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so like i have already typed i have playad a game of patfinder 2e all the way to lvl 10 we are playing blood lord if that matters i usely play dnd 5e but have played a number of ttrpgs over the years call of cthulhu, Blades in the Dark Shadowrun som of the starwars rpg and a lot of others over the 7 years of ttrpgs that i have played
but never pf2e before and im gonna be honest i just want to have fun with the group. i was a dm for a dnd game for 2 years befor this game started and i the groupe we have made relly works well we are having a lot of fun and we love the character we have made over the years 3 out of the 6 people are deeply invested in pf2e and as we started i thought it was a lot of fun intresting rules but ever since lvl 2 it started to get more and more Boring i am a Rogue with the Scoundrel Racket so i have tried to play in to the Faint ability of Scoundrel and most things i blood lords is apparently immune because a lot of mindless undead and faint is mental apparently but that just a miner thing i dont thing the feats are very intresting or even useful so every lvl feels pointless and i sneak attack alot but it feels like i punished for using the game mekaniks the fighter is doing more damage for less actions and need less set up im tierd of being hit by a spell or ability of monsters and being stund perfide or paralyzed being put to sleep at least 30 min or up to 4 hours irl time and i just got to now this week that the game is gonna be up to lvl 20 and i dont think i can't handle it that long
i now for this entier text i have been rambling but i dont know what im doing wrong or if it just the wrong system for me i dont think its a hard system or dangerous combat i just feal like it supost to wast your time for as long as possible maybe its not the systum mabey it just the blood lords adventure path i dont know that my problem so if some of you have any good tips mabey or a good way to fix my problem with it the dm has given us 1 free character resset regearding class and feats sean's a lot of us wear new to it a we got a free dedication feat as well thx for taking the time to read this and plz i just want to like the system i dont want the hate just to undeartand and again im thankful for any help i can get
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Ramble more specifically.
What are you meaning by being boring?
Yes, comparing your single action damage output as a Rogue (or really any other class) to a Fighter is likely to be a bad comparison. That is the perk of the Fighter class - single target single action weapon accuracy.
How are you getting stunned or petrified or paralyzed for 30 to 40 minutes? What creatures are doing that? Does that creature have the Incapacitation trait on its attacks that is being forgotten about?
Also, in general character guideline advice - build a character to be able to do a lot of things well, rather than trying to do one thing fantastically. PF2 tends to have a lot of different challenges with a lot of different solutions needed. If you only solve one type of problem, then you will find that the one type of problem that you solve doesn't come up very often.
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So... you seem to have a few issues.
- It looks like your current character is a bad fit for both your own desires and the campaign. A character who's built around mental attacks in a campaign that's heavy on the mindless undead is going to be unhappy a lot.
- You find the rogue feats unsatisfying. They don't feel significant or impactful, and that's making the experience of leveling up unsatisfying.
- You look over at your buddy the fighter, and it looks like he's doing the thing that you want to do, but he's doing it a lot better, and this feels bad.
- You find yourself taking a lot of disabling hits (stunned, paralyzed, and so forth) and it makes you feel even less effective, and sometimes utterly useless, and that makes you feel worse.
/*************/
So... there are a few things going on here, and perhaps the perspective will help you.
- Rogues in PF2 are not combat monsters, and Scoundrel rogues aren't even particularly combat-monstery as rogues overall go. They're more on the "skills and utility" side of the martial spectrum. Their time to shine is when you run into things that aren't combat. By comparison, fighters are focused hard onto the combat side of things. Combat is the one thing they do. Now, Rogues can fight, and they certainly can contribute as far as damage is concerned, but it's true that they can't generally outdamage fighters. That's by design.
- Further, as you've noted, a scoundrel rogue is a poor fit for a campaign that's heavy on the mindless undead.
- In PF2, trying to excel by being the badass that carries the party on the strength of your character optimization skills... doesn't work. There's a bit of CharOp to be had, here and there, but it's thin. Party optimization is much stronger. Look for ways to make your buddies stronger while they make you stronger, and you're wind up being a lot more effective overall. This is a significant break from 5e in particular (and even more of one from 3e and 4e). Look for advantages to be gained at the tactical level against specific monsters and specific situations, rather than at the strategic level from iterating on a single build strategy over and over again.
It's possible that just being able to take that stuff into account will be enough to make the character more enjoyable for you. Perhaps you need more, though. It sounds like you're not all that attached to your character. Consider asking your GM if there's some way for you to swap him out for a different one.
If you do want to switch character types... might I suggest the Kineticist? If nothing else, it ought to conclusively solve the "my feats don't feel impactful" problem. Also, Wood kineticists can get at-will access to vitality damage (was Positive damage pre-remaster) with minimal investment, and that's always good clean fun when you're fighting the undead... and it's easy to put together a build who won't be on the front line quite so much and thus won't be sucking down all fo those obnoxious paralyzation/stun/etc attacks. They've got the best fort saves int eh game, too.
If you do want to switch, and do decide to go for kineticist, I would suggest that you start a new thread in the "advice" section asking for build suggestions. Kineticist is the most flexible class yet, in a lot of ways, and it is very much about party optimization. Getting some advice on how to put together both build and strategy that can help you help your buddies will pay dividends as far as having a character that feels good to play.
If you do want to switch, and you don't want kineticist? Well, what do you want? What kind of characters do you enjoy? What kind of playstyle do you enjoy? What do you want your moments of awesome to look like? We can probably give you better character build advice if you can tell us those things.
i would ask the GM to allow you to use deception on the zombies in combat. Its reasonable given the setting otherwise invalidates your build. Just frame your actions differently, faking out a zombie to create an open should actually be much easier to do than to a living thinking person. Zombies actions are more predictable you just use deception with body movement to draw a predictable mindless zombie movement leaving it open to your attacks.
