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My players have such a propensity for rolling specifically the number 2 every time we play I think it's the universe trying to actively poo poo on them.
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Jul 27, 2023 19:22
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Looks like a literal case of throwing the dice and losing. Playing around with Foundry, an Elite 3 enemy has something like +12 to hit in melee, and a level 2 fighter with basic half plate and a steel shield has 20 ac, 22 with a shield up. So it needed a 20 to crit, and then 34 damage is pretty much a max roll for a melee bruiser type elite, with a 1d12+6 strike. So you got deleted by a .4% chance of rolls. (Also, if you had your shield raised, you should have been able to block a portion of the damage, at least enough to let you squeak by. My generic human test fighter had 34 max hp, so the shield block would have let him live even if there was no healing available.) Most of the time, you'd have been fine. I think the answer really is just "Don't walk in to boss fights without at least some contingency." Gwaihir fucked around with this message at 19:27 on Jul 27, 2023 |
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Jul 27, 2023 19:25
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Nelson Mandingo posted:Oh yeah. That was a nice lesson there. I...well....another thing why I think it is overtuned, I don't want to come off like I'm badmouthing other players. Because I'm not. People should make the decisions they want and I respect that but yeah our cleric and wizard certainly have....not optimal choices. I think they're clearly more RP players. Which I want to stress I don't care about. But that's another aspect of why I reflexively feel that this was a bit overtuned and not taken into consideration. I'm going to assume it was a level 3 monster with the elite adjustment (so a level 4 monster.) The elite adjustment doesn't work great when the party is level 2, a level 3 monster with the elite adjustment is probably stronger than a normal level 4 monster. You get huge jumps in power from 1 to 3, picking up striking runes and potency runes, so the adjustment templates work better after everyone's level 3 and has those. Even ignoring the elite adjustment, a single +3 enemy is a severe or extreme threat boss, the encounter rules don't make it as clear as they should that there's a difference between an 120 XP encounter with multiple enemies and an 120 XP encounter with a single enemy. So when you factor in the slight overtuning of elite at low levels it's probably an extreme threat encounter. You should expect to TPK 50% of the time to those, so it looks like that's what happened. Sure you can play better etc. but honestly 1 lucky crit out the gate means you lost coin flip there in my opinion. Edit: Oh wait it's only an 80 XP encounter, well I dunno pretty unlucky honestly 
M. Night Skymall fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Jul 27, 2023 |
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Jul 27, 2023 19:27
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Oh yeah if it's a level 3 bumped to level 4 via Elite mod, that's much more dangerous.
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Jul 27, 2023 19:29
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M. Night Skymall posted:I'm going to assume it was a level 3 monster with the elite adjustment (so a level 4 monster.) The elite adjustment doesn't work great when the party is level 2, a level 3 monster with the elite adjustment is probably stronger than a normal level 4 monster. You get huge jumps in power from 1 to 3, picking up striking runes and potency runes, so the adjustment templates work better after everyone's level 3 and has those. Even ignoring the elite adjustment, a single +3 enemy is a severe or extreme threat boss, the encounter rules don't make it as clear as they should that there's a difference between an 120 XP encounter with multiple enemies and an 120 XP encounter with a single enemy. So when you factor in the slight overtuning of elite at low levels it's probably an extreme threat encounter. You should expect to TPK 50% of the time to those, so it looks like that's what happened. Sure you can play better etc. but honestly 1 lucky crit out the gate means you lost coin flip there in my opinion. Yeah, was an elite monster. Thanks though.
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Jul 27, 2023 19:48
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Going into a single tough foe at low levels without healing is working high wire without a net basically. The bad guy rolls well at all and someone is suddenly dying and winning the fight just became significantly harder. Everyone buying a scroll of Heal for 4gp and handing them to the cleric is good advice for low levels.
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Jul 27, 2023 20:17
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HidaO-Win posted:Going into a single tough foe at low levels without healing is working high wire without a net basically. The bad guy rolls well at all and someone is suddenly dying and winning the fight just became significantly harder. Unfortunately in our setting, we're far away and cut off from civilization so we can't expect to purchase things in a shop for a while. quote:Looks like a literal case of throwing the dice and losing. Your statistics are better than mine by a decent bit. 19 AC and 30 hitpoints. Didn't have the money for half plate and not optimal constitution. But yeah looks like this was the case with how you laid it out. I appreciate it. Looks like I'm wrong. Nelson Mandingo fucked around with this message at 21:46 on Jul 27, 2023 |
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Jul 27, 2023 20:42
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Yeah, low levels in this game are deadly. Dying in a single crit is not uncommon.
