| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It seems strange to me to introduce undead who can die of disease. The Lich I'm particular is a pale comparison to the CR 12 Lich.
Does anyone have any good work around for actually playing undead instead of gelded undead?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Not really. The point of the Undead archetypes is to let players play as Undead PCs, but to not have all of the overpowered benefits that come with them (at least, not right away, and without investment or sacrifice). If anything, a bigger concern I have with the whole concept is that Level 1 characters can't be Undead PCs, they need to have leveled up first and then consequently be killed and raised as Undead or something. Not being able to be Undead from scratch is a bigger issue than not having all of their effects.
And honestly, I don't really see an issue with someone just playing with having Negative Healing as an ability and just roleplaying it as being some form of Undead. There is the Revenant Background that can accomplish just that, and it's basically what it's there for.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
There's thanksfully an alternative rule for giving the PC the full "undead immunity" package (disease, poison, paralysis and sleep). I personally don't see the point of the undead archetype without these immunities (or at least the disease and poison ones), I understand that they were lessenned for the sake of the balance, and because they force the GM to reconsider the CR of a whole bunch of monster that rely on these things, but an undead that can be poisonned simply don't fufill the "undead fantasy" IMO. At best it's some kind of "in between" creature, like a dhampir, or someone cursed to always be rotting for the zombie archetype, etc, but not a full undead.
I haven't played with these archetype yet (my group isn't interested by the blood lord AP unfortunately), but I know that if I'm a player in such group, I'm gonna campaign for the full immunity hard, and if I'm a GM, I'm just gonna give it right away.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Our GM is already down with full immunity from day one. I want to Lick out and waiting until level 12 to be less effective than a CR 12 is just nuts. They make such a huge deal about the soul cage. I get that lets me come back from the dead, but we don't tend to die in our games.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Not really. The point of the Undead archetypes is to let players play as Undead PCs, but to not have all of the overpowered benefits that come with them (at least, not right away, and without investment or sacrifice). If anything, a bigger concern I have with the whole concept is that Level 1 characters can't be Undead PCs, they need to have leveled up first and then consequently be killed and raised as Undead or something. Not being able to be Undead from scratch is a bigger issue than not having all of their effects.
And honestly, I don't really see an issue with someone just playing with having Negative Healing as an ability and just roleplaying it as being some form of Undead. There is the Revenant Background that can accomplish just that, and it's basically what it's there for.
The whole point of being a monster is to be a monster. This is a PC tax. An NPC Lich gets all the goodies while the PC lich does not. It's like getting to play a dragon but you can't fly or get a breath weapon
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The whole point of being a monster is to be a monster. This is a PC tax. An NPC Lich gets all the goodies while the PC lich does not. It's like getting to play a dragon but you can't fly or get a breath weaponNot really. The point of the Undead archetypes is to let players play as Undead PCs, but to not have all of the overpowered benefits that come with them (at least, not right away, and without investment or sacrifice). If anything, a bigger concern I have with the whole concept is that Level 1 characters can't be Undead PCs, they need to have leveled up first and then consequently be killed and raised as Undead or something. Not being able to be Undead from scratch is a bigger issue than not having all of their effects.
And honestly, I don't really see an issue with someone just playing with having Negative Healing as an ability and just roleplaying it as being some form of Undead. There is the Revenant Background that can accomplish just that, and it's basically what it's there for.
Perhaps.
But you don't need to be extra powerful to be a monster.
And consider if you're playing in somewhere like Geb. You'd throw the balance of the game out of wack if any player who picked the Skeleton ancestry got a pile of perks that a player who picked something like even the Champir heritage did not get.
I'm starting Blood Lords later this week - and our group in fact is basically 2 skeletons, 2 dhampir, and a crazy gnome necromancer. So this would be very relevant for us if 2 of us had a pile of immunities the others didn't. Especially for me - I'm playing a Skeleton Warrior. If I had all those immunities I'd be near unstoppable.
Being a 'big foolish idiot' is my character's one weakness. He's got a mind of his own, unlike all those peon skeletons, and he's just smart enough to be fooled by any conman singing the praises of our 'People's Glorious Dear Leader Geb' who can stop him long enough to for him to listen. ;)
And to remove the comedy from that...
