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Scoss posted:I assume outright that building player characters to use as statblocks for monsters is a very bad idea. I think it's generally agreed that building player characters to use as statblocks for monsters works fine, balance-wise; they'll have lower numbers than monsters of their level normally would, but more versatility. The only issues are the time to build them and possible decision paralysis in play. Building four different monsters that way for a single encounter seems like too much effort, though. Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 16:09 on Nov 28, 2023 |
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Nov 28, 2023 16:05
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If you've got money to burn there are some Pathfinder Infinite bundles of NPCs that might just give you what you're looking for. I haven't actually used these so I have no idea if it's actually a good suggestion or not, but they seem to be pretty high up on the best-sellers list: https://www.pathfinderinfinite.com/product/436985/NPC-Index-Core-PDF-Only-BUNDLE?filters=100112_0_0_0_0_0_0
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Nov 28, 2023 16:46
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Scoss posted:I have an idea for a hopefully fun encounter that might require some hand made monsters and could use some guidance. Honestly, the custom monsters ruleset is pretty simple with what you've named. I'd encourage you to try it out first (preferably with something like this tool) to help you keep it categorized, and then just run it. First you can just start enlarged, give him fire damage on his attacks, and pick the Brute roadmap (roadmaps at the top). Second and fourth you can take appropriate spells and focus spells and just run with Spellcaster roadmap. Third...maybe Skill Paragon? There's two casters already. Then from there you give them one or two feats from their respective classes that fit, and probably fill it in with some level-4 skeletons. It's absolutely faster and easier than building actual characters would be.
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Nov 28, 2023 17:38
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Silver2195 posted:Gatewalkers seems to be one of the two 2e APs that gets criticized the most (the other being Extinction Curse). Besides the tedious aspects you mention, the big criticisms of Gatewalkers are that 1) it presents itself as more investigation-oriented than it is and 2) the story isn’t very coherent, and basically turns into a series of loosely connected setpieces in weird-for-the-sake-of-weird environments. I haven’t read/played it, though.
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Nov 28, 2023 22:14
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Scoss posted:I know there are robust rules in the GMG for creating custom monsters but honestly it looks a little intimidating and I'd rather not create a whole crazy custom encounter as my first foray into that. Maybe I can if there's no better way, but what is my easiest option for building PF2 monsters that can reasonably replicate these signature abilities? Scan the bestiary for something similar enough sounding and then heavily reflavor their descriptions? How much can I get away with adding abilities to monsters before they become overpowered beyond what their stat scaling might suggest? It seems intimidating but it's really supportive and not nearly as bad as it seems-- it's just procedural. You have to start at square one and do the steps. I did a similar encounter to my players recently where a crew of pirate ghosts/skeletons were based on all the dead characters of one player from the previous campaign (she was cool with character death so we leaned into it). I used the GM Guide to find NPC blocks and then added custom abilities, using the Book of the Dead rules for making Skeletons and Ghosts out of existing stat blocks. Remember that as GM if you find a monster is overpowered in the moment, you can just change the abilities on the fly to suit the narrative being told. Pathfinder crunch might seem like it wouldn't support that but it really does in my experience.
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Nov 28, 2023 23:07
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I don't think I saw anyone mention, but the beta for the Pathbuilder Remaster version is available with a link from the Patreon page.
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Nov 28, 2023 23:25
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How are Stolen Fate and Sky King's Tomb? I understand people maybe haven't played through them yet, but does anyone have reading impressions at least? I suspect my AV campaign is dying soon and I'm looking at other options.
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Nov 29, 2023 00:44
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I'm currently in a Sky King's Tomb game and the beginning is really disjointed, with the PCs running around doing errands whose relevance only becomes clear later. It's not bad, but it makes a weak first impression
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Nov 29, 2023 00:54
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Megazver posted:How are Stolen Fate and Sky King's Tomb? I understand people maybe haven't played through them yet, but does anyone have reading impressions at least? To slightly disagree with the prior post… The first chapter of sky kings tomb mostly centers around your party of level 1 dipshits doing level 1 dipshit tasks to build a reputation for themselves. None of it feels like it’s progressing The Big Story, but it does hit some very specific nostalgia beats that are really good for a First Pathfinder Campaign, or for folks that maybe are looking for that lower stakes low level experience. It also means that when the Big Plot does come looking for the PCs, it does so in a pretty organic way that feels a lot more right than many other APs inciting events.