So... you seem to have a few issues.
- It looks like your current character is a bad fit for both your own desires and the campaign. A character who's built around mental attacks in a campaign that's heavy on the mindless undead is going to be unhappy a lot.
- You find the rogue feats unsatisfying. They don't feel significant or impactful, and that's making the experience of leveling up unsatisfying.
- You look over at your buddy the fighter, and it looks like he's doing the thing that you want to do, but he's doing it a lot better, and this feels bad.
- You find yourself taking a lot of disabling hits (stunned, paralyzed, and so forth) and it makes you feel even less effective, and sometimes utterly useless, and that makes you feel worse.
/*************/
So... there are a few things going on here, and perhaps the perspective will help you.
- Rogues in PF2 are not combat monsters, and Scoundrel rogues aren't even particularly combat-monstery as rogues overall go. They're more on the "skills and utility" side of the martial spectrum. Their time to shine is when you run into things that aren't combat. By comparison, fighters are focused hard onto the combat side of things. Combat is the one thing they do. Now, Rogues can fight, and they certainly can contribute as far as damage is concerned, but it's true that they can't generally outdamage fighters. That's by design.
- Further, as you've noted, a scoundrel rogue is a poor fit for a campaign that's heavy on the mindless undead.
- In PF2, trying to excel by being the badass that carries the party on the strength of your character optimization skills... doesn't work. There's a bit of CharOp to be had, here and there, but it's thin. Party optimization is much stronger. Look for ways to make your buddies stronger while they make you stronger, and you're wind up being a lot more effective overall. This is a significant break from 5e in particular (and even more of one from 3e and...
i think this is the best thing i have read about pf2e so far
but i want to clear some things up i understand that fighter is always gonna be the superior combatant and i think thats good i dident expect to be a combat moster it just feals bad to have somone in you ear talk about how litel dps you do and i let that in to this comversation so that a bad on my part when i typed it i dient even think it was gonna be a big part of the conversation i just wanted to vent a bit so im sorry for that
know back to charecter
i love the character mabey not his class but it fun to rp and all the skills and out of combat possibilities that arise but when i started i dident know faint was mental so that is part of my ignorans to the game
and just as a thing out of combat im having a lot of fun but combat is such a big part of what i have experienced in the game so losing not 40 min but lossing 4 hours because of a singel trap that every on misst with perception and then i roll a 28 fortitude saving throw and then im petrified and the im told by the dm out of game that i get to roll att the end of every day to se if im still petrified im gonna be honest i loos intrest
but to leve it on a positiva not i have been having a good time being the un offical healer of the party brewing potions and doing surgery
but i want to tank you (Sanityfaerie) for taking the time to type all this and puting me back on the ground and i might move my character more in to a passiv roll
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Rogues in PF2 are not combat monsters
They can be. Even Scoundrel.
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From your words, it does sound like the specific character you are playing is causing you to not have fun.
I highly recommend not just making a new character, but plotting with your GM on how to retire your Rogue in style.
See what they're open to, whether it's your old character backstabbing the party and turning into an NPC antagonist, or if your Rogue is the victim and is killed by someone else.
If you are willing to play the Rogue for a few extra sessions explicitly to remove them from the story, there's a whole lot of GMs who would LOVE to have that kind of blank check from a player to do something memorable with a little mini story arc.
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If that's not your style, you can totally have the Rogue retire in a more normal way. Head off to super badass school, chase some personally important rumor, ect.
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know back to charecter
i love the character mabey not his class but it fun to rp and all the skills and out of combat possibilities that arise but when i started i dident know faint was mental so that is part of my ignorans to the game
To make a smaller change to the character so that it works better in this campaign, I would say switch to Ruffian or Thief Racket. Those are the ones easier to be better at combat with.
For a larger change (you will end up trading skills and skill feats for more combat power) you could do a Dex based Ranger with Precision Edge.
Both could be built to be similar enough of a character as far as lore and style goes to be believable as being the same person.
Also, as Sanityfaerie mentioned - the gameplay is a lot more teamwork focused than 5E is.
And don't let the GM pass by out of combat challenges. If combat is the only thing that the campaign is focusing on, then many classes of characters are going to feel very weak. There is role-play. There is combat. And there is also non-combat challenges. All three are needed.
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So it sounds like...
- There's a lot you like about your character. You don't want to swap him out for someone totally different.
- You're having trouble in combat specifically. Also, you feel really uninspired by the available feat choices.
- Failing fort saves badly really sucks and you hate it.
If that's what's going on, I might suggest starting up a new thread (in the advice section) asking for advice on how to run your rebuild. You might get some useful bits on how to build a character who works a bit netter in combat.
Among other things... well, you have a rebuild at level 10. That's the perfect level to get in on some really *entertaining* cheese, especially with your free dedication.
- Put that free dedication in Monk. Yes, this will require you to push strength a bit further than you might prefer, but getting a small bonus to damage isn't the worst thing in the world.
- level 4, you take Stumbling Stance. This gives you a +1 circumstance bonus to feint, and an attack that's 1d8 agile finesse backstabber nonlethal. (If you need to kill them, you can always kill them *after* they're unconscious.)
- level 10, you take Monk's flurry. Now you can make two of those attacks as a single action once per round.
...and now you have a *number* of useful feats available to you from that monk dedication, at level 12 and later.
- Perfection's Path lets you bump that fort save to Master, which should help with your paralyzation problems.
- Stumbling Feint adds a free feint attempt to your flurry of blows, and if you succeed it applies to both.
- Stunning Fist can add "and save vs stun, just because" to that same flurry of blows. It won't stick all that often, especially against more powerful foes, but all it takes to force the roll is that you send both attacks at the same target and hit with at least one, and the only thing it costs is the feat.
