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Scoss
Aug 17, 2015
I have one player in my group who I am increasingly realizing is just operating on a totally different axis from my other players. She has basically signaled during play that she doesn't care about money, or powerful magical items, and that her character is more interested in resolving misunderstandings and de-escalating fights. This is a bit of a challenging character concept, given that I prompted the group to essentially create professional monster exterminators, and the premise of the adventure so far has been plundering tombs in an uninhabited wilderness full of Princess Mononoke style primordial beasts and the undead remnants of an extinct civilization.

Anyway, so long as everyone's having fun I don't really care if someone is playing a character that wandered in from a different campaign, and I am happy to create narrative opportunities for everyone in the party to get what they want. What I am actually struggling with is I have no idea what kind of treasure to prepare for a player who is only marginally interested in(and maybe slightly overwhelmed by) PF2 combat -- we are all new to PF2 and her experience is mostly with 5e and PF1 I think. My other two players, I am certain will hoot and holler when they get striking runes and other toys to explode monsters with, so it's easy to itemize for them, but I have no idea what to do for the Druid who mostly just wants to talk to spiders and avoid fighting anything that's furry and has big eyes.

They're currently level 2 so I think this is about the time that they should start finding some permanent skill bonus items? Something that gives a bonus to Nature would probably be good but I didn't see anything for level 2 or 3 while skimming nethys. Should I just look at some of the other level 3 worn items that give skills and kind of use it as a template? She's just gotten a level 1 Heal wand to help relieve a little pressure on low level spell slots and maybe prepare something that seems more fun to her. My knowledge of the specific magic items that exist in the game is very limited, along with my understanding of how to build new ones. My intuition here is that I might just have to create some totally homebrew magic items that are more story focused and not care about if they're balanced, because they probably won't intersect with the combat and she's unlikely to exploit them in any kind of degenerate way even if they do. It's just a little bit scary since I am still totally new to GMing and don't know PF2's quirks very well yet.

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ZZT the Fifth
Dec 6, 2006
I shot the invisible swordsman.
I'm finally going to be playing in my first PF2e game tomorrow night/technically tonight since it's past midnight. I decided to build a tanky lizardfolk fiighter since my three fellow players are a sorceror, an inventor, and a barbarian. I'm starting off with a pick, a steel shield, chainmail, and the Reactive Shield feat (I was between that and Sudden Charge); I hope that's a good start!

Does anyone have any play tips?

ZZT the Fifth fucked around with this message at 07:06 on Sep 14, 2023

Jen X
Sep 29, 2014

To bring light to the darkness, whether that darkness be ignorance, injustice, apathy, or stagnation.

Facebook Aunt posted:

Thank you, that's good to know. So that would be only full casters or folks with caster archetypes, not just a guy who has a couple innate spells from his ancestry or things like a champion's lay on hands ability, right?

Pretty much, yeah! For the purposes of the item, you need to either be a caster class that starts with spellslots or to have the archetype feat that gives you spells (and spell slots) from 1st to 3rd rank/level.

marshmallow creep
Dec 10, 2008

I've been sitting here for 5 mins trying to think of a joke to make but I just realised the animators of Mass Effect already did it for me

Scoss posted:

I have one player in my group who I am increasingly realizing is just operating on a totally different axis from my other players. She has basically signaled during play that she doesn't care about money, or powerful magical items, and that her character is more interested in resolving misunderstandings and de-escalating fights. This is a bit of a challenging character concept, given that I prompted the group to essentially create professional monster exterminators, and the premise of the adventure so far has been plundering tombs in an uninhabited wilderness full of Princess Mononoke style primordial beasts and the undead remnants of an extinct civilization.

Anyway, so long as everyone's having fun I don't really care if someone is playing a character that wandered in from a different campaign, and I am happy to create narrative opportunities for everyone in the party to get what they want. What I am actually struggling with is I have no idea what kind of treasure to prepare for a player who is only marginally interested in(and maybe slightly overwhelmed by) PF2 combat -- we are all new to PF2 and her experience is mostly with 5e and PF1 I think. My other two players, I am certain will hoot and holler when they get striking runes and other toys to explode monsters with, so it's easy to itemize for them, but I have no idea what to do for the Druid who mostly just wants to talk to spiders and avoid fighting anything that's furry and has big eyes.