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Nov 29, 2023 01:03
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Is there a reliable list anywhere of the name changes in the remaster? Was helping some players move Pathbuilder characters to Foundry, and because Foundry has the remastered rules there were several selected spells and other bits that just broke.
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Nov 29, 2023 01:42
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Lamuella posted:Is there a reliable list anywhere of the name changes in the remaster? Was helping some players move Pathbuilder characters to Foundry, and because Foundry has the remastered rules there were several selected spells and other bits that just broke. The PF2e Foundry module itself has that lost in the journal under Remaster Changes.
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Nov 29, 2023 02:01
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Lamuella posted:Is there a reliable list anywhere of the name changes in the remaster? Was helping some players move Pathbuilder characters to Foundry, and because Foundry has the remastered rules there were several selected spells and other bits that just broke. There's a massive tracking spreadsheet here, though it's not super easy to find the name changes: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nPYD9bZ7t-WIX3b1yTgwfM94RQm5WCqLIq4PGD27mNE/edit#gid=426096990
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Nov 29, 2023 03:27
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Megazver posted:How are Stolen Fate and Sky King's Tomb? I understand people maybe haven't played through them yet, but does anyone have reading impressions at least? I've been running Stolen Fate and we're about 80% through the first book, so about 30% all told. Stolen Fate is good, I would recommend it, but it is definitely a "your characters are globetrotting superheroes" vibe. If you're expecting Fairy Courts and Whimsical NPCs, you basically have to import it yourself into a (very minor act 1 spoiler) home base demiplane the characters automatically get, as a sort-of side element. Stolen Fate is extremely episodic and split between (major spoilers for structure) smaller fetch quest vignettes, three memorable dungeon settings, one memorable siege, and a final stand location, and plays best when you lean into that. You really do make stopoffs in many of Golarion's most famous locales, and the opening chapter really wants you to buy the Absalom/Grand Bazaar books, so if you want to dabble in Tian Xia, the Mwangi Expanse, Arcadia, Cheliax, Varisia, Kho, and more it's worth a look. Your players might get frustrated with the lack of agency and how they're essentially lead around by external events for the most part, and the nature of destiny and free will is a key theme in the plot, so be sure to have your NPCs really lean into that to help orient them or just say it as part of preparation. If they can vibe with that, they'll have a very good time.
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Nov 29, 2023 04:24
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mind the walrus posted:I've been running Stolen Fate and we're about 80% through the first book, so about 30% all told. Sounds a bit like Age of Ashes. Which isn't a bad thing! Age of Ashes has its problems, most obviously overtuned encounters early on, but it does some important things right. One of them is the globe-trotting setup.
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Nov 29, 2023 04:40
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Has anyone here played Jewel of the Indigo Isles from Battlezoo? The piracy thing sounds like a fun set-up and it seems like it has decent reviews, but I haven't played it myself.
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Nov 29, 2023 07:47
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Silver2195 posted:Sounds a bit like Age of Ashes. Which isn't a bad thing! Age of Ashes has its problems, most obviously overtuned encounters early on, but it does some important things right. One of them is the globe-trotting setup. The high level bloat, especially with Harrow Card abilities, is something my players are having trouble utilizing given how much "stuff" there is, but when the biggest complaint you have about an AP is that there's "too much" then that speaks well overall. Always simpler and more direct to cut than to bulk. And bear in mind 3 of these players were completely new not only to PF2e, but TTRPGs in general-- we spent 3 full weeks on character creation to get them to Level 11 for start. If newbies that green are grooving, then it's doing something right. Again the actual theming is going to require some elbow grease if you want the storytelling to really hang together, but if your party is cool with just stringing along encounters in really cool locations they'll be happy.
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Nov 29, 2023 08:14
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Also my local game shop said it would have my Remaster books delivered and ready by now, and they're not. I'm not upset but I do wish I had those books already.
