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Early to mid Pathfinder Adventure Paths had rune problems. Fundamental runes are an essential assumption of the game which AP design doesn't always seem to account for. I haven't read Gatewalkers, Sky King's Tomb, or the other most recent adventures. I'm still running Abomination Vaults and Quest for the Frozen Flame. I'm going to outline some problems, which hopefully have been addressed in newer books. If not, this is a plea for Paizo to consider these factors moving forward.
Rune Transfer Costs: This has always been wonky, and it isn't entirely the fault of APs. It was vague whether it required Magical Crafting until it was errataed. It also costs a full day's labor and 10% of a runes value to transfer it between weapons. But this assumes a player character performs the transfer. What if you need to hire an NPC instead? Nothing specifies the cost, and logically there would be an additional surcharge for a full day's labor on top of the 10% material cost. PFS has a specific rule that lodges have staff who will waive the labor fees, but I've never seen a non-PFS rulebook or adventure address this.
Rune Transfer Availability: I've also never seen an AP specify who you can hire to transfer runes. In a metropolis, it feels safe to assume some unnamed professional can do it. But look at Otari. Multiple products outline every business in town. Some have a detailed breakdown of the services each business offers. I didn't spot rune transfers in any of them. The town blacksmith isn't reliable and his published stats don't even including Crafting. There's a wizard in town, but he runs a book shop. Why would he shut it down to scratch metal for a day?
Too few fundamentals: The most egregious example is Quest for the Frozen Flame. You've got no access to shops in the early game, no downtime to Craft, and no formulas or workshops to craft with. OK, so we gotta scrounge what we can find, seems thematically appropriate. But you don't find a striking rune until like level 6.
Premature properties: I've noticed property runes dropping before fundamentals, but you can't use the former until you have the latter. It's most egregious on armor runes, since +1 armor takes so much longer to become level appropriate than +1 weapons. But I have seen ghost touch rune stones dropped before +1 weapons, too. (Timed so that you have a very low likelihood of walking into an APL+3 ghost fight with magic weapons at all, much less ghost touch.)
Raining Runestones: I'm starting to think you should almost never find runestones outside of a shop. From a narrative perspective, why did the long dead NPC bring a rune into a dangerous environment in a form that you can't use without 8 hours and a workshop when you could, you know, actually use it on a weapon? From a meta perspective, why are you making the players wait to be able to use it? Yes, finding a rune stone saves you 10% to transfer it to your ideal weapon. But that 10% was never really the cost. The cost was spending a full day of downtime (an impossible price in many adventures) and spending feats and skill increases or trying to use non-existent NPC rules.
Bad weapons: This is pretty nitpicky, but it feels weird to find a +1 mace instead of a +1 war hammer. Very few classes with simple weapon proficiency actually want to swing a weapon, much less non-finesse one. But finding a +1 ghost touch mace is still better than finding a ghost touch rune stone.
Shops or downtime? You need to give players one of the two. And if it is just the latter, make sure the players guide says to take Magical Crafting. If you don't have those bases covered, tell people to use ABL or be overly generous with found gear since the party can't sell it.
There are lots of ways GMs can fix these problems, and I'll cover them in a later post. But... They shouldn't have to.
Uh oh. You are asking for APs to have someone look them over with verisimilitude in mind. I feel like Paizo and most adventure writers leave that up to the GM to do as they wish.
I tend to gloss over these issues or come up with a quick, reasonable method. Though I've been lucky to almost always have a PC who wants to craft.
It would be nice if things made sense for magic items. Not a deal breaker for me or anything, but always nice when thought is put into this element of the game in APs.
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Uh oh. You are asking for APs to have someone look them over with verisimilitude in mind.
I think you have that backwards. With verisimilitude, you would get rune items basically randomly. Getting a property rune before you have a fundamental rune would be the least of the problems.
No, we are looking for someone to look over the APs with the game's rune mechanics in mind.
I was curious because I remember PF1 also being horrible at handing out this kind of stuff in APs (worse, even, since rune transfer wasn't a thing).
Since you mentioned you hadn't looked at the newer APs, I decided to look at those. Specifically, Gatewalkers, Sky King's Tomb and Season of Ghosts, since they start at Level 1.
Without going into a lot of spoilers, no, most of your concerns haven't really been addressed, except maybe premature properties, since those don't show up
Your points about too few fundamentals, cost structure and the rest are pretty much still present.
I will say, Season of Ghost does have a vendor that can specifically craft or transfer runes "at cost" (the AP's words, not mine) but this is only really available at the end of the adventure.
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Uh oh. You are asking for APs to have someone look them over with verisimilitude in mind.I think you have that backwards. With verisimilitude, you would get rune items basically randomly. Getting a property rune before you have a fundamental rune would be the least of the problems.
No, we are looking for someone to look over the APs with the game's rune mechanics in mind.
My stance is mostly mechanics, but as I wrote the post I realized I had some verisimilitude problems too. Reading over the loot distribution with both in mind feels reasonable.
