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should be pointed out that it's indiscriminate. Unlike something like mass healing word in 5e you can't heal your allies but leave your enemies untouched. It comes into maximum action economy if you're fighting the undead, though, as it does positive damage to them on a basic fort save.
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Aug 16, 2023 12:35
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There's also a feat that lets you discriminate with it, fwiw.
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Aug 16, 2023 12:39
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Gwaihir posted:There's also a feat that lets you discriminate with it, fwiw. I only heal elves. gently caress those snotty-nosed humans.
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Aug 16, 2023 12:41
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Arivia posted:I only heal elves. gently caress those snotty-nosed humans. gb2 celwynvian (or maybe castrovel idk I'm not an elf scientist)
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Aug 16, 2023 18:16
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There's also the angelic sorcerer focus spell which lets you increase the healing by +1/die rolled for anyone within 15 ft, which obviously pairs better with the AoE vs the ST.
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Aug 16, 2023 18:46
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Lamuella posted:That's an interesting one. The rules as written say that it travels in a 60 foot line, not up to 60 feet. Which I guess would mean it thuds into the wall. But that would feel very limiting for a magical blade of air. It seems like they could have a line in there like "60 foot line unless stopped by terrain". But yeah if it *must* travel 60 feet to get the whirling boomerang benefit it seems super limited. GimpInBlack posted:I would say the intent is clearly "you can't voluntarily shorten the line, but if the line stops because you have no line of effect beyond that range, that square is still the last square of the line," but admittedly there isn't a concrete rule in the current PF2e rulebook that I can find that explicitly deals with this--the only other place this "last square in a line" rule is mentioned (at least in the core) appears to be Penetrating Ammunition, but it doesn't provide any more clarification. That seems right. I'm making a backup AV kineticist and the thought of a 60 foot line anywhere in the ol' Vaults just seems like madness. But plenty of enemies adjacent to walls in tiny rooms.
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Aug 16, 2023 19:51
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I've been scouring the various Bestiaries looking for interesting low level monsters to throw at my group. I came across the Yellow Musk Creeper (https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=867) and Thralls and they seem pretty neat and flavorful. I'm confused about the stacking Stupefy condition that the Creeper is able to inflict with the Brain Drill ability-- specifically I can't figure out how it would ever end. Does it basically function as permanent ability damage and you would need to find some specific countermeasure to remove it? I would be very reluctant to throw something like that at a level 1 or 2 party if it wasn't clear to them what they have to do to fix it.
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Aug 17, 2023 20:27
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Scoss posted:I've been scouring the various Bestiaries looking for interesting low level monsters to throw at my group. It does. Note that the spell to fix it is pretty generic, restoration will do it: https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=258 Also, it's actually extremely hard for the creeper to pull it off against a PC - you have to fascinate them, then start your turn adjacent to them (since it takes 3 actions), and they still get a save to resist. It's flavorful, but a group with a little bit of planning can definitely go "okay keep the fascinated away from the plant" and grapple them, etc.
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Aug 17, 2023 20:34
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Arivia posted:It does. Note that the spell to fix it is pretty generic, restoration will do it: https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=258 Also note that any hostile action against a fascinated person breaks it. Any hostile action.
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Aug 17, 2023 20:39
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Cyouni posted:Also note that any hostile action against a fascinated person breaks it. You don't even need to be successful. Spend an action to demoralize and the effect is ended.
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Aug 17, 2023 22:48
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I ran a monster with fascinate and during the encounter realized how goddamn stupid it is
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Aug 17, 2023 23:37
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KPC_Mammon posted:You don't even need to be successful. Spend an action to demoralize and the effect is ended. I don't know a DM that would classify Demoralize as a Hostile Action, per the rules description.
