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Clerical Terrors posted:Are we still talking about a pen and paper RPG or about some kind of MMORPG, I can't tell anymore. dnd 4e sux cuz its tabletop wow!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Oct 15, 2023 17:35
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Mister Olympus posted:we are talking about a strategy pen and paper rpg ultimately descended from board games meant to simulate medieval wars, and then later the big setpiece battles of books like lord of the rings So how did Napoleonic wargamers in Minneapolis deal with precision damage resistance?
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Oct 15, 2023 17:37
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Dick Burglar posted:dnd 4e sux cuz its tabletop wow!!!!!!!!!!!! That's not what I said but reading comprehension doesn't relate to combat so I guess we don't care about it.
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Oct 15, 2023 17:40
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Clerical Terrors posted:So how did Napoleonic wargamers in Minneapolis deal with precision damage resistance? artillery
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Oct 15, 2023 17:40
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their equivalent was a chart of which armor works better/worse against which weapon, so that the whole thing of "knives are for opening gaps in plate armor" could be simulated. but the famous one of them transcribed the chart backwards so actually things work in the opposite way they were supposed to
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Oct 15, 2023 17:40
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So if we gave the rogue a gun...
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Oct 15, 2023 17:41
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Clerical Terrors posted:So if we gave the rogue a gun... exactly! the 6d12 bludgeoning damage from a cannon is a more than acceptable replacement for sneak attack damage imo
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Oct 15, 2023 17:45
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mind the walrus posted:It's been the double-edged sword of the entire TTRPG space since D&D5e dropped, and I always tell new players who are way too excited from podcasts and Baldur's Gate 3 "we'll absolutely have room for great RP and for non-combat characters to have their moments, but overall this is a combat game." Most of them map to it and enjoy, but there's always the occasional CHA/skill demon build that I have to point out will struggle in combat without a real plan. My last PF2 campaign had a player who was new to PF2 from 5e, and he initially planned to make an Eldritch Trickster Rogue with 14 Dex and 16 Cha because "I can just talk my way out of fights". And no, the Cha wasn't to make his Eldritch Trickster spells better (though that still wouldn't be a great idea) because his archetype spells were Wis-based from Cleric because "then I can heal and stuff". Part of the problem of the math being tight is that there are a lot of choices you can make in character building that are objectively just incorrect.
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Oct 15, 2023 20:07
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Vanguard Warden posted:My last PF2 campaign had a player who was new to PF2 from 5e, and he initially planned to make an Eldritch Trickster Rogue with 14 Dex and 16 Cha because "I can just talk my way out of fights". And no, the Cha wasn't to make his Eldritch Trickster spells better (though that still wouldn't be a great idea) because his archetype spells were Wis-based from Cleric because "then I can heal and stuff". It's not like that character would work any better in 5e tbh
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Oct 15, 2023 20:21
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Andrast posted:It's not like that character would work any better in 5e tbh It probably works to a degree if your group/GM has a "the rules are made up and the character sheets don't matter" mentality, which I suspect is how a lot of people play 5e, whereas I think PF2 groups are more likely to play something fairly close to RAW (often running an Adventure Path).
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Oct 15, 2023 20:39
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Yeah once had to have a 5e Bard respec entirely because they wanted to be a pure spellcaster and I had to remind them that it was a hybrid class, and without a definite plan for support/item use he'd mostly be pissing away puny cantrips in combat, which is exactly what happened before the respec. The idea of being able to skill-roll/RP your way through d20 combat is appealing as hell when your primary reference point is something like Fallout or Baldur's Gate, but in practice unless the GM is doing a lot of work to engineer the battlegrounds and the player is willing to be creative as hell constantly, it will mostly be a lot of "get behind me," running away, and "does x attack do much? no? ok." Silver2195 posted:It probably works to a degree if your group/GM has a "the rules are made up and the character sheets don't matter" mentality, which I suspect is how a lot of people play 5e, whereas I think PF2 groups are more likely to play something fairly close to RAW (often running an Adventure Path). I found it a lot of extra work because even when everyone was on the same page, a lot of rules are very thinly sketched and boil down to a lot of "eh roll a skill check and set the DC and make something up." By the end of some campaigns I felt I had to design over half the rulebook/setting which felt gross considering how much the books cost. PF2e is chunky and a lot of players do clearly stress under the rigidity, but all the RAW is in service of making the gears turn smoothly and once it gets up to speed it's both a lot faster and a lot clearer for everyone. The trade-off is that you can't theater kid your way through it and have to make concessions to the system, and some people would rather die than do that. mind the walrus fucked around with this message at 20:46 on Oct 15, 2023 |
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Oct 15, 2023 20:42
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Andrast posted:It's not like that character would work any better in 5e tbh Ooof, no, at that point just play a freaking Bard. That idea is pulled way too thin for a Rogue even in 5e.