They're currently level 2 so I think this is about the time that they should start finding some permanent skill bonus items? Something that gives a bonus to Nature would probably be good but I didn't see anything for level 2 or 3 while skimming nethys. Should I just look at some of the other level 3 worn items that give skills and kind of use it as a template? She's just gotten a level 1 Heal wand to help relieve a little pressure on low level spell slots and maybe prepare something that seems more fun to her. My knowledge of the specific magic items that exist in the game is very limited, along with my understanding of how to build new ones. My intuition here is that I might just have to create some totally homebrew magic items that are more story focused and not care about if they're balanced, because they probably won't intersect with the combat and she's unlikely to exploit them in any kind of degenerate way even if they do. It's just a little bit scary since I am still totally new to GMing and don't know PF2's quirks very well yet.

The bard in my party has kind of the same goals, and I've been giving them poo poo like the Entertainer's Lute or the Diplomat's Badge. Since your player is a druid, I imagine wands and staves that provide less-than-lethal alternatives or means of communication like maybe a wand of forced mercy or the mentalist's staff wouldn't go amiss.

I've been using mimic fight club to randomly generate level appropriate treasure and then exploring what it can do to pick out the stuff that may best interest my players.

Oh, and your setting sounds dope.

gurragadon
Jul 28, 2006

ZZT the Fifth posted:

I'm finally going to be playing in my first PF2e game tomorrow night/technically tonight since it's past midnight. I decided to build a tanky lizardfolk fiighter since my three fellow players are a sorceror, an inventor, and a barbarian. I'm starting off with a pick, a steel shield, chainmail, and the Reactive Shield feat (I was between that and Sudden Charge); I hope that's a good start!

Does anyone have any play tips?

You're in a good position with fighter, they are awesome and a lot of fun to play in PF2e. I'd recommend trying to get flanking with the barbarian and inventor if they are melee. The -2 to enemy AC really helps with hitting, and you will crit more because of the +10-crit rule. Because your using the pick and it has the fatal d10 modifier you will really do a ton of damage on crits. I would still raise my shield as a third action pretty frequently even with reactive shield because fighters get attack of opportunity, and I would hate to miss a chance to use it.


Lamuella posted:

The wiki on the episode is here, with a link out to the episode.

https://rqg.fandom.com/wiki/RQG_178_-_Frost_and_Fire

Basically, to give content notes but not spoilers, this is the aftermath of Something Bad happening, where several characters died (was random, could have been anyone, turned out to be NPCs including one very plot relevant NPC). There was a resurrection ritual, but it depended on the characters wanting to come back, and one of them didn't. So there's a lot of grief related stuff, but handled in quite a gentle way.

The funeral section begins at about 43:00. I misremembered and the kobolds are lighting the pyre with their breaths, not with tapers.

Thanks for this, I'm new to GMing and haven't handled a serious moment yet so it's interesting to see how other people do it.

Froghammer
Sep 8, 2012

Khajit has wares
if you have coin

gurragadon posted:

You're in a good position with fighter, they are awesome and a lot of fun to play in PF2e. I'd recommend trying to get flanking with the barbarian and inventor if they are melee. The -2 to enemy AC really helps with hitting, and you will crit more because of the +10-crit rule. Because your using the pick and it has the fatal d10 modifier you will really do a ton of damage on crits. I would still raise my shield as a third action pretty frequently even with reactive shield because fighters get attack of opportunity, and I would hate to miss a chance to use it.
Piggybacking on this, Reactive Shield is stronger later in combat because it makes move + double swing less of a risk. Sudden Charge lets you zoomies to get into position, which is great either early in combat when you need to get stuck in or late in combat when you need to chase down runners or disrupt things charging your backline. I've gotten a lot of use out of Sudden Charge and honestly I recommend it over Reactive Shield, but I'm also an Ancestry with access to Shield and wielding a reach weapon to maximize Opportunity Attacks Reactive Strikes, which makes getting into position more important than it would be if I were going sword and board.