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I was curious because I remember PF1 also being horrible at handing out this kind of stuff in APs (worse, even, since rune transfer wasn't a thing).
Since you mentioned you hadn't looked at the newer APs, I decided to look at those. Specifically, Gatewalkers, Sky King's Tomb and Season of Ghosts, since they start at Level 1.
Without going into a lot of spoilers, no, most of your concerns haven't really been addressed, except maybe premature properties, since those don't show up ** spoiler omitted **
Your points about too few fundamentals, cost structure and the rest are pretty much still present.
I will say, Season of Ghost does have a vendor that can specifically craft or transfer runes "at cost" (the AP's words, not mine) but this is only really available at the end of the adventure.
Good to know. Then yeah, plea to Paizo to work on these things. Next up, some work arounds for GMs.
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Rune transfer costs: charge the players an amount equal to a day's work on the Earned Income table, using the level of the rune as the job level. Alternatively, just round up on the material cost if your players hate math or you don't want to look up the table. It costs 3.5 gold to move a +1 weapon rune, but you may as well charge 5 gold.
Not a perfect fix, but good enough to keep the game moving and reasonably immersive.
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I almost mentioned Agents of Edgewatch, but my understanding of the problem there was that much of the wealth as written was basically robbing the people you arrested which is gross.
Age of Ashes did fine for dropping items as I recall, though IIRC they didn't have settlement level quite worked until book 4, so the starting town was a bit of a mystery for shopping, much less rune transfer. But I believe they mostly dropped runed weapons and armor instead of rune stones.
Extinction Curse dropped enchanted weapons and armor, too, from what I recall, but I didn't play it that far in.
On that last problem: one thing you can do to reduce time off to maintain some semblance of urgency is reduce the length of time needed to move a rune. You could change the base time to an hour, or you could homebrew a feat for it:
Rune scribe Skill Feat 1
Prerequisite: Trained in Crafting
You may not produce magic items yet, but you've learned enogih to manipulate runes better than most. If you want to transfer a rune between armor, weapons, or runestones, you do not need the Magical Crafting feat. You may also transfer the rune with only 4 hours of labor. If you're a master in crafting, it only takes one hour. If you're legendary, it only takes 10 minutes.
This feat can also be given to NPCs, which not only gets PCs fun items quicker but makes the NPC taking the time for the job more plausible and makes the labor charge less important. Adjust the increment/proficiency ratio to taste.
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I almost mentioned Agents of Edgewatch, but my understanding of the problem there was that much of the wealth as written was basically robbing the people you arrested which is gross.
Our PCs in Edgewatch never robbed anyone we arrested. We instead got our loot through Civil Forfeiture.
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I almost mentioned Agents of Edgewatch, but my understanding of the problem there was that much of the wealth as written was basically robbing the people you arrested which is gross.Our PCs in Edgewatch never robbed anyone we arrested. We instead got our loot through Civil Forfeiture.
*Tries to detect sarcasm*
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Farien continually tells me that he is unable to learn Detect Sarcasm because that is not a valid spell.
I am not certain if he is serious or not.
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I agree with the game ideally having NPC advice on the matter. But it is pretty easy to reverse engineer
NPCs trade at 100% profit assumptions and settlements in general limit what is available level wise.
For instance, the party is in a level 6 city and wants to transfer a level 4 striking rune.
I would offer normal and expedited speeds and costs.
- Normal: I assume the crafter has assurance (it is their profession) and they will work for, DC for craft would be 18, assurance for level 6 would be 20. Progress per day is 2gp, 3 days crafting (ready on the third day) (3.25g of progress needed) cost to player 6.5gp
- Expedited: same as above but takes 1 day and the crafter charges 13gp
........
That aside, I think people get too fixated on the necessity of runes arriving at exactly the point players want them and on the items players want them on.
I feel like people need to have better session zeros with their players.
If a party doesn't have crafting, having to struggle through suboptimal periods is fine imo. It isn't like the party won't be able to take on threats or be useful if they are behind on a rune or two. The math is tight and certainly makes a difference, but not THAT tight.
I agree with runestones randomly appearing as loot though. Feels extremely odd, heck runestones as a whole feel like the vestiges of a previous system in design.
........
Agents of Edgewater, yeah they needed to do better with that imo. "Everything does non lethal damage by default and you can rob anyone you beat into submission" is an awful combination.
I changed it to:
- Edgewatch are paid a (low) wage and given a equipment selection privileges from the garrison based on performance as a warped incentive.
- The game starts with training (and the old dwarf cop) and has a diagetic example of harsh punishments for agents who break the law.
- Characters wear the equivalent of magic body cams. (Not actual cameras, but they change state if exposed to death and record where the officers travel and are required to be invested/worn)
So while yes a PC who wants to be a scumbag can work at it... the city of absalom actually has some safeguards against it and they aren't able to do so with impunity.
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I agree with the game ideally having NPC advice on the matter. But it is pretty easy to reverse engineer
NPCs trade at 100% profit assumptions and settlements in general limit what is available level wise.
