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Automatic Bonus Progression is a fantastic variant rule, allowing a GM to automatically hand out certain bonuses that are essential to character progression without worrying too hard about giving exactly the right items with the right fundamental runes at the right level. It's a rule I use often in my games, and it's quite a popular variant in general, which is likely why it got included in the remastered GM Core. It's also generally cited as a reference for when characters should be expected to have which item bonuses outside of ABP, and thus extrapolated as a larger reference for which effects are essential to character progression, making it a useful tool even to players not using the variant.
It is, however, not a rule without some flaws, and this is what this thread sets out to outline. For starters, a few points just so that we're on the same page:
Now that that's established, here's a list of some of the flaws I've run into in my usage of ABP:
If you choose to eliminate runes entirely, this can reduce the PCs' damage since they won't have runes like flaming or holy.
For those interested, here's a bit of math outlining just how much of a dip this represents:
TL;DR Damage property runes will increase your damage by up to 10.5 per hit on average, which depending on your weapon will raise its damage by anything between over a quarter and about two-thirds. This is a massive increase, to the point where the extra d6s from damage property runes should probably be treated the same way as the extra damage dice from striking runes and their corresponding devastating attacks bonus (in fact, the extra d6s will be bigger than those extra dice if your weapon's damage die is a d4).
All of this is to say that ABP, while an excellent variant, still has some room for improvement. Addressing some of these issues shouldn't be too complicated (for instance, simply stating that you need to be wearing armor or Explorer's Clothing to benefit from a defense potency bonus), and the developers likely didn't want to dedicate too much time or page space to fully remastering a variant that mostly does what it's supposed to. Nevertheless, Paizo is also a company that updates and improves their content over time, and some of these problems have been noted for quite some time, so it'd be nice to see the above addressed in some future errata cycle to the benefit of any table running this variant. These have been my observations from my play experience, and I imagine others have encountered problems with ABP not mentioned above too.
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Some of this comes across as an issue because of stupid readings of the rules.
Really, changing an Item Bonus to be called a Potency Bonus is a superficial change that should just be discarded or fully accommodated. So a Mutagen would give Potency Bonuses the same as everything else, you can transfer runes the same as if it were an Item Bonus, etc.
Honestly, a bigger issue of this is both the reduced wealth, as well as a severe lack of available magic items in the lower levels. Imagine not getting hardly any magic items or valuable items until you hit like 6th level or so. That is a glaring flaw with this ruleset.
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Yea think ABP might be abit of a GM trap option.
i would say it puts the gm under more strain to do it right then it is to just play it normaly and just hand out loot.
cause as long as you give then anything of value, they will just buy what they want/need, (most things from my experience ends up on the trash heap anyway) so as long as they have access to a shop and you give them correct value of loot everything sorts itself out.
Some of this comes across as an issue because of stupid readings of the rules.
Really, changing an Item Bonus to be called a Potency Bonus is a superficial change that should just be discarded or fully accommodated. So a Mutagen would give Potency Bonuses the same as everything else, you can transfer runes the same as if it were an Item Bonus, etc.
I don't think doing what the rule tells you to do can really be called a "stupid reading", particularly as PF2e is not a game that has you second-guessing its rules in general. The rule says that items that provide item bonuses no longer do, and mutagens are among the most prominent items that do this, so the GM has to actively not do what the rule tells them to in order to accommodate Mutagenists (and then also rule that item bonuses and potency bonuses specifically do not stack when it comes to mutagens). I agree that mutagens should be integrated into the variant rule, which is why I highlighted the issue, but the problem exists nonetheless, and not every GM is going to make special accommodations to fix it, nor even realize that the problem exists.
Honestly, a bigger issue of this is both the reduced wealth, as well as a severe lack of available magic items in the lower levels. Imagine not getting hardly any magic items or valuable items until you hit like 6th level or so. That is a glaring flaw with this ruleset.
I don't think that's really a flaw; the remastered version of the variant doesn't specify how much party treasure you need to remove (in fact, you don't need to remove party treasure at all), and it clearly intends to enable adventures with no magic items, even if you can run games with ABP and magic items just as well.
- You only need to worry about unarmored AC at 20th level on a Dex-maxed character, so I don't really see it as an actual concern.
- Alchemical consumables are best swapped over to potency bonuses (or kept as-is and item bonuses used for ABP). The old ABP rules only removed permanent items' item bonuses, but that had its own issues with stacking. So long as alchemical consumables give bonuses that don't stack with ABP, then everything runs as normal.
- For casters, maybe give them a free non-custom stave of their choice that progresses. This one's group-by-group, because some casters actually do benefit from weapon progression.
- Obviously, don't get rid of property runes. This is the "pretty much everybody's already agreed on this one" fix.
- You only need to worry about unarmored AC at 20th level on a Dex-maxed character, so I don't really see it as an actual concern.
- Alchemical consumables are best swapped over to potency bonuses (or kept as-is and item bonuses used for ABP). The old ABP rules only removed permanent items' item bonuses, but that had its own issues with stacking. So long as alchemical consumables give bonuses that don't stack with ABP, then everything runs as normal.
- For casters, maybe give them a free non-custom stave of their choice that progresses. This one's group-by-group, because some casters actually do benefit from weapon progression.
- Obviously, don't get rid of property runes. This is the "pretty much everybody's already agreed on this one" fix.
If we're talking fixes, then simply handing out the effects of fundamental runes at the levels indicated by ABP instead of inventing a new potency bonus and eliminating item bonuses from most sources would address the issue with mutagens and not being able to etch property runes. I don't think one can really dismiss a rule breaking the math just because it happens at a high level, since high-level APs do exist too, and Dex Monks can start exceeding their normal AC at 17th level, matching that of a maxed-out Mountain Stance Monk with none of the feat investment.
