The rules have being quoted already:
APB does NOT remove property runes, nor caster items.
Clearly, they haven't been quoted enough, given how attack potency bonuses do not give you the ability to slot in additional property runes, unlike weapon potency runes. ABP does in fact prevent you from etching property runes onto your weapons, though it does not prevent you from obtaining weapons that have property runes on them already.
With APB, everyone in the party gets better at everything at exactly the same time, leveling up, and never between levels. It makes the progression jumpy and then very flat. If you play with milestone leveling as well, you can very easily end up in a situation where players feel like racing through campaigns is the only way to ever feel like your characters progress and grow. There are no story awards to concern yourself with; there is no advantage to finding that +1 short sword in the second room of the dungeon.Do you consider regular leveling up “jumpy” and “flat”, then? Because I don’t. I certainly don’t think it’s a bad thing when the casters level up, unlock a new rank of spells, and start dealing more damage right off the bat. Why hold martial classes to a different standard? Because it really is martial classes you’re talking about here, as you seem to be completely fine with the number boosts of caster damage happening just from leveling.
I do not consider regular leveling up to be flat as far as the numerical growth of character power, because it is only one piece of the puzzle and the numerical bonuses that happen from items create extra valleys and peaks. It is good for the game that martials and casters don't feel the same, but you are only talking about damage output with your analysis here, there is also armor and skills and thus caster leveling does not feel flat either when looking at the bigger picture.
But part of my growing dislike for FA is that it pushes so much character growth on just even levels that it is starting to lessen the fun for me, so I guess my overall answer is that it is a delicate bar to adjust. GMs that don't give enough treasure the party wants to use also unbalance things, even without APB.
I do not consider regular leveling up to be flat as far as the numerical growth of character power, because it is only one piece of the puzzle and the numerical bonuses that happen from items create extra valleys and peaks. It is good for the game that martials and casters don't feel the same, but you are only talking about damage output with your analysis here, there is also armor and skills and thus caster leveling does not feel flat either when looking at the bigger picture.
You specifically mentioned a sword, though, and damage from items is what separates martials from casters. What makes it okay for casters to gain damage automatically from leveling, but "jumpy" and "flat" for martials to gain the same?
Martials do gain damage bonuses at various points in their careers from things other than striking and property runes. Casters never get damage boosts from items though, so what you are talking about is more "martials and casters are just different." Also, for many casters, their damage boosting every 2 levels is way more like "here's one or two special attacks a day that will do a lot more damage and then otherwise it is your back up weapon that is getting a modest damage boost." So again, the damage thing just ends up feeling very different in play, and I have yet to see any martial except an inventor that feels like their damage boosting is any kind of a problem.
But a Champion very well may choose to keep their shield at top status and let their weapon lag a little, while a Barbarian might choose to wait on a saving throw armor rune to keep focusing on damage and property runes. The effect of items shakes up the progression of every character from each other, not just casters v martials.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Martials do gain damage bonuses at various points in their careers from things other than striking and property runes. Casters never get damage boosts from items though, so what you are talking about is more "martials and casters are just different."
Correct, martials and casters are different. Specifically, martial classes need the damage boosts from their weapons, because a martial class just dealing one weapon die of damage all throughout their career is not going to be doing well. Why then is a martial class gaining automatic access to this as they level "jumpy" and "flat", but a caster gaining automatic access to their own damage as they level perfectly fine?
Also, for many casters, their damage boosting every 2 levels is way more like "here's one or two special attacks a day that will do a lot more damage and then otherwise it is your back up weapon that is getting a modest damage boost."
I wouldn't call the focus spells many casters make amazing use of "modest", and cantrips are a lot more than just backup tools at early levels. Let's not be coy here; casters get all of their damage increases from leveling and end up dealing significantly more damage, in fact outputting significantly more power in all the various ways spells can, as they level up.
But a Champion very well may choose to keep their shield at top status and let their weapon lag a little, while a Barbarian might choose to wait on a saving throw armor rune to keep focusing on damage and property runes. The effect of items shakes up the progression of every character from each other, not just casters v martials.
Notice how every single example you mention is about putting the martials behind on their progression just so that they can instead have one of the other boosts they need to function adequately. What makes it fun for you to selectively downgrade martial classes but not casters?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Martials do gain damage bonuses at various points in their careers from things other than striking and property runes. Casters never get damage boosts from items though, so what you are talking about is more "martials and casters are just different."Correct, martials and casters are different. Specifically, martial classes need the damage boosts from their weapons, because a martial class just dealing one weapon die of damage all throughout their career is not going to be doing well. Why then is a martial class gaining automatic access to this as they level "jumpy" and "flat", but a caster gaining automatic access to their own damage as they level perfectly fine?
Also, for many casters, their damage boosting every 2 levels is way more like "here's one or two special attacks a day that will do a lot more damage and then otherwise it is your back up weapon that is getting a modest damage boost."I wouldn't call the focus spells many casters make amazing use of "modest", and cantrips are a lot more than just backup tools at early levels. Let's not be coy here; casters get all of their damage increases from leveling and end up dealing significantly more damage, in fact outputting significantly more power in all the various ways spells can, as they level up.