mind the walrus
Sep 22, 2006

Scoss posted:

I have one player in my group who I am increasingly realizing is just operating on a totally different axis from my other players. She has basically signaled during play that she doesn't care about money, or powerful magical items, and that her character is more interested in resolving misunderstandings and de-escalating fights. This is a bit of a challenging character concept, given that I prompted the group to essentially create professional monster exterminators, and the premise of the adventure so far has been plundering tombs in an uninhabited wilderness full of Princess Mononoke style primordial beasts and the undead remnants of an extinct civilization.

... I have no idea what to do for the Druid who mostly just wants to talk to spiders and avoid fighting anything that's furry and has big eyes.
...My intuition here is that I might just have to create some totally homebrew magic items that are more story focused and not care about if they're balanced, because they probably won't intersect with the combat and she's unlikely to exploit them in any kind of degenerate way even if they do. It's just a little bit scary since I am still totally new to GMing and don't know PF2's quirks very well yet.

Looking over the Treasure Vault there's some avenues you can go to use existing items, modify existing items, or homebrew items that will give a wide variety to your Druid either as a permanent bonus or direct them towards styles of play they either may not be aware they could do, or that would help serve their desire to be more diplomatic/social/supportive. The rules for crafting your own magic items is pretty step-by-step in the GMG, referenced on Nethys here: https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1053.

Check items with the following traits for possible ideas to start for crafting your own, as these might not be obvious just browsing the item tables on Nethys:

  • Apex
  • Missive
  • Talisman
  • Catalyst
  • Grimoire
  • Tattoo
  • Spellheart
  • Cursed

If you don't have a copy of the Treasure Vault, I highly recommend it. I was very skeptical it would be useful and very glad to have been wrong. It's my most-referenced PF2e book outside of the CRB, Bestiaries, and current AP book.

PF2e items are essentially a mandatory subsystem that understandably overwhelms and confuses players on top of all the other mechanics, so it's worth browsing the book dedicated entirely to expanding items as it's organized in a much more practical way than Nethys' (wonderful and free) data tables. I couldn't even really tell you in-depth about the "Assistive Items" section because there is no trait for those items, so it can be screened for on Nethys and I'm not listing them all out or scanning the pages in, but it's really worth a serious look if you're a GM.

bagrada
Aug 4, 2007

The Demogorgon is tired of your silly human bickering!

Shield tank tip from our champion - obtain a backup shield when you can, and hopefully you or someone in your party can repair broken shields in the field. He's had his shatter on him five times between the beginner box and Gatewalkers 1.

KPC_Mammon
Jan 23, 2004

Ready for the fashy circle jerk
I don't like reactive shield at low levels. It takes a reaction, so you don't get to shield block. At level 1 a steel shield can greatly extend your effective hit points through blocking, especially if you bring a backup shield. I actually think the feat is better for people who don't want to use their shield much. As a random +2 AC when you get focused it is fine. If your goal is to be the tank you want to save your reaction for blocks or striking enemies that move away from you.

boxen
Feb 20, 2011

KPC_Mammon posted:

I don't like reactive shield at low levels. It takes a reaction, so you don't get to shield block. At level 1 a steel shield can greatly extend your effective hit points through blocking, especially if you bring a backup shield. I actually think the feat is better for people who don't want to use their shield much. As a random +2 AC when you get focused it is fine. If your goal is to be the tank you want to save your reaction for blocks or striking enemies that move away from you.

I'm confused here... You need a shield raised to use shield block, and if you're using reactive shield, you didn't have a shield raised. I don't see a case (at least at low levels, I think later feats change things) where you have to pick between using your reaction to shield block or use it to raise the shield.

It seems like reactive shield is useful in a case where you didn't have an action to raise the shield, and while you won't get to use shield block you'll at least have the higher AC. And you don't HAVE to use the reaction to reactive shield, you could just take the hit and still use an AoO or whatever if the opportunity comes up.