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Jul 27, 2023 21:02
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At low levels, lvl + 2 is a big deal, which is what an elite lvl 3 is. I debate whether it's "overtuned" but downing the fighter with 1 opening crit would probably have me (the GM) giving the players some breathing room. It sounds like they didn't do that, and instead pressed hard. I believe that using the PF2e encounter rules 3 players against a lvl 3 elite is a Severe encounter aka a great chance for a wipe but I might be misremembering.
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Jul 28, 2023 01:18
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:At low levels, lvl + 2 is a big deal, which is what an elite lvl 3 is. It isn’t overturned, it was 4 players against a level 3 elite. It’s a moderate encounter and should not be difficult for an average party. It sounds like it’s a somewhat below average party who didn’t play like the system is designed for who got unlucky and mega crit, it happens. Talk to the GM about it as a group about what you want out of the campaign and combats because it’ll keep happening vOv
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Jul 28, 2023 01:46
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Glancing over monster creation notes and doing some mental math, it's probably not the fault of the elite template. Upscaling it that way gets level 4 numbers almost across the board, with the exception of DC which is 1 higher. Checking the damage, level 3 elite is 1d10+8 suggested at High, so that'd require a 9 to crit for 34. So really just sounds like high rolls and the party didn't have enough of a backup plan. A single level+2 is also a little swingy at level 2, but shouldn't be too bad. Note, for instance, if a high damage player crit instead with high damage, the boss might have been almost dead instantly - it's happened a lot in Alkenstar so far with my Sniper Gunslinger. At low levels I rolled 11 on the damage die, 10 on the fatal die, and 5 on the precision die once (for a total of 46 damage at around level 2) and absolutely obliterated an enemy.
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Jul 28, 2023 02:02
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Cyouni posted:
Well what does a backup plan look like at level 2? There was absolutely no chance of escape. The only way in and out was deep water difficult terrain and I'm gonna make an educated guess that he had a swim speed. I had a bad feeling and tried to talk the monster down but he instantly attacked. I want to preface that yeah it's clear to me we clearly should have just left and did a long rest and come back after getting near the end, and the outcome would have been wildly different if not a beatdown. We very much could have won and it's 100% our fault. But beyond individual actions and outright failed rolls being successes in the fight itself I'm not sure what we could have done differently or what a backup plan looks like the moment it started. We're level 2 with no shops, 98~ or so silver amongst everyone. Starting gear. No healers tools. Very very low AC outside me and the Rogue, a scroll of color spray, two healing potions (which couldn't be used because people died too fast). I just don't see a lot of options beyond trying to surrender. quote:Talk to the GM about it as a group about what you want out of the campaign and combats because it’ll keep happening vOv Yeah, that's why I wanted to know if it was overtuned after that crit or if we simply just sucked and died.  I got warned in this very thread ahead of time that that +2 encounters in 2E are potentially pretty bad.
Nelson Mandingo fucked around with this message at 03:39 on Jul 28, 2023 |
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Jul 28, 2023 03:14
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Looks like the dice kind of screwed your character and is cascaded. Those early game crits are brutal. How fast did your party go down though? Healing potions are pretty good because you can give them other players but if the positioning was bad than that would have ruined it. The only answers I can think of for healing would be potions and a healing kit. Taking the alchemist archetype if your doing free archetypes would give you some free potions everyday. Maybe you could talk to your GM about not being stingy with healing stuff. gurragadon fucked around with this message at 03:40 on Jul 28, 2023 |
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Jul 28, 2023 03:38
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gurragadon posted:Looks like the dice kind of screwed your character and is cascaded. Those early game crits are brutal. How fast did your party go down though? Healing potions are pretty good because you can give them other players but if the positioning was bad than that would have ruined it. Yeah position was a huge problem. I was down before people even got out of the deep water. | (back wall dry land) (boss) (dry land) (shallow water) (deep water) me cleric wizard rogue (deep water) | My plan I feel was halfway decent, I used sudden charge to get to the south of the boss and hit him with the idea of shifting to his left and exposing his back to the other players by the time they reached so he was flanked with the hopes we could quickly defeat him. But RNGJesus punished me for my lack of faith and prior bad decisions. Nelson Mandingo fucked around with this message at 03:46 on Jul 28, 2023 |
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Jul 28, 2023 03:42
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Nelson Mandingo posted:Well what does a backup plan look like at level 2? There was absolutely no chance of escape. The only way in and out was deep water difficult terrain and I'm gonna make an educated guess that he had a swim speed. I had a bad feeling and tried to talk the monster down but he instantly attacked. In this case, a backup plan is pretty much just... well, having the party cleric have some way to go "oh poo poo" and heal you back into the fight if a chunky enemy gets a really lucky hit, or acknowledging that it's a bad idea to continue if you've run out of emergency healing in this kind of team composition and finding a place to hole up in for the night. The point is, y'all made a macro-level game mistake, but unless I misread your situation you're all new to the system and this is the kind of lesson you learn by getting your face smashed in. (But also, if I was the GM I'd think about dropping an adventurer's corpse with some supplies that are in surprisingly good condition, because things like having no healer's kit at all is really worrying.)