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Oct 15, 2023 20:48
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SkySteak posted:As someone coming from a 5e conception of class balance and roles, how is Bard in 2E? Earlier in the thread I saw someone mention that they're actually practically the same in terms of playstyle/general role as their 5e counterparts, is that true? Do they still keep strong in combat and out of combat utility? I wanna give a heads up that unless you play with open archetype (and you totally should, and it should be baseline in the game because holy poo poo is it fun) the bard is absolutely much more of a support class, especially in the earlier levels in Pathfinder. I'm sure people who have actually played it can dispute that, but one of the shocks to the system I see from people new from 5E is the Bard can't handle themselves alone usually. And seen some horror stories of bards who want to be attackers and damage dealers and avoid using their buffs for some reason...? Basically don't be that guy. This is much more of a team game. Because +1's matter a lot more in Pathfinder, bards are the best support and utility class hands down. Explicitly so since it's so easy for them to boost the entire party. When you beat a check of any kind by +10, it's a crit. So +1 isn't just a 5% increased chance to hit. It's a 5% increased chance to crit. Best way to look at it is you might not be doing a ton of damage or big show stopper moves in combat but your party is going to be at an otherwise significant advantage against the enemy. You're a back rank MVP. Nelson Mandingo fucked around with this message at 22:23 on Oct 15, 2023 |
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Oct 15, 2023 22:08
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SkySteak posted:As someone coming from a 5e conception of class balance and roles, how is Bard in 2E? Earlier in the thread I saw someone mention that they're actually practically the same in terms of playstyle/general role as their 5e counterparts, is that true? Do they still keep strong in combat and out of combat utility? Bards are great. You get Inspire Courage at level 1. +1 status bonus to attack rolls and damage rolls to all your allies within 60 feet for 1 action per turn. Better than Bless and you can do it all day long, it doesn't use up spell slots. You can learn other composition cantrips with other effects too. Most spells are 2 actions, so you can do a composition cantrip plus cast a regular spell every turn if you want. Or you can use your high charisma on actions like Demoralize or Bon Mot Bards are even great during downtime. You can use your performance skill to earn income.
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Oct 15, 2023 22:13
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Because 5E bards can do basically everything all at once, it should probably be pointed out that PF2E bards cannot be as good at martial fighting as well as actual martial classes like 5E bards can. There is no equivalent to the college of swords/valor in PF2E. You can dabble with using weapons if you really want to, but you're not going to be very good at it. If you're hoping to keep up with the fighter or ranger or whatever, you're gonna be very disappointed. It's not a thing you should be focusing on trying to do as a PF2E bard.
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Oct 15, 2023 22:34
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Dick Burglar posted:Wow sure would be nice if rogues could take a feat and then miraculously be able to deal a slightly different precision damage to immune mobs.
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Oct 16, 2023 00:13
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MadScientistWorking posted:That feat exists.... Please tell me you're not referring to Sly/Impossible Striker.
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Oct 16, 2023 00:32
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Dick Burglar posted:Please tell me you're not referring to Sly/Impossible Striker. https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=597 No, it's Powerful Sneak. It's very good! The problem? It's level 18. By the time you obtain it, you're going to have long needed it for too long.