Jon
Nov 30, 2004

bagrada posted:

Shield tank tip from our champion - obtain a backup shield when you can, and hopefully you or someone in your party can repair broken shields in the field. He's had his shatter on him five times between the beginner box and Gatewalkers 1.

Coolest feature of 2e hands down. Finally, we get shield dropping and replacing- like a medieval duel or something. I absolutely love it- compared to PF1e shields which you just forget about entirely.

Chevy Slyme
May 2, 2004

We're Gonna Run.

We're Gonna Crawl.

Kick Down Every Wall.

boxen posted:

I'm confused here... You need a shield raised to use shield block, and if you're using reactive shield, you didn't have a shield raised. I don't see a case (at least at low levels, I think later feats change things) where you have to pick between using your reaction to shield block or use it to raise the shield.

It seems like reactive shield is useful in a case where you didn't have an action to raise the shield, and while you won't get to use shield block you'll at least have the higher AC. And you don't HAVE to use the reaction to reactive shield, you could just take the hit and still use an AoO or whatever if the opportunity comes up.

The point is that if you're taking the action to Raise a Shield so that you will be able to block, Reactive Shield isn't doing anything for you. And if you're not taking the action, you have to use Reactive shield for the AC, so you can't block.

Basically, your plan should be to block with your shield, and if your plan is to block with your shield, then reactive shield, is, inherently, not doing much for you.

If the problem is you don't have the actions to get your shield raised, a better plan, as a fighter, is probably to look for feats that enhance your action economy elsewhere, to free up the action required to raise your shield, such as Sudden Charge.

Put another way, Reactive Shield is basically a better and worse version of Nimble Dodge - it's better insofar as you keep the AC bonus until your next turn after the triggering attack.

It's worse in that you essentially lose one hand to be able to have it available.

That's... not a great trade, especially when compared to the other level 1 fighter feats available and the utility of Shield Block if you simply plan on it being available.

Chevy Slyme fucked around with this message at 17:21 on Sep 14, 2023

Froghammer
Sep 8, 2012

Khajit has wares
if you have coin

boxen posted:

I'm confused here... You need a shield raised to use shield block, and if you're using reactive shield, you didn't have a shield raised. I don't see a case (at least at low levels, I think later feats change things) where you have to pick between using your reaction to shield block or use it to raise the shield.

It seems like reactive shield is useful in a case where you didn't have an action to raise the shield, and while you won't get to use shield block you'll at least have the higher AC. And you don't HAVE to use the reaction to reactive shield, you could just take the hit and still use an AoO or whatever if the opportunity comes up.
At low levels, Fighters' average turns have very low variance. If you're going sword and board, it's almost always one of the following:

Move + Strike + Strike
Move + Strike + Shield
Strike + Strike + Shield
Strike + Strike + Strike

Reactive Shield only helps in the first and last scenarios, both of which are rather rare; you're not going to want to move and then double swing on something unless you're reasonably sure you can finish it off with those two attacks, and triple swinging is a Hail Mary.

Lurks With Wolves
Jan 14, 2013

At least I don't dance with them, right?

Jon posted:

Coolest feature of 2e hands down. Finally, we get shield dropping and replacing- like a medieval duel or something. I absolutely love it- compared to PF1e shields which you just forget about entirely.

It does make interesting shields way more annoying, though, since that makes them shields you can't block with because you can't risk breaking them. So, to tie this back into the remaster changes discussion, it's a good thing they're adding a shield quality you can slap on to make them not feel like expensive paper mache if you ever want to block with them.

Chevy Slyme
May 2, 2004

We're Gonna Run.

We're Gonna Crawl.

Kick Down Every Wall.

Lurks With Wolves posted:

It does make interesting shields way more annoying, though, since that makes them shields you can't block with because you can't risk breaking them. So, to tie this back into the remaster changes discussion, it's a good thing they're adding a shield quality you can slap on to make them not feel like expensive paper mache if you ever want to block with them.

