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Pathfinder Second Edition is a game that prides itself on being fully functional right out the box, and with good reason: its math is smartly-constructed, and its design cleverly bakes essential progression automatically into classes and their key items, allowing characters to naturally excel at what they do and make choices freely from there. Options are genuinely about adding gameplay, and not just power, so that you generally don't have to choose between the option that's fun and the option that just makes you straight-up more powerful. So clear-cut is this progression that the Automatic Bonus Progression variant rule gives you a list of all the bonuses you'd need to apply from items, should you choose to forgo magic items altogether in your campaign or just simplify the essentials of progression. You could follow this variant from level 1 to 20 and be just as powerful as if you'd just used magic weapons normally.
That is, of course, right up until you're not.
Despite appearances, ABP does in fact miss a few crucial elements: many who have run this variant will have noticed how it doesn't cover the scrolls, staves, and wands that form the core of caster item progression, and we'll talk about that, but first, let's talk about the other, less talked-about glaring issue with both ABP and the game's math, which is damage property runes.
In case you're not familiar with Pathfinder 2e's upgrade system, it works based on runes, which are sorted into two categories: you have fundamental runes, which are essential to a character's item progression and are factored into the ABP variant, and then you have property runes, which are "nice to have" runes that are mostly about adding neat little effects to your weapon that aren't essential to its progression, and are thus not factored into ABP. The core assumption is that if a rune straight-up increases your weapon's raw damage, such as by increasing its accuracy or damage dice, it's a fundamental rune, and otherwise it's a property rune.
Now, you can probably see where this is going: despite being property runes, and therefore only optional, damage property runes do in fact straight-up increase your weapon's damage, which is why in practice players tend to load up on these runes to the exclusion of most others. Looking at these runes, like flaming or shock, each adds 1d6 to your damage, and while this doesn't look like much, it adds up: at level 8, that's an additional 3.5 damage to each hit on average. Let's just pick a d12 melee weapon on a full Strength Fighter, where the relative increase in damage will be the smallest possible: at level 8, a weapon with one of these runes deals on average 2d12+1d6+4+3 = 23.5 damage on a hit, compared to 20 damage without. That's about a 17.5% increase in damage, which is quite significant. At level 19, a maxed-out weapon on that Fighter with a full complement of damaging property runes will deal 4d12+3d6+7+8 = 51.5 damage on a hit on average, and 41 average damage without, an even more significant 26% damage increase. On the flipside, if you were a regular martial with a piddly d4 ranged weapon, those property runes would increase your damage by 50% at level 8, and 66% at level 19. That's too large an increase to really qualify as "optional".
Martial characters aren't the only ones left out here: as is more well-known with ABP, the variant doesn't include any caster items, despite the power they hold in both versatility and spell output. A caster with a staff can cast an extra spell just below max rank, or a variety of different lower-rank utility spells, can cast additional free spells up to one rank below max with wands, and can cast even more spells in a pinch with scrolls. Versatility is power on casters, but so is spell output, so omitting this core progression entirely deprives casters of a lot of their power.
You might be thinking: this isn't so bad in practice, because you can just pick up these runes and items as you play, right? Well, unfortunately, this kind of omission carries a few negative consequences regardless:
So, how could this be improved? Well, thankfully, even this part of the math is quite consistent, so I'd say it wouldn't be the most difficult thing in the world to work some of that core progression in. A couple of ideas:
You could probably also get more adventurous with this: for instance, you could just blend the damage increase into current striking runes and having your weapon's damage die increase at 4th level and every 3 levels thereafter (so 4/7/10/13/16/19 instead of 4/8/10/12/16/19, but be careful to adjust the deadly and fatal traits, plus other effects that scale with weapon damage dice), and you could add a variant to the variant for wave casters where instead of getting one slot of each rank, they'd start losing those bonus lower-rank slots and getting two extra total slots of their two highest ranks. The above stuff in the bulletpoints though would be the closest to the original benefits, so if you wanted minimal change you could just stick to that.
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So I went and looked at the GM Core to see if they'd changed ABP a lot in the remaster, and if things were as bad as you said. I'm not convinced.
First off, the heart and soul of ABP is:
- remove fundamental runes
- items don't grant bonuses to skills
- apex items don't grant ability score bonuses
Then it goes on to talk about adjusting treasure. It says you can decide to pretty much not give out treasure at all, but that you probably don't want to go that far. It mentions scrolls and wands as well, and warns that without damaging property runes damage output is going to be lower and encounters harder.
So they're not hiding any of these consequences. Well, they don't mention staves, only wands, but that's arguing about details.
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I think one of the underlying assumptions is that casters were still going to be spending a fair amount on fundamental runes. For armor, certainly, but that having an enchanted weapon is more expected for a wizard what we would actually expect. The level 5 wizard pregen comes with a +1 striking staff. I've seen enough cases in actual play where I thought a ranged weapon on a caster could be a good way to opportunistically use leftover actions to try to grab a bit more damage.
Staves on the other hand, I think most are not really all that awesome. Many of them are loaded full of damaging spells that since you can't heighten them, age poorly as you level up. It's really a matter of looking for the odd staff that has good utility effects on it, and you can often keep using that same staff for many levels.
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So, I don't 100% agree with you, but of course obviously if you give out no treasure at all, people are gonna miss out on property runes and staves. I think if I'm GMing an AP with ABP, I'd just filter out the fundamental runes and tell players to ignore the skill bonus on items, and otherwise just leave everything else the same. That way you've removed exactly the right amount of treasure with minimum effort.
Players will probably end up selling some skill items that aren't interesting anymore if they only do the other thing they did aside from the skill bonus. And maybe spend more of that money on wands and staves.
So they're not hiding any of these consequences. Well, they don't mention staves, only wands, but that's arguing about details.
I would be curious to know which part of my post prompted you to believe I stated or even implied that the developers were lying to us about what ABP does. Had you compared the remastered variant, you will have noticed that the commentary about weapon property runes is a new addition, but nothing was added to the variant itself: the developers realized these affected the core math, and mentioned them, but did not alter core progression despite this admission. The following text, by contrast, remained unchanged:
In this variant, magic items, if they exist at all, can provide unique special abilities rather than numerical increases.
This conflicts with the acknowledgement that PCs will be dealing less damage, and that damaging property runes serve this function of providing numerical increases rather than just "unique special abilities". It is also resultingly misleading, because along with the advice that the GM can ignore as much party treasure as they want, even disallow magic items entirely, this means that balance will be quite significantly affected, in a way that would need numerical increases to remediate. Effectively, the developers added a bit of precautionary wording, without effecting the necessary adjustments that would incorporate those numerical increases into ABP: this is far more likely to be due to time constraints than any kind of malice, so this really shouldn't be a matter of assuming ill will or even incompetence on Paizo's part.
Staves on the other hand, I think most are not really all that awesome. Many of them are loaded full of damaging spells that since you can't heighten them, age poorly as you level up. It's really a matter of looking for the odd staff that has good utility effects on it, and you can often keep using that same staff for many levels.
