|
Xalidur posted:Looking forward to running this soon. A few questions for The Experts: it's pretty easy to modify for 6 players, you should try to add more enemies rather than use elite templates using the normal encounter budget system i'd say don't modify things like crit thresholds until you get a sense of how the system works in play and more completely understand what that would mean and why you would do it
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2023 19:01
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 4, 2024 23:20 |
|
|
Xalidur posted:Looking forward to running this soon. A few questions for The Experts: 1. Lots of classes can fit in the there depending on build but you can't go wrong with Bard and Cleric for providing survivability and a bunch of buffs to make everyone hit better. 2. PF2 scales very well with increasing number of players. For encounter building the game game recommends compensating the higher amount of enemies/hazards rather than making one enemy tougher. Fighting against a lot of higher leveled enemies is just kind of miserable. 3. Those really strong effects and I would avoid using them unless you know what you are doing.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2023 19:08
|
|
|
what you COULD do, is have a successful relevant lore check provide a bonus to another skill (+1 is great, +2 is REALLY POWERFUL) and that will effectively increase the chances of a critical success without actually needing to tweak the numbers.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2023 19:15
|
|
|
Government Handjob posted:My group is starting Abomination Vaults tomorrow, too. I'll be playing a 17 year old orphan out of the Puddles who is heavily into stories about the Roseguard and so becomes a swashbuckler (wit style). You're almost a mishmash of two of my party members, one is a young human monk from Absalom who is obsessed with the Rosegaurd and the other is a Wit style Catfolk Swashbuckler.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2023 19:32
|
|
|
Good tips on scaling things up, the game is meant to be somewhat dungeon crawly so they'll be killing things a lot and I wanted to stick closer to the RAW system math than I do in 5E (which is not remotely at all). That last is why I asked about affecting crit success threshold. Without getting too far into the weeds on My Homebrew, basically the setting has four moons (each associated with one of the spell traditions, neatly enough) and I want to apply some sort of global boost/malus depending on the waxing/waning states of the moons at a given time. Tweaking the threshold felt fun, but while I want the Moon State to be something that's important/flavorful to the game, I don't want to take the math *too* far from Paizo's.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2023 20:05
|
|
|
My Troubles In Otari/AV character I settled on is a Human Fighter who escaped Irrisen and took to bounty hunting. He joined the group when my original character (dwarf magus then thaumaturge) left after nearly getting murked by the young green dragon and called him in as backup for the group. It's been fun so far and critical power strikes with a halberd makes good feel juices in brain. 
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2023 20:17
|
|
|
Xalidur posted:Good tips on scaling things up, the game is meant to be somewhat dungeon crawly so they'll be killing things a lot and I wanted to stick closer to the RAW system math than I do in 5E (which is not remotely at all). the game's math is pretty tight so definitely give it a good bit before you mess with the numbers part. like, just for reference, part of why fighters are very strong in PF2 is they get mastery in weapons at 5 and legendary at 13, while others like barbarians get expert at 5 and master at 13. thats a +2 difference, and it's really noticeable. a +2 athletics item is level 9 and 650g, and a +3 athletics item is level 17 and 13,000 gold.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2023 20:31
|
|
|
One thing to note is that one of the primary bonuses of leveling up is getting a +1 to everything you’re proficient in. Someone with a permanent +1 to everything isn’t quite as strong as someone who is one level higher, but it will definitely let them punch above their weight class.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2023 20:34
|
|
|
Just got home from our first AV session and we had a real blast. We were missing one player who I think will be a polearm wielding fighter but the rest or us were Libby Twinkle, the gnome bard with a taste for life and an enthusiastic interest in mysteries. Aggressively cheerful. Terrible swimmer. Pink everything. Fantastic improviser. Lucky Purewater, the dirt poor human swashbuckler clad in second and third-hand gear who is really into the Roseguard and the chance to make a name for himself like them or even Cayden Cailean. Has never gained panache. Lost a dagger and sulked. D'vein, the dwarven warpriest who is also a Roseguard afficionado and excited about the prospect of adventure and riches. Already in a friendly rivalry with Lucky over who knows more about the Roseguard and who has pulled the fanciest trinkets out of nearby ruins so far. Flint, the hulking orc paladin of Iomedae making up for his earlier life as a raider. Extremely aware of his intimidating stature he goes out of his way to ensure townspeople know he isn't a threat. A total himbo. Does not have Cat Fall. Does not care. Compared to how we played through Troubles in Otari this session went really really well. Having built characters from scratch instead of playing pregens people were more familiar and comfortable with their abilities and did a much better job of keeping each other clued in to what they were doing and why, which in turn made tactical play much easier. We're only in the very first part of Gauntlight Keep so I'm fully expecting us to get hammered soon, but it was really nice to have an entire evening where we didn't gently caress up anything.