That said, this was a conscious choice - shields for blocking are shields for blocking. Interesting shields are meant to be for everyone else who doesn’t use shield block, but who can use a shield.

The problem, in my mind, is less that “you can’t block with the interesting shields” that exist - most of them aren’t built around that anyway - but that there aren’t more interesting variants on the sturdy shield that so cool things with/to your Shield Block reaction aside from simply “block more damage”.

Lurks With Wolves
Jan 14, 2013

At least I don't dance with them, right?

Chevy Slyme posted:

That said, this was a conscious choice - shields for blocking are shields for blocking. Interesting shields are meant to be for everyone else who doesn’t use shield block, but who can use a shield.

The problem, in my mind, is less that “you can’t block with the interesting shields” that exist - most of them aren’t built around that anyway - but that there aren’t more interesting variants on the sturdy shield that so cool things with/to your Shield Block reaction aside from simply “block more damage”.

Yeah, I generally agree. And the new quality is tuned for "this shield is not useless for basic shield mechanics" instead of being equivalent to sturdy shields while being expensive enough to still be a meaningful choice if you aren't going to seriously block with it, so the dynamic's still there. It just feels too big of a gap for me most of the time the way it currently works.

Also: what would you want an interesting sturdy shield upgrade to look like? The only example from Paizo I can think of off-hand is the leaf shield from Rage of Elements that automatically repairs itself between fights, but there has to be more to work with than that.

Chevy Slyme
May 2, 2004

We're Gonna Run.

We're Gonna Crawl.

Kick Down Every Wall.

Lurks With Wolves posted:

Yeah, I generally agree. And the new quality is tuned for "this shield is not useless for basic shield mechanics" instead of being equivalent to sturdy shields while being expensive enough to still be a meaningful choice if you aren't going to seriously block with it, so the dynamic's still there. It just feels too big of a gap for me most of the time the way it currently works.

Also: what would you want an interesting sturdy shield upgrade to look like? The only example from Paizo I can think of off-hand is the leaf shield from Rage of Elements that automatically repairs itself between fights, but there has to be more to work with than that.

Some examples of interesting sturdy shield variants might be:

Some token damage reflection on block
Some less token damage burst on shield break
Forced movement on a block (maybe a free athletics check to shove to make it less ‘free’)
Free movement for the player on a block
For the Champions and Magi out there, maybe “when this shield breaks, regain a focus point” could be a cool mechanic to play with.

There’s a lot of cool options you can do that would be interesting to have trigger on a block or on the shield breaking, but for any of them to be interesting, the shield itself has to be worth blocking with first.

Chevy Slyme
May 2, 2004

We're Gonna Run.

We're Gonna Crawl.

Kick Down Every Wall.
To be a little more specific, looking at the existing specific shields:

The Exploding Shield is in the right category, but only the level 5 version exists. There's no scaling, either in terms of blocking capability, or damage, so it quickly becomes outdated. It's also very clearly designed to take 1, maybe 2 hits, then blow and get replaced - that makes sense, obviously, but also, there's maybe a place for a version that takes a little longer to break, so the effect becomes more of an Oh poo poo Button rather than an offensive bait and punish item.

The Spellguard shield is another example of the right kind of item design (It's a steel shield, that lets you block spells as well as attacks), but offers no scaling past level 6. It shouldn't have full Sturdy Shield HP and hardness, obviously, but some kind of option for a level 12 player that wants that functionality that isn't using a 6 level old shield that breaks in one hit because the scaling was forgotten seems reasonable. See also, the Dragonslayer's Shield, which essentially gets bonus hardness against an energy type.

That said, the Sanguine Klar is a great example of a shield that does represent what a good alternative to a Sturdy Shield could look like. You give up either 2 or 5 hardness (depending on whether you compare it to the Sturdy Shield variant just below or just above it's level), and between 16 and 40 hp; in return, the shield regenerates in combat when targets nearby bleed. That's really cool! You can build around that! It's a shield that's worthwhile to block with, but which doesn't overshadow it's Sturdy alternative.