For instance, the party is in a level 6 city and wants to transfer a level 4 striking rune.
I would offer normal and expedited speeds and costs.
- Normal: I assume the crafter has assurance (it is their profession) and they will work for, DC for craft would be 18, assurance for level 6 would be 20. Progress per day is 2gp, 3 days crafting (ready on the third day) (3.25g of progress needed) cost to player 6.5gp
- Expedited: same as above but takes 1 day and the crafter charges 13gp
........
That aside, I think people get too fixated on the necessity of runes arriving at exactly the point players want them and on the items players want them on.
I feel like people need to have better session zeros with their players.If a party doesn't have crafting, having to struggle through suboptimal periods is fine imo. It isn't like the party won't be able to take on threats or be useful if they are behind on a rune or two. The math is tight and certainly makes a difference, but not THAT tight.
I agree with runestones randomly appearing as loot though. Feels extremely odd, heck runestones as a whole feel like the vestiges of a previous system in design.
........
Agents of Edgewater, yeah they needed to do better with that imo. "Everything does non lethal damage by default and you can rob anyone you beat into submission" is an awful combination.
I changed it to:
- Edgewatch are paid a (low) wage and given a equipment selection privileges from the garrison based on performance as a warped incentive.
- The game starts with training (and the old dwarf cop) and has a diagetic example of harsh punishments for agents who break the law.
- Characters wear the equivalent of magic body cams. (Not actual cameras, but they change state if exposed to death and record where the...
I agree that runes don't need to show up exactly "on time" but no striking runes until midway through level 6 is pretty ridiculous. I also agree that runes don't need to be on optimized weapons. But whether Crafting is needed isn't as obvious as it should be, IMO. I agree a session zero should establish how helpful it would be, but players guides don't mention it, newbies don't understand how magic items are assumed unlike 5e, and the lack of NPC rules can sneak up on you. Given all of those things combined, I dropping runes on good weapons feels like better. As I said, this is nitpicky and less important than other issues I cited.
In general, I think PF2 has a weird meta for weapon selection.
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Crafting should not be required. Or like healing or dealing damage there should be several really different ways to get the result. So that you to not need to ask a player to be the Craftbot.
And runes should really be made available at the level they are expected because monsters are built with these expectations.
Try giving Striking runes to all martials at level 3 and you will see what I mean.
Heck even only one having it might be enough to see the difference.
I've noticed the rune problem in Kingmaker and QofFF. I haven't noticed it in AoA, EC, AV, SoT, or GW.
I have heard of cases of GMs not letting people take the runes off bosses/enemies if it wasn't explicitly listed in the treasure section of the encounter, I'm positive that's a GM just not understanding things. In those cases, yup you will be behind on runes. Often the bosses are the source of the "early" runes -- ie getting one a level early.
There are lots of ways GMs can fix these problems, and I'll cover them in a later post. But... They shouldn't have to.
My PF2 campaign was in a strange situation where I had to adjust everything, and even then I noticed awkwardness with the runes. We began playing PF2 in October 2019 when Age of Ashes was the only published PF2 adventure path. Instead, we decided to convert the PF1 adventure path Ironfang Invasion to PF2. Thus, all runes I had to add myself.
First, I simply converted the PF1 +1 weapons to weapons with runes. However, those weapons were martial weapons. Since the party consisted of a ranger, a druid, and two rogues, and in those pre-Remaster days the rogues could use only a tiny subset of martial weapons, only the ranger could use the enchanted weapons the party found. Thus, I altered some treasure caches to include enchanted rogue weapons. The druid never used weapons.
In the first three modules, the party mostly fought Hobgoblin Soldiers with unenchanted weapons. (For higher levels, I invented troop units of hobgoblin soldiers. Their weapons were still unenchanted.) The party looted those hobgoblins' longswords to arm the refugees whom they protected, untrained in simple or martial weapons, so the longswords being martial did not matter to the refugees. The Bestiary often includes creatures that hit for two damage dice without their weapons being enchanted, so when I used Bestiary creatures the runes were sparse. At higher levels, the commanders of hobgoblin patrols wielded weapons with runes, but I kept the original martial weapon type, so the party would transfer the runes to their favorite weapons.
The ranger trained in Crafting because he was going to become a snare crafter. Alas, the 1st module Trail of the Hunted left the party in a forest far from a town for shopping or a workshop for crafting. They found a workshop soon after the champion joined the party at 3rd level, another crafter but this one had learned Magical Crafting.
The Crafting rules say that the crafter spends money to craft. My players and I did not assume that silver coins were the raw material for crafting; instead, we supposed that the coins were spent to buy the proper materials. This explanation did not make sense in a workshop hidden in an abandoned forest outpost. I came up with two solutions and the party used both. First, the workshop had a stock of magical reagents which were the material for transferring runes. Second, the party could harvest plants in the forest, using the Earn Income table and Survival skill, that contained natural magical reagents for transferring runes.
