Pathfinder 2e: If your MAP is too high, use your third action to Post.

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Arrrthritis: May 31, 2007; I don't care if you're a star, the moon, or the whole damn sky, you need to come back down to earth and remember where you came from

Clerical Terrors posted:

Speaking of Stolen Fate: our group barely managed to win the bossfight of chapter 1 of the second book on monday. We went in with our thaum at drained 2 and down a considerable amount of spellslots. It was looking really rough at one point as our thaum was close to going down, and me and the monk got hit by a Prismatic Spray. GM rolled an 8 on my spray and made me both petrified and take a bunch of acid damage, then managed to get confused on the monk, who promptly beat me to death and got a crit on me with a crushing rune. Luckily the sorcerer had been keeping a cast of Shock to the System handy and managed to get me back up, and the concealment from the cloud was just enough to allow me to survive to the next round, so I cast Time Warp and hosed off to the corner of the battlemap to deal with my health situation and possibly set myself up for petrification. But I got lucky on the recovery rolls and managed to get back in the fight, where aforementioned monk had managed to down an enemy by getting extremely lucky on his rolls against Mirror Image and ended up hitting the real one three times in a row, including a crit. After that the battle started to turn in our favor, although I can't help but feel like the GM threw us a bone by having the main spellcaster enemy target all their fort save spells against the thaumaturge, who had the highest will saves and changed every success to a crit success.

After the fight the party decided I should get the Survivor card in honor of the fact that this was technically the second time in this campaign that my character died in combat (last time she got resurrected with a Raise Dead spell)

In our campaign, the End of Book 1 ended up being pretty brutal when Mukradi managed to kill the Monk with "Tear Apart", which they ended up rolling a natural 1 with no hero points remaining. The rest of the area they were a person short and low on resources when Drustan made it back, and managed to thankfully eke out a victory even after Drustan knocked the fighter off of the staircase.

# ? Feb 29, 2024 17:16

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# ? Jun 5, 2024 13:25

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

Cyouni posted:

drat, what loving levels are those? A high save of +25 is a level 12 monster, and +30 is a level 16. Are you sure something isn't misprinted or something?

They just got to Level 14 and most of the enemies in Book 1 are 11-15.

Mister Olympus posted:

sometimes things do get some nasty spikes. the final boss of abomination vaults has a 33 spell DC for a level 12 enemy

I did misspeak, that the save values were consistently in that range. They were on the Cloud Dragon in Chapter 2, the Mukradi, and a few others obviously tanky enemies but my point still broadly stands that a lot of the monsters will have a +20 WILL to Spell DCs of 30 at Level 13.

Clerical Terrors posted:

Wait, how is the highest spellcaster DC 30? What level is your group at? My group just finished chapter 1 of the second book of SF on monday and we're all level 15 now so my caster DC is 36 with master proficiency.

I'm referring to Level 13 for this specific problem.

Bear in mind this is a newbie group who had never touched any TTRPG before that still jumped in for a Level 11 adventure, so I wasn't and am still not about to cram my fist up their assholes about optimization for modifiers. This is a group that needed a flowchart to understand "prepared" vs "spontaneous," granted, but they're putting in effort to learn so I'm inclined to be kind.

Arrrthritis posted:

For the portion of Stolen Fate in question (Ruins of Kho) you're expected to be Level 15 so something might be off with the party build.

My own Stolen Fate game went off the rails when the party decided (early book 2) Hey, Katapesh sucks so let's kill the pactmasters! so i'm retooling a lot of it around that. That, and letting the players (late book 2) enter the harrow realm earlier than normal

Yeah they're not at Kho, or even Katapesh; they're about to fight the first salvo from the Prince of Wolves. I'm describing the general trend of the party not being able to feel effective against even common enemies which has felt consistent to the point where modifying the Save values has been an expedient solution.

What are some items that would actually help, and is there an easier way to find them other than combing Nethys or hoping to stumble across it in one of the books?

# ? Feb 29, 2024 17:49

Arrrthritis: May 31, 2007; I don't care if you're a star, the moon, or the whole damn sky, you need to come back down to earth and remember where you came from

mind the walrus posted:

Yeah they're not at Kho, or even Katapesh; they're about to fight the first salvo from the Prince of Wolves. I'm describing the general trend of the party not being able to feel effective against even common enemies which has felt consistent to the point where modifying the Save values has been an expedient solution.