I'd still suggest you make that thread, though. I understand that there are a number of useful rogue feats out there too, and I don't know them.
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Some games are not for everyone. I don't like 5E, so I expect some won't like PF2. See if you can find a group that likes the game you like.
Work with your GM to apply The First Rule.
As a GM if you came to me saying your just not having fun in combat and its because the setting invalidates your abilities I would work things into the campaign to alleviate it.
That could be mixing up some preset encounters, or giving you a sidequest to find a (homebrew magic item that lets your abilities do something to the undead) I would make you earn it but I would enable you to play the character you built in the setting somehow.
If after that your still just not having fun then the problem might be something else.
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Well, let me cut right to the chase:
This was a character building and concept problem. All the issues will stem from that, I'm afraid.
You don't need to build something you don't want in order to fit a campaign, but you do need to take into account what you will likely face and the themes. Thinking about what kind of character would get tangled up with the kind of campaign the GM is running is basically step 0 of character creation.
For feasible changes:
Retrain your racket and feats. Thief for DEX to damage will be the most effortless way of doing more damage and you will only need to be flanking. You can go for Ruffian Racket to have more weapon options and different flavor.
As a Sneak Attack set up, your primary method is Flanking. Followed by Grapple/Trip (ideally performed by teammates). Then, taking advantage of darkness/cover (which is highly situational and enemy dependent). Lastly, Feint is good, but as you pointed out, it's limited (albeit not as much as your experience would lead you to believe).
Overall, understand that Rogues are skill monkeys that are far more competent in combat than they should be, imo. They deal a lot of damage, have good action economy and cool feats (and intense skill feat support). However, they won't compare with damage oriented classes, because Rogues already have a shit ton of skills and a stacked chassis to boot (class features, good saving throws, good proficiency, etc).
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Thinking about what kind of character would get tangled up with the kind of campaign the GM is running is basically step 0 of character creation.
Yep the GM should warn you if the campaign is full of enemies that are immune to your main stick. It is just basic politeness.
But also please realise most undead are not mindless and automatically immune to demoralise anymore. It is only a portion, and it is not always easy to tell. Don't give up too early. PF2 is a lot better with monster diversity and not giving most monsters immunity to common effects.
For feasible changes:
Retrain your racket and feats.
Agreed that would work.
Look the problem is there are still traps in character builds that are not obvious to new players. Normally speaking the Scoundrel is just not worthwhile. The Scoundrel has its place. It has a cool trick to get their enemy flat footed by Feinting. But most of the time it is just going to be easier to more into a flanking position, or utilize GangUp. Or use Dread Striker. So in most teams you just don't need it. However it you often find yourself in combat without a buddy - because you are actually skirmishing - then it is actually really good.
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- In PF2, trying to excel by being the badass that carries the party on the strength of your character optimization skills... doesn't work. There's a bit of CharOp to be had, here and there, but it's thin. Party optimization is much stronger. Look for ways to make your buddies stronger while they make you stronger, and you're wind up being a lot more effective overall. This is a significant break from 5e in particular (and even more of one from 3e and 4e). Look for advantages to be gained at the tactical level against specific monsters and specific situations, rather than at the strategic level from iterating on a single build strategy over and over again.
This month, in discussing our next campaign, my 36-year-old younger daughter commented that she preferred Pathfinder 1st Edition to Pathfinder 2nd Edition, because PF1 is better at making characters feel fantastic. In PF2 a character can be good for their level, and reaching high level is a major accomplishment. However, since opponents are around the same level, being good for the level does not feel like an accomplishment. It is a flaw in PF2.
PF2 has a property called tight math. Player character of the same level have a narrow range on their bonuses for combat proficiencies they are good at. A 5th-level barbarian with Strength 18 also has a +14 to hit with their +1 striking greataxe. A 5th-level swashbuckler with Dexterity 18 also has a +14 to hit with their +1 striking rapier. A rogue with Dexterity 18 also has a +14 to hit with their +1 striking shortsword. Only the fighter with Strength 18 or Dexterity 18 does better with a +16 to hit with their +1 striking weapon. The system lacks any level-appropriate tricks to push that bonus higher. And that +14 of a non-fighter martial character will often be against AC 22 for only a 65% chance of success before a multiple attack penalty applies. Rogues specialize in getting their opponent flat-footed ("off-guard" in the new Remastered language) so that they have a 75% chance of hitting instead, like a fighter would, and their sneak attack damage makes up for strength and weapons that deal less damage. The abilities are carefully balanced so that the classes usually do the same damage.
Spellcasters have spell proficiencies instead of weapon proficiencies, but it works out the same. They sometimes perform battlefield control or healing instead of damage dealing.
Optional abilities given by feats or rogue rackets are not powerful enough to upset the balance. Any build made with reasonable sense (a Strength 10, Dexerity 10 fighter will be awful) will perform about the same. The end result is that builds don't win the fight. Tactics win the fight.
The different builds are for fun in roleplaying, not a secret key to unlock a powerful character.
Scoundrel racket is one of the weaker rackets. Getting an opponent flat-footed by flanking is more reliable than Feinting. My wife played a scoundrel rogue Sam with sorcerer dedication in my PF2-converted Ironfang Invasion campaign, and she tried the Feint only twice in 20 levels. Thief racket is one of the stronger rackets, but it is not majorly better. Another player in the campaign played a thief rogue Binny and she applied Dexterity to damage only three times in 20 levels. Binny was a sniper. She Hid so that her Strike with her shortbow would catch her target flat-footed. But thief racket applies only to melee attacks, not to ranged attacks.
By the way, the Remaster changed the Scoundrel racket by giving it an extra perk: "If you Feint while wielding an agile or finesse melee weapon, you can step immediately after the Feint as a free action." Thus, if the Feint fails, the scoundrel rogue has an easier time flanking as a backup plan.