Facebook Aunt
Oct 4, 2008

wiggle wiggle




ZZT the Fifth posted:

I'm finally going to be playing in my first PF2e game tomorrow night/technically tonight since it's past midnight. I decided to build a tanky lizardfolk fiighter since my three fellow players are a sorceror, an inventor, and a barbarian. I'm starting off with a pick, a steel shield, chainmail, and the Reactive Shield feat (I was between that and Sudden Charge); I hope that's a good start!

Does anyone have any play tips?

If it is a long term game I'd think about what else you want to be good at. As a fighter you are the master of weapons and awesome in combat.

The obvious thing to do is to get +4 in your key stat, str or dex, and then +3 in con for extra hp, and let the mental stats fall where they may. As a lizardfolk you're already starting with -1 int, so falling into the big dumb fighter trope seems easy.

But with that racial +1 in wisdom, you could got Str +4, Wis +3, and +2 in Con and still be amazing on the battlefield but also have more options outside. (And it looks like none of your party members are set up to be good in wisdom).

+3 to wis gets you +9 perception for spotting hazards and initiative. And also make you the best in your party at Sense Motive when dealing with NPCs.

Medicine checks are a big deal and depend on wisdom. You are potentially the best medic in your party if you take the Medicine skill. If you take the Field Medic background that would give you the Battle Medicine feat from level 1, which lets you do medicine in combat for just 1 action.

That would still leave you with a couple skill choices. With a +3 in wisdom you have the potential to be very good at Nature or Religion (for recall knowledge checks) or survival for tracking and whatnot.


Just an option to consider.

KPC_Mammon
Jan 23, 2004

Ready for the fashy circle jerk
+3 in wisdom also makes you less likely to fail a will save against dominate or confusion and kill the rest of the party. I've seen a fighter do terrible things to their friends in two separate campaigns.

ZZT the Fifth
Dec 6, 2006
I shot the invisible swordsman.
The first session was pretty neat. I ended up being the party's medic between combats, and our barbarian almost died but was saved by a healing consumable at dying 3. I also was able to be a spotter for our inventor, who got to snipe an ooze before combat.

There were some Foundry hiccups, like basic actions and activities not already being on our character sheets, and first-time jitters resulting from things like this (nobody's going to know about Activities if they're not on the sheets), but everyone seemed to have a pretty good time. Sudden Charge paid off quite a bit.

ZZT the Fifth fucked around with this message at 07:10 on Sep 15, 2023

Syrinxx
Mar 28, 2002

Death is whimsical today

Has anyone played or had a player who is an Investigator? I think my Malevolence GM is going to get super annoyed with me asking for That's Odd in every room and hallway. Any way to streamline this process a bit? I feel like this is probably even more annoying than "I have darkvision"

Chevy Slyme
May 2, 2004

We're Gonna Run.

We're Gonna Crawl.

Kick Down Every Wall.

Syrinxx posted:

Has anyone played or had a player who is an Investigator? I think my Malevolence GM is going to get super annoyed with me asking for That's Odd in every room and hallway. Any way to streamline this process a bit? I feel like this is probably even more annoying than "I have darkvision"

The PFS guidance on the AoN page as a baseline is helpful here. TL;DR:point out secret doors, hidden monsters, treasure. Don't worry about the rest.

But it's still on the GM to always be pointing that out to you, or on you as the player to be an annoying piece of poo poo about it.

If either half of that combo is annoyed by this and wants a better way, I would advise you to simply Take A Different Feat.

Known Weaknesses is pretty good at level 1.

Proven
Aug 8, 2007

Lurker
There are a lot of secret checks that the GM is supposed to do automatically, like if a character is Searching for their exploration activity or if a hazard has no minimum for perception proficiency.

If the GM isn’t the type to do that, then yeah, agree with Pick Another Feat. I know my GM does almost no secret checks and it irks me a bunch.