What are some items that would actually help, and is there an easier way to find them other than combing Nethys or hoping to stumble across it in one of the books?

Re: Magic Items, I haven't found any good tools for finding magic items that would be useful (apart from doing exactly that), but for skills anyways the math does help if the players end up getting a +1/+2 skill item in their invested slots. Most players don't have the bandwidth (or time) to casually dig through AoN or the compendium for an item they think would be cool, so I ended up putting a bunch of shops in the Grand Bazaar to effectively have that sort of filter (this shop has potency runes / this shop has items that gives bonuses to skills / this shop has misc. weapon runes, etc.)

Since it seems like your party is running with lower max saves in general, lowering the saving throws of the monsters feels like the right call. I ended up implementing a houserule to let players use a hero point to force an enemy to reroll a saving throw they caused for the same purpose (it's badfeels when you use a high level spell or ability and the enemy crit succeeds).

# ? Feb 29, 2024 18:08

Chevy Slyme: May 2, 2004; We're Gonna Run.

We're Gonna Crawl.

Kick Down Every Wall.

A +20 to will against a spell DC of 30 sounds just about correct?

That's a roughly 50% chance to pass, with a 5% chance of both a crit fail and a crit success. That's basically an exactly on level challenge.

Given that an actually optimized caster at level 13 would have a DC of 32, those numbers seem pretty correct.

Chevy Slyme fucked around with this message at 18:15 on Feb 29, 2024

# ? Feb 29, 2024 18:11

Cyouni: Sep 30, 2014; without love it cannot be seen

mind the walrus posted:

Bear in mind this is a newbie group who had never touched any TTRPG before that still jumped in for a Level 11 adventure, so I wasn't and am still not about to cram my fist up their assholes about optimization for modifiers. This is a group that needed a flowchart to understand "prepared" vs "spontaneous," granted, but they're putting in effort to learn so I'm inclined to be kind.

I'm going to be honest, if they're still at the level where they're doing things like max Athletics is with Str of +4 and no item at level 14, or casting stat of +3 at level 13, you really should not be starting them with a level 11 thing.

Also this isn't even really optimization talk, it's just basic starter things that the book tells you to do. The CRB goes to great effort to tell you to max your core stat, and based on your numbers I can tell your players haven't. Like, this is absolutely a spot where you should have a talk about basic numbers, or resign yourself to applying weak to every single enemy.

There's also a possibility they haven't been applying their stat boosts, which would account for some things.

Cyouni fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Feb 29, 2024

# ? Feb 29, 2024 18:16

Clerical Terrors: Apr 24, 2016; I'm so tired, I'm so very tired

It seems like at level 13 the caster only has 3 points in their main casting stat, which is not ideal. There are no items that allow you to bridge that gap, if you don't wanna make that player redo their stats then modifying all DCs to be about 2 points lower is probably your best bet.

I'm also wondering if your players are taking steps to debuff enemies so the casters have an easier time. Frightened and Sickened are the easy choices but things like Clumsy, Fatigued, Drained can also help. The system is kinda built around the assumption that, at the level you're at, you will be doing this in combat.

Clerical Terrors fucked around with this message at 18:26 on Feb 29, 2024

# ? Feb 29, 2024 18:18

KPC_Mammon: Jan 23, 2004; Ready for the fashy circle jerk

Low-level pf2e is still fun and a hell of a lot more approachable than high-level pf2e.

I think you did your players a disservice throwing them into the deep end with them not remotely ready.

# ? Feb 29, 2024 18:39

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

Clerical Terrors posted:

It seems like at level 13 the caster only has 3 points in their main casting stat, which is not ideal. There are no items that allow you to bridge that gap, if you don't wanna make that player redo their stats then modifying all DCs to be about 2 points lower is probably your best bet.

Yeah took a look at her sheet and that's exactly what she did -- line drive down the middle. I've already reached out to her to fix that up, which should account for a big bit.

quote:

I'm also wondering if your players are taking steps to debuff enemies so the casters have an easier time. Frightened and Sickened are the easy choices but things like Clumsy, Fatigued, Drained can also help. The system is kinda built around the assumption that, at the level you're at, you will be doing this in combat.

