Deriven, is it not also true that you could inflict the PCs own tactics upon them?
In my PFS experience, opponents' parties' dynamics are hugely different from those of a PC party.
There is usually no more than a single boss in a combat encounter.
While there is nothing similar to a boss in a PC party.
While true. Is this beyond PFS, or a PFS only problem?
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While true. Is this beyond PFS, or a PFS only problem?Deriven, is it not also true that you could inflict the PCs own tactics upon them?
In my PFS experience, opponents' parties' dynamics are hugely different from those of a PC party.
There is usually no more than a single boss in a combat encounter.
While there is nothing similar to a boss in a PC party.
I think it happens in all published adventures and most homebrewed ones, except when the GM takes great care in designing a rival party with dynamics similar to a PC party.
And even then, not all combat encounters will be against this specific party of PC-like opponents.
While true. Is this beyond PFS, or a PFS only problem?Deriven, is it not also true that you could inflict the PCs own tactics upon them?
In my PFS experience, opponents' parties' dynamics are hugely different from those of a PC party.
There is usually no more than a single boss in a combat encounter.
While there is nothing similar to a boss in a PC party.
I think it happens in all published adventures and most homebrewed ones, except when the GM takes great care in designing a rival party with dynamics similar to a PC party.
And even then, not all combat encounters will be against this specific party of PC-like opponents.
That is true, and was true in Pathfinder 1e. It was less of a problem because combat wasn't so "game-ified"
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I think PF2 made it much easier for the GM to build creatures and encounters.
Then the human proclivity for less efforts promotes having encounters with little diversity in the creatures and thus lower synergies than what you will find in a PCs party.
Ie, a bunch of minions or a boss or 2 or a mix of both.
Much easier to run than 4 bosses with synergies.
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Deriven, you didn't answer a question so much as complain how easy it was for your players to win certain encounters. Breaking the no-brains gameplay loop is equally easy, so long as you are willing to go off-script. I'm not defending Paizo (I also think the lack of natural counterplay for monsters is lame), I'm encouraging you to problem-solve.
If you already know how to do that (give monsters reaction shutdowns, kip up, athletics counterplay, etc), then include it in your analysis so you can help out other GMs in a similar situation.
This was the question I answered:
What are examples of terrible encounter design? The encounters that bug me are the ones that do not fit the setting or plot (Order of the Stick: Displaced Persons). Some maps in modules are smaller than I like, but that is understandable given the page limits.
Nothing was even brought up about my players in the answer to that question.
I very much do problem solve. Every edition of this game ever made. I'm glad it's so much easier to do in PF2. It was a nightmare in PF1/3E to rebuild encounters to survive PF1/3E optimization. A nightmare.
PF2 is a minor inconvenience. Paizo made PF2 so well balanced and tightly designed, re-design of encounters is a breeze compared to PF1/3E. That's why my group is playing it. I even get to play more since PF2 is so much easier for anyone to run. I haven't been able to play a character this often since 2nd Edition D&D.
Deriven, is it not also true that you could inflict the PCs own tactics upon them?
Yes. That does work sometimes. It doesn't work past the early levels for PCs.
Players have skill feats they get to counter those tactics like Kip Up and Nimble Crawl effectively making it so they can regain their feet as a free action and avoid off-guard while prone.
Kip Up you can take by level 7 or 8. Nimble Crawl eliminates off-guard prone at Legendary at level 15 or so.
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Deriven, is it not also true that you could inflict the PCs own tactics upon them?
In my PFS experience, opponents' parties' dynamics are hugely different from those of a PC party.
There is usually no more than a single boss in a combat encounter.
While there is nothing similar to a boss in a PC party.
This is also true.
A single solo boss using trip is a major disadvantage for them unless it's part of their usual attack routine. It eats up an action and sets up nothing for a solo boss.
I do use AOE slow with almost every high level caster that can have it or some similar effect. I definitely load enemy casters with ideal spells as PCs would choose. I don't try to get overly clever. Just impact spells like players would take.
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It's not a criticism of Paizo or PF2 because every single version of D&D or PF or any similar game has done the same thing. Thus the DM must analyze the rules, their group, and whatever other factors then design the encounter to make it as challenging as they want it to be.
Weak encounter design by module designers is not unique to Paizo at all. It's something I've dealt with since I used modules from the time I was young with rare exception. I think most module designers are more interested in other elements of the adventure than challenging encounter design. That's fine. I'm not paying them for challenging encounter design. I'm paying them for other elements of module design like story, maps, art, and a great framework I can modify and build on. Paizo does a great job at those elements I'm interested in paying for.
It's deliberate. They got complaints that early AP difficulty was too high, so they lowered it. It's really noticable in Season of Ghosts. James has talked about that. And it makes sense: APs are designed for a wide audience. Groups with high system mastery will probably make stronger characters, but Paizo wants to sell to people not doing that too. Those people getting TPK'd in book 1 are probably not having a great time. This used to come up a lot in online discussion. (Extinction Curse book 1, chapter 1, has an encounter that can literally one shot instant kill a tanky PC, and can do it pretty easily to a non-tanky PC.)