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Aug 18, 2023 00:50
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For the RPG Superstar contest I was toying with making a monster that blasted everyone nearby with Fascinate, as a sort of attempt to get everyone zonked and unable to help each other. But if even one person is unaffected it's just the most boring kind of "burn actions to free your buddies" tax, and if they are all Fascinated then you can't make the rider on the condition too bad or they'll all die because RAW the condition never ends (you have to come up for the rules for that yourself). It's tough.Toshimo posted:I don't know a DM that would classify Demoralize as a Hostile Action, per the rules description. Relevant part of the rule: "A hostile action is one that can harm or damage another creature, whether directly or indirectly," So, you would have to rule that getting the Frightened condition (a brutal debuff, as these things go) is not "harm". In the words of Darryl Hall and John Oates, "I can't go for that." Megaman's Jockstrap fucked around with this message at 01:08 on Aug 18, 2023 |
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Aug 18, 2023 00:56
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Toshimo posted:I don't know a DM that would classify Demoralize as a Hostile Action, per the rules description. I don't know any that wouldn't. Hostile actions "harm or damage" another creature. Clearly, non damaging effects can be hostile, otherwise they'd not need to write harm in addition to damage in the rulebook. The idea that Fear, largely considered one of the best rank 1 and 3 spells in the game, is benign and not hostile is laughable. Edit: Having a Hostile keyword might have helped avoid confusion but Calm Emotions, Sanctuary, Invisibility, and Fascinated are the main things that interact with Hostile that I can think of off the top of my head, so it might have been too niche to be worth it. KPC_Mammon fucked around with this message at 01:20 on Aug 18, 2023 |
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Aug 18, 2023 01:13
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It's probably still better to leave it up to GM interpretation, so that if you're using Mage Hand to drop things on peoples' heads, that's still properly considered hostile. Megaman's Jockstrap posted:For the RPG Superstar contest I was toying with making a monster that blasted everyone nearby with Fascinate, as a sort of attempt to get everyone zonked and unable to help each other. But if even one person is unaffected it's just the most boring kind of "burn actions to free your buddies" tax, and if they are all Fascinated then you can't make the rider on the condition too bad or they'll all die because RAW the condition never ends (you have to come up for the rules for that yourself). It's tough. Well, unless you specifically call it out in whatever's attached to the rider, it'll still break when a hostile action comes up.
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Aug 18, 2023 01:53
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Thinking about exploration activities-- During overland travel I've kind of suggested that we abstract things a bit to just give me a general description of how they're proceeding (looking for danger, navigating efficiently, moving quietly, searching for a specific thing, etc), but once they get to the proper dungeon I will want them to be operating in a slightly more explicit way when they describe how they're proceeding. I have one player in particular who I am certain will try to have his sword drawn basically as much as possible, and I'm wondering how people generally handle that sort of thing mechanistically (same with walking around with your shield raised I suppose). Do I make that the one thing he's doing, just being ready in case a fight pops off, or should I let him do something else maybe with a penalty since his focus is split? General advice for exploration mode and 10-minute "dungeon turns" as a whole is welcome!
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Aug 18, 2023 16:36
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Something else with no penalty. Don't punish your players for trying to play the game. The reason why Defending is an exploration activity is because it provides a benefit for the time until your turn begins, meaning that even if you roll last on initiative, you still have the AC bonus from it. If they want to describe how they're doing things, you can take that and then classify it into an exploration action, or they can just define their own.
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Aug 18, 2023 16:55
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Scoss posted:Thinking about exploration activities-- You can always have your weapon out, it doesn't take anything. "Defend - Raise a Shield" is an exploration action so if he's doing that then that's what he's doing - if they end up doing something more granular (ie finding a secret door or a trap or setting something up), then just have them break out of their actions if they want to.