Oh believe me, I'm asking them to do it constantly, but they're still in an unconscious modality of "if it's not damage, it's not anything" each turn. That part is getting better, but it's going to be a process. I think some homebrew items or homebrew enemy resistances might force them to consider that, although knowing my players they'll then assume every enemy I give them now requires that strategy instead of "evaluate what's in front of you"... which has lead to them to doing nothing but trying to spam Recall Knowledge in a line instead of trusting their own knowledge.

I love them, but you can hear the kind-of table I've got for this one.

My other regular table -- also high level, also full of newbies to TTRPGs and PF2e -- is a lot more intuitive, so I do think this is more of a mindset issue and me assuming my players were doing a better job with their characters than they were.

KPC_Mammon posted:

Low-level pf2e is still fun and a hell of a lot more approachable than high-level pf2e.

I think you did your players a disservice throwing them into the deep end with them not remotely ready.

You can still save them!

Chevy Slyme posted:

A +20 to will against a spell DC of 30 sounds just about correct?

That's a roughly 50% chance to pass, with a 5% chance of both a crit fail and a crit success. That's basically an exactly on level challenge.

Given that an actually optimized caster at level 13 would have a DC of 32, those numbers seem pretty correct.

Yeah you're right.

Arrrthritis posted:

Re: Magic Items, I haven't found any good tools for finding magic items that would be useful (apart from doing exactly that), but for skills anyways the math does help if the players end up getting a +1/+2 skill item in their invested slots. Most players don't have the bandwidth (or time) to casually dig through AoN or the compendium for an item they think would be cool, so I ended up putting a bunch of shops in the Grand Bazaar to effectively have that sort of filter (this shop has potency runes / this shop has items that gives bonuses to skills / this shop has misc. weapon runes, etc.)

Good to know about item-finding, but yeah I've tried to advertise what shops have what in the Grand Bazaar and the players still bluescreen and then ask me for items that increase STR and INT, followed by me gently explaining that PF2e has almost exclusively items of effects and skill boosts, respectively.

quote:

(it's badfeels when you use a high level spell or ability and the enemy crit succeeds).

And this is the only real thing I was trying to work out, just had to go backwards and take some poo poo to find the root of the problem (player sheets).

# ? Feb 29, 2024 18:59

Kyrosiris: May 24, 2006; You try to be happy when everyone is summoning you everywhere to "be their friend".

mind the walrus posted:

Oh believe me, I'm asking them to do it constantly, but they're still in an unconscious modality of "if it's not damage, it's not anything" each turn

Have a bad guy slam one of them with a Slow at some point and then have them say that with a straight face.

I was in a level 6 game as a Witch where I did literally zero damage but landed a Slow (failed throw) on the big bad and a heightened Fear (critical failed throw) on their singular minion, and it was the most pivotal poo poo in the fight.

E: And I'm not even playing a Resentment witch. If I was, I would've had another three debuffs on the big bad from my party to basically sit there and go "lol yeah that's sticking forever".

Kyrosiris fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Feb 29, 2024

# ? Feb 29, 2024 19:13

Harold Fjord: Jan 3, 2004

It sounds like the high-level newbies game would benefit a lot from automatic progression rules

https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1357

# ? Feb 29, 2024 19:42

Chevy Slyme: May 2, 2004; We're Gonna Run.

We're Gonna Crawl.

Kick Down Every Wall.

mind the walrus posted:

Good to know about item-finding, but yeah I've tried to advertise what shops have what in the Grand Bazaar and the players still bluescreen and then ask me for items that increase STR and INT, followed by me gently explaining that PF2e has almost exclusively items of effects and skill boosts, respectively.

One thing that helps massively for item finding, is, if you go to the page for any particular skill on AoN - say, Athletics - and scroll down a little, you'll see a little flip down item for "Item Bonuses for Atlhetics -- Common Items" (and another one right under that for Uncommon/Rare/Unique items).

If you flip that out, you'll get a handy list of every item that gives a +x to the skill in question, including a note for whether it's consumable, and another note for whether the bonus is in some way conditional or only applies to certain kinds of checks.

