level and casters just do too much or there are too many "I win" spells. Probably even more now. Gonna have to keep an eye on those.
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25 points. I was playing the Kingmaker video game and 25 points let's you make a decent character.So I just gave in. I'm going to run them power gaming for a while and hope point buy is enough of a throttle to not make my life completely miserable. We'll see how it goes.Where are you setting the point buy? Cause too high and you'll hit the same stumbling blocks. Too low and the players may feel cheated.
Yep, 25 points works quite well. I use it a lot.
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Could always try using 3-action economy from unchained.I'd be interested in knowing how it will work, Deriven. If the assets of PF2 will be made more obvious when going back to PF1.The one thing all the players are already talking about missing reading the PF1 rules is the 3 action system. They still prefer that over the locked in PF1 action system.
Maybe if I get some experience in both systems, I can blend some of these ideas.
They have a three action system in unchained? Is it easy to use with the spell and special ability system? We didn't use much from unchained other than the classes.
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I am going to have to watch the casting. I still remember casters ruining martials fun times at higher level. Lower level not as bad, but higher level and casters just do too much or there are too many "I win" spells. Probably even more now. Gonna have to keep an eye on those.
Back when my group and I played 1e we only used levels 1 to 10, enough so you can se actual progression but not enough to see casters get out of the bounds of the system.
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Just saw this thread, so sorry I haven’t read through 5 pages of backlog, but this issue is related to one of the issues I recently posted in another thread: that when you constantly go up against single enemies that are party level+3, things get real deadly real fast, and it can feel like an unfun slog
The solution is remarkably simple: send the party against more enemies of lower CR every once in a while.
Four enemies of party level -1 are going to be a lot more forgiving than one enemy of party level +2 and about the same amount of XP. And a remarkable thing happens: crits come easier, damage isn’t so devastating, and enemies actually fail saves. Sure, you may want to fight a big boss every once in a while and they should be hard, but trading out one big enemy for four smaller ones is a great way to have more fun. And it’s not like it isn’t still dangerous: now you have enemies that can flank and maybe sneak attack, but they can possibly fail saves and might crit fail on a natural 2.
Unfortunately, a lot of PAIZO authors just put in room after room of single high level monsters and that can totally feel like a slog. The Malevolence Module does this a lot, and then it is like the OP described, just a slog of a fight.
I’m thinking of listing out a series of rules/guidelines for how to build out encounters to be fun.
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In fairness to malevolence, it's a horror module so constantly feeling overwhelmed is probably par for the course.
They have a three action system in unchained? Is it easy to use with the spell and special ability system? We didn't use much from unchained other than the classes.Could always try using 3-action economy from unchained.I'd be interested in knowing how it will work, Deriven. If the assets of PF2 will be made more obvious when going back to PF1.The one thing all the players are already talking about missing reading the PF1 rules is the 3 action system. They still prefer that over the locked in PF1 action system.
Maybe if I get some experience in both systems, I can blend some of these ideas.
They have a three action system but it doesn't really work IMO; it's a better method in a vacuum to be sure, but when you've already built half of your classes to be reliant on swift actions for their routine then it kinda breaks down.
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They are not lone badasses. They are a badass team. I think that that is the solution to feeling weak in PF2.There is indeed a lot of people who enjoy the fantasy and gameplay of being a badass team. But there's also a large amount of people who enjoying being a team of badass people instead. And by that I mean, instead of being a well-oiled machine like a SWAT squad, simply being a team of people who are baddasses at their individual, different areas of expertise in a way that complements one another.
I think PF2 leaves the second group sucking on their thumbs a little too much as of now. I already get to be a virtually nameless part of a larger whole on my dayjob. For my character, I want it to feel like their individual actions (and those of my companions as well) matter.
I feel it's more a problem of difficulty. If you give every character an extra level, the feeling of being badass as individuals comes back. With 2 levels, you end up with nearly untouchable Paladins, always hitting Fighters, encounter-shutting Wizards and such.