A PC undead isn't a mindless undead or even a 'one track minded motivated to do X' undead. They're a full on free thinker. And that comes with the cost of thinking something dumb, or being fooled or manipulated.
As for diseases and such... that's mostly a game balance thing and I'm fine with just getting a resistance. I guess since I'm still a pile of organic bones, a bacteria still has something to make lunch with. Poison is a little tougher on the lore. But sometimes balance has to trump lore.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I disagree. Balance should not trump lore. If people can play undead, let them.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Nah, a level 12 wizard with lich archetype and a level 12 wizard with other PC options not being in the same general power level would be a sign of pretty poor design work.
(Any number can replace the 12, and any class replace wizard, obviously).
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
I disagree. Balance should not trump lore. If people can play undead, let them.
So you'd have first class PCs and second class PCs?
Clearly, if someone brings me a real Lich with all the goodies around the table and the GM lets them do that, I'd be pretty pissed and ask for something to compensate on my PC. Letting people play undead is different from pushing people to play undead.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Nah, a level 12 wizard with lich archetype and a level 12 wizard with other PC options not being in the same general power level would be a sign of pretty poor design work.
(Any number can replace the 12, and any class replace wizard, obviously).
Except that isn't what is being said. They are saying the lich wizard isn't as strong as the lich monster when it comes to lich abilities. That is a totally different matter.
The lich archetype will not make you objectively weaker than a wizard with other options in all circumstances.
Have you read the lich dedication and compared it to other 12th level wizard feats before posting this? It is a fairly good dedication even if you need to plan arouns its downsides, and it is notably extremely good if a gm gives them their optional full immunities.
The soul cage preventing death alone is extremely good.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
The thing is, these immunity aren't always a flat out raw increase in power. Being immune to poison is obviously better than not being immune to poison, but if you just don't encounter any poison threat in your campaign, then it's the same as you weren't immune. Likewise for illness.
Usually, when the player have a certain kind of resistance, the advice to GMs is to play into it, to make to player feel like their build choice mattered (throwing some poison ennemies at a high level druid just to make them feel like a badass when they shrug it off), but I think the opposite should be true for undead PC. The hazard that constitute poison and illness should just not exist for undead campaign, or just show up as something meant for someone other than the PC. The players that chose to play a skeleton won't mind when their opponent don't try to poison them (because it's understandable that trying to poison a skeleton is silly), but they definitively would if someone actually manage to poison them, and their skeleton suddently die (for good) because of snake venom or something.
Basically, I think that the undead PC need to be balanced not by removing the immunity that they need to have to fufill the fantasy, but by adjusting the campaign around them (which is why they truly deserve the rare trait as they ask for more GM work than most other options). If you just don't face foes with poison, then suddently a "mix and match" party with living and undead character isn't unbalanced.
Either you can play an undead, in which case it's expected that things that don't affect them shouldn't affect you (and conversely, that things that affect them should also affect you), or you can't. Allowing one to play an undead but then constantly breaking the fantasy by poisonning them or making them fall ill just seems to me like the worse of both world.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The thing is, these immunity aren't always a flat out raw increase in power. Being immune to poison is obviously better than not being immune to poison, but if you just don't encounter any poison threat in your campaign, then it's the same as you weren't immune. Likewise for illness.
Nah, always better. Drugs and AoE poisons exist in pf2e, you don't need enemies to use them to make poison immunity super powerful.
Heck even your stuff like cloudkill.
I like allowing full immunities (it is optional for this reason) but having a more balanced option be the default so PCs who want a bit of the flavour don't have to have GMs just outright deny them because it would have too big an impact on prep time for the campaign they are currently running.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Worth noting that a level 12 PC also gets 11 levels to pick up options pre-lich, some of which can get pretty similar results. For example, you can get Resistance to cold damage through a heritage, there are various ways to improve your poison resistance, and you can snag physical resistance through Dragon Disciple crystal. Something like Touch of Undeath can be used for the melee attack option, or you can invest in a full specced set of handwraps for a 5d6 attack with flurry of blows.