So, for your Athletics character, they'll want a set of Armbands of Athleticism, a Spiny Lodestone (if they can cast a spell), or a Sharkskin Robe.

Grub Gloves are also a fun uncommon option that introduces a nice little self healing utility.

# ? Feb 29, 2024 20:05

Facebook Aunt: Oct 4, 2008; wiggle wiggle

Chevy Slyme posted:

Sharkskin Robe.

Disappointed that this one doesn't give a bonus to escape attempts. On account of sharks being so smooth.

# ? Feb 29, 2024 20:20

Clerical Terrors: Apr 24, 2016; I'm so tired, I'm so very tired

One of my GM's answer to the shopping issue was the charming traveling conman/salesman who has a few joke items but also a few legit items. It's a lot easier to break the ice when he offers a bag of weasels first.

Arrrthritis posted:

In our campaign, the End of Book 1 ended up being pretty brutal when Mukradi managed to kill the Monk with "Tear Apart", which they ended up rolling a natural 1 with no hero points remaining. The rest of the area they were a person short and low on resources when Drustan made it back, and managed to thankfully eke out a victory even after Drustan knocked the fighter off of the staircase.

We were in a similar situation, with most of our ressources drained after fighting Arodeth we still explored the top part of the ruin we survived the Mukradi just fine but got kinda clowned on by the next room and some extremely well-executed walls of force and dimension doors. Luckily our GM decided we had the opportunity to retreat without being spotted as soon as we heard the chapter boss arrive, in exchange though he pretty much told us said boss would be prepared for the next fight and likely send for some backup. Unfortunately for Durstan our monk solo'd a demon who seperated him from the group, then came down and beat him up. While our Sorceror got off an excellent Banishment twice and managed to pretty much get rid of his other devils

# ? Feb 29, 2024 20:21

Facebook Aunt: Oct 4, 2008; wiggle wiggle

For shopping I just looked at the shops in Otari, a level 3 town, and made inventory lists. At first I printed them out, but then I just made the google docs public so they can look through during downtime if they want.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-AcymxS-GjT5q4bpvlIFSUYWt9XIKy8HWQOmQGWjN4E/edit?usp=sharing

Now they are in Thuvia, a level 8 town, but they are familiar with pathbuilder now so I just told them if they see a Common item level 8 or less they can assume it is available somewhere in Thuvia. Mostly because I was feeling lazy.

# ? Feb 29, 2024 20:32

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

Harold Fjord posted:

It sounds like the high-level newbies game would benefit a lot from automatic progression rules

https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1357

Already done, but thanks!

Chevy Slyme posted:

One thing that helps massively for item finding, is, if you go to the page for any particular skill on AoN - say, Athletics - and scroll down a little, you'll see a little flip down item for "Item Bonuses for Atlhetics -- Common Items" (and another one right under that for Uncommon/Rare/Unique items).

If you flip that out, you'll get a handy list of every item that gives a +x to the skill in question, including a note for whether it's consumable, and another note for whether the bonus is in some way conditional or only applies to certain kinds of checks.

So, for your Athletics character, they'll want a set of Armbands of Athleticism, a Spiny Lodestone (if they can cast a spell), or a Sharkskin Robe.

Grub Gloves are also a fun uncommon option that introduces a nice little self healing utility.

Ah yes, thank you! This is exactly the kind of filtering I was looking for. I've dug back into the Grand Bazaar book as well to find some shops to help lead them towards more useful shops that I can stock with relevant items.

Kyrosiris posted:

Have a bad guy slam one of them with a Slow at some point and then have them say that with a straight face.

Good idea, especially given how my spellcasters love AoEs right now.

Facebook Aunt posted:

For shopping I just looked at the shops in Otari, a level 3 town, and made inventory lists. At first I printed them out, but then I just made the google docs public so they can look through during downtime if they want.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-AcymxS-GjT5q4bpvlIFSUYWt9XIKy8HWQOmQGWjN4E/edit?usp=sharing

Now they are in Thuvia, a level 8 town, but they are familiar with pathbuilder now so I just told them if they see a Common item level 8 or less they can assume it is available somewhere in Thuvia. Mostly because I was feeling lazy.