If we're talking fixes, then simply handing out the effects of fundamental runes at the levels indicated by ABP instead of inventing a new potency bonus and eliminating item bonuses from most sources would address the issue with mutagens and not being able to etch property runes. I don't think one can really dismiss a rule breaking the math just because it happens at a high level, since high-level APs do exist too, and Dex Monks can start exceeding their normal AC at 17th level, matching that of a maxed-out Mountain Stance Monk with none of the feat investment.- You only need to worry about unarmored AC at 20th level on a Dex-maxed character, so I don't really see it as an actual concern.
- Alchemical consumables are best swapped over to potency bonuses (or kept as-is and item bonuses used for ABP). The old ABP rules only removed permanent items' item bonuses, but that had its own issues with stacking. So long as alchemical consumables give bonuses that don't stack with ABP, then everything runs as normal.
- For casters, maybe give them a free non-custom stave of their choice that progresses. This one's group-by-group, because some casters actually do benefit from weapon progression.
- Obviously, don't get rid of property runes. This is the "pretty much everybody's already agreed on this one" fix.
Eh, sure, but that doesn't cover the skills, which are also a mutagen concern.
I guess I was comparing with Champion's heavy armor, which it crosses at 20th. But yeah, it gets better AC than other monks at 17th if there's no explorer's clothing requirement.
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I think if we eliminate the bit that says items no longer provide item bonuses, and have ABP provide fundamental runes (plus item bonuses to skills), that ought to also address the skills aspect of mutagens, which would give item bonuses to skills as appropriate too.
Some of this comes across as an issue because of stupid readings of the rules.
Really, changing an Item Bonus to be called a Potency Bonus is a superficial change that should just be discarded or fully accommodated. So a Mutagen would give Potency Bonuses the same as everything else, you can transfer runes the same as if it were an Item Bonus, etc.
I don't think doing what the rule tells you to do can really be called a "stupid reading", particularly as PF2e is not a game that has you second-guessing its rules in general. The rule says that items that provide item bonuses no longer do, and mutagens are among the most prominent items that do this, so the GM has to actively not do what the rule tells them to in order to accommodate Mutagenists (and then also rule that item bonuses and potency bonuses specifically do not stack when it comes to mutagens). I agree that mutagens should be integrated into the variant rule, which is why I highlighted the issue, but the problem exists nonetheless, and not every GM is going to make special accommodations to fix it, nor even realize that the problem exists.
Honestly, a bigger issue of this is both the reduced wealth, as well as a severe lack of available magic items in the lower levels. Imagine not getting hardly any magic items or valuable items until you hit like 6th level or so. That is a glaring flaw with this ruleset.I don't think that's really a flaw; the remastered version of the variant doesn't specify how much party treasure you need to remove (in fact, you don't need to remove party treasure at all), and it clearly intends to enable adventures with no magic items, even if you can run games with ABP and magic items just as well.
Okay, but if the issue is that it's called a Potency Bonus and not an Item Bonus, and they are meant to serve the same purpose (but with a different name), why are we saying the rules intended to disallow it when it should otherwise work if all you have to do is change the name? A turd by any other name smells just as bad.
You are misunderstanding my post here: I am saying you stop having ABP loot being normally rewarded by around 6th level, where players can get access to normal magic items and property runes. You otherwise are basically stuck with fundamental runes, talismans, and other garbage consumables as rewards until then. There is no loot alternative to the low level ABP rewards.
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Okay, but if the issue is that it's called a Potency Bonus and not an Item Bonus, and they are meant to serve the same purpose (but with a different name), why are we saying the rules intended to disallow it when it should otherwise work if all you have to do is change the name? A turd by any other name smells just as bad.
You are misunderstanding my post here: I am saying you stop having ABP loot being normally rewarded by around 6th level, where players can get access to normal magic items and property runes. You otherwise are basically stuck with fundamental runes, talismans, and other garbage consumables as rewards until then. There is no loot alternative to the low level ABP rewards.
IMO its just a mistake in the ABP rules. If you have the rules grant the item bonus instead of a totally different and not mentioned anywhere else in the system potency bonus, things largely work fine. Mutagens work because if you have a +2 item bonus and the mutagen gives a +3 item bonus, that's no different than in the normal rules. A +2 weapon can have property runes as expected, etc.
Variant rules often have issues like this. Proficiency Without Level has the side effect of making checks that use Simple DCs (like a lot of Medicine) significantly harder, and makes Assurance much weaker for those checks. People new to the game won't necessary realize that side effect until they get into it and suddenly Master/Legendary level Medicine checks are incredibly difficult when in a normal game the Master ones can be handled by Assurance.
Back to ABP, I think its unfortunate that using the variant rule really benefits from extra knowledge of how to house rule the variant rule to avoid the issue, but that specific one is at least easy to fix. How much treasure you're supposed to remove and how you need to weight it more towards caster loot is somewhat harder to explain how to do correctly because if its a party where the only caster is a Magus, it's not really nearly the same problem as if it is if you have 3 full casters and a Fighter.
The idea that you should also remove property runes never dawned on me before, TBH, and I can't imagine ever doing that. Property runes, aside from the effects and potential damage they give, are just really fun. They're not just numerical bonuses you're obligated to get.
Okay, but if the issue is that it's called a Potency Bonus and not an Item Bonus, and they are meant to serve the same purpose (but with a different name), why are we saying the rules intended to disallow it when it should otherwise work if all you have to do is change the name? A turd by any other name smells just as bad.