When I tell stories about my campaign (I tell lots of stories about my campaigns) I don't talk about how Sam or Binny dealt massive damage to an opponent. I instead tell about how Sam bluffed his way into a korred festival (Friday, December 1, 2023) or how Binny rode on the back of a the sorcerer transformed into a dragon to foil the offenses and defenses of a boss (Monday, November 27, 2023).
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This month, in discussing our next campaign, my 36-year-old younger daughter commented that she preferred Pathfinder 1st Edition to Pathfinder 2nd Edition, because PF1 is better at making characters feel fantastic. In PF2 a character can be good for their level, and reaching high level is a major accomplishment. However, since opponents are around the same level, being good for the level does not feel like an accomplishment. It is a flaw in PF2.
I don't consider it a flaw myself, but I understand the sentiment. PF2 is more DM friendly because the math creates a more balanced game that makes it easier for a DM to create challenging enemies.
I do consider PF1 more fun for players, less fun for DMs. PF2 is easier on the DM, but maybe not quite as fun for the players, especially those that like gaming the math to feel really powerful. I know in PF1/3E I really gamed the math to make insane characters that could not normally be challenged by enemies out of the book. A DM had to work extra hard to challenge PCs made by optimizes in PF1. I am really tired of having to work that hard to create challenging encounters at higher level.
So I accept the players having less power as I've always felt that TTRPGs should be more focused on role-playing and story with less of a focus on player power. I don't find it very enjoyable as a DM to spend the majority of my time designing encounters and enemies to challenge insanely powerful PCs due to the game being designed only to work in a challenging manner to level 7 to 9 when the game goes all the way to 20 plus.
I can create the illusion of feeling powerful or as your daughter terms it "fantastic" on the backend with encounter design. It's far easier as a DM to create encounters you know the players will crush by populating the encounter with lower level enemies than to have to figure out how to take supposedly challenging enemies and figuring out how to deal with a mass hold monster or a dazing spell fireball without using tactics to just make the enemy immune.
Even the martials in PF1 were way too nutty. A barbarian with Come and Get Me with a pumped up Dex with Combat Reflexes and a pile of hit points and DR buffed with haste wielding a greatsword or some other crazy crit weapon wasn't very fun. I don't want to deal with that any more as a DM. It got to be too much work for too little return just so a bunch of players could feel like some superhero fantasy character.
I DM to tell a story, not act as a living game engine for players powergaming fantasies.
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This month, in discussing our next campaign, my 36-year-old younger daughter commented that she preferred Pathfinder 1st Edition to Pathfinder 2nd Edition, because PF1 is better at making characters feel fantastic.
One very simple partial solution to this issue is to have the PCs face larger numbers of weaker opponents. Still challenging, but the characters seem to just rock more. The blasters get to do LOTS of damage, the martials very quickly put down the bad guys, the tanks get hit less, etc.
Now there is still going to be a significant element of "same numbers" (the martials will all have the same to hit, etc). But even there a Barbarian should FEEL sufficiently different from a flurry ranger and from a thaumaturge that everybody hopefully feels like they are contributing in thwir own unique fashion
This month, in discussing our next campaign, my 36-year-old younger daughter commented that she preferred Pathfinder 1st Edition to Pathfinder 2nd Edition, because PF1 is better at making characters feel fantastic.
One very simple partial solution to this issue is to have the PCs face larger numbers of weaker opponents. Still challenging, but the characters seem to just rock more. The blasters get to do LOTS of damage, the martials very quickly put down the bad guys, the tanks get hit less, etc.
Too many gamers have been spoilt by ridiculously easy games. But If they just want to role play then I'm cool with that.
I do think that the default encounter building guidelines should be set at easy encounters. The GM should have to explicitly choose a harder option for tougher campaigns. Just to establish a safe default for new players.
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This month, in discussing our next campaign, my 36-year-old younger daughter commented that she preferred Pathfinder 1st Edition to Pathfinder 2nd Edition, because PF1 is better at making characters feel fantastic.
One very simple partial solution to this issue is to have the PCs face larger numbers of weaker opponents. Still challenging, but the characters seem to just rock more. The blasters get to do LOTS of damage, the martials very quickly put down the bad guys, the tanks get hit less, etc.
Now there is still going to be a significant element of "same numbers" (the martials will all have the same to hit, etc). But even there a Barbarian should FEEL sufficiently different from a flurry ranger and from a thaumaturge that everybody hopefully feels like they are contributing in thwir own unique fashion
It's even better when the host of enemies is something the party really struggled with previously.
Easily vanquishing a half dozen enemies that used to be a problematic near-TPK solo boss just straight up feels amazing.
That's how a GM makes the heroes feel like a big damn deal.
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Even in PF2 you do feel pretty damn strong at level 13 plus or so. CR-2 to CR-4 enemies even in fairly large groups get carved up by higher level PCs even with lots of hit points. Solo bosses are pretty easy to kill even CR+3 to +5. The still hard encounters tend to be the CR+2 backed up by the CR equal or CR+1 help, especially with spells.
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This month, in discussing our next campaign, my 36-year-old younger daughter commented that she preferred Pathfinder 1st Edition to Pathfinder 2nd Edition, because PF1 is better at making characters feel fantastic. In PF2 a character can be good for their level, and reaching high level is a major accomplishment. However, since opponents are around the same level, being good for the level does not feel like an accomplishment. It is a flaw in PF2.I can create the illusion of feeling powerful or as your daughter terms it "fantastic" on the backend with encounter design. It's far easier as a DM to create encounters you know the players will crush by populating the encounter with lower level enemies than to have to figure out how to take supposedly challenging enemies and figuring out how to deal with a mass hold monster or a dazing spell fireball without using tactics to...