NPCs do need to be balanced differently than PCs for party balance and a lot of stories to work, but the PCs have opportunity for lateral growth that tends not to be afforded the NPC. A high level PC lich could also do things like use Arcana for all magic checks, sneak their full speed while using Greater Invisibility, have Amped Guidance on hand, constantly be detecting magic, and what have you.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Nah, a level 12 wizard with lich archetype and a level 12 wizard with other PC options not being in the same general power level would be a sign of pretty poor design work.
(Any number can replace the 12, and any class replace wizard, obviously).
Except that isn't what is being said. They are saying the lich wizard isn't as strong as the lich monster when it comes to lich abilities. That is a totally different matter.
The lich archetype will not make you objectively weaker than a wizard with other options in all circumstances.
Have you read the lich dedication and compared it to other 12th level wizard feats before posting this? It is a fairly good dedication even if you need to plan arouns its downsides, and it is notably extremely good if a gm gives them their optional full immunities.
The soul cage preventing death alone is extremely good.
These aren't really separate at all. Especially not with the post above that I was directly replying to.
I have read the lich archetype and it already being a fairly good archetype IS my point:
1.It is a fairly good archetype. If it was made much stronger just because of what the monster looks like, it would then be too good of an archetype.
2. The OP think that should happen anyway, because "valance shouldn't remove lore".
3. I said that throwing out balance is actually a terrible idea and the OP's belief is wrong.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Immunities for PCs are extremely expensive in PF2, actually the only easily accessible is immunity to Negative damage and it's super powerful against the right monsters. I think Paizo doesn't want a PC to trivialize an encounter because they have the right immunity.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'm not bothered by entry level Undead (for PC use) not having immunities.
However, I would like to see a high level option that does offer those immunities, not just resistances that Undead typically have.
Then tweak all the Undead archetypes to represent your character gradually transforming into Undead instead of happening all at once.
I understand the issue of narrative dissonance can be frustrating, but imbalanced archetypes would be more mechanically disruptive.
The other option is removing immunities as a default of being Undead and instead have them apply to specific monsters as immunities/resistances, and for any PC archetypes that emulate those creatures you again grow into it.
Ultimately the problem is one of either narrative dissonance or mechanical imbalance. And Paizo decided balance is more important than narrative, and I support that choice. Because as it sits, I'd be inclined to allow the Undead archetypes in a game where the PCs aren't expected to be the good guys. In a campaign where they are expected to be the good guys I wouldn't allow it, but only because the forces of Undeath tend to be antagonists and it wouldn't fit thematically.
And while the archetypes don't seem to indicate that the force your character to become evil, the descriptions seem to imply that undeath with twist a person into being so. So unless the heroic campaign I'm running can accommodate evil characters, that would be an additional reason I don't allow it.
However those are all thematic reasonings, from a mechanics perspective there is no problem.
Where as, if you run a campaign with undead with all the immunities, you're basically forcing everyone to play undead or else they're going to be at a disadvantage. Which is bad.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
The notion of immunity at its core is a big shot in the foot, for players or enemies. A lot of fantasies are centered around a specific type of effect, be it Fire Elemental, Toxicologist, Sneak Attack, etc... Every time someone comes with an immunity, it breaks the balance completely.
As a PC, being denied your main damage source (Rogue vs swarms) just feels bad. It's not funny or whatever, it's just punishing. And overbalancing in the other side by making Sneak Attack much stronger than it should be to take into account the situations where it can't be used doesn't feel better.
Similarly, a PC immune to some effects reduces the number of stories you can tell.
In my opinion, immunities as a whole should be removed from the game and replaced by something else. Sure, a bleeding skeleton is weird, but there are ways to explain these types of damage on creatures who shouldn't be affected.
| 10 people marked this as a favorite. |
I just want to note that the two main complaints (full undead immunities not being the default and only skeletons as a level 1 option) were already addressed in the Book of the Dead text on page 45:
The options for playing undead are built to closely match
the normal play style of adventuring, but not all types of
adventures or adversaries work well with undead in the
party. Many abilities of enemy creatures become weak or
pointless against undead. Take note of the basic undead
benefits so you can avoid using enemies who rely on
death effects, for example. You’ll also need to reconsider
adversaries who have heal or harm spells, and potentially
switch out the spells they know. Harm isn’t useful as an
offensive spell against undead, so living creatures with
harm won’t get any use out of it against a party of undead.