This is neat. Definitely bookmarking this one too. Thank you all so much.

# ? Feb 29, 2024 20:41

Harold Fjord: Jan 3, 2004

mind the walrus posted:

Already done, but thanks!

Ah yes, thank you! This is exactly the kind of filtering I was looking for. I've dug back into the Grand Bazaar book as well to find some shops to help lead them towards more useful shops that I can stock with relevant items.

Automatic progression rules are meant to replace the bonus from items so they no longer need to find stat items to meet the expected bonus.

So those items become "what active effects do you find fun"

# ? Feb 29, 2024 20:56

Arrrthritis: May 31, 2007; I don't care if you're a star, the moon, or the whole damn sky, you need to come back down to earth and remember where you came from

mind the walrus posted:

Good to know about item-finding, but yeah I've tried to advertise what shops have what in the Grand Bazaar and the players still bluescreen and then ask me for items that increase STR and INT, followed by me gently explaining that PF2e has almost exclusively items of effects and skill boosts, respectively.

There's two things that will help for later on (Book 3) that might excite your players.

1) Apex items! Stolen Fate has a ton of them and they will give a +1 to any one of their stats (or raise a stat up to +4, whichever is higher). Granted, that's a full three/four levels from now, but something to keep in mind.

2) There's a card that has a pretty ridiculous bonus The Eclipse, when Epitomized, lets you attempt a will save to get a permanent +1 bonus to any of your stats on crit success on a DC 38 will save. You can only get this bonus once, but that's another way to put the player's math more in their favor. That won't happen until early book 3 though (unless you let the players wander into the encounter a book early)

Arrrthritis fucked around with this message at 21:02 on Feb 29, 2024

# ? Feb 29, 2024 20:58

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

Harold Fjord posted:

Automatic progression rules are meant to replace the bonus from items so they no longer need to find stat items to meet the expected bonus.

So those items become "what active effects do you find fun"

Which is exactly what I asked my party to do!

Arrrthritis posted:

There's two things that will help for later on (Book 3) that might excite your players.

1) Apex items! Stolen Fate has a ton of them and they will give a +1 to any one of their stats (or raise a stat up to +4, whichever is higher). Granted, that's a full three/four levels from now, but something to keep in mind.

2) There's a card that has a pretty ridiculous bonus The Eclipse, when Epitomized, lets you attempt a will save to get a permanent +1 bonus to any of your stats on crit success on a DC 38 will save. You can only get this bonus once, but that's another way to put the player's math more in their favor. That won't happen until early book 3 though (unless you let the players wander into the encounter a book early)

Oh yeah I recall those in my skim of Book 3. Those will help, but you're right they're a bit from now. I do think they'll be alright, they just lack confidence and orientation. It was painful to use this analogy, but I had to explain to them that as Level 12 characters they did not have to be afraid of some random Centaurs in Brevoy and that it was ok to tell them what they were up to and could play the story more like they were in Avengers: Age of Ultron with all of the globetrotting and relative power.

# ? Feb 29, 2024 21:10

Harold Fjord: Jan 3, 2004

mind the walrus posted:

Which is exactly what I asked my party to do!

Oh yeah I recall those in my skim of Book 3. Those will help, but you're right they're a bit from now. I do think they'll be alright, they just lack confidence and orientation. It was painful to use this analogy, but I had to explain to them that as Level 12 characters they did not have to be afraid of some random Centaurs in Brevoy and that it was ok to tell them what they were up to and could play the story more like they were in Avengers: Age of Ultron with all of the globetrotting and relative power.

I'm just emphasizing due to the many posts suggesting they make it up with item bonuses to skills.

# ? Feb 29, 2024 21:25

Cyouni: Sep 30, 2014; without love it cannot be seen

If they're running APB, and using Athletics as a main skill...then -3 behind the expected norm is really, really bad.

# ? Feb 29, 2024 21:33

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

Cyouni posted:

If they're running APB, and using Athletics as a main skill...then -3 behind the expected norm is really, really bad.

They're running a Level 14 Monk with a +4 STR, +5 DEX, and chose to use their level 13 bonus for Diplomacy instead of going from E to M in Athletics, along with some Armbands of Athleticism.

Tell me what to do now.