Groups with high system mastery are also better able to adjust encounters. So if an experienced GM wants harder encounters, they can scale them up. It's MUCH more difficult for a newbie GM to scale down, especially with a single boss encounter where it's not always obvious how to do that and they likely don't have the experience to even know when they should do it. (My experience is that scaling encounters up is easier than scaling encounters down in general.)
They're designing AP encounters so that casual groups can also use them. And while the power gap between optimizers and more casual players shrank massively from PF1, it didn't go away: you can definitely play PF2 in ways that are more effective than if you just run in and starts swinging all the time.
Then combine power creep of years of stuff being added, new classes, the remaster buffing a bunch of stuff, etc. A baseline AP encounter in 2019 would be harder than a baseline AP encounter in 2026 simply because PCs have gotten stronger even if they hadn't shifted the target difficulty.
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That is true, and was true in Pathfinder 1e. It was less of a problem because combat wasn't so "game-ified"While true. Is this beyond PFS, or a PFS only problem?Deriven, is it not also true that you could inflict the PCs own tactics upon them?
In my PFS experience, opponents' parties' dynamics are hugely different from those of a PC party.
There is usually no more than a single boss in a combat encounter.
While there is nothing similar to a boss in a PC party.
I think it happens in all published adventures and most homebrewed ones, except when the GM takes great care in designing a rival party with dynamics similar to a PC party.
And even then, not all combat encounters will be against this specific party of PC-like opponents.
Is this a serious comment? PF1 is absurdly gamified and a lot of completely ridiculous things happen in PF1 combat because of it.
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Is this a serious comment? PF1 is absurdly gamified and a lot of completely ridiculous things happen in PF1 combat because of it.That is true, and was true in Pathfinder 1e. It was less of a problem because combat wasn't so "game-ified"While true. Is this beyond PFS, or a PFS only problem?Deriven, is it not also true that you could inflict the PCs own tactics upon them?
In my PFS experience, opponents' parties' dynamics are hugely different from those of a PC party.
There is usually no more than a single boss in a combat encounter.
While there is nothing similar to a boss in a PC party.
I think it happens in all published adventures and most homebrewed ones, except when the GM takes great care in designing a rival party with dynamics similar to a PC party.
And even then, not all combat encounters will be against this specific party of PC-like opponents.
Oh yes. See "Tight Math" and "Illusion of Choice."
Pathfinder 2e is much stricter on tactical options. Because of that it plays like a Table Top Wargame, not an RPG.
I love Warhammer Fantasy Battles, but that's not what I am looking for in an RPG.
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Oh yes. See "Tight Math" and "Illusion of Choice."
Pathfinder 2e is much stricter on tactical options. Because of that it plays like a Table Top Wargame, not an RPG.
I love Warhammer Fantasy Battles, but that's not what I am looking for in an RPG.
The idea that this is somehow more gamified than a game you can literally win at character creation is pretty wild. PF1 is incredibly gamist. It's just that all the gamist parts happen before the combat actually starts, and if you do it correctly there is little need to actually run the fight at all.
Deriven, is it not also true that you could inflict the PCs own tactics upon them?
In my PFS experience, opponents' parties' dynamics are hugely different from those of a PC party.
There is usually no more than a single boss in a combat encounter.
While there is nothing similar to a boss in a PC party.
I have learned that I can temporarily memorize the most important stats of two types of enemies, such as a boss accompanied by identical minions, when I run a combat encounter. But when I have three types of enemies, such as a variety of guards, squad members, and squad leaders in a castle courtyard, then the numbers slip out of my head and I have to keep looking then up again, which slows down combat. An enemy party of four different characters would be worse.
The player character Cara'sseth had a backstory that she used to travel with an evil adventuring party that regularly erased her memories of their crimes. I got a description of those four rival party members and added then to the module Hurricane's Howl. The memory-erasing leader was 11th-level human aristocrat bard Aldric Albinus. The other three in the Treasure Hunter Gang were 9th level: elf rogue Varisto, human bard Alazar, and catfolk barbarian Raban. I was not looking forward to a battle between the party and the gang, because the gang's tactics would be quite complex and I would have to manage it all. The first possible chance of an encounter was when the seven PCs were 9th level, but they encountered Alazar, the least corrupt member, alone and then departed on the module's main quest. When they returned, the party was 11th level. Aldric Albinus sized them up and decided they were too strong to tackle. He did try to recruit Cara'sseth back into his gang. My effort in creating four unique characters was mostly wasted.
A party of four PCs is run by four players, who had many sessions to practice complex tactics together. A party of four enemies is run by a single GM who can barely remember their abilities. The GM can devise some group tactics in advance, but won't be as mentally nimble as the players in devising new tactics on the spot.