Being able to fire a spell one rank below max I'd say is generally pretty awesome, and the perk to staves is that you can always do this with a staff appropriate for your level. You are correct that utility on staves is phenomenal, which is all the more reason to acknowledge that losing those in an adventure with no magic items is going to be a pretty big hit to casters.
So, I don't 100% agree with you, but of course obviously if you give out no treasure at all, people are gonna miss out on property runes and staves. I think if I'm GMing an AP with ABP, I'd just filter out the fundamental runes and tell players to ignore the skill bonus on items, and otherwise just leave everything else the same. That way you've removed exactly the right amount of treasure with minimum effort.
Players will probably end up selling some skill items that aren't interesting anymore if they only do the other thing they did aside from the skill bonus. And maybe spend more of that money on wands and staves.
This is fair, but I'm aiming for something slightly different here, where I'd like ABP to fully work at what it sets out to do, as well as for damaging property runes to be less mandatory even outside of that variant. A game in which all of your key numerical increases are taken care of and you can genuinely choose property runes for unique abilities, or just do away with those and magic items in general without taking a major hit to your damage or spell output, would in my opinion be even better than a game in which your numerical increases are mostly taken care of, but you still have to get some mandatory upgrades and deal with some residual balance awkwardness when running a low/no-magic adventure and using ABP on the expectation that it'll take care of the essentials.
Well, the problem here is that both of these aren't true at all.
This is mentioned as an extreme variant but there's a warning and this is NOT the baseline of ABP at all. Baseline ABP does NOT remove property runes and caster items. But GMs really should watch out and make sure players have enough items/ gold for them. As always.
So effectively, ABP does repeatedly state that you can use this variant as a replacement for magic items, and that even as a partial replacement it would allow your remaining choices, including property weapon runes, to "provide unique special abilities rather than numerical increases" (the variant's exact words). It even says you can ignore any amount of party treasury, so not only are the statements in the OP true, ABP does in fact fail to fully achieve its evident purpose of covering key numerical increases.
The entire point to ABP is that it's there to ease the burden on the GM of remembering which items to give the party so that their essential bonuses are covered, which is why the variant is so popular. As established in the OP, bonus damage from weapon property runes and expanded casting from scrolls, staves, and wands are all important enough power increases to warrant inclusion as essential bonuses as well, so it would be to the improvement of both the variant rule and the game overall if those effects were in fact treated as essential, factored into ABP, and ideally also divested from property runes so that those represent actual meaningful choices.
Please state where exactly does it say that it's a COMPLETE replacement for magic items and that you should remove property runes and caster items. Because it does not (and never did btw).
Gladly!
In this variant, magic items, if they exist at all, can provide unique special abilities rather than numerical increases.
Here is ABP explicitly stating its intent to do away with numerical increases, which it does not, and allow GMs to include no magic items in their adventure if they so wish.
With this variant, you can ignore as much of the Party Treasure by Level table on page 59 as you want
This is ABP explicitly giving the GM license to ignore as much party treasure as they want. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that includes property runes.
If your world still includes magic items, a safe bet is to continue to give out consumable items at roughly the rate on page 59.
Here is ABP giving the GM license to use this variant for settings with no magic items at all. Correct me if I'm wrong, but property runes are magic items.
It does mention it as an extreme case, but OP is not true at all. You've build quite a strawman and now are valiantly fighting it.
The only strawman is the one you have constructed, yet also just here implicitly admitted to being a strawmanned. For all this arguing on the letter of what's being said, it is evident that this variant was designed to automate all of the essential power increases baked into the game's math.
The answer to your 'problem' is: 'just don't do it then'.
It appears you've failed to read quite a significant part of the post you are trying so desperately to refute (why?). Here it is again, for your reading convenience:
You might be thinking: this isn't so bad in practice, because you can just pick up these runes and items as you play, right? Well, unfortunately, this kind of omission carries a few negative consequences regardless:
It creates the kind of false choices that Pathfinder tries so hard to avoid: because damage property runes make you straight-up stronger, you're basically putting yourself at a comparative disadvantage by not picking these runes. The rare exceptions where one particular rune is essential for your playstyle to function, like a returning rune for a weapon you're planning on throwing all the time, incur a tax in raw damage that subtly put some flavorful playstyle behind others.
It means ABP puts you actually quite significantly behind in power relative to taking magic weapons, and martial players using the variant without any compensation will end up going against much spongier-feeling enemies.
As also noted, using ABP as a replacement for magic items means casters get none of their item progression, and end up being deceptively much weaker than they ought to be.
Less importantly, it messes up people's calculations when they try to do the math for certain features or martial class damage, as these property runes often get ignored.
Notice how this part of the post anticipates your dismissive comment exactly. This begs the question as to why you're being so defensive about what is ultimately a criticism that's already been brought up before around ABP and caster items.
Your concern is noted directly it the book.
No, it's not. As brought up several times now already, GM core retains text from the pre-remastered version that all points to it serving as a replacement for essential bonuses, which it evidently does not fully cover. It is strange that you would assume I did not read the variant I am discussing, particularly as you visibly do not appear to have fully read the post you are responding to.
Fortunately, this has a really easy fix. GMs wanting ABP that more exactly matches the core game weapon damage could eliminate fundamental runes as suggested but continue to allow potency runes at equivalent levels (going from memory, it's like one at L2, a second at L10, right? Can't remember).
Evidently, you have not read what the variant does either, or at best merely skimmed it so that you could play gotcha on the internet without first trying to understand what it sets out to do. Potency runes are fundamental runes that are already covered in ABP. We are talking about property runes, which are not covered by ABP, merely mentioned as something that will lower your damage if omitted, which will happen if you follow the variant's encouragement of making your setting free of magic items, forgoing party treasure, or giving only "unique special abilities" rather than the numerical increases of damaging property runes.
But really, all this prattling about what ABP does and does not say isn't particularly relevant to the point being made, which is that there are a few more numerical increases that could easily be included in ABP to make it work better. If ABP included the bonus damage from weapon property runes, and included the additional spellcasting from caster items, then you would in fact be able to use it as a complete replacement from magic items, as the variant evidently suggests, and not deprive your party of a significant amount of power. If damage property runes were divested from their bonus damage, and simply let you convert some of your weapon damage to a certain type, then those runes would fall in line with others into "nice to have" territory, and players would be able to make far more choices with their property runes, ABP or no ABP, without tanking their damage output. Surely that's something worth advocating?
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I have never read ABP rules as being a replacement for all magic items including weapon property runes. ABP is meant to acknowledge that there are fundamental magic items that are required in order to keep pace with the increasing DCs of challenges such as an enemy's AC or a skill challenge DC and the increasing HP of enemies. And ABP provides a way to handwave away getting those bonuses automatically.
No, it isn't perfect. But the problems listed here regarding weapon property runes and having enough scrolls on hand are not the biggest culprit. And as has been mentioned, these problems are called out in the description of ABP.