But a Champion very well may choose to keep their shield at top status and let their weapon lag a little, while a Barbarian might choose to wait on a saving throw armor rune to keep focusing on damage and property runes. The effect of items shakes up the progression of every character from each other, not just casters v martials.Notice how every single example you mention is about putting the martials behind on their progression just so that they can instead have one of the other boosts they need to function adequately. What makes it fun for you to selectively downgrade martial classes but not casters?
I find this entire line of thinking very confusing.
If I am the GM, and I use APB, my characters will all gain striking runes with all of their weapons at a specific point in the campaign. There is no variance or flexibility there at all. My casters gain it, even if they don't want it, and my martials have to wait until this specific moment when they level up to gain it, and that is it.
If I use standard treasure, I could choose to give the party a weapon with a Striking Rune at level 1, 2, 3, 4 or never. They can still decide that is the most important thing to them and collectively save up to buy one early for a specific high damage striker martial, unless I am deliberately trying to prevent them from doing so. If they choose to spend their wealth on bombs or other higher level consumables that break the typical damage progression, they can do that too. I just don't understand how using standard wealth is nearly as restrictive as APB on shaping what players want to focus their bonuses around.
For some reason you seem fixated on GM as denying PCs their bonuses, but that is a GM choice, and the vast majority of APs give way more wealth than the guidelines for wealth in the GM core, meaning that PCs shouldn't have a problem getting the essential stuff (according to their own perspective) in a reasonable (sometime expedited fashion).
The exception is maybe APs where you get all this wealth but are far away from a place where you can buy the things you want, and so you are maybe stuck for a level or 2 if the GM is pushing a time constraint and you have no means of making your own gear or fast traveling to get it. Again though, those are GM choices, not inherent game design issues.
Edit: and casters could choose to spend their wealth buying higher level scrolls than they can cast, so really everyone has choices they can make that can shift the game math. expectations more easily with standard wealth.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I find this entire line of thinking very confusing.
If I am the GM, and I use APB, my characters will all gain striking runes with all of their weapons at a specific point in the campaign. There is no variance or flexibility there at all. My casters gain it, even if they don't want it, and my martials have to wait until this specific moment when they level up to gain it, and that is it.
So, you're confused by martials progressing on a per-level basis just like casters? Why?
If I use standard treasure, I could choose to give the party a weapon with a Striking Rune at level 1, 2, 3, 4 or never. They can still decide that is the most important thing to them and collectively save up to buy one early for a specific high damage striker martial, unless I am deliberately trying to prevent them from doing so. If they choose to spend their wealth on bombs or other higher level consumables that break the typical damage progression, they can do that too. I just don't understand how using standard wealth is nearly as restrictive as APB on shaping what players want to focus their bonuses around.
So, a martial class finding themselves at your mercy whenever they need one of the damage boosts expected for their class to function is a good thing? I can see why you dislike ABP.
For some reason you seem fixated on GM as denying PCs their bonuses, but that is a GM choice, and the vast majority of APs give way more wealth than the guidelines for wealth in the GM core, meaning that PCs shouldn't have a problem getting the essential stuff (according to their own perspective) in a reasonable (sometime expedited fashion).
It's less of a fixation, and more the fact that you repeatedly talk about withholding essential items from martial classes, such as "I could choose to give the party a weapon with a Striking Rune at level 1, 2, 3, 4 or never". Clearly, at least one GM withholds such items from their party when they feel like it, and that puts martial classes at a disadvantage relative to the casters, who don't have to wait for the GM to give them their top-rank spell slots. Beyond that, fundamental runes aren't always well-known to newer GMs, who may end up accidentally withholding essential items from their party by accident, which once again disproportionately affects martial classes when it comes to weapons. One of the perks of ABP is that it does not require the GM to constantly throw runes or items at the party for them to get those bonuses when needed.
The exception is maybe APs where you get all this wealth but are far away from a place where you can buy the things you want, and so you are maybe stuck for a level or 2 if the GM is pushing a time constraint and you have no means of making your own gear or fast traveling to get it. Again though, those are GM choices, not inherent game design issues.
Getting stuck for several levels without the items that should've been a part of your core character progression many encounters ago is awful. That's not something a GM has to worry about with ABP, bar some notable exceptions that I'd like to have it cover.
Edit: and casters could choose to spend their wealth buying higher level scrolls than they can cast, so really everyone has choices they can make that can shift the game math. expectations more easily with standard wealth.
I'd say playing with party wealth is a lot easier when you don't have to worry about the party needing to afford fundamental runes. In an world where all of the essentials are covered by ABP, including caster items, you could have a party operate well even with zero treasure, or alternatively lavish them with treasure that you know they'll get to spend on all the consumables and other optional goodies they'd want. ABP definitely makes things easier in this regard.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I just don't understand how using standard wealth is nearly as restrictive as APB on shaping what players want to focus their bonuses around.