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Nov 29, 2023 08:16
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Pryce posted:I feel like investigations are really hard to do well in any TTRPG, because a ton of it has to be this delicate balance for the GM between 'prewritten clues/leads' vs 'reacting to the players' without it feeling like you're being railroaded. The Alexandrian has tons of strong feelings about doing mysteries well and he's been writing a series throughout the year talking about it, but it seems like it's really dependent on the GM to ultimately make it work. Wild but cool to see that The Alexandrian is still writing RPG advice after all these years  I feel like I'm experiencing a convergence of different topics all pointing to the same conclusion- reading this while also doing some research on how to make travel interesting and also stumbling across someone trying to work through their feelings on Influence/social interaction rules. Some of it is just the usual tension of "the GM has an end in mind, and we're all trying to get them there without too much railroading/etc" but also a subtle belief among the game, scenario writers, and even players that even though we don't want to really admit it, the game is about combat encounters and everything we do between them are more just for the sake of pacing than anything else. We want to do mysteries, but only if we're sure we can get to the final scene where we accuse someone (and usually then fight them). We want to do compelling exploration/survival/travel interludes, but only if we're sure the players will still get to the dungeon entrance in a state where they can probably still do the delve. We want to have interesting social or political engagements for the group- but at the end of the day you're going to fight the bad NPCs and there's no getting around it. I know everyone has some personal example of where they bucked the above trends, but IDK I think F20 is still largely in that mindset- and that's born out in a lot of scenario/AP design.
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Nov 29, 2023 09:02
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Fidel Cuckstro posted:
I've been thinking about this a lot as I prep us to start AV this week, and trying to figure out the right balance between having players do nonstop skill checks to find cool things vs just automating everything and narrating the entirety of a room (secrets and all) assuming they just 'take 20' on all the checks. At this point I think I'm just going to ask the group outright what they think would be most fun there. I like the way Pathfinder tries to smooth out "Exploration Mode", but ultimately the chance to pass/fail finding a secret in a dungeon kinda feels weird and potentially 'not fun' if they just aren't hitting the checks they need. A 'fail forward' approach might be the right angle here but I think I'll just present the options to the group and see what resonates.
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Nov 29, 2023 15:44
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Pryce posted:I've been thinking about this a lot as I prep us to start AV this week, and trying to figure out the right balance between having players do nonstop skill checks to find cool things vs just automating everything and narrating the entirety of a room (secrets and all) assuming they just 'take 20' on all the checks. At this point I think I'm just going to ask the group outright what they think would be most fun there. I like the way Pathfinder tries to smooth out "Exploration Mode", but ultimately the chance to pass/fail finding a secret in a dungeon kinda feels weird and potentially 'not fun' if they just aren't hitting the checks they need. A 'fail forward' approach might be the right angle here but I think I'll just present the options to the group and see what resonates. I've played with GMs who offer the option to take your time in an area and meticulously search everything, but at the cost of Actual Time which may cause things to happen (similar to "you get 10 minutes of recuperation free, but any 10-minute chunks past that may have Consequences™"). It's a nice balance, IMO.
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Nov 29, 2023 15:58
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Kyrosiris posted:I've played with GMs who offer the option to take your time in an area and meticulously search everything, but at the cost of Actual Time which may cause things to happen (similar to "you get 10 minutes of recuperation free, but any 10-minute chunks past that may have Consequences™"). It's a nice balance, IMO. Yeah, I saw a similar suggestion to implement simple random encounters/wandering monsters with a growing chance the longer they stay in the same place. I'll pitch it as one of the options!
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Nov 29, 2023 16:18
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How well would AV roll into Stolen Fate?
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Nov 29, 2023 16:21
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The Slack Lagoon posted:How well would AV roll into Stolen Fate? Pretty well, I think. Wrin is a good catalyst, and I've already had her giving Harrow readings to the PCs to set the stage for later.
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Nov 29, 2023 16:25
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Kyrosiris posted:I've played with GMs who offer the option to take your time in an area and meticulously search everything, but at the cost of Actual Time which may cause things to happen (similar to "you get 10 minutes of recuperation free, but any 10-minute chunks past that may have Consequences™"). It's a nice balance, IMO. Any chance the GM revealed what they'd thought of in terms of consequences?
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Nov 29, 2023 16:50
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Fidel Cuckstro posted:Any chance the GM revealed what they'd thought of in terms of consequences? Oh, like Pryce said, it was usually wandering encounters and stuff.