The biggest culprit is the removal of item bonuses from all items and effects - even the ones that you can get at a higher bonus earlier than their permanent item counterparts. Such as Runic Armor, Runic Weapon, and various alchemical items like mutagens. Converting these item bonuses to a non-stacking Potency bonus instead of removing them fixes that problem easily enough though. But this one isn't called out in the ABP rules text at all.
I have never read ABP rules as being a replacement for all magic items including weapon property runes.
ABP explicitly states on multiple occasions that magic items are assumed to be entirely optional under this variant, and that a GM could use this variant for adventures with no magic items.
No, it isn't perfect. But the problems listed here regarding weapon property runes and having enough scrolls on hand are not the biggest culprit. And as has been mentioned, these problems are called out in the description of ABP.
Would it not be better for the variant to actually address these problems rather than simply mention that they exist? I don't blame Paizo for not altering the core mechanics of the variant, because they had much bigger fish to fry in the limited time they had to develop and release GM Core, but there's clearly an opportunity for improvement there, and it wouldn't be all that difficult to do either.
The biggest culprit is the removal of item bonuses from all items and effects - even the ones that you can get at a higher bonus earlier than their permanent item counterparts. Such as Runic Armor, Runic Weapon, and various alchemical items like mutagens. Converting these item bonuses to a non-stacking Potency bonus instead of removing them fixes that problem easily enough though. But this one isn't called out in the ABP rules text at all.
I absolutely agree that this is a problem, and you could easily fix this with a bit of text that says any spell or alchemical item that gives you an item bonus gives you a potency bonus instead. The real question here is: why does one of these things register as a problem to you but not the other? In my opinion, it's quite easy and common for a party to just not pick runic weapon as a spell or not have an Alchemist. By contrast, the chance of the party having at least one martial or caster, either of whom would be affected negatively by ABP's omissions, is practically 100% (the only exception would be an all-Kineticist party, who'd also suffer due to losing item bonuses on their gate attenuators and having nothing in compensation). I'd say a problem that is likely to affect virtually 100% of parties is quite a bit more impactful than a problem that is likely to affect only a small number of parties, and only a few individuals among them.
So, where "remove property runes and caster items" is?
Right here:
In this variant, magic items, if they exist at all, can provide unique special abilities rather than numerical increases.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but a game without magic items is a game without property runes and caster items.
So, where "remove property runes and caster items" is?
Right here:
With this variant, you can ignore as much of the Party Treasure by Level table on page 59 as you want
Correct me if I'm wrong, but a world with no party treasure, which this variant authorizes, is a world with no property runes or caster items.
So, where "remove property runes and caster items" is?
If your world still includes magic items, a safe bet is to continue to give out consumable items at roughly the rate on page 59.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but a world without magic items is a world without property runes and caster items.
Answer to all these is "you implied that and pretended that the extreme is the baseline, which is false". That is, build a strawman. Happy fighting it further!
The actual baseline is quoted in my post above.
I mean, you can keep fighting your own strawman and quite blatantly dodging the point as much as you like, but it is rather clear that the variant intends to let you run a game with no magic items or party treasure. Unlike the base game, this variant does not expect you to use any magic items at all, and instead expects you to rely just on its potency bonuses to supply all of the numerical bonuses needed to progress at the rate the game expects you to. Rather than make intellectually bankrupt arguments about how the variant rule explicitly intended to let the GM forget about the essential power bits of magic items doesn't force you to forget about the essential power bits of magic items it doesn't cover, even though I never state or imply this in my original post (but hey, I'm the one making the strawman!), you could perhaps start advocating easy and positive change, or at least not getting blue in the face shouting against it.
BTW you could've found a slight actual RAW problem in addition to those Finoan mentioned: potency bonuses don't substitute potency runes in allowing property runes ('The armor can be etched with one property rune' parts). The devs forgot that before and haven't fixed it now. But whatever, just add this back for potency bonuses. Nobody said that these additional optional rules are airtight. What they don't say is 'remove all magic items right now!!!' And GM could always do that without ABP anyway. With consequences.
What an excellent suggestion! Perhaps you could make your own thread about it, so that I can then tell you how wrong you are for daring to suggest that Paizo is forcing you to abandon property runes.
... but less sarcastically, do you realize how this defeats your point? Like, putting aside all the times ABP explicitly says you can just exclude magic items from your game, attack potency bonuses replacing weapon potency runes, removing weapon potency runes, but not actually giving you the ability to slot in property runes means you cannot add property runes to your weapon even if you wanted to. The variant therefore does in fact force you not to use property runes, unless of course you're using the kind of premade magic item the variant is designed to not make you reliant on. You can say the devs "forgot", but that to me looks like a feature and not a bug.
So people shouldn't treat the chart as being a list of "must haves", nor as a exhaustive list of what you get if you choose to use the variant rule.
So if the rule for automatically giving the party all of the bonuses that are essential to their progression isn't good for any of that... what is it for? Putting aside how the variant repeatedly mentions that you can run games without magic items or party treasure with it, it very clearly aims to cover the essentials, so I don't think players can be faulted for expecting it to do what it says on the tin.
... but also, what's with this all of this bizarre player self-hate? Like, we all seem to be clearly aware that this variant is imperfect and could be improved, but rather than admit this, most of us here would seemingly rather attack one another or the players just wanting to use the variant rule for the temerity of wanting it to work. Surely we could be having more productive conversation than this?
With the one paragraph overflow from p82 to 83 considered, it looks like Paizo had a goal of about one page per variant. And that within that limitation they did not necessarily put the valua you, teridax, have, on creating exact mathematical matches to the core system.
Notice that you have conspicuously failed to answer the question: I am well aware that Paizo did not dedicate huge amounts of work towards amending ABP, because they were on a tight schedule and had bigger priorities, so I am very much not faulting Paizo for prioritizing other work. Now, answer the question: why settle for cautionary text when it is both possible and not exceedingly difficult to amend ABP to include those bonuses? Now that we know that ABP is imperfect in ways that are easy to quantify, why not actually do something about it and propose a change that is sure to improve it?
You've pointed out that damage averages are lower, which probably everyone know. But that's a white room sort of observation, and it sounds like you haven't played ABP to see how much of a difference it makes to average rounds per encounter or how much damage PCs take or how often they go down. What you have is data. That's not play findings. You have an hypothesis, not an experimental result. I'm saying go run the experiment before you insist the publisher must change it's game rules.
This is quite possibly the most hilariously misguided confusion of buzzwords I have seen in a long time. When it can be mathematically demonstrated that damage is missing that would otherwise be there, that is only a "white room" observation in the sense that it literally does not require any sort of specific element of play to be true, and would not change in any situation. I have in fact played many games with ABP, from my first campaign in Pathfinder 2e to campaigns I run with friends and colleagues at work. I do therefore in fact have plenty of data to work with from experience, and not just cold, hard math. That you seem to believe that data is not the thing that leads to useful insights and information shows you do not understand what data is or what the experimental method is for, which further evidences that you're only insisting I conduct "experiments" to reach a foregone conclusion just because you don't want to engage with what's being said right now.