Another issue was downtime. The players had set a fast pace for themselves, on the argument that each week they took downtime, the Ironfang Invasion conquered another village. The party only once spent more than a single day in downtime. After the clarification that only magical crafters could transfer runes, I made a house rule that the ranger could cooperatively craft with the champion so that they could both work to transfer runes. I was lucky that both the ranger and the champion had skipped training in Diplomacy, so whenever the party was busy negotiating with local residents, those two would slip away to a workshop and spend the day transferring runes.
In the 2nd module, Fangs of War, at 6th level the party liberated Fort Nunder from enemy control and unlocked the fort's armory vault. The vault was disappointing close to empty, more a treasure trove for a small party than an armory for a fortress.
I added to the armory vault some silver and cold iron weapons and runestones of every Core Rulebook weapon and armor rune of 5th level and below, with multiple copies of fundamental runes. This was a circumstance where runestones made sense: the runes could be matched to weapons after the threat was identified. Though the day of downtime to transfer might have been a fatal flaw. Transferring from a runestone costs no money but still takes a day and a Crafting check.
The party had an urgent mission--dwarves seeking refuge at Fort Nunder told them that the ranger's home village was about to be invaded--and did not transfer any runes until after they destroyed the army attacking the home village. That is the one time that they spend three whole days of downtime in transferring, using the village's blacksmith shop. They had the excuse that the rest of the party was guarding the village and giving additional defense training to the villagers in case any further enemy forces showed up.
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My complaint for runes is the lack of "lesser" runes for lower level characters, and the ironic part is that Paizo has already laid the groundwork for it all by nature of their Troubles in Otari/Beginner Box magic items. Plenty of these magic items are a basic "+1 Weapon with 1 [element goes here] damage," which is quite exciting, and also adds spice to ABP groups, whom don't get magic items almost ever (at least, not for the first like 5+ levels or so).
We already have a baseline for their overall power, which is 1 [element goes here] damage, and we can easily incorporate the rules for their relevant ancillary effects, price, requirements, etc. from the existing standard runes.
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I think this issue pairs with the "how many encounters in an AP dungeon before long rest" question.
APs often have long sequences where mechanically, the party really needs a break. To regain daily spells/powers, to go up a level if you don't like doing that mid-dungeon, or to change equipment (purchasing stuff, moving runes). But the story often sounds like all the trouble is happening right now, it doesn't make sense to put things on hold like that.
I think APs should include more explicit guidance to the GM on how to see these pacing needs, and how to handle them.
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I've noticed the rune problem in Kingmaker and QofFF. I haven't noticed it in AoA, EC, AV, SoT, or GW.
I have heard of cases of GMs not letting people take the runes off bosses/enemies if it wasn't explicitly listed in the treasure section of the encounter, I'm positive that's a GM just not understanding things. In those cases, yup you will be behind on runes. Often the bosses are the source of the "early" runes -- ie getting one a level early.
Do you mean the items listed in the stat block ?
Those are indeed supposed to be part of the treasure, though the most explicit text I could find about it on AoN (so not yet Remastered) was :
"Items
Source Gamemastery Guide pg. 61
If you gave a creature gear equivalent to a PC, your PCs would gain a huge amount of treasure by defeating a large group of them. Using Table 2–4: Safe Items can help you avoid that. A creature can have a single permanent item of the listed level without issue. For example, if a 6th-level creature has a +1 weapon, that item’s not worth so much that the PCs would be massively rich if they encountered many creatures of that type and sold everything they found. "
It's in the Building creatures part.
The general description of a creature's stat block does not even mention, much less clarify, Items.
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That was really a strange side effect of the ABP table. If you automatically get the bonuses in ABP, then you _must_ get them at the same time without it.That aside, I think people get too fixated on the necessity of runes arriving at exactly the point players want them and on the items players want them on.
It seems odd to blame ABP for this. The game's own math is built that way. Enemies get AC and HP buffs at roughly the same time runes come online, so it can feel kind of bad when you don't have that gear at the levels the game says you should. Trying to pass it off as some psychological issue is missing the mark.
Why is robbing those you arrest in Agents of Edgewatch gross? With a few exceptions, most of the people you encounter that require arrest are MASS MURDERERS who use their property and wealth only to further their far more gross aims.
I've played level 1-17 through the adventure path so far, and by and large it has really opened my eyes to the notion that cities aren't any safer than the wilds on Golarion. The only time it was any issue at all was when...
Early to mid Pathfinder Adventure Paths had rune problems. Fundamental runes are an essential assumption of the game which AP design doesn't always seem to account for. I haven't read Gatewalkers, Sky King's Tomb, or the other most recent adventures. I'm still running Abomination Vaults and Quest for the Frozen Flame. I'm going to outline some problems, which hopefully have been addressed in newer books. If not, this is a plea for Paizo to consider these factors moving forward.