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Jul 28, 2023 03:44
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You guys keep talking about a backup plan but at level 2 when the fighter goes down and there's no in-combat healing the backup plan is "Run, I guess the fighter's dead". (they are). I mean, I run a game for a party that doesn't have a Cleric, they have a Bard with battle medicine (and now Soothe) as their only in-combat healing, so they would have been absolutely hosed here as well in most circumstances. The fact of the matter is that Clerics aren't mandatory and Pathfinder 2e isn't a perfect system, particularly at low levels: the GM got two very "lucky" (for the monster) rolls and one-shot the best combat piece the party had. Rather than chilling the gently caress out and having the creature try to drag the party's fighter away or do something else that wouldn't result in a TPK, it sounds like they just went whole hog and got that TPK, which nobody likes. I mean we all like Pathfinder 2e because the encounter math *mostly* works but this is absolutely a case where it didn't, mostly because of the high variance of low levels and a GM decision. One of those things can be controlled. Also let's be realistic about a bunch of level 2 people with unoptomized characters being expected to play perfectly against a GM running a solo piece. Not gonna happen. Megaman's Jockstrap fucked around with this message at 03:59 on Jul 28, 2023 |
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Jul 28, 2023 03:55
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Nelson Mandingo posted:We're level 2 with no shops, 98~ or so silver amongst everyone. Starting gear. No healers tools. This is also a relevant factor for encounter consideration. If you didn't have, for example, some +1 weapons, I'd mentally consider that closer to Severe than Moderate. Wait, did you not have out-of-combat healing either? You said you don't have a healer's kit, and that party doesn't look like it has any focus spells that'd enable healing. But in your particular case, a not-terrible thing is just the ability for the cleric to keep tossing out 2-action Heal until the party can get back to a remotely stable position. Medic Dedication (clearly, needing Healer's Tools) can also do a solid amount to pull you out of a pinch at that level. Basically, some way for the party to have some recovery chance if a character drops suddenly. This is also a bit GM-dependent on what sort of things they'll allow tactically.
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Jul 28, 2023 04:27
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:You guys keep talking about a backup plan but at level 2 when the fighter goes down and there's no in-combat healing the backup plan is "Run, I guess the fighter's dead". (they are). coulda had battle medicine, coulda used heal potions, could have rested or not used all the heal spells. there’s plenty of stuff. it’s a Moderate encounter. it’s not a hard fight, they are an admittedly weak party and didn’t play in a tactically effective way and got punished by bad luck. it’s also completely fine the GM played out the fight and didn’t just sandbag it, that wasn’t wrong of them to do
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Jul 28, 2023 04:29
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Nelson Mandingo posted:two healing potions (which couldn't be used because people died too fast). For healing potions you want to save them to dump down people's throats when they go down, not necessarily for in combat healing. Like the Rogue (or whoever) could have potentially gotten you up so you'd at least get another hit in on the monster.