No, my players do not lack for power. They mastered both teamwork and tactics, so they can defeat Extreme-Threat encounters by splitting them into two consecutive Moderate-Threat encounters.
Instead, some of my players want their characters to feel special via individual flavor. The tightly enforced power by level unfortunately also keeps the flavor bounded, too. It is as Mjarn said:
i dont thing the feats are very intresting or even useful so every lvl feels pointless
The class feats are useful in a carefully balanced amount, but balance prevents game-changing effects.
In my PF1 Iron Gods campaign, my wife created a battlefield-control gunslinger. She did not deal much damage, but she debuffed opponents by grappling them with a technological autograpnel gun. She was one of the greatest technological crafters in all of Numeria. This was a wild flavor unimagined for a PF1 gunslinger. In PF2 my wife created a magical trickster, a scoundrel rogue with sorcerer dedication and Magical Trickster feat who could sneak attack with cantrip spells. Aside from roleplaying, the trickster was unique only in that Nirmathas probably had no other magical tricksters. My younger daughter was not in the Iron Gods campaign, but she created a leshy sorcerer with very strong ties to the Fangwood Forest in her backstory. But her class feats were literally forgettable in that she often forgot the character had them because they did not enhance the flavor of her character. When I tweaked the plot so that the goddess Gendowyn, Lady of Fangwood, supported the Fangwood leshy becoming another demigod of Fangwood, my daughter was quick to drop three forgettable class feats for homebrew Godhood archetype feats that were not more powerful in combat but had more flavor that suited the character.
Part of the fun of an adventure path is finding a reason why your own particular character ought to complete the adventure path.
This month, in discussing our next campaign, my 36-year-old younger daughter commented that she preferred Pathfinder 1st Edition to Pathfinder 2nd Edition, because PF1 is better at making characters feel fantastic. In PF2 a character can be good for their level, and reaching high level is a major accomplishment. However, since opponents are around the same level, being good for the level does not feel like an accomplishment. It is a flaw in PF2.I can create the illusion of feeling powerful or as your daughter terms it "fantastic" on the backend with encounter design. It's far easier as a DM to create encounters you know the players will crush by populating the encounter with lower level enemies than to have to figure out how to take supposedly challenging enemies and figuring out how to deal with a mass hold monster or a dazing spell fireball without using tactics to...No, my players do not lack for power. They mastered both teamwork and tactics, so they can defeat Extreme-Threat encounters by splitting them into two consecutive Moderate-Threat encounters.
Instead, some of my players want their characters to feel special via individual flavor. The tightly enforced power by level unfortunately also keeps the flavor bounded, too. It is as Mjarn said:
i dont thing the feats are very intresting or even useful so every lvl feels pointlessThe class feats are useful in a carefully balanced amount, but balance prevents game-changing effects.
In my PF1 Iron Gods campaign, my wife created a battlefield-control gunslinger. She did not deal much damage, but she debuffed opponents by grappling them with a technological autograpnel gun. She was one of the greatest technological crafters in all of Numeria. This was a wild flavor unimagined for a PF1 gunslinger. In PF2 my wife created a magical trickster, a scoundrel rogue with sorcerer dedication and Magical Trickster feat who could sneak attack with cantrip...
I'm not quite understanding? You gave your PCs custom made overpowered feats that made them feel fantastic and you can't do that in PF2?
When I'm talking about PF1, I'm talking about barbarians with greater beast totem, come and get me, wearing belts of stat bonuses with Combat Reflexs pouncing around the battlefield ripping things part with like 8 or 10 attacks a round. 4 from regular attacks and pounce, then a bunch of come and get me attacks.
Or a wizard or sorc with Spell Perfection using quickened enervate every round while using greater invis with mind blank with mirror image up layered with defenses and contingencies while dropping save or you're done spells.
That's what I'm talking about in PF1 that many players with even mild system mastery could pull off. It was insane.
I stacked my saves in PF1 so high I only failed on a 1. I made a monk, paladin, sacred fist insane mix.
It was all too insane in PF1. So I'm not sure what you were doing with it. I didn't even need homebrew stuff to get crazy. The feats in the game allowed you to build combat monsters.
It got to the point no one else wanted to run the game, so I had to DM all the time. They didn't to run a game they knew would get destroyed. So no one wanted to put that kind of work in to make it all work. Nearly every DM other than me burned out past level 11 or so.
Hell, I just started doing crazy stuff like giving dragons 1000s of hit points and flat out immunity to make to them last. A group of optimized PF1 PCs at high level was a DM nightmare.
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Even in PF2 you do feel pretty damn strong at level 13 plus or so. CR-2 to CR-4 enemies even in fairly large groups get carved up by higher level PCs even with lots of hit points. Solo bosses are pretty easy to kill even CR+3 to +5. The still hard encounters tend to be the CR+2 backed up by the CR equal or CR+1 help, especially with spells.
Wait, this is not how the Encounter Budget system in PF2 is supposed to work. Something is broken if a level+5 boss, i.e., a creature five level higher than the party level, is easy to defeat. A level+4 boss is supposed to be exactly as powerful as a 4-member party. The clever tactics that my players use can reduce the damage to the party and enable tougher opponents, but the tough fights are still hard won.
Or does CR mean something besides level? PF2 does not use Challenge Rating (CR). It uses levels.
I might even go down to level 11. I remember playing a summoner in an Age of Ashes campaign, and the one-two punch of getting access to Weighty Impact followed by Chain Lightning felt pretty darn awesome.
I don't see a synergy between Weighty Impact and Chain Lightning.
The most decisive 10th-level feat in the Ironfang Invasion was the rogue feat Precise Debilitation, available to our thief rogue Binny. With it, Binny could make her targets flat-footed to everyone for a -2 to their AC, much like how Weighty Impact could make targets flat-footed to everyone by knocking them prone.