Rune Transfer Costs: This has always been wonky, and it isn't entirely the fault of APs. It was vague whether it required Magical Crafting until it was errataed. It also costs a full day's labor and 10% of a runes value to transfer it between weapons. But this assumes a player character performs the transfer. What if you need to hire an NPC instead? Nothing specifies the cost, and logically there would be an additional surcharge for a full day's labor on top of the 10% material cost. PFS has a specific rule that lodges have staff who will waive the labor fees, but I've never seen a non-PFS rulebook or adventure address this.
Rune Transfer Availability: I've also never seen an AP specify who you can hire to transfer runes. In a metropolis, it feels safe to assume some unnamed professional can do it. But look at Otari. Multiple products outline every business in town. Some have a detailed breakdown of the services each business offers. I didn't spot rune transfers in any of them. The town blacksmith isn't reliable and his published stats don't even including Crafting. There's a wizard in town, but he runs a book shop. Why would he shut it down to scratch metal for a day?
Too few fundamentals: The most egregious example is Quest for the Frozen Flame. You've got no access to shops in the early game, no downtime to Craft, and no formulas or workshops to craft with. OK, so we gotta scrounge what we can find, seems thematically appropriate. But you don't find a striking rune until like level 6.
Premature properties: I've...
Well said. I think that these would all be positive changes.
Rune problems is just the tip of the iceberg. All the "loot" management in APs/adventures is badly done. I don't blame Paizo that much as I must admit I have hard time doing it myself, so I've switched to ABP and I'm asking regularly what are my player's needs and "Ho, what a luck, this is just the item I need!".
Among the multiple issues:
- Different items don't have the same price despite having the same price. A Striking Rune is 65gp, but a 65gp item is very often only 32.5gp as you will sell it. It's sometimes even worse as PCs tend to keep items even if they are not that useful just because it's funny to use what you loot so a 65gp item can actually be a 0gp item and still be compensated by actual gold pieces.
- Sometimes the loot value is on one single item. If the party fails to find it they lose 80% of a level of loot.
- A part of the loot is not really legitimate as it is not supposed to end up in the PCs hands.
- The lack of shops and/or time to craft can cause itemization issues, too.
Overall, I tend to be more and more lenient when it comes to loot. One great thing with PF2 is that you will hardly be "overequiped" unless the GM gives you higher level items. So as a GM you can be really lenient without breaking your own game.
Giving the agents a salary doesn't really work well because...
*Tries to detect sarcasm*I almost mentioned Agents of Edgewatch, but my understanding of the problem there was that much of the wealth as written was basically robbing the people you arrested which is gross.Our PCs in Edgewatch never robbed anyone we arrested. We instead got our loot through Civil Forfeiture.It sort of depended for us (one adventure in particular, the loot was basically nuclear waste so we didn't feel bad) but I do remember we generally agreed that the party should just get a salary of magic items rather than taking stuff...
I agree loot management is pretty frustrating. It's supposed to emulate AD&D and PF 1e... but frankly I'm not sure if the "have some random junk" elements are worth emulating. Especially when you scrap over half the stuff you get.
It can sometimes feel like you're working a job that only pays in secondhand jewelry and small kitchen appliances. And like the PCs are more like thieves going to a fence than heroes.
Agreed. Equipment might be the least accessible part of PF2, followed by spells. In both cases, the problem is largely in the sheer volume of published material. Spells and items are probably fun to create and feel like a great way to round out a book. But at the end of the day there are just soooo many, and lots of them are niche. Tracking loot, value, and encumbrance is easier with Foundry, but Foundry and Pathbuilder also give players every piece of published content by default which makes picking their own options pretty overwhelming.
And runes are just so separate from the normal character advancement. I usually have to tell new players "y'all should probably consider getting these striking runes" once they have enough money, especially now that magic items are in GM Core. If you're not already familiar with older games it just feels alien, especially since 5e doesn't use magic items the same way.
But since this isn't going anywhere, it would be awfully swell if AP writers just gave players what they need rather than make them shop from a bunch of books outside of Player Core. Hopefully by PF3 we can have ABP as more of a baseline instead of a variant.
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I find APB to be pretty disappointing as a solution for the item problem of PF2. Beyond just tying everything to leveling up, putting too much of a focus on leveling up as the only point of character growth in the game, I don't see GMs handling consumables very consistently with APB and that can really hurt casters when the assumption is that only permanent items really matter as far as what characters need to adventure. This has resulted in some games I have seen where players get almost no treasure and 8th level casters who's only magic item is a level 2 wand. APB really needs to include giving extra spells per day if it is not going to be more explicit about making sure the party still gets lots of scrolls and potions. I mean part of the problem is that no APs use the rule, so every GM is kind of on their own to figure out how to balance things, and parties all use wealth so differently from each other.
But timing in APs is a problem bigger than just APB or not. The best solution I have found is to break days up into 3 sections instead of treating them like 1. Characters need to sleep/rest/daily prep 1 section of each day, and can adventure for 1 section without concern, but if they try to adventure (have encounters), then they are automatically fatigued for the 2nd section of the day. This ends up building in downtime to every day and really helps the players with crafting, making social connections in settlements, etc. It has worked very well for me so far. Yes it lets players can get 2 downtime sessions in a day, but that has yet to cause any problems.