|
|
#
?
Jun 10, 2023 00:10
|
|
|
Xalidur posted:Looking forward to running this soon. A few questions for The Experts: 1) The main thing I'd recommend is that Pathfinder kind of sucks if you just walk forward and make multiple attacks with increasingly high attack penalties, so as long as your three probably-melee people understand that it's fine. For the others, basically any kind of caster would work fine. Arcane isn't great at support, but otherwise they should have plenty of options. (Alchemist is technically a completely nonmagical support class, but it requires a lot of system mastery to play well and it's rough at low levels.) 3) Like everyone else said, adjusting crit thresholds like that is a really big deal in this system. If you are going to use that kind of effect, it shouldn't be due to a basic lunar cycle. If the moons are in a once-in-a-century diamond formation and you want all magic to crit more easily, sure. If you're entering the blood god's carnage realm and want violent actions to crit easily and beneficial actions to be harder, go for it. But it should be something that's a big climactic moment, because that's a really big mechanical change and it needs to feel special.
|
|
#
?
Jun 10, 2023 15:18
|
|
|
50/50 chance my party wipes at the final fight of the Beginner's Box (you know the one). They already went toe-to-toe with it by having a character just run in there and start the fight without regrouping after the previous fight. One round in and that special attack (the one that recharges in 1d4 rounds) just poo poo on them. I basically "accidently" played suboptimally so that they could regroup out of pity, but they don't seem to have learned a thing from it and one of the players was arguing that they should immediately re-engage despite everyone but the Wizard being at Wounded 1 and the Wizard being completely out of 1st level spells and running on cantrips. Luckily they got talked out of it by another player, but I'm concerned. This thing can put out a lot of damage and is really mobile, this is a hell of a fight.
|
|
#
?
Jun 11, 2023 01:20
|
|
|
Megaman's Jockstrap posted:50/50 chance my party wipes at the final fight of the Beginner's Box (you know the one). They already went toe-to-toe with it by having a character just run in there and start the fight without regrouping after the previous fight. One round in and that special attack (the one that recharges in 1d4 rounds) just poo poo on them. I basically "accidently" played suboptimally so that they could regroup out of pity, but they don't seem to have learned a thing from it and one of the players was arguing that they should immediately re-engage despite everyone but the Wizard being at Wounded 1 and the Wizard being completely out of 1st level spells and running on cantrips. Luckily they got talked out of it by another player, but I'm concerned. This thing can put out a lot of damage and is really mobile, this is a hell of a fight. I'm convinced that fight is supposed to teach players about death saves and running away.
|
|
#
?
Jun 11, 2023 02:28
|
|
|
Today's pathfinder society experiences: -grappled a rock python and threw it like a bolo (at nothing in particular) -dragged another PC off the battlefield and dumped one of my first healing potions down their throat -after the potion, immediately ran across the battle to punch a big carnivorous plant so hard I knocked a hole in it and pulled another PC out of its stomach
|
|
#
?
Jun 11, 2023 04:33
|
|
|
Megaman's Jockstrap posted:50/50 chance my party wipes at the final fight of the Beginner's Box (you know the one). They already went toe-to-toe with it by having a character just run in there and start the fight without regrouping after the previous fight. One round in and that special attack (the one that recharges in 1d4 rounds) just poo poo on them. I basically "accidently" played suboptimally so that they could regroup out of pity, but they don't seem to have learned a thing from it and one of the players was arguing that they should immediately re-engage despite everyone but the Wizard being at Wounded 1 and the Wizard being completely out of 1st level spells and running on cantrips. Luckily they got talked out of it by another player, but I'm concerned. This thing can put out a lot of damage and is really mobile, this is a hell of a fight. Reminder that the special attack is literally written into the book to be used very very very suboptimally.
|
|
#
?