I mean it's really simple.
In a vanilla game I'm setting aside a large portion of every character's wealth to making sure their math makes sense.
In an ABP game I don't have to do that.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I really don't think property runes are a major problem that needs fixing in the ABP. The rules might not cover them very well, but as written they also don't let mutagens work. It's a variant they had two pages to outline. There are lot of things they don't explicitly instruct on dealing with, but much like mutagens it isn't hard to make properly runes work fine with a little common sense.
The bigger problem is that it seems like it simplifies things as the GM doesn't need to monitor treasure as much. But because it is a variant the GM needs to think through all these little interactions. And it adds a bit of complexity to leveling up which character generators don't necessarily highlight. Figuring out how to handle property runes feels trivial compared to things like how much skill items sell for without their item bonus or whether its ok how much stronger multi-weapon PCs become.
The bigger problem is that it seems like it simplifies things as the GM doesn't need to monitor treasure as much. But because it is a variant the GM needs to think through all these little interactions.
This I think is my issue with ABP as it exists now, and why I don't think the GM and "common sense" should be expected to fill in the gaps. The biggest users of ABP, at least from my own experience, are newer GMs getting to grips with Pathfinder 2e and looking to simplify party loot management. These are the people least likely to know what the gaps are, let alone how to fill them. I wouldn't blame a newer GM, who got sold on 2e with the promise that you can just follow all the rules to the letter and have everything work perfectly, for wanting to just stick to the rules and not make accommodations, whether it's for mutagenist Alchemists, casters lacking their items, Kineticists lacking gate attenuators, or property rune damage. They might perhaps make an exception if their campaign reaches a high level and the Rogue starts streaking naked with AC rivaling the Monk's, though.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I just don't understand how using standard wealth is nearly as restrictive as APB on shaping what players want to focus their bonuses around.I mean it's really simple.
In a vanilla game I'm setting aside a large portion of every character's wealth to making sure their math makes sense.
In an ABP game I don't have to do that.
This. With ABP, you don't need to use wealth to keep up with the math and can just use it to experiment. Buy consumeables, get items with neat effects but that you wouldnt normally get because their item bonus doesn't fit with the skills you're investing in, etc.
ABP is also a much better enabler for character concepts. Just as an example, because of the incrementing costs of weapons, playing any kind of switch-hitter in a normal wealth game is basically a non-starter. I wanted to play a Samurai that sometimes uses a Naginata, but can switch to Katana+Wakizashi, or using a Daikyu for ranged foes. Without ABP this is essentially impossible because there's not enough wealth to keep those weapons up to date and also keep up with armor runes and item bonuses. With ABP I at least don't have to worry about that.
Does ABP help Martials more than Casters? Yes. Does ABP require GM oversight so that some items (like alchemical bombs and mutagens) still work properly? Absolutely.
But to me, it eliminates the item math treadmill from the game, which I absolutely hate, and I can just add buffs to Casters to compensate, so I always use it, no exceptions.
The "item math treadmill" is only a thing if you make it so. Some severe encounters might be tough if your PCs are just hording everything they find and never selling items they don't use and never buying anything or buying weird fun stuff...but you are the GM. These PCs are going to struggle with severe encounters with APB too, maybe more so because using consumables in hard encounters makes those encounters a lot easier.
If your players are having fun with items in ways beyond basic math items, as a GM just give them more items, including some of the stuff they have been skipping. APs do a ton of this. Being behind a +1 to one thing for half a level isn't a big deal unless that one thing is going to be a big deal in that half of the level. Whether that is a skill bonus, a damage rune, a point of AC. It really isn't hard to drop a useful weapon with a striking rune at or before the point that you know the difficult encounter where the striker of the party is going to need that boost can use it. This is easier than having your PCs run into that difficult encounter right at the end of a difficult dungeon where the party hasn't leveled up yet and is going to need a little help.
I would not ever recommend a new GM trying out a published module try out APB. They are way more likely to make a mistake that will make things harder for the PCs than if they just use treasure and trust that the book is going to provide enough treasure to make it work. Some adventures/APs might struggle with this, but over all they are good about giving way more loot that GM core suggests.
This whole thread seems like maybe it was meant to be a Homebrew thread to talk about ways to modify a variant rule for folks who want to play that way. Putting it in the general discussion and suggesting that the game was really meant to be played with APB to begin with, but meddling playtesters ruined it for everyone is inviting a very different discussion.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
The "item math treadmill" is only a thing if you make it so. Some severe encounters might be tough if your PCs are just hording everything they find and never selling items they don't use and never buying anything or buying weird fun stuff...but you are the GM. These PCs are going to struggle with severe encounters with APB too, maybe more so because using consumables in hard encounters makes those encounters a lot easier.