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Is this a serious comment? PF1 is absurdly gamified and a lot of completely ridiculous things happen in PF1 combat because of it.That is true, and was true in Pathfinder 1e. It was less of a problem because combat wasn't so "game-ified"While true. Is this beyond PFS, or a PFS only problem?Deriven, is it not also true that you could inflict the PCs own tactics upon them?
In my PFS experience, opponents' parties' dynamics are hugely different from those of a PC party.
There is usually no more than a single boss in a combat encounter.
While there is nothing similar to a boss in a PC party.
I think it happens in all published adventures and most homebrewed ones, except when the GM takes great care in designing a rival party with dynamics similar to a PC party.
And even then, not all combat encounters will be against this specific party of PC-like opponents.
Oh yes. See "Tight Math" and "Illusion of Choice."
Pathfinder 2e is much stricter on tactical options. Because of that it plays like a Table Top Wargame, not an RPG.
I love Warhammer Fantasy Battles, but that's not what I am looking for in an RPG.
It's all the illusion of choice. Broken math doesn't change that. Just makes it so people choose the mathematically superior options even if broken and turn the DMs life to hell then start arguing with them because the DM doesn't want their broken math option in the game.
Tight math makes the DMs life easier while still giving the players the same illusion of choice they ever had. All broken math is is bad RPG design that breaks the game and turns it into a joke. Abilities that break the game are math that scaled badly with the rest of the game in a fashion that inordinately benefits players against the available challenges. So the DM has to reconfigure the math to ensure a proper challenge. Spending my time to reconfigure the math takes away from story design and other elements of the game causing a DM to spend too much time on combat design. That's not enjoyable for many DMs.
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Deriven, is it not also true that you could inflict the PCs own tactics upon them?
In my PFS experience, opponents' parties' dynamics are hugely different from those of a PC party.
There is usually no more than a single boss in a combat encounter.
While there is nothing similar to a boss in a PC party.
I have learned that I can temporarily memorize the most important stats of two types of enemies, such as a boss accompanied by identical minions, when I run a combat encounter. But when I have three types of enemies, such as a variety of guards, squad members, and squad leaders in a castle courtyard, then the numbers slip out of my head and I have to keep looking then up again, which slows down combat. An enemy party of four different characters would be worse.
The player character Cara'sseth had a backstory that she used to travel with an evil adventuring party that regularly erased her memories of their crimes. I got a description of those four rival party members and added then to the module Hurricane's Howl. The memory-erasing leader was 11th-level human aristocrat bard Aldric Albinus. The other three in the Treasure Hunter Gang were 9th level: elf rogue Varisto, human bard Alazar, and catfolk barbarian Raban. I was not looking forward to a battle between the party and the gang, because the gang's tactics would be quite complex and I would have to manage it all. The first possible chance of an encounter was when the seven PCs were 9th level, but they encountered Alazar, the least corrupt member, alone and then departed on the module's main quest. When they returned, the party was 11th level. Aldric Albinus sized them up and decided they were too strong to tackle. He did try to recruit Cara'sseth back into his gang. My effort in creating four unique characters was mostly wasted.
A party of four PCs is run by four players, who had many sessions to practice complex tactics together. A party of four enemies is run by a...
You probably already do this, but I've found that once the number of different enemies becomes difficult to remember I like to create a reference sheet for key battles that makes all the important numbers easy to reference quickly so I don't have to open any books or search any web entries. I copy and paste the creature entries into the document and organize it in some easily referenced order. Makes it easier for parties or really diverse groups of enemies.
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A party of four PCs is run by four players, who had many sessions to practice complex tactics together. A party of four enemies is run by a single GM who can barely remember their abilities. The GM can devise some group tactics in advance, but won't be as mentally nimble as the players in devising new tactics on the spot.
The takeaway from this being that maybe people should come up with synergistic enemy comps designed to push optimized party setups or be immune to typical strategies to devalue their opening rounds and add tension that way.
We have plenty of player facing resources, why not a gm combat composition compendium?
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Groups with high system mastery will probably make stronger characters,
Sorry, this is a bit of a pet peeve of mine.
Please do NOT confuse "not particularly optimizing" with "low system mastery".
Speaking for myself, I try to set my characters power level to what is appropriate for the group I'm playing in and the adventures we're running through. I want to be fully contributing to the groups success but I am NOT trying to ROTFLstomp the encounters and be the MVP all the time. Most published adventures do NOT require or do well with highly optimized characters or groups.
I want to make sure that everybody, including the GM, is having fun and that all characters are contributing something like the same amount.
Which means that in more casual groups I deliberately choose sub optimal character options. Which means that I will NEVER play a character with the Exemplar dedication in PFS (where I'm allowed 1).
I obviously could be wrong but I think that I'd do fairly well in Deriven's group. I think that I'm a quite good optimizer (both from the point of view of character creation and from actually using decent tactics in play). But I definitely prefer the "Combat as sport" to the "combat as War" gaming style.