Giving the agents a salary doesn't really work well because...
** spoiler omitted **
I sold the equivalent of the treasure and made it an expense fun provided by the city to gear up.
I let them keep items that would likely be ok to keep due to belonging to no one.
It's all abstract to drive the story. So I created a narrative that supported the story while still allowing the characters to meet the mechanical gear needs of PF2.
Sure is a fun series. That spoiler module is the best of the bunch. That is a fun module.
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I am currently playing Quest for the Frozen Flame. We're level 5 and the lack of runes is getting pretty frustrating and just not fun.
We have a grand total of one +1 rune in the party (no striking runes).
We've managed to eek out victories so far by lots of use of runic weapon spells. But that means that
1) Battles go longer as we do next to nothing the first round or two (both casters are built to do the spell/weapon attack thing)
2) Battles are harder. We've lost 2 animal companions partly as a result of this (No way we could afford to use the actions to save the animals). And I'm fairly sure the GM has gone easy on us at least once to avoid a TPK.
I was playing a cavalier and losing my mount really hurt (both mechanically and from a roleplaying perspective). The GM was nice and allowed us to count adventuring days as 1/2 for downtime as otherwise we'd have been left with the two REALLY unpalatable choices of lose a week where, story wise, that should spell pretty much certain doom or just never get to replace the animal companion. But I was still down my companion for 3 sessions and when that companion has cost you 2 of your 3 class feats that kinda sucks. Both mechanically and from a "feel good roleplaying" perspective.
Having your martials doing 30% or so less damage really hurts. It probably doesn't help that we're all experienced players so we KNOW and FEEL how much below par we're hitting. And its not as if the AP is sending soft encounters our way.
It is just getting seriously frustrating and impacting our enjoyment (the 2 martial characters, at least, have been pretty vocal about it :-))
Wouldn't the animal companions remove themselves from danger without being commanded?
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Wouldn't the animal companions remove themselves from danger without being commanded?
The animal companions went down early in a very tough fight. If anybody had spent the actions to try and save them the fight would almost certainly have been a TPK. Both companions died before they could stabilize themselves.
Edit : Not blaming the GM. She was probably trying to be nice by attacking the animals instead of the PCs as the latter could easily have resulted in character death or TPK.
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I ran QftFF. We had 1 character death. I don't run pfs, so I'm not worried about running anything perfect. The AP has a bit of time crunch to it, so I just allowed someone at the following move runes as needed with a night's rest. I also made sure they had what runes they needed, and then I sprinkled whatever fun magic items I could find to keep them in the area of character wealth.
I find APB to be pretty disappointing as a solution for the item problem of PF2. Beyond just tying everything to leveling up, putting too much of a focus on leveling up as the only point of character growth in the game, I don't see GMs handling consumables very consistently with APB and that can really hurt casters when the assumption is that only permanent items really matter as far as what characters need to adventure. This has resulted in some games I have seen where players get almost no treasure and 8th level casters who's only magic item is a level 2 wand. APB really needs to include giving extra spells per day if it is not going to be more explicit about making sure the party still gets lots of scrolls and potions. I mean part of the problem is that no APs use the rule, so every GM is kind of on their own to figure out how to balance things, and parties all use wealth so differently from each other.
But timing in APs is a problem bigger than just APB or not. The best solution I have found is to break days up into 3 sections instead of treating them like 1. Characters need to sleep/rest/daily prep 1 section of each day, and can adventure for 1 section without concern, but if they try to adventure (have encounters), then they are automatically fatigued for the 2nd section of the day. This ends up building in downtime to every day and really helps the players with crafting, making social connections in settlements, etc. It has worked very well for me so far. Yes it lets players can get 2 downtime sessions in a day, but that has yet to cause any problems.
A lot of what you're describing though isn't actually a testament against ABP as a baseline but as a variant. Because it is a variant, there's less consistency in how it is handled. I'll throw selling item onto the pile of problems it creates as is. How do you price skill boosting items which no longer provide a bonus to the skill? We settled on using wand pricing, essentially, but it is clunky. Or how do you decide when a weapon can hold multiple property runes?
But these sorts of things go away if ABP was built into the system. So hopefully either Paizo releases more guidance on using this variant or considers it as a baseline for PF3.
But your sections of the day thing is good, and was another fix I forgot to mention. I found running Abomination Vaults that if the party woke up at sun rise, spent an hour preparing spells, hiked 20 minutes to the dungeon, and then fought until their resources were exhausted, it would usually be about 10 am. Plenty of daylight left for downtime activies.
I ran QftFF. We had 1 character death. I don't run pfs, so I'm not worried about running anything perfect. The AP has a bit of time crunch to it, so I just allowed someone at the following move runes as needed with a night's rest. I also made sure they had what runes they needed, and then I sprinkled whatever fun magic items I could find to keep them in the area of character wealth.
Yeah if memory serves Frozen Flame isn't just lacking in runes or places to buy them. It also just doesn't have enough treasure, period.