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Jul 28, 2023 06:28
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appropriatemetaphor posted:For healing potions you want to save them to dump down people's throats when they go down, not necessarily for in combat healing. Yeah. Came over to me to use the potions and got killed doing so. quote:it’s also completely fine the GM played out the fight and didn’t just sandbag it, that wasn’t wrong of them to do I agree with this. I see now the problem is we wanted to play out the adventuring day. Which feels narratively satisfying but isn't supported by mechanics. Nelson Mandingo fucked around with this message at 08:20 on Jul 28, 2023 |
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Jul 28, 2023 08:18
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Nelson Mandingo posted:Yeah position was a huge problem. I was down before people even got out of the deep water. I'm a little confused about the positioning here (probably my fault; it's late), but this seems like a good moment to drop another tactics tip that goes along with "don't end your turn next to the melee boss if you can help it". Namely, if you go before the boss, you can always ready a Strike on your first turn and let the boss come to you. That keeps you closer to your allies, and wastes a boss action on their first turn.
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Jul 28, 2023 08:26
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Real life adventurers wouldn’t just keep going deeper into the caves when they resources are low though. Like you could adventure for a whole “day” but have to manage your resources to allow that. The first few player levels in Abomination Vaults were pretty brutal too. Like often we’d bumble into some tough enemy, blow all our resources, retreat, and barely get away. Then welp it’s 8 am back to town to rest lol Probably at least twice we would have technically had a TPK but our GM is nice. Early AV spoilers: the Scrivener and the Gibbering Mouther So I dunno, low level Pathfinder is pretty brutal and it’s like do or die learn the system and how to get any advantage.
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Jul 28, 2023 08:37
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VikingofRock posted:I'm a little confused about the positioning here (probably my fault; it's late), but this seems like a good moment to drop another tactics tip that goes along with "don't end your turn next to the melee boss if you can help it". Namely, if you go before the boss, you can always ready a Strike on your first turn and let the boss come to you. That keeps you closer to your allies, and wastes a boss action on their first turn. This is fantastic advice, thanks. Though in our case, staying in deep water probably would have had problems of it's own. But that's definitely a great point. Nelson Mandingo fucked around with this message at 09:53 on Jul 28, 2023 |
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Jul 28, 2023 09:49
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This whole series is good for tactical ideas, but this bit about defensive movement was handy for me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tro1lJhjRM&t=740s Not sure the exact setup but you want to look for ways to make a monster waste actions. Athletic stuff like trip and grab are borderline OP vs single enemies. Especially with fighter where you can Trip, then just stand there and when the enemy gets up you get a free attack with no MAP. Or you Trip --> Strike --> Step away and the boss has to waste two actions standing and moving.
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Jul 28, 2023 10:49
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3 Action Economist posted:Did you flank? my experience has been, you always want to be able to apply flat footed but flanking is the most dangerous way to go about it, because it means two people need to be asking for triple attacks and one of them might very well be standing somewhere to be effortlessly flanked and eat a half dozen or more attacks instead my current party has a dedicated wrestler going for grabs, bottled lightnings, our psychic's shenanigans and an investigator with the feat to grant flat footed to a friendly for an attack all as ways to more safely apply the status how do we safely apply flat footed is a good basic question to ask about your party
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Jul 28, 2023 15:01
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appropriatemetaphor posted:Early AV spoilers: the Gibbering Mouther I had so much fun as a GM with that encounter. The party tied a rope to their level 2 Oracle, and lowered him down the well they found in level 2 to see what was down there. He was almost immediately KO'd and they pulled his unconscious body back up. They didn't head back for payback until hitting 4th level.
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Jul 28, 2023 17:35
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appropriatemetaphor posted:So I dunno, low level Pathfinder is pretty brutal and it’s like do or die learn the system and how to get any advantage. The bandits with bows at least made sense, it's a super common weapon type and if you don't think to give them crossbows instead then that's going to be a lot of deadly attacks at level 1. The beasts we ran into with deadly claws after that were just some designer being dumb. Vanguard Warden fucked around with this message at 19:27 on Jul 28, 2023 |
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Jul 28, 2023 19:23
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I've been through 5 starting at level one campaigns so far and never found them all that deadly. The max damage rolled crits are so vanishingly rare, statistically, that it's almost not worth remarking on. Even if you do get chunked there's so many options for healing and recovery with ample time allowance to do so. Single enemy encounters especially just don't have enough actions to reliably knock anyone out for good unless you're in a party actively avoiding every method of defense and healing.
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Jul 28, 2023 23:02
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A deadly longbow averages 14.5 damage at level 1, when martials expect to have ~20ish. It would take almost max rolls (8 on the damage plus average on deadly) to take you out from full on a crit. A wooden shield on a druid, assuming 12 Con, would also require 20 damage from full. It's actually almost impossible on a shortbow, which maxes out at 22 and averages 12.5.