Jun 11, 2023 05:22
|
|
|
Cyouni posted:Reminder that the special attack is literally written into the book to be used very very very suboptimally. Yes. Nearest opponent. I did this. I even arranged it to only hit 2. I could have gotten 3. He downed them both (one was already injured, because as I said they ran immediately into the second battle from the first). Then the next round he did the "Stride and DF" and downed a third while the Wizard was getting the first one up. He also rolled a "1" for his recharge. At this point I had him "accidently" retreat too far and miss the players. Bad times. Edit: replaced ability name with an acronym because I'm trying real hard not to spoil this. Megaman's Jockstrap fucked around with this message at 08:19 on Jun 11, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jun 11, 2023 08:10
|
|
|
It's okay to help your players understand that fight. The point of the box is to learn the system and its tactics.
|
|
#
?
Jun 11, 2023 11:48
|
|
|
3 Action Economist posted:It's okay to help your players understand that fight. The point of the box is to learn the system and its tactics. Yeah, I think it's going to result in a group falling apart on me.  My party TPKed on that fight and afterwards I tried to bring up things we all could've done better at the DM's promoting because I'm the only one with any PF2e experience, and the player playing the fighter iconic got all in my face about "ugh if this is going to be nothing but rollplay instead of roleplay I'm just going back to 5e".
|
|
#
?
Jun 11, 2023 18:32
|
|
|
Yeah I think that might be one place where Paizo kind of shot themselves in the foot a bit. Pathfinder 2e is a surprisingly tightly tuned, strong game, but that also means it's hard.
|
|
#
?
Jun 11, 2023 18:52
|
|
|
Pf2E is like 4E in that there was an intentional attempt to make combat interesting and tactical rather than just "I stand next to the enemy and roll basic attacks forever" and some people aren't interested on that
|
|
#
?
Jun 11, 2023 19:07
|
|
|
Piell posted:Pf2E is like 4E in that there was an intentional attempt to make combat interesting and tactical rather than just "I stand next to the enemy and roll basic attacks forever" and some people aren't interested on that 
|
|
#
?
Jun 11, 2023 19:21
|
|
|
Piell posted:Pf2E is like 4E in that there was an intentional attempt to make combat interesting and tactical rather than just "I stand next to the enemy and roll basic attacks forever" and some people aren't interested on that It's funny how my players in the Abomination Vaults game have largely realized that the third attack is often the worst thing they can do with that action and it's like "uh do i have anything else i can do? no i guess i'll attack a third time. fiiiine"
|
|
#
?
Jun 11, 2023 19:36
|
|
|
3 Action Economist posted:It's okay to help your players understand that fight. The point of the box is to learn the system and its tactics. Completely agree. I did coach them, starting from the very beginning where I told the players "every one of your senses is screaming danger, you're in for the fight of your life, you'll need to use every ounce of skill and luck to survive this" and was summarily ignored for truly baffling and reactive decisions. It was so bad that the Wizard player PM'd me the "Homer walking backwards into the hedge" GIF on the third round. It was so bad that after they had regrouped I asked them if they were trying to throw the game so that we could play something else (I got a chorus of "nos" and they were a bit insulted until the Wizard player also joined in with "please explain then why you did this <very silly thing>" and they basically word-salad'd. A very shocking, bad time. And part of that lies at the feet of Paizo, who gave the boss an opener attack that has a decent chance to one-shot a 2nd level PC...and that's precisely what happened.
|
|
#
?
Jun 11, 2023 22:45
|
|
|
Arivia posted:It's funny how my players in the Abomination Vaults game have largely realized that the third attack is often the worst thing they can do with that action and it's like "uh do i have anything else i can do? no i guess i'll attack a third time. fiiiine" My thing with that is what if you’re flanking an enemy. You’ve attacked twice and now it makes sense to step back, but like now your ally loses the flank. I feel kinda trapped just tooling around next to a big baddie sometimes. Like you could recall knowledge or whatever but if you’re a martial class you probably suck at that or your mage has done that already.
|
|
#
?