VikingofRock
Aug 24, 2008




I play an investigator, and I don't think it's too disruptive to just wait until after my GM finishes the description of a room, and then after he's done, ask "anything odd?". It doesn't seem like a huge burden on him; he either gives me a hint towards a secret in the room, says no, or takes the moment to add a fun bit of detail to the room. The typical party isn't blasting through rooms or anything; usually I'm only asking a handful of times per session.

Syrinxx
Mar 28, 2002

Death is whimsical today

Cool thanks all. I'm an eternal GM so very excited to play my investigator in this. Also got the ok to take Eldritch Researcher dedication so I'm pumped to go die in this haunted house

sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

talk to your GM about it

gurragadon
Jul 28, 2006

Yeah, just talk to your GM but I would actually like an investigator with that's odd in a way. As a GM I know I can put whatever I want in a room and the players won't miss it unless I want them to because I can always point it out as a class feature and the way it works you don't have to give everything away, just the lead up to start the secret.

Edit: It would probably help a GM who dosen't do secret checks because you would prompt them for information. I forget about doing secret checks sometimes just because theres a bunch to keep track of.

gurragadon fucked around with this message at 17:56 on Sep 15, 2023

ZZT the Fifth
Dec 6, 2006
I shot the invisible swordsman.

ZZT the Fifth posted:

The first session was pretty neat. I ended up being the party's medic between combats, and our barbarian almost died but was saved by a healing consumable at dying 3. I also was able to be a spotter for our inventor, who got to snipe an ooze before combat.

There were some Foundry hiccups, like basic actions and activities not already being on our character sheets, and first-time jitters resulting from things like this (nobody's going to know about Activities if they're not on the sheets), but everyone seemed to have a pretty good time. Sudden Charge paid off quite a bit.

Our GM has proposed having a low investment GMPC to act as a healbot for lower levels. Given how badly we've been getting banged up, this might not be a bad idea.

Any idea how I can help my fellow PCs with tactics?

SilverMike
Sep 17, 2007

TBD


ZZT the Fifth posted:

Our GM has proposed having a low investment GMPC to act as a healbot for lower levels. Given how badly we've been getting banged up, this might not be a bad idea.

Any idea how I can help my fellow PCs with tactics?

If you haven't already been, try to avoid taking a 3rd attack on a turn. Demoralize, Stride away, Stride to set up a flank for Flat-Footed/Off-Guard, Recall Knowledge, try to do -something- that isn't an attack at -10 MAP. Striding away is also generally useful to potentially make monsters burn 1 or 2 actions to catch you or someone other target.

Another thing is to keep the Delay action in mind. You can set up better situations with by manipulating your turn order, especially in regards to debuffing. Throw a Demoralize on something when your other 3 party members all act before it, set up a flank so you and the Barb can take advantage of it before the monster gets to move away, or whatever else you can think of.

And if you're facing a single monster, think about things like Grapple or Trip to make it burn 1 of its 3 actions if it wants to act freely. As a bonus, them getting up from Prone after a Trip gives you a chance to AoO if you're not saving the reaction for a block.

KPC_Mammon
Jan 23, 2004

Ready for the fashy circle jerk
I'd recommend not ending your turn next to an enemy at low levels of you don't have a shield raised. Especially if they are higher level than you. Hit point totals are really low, so you can go down fast.

Shield users are really good at helping provide flanking safely.

Edit: Certain enemies like oozes punch way above their weight but have a slow move speed and are trivial to kite. If you fight an enemy with a 10' move speed and you don't end your turn within 20' of it it'll never hurt you.

Movement is extremely important. If enemies spend actions to stride they aren't spending those actions on attacks. A spell like mud pit can end up being much better than magic missile, especially since enemies can't step in difficult terrain to avoid your opportunity attacks.

KPC_Mammon fucked around with this message at 00:05 on Sep 16, 2023

boxen
Feb 20, 2011
What would be the best background for a lizardfolk investigator to fit the theme of "In-Vest-i-Gator"?

the_steve
Nov 9, 2005

We're always hiring!

boxen posted:

What would be the best background for a lizardfolk investigator to fit the theme of "In-Vest-i-Gator"?