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Aug 18, 2023 16:56
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I certainly have no interest in trying to "punish people for playing the game". It just seems that many many characters (and enemies) have a sort of inherent, usually 1 action "ready tax" that they pay to draw a weapon or adopt a stance or otherwise prepare to engage in combat. From what I can tell, due to the fact that the game has no concept of "surprise rounds" or similar, part of the purpose of these actions seems to be allowing players to get a slight (but not overwhelming) advantage from being able to accurately anticipate that combat is about to happen and to do them pre-emptively. It just seems like allowing players to walk around with their weapons drawn literally all the time with no drawback is an attempt to bypass this design entirely, and maybe that's commonly allowed because people think it's too fiddly or something, I don't know, that's why I'm asking about it. Scoss fucked around with this message at 17:07 on Aug 18, 2023 |
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Aug 18, 2023 17:02
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Scoss posted:I certainly have no interest in trying to "punish people for playing the game". It just seems that many many characters (and enemies) have a sort of inherent, usually 1 action "ready tax" that they pay to draw a weapon or adopt a stance or otherwise prepare to engage in combat. From what I can tell, due to the fact that the game has no concept of "surprise rounds" or similar, part of the purpose of these actions seems to be allowing players to get a slight (but not overwhelming) advantage from being able to accurately anticipate that combat is about to happen and to do them pre-emptively. You can carry a weapon around because it's one action to do and then you are holding your weapon as long as you want. The exploration actions are all things you are basically repeating every round, ie you have to keep using the 1 action Raise a Shield every round to get the bonus.
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Aug 18, 2023 17:09
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Scoss posted:I certainly have no interest in trying to "punish people for playing the game". It just seems that many many characters (and enemies) have a sort of inherent, usually 1 action "ready tax" that they pay to draw a weapon or adopt a stance or otherwise prepare to engage in combat. From what I can tell, due to the fact that the game has no concept of "surprise rounds" or similar, part of the purpose of these actions seems to be allowing players to get a slight (but not overwhelming) advantage from being able to accurately anticipate that combat is about to happen and to do them pre-emptively. The solution to this is to 1) when the player wants to interact with the world in a way that requires them to use both hands, make them explicitly sheathe the weapon and redraw it after that interaction. That’s perfectly fine to do and you can stop making a point of it once it’s clear that’s how you run things and that you’ll pay attention to that momentary shift - most importantly, if the character in question is a 2h weapon user, it’s an action to regroup the weapon with their second hand and you should specifically enforce that in the moment as it comes up. And perhaps more importantly 2) enforce appropriate social consequences to busting into a room that could have been a friendly encounter with a sword out. Have NPC’s specifically call out the maniac who kicks down doors with a weapon drawn breach and clear style while walking in to an otherwise potentially friendly environment. The goal shouldn’t be to punish the player for keeping a weapon drawn - there’s a lot of situations where that’s actually the correct move - but to create an environment where there’s a little bit more thought and intentionality to it.
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Aug 18, 2023 17:24
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Stances are also encounter-only, so you literally cannot have them prepped outside of combat. That's why those feats exist. The gunslinger variation does allow for a weapon draw, but that usually works more for if they're surprised or otherwise caught weapons down. You wouldn't have a weapon out at a party or during diplomacy, for instance.
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Aug 18, 2023 17:26
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The weapon draw feats seem more for letting you switch weapons in combat. Like switching from mêlée to ranged.
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Aug 18, 2023 17:32
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Can someone explain to me in simple terms how you'd mechanically run an ambush in PF2e, since there are no surprise rounds? Just yelling "SURPRISE!" and rolling intiative will give you the ambushers and ambushees sprinkled throughout the intiative order, and it seems the point of an ambush is the have all of the ambushers go first. Would you roll initiative and pick an ambusher to go "first" and then have everyone else delay until after the ambusher goes, rolling the ambushees' initiative after all of the delayed turns are resolved?
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Aug 18, 2023 17:50
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I do one of two things. If the action being done was from an undetected creature, and especially if it could have been done as a Readied Action, I let it happen and then immediately roll imitative if I believe the two sides will fight. If it’s something like a spell being cast that would ruin stealth to some degree, then based on the rules I put them in initiative first, as a higher initiative means that they were able to react in time. I may give the aggressor a circumstance bonus to their initiative, let them roll a different skill to represent what they’re doing (e.g. for a spellcaster I’d let them roll the skill related to their magic source), or both. Yeah, there’s no surprise rounds, so in general unless someone is playing by Sneak rules then initiative means that the other side always have a chance to react.