Groups with high system mastery will probably make stronger characters,Sorry, this is a bit of a pet peeve of mine.
Please do NOT confuse "not particularly optimizing" with "low system mastery".
Speaking for myself, I try to set my characters power level to what is appropriate for the group I'm playing in and the adventures we're running through. I want to be fully contributing to the groups success but I am NOT trying to ROTFLstomp the encounters and be the MVP all the time. Most published adventures do NOT require or do well with highly optimized characters or groups.
I want to make sure that everybody, including the GM, is having fun and that all characters are contributing something like the same amount.
Which means that in more casual groups I deliberately choose sub optimal character options. Which means that I will NEVER play a character with the Exemplar dedication in PFS (where I'm allowed 1).
I obviously could be wrong but I think that I'd do fairly well in Deriven's group. I think that I'm a quite good optimizer (both from the point of view of character creation and from actually using decent tactics in play). But I definitely prefer the "Combat as sport" to the "combat as War" gaming style.
PF2 optimization is very straightforward. You'd be fine in our group.
The only people that wouldn't do well are people that don't like to work as a team. You can't run forward into the types of encounters we set up with beyond severe encounters involving numbers that characters can't take getting surrounded by and beat down.
PF2 optimization involves taking the straightforward good options and using them as a team. There is very little of what you saw in PF1 where you parse every book to find every game breaking combinations to build the most insanely powerful character you can. There aren't any game breaking options.
Even Exemplar archetype is a minor boost in damage that won't break the game and might not even be better than taking champion or rogue archetype.
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I think any value of the guide would be incredibly influenced by the quality of the author.
If they could get somebody like Gortle to write it, then yes it could be awesome. But I'm not at all sure that every Paizo author would be able to do a decent job of this.
It would have to be much much more than "Flank is good. Focus fire is good" to be worth anything.
That alone is something not all of my players have figured out. Even after years of gaming. I've been running an AP with a lot of PL-4 fights with 6-8 enemies and the fights take 2 sessions because PCs spread their damage around. Maddening, so I turned these fights into troops.
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A party of four PCs is run by four players, who had many sessions to practice complex tactics together. A party of four enemies is run by a single GM who can barely remember their abilities. The GM can devise some group tactics in advance, but won't be as mentally nimble as the players in devising new tactics on the spot.The takeaway from this being that maybe people should come up with synergistic enemy comps designed to push optimized party setups or be immune to typical strategies to devalue their opening rounds and add tension that way.
We have plenty of player facing resources, why not a gm combat composition compendium?
It depends far too much on any given PC party's composition and tactics IMO.
A Player’s Guide might also be useful with a section that talks about how 2e is different than the previous edition. That could include emphasizing the focus on being part of a team, rather than being a maximized god-caster or army-of-minions summoner who can dominate the game. I know that I had trouble switching my mindset and addressing this straight on could be the perfect place to do so in attempting to more easily transition 1e players. Another point of reference could be a discussion about nuanced aspects of the game, such as the escalating power of buffs and dominating the action economy.
You can totally play a PFS PC with Exemplar Archetype who will not dominate the game.
A well built fighter will usually have exemplar dedication and might dominate the game.
It won’t be dominating the game from the exemplar dedication though.
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A party of four PCs is run by four players, who had many sessions to practice complex tactics together. A party of four enemies is run by a single GM who can barely remember their abilities. The GM can devise some group tactics in advance, but won't be as mentally nimble as the players in devising new tactics on the spot.The takeaway from this being that maybe people should come up with synergistic enemy comps designed to push optimized party setups or be immune to typical strategies to devalue their opening rounds and add tension that way.
We have plenty of player facing resources, why not a gm combat composition compendium?
“Dastardly, deadly encounters at all difficulties” could start as its own thread, collecting the most difficult encounters GMs have ran, or players have faced, what official threat they posed, and then a summary of what made those encounters so difficult. Q
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You can totally play a PFS PC with Exemplar Archetype who will not dominate the game.A well built fighter will usually have exemplar dedication and might dominate the game.
It won’t be dominating the game from the exemplar dedication though.
No class no matter how well built dominates the game like could be done in PF1.
Fighter will get a lot of hits in PF2 and do very well on single target fights. There really is no way for them to dominate the game. They don't have the capability. No class does no matter how well built in PF2.
Tell that to a disruptive stance fighter with reach, rooting, and two reactions in a campaign focusing on magic using enemies.
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Tell that to a disruptive stance fighter with reach, rooting, and two reactions in a campaign focusing on magic using enemies.
Magic users can very easily deal with a fighter using Disruptive Stance, rooting, and two reactions at the higher levels if you don't stick them in a 30 foot room. That can be said of most monsters.
A lot of tactics I get railed on for I use with enemies too. I do not put caster enemies in 30 foot rooms waiting to get surrounded and jacked. Magic users need room to maneuver and keep enemies at range so they can bring the hard hammer down. Up close magic using enemies just get wasted by almost any martial or group of martials. Disruptive Stance just becomes overkill.