It's not like it just gives out a ton of wands and staves but no runes. It's just generally stingy.
It kinda feels like there were some placeholder notes that got overlooked.
"Ghost touch rune here. Make sure +1 rune is added before boss fight."
"Irrisen sorcerer's tomb here with undead guardians. Decide on level appropriate staff to place as loot later."
On that last note, here's a fun hack if you have new spellcasters and no shop access: drop a massively over leveled staff. It will grow in power alongside the character and you can use it to guide them to safe staple spells.
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Abomination Vaults (hardcover) has a list in each chapter of what the permanent treasures in it are. That does make it a bit easier for the GM to consider any switches.
In general as GM I think it's healthy when preparing an adventure to analyze it to find:
- what treasure is there, and how does it square up against the GMC reward guidelines?
- where are good daily-rest break points
- where are good downtime break points
- where are encounters that should be done quite quickly after another
- where are encounters that may require a break after, for example to deal with hefty conditions?
A lot of what you're describing though isn't actually a testament against ABP as a baseline but as a variant. Because it is a variant, there's less consistency in how it is handled. I'll throw selling item onto the pile of problems it creates as is. How do you price skill boosting items which no longer provide a bonus to the skill? We settled on using wand pricing, essentially, but it is clunky. Or how do you decide when a weapon can hold multiple property runes?But these sorts of things go away if ABP was built into the system. So hopefully either Paizo releases more guidance on using this variant or considers it as a baseline for PF3.
But your sections of the day thing is good, and was another fix I forgot to mention. I found running Abomination Vaults that if the party woke up at sun rise, spent an hour preparing spells, hiked 20 minutes to the dungeon, and then fought until their resources were exhausted, it would usually be about 10 am. Plenty of daylight left for downtime activies.
I still think APB has an inherent issue (which is why it is not the default assumption of the game) in that it really only makes leveling up matter as far a character improvement which can lead to long plateaus, especially in slower xp advancing games (which is a recommended way of running Abomination vaults, for example). I agree that running it as a variant rule runs into additional problems that APs are not well set up to facilitate, but I don't personally think that APs problems with giving out gear are necessarily best solved with APB anyway.
The pacing issue of APs is a tricky one that some will do better than others to fit different tables expectations and is something that I agree has a lot of room for improvement. One of the reasons I like doing the 3 sections per day house rule, is that it is just as good for parties hexploring and moving around a lot as long as "think about and plan to set up base camps and have resources available to you when you are out adventuring" is something manageable and fun for the group. The only AP I have run that I haven't made stellar use of this house rule is in book one of Fists of the Ruby Phoenix, but that is because their hexploration subsystem is particularly micro-managey and the party really has to push the limits of what they can do in 16 hours, so that fatigued is a pretty brutal add on.
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I still think APB has an inherent issue (which is why it is not the default assumption of the game) in that it really only makes leveling up matter as far a character improvement which can lead to long plateaus, especially in slower xp advancing games (which is a recommended way of running Abomination vaults, for example). I agree that running it as a variant rule runs into additional problems that APs are not well set up to facilitate, but I don't personally think that APs problems with giving out gear are necessarily best solved with APB anyway.
You're right that power would be stagnant between levels. At least mathematically. But an implied assumption of ABP as a baseline is that more emphasis would be put on "interesting" items. People point to flaming as an example, but I actually think the elemental runes as they exist now are basically just me fundamental runes. They add a more interesting type of damage, but at the end of the day they just add damage. But things like Extending, Cunning, and Fanged could become more prominent. Gaining whole new powers is growth of a different kind.
I also think APs could do more with additional progression tracks, like getting bonus feats from the Academia in Strength of Thousands or deviant powers in Gate Walker. Another hack I often use: if an AP has a specific story beat that grants access to a new uncommon feat, consider just giving it as a bonus feat to players who qualify. Usually those feats or archetypes are too niche to take otherwise.
I think I might agree with you that AP gear problems aren't best solved with ABP, but with the caveat that I think APs are the tip of the iceberg when it comes to magical item problems. My biggest problem is that tying so much character progression to the acquisition of wealth warps the ideas of greed and altruism beyond the point of recognition. PCs can't make significant contributions to charity or invest in their communities without lowering their own odds of survival. Conversely, for the cost of a +2 striking weapon you could buy 10 town guard +1 striking saps, which nearly doubles how quickly they can subdue threats nonlethally.
ABP as a baseline alleviates a lot of this and gives some space for magic items to seem mysterious and significant instead of rote. But that also drastically changes how Golarion functions. You could also fix the problem by making societies with magic trades essentially post scarcity, but that seems like something they'd only explore in one particular region so they can still have the facade of recognizable poverty stories in other regions.
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That is why I encourage parties (both as a GM and a player) to set up a camp with NPC allies and such when setting out into the wilderness. That is how most expeditions work in the real world as well and it discourages “let’s just camp here” when that should usually be an invitation to random encounters. It doesn’t always work, but it can solve a lot of the gear issues.