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Aug 18, 2023 18:30
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If you want to run ambushes/surprise you have to do it by setting up the scenario. If they just want to sneak up on someone randomly, then all they get is the sneaking side rolls stealth and then it's just initiative. Otherwise the advantage in catching people off guard/ambushing are in things mentioned above like your opponents may start combat sitting down without weapons out, so that's 2 actions right there before they're even doing anything of value in the combat. Or the players can set themselves up advantageously with the terrain, things like that. Otherwise once you establish the positions and the conditions of all the combatants, you just roll initiative. Giving one side a surprise round will just end combat with victory for that side trivially, so you can't really do it in PF2E.
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Aug 18, 2023 18:36
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boxen posted:Can someone explain to me in simple terms how you'd mechanically run an ambush in PF2e, since there are no surprise rounds? If your whole party wants to act in sequence without enemies acting in between them, and they're starting the fight, hidden/undetected, they can all delay their first turns until after their opponents have 'taken their turns', unsuspecting of the ambush, and all act in the order they choose. Yes, that means that at the start of the next round, but you can also do lesser versions of this with just one or two members delaying to set up the specific 1-2 punch opener that you want to make your ambush work.
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Aug 18, 2023 19:06
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boxen posted:Can someone explain to me in simple terms how you'd mechanically run an ambush in PF2e, since there are no surprise rounds? That is the intent. You usually roll Stealth for initiative and then proceed, where anyone who rolls higher generally notices something is off just before they're about to get ambushed. Think of it as akin to making the Perception roll to participate in the surprise round.
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Aug 18, 2023 19:18
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It always seemed pretty intentional to me that "ambushing" means you get to roll Stealth for initiative rather than Perception. Depending on the group's rolls you then either roll low meaning you get spotted on the approach, or roll high meaning that you don't get spotted and therefore act first. Surprise rounds have always been a really silly design to me. Like you sneak up and ambush someone so obviously you need to act first since you're the one initiating things, but then you give the ambusher an entire extra round to do that while still rolling initiative normally anyway? That's completely redundant, just drop the initiative roll entirely as the person initiating things should obviously be the one who has initiative.
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Aug 18, 2023 19:24
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Would rolling Stealth for initiative even do anything or be a benefit to anyone not a Rogue though? Seems like basically everyone has a better Perception roll than a Stealth roll *and* they'd also lack Surprise Attack.
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Aug 18, 2023 19:42
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appropriatemetaphor posted:Would rolling Stealth for initiative even do anything or be a benefit to anyone not a Rogue though? quote:To determine whether someone is undetected by other participants in the encounter, you still compare their Stealth check for initiative to the Perception DC of their enemies. They’re undetected by anyone whose DC they meet or exceed. So what do you do if someone rolls better than everyone else on initiative, but all their foes beat their Perception DC? Well, all the enemies are undetected, but not unnoticed. That means the participant who rolled high still knows someone is around, and can start moving about, Seeking, and otherwise preparing to fight. The characters Avoiding Notice still have a significant advantage, since that character needs to spend actions and attempt additional checks in order to find them. What if both sides are sneaking about? They might just sneak past each other entirely, or they might suddenly run into one another if they’re heading into the same location. This is the advantage. You get to start the fight hidden, and the opponent 'wastes' their turn during that 'surprise' round in which they don't see you, looking around, being confused, and not seeing the actual ambush coming. You can combine that with strategic use of Delay by members of the party to properly organize your alpha strikes or whatever.