I admit that Chain Lightning is a good spell, one of the favorites of the druid in my Ironfang Invasion campaign in which the party often fought squads of enemies.
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It tops out at CR+4 for xp. I tested a CR+5 boss against a higher level party, a regular melee creature in that high end range can be killed by a level 15+ party as long as it doesn't have extreme spellcasting or AoE attacks. Higher level parties are pretty strong even in PF2.
I would not recommend using CR+5 as a standard. Stick with CR+4 at max.
Chain Lightning and Weighty Impact are fun. Gonna suck to make the skill roll for weighty impact every time now once the Remaster is live. But Trip was overpowered with auto-trip.
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Just going on one part of the original post that I was able to suss out in the middle of the rambling:
Regarding having a character who's main angle is not effective against the majority of hostile NPCs.
There's a bit of a duty on GMs that in my experience few live up to.
At character creation, a GM needs to let players know what they're in for for the given game. And actively warn players away from bad choices and guide them towards good ones.
If a player is picking something that will be notably weak for a large part of the expected adventure - it's a failure on the GMs part if the player isn't 100% aware of that going in.
Chain Lightning and Weighty Impact are fun. Gonna suck to make the skill roll for weighty impact every time now once the Remaster is live. But Trip was overpowered with auto-trip.I'll personally be keeping them the same as they were premaster. Weighty Impact is about equivalent to Improved Knockdown, at least, which also has an auto-trip as part of its action should you hit.
Also, if we use the remaster version of those abilities, Weighty Impact suddenly becomes the same as Knockdown, a 4th level feat. I guess Weighty Impact is still better since you don't need a two hander to do it, but given how limited eidolons are in their ability to use items free hands aren't as useful for them as they would be on a PC. I definitely wouldn't call it six levels' worth of difference.
That is true. Be nice if the designers accounted for this, but we'll see.
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[Presented idea of "pf2e's tight math" leading to lack of player empowerment]
This one is pretty understandable, and easy to "fix." Yes, the tight balance of the game means that it is very unlikely that you will have players experience runaway power as they Lvl up. This is 100% a good thing and done on purpose.
I never played pf1, only 3.5, and even at the time I remember how crazy OP my Sorcerer was becoming.In pf2e, the idea is that the encounter tools need to be as accurate as possible, for as long as possible. It's only a good thing that the PC's power level is going to be anchored closer to that Lvl number. If the goal is for the party to crush their foes or to have a tough fight, that's how the GM is able to make it happen.
This tight balance ethos is also crazy important so that you don't end up with a party with 2 power gamers and 2 RPers getting split down the middle. It is much, much harder for there to be an effective level gulf between player characters in pf2e, and that's wonderful for any table's health, imo.
One other detail about that topic I've learned is that while this "character to character" balance is there, this is *not* player to player balance.
No matter how much on-paper power the Rogue has, when they consistently forget they unlocked a Reactive Strike at L6, but have they still use Nimble Dodge as muscle memory, that PC is going to under-perform a bit.
If your table is consistently beating enemies PL +5, or otherwise a degree above extreme, it's important to say that pf2e only can only do the balance thing better, not perfect. Also, the math was designed around no Free Archetype, ect. The most important thing is consistency, which the GM can adjust to.
IMO, I would not use template stuff beyond Extreme, if I was GMing and it still seemed too easy, once I hit Extreme I would manually adjust certain stats like a *1.x HP modifier to enemies, ect. It's just too delicate / dicey when the gap gets that big. The party size is also a huge balancing consideration. The more total PC actions, the far better buffs and debuffs become, ect, ect.
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Player optimization of gamesystems is normal and gradual. It's kind damning pf2e with serious praise to hear that a party is doing far above the listed difficulty adjustments, and the game still works / is fun.
IMO at that point, it would be best to consider homebrew *system* changes for the sake of balance. If there's a mechanic or action that's an *automatic and boring* thing the party always does, that's what should be targeted. I've heard of Trip being abused to boredom a few times, not sure if Trip actually scales with that high a gap though.
And yes, it's not fun to say, but this may mean specific nerfs to specific spells or abilities used by PCs. If it's possible to do it on the monster side, such as more Reflex for a Trip party, ect, that *might* be a better option to preserve fun. IMO, no matter what, tables have got to be open about homebrew nerfs for it to work out.
I've seen a few posts of balance-exceeding parties complaining or seeking advice, and it turns out they accidentally missed some key rule, or are already homebrewing the balance away. It's always worth double-checking a few things, especially any automatic/boring PC combat strats.
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I will echo the idea of high enemy count as a fun tool, but elaborate a bit + some caution.
I know for GM sanity it's nice if the crowd of 8 ___s are all the same creature, or to even batch their initiate at one place in the encounter tracker. It's miles more fun if the enemy group is of at least 2 types that different PCs know they specialize in. If there are flyers or long range archers, your Rangers/ect will love to shoot them down, and psychologically speaking knowing that your PC's niche is helping is huge toward fun.
Please, never ever batch initiative of multiple tokens. Even at PL- groups can be dangerous, and just by chance it's already expected that a lot might go in a row without PC turns. Dice are fickle, and there's little less fun than for a PC to have no turn while they get mobbed and sent dying.
Large #s of enemies, and genuinely using PL -2 foes in "Severe" encounters, is highly recommended.
But like all things, learn as you go, experiment w/ a safer setup of a sightly nerfed boss + two PL-2s before trying a mob of 8, ect.
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Oooone more expansion of flexible balance gimmick; Boss shouts for reinforcements as the fight starts, telegraphing that foes will join mid fight.
Super easy to balance. Mooks don't exist until they do. Can + or - the number of helpers until the moment they actually appear based on how the fight's going.