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I think the disconnect here is that some people look at APs and Modules, to use an analogy like they're a finished and furnished home when they are in fact supposed to be viewed as a completely new structure on a plot of land that is sold with a handful of mid-range household appliances, new carpet, and a fresh coat of paint. You are still intended to go through the thing and furnish it how you need/desire it to be so complaints after closing when you show up that you weren't provided a mattress, vacuum cleaner, and a stocked cupboard/refrigerator don't really make a whole lot of sense to me.
Every campaign is SUPPOSED to be customized and tweaked to fit the needs of the group, the desires of the players, the tone that you want, and more crucially, the material and equipment support that the party needs which are all things that cannot be handled by the AP writers given the needs of each party is going to be different (oftentimes DRASTICALLY) from any other group.
You're getting something like 80% of what you need from the published AP or Module and that last 20% that remains is supposed to be handled by the GM, be it through changes to the tone of the adventure, tweaking the treasure, modifying encounters, or spinning the plot "off the rails" to help deliver an experience that is unique to the group.
I don't recall ever seeing any guidance in any AP, PF1, SF, or PF2 other than Kingmaker which has dozens of pages devoted to building up your OWN support system and economy to make it work, which says that you're NOT supposed to get access to places to have services and supplies made or purchased which tells me everything I really need to know in that the onus for handling that is on the GM.
I think the disconnect here is that some people look at APs and Modules, to use an analogy like they're a finished and furnished home
[snip]
You're getting something like 80% of what you need from the published AP or Module and that last 20% that remains is supposed to be handled by the GM, be it through changes to the tone of the adventure, tweaking the treasure, modifying encounters, or spinning the plot "off the rails" to help deliver an experience that is unique to the group.
I've also never seen a GM who puts a level 15 magic mart in the middle of the desert. Or in the middle of an evil undead fortress. Oh, sometimes APs contrive things. But it's pretty unrealistic and I don't think the GM is to blame for not "fleshing out" a murder dungeon with random merchants.
Or that the PCs are to blame for not taking a two week shopping vacation in the middle of an archlich's Armageddon ritual.
I didn't put a 15th-level magic mart in a desert. Instead, I put a 7th-level black market in contraband Numerian technology along a Numerian river.
I agree with Themetricsystem that the GM ought to adjust an adventure path to suit the PCs. But that is a lot of work, and most GMs are not retired like I am. I built The Tarnished Halls black market (weird name, but it was named that in the lore material) mostly because I had purchased the PF1 Pathfinder Player Companion: Black Markets supplement and wanted to play with its techniques. But that meant statting out the NPCs there and filling in the details of a playable setting. An unexplained high-level market with no details beyond the items available would result in my players demanding explanations.
PF1 Iron Gods was one of the easier adventure paths for handling magic items and their technological equivalents. The players wanted their characters to play with technology, so they invested in crafting feats and often took two months of downtime to craft the gear they wanted themselves. (Iron Gods had no urgency. Its final villain was working on a 500-year evil plan.) All the PCs needed was a place to sell the contraband loot that they did not want for cash for crafting. Sadly, crafting occurs much more slowly under PF2 rules, so players have less reason to become crafters in PF2 adventure paths. Um, except for transferring runes.
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That's not how those work for Organized Play.I think the disconnect here is that some people look at APs and Modules, to use an analogy like they're a finished and furnished home
[snip]
You're getting something like 80% of what you need from the published AP or Module and that last 20% that remains is supposed to be handled by the GM, be it through changes to the tone of the adventure, tweaking the treasure, modifying encounters, or spinning the plot "off the rails" to help deliver an experience that is unique to the group.
For PFS(2), all APs are in "adventure mode" which means the GM has a lot of freedom to change things up, as long as it's recognizably still the same story and recognizably still Pathfinder.
(You really have to know how to look for it though, in the current version of the Guide.)
I also think APs could do more with additional progression tracks, like getting bonus feats from the Academia in Strength of Thousands or deviant powers in Gate Walker. Another hack I often use: if an AP has a specific story beat that grants access to a new uncommon feat, consider just giving it as a bonus feat to players who qualify. Usually those feats or archetypes are too niche to take otherwise.
Feats as rewards and treasure is a no-brainer in the sense that narratively they exist to actually show evolution and training; they can't be (easily) lost or sold and don't weigh anything; don't have charges nor do they break. Sure they can be given and taken away (as in a dream sequence, power up vignette or similar temporary situation) but mostly they add versatility even where they don't straight up add power.
Additional progression tracks is a good way to put it - it adds another layer of interest and provides greater inspiration and engagement.
And given the last point - that many archetypes and feats are too niche (I already see problems in the "must take two levels of this before that" - like I get *why* it exists, but have yet to comes across more than a couple archetypes I actually want to pursue, and fewer I want to pursue beyond the first feat...) and feats choices are at a premium. Even with free archetype. Especially if the adventure's theme is niche, then give out the niche abilities to allow the players to lean in further....