Jun 11, 2023 22:59
|
|
|
Megaman's Jockstrap posted:"please explain then why you did this <very silly thing>" and they basically word-salad'd. This sounds so familiar with said player who got pissed off at me. We attempted that fight again with the characters we rolled for Abom Vaults and it went better but they still opted to cast Electric Arc and command their animal companion (they're playing a Druid now) instead of drop a three-action Heal when I was down and two people were under 1/4 HP. Completely mindboggling. appropriatemetaphor posted:My thing with that is what if you’re flanking an enemy. You’ve attacked twice and now it makes sense to step back, but like now your ally loses the flank. I dunno, those are the sort of circumstances where I would've done other stuff with my first and second actions. Especially if I know my flank partner has the initiative lead, I'd probably forego getting two attacks to do something like change my grip on my greatsword, go for a trip, then regrip and attack. Still three actions, but it's set the team up for success way more.
|
|
#
?
Jun 11, 2023 23:38
|
|
|
So I am two sessions into running Abomination Vaults now for a bunch of new players. I only have a few months' experience with the system as well. It's a bit of struggle remembering all the stuff and making it all work, but I'm enjoying it. One of my players is a Sprite Mastermind Rogue. So the whole Mastermind shtick is using Recall Knowledge on enemies to gain Flatfooted against them and Recall Knowledge in combat is already a pretty complicated affair with a lot of room for interpretation, as seen if you search for "Recall Knowledge combat". What do you tell them, can they do it multiple times, can you do it again if you failed the previous round, etc. So they fought the mitflits this session and the Rogue has been gaining Flatfooted (which he needs for the Sneak Attack) on the enemies with intermittent success - it's his Nature +5 vs their baseline Nature Recall Knowledge DC13. Then they get to the Boss Mitflit and his Recall Knowledge DC is 25, because he's a named enemy. Compared to the other Rackets the Mastermind is... kinda screwed here and with other boss monsters, no? Is that how it's supposed to be handled?
|
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2023 00:01
|
|
|
Kyrosiris posted:I dunno, those are the sort of circumstances where I would've done other stuff with my first and second actions. Yeah, really, the third action should be used for the second strike, because the first action was something else like demoralize or create a diversion.
|
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2023 00:15
|
|
|
Megazver posted:So I am two sessions into running Abomination Vaults now for a bunch of new players. I only have a few months' experience with the system as well. It's a bit of struggle remembering all the stuff and making it all work, but I'm enjoying it. It's advised that you only apply the increased DC from Named Uniques when the player is trying to learn about that specific creature, not their general species - https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=915
|
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2023 00:20
|
|
|
Megazver posted:So they fought the mitflits this session and the Rogue has been gaining Flatfooted (which he needs for the Sneak Attack) on the enemies with intermittent success - it's his Nature +5 vs their baseline Nature Recall Knowledge DC13. Then they get to the Boss Mitflit and his Recall Knowledge DC is 25, because he's a named enemy. Compared to the other Rackets the Mastermind is... kinda screwed here and with other boss monsters, no? Is that how it's supposed to be handled? As above, but even then he's not screwed - there are a bunch of ways to get flat footed. He's going to need to get the party to help him by either flanking, grabbing, or knocking the boss prone. He can also attack from hidden.
|
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2023 00:22
|
|
|
Megaman's Jockstrap posted:As above, but even then he's not screwed - there are a bunch of ways to get flat footed. He's going to need to get the party to help him by either flanking, grabbing, or knocking the boss prone. He can also attack from hidden. He's a tiny-rear end 7 inch tall sprite, so he built the character ranged and picked Mastermind because it's the best way to get Flatfooted at a distance. He's not too eager to run closer and start stabbing the enemy in its ankle.