Heal, on the other hand, becomes extra useful and valuable
for living creatures, as it can both heal their allies and
hurt the PCs. Running a game with undead means taking
these elements into account but not necessarily removing
them all. Sometimes undead shrug off powerful spells and
sometimes they get wrecked by a heal spell.UNLEASHING THE UNDEAD
The rules for undead PCs make some adjustments for
playability. The main differences are reducing the undead
immunity to disease, paralyzed, poison, and sleep to
bonuses, and not having the undead destroyed when
they reach 0 HP. If you want something more similar
to standard undead for the PCs, you can give them the
immunities fully. This means quite a few spells, enemies,
and hazards could become useless. You can remove a fair
number of these from your campaign and skip rewarding
XP for dangers that don’t actually endanger anyone.
For instance, if undead PCs immune to poison battled
enemies that made heavy use of poison, that might be a
trivial encounter for your group.Having the PCs be destroyed at 0 HP is a trickier change.
This removes a safeguard intended to prevent total party
kills (TPKs) and avoid the need to monitor the whole
group’s HP very carefully at all times. Implementing it
works best if you’re playing a high-intensity one-shot game
or are playing troupe-style play, with more characters than
players, so a character who dies can quickly be replaced.
From the sidebar on the same page:
STARTING OUT AS UNDEAD
Undead archetypes, like most archetypes, begin with
a 2nd-level dedication feat so you can attain them as
you progress. However, it might make sense for you
to start out as undead at 1st level. In this case, the GM
can allow you to start with the archetype. You get the
benefits of the dedication feat right away but must
select the dedication feat at 2nd level.
In other words, what the OP wants already exists as an option. Complaining that it is not the default (for legitimate balance reasons) is IMO rather petty; discuss it with your GM instead of trying to "force" Paizo to change the rules based on your preferences.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Wow, I completely disagree with you here Superbidi. To me, immunities are a core part of what make a fantasy "work". If you are facing a fire elemental, something literally made of fire, and you can just beat it by throwing fire at it (even if it's a bit inneficient), it completely break the idea that whatever you were fighting was made of fire. Just having varying level of resistance and weakness to various effect and damage type, without having some creature being downright immune to some would just end up making it all feel same-y.
Making a skeleton bleed just completely destroy the idea that it was a skeleton. At that point you may also completely remove flying as it's effectively "immune to persistent ground effect and melee damage", and just have dragon that can walk very fast and over difficult terrain to simmulate it.
Now of course, due to how drastic immunity is, it have to be handled with care, immunities to very common things have to be limited somewhat, either by giving player who rely on that thing a way to still impact the battle, or by having a way to disable that immunity. And for the less common stuff, the GM must handled them with care, and if a member of the party rely on it far more than usual (like a poison alchemist on poison, or a tyran champion on mental damage), the GM should adjust the campaign so that the immune foes don't just make that member useless.
To me, the immunity issue is a GM (and prepublished adventure, as they can't adapt to the specific player group) issue. It shouldn't be removed, because removing them would simply destroy the fantasy for far too many creatures, who simply don't feel like themselves without these immunity. Instead, it's up to the GM to adapt the challenge to the players.
Speaking of undead archetype, this is already something that the book ask of the GM, even if they don't implement the full immunity. Many creatures rely on death effect and negative energy to harm the PC, which can't affect undead PC, and thus the GM must build different challenge using different creatures against undead PC.
If you are facing a fire elemental, something literally made of fire, and you can just beat it by throwing fire at it (even if it's a bit inneficient), it completely break the idea that whatever you were fighting was made of fire.
Flame Strike working on Fire Elementals is a big issue then?
Immunities for PCs are extremely expensive in PF2, actually the only easily accessible is immunity to Negative damage and it's super powerful against the right monsters. I think Paizo doesn't want a PC to trivialize an encounter because they have the right immunity.