Can have mooks dedicated to be supporting fodder, if PC knows the foe will be 1-shot but the foe has a dangerous gimmick, usual PC decision-making can exit usual optimization to process the novel situation.
EX: mooks carrying black powder kegs, inhaled poisons ready to pop at PCs, spell scrolls, something more homebrew, ect.
Not recommended: buff casters that + the boss' numbers, lol. Yeah, that's a little too dangerous.
Gives players agency for **proactive play** A wall spell that can cover two doors, ect.
Avoids the issue of too many enemy turns in a round, and that PC mobbed-->dying problem.
It really sounds to me like this particular campaign and your character/build choices aren't clicking, rather than you having a problem with the system in general. Folks gave you some mechanical advice about improving your build to reduce your chances of being knocked out of the fight for hours. My other question would be is your GM using the incapacitation trait properly? And are there things your group could be doing to speed up combat in general to reduce time spent doing nothing when you are out of action?
I share your pain when it comes to dealing with mindless undead in Blood Lords. My fun increased tremendously when I switched from playing a psychic to playing a bones oracle in that campaign. I still struggled a bit in some combats since positive/vitality damage is illegal in Geb, and negative/void damage doesn't hurt undead, but once I picked up the Claim Undead focus spell, things significantly improved.
If the DM is taking you out of the game for 4 hours at a time with incapacitation effects this is something to discuss at the table.
Every table will have their own threshold but I know half the players at my table would quit instantly if that was how we played it.
In 90% of cases, there are no constraints on the party to just leave and cure the disabled player immediately. Make sure every player agrees to do that, and remind them if they become too obsessed with finishing whatever dungeon they are in.
If that's not possible due to a time constraint, lack of shops, or some other reason, then there are many different ways the DM can step in. For instance:
-the DM can introduce an opportunity to cure the player, such as dropping a cure as loot not too far ahead or introducing an NPC that can be bargained with to cure the condition.
-If the party could reasonably have bought the item needed to cure the player, the DM can retroactively charge the group for the item.
-out of game, the DM can offer to trade the condition for a different one that is also harsh but doesn't prevent playing.
-If the player likes the idea, the DM can give them control of an NPC until they are cured.
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I really wanted to like the bloodlords campaign, and I think there is a lot to like about some parts of it, but it has become increasingly clear that it is a campaign that got away from itself as a concept, and requires a lot of work on the GM side to balance player expectations vs campaign expectations.
Like is the whole party going to be undead by level 4 to 6? If yes, the campaign is going to play very differently than if the answer is no. Some encounters play towards one assumption and others the other, but often in ways that are certain to create almost impossible situations for both types of parties. Then you probably have the more common split party (with some undead and some not) where half the players have a nearly impossible encounter on their hands and the whole party has to be very tactically savvy to not let that create a party death spiral.
Then there is the alignment question (even if you are playing without alignment)
Are the players going to try to be lawful, and beholden to the authority of the state? Or are they going to fall much harder into the self-serving interests of themselves and their own power? Both are kind of hinted at in the players guide as options, but the lawful thing really is making life hard for yourselves, because almost no one else in the whole nation of Geb is really placing the authority of the state above their own interests.
All of this is to say, that it could be a very difficult AP for players to get a good read on PF2 as a system, as many of the base line assumptions about encounter design and character building are subverted in ways that are difficult for 6 different adventure writers to string together in a cohesive whole, and GMs have to do a lot of that work for their tables.
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This month, in discussing our next campaign, my 36-year-old younger daughter commented that she preferred Pathfinder 1st Edition to Pathfinder 2nd Edition, because PF1 is better at making characters feel fantastic.
One very simple partial solution to this issue is to have the PCs face larger numbers of weaker opponents. Still challenging, but the characters seem to just rock more. The blasters get to do LOTS of damage, the martials very quickly put down the bad guys, the tanks get hit less, etc.
Too many gamers have been spoilt by ridiculously easy games. But If they just want to role play then I'm cool with that.
I do think that the default encounter building guidelines should be set at easy encounters. The GM should have to explicitly choose a harder option for tougher campaigns. Just to establish a safe default for new players.
I wasn't actually suggesting making the encounters easier. But in my experience the players will generally enjoy a encounter of a set difficulty modifier with a bunch of lower level foes than with one higher level foe. You just seem to rock more when you're taking on 2-1 odds and winning than you do when you outnumber the bad guys and barely eke out a win.
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Worth noting that the Blood Lords player's guide, and the Paizo player guides in general, are NOT guides to actually effective characters in the AP. The Blood Lords guide talks about how fun necromancer wizards are in the campaign. That may be true thematically, but you will CRY if you try to play one mechanically, because negative energy bounces off 95% of the enemies. Likewise, it recommends evil champions. Whose main abilities revolve around dealing evil and negative damage. Of course, 95% of the enemies in the campaign are immune to both...
Paizo consistently prints "thematic" options in the player guides, which is great, but unfortunately for you the player, these thematic options are not always mechanically sound picks for the campaign. The Reign of Winter player's guide, for instance, likewise discusses how useful arctic druids, winter witches, and winter mystery oracles are in that setting. What it doesn't mention is the fact that most of your thematic spells and abilities will bounce right off the cold-immune opposition.
So do not rely on player's guides to help you make good mechanical choices. They are there to suggest interesting thematics, with no consideration as to whether or not those options are actually playable in the campaign as written.
I've got a friend who still has flashbacks to their time as a ranger in Strange Aeons. "Rangers are thematic," they said. "Pick aberration as your favored enemy," they said. Do you know how many aberrations he got to fight over the course of the four books we entirely went through, and the smidge of the fifth we didn't?
Three.
My "favourite" is the Crimson Throne Player Guide (Pre hardcover if that makes a difference). Make a character who really, really hates a particular NPC. A NPC who is killed early in book 1.