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Aug 18, 2023 20:05
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All the ambush stuff is summarized in in a small section in the Gamemastery Guide. It's pretty clearly laid out, outside of the stupid language in one of the sentences that reverses the PCs and enemies. If you're Avoiding Notice when you start a combat, you can try to ambush opponents by rolling Stealth for initiative, including cover bonuses. If the Stealth roll beats the Perception DC of all opponents, that character is undetected (enemies have no idea what square they're in), and if the Stealth roll also beats all enemy initiative rolls, that character is also unnoticed (enemies have no idea they're even in the area). Then, to take advantage of this, either the group launches some alpha strike attacks (they stop being undetected/unnoticed after the first attack, but enemies are flat-footed to it), or they Sneak around (preferably with cover or greater cover) and then do whatever. This is all significantly less powerful and harder to take advantage than 1e surprise rounds, but frankly that's a good thing, because it allows the GM to use the same rules for enemies without absolutely obliterating the party at some point. Roadie fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Aug 18, 2023 |
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Aug 18, 2023 20:07
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There's also just the fact that, well, you roll Stealth for initiative because you're hiding, and hiding has advantages even when you don't have Surprise Attack. To quote a relevant bit from the Gamemastery Guide:quote:When one or both sides of an impending battle are being stealthy, you’ll need to deal with the impacts of Stealth on the start of the encounter. Anyone who’s Avoiding Notice should attempt a Stealth check for their initiative. All the normal bonuses and penalties apply, including any bonus for having cover. You can give them the option to roll Perception instead, but if they do they forsake their Stealth and are definitely going to be detected. Until you do something to reveal yourself, either the other side doesn't know you're there or they need to waste actions running around like goons fighting Batman to try and find you. Anyway, to the original question: you basically just run it like a normal round, the people who go before the ambushers just don't do anything outside of their usual marching order if they don't notice something's up. EDIT: Okay, so everyone also came in to say the same thing while I was typing this. It happens. Lurks With Wolves fucked around with this message at 20:12 on Aug 18, 2023 |
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Aug 18, 2023 20:09
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It seems like after you roll initiative, if the ambushees aren't aware of the ambushers (at least, their exact locations) it would be very useful for the ambushers to delay their turns so they all go in order, with minimum opportunity for the ambushees to react. You're not going to get the two full rounds for the ambushers like you might in 5e. You more likely end up with one round of the ambushees fumbling around and trying to figure out where the attacks are coming from, and if the ambushers all go in a row you might be able to take some of the ambushees out of the fight entirely before they have a chance to do much. The group gets everything set up, at some signal the fight begins and everyone rolls initiative. The ambushers are fully hidden, and they either do whatever they like and the combat continues more or less like normal with ambushers and ambushees acting in turn, or the ambushers delay and all go in a row. The ambushees that go before those who delay will likely spend their turns drawing weapons or seeking unless they see an obvious target. If I have that right, my only other question is what decides when you roll initiative? It seems like if you have someone say "I attack!" and they already had a bow drawn or whatever, they'd be first on initiative order but that's not how the game works. If they say they attack, then there'd be the initiative roll and maybe they'd go first, maybe not. If not, storywise it'd be because one of the ambushees was alerted somehow, or one of the ambushers got a little trigger happy and didn't delay. boxen fucked around with this message at 22:02 on Aug 18, 2023 |
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Aug 18, 2023 21:59
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boxen posted:It seems like after you roll initiative, if the ambushees aren't aware of the ambushers (at least, their exact locations) it would be very useful for the ambushers to delay their turns so they all go in order, with minimum opportunity for the ambushees to react. You're not going to get the two full rounds for the ambushers like you might in 5e. You more likely end up with one round of the ambushees fumbling around and trying to figure out where the attacks are coming from, and if the ambushers all go in a row you might be able to take some of the ambushees out of the fight entirely before they have a chance to do much. When the "encounter" begins everyone rolls. Ambushers roll stealth, victims roll perception as normal. If the victims roll high enough, they notice the ambush and react. Otherwise they spend their turns doing what they would normally do. If you have a specific scenario, like the party is sneaking into a castle and they find 4 guards playing cards and drinking, then the party rolls stealth, the guards roll perception with whatever penalties. The party can then sneak around using combat rules or they can start attacking. But the encounter starts when you switch from exploration to combat/social encounter mode. Initiative order is rolled when they party decides they're engaging with the scenario.