The rules don't just intend to disallow them, they explicitly disallow them. That is the problem being pointed out.
You are misunderstanding my post here: I am saying you stop having ABP loot being normally rewarded by around 6th level, where players can get access to normal magic items and property runes. You otherwise are basically stuck with fundamental runes, talismans, and other garbage consumables as rewards until then. There is no loot alternative to the low level ABP rewards.
If I am misunderstanding, it's because there are in fact magic items below 6th level that are absolutely possible to hand out to the party. What does ABP have to do with low-level magic items?
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Just use the Automatic Rune Progression Variant, which is quite popular. As for casters getting a raw deal, that is more dependent on the amount of treasure allotted in the campaign. Adventure Paths routinely give out 150 - 200 % of what the WBL table suggests. Even if you remove the fundamental runes from that loot, a four member party comes out way ahead.
Okay, but if the issue is that it's called a Potency Bonus and not an Item Bonus, and they are meant to serve the same purpose (but with a different name), why are we saying the rules intended to disallow it when it should otherwise work if all you have to do is change the name? A turd by any other name smells just as bad.The rules don't just intend to disallow them, they explicitly disallow them. That is the problem being pointed out.
You are misunderstanding my post here: I am saying you stop having ABP loot being normally rewarded by around 6th level, where players can get access to normal magic items and property runes. You otherwise are basically stuck with fundamental runes, talismans, and other garbage consumables as rewards until then. There is no loot alternative to the low level ABP rewards.If I am misunderstanding, it's because there are in fact magic items below 6th level that are absolutely possible to hand out to the party. What does ABP have to do with low-level magic items?
I assume the complaint comes from this line here:
Items that normally grant an item bonus to statistics or damage dice no longer do, other than the base item bonus to AC from armor.
Which is honestly a stupid rule, one that you, as a GM, can completely ignore, so making the claim of "the rules don't let you" is absurd, especially when talking about alternative rulesets. And if you are a player playing by these rules, you are more than welcome to walk away from the table if you don't like it.
Literally, the majority of magic item rewards from 4th level and lower is garbage talismans and ABP benefits. I have had to make up "lesser" elemental runes as rewards because giving special material weapons all the time gets boring, and giving potions and talismans and other consumables constantly does not project and accomplished growth to the characters.
I want to point out that according to the rules you indicate, fundamental runes don't exist, therefore prerequisites for that, cease to exist, meaning that property runes can be added to weapons without specific fundamental runes.
Point of common sense would indicates that probably at certain levels of items/play you are probably supposed to be bound to a certain limit to the number of property runes that can be placed on any individual item.
The naked thing isn't really that much an issue with ABP as it is the fact that the rules really want to have everyone have a DEX bonus max of +5. And technically, I'm not certain that ABP would add up to you getting the bonus necessarily unless you are wearing something that lets you get a bonus, so I don't think it would end up being the problem. But maybe I'm going based on what seems like obvious intent to me, rather than reading as a rules lawyer. (which admittedly can be fun sometimes)
I'll admit, what I don't like about ABP rules is that it eliminates the basic ability to grant 'one' of these things a bit early to a group, allowing the GROUP to work together to place it to be most effective as a GROUP.
I think people acknowledging differences is a good thing. Some people have gifts in varying ways, and sometimes a magic item is most effective in a particular person's hands. So giving a striking rune to fighter to deal out the most in person damage seems like a great choice for the group to make.
So my preference is to have something ABP like, especially with respect to damage dice for martials, but NOT get rid of striking runes. Instead Striking runes 'INSURE' you get a minimum dice of damage. Once you do extra damage yourself they might do less (or nothing) but could keep them around to eventually boost up a tier to boost your damage.
In past I'd even mentioned one could make a Slashing property rune that would do an extra die of slashing damage to a slashing weapon, for instance, to round out extra damage types that could exist in property runes.
I will admit that the rules for ABP indicates that you remove the fundamental runes from treasure, but it specifically doesn't indicate you should move the spell completion items. However, it is notable that this means much of the expected expenditures for martials is cut, but caster, presumably would still need items. This means martial characters if everyone splits all treasure equally may have extra treasure, while casters/consumable users may end up getting less money, but expecting close to the same expenses.
This however can be easily dealt with by assigning certain items as party owned, and assigned, not individually owned. And the group assigns it to the best person to use it for party use. Really this is an issue in any case with ABP or not, the fair usage of things like consumables for the parties best outcomes could have people getting consumables only one person can use, that they get forced to use for group benefit, but wouldn't have themselves chosen to buy. If those count as their share of treasure, it is potentially unfair to them. That isn't an ABP problem, it is a, you have to be willing to think about what is best for the group, and what is fair, and right may not always be strictly splitting things equally once you consider all the factors. Fair isn't always equal/same, the same isn't always fair.
Which is honestly a stupid rule, one that you, as a GM, can completely ignore, so making the claim of "the rules don't let you" is absurd, especially when talking about alternative rulesets. And if you are a player playing by these rules, you are more than welcome to walk away from the table if you don't like it.
I think it's worth bringing up the part of the OP that pre-empts and addresses this bit exactly:
Let's all be mindful of the Oberoni fallacy: just because a problem with a rule can be fixed by GM fiat does not mean the problem does not exist. It is worth discussing the flaws in ABP because not everyone who uses ABP or wants to use it may be aware of these flaws, and because it would still be better for those problems to be eventually addressed at the source rather than at the table by the GM each time.