2e Has placed game balance above everything else and this limits playing monsters.
In our Blood Lords game, no player cares our one current undead skelly has full immunities. It just makes sense that he does. We are not busy playing a power game with each other.
The goal is to have fun, and I trust our GM to help us have fun even if game balance is not perfect at all times.
He actually has played a 5E skelly and was shocked the archetype did not have full immunities.
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
When I'm talking about the game with new people, I'll admit that while I love the core mechanics and setting of the game, I dislike the specific balance points they chose - such as immunity vs bonus, "monstrous" PC power levels, and when flight is available.
Saying "discuss it with your GM" doesn't help when you are in organized play.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Flame Strike working on Fire Elementals is a big issue then?
A bit yeah, but I'm fine with some ways to avoid an immunity, as long as it take some work (or preparation, in the case of this spell). Having any and all fire effect able to damage them however would completely ruin the idea that they are "fire elemental". Crafting "exeption to the rule" is fine, it's why they're exeptions, but just throwing away the rule kill the creatures.
Having special poison that can arm undead is fine, having acids that can act on construct as poison act on living things is fine, but simply throwing out "poison immunity" as a whole mean that now every poison work on everything. Basic arsenic can now kill everything in the bestiary if they roll low enough on their save, now non magical weapon can just draw blood out of golems for some reason, now you can frighten mindless zombie so hard they have a heart attack and double die.
Conversly, if I follow your logic are you fine with completely removing flying or making flying creatures able to be hit as if they were on the ground, and affected by terrain effect as if they were on the ground? After all, flying make them immune to all that.
Flame Strike working on Fire Elementals is a big issue then?A bit yeah, but I'm fine with some ways to avoid an immunity, as long as it take some work (or preparation, in the case of this spell). Having any and all fire effect able to damage them however would completely ruin the idea that they are "fire elemental". Crafting "exeption to the rule" is fine, it's why they're exeptions, but just throwing away the rule kill the creatures.
Having special poison that can arm undead is fine, having acids that can act on construct as poison act on living things is fine, but simply throwing out "poison immunity" as a whole mean that now every poison work on everything. Basic arsenic can now kill everything in the bestiary if they roll low enough on their save, now non magical weapon can just draw blood out of golems for some reason, now you can frighten mindless zombie so hard they have a heart attack and double die.
Conversly, if I follow your logic are you fine with completely removing flying or making flying creatures able to be hit as if they were on the ground, and affected by terrain effect as if they were on the ground? After all, flying make them immune to all that.
You are strawmaning me. My initial sentence was: "In my opinion, immunities as a whole should be removed from the game and replaced by something else. Sure, a bleeding skeleton is weird, but there are ways to explain these types of damage on creatures that shouldn't be affected."
Incentive on "replacing immunities by something else" and "explain these types of damage on creatures that shouldn't be affected". It doesn't mean that skeletons will bleed from normal weapons but that bleed oriented builds can use their abilities on a skeleton through feats, items or whatever. And it looks like you're fine with that so we both agree.
Flying can already be circumvented with Fly, Air Walk, Potions of Fly and many other items. So Flying is not an immunity to anyone ground-based.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
You are strawmaning me. My initial sentence was: "In my opinion, immunities as a whole should be removed from the game and replaced by something else. Sure, a bleeding skeleton is weird, but there are ways to explain these types of damage on creatures that shouldn't be affected."
Incentive on "replacing immunities by something else" and "explain these types of damage on creatures that shouldn't be affected". It doesn't mean that skeletons will bleed from normal weapons but that bleed oriented builds can use their abilities on a skeleton through feats, items or whatever. And it looks like you're fine with that so we both agree.
Flying can already be circumvented with Fly, Air Walk, Potions of Fly and many other items. So Flying is not an immunity to anyone ground-based.
Last thing first, all these options against flying take the people off the ground, so indeed, they are not ground based anymore (and flying creatures are still imune to those who don't have these options). Taking your first exemple of a rogue against a swarm, it's like saying that the rogue is fine against the swarm, they just have to throw bombs instead of trying to sneak attack (it's true, it's what they should do, but the immunity did restrict what they can do and prevent them from being their most effective). This isn't a strawman, just a logical extention of your argument.