|
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2023 00:32
|
|
|
Megazver posted:He's a tiny-rear end 7 inch tall sprite, so he built the character ranged and picked Mastermind because it's the best way to get Flatfooted at a distance. He's not too eager to run closer and start stabbing the enemy in its ankle. He might be a little screwed then, I've been playing Mastermind in AV as well and despite having some more specific lores I still find Recall Knowledge to be a somewhat unreliable source of flat-footing. I know it's the thing people usually point to but I would say Mastermind still isn't great for making ranged Rogue work.
|
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2023 01:02
|
|
|
Megazver posted:He's a tiny-rear end 7 inch tall sprite, so he built the character ranged and picked Mastermind because it's the best way to get Flatfooted at a distance. He's not too eager to run closer and start stabbing the enemy in its ankle. Attacks from Hidden status also make the target flat-footed. But, again, ask the fighter/Champion/STR combatant to do a trip or grab and shoot that Prone or Grabbed guy in the face. If they don't have a STR based combatant then yeah, they picked bad for the party comp.
|
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2023 01:08
|
|
|
Hiding is really powerful. Use the take cover action to increase your circumstance bonus from a +2 to a +4 and use the lean action to draw line of sight from a corner until you move again. It is pretty easy to set up a sniper position at the entrance to a hallway. Gunslinger is better at it but every character has weaknesses they need to play around.
|
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2023 05:28
|
|
|
Does anyone have a good cheat sheet for universal actions available to all players like Demoralize, Raise a Shield, etc;?
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 01:24
|
|
|
Scrap Dragon posted:Does anyone have a good cheat sheet for universal actions available to all players like Demoralize, Raise a Shield, etc;? https://2e.aonprd.com/GMScreen.aspx See Basic Actions, Specialty Basic Actions, and Skill Actions. Edit: Or see this: https://preview.redd.it/cx3jvnaohaka1.png?width=2200&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=b065876678a6177b0d5f394913b9f2b0b3bae1cc
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 02:10
|
|
|
Thanks, that image is really helpful! I might have to trim the version I give my players down a little, I'm mainly using it to introduce players who are used to D&D to things they can spend their third action on other than attacking.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 06:30
|
|
|
appropriatemetaphor posted:My thing with that is what if you’re flanking an enemy. You’ve attacked twice and now it makes sense to step back, but like now your ally loses the flank. Okay what you do is get trained in nature. Investing a skill point in nature can be a big ask, but it's easier than trying to invest in charisma skills with no charisma to make intimidate checks. Then take the beastmaster dedication. Now you can use your useless third action to give your pet 2 actions. There are lots of options, but if you pick the big cat the support benefit will make your rogue very happy. The cat doesn't even attack, it just stands there being supportive and "Until the start of your next turn, your Strikes that deal damage to a creature that your cat threatens make the target flat-footed until the end of your next turn." Tell the cat to support, make your two strikes, and unless you whiff twice that dude is flat footed to everyone for a whole turn.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 06:54
|
|
|
Maybe I’ve just missed it, but is there a concept of main/off-hand and dual weapon fighting in 2e? I realized I’ve been sort of freely calling/swapping actions w my grappler fighter between grabbing/striking with my spiked gauntlet hand, and sometimes doing bash attacks with my shield hand.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 07:14
|
|
|
Fidel Cuckstro posted:Maybe I’ve just missed it, but is there a concept of main/off-hand and dual weapon fighting in 2e? There’s some class feats that have you attack with two weapons (ranger in particular), but there’s no rules against using different hands or weapons to attack. You’re good.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 11:22
|
|
|
Scrap Dragon posted:Thanks, that image is really helpful! I might have to trim the version I give my players down a little, I'm mainly using it to introduce players who are used to D&D to things they can spend their third action on other than attacking. Those are things they should spend their *first* actions on, like demoralize. You want to do today before you strike.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 11:37
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 4, 2024 23:20 |
|
|
3 Action Economist posted:Those are things they should spend their *first* actions on, like demoralize. You want to do today before you strike. Yep, getting my partner used to the idea that "your big alpha strike spell isn't the best first thing to do" has taken some work, but she's sticking a shitload of Demoralizes now and loving the extra wiggle room that Frightened 1 gives her.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 14:24
|
|