You can certainly say "yes, this problem exists, and can be fixed easily", but to say "no, this problem doesn't exist, because it can be fixed easily" is a self-contradictory statement. If the non-problem needs GM fiat to fix, then it is a problem that exists, and it shouldn't be up to the GM to fix the rule every time. Not every GM considers that rule stupid or something to fix, and not every GM playing Pathfinder is amenable to house ruling on the spot, so this problem does in fact have negative consequences in practice. Walking out of a table for this minor problem alone does not strike me as a particularly healthy way to address this rules problem either, and there are likely several steps I'd take first (including just sitting down to a table of friends and playing with a flawed rule that nonetheless still happens to have a net positive impact on a great game).
I want to point out that according to the rules you indicate, fundamental runes don't exist, therefore prerequisites for that, cease to exist, meaning that property runes can be added to weapons without specific fundamental runes.
That's not how the rules work. You can't etch property runes on a nonmagical weapon, and weapon potency runes specifically allow you to etch property runes.
You can certainly say "yes, this problem exists, and can be fixed easily", but to say "no, this problem doesn't exist, because it can be fixed easily" is a self-contradictory statement. If the non-problem needs GM fiat to fix, then it is a problem that exists, and it shouldn't be up to the GM to fix the rule every time. Not every GM considers that rule stupid or something to fix, and not every GM playing Pathfinder is amenable to house ruling on the spot, so this problem does in fact have negative consequences in practice. Walking out of a table for this minor problem alone does not strike me as a particularly healthy way to address this rules problem either, and there are likely several steps I'd take first (including just sitting down to a table of friends and playing with a flawed rule that nonetheless still happens to have a net positive impact on a great game).
I never said the problem didn't exist. All I said was that the rule itself is stupid and that it can (and should) be easily fixed by the GM, and that because it's an optional rule, you're already not playing by the game's standards, meaning any qualms of "I must play this game by the rules," or "I can't houserule the houserule," is likewise thrown out the window.
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Are there GMs that use APB, and would allow PCs to buy property runes, but not allow them to be attached to weapons that lack the potency runes that their variant rule denies the PCs from having?
I have had my share of frustration with games running APB, but I have never heard of any GM running things this way. If no GM runs the game that way, then I think it is fair to say that it is not really a problem.
I could see a GM running APB with no property runes, but that would probably be to make a lower magic setting in the first place, not to run the game more simply.
I never said the problem didn't exist. All I said was that the rule itself is stupid and that it can (and should) be easily fixed by the GM, and that because it's an optional rule, you're already not playing by the game's standards, meaning any qualms of "I must play this game by the rules," or "I can't houserule the houserule," is likewise thrown out the window.
Funnily enough, there's another part of the OP that also pre-empts and addresses this bit exactly:
Although ABP is a variant, it is not its stated intention to be disruptive to the game or to make it less functional. The fact that it parcels out its bonuses at very precise level intervals indicates it tries to avoid being unnecessarily disruptive. Therefore, I don't think it would be valid to dismiss aspects of ABP that do cause unnecessary disruption merely on the grounds that it's a variant rule, especially given its popularity.
ABP is a variant offered by Paizo in an official rulebook, it is not by itself carte blanche to homebrew or house rule at-will. It should be functional by itself.
Are there GMs that use APB, and would allow PCs to buy property runes, but not allow them to be attached to weapons that lack the potency runes that their variant rule denies the PCs from having?
I have had my share of frustration with games running APB, but I have never heard of any GM running things this way. If no GM runs the game that way, then I think it is fair to say that it is not really a problem.
For starters, I have experienced this, and others have noted this issue as well in the other thread. Second, this is also committing the Oberoni fallacy, and if everyone has to ignore a rule for the game to work better (or doesn't understand what the rule does in the first place), then the rule could stand to be better-written, not have its constructive criticism dismissed.
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Although ABP is a variant, it is not its stated intention to be disruptive to the game or to make it less functional. The fact that it parcels out its bonuses at very precise level intervals indicates it tries to avoid being unnecessarily disruptive. Therefore, I don't think it would be valid to dismiss aspects of ABP that do cause unnecessary disruption merely on the grounds that it's a variant rule, especially given its popularity.
Except that it is; you've even quoted sections that demonstrate it to be so, and the book calls them out as such. It also mentions how mutable the optional rule is because there are optional rules within the optional rule, so again, why the "just change it" isn't a valid solution, I don't understand, when there are things you can change within the optional rule itself already. And no, "the book doesn't present it," isn't a valid excuse.
Except that it is; you've even quoted sections that demonstrate it to be so, and the book calls them out as such. It also mentions how mutable the optional rule is because there are optional rules within the optional rule, so again, why the "just change it" isn't a valid solution, I don't understand, when there are things you can change within the optional rule itself already. And no, "the book doesn't present it," isn't a valid excuse.
As outlined in the OP already, which I invite you to read in full for the purpose of facilitating discussion here, the text about property runes was added in the remaster, and is not part of the original variant. My guess is that it was likely added as a disclaimer in lieu of a proper fix, given how the remaster was on a tight schedule and the developers had bigger priorities. As the OP already points out, that it causes disruption does not mean those disruptions are intentional, particularly when they could be easily avoided (and were not accounted for in the original version of the variant, whose core mechanics were left untouched).
Please don't misunderstand: I'm not saying that houseruling at the table isn't a valid solution to this problem, because it absolutely is and I do this at my table; I'm saying it should not be the only solution. If the answer to every problem with a rule or game mechanic was "just houserule it as the GM", then the end result would be the GM constantly having to fix broken bits of a ruleset on the fly, and we all know at least one game that does that and what the negative impact is for GMs. The point here isn't to have every GM sit on their hands and wait for Paizo to fix the rule, the point is to bring these problems to Paizo's attention so that they can eventually fix it, and GMs would no longer have to houserule the variant to make it fully work.