Notice how no part of what you've just discussed relates to the item math treadmill being discussed with ABP specifically. Consumables are not a part of ABP, and are indeed up to the GM to decide how much to give and up to the party to decide when to use. By contrast, the essential bonuses that are part of that treadmill do relate very much to those severe encounters: if a level 20 party goes to fight a Vault Builder and the martials are all fighting with weapons that entirely lack fundamental runes, or are otherwise severely behind, the fight will not be severe, but extreme or even impossible.
If your players are having fun with items in ways beyond basic math items, as a GM just give them more items, including some of the stuff they have been skipping. APs do a ton of this. Being behind a +1 to one thing for half a level isn't a big deal unless that one thing is going to be a big deal in that half of the level. Whether that is a skill bonus, a damage rune, a point of AC. It really isn't hard to drop a useful weapon with a striking rune at or before the point that you know the difficult encounter where the striker of the party is going to need that boost can use it. This is easier than having your PCs run into that difficult encounter right at the end of a difficult dungeon where the party hasn't leveled up yet and is going to need a little help.
It's also not hard to just use ABP and drop whatever weapons and armor you think are cool, even if they're really underleveled. In fact, it's even easier, because you don't have to do the work of upgrading the gear with fundamental runes.
I would not ever recommend a new GM trying out a published module try out APB. They are way more likely to make a mistake that will make things harder for the PCs than if they just use treasure and trust that the book is going to provide enough treasure to make it work. Some adventures/APs might struggle with this, but over all they are good about giving way more loot that GM core suggests.
I can trust a published module to hand out loot appropriately, for sure, but by that same token ABP is unlikely to do any harm if you follow the loot guidelines. Home campaigns, on the other hand, are an entirely different beast, and anything that simplifies the GM's job is welcome.
This whole thread seems like maybe it was meant to be a Homebrew thread to talk about ways to modify a variant rule for folks who want to play that way. Putting it in the general discussion and suggesting that the game was really meant to be played with APB to begin with, but meddling playtesters ruined it for everyone is inviting a very different discussion.
I'm curious to know where I've ever claimed, in particular in the OP, that ABP is how "the game was really meant to be played". It appears that in the rush to come to the defense of Paizo and their game, you appear to have gotten the facts a little confused.
| 8 people marked this as a favorite. |
The "item math treadmill" is only a thing if you make it so.
No amount of wishful thinking will ever make a level 20 fighter swinging a nonmagical weapon against level appropriate threats make sense. So like... this is just objectively false.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Yea a lvl 20 martial with one die of damage on their weapon is definitely not hitting the damage benchmarks expected for the threats of that tier of play. The encounters would drag on proportionately bc of the effective health increase to the monsters. Having four dice on your weapon endgame isn't a choice, it's an expected, factored in calculation. I hope 3e forgoes fundamental and striking runes
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'm curious to know where I've ever claimed, in particular in the OP, that ABP is how "the game was really meant to be played". It appears that in the rush to come to the defense of Paizo and their game, you appear to have gotten the facts a little confused.
I do agree that ABP, or at least the fundamental benefits it covers, might as well be the default. IIRC the developers felt this way as well, but playtesters wanted a feeling of power progression, so they compromised by adding raw power increases to weapons and inflating monster stats to compensate. I do think the game would've been a lot better without those fundamental runes, as they do complicate the game's math quite a bit and make getting backup weapons less flexible than it could be.
I am not saying a fighter or a barbarian shouldn’t prioritize striking runes at every opportunity, I am saying that they can choose to do so at the expense of other math boosting items at various points in the game, while a rogue with a d4 weapon might be just fine hanging a striking rune back from optimal and just prioritize property runes, while a champion might prioritize AC and shield, while a caster might pass on weapon and armor runes until they are being handed out like candy at later levels and all of these characters will be fine. Not having every character boost each math booster at the same time is perfectly fine and even allows more customization for players, while also giving GMs another power adjusting dial they can use between party leveling to give players an edge and create more story-beat moments of growth without having to rely on leveling up.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I am not saying a fighter or a barbarian shouldn’t prioritize striking runes at every opportunity, I am saying that they can choose to do so at the expense of other math boosting items at various points in the game
Call me a party pooper, but "as a martial class, you get to choose which stat to fall behind on" isn't exactly an assurance that fills me with joy, nor is it a situation consider a positive. I don't think I'm really shooting for the stars here when I say that we should probably just give classes, martial or caster, the boosts they need as part of their core progression, and the purchase choices should come down more to consumables and other more interesting, non-essential side benefits.
Not having every character boost each math booster at the same time is perfectly fine and even allows more customization for players, while also giving GMs another power adjusting dial they can use between party leveling to give players an edge and create more story-beat moments of growth without having to rely on leveling up.
How exactly is it giving the party "an edge" by setting the martials behind? This sounds less like a case of adjusting the power dial and more a case of arbitrarily depriving certain characters of essential power boosts in a way that messes with the math.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It is not setting the party behind for the GM to drop an item early. I don’t understand why you continue to only see math boosting items from a deficit mindset. Many APs have items show up a level early or more.