Caster in a small room alone one of the easiest to beat enemies in the game. Found that out fairly early in PF2 and adjusted as DM to not let that occur as I feel like I'm wasting the player's time making or running such encounters.
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You can totally play a PFS PC with Exemplar Archetype who will not dominate the game.
You are absolutely right. In theory.
I think that so far I've seen 3 PFS PCs with Exemplar Archetype. All of them were significantly more powerful than their counterparts at the table. Not so much more powerful that they completely broke the game. But sufficiently more powerful that I clearly noticed the disparity, even though in each case my character was NOT the one being outshined by the Exemplar.
All 3 had chosen "power" ikons as opposed to "flavour" ikons.
My suspicion is that there is a very strong tendency for the people who take an Exemplar Ikon to be power gamers who are taking the Ikon for the sheer extra power that it brings. I have little evidence to back that suspicion up, of course, except for the quite small sample set that I've seen together with the fact that I've heard several other non power gaming PFS people say that they'll never take an Exemplar in PFS, that it feels somewhere between playing in Easy Mode and cheating.
Maybe my luck has just been bad and there are a whole slew of reasonable Exemplar archetypes at other PFS tables. Maybe.
Magic users can very easily deal with a fighter using Disruptive Stance, rooting, and two reactions at the higher levels if you don't stick them in a 30 foot room. That can be said of most monsters.
A lot of tactics I get railed on for I use with enemies too. I do not put caster enemies in 30 foot rooms waiting to get surrounded and jacked. Magic users need room to maneuver and keep enemies at range so they can bring the hard hammer down. Up close magic using enemies just get wasted by almost any martial or group of martials. Disruptive Stance just becomes overkill.
Caster in a small room alone one of the easiest to beat enemies in the game. Found that out fairly early in PF2 and adjusted as DM to not let that occur as I feel like I'm wasting the player's time making or running such encounters.
I wouldn't particularly fear an enemy caster at any range that isn't 500 tbh. They're just too easy to invalidate with silence 4, slow and trip even before you do stuff like rooting or dusrupt stance, and even at that range the only thing they're firing are AoE damage spells you can trivially deal with.
Movement speed sufficient to close the gap is something martials have plenty of access to. Caster ain’t staying far away for long.
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You can totally play a PFS PC with Exemplar Archetype who will not dominate the game.You are absolutely right. In theory.
I think that so far I've seen 3 PFS PCs with Exemplar Archetype. All of them were significantly more powerful than their counterparts at the table. Not so much more powerful that they completely broke the game. But sufficiently more powerful that I clearly noticed the disparity, even though in each case my character was NOT the one being outshined by the Exemplar.
All 3 had chosen "power" ikons as opposed to "flavour" ikons.
My suspicion is that there is a very strong tendency for the people who take an Exemplar Ikon to be power gamers who are taking the Ikon for the sheer extra power that it brings. I have little evidence to back that suspicion up, of course, except for the quite small sample set that I've seen together with the fact that I've heard several other non power gaming PFS people say that they'll never take an Exemplar in PFS, that it feels somewhere between playing in Easy Mode and cheating.
Maybe my luck has just been bad and there are a whole slew of reasonable Exemplar archetypes at other PFS tables. Maybe.
If you have a thing that’s worth taking on a wide variety of characters for its power you’re often going to see it taken by people who are generally good at and wanting to build powerful characters.
That doesn’t mean the main reason the characters are powerful is that one piece, that means it’s an indicator. Without it they’d still have the main individual components and synergies making them powerful.
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I wouldn't particularly fear an enemy caster at any range that isn't 500 tbh. They're just too easy to invalidate with silence 4, slow and trip even before you do stuff like rooting or disrupting stance, and even at that range the only thing they're firing are AoE damage spells you can trivially deal with.Magic users can very easily deal with a fighter using Disruptive Stance, rooting, and two reactions at the higher levels if you don't stick them in a 30 foot room. That can be said of most monsters.
A lot of tactics I get railed on for I use with enemies too. I do not put caster enemies in 30 foot rooms waiting to get surrounded and jacked. Magic users need room to maneuver and keep enemies at range so they can bring the hard hammer down. Up close magic using enemies just get wasted by almost any martial or group of martials. Disruptive Stance just becomes overkill.
Caster in a small room alone one of the easiest to beat enemies in the game. Found that out fairly early in PF2 and adjusted as DM to not let that occur as I feel like I'm wasting the player's time making or running such encounters.
Yes, they are, especially alone. But almost any single boss monster can be easily beaten by a coordinated team past the low levels, even a boss melee monster. You invalidate them in different ways, but you still invalidate them. This has nothing to do with a fighter using Disruptive Stance, rooting, and the like. That is all just overkill. And the chances of any class doing it alone are slim. The fighter doesn't dominate alone. If they go in alone against a high CR+2 to +4 monster, they're likely going to die.