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It's also generally cited as a reference for when characters should be expected to have which item bonuses outside of ABP
Welp, I just realized I should have grabbed a Greater Resilient Rune two levels ago.
Also I'm somehow supposed to have a +2 to my perception?
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Also I'm somehow supposed to have a +2 to my perception?
Without ABP it would be done with items such as Clarity Goggles, Mirror Goggles, or Eyes of the Cat.
It's also generally cited as a reference for when characters should be expected to have which item bonuses outside of ABPWelp, I just realized I should have grabbed a Greater Resilient Rune two levels ago.
Also I'm somehow supposed to have a +2 to my perception?
Correct! Finoan's listed a few items that will help you reach that.
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Correct! Finoan's listed a few items that will help you reach that.It's also generally cited as a reference for when characters should be expected to have which item bonuses outside of ABPWelp, I just realized I should have grabbed a Greater Resilient Rune two levels ago.
Also I'm somehow supposed to have a +2 to my perception?
I went to AoN to see those that did. I'd probably go with some held ones instead of worn since I'm already capped on my invested items :P
It is already the case that houseruling a change to ABP isn't the only solution. GMs can adjust encounter experience budgets instead. They can level the PCs up one level above AP recommended instead. They can adjust monster HP down instead. They can give the monsters higher weaknesses, reduce resistances, or change immunities to resistances. They can ask the players if they want a game where combat encounters are more difficult (with difficulty increasing more with higher levels), and if the players say 'yes,' they need not adjust anything. GMs have lots of knobs they can spin without changing the rules.
Changing the encounter-building rules and leveling up the party beyond the recommended baseline are both house rules, and fiddling with monster stats is homebrew. In the end, the problem remains the same: you are putting the onus on the GM to fix what this rule breaks.
I think it's also worth pointing out that ABP is just like the other two GMC variants when it comes to this. Free Archetype, Proficiency without Level, they both, like ABP, require the GM to turn some knobs to get AP scenes and encounters to be the same difficulty as they would be under the core system. All three variants require some GM thought. That doesn't mean they are in need of a fix. "Requires GM thought" is just part of their design.
As the OP itself points out, that’s not really a valid argument. Rules that deliberately aim to disrupt the game’s math, like PWL, will obviously have a disruptive effect that is part and parcel of the rule, but as you yourself admit, the disruptions caused by ABP are not what it aims to achieve, and require GM fiat to fix.
The core rules should have a single way to play it, but I'm not so sure that's the right model for writing up variants. Rather than "fix," maybe "options" are better. After all, the GM going through the GMC to the variant section is already looking to do something a bit different, so a number of different low-magic options rather than one specific way to play it could be a good thing.
ABP does not exclusively aim to act as a replacement for magic items, nor does it force that. Whatever options it aims to provide, I don’t think encouraging PCs to strip naked at high level for more AC is part of those, so I think it’s safe to say that there are some problems with the rule that are easy to point out, and should be relatively easy for Paizo to errata in the future.
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@Teridax: I commend you for taking another stab at this issue. I’m not sure there is consensus among those posting here that the issue is such that Paizo need to address it. Yes I have read your OP.
It feels to me like this is a variant rule, and as such is “fluid” and unfortunately, won’t get the large scale development it requires to be “solid”. Oberoni fallacies aside etc…
Do you think that if Easl’s comments on encounter adjustments and rules were given, by Paizo, a conscientious writeup to exactly describe a watertight approach; and your points about wands staves and scrolls and discrepancies in property and fundamental runes were clarified and wording cleaned up for Mutagens that you’d be happy to use ABP*?
How likely do you think it is that Paizo will do such a thing given plenty of non-variant rules are still…problematic and haven’t been addressed both in the original PF2 CRB and the confluence of PF2 CRB and PF2R Core books?
*The bit about naked rangers is so vanishingly small I’m thinking it is possibly a non-issue. 17th level? 20th level? If you are still using ABP at that level then that should be the least of your complications that a couple of classes are overreaching a bit.
Do you think that if Easl’s comments on encounter adjustments and rules were given, by Paizo, a conscientious writeup to exactly describe a watertight approach; and your points about wands staves and scrolls and discrepancies in property and fundamental runes were clarified and wording cleaned up for Mutagens that you’d be happy to use ABP*?
I'm already happy to use ABP, though. The point being made here isn't "I refuse to use this rule until everything I don't like about it is fixed", so much as "I love this variant rule and use it often in my games, which is why I've noticed a few things that don't work, currently need houseruling to work properly, and would make for an even better rule if they were addressed." I don't think the criterion for a problem needing to be brought to Paizo's attention is that it breaks the game or that it's a dealbreaker for some people: if it can be improved, might as well bring it up and let Paizo decide when or if to act on it.
How likely do you think it is that Paizo will do such a thing given plenty of non-variant rules are still…problematic and haven’t been addressed both in the original PF2 CRB and the confluence of PF2 CRB and PF2R Core books?
More likely than you think, given that even this variant rule received a bit more text in the remaster, and that Paizo promised more frequent errata cycles. I don't think this ought to be prioritized over more urgent improvements, but then again, it would not take a huge amount to address the issues mentioned in this thread, so it shouldn't be too high-effort either.
*The bit about naked rangers is so vanishingly small I’m thinking it is possibly a non-issue. 17th level? 20th level? If you are still using ABP at that level then that should be the least of your complications that a couple of classes are overreaching a bit.