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Aug 18, 2023 22:16
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boxen posted:If I have that right, my only other question is what decides when you roll initiative? It seems like if you have someone say "I attack!" and they already had a bow drawn or whatever, they'd be first on initiative order but that's not how the game works. If they say they attack, then there'd be the initiative roll and maybe they'd go first, maybe not. If not, storywise it'd be because one of the ambushees was alerted somehow, or one of the ambushers got a little trigger happy and didn't delay. Currently it's just "the GM decides", with a side order of "the PCs get to that node of the dungeon flowchart while Avoiding Notice". But this is also just a general issue with encounters, as even if nobody is Avoiding Notice there's no mechanization for, say, how close two enemy groups get before you start initiative rolls and round-by-round movement tracking, and in all the APs it's a case-by-case thing or just left up to the GM to decide. If somebody wants to come up with homebrew here, I'd say the biggest factor to keep in mind is that a lot of PF 2e assumes fairly tight distances (even at high level you've got a lot of AP dungeon rooms that are under 20 squares across), so you want something that has starting distances that only take 1 or 2 turns to cover.
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Aug 18, 2023 22:24
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There's no way for the player to know that they're hidden right? I suppose you can guess that if your own Perception DC is 25 and your Stealth initiative roll is a 27 that yeah maybe you're Undetected? If you are Undetected can you do Sneak --> Strike to have a target be off guard to you? A bit unclear on when you become observed in that sort of situation.
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Aug 19, 2023 01:08
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I believe the Hide or Sneak rules mention that your next action needs to be Sneak or Strike, and anything else reveals you (you lose the hidden condition and become detected) before the action resolves so that you don’t get any Off Guard bonus from it. The only exception to this is if you have enough cover or magic (e.g. Spell Rank 4 Invisibility) to keep you hidden. Because of that, and the because of the RAW “one side walks around in initiative unknowingly” which feels better designed to happen to NPCs than for players, I try to run it as Sneak Attack + Readied Actions and then roll initiative. This also keeps it so that one side isn’t all grouped up in initiative due to Delay. But admittedly this works best for a “bust down the door” situation when you don’t have full information on your enemies, so you wouldn’t know enough to have them all in initiative order unless you could see through a keyhole. This also works for cases with a single hidden creature or creatures with a special reaction because it glides into initiative without the players having a “spider sense tingling” out-of-narrative moment if one has player has a high enough initiative but doesn’t actually detect anything coming. After writing all that, I’m nerfing the players, aren’t I? Especially if they are all able to win the Stealth checks necessary, all because I’m afraid of stumbling myself into a situation where a bunch of archers attack in a row and pin cushion them. More GM experience required… Anyone have a cool stealth related encounter from one of their games to share?
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Aug 19, 2023 09:47
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Proven posted:I believe the Hide or Sneak rules mention that your next action needs to be Sneak or Strike, and anything else reveals you (you lose the hidden condition and become detected) before the action resolves so that you don’t get any Off Guard bonus from it. The only exception to this is if you have enough cover or magic (e.g. Spell Rank 4 Invisibility) to keep you hidden. So you have it almost right. Basically, the relevant text is: quote:You cease being hidden if you do anything except Hide, Sneak, or Step. If you attempt to Strike a creature, the creature remains flat-footed against that attack, and you then become observed. If you do anything else, you become observed just before you act unless the GM determines otherwise. The GM might allow you to perform a particularly unobtrusive action without being noticed, possibly requiring another Stealth check. Note that Hide/Sneak/Step are explicit, whereas other actions are possible but require adjudication. I generally tend to permit things like Reload and Seek, and other things depend on situation.
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Aug 19, 2023 16:29
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Yeah, the explicit rules for what reveals you without GM permissiveness are excessively strict. Like Hunt Prey would technically reveal you, and I don't even know what kind of physical act that would even be.
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Aug 19, 2023 18:14
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