And secondly, if you think immunity as a whole should be removed and replaced by something else... what could it be that isn't either immunity, or resistance? Resistance is clearly not enought to illustrate how your average stone golem would react to swallowing arsenic, even in incredible quantity (not at all), but immunity is too much according to you.
I'd understand if you were championning for more of those exceptions to exist, I for one wouldn't mind seing some special poisons working on creature usually immune to it, or seing some high level feat that allow character to target mindless creatures with mind effect with a malus. I agree with you that you can always imagine some edge case for "how a poison could affect a golem" or "how a flesh devouring bacteria could affect the undead", but removing immunities wouldn't just allow these edge case, it would allow any poison to affect the golem, and any illness to affect the undead.
It's the same thing for undead PC. Having a literal skeleton being vulnerable to simple, nonmagical arsenic is just flat out dumb and break all the fantasy of your character. If the GM want, they could make up ede case of special anti undead poison, but for all the usual stuff, your PC should be immune, because the whole fantasy of playing an undead just shatter the moment that undead start catching ghoul fever.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'd understand if you were championning for more of those exceptions to exist
I am, that's all I'm doing. You're reading "removing immunity" as a strict rule. That's not what I meant. I meant removing immunity as a concept. You are a fire based mage, you face a fire creature, you have a way to attack it which still feels like you're a fire based mage. How and why, I don't know but your ideas are in the spirit of it. Just make sure that there's always something working, a fallback option that doesn't feel too bad or out of character (like your example with the bomb throwing Rogues, considering that Rogues don't have proficiency with Bombs and that throwing Bombs is not at all what the Rogue class is about).
I don't think "undead sometimes don't have immunity to disease" is all that far fetched. Lots of microbes thrive especially well in dead flesh.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
I just want to note that the two main complaints (full undead immunities not being the default and only skeletons as a level 1 option) were already addressed in the Book of the Dead text on page 45:
...
The options for playing undead are built to closely match
the normal play style of adventuring, but not all types of
adventures or adversaries work well with undead in the
party. Many abilities of enemy creatures become weak or
pointless against undead. Take note of the basic undead
benefits so you can avoid using enemies who rely on
death effects, for example. You’ll also need to reconsider
adversaries who have heal or harm spells, and potentially
switch out the spells they know. Harm isn’t useful as an
offensive spell against undead, so living creatures with
harm won’t get any use out of it against a party of undead.
Heal, on the other hand, becomes extra useful and valuable
for living creatures, as it can both heal their allies and
hurt the PCs. Running a game with undead means taking
these elements into account but not necessarily removing
them all. Sometimes undead shrug off powerful spells and
sometimes they get wrecked by a heal spell.UNLEASHING THE UNDEAD
The rules for undead PCs make some adjustments for
playability. The main differences are reducing the undead
immunity to disease, paralyzed, poison, and sleep to
bonuses, and not having the undead destroyed when
they reach 0 HP. If you want something more similar
to standard undead for the PCs, you can give them the
immunities fully. This means quite a few spells, enemies,
and hazards could become useless. You can remove a fair
number of these from your campaign and skip rewarding
XP for dangers that don’t actually endanger anyone.
For instance, if undead PCs immune to poison battled
enemies that made heavy use of poison, that might be a
trivial encounter for your group.Having
Louder, so the people in the back can hear.
What if you flavor poison/disease damage and such as impacting the undead PC's self control and cognizance.
An option, keep track of the damage on a separate track. If they die, rather than die they become overcome by an unexpected instinct, or become paralyzed as their undead body fights the disruption.
sort of replacing some of the 'danger' of dying with chance of incapacitation, or potentially becoming a potential nuisance or even obstacle for your party as a result. Allowing such damage/effects to still mean something, but not have the same effect as if they were a 'living character'.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'm actually kinda hoping ghosts start dealing spiritual damage instead of negative damage, which will mean they can threaten PC undead, dhampirs, and other ghosts.
|
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Immunities for PCs are extremely expensive in PF2, actually the only easily accessible is immunity to Negative damage and it's super powerful against the right monsters. I think Paizo doesn't want a PC to trivialize an encounter because they have the right immunity.2e Has placed game balance above everything else and this limits playing monsters.