I think there's a great deal of perception. In PF1, a level 20 monster can be handled fine at level 10 and it feels badass. If this level 20 monster was called a level 13 monster, it would feel less badass despite the exact same scenario.
I have evidence that an extra level won't help. After my player's finished the 3rd module of Ironfang Invasion, Assault on Longshadow, with a high xp reward due to their Great Victory, they jumped ahead to a scenario from the 6th module. I toned it down a little, but at 12th level they still battled 15th-level Commander Stabvistin after defeating his army. They earned more experience points on this side quest. So they began the 4th module, Siege of Stone, one level higher than expected.
I raised the difficulty of some challenges, yet I left the challenges in Part 2, The Long Walk, unchanged. They were traveling through the...
For information, there is another thread around these days where people say it worked for them. I guess it really depends on what players expect/enjoy in a game.
I am going to have to watch the casting. I still remember casters ruining martials fun times at higher level. Lower level not as bad, but higher level and casters just do too much or there are too many "I win" spells. Probably even more now. Gonna have to keep an eye on those.Back when my group and I played 1e we only used levels 1 to 10, enough so you can se actual progression but not enough to see casters get out of the bounds of the system.
I have heard a lot of positive feedback about this approach.
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They have a three action system but it doesn't really work IMO; it's a better method in a vacuum to be sure, but when you've already built half of your classes to be reliant on swift actions for their routine then it kinda breaks down.
It's particularly ugly if you're playing a magus (since so much of your class is built around the standard action economy), or fighting something with a single really powerful natural attack, since now it can attack with it repeatedly.
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Just make all swift actions into reactions. Problem solved.They have a three action system but it doesn't really work IMO; it's a better method in a vacuum to be sure, but when you've already built half of your classes to be reliant on swift actions for their routine then it kinda breaks down.They have a three action system in unchained? Is it easy to use with the spell and special ability system? We didn't use much from unchained other than the classes.Could always try using 3-action economy from unchained.I'd be interested in knowing how it will work, Deriven. If the assets of PF2 will be made more obvious when going back to PF1.The one thing all the players are already talking about missing reading the PF1 rules is the 3 action system. They still prefer that over the locked in PF1 action system.
Maybe if I get some experience in both systems, I can blend some of these ideas.
Not a fan of the multiple types of actions, but I think this may be a winning idea.
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To put it simply, they just missed feeling badass.I understand. Some suggestions:
Try Proficiency without Level, and maybe Automatic Bonus Progression. That will get rid of the to hit penalty and success penalty they constantly run into.
Really cut down on the number of level +2 monsters you use.
The core of the problem though, is that nothing in PF2 trivializes the d20. You can tweak the probabilities of success by a few points, but that d20 roll is always significant.
Personally, I think that makes for a better RPG system. You have to actually play the game, not just build an avatar. You end up playing a real story that has setbacks and challenges in addition to awesome moments and victories.
But the tradeoff is:
If the player thinks not being hit is strong and being hit at all is weak, then the player will still feel weak.
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There is a huge difference between want a 40% chance to hit, 60% chance to hit, and 95% chance to hit. Most people complaining about PF2 are complaining that they can't go up to 60% on their speciality vs the regular enemy, and 50% vs a counter specialist. Instead being 40%-50% on their speciality and 30% on everything else.
Just as a reminder: 60% is the expected chances to hit/demoralize/whatever against a same level enemy. Unless you speak of iterative attacks, and that'd be a completely different issue, you should always be around 60% chances to hit.
You can tweak the probabilities of success by a few points, but that d20 roll is always significant.
True Strike comes closest.
Personally, I think that makes for a better RPG system. You have to actually play the game, not just build an avatar. You end up playing a real story that has setbacks and challenges in addition to awesome moments and victories.
The game has to be unpredictable. Or its no fun and you may as well go diceless and make your life a lot less complex.
Its a big problem with PF1 and Gurps you can just optimise and trivialise a situation with 90%+ confidence.
But the tradeoff is:If the player thinks not being hit is strong and being hit at all is weak, then the player will still feel weak.
There are many ways to be strong.