Well that's just not true. Me disagreeing with you /= me not thinking about it.
Correct, your disagreement itself is not an abdication of intellectual responsibility. Your deliberate refusal to engage with the topic of discussion, however, along with your milquetoast attempts to dismiss mathematically demonstrable facts on spurious grounds and excessive focus on the letter of the variant rule rather than the spirit, is.
You say 'inconsistency' like it's some horrible failure in a variant rule,
Are you sure this is me saying this, and not just you feeling that way? Because I don't think inconsistencies are some horrible failure, nor did I at any point declare Paizo to have some anything reprehensible here. I simply said I was pointing out an inconsistency, is all, and I in fact defended Paizo's decision not to change ABP more earlier in this thread. That you chose to impute such hostility to an otherwise only mildly critical comment underlines that your breathless defense of Paizo's variant rule is not a rational defense here, but an emotional one. Me pointing out an inconsistency and you reading it as if it were some horrible failure became as so in your mind, and now you've decided I'm some horribly unfair critic to be defeated in argument, rather than someone making a reasonable point and offering reasonable suggestions.
but the whole point of a variant rule is that it is different from the standard.
It is also the purpose of variant rules to be minimally disruptive to balance outside of their intended scope, while also fulfilling their intended scope accurately. This is why the Alternative Scores variant, which did not get reprinted in GM Core, is considered such a terrible variant, as it is tremendously disruptive and massively imbalances ability scored in its own way.
What this comes down to is that you, teridax, want the official ABP to be an exact mathematical match to core, and Paizo's official ABP variant is not that. But they didn't intend it to be. We know that because they say right in the description of ABP that damage will likely be lower. So you're not offering a "fix" because nothing was broken. Instead, you dislike what the variant does and wish it functioned a different way. You're offering a variant of the variant which you prefer. Which is fine. Go play that variant variant. Tell us how it works.
I have told you how it works, it's right there in the OP. You can test this out if you like, but when the matter is one of simple math, that is not necessary to prove what has already been demonstrated. It is disingenuous to claim that ABP intends to be flawed, because it clearly aims for balance and has no reason not to, and it is understandable that there would be a disclaimer when Paizo was releasing GM Core under heavy scheduling constraints and likely did not consider reworking a variant rule to be their top priority. You are correct that I do in fact want ABP to fully accomplish what it sets out to do, hence the proposals that anyone can incorporate into their use of the variant if you so wish. If the mere suggestion of this on a public forum offends you, feel free to ignore this thread and its contents, and not apply any of them to your use of ABP, should you ever feature it in your games. Trying to shoo me and this this thread away as if it were trying to harm someone or something, however, is a tremendous show of unwarranted defensiveness that underlines a profound insecurity with the product you have chosen to invest emotionally into. Paizo and Pathfinder are not going to fall over and break at the slightest show of constructive criticism, nor do they need you white-knighting for them on these forums. In fact, judging by how they repeatedly ask people not to debate others' feedback on their playtest threads, it appears the developers are weary of the kind of noise you're generating at this very moment.
In the variant rules section, you want to argue for consistency with the standard rules? Yes lol, that's an argument you'll have to make.
Why? Why create this arbitrary separation in standards between variant and non-variant rules that feature in the same rulebook? Please, by all means, point to me where the game just expects the variant rules to break the game, because even the cautionary text for variant rules only talks about them not fulfilling what the GM wanted out of them. If a variant rule sets out to do something, there is no reason why it shouldn't try to do it right, and you will notice in variants like Free Archetype that the developers do in fact aim to minimally disrupt balance whenever possible. In fact, that's the very point of ABP, which aims to let GM run games with less of a focus on magic weapons and still have players gain power as if they were receiving all of their essential bonuses at the right levels.
And you don't know if they don't work because you've never tried them in a real game, have you?
I do not need to run a playtest to know that two plus two equals four. I do not need to physically stack two identical objects on top of two more identical objects because I, a human being that can do basic math, am able to do this in my head, and the scope of what is being discussed is pure math. For what it's worth, I have run encounters with my alterations and, surprise surprise, martial classes under this variant were dealing exactly the same damage as if they had maxed-out weapons with full damage property runes for their level. Who'd have thought? Of course, as a human being who can probably do basic math, you could probably have guessed this already, but have instead chosen to double down on trying to dismiss even simple mathematics out of sheer defensiveness.
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Just a point of order, damage numbers and %'s often don't matter. The thing that matters is time to kill. If a fighter takes two hits to kill something with or without stacking elemental runes then that extra damage is useless. So you could figure out that the extra damage only matters at certain levels and against certain creatures or in certain parties. How often it matters is likely so low that it's not considered a valuable data point for balance.
We could talk about damage variables and how often they might matter, but I don't think that has anything to do with ABP. Variant rules require more system mastery to use effectively, so if you don't see that you still need to offer flaming or frost weapons to those that want that extra damage edge then I would say that's a system knowledge error, ABP just bakes in all the bland must have bonuses. Extra damage property runes aren't must have, they are likely just a popular option.
ABP also f&~#s around with AC making naked better than heavy armour (especially without runes).
But property runes being missing is probably fine, I'm pretty sure damage runes aren't actually included in the expected damage math.
This is true, the bit about being naked though could likely be solved by having the bonus only apply to Explorer's Clothing or armor. I would be very surprised if damage property runes weren't included in damage math, because the difference is massive and the remastered version of the rules even call out that you'll be dealing less damage.
Just a point of order, damage numbers and %'s often don't matter. The thing that matters is time to kill. If a fighter takes two hits to kill something with or without stacking elemental runes then that extra damage is useless. So you could figure out that the extra damage only matters at certain levels and against certain creatures or in certain parties. How often it matters is likely so low that it's not considered a valuable data point for balance.
I don't actually think that's entirely true, because time to kill is a function of damage dealt and a monster's Hit Points, and while both follow fairly consistent ranges, Pathfinder is not a game of same-HP encounters where you just deal average damage until one side falls over. Sometimes your damage dice will roll low, and just having more dice can mean having extra +1s and +2s that kill the monster before they can do some serious damage on their next turn, and sometimes you'll crit, and every damage die becomes much more impactful, to the point where you could end up killing a monster far more quickly than anticipated. More damage will make a difference unless you're somehow so overpowered that you'd be one-shotting everything in sight, which thankfully doesn't happen in non-trivial encounters. In the case of that d4 ranged weapon, dealing two-thirds more damage absolutely will make a difference, no doubt about that.
We could talk about damage variables and how often they might matter, but I don't think that has anything to do with ABP. Variant rules require more system mastery to use effectively, so if you don't see that you still need to offer flaming or frost weapons to those that want that extra damage edge then I would say that's a system knowledge error, ABP just bakes in all the bland must have bonuses. Extra damage property runes aren't must have, they are likely just a popular option.