Casters are easier to invalidate as the 2 action casting with Reactive Strike destroys them even if you don't disrupt the spell being cast. We didn't even use silence and disrupting stance and were destroying them.
This occurred very early in PF2 when the modules were putting these solo casters as end bosses, they were getting absolutely wrecked alone. Slow hammered them as an enemy relying on 2 action casts that is slowed while activating Reactive Strikes is dead.
I came up with my own methods for making them challenging. The best solo monsters are generally casting/martial hybrids with built in action economy boosters that counter common player tactics. They operate almost as a group, but in the body of a solo monster.
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You can totally play a PFS PC with Exemplar Archetype who will not dominate the game.You are absolutely right. In theory.
I think that so far I've seen 3 PFS PCs with Exemplar Archetype. All of them were significantly more powerful than their counterparts at the table. Not so much more powerful that they completely broke the game. But sufficiently more powerful that I clearly noticed the disparity, even though in each case my character was NOT the one being outshined by the Exemplar.
All 3 had chosen "power" ikons as opposed to "flavour" ikons.
My suspicion is that there is a very strong tendency for the people who take an Exemplar Ikon to be power gamers who are taking the Ikon for the sheer extra power that it brings. I have little evidence to back that suspicion up, of course, except for the quite small sample set that I've seen together with the fact that I've heard several other non power gaming PFS people say that they'll never take an Exemplar in PFS, that it feels somewhere between playing in Easy Mode and cheating.
Maybe my luck has just been bad and there are a whole slew of reasonable Exemplar archetypes at other PFS tables. Maybe.
If you have a thing that’s worth taking on a wide variety of characters for its power you’re often going to see it taken by people who are generally good at and wanting to build powerful characters.
That doesn’t mean the main reason the characters are powerful is that one piece, that means it’s an indicator. Without it they’d still have the main individual components and synergies making them powerful.
The exemplar archetype is very nice on ranged characters. I find the Champion Archetype better on melee martial characters, but on a bow user the Exemplar Archetype is much, much better.
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The caster solo monster discussion is another reason why a DM strategy guy would likely be more helpful than a player strategy guide. You could discuss how DMs rebuild monsters or encounters to counter common player strategies like using a silence spell against a caster or countering Disrupting Stance fighter by creating abilities that use mobility coupled with casting. You'd rather eat the Reactive Strike for movement than eat it casting or sustaining a spell. Things like that are important DM tactics.
Good luck finding the caster in the first place, with ventriloquism rank 2 and disappearance, invisibility rank 4 or disappearance.
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Good luck finding the caster in the first place, with ventriloquism rank 2 and disappearance, invisibility rank 4 or disappearance.
You would be surprised at how easy this is for a group, especially martials with Legendary perception.
Not sure if you play many martials, but quite a few martials can obtain Blind-fight by level 8 or so. That makes it so as long as you can locate the square, then you can hit the target with a DC 5 or better.
Casters have a harder time finding other casters with spells than martials do of locating and hitting invisible casters no matter what they're using. The blind-fight feat works for everything whether martial or ranged. It's like an always active see invis equivalent.
Soon as the caster casts or takes hostile actions, they reveal the square their in unless they stealth and move again becoming successfully undetected. Then almost every martial can Sudden Charge or rush to them and hit them with a DC 5 or better even if you have 8th level disappearance up with 8th level hidden mind. Hidden Mind doesn't stop Blind-fight.
As far as I'm concerned, if you're playing a martial, Blind-Fight is a must take feet.
And it even works for ranged attackers with a bow. I even took Superior Sight on my lvl 20 ranger. I laugh at invisibility, hidden mind, or disappearance. It does nothing against me.
Seek as an action only affects a 30ft area. With conceal spell or with the ventriloquism (rank 2 lasts an hour) or both, that can be something that takes a lot of seek checks to hone in on. Blind fight is a creat feat, my favorite martial one, but it doesn’t help you figure out where to start making perception checks.
Seek as an action only affects a 30ft area. With conceal spell or with the ventriloquism (rank 2 lasts an hour) or both, that can be something that takes a lot of seek checks to hone in on. Blind fight is a creat feat, my favorite martial one, but it doesn’t help you figure out where to start making perception checks.
And Subtle Spell is an action.
Soon as you launch a spell with a visible effect like an AOE spell or a ray, they will have your square. Any Blind-fight only needs a DC 5 to hit you even with a ranged weapon no matter what spell you cast or what you do.
Not sure what you're doing with ventriloquism. 1 action by the Legendary Perception character interacting with your ventriloquism end that trick likely first check, especially a ranger or rogue.
And at level 20 with Superior Sight, ranger automatically hits a target who is undetected.
Then if the martial with Legendary perception likely has Legendary Sneak with Legendary Stealth. They just sneak and hide where you can't see them making seek checks to find you while you don't even know they are there, especially a rogue with Blank Slate.
I've already played this game with a high level rogue and a high level ranger with Stealth Apex items. The caster loses 90 percent or more of the time, especially a bog standard caster that isn't also a monster with better than normal stats.