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Oct 16, 2023 00:51
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Additional caveat: you have to succeed in an attack roll using Strength, so you'd better be heavily invested in a non-standard attribute. Yeah, no. Don't care. That feat sucks rear end so bad it might as well not exist. (And, since it doesn't come online til level 18, it effectively doesn't for 99% of players.)
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Oct 16, 2023 01:09
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It's standard if you're a ruffIan
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Oct 16, 2023 01:19
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yeah I dunno, like most things I just come back to, talk to the person designing, or at the very least running the encounters, if you feel it's a problem. Like I had a Psychic and occult sorc in Bloodlords who had a miserable time as almost everything was immune to stuff with the mental tag. If your GM is just throwing creatures to negate your character all the time at you then yeah gotta have that conversation.
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Oct 16, 2023 01:24
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I'm kind of curious how Powerful Sneak works with things like Double Slice for adding damage since it doesn't count as precision damage anymore, but since it's an 18th level feat it doesn't really matter anyway.
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Oct 16, 2023 01:26
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Dick Burglar posted:Additional caveat: you have to succeed in an attack roll using Strength, so you'd better be heavily invested in a non-standard attribute. Literally every Rogue subclass other than Thief should be investing in Strength. Probably more than Dex.
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Oct 16, 2023 03:50
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Dick Burglar posted:Additional caveat: you have to succeed in an attack roll using Strength, so you'd better be heavily invested in a non-standard attribute. MadScientistWorking fucked around with this message at 12:29 on Oct 16, 2023 |
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Oct 16, 2023 12:27
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Pathfinder 2 draws a lot from more skirmish game-y DNA. At least, it draws enough that arbitrarily hobbling down a player's damage for reasons outside their control feels cheap. If you're going to do it, IMO it needs to be tied to player decision making and come with sufficient fallback options so they don't get left out of the encounter at character creation. And yeah, sure. There's so much more to the game than combat. But with combat being where the lion's share of rules live and the game becomes slowest, getting left out of it always sticks out harder.
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Oct 16, 2023 13:13
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This is why at level 9 my Rogue in my group's Kingmaker campaign will have a 45 foot movespeed, so I can outrun all precision attack immune horses.
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Oct 16, 2023 14:05
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MadScientistWorking posted:Also, sneak attack isnt the be all end all for the class Literally nobody is saying this. I'm coming across as more angry than I am in reality because obviously rogues are very very good for more things but folks keep going outside the scope of what is being talked about. The issue is that there is a lot more common precision immunity damage than many others. Your average Rogue who isn't min-maxed to the gills rely completely on sneak attack to compete with other martials- it's their bread and butter. It's their Thing. Precision damage immunity being more common is trying to fix a problem (precision damage user classes are too strong!) that simply doesn't exist. Obviously if we're going to talk about combat verisimilitude with Rogues, they do have a lot more options than others with potential huge spread of great in-combat skills (demoralize, bon mot, battle healing, probably going to make that recall knowledge check etc). But that's outside the scope of what folks like me are saying. Nelson Mandingo fucked around with this message at 14:16 on Oct 16, 2023 |
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Oct 16, 2023 14:14
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Nelson Mandingo posted:Obviously if we're going to talk about combat verisimilitude with Rogues, they do have a lot more options than others with potential huge spread of great in-combat skills (demoralize, bon mot, battle healing, probably going to make that recall knowledge check etc). But that's outside the scope of what folks like me are saying. Also, those are things with limited use cases (one-per-10-minutes on demoralize, bon mot lasts a minute, both have the linguistic tag, etc). There are vanishingly few combat scenarios where "hit a bitch" is going to be a bad call.