But they're not "just a popular opinion", even the variant itself says your average damage will drop from the lack of those runes. That is an implicit admission that damage property runes are frequently picked on weapons to the point of basically being factored in as a normal part of their damage. ABP is also a variant designed to simplify the GM's job, which is why it is such a popular variant among new GMs who don't want to worry too hard about managing the party's loot drops as they figure out how to run a game of Pathfinder. Not realizing that your damage is too low from a lack of those runes isn't a system knowledge error, it's a case of the variant not including a numeric increase that it ought to have. Perhaps the damage type you choose with your property rune is interesting, but the damage increase itself is bland, very much like the extra damage from a striking rune. I don't see how one can be dismissed as optional or somehow unique while the other is considered a literally fundamental part of character progression in the game.
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I mean, the ABP rules quite significantly call out that Property runes are not on the list of things that are automatically removed, thus sort of implying that they are supposed to be part of the ABP treasure calculation.
"But what about where it says things like 'if they exist at all' and 'you can ignore party treasure'? Doesn't that mean that you're able to do that?"
Yes. Yes you do that, but you don't have to. In fact, the ABP rules give you a specific warning that if you do that you are making the game harder for your players. The way it reads, that is a totally acceptable option for a GM to make, so long as the GM understands that the reality of that choice is a more difficult progression.
"But the ABP rules say they are there to remove numerical bonuses!"
What does that have to do with anything? Most property runes don't give out numerical bonuses.
"What do you mean? Flaming gives you 1d6 fire damage."
Yes, I understand that. What is your point?
"Those are numbers!"
That's a die. If it gave a numerical bonus it would be something like a +2 fire damage. Numerical bonuses are set numbers, die bonuses are a range of numbers determined randomly often by rolling an appropriately sized die.
Simply put, the ABP rules very blatantly and obviously state "Hey, if you remove more magic items than the ones we specifically listed the math isn't going to math the same way and the game will be harder."
I'm not seeing a false choice here.
I mean, the ABP rules quite significantly call out that Property runes are not on the list of things that are automatically removed, thus sort of implying that they are supposed to be part of the ABP treasure calculation.
As has been mentioned here, it is in fact not possible to etch property runes onto your weapons with ABP, because the attack potency bonuses that replace weapon potency runes do not feature the bit that lets you etch property runes. The rules also state that as the GM, "you can ignore as much of the Party Treasure by Level table on page 59 as you want," so there is no ABP treasure calculation to speak of.
"But the ABP rules say they are there to remove numerical bonuses!"What does that have to do with anything? Most property runes don't give out numerical bonuses.
Most don't, except for the ones that do, are routinely used to fill property rune spaces on weapons, and are explicitly mentioned by name in the disclaimer on ABP that states your damage will fall off without these.
"What do you mean? Flaming gives you 1d6 fire damage."Yes, I understand that. What is your point?
I'm curious: what is your point? Do numbers not matter in a crunchy tabletop game?
"Those are numbers!"That's a die. If it gave a numerical bonus it would be something like a +2 fire damage. Numerical bonuses are set numbers, die bonuses are a range of numbers determined randomly often by rolling an appropriately sized die.
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... I'm sorry, what?
Of course extra damage dice are numerical bonuses. An extra d6 of damage corresponds to +3.5 damage per hit on average. That's why striking runes are included in ABP as well. Do you seriously believe numerical bonuses are literally only just integers?
Simply put, the ABP rules very blatantly and obviously state "Hey, if you remove more magic items than the ones we specifically listed the math isn't going to math the same way and the game will be harder."I'm not seeing a false choice here.
So, putting aside the reasons to take your judgment on the matter with a grain of salt, I think this is also beside the point. For some reason, a lot of players seem to have taken to defending the letter of ABP, as if it were being put on trial for being maliciously deceptive, when the point to this thread is more: "hey, there's a couple of things you could easily add to ABP to make the math work". The point isn't that ABP is bad and you shouldn't use it, ABP is great, and I personally use it all the time. The point is that it could be even better with a few small changes, and including these in your games if you use ABP would solve those math problems and avoid the hidden pitfalls that occur when using ABP as printed.
I generally don't use APB for a bunch of reasons, but mostly because it really flattens the game around character build choices and because there is so much interesting and great equipment that has been made for the game.
Characters only ever getting better when they level and then getting all the additional benefits of equipment on top of what they get every level just makes the game progression curve too choppy for me in the first place, but the scroll thing in particular has me voting against using APB in any game I get a choice about it. Extra spells per day will just never really adequately represent a casters ability to use scrolls to cover the broad range of solutions and options that scrolls bring to the table.
As far as property runes specifically, between the different damage types, critical effects, and options that do different things than just base damage, I don't think trying to equalize the game math with just the damage numbers will cut it either. I would always recommend anyone using APB to not use it to cut items out entirely, just the flat number items that don't do anything else interesting.
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I generally don't use APB for a bunch of reasons, but mostly because it really flattens the game around character build choices and because there is so much interesting and great equipment that has been made for the game.
Characters only ever getting better when they level and then getting all the additional benefits of equipment on top of what they get every level just makes the game progression curve too choppy for me in the first place, but the scroll thing in particular has me voting against using APB in any game I get a choice about it. Extra spells per day will just never really adequately represent a casters ability to use scrolls to cover the broad range of solutions and options that scrolls bring to the table.
As far as property runes specifically, between the different damage types, critical effects, and options that do different things than just base damage, I don't think trying to equalize the game math with just the damage numbers will cut it either. I would always recommend anyone using APB to not use it to cut items out entirely, just the flat number items that don't do anything else interesting.
I think all of this is a fair take, and I agree that just copying the 1d6 damage increases or giving casters an extra spell slot per rank won't capture the fullness of the magic item system (and thank goodness for that). I do think it's good that it supports low/no-magic settings up to a point, though anyone who cuts PF2e's magic items out of their game is also missing out.
Damage runes are absolutely not factored into the assumed baseline.
You can look at the creature building guidelines and see the HP values at various levels and then details like moderate column at level 7 to 8 the maximum of the range goes up by about 20% and then from 8 to 9 goes up by about 20%, but the leaning of those "abouts" switches direction because it goes from slightly more than 20% to slightly less than 20%, where the opposite would be true if the higher damage capability of using property runes that do damage rather than any other property rune available (because you can't actually have both) were influencing HP values.
So, by your own admission, the HP of monsters increases proportionately to the damage increase brought about by property runes at those levels? Sounds an awful lot like they're factored in to me. I'm not terribly sure why we're factoring in the relative increase from levels 8 to 9 here, but it is in fact normal for the relative returns to diminish over time, since every additional damage die you add is a comparatively smaller increase in damage.
That IS an answer to your question. They settled for cautionary text because they didn't want to spend more page text on a system which would have been a closer numerical match. It's also not clear that they even had the design intent which you think they did (i.e. to make it mathematically equivalent to the core system). I think that's an unwarranted assumption.
The developers have explicitly stated on numerous occasions that all of the remastered rulebooks had to be fitted into an already tight production pipeline, forcing them to work extremely quickly and under a lot of pressure. The only "unwarranted assumptions" here stem from your own baseless assumptions of intent regarding page space. Once again, you're conspicuously refusing to answer the question presented to you, which demonstrates just how afraid you are to actually engage with the topic at hand. What's wrong with amending a variant rule a little when doing so would benefit it? We can talk about why Paizo didn't want to do it on release, but that does not answer the question of what to do about it now.