Invisibility is substantially weakened against martial characters in PF2. Not a great defense anymore. Maybe allow you to open with an ambush.
Works a bit better if no legendary perception character present and only a fighter or barb or something that can't locate you as easy. Rogues and rangers chew up invisible casters. Fighters do ok once the caster is located. Barbs and monks are the weakest unless they use their level 16 feat to acquire Blind-fight which I often do. Blind-fight is a brutally strong feat I like to take because of well it counters invisibility.
I didn’t play these cat and mouse games at level 20, but a level 20 wizard built for stealth casting isn’t spending an action to stealth cast, they are using conceal spell as a free action, hiding manifestations. You are also casting spells that target will and not reflex against rogues and rangers. So spells like Phantasmagoria, which could be coming from anywhere.
But yes, the game does have a problem specifically at 20 level for making solo caster bosses effective, and that is that there is no mechanics for having spells work like the rank 11 and 12 that they would need to in order for a level +4 caster to be the same kind of threat they would be as a level 20 caster would be against level 16 PCs. 4 level 20 wizards playing to murder PCs are going to be the better encounter for difficulty than 1 “24th level” caster stuck with a level 20 spell casting feature with only an increased DC.
Edit: and really, the level 20 casters are probably aware of the PCs and never letting them get within miles of them, torturing them with spells that affect them from other continents and dominating the minds of their allies and setting elaborate traps that make the PCs lives terrible long before an encounter happens, that they might just teleport away from before the party gets a chance to act.
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Edit: and really, the level 20 casters are probably aware of the PCs and never letting them get within miles of them, torturing them with spells that affect them from other continents and dominating the minds of their allies and setting elaborate traps that make the PCs lives terrible long before an encounter happens, that they might just teleport away from before the party gets a chance to act.
This brings us back to "combat as sport" vs "combat as war",
I know that I would personally find that kind of thing boring and frustrating. It often boils down to who knows the spell lists better, the GM or player. And who is better at the player vs GM game (because this play style absolutely IS an adversarial GM vs player one).
Not saying it's a bad style, mind. Just one not to my tastes and, assuming Paizo correctly understands it's market, not one to the tastes of any groups playing Paizo products mostly unchanged
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You can totally play a PFS PC with Exemplar Archetype who will not dominate the game.You are absolutely right. In theory.
I think that so far I've seen 3 PFS PCs with Exemplar Archetype. All of them were significantly more powerful than their counterparts at the table. Not so much more powerful that they completely broke the game. But sufficiently more powerful that I clearly noticed the disparity, even though in each case my character was NOT the one being outshined by the Exemplar.
All 3 had chosen "power" ikons as opposed to "flavour" ikons.
My suspicion is that there is a very strong tendency for the people who take an Exemplar Ikon to be power gamers who are taking the Ikon for the sheer extra power that it brings. I have little evidence to back that suspicion up, of course, except for the quite small sample set that I've seen together with the fact that I've heard several other non power gaming PFS people say that they'll never take an Exemplar in PFS, that it feels somewhere between playing in Easy Mode and cheating.
Maybe my luck has just been bad and there are a whole slew of reasonable Exemplar archetypes at other PFS tables. Maybe.
Or maybe not.
My point was that it was possible to create such a build without aiming for MOAR POWER.
But the problem there is not the archetype. It lies with those who choose it for power.
And also I think in the decision to allow a given PFS player to only ever be able to take it once.
This promotes putting it in the build where it will bring the highest benefits (ie power) rather than in other builds where it would bring more flavorful but overall weaker abilities.
Truth. But, perhaps like the 1e version, a collection of authors might be better.I think any value of the guide would be incredibly influenced by the quality of the author.
If they could get somebody like Gortle to write it, then yes it could be awesome. But I'm not at all sure that every Paizo author would be able to do a decent job of this.
It would have to be much much more than "Flank is good. Focus fire is good" to be worth anything.
"A committee is an organism with six or more legs, and no brain." -- R.A. Heinlein
That said, I agree that the kind of guide (or better yet, set of guides) being discussed here is probably best produced by the community of GMs and players rather than by Paizo.
I like Mathmuse's wiki idea. I also like the idea of multiple tactics guides covering various aspects. I would add "strategy before tactics", and that strategy should cover more than just "go in, kill everything that moves". :-)
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And also I think in the decision to allow a given PFS player to only ever be able to take it once.
This promotes putting it in the build where it will bring the highest benefits (ie power) rather than in other builds where it would bring more flavorful but overall weaker abilities.
You're not wrong but I think that decision was absolutely the right thing to do once they (very foolishly, imo, but I'm guessing they were forced to by marketing) decided to allow it into PFS at all,
In general, PFS isn't all that hard. Allowing one Exemplar archetype character into a game lowers the difficulty noticeably. If there were several at the table almost all combats would become trivial and boring.