Charlatan (if they don't actually know how to detective but believe they do/want others to believe they do)
Detective (if they actually do know how to do detective work)

Chevy Slyme
May 2, 2004

We're Gonna Run.

We're Gonna Crawl.

Kick Down Every Wall.

boxen posted:

What would be the best background for a lizardfolk investigator to fit the theme of "In-Vest-i-Gator"?

Bookkeeper to be an Invest-I-gator.

Fidel Cuckstro
Jul 2, 2007

Hey just to offer folks- if you're in the Chicago area and looking to try out Pathfinder Society, I've been playing there are few months and doing some GMing. It's a pretty friendly little group.

In October they're looking to do a big multi-table adventure, which could be a neat experience for folks :) https://warhorn.net/events/chicagoland-paizo-organized-play/schedule/sessions/c2973598-18b9-4317-80b3-aea3578fea81

mind the walrus
Sep 22, 2006

Chevy Slyme posted:

Bookkeeper to be an Invest-I-gator.
Unironically this.

Other fun options that could guide the concept-- Junk Collector, Dauntless, Barrister, Cook, Grave Robber, Feral Child, Musical Prodigy, Revenant, Sheriff, Tall-Tale, Thrill-Seeker, Translator, Unremarkable, Union Representative, and the list just goes on.

VikingofRock posted:

I play an investigator, and I don't think it's too disruptive to just wait until after my GM finishes the description of a room, and then after he's done, ask "anything odd?". It doesn't seem like a huge burden on him; he either gives me a hint towards a secret in the room, says no, or takes the moment to add a fun bit of detail to the room. The typical party isn't blasting through rooms or anything; usually I'm only asking a handful of times per session.

This is how I handle Investigators in my games and it's fun. Talk with the GM if it's more of a combat-crunch, but to be blunt the GM should be thinking in these terms if they have an Investigator and working on their detail descriptor/key element muscles.

SilverMike posted:

If you haven't already been, try to avoid taking a 3rd attack on a turn. Demoralize, Stride away, Stride to set up a flank for Flat-Footed/Off-Guard, Recall Knowledge, try to do -something- that isn't an attack at -10 MAP. Striding away is also generally useful to potentially make monsters burn 1 or 2 actions to catch you or someone other target.

Another thing is to keep the Delay action in mind. You can set up better situations with by manipulating your turn order, especially in regards to debuffing. Throw a Demoralize on something when your other 3 party members all act before it, set up a flank so you and the Barb can take advantage of it before the monster gets to move away, or whatever else you can think of.

And if you're facing a single monster, think about things like Grapple or Trip to make it burn 1 of its 3 actions if it wants to act freely. As a bonus, them getting up from Prone after a Trip gives you a chance to AoO if you're not saving the reaction for a block.

This is all extremely good advice.

disposablewords
Sep 12, 2021

Has Paizo said anything about offering updated core book PDFs for those who already own the core in PDF, when the update comes out? I'm not going to be all that fussed if not, all that information is basically going to be on AON or something, but it'd obviously be convenient.

Facebook Aunt
Oct 4, 2008

wiggle wiggle




I have my fingers crossed for another big humble bundle of pdfs like there was this January.

Chevy Slyme
May 2, 2004

We're Gonna Run.

We're Gonna Crawl.

Kick Down Every Wall.

disposablewords posted:

Has Paizo said anything about offering updated core book PDFs for those who already own the core in PDF, when the update comes out? I'm not going to be all that fussed if not, all that information is basically going to be on AON or something, but it'd obviously be convenient.

There’s no special deal that I know of - it’s just “hey buy these new PDFs, or keep using AoN”. It is a whole new book, completely rewritten and reorganized, even if the rules being described in that new book are largely similar or the same.

That said, there’ll probably be a humble bundle in 2025 or whatever if you’re committed to waiting long enough.

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ZZT the Fifth
Dec 6, 2006
I shot the invisible swordsman.
Thanks for the tips! Our sorceror has asked me for help with her spell list; any suggestions for good low-ranked occult spells?

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