You, teridax, think it is imperfect. You, teridax, think it should be changed to be a closer numerical match. There is no indication that the devs thought this or had this objective. A variant where the PCs do slightly less damage /= failure or game breakage like you think, it's just a variant.
But ABP is objectively flawed; and several people here besides me have given clear examples as to why. Just with regards to damage, ABP clearly aims to automate the essential bonuses tied to item progression and doesn't do that to the fullest extent. It is you, Easl, who wants to pretend that it is perfect, because you're the sort of person who treats any criticism of their pet hobby as a personal attack. Notice how you're the one continually using hyperbolic terms like "failure" or "game breakage", which I've never used or even implied: you're taking this mild criticism of a minor game mechanic quite personally, and it doesn't seem like you can take criticism at all.
Okay, so how did you change ABP and how well did it work?
I integrated those bonuses, and characters at my tables were dealing exactly as much damage in encounters as if they had full property runes for their level. I'd say it was pretty much a complete success. Does this surprise you?
I feel that your entire thread would've received a lot more constructive feedback if you had started with "hey all, I tried this change in ABP and it worked really well, here's a description of one scene...what does everyone think?" Rather than 'Paizo made a terrible game-breaking error in their variant rule, because the damage of high level weapons isn't the same. They must errata this to make it mathematically closer to the nonvariant rules.'
I don't think it would've, because I did not in fact claim that Paizo made a "terrible game-breaking error". You are living proof that no matter what tone I'd adopted for my thread, you would still have been there to tone police the delusionally hostile interpretation of my thread you'd have constructed in your mind, as it would have still contained the nugget of criticism that so upsets you.
Because it's a variant. A variant means different from the standard.
Yes, that is what words mean, now explain why altering the standard rules of the game exempts this rule from common standards of design. Your attempts at semantic conflation are not terribly subtle.
Look, there's several regular posters on these boards who like more difficult combat encounters.
That's great, and the game caters to this with encounter-building rules! That is not, however, what ABP is about, as ABP is about automating away the need for magic items in your games. If ABP also makes encounters harder, that is going to make using the encounter-building rules a little harder, because encounters are going to be more difficult than advertized. Once again, if ABP included a fuller range of bonuses, this would not be the case, and fans of harder combats would still be able to run those severe and extreme encounters to their heart's content.
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No. The opposite.
The increase in HP of monsters appears to occur at a steady rate despite that player damage increases occur at particular level ranges.
There is no evidence of an increase design to counter-balance acquisition of a property rune.
If damage runes were part of the baseline there would be an extra increase in creature HP at the levels that they become available, not a steady rate of increase, and especially not a steady rate which trends toward smaller and smaller increases at every level.
So, just to be clear, your claim is that a damage increase is only factored in if there is a corresponding exceptional increase in monster HP at the level where the increase becomes available? Let's test that claim right now:
So I think it's safe to say you're operating from a false premise. Because even the damage increase from striking runes, which are in fact essential to character progression and factored into monster math, does not cause jumps in monster HP at milestone levels, we should not be expecting monster HP to jump at levels where damage property runes exist. There is therefore no reason to presume the lack of such jumps precludes damaging property runes from being factored into monster math, and given how both the variant notes the reduction in damage from lacking these runes, and the math in the OP evidences that the damage increase from these runes is quite significant (again, it can go up to 66%), I'd say it's safe to assume that they are.
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Hmm. A little tangential to the argument currently at hand, but it has made me realize something.
I don't think I like the damage-adding property runes from a fundamental perspective. Er... property respective?
Regardless, adding dice of damage on top of your weapon damage is just... not interesting, and it leads to the unfortunate psychological cycle of reinforcing upfront damage as a means to optimize rather than what runes are ostensibly presenting themselves as: weapon customization options.
When faced with the "option" of etching, say, a Coating rune versus a Thundering rune onto your +1 striking greatsword, unless you're really committing yourself to the idea of applying injury poisons, there's not really a choice at all - the Thundering rune provides consistent damage on every single hit, and it even has a critical effect as a cherry on top. It's just the better option in nearly every case.
I don't think runes should ever provide upfront damage. Damage riders on crits, like the persistent fire damage from the flaming rune? Sure. Activities or special actions you can take that give you damage either as an instantaneous effect (a la swarming) or for a short time (like the energizing or conducting runes)? That's interesting. Perhaps the current energy damage runes could be changed to convert a number of your weapon's damage dice to that damage type, but never just add extra dice.
In a perfect world, all the runes would be balanced against one-another, but since 2e has so many cogs and levers to mess with, we know that wouldn't be the case. But as long as they were all at the very least sidegrades to one-another within "a reasonable tolerance" I think that would be fine.
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I'm in complete agreement with this. This is the major reason why I'd like to decouple bonus damage from damage property runes even outside of ABP -- more damage is just not interesting as you say, but because it's desirable, it often crowds out more interesting options. A game in which damage property runes merely converted some of your existing damage to damage of a certain type would be more interesting to me than a game in which those runes also added damage, and in my opinion would enable a greater diversity of property rune choices.
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Amending the rule right now requires resources; labor to do the system rethink and rewrite, labor for copy editing the pdf if the new content rolls over onto the next page, labor to test the proposed new system (unless you want them to publish it untested). That all just gets you an errata file or new pdf; if Paizo wanted to get this change into GM core print, they would also have to do a new production run of the GM core.
Personally, I'd rather those intellectual resources and labor go to new products rather than this. The opportunity cost of the change you suggest just doesn't justify it. But that's my peresonal preference, and YMMV.
Who said anything about right now? We all know Paizo takes time to errata and that's fine, that's still something worth including for whenever the next errata cycle occurs. Paizo does not solely dedicate their focus towards new products, and errata is part of what guarantees their products' quality over time, along with remasters like the one they've chosen to undertake for Guns & Gears out of the blue.
Maybe we are closer to each other's position than you think? If Paizo wanted to publish additional 'variant rules' systems in a future book, and they picked "same damage ABP" as one of the pages to put into that, I'd be fine with it. I am certainly not opposed to a variant that exactly matches the current weapon DPR system without using magic weapons. Let a thousand variants bloom. I'm not sure it's entirely necessary and there may be more interesting variations which would compete for that space, but in theory, that sounds like a good way for them to address your advocacy of an ABP which more mathematically matches the core system.
That sounds fine by me. I do maintain that this is in fact what ABP itself originally set out to do in the first place, with the disclaimer being the best Paizo could do in the remaster given limited time rather than an indended disruption to balance, but if we get a second version of ABP that addresses all of the flaws of the original, I'll be very happy.
I disagree. "Flawed" is a subjective assessment based on your assumption that ABP is supposed to exactly emulate the math of the base system. But that assumption is not in the book, it's just something you want it to do. What's in the book is the statement that using ABP will cause damage to be lower because it doesn't include property runes.