In our Blood Lords game, no player cares our one current undead skelly has full immunities. It just makes sense that he does. We are not busy playing a power game with each other.
The goal is to have fun, and I trust our GM to help us have fun even if game balance is not perfect at all times.
He actually has played a 5E skelly and was shocked the archetype did not have full immunities.
It is good that your group and your GM are able to deal with this well and that everyone can have fun.
Not all groups and GMs can though.
Better that PF2 focuses on balance as a way to enduring fun for all and individual groups and GMs adapt the rules than the other way around.
Paizo even went out of their way to provide guidelines for doing so, complete with warnings.
I disagree. Balance should not trump lore. If people can play undead, let them.I hope all Undead PCs are Evil then. For the lore, of course. Would not want to trump it.
Yes we are.
Lastly, if you want a GM to give you a full-powered monster race. I'd recommend asking your GM to give you a monster template from one of the bestiaries or the book of the dead at the cost of the monster's appropriate template level.
Ghoul for example boosts a creature's level by 1, so you could have them home rule to say that you could sacrifice one class level, and replace it with a full-powered ghoul
I'd consider it a better balanced solution than just boosting the dedication's effects to full power.
We are working together to put something that is less than full Lich but better than the book.
Heck, even the Ghoul's touch is better than the Lich's
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Most player options are less powerful than their creature equivalents.
Draxie Sprite, for example.
The Draxie creature (at level 3) gets a 15 foot fly speed, Euphoric Spark that does 2d4+3 damage, a bunch of innate spells from cantrips up to level 2 spells, and a breath weapon.
A Draxie heritage Sprite PC has to take feats in order to get some of those abilities. By level 3 they will have one feat.
So they could have one, and only one, of: wings that don't grant a fly speed, Euphoric Spark that does 1d4+0 damage, or a few cantrips only. They also have no option to get a breath weapon.
So no, the undead options aren't an outlier in this design decision.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
When I'm talking about the game with new people, I'll admit that while I love the core mechanics and setting of the game, I dislike the specific balance points they chose - such as immunity vs bonus, "monstrous" PC power levels, and when flight is available.
Saying "discuss it with your GM" doesn't help when you are in organized play.
Monster PCs aren't really a thing in org play, tho. The undead archetypes aren't avaialabe.
In general, things like flight and immunities break certain encounters, which is difficult to deal with especially in Org play.
My PFS inventor's companion has full construct immunities, and it doesn't break the game if there is just one. I suppose it might if there were several at the same table.
Having both positive- and negative-healed characters at the same table does generally make it harder for the PCs, especially in Org Play where the other PCs may not be built to support it.
A construct companion also lacks the functionality of a full PC. More importantly, it lacks the dramatic stakes of a PC. You just rebuild your construct with a day or downtime if it gets destroyed. Having a PC dying 2 and suffering from poison or being threatened by a TPK from a powerful ghost are pretty exciting moments which immunities remove any sense of drama from.
This is moot as far as the topic is concerned, though, because Paizo included guidance for GMs who want to use full undead powers in home games and it doesn't sound like you can use these archetypes in PFS anyway.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Skeleton Ancestry is available in PFS - though it is very limited.
Steadfast Refugee
Build a character using the skeleton ancestry. Can only be purchased once per player.
206.00 Achievement Points
And I think this one would unlock the undead archetype feats.
Necromantic Secrets
This character gains access to an uncommon class feat of your choice from Pathfinder Book of the Dead.
20.00 Achievement Points
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
And I think this one would unlock the undead archetype feats.
PFS Boons wrote:
Necromantic SecretsThis character gains access to an uncommon class feat of your choice from Pathfinder Book of the Dead.
20.00 Achievement Points
No. The feats available from that boon are are: Undying Conviction, Necromancer’s Visage, and Sepulchral Sublimation.