# ? Feb 29, 2024 21:42

Harold Fjord: Jan 3, 2004

mind the walrus posted:

They're running a Level 14 Monk with a +4 STR, +5 DEX, and chose to use their level 13 bonus for Diplomacy instead of going from E to M in Athletics, along with some Armbands of Athleticism.

Tell me what to do now.

I'm confused what the armbands and their move speed to climb/swim have to do with it? But yeah, they'll probably want to retrain!

Explain to them that you can only be good at so many things and its better to let the [guy who uses charisma] train that.

# ? Feb 29, 2024 21:49

Chevy Slyme: May 2, 2004; We're Gonna Run.

We're Gonna Crawl.

Kick Down Every Wall.

mind the walrus posted:

They're running a Level 14 Monk with a +4 STR, +5 DEX, and chose to use their level 13 bonus for Diplomacy instead of going from E to M in Athletics, along with some Armbands of Athleticism.

Tell me what to do now.

Level 14 with a +4 stat and expert is a +24, which, against a dc 40 fort save is a rough time to grapple, but, the beauty of athletics is that your monk can choose to target reflex instead by going for a trip. Against a DC 36 from reflex for example, that same +24 succeeds on a 12. And if you can get any kind of other buffs or debuffs going ahead of the roll, you�re in 50/50 territory.

Seems about right for �I didn�t make this my top priority but I�m still pretty good at it�.

Getting to Master shifts those success chances accordingly and you�ll see some really dramatic swings of course.

# ? Feb 29, 2024 22:00

Harold Fjord: Jan 3, 2004

Another important aspect is that skill trainings unlock access to harder things to do, that you then don't have the stats to pull off.

code:

Sample Gather Information Tasks
Untrained talk of the town
Trained common rumor
Expert obscure rumor, poorly guarded secret
Master well-guarded or esoteric information
Legendary information known only to an incredibly select few, or only to extraordinary beings

So I'm going to go around digging up well guarded secrets at a relative -4? yikes!

You want to be good at the hard things you learn to do

Harold Fjord fucked around with this message at 22:09 on Feb 29, 2024

# ? Feb 29, 2024 22:06

Silver2195: Apr 4, 2012

Harold Fjord posted:

Another important aspect is that skill trainings unlock access to harder things to do, that you then don't have the stats to pull off.
code:
Sample Gather Information Tasks
Untrained talk of the town
Trained common rumor
Expert obscure rumor, poorly guarded secret
Master well-guarded or esoteric information
Legendary information known only to an incredibly select few, or only to extraordinary beings
So I'm going to go around digging up well guarded secrets at a relative -4? yikes!

You want to be good at the hard things you learn to do

IIRC, the sample tasks refer to the Simple DCs, not proficiencies required to attempt the check.

# ? Feb 29, 2024 22:56

Cyouni: Sep 30, 2014; without love it cannot be seen

mind the walrus posted:

They're running a Level 14 Monk with a +4 STR, +5 DEX, and chose to use their level 13 bonus for Diplomacy instead of going from E to M in Athletics, along with some Armbands of Athleticism.

Tell me what to do now.

Put it in Athletics instead, the -1 from Str is perfectly fine.

Be good at the things you're mainly focused in, and if they're using Athletics enough that you're calling out the problems with them failing, they're using it a lot.

Note that a person with way worse Cha putting it into Diplomacy isn't bad, they just have to have something that the better person can't do. I had a druid tiering up Diplomacy with 10 Cha (compared to my specialist Swashbuckler), but that's fine because it was great when Wild Empathy came into play.

Silver2195 posted:

IIRC, the sample tasks refer to the Simple DCs, not proficiencies required to attempt the check.

This is correct. Sample task of Master is DC 30.

Cyouni fucked around with this message at 23:47 on Feb 29, 2024

# ? Feb 29, 2024 23:45

Lurks With Wolves: Jan 14, 2013; At least I don't dance with them, right?

Cyouni posted:

Note that a person with way worse Cha putting it into Diplomacy isn't bad, they just have to have something that the better person can't do. I had a druid tiering up Diplomacy with 10 Cha (compared to my specialist Swashbuckler), but that's fine because it was great when Wild Empathy came into play.