But that's the thing: ABP doesn't aim to twist the game's balance out of shape. It does make you fall behind in damage if you're a martial class, but otherwise it covers all the basics you need; that's the point of the variant. Pathfinder is also a game with high-level APs that is balanced at high level just as well as the other levels, so 17th level or even 20th level is not the point where Paizo just throws their hands up in the air and decides not to bother balancing their game anymore. Rangers, Monks, and other Dex classes exceeding their normal AC bounds at 17th level is therefore a relevant issue to point out, particularly as it would only require a tiny bit of text in the rules to fix.
But that's the thing: ABP doesn't aim to twist the game's balance out of shape. It does make you fall behind in damage if you're a martial class, but otherwise it covers all the basics you need; that's the point of the variant.
OK. I kinda get the idea. The strictest reading of the rules reads that without any fundamental runes available to be put on a weapon, you are not allowed to etch property runes onto the weapon either.
Which, yes, that could be cleaned up a bit in the wording of the rule.
I don't think that this is going to be causing huge problems across the entire player base. I expect most GMs will allow finding/buying and etching property runes onto the equipment up to the limits of what the ABP equivalent potency level would have. Which may cause a bit of strange edge cases in certain scenarios where you end up with a weapon that someone else could use just fine, but as soon as you pick it up your potency level isn't high enough to activate all of the property runes on it. But for that to happen, we are looking at playing with characters of different levels. Which isn't really supported either.
In any case, this is more of a GM litmus test type of thing. If the GM insists on playing with ABP and runs with strict rulings that no property runes can be put onto your weapons, maybe find a different GM. Because this is likely the least of the problems you are going to have while playing with this one.
Having a few GM litmus test types of rules wordings may not be the worst thing...
How many completely naked characters do run around, anyway and won't they get arrested for being serial flashers?
I don't think that this is going to be causing huge problems across the entire player base.
Few rules problems would. The Kineticist had impulse feats that had bits missing or were significantly overtuned, both of which were arguably worse issues than what's being listed here and the game didn't fall apart then either. It's still something worth improving all the same. I don't think we need "GM litmus test" rules that are intentionally flawed and there to test a GM's ability to mistrust the rules when needed, because there are plenty of newer GMs who go to PF2e because they see it as a game that's fully functional, right down to the variants, and who don't know of the issues being mentioned here. It took me a while to catch some of the problems being discussed here too, so I don't think we should expect every GM to automatically know exactly what's wrong with ABP and how to fix it on the spot.
How many completely naked characters do run around, anyway and won't they get arrested for being serial flashers?
Did the town guard follow you into that demon-infested dungeon out in the woods where you're stripping naked for more AC? Because that sounds like an altogether different kind of adventure.
(You also don't have to be literally naked, you just need to be unarmored. The naked bit is facetious.)
Changing the encounter difficulty is fully within the RAW. What I described are ways of changing the difficulty.
Treating the baseline of difficult differently from what it normally is is a house rule, though. If moderate encounters at your table are treated as severe, severe encounters as extreme, and so on, and you're treating every monster with the weak template as a normal monster, then you're house ruling your games. More to the point, this is all pressure on the GM to adjust their game in compensation for a disruptive effect in a way that can have knock-on effects of its own, which I don't think is necessary when the effect need not be disruptive in that way (and also, there are simpler ways to house rule it).
The ice cream machine is not broken, it's just producing a flavor you don't like.
If the ice cream were to drip flecks of gasoline onto my cone, I'd be able to infer that that's not part of the intended toppings, even if there isn't a notice explicitly saying that the dispenser does not aim to up the octane of your frozen treats. Given how ABP's stated purpose has nothing to do with increasing difficulty, and given how it added disclaimer text pointing to reduced martial damage that wasn't there in the original version, I think it's safe to surmise that those bits are a bug and not a feature.
I also generally find this statement to be a complete non-argument, because even if ABP explicitly stated that it intends to up the game's difficulty (which it does not), I would still contest that on the grounds that it's an unnecessary component to the variant that makes it harder to run and especially trips up newer GMs. There is no point to assuming intentionality because intentionality is not what erases the issues being pointed out.
So, multiple posters have pointed out the narrow applicability of this example. As the lawyers like to say, extreme or weird cases are a poor basis for general rules.
... but it's not a general rule, is the point. Like most rules, it is a specific rule, and this particular one has obvious unintended consequences. Its applicability is a lot less narrow than is claimed, because exceeding normal AC bounds for three levels isn't all that narrow, and even if we do assume that it's niche, it is still something worth correcting. If we dismissed problems with the rules on the basis that they were "niche", we'd still have literally broken Kineticist impulses or the old gnome flickmace, and as I recall the claim of narrow applicability was in fact used to justify the latter being overtuned.
What other project suffers or doesn't get done because they did this instead?
"Sorry folks, we were gonna release a book with an updated Inquisitor class and 300 divine spells, but we decided to can it because we needed to spend five minutes logging a change to ABP in one of our prescribed errata cycles."
... but yeah, hopefully the above impresses how silly a claim this is. Yes, Paizo has finite people and resources, but they also commit a portion of those people and resources towards gathering feedback and posting errata, so clearly they value updating bits of existing content enough to allocate some of the company to it. Not only that, but they've announced an increase in frequency to errata, so it seems they're even more interested in this than before. Given how previous errata cycles have targeted even more niche and minor rules elements than this, I think it's safe to say that we can in fact have errata and also new books at the same time.
How many completely naked characters do run around, anyway and won't they get arrested for being serial flashers?
You don't need to be completely nude to benefit from full dexterity. Simply wearing ordinary clothing or fine clothing counts.
How many completely naked characters do run around, anyway and won't they get arrested for being serial flashers?You don't need to be completely nude to benefit from full dexterity. Simply wearing ordinary clothing or fine clothing counts.