You don't seem to understand: ABP isn't just flawed because the math isn't quite right, it's objectively flawed for obvious reasons that have already been pointed out here. It doesn't factor in the Kineticist's item bonus to impulse attack rolls from gate attenuators, it doesn't account for a PC going naked at a +7 Dex mod and ending up with more AC than they would with armor, and it doesn't account for spells and alchemical items that provide advance access to item bonuses. All of these are flaws in ABP, and if your only defense is to shift the goalposts and claim that ABP never intended to cover any of these, what is the variant even for?
You use phrase "objectively flawed" for a subjective judgment in the same post in which you accuse me of hyperbole.
Correct, because it is. That is not hyperbolic, but the emotional weight you assign to it is.
In your first post you call the issue "crucial" and "glaring."
So, I went back to my post to find where this was said, and here is the offending paragraph in question:
Despite appearances, ABP does in fact miss a few crucial elements: many who have run this variant will have noticed how it doesn't cover the scrolls, staves, and wands that form the core of caster item progression, and we'll talk about that, but first, let's talk about the other, less talked-about glaring issue with both ABP and the game's math, which is damage property runes.
It seems like the issue itself isn't "crucial", but the entire matter of caster item progression is in fact crucial to casters, as I'm sure you'll agree. Similarly, the "glaring issue" being discussed isn't exclusive to ABP, it's to do with damage property runes, which do in fact run directly counter to 2e's general philosophy of baking those kinds of numerical increases directly into core progression instead of making them out as options. Had you actually read the post, instead of quote-mining it out of context, you would have seen the bit where I explain this in detail, with facts and data to support my point.
In your 12:51 reply to me you said "point to me where the game just expects the variant rules to break the game", implying you think this variant breaks the game.
I see we're achieving Stretch Armstrong levels of reaching here. Let's look at that quote, shall we?
Why? Why create this arbitrary separation in standards between variant and non-variant rules that feature in the same rulebook? Please, by all means, point to me where the game just expects the variant rules to break the game, because even the cautionary text for variant rules only talks about them not fulfilling what the GM wanted out of them.
In the variant rules section, you want to argue for consistency with the standard rules? Yes lol, that's an argument you'll have to make.
Note how my response is directed squarely at your spurious claim, which by the way you have yet to justify, that variant rules are held to different standards of design from non-variant rules. The implication is not that ABP breaks the game, the implication is that variant rules don't break the game, because they're held to the same standard of design as regular rules, which expects them to be only as disruptive to the game as their goal needs them to be. Are you conscious of just how much mental gymnastics you're deploying here to justify yourself?
So maybe if you don't want me to attribute phrases like 'break the game' to you, you shouldn't use the phrase 'break the game'?
Or you could, I don't know, maybe not quote me out of context? It's not just that it's poor form; as you have probably noticed I am the kind of person who does their research: I will pull those quotes in proper context, show them to you, and point to you exactly where you lied. If you want to continue embarrassing yourself, feel free to continue making dishonest arguments, but it seems like you might actually agree with me deep down, so it'd be a shame if you did.
I'll even extend a hand by correcting my mistakes (you say 'lies', but I do dispute that. I am absolutely not trying to lie about your position.) So, corrected version: you do not think the lack of ABP equivalencies to property rune damage is a 'glaring' issue, or a 'crucial' one, and you don't think it 'breaks the game'. And you are not asking for Paizo to fix it 'right now.' Have I now characterized your position correctly?
Correct. I am a very big fan of ABP; the first GM I played Pathfinder 2e with used it to simplify item progression, and I use it in many of my games as well for similar reasons. I absolutely love the variant and am glad it's back in GM Core. I simply believe there are a few simple additions that could make the variant rule even more effective at what it achieves, not just for me but for the many other players who use it, and would be happy to see the variant adjusted in some future errata.
Hmm. A little tangential to the argument currently at hand, but it has made me realize something.
I don't think I like the damage-adding property runes from a fundamental perspective. Er... property respective?
Regardless, adding dice of damage on top of your weapon damage is just... not interesting, and it leads to the unfortunate psychological cycle of reinforcing upfront damage as a means to optimize rather than what runes are ostensibly presenting themselves as: weapon customization options.
Yeah, agreed. The other runes are really fun. I got lots of use out of Shifting. My son's Fighter had a blast with Extending (critting a flying Hag that didn't realize it was actually in danger was hilarious), and such. It's a shame that damage ones can kind of overshadow those fun things and it's kind of a shame when people just opt to stack damage on top of damage.
Yeah, while the critique of ABP feels off to me, I agree the d6 property runes feel a bit too fundamental to me. It's not something I think can be fixed until PF3 though.
The simplest solution would be creating more striking runes at those levels instead, but that's gonna get weird with the treasure values and driving d12 weapons even further ahead. Adding d6s would be balanced but would feel clunky.
You could then have a flaming rune basically just trigger fire weakness, which would be consistent with other mechanics like cold iron. But my preference would be property runes actually transmuting the properties of the weapon a la extending-- flaming giving you an option to completely change your damage type to fire at will.
I'd actually quite like more striking runes so that you basically go up a damage die every 3 levels, as that would make for super-smooth damage progression. I do agree it'd favor high damage die weapons significantly, though, plus it'd have several knock-on effects that'd need adjusting, like the deadly and fatal traits working off of those runes or additional damage dice, along with some other mechanics. Adding more d6s at levels 8, 10, and 16 would be the simplest solution, provided prices were adjusted for property runes at those levels.
I'm also in agreement that allowing those runes to transmute your weapon's damage to their type would be better than just having those weapons trigger some weaknesses. One way to go about this, in my opinion, could be to implement level 2 property runes that just let you Interact to switch your weapon's damage type to that of the property rune, or back to the weapon's original damage type. At level 8, you could get the version that does that, plus its on-crit effects (but no bonus damage on a hit), and at level 15 you'd get all of that with the improved effects.
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Since you can use extending and speed to great use there's no need to use extra damage, just the desire. The rules don't need to be changed for a desire of a subset of players, as a GM you can do that. Also none of the variant rules simplify anything, they all make the GMs job more complicated.
I've never played with ABP, but I have the opposite view of Unicore. I think the standard item requirements focus too hard on number boosts instead of doing cool things. If I wanted to enhance my athletics somehow my only option was a lifting belt, because that +1 was great even if the belts effect didn't do anything for me. It took a while to actually have cool item selection in PF2, for a long while there wasn't a lot of interesting items to choose from. If ABP gets rid of the number boosts then your free to just buy cool items. If casters are getting the short end then just have them give you a wish list and drop them extra caster items and things from their list now and again.
I actually like mixing items with BattleZoo monster parts for maximum options. Add in relic items and my hoarding tendencies can be fulfilled. I don't think ABP should be used to get rid of all gear, but to get rid of the boring number boosting items to let you choose more interesting things. Otherwise just give all those items on top of what you normally would, whatever lets people have interesting and useful gear.