For that matter, there's nothing wrong with making a suboptimal choice because you really like the flavor of it. The problem is that their choice ended up being a lot more suboptimal than they probably realized, and trading a slightly useful skill feat for training in Etiquette Lore or something like that might be closer to how suboptimal they're willing to be as a cool diplomatic monk.

# ? Mar 1, 2024 00:27

Cyouni: Sep 30, 2014; without love it cannot be seen

Also that, yeah. If they're using Athletics that often and really wanted Diplomacy at Expert, I'd have one of their other skills as Expert before Athletics.

# ? Mar 1, 2024 01:01

Ibram Gaunt: Jul 22, 2009

Greetings. My group is messing around with 2e and after a one shot probably going to be doing a full campaign. For the full campaign I wanted to play a Kineticist but I'm not sure if I should go dual or single gate. I'm not super interested in like heavy charopping or anything but more want to avoid possibly making a decision that I regret later if one of the two options is just head and shoulders superior.

Any thoughts?

# ? Mar 1, 2024 02:13

mind the walrus: Sep 22, 2006

Cyouni posted:

Be good at the things you're mainly focused in, and if they're using Athletics enough that you're calling out the problems with them failing, they're using it a lot.

They're not actually failing athletics. It was a bad example, because while I was thinking of various monsters with high FORT the main thing I was complaining about was the wimpy spellcaster.

quote:

Note that a person with way worse Cha putting it into Diplomacy isn't bad, they just have to have something that the better person can't do. I had a druid tiering up Diplomacy with 10 Cha (compared to my specialist Swashbuckler), but that's fine because it was great when Wild Empathy came into play.

They're also the face of the party, and doing just fine with it. Thank you.

Ibram Gaunt posted:

Greetings. My group is messing around with 2e and after a one shot probably going to be doing a full campaign. For the full campaign I wanted to play a Kineticist but I'm not sure if I should go dual or single gate. I'm not super interested in like heavy charopping or anything but more want to avoid possibly making a decision that I regret later if one of the two options is just head and shoulders superior.

Any thoughts?

If you're newer, single gate is probably the way to go. Wood is the one I've seen be a bit more "jack of all trades" while the others specialize more or less how you would expect. The ones I've seen run don't seem to have much complaints other than running into the usual blaster-caster problem of becoming a one/two-trick pony who does nothing on the field but move and blast, but unlike Gunslinger it seems to be more "you get out of it what yo put in."

# ? Mar 1, 2024 02:34

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Ibram Gaunt posted:

Greetings. My group is messing around with 2e and after a one shot probably going to be doing a full campaign. For the full campaign I wanted to play a Kineticist but I'm not sure if I should go dual or single gate. I'm not super interested in like heavy charopping or anything but more want to avoid possibly making a decision that I regret later if one of the two options is just head and shoulders superior.

Any thoughts?

Its almost impossible to go wrong with Kineticist (unless you're doing metal against lot of enemies who don't wear metal, in which case you'll be a bit behind). I prefer dual gates with 2 of (water/wood/earth) but single gates are also good

# ? Mar 1, 2024 03:04

Big Mouth Billy Basshole: Jun 18, 2007; Fun Shoe

Ibram Gaunt posted:

Greetings. My group is messing around with 2e and after a one shot probably going to be doing a full campaign. For the full campaign I wanted to play a Kineticist but I'm not sure if I should go dual or single gate. I'm not super interested in like heavy charopping or anything but more want to avoid possibly making a decision that I regret later if one of the two options is just head and shoulders superior.

Any thoughts?

I think it depends on what gate you're planning on playing and how good the impulse junction is. Air is very good for example, but water/wood were fine so I went dual gate for more variety of impulses right away.

# ? Mar 1, 2024 03:10

Kyrosiris: May 24, 2006; You try to be happy when everyone is summoning you everywhere to "be their friend".

Yeah, I've done a lot of pick-up play with kineticists of pretty much every flavor and they're all great.

I think my favorite kineticist I ever saw in play was actually a single-gate Air Kineticist because their impulse junction is nutty. You get free movement before or after a 2+ action impulse or elemental blast equal to half your move speed. They did poo poo like Four Winds to rush themselves and other melee into range of targets and position for flanking, etc. It was wild watching someone be so nimble.