Looking at the discussion threads, more than one group ended then. The PCs all basically looked at each other, went "Well, that was fun. Have a nice life. See you" and they went their own way as the characters had absolutely NO reason to adventure together
Fortunately, I'd read those discussion threads and so gave the Players quite different advice on building their character :-)
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My "favourite" is the Crimson Throne Player Guide (Pre hardcover if that makes a difference). Make a character who really, really hates a particular NPC. A NPC who is killed early in book 1.Looking at the discussion threads, more than one group ended then. The PCs all basically looked at each other, went "Well, that was fun. Have a nice life. See you" and...
I guess your players didn't realize that "it's about the friends you make along the way." No one ever gets far without the magic of friendship in this game. XD
Who could have possibly known that a bunch of loaner isolationist introvert characters wouldn't work out in a social cooperative roleplaying game? :P
There's going against theme, and then there's totally ignoring what's clearly spelled out on the tin and calling it the game's fault. :/
I had a similar situation with Skull and Shackles and its Player's Guide, but unlike your party, after my players' characters killed their mutually hated enemy near the end of Book 1, they looked at each other and said "Wow, you guys are really swell! Thanks for the assist in the coup! How about we keep the momentum going and make each other rich?"
It's totally cool if your players simply decided they were done with the campaign; nothing badwrongfun about it. But it sounds to me they let something relatively trivial cause them to miss out on a grand adventure.
I guess your players didn't realize that "it's about the friends you make along the way." No one ever gets far without the magic of friendship in this game. XD
Who could have possibly known that a bunch of loaner isolationist introvert characters wouldn't work out in a social cooperative roleplaying game? :P
There's going against theme, and then there's totally ignoring what's clearly spelled out on the tin and calling it the game's fault. :/
I had a similar situation with Skull and Shackles and its Player's Guide, but unlike your party, after my players' characters killed their mutually hated enemy near the end of Book 1, they looked at each other and said "Wow, you guys are really swell! Thanks for the assist in the coup! How about we keep the momentum going and make each other rich?"
It's totally cool if your players simply decided they were done with the campaign; nothing badwrongfun about it. But it sounds to me they let something relatively trivial cause them to miss out on a grand adventure.
I had the happen with my character in Skulls and Shackles. I was playing a Kobold Gunslinger (Krickbop D. Nosplode) whose goal was to get himself and his dog (A massive Cocker Spaniel named Big Eater) off the ship and get safe. Once he was able to reach shore he found a nice cave and left the adventure and I brought in a new character.
In my case, I made the character as a bit of a 1-note joke and didn't know where I wanted to go with him so I chose to retire him when I couldn't come up with a way to make him interesting after the first act. If that hadn't been the case he would have found a reason to stay with the party.
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A decent melee rogue shouldn't fall that far behind your party fighter:...
i think this is the best thing i have read about pf2e so farbut i want to clear some things up i understand that fighter is always gonna be the superior combatant and i think thats good i dident expect to be a combat moster it just feals bad to have somone in you ear talk about how litel dps you do and i let that in to this comversation so that a bad on my part when i typed it i dient even think it was gonna be a big part of the conversation i just wanted to vent a bit so im sorry for that
know back to charecter
i love the character mabey not his class but it fun to rp and all the skills and out of combat possibilities that arise but when i started i dident know faint was mental so that is part of my ignorans to the gameand just as a thing out of combat im having a lot of fun but combat is such a big part of what i have experienced in the game so losing not 40 min but lossing 4 hours because of a singel trap that every on misst with perception and then i roll a 28 fortitude saving throw and then im petrified and the im told by the dm out of game that i get to roll att the end of every day to se if im still petrified im gonna be honest i loos intrest
but to leve it on a positiva not i have been having a good time being the un offical healer of the party brewing potions and doing surgerybut i want to tank you (Sanityfaerie) for taking the time to type all this and puting me back on the ground and i might move my character more in to a passiv roll
- Your base damage (with a d6 weapon and sneak attack) is slightly better than a 1d12 two-handed weapon on average, and getting your target flat-footed should offset the fighter's superior proficiency.
- In a melee heavy group, you shouldn't need to Feint very often with the Gang Up (Level 06) feat making flanking really simple: Feinting is a useful tool, but you shouldn't actually need it that often.
- The Opportune Backstab (Level 08) feat is a significant damage source since it is possibly a free no-MAP attack every round if your melee is focusing their attacks on a single target.
Honestly, PF2e rogues are the strongest I can remember the class ever being.
Just to nitpick:
To fAint is to briefly fall unconscious, which you probably shouldn't do in combat if you can avoid it...
To fEint is to pretend like you are about to do one thing but actually do something else (wind up your fist like you are about to punch your foe in the nose, then kick him in the groin when he raises the arms to protect his face).
As for traps, always let the fighter actually open the door once you've checked it...
That's why I always do a session 0 as a GM, works wonders and saves a lot of future problems. A few questions to OP, if you please.
Are you playing by PF Society rules? Because if I were the GM I'd houserule a class feat to make your class perks work against your most common foe even at the cost of unbalancing it a bit if favor of the party.
And I apologize if I sound intruding but, are you reluctant to switch to another character because you really feel like playing it? Can't count how many times I've personally fallen to the sunken cost fallacy with my own characters. There is nothing wrong in putting back a character in the drawer for a future and more fitting campain. One thing is your character struggling to achieve its goals and other is YOU struggling to have... well, fun in playing the game.
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OP, what are your character's ability scores?
For battle, a non-Ruffian Rogue really wants to start with a Dexterity of 18 or 16, giving you a 20 or 19 at 10th level. Starting with a 14 or less in your 'attack stat' generally results in a character that 'under-performs' in a fight...