Yes, APB gives all bonuses to all characters at exactly the same time. That isn’t inherently a positive aspect of the variant rule though.
It is not setting the party behind for the GM to drop an item early. I don’t understand why you continue to only see math boosting items from a deficit mindset.
Because you are the one constantly talking about how the vanilla rules let the GM withhold items or currency from the party so that they have to decide what to fall behind on when purchasing the items they need to function.
But sure, let's talk about the GM dropping fundamental runes early: not a fan either. I try to avoid this as well, because as fun as it can feel for the martials to swing around striking swords at level 1, it doesn't feel great for the casters who end up feeling like their damage is comparatively irrelevant. I'd rather not give classes like the Champion armor potency runes too early either, because the resulting AC can make them so difficult to hit that fights may end up being boring. I don't want fights to feel trivial, and the prospect of inflating encounter difficulty just to make up for those early fundamental bonuses does not appeal. Thankfully, that's not a concern with ABP.
It is not setting the party behind for the GM to drop an item early. I don’t understand why you continue to only see math boosting items from a deficit mindset.Because you are the one constantly talking about how the vanilla rules let the GM withhold items or currency from the party so that they have to decide what to fall behind on when purchasing the items they need to function.
No, I am saying GMs have ways of making sure players get access to the items they need at story driven reasonable times instead of having yet another element of the game defined by a pre-set system-wide default that doesn't take any narrative element into consideration, and players get more flexibility and control over how they spend their own resources.
It is extremely hyperbolic to suggest that any bonus on the Automatic Bonus progression chart are required to function at exactly that level. Besides the obvious examples of non-mandatory bounses (like +1 bonuses to a set number of skills), even the ones that feel like they have the greatest impact are not "neccesary to function" at exactly that level.
+ or - a level's worth of bonuses is not game breaking. Now, if players are struggling, looking at their character wealth and items is a good way to double check that the party is not level 12 and the main damage dealing character is swinging a +2 great axe with no striking or property runes, but if the party is treasured up about right and still struggling items could still be a way for a GM to help the party, especially with encounters that the GM anticipates being difficult. Like maybe the party has really not dealt well with flying creatures and the Barbarian is constantly spending tons of actions climbing to places where she can strike flying creatures, wasting actions having to regrip the weapon and not move very far with climb actions, so you have the party find a weapon with a greater striking rune and a greater extending rune on it on a dead adventurer that was coming to kill a large pack of desert manticore living in a large cavern ahead. Narratively the placement of this weapon is completely logical as the adventurer knew what they were hunting, but overestimated their own abilities and died before even getting to the nest. Now the player has a weapon that will prevent them from wasting nearly as many actions (and actions that isolate them from the rest of the group) and you've caught your PC up. Since they have gone so many levels under prepared, maybe you throw a greater flaming rune on the weapon as well, and you still haven't broken the game, even though you are giving the PC an item that is 3 levels ahead of the curve. They will think it is really cool, and maybe you know that some fire resistant enemies will be coming in a couple of chapters so it will stay a useful rune for a long time.
Should the player have realized that their damage dealing striker was not doing enough damage a long while back? Of course. But things would either have to be getting really weird, or the party is making very conscious choices at the point that the party has hit level 4, much less anywhere near 12 and the barbarian does not already have a striking rune. Besides the fact that they should have found one they could transfer minimally by level 5 (if not 2 or 3 levels earlier, as is usually the case in APs), by the end of level 3 the party should have found at least 475gp, which means that even selling everything for 1/2, each PC should have around 120 gps, so enough to easily buy a fully runed out weapon and still have wealth left over for consumables and other small items. It is unlikely that the main damaging striker of the party got even halfway through level 3 before the party would be able to make sure they got their striking rune.
Standard party treasure lets the party prioritize item bonuses as they wish. I can see using APB if that is a difficult proposition for your party, but if your players are working together well as a team, then APB limits their ability to make tactical decisions about equipment.
No, I am saying GMs have ways of making sure players get access to the items they need at story driven reasonable times instead of having yet another element of the game defined by a pre-set system-wide default that doesn't take any narrative element into consideration, and players get more flexibility and control over how they spend their own resources.
Of course the GM can give players items, the point is that ABP means the GM doesn't have to worry about giving players essential items. The "flexibility and control" you mention is, as already said, illusory, as in practice the party is not going to be setting themselves back on some essential bonuses just to get another essential bonus ahead of time.
It is extremely hyperbolic to suggest that any bonus on the Automatic Bonus progression chart are required to function at exactly that level.
Correct, which is why literally no-one on this thread suggested this. The point simply being made is that these bonuses are an essential part of character progression in general, with monsters being balanced around these. Delaying this progression severely or giving it far ahead of time will not break the game (and few things do), but it will certainly be disruptive in ways a GM may just not want to deal with in their own adventures.
Now, if players are struggling, looking at their character wealth and items is a good way to double check that the party is not level 12 and the main damage dealing character is swinging a +2 great axe with no striking or property runes, but if the party is treasured up about right and still struggling items could still be a way for a GM to help the party, especially with encounters that the GM anticipates being difficult.