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Nov 29, 2023 16:51
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Thanks all for the suggestions on building out the Zombie party monsters. The monster.pf2.tools builder is not as complex as it initially seemed, and I did not know about the "roadmap" monster templates, which are great guidance for setting the important numbers reasonably. I did have one question I want to pick people's brains on and that's monster healing, since at least one of these zombies ostensibly is a support type character and negative healing is a thing they reasonably might do. I watched a video about encounter design and the creator argued essentially that putting an enemy in the encounter composition that can cast heal spells is actually devastating and can sneakily bump the encounter difficulty up an entire category. He suggested instead that it is more interactive and balanced to have "support" type enemies provide something like an inspire or regeneration aura that gives some benefit to the monsters, and potentially compounds into something bad if ignored, but critically it can be *turned off* by killing the support enemy, whereas a monster that manages to get off one or two heal spells has permanently inflated the encounter's overall HP. I'm curious if anyone has thoughts about this. As of level 3 and a half I have not yet built any encounters with monsters that cast spells or have terribly complex supportive abilities, so I'm playing around with what seems fun and what isn't. It certainly seems like a GM could use spellcasting monsters to really hammer their players quite severely if they were inclined to fully leverage what spells can do and play the monsters "optimally". edit: Bonus question quote:Regeneration or fast healing heals some number of hits each round—usually one to one and a half hits. To determine the number of Hit Points it should restore, look at the high damage value on Table 2–10: Strike Damage (page 65) and multiply that value by the number of hits healed. What on earth does this passage from the GMG mean? What is "healing a hit"??? Is it just saying that a reasonable fast healing value for a monster is 1-1.5x the high strike damage for a monster of that level? Scoss fucked around with this message at 18:45 on Nov 29, 2023 |
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Nov 29, 2023 17:21
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Paizo APs have too many encounters already so adding more as random ones does not seem like the ideal thing to do. I don't think forcing time pressure in situations where it doesn't make much narrative sense is necessary.
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Nov 29, 2023 18:37
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Scoss posted:edit: Bonus question Looking at existing creatures with regeneration, I think the intended reading of that is that regeneration needs to at minimum heal an amount that's equivalent to how much they'd take from an attack with a low damage roll at that level or it's going to be low enough that it's just going to be busywork. Moss Sloths are level 2 enemies and have Regeneration 5, Onidoshi are level 8 and have Regeneration 7, Doprillo have Regeneration 20 at level 14, and so on. Admittedly, doing this kind of analysis is hard because most creatures with regeneration are trolls, and their regeneration values are inflated because it's their main gimmick.
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Nov 29, 2023 19:49
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Yeah- random encounters usually make some sense in the context of the world (we're in a dangerous dungeon/forest/etc afterall and hey the characters probably don't want to be in extra fights) but I think there are a lot of gameplay considerations that actually make them a mixed bag. At times/with certain groups I don't know how much the players fear additional encounters (rather than welcoming a chance to do some more combat/get xp/etc), but it does punish the GM a bit, and it does suck away session time from what most everyone would rather do (advancing the story). For sure you're creating some tension for the players in terms of their concerns about limited resources like spells or consumables and healing- I just don't know how much that offsets some of those other factors, especially how indifferent some groups can be to resource management. I'll admit my thoughts on this topic are probably really scattered and not all that developed, but I think the thing I'm reckoning with is:
IDK- I should probably move this to the general GM advice/discussion thread. Just so used to posting here on Pathfinder stuff.
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Nov 29, 2023 20:17
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I totally agree with all this but in fairness AV explicitly says at the start “hey you should have wandering monsters”. I don’t want that personally but it’s written right there!
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Nov 29, 2023 20:18
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Andrast posted:Paizo APs have too many encounters already so adding more as random ones does not seem like the ideal thing to do. Pryce posted:I totally agree with all this but in fairness AV explicitly says at the start “hey you should have wandering monsters”. vaults itself is pretty instructive in this regard though; the floors with random-encounter areas don't just generate monsters from nowhere, it's explicitly pulling encounters from other rooms. it's set up so you can find reasons for certain things to be out of place based on what players are doing. for example, here's how i did the floor 4/end of book 1 boss thing: The very LAST thing the players did was discover Volluk's office, so they were already level 5 when they dropped in on him and the gunslinger got a couple lucky crits and blew off half his health round 1. so he used dimension door to get out of there, the players ransacked the place and rescued lasda, and when they came back down to break the barrier, volluk had told the voidglutton about intruders, so i applied Weak to the voidglutton and had them face the party together in the shrine, which is a severe for a party of 5 at level 5. if you add too many "outside the book" encounters to vaults and you're using exp, the curve will be thrown off, and you lose some of the unique spice of the module if the players are over-leveled and can't get bodychecked by certain rooms. if you're using milestones, adding too many extra encounters just bogs the game down, because it's not the stuff that's written to be interesting Mister Olympus fucked around with this message at 20:36 on Nov 29, 2023 |