The undead archetypes are not accessible in PFS in any way, and it was explained in a PFS blog that that is a deliberate campaign tone decision and they aren't going to become accessible.
|
|
When I'm talking about the game with new people, I'll admit that while I love the core mechanics and setting of the game, I dislike the specific balance points they chose - such as immunity vs bonus, "monstrous" PC power levels, and when flight is available.
Saying "discuss it with your GM" doesn't help when you are in organized play.
Monster PCs aren't really a thing in org play, tho. The undead archetypes aren't avaialabe.
In general, things like flight and immunities break certain encounters, which is difficult to deal with especially in Org play.
Except we have them in starfinder, and things work fine. Because they picked the balance point of "when can things fly?" as "as early as level 1, common by level 5" and wrote with that expectation.
The only games I can think of where immunity would have substantially changed the plot were with negative energy, and ironically negative healing is the one immunity that we DO have in 2nd ed.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
When I'm talking about the game with new people, I'll admit that while I love the core mechanics and setting of the game, I dislike the specific balance points they chose - such as immunity vs bonus, "monstrous" PC power levels, and when flight is available.
Saying "discuss it with your GM" doesn't help when you are in organized play.
Monster PCs aren't really a thing in org play, tho. The undead archetypes aren't avaialabe.
In general, things like flight and immunities break certain encounters, which is difficult to deal with especially in Org play.
Except we have them in starfinder, and things work fine. Because they picked the balance point of "when can things fly?" as "as early as level 1, common by level 5" and wrote with that expectation.
The only games I can think of where immunity would have substantially changed the plot were with negative energy, and ironically negative healing is the one immunity that we DO have in 2nd ed.
Starfinder though has a much bigger emphasis on ranged combat, with guns being all over the place and a strong incentive to be using new weapons you find rather than sell them. There's also an element of the genre there-- guns and flight are harder to justify being rare in a setting with space ships and zero G encounters.
I think Pathfinder choose to start out more down to earth (literally lol) and it is too late to expect that to change now, because as you rightly pointed out they didn't write that into the balance assumptions from the beginning.
Yeah, the balance points of Starfinder are simply different.
There is pretty easy access to flight or ways to get to flying oppoents even as a melee character and melee characters are comparatively rare to ranged ones. I can imagine have a party where no one focuses on melee. I can't imagine a party where no one focuses on ranged attacks.
Hazards, traps, and exploration issues aren't written with the assumptions that PCs will have easy access to flight.
In the end, it's just different base assumptions. Neither is inherently right or wrong, they just help create the basis of the setting.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
A couple of minor points:
Evil nature is typically the first thing changed with undead. Players have agency as a principle core to the genre. Any PC option is obviously different.
Not dying at zero is a player character special ability. Normal living monsters die at zero. Using the word dying or destroyed is a sidetrack. It should apply to all PCs so undead should rightfully get this extension too.
|
|
Immunities for PCs are extremely expensive in PF2, actually the only easily accessible is immunity to Negative damage and it's super powerful against the right monsters. I think Paizo doesn't want a PC to trivialize an encounter because they have the right immunity.2e Has placed game balance above everything else and this limits playing monsters.
In our Blood Lords game, no player cares our one current undead skelly has full immunities. It just makes sense that he does. We are not busy playing a power game with each other.
The goal is to have fun, and I trust our GM to help us have fun even if game balance is not perfect at all times.
He actually has played a 5E skelly and was shocked the archetype did not have full immunities.
It is good that your group and your GM are able to deal with this well and that everyone can have fun.
Not all groups and GMs can though.
Better that PF2 focuses on balance as a way to enduring fun for all and individual groups and GMs adapt the rules than the other way around.
Paizo even went out of their way to provide guidelines for doing so, complete with warnings.
This was one of the goals of PF2E, according to Mark Seifter. He likes talking on this topic a lot.
The point is for the GM to be enabled to say yes more often. Stuff like undead not getting all their immunities, but having an option spelled out in the book as possible though disruptive, lets the GM be the "fun parent" in the equation rather than having to nerf or otherwise limit undead players in ways the book doesn't spell out.
Yes. That was a master move.