I agree with this! I also think this has no relevance to ABP, which lets you do the same thing and guarantees you won't be missing out on most of the essential bonuses your party is expected to have at that point.
Should the player have realized that their damage dealing striker was not doing enough damage a long while back? Of course. But things would either have to be getting really weird, or the party is making very conscious choices at the point that the party has hit level 4, much less anywhere near 12 and the barbarian does not already have a striking rune.
Or, quite simply, the player is new, as is the GM, and does not have the system knowledge yet to know that they should have had a striking rune on their weapon by that point. This is why I will recommend ABP to tables just starting out with Pathfinder, because it avoids these easy oversights from happening.
Standard party treasure lets the party prioritize item bonuses as they wish. I can see using APB if that is a difficult proposition for your party, but if your players are working together well as a team, then APB limits their ability to make tactical decisions about equipment.
Standard party treasure does not exist to have the entire party dump most of their stats just so that they can purchase an item several levels above party level. I am fine with limiting the party's ability to do that, especially because trying to min-max in 2e generally does not go well. I am, however, very happy to give the party all the treasure they need to get useful consumables or gear with fun and flavorful properties, which is even easier to do with ABP than without.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
It is not setting the party behind for the GM to drop an item early. I don’t understand why you continue to only see math boosting items from a deficit mindset.Because you are the one constantly talking about how the vanilla rules let the GM withhold items or currency from the party so that they have to decide what to fall behind on when purchasing the items they need to function.
No, I am saying GMs have ways of making sure players get access to the items they need at story driven reasonable times instead of having yet another element of the game defined by a pre-set system-wide default that doesn't take any narrative element into consideration, and players get more flexibility and control over how they spend their own resources.
Wait, what? Why would ABP not take any narrative element into consideration? Milestone levelling is a perfectly valid way to run the game, which means levelling is by default integrated into the narrative element by the GM. Not everyone just runs normal XP levelling.
But beyond that, the flexibility you speak of is just worse than the one offered by ABP. Your flexibility allows players to sacrifice baseline assumptions in one area for increased baseline in another, but you're missing that this is temporary. At some point they are going to need to get whatever they skipped on or they will be far less efficient than someone who just keeps their numbers up consistently. Which means, again, that most of your treasure ends up devoted to items required by the game and not other stuff.
And you can still give them a narrative powerup without needing to give them better fundamental runes ahead of time. You can give them staves, you can give them wands, scrolls, higher level alchemical items like bombs or mutagens, you can even give them property runes, which is funny considering how this thing started.
Not that dropping runes as loot is a good idea, since by RAW to make use of it they will need:
- Someone with Magical Crafting
- A crafting check with the DC set by the item's level, so if it's higher than the character level this is going to be pretty hard.
- One day of downtime.
- 10% of the Rune's cost.
But I don't blame anyone for ignoring this, because the designers seem to forget about it too given how quite a few APs have runes dropped as a wink-wink help for an upcoming fight, completely forgetting all of this (I'm especially looking at you, Fists of the Ruby Phoenix).
Even with ABP as the GM you could decide to decouple it from levels by shifting bonuses a half level earlier than they "should" be. This way, the party still get a raw mathematical power bump between levels even if the other items you give them are more fun or utility-focused. We don't need to act like there is no way to provide the party with a mid-level boost using ABP.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'm sorry a couple of things, first if you are new to the system why would you be trying to play a variant version of the game? That leads to one thing Teridax keeps complaining about what if a new GM decides to use ABP, I'm sorry but that makes absolutely no sense. You don't know the system well enough to make the judgements and calls needed with ABP, and I say the same thing for any variant of the system. I can't muster up feeling bad because someone new decided to try a variant without really knowing or understanding the base game and how it works. Oh and immediately jumping to the worse possible outcome presented and ignoring the other possibilities is not having a discussion in good faith. It's been done several times in this thread.
I can see the appeal. Rather than worrying about when to hand out new magic items and customizing loot tables for your party, you can just remove the math-enhancing part of the loot. If you did this in an AP it wouldn't lead to many issues except that casters might be a bit under the gun regarding scrolls, which should hopefully get sorted as the group plays together.
The only situation where using ABP could make things worse for a new GM and their players would be a homebrew campaign where the GM is handing out vastly too little treasure and not adjusting encounters. It would be nice if we could close this trap and I think Teridax's suggestion that Paizo remove math fixing and raw power boosts from items outside the scope of ABP achieves that goal. This also opens up the ability to make more items more interesting such that they require creativity to use rather than a list full of duds and must-haves.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The bigger problem is that it seems like it simplifies things as the GM doesn't need to monitor treasure as much. But because it is a variant the GM needs to think through all these little interactions.This I think is my issue with ABP as it exists now, and why I don't think the GM and "common sense" should be expected to fill in the gaps. The biggest users of ABP, at least from my own experience, are newer GMs getting to grips with Pathfinder 2e and looking to simplify party loot management. These are the people least likely to know what the gaps are, let alone how to fill them. I wouldn't blame a newer GM, who got sold on 2e with the promise that you can just follow all the rules to the letter and have everything work perfectly, for wanting to just stick to the rules and not make accommodations, whether it's for mutagenist Alchemists, casters lacking their items, Kineticists lacking gate attenuators, or property rune damage. They might perhaps make an exception if their campaign reaches a high level and the Rogue starts streaking naked with AC rivaling the Monk's, though.