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Nov 29, 2023 20:30
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AV specifically calls out possible random encounters in book 3 and mentions where the monsters come from (other nearby encounters). You aren't supposed to create monsters out of nowhere and make even more fights for the party. It also has multiple clocks, where something bad will happen if PCs dick around too much, at least one per book. Book 3's clock is my favorite at encouraging multiple encounters per day. Edit to include spoilers: the final boss is an immortal ghost that will reform within 1d4 days of being killed. She knows about the party and tries to harass and thwart them throughout the bottom three floors. Every time she's driven off, either due to her running low on spells or being defeated in combat, the party wants to get a much done during the remainder of the day as possible. If the party takes multiple days of downtime she'll start murdering the allies that the PCs make in the dungeon. KPC_Mammon fucked around with this message at 21:12 on Nov 29, 2023 |
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Nov 29, 2023 21:02
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Mister Olympus posted:vaults itself is pretty instructive in this regard though; the floors with random-encounter areas don't just generate monsters from nowhere, it's explicitly pulling encounters from other rooms. it's set up so you can find reasons for certain things to be out of place based on what players are doing. AV is also really different in that it's expected that players will be leaving and returning multiple times. Most other combat encounters tend to be a one and done so there isn't really a long term need to review what was overlooked and what the players must engage with. The very nature of a mega dungeon means the over arching campaign has to be handled a bit differently than a normal one. In your example, Volluks was the last area they hit, if this was a more traditional campaign they'd have hit Volluks without the possiblity of reaching level five, even if they scoured everything before hand, because it would have been designed with the main path having enough content to hit level 4 and some side stuff to maybe give them a slight edge with loot and some bonus experience, but not enough to push them to 5. The beginner box is a good example of their pretty straight forward design and it even calls out that they party may leave to rest and regroup but that nothing much will change if they're coming back the next day. AV is such a different beast it's hard to tell people how to handle it without knowing what they've done before and how they handle that sort of a setting. I think the Alexandrian has a series on running Caverns of Thracia where he talks explicitly about how mega dungeons require a a different mindset. Thracia is a bit different in that it doesn't have a strong narrative tying it together and doesn't really address anything beyond the dungeon. It dumps a lot of monsters and stuff into it that can turn into something more, but it's not developed into a narrative in itself. I think those articles and his approach to the mega dungeon can help, especially since a lot of it refers to what you did in you're examples and how the book itself references wandering monsters. But it may be difficult tying it all into the narrative if you don't have players used to revisiting areas with new insight to takinb a second look at something they may have previously overlooked. If it can click with players, especially if they've played video games like dark souls or Metroid where's there's an emphasis on looping design or returning with tools you didn't have before, then it can be great. But if they feel frustrated because things arent moving forward or because they're running the main path and missing key info/items, then it can be a lot of work to move things around or guide them on how to approach something so different from what they're used to.
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Nov 30, 2023 01:55
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https://www.patreon.com/posts/93848373 TL;DR: Archives of Nethys update is probably about ~2 weeks out, and the rest is mostly just description of how they'll handle content with differing legacy/remaster versions and user preference for switching, etc.
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Dec 1, 2023 03:19
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https://www.polygon.com/tabletop-games/23979417/paizo-howl-of-the-wild-preview-werewolf-swarmkeeper The Swarmkeeper looks neat. Finally you can be an Aburame from Naruto!
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Dec 3, 2023 04:14
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Oh hell yeah, we got Gau.
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Dec 3, 2023 11:02
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rabbit beastkin swarmkeeper call that bugs bunny
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Dec 3, 2023 11:54
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Two steps closer to my MGS3 boss rush adventure
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Dec 3, 2023 14:16
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A bunch of stuff in that article sounds interesting. Though I would rather be the swarm than calling forth a swarm, one of the many problems I had with the 5e Ranger subclass. But we should be getting Mythic next year, or is it the following year? And hopefully it will have Mythic Archetypes that are similar in concept to the Mythic Paths of the Wrath of the Righteous CRPG so that we can hopefully become the Swarm.
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Dec 3, 2023 19:59
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Ryuujin posted:A bunch of stuff in that article sounds interesting. Though I would rather be the swarm than calling forth a swarm, one of the many problems I had with the 5e Ranger subclass. “Being a swarm” is something that should probably be an ancestry rather than an archetype…except if Paizo made an ancestry like that it would probably have a bunch of handwaves built into it so you wouldn’t get much in the way of actual mechanical benefits from being a swarm.
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Dec 3, 2023 20:12
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