Cyouni fucked around with this message at 23:46 on Jul 28, 2023 |
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Jul 28, 2023 23:42
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That's actually a good question. Lets say you're going to play a ranged...ranger, what is generally better? A short bow, longbow, or crossbow? Obviously all three have their own strengths and weaknesses.
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Jul 29, 2023 15:52
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I think it just depends on the situation. There's a ranger in the group I'm playing that brings along a longbow and a short bow. He usually uses the longbow because it's got a better damage die and longer range, but the volley trait makes it kind of bad at less that 30 ft by losing a -2 to attack. When we go into dungeons, he will pull out the short bow until we explore a little bit. If it is more open inside than he switches back to longbow. A ranged character defaults to wanting to stay in range, so usually it's not a big deal for him to stay out of the volley range. The crossbow has the best range, but it has no traits at all. Good damage and range but no critical effects and no drawback from being close. The deadly critical effect is pretty good, and I think it's worth it to try to stay out of the 30 ft. range to use the longbow whenever possible. Just from a gameplay perspective I think a bow would be more enjoyable than a crossbow because of the deadly critical effect.
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Jul 29, 2023 16:21
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The crossbow is also hindered by needing to spend an action to reload after every shot. There're ways to help with that but if you're a Flurry ranger, you pretty much need a weapon with Reload 0.
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Jul 29, 2023 16:38
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Nelson Mandingo posted:That's actually a good question. Lets say you're going to play a ranged...ranger, what is generally better? A short bow, longbow, or crossbow? Obviously all three have their own strengths and weaknesses. Generally short bow, with a Longbow you're going to spend basically all interior fights with a -2 attack penalty which is very bad. Ranger makes crossbows workable but doesn't make them good, so unless you specifically want to lean into the gimmick I'd avoid them. Edit: if you can get access to it the Hongali Hornbow is the best non-crossbow bow Piell fucked around with this message at 16:53 on Jul 29, 2023 |
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Jul 29, 2023 16:43
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Nelson Mandingo posted:That's actually a good question. Lets say you're going to play a ranged...ranger, what is generally better? A short bow, longbow, or crossbow? Obviously all three have their own strengths and weaknesses. Flurry: Shortbow Precision: Taw Launcher if Human, otherwise Sukgung Edit: the revision is supposed to have a martial crossbow that isn't fatal or reload 2 that should be better than the Sukgong for Rangers. KPC_Mammon fucked around with this message at 16:49 on Jul 29, 2023 |
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Jul 29, 2023 16:47
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Does anyone have experience with the pf2 animations mod for foundry? Trying to see if it's worth it to do the paid tier of jb2a animations
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Jul 29, 2023 16:49
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Jarvisi posted:Does anyone have experience with the pf2 animations mod for foundry? Trying to see if it's worth it to do the paid tier of jb2a animations It is amazing. If you have the disposable income it is worth it.
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Jul 29, 2023 16:50
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KPC_Mammon posted:Flurry: Shortbow Shouldn't conrasu also get taw launchers?
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Jul 29, 2023 16:50
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KPC_Mammon posted:It is amazing. If you have the disposable income it is worth it. Do you get anything at all for the free tier?
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Jul 29, 2023 17:03
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Piell posted:Edit: if you can get access to it the Hongali Hornbow is the best non-crossbow bow You do pay the price of its range being absolute dogshit.
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Jul 29, 2023 19:06
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Cyouni posted:A wooden shield on a druid, assuming 12 Con, would also require 20 damage from full. It's actually almost impossible on a shortbow, which maxes out at 22 and averages 12.5. Your "almost impossible" is a 6.66% chance on any crit, so better odds than rolling a natural 20 in the first place. It's also more than twice as likely than that if the druid had less ancestry HP than you're assuming from, you know, being an elf. In either case, "it's not super likely" doesn't really fix the issue of "whoops the group's designated healer got one-shot through a raised shield from across the room by a level -1 bandit" being a thing that happened. Lamuella posted:You do pay the price of its range being absolute dogshit. Rangers don't really need to care as much about range because you ignore the penalties for your second range increment towards your hunted prey. It's a pretty easy bit to overlook because it usually doesn't matter with the absurd range you get on normal bows, but it's super handy if you're building around thrown weapons and such.
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Jul 29, 2023 21:15
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