That seems counterintuitive to Explorers Clothing imposing the +5 DEX cap. IMO, of course.
That seems counterintuitive to Explorers Clothing imposing the +5 DEX cap. IMO, of course.How many completely naked characters do run around, anyway and won't they get arrested for being serial flashers?You don't need to be completely nude to benefit from full dexterity. Simply wearing ordinary clothing or fine clothing counts.
Yes, Explorer's Clothing has that cap, and it can benefit from potency and resiliency runes. Ordinary/Fine clothing cannot.
But with ABP, those bonuses aren't tied to runes, so it applies regardless of whether you wear basic clothing or full plate.
I think we must be viewing the term 'house rule' differently. When I take an AP encounter with 6 zombies and drop it to 4 zombies because my players were more interested in building intrigue-focused PCs instead of combat-focused PCs, I don't consider that a house rule because no Pathfinder rule has been changed.
Correct. In this particular situation, you are indeed following the encounter-building rules to create an easier encounter, whose difficulty matches the one listed in the encounter-building rules. That is, however, different from ruling that moderate encounters are more difficult than what's indicated in the encounter-building rules, which is what you'd be doing to adjust as listed beforehand. Because it would be a persistent rule you'd be applying in-house, it is a house rule, rather than a one-off judgment call.
It's fair to object to that and want the ABP system to be different, but the point is that "I don't like the ABP design choices" is not the same thing as "the ABP system is broken and needs to be fixed."
Correct, which is why the OP points to a laundry list of objective problems with ABP. Nobody is calling ABP broken, by the way, and in fact the OP explicitly says otherwise:
A rule being flawed is not the same as a rule being bad, unplayable, or unfixable, much less the game as a whole being bad. I enjoy and use ABP despite its flaws, and most of the people who notice the flaws in ABP are players or GMs who use it a lot.
I'd say the above neatly addresses your concerns.
It would take a lot more than five minutes of effort do do what you want Paizo to do.
It took me under ten seconds to type "If you're wearing armor or Explorer's Clothing", and it would take a similarly short time to log that in an errata list with regards to Defense Potency. It is not a massive undertaking.
Moreover, what you're asking for is not errata. Errata is when the written text doesn't describe the system Paizo intended to publish.
Incorrect, Paizo has used errata to amend rules that were working as they intended, but chose to update in view of new findings. This is how the gnome flickmace was nerfed, and how the chirurgeon was buffed pre-remaster. Errata is used to update the game as a living document over time, so there's no sense in claiming that it can't do the thing that's being said now, particularly as letting Rangers get more AC by going unarmored is very much an unintended interaction.
The ABP rule literally says not giving out property runes will make the PCs do less damage and increases the difficulty. So choosing not to give out those runes (and not allow them to attach to weapons) is implementing a variant rule that makes the game harder. I would say that is pretty clearly the intention of that rule…since it is written into RAW text.
I think Terra’s, if you feel like you have something that works better, you should just write it up and share it on pathfinder infinite. I agree with Easl that the rule isn’t failing to do what it is designed to do, so I’d rather the developers work on anything else, especially since variant rules, however popular, are not official baseline material and thus there is no official environment where the people using them are not free to modify them as they wish.
The ABP rule literally says not giving out property runes will make the PCs do less damage and increases the difficulty. So choosing not to give out those runes (and not allow them to attach to weapons) is implementing a variant rule that makes the game harder. I would say that is pretty clearly the intention of that rule…since it is written into RAW text.
The OP already answers this:
Although ABP is a variant, it is not its stated intention to be disruptive to the game or to make it less functional. The fact that it parcels out its bonuses at very precise level intervals indicates it tries to avoid being unnecessarily disruptive. Therefore, I don't think it would be valid to dismiss aspects of ABP that do cause unnecessary disruption merely on the grounds that it's a variant rule, especially given its popularity.
As mentioned, the disclaimer text was added after the remaster, not when the variant was made, so it is not part of the original package and can't be attributed as its original intention.
Also, the point of this thread is not to come up with solutions, but to raise the visibility of problems with ABP. If people want to come up with solutions, let them, but that is not needed for this thread to be worthwhile. I also don't think it is up to any one user to tell others which constructive criticism is and isn't worthy of Paizo's attention, so how about we do our best job of giving constructive feedback to Paizo, without trying to shut down constructive feedback we personally don't like, and let the devs do the job of deciding if and when to act on our feedback.
As mentioned, the disclaimer text was added after the remaster, not when the variant was made, so it is not part of the original package and can't be attributed as its original intention.
I'm not entirely sure I should ask this, but it is confusing me. So...
If errata or Remaster changes or other types of rules text changes aren't allowed to clarify the original intent of the rules - then what is the point of errata?
If the devs intended for a rule to be <thus> and instead a large portion of the players are interpreting it as <such>, then a change in, or addition to, the rule text to make it clear that the rule was originally intended to be <thus> should indeed be attributed as its original intention. Even though it wasn't part of the original rules wording.
Also, the point of this thread is not to come up with solutions, but to raise the visibility of problems with ABP. If people want to come up with solutions, let them, but that is not needed for this thread to be worthwhile. I also don't think it is up to any one user to tell others which constructive criticism is and isn't worthy of Paizo's attention, so how about we do our best job of giving constructive feedback to Paizo, without trying to shut down constructive feedback we personally don't like, and let the devs do the job of deciding if and when to act on our feedback.
I would agree with that. It isn't necessary to say that 'this isn't worth the attention that you are trying to bring to it.' It also isn't necessary to shout down any and all people who do say things like that.