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Oct 16, 2023 14:25
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Nelson Mandingo posted:Literally nobody is saying this. the things you see as what a min maxed to the gills rogue doing is sorta the basic, fundamental thing a rogue is designed to do. they are complementary to classes who just hit things, but are not a class who just hits things and are not in a damage competition against classes who just hit things
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Oct 16, 2023 15:03
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sugar free jazz posted:the things you see as what a min maxed to the gills rogue doing is sorta the basic, fundamental thing a rogue is designed to do. they are complementary to classes who just hit things, but are not a class who just hits things and are not in a damage competition against classes who just hit things The main fundamental thing rogue is designed to do in combat is in fact sneak attack. The design ethos of PF2 has never been "if you have utility you are worse at combat" and it doesn't apply to most classes in the game (including the rogue since it is in fact solid when it isn't against precision immune enemies). If that was something PF2 tried to do it failed spectacularly.
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Oct 16, 2023 15:42
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Andrast posted:The main fundamental thing rogue is designed to do in combat is in fact sneak attack. The Investigator specifically does kind of feel like it's getting utility in return for being worse at combat. Also, the Barbarian does feel like it's specifically supposed to be bad at non-combat things; it has a bunch of feats and features that would be useful out of combat if they didn't require you to be raging. (Basically the only Barbarian non-combat utility feat is Spiritual Guides, and it's subclass-locked.) Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 16:03 on Oct 16, 2023 |
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Oct 16, 2023 15:59
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Silver2195 posted:The Investigator specifically does kind of feel like it's getting utility in return for being worse at combat. Also, the Barbarian does feel like it's specifically supposed to be bad at non-combat things; it has a bunch of feats and features that would be useful out of combat if they didn't require you to be raging. (Basically the only Barbarian non-combat utility feat is Spiritual Guides, and it's subclass-locked.) I think the investigator is just a victim of the APG being really conservative with the balancing. Oracle, Witch and the investigator are all below par there and we have been talking about the issues with swash for a while now. Some examples of high utility classes with very strong combat are Bard and Thaumaturge.
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Oct 16, 2023 16:09
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Andrast posted:The main fundamental thing rogue is designed to do in combat is in fact sneak attack. well this really explains why you might be dissatisfied with rogues as a class
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Oct 16, 2023 16:37
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why would you think i'm dissatisfied with rogue as a class
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Oct 16, 2023 16:47
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if u think about rogues as being all about sneak attack in combat they're really boring and lovely and would be not fun at all to play
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Oct 16, 2023 16:52
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It is what their entirely playstyle revolves around like swashbucklers revolve around panache + finishers or champions with their reaction. It is what separates them from other classes in combat, it is the rogue's shtick. Andrast fucked around with this message at 18:16 on Oct 16, 2023 |
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Oct 16, 2023 16:56
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sugar free jazz posted:the things you see as what a min maxed to the gills rogue doing is sorta the basic, fundamental thing a rogue is designed to do. they are complementary to classes who just hit things, but are not a class who just hits things and are not in a damage competition against classes who just hit things The math has been done and their damage is fine. When they can accomplish sneak attacks. They don't have to be damage kings and queens. That isn't what I'm saying either. It's simply not fun or good design to have core playstyle of your class combat loop not available more consistently than others. Especially when you're not particularly unbalanced otherwise. Let's make this easy. Do you feel that Rogues or any of the primarily precision damage classes are too powerful in combat as-is?
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Oct 16, 2023 17:50
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Double post because this is a bit different topic. I've never played with, or played an alchemist so I'm completely in the dark here. Someone might be joining our table as a new player as a bomber alchemist and I'd like some advice to relay on building an effective one that isn't an RPGbot guide. I'm aware alchemists are in a bit of a rough spot right now that are getting reworked.
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Oct 16, 2023 17:53
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Rogues are burst attackers. Their whole combat deal is "Get into position, do big hit with sneak attack, and then reposition before they get punched in the face." They're not meant to stay in position and go toe-to-toe against an enemy like a Fighter or a Barbarian does with consistent sustained DPS.
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Oct 16, 2023 17:54
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Nelson Mandingo posted:Double post because this is a bit different topic. I've never played with, or played an alchemist so I'm completely in the dark here. As before, my first choice is usually the most up-to-date guide posted here (that isn't rpgbot)
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Oct 16, 2023 18:01
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