This is why the variant rules require system mastery. There's still a lot to think about and plan around. I've heard a few times about how items ended up the way they are because of the play test and that makes me think they indeed made a big mistake with itemization in the game.
Getting a +1 sword is only an interesting item for those that want pure power and to be ahead of the curve. In reality it's not an interesting item at all. A dancing sword is interesting, a sword that can magnetize is interesting even a sword that lets you cast a cantrip is more interesting.If APB was standard then all items could give interesting effects that you could even make play styles around. Also we do have items that effect casters, even from the beginning we've had staff of healing that boosts the heal spell, we could have others that boost other spells, same with spell hearts and tomes. All we need is for these sorts of items to be printed.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'm sorry a couple of things, first if you are new to the system why would you be trying to play a variant version of the game? That leads to one thing Teridax keeps complaining about what if a new GM decides to use ABP, I'm sorry but that makes absolutely no sense. You don't know the system well enough to make the judgements and calls needed with ABP, and I say the same thing for any variant of the system. I can't muster up feeling bad because someone new decided to try a variant without really knowing or understanding the base game and how it works. Oh and immediately jumping to the worse possible outcome presented and ignoring the other possibilities is not having a discussion in good faith. It's been done several times in this thread.
I mean, on the other hand asking someone to make their game experience worse because some of the details of the rules were undercooked doesn't really seem that fair either.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
There was a specific reason why they went with items as they are now and not have APB as the standard:
The polls heavily weighted towards people actively liking the fact that they got a +1 sword, or that their magic sword dealt that much more damage rather than a run of the mill sword from the blacksmith.
The polls were badly worded and never really made it clear what the outcomes would be. It could easily be argued that people weren't aware of what they were voting for and that people who voted in favour of item bonuses were dissatisfied with the outcome.
That said, since (once more) APB or not, property runes are a thing, I don't see why you aren't seeing them as flavorful.
I think it's less that they aren't flavourful and more that they're also a straight power boost. There's also another issue with them: what happens when one has multiple elemental property runes? The flaming sword is easy enough to describe, but a flaming, icing, electric sword isn't something easy to conceptualize.
Same thing for plain-ol potency runes. You can say that it's a +3 greater striking sword, or you can say that it's a blade with gleaming runes on it, so sharp that it cuts through air itself, and that goes through stone like it's made out of butter despite being as light as a feather and as easy to maneuver with. Both are mechanically the same, but narratively different.
Light as a feather and as easy to manoeuvre with doesn't work as those traits would also suggest a decrease in bulk for said weapon which is not supported by the rules. Cutting the air itself is also something that could have a mechanical effect, cutting CO2 into C + O + O to create oxygen and remove a toxin which is again unsupported by the rules.
Except no one is. They're making a deliberate attempt to play a version of the game they don't understand. That is an active choice. I would agree with you if we weren't talking about a variant rule set.
It's interesting how various people who once disagreed seem to have come together on this thread, acknowledging that ABP covers a lot of things that could've been done away with and that newer GMs in particular would want to automate away... except you, who are choosing to remain pointedly bitter. It appears you are the only one here at present who's failing to understand the appeal of ABP to newer GMs and GMs looking to simplify item management, as well as the appeal of filling out the gaps in ABP so that Alchemists, Kineticists, and casters receive better coverage under it.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The polls were badly worded and never really made it clear what the outcomes would be. It could easily be argued that people weren't aware of what they were voting for and that people who voted in favour of item bonuses were dissatisfied with the outcome.There was a specific reason why they went with items as they are now and not have APB as the standard:
The polls heavily weighted towards people actively liking the fact that they got a +1 sword, or that their magic sword dealt that much more damage rather than a run of the mill sword from the blacksmith.
It could also be argued the polls were fine, people by and large like item bonuses/item progression, and ABP isn't nearly as popular a variant as something like Free Archetype for a reason.
"I levelled up and my armor got tougher for some reason" is frankly weird and discordant with how the genre plays. Improving your gear is a core part of the experience. Removing that entirely makes it feel like a very different game and puts almost all power increases you get strictly on levelling.
The idea that people didn't understand any of that when answering the surveys and they wouldn't have wanted it if they did is frankly absurd.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
"weird and discordant"
Is an interesting way to describe characters getting stronger when they level up (something that happens with normal item rules too so I'm not even sure how it makes sense in this context). As if that isn't an absolute standard of level based RPGs.