It also significantly increases the power disparity between the newby or the non power gamer or the person without all the books and the power gamer. And that is, imo, a bad thing for PFS
Or maybe not.
My point was that it was possible to create such a build without aiming for MOAR POWER.
But the problem there is not the archetype. It lies with those who choose it for power.
And also I think in the decision to allow a given PFS player to only ever be able to take it once.
This promotes putting it in the build where it will bring the highest benefits (ie power) rather than in other builds where it would bring more flavorful but overall weaker abilities.
No, the problem absolutely is the archetype in this case. It's the single strongest level 2 feat in the entire game.
PFS doesn't use Free Archetype and skews low level, so it's pretty easy for someone to pick it up after their first archetype or as their only archetype (and just not take anything else from it), because it's not like they'll be capping out of a ton of archetypes when most of the tables and scenarios are below level 10.
PFS should have banned it entirely, but I get why they did what they did: immediately banning a class archetype is Paizo's left hand saying "Paizo's right hand got this one wrong."
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I dunno. I have it on a Champion using a Nodachi to be able to to a Double Slice-like with a 2-handed weapon. It is good but not overwhelmingly so.
And in the meantime, I cannot build a thrower with Shadow Sheath, nor a Gunslinger spamming Dagger-Pistols with the same.
Which could be incredibly fun but likely on the weak side overall.
Putting the limit of 1 PC only was the middle-path choice and it is the worst one. It prevents building many fun PCs while not preventing, and even IMO encouraging, the MOAR POWER builds we see in actual PFS play.
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I didn’t play these cat and mouse games at level 20, but a level 20 wizard built for stealth casting isn’t spending an action to stealth cast, they are using conceal spell as a free action, hiding manifestations. You are also casting spells that target will and not reflex against rogues and rangers. So spells like Phantasmagoria, which could be coming from anywhere.
But yes, the game does have a problem specifically at 20 level for making solo caster bosses effective, and that is that there is no mechanics for having spells work like the rank 11 and 12 that they would need to in order for a level +4 caster to be the same kind of threat they would be as a level 20 caster would be against level 16 PCs. 4 level 20 wizards playing to murder PCs are going to be the better encounter for difficulty than 1 “24th level” caster stuck with a level 20 spell casting feature with only an increased DC.
Edit: and really, the level 20 casters are probably aware of the PCs and never letting them get within miles of them, torturing them with spells that affect them from other continents and dominating the minds of their allies and setting elaborate traps that make the PCs lives terrible long before an encounter happens, that they might just teleport away from before the party gets a chance to act.
It's not the same, especially with every martial class getting at least two critical success on success save abilities.
My ranger at level 20 ended with Legendary Perception, Master Fort, Legendary Reflex, and Master Will with maxed out wisdom with canny acumen.
This is just another one of the ways casting was weakened in PF2.
That's why I build hybrid solo bosses at this point. Just a caster or just a melee boss doesn't do very well. They need to be able to mix it up like a party.
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Edit: and really, the level 20 casters are probably aware of the PCs and never letting them get within miles of them, torturing them with spells that affect them from other continents and dominating the minds of their allies and setting elaborate traps that make the PCs lives terrible long before an encounter happens, that they might just teleport away from before the party gets a chance to act.
This brings us back to "combat as sport" vs "combat as war",
I know that I would personally find that kind of thing boring and frustrating. It often boils down to who knows the spell lists better, the GM or player. And who is better at the player vs GM game (because this play style absolutely IS an adversarial GM vs player one).
Not saying it's a bad style, mind. Just one not to my tastes and, assuming Paizo correctly understands it's market, not one to the tastes of any groups playing Paizo products mostly unchanged
I don't see it like that.
There are adversarial GMs, but that's different than a GM that wants the game to feel challenging.
I think Paizo builds modules with the idea of an average group coming together to play. I don't think they think of it in terms of "combat as sport" versus "combat as war." I see them more as "Let's see the dial at 5 on a 1 to 10 scale and let the DM twist that dial according to the group."
You can't build encounters for a new group or a moderately experienced group in the same way you build encounters for some grizzled veteran group that gets annoyed if you make them roll a RK check to know fire kills trolls or demons have a weakness to holy because they've been playing for decades and they just know this.
It doesn't even take the whole group min-maxing or using optimum tactics. All it takes is one or two players pushing the envelope while the other players don't spend much time on it to make the game too easy.
Like gesalt or scooterscoots point out, one character using silence or building an optimum character is going to provide enough of a problem that even if the other three characters are built somewhat average will still crush most of what they face.
So you adjust that dial according to the group to give the feel that at least a few fights, usually against a boss encounter that's supposed to be threatening, are challenging and push the party to their limit. I'm not sure why that would be a problem for any player since it is a common trope in a fantasy story for the main villain to be dangerous. If you beat them easy, they aren't much of a villain.
As much as I end up caught up in these mechanical discussions, I play this game more for the story and RPG than the combat. The combat is just a tool to serve the story and a dangerous villain requires combat be challenging.