I have my own pet peeve problems in the rules. Minion rules - especially as regarding familiars - being one of the bigger ones for me. Gortle recently posted one about damage calculations. It is somewhat expected that any of these types of posts are going to get some people reacting with a 'meh, I don't have a problem with it.' And that is mostly fine. They don't have to have a problem with it. It doesn't mean that it isn't a problem or that posting about the problem was a bad thing to do or that the game devs are going to ignore the post because a few (or even most) people who respond respond with 'meh'.
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If errata or Remaster changes or other types of rules text changes aren't allowed to clarify the original intent of the rules - then what is the point of errata?
What kind of game company waits five years and a remaster to describe the key intent of a variant rule in a bit of disclaimer text at the bottom of the page? Because it's not Paizo, who made the actual intent of ABP clear from the outset:
This variant removes the item bonus to rolls and DCs usually provided by magic items (with the exception of armor’s item bonus) and replaces it with a new kind of bonus—potency—to reflect a character’s innate ability. In this variant, magic items, if they exist at all, can provide unique special abilities rather than numerical increases.
Notice how literally no part of this even implies an intent to make the game harder, nor even relates to the concept. There's a lot of confirmation bias running around where people are pretending that increasing game difficulty was the real intent all along and Paizo just took this long to reveal it in an extremely indirect way, but that's just clutching at straws. Errata can certainly clarify intent, but that is not what the remaster did with ABP. The much simpler explanation, however, is that when ABP was initially written, the developers were clearly not aware of its full impact, and it's only with the benefit of hindsight that they shared some insight on the disruption caused by the variant, without actually changing the mechanics of the rule in the remaster's extremely short timeframe to fix the variant's issues -- which is why we still got the naked AC exploit.
It also isn't necessary to shout down any and all people who do say things like that.
It is interesting how apparently the "shouting down" here isn't "I personally don't value your feedback, so it's objectively invalid and shouldn't ever be brought to the developers' attention", so much as "actually, I think my feedback is valid and I don't think it's up to other users to gatekeep what game feedback does and doesn't get given". As a reminder, we are in a forum whose purpose, among others, is for us to give feedback on the game. Gatekeeping this feedback benefits no-one and is anathema to constructive discussion, so it deserves to be challenged.
I have my own pet peeve problems in the rules. Minion rules - especially as regarding familiars - being one of the bigger ones for me. Gortle recently posted one about damage calculations. It is somewhat expected that any of these types of posts are going to get some people reacting with a 'meh, I don't have a problem with it.' And that is mostly fine. They don't have to have a problem with it. It doesn't mean that it isn't a problem or that posting about the problem was a bad thing to do or that the game devs are going to ignore the post because a few (or even most) people who respond respond with 'meh'.
"I disagree with this feedback" is a perfectly valid response to give; it is also not the kind of response being discussed here. People who don't care about a certain bit of feedback just ignore it and move on; they don't make multiple posts across multiple threads relentlessly trying to invalidate said feedback. That level of excessive perseverance is what crosses the line from simple disagreement to an active and persistent effort to try to invalidate other people's opinions and feedback, which I'm sure you'll agree is a touch strange if the person doing all this is apathetic about the issue. We should perhaps do a little less of that, and if there's a pet peeve you want to discuss, do feel free to discuss it by making your own thread (and just hope others don't try to shut it down in the same way just because they don't like what you have to say).
I think you're trying to create a distinction without a difference. Some AP has six zombies in an encounter. I make it 4.
I'd say that is exactly the way to describe the distinction you're trying to engineer here. It's not just that changing the benchmarks of encounter difficulty across all of your encounters is a house rule, ultimately it still boils down to a workaround you're expecting the GM to make around a flawed rule that doesn't need to induce that kind of disruption to do its job.
I think at this point you could see the "no property rune equivalent in ABP" problem from outer space lol.
People on the other thread, experienced players themselves, were not aware of this problem, and some were in fact adamant that the rules said otherwise. Evidently not all of the problems listed here are known to everyone, and I wouldn't assume that of anyone else either.
If we leave discussion of solutions to the homebrew thread (which we should), what else is there to say about it in the rules thread?
Well, the other thread didn't just discuss solutions in a broad sense, it specifically discussed property runes in and out of ABP, plus caster items. This thread, by contrast, sets out to list all of the flaws with ABP in general, beyond just property runes and caster items, so it is a separate discussion.
Yes it's true, there's no equivalent to damage property runes on the page 83 ABP entry. It's also true the devs were obviously aware of this, because they wrote down that damage will be lower using the system they just finished presenting. And it seems to be true that whether for space reasons or other reasons, giving this difference one line of treatment rather than develop a single specific mechanic to address it was an intentional decision on their part.
Putting aside how the assumption of intention here is entirely conjectural, and differs greatly from your prior claim that the rule itself intended to raise game difficulty, it also relies on the assumption that the developers had the full time and resources to change ABP to be exactly what they wanted, which is itself false given how the devs made it clear just how tight their schedule was. If they did have all the time and resources they needed to do everything perfectly, we wouldn't have the naked AC edge case still in the rules, nor all the other flaws listed in the OP. If we really want to fully commit to the pretense that Paizo considers every part of ABP to work as intended, then we must also assume that Paizo intends to encourage Dex characters to start taking off their armor and Explorer's Clothing at 17th level in order to increase their AC, which is self-evidently ridiculous. The more reasonable interpretation of the disclaimer is therefore that Paizo did not have the luxury of revising ABP in the extremely short timeframe they had to publish GM Core, so they simply added a bit of disclaimer text and called it a day for the purpose of getting it out of the gate. Now that that's done, there's ample time for Paizo to take another look at ABP in future errata and address its issues.