I mean there certainly are levelless tabletops and like, but those tend to operate rather differently than Pathfinder... and most of those also downplay the relevance of gear upgrades too.
I'm not bitter in the slightest. I just don't have much sympathy for people who want to try and change something they don't have enough understanding of. It's like if I make modifications to my car and a mechanic doesn't want to fix because it's not the way it was supposed to be. Getting mad at the mechanic makes no sense. This comes off the same way. I didn't fully grasp the base version but I want to play a version where I have to make changes that I don't fully grasp. Like I said not bitter but also not sympathetic in this case
Forgive me, but I don't think I'm the one misunderstanding the variant here. Clearly, I've played the variant enough to know what its shortcomings are and have some idea of how to address those. It's not like I'm shouting into the void either, as visibly other people similarly understand the appeal of those proposals and why one would think of them. I am by no means the only person to have pointed to the gaps in ABP, yet you are presently the only person arguing that this entire thread misunderstands what ABP is for, which begs the question: what is the purpose of ABP, in your opinion?
My opinion on the variant doesn't really matter. What I said was it's a variant, which by their nature aren't really meant to be used until you have a better understanding of the system. So I simply do no have sympathy for new GM's electing to use the variant without understanding the full ramifications. As to the shortfalls or not being able to add property runes I already addressed that too, look at how the mindsmith deals with weapon runes. You let your players have a small trinket that they can add a property runes to for each potency bonus they get
But your opinion does matter, as it's the yardstick you're using to judge other people's competence and the validity of their own opinions in this discussion. As it stands, the opinion you've given is as dogmatic as it is misguided: variants don't exist purely for more experienced GMs, some like ABP very much do aim to make the game easier to run as a beginner. Proficiency Without Level is another popular variant that GMs use to make the math look a bit closer to what they're used to as they get to grips with the system. That's why they feature in GM Core, the core book given to GMs for them to read in full as they pick up Pathfinder. Every GM is going to be exposed to these variants, so it's not like they have to consult some additional supplement just to apply ABP.
| 8 people marked this as a favorite. |
"I levelled up and my armor got tougher for some reason" is frankly weird and discordant with how the genre plays.
Shhh, don't tell them about adding your proficiency bonus to your AC!
It could also be argued the polls were fine, people by and large like item bonuses/item progression, and ABP isn't nearly as popular a variant as something like Free Archetype for a reason.
It's almost like ABP needs to be given more than two pages to function correctly... *points to this thread and Teridax's points*
"I levelled up and my armor got tougher for some reason" is frankly weird and discordant with how the genre plays.
"I leveled up and increased the effectiveness of my armor by learning which angles work best to provide the highest level of protection", does work though and could easily be the justification for why a weapon performs almost magically in the hands of a skilled warrior.
Improving your gear is a core part of the experience. Removing that entirely makes it feel like a very different game and puts almost all power increases you get strictly on levelling.
Have you ever played an RPG without levels and gear progression? They exist, are rather popular, and place the focus more on RP and character interaction than being on a treadmill of false improvement where you get stronger only to face threats tuned for your new strength.
The idea that people didn't understand any of that when answering the surveys and they wouldn't have wanted it if they did is frankly absurd.
Except that we have people on these very forums who voted for items and didn't like the end product we got. This isn't a hypothetical. It's a plain fact that the poll was not as transparent as it should have been.
Not when your initial OP was about APB not having property runes or caster items, when the base version of APB has both.
As established numerous times in this thread by several different people, it is not in fact possible to etch property runes onto weapons using just potency bonuses, those weapons need weapon potency runes... which ABP removes. What is becoming abundantly clear is that the people crowing the loudest at the supposed lack of understanding others have of this variant rule are in fact the ones most ignorant of how it actually works.
If you start messing around with adding even more complexity, on an already variant rule, then yes, you need more experience, since now you are double messing with the core rule assumptions of the game.
I don't think it would be particularly complex to add the stipulation of "while you're wearing armor or Explorer's Clothing" to defense potency bonuses, nor would that add all that much to page space. Similarly, adding a minor amount of targeted expansions that do things similar to what already exists in the variant is not going to increase its complexity so much that you'd need to be experienced in the game to understand what they're about.
Worse yet, the second "messing around" you have to do purely on your own without any guidance from the book at all.
That is in fact the current problem with ABP. If you want it to work for everyone, including Kineticists, casters, mutagenist Alchemists, and so on, you have to fiddle a bit with the rules and make a variant of a variant, which leaves more room for error from table to table. It would, by contrast, not be difficult to give some standard guidance on how to handle those cases.
So yeah:
Base APB: no problems.
Homebrewed APB: you need to have system mastery.I see no issue here.
If you see no issue despite the multiple issues with ABP pointed out by various users in this discussion, the conclusion to draw isn't that ABP has no issues, but that you're willfully blinding yourself to these issues. And that's fine, you can continue to enjoy ABP just the way you like it, but perhaps you might want to take a step back and see whether you're actually contributing anything of value to this discussion.