# ? Mar 1, 2024 03:11

Chevy Slyme: May 2, 2004; We're Gonna Run.

We're Gonna Crawl.

Kick Down Every Wall.

Ibram Gaunt posted:

Greetings. My group is messing around with 2e and after a one shot probably going to be doing a full campaign. For the full campaign I wanted to play a Kineticist but I'm not sure if I should go dual or single gate. I'm not super interested in like heavy charopping or anything but more want to avoid possibly making a decision that I regret later if one of the two options is just head and shoulders superior.

Any thoughts?

There isn�t really a right or wrong answer to single vs dual gate in general, but, keep in mind that, after level 5, you�ll get to make a choice that is equivalent to having chosen the other option at level 1, so my advice, in general, is to look at whatever element(s) you�re interested in, and sketch out a build plan up to level 4. If you can see feats you�d be excited to take at every step up to there, you�ll be fine, because at 5 you can reevaluate your choice and decide whether it was a good one or not.

# ? Mar 1, 2024 03:19

Enos Cabell: Nov 3, 2004

I'm having a ton of fun with my wood/air kineticist in Abomination Vaults. Protector Tree has been an amazing defensive ability, and Four Winds has been great for getting the team in position when combined with my high initiative. I also specced heavy into medicine feats, so I can cover a lot of roles in combat.

Feels super great to be extremely useful in a string of encounters, and then end the session without any resource issues requiring a rest.

# ? Mar 1, 2024 14:49

Facebook Aunt: Oct 4, 2008; wiggle wiggle

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# ? Mar 1, 2024 17:47

Ibram Gaunt: Jul 22, 2009

Thanks for the responses guys, I'll plan out a build to level 4 and see how I feel looking at it.

# ? Mar 1, 2024 19:02

Vargatron: Apr 19, 2008; MRAZZLE DAZZLE

What group role does Kineticist fill? It seems like a ranged DPS class like an archer (but with rocks or water jets, etc). I have a player who is thinking about playing one, but I'm not sure if it will fit well with our 4 man comp for Kingmaker.

Speaking of which, what is the suggested party composition in general? I was going with Martial/Skill/Divine/Arcane as a base, with one of those classes being able to heal.

# ? Mar 1, 2024 23:21

Harold Fjord: Jan 3, 2004

Imo it's about to synergies and tactics which is pretty broad. A ranged striker can still have a pet help do flank stuff. A grappler/brawler can keep the big guy away from the casters or setup a curb stomp from other melee. A bon mot from the face to setup occult debuffs that make everything easier for every one.

I think someone posted that a very strong group they had usually surrounded a guy with AoOs and tripped him.

Harold Fjord fucked around with this message at 23:41 on Mar 1, 2024

# ? Mar 1, 2024 23:39

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# ? Jun 5, 2024 13:25

Facebook Aunt: Oct 4, 2008; wiggle wiggle

Vargatron posted:

What group role does Kineticist fill? It seems like a ranged DPS class like an archer (but with rocks or water jets, etc). I have a player who is thinking about playing one, but I'm not sure if it will fit well with our 4 man comp for Kingmaker.

Speaking of which, what is the suggested party composition in general? I was going with Martial/Skill/Divine/Arcane as a base, with one of those classes being able to heal.

They can easily switch between ranged and melee as needed. They only have a d8 hit dice, but most will start with +4 con so their HP is solid. If you have a melee guy who needs someone to flank with they can do that.

The real gimmick is the impulses. A handful of not-spells that they have infinite castings per day. Filling a role similar to a wizard or sorcerer, but with an even smaller spell list.

Water and wood provide reliable healing. Less than a cleric, but it goes all day. At level 1 Ocean's Balm is one action that heals for 1d8, and you can cast it is often as you want. Wood has a similar thing that does 1d4+1. In either case recipients are immune for 10 minutes.

There was a stone kineticist in my game for a while that amused himself by using Igneogenesis to build stone staircases around town. 5 feet of permanent stone whatevers per hour. With a couple days of downtime he could have built a house.

The rankings I've seen put Air in S teir for the mobility, damage, and eventually at-will flight and invisibility.

# ? Mar 1, 2024 23:46

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