Note that I don't think ABP, FA or AP, even together, unbalance the game so much. So might just be desiring different experiences.
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I think the problem is that non-damaging runes can be good, but damage property runes are good every time your hit. It is that consistency that makes them such dominant picks. In neither case though can you equip these property runes with ABP.
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I mostly agree with you.
To the people arguing that it isn't taking away caster items most of the time. It actually is, because the caster gold is reduced to compensate for the free fundamental runes, so even in the best case scenario it's still flawed.
Fundamental runes on weapons are just comparatively less useful on a caster than a martial, and casters would rather be spending that gold on other items most of the time anyway.
I'm of the mind that ABP should be the default. I don't see a good argument for having gold taxes for specific items exist for the game to be playable. It's just not interesting, I see no reason for it. You can easily create interesting magic items that aren't mandatory math boosts. The mandatory math boosts just feel like a sacred cow that just makes the game worse.
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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.
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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.
We know that there are folks at paizo that don't like APB and prefer items be a meaningful part of the game math. James Jacobs has repeatedly defended having treasure in adventures because it breaks up the plateau effect of only leveling up leading to changes that feel like character growth and that by being able to place the occasional over-leveled item a floor too early in the dungeon, the adventure writer/GM has an extra bag of goodies to give out to players.
The play test looked at much greater variance of item bonuses and that got dialed down as well, so if there had been a desire on the part of the developers to move towards no item bonuses, it would have made a lot more sense to test it that way to begin with, and change it if players didn't like it.
Personally, I feel like leveling up is already such a massive boost of power for players just because of adding level to proficiency that I do not personally like how much more stuff gets tagged on to leveling up with a lot of the variant rules, such as with APB or Free-Archetypes (even though the folks I play with love free-archetype, so I let them them have it when I GM even though I don't like it).
People on these boards talk about how "mandatory" specific items are at specific levels, but the truth is that I see player prioritize all kinds of equipment in play: sometimes shields, some times consumables, sometimes skill items or miscellaneous items that do interesting things; and a lot of that is possible because "eh, I can probably wait one or two more encounters before I will either find that item without selling off a bunch of loot I want to use, or we are making so much more gold now, I will have it before we get to a serious threat," is perfectly reasonable logic in this game.
For example, my one PC I am getting to play right now, a level 8 wizard, has no weapons and no armor runes. I use Mystic Armor to cover the AC and saves, and that has freed up 500 gp for scrolls. Up until level 7 it was only costing me a rank 1 spell, and while now, at level 8, it is going to cost me one of my rank 4 spells, I just completed a dungeon where our characters went from level 6 to level 8 without ever resting. So even if I had bought 1 scroll of rank 4 mystic armor, I could have 6 more rank 4 spells available on scrolls for that much (or oodles of lower ranked scrolls, which is how I got through that nearly 1700 xp dungeon without being useless to my party).
The amount of wealth that APB takes away by giving every character bonuses that they can often get situationally when they need them in this game is no minor issue.
I think we're talking about slightly different things here: you're talking about character progression through items, whereas I'm talking specifically about all the aspects of item progression that make you more powerful without adding gameplay. I do think items should exist to make a character feel like they're progressing, and should let characters do new things. Attacking more accurately or dealing more damage isn't doing new things, it's doing the same thing better. In this respect, ABP makes the GM's job easier, because it you find a cool bit of gear that does something interesting but is underleveled, you can still throw it in and your party will be able to use it immediately, without having to pay for fundamental runes first. The end goal here isn't to eliminate magic items from the game (though ABP should let you run games with no magic items fairly smoothly), so much as make the actual magic in magic items interesting regardless of the boring-but-functional bonuses that may be on them.
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Idk, if monster stats are made with the assumption that the item bonuses are there then I don't think numerical bonuses from gear should be a thing. No power from items, just options. The rest of PF2e's entire paradigm is predicated on the chargen build math being out of your hands so item potency seems like a vestigial sacred cow....and I'm always down for tasty burgers
Idk, if monster stats are made with the assumption that the item bonuses are there then I don't think numerical bonuses from gear should be a thing. No power from items, just options. The rest of PF2e's entire paradigm is predicated on the chargen build math being out of your hands so item potency seems like a vestigial sacred cow....and I'm always down for tasty burgers
Much as I do enjoy a good sacred cow burger, that's almost certainly going to have to wait until 3e. There is no simple or easy way to rework the monster math around eliminating item bonuses, at least not on the fly in a manner that would easily benefit a GM interested enough in doing this. If we're taking damage dice out of weapons, that also raises the question of what to do about damaging spells, which would overtake weapons dramatically just through heightening. There are a lot of knock-on effects to this.
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I think we're talking about slightly different things here: you're talking about character progression through items, whereas I'm talking specifically about all the aspects of item progression that make you more powerful without adding gameplay. I do think items should exist to make a character feel like they're progressing, and should let characters do new things. Attacking more accurately or dealing more damage isn't doing new things, it's doing the same thing better. In this respect, ABP makes the GM's job easier, because it you find a cool bit of gear that does something interesting but is underleveled, you can still throw it in and your party will be able to use it immediately, without having to pay for fundamental runes first. The end goal here isn't to eliminate magic items from the game (though ABP should let you run games with no magic items fairly smoothly), so much as make the actual magic in magic items interesting regardless of the boring-but-functional bonuses that may be on them.
I am definitely still talking about all the flat number adding items.
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.
With even all the flat number items, the party has choices to make when they find that +1 short sword in the second room of the very first first level dungeon. Do they give it to the fighter who specialized in flails? probably not. It is a pretty juicy option for the rogue for now, even though they went and got themselves an Elven Curved blade to start, because a +1 to attack is probably worth more than the larger damage dice. Will the rune eventually get moved? Almost certainly, and eventually both characters will desperately want one, but right now, in the dungeon, the players have an opportunity for the rogue to shine a little brighter for a couple of encounters until more treasure is found/there is time to move runes around. This adds more in play opportunity for the number boosting items to be moments of increased power for players that eventually fall back into balance, and for players to customize their characters more around the things that are important to them, even in the moment (like the rogue using the magic short sword that was found to land a couple more hits in the dungeon than they would have sticking with their curved blade.
The issue you describe is on GMs finding interesting under-leveled items, but the GM can just use a higher level version of the item/add a cool rune if they want. The game absolutely does not break from GMs being over generous with treasure. It equalizes on its own very quickly and it lets you get a little more challenging with encounters in certain places where you have really stacked the players up with shiny loot.
As far as the monster numbers increasing around item bonuses, again, APB makes this far worse than with regular treasure. Monsters don't get their bonuses when the players find cool loot. Certain level jumps in monsters just present slightly greater challenges to players that encounter them at lower levels. Items actually become a way to help PCs face difficult monsters/encounters more easily because the bonuses don't sit around and wait for leveling. The thing that makes items boring is when you only get them exactly when you expect to and you never have the opportunity to use them a little early, or skip one bonus for a while to get a different one/use consumables or spells to cover a missed bonus so you have something else cool to do instead.
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.